The Strength Running Podcast

Today's podcast episode features one of the lead coaches for Rogue Running, a massive running group in Austin, Texas.

After discovering the Running Rogue podcast and learning more about the group, I instantly recognized Chris McClung as a thoughtful coach who truly "gets" training (he's not going to tell you to run less, run faster...).

In this conversation, we focus on three key areas:

• How he learned to be a great coach
• The training theory and principles that influence his coaching
• The role of community and how that impacts your performance

This episode is an excerpt from Team Strength Running, our group coaching program that connects you to me as your coach, a team of your peers, and a new monthly expert interview.

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Borrowing an idea from our mutual friend Nicole Antoinette, Kate has decided to choose courage over comfort when it comes to showing up and racing.

When it comes to getting the most from our bodies, all of us have some trepidation about the discomfort of racing. It can be unpleasant and downright painful. But deciding to "go all in" and embrace that fear is the only way we can reach our potential.

It's not an easy choice. Comfort is far easier: the comfort of sleeping in, not signing up for that big race, or not pushing hard during the final mile.

But comfort can be the invisibility cloak that masks failure. After all, if we're only operating at 85%, are we really thriving?

Today's conversation with Kate Grace covers many areas of training and mastering your inner psychology:

• How she handles workout anxiety and pre-race jitters
• What she does to stay in control of her thoughts during demanding speed workouts
• How she talks to herself in fearful situations (like standing on the starting line of a major championship)

You're about to listen to Strength Running's first live show with author Matt Fitzgerald. If you're not familiar with Matt, he's written more than 20 books about sports nutrition, endurance, running, and the marathon including my favorites, The Endurance Diet, Brain Training, Racing Weight, and Diet Cults.

This was recorded in front of a live audience at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, Colorado.

Matt's latest book is a memoir called Life is a Marathon that chronicles his career as a coward when it comes to the suffering that inevitably accompanies endurance running. But he learns to overcome that suffering, and in doing so discovers the person he wants to become, for himself and for his wife Nataki who has severe bipolar disorder.

It's a very different type of book about running that I highly recommend, especially if you want a moving read that isn't heavy on training jargon.

I ran competitively against Peter while we were both in college. He was at Tufts University while I ran for Connecticut College.

Bromka was faster. In college, he was consistently a Varsity runner for their competitive Division III cross country team. But while he was a very good college runner, I wouldn't say he was a standout athlete.

Things started to change post-collegiately when Peter started running marathons. His first was 2:56 - a relatively pedestrian time by a former collegiate runner (one who was capable of running 25:xx for a 5-mile cross country course).

Soon, he dropped his time to 2:47. And then 2:41. His progression of improvement over 26.2 miles is eye-popping. After that 2:41, he ran:

• 2:36
• 2:34
• 2:29
• 2:23
• 2:19

His fastest finish came last December at the 2018 California International Marathon. His official time - 2:19:40 - missed the Olympic Trials Qualifying standard by a mere 40 seconds.

This progression gives Peter Bromka one of the most fascinating stories in marathon running today. It's rare. It's unique. And we just don't see DIII runners flirting with Olympic Trials Qualifying times very often!

I brought Peter on the podcast to talk about this progression and the mental and physical adjustments he's had to make to continue improving.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How did Peter's mindset about training and racing change as he got faster?
• What role does fear play in how you think about breaking certain time barriers?
• Did he ever think he had reached his physiological limit? What then?
• What is it about the Boston Marathon that makes it so special (and difficult!)?

Peter Bromka is like a philosopher of running. You'll love hearing him wax poetic about the marathon distance and what it means to run it well.

Brad Stulberg is a polymath whose first book with coach Steve Magness, Peak Performance, was one of my favorite reads from 2018.

His work focuses on helping athletes, business executives, and other top performers improve their chances of success by work on:

• Defining a path for long-term progression
• Mental toughness
• Developing sustainable motivation and purpose
• How to get into a deep-focus "flow" state
• Building resilience
• Development of optimal routines

His latest book is also coauthored by Steve Magness, titled The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the Benefits of an Unbalanced Life.

In this conversation, we spend time focusing on the nuances of passion, obsession, and building interest in things that we like.

His book is a defense of passion. It's a more nuanced, effective perspective on passion that acknowledges that it's hard to find, that it must be cultivated, and that too much of it can indeed be a bad thing.

You might know Craig as the 2013 Pan-American Jr. Games 1500m champion or the 4th place finisher at the 2016 US Olympic Trials in the 1500m. More recently, Craig won the USATF indoor mile and set a blazing 3:53 mile PR.

His list of personal bests is eye-popping:

• 800m: 1:46:03
• Mile: 3:53.93
• 5k: 14:20.27

Craig is a fun guy to talk with because he doesn't take running too seriously. He's a fierce competitor but you'll also see how his running really took off in college when he was able to have fun with his team.

(it's funny how you perform better when you're having more fun outside of training...)

He also doesn't take himself too seriously, which I find incredibly refreshing. He rocks a mullet and an absolutely perfect 1980's style Burt Reynolds mustache. The RV only came after the mustache because he wanted to keep the 80's theme going.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Jason and Craig talk about how his career exploded in college, his affinity for running fast, and why your next breakthrough might require you to take running less seriously.

After college, Deena traveled to Amarosa, Colorado to train under Coach Joe Vigil. That's when her running took off.

To discover why and how this happened (it wasn't better training), Deena joined me on the Strength Running Podcast to discuss the mental journey she's taken throughout her career.

Our conversation focuses on several topics:

• How to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts - while running or in everyday life
• Why Deena used to race "with fear" (and how she recovered from this dangerous mindset)
• The mental expectations she's had to abandon to reach higher levels of performance
• How to "participate in the process" rather than overly worry about results

These are all major themes of her award-winning memoir Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory.

You don't have to just "hope" that your motivation to run will be there in the morning when the alarm blares…

But motivation is fickle and unpredictable. Some days, you're ready to crush a track workout or long run. Other days, you can barely bring yourself to jog for 30 minutes.

You don't have to be a hostage to the whims of your running motivation, though. Relying on motivation is a fool's errand.

Instead, you can structure your running life in such a way that missed runs or skipped workouts are virtually nonexistent.

You can do this without:

• the latest productivity app
• getting up at four in the morning every day
• joining a convent or becoming a monk…
• "biohacking" your way to the podium

I want to share with you a simple framework for automatically improving your running motivation and increasing the chances that you train hard – so you can race faster.

And it all starts with the other people in your life. Discover more about Strength Running's team.

Sanjay Rawal is a filmmaker, runner, and the man behind the documentary 3100: Run and Become.

Before becoming a filmmaker, he spent 15 years in over 40 countries working on human rights and international development. His new film is about the longest certified road race in the world: the Self-Transcendence 3100 Miler.

It's an event that boggles the mind: 3,100 miles around a single city block in Queens, New York for nearly two months in the heat of summer. To win, you have to average about 60 miles per day (for nearly two months).

A race like this is less of a race and more of a journey of self-discovery that reveals the limits of human ability.

In this wide-ranging discussion about the spiritual side of running, Sanjay Rawal and I discuss:

• Why this race is more of a pilgrimage than a race
• The mechanics of a 52-day, 3,100-mile race
• What we can learn from traditional running cultures like the Navajo and Kalahari
• How we can train our minds to be more resilient
• What separates a runner who completes 3100 miles from the rest of us
• How the mindset of a spiritual runner can improve your competitive goals

Meb's legacy is cemented as a world-class runner: he's the 2004 Olympic Marathon silver medalist, winner of the 2009 New York City Marathon and 2014 Boston Marathon, and 4-time Olympian.

He's also the author of three books guaranteed to get your competitive juices flowing:

• Run to Overcome: The Inspiring Story of an American Champion's Long-Distance Quest to Achieve a Big Dream
• Meb for Mortals: How to Run, Think, and Eat Like a Champion Marathoner
• 26 Marathons: What I've Learned About Faith, Identity, Running, and Life From Each Marathon I've Run

Perhaps more impactful is his approach to the sport of distance running and the marathon. Free from any personal scandal, Meb is a true ambassador to running. In 2017, he was recognized as an 'Outstanding American by Choice' by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

He's also run 26 marathons over the course of his decades long career. And anybody who has completed that many marathons at a world-class level has a lot to share.

In this conversation, Meb and I have a wide-ranging conversation about:

• His childhood in Eritrea and how it prepared him for distance running
• The surprises he learned when running his first marathon
• Why cross-training is so valuable for him
• How running has prepared him for setbacks in his personal life
• When running is particularly hard for Meb

We also talk about his new book 26 Marathons and the many lessons he's learned from each of the 26 marathons he's run over the last two decades.

Finally, I ended our conversation with a simple question ahead of next month's Boston Marathon: If you could talk to the entire field at Boston as they lined up in Hopkinton, what advice would you have for them?