Good morning! First, a quick correction: The inline links I posted to the Strava Fall Marathon Club I mentioned in last week’s issue were bad. Here is the correct URL if you’re interested in joining the club and couldn’t find your way to it. Sorry about that. The club is up and running: my first weekly workout was posted this past Sunday, Elyse Kopecky’s first nutrition tip went up yesterday, and the first of my 12 training tips drops later today. 

This past week was an unexpectedly busy (but positive) one on the personal front—so much for settling back into my regular routine!—and both my work and training took a little bit of a hit as a result, but I did manage to find some time to pull together a quick collection of things I’ve been thinking about, reading, and listening to that I think you’ll enjoy checking out. Let’s get right to it.

Quick Splits

— There are a lot of reasons to love running but perhaps one of the biggest is that it can help people reform and rehabilitate themselves, while also serving as a grounding agent, which is why I’m sharing this recent New York Times story about Markelle Taylor, a former inmate at San Quentin State Prison (which is about 3 miles from where I live) who served nearly 18 years behind bars for second-degree murder before being released this past March. Taylor, who is 46, ran track in high school and found running again while he was incarcerated at San Quentin. In his time there, he ran San Quentin’s marathon four times—including a best of 3 hours, 10 minutes—and was a member of the prison’s 1,000-mile club, amongst other programs. A month after his release earlier this year, he ran the Boston Marathon with a charity bib (he raised $8500 for the Urban League of Massachusetts), finishing in 3:03:52. He has his sights on running faster later this year and next, but for Taylor, who takes full ownership of his terrible transgression and has to live with it every day, running isn’t just about seeing how fast he can go: it’s a form of therapy, an activity that strengthens his physical and mental health, a reminder of the rough road he’s traveled in life, a form of gratitude for the freedom he now has, and a way to remember and honor the victims whose lives he took. “Whenever I run, I try to show honor and respect for my victims,” Taylor told USA Today earlier this year. “I feel like the only way to make amends in my own heart is to run every mile, ever yard, every inch—dedicating it to those who I've hurt. Every marathon I run next will have that same (mission).”

— Justin Grunewald, Gabe Grunewald’s husband, sat down with Billy Yang recently to talk about his late wife’s legacy and what life’s been like since she passed two months ago. Both of these guys are good friends of mine and this conversation is one you will want to listen to on whatever platform you use to consume your podcasts. You’ll probably cry at some point as I did but you’ll also likely walk away from it feeling inspired and with a fresh perspective on what it means to actually live.

— The Pan-Am Games were held last week in Lima, Peru and I’m not sure how I feel about them yet: This event, for all its historical importance, has become the ignored stepchild of major athletics championships for the U.S. in recent editions. From the mangled selection process of this year’s team to 12 athletes straight-up no-showing at the meet, it was a bit of an embarrassment if we’re being honest. That said, many of those who were there performed well,  as the U.S. took home 33 combined men’s and women’s medals, which means that USATF will likely consider the meet a rousing success despite the multitude of mistakes that were made in the lead-up to it. 

+ It’s the year of Nikki Hiltz: Hiltz, who finished third at the U.S. championships last month to qualify for the world championships later this summer, won gold in the women’s 1500, just ahead of Jamaica’s Aisha Praught-Leer in second, and the U.S.’s Alexa Efraimson in third. Watch that race here as “Dominique Hiltz” puts on a tactical clinic, keeping herself out of trouble throughout the race before unleashing a perfectly timed kick coming off the final turn. 

+ For a little while, it looked like American Johnny Gregorek might win gold in the men’s 1,500m, but he had to settle for silver behind a hard-charging José Carlos Villarreal of Mexico. Gregorek, who ran at or near the front for most of the race and looked like he might take it in the final 100 meters, was caught off-guard by Villarreal in the final 40 meters, 3:39.93 to 3:40.42. 

+ Marco Rau Arop of Canada slowed the least over the second lap of the men’s 800m to take the win, and set a meet record, in a personal best 1:44.25. 

— What if the Nike Vaporfly, in addition to boosting efficiency, helps more people run farther in greater comfort? That is the question left hanging by Alex Hutchinson at the end of his most recent column for Outside. It was interesting to read about a small study presented at the Footwear Biomechanics Symposium that found that running in the Vaporfly leads to less muscle damage, inflammation, and reported leg soreness after a marathon. As someone who has worn Vaporflys in his last two marathons, empirically I’ve found this to be true—I just didn’t feel nearly as wrecked as I usually would in the days afterward, and this was more noticeable to me than any efficiency improvements the shoe may provide—but I’m curious to see what further research here means for the future of the Vaporfly and other similarly constructed shoes. My quick response to Hutchinson’s question: It will help Nike (and other brands, for that matter) sell more shoes, as the number one one thing most runners desire—from beginners to elites—isn’t speed (which is probably a close second): it’s to feel less beat up after running so they can do more of it more often. 

— “You NEVER know the reasons behind why a person’s body looks the way it does,” obstacle racer and ultrarunner Amelia Boone writes in a recent blog entry. “Frankly, the sooner we stop assigning value judgments to bodies, the sooner we can move towards a society where this discussion doesn’t even need to be had anymore.” Kudos to Amelia for writing so clearly and candidly about body image, acceptance, and the responsibility we all have to educate ourselves about it all. [Side note: I’ve been in discussions with Amelia and Brad Stulberg about recording a conversation together to talk about all this stuff. It will happen as soon as we can coordinate schedules. Stay tuned.]

Save up to 25% on UCAN products!

A big thank to UCAN for sponsoring the newsletter again this month. I love this company and am a big fan of its products. UCAN powders and bars with SuperStarch give you slow-release carbs and long-lasting energy without the big crash. I’ve used the SuperStarch drink powder to fuel my last few marathon training cycles, and the new Hydrate product, which I drink throughout the day and have been taking on my longer training runs, is a clean, natural electrolyte replacement with no sugar, zero calories and 5 added electrolytes to replace the nutrients lost in sweat. Visit generationucan.com and use the code “SHAKEOUT25” at checkout to save 25% on your first order. If you’re already a UCAN customer, enter the code “SHAKEOUT”—no number at the end of that one—at checkout to save 15% on subsequent orders. My thanks to UCAN for its continued support of the morning shakeout! 

The bottom line. 

“I was always conscious of the constructed aspect of the writing process, and that art appears natural and elegant only as a result of constant practice and awareness of its formal structures. You must practice thrift in order to achieve that luxurious quality of wastefulness—that sense that you have enough to waste, that you are holding back—without actually wasting anything.” 
— Toni Morrison in a 1993 interview with The Paris Review. Morrison, one of the most important writers and teachers of our time, died last Monday at the age of 88. 

That’s it for Issue 196. If you’re in the giving mood this morning, please forward it, blast out the web link, and/or leave a review for the podcast. 

Thanks for reading, 

Mario