Nicholas Thompson is an author and a journalist, a musician and one of the smartest people we know.
But before and beyond that, Nick is a runner.
Marathons, ultramarathons, cross country, ripping around a park with a kid, running to work, or in the rain, fog, sleet or hail. Nick is ready to hit the trail. And he has new book out called The Running Ground: A Father, A Son, and the Simplest of Sports.
Host Feet Banks digs into running, writing, Nick’s secret to productivity and a lot more! Check out these highlights from their conversation:
Trail Running vs. City Running
Feet Banks: I wonder if there’s a difference for the brain if you’re running through the city or running through the forest. Are you solving the same problems or does it shift more to a more creative world out in nature?
Nicholas Thompson: It shifts to a more creative world out in nature. When I’m out in nature, I don’t have headphones in. When I’m running through the city, I have headphones in, partly because the damn train is so loud. So I force myself into a different spiritual space or mental space. And then I think also when you’re running in nature, different things happen in the body; it’s what your ancestors did. It’s what we’re supposed to be doing. We were, as they say, born to run. There’s something primal that happens while we run … we did chase down antelopes on the savanna. We would run long distances and were actually better at going 30 miles than an antelope was.
We were better at endurance. They were faster, but humans could run longer and eventually, we wore them out. The cheetah can sprint them down, but we ran them down slowly.
Early Travels: Kidnapped in Morocco
I got a Lonely Planet guide and brought my guitar and headed to Africa. I figured I’d take buses and stay in hostels. And I show up in Tangiers in the north of Morocco. And day one, I’m sitting in the train station playing guitar. This guy comes up: “Hey man, it’s Ramadan. You want to come back to my house for a feast?” And I’m like, “I don’t know…” I’m with a friend who says, “Dude, that is sketchy. No way. I’m going to Casablanca. I’ll see you there tomorrow.”
I said, “Dude, I’m going to Ramadan. I’m gonna play guitar with this guy. He loves Led Zeppelin!” And so then I asked this older lady about it and she said, “It’s fine. Nothing to worry about. It’s Ramadan.” So I get in the guy’s car and he starts driving fast in circles and I’m like, Oh man, this isn’t going well. He takes me back to his house, shoves me in a bathroom, and locks the door. But he’s kind of a kidnapper without a plan … then in the middle of the night, he and his brother are there, smoking weed and talking in Arabic.
Then they reveal their plan, which is something like, “We’re drug dealers and we want you to sell our drugs in New York.” And I’m like, “How is that going to work? You’re just going to mail me drugs and I’m going to sell them? Okay, whatever. Right…” …So I had this amazing backpack that had everything hidden in it. They went through it and [realized] This guy’s got nothing. We’ve got a hobo here….“
Listen to the whole convo HERE.
