The biggest difference between elites and the rest of us is not simply talent; it’s mental resilience.
Matt Fitzgerald has been studying elites his entire career and has learned what techniques the best of the best use to get there. In his new book, The Comeback Quotient, Matt talks about a philosophy called ultrarealism and how we can all apply it to add some extra oomph to our training and push to the next level.
Matt is a well-known endurance sports author, coach, and nutritionist. His many books include How Bad Do You Want It?, 80/20 Running, and The Endurance Diet. Matt’s writing has also appeared in numerous magazines, including Outside and Runner’s World, and on popular websites such as podiumrunner.com and nbcnews.com. He is a cofounder and co-head coach of 80/20 Endurance and the creator of the Diet Quality Score smartphone app. A lifelong endurance athlete, he speaks frequently at events throughout the United States and internationally.
Matt’s work has given him access to some great athletes who have shared their secrets about what it takes to truly become the best in the world, and it’s not just about raw talent or genetics; it’s about the mind. It’s about leveraging science and psychology and philosophy into mental toughness. In The Comeback Quotient, Matt combines those elements that he’s compiled from the best in sport to deliver actionable advice and techniques that any athlete can use to improve.
If you haven’t heard of David Goggins, look him up. He overcame an abusive upbringing to transform himself into a Navy Seal, Air Force Ranger, and competitive ultramarathoner, and he is undeniably one of the toughest minds out there. He’s just one example from Matt’s book that he and Coach Claire discuss as they talk about the qualities that athletes like David have that we can all develop in ourselves.
Matt’s new book The Comeback Quotient comes out in December 2020, and if you are as interested in training your mind to be as fit as your body, make sure you get a copy!
Questions Matt is asked:
6:15 You've written several books on endurance fitness that also seem to have a healthy dose of psychology woven in. What is it about the mental side of the sport that interests you so much?
7:49 I have two little kids, and when they run, they run as fast as they can and then completely poop out. They have no sense of pacing or anything like that, so obviously that’s something that we have to learn.
8:30 Your new book that’s coming out is called The Comeback Quotient. Can you give us a summary of what it's about and why you wanted to write it?
9:56 One thing that you talked a lot about in your book was a philosophy called ultra-realism. Can you explain what that is and why it's important not just for athletes, but for life?
12:24 It sounds so simple when you say, “Just make the best out of it.” How simple is that? But why is it so hard?
14:16 If our brain is so good at predicting, then what do we do when we haven’t thought out a way to get around the obstacle?
16:50 How do you override everything your brain is telling you when you’re in pain?
18:51 You did have a few examples in your book of people who like David Goggins and the Slovenian skier who won Olympic bronze after she had punctured a lung and broken a bunch of ribs. I don't want to be that mentally tough!!! That just sounds pretty stupid some of these things though. Where’s that line?
20:39 Besides just reading your book, how can athletes actively practice mental fitness? It's pretty simple to learn how to physically run your best, but how do you mentally train? Any advice with that?
23:59 You definitely have some stories in the book about people freaking out and things not going so well.
26:37 You basically said to some of the athletes that you’ve coached to stop BSing themselves, and sometimes that’s some realism that’s hard to hear too.
28:13 One thing I definitely have done in a race myself is BSed myself in a positive way and told myself, “It doesn’t hurt. It’s fine. Nothing is wrong here. You can keep going,” when that’s not really the way I feel at all. So I don’t know how that falls into it. I feel like I’m lying to myself in a positive way, if that makes sense.
31:02 Another thing that struck me is a lot of sort of… I don’t know if we call this a self-help book, but a lot of books that are trying to get into the psychology of performance, they only talk about the really positive things. This is called The Comeback Quotient. We’re expecting to read a whole bunch of comeback stories and have everybody get the gold medal at the end, but you included several people who didn’t come back “successfully,” and I’d love to hear about why you chose to do that?
34:02 I think there’s a lot of people, especially new runners, seem to struggle with accepting things that don’t go as expected. Would you say that?
36:37 Another part of the book was your personal journey to train for a triathlon using the mental training techniques that you learned from the ultra-realists. Without giving too much away, what were some of the lessons that you applied for yourself?
39:54 One thing I thought about when reading your race report is it’s very common for people to set goals. So you’ve got your A goal, shoot-the-moon goal, B goal, C goal, but most people aren’t really happy with that C goal. I think that maybe being actually happy with your C goal is like a mental trick that you can do because you didn’t get your A goal in your triathlon, right? And you’re still super, super happy. And how is that possible? How are you not upset that you didn’t get your A goal?
41:44 When does the book come out and what's next for you?
Questions I ask everyone:
43:22 If you could go back and talk to yourself when you started running, what advice would you give?
44:09 What is the greatest gift running has given you?
45:12 Where can listeners and charities connect with you?
“I’m still running at 49 and I just believe that the most obtrusive barriers in endurance sports are the mental barriers.”
“The people who are able to make the very best of the very worst situations in endurance sports, they do so through a process of just facing reality.”
“Whether or not you’re already the most resilient person in the world, if you simply just copy what the ultra-realists are doing, you will start to develop those qualities.”
“You’re not dependent on reality, kind of the stars aligning. It just doesn’t matter. You can succeed in any situation simply by making the best of it even if the end result is not what you originally wanted.”
“It is about the process. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, like you have one race day for every 100 training days or whatever, so those training days you should be enjoying.”
Take a Listen on Your Next Run
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We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top.
The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use.
The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!
Imagine being able to run and heal through an injury. Or imagine significantly increasing your weekly mileage while healthy, while also minimizing your chances for injury, increasing your speed, and improving your recovery. Wouldn’t that be great? Brad Miles, the founder of Lever Running says it’s not only possible, but scientifically proven.
Brad created his Lever system to deliver the benefits of body weight supported running in a convenient, portable package that costs a fraction of the AlterG. The what? The AlterG is basically a big, fancy, eye-poppingly expensive treadmill that takes some of your weight off as you run. It’s a bulky piece of equipment that NASA uses, not your local gym, and certainly not your average runner. And for years, it was the only player in the market for body weight supported running.
Enter Brad, who says that the Lever makes everything that’s hard about running easier. He shares use cases with Coach Claire about how injured athletes have benefitted from body weight supported running using his system, and also how healthy athletes have leveraged it to up their game. He describes the technical aspects of his system and how it works, and after hearing about it, you’ll probably find yourself visiting his website to check out the videos and see the Lever in action.
Please note: Lever Running is not a sponsor of the Run to the Top. This is not an infomercial, but we do talk about the product in great detail in order to introduce you to something that just might help you run faster and injury free.
Brad is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He started getting serious about running in high school where he helped his team win two State cross country titles, won an individual State cross country title, as well as the Footlocker Northeast Championship. He went on to run cross country and track for Baylor University and was named as Baylor's Cross Country Runner of the Decade.
Brad first experienced the benefits of body weight support first hand in college, and soon his business degree was put to good use. He and co-founder Ryan Ognibene started LEVER in 2019 after they recognized the overwhelming need for a mobile, athlete-friendly body weight support system to compete with the AlterG. The primary goal with LEVER was to take technology that was once reserved for the elites and make it available to everyone.
This episode is for everyone interested in breaking the injury cycle, cross training while running, or getting faster!
Questions Brad is asked:
7:22 You first experienced body weight supported running in college. Can you talk about that experience?
8:05 Were you injured when you first tried body weight supported running?
8:13 The AlterG is a pretty expensive piece of technology, is that right?
8:32 AlterG was basically the only game in town as far as taking gravity off your run, is that right?
8:52 From a physiological point of view, what does taking the weight off running actually do for you?
9:32 Because AlterG is such an expensive piece of equipment, not a lot of people have access to it, so I don’t think a ton of people besides the real running nerds know a whole lot about body weight supported running. So what made you decide to make a competitor?
10:37 Let’s talk a little bit about the Lever product. It’s basically an AlterG in a bag?
11:28 How much body weight can the Lever support?
11:35 Can you tell us a little bit more about what this is used for? Why would I want to have something like this?
13:32 In the use case you just described, you talked about a woman using your device to significantly increase her mileage. How was she able to do this safely?
14:28 Are you saying that anybody can use your product and basically double their mileage in a couple of months?
15:24 As a coach, I know that the best thing to do to become a better runner is to run, but there’s an upper limit to that. So basically, it sounds like using body weight support could be like cross training, the most specific cross training that you could possibly have. Would you agree with that?
16:10 Let’s go back to what Lever was originally designed for, which was injured runners. Do you have any stories that you could share about some of your clients?
17:56 Any surprising kind of uses that you’ve seen?
19:05 How do you use Lever for speed?
19:49 If the Lever makes it easier to run, isn’t it de-training by using it?
20:45 Let’s say you’re running whatever pace for your tempo run and your heart rate is X, you want to make sure your heart rate is still at X, but obviously that speed, that pace is going to be much faster with the weight taken off using Lever is what you’re saying?
21:59 Does your Lever pace translate to when you go outside? Do you run at the same pace or somewhere in-between your Lever and outside pace?
22:24 I went to your website and watched the videos and one thing I noticed is that you have to wear specific shorts in order to use this product. Can you tell me about the shorts and why that was a design feature?
23:26 You went with the shorts instead of some kind of harness system?
24:06 What are the shorts like?
24:44 What are the limitations to the body weight support device? Specifically I’m thinking about heavier runners. Is there an upper limit or is there even a lower weight limit?
25:37 The Lever takes off 45 pounds max no matter what your body size, right, not a percentage of the person’s body weight?
25:56 Do the shorts come in all sizes for all runners?
26;04 Could this potentially be a way for heavier runners to get more running in with less pounding?
26:51 What kind of reaction do you get when you bust this out in the gym?
28:07 What's next in the technology?
29:06 For those who are interested in getting this for themselves, you have both a rental option and a purchase option, is that correct?
Questions I ask everyone:
30:35 If you could go back and talk to yourself when you started running, what advice would you give?
31:29 What is the greatest gift running has given you?
32:16 Where can listeners and charities connect with you?
“One of our users just recently reached out to us and said, ‘Guys, thank you so much. I have been able to improve my marathon time from 3:09 to 2:42.’ Big jump.”
“If you can cross train but still run, you’re getting more benefit out of each step that you’re taking.”
“Far too often, a lot of athletes just fall into this repeatable pattern of like injured, getting healthy, injured, getting healthy, and so we’re trying to help athletes break that.”
“We wanted to make sure that the experience was still the experience that you have running, not a very uncomfortable… And again, I’ve run in AlterGs. They are uncomfortable at times, and so we wanted to create a very natural motion of running.”
Take a Listen on Your Next Run
Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes channel
Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community
https://www.precisionhydration.com/
Follow Brad on:
We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top.
The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use.
The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!
If you’ve run for charity, you’re probably wondering how charities have been doing this year with so few races being run. Or maybe you’re looking for inspiration and motivation during these uncertain times. If so, this week’s guest, Susan Hurley, may provide the answers you’re seeking.
A former New England Patriots cheerleader, Susan brings the high energy, creative mind, and fun approach required to motivate, inspire, and lead others to achieve personal goals through fitness and running, while also raising funds for small nonprofits through her organization CharityTeams.
CharityTeams helps nonprofits raise money for good causes through the use of running races and athletic events. Running for charity takes a lot more than just asking your friends and family for money. It takes a lot of organization, and Charity Teams helps take care of the details.
Susan shares how 2020 has impacted charity running and what she sees for the future, through virtual racing and beyond. She also talks about her app, Charge Running, which she’s developed over the last 3 years with a team in Chicago. Charge Running is a live virtual training and racing platform, which is especially relevant now when there are so few in-person races.
Susan started CharityTeams when she recognized the need small nonprofits had for support in valuable athletic fundraising opportunities, and she created a niche sports-related business around that. CharityTeams has blazed a trail for many nonprofits to grow and set the bar high in the athletic fundraising industry. Her teams are some of the most desired to run on. She is a certified RRCA professional running coach and fundraising expert.
Susan is a professional at developing team brands and understands what it takes to keep them succeeding. Her network in the industry is extensive and she has a strong ability to work with runners of all backgrounds in running and fundraising building lasting friendships in her groups and strong ambassadors for charities.
She is formerly a New England Patriots Cheerleader and continues to dispel the words of her mother, that "You can't be a cheerleader your whole life."
Susan's marathon personal best is 3:16 and she continues to run The Boston Marathon, NYC Marathon and Chicago Marathon each year, as well as many other races.
(Qualifying for NY and Chicago)
She has been running since she missed the bus in 2nd grade.
She has qualified and competed in the World Triathlon Championship in Hawaii.
She continues to run competitively while raising funds for various causes.
Susan completed the first ever 2017 Fenway Park Marathon and the first ever Gillette Stadium Marathon. She is a two time finisher of the Mt. Washington Road Race in 2018 and 2019.
She finished her first 50K at the Marine Corps Marathon weekend in 2021.
Susan also works on special projects such as the Bobbi Gibb sculpture project which will be unveiled in April of 2021. This beautiful statue named after the children's book, The Girl Who Ran, was sculpted by winner of the Boston Marathon and trailblazer for women’s running, Bobbi Gibb. It is of herself. In 1966, Gibb popped out from behind forsythia bushes in Hopkinton to become the first woman to run Boston.
After listening to Susan, maybe you’ll be inspired to run for a higher purpose!
Questions Susan is asked:
6:36 Your business, Charity Teams, has raised over $24 million for various non-profits. Can you tell us more about how Charity Teams works and how you started it?
7:39 Let’s say I am a charity and I want to raise money and I give you a phone call. What’s that conversation going to be like?
8:26 Charity Teams is like a one-stop shop then for fundraising?
8:57 Obviously 2020 has been strange for all of us, but especially in the running world with no races. What are charities doing?
9:48 Most runners, we race because we want to achieve a personal goal. What makes it different when you run for charity?
11:09 Let’s talk about the Boston Marathon for example. If you’re not fast enough to meet the qualifications, you can go ahead and sign up with a charity and run for charity. But there’s some big fundraising goals you have to meet which I think might be intimidating to some people, and maybe kind of stressful. So how do you encourage people when they’re facing some $5,000 goal or something like that? How do you encourage people because that seems a little scary to me?
12:41 Do you have anybody that you can think of in mind that is just a charity superstar? Any good stories that you can share with us?
14:23 Let’s talk about virtual racing. Virtual racing is here to stay I think for a while. I think it’s a challenge for some people because it’s not the same as in-person races, and you’ve kind of come up with a little bit of a solution for that with your app. Do you want to tell us a little bit about it?
16:22 So if I wanted to go out the door and go for a run using your Charge Running app, I just plug in my headphones and somebody will be telling me to run faster, or how does it work?
17:22 Is the Charge Running app course specific?
18:10 One of your projects you are working on is installing a statue of Bobbi Gibbs on the Boston Marathon race course. Can you tell us, for those who may not know, who Bobbi Gibbs is and why the statue’s so important?
19:08 What made you want to get involved in the Bobbi Gibbs statue project?
20:01 Do you know anything about the Bobbi Gibbs statue artist?
20:35 This year has been really challenging for a lot of people, so I would love to hear your tips since you’ve worked so much in the virtual race space, how do we stay motivated? How do we look beyond possibly having no races and nothing to plan for? What are your best tips for this?
22:20 Could choosing a charity and having to show up to a race for someone besides yourself be really motivational for some people?
23:27 What is next for you? You mentioned that you are training for some virtual marathons. What kind of things are you training for?
Questions I ask everyone:
24:42 If you could go back and talk to yourself when you started running, what advice would you give?
25:37 What is the greatest gift running has given you?
26:10 Where can listeners and charities connect with you?
“The bigger charities have a lot of bandwidth to be able to provide services, but the smaller charities don’t, so the smaller charities is really where I have made my little bit of a niche, if you will. And so I’ve really helped a lot of small nonprofits grow.”
“I think you see a different breed of runner going into the charity world. Maybe not as fast. Definitely somebody that might be just more of an average runner trying to qualify, or maybe would never have the chance to qualify for an event, but they go into this charity space and they’re inspired and they can set goals and feel like they’re achieving a lot of great things.”
“With goal setting comes inspiration. Maybe find a nonprofit that is hosting a virtual run and use that for your inspiration in your goal setting so that you can continue to stay in shape as we move through this really uncertain time.”
Take a Listen on Your Next Run
Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes channel
Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community
Follow Susan on:
We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top.
The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use.
The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!
As a runner, you prioritize your physical training, but what are you doing for your mental health training? Dr. Lara Pence (aka Dr. L) is a clinical psychologist who has spent the last 15 years working with endurance athletes to help them shed unhealthy patterns of behavior and build mental strength using curiosity as a tool to become mentally resilient and adventurous. By training athletes to dive deeper into the why behind their goals, she also helps them boost their mental toughness by creating a values-driven way of being.
Dr. L shares a lot of great info with Coach Claire on how to build mental strength, including discussions on the relationship between athletes and food, changing our personal narratives about our performance as we age, setbacks, and motivation. Having a fit mind is at least as important as having a fit body, and this is an episode everyone can benefit from.
Dr. L is an East Coast native who did her post-doctoral fellowship in Dallas, TX. She has since built her own private practice, becoming one of the most sought-after therapists in Dallas. She moved to Colorado in 2019 to become the Chief Mind Doc for SPARTAN, the world’s top endurance company. She also hosted the Spartan Mind podcast and served as a consultant to the organization on various mindset-focused initiatives.
Dr. L is also a coach for The Unbeatable Mind, alongside Mark Divine, founder of SEAL FIT. She has been featured in various publications and media outlets such as Good Morning America, the BBC, Glamour, Vogue, WebMD, Psychology Today, and The Huffington Post.
Most recently, Dr. L has launched her own podcast called Curious Minds with Dr. L, and she has a new product called LIGHFBOX, a simple program designed to exercise your mind, spark curiosity, and boost your mental fitness.
Get ready to strengthen your mind and boost your mental fitness with Dr. L!
Questions Lara is asked:
6:17 You like to call yourself an "active therapist" and that's not just because you are also a runner. What do you mean by that?
7:39 Let’s talk about the people you do work with and your own running background. How do you specifically work with runners?
9:34 Eating disorders and running. Obviously, to be at the top of your game, you need to be light and lean. Thankfully some elite runners these days are talking more about how getting too lean is really causing huge problems, but there is a fine line between being at your highest performance and whether that’s actually healthy or not. So how do you kind of dig through that mess?
12:15 Let’s go into the performance side of what you do, mental strength training if you will. A lot of people, when runners or athletes get to a certain level, they realize that it’s not just all about physical training. The mental aspect is absolutely huge, if not more important than the physical training. Everybody wants to know: How do we get mentally tough?
14:47 You’re saying that we should just be curious about why a race or a workout didn’t go well. How do you incorporate curiosity in success and failure when it comes to athletes?
17:12 I would love to hear about how you practice incorporating curiosity. Say I’m a runner and I’m trying to go after this big goal and I’m just getting frustrated. How do I practice curiosity to improve my mental strength?
20:33 What happens when you peel back the onion and maybe there’s not such positive motivation down there?
23:45 Obviously 2020 has been a crazy year, but for runners specifically, all their races have been canceled pretty much. And so the carrot that everybody has, that’s evaporated, and so a lot of the clients that I coach have just been like, “You know what? There’s no race on the schedule. I don’t really feel like training anymore.” What advice do you give runners who are training without races?
29:23 I read on your blog that you wrote an article recently about overcoming setbacks. Obviously as people, but also as runners specifically, setbacks can happen all the time, whether it’s just a bad workout or a big race that you train for that didn’t go so well. I’d love to hear your ideas about overcoming setbacks.
33:28 How about successes? Some people, surprisingly, don’t handle success very well. What are your thoughts on that?
35:54 I'd love to get your thoughts on comparison and competition. Runners compete in races and we compete against ourselves. That can be great, but that can also be pretty tough, especially if you were let’s say a high school or college runner and you’re now in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, and you’re just not the same person that you used to be. I would love to get your opinion and thoughts about Masters runners and about how as we get older, we’re not as fast as we used to be, and how can we still celebrate what we can do?
40:16 I think honestly, the runners that have the healthier outlook as Masters are the ones who were not competitive when they were younger, because they’re finding it all new and exciting, and every race is a PR, so it’s really special, whereas sometimes I get other athletes who competed before and it seems like they’re always looking backwards instead of looking forward.
42:31 What's next for you? You say that you have a race coming up in May. What are you training for?
Questions I ask everyone:
43:42 If you could go back and talk to yourself when you started running, what advice would you give?
43:51 What is the greatest gift running has given you?
44:15 Where can listeners connect with you?
“One of the things that I love to do, one of my strengths, is actually knowing my limitations and knowing what’s the appropriate arena for me to explore something with a client and when it’s not.”
“The judgement that can accumulate inside of us is almost like energy, if you think of it as energy. It’s really toxic and can be really poisonous. And when we reduce the judgements and open up space for curiosity, it really allows for a willingness to learn and a willingness to absorb other information that can actually be helpful and fuel us.”
“In terms of setbacks, I really, really encourage individuals to have the mindset of everything is an opportunity.”
Take a Listen on Your Next Run
Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes channel
Podcast - Curious Minds with Dr L
LIGHFBOX self-reflection cards
Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community
Follow Lara on:
We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top.
The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use.
The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!