Quick note before you press play. This conversation with Des Linden first aired on Long Run Labs, my podcast about the business of endurance and the outdoor industry. Des is one of the most thoughtful people in running when it comes to how athletes can build something lasting beyond their competitive years, so I figured her story was worth putting in front of the For the Long Run audience too.

Des Linden won the 2018 Boston Marathon in one of the most iconic performances in the history of the race. But this conversation is not about that day. It is about what she has built since and how she thinks about the next chapter.

Des and Jon chat about:

Support our sponsors:

Training Peaks

The coaches behind UTMB winners and the athletes you've heard on this show are all using the same platform — and that's not a coincidence. Get 20% off Training Peaks premium with code FTLR here!

Boulderthon

Whether you're hunting for a PR or just looking for an excuse to visit Colorado in early fall, Boulderthon has a race for you. Register at Boulderthon.org and use code FTLR2026 for $20 off the Half or the Full.

Tifosi Optics

From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.

Kila makes custom 3D-printed insoles out of super shoe foams, built to your exact feet and shipped straight to your door. Head to kilarun.com and use code FTLR for $50 off your first order.

Kelsey Walla is a CPA by day and a triathlete, runner, and community builder by everything else. She grew up hating running, never touched a weight until college, and didn't get on a bike until she found one at a garage sale for twenty bucks. Then she had a serious skiing accident that took away her ability to walk, and everything changed.

This is a conversation about what happens when your body forces you to stop — and what you do when it lets you go again.

Topics covered:

Stay connected:

Kelsey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wallakelseyy/?hl=en

Support our sponsors:

Training Peaks

The coaches behind UTMB winners and the athletes you've heard on this show are all using the same platform — and that's not a coincidence. Get 20% off Training Peaks premium with code FTLR here!

Boulderthon

Whether you're hunting for a PR or just looking for an excuse to visit Colorado in early fall, Boulderthon has a race for you. Register at Boulderthon.org and use code FTLR2026 for $20 off the Half or the Full.

Tifosi Optics

From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.

Kila makes custom 3D-printed insoles out of super shoe foams, built to your exact feet and shipped straight to your door. Head to kilarun.com and use code FTLR for $50 off your first order.

Molly Seidel was running well at Western States. In the top ten for the first fifty-ish miles, racing where she knew she belonged. Then by mile sixty-two she was ready to quit, in pain, angry at herself, with thirty-eight miles left and nothing to race for competitively.

She ran them anyway.

This is a conversation about what those last twelve hours taught her that the first fifty never could have — about trail running, about herself, and about why finishing a race you're no longer competing in can be more meaningful than winning one.

Topics covered:

Stay connected:

Molly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bygolly.molly/

Support our sponsors:

Training Peaks

The coaches behind UTMB winners and the athletes you've heard on this show are all using the same platform — and that's not a coincidence. Get 20% off Training Peaks premium with code FTLR here!

Boulderthon

Whether you're hunting for a PR or just looking for an excuse to visit Colorado in early fall, Boulderthon has a race for you. Register at Boulderthon.org and use code FTLR2026 for $20 off the Half or the Full.

Precision Fuel & Hydration

Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26 for 15% off your order at precisionhydration.com

Go Brewing

This episode is brought to you by Go Brewing, a small family-run brewery outside Chicago making non-alcoholic IPAs, lagers, and hazies that actually taste like beer, with most cans under 60 calories and no added sugar, so try favorites like the Jab Jab Grapefruit IPA, New School Sour Berry, or Baller Melon at gobrewing.com and use code FTLR2026 for 20% off your first order.

Hildee Weiss is a wife, mother of five, grandmother, freelance writer, and runner. She started running at age 46 with a hand injury, a trainer named Jeff who believed in her before she believed in herself, and a head full of reasons why she couldn't do it. Twelve years later she has run 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, Spartan races, and trail runs. She has broken bones, had surgery, lost her motivation, and found it again. And she just wrote a book about all of it.

This conversation is about what happens when you finally decide to do something for yourself after years of doing everything for everyone else. It's about identity, self-belief, the difference between I have to run and I get to run, and why it's never too late to start.

Topics covered:

Stay connected:

Hildee's book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Embracing-My-Inner-Athlete/Hildee-Weiss/9798894410326

Hildee on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momoffive68/

Support our Sponsors:

Boulderthon

Whether you're chasing a PR or looking for an unforgettable race weekend, Boulderthon offers a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon, and kids races in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Register at Boulderthon.com and use code FTLR2026 to save $20 on your half or full marathon registration.

Precision Fuel & Hydration

Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26 for 15% off your order at precisionhydration.com

Tifosi Optics

From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.

Go Brewing

This episode is brought to you by Go Brewing, a small family-run brewery outside Chicago making non-alcoholic IPAs, lagers, and hazies that actually taste like beer, with most cans under 60 calories and no added sugar, so try favorites like the Jab Jab Grapefruit IPA, New School Sour Berry, or Baller Melon at gobrewing.com and use code FTLR2026 for 20% off your first order.

Shad Mika has been running ultras for over twenty years. He went from two hundred and forty pounds and a divorce to a duathlon, to Leadville, to Hardrock — and he's still going. He DNF'd his first two hundred mile attempts before he finally figured out it was supposed to hurt that bad. He's paced friends through Cocodona, volunteered at Hardrock for twelve years before he ever got in, and left his dog's ashes on top of Handies Peak. He blogs about it all at a site he's kept going since 2006 and has no plans to stop.

This conversation was recorded the week before Hardrock with wildfires burning near Ouray and real uncertainty around whether the race would happen. He showed up anyway.

Topics covered:

Support our Sponsors:

Boulderthon

Whether you're chasing a PR or looking for an unforgettable race weekend, Boulderthon offers a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon, and kids races in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Register at Boulderthon.com and use code FTLR2026 to save $20 on your half or full marathon registration.

Precision Fuel & Hydration

Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26 for 15% off your order at precisionhydration.com

Tifosi Optics

From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.

Go Brewing

This episode is brought to you by Go Brewing, a small family-run brewery outside Chicago making non-alcoholic IPAs, lagers, and hazies that actually taste like beer, with most cans under 60 calories and no added sugar, so try favorites like the Jab Jab Grapefruit IPA, New School Sour Berry, or Baller Melon at gobrewing.com and use code FTLR2026 for 20% off your first order.

This one is a little different. Jon hosted a live panel in Boulder with three people who between them have worked with Olympic athletes, NBA teams, professional runners, and tens of thousands of recreational athletes. The topic was fueling, strength training, and the fundamentals that most runners are still getting wrong.

Charlie Sweeney is a professional marathoner who has lived the training load most people only read about — 140 miles a week, two sessions a day five days a week, and 110 grams of carbohydrate per hour at Boston this year. Dr. Marc Bubbs is the founder of ProBio, a performance nutritionist, and author who has spent his career in elite sport locker rooms translating research into what athletes actually do every day — from Canada Basketball to NBA and NHL teams to Olympic track clubs. Jason Fitzgerald has been coaching runners since 2010 and works primarily with adult recreational athletes.

The conversation is practical, honest, and occasionally funny. There's pizza involved.

Topics covered:

No sponsors on this one. If For The Long Run is a show you look forward to, you can support it directly at forthelong.run/subscribe — $8 a month or $80 for the year. The goal is fewer ads over time, and eventually none at all. That happens with your help.

Quick note before you press play. This conversation with Andy Blow first aired on Long Run Labs, Jon's podcast about the business of endurance and the outdoor industry. Andy is the co-founder of Precision Fuel and Hydration and one of the most thoughtful people in the sport when it comes to how athletes should actually be fueling. Precision sponsors For the Long Run, but this episode wasn't recorded out of obligation — it was recorded because Andy's story is genuinely worth hearing and there's a lot of tactically useful information in here for anyone who runs long.

If you like going behind the scenes on how the endurance world actually gets built, Long Run Labs is worth finding. Guests include sports marketers from Salomon, Garmin, ASICS, and Amazfit, founders from brands like Ketone IQ and Lagoon, and athletes turned media like Des Linden, Kara Goucher, and Dylan Bowman.

Andy Blow started Precision as a sweat test, not a product. He was a triathlete who kept ending up in the medical tent with hyponatremia in hot races, figured out he was a heavy sodium sweater, changed his approach, and built a company around the idea that electrolyte loss is individual and most athletes have no idea what their actual numbers are. Fifteen years later, Precision is crewing eleven athletes at Western States and working with Rachel Entrekin on the data that backed her Cocodona course record.

This conversation covers the science and the business in equal measure.

Topics covered:

Boulderthon

Whether you're chasing a PR or looking for an unforgettable race weekend, Boulderthon offers a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon, and kids races in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Register at Boulderthon.com and use code FTLR2026 to save $20 on your half or full marathon registration.

Precision Fuel & Hydration

Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26 for 15% off your order at precisionhydration.com

Tifosi Optics

From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.

Lindsey Dwyer started running before she could remember choosing it. Her mom ran while pregnant with her, and Lindsey was in a stroller on the course not long after. By seventh grade she'd quietly trained for and finished a half marathon without telling anyone until she needed a ride to the start line. By college, marathons felt routine. So she went longer.

Now she's one of the top finishers at Cocodona 250, a point-to-point 253-mile race through Arizona that's become one of the most-watched ultras in the world outside of Western States and UTMB. This year she finished fifth overall, running the final 200 miles with a knee injury that started at mile 50 and never went away.

Jonathan and Lindsey get into what it actually takes to compete across 80-plus hours of racing, how she thinks about crew and pacing at that scale, and why she believes the mental puzzle of ultras is the whole point. They also talk about the role of gratitude when things get hard, what her first 50-mile race recap on Facebook revealed about how little her navigation skills have improved, and how the "gap and the gain" framework applies to an athlete who's been quietly building toward this her whole life.

Lindsey is also heading to Tahoe Rim Trail and Mammoth 200 later this season and is partnered with Precision Fuel & Hydration.

Topics covered:

Go Brewing

This episode is brought to you by Go Brewing, a small family-run brewery outside Chicago making non-alcoholic IPAs, lagers, and hazies that actually taste like beer, with most cans under 60 calories and no added sugar, so try favorites like the Jab Jab Grapefruit IPA, New School Sour Berry, or Baller Melon at gobrewing.com and use code FTLR2026 for 20% off your first order.

Boulderthon

Whether you're chasing a PR or looking for an unforgettable race weekend, Boulderthon offers a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon, and kids races in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Register at Boulderthon.com and use code FTLR2026 to save $20 on your half or full marathon registration.

Precision Fuel & Hydration

Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26 for 15% off your order.

Vacation Races 

The Rocky Mountain Half and 5K in Estes Park, Colorado this August. Run both and earn the Elk Double. Use code FTLR when you register at vacationraces.com.

Zach Miller is one of the most recognizable names in trail and ultra running — a nine-year North Face athlete, self-coached competitor, and someone who has lived everywhere from a cruise ship to an off-grid cabin to a bus. He's been competing at the highest level for over a decade, watched the fields get dramatically deeper, and just punched his golden ticket to Western States at Canyons Hundred K. This conversation is about what it takes to still be here.

Zach talks about self-coaching and curiosity as a training philosophy, the mental switch that separates good races from great ones, what it felt like to question whether his career was over, and why lining up at Western States this year means more than it ever would have before.

Topics covered:

Sponsors of the show:

Amazfit

If you're heading to Western States as a runner, pacer, or crew member, join us for a shakeout run in Olympic Valley before race weekend. Learn more about the new Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra and connect with the community that helps make race day possible. Visit Amazfit.com and use code FTLR2026 for 10% off

Boulderthon

Whether you're chasing a PR or looking for an unforgettable race weekend, Boulderthon offers a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon, and kids races in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Register at Boulderthon and use code FTLR2026 to save $20 on your half or full marathon registration.

Precision Fuel & Hydration

Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26for 15% off your order.

Tifosi Optics

From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.

Go Brewing

This episode is brought to you by Go Brewing, a small family-run brewery outside Chicago making non-alcoholic IPAs, lagers, and hazies that actually taste like beer, with most cans under 60 calories and no added sugar, so try favorites like the Jab Jab Grapefruit IPA, New School Sour Berry, or Baller Melon at gobrewing.com and use code FTLR2026 for 20% off your first order.

Tommie Runz is a runner, a dad, and someone who spent years building one of the most authentic presences in running before he ever needed it to pay the bills. He qualified for Boston, ran the six majors, and has now set his sights on Western States — one of the most competitive hundred-mile races in the world — with a simple mission: show people who look like him that they belong out there too.

This conversation covers the long game, the trust economy of social media, what curiosity actually looks like in a hundred-mile race, and why black skin looks good on trail.

Topics covered:

Stay connected:

@tommie_runz on Instagram

Black skin looks good on trail t-shirts

Support our sponsors:

Amazfit
If you're heading to Western States as a runner, pacer, or crew member, join us for a shakeout run in Olympic Valley before race weekend. Learn more about the new Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra and connect with the community that helps make race day possible. Visit Amazfit for more information.

Good Ranchers
Good Ranchers delivers high-quality, American-sourced beef, chicken, and seafood directly to your door, making it easier to stay on top of your protein and nutrition goals. Shop at Good Ranchers and use code IRON to save $25 on your first order, plus receive a free protein of your choice every month with a subscription.

Boulderthon
Whether you're chasing a PR or looking for an unforgettable race weekend, Boulderthon offers a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon, and kids races in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Register at Boulderthon and use code FTLR2026 to save $20 on your half or full marathon registration.

Precision Fuel & Hydration
Precision Fuel & Hydration's new Watermelon Chew was developed with trail ultrarunner Rachel Entrekin to help athletes combat flavor fatigue while fueling long efforts. Shop at Precision Fuel & Hydration and use code LongRun26for 15% off your order.

Tifosi Optics
From bright sunshine to overcast mornings, Tifosi offers performance eyewear designed for every running condition, with prescription options available as well. Shop at TifosiOptics.com and use code FTLR2026 to save 20% on your order.