A conversation about the many forms of endurance: how to keep going when things get hard, start again when they don’t work, embrace fear and failure, and stay curious enough to keep evolving.

Mike Wardian is sitting in a van, days away from starting his southbound 2,650-mile run of the Pacific Crest Trail, a goal that has been sitting in the back of his mind for roughly 25 years. And somehow, he’s already thinking about what comes next: learning to row well enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone.

But this conversation isn’t really about collecting bigger and harder feats. Matt and Molly talk with Mike about what endurance looks like when you stretch it across an entire life: finding a reason to keep moving when things get dark, staying curious after decades in the sport, willingly becoming a beginner again, and figuring out what to do when persistence still doesn’t produce the result you wanted.

From his early discovery of marathons, ultras, the Barkley Marathons, the PCT, and the challenges still ahead, Mike offers a view of endurance that is less about refusing to stop and more about continuing to learn. Sometimes that means pushing and working through it all. Sometimes it means changing the approach. And sometimes it means building a life that leaves enough room to keep asking, “What else could I try?” And a healthy yet uncommon response of, "How hard could it be?"

In this episode of Legwork, Matt and Molly sit down with ultra runner and adventurer Mike Wardian to explore endurance in a much broader sense than simply refusing to stop.

Together, they cover:

• How Mike went from playing Division I lacrosse to discovering marathons, ultra running, and increasingly ambitious endurance challenges

• Why a healthy “How hard could it be?” mentality has helped him become comfortable trying things before he knows whether he will succeed

• What it means to willingly become a beginner again

• How crew support, problem solving, fueling, and an honest internal checklist can help when an endurance event starts to unravel

• Why having a meaningful “why” matters when external validation isn't enough

• How Mike has maintained curiosity and motivation across decades

• The role fear and uncertainty play in choosing challenges that are worth pursuing

• What Mike’s experiences at the Barkley Marathons taught him about failure and confidence

• Why endurance should also mean building a life that leaves room to keep learning

Whether you are an experienced ultrarunner, considering your first endurance event, or simply interested in what keeps someone curious and motivated over the long run, this conversation offers a different way to think about endurance: not just as the ability to keep going, but as the willingness to keep evolving.

Chapter List:

01:04 Introduction to Mike and how he met Bakline, Matt, and Molly

03:38 The Purpose of this Episode: Understanding Elements of Endurance

04:41 The Pacific Crest Trail: Mike's 25-Year Goal

11:17 Early Influences and Inspiration for Mike's Running and Ultra Career

16:55 Ultra Endurance Events and Mike's Healthy 'How hard can it be?' Approach

21:52 Mustering Up the Courage to Try New Things: Rowing Across The Atlantic

29:21 The Importance of Crew Support

29:21 Facing Adversity in Endurance Challenges And What To Do When Things Get Dark

33:57 The Honest Reflection of Endurance and Understanding Your "Why"

37:31 The Craft of Ultra Endurance Events, Staying Curious, and Evolving Your Approach

45:19 Embracing Fear and Uncertainty in Adventure In Order To Find Joy

50:56 Advice for the Ultra-curious Who Think: "That's Just Not Me" and How To Start

55:21 Exploring the Unknown and Embracing Challenges: The Endurance Through Failure

01:01:51 Building Confidence Through both Success and 'Failure'

01:04:30 Authenticity in Sharing the Journey

01:07:25 Connecting with the Community and Final Thoughts

A deep dive into the physiology, psychology, and pacing science behind negative splitting in track and road racing, and why the fastest times are often run by athletes willing to start slower to finish stronger.

Episode Description:

It’s one of running’s oldest pieces of advice and one of its least trusted: don’t go out too fast. Yet every race morning, thousands of runners surge through the opening miles convinced they’ve somehow escaped physiology. The pace feels easy. The crowds are loud. The legs are fresh. Until they aren’t.

In this episode of Legwork, Matt and Molly unpack why the negative split remains one of the most effective and misunderstood strategies in endurance racing. Using Matt’s Boston Marathon breakthrough as a launching point, they explore the science of pacing, glycogen depletion, lactate production, thermoregulation, muscle fiber recruitment, and why “banking time” so often turns into borrowing against a debt the body eventually collects.

The conversation moves from elite marathon racing to practical pacing mistakes recreational runners make every weekend. They examine why even slight pacing errors early in a race can create cascading physiological consequences later, why going out too fast feels deceptively easy, and why the body’s warning signals in the final miles are often less about “mental weakness” and more about real biological limits being reached.

At the center of the episode is one core idea: don’t bank time, bank energy.

Together, they cover:

• What a negative split actually is, and why it’s more than simply “starting conservative”
• Why elite marathoners and championship fields overwhelmingly negative split to win
• The science of glycogen depletion, fat metabolism, lactate, and endurance energy systems
• Why running slightly too fast early creates disproportionate fatigue later
• The misunderstood relationship between lactate, “lactic acid,” and muscle fatigue
• How heat accumulation and cardiovascular drift quietly sabotage races
• Why Boston Marathon pacing strategies often fail
• The psychological reasons runners still go out too fast despite knowing better
• How progression runs and marathon pace workouts train athletes to finish stronger
• Why negative splitting creates more control, confidence, and resilience late in races
• The difference between surviving the final miles and still being able to race them

Along the way, Matt and Molly, compare pacing strategy to maximizing an electric car’s battery range, reflect on the emotional side of racing, and explain why passing people at mile 24 might be one of the best feelings in the sport: ultimate confidence that you puled it off.

Whether you’re training for your first half marathon, chasing a marathon PR, trying to break a major time barrier, or simply tired of fading in the final miles, this episode offers a practical and science-backed framework for pacing smarter and racing stronger.

Chapter List:

00:00 Episode preview and why negative splits work in brief

02:10 Boston Marathon Experience

06:16 The Negative Split Strategy Explained

11:41 Elite fields overwhelmingly negative split to win

14:56 The science of negative splitting: Let's start with our energy systems

18:04 An analogy: Understanding pacing in the context of maximizing your car's fuel efficiency

23:10 The Role of Glycogen and Fat in Endurance and the misnomer of "lactic acid"

33:09 A slight diversion on the periphery of pacing in context of racing (i.e., high carb vs low carb)

35:44 Understanding why going out too fast is physiologically and mentally a bad idea

44:53 Why a negative split approach physiologically facilitates improved performance in second half of the race

52:14 Reasons why everyone still goes out to fast when they know they shouldn't (the mental side of things)

59:59 Training for Negative Splits

01:10:14 Mental Strategies for Successful Racing