Long Run 272 - Matt Fitzgerald - Author of "Dying To Run"

Scott Kummer (0:02)

All right, you guys, it's going to be a Long Run episode of me and Matt Fitzgerald, author of the book, Dying To Run. I've been following Matt for a long time. He's written a ton of books. He has a ton of knowledge, a really interesting guy. And this book came out, and I thought it sounded really interesting because it's about him fighting Long Covid and deciding to do a 100 kilometer ultra marathon in spite of it. And he sent me a galley copy. I read it before the book was released. I really enjoyed it legitimately. And I think you will too. I put a link to the book in the show notes. Go there, buy it, read it. I think you'll like it. And read the rest of his books. He seems like a great resource. And it's funny that I interviewed him because the weekend before I interviewed him, I was at ARFTA running with Aunt Tracen and I said something about a coach and she's, she was kind of salty about a coach. And then she said, unless it's that Matt Fitzgerald. So it was kind of funny that then I was going to interview him. But it was a great book. I think you'll like it and check it out. Link in the show notes. And all the races are open for registration. The tunnel is having a soft opening sometime this month, I think. And then next month, maybe a grand opening. There's a big BAT event on November 7th at the Belleville Library where the BAT expert from the DNR will be presenting. And hopefully when I go up for that, I'll be able to go check out the tunnel. I'll get a video maybe going through it to promote for you guys, but tunnel's back, baby. So come on down. Sign up for all the races. They're all open. And we're getting excited. I'm kind of in my break period because I'm not race director right now, but what are you going to do?

Let's get together.

Let's do some running. I'm doing the Madison Half Marathon in November. Also signed up for the St. Croix 40 and the Big Sur Marathon, if you're going to any of those.

We'll have an update on coaching soon. I've been running. It's been good. It's not been great, but I don't hate every minute of it anymore. I'm starting to get a little endurance back, thank God. Here's Matt Fitzgerald.

How are you?

Matt Fitzgerald (2:12)

Doing well. How are you?

Scott Kummer (2:13)

Excellent.

Your name came up actually this weekend. It was really funny. I was doing the race for the ages, it's like a Laz race where you get the number of hours based on how old you are to run a one-mile loop. I was running with Anne Treyson and I mentioned something about my coach and she said she didn't really care because all those coaches were garbage unless you're talking about that Matt Fitzgerald guy. I thought that was pretty high praise for all the coaches in the world. You're the one she mentioned as being the guy that she thought was an authority. She's kind of cool.

Matt Fitzgerald (2:52)

That's very flattering.

Scott Kummer (2:53)

Yeah.

I find it very hard to interview people about their book because you don't want to tell the story of the book or give away what happens in the book. But at the same time, the book is the context by which I know you because I haven't read the other books, which now I've made a list of because I want to read that. Because I really did enjoy the book, which I actually got in the Kindle today, the one that I had pre-ordered.

Matt Fitzgerald (3:22)

Right, yeah.

Scott Kummer (3:23)

Because today must be release day.

Matt Fitzgerald (3:26)

Yes, it is. Okay. So, wow.

Scott Kummer (3:28)

And the name of the book is Dying To Run. And I was intrigued by the premise of the book because I am myself recovering from a complicated knee procedure and trying to get back into running and going through a lot of the feelings that you discussed and stuff like that. So I really related to a lot of the book and the dialogue about the book. If anybody is coming back from an injury or trying to overcome a physical ailment, I really recommend it was really good.

But I guess what I want to do is instead maybe get to know you a little bit about, to know your background, your running origin story, your writing origin story, introduce some of the other books as well that you wrote so that people can be interested and then say, I want to go out and I want to read some of these books, especially the most recent one. Are you doing a lot of interviews right now to promote it?