WIRED Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson on Running and the Future of Media

Wired’s chief editor, Nicholas Thompson, has thought a lot about the intersection of technology, media and society. As a long-time journalist and editor at the The New Yorker and Wired, Nick can talk about media and tech the same way many pro athletes can recount in vivid detail a moment from an event that happened decades ago.
Nick has almost always been a runner, finding ways to log eight miles a day on his daily commute. Just enough that with some training he could get to consistent 2:40 marathons. But he never took the time to think about why he runs and how it intersects with his past, his relationship with his father, and a cancer diagnosis when Nick was 30.
After an incredible 2:29:13 at the 2019 Chicago Marathon, Nick decided to try to figure out why he ran just under 2:44 at age 30, and just under 2:30 at age 44. He joined us to talk about it all — running, media, and overcoming mental barriers you might not know exist. Listen to our podcast with Nicholas Thompson on The Common Threads: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify.
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David Swain, @prokit: What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Nick Thompson: I had the same thing I have for breakfast pretty much every morning which is oatmeal with walnuts, almonds, raisins, and a cup of coffee.
What’s your morning routine?
I get up at six, go for a run, and come back around seven. We make breakfast and around 8, we wake everybody else up in the house by screaming, “Breakfast!” Everybody comes down and has breakfast. I start my workday around 8:30.
I’ve been up in the Catskills since quarantine started. Up here, we have another routine. Almost every morning, we catch a chipmunk on the porch in a little trap we’ve made because there can be lots of chipmunks on our porch. One of the kids and I will carry that chipmunk to the top of the road and let it loose away from the house. So that is the other part of the morning routine: chipmunk release.
Navigating Two Major Moments in History
How long have you been in the Catskills? What was that adjustment like?
We came up around March 11. It’s all been very interesting. The work adjustment has been less hard than I anticipated. It’s a little bit easier to run Wired remotely than I thought, but, it’s a little harder for my kids to be without their friends than I expected. They’re certainly incredibly blessed. We have a house with a lawn, and we put up two soccer goals and basketball hoop. They have a way to be outside. If they had been in New York, we would have been stuck in a small apartment, looking out the window, and never going outside for weeks or months. They have a huge advantage, but it was really hard on them to not get to see their friends and to interact socially.