Run Your Story Podcast · Allison Gaillard

Mark Carroll - "You get to choose your attitude"

·57 min·3 clips

Mark Carroll says, "You can't choose what's going to happen to you, but you can choose your attitude."

The episode opens with the familiar Run Your Story rhythm of gratitude, community thanks, and a sponsor mention before settling into Mark Carroll's story. Allison is out with a lost voice, so Greg carries the opening and sets up a conversation built around Mark's lifelong relationship with running. Mark's story is framed as one that began with troublemaking and eventually found its way into elite running. The tone stays warm, informal, and personal from the start. Mark talks about a runner he saw in passing and about hearing that athlete describe the Tokyo Marathon. He reflects on how serious running can still be humble and ordinary at the same time. The conversation turns toward his own year and the ways his body has made running harder. He says some days he can barely get in two miles. He admits that it makes him wonder whether his running career is winding down. He is candid about not expecting the career to last this long in the first place. That honesty gives the episode its emotional center. Mark then tells the story of a race day at Biola Battery that went wrong in several small, irritating ways. His favorite pink bounce ball bounced into a hole and disappeared into a drain sewer. His truck tire was flat when he got back. He still hit the 10K mark better than any 10K he had done before. Then he pulled something in his leg around mile seven and had to walk. He jokes about how dramatic that sounds, but the frustration is real. Even after that, he ends up waiting hours for new tires at Walmart. The episode does not treat these as separate disasters so much as one long example of a rough day. Mark uses it to land on the line that matters most: you cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose your attitude. That idea becomes the thread tying together racing, pain, recovery, and perspective. The show closes by thanking Patreon supporters and the Women's Resource Center, with a reminder about the This Is Life 5K on September 27th in Alabama. The whole conversation feels like a friendly run with someone who has seen enough to know that attitude is not a slogan but a practice. It leaves room for humor, weariness, and gratitude without trying to smooth any of them away.

As heard by us

A messy, honest runner story that turns attitude into the real finish line.

Mark Carroll's story lands as a plainspoken running conversation that shifts from troublemaker energy toward a steadier outlook on the road. The episode keeps returning to a simple spine: while the details of life cannot always be controlled, attitude and response still can.

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Why you'd press play

A runner who turns a bad day, a flat tire, and a lost bounce ball into a lesson.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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