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The Relaxed Running podcast is a behind the scenes conversation with the best athletes, coaches and professionals in the world of distance running. From training, hydration and nutrition to racing and recovering, we learn from the best in the world.
Relaxed conversations which are packed with actionable takeaways to help you take your running performance up a notch. Save yourself years of guess work and learn from the people who are doing it at the highest level.
tyson (00:01.75)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Relax Running podcast. Great to have you here. I'm your host, as always, Tyson Popplestone. If you're new or here for the first time, welcome. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for checking it out. If you've been around for a little while, it's ridiculous how many episodes I'm down now. It's like 208, I'm pretty sure, off the top of my head. I mean, I've got nothing in front of me to confirm that that's actually true, but I know it's around the 200 and Denmark. So that's almost four years. I think next month, it'll be four years since the podcast began. And...
Been an unbelievable little journey. Some of the, some of the greats in the sport, especially here in Australia, a number of the best distance runners and coaches and those surrounding the sport of distance running. I'd love you to get involved. I know I often listen to podcasts quite regularly and I don't think I ever. Really reach out and leave reviews or offer ratings or whatever else. But I mean, maybe I should because.
It's so helpful. So if you've been listening for a little while now, whether it's on Spotify or on Apple iTunes or Apple podcasts, I should say, and you're enjoying it, I'd be so grateful if you could jump across and just leave a little review. Hopefully it's a five star. I mean, that's my goal. If it's not a five star, don't leave it. Just keep it to yourself. But if you do enjoy it, if you've got value out of this podcast, it'd be really good. It helps with the rankings. I'm not 100% sure how the algorithms work, but.
I know there's so many more thousands of people that listen to this podcast and what actually leave reviews. And I mean, you're in good company. I do the exact same, but I'm gonna take a spoonful of my own medicine and actually follow up on that and start leaving reviews on podcasts I listen to. Otherwise, I'm just a big fat hypocrite. But for today, I wanted to mix things around a little bit. I wanted to do a slightly different kind of podcast. Now,
As you're aware, most of the time these podcasts are interviews with people in and around the sport of distance running. But from time to time, whenever I have an idea of something that I'd like to share, something that's been of great value in my own life or my own running, I like to leave that with you. And one thing that I don't think I've ever done on here before is actually share with you a number of the most transformative books in the world of running that have transformed not just my philosophy around running, but my approach to training, my approach to racing, just my...
tyson (02:17.942)
general, sometimes just like my general beliefs around so many different areas. Running's one of those sports, obviously, that seems to permeate every other area of our life. It seems to be a really great teacher, as sport is in general, about how to succeed, just at whatever it is that you put your mind to. In fact, that's one of the things I love about running, is you can't be a good runner without consistency, without a plan, without clarity on what it is you're trying to achieve or where it is you're trying to go. And I mean...
That's probably been the greatest lesson that I've ever taken from running. So with that said, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of books that could be included in this particular episode. It's taken me so long trying to get the list down to a reasonable list for the length of a podcast. So in the name of not just taking up your whole day, going through every single running book, I've brought it down to, I think there's about nine or 10 on this list. I'm gonna go through them in no particular order.
I've noticed with the list as well, a lot of these books, with the exception of a few, were, I think, made their mark on my life when I was around 15 or 16. So it was interesting that at that time, 15 or 16, my biggest goal, my ultimate goal at that time was to be one of the best runners in the world. And as a result, like any 15, 16 year old kids, you just wanna get stuck into the world of what it is that these athletes are doing. And I think part of what was so beautiful,
about a number of these books was, so that was 20 years ago that I'm referring to when I was 16. I mean, the internet was alive and kicking, but it was dial up at that stage. I'm pretty sure maybe wireless was just kicking in. I'm pretty sure at my house, it was just dial up. And the access to information that we have now on the internet just wasn't available, which made the access to some of the training information, the mindsets and everything else that we speak about in reference to these books.
so much more appealing. So I don't know whether sort of that nostalgic or that I've kind of romanticized how powerful these books really are, or they were just so powerful for myself at that time. But I'll let you be the judge. I was going to tell you the nine or 10 books that I loved, why I love them, when in particular I love them. And with that information, hopefully, if you're a bit of a reader, a bit of a fan of
tyson (04:37.534)
just getting into autobiographies or little overviews of running areas or whatever it might be. You've got some food for thought. I'm not 100% sure. I just did a little bit of a Google search as well and was amazed to see at how many of these books were actually quite, they were niche. I don't know what surprised me because at the time when I had my hands on them, I thought they were gonna be the bestselling books of all time. But I mean, the nature of distance running is that it's a relatively niche sport as it is and the bestselling running books.
don't necessarily appear on Amazon, though a number of these do. The first one definitely does. So with all of that said, let me jump into this list. We'll work through it. As I said, they're in no particular order, but I just wanted to go through a few of the reasons that these books were so inspiring and why it is that as an aspiring or an elite or wherever you are in between that as a runner, why these might be a couple of good books for you to check out. So perhaps no surprise for the first thought here is the book pre.
Now, if you've been in the distance running scene for any period of time, you're gonna be well aware of the name of Steve Prefontaine. Now, Prefontaine, this book was, where do you even start with a story about Prefontaine? He was a mover and a shaker in the world of distance running, in the sense that he kind of brought distance running to the culture. You know how Michael Jordan makes Nike more than just a basketball shoe? He makes it something that it seems to cross over into the world in general. I mean, there's certain artists,
and certain athletes who seem to have that capacity. Now, I don't know that Steve Prefontaine was necessarily that when he was alive, but he died unfortunately quite young. I think he was aged 24 when he died in a car accident in Eugene in Oregon, but he was fast or quickly becoming one of the greatest runners in the world at the time. I mean, he had finished fourth off the top of my head in the 5,000 men of final at the Olympic games in Munich at the age of 21. This guy...
I think part of the reason he was so loved because he was a little bit brash. He was a little bit outspoken. He was, he made running cool. He was happy to tell you exactly what it was that he was trying to achieve. And he was the kind of athlete that he never actually wanted to go out and just, um, uh, just win in a sprint finish. He wanted to, well, he had a famous quote. He used to say that, uh, you might be able to beat me, but you're going to have to bleed to do it. And as a 16 year old kid, 15 year old kid, I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
tyson (06:59.334)
He had a reputation for every race, just going out from the gun and being a front runner and just trying to run the opposition off their feet. You knew that if you were going to beat Steve Prefontaine, it was going to be an incredibly hard race. And that was one thing he wanted to make super clear about his racing style is that if you were going to win, it was going to be a really hard day at the office. I mean, the guy had a number of American records at the time of his death and...
It's hard to say for sure whether we actually saw the best of Steve Prefontaine. He was also trained by the great coach Bill Bauman at a time when Nike was infiltrating the world of distance running. And I mean, those two had a unique relationship. I think everyone with Prefontaine had a fairly unique relationship because he was just that kind of personality. So the book's really good at going into not only his training and his mindset, his attitudes towards racing and training and friends, but.
It taps into the legacy that he left in the world of distance running. I mean, I went to Eugene in, what are we now, 2023? Oh, it was just last year, 2022. The world championships were there. And I mean, there's still paintings all over the town of Pre-Fontaine. It's incredible to see, off the top of my head, I don't know any athlete that's made such an impact on a town or on the world of running as what Pre-Fontaine has. Even though you've got athletes like Ken Nishibukili.
uh, Hisham Al-Guruj, David Rudisha, Paula Radcliffe. I mean, no one really seems, uh, their name seems to disappear at the moment that they get out of the sport. And it's only us running nerds, running fans that seem to hang around and love speaking about them. Prefontaine, go to Eugene, mention his name. He's known not just to runners, but, uh, but to those in and around the scene. So, uh, if you're after some motivation, some inspiration, I'll, I'll really encourage you to check out the book.
The second book is called, it's called The Greatest Distance Runners of the Century. I'm sorry, I've written down top distance runners of the century and it's thrown me out. It's called Top Distance Runners or Greatest Distance Runners of the Century. And again, this book was written in 2006 and it's just a collation of some of the greatest athletes in the world at the time. You've got your Hicham Al-Guruj, even athletes from the past, your Brendan Foster, your Paula Radcliffe, your Daniel Komen, and
tyson (09:12.094)
I mean, it's a couple of hundred pages. And once again, this is before the internet was doing what it is now. You didn't have things like Sweat Elite going to the towns and villages that these athletes were training at. So any information that you could get your hands on about these particular athletes was really, really valuable. And this was like my Bible at the time. I would have it next to my bed. And every night before I went to bed, I would flick over to a particular athlete and just read through. And questions about, hey, what's your favorite training session? Why is that your favorite training session?
What do you think is the most important thing about being a great distance runner? What's your thoughts on recovery? Who's the hardest opposition that you've ever had to race against? What makes a junior runner great? There's so many incredible insights that have just been boiled down to their essence that just to sit there as a young athlete or a running fan, it's so inspiring and stupidly. I don't know what I was thinking. I went through a phase of minimalism years ago.
And it was a book that I had sitting on my shelf, like I often do. I go through phases where I have a whole heap of books. I go, no, I'm gonna be a minimalist. And I get rid of those books. And then five years later, in moments like this, I absolutely regret it. I mean, I remember my mom bought me this book in, it must've been like 2000. I thought it was 2005 I got it, but apparently it wasn't released until 2006. So I'm making stuff up. But it was like 20 bucks at the time. I just Googled it. Now it's...
you can't get a copy for less than 150 from what I can tell. I mean, honestly, I only had a relatively quick look. So you might be surprised. Jump on, see what you can find. I'm sure when people hear it on this podcast, they're gonna be trying to find copies. So make sure you check that out. But if you've got a son or daughter who's really interested in running, or they just appreciate the history of running, because a lot of these athletes, they're probably not gonna know now, apart from the greats like Daniel Comans and Yopala Redcliff and things like that.
This book is really, really inspiring. I think, yeah, mostly inspiring for junior athletes. But truthfully, I mean, I'm 36 now. I've got no aspirations of running in the Olympics. Even if I did, those days are gone. But I know I would still enjoy sitting down and just flicking through the mindset of these athletes. It probably correlates beautifully to just developing my own education as a coach. But that one's a really incredible book.
tyson (11:27.042)
The third one is one which is a little more recent to me. I only read this in 2017 when I was living in London. It's written by a novelist or author, Murakami. Now Murakami is a Japanese author. He's well known for fiction books like Norwegian Wood, but he also is a well known marathon runner. Now this guy is not necessarily a great marathon runner by any means, he just enjoys the process. I think he took it up relatively late in life off the top of my head.
But anyway, the book's called What I Talk About When I Talk About Marathon Running. And from my own perspective, as a lot of you guys know, I'm a standup comedian when I'm not here. I'm really interested in the world of creativity. I've got a lot of respect and admiration for great writers, whether it's people like Stephen King, you know, with the insight that he gives you on books like On Writing, or if it's a bloke like Murakami. I just, I like to know what it is that athletes do to help ideas just be digested and help...
you know, sort of filter an idea or a draft down into what turns out to be a really awesome book. And I mean, I'm very biased because of the fact that this guy is not only an awesome writer, but he's also got an incredible appreciation for what the marathon is and the importance of being out there training. So a really different take, not necessarily a book that you'd read for, uh, you know, training advice around how to improve or how to run a really fast marathon.
But in terms of just appreciating the event of the marathon, I think it's a really inspirational, really encouraging, really eye-opening book. And as I said, from my own perspective, just being able to tap into the world of creativity and what one of the greatest writers of our time does to help ideas sort of, you know, just filter through whatever process it is from being in his mind to on the pages is really inspiring to me. So that's one that I sort of flick through from time to time. I've got it on my Kindle.
and then when I remember to charge my Kindle, I'll have a flick through a few of those pages. So that one is what I talk about when I talk about running. The fourth book is one called Train Hard, Win Easy, The Kenyan Way. So obviously, as I mentioned, like in 2005 or 2006, there weren't a whole heap of channels like Sweat Elite and the like, which go into these places and actually find out what the best runners in the world were doing. And at the time, back then,
tyson (13:47.57)
I think there was a lot of mystery around the Kenyan training technique. What was it that these guys were doing that were making them so good? Was it simply the fact that they're Kenyan? Was it altitude? Was it diet? Was it running training? Was it a combination of all of these factors? That's what this book in particular tried to get to the bottom of. So it was based in Kenya, it was set in Kenya, and those answers were trying to be discovered. I think it's...
I think one of the most amazing parts of being a distance runner is that you can never get to a point in your distance running career where you go, okay, I've got all the answers now. It doesn't matter whether you speak to the greatest runner in the world or someone who's been doing it for 30 or 40 years, no athlete ever goes, no, I know the answer now. And if they do, they're narcissistic or they've got like some personality disorder that won't allow them to be honest with themselves and admit the fact that they definitely do not have.
all of the answers. And so part of the fun of being an athlete, part of the fun of being a coach is tinkering with training and playing with ideas and playing with nutrition and playing with distance and speed and recovery, intensity and footwear and clothing and race surfaces. I mean, the list is endless. And it's what I love about standup comedy. You never get to a point where you're like, oh, I've just nailed it and I can do that well every single time because the nature of the game is that each and every time you get out there,
different factors are gonna have to be navigated. You're gonna have to play with different environments, different temperatures. I mean, insert whatever it is you wanna insert in that conversation. So many of them change from race to race and from day to day. So to be able to tap into these guys and hear what they think is making them so successful, it's almost just like another little, what do you call it? A notch in the belt of potential helpful resources that can help you transform
I mean, that's my favorite thing about running, just the constant delving into all the information that's available and just hearing what works for different athletes because the truth is, some athletes like a Cam Levens, the Canadian marathon runner, seem to do really well or have done well at times in their career running 300K a week. Some athletes like, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, it's like Tachiniko Seko, marathon runner from Japan back in, I wanna say the 80s.
tyson (16:01.022)
running like 600K a week from time to time. You hear that and you go, okay, that's never gonna work. But he was good. And it did work for him for a period of time. So just trying to boil all that down and go, okay, what the heck do we do with this information? Is that's so much fun for me. I mean, I could talk about that all day long. And I would still only be scratching the surface. The next book I wanna look at, okay, this is potentially my favorite running book of all time. Now,
My wife has no interest in distance running. She doesn't see the appeal of it. She doesn't see what I love so much about it. She'll go out and run because she has to. She loved this book. All right, if you know my wife, that's a huge statement because anything to do with distance running doesn't usually get her up and about. This one is by Lopez Lamong, The Autobiography, Running for My Life. One of the most inspiring, just insane books that I've ever read. For those of you who don't know, I wanna say he was Sudanese.
He was a Sudanese refugee, escaped or was taken from a refugee camp by a foster family or was adopted by an American family from this refugee camp, came from Sudan. I'm pretty sure that's where he was being housed at that time. It was either there or Egypt. I get confused because one of my mates I used to run with spent a lot of time in Egypt, also Egypt, a Sudanese runner by the name of Dua Yoa. If you're here in Australia, I'm sure you're familiar with that name. He was a great runner about five or 10 years ago.
on the national circuit here. But anyway, the story of, and I think that very fact gives me an appreciation for the Sudanese story, so many of the athletes that fled from war and the dangers and just the insanity that took place in some of the villages over there was really inspiring. And it definitely gave me an appreciation for this guy. But just the fact that he'd gotten out of a really poor village with not much going on in his career, he was adopted into a family in America.
One of the craziest stories in the book was on the flight from Sudan to the United States, that flight attendant kept coming up to him and asking, would he like something to eat? Was he thirsty? Was he hungry? Can he get a Coke? Whatever. He was like, no, thanks. I'm fine. But he said I was just too embarrassed to admit that I couldn't afford anything that they had. And he found out on the car ride home with his new adopted family that everything on that plane was free. He was like, oh, you're kidding. Like, I was he just couldn't believe that.
tyson (18:19.554)
You know, there were things like food and drink like that were available to someone like him He said he got off the flight and he was so hungry He's new family said hey, we're gonna take you out We'll get you we'll get you something to eat So he said they took him to one of the most incredible restaurants that he had ever seen where you walk in and they had like Infinite options on the menu. You just couldn't believe it didn't know where to start So he's his foster parent it came up to him and said hey, look, I'll order for you This is gonna be a good one. This is where you start
He said it was only months later that he found out this incredible restaurant was called McDonald's. And I think he ordered a big mac and a Coke or something. But for him, it was just an insane experience. In fact, I remember, it's just hard to comprehend that lifestyle, isn't it? I might've told you this on the show before, but I remember going to training one night with Dewey Yowa and him saying to me, like, oh man, I'm so hungry. And this was a Tuesday. And I go, oh, dude, what have you had to eat today? He goes, no, I haven't eaten since Sunday.
And I go, why? He's like, man, I forgot. And he kept saying, yeah, he always said to me, he's like, yeah, us black boys don't need food like you fat little white boys. And for me, it was just the funniest thing because he just gave me so much crap about the size of my quads and the size of my biceps and how it'd be much better run it if I just took advice from a black guy like himself. He's the way that he phrased it. So I always appreciated that. But yeah, it's just like a clash of cultures. That was the coolest thing for me. So.
This book gives you a real insight into the clash of cultures and just his story as an athlete as well. I mean, I wanna say he's run like 1250 for 5K. Just incredible. I mean, if you're on the edge of wanting to adopt any African child, this book's gonna push you over the edge. Me and Jesse discussed it for a couple of years after that and then had our own kids. I'm like, far out, this is quite intense. At least let's figure out how to do these two kids first before we have those conversations. But.
Running for my life, unbelievable book, probably my favorite of all time. The next one is autobiography of Brendan Foster. Brendan Foster was a UK runner in the 70s. He was one of the best in the world at the time, incredible runner. What I liked about this book is Brendan Foster and I, until about age 17, we were on par in terms of PBs. So his book was great, because at the back of the book, it had all his training, like his weekly structure from about the age of 16 to 20, which I absolutely loved.
tyson (20:45.198)
And more than that, it actually gave you a little bit of an idea of his progress. So I constantly turned to this book to go, okay, like where was he at age 17? Am I anywhere near it? Is there hope for me to improve my running? He was sort of my inspiration next to Benny St. Lawrence here in Australia that you can develop as a relatively, or like a late teenage kind of early 20s athlete, which is obviously very true, but at the time I didn't know that. So if you are a 17, 18 year old kid out there,
and you're wondering, can you do it? I would encourage you to get your hands on this book because his progress is really inspiring. I've got three more on the list. The third last one is called Why Die? It's a book about Percy Cerrity, the coach of so many running champions, namely the great Herb Elliott. So where I'm sitting right now, I am sitting in my office in Point Lonsdale, about five k's that way. You go across Port Phillip Bay, there's a place called Portsea.
And Portsea is renowned for its really big sand dunes. And so many of Percy Cerades athletes were known for just going up and down and around those dunes. He was known as a little bit of a nutcase, quite eccentric with his approach to running training. But with the champions that he produced, you had to pay attention to what it is that he did. He seemed to have a real appreciation for stripping back training to its raw essence. So, okay, like this is gonna be hard and it's animalistic, and we're gonna do it for as long as we can.
and only the strongest athletes will survive. And then at the end of it, people like Herb Elliott come out of it and you go, okay, well there's definitely something there. Unbelievable insight into the life and mind of a guy called Percy Cerati and how champions were produced in his vicinity. Second last book was one called The Unforgiving Minute by Ron Clark. Now this just follows the journey of Victorian runner, which is my state here in Australia.
Ron Clark, who was, I mean, I don't know how, I think I want to say he had like 18 world records at one stage. He was, he was the best going around in like the sixties. He was an unbelievable athlete. And it follows his journey from a club runner all the way into one of the best the world had ever seen at the time that he was running, the times that he was. I don't know if I've over-credited him with world records there, but I mean, it was up there. He was, it was high quality. I like this as well, cause it just looks at a number of trials that
tyson (23:03.198)
I've run myself here around Victoria and as a real running romantic and bloke who's fairly sentimental and nostalgic about pretty much everything in the world, namely, well, especially running. It was really good to hear about the life of this guy. And lucky last to round us out, I don't know if this is number nine or 10. This one is called The Perfect Mile. Now it was looking at the journey of Roger Bannister, John Landy and Wes Santee. I think I've got his name right there. Wes Santee and their pursuit to break the
impossible four-minute mile barrier in the early 1950s and just what that journey actually looked like. It was really interesting just seeing how the book was compared to where the athletes were at certain points in their career, where they were going to have certain attempts and how close they all were to each other. I think it was really interesting, especially as we get so close to this sub two-hour marathon or like a legal sub two-hour marathon attempt from what Pekipton's run two hours and 39 seconds now. So it's just around the corner. I mean
That's next four minute mile, isn't it? I remember being 15 going, okay, I don't think the two hour marathon is ever gonna get broken because that's like a six minute improvement on the world record, which just seemed wild, but they just keep doing it. Technology keeps improving, training keeps improving. I don't wanna say it because it sounds a little bit dodgy, but I mean, there's a number of people getting pinged for drugs. So I mean, the doping keeps improving. I definitely am not saying that to say that anyone who's breaking world records.
are on the juice, but I am saying that, you know, as technology improves, every part of technology improves. So take that to mean what you will. I'm just stating facts. I'm not pointing out anything that none of us know. But as a result, we're seeing a whole heap more athletes run a whole heap faster. But I feel like I've just left you on a little bit of a sour note. That's a, I don't want that to come across as bitter or cynical. It's just a reality, unfortunately.
But hey, they're some of the most amazing books, some of the most inspiring books that if you haven't read, check them out. I'll do my best to link them in the description to this episode below. If you want more from me, Relaxed Running, you can get that all over at relaxedrunning.com. If I can be of any assistance to you with your running, your coaching, regardless of what distance or sport you're training for, reach out, we'll line up a meeting, be that on Zoom or over the phone, depending on where you are, and we'll see how it is that I might be able to help you best. But for now,
tyson (25:25.026)
Happy training and I'll see you all here again next week.