Keep Going

Hello. Welcome back to another edition of the Keep Going podcast. In this episode we dive into what we have craft-fully termed the Four Systems of the Apocalypse.  The four horseman are: 

1. The Musculoskeletal System: The tendons, ligaments & bones; how they act, react function & coordinate
2. The Cardiovascular System: The heart & lungs & the role they play in getting oxygen & blood to where they need to be
3. The Metabolic System: aka energy systems, or how the body is fired & fueled for endurance
4. The Nervous System: The brain, spinal column, peripheral nerves or "The Mind".

John & I give a rough breakdown of each system, what it's doing & why it's important. 
I have to say, this was a tough episode to prep for & execute. There is so much to cover & we thought we'd be able to do it 30-45 minutes...boy howdy were we wrong. What you have here should be considered a primer, not a textbook. & we really try to target the functionality, the practical, real-life ways these systems impact the act & art of running. 
So I'll cut to the chase. Please enjoy this second episode in The Systems series we call The Four Systems of the Apocalypse. We hope you enjoy. 
Godspeed my friends, godspeed. 

Alrighty. So I am going to keep this intro very short & sweet. What we have on tap for you this week is a lengthy introduction into what we think will be a series of episodes on what makes training Training. Here we explicate the who, what, where, when & why - as we see it - of training. Next week, John & I will be recording without Michael as he'll be traipsing across the Italian peninsula on his honeymoon. We plan on breaking down the various systems that we train when we train. Hopefully this resonates with you as a listener because its gonna be a two-week deep dive. So here's the episode we've named Training's 5 W's, the first in a series we are calling The Systems. Godspeed, my friends, godspeed. 

The struggle is real, my friends, the struggle is real. While it's understood that we can't be on all the time, as creative folk, we feel the pressure to bring the heat every week. This week's episode is an attempt to salvage an entire day's recording where we'd flopped around like fish in the bottom of a leaky boat. Of course, the reason for the flopping was hubris...We'd gotten pretty confident that we could pull off any conversational trick with flying colors, so we decided we'd freestyle on this morning. Good luck with that. After an hour of attempting to weave discursive threads into some kind of tapestry, we'd simply run out of conversational road. Hooked, cooked, flopping around...heavy as lead.
Then Michael decided to dig in. What follows is a shorter episode where we try to pull a rabbit out of a hat by returning to one of my old saws: A Beautiful Race.
Here we discuss how running is a metaphor for existence & an art form to be practiced. Taking up the call to action Eliud Kipchoge issued about running a beautiful race. We improvise, we push & pull, we challenge each other, we circle up & get deadly serious about planning for the future while living in the present.
While I suspect we'll return to this concept for a deeper dive, this episode is really all about your hosts being very serious about honoring your time & attention & not putting out an hour of bullshit content. Let us know how we did.
I do reference another podcast that is not afraid to dig deeper & get beyond the physical hosted by Ryan WIllms' MEP Podcast. So there is a link here to that resource. Also, I wrote an essay on this topic last year for my short-lived RunGnosis project & there is a LINK HERE for that, as well. 
So with no further ado, I bring to you the episode we call The Art of Running: Grace & a Beautiful Race. 
Godspeed my friends, godspeed. 

In our continuing series on the FUNdaMENTALS of the sport of running, we wrestle with one of the bears every marathoner is required to attempt to tame. While food, nutrition & fueling will alway be loaded topics, we try to dig deeper: Is there a standard protocol? Or is it simply trial & error? There are those who run nutrition free & others who engineer a very specific & well-oiled plan of attack for maximizing the benefits of in-race nutrition. In this episode we unpack the challenges & landmines associated with fueling in race &, in the end, tend to agree that while fueling is important, it really is idiosyncratic. 
We remind you that this podcast is a conversation & not a primer or final statement on the subject of fueling in a race. We aren't nutritionists, doctors or authorities. We simply have lots of experience & these experiences have informed our ideas around the topic. 
We bring you the episode we call To Fuel or Not To Fuel? Is That Really A Question?!?!? 
Godspeed, my friends, godspeed. 

After the amazing results in London, the interwebs exploded again in allegations of doping. While we've danced around this topic a few times, in this episode we dive into the deep end. While we don't have any answers or novel suggestions, we do have opinions. But you know about opinions & assholes, right? It seems we'll really never get to the bottom of this topic but we hold that as fans it's important to focus on the Good, the True & the Beautiful. We refuse to be jaded & sarcastic about the sport. Sure, there are reasons to be skeptical but that skepticism frequently turns sour & infects public perception of the sport by focusing on the cheaters & not on the epic performers & performances. Even when there are performances that are untainted by actual doping bans, the well has been poisoned.
But why even fucking care? If one is always thinking the game is rigged, why even pay attention? This has never sufficiently been explained, in our minds. You are either in or out, we say. You can make yourself miserable & nihilistic, but we are not falling for that bullshit.
Instead, we will focus on the beauty of competition, of failures, of pain & suffering.  We honor the intent of runners across the globe to endeavor to test themselves against time & distance; against other men & women; Against the inevitability of death. This running journey is a journey of self-discovery & self-transcendence, not a wallowing in a morass of "getting real" or "being naive". Because if we are going to "get real" we will all realize that the whole sport is really entertainment. It's a game. But when the sport, the pursuit, becomes something more - something deeper & higher - it becomes a way of living, a practice. A practice for what, you ask? Being human. & as more & more signs are pointing to humanity's disregard the lessons of empires of the past, perhaps what we are really training for is collapse. Maybe our real pursuit is outrunning the destruction of the world. 
But it's not all doom & gloom in this episode we call Drugs, Beauty & the Apocalypse...there is a light at the end of this tunnel: follow beauty. 
Until next week my friends, godspeed.

We live in a world where the old gods have seemingly been tamed by the one God, & for the last 100 years the twin lords of order - reason & science - have declared the one God dead. But those of us who run know there is something deep & mysterious about the marathon distance. It seems to be a strange attractor, pulling anyone remotely interested under its spell. & if there is an old god attached to the marathon, Boston would be its primal home. It may seem strange to talk of old gods attaching themselves to a city, but Boston has always had a very witchy past w/ Salem less than 20 miles away. Before you start thinking this episode is gonna head down an occult path, rest assured, it is more love & light than dark & twisted. 
Because as we dive into here, the Boston Marathon's 127 year history is deeply magical. Join us as we get vulnerable, tapping deeply into the myth & mythos of the world's most storied & special marathon. It is my pleasure to bring to you the episode we call That Old Boston Magic. 

There are few legacy sessions with more legs than the Yasso 800s workout. In the fall of 2001, Amby Burfoot wrote an article in Runner's World about a session that the magazine's races services manager, Bart Yasso did repeatedly in preparation for a marathon. He'd been doing this session 3-4 times a cycle for over 15 years. It's simple as shit: 10 x 800m in your marathon goal time with tequal rest. So if you want to go sub 3, you do 10 x 800m in 3:00 w/ a 3 min rest. 
In this episode, we take this session to task. Or, more accurately, I do. I get a little spicy in this one so beware. I have some strong opinions about it. In Bart's defense, he didn't proselytize this session, Burfoot did. & he didn't do it as a predictor session, he did it as a progressive load session, very different animal. So perhaps my ire was misguided. But as I point out repeatedly, I am not banging on about Yasso, I am banging on about the way this session has been appropriated & infantilized. You be the judge.  
Regardless, we have a lot of fun with this one & we decided to rename the workout...or create an adapted version...I am not really sure. Last week I said "Stories Abound." This week, "Joker's Abound." At least I'm consistent. 
& speaking of consistency, two notes before we send you into the meat of this conversation: 
1.) This episode is a day late to be posted because I didn't get it scheduled correctly before I headed out to the Boston Marathon. What an amazing weekend. But more on that next week. 
2.) We added some bonus content. If you listen through to the end, there is a hidden track that actually began this conversation but was so far afield from the main thrust of the topic that we had to cut it. But at the last minute, I thought I should add it as a bonus. Let us know if you like the banter. 
So, in all it's raging glory, I present to you the episode we call Ted Lasso 800's. 
Godspeed, my friends, godspeed. 

Buckle up, ladies & gentlemen, you're in for an amazing ride.
This week on the Keep Going podcast, we are joined by Paul Carrozza, the Godfather of Austin running. In our No Direction Home episode a few weeks ago (Episode 11, for reference) we mentioned how one of the three pillars holding up the foundations of Austin running was the mercurial & magical energy bottled up in RunTex, the original local running store that Paul & his wife Sheila owed & operated between 1988-2013. In its 25 year run, it fundamentally changed the entire city, not just the running scene. On any given day you might bump into governors - at least three Texas governors (Ann Richards, George W Bush & Rick Perry) were consistent drop ins, tech millionaires - Michael Dell trained with Carrozza & was a close friend, musical celebrities - Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker were New Balance junkies & spent time on the RunTex floor, but, in addition,  also all the rest of the wild & weird scene that made Austin such a vibrant & exciting place in the 90's & 00's. Those halcyon days are hinted at in this episode where we unpack where Paul started & how he made his way to Austin & the early days of RunTex where every employee was trained in the Trifecta of shoe sales, event production & coaching. Two of your hosts worked in this melting pot of creativity, inspiration & hard work & bring an insider's vibe to the conversation. Stories abound.
This is the first in a series of episodes we have planned with Paul as there is simply too much history to cover in an hour. So in honor of 1985, the year Paul & Shiela moved to Austin, as well the year Starship released their international hit smash, We Built This City, we bring to you the episode we call He Built This City: Paul Carrozza, the Godfather of Austin Running.
Godspeed, my friends, godspeed. 

 "One good thing about music, when it hits you you feel no pain."
- Bob Marley & The Wailers from Trenchtown Rock

Has a truer statement ever been uttered?!? When we consider the source, one of the lions of 20th century music who expanded the musical palettes of millions of people around the globe, we have it on excellent authority. In this episode of the Keep Going podcast, we return to one of our common passions, "The Album". Your three hosts all are deeply enamored & passionately enthused about the artistic artifacts of a golden era where each song is written, recorded, produced & positioned within a larger ecosystem of other songs, all working in concert to deliver the listener an experience. Depending on the artist, the experience will be different & this is expected, hoped for - perhaps even demanded. We lament the continuing trend away from The Album (with a capital "A") but remain optimistic about music because, well, "when it hits you"...
In a spur of the moment decision, only a day before we had scheduled this recording, we pivoted away from a running topic & back to music. There was a sense that we might begin to lose the music thread if we didn't return to it. You see, we have two new series's planned for the coming weeks & that worry was beginning to feel very real. So we decided to consider one album each, with the criteria being it must bring all the feels & have had a big impact on our life. We all listened to each other's selection so we would have an appreciation of the love the others brought to their choice. The conversation is framed as a love letter to one transformational album in our lives. With less that 24 hours notice, we examine, explicate & experience three albums we consider classic: Beck's 2002 album Sea Change (Michael's selection), Radiohead's 2007 album In Rainbows (Steve's selection) & Janis Joplin's 1973 release Greatest Hits (John's selection). 
One note: The attempted addition of songs from the albums did not go as planned. As producer, I left the songs in because removing them seemed to disrupt the flow within the greater context of the whole conversation. So please excuse the lack of engineering acumen. If we attempt musical examples again, we'll have our shit together. 
So with that noted please enjoy our conversation, in an episode we call When It Hits You: Three Love Letters. 
Godspeed, my friends, godspeed. 

At the risk of eliciting hundreds of eye rolls due to another podcast discussing the perils of technology, Keep Going is diving into the fray. We know it's a bit risky because we too are experiencing the palate fatigue around the talking heads warning us about AI, the singularity & advancing techno-annihilation. But fear not! We are not experts! We are 1/3rd rube, 1/3rd luddite & 1/3rd dabbler...I'll let you attempt to determine who is what. But we are decidedly NOT in preacher mode, though I do have to step off my soapbox at least once. SO what do we have in store for you? 
We're glad you asked.
Our conversation starts with an experiment in crafting a marathon plan using ChatGPT (glitchy) before Michael reveals a momentary existential crisis around relentless progress & the seeming imperative of accumulation in our modern world. John jumps in imploring us to beware of riches & rewards for - & I quote: "The big payout will never be big enough."
But fear not...we pivot before things get too heavy: I talk about how you can't unsee your mom naked & leaving piles of poop on the trail. Thankfully, Michael re-grounds the conversation around how we can use technology to help us become better runners & humans. 
Along the way, we use the Tao te Ching, magpies thieving shiny baubles & carts getting out in front of horses as metaphors for technology's best case uses. We finally end with a plea to find the others. 
Without further delay I present to you the episode we call Dark Necessity: The Paradox of Technology. 
Until next week, godspeed my friends, godspeed.