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Best Podcasts To Listen To While Running

There are two camps when it comes to running: those who seek out distraction and those who are dead set against it, preferring instead to maintain mindfulness as one foot is put in front of the other. I belong to the former camp and argue that distraction has its fair share of benefits since even the best runners are fallible.

Podcasts are an invaluable means of distraction for beginner and veteran runners alike. You even kill two birds with one stone while you’re at it by strengthening your mind while putting your body to work. The next time you find yourself sputtering for breath or wanting to stop before you clock that additional mile, try these recommendations that are guaranteed to make the miles fly by.

Table of Contents

Best Podcasts To Listen To While Running

Trained By Nike

“Trained By Nike” offers you digestible content related to maximizing your performance. Head of Performance at Nike, Ryan J. Faherty, interviews leading coaches, athletes, scientists, and experts to offer you essential tips in different areas that can aid your overall performance.

These areas range from sleep, movement, nutrition, recovery, and mindset and are designed to get you in tip-top shape. If you are hitting a plateau and are finding it harder to make real progress, you may wish to try out new methods that jolt your body out of its routine.

With the myriad of leading experts on the show, you are bound to find something that works for you. Incorporating these tips into your routine may help you get better at what you do in a shorter span of time.

Serial

There is nothing more immersive than listening to a true-crime podcast, and you are bound to forget where all the time has gone while tuning in to one while on a run. If true-crime is riveting stuff, “Serial” manages to take it up a notch. Inadequacies in the justice system are exposed with the stories of extraordinary real-life cases, while an atmosphere of surreality is maintained throughout the show.

Created by journalist Sarah Koenig, the show brings unprecedented format and is the first of long-form podcast journalism. The brains behind the popular podcast, “This American Life,” Koenig is a pioneer in this style, which has delighted true-crime fanatics and became a cultural phenomenon in its own right.

As the cases unfold and expose the grey areas in the justice system in this gripping exposé, you find yourself on edge and hanging on to every word.

The Rich Roll Podcast

“Rich Roll” is your go-to when you need to clock a high-mileage run. Featuring lively episodes that are two hours long, those minutes fly by with its rich aural content. This meaty podcast features deep-dive conversations with those who live and preach wellness, and “Rich Roll” shines through as a brilliant conversationalist who makes his guests feel right at home.

The result is a thorough, unvarnished look into the lives and habits of those at the forefront of what they do. The thought leadership expressed on the show comes from diverse fields such as mindfulness, entrepreneurship, spirituality, entertainment, and wellness.

A vegan ultra-endurance athlete who has seen adversity in his own life and undergone a remarkable transformation, Rich is quite the hard-living host and no stranger to the road less traveled. Intimate, honest, and chock full of thought-provoking wisdom, this is bound to be the new earworm that keeps you company on those long runs.

How I Built This

Former NPR radio journalist Guy Raz sits down with the people behind some of the world’s best companies to uncover the narrative behind their success in this iTunes chart-topper.

In today’s preoccupation with success, vulnerability and failure inevitably get a bad rap. Similarly, you may find yourself coming down a little too hard on yourself when you struggle to shave off that extra second or wrestle to find that extra push to complete a run. While it may not be on the same subject matter, the humbling message of holding space for failure remains the same.

I find listening to the early struggles of those who rose to ascent really helps to put things in perspective, running or otherwise. It is definitely worth a listen for those times when you need to quieten that all too familiar voice of negativity. All in all, the storytelling is perhaps the winning feature of this podcast, and you are bound to leave each time with a nugget of wisdom and something new to chew on.

Dear Sugars

Cheryl Strayed is the renowned advice columnist behind ‘Ask Polly’ and brings her characteristic warmth and ability to find wisdom in the uncanniest of situations to this podcast. Co-host Steve Almond joins her, and together they address a myriad of life’s questions from anonymized letters.

The hosts do offer different opinions on the issue at hand but remain unpresuming on the subject of each person’s struggles. On each episode, they bring on the show guests who, from experience, may shed light and offer their perspective on the personal topic at hand.

Both hosts also manage to build on the other’s insights and complement each other well. They often reaffirm what the others mentioned while bringing their own insights to bear on a part that the other did not address. In this podcast, Strayed and Almond, together with their guests, are welcome confidantes who generously impart their wisdom and teach you how to roll with the punches.