The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

Chris Chavez and Kevin Liao look back at the best of 2018 by handing out awards, titles and superlatives. From Des Linden's win in Boston to Asbel Kiprop's strange defense of his positive test for EPO, we review all the moments that wow'ed us and also left us scratching our heads.

Awards Include:

Comeback Runner of the Year

Breakout Runner of the Year

Inspiration of the Year

Strangest Thing of the Year

Finish of the Year

Performance of the Year

Most Entertaining Runner of the Year

Female Athlete of the Year

Men’s Athlete of the Year

Scott Fauble joins the CITIUS MAG Podcast (Presented by Strava) to discuss his new book, Inside A Marathon, which you can read an excerpt of the book on our site now. Scott is coming off a seventh place finish at the New York City Marathon in November and clocked a personal best of 2:12:28. On Tuesday, it was announced that he will be running in the 2019 Boston Marathon.

We delve into the process of writing a book with his coach Ben Rosario, how the idea came about and where he drew inspiration from. There's an Ernest Hemingway mention so stick around for that. Scott puts us in his shoes for the New York City Marathon race for top American that wasn't seen much on television. We also address some of the criticism that American men's marathoners have received in the past year for lack of times under 2:10. Why that doesn't matter to Scott and why the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials are going to be a crazy race. We also touch on the 2018 Boston Marathon fields that were announced. Scott has the eighth-fastest time on paper but we conclude that he's definitely among the top three Americans going into the race.

We take your listener questions. A lot of questions were asked about Scott's expertise in burritos including a power ranking of the top four Portland burrito spots.

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The CITIUS MAG Podcast is brought to you by Strava. Personally, I believe Strava is the best app for runners and cyclists to keep track of all their training. It helps keep me accountable as I get ready for the 2019 Tokyo Marathon in March. I've been using Strava Summit, which includes extra features with their training an analysis packs. Right now, CITIUS MAG Podcast listeners have a chance to try those Summit features for free. Go to www.strava.com/summit and enter the code citius (all lowercase) at checkout.

Follow me on Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/13479304

Join the CITIUS MAG Track Club: https://www.strava.com/clubs/citiusmag

Looking for Scott's book? Make him a New York Times bestselling author by picking up a copy of his work here. nazelite.com/product/inside-a-marathon/

Read an excerpt here: http://citiusmag.com/scott-fauble-inside-a-marathon-book-excerpt/

Camille Herron joins the show after she ran at the the Desert Solstice Invitational at a local high school in Phoenix. It's not your average track meet at a high school. It was a 24-hour track race. She ran a stunning 162.9 miles over 24 hours and finished her first 100 miles in 13 hours and 25 minutes, both new world records on a track.

Herron only started focusing on ultrarunning in 2015 after her successful marathon career, in which she won 21 events and qualified for the trials three times. The Oklahoma City native won the Comrades Marathon, a grueling 89K race in South Africa, in 2017, and she entered the Desert Solstice after scratching from several races due to a femur injury.

Only 33 runners were invited to compete in the meet, which serves as a qualifier for the 24-hour U.S. national team. (Competitors had to previously run at least 124 miles in 24 hours or 100 miles in less than 17 hours and 30 minutes.)

I caught up with Herron on Tuesday for this interview, which initially ran as a Q&A that you can read on SI.com – the link is in the show notes. Now for my podcast listeners, this is the full interview. Uncut. So you get a little extra than what's online to read. We discuss her training, performance and how Taco Bell and beer helped her run just under 656 laps on the track. It's a remarkable performance and I think you'll enjoy the episode so let's start the show.

Read the interview from SI.com here: https://www.si.com/edge/2018/12/12/camille-herron-24-hour-run-world-record-track-desert-solstice-162-miles

Subscribe to Runners of NYC and catch up on the new hit podcast in the CITIUS MAG family: https://apple.co/2Cc9SRS

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Over the weekend, Brogan Austin won the 2018 USATF Marathon Championships, which were held at the California International Marathon. Matt Llano looked like the early favorite in the race. He had the fastest personal best and took off from the start and once held a two-minute lead on the rest of the field. It wasn't until the 26th mile that Austun caught and passed Llano. He won the race in a huge personal best of 2:12:38.

A lot of the running community was wondering: Who the heck is this guy?

We've got your answer on this week's podcast. Get to know the 2015 Drake University graduate, why he decided to keep running post collegiately, why he loves the treadmill, how his life changed under coach Tom "Tinman" Schwartz and how this whole race almost didn't happen.

Plus we take some of your listener questions from Instagram.

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This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Kudos. They're our new partner and they're providing a great new way to show off race medals. Check them out at www.kudos2u.com/citiusmag/

If you hit that link and get yourself a coaster, a portion of the sales come back to CITIUS MAG so that we can continue producing these shows that you enjoy.

Follow them on Instagram: www.instagram.com/akudos2u/

20 years after he won the NCAA individual cross country title, Adam Goucher joins the CITIUS MAG Podcast to take a trip down memory lane and re-visit that special 1998 Colorado Buffaloes team. The story of that team is captured vividly in Chris Lear's book "Running With The Buffaloes." We talk at length about that book and that team. We hit on Colorado and legendary coach Mark Wetmore's training philosophy. We also take some listener questions including the tough one...Adam has to assemble his all-time Buffs top 7.

Episode 100!! Thanks to everyone who has supported the show and helped us get to this point.

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This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Kudos. They're our new partner and they're providing a great new way to show off race medals. Check them out at www.kudos2u.com/citiusmag/

If you hit that link and get yourself a coaster, a portion of the sales come back to CITIUS MAG so that we can continue producing these shows that you enjoy.

Follow them on Instagram: www.instagram.com/akudos2u/

Leah O'Connor joins the CITIUS MAG Podcast after releasing a lengthy and open blog post called "Hey, Struggling Runner", which she dedicated to "the frustrated runner, the anxious runner, the hurting runner, or any runner who feels irritated with themselves, like they might want to throw in the towel on their dreams"

Leah was a two-time NCAA champion while at Michigan State and owns a personal best of 9:18.85 for the 3,000 meter steeplechase as a professional for adidas. Shortly after that personal best was set at the 2016 Prefontaine Classic, Leah suffered a partial tear of her right plantar fascia and then ruptured it during the steeplechase final at the U.S. Olympic Trials. She had a brief stint training in California but still dealt with injuries that didn't allow her to return to that top form. After nearly three years of struggles, Leah opened up about things in her blog post.

We delve deep into some of the key parts that she disclosed including her fear of never getting back, watching U.S. women's steeplechasing going to the next level, what does it mean to grab a spoon and deal with things "one spoonful at a time." Plus, she talks about how three-time U.S. Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein, her new coach, has been a major resource in keeping her career alive.

This isn't your usual interview where we talk about training and races but it's a great and honest conversation with Leah. I hope you all enjoy it.

You can check out Leah's post here: https://bit.ly/2B7SvAQ

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This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Kudos. They're our new partner and they're providing a great new way to show off race medals. Check them out at www.kudos2u.com/citiusmag/

If you hit that link and get yourself a coaster, a portion of the sales come back to CITIUS MAG so that we can continue producing these shows that you enjoy.

Follow them on Instagram: www.instagram.com/akudos2u/

Isaac Wood, a CITIUS MAG contributor and author of The Wood Report (our NCAA cross country projections), joins the show to preview the 2018 NCAA Cross Country National Championships. Isaac has been producing a very strategic and statistical algorithm to predicting where everyone will finish in the race and who will win. He shares insight into who he predicts will win the 2018 NCAA Cross Country Championships, which take place on Saturday, Nov. 17 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Some of the points addressed:

- The NAU vs. BYU narrative

(Isaac is also the director of operations at BYU so he delves into why we decided not to include the Cougars in the projections and columns)

- Who will be this year's Portland Pilots and surprise the field to make the podium?

- Can anyone stop Morgan McDonald?

- What does anyone know about Bradley?

- Can the New Mexico women go back-to-back?

- Hot takes about Arkansas' women's team

- Weini Kelati. Sharpie.

Listener questions are addressed and more on this bonus episode.

Follow Isaac Wood and the Wood Report on Twitter: @Wood_Report

John Anderson, who is familiar to many people as one of ESPN's longtime SportsCenter anchors, joins the CITIUS MAG Podcast. He is one of the voices of ESPN's broadcast for the New York City Marathon alongside Carrie Tollefson and Tim Hutchings. His voice will be familiar for years to come since New York Road Runners, WABC-TV, and ESPN extended their partnership to broadcast the New York City Marathon through the 2022 event.

I met John for the first time when I was an intern at ESPN in 2014 and we've been friends ever since. We usually get together when he's in town for the marathon so I decided to ask him to come on the podcast. He said he was down so we chatted it up.

John was a high jumper at Mizzou but he shares why his high school cross country team was his favorite, an epic tale from his first marathon and what are some of the challenges in covering track and field on TV for everyone. I've seen a lot of criticism of the ESPN broadcast on Twitter. Some of it is fair and for some other points, you may be able to better understand how a broadcast is run after you hear from John.

Come for the sports media talk, stay for when John imagines what his call would be if I won the New York City Marathon.

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This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Kudos. They're our new partner and they're providing a great new way to show off race medals. Check them out at www.kudos2u.com/citiusmag/

If you hit that link and get yourself a coaster, a portion of the sales come back to CITIUS MAG so that we can continue producing these shows that you enjoy.

Follow them on Instagram: www.instagram.com/akudos2u/

Cam Levins joins the CITIUS MAG Podcast after winning the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and breaking a four-decade-old Canadian record in 2:09:25. The previous record was held by Jerome Drayton in 2:10:09. 

Levins, 29, was a 2012 Olympian for Canada in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters. He was a standout star at Southern Utah and won the 2012 Bowerman Award. He was legendary for weeks that topped out at 180-191 miles per week. He spent time training with the Nike Oregon Project under Alberto Salazar. In recent years, he has been sidelined by injuries and was unable to race at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio. 

We discuss his comeback, the plan that went into his marathon debut and a return to high mileage. Levins plans to compete in the marathon at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo but what do his 2019 race plans entail?

New York Times best selling author Malcolm Gladwell, also the host of the hit podcast 'Revisionist History', submitted his own questions for Levins so we get to those. 

Plus: We share your listener questions that were submitted on Instagram. 

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This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Kudos. They're our new partner and they're providing a great new way to show off race medals. Check them out at https://www.kudos2u.com/citiusmag/ – if you hit that link and get yourself a coaster, a portion of the sales come back to CITIUS MAG so that we can continue producing these shows that you enjoy.

Follow them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akudos2u/

Allie Kieffer joins The CITIUS MAG Podcast before she takes on the 2018 New York City Marathon. The Big Apple was the site of her major marathon breakthrough in 2017. She finished fifth overall in 2:29:39, which was also a personal best by more than 15 minutes. The only American woman ahead of her was Shalane Flanagan, who became the first U.S. woman to win the race in 40 years.

Since last November, Allie signed a professional contract with Oiselle and moved to Boulder to train under Brad Hudson. If the name sounds familiar, he is also the coach of past podcast guest Parker Stinson. Workouts seem to indicate that Allie may be in for another big race and she says that she wants to run fast. We discuss her training including why she's raced back-to-back half marathons. Allie reveals what she's learned from studying tape and film of other marathoners.

Allie is also very vocal about body image activism. Her Instagram page is filled with various posts about her past struggles with weight and body image and how she is now comfortable with her body. We discuss the process of what's made her comfortable in that conversation and how others have responded. We also make note of the LetsRun message boards and why she's OK with reading some of the criticism that can sometimes end up there.

All that plus listener questions from Instagram...

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This episode is brought to you by Runners of NYC. Check out the latest show in the CITIUS MAG Podcast Network. Jeanne Mack and I bring you untold stories behind luminaries and legends of the New York City’s running culture. Episode 1 is out! Episode 2 drops Oct. 30!

Subscribe today: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/runners-of-nyc/id1438435120?mt=2