Lessons from Cultures in Running: An Exploration with Michael Crawley

Today on The Business of Endurance, we’re joined by the incredible Michael Crawley – a world-class runner, anthropologist, and author of Out of Thin Air and To the Limit. Michael has spent years running alongside Ethiopia’s elite athletes and exploring the farthest edges of human endurance. In this episode, he takes us deep into the mindset, community, and unseen struggles that define world-class endurance running. We’ll discuss the powerful role of ‘tribe’ in building endurance, the pros and cons of relying on technology, and whether books like Born to Run are inspirational or misleading myths. Michael also dives into what it takes to develop an endurance mindset and why so many people are drawn to pushing their limits today. If you’re looking to sharpen your mental game, understand the science behind the sport, or balance performance with sustainability, this conversation is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

Highlights:

• Michael's Running Journey
• Ethiopian Running Culture
• Training as a Community
• Technology in Running
• Born to Run and Cultural Perspectives
• Mental Endurance and Motivation
• Endurance Sports and Environmental Impact
• Social Media and Athlete Branding

Links:
Click here for additional helpful content mentioned in this episode.
Connect with Michael Crawley on Instagram & Web.

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Episode Transcript

Michael Crawley (00:04):
I would prefer to get back to a time where
we're doing a really good job oftelling the stories of the
athletes and not emphasizing thetechnology.

Charlie Reading (00:16):
Today on the Business of Endurance podcast,
we're joined by the incredibleMichael Crawley, a world-class
runner, anthropologist andauthor of the brilliant Out of
Thin Air and also his new bookTo the Limit.
So Michael has spent yearsrunning alongside Ethiopia's
elite athletes and exploring thefarthest edges of human

(00:37):
performance.
In this episode, he takes usdeep into the mindset, community
and unseen struggles thatdefine world-class endurance
running.
We'll discuss the powerful roleof the tribe in building
endurance, the pros and cons ofrelying on technology, and
whether books like Born to Runare inspirational or misleading

(00:58):
myths.
I know for a fact it had amassive impact on the way I
looked at running when I firstread it, but also now chatting
to Michael and reading To theLimit has made me look at it in
a very different light.
So you're going to love thatpart of the conversation, I'm
sure.
So Michael also dives into whatit takes to develop an
endurance mindset and why somany people are drawn to pushing

(01:20):
their limits today.
If you're looking to sharpenyour mental game, understand the
science behind the sport orbalance performance with
sustainability, thisconversation is packed with
insights you won't want to miss.
So I know you're going to lovethis conversation with Michael
Crawley.

(01:51):
So, michael, welcome to theBusiness of Endurance podcast,
really looking forward to thisconversation.
Loved your first book out ofthin air and literally I've just
been cramming your latest bookTo the Limit, which only came
out at the end of last week.
So I've guzzled through that inthree days and it was an
absolute pleasure.
Brilliant read.
But I like to start thesethings off with where you, in
particular, started.
So where did your runningjourney start?

(02:11):
I think there might be one ofour previous guests to the
podcast, a rather amazingCharlie Spedding, that features
within that.
So just tell us about yourrunning journey and where it
began.

Michael Crawley (02:20):
Yeah, sure, I grew up in Durham in the
northeast of England and gotinto running, basically running
cross-country races at schooland things like that.
But then when I decided to takeit more seriously.
It was because I met a guycalled manx colby who was a 214
marathon runner in the 1980s andhe was a 214 marathon runner
against harry's at a time whenthat put you as the 12th name on

(02:41):
the 12th stage relay teamamongst a whole load of guys
who'd come to the olympics andrun the commonwealth games and
things like that.
And so he kind of opened myeyes to this kind of culture of
running in the 80s where it wasnormal for people to run 100
miles a week.
He would tell me stories aboutgoing running with people like
charlie spedding and brendanfoster and I fell in love with
the idea of a culture of runningin the northeast, which was
actually sort of 20 years beforemy time.

(03:03):
But that idea of running is thiskind of group activity and I
kind of.
He lent me running books and itgot me into this idea of
wanting to be a distance runner,always from a slightly
different era.
He would lend me his trainingdiaries from the early 1980s and
I would try to replicate themin my own training.
So that's when I really fell inlove with running and also when
I got good at running, becauseI started to do all those kinds

(03:24):
of things like running, highmileage and things like that.

Charlie Reading (03:26):
So I guess that's where my running journey
started and that segues reallybeautifully into so I'm very
conscious I don't want to be thepodcast interviewer you refer
to in to the limit where I tryand ask you to summarize out of
thin air in three bullet points.
So so no pressure here then,but the thing that I most took
from out of thin air was thepower of the group, the power of

(03:49):
the tribe that you'redescribing, the Ethiopian
runners.
So tell us a bit about why didyou go to Ethiopia and what did
you learn in relation to runningas a group, and particularly,
maybe, how did that reflect onstarting in the northeast?

Michael Crawley (04:04):
I was actually interested in the connections
originally between running andinternational development or
running and the economy inethiopia and kenya.
So what were the connectionsbetween distance running and
broader economic development ineast africa?
Broadly, the reason I decidedto go to ethiopia was because I
felt like when people refer toeast africa they're actually
referring mainly to kenya,because most people who go and

(04:26):
do research on East Africanrunning go to Kenya, mainly
because it's a bit moreaccessible.
People speak English in Kenyaand really people didn't know
very much about Ethiopia at allbecause the running culture I
guess runners in Ethiopia arenot focused in particular places
like Eten and Eldoret, so it'sa little bit less accessible
potentially and you have tolearn a parik to really get a

(04:47):
handle on what's going on.
So I thought, if I've got ayear, over a year, to go and do
some research somewhere,ethiopia made more sense and I
originally, as I said, I startedto focus on what people thought
about trying to change theirlives, as they put it, through
running.
So what they thought abouttrying to make a living through
the sport, support theirfamilies and things.
But what became apparent wasthat the main thing that a lot

(05:07):
of athletes were concerned aboutwas energy and maintain their
own energy levels as athletesand, in particular, thinking
about their own energy that wasin relation to other people.
So one of the things I writeabout is this idea that people
didn't see energy as this kindof thing that is contained
within an individual's body, as,like a sport scientist might
think of the body as a system ofinputs and outputs, but rather

(05:28):
they think that energy can flowbetween people and be harnessed
within a group situation.
That's one of the main thingsthat I focus on in our thing,
and this idea that peoplethought of success as an athlete
as being something that iscollectively produced through a
group and something that youcan't get by just training on
your own.
Basically, and I think thatthere are connections between
what is happening in Ethiopiaand potentially Kenya at the

(05:49):
moment and the way that peoplethought about running in
Gateshead in the 80s, when itwas all about getting together
in a big group of people, lessabout specific training for
individuals and more abouteverybody being together,
basically, and working off eachother's energy.

Claire Fudge (06:02):
With my background in nutrition.
Like we, you're absolutelyright.
We talk about energy in such adifferent way than you've just
described.
There, with the Ethiopianrunners and I listened to a
couple of podcasts actually,where you shared a bit more
about this idea of energy andtaking turns if they're at the
front of the group or if theymiss a training event, even down
to sort of you know.
I found it really interestingabout the bananas and the bread

(06:24):
kind of idea.
So can you share a little bitmore about this concept of
training as a community and howthey share that energy and, if
somebody misses a trainingsession, what that actually
means to them as a group?

Michael Crawley (06:36):
yeah, of course .
So yeah, as you said, basicallypeople believed people would
run in a single file lineeffectively and the person at
the front of the line wasunderstood to be expending quite
a lot more energy thaneverybody else.
So a bit like cyclists in avelodrome, that kind of more
aerodynamic understanding.
So they would evenly divide upthe pace making responsibilities
on a particular run and makesure that the energy was

(06:57):
distributed fairly amongst theathletes in that situation.
So they would also synchronizetheir steps as they were running
as well, and that would beunderstood as reducing the
amount of energy that was beingexpended.
And because their belief wasthat you had to improve as a
group, it was seen as veryimmoral to train on your own,
because if you were going out atnight particularly this is the
example people gave was peoplegoing and training in secret at

(07:19):
night to try to get better.
But what that would do would beit would be detrimental to the
rest of the team because theywould then come to training on
the Monday morning tired and notbe able to help other people by
leading the run in the same way.
So when people did things likethat, there was this kind of
energetic rebalancing, I guess.
And also if you missed atraining session, that was bad
because it meant that youweren't helping other people.
So the punishment would oftenbe bringing enough bananas to

(07:42):
feed 30 athletes to the nexttraining session as a way of
rebalancing that kind ofmisdemeanor, basically.
But really it all comes down tothis idea that energy within
the whole system of Ethiopianrunning is limited, so if some
people gain an advantage overother people, it means somebody
else has to drop down.
Basically that's what I'mtrying to explain in the thesis
and I'm exposing the book aswell.

Charlie Reading (08:01):
It's a really interesting topic and this whole
group energy and this groupresponsibility and being selfish
and using the energy all toyourself.
It's an interesting thought.
I'm very conscious that I swimwith others, I bike with others,
and my swimming and my cyclinghave improved exponentially.
Because of the logistics, I endup running on my own almost all

(08:23):
the time.
My running hasn't improvedanything like as much as my
swimming and my cycling.
Probably no surprise, but forthose people that are sitting
there going well, that's great,but I have to run at 6am and
nobody else wants to join me at6am.
What are the realities of?
How important is it that I tryand find a group that I can run
with and what would be theimpact of me doing that?

Michael Crawley (08:44):
I think it would definitely improve
performance to train with otherpeople, and I totally get your
point, because I'm a father oftwo young children and I very
rarely get to run with otherpeople at the moment either, so
it's very difficult logistically, but if you are able to do it,
I think it's good forperformance.
But it's also really good forjust maintaining your interest
in the sport, and that's theother thing that European
athletes would say was thatrunning is boring.
This is something that eliteathletes and people who are

(09:06):
doing it professionally willoften admit to.
They'll say running can getreally boring if you don't mix
things up and try to approach itin a more creative way.
So one of the ways of doingthat is to make sure that you're
running with other people andmaking the running as
interesting as possible.
So they would do things like gorunning in the forests above
where we live and differentpeople would lead the run at
different points.
But the whole point of it wouldbe to find new routes through

(09:28):
the forest that they hadn'tfollowed before, or to go and
find where the hyenas were onthat particular day or something
like that, and it would beabout being innovative and not
just doing the same thing everyday, basically, and that was
seen as a kind of collective orlike a social process as well.
So I suppose there'sperformance element to it, but
also an enjoyment element whichis also related to performance,

(09:49):
because if you can try to, ifyou can enjoy something, then I
think that's also good fromperformance standpoint as well.
It makes you want to do it moreand yeah, makes you more
engaged.

Charlie Reading (09:56):
By that enjoyment, I think, are you
referring to where they all runrandom routes through different
trails and all ducking anddiving.
And, yeah, describe for thosepeople that haven't listened to
or read your book what that waslike for you when you were
trying to suddenly be a part ofthat yeah.

Michael Crawley (10:12):
So it was a bit of a learning curve really.
So initially I would go to theforest on my own sometimes and
just run a bit.
There are quite so clearlydefined trails, big, fairly wide
paths where barn equipmentwould go down and things, and my
natural inclination would be tojust follow those which are
beautiful anyway between thetrees.
And what would happen is thatgroups of runners would come and
just physically grab me,basically, and tell me that I

(10:34):
had to run with them becausethey're sort of the thing about
not training on your own, andthey would lead me on routes
that I initially thought werejust not very sensible places to
run, because it seemed likethere was a very high chance of
getting injured, because theywould go on very steep cambers,
be jumping up and down over treeroots, sometimes going up
slopes that were so steep youhad to pull yourself up slope

(10:54):
using tree branches and things,and so I would end some of those
runs, especially when I wasreally tired, quite frustrated,
and be saying can't we go andfind somewhere easier to run
next time?
And the answer to that questionwas basically no, and you don't
really understand what we'retrying to do when we do that
kind of running.
I think there's an element ofkind of one of the reasons that
they run on such uneven surfacesis to actually avoid injury,

(11:15):
because they say that it'sactually the monotony of running
on surfaces like roads thatlead to injury.
But it's also about using theforest to run in a kind of more
creative and interesting way andto contrast that kind of
running with the some more kindof structured training sessions
that they would do threemornings a week where they were
under a lot of pressure to hitparticular split times or to run
in a very particular way.

(11:36):
The forest was seen as the kindof antithesis of that.
So it's about making theseparation between easy running
and hard running, but alsobetween the kind of really
serious kinds of training thatyou have to do as an elite
athlete and the more fun kindsof running that you can do to
also sustain your own kind ofsense of inspiration and wanting
to keep doing it.

Claire Fudge (11:55):
I suppose it makes complete sense, doesn't it?
Because high performingathletes, there is that monotony
of training because you have togo through the same things over
and over again to get.
You need to get good, but itsounds proper interval training,
from plyometrics to you know,strength work, putting yourself
up as well.
You mentioned there about likealmost frustration at the
beginning of what is this about?

(12:16):
Let's just go and do somethingon the flat where we can,
potentially I don't know is thatabout?
So I can measure myself againstwhat I would usually do.
So it brings me on to thetechnology side of things, and
we talk about tech quite a bitand I think it's always a
fascinating subject to explore.
So could you tell us a littlebit about technology and what
you sort of found out about therunners in Ethiopia and the

(12:38):
technology that they do or don'tuse, and what your experience
of that is?

Michael Crawley (12:42):
Yeah, sure, so the main time I was in Ethiopia
for long-term field work was2015, 2016.
And that was when GPS watcheswere only just becoming
available in Amsaba, where I wasliving, and what I found was
that people were sort ofintrigued by that kind of
technology, but they would alsouse it in a very selective way.
So I think in the UK mostrunners have adopted this
mentality that you have to logevery run.

(13:04):
I think in the UK most runnershave adopted this mentality that
you have to log every run.
You have to have this kind ofvery consistent data about your
training.
If you don't upload somethingto Strava.
It didn't happen sort of thingIn Ethiopia.
It was very much.
The idea was that the watcheswere appropriate for certain
kinds of training where youreally needed to know what you
were doing, and therefore theybecame quite sought after for
particular kinds of run, bytempo runs on roads, for example
.
But what would happen is thatbecause there weren't very many

(13:25):
gps watches around at that time,people would share them.
So someone would borrow thewatch to go and do a tempo run
on the road and then they wouldgive it back to whoever owned it
.
But it was seen asinappropriate in the forest for
those kinds of runs.
So I give an example in a paperI wrote a couple of years ago
of the coach giving a gps watchto the group and saying you have
to run.
I can't remember what it wasexactly, but it was an hour and

(13:45):
20 minutes and they weresupposed to run 19 kilometers in
that time or something likethat through the forest on very
uneven surfaces, and the guy whowas given the watch was running
way too slowly and justmeandering around and somebody
else shouted we need to runfaster, otherwise we're not
going to have all the kilometersthat we're supposed to have by
the end of the run.
And he said this is as far astraining.
We're not, but that's not whatthis is about and he basically
just turned the watch off andwhen he got back to the coach he

(14:07):
said the watch is broken.
So there's this idea that theywant to be.
There's a lot of time pressure.
If you're an aspiring Ethiopianmarathon runner, you've got to

(14:28):
be able to run two pressure allthe time, basically.
So there was an embrace of somekinds of technology and a
rejection of others, and in themore recent book I've written
also about what happened whencarbon fiber shoes were
introduced in Ethiopia, and Ithink there's a slightly
different idea about whatsporting fairness is in Ethiopia
, where people are veryconcerned about making sure
people have access to the samekinds of things, so that people

(14:48):
have access to the same kinds offootwear and the same kinds of
coaching, and ideally peoplewould have access to different
training environments and thingsto level the playing field as
much as possible.
And so when those kinds of shoesstarted to arrive in Ethiopia,
the Athletics Federationactually sent them to the
anti-doping office to be cut upand looked at.
They wanted the shoes to bebanned, basically, but they
didn't have any authority overthat process.

(15:10):
But when new technologies havearrived, they've tended to be
looked at quite sceptically andwhen they are embraced, they're
embraced in quite a selectiveway.

Charlie Reading (15:19):
Into the limit.
You make a really interestingpoint which I'd never thought
about before, in that whenyou're referring to super
sapiens the glucose monitor,that that doesn't actually exist
now I don't think, butobviously we have glucose
monitors with zoe and the like,but you said you gave an example
of I can't remember there's akenyan or ethiopian athlete that
actually that's the same sortof testing that they were using

(15:39):
for anti-doping testing, and Ithink it was an iron deficiency,
wasn't it.
Do you want to tell us thestory around how?
Because I just found itfascinating how, yeah, for one
side you've got a technologyactually being used against them
, but then for others it's beenfor particularly age group
athletes.
They're using it as anadvantage to gain.
So explain what happened thereyeah, sure, so it's less.

Michael Crawley (16:01):
it's about that example's less super sapiens
and more of the kinds of homeblood testing kits.
Oh yes, full fed wasn't it.
Yeah, exactly.
So those things.
What I thought was interestingabout that was that the kinds of
blood tests that elite athleteshave to do if they're part of
the sort of whereabouts program,are more or less exactly the
same as the ones that aremarketed explicitly as

(16:21):
performance enhancing to amateurathletes marketed explicitly as
performance enhancing toamateur athletes, in the sense
that they're marketed as thingsthat give you unique insights
into what's happening insideyour body that you can use to
get better as a runner.
The example I give is the formeradobe half marathon record
holder who drops out bostonmarathon with basically
clinically low iron levels, andthe point I was trying to make
was that he'd been giving bloodsamples to all athletics every

(16:45):
sort of week and a half themonths up to that race and he
hadn't been given thatinformation.
So one of those kind of testingregimes is the kind of
surveillance regime, which isabout banning people from sport,
and the other one is aboutgiving people insights into
what's happening, and they'revery different systems and
basically in Ethiopia peopledon't have access to that kind
of information.
So I was just trying to thinkabout the fairness of the access

(17:05):
to those kinds of technologies,basically worldwide.

Charlie Reading (17:08):
And with all of this in mind, how do you
approach technology in yourrunning?

Michael Crawley (17:17):
I would use the watch for important training
sessions and not wear it atother times, and then now that
I'm not running as seriously,I'm running mainly just track
myself getting slower.
But I do have an ambivalentrelationship with the new shoe
technology because I think, Idon't know I feel like it has
prevented us from makinghistorical comparisons really
between what's happening now andwhat happened in the past in
terms of times, but also becauseit's skewed competition quite a

(17:37):
lot in places like Ethiopia.
I think a lot of the researchsuggests that it's not that that
kind of technology makeseveryone a certain amount of
percent faster, but rather it'sthe specific interaction between
the shoe and the biomechanicsof an individual that make them
better, and so some individuals,in spite of potentially not
being as fast, might be madefaster by the shoes.
It should be about the athleterather than the shoe from my

(18:00):
perspective.
But also the experience ofactually running in the shoes is
really nice, and so I can seewhy it appeals to people,
because you feel faster and youfeel bouncier and you recover
quicker and you can do more daysof fast training.
So I guess I've got a kind ofcritical lens on it on the one
hand, but I also see why peopledo want to wear those shoes.

Charlie Reading (18:17):
We've had a few discussions lately on the
podcast about this.
We had Ben Rosario, who runsthe Hoka team in the us, and he
had a really interestingperspective in the sense that
when nike had got thistechnology, hoka had, and of
course they were restricted toonly use hoka shoes, so suddenly
athletes were beating hisathletes that weren't even close
to them a few weeks before.

(18:38):
So it's a really interestingconversation and that kind of I
suppose the opposite end of thatscale is the concept of
barefoot running, which, I haveto admit, I picked up Born to
Run as I was starting to run andI listened to it while I was
running and I went from a runnerwho described running a sport
with all the fun bits taken outof, to feeling like I was born

(18:58):
to run.
I was designed to roam thewilds of the UK and maybe even
in barefoot shoes, althoughthankfully somebody taught me
how to do that and actually, tobe fair, it was Vivo Barefoot
that taught me how to do it.
So fair play to them, but I loveBorn to Run, but Into the Limit
.
You talk quite a lot about thatand about what I'd known as the
tarot.
You can tell us the better nameto refer to them as.

(19:19):
So that book is famous in therunning world.
What do you think are the prosand the cons of that book,
because you talk about it quitea lot?

Michael Crawley (19:27):
I think you've covered the pros pretty well and
I kind of when I read it I hadthe same reaction.
I read it in a day and a half,loved it, found it incredibly
inspiring some of the storiesthat he tells about ultra
running generally they'reextremely inspiring and also
found this idea that we're bornto run pretty compelling at the
time as well.
But I do think the critiquethat I make is mainly that the
focus of born to run prettycompelling at the time as well.
But I do think the critiquethat I make is mainly that the
focus of Born to Run is mainlyactually on the American runners

(19:49):
, people like Scott Jurek andMika Tru, who the author comes
across in Mexico and there'sactually comparatively little
about the Rarámuri or theTarahumara and about what they
actually think about running andwhy they run, what motivates
them to run.
So I've tried to kind ofredress that balance a little
bit by having a bit more of afocus on people like Silvinho,
who also appears in Born to Run,and actually trying to look at

(20:12):
it a bit more as ananthropologist and say what is
it that running means to thisparticular culture of people?
I guess Chris McDougall wouldbest focus on that, but he has
no control over the way.
That exploded after the book waspublished.
But it didn't seem to me thatpeople were particularly
concerned about footwear inMexico, and actually Silvinho
was wearing just like standardtrail running shoes when we went
running together.
I suppose what I found was tothe Rarámuri.

(20:32):
Really, running is primarily aform of prayer.
Basically, people run becausethere's this belief that God
likes to see people running andhe likes to see people dancing
for long periods of time, andthat is something that
potentially leads God to rewardpeople dancing for long periods
of time, and that is somethingthat potentially leads God to
reward people with rain, peoplewho rely on farming for a living
, and so that's one of the mainmotivations for running, and I

(20:52):
don't think that really comesthrough born to run very clearly
.
So I've tried to emphasize thatbasically.

Claire Fudge (20:57):
I think it's fascinating your side of science
as well and it's just telling adifferent side to it and that
is fascinating around thedancing and I didn't know that
actually before in terms of andthat religious sort of aspect to
it as well.
So I think it's great to havelike this bigger picture about
the history behind the runningas well.
So really good to explore.
So in your book To the Limits,you explore within that book

(21:20):
about the physical limits ofendurance but also the
importance of mental enduranceas well.
I just wondered if you couldtell a few stories around that
and build on that for us.
How does an athlete sort ofbuild on their mindsets?
If you were thinking aboutsomebody who was maybe sort of
new to running, so more of aneveryday runner or an age group
runner, how would they be ableto build on their own mental

(21:42):
strengths to sort of pushthrough limits and boundaries?

Michael Crawley (21:45):
I think again, that's something that a lot of
the best athletes that I spoketo said that they learned from
other people Pick up on thosekinds of things through kind of
social interactions with people,and also I suppose what I've
tried to do in the book is tryto emphasise the kind of variety
of different ways that peopleexperience endurance around the
world or the kind of meaningsthat they bring to it.
So I've got a chapter onclimbing sherpas in the bull who
help people go up everest andthat's the way that they make a

(22:07):
living.
And one of the interestingthings about that was that I
interviewed somebody who didtheir phd on climbing shirt and
went to several times as part oftheir phd field work as an
anthropologist and what theyfound was that, whilst there's
been these kinds of assumptionsthat Sherpas don't feel pain or
that they are able to just like,what he found was that in
Sherpa culture there's this verystrong sense of basically not

(22:28):
talking about discomfort andjust focusing in the way that
you talk to other people and theway that you express yourself,
just focusing on the positiveaspects of what's happening.
I thought that was quiteinteresting that he describes it
as a cultural trait rather thansomething that a sports
psychologist would teach, butit's very similar to what we
might think of as positivethinking, but expressed in a
slightly different way.

Charlie Reading (22:47):
Is it also linked to?
I remember you talked a bitabout Damien Hall and the why
behind their running, and itstrikes me that seems very
similar to what you just saidabout the Rarumuri or the
Tarahumara, which we want tocall because it's a bigger
purpose, isn't it?
Is it really about why we run,that motivates us and delivers

(23:07):
that sort of endurance mindset?

Michael Crawley (23:09):
Yeah, that's kind of what interested me about
the evolutionary hypothesesaround running was actually I
explore how likely it is that weactually did evolve to run,
particularly throughconversations with an
evolutionary anthropologist inthe department here who suggests
that it's not actually thatlikely that we evolved in
environments that allowed us todo much persistence hunting.
So it may not be that weevolved to run, but it seems to

(23:30):
be really important to people tobelieve that we did, and it was
for me as well.
It's an interesting question tothink about why we need to keep
running that level of meaningrather than just accepting that
it makes us feel good.
A lot of people seem to feelvery strongly that it's
something that we're supposed todo, and I've often felt that
way myself.
The other thing that I'venoticed that a lot of people
connect to is ideas about tryingto raise awareness about
climate change and things likethat.
That's something that'simportant to Damien Hall and

(23:52):
people like Jasmine Paris.
If you can attach yourendurance practices to something
that is much bigger than youand much more significant, then
that seems to help people tohave this kind of why behind it.
So for Damien that's likecarrying extinction rebellion
flags to the end of races andthings.
But for different people it canbe different things.
So I also interview Lewis Pugh,who's the UN patron of the
oceans I think he's called andhe does the very cold water

(24:15):
swims in Antarctica and places,and for him a lot of the
motivation for doing thoseextremely difficult things is
raising awareness again aboutwhat's happening in the
environment.
So it seems like people connect, moving through the environment
in very difficult andchallenging ways, to broader
narratives about what'shappening to the environment as
well.

Charlie Reading (24:32):
So again, yeah, finding big picture motivations
, I guess, to tie things to Ithink that I was going to come
on to that actually the whole.
So Damien Hall refers to thefact that he does it for his
kids, even though they don'treally care whether he does it
or not.
I remember having the sameconversation with him when he
was on the podcast, but alsothen, yeah, as you say, it's
very much about extinctionrebellion.

(24:52):
I was going to ask you aboutthe impact of endurance sport on
the planet.
There's champions for good andthen there's people like me
that's flying to Hawaii tocompete in the Iron man World
Championships, which kind of isagainst very much what Damien
would suggest.
Where do you think the world ofendurance sport brings
awareness to the problem aroundglobal warming and where is it a

(25:13):
detriment?

Michael Crawley (25:13):
But what people like Damien Hall say, and what
Lewis Pugh said, is if you'redoing endurance sport a lot,
you're spending much more timethan the average person out in
often in the hills or in nature,at least having a kind of
intimate interaction with thenatural world, and therefore
you're probably more likely towant to protect it in some ways.
But then concurrently kind oftrend within the sport generally

(25:34):
to to move towards far moretechnology and the emphasis on
using far more kit and investingin all that kind of, I guess,
stuff that in a sport,especially a sport like running,
which can be very simple, ispotentially the opposite of what
we maybe need.
So for Damien, he reallyworries about whether to compete
in UTMB because of thesponsorship by car manufacturers

(25:55):
and things, but then he alsodoes need to travel to races
sometimes.
So I guess his message isalways that anyone can be
accused of being a hypocrite atsome point for some decision
that they make, but it's aboutmaking your own decisions about
what you are and aren't willingto do and then, I guess, about
in terms of the kind of all thetechnologies that may or may not
be actually necessary, makingdecisions about what you do need

(26:15):
and what you don't.

Claire Fudge (26:16):
What do you think, in your experience and with all
the research that you've beendoing and the different runners
that you've spoken to, what's anoverriding thought amongst sort
of endurance athletes, in termsof what drives human beings do
you think to go and do theseendurance events?
Because you mentioned why theymight do it in terms of for
something.
But what have you really sortof learned from your research?

Michael Crawley (26:38):
The sort of motivations behind these things
can really be various.
It might be not the kind ofheadline answer that you want,
but in some ways it's like avessel that you have to fill
with meaning yourself to acertain extent, and that people
will come up with different waysof finding that meaning around
the world.
I think for Ethiopian athletesit's primarily this sense of
wanting to change their lives.
That's what people will alwayssay if you ask them what they
want to do with their runningand they say I'm running to

(27:00):
change my life and that of theirfamily, which is primarily in
terms of materially wanting tomake a difference to their lives
.
Same is probably true ofSherpas in Nepal.
And then, yes, I also have achapter on trail running in
Nepal where people were reallyconnecting trail running with
other kinds of physical culturetrying to become a Gurkha in the
British army and saying thatreally it's about the same sort

(27:20):
of sets of things aboutrepresenting Nepal on the world
stage, about making your villageproud, about making sure that
your name lives on once you die,because you've got things in
the world internationally andphysically that people will look
back on and be proud of.
So it's very differentmotivations to just wanting to
run a PB or doing something.
That's very much about yourselfand your own sense of
achievement.
I guess it depends on theparticular context.
I suppose one of the messagesfrom the book is just on a pb or

(27:41):
doing something.
That's very much about yourselfand your own sense of
achievement.
I guess it depends on theparticular context.
I suppose one of the messagesfrom the book is just that it
feels like in some ways, the waythat running culture is going
in the uk, in the us potentially, is that we're being trained to
think of ourselves increasinglyin terms of the numbers that
we're producing from gps watchesor through other kinds of
wearable technology, and lessabout the kind of social

(28:02):
relationships that we buildthrough these kinds of sports or
relationships, the environmentand things.
So maybe one of the things wecan learn from other parts of
the world or other kinds ofapproaches to this is to look
beyond just ourselves in thesekinds of things.

Charlie Reading (28:13):
I also think that in Western societies, the
growth of obstacle course racingwhether it's Ironman, whether
it's trail running,ultramarathons it's definitely
societal, isn't it?
It's almost like we've got apolarization in society, we've
got an obesity crisis, and thenwe've got lots more people going
off and running 100 milers orcompleting Ironmans than ever
before.
What do you think it is that'sdriving people to create a

(28:38):
different type of misery forthemselves?

Michael Crawley (28:40):
That's a good way of phrasing that question.
I'm not 100% sure, but that waskind of the big puzzle that
motivated the book in the firstplace.
In the first chapter I look atsome kind of precursors
historically, of moments whenpeople were really into doing
endurance activities.
So a couple of examples ofsport, of pedestrianism in the
19th century, which wasbasically where you had people
competing in things like six-dayraces, where they would walk

(29:00):
around a track in somewhere likeMadison Square Gardens for six
days solid, barely sleeping,with these huge crowds of people
paying lots of money to comeand watch this kind of spectacle
of human suffering.
And it was the biggest sport inthe world at that time in terms
of how many people werewatching it, how much attention
it got.
But it also that moment inhistory was also when people
were really worried about theintroduction of cars and the

(29:22):
fact that people wouldn't haveto walk anymore and this kind of
automation and jobs are goingto disappear.
And then you had in the 1930sin America you have the
obsession with dance marathonswhere people would basically
just be in a big hall and danceuntil there was only a couple of
people left standing who wouldwin the competitions, and that
was in the kind of depressionera in america.
So it was connected to ideasabout exhaustion in broader

(29:46):
society and also to ideas aboutthe american dream, so this idea
that you could just if you canjust keep dancing long enough,
everything will be okay.
So basically in history, thebooms in endurance sport tended
to happen in moments wherethere's been kind of tension in
broader society and worriesabout things like automation.
So I wonder whether people dooften talk about wanting to get

(30:06):
back to a more simple kind ofway of being.
I think that's really cravingreducing everything to just
needing to keep moving andremembering to eat and basically
just surviving for a couple ofdays and not being extremely,
almost therapeutic.
I wonder whether they alsocoincide with in society at the
moment.
I suppose the things that we'reconcerned about would be the
rise in AI or if we're all goingto lose our jobs, our robot's

(30:28):
going to take a few minutes,sort of thing, and maybe things
like ultra distance running,where it's just you in the
mountains for a couple of days,is a way of really getting back
to what makes us human and thatgoes back to those evolutionary
narratives as well.
But that does seem like a lotof people's motivation is people
talk about stripping thingsback, of wanting to get away

(30:48):
from phone, that being anextremely challenging way of
baffling phone addiction, but itdefinitely does seem to be
something about the way thatsociety is set up that makes
people want to do these things Ithink it's so interesting,
isn't it?

Claire Fudge (30:55):
people like wanting this, potentially this
kind of real simplicity back,but I also find it really
interesting.
In one hand, you've given somereally good explanation there
about getting away from phonesand things like that, and yet,
for a lot of endurance athletesand a lot of athletes in general
, we're crazy about technologyin terms of whether and I've
heard you speaking about straps,that you tried, and we talked

(31:17):
about watches and whether you'vegot watches, rings, straps,
whatever it might be and yet,even though, in that simplicity
of doing some long event,they're probably using some sort
of device of some sort.
What are your thoughts in termsof?
I know we touched on technologya bit, but what are your
thoughts in terms of wheretechnology is heading?
Where is the world of AIheading, do you feel in sport?

(31:40):
How could it be helpful, maybe?
How?
What, maybe, is a hindrance tothat?

Michael Crawley (31:43):
that's a good question.
So in the chapter on technologyI kind of focus on advanced
games, this idea about a versionof the olympics where people
can take drugs and where they'llencourage the use of kind of
biotechnologies and things likethat which would influence
humans to see what is possiblewith kind of science basically,
and what is interesting aboutthat is that it has been fairly
widely critiqued, I think, bythe broader community, by people

(32:05):
like sebco.
In some ways it's not actuallythat different to the logic
that's driving everything else,which is that we should embrace
technology.
We should be taking bloodsamples every couple of weeks
and really using that to enhanceour performance and everything.
And my main worry about thatlevel of embracing technology
would be that if somebody winsthe enhanced games 100 meters

(32:25):
and they run under nine seconds,for example it's unlikely to be
the case that the emphasis ison the athlete that's done that
and it's more likely that theemphasis will be on the
technology that has causedsomebody to do that and that
technology will then be marketedreally broadly to everybody.
And I think to a lesser extentthe same is true of carbon fiber
shoes.
You know, you see the articlesabout when broke the world

(32:45):
record, most of the articleswere about the shoes, very
minimal quotes from the athletesabout their experience of
running, and I think if we gotoo far towards embracing
technology, we end upcelebrating the technologies
rather than the athletes, whichI think is a shame.
So I would prefer to get backto a time where we're doing a
really good job of telling thestories of the athletes and not

(33:06):
emphasising the technology, evenif the technology continues to
exist, which obviously it will.

Charlie Reading (33:11):
It's a really difficult conversation, but I
think it's a really valid point.
Nobody sits here and says TigerWoods was a great golfer
because he had Nike golf clubs.
In fact, there was a time wherehe was playing well despite the
golf clubs he was being forcedto use through sponsorship.
But with running, because it'ssuch a pure sport.
Conversation about the sub twoeffort, for example, wasn't

(33:32):
about how amazing ElliotKipchoge was, but it was all
about the shoes and thenutrition and the strategy and
not about him and his coach,which I thought was a really
important message, and I'm notsure I'd really picked up on it
until I listened to the Limit itdisconnected from the amazing
achievement of the runners.
I suppose this leads me ontothinking about social media,

(33:55):
because we talk a lot toprofessional athletes who now
have to really be a professionalinfluencer as well as a
professional athlete.
They have to be able to do thetimes, but if they haven't got
the followers, they're not goingto get their sponsorship.
I guess that it must be achallenge for you in the same
way, in the sense that you're awriter, so you need social media
followers and a presence topromote your books, and I know

(34:18):
you've got a chapter in To theLimit about social media.
So how do you negotiate betweenthat difficult line of spending
lots of time on social mediaversus totally ignoring it?

Michael Crawley (34:30):
That's a good question.
I'm also an academic so I'm notas reliant on social media and
book sales as some writers wouldbe.
But walking through theinterviews that I did with a
variety of mainly Americandistance runners on their social
media use, was that they reallydo experience using social
media as a form of work,basically, and as a source of
stress and as something that hasbecome an expected part and an

(34:51):
explicit part of athletecontracts with brands, to
basically become a kind ofmarketing executive, more or
less, or content creator, butwithout really any training on
how to do that.
For some athletes that comesreally naturally to them and
they actually quite enjoy it,but for a lot of athletes that's
actually just very stressfuland they talk about having five,
six hours a day of screen timeversus sort of two hours of
training time, and I thinkthat's just become the way that

(35:14):
the marketing of the sport hasgone or the way that the
contracts have gone.
But I guess one of the thingsI'm trying to emphasize in in
that chapter is that whathappens with social media is
that the kind of professionalathletes create these scripts
for the way that runners postabout what they're doing, which
then are followed by amateurathletes who don't have to do it
.
So the message is really that ifyou're not dependent on the

(35:35):
money from the sport to do it,then you don't have to copy an
elite athlete who's being paidto do that and finding it
miserable.
You can just switch off if youwant to.
But yeah, and I also think thatthe fact that the contracts are
so dependent on engagement withsocial media is also a real
problem for athletes in ethiopiaand kenya who don't really have
any kind of social mediatraining or often don't have
instagram accounts unless theirmanagers set them up for them.

(35:57):
So I think if if this sport isgoing to move towards being
mainly funded through socialmedia and engagement, that kind
of marketing, it would besensible to also make sure that
money is fairly equally spreadout amongst athletes in other
parts of the world where it'sless accessible to do that kind
of thing it is difficult in thesense that I remember chatting
to jackie herring, who's aprofessional triathlete but

(36:19):
she's's also a mum, and sheopenly admitted that she did not
have time to be a mum, aprofessional athlete, and do
social media, so the socialmedia thing gets parked.

Charlie Reading (36:28):
So therefore she has a distinct disadvantage
in the sense that she can't getsponsorship because she just has
to opt out.
There just isn't the time to doit.
It is really challenging, and Idon't think you name which
athlete.
It is in the book, but youallude to somebody during COVID
times putting the message outthere of isn't it all wonderful,
isn't running all fantastic?
But behind the scenes theyweren't feeling what they were

(36:50):
portraying through social media.

Michael Crawley (36:51):
I think it's interesting because certain
brands have differentexpectations for what they want
people to post about.
For those kinds of companiesthey want you to be performing
in all cylinders at all times.
But actually a lot of thepeople that I talked to here
around for more like runningbrands.
They found that the mostsuccessful content is the stuff
where you are actually beingreally vulnerable.
So there's the posts aboutbeing injured, struggling with

(37:12):
motivation and things, becausethose are far more relatable for
the average runner than a postabout running kilometer reps in
two minutes, 30 or somethinglike that.
You know everyone has thestruggles, but then they found
that you're really having togive quite a lot of yourself
away.
If you're posting about beingvulnerable all the time and
you're posting about injuriesand the more that you open up
about yourself, the moreengagement you get.
That could be quite an invasivething.

Charlie Reading (37:34):
It kind of depends on the athlete, but it's
a difficult one to be authenticon social media I have a
feeling that particular personthat you're referring to might
have already been on thispodcast as well.
But yeah, it is a challenge.
We always like to ask guests onthis podcast of books that they
found helpful on their journeyor they find themselves
recommending.
Certainly, I find myselfrecommending Out of Thin Air and

(37:56):
Now to the Limit I will bebecause I really loved your
books.
But what books have beenimportant to you on your journey
?

Michael Crawley (38:02):
I think my favorite running book is
probably running with thebuffaloes.
It's the university of coloradocross-country team.

Charlie Reading (38:08):
I'm not always finished it, but I'm reading at
the moment okay, that's just.

Michael Crawley (38:11):
I thought that was brilliant.
I think because he spent solong embedded with the athletes
and because such significantthings happened in that year, he
gets a real depth ofunderstanding of what running
can mean to competitivecollegiate runners.
Really like a book calledbarbarian days, which is a
surfing memoir by williamfinnegan.
He's an american writer.

(38:32):
It's about surfing and surfingculture basically in his life,
but that's a brilliant book aswell, oh, excellent.

Charlie Reading (38:37):
I've not heard of that.
That sounds like a great read.
And then one of the otherthings that we do on the podcast
is we get the last guest to askthe next guest a question,
without knowing who that isgoing to be.
A previous guest was RiniMcGregor, and I think Claire has
got Rini's question, which iscertainly going to get you
thinking.

Claire Fudge (38:54):
Her question is what is it that you're unwilling
to feel you're?

Michael Crawley (38:57):
unwilling to feel, I wouldn't want to feel
absolute certainty abouteverything, which I think is
what a lot of the newtechnologies are trying to tell
us, is this idea that we'll beable to understand absolutely
everything and have all the datathat we need to understand our
bodies or our lives, and I don'tthink that's necessarily a good
thing.

Claire Fudge (39:12):
Effectively.
Technology may mean that wedon't feel anything.

Charlie Reading (39:15):
But as somebody that loves technology, I
thought it was fascinating howyou identify that somebody
wearing a woop band and agarment and an aura ring is
getting different data from allthree actually.
So therefore, how useful isthat data?
And sometimes it helps lead youto better decisions, but other
times perhaps not, and learningto train and race on feel is

(39:36):
maybe part of that journey, so Ithink that's really interesting
.
One last question so we'veobviously seen these two
brilliant books come out of youso far, but is there another one
in the pipeline and what's next?

Michael Crawley (39:47):
uh, there's no other book in the pipeline.
I'd really love to do someresearch on the enhanced games
next, just because I think itprobably will happen at some
point next year.
I think it opens up some reallyinteresting questions.
For an anthropologist there'ssome really interesting
questions there about where thelimit of the human is and where
the human ends and where thetechnology begins, and also

(40:07):
about connections betweenperformance enhancing drug use
in sport and performanceenhancing drug use more broadly
in the workplace and things likethat, which I think part of the
reason that the enhanced gamesis happening is to try to
legitimize the idea that weshould be taking happening is to
try to legitimize the idea thatwe should be taking performance
enhancing substances morebroadly in everyday life.
I think that's an interestingthing to explore.

Charlie Reading (40:27):
That might be the next book project, but for
now I need a bit of a break thatwill be fascinating yeah,
absolutely I remember chattingto dr nikki k, who's an
endocrinologist who used to workwith fourth edge, I think, and
I remember asking her about youknow you could have a male
athlete that is deficient intestosterone.
So from a health point of viewthey want to be taking

(40:47):
testosterone because otherwiseit's going to potentially affect
their life expectancy.
But of course they'd be bannedfrom the sport were they to take
testosterone.
So where do you think that goes?
Of course there's plenty ofexamples from Russia and Germany
where athletes have had verynegative later life experiences
as a result of takingperformance enhancing drugs.

(41:08):
Where does that balance?

Michael Crawley (41:09):
I think that's one of the interesting questions
really is the enhanced games.
The idea is that they'll haveactually much better medical
testing and medical care forathletes to make sure that
athletes are healthy during thegames.
But one of the questions I'vegot is that that's okay for the
period where they're actuallycompeting and things, but, as
you say, a lot of the morenegative repercussions are sort
of 20, 30 years later.
So I'm interested in seeingwhether they extend that kind of

(41:30):
health coverage throughout thelifetime of an athlete or not,
because it definitely can havenegative effects later in life
and negative effects that wedon't actually really understand
that well, because it's hard todo research on the effects of
performance enhancing drugsbecause they're often taken
illicitly without anybodyknowing anything.
So I think there's a lot ofunknowns there.

Charlie Reading (41:47):
Interesting question, michael.
It's been absolutelyfascinating.
I genuinely love reading bothbooks.
I wish you every success.
I know Up to the Limit is onlyjust literally out in the last
few days.
When we record this, actuallyit'll be out in a little while
once we release it.
When we record this, actuallyit'll be out a little while once
we release it.
But yeah, absolutely brilliant.
Congratulations on that andthank you very much for joining
us on the podcast.
Thank, you.

Michael Crawley (42:04):
It's been a pleasure.

Charlie Reading (42:06):
So what did you make of the chat with michael
crawley?

Claire Fudge (42:09):
do you know?
It was so interesting for mefrom the world of sports science
, but from an anthropologyperspective was just so
interesting.
I just think that, in terms ofthe stories that he had around
the Ethiopian runners and theidea for me of energy, like how
you share this energy, andactually when you think about it

(42:29):
, it makes like really goodsense on one hand.
So yeah, for me I thought itwas amazing.
How about for you?
Because I know there was quitea bit in there about tech.
So I wonder what your thoughtsare from a tech and AI
perspective as well.

Charlie Reading (42:41):
I think from a tech and AI perspective, it was
brilliant.
The energy conversation aroundhow training alone is being
selfish because you're basicallystealing energy that you could
have provided to the group, andthe importance of running for
fun that tribe concept wasfascinating.
And the importance of runningfor fun that tribe concept was

(43:04):
fascinating.
In terms of tech, it melts mybrain because I want the tech, I
want to know the data, butactually he's completely right
in that it's taking away some ofthe important stuff.
I think it definitely has itsplace.
I was racing the weekend beforelast and, because it was
considered a training race inthe lead up to kona, my coach
had said run the first 10k atrace pace and then just run the

(43:27):
second 10k easy, and so Ithought I'll just do the second
10k on.
Feel ended up running a pb onthe and I was supposed to be
going easy on the set, but I wasjust like just run as as you
feel.
So I have this internal battle.
What I know you?
You're not quite so drawn totechnology as I am, albeit that
you're still wearing an auraring, so you must be to a

(43:49):
certain extent.
What did you make of histechnology conversation?

Claire Fudge (43:52):
we didn't discuss it in lots of detail, but he's
written and spoken about itbefore, and maybe in his new
book actually as well.
I feel very much it's thisbalance between having the
technology to help guide you butknowing what that technology is
telling you.
But going back to this beingwith your own body, like
listening to your own body, andactually he talked about it in

(44:12):
terms of we asked him thequestion about why do you think
people you know are looking forthese endurance events?
You know, getting away fromtechnology, listening to their
body.
So I think it's reallyinteresting.
On one hand, we almost want allthese things to tell us how to
do it and what to do, butactually then we've lost our
intuition of how to do things.
I think there's a balancebetween using data and
technology to help guide us, butalso being able to have that

(44:37):
inability for us to be our owntechnology, for us to tell us
how to do it as well.
You went on your own feel andyou're like that's really good
run.
If you were following a watch,would you have gone slower
because you thought I must holdon to a certain pace?

Charlie Reading (44:49):
I see actually there's another factor which
ties into the first point.
An old mate of mine ran upbehind me and I knew he was
going to go by me, but I ran,ran with him for five or ten
minutes chatting, and so thatcomes back to the energy of the
tribe as well, doesn't it?
Yeah, the fun, the fun, and soactually, you know that's the

(45:10):
heart of it.
It's difficult, I really know.
Listening to his book, havingthis conversation has reinforced
it, but I really, over thewinter, need find a way to start
doing some track running orsome social running with a
running group and a running club, because I know that it'll
improve my running, I know thatI'll do it better and enjoy it
more, and I've got to find a way.

Claire Fudge (45:34):
I think it's really interesting to think
about how do we use technology,because, well as technology is
coming at us faster and faster,being able to make that decision
now is actually probably reallyimportant.

Charlie Reading (45:44):
I agree, and I think there is certain
technologies that I've tried andI've thought this is actually
just taking away from theexperience.
The technology is becoming theconversation and for that reason
I haven't adopted them, becauseI can't actually remember the
name of it, but it was a gadgetthat monitors your swimming and
would give you, like,vibrational feedback on your
neck, and it also works forrunning and I tried it and it

(46:07):
was like this is changing thewhole thing too much for me.
It's taking me away fromthinking about the nature and
the surroundings and it's allabout I'm waiting for the next
buzz because my technique's notquite right.
Yeah, it definitely has itsplace.
The other interestingconversation was coming back to
born to run, because born to runwas such an instrumental part
of my running journey and itclearly was for for michael as

(46:29):
well.
Equally, there was a bit of adebunking within, to the limit
of some of the.
You know what the ramari, which, interestingly, born to run
refers to as the Tarahumara whatthey actually felt versus what
was portrayed in the book, likethe whole barefoot shoes.
They actually don't want to usebits of car rubber tied to

(46:50):
their feet.
It was a necessity historically, but actually they'd all far
rather use trail shoes.
I picked up from the book onthat topic.
There was so much more talkabout the American ultra runners
.
Scott Jurek's mentioned fivetimes more than Anulfo and
Anulfo beats Scott Jurek.
It's just there's a weirddynamic which I didn't pick up
on at the time but reflectingback on it, there is definitely

(47:14):
that really interestingconversation.
Any last takeaways from youthat you got from the interview
with Michael?

Claire Fudge (47:21):
I think you know, going back to the kind of
differences and different sortsand different people having
different perspective on things,but also the science behind as
well, because he was coming froman anthropology perspective and
I think that's fascinating whenyou're looking at it from lots
of different angles, becausethere's never one blinkered way
to look at something.
So, from an Ethiopianperspective and running what you

(47:42):
were saying about the book, Ithink it's great just to see
something from a different angle.
And that is the world ofresearch, of science.
It's ever evolving, it's everchanging and we should be
opening our minds, I feel, tolike all of this different
knowledge that's coming at usand making our own decisions
about it.
So I love that evolution.

Charlie Reading (48:02):
And we want the evolution, but we also enhanced
games.
Surely it's all going to comedown to the conversation of,
well, he had this technology orhe had this, as opposed to you
know that's going to go evenfurther away.
You know, if we're talkingabout the Nike Vaporflies
instead of Kipchoge, surely theenhanced games will all be about
this athlete took that versusthat.

(48:22):
That, to me, I can't get myhead around.
There are very different booksactually out of thin air about
his time in Ethiopia and theEthiopian runners, Whereas To
the Limit is much more anexploration of the endurance
mindset and people in the worldof endurance Both fascinating
books.
I hope you found that asinteresting as we did.
And until the next episode, keepon training if you want us to

(48:44):
keep getting amazing guests ontothe business of endurance
podcast.
We don't ask you to pay for us.
We don't ask for patronage.
All we ask for is that yousubscribe to the podcast,
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Give us a fivestar ratingbecause it shows us you care and
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One word is fine, somethinglike inspiring or amazing or

(49:07):
something like that, but wereally do appreciate it and it
will help us to continue todeliver amazing guests on what
we hope you find to be anamazing podcast.
Thanks very much.