Joe De Sena is the creator of The Spartan Race, which has now grown to 137 events in 17 countries. In 2014 850,000 participants did his events and in 2015 that number could exceed one million. How did the event start? What did he learn from his days on Wall Street that transferred over to…
Eric Feller and Danny Kolker met, believe it or not, in grammar school. They knew early on that one day they would work together. Their first major project was a documentary film following a number of top U.S. triathletes as they were attempting to make the first ever U.S. Olympic Triathlon Team in 2000. Little…
Leon Griffin is on a roll. Since the birth of his little boy Harry about six weeks before our chat, the 2006 ITU World Duathlon Champion from Australia has been on fire. He started his season off with a second place to Tim Reed by about 14 seconds at the Asia Pacific 70.3 Championship and…
Classics Interview Series: Eamonn Coghlan He is known as the Chairman of the Boards for his success running indoors. Ireland’s Eamonn Coghlan won 52 out of 70 races indoors between 1974 and 1987, broke the record for the indoor mile three times and held the record for 18 years. His fastest indoor mile was 3:49.78…
Bill Bell, a brand new inductee into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame, is 92 years young and simply one of the legends of triathlon. He didn’t get into endurance sports until he was over 50, but he certainly made up for lost time. He completed over 300 triathlons, 32 Ironman races and 158 marathons…
It had been a little over eight years since Ryan Hall became the first American to run a half marathon in under an hour when he went 59:43 in Houston and became a star, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. Two Olympic teams and a 2:04:58 Boston Marathon later, Ryan took time to chat…
Stephen Madden was the editor-in-chief of Bicycling Magazine. He came on the show to chat about the challenge of covering the Lance Armstrong era, his favorite cycling moments and cyclists, plus his move into CrossFit. His new book, Embrace the Suck, takes you through his journey from a novice in CrossFit to someone who can…
Bob Penny ran for the South Eugene High School Axemen, a school with a tradition of creating great runners. He is now going through inkshares.com to write a book about the history and tradition of that legendary program and the runners who made it great. The book is called Purple Dynasty: Records, Championships and Tradition-The South…
Classics Interview Series: Linda Sweeney Linda Sweeney flew over to Kona to do the fourth ever Ironman World Championship back in 1981. She ended up winning the race even though she rode a bike with a basket on the front that carried a cassette player blasting tunes for her throughout the bike ride. By the…
Scout Bassett is 4’9” tall and weighs all of 84 pounds. On a wall inside the Challenged Athletes Foundation headquarters, there is a classic photo of Scout back-to-back with NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton, who is 6’11” tall. The quote next to the photo? “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” Scout…