Sweat Elite

Scott Fauble (Hoka NAZ Elite) is currently one of America's fastest Marathoner's, with a personal best of 2:09:09 set at the 2019 Boston Marathon where he placed 7th. Scott will line up at the USA Olympic Trials for the Marathon this coming weekend (Feb 29 2020) in hopes in finishing top 3 and securing a place on the USA Olympic Team this year. We were very fortunate to chat with Scott just a week before the Olympic Trials about his book - Inside A Marathon - where he and his coach at Hoka NAZ Elite, Ben Rosario document the entire four-month journey to Scott’s 7th place finish at the 2018 TCS New York City Marathon.

Thijs Nijhuis is a Danish National Champion in the Marathon, as well as the 5km and 1500m. He placed 31st at the Doha World Athletics Championships in the Marathon in 2019. He has a current Marathon personal best time 2:14:18 and his short term goal is to run under the 2020 Olympic Games qualifying standard of 2:11:30 at the upcoming Seville Marathon (23 Feb 2020). All of this while studying to become a doctor.

Timo Limo is a professional Kenyan distance runner and coach - specialising in technique, strength work and core stability for runners. He is one of the most well respected Kenyan athletes/coaches in Iten and assists elite athletes such as Mary Kietany and Abel Kirui with strength work, core stability and technique. He's also run some fast times over 800m through 10km.

Betsy Saina is one of Kenya's elite distance runners with personal bests of 30:07 for 10,000m, 67:49 for the Half Marathon and 2:22:43 for the Marathon. She placed 5th (not 6th as stated in the Intro) at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in the 10,000m, won the Paris Marathon in 2018 and before these two achievements - attended Iowa State University where she arrived a 9:58 3km runner and departed the NCAA champion over 5000m, 10,000m and Cross Country. She has been coached by world famous coach Renato Canova for the past few years.

At the age of 8, Philipp Pflieger told his parents that he would run at the Olympic Games one day after watching Haile Gebresselassie and Paul Tergat battle it out in the home straight of the 10,000m at the 1996 Olympic Games. His parents laughed at him. In the following two decades Pflieger endured growth problems in his knees which sidelined him through most of his high school years, multiple stress fractures and surgeries in his early-mid 20’s and was told by several doctors that he wouldn’t run again. Cross training alone at the age of 25, Pflieger considered hanging up the racing shoes. Inspired by his best friend, Pflieger rolled the dice one more time and stepped up to the Marathon distance. Despite not finishing his first attempt at the Marathon, Pflieger managed to clock a 2:12:50 on his second attempt at the 2015 Berlin Marathon and qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in the process. 

A chat with Thomas Potzinger - assistant coach to Renato Canova. Renato Canova is one of the most successful elite distance running coaches in the world. He has coached more sub 2:05 male and sub 2:22 female marathoners than any other coach in the world. Thomas Potzinger (interviewee) has worked closely with Renato Canova in Kenya for many years and has learned the ins and out of his training philosophy. In this podcast episode we discuss Renato Canova's training philosophy in detail. We discuss how Potzinger met Canova, Canvoa's training princples, Canova's key ingredients, the training of Sondre Moen (Norweigan 2:05 Marathoner coached by Canova), how short hill sprints can be beneficial for long distance runners, measuring data and more. George Kusche is a 3:58 miler (sub 4:00 before age 20) and 1:47 800m runner who is now studying at, and competing for the University of Nebraska. In this podcast episode George shares details of his experience at the University of Nebraska, debunks some myths about the exp

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States of America is the strongest university sports system in the world. Hundreds of elite junior runners from outside the USA sign contracts with American colleges each year to compete in the NCAA. South African George Kusche recently made the move to the University of Nebraska. George Kusche is a 3:58 miler (sub 4:00 before age 20) and 1:47 800m runner who is now studying at, and competing for the University of Nebraska. In this podcast episode George shares details of his experience at the University of Nebraska, debunks some myths about the experience and gives advice to those interested in joining an NCAA college.

Freddy Ovett (son of legendary mid distance runner Steve) joins the Sweat Elite podcast again - this time to discuss Elite Distance Running in 2020 - the male events. Will Bekele race Kipchoge over the Marathon? Will Kamworor join the match up? Who will be in contention for the 800m, 1500m, 5,000m and 10,000m at the Tokyo Olympic Games and will Bekele, Kipchoge or Kamworor face each other in Japan? Which World Record may be broken ? All of these questions are discussed in this podcast episode with Freddy Ovett. Some future episodes have been planned with Freddy Ovett, who will also be writing some articles for Sweat Elite.

The son of legendary distance runner Steve Ovett joins the Sweat Elite podcast today - Freddy Ovett followed in his dads footsteps as a junior middle distance champion but after a persistent injury in his late teens, he was lead to Cycling and hasn’t looked back. Freddy is based in Girona, Spain and trains on the bike full time. In this podcast episode, Freddy shares what it was like training under Steve as a junior, the change to Cycling and plenty of stories about Steve from back in his prime. Freddy is also a big advocate of old school training methods (limiting data usage) and talks at length about this.

Brian Livingstone - a seasoned Marathon runner and elite coach joins the Sweat Elite podcast this week to discuss Marathon specific training, old school training methods focused on "running with spirit" and working at Nike for 13 years. Brian has personal best times of 29:31 for the 10km, 1:06:26 for the Half Marathon and 2:21 for the Marathon. He is an elite/sub-elite coach for Berlin Track Club (and freelance), is full of running wisdom and shares plenty of it on this podcast episode.

Can stress effect your performance? In this episode, we interview a data scientist who has developed an application (we came across ourselves) that easily and cheaply measures an individuals stress levels and indicates when the best time to do harder, quality training sessions is and when the best time to focus on recovery is. Marco Altini of HRV4Training is a scientist working at the intersection between technology, health and human performance. Almost a decade ago Marco learnt, through studies, the effects of stress on human performance and had the idea to create an application that could easily measure physiological stress using the phone camera. The app combines heart rate variability (HRV) measurements with subjective annotations of sleep quality, motivation, perceived performance during the last trainings and muscle soreness to provide you with guidance on a day to day basis.

Nikki Johnstone has raced over 16 Marathons this year and has averaged a time of well under 2:30. He has also raced over 10 Half Marathons and averaged under 1:10. Nikki Johnstone is a racing machine! In this podcast episode, we chat with Nikki about how he manages his racing load, how he's managed to improve from a 3:21 Marathoner to a 2:21 Marathoner and much more...

"Where is best place to train in Ethiopia? How much does it all cost? What's better - Kenya or Ethiopia?" All of these questions plus much more is answered in this episode by Tait Hearps (writer at Sweat Elite) and Matt Fox (Founder of Sweat Elite). We also discuss what the experience was like training along side Kenenisa Bekele's training group and answer some questions from subscribers including "At what intensity does Bekele do his easy days? What are some of his key workouts?"

[Full Episode] This episode is all about the INEOS1:59 Challange. We were lucky enough to be a part of this historic event which saw the first man to run under 2 hours for a Marathon. Eliud Kipchoge did something that many scientists deemed impossible just a decade or two ago – he ran 1:59:40 for […]

[Full episode] Have you ever been “stuck in a rut” with your running? Have you found yourself stagnating in racing and training, obsessing over splits, wondering if your training is really working for you and perhaps not even enjoying running anymore? This episode is for you. Sweat Elite founder Matt Fox joined 2:16 Marathoner Philipp […]

We’re excited to announce that we’re re-launching the Sweat Elite Podcast! We explain why in the intro of this episode before discussions the hot topic of the Nike Vaporfly’s – the racing shoe that has taken the running world by storm over the last couple of years. Germany’s Phlipp Baar (2:16 Marathoner) joins Founder of […]

Philipp Baar is one of Germany’s top marathoners. He ran a 2:16 debut marathon earlier this year and has his sights set on much faster in the coming decade. In this podcast episode, Philipp talks about his training, his USA college experience, work/life balance, top training camp locations and much more. Enjoy our conversation with […]

Matt Fox, Founder of Sweat Elite had the privilege of speaking with renown insta-runner Kimberly Underwood about all things running training. Kimberly recently dropped her Marathon personal best time from 3:38 to 3:11 in under 2 years with a few simple changes under coaching guidance of Elite Half Marathoner Ryan Vail. Kimberly and Ryan have taken a much more relaxed approach […]

Knox Robinson is the Founder of First Run. Knox has spent time training alongside Mo Farah in Ethiopia, Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya and attended the Breaking2 Nike Project in May 2017. We dive into all of these topics with Knox in this podcast espisode. Don’t forget to check out our new book: Eliud Kipchoge – History’s […]

In this Podcast episode, we answer everything you need to know about going to run train in Kenya. Is training in Kenya dangerous at all? Where is the best place to stay? Which is the best town to go to? How do you get around in Kenya? How do I meet elite athletes? What’s the best time of year to go to train? How much should I budget for? What’s the food like? Is it hard to combine it with a Safari?