The Running Effect Podcast

How Yosuke Shibata Ran a 14:20 Cross Country 5K Without Raising His Mileage Since Sophomore Year

1.6K views · 1d ago · 43:41

Fifteen seconds down with 600 meters to go is not supposed to be a winning position. For South Eugene senior and Duke commit Yosuke Shibata, it was how his undefeated fall began. In this installment of our Fleet Feet x Brooks High School Cross Country Series, Dominic talks with the Brooks NIL athlete about how a summer of Achilles and peroneal tendonitis issues turned into the best season of his life.

Kilian Jornet Climbed Everest Twice in One Week. The Second Time He Blacked Out

942 views · 2d ago · 59:06

Kilian Jornet doesn't look back. Ask the greatest mountain athlete alive which moment defined him and he says: tomorrow. Dominic traces a career that began in a Pyrenees mountain hut at 2,000 meters, where Kilian's parents took him up summits as a game of finding trees and spotting animals. He entered his first ski mountaineering race at 13 only because his mother didn't know where else to put his energy. His coaches never once mentioned winning.

Teacher Turned Founder: I Couldn’t Run Half a Mile! Now I’m Fitter at 41 Than I Was at 20

993 views · 4d ago · 1:10:31

Guest: Teacher Turned Founder

Trevor Wright swore off running in seventh grade. Recorded in Columbus, this conversation traces how a kid who dreaded his weekly mile-and-a-half PE "fun run" now runs before breakfast by choice. Nudged by the marathoners and triathletes on his teaching faculty, Trevor started running in 2009, fell for late-night miles after his wife went to bed, and ran several half marathons.

A Stanford Runner Coached Himself With ChatGPT. Now He's on a Tour de France Team

4K views · 6d ago · 52:25

Gavin Sherry found his future on a borrowed bike. A year ago, the former Conard High School star was still on Stanford’s cross country roster, his college career swallowed by a femoral stress fracture, two tibial stress fractures and recurring IT band trouble. Then the cross-training started to feel like the main event. Sherry tells Dominic about the moment he caught himself feeling a little excited about new pain on a run, because it meant more time on the bike.

No Double Threshold, Under 60 Miles a Week: How Nathan Green Won Both US 1500m Titles

7.2K views · 1w ago · 1:14:27

Nathan Green came to talk, and he didn’t hold back. Nathan names Hobbs Kessler as the best American 1,500m runner right now. He also makes his case for lifetime doping bans, and he and Dominic debate where the Shelby Houlihan case fits. He explains why he hates losing far more than he loves winning, which is why his bib from his fall in Silesia hangs framed on his wall.

She Left Poland Burnt Out. Five Years Later, She Ran 3:54 in the 1500m

2.7K views · 1w ago · 1:05:27

Klaudia Kazimierska didn't just finish 2026. She owned it. In her first season under Jerry Schumacher, the Polish middle-distance star closed with three straight wins: the Diamond League Final in Brussels in a world-leading 3:54.05 national record; the inaugural World Ultimate Championship in Budapest; and Athlos London.

A Nike Coach Read the Electrolyte Science: "You're Probably Wasting Your Money."

4.7K views · 1w ago · 1:02:09

Salt might be the most overhyped thing in your running bag. Alex Ostberg is back from Chicago, where Charles Hicks became the No. 3 American all time on a record-eligible course, for his monthly breakdown of the last four editions of The Rundown. He and Dominic start with electrolytes, a piece prompted by Riley Witt’s hot take.

Harvard Had Made NCAA Cross Country Once. Then He Built Two National Champions

5.9K views · 2w ago · 1:07:12

Nobody builds a distance program at Harvard. Alex Gibby did it twice over Alex arrived at Harvard in 2017 and inherited a program that had almost never made nationals, and didn't have a single athlete setting a PR after early February.

How America's No. 1 High School Girl Won Both National Titles on 35 Miles a Week

6.6K views · 2w ago · 45:46

Natasza Dudek only wanted a PR. She got history instead. Now a junior at Ann Arbor Pioneer and the reigning Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Player of the Year, Natasza joins Dominic midway through her 2026 season to look back on the year her name went national. She remembers watching her oldest sister Zofia’s finishing kick win the 2019 Foot Locker title on a computer screen.

Zone 2, 80/20, Double Threshold. The Breaking2 Scientist Says None of Them Is the Answer.

3K views · 2w ago · 56:56

The woman who breaks four minutes in the mile has probably already been born. That's the opening claim from Professor Andy Jones, the Exeter physiologist behind Nike's Breaking2 project, and he gives her ten to fifteen years. The problem right now, he explains, is a split field: some women have the aerobic engine and the critical speed but no anaerobic reserve, while others have the speed and no endurance.

Rejected by 217 Colleges. Now He Coaches the Fastest Miler in History (Josh Kerr)

5K views · 2w ago · 1:11:37

After Josh Kerr's mile world record, Danny Mackey had 478 unread texts. He answered about 20 of them. The founding head coach of the Brooks Beasts Track Club joins Dominic at the end of the best season of his career. Josh Kerr broke the mile world record in London, about an hour after Brandon Miller won the 800m. Mackey still says he hasn't really reflected on any of it. He explains why: after 217 NCAA coaching rejections, he's still the guy who worries he could lose his job.

More Miles, No Hero Workouts. How a D1 Coach Builds Winning Runners.

2.9K views · 3w ago · 45:40

Some coaches chase talent. Todd Witzleben builds it. Witzleben explains his formula: "big boy volume," with lots of threshold work and hill strength, and workouts nobody brags about. He makes the case for recruiting 9:30 two-milers in a roster-limit era, pointing to Leon Atkins, who never broke two minutes in high school and placed 16th at NCAAs.

USADA Drug Tested Him at Planet Fitness After His 2:05 Marathon Debut

5.9K views · 3w ago · 57:12

Vinny Mauri got drug tested at a Planet Fitness. Five months after his 2:05:54 marathon at Glass City made him the fastest marathon debutant in American history, the self-coached Ohioan returned to the show just days before his second marathon in Chicago.

The Coach Who's Never Lost a Dual Meet: How Sean McCafferty Builds Winners

1.6K views · 3w ago · 58:01

Four hundred straight dual meet wins don't happen by accident. Sean McCafferty, entering his tenth year as head cross country coach at Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) in Lincroft, New Jersey, joins Dominic to unpack the culture behind one of the most storied programs in high school running. Sean ran at CBA before competing at Princeton, and he later took over the program from Tom Heath, who led it for 45 years.

How Ethan Strand Beat Jakob Ingebrigtsen as a Rookie

10K views · 3w ago · 1:07:58

Ethan Strand is a national champion who still believes he finished second. He found out Jonah Koech had been busted for doping in the middle of a treadmill run, when Parker Wolfe tapped him on the shoulder, and his first reaction was anger. In this conversation, Ethan tells Dominic why the title still feels strange, why he feels worse for Hobbs Kessler, and why he thinks a positive test should end a career.