April 19, 2025 • 56 mins
Just two days before the 129th Boston Marathon, we recorded a special live episode of Set the Pace at the Citizens House of Blues in Boston. With co-host Sam Ryan—four-time Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster and Boston Marathon runner—we dive into the racing mindset, the power of community, and what it means to cover the sport from both sides of the finish line. Then, legendary BYU coach and two-time Olympian Ed Eyestone joins us to talk about coaching elite American marathoners (including Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and Keira D’Amato) and how consistency shaped his coaching philosophy. Plus, performance dietitian Lauren Thomas shares practical fueling strategies from the team at Maurten. Whether you’re lining up in Hopkinton or cheering for your favorite runners, this episode brings you right into the heart of Boston Marathon weekend.
Sam Ryan's Member Moment: (01:04)
Coach Ed Eyestone's Marathon Insights: (10:11)
Maurten's Lauren Thomas: (46:00)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rob (00:00):
What can we call you? Coach Ed? Coach Eyestone?
Ed (00:02):
My guys called me Easy E.
Rob (00:04):
Easy E.
Ed (00:06):
I don't know that it's due to my rapping abilities.
I think it's just because I'm a kind of easygoing guy.
Rob (00:17):
Hey everybody and welcome to a special episode of Set
the Pace, the official podcast of New York Road Runners,
presented by Peloton. I'm your host, Rob Simmelkjaer, the CEO
of New York Road Runners, and we are here with
a live audience at the Citizens House of Blues in
Boston, just two nights ahead of the 2025 129th running of the Boston Marathon
(00:43):
presented by Bank of America. Who's running out there? Who's
running on Monday? All right, we got runners out here.
It's an incredible vibe in Boston this weekend. The weather
is spectacular here on Saturday, the day we're taping, and
it looks great for Monday as well. And my usual
amazing co- host, Becs Gentry, is not with us today.
(01:04):
She's back in New York tonight, so we have a
very special guest host with us tonight. She's a great
friend of New York Road Runners, familiar fans to all
New York sports fans and sports fans everywhere and especially
to fans of the TCS New York City Marathon because
she is a regular host of our broadcast there. Not
only that, she's running the Boston Marathon on Monday, Sam
(01:25):
Ryan. Hey Sam.
Sam (01:29):
Hey there. So excited to be... Missing Becs, but so
excited to be here with you guys today and this
weekend, and wow, the weather. Dare we say, it's two
days out. We can say it now. The weather's looking
really good.
Rob (01:42):
It's looking great.
Sam (01:43):
We're close, so now we can say it.
Rob (01:45):
Great for Monday.
Sam (01:45):
All week long, I didn't want to say it, but yeah.
Rob (01:47):
A hundred percent. Thank goodness that the race was not
today because here on Saturday, over 80 degrees in Boston.
An incredible day to walk around, see the sights, take
photos, but luckily a lot cooler on Monday. So how
are you feeling about your race on Monday?
Sam (02:04):
Like those of you who are running, probably a little
nervous, trying to get out of my head, but the hay is in
the barn as they say, right?
Rob (02:11):
That's what they say.
Sam (02:12):
So you have to trust your training and I know
we have a special guest who will tell us about
that too a little later, but I trust the training and I'm excited.
Rob (02:22):
All right. Well, we-
Sam (02:23):
I'm really looking forward to it.
Rob (02:23):
You mentioned a special guest, and if you want to know about
training for a marathon, there is no person better in
the United States or beyond to talk to than our
featured guest today. The legendary coach Ed Eyestone is here
with us today. Ed is someone who has really become
the top distance running coach in the country. He's got
(02:46):
a number of elite runners going on Monday and we're
going to go deep with Ed on all things marathoning
and get psyched for what we think could be some
amazing American performances. So Ed'll be with us in just a
minute, but Sam, we do this member moment segment at
every New York Road Runners Set the Pace podcast, and
so today the member is you. We're going to feature
you, Sam, as our member moment. You're not only a
(03:08):
great broadcaster but also a New York Road Runners member.
So let's talk a little bit about what you're doing
and how you're feeling about Monday. I mean, it's actually
amazing. You're a four- time Emmy Award winner, a great
broadcaster. You sit in our studio broadcasting the marathon in
New York. How is it for you to get out
there and actually run these races after you've sat and been
(03:29):
a part of broadcasting them so many years?
Sam (03:31):
It's so different now because when I first started broadcasting
the New York City Marathon after having set my marathon
PB in New York City, so when you cover it,
it's like covering the Super Bowl. This is your event.
It's like, " Okay, now here I am covering the event
that I love, that I run." You feel like you're
(03:52):
part of the fabric. But now to go back out
and to run a marathon after that, it just feels,
I don't want to use the word authentic, but it
feels like it's full circle, but now it feels like
you can feel what you're speaking to also. So it's
a little bit of that all wrapped up into one.
(04:13):
I'm not just the runner out there. I can parlay
this information into the booth as well, but I take
advice from you, from Carrie, from everybody that we work
with also, and I listen to them, so now I can
apply that to myself.
Rob (04:27):
It's funny. You've covered so many big sports. You've covered Major
League Baseball, the NFL, you've been a part of these
big sports, but you haven't been able to play Major
League Baseball or play in the NFL. So it's got
to be so cool as a broadcaster to go out
on the field of play that you've been covering and
kind of have that crossover moment. And that's one of
(04:49):
the things that's so special about this sport, right, is that
we're going to have 30,000 people following these elite runners
in Boston on Monday as we do in New York
every November.
Sam (04:58):
You know what? We were just talking about this in
the green room before that it's such an individual sport,
right? You're running your pace, you're doing your training, but
yet there are teammates and there is teamwork. And we've
seen this with the pros. We see the teamwork and
we see how the running community just bonds together and
everybody supports each other. So it is a team sport
(05:23):
in that sense too. And there's just so much energy.
It's like being part of a team and everybody roots
for each other. It's awesome. You guys are awesome.
Rob (05:31):
It is awesome. We're going to be rooting for everybody
out there this Monday. That's one of the things that makes
it special. Sam, you were not always into running, and this
happens a lot with people. They find a point in
life when they like running. When you were a kid, I'm told
you would produce a doctor's note to get out of
having to run a mile in gym class.
Sam (05:51):
It was a legitimate doctor's note.
Rob (05:53):
Oh, a legitimate doctor's note.
Sam (05:53):
It was legitimate. Yes, yes.
Rob (05:55):
What changed for you to get you from there to
where you are now running all these marathons?
Sam (06:00):
So I have asthma and I don't know if anyone
else does, but I as a kid, exercise induced asthma.
So that was my excuse rather than, " Let's work through
it," because it wasn't advisable back then. It's like, " Okay,
you have exercise- induced asthma. Don't work out. Don't do
anything." When I got a little older, when I was 18,
19, I wanted to get in shape. I wanted to
(06:24):
play tennis. I would get winded just running back and
forth on the court. And I worked on, " Let me
run to the end of my block, let me run
to the end of my block and then turn the corner," little by
little one step at a time. And that's how we
all began, or most of us would begin our running
journey if we developed running later in life. So it's
(06:46):
just one foot in front of the other, let's see
how far we can go. And then I realized I
wasn't getting as winded. I didn't need the inhaler. I
have pictures from my first New York City Marathon, which
was my first marathon, and there's an inhaler on my
fuel belt.
Rob (06:57):
Wow.
Sam (06:58):
My second one, inhaler in the hand. Never needed it,
but it was always in my head and I always
thought about, " Well, what if I need it? What if
I push too hard? Am I going to need the
inhaler?" And I didn't. And I feel that I worked
through it and I feel better physically.
Rob (07:18):
That's a great story. It's one of 30, 000 stories that
there'll be at the starting line on Monday and there's
just so many stories like that in this sport. Everybody
has had to overcome something to get to the starting
line of an event like the Boston Marathon or the New
York Marathon. Every single one of you knows, whether it's
you running or a friend, you know what they've had
(07:40):
to overcome, and for you it was that, and here
you are. It must feel amazing.
Sam (07:43):
It does. It does. I just want to keep going.
Rob (07:45):
Absolutely.
Sam (07:46):
We all do, right?
Rob (07:47):
Speaking of keeping going, you have a goal of running
a thousand miles a year. Is that right? You're trying
to do a thousand a year?
Sam (07:55):
Well, yeah.
Rob (07:55):
That's not so crazy.
Sam (07:59):
(inaudible) crazy.
Rob (07:59):
Have you done a thousand in the last couple of years?
Sam (08:02):
The last two years I hadn't, but prior to that
I did. This year I will make it.
Rob (08:07):
Yeah.
Sam (08:08):
Yeah. We are in a marathon training cycle.
Rob (08:09):
It's true. You can do that pretty quickly. Where are
you trying to get to in your marathon goals? Do you
have a time you're trying to achieve in Boston or
what are you trying to do?
Sam (08:17):
I do have a time because I've run this before and the last time
I ran it, it didn't go... It wasn't pretty. So
I want to finish and finish proud and just happy,
and I want to prove that the training that I
did and the dedication that I put into this over
(08:40):
the past year has paid off and that it worked,
so let's see. Let's see where it goes.
Rob (08:47):
Well, we wish you luck on Monday. It's going to
be exciting for you. Hope to welcome you back to
New York with Boston Marathon under your belt. And you
think you'll be able to take some things from this to
the marathon broadcast in the fall in New York?
Sam (09:04):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Rob (09:05):
We can't wait.
Sam (09:05):
And just being part of this community, it's so uplifting.
So you guys are awesome. You guys are rock stars.
Rob (09:12):
All right. Well, speaking of rock stars, there are going
to be some incredible rock stars wearing the USA stars
and stripes on Monday. Ed Eyestone, no one knows more
about how to prepare for a marathon than our guest,
so let's bring Ed Eyestone up and introduce this incredible coach.
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Rob (10:11):
For those who don't know Coach Eyestone, I think we call you...
What can we call you? Coach Ed? Coach Eyestone?
Ed (10:18):
My guys called me Easy E.
Rob (10:19):
Easy E.
Ed (10:22):
I don't know that it's due to my rapping ability.
I think it's just because a kind of easygoing guy.
Rob (10:28):
Not the original Easy E. I love it.
Ed (10:30):
Our sport is difficult enough to not have a dictator
as a coach and having been there in their position, I
want to be able to work with them. I mean,
I am demanding, and I'm sure you've talked to Conner
and Clayton, the kind of workouts that they do, but
it's kind of flattering actually, Easy E. But you can call me Ed. That's fine.
Rob (10:50):
We're sticking with Easy E. I love it.
Sam (10:52):
Easy E is good. Yeah.
Rob (10:53):
So for those who don't know, Coach Eyestone, Ed Eyestone is
a two- time Olympian himself. He is a former NCAA
champion and a legendary coach whose athletes include Conner Mantz,
Clayton Young and Keira D'Amato, who all will be towing
the starting line on Monday, and they are really leading
a resurgence in American distance running. He's the head coach in cross-
(11:15):
country and track and field at BYU, one of the
most consistent collegiate programs in the country over the years,
and talking about how calm he is, steady leadership has
really made that a program that's on the map now
for all runners, and he's a broadcaster just like you,
Sam. You guys actually have been together I think as
broadcasters. You've connected with some of your runners through broadcasting,
(11:37):
which we'll talk about as well. So he's done it
all and it's great to have you here.
Ed (11:42):
Well, thank you. Appreciate that, and probably a little bit
of hyperbole there in that intro, but I appreciate it. It's been
fun. And this is a sport that, like many of
you, I started back in junior high when I got
cut from the baseball team, of course. If my real
dreams had have come to fruition, I'd be next door
at Fenway Park. But when I did get that cut,
(12:04):
it was the first time that I realized in the
spring of the year, sure you have baseball, but there's
another sport actually in the spring. It's called track and
field. And so that's how I got my gentle introduction
into the sport. And so like many of you, I've
been involved in this for the last 50 plus years
and it's been fun. I was able to run through
college and then had a pretty long- lasting professional career.
(12:28):
When I was nearly 40 actually as I was slowing
down and the competition was getting faster, a good coach
in the area offered me a position just to get
my foot in the door of coaching. And so I
went and worked at a place called Weber State University
up in Ogden, Utah for about two and a half
years. And then as that cycled down, my old track
(12:50):
and cross- country coach at BYU was then retiring and
I was able to move in. And so for the
last 25 years, I've been working at the D1 level,
and over the last 10 years or so, we've had
athletes emerge who were running at a high enough level
that they were going to be able to run professionally.
And so it's kind of fun. My day job obviously
(13:12):
is a track and field and cross- country coach at BYU.
We won a national championship this last year.
Rob (13:16):
Congratulations.
Sam (13:18):
Awesome.
Ed (13:20):
Humble brag right there, humble brag, but it doesn't happen
often so I work it into conversations as often as I
can. But that may be my day job, but I'm just
as passionate obviously about my professional athletes that I get
to work with and it's so cool.
Sam (13:39):
Before we get to Conner and Clayton and Kiera, you
talked about your career, and I know this sounds like
a broad question, but we know that running, in the
running community, running, there's a boom in popularity in all
distances, not just the marathon, but what is the biggest
difference that you see not only in the performance and
(14:00):
the athletes, but in the training, in the equipment, in
the shoes and in the coaching from when you ran-
Ed (14:08):
From the dark ages, you're saying?
Sam (14:09):
... to today?
Ed (14:09):
So from the dark ages?
Sam (14:11):
Yeah. Well, Easy E.
Ed (14:12):
When all the pictures were in black and white. My
guys are going, " Was color not invented when you were running?"
It's interesting because I think some of the same go-
to workouts that my guys love and thrive in were
similar workouts that I was doing in the '80s and '90s. So some of
that has been consistent, but there are always new innovations,
(14:35):
and a good coach is going to plagiarize with the
best of them. We're in a wonderful opportunity now in
terms of the internet. The internet's not only great for
learning a guitar song or something, but also fantastic in
terms of pulling up some good workouts and seeing what
people around the country and around the world are doing.
So I think we've all appreciated for this sharing of
(14:56):
information that's out there, things like double threshold workouts, and
obviously the equipment and the stadiums that we're running in
I think are more athlete friendly now as well. And
so all of those things I think are coming together
and as a result of that, we're just seeing a
perfect storm of speed and that's why the records have
(15:20):
just gone through the roof in terms of across all
events really, and it's going to be interesting to see
what the future holds.
Rob (15:29):
And you were kind of a perfect storm of speed yourself when you were
a runner. I mean, you haven't bragged that much about your running
days, but you really were elite. You won something called
the triple crown of distance running, which I think only
four or five people have ever done, the national championship
in cross country in the 5, 000 meters and in the 10, 000
(15:49):
meters, which is an incredible accomplishment. What did you take
from those days of running at that level that you've
been able to really bring into your coaching career?
Ed (15:59):
Well, if you were to ask my guys, they would
probably say one thing that Coach Eyestone likes or Easy
E likes is consistency. And I felt like over the
course of my career, even dating back to high school
and college, I was someone who my coaches pretty much
knew they were going to put me in and even
if it was an event that I wasn't that comfortable
with, a 1500 or something like that, that I was
(16:21):
going to give it my best possible performance. Didn't mean
that I was going to win every race, but I
was going to be consistent. When people come to me
and ask, " Okay, what's the perfect workout? What do I
need to do?" It's just the consistency and I came
up with kind of a corny equation because I was
anything but a math major, but it's C squared equals
(16:43):
E squared, which is just consistent competence equals eventual excellence.
So you don't have to hit a home run every
time you're up to bat. You can tell I'm a
frustrated baseball player, right? But we just need to get
out there and do our best on a consistent basis.
And if we do that day in, day out, week in, week
(17:03):
out, month in, month out, year in, year out, then
ultimately I think we're going to have an opportunity to,
if not achieve greatness, at least come close to our
running potential.
Sam (17:15):
That is awesome. So when you take that philosophy and
that mentality from your training and parlay that to coaching,
when some athletes join you later, Kiera for example, how
difficult is it to or receptive are they to your
(17:38):
philosophy and your message?
Ed (17:40):
Well, I think anytime I take in someone who... I've
been fortunate because I've had a number of athletes come
through the BYU system, and so they've literally been with
me since their senior year in high school and so
by the time they get through in four or five
years, they kind of know the system, and obviously it's
going to be tweaked as they move up to the
marathon from maybe the five and 10, 000 meters, but I've also worked
with people who went to other programs and then came
(18:03):
in. First thing you do as a coach is just
sit down with person and you kind of see what
their goals are. I was in at the Bryan Clay
Meet in Los Angeles for the last four days with
my college team. So this morning I got up early
and caught a nonstop, got in about two hours ago.
The guy that I was sitting next to obviously looked
like a runner. We struck up a conversation and the
(18:24):
first thing I asked him is, " What is your goal?
What would make you happy in terms of running Boston?"
And he said, " Well, work's been a grind lately. I
haven't been able to get the miles in." So I said, "
Well, obviously you have realistic expectations going in." He wasn't
expecting to run a PR, but he wanted to get
the very best performance out of his training that he
(18:45):
had done. So to answer your question, Sam, anytime that
I take on a new client or athlete that I'm
going to work with, we're going to have a conversation
about where you're at, what you've done in the past,
what's some of the good things that you'd like to
carry forward that you think are going to be effective, and then
hey, maybe we can implement some of these things that
have proven effective with myself back in the dark ages
(19:06):
or with some of the athletes that I'm currently working
with to kind of tweak things. And some of it
also is just coming to altitude, like Keira D'Amato. When
she came out, she'd never been at altitude. Here we
have the American record holder at the time, or previous
to that anyway, in the marathon, she'd never really had
any extended training at altitude. And I said, " You know
(19:27):
what? That's kind of a thing. Let's experiment with that.
Let's come out to altitude."
Rob (19:32):
It works for Kenyans and Ethiopians and lots of other stuff.
Ed (19:35):
I think really if you look worldwide, if you see the
people in the Olympic Games, I would say the vast,
vast, vast majority, almost without exception, not necessarily live full-
time at altitude, but have an altitude training component that
they will step up to for at least four to
six weeks.
Rob (19:54):
That community that you have created out there in Utah
is incredible now and it really has become... There's been Flagstaff,
Arizona, there's been Boulder, Colorado over the years for American
distance running, but I don't know that there's ever been
anything quite like what you have going on between the
incredible program you've got at BYU and now this professional
(20:17):
running scene. And I had a chance to go visit
out there this past February. A guy named Todd Garner,
who's a friend of yours and a friend of Road
Runners, hosted me and my daughter out there. I had
a chance to have dinner with Clayton and Conner and
their wives and this whole crew out there and they
are all hitting the roads Saturday morning, long runs, pushing
(20:37):
each other. They got vehicle support, and it's a team
that you guys have out there. What has allowed this
Utah kind of cluster to become what it has become
in distance running?
Ed (20:49):
Yeah. I mean, I think there are various things that
have contributed to the growth, one, at BYU on both the
men's and women's. Let me brag about our women for
a minute because they won a national championship on the
women's side at cross- country this year and I think it
was the first time at about 20 years that the
men's and women's program had won simultaneously in the same
year. Coach Diljeet Taylor is doing a phenomenal job with
(21:10):
our women there. She's also part of the Nike kind
of hub system that they've established there. So she's got
some very, very talented professional athletes as well. So I
think it's a combination of having some really good athletes
that have graduated from the system and have stuck around
because of (inaudible) success. And then a lot of
(21:30):
people, Utah is... They call it, what do they call it, Little
Silicon Slopes a little bit, a lot of big tech
industry coming in there. So we just have a lot
of really good people moving in from out of state
who love running. And as we know, running is a
wonderful community and people like Todd Garner who's been very
generous, very supportive, have also stepped up, and as a
(21:51):
result on any given Saturday long run, yes, we'll have
Conner and Clayton and Kiera that are leading the charge
in the men's pack and the women's pack, but we'll have
40 plus people show up, some of whom are three
hour plus marathoners, but they know, " Okay, this is a
place where we're going to meet and there's going to
be some support and some camaraderie and all of those
good things." When you get... There's a certain amount of
synergy that comes when you have good people training together
(22:14):
and also maybe not hanging with you in the workouts,
but just supportive and know who your name is and
know what your name is and how to support you,
good things are going to happen. We've also had an
interesting development with the state legislature, a program called REP,
which has done some state dollars donating towards the development
(22:37):
of distance running in the state, so kind of as
a safety net for those college kids who come out
because not everybody is running well enough out of college
to garner a shoe contract, which is kind of the
bread and butter of professional athletes, right? You got to
be able to have something to pay the rent, right?
And the vast majority of kids out of college are
not at that level, but with some support, with some
(23:01):
maintenance, and it doesn't take a lot, sometimes it's just
a matter of having an insurance program, health insurance or
access to PTs or athletic trainers, as a result of
those monies that have been invested by the state, we've
seen I think a rise as well.
Sam (23:17):
It's interesting. One thing that you just said that I
want to go back to, you said not everybody is running well
enough out of college, the development of the runner and
the distance runner. Can we talk about the maturation and
how long does that really take after college?
Ed (23:33):
Yeah. Well, I was having a conversation with somebody the
other day because if you follow the sport, you probably were
aware that a couple weeks ago at the LA Marathon, all of
a sudden we had this college kid, I think in
his first year out of college, post- collegiately. He was
a two- time All- American, but he was not a
name that you would really know unless you were in the
conference. Went out and on his debut ran 207, okay? So
(23:58):
Rickman is his name and I'm drawing a blank on
his first name, but... Did somebody... Matt. Okay, thank you.
I always get... Dorian, when I'm working in Chicago, she's the one-
Rob (24:09):
Dorian Cale with the assist from the first row. Yeah.
Ed (24:11):
Yes.
Rob (24:12):
(inaudible) .
Ed (24:12):
Dorian is the one slipping me notes saying, "Okay, you're mispronouncing"-
Sam (24:16):
You guys can cheer for Dorian.
Ed (24:17):
" You're mispronouncing that guy's name, you dummy. You gotta
say it right." You need brains behind the whatever sometimes,
and we appreciate Dorian. But yeah, so here's a guy
who it would be easy just to say, " Okay, ran
D1 college, two time All- American. It's time to move
(24:40):
on. I got a day job," or whatever, but he's continued
and he gave himself a shot. He trained and he
went into his marathon and his debut ran sub 208,
okay? So my conversation with the team was, " Hey guys,
I think you owe it to yourselves, if it's a
desire of yours"... I'm not going to push it. I
am Easy E, right? I'm not going to push this
(25:00):
goal onto them, but they should probably have as a
goal at some point in time post- collegiately to go
run a marathon. Let's see, because we definitely have some
people that are adapters that are much better at the
marathon than they would be even at the 5, 000, 10,000. There's
a pretty good correlation between 10K success and marathon success,
but it's not a one- to- one correlation by any
(25:21):
means. And sometimes you'll have people who are so- so
at the 10,000 meters, but because of their efficiency in
running and their fueling ability or the way their body
spares fuel when they run, they can really make a step-
up. So I think really most runners, especially, again, D1
or whatever, college runners, probably owe it to themselves that, "
(25:44):
Hey, let's give this marathon thing a shot."
Rob (25:47):
And I was in Orlando a year and change ago
for the US Olympic trials and saw the incredible moment
that two of your runners, Clayton and Conner had, and
now here we are past the Olympics where they also
had an incredible day. I was in Paris to watch
them both cross the finish line in the top 10, and the
strength from the two of them just continues to build.
(26:10):
So looking ahead to Monday, I'd love to get inside
your conversations with both Clayton and Conner getting ready for
this race on Monday. How are you talking to them
about the way this race might play out and the
expectations that both of them have in terms of what
they can do? Clayton has been running strong, Conner just
(26:32):
coming off of a American record in the half. A
lot of people right now are talking about him as
someone who could be podium or better, so different conversations,
I'm sure. Let's start with Clayton and how you think he
can approach this race on Monday. What looks like a
good race for him?
Ed (26:48):
Yeah. Well, I think Clayton, and many of you are probably following
along. We often have a documentarian at every workout. For
those of you who are on YouTube and follow Clayton
Young, he's got a series that's very, very well done and I think
it gives you a little bit of an inside peek
of the psyche of elite marathoners and what they're going
through and whatnot. And we had an excellent build going
(27:12):
into Paris I felt and a pretty good build going into
New York. This build, and when I say build, it's
usually kind of a 16- week program that we follow,
this week or this build coming into Boston, when we're
training for spring marathons in Utah, it can be a little
dicey, right? Because we're in the winter. People fly out
to Utah to ski in the winter time. They don't
(27:32):
come out to train for marathons. So sometimes it can
be a little hit- and- miss because of the weather.
But Clayton's had a really nice build and I think
he gauges somewhat where he's at relative to his proximity
to his training partner, Conner Mantz, because Conner's just famous
for going out and just hammering every workout. And I'll
give him, " Okay, let's try to hit around 418 on
(27:53):
these mile repeats," and Conner will roll in at 412 and it's like, "
Conner, that's a little fast there." And Clayton's going, " Conner,
that's really fast." They get along really well, but sometimes
they're like an old married couple because inevitably Conner is
driving the workout pretty fast and Clayton's holding on with
his fingernails. But he's come into this, as you alluded
(28:17):
to Conner Mantz coming into this 16- week cycle. I
like to schedule races periodically because I think having races
during your marathon build, I think there's a couple of
good things that come about as a result of that.
One, you avoid the what I call all your eggs
in one basket syndrome where you're just training for six
(28:39):
months and it's one race and then you get a
cramp or something and it's like, " Oh crud, what do I have
to show for my six months?" So I like to
have a couple of races in there so they can
go and have other races and try to get PRs
or just see where they're at. I think it's a good
checkpoint to see where am I in my training, at
least in the shorter distances, and that can really instill
(28:59):
some confidence. And I think it also forces them for
about a week as they go into this to taper
down just a little bit, because sometimes they'll be hammering
out anywhere from 115 to 125 miles a week and it's nice
to have a half- marathon or in Conner and Clayton's case, two half-
marathons over this 16- week build where they were able
(29:19):
to actually bring the mileage down a little bit because
if they're going to run a race, I want them
to go into it fresh enough that they're going to
be able to perform to the best of their ability.
And so in Conner's case, he got the American record
in Houston and had an amazing race and it was
a pretty windy day. It was not ideal conditions. And
then he followed that up about I think five weeks
(29:42):
ago at the New York City half, which I think you were
there, Sam, weren't you, covering it?
Rob (29:45):
Yep.
Ed (29:48):
And he ran even faster there. Because of the logistics
of that course, it's not eligible for American record purposes
because it's point to point, but had another really good...
Ran faster on what I consider a hillier and more
difficult course than Houston.
Rob (30:01):
Definitely.
Ed (30:02):
So those were really good checkpoints for Conner Mantz. Now,
Clayton went into... ran Houston. Ran solid, not amazing. I
think we all thought he'd run closer to one hour
flat and he was one hour and 50s or something
like that. So he came away from it a little scratching
his head going, " I think I just made some tactical decisions."
(30:24):
It was a windy day. He didn't go with the leaders,
so he got kind of no man's land. So we go, "
Okay, we'll work on tactics on that." And then he
ran the Atlanta half, which was the US half- marathon
championships and really just had an off day. His back
tightened and his lower kind of hamstring chain. And that's
the other thing that happens. I think when we schedule
(30:45):
races during a build, sometimes we can identify maybe some
weaknesses in where we're at. And so I think that
was a really good opportunity for the last... That was about
seven, eight weeks ago. He's had a chance to meet
with his PTs, do some strength and conditioning with our
strength and conditioning coach a little bit, all to the
workouts, and for the last four or five weeks, he's
(31:06):
been back running closer to Conner, so actually closing the
gap a little bit. And so much of the sport,
if it can't be seamless, which rarely is it, then
it's all about momentum, and he's hitting momentum. He's hitting at
the right time. So I'm hoping in Clayton's case that
(31:27):
we can ride this momentum to a really good performance,
and by good performance, with this field that they've put
together, I think Conner and Clayton, although they're 207 high
and 208 flat PRs, I think they're the 16th and 17th best times coming in, okay?
So that can have you scratching your head and going, "
Do they even have a chance?" But what I take
(31:49):
solace in is that head to head in strategic non-
paced races, the Olympic Games, they've been beating 204 guys
consistently. So that's what we're hoping for. We're hoping that
it's just a grinder and that they can do their
strength and it's not going to be (inaudible) . We
saw Lima last year just take it out and fly.
(32:11):
Got a big minute and a half lead I think
at one point in time, and that may happen again,
but I would think that Conner, you're going to see
him running with the lead pack, even if they do
go a little bit breakneck at the start, and I
don't think Clayton's going to be too far behind. They're
both engineers by training. They both graduated in engineering, and
so it's fun to see their technical approach to it.
(32:35):
Talking to Conner just a couple days ago, we had said, "
Okay." I gave him a homework assignment and said, "Let's look at the last 10 years.
Let's look at the first half, second half of Boston.
Let's do a little analytics and see what's up." And
the takeaway that he came into my office with, he said, "
Coach, what I've noticed is that whoever can run 103
for the second half is going to be in position
(32:56):
or the winner I think in the last 10 years
on the men's side to run 103 for the second
half. I think I can do that." So it's how
they get to that second half is the thing that
will help determine a lot of things. But I think
if we see kind of how it is sometimes, even
though it's downhill, sometimes it can be kind of a
pack run. Nobody really wants to take it. No one
(33:17):
wants to be the sacrificial lamb out front. I think
if they get to half at a not 61 pace,
but more like 62 or 63, then I think Conner
is going to have a great shot, and I think
that's also the best game plan for Clayton.
Sam (33:31):
I am so in awe with the technical side of
it and the numbers and the crunching numbers in your
head while this is transpiring, but when you talk about
the momentum and sprinkling those races in, and especially what
we saw Conner do, how much of this... There's technical,
there's experience, but then how much of this is confidence
(33:54):
also? How much of this is a confidence build, especially coming off
Houston and the NYC half?
Ed (34:00):
Yeah. Well, I think Conner, in fact, I was in
LA with my college team, so I missed the press
conference, but I listened to all the various things, and what
came away for me was him, Conner Mantz, reiterating how
confident he is going into this and the fact that
it took... So this will be his seventh marathon and
(34:22):
I think Clayton's as well, and his second marathon was
two years ago here. So he had run Chicago, run
well there and then came into this and he just
put himself in it because that's the way he loves
to do it. He just followed every move and he went out really
probably too hard for his experiential level at the time,
and then he really suffered at the end and I think
faded to... I think he ended up 10th or 11th place. And he said, "
(34:45):
That really shook me. That really shook me, because it was like
this is the first time when I was blacking out," something that we've
all experienced ourselves if we've run enough marathons where you're
kind of seeing stars, and he wasn't used to that
because he was really a track guy who was just moving
up. And so I think he learned and he had some
good takeaways from that, so that experiential factor comes into
(35:08):
play. And the fact that he's done so well in
the last four marathons that he's run, and if you go through
the marathons that these guys have run, really, they ran
Chicago two years ago. To get their qualifying mark, they
had to run under 208 to get the world standard. Then
they followed up with the Olympic trials where they went
one, two, then they followed that up with Paris where
(35:31):
they went eight, nine.
Rob (35:34):
Eight, nine.
Ed (35:35):
Eight, nine. Yep. And then they followed that up with
New York, where they went seven, eight. Okay, and that's
the amazing thing. I mean, I've seen larger gaps between
Conner and Clayton when they're doing mile repeats than if
you look at the average. I think the average of
those six marathons has been about 16 seconds.
Rob (35:54):
It's incredible.
Ed (35:55):
They each have their own way to get where they're
at. Conner has to just hammer, hammer, hammer. Clayton is
holding on for life and often his back, but he's
still pushing it pretty well as well. But success breeds
success, Sam, to answer your question. And I think that the
success that they've had, particularly over the last four or
so marathons, is going to make them less conservative and more, "
(36:19):
Hey, let's swing for the fences." This is Boston, after all.
Rob (36:22):
All right, Easy E, let's talk about your newest female
pupil, Kiera D'Amato, who obviously is an elite American runner.
Let's talk about the move that she made last summer.
She made the decision to come out to Utah. She's
not from Utah. She made a decision to come there.
It was a family decision. She had to work with
(36:44):
her husband and they've got kids, and this was a really
big commitment she made to come train with you and this
group that you've got out there in Utah. Can you
talk about what led up to that decision? I mean, I know you guys had
worked together in the broadcast booth in Chicago. You got
to know each other there. What were the conversations and
what was the ultimate conversation when she said, " Coach, I
(37:05):
still want to come out and run with you"?
Ed (37:06):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's like anything. Before you make that first phone call, you kind of vet
people and individuals. I had some really good experiences working
with Jared Ward as his coach, and I think Jared
and Kiera were probably... She knew him quite well from
their world championships and just the elite circuit so to
(37:28):
speak, and so I think she was kind of trying
to find out what kind of system we were operating
under. And it's an interesting system because back in my
days I felt like... And I was following in the
footsteps of all American and Olympians like Henry Marsh, Doug
(37:48):
Padilla, Paul Cummings. I saw that they were doing in
six days what a lot of people were doing in
seven days. And so I said, " Kiera, we'd like to
just do it in six days and then I'd like
to give you a day off and I'd love to have
you just kind of chill that day and just let
your body just soak in recovery during that day." And
(38:09):
I think it's not unusual to have runners occasionally take
a day off, but one out of seven, it doesn't
happen a whole lot. But I think she understood and
she said, " Ed, I'm all in. I'm all in. You
tell me what to do and I'm up for it," which the
coach loves to hear, and obviously she's had great experience.
(38:30):
I wanted to do what had worked for her in
the past. And also, I think the altitude component was
an important one for her to check out. And so
she came in I think early in the summer and
we had a wonderful build. And as things happen, sometimes
you have a wonderful build and the week before all
(38:51):
of a sudden there's a little something going on in
the foot, and so she ended up not performing in
Chicago, ended up DNFing from there. And then it was
a matter of, "Okay, let's figure out what we got going on here. Let's get you healthy." And so she cross-
trained for... There's cross- training where you just get on the
exercise bike and you just kind of pedal a little bit,
(39:13):
and then there's cross- training where there's a pool of
sweat underneath you when you finish, and that's the kind
that she was doing. But we have had a great
kind of 12 weeks where she's been running on ground,
looking good, and I'm very excited for her prospects as
well. She'd be the first to admit, she's turned 40
now, so she's a master. I think that offers some
(39:36):
excellent incentivizing as well to be the very best master
that you can be.
Rob (39:40):
What's it been like for the other young women you've
got in that program out there in Utah to run
with the Kiera D'Amano? What has that meant for them? An idol for
all of them, I'm sure, and really someone for them
to learn from.
Ed (39:54):
Well, like I say, that Saturday long run, there's a
lot more people showing up and a lot more women
showing up than there used to be. Courtney Frerichs, who's
an Olympic silver medalist in the steeplechase from 2021, suffered
a really major knee injury last year. And then I
(40:14):
got a call from her coach in the fall saying, " Hey"... I mean,
not her coach, but her agent saying, " Hey, she'd like
to come out to Utah. She's heard good things about
it," and it's been fun having her in the system
and it's fun to see a marathoner and a steeplechaser
working together, and there's a lot of workouts that cross
over very well for the two of them to work
together. So it been great. It's been encouraging. It's awesome for
(40:35):
the whole running community in the area to see these
Olympians and American record holders there training and they go, "
You know what? These are not just fast runners, but
they're really, really cool people." And I think that's what
I'm most proud about is it's a very good group.
It's non- competitive in terms of... I mean, everyone is
building one another and sometimes that's difficult at the highest
(40:58):
level. I'm sure you've experienced that in broadcasting or wherever,
what line of work you're in. Sometimes it's like there's that, what is
that, schadenfreude, where you're almost wanting them to fail. But
what I love about our group and our system right
now is there's a lot of building and celebration when
somebody in the group runs well.
Sam (41:18):
When you talk about Keira, and this is someone who wasn't
running competitively for a brief time and now you talked
about the build to Chicago and then what happened there, but
now the rebuild for Boston, what has impressed you the
most since she's been with you?
Ed (41:34):
Yeah. I think it's just her determination and just contagious positivity. That's who she
is. And if you have the chance to talk to her, I've never heard her
say one negative thing, and that's contagious. The flip side
of that can be contagious too, and it can be
(41:54):
kind of terminal sometimes. But to have such a positive
person come into the group. I think that's the number
one thing. And I think that's the thing that once
she had taken that several year break to actually just
start a family and pursue a professional career and all
of that, I think that's the thing that got her
back. She didn't initially start back up after that multiple
(42:16):
year layoff saying, " I'm going to get the American record." It's like, " Hey,
I'm going to run this marathon and I'm going to
see how I do." And then all of a sudden the times
were coming off by the tens of minutes and she
set the American record.
Rob (42:30):
Well, coach Eyestone, you're a baseball fan. I'm a baseball
fan. We're sitting here feet from Fenway Park hearing the
cheers from the audience and the crowd over there with
a game going on. But running's been pretty good to
you, hasn't it? So its been a pretty good run,
if you will.
Ed (42:45):
Well-
Rob (42:46):
Where do you think it goes from here?
Sam (42:47):
Pun intended.
Ed (42:48):
Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I had a high school reunion. It
wasn't the 50, no, but I think it was, we'll
call it the 25- year reunion. It was more than
that, but it was this last summer we had a
high school reunion, and since we had had a really
fun experience at the Olympic Games, and we didn't talk
about Kenneth Rooks, who got the silver medal in the
(43:08):
steeplechase, which was for me the race of the games,
but of course because I'm his coach, but they had
me do a little spiel on the Olympics and what
Paris was like and my experience, and I've been to
probably six or seven Olympic Games as either an athlete
or a coach or a broadcaster. And I thought that
Paris just was phenomenal the way they put things together, but yeah, and I don't know where I was going with that.
Rob (43:35):
It's been fun. You've had a great, great time-
Ed (43:37):
It's been good. It's been great.
Rob (43:37):
... and you're doing amazing things.
Sam (43:39):
I just have one more question. Obviously, most runners feel
some kind of jitters the night before a race, the
night before a marathon or anxiety, something. It means we're
human and we don't know how it's going to go.
We have a plan. What do you feel?
Ed (44:00):
Yeah. As a coach, I think I'd like to be
able to channel all the nerves that my athletes have and say, " Let
me take this on for you guys." But there is
a certain amount of butterflies that you want to have
as an athlete. But I think if they can be
reminded that it's enjoy the process, don't be so out...
If you go in and say, " I've got to run
(44:20):
204," that just puts a lot of pressure on you.
So instead, if you can enjoy the process, make sure
you're getting your water bottles, going, " Okay, I feel comfortable
in this pack, I'm going to position myself." And if
you're enjoying the process and just each mile along the
way, then lo and behold, a couple hours go by
and you're crossing the finish line. And I think that's
(44:41):
a really good way to kind of embrace those nerves
and get you your best performance.
Rob (44:46):
Coach Eyestone, I can't wait to see what your runners do
on Monday. I'm sure you can't either.
Ed (44:51):
I'm excited.
Sam (44:51):
I'm so excited, yeah.
Ed (44:52):
I'm excited. I'm getting nervous here.
Rob (44:55):
Because it's more nerve wracking when you're the one coaching
and not running, I know. So get ready. Get ready.
Get some rest.
Ed (45:02):
I'm ready.
Rob (45:03):
And we wish you all the best on Monday.
Ed (45:05):
I appreciate it.
Rob (45:06):
And for your whole team, all your runners, for you,
continued success. Thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate
it. Great having you here.
Ed (45:12):
Thank you. Thanks guys.
Rob (45:13):
Ed Eyestone, Coach Ed Eyestone. Easy E-
Sam (45:19):
Easy E, that's right.
Rob (45:20):
... here in the House of Blues where he belongs
as he gets ready for the 129th Boston Marathon on
Monday. Well, usually this is the point in the show
where we go to Meb Keflezighi. He does a little Meb Minute
for us, Sam, but Meb's a little busy. He's here in
Boston, but he's actually going to be broadcasting the race
(45:40):
for ESPN on Monday, which we can't wait to see.
He's been so great in the broadcast business. Can't wait
to watch Meb.
Sam (45:48):
He was at the 5K today.
Rob (45:49):
Yes, exactly. Meb is a legend obviously here in Boston
with his win here. You can't walk around with him
without people stopping him on the street. So he's busy
getting ready for his broadcast. But instead, we've got actually
some great advice for our runners, from Lauren Thomas, who is
a performance dietitian from Morton. Morton, of course, is our
partner at New York Road Runners, the company behind all
(46:11):
the great fuels that so many of the runners are using
right now, the gels and the drinks and all of
that. And so Lauren, thanks for coming up and talking
fueling with us a little bit.
Lauren (46:20):
Thank you.
Rob (46:21):
How are you doing?
Lauren (46:21):
Excited to be here.
Sam (46:24):
So we know Morton will be along the course, and
I've tried it, so I know you're not supposed to
try something new on Marathon Day, so once I saw
that, I tried it. Love it.
Rob (46:34):
So you tried it two days before marathon day. Much better. Are you going to use it? What do you think?
Sam (46:35):
Absolutely.
Rob (46:35):
All right. She's in.
Sam (46:39):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell us about what runners can expect. I
mean, obviously most of us have tried it, but what
makes this effective and helpful?
Lauren (46:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Super excited to be on course at Boston
and of course New York as well, but the Morton
gel is going to be easy to digest. The idea
is that it disappears from the stomach, right? So it's
giving quick carbohydrate to the muscles to get the energy
that the athlete needs and then moving through the body.
(47:15):
So the hope is that the athletes can really just
get that energy and move on with their run.
Rob (47:21):
I started using Morton myself about a year ago. I
ran Berlin with Morton in Tokyo. In Tokyo, I found
it was really helpful. I bought a couple days before
the race the race pack that you guys put together
that has a mix for drinks, right, so drink a
certain amount the day before, a certain amount the morning
of the race, and then it gave you the gels,
(47:42):
I think it was five gels to use exactly every,
I forget, a certain number of kilometers I think. So
it gave you a plan of exactly what to do,
which for someone like me, I really needed because I
had never quite gotten the fueling thing. So can you
talk about that aspect of having a fueling plan for
runners and how you guys can help them do that?
Lauren (48:02):
Yeah, absolutely. So the idea is to think about nutrition
just like you would your training and have a plan
that you're following and that you're training your stomach just like
you would train your muscles. So the idea is you're
arriving at marathon day and you have exactly what you're
going to be doing for your fueling standpoint done and
completely confident in it. So our idea from the nutrition
(48:25):
team was, " Hey, can we educate the runners on, " Hey,
not just during the race, but what are you doing before
the race? What are you doing the night before the race?"
And then recommend the carbohydrates that we see in the
research really make a big difference and guide that for
the runner throughout their journey to make sure that they
can show up at mile 13 still feeling really good
(48:48):
because they've already fueled from the very beginning. That's the
goal, right? Fueling from the start of the race.
Rob (48:53):
Yeah. Once you start to feel bad.
Lauren (48:55):
It's too late.
Rob (48:55):
It's too late.
Sam (48:56):
It's too late.
Rob (48:57):
The fuel is not going to give you what you need.
Sam (48:59):
And so important during the buildup and during the training.
How important is it early on just to try what
works and really implement a plan?
Lauren (49:10):
It's so important. It's so important. And everybody is so individual with
what they're going to like, what they're going to tolerate
at first, and you have to try things over and
over to figure out what your plan is going to
be, and then you have full trust in that. So
the Morton is based off of being able to tolerate,
(49:32):
really easy on the stomach and be able to, again,
give those athletes those higher amounts of carbs that we
see the elites pushing because all of us are going
to benefit from more carbohydrate availability.
Rob (49:44):
What do you think is the best strategy with the caffeinated
gel? I tried... I think I used one of them
right at the start in Tokyo. It gave me that
little burst, which was useful. Where do you recommend, for
those who use caffeine, people try those, and what's the
best strategy with them?
Lauren (50:04):
Yeah, caffeine is so individual with tolerance, but those of
us who are daily coffee drinkers and certainly familiar with
caffeine, I would recommend have one at the start on
the starting line 10 minutes prior to go time, and
then integrate one maybe at the halfway. And that way
(50:25):
you know that caffeine can take a while to hit
peak in your bloodstream, so you're giving it some time,
getting the caffeine along with the carbohydrate, and then getting
another burst later. So we're not going all six caffeine
gels, we're not going all six non caffeine gels, but
maybe all alternating and sticking one midway can be a
(50:45):
helpful way to approach that.
Sam (50:47):
Most of us aren't elite athletes. There are elites out
there who they fuel a different way and they train
differently than someone like me. But how much can we
take from that and can we learn from their buildup
and their fueling? How effective can that be for the
(51:08):
everyday runner?
Lauren (51:09):
Yeah, and I think Morton is very athlete first, and
we learn just as much from our runners and our
elites as we do from our everyday runner, you and
me. And I think what we can learn is that
fueling is only the beginning of being able to understand
how your body works. So how can we make sure
(51:31):
that an athlete is pushing those limits that they thought
they maybe weren't even realizing was the limit? So I
think a lot of times I'll hear athletes say, " I
didn't know I could feel this good at the end
of a race." And that's where fueling really comes in. "
Well, I was taking a gel every hour. I thought
that was fine." And sure it is, but what if
(51:52):
you increase that and can you get to that last
5K feeling strong? That's going to be a whole different
end of the race than it would otherwise. So I
think we can learn a lot from these athletes who
are pushing very, very high carbohydrate amounts during the race.
Rob (52:07):
All right. Well Lauren, I think we should give away a little Morton
right here. We got a crowd here, so I want
everybody out there to take a look under your chair.
And if it's not your chair, you can even look.
It's right up underneath the chair, right? And there are
some Morton, I think some water bottles there maybe. Somebody
got one. I hear somebody pull... There we go. There's one.
Sam (52:29):
Awesome.
Rob (52:30):
If you've got a Morton water bottle, we've got a
pack of Morton gels right here for you, so you can
come up and grab them. This is the Morton Marathon
collection, seven gels, two drinks. Actually, yeah, four drinks.
Sam (52:44):
Oh, this is like what you had.
Rob (52:45):
This is very similar. There's a water bottle in the pack
as well.
Sam (52:47):
That's awesome.
Rob (52:48):
I love this because it just plans it all out
for you. You don't have to think, and it's really
great. You guys are doing a great job. I see
Morton gel, it's just everywhere now. You see it on
the ground sometimes when you're running for those who missed
the trash basket. We wanted them to hit the trash
basket, but still, you see a lot of them on the
ground. You see them everywhere. So the runners are really
(53:10):
responding to what you guys are doing.
Lauren (53:11):
That's awesome. Glad to hear.
Sam (53:13):
One more question from me. For pre- race, do you
recommend taking the Morton gel before you start or do
you wait until a certain mileage? I know it's one
size fits all, but do you pre- race fuel?
Lauren (53:32):
I do recommend a gel 10 minutes before the start,
especially a long morning like Boston or New York or
any of these major marathons that you might be waiting
around more. It's been a while since breakfast. Not only
do you probably have to have a second breakfast, but
you want to start that first 5K feeling strong. We
don't want to dip into the reserves at the very
(53:53):
beginning, right? So can we start fueled from before the
start line and then again at the 5K mark or
whatever your plan might be? But yeah, early and often
is my motto.
Rob (54:04):
All right. Well, thank you Lauren. Good luck to everybody
out there using Morton on Monday. Appreciate having you here. And Sam,
it's going to be a really fun couple of days
in Boston. There's nothing like being in Boston for the
Boston Marathon. The city-
Sam (54:20):
The energy-
Rob (54:20):
... is on fire.
Sam (54:21):
... is so great. There was '80s music playing at
the finish line today. Did you hear it?
Rob (54:26):
A hundred percent.
Sam (54:27):
Oh, come on. They were playing New Order.
Rob (54:28):
They've got a great DJ.
Sam (54:28):
It was great. It was awesome.
Rob (54:31):
The finish line on Boylston Street has been on fire
all week. There's just something about this city this week,
especially when the weather's good. The Red Sox are playing.
People are here from all over the world. The city
is just absolutely at its best. The cherry blossoms are
in bloom. So if you don't love Boston this weekend,
you can't love Boston because this is an absolutely gorgeous
(54:54):
weekend. I just think the energy of the runners is what
it's all about. So to you, Sam, and to everybody else
out there running, good luck.
Sam (55:02):
Thank you.
Rob (55:03):
It should be amazing.
Sam (55:03):
And good luck to all of you guys. So excited for
everybody here. It's going to be great.
Rob (55:10):
Thank you so much, Sam, for being with us. Thank
you to Ed Eyestone, to Lauren Thomas, and we just
love... We're New Yorkers, but we love coming to Boston
for the Boston Marathon. We love hosting our members here.
Thanks again to House of Blues, Citizens House of Blues
for hosting us. Good luck everybody. We will see you
next week on Set the Pace. Have a great 129th
(55:33):
Boston Marathon. Good luck.
Sam (55:34):
Good luck.
Rob (55:50):
New York Road Runners is a nonprofit organization with a
vision to build healthier lives and stronger communities through the
transformative power of running. The support of members and donors
like you helps us achieve our mission to transform the
health and well- being of our communities through inclusive and
accessible running experiences, empowering all to achieve their potential. Learn
(56:12):
more and contribute at nyrr. org/ donate.
What can we call you? Coach Ed? Coach Eyestone?
Ed (00:02):
My guys called me Easy E.
Rob (00:04):
Easy E.
Ed (00:06):
I don't know that it's due to my rapping abilities.
I think it's just because I'm a kind of easygoing guy.
Rob (00:17):
Hey everybody and welcome to a special episode of Set
the Pace, the official podcast of New York Road Runners,
presented by Peloton. I'm your host, Rob Simmelkjaer, the CEO
of New York Road Runners, and we are here with
a live audience at the Citizens House of Blues in
Boston, just two nights ahead of the 2025 129th running of the Boston Marathon
(00:43):
presented by Bank of America. Who's running out there? Who's
running on Monday? All right, we got runners out here.
It's an incredible vibe in Boston this weekend. The weather
is spectacular here on Saturday, the day we're taping, and
it looks great for Monday as well. And my usual
amazing co- host, Becs Gentry, is not with us today.
(01:04):
She's back in New York tonight, so we have a
very special guest host with us tonight. She's a great
friend of New York Road Runners, familiar fans to all
New York sports fans and sports fans everywhere and especially
to fans of the TCS New York City Marathon because
she is a regular host of our broadcast there. Not
only that, she's running the Boston Marathon on Monday, Sam
(01:25):
Ryan. Hey Sam.
Sam (01:29):
Hey there. So excited to be... Missing Becs, but so
excited to be here with you guys today and this
weekend, and wow, the weather. Dare we say, it's two
days out. We can say it now. The weather's looking
really good.
Rob (01:42):
It's looking great.
Sam (01:43):
We're close, so now we can say it.
Rob (01:45):
Great for Monday.
Sam (01:45):
All week long, I didn't want to say it, but yeah.
Rob (01:47):
A hundred percent. Thank goodness that the race was not
today because here on Saturday, over 80 degrees in Boston.
An incredible day to walk around, see the sights, take
photos, but luckily a lot cooler on Monday. So how
are you feeling about your race on Monday?
Sam (02:04):
Like those of you who are running, probably a little
nervous, trying to get out of my head, but the hay is in
the barn as they say, right?
Rob (02:11):
That's what they say.
Sam (02:12):
So you have to trust your training and I know
we have a special guest who will tell us about
that too a little later, but I trust the training and I'm excited.
Rob (02:22):
All right. Well, we-
Sam (02:23):
I'm really looking forward to it.
Rob (02:23):
You mentioned a special guest, and if you want to know about
training for a marathon, there is no person better in
the United States or beyond to talk to than our
featured guest today. The legendary coach Ed Eyestone is here
with us today. Ed is someone who has really become
the top distance running coach in the country. He's got
(02:46):
a number of elite runners going on Monday and we're
going to go deep with Ed on all things marathoning
and get psyched for what we think could be some
amazing American performances. So Ed'll be with us in just a
minute, but Sam, we do this member moment segment at
every New York Road Runners Set the Pace podcast, and
so today the member is you. We're going to feature
you, Sam, as our member moment. You're not only a
(03:08):
great broadcaster but also a New York Road Runners member.
So let's talk a little bit about what you're doing
and how you're feeling about Monday. I mean, it's actually
amazing. You're a four- time Emmy Award winner, a great
broadcaster. You sit in our studio broadcasting the marathon in
New York. How is it for you to get out
there and actually run these races after you've sat and been
(03:29):
a part of broadcasting them so many years?
Sam (03:31):
It's so different now because when I first started broadcasting
the New York City Marathon after having set my marathon
PB in New York City, so when you cover it,
it's like covering the Super Bowl. This is your event.
It's like, " Okay, now here I am covering the event
that I love, that I run." You feel like you're
(03:52):
part of the fabric. But now to go back out
and to run a marathon after that, it just feels,
I don't want to use the word authentic, but it
feels like it's full circle, but now it feels like
you can feel what you're speaking to also. So it's
a little bit of that all wrapped up into one.
(04:13):
I'm not just the runner out there. I can parlay
this information into the booth as well, but I take
advice from you, from Carrie, from everybody that we work
with also, and I listen to them, so now I can
apply that to myself.
Rob (04:27):
It's funny. You've covered so many big sports. You've covered Major
League Baseball, the NFL, you've been a part of these
big sports, but you haven't been able to play Major
League Baseball or play in the NFL. So it's got
to be so cool as a broadcaster to go out
on the field of play that you've been covering and
kind of have that crossover moment. And that's one of
(04:49):
the things that's so special about this sport, right, is that
we're going to have 30,000 people following these elite runners
in Boston on Monday as we do in New York
every November.
Sam (04:58):
You know what? We were just talking about this in
the green room before that it's such an individual sport,
right? You're running your pace, you're doing your training, but
yet there are teammates and there is teamwork. And we've
seen this with the pros. We see the teamwork and
we see how the running community just bonds together and
everybody supports each other. So it is a team sport
(05:23):
in that sense too. And there's just so much energy.
It's like being part of a team and everybody roots
for each other. It's awesome. You guys are awesome.
Rob (05:31):
It is awesome. We're going to be rooting for everybody
out there this Monday. That's one of the things that makes
it special. Sam, you were not always into running, and this
happens a lot with people. They find a point in
life when they like running. When you were a kid, I'm told
you would produce a doctor's note to get out of
having to run a mile in gym class.
Sam (05:51):
It was a legitimate doctor's note.
Rob (05:53):
Oh, a legitimate doctor's note.
Sam (05:53):
It was legitimate. Yes, yes.
Rob (05:55):
What changed for you to get you from there to
where you are now running all these marathons?
Sam (06:00):
So I have asthma and I don't know if anyone
else does, but I as a kid, exercise induced asthma.
So that was my excuse rather than, " Let's work through
it," because it wasn't advisable back then. It's like, " Okay,
you have exercise- induced asthma. Don't work out. Don't do
anything." When I got a little older, when I was 18,
19, I wanted to get in shape. I wanted to
(06:24):
play tennis. I would get winded just running back and
forth on the court. And I worked on, " Let me
run to the end of my block, let me run
to the end of my block and then turn the corner," little by
little one step at a time. And that's how we
all began, or most of us would begin our running
journey if we developed running later in life. So it's
(06:46):
just one foot in front of the other, let's see
how far we can go. And then I realized I
wasn't getting as winded. I didn't need the inhaler. I
have pictures from my first New York City Marathon, which
was my first marathon, and there's an inhaler on my
fuel belt.
Rob (06:57):
Wow.
Sam (06:58):
My second one, inhaler in the hand. Never needed it,
but it was always in my head and I always
thought about, " Well, what if I need it? What if
I push too hard? Am I going to need the
inhaler?" And I didn't. And I feel that I worked
through it and I feel better physically.
Rob (07:18):
That's a great story. It's one of 30, 000 stories that
there'll be at the starting line on Monday and there's
just so many stories like that in this sport. Everybody
has had to overcome something to get to the starting
line of an event like the Boston Marathon or the New
York Marathon. Every single one of you knows, whether it's
you running or a friend, you know what they've had
(07:40):
to overcome, and for you it was that, and here
you are. It must feel amazing.
Sam (07:43):
It does. It does. I just want to keep going.
Rob (07:45):
Absolutely.
Sam (07:46):
We all do, right?
Rob (07:47):
Speaking of keeping going, you have a goal of running
a thousand miles a year. Is that right? You're trying
to do a thousand a year?
Sam (07:55):
Well, yeah.
Rob (07:55):
That's not so crazy.
Sam (07:59):
(inaudible) crazy.
Rob (07:59):
Have you done a thousand in the last couple of years?
Sam (08:02):
The last two years I hadn't, but prior to that
I did. This year I will make it.
Rob (08:07):
Yeah.
Sam (08:08):
Yeah. We are in a marathon training cycle.
Rob (08:09):
It's true. You can do that pretty quickly. Where are
you trying to get to in your marathon goals? Do you
have a time you're trying to achieve in Boston or
what are you trying to do?
Sam (08:17):
I do have a time because I've run this before and the last time
I ran it, it didn't go... It wasn't pretty. So
I want to finish and finish proud and just happy,
and I want to prove that the training that I
did and the dedication that I put into this over
(08:40):
the past year has paid off and that it worked,
so let's see. Let's see where it goes.
Rob (08:47):
Well, we wish you luck on Monday. It's going to
be exciting for you. Hope to welcome you back to
New York with Boston Marathon under your belt. And you
think you'll be able to take some things from this to
the marathon broadcast in the fall in New York?
Sam (09:04):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Rob (09:05):
We can't wait.
Sam (09:05):
And just being part of this community, it's so uplifting.
So you guys are awesome. You guys are rock stars.
Rob (09:12):
All right. Well, speaking of rock stars, there are going
to be some incredible rock stars wearing the USA stars
and stripes on Monday. Ed Eyestone, no one knows more
about how to prepare for a marathon than our guest,
so let's bring Ed Eyestone up and introduce this incredible coach.
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Rob (10:11):
For those who don't know Coach Eyestone, I think we call you...
What can we call you? Coach Ed? Coach Eyestone?
Ed (10:18):
My guys called me Easy E.
Rob (10:19):
Easy E.
Ed (10:22):
I don't know that it's due to my rapping ability.
I think it's just because a kind of easygoing guy.
Rob (10:28):
Not the original Easy E. I love it.
Ed (10:30):
Our sport is difficult enough to not have a dictator
as a coach and having been there in their position, I
want to be able to work with them. I mean,
I am demanding, and I'm sure you've talked to Conner
and Clayton, the kind of workouts that they do, but
it's kind of flattering actually, Easy E. But you can call me Ed. That's fine.
Rob (10:50):
We're sticking with Easy E. I love it.
Sam (10:52):
Easy E is good. Yeah.
Rob (10:53):
So for those who don't know, Coach Eyestone, Ed Eyestone is
a two- time Olympian himself. He is a former NCAA
champion and a legendary coach whose athletes include Conner Mantz,
Clayton Young and Keira D'Amato, who all will be towing
the starting line on Monday, and they are really leading
a resurgence in American distance running. He's the head coach in cross-
(11:15):
country and track and field at BYU, one of the
most consistent collegiate programs in the country over the years,
and talking about how calm he is, steady leadership has
really made that a program that's on the map now
for all runners, and he's a broadcaster just like you,
Sam. You guys actually have been together I think as
broadcasters. You've connected with some of your runners through broadcasting,
(11:37):
which we'll talk about as well. So he's done it
all and it's great to have you here.
Ed (11:42):
Well, thank you. Appreciate that, and probably a little bit
of hyperbole there in that intro, but I appreciate it. It's been
fun. And this is a sport that, like many of
you, I started back in junior high when I got
cut from the baseball team, of course. If my real
dreams had have come to fruition, I'd be next door
at Fenway Park. But when I did get that cut,
(12:04):
it was the first time that I realized in the
spring of the year, sure you have baseball, but there's
another sport actually in the spring. It's called track and
field. And so that's how I got my gentle introduction
into the sport. And so like many of you, I've
been involved in this for the last 50 plus years
and it's been fun. I was able to run through
college and then had a pretty long- lasting professional career.
(12:28):
When I was nearly 40 actually as I was slowing
down and the competition was getting faster, a good coach
in the area offered me a position just to get
my foot in the door of coaching. And so I
went and worked at a place called Weber State University
up in Ogden, Utah for about two and a half
years. And then as that cycled down, my old track
(12:50):
and cross- country coach at BYU was then retiring and
I was able to move in. And so for the
last 25 years, I've been working at the D1 level,
and over the last 10 years or so, we've had
athletes emerge who were running at a high enough level
that they were going to be able to run professionally.
And so it's kind of fun. My day job obviously
(13:12):
is a track and field and cross- country coach at BYU.
We won a national championship this last year.
Rob (13:16):
Congratulations.
Sam (13:18):
Awesome.
Ed (13:20):
Humble brag right there, humble brag, but it doesn't happen
often so I work it into conversations as often as I
can. But that may be my day job, but I'm just
as passionate obviously about my professional athletes that I get
to work with and it's so cool.
Sam (13:39):
Before we get to Conner and Clayton and Kiera, you
talked about your career, and I know this sounds like
a broad question, but we know that running, in the
running community, running, there's a boom in popularity in all
distances, not just the marathon, but what is the biggest
difference that you see not only in the performance and
(14:00):
the athletes, but in the training, in the equipment, in
the shoes and in the coaching from when you ran-
Ed (14:08):
From the dark ages, you're saying?
Sam (14:09):
... to today?
Ed (14:09):
So from the dark ages?
Sam (14:11):
Yeah. Well, Easy E.
Ed (14:12):
When all the pictures were in black and white. My
guys are going, " Was color not invented when you were running?"
It's interesting because I think some of the same go-
to workouts that my guys love and thrive in were
similar workouts that I was doing in the '80s and '90s. So some of
that has been consistent, but there are always new innovations,
(14:35):
and a good coach is going to plagiarize with the
best of them. We're in a wonderful opportunity now in
terms of the internet. The internet's not only great for
learning a guitar song or something, but also fantastic in
terms of pulling up some good workouts and seeing what
people around the country and around the world are doing.
So I think we've all appreciated for this sharing of
(14:56):
information that's out there, things like double threshold workouts, and
obviously the equipment and the stadiums that we're running in
I think are more athlete friendly now as well. And
so all of those things I think are coming together
and as a result of that, we're just seeing a
perfect storm of speed and that's why the records have
(15:20):
just gone through the roof in terms of across all
events really, and it's going to be interesting to see
what the future holds.
Rob (15:29):
And you were kind of a perfect storm of speed yourself when you were
a runner. I mean, you haven't bragged that much about your running
days, but you really were elite. You won something called
the triple crown of distance running, which I think only
four or five people have ever done, the national championship
in cross country in the 5, 000 meters and in the 10, 000
(15:49):
meters, which is an incredible accomplishment. What did you take
from those days of running at that level that you've
been able to really bring into your coaching career?
Ed (15:59):
Well, if you were to ask my guys, they would
probably say one thing that Coach Eyestone likes or Easy
E likes is consistency. And I felt like over the
course of my career, even dating back to high school
and college, I was someone who my coaches pretty much
knew they were going to put me in and even
if it was an event that I wasn't that comfortable
with, a 1500 or something like that, that I was
(16:21):
going to give it my best possible performance. Didn't mean
that I was going to win every race, but I
was going to be consistent. When people come to me
and ask, " Okay, what's the perfect workout? What do I
need to do?" It's just the consistency and I came
up with kind of a corny equation because I was
anything but a math major, but it's C squared equals
(16:43):
E squared, which is just consistent competence equals eventual excellence.
So you don't have to hit a home run every
time you're up to bat. You can tell I'm a
frustrated baseball player, right? But we just need to get
out there and do our best on a consistent basis.
And if we do that day in, day out, week in, week
(17:03):
out, month in, month out, year in, year out, then
ultimately I think we're going to have an opportunity to,
if not achieve greatness, at least come close to our
running potential.
Sam (17:15):
That is awesome. So when you take that philosophy and
that mentality from your training and parlay that to coaching,
when some athletes join you later, Kiera for example, how
difficult is it to or receptive are they to your
(17:38):
philosophy and your message?
Ed (17:40):
Well, I think anytime I take in someone who... I've
been fortunate because I've had a number of athletes come
through the BYU system, and so they've literally been with
me since their senior year in high school and so
by the time they get through in four or five
years, they kind of know the system, and obviously it's
going to be tweaked as they move up to the
marathon from maybe the five and 10, 000 meters, but I've also worked
with people who went to other programs and then came
(18:03):
in. First thing you do as a coach is just
sit down with person and you kind of see what
their goals are. I was in at the Bryan Clay
Meet in Los Angeles for the last four days with
my college team. So this morning I got up early
and caught a nonstop, got in about two hours ago.
The guy that I was sitting next to obviously looked
like a runner. We struck up a conversation and the
(18:24):
first thing I asked him is, " What is your goal?
What would make you happy in terms of running Boston?"
And he said, " Well, work's been a grind lately. I
haven't been able to get the miles in." So I said, "
Well, obviously you have realistic expectations going in." He wasn't
expecting to run a PR, but he wanted to get
the very best performance out of his training that he
(18:45):
had done. So to answer your question, Sam, anytime that
I take on a new client or athlete that I'm
going to work with, we're going to have a conversation
about where you're at, what you've done in the past,
what's some of the good things that you'd like to
carry forward that you think are going to be effective, and then
hey, maybe we can implement some of these things that
have proven effective with myself back in the dark ages
(19:06):
or with some of the athletes that I'm currently working
with to kind of tweak things. And some of it
also is just coming to altitude, like Keira D'Amato. When
she came out, she'd never been at altitude. Here we
have the American record holder at the time, or previous
to that anyway, in the marathon, she'd never really had
any extended training at altitude. And I said, " You know
(19:27):
what? That's kind of a thing. Let's experiment with that.
Let's come out to altitude."
Rob (19:32):
It works for Kenyans and Ethiopians and lots of other stuff.
Ed (19:35):
I think really if you look worldwide, if you see the
people in the Olympic Games, I would say the vast,
vast, vast majority, almost without exception, not necessarily live full-
time at altitude, but have an altitude training component that
they will step up to for at least four to
six weeks.
Rob (19:54):
That community that you have created out there in Utah
is incredible now and it really has become... There's been Flagstaff,
Arizona, there's been Boulder, Colorado over the years for American
distance running, but I don't know that there's ever been
anything quite like what you have going on between the
incredible program you've got at BYU and now this professional
(20:17):
running scene. And I had a chance to go visit
out there this past February. A guy named Todd Garner,
who's a friend of yours and a friend of Road
Runners, hosted me and my daughter out there. I had
a chance to have dinner with Clayton and Conner and
their wives and this whole crew out there and they
are all hitting the roads Saturday morning, long runs, pushing
(20:37):
each other. They got vehicle support, and it's a team
that you guys have out there. What has allowed this
Utah kind of cluster to become what it has become
in distance running?
Ed (20:49):
Yeah. I mean, I think there are various things that
have contributed to the growth, one, at BYU on both the
men's and women's. Let me brag about our women for
a minute because they won a national championship on the
women's side at cross- country this year and I think it
was the first time at about 20 years that the
men's and women's program had won simultaneously in the same
year. Coach Diljeet Taylor is doing a phenomenal job with
(21:10):
our women there. She's also part of the Nike kind
of hub system that they've established there. So she's got
some very, very talented professional athletes as well. So I
think it's a combination of having some really good athletes
that have graduated from the system and have stuck around
because of (inaudible) success. And then a lot of
(21:30):
people, Utah is... They call it, what do they call it, Little
Silicon Slopes a little bit, a lot of big tech
industry coming in there. So we just have a lot
of really good people moving in from out of state
who love running. And as we know, running is a
wonderful community and people like Todd Garner who's been very
generous, very supportive, have also stepped up, and as a
(21:51):
result on any given Saturday long run, yes, we'll have
Conner and Clayton and Kiera that are leading the charge
in the men's pack and the women's pack, but we'll have
40 plus people show up, some of whom are three
hour plus marathoners, but they know, " Okay, this is a
place where we're going to meet and there's going to
be some support and some camaraderie and all of those
good things." When you get... There's a certain amount of
synergy that comes when you have good people training together
(22:14):
and also maybe not hanging with you in the workouts,
but just supportive and know who your name is and
know what your name is and how to support you,
good things are going to happen. We've also had an
interesting development with the state legislature, a program called REP,
which has done some state dollars donating towards the development
(22:37):
of distance running in the state, so kind of as
a safety net for those college kids who come out
because not everybody is running well enough out of college
to garner a shoe contract, which is kind of the
bread and butter of professional athletes, right? You got to
be able to have something to pay the rent, right?
And the vast majority of kids out of college are
not at that level, but with some support, with some
(23:01):
maintenance, and it doesn't take a lot, sometimes it's just
a matter of having an insurance program, health insurance or
access to PTs or athletic trainers, as a result of
those monies that have been invested by the state, we've
seen I think a rise as well.
Sam (23:17):
It's interesting. One thing that you just said that I
want to go back to, you said not everybody is running well
enough out of college, the development of the runner and
the distance runner. Can we talk about the maturation and
how long does that really take after college?
Ed (23:33):
Yeah. Well, I was having a conversation with somebody the
other day because if you follow the sport, you probably were
aware that a couple weeks ago at the LA Marathon, all of
a sudden we had this college kid, I think in
his first year out of college, post- collegiately. He was
a two- time All- American, but he was not a
name that you would really know unless you were in the
conference. Went out and on his debut ran 207, okay? So
(23:58):
Rickman is his name and I'm drawing a blank on
his first name, but... Did somebody... Matt. Okay, thank you.
I always get... Dorian, when I'm working in Chicago, she's the one-
Rob (24:09):
Dorian Cale with the assist from the first row. Yeah.
Ed (24:11):
Yes.
Rob (24:12):
(inaudible) .
Ed (24:12):
Dorian is the one slipping me notes saying, "Okay, you're mispronouncing"-
Sam (24:16):
You guys can cheer for Dorian.
Ed (24:17):
" You're mispronouncing that guy's name, you dummy. You gotta
say it right." You need brains behind the whatever sometimes,
and we appreciate Dorian. But yeah, so here's a guy
who it would be easy just to say, " Okay, ran
D1 college, two time All- American. It's time to move
(24:40):
on. I got a day job," or whatever, but he's continued
and he gave himself a shot. He trained and he
went into his marathon and his debut ran sub 208,
okay? So my conversation with the team was, " Hey guys,
I think you owe it to yourselves, if it's a
desire of yours"... I'm not going to push it. I
am Easy E, right? I'm not going to push this
(25:00):
goal onto them, but they should probably have as a
goal at some point in time post- collegiately to go
run a marathon. Let's see, because we definitely have some
people that are adapters that are much better at the
marathon than they would be even at the 5, 000, 10,000. There's
a pretty good correlation between 10K success and marathon success,
but it's not a one- to- one correlation by any
(25:21):
means. And sometimes you'll have people who are so- so
at the 10,000 meters, but because of their efficiency in
running and their fueling ability or the way their body
spares fuel when they run, they can really make a step-
up. So I think really most runners, especially, again, D1
or whatever, college runners, probably owe it to themselves that, "
(25:44):
Hey, let's give this marathon thing a shot."
Rob (25:47):
And I was in Orlando a year and change ago
for the US Olympic trials and saw the incredible moment
that two of your runners, Clayton and Conner had, and
now here we are past the Olympics where they also
had an incredible day. I was in Paris to watch
them both cross the finish line in the top 10, and the
strength from the two of them just continues to build.
(26:10):
So looking ahead to Monday, I'd love to get inside
your conversations with both Clayton and Conner getting ready for
this race on Monday. How are you talking to them
about the way this race might play out and the
expectations that both of them have in terms of what
they can do? Clayton has been running strong, Conner just
(26:32):
coming off of a American record in the half. A
lot of people right now are talking about him as
someone who could be podium or better, so different conversations,
I'm sure. Let's start with Clayton and how you think he
can approach this race on Monday. What looks like a
good race for him?
Ed (26:48):
Yeah. Well, I think Clayton, and many of you are probably following
along. We often have a documentarian at every workout. For
those of you who are on YouTube and follow Clayton
Young, he's got a series that's very, very well done and I think
it gives you a little bit of an inside peek
of the psyche of elite marathoners and what they're going
through and whatnot. And we had an excellent build going
(27:12):
into Paris I felt and a pretty good build going into
New York. This build, and when I say build, it's
usually kind of a 16- week program that we follow,
this week or this build coming into Boston, when we're
training for spring marathons in Utah, it can be a little
dicey, right? Because we're in the winter. People fly out
to Utah to ski in the winter time. They don't
(27:32):
come out to train for marathons. So sometimes it can
be a little hit- and- miss because of the weather.
But Clayton's had a really nice build and I think
he gauges somewhat where he's at relative to his proximity
to his training partner, Conner Mantz, because Conner's just famous
for going out and just hammering every workout. And I'll
give him, " Okay, let's try to hit around 418 on
(27:53):
these mile repeats," and Conner will roll in at 412 and it's like, "
Conner, that's a little fast there." And Clayton's going, " Conner,
that's really fast." They get along really well, but sometimes
they're like an old married couple because inevitably Conner is
driving the workout pretty fast and Clayton's holding on with
his fingernails. But he's come into this, as you alluded
(28:17):
to Conner Mantz coming into this 16- week cycle. I
like to schedule races periodically because I think having races
during your marathon build, I think there's a couple of
good things that come about as a result of that.
One, you avoid the what I call all your eggs
in one basket syndrome where you're just training for six
(28:39):
months and it's one race and then you get a
cramp or something and it's like, " Oh crud, what do I have
to show for my six months?" So I like to
have a couple of races in there so they can
go and have other races and try to get PRs
or just see where they're at. I think it's a good
checkpoint to see where am I in my training, at
least in the shorter distances, and that can really instill
(28:59):
some confidence. And I think it also forces them for
about a week as they go into this to taper
down just a little bit, because sometimes they'll be hammering
out anywhere from 115 to 125 miles a week and it's nice
to have a half- marathon or in Conner and Clayton's case, two half-
marathons over this 16- week build where they were able
(29:19):
to actually bring the mileage down a little bit because
if they're going to run a race, I want them
to go into it fresh enough that they're going to
be able to perform to the best of their ability.
And so in Conner's case, he got the American record
in Houston and had an amazing race and it was
a pretty windy day. It was not ideal conditions. And
then he followed that up about I think five weeks
(29:42):
ago at the New York City half, which I think you were
there, Sam, weren't you, covering it?
Rob (29:45):
Yep.
Ed (29:48):
And he ran even faster there. Because of the logistics
of that course, it's not eligible for American record purposes
because it's point to point, but had another really good...
Ran faster on what I consider a hillier and more
difficult course than Houston.
Rob (30:01):
Definitely.
Ed (30:02):
So those were really good checkpoints for Conner Mantz. Now,
Clayton went into... ran Houston. Ran solid, not amazing. I
think we all thought he'd run closer to one hour
flat and he was one hour and 50s or something
like that. So he came away from it a little scratching
his head going, " I think I just made some tactical decisions."
(30:24):
It was a windy day. He didn't go with the leaders,
so he got kind of no man's land. So we go, "
Okay, we'll work on tactics on that." And then he
ran the Atlanta half, which was the US half- marathon
championships and really just had an off day. His back
tightened and his lower kind of hamstring chain. And that's
the other thing that happens. I think when we schedule
(30:45):
races during a build, sometimes we can identify maybe some
weaknesses in where we're at. And so I think that
was a really good opportunity for the last... That was about
seven, eight weeks ago. He's had a chance to meet
with his PTs, do some strength and conditioning with our
strength and conditioning coach a little bit, all to the
workouts, and for the last four or five weeks, he's
(31:06):
been back running closer to Conner, so actually closing the
gap a little bit. And so much of the sport,
if it can't be seamless, which rarely is it, then
it's all about momentum, and he's hitting momentum. He's hitting at
the right time. So I'm hoping in Clayton's case that
(31:27):
we can ride this momentum to a really good performance,
and by good performance, with this field that they've put
together, I think Conner and Clayton, although they're 207 high
and 208 flat PRs, I think they're the 16th and 17th best times coming in, okay?
So that can have you scratching your head and going, "
Do they even have a chance?" But what I take
(31:49):
solace in is that head to head in strategic non-
paced races, the Olympic Games, they've been beating 204 guys
consistently. So that's what we're hoping for. We're hoping that
it's just a grinder and that they can do their
strength and it's not going to be (inaudible) . We
saw Lima last year just take it out and fly.
(32:11):
Got a big minute and a half lead I think
at one point in time, and that may happen again,
but I would think that Conner, you're going to see
him running with the lead pack, even if they do
go a little bit breakneck at the start, and I
don't think Clayton's going to be too far behind. They're
both engineers by training. They both graduated in engineering, and
so it's fun to see their technical approach to it.
(32:35):
Talking to Conner just a couple days ago, we had said, "
Okay." I gave him a homework assignment and said, "Let's look at the last 10 years.
Let's look at the first half, second half of Boston.
Let's do a little analytics and see what's up." And
the takeaway that he came into my office with, he said, "
Coach, what I've noticed is that whoever can run 103
for the second half is going to be in position
(32:56):
or the winner I think in the last 10 years
on the men's side to run 103 for the second
half. I think I can do that." So it's how
they get to that second half is the thing that
will help determine a lot of things. But I think
if we see kind of how it is sometimes, even
though it's downhill, sometimes it can be kind of a
pack run. Nobody really wants to take it. No one
(33:17):
wants to be the sacrificial lamb out front. I think
if they get to half at a not 61 pace,
but more like 62 or 63, then I think Conner
is going to have a great shot, and I think
that's also the best game plan for Clayton.
Sam (33:31):
I am so in awe with the technical side of
it and the numbers and the crunching numbers in your
head while this is transpiring, but when you talk about
the momentum and sprinkling those races in, and especially what
we saw Conner do, how much of this... There's technical,
there's experience, but then how much of this is confidence
(33:54):
also? How much of this is a confidence build, especially coming off
Houston and the NYC half?
Ed (34:00):
Yeah. Well, I think Conner, in fact, I was in
LA with my college team, so I missed the press
conference, but I listened to all the various things, and what
came away for me was him, Conner Mantz, reiterating how
confident he is going into this and the fact that
it took... So this will be his seventh marathon and
(34:22):
I think Clayton's as well, and his second marathon was
two years ago here. So he had run Chicago, run
well there and then came into this and he just
put himself in it because that's the way he loves
to do it. He just followed every move and he went out really
probably too hard for his experiential level at the time,
and then he really suffered at the end and I think
faded to... I think he ended up 10th or 11th place. And he said, "
(34:45):
That really shook me. That really shook me, because it was like
this is the first time when I was blacking out," something that we've
all experienced ourselves if we've run enough marathons where you're
kind of seeing stars, and he wasn't used to that
because he was really a track guy who was just moving
up. And so I think he learned and he had some
good takeaways from that, so that experiential factor comes into
(35:08):
play. And the fact that he's done so well in
the last four marathons that he's run, and if you go through
the marathons that these guys have run, really, they ran
Chicago two years ago. To get their qualifying mark, they
had to run under 208 to get the world standard. Then
they followed up with the Olympic trials where they went
one, two, then they followed that up with Paris where
(35:31):
they went eight, nine.
Rob (35:34):
Eight, nine.
Ed (35:35):
Eight, nine. Yep. And then they followed that up with
New York, where they went seven, eight. Okay, and that's
the amazing thing. I mean, I've seen larger gaps between
Conner and Clayton when they're doing mile repeats than if
you look at the average. I think the average of
those six marathons has been about 16 seconds.
Rob (35:54):
It's incredible.
Ed (35:55):
They each have their own way to get where they're
at. Conner has to just hammer, hammer, hammer. Clayton is
holding on for life and often his back, but he's
still pushing it pretty well as well. But success breeds
success, Sam, to answer your question. And I think that the
success that they've had, particularly over the last four or
so marathons, is going to make them less conservative and more, "
(36:19):
Hey, let's swing for the fences." This is Boston, after all.
Rob (36:22):
All right, Easy E, let's talk about your newest female
pupil, Kiera D'Amato, who obviously is an elite American runner.
Let's talk about the move that she made last summer.
She made the decision to come out to Utah. She's
not from Utah. She made a decision to come there.
It was a family decision. She had to work with
(36:44):
her husband and they've got kids, and this was a really
big commitment she made to come train with you and this
group that you've got out there in Utah. Can you
talk about what led up to that decision? I mean, I know you guys had
worked together in the broadcast booth in Chicago. You got
to know each other there. What were the conversations and
what was the ultimate conversation when she said, " Coach, I
(37:05):
still want to come out and run with you"?
Ed (37:06):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's like anything. Before you make that first phone call, you kind of vet
people and individuals. I had some really good experiences working
with Jared Ward as his coach, and I think Jared
and Kiera were probably... She knew him quite well from
their world championships and just the elite circuit so to
(37:28):
speak, and so I think she was kind of trying
to find out what kind of system we were operating
under. And it's an interesting system because back in my
days I felt like... And I was following in the
footsteps of all American and Olympians like Henry Marsh, Doug
(37:48):
Padilla, Paul Cummings. I saw that they were doing in
six days what a lot of people were doing in
seven days. And so I said, " Kiera, we'd like to
just do it in six days and then I'd like
to give you a day off and I'd love to have
you just kind of chill that day and just let
your body just soak in recovery during that day." And
(38:09):
I think it's not unusual to have runners occasionally take
a day off, but one out of seven, it doesn't
happen a whole lot. But I think she understood and
she said, " Ed, I'm all in. I'm all in. You
tell me what to do and I'm up for it," which the
coach loves to hear, and obviously she's had great experience.
(38:30):
I wanted to do what had worked for her in
the past. And also, I think the altitude component was
an important one for her to check out. And so
she came in I think early in the summer and
we had a wonderful build. And as things happen, sometimes
you have a wonderful build and the week before all
(38:51):
of a sudden there's a little something going on in
the foot, and so she ended up not performing in
Chicago, ended up DNFing from there. And then it was
a matter of, "Okay, let's figure out what we got going on here. Let's get you healthy." And so she cross-
trained for... There's cross- training where you just get on the
exercise bike and you just kind of pedal a little bit,
(39:13):
and then there's cross- training where there's a pool of
sweat underneath you when you finish, and that's the kind
that she was doing. But we have had a great
kind of 12 weeks where she's been running on ground,
looking good, and I'm very excited for her prospects as
well. She'd be the first to admit, she's turned 40
now, so she's a master. I think that offers some
(39:36):
excellent incentivizing as well to be the very best master
that you can be.
Rob (39:40):
What's it been like for the other young women you've
got in that program out there in Utah to run
with the Kiera D'Amano? What has that meant for them? An idol for
all of them, I'm sure, and really someone for them
to learn from.
Ed (39:54):
Well, like I say, that Saturday long run, there's a
lot more people showing up and a lot more women
showing up than there used to be. Courtney Frerichs, who's
an Olympic silver medalist in the steeplechase from 2021, suffered
a really major knee injury last year. And then I
(40:14):
got a call from her coach in the fall saying, " Hey"... I mean,
not her coach, but her agent saying, " Hey, she'd like
to come out to Utah. She's heard good things about
it," and it's been fun having her in the system
and it's fun to see a marathoner and a steeplechaser
working together, and there's a lot of workouts that cross
over very well for the two of them to work
together. So it been great. It's been encouraging. It's awesome for
(40:35):
the whole running community in the area to see these
Olympians and American record holders there training and they go, "
You know what? These are not just fast runners, but
they're really, really cool people." And I think that's what
I'm most proud about is it's a very good group.
It's non- competitive in terms of... I mean, everyone is
building one another and sometimes that's difficult at the highest
(40:58):
level. I'm sure you've experienced that in broadcasting or wherever,
what line of work you're in. Sometimes it's like there's that, what is
that, schadenfreude, where you're almost wanting them to fail. But
what I love about our group and our system right
now is there's a lot of building and celebration when
somebody in the group runs well.
Sam (41:18):
When you talk about Keira, and this is someone who wasn't
running competitively for a brief time and now you talked
about the build to Chicago and then what happened there, but
now the rebuild for Boston, what has impressed you the
most since she's been with you?
Ed (41:34):
Yeah. I think it's just her determination and just contagious positivity. That's who she
is. And if you have the chance to talk to her, I've never heard her
say one negative thing, and that's contagious. The flip side
of that can be contagious too, and it can be
(41:54):
kind of terminal sometimes. But to have such a positive
person come into the group. I think that's the number
one thing. And I think that's the thing that once
she had taken that several year break to actually just
start a family and pursue a professional career and all
of that, I think that's the thing that got her
back. She didn't initially start back up after that multiple
(42:16):
year layoff saying, " I'm going to get the American record." It's like, " Hey,
I'm going to run this marathon and I'm going to
see how I do." And then all of a sudden the times
were coming off by the tens of minutes and she
set the American record.
Rob (42:30):
Well, coach Eyestone, you're a baseball fan. I'm a baseball
fan. We're sitting here feet from Fenway Park hearing the
cheers from the audience and the crowd over there with
a game going on. But running's been pretty good to
you, hasn't it? So its been a pretty good run,
if you will.
Ed (42:45):
Well-
Rob (42:46):
Where do you think it goes from here?
Sam (42:47):
Pun intended.
Ed (42:48):
Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I had a high school reunion. It
wasn't the 50, no, but I think it was, we'll
call it the 25- year reunion. It was more than
that, but it was this last summer we had a
high school reunion, and since we had had a really
fun experience at the Olympic Games, and we didn't talk
about Kenneth Rooks, who got the silver medal in the
(43:08):
steeplechase, which was for me the race of the games,
but of course because I'm his coach, but they had
me do a little spiel on the Olympics and what
Paris was like and my experience, and I've been to
probably six or seven Olympic Games as either an athlete
or a coach or a broadcaster. And I thought that
Paris just was phenomenal the way they put things together, but yeah, and I don't know where I was going with that.
Rob (43:35):
It's been fun. You've had a great, great time-
Ed (43:37):
It's been good. It's been great.
Rob (43:37):
... and you're doing amazing things.
Sam (43:39):
I just have one more question. Obviously, most runners feel
some kind of jitters the night before a race, the
night before a marathon or anxiety, something. It means we're
human and we don't know how it's going to go.
We have a plan. What do you feel?
Ed (44:00):
Yeah. As a coach, I think I'd like to be
able to channel all the nerves that my athletes have and say, " Let
me take this on for you guys." But there is
a certain amount of butterflies that you want to have
as an athlete. But I think if they can be
reminded that it's enjoy the process, don't be so out...
If you go in and say, " I've got to run
(44:20):
204," that just puts a lot of pressure on you.
So instead, if you can enjoy the process, make sure
you're getting your water bottles, going, " Okay, I feel comfortable
in this pack, I'm going to position myself." And if
you're enjoying the process and just each mile along the
way, then lo and behold, a couple hours go by
and you're crossing the finish line. And I think that's
(44:41):
a really good way to kind of embrace those nerves
and get you your best performance.
Rob (44:46):
Coach Eyestone, I can't wait to see what your runners do
on Monday. I'm sure you can't either.
Ed (44:51):
I'm excited.
Sam (44:51):
I'm so excited, yeah.
Ed (44:52):
I'm excited. I'm getting nervous here.
Rob (44:55):
Because it's more nerve wracking when you're the one coaching
and not running, I know. So get ready. Get ready.
Get some rest.
Ed (45:02):
I'm ready.
Rob (45:03):
And we wish you all the best on Monday.
Ed (45:05):
I appreciate it.
Rob (45:06):
And for your whole team, all your runners, for you,
continued success. Thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate
it. Great having you here.
Ed (45:12):
Thank you. Thanks guys.
Rob (45:13):
Ed Eyestone, Coach Ed Eyestone. Easy E-
Sam (45:19):
Easy E, that's right.
Rob (45:20):
... here in the House of Blues where he belongs
as he gets ready for the 129th Boston Marathon on
Monday. Well, usually this is the point in the show
where we go to Meb Keflezighi. He does a little Meb Minute
for us, Sam, but Meb's a little busy. He's here in
Boston, but he's actually going to be broadcasting the race
(45:40):
for ESPN on Monday, which we can't wait to see.
He's been so great in the broadcast business. Can't wait
to watch Meb.
Sam (45:48):
He was at the 5K today.
Rob (45:49):
Yes, exactly. Meb is a legend obviously here in Boston
with his win here. You can't walk around with him
without people stopping him on the street. So he's busy
getting ready for his broadcast. But instead, we've got actually
some great advice for our runners, from Lauren Thomas, who is
a performance dietitian from Morton. Morton, of course, is our
partner at New York Road Runners, the company behind all
(46:11):
the great fuels that so many of the runners are using
right now, the gels and the drinks and all of
that. And so Lauren, thanks for coming up and talking
fueling with us a little bit.
Lauren (46:20):
Thank you.
Rob (46:21):
How are you doing?
Lauren (46:21):
Excited to be here.
Sam (46:24):
So we know Morton will be along the course, and
I've tried it, so I know you're not supposed to
try something new on Marathon Day, so once I saw
that, I tried it. Love it.
Rob (46:34):
So you tried it two days before marathon day. Much better. Are you going to use it? What do you think?
Sam (46:35):
Absolutely.
Rob (46:35):
All right. She's in.
Sam (46:39):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell us about what runners can expect. I
mean, obviously most of us have tried it, but what
makes this effective and helpful?
Lauren (46:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Super excited to be on course at Boston
and of course New York as well, but the Morton
gel is going to be easy to digest. The idea
is that it disappears from the stomach, right? So it's
giving quick carbohydrate to the muscles to get the energy
that the athlete needs and then moving through the body.
(47:15):
So the hope is that the athletes can really just
get that energy and move on with their run.
Rob (47:21):
I started using Morton myself about a year ago. I
ran Berlin with Morton in Tokyo. In Tokyo, I found
it was really helpful. I bought a couple days before
the race the race pack that you guys put together
that has a mix for drinks, right, so drink a
certain amount the day before, a certain amount the morning
of the race, and then it gave you the gels,
(47:42):
I think it was five gels to use exactly every,
I forget, a certain number of kilometers I think. So
it gave you a plan of exactly what to do,
which for someone like me, I really needed because I
had never quite gotten the fueling thing. So can you
talk about that aspect of having a fueling plan for
runners and how you guys can help them do that?
Lauren (48:02):
Yeah, absolutely. So the idea is to think about nutrition
just like you would your training and have a plan
that you're following and that you're training your stomach just like
you would train your muscles. So the idea is you're
arriving at marathon day and you have exactly what you're
going to be doing for your fueling standpoint done and
completely confident in it. So our idea from the nutrition
(48:25):
team was, " Hey, can we educate the runners on, " Hey,
not just during the race, but what are you doing before
the race? What are you doing the night before the race?"
And then recommend the carbohydrates that we see in the
research really make a big difference and guide that for
the runner throughout their journey to make sure that they
can show up at mile 13 still feeling really good
(48:48):
because they've already fueled from the very beginning. That's the
goal, right? Fueling from the start of the race.
Rob (48:53):
Yeah. Once you start to feel bad.
Lauren (48:55):
It's too late.
Rob (48:55):
It's too late.
Sam (48:56):
It's too late.
Rob (48:57):
The fuel is not going to give you what you need.
Sam (48:59):
And so important during the buildup and during the training.
How important is it early on just to try what
works and really implement a plan?
Lauren (49:10):
It's so important. It's so important. And everybody is so individual with
what they're going to like, what they're going to tolerate
at first, and you have to try things over and
over to figure out what your plan is going to
be, and then you have full trust in that. So
the Morton is based off of being able to tolerate,
(49:32):
really easy on the stomach and be able to, again,
give those athletes those higher amounts of carbs that we
see the elites pushing because all of us are going
to benefit from more carbohydrate availability.
Rob (49:44):
What do you think is the best strategy with the caffeinated
gel? I tried... I think I used one of them
right at the start in Tokyo. It gave me that
little burst, which was useful. Where do you recommend, for
those who use caffeine, people try those, and what's the
best strategy with them?
Lauren (50:04):
Yeah, caffeine is so individual with tolerance, but those of
us who are daily coffee drinkers and certainly familiar with
caffeine, I would recommend have one at the start on
the starting line 10 minutes prior to go time, and
then integrate one maybe at the halfway. And that way
(50:25):
you know that caffeine can take a while to hit
peak in your bloodstream, so you're giving it some time,
getting the caffeine along with the carbohydrate, and then getting
another burst later. So we're not going all six caffeine
gels, we're not going all six non caffeine gels, but
maybe all alternating and sticking one midway can be a
(50:45):
helpful way to approach that.
Sam (50:47):
Most of us aren't elite athletes. There are elites out
there who they fuel a different way and they train
differently than someone like me. But how much can we
take from that and can we learn from their buildup
and their fueling? How effective can that be for the
(51:08):
everyday runner?
Lauren (51:09):
Yeah, and I think Morton is very athlete first, and
we learn just as much from our runners and our
elites as we do from our everyday runner, you and
me. And I think what we can learn is that
fueling is only the beginning of being able to understand
how your body works. So how can we make sure
(51:31):
that an athlete is pushing those limits that they thought
they maybe weren't even realizing was the limit? So I
think a lot of times I'll hear athletes say, " I
didn't know I could feel this good at the end
of a race." And that's where fueling really comes in. "
Well, I was taking a gel every hour. I thought
that was fine." And sure it is, but what if
(51:52):
you increase that and can you get to that last
5K feeling strong? That's going to be a whole different
end of the race than it would otherwise. So I
think we can learn a lot from these athletes who
are pushing very, very high carbohydrate amounts during the race.
Rob (52:07):
All right. Well Lauren, I think we should give away a little Morton
right here. We got a crowd here, so I want
everybody out there to take a look under your chair.
And if it's not your chair, you can even look.
It's right up underneath the chair, right? And there are
some Morton, I think some water bottles there maybe. Somebody
got one. I hear somebody pull... There we go. There's one.
Sam (52:29):
Awesome.
Rob (52:30):
If you've got a Morton water bottle, we've got a
pack of Morton gels right here for you, so you can
come up and grab them. This is the Morton Marathon
collection, seven gels, two drinks. Actually, yeah, four drinks.
Sam (52:44):
Oh, this is like what you had.
Rob (52:45):
This is very similar. There's a water bottle in the pack
as well.
Sam (52:47):
That's awesome.
Rob (52:48):
I love this because it just plans it all out
for you. You don't have to think, and it's really
great. You guys are doing a great job. I see
Morton gel, it's just everywhere now. You see it on
the ground sometimes when you're running for those who missed
the trash basket. We wanted them to hit the trash
basket, but still, you see a lot of them on the
ground. You see them everywhere. So the runners are really
(53:10):
responding to what you guys are doing.
Lauren (53:11):
That's awesome. Glad to hear.
Sam (53:13):
One more question from me. For pre- race, do you
recommend taking the Morton gel before you start or do
you wait until a certain mileage? I know it's one
size fits all, but do you pre- race fuel?
Lauren (53:32):
I do recommend a gel 10 minutes before the start,
especially a long morning like Boston or New York or
any of these major marathons that you might be waiting
around more. It's been a while since breakfast. Not only
do you probably have to have a second breakfast, but
you want to start that first 5K feeling strong. We
don't want to dip into the reserves at the very
(53:53):
beginning, right? So can we start fueled from before the
start line and then again at the 5K mark or
whatever your plan might be? But yeah, early and often
is my motto.
Rob (54:04):
All right. Well, thank you Lauren. Good luck to everybody
out there using Morton on Monday. Appreciate having you here. And Sam,
it's going to be a really fun couple of days
in Boston. There's nothing like being in Boston for the
Boston Marathon. The city-
Sam (54:20):
The energy-
Rob (54:20):
... is on fire.
Sam (54:21):
... is so great. There was '80s music playing at
the finish line today. Did you hear it?
Rob (54:26):
A hundred percent.
Sam (54:27):
Oh, come on. They were playing New Order.
Rob (54:28):
They've got a great DJ.
Sam (54:28):
It was great. It was awesome.
Rob (54:31):
The finish line on Boylston Street has been on fire
all week. There's just something about this city this week,
especially when the weather's good. The Red Sox are playing.
People are here from all over the world. The city
is just absolutely at its best. The cherry blossoms are
in bloom. So if you don't love Boston this weekend,
you can't love Boston because this is an absolutely gorgeous
(54:54):
weekend. I just think the energy of the runners is what
it's all about. So to you, Sam, and to everybody else
out there running, good luck.
Sam (55:02):
Thank you.
Rob (55:03):
It should be amazing.
Sam (55:03):
And good luck to all of you guys. So excited for
everybody here. It's going to be great.
Rob (55:10):
Thank you so much, Sam, for being with us. Thank
you to Ed Eyestone, to Lauren Thomas, and we just
love... We're New Yorkers, but we love coming to Boston
for the Boston Marathon. We love hosting our members here.
Thanks again to House of Blues, Citizens House of Blues
for hosting us. Good luck everybody. We will see you
next week on Set the Pace. Have a great 129th
(55:33):
Boston Marathon. Good luck.
Sam (55:34):
Good luck.
Rob (55:50):
New York Road Runners is a nonprofit organization with a
vision to build healthier lives and stronger communities through the
transformative power of running. The support of members and donors
like you helps us achieve our mission to transform the
health and well- being of our communities through inclusive and
accessible running experiences, empowering all to achieve their potential. Learn
(56:12):
more and contribute at nyrr. org/ donate.
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