E72: The Life of Steve Prefontaine with Biographer, Brendan O’Meara

Marathon Talk

World Marathon Majors

Fitness, Health & Fitness, Sports, Running

4.7 • 994 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nobody squeezed more life out of 24 years than Steve Prefontaine, one of running’s greatest icons.

Fresh from penning a biography of Prefontaine, Brendan O’Meara joins us to share the impact of his legacy, and what we all stand to learn from Steve’s unparalleled mindset.

Tune into Marathon Talk this week as we also get the inside track on Boston’s new qualifying stipulations, and the great Martin vs Deena showdown, the outcome of which is in YOUR hands…

In this episode of Marathon Talk:

0:00 - We kick off this week with a roundup of father’s day fox-spotting and Martin’s gradual mileage increase
8:10 - Boston Marathon have made changes to their qualification criteria, making things an uphill struggle for downhill runners…
16:15 - Martin & Deena debunk the ‘no pain, no gain’ approach to training, and laud the benefits of implementing real discipline in your running
25:30 - Brendan O’Meara gives us a glimpse into the short-yet-stellar life of Steve Prefontaine, and how his presence changed running forever in his 24 years
56:45 - Martin & Deena make their appeal to the community to join the battle raging on between Deena’s Dominators and Martin’s Mile Crushers on the Global Run Club app

Marathon Talk is proudly powered by Abbott World Marathon Majors, who create, build and support opportunities for all to discover the power of the marathon community. Learn more at https://www.worldmarathonmajors.com/

Abbott World Marathon Majors

https://www.worldmarathonmajors.com/

https://www.instagram.com/wmmajors/

Martin Yelling

https://www.instagram.com/martinyelling/

Deena Kastor

https://www.instagram.com/deena8050/

Brendan O’Meara

https://brendanomeara.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-o-meara-40295333/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to episode 72 of Marathon Talk powered by Abbott World Marathon Majors.
0:07.3	On this week's show, I caught up with US-based author Brendan O'Meara to talk about his
0:13.2	excellent new book frontrunner and hear more about the life of middle distance track
0:18.3	legend Steve Prefontein.
0:20.5	And also on this week's show, we've got news of the new Boston Marathon.
0:26.3	I know.
0:27.1	Qualifying standards and an update on our latest Marathon Talk running challenge.
0:32.0	Have the mile crushers caught up with the dominators.
0:36.8	Find this out and more on this episode of Marathon Talk.
0:41.1	Dina, it's been two weeks. How are you doing?
0:44.4	I'm doing well. I'm actually quite tired because I spent Father's Day weekend camping out at Santa Cruz Island with my daughter and 10-year-old nephew.
0:56.0	And I'm exhausted.
0:59.0	Is that because you didn't get any sleep or because you were busy doing things?
1:06.1	Yeah, just busy doing things. We hiked all day. Each day we were out there just logging miles on the hilly terrain, but like up on the cliffs and the coastline and exploring caves and playing in the water.
1:15.7	It was action-packed. The weather was perfect. You know, in Southern California, there's,
1:21.6	we call it June gloom, where we're just kind of socked in in this marine layer, and it was sunny
1:27.3	and beautiful the
1:28.0	whole time we were out there.
1:29.8	So the stars were out as we were in our tent at night.
1:33.8	And so we had a really good time.
1:35.3	Yes.
1:36.3	Yes.
	...

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