Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 86. Knox Robinson, Runner & Writer @FirstRun

Transcript

86. Knox Robinson, Runner & Writer @FirstRun · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, hurdlers, Emily a body here bringing you episode eighty
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: six of Hurdle, a podcast that talks to everyone from
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs to top CEOs and athletes about how they've gotten
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: through tough times hurdles of sorts by leaning in to wellness. Today,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm bringing you my conversation with Knox Robinson. He is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: known to some as first Run on Instagram. He's a
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: writer and runner living here in Brooklyn, New York. We've
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: known each other for some time, and I have been anxious,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to say the least, to have an opportunity to sit
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: down and really get to know this guy who has
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the opportunity, who has somehow found his way into logging
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: miles with some of the best of them like Mo
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Fara and Kipchogi. Before we get into Knox's story, I
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: want to take a minute to say thank you to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: my sponsors that helped me bring you Hurdle week after week.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I promise after these shout outs, I will bring you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the podcast uninterrupted. So starting off with athletics, I shake
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: up Athletic Greens every day pretty much when I come
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: back in from my morning run, and that's because it
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  Speaker 1: just makes me feel better. Aside from the fact that
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  Speaker 1: drink it, I feel like it boosts my energy and
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  Speaker 1: get a jump start on all the tasks that I
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• 2:49
  Speaker 2: All right, so now let's talk about Knox.
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  Speaker 1: I Uh, the best part of this interview, aside from
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the amazing stories, was the fact that we did it
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: in Knox's home, and I love that I had the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: opportunity to really get to know a little bit more
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  Speaker 1: about the guy that I thought I knew.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: In today's episode, he tells me.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: About growing up in the San Diego area and watching
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: his dad run and going to the track himself as
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  Speaker 1: a Division one athlete at Wake Forest. He continues on
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to talk to me about a riff that he developed
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: with his college teammates after an altercation of sorts at
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a party, which actually led him to lean away from
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a sport that he loved so much for almost about
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  Speaker 1: ten years. We talked about everything from his time being
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  Speaker 1: the editor in chief of a magazine called Fader and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a cover interview with Kanye to traveling the globe running
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: with some of the best of them. What motivated him
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to start the New York City Running Crew, Black Roses,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: what Black Roses means to him, what it's like to
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  Speaker 1: run a personal best marathon that hovers around the two
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  Speaker 1: hour and thirty minute mark seriously, and not only rank
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  Speaker 1: in the top one hundred men running the New York
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  Speaker 1: City Marathon not once, but twice. And I really appreciate
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: him for his time and again just for welcoming me
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: into his home and for being open and honest in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: such a really beautiful way. As always, Emily a body
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at Hurdle Podcast. If you have a hurdle
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: moment of your own to share you just want to
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: say hi, feel free to reach out to me over email.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: It's Emily at hurdle dot us. And I think that's
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: it for now. With that, let's get to hurdling. Today,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sitting down with Knox Robinson. He is a writer,
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  Speaker 1: a runner. Anything else should be thrown to the tap here.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a father of son, a partner, a quasi coach,
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  Speaker 3: quasi quasi coach.
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  Speaker 1: Talk to me about that.
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  Speaker 3: Well, in some ways I don't believe in like certifications
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  Speaker 3: and that sort of credential making. Right, A lot of
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: times the very certification process was used to disenfranchise underrepresented
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: folks or poor folks, black folks in this country. So
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: for instance, led abatement, if you need a led abatement certification,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: they made it inaccessible to be a lead, a lead
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: remover from from houses or schools or bridges or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: So a lot of times these days, much respect to
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  Speaker 3: everybody out there with you know, credentialed coaching, but for me,
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  Speaker 3: I just like to do it based on my experience
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  Speaker 3: and my inspirations and having like studied master coaches for
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  Speaker 3: most of my life.
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  Speaker 1: And of course, when we say coaching here, we're talking
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: about run coaching. Sure, sure, unless is there another coaching
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  Speaker 1: we want to talk about?
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  Speaker 3: No? I mean, you know, but of course, speaking self advantageously,
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  Speaker 3: I'd say that like run coaching is life coaching, you know, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: for better or for worse, because running is such an intimate,
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  Speaker 3: you know, expression of who we are. That like, once
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  Speaker 3: you take up or endeavor to coach someone to run
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  Speaker 3: a five k run a marathon, you end up like
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  Speaker 3: with much more on your hands.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's true. I think all the time about
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: how I one of my dearest friends is a certified trainer.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Talk about certifications. But I met her because an agency
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  Speaker 1: connected us for me to work out with her, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: after about like two months of us working out together,
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  Speaker 1: we stopped working out together and started just hanging out
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  Speaker 1: all the time, and she became, you know, one of
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  Speaker 1: my most respected and trusted confidants. I also don't want
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to skip over how good of a runner you are,
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  Speaker 1: so let's talk about that a little bit. So we
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  Speaker 1: have a marathon pr of two thirty three. Correct, that's insane.
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  Speaker 3: It felt insane at the time. I definitely was insane
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  Speaker 3: at the time it happened.
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  Speaker 1: Where were you?
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  Speaker 3: I was in Berlin, and uh, you know it was
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: this year was after breaking two, and so Kip Chog
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: kind of came into town obviously in peak condition, and
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  Speaker 3: before the race, everyone was saying like, oh, he loves
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  Speaker 3: these conditions. It was a little cool, a little rainy,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: and everyone's like, ah, this he's going to get the
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  Speaker 3: world record because he loves running in the rain, because
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  Speaker 3: it makes him feel like, you know, he's running in
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  Speaker 3: the forest of Capta Gat back home in Kenya. So
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  Speaker 3: I go to my squad, we're all racing. I was like,
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  Speaker 3: this is Kip choke weather. We're all getting hit it today.
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  Speaker 3: This is Everything's perfect. We all went out ran crazy
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  Speaker 3: in the rain. I ran this pr and then afterwards
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  Speaker 3: Kip Chokey said he didn't get the world record because
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  Speaker 3: it was a raining and he hates the weather. I
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  Speaker 3: was like, I was with him.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's also important to note that you are
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  Speaker 1: so ingrained and knowledgeable on the run culture. The typical
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  Speaker 1: hurdler or listener may not completely be as up to
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: speed as you are, and I think that's something that's
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  Speaker 1: really interesting about you, and definitely why I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: sit down with you is because of your vast knowledge
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  Speaker 1: of the sport, of the history, and and really because
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  Speaker 1: you've you've gotten out there and run some miles with
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  Speaker 1: some of the best of them. I mean, if we're
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  Speaker 1: defining the best of them as the fastest of them.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting, you know, like at any given point
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  Speaker 3: in my life, I've come to realize that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I've never been close to being the best, but I've
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  Speaker 3: always bizarrely been around runners who were the best in
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  Speaker 3: that context. So in high school I ended up training
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  Speaker 3: with some you know, some some some tough dudes from
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  Speaker 3: across the tracks who still hold track records in New
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  Speaker 3: York State to this day. Ran ran with these kind
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  Speaker 3: of uh tough, tough, tough dudes in college. The day
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  Speaker 3: I walked into the locker room for you know, the
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  Speaker 3: first day of practice, half of the guys or half
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  Speaker 3: of the United States Junior cross country team was represented
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  Speaker 3: in the locker room, like we had like three guys
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  Speaker 3: on the USA team, Like those are my teammates. And
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  Speaker 3: then later on to have had interesting and unexpected friendships
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  Speaker 3: with Leo Manzano, who you know, got a silver medal
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  Speaker 3: in London in twenty twelve, or Mofarra and Abdi Abdi Raman,
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  Speaker 3: incredible athletes like Shannon Rowberry, Tremier Moser, and so it's
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  Speaker 3: just been Ali Keifer. So it's just been cool to
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  Speaker 3: have been in constant conversation and proximity with some of
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  Speaker 3: the best and really study their practices. And maybe that's
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  Speaker 3: kind of one of the things that first sparked this
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  Speaker 3: iteration of my personal running journey in terms of the
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  Speaker 3: intersection of running on culture, is that I was really
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  Speaker 3: starting to take some of the practices and the ideas
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  Speaker 3: and the belief systems of some of the best athletes
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  Speaker 3: in the world and thought about how I could share
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  Speaker 3: that with you know, passionate everyday athletes like you know,
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  Speaker 3: the kind we see here in New York.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so how are you doing that?
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  Speaker 3: Well? You know, a lot of times, you know, we
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: might joke about this idea of marginal gains, and a
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: lot of times marginal gains might be euphemism for various
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: sorts of gray area cheating. Whether that's you know, Team
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Sky in the Tour de France swapping out their mattresses
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: when they're on tour, staying in different hotel rooms and that,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: or it might be sort of as we see from
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Oregon projects, doing stuff that's not necessarily illegal, but it
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: is not ethical. But the idea is interesting, what are
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: the things, the little things that we can do in
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  Speaker 3: our lives to push our performance as people and partners
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: as citizens forward. You know, whether that's getting better sleep,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: or what if that's engaging in a mindfulness practice. You know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: what if that's shifting our diet and our nutrition left
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: or right and sort of eating more sustainably for our
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: planet but also more sustainably for our bodies and our community.
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  Speaker 3: So those sort of marginal gains I like to think
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: of as things that you can sort of learn from
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: elite runners or elite athletes and bring that into our
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: own lives. And then on a running level, you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: just seeing what it takes to be the best. And
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: that doesn't mean like knocking yourself out in a workout,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: but like, how do you even like structure your pursuit
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: of excellence? I guess that's what I'm saying is when
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: you're thinking about elite athletes, they have a structured approach
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: to being the best, and it's interesting to look at
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: how that's systematized and organized, and then again how we
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: can bring that into our own lives.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: So we're into running these days. Growing up in San Diego,
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  Speaker 1: were you an active kid?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, and how could you not be? I mean,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: you're just like living there between the mountains and the beach.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: So growing up, it was all these childhood memories of
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: you know, camping in the Onzabarigo Desert with my family obviously,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: always at the beach and La Joya, going into the
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: mountains to mining towns and exploring sort of the history
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: of California and all those respects, and so yeah, I've
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: always been sometimes I reflect like I've always been outdoors,
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  Speaker 3: getting rained.
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  Speaker 1: On from a young age to Berlin Marathon prs. All Right,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: so growing up in San Diego, you're active kid. You
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: go to college at Wake Forest, and are you running
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in college?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I ran for the first year, year and a half, No,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: first Yeah, first year and a half of school and yeah,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: those incredibles A D one program and again our distance
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: program was, you know, one of the best in the country.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: So it was really inspiring and also incredibly daunting to be,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: you know, like a young teenager walk on trying to
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: figure out life and running.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean figuring out life is hard enough. Yeah,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: talk to me about what life was like for you
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: at that time.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, uh, there was there was uh, there was running,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: and then once I stopped running for the team, there
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: was life after running and I didn't pick it up
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: again for another, you know, ten years basically, So when
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I was a college athlete, I was, you know, kind
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: of living that life where you know, you're practicing twice
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  Speaker 3: a day. Uh, your athletic life and pursuits are the
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: center of your college experience, and you kind of share
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: that space, you know, sometimes absurdly with football players, basketball players.
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  Speaker 3: You know. I went to school with Tim Duncan, so
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: it was kind of like always again being around folks
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: who were the best or went on to, you know,
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  Speaker 3: continue to be the best. Then after I stopped running,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: to discover an entirely different world was incredible. Obviously, you
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: have all this free time on your hands.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're not going.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: To practice, and I just fell headlong into other pursuits, studying,
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  Speaker 3: you know, Chinese and Chinese translation, East Asian religion, philosophy,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Buddhism and Daoism, and then a deep and abiding love
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: for poetry that continues to this day.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: It's interesting the descriptors. There's life, and then there's life
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: after running, and then there's life with running again for
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you when you stopped running, because I find it interesting
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: that you could love it so much. And then just
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I just made a hand gesture, which is not helpful
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and podcasting, But I find it so interesting that you
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: can just be so enamored with the sport and do
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: it so actively and then like completely step away. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: was it actually like a complete step away?
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah? It was. It was rather poignant and of something
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: I blocked out for much of my life, starting with,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: you know, the sort of circumstances that precipitated my my
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: quitting running. Literally that's just the only way to describe it,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: and then getting back into it, and then like reflecting
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: on the whole passage of time after that. I mean,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: so at this point, I've been running most of my life.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: I've been running more years probably than I than I haven't.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: And the ten years or so that I stopped running
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: between college and the birth of my son really seems
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: like an aberration. Yeah, and an otherwise sort of continuous
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: love affair with running.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Why did you stop?
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: You know? It was?
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: It was?
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: It was very nineties. I there was like a misunderstanding
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: with some teammates that I definitely overreacted to and exacerbated
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: before we met up today, kind of like prompting me
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: to think about a hurdle moment and I was pretty
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: sure I wasn't going to talk about this. But I
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: was accused of stealing some money from a party, and
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I racialized the incident, or I felt the incident was
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: racialized and I overreacted, or I reacted wildly and passionately,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: and the fratice that followed, getting into like an altercation
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: with some teammates. I I quit the team after never
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: really dealt with it until many, many years later, and
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: as only through getting back into running that I you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: healed those wounds and like patched up those relationships, but
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: then also came to realize how crucial running is in
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: my life. And so times more recently when I've been
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: challenged or my love was run, it's been challenged or
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: sometimes even threatened. I really have these strong, visceral memories
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: of knowing what it means to lose something you love
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: and how important it is to hold on to it
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: with both hands and never let it go.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Did you feel differently without running in your life?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there was an ache, There was an emptiness,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: even years, years years later when my life was totally
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: different and I was, you know, living as like a
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: bohemian writer in New York broke, you know, hanging out
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: and bars and poetry cafes. Well, they say there's a
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: light that never goes out, you know. And sometimes on
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: that one fall day when like the leaves turn and
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: the air has a certain smell to it, and the
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: sound of the leaves scuttling across the pavement makes you
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: think of, you know, racing cross country in high school.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: That's something that sticks with you. And so, yeah, running
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: is in some ways an unshakable ghost. You know, you're
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: always you know, once you're a runner, you always are
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: measuring the distance between where you're at and the corner
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: and the stoplight and can I make it. Once you're
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: a runner, you're always going to feel like you could
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: run for the bus, or you're like sizing up how
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: far away the buses and if you're going to run
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: to catch it or not. So that always stuck with me,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: and it's unshakable.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Did you like actively avoid just running to run during
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: this time?
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean yeah, I mean running is a commitment. Well,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: now I don't understand how you could how how that's
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: even possible, Like how I could have loved something so
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: much and then stopped and didn't have a relationship and
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: that's why I like sharing kind of what I'm doing
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: now with younger people who you know, follow me on
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Instagram or when I see them out at a race
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: or training or randomly like running in the woods. Is
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: you know, there's a life outside of running in high
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: school and college, and I think when I quit running,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: there wasn't any suggestion of that you're either like running
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: for your school team or you didn't, you know, there
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: wasn't an idea that I would go out and run socially.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: There wasn't an idea that I would go out and
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: like run for fun or for health. So it's it's
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: really awesome to suggest to folks now that running can
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: be an unlocked for travel, Running can be an unlocked
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: for meeting new people. Running can be an unlock for
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: your creativity and your self expression. And when I was
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: running in school, it was just about like whipping people's asses.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: So then what gets you back into running? And I mean,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: there's so much that happens during the ten year period
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that like it's hard to just like kind of glaze
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: over it, and I don't want to necessarily, but I'm
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: so curious to know what the catalyst is that brings
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you back to lacing up.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: You know, honestly, it was a very specific incident. Was
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: like witnessing the birth of my son. However, many moons ago,
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: sixteen years ago. I'm there in the delivery room, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: I was just struck by this idea, this this scene
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: of you know, like, as adults, rightfully, so we walk
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: around sometimes dragging our knuckles with long faces about the
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: state of the world now more than ever, and you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: the sky is always falling, and of course it's important
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: to sort of, you know, be real about to state
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: our planet and our culture and our countries in But
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: at the same time, to watch this human claw their
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: way into the world and demand that their ticket be
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: punched to join the human community was very affecting and
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: very startling. And then to see that what it required,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: a singular unity of body, mind, and spirit, was mind
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: blowing and astonishing in the moment. And then I thought,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: you know, when's the last time I did anything that
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: required this singular unity of those things? And the only
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: thing I could think of was running, And the last
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: time I had done that. I started running the very
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: next day.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Talk to me about that run.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I was living in Fort Green, and I went across
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: the street from my apartment to fork Green Park and
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: ran a loop around the park. And like everybody who
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: starts running a fork Green Park, you think it's like
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: three miles, and it's less than a mile, you know,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: But went out ran a loop one day. The next
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: day I went out and did two loops, then three loops,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: and then kind of held for three loops. And then
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, the park that originally seems so
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: big becomes so small, and I was like, oh, what
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: else is around here? And then I think I must
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: have looked at Google Maps, and I was like, oh,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Prospect Park is nearby. I'm going to run to Prospect Park.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: And so that became a thing, and then you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: built by accretion, and suddenly I was like back up
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: into a long distance run and rather obsessed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you what were you running
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in college distance?
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: I you know, flirted with the steeplechase. So again when
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: it comes to hurdles, you want to ask our hurdles.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I have this scar. You can't see it on this podcast,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: but this.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Oh Wow scars real scar guys from from hurdling Oh
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Wow and steeplechase practice. I had Squigs on the pod
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: calling quickly okay, my only real herd largely until you.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Elliot Kipchoge's coach was a world class steeplechaser in the
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: nineties and when I met him in Berlin, who were
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: like having a chat. Turns out we have matching scars
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: from steeplechase practice.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So I always find runners that can steeplechase very impressive
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: because it requires such a great amount of hip mobility
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: in a way that typically runners don't possess.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: It's rough. It's just like, wait, we didn't sign up
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: what hip flexibility? Like, I'm just trying to go that
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: way fast. That's it now, that something in my way.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: So you were steeple chasing and then you were doing
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: distance and that kind of stuff.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: That's country, yeah, ten thousand. Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So when you start getting back reunited with this love
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: for long distance running, talk to me about what that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: process is like for you, Like, are you the kind
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: of person that's out there running and working for your
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: thoughts or you're the kind of person that's out there
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: running and listening to music, Like what is it for
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you at this time?
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: This is why I relate to folks and I love
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: quasi coaching or writing about running because I'm just like
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: everybody else. I kind of went off the deep end,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: and so my exploits have sometimes been rather epic. But
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: I was figuring out like everybody else. It was early
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: days of the internet, so like maybe there was like
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: a let's run message board to kind of discover later on,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: but I was really putting one foot in front of
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: the other and like figuring it out.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So so we're in like two thousand and five, two
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, okay, and great math.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Two thousand and four, two thousand and five. My first
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: race was the Brooklyn Half Marathon, and it used to
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: run start on the boardwalk in Coney Island and finish
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: in Prospect Park, and it was in March, I think,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: very cold, but I ran one fifteen and I qualified
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: for the New York City Marathon automatically in that first race.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, oh cool, all right, I'm gonna run
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: New York training for the marathon, and you know, I
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: was just out of my mind. I was eating a
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: pint of Ben and Jerry's every night.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: All men can do this. I never understand.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Young before the metabolism.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: But I feel like, every guy I know trains for
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: any sort of event, whether it's a marathon or like,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: fuck it, maybe he's shock like training for a mile
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and he can eat whatever he wants. He's like, you
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: know what happened when I started running? I'm like what
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: He's like, I lost twenty five pounds.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I trained for a marathon every year
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: without fail.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: It's a weight gain season. I'm like, why is this
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: a men thing?
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Well different, I mean totally, You've you got that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Stacy Simms book Roars is an incredible sort of like
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: exploration of women's fitness and endurance sports. And I was
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: talking with some women in Black Roses, NYC last night,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: and I guess, you know, a lot of times women
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: at a certain volume of running, you end up gaining
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: weight just because of like the hormonal fluctuations and like
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: the different you know, phases of the cycle over the
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: month or five weeks.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: So I should read the book. I should also stop
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: just being so snarky about this discrepancy that we are here. Also,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: did you say you ran it in one fifteen?
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Cash, did you go into it knowing that like that
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: was kind of the vibe?
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: No? Because I hadn't rased, That's what I'm saying. A
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: decade or more so. Or yeah, I hadn't raised. I
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: didn't didn't know what I was doing. You're just out
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: there again, just having the muscle memory of like whipping
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: dude's asses. So I was out there. And it must
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: be said that the Brooklyn this is kind of before
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the running boom that we're enjoying now, and so the
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn Half marathon was a much more humble affair. I
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: got like ninth place, eighth place. Wow, And you know
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: now to see the race is so wild. Now. I
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: can only watch it because it's just pure enjoyment. Everybody
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: from the city's out, and it's a big kind of
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: celebration beyond the New York City Marathon. It's a kind
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of like a big celebration of running in New York.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: So I just like to watch the Brooklyn half now.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So you get back into running, you obviously qualify for
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: New York, So then talk to me about your first marathon.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: God, it was a nightmare. I mean everything built up
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: to that, you know, because I was going at it
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: with you know, college post college row expectations. So every
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: kind of dude at a certain level who gets out
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: of college running thinks that they're going to run sub
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: to thirty in their first marathon. Right, So the whole
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: time I'm training, I think I'm going to run sub
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: to thirty through the park. I'm trying my first long run,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: my first long run eighteen miles. I fell down after
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: and I had to go to a bodega and I
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: ordered and I bought like cheese, its more ice cream
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the wayfer cookies and I was just like, ate every
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: couple of twinkies, Ate all that, and then went out
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: and had like eight fish tacos in Williamsburg after, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: I thought I was gonna die.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I love what you said when you sat down with
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Ritual and you were talking about your training, and you said,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in New York, it's just so different because you're just
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: dodging cabs all the time. And then you get to
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the marathon and like there are no cabs to dodge,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and it's just very different.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: You freak out right, wait where are the stops? Yeah?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And then my my first marathon was insane. I went
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: through the half in you know one fourteen probably and
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: thought I was going to hang on, but I didn't
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: have experience really marathon training, even though I had done
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: like some some some requisite long runs. And I get
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: to mile four and the strangest thing happened, Like this
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: dude from France was ahead of me and started walking,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: and it was like a scene from those old Warner
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Brothers cartoons where the guy's stranded on a desert island
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: and it seems like a beautiful woman walking, but she
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: looks like a hot dog, you know. Like this dude
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: started ahead, walking ahead of me, and I swear he
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: looked like a banana split. I was like, oh, walking
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: looks really good. I'm just going to try it to
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: see how it feels, and then I'll start running again.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: There's such a big contrast between the pace that you're
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: going and a walk.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Now. Oh yeah, well, I mean again, this guy turned
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: into a banana split right in front of me, and
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, yeah, that looks really good. Right now,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try it, and yeah, started walking and
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: ended up like walking and jogging over the second half
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: of the race like garbage fire, Yeah, garbage, garbage, garbage fire.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: For sure, still ran under three. I ran like two fifty.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Seven, but like you know, the people that work there
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, everyone who runs a marathon were very hard.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm just talking about like when we're getting to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: be these faster special humans. People work their butt off
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to get a sub three, and just like people work
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: their button off to get a sub four, and people
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: also work their but off to sub five. You know,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: but you turn into a mirage and still managed to
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: two fifty seven.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, but you know to that point, That's
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: why I don't know, that's why I'm in love with it,
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: but that's why I respect the whole range of running
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: of runners. You know. That's why I'm using whatever I
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: have to help folks in Black Roses, NYC or outside
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: of the squad break four. I mean, breaking four hours
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: in the marathon is a huge accomplishment for folks now
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden. Now these days, obviously, like people
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: are obsessed with not nope, you know, no shots at
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: anybody here, but obsessed with getting a BQ. You know,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: that wasn't even a thing a few years ago. And
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: so now to really watch the passion with which people
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: throw themselves at qualifying for the Boston Marathon is incredible.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: So whatever I can do to help people get past
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: that barrier, sometimes you need some insight from Ellied Kipchoge
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: and how to structure that, and sometimes you need some
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: insight from people who have broken other bearers irrespective of
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: the time.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean you've mentioned Black ros Is twice,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: so let's I don't I feel like we're like jumping
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: around a little bit. But you run the first marathon
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and you keep running, and when does your passion for
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: running that you're feeling inside, when does that passion become
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: something that you want to help other people with?
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Right? Well, it's funny, like things used to be inverted.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Running used to be my personal life and my private life.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: It was something that I kind of just did on
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: the low, maybe for redemption of like how I was
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: like wilding out in other aspects of my life. But
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: at the time, you know, I was working magazine journalism
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: and music journalism and they moved into music management and
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: really had like a real wild ride in doing both
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: of those kind of career paths. And then in twenty eleven,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I had just come back from like a long trip
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: to South Africa and Paris, you know, out at like
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Paris Fashion a week with Virgil and Kanye, and like
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: this guy was managing and just really acting crazy. Came back,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: my running shoes, didn't leave my luggage the entire time
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: I was on the road, came back, jumped into the
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: New York City Marathon and got a hundredth place. But
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: at the time I was telling everyone in the industry
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: or like folks on you know, homies in Brooklyn, that
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: that was the goal. People like, what are you going
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: to do in the marathon? I was like, Oh, I'm
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: going to get in top hundred and get into the
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: Century Club. And they're like, the Century Club, what's that?
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh, the Century Club is is a club
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: for people who have gotten top hundred in the marathon?
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Is it a real club?
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: No? I just made it up.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, but hey, like I would have, I woant
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to believe it. You guys get together once a month.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, goods. No.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: The cool thing about, at least at the time, the
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: cool thing about getting hundredth is that it's the last
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: name on the first page of the results that's printed
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: in the New York Times special edition the day after
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: the race, And so New Yorkers, especially non runners, look
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: who's first, and then they look who's last. On the
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: first page and then they turned to the last page
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: to see how long the slowest person is. So everybody
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: the next day woke up and saw like Knox Robinson
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: out of the place. Yo, he's in the Centric Club.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: He said he was going to do it, and he
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: did it. So then I would see dudes at like
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: industry functions or whatever, and people are like, yo, I
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: heard you in the Centric Club. That's big. I was like, yeah,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: you know, Centric.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Club and you did that after wilding out with Kanye.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, like, you know, don't want to blame it.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: On Ye, but can we recap that that component of
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: your life all bite briefly? Maybe?
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, you know, I once I I was
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: fired unceremoniously from being editor in chief of the Fader magazine.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: What happened with that?
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, just general theme I was, I was
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: out of control, pushing things too far.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: When you were at Fader, that's when you did Kanye's
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: first cover correct, correct?
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I have kind of been around Kanye from
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: almost the very beginning, for better or for worse. It's
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: been interesting to watch his journey.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: So you're at Fader, you have, I mean, and what
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: was it like for you at this time to get
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: so much exposure with like these bigger name individuals, whether
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: it be you know, yeah or the others. And I
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: think it's I think it's interesting actually kind of to
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: set up your career in running also because it's like
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: you have this experience where you are around a lot
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of high profile people in a very different type of industry. Yeah,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and then you transition into what you're doing now and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: it's like a totally different beast.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally different beasts on the outside. But like the
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: access and the unlocks were so simple, just because I
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: had spent so many years reporting and figuring out how
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: to report. I mean, I've been like a writer since
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: age four, you know, and have been like thinking about
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: these things like on a craft level, you know, as
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: a preteen. And so when it comes to you know,
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: what we could call the craft of interviewing or how
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: to get stories out of people, and then also how
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: to like share those stories and relate those stories, reproduce
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: those stories, or reconstitute those stories, That's been something that
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: I've always been engaged in. And so coming out of
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: this time where first of all, to be at Fader
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: in those early years, you know, the first five years
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: of the magazine's publication was credibly intoxicating. You know, I
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: ended up writing and then editing a lot of the
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: magazine and together with you know, the other folks, the
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: small team who was behind the book. At the time,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: there were very few boundaries for better or for worse,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: and so whether it was like the narrative devices we
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: were using to tell a story about rappers, you know,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: or we were you know, just sort of like jumping
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: on you know, an indie band from Williamsburg that just
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: moved to town that week. We recovering anything and everything
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: that our appetites dictated. Fast forwarding to now working into running.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, several years ago, running was generally perceived
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: to be the domain and the purview of you know, moneyed,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: white males. It's striking if you look at magazines from
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: those times, it's just like so homogeneous and monochromatic. And
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: now when you look in the magazines in some ways
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: it's diverse, at least on an advertising level, there's a
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: wild greater representation of different types of runners. And it's
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: been great to see the culture open up to that
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: idea of like who is a runner and who can
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: be a runner, and that's something I'm definitely proud to
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: have witnessed.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: So you get kicked out of Fader, get kicked out
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: of Fader. I feel like we need to take a
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: beat to bring up the theme of the week here,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: which is that you seem to have so much passion
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: for the things that you care about that it gets
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you into trouble.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, you got to know what. There's a
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: boss Grat painting that said most kings get their heads
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: chopped off like that. You just got to know that's
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: what it is that you're growing up black in America, Like,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: are so many reference points for our icons are trailblazers
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: and innovator who are taken from us too soon. So yeah,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: for me, those sort of rebuffs often come with a sting.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: But you know, if you're not pushing the boundaries, then
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: you're not doing it right.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like the follow up question then for
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: that is have you regretted pushing the boundary?
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Oh? No, that's who I am. That's like in my DNA,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: That's that's just the way I see the world, you know,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: And if anything, it's it's sometimes quaint, I guess because
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: I just do that every day, you know, like to
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: the absurd coming I made earlier about like running for
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: the bus, like you're still doing that. You're still like
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: sizing up the distance and like can I make that
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: yellow light like over the crosswalk? And so when it
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: comes to running, I enjoy it. I love it. I
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: love running on a fall day without a care in
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: the world. I love running whatever kind of paces. So
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: I have, like again an overwhelming passion for it. But
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: I do when I'm in the zone, I do love
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: pushing the boundaries and see how fast I can go.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, by this point, I've run almost thirty marathons,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: almost almost thirty. I'm creeping up on thirty of twenty
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: eight twenty nine marathons and I've never broken to thirty.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: And if you ask me today, I'm going to run
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: to twenty six at the London Marathon in April. So
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: I'm still just obsessed as I was fifteen sixteen years ago.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love that you don't like it,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: no why.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: I just wish I could like wake up one day
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: and like be freed from like this dream, you know, like.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, But isn't the pursuit of
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: the dream what keeps us like excited and alive, and
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: if you pursue it an.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Overtrain and like if you look, if I wasn't running,
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: if I Ryan, let's say I ran two twenty nine
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: to fifty nine, I wouldn't have to pursue the goal anymore.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I would quit running. I could go back to eating
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: ice cream with smoking weed every night. And you know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: like aside from perpetually having the munchies because of smoking
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: so much weed, my grocery bill would go down. I
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be eating for two all the time like a
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: marathon or does. I'd be good, so my finances would
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: be more arranged. I wouldn't be blowing money on running
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: gear and traveling to races.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: But doesn't this bring you back then to the time
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: where you left running and then you remember how that felt,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: and you don't like life really that much without running,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: So then you get back into it again. And it's
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: a cycle. It's a cycle.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: One of my favorite books is this, this book. I've
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: been reading it for like twenty years. It's too good
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: to finish. It's Prisoner of Love by Jean Janet, and
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: I think I'm just in love with the title you know,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: prisoner of love, and it's an accounting of his time
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: at the end of his career. He was following the
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: It's a memoir of like following the Black Panthers around
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: and also the PLO and like camps in Syria, Lebanon,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Palaceline in Israel at the time. So he was just
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: like in love with people and to be a prisoner
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: of love of running and running culture is definitely a
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: way to describe it. You know, it's love, but like
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I'm trapped in it for sure.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I feel trapped in it for sure. I do. Okay,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: so you post Fader, what do you get into with
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: your career?
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: I took my settlement and just started buying Budweiser every
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: day and like sitting around my house playing like reggae
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: records and just hanging out, like I'll figure out something.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: And I ended up producing a roots reggae compilation for
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: a UK label that took up a little bit of time.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: How does one just go about to start randomly producing
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: a roots record label.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I'm like an an inveterate record collector.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: And after I left the magazine, I still had like
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: my credentials. I still had like my, my, my cvs
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: where people know what I did. So a lot of
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: folks pursued me with different opportunities. I knew I couldn't
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: very well just like go and write for another magazine
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: because I already had like an editor in chief's ego,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: So I just kind of was going to wait for
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: another ship to come in. And so yeah, put this
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: this reggae compilation out that was super educational and amazing,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: and then from there I just started managing acts. I
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: you know, saw an eight piece spiritual cosmic brass band
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: busking the street in New York and started working with them.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: That was a crazy trip that was like a brush
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: with joining a cult that was very interesting. From there,
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: I worked with a four piece indie rock band from
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Johannesburg and Soweto, South Africa. And then after that I
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: worked with an early kind of like post Kanye rapper
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: named Theophalist London, who actually was from just a few
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: blocks from here.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I remember, Yeah, yeah, you grew up right around here,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: right around here. Yeah. Knox talks about being a collector
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of records and how many do you have that you're
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: sitting in front of right now, Probably like ten thousand records,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: ten thousand records cash. Yeah, Okay, so we're doing we're
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: doing records, we're making the hits, we're still running.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And then yeah, after that, you know that that
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: twenty eleven, folks kind of saw folks kind of like
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: dragged running out of me. You know, Folks were like,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: I went from just being like a dude who kind
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: of people knew on this burgeoning urban running scene to
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: folks who were kind of like asking me advice, you know, like, hey,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: is this workout legitimate? Or how do I stretch or whatever?
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: And so I rather reluctantly started offering that experience and
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: acumen to folks, you know, against better judgment.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Why reluctantly, Yeah.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: Because I was just trying to hang out, like it
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: was cool to you know. I was living upstate in Beacon,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: and I loved really hard training, but then I liked
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: coming to the city and hanging out downtown in the
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: l e s, running with Bridge runners and going out
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: for margaritas after. So I didn't need to like mix
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: that up and conflate having a good time with the
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: hard training that I was kind of engaged, you know,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: in my personal life. But after a while, the things
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: started to get blurry, and there was like a greater
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: interest in just what it takes to crack long distance running.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: It's cool to, you know, sign up for your first
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: marathon and not train for it and bomb your way
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: through it, but you know, ninety seven percent of people
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: who do that finish and no matter how painful it
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: is and so debilitating and humiliating. It's like this with everybody,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: from that person who bombs their way through their first
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: all the way to Elliott Kipchoge. There's something about the
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: marathon that for almost everybody really triggers you and you
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: want to figure it out. You want to go back.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Almost everyone, no matter how hard though that first marathon is,
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: you're like, ah, I could go back and do it
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: again and change this thing or that thing and run faster.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's just like an overwhelming excitement about the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: ability to understand your true potential yeah and untap that.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, which is a lifelong pursuit, right, and is
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: so challenging. I mean it literally is takes so long
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: and then running the long distance running is the most
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: central example we have in like our human culture of
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: something that takes a very long time, with very little
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: reward that is so crucial to unlocking. And so I
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: really think that the marathon distances is so bizarrely perfect
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: because it's so long that mathematically speaking, there's so many
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: things that can go wrong. I mean, it's like Murphy's
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Law writ large, you know, like what can go wrong
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: will go wrong. And so you keep going back to
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: the marathon because you want to figure it out. You
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: want to run faster, like you want to qualify for Boston.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: You want to you know, do this or that, and
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: it's the seduction is is you know complete.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: So people are coming to you asking for your advice
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: on how to get faster. Sure, all right, and it's overwhelming.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what. You know, You're like, hey, let's
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: just let's be friends, right, Let's just hang out, like
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: you know, you don't need to sort of like know
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: what it's like to you know, do twenty two mile
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: runs in the mountains in like vomit after like that.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: You know what they say, like everything ain't for everybody,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but you know, nevertheless, it was cool to
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: start sharing those gifts and those experiences with the folks.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: And then you know, I was a magazine guy i'n't
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: always been a magazine guy as a writer. So then
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: I had the idea to start a magazine. So I
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: took a bunch of money that I had from from
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: uh being in the music business, and I funded like
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: eighty percent of a sort of coffee table wallpapery pop
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: uh running magazine called First Run. I mean, I was
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: finding like a fashion photographer into like a training camp
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: in the deserts of Mexico and like shooting athletes magazines.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: It's like everything we did at Conde that was wrong
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: with Conde.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is why you go to work at Conde,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: because you're like, this is what it's all about, and
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: you're like everything wrong. Like my magazine was about like
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: the most expensive running jacket possible, the most expensive gear.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: It was like, you know what, let's just like twist
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: this dire calculus of a formula all the way out, yeah,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: and sell it back to rich dudes. Now, I've been
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: taken to task over the years and I realized like
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: how limited that concept is and it was and is,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: and also just like how possibly toxic you know, that
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: vision of what it could be. But nevertheless, I blew
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: a lot of money on the idea the hard drive
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: today is pretty incredible for what's in that magazine that
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: never was published. And around that time, Instagram took off,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: and I found so much more edification and satisfaction by
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: you know, writing sort of gazette style dispatches, abusing the
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: length of the caption and really getting out that sort
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: of combination of image and text that like for anybody
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: who's been in love with magazines from a young age
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: know that, like Instagram is that that is that for us,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: image and text, Image and text.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Right right? Okay, so you come back from this trip
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to the desert to take all these about us, right,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: so you never make the magazine?
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: No?
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Wow?
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's like right when I was about to
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: push print, you know, at the printing press or whatever,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: basically like had it all lined up. I was like, yeah,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: but Instagram was more fun, and so yeah, the magazine
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: just sort of idled. The concept of that sort of
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: like curated lifestyle approach to running is in the DNA
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: of like what I do on Instagram and social media,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: and I think, if anything, it's sort of been that
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: projection of a personal brand that I've kind of put
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: out there in the world. I mean, it's real. I
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: mean I do go to these places I have trained
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: in this way, I have sort of like you know,
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: all these kind of relationships and interactions and adventures are
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: are for real, for better or for worse. But I
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: do also have like a personal life and a private
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: life as well. So right, so the first run thing
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: is has been like an extension of that magazine idea.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: I never knew that that's where first Run came from. Yeah,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: why first Run.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: I was having a conversation with a person who is,
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: you know, helping me get the project started early on,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: and she was talking about her first run when she
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: was in college, wearing like repeto flats and like just
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: jogging through the East Village just to feel some sense
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: of freedom. And she was going on about her first run,
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: and I was like, then it made me think about
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: what my first run was and how mad cap and
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: visceral and memorable those sort of zany experiences are. And
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: then I realized, oh man, it doesn't matter if you're
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: an Olympian or a first time or the thing about
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: a first run is that everyone has one, and that's
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: like a great connection.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: You come back and do you have this Instagram platform
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure as the Instagram platform builds, you are
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: being approached more and more and perhaps reluctantly but maybe
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: not so much anymore, are in the position to continue
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: to offer advice.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's great because I just have had
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: the experience and now in this running boom, there's so
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: many new runners and first time runners that like folks
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: are going at it and you know, especially back in
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: the day, going at it in any number of ways.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: And you know, when your kids learning how to walk,
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: you just got to like stand back and let it happen.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't stop you from like kind of wringing
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: your hands when they stumble a couple of times and
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: want to reach out and help them. So I think
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: that the platform of kind of sharing a running journey,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: and early on I was kind of much more straightforward
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: about like sharing specific workouts and explaining sort of the
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: ins and outs of the approach. And then that sort
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: of grew into like a narrative voice that sort of
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: reflects on running as a healing practice and or just
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: sort of a transmutation in a way. It's how we
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: kind of convert our understanding of one experience into like
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: a resolution of that and understanding it in a different way.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: So I think running time once it started to build
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: to like a fever pitch for me, I was just
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: working through a lot of things in my life and
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: was sharing that rather ardently, And I feel like a
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: lot of that Instagram following came from the ways in
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: which I was sharing those stories.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting as well because so many people
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: lean into running for healing, right, like lean into it
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: to get through hard stuff, And you're saying that that's
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: what you do now, which is why it is disheartening
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: and sad for me to think about your beginnings with
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: running and that you had to literally walk away from
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: it to heal from a really negative situation. Do you
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: find that you have to battle between those two sides ever? Still,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Think there's going to be a time where I'm going
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: to walk away from it because having done that, you know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: folks around me, my detractors will definitely say that, like
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: I don't admit to mistakes, I don't think I've made
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: too many of my life. Definitely some errors in judgment
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: all the way along. But I guess when I think
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: back on mistakes I've made in my life, quitting running
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: was definitely the first thing that leaps out, and I'm
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: never going to do that again. So yeah, I'm always
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: going to lean into it. I don't always see it
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: as a vehicle for a healing for me. Sometimes a
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: lot of times for me in recent years, I found
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: that like a mindfulness practice and meditation also combined with
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: running has been great. But if anything, a mindfulness practice
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: sort of changed my approach to running and like freed
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: me up to get even deeper into the pursuit.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: How do you pair the two of them just.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: In a pretty parochial fashion, you know, I think at
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: my peak, you know, I was, you know, a few
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: years ago, I was running one hundred miles a week,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: and like meditating, I was on like a ninety day
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: meditation streak or a hundred day meditation streak. And so
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: the two together really sort of for a wild cocktail,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: I guess you could say, of personal unlock. And this
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: is going to another dimension of who I knew myself
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: to be, and that precipitated some pretty eye popping performances
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: that I didn't really anticipate. The you know, two thirty
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: three in Berlin and then I rather shockingly ran broke
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: seventy minutes and the half marathon the following spring in Valencia.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, that's fast.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: That was you know. I mean it's all relative and
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: you can't say that's fast to guys who are going
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: to the Olympic Trials or whatever. But for me to
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: run sixty nine minutes in the half marathon and an
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: advanced age was definitely.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Shocking for sure.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so when does the coaching go off Instagram into
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: real life?
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, like so you know, I was,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: you know, helping folks out with with Bridge Runners and
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: then really had a special bond with one of the
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: other captains over there, Jesse Zappo, who's a long time
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: icon of urban running in New York City and indeed
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: running cultural worldwide. Jesse and I saw an opportunity to
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: take a smaller group of runners and work with them
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: over time in a curated fashion. So say, take thirty
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: runners and sort of have regular workouts. And again, now,
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: you know, five or six years on, this idea sounds
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: again quaint, But there weren't urban run crews back in
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: the day. There was one and you know, Bridge Runners
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: and run them crew in London and Parasrount Club, but
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: five worldwide or something like that, and maybe even in
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: this day, this era, there's three or one. So nobody
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: was doing track workouts, nobody was doing long runs, nobody
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: had an idea of like how to prepare for the marathon.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, in the Bridge Runners era, preparing for the
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: New York City marathon, going to max Fish till it
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: closed and then like jumping on the ferry and like
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: banditing the race. And you can just see how much
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: the culture has blossomed since, you know, just those few
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: years ago. So Jesse and I started Black Roses NYC
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: as a way to you know, more actively and activistically
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: take the learnings and the practices from elite runners and
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: bring them to everyday New Yorkers from a you know,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: wide range of careers and lifestyle. So bartenders and out
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: of work bartenders and you know, architects and ex rock
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: stars and you know some elias and chefs like these
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: are all sort of true blue New Yorkers who have
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: come through the squad and to give them insights on
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: a training journey and a running culture level has been
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: you know work that I'm super proud of.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: So are all these people shooting for that, nor are
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: you working on people of all paces?
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, no, it's definitely, it's definitely define The folks
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: in Black Roses are folks who keep showing up, folks
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: who haven't quit. Yeah, you know, so we're not about pace,
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: We're not about a real We're definitely like against, if
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: anything against sort of a materialist acquisitional approach to running
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: and grabbing, grabbing, grabbing like I want this time or
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: I want this, you know, accomplishment or I won these laurels.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: It's really about an investigation into the craft and an
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: investigation and an exploration of the self and of community.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: How big is your community now?
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean our community is worldwide. We have you know,
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: twenty to thirty people in the squad at any given time.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: But I like to think that the serialized nature of
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: our squad has sort of fans and followers and definitely
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: haters around around around the world. So I think one
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: of the interesting thing about Black Roses is like people
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: come into the squad and people leave, and people have
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: a sharp focus at some point and then they can
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: just sort of like fade away. And so I think
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: that the episodic nature of how our squad exists. Is
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: feels like it's content and entertainment for folks to consume.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I think it's interesting as well. I mean
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people listening to this, they think
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of a run club and they think of you know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Nike run Club or maybe opportunities that might feel a
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: lot more accessible than something like this. What is it
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: about this type of structure? You know, how you guys
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: are putting this together that like jives with who you are.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's something that I've had to reflect
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: on later because like who you know, I helped found
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: Nike plus run Club and that that time was awesome.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: I have I like to think I have so much
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: to share and give that I'm like, you know, here
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: for or the largest possible platform to do that. So yeah,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: I'm envious of those large opportunities. At the same time,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: I have to be real about who I am as
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: a person, and you know, Black Roses is so wildly
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: an extension of or an expression of, like what I
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: always thought it would be, you know, and it's only
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: getting to be that more and more so. The training
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: is definitely intense. The level that we set for ourselves
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: is absurdly high, but in generally we refuse to do
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: that without a commensurate amount, commensurate event, a commensurate amount
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: of of uh of wilding out. And so there's definitely
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: not folks like sleeping in you know, oxygen in tents
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: and chain members. In our squad, there are folks who
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: are going to like give it their all when they're
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: out training and then from there it's like off to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: a bar or you know, off to a party. And
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: sometimes fitting all those things together in a short amount
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: of time is what sort of gives our squad the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: sort of mad cap identity that it has.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: You said, intense talk to me about intents.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: Well, again, there's a lot of games in town this
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: day these days, so I don't want to like sort
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: of you know, tout Black Roses is sort of like
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: this unparalleled performance, you know situation. But you know, we
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: do have regular folks and folks who are you know,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: training for breakthrough marathons, going out on twenty two mile runs,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: finishing at the track and then doing like a series
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: of mile repeats after twenty two mile or all out
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: to the point of exhaustion or vomit or both. We
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: are training, you know, in the Hills of Upstate New
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: York in February in a snowstorm to get that long
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: run end for marathon that's months and months away. So
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: you know, that sort of intensity is a hallmark to
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: our training. But again that's just a direct extension of
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: like the master athletes and coaches that I've seen over
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: the course of my lifetime, and indeed, like these are
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: practices that I've sort of used in my own training
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: with you know, whatever effect and results.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I think the question from the more recreational runner would
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: be why, like why the twenty two mile are followed
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: by the track repeats? Why do you have to like
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: tackle it in the snow? Like what is it about
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: this next level that drives this type of athlete?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: You know it's that cliche, but it's just like you
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: go through so many challenging training exercises and practices that
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: you know, by the time you get to your performance,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of times you meet it with excitement, but
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: sometimes melancholy because you're thinking about like all the work
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: you did, and then sometimes the race is over in
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: a heartbeat compared to like how wild your journey was.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you had your breakthrough marathon recently, you
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: were kind of like sad after because you I'm super
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: imposing on you, but like you've left so many emilies
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: behind on the way, and like those emilies were a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: reflection of who you were at the time. Nevertheless, you know,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: to reach out and grab something and grab hold of something,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: you necessarily have to let go of your grasp of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: whatever you were holding before. And that is a that's
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: an emotional experience, Yeah, especially to reflect on after it's over.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, man, I know, well then you think
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: about like what you don't have anymore, But then you
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: have to have an appreciation for what you do instead
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: of focusing on the things that you don't sure, focus
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: on the things that you do.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I also can't let us glaze over the founding of
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Nike Plus. Just talk to me a little bit about that.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was like an interesting time, I think. Obviously,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: Nike Run Club has has been around in the city
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: for over a decade, obviously like almost twenty years. Maybe
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: at this point, shortly after Black Rosa started, and I
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: think Nike was starting to see that folks wanted more.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: It wasn't just about you know, buying a pair of
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: running shoes, throwing them in the closet and pulling them
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: out and like slogging your way through a marathon in
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: the personal excellence moment and in the running boom in general,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: I think Nike sort of suddenly woke up to the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: fact that folks wanted more and that we could deliver
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: that to them. So rather than just getting together for
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: like a big group run for the social aspect on
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: a Saturday or on a Tuesday, you know, you could
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: present folks with coaching resources or like top level coaching
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: resources that were informed by elite level practices. You could
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: kind of like offer a wide range of training principles
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: and practices to folks to complement their running. And so
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: in those early days of a Nike Plus Run Club,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: it was like all hands on deck sort of effort
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: to open up running to what it could be. I mean,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: one of my sort of fucaye at the time was
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: the local run and intense but like weekly runs with
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: a cultural destination that looked at some aspect of New
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: York City, whether that was Langston Hughes's homes and celebrating
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: the Harlem Renaissance, or a run out to Queen's to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: sample three different kinds of dumplings from South Asia, you know. Yeah,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: so it was a real chance to again explore the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: greatest city on the planet from a runner's point of view.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: And that also was part of Nike Plus Run Club.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: It wasn't just about like you know, long runs and workouts,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: but it was about running culture in a kind of
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: three sixty understanding of it.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: It's funny because I'm thinking about not just the evolution
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: of Nike Plus Run Club, but like how much has
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: happened since it started and how much is different now.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: And it's like I think back to, you know, when
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I had my first Nike Plus Fuel band, right, I
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: remember how excited I was to get my custom EA
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Nike Rose Gold.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: Of course fuel Bland.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: It was definitely rose gold, Yeah, and you know, like
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: what I did with that, and then I mean even
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: fast forward to when you and I met when I
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: was running the fastest mile with Nike. Just to think
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: about like the gear that we were using then and
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: how different that was versus like what's happening with Nike
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Plus as an app right now as a whole. It's
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: like worlds away from where it started. I mean, is
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: that something that you guys even really comprehended was possible
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: at the beginning.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think there there were there were
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: levels to it. I think on a corporate level, I
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: kind of got the sense that like Nike had they
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: had so much data, you know, every time you went
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: to an event or a party, they had an email
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: or like your profile, but there wasn't a unified a
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: database of the Nike consumer. Everything was in different silos
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: or different servers. And so I think that Nike Plus
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: Run Club, a Nike Run Club on a back end level,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: was about unifying all that data in a way that
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: like we could better understand who that runner was, the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: athlete was, and then also how to better serve them.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: Obviously that means like also how to sell them sneakers,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: but how to really sort of support their passion for
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: movement and and and that lifestyle. So in a way, yeah,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: it's changed so much, But I think as long as
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: the mission is going to be about making better runners
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: and making runners better, then it's going to adhere to that.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: The DNA that's been in the company since the very beginning.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: What does movement and running look like for you these days?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: Now? As I was saying, I'm newly inspired and fired
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: up to make another go at a personal time goal
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: that's you know, been bewitching me for for all these marathons.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: But I'm also kind of like thinking about no pun intended,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: the road ahead and what that looks like and how
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: to keep sharing this idea because in some ways culture
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: is fragile, and you know, without sort of taking a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: pretentious view of it, we do have to continue to
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: cultivate it and protect it. And so I think a
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: lot of times in this ecosystem, it's easy to exploit
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: people's passion for running, whether that's like a brand doing
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: that or that's a social media influencer doing that, And
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: so I really want to keep shining the light for
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: what the promise and the passion or maybe like the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: purity of running, the joys that it offers for all
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: of us.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you said passion for sharing, and obviously
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: you've shared a lot of miles with a lot of
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: different people. I'm curious to know when and kind of
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: how some of like how you've found yourself in some
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: of the insane situations that you have and maybe obviously
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: you can't reflect on all of them, but if you
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: could maybe reflect on one or two where you kind
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: of just open your eyes and realize, Hey, here I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: am in far away desert doing X y Z, Like
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: how does someone just end up doing some of the
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: things that you've been so fortunate to do.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: I've always been a person to write that letter, you know,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: I've always been the person to make that trip. I've
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: always been that person to go through an unlocked door.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: You know. Sometimes sometimes I like to to to joke
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: that I'm extremely adept at like kicking down unlocked doors,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: you know, like make a lot of noise and make
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: it seem super dramatic, but the door was open the
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: whole time. But yeah, you know, like again, all the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: sort of experience have the same pattern. Once, I was
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: at south By Southwest in the music business and was
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: running with some you know, rich music industry types and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: lawyers there in Austin in the morning, and a group
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: of young fit athletes lips by us, you know, and
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: one of my good friends just starts talking trash to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: like the kids. They're like, Oh, you think you're so
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: fucking bad by passing it, But this guy right here
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: is showing you for the Boston Marathon, and I guarantee
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: he can kick your ass and one of the dudes
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: turned over his shoulder and it's like, oh yeah, and
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: I was like ah. I started like thinking about it,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: and I was like, why is this brown dude running
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: with this black woman running with like this white dude.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: This is not like a group of friends, this is
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: a team, you know. And yeah, that was an awesome
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: track club and we ended up getting into like a
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: friendly banter. Invited them out to some south By Southwest shows,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: so they're like backstage C and Diddy and like TV
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: on the radio. And then I was asking for like
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: a track so I could do you know, my like
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: Boston workout while I was there at south By, and
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: they invited me to like come out and with them.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: So then next thing you know, I'm like out on
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: a track with like Trinier Moser and and Leo Manzano
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: and you know folks who again went on who are
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: some of the best runners in the world, And so
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: all the way along, I have just always kind of
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: taken folks up on an offer just to see what's
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: going to happen. You're it's nerve wracking, but journalism kind
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: of like teaches you to to play it off, like
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: you know, and those interviewing skills come in handy when
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: you're just keeping a poker face, uh, you know. And
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: and like walking into a training camp in Ethiopia and
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: you know, greeting Mo Farra as he's like having his coffee.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that, man. Like literally, do you
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: just buy a plane ticket and you're like, well, let's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: just see what's gonna happen here.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've just always I've always done that, like you know.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: And there's no one like stopping you from going to
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: hang out with Molfara, no, or like how does Mofera
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: feel about you wanting to go hang out with him?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not going to know until you get kicked out,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: you know. Like sometimes I just think if the only
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: thing between me and an experience, or me and a
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: breakthrough or me getting that story is a flight, that's
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: no deterrent at all.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: That's just like logistics.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just logistics. The real barrier is like having
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: the ideas in the first place. So yeah, I mean
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: training out with the guys in Ethiopia was I was
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: hanging out with abd Abdi raman four time Olympian before
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: the New York City.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: Marathon and how are you hanging out with him?
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: This year? I was in good shape and so I
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: had the sub elite start. So the sub elite start
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: for the New York City Marathon is when like a
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: small group of athletes who are on the precipice of
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: having a breakthrough get almost the same treatment that the
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: elites get a bus out to the star and staying
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: in a warm room and now you know, there's a
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: warm up track and all that kind of stuff. So yeah,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: I definitely jumped at the opportunity to be in the
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: sub eleete start. Went out and I'm out there stretching
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: and the rich white dudes from like New York City
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: posh clubs sitting on the bleachers and talking to each other.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: That's not really my type. So I was just thinking
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: I was gonna hang out with the brothers. So I
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: just went over and was like sat next to meb
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: and I'd be, you know, like, what's up, guys. You know,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: like not trying to like rub elbows with dudes who
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: are running two o eight, But you know, whatever I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: think i'd be at the time, was trying to be
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: polite and nice to me for like hanging out over there,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: but also maybe trying to show off in front of
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: the other guys that he knew me, that he knew
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: like a regular person. So Obdy just says like, Hey, man,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: I think I'm gonna go to Ethiopia and with Mo
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: and help MO get ready for or London. You should
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: come out. And I was like, yeah, all right, cool.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: And that day, like I went home and told my lady.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: I was like, look, I gotta go to Ethiopia. I
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: don't think the guys really thought I was gonna show up,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: but you know, obviously I stayed in touch with Abdy,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: bought the flight, and then walked into the training camp
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: one day and guys were like, what's up. I was like,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: what's up?
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Remever me from the start, Hey, wow, okay, what would
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: you say that personality trait in you this like knock
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: down the unlocked door? Yeah, what would you say that
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: that has actually just unlocked for you?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: You know, there's this concept in meditation about like what's
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: happening behind the eyes and seeing like behind the eyes
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: when you're in that meditative state, and I like, I've
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: always been I've always had this practice of like introducing
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: myself as a character just to watch what happens. It's
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: almost like you introduce a personality for people to react to,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: and then you study that reaction and you learn from that,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: and then that sort of and that's a super abstract example,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: but that's just what I would do in journalism, and
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: then that's sort of what I've just done. Like in running,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: I really was just using sort of journalistic practices of
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: just walking through the door, you know, and just to
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: find out, like all the stuff I thought, you know,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: it was true, is not. You know, for instance, if
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: you read let's run message boards, you think every elite
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: is like on wild performance enhancing drugs. And so the
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: first time I started hanging out with elites, I was
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: like didn't want to like go in the room or
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: whatever because I thought there'd be like the mini fridge
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: full of syringes. And then also I like had such
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: a high esteem for like athletes and how glamorous their
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: lives that I was. I thought that there was gonna
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: be like groupies hanging around. I'm thinking, like I'm coming
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: to the music business. I'm thinking about like rap videos,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: so I just think that like there's gonna be like
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: fridges of drugs and like people shooting up and all that,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: and then you realize these are like kids out of
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: school who are making fifteen thousand dollars a year and
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: like a cup of noodles once a day just to survive,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: and like run to chase their dreams of being like
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: some of the best runners in the world. And so
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: really looking at how tough and bleak and elite runners
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: existence can be was one of the early sort of
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: illuminations that I had, and if anything, I kind of
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: have also wanted to share that, you know, with folks
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: What would you say? And this is going to be
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: kind of twofold first fold best piece of advice that
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: maybe you've offered somebody else when it comes to that
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: first run, and then the second fold of this that
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: we'll get you after you answer that is really maybe
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: the best piece of advice that you've been offered to
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: keep going on the run.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: Lately, I've been telling folks just simply to give yourself
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: a chance. You know, I think on race day that's
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: been some advice that I've been giving over the past
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: couple of years. And it must sound super underwhelming, Like
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: after you come on this epic training journey and you're
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: in the shape of your life and then all of
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: a sudden, your coach is like, just go out there
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: and give yourself a chance. But I feel that, like
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: that's actually a very provocative idea. You know, we do
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: so many things to hinder ourselves and hamper ourselves with
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: self doubt and self criticism and sort of self denial
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: that after you've put in all this work, the real
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: liberation comes from just like freeing yourself from that and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: just seeing what happens if you go outside of your
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: comfort zone and and what happens to you on the
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: other side, or what happens to you through that process.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: So again, underwhelming as it may sound, I've been suggesting
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: folks to just go out there and give yourself a
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: chance on the day and then some of the best
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: running advices. It was specific, but again, you know, I
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: met this guy, Leo Manzano from from from Austin, Texas,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: one of the top runners in the world, multiple Olympian
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: and national champion, ended up getting the silver medal in London.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: I called them up and I was like, hey, man,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: I'm starting this running magazine and I'd like to come
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: down to the camp, you know, for a day or
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: two with a photographer and take some photos and do
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: like a whole story from my magazine. And Leo said,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: hey man, that sounds cool, but why don't you just
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: come and stay for the whole time. Stay for three
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: weeks you might learn something about running. And I think
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: that's why I got on the plane because I was
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: so annoyed. I was like, learn something about running, dude,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: I'm starting a running magazine. Of course I know everything
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: about running. What do you mean, learn something about running?
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: And I was so intrigued by the deft way in
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: which my man said, like, come and see that. That
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: is so you know, there's always something to learn at
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: this craft and this practice. So for me, that's what's
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: kept me humble from then is like the fact that like,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: hey man, come down and learn something. There's always something
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: to learn.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: What would you say? And your time interacting with so
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: many of these top level performers has been one of
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: the biggest takeaways for you.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: I wish I had stuff that, like, you know, you
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: could put on a T shirt, was marketable, but I
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: learned that you're supposed to eat immediately following to workout,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: and so at these camps, the athletes were like making
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: sandwiches in the morning and packing them in their bag.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: And you know, they do these epic track workouts and
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: then go to the gym and like do deadlifts after
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: and in between the track and the gym, this like
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: one hundred meter walk they were reaching into like eating
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: two sandwiches like halfway. I was like, you're eating two
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: sandwiches like halfway through a workout and then going to lift.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: So I learned. I learned always packed two sandwiches, And yeah,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: I think that's good advice for life in general. Always
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: pack two sandwiches.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Always have them with you. Yeah, you have a great
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: platform now, and on that platform again the opportunity to
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: help a lot of people. When people come there, they
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: read your advice, they read your feedback, they read your thoughts,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: and they see visually a guy that likes to run.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: When you look in the mirror, what is it that
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: you see looking back at you?
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: I see when I look in the mirror. I very
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: rarely look in the mirror, But on those occasions when
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: I do, I see someone who is perpetually engaged in struggle,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: and I think that that's beautiful. I am definitely in
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: a constant struggle with myself and understanding myself and my
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: motivations and my appetites. But I'm also engaged in a
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: struggle for folks to, in the words of Bob Marley,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: to you know, emancipate themselves for mental slavery. I feel
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: like so much of us have a yearning for freedom.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: It's probably one of my lifelong pursuits to investigate and
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: understand what it takes to be liberated and what it
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: means to be free, and you know, sharing that back
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: with folks, whether they want to hear it or not.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: I see someone who is troubled, but at the same
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: time someone who as the years have gone on, I
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: realize that there are things we can do to deepen
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: our understanding of ourselves and the challenges that life brings
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: us as a matter of course, and that and of itself,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: has just made me dive deeper into, you know, those
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: practices and whether that's writing, running, meditating.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: You within the last few years, as you said, added
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: a regular meditation practice into your regular running routine. Do
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: you foresee there being any other unlocks that you can
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: reach for when it comes to gearing up for London
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: The unlocks are perpetual and for a long time after
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: I had this last performance peak, this unexpected, an unparallel
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: performance peak for me a couple of years ago. You know,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: no one ever tells you about the downside of that mountain,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: and I was thoroughly unprepared for the slippery slope from
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: running fast times and whatever it took to get me
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: to that level. And it was a real walk through
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: the wilderness after. And so for a lot of that time,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: when I wasn't numb and self medicating and you know,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: turning through my life with any mistake possible, I was thinking,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: I gotta get back, I gotta get back, I gotta
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: get back. And recently I came to realize that there
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: is no getting back, you know, because why would you
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: expend all that effort just to get back to where
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: you were. Why wouldn't you just keep going and go farther.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: So for me, that was a big release for me. So, yeah,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: I'm don't think about where I was before. Now I'm
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: only thinking about where I'm going and like what I'm
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: going to do when I get there.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: So the way that I close out is right now,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: what I'd love for you to do is think about
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: the guy that walked away from running and that was
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: a really hard time for you, A hurdle moment for sure.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: So right now you the opportunity to offer the guy
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: back then one piece of advice. What would you tell him?
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: I would say, take your time. You know, it takes
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: time to sort it all out and figure it out
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: and it's okay. So for the young person who's having
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: a tough time with running or has there you know
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: really what it is, it's about like heartbreak to love
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: running so much and have running break your heart is crushing.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: See like a lot of folks around us right in
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: this running ecosystem who have had their hearts broken by it.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: And I would just say to that person who finds
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: them self challenged by it and heartbroken, just give it
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: time for that room to heal and know that running
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: is going to be there and it's going to welcome
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: you back, you know, when you're ready.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for sitting down with me.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: That's has been super special. Thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: dot youus. Connect with the podcast Instagram, Twitter at Hurdle
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: Podcast Knox. Where do they find you? How do they
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: keep up with you?
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: Uh? You can find me in the on the bike
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: paths in Prospect Park or eating with my hands in
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: Ethiopia and on Instagram at first.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: Run, I am at Emily Abodi another hurdle conquered. Catch
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: you guys next time