THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

Trevor Giampa doesn't call himself the best hybrid athlete — he says there's no such competition. He just refuses to accept the idea that chasing a goal in the gym has to cost him a goal on the course.

In this episode of The Running Effect Podcast, Dominic sits down with Trevor to unpack six years of all-out hybrid training and the results that have people convinced he must be cheating: a 2:28 Boston Marathon and a 315-pound bench in the same week, treadmill marathons followed by 15+ reps at 225, and 100-mile weeks paired with powerlifter-style strength work.

Trevor makes the case that "hybrid athlete = mediocre at both" is a myth, that antagonistic goals aren't really antagonistic if you build for them, and that your genetics improve the harder and longer you work. He's done it all as a natural athlete who has never had a sip of coffee, a drink of alcohol, or a single PED — and he explains why the constant doping accusations only fuel his mission to show people what a natural body is capable of.

They also get into his diet (max protein, max carbs, ground beef and rice, venison, kiwis for vitamin C), his recovery philosophy (build a bigger capacity, skip the gadgets), his gym split, the caffeine debate, his move into ultras, and how his Catholic faith became the center of his content and his goals.

00:00 — Welcome & the late-night recording sacrifice
00:36 — How Trevor defines a "hybrid athlete"
01:05 — Real hybrid athlete vs. chasing social media clout
02:11 — Nick Bear, the BPN community, and breaking the "mediocre at both" stereotype
04:28 — His most impressive feat: 2:28 Boston Marathon + 315 bench in the same week
05:13 — What's harder, running or lifting? Genetics and training load
07:44 — Same-day treadmill feats (45-mile run → bench; 2:26 treadmill marathon → bench)
08:18 — Why you lose reps benching right after a run (blood flow)
08:56 — Height, weight, and race weight (5'9", ~185 lbs)
09:44 — Why shorter is better for running ("short kings")
10:10 — Handling constant doping allegations as a natural athlete
11:01 — Peptides, caffeine, creatine, and the "natty or not" spectrum
13:32 — Why PEDs make no sense if you value the work
14:42 — The supplement stack: creatine, magnesium, and kiwis for vitamin C
15:50 — Diet philosophy: max protein, max carbs, eat around your training
18:00 — Daily calories and protein (~3,500 cal / ~200g)
18:51 — Meal prep, Costco, and almost never eating out
19:12 — Hypothetical: would he promote caffeine for a BPN sponsorship?
21:00 — The caffeine debate and the "alpha flies" analogy
22:55 — Caffeine timing, G1M Sport, and the downside of race-day coffee
23:30 — Bicarb and legal performance aids
24:07 — Which BPN athlete would he race — and at what distance?
24:40 — The gym split: stacking leg day on your hardest run days
26:30 — Push/pull/legs, weekly frequency, and injury-prevention work
27:10 — Shout-out to Dr. Bill Evans
28:02 — Parents, his brother, and whether the genetics are really "crazy"
29:21 — "Your genetics get better the harder you work"
30:53 — Goal announcement: 2:25 marathon + 225×25 bench, same day, before 25
31:37 — Recovery: build a bigger capacity, not a bigger gadget collection
33:36 — Progressive overload vs. just maintaining muscle
34:47 — Does he recommend this lifestyle? Why hybrid is the future of fitness
36:23 — Dream sponsorships and faith-aligned brands (Barbell Apparel, Mark Dowdle)
39:46 — Trevor's faith journey and weaving it into his content
41:37 — Sacrificing training time for faith — and being blessed in return
42:27 — Killing the excuses: a full-time job and 84-hour work weeks
43:25 — How he trained around 12-hour refinery shifts in the dark
45:20 — The David Goggins comparison and his (slightly) saner schedule now
47:41 — The messages that keep him posting
48:16 — His "what if": deciding to start posting content
50:31 — Closing thoughts

Jacob Cohen has run a 5K in a dog crate, a port-a-potty, and on top of the Empire State Building–-and no, he is not stopping anytime soon.

Before he was the internet's favorite 5K guy, Cohen was an investment banker in Atlanta, overweight and grinding through a banking job while his content dream sat on the back burner. 

Running, however, changed everything.

It helped him lose more than 40 pounds, and a run club of full-time creators convinced him to hit record. He posted for a year to 2,000 followers before a joke 5K around his coffee table in October 2025 lit the fuse: it led to 100,000 followers in 50 days and a full-blown escalation of the most absurd run locations imaginable.

In this conversation with Dominic, Cohen pulls back the curtain on the videos everyone's friends keep sending them. He addresses the skeptics head-on (yes, he really does the 5Ks; the watch accuracy is another story), reveals his most physically miserable run location, and explains why the World Cup crowd was in on the bit.
 
He also opens up about the deeper mission: rejecting the unattainable, chicken-and-rice version of fitness the internet sold him at his lowest, and proving working out can actually be fun.

Plus, his surprisingly generous take on David Goggins, celebrity collabs with Diplo, Bert Kreischer, Teddy Swims, and Casey Neistat, his dream Great Wall of China 5K, and why the biggest what-if of his life was simply pressing record.

Tap into the Jacob Cohen Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W  N O T E S   

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run  

-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz

Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

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$20 off your next Attuned scan: https://attuned.health/discount/TRE20?ref=TRE20 

TikTok: @notreallywellness

Instagram: @notreallywellness

YouTube: @notreallywellness

Parker Wolfe was the 43rd man on a 42-man Olympic list. Now, he's making the case for rookie of the year in professional running.

Dominic sits down with the Swoosh TC Flagstaff star to unpack a debut season that reads like a highlight reel: a USATF cross country title on a muddy Portland course, top American honors at World XC in Tallahassee, a first sub-13 indoor 5K, a 12:49.45 Diamond League debut in Oslo, and a front-running Prefontaine Classic two-mile win over Grant Fisher.

Parker opens up about going from top dog at UNC to "the new kid on the block" as a pro, why the professional peak is the hardest one to climb, and how he nearly committed to Duke before Chapel Hill won him over. 

He breaks down the transition from Chris Miltenberg to Mike Smith—more mileage, double thresholds, and a Flagstaff training group so deep he never lacks a partner, from Ethan Strand and Nico Young to the occasional Galen Rupp appearance. 

He makes his case that full buy-in beats a perfect program, walks through the Mo Farah-inspired tactics behind his gutsy front-running win at Hayward, and lands on the lesson at the heart of it all: people overestimate what they can do in a season and underestimate what they can do in a couple years of consistency.

Plus, decoding Nike's confusingly structured Swoosh TC, Parker's five-runner Netflix docuseries cast, Nuggets loyalty, and the Lil Wayne deposition tape Coach Smith screened before Cross Nationals.

Tap into the Parker Wolfe Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W  N O T E S 
  
-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): ⁠https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs⁠

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run  

-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz

Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: 

https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

LuminaryThreads: luminarythreads.shop 

$20 off your next Attuned scan:⁠ https://attuned.health/discount/TRE20?ref=TRE20⁠ 

Instagram:⁠ @parkerw19⁠

Meikael Beaudoin-Rousseau was fishing alone at the top of Nevada Falls at the age of 10, and has been finding ways to move faster through the mountains ever since. 

The Stanford-trained distance runner turned professional trail and mountain specialist joins Dominic to talk about a two-year injury saga that has redefined how he thinks about training, resilience, and what it actually means to compete. 

After a catastrophic fall at the 2024 Broken Arrow Skyrace left him with a complex orthopedic injury, Meikael spent 18 months trying every non-surgical approach available before going under the knife at the end of 2025. In February, he was relearning to walk. In April, relearning to run. He came back and toed the line at the 2026 U.S. Uphill Championships and finished 7th overall.

The conversation covers what it looks like to maintain professional-level fitness off of 20 to 30 miles a week (and two hours of daily elliptical and arm bike work); why vertical kilometer races are physiologically closer to an 800 meter than a 10k; and how growing up entirely outdoors in the Bay Area (fishing, climbing, running trails to make curfew) built the athletic foundation that track never could. 

Meikael also gets into the plant business he started in middle school, the summers he spent living out of his car in the Sierra Nevada, and why he thinks cross-country skiers would beat marathoners in a trail race every time.

His message to anyone trail-curious: DM him. He means it.

Tap into the Meikael Beaudoin-Rousseau Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.

S H O W  N O T E S   
-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs
-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run  
-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ
-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz
Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ
LuminaryThreads: luminarythreads.shop 
Instagram: @mountain_man_meik

He bet his uncle he could beat him in a race, and that was the start of everything.

Handal Roban grew up in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines playing cricket before a single track meet at age fifteen changed his trajectory.
  
When the cricket team pushed him out, he didn't look back. Instead, he chased the guys who beat him—literally moving to Jamaica to train at Jamaica College High School, one of the most decorated prep programs in the Caribbean. 

That decision, he says, taught him how to navigate being the underdog, how to thrive in discomfort, and how to carry the weight of a new culture in silence when no one could understand a word he said.

At Penn State, Roban has quietly built one of the most decorated careers in school history: two Big Ten Freshman of the Year awards; multiple All-American honors; a trip to the Paris Olympics at 21 years of age; and a 1:42.87 at the 2025 NACAC Championships that left him thinking the clock was broken. That time made him the second-fastest 800m runner in NCAA history. He still can't fully believe it.

But what defines Roban isn't the resume, it's the philosophy underneath it. 

Stop chasing times. Find your mantra. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Don't respect your competitors so much that you forget to race them. And when the butterflies show up before the gun, don't fight them, channel them.

With one year of eligibility remaining and an NCAA title still on his list, Roban isn't close to done.

Tap into the Handal Roban Special. 

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.
S H O W  N O T E S   

-The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs

-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run  

-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ

-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffz

Behind the scenes of The Running Effect: 

https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZ

LuminaryThreads: luminarythreads.shop 

$20 off your next Attuned scan: https://attuned.health/discount/TRE20?ref=TRE20 

Instagram: @handal.roban 

X (Twitter): @imhandalroban 

TikTok: @handal.rob