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Summary
On episode 163 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Pete Magill, who went from an alcohol and drug driven, two-pack-a-day chain smoker collapsing at home in his late 30s to a world class runner, and who wrote The Born Again Runner to help new and returning runners.
Pete lays out the 12 principles from his book, built around the idea that lasting change is incremental: your body’s nervous system, muscles, and connective tissue all adapt at different speeds, so ramping up too fast leads straight to injury, while training slow and building a base actually gets you to your goal faster.
He also covers his approach to injury prevention, treating each common running injury with specific corrective exercises rather than generic advice, and closes on the idea that believing you will succeed changes which daily choices you’re willing to make along the way.
Links
- https://petemagill.com
- https://bornagainrunner.com
- https://runningahead.com
Key Takeaways
- The past is the past. A failed attempt at a training program before doesn’t predict a failed attempt now. Pete points to Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school varsity team and Steven Spielberg being rejected from USC film school three times as proof that an early setback isn’t the final word.
- Walk before you run. Your nervous system, muscles, and connective tissue adapt at different rates. Early gains often come from the nervous system adapting quickly, which tricks people into upping mileage before their connective tissue has caught up, and that’s when injuries hit, typically three weeks to two months in.
- Keep it simple and don’t over-buy gear. A friend of Pete’s bought a full running wardrobe and GPS watch before his first run and burned out on the sport before he ever started training. All you actually need at the beginning is shorts, a shirt, and shoes.
- Train with the body you have. Elite marathoners’ training won’t necessarily work for you, because you’re not starting from where they’re starting. Pete cites Dr. George Sheehan’s line that “we are all an experiment of one” as the reason to build a plan around your own body and background.
- You get fit during recovery, not during the workout itself. Training damages muscle fibers and connective tissue; the body only overcompensates and gets stronger during rest. Pete calls “no pain, no gain” one of the most damaging clichés in the sport, since pushing through without recovery mostly just produces pain.
- No rain checks unless it’s actually raining. New runners can lose up to half of recent aerobic gains after just a week off, so consistency on the ordinary, unmotivated days matters more than any single hard workout.
- Slower is faster. Building an easy aerobic foundation first, rather than chasing quick results, is what lets you keep training injury-free long enough to actually reach your goal. Going out too hard, like the hare in the fable, tends to end in a setback instead of a finish line.
- Make it fun and build a support team. Tell people you’re starting, find a training partner or online community, schedule rewards for milestones, and vary your workouts. A program that feels like an obligation gets abandoned.
- Know you’ll succeed. Believing the finish line is inevitable is what makes people willing to do the unglamorous parts, injury prevention exercises, scheduled rest days, proper fueling, rather than skipping them or picking fights with competitive strangers mid-run.
“The fastest way to become a better runner is to take your time. Slower gets you there faster. Seldom gets you there at all.”
Pete Magill