Off The Rails With Eric And Aisha

Aisha Praught-Leer is back, tanned, 35,000 steps deep, and full of things to say. Eric Jenkins has been holding it down solo for two weeks. The reunion episode runs long because neither of them wants to stop talking.
Discussed in this episode:
– The Europe trip: The whole thing was predicated on World Athletics governance meetings in Monaco — the first time Aisha has ever extended one of these trips beyond three days.
– Meeting Neilson Powless: Aisha recognized Neilson Powless immediately, decided not to interrupt his training cafe stop, and played it completely cool. He walked out of the cafe and recognized her first. They talked for a long time.
– Tour de France Grand Départ in Barcelona: VIP passes to the Stage One time trial finish
– Victor Campenaerts' Tour de France PSA: The Visma-Lease a Bike rider does a daily vlog on Instagram that Aisha recommends unreservedly.
– The Yankees hat observation: The coolest-person accessory in Europe right now is a Yankees hat
– South of France gripe: Everyone is vaping. Incessantly.
– European lunch culture: Aisha is trying to bring back the long lunch — sit down, eat a proper meal, no laptop, more than one course, enjoy it like a civilized person.
– Happy birthday Moo Deng: The pygmy hippo at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand turned two this week. 
– World Cup debrief: Aisha has been watching every game. Eric walked back some of his earlier skepticism.
– The bed episode fallout: Voicemails flooded in. Someone suggested Eric and Aisha should just kiss and find out. Another listener wanted to know the PR strategy behind recording from a Ali’s bed and also requested wet ham be eaten on stage at the Chicago live show.
– Monaco Diamond League recap: Emmanuel Wanyonyi’s 1000m world record; Julien Alfred goes 21.51; Agnes Ngetich’s 3000m world record attempt; Faith Kipyegon loses again; Graham Blanks almost wins the 5000m
– London Diamond League preview for July 18th: Start lists not yet published. Josh Kerr's mile world record attempt is the centerpiece.
– Voicemails include: One caller asks them to retire the word ‘niggle’ from track vocabulary; what to do about Meta Oakley AI glasses; did Eric ride a horse in Montana; strange things yelled on runs; advice for a freshman going into college; skinny margarita mile predictions
📞 Call in to (856) 279-0080‬ to leave us a voicemail with any question you may have, whether it’s running-related or not.
📲 Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or follow the show on Spotify to stay up-to-date with all the latest episodes.
🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffTheRailsWithEricandAisha
Follow your hosts on Instagram:
🗣️ Follow Eric Jenkins: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@_ericjenkins⁠⁠⁠⁠
🗣️ Follow Aisha Praught-Leer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@aishapraughtleer
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⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
Listening to “Off The Rails with Eric and Aisha” while running may result in uncontrollable laughter, side stitches, funny looks from strangers, and the occasional trip hazard due to snort-laughing mid-stride. Proceed with caution—and maybe stretch your abs beforehand. Use caution when wearing earbuds in public places—people will wonder if you’re okay. You are. You’re just having a really good time.

Eric Jenkins is on his second solo week and has recruited his first-ever Off the Rails guest host: Ali Feller, world-renowned podcaster, certified Rail Rider loyalist. They record from Ali’s bed in Hopkinton, NH — Eric's choice of location — after approximately an hour of technical chaos involving dead batteries, two phones and a call to Mac Fleet.
In this episode:
– Ali’s hospitality: On arrival, Eric was offered cucumber lemon water, Sprite, brownie bites, red-white-and-blue peanut M&Ms, pasta salad, Caprese salad, cheese balls, and fresh superhero muffins. Ali has never had soda in her life due to a childhood tonsil surgery and has therefore never had a Sprite.
– Fourth of July recaps
– Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce allegedly got married at MSG: Ali has gone full conspiracy theorist. She doesn't believe the wedding actually happened there. 
– The Scrabble Champion saga: In sixth grade, Ali was the first-ever Scrabble champion at Maple Street School. Her opponent — tall, smart, athletic, redhead, the one that got away — missed a round due to a family funeral. That was the week Ali pulled ahead.
– House of Dragons/doppelganger list: Eric claims Olivia Cooke from House of Dragons looks like Sinclaire Johnson.
– Nikki Hiltz wins the mile at Pre-Classic: Ali was screaming at the TV. Describes herself as not usually a sports girly but having moments, and this was one of them. 
– Men's Bowerman Mile: Cam Myers wins to become the first Australian to win the Bowerman Mile. Led from the moment the pacer stepped off. Yared Nuguse was very close behind, trying for an American sweep on home soil.
– Ali does not accept the absence of Jakob Ingebrigtsen: It's not the same without him.
– Other Pre-Classic highlights: Tate Taylor wins the men's 200 in 19.75 — a high schooler taking it to the pros. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden beats Sha’Carri Richardson in the women's 100 (10.84/10.85, photo finish). Brandon Miller wins the men's 800 to hand Cooper Lutkenhaus’ first loss of the season. Parker Wolfe wins the men's two-mile on Friday for one of the biggest wins of his career.
– Ali responds to the listener about loneliness: Last week, a listener called in about feeling lonely and struggling to make friends as an adult. Ali had been thinking about it all week.
– Voicemails: Track etiquette conflict — a woman with three kids refused to move out of Lane 1; a caller jokes that trail running is just "jogging and hiking"; A Portland, Maine listener asks whether Eric's 2014 NCAA DQ was the beginning of his PR career; team ritual question leads to Ali’s full hazing week story from Quinnipiac dance team.
📞 Call in to (856) 279-0080‬ to leave us a voicemail with any question you may have, whether it’s running-related or not.
📲 Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or follow the show on Spotify to stay up-to-date with all the latest episodes.
🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffTheRailsWithEricandAisha
Follow your hosts on Instagram:
🗣️ Follow Eric Jenkins: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@_ericjenkins⁠⁠⁠⁠
🗣️ Follow Aisha Praught-Leer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@aishapraughtleer
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⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
Listening to “Off The Rails with Eric and Aisha” while running may result in uncontrollable laughter, side stitches, funny looks from strangers, and the occasional trip hazard due to snort-laughing mid-stride. Proceed with caution—and maybe stretch your abs beforehand. Use caution when wearing earbuds in public places—people will wonder if you’re okay. You are. You’re just having a really good time.

Eric Jenkins is alone. Aisha is somewhere in Europe. He had a beach day yesterday with skinny margaritas, which pushed the recording to Monday morning, and is now having a conversation with himself that you are all privy to. Some people genuinely have no voice in their heads. Eric has multiple voices running simultaneous dialogues all day. This episode is basically that, out loud, for an hour.
– Big Oyster's PR: The snot rocket of the ocean convinced an entire generation it's an aphrodisiac, high-class, and date food.
– Paris Diamond League — the meet that almost got canceled
– Men's 100: Trayvon Bromell, 30 years old, two Achilles surgeries, lane eight, beats Noah Lyles.
– Men's 400: Collen Kebinatshipi runs 43.5 — a Diamond League record, breaking Jeremy Warner's 2008 mark that had stood for eighteen years.
– Men's 5K: Grant Fisher's first-ever Diamond League win in 12:54 under brutal conditions.
– Men's 1500: Cam Myers, 3:28, Australian record, #12 all-time performance. Front the whole way, just stretched it when the pacer dropped.
– Women's 1500: Georgia Hunter-Bell, 3:55 season's best. Cannot lose right now. With Faith Kipyegon absent from the 1500 circuit — for reasons that remain unclear (Eric speculates she may simply be bored of winning) — Georgia is the top athlete in the event and it's not particularly close at the moment.
– Men's 800: Marco Arop, 1:41.8, world lead, dominant wire to wire. This is the world-beating Marco we saw a couple of years ago. He's back.
– Women's 800: Audrey Werro, Diamond League record, meet record, world lead, national record. Femke Bol runs 1:55 in her fourth-ever 800m
– The London Marathon is going on for two days: Eric does not like it. He understands the business reasons (more entries, more money) but does not want sloppy seconds on the marathon.
– New NCAA age-eligibility rule: Once an athlete graduates high school or turns 19, a five-year eligibility clock starts. Eric likes it as a step in the right direction.
– Western States 100: Eric did not watch fifteen hours of it. He had a beach day. He checked in periodically.
Voicemails include: Rucky Chucky clarification attempt; is there anything wrong with split shorts after retirement; audiobook narration; how to run a hard 5K; the 1.99-mile debate; hard efforts post-retirement; Mondo's music vs. Rebecca Black; astrology and Enneagram; bouncing back from a bad race at nationals
📞 Call in to (856) 279-0080‬ to leave us a voicemail with any question you may have, whether it’s running-related or not.
📲 Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or follow the show on Spotify to stay up-to-date with all the latest episodes.
🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffTheRailsWithEricandAisha
Follow your hosts on Instagram:
🗣️ Follow Eric Jenkins: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@_ericjenkins⁠⁠⁠⁠
🗣️ Follow Aisha Praught-Leer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@aishapraughtleer
----
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
Listening to “Off The Rails with Eric and Aisha” while running may result in uncontrollable laughter, side stitches, funny looks from strangers, and the occasional trip hazard due to snort-laughing mid-stride. Proceed with caution—and maybe stretch your abs beforehand. Use caution when wearing earbuds in public places—people will wonder if you’re okay. You are. You’re just having a really good time.

Eric Jenkins calls in from Whitefish, Montana dressed in wedding merch, planning a horse ride, slightly winded from a four-mile run. Aisha is home in Boulder, heading back to New York tomorrow, having been everywhere again this week.
Discussed in this week's episode:
– Montana wedding: Eric is going to ride a horse this afternoon for the first time since age seven
– New York / West Side Highway: Aisha didn't know the West Side Highway was the place to run in New York when you're in Chelsea.
– World Cup and the World Cup hotties: Scotland has taken Boston and is drinking it dry.
– Jenny Simpson's cardiac event: While pacing a mile race at a community event in Raleigh associated with the Sir Walter Miler, Jenny Simpson crossed the finish line and collapsed a few minutes later.
– Ciara Mageean: European 1500m champion diagnosed with stage four cancer. Her attitude in public interviews has been remarkable — positive, fighting, and gracious.
– Long-term health of elite runners: Years of training stress, race stress, underfueling, and extreme cardiac demand — probably not ideal assessed by a doctor.
– Doha Diamond League: Postponed from its original slot due to the conflict in the Middle East and rescheduled into an awkward calendar position — long travel to Doha at a weird point in the season. Quiet meet overall. 
– Ostrava Golden Spike: Everybody who skipped Doha showed up here.
– Sam Blaskowski and Sha'Carri Richardson at the Dennis Mitchell Invitational: Blaskowski runs 19.99 in the 200. Sha'Carri runs 10.77
– Kenyan Trials — men's 1500: Timothy Cheruiyot beats Reynold Cheruiyot in 3:32.28 in Nairobi (approximately 5,500 feet elevation)
– Josh Kerr's mile world record attempt on July 18th in London: Both hosts are fired up.
– Voicemails include: Rashad asks about the naked bike ride; Bill from San Francisco has bathroom emergencies on runs
– Aisha signing off for two weeks: She's heading to Monaco for a World Athletics governance meeting, then Barcelona for the Tour de France Grand Départ, then some actual vacation.
📞 Call in to (856) 279-0080‬ to leave us a voicemail with any question you may have, whether it’s running-related or not.
📲 Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or follow the show on Spotify to stay up-to-date with all the latest episodes.
🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffTheRailsWithEricandAisha
Follow your hosts on Instagram:
🗣️ Follow Eric Jenkins: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@_ericjenkins⁠⁠⁠⁠
🗣️ Follow Aisha Praught-Leer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@aishapraughtleer
----
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
Listening to “Off The Rails with Eric and Aisha” while running may result in uncontrollable laughter, side stitches, funny looks from strangers, and the occasional trip hazard due to snort-laughing mid-stride. Proceed with caution—and maybe stretch your abs beforehand. Use caution when wearing earbuds in public places—people will wonder if you’re okay. You are. You’re just having a really good time.

Aisha Praught-Leer calls in from Los Angeles before heading to the LA Grand Prix as Eric Jenkins is in New Hampshire fresh off a 38-minute performance at the Market Square Day 10K.
Discussed in this episode:
– Sports overload: The Knicks, the World Cup, the Stanley Cup, NCAAs, Oslo, Love Island — all happening at the same time.
– World Cup vibes: Aisha became a soccer fan in Leuven in 2014 — the Belgian square packing out for games got her.
– Betty Bossard almost becomes a guest
– Eric's Market Square Day 10K
– A tribute to Ciarán O'Lionaird, an Irish miler and former OTC teammate of Aisha's. Big hugs to everyone who knew him. Rest in peace.
– Oslo Diamond League – Timothy Cheruiyot wins the Dream Mile in a photo finish over Yared Nuguse — both 3:48.21 / Cooper Lutkenhaus beats Wanyoni in 1:42.08. World lead, personal best, third on the all-time American list behind Bryce Hoppel (1:41.67) and Josh Hoey (1:42.01) / Gout Gout's off day in Oslo was sixth place, about a second slower than his Aussie Champs form / a good showing for the American men in the 5000m with Parker Wolfe 12:49.45, Grant Fisher 12:49.61, Graham Blanks 12:49.99
– NCAA Championships — Hayward Field record apocalypse
– Backwards hat trend: Habtom Samuel has started something
– Gudaf Tsegay's four-month ban: Letrozole — a fertility drug and aromatase inhibitor — found in a sample. Her statement: pregnant, prescribed by a doctor, pregnancy progressing perfectly, she simply didn't file the TUE paperwork.
– LA Grand Prix – Parker Valby ran 14:39 for a PB in the 5000m. Nikki Hiltz wins an 800m in 1:59.14 over Klaudia Kązmierska. Ethan Strand won the men's 1500m in 3:33.
– Voicemails include: Circus Circus horror story; the perfect Costco birthday party; why 800 meters are front-loaded while longer distances run even splits and who from the CITIUS team would you fight on the White House lawn .
📞 Call in to (856) 279-0080‬ to leave us a voicemail with any question you may have, whether it’s running-related or not.
📲 Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or follow the show on Spotify to stay up-to-date with all the latest episodes.
🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffTheRailsWithEricandAisha
Follow your hosts on Instagram:
🗣️ Follow Eric Jenkins: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@_ericjenkins⁠⁠⁠⁠
🗣️ Follow Aisha Praught-Leer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@aishapraughtleer
----
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
Listening to “Off The Rails with Eric and Aisha” while running may result in uncontrollable laughter, side stitches, funny looks from strangers, and the occasional trip hazard due to snort-laughing mid-stride. Proceed with caution—and maybe stretch your abs beforehand. Use caution when wearing earbuds in public places—people will wonder if you’re okay. You are. You’re just having a really good time.