Running On Purpose

The continuing dialogues between Steve & Kobe around running & what we call the spiritual. In this episode we unpack & examine the differences between personal growth & spiritual growth: how they are different, the ways they feed forward & backward into each other & share some deeply personal ways in which we both have "struggled well" in relationship to growth - however it framed. Godspeed my friends, godspeed.

The beginning of the end of the Running on Purpose podcast is the new beginning of the RunGnosis project. This episode covers the reasons for the transition & introduces the general message & intent of RunGnosis. After this intro, Steve covers the reasons why every runner should be focused on their inner experience of running as much as their goals, results & data. Godspeed.

This is the final episode in our “apophatic” series, where we tackle the topic of No Lies. An overarching theme is my personal experience around the toxicity of modern Western culture & how it creates many challenges for runners.

In he fourth episode in our "apophatic" series, we cover no assumptions. Godspeed, my friends, godspeed.

In the 6th installment of the "Kobe & Steve Show", which I call The Innerwork Dialogues, we start in a more contemplative mood & take our time in getting around to our planned discussion topic of No Assumptions. In fact, we realized about an hour in that we'd really not specifically addressed the topic but instead spent our time reflecting on the initial two topics, while at the same time looking forward to the next two topics. We consider the differences between contemplation & mindfulness, between full engagement & the observing witness position. I argue that considering space as our natural state is more useful for Westerners - & runners especially - than the idea of emptiness. Running allows for skillful means for working somatically - with the nervous system as our guide - with attention & awareness. Kobe & I discuss a specific coaching situation & try to unpack why some athletes are not appropriate for the kind of coaching methods we utilize.  So much is considered here, as usual in these conversations, but we didn't really hit on No Assumptions & we plan to approach that next time we talk.

Back finally with another solo episode. As I mentioned recently, I have been working on a new series for this podcast that I’ll be announcing very soon. This series will fold in with the Innerwork Dialogues I have been doing with Kobe over at In The Zone & continued posts around the Endorphin Book Club - more on that below - & continued reflections around training the body mind & soul as inspiration ensues. I already have outlines for the following topics: The Felt-Sense; Three Intelligences (the head, the heart & the gut); The Essential Skills of Attention & Awareness; a deep dive into the energy systems introduced in the Keep Going podcast (see Episode 22) with a special focus on the esoteric aspects, & many more topics. If you’ve got a topic you’d like me to cover, please feel free to reach out to me at sisson at telos running dot com & I promised I’ll consider it. Today’s episode has been long in the incubation, if rather short in the execution. I announced the Endorphin Book Club in Season 2-Episode 12 & we had about a dozen folks start reading Peter Ralston’s The Art of Mastery together. It was a bit of rocky going as I was facilitating my first book club & didn’t really understand what a book club should be & the nature of Ralston’s book made discussion initially very challenging. After four meetings, we finally got through the book & our last two discussions were really fruitful. If you are interested in joining the EBC, simply send me an email & I’ll invite you to the club. It’s free, we meet 1-2 times a month for an hour or so & discuss a portion of the book we are reading. We end with a final wrap-up meeting. We are currently voting for our next selection this week. If you want to vote, be sure to reach out. Voting is closing on Sunday evening, May 5th. The books we are voting on are Shambhala by Chogyam TrungpaOpen Focus Life by Les Fehmi, Susan Shor Fehmi & Mark BeauregardFree Play by Stephen NachmanovichThe EBC’s schtick is it's a book club for runners reading books not specifically about running but useful for unpacking & relating to in a running context.  The Art of Mastery by Peter RalstonInitial Overview: If I have ever read a more complex book that uses conventional English language, I can’t remember it. I read a lot in the subjects of philosophy, psychology & spirituality & self-help, but rarely have I read a more challenging book written in what I call “plain-speak”. It’s not the language Ralston uses that is challenging, it's the concepts & the way he asks the reader to consider these concepts in really radical, non-intuitive & non-traditional ways. Because of this, the book makes for some heavy sledding. Perhaps this is the reason our book club shed engaged readers over the three months we wrestled with the text. But before you decide that it’s not for you, please hear me out. There are so many diamonds in this book for practical application, for challenging assumptions, habits & even our conception of reality. But Ralston does so without relying on philosophical language. He keeps it really real. In this episode I am going to cover the book’s format, it’s core concept & a few very practical takeaways that I believe will be really helpful to enhance a runner’s training & racing experience. Some of these are coming from our EBC discussions, & some are simply my personal points of resonance. I hope this review will help you in determining if you’d like to read further into this work & potentially into other works by Ralston. Who Is Peter Ralston?I found Peter Ralston’s work over a dozen years ago as I was researching different approaches to body awareness & the inner experience of physical skill & mastery. I came across his book, Zen Body Being, which I devoured immediately. I loved the book so much that I recommended it incessantly, bought copies for others or loaned my copy out without expectation of having it returned. As I transitioned from Rogue to Telos, I found Ralston’s approach to somatic skill permeating into much of my coaching work. I found myself using his principles in a variety of different contexts: physically, mentally & foundationally as in worldview exploration. I bean reading his more philosophical work around what he calls consciousness work & found in it even more resonance & challenge. I even considered taking an extended visit at his retreat center outside San Antonio, near Bandera. But the amount of commitment that Ralston required in terms of time away from family & work, was too much for me to accept. SO I continued reading & watching videos from his YouTube channel. If you watch these you’ll realize he is a bit cantankerous & aloof. Eventually, I moved away from his work in consciousness & just settled on Zen Body Being.

The second episode in our series on the running's apophatic path: no expectations.

In a another of our Innnerwork Dialogues, Kobe & I unpack a key concept from an early In The Zone episode more fully. We discuss the hazards of judgement. Please join us

Happy Vernal Equinox 2024. Last night at 10pm we shifted seasons. This marks the scientific & mythic transition from winter into spring. It’s associated with Easter & the death burial & resurrection of Christ & the temporary return of Persphone, goddess of Spring,  from her enslavement in the underworld with Hades for the rejuvenation of the crops & cycle of agriculture. For many runners, it marks the final preparations for the annual pilgrimage to Hopkinton & the most desired starting line experience on the planet, the Boston Marathon. It marks for HSers the beginning of outdoor season, cut grass & the taste of blood at the finish of track races. I want to use this opportunity to highlight the importance of cycles & rhythms in a  runner’s life. For so many athletes I see a disregard for the season & cycles of life that make a significant impact on our bodies, minds & souls.

I am back with Kobe of the In The Zone podcast, where we are primarily focused on the inner game of running. What are the varieties of inner experience, that some may call spiritual, & how to they impact our training & racing. In this specific episode we explore the concept of "goallessness" or framing one's running experience without the typical overriding focus on goals & outcomes. Using Kobe's recent training focus away from outcomes & toward process, we dive really deep into som of my very favorite topics: the importance to have varied racing & training experiences to become a more complete runner, how process can open up much greater fitness, how running ins a path with heart, & various other modes of appreciating how limiting goals & expectations can be in our training & racing experiences. I hope you enjoy this episode I call On "Goallessness" & Process. Godspeed my friends, godspeed.

Where I announce the Endorphin Book Club, a community for runners who read or readers who run. If you are interested in joining us please reach out to me directly via email at sisson at telosrunning dot com.

In this essential episode, I walk through the single most important protocol one can implement this year & in the future for vastly improving their performance in training & racing. There is a ton of very important information here. It can be distilled as follows:  The Mission Protocol. The Brief is the Vision. The intention is the Seed. Training is the water/ground/conditions.  Rest & recovery are the Harvest. The Debrief is the Full Belly & Story/Map for future Vision. As mentioned in the episode, please see the Google Document entitled THE MISSION PROTOCOL for tracking the content of this episode & future reference.

“The bad news is that you are falling through the air, there is nothing to hang onto, and you have no parachute. The good news is that there is no ground.” ~Chögyam TrungpaWe are back in conversation with Kobe Blondeel from In The Zone podcast for another of what we are calling The Innerwork Dialogues. Our goal with these discussions is to begin to attempt to sketch the outline & form of a concrete & practical approach to incorporating & exploring the spiritual path with running. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. A few of the The Big Picture ViewTraining Weaknesses Early & Strengths LateIntentionsOvercoming a Toxic Running CultureThe Felt SenseAn Anatomy of SoulStaying Open Brief & DebriefPattern Recognition & ReversalBeing in process In the final 20 minutes, Steve brings forward an actual, real life example of how a spiritual approach (process in this case) can improve an athlete's training & racing experience in potentially evidential ways. & Kobe discusses how a "failure" experience of trying to run under 20 hours in a recent 100M event, where he finished 4 hours slower than his goal. & yet, he was deeply moved by how he was still possible to tap into the love of the process. At the end of the episode we ask your to reach out to us if have specific questions or examples so we can use them to help clarify our point. We hope you are encouraged & inspired by this episode to continue to take risks & dive into your next challenge. Godspeed, my friends, godspeed.

If you are anything like me, you probably listen to a lot of podcasts. I mean, here you are, listening to this one now. & it can be challenging to process the content in a long, deep episode & come away with concrete, actionable takeaways. I'll be listening to an episode & have a note file started on my phone so I can jot down key insights or inspiring ideas I want to develop later. If this is you, you are going to love my guest this week. Charlotte Grysolle is an online writer who distills in her weekly newsletter "tools & resources to experiment with your mental and physical performance • Guaranteed to teach you something new about your mind and body in just 15 minutes per week". She calls it Stretch Letter & there is a link below to subscribe to it. & it's free. & it is chock full of practical content. & that content is highly applicable for runners of all levels as she is a runner herself & uses the newsletter to work through the experiments & practices she researches.  Stretch Letter comes out each Friday & I invariably read it the day it arrives.I believe you will, as well.  I was so excited to talk with Charlotte & hope you'll find the conversation as stimulating & inspiring as I did. Topics we cover in this episode are Charlotte's running journey, our future admission into the Andrew Huberman Fan Club, understanding the nervous system, the importance of breath for runners & considering our "future self in relation to goal setting.   LinksCharlotte's Stretch Letter

This episode is filled with gold. While the recording quality was abysmal - totally a fault of my using a recording system I was unaccustomed to - the discussion is phenomenal. I as mentioned in the last RoP episode, sometime getting more context & discussion around the heady, meta foundation of worldview can be challenging. This discussion has many takeaways & practical applications that would have taken me too much time to articulate in a solo episode. On tip of that, I hope to coax my interlocutor - my brother in soul & the run, Jason Brooks - to continue where we started with these episodes. If you like this discussion, there are several more in this short-lived podcast experiment under the show name arête or RunGnosis. Below are links on Apple Podcasts & Spotify. Apple: RunGnosis: arête Spotify: RunGnosis: arêteAs usual, I am honored by your ears & attention. I simply ask you bring these ideas forward & apply them in your personal running journey. My goal is to revision running & steal the toxic culture of acquisition & outcomes over the freedom & fluid process of self-discovery & soul-making. Godspeed, my friends, godspeed.

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it isDo you, Mr. Jones?-Bob Dyan, Ballad of a Thin ManThis intro is from Cat Power's recently released live album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert. I highly recommend this album & of course the various originals Dylan himself released. This episode takes this quote as inspiration for exploring worldviews as foundation for running, training & racing.

In this Thanksgiving special episode, I interview Bill Corrigan an athlete I have worked with for over four years who was diagnosed almost two years ago with ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. What follows is an inspiring & moving conversation around how this disease has changed Bill's life & how much we all have to be grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving & godspeed, my friends.  At the end of the episode, Bill mentions his fundraiser for Boston this year, HERE IS A LINK.  I also mention our first conversation titled Q&A: On Planning Mental Training. Also, the title of this episode is taken from a quote Bill mentions repeatedly from Andrea Lytle Peet. Definitely check out her inspiring story.

In this solo episode, I develop my thesis that running is best understood & experienced as a movement practice. Here I unpack various arguments & points of view where the focus of most runners on training & racing is missing a huge opportunity & is a fundamental misunderstanding of what we are doing as runners. While this might seem a bit dry or meta, I sincerely hope you'll consider following me down this path. I use it as a foundation for running & the conversations that will continue n this podcast will be using this idea of running as a movement practice as a core principle. I have unpacked this idea repeatedly in conversation with Michael Krajicek on the Keep Going podcast, be here I present a much more comprehensive argument. So if this is a little too much, consider listening to the following episodes:The Art of Running: Grace & A Beautiful RaceThis Podcast Is Our Therapy (The Practice) Embracing Uncertainty: Pattern & Chaos in Assessing ResultsI mention at the outset of this episode that I am developing a program I am calling Foundations of Running which is designed for intermediate & advanced runners to get back to basics & find core principles & processes for grounding their running in deeper & more pragmatic modes of being. More on that to come. Please enjoy this  episode I call Our Birthright: Running as Movement Practice. Godspeed my friends, godspeed.

This episode is the first in a series of readings I am calling the Endorphin Book Club. The EBC - which really should be called the Endocannabinoid Book Club to honor recent scientific discovery but we'll keep it simpler & nostalgic - scratches an itch that I have always wanted to scratch: classic texts in running history read in audiobook style to relive & honor great running history & writing. The first take on this concept is a reading of my favorite running writer, Kenny Moore, who died in the summer of 2022. This essay/article comes from his classic book, Best Efforts, which is out of print & difficult to find. The essay I selected in one of my favorites in the iconic book about the Australian distance runner, Ron Clarke. I hope you enjoy this reading. Let me know what you think! You can find out how to reach me in the episode itself.

I am very excited to introduce a new series & co-host to the RoP podcast. Over the summer I found a podcast created by a Belgian runner & coach, Kobe Blondeel, that addressed topics that I felt resonated the essential shift in consciousness that was undergoing around running as a spiritual practice. Kobe hosts In The Zone & his early episodes were a mix of solo discussions around his experiences as an athlete & coach around deep philosophical & spiritual modes of being a runner with his travelogue of running across Belgium. Suffice it to say, I had a bit of envy around the courage & insightfulness  Kobe brought to these discussions. I highly recommend listening to episodes #11, #12 & #28 as introductions to his inimitable style. So I reached out to Kobe to see if he would consider a collaboration. I was planning the reboot of this podcast. I was committed to a mix of solo, co-hosted & interview type content & felt that Kobe - if he was game - would be a really valuable conversation partner. I think my initial Instagram message to him gave him some pause, however. Who is this crazy old dude vibing on his weird content? But thankfully he respectfully responded that perhaps we could meet to explore common ground & potential collaboration. Our first conversation can be found on on his In The Zone podcast under the title, Steve Sisson: running as a spiritual path & I highly recommend you give it a listen if you want a little more background & how we worked out what we were even trying to accomplish with our conversations. That episode went well enough for us to commit to an ongoing collaboration/co-hosting of our discussions on each of our podcast platforms. What follows here is us beginning to work out the details on what we think we can unfold & offer the running community that hasn't ever been done before. I mean this...I believe we are doing something novel in the space of running podcasts; we are stating emphatically that running is a path with heart, a spiritual practice that can be & mined for deep inner wisdom & practical benefit to our experience of moving through space. I'll let you decide if this is your particular cup of tea. In this episode we introduce the series & discuss our point of views; setting the stage for a deeper dive into our argument framing Belief as the essential starting point for our conversations. As Kobe summarizes in this episode: we have conscious & subconscious beliefs, most of them subconscious, & a belief actually runs as a sub pattern in our physiology, it’s something that we observe in our inner experience. These patterns show up in our lives, both negatively & positively, & are the programs we operate on to help us filter for the good shit we want in our life, & filter out the bad shit. So running has the opportunity to become a testing ground of these beliefs & how they serve us. I provide a specific method for assessing & managing challenging feeling states, using the prompt “Is this real?” to help with decisionmaking in a training or racing environment. I also delve into what he calls “the natural state” as our foundational & fundamental birthright, which needs to be claimed for any truly skillful approach to these challenging feeling states. The first hour unpacks the concept but in the last half hour Kobe & I both explore the practices of meditation, contemplation & prayer as core practices for deepening & expanding our running experiences. So much good stuff buried in this episode. I hope you enjoy this conversation & join us for the future ones coming up in this series I call the Innerwork Dialogues: Belief as Container & Fuel for SensemakingGodspeed, my friends, Godspeed.