Malcolm Gladwell & Chris Chavez Think We're Selling Running All Wrong

**Rich Roll** (0:00)
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We got Chris Chavez here from Citius Mag, we have Malcolm Gladwell who needs no introduction, and we're going to see what happens. Roll the dice.

**Chris Chavez** (1:29)
I think it's going to be fantastic.

**Rich Roll** (1:30)
It's going to be fun.

**Chris Chavez** (1:31)
Yeah.

**Malcolm Gladwell** (1:33)
Performance is an individual act. Actual racing is such a tiny part of the experience of being an athlete.

**Chris Chavez** (1:40)
The Boston Marathon or the New York City Marathon rely more on pure competition. We need to bring that back.

**Malcolm Gladwell** (1:47)
The idea of having as one of your tent pole events, something where there's a realistic chance of a grizzled, previous generation guy can come and win it all, is fantastic. We're selling it all wrong. Like, don't sell to racing, sell the training.

**Rich Roll** (2:06)
I had dinner with some friends several months ago, but one of the people at this dinner was Molly Seidel, who I met for the very first time. And we had this really interesting conversation because she was, you know, she had just signed with SatiSci, and she had just announced that she was going to be running Western States.
And I was like, man, this is like, this is signaling perhaps a new era. Like, I've always wondered what happens when somebody who is that good, like an elite marathoner, like an Olympian decides, you know what, I'm going to, before, you know, we've seen elite athletes in the twilight of their career post-retirement, like drop into this world. What happens when somebody who's still in that zone of, of elite high performance decides, you know what, maybe there's something for me over here. And I was like, you, you might just drop in and just rewrite the record books. Like perhaps all of these times that we're seeing in these really long races are just low hanging fruit for somebody who's really good. Like what happens if Kipchoge decides he wants to like do Leadville or something, you know, like, and the question of course is like, will that translate? And then Molly drops in and, you know, she struggled. It was her first time, you know, perhaps with a little bit of experience, this is still something that could happen. But like, do you think about that?

**Malcolm Gladwell** (3:23)
Like, how did she account for struggling? Does she have an explanation?

**Rich Roll** (3:26)
I don't know. I don't know the details of it. I think it kind of all started to fall apart a handful of hours into it. And she, to her credit, you know, didn't drop out. She decided to like really push through and was celebrated for that. But she came in at like 24 hours or something, you know.

**Chris Chavez** (3:41)
You know, I think it goes back just sort of like, I think for a long time, probably a lot of track and running folks would look at just sort of like, oh, what's the average pace that that person ran for 100 miles, 50 miles, whatever it is. And they would just think, oh, like that's not that fast, all things considered, because we're used to seeing all these crazy fast times on the track. And then, you know, seeing the performances that someone like Jim Walmsley has just put together both, you know, holding the Western States course record for as long as he did. But then you take a couple steps back and he wasn't like the most accomplished track athlete, like he attempted the steeple chase way back in the day, and like he wasn't all that great. And so, I think for a period of time, people just thought, I was like, all right, well, like, trail is, and ultra is where, you know, the not so great track.