Episode 252 | Simon Freeman and Mario Fraioli on Resetting Expectations, Running's Growing Pains, and Choosing Sustainability Over Scale

the morning shakeout podcast

Ultrarunning, Sports, Running, Marathons, Coaching, Olympics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I recently sat down with my good friend and frequent podcast guest Simon Freeman, the co-founder and publisher of my favorite running magazine, Like The Wind, for our second quarterly conversation of 2026, which you can listen to wherever you get the morning shakeout podcast. An excerpt of this exchange can be found in Issue #49 of LtW, which is out now. (You can buy a copy or subscribe here.)

In this episode, recorded shortly after a wild spring racing season, we dig into the first sub-2-hour marathon ever run in an actual race, the women's-only world record set the same day in London, the barnburners at both Boston and Cocodona, and how barrier-breaking performances reset our sense of what's possible.

We also get into why racing (and not clock-chasing) is what makes the sport worth watching, running's growing pains around access to major events, the case for racing locally and supporting your community, and a lot more.

Click here for complete show notes and sign up here to get the morning shakeout email newsletter delivered to your inbox every Tuesday.

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.
0:07.2	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.
0:20.9	It's not maybe a physical thing, but it's a mental thing.
0:24.1	There's like two voices in me, alpha 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. If we're really good, we could do something really special, not for ourselves, but our family.
0:58.5	If we're really good, we could do something for our community, wherever we live.
1:12.1	Hey, what's up, everyone? It's your host, Mario Fraule, and we are back with a fresh episode of the Morning Shakeout podcast. Ordinarily, my right-hand man, Chris Douglas would be here to set this one up
1:17.4	with me, but he's out of town. He's racing a swim run of all things in the Pacific Northwest,
1:21.8	so it is just me to get us started here. This episode is with my frequent co-collaborator and good friend Simon Freeman.
1:30.9	He is the founder and publisher of my favorite running magazine, Like the Wind.
1:35.2	And as we do, every few months we sat down to have a conversation about a topic of his choosing.
1:40.7	This one centered around the idea of expectations.
	...

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