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Brad Kearns

Formerly anonymous Arizona high school running coach Mike Scannell has become a sensation in the American distance running community with the amazing success of his runner Grant Fisher, the undisputed king of American long distance running!

Grant had a sensational Paris Olympic Games, winning bronze medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. These are events where only a handful of Americans have ever won Olympic medals, ever! Mike is an old friend, a former elite collegiate runner, and a fellow competitor on the professional duathlon circuit, and it was amazing to catch up with him and detail the amazing Olympic journey!

The backstory of Grant and Mike is pretty amazing. Mike coached Grant in high school in Michigan, where he became one of only eight high schoolers ever to break four minutes in the mile. Grant then headed off to a great NCAA career in Stanford and a pro career with the elite Bowerman Track Club team in Oregon. In a surprise mid-career shift, Grant decided to go about it his own way. He moved to Park City, UT for altitude training, and phoned up his old high school coach looking for guidance. This is less than a year before the Olympics as America’s top distance runner! In this show, Mike will discuss the risks and pressures elite athletes face (and their coaches!) You’ll be taken behind the scenes for the Paris Games and the extraordinary measures Grant and Mike took to ensure he could focus and succeed.

You’ll love the story of how Grant and Mike were locked inside the Olympic stadium late at night after winning his 10,000 meter bronze. You’ll learn about Mike’s evolved approach where he is solely focused on serving the athlete and avoids getting the all-too-common coaching ego into the mix. You’ll learn about today’s popular scientific approach to endurance training centered upon measuring and controlling blood lactate levels during workouts, and why many runners “ruin their workouts” with a less disciplined approach. You’ll learn the benefits of altitude training, and how Grant’s mindset and extensive rehearsals helped him execute awesome strategy at both Olympic races.

At the end, Mike provides some profound insights for young runners and their parents about the importance of being motivated naturally and intrinsically. You’ll also learn why, a couple decades ago, crime didn’t pay in Tucson, AZ, where you might have gotten into a foot pursuit with someone who would most definitely outlast you…I’ve known and studied lots of coaches over the years, and I don’t think you’ll find a more healthy and evolved disposition than that embodied by Mike. No wonder Grant phoned him up out of the blue and asked for help going and getting some Olympic medals! Enjoy the show.

Young runners can get a daily tip of inspiration by following Mike on X @realironmike

TIMESTAMPS:

We take a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on with Olympic athletes and their coaches. [00:53]

Coaching Grant Fisher in the Olympics, Mike is able to share his expertise. [06:06]

What we commonly see these days are high profile teams with big sponsors. It’s a different approach from what Mike and Grant have done. [07:54]

How did Mike’s own experiences with coaches help him to get this particular disposition? [13:43]

With the scientific approach, the thing the runner can do is check blood lactate. [16:20]

Besides checking blook lactate, Mike checks heart rate, hematocrit and hemoglobin and other things. [19:38]

When training at altitude or in the heat of Arizona, you have to cut the tempos why back. [21:19]

It is very easy to ruin a workout by using that competitive intensity to work really hard. [23:40]

What kind of volume and load can you put on the runner so that he absorbs the training and is ready for the next session? [27:33]

You can have all the tech toys in the world but you have to listen to it! [29:48]

When you make a detailed plan for the athlete, how often to you deviate from that plan? [31:17]

Grant takes good care of himself.  He takes care of sleep, massage, his food at home. [39:58]

How do they manage the constant risk of overuse injuries? [41:05]

In taking on the job to coach Grant Fisher, did you feel nervous about the whole USA expecting some medals? [45:36]

What was his experience in Paris? What was the race strategy? [50:00]

Living and training at altitude helps your body build additional red blood cells, but when you come down to sea level, you lose some of the benefits. [59:34]

When running in the prelim, all you need is to be in the eight finalists. [01:04:13]

Staying in the Olympic Village with the other athletes can be fine for social interactions, however, when you have big important events to still compete in, being around rowdy parties doesn’t work. [01:05:53]

You have to plan on when you need to go faster when you are in the big race.  [01:09:15]

There is no reason for Grant Fisher to take the lead in the Olympics first 4,000 meters. [01:12:46]

Mike’s coaching method involves only when the athlete himself asks for coaching, not if the parent asks. [01:21:50]

High school kids don’t know what they can’t do so please don’t tell them. [01:25:55]

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TRANSCRIPT:

Brad (00:00:00):
Welcome to the B.rad podcast, where we explore ways to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life without taking ourselves too seriously. I’m Brad Kearns, New York Times bestselling author, former number three world-ranked professional triathlete and Guinness World Record Masters athlete. I connect with experts in diet, fitness, and personal growth, and deliver short breather shows where you get simple, actionable tips to improve your life right away. Let’s explore beyond the hype, hacks, shortcuts, and sciencey talk to laugh, have fun and appreciate the journey. It’s time to B.rad.

New Speaker (00:00:38):
Sometimes there’s a foot pursuit. So people were talking about one of the great, you know, national level collegiate distance runners, and I think you surprised some criminals. Is that what I remember from the story

Mike (00:00:49):
You promised? We would not talk about

Brad (00:00:53):
Listeners, I’m so excited to bring you the show with my old friend Mike Scanell. He’s a former professional duathlon competitor, the fastest long distance runner that ever participated in multi-sport. So this guy was a machine and he made me suffer back in the day, and then he resurfaced. I haven’t heard from him in a long time, but he resurfaced as the mysterious coaching hero in the Olympic Games now coming into prominence because he coached the fantastic USA Distance Runner Grant Fisher to a double bronze medal performance at the Paris Olympic Games. Grant won bronze in the 5,000 and the 10,000 meters, a historic accomplishment by a USA athlete. They’ve long been shut out of the medals in the distance races, and now we have one of the top guys in the world, and he’s been knocking on the door in previous championship events and everything came through with a fantastic peak performance at both the 10,000 and the 5,000 in Paris.

Brad (00:01:51):
And Mike is gonna take us behind the scenes of what it’s like to be an Olympic athlete during the games in the buildup to the games, how it works with the coach athlete relationship. Uh, Grant’s story is quite amazing. You’re gonna hear a lot of details and I think you’re gonna love this show even if you’re not a track fan or in a long distance running aficionado. It’s just really fascinating all the dynamics that are in play behind the scenes, what it takes to bea, a champion athlete and and peak at the biggest event in the world. Um, so some of the topics we’re gonna touch on is the scientific based approach to endurance training, uh, particularly with the, uh, newly popular strategy of measuring blood lactate levels during training, as well as correlating that with heart rate in order to train in a very precise manner where you build your aerobic capacity, you build your ability to, uh, handle fast race paces and continue to improve without the breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury that is so common, uh, amongst, uh, athletes of all levels, uh, from, you know, years past where we didn’t have this ability to be so quantified.

Brad (00:03:06):
And Mike is highly scientific about that. It’s gonna get a little sciencey in the show, but you’re gonna learn a lot about what it’s like. You’re also gonna learn about the benefits of altitude training and what that does to your body and the red blood cells and how you manage going from altitude down to compete at sea level and so forth. Um, we’re also gonna talk about the dynamics of training in a team environment. As I mentioned that, uh, Grant Fisher was with a, uh, major prominent team and other elite athletes, highly supported by major sponsorship, and he decided to make a dramatic shift in his lifestyle and his, uh, orientation to, uh, work one-on-one with his old high school coach, Mike Scannell. So they are, uh, longtime friends and associates. Uh, Mike coaching him before he went off to Stanford and before he went off to his professional career.

Brad (00:03:56):
But here he is at the peak of his powers, deciding to make a huge switch and put a little pressure on this, uh, uh, anonymous, uh, underground coach that’s, uh, mainly coaching high school runners. And now he’s in charged, entrusted with, uh, the number one USA distance runner, and it went really, really well. So we’re gonna have a joyous discussion of how everything went down. I think you’re gonna learn a lot. And also, uh, some interesting thoughts at the end, where Mike talks about his approach to coaching high school runners and on the heels of my show about parenting, I think he offers some really profound advice for all the parents listening to young athletes. So we’re gonna get all kinds of fun from Mike Scannell, coach of Grant Fisher and the two Olympic bronze medals from Paris. Let’s hear all about it.

Brad (00:04:44):
Mike Scannell, after so many years, I caught up with you and I’m so freaking excited because right now you’re on top of the world and you’re gonna, you’re gonna share this energy and excitement we were mentioning off, off camera that, you know, this is, this is your, your calling in life and we’re gonna talk about the incredible success at the Paris Olympic Games by your athlete, Grant Fisher and how this whole journey happened. But I said, let’s just jump right into it. ’cause we saw this dude claim two bronze medals in the distance events making history for the United States. Welcome to the show, man.

Mike (00:05:22):
Well, Brad, it has been a long time and we’ve been friends forever. It’s wonderful to see you. I really appreciate coming on your show and sharing this. And you know, I don’t know if I’m on the top of the world, but I’m, I might be second because Grant is super, super happy. And it was a, it was really a long-term project and, you know, he never wavered in his goals. He set ’em out there and shared ’em with me and he actually shared ’em with others. And that’s not an easy thing to do. Stick, you know, put yourself, you know, out there and put a target on your back and say, Hey, this is what I’m gonna do and this is what I want to do, and he did it. So I’m, I’m my passenger in the car and I’m a really, really happy passenger.

Brad (00:06:06):
Well, that’s a great attitude and I think it speaks to your, you know, well-balanced, holistic approach to coaching. ’cause sometimes I object when, um, the coaches are kind of taking, taking the limelight and using a lot of we statements like we won the medal and all that. And it can, it can turn into sometimes some dysfunctional dynamics. You see that in other sports where the athletes feel too much pressure and they crack. And, and sometimes I feel like, well, what’s going on with their support system where the athlete had so much pressure to win the gold or die, that they’re lacking perspective all around them too, it seems like.

Mike (00:06:48):
Yeah, with Grant is such an individual and unique guy that, um, you know, we started this project and, and I didn’t say, this is what I’ll do for you. I said, what can I do for you, Grant? What do you want from me? You know, what do you want? And then when we all laid it out, I said, I’ll clear my plate. I don’t care. You’ve asked for this, you’ve asked for that. You think this is the right way to go and I’ll clear my plate for this project. And that was, you know, almost a year ago. And, um, it honestly, it truly is Grant and I truly am a passenger, and it has always been, I will help, but you will drive and I will do whatever it takes, and you will, you know, you’re the race car driver. I’m just a mechanic and I’m good with that. And I think you need a really good mechanic, there’s no doubt about it. Hmm. I think absolutely you need a good mechanic, but also you need a race car driver and Grant’s a race car driver.

Brad (00:07:54):
It’s interesting that you’re, you’re, we’re, we’re going here with the conversation because, um, I was also gonna ask you what we commonly see these days in the elite scene are these high profile teams where there’s a bunch of resources behind it with, with a big sponsor. We’re familiar with the Nike teams and the ON team. And, um, that, that team atmosphere I think has a lot of benefits, but it also seems like there’s the potential for getting into the, the team dynamic that is so destructive for collegiate athletes where the system chews ’em up and spits ’em out. So, um, you maybe could talk about the compare and contrast from what’s a, what’s a elite team experience like with all the bells and whistles and the facilities, but you know, sort of a different approach than, than you and Grant have taken with this kind of one-on-one approach.

Mike (00:08:50):
Well, I love the team approach. I think, uh, you know, I like, I like the coaches, the Dathan Rheims of the world, you know, the Jerry’s of the world, the, the, uh, the guys that are involved in those big large teams. They have good coaches, the Pete Julian’s of the world, they’re good coaches and they’re good teams and they work very well. So I think there’s a huge benefit to that. And if not, anything else, just sharing the Olympics experience. So Grant goes to BTC and there’s other guys in the team already that have medals. And so just the, on an easy run, talking about what it’s like, how is it at the Olympics? What’s, you know, what is the warmup? Like, what’s the call room situation like, what are you allowed to do here? How long are you sequestered, you know, all of those things that give him a visual or what it’s gonna be like when he is there.

Mike (00:09:43):
Those are very, very helpful things. So I like that approach. That approach is not for everybody. I mean, Cole Hawker went back to his coach last year as well, and Cole Hawker arguably had a great year, right? I mean, you can’t argue with a gold medal. So <laugh>, um, I think at different times in different athletes’ careers and progression, uh, they just have to pick the right solution at the time. And, you know, you, you have to go to the NCAA system, you have to, and it, it is very good system. There’s a lot of competitive guys that all wanna be very good, and to be around that environment is healthy. And like you said, sometimes it’s not, but there is definitely a place for all of that. So I support the, uh, the large team and the large group. I think it’s, you know, in our day, Brad, we didn’t have that option. We were all on our own, and I think we made our own small groups, but, you know, for those companies to get behind these groups, I think is great. But like you said, this year, Grant made that change and the focus was 100% Grant Fisher. So in this year, with what went on, in hindsight, I can say that was a good change for him.

Brad (00:11:02):
<laugh>, I can’t argue. Yeah, <laugh>, that’s funny. I mean, uh, there, there’s so much, uh, you know, uh, armchair, uh, opining, especially it seems like in track and field for some reason, where, uh, everyone’s, you know, has a better recommendation than the athletes who are excelling. So, um, you, you cross the finish line, you can, you can shut down any, any potential naysayers of who’s this Mike Scanell guy, why is he taking, why is he taking the reins with, uh, you know, the, the greatest American distance runner? Uh, but I think what’s also cool is like, um, these things all are seen should be seen as stepping stones, and you have to continue to try and, and grow and, uh, you know, better yourself. And so your, your positive attitude is, is shining through, like the collegiate experience is awesome. And then the Bowerman Track Club where, where Grant, trained as a pro was awesome, and now he’s having great success, uh, with the next stepping stone. And also in that was choosing a different place to live that was personally appealing for personal reasons, I suppose. And you, you can talk about that when I, when I stopped rambling. But, um, I, I think that’s the sign of a champion where, you know, you can’t be, uh, getting into a rut just because you gotta look for, you know, uh, more, more opportunity in the future. And, and things change in your own life too, I suppose.

Mike (00:12:25):
Yeah. And, and you have to consider, I don’t wanna use an athlete as a product, but you’ve gotta consider that at this phase of that development, of that career. Let’s say at 18 years old, Grant needed this at 22 years old, he needed that at 27 years old, maybe he needed this. And so, you know, maybe this was the change that he needed to excel. It worked. I don’t know if this is the best. I’ve, I’ve always held the belief that if I can benefit you, Brad, as a coach, then let’s work together. And Brad, if you decide that it’s best for Brad to go to Johnny as a coach, then Brad, I’m gonna support that decision. Go to Johnny and see if it works out. Maybe he has a different system that works better for you. Maybe he has other ideas that work better for you. But really, it doesn’t matter if you call me Coach Mike, or you know, coach Scannell, it doesn’t matter what my name is. The real thing is, can I positively impact who you are going to be as a person and an athlete? And if that changes, ’cause the target always changes. Brad, you’re different today than you were 40 years ago, or 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that target changes. So maybe you need a different guy tomorrow. But for right now, you know, Brent and I will continue to work together.

Brad (00:13:43):
How did you get to this disposition? Did you have some great coaching experience or did you have some negative ones in the collegiate system that you ran in and, and your professional career? Um, because I, I wish all coaches would speak like this, and I, I see still the pervasiveness of, um, you know, some, some impure motivations with even, you know, great coaches in, in major sports.

Mike (00:14:09):
Well, that is a very unique question that I will answer it as number one. Everything I do coaching wise, I stole. I am not the greatest coach <laugh>. I take a little bit of Brad Kearns, and I take a little bit of whoever, you know, name Arthur

Brad (00:14:27):
Arthur, uh, <laugh>,

Mike (00:14:28):
Whatever. I, everything I do, I stole, I’m, and you can steal it too, Brad, if you like it, steal it. Go ahead. I post, I answer your questions outright. I will. I’m very, I’m an open book when it comes to like, what do you do this? And why? The only reason I don’t provide too much detail is because of those armchair quarterbacks. They just yell at me. And I’m like, if you don’t like it, don’t do it, <laugh>. I’m not telling you to do it. Yeah, yeah. But real reality is, Brad, that I am a coach that still learns and I don’t know everything. And if I don’t know everything, I certainly can’t know everything about you and or about somebody else and what’s best for them. I try to do very, very good, but I know I am not the be all end all coach.

Mike (00:15:10):
I’m just a coach. So I wanna be a good coach, and I still change my systems all the time. But to think, you know, just because of this, this result happened, I think, I think maybe too often the egos get in the way of reality. And, I certainly, I have some unbelievable success stories beyond Grant Fisher. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I think it’s great. But everybody wants to talk about Grant because, you know, he excelled at the athletic level unbelievably, which I’m fine chatting about. But really to answer your question, unfortunately, I would say that a lot of that is ego-driven, when people wind up maybe taking too much credit for the end product.

Brad (00:15:53):
I wonder if, is there some, some secretiveness that’s still around amongst the elite athletes? I mean, you’re saying you’re an open book, so if I asked you like, what are Grant Fisher’s best threshold workouts at altitude? Would you share that with the world? Or do you have to keep a little bit of,

Mike (00:16:12):
Unfortunately, I don’t, you can’t do Grant Fisher’s workouts. Brad, if you, you come here now, we’ll, we’ll put you through one, we’ll see how it goes for you, <laugh>.

Brad (00:16:19):
But it,

Mike (00:16:20):
You know, I’m very scientifically based. There’s no doubt about it. Grant wanted that as a change. So I’ve been testing lactate and taking lactate for probably close to 40 years before it was popular, certainly. And Grant wanted a little more control over the outcome of workouts. And so we did that. And I can share workouts. I don’t mind sharing workouts, but I really like to share the premise of workouts. Why did you do the tempo, Brad? And how many minutes did you do tempo? And at what effort level did you do the tempo? That’s what’s important to you. Not that Grant did three times two mile today. I mean, it just, it just isn’t that important. But, you know, why did you do it? How did you do it and what did you get out of it? That’s what you need to know so that you can do the same thing for your body.

Brad (00:17:11):
So you’re, you’re very scientific based on your approach. You have the, the, the tools available to us now, like testing blood lactate. Listeners aren’t familiar. This is something that you can even do during the workout. You can prick your finger and check these readings that are very important to what the training adaptation is. But I also want to ask, because I think this is where the magic comes through, especially with, with you and Grant and, and what was, uh, what what’s been achieved is you also have sort of a real life or an intuitive element that you have to overlay, every day and every workout.

Mike (00:17:47):
That is true. So the science behind our workouts is well known and well laid out in every book you wanna read <laugh>. It’s, it’s, that is, no, that’s not the guessing part of it. The, the coaching aspect is the art aspect. When I look in his eyes in a workout, I wanna know how hard is he working and how hard is he thinking? And then a lot of times I’ll say, Hey, this is what my eyes are telling me. What do you feel? And then we might test to see if I’m right or not. And for him, in one day, we might test his blood six to eight times in a workout. So we test fairly often. And the adjustments are very small, Brad, we’re targeting really tight, lactate numbers in a workout. So as the workout goes on, let’s say our volume is 26 minutes today of this type of work, you know, at 12 minutes you are at this level and at 18 minutes you might be at a different level, and we might have to adjust the pace or adjust the length of the interval.

Mike (00:18:54):
We adjust all sorts of things, length of the interval down to like 15 seconds. So the interval might be two minutes, it might be 1 45, it might be two 30. We adjust that. And then also the rest, we might adjust the rest 10 seconds from 30 seconds to 40 seconds, depending on the day. And we might adjust the speed. We might by a 10th of a mile an hour on a treadmill, for example, or four seconds in a mile repeat. That is nothing. But at Grant’s level, you know, he can adjust, uh, a mile without a watch within four to five seconds per mile. You just tell him, Hey, this is the new pace. And boom, he, he feels it, he knows it. And so then we use the lactate to verify what my eyes are telling. Hmm.

Brad (00:19:38):
So just to get a little lay person friendly, we’re talking about, there’s a familiar example of anaerobic threshold training where we know that correlates to a certain blood lactate level. But maybe you could give like a practical example of what you’re trying to do with all that, that finger pricking during the workout. And this is, this is only during the workout that you’re testing lactate in particular, and you’re also watching heart rate, or what other things are you testing?

Mike (00:20:04):
So, I do have several portable lactate analyzers. So we do that during the workout. And I will answer your question about lactate. You asked me two questions. The other thing is we, I also have a portable hematocrit and hemoglobin tester. So those are not very popular. And uh, I won’t even tell you where I got it, why I got it.

Brad (00:20:25):
It’s a scandal. 2000, you can order it online

Mike (00:20:28):
From my website. It’s new, improved <laugh>. Exactly. The new and improved.

Brad (00:20:32):
I’ve never heard of that. That’s incredible.

Mike (00:20:33):
Well, and now you have. And so, um, we utilize that not in training. ’cause that’s a, that’s something that occurs over time with the element of altitude training, which we believe is very important. And so, that system or that testing device we use out of training, but the lactate we use in training. Now for your example. We like to target between 3.8 and 4.0 millimoles of, you know, of lactate per liter of blood. Do you know these figures?

Brad (00:21:05):
Right? That’s, uh, that’s anaerobic threshold has been correlated with 4.0 millimoles of accumulation of this, I guess you could call it a byproduct of energy production. That’s right. A lot of people misunderstand that. But, um,

Mike (00:21:19):
And, and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just some of it gets, you know, recycled into the body, which is good. And some of it then, you know, gets stored or you can’t do anything with it, right? And so, yes, we target that. So we will, for example, let’s say we will try a workout and I’ll say, okay, the goal is, um, tempo 4.0, let’s say it’s 4.0. So we have found that an altitude, or in Arizona in heat, it’s the same thing. We have to cut our, our tempos way back to between nine and 12 minutes. And I do this right now with my Arizona people too, nine and 12 minutes. Otherwise, the lactate climbs too fast and so fast. For example, let’s say you’re running five minute pace at temp pace, you’re five minute pace right now. Now, if the weather is 43 degrees and it’s, you know, a nice, it’s a beautiful day with no wind, you can easily run four miles, no, straight away, four miles.

Mike (00:22:20):
And that’s a staple for me as a four mile tempo. We cannot do that in Arizona because honestly, after, just, like I said, it’s somewhere around 10 to 13 minutes that starts really climbing, and now my workout is ruined. And so boom, we run nine minutes, like I just gave you the example, we run three times, two mile repeats. We run up to nine minutes, or in Grant’s case, you know, it’s very close. And then we take a short break and we do it again. We take a short break and we do it again. And that way we are never crossing that line. We wanna stay behind that line. So that’s an example of how we use that in training. And we might, you know, let’s go back to my five minute pace guy, just in case, you know, somebody’s listening and wants to kind of associate it. We might go five minutes and five minutes for a 10 flat, two mile on the first rep. And then depending on how it goes, wind really screws up your effort levels, by the way. So if it’s a really windy day, we really have a hard time, we might go 10 20 on the second interval, we’ll adjust immediately. We don’t wait, we don’t say, oh, try another one. We don’t do that. If the level is too high, we adjust immediately within, within seconds. So that’s how we use that tool, and we use it often.

Brad (00:23:40):
If you’re, if you’re watching on video, when Mike said, ruined the workout, I smiled, and I was thinking back to, and looking, looking at you on the screen and thinking back to our days on the, on the racing circuit in the, uh, in the eighties and nineties. And, um, you know, I’m, I’m also thinking this is why the athletes continue to progress and go so much faster, is they become smarter about their training. And I, I contend that, um, I probably ruined a lot of workouts as, as perhaps you did too by using that competitive intensity to work really hard and try to keep the same pace into the wind or in the, in the summer heat in Arizona. And maybe you can just describe what, what that really means when you, how do you ruin a workout by, let’s say you don’t have your meters with you and you’re just going with your competitiveness in the pack and, and I guess abusing the body in a way.

Mike (00:24:37):
It’s very, very easy. Like college, let’s just go with the college system. The college system is really simple. I’ll write your week right now, and then you’re gonna repeat it 52 times on Monday. You’re gonna come out and warm up and I’m gonna kill you on Tuesday, you’re gonna run easy and on Wednesday you’re gonna come out and warm up and I’m gonna kill you. And on Thursday you’re gonna run easy. And then on Friday, I know this is gonna be a shock, but you’re gonna warm up and I’m gonna kill you. That’s the whole system. And they just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. Well, my high school guys want to do that too, by the way. I coach high school. I don’t know if you know that, but I coach high school guys and the lactate analyzer, the best thing about it is I can show them, I can tell ’em we’re gonna target 4.0 today and I can show them you’re at five, six, you’re slowing down.

Mike (00:25:26):
Mm-Hmm. And what happens with the wind or other elements? And, and I do have guys right around the treadmill often because it eliminates all these elements that you have to deal with when you’re out on a gravel road that’s hilly or windy, it doesn’t matter. It eliminates all this other stuff that goes on. But the bottom line is, with an analyzer, you can show ’em and say, wait a second, the purpose of today, the goal of today and the outcome for today are being affected because you are not adjusting to what’s going on outside of your body. You know, the wind is creating too much effort and then you, it’s not an even thing. I run a 200 with the wind and it’s super easy. So my, you know, my effort level goes down. Hmm. Then I run a 200 against the wind, your effort level is 120% or whatever.

Mike (00:26:13):
And then you go with the win. It’s not a, it’s not a zero sum game. It doesn’t work that way. <laugh>, you cannot do that. And once you start crossing the line into like, say, 6, 6, 7, 8, once you get up into that part of the curve, honestly, it becomes exponential and you never recover. So when I say ruin the workout, I mean run too hard early and then try to adjust back and it does not work so easy. Mm-Hmm. You need to creep up from the easy side and touch it. Just touch the level and hang out right below the level once you start crossing, and really it’s about eight, you know, between six and eight is when it really starts climbing quickly and you, you’re, you ruin the workout at that level, in my opinion. There’s, there are days that we run at that level, Brad, but not the tempo day that we’re describing.

Brad (00:27:04):
Right? Right. Um, and there’s a lot of ways to, to ruin the workout, like you described, if it’s hot, if it’s at altitude. And then I suppose there’s a third one where the athlete is just not, um, well recovered, and that will also show up with higher than normal accumulations, even though they’re running what they believe to be a pace that’s normal, typical and within their capacity.

Mike (00:27:33):
Yeah. So that’s, now you’re asking another question, and that’s what kind of volume and load can you put on Brad so that he absorbs the training and is ready for the next session? Hmm. And that is a really fine, that is a coaching line right there. How much can I give you so that we’re gonna get our work in today, but also you’re gonna be ready for Friday, right? That’s, that’s the deal. How much load can I give you today so that you can recover for the next session? And that is, I call that absorbing the training. And if an athlete isn’t absorbing the training, then you’re right, they are too tired. And yes, that is an effect. Also, other things also affect that same thing, you know, if you’re sick, if your body’s working too hard, you know, it doesn’t matter what the number says.

Mike (00:28:23):
If your lactate is four oh, and your, your watch says five 12 pace. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> honestly, it doesn’t matter. You might have to run five minute pace in three days. Now it doesn’t vary quite that much, but if you’re sick, it would Right? You would’ve to run five 20 pace and get the same effort out, the same benefits to the system out, but your numbers don’t match. And so it’s a really good tool for guys that just are grinders. I mean, it’s a really good tool and there are a lot of grinders out because, you know, every day of my running career until I was 26 years old every day ran as hard as I could. I mean, if you gave me a workout, it was just, you know, as hard as I could run. I mean, 24 quarters, I did that many times in college, 24 times 400 and just nail. Well, Brad, you know, I was a runner, right?

Brad (00:29:19):
<laugh> of course, yeah. Listeners, this guy was, I mean, I would say you’re the fastest runner that’s ever done a duathlon. And so you were pretty much messed up all our races and I was scared to race you because I knew I was gonna suffer like never before, uh, hope, hoping to, um, you know, make up some ground on the bike. But, uh, you were, you were the torture guy in the pack for sure. Yeah.

Mike (00:29:42):
Yes. I, have vivid memories of you soliciting other riders to drop me in the bike. <laugh>, I, i,

Brad (00:29:48):
Come on now, <laugh> soliciting other, soliciting people to slow down the pack at the, on the first run of the run bike run to Alon. Yeah. Uh, so if one is not equipped with the technology, um, will heart rate reveal these things pretty accurately in terms of, you know, identifying, let’s say your anaerobic threshold heart rate is 1 53 or whatever, you got your fancy test at the health club one day. Can you carry that with you and train pretty well by, by heart rate alone? Which is more accessible, I’d say?

Mike (00:30:23):
Yeah. I would say it’s more accessible as well. And the answer is absolutely yes. So, and it’s a, it’s a great device, but you have, the thing about all these toys and tricks and, and, and devices is you’ve gotta listen to it. So a lot of people

Brad (00:30:39):
Wear the heart rate model <laugh>. Wait, could we could we pause there and hit 15 second rewind for people? Oh, wait, I have all the tech I need. Oh, I gotta listen to it. Okay. Yes. Okay, coach Mike,

Mike (00:30:51):
I’ve gotta listen to it because if you believe the tech is accurate, and I believe most heart rate monitors are pretty darn good these days, then pay attention to it. And so, you know, you, it’s not that big of a deal, but a lot of people wanna be coached by their watch or by Strava or what they post later. You, you’ve gotta listen to what’s best for your body. And a heart rate’s a great way to do that.

Brad (00:31:17):
So I’m gonna ask you about the, the carefully laid plan that you, you, you and Grant set up. I’ve listened to or read some other stuff where you’re sitting down in the, in the coffee shop and, and writing a plan from day one all the way to the Olympics. So you’re writing these huge long, long-term plans. Tell us about the details there. And then also my backup question is, how often do you have to deviate from that plan with an elite athlete who’s living and breathing training?

Mike (00:31:47):
So the way that worked, that’s true story by the way. We sat down in a coffee shop and we started with the premise, what can I do for you? That is exactly what I said to him. We sat there for hours and I told him what my philosophies were on training, and we talked about, you know, what percentage of this volume should this be, what percentage of this, you know, should be, and, and I did want him to start at 90 miles a week. That’s true. That’s been out there. I have no problem telling you that. And so then once that session was over, I said, do you want me to write the plan? He said, yes. So it took me, it, it probably took me a week. So I wrote the plan in three phases, one through the 10 in March, one through Olympic trials June 30th, and one through August 10th, the final in the Olympic Games. When

Brad (00:32:34):
Was the sit down? When was the sit down meeting?

Mike (00:32:36):
I don’t know. It was probably September, October.

Brad (00:32:40):
Yeah. So we’re, we’re talking like, you know, an eight or nine month build to, to the Olympics? Yes. Or 10 or 11 month build. Okay. Yeah. So that’s when you, you, you first, we, we should jump in a little bit where you coach Grant in high school and then, uh, he went his way to, to Stanford and the professional running teams that we talked about. And so you had this sit down meeting to kind of reunite and, and go for this incredible, uh, Olympic goal,

Mike (00:33:06):
Right? And so at that point, you know, Grant had known what my priorities were in, um, training. And Grant was doing two aday in high school, just one day a week on Tuesdays. And Grant knew that we, you know, he knew my firm belief in tempo and sub tempo running and other phases that were very, very important. And now, of course, with Ingebrigsten coming out with this double T thing, that’s all the rage now, you know, Granted that’s part of the training, but lactate testing and threshold training has always been a part of Grant Fisher’s training. It’s, you know, it’s not new to him. And so, uh, we laid that out. And the way I do everything was, I wrote down the time for the final in the 5K, and that’s the goal, August 10th. And then I wrote down the prelim, and then I wrote down the 10,000 August 2nd, and then I worked backwards from there.

Mike (00:34:06):
This is your goal. These three things are your goal. Those, you know, one’s a defensive race, the middle one, the prelim, but these are two offensive races. We wanna play offense in these races. So then from there I go stepwise back and say, before you line up for the 10, you need X amount of sessions. Well, I’ve already said it somewhere else. So I’ll tell you, my brain says you need six sessions and six sessions only of raw speed. Raw speed work. I don’t believe in raw speed work very much, by the way. So six sessions. So now the 10 is there, and now I work backwards and insert the speed sessions back to whatever date you want to say. And then we get close to the trials because I, we couldn’t get all the speed in before the trials happened. So we did a couple sessions before the trials, not many, but a couple.

Mike (00:34:55):
But it’s my belief, you have to have that. And then also with VO two max, you know, minimum of six, maximum of eight sessions. So I start in certain VO two, max in, and I work back from the goal, and I just work back into the calendar overall. And then there’s other elements of training. The long runs, the tempo runs, the sub-threshold runs. We have all of those things that we put in from the end goal all the way back to tomorrow is day one of the plan. And there were breaks in there, there were, we, we put in, you know, he was socializing or getting a break around Christmas, time to visit family. We put travel in there. We knew everything, where you’re gonna be, if you’re gonna live in altitude, how many days you’re gonna be at altitude, how many days you’re gonna be out of altitude.

Mike (00:35:45):
All of that got put on the calendar. And then I took me a week to put in every one of the workouts. And then I sat down with Grant really for maybe four to 12 weeks at a time. And we sat down face to face ’cause you know, I was going to training. So in between the sessions, sat down face to face and said, okay, read this. This is what we’re gonna do. Do you like it? And then we would talk about it. Oh, I gotta make an appearance at NXN. Okay, we’re gonna be in Portland for that. Or we’re gonna be in, you know, we’re gonna be on the Nike track, then we’re gonna adjust the workout, the style, because we’re gonna be in the rain most likely. And we were, but you know, you gotta think about this. And then you add all of that up.

Mike (00:36:30):
And then Grant never did one workout this year that he didn’t agree with. And I wholeheartedly believe that that at your level, Brad, the level that you ended up, you know, professional level, you have to know what you’re gonna do. And you have to believe that that’s what’s gonna get Brad onto the podium. And in Grant’s case, he signed off on weeks at a time, 12 weeks at a time. And then really, we, I really only gave him the time up to the 10 ’cause he had to run 27 minutes there. And so, or 26,59,

Brad (00:37:01):
Whatever. That’s a, that’s an event people, it’s called The 10 in, I believe, April or something in Southern California.

Mike (00:37:08):
That’s correct. March. Yeah.

Brad (00:37:09):
And that was a very important race because, um, people probably don’t understand this. When you see the Olympic 10,000 meter race and there’s 29 guys on the track, or 34, they qualified by running the Olympic standard that you have to run before the Olympics, otherwise you can’t get on the track. So he had, he had really three important events because you gotta go make the team in June. It’s, it’s tough being an American. You gotta run that standard <laugh>, make the team, and then you have the Olympic final. This is unique to the 10,000 meters. It’s so long distance. They don’t make athletes run two of them at the Olympics. And in every other event on the track, they run two or three event, two or three, you know, heats, semi-finals, finals. So he had this race called The 10 in Southern California that you’re referring to.

Mike (00:37:55):
Right. And so at The 10, the plan only, the only thing that mattered was break 27 <laugh>. We could have run 26, 59, 99 and we’d have been happy. Yeah. Or

Brad (00:38:04):
Come 2012 place and still be happy.

Mike (00:38:07):
It doesn’t matter. You need to break 27. And so really I gave him that block and then that block of training lasted all the way through the 10. Then I gave him the block through the Olympic trials, and then I gave him the block to August 10th. And then on August 11th, I gave him the block to the end of the season now. So he has that, that wasn’t part of the original plan by the way that, that I did in Paris

Brad (00:38:31):
<laugh> after, uh, after celebrating. And, he’s got medals around his neck. Now you’re gonna give him another block. Here you go, dude,

Mike (00:38:38):
I did tell him to enjoy the night the parties are

Brad (00:38:40):
Over. Yeah. Hope you had fun last night. Here’s your block <laugh>. Exactly. Five times

Mike (00:38:46):
One. Exactly. It, yeah, I did tell him in Paris. I said, I’m gonna leave you alone for a week. The first five days were easy, I’m gonna leave you alone for a week. That lasted about 30 hours. <laugh> <laugh>, I, I had to call and check in if his body was beat up, you know? So anyway, that’s the way that worked. And then you asked did we change it? And the answer’s no. So, um, we adjusted the day we didn’t, we never adjusted the premise of the day. So if we were doing VO two max on this day, on March 11th, we did a VO two max. Now did we do eight times a thousand or six times a thousand or 10 times a thousand? That could have changed, but the idea behind the day didn’t change. And it didn’t change because we needed that element to be satisfied that day, or certainly in that block to get to our end goal. And so those things didn’t change. And uh, well

Brad (00:39:42):
That’s remarkable, man, because, even at the elite level, we see guys going down with injury, illness, setbacks. And so you’re saying that he never once had the sniffles or a fever or a sore left foot that required you guys to go back to the drawing board.

Mike (00:39:58):
And that is the essence of Grant Fisher. He takes care of everything. He takes care of sleep, he takes care of , massage. He takes care of, uh, his health. He makes his food at home. I mean, that is the essence of Grant. He does all of those things so that he’s ready for all the sessions. And you’re right, he did not get sick. He did not get injured. He did not miss a session. So, you know, here and there, we adjusted. I’m, you know, I don’t want to be say it’s was completely perfect, but there were some things life got in the way. There was some travel, some family travel that happened. We did have to adjust the week, you know, or if, I don’t know if something happened where, you know, he was asked to come to a presentation someplace, maybe we flew into a location and changed that. But the premise of the workouts, they, they stayed the same. And kudos to Grant for taking care of everything else. He never, ever, ever had a hiccup. Not one hiccup. Wow. Yeah.

Brad (00:41:01):
Well, that’s how you get two bronze medals, I guess.

Mike (00:41:04):
I guess. Yes.

Brad (00:41:05):
So, I mean, just to jump in about overuse injuries, they are a huge concern, all the way up to the highest level and, and the top performers. So how do you guys navigate that constant risk and that constant thing hanging over?

Mike (00:41:21):
Well, coach, uh, a couple things, but one thing specifically on every day of every week, I coach, um, distance, speed and surface. So I don’t let my guys run around sidewalks ever. Nay and never. I mean, you a, you talked about Park City, one of the greatest things about Park City is he never runs on a hard surface. He runs on dirt and trails and all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time. Now, granted, if it’s really raining or something like that, and we have to run on a bike trail at some point, then we will. But in general, you know, park City’s full of soft surfaces. And you have to coach that because that, that’s one of those things that you don’t know until it’s too late. You don’t know until it’s six weeks after when you should have adjusted it.

Mike (00:42:08):
See, you can’t make that mistake. You’ve got to coach that. And with my younger athletes, I have to say it every single day, it’s like a broken record. You have to tell them, you’re not gonna run any faster than this. You’re not gonna run on this surface and you’re gonna go, you’re gonna run this distance and that’s it. You have to do those things. And, you know, you cannot get faster if you’re, if you’re, uh, sitting on the sideline. You have to be injury free of all the coaching stuff. You’ve got to stay injury free.

Brad (00:42:38):
You think hard surface is one of the big factors of overuse injury.

Mike (00:42:43):
Well, overuse technically is overusing the body. And you can do that. You know, I was a mileage maniac guy, so, you know, if I was vertical, I trained. And so overuse comes on by, you know, just abusing your body and not allowing it to recover. That’s the bottom line. And if you can do 130 miles a week or 120 a week, and I can only do 90 then and I get overuse injuries at a hundred, that’s my body. That’s, I gotta keep it under a hundred, right? Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, and you might be a guy, I mean, Dathan was a guy that, I mean, that dude could run some mileage. He’s so efficient across the ground. Dathan, sorry. He’s so efficient across the ground that he could manage a higher load mileage wise than many other runners. And, uh, you, you know, overuse is just your, your body is not recovering. So I don’t care if it’s too much load, too much volume or hard surface, not it, it does not matter. You didn’t do it right. Fix that.

Brad (00:43:47):
So maybe tell us about Grant’s, season where he, he was busted up and he couldn’t make the, the world team that was in 23. He, he missed, he missed the big events due to injury or 22. I can’t remember.

Mike (00:44:01):
It was last year, a year ago. Right, right now. You know, I wasn’t coaching him at the time, so I don’t know when, when Grant is being coached by somebody else or anybody, any of my athletes. I don’t care if he’s being coached by somebody else. I’m a fan at that point. I go to the meets, I yell, I scream, I support ’em, I’m a fan. So I don’t know, what caused the issues last year at all. I wasn’t talking to Grant weekly, daily, et cetera. I’m just a fan at that point. And so I can’t really answer your question. I don’t know.

Brad (00:44:40):
I guess that was perhaps a driving factor in him exploring the opportunity for a change in a different approach.

Mike (00:44:48):
It might have been. I think he has made comment that that was part of it. But also I do Grant’s a, he’s super intelligent, and so I believe he really enjoyed after he left. So in high school we did a bunch of scientific training, and then he left and he got away from that. And I think, you know, for a Grant it was like normal. Like, you know, this isn’t this how everyone trains, you know? ’cause that’s what he learned, right? So that was not like an abnormal thing. That was part of our coaching. That’s part of my coaching. Mm-Hmm. And so he learned that system and then he got away from it, got away from it. I think he wanted a little more control over that and a little more scientific based stuff. And so that was probably another reason he came back.

Brad (00:45:36):
So I’m gonna, I’m going to, uh, since we’re buddies, I’m going to, I’m gonna tease you a little here with this question. So you’re sitting in a cafe with this guy, Grant Fisher, who’s the number one American distance runner, and you decide to go in the direction that you went. Did you feel any nervousness or pressure that you’re writing up a schedule in the United States of America is looking over your shoulder saying, come on dude, we need some <laugh>. We need to break this medal drought in the distance events.

Mike (00:46:04):
Oh, there’s no pressure at all. Brad and my good friends, like you certainly would never call or text me and go, scan, don’t screw this up, <laugh> Hey, scan, this is great. Don’t mess up <laugh>,

Brad (00:46:18):
<laugh>, we’re rooting for you. We’re gonna, we’re gonna throw you in the garbage can if anything goes wrong. Oh my goodness.

Mike (00:46:24):
Yeah, of course there’s pressure to do that. And, in my brain, I think, okay, this is gonna work. And in my brain, I think we should be good on this path. And, Grant’s influence on that. You know, you have a coach me and I say, okay, let’s do X amount of volume at this level. And in my brain, I always say, that’s what athletes can manage. Like in my high school, my high school athletes, I do everything on 24 minutes. Just FYI, so I’ll say 24 minutes of work today. Well, in Grant’s case, he would come back and say, oh, I’m gonna go, I, I would like to do 30 minutes at that same level of intensity. And I’m like, wow. I mean, in my brain, I’m, that’s like a red flag. Hey, wait a minute, we gotta be careful here.

Mike (00:47:13):
But you know what? Grant knows his body and he was right. And so, yeah, I definitely had some pundits telling me that I didn’t know what I was doing, but coaching wise, I did know what I was doing. And then the only question was, can you apply that to an, a new target? Like I applied it to the high school Grant Fisher target, right. And then I applied that to the professional athlete target, and I certainly, I, I went out and asked guys like, you, Brad, Brad, what’s your experience with the, what’s your experience moving 24 to 30 minutes of this kind of volume? Mm. Tell me your experience, Brad, and then you a and you know, I know you, I know a bunch of fast use. So I made some phone calls and said, Hey, what, what is your thought on this? And the idea, the tempo idea didn’t change. Maybe the volume did, maybe the, the rest went from one to two minutes or something like that. But, um, you know, I had to learn a little bit and adjust a little bit because he’s different than he used to be, that’s for sure. Hmm. And also

Brad (00:48:18):
A little faster,

Mike (00:48:19):
Huh?

Brad (00:48:19):
A little faster. A

Mike (00:48:21):
Little faster.

Brad (00:48:21):
A little faster than high school.

Mike (00:48:23):
<laugh> a little faster than high school. But yeah, there was some, yes. I, you know, we’re very close in training. Like as in, can you run a 4 38 mile now? 4 36? I mean, it’s, it’s nothing if you think about it, but I wanted to make sure those adjustments are right. And there became, there was pressure, there was validation at the 10. He jogged in that race, by the way. He was jogging. You go back and watch him. He was never in trouble in the 10, which was planned for, but I, you know, then it worked. Then there’s validation. Okay, we’re on the right track.

Brad (00:49:01):
And did he cross the line with that sentiment that this was a breeze to break 27?

Mike (00:49:05):
Well, you know, we, we can’t say that in front of everybody, but yeah. You know, I wanna know. Those are my, I my eyes are telling me this is what’s going on inside your body. Am I right? And then we have a conversation about it and, uh, you know, and then he, he backed it up with a, a two mile American record, which was great. Mm. Um, or indoor. We did a two mile American record before the 10. That was great. And then, you know, we made a few adjustments into the intensity of certain workouts before trials. I just told you that a second ago. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But, uh, yeah, there co there definitely is some pressure and there is some validation and relief, you know, part of my <laugh> emotional output at the trials. I mean, if you watch the trials, I, I’m legitimately, I’m emotional, I’m crying. I’m like, oh my goodness, it worked. Brad. Brad, it worked. <laugh>. Yeah.

Brad (00:49:56):
Yeah.

Mike (00:49:56):
I mean, all this incredible emotion is just going crazy.

Brad (00:50:00):
Yeah. So, um, tell us about Paris. So the, the trials were in late June, and then you had that, that final build of incredibly important training. And then, you flew over there and uh, had some action going on in Paris. What was that like for you as the coach? And what was the, you know, the routine like for the duration of the Olympics? ’cause I know, um, we’re gonna get that, spoiler how he took off and went to the mountains, which is super interesting for an athlete doing that during the Olympics.

Mike (00:50:33):
Yeah. Well, so the Olympics started before the television camera started rolling. So we were in St. Moritz training altitude to get both the altitude adjustment up there and the altitude benefit up there, and also get adjusted to the time zone. So we wanted to do that so that we were all good to go. And when Paris came, it would just be another workday, basically. So we went to St. Moritz and trained for a couple of weeks, and it was just basically him and I, and it was very quiet business-like, it was great. There’s a lot of other athletes up there, but you know, when it was, when it was time to work, it was just he and I on the track or wherever we were working that day. So that was great. And then we skipped all ithe Olympics are a huge show.

Mike (00:51:22):
And so because Grant’s sole focus was getting on the podium, it really was work. And so we skipped all of the hooplaw we had set up in advance a hotel room so we could be guaranteed an air conditioner and guaranteed good sleep. So, Grant did not, he did have a location to stay in the village, but he did not do that. He stayed in a hotel room outside of the village and with a good air conditioner. And it was great. And so we got to Paris right before the 10,000. And based on that other stuff we talked about earlier, when you come off of altitude, you lose a little bit of the benefit and you wanna know, and we test this, does day one, how much do you lose on day one? How much do you lose on day two? How much do you lose on day three?

Mike (00:52:14):
How does this work? And what day do you need to come in to maximize both the travel, getting over the travel and not losing the benefit of altitude? Hmm. So we train that and we, we know that. And so we went very late into the Olympics, came in, did pre meet on the track to see how it was gonna go. The track there was phenomenally fast. We were on the track the day before the 10,000, the actual track. It was the only day you were allowed on. So we made sure we were there that day. And then boom, the 10 goes off. And the race plan for the 10 was, it was, there was never, never one second in that race where the idea wasn’t to be in the top three, hang out in the top three, and yeah, he stumbled. Yeah, he got pushed.

Mike (00:53:01):
Yeah, he got clipped. But you could see in his eyes, and he’s so good at this, you can see in his eyes what he wanted to get done. And so the 10,000 goes off. And, you know, for a little while there, I thought he was gonna crank through the whole field. I don’t know if you knew that, but as you watch the 10,000 with 80 meters to go. His velocity was so good. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then, you know, that move stalled later with about 30 meters to go and then somebody clipped him. Oragawa clipped him at the end. But, um, you know, he got on the podium and he looked really good doing it. I wish that race was faster. So 26.3 is great, but honestly, another 15 seconds faster would’ve been more beneficial to Grant less traffic in the end. Yeah. But, the goal is the goal and he achieved it.

Brad (00:53:52):
Was there a complex strategy before the race, or did you have like a few different scenarios that you discussed and how, how it re would he react to a slow pace, a super fast pace, or what have you?

Mike (00:54:06):
So we do have a primary race plan, there’s no doubt about it.

Brad (00:54:10):
Kick some ass, get on the podium, <laugh>.

Mike (00:54:14):
And so we have a primary race plan. And turns out in the 10 that is exactly what happened. Mm. We kind of assumed there would be a little bit of teamwork going on with a couple of the other teams that had pretty heavy hitters in the race that happened. And then we assumed, well, you know, the move in the 10 was about one 20 to one 30 out. That might’ve been a little bit, uh, early to be truthful. I mean, if we’ve moved that back to 80, maybe he would’ve, you know, gotten even higher on the podium. But, uh, you know, it’s, it’s a race <laugh>, there’s other guys that wanna win as well, you know, so no one’s handing out the medals and going, ah, you could take this one. I don’t want this one. You know, it’s very difficult. So you do your best to give a, a strategy A. But, um, we talked very little in the 10 about strategy B because we figured strategy A would be right. And it was Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Yeah. And the 5,000 was different though, Brad, you know, that that was definitely, um, not necessarily strategy A, just so you know.

Brad (00:55:21):
Yeah. I guess the longer it is, I mean, uh, you can have all the strategies in your back pocket in the 10, but if you can’t hold with the pace, none of it matters. And then of course you have to react anyway. Like you, like you mentioned, um, going at one 20, in hindsight would’ve been better to go at 80, but, um, in hindsight there was 27 people that didn’t win a medal and, and three people that did. So, um, you know, it worked out, worked out beautifully. So after that incredible high of, of winning the bronze medal, um, it was, it was soon back to work. Take us through the, the ensuing days of the Olympics.

Mike (00:55:58):
So the plan was, what we didn’t plan for was the mayhem <laugh>. We didn’t go for, Hey, when you do this, there’s gonna be mayhem. We didn’t plan for that at all. <laugh>. Wow. So,

Mike (00:56:10):
So, you know, the media right away, the race was late at night to start with, and then media and drug testing and warming down took us out of the stadium probably at one in the morning after the 10,000. So we were there for hours, hours and hours. And, the family was waiting outside the stadium had closed and we couldn’t even get out of the stadium ’cause it was completely locked. And the Fisher family was waiting outside. My kids were there, they were waiting outside. There were, and it was pitch dark and there’s nobody there except the Fisher family, which was correct, because we had not celebrated at all. It had been all work and all business and all media. And so we had not celebrated at all. And then when we were leaving the stadium, I got several text messages that said, you guys can’t leave. We were gonna leave at 9:00 AM We had, we had flight booked, we had flight train, I mean, you name it, we had all this transportation booked and, uh, yeah. And somebody caught wind of it and they were started texting <laugh>, you’re, you’re not doing that because you know, the award ceremony’s tomorrow night. And he, and he will be there, <laugh>. And so we, so

Brad (00:57:26):
This is like Olympic officials, U-S-A-T-F officials. They’re, they’re literally telling you, you ain’t, you ain’t going back to your vacation condo.

Mike (00:57:34):
Nice try on the planning phase, but we just, I changed that for you. So then, um, we went, we wound up going home. We celebrated just for a few minutes, like maybe a half an hour at the most and took a few pictures and said goodbye. And then Grant and I went back and we honestly had to unravel everything. So all of the travel had to be redone. And he’s on a computer. I’m on a computer trying to book travel for the 24 hours later. And there’s nothing available. And the times don’t work. The trains don’t work. And so the cars don’t work. I mean, it was, so at three 30 that morning, I, I said, Grant youre going to bed, we’ll figure this. I we’ll figure it out tomorrow. And then I slept for two hours. Oh. And I got up and ran and I was like, there’s no way he’s up.

Mike (00:58:24):
He’s gotta be sleeping within an hour. He had texted me and said, alright, I’ve, I’ve looked at this. Oh, I know he didn’t sleep either. <laugh>. Oh. So, um, but you know, the, the celebration a about going to the, uh, the podium and the, the award stand and I mean representing the United States and the culmination of a dream that probably started when he was in high school. I mean, it was just an amazing, amazing thing to witness just how happy he was. Because, you know, it doesn’t happen to everybody. It’s not, it’s not a normal thing. And so I, I did want him to digest that a little bit, but in reality it probably didn’t get digested until after the 5,000 was over because we got right back to work on the 5,000 strategy almost immediately. So yeah, he did go back up to altitude. There is a significant benefit to going to altitude just for a short period of time. And so he went back up to altitude and came back down for the five prelim.

Brad (00:59:34):
Describe the, the benefits of living and training at altitude from the hermetic perspective, as well as whatever else you gotta say about that. For the listener that might not be familiar, we hear all about it, but maybe not the, the, the scientific detail of what’s going on when the, when the body’s existing at altitude as an athlete,

Mike (00:59:56):
The, primary benefit is that your body demands the same amount of oxygen that it does at lower altitude, but your body cannot circulate that oxygen into your body. And so it builds additional red blood cells. That is the simplest thing I can tell you. That your body produces additional red blood cells and now you’re carrying along a larger volume of red blood cells. Now, if you have a larger volume of red blood cells, they can circulate faster or with less heartbeats because you have a larger volume of blood to carry oxygen when you go back down to sea level. And so the benefit of living up there is your body. And it takes your body weeks to do this, to get the full benefit of, of altitude. It takes your body weeks of living at al altitude. And we know how many days that is for Grant ’cause we test that.

Mike (01:01:00):
And likewise, your body reacts instantly to being at altitude. So if you go to altitude right now, Brad, your body is way smarter than you and I and it immediately says, you just change something, I am gonna fix it. And your body starts making additional red blood cells right away. And so, you know, there’s a super, super reaction immediately. And then that reaction kind of goes down over time until you’re fully transitioned to altitude acclimation. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And you should know, it depends on what level athlete you are, but you should know what those things are so that you can time out your performance, your peak performance against all of those things. You should know that.

Brad (01:01:50):
And so when you’re, when you’re up in altitude, you’re acclimating for a couple, few weeks, you start to build more red blood cells, a higher hematocrit in, in the blood value. And then, um, how long does that stick around when you return to sea level? And like you said, the body’s smart, it realizes it does not need the extra oxygenated blood. ’cause there’s plenty of air in Paris versus St. Moritz’s. So how long does the effects last before it starts to, before you start to lose the altitude benefit?

Mike (01:02:24):
You lose the altitude benefit on moment number one in Paris. Mm. Okay. Right away. Okay. It’s just that you, you don’t lose all of it on moment number one. Mm. And it’s different for every person. But you know, it’s generally, uh, a good guideline. And the scientists will all tell you that by 14 days it’s gone. So if you’re gonna go to altitude and you’re gonna race in a month after coming down, you know, there’s really not any benefit at that point of the altitude. Now maybe there’s a training benefit, there’s a weather benefit, there’s a resting benefit. Maybe there’s something else. But just for the blood values that benefit is gone. So, and it is, it’s individual, but by 14 days it’s gone. Might be gone by 11 days in your case. I don’t know. But it’s, it’s not in the first week. I, I know some guys that would race on the ninth day and they, they found that out by training and by testing things. But we don’t race that late. You know, Grant doesn’t race that late.

Brad (01:03:31):
Right. So you came, you came down right before the, the 10,000 final what, a day or two or three before that, right?

Mike (01:03:41):
Yep.

Brad (01:03:41):
But you still had plenty of altitude driven benefits.

Mike (01:03:43):
Oh, plenty. Yes. Yeah. And then the same thing with the 5K, except we had to run, he had to run a prelim. So he, he came down the day before the prelim Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Now, typically you’d say, wait a minute, the travel now is too great. But we knew the prelim would be defensive. Right? It wouldn’t be a we need you at a hundred percent. We just need you to, you know, be able to run a quarter. That’s it. And so we came down right before the prelim.

Brad (01:04:13):
Right. Defensive, you mean you, you have to come in the top six or whatever it was. And so that’s all he’s concerned about. Not, not blowing his entire energy, but just running fast enough to qualify for the final.

Mike (01:04:25):
Yeah. Defensive means that there’s eight, there were eight slots given away. And so there was no difference between one and eight because all you did is qualify. So you, something <laugh>, you can look at

Brad (01:04:38):
A lot of athletes forget that <laugh>. Uh, unfortunately.

Mike (01:04:40):
Well, I think they can forget it. I don’t care. As long as Grant doesn’t forget it. Right. I don’t care what the other athletes think. Yeah. But you can see late in the race, they’re counting, you know, they’re looking around and you say, why are they looking around? They’re counting, they’re counting heads. Yeah. And they should be counting heads. The best athletes count heads. Yeah. And so, yeah, that was a defensive strategy. You know, make sure you’re in the top eight. It didn’t matter if you won or not and you didn’t win. And, and so then

Brad (01:05:05):
The final is what, two more days later.

Mike (01:05:08):
Right. We had two days In train.

Brad (01:05:09):
So you’re hanging out in your air conditioned hotel room in Paris,

Mike (01:05:12):
<laugh> Yeah, It’s a very smart thing, Brad, to cover all the bases.

Brad (01:05:12):
You have probably heard the some of the criticism directed at athletes for not getting the full Olympic experience. What do you mean Grant missed the boat ride in the Olympic ceremonies? But I don’t think, you know, we ask so much of these athletes and we demand that they perform and then we also want to pass judgment on things like grabbing a hotel room with air conditioning rather than raucus Olympic Village by the end of it. I mean 10,000 to kick things off and then 5,000 towards the end. Probably a lot of partying going on in the Olympic Village because their events are over..

Mike (01:05:12):
You are right about that and even though the 10,000 is first, it wasn’t the first Olympic event . It was probably a solid weekend.

Brad (01:05:12):
The gymnastics. The rowdy swimmers.

Mike (01:05:12):
There were others and what is the other motivation to get rest. They don’t have any.

Mike (01:05:12):
So cover the initial moves and watch the initial moves and do not move until very, very, very late. And the move on that was 60 meters. So we moved it from 120 because he didn’t get to the finish line in the 10, we moved it to 60. And really, like I told you at the beginning of the show, it should have been 70 ’cause he was still increasing speed. So that was, that’s a coaching stake. I’ll correct it. But, the move was at 60 meters and I told him, be patient, it will open up on the, on the, uh, home stretch. It will open up, the field will spread apart, and when it does, boom, take advantage of it. And 60 meters out take, that’s when the go point was for the five. And, uh, he wasn’t even the frame of camera. Did just, did you watch it on tv?

Brad (01:09:13):
Oh yeah, many times. Yeah.

Mike (01:09:15):
Yeah. He’s not even there. Yeah. I mean, there’s no Grant Fisher. None. Yeah. He’s, he’s outta the, uh, you know, the, the announcer. They don’t even know his name. He’s outta the camera frame, <laugh>, I mean, everything is that. And then all of a sudden he’s not. And, you know, that whatever happened at the end of the five, I can say as much as I want, I can tell you everything I want. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what went through Grant Fisher’s brain. And that guy decided to get a medal in the five with nine seconds to go. We planned for the last 10 seconds of that race for a long, long time. And he’s the one that, that he wanted a medal and he got one.

Brad (01:09:54):
How did you know, or had had so much belief that, that that was going to how go out that way where the space would open up on the last lap and so forth?

Mike (01:10:04):
The space opening up on the last lap wasn’t that difficult to predict. The place I was wrong was the first four KI was wrong there. I thought those guys would run faster because some of them needed to run faster. If that race would’ve been faster throughout the medalist, the medal positions would’ve changed. I don’t know how, but it would’ve changed, you know, and they did not do that. They let Jakob, really just control the last thousand. And that became a thousand meter race around two 19. But Grant ran 2 21 at the end of that race. Mm-Hmm. So, I mean, it’s a phenomenal thousand without the 4,000 to get there and, right. Yeah. My, my prediction was wrong on the first 4,000 and right on the last, and that honestly is just from watching Olympic championship racing, honestly, is just, you know, you want to give the athlete a, a movie so that when it comes on, they know I’ve been to the, I’ve, I’ve seen this before. And so in practice, the last week before that, we ran through the last 10 seconds of that race. I don’t know how many times, but let’s round it off at, uh, 20, let’s round it off at

Brad (01:11:20):
<laugh>.

Mike (01:11:20):
So we went through that and, and I, as he’s running, I’m talking out loud loudly on the track saying, what’s happening? I want him to see this. I want him to visualize this and so that he can see what’s gonna happen and what he’s going to do. How will he react to this movie? And we did it often. And fortunately that’s exactly what happened. So I’ve been wrong about race plans. I was wrong about the first 4,000. There always has to be a plan B Grant is very good at adjusting if he needs to. In this case, he didn’t really adjust too much.

Brad (01:11:53):
Was there ever a scenario where he would be an instigator? Like if they’re running 14 minute pace, would, would you send him off or would that be No. Go.

Mike (01:12:04):
Not at the Olympics. That wasn’t appropriate No.

Brad (01:12:07):
And did Jakob ask you for advice before the 1500?

Mike (01:12:10):
Yeah, no. Does no, did not. I know him. He, he trains in Arizona, so. Right, right. But no, he and I don’t share race plans, but, um, <laugh>, but if you look at the trial strategy, go back and look at the 10,000 in the trials, go back and look at the 5,000 in the trials. Those strategies are different. I don’t like to send the kid, I don’t like to send Grant to the line with the strategy that he used yesterday. So Brad can go, well, Grant’s just gonna do this. No, he is not. No, I don’t want you to know what he’s gonna do. And, you know, the trial strategies were completely different than the Olympic strategies completely

Brad (01:12:46):
Right. <crosstalk>, right. You, you assess the competition and stuff.

Mike (01:12:49):
Yes. And there’s no reason for Grant Fisher to take the lead in the Olympics the first 4,000 meters at all, that his chances of meddling go down in that case. And that wasn’t my fault.

Brad (01:12:59):
Makes sense, man. Makes sense. I’m just shocked at some of the strategies carried out <laugh>. And, and you know, I think there’s possibly just a, you know, a a lack of intense focus on getting on the podium as Grant stated goal was. And maybe there’s athletes there that want to, um, when honorably as, as Jakob says, uh, to his discredit on that particular quote. But, you know, uh, the, the, uh, the, the podcaster said the way to wr the the way to race honorably is to win the gold. I mean that, you know, to win a medal. But, it gets tricky out there on the track when you have to think on your feet and all that.

Mike (01:13:40):
And you decisions are made thousandth of a second, a 10th of a second. I mean, and then we talk about those decisions for 20 hours afterward. But you didn’t get 20 hours to make that decision. You got three steps. And so in the 10,000, the assumption was that Grant Fisher had to be ready to move in three steps that we talked about that for, for months. It’s a three step move. And if you’re not on it by three steps, and if you go back and look at his LA race, he raced an LA three K and he was off the move by seven steps and was never in, it was a three step move. And you have to be there for the three steps. You have to take those three steps. You don’t get to decide, I’ll cover that later. It’s not, that’s not part of it, <laugh>. And so I think a lot of times Brad really, um, athletes go to the line without a clear picture of what they want at the end. And I think it makes me look like a good coach because I do send athletes to the line, but really the only reason I’m a good coach is because I coach good athletes. <laugh>, you know, it’s true. You know, my athletes make me look great, <laugh>.

Brad (01:15:00):
Well, I like how you say that Grant takes care of his sleep, his therapies, his other team members that he needs surrounding him so that he can show up ready to make you look like a great coach. I mean, that’s huge.

Mike (01:15:13):
It, but it’s, it’s huge, Lee. True. You know, it’s just true. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

Brad (01:15:20):
So, so now, man, you’re, you’ve, um, you’ve evolved from this, uh, uh, anonymous, uh, underground mysterious coach. Now you guys are, you know, in a whole different realm, like, like the chaos that you, uh, you describe, I’m sure some of that has, has hit you as well. And what is your, what does your future ambition look like with respect to how things have changed from the Paris Olympics?

Mike (01:15:43):
Well, I, I think it’s a little bit ironic or a little bit funny because, I just believe I’m a coach. And right now, you know, Brad, if you and I work together, I’m your coach. Now, are you a high school athlete? Are you a college athlete? Are you a professional athlete? But I’m named a high school coach. Nobody ever says I’m, you know, now I am Grant Fisher’s coach. But, you know, prior to that, I’m just a coach. And so for me, I have full focus right now. Um, on my high school guys that are very, they’re doing very well. I expect them to do very well. But when I’m a total scatterbrain, you know, when you’re, when I’m at practice, you can, you can do whatever you want. If it’s outside of my athletes running around the track, or my athletes doing a workout, honestly, I I will totally ignore it.

Mike (01:16:40):
I’m, centrally focused on what I’m doing at the time. And right now I’ve transitioned back to making my high school guys the best high school runners I can. Mm-Hmm. And so that’s going on. The only other thing that has changed is people want to know, like you, people want to know, how in the heck did this all happen? And, you know, for a while it was very quiet, Grant <laugh>, you know, nobody knew that we were working together. It was perfect <laugh>. And then somewhere around January, you know, somebody made ’em come out with a statement saying, this is what I decided to do. And then the attention got put on me. But really, you know, me and the system, but really that’s kind of easy to ignore when I’m face to face with an athlete at practice. I, I just don’t have that in my brain at all.

Mike (01:17:34):
I just, I guess I’m able to, um, keep all of those thoughts away. And maybe there’s pressure and anxiety that somebody wants to put on me, but the real pressure and anxiety comes from me wanting to do the best for you, Brad, today in our workout today. And so, with all of the expectations and or all the things somebody else wants me to believe, it’s really, it’s really kind of living in the moment for me. I’m a high school coach again. Right now, I’m, I was at practice five hours after I landed from Paris. And you’re right. Practice was intensely focused on, did you guys go to bed last night? I’ve never asked. Grant, did you go to bed last night? You know, <laugh>, it’s a totally different game, right? Did you guys, did you eat breakfast? I mean, you, you need some carbohydrates after the workout you have to eat. You know, it’s a completely different ballgame. You’re training them on everything now.

Brad (01:18:32):
So, and I suppose you’re getting a, a, a broad spectrum of, um, ability level, commitment level. Um, how do you, how do you face that coming from working with the most focused and talented athlete that, you know, the country has seen in many years, and now you’re going to, um, you know, a general population of kids that have some enthusiasm to run, but you know, who knows if they’re, who knows if they’re gonna, you know, align with everything that you’re coaching?

Mike (01:19:03):
Yeah. So I like to mirror your motivation, Brad. So if you’re ready to run every day, I’ll give you runs every day. But if you’re only coming to practice three days a week, I coach you three days a week. I’m not gonna come to you and say, add, I don’t do that. You are gonna come to me and say, I want more. And if you do, Brad, I’m gonna give you more. So if you come to me and say, Hey, what’s the benefit of massage? I’m gonna give you massage and I’m gonna make sure you go to a good person for that kind of recovery. And if you say, Hey, you know, I ate a bag of Lays chips right before workout, and then you threw up, you know, I’m not gonna say, Hey, uh, you know, or do you feel sick? I’m just gonna say, how did that feel?

Mike (01:19:45):
Maybe you shouldn’t eat the bag of chips right before practice. But they do that, Brad, and they need to learn from that. And so really, I kind of mimic and I, I respond back to what they bring to me. And I have some really aggressive high school guys right now. They’re coming to me with a lot of motivation. I want to do this. And they’re, it’s a group of ’em. It’s not one, wow, I want to do this. And, and this is the most aggressive I’ve ever trained a high school group before in my life. I’ve never been this aggressive with kids. And they’re responding to it. They want it. So, the answer to your question, I don’t, I, I get some kids that just want to participate. I participate in coaching. I also have some, some kids that wanna excel and I excel in coaching. Mm-Hmm. So I just kind of try to mirror that.

Brad (01:20:34):
That’s nice. That’s probably good advice for all parents listening out there too, is just kind of mirror your kids’, you know, natural motivation rather than try to grind it to something that’s unnatural.

Mike (01:20:45):
Yeah. The, and it, the phase of life is funny because, you know, a seventh or eighth grade boy, they just haven’t flipped the switch to say they want to be a good athlete yet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> some of ’em have, but most of them have not. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that switch gets flipped somewhere around freshman or sophomore year in most cases. So I don’t, I don’t never, I never take on a boy unless they’re the spring of their eighth grade year. That’s when I took on Grant, even though, you know, I ran with his dad in college. Mm-Hmm. His mom was an athlete in college. You know, you would think, Hey, this kid’s got an upside to him. I don’t care. I’m not coaching him until, I didn’t coach him until his eighth grade year, even though I worked with his dad every day. Right. His dad and I are in the same office together. I’m going to Grant soccer games. I watched Grant in karate. I went to his, you know, youth activities. I, I’m not gonna tell him he’s gonna run. I just didn’t.

Brad (01:21:38):
Right. And you feel that the timing is important. ’cause it’s kind of early to make that sincere commitment to, to long distance training when you’re in middle school or what have you.

Mike (01:21:50):
It, it’s really a motivation thing. So, not that I’m suggesting anyone call me, but if you think about it, pretty much every time a parent has called me and said, will you coach my eighth grade son? I’ve said, no. I’ve said no, but every time an eighth grader has said, will you coach me? I’ve said, yes.

Brad (01:22:13):
Wow. That’s a profound, I think that’s a incredible closing statement there, man. For everyone to reflect upon. That’s, that’s like the secret of, of parenting right there. And, and for kids listening, you know? That’s it. It’s gotta come from within.

Mike (01:22:27):
Yeah. I I’ve had so many people ask me, where do you get all these fast guys? And I’m like, well, I make fast guys. I don’t get fast guys. I don’t want to manage a sub four miler. I wanna make you a for sub four miler. Right. That’s, I’m a coach. I’m not a manager. Anyone can manage. I mean, you know, so anyway, that, that’s, yeah. So before you end though, please don’t send a thousand phone calls my way. Please. <laugh> <laugh>.

Brad (01:22:53):
Well, um, you’re, you’re, uh, you’re, you’re a hard guy to find. I I, I, I kept digging around and, um, do you, do you like to shout out? Do, do you have like, uh, Instagram or something where people might, uh, be able to connect in some way?

Mike (01:23:07):
I, I have a, uh, Twitter or X that I, I post on every day. Um, my rule for that, because my high school kids back in the Grant Fisher days made me get this social media, which I swore off. I hated social media. I still hate it now. Yeah. But I said, okay, I’ll start posting and this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna post one motivational thing every day and that’s it. I’m only gonna post one time at 7:00 AM one motivational thing. And if you read my post, they’re all motivational things for high school athletes. And that’s all nice. And my post is, uh, what is it at Real Iron, Mike, do you have it?

Brad (01:23:49):
Yeah, yeah,

Mike (01:23:50):
Yeah. So I didn’t make that up. My, my high school at runners made me a whole social media thing and I had the little egg there for about six months and they were like, you have to, you have to put a picture up. <laugh>. But anyway, my whole thing is I only wanna change one person, Brad. So if I change you today and you’re a little better at what you do, yeah. Tomorrow I’m good with it. And if I touch one kid with my post today, um, then I, then I win. I worked it, it worked for me. And I win. And, and I, I share this only because we don’t know. You don’t know Brad? I talk to young youth and high school kids all the time. One of them. And I don’t know if I’ll talk to ’em or not, or they’re gonna come from Texas, so they’re gonna come from New Jersey. I don’t know. One of them is going to be an Olympian, but I don’t know which one. But they’re all the same. Grant was in eighth grade once too. Yeah. And he was not running 415 for the 10,000, 415 pace for 10,000 <laugh>. You know, he just wasn’t. And so you don’t know who you’re talking to Brad. And so for me, I’m, I wanna motivate ’em all.

Brad (01:25:01):
Yeah. That’s a time, that’s a great tip. I remember my seventh grade teacher, we were getting too unruly in science class, and he got, he lost his temper and he, he got up there and he says, look, you guys talk around, talk about sports and, and you goof around too much and none of you are ever gonna make it to the professional level in sports, so you better pay attention in class. And he goes, I know what I’m talking about. ’cause I made it to double A baseball before I messed up my shoulder. And I was thinking in seventh grade, this guy cannot say that to us because he doesn’t know. And so I used to say to the, the kids that I coached like, can, can anyone tell you that you’re not gonna make the BA right now? No, they’re wrong. They do not know for sure that you’re not gonna make the NBA can guess since your parents are five seven and five three. However, I wanna put that thought out there, that, you know, everyone needs to have the, the, the open road ahead and believe themselves and not put limits down.

Mike (01:25:55):
And you should, and my post from about a week ago was simply this high school kids don’t know what they can’t do. Please don’t tell them.

Brad (01:26:04):
<laugh>. That’s great. I love it.

Mike (01:26:06):
It’s honestly, you, you cannot make that statement. And I, I think it was wrong for that. Well, it was wrong in your case, Brad, you made it to the professional level.

Brad (01:26:15):
That’s right. I proved him wrong. He was my driving force. I’m grateful for him and the college coaches that ruined my running career to drive me to triathlon. It’s all, all comes out good. It’s all stepping stones.

Brad (01:26:28):
Alright, Mike Scannell people. What a show. Thank you so much for taking us behind the scenes at the Olympics and all the things behind it. Best of luck to you, Grant Fisher and your fast high school runners down there in Arizona too.

Mike (01:26:42):
Thank you very much for having me, Brad. It was wonderful to see you smile again and laugh a little bit. It was great. I really

Brad (01:26:48):
Have, oh, I mean you, I I, I haven’t seen you and we haven’t connected in a while, but I tell your story about being on the police force in Tucson to al almost once a month. ’cause it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard about. I mean, if you, if you wouldn’t mind sharing, like, you know, sometimes there’s a foot pursuit. So people were talking about one of the great, you know, national level collegiate distance runners and I think you surprised some criminals. Is that what I remember from the story

Mike (01:27:15):
You promised? We would not talk about stories

Brad (01:27:19):
<laugh>,

Mike (01:27:20):
But I’ll tell you one.

Brad (01:27:22):
Okay.

Mike (01:27:23):
We love it. Uh, yes. I I, there was never a foot chase I didn’t want to be involved in. And my rule of thumb was I didn’t get paid to fight. So I never made, I never fought with anybody. I didn’t mace. And so I would just catch them and run by them and I would mace them first and then I would fight. And that happened many of times, <laugh>. And, in one case my most pro, my most prolific foot pursuit was uh, an NFL player that he ran really fast for a hundred. But I’m a distance runner. And so eventually I won <laugh> and uh, I didn’t know he was a football player until, you know, later.

Brad (01:28:04):
Until you booked him.

Mike (01:28:05):
Until I booked him. That’s right. <laugh>. Oh

Brad (01:28:08):
My goodness.

Mike (01:28:09):
Yeah. Too funny.

Brad (01:28:10):
Crime doesn’t pay people. Yeah. Especially when you got a, a fast long distance runner chasing you down.

Mike (01:28:18):
That was a long time ago, Brad. Long time ago. Anyway,

Brad (01:28:21):
Thanks for listening everybody. That’s a wrap.

Mike (01:28:24):
Okay. See ya.

Brad (01:28:27):
Thank you so much for listening to the B.rad Podcast. We appreciate all feedback and suggestions. Email podcast@bradventures.com and visit brad kearns.com to download five free eBooks and learn some great long cuts to a longer life. How to optimize testosterone naturally, become a dark chocolate connoisseur and transition to a barefoot and minimalist shoe lifestyle.

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