Rory Linkletter - #008

0:00Jake Dearden: Rory, welcome to the podcast. Thanks. Does the podcast have a name yet? It does actually. It's just my name. Okay. And that's the reason for that is so we can talk about whatever we want to talk about. So we don't have to be going down a niche. Okay, sweet. The first thing I do want to talk to you about is the half marathon. Yep. Houston, almost 13 days ago now, I think it was. How are you feeling after it?

0:25Rory Linkletter: I mean, I was elated to knock off that like lifelong goal of breaking 60 minutes in the half marathon. When I started my professional running journey, that was one of those times that like meant a whole lot. And I think it still does. But like at the time it was like, man, I can name on one hand how many people I know in North America specifically that have gone under this, this mark. So that felt really significant. And so it's kind of like one of those that I put on, you know, like a dream time to run and to do it, to start a new year, 2026 is, I think it's great momentum and obviously sets up really well for what's next.

1:09Rory Linkletter: That's cool.

1:10Jake Dearden: And for this half marathon, did you, I obviously, I assume you trained for it, but that you trained specifically for this did you have like a 16 week build-up to the half marathon or have you been obviously you've been running quite a few marathons yeah so is this like a for the bigger picture of the marathon yeah and this was just kind of like a step into it on even though it was an incredible

1:33Rory Linkletter: achievement you know the canadian record uh yeah yeah so the way i see it is i when i picked Houston goals to run fast. We train with that goal in mind all the way through Houston. When did you know that you was going to do Houston? With these races, I have to know so far in advance. So like probably even before I finished the Chicago marathon, which was my previous like big goal, a goal race prior to Houston. So that was in October. So I probably knew right, right then and there that I was going to end up in Houston in January, but I had to, you know, take a few weeks down a few weeks rebuild.

2:12Rory Linkletter: And by the time it got to like, okay, the races now I can focus on the race and train for it. I had about eight weeks and I mean, even up until a month before the race, I was not confident that my fitness was where it needed to be. But at the same time, at this point in my career and the experience I've gained over the years is I kind of knew, okay, if I do these few things, I think I can, I think I can kind of cram for the exam in a way and be ready to go. And man, it wasn't until two weeks, three weeks out that I was like, okay, I think I'm in a good enough spot that I can go out there and give it a good swing.

2:50Rory Linkletter: Cause sub 60 was the goal. Like there was probably three goals, a goal, B goal, C goal, you know, that was the A goal though. And so I wanted a chance to swing

2:59Jake Dearden: for that that's crazy so kind of that six to four weeks out when you wasn't feeling very confident what are the things in your mind that you know you need to do whether it's certain workouts that you need to take off you need to at certain paces uh to make sure that you're you are fit for the goal ahead what is that how you work or was it something else that was telling you

3:22Rory Linkletter: you didn't feel fit enough at that time yeah so i mean i took my off season pretty off. Like I like prioritized my social life. I took this straight after Chicago, straight after Chicago. So the problem was, is I was just unfocused for about four to six weeks post Chicago. And then when I got refocused, it was, it took a few weeks to kind of get my, my legs back under me. And my coach was kind of like being a wise coach and kind of easing me along. And I remember a month out from Houston. I called him cause I was like, honestly anxious. I was like, I don't feel ready. I don't feel like I'm going to be ready.

4:03Rory Linkletter: And I just told him, Hey man, this race is really important to me. I knew Cam Levins was going to be there, which is like one of my top competitors, the current Canadian record holder. I had heard rumblings of the field. It was going to be really good. I was like, I just want to be ready to compete. And he's like, thanks for telling me, I want you to be ready too. I think we will be ready, but I think you're right. We do have to kind of dial things up. And so all we really did is just like increase the focus and know that like, Hey, for three or four weeks here now, we're, our intensity is going to be really high.

4:34Rory Linkletter: We're going to take some big swings and workouts, and we're going to do very race specific preparation. And that really only included three or four major efforts and just like keeping the volume where we needed it to be for the strength side for a half marathon interesting and when you

4:51Jake Dearden: say you increase the intensity this always like baffles me a little bit because i always see a prep for a marathon or half half marathon it kind of is what it is you have your specific workouts that you want to smash off if you what is the difference between a normal prep and an intense prep for you?

5:11Rory Linkletter: Yeah, I think I pretty much I can go through the motions and do training at a pretty high level, just checking boxes. But I can I can also turn on this part of my brain where everything feels a little bit more high stakes. And I go into every workout and every week of training, every day of training, really even the easy days with like a very intentional approach to everything. and I basically was in my like go with the flow mindset until I made that call with my coach and then we switched it over to intentional and the workouts didn't necessarily change I did give him some input on like what I thought would help me gain confidence and check my fitness and prepare me for the race but really it was just me telling him so that he was he was holding me accountable to what I was trying to do and then I also just holding him accountable like hey man Like you got to push me to this goal.

6:06Rory Linkletter: Like we want to be ready for this race. And if I had never made that call, who knows, maybe we come in just a little less sharp and we miss by a few, you know? So it's, it's really just, it's, it's the one percenters.

6:19Jake Dearden: Yeah. So it's not really because I would assume just thinking about that, that you would go harder on every single run. And that is what makes it more intense. Whereas you're saying the workouts aren't specifically harder. they're just more focused everything around whether it's the recovery whether it's meal timings around training fueling like everything is on point is that what you're saying yeah there

6:42Rory Linkletter: was probably one or two times where the intensity was dialed up but that's because at this level when you're striving for you know national records competing at the front of a race like the houston half it requires that right like it requires being risky and being being a little bit aggressive with training and, and trying things that inherently could go South. So like, for example, there was one very specific workout three by three miles at half marathon pace. And if I'm not intentional, that can be like loosely half marathon pace, right? Like it can be like half marathon effort. There's a way to do that workout with like a 90 % focus.

7:25Rory Linkletter: And then there's a way to do it with like a hundred percent focus and we just did it with a hundred we went in with this like hey we want to be able to run sub 60 minute half marathon pace in this workout and really feel it and press and get kind of that groove of what it's going to feel like in the race and stimulate it as much as you can and i did that with two training partners here in town that were also getting ready for houston with similar goals to me and so it was really easy to kind of like we all went in there. Like, let's do this, let's get ready and let's feed off each other and make this as race specific as possible.

8:01Jake Dearden: That's cool. Did the amount of intense sessions change at all? Did you say, for example, you do three hard days a week or two hard days a week? Did you increase that?

8:12Rory Linkletter: I think I just was willing to take those risks where in other circumstances, maybe you push back or do this. I think the way me and my coach work is there's a lot of fluid and what we try to do in peak training when we're getting ready for an a race and when we're in that like intense mindset is density of training so trying to do as much as we can in as short a period of time as possible and in flagstaff that's especially difficult we're here 7 000 feet above sea level 2 000 meters above sea level and you know when you try to shorten those recovery windows that's where you play with fire and that's what we do when we're really really trying to be as intentional and as intense as possible it's like okay if we're gonna go hard tuesday can we come back with something thresholdy thursday that maybe normally we'd push off till friday but we're trying to get one more effort in this week and how do we like stack the deck to make it so that we're being as as aggressive as possible in this window and that's that's more of a marathon training mindset for me, like stack fatigue.

9:19Rory Linkletter: But I think it's worked so well that we kind of did like a mini three to four weeks of that mentality and that approach for this half.

9:28Jake Dearden: Do you think, obviously having the Chicago Marathon as the A-race of last season, do you feel like that built your running strength to a point where you found the half marathon easier because i always kind of think and wonder whether it'd be better to for a marathoner to go down to a half marathon or for a 10k to go up to a half marathon and obviously the answer is probably it depends but did you almost find from a mental standpoint that it's slightly easier to go and do the half marathon after you've knocked out that marathon at this point in my career with with what

10:09Rory Linkletter: goals I set in these races, I think it's harder now. It's harder to go back down.

10:15Jake Dearden: Okay.

10:15Rory Linkletter: And I say that because half marathons now feel kind of fast.

10:20Jake Dearden: Like, like they don't feel the clipping. What, what, uh, in, in miles, uh, minute per mile, what would it be? That was four 34 per mile.

10:29Rory Linkletter: Do you have that in kilometers as well? Yeah. Two 51, two 52 51. Yeah. Somewhere in between there. crazy. Yeah. So like, it's so fast now at this point, like I'm, I have to be ready for it to hurt as early as possible. Now I will say I was very afraid of how hard and intense a sub 60 effort could be. Cause I've tried a few times I've, I've gone out at sub 60 pace a few times in my career and blown up and not run sub 60. This wasn't my first crack at it, but this time it actually did feel good. It did feel pretty comfortable until I don't know, 15 K and then it got really hard. And then I knew I could hold on for the last six K of the race.

11:08Rory Linkletter: So it was, it was, my strength did help me here, but when I was coming down, I was afraid of the speed. Like I knew that that pace was going to feel foreign. Cause I've gotten so comfortable at like just a touch slower. Like I feel really confident that I could go out almost any given weekend and run a 61 minute half marathon. You know, I could do that in training if I needed to at sea level at least, but I don't I don't think that next step is as comfortable as as it feels like it should be I think coming from the 10k is way easier I'd way rather go up in pace and extend the distance then come down in distance and and make the pace harder if that makes sense for sure for sure were

11:52Jake Dearden: there any other levers that you kind of used in your training you mentioned density and that's something that you've used successfully with with your marathons was there anything else to deal with that that added speed yeah in terms of your strength training your speed sessions what else did you kind of use to you know your own words like deal with that fear of the speed yeah to speak

12:14Rory Linkletter: i think over training over speed like go go faster than than you have to go in the race make make race pace feel easy by going faster in training yeah sorry i just wanted to interrupt there um

12:25Jake Dearden: me not being very professional i didn't mention that uh john's here my coach uh he wanted to sit in on this he wanted to ask a couple of questions from like a coaching side so i just wanted to intro it so sorry about that sorry my coach is also john so yeah yeah so i just want speaking about coaches um i want to go on to training which obviously you mentioned before that your coach is only a year older than you yeah how long have you been working with your

12:53Rory Linkletter: current coach right after the 2024 olympic games so i ran for canada in the paris olympics in the marathon and i worked with my previous coach ryan hall former american half marathon record holder

13:09Jake Dearden: 204 marathoner himself watched all these youtubes yeah they were they were amazing if you if you're not looked at kind of like his previous youtube channel i don't know when he started it it must like 10, 15 years old now, but it's incredible. Just the insights that he had back then. Yeah. He's a really cool guy, but yeah.

13:29Rory Linkletter: I mean, I could stop and talk about Ryan forever because he was so important to my development, but so he got me to the Olympics and the Tuesday after I raced, I think I raced on a Saturday or Sunday. I can't recall. Tuesday after I'm in the South of France on vacation with my family, I get a message from Ryan saying that he's done coaching. He just doesn't want to coach anymore. There were some, some signs that that was going to happen. He was kind of ready to move on in his life. He'd been doing that since he finished his professional running career himself. So I had to kind of like scramble and be like, well, I'm actually already turning this around and running New York in the fall.

14:07Rory Linkletter: So I got to figure out what I'm going to do next. And there was a list of priorities that I had. Number one, being in person. I love in-person coaching. I need that hands-on. I'm a needy athlete. I want, I want someone to be there, hold my hand, give me feedback in real time. And, uh, yeah, so I, I started the list with who's in Flagstaff because obviously this is where I live. I have a house here. My family lives here. I've put down roots here. So John Green was the first name that came to my mind and not because he's overly accomplished and clearly the best obvious choice in town. he is an accomplished coach.

14:43Rory Linkletter: He coached Molly Seidel to an Olympic bronze medal. He's worked with, he had worked with before me, a number of other, uh, female professional distance runners. I was his first male professional distance runner. So I was joining a team of, of women only with a coach that had never coached a elite male. So, but I believed in his philosophy and I believed in his energy, if that makes sense. Like I'd seen him coach Molly through her Olympic medal and I'd seen him coach other people in town and I just could tell he deeply cared and I really I want that in my coach more than anything I want them to be invested in my performance I want them to feel like they're going to war with me and then also I just knew enough about his philosophy to know that we aligned on like what mattered in training that's cool and uh what is your current

15:34Jake Dearden: week looking like at the moment well not at the moment but in the lead up you pick a week yeah what's the typical week looking like in terms of training yeah so pre-half looks like two hard

15:47Rory Linkletter: sessions and a long run generally sometimes those are double sessions so it can be if you want to break those double days into two workouts then it would be three hard sessions and a long run and those long runs can vary in specificity sometimes they're easy sometimes they have intensity built in as well so uh they can be between two to four intense reaches per week and the volume varies for the half i got up to just about 190 180 kilometers a week about 110 to 115 miles and in the full i uptick that to just over 200 kilometers a week about 130 plus miles And I look to keep pushing those numbers up and up.

16:32Rory Linkletter: You know, you've got all these levers you can push and pull. And as a marathoner, I think one of the most important and easiest lever to push is to add fatigue. Like where can we add fatigue? Because the whole race premise is like, how do you, how does your body respond to fatigue? How do you run under fatigue? How do your muscles do late in the race when they're fatigued? So I'm a, I'm a simple, simple guy. Like let's throw in more fatigue. We can do that with intensity. we can do that with with density which is proximity of workouts to one another and then we can do that

17:02Jake Dearden: with volume interesting and do you think there's a cap on volume everyone is talking about volume at the moment saying you know i feel like volume's increasing increasing increasing over um not just the elite athletes but in the influencer space as well in every kind of field people are pushing the limits and i feel like one it's down to maybe the shoes maybe you know the technology improvements within shoes but uh do you think there is kind of like a cap i think it's largely

17:33Rory Linkletter: individual i haven't personally found that cap for me and i'm curious to find it right like i want to keep going up and up but i want to do it in a very calculated intuitive way like i hardly start my week being like, this is 140 mile week, or this is a 220 kilometer week. I have, I start a week with an end goal and day to day or like an end goal range. And day to day is very fluid. It's like, if I have a recovery run or a recovery day in between sessions, my coach doesn't tell me how far to go each of those runs. It's, I go out the door and I literally run and I go, and I could run for 75 minutes.

18:14Rory Linkletter: I could run for 90 minutes. Let's see what feels good. And some days you go a little longer because you feel a little better. And some days you turn back early and you go a little shorter. So it's, I follow that like intuitive feeling that I have, but I, with the mindset of like, can I do a little bit more? How much more can I do?

18:32Jake Dearden: I like that. And with the recovery days, is the, a cap on time on feet that you is 90 minutes to kind of like the cap, because you don't want to fatigue yourself too much for the following day yeah so i double almost

18:45Rory Linkletter: every recovery day except for maybe one a week so i run two times and i try to at a minimum run two hours in that day so whether it be a 90 minute morning 30 minute afternoon 60 60 70 50 any variation that's like that's the that's the basement on like in marathon training that's like where i want to like hang out every day that's a recovery day except for one day a week one day a week either take completely off or do like a 30 minute shakeout something that's true recovery

19:13Jake Dearden: right like not just active and when you say shake out the 30 minute shakeout is that a run as well yeah so you you never really have any days where unless it's a complete rest day where it's non impact loading like you wouldn't swap swap to the bike or anything no i wouldn't i don't usually

19:29Rory Linkletter: cross train if i'm gonna if i'm gonna deload i'll just do a day off and that varies based on the time of year. If I'm in an earlier phase of training, I'll try to take those every 10 to 13, 10 to 14 days. And if I'm in a, like a peak peak phase, it's every like 20 to 30 days. That's a little, little less, uh, in the heat of marathon training to keep the volume where it needs to be. It's really hard to find a time to take a day off. So that's where like the, the day off ends up being like a 45 minute jog. And that feels like a day off to me because I don't have the afternoon session and I'm not going quite as far, but you know, with two hours being the bottom, what I'm looking to do this next, say build for Boston, that's my next marathon.

20:13Rory Linkletter: I'd love to see a couple of three hour recovery run days where I'm doing, you know, 90 to a hundred minutes in the morning, 90 minutes in the afternoon, 80 minutes in the afternoon, or however I want to break that down. I even want to dabble with the idea of tripling at one point. I don't know how I would break it down exactly yet but that these are the things that I'm constantly thinking about and curious about for myself I have looked into that you know I'm really intrigued in myself in

20:42Jake Dearden: like the the triple days um just because you can fuel properly in between and you can recover properly um I've seen a lot of studies where it's not potentially it's not down to the amount of volume you do it's down to how fueled you are for them sessions and generally if you run longer you're spending longer under fueled yeah if you're not really thinking about running and eating running and eating and uh and things like that so um that that potentially could be a great way do you know anyone in the space that does triple days yeah there's a few so the japanese are famous

21:16Rory Linkletter: for it japanese marathoners almost all of them from what i know have at least experimented in triples. That's like a very like staple Japanese marathon training method. And if you look at Japanese performances, the depth in Japan, tenfold, what the depth is in North America or Europe, way more depth. Like I think the year I went to the Olympics in 2024 for Canada, it was number two in Canada, number four in North America. So that's a lot of people in Japan. I would have been in the twenties. Wow. So there would have been 20 guys faster than me in Japan that year. And so to me, like, it's almost like dumb to ignore that their depth is insane.

21:56Rory Linkletter: And so, and I think they're getting that result because more of them are willing to, to go into these waters of max, max volume and stacking as much fatigue as they can in their body. So triples, I'm very curious about in fellow Canadian, the marathon record holder, the guy I just took the half marathon record from Cam Levins is famous for being like the only North American willing to triple. He runs like 300 kilometers a week at peak.

22:20Jake Dearden: wow it's mental that's insane 300 i couldn't even imagine that so obviously you mentioned about sometimes when you're in peak training and you're only taking one rest day every 30 days obviously you're taking active days and that feels like a rest day but you must feel like shit quite a bit of the time is that you just face the fact that you do feel like that and you you know you get up you may be a little bit sore or it does that not happen so the way i see it and this is how i've

22:56Rory Linkletter: experienced it my last couple marathon builds so last year was kind of the the beginning of this experimentation of the more volume i ran 10 more last year than i'd ever run in a previous year 8 000 plus kilometers on the year 5 000 plus miles uh that was by far in a way the most volume i'd ever put in in one year. And so this was my first time really experimenting with like less recovery, more volume. And in my first time doing it, so that was Boston last year, I did feel like shit for a while. Like there was, there was weeks where I was like, I don't know if I'm going to make it. You know, I felt like I was burying myself, but I was willing to do that because I was curious about what would happen.

23:39Rory Linkletter: And what happened was as soon as I adapted, the fitness skyrocketed. Like it was crazy. I've never felt a larger shift. Like my workouts weren't, weren't going poorly at any point. My recovery days were, were slogs. They were hurt. They were just like getting through them. And then all of a sudden months to go to the key race, everything started feeling good again. And I hadn't like deloaded yet. I still was at peak volume for another week or two. And then once I tapered, I actually felt insane. Like it was, it was crazy. And then I did it again for Chicago. That was the second time I had done that same approach.

24:13Rory Linkletter: And I actually did a little bit more in the Chicago build than I did in the Boston build. And similar, felt like crap, turned a corner, felt better. But it happened quicker this time. Like it happened earlier in the build where I started to feel normal again. It didn't feel like a slog anymore. So I'm really curious. This will be the third time I enter a build with the intentionality of let's see where that line is and let's dance with it. I want to see how quickly my body adapts. And, and if I can, I almost want it to take a little bit of time. Cause if we're not taking that time where it's like that, you're flirting with the line, are we actually like finding the, the, the, the roof or the ceiling of our potential?

24:54Jake Dearden: When you are flirting with that line of overtraining, do you sometimes wake up with pains, niggles, you know, your feet hurting, your knees hurting, things like that, or is everything feeling perfect all the time and mentally if them things do occur are you running through them because you know it's going to be okay or are you addressing them what's yeah what's your so i i

25:20Rory Linkletter: have like a very consistent habitual like treatment schedule i have the same day of the week same time every week massage with someone i've been seeing for seven years i have physio that i see at least once a week that can change. It's more like on a need basis that rotates. Sometimes it's more frequent than others. And I go to my strength coach twice a week, which I consider to be part of my physio as well. Right? So those are locked in. So I'm pretty much doing four things a week that I look at as increasing my robustness, if you will, uh, throughout the week and helping me check in and stay on top of that.

25:58Rory Linkletter: There are days where I wake up and the first step out of that isn't great or the first mile of a run first five ten minutes of a run might feel a little sluggish and slow and and like maybe something's a little tight but that's kind of like that breakthrough point is eventually you do feel good again you do like lose that that fatigue and it's just a matter of time for the adaptation i consider the start of a build the hardest part the hardest part is just getting up to peak volume and up to peak intensity once you kind of find yourself there and settle in it gets to kind of feel good again just just elaborating slightly

26:35Jake Dearden: on that breakthrough point and you mentioned that the first time you did it it took however long and

26:41Rory Linkletter: then the second time it was a little bit quicker how long did that actually take i want to say it was like four weeks the first time like almost a month straight of that's a long time slogging yeah yeah but like i said the reason why i kept doing it and like because i would get these little like nuggets of, of like almost confirmation that it was fine. Like I would work out Tuesday, Wednesday's run would be terrible. Thursday's run would be just a little bit better. Friday, I'd work out still smash my workout. I'm like, well, I must not be totally burying myself. Cause I'm, I'm coming out of it in time for the next session.

27:15Rory Linkletter: And then it's just like rinse and repeat, right? Like I just was going through these weeks where it felt like I was almost like drowning and then coming up for air, drowning and then coming up for air. And then eventually I'm, I'm treading water and I'm actually staying above water it's really interesting because

27:29Jake Dearden: one of the big questions I get on a coaching side is am I training too hard am I not training hard enough do you know what I mean and obviously that's the game in it that we're playing do you use any data driven markers to kind of like confirm your clearly like really good intuition that you have about your body are you monitoring resting heart rates breathing rates skin temperatures hrvs any of these sorts of things and if so have you seen any patterns um so i wear

28:01Rory Linkletter: a heart rate monitor on every run i don't do hrv i don't monitor my heart rate when i'm not running i don't do you know uh any sort of other like data driven checkpoints but i do think this is where i get like kind of hippie about this stuff and i can be a little bit more like feel based is I just know like I feel like the best athletes in my specific discipline the discipline of marathoning because it is a discipline of fatigue it's a discipline of fatigue resistance is knowing how to thread the needle and and stay in the right spot because I think the race and the training are like kind of like they reflect each other right like in training you have high points you have low points you have points where you feel good points where you feel like you're not going to make it and in the race it's the same thing so it's really being able to internalize what's a real threat and what's not and i i just feel like day to day that's the same reason why i don't set my like oh i'm running 90 minutes this morning no it could be 70 it could be 90 it could be 100 it could be 60 i'm i'm completely open to the possibility of it being whatever the body tells me it is and then i kind of just take that in every facet like with intensity too so there's volume and then there's intensity like i just will run slower if i need to yeah i think that's super cool to hear you say that and i think from my experience it's not just in

29:30Jake Dearden: marathon running i think the best athletes i've seen across most sports are exactly the same and they're the ones that are very intuitive the ones that are able to take the easy day when they need it and then like you said that brings you into the race itself you're able to survive the hard bit you're able to be aggressive when you can be yeah and and it just all like you said reflects on on

29:51Rory Linkletter: each other doesn't it yeah yeah absolutely it it feels cool because i do feel like i'm a slow learner and the marathon was really tricky for me at first i was not a natural marathoner my first few were tough but now as i've kind of figured out my processes and gotten better at this specific skill, this like no one to hold them, no one, no one to fold them kind of thing. Now I kind of feel like I'm really confident going into races. Like I know that I'm not going to have the bad, bad day. Like my, my, my windows are getting tighter and I'm able to predict where I'm at and trust my body a lot more.

30:26Rory Linkletter: And it's because I've built that trust through trial and error.

30:30Jake Dearden: Do you, do you think that you've nailed the D Lord and that's, what's given you

30:34Rory Linkletter: a bit more confidence as well yes yes i but i do think at the end of the day it's it's really just nailing like like the deload helps and if you mean like from like on the micro level like deload between sessions i definitely feel like i've nailed that like i know how to recover in between sessions and for me uh and for marathoning specifically i feel like that a lot in large part of it is your intensity of your easy running or your aerobic work and your your recovery work

31:04Jake Dearden: and how how intense are you going are you going super super easy yeah for for me it's super super easy for sure like so heart rate wise 120s 120s hey if as soon as it goes into the 130s are you

31:15Rory Linkletter: slowing no but i just don't i don't i don't get there because i don't i'm not pushing like i it is like just comfort and some days 120s is uh 430 per k some days it's 440 some days it's 420 on the worst of days, it might be five minutes, right? Like, like it, and some days it's four minutes. Like there is, and I don't really do like this. Like I'm not really checking. It's more like run by feel, look at data after. And, um, when I look at the data, it's super consistent with the heart rate. Like that's what I love about heart rate for me is I don't check it until after, and then it confirms what I felt.

31:54Rory Linkletter: And then that way, if I do want to check in with, with data, I like in a workout, I'll check it more. I'll be like, Oh, this is threshold. Usually in threshold, I'm in the one sixties or something for heart rate peak down one 59, one 60, one 61. We know we're in the right zone. And, uh, I've worn my heart rate monitor in races. So I know what in a marathon, my heart rate should be. And so I know when I'm trying to do marathon specific work, it should be in that, in that relative zone. And I don't, you know, get habitual about looking down on my watch and checking that that number but i like to do the workout and then check after and be like look i was i was in the zone i wasn't overextending myself here are there any other

32:33Jake Dearden: recovery recovery methods that you use like in between tough sessions like say keeping the easy runs easy do you focus massively on sleep are there any other i think eating i think eating

32:45Rory Linkletter: yeah i think i'm all one of my superpowers is i have a huge appetite i i generally like to eat all day every day like i have had three meals already today and as we're recording this it's almost supper time right so this will be a four meal day i only ran once today this today's a active recovery day so i don't need to eat four full meals but i i felt like it and i did and now i have a long run tomorrow i'm gonna be topped off in my glycogen stores going in and i'm gonna feel good and have the energy i need to to do that session and then rinse and repeat so i think

33:21Jake Dearden: eating enough are you focusing on getting nutrition in as soon as you finished every

33:26Rory Linkletter: session or do you not really stress too much no i'm not like a bring the protein shake in the car uh i don't know if it's true or not but i've heard like that whole idea of like the 30 minute window is kind of bogus your body only knows calories in calories out so i don't sweat that too much and i more so just go home and immediately start eating i'll have a carb drink usually on me so i i can replenish carbs immediately so put simple sugars in my body do you do you track sleep or anything or do you try and get i'm just habitual with it i go to bed around the same time wake up around the same time and it and it is again kind of like my training more intuitive in the winters i tend to sleep longer it's darker outside it it feels better to sleep in when it's

34:08Jake Dearden: cold and dark how many how many hours you get in in bed or eight or nine eight or nine okay yeah

34:15Rory Linkletter: not not never more than that but rarely less so it's just consistent i love it i feel like you're

34:22Jake Dearden: you're almost like you're so dialed in but you're also so relaxed as well and you just seem to have confidence with it you're not like stressing about anything whereas i overthink everything

34:33Rory Linkletter: when i was younger i i did i did i wanted to nail every detail and i thought it gave me this like superpower, this edge over my competitors. If I'm, if I'm in doing everything right, then who can beat me? Right? Like that was like my mentality. And now I'm almost like, if they're worried about that, they're worrying about the wrong stuff. I'm going to just worry about showing up and trusting myself and being like confident in what I'm doing. And I've gained more confidence, the less I've worried about the little things.

35:06Jake Dearden: And I assume you've enjoyed life a little bit more as well.

35:09Rory Linkletter: Absolutely. Absolutely. I like to consider myself a lot more balanced than my peers in, in it. And I mean, I have kids, I have not a lot of my peers have multiple young kids and, you know, a wife, family, social life, the ability to crack open a beer if they want to on in the middle of a training week, uh, and not have it really way over their head. Do you do that often? Yeah, but I will turn it off. Like I'll, like, it depends. Say tonight we're going out to dinner after this and people are ordering beers. I'd have one and I wouldn't think twice about it. But if the race was next week and I felt like I just needed to kind of like turn on the more intense version of myself, I can turn that off too.

35:55Rory Linkletter: Right? So it's just all about proximity to the goals. And I like to consider focus as like a funnel. and like as I get closer to a main goal my focus gets narrower and tighter and as I'm further away I want to keep that like save those bullets because those those are things that I think lead to burnout and lead to like dread and I want to keep it fun and enjoy everything I'm doing and I want to be able to do this for a really long time so I don't want it to weigh on me and be like I am missing out on life so that I can run a little bit faster or something.

36:29Jake Dearden: That's so interesting. that's that's crazy i love the confidence when did the confidence start when and i want to take you back like when did you realize you were good at running so the confidence starts i mean i was

36:46Rory Linkletter: i've always been like a arrogant cocky kid that thought he was good at stuff right like like i feel like that's like that that swagger is something that i was born with like that's who my dad was. That's, that's who my, my grandfather was. It's kind of like a, almost like a, a personality trait that's been passed on for generations. I even looked at, I've got a four-year-old son. I can see it already. Like, it's like this kid thinks he's like invincible right now. And I love it. Like I want to foster that in him, but also like in running specifically, when I realized I was good at running was not immediately, actually running was not a supernatural, like first day at practice I was leading the team kind of thing I started with cross country as most most youth athletes do I started at 13 years old and I remember getting crushed the first few weeks and months of running it just kind of clicked slower and I think it was after a year of sticking with it that I realized I was at least good enough to to give it my all and like fall in love with it and that's what happened it was more I did it to do it and I was disciplined enough to stick with it long enough to fall in love with it and to realize I had some talent in

37:56Jake Dearden: it did you love it from the start obviously you found it hard but uh did you always like through your teens did you love running because it's fucking tough running is it's hard and it's some people would say it's not the most enjoyable sport yeah it's not like kicking a ball or do you

38:15Rory Linkletter: know or is it like that to you it kind of is it kind of is and I I think I love running more than I've ever loved it. Like I think my running, my love for running has only grown, but I think I've always loved it at least a little bit. And I'd say that first year, it was more just to do something like high school sports, wanted to be involved, wanted to run on the cross country team on the track team. I also wrestled early. So like, I just wanted to be involved, but then the love came as like, I realized how much fun it was to push myself and the competitor in me really, really enjoyed that. And then, so there's the goal setting, the goal achieving the euphoria of that, of that pursuit of excellence.

38:57Rory Linkletter: And then there's the stuff that has nothing to do with performance. I get to spend an hour to two hours with my friends outdoors, talking, chatting, just like being, being, you know, just the boys. For me, it's like, it's like the locker room experience, but out in nature for two hours, sometimes like you're, uh, you're, if you're coming to the long run tomorrow, you'll kind of see that we don't have a ton of people in town right now, but I feel like we always have a pretty good crew and really good vibes. And I think the social aspect of running helps me stay in love with it regardless of the performance.

39:34Jake Dearden: That's so cool. And when did it kind of click? When was you competing again? When did you start competing like professionally? Yeah.

39:44Rory Linkletter: So I, I, my pro career started in 2019 after I finished university, I went to BYU, which is one of the bigger NCAA programs for running. It's one of the best. I would say I felt like I was at a professional level though, when I was in college, just because I was one of those uni kids. Uh, and this is really common in the NCAA where like running was everything to me in college. Like I did school, I passed school, I got good enough grades. I went to class, I did my job and got the degree, but I was there because I loved to compete for the team at the university. So I felt very professional in college with my attitude and my drive towards what I was doing.

40:28Rory Linkletter: So if you count those years, you know, it's been a decade of that at least.

40:33Jake Dearden: Wow. And when did you get your first pro contracts? When, what was the first race that kind of brought attention to you?

40:41Rory Linkletter: yeah so coming out of the ncaa you kind of get signed right when you finish if you're good and i was fortunate enough to get a contract with hoka join naz elite relocate to flagstaff so is that what made you move to yeah yeah it was originally for hoka northern arizona elite and that was my first pro contract it was an 18 month deal for next to nothing and it was kind of a bet on yourself deal. Like hopefully if I do well and the next one will be better. And the next one was a little bit better. And then that contract, you know, I got, I left that contract and that's when I joined Ryan Hall and then Puma later.

41:21Rory Linkletter: And that has kind of kept that cycle of like, maybe the next one will be better. Maybe the next one will be better. I'm competitive in that arena as well. Right? Like I want to keep progressing in my career and keep getting to new levels whether it be the olympics or placing at these majors it's it's kind of ticking boxes that are a little higher each time it's so cool what uh what was the olympics like

41:46Jake Dearden: extremely underwhelming for me like the the whole experience yeah yeah honestly even like getting

41:52Rory Linkletter: there was you know i mean that was cool that was awesome that was awesome but i left the olympics like honestly like you know how they say like post-olympic depression i definitely had that definitely left way sadder than I went in. And a lot of that came from my performance. I felt like I was a participant, but not actually like a part of it. If that makes, if that makes sense to me, I left going, I didn't actually like do anything of note here. I was here. That's it. It's like, it's like a participation ribbon. Like I was like, thanks for coming to the Olympics. Get your rings. I got a tattoo now.

42:27Rory Linkletter: It's cool. Whatever.

42:28Jake Dearden: So where have you got the tattoo?

42:29Rory Linkletter: Yeah, I got it right here. Oh, sick. Nice. That's cool. Which, that's a lifelong goal. Like, I was really satisfied to hit that goal. I got more satisfaction qualifying for the Olympics than I did competing in them.

42:40Jake Dearden: And what's the, for the Paris Olympics, what was the qualification system? Because over here, you've got, it's slightly different than the UK. And Canada, is it slightly different? Is it like a certain time? I just had to hit the time.

42:53Rory Linkletter: And what was the time? 20810. 20810. And going into that Olympic cycle, I guess going into the Olympic year, my best was 210 210 in the marathon and so I needed to take two minutes off I went to Seville to do it ran 20801 made it that was at the moment the greatest day of my life like knowing that I just qualified for the Olympics it was like holy smokes lifelong goal check got to the Olympics super underwhelming did not perform to my standards felt like I was so much I was I was just outclassed like beyond my wildest dreams. It was, it was super humbling. And so then I made the goal right then and there at the closing ceremonies that I wanted to be in LA.

43:36Rory Linkletter: And I wanted to actually make, like be a part of the race, not just be in the race, but be a part of it, be mixing it up. And talked about this a few other times and in other, you know, interviews and whatnot, but to me, that doesn't mean I have to medal or win. It just means I have to be willing to go into the race with the mindset and the realistic mindset that anything is possible and that I'm going to compete as if I can do that.

44:01Jake Dearden: Yeah. Oh, that's cool. And I love how you said that that was like one of the greatest days of your life. You qualify in Seville. That's pretty cool. Uh, and I feel like that's how you should see it as well. Like obviously the marathon, sorry, the Olympics didn't pay off to what you wanted uh but you got there and and that's the the main achievement as a day bettered that yeah was houston better than seville no it was close it was there it was it's it's in the

44:35Rory Linkletter: it's in the top five top three to me i have bettered it since and that was boston last year because to me after the olympics there was a huge mindset shift that i needed to get better in order to compete at the top. And I really desperately wanted to prove I could do that. And Boston's one of the best marathons in the world. It's one of the best fields every year. It's got the most history. I think it's the oldest organized marathon in the world. I think you're correct there, I think. And so it matters. It's got tradition. Here in the US, it's huge. So Boston, I got sixth place. I beat people that have won Boston.

45:12Rory Linkletter: I beat people that have run 202, 203. I beat people that medaled at the Olympics I beat people that were world beaters were the people that I couldn't touch in the Olympics and you know if you're in this sport long enough you'll beat a lot of good people just by virtue of people have bad days but I didn't just beat people that had bad days I beat people that had okay days I beat people that because I just was I belonged right and that's that to me was moved into the number one spot all time because that was a stage worthy of it and i competed like i belonged and it gave me that validation that the pursuit for this next four years or now i guess two years from now is worthy of that pursuit like i i can compete at those races so those races mean the most to me now as these majors and and in preparation

46:02Jake Dearden: for the next olympics so for the next olympics now what what's the mindset going into it and then two what's the training looking like obviously you've got the majors you've got the marathons that you've signed up to like you said um you're focusing on boston next yeah is that correct yeah um is it even a thought right now yeah yeah i think even starting this year at the end of the

46:27Rory Linkletter: year the qualification window will open again uh usually it's like december 1 2026 or like eight it's like just over 18 months out from the actual games themselves. So it's usually when they open the, uh, marathon window. So if, if I'm correct in that, there's usually an 18 month period. It'll probably be December one. I'll be starting to think like, okay, once we know the standards, I got to check that box. I got to qualify first. That's the first and foremost. So I, I will be this year starting to shift my focus to LA in that sense. And I think every race I do now is helping build that profile and confidence that when I do get there, I'm ready.

47:09Rory Linkletter: And I don't think I can get ready in one build. It has to be one after another and stacking and stacking. So Boston was a good step. Chicago was another. Ran a personal best there. Again, beat some really, really high profile athletes. Got top 10 at another major.

47:24Jake Dearden: What was the personal best, by the way? 207? 206.49. 206.49.

47:30Rory Linkletter: Yeah. And that was a blow up. I blew up. Went through halfway in 62.20. Was on pace for 205 through 30K. And then slowly peeled off and held it together. When did it start hurting? What started hurting? Really early. Like I kid you not. That was the earliest I knew a marathon was going to be hard. And still held on for a PB. I was like before 25K I had already lost my group. I was running alone. And it was lonely and hard the rest of the way. So almost half the race was, was basically a bloodbath.

48:02Jake Dearden: That's crazy. Just shows how much mental strength you've got, mate.

48:06Rory Linkletter: I mean, it's, I was stupid. Kind of. I had no other choice, but to be stupid, I had to go out faster than I was ready to go out just to be in the right group. Uh, I think I could have run sub two Oh six on that day, but there was no 63 flat group, right? There was a 62 low group. And when we're talking margins at this level, that difference was from comfortable to uncomfortable, right?

48:30Jake Dearden: That sounds a little bit like your experience at Houston, Jake. Yeah, my experience at Houston was, it was great, but there was no one to run with. I was expecting, so I got told beforehand that the pro females for the marathon would be having a pacer at 219.

48:51Rory Linkletter: but the first female came in at 224 yeah cali yeah yeah yeah so there was uh there was no one

48:59Jake Dearden: in insight for going sub 220 and there was an actual group that was saying they were all going for sub 220 i was looking at the k is like they were this was like 20k in and they uh they were a group i said what time are you going for they were like we're gonna go for sub 220 and then each as each k kind of got ticked off it was just getting slower and slower and i was like you're not going for this time yeah you're officially not doing it yeah you're officially not doing it so i had to break off and then them but as you know running on your own it's just

49:30Rory Linkletter: so houston's a tough one for that too there's no crowd is there no and and there's just long straights just like long stretches tough i think there's there's better races to be alone chicago was honestly really tough for a period but then it got better i actually got like kind of a somewhat of a, a rebirth late in the race because a, I was getting close enough to smell the finish line. I knew I was still on, on track for a PB, but also like people were starting to come back to me that had gone out in my group, but had made it a little longer. They, they cracked harder. So, um, yeah, it's really running a marathon alone is one of the worst things I think to me, Chicago and Boston, Boston was a better performance and felt way better.

50:12Rory Linkletter: Chicago was, I was fitter, but the race just didn't break my way right like like you could go run in the exact same fitness you just had at houston your next marathon and if the circumstances just line up better it's going to feel way easier you're going to have a way better experience it's it really is just the roll of the dice and sometimes things line up for you sometimes they don't i could go into boston this year and it could be a race that's perfect for me it could be a race that's terrible for me i just have to be ready to roll with as many different punches and possibilities as possible just for people that

50:45Jake Dearden: kind of haven't ran a marathon could you give a bit of an insight as to kind of the mental battle the kind of highs and lows so to speak the the the mind asking you to slow down you overcoming that and making yourself speed up like what's that kind of what does it feel like yeah it feels

51:07Rory Linkletter: like a lot of warning signals going off like because i'm a writing team it's not just like

51:12Jake Dearden: yeah i'm gonna run at this pace and then it just feels great all the way no never does it ever feel great all the way through even my best races of every single best race i've ever had in the

51:21Rory Linkletter: marathon so i've done 13 marathons now the top three ever in performance whatever you want to whatever metrics you want to go by at some point i thought i should probably stop running right now like definitely a real thought that occurs every single time and it's kind of one of those things that's reassuring you know i talk to other people and everybody kind of feels the same way the people that do really well are just the people that trick themselves into the next step or the

51:48Jake Dearden: next mile or the next kilometer because everyone actually thinks that you elite athletes don't have that kind of mental battle and it's just easy and you just go out there and the training carries you through and there's no kind of like everyday struggle that everyone has when they're just you know go into the gym or whatever and we're constantly questioning ourselves and like you said wanting to give up um so i think it's great for people to hear that even you guys at

52:11Rory Linkletter: the top are like still i think more yeah more so at times like sometimes it's it's earlier than you want right like you get into a race like chicago for me this year and i just could tell at like halfway i was like man this second half is going to be really hard and if anyone knows anything about running marathons, it's that halfway is not halfway. It's really like a third of the way in the mental battles you're going to face. Right. So it was daunting. I knew I was, I had a tall task ahead and I really started to spiral in the sense of thinking that the worst could happen. Like I could drop out, I could run a embarrassingly slow time.

52:50Rory Linkletter: I'll be mad because I'll miss financial opportunities that these races have. And luckily I was tough enough, dumb enough, whatever words you want to use to just convince myself to get to the next spot. Every time, every time that those thoughts creeped in those intrusive thoughts that did creep in, I just convinced myself to stay in the mile I was in, look up the road, distract myself, try to chase that guy that I see falling off his group or whatnot. And those carrots just kept getting bigger, like that I could chase and and it got easier as i got closer to the finish line it's the hardest when you first start to think about it that's how i see it it's like the first moment of doubt is the hardest that's that's the breaking point where a lot of people that have bad days i think they accept it

53:34Jake Dearden: immediately yeah like getting through that first barrier yeah and then the next barrier like you said is a little bit easier and that's that stubbornness almost isn't it yeah it's almost

53:43Rory Linkletter: like if you convince yourself that you're not dying when you feel like you're dying then the the screaming voice inside of your head that tells you you're dying gets a little quieter

53:53Jake Dearden: is there anything that you think of or is there any place that you go to to kind of give you extra motivation or is it literally just convincing yourself nah i'm all right keep going so in my

54:05Rory Linkletter: best races again i like to go back to those because that's i think usually where your flow state is the highest so boston i'll go to that i remember at 25 ish k into the race i'm in the lead packed still. It's starting to get hard. I can feel my legs are tired, but I'm still there. And I told myself, no matter what happens the rest of the way, I'm stoked that I've made it this far and done everything I wanted to do up until this point. So I took that weight off my shoulders of like a perfect day and said, you've already had a really good day. Let's just see what we have left. And I got into this, like, it sounds complacent, but I was almost like nothing that could happen from this point on is going to ruin what this experience has been.

54:47Rory Linkletter: I led the Boston marathon through halfway. I was leading through Wellesley, the loudest part of the course, people screaming. You can't even hear yourself think I was like living my dream in that moment. So I was like, even if I cramp, fall off the course, drop out, like it was still so crazy at that moment that I was able to convince myself that I was playing with house money and could run like almost like I had nothing to lose the rest of the way. And that's, those are the best days is when you kind of feel like you've got house money and houston was like that i knew i was gonna break 60 i was like i'm gonna break 60 i know i'm not gonna die we were on like 59 30 pace at 15k and i was like i'm not gonna lose 30 seconds in the last 5k there's no way i'm not dead yet so now we're playing with house money and it's just i i can kind of like

55:29Jake Dearden: throw caution to the wind and just go that's that's sick so you almost take off the pressure that's how you deal with it do you also try and keep yourself in a this is what i try to do like keep yourself in a positive mindset rather than getting angry getting pissed off because some people you like they they think oh i want to put on heavy metal rock music and i want to get in an angry state i i just don't think running is like that it's more of a relaxed flow state and you've

55:57Rory Linkletter: got to stay positive and smile yeah i went through that crisis as an as a young athlete mamba mentality I wanted to be like all my heroes, Kobe Bryant, like, you know, Tiger Woods, they have this like, death stare, everything's intense, they put on their rap music as they step to this to the starting line or to the, to the game or whatever that they're doing. And I thought that that's what an athlete had to do, like turn on this alter ego, this mean, nasty. And I realized that that actually got me like in my own head and out of my body. Whereas if I'm like, the way the place I try to enter for me is joy and also like almost like a spiritual experience for me.

56:40Rory Linkletter: It's almost like thanking God because I'm a spiritual person that I'm able to be on in that moment, right? Like if I, if, if a race is going well, or if it's going hard, I always try to go to like, I'm so thankful I'm here right now. Like, and that's a really positive thing that has worked really well for me. Get a side stitch in a marathon. Think you're about to like fall off your group. Thank God. And get to a point in the race where, you know, you're like, can't believe you're still on pace for a sub 60. Thank God, you know, and that's, that's been a really powerful state of mind to be in is just like a gratitude state.

57:17Rory Linkletter: And it doesn't have to be, if you're not a spiritual person, it doesn't have to be God, but you can be grateful that you made it to the start line. You can be grateful that you are in the race, that your body's physically able to do what you're asking it to do up until that point. I think that's a gratitude is a superpower. I think all research would suggest that a gratitude mindset, like actually gives energy to the body.

57:40Jake Dearden: I really rate that. I think that's really cool. Is there anything you do before a race? Like, you know, do you have any superstitions? Do you have anything that you, you kind of do the morning of the race? I mean, to anyone else?

57:55Rory Linkletter: very routine i'd get up the same time before every race like not same time a day but same time prior

58:01Jake Dearden: to the start of the race say houston it was a super early start i think for you i think it was

58:05Rory Linkletter: what 7 45 6 45 yes so three hours before gun time have to be up non-negotiable and are you adjusting

58:12Jake Dearden: to that because i assume you don't get up that early every day no so you were just into that the full week before no no just the day just the day so how many hours of sleep you get in that

58:23Rory Linkletter: that night i probably got like almost sick honestly it was pretty good like i think i fell asleep Right around 10 something. So maybe five and a half hours. Something like that. And I don't really worry about the night before sleep though. I really don't. It's like the week leading up. Yeah. And then the night before is okay. It's two nights before. It's three nights before. Like I kind of look at sleep as. You know. Starting a week out. It's really important. And then it almost gets less important as you get closer. Other than that two nights before. That's maybe a place where I'm superstitious.

58:57Rory Linkletter: I was like I want to sleep as much as I can two nights before. But I've had great races where I like didn't sleep as well as I thought I would two nights out. And I got maybe only seven or eight hours of sleep instead of like that. You know, I'm on vacation, blackout curtains in the hotel room, nine, 10 hours. It's, it doesn't, I find that those details are less important, but on the superstition side, wake up, have like the relatively same routine, coffee, breakfast. What's your breakfast? it's usually bread or rice whatever the the race like it's a simple carb and it's usually sugar stuff like drink with everything like i'm pounding carb drink as i'm getting ready i'll have either rice or like a bagel or sourdough bread or something like that anything that just is plain

59:44Jake Dearden: so are you having that on its own are you having a bit of jam on it whatever makes it palatable honestly so you're not bothered like if you fancy butter that day obviously it's high fat like are

59:55Rory Linkletter: you not stressing about i don't think i've done butter but but you'd you'd have i would if it helped me actually eat it because like my biggest fear is you're nervous and eating sounds your verse to it and i think a lot of people don't eat the morning of the race because they get up and they're instantly nervous and i look at the marathon is like fueling is so important that if i can if i can just be a little bit better at like starting the race with a full tank just increases the likelihood that i don't reach that i love it again like there's no stress in

1:00:28Jake Dearden: your morning you're making it as stress-free i feel like that's like your number one component of a morning yeah before and i've kind of like your life really i feel like that's the the takeaway that i'm taking away from it because i do stress about all these minuscule

1:00:44Rory Linkletter: things like a lot of a lot of athletes do yeah you seem to have a much more like holistic view you could call it that some people think i'm like being lazy about the details because i like kind of check out of these things right and i really do think it comes from i tried that way and it did not work for me it didn't work i was i was too inconsistent like i've gotten more consistent in my performances the more i throw away like needing to be perfect in that in those lead up days, right? Like I now feel like I'm going through the motions more. I still get super nervous. Like, but I won't, I don't think I show nerves as much as I used to like, right.

1:01:20Rory Linkletter: Like I can chat on the bus ride. So we go to Boston, we go to New York. There's like usually an hour bus ride. I usually find the guy that's going to talk the most on the bus. I sit right next to him. For me, it's my buddy, Frank, Lara, American marathoner guy likes to talk. He's the same as me. We can just keep it super light. I don't want to be sitting next to the guy with his head down, like locked in listening to his m &m playlist i don't like i don't need that i i don't need your like over hyped like super super locked in mentality i can sense that on people i'll avoid those people before the race i don't want to be around it if someone if i see someone put on beats headphones before competing i'm like no i'm not talking to this guy like he's clearly not on my wavelength i'm trying to keep it really chill until gun time and then right before the gun i I usually like slap myself in the legs and scream and get like hype right then.

1:02:11Rory Linkletter: And then I'm going.

1:02:12Jake Dearden: That's sick. Who would you say, Jake, is the most kind of relatable to that in the high rock world? Like the chill versus the, you know, Eminem playlist and beats on in the corner and dead intense. Interesting because you'd think that Hunter McIntyre would be the most chill. And he's the complete opposite before. He doesn't speak to anyone. He's got his headphones on. he doesn't speak to literally when he's in the wall doesn't speak to anyone uh i try to take the approach that you take because i'm trying to i'm so nervous that i'm trying to take my mind off it yeah as much as possible so i i have a laugh i said like like i even just like the i try and get everyone the all the elite 15 i try and speak to everyone like in i don't know whether you try and speak to your competitors but at the end of the day we're all there running around in a circle like it's pretty funny in it really that people are watching this and you know all we're doing is pushing sleds you know it's it's a bit of a mad like all you're all you're doing is running obviously it's super impressive but at the end of the day like it's just running it's pretty mad isn't it that we we're doing this and you like dedicate your whole life to it as well yeah it's pretty crazy like and you can have a laugh about that with the people that are doing the exact same they don't really laugh though they try and like they go yeah and that's it like no one really speaks and i hate it i'd rather just have a laugh with people yeah the warm zone yeah um i feel the

1:03:40Rory Linkletter: same way i mean luckily i have been on this circuit for long enough and there's kind of the same faces at almost every race that i know who's safe you know i know the safe people that i can gravitate towards that are going to be on the right wavelength and i know the people that i'm Like, I can't be by them. Like, I have people that I genuinely love that are a big part of my life outside of racing that are friends. We go way back, but I could never warm up with them. I could never sit in a calling area waiting for the start line next to them. Like, they would just, I would just, their energy would just not be the right for me.

1:04:14Jake Dearden: In the professional races, you're not allowed to have music or anything, are you? Not during. Not during. So, do you train with no music on your long runs? are you listening to music like when i say long runs like easy runs recovery runs as well

1:04:27Rory Linkletter: are you listening to podcasts i'll do a podcast but i i would never do and never on like a specific effort i never put like a headphone headphones in if it's like the goal is to run a pace or have like an intention in the workout on an easy run if i just want to get out the door and i'm like i don't really want to do this run right now my motivation is not super high podcast is the easiest way to get through it i just let's like someone will talk to me or just meet up with a friend and but now very rarely am i i never put music on i feel like i'll run too fast on my easy days kind of like go to the beat yeah yeah like i i feel like i'll just like look down back oh shit i just ran my last k in 345 because i got like really into this song uh well i actually within

1:05:12Jake Dearden: training i'll do that in my intervals so i'll listen to music during my intervals i know you just said that you specifically don't do that yeah but i feel like listening especially to like music that i enjoy and puts me in a good mood i feel like it just gives me that extra edge yeah maybe i'm kicking myself in the foot because i can't listen to that same music when i'm actually competing is that the reason you don't specifically do it in training or is it just because you want to be so locked in with like your own thoughts and so focused um i think it's not exactly like

1:05:46Rory Linkletter: because I know I can't do it in training because if my coach was like hey I'm gonna bike in front of you do you want me to put a speaker on the back I'll say yes every time like because it's why not give me something to distract myself my goal is to run the pace and whatever is gonna help me do it like let's do it but I don't seek that out it's more like a if it's offered and if it's gonna be like a plus I'll take it but I've never like put on headphones for an interval and And I think it's mostly just because I don't know, like when I started running, that was just not a thing, right? Like that wasn't something that any of my, I've always ran in a team setting and we've always had each other.

1:06:22Rory Linkletter: So I haven't done a lot of this like as a solo act. So it's, it's almost like, I don't know how to, how to be a solo act in that sense. I almost always have a training partner either there or warming up with me or something. So it's very rarely like just me. If I think if I had no coach present, no training partners present, I would absolutely be like, how do I get through this mentally maybe it's throw on some some music or some podcast while

1:06:46Jake Dearden: I even while I go hard interesting and then with your recovery runs you said sometimes you run with friends you run in a group uh do you not think that distracts you from like I don't know I don't know whether it's because you might be such a great natural runner well you will be a great natural runner but for me i feel like i can't run with friends on my recovery runs because i want to focus on my form and i want to focus on just making sure i'm not doing anything out of place even on my recovery runs like i don't know is do you feel like running with friends

1:07:24Rory Linkletter: doesn't is better yeah it's worse the i think it's better i think i get through more when i'm with someone like I will run further with less mental effort with someone than I will alone and that's kind of the objective on most days is like how do I feel as good as I can doing as much as I can so I for that reason I do but I will say occasionally like you have that friend that just has fresher legs than you or wants to run a little quicker or whatnot and in those days like I have no problem like giving my friends a hard time like hey I don't want to run this fast can me slow down like why are you pushing the pace on me why are you fresh legging me so like that's the only thing that i'm worried about like i'm not i don't and if someone's a little bit slower you're not bothered i mean there's a limit to that like right like like there's a cap on how much slower i'm willing to go like and it depends on the day right like a easy double in the midweek gonna be a lot more lax than say a specific run like a paced workout like i'm not gonna slow down so I can be with someone if it's like a very specific session, right?

1:08:26Jake Dearden: Yeah, interesting, interesting. I've got a question. So you've obviously achieved quite a lot. You're on like a clearly on an upward trajectory. Everything's kind of like going in the direction that you want it to. How the heck do you manage that with being a parent?

1:08:46Rory Linkletter: I mean, I got better when I became a parent. so i don't i i was way less mentally tough way less consistent performed at performing at a worst level now it also coincided with the prime of my career uh and a lot of experiences that

1:09:01Jake Dearden: have helped grow me as an athlete basically what you're saying is you got dad strength yeah no i

1:09:06Rory Linkletter: believe in that for sure yeah i think i think i play this game where i believe i'm kind of kidding myself but i make the stakes in the race a lot higher because i am a parent like i can almost go deeper more consistently because you've got someone to do it for yeah yeah and honestly my kids aren't going to care if i run 208 or 205 they're not going to do anything like my kids

1:09:30Jake Dearden: you'll get up you'll get home and you'll be like i ran a 205 and they'll be like is that good yeah did you win and then it's like my son is old enough to ask me if i won and i don't win that

1:09:39Rory Linkletter: many races i run because i'm running in the best races in the world and i'm sure he looks at you like why have you not won yeah luckily i i did get a couple wins this last year to at least show them that i can win right like but no i i think it's good for your kids to see you uh succeed to see you fail to see you try for hard things and and i think it's important that i continue to do this and that i can teach them lessons and i hope you know because i started my family young that i And if I have enough of a runway in front of me in my sport that they'll remember this, right? So my, my oldest kid was three last year at Boston, but he was there at the finish line.

1:10:21Rory Linkletter: Again, one of the deep, most emotional moments of my life was seeing my wife and my son at, as I crossed the line, first people I look for spot them, hug them, embrace. And someone caught this on camera. It's one of the most like beautiful moments ever. Like I, I kid you not. It was like the audio of it could choke me up immediately. Like the visual, everything. Like seeing someone you love as soon as you like do something that you're really proud of just like heightens it all the way. So I always try to have my family there. Not all of them, but at least my family, like some of them. So when I qualified for the Olympics, I had two kids and my wife in Seville waiting for me at the finish line.

1:10:59Rory Linkletter: Deeply emotional moment. Boston, wife and son, Chicago, just wife. and this year at Boston we haven't decided if we're bringing kids or not because they're getting to the hard age to travel with but definitely my wife will be there because I just I need like it's almost like there's it means so much more to share that moment with people that a share the suffering and share the sacrifice but also like are the reason why you're pushing through I love

1:11:22Jake Dearden: that it's like positive mindset always isn't it find the positive in everything yeah how much does your wife have an impact in your performance is she the superhero is she though the one that's like cooking the meals at home or do you like to do that yeah so right now she's pregnant with our

1:11:40Rory Linkletter: third kid so that has taken a small hiatus but i just ran houston and ran really well and she wasn't able to like do what she normally does because she's in her just finished her first trimester of pregnancy. So she's been really ill with pregnancy, but generally speaking, absolutely dinner every day, uh, you know, helping with the kids so that when I get home from run, I'm not bombarded. And like, that is a cool part of my job is I am home a lot. And so I do get to spend a lot of time with my wife and kids and that's really positive. But at the same time, it can be exhausting. Like it's almost like I can't ever turn it off.

1:12:17Rory Linkletter: And so I almost, that's why I'm willing to drive across town to meet up with a friend, you know, just spend a little bit more time, me time, decompression time before getting back into the chaos. But my wife is definitely the superhero that does the trad wife things. If you want to use that term, you know, she cooks, she cleans, she, she takes care of me and, and is very maternal with our children and definitely would not be easy, would not be this easy if it wasn't for her sacrifice

1:12:46Jake Dearden: than that so i love that do you have any hobbies that people wouldn't expect that you have like is there anything that you do outside of running that yeah i i'd say for the last couple of years i've been like a summer recreational golfer like in the summer i try to golf once a week this is

1:13:01Rory Linkletter: interesting what's your handicap not good not worth saying i got into it like uh yeah no not good i break 100 that's my goal that's good breaking 100 is the goal and i want to be a bogey golfer sooner than later. I strive for bogey golf and that's, that's good enough for me.

1:13:19Jake Dearden: Um, so when you said bogey golf, are you talking about being like an 1800? Yeah. Yeah.

1:13:23Rory Linkletter: That's like the perfect day at the course would be that I am shooting around 90. So I haven't gotten any better than that. Obviously that's why I'm a professional runner and not a professional golfer. Uh, hopefully I can one day take lessons and actually get a little bit better. But, um, that's one hobby. i'd say like everything is sports centric though in my life like i'm a huge american football fan huge hockey fan huge basketball fan you know i i can watch any sport on tv and that's like a big part of my social outside of running life and it fits really well like i'm a diehard sports fan so i i finish a long run on sunday and i go watch 10 hours of football that's that's it do you go

1:14:04Jake Dearden: watch them with friends or just at home just on the sofa i think nowadays it's more by myself

1:14:09Rory Linkletter: but I, I, I have the, I'm one of my friends. It's like a little bit, I guess, further along in life in the sense that I have a wife, kids, so I can't leave as much, but I do invite my friends over for like Sunday dinner and let's watch Sunday night football together or something. And they often take me up on that because it's a free meal and their bachelor's.

1:14:25Jake Dearden: So how important is it to keep that kind of social circle? Because you see a lot of athletes and they, it's a lot of effort on top of, you know, being a professional athlete with the amount of things you've got to worry about. to then keep up the social side as well. And sometimes it just gets neglected and you just think, oh, my training is more important. My sleep is more important. Like how important is it to you to keep up your friendships and actually just socialize?

1:14:53Rory Linkletter: It's huge. I mean, I'm a very social person and a very busy person. So it takes a lot of concerted effort to maintain those social connections. Luckily for me, a lot of my friends happen to be in the running world. So like the easiest way for me is like my job is to run. is text my friends, let's meet up for a run. And I've kind of built intentionally or unintentionally, my running team and training partners are just my best friends now. That's basically what it is. So I get to see them as much as possible. And then they also generally have similar interests. So they're willing to come watch some sports, chill out, do whatever it's going to be and celebrate in the highs and console in the lows.

1:15:36Rory Linkletter: I feel like I've got a really good circle here. and if you're in this sport of running and you're in a town like flagstaff there's obviously a ton of runners here like you'll never be like wanting for like a like someone to share in the suffering or share in the glory of what whatever you're doing so i've just kind of built like a a village if you will of people that are my social circle they are my training partners they're they're all those things so that's so cool it's kind of like the team isn't it yeah and some of them aren't official capacity teammates but they are i consider them part of my team right like one of my best uh friends from college was my college roommate he's not a pro runner anymore he ran in college with me happened to move to flagstaff i ran with him probably 60 70 times last year and he's not a pro runner i just meet him once or twice a week for a double and easy runs yeah i'd consider him part of my team even if he's not a pro runner like i am he's he's there with me we're talking

1:16:38Jake Dearden: through life together how does your coach fit into that team in terms of how often do you see him in person are you chatting daily every session kind of like some sort of input and conversation yeah yeah my teammates would say i'm i'm the diva of the team in the sense that i

1:16:55Rory Linkletter: I asked a lot of my coach and that means calling him, you know, once every other day, probably texting him every day. We live maybe 2k apart, like in a town like this, where a lot of, there's a lot of space between people. Like he's really close. Uh, we meet in person three days a week. So the dynamic there, he's become one of my best friends. He's become someone I can lean on for like a lot of like real life stuff, right? Like I can tell him if something happened at home, I can tell him if something hurts on my body, I can be very real with him. And, and also since he's my age, like we mentioned, he's only a year older than me.

1:17:36Rory Linkletter: We can like have a kind of like that locker room camaraderie. It's different than any other coach athlete relationship I've had, because you like, he'll tease me at practice. My previous coaches were 25 years older than me. they're not teasing me at practice they're not busting my balls and like being being a being a homie they're they're there to coach me and then they go home and they they're we're in different worlds so this is the first time where it's like we're kind of in it together when you say that you see him three times a week is that for the sessions yeah workout tuesday workout friday long

1:18:06Jake Dearden: run sunday generally and is he running next year cycling next year is he just with a stopwatch like

1:18:12Rory Linkletter: how hands-on is he in the session it depends on the session since we we do have a group generally he has to be either in the car or bouncing around on a bike uh like for a long run generally he'd bite he he rides his car goes up 5k at a time gives us bottles checks in on us takes clothing if we need it hands us whatever we need mostly just like a support crew and then like on a workout if we're at the track he's just holding a watch and like standing on the infield and if we're doing like a tempo work and it's just one of us then he'll probably bike in front of us but if it's three of us and we have three different paces he can't be there right so he's got to be in the car going like up and down the road checking in as much as he can so it's a different capacity for different need but um but he's still going above and beyond like i don't know many

1:19:03Jake Dearden: coaches and i don't know if it's just because we're in the uk and like it's completely different but like you know driving a car next to you or that's to me that's very hands-on and that's yeah

1:19:17Rory Linkletter: it is it's cool that he does that and i almost spoiled like i want i i feel like i need that almost sometimes and he feels like he needs to do that for us i'll tell him sometimes i'll be like look like i want to do this long run it's not going to be that convenient for you you don't have to come and he's like no no no I want to be there like I'm there so he's he goes above and beyond and it's you know we pay him it's a it's he's a hired professional coach and so like there is kind of a transaction there but I think he always goes above and beyond and over delivers on like the value that we get back on our investment in him as a coach I think I think

1:19:52Jake Dearden: like speaking as a coach so I kind of agree with what your coach says like I think sometimes Jake think I'm at some sort of inconvenience because like you said the session's boring or there's maybe a perception that there's not a great deal of input but you do actually just want to see everything with your eyes you want to have the input when you can and you're actually obsessed to the level that you guys are in terms of it's a different perspective we're coming from a different angle but we're still like you know 8 p.m at night reading about different things trying of think about how we can input say something in a slightly different way the little things that are going to make a big difference like we're obsessing over that all the time just like you guys yeah so i think it makes sense what you're saying it totally makes sense yeah yeah it's cool

1:20:39Rory Linkletter: i like it i like the way that the relationship's been built and i've had others so i kind of know what i like now at this point and i don't think i would want like a hands-off coach i don't i don't think it would work well for me if you're going to be hands-off i might as well coach myself at that point right like i like the value to me is is the like the comfort of like companionship in the in the journey for for the coaches out there is the any like what the top thing three things

1:21:05Jake Dearden: you see that are the most value in your coach like what are the things that he does that you're like nah i'm not moving on because he is the best coach out there for me listens number one it's like

1:21:17Rory Linkletter: it's relationship one-on-one like communication um compromise like if you want to talk about like like how do you have any relationship in this world i'm married so i know communication and compromise those two things are very important and what i mean by that in the coaching capacity is like am i able to communicate with you and are you able to communicate with me when we need to like come to something and do something together and the compromise usually it's it's me compromising to his will more than it is him compromising to mine because I do trust him. And at the end of the day, I want to be coachable.

1:21:50Rory Linkletter: I want to be told what to do because I want to take my brain as much out of it as possible. I have input and my input is listened to, but at the end of the day, I'll be like, Hey, I really want to do something like this, but I want you to make the decision. That's what I'll tell him. I'll say, Hey, I really feel strongly that I need something like this. And I just want to tell you that that's how I feel now make it your own and take it or leave it kind of thing. Like, don't just do it because I said it, like do it because you believe it's also the right thing. So that's like where the compromise comes.

1:22:19And then I don't know, like investment, I feel

1:22:22Rory Linkletter: like is the third thing. I feel like I've had now at this point in my career, five different coaches dating back to high school, college, and three as a pro. And I really want to feel like my coach is so invested in my performance that he feels like he lives and dies by the result, but like in a more healthy way than I would right like I don't want him to be like beside himself if I we don't hit the goal but I want him to care I want him to be nervous for me I want him to I want to be able to feel that he wants it so that when we're setting these goals like we're both as passionate about them as like we're coming to it with you do you know what's the hardest part

1:22:59Jake Dearden: about being a coach especially when you've when you've competed yourself when you compete you have this build-up of anxiety right and it's like you get nervous energy but you get to go and do something about it when you're watching someone that you're invested in you've got almost the same amount of build up and no no absolute no output yeah it's almost like you need to watch this and then go out for a run yourself afterwards or go and do something to like dump that energy that's built up and it's actually quite challenging like it's exhausting yeah do you know what i mean

1:23:28Rory Linkletter: it's a really weird place that you end up in yeah i make fun of my coach because he is a kind of casual during the marathon. Like, I'm like, I want you to be more like involved in the race itself. The funniest story is in Chicago, which is a very spectator friendly course. And he was in a few really important spots. And so it's not like he missed anything, but he ordered a Euro from a food truck in the middle of my race and ate it while waiting for me to come by one spot. And my wife is in the meantime is following him and like having panic attacks on the side of the road because she's so nervous for me.

1:24:01Rory Linkletter: And he's just sitting there pounding like a Euro from a halal stand or something right like he's it's so funny to me like how casual he can present but then when i talk to him or talk to his significant other it sounds like he's he's very nervous and that's actually his way of deflecting his nerves like i'm gonna go into the coffee shop and get a drink

1:24:18Jake Dearden: real quick distraction tactics for sure so funny with you do you so i think what i see not necessarily in the elite world but more and more people are getting into running in in the kind of social settings that we're in right now in in in the time that we're in and lots of runners seem to have like a misconception or fear almost of like strength training so i think it'd be really interesting to hear kind of like your take your view and how you've maybe used strength training to your advantage um becoming a better and better runner that you have obviously been doing yeah so

1:24:58Rory Linkletter: my current strength coach who I've been working with for three years, his name's Jesse Prescott. He's here in town and he focuses on runners specifically. He works with a number of professional runners in town. He's worked with a lot of amateur runners. Like that's his passion is running. And he started this thing. He calls it like the robust runner project. And he uses that word very intentionally. And his strength training is all built around trying to build robust runners. Like how do we make it so that you, this just helps you do what you want to do. We, we, we want to avoid being sidelined as much as possible.

1:25:32Rory Linkletter: And so, whereas in college, in my early strength training days, it was more traditional S and C, you know, like Olympic lifts, that kind of stuff. Now it's a lot of band work, a lot of one legged stuff, a lot of, he calls them like a hip capsule. I can't even use the words he's using. It's like, it's like tissue recruitment. I'm like, I don't even know what, what, what do you mean by that? Like, uh, I just turn it all over to him because that's actually not my expertise. So I just, I just go into the gym. He's got it on a big mirror on the wall. Like you're doing this and this and half the shit he tells me to do.

1:26:08Rory Linkletter: I have no idea what it is when it's written on the thing and he's got to demonstrate everything for me because I, it's so outside the box. Like it's not, I couldn't tell you what I do in the gym. I couldn't be like, Oh yeah, I do that lift. It's like, no, I get on, I do a bird dog row, but it's, I got a, I got a band attached to a rig attached to my foot while I'm holding a dumbbell that's pulling me this way while I'm balancing. I'm like activating my lats and my glutes at the same time. So that, you know, it's like things that I don't comprehend that just make my brain hurt when I think about it.

1:26:40Jake Dearden: Well, so you said that you've been working with him for three years. What was the switch in your head that was like, shit, this is actually working. like was there like a time did it take four weeks did it take a couple yeah it took it took time I

1:26:54Rory Linkletter: was I was actually pretty hesitant because it was so far away from traditional strength work and I I liked feeling strong I liked feeling like I was putting up big weight for a runner right like I like dead lifting as much as I can I think it feels cool it feels cool like feels like I'm an athlete and I want to be an athlete and I want to be doing things that are impressive so I I do have that pull of like oh I want my gym numbers to look like I'm getting stronger so that I can have confidence but he would he was complete complete through that out like we do lift heavy and power movements but it's not to see how much we can lift it's to access like a very specific movement pattern and and whatnot but I think after a year of working with him I came to him broken and after a year i believed a little bit more in like his process and started to slowly phase out other stuff like i would go to him and then go home and squat i'd be like okay now i can go do real strength training because that's just rehab but now i just am full on like this is my guy i'm just gonna do what he's telling me to do and if i feel like i need more strength or more power i'll just communicate with him and he'll he'll put in more power crazy how long it takes

1:28:05Jake Dearden: to build that trust though yeah because me and john were like that for quite a while uh john completely fixed me from a back injury yeah now i have literally touched wood i have no symptoms but it took a long time yeah and there were some movements and still to this day like john will say oh there's certain movements and we'll have to communicate but uh i'll have to ask him why we're doing that and and what is the reason and then he'll explain it it's valid and then we do it but there's almost like there's that hesitation still at times in the why you're making me doing this crazy thing yeah jake's got this thing and i agree with it it's like i'm not doing anything that's not gonna make me faster or better at my sport and i'm like i completely agree so let's have a little chat about why i'm telling you to do it and yeah you know just like your coach like there's a reason for everything from from the coaching point of view running's pretty simple like put your bones in the right place at the right time yeah and strength is just to support that so it's like why is your knee not where it needs to be when you're 30 kilometers in because you're no longer strong enough yeah to support a position that not only will stop you getting injured but also more importantly in my opinion provide you with the most forward momentum and win the race do you know what i mean yeah like getting injury free and winning is the same thing in the gym yep you know what i mean it's not different it's just holding posture holding position.

1:29:28Rory Linkletter: Yeah. My coach, like he always wants to know after a marathon, like what, what did, what did you feel out there? Right? Like, Oh, I cramped at mile 22, like in my hamstring, my right hamstring started to go on me. And he's like, okay, like that's, that's good feedback. Like we want to know why, why was that muscle group failing? Absolutely. What, what part of, what part of the strength training or the running? And a lot of times I tell him, I'm like, look, I think strength training was fine. I just think I felt, I like, I pushed over the line. And if I, if my training in running doesn't match what i need to do then my body's my muscles are going to fail like it's not always it's in all the reaches and yeah yeah so like i inherently go into races knowing that i'm doing things that maybe my body cannot do yeah and so occasionally

1:30:08Jake Dearden: my body will fail that's the game isn't it yeah so that's interesting it's super interesting is there anything else that we've not touched on that you think helps performance for example

1:30:21Rory Linkletter: sauna or heat training is a yeah i mean i do that i do that i just bought a hot tub that was my end of year purchase for uh so i i recently read that the hot tub is just as good as the sauna i've been a sauna guy for a while but i paid for a gym membership went to the gym it's kind of an inconvenience right like i i live kind of on the outskirts of town i'd have to drive 15 minutes run from the gym so i could finish go straight into the sauna now i run from home shower of course for good hygiene for my hot tub keep the ph levels right and then jump in the hot tub neck deep and i can accomplish the same thing so that's a new thing for me i've only been doing that for a month but i believe in heat training and i periodize heat training just like i periodize running i don't do it the same year round i do less focused heat training where i do like yeah two sessions a week just to kind of keep it in the in the system and then as i'm peaking it's like frequency goes up intensity goes up and i'm actually trying to like change my blood like there's the benefit of heat training that as i understand it there's like the periodic hit is for hormones you get like a boost in hgh or whatnot and then there's the consistent hit which changes your blood that's more of an endurance piece it creates higher blood plasma volume makes your blood more viscous i think is the word and helps you transport oxygen more efficiently it's the same thing that altitude does with red blood cells but instead it's doing it through a different modality of making your

1:31:42Jake Dearden: blood thicker correct me if i'm wrong no no you're pretty much on the money we were okay so

1:31:47Rory Linkletter: that's i mean i'm not i don't get too into the weeds with the science but when someone tells me something's gonna make me faster it's like you do of course i'm gonna do it and and it's fun like it's such a low impact thing where you can kind of be like yeah i'm training right now like add this 40 minute hot tub session to like how hard of a worker yeah what are you doing in there i'm

1:32:04Jake Dearden: training yeah yeah yeah and your wife's like telling you to get out yeah no i'm training

1:32:10Rory Linkletter: yeah sorry sorry i gotta put food on the table gotta gotta gotta work gotta earn these paychecks do you do any active heat training yeah overdressing yeah that's what yeah in the summer overdress let more layers equals more fitness i'm all about being being uh over the top with that stuff especially if i'm training for a hot race are you are you doing that during your

1:32:33Jake Dearden: interval work as well and like your your speed sessions are just like easy if you come to a

1:32:38Rory Linkletter: practice with my teammates. I'm always the last person to take my shirt off. I almost never do because I just don't. Why would I like if I can run this workout with my shirt on, it's a little hotter and it's going to be a little bit more uncomfortable. I'll do it. And so that's kind of the mentality I have is that I'm always slightly overdressed, like always sweating and always firing off that like heat training. So that way it's not like this huge shift in mentality. So like, so you're technically always doing it.

1:33:03Jake Dearden: Yes. Even on your like slow runs, you'll,

1:33:06Rory Linkletter: especially on those i'll discard comfort on an easy run over like a workout for a workout we want to hit times we want to hit paces so i'm not going to make myself overly uncomfortable because i want to focus on the quality but in the easy running if i have to run slower because i'm too hot that's not that doesn't detract from the fitness goal like it's just recovery so you're running in like long pants in the summer i will wear black tights black long sleeve black quarter zip up here in the heat of summer running and what are you doing in the winter then so you're

1:33:35Jake Dearden: doing that in the summer in the summer i mean the winter it's impossible like like you can get you

1:33:41Rory Linkletter: can get warm but you can't get like hot like i'll sweat are you wearing like a hoodie are you wearing so yesterday for example i ran on my treadmill that gets hot yeah right like i'm in my garage the heat doesn't like leave your body as efficiently there's no wind resistance it's a little bit like it heats up quickly so on that i wore full pants uh a toque and long sleeve so like I was wearing stuff that was way over the top what I needed to wear. By the end, I was drenched in sweat. If I'm on a treadmill, that's easy. But in the winter, it's almost impossible to truly be hot. I'm not going to wear a parka on a run to feel warm.

1:34:18Jake Dearden: Then you've just touched right there, treadmill training. How much do you try and avoid it? Do you use it when you need to or when convenient?

1:34:27Rory Linkletter: I just bought a new treadmill. like the i get it i did a lot of year-end purchases this year for tax reasons but i bought the wahoo kicker uh and so like now that i have a nice treadmill in my house like i'm like oh once a week i should jump on this thing just because it's fun it's a good tool do you ever do your speed sessions on there threshold or if it's like cold enough and crappy enough outside and i could actually get better quality on the treadmill i'd do it there but like i like threshold sessions on there because it's really controlled and you can, it's easy to do. It's almost like the goal of threshold work is to control as much as you can.

1:35:04Rory Linkletter: So treadmill threshold makes a ton of sense. I still prefer outside, but now that I have the nice treadmill, it makes sense. And so, uh, and also for heat training, like treadmills are such good tools for retraining, especially if you have a treadmill like me in the garage in the summer, you want to talk about the hottest place in the world is run on a treadmill in the garage in the summer with like no airflow. it'll be 110 degrees fahrenheit by the end of a 30 minute run in that thing no way do you do much

1:35:31Jake Dearden: cross training do you do anything else apart from obviously you do your strength work you do your running is there anything else you do not when i'm at full capacity because i'm just trying to do as

1:35:43Rory Linkletter: much as i can of actual running so i can't like i literally there's no space for it right so i'm I'm max capacity. I don't have space for it, but I used to do stair master a lot when I was working with Ryan Hall. He was a big believer in that. And that would just be to stack strength and fatigue on the legs. So like finish a double run, get straight on the stair mill for 30 minutes. Did you find a benefit in that? I think it made my leg strong. I think it made my leg strong. I think it could, if, if I got hurt today or like had to reduce training load, that'd be my first

1:36:15Jake Dearden: way to add so that would be like your golden tool if you couldn't run stairmaster yeah throw on a

1:36:22Rory Linkletter: weighted vest and get on the stairmaster or uh i'd way rather do that than than bike personally i think it translates better to running it builds the tissue and the tendons better and that's what running is mostly like like i said at the beginning of this is like fatigue resistance so i need to fatigue my legs and and have pounding be at least present so if if i'm if i'm dealing with something that doesn't hurt doing those but it does hurt running that would be my first step

1:36:50Jake Dearden: interesting and your speed sessions like your do you do any like vo2 max work yeah yeah year round really year round yeah every thursday or no no it's not weekly not weekly

1:37:02Rory Linkletter: i'd say it's bi-weekly like every fourth session is a what's the full session so in the heat of marathon training it gets de-emphasized more because it's you just don't have space for it it'll be like something as simple as 200s on the track just ripping so i can touch the speed i sprint twice a week every week anyways like i go to the track and i run eight by 100 on 100 off at like

1:37:25Jake Dearden: 90 max so i i'm running fast is that after like an easy run or is it specifically you're driving

1:37:32Rory Linkletter: to the track you're warming up and then yeah i drive to the track i go for a run and then i finish it with in and in and outs is what i call them okay and i do that twice a week are you doing

1:37:40Jake Dearden: that on top of strides as well you're doing that is my strides that is my stride session that's how i do strides except for like but it's always on a track just so you can get that consistency

1:37:49Rory Linkletter: not every time because sometimes you don't have access every time you want to but if i can i think track is better for that like i feel maybe it's because i come from a track background but like when i step onto a track i think speed so like that's where i'll run the fastest if i do a stride on the road versus a stride on the track i think i'll run faster strictly because i feel fast on a

1:38:10Jake Dearden: track yeah that's cool and then uh like you say the actual session of like a vl2 max session what would it look like would it be 800s would it be yeah so i did one this week tuesday i'll just tell

1:38:25Rory Linkletter: you how we did it 600 meters to start fast like throw a bunch of junk in your legs run into like 1500 meter pace so like really really quick throw lactic acid on you and then we switch to k's at more like 5k 10k pace uh we did three of those it's still challenging though yep yep one to one recovery basically so like two two and a half minutes of recovery okay so you increase

1:38:49Jake Dearden: the recovery you're not going just off 60 or no no if we're doing speed first off at altitude you

1:38:54Rory Linkletter: could never do speed with short recovery you need the recovery but uh just in general like we're not we're not actually trying to like i think distance runners get fall into the strap all the time they try to do everything at drop short rest and it's like no if you need more time to hit faster zones do it right so and then i did 400s at 1500 meter pace again and then some 200s to flush so i did you know only like four to five k of really specific volume but it was at like every rep felt like a good effort and you're making sure that's at least once every two weeks yeah yeah and it it changes form based on the goal race right so uh heat of marathon training like i said sometimes it can be shorter just to get a little bit in and sometimes it'll be more 10k 5k specific with long reps whereas like if i'm getting ready for a track 10k or 5k or a half marathon i might do more like 1500 5k stuff interesting do you see yourself

1:39:56Jake Dearden: doing this forever obviously you can't tell the wheels fall off until the wheels fall off do you

1:40:01Rory Linkletter: genuinely see yourself yeah i mean why would i if i can make money running i'd be an idiot to do anything else in my mind like seriously like i get i wake up every day when i really want to like i have workouts so like i set an alarm some days and have timelines and deadlines but for the most part i'm i'm a i'm a i'm a bum that just has a really good skill set that happened to be paid

1:40:24Jake Dearden: for like it's it's it's it's a dream from the whole yeah i'm a i'm a run bum athletes are bums

1:40:31Rory Linkletter: yeah yeah i mean i work hard at what i do but like it's not work for me i don't feel like i'm the only thing that's work is like answering emails and admin yeah the admin side which happens and the better i've gotten the more i have of that yeah you know like i have a youtube channel. I have a podcast. I do those things to build my brand and build my value. Sometimes those feel a little chores esque, but at the end of the day, like the running side, like it's just, I mean, I will do this is if someone will pay me to run, I will not stop. I would do this till I'm a hundred years old. If someone's going to cut a check.

1:41:07Jake Dearden: Do you see yourself progressing into any other role? Do you feel like the coaching, obviously you coach right now and you said, um you coach quite a few people and that helps you with your own running performance and analyze that do you see yourself being a coach after you stop running because there will become a time when

1:41:26Rory Linkletter: you can't run anymore yeah yeah i think so i i don't know if i want to be a full-time coach yet or not mostly because like the coaching that's full-time that i see as profitable like from a financial standpoint here in the u.s at least it's university coaching and that that you also lose family time. You lose a lot of freedom. It's a very high demands, like traveling heavy job. So like that, I, that seems really enticing to me, but I know I would lose my, my time with my family and that I'm not sure if that's worth it. Now, if I could be like a pro coach, that would be awesome. But those jobs are few and far between.

1:42:02Rory Linkletter: Right. And if I could just coach amateurs for the rest of my life, like I do now, I coach some sub elites and some elites, some national record holder some I coach some pretty high level athletes but if I could coach a pro team where it's kind of like what I'm a part of where it's a collection of half a dozen to a dozen individuals that that would be the dream because it's a little bit more low maintenance but at the end of the day like I'm also like financially motivated by a lot of things so I'm not gonna only do that if it doesn't pay the bills so i'm i'm open to whatever i need to do to to you know keep a roof over the head to be fair that's quite a long way down the line yes hopefully hopefully i i see myself like trying to extend the career in different ways too like once i get through la who knows what's going to be but i love the trails i love trail running so maybe one day run western states or utmb or something like that like i think i've got you feel like you've got the potential to go longer and do the ultra endurance stuff yeah yeah i think my best skill set is that i'm robust and that i like to do this like the two things that make me good is that i don't get hurt is that much again knock on some wood or something but uh that and the fact that i love it right like and in order to go through a hundred mile race or something i feel like love for the game has to be number one you have to be a little bit sick in the head yeah for sure that's cool what's your expectations on the olympics do you feel like you're gonna do well yeah yeah first and foremost check the box go second if i can keep progressing like i have i think i can go in with the with the fool's dream of a medal that's really like all i want all i want is to be able to kid myself enough to go for it right like you've got three people do it three people do it and you have no idea you have no control over how good they are on that day but i want to go in good enough to trick myself into thinking i'm going to medal that's that's the dream that's the goal that's

1:44:13Jake Dearden: the dream and i think i can do that have you got any other ambitions like within the marathon space or the half marathon space obviously like say you've just ticked off one of the biggest

1:44:22Rory Linkletter: achievements i think i think right now i see myself as like someone who could probably run a 204 marathon it given like the perfect build the perfect day perfect course like stars aligning that's where i think i can see my potential headed so i'd like to be the canadian record holder in the marathon and i'd like to run a time that is objectively insane by like all measures not just North American measures, but global. Yeah, I think that chasing the time still is exciting and also chasing podiums at majors is like the number one. If I could podium at a major or at an Olympics, that to me is the peak of the sport.

1:45:04Jake Dearden: That's cool. Have you got any questions? Or have you got any questions, John? I've enjoyed the old chat. I think the biggest takeaway for me is, and this is what I try and get across to my athletes, is just chilling out a little bit and having that little bit more of what I would describe as a holistic view, you know, seeing your body as a system and everything that you do. You know, you was even saying about just something as simple as having some gratitude. Yeah. That has such a big impact on your ability to perform. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think everything's day to this and day to that and inches here and millimeters there when actually like just keeping your body healthy and your mind healthy is possibly the biggest yeah like tool once you've got to a certain level you know what i mean would you say that is your superpower or what would you say your superpower

1:45:54Rory Linkletter: is my superpower is is passion really like i feel like i'm passionate about what i'm doing and i think it's a unique passion right because i think a lot of people in the in the high level sport are super passionate. Like that doesn't differentiate me from Connor Mance or, or, uh, Ellie Kipchoge. Let's just like throw out a couple of names, right? That doesn't make me different. They love it. I think what makes me different is like how I love it and how I, I interact with it. It's, it's, I think it's like a true joy. It's like a childish joy. Like a, like in a, in a lot of ways it's pure. It's not tied to too many things.

1:46:32Rory Linkletter: Like, yeah, I'm super competitive and I hate losing to people and I'm, and I'm a psychopath about that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, like I, I like to believe that I would be doing the same thing if I wasn't a professional runner. Like I'd still want to run. I'd still want to push my body. I'd still like, I think I'd be like the most competitive age grouper ever. If I, if I didn't have the skillset to be a pro runner, right? Like that's how I view it is like, I do, I, I love that I get paid to do this. I love that this is my job, but I don't think it would change. And it's kind of like, I don't know if you guys are country music guys, but Luke Combs has a song that's like about like, what would you do if you weren't doing this?

1:47:11Rory Linkletter: I'd probably be doing this, right? Like I just would, it would be different. Like Luke Combs has a song. I can't even remember the lyrics exactly, but he's like, people ask him what he would do if he wasn't a country music star. He'd be like, I'd be playing at some dive bar because that's what I want to do. And so for me, if I wasn't running in the Olympics, I'd be just trying to qualify for Boston, trying to, you know, make, I don't know, maybe, maybe be like Kona in the Ironman. Maybe I'd be doing high rocks. I don't know. I'd, I'd try to do something.

1:47:39Jake Dearden: That's a good question. Would you ever do a high rock?

1:47:42Rory Linkletter: I think so. I think I could convince myself to do anything stupid. As long as I don't hurt myself, I would, I would try one tomorrow if you could guarantee me that

1:47:52Jake Dearden: it wouldn't ruin my training well yeah i can't guarantee it wouldn't ruin your training right now but i think it's actually pretty um easy on the body high rocks like i don't think it's super tough as long as you train for it uh one thing because i've tried balancing attempting uh a cool marathon goal but also attempting high rocks and the marathon training definitely helps the high rocks the high rocks training does not help the running whatsoever yeah the the high rock training takes away from the running and that's why it's so important like you said with the strength training to make sure that you're doing the right exercises like you know it always gets told that runners should strength train but you shouldn't just go in the gym and strength train you need to do the specific things for running i think it's important like you guys redefine that term like strength training when it comes to running because if you set a 90 percent of people including athletes runners even strength training and they close their eyes they see deadlifts and squats and presses and yeah it's just not the reality of what you guys need when it comes to running and i'd argue even with high rocks like there's a there's more strength needed and a little bit more of the traditional but still down the pathway of what you would do for running do you know what i mean yeah single leg core work like it's definitely just the mindset of like building up as well you're not trying to bat your body when you finish your gym session are you super

1:49:22Rory Linkletter: super fatigued i i do my gym session on double threshold days in between threshold sessions and i feel better in the second session yes because i went through the gym the what i've

1:49:33Jake Dearden: always tried to say to jake is like a lot of your gym work you need to walk in the gym feeling a bit a bit stiff a bit a bit like out of position and then you walk out the gym realigned yeah and like ready to go that's exactly how my current that's how i see strength like yeah for you as a runner for jake as a as a high level high rocks elite high rocks are like not the traditional sense where you you crawl out of the gym and everything's hurting do you know what i mean like that's the opposite to what you need when you're in a a 200 yeah mile week or 200 kilometer a week or whatever

1:50:06Rory Linkletter: do you know what i mean yeah no i i legitimately have better sessions right out of the gym like if i stepped out of my gym with racing shoes on and just started running fast i'd feel great if anyone

1:50:19Jake Dearden: can take anything from this it is that what you've just said because that is shots me more than anything that like yes i take my strength sessions a little bit lighter now but for you to say that you feel better after a strength session is like mind-blowing yeah i think the problem we deal with as well you touched on it earlier is like that the whole hybrid movement like it's cool the thought of like being super strong and and being really fast when actually the reality of the situation is like strong bilateral lifting and the physiological adaptation to achieve that is the complete opposite counterintuitive jumping and landing on on one leg for hours you know it's so wildly different like from a physiological standpoint that you you can't really support both realistically you can have a level but you can't be like throwing big weights around with a deadlift and being a yeah you know a 220 marathon runner or or less yeah you know what i mean and that's what i think people don't fully understand rory thank you for that mate yeah i feel like i

1:51:28Rory Linkletter: I have more things, but we've got dinner, right? We've got dinner. Yeah. And we can talk more because I have some things I wanted to ask you, but yeah. Let's do it over dinner. Genuinely, that was sick. I learned so much.