6 Great Running Listens

6 Great Running Listens

by Patrick Reed

I am a great consumer of all things running – especially when it comes to great advice on training, nutrition, recovery, race-day strategy — even just a great running tale — and everything and anything else that savvy, smart, distance-running folks get into my earbuds. As I have mentioned in my most recent ebook – 10 Tips To Inspire Your Running Life – a pastime of mine for nearly the last decade has been listening to the spoken word during my workouts. Whereas often this habit has taken the form of listening to audible books as I go, I am also often wired up to one of my favorite running podcasts. And though I do listen to a fair amount of photography and tech-related material, my running-specific podcasts and audible books are most on my mind these days. Today, I want to recommend 6 specific podcast episodes and books to fire up your running another notch. Let’s dive in – in the hopes that you do not stop at these recommendations, but rather that you consider subscribing to a few of the shows and continue to push forward in your love affair with our sport.

1. Trail Runner Nation  with special guest Dr. Phil Maffetone – Training guru Dr. Phil Maffetone teaches: “Slow Down To Speed Up!”

This episode, recorded in January of 2013 was my first introduction to Dr. Maffetone. His ideas and wisdom set my training wheels spinning and helped me to question many of my long-held training misconceptions. Join in the intriguing conversation as Dr. Phil sets things straight. By the way, I was so taken by Dr. Phil in this show that since then I have interviewed him twice for my own “A Runner’s Podcast” and he has been a guest at our home!

2. Talk Ultra – Episode #35: Jornet, Forsberg, Canaday, Olson, Clayton, James & Transvulcania

As the episode title suggests, Talk Ultra is no sprinter’s show. This is a show for those who would have “their legs talked off!” as dynamic host Ian Corless expresses it. Also as the episode title more than hints at, the show is replete with interviews with the greatest ultra-distance runners in the world today. The shows are created in a magazine-style so that listeners are encouraged to jump from story to story just as they would when scanning a journal. My encouragement for this first listen is that you lace up the shoes, press play and run. Listen right through and you will learn an ultra amount!

3. Phedippidations Episode #258: George Sheehan Seeing

As you know, I am a great fan of the late Dr. George Sheehan. His running insights, his deep knowledge of philosophy and, most importantly, the way he conveyed the essence of running are a life-long inspiration to me. When I came upon this episode of Steve Runner’s wonderful and playful podcast, I was taken. After all, I have exchanged emails with Dr. Sheehan’s son Andy, himself, hoping for an audible version of Running & Being. This episode of Phedippidations is the next best thing – for Steve Runner reads the final chapter of the classic to the listeners. Get set for an hour-long run and drink in Dr. Sheehan’s running philosophy.

4. Trail Runner Nation interviews Dr. Timothy Noakes – Think you know everything there is to know about hydration? Noakes knows a whole lot more — and it’ll surprise you!

5. Finding Ultra by Rich Roll  – I happened upon this book just before I left for Death Valley a couple of months ago. En route to a running retreat with a bunch of crazies like myself, this excellent book served the perfect foil for my stay in the hottest place on earth. Rich Roll crafts an autobiographical account of his life that is sobering, inspiring and captivating. The final chapters of the book — after the groundwork of a life miraculously turned right-side-up — tell of Rich Roll’s and Jason Lester’s (one arm Ironman sensation) efforts to complete 5 Ironman-distance triathlons in 5 days on the 5 islands of Hawaii. Yeah, the book is that insane. Go give it a listen!

6. Eat & Run by Scott Jurek – If you haven’t read or listened to this book by now, it’s high-time you do. Scott Jurek gives us much more than the title at first promises. He tells his life story – and being arguably the greatest of ultra runners of all time, his story is a well-described discourse into the science, dreamy ambience, sweat, hard reality and sometime epiphany that only a man like Jurek could have experienced. There was literally a moment when listening to this tale on the trail when I stopped, put my hands on my knees and wept — tears of  joy and sadness and of identification with the ups and downs of this stellar runner’s life.

Listen!

~Coach Patrick

image credits: marketing-staffing.com