THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

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From 1:54 and zero Division I offers to sixth at NCAAs in 1:45, Niko Schultz didn't sneak up on anybody, he just refused to stop showing up.

This year, in his first campaign at Penn State, he finished sixth at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and earned First-Team All-American honors. 

That arc doesn't happen by accident. 

Niko sits down with Dominic to unpack everything behind that leap: the decision to enter the transfer portal as a guy most coaches didn't want; the culture shock of arriving at Penn State and not winning a single training rep for three months straight; and what it felt like to be working server shifts after practice just to cover rent. 

Coach Ryan Foster's philosophy comes up early–-how he treats athletes like professionals; doesn’t micromanage the warm-up; and builds an environment where the training group does the coaching.

The conversation goes well beyond the track. Niko is candid about what drove him to start posting: a stress fracture freshman year and a high school coach asking what he was worth outside of running. He sat through two years of getting roasted in the comments before anything clicked. 

Now he's building toward a million followers with the same intentionality he brings to dropping time on the track, and he sees the two pursuits as feeding each other.

He also explains why he switched his international allegiance from the U.S. to Puerto Rico and what the road to the 2028 Olympics looks like from where he's standing.

Tap into the Niko Schultz 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=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZL

Instagram: @nikoschultzzz 

TikTok: @nikojschultz 

YouTube: Niko Schultz

Ashley Jones competed for six years in Division I distance running with one arm—and she insists that was never the point. If all running taught her was how to go faster in a race, she missed everything.

Fresh off a trip marking ten years since the ATV accident that took her right arm at 14 (three months after losing her father), Ashley joins Dominic to discuss her farewell to college running. 

Across three programs in six years–from High Point's humble grind; to Tennessee's private jets; to a homecoming at Colorado–-she lived what she calls three different lives. She walks us through each chapter: the mistakes and identity-building at High Point; the leap of faith and breakout performances at Tennessee; and a final injury-riddled Colorado season she nearly walked away from over the winter before deciding to finish the race.

Along the way she gets candid about the parts of her story most people never ask about: why she has never covered her arm or worn a prosthetic; what it costs to share the most vulnerable thing about yourself with strangers; why she stopped training on Sundays in one of the most competitive environments in sport; and why victim mentality, in her words, robs people of life and opportunity. 

She challenges an NCAA team culture fading toward semi-pro. She tells rising freshmen to build community fast and advocate for themselves. And she hints at what comes next: writing, speaking, an email list, and saying yes to crazy adventures—because running was the vessel, never the destination.

Tap into the Ashley Jones 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=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZL

Instagram: @ashley_carolinej

While his rivals stack hundred-mile months, senior Carter Smith has built one of the fastest high school seasons in America on simplicity, sleep, and a kick nobody saw coming. 

Fresh off the wildest stretch of his life—a 3:59.00 mile at the HOKA Festival of Miles; then a 1:48 win in the Brooks PR 800m days later in Seattle—Smith sits down with Dominic to explain how a kid from small-town Pennsylvania got here in barely two years of real training. 

Carter didn't run cross country until his junior year, when he won a state title after being told it was impossible. As a freshman, he was a 54-second quarter-miler while logging ten miles a week and staying up until 3 a.m. grinding Fortnite. By sophomore year, running twenty miles a week, he split 4:07 at New Balance—and the big schools came calling.

Smith breaks down the training that defies convention: thirty-mile weeks; six 200s the Tuesday before his sub-four; bodyweight strength work; chicken-rice-and-broccoli dinners; and eight or nine hours of sleep—because what you do outside the running, he argues, matters most.

He talks about chasing the Pennsylvania sub-four-mile lineage of Gary Martin and Drew Griffith. He gets into the 800m state record that is in his sights when he races Josh Hoey on July 9, and why anything short of aiming for Olympic goldisn't worth lacing up for.

When talent works hard, he says, crazy things happen. This episode is the proof.

Tap into the Carter Smith 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=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZL

Carter’s Instagram: @carterj_smith

Edwin Martin didn't start running to become an ultra-athlete—he started because life had gotten so dark he almost didn't start anything again at all.

At 21, Martin hit rock bottom. Consumed by a gambling addiction and drowning in purposelessness, he was on his bathroom floor, ready to end his life, when a text from a friend (just three words: I love you) pulled him back. That moment became the foundation for everything that followed. He has since lost two close friends to suicide, and the grief and guilt that came with those losses sharpened his mission—use running to make sure people know they are seen, loved, and not alone.

In this episode, Edwin walks Dominic through the full arc: from a COVID-canceled marathon run on a trail; to a full-distance Ironman with a partially torn Achilles; to 30 consecutive half marathons in August 2024; to a 2:50 marathon finish in early 2025; and ultimately, Project 24:70–the 24-hour treadmill run covering 133 miles to honor the 70 lives lost to suicide in Charleston County. He also breaks down the Stoney 100 (403 laps around a track) and what the monotony of that format does to the mind.

Beyond the miles, Edwin and Dominic dig into identity, faith, men's mental health, the danger of making sport your God, and why Edwin believes the three worst words anyone can say are: I got this. 

His platform is growing fast, and his answer for why is simple: he never built it for himself.

Tap into the Ironsned 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=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZL

Find Edwin on all platforms at @ironsned.

She ran 1:57 in an Olympic final as an afterthought—then walked away, rebuilt everything, and came back faster.  

Alex Bell isn't just reinventing herself; she's finally becoming who she was supposed to be.

In this conversation, Alex takes Dominic through one of British running's most unlikely second acts. She opens about the moment she crossed the finish line in Tokyo and knew (lying on her back; a million feelings at once) that she would never run 1:57 again. 

She talks honestly about the mental health toll of years spent as an unfunded elite, working police shifts and retail while competing at Diamond League level–and why she needed to step away from the sport entirely before she could fall back in love with it. 

Now, under coach Andrew Henderson at Leeds Beckett, she's averaging 85 miles a week (double what she ran at the peak of her 800m career) and her body has never felt better. 

She breaks down the training shift in real terms: double threshold days, long canal runs with 20-plus athletes on Sunday mornings, and the kind of joy she says she never once felt standing on a track start line. She describes pacing the 2026 TCS London Marathon, watching the world record fall from the inside, and coming home the next day to hand in her notice. 

The marathon debut is coming in February. LA 2028 is the dream. And she is, by her own admission, just getting started.

Tap into the Alex Bell Special.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! 

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

Instagram: @alexbell1992