Boston Marathon BTS with Ed Eyestone - Coach of America’s Top Runners

running on Monday? All right, we got runners out here. It's an incredible vibe in Boston this weekend. The weather is spectacular here on Saturday, the day we're taping, and it looks great for Monday as well. And my usual amazing co- host, Becs Gentry, is not with us today. She's back in New York tonight, so we have a

very special guest host with us tonight. She's a great friend of New York Road Runners, familiar fans to all New York sports fans and sports fans everywhere and especially to fans of the TCS New York City Marathon because she is a regular host of our broadcast there. Not only that, she's running the Boston Marathon on Monday, Sam Ryan. Hey Sam.

the top distance running coach in the country. He's got a number of elite runners going on Monday and we're going to go deep with Ed on all things marathoning and get psyched for what we think could be some amazing American performances. So Ed'll be with us in just a minute, but Sam, we do this member moment segment at every New York Road Runners Set the Pace podcast, and

so today the member is you. We're going to feature you, Sam, as our member moment. You're not only a great broadcaster but also a New York Road Runners member. So let's talk a little bit about what you're doing and how you're feeling about Monday. I mean, it's actually amazing. You're a four- time Emmy Award winner, a great broadcaster. You sit in our studio broadcasting the marathon in

New York. How is it for you to get out there and actually run these races after you've sat and been a part of broadcasting them so many years?

part of the fabric. But now to go back out and to run a marathon after that, it just feels, I don't want to use the word authentic, but it feels like it's full circle, but now it feels like you can feel what you're speaking to also. So it's a little bit of that all wrapped up into one.

I'm not just the runner out there. I can parlay this information into the booth as well, but I take advice from you, from Carrie, from everybody that we work with also, and I listen to them, so now I can apply that to myself.

kind of have that crossover moment. And that's one of the things that's so special about this sport, right, is that we're going to have 30,000 people following these elite runners in Boston on Monday as we do in New York every November.

in that sense too. And there's just so much energy. It's like being part of a team and everybody roots for each other. It's awesome. You guys are awesome.

forth on the court. And I worked on, " Let me run to the end of my block, let me run to the end of my block and then turn the corner," little by little one step at a time. And that's how we all began, or most of us would begin our running journey if we developed running later in life. So it's just one foot in front of the other, let's see how far we can go. And then I realized I

wasn't getting as winded. I didn't need the inhaler. I have pictures from my first New York City Marathon, which was my first marathon, and there's an inhaler on my fuel belt.

York Marathon. Every single one of you knows, whether it's you running or a friend, you know what they've had to overcome, and for you it was that, and here you are. It must feel amazing.

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a resurgence in American distance running. He's the head coach in cross- country and track and field at BYU, one of the most consistent collegiate programs in the country over the years, and talking about how calm he is, steady leadership has really made that a program that's on the map now for all runners, and he's a broadcaster just like you, Sam. You guys actually have been together I think as

broadcasters. You've connected with some of your runners through broadcasting, which we'll talk about as well. So he's done it all and it's great to have you here.

at Fenway Park. But when I did get that cut, it was the first time that I realized in the spring of the year, sure you have baseball, but there's another sport actually in the spring. It's called track and field. And so that's how I got my gentle introduction into the sport. And so like many of you, I've been involved in this for the last 50 plus years

and it's been fun. I was able to run through college and then had a pretty long- lasting professional career. When I was nearly 40 actually as I was slowing down and the competition was getting faster, a good coach in the area offered me a position just to get my foot in the door of coaching. And so I went and worked at a place called Weber State University up in Ogden, Utah for about two and a half

years. And then as that cycled down, my old track and cross- country coach at BYU was then retiring and I was able to move in. And so for the last 25 years, I've been working at the D1 level, and over the last 10 years or so, we've had athletes emerge who were running at a high enough level that they were going to be able to run professionally.

And so it's kind of fun. My day job obviously is a track and field and cross- country coach at BYU. We won a national championship this last year.

the shoes and in the coaching from when you ran-

best of them. We're in a wonderful opportunity now in terms of the internet. The internet's not only great for learning a guitar song or something, but also fantastic in terms of pulling up some good workouts and seeing what people around the country and around the world are doing.

So I think we've all appreciated for this sharing of information that's out there, things like double threshold workouts, and obviously the equipment and the stadiums that we're running in

I think are more athlete friendly now as well. And so all of those things I think are coming together and as a result of that, we're just seeing a perfect storm of speed and that's why the records have just gone through the roof in terms of across all events really, and it's going to be interesting to see what the future holds.

meters, which is an incredible accomplishment. What did you take from those days of running at that level that you've been able to really bring into your coaching career?

going to give it my best possible performance. Didn't mean that I was going to win every race, but I was going to be consistent. When people come to me

and ask, " Okay, what's the perfect workout? What do I need to do?" It's just the consistency and I came up with kind of a corny equation because I was anything but a math major, but it's C squared equals E squared, which is just consistent competence equals eventual excellence. So you don't have to hit a home run every time you're up to bat. You can tell I'm a

frustrated baseball player, right? But we just need to get out there and do our best on a consistent basis. And if we do that day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out, then ultimately I think we're going to have an opportunity to, if not achieve greatness, at least come close to our running potential.

marathon from maybe the five and 10, 000 meters, but I've also worked with people who went to other programs and then came in. First thing you do as a coach is just sit down with person and you kind of see what their goals are. I was in at the Bryan Clay Meet in Los Angeles for the last four days with my college team. So this morning I got up early and caught a nonstop, got in about two hours ago.

The guy that I was sitting next to obviously looked like a runner. We struck up a conversation and the first thing I asked him is, " What is your goal? What would make you happy in terms of running Boston?" And he said, " Well, work's been a grind lately. I haven't been able to get the miles in." So I said, "

Well, obviously you have realistic expectations going in." He wasn't expecting to run a PR, but he wanted to get the very best performance out of his training that he

had done. So to answer your question, Sam, anytime that I take on a new client or athlete that I'm going to work with, we're going to have a conversation about where you're at, what you've done in the past, what's some of the good things that you'd like to carry forward that you think are going to be effective, and then hey, maybe we can implement some of these things that

have proven effective with myself back in the dark ages or with some of the athletes that I'm currently working with to kind of tweak things. And some of it also is just coming to altitude, like Keira D'Amato. When she came out, she'd never been at altitude. Here we have the American record holder at the time, or previous to that anyway, in the marathon, she'd never really had

any extended training at altitude. And I said, " You know what? That's kind of a thing. Let's experiment with that. Let's come out to altitude."

out there this past February. A guy named Todd Garner, who's a friend of yours and a friend of Road Runners, hosted me and my daughter out there. I had a chance to have dinner with Clayton and Conner and their wives and this whole crew out there and they are all hitting the roads Saturday morning, long runs, pushing each other. They got vehicle support, and it's a team

that you guys have out there. What has allowed this Utah kind of cluster to become what it has become in distance running?

year. Coach Diljeet Taylor is doing a phenomenal job with our women there. She's also part of the Nike kind of hub system that they've established there. So she's got some very, very talented professional athletes as well. So I think it's a combination of having some really good athletes that have graduated from the system and have stuck around because of (inaudible) success. And then a lot of

people, Utah is... They call it, what do they call it, Little Silicon Slopes a little bit, a lot of big tech industry coming in there. So we just have a lot of really good people moving in from out of state

who love running. And as we know, running is a wonderful community and people like Todd Garner who's been very generous, very supportive, have also stepped up, and as a result on any given Saturday long run, yes, we'll have Conner and Clayton and Kiera that are leading the charge in the men's pack and the women's pack, but we'll have 40 plus people show up, some of whom are three

hour plus marathoners, but they know, " Okay, this is a place where we're going to meet and there's going to be some support and some camaraderie and all of those

good things." When you get... There's a certain amount of synergy that comes when you have good people training together and also maybe not hanging with you in the workouts, but just supportive and know who your name is and know what your name is and how to support you,

good things are going to happen. We've also had an interesting development with the state legislature, a program called REP, which has done some state dollars donating towards the development of distance running in the state, so kind of as a safety net for those college kids who come out because not everybody is running well enough out of college to garner a shoe contract, which is kind of the

bread and butter of professional athletes, right? You got to be able to have something to pay the rent, right?

And the vast majority of kids out of college are not at that level, but with some support, with some maintenance, and it doesn't take a lot, sometimes it's just a matter of having an insurance program, health insurance or access to PTs or athletic trainers, as a result of those monies that have been invested by the state, we've seen I think a rise as well.

conference. Went out and on his debut ran 207, okay? So Rickman is his name and I'm drawing a blank on his first name, but... Did somebody... Matt. Okay, thank you. I always get... Dorian, when I'm working in Chicago, she's the one-

and he gave himself a shot. He trained and he went into his marathon and his debut ran sub 208, okay? So my conversation with the team was, " Hey guys, I think you owe it to yourselves, if it's a desire of yours"... I'm not going to push it. I am Easy E, right? I'm not going to push this goal onto them, but they should probably have as a goal at some point in time post- collegiately to go

run a marathon. Let's see, because we definitely have some people that are adapters that are much better at the marathon than they would be even at the 5, 000, 10,000. There's a pretty good correlation between 10K success and marathon success, but it's not a one- to- one correlation by any

means. And sometimes you'll have people who are so- so at the 10,000 meters, but because of their efficiency in running and their fueling ability or the way their body spares fuel when they run, they can really make a step- up. So I think really most runners, especially, again, D1 or whatever, college runners, probably owe it to themselves that, " Hey, let's give this marathon thing a shot."

So looking ahead to Monday, I'd love to get inside your conversations with both Clayton and Conner getting ready for this race on Monday. How are you talking to them about the way this race might play out and the expectations that both of them have in terms of what they can do? Clayton has been running strong, Conner just

coming off of a American record in the half. A lot of people right now are talking about him as someone who could be podium or better, so different conversations, I'm sure. Let's start with Clayton and how you think he can approach this race on Monday. What looks like a good race for him?

through and whatnot. And we had an excellent build going into Paris I felt and a pretty good build going into New York. This build, and when I say build, it's usually kind of a 16- week program that we follow, this week or this build coming into Boston, when we're training for spring marathons in Utah, it can be a little dicey, right? Because we're in the winter. People fly out

to Utah to ski in the winter time. They don't come out to train for marathons. So sometimes it can be a little hit- and- miss because of the weather. But Clayton's had a really nice build and I think he gauges somewhat where he's at relative to his proximity to his training partner, Conner Mantz, because Conner's just famous

for going out and just hammering every workout. And I'll give him, " Okay, let's try to hit around 418 on these mile repeats," and Conner will roll in at 412 and it's like, " Conner, that's a little fast there." And Clayton's going, " Conner, that's really fast." They get along really well, but sometimes they're like an old married couple because inevitably Conner is driving the workout pretty fast and Clayton's holding on with

his fingernails. But he's come into this, as you alluded to Conner Mantz coming into this 16- week cycle. I like to schedule races periodically because I think having races during your marathon build, I think there's a couple of good things that come about as a result of that.

One, you avoid the what I call all your eggs in one basket syndrome where you're just training for six months and it's one race and then you get a cramp or something and it's like, " Oh crud, what do I have to show for my six months?" So I like to have a couple of races in there so they can go and have other races and try to get PRs

or just see where they're at. I think it's a good checkpoint to see where am I in my training, at least in the shorter distances, and that can really instill

some confidence. And I think it also forces them for about a week as they go into this to taper down just a little bit, because sometimes they'll be hammering out anywhere from 115 to 125 miles a week and it's nice to have a half- marathon or in Conner and Clayton's case, two half- marathons over this 16- week build where they were able to actually bring the mileage down a little bit because

if they're going to run a race, I want them to go into it fresh enough that they're going to be able to perform to the best of their ability. And so in Conner's case, he got the American record in Houston and had an amazing race and it was

a pretty windy day. It was not ideal conditions. And then he followed that up about I think five weeks ago at the New York City half, which I think you were there, Sam, weren't you, covering it?

so he got kind of no man's land. So we go, " Okay, we'll work on tactics on that." And then he ran the Atlanta half, which was the US half- marathon championships and really just had an off day. His back tightened and his lower kind of hamstring chain. And that's the other thing that happens. I think when we schedule races during a build, sometimes we can identify maybe some

weaknesses in where we're at. And so I think that was a really good opportunity for the last... That was about seven, eight weeks ago. He's had a chance to meet with his PTs, do some strength and conditioning with our strength and conditioning coach a little bit, all to the workouts, and for the last four or five weeks, he's been back running closer to Conner, so actually closing the

gap a little bit. And so much of the sport, if it can't be seamless, which rarely is it, then it's all about momentum, and he's hitting momentum. He's hitting at

the right time. So I'm hoping in Clayton's case that we can ride this momentum to a really good performance, and by good performance, with this field that they've put together, I think Conner and Clayton, although they're 207 high and 208 flat PRs, I think they're the 16th and 17th best times coming in, okay?

So that can have you scratching your head and going, " Do they even have a chance?" But what I take solace in is that head to head in strategic non- paced races, the Olympic Games, they've been beating 204 guys consistently. So that's what we're hoping for. We're hoping that it's just a grinder and that they can do their strength and it's not going to be (inaudible) . We saw Lima last year just take it out and fly.

Got a big minute and a half lead I think at one point in time, and that may happen again, but I would think that Conner, you're going to see him running with the lead pack, even if they do go a little bit breakneck at the start, and I don't think Clayton's going to be too far behind. They're both engineers by training. They both graduated in engineering, and so it's fun to see their technical approach to it.

Talking to Conner just a couple days ago, we had said, " Okay." I gave him a homework assignment and said, "Let's look at the last 10 years. Let's look at the first half, second half of Boston.

Let's do a little analytics and see what's up." And the takeaway that he came into my office with, he said, " Coach, what I've noticed is that whoever can run 103 for the second half is going to be in position or the winner I think in the last 10 years on the men's side to run 103 for the second half. I think I can do that." So it's how they get to that second half is the thing that

will help determine a lot of things. But I think if we see kind of how it is sometimes, even though it's downhill, sometimes it can be kind of a pack run. Nobody really wants to take it. No one

wants to be the sacrificial lamb out front. I think if they get to half at a not 61 pace, but more like 62 or 63, then I think Conner is going to have a great shot, and I think that's also the best game plan for Clayton.

two years ago here. So he had run Chicago, run well there and then came into this and he just put himself in it because that's the way he loves to do it. He just followed every move and he went out really probably too hard for his experiential level at the time, and then he really suffered at the end and I think faded to... I think he ended up 10th or 11th place. And he said, "

That really shook me. That really shook me, because it was like this is the first time when I was blacking out," something that we've all experienced ourselves if we've run enough marathons where you're kind of seeing stars, and he wasn't used to that because he was really a track guy who was just moving up. And so I think he learned and he had some good takeaways from that, so that experiential factor comes into

play. And the fact that he's done so well in the last four marathons that he's run, and if you go through the marathons that these guys have run, really, they ran Chicago two years ago. To get their qualifying mark, they had to run under 208 to get the world standard. Then they followed up with the Olympic trials where they went one, two, then they followed that up with Paris where they went eight, nine.

Hey, let's swing for the fences." This is Boston, after all.

It was a family decision. She had to work with her husband and they've got kids, and this was a really big commitment she made to come train with you and this group that you've got out there in Utah. Can you talk about what led up to that decision? I mean, I know you guys had worked together in the broadcast booth in Chicago. You got

to know each other there. What were the conversations and what was the ultimate conversation when she said, " Coach, I still want to come out and run with you"?

under. And it's an interesting system because back in my days I felt like... And I was following in the footsteps of all American and Olympians like Henry Marsh, Doug Padilla, Paul Cummings. I saw that they were doing in six days what a lot of people were doing in

seven days. And so I said, " Kiera, we'd like to just do it in six days and then I'd like to give you a day off and I'd love to have you just kind of chill that day and just let your body just soak in recovery during that day." And I think it's not unusual to have runners occasionally take a day off, but one out of seven, it doesn't happen a whole lot. But I think she understood and

she said, " Ed, I'm all in. I'm all in. You tell me what to do and I'm up for it," which the coach loves to hear, and obviously she's had great experience. I wanted to do what had worked for her in the past. And also, I think the altitude component was an important one for her to check out. And so she came in I think early in the summer and

we had a wonderful build. And as things happen, sometimes you have a wonderful build and the week before all of a sudden there's a little something going on in the foot, and so she ended up not performing in Chicago, ended up DNFing from there. And then it was a matter of, "Okay, let's figure out what we got going on here. Let's get you healthy." And so she cross-

trained for... There's cross- training where you just get on the exercise bike and you just kind of pedal a little bit, and then there's cross- training where there's a pool of sweat underneath you when you finish, and that's the kind that she was doing. But we have had a great kind of 12 weeks where she's been running on ground, looking good, and I'm very excited for her prospects as

well. She'd be the first to admit, she's turned 40 now, so she's a master. I think that offers some excellent incentivizing as well to be the very best master that you can be.

to come out to Utah. She's heard good things about it," and it's been fun having her in the system and it's fun to see a marathoner and a steeplechaser working together, and there's a lot of workouts that cross over very well for the two of them to work

together. So it been great. It's been encouraging. It's awesome for the whole running community in the area to see these Olympians and American record holders there training and they go, " You know what? These are not just fast runners, but they're really, really cool people." And I think that's what I'm most proud about is it's a very good group.

It's non- competitive in terms of... I mean, everyone is building one another and sometimes that's difficult at the highest level. I'm sure you've experienced that in broadcasting or wherever, what line of work you're in. Sometimes it's like there's that, what is

that, schadenfreude, where you're almost wanting them to fail. But what I love about our group and our system right now is there's a lot of building and celebration when somebody in the group runs well.

one thing. And I think that's the thing that once she had taken that several year break to actually just start a family and pursue a professional career and all of that, I think that's the thing that got her back. She didn't initially start back up after that multiple year layoff saying, " I'm going to get the American record." It's like, " Hey, I'm going to run this marathon and I'm going to

see how I do." And then all of a sudden the times were coming off by the tens of minutes and she set the American record.

call it the 25- year reunion. It was more than that, but it was this last summer we had a high school reunion, and since we had had a really fun experience at the Olympic Games, and we didn't talk about Kenneth Rooks, who got the silver medal in the steeplechase, which was for me the race of the games, but of course because I'm his coach, but they had me do a little spiel on the Olympics and what

Paris was like and my experience, and I've been to probably six or seven Olympic Games as either an athlete or a coach or a broadcaster. And I thought that Paris just was phenomenal the way they put things together, but yeah, and I don't know where I was going with that.

So instead, if you can enjoy the process, make sure you're getting your water bottles, going, " Okay, I feel comfortable in this pack, I'm going to position myself." And if you're enjoying the process and just each mile along the way, then lo and behold, a couple hours go by and you're crossing the finish line. And I think that's a really good way to kind of embrace those nerves and get you your best performance.

He's been so great in the broadcast business. Can't wait to watch Meb.

a performance dietitian from Morton. Morton, of course, is our partner at New York Road Runners, the company behind all the great fuels that so many of the runners are using right now, the gels and the drinks and all of that. And so Lauren, thanks for coming up and talking fueling with us a little bit.

I forget, a certain number of kilometers I think. So it gave you a plan of exactly what to do, which for someone like me, I really needed because I had never quite gotten the fueling thing. So can you talk about that aspect of having a fueling plan for runners and how you guys can help them do that?

you would train your muscles. So the idea is you're arriving at marathon day and you have exactly what you're going to be doing for your fueling standpoint done and completely confident in it. So our idea from the nutrition team was, " Hey, can we educate the runners on, " Hey, not just during the race, but what are you doing before

the race? What are you doing the night before the race?" And then recommend the carbohydrates that we see in the research really make a big difference and guide that for the runner throughout their journey to make sure that they can show up at mile 13 still feeling really good because they've already fueled from the very beginning. That's the goal, right? Fueling from the start of the race.

be, and then you have full trust in that. So the Morton is based off of being able to tolerate, really easy on the stomach and be able to, again, give those athletes those higher amounts of carbs that we see the elites pushing because all of us are going to benefit from more carbohydrate availability.

then integrate one maybe at the halfway. And that way you know that caffeine can take a while to hit peak in your bloodstream, so you're giving it some time, getting the caffeine along with the carbohydrate, and then getting another burst later. So we're not going all six caffeine gels, we're not going all six non caffeine gels, but maybe all alternating and sticking one midway can be a helpful way to approach that.

they maybe weren't even realizing was the limit? So I think a lot of times I'll hear athletes say, " I didn't know I could feel this good at the end of a race." And that's where fueling really comes in. " Well, I was taking a gel every hour. I thought that was fine." And sure it is, but what if you increase that and can you get to that last 5K feeling strong? That's going to be a whole different

end of the race than it would otherwise. So I think we can learn a lot from these athletes who are pushing very, very high carbohydrate amounts during the race.

ground. You see them everywhere. So the runners are really responding to what you guys are doing.

beginning, right? So can we start fueled from before the start line and then again at the 5K mark or whatever your plan might be? But yeah, early and often is my motto.

weekend. I just think the energy of the runners is what it's all about. So to you, Sam, and to everybody else out there running, good luck.