Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 120. Chris Bennett, Nike Running Global Head Coach

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120. Chris Bennett, Nike Running Global Head Coach · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the run's gonna suck. But if you know that
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: most of the runs are really good and they're supposed
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to be really good, and then you have the ability
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to even change the way you look at a sucky run,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: then you have the ability to fall in love with running.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Hey Hurdler's Emily Avadi here with Episode one and twenty,
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  Speaker 2: the first of season three of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: writes it down with inspiring individuals to talk about everything
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  Speaker 2: athletes to aspiring entrepreneurs on what it really takes to
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• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Y'all.
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  Speaker 2: I feel so many ways about season three. I'm sitting
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  Speaker 2: episode topics, just everything that's happening right now.
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  Speaker 2: I have really been taking your feedback into account when
• 1:31
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  Speaker 2: of content that I'm bringing you, who I am chatting with,
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  Speaker 2: and so I hope that reflects in what you are
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  Speaker 2: seeing in the feed on the regular. I also recently
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  Speaker 2: share what I know with the hurdlers, with the hurdle
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  Speaker 2: community and beyond, and have some fun in the process,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: just like the mission statement says at the top of
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  Speaker 2: this show. Now let's talk about today's guest. Feel like
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I need a drum roll here, but I don't have
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  Speaker 2: a drum to do this on Chris Bennett.
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  Speaker 3: He's the Nike Running Global head coach.
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  Speaker 2: He's been someone that I have been trying to wrangle
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  Speaker 2: for a long time.
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  Speaker 3: If we are being.
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  Speaker 2: Honest, Bennett is a big deal in the running community,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and I love what it says in the Nike You
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: website about him that when Chris coaches runners, runners get better,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and that's because it's true, and in today's episode, he
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: makes sure to reiterate that better or best isn't just
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: defined as going faster or going longer.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: It's about how you feel.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Right, and Bennett makes me feel really great.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: In this episode, and he's going to do the same
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: for you.
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  Speaker 2: In today's episode, we talked about a lot of things
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: that you'd expect for a running to talk about, from
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: advice for newbies to veterans, and tips for running in
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the heat, but he also fills me in on his journey,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: one that.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Many people might not truly know about.
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  Speaker 2: You know, he was a stellar athlete growing up, running
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  Speaker 2: through high school into college, and he talks to me
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: in today's episode about a hurdle moment of sorts where
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: he struggled to remember his love for the sport. He
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: actually has his now wife to thank for helping him
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: rejuvenate his love for running, and I would argue that
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: that experience is what changed his entire future, his career path,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: and has him on this podcast today. I highly highly
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: recommend after you're done listening to this episode, make sure
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to download the Nike Run Club app and listen to
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: one of Bennett's audio guided runs. They have runs ranging
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: from five minutes to two hours and beyond, and it's
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: really helpful just to get out there and feel like
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: you're not alone. To get out there and have someone
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: not only giving you the words of inspiration that you
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: might need to hear, but also things like form cues
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: and important reminders to make you run better. Before we
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: get into it, I do want to give some love
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: to my sponsors. Thank you so much for partnering with
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Hurdle for this new seasons. These sponsors are how I
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: bring you this content week after week, so I highly
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: encourage you to click on over to the links in
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the show notes and give them a look. See first up,
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• 6:59
  Speaker 2: your off for a while and we haven't really gotten into.
• 7:01
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• 7:02
  Speaker 2: As always, especially right now, let's get some hype up
• 7:06
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• 7:10
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• 7:12
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• 7:16
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• 7:18
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• 7:21
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• 7:24
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• 7:26
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• 7:29
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• 7:30
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• 7:33
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• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I'm really excited for this one, y'all. Let's get to
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Coach Bennett with that, Let's get to hurdling today.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Nike Running Global head coach
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Chris Bennett, better known as Coach Bennett.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: How you doing, Coach, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I'd even forgotten my first name, so I appreciate you
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: reminding me, Chris, I got to remember that.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I even when I was naming this
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: file for me to save this and do I wrote
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Chris and double checked at about four times. You know,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: I feel like, do you ever miss your first name?
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  Speaker 2: Do people outside of the running community use your first name? No?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean growing up, I wasn't known as Chris.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Even in my house for the most part, my older
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: brother had come up with a nickname, Quid Kwid, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: so I was called that. And then when I was
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: in school, I was either Bennett or Little Bennett depending
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: on who was talking to me. So if it was
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you know, an older sister's friends or an older brother's friends,
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  Speaker 1: I was Little Bennett. Amongst my own friends, I was Bennett.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's gotten down to pretty much. My
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: wife is the only one who calls me by my
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: actual name.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Well, today I injured you with Chris, but to many
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: of the people listening to you, are definitely definitely coach.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I know I've put over the years now, Hurdle's been
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: around for about two and a half years, and I've
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: put out plenty of different feelers asking the hurdlers as
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I call them, who they wanted to hear from on
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the show, and time and time again. Your name is
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: at the top of that list, so I would be
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: it would be an understatement here for me to say
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: that I'm excited to have the opportunity for us to
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: finally connect today.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Now the honor is mine. I'm super excited that you're
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: having me so thank you.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So I know I've heard you say it many a
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: time that you've got a walk before you can run.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: So for the sake of this podcast, the walking is
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: going to look like you giving me insight into Chris
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: when maybe your parents and your family still called you that.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: So bring me back to growing up. And I know
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: you grew up in New Jersey, is that correct?
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I did the Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey. Yes,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: New Jersey.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Talk to me about what life was like when you
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: were growing up.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it was I from I mean from what I remember,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Unless I'm repressing a lot, as far as I can tell,
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  Speaker 1: I had an incredible childhood. I grew up in New Jersey.
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  Speaker 1: I was the fourth of five kids. My sister was
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the oldest, and then I was followed by four straight boys.
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  Speaker 1: So it was it was actually a pretty cool position
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in the family because I feel like everyone has, you know,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: that that chapter written about them in a baby book. Like,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: if you're the oldest child, you definitely have a chapter.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: If you're the first boy or first girl, you've got
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a chapter. If you're the middle child, you've probably got
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: two chapters. And then if you're the baby you've got
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a chapter, but no, there's no there's no chapter about
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  Speaker 1: four out of five. And I think that was kind
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of an advantage because you're kind of overlooked in a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: lot of ways and you kind of, I think, take
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: on a little bit of all the other siblings. So yeah,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it was it was a really it was a really
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: fun childhood. I mean, I'm a kid of the eighties,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and there were a lot of advantages to that too,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: just having three kids. Now. I grew up in you know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: sports was really big and music was really big, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: movies were really big in my family. And I always
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: kind of loved to read, so I always had access
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to tons of books. So I had a very I
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: had a very good childhood. It would take me time
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to really come up with some negatives. So I'm really lucky,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm lucky. And how I got introduced to running
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  Speaker 1: specifically because Jersey's got a really rich running culture, and
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  Speaker 1: especially for youth running. There's just a ton of middle
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  Speaker 1: school teams and when I was growing up, basically everyone
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  Speaker 1: kind of did cross country and everyone did track, and
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you know, you could do multiple sports. So it was
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: introduced to me as a very legitimate sport. It wasn't
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a sport that you did because you didn't make another team.
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  Speaker 1: It was just everyone did it so and I had
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: really really great youth coaches that loved the sport, loved coaching.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, I was introduced to running growing up in
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a really cool way.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Do you remember growing up, as you love to talk
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: about all the time, like those first runs and from
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: those first runs, did you immediately love it or was
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: it more of the community aspect as you highlighted to
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: be so awesome.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: The way I was introduced to it, there wasn't that
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: much running to the running, so you know, it was
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: you know, it was an opportunity to see your buddies
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: after school, and there was some working out, but it
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't intense, and the racing was exciting, but it was
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the same way that you know, right before tip off
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of a basketball game is exciting. You're nervous, you're scared,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: you're wondering if you're going to be able to measure up.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: You hope that you get to do something epic. The
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: harder parts of running weren't really there initially, so you know,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I was introduced to it and it was it was
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: more fun than anything else. It wasn't until I got
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to high school that it the difficult aspects, the more
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: challenging stuff, like the fact that you couldn't be lazy
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and you had to be pretty consistent in order to
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: get good, meaning you had to show up every day.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't like I commit to being on the team.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, the hard part of running is that commitment.
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  Speaker 1: You know. It's like you sign that commitment on a Monday. Well, Tuesday,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you show up and it's a blank piece of paper, like,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: are you going to sign on the dotted line again today?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: That was tough, and no, I did not like that
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I was a lazy kid. So I think I convinced
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: myself I hated running, and I think more than anything,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I really didn't like that side of me, the lazy part,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and I was probably a little bit ashamed of it,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and I knew it was a weakness. So rather than
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: dealing with it, I think I just decided to hate running.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And it took me a couple of years in high
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: school to I think admit to myself that I loved running.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I just I had to get better at a few things,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and I had to deal with a few of my
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: own weaknesses in order to I think, follow through on
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: whatever potential I had. That's a tough you know, I mean,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: even saying it, even saying it now, you know, that's
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that's that's a lot on a sixteen year old to
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: kind of figure out. And I think that's why it
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: took so long for me to really start running consistently
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and start running consistently well totally.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And I mean we'll get back to your story very soon,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: but I think you hit the nail on the head
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: on what an issue is for many runners. It's this
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: idea that they come into it with this preconceived notion
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: either that A I hate running or B I'm not
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: a runner. So, having gone through that yourself now as
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: a coach, what do you tell people when they say
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: those things to you?
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm just I'm I'm very straightforward. I see you don't.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: You don't hate running, You just hate running the wrong way,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: which is a totally valid reason to hate running. I mean,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I think if you do anything the wrong way, you're
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: gonna end up hating it, you know. I it could
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: be anything, could be opening a door that says push
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and you keep pulling on it. I mean, eventually you're
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: gonna hate trying to open this door because it just
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: never opens up. I mean, but you're doing it wrong.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So I think from a coaching perspective, I usually tell
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: people very very early on, like, my job is not
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to tell you what you want to hear. My job
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: is to tell you what you need to hear. And
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: sometimes those things come together and what you want to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: hear is what you need to hear, but it's not always.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So I think that the first key is to be
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: honest with people. There's nobody hates running, okay, if they're
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: if they're being totally honest. Again, there's a lot of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: aspects that are hard about running, and running is tough
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: at times, but most of that hatred towards running is
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: really just showing up as hatred of running. But it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it's something.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Else, So what else would it be?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Then if you're just convinced like, oh, it's so hard,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Oh I hate it. Oh, there are so many things
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: that I would rather be doing. So if someone feels
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: that way and it's something else, then what is the
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: something else?
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Oh that's the interesting part, And that's that's the that's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: one of the fun parts about coaching and and that's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I like to talk, and I don't just
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: mean me talking. I think talking is a conversation. So
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I love having conversations, and I think that's the that's
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the part that's interesting because coaching is mostly conversation. It's
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: not numbers. It's it's talking to the athlete and trying
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to unravel these things. It's it's to better know the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: athletes you can better coach them. So it can be
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: any number of things. I mean, it can be the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: fear of failure. Uh. It could be the fact that
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: your initial introduction to running scarred you in some way.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of different ways to scar somebody,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it can be people mocked you
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: for not being able to do something that other people
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: could do. It could be the fact that you tried
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: too hard and as a result, you ended before you
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to or ended before you thought you should be
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: able to. It could be the fact that you never
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: achieved the success that the people around you achieved because
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you were measuring success the same way they were, and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: maybe you should have been measuring it in a slightly
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: different way. I mean, sometimes it's the coach that ruined
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the experience. For you. Sometimes it's teammates, you know. So
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different reasons why someone's not going
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to enjoy anything, not just running. You know. It can
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: be school, it could be math, it could be you know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the ability to take a risk or a chance on yourself.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of different things that can just be
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: totally ruined by a situation. But if it's not the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: actual thing, if it's not the running that was terrible,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: then it also offers us the opportunity to reintroduce it
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in a way where you don't hate it. I'll give
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you a ridiculous example. Do you like strawberries.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I love strawberries.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love strawberries too. Do you remember the first
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: time you ever had a strawberry?
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it was a delightful experience, probably in a
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: strawberry field with my mom. We probably handpicked.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Them exactly, I mean, and I'm guessing it was probably
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the same We had a couple of farms around us.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: We probably went to one picked a strawberry. Was unbelievable.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Now imagine if the first time you had a strawberry
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it was rancid, it was rotten, it was disgusting. Now
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the people around you are going to say, no, no, no, no, no,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: believe me, it's strawberries are delicious. They're not all rotten.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: They're not all rancid and gross. We don't know why
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we let you eat that one. Try this one, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: you eat that one, and this one's moldy and gross
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and disgusting. You eat and you're like, oh my gosh,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: strawberries are terrible. No, they're not all like that. But
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: then the third and the fourth and the fifth one
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: are horrendous. Okay, maybe the seventh or tenth one or
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: twelfth one tastes pretty good, but then you've got twelve
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and twelve in a row that are horrible. Again, you're
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: gonna stop having the strawberries. And what a shame that
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: would be. Because I don't remember my first time I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: had strawberries. I just know that probably, if I have
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: to guess here, out of my first hundred strawberries, ninety
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: eight of them were good. It got to a point
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: where I was I was okay with when I have
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that crappy strawberry, I'm like, but they're not all like that.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while there's a really crappy strawberry.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Now I have to believe that. That's one of the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: reasons why I love strawberries. But if you flip it
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and ninety eight of them are terrible, you're not going
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to have one hundred and one strawberries. You're just gonna stop.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And it's this same thing with anything. It's the same
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: thing with running. If you're running the wrong way, or
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you're running with the wrong people, or you're running in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the wrong environment time and time again, eventually it's got
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to be the running, or you believe that it's got
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to be the running. But if you can suddenly introduce
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: people to a good strawberry and another good strawberry and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: another good strawberry, eventually they're going to say, hey, you
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: know what, maybe I just had a really bad batch
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: of strawberries. So it's the same thing with them running.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And I know I just talked about strawberry. It's for
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: about two minutes, which is kind of weird. It just
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: seemed to make sense in my head at the moment.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: But that's I think from a coaching perspective, my job
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: is to make sure the first time you have a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: strawberry it's delicious. It doesn't mean that once we're out
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: in the wild. You're not going to have a bad
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: strawberry every once in a while. But as long as
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you realize that you know what most of them are
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: really good, and if you know how to pick a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: good strawberry and how to get rid of a bad strawberry,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: how to stop eating a bad strawberry, then you're going
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to enjoy them more and more and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: more and not give up on them. And I think
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing with running. It doesn't mean that
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: every run is going to be great. It doesn't mean
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: every run is going to be good. Sometimes the run's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: going to suck. But if you know that most of
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the runs are really good and they're supposed to be
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: really good, and then you have the ability to even
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: change the way you look at a sucky run, then
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: you have the ability to fall in love with running.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And that's I think that's the ultimate goal of a coach.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like this begs a follow up question, which
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: is summer running in that I mean, right now here
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: in New York City, you're not too far away. We're
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: in a string of really hot days, and I think
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: that when it gets to these hot days, these humid days,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: these runs that need to happen at like five am
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: for them to feel like they're a good run. A
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: lot of people fall into that pattern of feeling like
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: they're just going through a box or a carton maybe
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of bad strawberries. So when it gets to that kind
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: of trend, how does someone keep showing up for the
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: run when they feel like time and time again, it's
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: just a MOLDI one, a crap one, you know, the drill.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I love the fact that we're keeping the strawberry think
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: going for.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: At least another two minutes here. Yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Right. I was about to say, well, you know, when
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it's hot out, you can refrigerate your strawberries, and I mean,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: but this is this is the thing there's I think
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: on hot days again, if we're using summer as an example,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the first thing you do is you adjust your run.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of different ways you can adjust
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: your run. Okay, So, and I tell people this all
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the time when it comes to like a training program,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: because that's you have flexibility in a training program. You
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: have a ton of flexibility and training program. And the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: reason why I say this is because I write training programs,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: so they're written or meant to be written in pencil
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: with an eraser, because when I write one, I'm thinking
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: perfect scenario. Everything is great. It never gets too hot,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: it never gets too cold, you never break up with
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: your boyfriend or girlfriend. You're always motivated to run, you know,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like there's there aren't people walking the opposite direction in
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: lanes one through four for some reason with their two
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: dogs that aren't on leashes when you're trying to do
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a workout, like everything's perfect. But that's not real. So
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a training plan is meant to be adjusted. And that's
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: technically that's coaching. Coaching isn't running a training program. Coaching
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: is adjusting the training program. So if you have a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: really hot day, the first thing you do is well
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: for me personally, would be I would adjust what time
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I'm running. Now, that doesn't mean everyone can do that,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: but right before the sun comes up is going to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: be the coolest part of the day. Not everyone can
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: run at that time of day. Not everyone has the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: discipline to do that. I definitely did not, But I
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: will say this, I know what the worst time of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the day to run is, and it's between two and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: maybe four thirty. I'm not running there. I'm also going
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to try to run in the shade, not because it's cooler,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: but because the sun's radiation isn't going to giving me
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a double whammie of heat and radiation. I also know
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: that if I can run maybe later in the day
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: when the sun sets, some of the edge is gonna
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: be taken off. If it's hot and humid, I'm gonna
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: make sure I'm running somewhere where I've access to water
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: just in case I need it. And this is the thing.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: You're gonna need it. You're gonna need it to put
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: inside you and on top of you. To make the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: run better. I'm gonna have to maybe adjust the distance
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and the pace, maybe both. So there's all of these
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: things that you're going to do because the goal is
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: not for you to suffer through a terrible run. It's
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: how can I have the best possible run I can
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: have considering the conditions. That doesn't mean what's written in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the training program has to happen exactly. It's what's the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: spirit of the day. How do I do that as
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: best as I possibly can? And then coach a lot
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of people equate these adjustments of just being soft and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a wimp and we and that's just bs when you're
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: doing that, you're coaching. That's what you're doing. You're saying
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: it's ninety degrees out, it's eighty five percent humidity. It
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: calls for uh, you know, twelve k or seven miles
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: at seven minute mile pace. Like, okay, that's if it's
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: seventy degrees and with a light breeze, it's hot out.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Adjust Maybe that means you're gonna run seven miles, but
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you're gonna stop and hit every single water fountain in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Central Park along the way, and the pace is going
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to be thirty seconds slower. That's the spirit of the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: run when it's this warm, when it's this humid. So again,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's just giving people the freedom to run
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the right way as opposed to what most people think,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: which is if I adjust, if I tweak, I'm not
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: good enough, and that's bs.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I love that tidbit of advice. I can say that
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I've definitely been adjusting a lot. And I think what
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you're saying here is really just a men of like
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: give it what you have and do the best with
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: what you have, and stop being so hard on yourself.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Like running is about, at the end of the day
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: for most of us, having a good time. And so
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: it's not about sludging through the thickness and you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: tiring yourself out to the point of heat exhaustion, especially
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: right now. It's about finding the goodness in running, no
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: matter when or where you might be.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and go back to the purpose too, I mean,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: if you're going out and this is another thing, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: some of it is some mental gymnastics, but a lot
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of running involves mental gymnastics. If it's really hot and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: humid out, okay, and you're supposed to do a run,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: sometimes the best thing to do is say, Okay, let's
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: pretend it's really beautiful, it's cool, maybe it's a little
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: cloudy out, it's the perfect environment for a run. How
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: is this run going to feel if I do it correctly? Okay,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Just because the weather conditions change doesn't mean it should
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: change how the run feels. The pace and the distance
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: may change, but the effort you give should not change.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times what happens is when the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: environment changes, people change the effort with it, which is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: not what you're supposed to do when you're running. If
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to run easy, regardless of the conditions, the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: run should feel easy. And what's going to make it
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: feel easy is going to be adjusting the pace of
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the distance. But what most people do is they say, Okay,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the goal of today is not an easy run. The
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: goal of today is to run this distance at this pace.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And that's again that's BS. That's actually not the goal.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: The goal is to run an easy run. So you
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: adjust distance or pace in order to have an easy
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: run with the correct conditions. People get this when you
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: talk about altitude. Very few people say, well, you know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I ran at ten thousand feet and I didn't change
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: my paces or distance. Of course you did. You were
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: forced to do it, and you don't complain about it.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: But when people deal with extra temperatures and weather conditions
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason they're you know, the our intelligence goes
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: out the window and we just make bad decisions when
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it comes to running, and that leads to a bad run,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and that leads to again a ripple effect where you
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: start taking it into future runs and people burn themselves out.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, you said something that I think is really important,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: which is that every run has a purpose. And for
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: many of the people listening to this podcast, running as
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: a whole probably took on a little bit of a
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: different purpose with what was going on in the pandemic.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: So for the athletes that you work with, and I
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: would argue that's many athletes on a large scale, although
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: maybe not one on one. What have you been talking
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: about when it comes to how they can better handle
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the sport and what running gives them during this god
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: unforeseen time.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually if you separate the negative, if you
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: separate obviously this global pandemic and you focus on the running,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's been and actually a really powerful few months,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I think for the sport of running, for all runners.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And the reason why is because prior to this you
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: were no one was really forced to explore running beyond
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the way they knew it. So you have a lot
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of people who get into the sport for a few reasons,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and the most popular ones are obviously I want to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: increase my fitness, and and usually it's it's something even
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: more specific like I want to lose weight. I think
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: gaining fitness is a far more powerful and longer lasting
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: goal than losing weight. I think losing weight is a
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: pretty terrible primary reason. I think you should you should
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: really be trying to gain and not lose things when
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: you run. But so there was that, and and it's
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: really to get ready for a race. So while they
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: alm to do a five k or I'm gonna try
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: to do a half marathon or a marathon, and those
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: are those are very very narrow reasons to go for
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a run. In fact, any individual run should have a
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: ton of different purposes for why you're doing it. And
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I think what happened was when you got rid of
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the races, and then on top of that, you had
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: this incredible amount of stress from the outside coming in,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the fear of the pandemic, the fear of what's next.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: It was it's a very very scary time, and running
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: became something different. It became an opportunity to go out
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: and find a little peace out on the run. It
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: became an opportunity to say, Okay, my day was totally
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: completely out of control. It's hard for me to understand
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the world I'm living in right now because everything is
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: out of whack. But I pressed start on my watch,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: and I ran around my block a few times where
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I ran along the water or on a treadmill or
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: around my apartment, and I pressed stop, and I saw
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I ran for this distance, and I ran for this time,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and I am proud of that, for a little bit
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of time, I was able to get better at something,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I was able to accomplish something, I was able to
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: build some confidence in a tough situation as something to
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: be proud of. And all of these things started to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: bubble up, and people looked at running as an avenue
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to do a hell of a lot more than cover
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: distance over a certain time, or to run a five
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: k as fast as they could, or to lose a pound.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Suddenly it was I feel a little bit calmer, or
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I can be a better partner, or I feel like
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I have a little clarity for the first time today.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Running was a salvation for a lot of people when
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: it was really just an opportunity to get ready for
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a race, or you know, to get a beach bot
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: or whatever. You know other reasons people had. And listen,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not discounting any of that stuff, but I think
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: running can be about a hell of a lot more
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: than just losing some weight or crossing a finish line.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And I think people discovered it. And I'll tell you what,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: If you have basically a reservoir of different reasons for
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: why you run, it's much harder to show up with
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: no motivation. If it's only to get faster, okay, that's
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you're going to run out of gas pretty quickly. If
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: it's only to lose weight, you're going to run out
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: of gas pretty quickly. But if it's an opportunity to
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: again deal with stress, find a little joy, have some
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: time to yourself, explore. You know you're going to show
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: up some days where you don't want to get faster.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: The weight thing isn't that big of a deal to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you right now, but you know what, you do need
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: a little alone time. You do need a little peace
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: in your life. And suddenly again, if you've got a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: lot of purposes for our run, to me, that lends
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: itself to having a lot of excuses to run, as
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: opposed to a lot of excuses to not run.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: For sure, for sure, okay, so you yourself, bring you
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: back to your personal story. You are in high school,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: you're loving running, and then you head on to college
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: and you do some of it there as well.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, I was lucky to go to the University of
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: North Carolina at Chapel Hill and run for the tar
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Heels for five years, red shirted. A couple of seasons,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: So why go to college for four when you can
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: go for five. I ran cross country and indoor an
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: outdoor track, and yeah, but it was but I kind
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: of ended up repeating the same mistakes I made in
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: high school in college. I got to college, and which
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: happens to a lot of athletes, when they get to college,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: they just lose focus. It's a different environment compared to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: high school. I was a part of a very good
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: high school program, very tight high school program. When I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: got to college was a little bit looser, and I
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: kind of lost my way. And again I got to
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a point where I just I wasn't enjoying running. I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: convinced myself I wasn't enjoying running, and really what it
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: was similar to high school. I just wasn't very happy
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: with who I was becoming. I was back to being lazy.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I was very undisciplined, and I was saying, maybe it's
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I don't like running and that's why I'm not running well.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And it really was coming down to the fact that
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: I just I wasn't committing to something I cared about.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if shame is the right word,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: but it was pretty close because I was letting my
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: teammates down. I was letting myself down, and rather than
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: acknowledging it, I was saying it's running's fault. And it
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't until I actually started dating who is now my
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: wife that I kind of found another avenue back into
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the sport the right way, and that was I think
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: my junior year in college, and everything kind of turned
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: around from there on out.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: all about my sponsor for Sigmatic. They're a wellness company
• 35:16
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• 35:21
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• 35:28
  Speaker 2: and not in the way that you're probably thinking, but
• 35:31
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• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Disclaimer, I have never done the other kind of mushrooms anyway.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Lion's name and Chaga, all right, they are two of
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: the mushrooms in my favorite four Sigmatic products, including coffees,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: tea's elixirs, and protein powders, and.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: They make the major difference.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Often called the smart mushroom, Lion's main helps to support memory,
• 35:55
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• 35:56
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• 36:00
  Speaker 2: We are trying to say sharp and do our best work.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, there are so many days I get
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  Speaker 2: wrapped up, sidetracked. I'm running from my shower to my
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: desk and I sit down and I'm like something's missing,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And that something is definitely my four Sigmatic coffee. Once
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I start sipping that, I feel like I have my
• 36:19
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• 36:24
  Speaker 2: trying to write the next great novel, or just trying
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: to get through the workday, four Sigmatic is great for you.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: And I know what you're thinking.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Mushroom coffee sounds delicious.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I get it. I know.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Listen, it doesn't taste like mushrooms at all. You have
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: got to trust.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Me on this. It is delicious.
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• 37:15
  Speaker 2: What did your wife bring to you that you didn't
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: have before when it came to running.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Well, she was coming back to running too. So she
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: had been an extraordinary runner in high school and then
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I think after a freshman year in college, stepped away
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: from the team and then came back to it. So
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: she had decided this is something I want to do.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And I was dragging her down. And that's a really
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: terrible feeling when you realize you're you're playing a part
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: in someone not achieving everything they can achieve. And she
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: basically had said, look like, this is important to me,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: So you're either running with me or I'm leaving you behind.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And so it was, you know, which I could translate
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to I'm about to get dumped. And I cared about
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: her and I cared about running, and suddenly it was just, Honestly,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I'd like to say it was a long process, it
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: was immediate. I suddenly realized, Wow, I am screwing over
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: myself and a lot of people around me, and I
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: just stopped. It was cold Turkey. The next day, we
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: got up really early for a morning run. I mean,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I remember, this is a long time ago, and my
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: entire career changed, and I could see how I was
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: acting very very clearly, and I could see all the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: mistakes I had made and it's very easy to correct
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: mistakes when you know you're making them. And from there
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: on out, I was pretty aware of what the mistakes
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: were to make, which meant I had a pretty good
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: understanding of how not to make them.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: It's a really interesting perspective. It's easy to correct mistakes
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: if you know that you're making them, because I think
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: that a lot of the time. I mean, maybe it's
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: not so much a mistake, but when you're set in
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: your way about a certain thing, it does take that
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: external person or thing or what I call on the
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: show hurdle moments to kind of snap you out of
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: maybe how something has been just because that thing was
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: comfortable or what you were used to.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and look, we are wonderful creatures at creating excuses
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: for ourselves. They can be excuses to do something great,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: or they could be excuses to do something less than great.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And I had just gotten into a really nice rhythm
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: of just making excuses for why I wasn't achieving certain things.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: And again, like I think one of the jobs of
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: a coach is to help you understand what mistakes are
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: possible and certain ways to make those mistakes. And again,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: like I was having a conversation once with a coach
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: who says, sometimes you got to let someone fall down.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: You got to let them fall down so they get hurt.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I said, that's just about the dumbest thing I've ever
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: heard in my life. I totally disagree with that. I
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: would rather explain to an athlete, Listen, when you fall down,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: it hurts, and here are a few ways to not
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: fall down. And if you trust me, then odds are
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: you're not going to need to fall down to understand
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it hurts. So, yes, there are life lessons that you
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: can live and learn from. But we have this wonderful
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: community of human beings on the planet. There's what eight
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: billion of us. That's a lot of life lessons. If
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: you don't take advantage of other people's life lessons, you're
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: an idiot. They're there learn from them. It doesn't mean
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: you're not going to make the same mistakes. But I'll
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: tell you what, if you're open to learning and you're
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: not arrogant, odds are you can learn a hell of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: a lot from other people and make less mistakes in
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the process.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: So you're getting back into running, and it goes quite
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: well because not only do you do pretty damn good
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: in college, but then post college you head off to
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: run for Nike for five years.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I did. There weren't too many opportunities back then to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: run post collegiately. One of them was with the Nike
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Farm Team, which was based at Stanford University and was
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: started by a gentleman with the name of Jeff Johnson,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: who if you're kind of a Nike junkie, you know
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: him as employee number one. So he was the first
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: hire by Phil Knight, the founder, with Bill Bowerman and
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Jeff actually came up with the name Nike. Phil Knight
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: wanted to call it Dimension six. So Jeff, in a
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, saved what could have been a disaster.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he was my first coach. Just one of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the sweetest, kindest, most brilliant people I've ever met, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I was very lucky I went out. I moved out
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: there and ran for the Farm team for five years
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: and it was an awesome experience. I mean, the cool
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: thing was is I went from being the best miler
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Carolina to then moving out and running for the Farm team,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: where you know, obviously Stanford was training to run any
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: given day at the track. I mean, I could be
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the tenth or twelfth or thirteenth best miler at the
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: track that day. And to me, that was awesome because
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I wasn't one of those people who felt like, you know,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I can't surround myself with better people. I wanted to
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: surround myself with better people, like that was the only
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: way I was going to get better. So and it's
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: like this deal you have to make, and I think
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: it's an important one to make that if you want
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: to get better, you may be guarantee that you never
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: win a race ever again. And I pretty much guarantee
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: that I was never going to win a race ever again.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I think in five years, you know, I won maybe
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: three races, and two of them were like road races
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: that you know I was supposed to go to to
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: get a workout in. So I mean, like when I
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: was racing against legit competition, I just stopped winning, but
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I got better. So again, it's running is one of
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: those sports where again you truly have to measure success
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of different ways, because if you don't, you're
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: just going to run yourself into a wall. And I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: was totally okay with never winning a race ever again
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: if it meant I at least could challenge myself and
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: have an opportunity to try to get as good as
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: I could be.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: So, what was your biggest goal while you were running
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: with Nike for those five years, because during that time
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: you also had a job in finance, right, Yes, I.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Worked full time in the private client group for Merrill
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Lynch in Menlo Park. There's not an incredible amount of
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: riches if you're a pretty good distance runner. So I
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: had two goals. I mean, my biggest goal was I
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: wanted to break four minutes in the mile, because that's
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: just a legendary barrier and had been something that I
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: dreamed of once I kind of fell in love with
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the sports. I wanted to break four minutes in the mile,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to qualify for the Olympic try, not
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the Olympics. I had teammates. Their goal was to qualify
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: for the Olympics. Mine was to qualify for the Olympic trials.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: And the short answer is because why is because they
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: were just better than me and I wasn't good enough
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: to run in the Olympics. No matter how hard I worked,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I was never going to be good enough to qualify
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: for the Olympics. I knew that. It didn't make me sad.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: It in a lot of ways, it excited me because
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I got the train around people who were good enough
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to have that goal. Mine was simply to qualify for
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: the trials. And the reason why I wanted to qualify
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: for the trials was I wanted to I think that's
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the that's, to me, is the most exciting track and
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: field event in our sport. I'm biased obviously some Americans,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: so it's the US Olympic Trials, but any trials is.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I just find it more exciting than the Olympics because
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: there's so much on the line for athletes that are
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: sacrificed so much, and that struggle to get third is
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: just so beautiful and heartbreaking. And I just wanted to
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: stand on a line and look to the left and
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: right and say this is These are the best, you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred meter runners in my country, and I belong
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: with them.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: So how does that pan out for you?
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I missed qualifying by about a second and a
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: half in two thousand for the trials, and then in
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: two thousand and four I got hurt three weeks before
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the window closed to get a qualifying time, So it
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: didn't work out so well. I also didn't break four
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: minutes for the mile. My high school goal was I
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: wanted to anchor the championship distance medley relay pen relays,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: and I was tied for the lead with one hundred
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: meters to go and then got drilled by three different teams.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: So I had three major goals in my career and
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I was zero for three. I was very successful at failing,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: you could say.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: When you quote unquote fail at all three of these
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: schools at different times. I think a lot of people
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: they come to these moments and they really let themselves
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: get down. Did you go through a point where you
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: allowed yourself to kind of embrace this failure and then
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: move on from it.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: How did that work for you?
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, in sports, it's it's different than failure I
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: think in other parts of our lives. And what I
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: mean by that is it, you know, there's the pen relays.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Failure in high school was devastating because there wasn't another's
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: chance to do that.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I was a senior in high school and that was it,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: and that was brutal, and I felt incredibly alone, and
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I felt incredibly sad, and I felt like I had
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: let a whole bunch of people down because I was
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the last person holding the baton, and I remember for
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a decent amount of time that that hurt. I mean,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: it still haunts me, and I think that's okay too.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: But I also having I also coached high school for
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: seven years, and this was very important to me, was
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: when if I'm going to be challenging people to give
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: everything they've got to something with the real distinct possibility
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: that it's not going to happen, then I am inviting
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the possibility of failure and their heartbreaking. And to me, though,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that's a beautiful part of sports and life. Because if
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I had walked away from losing a pen and I
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: didn't care or I wasn't affected by that, then did
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: it matter? And I think you know, when your heart
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: breaks over something, it's proof that you cared, it's proof
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that you had passion for something. And yeah, the pendulum's
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: got to swing both ways. So the pen thing haunted
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: me in two thousand. I just said, well, I'm just
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I missed it by a second and a half. I'm young,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make it next time. And that's the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: thing with running. When you run your best you never
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: know it's your best. You just assume there's something else.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's never anyone I've met ever in my
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: career as a coach or an athlete who said a
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: personal best and then said that's it. I'm never going
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: to run better. They immediately are like, well, let's get
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: back to the drawing board and let's get a little
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: bit faster. This is great. I made this mistake and
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: that mistake and I missed time in Remember when I
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: rolled my ankle, you know, walking off the curb. This time,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I won't roll my ankle. I'm gonna run so much faster,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and that's exciting. So I just assumed that I was
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: going to make it in two thousand and four, and
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I assumed I was going to break four minutes in
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: the mile. So when those when the four minute mile
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: didn't happen, that was kind of a delay because you
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: just assume it's going to happen. It didn't happen this time,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen next time. It didn't happen this time,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen next time. Not making it in
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: two thousand and four, Yeah, it hurt the most when
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I was watching it in the stands because I think
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: three or four of my teammates made the final for
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the fifteen hundred at Trials, and I was sitting on
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the backstretch watching and I knew I was as good
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: as most of them, and I could have been there,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: and I knew that I wasn't going to run again
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: next time, so that hurt. And again, I think that's
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: part of the reason why I love Trials so much,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: is because it's impossible for me to not watch the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: men's or women's fifteen hundred and not get a little
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: upset because I know that I really dedicated a large
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: part of my life to be on that starting line
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: that a bunch of men and women are on right now.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: But I also think it's part of the reason why
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I love it. I again, I think that I'm one
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: of those people that if you're upset, then be upset,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: you know, don't don't fake it. You know, like if
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: you need to cry, then cry your ass off. If
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: you're pissed, then be pissed and end on the flip side.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: If you're happy, then be happy. If you if you
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: did something great, then celebrate your ass off. Don't dim
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: your light, you know, for anybody, because I think it
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: has to be both ways, and I think that's part
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: of being human. And we kind of rob ourselves of
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: what that means in either direction when we pretend we're
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: not said, or we pretend we're not happy.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: I can totally relate to that. I mean, when you
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: look back on the you know, the sub four mile
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: goal or aiming for that Olympic trials, do you have
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: any regrets per se?
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, absolutely, tons tons. I also, I mean, now
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: if we're gonna like rip down a bunch of posters,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I utterly despise the no regrets poster, you know, or
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the no regrets shirt or something like that, Like there's
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: this more BS. To live a life without regrets is asinine.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna make mistakes. To not regret those
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: mistakes as stupid, it doesn't mean that you can't learn
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: from them. I did, But yeah, I had tons of regrets.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: I mean there were times when I went out and
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: you know, and went out drinking or partying while I
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: was training and ended up getting sick and I lost
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: training time and as a result, I didn't run as
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: fast as I could have. And to look at that
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and say, oh, I don't regret that because I learned
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done that. Duh. I mean, I knew
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done that, and I did it, and
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: as a result, there were consequences. I regret that. I mean,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: so yeah, I had I had tons. I mean, you
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: got to remember, my career is littered with me being
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: lazy or selfish, making dumb decisions, which all helped me
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: make a big I think helped me become a very
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: good coach because I've made almost all the mistakes you
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: can make. I've ignored injuries, I've tried to run through
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: things I shouldn't have run through. I've cut corners when
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have and as a result, yeah, I've I
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: can take advantage of all of those now when I'm
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: working with people, and I'm thankful for that, but it
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't change the fact that I regret some of those things.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean when I was in the best
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: shape of my life, I was in the best shape
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: of my life. So I ignored the fact that my
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: achilles hurt because I just want to do one more race,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: because I think this is the one when I'm going
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: to break four minutes. And then it doesn't happen, and
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: my achilles hurts a little bit more. But I'll just
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: ice it and I'll just keep running on it because
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: I think I'm going to break four minutes. And next thing,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, two days after Internationals, I'm you know,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: in a boot and I missed outdoor track when I
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely positively if I have to speak in hypotheticals here,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: can you ever be absolutely positively and hypothetical, Well, for
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: this one, we're going to be. I would have broken
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: four minutes and outdoors and I didn't because I was
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: screwing around with an injury because everything was going great
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: except for that, and I ignored it. So yeah, I
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: have tons of regrets and I take advantage of as
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: many of them as I possibly can.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: So you move back to the East Coast because a
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: job opens up at your high school. Talk to me
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: about that job and how that job led you to Nike.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Well, my wife and I first moved back to North Carolina.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: I took a job with Morgan Stanley. So running was
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: done and I was still in finance, and we moved
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to North Carolina. And at this point we had my
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: son Jack and my daughter Maggie, and I didn't want
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: to be working in finance at all, and in the summers.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: This shows you what a total geek I am. I
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: would use some of my vacation time to go volunteer
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: at a cross country camp for high school kids. So
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to be around the sports. So, you know,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: there were other people that were taking vacations in really
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: nice places, and I was. I was going to the
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: mountains of Pennsylvania to spend six days with teenagers and
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: get them ready for a cross country season. And I
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: was in heaven. And I don't know if this might
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: have been the second or third year I was doing this.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: It was in the end, during the end of August,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I got a call I was at camp saying a
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: history position opened up, which never open up. History teachers
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: never quit, okay, because it's just the greatest job in
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: the world. And a position finally opened up at the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: high school I had gone to, and would I be
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: willing to come in and interview for it? And you know,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I called my wife and said, can I be gone
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: an extra like day or two, I'm going to drive
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: to New Jersey and I'm going to take this interview,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And she said, go for it. So I went, got interviewed,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: and they offered me the job right after the interview.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: The you know, the rub here is that class starts
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: in like a week. Okay, I've never taught before, and
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: I also didn't know what they were gonna pay me, so,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: but I just wanted to teach and coach. That's what
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I had always wanted to do. I wanted to teach
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: and coach. I knew that, like in my soul. So
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: a week later, I was teaching world history in twentieth
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: century history to freshmen and seniors and coaching cross country.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: And what happened. I did that for seven years. The
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: team was good, but the team started get better and
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: better and better over the course of the seven years.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: So as a result, we were you know, winning at
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: you know, national championships in cross country and indoor and outdoors,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: and my wife and I were it was important to
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: us to build a running community where we were. So
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: she was coaching one of the middle schools and we
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: started to do a series of camps and one of
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: them became one of the biggest cross camps in the Northeast.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: We were having like two hundred and fifty kids at
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: a sleep away camp and cross country. We had indoor
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry. We had track camps, day camps,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: we had cross country day camps. We were running races
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: for the community, whether it was twilight miles or Tuesday
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: night workouts, and we had middle school across country races,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: and so we were just building this really, really awesome community.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: And as a result, Nike was noticing because we were
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: getting three hundred kids to the Sunday Long Run in
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: the summer. So if you know high school a cross country,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: it's hard to get kids to run during the summer.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: But we were getting hundreds of kids coming from all
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: over the Tri state area to come and do this
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Sunday long run. So Nike was coming in and saying,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: would you like to have us come in and talk
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to the kids, And I said, of course. I mean,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to rob the kids of you know,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: meeting athletes or getting you know, free shoelaces or whatever
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: it was. Kids loved it. So we would do that,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: and they would ask me to help out with athlete
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: interviews at Penn and they just started to ask me
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: to do more and more things for them. There was
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: a I think it was the tenth anniversary of the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Nike Free They asked if there's a way to make
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: treadmill running fun and I said, yeah, you can make
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: treadmill running fun. I said, you just got to put
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: some time in it. And they said, well, what would
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you do? And I came up with a bunch of
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: treadmill workouts and they ended up having these live treadmill
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: classes in Nike Town by Fifth Avenue. Maybe it was
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: a twenty twelve or something like that, and then the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: following year they asked me to do it again, and
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: then eventually they asked me to come into New York.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: They had a couple questions, and I thought it was
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: like a consulting thing. They were just going to ask
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: me a few questions. And they said they had a
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: group of runners that were meeting at stores around the
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: country and they were just wondering what ideas I had
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to work with these people that were coming in and
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: just going for runs. And I basically just said, well,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I would treat them as elite athletes. And they said, well,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: these aren't like pros. I said, I know they're not pros.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I treat them like they were. I would treat them
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: like their e lead athletes. And they said well, what
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: does that mean. I said, well, I'd have a schedule
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Monday through Sunday and Tuesday would be a track workout,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Thursday would kind of be of strength workout, Saturday would
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: be a long run. The other ones would be recovery days.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: And they said, well, are people going to show up
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: seven days a week? I said, it doesn't matter if
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: they show up seven days a week. If they want
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: to show up on a Tuesday, give them a great
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: track workout, if they want to show up on a Wednesday,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: give them a great recovery run and guide them and
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: teach them how to run so they need us less
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: and less and they can run more and more. And
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: they said, well, would you do that? I said, I
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: just told you I would do that. And they said no, like,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: will you do that? And then that I again, I
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: didn't know this was a job being offered, and what
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I was doing I loved. So I basically just said, listen,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: if I did something like this, there's a few things
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: that I believe in, and that if you asked me
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: to go against them, I'm going to tell you no.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: And if you're okay with that, then maybe, And I
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: wrote out a list of things on a white legal
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: pad that was in the room, and I remember it
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: because I still have the legal pad and I still
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: have what I wrote out, and it was just in
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: marker and they said okay. So that summer of twenty fourteen,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I started what would become NRC, which began in New
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: York City as a pilot and then went to Boston,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: in LA and Toronto, and then eventually we had live
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: sessions based on this structure and the workouts I was
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: putting together I think in like just over forty cities
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: around the world. About a year later.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: You know, you have to tell me what was on
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: the legal pad.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Well, it was. They came to be known as the Truths.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: So the first one was we're all meant to be runners.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: And I just told them that anyone who walks through
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the door, to me, they're already runners. I'm not creating
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: anything that you know. Coaches don't create, they uncover and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: to me, it's just you're just a runner that's not
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: running potentially. And I said, it's important for me that
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: you understand that, because you know, a lot has changed
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: in running in the last few years. But there was
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: this idea that you had to be a certain type
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: of person and look a certain way and act a
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: certain way to be a runner. And again just more bs.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: So I said, I don't care who walks through the door.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: To me, they're a runner. And then there were just
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: other things. Every run as a purpose was on there,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: and again it was me just explaining, like what my
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: philosophy is about running. You have to be a better
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: athlete if you want to become a better runner, you know,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the stuff I'd learned over the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: course of a career. And sometimes it was just silly
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: things like the be a better athlete to become a
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: better runner was just we used to play basketball at
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: the end of across country season in Carolina, and these
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: are athletes that are running seventy to ninety miles a
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: week for months and months and months and can run
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: crazy fast ten k's over you know, trail, but when
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: you get us to play a twenty minute basketball game,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: we're sore for two weeks. So to me, that was
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: a really great insight into I became a great runner,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: but I as a result, I became a terrible athlete.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: And if I was just working, I'm becoming a better
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: athlete while becoming a better runner. I'd become a better runner.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: So all of these things that turned into us having
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: kind of NTC NRC overlap. So I said, we have
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: to work on these things if we're going to have
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: people run better. And again it was I still got
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the list. I won't bore you with all of them,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: but you know some of them measure success as many
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: ways as you can. We believe in you even if
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: you don't, And to me, that's kind of the essence
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: of a coach is you know, we're always we should
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: always be talking and working with the athlete you are today,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: but seeing the athlete you are going to become. And
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: that's all about potential. So this is the foundation, this
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: is the philosophy that this is going to have. It's
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: not going to be successful and then turn into something else.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: So that was part of the reason why I wrote
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: them down.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: again about my friends at Daily Harvest. Listen, I have
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: this thing that I cannot end the day without something sweet. Literally,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: I have been working my way through the ice cream
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: aisle over these past few months, which is why I
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: nearly screamed when I saw that Daily Harvest was launching Scoops,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: their new plant based ice cream.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Unlike what I was preaching for, Scoops are.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Free of additives, preservatives, and fillers because they are made
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: with whole, nourishing, organic ingredients like black sesame, coconut cream,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: and dragon fruit. They have four amazing flavors, and my favorite,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: without a doubt, is the strawberry and rich rippled berry compost.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: It tastes so fresh.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: I've never been a big berry ice cream person until
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: I tried this, and my mind was just blown. Hand
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: on over to Dailyharvest dot com and enter promo code
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: hurdle two five to get twenty five dollars off your
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: first box. Again, that's promo code hurdle two five for
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: twenty five dollars off your first box at Dailyharvest dot com.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: That's Dailyharvest dot com. What would you say, reflecting on
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: that first year taking on that this role was probably
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest lessons that you've learned.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: I well, I think it A lot of it has
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: to do with and I tell this people a lot
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: when they ask about you know, what's what's an important
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: thing about coaching? But if to be the least important
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: person in the room is super important. And I say
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: that because I never knew who was showing up, so
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: we would have, for instance, which is very different than
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: the coaching I was doing. I was working with athletes
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: every single day of the year, you know, and I
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: would see them during the day in school to now
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: showing up let's say on a Wednesday night for what
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: we call the home run, where there would be four
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: hundred athletes that would show up, and maybe two hundred
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: and fifty of them I've never met before. So every
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: single one of them I have to assume is having
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: a one on one with me that night, and like
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I said, they have to have a really delicious strawberry.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: So the important thing for me, and this went down
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: to the pacers, who were the individuals that we would
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: have that would help lead the runs. They were by
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: far the most important people to make this work because
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: they had to buy in that the athletes that they
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: were helping. That's all that mattered was be the least
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: important person. And if you can do that, then you
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: can coach everybody. You can get to know everybody because
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: everybody suddenly is important. And again to me, it was
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I loved it. I thought it was going to be
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: really difficult, and there are things that I absolutely love
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: about training people, you know, day in and day out
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: and seeing the little moments and all that. But I
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: can I can get that done at scale if I
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: can get these people to be asking the questions of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: themselves that I would normally be asking them if I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: saw them every single day, and getting to see those
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: breakthroughs at numbers you know that are in the hundreds
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: of thousands or millions, is feels really good.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: You've said something recently on the episode of Train you
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: recorded with Ryan Flaherty, who was also un hurdle last year.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: You said to him that one thing that you love
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: that you've incorporated a little bit more into your regular
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: routine since the pandemic began was that you have been
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: making and carving out more time in your mornings to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: interact with athletes, which I think is really really special
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: and probably again like really rewarding for you as a
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: coach and what means and means the world to them
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: as an athlete. When you think about, you know, your
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: time in this awesome, awesome role, do you think of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: any one too few specific interactions that you reflect on
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: and you're like, wow, Like how fortunate, am.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: I Yeah, well, I mean it's there are a few
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: that stand out, but I but I'll first say all
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: of them have an impact, you know, whether it's somebody
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: running their fastest ten k to someone running, you know,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: for two days in a row for the first time
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: in their life, or finishing a run and saying I
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: kind of sort of don't hate running right now, you know,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: like that's incredibly powerful to me. I will say this,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: I get an overwhelming amount and this is uh and
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: depending on what kind of mood you're in, it's it's
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: either sad isn't the right word at all, But I
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: think you'll understand what I'm saying because it's it's really
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: emotional and powerful and positive. But the amount of people
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: that are dealing with really really horrible things in their
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: life and a run saves the day. And I don't
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: mean today, the run saves tomorrow, like literally, like they
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: say I went to bed kind of okay with waking
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: up tomorrow, and you're like, oh, I know where they're
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: at right now, and just finishing a run is what
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: gave them enough strength or hope to say I think
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: I can get through tomorrow too. Now if you just
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: unpack that. It's really hard, I think, to not go
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: through your day being a little bit less of an asshole,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: knowing that there are people out there that are carrying
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: overwhelming burdens, but something as simple as a run can
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: get them to say, I got enough in me to
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: get through tomorrow and we'll see about two days from
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: now tomorrow. Now, I think I honk at people less
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: on the road. I think I smile at people a
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: little bit more because it's impossible to not wonder what
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: that stranger or person you know not feel comfortable telling
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: you is going through. So I am very lucky that
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: these people are brave enough to share some of these
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: things with me. But yeah, there's there's there's a lot
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: of really tough days people are getting through, and for them,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: it's the simple act of starting and stopping a run
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: is what gets them through another day.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: I love that, I think, And you mentioned interaction. You
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: mentioned the opportunity to do it with a lot of people,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: and I think that obviously brings us to social media. Now,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: if I look at your social media feed, I see
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: that on average, if I had to guesstimate, estimate, guestimate.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Cuestimate cuesstimating. I think either one.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: You post once a month, which means that Coach, we're
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: coming to that point almost where we're overdue for some words.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot of things going on
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: in the world right now, so I'm curious to know
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: really like where you're at and what you've been rolling
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: over lately.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I get a lot of heat for not
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: posting more, at least posts on Instagram. I do a
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: lot of responses either in the stories or through just
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I guess DM people right back, and then I'm on Twitter,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I'm a little bit more loose. Yeah, it's I don't
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: know if I've backed myself in a corner where I think,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: you know, what I write has to be super powerful
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't know what it is,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: but I should probably post more. I mean for me
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: right now, I mean this is and it's hard for
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: me to talk about really any time without kind of
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: having a historical perspective. And again that's just the nerd
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: in me that you know, taught history and majored in
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: history and reads a lot. I'm mulling over a ton
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: of stuff right now, I think, like anybody else, and
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: this is a very unique time, and it's also not
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: a very unique time. So we're dealing with a lot
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: of issues that have been dealt with and then kind
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: of like put aside time and time and time again,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: and we're dealing with things like a global pandemic that
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: the world has gone through but hasn't gone through in
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: a really long time or in a way like this,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: So it's and then you've got geopolitical stuff that in
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: some cases is anything but unique, in other places is yeah,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: this is the first time we're going through something like this.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: So it's very easy, I think, to get exhausted, and
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the danger that people that
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: are trying to make positive changes in the world are
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: the people that I'm most concerned about, because I worry
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: that they're going to get exhausted. And there are certain
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: you know, just leaders, and I don't mean leaders where
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: they've got ten million followers or they're in a political office.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I mean people that are just leaders of their friend
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: group or their run crews, or their group of teammates
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: or buddies. Everyone kind of has to make sure that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: they're taking care of themselves, because if you can't take
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: care of yourself, you're not going to be able to
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: take care of other people as well as you could.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: And I think at this point, right now and our
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: little timeline of history on this planet of ours, we
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: need good people to really be taking good care of
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: themselves because we need everybody right now, and we're going
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: to need everybody tomorrow and six months from now, and
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: two years from now and ten years from now. So
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, I think I'm reaching out
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: to more and more people because I realized that more
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: and more people just need to hear they're doing something
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: good and that somebody's acknowledging them. And I think I
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: need it too, because I'm we're burning through inspiration and
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: motivation on a daily basis faster than we ever have,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: and which means we need more and more and more
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: of it to get through our day. So I think
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: what people need to understand is that when you call
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: out someone for the good they're doing, it feels really
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: good to do that, but it's also really good for
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: that person to hear it, and there's more energy that
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: comes from that than there was prior to you doing it,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: and we need as much of that good stuff as possible.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: So I know, from my point of view, it's just
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: as selfish an act as it is a selfless act
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: to reach out to people and tell them they're doing
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: a good jobs.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: Actually a good chunk of study and research behind the
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: fact that if you take the time during about effort
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: to congratulate or motivate somebody else as you go, that
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: you kind of get reamped to go on your way.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: And I remember that I.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: Was exposed to this information a few weeks before Chicago
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: last year, and so I was just out there on
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: the course like everybody's biggest type man, because I.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: Was like, I'll take every little bit here, Please let
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: me show up for you.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it works. And I again, that was a trick
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: I used as a coach. I used to I used
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: to tell athletes when they're really really tired, to either
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: lead an interval or hang out in the back of
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: the group. And you know, especially those New York athletes
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: that at icon Stadium and stuff, they would they would
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: know this were get in the back, and I want
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: you to make sure no one falls off. And that's
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: a that's you know, sometimes you put somebody in the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: middle of the group and you say everyone's going to
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: protect you. And then you feel this responsibility because everyone's
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: kind of trying to protect you. But sometimes when you're
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: really fatigued, the best thing to do is not to
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: protect that really fatigued athlete, it's to give them more
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: responsibility and say, I want you at the back of
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: the group, and you're the one that's going to keep
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: this group together. And people again, they rise to the
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: occasion when it's to help other people, and that that
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: is one of the uh, one of the really great
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: traits of maybe not trait. I think it's one of
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: the great opportunities we have as humans, is we get
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: to do stuff like that. You know, there's the line
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: in a again I'm a music kind of junkie, but
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite lines in one by you two
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: is we get to carry each other, not we've got to.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: We get to And I think that's that's a cool
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: way of looking at it. You know, it's a it's
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: a gift to get to help.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the importance of taking the time to take
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: care of yourself. Obviously you're in a place where a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: lot of people are looking to you for that regular motivation, which,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: as you said, we are burning through at a rapid rate.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: So how are you taking care of yourself? And then
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: where are you looking for continued inspiration? I'm sure it
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: has a lot to do with the running community.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I again, I'm I'm very lucky because I
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: have people reaching out to me telling me that they
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: did something which is cool and and I take total
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: advantage of that. So I am in a very very
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: lucky position. But because I get it's funny, I get
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: asked a lot when I do little q and a's
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: and stuff of like, well, you know, how do you
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: stay motivated all the time, or you know, how do
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: you stay inspired all the time? And again it's like,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not like I struggle a lot with motivation and inspiration.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: It's but again, like I I've mentioned, it's struggling means
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: you haven't given up, you know. I mean, that's that's
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: the thing. And if you're looking for motivation, that means
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: you haven't lost it all because you need to be
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: motivated to look. So I try to remind myself that
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: as low as I get on it, you know, the
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: little motivation or inspiration scale, I've got enough to do
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: something to find more. And I'm at a huge advantage
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: over other people because I don't have to look very far,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: so I should show up all the time and be
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: motivated and inspired. I have no excuse to say, you
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: know what, everybody, I'm gonna take two weeks off and
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: you're on your own, and I'm not gonna respond to you.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's bullshit. I don't have that excuse when
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: I'm privileged with hundreds and hundreds of people telling me
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: that they did something better than they've ever done before.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: They're proud of themselves, Like I don't have that excuse,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: so I'm unwilling to take that excuse. So there's a
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: little bit of I guess I feel a response ability
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: to show up. And it's also I take the title
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: of coach uh really seriously. I think it's a sacred
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: position to be in, like a teacher. It's there's an
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: element of trust that people give you that I don't
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: have to earn because I say I'm a coach. I
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: say I'm a teacher, So people give me that trust
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to abuse that. But at the
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: same time I realized that means I got to show up.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: There was this story I usually tells UH when I
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: used to coach and are seeing the city. My goal
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: was to catch the nine thirty six pm train back
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: to Jersey, so I had to get to Penn station
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: and get on the ninth I think it was nine
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: thirty six or nine thirty two. But after the runs,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a line of people who want to
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: talk and I would never stop. The only time I would, ever,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: you know, stop talking to people is if I had
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: my pacer meeting that I had to go to. But anyways,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: you finish and you're tired, you know. I mean like
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: it's coaching and teaching is tough, you know, And I
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: mean that in a great way, though it's not tough
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: like finance. Finance drained me and I just felt miserable.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Coaching and teaching trained me and I felt great. But
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: I remember getting on a subway and I would sit
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: down and I would and you know, I'm on the
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: E train, I think, heading back, and I just put
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: my head down and i'd relax, and then I'd see
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: a pair of like shoes in front of me and
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it's a runner, and I would
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: look up and then you you got it beyond because
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: this is the thing, like, it doesn't matter if I'm tired.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: I'm the coach, so I'm there to coach and pick
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: up your sweats and grab the water for you and
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: answer your questions. That is my job. My job is
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: to take care of you as best as I can.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if I'm on a train and I'm tired.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: And again that that was hard, but it excited me that,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: like you know, this is if you're going to take
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: the title of a coach or a teacher, then show
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: up and be a coach or a teacher. And yeah,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: so again like I as a result, that person who's
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: asking a question wants to improve, How can that not
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: inspire me when they walk away? So again, I don't
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: have the luxury of running empty.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: What a poignant point of view when I think about
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: that in a relation to what's going on right now.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: And I think you made a really important point earlier
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: as well, talking about leaders not just being someone with
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: ten million Instagram followers, but being someone that people everywhere
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: in any capacity could look to for perspective, advice, motivation.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would argue to that effect that we
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: all have the opportunity to be leaders. It's just coming
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: to a place where you're ready to step up to
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: the challenge absolutely.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: And this is the thing. It doesn't you know, as
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: long as we remember a couple things about you know
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: what leadership really means. Leadership isn't a title. Leadership is
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: how you act. So you don't need to be a
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: leader per se to lead, and you don't need to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: be at the front to lead. I mean my parents
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: and my parents, my wife and my son were at
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: one of the protest marches in downtown Portland about a
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: week and a half ago, and they were telling me
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: about there were people on the side of the road
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: that were handing masks out waters food. Now they weren't
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: even marching, but they were helping the marchers. Like to me,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: that's leadership. You know, to go set up a table
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: on the side of the road because you've got extra masks,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: that's a leader. They weren't at the front of the march,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: they didn't have a bullhorn, but the people at the
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: front of the march with the bullhorns, they're leaders too.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: The people at the back that were asking people, do
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: you need some help, do you want to take a break?
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Do you want to borrow my umbrellas? These are all leaders.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: So it you know, I think what happens is is
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: and this is the you know, there's pluses and minuses
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: with social media. It's not all social media's fault either,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: but every big action is built by a ton of
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: tiny actions. And it always used to bother me when
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: people were talking about like how important race day is,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, race day is one of the least
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: important days of all and race day doesn't exist unless
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: we nail the one hundred and eighty days. You're not
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: paying attention to leading up to race day and if
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: you don't take care of that, Achilles going to make
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: it to race day. So it's that act of icing
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: ten days in a row and backing off a little
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: bit that actually was the major event of the one
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty days. I can speak to that. So
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: we just have to be open to the fact that
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: these huge events, these huge moments in our lives are
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: are usually built way before the moment an event actually occurs,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of people that are involved, and
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that are involved. And if
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: you do that, then you're open to twenty four hours
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: of your day being important. And that doesn't mean stressful,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: it means being worthy. And consequential and important, and to me,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's it's a gift to understand that your
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: whole day has value. I went off on a little
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: ramble there, but sorry.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: I appreciate a good ramble. You're good. You're good.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: So before we really wind down, I have to ask you,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: as I'm sure many of your athletes are asking you,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: because they hope and pray that you have the answers
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: that nobody does. But when it comes to where we
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: think that running is going right now, I mean right now,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: the sport is in an amazing opportunistic time of Wow,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: how many people that maybe never thought they were going
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: to get out and be a runner are taking this
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: time to learn that they too can be a runner
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: and that they too are an athlete. But how long,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: hopefully does this last? Pending the racing situation, do you think?
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's a better opportunity for the boom we're
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: seeing now lasting than any of the other ones. And
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: the reason why is again, because this one isn't hyper
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: focused on one type of running. Okay, you've got people
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: that are running for the right reason. Now, if you're
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: running for the right reasons, there's a greater opportunity you're
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: going to consistently run. I don't think there is anything.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: And again, one of our issues has always been people
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: defining themselves as a runner because people are scared to
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: do that, okay, because they think there's you know, some
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even know what they think anymore.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: There's so many reasons why people say I'm not a
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: runner because I don't run you like you do run
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: and like, yeah, I know, but I don't run fast,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: And you're like, what are you talking about? You do
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: run fast, but I don't run long like you've done
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: three marathons. So people love beating themselves up. So I
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: do think though, that there's an opportunity for the people
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: that are starting to run or starting to run in
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: a different way now, to run more consistently. And to me,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: that's the key. Everyone can sign up for a half marathon,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: to run a half marathon, but then what you did it?
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: So if your entire purpose was to cover thirteen point
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: one miles and you did it, why would you run
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: the next day? But if your goal is to run
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: a half marathon and discover a little bit more about
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: yourself and to challenge yourself and again to relieve stress
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: while training for a half marathon as well, and then
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you run the half marathon. You can still run the
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: next day and find out something new about yourself. You
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: can still run the next day and relieve some stress,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: and you can always train for something else or nothing
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: at all. So to me, what's always been missing from
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: running Booms has been all the other ways to run.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the most important thing is someone
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: that's had a lot of different reasons to run, like
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I've done the I want, like my entire focus of
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: running is to get faster. That doesn't mean I didn't
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: have a blast doing my runs with my friends. I did.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: Those are that's that's what gets you through it. But
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: my number one purpose was I want to cover one thousand,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: six hundred and nine meters as fast as I possibly can.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: And I was lost when that was gone, and it
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: took me a really long time to figure out why
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: I would keep running. And then I didn't need a
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: global pandemic to figure it out, but it took me
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: a really long time. So I've been running consistently since
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: I figured out that running is about more than distance
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: and pace and duration. And that's why I think where
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: we're at right now, it's a really really great place
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: for the sport. I think that the nice if I
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: could build a bridge, it would just be to remind
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: people that are going out there and running that they
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: are a part of a sport. They're not apart from
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: the sport because they're not racing. They are a part
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: of the sport. And just like elite athletes can get
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: motivation from somebody dealing with really really bad depression with running,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: someone who's dealing with depression can gain inspiration from someone
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: trying to break two hours in the marathon. And I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: think once we realize that the simple act of running
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: is what brings us together, we're gonna have a lot
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: more fun running. And look, I'll put this way to me,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: running is like I equate with music. Okay, Like I
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: like certain types of music, and I have friends who
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: like different types of music. But that doesn't mean my
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: music isn't music to them. It doesn't mean that some
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: of my music they don't like. But if I'm putting
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: on the Clash and someone else is, you know, putting
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: on Taylor Swift, it's both music and if it gets
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: them excited and happy, I'm happy. For them, and every
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: once in a while, yeah, I'll sing along to some
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: T Swift. It's rare and it's probably not actually gonna happen.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: But it's just like there's lots of genres of music.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: There's lots of types of music that we all listen to.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: There's lots of emotions that we gather for music. There's
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: certain music I don't want to listen to first thing
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: in the morning. There's certain music I don't want to
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: listen to right before bed, but I'll listen to it
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: at different parts. There's certain music I want to party to.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: There's certain music when I'm sad I want to listen to.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: It's no different than running, and all of those different
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: reasons for listening to that music does not make any
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: of that music less authentic or legitimate.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: If I am an athlete, I go to your social
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: media page, I see this awesome Nike coach. When you
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: look in the mirror, what is it, Chris that you
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: see looking back at you?
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: Sadly? Right now, that mustache is still looking back at me.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: But if I can get past that, I mean, I
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: think my ultimate responsibility is I'm a husband and I'm
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: a dad to three kids, So that's first and foremost.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: So I got to check those boxes off first, and
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: then I still look at myself as just the history
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: teacher and the high school coach. And I say it
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: all the time, but I mean it. I mean I'm
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: really still coaching the sixteen year old in everybody, and
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: so to me, it's not very complicated and the role
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: isn't like you know that. I always laugh when I
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: hear how global running and it's just nothing's really changed.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: I'm still just coaching either the actual sixteen year old
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: or the sixteen year old that you were or you
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: still could be. It's that simple. My job's not terribly complicated.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean it's not important. It doesn't mean that
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: there aren't complicated people that I work with, because I
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: think that's the thing. Running's not complicated. Coaching running is
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: not complicated. Working with people is complicated. But yeah, it's
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: pretty simple. And again it's if at the end of
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: the day when I look in the mirror, my hope
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: is I helped. And it's really that simple, and I
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: think if I try to make it more complicated, I'm
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: not going to be able to help as much.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: You have a chance, right now to offer one, one single,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: only one, which, as a man of many words, I
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: feel like this can feel a little difficult for me
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: to ask you. But one piece of advice to a runner,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: regardless of ability. So beginner, give jogi, whoever it is,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: you tell them one thing. What do you tell them?
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: Be kind to yourself. I think that's the one piece
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: of advice because that doesn't mean you're not challenging yourself,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean to not be honest with yourself.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that you can't give yourself some tough love,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: but just be kind to yourself. One of the greatest
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: impediments to running as well as you can and I
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: am defining well in a lot of different ways, but
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: you can define it any way you want. It can
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: be as fast as you want to go, as long
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: as you want to go, as enjoyable a run as
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: you can have. If you're not being kind to yourself,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: you're not going to run as fast, go as far,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: or have as great a run. We can be really
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: terrible coaches and teammates to ourselves, and I think if
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: we could all could get better at that, we're going
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: to run better.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: Final question, you have an opportunity to offer yourself one
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: piece of advice. You listed off a few pretty big
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: hurdle moments, but let's bring it back to that time
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: where you just weren't caring as much, right before your
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: wife kicked you in.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: To gear bless her.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have an opportunity to offer yourself one piece
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: of advice looking back on that hurdle moment right now,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: what do you tell yourself?
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: Don't be afraid to be yourself. I think a lot
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: of my issues, especially when I was younger, came from
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: feeling I needed to present myself in a certain way.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: I think that would probably be the best advice I
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: could I could give myself. I don't think I was
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: as crazy and I wanted to party as much as
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: I did. I don't think I was as loud as
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: I was, you know, And because I was loud, and
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: there was a part of me that was I think
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: playing a part. So yeah, I think that the advice
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: would be, don't be afraid to be yourself.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time today, coach. I
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: couldn't tell you enough how much I appreciate it.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: This was awesome. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: It was totally one hundred percent my honor to be
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: on here.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: clicking the link with the description into this episode. We
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdlet
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: us connect with the podcast Instagram, Twitter at Hurdle podcast coach.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: How do they keep up with you? Give me all
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: of the details.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: This is man, the social media stuff is It's hard
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: for me. I'm coach Bennett on Instagram and I'm Bennett
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: Run b E n n E t t r u
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: N on Twitter. If you want to, you know, get
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: on there with me. And then if you go in
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: the Nike Running app, you can find me under the
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: guided runs. So we've got probably over one hundred and
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: fifty hundred and sixty guided runs in there, and for
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: better or for worse, I'm on a bunch of them.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: If I'm going to take one guided run tomorrow, what
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: do I start with?
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: If you're starting for the first time, I would do
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: the first run, And if you're just looking for a run,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: I think a good one to start with. If you
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: if you want to go for forty five minutes would
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: be the thank you run. I think that's a that's
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: a good one to always do because every run is
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit better if you're thankful.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: I am at Emily Bodi at Hurdle Podcast, Another hurdle conquered.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.