THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

Ethan Strand is a national champion who still believes he finished second.

He found out Jonah Koech had been busted for doping in the middle of a treadmill run, when Parker Wolfe tapped him on the shoulder, and his first reaction was anger. In this conversation, Ethan tells Dominic why the title still feels strange, why he feels worse for Hobbs Kessler, and why he thinks a positive test should end a career. He also covers the unglamorous side of racing clean: updating his whereabouts before dinner, keeping the last pills from every supplement batch, and making an 80-minute round trip to meet a drug tester.

Then there's his rookie year. Ethan admits he froze on the line at the Millrose two-mile, chasing a win with no plan, and that social media expectations helped sink his indoor season. Mike Smith's fix was to go back to basics: smaller races, pre-race checklists, and no talk of winning. Pre was where he felt like himself again, and the Silesia win over Hocker and Ingebrigtsen followed. So did Zurich four days later, which he blames on enjoying the attention too much.

Ethan also talks about sessions with Parker and Nico Young at 7,000 feet, why he's running less mileage than he did at UNC, and why he'd beat Simeon Birnbaum seven times out of ten. And he shares what Jakob said in the Brussels call room.

His goal for Year Two is to take more risks so that his bad days end in fifth instead of eleventh.

Tap into the Ethan Strand Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W  N O T E S   

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run

-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

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Instagram: @ethan_strand

Aleksander Lingauer is stepping away from running. He says it out loud here for the first time.

This one was recorded in person in Columbus, the fourth time he and Dominic have sat down together and the first time with no race waiting on the other side of it. Near the end, Aleksander announces that he is pausing his racing indefinitely. The reason is a book—the account of his 419-day solo walk across Europe, shelved when he signed as an athlete, now being finished. It arrives next year.

Before that, the fullest account he has given of the Last Soul Ultra: crewing Mark Dowdle through the closing hours, and the truth about Loop 87. Whose idea it was. What it was built to do. And what did not happen out there, whatever people decided they saw on the stream.

The rest is the conversation two friends have when nobody is watching the clock. They ruminate on what actually separates the people who win backyards from everyone who doesn't. Why you will not start in January, no matter what you tell yourself in September. What a Catholic Mass in Ohio did to him. And what he means when he says he is a mosaic of mistakes.
It keeps returning to one idea: you think nobody sees what you do in private, and you are wrong, because you are watching.

Two and a half hours. No agenda. Worth every minute.

Tap into the Aleksander Piotr Lingauer Special.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W N O T E S

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run-

THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz

Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@Dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

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Instagram: @aleksanderlingauer

Marcelo Mantecon has spent his whole career as the young guy. Not anymore.

The Belen Jesuit senior joins Dominic for the next episode of our Fleet Feet series leading into the Brooks Cross Country National Championships, and he arrives carrying something he didn't have last December: a target. He talks about welcoming the pressure that comes with being the top returner, about what he absorbed watching Jackson Spencer stay calm on start lines while his own nerves churned, and about learning to convert that nervousness into excitement instead of dread.

The training picture is stranger and simpler than you'd expect from the nation's most-watched high schooler. He doesn't wear a watch most days. He can't tell you his exact mileage, and he runs Miami's brutal humidity. He credits sleep above everything else for keeping himself intact, and he credits Frankie Ruiz, the coach he has known since birth, for a program built on consistency rather than heroics. 

Marcelo also revisits Balboa Park in detail: the gap that opened at the bottom of the hill, getting caught, and praying for one more surge with 300 meters left. His plan for the rematch is almost defiant: Have fun. Stay aggressive. Race like he still has nothing to lose.

Along the way, the two discuss Flagstaff team trips and flooded shoes in the Everglades, his sister's rise, UNC and a future in finance, why the class of 2027 might be one of the deepest ever, and a post-race celebration involving roughly a hundred donuts.

Tap into the Marcelo Mantecon Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W  N O T E S   

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run

-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz

Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

LuminaryThreads: luminarythreads.shop

$20 off your next Attuned scan: https://attuned.health/discount/TRE20?ref=TRE20

Instagram: @marcelo.mantecon

Behind Graham Blanks' 12:47 5K & 7:27 3K: 6:00min Easy Days, Training Alone & Racing Jakob Ingebrigtsen 

Graham Blanks can tell you exactly what he did wrong in every race he ran this year.

Monaco is the exception, and the one he's most excited about. It's the only race this season he finished and then couldn't sleep—his own heuristic for a good one—and the first time he really put down a fast 400m at the end. After that, closing hard got easier, because he knew he could.

The rest he breaks down with unusual candor. In Zurich, he waited too long to move, got stuck in lane two while Parker Wolfe opened a gap. Brussels, he was right on Balew's shoulder thinking about the American record, then Balew went all out from 300m to go and Graham got defensive instead of racing to the line. At Budapest, he made a big move at 300m to go, was right on the leaders at 200, and then Jakob came past. Looking back, he thinks he had the juice to take the lead with 200 to go. 

One small mistake per race—and being in position to make those mistakes at all is the leap from last year.

He also walks Dominic through the training. Six years with Alex Gibby, Harvard through the pro ranks, and the program is much the same minus the mid-workout bench press. This year: mileage up to 105-110 for a stretch, plus twice-weekly all-out sprint work. He’s still doing six-minute pace on easy days, mostly alone in Athens on a quiet public track.

The 2027 goal is simple. He wants to win something—a Diamond League race, the Trials, worlds—and let the confidence compound. The guys also touch on soccer practice, Columbia, a "fratified" Harvard team, and his fall movie pick.

Two guys named Dom, one goal, two completely opposite ways of getting there.

Dom Fusco returns to the show for the first time since March 2023, and this one isn't about his cardiac arrest—it's about the question flooding Dominic's DMs: how do you build real muscle without giving up your running times? Fusco has done it from the football side, Dominic from the distance running side, and both are now chasing sub-3 marathons this fall.

They open where the Austin hybrid scene actually lives: peptides, HGH, and TRT. Fusco has never touched any of it and won't endorse it, but he's honest that more people are using it than listeners think. 

From there it's the practical stuff. Why you can't pull the endurance lever and the strength lever at the same time, and why seasons beat balance. Why the jacked hybrid athletes on your feed spent a decade lifting before they ever ran. Why full-body training three times a week beats a bro split. The triangle of performance, longevity, and aesthetics, and the cost of picking a corner.

They also discuss Fusco's five foundational supplements, his case for creatine as a runner's recovery tool, and a blunt argument that most athletes are chronically underfueled—and why sometimes a burger and fries is the right call.

He also puts his sub-3 confidence at 60%, admits he's failed three times, and explains what Austin heat has done to this block.

Tap into the Dominic Fusco Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W  N O T E S   

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run

-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz

Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

LuminaryThreads: luminarythreads.shop

$20 off your next Attuned scan: https://attuned.health/discount/TRE20?ref=TRE20

Instagram: @dominicfusco 

TikTok: @dom_fusco 

YouTube: @DominicFusco