Professor David Alm was a featured guest on the Lucie Beatrix Podcast earlier this month. In the nearly 75-minute episode, Beatrix focused on Professor Alm’s writing career but also asked about his running background and experience as the founder of a race series in New York called East River 5000.
Beatrix, a sub-elite runner and fashion model who lives in Brooklyn, launched the podcast in 2019 to explore topics in athletics, comedy, mental health, addiction, and modeling, and to highlight people she sees as having interesting stories of their own. Past guests include Justin Kantor, a co-founder of Le Poisson Rouge, a music venue in Greenwich Village; and Sofia Camacho, an elite runner and drag artist who won the 2024 New York City Marathon’s nonbinary division with a time of 2:31.
Beatrix met Professor Alm in 2021 when she participated in one of his track meets, the Victory 5000 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where she ran her personal best in the 5K in 16:59. She asked him to appear on the podcast because she had read his articles for magazines like GQ and Runner’s World, including his most recent feature on Sofia Camacho, and wanted to learn more about his writing process. She noted that his style is characterized by a high level of detail and intimacy with his subjects, often describing painful personal experiences and emotional journeys, and she wanted to know how he establishes such trust with the people he writes about. Alm answered that it’s a matter of spending a great deal of time with someone, never rushing it, and above all, being curious.
During the interview, which was taped at Floored Media in Rockville Center, Beatrix observed that Professor Alm frequently writes about marginalized communities, and asked if he consciously seeks out those groups. Alm replied that he never goes looking them, but rather that he simply wants to tell compelling stories, and often those involve people who have been sidelined by mainstream society. Beatrix was particularly curious about Alm’s op-ed about the sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson’s Olympic ban in 2021 after Richardson tested positive for THC at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, and his longer reported stories on Camacho and a woman named Connie Allen who was raised Satmar in Hasidic Williamsburg before leaving the community and finding her true self, largely through running.
Beatrix, who has also written for Runner’s World and other outlets, moved to New York after graduating from high school to pursue a career in modeling. She has been featured on the covers of Elle and Martha Stewart Weddings, among other magazines, and decided to launch a podcast because podcasts, she says, are what she had instead of a college education. Whenever she’s wanted to learn about something new, she has simply sought out the best podcasts on that topic. Starting her own seemed a natural transition.
The episode is available on all the major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.
