At 13, most teenagers are playing video games or hopping on the latest TikTok trend.

Some however, are starting their own podcasts. Now 15 years old, rising sophomore Nicholas Macha is going on two years of producing his weekly podcast called The Sunday Shakeout, Nicholas’ outlet on one of the things he’s most passionate about — running.  

With 82 episodes, 1.9K followers on Instagram, and averaging close to 200 listeners every week, Nicholas has carved out a place for himself within the broader running community. “ I began running in 2020. It was during the summer camps here at Prep actually,” Nicholas remembers. Eventually, he would be ready for his first 10K race. He enjoyed the experience and quickly became obsessed with the research and science of running. "Oftentimes what would happen is my parents would be sitting there and I’d start talking about random science training stuff and they would say, ‘you know, you should start a podcast.’” The rest is history. “I really liked the process of improvement... I kinda got addicted to that” he said.  Improvement is the major throughline of The Sunday Shakeout, as Nicholas regularly invites experts and other passionate runners to speak on what they’ve learned throughout their running career and what they hope to achieve in the future.  

When Nicholas isn't focused on improving his mile, he turns his efforts towards the Associated Student Body (ASB). Serving as a Class Executive his freshman year, Nicholas has been elected as Sophomore Class President and is excited to advocate for his peers next school year. When speaking with Nicholas, his humility and compassion for others shines through completely. Despite the pressure that typically comes with juggling many different co-curriculars, Nicholas is always focused on — in his own words — “the light at the end of the tunnel.” Seattle Prep’s mission is to create Men and Women for Others and students like Nicholas Macha make that goal easy. “Being a man for others encompasses a lot of things... part of that at Seattle Prep is to lead by example. I think that’s something that I’ve learned from my parents... day in and day out, helping others and that part of humility, I think, is really big.”