Most Pleasant Exhaustion

This week, George and Allison got together to talk about two big Atlanta-based running stories that have echoed around the endurance sporting world: the death of Olympian and coach Jeff Galloway and the unfortunate debacle at the USATF Half Marathon Championship at the Atlanta Half Marathon over the weekend.

This week, longtime friend of the podcast Justin Dugan joined George to talk about "The Chain," a harrowing new memoir from Sir Bradley Wiggins. Sir Wiggins--who received his knighthood in 2013--is arguably the most successful British cyclist of all time, having won five Olympic gold medals, numerous world championships, and several stage races on the road. In 2012, he rocketed to fame when he became the first British winner of the Tour de France. Everything came crashing down after that, though. It turns out that there was a lot of trauma in Sir Wiggins's life, and when he quit racing his bike, it all came to the surface. The next decade was filled with drug and alcohol addiction, and he only recently started to find his way back. This memoir was an important step in that process.

It's the 2025 gift guide! Every year, we talk about the suggestions that we have for the runners in your lives, and this year, we covered all the bases. Want something small? We have you covered. Big? We have that, too. Kinda random? Yep--there are some of those on the list. We even discussed the things that we suggest that you NOT purchase. Happy holidays!

This week, we talked about a new job posting from the Atlanta Braves--an opening for their on-field sprinter/entertainer, the Freeze! Although lots of folks have fowarded this application to us, we talked about how incredibly unfit for the job that we are! In addition, we checked in on Allison's mindset with only three weeks to the World 50K Championship, we made a few corrections based on listener feedback, and we discussed a recent controversy in the FKT world.

This past weekend, George and Michelle ran the New York City Marathon! As they made their way across the five boroughs with more than 59,000 other people, they experience the intensity and enthusiasm that makes the New York City Marathon a truly one-of-a-kind event. This week, we talked about how it felt to toe the starting line, to run the race, and to cross the finish, plus we considered some of the performances by the pro runners and celebrities who competed.

Who talks about a 5K and a 24-hour race in the same podcast? We do! This week, we discussed the IAU 24-hour World Championship that saw Sarah Webster set a new world record for the distance. We also gave our thoughts on the online frenzy around Camille Herron that preceded the race. Before we got into all of that, though, we checked in with Michelle's experience at the local 10-miler--one of her last big tune-ups before the New York City Marathon!--and George's experience at the accompanying 5K, which also happened to be the US Masters National 5K Championship.

This week, we caught up on several pieces of news in the world of distance running, including Courtney Dauwalter's first pro marathon, Killan Jornet's completion of States of Elevation, Connor Mantz's attempt on the AR this weekend at the Chicago Marathon, and the upcoming Athlos track meet in New York City. We also caught up on Michelle's training for the New York City Marathon and Allison's tapering for the Hartford Marathon.

This week, Allison interviewed her friend and brand new *self-supported* FKT-holder for the Appalachian Trail, Jeff Garmire! Jeff's accomplishment was amazing; not only did he do the entire trail in 45 days, 8 hours, and 37 minutes, but he did it without any help at all. This meant that he had to solve any problems that cropped up along the way, whether it was missing a food shipment, or having the wrong shoes, or leaving a bunch of chargers on the side of the trail. Allison and Jeff talked about all of it only a couple of days after Jeff finished, and he had a lot to share about the challenges he faced and how he's feeling now.

This week, we celebrated Allison's being officially named to Team USA for the World 50K Championship by going back over a few things that Bobby Norwood said during our interview last week. We also analyzed some of the results from Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), one of the biggest and most prestigious ultra races in the United States. Finally, we discussed a recent article in the New York Times that described a small study by a Virginia oncologist that seemed to suggest a link between distance running and colon cancer. While it's still preliminary, there are some good takeaways for endurance athletes like us!

This week, we spent some time talking about the amazing run that Sibusiso Kubheka had at the Adidas Chasing 100 project, but we wondered what the purpose of the event may have been. In addition, we spent a little more time talking about shoes--particularly ahead of UTMB this weekend--and we discussed what the decision to go pro may mean for 800m runner Cooper Lutkenhaus. And of course, we talked about Taylor and Travis!

This week, we spent some time catching up with one another. We started by hearing about Michelle's early experiences as a new Zwift user, which has included getting to know herself as a cyclist and becoming a part of the Zwift community. We then talked a bit about what we left out of our coverage of the USATF Championship last week, and we couldn't help but talk a bit more about some of those great races. Finally, we talked about what George's next pair of trail shoes will be, given that he has signed up for a big race in February.

Do you wish that there was more transparency in track and field? So does Allison, and she talked about it on this week's podcast! As usual, we discussed the latest goings on in the endurance sports world--this time, it was the end of the men's Tour de France, the start of the Tour de France Femmes, and the upcoming USA Track Championship--but we mixed in several thoughts on the state of the sport.