Podcasts

[The Beast of Bevendean]

As MarathonDan raised this elsewhere, I thought I would sound off. Podcasts: is there a decent running one? In my view, no. 
There's the cowboys who stole the title of this forum, whose podcasts often last over an hour. There's one about parkruns, which is OK, and at least brief, but one of the presenters is a radio presenter by trade, so he loads it with the tropes of his profession: "shout-outs" and so forth. There's also an even worse one about parkruns, whose presenters came to do Seaford Beach parkrun, and I listened to that episode, but never again. It was ego, ego, ego.
This is the problem. Any idiot can start a podcast, so every idiot does. And they expect me to devote hours of my time listening to their drivel. This is true in other areas too: tech, music (I might make an exception for the Tom Waits Song by Song podcast, which can be interesting, though the presenters and guests are painfully "woke", as the young people say), literature and, dare I mention the word, politics.

[marathondan]

I quite like Marathontalk; it's served me well over the years, although I've avoided it this season. They know their stuff and there's normally a good long-form interview. However, it is very matey; to be fair to the presenters they have successfully built an online community around the podcast, but that does mean that airtime needs to be devoted to discussing listeners' holiday snaps of (great radio) and the presenters trash-talking each other. In summary, it's decent company on a long run, but I'm not sure I could stomach it in the car. (Actually, why not just listen to the interviews in the car? There's a back catalogue of several hundred to choose from.)

[El Gordo]

Back when I was trying to run marathons I would listen to Phedippidations, though I can say with confidence that Tom wouldn't approve, based on his grumbles -- several of which strike a chord with me. I sort of warmed to Phedippidations as it centred on the Boston Marathon, which I had a particular interest in, and I thought that the guy did a reasonable job of presenting life as a back-of-the-field specialist. But inevitably, it strayed a bit too far from its core concern, and I abandoned it years ago. No idea what it's like now, but based on the Facebook page I hold out little hope.

Excessive matiness is a bugbear of mine too, which explains why I've had to stop listening to the Kermode and Mayo podcast. They do that annoying thing of topping and tailing the radio show recording with 'bonus material' that's too esoteric by 'alf -- and that's from someone who understands all the in-jokes. Much better to listen to the edited version on Saturday evenings on R5 Live, which contains only the useful bits i.e. the current movie top-ten, new reviews, and the interview. Everything else is padding. I have a lot of politics podcasts on my list though i gave up listening to most of them a long time ago. I'm keen on the New Statesman and Spectator offerings, and (usually) David Runciman's Talking Politics, but almost everything else is way too tedious these days. I'd recommend Criminal for sheer variety, and Scriptnotes for anyone interested in film and screenwriting. And although it's old hat now, Serial and (particularly) S-Town are, IMO, remarkably good.

But of course, this is all highly subjective.

[marathondan]

All podcasters should listen to No Such Thing as a Fish, which has a startling lack of padding -- introduce the venue, introduce the presenters, and they're off, in less than 60 seconds. Textbook.

[glaconman]

Tom;

You could try Rich Roll. It's not exclusively about running; he covers quite a wide array of topics around "wellness".

They are deep-dives around a specific person or topic.

You could start with Mathew Futterman and that may draw you in further:

https://www.richroll.com/podcast/matthew-futterman-455/

Personally I think he's a great interviewer for a long-format.

Lukas.

[El Gordo]

For any fans of Christopher McDougall, the 'Born to Run' author, this is an interesting listen: http://brendanomeara.com/mcdougall172/

The guy who hosts the podcast is a PITA, and I recommend you fast forward through the useless ads at the start but McDougall himself, and the story of the book's evolution, is worth hearing.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

He is a bit of a PITA, isn't he? And I hadn't realised McDougall had published a third book... although a book about teaching a donkey to run doesn't sound quite so enthralling as his previous efforts. I might wait for the reviews.