Episode 243 | Sebastian Junger on Running, Writing, and Not Negotiating With Yourself

the morning shakeout podcast

Coaching, Marathons, Sports, Olympics, Running, Ultrarunning

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2025

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm, Fire, A Death in Belmont, War, Tribe, Freedom, and In My Time of Dying, as well as an award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, and, perhaps most impressively, highly accomplished distance runner. A collegiate athlete at Wesleyan University in the early 1980s, Junger has run 3:55 for 1500 meters and 2:21 for the marathon.

In this conversation, we talk about his background in running as well as how it's shaped his identity and framed his perspective on writing and life. We also discuss how his relationship to running has evolved over the years, the parallels between competitive running and being in combat — "There's nothing like fear and exhaustion to wipe out your ego," he explains — how he got his start as a journalist and eventually author, the race he's spent his entire life training for, and a lot more.

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Music and editing for this episode of the morning shakeout podcast by John Summerford.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Morning Shakeout podcast.
0:04.3	I love to run, period.
0:07.1	You can always run faster.
0:09.2	Forever, you're going to feel something.
0:12.1	You're going to run into roadblocks, but that's also going to teach you how to handle things in life.
0:17.3	I don't think we want to be like rocks where we're not affected by anything.
0:21.0	It's not maybe a physical thing, but it's a mental thing.
0:24.1	There's like two voices in the album and beta.
0:27.3	All I was really trying to do was just keep moving forward.
0:32.6	Every single runner knows what that means.
0:36.1	My life has a purpose and maybe it's not what I thought it was going to be, but...
0:40.3	There were times when I didn't think I would be able to come back.
0:44.5	There's a lot of people that had different gifts, and they don't use it.
0:48.8	I think if we all use our gifts, we could do something really special, not for ourselves,
0:53.2	but our family.
0:54.3	If we're really good, we could do something for our community, wherever we live.
1:02.9	All right, Chris Douglas.
1:10.6	It's March 2025.
1:12.5	We have a new episode of the Morning Shakeout podcast.
1:15.5	And as always, I appreciate you coming over to help me set this one up for everyone.
1:19.1	Yeah, happy to be here.
1:20.4	So aside from this conversation with Sebastian Younger, which we'll talk a little bit about here in a minute. You're coming off of
	...

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