Eighteen years of strength training. No running. And then — a 10K, a half marathon, a full marathon, a 50K, and a 100K — all in under two years.

Joel Eric Pinto is not a runner who discovered fitness. He is a fitness person who discovered running. And that distinction matters more than most people realise.

In Episode 254 of Run with Fitpage, Vikas Singh sits down with Joel — Co-Founder of Knox Studio and Nack, certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, Hyrox Worlds Qualifier, and ultramarathoner — for a conversation about what happens when eighteen years of strength training meets running, what longevity-focused fitness actually looks like in practice, and why building a community around fitness might matter more than any race result.

In this episode we covered:

• How a family history of bone degenerative disease sent an inactive engineering student to a gym inside a hospital
• Why Joel spent eighteen years training without ever running — and what that base gave him when he finally did
• How he went from struggling to complete two kilometers to finishing a 100K ultramarathon
• What his approach to VO2 Max, Zone 2, and sleep science looked like long before these became mainstream topics
• How a stress fracture and a weak left glute taught him more about running than any training plan
• Why he believes strength training and sleep matter more than mileage for most recreational runners
• What building Knox Run Club taught him about what keeps people consistent long after the initial motivation runs out

About Vikas Singh:
Vikas Singh, an MBA from Chicago Booth, worked at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, APGlobale, and Reliance before coming up with the idea of democratizing fitness knowledge and helping beginners get on a fitness journey. Vikas is an avid long-distance runner, building fitpage to help people learn, train, and move better.
For more information on Vikas, or to leave any feedback and requests, you can reach out to him via the channels below:
Instagram: @vikas_singhh
LinkedIn: Vikas Singh
Twitter: @vikashsingh101

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