Carey Pinkowski is the longest serving race director of a World Marathon Major race, having taken the helm at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon way back in 1990. Before that, he was an elite runner with personal bests ranging from 4:01 in the mile to 2:20:43 in the marathon.

This year's Chicago is just three weeks away on Sunday, October 13. As always it will feature a big and star-studded field of runners.

In his three-plus decades with the Chicago Marathon, Pinkowski has become known for putting on a super-fast race for elite competitors, and a super-efficient race for midpackers.

Last year, Kelvin Kiptum set the marathon world record in Chicago, running 2:00:35. He covered the second half of the distance in an astounding 59:47.

This year's Chicago is expected to host more than 50,000 starters--the most ever. They come for the big city vibe, the fast tour of many neighborhoods, and the easy-accessibility of Chicago's loop course with a start and finish in Grant Park on the lakefront.

In this podcast, Pinkowski reflects on:

# What he learned in his early years on the job

# Some of the best--and most challenging--years of the Chicago Marathon

# What runners like best about coming to Chicago and running the urban marathon

# Why Chicago has pacers vs other Major Marathons that don't

# What he learned from watching Kelvin Kiptum's world-record last year

# How he learned about Kiptum's death, and his immediate reactions

# And much more

You can follow updates from the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Twitter and Instagram.

WHERE TO FIND "RUNNING: STATE OF THE SPORT"

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for "running state of the sport."With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

"Running: State of the Sport" is brought to you by MarathonHandbook.com and RunLongRunHealthy.com.

Marathon Handbook is the world’s leading marathon website, with a special focus on trustworthy running information and free, runner-tested training plans for all ability levels.

"Run Long, Run Healthy" is Amby’s weekly newsletter with the newest, most scientific, and most useful training advice for runners.

Mike Scannell coached Grant Fisher to two bronze medals (5000 and 10,000 meters) in the Paris Olympics--a feat no American runner had achieved previously. Which brings up a good question: Who is Mike Scannell?

Turns out he is a forever-friend of Grant Fisher's family, and coached Fisher to 2 Footlocker XC Championships victories back when Fisher was a Michigan high schooler. Then he sat back and watched Fisher run 4 years at Stanford, and 4 years with the Bowerman Track Club.

A year ago, Fisher called Scannell to say he was ready for a change of location and coaching. He moved to Park City, UT, and Scannell wrote up a training plan for the long pre-Paris buildup.

In this Pod, Scannell sketches his personal background in running (2:16 marathon!), and describes how he and Fisher designed their successful Olympic plan. Some major topics:

# Scannell's 4 key workouts for every training week

# How to build speed with a minimal amount of speedwork

# What Scannell thinks of Fisher's marathon potential

# Can Jakob Ingebrigtsen be beaten at 5000 meters?

# The current state of American running

And much more.

On ⁠X.com,⁠ Scannell posts a daily motivational tip. Here's a great recent one: "We always save something for ‘another day.’ That’s in part why I don’t do, ‘last one, fast one.’ The other reason is that I don’t want kids to ‘fail’ in practice, and running all out means you run until your body fails. I like kids to walk away with success on the brain."

WHERE TO FIND "RUNNING: STATE OF THE SPORT"

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for "running state of the sport."

With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

"Running: State of the Sport" is brought to you by MarathonHandbook.com and RunLongRunHealthy.com.

Marathon Handbook is the world’s leading marathon website, with a special focus on trustworthy running information and free, runner-tested training plans for all ability levels.

"Run Long, Run Healthy" is Amby’s weekly newsletter with the newest, most scientific, and most useful training advice for runners.

It was an amazing Paris Olympics on the track and roads, and George Hirsch and Amby Burfoot discuss all the highlights here in this Paris Review podcast.

We start with our two favorite races--the women’s marathon and men’s 1500 meters--and work our way through just about everything else.

From Faith Kipyegon to Beatrice Chebet to Grant Fisher. From Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to Gabby Thomas to Kenneth Rooks. And much more.

Relive Paris with us! It was so good, you deserve to enjoy it twice.

Where To Find “Running: State of the Sport”

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for "running state of the sport."

With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

"Running: State of the Sport" is brought to you by MarathonHandbook.com and RunLongRunHealthy.com.

Marathon Handbook is the world’s leading marathon website, with a special focus on trustworthy running information and free, runner-tested training plans for all ability levels.

"Run Long, Run Healthy" is Amby’s weekly newsletter with the newest, most scientific, and most useful training advice for runners.

Chris Lundstrom is coach of the Minnesota Distance Elite team that includes female marathon ace Dakotah Lindwurm, who's running the Paris Olympic Marathon on August 11. Lundstrom himself has a marathon PR of 2:17, and a PhD in exercise science. He teaches at the University of Minnesota.

Lindwurm wasn't among the favorites at the U.S. Marathon Trials in Orlando last February, but she has proven strength at the 26.2-mile distance, and finished third. Another Minnesota Distance Elite runner, Annie Frisbie, placed 10th.

Here Lundstrom discusses:

# The training principles he uses with his runners

# Why he thinks solid marathon training is more important than all the newer gimmicks like shoes, gels, and recovery tools

# Why he and Lindwurm opted to skip altitude training in the pre-Paris period

# What Lindwurm has done to prepare for possible warm weather in Paris

# What it's like to teach a college course in marathon-training for undergraduates

# Why he thinks the U.S. needs more "development" programs and funds for post-collegiate runners

# And much more

For more on Minnesota Distance Elite, click here.

Where To Find “Running: State of the Sport”

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for "running state of the sport."

With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

Ed Eyestone has been close to the center of USA distance running for nearly 4 decades, and never more than now. He's coach to American Olympic marathoners Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, and also the guiding hand behind undergraduate steeplechaser James Corrigan's improbable--no, impossible--road to Paris.

Eyestone himself ran in two Olympic Marathons with a best finish of 13th in the Barcelona 1992 Games. In 2016, he coached Jared Ward to his 6th place marathon finish in the Rio Olympics.

And he does all this while holding down a fulltime cross-country and track coaching job at Brigham Young University, his alma mater and that of Ward, Young, and Mantz.I

In this deep and revealing interview, Eyestone talks about:

# how to have 6 daughters

# how much faster than 2:10:59 (his personal best from 1990), he could run today with super shoes, super drinks, super cooling methods, etc.

# how Corrigan improved this year from 8:52 to 8:13

# where he was, and how he reacted to the U.S. Marathon Trials last Feb. when Mantz and Young placed first and second

# how the twosome is training right now, with a month to go before the Olympic Marathon

# his philosophy of marathon training

# why C(squared) = E(squared) is an excellent way to look at your training/racing development.

# and much more.

Emma Coburn is only 33 years old, but sports a running resume that’s hard to match. She has won 10 National Championships in the 3000-meter steeplechase. It almost seems that USATF should rename the event the “Emma Coburn Steeplechase.”

Coburn has also won an Olympic bronze medal, and World Championships gold. Her husband, Joe Bosshard, is now her coach, and also coach to a small but select elite group training in Boulder under the name Team Boss.

Unfortunately, Coburn sustained a serious injury in an early-2024 competition, and required ankle surgery. That means she’ll miss this year’s Olympic Track Trials and the Olympic Games in Paris.

Bad luck for sure. But also a good position from which to discuss the inevitable high and lows of global racing, which Emma does in this podcast. She also talks about:

# Her dog Arthur, and how he got that name in honor of the great New Zealand coach, Arthur Lydiard.

# How she was born and raised in a small, high-altitude Colorado town, and spent her youth pursuing various outdoor activities. (Sorta like a young Kenyan.)

# How she ran her first steeplechase only because her father insisted she enter a couple of events to justify their lengthy car drive to the meet

# What she learned from her college coaches at the University of Colorado

# Why she decided to be coached by her husband, the person “who knows the most about me”

# How she’s dealing emotionally (and financially) from the missed Olympic opportunity this year

# Why she plans to be a steeplechase runner forever, rather than switching to another event
You can learn more about Emma Coburn by following her on Instagram.

Where To Find “Running: State of the Sport”

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for "running state of the sport."

With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

"Running: State of the Sport" is brought to you by MarathonHandbook.com and RunLongRunHealthy.com. Marathon Handbook is the world’s leading marathon website, with a special focus on trustworthy running information and free, runner-tested training plans for all ability levels.

"Run Long, Run Healthy" is Amby’s weekly newsletter with the newest, most scientific, and most useful training advice for runners.

Matt Taylor is the founder, CEO, and visionary behind Tracksmith, the Boston-based running apparel and footwear company. A middle-distance runner at Yale, Taylor explored several small ventures after college, and then joined Puma as a marketing executive.

There, from practically his first day, he was assigned to work with a young Jamaican sprinter named Usain Bolt. That proved to be both an adventure and an up-close running/business education.

When he launched TrackSmith in 2014, Taylor focused on the millions of serious, ambitious, but nonelite runners being ignored by the big running companies with their twin focus on signing Olympians to contracts while making shoes and other products largely for beginners. His vision seems to have succeeded, as TrackSmith is expanding to London this year, and continuing to launch innovative products.

A year ago Taylor felt a return of his personal running drive after more than a decade of raising a family and nurturing a business. At 46, he set his sights on two goals: Running the mile in 4 minutes plus his age, and the marathon in 2 hours plus his age.Serious goals, and Taylor pursued them diligently. In fact, his marathon training included runs up to 27 miles. And he hit both his goal times with a little room to spare.

In this conversation, Taylor also discusses:

# The competitive drive that always pushed him toward entrepreneurship

# TrackSmith’s innovative pop up tents outside the Boston Marathon Expo

# Tagging along with Usain Bolt on fun days and nights

# What he finds special about New England running

# Tracksmith’s determination to present photos and visuals that depict the authentic side of running

# How Tracksmith got more than 100 runners into their gear at the Olympic Marathon Trials

Here’s Tracksmith’s web site.

Where To Find “Running: State of the Sport”

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Audible, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for “running state of the sport.”

With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

"Running: State of the Sport" is brought to you by MarathonHandbook.com and RunLongRunHealthy.com. Marathon Handbook is the world’s leading marathon website, with a special focus on trustworthy running information and free, runner-tested training plans for all ability levels.

"Run Long, Run Healthy" is Amby’s weekly newsletter with the newest, most scientific, and most useful training advice for runners.

Jacqueline (Jaqi) Hansen is truly one of the most important pioneers of distance running and the marathon in the U.S. and around the world. Jaqi is probably best known as the Boston Marathon winner in 1973 (only 4 months after her first marathon.) But she also twice set the women's world record in the marathon, becoming the first woman runner under 2:45, and then under 2:40.

In addition, she and several colleagues on the International Runners Committee lobbied the International Olympic Committee to give women more track opportunities in the Olympic Games. The marathon isn't enough, they argued; we also deserve to have a 5000 meters, 10,000 meters, and steeplechase. It took a while, but eventually they won on all fronts.

This conversation with Jaqi was recorded shortly after she returned from the 40th anniversary celebration of the first U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials for women. That event, and the 40th celebration, took place in Olympia, Washington.

In this podcast, Jaqi talks about:

# Watching Cheryl Bridges run the Culver City Marathon in 1971--the first time Jaqi had ever seen a marathon.

# Trying (and winning) the same race herself a year later.# Winning the Boston Marathon in 1973

# Attending her first women-only marathon in Waldniel, Germany, in 1974. Her trip was financed by friend and fellow runner (and actor) Bruce Dern, father of current film star Laura Dern.

# Running a 2:38:10 at the Nike OTC Marathon in 1975.

# Her struggle to qualify for the first Women's Marathon Trials in 1984--a half dozen years past her prime. (She succeeded.)

# Her experiences at the first Women's Olympic Marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, taking care of a 4-year-old son while also cheering (and then crying for) Joan Benoit.

# And much more.

In addition, you can learn more about Jacqueline Hansen from her website, JacquelineHansen.com.

Where To Find “Running: State of the Sport”

Use your smartphone to download podcast apps from Apple, Spotify, Audible, Pandora, or YouTube Podcasts. Once you've selected your favorite app, search for “running state of the sport.”

With your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can also listen direct to “Running: State of the Sport” at the below internet links.

Apple

Spotify

Audible

Pandora

I Heart Radio

YouTube

"Running: State of the Sport" is brought to you by MarathonHandbook.com and RunLongRunHealthy.com. Marathon Handbook is the world’s leading marathon website, with a special focus on trustworthy running information and free, runner-tested training plans for all ability levels.

"Run Long, Run Healthy" is Amby’s weekly newsletter with the newest, most scientific, and most useful training advice for runners.