Marathon Project

That was back in January, and she is in medical school, so you might remember that episode.

And Stephen ran 2.11 at the marathon project, and it was just like, man, that's leveling up.

You know, he'd run 2.14, but running 2.11, as he said, starts to open up some new opportunities.

We get into how he's headed to New York City on November 1st to race that marathon with a stellar field.

I'm giving you a hard time, man.

I am so excited to have you on today.

And we interviewed your girlfriend, Maddie, a while back, and then you went and torched the marathon project.

Congrats.

And that was her fifth completed marathon.

Paige debuted the marathon in 2020, running a 228 at the Marathon Project, which is a really stellar debut.

She went on in 2022 to win CIM, making herself a national champion in the marathon, running 226.02 seconds.

She's got a couple other marathons in there and has big plans and goals for New York City this fall.

I was doing a ton of just like downhill running here in Flagstaff and wearing trainers on long runs to kind of try to let my legs get, you know, like extra beat up during training, but still like need a little bit more even I guess because they really fell apart I mean that last that last 5k I lost like two three minutes

oh well and on such a day where like everything was kind of like working in your favor weather wise pack wise yeah let's talk about where you were leading in because It is a step from your grandma's performance last year.

We had the marathon project, which you had to drop from.

So talk about your son's almost three.

He then pivoted to high-performance coaching, founding Hoganaz Elite, where he coached some of the top distance runners in North America, including Olympic trials champions and world majors top 10 finishers.

And when the world ground to a halt in 2020, Ben co-founded The Marathon Project, an event that revitalized elite road running in North America.

Today, we are unpacking his transition from athlete to entrepreneurship to master coach and what it really takes to build a sustainable success in the running industry.

Ben, welcome to the show.

I know you are saying your elite running is in the rearview mirror at this point.

But as you look back and you have coached elite runners, we're going to talk a little bit more on that in our Nuts Elite conversation.

group that you also coach personally and also what you're doing with the marathon project how it has evolved the business side of elite runner that what as a personal elite runner you have seen versus what you are seeing that different runners you are coaching today or you have coached over the years

It just continues to evolve.

I do some marketing consulting on the side.

uh, just became a very small part owner of the marathon project, which I'm very excited about.

Okay.

Something about that.

Yeah, no, I, and

I'm so guilty of that.

Um, it was funny when the marathon project news was coming out, I texted David, I was like, okay, you're like, you know, this is coming out today.

And it sounds like a lot more work than his Ben and Josh.

But it's not like she's an accomplished marathoner.

Her marathon PB came last year at age 45 at the Marathon Project, 225.

Somehow she decides, yeah, I'm going to run a major.

Sydney lets her in with a 225 PB, and she gets like a 30-second lead in this thing.

And I did a late and I prefer to do it in the fall.

So I did a very late fall last year, like almost Christmas time for the marathon project.

And that was going to be like the one I go for.

And then we had Boston lined up, which I don't normally do a spring marathon because I'm just we live in a really cold country.

Oh, my gosh.

We could talk forever and ever.

I also want to hear more about, we didn't really talk much about the Marathon Project.

You mentioned it earlier, but we didn't really talk about what that is or what that experience was like.