THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

Forty-five days ago, he told TRE he didn't know if he liked running anymore. 

Then he ran 37 loops. 

Aleksander Piotr Lingauer showed up to the 2026 BPN Go One More Ultra carrying more than a race bib. He carried a childhood spent in foster care across England and Germany, a nervous system that had been shutting down in the weeks before the start line, and a verse from Joel written on his shirt.

What he left with was something harder to name—and that's what this...

Most people spend years chasing a record. Jane Hedengren did it on her first try.

On April 3rd at the Stanford Invitational, BYU freshman Jane Hedengren stepped onto the track for her first-ever collegiate outdoor race and ran 30:46.80, the fastest collegiate 10,000m in NCAA history. She broke Parker Valby's record by nearly four seconds. 

That's who TRE is sitting down with this week.     

But this episode isn't really about the record. It's about what it takes to perform at that level before you've had time to be...

Quentin Nauman is already a legend in Iowa. This spring season is the encore

The greatest prep distance runner in Iowa history enters his final outdoor season with 10 state titles, two national championships, and one goal left unfinished.  

Two weeks ago at Nike Indoor Nationals, Nauman anchored Iowa's DMR team to a national title in 9:46.23, edging Texas by under a second in a dramatic final 200 meters. For an athlete defined by solo dominance, it was a glimpse of something new. 

Now he's back for his las...

Colorado-born elite runner turned entrepreneur David Perry is here—a guy who went from captain of Adidas Runners NYC to founder of one of the most talked-about jewelry brands in the athletic world. 

David gained notoriety in the NYC running community before founding his own luxury jewelry brand, David Perry Jewelry. He was an All-America runner at the University of Portland, where he competed in Cross Country and Track & Field.

As a middle-to-long-distance specialist, he has times like 3:45.61 in the 1500m and 23:18 in the 8,000m under his belt. Post-collegiately, he b...

He won a world title on spring break. Monday morning, he was back in class.

Cooper Lutkenhaus is 17 years old and the youngest world champion in the history of track and field. Weeks after Toruń, he sits down with The Running Effect to answer the question nobody else has asked: what does life actually look like on the other side of history?

The Nike contract signed at 16. The high school coach he still trusts with everything. The Tokyo wound that quietly powered an unbeaten indoor season from the inside out...

Mark Dowdle didn't grow up a runner. 

He was a two-sport college athlete who heard David Goggins on a podcast during a bus ride home from a losing lacrosse trip, and decided to become a different person.

Six years later, he's on Team USA. 

He's won backyard ultras covering 283 miles in 68 straight hours. He ran 135 miles through Northern Minnesota in sub-zero January temps and took first place. He spent an entire year running the day of the month in miles (every single day),  logging 6,400 miles be...

She missed NXN in the fall. By March, she was winning national titles.

Braelyn Combe is a senior at Santiago High School in Corona, California, and the latest athlete to join TRE's Festival of Miles series. Right now she's the most dangerous prep distance runner in the country. Not because she's the fastest out of the gate, because she knows exactly when to move.

At the 2026 Nike Indoor Nationals, Combe ran the first 800 meters of the championship mile slowly, deliberately, and patiently. Then she ran the back half in 2:12.7...

Miami doesn't have a running culture by accident. Frankie Ruiz built it.

From 17 Florida high school cross country state championships (9 in a row); to a junior who just finished 4th at Nike Cross Nationals; to a marathon that generates $300 million a year for Miami-Dade County; and a government appointment to make an entire city healthier—he does all of this simultaneously. 

And he's been doing it for over two decades.

Frankie is the co-founder of the Life Time Miami Marathon and serves as Chief Running...

He said it was his to lose. Then he went out and made sure of it.

Josh Kerr is back on The Running Effect, and this time he's not limping off a global stage. He's walking out of Toruń with gold, and already calling his next shot.

At the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships, Kerr reclaimed the 3000m title he first won two years ago in Glasgow. He ran a 7:35.56, the second-fastest winning time in World Indoor Championships history. 

February brought his return: a 2-mile agains...

A sub-2-hour marathon was supposed to be impossible. Then Dr. Brad Wilkins built the mathematical model that proved it wasn't, and Nike handed him the keys to make it happen.

In 2017, Kipchoge ran 2:00:25 at Breaking2—25 seconds short. Close enough to prove the science was right. Two years later, the 1:59:40 happened in Vienna. The blueprint Wilkins built made that possible.

Now he's back in a university lab asking an even bigger question: what is the actual ceiling of human performance? Spoiler: he doesn't think there is one.

From the...

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

What if the secret to running faster is eating a donut? 

World-class coach Alex Ostberg is back for another monthly breakdown of his newsletter, The Rundown; and this one might be his most thought-provoking yet.

Dominic and Alex tear through four recent editions, starting with a piece that'll make your clean-eating friends squirm: The Case for Junk Food as a Runner. Alex breaks down the real physiology behind post-run refueli...

What do you do after you've literally run around the world? For Isaiah Photo, apparently, you wake up at 5 AM every single morning, jump into an ice bath, and spend 75 days trying to get a six-pack. 

This is the kind of unhinged, disciplined, borderline-beautiful chaos that Isaiah Photo lives in. You might know him from his 10 million YouTube subscribers, or from that video where he attempted a marathon in high heels. But today, he's back on the show to discuss his 75 Hard Challenge, aka Operation Get Isaiah a Six Pack. 

With al...

Grant Fisher holds American records, world records, and an Olympic medal. He's arguably the greatest American distance runner alive—and he's only 28.

But the story that shaped all of it almost didn't happen. His college coach sat him down junior year and asked one question: how much do you actually care about this? That conversation changed everything. 

Then, before the 2024 Olympics, Grant did something most athletes never do at the height of their power: he blew it all up. New coach, new city, new training. Complete blank slate.

S...

Adriaan Wildschutt just became the first South African in history to win the NYC Half Marathon, and it looks like he’s in the middle of a memorable career.

Adriaan holds five South African national records. He ran a sizzling 59:13 half marathon debut. He was 13th at the World Cross Country Championships, which was the best finish a South African man has ever had at that event. This guy is notbuilding toward something. He's already in the middle of it. 

Adriaan’s NYC Half Marathon victory on March 15 was both historic and re...

The man behind one of the most exciting moments in collegiate track this season is here: BYU Assistant Coach Ryan Waite. His athlete, Carter Cutting, just claimed the 2026 NCAA Indoor Mile title.

Ryan isn't just a coach. He's a five-time All-American who ran these same kinds of races, felt that same pressure, and now pours every bit of that experience and wisdom into the athletes he develops. 

He is the current Assistant Coach for the BYU men’s distance program; he returned after a successful tenure as the head coach of...

Just a few months ago, Carter Cutting wasn’t the favorite in the men’s mile of the NCAA Indoor Championship.  

In fact, he was ranked 10th in the field heading into this big meet. But when the moment came, the BYU junior delivered one of the most decisive kicks of the entire meet—closing his final 200 meters in 27.35 seconds to win the 2026 NCAA Indoor Mile National Championship in 3:58.94.

That victory didn’t just crown a new champion, it also ended a 15-year drought for BYU men’s individual indoor titles. And it...

The last time Kimberley May joined the show, she was a 4:27 miler pulling back the curtain on what it takes to compete at the highest level of collegiate running.

Since then, her career has accelerated into something much bigger.

In early 2025, May ran 8:44.73 for the indoor 3,000m, breaking the Providence College record and posting one of the fastest times in NCAA history. 

Over the past year, she has also risen to become the second-fastest New Zealand woman ever in both the 1,500m and the m...

For nearly 40 years, Jeff Troesch has worked behind the scenes with NBA players, MLB All-Stars, Olympic medalists, and national championship programs.

He's coached athletes at every Olympic Games since 1988, helped shape the mental systems at IMG Academy, and consulted for USA Track & Field.

In 2025, he distilled 150 mental performance lessons into one book: One Day Better.

Jeff doesn't preach positive thinking, he teaches neutral thinking. His approach encourages athletes to define what "one day better" looks like for ea...

Mike Scannell is back on The Running Effect Podcast.

The last time he joined the show, we talked about the long-term vision behind coaching one of America’s most talented distance runners. Since then, that vision has turned into one of the most remarkable stretches in American distance running history.

His athlete, Grant Fisher, has won two Olympic bronze medals in Paris, broken indoor world records in both the 3,000m and 5,000m, and firmly established himself as one of the most dominant distance runners on the planet.

...

The last time Connor Burns and Simeon Birnbaum were here, they were two highly anticipated freshmen trying to find their footing in one of the most historic distance programs in NCAA history.

Now? They’re conference-dominating sophomores ready for their next target.

At the 2026 Big Ten Indoor Championships, Simeon Birnbaum swept the distance double, winning both the 3,000m and the 5,000m to claim two Big Ten titles while continuing to climb the Oregon all-time lists.

Connor Burns dropped a 7:40 in the 3000m at Boston Univ...

Clayton Young fell early at the Marathon World Championships, and still finished as the top American. He also ran 2:07:04 at Boston (the fastest marathon of his life), and somehow it still felt like there was more in the tank. 

Since 2024, he’s been everywhere that matters: including 2nd in the U.S. Olympic Trials, 9th at the Paris Olympics, 7th in New York, 7th in Boston, and 9th in Tokyo. This man is stacking top-10 finishes on the biggest stages in the sport of marathon running. 

And no...

In the span of a few months, Trent McFarland has gone from conference contender to one of the most dangerous milers in the NCAA, running 3:52.73 to break a school record and then defending his Big Ten title in a gritty, tactical 4:11 championship race.

As one of the top milers in the Big Ten and the NCAA, Trent has had a tremendous 2025-26 season so far. He is the back-to-back Big Ten mile champion, and helped anchor the Michigan DMR team to gold at the 2026 Big Ten Indoor Championships.

In early 2026, he...

Cameron Hanes didn't inherit greatness. He built it: one mile, one arrow, one brutally consistent day at a time. 

He wasn't a child prodigy hunter or a naturally gifted runner. He was a warehouse worker, a utility employee, and a guy who struggled through his first mile of running.

And through obsession, discipline, and an uncompromising personal code, he became the man who can run 20 miles before breakfast, lift after work, shoot in the dark, and line up for the hardest ultras in the world, all while preaching a simple philos...

Aleksander Lingauer is back on the show, this time putting everything on the table.

Aleksander is an endurance athlete and writer, and the mind behind Project 61: a solo mission to run the length of Germany, one marathon a day, for two straight months. He's also crewed for Kim Gotthwald across two Last Man Standing victories.

And this year, BPN extended him an invitation of his own.

Aleksander is here to be honest and raw: about his nervous system shutting down on him. Not from one...

Becs Gentry isn’t just an influential Peloton instructor. 

She’s a 2:32 marathoner, a former British Olympic Trials fourth-place finisher, the first female non-elite at the 2019 NYC Marathon, and now the newest Global Brand Ambassador for HOKA.

And that’s not even mentioning her incredible second-place finish in The Great World Race in 2024: she ran 7 marathons, on 7 continents, in 7 days, setting a world record for the fastest time to start seven marathons across seven continents, and then turned around and kept training like it was just another chapter.

The story of coach Craig Kirkwood doesn’t begin and end with teenage phenom Sam Ruthe. 

Yes, just this year the 16-year-old Ruthe ran 3:48.88 indoors, breaking the World U18 Indoor Mile record and the New Zealand senior record in one race. It was a generational performance.

But this wasn’t Coach Craig’s first run-in with elite talent. He has coached Olympic medalists like Hayden Wilde (Olympic bronze medalist in Tokyo 2020; and silver medalist in Paris 2024 in the triathlon), New Zealand record holders like Sam Tanner (Two-time Olympian and New Zealand rec...

The grade-two calf tear he suffered during the World Championship 1500m race in Tokyo in 2025 could have resulted inJosh Kerr stepping off the track and licking his wounds.

Instead, he finished the race, committed to rehab, and returned to the stage at the Millrose Games. Kerr lined up in the 2-mile not just as the world indoor best holder (8:00.67), but as the man everyone was chasing. In a tactical, electric“kicker’s battle,” he clocked 8:07.68 and finished second to American Cole Hocker, a reminder that even record holders must keep evolving.

Josh’s c...

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

Alex returns for his monthly Run Down to unpack five recent essays that challenge how we think about talent, training, and long-term development in running.

First, he explores why most prodigies don’t ultimately make it at the highest level. Early success, he argues, often masks structural weaknesses. That theme flows directly into the case for delaying specialization. The athletes who diversify early, build broader movement skills, and avoid constant pressure to peak as tee...

Since his last appearance on the show, Coach Pat Henner has continued shaping distance culture at the highest levels of the sport while playing a quiet but meaningful role in one of the most remarkable middle-distance arcs in recent American history.

After joining the University of Georgia in June 2022, Henner coached standout athlete Will Sumner to an NCAA title and helped elevate the Bulldogs’ distance program before departing in June 2024. He was succeeded by Adam Tribble.

At the same time, Henner has served as a high-performance con...

What does one of the most decorated American middle-distance runners in history do after her final race?    

After 20 years at the top of the sport, including four global medals, a World Championship gold, an Olympic bronze, 11 U.S. titles, and a 3:57 1500m personal best, Jenny Simpson stepped off the professional stage at the 2024 New York City Marathon for the final time.

But she didn’t step away from running. Rather, she delved deeper into it.

Now, as the first-ever Chief Running Officer at Fleet Feet, Jenny is helping...

Annie Kunz knows what it feels like when an Olympic dream doesn’t follow the script. 

She’s a U.S. Olympic Trials champion in the heptathlon (6,703 points in 2021), a 2020 U.S. Indoor pentathlon champion, and one of the most uncommon dual-sport athletes you’ll ever meet: an All-American in track and field and an All-SEC forward in soccer at Texas A&M. But Annie’s story isn’t just about talent; it’s about the framework she built to unlock consistency at the highest level.

In this conversation, Annie challenges the ide...

Jack Mullaney stepped into one of the most scrutinized coaching jobs in professional distance running and made it his own.  In just over a year at the helm of HOKA NAZ Elite, Jack Mullaney has navigated a generational coaching handoff, delivered U.S. road titles, Olympic top-10 finishes, and team records, and helped shape one of the sport’s most talked-about high-performance environments.Coach Mullaney has been with HOKA NAZ Elite since 2023, and under his leadership, the team has achieved significant milestones. A few of the big ones include Alex Masai achieving a third place finish at the 2025 Chicago Mara...

In the last 14 months, Sara Hall has shattered the American  marathon masters record, finished runner-up at back-to-back marathons, and proved (once again) that elite performance doesn’t have an expiration date.  

Sara most recently finished second at the 2026 Houston Marathon with a time of 2:26:26. At 42 years of age, she is still setting Masters records, including her 2:23:45 showing at the 2024 Valencia Marathon. Even with a 5th place finish at the 2024 Marathon Olympic Trials, she steadfastly remains an elite runner on the world stage.  

Sara’s personal best in the marathon is an imp...

Tayvon Kitchen joined one of the deepest programs in college running as a freshman, and immediately became top billing. 

He kicked the door down, and in just a few months at BYU, he’s gone from high school phenom to All-American, Big 12 Freshman of the Year, and now one of the fastest U20 5,000-meter runners in American history.

Tayvon earned All-American status in his NCAA Cross Country Championships debut in 2025, finishing 32nd overall and as the top BYU runner. He was also named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year and earned...

Jeffrey Stern is an elite ultrarunner, a coach obsessed with keeping athletes happy, and a storyteller inside the sport who understands what it really takes to stay in it for decades, not just seasons.

Jeffrey has completed the oldest trail race in America, the Dipsea Race, an astounding 16 consecutive times–and even recorded a personal best in his most recent foray. 

He’s also set several Fastest Known Times (FKTs), including the Backbone Trail (a 68-mile traverse in the Santa Monica Mountains), and the Los Padres Traverse (42 mile route).

Hello 2026, and goodbye to another longstanding record in the world of professional running. 

Mr. Versatility himself, Hobbs Kessler, barged into the New Year like a storm and crushed Kenenisa Bekele’s 2,000m Indoor World Record with a 4:48.79 at Boston University on January 24 to set a new standard. (Grant Fisher also beat the World Record time with a still-sizzling 4:49.48.)  

Hobbs is a one-time World Indoor Championship Bronze Medalist (he earned the bronze medal in the 1500m at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow); a one-time World Road Running Champion (he won the...

The Mitch Ammons story is no longer just a comeback story. He’s now a living case study of what happens when discipline compounds.

Last time Mitch was here he had run a 2:16 marathon, which was fast enough to qualify for the 2024 US Olympic Marathon trials. But he had bigger dreams.  

And the quiet workhorse has since improved upon that impressive time with a new marathon PR of 2:14:48 at the California International Marathon in December of 2025. (This qualifies him for the 2028 US Olympic Marathon trials.)

He also...

Cole Sprout and Charles Hicks are here: two Stanford running legends in the same place, ready to chop it up at the exact moment their careers diverge.

Cole Sprout is just stepping into the professional ranks, leaving behind a dominant NCAA résumé to test himself on the roads and rethink how far his talent can stretch. Charles Hicks has already taken the leap to the roads, running 2:09:59 in his marathon debut at the New York City Marathon, instantly placing himself among the top American marathoners in history.

Cole made...

A recent 59:23 half-marathon for American long-distance star Alex Maier wasn’t a case of him catching lightning in a bottle.

It was the culmination of years of quiet dominance: from Oklahoma State to national titles, American records, and a seamless transition to the roads.

And with his stellar race in Houston, he’s now the second-fastest U.S. man of all time at the half-marathon distance. 

But this isn’t a random one-off occurrence. In 2025, he won the Düsseldorf Marathon in April with a time of...

Everett Smulders has seen and done a lot in his running and coaching career: he went from running 3:58 for the mile at Ole Miss, to finishing one of the most brutal endurance events on the planet, the Ultraman Florida (a 321-mile, multi-day test of resilience). 

That doesn’t even include the dent he’s made as a coach. 

Everett competed for the University of Mississippi, where he became an All-American. On January 20, 2020, he became the 565th American to break the 4-minute mile barrier, clocking a time of 3:58.93. 

F...