This week’s episode is a long one but it’s a pretty special conversation with one of my first post-collegiate running heroes, Peter Gilmore—who, incredibly and ironically enough, is now my teammate on the West Valley Track Club Masters racing team. In the early 2000s Peter was one of the top marathoners in the U.S. He finished 10th at the 2005 Boston Marathon and later that year represented the U.S. in the marathon at the world championships in Finland. The next year he finished 7th at Boston in a personal best 2:12:45. I didn’t know him at the time but I looked up to Peter from afar because he was everything I wanted to be in the sport: a scrappy underdog, a guy who wasn’t a star in college, he didn’t have a shoe contract, but he busted his butt and became really good. 

In this conversation, we talked about all of that but what I was really interested in was his path back to the competitive side of the sport a few years ago after an 8-year break from serious training and racing. We got into how and why he came back in 2018, as well as why he retired in 2010 in the first place, and that part of the conversation went in a direction I didn’t expect it to go. We also talked about what’s different for him now as a Masters athlete now versus when he was younger, what it was like spending six weeks training in Kenya right after college and what he learned from that experience, and a whole lot more. 

This episode is brought to you by:

— Tracksmith. Tracksmith is an independent running brand inspired by a deep love of the sport. Their Summer Collection is now available and features staples ready for your next adventure, including the Run Cannonball Run Shorts, the Off Roads Shorts, the Run Cannonball Run Tee, and more. By using code Mario22 at checkout, you can receive free shipping on your order and 5% of your purchase will go to support the Brave Like Gabe Foundation to fund rare cancer research.

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Music and editing for this episode of the morning shakeout podcast by John Summerford.

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