Episode 497: Nick Thompson: How Running 100 Miles Taught Him to Run a $13 Billion Media Empire

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Habits and Hustle
Host: Jen Cohen
Guest: Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic
Episode: 497 – "Nick Thompson: How Running 100 Miles Taught Him to Run a $13 Billion Media Empire"
Date: October 28, 2025

This episode features Nicholas Thompson, celebrated CEO of The Atlantic, author, accomplished ultramarathoner and American record holder for the 50k in his age group (45+), and now memoirist with his new book The Running Ground. Jen and Nick dive into the intersection of endurance running, leadership, personal growth, habit formation, and navigating complex family and career dynamics. They explore how Nick’s running journey, father-son relationship, and executive roles have informed each other, revealing deeper truths about resilience, grit, and what truly drives performance—in sport and in life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Running as Metaphor and Catalyst for Life

• Early Years and Family Bonding

  • Nick started running at age 5 with his father during the late 70s/early 80s “running boom” ([02:35]-[03:35]).
  • Running became a means for his father to cope with personal turmoil and, for Nick, a source of fascination and emotional bonding ([03:06]-[05:20]).
  • The early impact: “His life after that is quite chaotic … but at that point, he’s still able to hold it together. And so he’s running. He’s running a marathon. It’s just kind of enough to keep him going.” —Nick ([04:40])

• The Microcosm of Running

  • Jen draws the parallel: “Running is like a microcosm for life.” ([07:27])
  • Nick: “The goal of the book is to show how it can be that it is a microcosm.” ([07:35])
  • Fitness routines, especially running, teach perseverance, grit, and coping—soft skills that translate into other life domains ([08:41]-[09:34]).

• Self-Discovery and Spiritual Growth

  • In high school, after being cut from several sports teams, running provided needed confidence and new social acceptance ([10:03]-[11:45]).
  • Nick developed an understanding that running’s value evolved over time: initially for confidence, then self-transcendence, and later as meditation and “release” amid demanding media jobs ([21:18]-[24:42]).

• Resilience, Consistency, and Habit

  • Running reinforced lessons such as the value of daily practice, enduring discomfort, and not procrastinating—lessons Nick credits for success in his executive roles ([26:21]-[27:54]; [28:48]-[29:35]).
  • “You learn that consistent practice gets you better… And then you learn, like, consistent practice is actually hard…there’s always a reason not to run, but once you commit to it, then you learn to get past those reasons.” —Nick ([26:21])

Mental Models and Performance: Breaking Self-Limitations

• Plateau and Breakthrough

  • Nick plateaued at a 2:43 marathon for ten years, then dropped to 2:29 at age 44, realizing that much of his limitation was mental ([05:34]-[06:47]).
  • “So much of it is up here, right? So much of it is the limits you put on yourself. And it was that realization that made me want to write the book…” —Nick ([06:49])

• Training Philosophies

  • Variety in training shoes to distribute orthopedic stress ([16:38]-[17:19]).
  • Use of “mind games” and reframing during ultramarathons: shifting from clock-watching to childlike joy to cope with fatigue and uncertainty ([43:45]-[45:53]).
  • “I’m just going to think I’m a kid running in the woods… I’m no longer racing.” —Nick ([44:37])

• The Mind During Extreme Performance

  • During ultras and record attempts, Nick uses mantras, micro-goals (run to the next tree), and dissociation to manage pain and maintain focus ([45:55]-[48:03]).

Physical and Lifestyle Components

• Body, Nutrition, Injury, and Cross-Training

  • Nick attributes robust injury resistance partly to body mechanics and Alexander Technique, plus active play with his children ([13:21]-[16:07]; [50:30]-[52:19]).
  • Diet: Pescatarian focused on whole grains, greens, legumes, good carbs ([54:47]-[55:14]).
  • He stresses that recreational strength and cross-training can come from active play, supporting joint health and injury resistance ([50:30]-[52:19]).

• Balancing Ambition and Wellbeing

  • Reflection on the dangers of over-obsession, body image, and sport-induced self-centeredness ([31:39]-[33:06]; [76:24]-[78:15]).
  • The risk of extreme leanness being pushed in elite running, especially for women, and the mental health ramifications ([77:14]-[80:14]).

The Atlantic: Media Leadership, Strategy, and "SignalGate"

• Transforming The Atlantic

  • The Atlantic has grown from 800,000 to 1.35M subscribers under Nick’s leadership ([55:43]-[56:51]).
  • Main focus has been building a smart subscription model and allowing editorial independence: “Hire the best journalists... Have them write the stories they think are the absolute best. And then we will try to get people to subscribe to read those stories. And that model has worked fantastically.” —Nick ([57:58]-[58:27])
  • Business/tech acumen paired with an editorial sensibility made Nick a fit for CEO, bridging product and content ([58:44]-[59:25]).

• The 'SignalGate' Scoop

  • The Atlantic broke a major story when its editor-in-chief, Jeff Goldberg, was accidentally added to a classified Signal group chat among White House officials ([61:16]-[66:09]).
  • Nick explains the likely sequence of events and why Goldberg’s careful handling of the scoop—verifying, exiting the chat, calling officials, withholding classified detail—reflected journalistic integrity and benefited the publication ([62:00]-[66:19]).
  • “He does everything exactly the way a reporter is supposed to do it. And so the story ends up reflecting really well on us.” —Nick ([65:53])

Father-Son Dynamics and The Running Ground Book

• The Complex Story of Nick’s Father
  • Nick’s father, an eccentric, brilliant, but troubled man, lived a wild life that included breaking barriers as an openly gay Republican in the 1980s, but also spent years in chaos and estrangement ([39:06]-[41:06]).
  • The book entwines running and the personal reckoning with his father: “He always loved me…that’s the first thing you should ask for from a parent. So I forgave him a lot.” ([41:06])
  • The memoir’s structure evolved from marathon physiology “stages” to interwoven personal stories, runner profiles, and philosophical themes ([42:53]-[43:26]).
  • “The main message of the book is that running can be a wonderful psychological force in your life and it can be a way for you to understand yourself, to understand others around you and to build habits that are great for the rest of your life.” —Nick ([36:52])

Notable Runner Stories Featured in the Book

• Tony Ruiz: Coach who overcame heroin addiction through running ([29:51])
• Michael Westphall: Fastest Parkinson’s marathoner
• Super Beckford: Ran (and won) a 3,100-mile race in Queens, NY, nine times in a row for “intense self-transcendence” ([29:51])
• Julia Lucas: Elite runner battling injury and homelessness, who missed the Olympics by 0.1 seconds ([80:35]-[82:39])

Fun Anecdotes & Insights

• Dvorak keyboard as security hack ([13:46]-[14:49])
• Nick’s accidental cross-training via roughhousing with his three sons ([50:30]-[52:19])
• A friendship with Stalin’s daughter, chronicled in the New Yorker ([83:16]-[84:57])
• The search for “Mostly Harmless”—an enigmatic hiker and Wired feature story ([85:00]-[87:23])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mental limits and performance:

  • “So much of it is up here, right? So much of it is the limits you put on yourself.” —Nick ([06:49])

• On marathoning vs. business:

  • “The most important lesson is the benefit of consistent daily practice… Once you commit to it, then you learn to get past those reasons and you learn that you should just do it in the time available. And that’s a really good habit for your job.” —Nick ([26:21])

• On self-knowledge through running:

  • “It’s a way of spurring a creative process in your head. As you observe yourself … you think more deeply about yourself and you think more deeply about your place in the world.” —Nick ([37:40])

• On the Atlantic’s journalistic philosophy:

  • “Hire the best journalists in the world... have them write the stories they think are the absolute best. And then we will try to get people to subscribe to read those stories.” —Nick ([58:02])

• On interpersonal sacrifice and family:

  • “Running has never been the most important thing in my life. It’s always been something I’ve put a lot of time and effort into, but it’s always had a place.” —Nick ([34:59])

• On fatherhood and forgiveness:

  • “He always loved me. That’s the first thing you should ask for from a parent. So I forgave him a lot.” —Nick ([41:06])

• On extreme endurance and longevity (Trump’s ‘heartbeat’ theory):

  • “He has this theory that humans have a fixed number of heartbeats. And so the trick is to not use those heartbeats up… Now, I disagree with this hypothesis.” —Nick ([69:21])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:07 – Nick’s introduction: running records and book origins
• 02:25 – Early running with his father; first marathon memories
• 05:34 – Cancer, plateauing at marathon times, the realization that changed his performance
• 09:34 – Discovering running again after sports setbacks in high school
• 13:21 – Injury prevention, Alexander Technique, and cross-training with kids
• 16:38 – Shoe selection strategies for performance and injury avoidance
• 21:18 – Running for confidence, then spiritual/meditative value
• 26:21 – Consistent practice lessons from running applied to life and work
• 29:51 – Brief stories of runners overcoming life obstacles (book content)
• 31:39 – Potential downsides and self-centeredness in running
• 39:06 – Relationship with his father and origins of The Running Ground
• 43:45 – Mind games and psychological strategies in ultramarathon running
• 48:28 – How Nick’s training evolved to break through performance plateaus
• 50:30 – Cross-training, kids, and active lifestyle approaches
• 54:47 – Diet and nutrition philosophy for performance and health
• 55:43 – The Atlantic’s subscriber growth, strategy, and editorial approach
• 61:16 – “SignalGate”: accidental inclusion of Jeff Goldberg in a classified Signal chat, and its journalistic handling
• 80:35 – Julia Lucas story: missing the Olympic team by a fraction, lessons on resilience and identity

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Conclusion

This episode masterfully intertwines the rigors and revelations of extreme running with the demands of running a venerable media organization. Through candid stories, reflective wisdom, and the revealing narratives in his book The Running Ground, Nicholas Thompson and Jen Cohen explore how discipline, resilience, habit, and deep self-understanding pay dividends—whether on the trails, in family life, or at the helm of a $13 billion media empire. Listeners leave with a nuanced appreciation of the interplay between the physical, mental, and ethical dimensions of achievement, and are reminded that—whatever the domain—consistent practice, grit, and an open mind are the common ingredients of growth and success.

Transcript

[A]

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

[B]

Okay, you guys, Nick Thompson is on the show today. Nick is the CEO of the Atlantic. He is the fastest. Well, he's actually a record holder. The fastest runner of his age group of 50. Of the. Of 50K. Right. Or say it, say it nicer than I did.

[A]

I'm. I'm the American record holder in the 50k for guys 45 up and I'm the top ranked in the world for guys 45 up this year in the 50 mile.

[B]

Kind of complicated, but you see, it's like a tongue twister.

[A]

It's a little bit. It's a little confusing.

[B]

He's basically the fastest man in the world in his age category for 50k.

[A]

Right. Kind of like weird races for like ultra marathons.

[B]

And don't forget also he is now the author of the Running Ground.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which is a memoir slash running book on. And that's actually been like. Has a lot of life lessons, business lessons, which is why I like it.

[A]

I hope so.

[B]

And. And he's on the show today. So. By the way, how we do this show is we start with a magic mind healthy shot. Because I don't. I'm not a drinker and I'm sure you're not either, given what you do for fun. So this is basically a bunch of like yummy good stuff for you. Like ashwagandha. Ashwagandha. I can never say that. Ashwagandha. I've said that so many times today. You can look at the ingredients if you'd like, but it's basically a performance shot. So what you really should be doing is taking one of these before you do one of your big runs. And it'll keep you super focused and keep you your. It'll keep your mind right.

[A]

I'm all in favor of red beet. I'm all in favor of olive oil. I'm all in favor of everything in this.

[B]

It's really great ingredients and I'm telling. And it tastes delicious.

[A]

Turmeric, lion's mane. It's good stuff.

[B]

It's really good. No, no, it's like really good.

[A]

Take it right now.

[B]

Yeah. And we just go. Cheers. And then we do them down the hatchet. I've had a lot today, so I.

[A]

Ate all of it at the same time.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. They're good though, right?

[A]

Delicious.

[B]

Yeah, they're super good. I can give you some to take home.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

They're delicious. So thanks. Magic mind. All right, so now let Me ask you a question. So you wrote this book. Like I said, it's kind of a hybrid book. It's not just like a straight on, like how to run. It really is kind of. This is just like the. The galley, but it's really about like the book of how you running kind of bonded you and your father together, right?

[A]

Yeah, that's a large part of it.

[B]

It is a large part of it. So what was your first running experience and like, what kind of. Obviously running had a massive impact on your life?

[A]

It sure did. I started running, weirdly when I was about five years old. And my father. This was the running boom of the late 1970s, early 1980s. And my dad, whose life was coming apart in complicated ways, was running, trying to hold his life together. And so he's starting to train for a marathon and I would go and run with him. And I remember running a mile when I was with him. I think might have even run two miles, which is a lot for a five year old.

[B]

You're five.

[A]

I remember running from my house to Pine Manor College and back, which is two and a half miles.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And it couldn't have been older than five. Cause he left when I was six. So that was my introduction to the sport. And then in the 1982, when I was seven, he ran the New York Marathon and I went and watched him. And so some of the book is the description of my emotions and feelings as I watched him coming down the Queensborough Bridge or coming off the Queensborough bridge at mile 16 of the new York Marathon.

[B]

Wow. So describe what that felt like. You said your daughter. Your father left.

[A]

Yeah, so my father left. I didn't understand it at the time. I just knew he was there and then he wasn't there. And he's going through all of this turmoil. So he's a very interesting character. He grows up, you know, kind of grows up sort of poor. Not poor, but like kind of on the wrong side of the tr. America. He grows up in Oklahoma. Boone, Oklahoma, on an Indian reservation. His father's high status on the Indian reservation. He's been a missionary. He'd come, worked, was then president of the college. My father grows up and he, you know, he doesn't really get along with his dad. His dad is this big, masculine Golden Gloves guy from out here, California. And my dad eventually escapes, right? And he's like, I can't handle it here in Oklahoma. And he gets a scholarship to Phillips Andover and then to Stanford and then to Oxford. Oxford. He marries my mother's Family. He's like, in this prominent family in Washington. But his career doesn't really work out. John F. Kennedy says he's gonna be president, but, like, my dad just doesn't work out for my dad. Right. And he starts drinking too much, and then he realizes he's gay and that he's been hiding his sexuality his whole life. And so that's right about 1980, 1981. So he realized that after I'm born, obviously.

[B]

Obviously, yeah. I guess I kind of figured that one out. Right.

[A]

And so it's this hinge point in his life when he's 40 years old and he's like, his. His head, it's all just turmoil. And his life after that is quite chaotic, deeply chaotic, which we can get into. But at that point, he's still able to hold it together. And so he's running. He's running a marathon. It's just kind of enough to keep him going. And so for me, my memory is just absolute fascination with watching my father run. This love emanating from him, this excitement. Just missed breaking three hours, which was such a cool goal. And I have this vivid memory. He ran like. I think it was like 3 hours and 50 seconds. I was like, well, why didn't he just sprint? Right. Well, actually, that's quite. Quite a big distance, you know?

[B]

Right.

[A]

So that's what I remember from the race.

[B]

So, like, when you decided to write this book, here you are. You. You obviously gleaned so many lessons from running. What would you say the number. The biggest lesson that running has taught you for life.

[A]

Yeah. So the. I mean, the. The biggest. Then why don't I start with the realization that. Let me write the book. Which is. Which is quite related to your question. And so when I was about 30, I ran a marathon. I ran a lot of marathons in my 20s and tried to break three hours and couldn't. When I was 30, I ran a marathon at 2:43, which is very good. And then right afterwards, I got cancer. And then it took me two years to really get back at it. And I ran another marathon at 2:43. And then for the next 10 years, I ran, like, I don't know, 15 marathons. I pretty much ran them all at 2:43. It's pretty weird, right? From age 30 to 40, you should be slowing or you should be doing.

[B]

Something at the same speed on top of it.

[A]

Same speed, like always,243. And then in my 40s, I get way better, right. And I run a 229 at age 44, which is completely different, right? Unless you're a marathoner, you don't really know the difference between those times. But 243 to 229 is. It's a step change, right? It's a big difference. And I was thinking after I ran that 229, like, what? Like, why. Why did I run? How did I get so much faster? And. And I remember the day and I was running across the Brooklyn Bridge, and I had this realization, you know what? I hadn't run faster because all I had wanted to do was to run as fast as I had been before I got sick.

[B]

Right, you got sick before 30, right? Or.

[A]

Yeah, I got sick before 30. So I had run 2:43, got sick, recovered, and then ran 2:43 over and over and over and over and over and over again. And I kind of had this realization, so I was like, okay, wow. So what determines how fast you run is your body. It's how strong your calf muscles are and your VO2 max and all that stuff. But so much of it is up here, right? So much of it is the limits you put on yourself. And it was that realization that made me want to write the book, to understand more about what slowed me down, what sped me up, what slowed my father down, what sped him up. And then to look at the lives of other runners to understand what the sport could teach about the hard things in their lives.

[B]

I feel like running is like a microcosm for life.

[A]

Yeah, right. There you go. That's. See, she just written the blurb on the back of the book.

[B]

I know.

[A]

That's the goal, right? That's like. The goal of the book is to show how it can be that it is a microcosm.

[B]

The reason why I had you on the podcast today was because I feel the same way about overall, just fitness, exercise. I think the lessons, the life lessons, the soft skills that people learn by doing these hard things over and over again is like. It is. It's teaching you how to have grit and coping mechanisms and be successful in every other aspect of your life. And so I think fitness is like a microcosm for life. And I think especially running, because running, there's a real mental game with it. I run every day. I don't know if I told you that. Not 100 miles like you, but I hate running. I hate running more than anything on the planet. I really do. And that is why I do it every day, because it will. It constantly instills in my brain that I can do a Hard thing. If I can do this today, I've accomplished something I can do, you know, I can do it again tomorrow. And there's nothing that clears my mind and keeps me on point better than running. There's nothing. There's no other cardio. There's no other thing in the world. And like, I believe there's a straight line between people who are runners and people who are like super successful in business, in life and everything else. I really do.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, and that's part of the thesis of the book that because running is so simple.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's you, it's your shoes, it's the road. Right. You can do it any day, anywhere. It's your thoughts. You're alone in your head. Right. And so you get deep into your head while you run. And you can also understand yourself because there's no racket, there's no ball, there's no. There's nothing else. There's no water. Right. It's just you out there. And so the simplicity of it kind of opens up the complexity of human understanding and habit formation and all the things that you were just talking about.

[B]

So is that so? Walk me through your life. Like you. You were running with your dad. Obviously you saw him like. So did something kind of like tweak in your brain where like your neuros. Like, did your nerve like, did something. Your neuro. Plot. Like neurons in your brain kind of become addicted to running because you saw what it was doing for yourself, your life outside. Did you realize the endorphins? Like, what kind of. Was that moment where you be felt like you became a runner?

[A]

That's a hard question, actually. So. Because it happens really. It really happens maybe three different times. And so it happens when I'm five, right. And I think of myself as a runner, but I stop. Right. My dad moves away and I run with him occasionally, but I wasn't a runner. And then in high school I'm. I play soccer, basketball, tennis, and I get cut from the basketball team. Right. My sophomore year in high school, I show up at this new school, sophomore year, and I get cut and I get cut from the varsity, which I think I'm gonna make. And then I get cut from the jv. Pretty embarrassing. And then I get cut from the JV too. Right. Like, that's pretty hard to do.

[B]

You're not really a good basketball player is what you're trying to tell me or the crowd.

[A]

Yeah, I thought I was pretty good, but clearly not. Right?

[B]

Right. Other people were maybe a little bit Slightly better.

[A]

Yeah. There are definitely players who, I mean, I still, I should have made that JV2 team. I mean, I will stand by this. But no, I wasn't, I wasn't good. And so the only sport you could do was track. And so I started to do track and I discovered I was good. Right. And then that gave me confidence. I was in a new school. It's a hard school. I wasn't doing very well. I wasn't that socially accepted. But. But then suddenly, you know, in a month or two, I'm a track star and suddenly I'm cool.

[B]

Cause you were fast. I was fast. So can I ask you a question? Because when you walked in here, I'm like, oh, of course you have the body type to make a good runner. You know, there is a genetic component, I do believe, I mean, to becoming an ultra marathoner. Like it. If you are kind of like more voluptuous, I feel more athletic. It's very hard because it's like the people that do the best, they have very, like, they're very narrow hips, they're very, their, their body types are a certain way. So do you feel that you just naturally were like, you're, you were built to be. If you're going to be doing a sport, I'm not surprised. It's running. You're built to be a runner.

[A]

Yeah, I definitely. To those of you who are not watching the audio version, I am a skinny guy.

[B]

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. You're a skinny person. Yes, you're very. But you're also. Looks like you're. Were you always just very genetically thin?

[A]

I wasn't as thin as I am now. You know, probably weighed a bit more when I was, when I was that age. But yeah, clearly when I show up on the track team, the coach looks at me and he's not gonna say, go do the shot putter.

[B]

Right? Right, right. Or go do wrestling or whatever. Yeah.

[A]

And you know, like, clearly this kid should be running the distances. Right. Maybe the mile, maybe the two mile. But he's not gonna be a sprinter, he's not gonna be a shot putter. He's not gonna be a long jumper. Yeah. So I'm physically built to be a long distance runner. Right. And probably to a degree that you don't even appreciate. Part of it is my size, but I have other genetic advantages. It turns out that I'm reasonably durable. It turns out that I have a reasonably high, efficient cardiovascular system. And running is this very weird sport where, you know, it's power times efficiency divided by mass. And I have, like, low mass. Right, right. And so you can have, like, relatively, you know, your power and efficiency, you can compensate by having low mass.

[B]

Do you find it harder to run as you get older because of your. Just because it's so hard in your body? Like, I won't even do a marathon.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I find that the pounding on your joints can be really hard. Hard.

[A]

You know, I'm extremely fortunate in that I've had almost no injuries in running, which is very rare and surprising.

[B]

Because your body type.

[A]

Because my body type. Then I also have this wonderful thing that happened, kind of weird, which is that I was a musician in my 20s. I was a guitarist, and I had really debilitating wrist pain. I played a very, like, physical kind of guitar.

[B]

Right, okay.

[A]

And when I was about 24, 25, I was playing in New York City. Subways. Played all the time. Right. Played all these concerts in New York. And I just couldn't move my wrist. I couldn't, like, open the door. I couldn't, like, brush my teeth. And I tried all these different things. I tried injections. I used to. In fact, I rekeyed my keyboard so that the letters are kind of closer together. I still type that way, which is, like, a very nice security hack. Like, when I give my laptop to someone, they always get confused.

[B]

Wow. I never would ever think to do that.

[A]

It's so cool. It's called the Dvorak keyboard. It makes you type more quickly, but it also means less strain on your fingers. Anyway, that's not an.

[B]

Anyway, that's like, a great thing to know. That's a.

[A]

It's awesome.

[B]

And where do you even get that from?

[A]

So you can just change your software. Like, you can go into your computer right there and just change keyboard layout to Dvorak and then all the letters will be different. Right. Because the initial keyboard was set up to kind of slow you down so that the keys on old typewriters don't jam. Like, look at your keyboard. The letters make no sense.

[B]

They don't. Right? Yeah.

[A]

Right. Like, letters you don't use are in the middle of the keyboard where your index fingers go.

[B]

This is crazy. Yeah.

[A]

It's so dumb and it's so annoying once you're aware of it. Right. There's no logic to it whatsoever. So this thing called the Dvorak keyboard puts the letters you use the most and the patterns you use the most in the simplicity. So I type. It's like this. When most people type, it's like, right?

[B]

That's so true. What a great thing to like that. So Prike saves you a lot of time.

[A]

I mean, how much time it saves you, but saves you a little bit of time. And it is a good security hack, right? Like somebody steals my laptop and starts typing away, they'll just. Unless they know how to. Well, now I've given away my secret, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Do you have a lot of thieves who listen to your podcast?

[B]

I think maybe. I don't know. I can make sure I edit this part out.

[A]

Anyway, so back to the injury. So I did all these like crazy things trying to make it better. And then I went and saw someone who teaches the Alexander technique. And you know, it's a training of posture training for actors and musicians. And he says, bring your guitar. And I bring my guitar. And he watches me play and he's like, well, this will be easy. And then he just adjusts the way I hold my feet and the way I hold my head and the way I hold my wrist when I play guitar. And then this two years of agony goes away in like weeks, right? Almost immediately I can feel a difference. Like, my wrist no longer hurts. So suddenly I've learned this way of holding my body that makes this injury go away. And so now that was 25 years ago. Anytime I start to hurt, right? Like I had a. I just did a big race afterwards. I had a little tendonitis in my knee. I. I suddenly have a way of holding my body to increase energy flow, increase balance, that makes me hurt less. And so when I run, my posture is very much based on Alexander technique. And I'm convinced that that and the general practice of learning how to like release muscle tension that came from this guitar injury has prevented me or helped prevent me from having injury problems as I've gotten older. Now that said, I'll probably like break my ankle tomorrow.

[B]

I know. Don't even say that. What shoes do you wear?

[A]

I wear all kinds of different running shoes. I ran my last one in, I guess I ran the ultra in the Nike Ultra Flies. I did my last 50 mile.

[B]

You were in Nikes in. You were actual Nikes when you did like an ultra marathon trail?

[A]

Nikes?

[B]

No, but Nikes, it's kind of known to be like a nice looking shoe, but not really a performance based shoe.

[A]

Well, the Vapor Flies and the Ultra Flies, they have the performance shoes. And I Wore the Puma R3s in the last 50 mile. I wore New Balances in the race before.

[B]

I would, I would think you were an A6 or a new Balance kind of person because they're more broad. Brooks even?

[A]

No, I alternate shoes a lot. And I alternate shoes because it changes the tension and pressure it puts on your body, right? So if you wear, like, you know, you know, I don't know, high lift in the heel, right? Like, you know, lots of cushioning under there, maybe it puts more pressure on your Achilles and maybe less on your knee. And what you want to do is you want to alternate the amount of pressure. And so I actually think you should wear as many different kinds of shoes as you can during a training cycle, but you should be very particular about the ones you race in. And so I do a lot of data analysis to figure out what shoes I should race in on a particular course on a particular day. But when I'm training, I vary it a ton.

[B]

That's a really good. That's actually a great tip. So what are your top shoes to train in?

[A]

So for what? Kind of like just for around the day?

[B]

No, like, just to. If you're just. Yeah, for a few miles around the day. A few miles? Yeah. So three or four miles a day.

[A]

I've been wearing the Puma Nitros. I think they're, like, a very good pair. You know, the Puma R3s, fast R3s are what I. What I raced in. I think the Nike Pegasus and the Nike Vomeros are really good training shoes. And then I use the Vapor flies for road races and the Ultra flies for trail races. I use on shoes for, you know, regular running. The cloud booms, I think, are very cool. I've run in hokas.

[B]

You like hokas?

[A]

Sure. Yeah, totally. So, like, I ran in the Rockets. They're cool.

[B]

How about you? How about the idea of do wear orthotics or anything like that?

[A]

No.

[B]

Is it because you think that they're not good for your feet? Because it, like, it's put your foot into a weirder position or. Because that's what a lot of my. A lot of my friends have been telling me that I should be getting out of orthotics and just wear, you know, even bear. Go barefoot and, like, do stuff barefoot.

[A]

So you should. I do think you should do some stuff barefoot. I don't think you should ever run, like, on a road barefoot.

[B]

No, not on a road. Okay.

[A]

There was this. There was this moment, like, 15 years ago, and everybody's running barefoot, and then they. It was like, great for like, a week. And then they all stepped on nails, right?

[B]

No, no, no. I Was gonna say, how about even like walking on a treadmill with bare feet?

[A]

Yeah, that's great. So I think that's good, and I think it's good spiritually and I think it's good physically, right? I think it strengthens your ankles, it strengthens your toes. I run on golf courses barefoot, so I will go and do sprints on a golf course after a workout or, or strides or on a soccer field. Like, maybe I'll run a workout around a track and then I'll do strides afterwards on the grass barefoot, which I think is great for strengthening your feet and just kind of connecting your toes and your head. Sky. And that's really wonderful. But I do think that I'm not against orthotics. If your doctor says use orthotics, use them. I do think you really want to vary your shoes, right? Because I do think that it changes a lot. And also I learned this really interesting lesson once and I was, I was talking to this really smart guy about running and I had, I'd like, gone and I'd run down, I'd run up and down this mountain and I'd run in kind of worn out shoes and my quads hurt like hell. I call him up and I'm like, this is so stupid. He's like, no, that was smart. I said, what do you mean? He's like, the whole point is you want your quads at some point in your training cycle to get more stressed than they will in the marathon, right? And because in a marathon, you're going to do 26 miles pounding on a road, your quads are going to hurt, your cardiovascular system is going to hurt, you're going to get dehydrated, you're going to have gastric distress. At some point in the training cycle, you want to stress each of those systems more than you'll stress it in the marathon. In the marathon, you'll stress everything to the max. On that day training, you want to stress everything a little bit more. So one way to do it is to run down a mountain in bad shoes. And so what he was saying is your quads hurt because you stress them, and now they're growing back stronger. You run down the mountain in really nice shoes, you actually hurt your quads less. And so they develop less muscular resilience. And so I kind of like the idea of messing around with different shoes. Running barefoot, running in bad shoes, you know, all of that.

[B]

That's really. But like, the thing is, what about injury? That's how people get injured, right? Like If I didn't. If I have a bad ankle or a bad knee and I'm not wearing orthotics, I would be nervous that I would obviously hurt myself.

[A]

Yeah, you can. That is definitely a counter argument. And I would say that maybe, actually what you need to do is if you have a bad knee, change whatever shoes you wore when you got the bad knee. Or every other day wear a different pair of shoes. Maybe it's those shoes are putting the extra pressure on your knee and you should shift some of the pain to your Achilles. But, hey, I'm not a knee doctor and don't take this advice to the bench.

[B]

I'm not a shoe salesman either, but I just. I. I'm very. I love. I love, like, the nitty gritty of things, though, too. Right. Like, that's what I. I like, love that stuff. So. Okay, so now I know the shoe situation. So how did you. When you became, like. I still don't know. So when you were running, like, did you become obsessed with the feeling afterwards?

[A]

Oh, yeah. I didn't answer your initial question, which is like, what was the thing that pulled me in initially? I think it was actually it wasn't the feeling of the sport. Right. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this because I think it was really just the self confidence. Right. And it was the.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and it translated across my life. And I'm a little, like, embarrassed to say that because now I think I believe, like, you run for self transcendence and you run for all kinds of things, but I didn't understand that when I was 18 years old. I loved running because it's fun and I love going up mountains. I've always loved going up mountains. Right. And I did feel a spiritual connection while I did that. And you do get an endorphin rush when you're running fast. But, like, I stopped when I wasn't good anymore. Right. I went to a very good college with a very good team, and I wasn't good enough.

[B]

Where'd you go?

[A]

Stanford. Right. And so they won the NCAA title. And, like, they're great. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And my freshman recruiting class was a class that went on to win NCAs. Right. So it's a bunch of, like, great runners and I wasn't fast enough. And I quit. Right. And I spent a lot of time when I was writing the book thinking about that decision. And part of it I don't feel great about. Cause I think I quit. The funny thing is this. Now that I realize how fast I AM in my 40s, I had the talent to be on that team. Like, I could have been a very successful runner on that Stanford team. Like, I know that now. I stopped before I realized that. So why did I stop? And I stopped because I didn't love the sport for deep enough reasons. Right. I stopped because I got injured. I fell behind, and then it seemed impossible to catch up, and so I quit. Right. Had I understood the kind of the spiritual dimension, the deeper dimensions of running back when I was 18, I probably would have kept running. And then sort of ironically, I would have probably realized that I was fast enough to be on the team. But whatever, I'm glad I didn't run on the team because it's pretty hard to be a college athlete and you miss a lot of other stuff. Like, I probably wouldn't have met my wife.

[B]

So, like, you don't think so because you've been. Had so many hours just running.

[A]

Well, right.

[B]

He's also a solo sport. So much of time you spend alone and you.

[A]

But you. I would have spent my whole college. My college life would have been focused on the team, which is great.

[B]

You may have met someone else.

[A]

Yeah. But, you know, I'm very happy with the wife I met.

[B]

What I'm saying is you never know. How light would. You never know. Right? Sliding doors, right? Life could have gone this way, life could have gone that way. Based on whatever small, little, little decision that we make.

[A]

You can't unwind one thing.

[B]

You can't ever unwind.

[A]

Okay, so now back to you. I'm going to actually answer your question. I've now kind of failed twice. I've sort of half answered the second time. So part of it. So initially I was running for part. I started running because it was a bond with my father when I was 15, and I sort of discovered running for the second time. It was about self confidence. And then I think in my 20s and 30s, right when I started to really love it, it became a form of meditation, right. And it became a way of. It was like a connection to a different part of the world. So I started this very. I've worked very hard in these intense jobs in media in New York City. Right. And I go in and I work and I work all day, right. And I work on hard stuff. And it's stressful all the time. And the way I do it is I run in and then I run home. And so running became this way of like detaching. Right. Even while you live in New York City, even while you have this intense to do list. Even though when you're working, you're getting up at 4am and working, you're working till late. Like, running became this kind of release in this different way to recenter myself. So that's when I think I began to really love the sport.

[B]

So how long were you running? Like, how long did it take you to run to work and back?

[A]

It's like, it depends on where my office has been. The longest it's ever been is eight and a half miles from my house. So then I would usually only run one direction. Most of the last 15 years, it's been about 4 to 5 miles from my house. And so it's 10 miles if you do it both ways.

[B]

And do you like, take a shower at the office or you don't care? You just like, work?

[A]

I worked at Conde Nast. Like, I gotta. I'm in the elevators with the editors of Vogue, Right.

[B]

Like I was gonna say, what are you doing? Then you just. You're all sweaty coming out, coming to the office, it's a little.

[A]

It was a little awkward. I would shower at a gym nearby. Right? But then you still have to change. You change, you shower, you change back your running clothes, and then you. You keep your suit at the office and then you change, like, the bathroom at the office. Like, you figure out how to do it. It's. It's a little weird. It's a little awkward.

[B]

I mean, I.

[A]

But it works.

[B]

It works. But also, were you doing it for a sense of like, stress? Like, just stress release? Like, you always have these big media jobs. Was it your like, outlet for just stress?

[A]

Well, it was the outlet for stress. It's also quite efficient.

[B]

I mean, it's the most efficient, right?

[A]

Like, because you got to get to work somehow. And it's like, not actually any slower than the subway.

[B]

So. No, but I just mean in general. Like, did you become addicted to running?

[A]

I don't think I ever became addicted to running, but I did love it.

[B]

Every time you ran. Like, you actually like the process of running.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I love the process of running.

[B]

So I love the feeling after running. I don't love the running while I'm doing it.

[A]

Oh, I like it. Oh, totally.

[B]

Oh, you do?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Okay, so again, what is your. How do you think running. What about. What did running teach you that made you successful in other parts of your life?

[A]

Ah, that's a hard question. And it's also interesting, the inverse of that. What did working hard teach me about running? I think the most important lesson is the sort of the benefit of like, consistent daily practice. Because what you realize with running is that if you go every day and you run like you do, right? Or you run like anybody and you run three miles every day or four miles every day, you get better. Right? And you do see that. And because running, it's just you and the clock, you can actually see for sure that you're getting better. Right. You play tennis every day, you might not realize you're getting better. You probably do, but it's a little harder. It's very clear with running. And so you learn that consistent practice gets you better. Right. And then you go through these periods where you run a marathon. You take some time to recover, you start up again, you're like, oh my God, I'm never going to be fast again. Then you just go through the same process again and you realize, actually, I will be as fast again. Right. And so you kind of learn the consistent practice. And then you learn, like, consistent practice is actually hard because some days it's hot and some days it's cold, and some days it's rainy, and some days, you know, you don't have a lot of time and some days your foot kind of hurts and some days you're sick to your stomach and some days there's like a bee's nest, whatever, Right. Like, there's always a reason not to run, but once you commit to it, then you learn to get past those reasons and you learn that you should just do it in the time available. And that's a really good habit for your job. And I'm not sure which I learned first. Right. Like, if you want to get something done at your job, you just have to do it right now. Right. Or like, the best time to do it is right now. Right now.

[B]

Don't procrastinate.

[A]

Yeah, right. And if you have to get something done in the next hour, like, start now, don't complain about how you only have an hour. Same thing with running. If you want to get your run in, like, and you have a window, you just go and do it. And so that's part of it. I also do think endurance translates and that, you know, I do some things in my job where you do an all hands with the staff in a complicated situation, you have to be on and answering questions for two hours. Right. And if you make a mistake, like, you know, might be in the news and like, how do you get good at that? Not that I'm as good as I could be. Probably helps to run marathons. Right, Right. And doing that probably helps your marathoning, right? I, too, think that two things go back and forth. Like, the ability to focus hard at a job, I think helps me focus in my training, and the training helps me in the job. Now they distract from each other too, right? Because sometimes I have a project and go running. Maybe I should work on the project.

[B]

But probably the run afterwards probably made your brain way more sharp, way more focused, productive. Like, the benefits, I think, from the running will probably make you way more successful at your job because you're now, like, center. It centers you probably too.

[A]

Totally. And I kind of have always worked, like, three shifts. Like, I get up and I work and then I run, and then I have my job, and then I go home and I work. Right, right. In between. I, like, now that I have kids, I spend all that time playing with my kids. But at some point they go to sleep, right? And then after they go to sleep, I tend to work. Right. And when I wake up early, I tend to work. So it's like if I just work, work, worked. Subway work. Subway work. Right.

[B]

It breaks up your day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It breaks up your day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I guess what would be your big message then, for people listening to the podcast? Like, what. What they can. What your. Why did you write the book in the first place? Just as a. So you like to run, right? Like, big deal. I like to run. But, you know, what would. Why did you write the book?

[A]

I wrote the book to try to understand more about, like, why I run and what I get from it. And I also wrote, like, the book has stories of different runners who have used running as a way to get through really complicated stuff. And it's people who enter my life at different points. So, you know, one of the characters is this guy, Tony Ruiz, who is my coach, and he used running as a way to sort of conquer his heroin addiction. Right. Another is a guy named Michael Westphall, who beat my dad in a race and then, like, was one place behind my son, right. And his story is the fastest runner run a marathon with Parkinson's. Right? And so it's learning about how to cope with the physical decline caused by Parkinson's and how to use running to help with that. I tell the story of this woman, Super Beckford, who ran a store down the street from my dad, and for nine years in a row, she ran. And she won the 3100 mile race in Queens, where you run 3000 miles around the same block. And so that's a story of using running as, like, intense self transcendence.

[B]

Do. This is what I love about it also. It's like again, it's like to everybody it's funny how running could transcend or transform people's lives in lots of different ways. Right. Like, and you're. I see the evolution. Like, I think what you said was very resonated. Like people start for one reason, like for self confidence.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or weight loss. Right. And then it turns into like meditation. It becomes like my meditation. And how it like, it like helps people who, you know, get through really hard times in life. Like, it's like there is something about running that is very different than any other, I don't know, modality out there. Right.

[A]

I think that's right. It can, there are negative things. It can make you self centered. Right. You know, it can make you selfish. How?

[B]

How? Because you're saying it's a lot of solo time where you're doing a lot of like stuff for yourself and like, because people who are ultra marathoners, you're spending like hours a day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Running by yourself.

[A]

When you have, what does the joke go? How do you get, how do you find out how fast someone ran a marathon when you meet them at a dinner party? Don't worry, they'll tell you. Right. Like, you know.

[B]

That'S hilarious.

[A]

You know, there are ways that it can make you a little too focused on yourself, but I think for the most part.

[B]

Why do you think that is though? Well, because I think that's an interesting take.

[A]

Yeah. In part because like you're not part of a team. It's you. Right. It's just you like part of what makes it such a good form of meditation and self understanding is what makes you like potentially self centered about it.

[B]

So there's a trend, I guess that's kind of, you know, it's true. Right. Because you're. Again, I always go back to the fact that you're alone. It's a one man sport type of thing. Right, Right.

[A]

And I mean if I were sitting here and I wanted to kind of like if I would make the case against running. Right. A, it can make you self centered and B, like, what is success? Like all you're doing is pushing the other people back. Right. Like, you know, you finish one place higher, everybody else finishes one place lower.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like you're actually like in a team, you're with a bunch of other people and you're competing against a bunch of other people in a marathon. Like you're competing against everybody.

[B]

Everybody. Exactly. But how is that different than swimming?

[A]

It's not it's not. I mean, well, swimming, I guess. I mean, I don't know exactly how most swimming meets are scored, but.

[B]

Well, no, but it's similar, right?

[A]

Similar. I mean, in swimming might be worse because you can go out and you can do it like four hours a day or five hours a day and, like, turn everything else off in your life.

[B]

Well, what do you. Okay, how do you use running?

[A]

So part of, like, part of the hard thing, like one of the interesting and complex things in running, I guess we're going down the. Like, what's hard about running? Bitfra. Which is nice because, you know, like, if my wife were here and you gave her truth serum, right. She would tell you that she's annoyed at my running sometimes. Like, what the hell? Like, you're like, she came downstairs the other day. Like, normally I get up, right? I make everybody breakfast, right? Put the breakfast on the table, and then, like, they come down and we all eat. And the other day I went running because then I'll go run to work, right? But the other day I like, went running. She came downstairs. I'm like, where's Nick? Right. And I kind of thought I'd be back before she woke up, but no. Right. And that's a minor infraction, Right. We have a very healthy marriage. We've been together forever. But there are times where, like, you know, I'll go for a long run and she'll be like, what is he doing? Why isn't he here? Like, there's stuff going on.

[B]

Like, how many hours are we talking?

[A]

Well, if I go for a long, I try to do it before everybody wakes up. Right. So if I'm gonna go run three hours, I'll go leave at six. Right. Or I'll go leave at five.

[B]

But by the way, that's actually quite, like, thoughtful in a way. You're not running at, like, 10 o' clock when everyone's running around looking for you.

[A]

Of course not.

[B]

Nope. Don't be.

[A]

Don't say I would be divorced by that. I mean.

[B]

Well, right? But I had. I've had a lot of people sit here with me who are big ultra marathoners and all the things. And the ones that, like, who check themselves, they're doing it. They're running at 4 o' clock in the morning or they're doing all these things because of this reason.

[A]

Right? So part of it is, like, running has never been the most important thing in my life. Like, it's always been important, but it's never been. I mean, this was part of the problem at college, it wasn't the most important thing in my life. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's why I, you know, at my age of peak physical fitness, I came in, you know, I don't know, 200th place in a marathon where if I really like focused I could have come in, you know, significantly faster. It's always been something I've put a lot of time and effort into, but it's always had a place. Right.

[B]

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[A]

The main message of the book is that running can be a wonderful psychological force in your life and it can be a way for you to understand yourself, to understand others around you and to build habits that are great for the rest of your life.

[B]

Is it because, okay, so that's the beginning and then is it because you have a lot of time to think and it, and it gives you a place where you can, like that's. For me, I get my best ideas when I'm running. Right. Like I don't like to do yoga, but I like to run. Cause that's when I think of the best. Is that what you mean by that? It's a, it's a very meditate, it could be very meditative. It can, you know, bring up certain things that you, cause you, it's kind of like you're bored. You're like alone in your thoughts for all these hours. That's when creativity lies. That's where I, you know, thoughts come into your head. Is that what you mean? Like are you a better CEO because you run?

[A]

Definitely, Definitely. It's a way of spurring a creative process in your head. Right. So you have the possibility of thinking. Right. And as you observe yourself, as you run, you think more deeply about yourself and you think more deeply about your place in the world. Which is why, like, in that case of Tony, who I was just mentioning, like, it was a very important factor in his ability to come back from, you know, debilitating drug addiction. Right. It's a way to, like, stay centered and to think about who you are and what your place in the world is. Right. And it's a way to just understand, like, complicated things in life. So my sense is that now running isn't the only way to do this stuff. Right. Like, my point is not, you know, run, don't bike, or run, don't swim. Running is just the thing I know, right. And so it was a way for me to write about the thing I know in the deepest way I could come up with. Right. So the first review of the book called it Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for Runners. And so the idea there is like, Zen of the art of motorcycle Maintenance was a way of writing about bikes that would help you understand father son relationships kind of philosophy. Right. One of the books I read a lot was Barbarian Days. That's a way of writing about surfing as a way to understand father son relationships, how a young man develops. So this is a way of writing about running as a way to try to get at some of the complicated things in life and including my relationship to my father. All of these different. Other runners coping with different barriers.

[B]

Talk about the father relationship.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

How did. What was the relationship like? How did running help you cope with your relationship with your father?

[A]

Yeah. So to get to there. So my father, I mentioned a little bit his, like, interesting, you know, childhood, and then.

[B]

Is he alive right now?

[A]

He passed away in 2017. But his life. So he comes out of the closet in the 1980s, he's working in the Reagan administration, and he's actually plays kind of an important civil rights role. Like, he's a. He's a rare outwardly gay Republican. Right. And he has this position that being open about your sexuality. You know, the more people who know that gay people are everywhere, the more tolerance there will be in the world. Like that. I'm very, you know, I have a lot of admiration for that. But he's also kind of a maniac. And he ends up in relationship after relationship, like hundreds men a year who he's dating. He, like, proposes marriage and exchanges rings with, like, dozens of them. He ends up essentially running a male brothel in Southeast Asia. Right. And so he has this. And he's, you know, he's run out of money. He's kind of a tax fugitive. He's, like, in all of these lawsuits with everybody, like, there's all of this, like, incredible tension and mayhem. He's calling me up and, like, threatening to kill himself if I don't send him $200 so he can pay off the prostitute. He's just got, like. It's a mess. Right. So he's a complicated guy. Like a guy who John F. Kennedy said was going to be president, ends up in Southeast Asia, like, completely bankrupt with a harem. Right. Like, complicated stuff.

[B]

So really, this is a book about your dad, but you have to, like. You have to kind of couch it as something beyond because nobody knows who he is.

[A]

Nobody knows who. He's an. He's an amazing character. Right. And he's a very complicated character. And I have to deal with. Deal with him. And I stay, weirdly, to many people, I stay quite close to him his whole life, even as this is going on. Like, I love the guy deeply. We email back and forth every day. Even while he's going through this. I'm kind of financially supporting him at the end the last five or ten years of his life.

[B]

Even though he didn't raise you after five.

[A]

Correct. And even though he was pretty hostile to my mother. Yeah. I mean, he was a. You know, he. He did a lot of bad things, but he always loved me. Right. So that's, like, a very important part. He always wanted the best for me. He always, like, thought the world of me. He always supported me. He was always there for me. You know, he was never. He never didn't love me. And that's the first thing you should ask for from a parent. So I forgave him a lot.

[B]

Did you have a time when you didn't forgive him? Was there ever a moment in time when there was, like, estrangement or.

[A]

There's never estrangement. There is anger, but there's never estrangement. Yeah. He was estranged from my sisters. Like, he was. They had a more complicated. They had a harder relationship with him, but he was. I was never estranged from him.

[B]

It's funny, even when you talk about your dad now, you can. You can see you're very emotional about him.

[A]

I know it's a little hard to. Yeah.

[B]

To talk about him.

[A]

You know, many people who met him said they never met anybody quite like him. Like, he was this just incredible, like, bundle of Energy and excitement and interesting. And he's like, so smart, and he'd be so fun to talk to him. If you met him and you were here for a party or dinner or cocktails and showed up. He'd showed up, and he'd probably break something and he'd spill wine on this nice chair and be kind of impossible. And he'd probably offensively hit on someone who might be straight, but he'd be convinced is gay. But he'd be awesome. Right. And you'd have a lot of fun with him.

[B]

Yeah. This is kind of like an homage to your dad, the book. It really is a little bit.

[A]

I mean, there's a lot. Like, I don't know what he would think of it. Right. He told me at one point, he said, like, you should write, like, a very candid memoir, and you can say anything you want about me. I don't know. I'll be very interested. When his friends read the book and their response to it.

[B]

When you sold the book to your publisher, how did you sell it? Where did you say this was?

[A]

You know, it was interesting. It was a different structure back then. I said, you know, I said it was a book about running. I said it was book about my time in the sport. But the initial structure was that it would be like. It would trace, like, the stages of a marathon. Right. It would talk about the beginning of a marathon and what happened physiologically in the first five miles, the next five miles of the marathon. And then it would layer, like, my life story in running and my journey from being pretty good to being very good. And then that structure just didn't work. Right. It was like a good. Maybe it was good for the proposal. Like, it sounded cool. And I tried to write it that way, and you couldn't read it. And so then it became a very different book.

[B]

Well, you just said something that I find interesting. The psychological stages of what happens when you run that long. Right. How do you keep yourself from not giving up and keep on going?

[A]

Okay, so at what distance? At what race? Because there are different things that I've learned as I've shifted. You know, when I started writing the book, I was only a marathoner, and I became an ultra marathoner during the process.

[B]

Okay. Even to go from marathoner to ultra marathoner.

[A]

So this is. This was really interesting for me. So I was a. Most of my life, I've been a marathoner. Right. And when I'm a marathoner, I'm out there and I'm, like, trying to run a specific time and the window, like the band of possible finishing times is quite narrow. Right. Like, you know when you start that there's like a 95% chance you run between like, I don't know, 2:35 and 2:45.

[B]

Right, you said that. Yeah.

[A]

You know, and so you, like when you run an Ultra, you have no idea. Like, I just ran this 100k up in the Finger Lakes where I just wanted to finish before the sun went down. Right. So you have like a totally different. You start at four in the morning and you know the sun's going to set at 7, so you kind of want to finish in 15 hours. But.

[B]

But not to say that's only. But you're not even. That is. That's not 100 miles. No, that's just 100k. Not just 100k, but it's like 65 miles or so.

[A]

The other, weirdly, 100k is 62 miles, but the race was like 66 because I don't really wanted to mess with us.

[B]

Have you ever run 100 miles?

[A]

No, I've never run 100 miles, but in a race like that. So I learned a lesson the first time I did it, the first time I ran it, this race called Twisted Branch. So this was last year, I've run it twice. And I had this very important moment where I was like 30 miles in and I'd been running for like, I don't know, six hours because you're going up and down mountains. And I was like, my God, right? I've like run longer than I've ever run before and I still have 30 miles to go and I've got like my heart rate monitor on. I'm like looking at my pace, I'm like checking all the. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to turn my watch off. I'm going to turn my heart rate monitor off. I'm going to like forget about all that stuff and I'm just going to think I'm a kid running in the woods, right? And I'm just going to enjoy where I am. Like I'm no longer racing. I'm no longer worried about the finish time. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not thinking about hydration, I'm not counting calories. I'm just a kid running in the woods. And this was something that had been taught to me by that woman I mentioned earlier, super Babector, who runs 3,000 miles on a block in Queens. Right. Just think you're a kid, right? And so I kind of turned the racing part of my brain off. And once I did that, I was great. I was just, like, galloping through the forests, right?

[B]

It's like mind tricks, basically.

[A]

And then when I'm running. When I'm running a race, like, I'm running a. I ran this 50 miler in Connecticut in April, and I was trying to set the American record, right? And so I knew exactly what I was trying to do. And, you know, I was on pace through, like, 43 miles, 44 miles, and, you know, the last five or six, I'm falling apart, right? And you can just, like, my body's in. There's a photograph of me coming across the finish line. I just, like. Tears are down my face. I just look totally deformed and wrecked. And, you know, at that point in a race, right, when you're trying for a time and your body's giving out, then you're, like, just trying to sort of, all right, focus on a mantra. Like, focus on I. I focus on a mantra where I go, 1, 2, 3, 3. 1, 2, 3. Where it's right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, right foot, right foot, right. And it's a way of both. Keep myself balanced Alexander technique, right? So you're not landing too hard on one side and the other. And it's a way of just, like, really meditating and letting go of everything else. So sometimes I'll do that. If that starts to break down, I'll be like, okay, I'm just gonna run to the next tree, right? Let's see if I'll just, like, hold this pace to the next tree. That's not working. Maybe I'll look like. In that race, you're lapping runners. You're, like, seeing people in the distance. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna just. I'm gonna run hard until I pass the person in blue, right? And you're playing, like, all these different mind games to stay in it, right? So you're like, in the twisted branch race, I'm dissociating, right? Like, I'm. I'm, like, stepping. Like, I'm moving up to a cloud and, like, watching Nick run through the forest, right? And in the Lake Warmog, that 50 miler, where I'm, like, trying to stay on pace. I'm, like, locking into a very narrow version of myself and both of those experiences, right? So when you're running a race like that 50 miler, you, like, lose all awareness of what's going on around you. It's this very interesting experience where it's almost like mind and matter are like one. Like there is no external, there's no thought. Right. Like, if you were to have a videotape of what is going on in my brain, there is nothing. Right. It is just like forward motion, right straight ahead, as opposed to this kind of like, you know, cinematic wonderful thing that's happening when I'm dissociating. And so sometimes you're focusing and sometimes you're dissociating when you're in, like, in a tense and complicated race like that.

[B]

So what. So, okay, what did you. Like, so how did you kind of train differently besides, like, the mind games?

[A]

So in which period for the, like, when I started running ultras or when I, like, got fast in my 40s?

[B]

I think I was going to ask you on both, but really, I guess now that you say so, how did you. How did you get. How did you become the fastest man in your 40s? Like, how did you train differently? What did you do differently?

[A]

So that, that was like, When I was 43, I met with these coaches.

[B]

How old are you now?

[A]

I'm 50.

[B]

Okay, 50.

[A]

So it was when I turned 43. It's just. It was a year after my father died, which I don't think is a coincidence. And they looked at my training, they looked at my old logs, they asked me how fast I thought I could go. And I was like, well, 2:43. That's what I always run. Yeah, I was like, I'd love to hold on to that. And they're like, yeah, okay. And so I set up a fairly specific routine where I, you know, would run seven days a week, and then three days a week I would do something hard. So on Tuesdays I would go and I would run, basically stressing my VO2 max system. So I'd run like 400 meter repeats, you know, like 12, 4 hundreds or 1600, 4 hundreds or 8, 8 hundreds. Thursdays I'd basically be working on my lactic threshold. So I'd run like four by two miles, three by two miles, two by three miles. And then Saturday or Sunday, I would run 20 miles.

[B]

Right.

[A]

22 miles. And I just kind of kept changing the goals on each of those workouts and getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And through doing that, I both, like, improved physically and I, like, improved mentally and realized I could go faster than I thought I could go. Those coaches were kind of tricked my mind to make myself think that I could go faster than 2:43 pace. So 2:43 pace is like 6:15 miles. And I was terrified of running a marathon at under 6 minute miles, which is 2:37 pace. And so they would have me run like workouts where I'd be doing short distances, under five minutes in the hopes that it would reset my mind so I'd be less scared of going under six minutes in a marathon. And so that eventually got me to run the 2:29 marathon, which is like, I don't know, 5:41 pace. Right. And so that was step one. That was how I got like fast at marathons.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then of course, I ran the 2:29 in 2019. Covid hit then when it was training for ultras, which I'd done maybe the last four years or so, it's similar, but obviously I'm not running as many like 400 meter repeats on the track.

[B]

But are you. What other training do you do to kind of improve your endurance or stamina or your strength? Do you do any weightlifting or straight. Well, okay, I'm going to rephrase that. Do you do any kind of resistance work?

[A]

Yeah, no, I do some weightlifting and now I do it with my. Okay, this is the funniest thing or the one of the revelations. I was talking to a physical therapist once and he asked me, when was the last time you got hurt? And I was like, oh, it's like 12 years ago. He's like, 12 years ago? I was like, yeah, that's the last time I missed a workout. And he's like, that's crazy. He's like, what do you do for strength training? I was like, oh, I don't do anything. He's like, what do you do for mobility? I was like, oh, I don't do anything. He's like, so you just run? I was like, yeah, just run. And he's like, but like, do you ever like move your body? I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I play like nerf basketball with my kids and I wrestle with my kids. I play soccer with my kids, I play water wars with my kids. I like, you know, do one arm push up contests with my kids. I do parkour with my kids. And he's like, well, that's why you don't get hurt. Right?

[B]

Right. You do all this cross training?

[A]

I do all this like, incredible cross training because I have like three sons who are active.

[B]

How old are they?

[A]

They're now 17, 15 and 11. Right. But I play with them all the time. Right. And so, wow. It was like, that was my cross training. And now they're like, now they're a little older. I like will go to the gym with them and I'll weightlift with them. Right. Like, and I was like, you're weightlifting. So like my, I was like, I was like supporting my 11 year old while he's bench pressing like 35 pounds the other day.

[B]

So you're super active. So you know what, this is actually very, I'm a big believer in this too. You don't have to be going to an actual gym to get fit. You're doing all the cross training you need by doing all these like you're playing with your kids, doing so much functional training also. Right. Like holding this, doing that. So you do do a lot of stuff.

[A]

Yeah, I do. I mean, and now, now that they're older, I do more stuff and I'll like, I also like. And now I don't like. So we're talking on it's, I think it's a Wednesday and on Monday my kids play for these, My two younger kids play for this great soccer team, this great club and I will like do workouts with them. So I had a couple 11 year olds over and we were doing like glute work together. Right?

[B]

Like what?

[A]

Just like leg lifts, leg drives, like squats, box jumps. Right, yeah.

[B]

And I'm like training them, working out.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. But I'm like training with 11 year olds. Right. I'm not like at a CrossFit challenge gym.

[B]

Right, but, but I think you're so conditioned, like especially with the cardiovascular and endurance and you're so like, you're very lean, you know, so it's easier for you to do other things, you know what I mean?

[A]

Well, and here's the nice thing about training with an 11 year old, right? Like you're not going to do so many box jumps, you get hurt, right?

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

You're going to do like kind of the right amount of box jumps and.

[B]

Like you're not doing like 500.

[A]

Right.

[B]

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[A]

I'm a pescatarian, so I do eat some animal protein. I am, I'm like pretty strict on my diet. So I get up, I have a. I don't know, I usually have like oats mixed with like chia seeds, ground flaxseed and a bunch of nuts. And then I add some fruit. I have that with coffee and green juice for breakfast, you know, at lunch I'll try to have like salad vegetables, add in a protein. And at dinner, you know, kind of similar. Right. So lots of green vegetables, you know, lots of whole wheats, lots of greens.

[B]

So you do eat carbs?

[A]

Lots of legumes. Oh, I do eat carbs.

[B]

Good. You have to with that kind of running schedule.

[A]

Also. Carbs are delicious.

[B]

Yeah, they are good.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

They're very good. So you, but you be pretty healthy. Okay. I want to talk about being the CEO. Okay. So, you know, there's very few publications that are relevant anymore, as I'm sure you know. Right. Yours is probably one of the very few. How do you keep it? How does it, how does the Atlantic keep its relevance? How many people are subscribed? I want to know. Like the nitty gritty now of the Atlantic.

[A]

Sure. This, yeah, this is my. This is what I do for a living.

[B]

I know.

[A]

So we now have 1.35 million subscribers. We are up substantially. We were at maybe 800,000 a few years ago. So we've been skyrocketing. It's great. We've gone from losing lots of money to making a good bit of money, which is amazing.

[B]

How is that just through advertisers or.

[A]

It's actually most. I mean, advertising has grown. So I've been the CEO for four years and advertising has grown. And if you are an advertiser, a cmo, listening to this podcast, please do advertise. But the principal growth has been through subscriptions. And so the way that the model has come to work is that we have been really focused on how to get someone to subscribe. And so there's a whole bunch of questions that come into that, like, so what does the subscription offer? What is the meter? What is the color of the background? If somebody comes in from Google, do you push them to subscribe? If they come in from Twitter, if they come in from a newsletter. Okay, what are the places where people have real subscription propensities? Right? So there's this giant math equation. And every time someone comes to theatlantic.com, they're either a potential subscriber or they're not. And what you want to do is you want to put the paywall in front of the people who might subscribe and not in the ones who won't. And so if you can get better at that, marginally better at that, every day, you make the product more successful.

[B]

How can you do that?

[A]

Well, you run a whole bunch of tests. You know, you test, what happens if we make the price $69? What happens if we make the price $79? Okay, what if we offer this? What if we put the gate, we allow people to read two stories a month before the gate? What if we make the gate so you can only read one story a month, except on stories where there's a subscription propensity above every X during the first 12 hours of the day. Right. You run just all of these tests and you build models behind it. That's what we do. Right. And so building that successfully, and you get really good at running advertising. And so you put advertisements on Facebook and Google, driving people to particular stories, and you identify the stories that people are most likely to pay to read, and you run that over and over and over and over again, and you look for what users want and you try to build that. And magic, it's worked. What we have never done, like, what's being. Also, I should also add, our journalists are amazing, and they keep writing awesome content. So what we have done is we've taken what the journalists want to do, and then we've built the business model based on that, as opposed to what happens at a lot of media companies where they say, you know, there's a real opportunity for selling advertisements to electric car companies. Like, why don't you write some stories about electric cars? Right? And then you do that, and then, like, the journalists either say, like, buzz off or they write kind of bad stories about electric cars. Right. What we say hire the best journalists in the world. Here's a bunch of money to do that. Have them write the stories they think are the absolute best. And then we will try to get people to subscribe to read those stories. And that model has worked fantastically, at least for the last four years. Like, who knows what happens with AI but for now, it's going gangbusters.

[B]

So since you've been at the helm, the subscription have skyrocketed.

[A]

Yes. Now, I wouldn't make that might be correlation, not cause, but it is true.

[B]

Well, it is a correlate. It could be, but it is. Yeah. I mean, like, you were at Wired before I was at Wired.

[A]

We did great. We published all kinds of wonderful stories about tech. And then I. The big shift was shifting from being the editor in chief and being in charge of what stories you run and reporting and writing to being the CEO, where you're in charge of the product decisions, the engineering decisions, the advertising calls.

[B]

How did you go from editor in chief of Wired to the CEO of IT of the Atlantic?

[A]

You know, why did they hire me?

[B]

Yeah. Because that's a different job. That's a creative job, versus now you're in a business position.

[A]

Yeah. So the Atlantic had a very particular need where they wanted someone who understood business and understood tech, but who also appreciated editorial. And so it'd be very. They couldn't have hired someone from a straight business background because the system would have kind of rejected it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So then I was actually a very rare candidate. When I had worked at the New Yorker, which is the job I had before Wired, I had been in charge of the website, I'd been in charge of the iPhone app, and I'd actually been in charge of the product and engineering team. Right. Because I was the only guy at the New Yorker who had, like. Who knew how to fix the printer. Right. And could, like, you know, like, plug the keyboards in. Like, I was put in charge of the tech team, Right. And so I knew all this stuff, and I'd covered the tech industry, so I knew a lot about business and tech and engineering and product. And so I had a lot of the skills that kind of mapped onto the Atlantic CEO job. There's a lot of stuff in this job that I'd never done before, but I had managed teams. I knew how to, you know, I knew how to handle product managers. So I was a reasonable candidate. And then they kind of. I don't know, it took a long time for them to settle on Me, like, it was kind of a hard call, really. I mean, I don't know. You'd have to get, you know, Lorene Powell jobs on the podcast, but. Yeah, no, it's like they. It was a. The Atlantic's a sacred publication. Like, it was founded in 1857 to stop the American Civil War by people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harry Beecher Stowe. Like, it is an important institution. It has an amazing editor in chief, Jeff Goldberg. And, like, getting the right CEO is kind of tricky.

[B]

For sure. It is. Well, it seemed to have worked out.

[A]

For you, but worked out for me. And I think they're reasonably happy.

[B]

And they're reasonably happy, but what have you seen has been an uptick. Like, what do people care about the most? What gets the most traction in terms of clients content?

[A]

You know, it's actually really wonderful where it's like, stories that are deeply emotionally resonant and that people spend a lot of time working on. Readers love. Like, readers love our best stuff. It's kind of wonderful. Right. So if you look at the stories that drove the most subscriptions, you know, it's this. Well, obviously, Jeff's story about Signal, right. Where he was mistakenly included on the White House's, you know, secret chat, that drove a lot of subscriptions.

[B]

Oh, that was a big one.

[A]

That was a big one. Right. That drove a lot of subscriptions. But, like, you know, from the previous year, that.

[B]

How many subscriptions did that story, the Signal story, drive?

[A]

Many tens of thousands. You know, lots of subscriptions. I don't have the exact number.

[B]

I bet you it put you on the map. I bet you a lot of people didn't even know what the Atlantic was.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then they saw it in the news all the time because of that journalist from Europe from. From the Atlantic.

[A]

Well, and he handled it exactly right. I mean, that was the beautiful thing about it, where it wasn't like, Scoop kind of fell on his lap, and he handled it perfectly. Right. And that reflected well on the institution.

[B]

Well, how did he handle it? I don't remember. I know he's had a lot of. Lot of class with it, though.

[A]

He did. So what happened is he's mistakenly included on the chat. Right.

[B]

What a bunch of morons. How could that even happen?

[A]

Do you want my theory?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So this. It's. This is unclear, but, like, this is my theory. His name is Jeff Goldberg.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Initials J.G. he meets Michael Waltz at a party. Like, we have photographs of him meeting Waltz. Like, Walt's business card. Like, they clearly meet Waltz as the National Security Advisor, my theory is that Waltz puts Goldberg's number in his phone under jg, not under Jeff Goldberg, because he doesn't want his staff to know he's talking to a reporter. So he puts his name under JG Then they're starting the signal chat to, like, talk about bombing the Houthis, and he wants to add the trade representative because it involves the Straits Hormuz, and it's. The trade representative is Jameson Greer. And so then he adds jg thinking it's Jameson Greer. That's my theory. And then in Signal, like, when you look at who's in a group chat, if they're in your address book, they show up as how they are. So it shows up as JG on Mike Waltz's phone. And, like, Pete Hegseth doesn't have Goldberg's number, so it just shows up as 202, whatever his number is, Right? And so nobody realizes he's in there. That's my theory. So now there are other theories, like maybe someone stuck them on some fat fingers, maybe. Who knows? Any case, that's my working theory. He gets in the chat and he starts to see what's going on. He's like, what the hell? Right? And then he stays in for a while because he thinks it might be a hoax. He sees what's happening, and then he leaves the chat when he realizes they're discussing classified information and that he shouldn't be there, right? So that is actually the proper thing to do.

[B]

He left the chat.

[A]

He left the chat, right? Because, you know, clearly he shouldn't have been in it.

[B]

True. But curiosity, you know, like. And just, you know, being a voyeur.

[A]

Okay, well, curiosity versus espionage act, right? I mean, you weigh these two. You weigh these two things against each other.

[B]

Okay, you're right. Espionage, curiosity, very similar, but different.

[A]

So he leaves the chat, and then, you know, he writes up a story because it is in the national interest to publish the story. But he's very careful to leave out, like, secret details and to leave out details of the specific raid and to leave out details of things they wrote. He writes the story, and then, as a good reporter should, he calls the White House and says, hey, here's the story we're going to publish. Like, that's what you do at the end. You call the person. You don't just publish it in blindsided. And you want it because you call them because you might have something wrong, right? Or there might be something where you need their opinion. And then they say, oh, yeah, that's true. Yep. Go ahead. You know, accurate. So then he writes the story, right? Everything done by the book, right? Like, we've called our sources, we've handled it, you know, admirably. We've taken into account national security. Like, Jeff's kid, like, is in the military. Like, Jeff cares a lot, you know, about the military, cares about national security. Like, we were founded as a magazine to protect America. Like, sometimes we don't agree with Donald Trump, but we are a magazine in favor of America. And so he does it. And then the White House at first is like, yep, it's true. And then for reasons that are beyond me, and again, I'm just the CEO, they start to say the story's not true and like, ah, no, no, there's nothing classified in that chat. Like, we don't know what the Atlantic is talking about. Like, they're making stuff up. Like, there's nothing in the chat that was classified because, remember, we haven't published the screenshots, right? So then they're like, wait, what? Like, why are they doing this? Like, they've already. Normally, what happens in journalism is someone denies the story and then eventually admits that it's true, right? They don't do it the other way around. Admit that it's true and then, like, weirdly deny it. Right? And so they're now denying the story, which is banana cakes. And so then, like, Jeff and Shane Harris, his co writer, are like, well, I guess we're obligated to publish the whole thing. And so then we put all the transcripts online, we put the screenshots online afterwards the second day. And so, you know, that's the story at no point, right? And he's always, like, he's always checking. Everything is always 100% accurate. Everything is to the book. Like calling your sources. Like, you know, even if someone is denouncing you and even if someone is lying about you, you still call them because you can't be wrong on your side, right? You have to be as accurate and honest as fact check as you can be. So he does everything exactly by the book. He does everything exactly the way a reporter is supposed to do it. And so the story ends up reflecting really well on us. So it's a benefit to the Atlantic. Like, he gets, like, the scoop falls out of the sky, right?

[B]

Literally.

[A]

Yeah, literally falls out of the sky onto his phone while he's at the Safeway parking lot. But, you know, like, he handles it perfectly. So it reflects really well on the Atlantic.

[B]

So who denied it? Was it that Woman, the press. What's her name? The blonde lady?

[A]

Yeah, she. She definitely. She definitely. Caroline Levitt.

[B]

Caroline Levitt.

[A]

She denied it and denounced us. I think she. I think she called us, you know, like a failing mag. Maybe it was either her or Trumpet says that we're like a failing magazine about to go to business, which we're clearly. Like, I run the P and L. Like, we're actually doing great, right? Like, media's having a hard time. We might go out of business next year, but right now, we are, like, crushing it financially. Like, we're doing better than we've ever done. So they're making stuff up out of finances, which annoys me as the finance guy.

[B]

Of course it does.

[A]

But then, like, Hegses is out there, Nikki Haley's out there saying there's nothing classified in it, which is nonsense, right?

[B]

The whole thing is a total. How that even happened. I know that. What your. Your hypothesis makes perfect sense, right? How that could have happened. In any case, why the hell are they on signal talking about this stuff?

[A]

It's so like a. They shouldn't be on signal, right? Like, they should be using, like, a skiff, right? Like, they're government officials planning an attack. Like, not on their phones, not on signal. Duh. 2. Even if they are on signal or even if they're in a skiff, they shouldn't be, like, boasting and BSing about it. Like, their details that Hegseth is putting there that he has no need to. He's just trying to, like, impress the folks in the chat.

[B]

Like, it is beyond. It's beyond me.

[A]

It was so weird.

[B]

It's beyond. Well, this is just like, a gaggle of clowns, really, who are doing all of this.

[A]

And then when the story broke, like, when we published our first story, what they should have done is, like, you know, this was a mistake. We've cleaned it up. We've made it so we won't do signal, right? Like, you know, what this showed is there was a good conversation. But, yes, the Atlantic is correct. Instead of, like, making it so much worse by saying, well, there's no classified information lying about us lying about the conversation, right? Like, they shot themselves in the foot there.

[B]

Yeah, I would say so. Are you guys. Then not. This is obvious. Are you guys not allowed to be.

[A]

In the press room in the White House? I actually don't know the exact policies right now. They have not come after us. Like, Jeff went to the White House and interviewed Trump afterwards. Like, really? Yeah. I don't want to speak out of turn because I don't manage the journalist. But we have like gone there and like Trump calls our reporter called our reporter Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker at like 2 in the morning one night. Like from his cell phone. Like he still cares about the Atlantic.

[B]

Well, of course. Well, listen, it's a very prestigious magazine, but why is he calling these people at 2 o' clock in the morning from his cell phone? Does he think they're going to answer the phone? Did they answer the phone?

[A]

No, it was a voicemail or like it was like a. Just a missed call from, you know, you wake up and it's like Donald Trump. And then I. Donald Trump called you at 2am right? Like he might be on the phone with Ashley Parker right now. I have no idea.

[B]

Does he not sleep, this man?

[A]

I think he sleeps different hours.

[B]

It seemed like, you know, what are those? Not Dracula, you know, vampires that they don't sleep during the day. Like, it's, by the way, not for nothing, this man is like 80 something and the guy doesn't sleep. The guy has more energy. He eats McDonald's all day. Like, I think that I'm doing things wrong. I mean, I should have his energy and his stamina.

[A]

Well, he has this theory, right, that I don't know whether you agree with it, but that I believe he stated this publicly multiple times, but that humans have a fixed number of heartbeats. And so the trick is to not use those heartbeats up like when you're born. There's a whole bunch of people who believe this, right, that every animal has a similar number of heartbeats, that if you look at the number of times an elephant's heart beats, it kind of matches that of a mouse and that humans are kind of in the middle. And so if you use your heartbeats up, you're likely to die sooner. Now, I disagree with this hypothesis. Really? He has stated this. Yeah, it's a pretty interesting theory. You'll have to talk to a physiologist. He may have stated it like haphazardly. He may say that's not what he really believes in. I don't want to misquote the President of the United States of America, but like, it is a theory that I've heard from multiple people. I don't think it's correct, to be honest. But he's doing like, he's clearly vigorous.

[B]

Clearly. So does that, by that hypothesis, does that mean if I work, you run and I run. We work out a lot. Our hearts beat. Our hearts are beating faster, are we going to die faster?

[A]

Okay, so this, okay, so we'd have, I, we'd have to pull out a calculator, but it's actually a pretty interesting calculation. Okay, it depends, right, because what happens when you exercise, your resting heart rate goes down, right? And so that's true. Let's say your resting heart rate goes down 10 beats a minute, right? Because you exercise a lot. So it goes from say, 55 to 45. So then 23 hours a day, you're saving 10 beats a minute, right. For one hour a day, you're going up, you know, a hundred beats a minute. Right? So you have to do the math, right?

[B]

So like, it's a, it's a deli. It's like a balance.

[A]

It's actually pretty close, right. I'm. I'm not sure whether it depends on how much exercise reduces your resting heart rate and your sort of your average walking heart rate. And it depends how much your heart rate goes up when you exercise. I think probably like an hour a day of exercise is like the optimal amount if you want to like keep your total lifetime heartbeats, you know, that makes sense.

[B]

So an hour a day. So someone like you or people who are doing ultras for 12 or 13 hours a day, well, that's not the fact that you're even alive at 50. You should have been dead, like at 37.

[A]

Well, this gets to another really interesting debate, which is, is there a point at which too much exercise is bad for your heart? Right? Like, this is. So the heartbeat debate is kind of like a silly, fun one, but this one is a serious one, right? And there are very smart cardiologists who believe that there is a limit. Right? And there are very smart cardiologists who believe that if you look at the data and you look at studies of like ultra endurance Finnish skiers, the more exercise, the more time, the longer you live. It's clear that, like, exercise, to the extent that I do it, does some bad things. Like it increases my odds of atrial fibrillation. Right? It does increase. It does some bad things to the heart, but it also does so many other good things that it may be a net benefit, right?

[B]

May balance itself out, right?

[A]

I kind of think it's a net benefit, but of course I think that because I love running. Right, right.

[B]

Well, you could justify, anyone can justify.

[A]

Anything, but you could find some smart cardiologists to like scare the hell out of ultra runners if you wanted to.

[B]

Yeah, I don't. I'm actually, I believe that though, that I can believe. I mean, there's. I mean, there's a lot of people that I know who are, like, stupid fit. Like, they play tennis five hours a day. Like, like perception, like, kind of like from the outside, like optics would say that they were really fit and they dropped dead of a heart attack when they're, like, 45.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And maybe it's because of that. That whole thing that you just said, right? Like, they've used up their ticks. Or it's. Because it is. It's actually can be counterintuitive, like, sometimes, like, more. Like, more is not like. Or whatever. Like, let. More is actually more is less, not more is more.

[A]

Right. I mean, and there are also a couple of other, like, additional hypotheses. So, one, it's like all of that, like, the heart's a muscle building the muscle. Like, maybe that's not totally great in every way. Two, a lot of people, when they exercise a lot, they use that as a justification, right? Like, I can have the fries, right? Because, like, engine burns hot. You can put anything in the engine. But that's not true at all, right?

[B]

So true.

[A]

You know, I can have a drink because I exercise hard. Drink. I can have a second drink. I have a third drink, right. I'll be able to run it off in the morning. Right. And so exercise can create good habits. I'm not going to drink at all because I have to run in the morning, or it can create bad habits. Right. I'm going to run in the morning so I can drink. Right. And so I think a lot of super fit people actually have a bunch of terrible habits. Like, I was listening to your podcast with Lance Armstrong. Right?

[B]

Right.

[A]

And he was. And you were talking about, like, he ate four hot dogs and had. He's like. And I had a diet cook. I was like, what the hell? Right?

[B]

Totally. And he doesn't. He's a perfect example of this. But I meet people like Lance a lot where a lot of my. A lot of friends of mine who are like, super athletes, like Lance Level, just not in. In. In biking. And I go out with them, and they're not doing all these. The crazy stuff. They're not biohacking their lives to death.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're actually, like, they're, like, eating kind of much more freely. They're, like, exercising, but not like, they're not like, frantic and crazy about it. They're more balanced in their life, to be honest with you. What I want to say is that I actually think that's actually more healthy because I think anything extreme like is, is what it does to your mental. Like the psychology that goes on in your brain is actually why it's detrimental more so to your body. And over exercising like people. I'm just going to how about this? Because I over exercise for sure, because it's for. I do it because if I didn't, I would be like a lunatic.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I've broken down my body. I have ankle problems, I have like a knee problem. You know what I mean? Like, I have like problems like my cortisol is high versus people I know who don't really do much and they're probably way healthier in the inside. I may look better like fitness, I may look more fit, but my insides are probably much more fucked up than somebody else's who kind of like casually does some walking and some yoga, you know what I mean?

[A]

Totally. My grandfather, my maternal grandfather lived in 97 and he, he smoked a lot, he drank a lot. And his philosophy was this amazing philosophy which is like what you should do is never exercise except occasionally exercise really hard, play tons of tennis or hike a really hard mountain or go skiing like crazy. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so he lived this awesome life and he had so much fun and sport was this just source of joy for me. Mountaineered and never stressed about it. He wasn't taking his resting heart rate when he woke up in the morning. He had a very healthy relationship to it. Also there are genetic elements, right. Like I just had my blood work done and I have. There's a genetic component of heart disease risk, which is your life lpa, right. And mine is massive. Right. It's like in the 99th percentile of bad. Right. And so I have like a huge genetic risk of a heart attack, which I wouldn't have known and which could like wipe me out despite all of my running, you know, when I'm in my a much younger age than you would expect. So there's all kinds of reasons that are like totally independent of how we train that could, you know, mean the end of us.

[B]

I know what also I find interesting about the running part is the burning of all the lean muscle mass.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Like I, I, you know, whenever I look at runners who are like crazy runners, extreme, they never, they're like soft, fat, you know what I mean? They don't have like tone in their body.

[A]

Well, this. Okay, so back to like this. It's kind of fun talking about like some of the bad things about running. Like it can also like you, it can make you in a Way anorexic. Right there. There's this coach. When I showed up at Stanford to join the cross country team, I'm a pretty lean guy. He sends this thing and it's like, you should weigh two pounds per inch. Sounds fine. And I was like, okay, cool, whatever. I was like, okay, so I'm six foot one, that's like 73 inches. So I should weigh 146 pounds. I weighed 165. Right. So I was 19 pounds overweight. Right. Skinny guy. And I was like, oh my God, I'm 19 pounds overweight for the Stanford cross country team.

[B]

How much do you weigh right now, by the way?

[A]

Like 155. So I'm still like nine pounds overweight.

[B]

Wow, you're so skinny.

[A]

Yeah. And like. But I'm like super overweight now. He would never say that now because.

[B]

You'Re not allowed to, only because it's not PC to say.

[A]

But he still thinks it, right? And everybody knows he thinks it, right? So Mark Wetmore, who was the coach of Colorado Buffaloes, won a bunch of national titles, told his runners that they should look like a skeleton with a condom on. Right? That's what he told the guys. Right. That's not healthy. It's really not healthy for 18 year old girls to be told that. Right.

[B]

Terrible.

[A]

Right. And it's really psychologically unhealthy. And you get like, this is why women, so many of women runners have like all these broken bones and they don't have their period and all these horrible things happen. Right. It can be a very destructive sport if you focus on the sort of the weight loss element. On the other hand, like my coach at Stanford has coached a ton of Olympians. Mark Wetmore coached a lot of winners. Like that is the thing they are doing. Like, one of the ways that you can win is be phenomenally skinny, which is potentially unhealthy.

[B]

Well, by the way. Yes, exactly. So there's like that. It's like a very delicate balance. Right. Because the truth is, if you're coaching at such a high level, you obviously want the team to have every advantage to win.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the, and I hate to say it, but for running well, for a lot of things, like, it does matter how much you weigh, Right. Because if you are small and thin, you'll be faster.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

That's just, it's just, is. It's just physics.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Like biodynamic. It's bio. It's, it's, it's what it is. So like, you can't you can't really, like, you have to understand from the perspective of you're hiring someone to win a win win for you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or else you'd have a bunch of like, body positive people there, like hiring whoever to do it. And you will never win a thing.

[A]

Right? It's. I mean, you do better at ultras, right? I remember my wife came to. She came to a mountain race. I did. And then she said the funniest thing. She like watches the finish and at the end she's like, you know, Nick, the people who beat you in this race, they look a lot more normal than the people who beat you in your other races.

[B]

Really? Why is that?

[A]

So this is a mountain race. Like, to be a great mountain runner, you need like a little extra muscle mass, strength. Yeah, you need like, you're literally like pulling yourself up a lot.

[B]

Well, it's different. Well, that's what I'm saying. Every sport for like running, it makes sense. Why you have to be like, very, like, you know, thin and I was going to say frail looking, but I don't mean it that way.

[A]

Yeah, no, I know what you mean.

[B]

I mean very, like lean.

[A]

But look at the people who win, the 100 Milers, right? They don't look like the winners of the marathon. Right. Like, and in fact, the women, right, the women who. Women actually are better than men once you get up about like 200 miles. Right. In part because they store extra, extra fat and extra energy, you know, and genetically are set up to do that because, you know, childbirth is so hard and takes so long. Right. Or that is one hypothesis. So women have an advantage when you get to really, really, really long races.

[B]

Yeah, that's actually true.

[A]

So they have a huge disadvantage in like the mile and the marathon for lots of reasons. Like testosterone levels, you know, I was.

[B]

Gonna say a lot of hormones. Like, this is why running's not a great sp, though, in general, when you're doing this sprint, like the track, because of the hormones, by the way, that's not even. It's not just running. It's. It's like look at gymnastics, right? Over exercising. Overexerting yourself at like for hours and hours and hours a day is hormonally not great for you.

[A]

Right. It totally screws up a lot of these body, like these women, and they become like, I tell the story. One of the runners I read about, like, I read about five runners and I interviewed tons and tons of different runners. I chose five because they each tell something interesting. But one of them is this woman Julia Lucas, who, you know, starts running in high school, realizes she's this incredible talent, you know, goes to college, but just like, she breaks her leg, like, seven times running, in part because of, like, you know, all of the pressure that's put on these women for the intensity they have to train while you're going through this period of growth. And, you know, I mostly tell her story. I tell her story for lots of reasons. One is, like, she finishes college and it's so hard to make a living, but she's so focused. So she's actually homeless while she's training as an elite runner. She lives in Forest park in Portland and brings her stuff when it rains, puts her stuff in a bag, and rents a little locker at the train station. And so while she's training and she becomes an elite and she becomes the best miler in the country. By then she has a sponsor, but she has to go through this period of years where she's just injured all the time and her body's broken and she's homeless and goes through it. And then, you know, I tell the story of her. She comes as close as you can come to making an Olympic team without making it right. She runs this race where she either has to come in the top three or have the third place finisher run slower than 15:20. And she comes in fourth and, like, pulls the third place finisher to a 15.19.9. Right. Like, you cannot have a closer miss.

[B]

Of the Olympics is this serious.

[A]

It's, like, the most incredible race to watch. Like, and she's just. She's an awesome person and she's so smart and she's so reflective on this race. But I love the story of, like, how. And then she has this very, like, stoic, amazing interview afterwards where she's like, well, I had no pain. No pain at all. And she's like, this very deep philosophy about running and why she does and what she's striving for. But she also, the whole time is struggling with some of the questions we've been talking about. About, like, how much do we run to, like, optimize ourselves and to, like, be the perfect machine and how much do we run for the spiritual release? And she has this constant tension between these two. So I tell her story for all those reasons.

[B]

That's a great story.

[A]

Yeah, it's really. She's an amazing. An amazing person.

[B]

That's a good one to choose, actually.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right. My dear Nick, the book is called the Running. Nicholas Thompson, thank you for being on the show.

[A]

That was so much fun to talk. We covered a lot of grounds. Yeah. I did not think we were going to get quite so deep into signal gate, but I'm very happy that we did.

[B]

Oh, my God, I'm so happy we did too. I love that. I'm going to clip that. I think it's so interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Are there any other, like, juicy little bits you want to tell us?

[A]

I've worked on a lot of interesting stories in my life, like a lot of interesting reporting.

[B]

What would be the. Well, give me one story. What was the most interesting thing that you've ever worked on?

[A]

I had a very long friendship with Stalin's daughter. I had a very long friendship with Stalin's daughter. And for years we wrote letters and I couldn't publish it while she was alive. But it's a story of a woman who grows up in the Kremlin and he has this intense relationship with her father where her father sends her boyfriend to the gulag. Right. Like a lot of people have, like, father issues where they don't like the boyfriend. They're normally not sent to the gulag by Stalin.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

So she has some problems with her father, but also loves him and it's like he's devoted to her in a way. Her mother commits suicide because she's married to Stalin. So this woman grows up and she's so smart, she's so interesting and she's like so creative. She flees. She comes to America. It's a big sensation, right? And then she kind of disappears. And so when I discover her and find her and start writing her letters, she's living in this like, old folks home anonymously in Wisconsin. And I at the time was writing a book about the Cold War. And I was writing about this character, George Kennan, who she had been friends with. And so she responds to me. She gets interview requests all the time because she's Stalin's daughter. But I write to her not to ask her about Stalin, but to ask her about George Kennan. And so she starts writing me back. And she's so smart and she's observed like, everything about Kennen. And she sees things that nobody else had seen. And so we become friends and we write these hundreds of letters. And then eventually she starts talking about her life and her loves and her ambitions and what she missed and, you know, her failures in life. And her aspiration sometimes gets really mad at me, right? And she denounces me and says she's never going to talk to me. And then she'll start writing me Letters again. And so the story of my friendship with her was one of the more fun things I've ever worked on.

[B]

That is really interesting.

[A]

It was a crazy story. I could only write it after she had died, but I published that in the New Yorker maybe 10 years ago.

[B]

That's a great one, too. Tell me one more.

[A]

I wrote a really interesting story at the end of my time at Wired, and I love to hike. And I had heard about a guy who had hiked on the Appalachian Trail, and he had been hiking for months, and he had hiked from New York to Florida, and then he'd been found dead in a tent, right? Emaciated in a tent. And no one knew who he was. And so I wrote the first story, and everybody in the trail knew his name was mostly harmless, but he'd used cash when he'd bought things in the stores. He'd never revealed his own name. And so I published the story, and I was like, look, this will be in Wired, and, like, someone will know who he is. Like, someone had called me because on the trail, he had said he was a coder, right? And he had told somebody he was an engineer, and, like, all these people were looking for him. And so I published the story on Wired, and millions of people read it, and no one knows who he is, and no one can figure it out. And so I start getting all these tips. These Facebook groups are formed, and there's, like, hundreds of people going through every clue and, like, looking at photographs and, like, they do DNA analysis to try to trace his relatives and, like, can they figure out, like, where he's from? So then the DNA analysis reveals that he's, like, from a family in Louisiana. So I start buying ads on Facebook in Louisiana, drive into my story so that people will read it and identify who this guy might be. And then, like, finally, after, like, months of tips and red herrings and craziness and all these hunters, like, someone is, like, wait, that's my old friend Vance. And it turns out it's this guy named Vance Rodriguez who had been estranged from his parents. So they weren't looking for him. Like, no one was looking for him. He'd, like, been cruel. He's, like, kind of a bad guy. He'd, like, been cruel to his girlfriend. And so he had disappeared to start over, and no one cared, right? No one was looking for him. It's, like, kind of a sad story. But then he turned himself into this, like, saintly character on the trail who everybody loves. So it's this, like, missed opportunity of total reinvention where this guy, who is a dark force in life becomes this beloved character. This is why so many people are hunting for him, because they're in love with him. He's like this very handsome, like, wonderful guy. And then it's revealed that he likes kind of beats up his girlfriends and is cruel. And so it's like this incredible, like, cognitive dissonance that all these people have when they realize, wait, the guy they were hunting for isn't Prince Charming. And so I wrote the first story. It's called the Search for Mostly Harmless. And then the second story about his life. So those were two of the last stories I wrote at Wired.

[B]

I think that's so exciting. I love that. That's so interesting.

[A]

Yeah, it's a pretty interesting tale. Yeah.

[B]

I love this. Well, thank you for being. Listen, I think this. I had a great time talking to you, so thank you.

[A]

That was so much fun. It was amazing. It's great.

[B]

So much fun. And good luck with this book. I'm sure it's a. It's a really nice read, and you guys have to check it out. The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson. Thank you so much.

[A]

Thank you so much.