Episode 14 starts with a special introduction to photography. Recorded on location at the Old Stone Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts I interview professional photographer Steve Drozell. He shares some tips for those looking to get into photography and hints on how to improve your work for those that have wanted to take better photos.
Springtime is here, it is a great time to get outside and enjoy the weather. It is also a perfect time to combine the improving weather with a cardio fitness plan. Cycling, swimming, walking, they are all good choices, but the best choice might be running. I will share my experiences with becoming a runner again in my early 30's and why you should add some running to your workout routine.
We go way Back In the Day to the Fisher-Price Phonograph, a toy gem for kids of the late 1970's and early 1980's. Just what albums got played on that phonograph? I share them all.
This Week In History includes the Patriots leaving Boston, Alcatraz prison being closed, and a Time Capsule with a special meaning.
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode
Listen to Episode 13 here.
Episode 14 starts with a special introduction to photography. Recorded on location at the Old Stone Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts I interview professional photographer Steve Drozell. He shares some tips for those looking to get into photography and hints on how to improve your work for those that have wanted to take better photos.
Springtime is here, it is a great time to get outside and enjoy the weather. It is also a perfect time to combine the improving weather with a cardio fitness plan. Cycling, swimming, walking, they are all good choices, but the best choice might be running. I will share my experiences with becoming a runner again in my early 30's and why you should add some running to your workout routine.
We go way Back In the Day to the Fisher-Price Phonograph, a toy gem for kids of the late 1970's and early 1980's. Just what albums got played on that phonograph? I share them all.
This Week In History includes the Patriots leaving Boston, Alcatraz prison being closed, and a Time Capsule with a special meaning.
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode
Listen to Episode 13 here.
00:00 Intro
Hello world! How is everybody doing out there? This is the, in my footsteps podcast. I am your host, Christopher Setterlund coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This is episode 14. And the first one to actually be released during spring. Yes, it is spring time officially. How's everyone feel about that?
Where you're from is the weather kind of changing? I know down here on Cape Cod it's now we're getting into the low 50's. With some sun. It's funny how low 50's in March feels a lot different than low 50's in September. I did my first bike ride of the year this week. It's been three months since I took my bike out on Cape Cod. We've got miles and miles of bike trails that are just awesome to take advantage of for cycling and walking and running felt like forever. I'll tell you my legs are definitely tired. My cardio needs work, but that's why they call it spring training and baseball. I'm excited for this show. This episode has a lot more to do with things outside of the typical travel in history, which I love to promote on this podcast.
So it'll be a little, not a break, but I'm starting to incorporate more things. And the warmer weather, hopefully coming means that people will want to get out there and do some activities outside. So that's kind of where the crux of this episode starts, we're going to do a special interview with my good friend, Steve who's a professional photographer talking a little bit about getting into photography and some of the basics. We're going to call it dedication to the craft because when we do our photo trips, that's essentially the nickname we give to getting the shot that we want. No matter what, bad weather or less than hospitable terrain, things like that as future episodes go, I'm going to do more dedication to the craft segments, where I discuss these photo trips.
We've gone on these Epic ones. And then somewhere later down the line, we're going to do a second Interview with Steve, where we get a little more in depth. It's almost like this is your intro. And then we're going to have the follow-up course to it. Also, speaking of nice weather, I'm going to give a little bit of a backstory of 10 years ago this week I got back into running after being out of it since high school, since freshman year of high school, I was in my early 30's when I got back into it. So I was definitely not a runner when I started again. And I know a lot of people when they hear running, they get terrified thinking. What it's going to do to their knees, their back their hips.
So I'm going to give a little bit of my story, how I got back into it, how I approached it. And hopefully it'll give you a little bit of inspiration. I'm not saying go out and run 10 miles after you listen to this podcast, but it's more of making it less terrifying and a little more palatable. I'm also going to go way, way back in the day to when I had a Fisher-Price phonograph. Yes, that was a real product. A record player made by Fisher price. And I had records when I was five, six, seven years old. So I'm going to talk about that and some good times with the albums that I had, the actual vinyl albums that a six or seven year old child would have, and that's going to be a fun story.
I love sharing that. Of course, we'll do this week in history as we do every week with a new time capsule. This week's time capsule is going to be a little special. It corresponds with a family member's birthday. My cousin, Patrick, by the time this gets out, he will have turned 32 years old. So we're going to go back the time capsule to the day of his birth.
But I wanted to start off by just thanking everyone who has tuned in all of you that have shared this podcast. All of you that have taken even two minutes out of your day to listen to this passion project of mine. I hope you've enjoyed it. I keep trying to find new, interesting, exciting things to put on this podcast, to keep people coming back and hopefully make it so that people new people want to come and join in.
And listen, also remember to tune in Fridays on Instagram, live for my, without a map podcast, post game show. I had been doing them at 5:00 PM. The last few weeks I've been doing them at eight. I have no idea what the best time is to do a live stream. That is all new to me. But it's a lot of fun. This last week's one was a lot of fun.
I had an old coworker slash friend where I worked with him in a retirement home. He popped in, I was able to say hi to him. Another old friend I worked with way back in the day at a restaurant popped in near the end. So that's a lot of fun. I, I really hope you have liked them. If you've checked them out and tune in when they're live, by the time this comes out, there will be a new 4k New England video up on YouTube, which will feature Fort Revere park in Hull. There's going to also be a new blog post on my, in my footsteps blog. That's at blogger.com. That's going to be about Boon Island light, but actually a really neat story about something that happened there long before there was a light house. I'll just say it has to do with cannibalism. I'm always pumping out the content. So there's never a lack. So how about we start this episode off with the interview with my old friend, Steve Drozell here in this interview, we are on location at the old stone church in West Boylston. So we're in his truck, but here we go. We're going to jump right in. Let's take a walk and let's start the interview. Dedication to the craft with Steve Drozell.
06:13 Dedication to the Craft Interview
Chris Setterlund: So we are here for our dedication, to the craft interview with my good friend, Steve Drozell, who was an actual professional photographer, not a hack like me. And we're actually out on a real photo shoot. We're actually waiting for it to get a little darker, to go shoot the old stone church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. We figured what better way to pass the time, waiting for it to get dark than to do this interview. So we'll start off for you, Steve. Just tell the listeners of the podcast about your experience as a photographer.
Steve Drozell: It started off years and years and years ago when I was younger and I just took an interest in photography right away. I had a very basic point and shoot camera. Took a lot of really bad photos and kind of grew from there. It took off again in high school when I took photography with you and Greg and I believe Garbitt was in our class and a few other people started to love it more. When I went to college, I had to pick a major and decided to become an art major and I specialized in photography, even though it wasn't an actual art major or it wasn't an actual major at my school. And then when I graduated, I figured, well, I should probably do something with my degree. And I had a few jobs before. I actually got a chance to become a photo journalist at a newspaper in the New Hampshire Seacoast area and I was there for four years before I left.
CS: See, so he knows what he's doing. So that's why I chose him to kind of share this for people that are looking to get into photography. Or looking to better themselves in photography, in your opinion, what is the most important thing a novice photographer can learn to make their photos better?
SD: I think the most important thing, right from the get-go is whatever camera you plan on shooting with, have a good working knowledge of the camera to start. Knowing what it's capable of will go a long way. If you want to get better as a photographer, just keep shooting, take a bunch of photos of stuff you love. It makes it a little easier when it's a subject matter that you enjoy taking pictures of while you're out shooting, try and look for different ways to see the same scene, either shooting from different angles or shooting it in different weather, different times of day, different seasons. Look at other people's photos. If you see photos that you like, try and emulate those. And I'm not saying go out and shoot the exact same photo, but if there's a certain style or a certain angle try and figure out how they got that photo and replicate it for yourself. Another thing that I always see that drives me up a wall with people that just take pictures, they're like, Oh, look at this I took a picture of a boat and the boat is the smallest thing in the frame of the photo. So get as close as you can to your subject. If you can't get physically close, get lenses, that'll get you as close as you can. They always talk about filling the frame with your subject. Obviously a landscape you're going to want to look for something interesting in the photo. That kind of anchors the photo, but the landscape itself will be the main feature of the frame. That's part of what I was saying, but make sure your subject takes up 50 to 85% of the frame. Two of the most important pieces of advice I can give are always be prepared, have extra batteries, memory cards, or film if you're still shooting with film. Be prepared for the elements, especially, yeah. Cold weather, you know, have gloves, extra layers, a hat. You don't want to miss out on something. Awesome. Because you weren't prepared and you get cold and have to go back to your car. The biggest thing, ask questions, ask other photographers for advice. Most of them are usually willing to give advice and teach what they know. Then if there's something specific, a technique that you're looking to try, Google it with everything we have with the internet nowadays, chances are you're going to find what you're looking for. There's so many different things that people are doing now and that they can shoot with just their phone and getting cool photos and images and videos that a lot of people also will post videos of how they got the shot or step-by-step technique to get the technique that they use to do what they did for the photo.
CS: All right. So here's kind of an either or so if you could only have one of these, is it better to have the expensive photography equipment or that photographic eye to kind of see that great shot?
SD: To be honest for me, I used to think it was more important to have top of the line equipment. And that's how you got the best stuff. But once cameras became more readily available on cell phones and the cameras on the phones themselves got better. I realized that it's really about the photographer and that you can take the crappiest equipment and get great photos if you know what you're doing and what you're looking for. If you insist on having a good camera and want a DSLR, which is a digital, single reflex lens, which is basically the cameras that you can interchange the lenses. Spend as much money as you can on the lenses, like get a decent camera body, but the image quality is going to one come from the photographer and what they see, but the better quality lenses. Are gonna make the picture sharper and just look better in general. Having an eye for photography is something that can be learned. I think I've noticed it with your work just from the early days of when we started shooting and how much better you've gotten. And there's times where, like I see some of your photos and I'm like, Damn like, I wish I wish I could have shot that. I think a lot of it comes down to you actually make it a point to go out and shoot a lot more than I do. Like I either just because I'm busy or I'm lazy, a lot of times I don't go out and shoot nearly as much as I used to. And again, your work has come such a long way and I think it's literally just from going out and continuously shooting and pushing and pushing, and you've gotten better because of that. So I do think that having a photographic eye is something that can be learned. If you pay attention to what you're doing and you learn from the repetition, you'll start to see the photos. You get better as you learn what your camera can do. Also, you know, you learn the different techniques and try stuff. See what works for you. If it helps keep a little notepad, a little journal with you when you go out to shoot and try something new and take notes, make little notes in the journal about like, okay, I tried this, this didn't work. I'm going to try this next time. Or I tried this while it was there and this worked. So that way, if it's not something you shoot regularly, at least you'll have notes. The next time you go out and you'll know what to do or how to set up the camera. What settings to use.
CS: So it's literally trial and error?
SD: It's like, especially with digital, it's like, you can take a million photos and it's not like film where you shoot and then you've got to wait to get it developed and pray like, Oh God makes sure this is all right. At this point, I've been shooting digital just a little bit longer than I was shooting film when I was actually doing it a lot as a, as a photo journalist and also in college, I know the diehards, like the old school guys will probably tell you that there was something, a richness to photos and film. And I think a lot of it was, it was also something tangible. You could hold the film, you could touch the prints and you can obviously still get digital stuff printed and hold it and touch it. But I don't think it's the same for a lot of the old school guys like that. For me personally, I like the instant gratification of seeing what I just shot and being able to adjust things as I go without wasting film film at this point, with the way I shoot and like some of our photo trips. Where we're shooting a couple hundred photos at a whack. Those are the ones that we haven't deleted while we were out. Cause we screwed up the shot or it didn't come out quite the way we wanted it. So in that sense was film. It would get very expensive having to process the film and buying the film. And you know, you might even miss out on a, on an awesome moment because you're in the middle of either waiting for the film to rewind or you were changing out the film. So that's one huge advantage that I think digital has over the film cameras. It also takes some of the human element out of it. There's cons to both digital and. Film I've had issues with the film process. So when I worked at the newspaper that either something went wrong with the machine itself and the chemicals screwed up the film, which is not something you want to have to explain to the editor either that day or at five o'clock the next morning, when he comes in asking where the photos were, the digital is nice because it takes that human error element out of the equation. The downside to that is your trusting A computer. Digital cameras can crap out the computer inside the camera itself can crap out phones die. You drop your phone, you break your phone and you forgot to upload or save to the cloud. A bunch of pictures you just took so that stuff's gone. I have a friend of mine who I used to work with at the newspaper that I remember a few years ago, he's actually still a professional photographer and his computer died. And I believe he lost hundreds of photos. If not a couple thousand photos of his that were all shot digitally. My biggest advice for stuff like that is get an external hard drive. If you're going to make photography a career choice, if you become good enough at it. Buy a second external hard drive. It's never a bad thing to have backups of your backups of your backups. Yeah. Better to have too many backups. Then you have one set and you lose them. Exactly. Definitely get an external hard drive.
CS: I've got two of them.
SD: Yeah. On the film, if you're not careful and really good about archiving your film, you know, film can get scratched up. Film can get damaged. And then that is basically a permanent ruin on the image itself because you can't really fix the film itself once it's damaged.
CS: So we're here at the old stone church while we're a couple hundred yards from it. And this was a spot that's been on our. List to shoot for several years. So the last question here is what is the place that you would like to photograph more than any? And why would you like to shoot that?
SD: I don't have any one particular place. There's a lot of places I would love to shoot. One in particular, as you know, I'm very jealous that you've already been to was West Quoddy lighthouse. And that general area Lubec, Maine, the podcast episode, where you were talking about Lubec, Maine, and just the general area, I've seen the pictures of the lighthouses. I know that part of it, but the rest of it sounds like it's an awesome place to shoot. There's the grand Canyon for obvious reasons. National parks in Arizona. All the natural features out there would be amazing. Like in Utah, I think to Hawaii, Alaska is definitely up near the top of that list. That's just in the US. I mean, there's other places that I would absolutely love to go. Like I know there's somewhere in Thailand where there's a Bay that there's all these amazing islands and stuff like that. I've been to the Caribbean quite a few times and still feel like I could go back there and take a lot more photos. And I think it's not necessarily places that, you know, a lot of people want to go and shoot. I think you can make. Incredible photos, wherever you are. It depends on how you want to look at things. I think that's the biggest thing that especially some of our big photo trips, like I think one of the ones was where we were going up to owl's head Maine and we left before sunrise cause we were intent on stopping at Sohier park in York, Maine to shoot the Nubble lighthouse at sunrise and then still drive another. Whatever it was like two and a half, three hours from there up to Owl's head and shot that, and then worked our way back down the coast, stopping at other iconic lighthouses, like Marshall's point, which is where Forrest Gump ran to when he was out, running across the country in the morning. That means stuff like that. Like places that I haven't been to, that I've been looking forward to, I get like this nervous energy, just an excitement about it, knowing what potential there is. But I think a lot of it too, we get sidetracked easily and we ended up making multiple stops along the way and find other things to shoot a little bit of advice. If you're traveling somewhere to shoot something specific, keep your eyes open. You'll be surprised what you'll find along the way. You know, you'll always end up shooting more than what you had intended.
CS: Absolutely. I mean, we did it just today. The Wachusett Dam, that was ended up being an extra spot. So are you ready to go take some shots of the old stone church now after dark? Because it is now pretty much there. It should be dark enough unless this guy's kicking us out. Park ranger is a park ranger coming over here. Well, in case we get kicked out, I wanted to say, thank you so much, Steve, for being on the podcast, I've learned so much from you in photography. So it's one of those that I guess I could say I'm living proof of the repetition. And the learning as you go. So anyone out there listen to Steve and take that advice. And if you become a photographer because of this, or you feel your work got better because of this, definitely shoot me an email, send some thanks. And I will send them along to Steve.
SD: Awesome. Sounds good.
CS: All right. Let's get out in the cold and start shooting this old stone church. All right. Thank you so much to Steve Drozell for taking some time out of our photo trip to share some of what makes photography so much fun and what you can do to get into photography. And I'll try to put up a photo of our nighttime shoot at the old stone church. We did get some good photos. He also wanted me to give a shout out to his father, Steve Drozell, also Papa D wishing him a happy birthday because when this podcast gets released, it will be his birthday. So happy birthday, Mr. Drizzle. I know you hate when I say that. Happy birthday, Papa D. And thanks again to Steve for doing this interview.
20:58 Sponsor: Wear Your Wish
I wanted to just take a moment before I go on to remind everyone to go and check out Wear your wishes.com that is the company run by. Katie marks. My sister, I interviewed her for episode 11. She gave an in-depth very inspirational and emotional interview on her journey as single mother to business owner. And now the launch occurred February 28th and where your wish is. Open for business, clothing and apparel. Go to there now and enter your email on the site Wear your wishes.com to be in the entry for a free hoodie. They've got so much more to come, but they've started launching. They're open for business to where your wish brand is built around wishes and desires and dreams that were your wish. The 11-11, making a wish. When you see those numbers on the clock or anywhere, I will tell you for a fact that in the time since I have interviewed her, I've had numerous 11, 11 occasions, not just on my clock, but going to the store and getting a receipt for my total. And it's 11, 11, $11 and 11 cents. There's so much to see, go to the site. Don't just take my word for it. Go back and listen to episode 11, listen to the interview. Go watch the interview on YouTube. That's the more uncut one I have to try to condense these for the podcast. Wear your wishes.com is where you go get started. There's so much more to come, but I wanted to give a little reminder for everyone to just go check it out. It's going to be big 2021 is going to be big Wear your wish at Wear Your Wishes.com.
22:44 Back In the Day - Fisher-Price Phonograph
Music is such a huge part of life. Everyone has a band or a genre or a sound, a feeling that is their preferred type of music that just brings them to a different place. And music has obviously changed and evolved a lot just in my lifetime. It's so much different, but just like everyone else, my music journey started when I was a child.
When I was little, one of my first memories of life in general. Is hearing John Lennon's double fantasy album, which came out in 1980 and you gravitate towards music that you hear music that your parents play, but then something happens as you start to get a little older. You discover your own preferences, you hear music that starts to speak to you.
And so that's what I want to do here for this back in the day segment is to talk about my first foray, my own personal preference of music. And it's good for some laughs. It starts off with a present. I got probably for my fifth birthday, which was a Fisher price phonograph player. That's something they had back in the early 1980s was a child's record player. That's something that is, you probably could find it on eBay. Now, when doing research for this podcast, I looked up the Fisher price. I looked up Fisher price, record player, and I found Fisher price phonograph, which is what it was. The one that I believe I had was first released in 1978. And if you look it up, it's kind of beige top with a mustard yellow spot where you'd put the record of the mustard, yellow arm with the needle that you play the album.
The first record that I got, that I remember playing on this Fisher-Price phonograph was Michael Jackson's thriller. And to this day, the very first song on the album Wanna be starting something. Gives this sort of memory that just pops into my head every time. And that is back in the spring of 1983, once it got warm, we would put the Fisher-Price phonograph in the front window at my house, open the window and start to play that album and all the kids that lived in the surrounding houses would come over and dance in the front yard. So it's like something out of a musical where there's a bunch of seven, eight, nine year old kids dancing in the front yard to Michael Jackson. But that was a real thing and it happened a lot, but Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson's thriller, I mean, that was it's one of the biggest albums ever made so it would be natural that. I would like that music and have that. And it would be natural that I was exposed to it because my parents were young. Well, they mean young for having a child. So their taste in music was kind of similar to others that were in their early twenties at the time. But a funny thing happened was my direction that I went into as far as what I liked for music kind of went way off the path from Michael Jackson.
And I can honestly say, I mean, I was. Six seven going on eight years old in that range. I don't know where this tastes and music came from. I don't know if I heard songs. I don't know if my parents influenced it. I honestly can't remember, but I remember the albums that I had now, when I say I had, I mean, granted, I probably asked for them, but my parents bought them. It wasn't like I went out and bought these as a seven year old, the very first album that I can think off the top of my head that I had. That I played a lot on my Fisher-Price phonograph was Van Halen's, 1984, the picture of the little, the baby, but he's supposed to be an angel and he's got a pack of cigarettes on the front. 1984 probably was van Halen's biggest album they ever did. It was their last one. Last real one with David Lee Roth and it had Jump, Panama, and hot for teacher. Those were huge songs. All over MTV when they played actual music and weren't reality shows. A year or two later, I had Motley Crue's theater of pain that came out in the spring of 1985. I think that had home sweet home and smoking in the boys room. And the cover is those theater masks, one smiling, one crying. And Motley Crue they're, you know, glam rock, they were at the beginning, but that's another one it's not too far off the beaten path, Van Halen, Motley Crue, but still think of it here.
I am seven, eight years old, and this is what I've got, but hold on, it gets even better. Does anyone out there remember twisted sister with Dee Snider who looked like a football player with big frizzy, blonde hair and makeup. They were in Pee-wee's big adventure. Anyone remember Pee-wee's big adventure. When he's riding through the Hollywood backlot and twisted sister was doing a video. Well, you got to go look it up. I had the stay hungry album, which came out in the spring of 1984 and has Dee Snider on the front looking. As psychotic and terrifying as you think he would to a seven year old child, it looks like he's eating a big drum stick. That album was their biggest album. It had burn in hell. It had, I want to rock and we're not gonna take it. So that was blasting on my Fisher-Price phonograph too. It's crazy. I don't know where I heard twisted sister. Maybe, maybe it was Pee-wee's big adventure. And I saw them and said I wanted their album.
But wait, it gets better. Anyone remember Ratt? Ratt was another heavy metal early to mid 80's band. I had the album out of the cellar, which had round and round, which was there pretty much their only hit. That was one. I still love that song. I've got that on. Well, I guess I iPod, but it's my phone. I think Ratt actually just kind of had a mini resurgence last year when they did that Geico commercial when the couple said they had a rat problem. And downstairs, there's the band playing, but, but they're all like in their 60's now. So it's not quite as cutting edge as it was in 1984, but the coup de gras was Quiet Riot's metal health album. Oh my God. So quiet riot. That album came out around the spring of 1983 and it had, I mean, mental health was a big song, but come on feel the noise was one I still have. I still listen to that song. That was basically as big as they got was that album. But the thing I remember about it was the cover. There's a man on the cover, basically in a straight jacket with this silver metal mask. And he's got these huge eyes and this spiky hair, and I'll never forget as a six year old child, I had this album and I love the music, but I hated the cover and I was terrified of it. So I would have to have the cover face down when I played the music. It's crazy. I don't know where I heard quiet riot, but here it is. I don't know if I asked my mother, can I have this album? And it's really like, you look at the cover and that's what you want to listen to. But I was a little metal head, quiet riot, twisted sister, Ratt, Motley Crue and I loved all of it. I still love that type of music. I mean, granted my, my circle of music, I listened to pretty much everything. But just imagine that this little kid growing up on Cape Cod Fisher-Price phonograph and he's got Ratt twisted, sister Motley, Crue, quiet riot. All right. But just so you don't think that I was just focused on glam rock and heavy metal I did have Huey Lewis and the News sports. That was a great album. Still, even back then. And it's funny. I don't know when this album came out, but one that I would play every now and then I think my mother had this album was by a man named Dan Hartman in probably the spring of 84. He had a song I can dream about you.
And I remember that song getting played a lot on my Fisher-Price phonograph. I don't know if my mother had his actual album or the streets of fire soundtrack, which the song was on the movie soundtrack, but I heard that song a lot. I played it a lot and that's kind of one of those things, I don't know, don't judge too much. 1980s music is some of it's aged well, and some has aged not well, if that makes sense. There's some stuff that just is amazing to this day. There's other stuff that you just shake your head. Like I can't believe that was reality. But that's, you know, way, way back in the day, my kind of first foray into what I liked his music.
What did you like when you first started listening to music? I'm talking when you were little, what's your first memories of music and what did you have for your, the way to play it? I'm old enough that I had vinyl and I had a phonograph and I'm not that old, but you know, others, they had the discman they had the boom boxes. Some people that are listening to this might be so young that you just had the MP3 player as a kid. And for any of you out there that are my age, a little older, you know, forties to early fifties, if you're looking for a Fisher-Price phonograph for your own collection, for some retro, I've seen them on eBay they're as low as $30, but those are probably really low quality. They're usually 80 to a hundred dollars at least. So I won't be getting one for myself. But that's way back in the day, my first foray into music. Tell me what you think. Shoot me an email message me on Twitter, Instagram, and I'll be back for another back in the day in the next episode.
32:04 Why You Should Be Running
It's springtime. Finally, soon enough, it's going to be summer. Hopefully this summer is going to be much better than last year with the pandemic winding down and life can get sorted back to normal. So now it's a matter of getting ready for the beach, the beach body, and sure. Lifting weights is great muscle burns fat, but you need some kind of cardio cycling. I love cycling. I've gotten into that in the last year at the gym, you can do the elliptical machine. You can do the rowing machines, swimming, walking, but I want to talk about running. That's the ultimate, as far as burning calories, getting your heart rate up as far as making those lungs work.
But I know what you're saying running, Oh my God, my knees, my ankles, my hips, my back. What am I going to? I can't do that. The pounding, the pavement. Sure you can. And the reason I say that, just because I did 10 years ago, this week, I got back into running after being out of it since I was a freshman in high school and I kind of want to explain what I did, how I got from not running at all to running a marathon within six months. Not saying you have to do that, but this is just some tips that I had helped me lose 40 pounds, helped me feel better about myself than I had in years. And it's all from running. So this is a little bit of my story. Hopefully it'll inspire and motivate you. If not, it's just a good tale.
My grandfather was an Olympic caliber, sprinter and swimmer. The only reason he didn't go to the Olympics was because world war II broke out. My uncle, Steve, he became a marathon runner in his fifties and my cousin, Keith is an elite level sprinter. So I know I have that in me. It was just a matter of like most of you that are shaking your heads right now. It's just, I don't want to do that. It sounds like it'll hurt my feet ankles, et cetera. So I would run the shorter distances, sprints, a hundred meter. But after I got through freshman year, I didn't want to do that anymore. I got more into lifting, but then I had a shoulder injury. I couldn't lift as heavy once I got, I think I was like 24, 25. I had tried to run a few times 2008, 2009, but it would be the same. I would get shin splints because I would try to run, go from zero to 60, run five miles and I'd be so hurt and sore I'd say the hell with this. I don't want to do it. When my uncle, Steve got into marathon running, he wanted me to run the Boston marathon with him. And I always instilled to this day, say that's not happening. I got lucky to have a really close friend, Deanna Jennings. Now she was Arnold back then she ran the Boston marathon after having a liver transplant. So literally she's like superhuman. It's insane. She ran tons of races and was like, I did this after a liver transplant. What's your excuse? And my uncle would say, I was in my 50's What's your excuse? So I started thinking what's my excuse. And it was that I don't want to, it ended up that there was someone at the gym that I would see running a lot that I was kind of interested in and it turned out that she was a big time runner.
So that kind of galvanized me. And she also said, if I can do it, you can do it. Well, I said, all right, I will give it a shot. I did one mile on the treadmill at 10 minute pace, I was using the same shoes that I used at work. I had new balance sneakers that didn't really fit well, but I still did it. My legs were already a little bit sore. So you go from there you go day by day. You add a little bit more, but you go with what's comfortable. If running a mile is uncomfortable. You trot between telephone poles and you walk the rest of the way it's so happened that it worked for me.
If you're going to get into running, you need to go to a proper footwear outlet, either a marathon sports, which is around here. On Cape Cod, there's a place called Hanlon's. You need to get measured and get measured. Get your feet measured in the evening because that's when they're at their largest. I had one point I got my feet measured during the morning. I was almost a full size, too small. I went running and it was like, my feet were getting choked out during the run. So get measured. Whether you're on the treadmill, whether you're outside, find your comfortable gate, some people land on their heels, some land on their toes. I used to land on my heels and I ended up with injuries from that. I had to relearn my running stride to land foot, and I have these short little steps that people would say, how can you run fast when you have these little pitter-patter steps and it's just something you learn.
And when you get that, runner's high, that first time you're going to want to run all the time. But you've got to give your body a chance to recover. Rest days are as important as running days. And on your rest days, you should stretch. After each run, you should stretch. You need dynamic stretching at the beginning, that'll loosen the muscles up and then static stretching afterwards. That'll get the blood flow back to these muscles that have just been contracting. Every step is a contraction of the quadriceps in the front. Hamstrings in the back, listen to your body and don't compare yourself to anyone else. If you're running a quarter mile and you're doing it at barely above a walk. Great. That's awesome. That's all you gotta do. Don't look at someone on a treadmill next to you. That's doing the sprints and feel you need to do more because if you compare yourself to others, then you're going to end up going beyond what your body is capable of at that moment. I learned that a couple times, trust me within six weeks of starting to run again, I ran my first race, which was a 5k for Cape Abilities, a local nonprofit on Cape Cod.
I was gassed. 5k is 3.1 miles. I ran with my uncle Steve, and it was a lot of fun. And that's another thing, races. Those are addicting. I have a bag full of metals and shirts, and it's not even, I never won any races. It was just fun to go and see people. It's a community. That's another thing. Get to talk to people that run. You can shoot me a message and ask me questions. The great thing about running is all you need is a good pair of sneakers and that's it. You could walk outside, you walk for a while. You'd trot your jog a little, you enjoy being outside as much as it is exercise. Definitely keep track of your progress.
Keep track of how you feel after and distances. You're never supposed to do more than add 10% to your load in any week. So if you're running five miles, you're not supposed to run any more than five and a half miles. The next time out, believe me, you will get the burn. You will burn calories, even jogging.
You will get it. And as you get weeks and months out from starting running, if you go at your pace and you increase your amount of miles, that good clip, you will look back at where you started and say, I can't believe I am where I am. That's how I was. I ran the Cape Cod marathon only seven or eight months after starting to run. And I didn't do anything crazy. I was not a runner when I started. And I'm not saying if you start to run, you're going to run a marathon in eight months. I'm just saying that if you start and you go at a pace that's comfortable for you, you're going to see results. And the big thing is you're going to get sore.
You might get injuries. Hopefully they're minor, but don't get discouraged if you have setbacks, because that's what happened. When I first started running, remember I told you at the beginning, I tried a couple times I would pull muscles and be like, I don't want to do this. The trick is to go at a comfortable pace as you increase your miles, but also to not get discouraged. If you get injured, just take it as, you know, a bump in the road. There are so many races. Well, hopefully with COVID hopefully races will be coming back. I know 2020 there weren't many, but there are so many fun ones. There's 5Ks there's brew runs. I've done those where you get beer at the end there's costume ones for Halloween. There's nighttime ones at Christmas with Christmas lights. It's a fun atmosphere and it's so good for you. And it's cheap. You know, cycling is awesome, but you got to buy a bike and a helmet and all this stuff to go with it running. You just need shoes. Get measured. Go at your own pace and you'll be able to be a runner. Hopefully if you like this little introduction into it, I can revisit this as I go to give a little more in depth, sorta like the dedication to the craft interview that I did. We'll revisit it, but I wanted to get you motivated and inspired to get out there. Cause it's spring the weather's going to be beautiful. Run, walk, anything, just get moving and you'll feel so much better if you do. I promise you.
41:10 This Week In History
It's time for this week in history. So let's go back in time and see what interesting things were going on in our world back long ago. This week in history, 50 years ago, March 22nd, 1971. The Boston Patriots are renamed the new England Patriots. The professional football team had been the Boston Patriots since its inception in 1960 and had played in the American football league, the AFL. For the Patriots It was nice to get an actual real stadium of their own Schaefer stadium, a 60,000 seat stadium, because when they first started, they played at the Boston university football field. Then they played at Harvard university and finally played for several years at Fenway park, which actually must've been fun to see.
The Patriots had gone 2-12 in 1970 and got the number one overall pick in the draft who turned out to be Heisman trophy winner. Jim Plunkett from Stanford university, a quarterback. The Patriots very first game at Schaefer stadium was a pre-season game on August 15th and they actually won. They beat the New York giants 20-14, but the big problem was the traffic jams around route 1. And those are something that's still happens to this day, even at Gillette. So just imagine that that was a blessing and a curse. That seemed to be how the Patriots were up until Tom Brady showed up. I'll get deeper into this in another podcast, but those of you that are still in your twenties. That have seen the Patriots you have no idea what this team was like back. Even when I was a kid in the late 80's, early 90's, they were one of the joke franchises in sports, not just football. So this whole being a dynasty and winning championships thing, it's pretty new. It really is. They were a laughing stock for many years. The new England Patriots ended their first season in Foxborough, Massachusetts with a record of 6-8. And they didn't do too much until the late 70's when Steve Grogan was the quarterback, they actually were pretty good, but nothing like how they ended up being in the 21st century. Schaefer stadium would become Sullivan stadium, which will become Foxboro stadium, which will get torn down and then be rebuilt as Gillette stadium, which is currently standing. But 50 years ago, this week in history, the Boston Patriots packed up and moved to Foxborough and became the new England Patriots.
This week in history, 58 years ago, March 21st, 1963. The infamous Alcatraz prison is officially closed. Nicknamed the rock Alcatraz was one of their most remote prisons you could possibly have located out in San Francisco Bay off the coast of California. It was set aside in 1850, a presidential order set the Island aside for possible use. As a military reservation, it ended up becoming a military prison and by the late 1850s, the first prisoners were being housed on the Island. They knocked down the original prison in 1909. And from 1909 to 1911, the prisoners on Alcatraz built a new prison. It had a maximum capacity of 336 inmates, but the average population was about 260 to 275, and it never reached its full capacity. Alcatraz is world famous. I mean you, everyone knows Alcatraz and it housed several well-known criminals like Al Capone machine gun Kelly, Alvin carpus, who was actually the first public enemy Number one. Alcatraz was seen as the ultimate punishment. If you didn't behave at another prison, you were going to get sent to Alcatraz, which was just the worst of the worst. It was highly structured and a monotonous daily routine that was designated to teach the inmates to follow the rules. During his time in existence, there were 14 escape attempts, only one that was considered successful and that was June 11th, 1962 when Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin. Escaped, but their bodies they've never been seen again, rumors are that they survived, but then there's rumors that they died on the escape. That's the world famous one that Clint Eastwood start in the movie, escape from Alcatraz. That's something that's a whole other this week in history for that, ironically, this potential successful escape was not the reason Alcatraz closed. It was estimated that 3 to $5 million was going to be needed just for the restoration and maintenance to keep the prison open. It was just too costly. That was the main reason that Alcatraz closed. In the fall of 1973, it was reopened as a park, a national park, and it receives more than a million visitors yearly. But this week in history, 58 years ago, Alcatraz days as a prison ended this week in history.
127 years ago, March 22nd, 1894. The first Stanley cup championship was played. It was played in Montreal, Canada. And the Stanley cup trophy itself was the creation of sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, who was of noble birth, the son of a three-time prime minister of England. He became a hockey fan in 1889. After watching a game at the Montreal winter carnival the year before in 1893, Stanley actually donated a lavish trophy to the Canadian amateur hockey association. It was originally called the dominion hockey challenge cup. And it was presented to the Montreal amateur athletic association team, but Stanley had intended for the cup to be presented to the winner of a challenge series or a tournament. So in 1894, it was officially given to the Montreal AAA team upon defeating the Ottawa generals in a championship round tournament that specifically had been created by Lord Stanley to give out his cup in 1926. The national hockey league started using the Stanley cup as their trophy to be given to their annual champions. It's been awarded every year since except for 2005, when the NHL was on strike, the original trophy that Lord Stanley donated was retired in 1962 and since then, there's only been one Stanley cup. It makes it the only trophy in a major American sport that is not reproduced each year. So when you see teams hoisting that trophy, that's the same one since 1963. But this week in history, 127 years ago, the first Stanley cup championship tournament was played.
And finally this week in history, 16 years ago, March 24th, 2005, the American version of the office debuted on NBC. I'm a bit partial to it since it's one of my favorite shows of all time, but contrary to what you would think it was not an immediate hit. The first season was only six episodes and it was pretty loosely based off of the British version that Ricky Gervais had developed. So some people thought, Oh, this is just going to be another. Cheap American knockoff of a British television show. And despite having pretty good numbers in the debut, the show only was ranked 102nd for the season. It was debatable whether it would get a second season or not, thankfully it was renewed and it became a big time hit with Steve Carrell as Michael Scott, John Krasinski, as Jim Halpert, Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute and Jenna Fischer as Pam Beasley and so many more that made this ensemble comedy just, there are so many quotable lines and it's so unique in how it is filmed with no laugh track. Like it's a docu-drama. I even made it a point on my big road trip I did in 2019 to go to Scranton Pennsylvania, where the show was set and find the sign that's at the beginning of the credits of the show and go to a lot of those places. That's how big of a fan I was, I went to poor Richard's pub. I got my sister, Ashley had Dundee award for her birthday. So yeah, I'm a fan. The show ended up lasting nine seasons and 201 total episodes rather than go through all of its awards. I'll just say that it was in its. Entirety nominated for 163 total awards from different organizations with 30 wins in total, it's still a big part of pop culture and people are always clamoring for reboots and relaunches. This week in history, 16 years ago, Dunder Mifflin turned on its lights for the first time as the office debuted.
And finally it's time for a new time capsule. We're throwing a dart back the dartboard board of history to March 24th, 1989. The number one song was the living years by Mike and the mechanics. Mike and the mechanics was a side project of the guitarist from Genesis Mike Rutherford. They had a few other hits, like, all I need is a miracle, but this was their only number one. The number one movie was Twins, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, which was a pretty big hit about a pair of twins that were created in a lab basically. And the whole thing is all of the goodness and the best of the genes went into Arnold and all the bad stuff went into Danny DeVito. I think it's great. One of my favorites growing up, it made $216 million at the box office on a budget of 18 million. And it has a 43% rating on rotten tomatoes, but don't let that cloud your judgment. You should watch it. Anyway, the number one TV show was Roseanne. It ran for 10 seasons and a total of 231 episodes and won a bunch of awards, starring Roseanne Barr, John Goodman, and a bunch of others though. This was the only year that it was number one in the TV rankings. It was top 10 for its first seven seasons.
And if you were out shopping. And wanted a portable TV. You could get a two inch LCD portable Casio TV for $249 and 99 cents. Two inch screen adjusted for inflation that's $527. So yeah, imagine buying a two inch TV screen for $527. Welcome to the end of the eighties. And most importantly, March 24th, 1989 my cousin Patrick Setterlund was born. Turning 32 years old, living out in Las Vegas, living in the desert. Just wanted to say, I love you. Hope you have a great day and hopefully I'll see you again soon and that'll do it for this week in history. Another time capsule, we'll be back for another one.
51:56 Closing
And that's going to close out episode 14 of the, in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has listened. Thank you so much to everyone who has been supportive of the podcast, the YouTube channel, the blogs, all that stuff. I really appreciate it. It's a passion project that I hope someday to be more, all this creativity is what I want to do with life. I enjoy creating and coming up with things that I think might entertain you and inform you. So it makes me feel good when I see people are actually listening and downloading it big. Thank you to my buddy, Steve Drozell for spending some time giving us some insight into the world of photography for anyone who wants to get started.
Like I said, at some point we'll do a more in depth interview where it's more nuts and bolts so that if you start off photography, by listening to this interview, you'll be ready for the second class coming up. Find me on Instagram. Christopher Setterlund is my official page with my photos from my Canon rebel T7. I've also got a page for the, in my footsteps podcast, but it has fewer followers. So when I do my, without a map live streams, it's usually on the Christopher Setterlund one, just because there's a higher chance of getting more eyes on it. That's the reason why I'm on Twitter. Chris Setterlund is my handle.
YouTube. I've got my YouTube channel. Christopher Setterlund, it's all the same. You can see all of my 4k new England videos. There's a lot of all the podcast segments that I create into videos go up there, visit my personal website, Christopher Setterlund.com. It's got links to all of the podcasts on there, but it also has links to my first five books that I don't promote nearly enough on the podcast.
The first three are all titled in my footsteps. There's Cape Cod Martha's vineyard in Nantucket, their travel guides. Those are through Schiffer publishing. The other two are history books through the history, press Arcadia, publishing historic restaurants of Cape Cod and Cape Cod nights, which is nightlife, bars, clubs. I also have a sixth book, iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod coming out the week of May 24th. I'll be definitely keeping you updated on that visit Wear your wishes.com my sister Kate's clothing and apparel line. Check it out. They're doing great things and there's more to come visit. DJ WilliamsMusic.com. He's the one that created James river. That's the song I used at the intro and outro of this podcast. He's got a lot of great music there. What I've started to do is put the links that are pertinent to the things that I do on this podcast, in the descriptions. So they should be there and you can just click on them rather than me just saying here, here's some homework to do, go find this link.
You can just click on it. So this was my third of three weeks in a row doing the podcast. So I've got a week off. Next week. Episode 15 will be in two weeks, we'll be taking a road trip to Block Island, Rhode Island, which is going to be a lot of fun. We're going to go way, way back in the day to the DMX music service, not the rapper. That's something that I had my family had, and I've wanted to look up and share for a while. So that'll be fun to reminisce about we're going to have this week in history, including Halley's comet coming close to the earth the last time. And I'm going to do a little bit of a retrospective about my grandmother, my Nina Rosemarie Sullivan. She actually just passed away. Before the recording of this podcast. So I don't want to dive too deep in and make it quick because I want her to have her own segment. So it's going to be a little bit about her, her life, my grandparents in general, and everyone out there you've had grandparents, you have grandparents, you've lost, loved ones.
This one thing, no matter what background you're from family means everything and losing family is very devastating to everyone. So I want to share this and maybe you all can relate to it, but that will be. In episode 15, but I wanted to say, I miss you, Nina. I love you so much. Thank you for being the glue for our family for 92 years, and we'll definitely meet again and remember, make time for those that matter. Make time for your family, your friends, those that have been there for you, those that you love, but in this journey called life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path and enjoy every moment you can, because one day is the last time. Thank you so much, everyone. I really appreciate it and I will talk to you in two weeks, but I'll be on my live stream Friday. Thank you very much.