Welcome back fan favorite Scott Fauble to the show. This is now his seventh appearance on the show. We’ve had a tradition of chatting after his big performances at the New York City or Boston Marathons over the years. We decided to chat ahead of the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, where he’s expected to be one of the top contenders in the men’s race once again.

Scott owns a personal best of 2:08:52 from his seventh place finish at the 2022 Boston Marathon. He backed that up with another top American finish last year – again in seventh place. Last fall, he went to Berlin to chase the Olympic qualifying standard but had to drop out after 30K. We talk about that race and how he picked the pieces back up.

Scott’s been training hard in Boulder under coach Joe Bosshard. He’s been cranking the heat up in the treadmill room in the Team Boss gym and doing tons of heat training. He’s confident. He’s feeling good. I’m excited for everything going down in Orlando.

Host: Chris Chavez | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram

Guest:⁠⁠⁠⁠ Scott Fauble | @sfaubs on Instagram

The following interview has been edited lightly for clarity and space. You can listen to the full interview with Scott Fauble on the CITIUS MAG Podcast – available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.

CITIUS MAG: Do you understand the qualifying process for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials?

Scott Fauble: I looked into it over the summer and got a good grasp on what the situation is. That led me to my decision to run Berlin in the fall. I have not read, nor do I care to read, the most recent updates. That's a future me problem. The only thing I can do right now is focus on the trials, so if that information isn't going to serve me in the short term, I don't feel the need to dig into it and stress about it. We're going to cross that bridge if we have to.

CITIUS MAG: Take us through a little bit of your training. What has your training structure in this build looked like?

Scott Fauble: We've been doing our hot threshold workouts in the gym. We've been able to get it up to 80-85 degrees and about 60% humidity by the end of the workout. We're tracking things like heart rate and core body temperature. Once or twice a week on one of my doubles, I'll crank up the temperature in the gym and do like 45 minutes on the treadmill and then will go straight into a sauna blanket, which is basically a heated sleeping bag. I end up getting about 90 minutes of heat stress. It ends up being 2 or 3 times a week between those two things. I'll probably do 1 or 2 extra sessions in the last couple of weeks just to keep the adaptations up. We've seen good progress.

CITIUS MAG: You’re doing all your training solo – does it ever get lonely doing all the work by yourself?

Scott Fauble: No, it doesn't get lonely when I'm in Boulder. I still live in Portland for most of the year and that gets lonely sometimes. But I do a lot of my easy running with the boss ladies and if we're in the gym, Joe is almost always there, or Nick is there, or some of the other women are on the treadmills. So I wouldn't say it gets lonely. The only time I'm completely alone is during long runs and that's fine. I can be alone for 2.5 hours at a time, it's not that big of a deal.

CITIUS MAG: Do you feel good about going into the Trials without a solid temperature check from a tuneup race?

Scott Fauble: Yeah, I'm fine. I haven't loved racing in buildups before. There are some reasons to do it. Before Boston, we wanted to put a race on the calendar so that we could do something under-pace a little bit earlier in the build – and having a race on the calendar meant we had to do it. But that was sort of an anomaly. In the past, we haven't done a ton of racing leading up to marathons. It's just not that important to us and I don't feel like I need it anymore. I would rather just stay in Boulder and train and not have those distractions.

CITIUS MAG: One thing that sticks out about how you’ve been different in your approach to Orlando is how quiet you've been on Instagram. What have been the benefits of purposely blocking out all of the noise?

Scott Fauble: It hasn't been that purposeful, I just don’t feel the need to share a bunch of stuff. I don't want to feel like I have to prove anything on a regular basis. I'm just training to be ready on February 3rd – good or bad, I'll tell you about stuff afterwards. But in the lead-up, I've found it's a little less stressful to just be quiet.

CITIUS MAG: You're among the top contenders. How many other guys do you put into that category?

Scott Fauble: I don't think you can make a tier list for the Olympic trials. Historically, there's always been someone who runs the race of their life at the Olympic Trials. Last time it was Jake (Riley), before that, it was Jared (Ward). Brian Sell comes to mind, too. There's always someone who comes out of nowhere. So if you're going to tier the list, you're going to be wrong. Someone's going to come up from tier three and make the team probably…

I think that it will take a very good race to make the team. I don't think I'm in a spot where I need it to be the race of my life. I don't feel like I'm putting pressure on myself or on training… We've trained the same way that we've trained for Boston, New York, and Berlin. I haven't lost to an American in two years other than dropping out of Berlin… I feel good about where I'm at. Everyone else is going to bring their “A” game and I'm going to bring my “A” game. I'm going to have to race to win. I don't think you race to get top three. I think you have to race to win and top three will be the consolation prize if you race aggressively and fearlessly.

CITIUS MAG: Before the Boston Marathon, one thing you said was that doing the work doesn't have to be a grind and that you worked just as hard, if not harder, than before last spring. How about this time? Have you been working even harder than that?

Scott Fauble: It's easy to say, “I've worked harder than I've ever worked before,” but I don't feel like I've ever gone into a race feeling like I left something on the table. Our process is really good – we worked really hard for Boston and before that we worked really hard for New York. I don't feel like I've held anything back in previous builds, so if I can live up to the standard that I find acceptable, and the standard that I've set for myself in the past, then it’s probably going to be good. I've been pretty good for a while, barring a couple of blips, I’ve had a lot of good races. In the past, maybe I've tried to convince myself that I feel good about where I'm at – but if I authentically feel good about where I'm at, then that's great. I'll be happy with that.

CITIUS MAG: How do you build upon your confidence? Race results help because they validate your training, but how do you build that faith within yourself?

Scott Fauble: I think part of it is innate. I'm a confident guy. I would say the faith in myself comes from the work, not necessarily the results. Berlin was a horrible result, but that didn't shake my confidence. You just need to have conviction in the work. You can't be unsure if the work is going to be good. I have to really believe 100% that I'm doing the right work for me and that we're doing it at the right times in the right ways. And I think that's where my faith comes from… If you're not 100% in, you might as well be 100% out – and being 100% in comes from work, it comes from results, and it comes from feeling like I'm playing with a full deck of cards.

CITIUS MAG: You dropped a Candace Parker quote on Instagram once. Has there been anyone else who has recently said something that resonated with you?

Scott Fauble: After Berlin, our assistant coach – Nick Harris – texted me a quote: “The only thing you're guaranteed is the opportunity to do the work. You're not guaranteed any results. You're not owed anything”. That's been something that has stuck with me – not feeling entitled to being one of the top three guys at the trials and making the team. The only thing I have control over is the work and that’s what has been in my head a lot.