Malcolm Gladwell & Chris Chavez Think We're Selling Running All Wrong
July 23, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readRunning Is Selling the Wrong Product
At a dinner several months ago, Chris Chavez sat next to Molly Seidel, the Olympic bronze medalist in the marathon who had just signed with Satisfy and announced she would run Western States. Chavez had always wondered what happens when an elite marathoner still in her prime—not a twilight-career athlete—drops into the ultra world. "You might just drop in and just rewrite the record books," he recalls thinking. "Perhaps all of these times that we're seeing in these really long races are just low-hanging fruit for somebody who's really good." Seidel struggled, finishing around 24 hours, and the question of whether elite marathon talent translates to ultrarunning remains open. But the conversation opened a deeper one: how running markets itself, who gets attention, and what the sport is actually selling.
The Training, Not the Race, Is the Product
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:23) **Molly Seidel & the Ultra-Marathon Transition** - Chris Chavez and Malcolm Gladwell discuss whether elite marathoners can successfully cross over to ultra distances.
- 2 (07:33) **Elite Marathoners vs. Ultra Stardom: The Fame & Money Trade-Off** - The speakers weigh the financial and fame incentives for mid-tier elite marathoners to switch to ultra running.
- 3 (10:43) **David Roach’s Data-Driven Approach as a Model for Fan Engagement** - The discussion uses David Roach’s transparent training to argue that the sport needs more openness to build interest.
- 4 (14:58) **The "IP" Obsession and Athlete Secrecy in Running** - Gladwell critiques the notion of "intellectual property" in training, arguing it’s a self-defeating strategy for the sport.
- 5 (20:46) **Selling the Training, Not the Racing** - Gladwell argues the sport's marketing is fundamentally wrong, focusing on the race instead of the social and communal aspects of training.
- 6 (25:22) **The Case for an "Old School" Marathon Major** - Gladwell proposes a radical idea: one of the World Marathon Majors should strip away all modern technology.
- 7 (28:10) **Dissecting the "Enhanced Games" and Technical Gear** - The group critiques the recent "Enhanced Games" and discusses the role of technology in creating spectacle.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer at The New Yorker, bestselling author, and podcaster. Chris Chavez is a journalist, podcaster, and the founder of CITIUS MAG.
I just passed a thousand episodes, which has me rethinking what I want this to feel like. So for this one, no agenda, no notes. Just three podcasters rolling the dice.
Where it went: the art of the interview. Farming attention with integrity. The state of running. Why America loses at the sports it thinks it should dominate. Enjoy!
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