Latest / Easy Double podcast / Jonathan Gault: Inside the World of Elite Track & Field Journalism

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Jonathan Gault: Inside the World of Elite Track & Field Journalism · Easy Double podcast

• 0:32
  Hello and welcome back this week on the Easy Double podcast.
• 0:37
  We're joined by one of the most trusted, knowledgeable and
• 0:40
  integral voices in global track and field, a Co host of Let's
• 0:43
  run.com podcast and a pretty handy runner in his own right.
• 0:47
  He's somewhat uniquely one of the most passionate Brighton and
• 0:50
  Hove Albion fans you'll find anywhere in the US.
• 0:53
  Welcome to the Easy Double podcast, Jonathan Gault.
• 0:57
  Oh, thank you. Running journalist and Brighton
• 0:59
  fan. I feel like, yeah, that's a
• 1:00
  pretty good description. Or at least that's the way my
• 1:02
  family would think of me, probably.
• 1:05
  That's good. And that's, that's sort of, as
• 1:08
  we're just mentioning just off air, we sort of want to capture
• 1:11
  both you and also your your role in media as well.
• 1:15
  But we're sort of intrigued by both of them sort of as we were
• 1:18
  saying, Ryan and I are share sharing our journey around
• 1:22
  running as well as our love for running.
• 1:24
  And so, yeah, came to came to unpack that with you.
• 1:27
  And I suppose before we do, Oh, sorry, Ron.
• 1:31
  Yeah. Now I was going to ask John, how
• 1:34
  do you go being a Brighton fan over in the US?
• 1:37
  Do you have many friends in that space or are you pretty one of
• 1:40
  one? It's me and my family
• 1:43
  essentially. I think I did stumble across
• 1:46
  like one in the wild once at a bar and I saw him so wearing
• 1:49
  some Brighton gear and sort of asked him a couple things.
• 1:52
  And I think he, we've been growing a small, slowly growing
• 1:56
  a fan base over here. But I have a group chat with my
• 2:00
  dad and then my 2 uncles who are both season ticket holders.
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  And so that's usually we're texting during games and after
• 2:08
  games and all that sort of stuff.
• 2:09
  So it's very, very much a family affair.
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  And do the the other boys on the podcast, do they typically go
• 2:16
  against Brighton just to wind you up or do they have
• 2:19
  completely no interest at all? Well, the big issue is Weldon
• 2:24
  Johnson, one of my Co hosts is a Crystal Palace fan and there are
• 2:27
  hated rivals. And right when I was coming on
• 2:30
  board in 2014, Weldon was in he was starting to take an interest
• 2:37
  in soccer and was saying, oh, I'm kind of inspired by this guy
• 2:42
  Dwight Gale. He's got an underdog story.
• 2:44
  He's Rosen risen up from the lower leagues and now he's
• 2:46
  playing in the Premier League for Crystal Palace.
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  I was like, no man, like that's the one team you can support any
• 2:52
  other team in England. I even Manchester United like
• 2:54
  fine, whatever, but don't support Crystal Palace or hated
• 2:57
  rivals. And of course now he supports
• 3:00
  them and he still gives me stick that they won the FA Cup last
• 3:04
  year. But he's he's not a glory
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  hunter, you know, he didn't buy in when they were like
• 3:09
  contending for the title or anything.
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  So I do respect that. But yeah, we that we butt heads
• 3:15
  over that a little bit. That's class.
• 3:17
  Ryan's obviously a big APL fan so it's our other Co host.
• 3:22
  He's here, a fan of the Premier League.
• 3:26
  I'm more of an Aussie Rules fan down here but good to know it's
• 3:29
  not just running. Yeah, Ryan, who's your team?
• 3:33
  Liverpool all. Right, yeah, we had a nice win
• 3:36
  over Liverpool. A world indoors.
• 3:37
  In between the morning and afternoon sessions.
• 3:39
  I was able to see Brighton beat Liverpool at a bar in Tar in
• 3:42
  Poland. So fond memories.
• 3:45
  Yeah, it hasn't been a nice 12 months for us, to be fair, but
• 3:49
  we have been spoiled in recent history, so you just got to let
• 3:51
  it slide. You won the league last year,
• 3:54
  can't be that bad. But there's, although that was
• 3:58
  last year, it feels like five years ago after this year, so.
• 4:02
  To pivot slightly, I know and we were following this, but you
• 4:07
  were recently on the ground in, in, in, in Boston.
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  You're, you're, you, you reside in, in Boston.
• 4:13
  And so is that, is that right? And so how was the, how was the
• 4:17
  atmosphere? How was the race?
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  The atmosphere, I don't get to experience much of it on race
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  day just because I'm in the meet hotel for the whole time.
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  So I get in there maybe an hour before the race starts and it's
• 4:30
  right by the finish line and they'll bring the pro athletes
• 4:33
  in. But I didn't leave until maybe
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  6:00 PM that day, like well, after all the races are
• 4:39
  concluded. So things have died down a
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  little. But it's one of my favorite
• 4:43
  weekends of the well. I think it's my favorite weekend
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  of the year every year in the city.
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  I live about half a mile from the 23rd mile of the course.
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  And so I'm, you know, I get, I run it fairly frequently.
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  It's just or portions of it for easy runs and it really, it's
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  usually one of the first nice spring weekends in the city and
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  it's a state holiday in Massachusetts.
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  The races are on Monday, of course, famously, but a lot of
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  the schools, you know, the school wasn't in session that
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  day and a lot of the local businesses will give their
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  employees the day off. So everyone comes out and
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  supports people on the course and talking to the pros.
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  They, that's one of the things they love about running Boston
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  is it's this point to point course and everyone from all
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  these little towns from Hopkinton, Natick, Wellesley,
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  you know, all the towns of the course, they just come out and
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  support it and you get cheered pretty much the entire length of
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  the course. So it's a it's a really special
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  thing and one of the things I love most about Boston.
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  And did I know in your, your preview you, you guys were
• 5:51
  previewing the weather and it was obviously a bit of a talking
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  point given how favorable it was.
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  And you mentioned I think what you got a very nice cool morning
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  as well as it was a prevailing tailwind.
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  So is that what you thought contributed to the exceptionally
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  fast times? That was the main factor and I
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  think on top of that you had many athletes and men's pro
• 6:15
  field realizing, OK, we've got a nice tailwind there.
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  It's not too warm. I might never get another shot
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  at conditions like this in a race because Boston, if you get
• 6:27
  a tailwind, can actually be quite fast.
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  We've seen it 2011, we saw it on Monday.
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  So I think the attitude of a lot of those guys was OK, I'm just
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  going to go with the lead pack and even if it's going through
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  and 61 high at the half marathon, that's fine because
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  the first half of Boston's downhill anyway and I got a
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  tailwind. So all those guys just
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  committed. We had a few guys, whether it
• 6:49
  was Hendrick Pfeiffer or Rory Linklender, and then eventually,
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  you know, Milk Casa Mangasha and Lemi Bahanu, just keeping the
• 6:58
  pace rolling. And because all these guys
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  decide, yeah, I'm going to send it today, they were rewarded,
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  rewarded with these PBS. Whereas in the women's race, you
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  saw a bunch of personal bests as well, but they didn't go after
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  it quite as fast. And so the the very top women
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  didn't run like insanely fast like we saw in the men's race.
• 7:18
  Yeah, and I'm sorry, Ron. I was going to ask, you know,
• 7:22
  with the with the men's being so fast compared to last year and
• 7:25
  stuff, did I know it's Ellie Doors, but has that translated
• 7:29
  through the sub elite field and even into the masses?
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  Is there any data on like the number of sub threes or anything
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  like that? I think I saw on Fast Women this
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  newsletter that covers women's running in the US.
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  They had a stat with like number of sub threes.
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  I think it was by far the most sub threes on the women's side
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  they'd ever been. Looked like, you know, close to
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  double the previous high. I don't know if it was exactly
• 7:53
  that many, but I would have to imagine that's the case, but I
• 7:56
  haven't dove through all of the data on that one.
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  And we were curious as well, because a lot of people when
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  they're picking out a marathon, in terms of why they choose what
• 8:07
  they choose, obviously a point to point course, it's difficult.
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  Like there's that bit of a grey area around claiming it as your
• 8:14
  PB given it's not the start and finish isn't within a certain
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  area. What, what do you think makes
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  Boston so, so, so desirable for a lot of the American athletes?
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  Because they seem to, they seem to attract a really strong
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  domestic field. And I is it packaged up with
• 8:30
  some some good appearance fees as well?
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  Is that is that part of it, or is it the history?
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  The appearance fee is definitely a huge part, especially for the
• 8:38
  very top American athletes. They know that's the only
• 8:43
  American spring major in the fall.
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  You can choose Chicago and New York in the spring.
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  Boston doesn't have any sort of major rivals they're recruiting
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  against. And if you're AUS pro, you're
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  almost certainly going to get a bigger appearance fee from
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  Boston than any other race. So I think that's one of the
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  reasons it's appealing. But also it is a race in the
• 9:02
  United States, so travel's a little easier.
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  You get the home support. It's less hassle that way.
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  And it's also just an iconic race.
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  It's the world world's oldest annually contested marathon.
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  It's famous around the world. So I think every runner, when
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  they start doing the marathon, especially in this country,
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  wants to run the Boston Marathon at some point in that career.
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  Is there is there any contentiousness over Boston
• 9:32
  being eligible for times for the Olympic Trials?
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  Given how favorable the conditions were and those who
• 9:37
  didn't race, it might not get such an advantageous course and
• 9:41
  condition. I haven't heard any blowback
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  over that because the trials does allow us a few other
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  courses that are point to point like the CIM in California,
• 9:53
  California International Marathon.
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  You can run that one and that's where everyone goes for.
• 9:57
  Their time. Yeah, a lot of people, you see
• 10:00
  this just wave Americans going for the trials time.
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  So I think most people would not begrudge anyone who qualified at
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  Boston, especially because if you were going to like go for a
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  race and just hope for, you know, this is going to be my
• 10:15
  opportunity to run my fastest possible marathon.
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  I think most people wouldn't pick Boston because you don't
• 10:21
  you're you're hoping for a tailwind.
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  But if it's not a tailwind or if it's a headwind, times are going
• 10:25
  to be slower than usual. So I, I don't think there's any
• 10:28
  bad blood over that. You have to reward the gamble.
• 10:31
  Yeah. Well, and we have seen and, and
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  one of my favorite YouTube clips is is at the 2018 Boston
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  Marathon, the Yuki Kawuchi. Oh my God, that race.
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  I mean, I've never seen conditions like that for a
• 10:46
  marathon. It's rare to see conditions like
• 10:48
  that period in Boston for any day.
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  For just walking to the hotel by the finish line where the Media
• 10:55
  Center was that day, I would just could not believe they were
• 10:58
  going to be running a marathon. And it was so windy.
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  You really couldn't have drawn up worse conditions.
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  Because for me, even like snow, if they're plowing the race or
• 11:06
  with the course or whatever, snow, it's a pain in the ass,
• 11:09
  but you pour in a hat, maybe it's not that bad.
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  But if you just have a driving rainstorm, you're chilled to the
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  bone, you're soaked. I've never seen anything like
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  that in a marathon and probably never will, but it was certainly
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  memorable. Yeah, and even the com, the
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  commentary, you know that the iconic voice as well, the piano
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  is going to be on Yuki's pet at some point and him just running
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  off the front that first mile and.
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  I think a lot of us thought that though, right when I saw, but
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  that's like Yuki being Yuki. And you know, I didn't realize
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  how much of an effect the conditions would have.
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  But yeah, that guy's as tough as they come.
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  So obviously it worked out right for him and he it came out there
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  was a great article, Brett Lana, who kind of worked as his agent
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  a little bit who what runs, sorry, he writes for Japan
• 11:54
  running news. He had the whole back story
• 11:57
  about, oh, we saw the conditions are going to be like this and he
• 11:59
  was going to make him suffer. And we had this plan to take
• 12:02
  down Galen Rock and, you know, he caught a little bit of a
• 12:05
  break with the condition, but he still went out there and
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  executed it. You mentioned as well that your
• 12:10
  day was spent inside the race hotel, So what are you kind of
• 12:13
  doing during the race? You're following the coverage
• 12:16
  and like almost trying to process storylines as they're
• 12:19
  unfolding to prepare for interviews.
• 12:22
  Yeah, so they get they have a big projection screen at the
• 12:26
  front of one of these ballrooms in the Fairmont Copley Plaza and
• 12:30
  it has the international feed and then like lead men, lead
• 12:35
  women and, you know, camera feed that they're doing.
• 12:38
  So usually we can see all of the races going on at once.
• 12:43
  And I'm looking up at that, but also I'm just looking at my
• 12:47
  computer a lot at splits. I'm seeing, you know, who's
• 12:50
  dropping off the lead pack because you can't always see
• 12:52
  everyone or like what's happening.
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  And Galen Rupp, I didn't see him on the screen, I don't think
• 12:56
  once. And he wasn't even in the top 30
• 12:58
  for a lot of the race. So he wasn't showing up in the
• 13:01
  tracking leaderboard. And I was trying to figure out
• 13:03
  what's he, what's going on with him.
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  I'm texting or calling Robert Johnson, my boss, and
• 13:09
  coordinating with him because he was on the lead vehicle.
• 13:13
  So he's sort of saying hey, what, you know, what's going on?
• 13:15
  He wanted updates about what's going on and what the splits and
• 13:18
  some of the other things that are going on.
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  So I'm doing that. I'm on our message board on
• 13:22
  letsrun.com, looking at the live thread and seeing what people
• 13:27
  are saying, trying to update people if the race is cut away,
• 13:30
  you know, if they're showing the women's feed and something big
• 13:32
  has happened in the men's race, I wanted to let people know
• 13:34
  like, hey, you know, there's a breakaway or they just ran a,
• 13:36
  you know, A4 Ford D or something like that.
• 13:38
  So it's trying to balance a bunch of different things all
• 13:42
  while processing like, OK, what could the big storylines be
• 13:46
  here? Like, what do I need to pay
• 13:47
  attention to? And also sometimes it's like,
• 13:51
  who is that? You know, like looking in the
• 13:53
  women's race, there was just a few people out there.
• 13:56
  Like, I was like, OK, I'm not familiar with this person, so I
• 14:01
  need to look like Google, OK, what's their, you know, personal
• 14:05
  best? Why?
• 14:06
  What are they doing in this race?
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  All that sort of thing. So yeah, you're balancing a
• 14:11
  bunch of different things at once, and I've done it.
• 14:14
  But yeah, I've been doing this for more than 10 years now, so I
• 14:17
  feel like I've gotten pretty good at it.
• 14:19
  But sometimes you just want to be prepared.
• 14:21
  That's the main thing. OK.
• 14:24
  Can I ask just in terms of, I know for us as as fans and
• 14:28
  consumers of the content, sometimes we're a bit critical
• 14:31
  of some of the streams we do catch because they might just
• 14:33
  only capture one perspective of the race.
• 14:35
  Yet. We know there's probably 10 to
• 14:38
  20 athletes that we want to try and get a bit of a perspective
• 14:41
  of as where as the race is unfolding.
• 14:44
  And there's some streams that do well to cut between various
• 14:46
  athletes or in terms of trackers or anything like that.
• 14:49
  But I think the the perspective you just shared just then, to
• 14:53
  have seen the race through those eyes would have been for me more
• 14:56
  enjoyable than the commercial stream.
• 14:58
  Is there any appetite or do you have any reflections on that?
• 15:01
  And is there anything that we can do to try and enhance the
• 15:04
  experience for people that want to have a similar experience to
• 15:07
  us? It's, it's, that's something
• 15:10
  that I think people have been trying to crack in major
• 15:13
  marathon broadcasts for a while. And sometimes we'll reach out.
• 15:16
  I know Robert used to write an article after like half of these
• 15:19
  broadcasts saying Robert Johnson, my boss saying, you
• 15:22
  know why on this broadcast, they're doing this wrong?
• 15:25
  Like they're doing that. And I, I do think with some of
• 15:29
  these races, like I've seen the Chicago Marathon broadcast, they
• 15:33
  what with a local channel and this is just not a, they're not
• 15:37
  used to broadcasting elite sports.
• 15:40
  And so they won't really focus on these main storylines.
• 15:42
  And to me, it's like, if you're going to shell out for all these
• 15:45
  Americans in elite field, you get put us a, put a camera on
• 15:50
  them. Like if Connor Manson is going
• 15:51
  for the American record, get a camera specifically on him.
• 15:54
  And I, I think they did actually have one last year, but like
• 15:56
  when he debuted, they didn't. And it it can be challenging
• 16:00
  also in some of these races where the women start with the
• 16:02
  men, that the lead women might be surrounded by a pack of sub
• 16:07
  elite men. So you can barely even see them.
• 16:09
  But I do think given the amount of money that these races put
• 16:14
  into staging elite races to, you know, fly all these athletes in
• 16:19
  from around the world, pay them handsome appearance fees.
• 16:23
  I do think there is some improvements that could be made
• 16:26
  in terms of actually really focusing and showing more of
• 16:30
  those athletes stories. Yeah, like the Valencia
• 16:34
  Marathon, they, they've built a reputation on, on a trying to
• 16:38
  get a whole host of national records and whilst and and
• 16:42
  they're aware of that. And then during their coverage,
• 16:44
  what they'll do is they won't spend a lot of time trying to
• 16:47
  cover the 30 odd nations that they've got athletes trying to
• 16:50
  break their national records, but they will often cut to them.
• 16:53
  And so they'll just give you an update.
• 16:55
  This person's on track at 25 KS, they're plus minus whatever on
• 16:58
  their national record. They'll cut footage to them and
• 17:00
  then they'll just cut to them. And, and so just the, and so
• 17:03
  anyone from all the countries around the world is still like
• 17:06
  following whoever it is that they're interested in.
• 17:08
  And it just builds A bitter. It just helps with that that
• 17:11
  that storytelling during the race that you don't otherwise
• 17:14
  see with some of the other races.
• 17:15
  Oh, for sure. I mean, I think Tokyo does a
• 17:18
  really good job because they'll have cameras on on several, have
• 17:23
  several cameras showing league groups that get separated out
• 17:26
  and they have these icons in the top that you can always tell,
• 17:30
  OK, this is the second group is the third group.
• 17:32
  This is exactly where they are in the race.
• 17:34
  It'll show you their pace and everything.
• 17:36
  It's all really helpful. Now, they don't show as much of
• 17:41
  the women's race as they probably should.
• 17:43
  And I think that's one area they might want to improve a little
• 17:45
  bit. But the big thing for them is
• 17:47
  they also show very little wheelchair race.
• 17:49
  And I do think that's, I mean that's something we've been
• 17:53
  calling on at letsrun.com for a while is there isn't a huge
• 17:57
  demand to be showing the wheelchair races.
• 17:59
  And I don't think they need to have as much coverage in these
• 18:02
  elite marathons as as they currently do.
• 18:07
  Probably segues well into off you go.
• 18:10
  No, just lastly, and I was going to say there's there's often now
• 18:13
  like content creators out there alongside some of the athletes,
• 18:17
  like putting together a rail for them or capturing like niche
• 18:21
  little small bits of footage. So there is, I don't know about
• 18:24
  in the world majors what the regulations are about having
• 18:27
  other people out on course, but you know, in some of the stepped
• 18:30
  arm races, there's people like on pedal bikes capturing the
• 18:33
  athletes. So there is space for it I
• 18:36
  guess. Yeah, I think those things, you
• 18:38
  want to be careful that they're not interfering with the race.
• 18:42
  But if you can get them showing footage, I do think that kind of
• 18:45
  thing's important because someone like Clayton Young,
• 18:48
  right, where who has a pretty big YouTube following, but once
• 18:51
  he gets dropped from the lead pack, we're just following his
• 18:54
  race by checking updates on the the timing site, right?
• 18:57
  But if you're a big Clayton Young fan, you want to be
• 18:59
  knowing like, how did his race go?
• 19:00
  What was he doing in the final miles?
• 19:01
  Same with like Charles Hicks. So if you have people who can
• 19:05
  then come out after the fact and say like, hey, yeah, we were
• 19:07
  following him here. And this is a key moment in the
• 19:10
  race that the broadcast missed. I think that is that's
• 19:13
  definitely good for the sport. Well, well, that was a 20 minute
• 19:16
  intro chat on just how your last weekend went anyway, so we, we
• 19:19
  started well, but the interview is very well timed sitting in
• 19:24
  between Boston and London. So just to quickly touch on
• 19:27
  London coming this weekend, are there any let's run
• 19:31
  representation on the ground there?
• 19:33
  And do you have any major takes as to who you might think will
• 19:37
  come on on top? I will not be in London.
• 19:41
  No one from Latino will be in London this year.
• 19:43
  We've gone in the past, but just not in 2026.
• 19:47
  I do think it's going to be really good races.
• 19:49
  I think, you know, I just filed my men's preview.
• 19:53
  I don't know if it's been published yet on the site, but
• 19:56
  hopefully it'll be up certainly by the time this podcast goes
• 19:59
  live and. I think the big story there is
• 20:04
  Kip Limo, Jacob, Kip Limo, half marathon world record holder
• 20:07
  against Sebastian Salway, the defending champion.
• 20:10
  You've got Tamarack Toller, the Olympic champion there as well.
• 20:13
  And Yogi, if Kajal should debut like one, that always does it
• 20:15
  big. They've got.
• 20:16
  Is that not like, is that not pretty star-studded?
• 20:19
  Like that's a pretty and and who do you, who do you pick who?
• 20:24
  I mean, can you go past Kiplina? Well, I would have picked I
• 20:29
  based on last year, I probably would have gone saw way just
• 20:32
  because the guys run 3 marathons.
• 20:33
  There will have been 2/02. He might have broken the world
• 20:36
  record in Berlin last year if it had been 20°F cooler.
• 20:41
  But Keith Limo has really been on fire this year.
• 20:45
  He won well cross country in January.
• 20:47
  He broke the world record in the half marathon for real this
• 20:50
  time, we think in Lisbon. And his last half, his last
• 20:55
  marathon in Chicago, he ran 2O2 and he was on world record pace
• 20:59
  through 22 miles. So I think I'm leaning towards
• 21:02
  him also because I talked to Saudi's coach, Claudio, Claudio
• 21:06
  Barridelli today and he mentioned, you know, he'd had a
• 21:09
  little bit of an injury to his foot coming off Berlin and then
• 21:12
  he had a bit of a back injury in January.
• 21:15
  Oh, sorry, in December. So it sounds like they
• 21:18
  eventually were able to get in some pretty good training, but
• 21:21
  it wasn't the smoothest. Last six months for him.
• 21:24
  And to beat someone like Kiblimo, I think you might need
• 21:27
  to be at your best. So I'm leaning more Kiblima on
• 21:29
  the men's side. Kiplimo, Saway, 1-2 and and and
• 21:33
  Kojocha. You don't think I do?
• 21:34
  You think he'll be there? But given he's a bit unproven
• 21:37
  over the distance, maybe he fades like.
• 21:39
  Yeah, he'll, he'll go out with them for sure.
• 21:42
  I don't you know a guy when you, when you're that good on the
• 21:44
  track and you're contending for medals.
• 21:46
  I don't think he's going to hold back or anything, even though
• 21:48
  it's going to be a fast race. But that's the big question,
• 21:51
  right, Is he's run really good and all these distances on the
• 21:55
  track. He used to have the half
• 21:56
  marathon world record, but can you do it at the marathon and
• 22:01
  half marathon are just different events.
• 22:02
  So I don't know. I think he could, but I also
• 22:06
  think he's got 347 mile speed. Like does that range go all the
• 22:10
  way up to the marathon? We haven't seen many guys ever
• 22:13
  be able to run that fast in the mile and also be one of the best
• 22:16
  marathoners in the world. I mean what was keep Chogi over
• 22:19
  1500 mile? He must have been back in his
• 22:22
  day pretty fast, right? Yeah, he would.
• 22:25
  He would have been. I don't.
• 22:26
  Think he you? Know he would have been like low
• 22:29
  three 50s I think in the mile. So if he or if he didn't run a
• 22:33
  mile, you know, it would have been that kind of capability.
• 22:36
  So he yeah. And he's, I mean, he's obviously
• 22:38
  a free talent in many respects. And do you have a an idea on
• 22:42
  what they might be going through intensive pace groups?
• 22:44
  Has that been set? They usually don't determine
• 22:48
  that until the technical meeting on the day before the race, but
• 22:53
  I think Solway seems as if he's mentioned the course record two
• 22:57
  O 125 by Kelvin kept them a little bit and I think Kip Lima
• 23:02
  would probably be up for going for that as well.
• 23:04
  So I I would guess somewhere in the 6030 to 61 flat range would
• 23:12
  be the opening split. And was Solway, Solway was doing
• 23:15
  all of the extra testing and being very public about it for a
• 23:18
  race last year, wasn't he? Is is he following something
• 23:21
  similar this year? Or was that just kind of like a
• 23:23
  A1 off to prove things? Yeah, they're doing it again.
• 23:27
  I actually had an article about this on letsrun.com a couple
• 23:31
  weeks ago that Adidas has kicked in another $50,000 and will
• 23:37
  continue to do so for the rest of his contract towards enhanced
• 23:43
  out of competition testing. And last year it came about
• 23:47
  essentially as a response to Ruth Chepingettich getting
• 23:50
  suspended. And he knew he was going for a
• 23:52
  world record attempt in Berlin and he didn't want to have any
• 23:55
  questions about it. So they went to the AIU and
• 23:58
  said, you know, what can we do to make this legitimate and to
• 24:02
  like make sure there are no doubts.
• 24:03
  And they said we'll test you more frequently.
• 24:05
  So that was 25 tests in two months.
• 24:08
  I think this time they're going to, he's been doing going to be
• 24:11
  doing more out of competition tests.
• 24:13
  I think it's another, you know, around 25, but it's going to be
• 24:16
  spread out across the entire year.
• 24:19
  And that's just because that's not a request from Salways Camp.
• 24:23
  That's just why and how the AIU thinks is the best use of the
• 24:27
  resources they've given them. Yeah.
• 24:29
  And on that, it makes me think, was it this time last year where
• 24:32
  Chapman Gethitch was a late DNS at London and the reasoning was
• 24:37
  kind of a bit like unclear, wasn't it?
• 24:39
  And then a couple months later it became very clear, is there
• 24:43
  anything to be concerned about with Perez Jeffrey Chair being a
• 24:46
  late DNS in that vein or? I don't think so because that
• 24:51
  one, I think they they mentioned that she had an injury, I think
• 24:57
  and they were more specific about it.
• 24:59
  The thing that raised questions about Ruth Chapman Getic is
• 25:02
  just, you know, she they referred to some sort of
• 25:05
  struggles and that she didn't think she was ready to compete
• 25:08
  sort of mentally or physically, that sort of thing.
• 25:10
  They didn't come out and say like, oh, she broke her foot or
• 25:13
  something like that. Whereas Jim Schizer, I think
• 25:15
  they're a bit more specific. So I don't have the same
• 25:17
  concerns. OK, let's hope.
• 25:21
  Yeah. We did have some quick fire as
• 25:24
  well, so a bit of a 5050 Boston or London Marathon.
• 25:29
  Boston. Favorite track meet on the Elite
• 25:32
  circuit? Can I go with US Olympic trials?
• 25:36
  Lewis Dunk or Glenn Murray? Oh dunk.
• 25:40
  Love them both though. This one might prove hard to
• 25:45
  answer, lose to Crystal Palace or be proven wrong by Robert.
• 25:49
  Oh, be proven wrong by Robert. I don't mind that.
• 25:52
  I'd much rather do that than lose to Palace.
• 25:56
  Because then you're just getting Weldon anyway.
• 25:59
  Yeah. Team well we haven't even
• 26:03
  covered this your British route sports so Team GB or Team USA.
• 26:09
  At the Olympics, outside of track and field, Team GB.
• 26:12
  But I don't root for really countries or anymore like in
• 26:17
  track and field. It's just, you know, I cover the
• 26:21
  sport so I don't really have a rooting interest.
• 26:23
  But all other Olympic sports are GB.
• 26:26
  Impartiality comes first. Favorite interview you've ever
• 26:29
  done? That's a that is a really tough
• 26:33
  question. I would, I'd have to think.
• 26:34
  I mean, I have favorite interview subjects.
• 26:36
  I always liked talking to Jay Simpson.
• 26:38
  She was good, Nick Willis. But in terms of best interview
• 26:42
  I've ever done, I would need more than like 10 seconds to
• 26:46
  think. Maybe this will be the same, but
• 26:50
  someone you would love to interview that you haven't
• 26:52
  haven't done so yet. I've interviewed most most of
• 26:55
  the people in the sport. Oh, here's a good one.
• 26:57
  I've been talking about this Ben Thomas.
• 27:00
  I have interviewed Ben Thomas before briefly, I think for, you
• 27:05
  know, Virginia Tech cross country story a while ago.
• 27:08
  But, you know, he is famously the coach of Cole Hawker.
• 27:12
  And they always talk about how his training is unique.
• 27:16
  And this is American. Cole Hawker is America's best
• 27:19
  distance runner. And he's got this coach doing
• 27:23
  this interesting brand of training.
• 27:25
  But yeah, we don't really have the inside scoop.
• 27:27
  But like, OK, what exact workouts is he doing and what's
• 27:29
  his whole grand philosophy? I've never heard that explained
• 27:32
  in depth. So I'd love to have a one-on-one
• 27:35
  chat where he walks through, you know, his journey in the sport
• 27:38
  and you know his his coaching philosophies as well.
• 27:42
  And hardest athlete to catch after a race who's subject to
• 27:46
  dodge and media multiple occasions.
• 27:50
  Oh, I mean, yeah, there are a few.
• 27:53
  I mean, Shakari Richardson usually doesn't do interviews
• 27:56
  with the written press and makes sense.
• 27:57
  So she she's a tough one. I would, she's probably the
• 28:01
  toughest 1 to get after a race. Which is funny because she was
• 28:05
  obviously just over in Australia doing that stall gift meet and
• 28:10
  stuff and she was pranced around on all sorts of media.
• 28:14
  She was on TV like it seemed constantly and she was so open
• 28:18
  with the the house and stuff, wasn't she?
• 28:21
  Yeah. Spending.
• 28:23
  Race maybe? I mean, she there, there are
• 28:26
  some outlets she'll talk to, but the written press, which yeah,
• 28:29
  I'm part of, usually she doesn't give a lot of interviews to us.
• 28:33
  Yeah. Well, I mean obviously there
• 28:34
  would have been a decent fee involved in a coming over to
• 28:37
  Australia. So it's probably contracted that
• 28:39
  she do XY and ZA take that you've had that's age like farm
• 28:43
  one. I didn't do enough publicizing
• 28:48
  this at the time, but when I saw Josh Kerr beat Edward Cesarek in
• 28:55
  the NCAA mile final in 2017, he was 19 years old and he just
• 29:00
  destroyed him over the last 600. And I thought that guy is going
• 29:04
  to be a global medalist one day. This was back in 2017.
• 29:07
  I just that that sort of gear shift and to do it at such a
• 29:11
  young age, I knew that I, I didn't, I wasn't going to say
• 29:14
  world champion, but I thought he would get a medal at some point.
• 29:17
  So I was early on the the Kerr train, I would say.
• 29:21
  Is that I remember the conversation with the with the
• 29:27
  twins of our city, who's better, Cole Hocker and Josh Kerr and
• 29:32
  you guys sort of going at it. Is that, is that why you sort of
• 29:34
  back a bit bit Team Kerr there in terms of?
• 29:38
  Oh well. It's funny because Cole is
• 29:40
  another guy. I saw him when he won the
• 29:42
  Ansemblee Mile in 2021 and then he double s back and wins the 3K
• 29:46
  at the same meet a few and like an hour later.
• 29:48
  I also thought that guy is going to be a star as well like that.
• 29:51
  That was like his coming out party.
• 29:53
  It was just like, wow, that guy's kick is nuts.
• 29:55
  But you know what? That's actually a good I I don't
• 29:58
  pick sides in the curve as his Hawker debate, but.
• 30:01
  Didn't you say that equal though?
• 30:03
  Didn't you say though? So didn't you?
• 30:05
  Oh yeah, yeah. I propose that they're sort of
• 30:07
  both in terms of their CVS and what have achieved, they're sort
• 30:10
  of similar quality athletes and that was shut down.
• 30:13
  Absolutely. And I think I need to revisit
• 30:16
  that on our podcast because I've made this claim before World
• 30:19
  Indoors and then Kerr beats Hawker at World Indoors now.
• 30:23
  My, that's another. That's a take that's aging like
• 30:26
  wine right there because I think I've been backed up by it.
• 30:28
  So yeah, I need to take my victory lap over Robert on that
• 30:30
  one. Your favorite thread on the
• 30:34
  website, on the forums. Favorite thread historically, I
• 30:40
  don't know, but there was one that I really enjoyed recently
• 30:45
  that was like, who is your favorite?
• 30:47
  Who are the streets? We'll never forget runners.
• 30:50
  And that's like something, you know, you're a Premier League
• 30:53
  fan, you might know about this, that, you know, you have these
• 30:55
  great players that are sort of either a smaller team or had
• 30:58
  like a brief moment of glory. And it's just, you know, Streets
• 31:02
  will never forget these guys. And people wanted to know the
• 31:04
  same thing for professional runners.
• 31:06
  And I just had a really fun time, like looking through old
• 31:09
  and old names that people are coming up with.
• 31:11
  They had like Chris Solinsky, just fat Menjo was one guy who
• 31:15
  would just show up on the circuit.
• 31:17
  I threw out there Ben True, who, you know, he went to the same
• 31:21
  school I did at Dartmouth College, and you know, he had a
• 31:24
  few moments of glory on the circuit.
• 31:26
  So that was a really fun read. Just looking through all these
• 31:28
  got names I grew up watching. And then on the flip side is
• 31:32
  their thread which has proved the most problematic.
• 31:36
  That's tough one. I can't.
• 31:37
  I mean, we've had to delete a lot of threads just because
• 31:39
  people oppose nonsense or personal attacks or that sort of
• 31:43
  thing. So the most problematic thread
• 31:46
  you probably have to ask Robert A Weldon because they do most of
• 31:48
  the moderating on those ones. And then on that, your favorite
• 31:52
  twin, can you choose one? No, they're both.
• 31:55
  They're both green in their own way, but I can't play favorites
• 31:58
  like that. I think Robert would get really
• 32:00
  mad if I didn't pick him so but I'm just.
• 32:05
  Yeah, even remaining neutral would be offensive.
• 32:10
  In terms of scene settings, so we normally just talk about in
• 32:14
  terms of your origins and sort of prior to finding let's run.
• 32:19
  So am I right in that you're born in, is it Chertsey in
• 32:23
  Surrey, England and then you move to the US around the age of
• 32:27
  age of 10 and attended is it Bedford High School in Michigan
• 32:31
  and Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Sorry.
• 32:34
  And at that time did you, were you running at that time?
• 32:38
  Did you always have an interest in running?
• 32:41
  Yeah, I started running my freshman year of high school, so
• 32:44
  around 14. Initially it was just indoor
• 32:47
  track. I was playing soccer like every
• 32:49
  kid who grows up and playing in England.
• 32:51
  You start playing soccer and after two years of high school I
• 32:56
  realized I was a lot better at running than soccer.
• 32:59
  So I switched across country my junior year and ran cross
• 33:05
  country and track throughout the remainder of high school and
• 33:08
  then also all four years of college as well.
• 33:12
  And did you, so you went to Dartmouth, was that, was that a
• 33:15
  choice primarily for, for, for academic or running reasons?
• 33:19
  Like what did you? Because in Ivy League school,
• 33:22
  was that part of the motivation there?
• 33:24
  Yeah, definitely. The academic piece was part of
• 33:27
  it. I really fell in love with the
• 33:30
  campus, really liked the school, but I, I wanted to run and that
• 33:34
  was a consideration. Yeah, I went on official visit.
• 33:37
  It was between there and Columbia University, which is,
• 33:40
  you know, in New York, in the, in the city.
• 33:43
  So 2 very different settings because Dartmouth's a lot more
• 33:46
  rural. It's kind of in the middle of
• 33:47
  the woods in New Hampshire. And, you know, I think I would
• 33:51
  have had, had a good time at either of them, but ended up
• 33:53
  going to Dartmouth and, you know, don't regret it at all.
• 33:55
  It was great training, except for, you know, I would say
• 34:00
  summer and full and late spring, really beautiful, lovely trail
• 34:05
  system. In the winter it gets cold and
• 34:07
  the winters last a while, so not always the best there, but it
• 34:11
  was, yeah, it was a great time. Really enjoyed by four years of
• 34:14
  running there. And some some PBS in terms of my
• 34:19
  you know, it broke 30 minutes for for 10 KA couple of times,
• 34:25
  you know, low fourteens for for for 5K.
• 34:28
  Obviously must have really been enjoying your during your
• 34:31
  running and and it and would have, you know, represented the
• 34:36
  the university well during that time.
• 34:39
  Yeah, I was usually in the top five on the cross country team
• 34:43
  for most of my time there. It's the scoring places.
• 34:46
  And you know, I, I had a somewhat, my claim to fame was
• 34:52
  that I made the conference meet for all four years, every
• 34:55
  season. So I was 12 to 12 and
• 34:57
  participating the conference meet, but I never scored at the
• 35:00
  conference meet in track. So that was kind of, you know,
• 35:04
  it was like I was proud of my consistency, but also wish I'd
• 35:07
  run a little better at the meets.
• 35:09
  But the, my, the Ivy League started getting very competitive
• 35:13
  like my junior and senior year. I definitely improved as a
• 35:16
  runner, but it just took a lot more to to score at the
• 35:20
  conference meet by the time I was as a senior.
• 35:24
  And what's the in terms of the academic focus while you're
• 35:27
  there is that is that, is that more of a focus than than say
• 35:30
  some of the other schools? Is that fair?
• 35:34
  Yeah, I mean, they, you take, they take their academics very
• 35:37
  seriously at Dartmouth and I, that was, I definitely took my
• 35:41
  academics fairly seriously, but I tried to put as much as I
• 35:44
  could into running because I, that was my chance to see how
• 35:49
  good I could be. And I gave it 100%.
• 35:53
  And when I graduated, I kind of realized, all right, you're
• 35:57
  good. But like, the top guys in the
• 35:59
  country are significantly better.
• 36:01
  Like, you're probably never going to bridge that gap.
• 36:03
  So yeah, I was proud with the effort I gave it.
• 36:05
  But definitely, you know, I was taking my classes quite, you
• 36:10
  know, fairly seriously. I was an English major.
• 36:13
  Like some of the guys on the team gave me some stick for that
• 36:15
  because they were taking, you know, more like, especially the
• 36:19
  guys if they're majoring in one of the hard scientists, like
• 36:22
  chemistry or something like that.
• 36:24
  Their classes were a lot more rigorous.
• 36:26
  But I also had an idea that I wanted to go into journalism.
• 36:29
  So I put time into my classes, but also I put a lot of time
• 36:33
  into writing for the school newspaper and I was the sports
• 36:37
  editor there in 2012. So that was a significant.
• 36:42
  Between that and running though, I put a lot into those two
• 36:45
  extracurriculars as well as as my studies.
• 36:48
  I think I saw something when I was just doing a bit of
• 36:51
  background with an article of about you and and your interests
• 36:56
  and I think it might have even mentioned there about sports
• 36:59
  journalism in terms of what you might want to do post post your
• 37:02
  time at uni. So cool to say that that idea,
• 37:08
  you know, manifested into what it is.
• 37:11
  Yeah, I'm very lucky that I get to do what I love and that it
• 37:14
  worked out because not every, you know, I was given some good
• 37:18
  opportunities. I like to think I took advantage
• 37:20
  of it. But ask any sports journalist
• 37:23
  how they got to where they are and they will.
• 37:27
  If they don't say that some sort of luck or good Fort, good
• 37:29
  fortune was involved, I think they're lying.
• 37:33
  Yeah, and so while all this is happening, while you're doing
• 37:36
  your, your running, following your running and, and, and
• 37:39
  studies in the background, the Johnson brothers are building
• 37:43
  the, the, the let's run empire. Like that's already getting
• 37:46
  quite a lot of traffic, right? I think was it 2009?
• 37:51
  I could say so an article saying they would have over 200,000
• 37:54
  unique visitors to the site per month.
• 37:56
  So, so it was quite a popular forum.
• 38:00
  So that's happening in the background for you.
• 38:02
  Did we did you happen to be engaging in that at all whilst
• 38:06
  you were doing those things? Or where did the relationship
• 38:09
  with Let's Run come to be? Yeah, so I definitely visited
• 38:13
  the site when I was in college because I was, I was more
• 38:17
  interested in college running I think.
• 38:18
  But I would also really like watching the World Championships
• 38:21
  and US Championships, the regular and I guess the Diamond
• 38:25
  Leagues as well. But like some of the regular
• 38:27
  season indoor meets, I wouldn't be following quite as much.
• 38:30
  But yeah, I was on Let's Run as a reader a lot in college, but I
• 38:36
  didn't realize that working for Let's Run would really be an
• 38:39
  option for me. When I graduated from Dartmouth,
• 38:41
  I didn't realize sort of this, how big the site had gotten.
• 38:44
  But then my I did one year of grad school to get my master's
• 38:49
  in magazine, newspaper and online journalism at Syracuse
• 38:52
  University, and I needed an internship at the end of that
• 38:57
  program. And one of my friends, former
• 39:00
  teammates of Dartmouth, Wilgo Heegan, had just broken the Ivy
• 39:03
  League record in the Mile. And he had done an interview
• 39:06
  with letsrun.com. And they had one of the
• 39:09
  questions Robert had, Austin was, oh, would you be interested
• 39:13
  in doing an internship with us? Like, we'll send you out to
• 39:16
  Flagstaff and, you know, you can help us out on the site.
• 39:19
  And I knew Will and that's not kind of the thing he would be
• 39:22
  interested in, but definitely the sort of thing I'd be
• 39:24
  interested in. And I'm also looking for an
• 39:26
  internship at this point. So I reach out to Robert.
• 39:29
  I say, hey, my name's Jonathan. I'm at, I used to write
• 39:32
  Dartmouth. I'm at Syracuse now.
• 39:34
  I'm interested in sports journalism, you know.
• 39:37
  Is this internship position available?
• 39:40
  Can I apply for it? Don't hear from him for two
• 39:43
  weeks. And then flash forward to the
• 39:46
  indoor Ivy League track and field championships, which are
• 39:49
  back at Dartmouth. We host once every four years.
• 39:52
  This was my first year as an alum.
• 39:53
  I go back and I get an e-mail that morning.
• 39:56
  Are you at the meet? Do you want to meet up?
• 39:59
  So I'm like, yes, I'm here. Like, let's meet, let's talk.
• 40:02
  We go go meet up, talk a lot about track.
• 40:06
  Didn't really talk much about my writing or my career at all, but
• 40:10
  just talked about like, hey, he was about to go to world
• 40:12
  indoors. Like what do we think Lagarde's
• 40:13
  going to do over there, that sort of thing.
• 40:15
  And another two weeks passes, don't hear back from him.
• 40:19
  Reach out again. I'm like, hey, you interested or
• 40:22
  what do you think? And he's like, Oh yeah, send me,
• 40:25
  you know, some writing samples or whatever.
• 40:26
  So I send him some of my articles I've published and then
• 40:32
  another two weeks passes, still don't hear back from him.
• 40:34
  Reach out again. Hey, what do you think?
• 40:36
  Like, how's you know, is there a future here?
• 40:40
  And he's just like, all right, yeah, I guess we got to figure
• 40:42
  out what meets to send you to. Like, maybe we'll go to the pre
• 40:45
  classic. And I was like, so did I get the
• 40:47
  job? He's like, yeah, you're high.
• 40:49
  You're an in time. So.
• 40:52
  I had to be like, how didn't you know?
• 40:53
  What was that? Like, like how didn't you know?
• 40:56
  Obviously, yeah. Yeah.
• 40:59
  So I had to be a little persistent, but I did get the
• 41:01
  internship and then they hired me full time that full.
• 41:04
  That is so cool. That's a cool story.
• 41:07
  I didn't realize the and and what what did that is that
• 41:10
  writing basically from that point in time, writing writing
• 41:14
  content like the podcast has that hasn't that that's evolved
• 41:18
  later to the actual site content I expect.
• 41:22
  For the first five years or so, writing was really my only
• 41:27
  focus. I mean, we'd do YouTube
• 41:28
  interviews in mixones and meets and publish them, but it was
• 41:31
  mainly just writing. And we'd do occasionally we'd do
• 41:34
  a podcast or something like that, but it really wasn't a
• 41:37
  consistent part of the site. And then at the start of 2019, I
• 41:42
  think Weldon just had a New Year's resolution.
• 41:44
  We're going to put out a daily podcast.
• 41:46
  And he just, we recorded one episode and then asked us, all
• 41:50
  right, can you commit to doing this every day?
• 41:53
  I'm sorry, every week for the rest of the year.
• 41:55
  And he kind of put Robert and I on the spot.
• 41:57
  So we're just like, all right, I, I guess so.
• 42:00
  And since then, I don't know if we've missed a week.
• 42:04
  We, we've been really consistent about putting it out.
• 42:07
  And Robert really doesn't like missing a week.
• 42:09
  Like even like holidays, he'll try to put together some sort of
• 42:11
  episode. So yeah, it's been since 2019
• 42:14
  that the podcast has been part of my life.
• 42:17
  And the, the, the role you play in terms of because, and, and
• 42:22
  perhaps for us, it bubbled to the surface with the Grand Slam
• 42:26
  track series and the comments in terms of, let's say what the
• 42:32
  role CDs Mag played with that and the, the financial
• 42:37
  incentives they received. So I guess for, for listeners
• 42:40
  for their contact context, CDs Mag is A and I don't want to
• 42:45
  create necessarily a rivalry, but I'm probably just trying to
• 42:48
  understand where where you sit and where let's run sits in
• 42:52
  terms of providing to the extent possible, unbiased media
• 42:55
  commentary versus some other podcasts that may be and, and
• 43:00
  are prepared to say that they might sit alongside promoting
• 43:03
  certain things or might be influenced because they receive
• 43:05
  financial compensation. Like is the role of of of of the
• 43:09
  podcast and Let's Run to be trying to bring to to listeners
• 43:14
  to the fullest extent possible, unbiased sports media coverage.
• 43:19
  Yes, and I understand why some of the other outlets in running
• 43:26
  might need to take some money from certain shoe companies or
• 43:29
  certain other sponsors or whatever.
• 43:31
  Like it's it is hard to make a living in sort of journalism or
• 43:36
  in media, whatever you kind of press Sidious as.
• 43:39
  And I think what Chris's bill is, is impressive.
• 43:43
  And he has also said, you know, this is not, he doesn't profess
• 43:47
  to be a journalism. They, what they do has elements
• 43:49
  of journalism. So.
• 43:50
  But I do think Robin and Weldon, they value their independence
• 43:54
  and want to try to maintain it. And so do I and want to try to
• 43:57
  maintain it as best as we can. So that is what we tried to do.
• 44:02
  But yeah, it's, it is hard to attract an audience and to grow
• 44:07
  an audience. And it costs money to travel to
• 44:11
  meats, you know, to send me to Poland to cover world indoors.
• 44:14
  That's not cheap. So you've got to find a way to
• 44:17
  fund that somehow. But yeah, that's what we tried.
• 44:20
  We try to be as independent as we can.
• 44:22
  With with the website has the the features of it developed
• 44:26
  over time or is normal almost an element of it where it's like
• 44:31
  keep it roosted in its origins because that's kind of like what
• 44:35
  it was and what the people loved back then.
• 44:38
  Yeah, I think it kind of is that way.
• 44:41
  The message boards, if you look at it, they look like they're
• 44:44
  out of 2002. And I think if it's your first
• 44:49
  time on that, you might raise an eyebrow and think what's going
• 44:51
  on. But I think once you start
• 44:53
  going, most people, they understand how it works.
• 44:56
  They kind of like how it looks and kind of accept, hey,
• 45:00
  there's, there's an authenticity there as well.
• 45:02
  So we don't hear a lot of people clamoring to make the message
• 45:05
  boards more modern. The homepage.
• 45:08
  So if you're, again, if you're visiting for the first time, it
• 45:11
  might seem a little overwhelming.
• 45:13
  But if you are a daily visitor, I think you kind of realize, oh,
• 45:17
  here are the places where the new articles are going to be.
• 45:19
  And this is how it works. And the aim is just there.
• 45:23
  We try to synthesize all the world's running news and put it
• 45:27
  every day on the Let's Run homepage and make it as easy as
• 45:30
  possible to find, you know, the, the critical new information
• 45:34
  from that day. So I I think it serves its
• 45:36
  purpose quite well, but it doesn't really look like any
• 45:39
  other news site on the Internet. Yeah, it's almost like a bit of
• 45:45
  ausp though, isn't it? Like if you were to align now to
• 45:48
  how modern day websites look, it would probably feel a bit off
• 45:52
  brand. So like, you know, do you do you
• 45:54
  spend a bit of time on Power of 10, the British like rankings
• 45:58
  and stuff? Oh, I haven't been on that for a
• 46:00
  while. I did when I was when I was
• 46:01
  running because I would sometimes check my TV's.
• 46:04
  So, so that was of a similar ELK like quite old school and how it
• 46:09
  displays data and stuff. And then they've just, I think
• 46:11
  in the past six months come through like a project of update
• 46:15
  in it not really changing any of the data because it is what it
• 46:18
  is, it's history. But the user interface is like
• 46:21
  modernized and I think people don't really like it too much.
• 46:25
  Yeah, It makes me think of the USATF website, which was pretty
• 46:30
  bad to begin with. And then they went through this
• 46:32
  rebrand and overhauled the site and like, parts of it improved,
• 46:36
  but like parts of it got even worse.
• 46:38
  And so I feel like that one with like the historical records and
• 46:41
  everything they still need, they still have work to do, even
• 46:45
  though they tried to modernize, modernize it a few years ago.
• 46:48
  In terms of some of the the threads on there that have been
• 46:52
  written over time or like I think you, was it the likes of
• 46:56
  like Renata Canova and some of the great coaches posting on
• 47:00
  there and sharing insights as well as sharing like training
• 47:03
  Diaries and those sorts of things.
• 47:04
  Like I remember seeing some pretty special content on there.
• 47:07
  Is there anything that that springs to mind in terms of some
• 47:10
  some some great conversations or information?
• 47:14
  The Canova threads were always good because he just weigh in
• 47:17
  and he just, he'd go into a lot of detail.
• 47:21
  You know, he'd be talking about specific sessions all these
• 47:24
  athletes had coached. He'd write sort of novels on
• 47:26
  that. But if you're really into
• 47:28
  training details and everything like that, then that that's a,
• 47:34
  you know, it's a goldmine for you.
• 47:36
  And then there's another thread that's become popular in the
• 47:39
  last few years, which is adapting the Norwegian method to
• 47:43
  sort of singles, I think. And it's this guy, I think he
• 47:47
  used to be a cyclist and now he's in his 40s.
• 47:50
  He took out marathon running and he started adapting the
• 47:53
  Norwegian method and used that as sort of his base training
• 47:57
  philosophy and got really good, ran like 224 in London, I think
• 48:03
  at age 40, something like that. Now he's written, he's got I
• 48:06
  think more than 500 pages of posts and there's there's a
• 48:10
  whole sub wrote about it now. And he just wrote a book which I
• 48:12
  need to still need to read. But I think that's another one
• 48:15
  where just a lot of training discussion among amateur
• 48:18
  runners, like how, OK, how do we adapt this thing that the pros
• 48:22
  are using, but you might not have the time to do 2 tumbled
• 48:26
  threshold sessions a week. You know, how can you adapt it?
• 48:29
  I think that that's also been pretty beneficial for a lot of
• 48:31
  runners. And I think Ryan might have, you
• 48:34
  might have touched on this, Ryan, but in terms of like has,
• 48:36
  have things had to evolve in terms of like censorship and
• 48:39
  stuff like, do you find you having to dedicate more time or.
• 48:43
  And it's really trying to strike the balance to create an
• 48:45
  opportunity for everyone to be able to participate openly in a
• 48:48
  community versus making sure that people aren't necessarily
• 48:52
  overstepping as well. And.
• 48:54
  Yeah, I don't know if the I think they're always going to be
• 48:59
  assholes. They're assholes posting when I
• 49:02
  started working at Let's Run in 2014.
• 49:04
  They're still assholes now in 2026 that want to ruin what a
• 49:09
  lot of people are having a good time with it and they're going
• 49:11
  to come in and post a bunch of garbage.
• 49:14
  And we just got to be careful. And we still, we have a team of
• 49:17
  moderators actually now volunteer moderators, which we
• 49:21
  didn't have as many, nearly as many when I started out.
• 49:24
  And I think they've been better at making sure things don't get
• 49:28
  out of hand, deleting problematic or, you know,
• 49:33
  discriminatory posts, anything that really detracts from the
• 49:37
  quality of the message board. And it's still something we work
• 49:41
  on. But we want to strike the
• 49:45
  balance between being able to freely express yourself without
• 49:50
  infringing upon just making, you know, other people's lives
• 49:54
  miserable. So yeah, it's, it's something
• 49:57
  we're always trying to get better at that one.
• 49:59
  But I do think we've got a team moderators in place and we've
• 50:02
  got a pretty robust reporting system, whereas where if enough
• 50:06
  people report a specific post, it will just be automatically
• 50:09
  deleted. In terms of some of the stories
• 50:13
  that have, like I remember, was it part of the like Boston
• 50:18
  tragedies that there's some content was uploaded that
• 50:21
  actually ultimately led to people getting charged over
• 50:25
  there? Has it?
• 50:26
  Is there sort of things that have happened where stories have
• 50:29
  been broken through the threads that that that sprang into mind?
• 50:34
  One that's very memorable for me was the 2016 Olympic marathon.
• 50:40
  This was, you know, it's the final day of the Games.
• 50:42
  It was the final, the race. It was my first Olympics I've
• 50:44
  been to, and it was the last press conference.
• 50:47
  And usually, you know, Olympic press conferences, you don't
• 50:52
  always get it. It sort of varies.
• 50:55
  Some of them can be kind of dry. Sometimes you will get good
• 50:58
  Nuggets. But this was my first time ever
• 51:00
  covering Kipchoge, first time I'd ever seen him in person.
• 51:03
  It's Kipchoge. Galen Rupp was the bronze
• 51:06
  medalist for the US. That's a big story.
• 51:08
  And then the silver medalist was FISA Lisa from Ethiopia.
• 51:12
  And so the press conference is starting and I'm like, all
• 51:16
  right, I'm probably going to ask either a question of Kipchoge,
• 51:19
  who was sort of cementing himself as the GOAT, or Rupp,
• 51:22
  who is run, you know, he's won, run this great race and he's got
• 51:26
  a bronze medal doubling back from the 10K.
• 51:28
  And then I get a text from Weldon.
• 51:31
  Sorry, no, I I text from Robert Weldon was there with me in Rio.
• 51:35
  And he's telling me to ask about Feis Elisa and this gesture he
• 51:40
  made at the finish line. And if you remember, yeah, he
• 51:43
  meets the X. And someone on the message board
• 51:48
  had pointed out, like, you know, this isn't some guy just being
• 51:50
  an asshole. Like he, his people are being
• 51:53
  slaughtered back home in Ethiopia, and he wants to bring
• 51:57
  attention to this crisis that's going on.
• 52:00
  And I didn't know anything about it, but I figured, OK, I'm going
• 52:05
  to ask him and see, hey, can you just explain what did this mean?
• 52:09
  What were you trying to bring attention to?
• 52:12
  And, you know, his English wasn't perfect, but he was
• 52:16
  really, you know, it's clearly something that means a lot to
• 52:18
  him. And he was just saying, yeah,
• 52:19
  it's been very tough, difficult back in Ethiopia and just
• 52:24
  detailing sort of what was going on.
• 52:26
  It was very difficult for him. And he wanted to make take this
• 52:28
  opportunity to make a gesture. And he was putting his life, his
• 52:32
  family's lives in danger by doing this.
• 52:34
  But he thought, this is the biggest platform I've ever going
• 52:37
  to have. I need to speak out of it.
• 52:39
  And the reason why Robert texted me about it is someone had
• 52:42
  posted this, an electron message board thread.
• 52:44
  So that's the sort of thing I would have never thought to ask
• 52:47
  him anything about it. But Robert had seen the thread.
• 52:50
  He let me know about it. I asked the question and it
• 52:53
  became this major international story.
• 52:55
  That's insane, isn't? It it is wild.
• 52:59
  It was totally wild. That makes me think of the the
• 53:03
  not that it's similar, but it's come to mind anyway with Robert
• 53:07
  asking Chapman Gassic about the the whole world of Chicago and
• 53:13
  stuff. What was what was that time like
• 53:15
  behind the scenes when you're getting through that, like
• 53:18
  Kenyan parliament are asking for apologies and all this sorts of
• 53:21
  stuff. It was just totally surreal.
• 53:25
  I mean, Robert, I thought it was a totally fair question.
• 53:28
  I thought he phrased it in a fair manner because a lot of
• 53:32
  people saw that time and especially that late in her
• 53:35
  career and had questions and he wanted to give her the
• 53:37
  opportunity to answer it. And yeah, he, it went viral,
• 53:43
  obviously became a big thing in Kenya, but we were just like, it
• 53:47
  was totally surreal. We couldn't believe this was
• 53:49
  happening. And we kind of Robin was just,
• 53:52
  he, I think he just accepted it. He's like, look, this is a bunch
• 53:55
  of Kenyan politicians grandstanding.
• 53:57
  They're trying to protect that country and the image of that
• 53:59
  country, and they're just trying to score political points off
• 54:02
  him. So he kind of understood why it
• 54:05
  was happening. But I don't think it didn't
• 54:08
  cause him to back off or anything.
• 54:09
  It was a totally fair question. And then it comes out less than
• 54:12
  a year leader, she tests positive for a diuretic, she
• 54:16
  gets handed a ban, she admits to it.
• 54:18
  So I think Robert was invalidated that it was a fair
• 54:22
  question to ask. I just left fine wine as well.
• 54:26
  Was. Oh yeah, I did.
• 54:27
  Yeah. In terms of like your
• 54:29
  day-to-day, now obviously your activities are largely driven by
• 54:32
  the calendar as per like major marathons or the meet, the
• 54:36
  circuits on the meet. But between the meets, what does
• 54:40
  it actually look like? How much is writing stories?
• 54:43
  How much is research? How much is outreach?
• 54:46
  Maintaining relationships? Trying to open relationships?
• 54:51
  Yeah, it's a, it's a bit of all of it.
• 54:52
  Usually I'll start my day by going to the site and just
• 54:56
  seeing what are the new stories to be aware of.
• 54:58
  I try to read, you know, if there's any sort of major
• 55:00
  running stories and any outlet, read those and keep on top of
• 55:04
  the news. And then sometimes you'll go
• 55:09
  into a day and I thought I was going to be working on a feature
• 55:11
  or something, but some breaking news issue happens and I've got
• 55:14
  to start calling people and figuring out what to do with
• 55:17
  that. Other times there's a ME preview
• 55:19
  I got to work on. So like right now I'm working on
• 55:22
  the London Marathon stuff and like looking into the elite
• 55:25
  fields, figuring out who's in shape, that sort of thing.
• 55:28
  And then yeah, other times if I'm working on a longer feature,
• 55:31
  it's trying to track down a source and doing some research
• 55:35
  on that. So it really, it can vary a lot.
• 55:39
  And I think one of the things that is good about going to
• 55:44
  meets and covering them in person is when you go to these
• 55:47
  press events, you will bump into not just the athletes but
• 55:52
  members of their entourage. So the agent or the coach or
• 55:54
  something like that. And that can be really helpful
• 55:56
  for just putting a face to a name, establishing a
• 55:59
  relationship, kind of helping them understand, look, not out
• 56:02
  to get them just here to cover the sport and do it as fairly as
• 56:05
  possible. But it's it's valuable, I think,
• 56:09
  to help maintain relationships. And just, you know, if you need
• 56:12
  a little information about what's going on or why someone
• 56:14
  isn't racing, I think it does help if they can, they've had
• 56:18
  that interaction face to face with you as a person as opposed
• 56:20
  to just this disembodied voice or, you know, text message.
• 56:24
  And how do you go with? Because like your work is so
• 56:28
  trusted both from an integrity point of view and like a Fact
• 56:32
  Check point of view. So I don't know if you would be
• 56:36
  aware, but maybe many other sources underneath where you
• 56:40
  sit, like smaller independent outlets might quote your work or
• 56:45
  maybe not quote your work, but say it as in like using it in
• 56:49
  podcast form, in written form. Like is that a compliment or
• 56:53
  would you rather be like at least give me the the
• 56:56
  acknowledgement or how's it feel?
• 56:59
  Yeah, I if I hear some like statistic that I very clearly
• 57:03
  like researched or some quote that it was an interview
• 57:06
  directly to me, all I usually ask for is just some
• 57:09
  acknowledgement, like, oh, this person said it to Jonathan or
• 57:12
  said it to letsrun.com. Because again, I'm the one
• 57:15
  digging that nugget out. I'm the one reporting this news.
• 57:19
  That's really all I'm asking for.
• 57:22
  And yeah, sometimes it takes me like, it sort of varies.
• 57:26
  If it's like an actual news article that someone's
• 57:28
  publishing and they're sort of referring to this news and they
• 57:31
  don't credit the source, I'm going to get a bit more
• 57:33
  frustrated about that than if it's some podcast and just
• 57:37
  people are chatting it up and they're like, hey, I saw this.
• 57:39
  I didn't remember exactly where I saw it or something like that.
• 57:42
  But if you're a news reporter and you're writing a real news
• 57:45
  article about it, you know why you got that information.
• 57:48
  And I think it's only fair to credit it.
• 57:51
  Yeah, which is fair. And in terms of like the the
• 57:56
  day-to-day and relationships between all the media outlets,
• 57:59
  like from the outside looking in, it seems like largely Let's
• 58:03
  Run and Citius are like kind of two big pieces in the market.
• 58:11
  How do you go in terms of like sitting underneath mass media
• 58:16
  and general media? Like, do you feel supported by
• 58:19
  like, say, I don't know who sports broadcasters are like
• 58:22
  ESPN or something? Or is it very much like you just
• 58:25
  kind of fend for yourselves and look after your own
• 58:29
  organization? I guess what do you mean
• 58:32
  supported? By so like, do you feel welcome
• 58:37
  in that space like these, these mass media outlets have so much
• 58:41
  like influence and cash and resources, whereas you're
• 58:45
  obviously a little bit smaller. And then when you go to the
• 58:48
  meets and they might be present, do you have relationships with
• 58:52
  them or are you just kind of doing your own thing?
• 58:56
  Oh. Yeah, I think, you know, if it's
• 58:58
  a mate, if it's a major news outlet and they're sending
• 59:00
  someone to cover this sport, sometimes the British papers
• 59:04
  kind of have their own athletics experts and I'll see them and
• 59:07
  there's definitely a mutual respect there and get along
• 59:09
  well. But most of the people in this
• 59:11
  business are fairly friendly. And if it's someone from a major
• 59:14
  outlet who's parachuting in, like, say, well, it used to be
• 59:18
  the Washington Post. I don't have a sports section
• 59:20
  anymore, unfortunately. But, you know, if it's someone
• 59:23
  who from a major outlet who doesn't cover the sport
• 59:25
  regularly, sometimes I'll just try to introduce myself and say
• 59:28
  like, hey, cool to see someone from a major paper here or a
• 59:33
  major station, like, what's your story?
• 59:35
  You know, how'd you get into roped into covering this?
• 59:38
  And then sometimes they'll be someone like, hey, yeah,
• 59:42
  covering the Olympics this year. I didn't really know, you know,
• 59:44
  I don't know much much about the sport, but I started learning it
• 59:47
  because I went to Let's Run. So sometimes they'll reach out
• 59:50
  to me and be like, yeah, I used your site to learn about the
• 59:53
  sport. And, you know, we or immediately
• 59:55
  have a nice relationship there because I'm reading my work.
• 59:58
  So yeah, usually I feel like we got along pretty well and it's
• 1:00:02
  pretty smooth. And the emotions.
• 1:00:04
  Those outlets cover meets like it's great when the big ones
• 1:00:07
  come in. It's it's good for the sport,
• 1:00:09
  it's good for everyone. And you probably don't, oh, it's
• 1:00:14
  just going to say that you probably don't.
• 1:00:16
  Those outlets wouldn't have the same subject matter expertise
• 1:00:19
  than you are there. So they're probably pitching
• 1:00:21
  things at a different level. So it's more just casting a
• 1:00:24
  wider net that hopefully then funnels funnels into to if
• 1:00:28
  people want to take a deeper dive into the into the sport,
• 1:00:31
  then they can come come here. Totally.
• 1:00:33
  Yeah, I'm not writing the same story as some of these other
• 1:00:37
  outlets because we're really noting out on some of the inside
• 1:00:39
  running stuff, whereas the audience might be a little
• 1:00:42
  different. Do you know is there a big
• 1:00:44
  fluctuation between the number of journalists and stuff present
• 1:00:47
  from meet to meet or marathon to marathon?
• 1:00:51
  The US Olympic Trials, that's when you get the most
• 1:00:53
  journalists coming in and the most outlets.
• 1:00:55
  And certainly in the lead up to LA2028I do expect some of the
• 1:01:00
  more major publications to start sending some more people in the
• 1:01:04
  lead up. You know, either 2027 or
• 1:01:06
  definitely during 2028, you're probably going to see more of
• 1:01:09
  these people just because they know there's going to be a big
• 1:01:11
  American interest. But yeah, they're and it's not.
• 1:01:15
  It's been nice to see. The Athletic actually has a
• 1:01:16
  really good writer, Marcus Thompson, who's been coming to
• 1:01:21
  some track meets the last couple years and that's good to see
• 1:01:23
  that. Then that they had Liam Thong
• 1:01:25
  from The Athletic was in World Indoors.
• 1:01:28
  So it's good to see they've got some reporters doing that sort
• 1:01:31
  of thing. But yeah, then there are other
• 1:01:33
  ones there. If I'm going to the Boston
• 1:01:35
  University meets, right, you don't get the New York Times or
• 1:01:39
  The Athletic or any of the major outlets.
• 1:01:42
  That's like a very running specific media.
• 1:01:44
  So it's going to be like me flow track insidious at those, those
• 1:01:47
  kind of ones. Have you, we've noticed
• 1:01:50
  particularly let's say here and I think it might be fair to say
• 1:01:53
  globally, but runnings become a lot more popular like from COVID
• 1:01:59
  onwards in the sense that people are locked in, people then turn
• 1:02:02
  to their joggers and then people.
• 1:02:03
  It seems like it's, it's really boomed.
• 1:02:06
  Have you felt, have you felt that too?
• 1:02:08
  And and has your viewership increased from that from that
• 1:02:11
  time as well? I don't have the exact like
• 1:02:15
  readership numbers that sort of Robert and Weld and have that,
• 1:02:19
  but I I haven't really felt that boom translate to the
• 1:02:23
  professional spectator side of the sport.
• 1:02:25
  I think it's a lot of like people getting active at, which
• 1:02:27
  is great and being, you know, running marathons, but look at
• 1:02:32
  like, look at the London Marathon.
• 1:02:33
  You have like over a million applications, but how many of
• 1:02:36
  those people actually follow the elite side of the sport and
• 1:02:39
  they're going to know who Sebastian Salway or Jacob
• 1:02:41
  Capelimo are? I think there's just this
• 1:02:43
  disconnect between the mass participation element and the
• 1:02:48
  professional side, and that's something that the entire sport
• 1:02:51
  has been trying to figure out. How do we bridge that gap?
• 1:02:54
  But I think it still exists. Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  And for me, in terms of just someone that has been
• 1:02:59
  interesting, that's where I think the podcast and podcasting
• 1:03:02
  has been such a useful vehicle because in a lot of popular
• 1:03:07
  sport, I mean, it's like the the F1 and, and that, you know, is a
• 1:03:10
  drive to survive in terms of what people want is storytelling
• 1:03:13
  and, and, and a story to get and so that these people become
• 1:03:17
  real, like they all become it all.
• 1:03:20
  It's hard to contextualize or hard to relate to a lot of the
• 1:03:22
  people at the lead in the lead groups of these marathons.
• 1:03:25
  So until you start to have a voice or have these stories told
• 1:03:29
  you, it's hard to really get behind a lot of this where and I
• 1:03:32
  think it feels like podcasting and, and the, you know, and the
• 1:03:35
  let's run media and articles seem to be playing quite a role.
• 1:03:40
  Yeah, I think definitely podcasts help with that because
• 1:03:43
  you have people just interviewing guests and like
• 1:03:46
  hearing what their back story is.
• 1:03:48
  And that's, I think that's very valuable to have those sort of
• 1:03:53
  stories told because again, like, let's run.
• 1:03:55
  We can't, you know, there's only so many people we can interview
• 1:03:58
  and so many stories we can tell, right?
• 1:04:00
  So you need a lot of different, I think, outlets doing different
• 1:04:04
  things. And that's definitely positive
• 1:04:05
  for the sport. And like you said, I think if
• 1:04:08
  you look at the front of a major marathon, you know, and you're
• 1:04:11
  kind of new to the sport, it may seem overwhelming and not
• 1:04:14
  knowing all who all these faces are.
• 1:04:16
  But you hear the back story. OK, This is Sebastian Salway's
• 1:04:19
  story. And he's trying to do this big
• 1:04:21
  initiative with the drug testing.
• 1:04:22
  And now people are like, oh, OK, I can put that face to name.
• 1:04:25
  I recognize that. And now when he goes to the next
• 1:04:28
  race, they know a bit more about him.
• 1:04:29
  And I think more of that would be great.
• 1:04:32
  Yeah, and Ethan, was it Sam Ruth and his dad, I think he might
• 1:04:36
  have caught him after when he was in the US running those
• 1:04:40
  those times and sort of a name that you weren't, you know, the
• 1:04:43
  running world wasn't that familiar with, let's say two
• 1:04:46
  years ago and now you are. And then you want to
• 1:04:48
  contextualise what, what are they thinking?
• 1:04:49
  What are they doing? It's that, that 5 minute
• 1:04:51
  conversation that you get to, to sort of unpack that story.
• 1:04:54
  It's like it starts to paint a picture for people and and get
• 1:04:58
  someone get get you contextualise who who they are.
• 1:05:01
  Whereas otherwise it's absent those those, even though short
• 1:05:05
  interviews after a race, I find them really impactful. 100%
• 1:05:10
  yeah. Sam ran that race and he's 16.
• 1:05:14
  He's getting better at the media side of it.
• 1:05:17
  But it was a very short interview with him afterwards.
• 1:05:20
  And if that had just been all I had to go off was that race and
• 1:05:24
  that interview, I would have been able to write an OK
• 1:05:26
  article. But I was really proud of the
• 1:05:28
  article I wrote after that one because I had this great
• 1:05:30
  conversation with his dad. And he told me, oh, yeah, we had
• 1:05:33
  these travel problems coming over.
• 1:05:35
  And it was like really long trip.
• 1:05:37
  And we got here to Boston. It was miserably cold and the
• 1:05:40
  snow came. We had to figure out all this
• 1:05:41
  sort of stuff. And I think that just made the
• 1:05:44
  article like 10 times better because you actually had the
• 1:05:47
  back story that only he could provide.
• 1:05:49
  So I was very grateful for the time he gave and I do think it
• 1:05:52
  really helped with the coverage of that race.
• 1:05:55
  I guess to move more towards a bit of an outro because John's
• 1:05:58
  got to get to bed and Dean and I have got to get on with our
• 1:06:00
  days. And we did have just a couple of
• 1:06:03
  Patreon questions come in from some of the listeners.
• 1:06:06
  If you wouldn't mind trying to address some of these.
• 1:06:08
  So Jack Malaburn says which part of Elite running deserves more
• 1:06:12
  attention, but currently doesn't get it.
• 1:06:15
  I feel like the training groups and the situation, like just all
• 1:06:20
  the dynamics between athletes and groups in Kenya and
• 1:06:23
  Ethiopia, because they all have their, they're all in their
• 1:06:28
  different camps and coaching setups.
• 1:06:31
  And that's spread around. And I think if you aren't
• 1:06:34
  really, you know, plugged into that scene, you might, it might
• 1:06:38
  be hard to tell like, OK, who's affiliated with what group?
• 1:06:40
  You just, I think they all just get lumped in.
• 1:06:42
  It's like, oh, it's the Kenyans or The Ethiopians.
• 1:06:44
  And what I've found really valuable is Hannah Barnstein,
• 1:06:48
  who is, you know, sort of an anthropologist but has also done
• 1:06:53
  some writing for Sidious and other outlets about Ethiopia and
• 1:06:58
  Ethiopian runners. She like speaks Amharic.
• 1:07:00
  And so she can actually say, Oh yeah, these two, you know, the
• 1:07:05
  husband coaches this person. There's like kind of a TIF
• 1:07:07
  between them or them out of the federation.
• 1:07:10
  A lot of those stories between some of the best runners in the
• 1:07:12
  world get missed because of the language gap.
• 1:07:15
  We don't have people sort of on the ground.
• 1:07:17
  So I think if you could sort of if someone could set up a niche
• 1:07:21
  sort of the go to reporter for Ethiopia or for Kenya, I'd
• 1:07:26
  certainly be interested in what they have to say.
• 1:07:28
  Yeah, because thinking of it now, it's very evident in the
• 1:07:32
  Western world. Like you've got all these pro
• 1:07:34
  teams from the different brands and it's apparent where they're
• 1:07:37
  based, you know who the coach is.
• 1:07:40
  But yeah, like you say, in that continent, it's a bit harder to
• 1:07:43
  reach and understand. Dan Wayne asks, we kind of
• 1:07:48
  touched on this as well. It's understandable that
• 1:07:50
  Americans stay in the US for majors due to appearance fees,
• 1:07:54
  equally with Europeans, EG and mail at London.
• 1:07:57
  Is this a good or a bad thing? And like, would it be
• 1:08:01
  interesting to see like months in Valencia or London and more
• 1:08:06
  Europeans go to America? I think it's generally a good
• 1:08:09
  thing because the fans of those specific races are going to be
• 1:08:13
  more invested in athletes from their own country.
• 1:08:16
  So, But I do think it's good every once in a while for these
• 1:08:21
  athletes to venture overseas and run in front of a new audience
• 1:08:25
  or run a different kind of style of race.
• 1:08:28
  I get why a lot of the Americans will run Boston and New York or
• 1:08:31
  Boston and Chicago over and over.
• 1:08:32
  But, you know, Boston with the times, it's not always going to
• 1:08:37
  be a fast year. And I think that's why I
• 1:08:38
  appreciate some of these Americans who just decide, hey,
• 1:08:41
  I'm forgoing the appearance fee, and I'm going to go over to
• 1:08:45
  Valencia and just try to hit a home run and see how good I can
• 1:08:49
  be. And I think, you know, we've
• 1:08:52
  seen a few of those. It happens every so often.
• 1:08:54
  But yeah, I think it's a pretty good mix for where it is right
• 1:08:57
  now. And as Dean touched on, our
• 1:08:59
  listeners are largely Australian, British and Irish
• 1:09:03
  based tutor the backgrounds of each of the hosts.
• 1:09:06
  So the Australian listeners would be keen to understand if
• 1:09:09
  there's any plans for Let's Run to get Down Under for Sydney
• 1:09:12
  this year. I don't think so.
• 1:09:15
  Because you mean the Sydney Marathon?
• 1:09:17
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Robert's not a fan of the
• 1:09:20
  expansion of the World Marathon Majors, so I don't think unless
• 1:09:24
  they bring in like Sawway and Helen O'berry and some of these
• 1:09:29
  very, very top athletes. And even then it's a it's an
• 1:09:32
  expensive trip to Sydney. So unfortunately I don't think
• 1:09:35
  that's going to be happening anytime soon.
• 1:09:38
  But I did love my time in Australia at World Cross Country
• 1:09:40
  in 2023. Have you seen on that that
• 1:09:44
  Melbourne have snagged Kip Jogi now?
• 1:09:46
  So Melbourne marathons kind of like one of those ones that sits
• 1:09:49
  a little bit below. It's a it's a strong domestic
• 1:09:52
  race, traditionally does not often international athletes.
• 1:09:55
  And now Kip Jogi is lining up. Yeah, I'm kind of curious what
• 1:09:59
  Kipchoge is going to do with this world tour of his, because
• 1:10:02
  when I was asking him about his management last year, they were
• 1:10:06
  sort of saying no, he's not retiring.
• 1:10:08
  Like he's still going to be running the elite sections, but
• 1:10:11
  is he really going to be training that hard?
• 1:10:14
  Like he's going to show up and run a 210 or is he going to try
• 1:10:17
  to run A206 or is he going to be running like 240?
• 1:10:20
  So I'm like morbidly fascinated by what is he actually going to
• 1:10:26
  do in all these races he's committed to for the next two
• 1:10:29
  years. Yeah, we'll find out.
• 1:10:32
  Dean, have you got any more questions for John?
• 1:10:34
  No, I think, no, I think we've covered everything.
• 1:10:38
  Come on my notes. I mean, yeah, fascinating
• 1:10:41
  conversation. I mean, we love following,
• 1:10:44
  following you guys. I mean, in terms of netting out
• 1:10:46
  on the sport, that's essentially what we like to do.
• 1:10:48
  And yeah, we've got, you know, we grow very fond of of you guys
• 1:10:53
  talking, like you say, talking once a week.
• 1:10:55
  And we consume a lot of YouTube content or your interviews.
• 1:10:58
  It's our way of following the sport and following the
• 1:11:00
  athletes. So yeah, on behalf of Ryan and
• 1:11:04
  Owen and I, and on behalf of our listeners, probably just owe you
• 1:11:07
  a big thanks because yeah, without, without your voices in
• 1:11:10
  the sport, it would be far less enjoyable.
• 1:11:14
  Oh, well, that's very kind of you to say Appreciate and had a
• 1:11:17
  great time talking with you guys.
• 1:11:18
  This is a lot of fun. Yeah, so now I just have to make
• 1:11:22
  sure that all of our episodes is Oh yeah, and John Galt said
• 1:11:26
  this. I got this from John Galts
• 1:11:27
  website. We need to.
• 1:11:31
  Do that every time, don't worry about it like once a while, I
• 1:11:34
  wouldn't mind. We do, we do, we do that we
• 1:11:38
  made. I'm I'm of the opinion that in
• 1:11:42
  this world, like sharing is caring.
• 1:11:44
  Like if people listen to one podcast and they enjoy it, it's
• 1:11:48
  it's not that they're then going to choose another podcast over
• 1:11:51
  that podcast. Like more opinions and different
• 1:11:54
  angles is better. Ultimately, you're a fan of
• 1:11:56
  running. So if someone's talking about
• 1:11:58
  running, you'll engage in multiple outlets.
• 1:12:00
  That doesn't need to be like different lanes that people swim
• 1:12:03
  in. All right, thanks John for your
• 1:12:06
  time. Really appreciate it of.
• 1:12:08
  Course. 3 mates, 1 mic, one come and go from 5 tapes to the
• 1:12:13
  marathon Rd. training. Talk to the outro. close is easy
• 1:12:16
  double every week. Runners talking way too deep
• 1:12:19
  here. Play lock in your part of the
• 1:12:21
  crew. This is easy double, welcome to
• 1:12:23
  you. This is easy double welcome to
• 1:12:31
  you. This is easy on shoes and carbon
• 1:12:41
  plates. Is it threshold or just steady
• 1:12:43
  pace? World champs trials.
• 1:12:44
  Who's in shape, who's peaking early, who's late to the gate?
• 1:12:47
  Stories from sessions that nearly broke us and races that
• 1:12:49
  taught us patients to focus serious goals.
• 1:12:52
  But we keep it light because run is better when it's shed, right?
• 1:12:55
  No egos, no smoke, just miles and true.
• 1:12:56
  From club runners up to the world class music you're
• 1:12:59
  chasing. Times are just chasing fun.
• 1:13:00
  You're already winning if you started the run.
• 1:13:03
  Easy double S longer miles of the commute Blues.
• 1:13:08
  We're right there running alongside you.
• 1:13:11
  Easy double same old crew Deanie join Ryan's walking the dude
• 1:13:14
  from the first warm up to the final bell.
• 1:13:16
  This is easy double and you're doing it well.
• 1:13:24
  This is easy double. Welcome to you.
• 1:13:28
  This is easy double and you're doing it well.
• 1:13:37
  Brain enough. Check.