Nick Thompson on Grit, Growth, and the Miles That Matter | EP 683

24:47So I want to move on to your journey becoming passion struck in your running career. So like many people who run marathons, I think one of the first things that anyone wants to do is to aim for the three hour barrier. Yeah. For you early in your running career, what did that three hour barrier mean to you? Why was it so important? That was the line. That was like, I kind of what you said, like, can you, have either run a three-hour marathon or you have not like it just seemed like that was the cutoff and the only cutoff that mattered my dad had wanted to break that he'd run three hours and 41 seconds or something like that he just missed and i had watched him run that race when i was seven years old so it was like deeply implanted in me that 259 59 is good 3001 is bad right that was and so in my 20s i tried over and over to run a three-hour marathon i the first one i did i was like on pace and then I bombed out and ran 318 and second one I think I got closer ran 306 and then I got a flat tire on my way to the third one fourth one I dropped out fifth one I like was on pace and then totally bombed out and ran at 343 so I think it was maybe my sixth one or maybe my sixth or my seventh where I ran finally ran 257.

25:59I have to ask for you when you're doing the marathon where do you, what mile range do you find is the hardest? For me, it was always around the 18th mile mark, 18, 19. Back then, back then it was like 21 through 24, but I was going to know how to train. I believe this, the insane thing that they teach people coming to the marathons, just run 20, building up. It's all you need to do. Don't run more than 20. The last 6.2, they'll take care of themselves on race day. That's the worst advice. Run more than that. If you run 20 in your training, you will die at 20. Why does everybody die at 20? Partly you run out of carbohydrates and partly because all of these race books tell you just to run 20 miles.

26:40Anyway, so I would always die at the later part of the races. Now that I'm much faster, I understand the race better. The hardest part is like staying calm at like miles four to 10. And not, you can tell yourself a million times, right? I'm going to run this pace, this heart rate rate, stay behind this person and I'm not going to go ahead of it. And then you're out there and people are cheering and you feel so good. And it is easy to go a little fast and then kapooch, you're done. And so that to me is like the first, that's when you suffer more and you hurt a lot more in miles, 18 through 25, but the trick, right?

27:19The moment where you're going to succeed or fail is earlier. It absolutely is. So you then join, if my history is correct, You then join a New York running club where you end up setting a more audacious goal for yourself of trying to hit 240. Yeah. And you weren't successful at doing that for a while. Maybe you can talk about that journey. Yeah. It's funny. I tried forever to break three hours and like finally broke it. Then I'm, then I get like way faster. I run 243 and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna break 240. And then that takes forever too. that also takes seven years of just repeated failure. Yeah, I kept running 243, 243, 242, 242, 245, 245, 246, 243, 242.

28:07I just couldn't do it. And I eventually cracked it. Philadelphia Marathon was the year, I don't remember what year it was. It was the year of Hurricane Sandy, which I think was the year of the elections. That would have been 2012. And the New York Marathon was canceled. So I ran Philadelphia Marathon and I cracked 240. And I thought that would be the fastest I'd ever go. I would have been 37 that pretty psyched. It's very hard. It's almost like when you set a goal and you miss it, it becomes easier to miss it the next time. And I just got in a, I couldn't break through physically in those prime years.

28:36I couldn't break through and go much faster. I think that's a good stopping point because if you're someone who's listening to this and they're maybe facing that same mental block that they have, whether it's running or some area in their life, what would your advice be to them? I think what I didn't do, the reasons were buried pretty deep psychologically, and they dealt with the sickness I had. But for someone who hasn't gone through the medical stuff that I went through in that same period, the trick is to like, you have to figure out a way to force yourself to go at a speed that you don't think you can go.

29:11Right. And that's really hard because you have to use your mind to make yourself do a thing that your mind thinks you can't do. And I tell this story about when I was, in the book, I tell this story about when I was 15 and I was running track. And I thought I could only run two miles in 11 minutes and 30 seconds. That's where I ran like 11.30, 11.40. And then I entered this race where I don't know the size of the track. And because of that, I don't know how fast I'm going. And I end up running 10.48, which is much better. In my 40s where I started, I figured out how to crack this barrier and then some.

29:43It was partly by convincing myself that a six minute mile wasn't fast. And to do that, I went out on the track and I would run 200 meters at 430 pace, right? Just to get used to seeing fours on my watch. And I'd go and I'd run two mile repeats at 530 pace just to get used to being much faster than 559, right? I had to like at a deep level convince my body that running a six minute mile was not fast. It was slow. And it's a very hard mental process. And whether you're trying to go under a six minute mile or eight minute mile or a 440 mile, you've got to figure out a way of getting past those mental limits.

30:23And the same thing applies at work. Like sometimes you just have to set a goal that seems impossible and push to it. This thing that you think is going to take you five days, right? And you're going to just do it in a day. And you learn different habits. You learn different processes. You learn better ways of not wasting time. This in a way happened to me. I remember this is part of the book too, but it's a pretty relevant story because it's quite similar. It was the day of the Boston marathons. I worked at the New Yorker at that time. Amazing magazine. Loved it. And I was the editor of the website and I edited and I managed and I had lots of confidence.

30:56And I was like, you could give me a story. And I was absolutely convinced I could make it better. I could put it on the internet. I could help spread it through our audience. What I did not have confidence is that I could write or that I could write quickly. And Boston Marathon happens, or bombs happened at Boston Marathon, that's 2013. And David Remick, who runs The New Yorker, one of the greatest journalists of our lifetime, comes into my office, my boss. And he's, Nick, you're going to write about this. I was like, no, David, I've got other things to do. I'm an editor. I can't do this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these excuses, all these reasons why it's not right for me.

31:32And all this other guy, he's a runner and a writer. Like, why don't we get like Murakami? David is shut up. And he like, he says to me, he doesn't say shut up. He's way too gentle. Nice for that. He like listens, but you can tell he's like rolling his eyes. And he's like, Nick, this is what's going to happen. You're going to put down your phone. I'm going to walk out of this door, Ross office. I'm going to close the door. And in one hour, I'm going to come back. I'm going to open the door. And when I do that, you're going to take a story you've written and you're going to give it to me. And then he walks out, closes the door an hour later, he comes back and I did it.

32:09Right. And like, it basically was this forcing mechanism that was like, you have to do it. Stop thinking about your limits and stop thinking that you're a bad writer or stop thinking that you're incapable of writing quickly or doing this particular thing because you can't. And so sometimes you need a boss or a teammate or a coach to force you into that uncomfortable position. Now there are like limits. If he'd said, I'm going to come back in 12 seconds, like I couldn't have written the story in 12 seconds, right? You need someone who actually knows what you can do. So he was the right coach and the right manager at that moment.

32:41Other people have been the right coaches and right managers at different moments who have forced me into uncomfortable situations, which is how you improve. Do you think part of that, and thank you for sharing, it goes back to your father's line, never take on mice when you can take on tigers. Yeah. That's what it made me think of when you were talking about it. Yeah. That's it. And I was, it was an email he sent me back when I was a kid. Nick, I want to go back to this period of your life because I have found that anything that's ever been worth accomplishing in my life has taken far more effort and I've encountered far more setbacks than I ever possibly could have imagined.

33:23And long before you broke 240, you were faced, you mentioned it, a health crisis that stopped you in your track. You heard the one word that no one ever wants to hear. So you describe that in the book is like the, after getting that diagnosis of thyroid cancer is like the worst year of your life. Can you take us back to that moment and that period? Because it wasn't just running. I mean, there were a ton of things going on in your life. Yeah, it's everything. So, well, a lot of stuff is going on in my life at that moment. I was 30 years old and I've just been married, which is important. I had been in a professional rut and was like coming out of it and just gotten a good job.

34:08And really I had been in a professional rut for 10 years. I just like gotten the job that had pulled me out like two months before. And then I'd run this awesome marathon. I'd run a 243 marathon. And so I went to go see the doctor right after the race. I was supposed to see the doctor before the race, but I didn't want to, because I was worried he would tell me not to run the race because there's something wrong with my knee, which is not the best way to operate, but it's the way all runners operate. And so I go and see him like a week after the marathon and he puts his hands on my throat, does the stuff and he like sees a little nodule, right?

34:39And says, we have to get that tested out. And I was like, whatever, it's whatever. But then over time, it becomes thyroid cancer. And then they operate, actually had to operate twice. See, it's a little bright, but you can see I have the scar, like a necklace right there. And this made me confront mortality in a way that was quite different. I was 30 years old. I was healthy. I'd never had, I'm sick as a baby, but I'd never been sick in a real way. And I was convinced I was going to die. I wasn't doctors and rational people look at the numbers know that a healthy 30 year old male who gets thyroid cancer is almost certainly going to get through it.

35:21But you go through radiation treatment, you spend all these hours like lying on the floor, just feeling the worst. And then come out to live in isolation for a little while. You come out, can't walk. You're just too beat down and exhausted. And it had been right after, like it was inextricably tied to my running because it had been right after I had run this awesome marathon, right? You would spend all these years trying to break 230. Then you're 243 and you're like, I'm on top of the world. And then you're like, no, you're not. And so it was a big shift. And so then I came back. Eventually, I got healthy.

35:54I figured out the dose of levothyroxine that I was supposed to take to modulate my internal systems, get back on it and get back to running. It was really important to run another marathon once I was healthy. I came back to the New York marathon two years later. In 2005, I ran the New York marathon in two hours, 43 minutes and 51 seconds in 2007. After all that, I run in two hours, 43 minutes and 38 seconds. Pretty awesome. Now, what did those 13 seconds mean for you? When I started that race, I wanted to break 240 just because basically every race I want to break 240. And I ran on pace to try to run 240.

36:33I wasn't trying to, but when I remember coming, you turn, you run down like Central Park South, coming from a circle, you turn into turn back into the park and you're running up towards tavern on the green and you're running to this beautiful place that's like profoundly important in my memory it's where my track team used to meet it's where my uncle used to live aunt's uncle used to live this is awesome part of new york and i'm running up there and i'm like looking at the clock i'm like oh my god i'm like on the exact same time as two years ago and i just the emotions when i crossed that finish line were when i realized that i was faster than i'd been even though i hadn't run 240 even though i was hadn't run the race exactly right and all that.

37:12So it was a very profound moment that I'll never go. So I want to go back to your sickness just for a second, because I think it's an important point. You write that we don't think about death most days, which means we also forget we're alive. And that line really struck me. For someone who's listening today, what practice helps you remember you're alive on the ordinary Tuesday? probably running i mean like running reminds me and part because running is so tied up with my sickness i don't think about my sickness often i do think about it often when i run and there so there are a number of things that just remind me that i'm here for a short period of time and it matters one of course is having children and being with my children thinking about them and their options in their life same sort of questions that you and i were discussing with your kids a few minutes ago running is a practice that helps remind me of that and then just whenever i see beauty in the world.

38:04Whenever I saw a dance show the other night with my wife, it was just amazing. And I think it triggers a feeling of being alive in a way that when I was in my teens and 20s, I appreciated art and music and life maybe in ways that were deeper, the spiritual highs, the emotional highs that you'd reach. The kind of the emotional meaning I could find in music was a young man's mind versus an old man's mind. But I didn't associate it as much with being alive as I do now. And I think that's a function of having been through my sickness. For those who listen to the podcast, you might remember an episode I did in episode 670 with a gentleman named Joel Beasley, host of the Modern CTO podcast.

38:44And the reason I'm bringing this up is Joel talks about the importance of setting ceilings for yourself. And he was telling me when he started Modern CTO, we set this ceiling for him that he ended up breaking seven years later. So he decided that he wanted to become a standup comedian. And so now he's setting a ceiling that for him, success means that he's going to sell out Madison Square Garden someday. So that's the ceiling he has set. Yeah. You were at this ceiling of 240 for a while. And in fact, I heard you say in another podcast that the people in your running club started to call you Mr.

39:27243, which I know. That's so annoying. I mean, they were wrong, but like. Well, I love this story. So you get approached by a major brand who is doing an experiment on, can they take people who are amateurs, not professionals and change their performance trajectory? And man, I would love for you to talk about this because I found this so interesting. I know it's crazy in retrospect. It's this whole trajectory of my running life changes. I get this email from a Combs executive at Nike, a guy named Matt Nellar. And he's like, hey, at that point, I'm the editor-in-chief of Wired. So I'm not exactly, it's not like they take my name out of a hat.

40:07I cover Nike. But they know that I run, and I had written a story about their new shoes in the New York City Marathon. And he sends an email. I was like, hey, we're starting this program. We pair elite coaches with non-elite runners. You want to be part of it. And I like legit almost didn't write him back. And I didn't write him back for a few days because I was like, oh man, running is getting old. Do I need to do this? It's a selfish sport. If I spend enough time on it, I really want to have to deal with a bunch of like elite coaches trying to coax a little more speed out of this broken down.

40:41I was 43 years old. And I like didn't write him back for, I'm very fast on email, but I didn't write him back. And then he wrote on a Monday or Tuesday. And then that weekend, it was my 25th high school reunion. And I go out and it was like super intense because a lot of my friends on that team died. I had one of them in his early 20s, like died while like on a stage before I fell off the stage and died. I had two of them who like died from cancer. I had one of them was struck by life. I just had the worst, all the different cohorts in my life. This is the cross country team of Andover when I was there has just had the most misery.

41:17My closest teammate, the guy who like beat me at New England, right? The guy I trained with goes to college is top runner Williams and then has given a cancer diagnosis and given like a 5 % chance of survival. And he makes it and becomes a doctor treating people, but just the tragedy that befalls this group. And so I'm like thinking about that. And I'm going for this run where I go and run this route up Holt Hill that I used to do. A friend of mine had just died. This guy, Tim, really close to it. And it's been a year since my father died. And there's something about the intensity of the emotion.

41:48And I remember on that run, I was like, you know what? I'm going to try this. I'm going to try it all. I'm just going to try to be more intense. I'm going to try to be a little bit like I was as a high schooler. And then I was thinking about my dad. I was like, what would my dad say if I had been offered this chance to get much better? So I write back, finally, maybe it's on that Monday. I write back to Matt. I'm like, okay, let's talk, right? And so then Matt begins this process. The next step, he organizes a conference call where I get on the phone with the three coaches, one of whom's joe holder who's a expert in motion mobility another is brett kirby who's this like mad scientist spiritual leader he like designs a lot of the programs for elliot kichouge and then there's steve fiddly who's like a coach who go and run the brooklyn track club he becomes epic coach and i talked to the three of them and they're like okay tell us about your running i'm like well i'm this old guy i have this intense job nickname mr 243 i'd love to run love to i told my goal is to run better than two hours plus my age in minutes.

42:46So that meant run faster than 243. And they would later tell me, they listened and they're like, what's wrong with this dude? You can go so much faster. And so they have this conversation in the background and they're like, look, given what this guy has done, given his training, given his natural ability, we can get him faster. And so they put me on a program, they start training me and then everything shifts. So Coach Finley tricked you past a mental cap. For listeners, what's the practical playbook for bursting a ceiling that looks like data, but is actually belief? That's like the best anybody's ever said it.

43:24Looks like data, but it's actually belief. That's so good, John. That's so good. I love it. I told you I'm a writer. That's beautiful. No AI could write that. So he basically decides that he needs to convince me that I can fit myself into a younger man's body and that I can be as strong and fast as I was when I was 18 years old. And so he starts having me run faster. He has me go to the track and run 400 meter repeats, which I haven't done since college. He has me go out there and run like fast miles. And he's starting to just reset the calibration in my mind about what is fast and what is slow.

43:58And he wants me to run 238, basically wants me to run six minute miles. Six minute miles, 237, 12. He wants me to run that for us. And so we start to, he doesn't tell me this is what he's doing. He only tells me later. He's trying to convince me that I can do these things that I couldn't do, but he's not telling me directly. He's not saying, Nick, you can run at 237. Let's go, bro. No, he's just like setting these schedules that slowly are shifting my perception about what I can do. And he's setting them at exactly the right way so that I'm hitting them and succeeding. And I'm like, feeling like I'm accomplishing them.

44:33And he lays out a Google doc with a schedule. Joe tells me what to eat, tells me the cross training to do. Brett observed from a distance, but then weighs in on these sort of deep physiological questions about, of course, because I'm a reporter and a journalist. I'm always like, explain what happens to your mitochondria as you get older. Brett's there to talk through everything. And I started seeing them getting faster, right? I started like running these faster mile repeats, start hitting these workouts I haven't hit before. I do really well in a race. I'm like, huh? I run the Aspen marathon part of a workout.

45:08I'm like, wow, I did that pretty quickly. It's up and down mountains, not a fast time, but impressive finish. And then I go out and I run the Chicago marathon and I run it in 238. And then I come back and I'm you know what i feel good i'm gonna run the new york marathon four weeks later and i run that in 238 too and i'm like huh something's shifting and then i'm like you know what guys and then the nike experiment ends like nike experiment was supposed to run to end of the chicago marathon i think those guys like brett joe and steve were probably paid to like train at a cohort through the chicago marathon and then i'm like steve can we keep going and he's like yeah and so then he trains me trains me for more.

45:48Well, one thing that I really wanted to ask you about is, so you hit 229. Yeah. But after you do it, you wanted to get right back at it. Yeah. And this is how I really got injured in running. My coach at the Naval Academy, Coach Al, like never gave us a break and ended up just pounding us into the ground. And on top of everything else at the Naval Academy that you have to deal with, my body just started collapsing on me and it was terrible. So there's definitely this rest that you need to take that oftentimes you don't want to. What convinced you to stop and what did you learn from taking a pause?

46:30So I run those two 238s and then I come back in the next spring, I run 234. And then the next fall I run 229. And that's the fall of 2019. And so I run this 229 and I've had this like magical sequence, right? Where I've gone, I've taken like 15 minutes off my time in a year and I finished the race, right? And I'm like, all right, 229. And so I don't think I've ever admitted this before, John. So I'm giving you some breaking news here. I didn't even admit this to my wife or my kids. It's like so embarrassing. I finished that race and I'm like, I think I can qualify for the Olympic trials, right?

47:05Which is For those of you who are runners, like it may seem like 229 isn't that far from 218. Like it's phenomenally different, right? Like even at that moment, I could run two miles or three miles at the pace. Like people don't quite understand. Like I'm a very good runner. I could not keep up with the marathon leaders for like more than 400 meters. Like they go so much faster. And so I finished the race and I'm like, Steve. And I think I wanted to run it because I can't remember the qualifying window, but I was like, maybe I'll run the CIM marathon in eight weeks. And I was like, Steve, maybe we can make a program to try to run like 219 in eight weeks.

47:39And he was like, Nick, no. He didn't say you can't do it. And if I had said we have to do it, he probably would have done it. But he's like, look, I've been watching you and I'm looking at you. And I got to tell you that the night before the marathon, every other race we've run, I've known you're going to get it. I can't tell you I've known you're going to get it. I've known you're going to get it. But I looked at you and I was worried before this one. He's like, look skinny. You look worn out. Looked like we'd gone to the max. And he's like, you don't need to go to try to run a 219 now. you need to sleep um and so it's interesting right because what he had done in both cases at the beginning he had reset my expectations to make me go faster because that was rational and at the end he reset my expectations no you can't actually do that you're not going to run too you're not thinking all you're going to do is wreck your achilles or whatever and so he gets me to dial it back and slow it down and then a couple months later we start going and then i get in the best shape of my life.

48:36So this is then the winter of 2020. And I was assuming I was going to go fast into 29, but then we have COVID. So everything gets reset. Well, one of the phrases that I caught in the book is pain is information, not truth. Yeah. And I think you got this from running ultra distance races. How did you teach yourself mid-race or mid-life to tell yourself how to figure out protective signals from genuine red flags. Every runner struggles with this, but it's so interesting. This is partly from talking with Kirby. It's partly through reading a lot of the literature, but as you get deeper into the sport, you realize this phenomenal thing, right?

49:15It's a theory that initially began with this guy, Tim Noakes, called the Central Governor Theory. But the theory, which I believe absolutely, is that most of the pain you feel in running is not strictly physiological. It is psychological. And what's happening is that your brain has expectations about what your body can do. And it believes that given the current temperature conditions and your current level of fitness and your heart rate and your body heat and everything else that's measuring, if it worries that you're going to head out of homeostasis and go to an unsafe spot, it sends a pain signal, right?

49:46And that is useful because your brain is trying to protect you, right? It's an evolutionary signal. If you are, it knows you're going to go run 100 miles across the savannah, it has a sense of how hard it is to run 100 miles across the savannah. And if it's too hot, it's going to send a pain signal. And where that pain signal appears, it's not quite random, but it's not related to where the most exertion is, right? You might feel it in your elbow, right? Your elbow does nothing when you run. You might feel it in your digestive system, right? You might feel it in your calf, right? So you get all this pain that is information, but it's not real.

50:20On the other hand, you might actually have torn your Achilles, right? And so your Achilles might hurt, not because your brain is sending a signal that you're about to lose homeostasis. You might have literally torn it, right? You might have broken your femur. And learning when you run, like what is real and what is not. I just went through this on Saturday where I went out and I was like, my hamstring was hurting. I injured my hamstring playing soccer with my kids. And it's hurting when I was running. starting out. It's all right. It's going to clear up. I'm good. And then like eight or nine miles in, I'm like, this is just fine.

50:56I'm worried. I'm good. And then 10 miles in, I'm like, oh my God, I can't move. I have to walk home. So probably would have been useful for me to have recognized this at mile six. And so they're just all pretty good at it. I'm not perfect. And recognizing like what is real pain and what is not is what prevents you from getting injured. It's what allows you to go faster. It's a very complicated process. And it's like a huge part of becoming a successful runner. Yeah, man. I remember, especially in critical races, I, my mind would always have that crossfire debate. Yeah. When I am trying to push myself to someplace that I've never gone before.

51:34And sometimes I lost the debate and sometimes I won the bait. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone who knows this debate, like part of your brain is like, stop. Part of your brain is no, I'm still going and you have it and you keep going. So what's it? Cause I think this is applicable to life too, because we do the same debate in any goal we're trying to chase. What have you learned to get yourself through that debate and come out on the other side of it positively? Yeah. Sometimes you just can't do it. Right. So we'll say that, but maybe I'll tell you the story about a race I just ran. So the last, I guess maybe two races ago was the Lake Waramog 50 miler and i was trying to set the american record in the 50 mile run for men over 45 which means running 635 pace and i did it and i was right on pace a little head of pace through like mile 35 and it's all great right and i'm hydrating well i'm eating well it's a good day and then 35 start to feel it right and the first thing you do is you try to push it aside right it's okay right like steady you're doing it right you just concentrate it's like a form a meditation.

52:40You're trying to like, you know what? I'm just going to stay in my mind. I'm going to concentrate. I'm going to relax. I'm going to push this pain aside. I'm going to think about different things, right? All I'm going to do is I'm not going to worry that I have 15 miles to run. I'm going to reset my expectations because my brain is sending these signals because it's worried I can't run 15 more miles. I'm just going to try to convince myself that this is just a race about getting to the next mile or the next aid station or that telephone pole, right? As you've reset what you think you're trying to do, right?

53:05Or you reset it. There was another person. There's guy I have lapped, but he's like good. He was like highlighting people. I was like, dude, can you do me a favor? I'm trying to set the American record. You look like you're fine, even though I just lapped you. Will you run with me at 630 pace? And he's like, yeah, dude, let's do it. Right. And so I like run behind this guy at 630 pace. Right. And so I'm like holding on to him. And then he gases out at about mile 42 and I'm going back to like high-fiving the stuff he does. And so I'm still on pace at mile 42. Right. And I've held on. And so then I'm like, oh boy.

53:41Right. And so then I'm like, okay, now I'm going to focus on my mantras. Right. So these like things I think about when I'm running to try to push the pain aside. And the main one I do is I like think about one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. And so I'm like putting the emphasis. It's like a drummer putting the emphasis on my right foot and my left foot and my right foot and my left foot. And I'm like trying to keep myself balanced and like straight and steady, but also just trying to calm the mind and shut everything out. And so I'm like doing that. I'm like trying to think about other moments where I've succeeded.

54:12I'm trying to think about other things that done that are hard and doing what I can, but to no avail, I like started to slow. I was in agony, pushed so hard. And I actually crossed 50.0 miles ahead of the second American record, sort of for one age group and not both age groups. But the loop course, you can't run perfect tangents. So I ended up finishing and missing both records. I tried. I wasn't, I was not able to overcome whatever signal going on in my body, but man, did I try, man. I love that story. So I understand that another race, you finally win the race you vowed to win as a kid. And then later you pace your son through his own breakthrough.

54:54What did those two finish lines teach you about things like pride, pressure, and letting your own kids tell their own story. Oh, I love that so much. So yeah, there's this race. I spent, when I was a kid, I spent all this time in this place called Northeast Harbor up near Acadia National Park in Maine. Yeah, I was just there. Oh, really? Yeah. Right, right? It's like the best place in the world to run. Like these carriage trails. That's gorgeous. Yeah, honestly, like if I were to, if I didn't have a job and if I were just a runner, I would move there. So there's always a race. Sadly, it's been canceled.

55:25If anybody listening wants to restart it, that would be God's work. But when I was a kid, there's always this five mile race that would end in town. And I remember watching it as a kid. My dad ran it one year and I remember just vowing I would win it. And like making this pledge while I walk around my backyard as a child. And then I tried to, and I couldn't. And I like ran it when I was an undergraduate and I was strong and good. I came up third or fifth. I ran it like a bunch of times and I never won. Then in the summer of 2019, summer where I'd end up running, I run 229. I pledged that I would win and I did.

56:00And I win and my kids are there at the finish line cheering and everybody's exciting. And you know, who cares? It's like a local road race. You have to be fast to win. Like they're good people who run that race. And so two years later, it's canceled the next year, but 2021, I come back. And my son, my middle son, who's then 11, is like, you know what, dad, I'm going to run it. Awesome. And we train together and I try not to put pressure on him, right? They may dispute this, but I do my very best to, my goal as a parent. is to be available for them anytime they want to do something. And if they want to push themselves, they want to get good at something, I will help them, right?

56:38They want to get good at chess. I will play chess with them every night. But I'm not going to tell them to play chess, right? If they want to get good at soccer, I will train with them every night. But I'm not going to tell them to go practice, right? And so he wants to get better at running. And so I go out and I take him to the track and he gets better. And then we go out and he runs the race. So I run, I finish, I think he's coming third that year. And then I circle back and there he is. like mile to go he's trucking doing a running nine minute mile pace as an 11 year old and i get with him and i like tell him listen to his breathing and i run about a little bit with him i like tell him to actually i think i have to tie his shoes at one point his shoe gets untied but i try to help him focus and like he speeds up accelerates and then he like guns it to the line and his cousins are there cheering and it was an amazing experience for him and a great experience for me to see him do something to sport and love it.

57:30And like he and I now, he's now 15. On my 50th birthday, we went out and ran, I wanted to run a sub five minute mile for my 50th birthday. So he went out and paid me for the first 1200 meters of it. We'd go to the track and we'll do eight by 400 where I'll lead one, he'll lead one, I'll lead one, he'll lead one. It's awesome. Yeah. It's so cool. Well, I want to end talking about Michael Westfall. You're right that Michael says there's more to running than just beating people. He then goes on to say, I realized that when I was 58. yeah what did michael change in your understanding of things like excellence dignity and community and what they mean and michael westfall is a hero so this race the northeast harbor road race when i'm running with my son and we're finishing i was with this guy my training partner out there's this cop guy named judson killer runner right he that year where i came in third he came in second and we i see this guy i think at that point in the race he was just ahead of zachary And I was like, Judson's okay, right?

58:26He's like running, his arm is flailing all over and like circling up, right? And Judson's like, that's Michael Westlaw, man. He's a legend. And I was like, well, okay. And then I run with Zachary. Zachary ends up finishing just ahead of this guy. And so I'm like, Michael Westlaw, who's Michael Westlaw? And I look up and he had actually won the Northeast Harbor Road Race the year my dad had run. And so I say to Judson, I was like, where's this guy live? What is his story? And so I write to him and I'm like, hey, my name's Nick. I love running. You finished just ahead of my son. I'd love to come talk to you.

58:54And so he has this incredible story. He grows up on this island, Cranberry Island, and it's this little island off the coast of Maine. So there's Mount Desert Island, which is off the mainland. That's where Acadia is. That's where I was. And then off of Mount Desert Island is Cranberry Island. And it's got a year round population of about 50. And there's one road, it's this two mile road runs through the middle of the island. And then there's like little off roads and beaches. And he grows up there. And like when you grow up on a little island, like I don't have kids to go to high school. His mom has to get powder milk.

59:28His dad like works in Boston Monday through Thursday, comes up Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Mom is like raising the kids in the little house. They didn't have electricity. They're in a tiny island off the coast of Maine and there's not a lot to do. And so everybody runs and there's like a population, whatever, 40 or 50. And seven of them become sub three hour marathoners, which is crazy. and so michael becomes this awesome runner and he runs 229 228 he's this great runner wins all these races in man he's also a carpenter strong man like he's he builds a lot of the houses there are all these sort of affluent families who come for the summer and the people who live year-round and he builds the houses for everybody builds his tennis courts he's flowing like rock gardens great brown's awesome and he builds a lot of it and he's the caretaker for all the homes And then when he's like 49 years old, he gets this shake in his shoulder.

1:00:21And what is this? I'm sore. And then eventually he realized he's got Parkinson's. And so then his arm starts to flail and he gets the symptoms of Parkinson's. We've all seen Michael J. Fox. We've all seen the consequences. And at first he's embarrassed, right? He's this strong guy who builds the island. These are his customers. He tries to hide it. And then he's like, I'm not going to hide it and I'm going to run. And so he learns to run with it, right? And he like ties his hand back with string and he learns how to like handle running with Parkinson's. And he's phenomenal. I think he runs like a 316 marathon with Parkinson's, right?

1:00:58In his fifties, right? He comes in like the top of his age group competing in people who don't have Parkinson's. Like it is amazing. And so when I go and see him, he's in his sixties and I get on to get off the boat. I'm going to go up and there he is. and his arms are flailing all over the place. I brought my eldest son. And we go and we drive with him. We get in the car and I'm like, oh my God, this can't be safe. I brought my child. And I'm like, you know what? This guy knows this island. I'm like, just trust him. And so we talk about his life. We talk about what he learned. We talk about his embarrassment initially and then his pride and learning how to handle it.

1:01:36And that quote, it was him describing what he got from running. And when he was young, he just wanted to beat everybody, like everybody, right? He wants to run and win. and you ran 230, you want to run 229. You run 229, you want to run 228, right? And then once you get Parkinson's and once it's a little bit like my experience with cancer, but you multiply it by a hundred, he starts to really fall in love with the community that comes from it and the people he meets and like other people who are struggling with different forms of Parkinson's, different kinds of medical treatments, different kinds of reactions.

1:02:04And he travels around talking to people, running, racing. He learns that he has to run with support because he might fall. He might need, it's very hard to get a water cup, right? There are a lot of things that are hard when you control your body. And he just becomes this amazing runner. He sets the world record, I believe, for fastest marathon by someone with Parkinson's. And he keeps going and going. And then eventually he can't go any further. He can't do it anymore. He becomes too sick. He goes through a treatment that gets him more control, but he can't really run. Except I went out to see him this summer.

1:02:37So five years after I first saw him or four years after I first saw him. And I bring my youngest son this time. and my youngest son is also a great runner. He's now 11. We go out there and we talk for a while. I'm just catching up. Like the book is already done. I've written about him and I'm just seeing him because I like him and admire him. And then he's, well, let's go for a run. And we go out and the three of us go and run a mile on that road on Cranberry Island. And he's one of those people who I just, I feel blessed. Well, I just have to ask you one and one last thing and you can answer it quickly.

1:03:11But given his story, tomorrow morning, a listener who's heard this wants to start, maybe not running, but their own version of it. What's the smallest, most durable step you recommend? And what would you say they should stop doing that's been capping their own ceiling? They just should go out the moment they want to go out. That's the beautiful thing about running is you get to decide and you get to control. You want to play tennis, you need someone else, you need a racket, you need a ball. you want to run and you also need to reserve a cork you want to run you can just go you turn the knob right and so whatever's limiting them whether they don't want to run because it's hot they don't want to run because they don't have the right shoes they don't want to run because their knee hurts or whatever they're worried about something like let's go out run around the block run five minutes run ten minutes or walk five minutes ten minutes try to identify the thing that's holding you back and making you not want to do it.

1:04:06And one of the reasons I wrote the book is because there's this realization that you really can just run, just you. It's all on you. There's nothing else. No one out there is stopping you from running. You don't need to rely on anybody else. You can run anywhere. I've done long runs. I've run 10 miles around a parking lot. You can go and run wherever you are. I run, I have run when it's 110. I have run when it's negative 10, right? You can go out there and you just make something Michael Westfall said. I was like, how many days of that? I was like, how many days did you not run because of the weather?

1:04:48He's on the island right in the middle of Maine. It's like, how many days did you like not run because it was icy or the snow pile up front door, you couldn't get out or the stormy or tree come down. He's like, never. It's just a choice. and so that's one of the beautiful things about running so just take advantage of that it's one of the things that it makes this sport so special so whether it's running whether it's walking going out on your bike whatever it is just go try to do something that's like a little further a little faster a little more intense that you've done before awesome well nick such an honor to have you today what's the best place that people can go to learn more about you and your work so So I'm on nickthompson.com.

1:05:26I'm CEO of The Atlantic, theatlantic.com. I'm all over social media, usually at Annex Thompson. You can see all my runs on Strava. I post a video every day about AI and tech on LinkedIn. So I'm all over the internet. Thank you so much for joining us. And congrats on the book. Thank you so much, John. I'm so glad that you like it. I'm so glad you read it. It was a real pleasure to talk with you. It's a real pleasure to meet your audience. That's a wrap on today's conversation with Nick Thompson. What I love most about this episode is how much it reminds us that endurance isn't just physical, it's emotional and spiritual.

1:05:59Running for Nick was never just about miles, it was about meaning. Here are three reflections to carry forward as you get through the rest of your week and your weekend. First, pain is information, not truth. Sometimes what feels like a limit is really an invitation. Second, growth happens in the space between resistance and renewal. And lastly, the most powerful finish lines aren't the ones we cross. They're the ones we create within ourselves. If this episode helped you rethink your relationship with effort, struggle, or discipline, consider paying the fee by sharing it with someone who needs encouragement and leaving a five-star rating or review.

1:06:35You can find the companion workbook and takeaways for today's episode at theignitedlife.net, where I share reflections and science-backed strategies for living a life that matters. And don't forget to check out our YouTube channel at John R. Miles or our Clip channel at PassionStruck Clips. Next week, we're starting a new series for the month of November on the inner irreplaceables, resilience and emotional mastery. We'll be joined by Dr. Zach Siedler, Global Director of Men's Health Research at Movember. And together, we'll explore the evolving crisis of men, identity and mattering, and how redefining masculinity could be the key to our collective healing.

1:07:12I think with anyone, if you're going to get up each and every day and do something that really matters to you, that you have a sense of purpose and meaning around, it has to resonate on a personal level. It has to light your fire one way or another. And really, there are many different interweaving narratives that led me to where I am today. the more I reflect on it through conversations like this. I pick up different threads along the way that really turned me into the man that I am and led me down the path to doing the work that I do. Until then, stay resilient, stay curious, and as always, live life passion-struck.

1:08:04Thank you.