A (5:03)

You're describing pain as mostly a mental process. What does that reveal about how much of struggle in work or life happens in our minds?

B (5:14)

It suggests that more of it happens in our minds than we think or are comfortable thinking. And that the thing that prevents us sometimes from doing stuff is more fear than actual physical realities. And again, some of the fear is good, right? You don't want to be completely fearless because then you like cross the street when it says don't walk and eventually you get run over. Right? And so the fear exists for reasons. If you're not afraid, you get eaten by bears. And so you have to learn to balance it and measure it. But I do think as a general principle, it does mean that a lot of what we think of as our limits or like our lack of capacity is more a fear signal than a true reality.

A (5:58)

Nick, you return to hard training and competitive running in middle age and you beat your best time from when you were a young man, as a middle aged man, something that surprised even you. How did that happen and how did that change the way you think about improvement and aging?

B (6:18)

Yeah, so it happened when I was 44, I ran my fastest marathon. And then at 46, I ran probably my best race. It was when I set the American record in the 50k. And then at 50, so earlier this spring, I ran maybe also my best race. I ran the world leading time for my age in the 50 mile. And you know, the simple answers are I got some coaches, I got these elite coaches who really figured out my psychology. They got me to eat better, diet, you know, drink beet juice. Like not don't just avoid bad foods, but seek out the healthiest ones. They had me running better structured workouts. They had me running a little more per week. That's part of it. Some of it was I had had a mental block about going really fast. I had run 10 years of marathons at all the same time. 2 hours 43 minutes, you know, 2 hours 42, 44, 45, but just about the same time. And I had a mental block about going faster. I didn't think I could. I think that was tied up into the fact that I had run my first one and then I gotten quite sick and then I'd run another one. And so it was a way, it was breaking through that mental block. And then I also think it was partly about my father died. And running was a way to mourn him and understand him. He had been a man who always sort of taught ambition and setting bigger goals. And also a man who set a lot of counter examples for my life. And so those factors combined led me to run much faster. There is a really good lesson that extends well beyond running, which is that if you have a challenge or you have a thing that you want to be better at and age is making you worse at it, I think maybe it's your memory, maybe it's your deadlift, right? Maybe it's the way you play chess. Who knows? Maybe it's tennis. You can use age and wisdom and you can use new skills to get better at it and to counter it. Like, time is a moving sidewalk that moves us backwards, but if we're smart and we can walk forward on that faster than we go, decline. And so my favorite example of this is my mother, who, 77 years old this summer and we're hanging out at her house and she says, oh, you know, my reflexes are terrible and they're getting worse by the day. And I don't know, they're just going to keep getting worse. I was like, mom, no. If you're worried about your reflexes, improve your reflexes. And so we go out on the porch and, like, toss her tennis balls and bounce them and make her step to the side. And the point I was trying to make to her is, whatever you're worried about, yeah, of course, you're 77. There's like a. Your reflexes are going to get worse. My reflexes are getting worse, too. But if it's something you care about and something you don't want to lose, you can push back against the forces of time.

A (8:43)

You write about those rare moments when focus itself becomes freedom, when the effort feels effortless and everything clicks. How do you reach that flow state in work and life?

B (8:58)

Oh, man, I wish I knew, right? Because part of what makes it so magical is that you don't exactly know when you're going to reach it. So in running, it's very easy to describe, right? Like, or not easy, but I don't reach it that many times a year. But you go out and you run like 12 miles or 14 miles, and every time your watch beeps to say you've run a mile, you're like a few seconds faster than you thought. There's like a red line you can cross in running where once you start crossing it, hydrogen ions start to build up. Like, sort of bad stuff starts to accumulate. But if you can, like, really train your fitness, you can run like right on the edge of that line, right? And so Technically, like sports physiologists call it your lactic acid threshold or your lactate threshold. And, like, for me, when I'm fit, it's like five minutes and 50 seconds per mile. And so if I'm out there and I'm running like a 5:52, a 5:53, you can go out there, you just feel like you can run forever, right? It feels so good because you're going fast, and it's great. And it's, like, particularly nice if it's a kind of a blustery day or it's like a little cold or, you know, you're out in a beautiful place. Like, you're out on a country road, and you can just reach this amazing flow state. And there's also a flow state you can reach and work where you can get it in writing. You know, there are times when I was writing this book, took five years to write this book because I've got this job as CEO, and it wasn't really spending that much time writing it, but where I would start to write. And, like, you didn't want it to ever stop, right? Like, oh, my God, I'm getting so much done. It's so great. It's so great. And then eventually it stops and you're like, oh, man, now I've got writer's block confused. I just wrote something terrible. I know exactly how to reach it. I know I'm more likely to reach it in the morning. I know I'm more likely to reach it when it's quiet. I kind of know, like, the few things I can do that increase the odds that I reach it. But, you know, sometimes when you're running, I'm like, I'm going to go run 12 miles and I'm going to reach that flow state. You go out and you run that first mile and you're like, oh, God, sick of my stomach. So it's not an on off button.

A (10:46)

As a boy, you wanted to run like an adult. Now you want to run like a child.

B (10:53)

I like that. You like that sentence. That's great.

A (10:56)

I love that sentence. What does that reveal about rediscovering joy and wonder as we age?

B (11:03)

It's like one of these incredible things where when we're young, we want the wisdom of the old person. When we're old, we want the joy of the youthful person. And it's great to try to. There are different stages in life. You have to behave differently. You have different responsibilities, but to be able to whole things, you know? So when I was young, I wanted to, like, I'm gonna be strong. I wanted to, like, I wanted to grow into my body. I wasn't as tall as I am now. I wasn't as strong as I was at my peak. Like, I wanted to like, grow, right? I wanted to be a man. And now as I'm old, I want to like, recapture some of the joy that I had as a young runner, right? Like the joy of the discovery, like the first time I ran up a mountain, what that felt like the joy of running when I was 6 or 7 years old. And so I capture and hold on to those memories. And my kids, I'm hoping we're making those memories. Like, we're going and we're running together. They're having a beautiful time. They're learning about speed, they're learning about effort, they're learning about training. And I hope they hold those memories when they're old and when they, like my 11 year old son and I went and we, I guess we walked to the gym and then we ran home. We worked out for an hour lifting weights and doing stuff. And then he, like just ran home and it was so beautiful, like running. He runs so quickly, so gracefully. You can tell he enjoys it just like running through the streets of Brooklyn. And I hope he holds onto that when he's like, when he's 50.

A (12:16)

How do you hold onto that? How do you rediscover that childlike joy?

B (12:22)

You know, sometimes it just comes to you. They're places that are cemented in my memory. Places where I had like beautiful runs when I was a kid. And they're mostly in New England, but they're not all, you know, I grew up in Boston. I went to Andover, so, like the Andover Bird Sanctuary. So if I'm ever in an environment that like reminds me of the Andover Bird Sanctuary, you know, with the leaves, the rolling hills, the streams, like that tight turn, that kind of steep downhill, the up with the pond on the left. You know, and like, you can kind of trigger those memories. Running up Kinsman Mountain, up in Franconia Notch, if I go out in my run in the White Mountains, like, I remember, you know, the beautiful summers of doing that when I run an Acadia national park, right? So it's partly like place and sense and feeling. So those trigger these memories. And they're probably like memories that are buried deep that I can't remember from places where I had amazing runs that, you know, I'll rediscover at some point when I go out. It's less strong out in California. My running was, like, less positive when I was in college. But sometimes I'll go out there and I'll go into, like, a eucalyptus grove and I'll just be like, wow, this is amazing. So it's partly about place and sensory and, like, Proustian memories and, you know, the Madeline triggering, like, the memory of your mother or the memory of these runs. So it's partly that and then it's also partly just forcing it, right? Like, when I'm stressed, like, okay, just release. Forget about. Like, forget about. Like, even if I'm running, like, I'm running down Canal street and I'm stressed, I try to transpose myself into the end over bird sanctuary.

A (13:47)

Before I ask for the three takeaways, the three life lessons you'd like to leave the audience with today, is there anything else you'd like to mention, Nick? What? Should I have asked you that I did not?

B (14:00)

You should ask me what the title of the book means.

A (14:03)

Okay. What does the title of the book mean?

B (14:07)

The book is about running in life and my father. And for a long time the book was called run for your life. Which is fine, right? It's like. It's cute, but it's pretty generic. Any single runner could write their memoir and have it be called run for your life. And, you know, I was discouraged for years that that was the best I could come up with. And I tried to find others. And I was up in the Catskills, and I had on my wall a prince that my father had given me as payback for a loan. Part of the book is about my father's descent into madness and fiscal irresponsibility. And it's a quote from Maximus of Tyr, the Roman philosopher that was turned into a print by Ben Shahn. And in it it's just this wonderful paragraph about finding love and meaning and objects that we sort of consider God but aren't. And it says, you know, yearning for the knowledge of him. And in our weakness, naming all that is beautiful in this world after his nature, just as happens to earthly lovers. To them, the most beautiful sight will be the actual lineaments of the beloved. But for remembrance sake, they'll be happy in the sight of a liar, a little spear, a chair perhaps, or a running ground, or anything in the world that wakens the memory of the beloved. Why should I further examine and pass judgment? Images. Let men know what is divine. Let them know that is all. The Greek is stirred to the remembrance of God by the art of Faedas, an Egyptian by pain worshiped Animals. Another man by a river, another by fire. I have no anger for their divergences. Only let them know, let them love, let them remember. And I had looked at that and I had had it on my wall, and I had never noticed that, like, one of the things it talks about is a running ground, you know, an old Greek track. And so I saw that and I was like, my God, there's the title. And so that's why it's called the Running Ground.

A (15:48)

That is a beautiful quote. Nick, what are the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today?

B (15:56)

I do think that the thing we talked about with pain is extremely important. I do think remembering that pain can be an illusion. I do think that the simplicity of running is a really beautiful thing. And that even if you're not a runner, even if you're just, you know, like, you like to walk or even if you go out in a wheelchair, one of the things that you can do is just go out and meditate, go run a mile or half a mile or around the block and, like, just think about what you smell or what you hear or what you see, just one at a time. And then I guess the third thing is the sometimes focus, sometimes lock in and sometimes dissociate and just think you're a child. And I think that's a really good strategy for, you know, when things get hard in life.

A (16:40)

Nick, thank you for joining three Takeaways today and for your wonderful book, the Running Ground. I loved it.

B (16:48)

Oh, I'm so glad. Thank you so much, Lynn. It was an absolute pleasure to talk and thank you for being so kind about the book.

A (16:54)

If you're enjoying the podcast, and I really hope you are, please review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps get the word out. If you're interested, you can also sign up for the Three Takeaways newsletter at 3takeaways.com, where you can also listen to previous episodes. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, X Instagram and Facebook. I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is three Takeaways. Thanks for listening.