Business of Endurance

Elevate Your Game: A Guide to Endurance and Innovation with Ben Rosario

• Charlie Reading • Season 7 • Episode 9

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Welcome to The Business of Endurance podcast! In today's episode, we have the privilege of hosting Ben Rosario, a powerhouse in the running industry. From his beginnings as an elite athlete to his transformative role as the Executive Director of Hoka Northern Arizona Elite, Ben has a wealth of experience to share. We delve into his inspiring career journey, uncovering insights on fitness, life, business, and health. Ben reveals secrets from his book "Run Like a Pro, Even if You’re Slow," offering practical tips on training, pacing, recovery, and nutrition. We also explore the innovative coaching methods he uses and the unique culture that drives the success of the Hoka NAZ Elite team, and both the importance and challenges that athlete shoe sponsorship poses. Whether you're an aspiring runner, a seasoned athlete, an entrepreneur or someone looking to elevate their endurance game, this episode is packed with invaluable advice and motivation to help you reach new heights.

Highlights:

  • An Inspiring Coaching Story
  • Training Strategies with Matt Fitzgerald
  • Business of Running Teams
  • Culture and Coaching Philosophy
  • Technology in Running
  • Staying Healthy Forever

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Speaker 3:

I think the problem was that World Athletics wasn't in front of it. I don't blame Nike for that.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. In today's episode, we have the privilege of hosting Ben Rosario, a powerhouse in the running industry. From his beginnings as an elite athlete to his transformative role as the executive director of the Hoka Northern Arizona Elite running team, Ben has a wealth of experience to share. We delve into his inspiring career and journey, uncovering his insights on fitness, life, business and health. Ben reveals secrets from his book Run Like a Pro Even If You're Slow, which we actually touched on when we interviewed Matt Fitzgerald.

Speaker 2:

Ben was the person that coached Matt Fitzgerald to run like a pro, even if he was slow, and to create a PB in the Chicago Marathon at the age of 47, I think it was so. In this episode, we're also going to explore the innovative coaching methods he uses and the unique culture that drives the success of the Hoka NAZ Elite team, and both the importance and the challenges that come with athlete shoe sponsorship deals. You know we'll touch on the concept of shoe dog and how it relates to athletes today, which I found to be a fascinating conversation. So, whether you're an aspiring runner, a seasoned athlete, an entrepreneur or someone looking to elevate their endurance game, this episode is packed full of invaluable advice and motivation to help you reach new heights. So I know you are going to love this conversation with the incredible Ben Rosario.

Speaker 1:

So on this episode, ben delves in a little bit more deeply around practical solutions and strategies that his team has in terms of sleep recovery, fueling and nutrition. And if you'd like to be able to find out a little bit more, stick around to the end because I am going to share with you something.

Speaker 2:

So, ben, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast, really looking forward to chatting to you, and I really love to start these episodes with an inspiring story. I'm going to open the floor for you and say where do you think your most inspiring story around running comes from?

Speaker 3:

I have told this story before and written about it. I was sitting in the back of my running store, so I owned running stores from 2006 to 2012 in St Louis, missouri, and so that was for me. That was 26 years old to 32 years old, and I did that venture after having run a couple of years, for the Hanson's Brooks Distance Project team is in Michigan, and when I was in Michigan I had, of course, worked at the shops and run for the team, but I had also done some volunteer coaching at the middle school level. I enjoyed it, moved on and did other things, went back to St Louis and started the stores.

Speaker 3:

I was sitting in the back of the store one evening doing some work on the computer and the phone rang. It was a young man and he introduced himself and he said hi, coach, this is Kevin Liu. I don't know if you remember me. You coached me in middle school in Michigan in 2003. I just wanted to look you up and call you and tell you thanks, because you really got me into running. I'm a senior now, one of the top runners on my team, and you had a huge impact on my life. I just wanted to tell you that that was the coolest phone call I ever received and it was very inspiring to me and told me that no matter what I'm doing, whether I'm owning stores or whatever business venture I should always be coaching.

Speaker 2:

Amazing were whatever business venture I should always be coaching, Amazing. It's amazing to get the feedback as a coach as to how you've helped inspire somebody and created their journey for them To flip that on its head. Who's the person in your life that inspired you the most?

Speaker 3:

Same thing Kevin was saying. I think about my high school coach, jim Linares, who I've actually gone on to write a book with about high school cross country. But yeah, jim, I met him the first day of high school cross country practice, of course. Actually, I met him the first day of practice. He was my guide. He had that way about him, that way of speaking, that way of commanding 100 boys at the same time and making you feel special. We formed this relationship over those four years. That was really special and continued through my college years and to this day he's someone I really respect and I'm inspired by him still.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting to me as a Brit listening to this, because in the US you have a far more comprehensive approach to running through school and college, don't you? So I'm just reading Running with the Buffaloes, which is fantastic. I can't relate it to my upbringing in school. I'm intrigued to find out more about the way British runners come about as well. But how does that differ in the US? And also, given how much emphasis goes into that running world, why doesn't it translate to the US massively dominating the running field when we're watching the Olympics and of course, they're still doing well, but it doesn't seem disproportionately better than Team GB, for example.

Speaker 3:

I think you're talking about two different things when you're talking about the comprehensive nature of system in the US at the high school and college level. I agree part of that comprehensive nature is that it's teaching life lessons and it's giving you this incredible experience and you're making friends and you're learning about what you're making friends and you're learning about what it takes to succeed and you're learning how to deal with failure alongside your mates. Those things are invaluable. There's a lot more people not talented enough to make it to the top level than the few who are. The great thing about the US system is it's actually very process-oriented, not outcome-oriented, because if you're coaching at some high school in Missouri or Ohio or Georgia or wherever it may be, your job is not really to create the next Olympian. It's to give these kids a wonderful experience. And at most colleges it's the same thing, only at the very highest level of the NCAA that your job involves trying to prepare people for the next level and potentially making it to the Olympic Games.

Speaker 3:

Now the second part of your question why are we not dominating? Well, it's a big world. Running is global. It's not like swimming. The US gets credit for what they do in swimming, but only a few countries that really put a lot of effort into swimming. So in running, no country is going to dominate. No country is going to dominate because it's a global game, from North America, south America, all of Europe. I think the US is doing quite well to get first and third in the 1500 meters at the Olympic Games. I think shows that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I suppose US athletes have so many more opportunities like swimming, triathlon, that sort of stuff, whereas if you grow up in Kenya, ethiopia, botswana, it's running or running and the emphasis goes into that, so you are always up against it, as well as whether it's growing up at altitude, whether it's being inspired more by the runners around you, whether it's different running. I suppose it's challenging competing against athletes that have grown up in Kenya and Ethiopia, competing against athletes that have grown up in Kenya and Ethiopia. When you think about that, how much of we obviously see phenomenal success from the Kenyan athletes? How much of that do you think is genetics? How much of that is environmental? Why do we see so much success?

Speaker 3:

I always reference the book by David Epstein Sports Gene. It's an important read, I think. If you're discussing this topic on any serious level and haven't read that book, I think you're lacking in potential knowledge. There's some level of genetics involved and I think it's important to recognize that across all sorts of sports. There's a reason that certain pockets of Eastern Europe tend to be very good at weightlifting or certain body types tend to be good at the high jump. There is genetics involved, of course, and I think altitude is part of that of course, and I think the culture is part of it as well.

Speaker 3:

At the end of the day, there's a lot of variables contributing, but, like any country, not all Kenyans are great at running. They laugh when that stereotype is put out there. Look, I've been to Nairobi. I didn't see a lot of runners there. It's a pretty concentrated area that the best runners come from in Kenya. It's just one of those things, but I think there's a lot that goes into it. Even among those that did grow up in the Rift Valley, it's not like they're all world-class runners. A lot of them are, yes, but a lot of them aren't. I don't know. It's not unlike soccer in England right, everybody plays, but only the select few make it to the very top, and I think it's the same way in Kenya.

Speaker 1:

I think, as you say, that's a massive topic, isn't it? In terms of genes and potential and fulfilling. Moving into your area of coaching, we were interviewing not so long ago Matt Fitzgerald, and we understand from that conversation and also through your book that he spent time with you and it's always nice to find out a little bit about some of the key strategies that you worked with with Matt to be able to improve his performance and his personal best. What kind of things did you work with alongside Matt when he was spending time with you and your team? Is there anything that you can suggest that maybe amateur runners can try and implement themselves?

Speaker 3:

Sure, I treated him like I treat everybody that I work with. At the time I was coaching Northern Arizona Elite, he asked to come out and join us and be quote unquote pro for a short period of time, or live like a pro anyway. And in his theory his hypothesis was if he did everything right like the pros, he could improve and set a personal best. When we sat down it was very much like I would sit down with the pros. I looked at his training history, his racing history, his injury history, what he had been doing leading up to where we were and I met him there. I think the biggest mistake he and the biggest mistake that many amateurs make is they set a goal time that tends to be fairly arbitrary and then they look up some sort of chart and they try to immediately begin doing workouts based on that goal pace. I told him straight away that's not what we were going to do. We were going to train where he was and build gradually. Let fitness at the end of the training cycle tell us the goal for the race, not the other way around. Above all, it was the number one thing I did from a coaching perspective. He stayed true to his goal of trying to live like a pro. He slept well, he ate well, he did all the ancillary things that you need to do to keep yourself healthy, so a lot of the credit goes to him. I stayed committed to training at the proper paces and that allowed us to give him more volume.

Speaker 3:

There's a snowball that rolls in the wrong direction when you make that mistake. One of the things that happens is you're not able to get as much work as you probably should, particularly with the marathon, because if you're doing, let's say, mile repeats and you have this pace that you're trying to hit because some chart tells you, based on your goal time, but you can only do five of them, I would rather see you do 10 of them at the correct pace. The marathon's a long way. So he was doing workouts that had more volume to them than he had ever done before. Things that seemed crazy on people 15 by 1K but if you're doing it at the right pace, it's not that crazy of a workout, and so I think that's what he would tell you that he learned.

Speaker 1:

I was thinking. You know it's really interesting, isn't it, how people athletes often try and fit themselves into a plan rather than actually listening to their body. I like that approach. I've heard you talk about goals versus focus, or had a conversation about goals versus focus, and I wonder if that's what you're talking about trying to fit into a goal rather than focusing on the bigger picture.

Speaker 3:

The goal should be to get as fit as you can. The time goal or place goal should only come about two weeks before the race. How can you set a goal, a tangible time goal, three months, four months out from a race? You have no idea how fit you're going to be. You have no idea what's going to happen. You have no idea if you're going to get dinged up along the way. You have no idea if you're going to get sick. You have no idea what the weather is going to be on race day. There's so many things that you can't possibly know four months out. So why set your time goal that early? I think your goal should be to get as fit as you possibly can and then let that fitness guide you.

Speaker 2:

So many people want to do their first marathon. It's like, right, I want to be sub four, or I've done a few marathons, I want to be sub three or whatever it is, and I get having that sort of goal, but also I get having the process goal of getting as fit as possible, because the outcome you can't control.

Speaker 3:

I'm volunteering with a high school team this fall just for fun. We had a goal setting chat and the boys and girls got separated and both teams, when they came in and we asked them their goals, they right away said we want to win the state meet. And that's fine and that's a good goal, but there's a lot you got to do. Saying it in August means very little. It's what you do. It's those process oriented goals. Get you there.

Speaker 3:

Through HOKA, I coached a group of 15 media members and social media influencers this past spring for the Big Sur Marathon and it was the same kind of conversation I had with each of them in December. The race is at the end of April and I said right away I really am not going to promise you anything in terms of an outcome. I'm just going to write your training, talk to you every week about your training and communicate with you and make changes as necessary and then, when we get close, we'll set that time goal. It worked really well and there were people who had never run a step in their life that ended up running under five hours or under four hours, even for the marathon. There were others who didn't think four hours was possible and ran four hours on the nose.

Speaker 3:

What if he had set his goal this guy I'm thinking of at 420? That would have been limiting himself. Sometimes these goals limit ourselves. Sometimes they are unrealistic and they set us up for failure and don't allow us to get as fit as we could. The idea is that these outcome goals are only a piece of the puzzle. Not a bad idea to have them. Sometimes they get you out of bed in the morning and that's good. But they need to be realistic, flexible, based on how the training ends up going.

Speaker 2:

But I think it's a really important point If you, even if you want your outcome goal to be a sub four marathon, if you're currently running at a four 20 pace, you've got to train based on the four 20 pace, not the four, because otherwise you're doing when you're supposed to be doing zone two, you're doing zone three and it totally blows out later on and you're more likely to get injured or you can't do the number of reps and I think that's a mistake. It sounds really obvious now that you've said it and yet I couldn't see that being possible with my current training program because of the way it's designed. But I could see that being a very easy mistake I've probably made earlier on in my career, for sure.

Speaker 3:

You're constantly grinding, tired and you feel stuck in place, stuck in neutral If you want to get to four hours, but you're at 420 fitness, doing your workouts based on that 420 pace. The workout feel good, right, and you're getting better and you're recovering. And then the body tells you it's ready to do some workouts at 415 pace and then you do them and it's intoxicating and a great feeling getting better over the course of the segment. That's an awesome feeling. I remember when I ran at the Hansons we had this guy, trent Briney, my roommate. We were getting ready for the 2004 Olympic trials marathon.

Speaker 3:

Trent, to that point in his career, hadn't done anything particularly special, neither had I. He was in my group with a couple other guys. We were the second group, right, the first group was trying to make the Olympic team. They were really good about three or four guys in that group. This is 2004. So they were doing their workouts at 212 pace, basically, and we were doing ours at about 218 pace and Trent kept getting fitter and the workouts at 218 rhythm were so easy. So, honestly, with only about three weeks to go, they put him in with the 212 group and he started hitting those workouts and then in the race he ran 212 and got fourth place and I just think had he been in that group the whole time they would have wore him down. But because he started off where he was able to get to this higher level.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's a great lesson for people when they're starting out. I want to talk about the side of business within running. You obviously run your own shop. Was it one shop or a chain of shops? We ended up having three locations. Now you run North Arizona Elite running team. I don't really understand the dynamics of how a running team works as a business. So what are the similarities and differences between running a series of shops versus a running team? From a business point of view.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a good question. I think there definitely are similarities and differences. From a structure standpoint, one of the big differences is we operate this team as a nonprofit organization, so we're able to do that in the US because of the Amateur Athletic Act of 1978. The sport isn't amateur anymore, but if you are training Olympians or would-be Olympians, you can operate it as a nonprofit, and that allowed us at the beginning to apply for grants that we couldn't have gotten if we were a for-profit business. For example, we were awarded grants from USA Track and Field Running USA and the Roadrunners Club of America. Grants helped get us off the ground. We needed corporate sponsorship to survive and thrive. We got that in 2015 from HOKA. Hoka pays us a lump sum. From that funding we're able to pay staff, rent out our space here in Flagstaff, we're able to pay for travel and pay for massages and chiropractic work and pay the athletes base compensation and bonuses. Top level athletes in the US are valuable to shoe companies because the US is a huge market. If you're doing well in the US, you're raising brand awareness for that shoe company, and so that's different than the running store, where we're relying on funding from this company.

Speaker 3:

As someone who likes control. I had a little more control over my own destiny with my stores because it was a for-profit business and if we worked as hard as we could, reached as many people as we could and sold as many shoes as we could, we were going to do well. I felt we had more control in that sense, but the similarities were doing the same thing. Right With the stores, we were trying to create a community. We had group runs and we had races, races and we had events that we would host at the store. We created this sort of social community around running and that led to shoe sales. With the team, we're trying to create a fan base through social media, events and youth programs. Both revolve around reaching out to people and creating this community, this group, this tribe around whatever the entity is the store back in the day and then now with the team.

Speaker 2:

I'm a massive fan of the book Shoe Dog and the Nike film. That is, the Jordan film. How much do you think that journey with sponsoring athletes like Michael Jordan has influenced the way your business is run?

Speaker 3:

It's proof of concept From the moment they signed Steve Prefontaine. They proved that athletes to wear your brand and promote your brand and be a brand ambassador for you was going to create ROI. It was true in the 1970s and it's true today. You see it at the Olympic Games and age of social media, influencers, et cetera. There's nothing like performing on the biggest stage on live television at the highest level of sport. Whether it's Cole Hawker winning gold medal or LeBron James winning the NBA title or Caitlin Clark winning the NCAA title, we understand there's tremendous value in those moments and the money companies spend on athletes is worth it.

Speaker 1:

It's really interesting to see how that sponsorship plays out as well. So, thinking within the world of business and sport, I wanted to ask you about the culture within your Northern Arizona elite team. I've heard you talk about culture a couple of times with different people. I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit about what your culture is like within your team and why that really helps with the success of your team.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, culture can be overused sometimes as a term and it can be used incorrectly at times. I think culture is not something that you write down on a piece of paper on day one. Culture is created organically over time and in the case of a sports team, it's created by the athletes. Really more than anything, Coaches have a role, but athletes our culture has been different at different times depending on who the leaders of the team have been and what we're preparing for and just the overall vibe of the team. Right now we have 20 athletes a big number.

Speaker 3:

The culture is one of support and admiration because we have an eclectic group. We have young people out of college doing amazing things on the track, but we have veteran athletes that have been in the sport for 15 years, that are marathoners, and those two don't have a tremendous amount in common on the surface, but they do have a tremendous amount of admiration for one another and they do support one another, even though they may not have quite the understanding, the deep understanding, of what it is that they're going through individually. And when you've got a mom with three kids, four kids and a 23-year-old guy straight out of college, they don't have a tremendous amount in common they're quick to congratulate one another after a performance. They're quick to offer their empathy after a difficult race. It's a lot of mutual respect right now, which I think is good.

Speaker 2:

So you've just heard ben offer some really powerful insights on how we can run better. But if you stay till the end of this episode, we're going to get deep and start talking about how our cultural leaders can help motivate us and help us achieve more. We go deep on one particular leader, so stick around to the end of the episode, because Ben has got so much more to offer than just running advice.

Speaker 1:

And it's really interesting around culture. As you say, it's often a term that's overused and it's just names or something up on the wall that you read. So I love that flexibility idea. But what is it that you have done from a coaching perspective, in terms of your influence as a coach that has created all these different cultures, as you've got different athletes coming in and out to help them create that really supportive environment? What do you feel that you do or are doing to create that environment?

Speaker 3:

I founded the team in 2014 with my wife and she served as our director of ops and I served as the head coach and everything else for many years. It became overwhelming. And then, over the last two years, I've been focusing on executive director positions so working with our sponsors and trying to improve our branding, et cetera and we have a head coach now, jack Mulaney, who really is in charge of the coaching. But, to answer your question, from the perspective of the eight years that I did serve as head coach, this is what I believe. It doesn't make me right, it doesn't make me wrong, it's just. This is what I believe. I believe in structure. The coach needs to believe in the athletes and the athletes need to believe in the coach and they each need to play their roles.

Speaker 3:

I tried to create that belief. I was very confident in myself and I think that helped the athletes believe in me and, in turn, then I believed in them and I think that helped them believe in themselves. If they were someone who struggled with that, some already had it right and we just had a lot of belief in the program. Let's believe in the program, let's believe in what we're doing. Let's believe in each other. I always felt that led to confidence on the starting line and in the hardest parts of the race. When you have total belief, you are less likely to have those negative thoughts during races. So I was very much about creating total and comprehensive belief.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned nutrition my background as a performance nutritionist and dietitian. I'm keen to ask about nutrition In your book. When Coaching, what are some of your principles in terms of nutrition, supporting training, supporting health? Is there anything our listeners today could pick up from the principles you used with your athletes? Passion?

Speaker 3:

I came from a different era where if the furnace was hot, you could put anything in it from McDonald's to a couple of beers. We were different. I mean things have changed. I was impressed with the athletes on how seriously they took their nutrition. I felt fortunate that we had athletes that I didn't need to step in. I was learning from them. They did a wonderful job cooking healthy meals, being cognizant of getting the nutrients they needed. I just am amazed about how different things are 20 years after I was on the Hanson's team.

Speaker 3:

If I told them anything, it's that you know what to do. Food is fuel and you have to have fuel to perform at a high level. So I don't want any thought of sacrificing and eliminating things from your diet. I think the healthier way to look at it is to get excited about what you're putting in. When we get caught up in what we're not. Oh, I don't drink soda. That's a bad path to go down. I love granola, I love strawberries, I love quinoa, I love all the healthy foods. I think I heard Stephanie Bruce on our team say she eats 90% healthy, 10% naughty, and that's fine. She'll have a glass of wine and she'll have a cup of ice cream for dessert. Most of the time she's eating super good and putting good things in her tank. So that's my philosophy, but I understand there's more to it.

Speaker 1:

I love that philosophy. I think you know to balance what you're doing and having a healthy attitude towards fueling your body is fantastic.

Speaker 2:

I thought it was interesting. I was listening to another podcast where you and Matt Fitzgerald were both interviewed. Matt came into his training camp with you going. I've read books on food. I've got this bit sorted. Training camp with you going. I've read books on food, I've got this bit sorted. Even he was learning, but it was from the athlete that he was rooming with. That's fascinating. I think that's a great principle.

Speaker 2:

Now, as much as Claire likes to ask about food, I like to ask about technology and products. I couldn't help but be fascinated. I was listening to you talk about the challenge that you had when because it was fairly well known that hoka were not releasing as good a shoe as nike when we were first getting the vapor flies and the air flies and all of all of those coming out. They're your sponsor, aren't they? How was that as a business time for you, where your athletes are racing with inferior products to other athletes? But also, where do you think the line we're always looking for, sort of the marginal gains? How can you get this better, that better, this better? Where do you think the line should be drawn around shoes? They can keep getting better and better and better and better, but you then see the problems that you had versus regulating it to everyone running in the same shoe. Tell me about that. That's a lot of questions in one.

Speaker 3:

First off, I should say you are not wrong. There was a time when Hoka was behind in racing shoes. We did not feel behind in training shoes. We felt like we had unbelievable training shoes as good or better than anybody else From 2019 to 2022, when we were behind in racing shoes, and it really came to bear in 2020 and 2021.

Speaker 3:

In 2019, we were definitely behind Nike, but I don't think any other brands had caught up to Nike either. The first moment it became obvious was the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon in the US, where we went first, sixth and eighth on the women's side. We had a great day on the women's side, but we were fortunate that only one Nike sponsored eighth on the women's side. We had a great day on the women's side, but we were fortunate that only one Nike-sponsored athlete on the women's side that year was in good form and that was Sally Kipiego, and she got third. It didn't affect the women's race much because other brands weren't there either. On the men's side, nike brought their new Alpha Flies to Atlanta and allowed any runner to wear them if they wanted, and on the men's side, even if you were sponsored by another brand, a lot of the other brands let their athletes wear those Nike shoes, and so our top athlete, scott Fauble, was 12th place, but he was the second guy not in those Nike shoes, and the times those athletes ran on that course blew my mind. That's when I realized we're way behind here. And I'm not saying that Scott would have made the team. He also had gotten sick five weeks out, but he wouldn't have been 12th. I'll tell you that I think what we did as a team was healthy and, I think, was the right thing to do. I don't know. We just moved forward. We didn't talk about it, we didn't let it bother us. We didn't let it bother us, we didn't complain about it. We just moved forward.

Speaker 3:

But as time went on, again, I think we've been way fortunate in 2020, because there wasn't much racing after those trials, because those trials happened in February and then the world shut down in March and there was limited racing in 2020. Myself, josh Cox and Matt Helbig put together a race called the Marathon Project in December 2020. And Chandler, arizona, was a pro-only race for 50 men, 50 women, and in that race, our men got fourth and fifth or fourth and sixth, something like that, and they ran 209, but they got beat by a couple of guys who more power to them. I just didn't think they should have gotten beaten by and, of course, they were wearing the shoes. So that was another moment where it's like man. And then, when you went into 2021, we had tangible moments where we had a guy run the same time. He ran the year before on the same course against the same field and in 2019, he had been second, I would say by the fall of 21,. It was out in the open causing problems, to their credit. Hoka realized that, changed course and by 2022, by the spring of 22, we had a really good super shoe and boom, we've been fine ever since. It was a tough period.

Speaker 3:

I think the problem was that World Athletics wasn't in front of it. I don't blame Nike for that. Some people do because they felt it was underhanded of them to come up with this technology and not share it. But it's not their job. It's the governing body's job to police it and set regulations. All sports that have technology involved have regulations for that technology, and the regulations need to stay in front of the technology. What we can't have is another period of time where one brand, whoever it may be, comes up with some technology that's far greater than everybody else and creates an unfair advantage. I don't think anybody is asking for anything but a fair playing field. I never wanted Hoka to make us choose that we're better than everybody. I just wanted to be the same, so athletes could decide results on the field of play, which is how it should be Moving forward. I expect technology to continue to improve. I just want the regulations to be such that no one can have that sort of unfair advantage again.

Speaker 1:

On the same plane as technology. Is there anything that you feel is going to be an absolute changer in terms of technology in the running world? We've got a lot of new AI and wearables. Is there any data you think is super useful or something that's coming to the forefront that's really going to help in terms of from a coaching perspective, but also from a performance perspective?

Speaker 3:

I'm a bit old school, but I don't see anything right now besides the shoe tech. The shoe tech was just recalibrating everything what times mean, how quickly we can recover from things, how much volume we can do in one session or in one day. We're learning all those things in real time here. The watches are fancy, but I don't see the watches, nor do I even see lactate threshold testing as being a huge part of what you're seeing. I think it's the technology and the intuition of coaches and athletes to understand how to use it. It's a boring answer, but my answer is no See anything that's a game changer besides technology our own human brains and figuring out how to use that technology.

Speaker 1:

I think it's the interpretation, isn't it? Having that data, and then what do you do with it as well? What do you think about mental resilience and mental strength perspective? That's not something that you can wear AI for or certainly sort of collect data on. So what have you taught your athletes over the years, or you know what's your kind of thoughts on helping athletes with mental resilience?

Speaker 3:

What's my thought about mental resilience? It's huge. The mental side of the sport is. It can't be overstated how important it is. And I think sometimes coaches are tasked with being something they're not. I mean, in a few cases maybe they are, maybe they do have a psychology degree, but in most cases they don't. We're expected to be a sports psychologist, but I think we get in trouble when we try to be something we're not. We need to be as a motivator. I think we need to help instill belief, confidence strategy, all those things. But I think when it comes to true mental health issues, defer to true mental health specialists, and I do think that mental health specialists have become a big part of professional sport and, like anything, it's a matter of the individual athlete and the team around them figuring out what's best for that athlete and if it's seeing a mental performance professional, do that. If that isn't part of what they need, then don't do it, and I wish there was a universal approach for everyone. I think we have to figure out what's best for each athlete.

Speaker 3:

At its core in the coach-athlete relationship, there needs to be belief. I saw our coach, jack Mullaney, and our athlete, adrian Wilskut, have total belief in one another over the last six months as Adrian prepared for the Olympic Games and the 10,000 meters. It was a beautiful thing to watch Anytime Adrian was doing a workout. Jack didn't have any doubt in Adrian when he went to the line. There's total belief, the coach believing the athlete believing in the coach, the athlete believing in themselves, the coach believing in themselves way to 500 to go and finished 10th place and ran a PR and a national record on the biggest stage. I think it was a healthy mental relationship Adrian had with his running and training and racing over the last six months. I do think the coach-athlete relationship was a big part of that.

Speaker 2:

That's one of those things that we're seeing while the Olympics is going on in Paris, and we're seeing these kind of unbelievable achievements, but also the interaction between them and their coach as well. Is there a moment in this Olympics that has just captured your energy, excitement, just the moment that stands out for you? So far in what's been an incredible Olympics? It was the men's 1500 meters.

Speaker 3:

If you go back to 2021 in Tokyo, jakob Egerbritsen wins the gold medal in the 1500 meters, one of the premier events in the Olympic games, and that sort of confirmed what I think a lot of the insiders already knew that, and so that's when you saw people really digging into his training and the training of the Ingebrigtsen brothers, and that's when you saw people all over the world trying double thresholds, increasing the volume of their sessions, using lactate testing to determine the pace of their workouts. I think all that has been good. It's helped increase performance. But when you look at the four guys who went top four there Hocker, kerr, ingerbritzen and Negus they took different paths, even though Ingerbritzen, I think, in many ways forced people to think differently. Cole Hocker, who won the race, doesn't train at altitude, but he won the gold medals. He stuck with his college coach, which not everybody does in the US. Meanwhile, yara Negus left his college coach and went to a pro coach and a pro team in Boulder, colorado, at altitude. Jakob Ingerbrigtsen obviously we know what he does and he left his coach as well his dad that's another story for another day. Kerr, because he was bronze in that race in 2021, he probably had the best Hocker, who was sixth.

Speaker 3:

They were closest to Ingerbrigtsen at that time. They knew what to do to beat him. That's why they ended up beating him. They had the least amount of work to do in terms of how they were training and how they were preparing. They just knew they had to get stronger. They had to get stronger and you saw that. You saw Curse at the world record indoors in the two-miler this year. You saw Hocker break 13 minutes in the 5,000. Because they knew even back then that they were fast enough to beat this guy, but they weren't strong enough. They did what they needed to do.

Speaker 3:

The bottom line is those guys who ran the best did what was best for them. They doubled down on their strengths, stuck with their system and their path. They didn't make U-turns, didn't go crazy trying to be somebody they weren't or try some new theory. They made little tweaks to who they were and it ended up creating an incredible race. And that was my big takeaway. That was that there's more than one way to do it, but you have to be calculated. All of those guys had a calculated approach with their coach to be ready for that race. They knew it was going to be that kind of race. Those were the guys that did well, knew what kind of race it was going to be, what Ingebrigtsen was going to do, and they prepared accordingly. That was my big takeaway.

Speaker 2:

It was an amazing race and actually, actually, this brings us back full circle to where we started this conversation, which was, you know how we with the goal setting and controlling the controllables, because josh kerr was very outspoken before that race about he was wanting gold, he was only happy with gold. Yet after finishing with silver he was chuffed. He said look, I've just run a national record. If you'd offer me that, that's all I can control. I did what I could do. I'm happy with Silver. So I think it was an incredible race and fascinating to hear more in depth Now. Within this podcast, we always like to ask for some books that you found really helpful or find yourself recommending to other people, other athletes perhaps. I know you mentioned the Sports Gene and Shoe Dog. Are there any other books, other than your own, of course, that you find yourself recommending regularly to others?

Speaker 3:

It's tough because I am a big reader so I don't. When I was coaching the team and the team was a bit smaller, I used to often, around the holidays, buy everybody a book. My favorite book is the autobiography of Malcolm X, because it's just an incredible story and an interesting read. Yeah, but here's someone who grew up in the poorest, toughest conditions you could possibly imagine, made mistakes, ended up in prison and yet was able to completely change his life and inspire thousands, constantly evolving his take on the world. His take on the world the day he died was quite different than it was even two years prior. It's one of the most American stories of all time because he truly made it from conditions we could only imagine. I love that book and I love recommending it. He's an underrated American figure and so a lot of people don't know the story and I feel people will find it quite inspirational. Nothing to do with sport or running, but I just feel they'll find the story quite interesting and quite inspirational.

Speaker 3:

As far as books about sport go, geez, it's just so tough because there's so many different categories. I do love recommending Shoe Dog if you like the business of sport. I also like recommending a book called Players by Matt Futterman, incredible book about the business of sport and agents and brand sponsorships. He goes through each sport and how it found professionalism, from golf and tennis to running to, of course, the major sports. It's awesome. It's an incredible read For coaching. I love the John McDonnell autobiography. The training is a bit antiquated but the coaching style is interesting. I like Sir Alex Ferguson's book Leading. I love books about historical figures because we can learn from leaders' walks of life politicians, businessmen and women, of course, athletes. The Ted Turner autobiography is really fascinating. There's a lot of sport because he was a world-class sailor. I like recommending books from different walks of life.

Speaker 2:

Brilliant, excellent recommendations, most of which aren't on my reading list or haven't read. That will be expanding rapidly again. Thank you very much. We also get the previous guest to the podcast to ask the next guest a question without them knowing who that is going to be, and our previous guest was another recommendation, an introduction from Matt Fitzgerald actually. So it was Andrea Burke, me Henkel, the Olympic gold medalist, and I think Claire's got her question.

Speaker 1:

Andrea asks what are you doing to stay healthy forever?

Speaker 3:

that's good timing for that question. When I was coaching, I let myself get unhealthy. You're so committed to these athletes and the pressure of having their hopes and dreams on your shoulders suffocating. I didn't sleep well, I didn'tating. I didn't sleep well, I didn't eat well, I didn't exercise and gain weight. You wake up in your 40s 30 pounds, overweight, out of shape, not eating well, and I realized you can't keep living like this. People don't make it to their 80s they die.

Speaker 3:

I realized I needed to get my act together and currently I would say one of the reasons I volunteered at the local high school was to be around young people. Again, being around young people keeps you young. It also forces me to run every day because I run with the team. I haven't necessarily tried to make a huge effort to eat better, but when you're running more, it's almost like you crave better food, and so I feel like of recent I'm talking, like this summer I've been eating better. I think it's a combination of surrounding yourself with youthful, vibrant people exercising every day and eating well. So it's nothing revolutionary, but that's what I'm trying to do.

Speaker 2:

You become the average of the five people you hang out with most. Ultimately, the energy is giving you youth again by hanging out with younger people. Same concept, same concept. Brilliant Ben, it's been fascinating, really enjoyed chatting to you. Thank you so much. I wish you every success for the team going forward, for Team USA in the Olympics, just as long as they're not just behind Team GB. But no, it's been really interesting, particularly to get understanding, a better understanding of the world of business behind the running team. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're recording this outro a week after the Ben Rosario interview, which was a fascinating interview. But I want to start off by saying, since we recorded this, it didn't feel like Team USA was really doing that much better than Team GB relative to the population size, given the amazing collegiate running environment that they create, and then, since we recorded that, they seem to have won almost every track and field medal out there and made me look like a fool.

Speaker 2:

So Team USA absolutely rocked on the track and field. It's been incredible. But also since that time time we had the conversation about ingebert not doing his thing in the 1500, but he did do his thing in the 5000 meters and absolutely incredible. But what did you make of the interview with ben?

Speaker 1:

yeah, it was a fantastic interview. Some of the insights that he built on actually a bit further than some of the other interviews we've had in terms of, I think for the whole, not setting a time for a race but running at a certain pace that you're running at right now and then getting ready and training to that event and then saying, okay, what am I capable of achieving, as much as you can push yourself and the egg what you're going to do from a finish time. Actually, I think the important part that was you could do better. I liked that insight and the way he thinks about goals in a slightly different way. What did you think from a goal perspective? Because you're the goals person.

Speaker 2:

I agree, I think that was really interesting, but I think it was what I really. What got me thinking was, it's easy to say, to set like an arbitrary goal of I want to do a four-hour marathon or an 11 hour Ironman or 10 hour or whatever it is, but it's actually it's just this arbitrary stake in the ground, isn't it? And, like you say, you could do significantly better than that. But the mistake people make is they go well, I want to do a four hour marathon. Therefore, I'm going to run the training based on a four hour marathon time, even though my current time is 420. So actually much better to do the training 420 time.

Speaker 2:

I thought that was really interesting and then actually you adapt from that training better and you're more likely to do your four-hour marathon and less likely to get injured. So I thought that was interesting. The other part I found fascinating was the influence of athletes winning, in particular, shoes and how much it's worth to companies like Hoka to sponsor teams to put all the revenue into the team really to create those athletes. What did you make of the whole running shoe conversation?

Speaker 1:

I think it's a side I'd never really thought of, to be honest, in terms of the way that he described about all shoes need to be on a level playing ground and actually that shoe could help you become faster. Every brand needs to have that on a level playing ground. So I thought that was really interesting. So many athletes we've spoken to and I think particularly post COVID more than anything, finding sponsorship appears to be really difficult now in terms of getting funding. But the way that he described the team that he has and the way that he's got that funding, that business behind that team, I thought was fascinating. What did you think from a business perspective? I thought it was a really did you think from a business?

Speaker 2:

perspective. I thought it was a really interesting business model, the non-profit business. It's entirely, almost entirely funded by Hoka and to see that is investment that's Hoka considered to be valuable investment, that is. I find it fascinating. But then when you see I don't know if you've seen air the film about michael jordan, it's only the final part of shoe dog, where they take on michael jordan the book and there's some stats in there that I just blew me away.

Speaker 2:

And when they're striking this deal with michael jordan, they say something along the lines of okay, we'll give him the deal that we want. It's way more than we. We've never given any athlete anything like this. And it was something like 25 of the sale of the shoes and his name escapes me, but I think it's bill knight. I think that's right. That's running.

Speaker 2:

Nike says what's the worst that can happen the most we've ever sold of a shoe is, let's say, 1 million or like 250 000 pairs. And then a stat comes up in the first year they sold something like 5 million and they're still paying Michael Jordan something like a billion dollars a year. That's probably slightly more in shared revenue off the back of this deal, but it's equally made Nike three times that it's incredible and you see it and you go, well, okay, okay, now I get why hokum see the value in doing things like that. It is incredible. So, yeah, I thought it was really interesting. I thought interesting understanding how a running team was funded. I thought it was interesting how he took his professional approach to coaching matt, who we had on the podcast before. Great episode with lots of takeaways and inspiration in terms of keeping it simple, focusing on training, the the right way, eating the right way, getting the right amount of sleep For everyone. That's listening. Another awesome episode and, in the meantime, until the next one, keep on training.

Speaker 1:

So I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that there were going to be some practical tips in this episode, shared by Ben, around real practical solutions and strategies that his team have around their nutrition and their sleep and their recovery. And if you'd like a few more practical tips and you're struggling with an overwhelm of information out there on social media, drop us a call. There's a free call link. If you look in the show notes below and click on the link, you can book a free discovery call with me and we can discuss some real practical solutions to some of your challenges.

Speaker 2:

If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the Business of Endurance podcast. We don't ask for you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple. Give us a five star rating because it shows us you care and, if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much. Jeff and Chloe from Big Moose Charity, we featured in episode one of season seven, made such a great impact on the both of us, we decided to make them our charity sponsor for season seven, and it really touched me in the sense that I lost my brother-in-law to suicide in Wales and these guys are working their socks off to help prevent situations like that. Claire, why did Geoff and Chloe really make an impact on you?

Speaker 1:

Coming from a background in clinical nutrition and working in mental health. To me also it hit a spot in terms of the charity and how they are building therapy to help support people with mental health. To me also it hit a spot in terms of the charity and how they are building therapy to help support people with mental health difficulties, and they've saved over 50 lives now and already met their first target of a million and their new target, 15 million, that they're trying to get to.

Speaker 2:

It's absolutely incredible and 15 million is a huge target they've set themselves, but they're speeding up help that people in desperately in need get, and this help is needed more than ever and I know how problematic mental health issues are in today's world. So if you think you can help Big Moose Charity and they're particularly looking for corporate partners to help them raise that 15 million. If you think you can help them or link them into a company that can help them the best million, if you think you can help them or link them into a company that can help them, the best place to go to is bigmoosecharityco or you can find them on Instagram as bigmoosecharity, or you can even email Jeff at jeffatbigmooseco.