Podcast Episodes

Best Of: Courtney Dauwalter — Inside the (Joyful) Mind of an Elite Ultrarunner

Merry Christmas! We're taking a little break, so we're bringing you an episode with an all-time great athlete, Courtney Dauwalter, whose interview, two years later, still delivers some all-time great…

Published on 9 hours ago

How to Push Your Limits, with World-Champion Climber Sasha DiGiulian

Just last month, Sasha DiGiulian completed only the fourth ever free climb (and the first by a woman) of "Platinum," a route on El Capitan—a 23-day feat that tested her physical and mental boundaries…

Published on 1 week ago

"It's Never All Bad:" How to Suffer (with Matt Fitzgerald)

At some point, we're all going to suffer. So what if you treated it as a practice—something to be done skillfully? This was the question Matt posed to himself when he came back to running in his late…

Published on 2 weeks ago

The Talent Episode: Is Greatness Born or Built?

Today, we dive deep into the age-old debate of talent acquisition versus talent development, using the contrasting blueprints of top college basketball teams as a springboard. We discuss the complex …

Published on 3 weeks ago

Q+A: On Bad Habits, Post-Race Fitness, and “Boring” Work

As a thanks you to you on Thanksgiving week, we're answering a handful of listener questions.

1. How can I navigate periods of intense work where my life is out of balance without developing bad habit…

Published on 4 weeks ago

The Mental Fitness Playbook: Resilience, Regulation, and Flexibility

Elite performers know: mental fitness needs the same intentional training as physical fitness. In this episode, we break down mental fitness into three trainable components: resilience (your mental s…

Published on 1 month ago

Doing it All: The CEO Who Ran a 2:29 Marathon (with Nick Thompson)

How does someone become CEO of The Atlantic, run a 2:29 marathon at age 44, write books, make music, and still be present for their family? For the answer, we turned to Nick Thompson, who, convenient…

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

The Optimization Trap — and How to Escape It

This week, we use the L.A. Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s gutsy back-to-back World Series appearances in Game 6 and 7 to discuss what we’re calling the optimization (or protocol) trap. This is when yo…

Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago

The Marathon Mindset: How to Endure, Actually

In anticipation of the New York City Marathon this weekend, we (well, okay, mostly Steve) discuss the ins and outs of how to have your best race, building you a complete toolkit to help you get throu…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Everything You Need to Know About Managing Fatigue

For a long time, it was assumed that fatigue was a muscular phenomenon. It was thought be a set point and once you hit it, you couldn't go any further—like running into a wall. However, more recent r…

Published on 2 months ago