Running With Meb: From Marathon Champion to Masterful Coach

RDP 040 - Running With Meb: From Marathon Champion to Masterful Coach

Carrie: Hey everybody, welcome to the RunDot Podcast. Today we are joined by the legend Meb Keflezighi, very good friend of mine, and I'm so honored to have him here. We're gonna hear what this marathon champion is up to these days, as his role in the sport has sort of changed a little bit, from athlete to coach and now ambassador.

Meb is a runner, best-selling author, and co-founder of 26, a brand celebrating and enriching the enduring spirit of running culture. He was the first person to win the Boston Marathon, the New York City Marathon, and he has an Olympic silver medal. Today, Meb is committed to helping runners become elite versions of themselves and nurturing the sport of running for the next generation. Meb is now coaching runners with RunDot! Super cool.

Meb: Yeah.

Carrie: We can't wait to hear all about it. So Meb, welcome to the show.

Meb: Thanks, Carrie, it's great to be with you. And what a wonderful opportunity to be around that and be a coach on the other side — so delighted to be with you.

Carrie: I can't wait to hear all about it. And if you're new to the show, I'm Carrie Tollefson, a good friend of Meb's, but also an Olympian and a broadcaster and your guide to the world of RunDot. We treat the show like any good workout — we'll start with the warm-up question, we'll settle into our main set conversation, and then wind things down by answering an audience question on the cooldown. So lots of good stuff today, you guys, so let's get after it.

All right, Meb, we are gonna do the warm-up question — I love these questions, so this is it. If you could only run one more race or event and then had to hang up the running shoes for good, be done with them, what event would you choose? It's very hard.

Meb: Carrie, that's such a hard question, because there's so many different events. But with the latest stuff going on with the marathon, I'd probably like to lace 'em one more time, see what I could run in the marathon with the super shoes. You know, being an ambassador for New Balance, that would be the — let's see how it goes.

Carrie: Ooh, I know, I think the same — I've done a few marathons, nothing like you obviously, I was more that 1500, 5K gal, but I think I'd like to put the shoes on now and see how much faster I would run. It is just incredible how fast everyone's running in those shoes.

Meb: I mean it's phenomenal what's happening — PRs are improving and improving, American records have been broken, world records have been broken, national records have been broken everywhere, and it's exciting, but at the same time you find yourself, like, what could I have done with those shoes — so there's that kind of mentality a little bit.

Carrie: Yeah, yeah. And how much money could you make, because think of all the marathons you could have run, Meb — you'd run multiple in a year now, not just two.

Meb: Great point — because, I mean, double back — for me, after doing a marathon, I could hardly barely walk or stand up until Thursday, or a Sunday race or so, and I see people doing a six-mile run or seven-mile run a few days later, I'm like, how? But to your point, yeah, it could have been a lot, because now it's just your will, your training, your motivation versus getting limited to a year or three — I think the most I've done is like three or four in thirteen months, but during an Olympic year, trying to make that Olympic team or trying to make the standard and things like that.

Carrie: Wow. Well, it's really a fun question, and we want to hear from the audience as well — we'll ask this question on all of our RunDot social media accounts, but we're curious to hear your answer, so find us on our socials and let us know.

All right, Meb, into the main set. So Meb, you are one of the most decorated pro runners we've ever seen here, especially in America, and so, even retired, we see all these clips of your races — they still work, those clips still work, right, they still have them out there. But we see you coming across the finish line doing push-ups — we've even seen you slip across the finish line and do those push-ups. Do you ever look back at those clips and get all the feels?

Meb: Carrie, you know, we're in an era where we saw everything for us — we were in Track and Field magazine, or Runner's magazine — but luckily we were fortunate enough to see a little bit of the videos, to be able to go back and kinda relive a little bit. I don't honestly — when I wrote my 26 Marathons book, I went back and looked at some of the races, what uniform I was wearing and things like that — but I don't see those videos, it's usually more when people post them and all this, and then you kinda watch a couple times because you get a little bit motivated, and it's like, I remember that, or how did I do three push-ups — people ask if I did a push-up, I'm like, that was a good push-up, you know. So those are the things I look back on, but it's just such a wonderful opportunity for me to relive those moments — whether it was winning an Olympic medal, New York City Marathon, or winning the Boston Marathon, or slipping and falling and people still doing push-ups in honor of that.

And that's what my Rio Olympics, 2016, was known for — doing the push-ups, you know, instead of — it's not how many times you fall, it's how many times you get back up. And honestly, before that fall, I'd stopped like even seven or eight times, just having a tough time. But I got to the finish line, I'm finally done, and all of a sudden it's like — and then I thought I was a football player, so I dragged myself to the end zone and did a little push-up.

Carrie: I love it. I see that clip a lot, and I always worry about your knee in that clip.

Meb: It was bad. I mean, it was bad — there's still a little scar on that one from when I fell. It was just a direct hit, but I was okay, came back and still ran a couple more marathons.

Carrie: I know, it's just wild to think though that life goes so fast, isn't it, Meb? We get to see you at all the big marathons — actually my monitor is set up on your books right here in front of me, ha! But I think it's just wild how quickly the life of anyone goes, but also I love the fact that we get to see you at all the big marathons and hear from you and relive those moments with you.

Meb: I mean it is such a blessing for me — I never ever thought I would do what I'm doing. But I'm grateful for this race organization for bringing me in, and for RunDot giving me the opportunity to share my hopefully wisdom and my experience, up and down, to be able to coach others and be on that platform, but also New Balance giving me a chance to be in some places to do the shakeout run — because for me, it's not just the results, it's the journey. For me, to be able to train for a marathon was a lot of fun — it's not just that the day of the race is good or bad, it's a victory lap, you know — all the mileage, all the hard work you've been sweating and training for. So to be able to meet and greet runners, for me, I really take it to heart and enjoy it immensely.

Carrie: Yeah. Let's talk about you being a RunDot coach and ambassador now — you have these athletes now, what is it like, what's it like coaching through the platform, and also just engaging with people that are trying to get after it in life?

Meb: No, RunDot is a great platform to be able to coach athletes — sometimes you're busy, but with the intelligence of the run, it allows it to know who you are, and then it creates a workout for you, and it's been fun to be able to go in there and see what that person wants to accomplish and when their races are — so the roadmap to that success is there. It's just sometimes I go in and tweak it a little bit, to see what that individual is — maybe they had a little bit of sickness and things like that, and I go adjust to that.

So it's such a great platform and profession to be able to see that — and then we're so formal with those runners, and then three weeks later, four weeks later, it's just more like a relationship that you build. And it's just a lot of fun — people running their best, some wanna break six hours, some wanna break five hours, all levels, or some qualify for Boston, and I have a few that are running under three hours or 2:50s, and it's great. It's just a lot of fun way for me to interact, and I'm grateful for RunDot to have this smart coaching platform.

Carrie: Yeah. When you're coaching your athletes with RunDot, are you talking to them as well, messaging with them through the app? What are you doing? 'Cause I'm sure there's plenty of times where these athletes are like, I can't wait to hear what Meb would have done in this situation, or how he got through this tough time, and that kind of thing.

Meb: So yeah, we use the platform to have a discussion, and then eventually, if they're working with me with the complete program where they pay a little extra, we do like thirty minutes once a week dialogue — we'll review the workout, how we went, and what's ahead. So that way we are — it's not like I'm with them training, but sometimes I'll even have them send me videos so I can give them feedback about their mechanics, and whether they need to do more even core or drills and things like that. So it's a lot of fun to help them, because the hardest thing about running, Carrie, is lacing those shoes and getting out the door — the other stuff is, hit a little tweak here, tweak there, and be able to help them be more efficient.

Carrie: Yeah, I know that is the hardest part. I just went with a group this morning, and it's 5:45 AM, and we gotta all be home because we have kids that have to get up and out the door at 7:15, and I just love meeting people — it really is so important to me. Some people love to go on their own, but just to have somebody, or to have RunDot, knowing my coach is gonna look at it, or I have this community — it is so nice.

Why did you want to start coaching, Meb? You're speaking, you're all over, you have your foundation, you have your business, you have all kinds of things going on in your life — why coaching?

Meb: You know, Carrie, as you said, by run, I'm still sweating a little bit for my run — no, the reason I coach is because I love it, I really do interact with people, I really do see the progress people make. I was coaching the first time when I was a senior in high school, for 800, a — ex-football player, so I always had that passion, and then in 2000 I coached at a community college, San Diego City College, with Paul Greer. And then after that I just said, you know, I don't wanna be — not go to altitude, if I'm committed, I'm committed — I don't wanna be doing half as an athlete, half as a coach, I think there's gonna be some give and take.

So I decided to wait until my career was over, and then get the best out of what I can within my body, and then lean on others to help them accomplish their goals. And the timing was perfect with RunDot, to be able to say, hey, this is a great platform to help others accomplish their goal. And it's fun to see my athletes with RunDot now, like, RunDot's prediction is this, and we're gonna meet it — or when they meet with me a few days before, well, I can't disappoint with coaching, so I gotta hit my milestone. So those are the interactions I have, but at the end of the day it's helping them maximize their potential.

So coaching is — like a class you can take a semester or whatnot, but coaching is something you can do for a couple of years and see the progress of the individual grow and accomplish their goals to the best they can. Sometimes you're not gonna have a perfect buildup, but the motivation, or talking to them, getting into their head, is also an important strategy — how to race sometimes — what I've used in my experience, and shared it well with them.

Carrie: That's cool, I love that. I mean, I'm sure you've been through it all, you know — even though we look at all the things, you were the first person to ever win Boston, New York, and an Olympic medal — like, that's crazy to say that out loud, that nobody in the world had done that until you did it. And you still had ups and downs — you still had, like you said, Rio was just kind of a yo-yo of a race, nothing was going great, and then things would come around, and it was tough. So I think a lot of your athletes, even though they're probably like, do I relate to this man — they really can relate to you, because it is just running, at the end of the day — we all go through those ebbs and flows.

Meb: It is just running — try to keep it simple, but also, how do you take advantage of the technologies you have, and then eventually say, okay, some people don't like to taper — I gotta convince them, tapering is like training, you've done the work, that's why you earn those. And others have not done — if they've been struggling or been sick, I say, we're not gonna taper as we thought we might — we're gonna taper early, we're gonna be tapering for like eight days, nine days instead of three weeks.

Those are the experiences — and unfortunately, sometimes injuries do happen, even though with RunDot we try to minimize that as much as we can, but sometimes I had an athlete just walking, twisting her ankle — so it's not just when you train and get injured, sometimes mishap happens, and that's where I come in and say, hey, just give it time, let it heal, and don't forget about the muscle memory — you will be back, it just gotta make progress, let the fitness retrieve the fitness within yourself — it's not just this phase, but all the other races you've done, it's gonna come back. But they have to hear you and trust you into that, because they just wanna go, and it's like, just keep making progress weekly and monthly and you'll be all right.

Carrie: Well, we know you're coaching with RunDot, but I'm not sure — I know last year you were helping with the high school cross country team — are you still doing that? When your daughter was there?

Meb: I'm no longer doing that — that was Fiori, my daughter was there, been in Florida. It was a lot of fun, I enjoy cross country tremendously, and I did a volunteer with them for track. This year I have another daughter who's in soccer, and you know, my parents are getting a little older, and also mainly it's just the heat and the lightning — you gotta have some temperature control in Florida, cancellation of lightning, and then an early, 6 AM practice all the time — it wasn't — trying to beat it, you know. So it's been fun, but I'm no longer doing it. But I still see them and keep them high-fived on the way through when I see them run — in fact, I ran into one at the gym yesterday, hey Cushman — I'm like, I forgot that part of me. But it's been fun, and we did well, and I think for that chapter, I enjoyed cross country, track, okay. But we'll see if there are other possibilities — I'd like to still give it back, but we'll have to wait on that one.

Carrie: It is so fun — I help a little bit with Ruby's team, my oldest, and I love every minute of it, although I'm very intense. I didn't realize, Meb, how intense I am.

Meb: Carrie, my other coach was more intense than I was — I'm like, okay, let's — it — I wanna come on race day, because I'm running around — unfortunately had my meniscus tear, I wasn't running as much as I can during the course — but before I was injured, I was running and telling them, well, catch that person, you gotta — I want that — I am. But in terms of training, I'm like, hey, depends how you feel — especially high schoolers, you don't know if they've been drinking, hydrated properly, nutrition properly, and then I don't want to push them too much — it's like, kinda see them, and then if, you know, take half a mile off and get ready for tomorrow, I'd rather do that than say, come on, you can do it, you gotta push to the line, that's not it. But on race day, I want them to maximize all the hard work they have done, to hopefully get the best out of themselves in terms of catching that next person or running their personal best.

Carrie: It's kinda hard to coach your kids though, I find — because, you know, like you — you obviously want them to have so much fun and want them to go out there and do their best, but also, like, I think I feel like I know Ruby's ability, and I'm like, okay, we gotta hone in on this, we need to get sleep, we can't be a social butterfly all the time — there's a lot that goes into that, and it's hard to coach your kid, I think.

Meb: I am very disciplined into that — like you said, you seen it all from the high school, when we were — you know — teammates together, and then in NCAA together in '97, and the intensity that was — when you were at Villanova, when I was at UCLA, those times are — because you see the potential, you want them to do it nutritionally, sleeping, stretching, ice bath — and you're like, come on, how hard could it be to eat? So in that regard, you know, it's tough — it's really tough. But they see you as a parent anyway, so if a friend says let's stretch or let's meet together, they're on it right immediately, you know? But it's fun to see them do well, but at the same time you can see the potential they have, and you're like, if I had that I could do this, this, this and that — but it's like, that's not me, you gotta let them be them.

Carrie: Right, you have to let them be them. When you look at your RunDot plans — I mean, RunDot technically will take an athlete and build the plan for them each and every day — it adjusts to the weather, it adjusts to your sleep, it'll adjust to anything really — all the data that you put into it — when you're looking at the workouts for your athletes, are there times — and I think you've already mentioned this — you have tweaked workouts, you've been able to have that one-on-one conversation with an athlete and say, this is what I think we should do, maybe change it up a little bit — you do that within RunDot?

Meb: I do, and sometimes it's amazing — sometimes I even take a screenshot of it, because we're so similar, we're like on the same page. So I would say, maybe they might say "10K time trial," I'll have like six-mile tempo, you know, or sometimes RunDot will say "five times five minutes," and in my head I was thinking maybe mile repeats — but that person might be seven minutes, so my half by two — by two minutes or so — and I was wondering, sometimes the recovery, depends where they are, the athletes I coach, that run seems to be a little bit shorter recovery, and sometimes I focus on longer recovery and then just hammer it. But other than that, I think the long runs and the tempos are very similar — it's just a fun way, I gotta get the screenshot, because what I just had in mind I was thinking about, or kind of mapping it out myself and then putting it on the app, and it's so similar.

I mean, I work with Aaron Kittel, and I'm like, can you believe this, this is almost identical. So I have fun playing with that as well — it's a lot of fun. But you know, you have to know the athlete individually, so it's not like one size fits all by any means — it's more individualized, their DNA, and I try to do that as well, and that's what RunDot does exactly.

Carrie: Are you techie, Meb? Do you like technology like that?

Meb: I didn't come from techy, as you know, my background — growing up without electricity or running water. But sometimes, you know, a lot of the older generation than I am think I'm techie, because I kinda help them with this and that — but my wife is much more techy than I am. I'm like, I can't figure this out, or my kid, I can't figure this out. I guess I'm always scared to make mistakes in terms of technology, delete anything I've worked on — so I just said I'd rather have somebody with experience do it. I'm not too — even Amazon, I just recently, probably in the last couple years, ordered something, but I'm like, I like to go to the store and get it. So I'm not that tech-savvy.

Carrie: Do you remember back in the day — do you remember back in the day when we were in college and we would get through almost our entire paper that we were writing and then just lose it — it'd just go away on the computers, and I'd go into computer services and we'd be trying to get it back — I mean, we had it rough, our generation has had it rough — no super shoes, and we were learning the internet.

Meb: And we were dealing with this — the size of the typewriter, where you have to go little box to go back and make the edits. But yeah, we didn't have the privilege like the laptop we're speaking on — I mean I didn't have it, so we had to go to the computer lab or wait until it opens, and maybe miss a class to make sure your paper is printed out. Now we just have — you can print it from your room to whatever the office is.

Carrie: My gosh, it's wild, the life has changed so much.

Meb: Or on that token, you can even have Siri, and you can ask Siri this and that, and then you have now Gemini or whatever it is — what happened to the library where we'd go and make hours of meeting friends there. No complaints though.

Carrie: Yeah, I mean even yesterday I was like, how do you spell this, how do you spell that — I was like, my brain isn't working anymore, it's 4 PM, so it's so funny.

Do you have any good success stories or fun stories of coaching now through RunDot?

Meb: Yeah, yeah, I have quite a bit. It's been a lot of fun — I had one girl, Juliana, just ran a PR in Berlin just recently, this week, and for her she does a lot of great work and mileage, but she got sick a couple weeks, a week and a half before, and I'm like, my gosh — and then we were — you know, I love what she — I hope and I — that's what I used to say when I was in college, I was like, I'm not gonna go destroy it, it's — I wasn't that confident, maybe arrogant, but I'm like, I love what you're saying, just keep that up, because you're a little bit scared of the marathon, which rightfully you should be, because you're respecting it. And then she texts me, she's like, hey, I ran a 16 or 17 second PR, and I'm excited for her.

And there's fun stuff — Nuri, you know, by profession he's a lawyer, and he came to me when he was 3:21 for the marathon, and literally within three months, three and a half months, got him to 3:04, and then I thought he could go under three hours, but I just didn't wanna risk it, and he ran 3:11, 3:12, but we negative-split it, and then a year later he ran like 2:57. So it's been fun to see them, and it's like I never thought I could do this, and it's fun to be able to enjoy the journey — for me, I'm just guiding you, giving you a little nitty-gritty tips here and there, how to run, or what RunDot — and use that. But at the end of the day, you are the individual putting in the work and getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning, running sixteen miles or seventeen miles, or whatever that might be, on their platform.

Carrie: Well, you said you came in wiping your chin a little bit from sweat — I'm looking at my shiny forehead from trying to put this oil on my head to diminish my wrinkles, and you're glistening from your sweat — we're two different wavelengths today.

Meb: I mean, it's been about — I was 8:40, 8:40 is when I started sweating, and I stopped running, I'm still sweating, and I can't even — I'm gonna have a drink here but I'm not gonna even drink it — but yeah, it's just gonna keep going, so I can't read for about an hour after I run.

Carrie: My gosh, it is so — it's still humid down there, it's humid here in Minnesota as well. But let's talk about that — you were banged up for what, a year?

Meb: Whew, I don't wanna — yeah, September — it's — I was actually, when I was coaching Plant High School, a kid got in front of me, we were just running, I tell him, hey, let's go on the soft surface from the sidewalk, and he listened to me but didn't give me no warning, he just jumped right in front of me, and next thing I know my body was going that way, my mind was stopping, and it just kinda tweaked it, and it went fine for a run, and then the next day I can't bend my knee, and I can't flip from one side of the bed to the other without lifting my leg with my hands.

And all the time when I saw you in New York and Chicago last year, I was banged up — I had the knee brace on, but my knee was fragile like this — and I didn't know I had a meniscus tear until Dr. Rosen saw in New York, he took me in for an MRI, and it's like, yep, you got it, your joints look great and all that, but you have a meniscus tear, and I'm like, well what should I do? And actually I give credit to your — Dino's, because she's the one who decided, you know, we should wait, don't go under the knife yet. But he wanted to go there and scope it out, very simple, twenty minutes or so surgery, he was gonna do it, he said, let me — stay at my house, we just need you for a day and a half to be on crutches and you can fly back. But I was so busy in New York I didn't get a chance to do it, and then went with his physical therapy — I was doing that already, but came more aggressive on it — and in May probably when I felt a little bit, maybe making progress, and then the calf was a little bit of muscle atrophy probably, not utilized, and then from the knee to the calf, and kept going and going, and finally now, a year later, this last two-three weeks it's been fun to run again. So I did miss it, I did miss it.

Carrie: Yes, I know, we're all excited to have you back. You texted me — you texted me you're doing some scrapbooking — and you texted me an article, and you said, hey, I'm back — or I don't know, if you said, or I said, how's the knee, or whatever — and you said, I'm back. And now we get to go for runs when we're on the road together, which I'm super pumped about. But I was thinking all along — I was wondering, you're so busy, but are you a guy that — now, 'cause you are meticulous about all the little things when you were competing, you did all the drills, you did all your core, you did all the weights, you did your cross-training, like you did things like that — so when you were injured this last year, were you still as meticulous, or did you kind of just live that normal lifestyle of not doing anything — which is not a normal lifestyle to us, but did you just stay out of the gym?

Meb: I went to the gym, which was fun, I always enjoy going to the gym in terms of upper body lifting — but I was not meticulous, because I just had a bunch of ice cream, maybe sometimes twice a day.

Carrie: Your daughters allow that?

Meb: I would just go and hang out, you know — I was not nutritionally probably making the best decisions, I mean I still ate healthy, but at the same time I'm like, you know what, it is what it is. And I was still with Plant High School, so I would do the layup-and-go, and the layup-and-go training was good, but probably not the best thing after the meniscus tear — but I have to be a coach and be able to do that. But yeah, no, I think, people who know me for a long time, I'm very meticulous, and I always am concerned — not concerned, but I know a fine line where my weight was, and it was pretty scary — when I had my pelvis stress fracture in 2008, the doctor told me, well for your health you need to be 138 pounds, and I'm like, well if I'm 138 pounds — at the time I was 122, 121 — I said that's not gonna — I can't do my job.

So, but now I got to the other side, I know where I have to be very careful, and I went above and beyond — 138, 150s — and then people still say, you look fit, I'm like, no, if you ask me to do a marathon, there's no way — my mind can do it, but the body can't, because there are so many different things you could do to look fit and strong, but the marathon — like Oklahoma City Marathon, I literally had to stop at one point, 1.8 miles, my body would not go anymore, 1.8 miles of the 5K — and you have to — I got much more respect for people who do the 5K and 10K and things like that, because that's what I used to do for cooldown or warm-up, and sometimes longer cooldown, but it was taken away.

But you know, never lose hope, and just try to get healthy — once you get healthy you can come back progressively — and then I'm just excited to run four miles now, or five miles. And my longest — I mean, there's one run, I finished up with this one, San Diego — for three and a half years, four years I have not been able to do it, it's like a seven-and-a-half-mile loop around Mission Bay Park — I used to do that three times or more for my long run, getting ready for the Boston Marathon. But now, I remember I was there like, I'm gonna go three miles out, and if I do the loop it's gonna be seven and a half, and I'm like, my body can't make it — just go three miles and then three miles back, I cannot make that decision to do the loop. And that's how you gotta know your body — but I'm looking forward to maybe getting a little bit — double digits, ten miles, or that loop again, sometime soon.

Carrie: Well, as I'm listening to you talk, it just makes me think, this is making you an even better coach — because so often when things are clicking, or when you are elite like you are, you kind of take for granted how hard it is to be coming back from injury, or maybe just starting from ground zero, when you've had a whole year off. I think that makes you an even better coach, to think, okay, this is what I have to do with myself, now I have to be careful with my athletes when they're coming back as well.

Meb: I mean, well thanks for that — and as an elite athlete, you do whatever you can, cross-train, get back fast, or otherwise your reduction contract, you're gonna be in trouble. But as of now, I'm like, okay, give it a little time — and then I have athletes where they're like, okay, my little calf is a little tight or whatever, I gotta take a day off, let's get it — because we don't wanna, sometimes we say, it gets — it warms up, it feels better after I warm up — it's like, well, if you touch the hamstring, if you touch the calf or the Achilles, then you're not ready to go yet. So just do icing, do strength training, and you'll be back — don't rush it. If you rush it, you'd rather be one day late, two days late, than try to say, okay I got it, and go, and set yourself back — which, by taking one day off or a week off, you're gonna come back, especially, like you said, in collaboration with RunDot, it collaborates with where you are at, and helps you get back to that normal training again.

So it's wise to use the wisdom we've experienced, from myself being injured, or muscle memory, and just practice — you don't have to go into intensity immediately, just go mileage and build that up, and then maybe do one minute on, two minute easy, one minute on, two easy — bring it a little bit, little by little, and in no time you're gonna be back and feel good and keep going. Just don't count yourself out.

Carrie: Yeah. How much have you run now, did you say — what's your furthest run?

Meb: I've done eight miles.

Carrie: Eight miles.

Meb: Eight miles, but no, I'm not worried about the pace — I'm happy — like today I probably ran like three miles, seven-minute pace or under seven, and I'm like, I'm happy with it.

Carrie: Nice, yeah.

Meb: So, but looking forward to that — double digits, gonna have champagne.

Carrie: Ooh, maybe we could do that together in Chicago, Saturday morning ten-mile run.

Meb: All right, I got a week and a half, two weeks to get there. That'd be fun.

Carrie: Hey, let's talk a little bit about commentary, because you and I get to share the booth together, especially in Boston, usually every year, unless if you're running, then you jump in and race. But what's that like for you? You and I have — I mean, we have some fun times, we've always had fun together, we go back, you guys, as Meb mentioned, back to the '90s, so we've spent this life together running and meeting up for different races. But commentary — do you like it?

Meb: I do like it, but I would not be where I am if I didn't give you credit also, Carrie — you've been — you kinda hand-held me to help me do that stuff, what to study — you've been a lot of fun, and I'm in with McEnroe and John Anderson, and it's a fun booth that we have, to be able to share our wisdom and knowledge and see who's gonna make that next move. So I do enjoy it, I do love it, I wish I could do more of it, because once a year I gotta restudy those athletes, and that was a little bit rough for me, but I really do enjoy it, and kind of give sometimes the insight of mechanically, or what they're thinking, to be in the middle of that — it's like, who's gonna make the next move, or what the anticipation is — and it's fun to be able to call it with you and John and Amanda. So it's been fun, I hope to do it a few more times together, but we'll see.

Carrie: You know, I was laughing — when you got on the podcast today, you had your glasses on, 'cause you were tinkering with your computer.

Meb: I did.

Carrie: There they are. And then — but you guys, if you're listening to this right now — obviously you are listening to it — but when we started doing commentary together, Meb was like, I just can't read the screen as well anymore, and I handed him my big readers, which everyone knows I wear every time, and he was like — what is this?

Meb: Ha ha ha.

Carrie: You had never put a pair of readers on, and they were these big black glasses, and from then on out you've been wearing your readers.

Meb: Absolutely. And that was a turning point — and then — was it Peepers, the company? Peepers sent me a few of those, and I was like, my gosh, this makes a big difference, I can see, because usually it's like — right, even right now it was a little blurry, but now I can see a lot better.

Carrie: Yes, it's so true.

Meb: I do it for — yeah, I mean, some — I could see far fine, but close I can't, and I have a little tough time when I'm in broadcasting, because it's fun enough but it's not close enough, what the screen is. So that's yeah, yeah.

Carrie: Yes! And our notes, you know? I was thinking, Meb, now I'm gonna put this out there for the world to hear, and I maybe shouldn't, but I have an idea — I think we need to have some kind of thing — do you remember back in the day with Swatch watches, where you would have these rubber things that went around the top and you could switch them out, and they were different colors and all this stuff, it was like an accessory for your watch?

Meb: Yeah, yeah.

Carrie: Well, I want an accessory for my watch — I know you can make the font pretty big, but for me, I wear a Garmin, and I can't see all of the numbers when I'm running without my glasses on. And if you've ever gone for a run with your readers on, it is like — and I've never been drunk in my life, I've never even had a drink of alcohol — but it is like you're drunk. I put them on by accident and went on the treadmill, and I was tripping out. But I think we need to figure out some kind of lens to put over our watches, because the font doesn't get big enough for me, and I'm not running in my readers. Should we?

Meb: Clip on, clip on, and a little clip on there — that's a good idea, copyright that, copyright that.

Carrie: We're gonna get that copyrighted, and you and I can do it, because we'll ask Peepers to make the cover for us.

So what's next on your calendar? I know we kind of alluded to the fact that we'll both be in Chicago — what else is going on with you?

Meb: It's gonna be busy, starting next Tuesday I'm going to San Antonio to kick off the press conference for the marathon, and then I'm doing Chicago from there, straight there, and then New York — I got a little break between Chicago and New York — and then from New York I got Philadelphia, and after Philadelphia I got the running event in the San Antonio Marathon. So October 6th to December 6th I'm on the road a lot.

Carrie: Oh my goodness. Just busy, busy.

Meb: So that's — but you know, spring and fall are really busy for me with the time of year, but it's been nice to be home for a while now, taking summer off with the kids, and now going back to work as well — it's fun.

Carrie: Yeah, and your RunDot roster is full, or are you still taking athletes?

Meb: RunDot is full, but here and there, depends on the marathons — I'd like to keep my clients for a while, but at the same time I'm very selective on how many people I have, because I want to enjoy that thirty-minute conversation with them, and sometimes get a little bit longer. But we might be doing a little posting here to see if we can take a few others, because — always some fun. But no, I think — I would love to, we used to do a little bit of like a Teams call sometimes to be able to enjoy them and get to know, like a group chat for my athletes sometimes, because they wanna encourage each other, support each other to get ready for races. So there's always maybe one or two rooms for athletes, and RunDot.

Carrie: Yeah, you never know — reach out.

We have one more question for you — the cooldown question — it's a question from our audience, this one comes from Jenna, and she lives in Arkansas. She asks: "Let's talk about pre-race dinner — I've always had pizza the night before a race, I'm curious what others and our coaches are doing pre-race, and maybe more importantly, are there any dinners we should avoid the night before an event?"

Meb: Well, the thing you should avoid the night before, for me personally, is fish, and also spicy food.

Carrie: But why fish?

Meb: Because for me, fish — it depends, if you cook it, it's one thing, you did it the way you want it, but if somebody at a restaurant does it and it may be undercooked or whatever, that's gonna ask for trouble — and even chicken fettuccine that I had trouble with in New York in 2006, I had food poisoning. So trying to minimize as much as you can. But you can't go wrong with spaghetti and meatball and a little red sauce. So if she's listening, try that — pizza is great also, but a little bit more greasy. But I think you can avoid that — but don't try something new, try rehearsing it in your long run or tempo run, or whenever you're gonna go like a five, seven mile run, try to do that before you go, so you get used to it. But I tell my athletes to stick to what works for them — sometimes it might be chicken or rice, sometimes it might be — some might be sushi — but at your own risk, is what I tell them.

Carrie: What was your pre-race meal?

Meb: Mine was — I love having spaghetti with meatball and red sauce, even good old Olive Garden, where I used to go when I was at UCLA — stick to that as much as I can, and that's what we were doing with the athletes, even in high school, we'd try to go to similar — just order in, have it in the lobby of the hotel, and then eat. But that's my go-to.

My other advice for her would be — have something on your bedside, like if it's a bagel with honey or peanut butter, almond butter — it won't get spoiled, you can have it next to your bed, and then when everybody's waiting in line at Starbucks or somewhere else, you already had yours. And then have your electrolytes next to your bed too, so that way you're ready to go instead of waiting in the store to get something.

Carrie: I love it, I totally agree. And I also — I like that you said rice, because some people have an issue processing pasta — I had that as I got older in life, and I switched to rice, and my stomach handled it much better.

Meb: What did you have when you were competing?

Carrie: I used to eat a lot of pesto pasta and chicken, because the acidity in the tomato sauce kinda upset my stomach sometimes, so I couldn't do red sauce a lot of the time. But then as I got older I switched to rice, and I would still have pesto — I'd just put pesto on my rice with grilled chicken and a lot of bread. I loved having good bread the night before a race. But I didn't race as long as you did, Meb, so I didn't have to carb-load as much.

Meb: You were a speed lady.

Carrie: Yeah, I don't know about that. Hey, thank you so much, Meb — we at RunDot love that you're with us, and this has been really fun. We're gonna have you on more episodes, so we'll see you in Chicago.

Meb: Sounds good, sounds great — thanks for having me, looking forward to it, and keep on running strong.