What Does Running TEACH Us About Identity? | Nick Thompson Explains

What this episode is about

Nick Thompson discusses how running informs our understanding of identity, highlighting the concept of cognitive offloading, which suggests that over-reliance on technology can hinder our skills, particularly in thinking and writing. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining personal abilities in a world increasingly dominated by automated tools.

Key takeaways

• Cognitive offloading: Relying on tech means you can forget essential skills, like long division or navigation.
• Running offered more than fitness for Nick Thompson; it was a father-son bond forged in the great American running boom.
• Youthful rebellion can fuel ambition: Nick's long hair at Andover was just a phase, but his drive became a lifelong asset.
• Weather transforms running into a sensory experience—whether battling sleet or enjoying a perfect day, every run tells a story.
• Gen Z's career dilemma: With endless choices, clarity of intention is key to avoiding the paralysis of too many options.

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Andover, Cognitive Offloading, Pine Manor College
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Offloading
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Andover
4. 20:00 – 25:00: Hurricane Sandy
5. 30:00 – 35:00: New York Marathon
6. 35:00 – 40:00: Andover
7. 40:00 – 45:00: Chicago Marathon, New York Marathon

Notable quotes from "What Does Running TEACH Us About Identity? | Nick Thompson Explains"

• The other thing that's really important is this principle called cognitive offloading. And so that's the principle whereby once you start to rely on a tool, a technological tool to do something, you get worse at it, right?

  about Cognitive Offloading · at 0:00

• Passion Struck. How are you today? Oh, thanks so much, John. I am thrilled to be here. Delighted to talk with you. You and I have something in common. We both grew up in our…

  about Andover · at 1:21

• And we would go and we would run out the door around the block. I remember running a mile with him. I remember running to this place called Pine Manor College. having had…

  about Pine Manor College · at 3:01

• Written a book and someone who's CEO of the Atlantic where we have lots of writers. My view is that AI is a tool that can make writers much more productive and much more efficient.

  about Artificial Intelligence · at 8:24

• Just couldn't do it. And I eventually cracked it. Philadelphia Marathon was the year remember what year it was. It was the year of Hurricane Sandy, which I think was the year of the elections.

  about Hurricane Sandy · at 23:55

• I came back to the New York Marathon two years later. So in 2005 I ran the New York Marathon in 2 hours 43 minutes and 51 seconds. In 2007 after all that I run in 2 hours 43 minutes and 38 seconds. Pretty awesome.

  about New York Marathon · at 31:54

• Up and down mountains. Not in a fast time, but impressive finish. And then I go out and I run the Chicago Marathon and I run it in 238. And then I come back and I'm You know…

  about Chicago Marathon · at 40:57

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Concepts & topics

• Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 8:18
  Discussed in the context of its impact on careers and writing authenticity
• Cognitive Offloading — Concept · Framework · 2 mentions · first at 0:01
  Discussed as a principle related to reliance on technology and its effects on skills

Places & events

• New York Marathon — Event · Referenced event · 2 mentions · first at 31:54
  Mentioned as part of the author's running journey and achievements
• Chicago Marathon — Event · Referenced event · 2 mentions · first at 41:01
  Mentioned as part of the author's running journey and achievements
• Andover — Place · Setting · 5 mentions · first at 1:31
  Mentioned as part of Nick Thompson's background and upbringing
• Pine Manor College — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 3:03
  Mentioned as part of Nick Thompson's childhood memories with his father
• Hurricane Sandy — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at 24:01
  Mentioned in the context of the New York Marathon being canceled

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 The other thing that's really important is this principle called cognitive offloading. And so that's the principle whereby once you start to rely on a tool, a technological tool to do something, you get worse at it, right? So you use a calculator all the time, you forget how to do long division. You use ways, you forget how to navigate. That's fine. Who cares? We don't It's better to have a calculator do long division than we do long division. But when it comes to thinking and writing, I don't want to get worse at it. So I don't want to rely on an AI for it.

0:27 Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long- form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators innovators scientists military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become Passion Struck.

1:15 I am absolutely honored and thrilled today to bring you Nick Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic. Welcome, Nick, to Passion Struck. How are you today? Oh, thanks so much, John. I am thrilled to be here. Delighted to talk with you. You and I have something in common. We both grew up in our childhood, at least a part of it, in Chicago. And then, as I understand it, you attended Andover. What was young Nick like? Were you curious, rebellious, driven? I was pretty driven. I was pretty curious. I was rebellious in a little bit rebellious in high school, like a little bit anti the system. I had hair down to here when I was at Andover, which sometimes surprises people. My kids laugh when they see my yearbook photographs. But I always had I think one of the things that my father gave to me, for better or for worse, but I think mostly for better, was a drive to succeed at the thing I was doing or to

2:13 really try hard. It was so like deeply ingrained in what he believed was right for life that came to me and certainly had that when I was in high school. Speaking of your father, I understand he loved to run. What's your earliest memory of watching your father do that? How did it make you feel about him?

2:30 I was born in 1975 and my father started to run in the late 1970s and this is the great American running boom when the complete book of running comes out. You look at registrations for marathons, they skyrocket. And my dad at that time was in a little bit of a rut professionally, not living up to his early promise. He was struggling with alcohol and he starts writing and it gives him a feeling of self-confidence. And so in about 1980, so when I was five, he would take me out to run. And we would go and we would run around. I was living in Brooklyn, Massachusetts.

3:01 And we would go and we would run out the door around the block. I remember running a mile with him. I remember running to this place called Pine Manor College. having had children. I can't quite square my memories with running like two or three miles with my dad with being five or six years old because I can't like but it must have been that because he left when I was six and a half. So I have all these memories of running with him. I must have been running a couple miles with my dad when I was 5 years old. My running actually started when I was in seventh grade. I had a paper out and I had it for a few years before that and it was an afternoon paper out. But what I was finding was I wanted to play with my friends and stuff. And so walking the route wouldn't give me enough time to get back and study and play with my friends. I started to to run

3:50 or jog the route. And I grew up being a heavy set kid. And so it was also my ticket to getting skinny and getting healthy. So yeah, that's how I started into it. And it really became a huge passion for me. For a lot of people it's they come into some people come into running because they join the track team. Some people come into running because it's like a good way to get around right you like all I don't know Kenan right like runs to school at Ethiopia and Kenya or people run for efficiency. My father's father used to hike seven miles in like the Arizona drylands to get to school. That gets you in shape and you learn about fitness in part because it's gets you around. Well, I mean, it certainly does that. And where growing up where you did and then going to Andover, you certainly had to deal with different conditions. I had to deal with them when I was in Pennsylvania, too. And I remember having

4:46 to go out in the sleet, the snow, and funny enough, those were some of my favorite runs.

4:52 Totally. Just because it it made you like notice more or it was just different. I don't know what it was about it, but I almost looked forward for moments like that. It increases the intensity of the run. If you go out and it's 100° or it's three below or it's pouring rain, you feel more. It just it heightens your awareness. It heightens inens all of your sensory perceptions and makes you more present in your run. It's there times where I like to run where it's like nice and cool and there times where I like to run where it's just madness out there. Before we dive into your book, which is the main reason for you coming on the show today, and the book's name is The Running Ground, a father, a son, and the simplest sport, I did want to ask you a question about technology, given it's something you're also passionate about.

5:38 So, I have a ton of listeners who are Gen Z, like my son who's 27. Yeah. And my daughter is 21. And they all come to me with career advice because they're struggling right now. in a lot of different ways where to put their attention because they're all very fearful of what technology is going to do to industries. And I wanted to ask you since you're

6:04 kind of in the middle of this, what would be your advice to someone who's coming out of college or a young adult right now? They have some obstacles and they have some advantages. So, one of the obstacles is like we're seeing unemployment rates shift up for young people. And it seems based on the data that is partly because of AI. the bottom rung of career ladders is getting knocked out. Companies are hiring fewer people because AI or AI agents can do the work that young people traditionally do, right? So higher up the career ladder, we're seeing very few effects of AI. Lower down the career ladder, we are starting to see those impacts. So that's works against young people, right?

6:39 But working for them, they actually know how to use these systems because they all grew up using them, right? Ideally, they have used AI as a tutor, not as just a thing to do their homework, but they understand these models at a deeper level. So, they should be able to learn the skills come with AI. The lesson I think for young people and the lesson for future careers is that no one can foresee how AI is going to change businesses. And I don't know exactly which industries are going to change. I can give you a hypothesis, but I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that it's going to be jagged. it's going to input some industries and some professions here than others. And so the skill that you're going to need to cultivate is the ability to be flexible, right? To be able to move and to shift, right? And it expands our capabilities, right? If you're really good at design, AI also gives you like a little bit of

7:29 ability to code. If you're really good at coding, gives you a little bit ability to design. So individuals are going to have a broader skill set. And so what you should cultivate if you're young, and this is what I would tell my kids who are a little younger than yours, come out, focus on what you're curious and passionate about, right? That's the thing. If you love it, you'll figure out a path to success. Be flexible and understand what AI is doing because people deeply want that. Every company wants people who are AI native 100%. Okay. And I have to ask you just one other question. Sure. I love talking about this stuff. Since you are right at the epicenter of writing obviously and I'm an author, I know one of the things in in all my writing and especially being very involved on Substack is the impact of AI on kind of authenticity of writing.

8:18 Yeah. What are your thoughts in this space? Well, it's a huge question both for me personally, right? Someone who's just written a book and someone who's CEO of the Atlantic where we have lots of writers. My view is that AI is a tool that can make writers much more productive and much more efficient. Helps the research can help sorting through notes. It's a very useful quick editor. It's not as good as the best human editors, but it is a good quick editor. Right? Like I've written the Substack post. Please identify any parts of this post where I use redundant language, repeat words, or have unclear phrasing. Right? We should run all of our posts through that. What I don't use it for is I don't use it for writing, right? And I don't use it for writing for a couple reasons. One, it's not a good writer. Two, there's some interesting legal implications, right?

9:06 If you were to go into Substack and say, "Hey, OpenAI, write a post for me in my style." It's not clear that you own that post or whether the chatbot you owned owns that post, right? And eventually there'll be court cases. It'll be settled. And then most important, it's like a people expect it to be real and to be you. And I think as time goes on, there's going to be a real premium on authenticity and no one's going to trust people who use AI, right? So don't do it for bad, possibly illegal, and it breaks the trust bonds. I just went, for example, I went and read the entire audio book of The Running Ground. It took me like, I don't know, 13 hours or something to go and read it beginning to end. I could have used an AI voice generator and have it sound pretty much like me. But I think it's important to do these things and do it as us. And so can I say one one more thing about this?

9:57 The other thing that's really important is this principle called cognitive offloading. And so that's the principle whereby once you start to rely on a tool, technological tool to do something, you get worse at it, right? So you use a calculator all the time, you forget how to do long division. You use ways, you forget how to navigate. That's fine. Who cares? We don't better to have a calculator do long division than we do long division. But when it comes to thinking and writing, I don't want to get worse at it. So I don't want to rely on an AI for it. I find it almost impossible to avoid AI at this point because no matter what you plug into Google or any search engine, it's using AI on the back end. But I use it in many ways that you just described.

10:38 It's a great way as I'm trying to think of a framework or a way to explore a topic before I write it to test out different ideas and get tonality and how readers will perceive it, how they'll feel, stuff like that. But you're right,

10:52 it always tends to repeat itself. It always tends to say things that I've heard a million times before. So, I find like when I'm writing, I want to be unique. I want to say something that's different and more profound than what's what I've read out there. So, it's never going to do that for you.

11:08 Yeah, I that I think you're using it the right way. You should definitely use it, right? It's amazing. You just got to be careful. Let's get back to running. I have to ask and maybe I'll give you mine. What's the most meaningful mile you've ever run and why that mile?

11:24 The most meaningful mile it will be when I was summer when I was 17 years old going into senior year in high school. And there was a mountain called Kinsen Mountain in the White Mountains in Vancone, New Hampshire. And I was a tennis instructor there as my summer job. And I remember trying to run up the mountain and I couldn't. And I kept turning around, right? You like you'd run up like I was like two miles and there's a right turn to go to Bald Knob and a left turn to go Kinsman. So you run two miles up there and if you want to sort of chicken out, you go to Bald Knob, you look at the view, you come back or you can turn left and try to go up Kinser. And I kept I like during breaks, you know, two-hour break between teaching the kids tennis, I'd go run and I'd go and I'd turn left and then I would eventually get too tired and come back. And so there was a moment when I actually did it and I got to the top,

12:18 right? Maybe my third attempt. I was like, "Oh my god." And I I'm using that as a mile. Probably took 30 minutes, so it's like an extra long mile. minutes. But it was the first time I'd really summited a mountain and I think it opened up something spiritually and opened up a connection to the sport. So even more than running a fast mile, even more than setting a record, even more than winning a race, I think it was maybe that is the origin of my passion for the sport.

12:51 I love that story. My most meaningful mile also happened about the same age. I was a little bit younger than you at the time. I was a sophomore in high school and we had a really good team that year. I ended up winning the state championship in fact, but we were in the county meet and we were there was another team in the county that was also very strong, a bigger school than us, so they competed at a different level. But during that race at about the two- mile mark, I was attacked by a Rottweiler who took out a big chunk of my leg. And I remember at the time I was running, I was in second place on my team. The person who was the fastest on our team, you might know his name, Keith Dowin.

13:36 Yes, that's cool. Um, huge marathon runner. Of course, he was ahead of me, but one of my teammates, we ended up winning the county championship, but it was really the first time for me that I stared at that much fear and it was really a defining moment because I realized at that point that I could overcome setbacks.

13:57 Yeah, that that's a very intense story. Yes. My god. Yeah. So your father was really brilliant in pioneering the way you describe him, but you also say he was turbulent and there was a period of time when you were around 5 years old, five or six where your family was breaking apart. Can you talk about that moment and what it meant to him and what it meant to you?

14:31 Yeah, so my father, we was brilliant. He grows up in Oklahoma. then gets a scholarship to Andover, Stanford, wins a road scholarship, Oxford, comes back, marries my mother and he's extremely successful, but or extremely successful as a very young man, extremely promising. It's John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy is like, "This kid's going to be president before me." He has like big photograph of my dad in Life magazine when he was 20 years old, which is bonkers. But he comes back and he comes back with his road scholarship and it's like a little harder to he doesn't get elected to the Senate when he's 29 years old and he struggles and has a hard time finding himself. By the late 1980s he's approaching 40 and he's starting he's like comes a White House fellow, right?

15:15 He's a sort of a young Cold War hawk. He knows he's lined up for a pretty good job in the Reagan administration. But it's at this moment when he also realizes he's gay. And he to some I don't know exactly when he first knew that. I don't know. It's not like it's an onoff switch, right? It's not like a light. It's like you're gay, you're not gay. Clearly, he's bisexual and he's on a spectrum the sexuality, but he like realizes that he's gay. and he leaves my mother, moves to Washington, begins dating men, and also it's not a smooth transition, right? He that's not like he like goes into like monogamous long-term relationships with appropriate people.

15:57 He goes into these like utterly chaotic, totally inappropriate relationships with people he picks up in Dupont Circle. And he also blows up his life financially. He can't manage his money. Blows up most of his old friendships. It's just a incredibly chaotic period in his life. And obviously my parents divorce and he's gone. And I don't know all that's going on. I don't even know he's gay, right? I'm six years old. But that was a a real transition for him. And from that moment on his life was defined not by his professional successes, not by his ambitions, not by the roles he played in government. though he did play interesting roles in government and he did actually have a he does he is the he's I believe the first first Senate approved openly gay government official.

16:45 He is he's a civil rights pioneer in some ways but he's also just like absolute madness and chaos for the next 30 years of his life. My roommate at the Naval Academy was actually a road scholar and I always thought Dave was going to go into politics and turn out that way. He ended up becoming a Navy Seal and now he's an environmental attorney. But I that's where I always thought he was going to go.

17:07 Well, it's being a road scholar is hard, right? You get this stamp on your forehead and it's great because it like gives you access to all kinds of things, but if you don't live up to your promise, it can be really tough.

17:18 Yeah, I would think it's the same thing as if he win the MacArthur Genius Award. Yeah, for forever a genius and then like your new work is law and people are like "Dude

17:28 having interviewed Angela Duckworth a couple times, I understand why she got it. She's definitely living up to it."

17:35 Well, your father's diaries, as I understand it, ended up in your possession. Was there something that surprised you the most about what you discovered there?

17:44 Yeah, definitely. The end of my possession, like he he moves away from the United States. He abandons his house. His house is like falling down in Virginia. This old farmhouse he owned. He's living in Southeast Asia for complicated reasons. I go to the house, big filing cabinet out front, like a snake in one of the drawers. Take the leave the snake, take the cabinets. And then a few years later, I realized that in the cabinets there, his diaries. What most surprised me, I went through and I read them all after he passed.

18:12 What most surprised me was his relationship with his father. And I didn't really know Frank Thompson, my grandfather. I had known that he had played a important role in my dad's life. My dad often said that he could only run fast marathon after his father died. But the diary entries are like all they're basically two subjects in my father's diaries. Alcohol, why can't he stop? And then his father and his relationship with his father and like how hard it is happened, letters they wrote. And also somewhat ironically, his father's drinking and why can't that guy stop, which you would have thought would have been a good lesson for teaching my dad to stop drinking. But I was surprised by both the depth of his feelings towards his father, the prominence of his feelings towards his father, and then most by the fact that the sins of his father were all sins that he directly repeated and imposed upon me.

19:07 It's like he psychologically the things that he most complained about his father doing in the 1970s, with one very important exception, were things that he would then later do in his own final years. So for you, do you think running initially was a way to hold on to him or to get some distance from him for you? It

19:25 was both. Both. Totally both. And initially it was all a way to hold on to him. It was it was a sport that he'd introduced me to. It was a sport that we did together. When I would travel and see him, we'd run together at all ages. First, he was of course much faster than me. Eventually, I was faster than him. It was a great sport for father-son bonding. When he died, it was a way to hold on to him and to mourn him, right? Think about him. the fact that it's a sport where you can focus, devote yourself to specific goals, excellence, achievement. That of course was something he taught me. But this is a a man who like very much lost his discipline, lost his focus. And I believe that running is a way to keep your discipline and keep your focus. And so I keep running in part to honor him and remember him and in part also to not become him.

20:14 So, if you had the opportunity to run one more mile with him today, is that what you would say to him?

20:21 Yeah, of course. Yeah, totally. He would love hearing that. And he would like maybe fight back a little bit, but if he'd been drinking, he'd fight back a lot, but we'd have a good conversation. We always had good conversations and good arguments. So, I want to move on to your journey becoming passion struck in your running career. So, like many people who run marathons, I think one of the first things that anyone wants to do is to aim for the three-hour barrier.

20:50 Yeah. For you early in your running career, what did that three-hour barrier mean to you? Why was it so important? That was the line that was like you just I kind of what you said like you have either run a three-hour marathon or you have not. Like it just seemed like that was the cutoff and the only cut off that mattered. My dad had wanted to break that. He'd run three hours and 41 seconds or something like that. He just missed and I had watched him run that race when I was seven years old.

21:12 So it was like deeply implanted in me that 25959 is good. 30001 is bad. That was and so in my 20s I tried over and over to run a three-hour marathon. I the first one I did I was like on pace and then I bombed out and ran 318 and second one I think I got closer ran 306 and then I got a flat tire on my way to the third one and fourth one I dropped out. fifth one I like was on pace and then totally bombed out and ran a 343. So I think it was maybe my sixth one or might have been my sixth or my seventh where I ran finally ran 257.

21:47 I have to ask for you when you're doing the marathon where do you what mile range do you find is the hardest for me it was always around the 18th mile mark 18 19 back then back then it was like 21 through 24 but that was because I didn't know how to train and I believed this the insane thing that they teach people coming into the marathon just run 20 building up it's all you need to do don't run more than 20 the last 6.2 2, they'll take care of themselves on race day. That's the worst advice. Run more than that. If you run 20 in your training, you will die at 20. Why does everybody die at 20?

22:22 Partly you run out of carbohydrates and partly because all of these race books tell you just to run 20 miles. Anyway, so I would always die at later part of the races. Now that I'm much faster, I understand the race better. The hardest part is like staying calm at like miles four through 10 and not you can tell yourself a million times, right? I'm going to run this pace, this heart rate range. I'm stay behind this person and I'm not going to go ahead of it. And then you're out there and people are cheering and you feel so good. And it is easy to go a little fast and then kapoo, you're done. And so that to me is like the first that's you suffer more and you hurt a lot more in miles 18 through 25. But the trick right the moment where you're going to succeed or fail is earlier.

23:10 It absolutely is. So you then join, if my history is correct, you you then join a New York running club. Yep.

23:19 Where you end up setting a more audacious goal goal for yourself of trying to hit 240.

23:26 Yeah. And you weren't successful at doing that for a while. Maybe you can talk about that journey.

23:33 Yeah, it's funny. I tried forever to break three hours and like finally broke it. Then I'm then I get like way faster. I run 243 and I'm going to break 240 and then that takes forever too. That also takes seven years of just repeated failure. Yeah. I kept running 243 243 242 242 245 245 246 243 242. I just couldn't do it. And I eventually cracked it. Philadelphia Marathon was the year remember what year it was. It was the year of Hurricane Sandy, which I think was the year of the elections. That would have been 2012. And the New York Rathon was canceled. So I ran Philadelphia Marathon and I cracked 240.

24:08 And I thought that would be the fastest I'd ever go. I would have been 37 then. I was pretty psyched. It's very hard. It's almost like when you set a goal and you miss it, it comes easier to miss it the next time. And I just got in a I couldn't break through physically in those prime years. I couldn't break through and go much faster.

24:27 I think that's a good stopping point because if you're someone who's listening to this and they're maybe facing that same mental block that they have, whether it's running or some area in their life, what would your advice be to them? I think what I didn't do, the reasons were buried pretty deep psychologically and they dealt with the the sickness I had. But for someone who hasn't gone through the medical stuff that I went through in that same period, the trick is to like you have to figure out a way to force yourself to go at a speed that you don't think you can go, right? And that's really hard because you have to use your mind to make yourself do a thing that your mind thinks you can't do. And I tell this story about when I was in the book, I tell the story about when I was 15 and I was running track and I thought I could only run 2 miles in 11 minutes and 30 seconds. That's where I run like 11:30,

25:17 1140. And then I enter this race where I don't know the size of the track and because of that I don't know how fast I'm going and I run end up running 1048 which is much better. In my 40s where I started I figured out how to crack this barrier and then some. It was partly by convincing myself that a six-minute mile wasn't fast. And to do that I went out on the track and I would run 200 meters at 430 pace, right? Just to get used to seeing fours on my watch. And I go and I run two mile repeats at like 530 pace just to get used to being much faster than 559. Right? I had to like at a deep level convince my body that running a six-minute mile was not fast, it was slow. And it's a very hard mental process. And whether you're trying to go under a six-minute mile or 8minute mile or a 440 mile, you've got to figure out a way of getting past those mental limits. And the same thing applies at work. Like

26:12 sometimes you just have to set a goal that seems impossible and push to it. I this thing that you think is going to take you 5 days, right? And you're going to just do it in a day and you learn different habits, you learn different processes, you learn better ways of not wasting time. This in a way happened to me. I remember this is part of the book too, but it's a pretty relevant story because it's quite similar. It was the day of the Boston Marathons. I worked at the New Yorker at that time. Amazing magazine. Loved it. And I was the editor of the website and I edited and I managed and I had lots of confidence and I was like you could give me a story and I was absolutely convinced I could make it better. I could put it on the internet. I could help spread it through our audience.

26:53 What I did not have confidence is that I could write or that I could write quickly. And Boston Marathon happens bombs happen at Boston Marathon. It's 2013 and David Remick who runs the New Yorker one of the greatest journalists of our lifetime comes into my office. He's my boss and he's Nick, you're going to write about this. I was like, "No, David, got other things to do. I'm an editor. I can't do this." Blah blah blah blah blah. All these excuses, all these reasons why it's not right for me and all this other guy. He's a runner and a writer. Like, why don't we get like Murakami? David, shut up. And he like he says to me, he doesn't say shut up. He's way too gent nice for that. He like listens, but you can tell he's like rolling his eyes. And he's like, "Nick, this is what's going to happen. You're going to put down your phone. I'm going to walk out of this door's office. I'm going to close the door and in one hour

27:44 I'm going to come back. I'm going to open the door and when I do that, you're going to take a story you've written and you're going to give it to me. And then he walks out, closes the door. An hour later, he comes back and you I did it right. And like basically it was this forcing mechanism that was like you have to do it. Stop thinking about your limits and stop thinking that you're a bad writer. stop thinking that you're incapable of writing quickly or doing this particular thing because you can't. And so sometimes you need a boss or a teammate or a coach to force you into that uncomfortable position. Now there are like limits. If he'd said, "I'm going to come back in 12 seconds." Like I couldn't have written the story in 12 seconds, right? You need someone who actually knows what you can do. So he was the right coach and the right manager at that moment. other people been the right coaches and right

28:31 managers at different moments who have forced me into uncomfortable situations which is how you improve. Do you think part of that and thank you for sharing it goes back to your father's line never take on mice when you can take on tigers. Yeah, that's what it made me think of when you were talking about it.

28:47 Yeah, that's that was that was an email he sent me back when I was a kid. Nick, I want to go back to this period of your life because I have found that anything that's ever been worth accomplishing in my life has taken far more effort and I've encountered far more setbacks than I ever possibly could have imagined. And long before you broke 240, you were faced, you mentioned it, a health crisis that stopped you in your track. You heard the one word that no one ever wants to hear.

29:25 Yeah. So you describe that in the book as like the after getting that diagnosis of thyroid cancer is like the worst year of your life. Can you take us back to that moment in that period because it wasn't just running. I mean you there were a ton of things going on in your life.

29:44 Yes. It's everything. So well a lot of stuff is going on in my life at that moment. I was 30 years old and I've just been married which is important. I had been in a professional rut and was like coming out of it. Had just gotten a good job and really I had been in a professional rut for 10 years and I just like gotten the job that had pulled me out like two months before and then I'd run this awesome marathon. I'd run a 243 marathon and so I went to go see the doctor right after the race. I was supposed to see the doctor before the race, but I didn't want to because I was worried he would tell me not to run the race because there's something wrong with my knee, which is not the best way to operate, but it's the way all runners operate. And so I go and see him like a week after the marathon and he puts his hands on my throat and does the stuff and he like sees a little nodule, right?

30:27 And says, "We have to get that tested out." And I was like, "Whatever. It's whatever." But then over time it becomes thyroid cancer and then they have to operate. Have to operate twice. See, it's a little bright, but you can see I have the scar like a necklace right there. And this made me confront mortality in a way that was quite different. I was 30 years old. I was healthy. I'd never had sick as a baby, but I'd never been sick in a real way. And I was convinced I was going to die. I wasn't doctors and rational people look at the numbers know that a healthy 30-year-old male who gets thyroid cancer is almost certainly going to get through it. But you go through radiation treatment, you spend all these hours like lying on the floor just feeling the worst when you come out to live in isolation for a little while.

31:18 You come out, can't walk. You're too beat down, exhausted. And it had been right after like it was inextricably tied to my running because it had been right after I had run this awesome marathon. Right? you spend all these years trying to break 230, then you 243 and you're like, I'm on top of the world. And then you're like, no, you're not. And so it was a big shift. And so then I came back, you eventually I got healthy. I figured out the dose of lepathroin that I was supposed to take to modulate my internal systems, get back on it, and get back to running. And it was really important to run another marathon once I was healthy.

31:54 I came back to the New York Marathon two years later. So in 2005 I ran the New York Marathon in 2 hours 43 minutes and 51 seconds. In 2007 after all that I run in 2 hours 43 minutes and 38 seconds. Pretty awesome. Now what did those 13 seconds mean for you? When I started that race I I wanted to break 240 just because basically every race I want to break 240 and I ran on pace to try to run 240. I wasn't trying to but when I remember coming it's you turn you run down like central park south come to Columbus Circle circle you turn into turn back into the park and you're running up towards Tavern on the green and you're running to this beautiful place that's like profoundly important in my memory it's where my track team used to meet it's where my aunt uncle used to live a used to live this is awesome part of New York and I'm running up there and I'm like looking at the clock and I'm like oh my

32:45 god I'm like on the exact same time as two years ago and I just the emotions when I across that finish line were when I realized that I was faster than I'd been even though I hadn't run 240, even though I was hadn't run the race exactly right and all that. That was a very profound moment that I'll never let go of.

33:05 So, I want to go back to your sickness just for a second because I think it's an important point. You write that we don't think about death most days, which means we also forget we're alive. And that line really struck me. For someone who's listening today, what practice helps you remember you're alive on the ordinary Tuesday? Partly running. I mean, like running reminds me in part because running is so tied up with my sickness. I don't think about my sickness often. I do think about it often when I run. And there so there are a number of things that just remind me that I'm here for a short period of time and it matters. One, of course, is having children and being with my children, thinking about them and their options in their life. Same sort of questions that you and I were discussing with your kids a few minutes ago. Running is a practice that helps remind me of that. And then just whenever I see beauty in the world,

33:52 whenever I saw a dance show the other night with my wife, it was just amazing. And I think it triggers a feeling of being alive in a way that when I was in my teens and 20s, I appreciated art and music and life maybe in ways that were deeper. The spiritual highs, the emotional highs that you'd reach, the kind of the emotional meaning I could find in music was young man's mind versus an old man's mind. But I it I didn't associate it as much with being alive as I do now. And I think that's a function of having been through my sickness.

34:23 For those who listen to the podcast, you might remember an episode I did in episode 670 with a gentleman named Joel Beasley, host of the Modern CTO podcast. And the reason I'm bringing this up is Joel talks about the importance of setting ceilings for yourself. and he was telling me when he started Modern CTO, we set this ceiling for him that he ended up breaking seven years later. So he decided that he wanted to become a stand-up comedian. And so now he's setting a ceiling that for him success means that he's going to sell out Mart Madison Square Garden someday. So that's

35:01 Oh my god, that's awesome. That's the ceiling he has set. Yeah. You were at this ceiling of 240 for a while. And in fact, I heard you say on another podcast that the people in your running club started to call you Mr. 243, which

35:16 I know that's so annoying. I mean, they they weren't wrong, but like Well, I love this story. So, you get approached by a major brand who is doing an experiment on can they take people who are amateurs, not professionals, and change their performance trajectory. And man, I would love for you to talk about this because I found this so interesting. I know it's crazy in retrospect. It's this whole trajectory of my running life changes. I get this email from a comb executive at Nike guy named Matt Nell and he's like, "Hey, at that point I'm the editor-in chief of Wired, right? So I'm not exactly like they take my name out of a hat, right?

35:55 you know, I cover Nike and but they know that I run and I had written a story about their new shoes in the New York City Marathon and he sends an email. I say, "Hey, we're starting this program. We pair elite coaches with non- elite runners. You want to be part of it?" And I like legit almost didn't write him back. And I didn't write him back for a few days because I was like, "Oh man, running is getting old. Do I need to do this? It's a selfish sport. I spend enough time on it. I really want to have to deal with a bunch of like elite coaches trying to like coax a little more speed out of this like broken down.

36:29 I was whatever 43 years old and I like didn't write him back for I'm very fast on email but I didn't write him back and then he wrote on the Monday or Tuesday and then that weekend it was my 25th high school reunion and I go out and it was like super intense because a lot of my friends on that team died. I had one of them in his early 20s like died while like on a stage perform like fell off the stage and died. I had two of them who like died from cancer. Like one of them was struck by they just had the worst

36:59 of all the different cohorts in my life. This is the cross country team of Andover when I was there has just had the most misery. My closest teammate, the guy who like beat me at New England, right? the guy I trained with goes to college as a top runner Williams and then has given a cancer diagnosis and given like a 5% chance of survival and he makes it and becomes a doctor treating people but just the tragedy that befalls this group and so I'm like thinking about that and I'm going for this run where I go and run this route up whole hill that we all I used to do a friend of mine had just died this guy Tim really close to and it been a year since my father died and there's something about the intensity of the emotion and I remember on that run I was like you know what I'm going to try this I'm going to try it I'm going try to be more intense. I'm going to try to be a little bit like I was as a high

37:43 schooler. And then I was thinking about my dad. I was like, "What would my dad say if I had been offered this chance to get much better?" So I write back finally, maybe it's on that Monday, I write back to Matt. I'm like, "Okay, let's talk." Right? And so then that begins this process. The next step, he organizes a conference call where I get on the phone with the three coaches. One of whom's, you know, Joe Holder who's a expert at motion mobility. Another is Brett Kirby who's this like mad scientist spiritual leader. He like designs a lot of the programs for Elliot Kcho. And then there's Steve Finley who's like a coach who go run the Brooklyn track club. He becomes epic coach. And I talked to the three of them and they're like, "Okay, tell us about your running." I'm like, "Well, I'm this old guy. I have this intense job. Nickname Mr. 243. I'd love to run. Love to I told my goal my goal is to run better than

38:32 two hours plus my age in minutes." So that meant run faster than 243. And they would later tell me, they listen and they're like, "What's wrong with this dude? You can go so much faster." And so they have this conversation in the background and they're like, "Look, given what this guy has done, given his training, given his natural ability, like we can get him faster." And so they put me on a program, they start training me, and then everything shifts. So Coach Finlay tricked you past a mental cap. For listeners, what's the practical playbook for bursting a ceiling that looks like data but is actually belief.

39:08 That's like the best anybody's ever said it is. Looks like data but is actually belief. That's so good, John. That's so good. I love it.

39:16 I told you I'm a writer. That's beautiful. No AI could rate that. So, he basically decides that he needs to convince me that I can fit myself into a younger man's body and that I can be as strong and fast as I was when I was 18 years old. And so, he starts having me run faster. Like, he has me go to the track and run 400 meter repeats, which I haven't done since college. He has me go out there and run like fast miles. And he's starting to just reset the calibration in my mind about what is fast and what is slow. And he wants me to run 238. basically wants me to run six minute miles. 6 minute miles 23712. He wants me to run that more or less. And so we start to he doesn't tell me this is what he's doing.

39:57 He only tells me later. He's trying to convince me that I can do these things that I couldn't do, but he's not telling me directly. He's not saying, "Nick, you can run at 237. Let's go, bro." No, he's just like setting these schedules that slowly are shifting my perception about what I can do. And he's setting them at exactly the right way so that I'm hitting them and succeeding. and I'm like feeling like I'm accomplishing them. And you lays out a Google doc with a schedule. Joe tells me what to eat, tells me the cross training to do. Brett observes from a distance, but then weighs in on these sort of deep physiological questions about, of course, because I'm a reporter and a journalist. I'm always like, "Explain what happens to your mitochondria as you get older." And Brett's there to talk through everything. And I started seeing them getting faster, right? I started like running these faster mile repeats.

40:48 start hitting these workouts I haven't hit before. I do really well in a race. I'm like, "Huh?" I run the Aspen Marathon, part of a workout. I'm like, "Wow, I did that pretty quickly." It's up and down mountains. Not in a fast time, but impressive finish. And then I go out and I run the Chicago Marathon and I run it in 238. And then I come back and I'm like, "You know what? I feel good. I'm going to run the New York Marathon four weeks later. And I run that in 238, too." And I'm like, "Huh, something's shifting." And then I'm like, "You know what, guys?" Then the Nike experiment ends. like Nike experiment supposed to run to end of the Chicago Marathon. I think those guys like Brett, Joe and Steve were probably paid to like train another cohort through the Chicago Marathon. And then I'm like, "Steve, can we keep going?"

41:28 And he's like, "Yeah." And so then he trains me trains me for more. Well, one thing that I really wanted to ask you about is so you hit 229.

41:42 Yeah. But after you do it, you wanted to get right back at it. Yeah. And this is how I really got injured in running. My coach at the Naval Academy, Coach Al, like never gave us a break and ended up just pounding us in into the ground. And on top of everything else at the Naval Academy that you have to deal with, my body just started collapsing on me and it was terrible. So there's definitely this rest that you need to take that often times you don't want to. What convinced you to stop and what did you learn from taking a pause? So I run those 22 238s and then I come back in the next spring I run 234 and then the next fall I run 229. And that's the fall of 2019. And so I run this 229 and I've had this like magical sequence, right, where I've gone I've taken like 15 minutes off my time in a year and I finished the race, right? And I'm like, "Oh, Rafie, 229." And so, I don't think I've ever admitted this before, John.

42:40 So, I'm giving you some breaking news here. I didn't even admit this to my wife or my kids. It's so embarrassing. I finished that race and I'm like, I think I can qualify for the Olympic trials, right? Which is like 219 year, right? And or 218, right? And for those of you who aren't runners, like it may seem like 229 isn't that far from 218. Like, it's phenomenally different, right? Like even at that moment I could run like two miles or three miles at the pace. Like people don't quite understand like I'm a very good runner. I could not keep up with the marathon leaders for like more than 400 meters. Like they go so much faster. And so I finished the race and I'm like Steve and I think I wanted to run it because the I can't remember the qualifying window but I was like maybe I'll run the CIN marathon in eight weeks. And I was like Steve maybe we can make a program to try to run like 219 in

43:27 eight weeks. And he was like Nick. He didn't say you can't do it. And if I had said, "We have to do it." He probably would have done it. But he's, "Look, I've been watching you and I'm looking at you and I got to tell you that the night before the marathon, every other race we've run, I've known you're going to get it. I can't tell you I've known you were going to get it. I've known you're going to get it." But I looked at you and I was worried before this one. You look skinny. You looked worn out. Looked like we'd gone to the max. And he's like, "You don't need to go to try to run a 219 now. You need to sleep." Um, and so it's interesting, right? Because what he had done in both cases, at the beginning, he had reset my expectations to make me go faster because that was rational. And at the end, he reset my expectations. No, you can actually do that. You're not going to run too fast.

44:11 You're not thinking. All you're going to do is wreck your Achilles or whatever. And so, he gets me to dial it back and slow it down. And then a couple months later, we start going and then I get in the best shape of my life. So, this is then the winter of 2020. And I was assuming I was going to go fast in 229, but then we have CO, so everything gets reset.

44:33 Well, one of the phrases that I caught in the book is pain is information, not truth.

44:38 Yeah. And I think you got this from running ultra distance races. How did you teach yourself mid race or midlife to tell yourself how to figure out protective signals from genuine red flags? Every runner struggles with this, but it's so interesting as this is partly from talking with Kirby. It's partly through reading a lot of the literature, but as you get deeper into the sport, you realize this phenomenal thing, right? It's a theory. It initially began with this guy Tim Mil called the central governor theory. But the theory, which I believe absolutely is that most of the pain you feel in running is not strictly physiological. It is psychological. And what's happening is that your brain has expectations about what your body can do. and it believes that in the given the current temperature conditions and your current level of fitness and your heart rate and your body heat and everything else it's measuring if it

45:29 worries that you're going to head out of homeostasis and go to an unsafe spot, it sends a pain signal, right? And that is useful because your brain is trying to protect you, right? It's an evolutionary signal. If you are, it knows you're going to go run 100 miles across the savannah and it has a sense of how hard it is to run 100 miles across the savannah. And if it's too hot, it's going to send a pain signal. and where that pain signal appears. It's not quite random, but it's not related to where the most exertion. Right? You might feel it in your elbow, right? Right. Your elbow does nothing when you run. You might feel it in your digestive system.

46:00 You might feel you might feel it in your calf. Right? So, you get all this pain that is information, but it's not real. On the other hand, you might actually have torn your Achilles, right? And so your Achilles might hurt not because your brain is sending a signal that you're about to lose homeostasis. You might have literally torn it, right? You might have broken your femur. And learning when you run like what is real and what is not. I just went through this on Saturday where I went out and I was like my hamstring was hurting. I injured my hamstring playing soccer with my kids like wow and it's hurting when I was running started.

46:38 I was all right. It's going to clear up. I'm good. And then like eight or nine miles in, I'm like, "This is just body worried. I'm good." And then 10 miles in, I'm like, "Oh my god, I can't move. I have to walk home." So probably would have been useful for me to have recognizes at mile six there. And so they're just all pretty good at it, but I'm not perfect. And recognizing like what is real pain and what is not what prevents you from getting injured. It's what allows you to go faster. It's a very complicated process and it's like a huge part of becoming a successful runner.

47:09 Yeah, man. I remember especially in critical races I my mind would always have that crossfire debate.

47:16 Yeah. When I'm trying to push myself to some place that I've never gone before and sometimes I lost the debate and sometimes I won the bait.

47:26 Yeah. Yeah. Every runner knows this debate. Like part of your brain is like stop. Part of your brain is like no I'm still going. And you have it and you keep going. So what because I think this is applicable to life too because we do the same debate in any goal we're trying to chase. What have you learned to get yourself through that debate and come out on the other side of it positive? Yeah. Sometimes you just can't do it right. So we'll say that. But maybe I'll tell you the story about a race I just ran. So the last I guess maybe two races ago was the Lake Waramog 50 mileer. And I was trying to set the American record in the 50 mile run for men over 45 which means running 635 pace 50 miles and I did it and I was right on pace. a little head of pace sort of like well 35 and I felt great right and I'm hydrating well I'm eating well it's a good day and then 35 start to feel it right and the first thing you

48:22 do is you try to push it aside it's okay right like steady like you're doing it right you just concentrate it's like a form of meditation you're trying to like you know what I'm just going to stay in my mind I'm going to concentrate I'm going to relax I'm going to push this pain aside I'm going to think about different things right all I'm going to do is I'm not going to worry that I have 15 miles to run I'm going to reset my expectations because my brain is sending these signals because it's worried I can't run 15 more miles. I was going to try to convince myself that this is just a race about getting to the next mile or the next aid station or that telephone pole, right? And so you've reset what you think you're trying to do, right? Or you reset it. There was another person there's a guy I have lapped but he like good. He was like highlighting people. I was like, "Dude, can you do me a favor?

49:02 I'm trying to set the American record. You look like you're fine even though I just lapped you. Will you run with me at 6:30 pace?" And he's like, "Yeah, dude. Let's do it." Right? And so I like run behind this guy at 6:30 pace, right? And so I'm like holding on to him and then he gasses out at about mile 42 and I'm going back to like high-fiving the stuff he's does. And so I'm still on pace at mile 42, right? And I've held on and so then I'm like, "Oh boy." Right? And so then I'm like, "Okay, now I'm going to focus on my mantras." Right? So I have these like things I think about when I'm running to try to push the pain aside. And the main one I do is I like think about one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. And so I'm like putting the emphasis, it's like a the drummer putting the emphasis on my right foot, then my left foot, then my right foot, then my left foot, right? And I'm

49:47 like trying to keep myself balanced and like straight and steady, but also just trying to calm the mind and shut everything out. And so I'm like doing that. I'm like trying to think about other moments where I've succeeded. I'm trying to think about other things I've done that are hard. And I'm doing what I can. But to no avail, I I like started to slow. I was in agony. I pushed so hard. And I actually crossed 50.0 miles. I had was a second American record for one age group and not both age groups. But the the loop course you can't run perfect tangent. So I ended up finishing and missing both records. I tried I wasn't I was not able to overcome whatever signal were going on in my body. But man, did I try.

50:31 Man, I love that story. So, I understand another race. You finally win the race you vowed to win as a kid, and then later you pace your son through his own breakthrough. What did those two finish lines teach you about things like pride, pressure, and letting your own kids tell their own story?

50:50 Oh, I love that so much. So, yeah, there's this race I spend when I was a kid, I spent all this time in this place called Northeast Harbor up near Kadia National Park in Maine. Yeah,

50:58 I was just there. Oh, really? Yes. Right. Right. It's like the best place in the world to run. Like these carriage trails, it's gorgeous. Yeah. Honestly, like if I were to if I didn't have a job and my if I were just a runner, I would move there. So, there's always a race. Sadly, it's been cancelled. If anybody listening was to restart it, that would be God's work. But when I was a kid, there was always this five mile race that would end in town. And I remember watching it as a kid. My dad ran it one year, and I remember just vowing I would win it and like making this pledge while I walk around my backyard as a child. And then I tried to and I couldn't and I like ran it when I was like undergraduate. I was really strong and good. I came third or fifth. I ran it like bunch of times and I never won. Then in the summer of 2019, summer where I'd end up running, I would run 229, I pledged that I would

51:47 win and I did, right? And I win and my kids are there at the finish line cheering and everybody's exciting and you know who who cares? It's like a local road race, but you have to be fast to win. Like they're good people who run that race. And so two years later, it's canceled the next year. 2021, I come back. And my son, my middle son, who's then 11, is like, "You know what, Dad? I'm gonna run it." Awesome. And we train together. And I try not to put pressure on him, right? They may dispute this, but I do my very best to my my goal as a parent is to be available for them anytime they want to do something. And if they want to push themselves, they want to get good at something, I will help them, right? they want to get good at chess, I will play chess with them every night, but I'm not going to tell them to play chess, right?

52:31 If they want to get good at soccer, I will train with them every night, but I'm not going to tell them to go practice, right? And so, he wants to get better at running. And so, I go out and I take him to the track and he gets better. And then we go out and we he runs the race. So, I run I finish I think coming third that year. And then I circle back and there he is like mile to go. He's trucking doing a running nine-minute mile pace as an 11year-old. And I get with him and I like tell him listen to his breathing and I run about a little bit with him and I like tell him to actually I think I have to tie his shoes at one point. shoe gets untied, but I try to help him focus and like he speeds up, accelerates, and then he like guns it to the line and his cousins are there cheering and it was an amazing experience for him and a great experience for me to see him do something to sport and love it and like

53:18 he and I now he's now 15. On my 50th birthday, we went out and ran I wanted to run a sub fiveminute mile for my 50th birthday. So, he went out and pitched me for the first,200 meters of it. We go to the track and we'll do eight by 400 where I'll lead one, he'll lead one, I'll lead one, he'll lead one. It's awesome. Yeah. So cool.

53:34 Well, I just have to ask you one and one last thing and you can answer quickly, but given his story tomorrow morning, a listener who's heard this wants to start maybe not running, but their own version of it, what's the smallest, most durable step you recommend? And what would you say they should stop doing that's been capping their own ceiling?

53:57 They just should go out the moment they want to go out. That's the beautiful thing about running is you get to decide and you get to control. If you want to play tennis, you need someone else. You need a racket. You need a ball. You want to run and you also need to reserve a cork. You want to run, you can just go. You turn the knot, right? And so whatever is limiting them, whether they don't want to run because it's hot, they don't want to run because they don't have the right shoes, or they don't want to run because their knee hurts or whatever, they're worried about something, like just go out, run around the block, run five minutes, run 10 minutes or walk five minutes, walk 10 minutes. Try to identify the thing that's holding you back and making you not want to do it. And one of the reasons I think this one of the reasons I wrote the book is because there's this realization that like you

54:41 really can just do you really can just run just you like it's all on you. There's nothing else. There's no one out there is stopping you from running that you don't need to rely on anybody else. Like you can run anywhere, right? If you like I've done long runs. I've run 10 miles around a parking lot, right? You can go and run wherever you are. I run I have run when it's 110. I have run when it's negative 10, right? You can go out there and you just make something Michael Westall said. I was like, how many days that I was like, how many days did you not run because of the weather, right?

55:16 He's on the island right in the middle of Maine. It's like, how many days did you like not run because it was icy or the snow piled up front door, you couldn't get out and or stormy or tree come down? He's like never. It's just a choice. And so that's one of the beautiful things about running. So just take advantage of that. It's one of the things that it makes this sport so special. So whether it's running, whether it's walking, it's going out on your bike, whatever it is. Just go try to do something that's like a little further, a little faster, a little more intense that you've done before.

55:46 Awesome. Well, Nick, such an honor to have you today. What's the best place that people can go to learn more about you and your work?

55:53 So, I'm on Nick Thompson.com. I'm CEO of The Atlantic, the Atlantic.com. I'm all over social media, usually at annex Thompson. You can see all my runs on Straa. I post a video every day about AI and tech on LinkedIn. So, I'm all over the internet.

56:08 Thank you so much for joining us and congrats on the book. Thank you so much, John. I'm so glad that you liked it. I'm so glad you read it. It was a real pleasure to talk with you and it's a real pleasure to meet your audience.

Questions about this episode

What is "What Does Running TEACH Us About Identity? | Nick Thompson Explains" about?

Nick Thompson discusses how running informs our understanding of identity, highlighting the concept of cognitive offloading, which suggests that over-reliance on technology can hinder our skills, particularly in thinking and writing. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining personal abilities in a world increasingly dominated by automated tools.

What is mentioned in this John R. Miles episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Offloading, New York Marathon, Chicago Marathon, Andover, Pine Manor College. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "What Does Running TEACH Us About Identity? | Nick Thompson Explains"?

The episode runs 57 min; the transcript is about 11,674 words in 103 timestamped sections.

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