On The Runs 170 - Ellen Hunter Gans - The Great World Race

In this episode of the On the Runs podcast, hosts Eric and Erika welcome Ellen Hunter Gans (12:32), a passionate runner who shares her experiences with the Boston Marathon and her journey through various races. Ellen discusses the importance of community support, the challenges she has faced, and her aspirations for the future. With humor and insight, she reflects on her running journey, emphasizing the mental resilience required to overcome obstacles and the joy of celebrating small victories along the way. In this engaging conversation, the speakers explore the profound connections formed through running, particularly in the context of ultra marathons and the 777 challenge. They share personal experiences from races in Antarctica, Cape Town, and Australia, highlighting the beauty and challenges of each location. The importance of community, humor, and mental toughness in endurance sports is emphasized, along with the significance of writing about these experiences as a form of personal expression. From dealing with a painful spider bite during a race to the cultural insights gained from running in Istanbul, Ellen's stories are filled with humor and resilience. She discusses her journey with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, the impact it has on her life and running, and her reflections on completing an Ironman. The conversation highlights the importance of community, humor, and the drive to push through challenges in pursuit of personal goals.

Thank you to our supporters and new partnerships with My Race Tatts and Wright Socks. Check them out in the links below!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
12:32 Guest Introduction: Ellen Ganz
01:51:58 Listener Engagement and Community Updates
01:54:48 Discussion on 'The Pitt' Series
02:02:14 Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts
02:04:09 Blooper

My Race Tatts Affiliate Page - 15% of your purchase goes towards our TEAM FORCE Fundraising efforts for the NYC Marathon

Wrightsock Affiliate Page - 15% of your purchase goes towards our TEAM FORCE Fundraising efforts for the NYC Marathon

Eric's NYC Marathon Fundraiser - Team FORCE, a dynamic organization that supports the hereditary cancer community

Erika's Chicago Marathon Fundraiser - for American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in memory of her brother, Nick

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Email us at OnTheRunsPod@gmail.com

Transcript

Eric (00:55)
What's up everybody? Welcome to episode 170 of the On the Runs podcast and happy Tuesday, the best day to make better than yesterday. I hope everyone was able to stay dry this weekend as it rained again for the 13th weekend in a row. We got an absolute amazing guest on today's episode, but before we get to her, I need to say hello.

Erika (00:55)
you

Eric (01:21)
It's my kick-ass Rockstar over co-host, six-star Erica. What's up?

Erika (01:27)
I freaking love it, dude. What's up? I am so happy that we're back to our regular scheduled programming. ⁓ Tuesday. Well, yes.

Eric (01:33)
We are not. Well, we are back to our original, our original.

We're recording on a Monday night and it's going to be a late night because I have only edited 22 seconds of today's episode so far. 22 seconds. You know how long it took me to do those 22 seconds? About three minutes. So I have a long, long night. is a great episode. my God. Ellen is amazing. We're going to get to her soon, but.

Erika (01:40)
It is the usual.

Two hours. boy. ⁓

Yeah,

Eric (02:03)
We have a few things to catch up on.

Erika (02:03)
I'm so pumped. Yes, we do.

Eric (02:06)
All right. Number one. I want to show you something I got. I got to take off my headphones here to do it, but I want to show you these. What do you think about these babies?

Erika (02:09)
What do you got?

There they are. Yep. Yep. Somebody's rocking a brand new pair of an old pair of his gooder, as if that makes any sense. But they look good, Mm-hmm.

Eric (02:19)
⁓ yeah!

That's right. I originally bought these. These are

the Gooder wrapped and they're called I Do My Own Stunts. I originally bought these not to look cool because yes, I look cool and some would say I look cooler than Ultra Chad actually, like that cool. But I bought these for cycling and I love them and they look great with a bike helmet and everything. Yeah, they kind of look what Nicole said I am trying to be like.

Erika (02:33)
Mm-hmm.

Start up the feud.

Eric (02:52)
Doc Brown and Back to the Future, Marty McFly. She says, I want to be in the movie or something wearing these. I freaking love these. And I had the other ones for about two years. they got, just at one point, they get dinged up enough where you don't care. And then they get dinged up more and more and more. And.

Erika (02:53)
Really? I don't get Doc Brown vibes.

Mm-hmm how you could even see

out of them. I don't know I think I brought that up and you're like I can't I can't see out of these so ⁓

Eric (03:13)
Well, I actually could for the longest time. They just didn't look sharp on the outside,

but they looked great on the inside, which was surprising for Gooder, because my opinion on Gooder. Remember, I sold sunglasses for eight years. I know good sunglasses and what goes into them, and good sunglasses don't cost $35. They cost a lot more. They don't cost the $300 you're spending on them, but they definitely cost over like...

Erika (03:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Eric (03:38)
⁓ Way over 30 to make and there's all these layers that go. Maui Gym, by the way, are the best sunglasses you could buy quality wise. Maui Gym sunglasses. They don't look the best on me, but they are the best. Long story short, I was surprised how well they did and lasted for two years. So, but I had an amazing person buy me these sunglasses and I just wanted to thank her live on the podcast. So six star Erica, thank you so much for making me look cool.

Erika (03:40)
Of course.

Good to know.

Hmm.

you

You are most welcome. And I actually went a little above and beyond that. I have a case for you that those will fit in so they will stay not scratched because I will be very angry if those go, go the way of your other ones. So take care of them.

Eric (04:14)
⁓

I'm actually surprised you

found these because they're no longer on the website. So you found them through Millennium Running.

Erika (04:24)
Well, yeah, because I had to ask you.

Yeah. ⁓ so Gooder had an awesome Memorial Day sale. was like 20 % off everything. So I'm like, Ooh, this is a good excuse to like look for the sunglasses. And of course I had to ask you what the hell are they called? Couldn't even think of which ones they were. So I had to, I had to double check and yeah, lo and behold, Millennium was the local place that had them because you found another place and I just didn't want to pay for shipping. So was like, Hey, I'll get these for you.

Eric (04:53)
think it was like rei.com.

Erika (04:55)
Yeah. I was like, you go pick these up, they're yours. I'll pay for them. Happy early birthday. Go rock them. And yeah, support local businesses too. Yeah. I'm glad you like them.

Eric (05:03)
I love it. Thank you for doing that. Yes,

100%. So thank you for doing it. If anyone else wants to buy me some, they're the gooder wrapped. I do my own stunts. I could use extras in case anything happens. Then I can be like, no, Erica, they're in great shape. See? Or I'm a nine and a half shoe size if anyone wants to buy me running shoes or just donate some slightly used ones for me to wear because kids.

Erika (05:14)
He needs like 12 pairs, backups. Whatever.

you

Mm-hmm. Or they could

also donate to your Team Force NYC fundraiser. That's always a good gift. Mm-hmm. Lots of options.

Eric (05:32)
They could also buy, we have sponsors on this podcast. They could support our sponsors,

MyRaceTats and Right Socks. Check the show notes for the affiliate links and whatever you buy, 15 % of your purchase goes towards my New York City fundraising. And now we have multiple purchases on MyRaceTats, which is so cool, because I see when people buy them.

Erika (05:54)
Hell yeah.

Eric (05:57)
That's so cool. We got, we got to get some right socks in here, guys. I don't know if anyone's bought in socks yet, but these socks are awesome. I wore them all day yesterday. Actually I have two pairs and I need more now because there's nothing better than putting on a pair of fresh new socks. is so amazing. If, if like you asked, if I could have an unlimited amount of like one practical thing, what would it be? I pick socks. think socks and fresh underwear, right?

Erika (06:03)
Mm-hmm.

Very nice.

you

You pick socks. we don't. Yeah,

I would pick the underwear. You would pick the socks. Yeah.

Eric (06:27)
That's right. The question was socks or underwear. I picked the socks.

Because man, yeah, I could rock underwear forever with holes in them. It's fine. It feels fine.

Erika (06:35)
You

I'm learning a lot about you, my friend.

Eric (06:38)
but nothing better than a fresh pair of socks. So go get

yourself some right socks. Go get yourself some MyRace hats. They're amazing. Support those who support us. Firefly, I haven't done the check yet, but I am going to. Probably by next week, I'll have tried them out. I'll let you know. And I am working on my co-host to work on her connection. Still working on it. We're going to see how long that lasts. I meant to do the crickets on that one.

Erika (06:52)
Hope so, yeah.

Still working on it. Still working on it. He had that locked and loaded, you guys. ⁓

no, no, it was pretty good. You nailed that one. I'll give it to you.

Eric (07:09)
All right. Cool. Hey,

you know how else you can support us and help us? I won't say I'm never going to use this money towards my own running shoes, but we have a new Patreon. And I'm so excited to welcome to the Patreon family, Mike Bauer. What's up, dude?

Erika (07:20)
I'm so excited!

Nice. I know Mike's been out there rocking the on the runs playlist and he's been queuing up our show. So thank you, Mike. That's awesome of you. ⁓

Eric (07:35)
Mike is awesome. Mike has

the last name of my favorite hockey brand, Bauer. So I don't know if it's in the family, Mike, but if you have any connections, I can tell you I love the Bauer neck, the skate.

Erika (07:39)
Okay.

He's already giving us

money. He doesn't need to give you free hockey shit too.

Eric (07:48)
Well, you know what? don't need it because I don't think my playing days are over. My refereeing days are, I wouldn't say over, but I haven't refereed a game since March of 24.

Erika (07:51)
you

Did you ever do a pick-up league or something?

What about like a rec league? Like Sarah Halleck plays in a league somewhere.

Eric (08:01)
I would love to. I would love

to. just, when?

Erika (08:06)
⁓ yeah, you have a point. You gotta wait till your kids grow up.

Eric (08:07)
I, because I spend

my nights now working this Monday night media train and I need to tell you, let me just tell you now, let me tell you about my meeting. Because we had a meeting today.

Erika (08:12)
Yep.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

yes, that I could not make because the sperm bank had me busy at work.

Eric (08:21)
again.

I did not tell

I did not tell the person on the other end of the meeting what you

Erika (08:28)
I'm glad you did it. It's not

as burmank, it's not.

Eric (08:32)
But anyways, I had a meeting for full disclosure. I'm not going to say who it was with, but we've had, it's been my favorite thing lately. This year I've had more meetings than we've ever had with people in the life of this podcast. So it was, it was amazing. And I'll tell you why it was amazing. These meetings typically 30 minutes max. Like I remember when I had my meeting with the Boston run show, it was like a, we just hit our 30 minutes. had to go. They had it. They had a schedule. I get that.

Erika (08:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eric (09:00)
This one went 20 minutes long, 50 minutes, 20 minutes longer. So we made it 50. You know how I talk about Dirty Mo Media in my vision of Monday Night Media and how I use Dirty Mo as an example and Barstool as an example. Not really Barstool, but I use their Spit and Tricklets podcast as an example of our structure. I explained this to this guy and I said, have you ever heard of Dirty Mo Media?

Erika (09:04)
Longer, ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Eric (09:25)
Only once in my entire life has someone else seen that hoodie I wear and knew exactly what it was. And this guy knew instantly. goes, yeah, I listen to them all the time. You're the best big NASCAR guy. was like, no way. This is, it was such a cool connection. Whether nothing happens with, with this brand or not. Like we built how I feel that we built this connection already outside of the podcast where we're going to meet at the NASCAR race.

Erika (09:31)
Did he light up?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's always nice when you vibe with someone. You just find someone and you click.

Eric (09:55)
He's right.

I said, come to the camper, check it out, you know, eventually like grab yourself a camper and stay in the same area as us. Cause we get four spots for our two campers. We always make like them shaped as a horseshoe when we have a third. It's great. What a conversation we had. He loved the vision of in the dream of this. And I explained like, listen, you, you said a couple of things that we could do here is our vision and then we'll collab work together, do things like.

Erika (10:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Nice.

Eric (10:25)
I love these meetings. I'm okay that you missed them, but I wish you could listen to them. And I don't record. Well, and because you just, you, I think you would, you already know the vision, you know, the brain child, you know, the passion project, but man, I love having these meetings now. They've been so amazing. Whether I'm having a meeting with Allie G or Hillary, when we talked about building their podcast, another Hillary shout out running up that Hillary just started her podcast.

Erika (10:31)
Mm-hmm. I have to work on that.

Right.

Eric (10:53)
I even had a meeting with her just to kind of consult and, and let her run things off me. What do you think of this and that? What about equipment? How should I do this? Like I had that meeting already, which I'd love to do more of those like consulting type things. I absolutely dug it up. It was great. And let me tell you this meeting, a big part of it was because you went out and got it.

Erika (11:02)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (11:17)
And if you really want to go down that trickle tree is because of tarot pterodactyl. If you want to do all the things that Kevin Bacon, like you could do it. it's amazing how, yeah, but it's amazing how all those dots aligned and how every little thing happens. So it was pretty awesome. But you know what else is awesome? Our guest today. my God. Could you say

Erika (11:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

This, the degrees of separation. Yeah.

Love it.

Our guest today. I don't want to play favorites,

but she's up there.

Eric (11:46)
a YouTube vibe. Like this one, again, I think we scheduled her for an hour. We always do 75 minutes, an hour 15. This one went like an hour 45. I might have to cut some of it out.

Erika (11:48)
Yeah!

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And we could have kept talking too. Hey,

you do what you have to do, but I love her so much. Ellen just has so much vibrancy to her. She's funny. She's just so energetic. And God, I could honestly talk to her for hours.

Eric (12:15)
She's fantastic. You guys are going to love her. I'm so happy she reached out. Another 777 girl. We love our 777 people. They're amazing. So guys, enjoy Ellen on the podcast and we'll see you on the other side to talk the pit, Gostown Gallop

Erika (12:21)
Yup.

Eric (12:31)
and so much more.

Erika (12:32)
Mm.

Eric (12:36)
Our next guest on the pod just ran the Boston Marathon and her training plan was to run seven marathons and seven continents and seven days and then not run again until Marathon Monday. That's a bold move, Cotton. We'll see and hear how it played out. She's from the state of hockey. She's quick witted and uses humor for her fuel.

We are wicked excited to welcome Ellen Hunter Gans to the On the Runs Podcast! What's up, Ellen?

Ellen (12:58)
I'm doing well, how are you? That was like five or six, you know.

Eric (13:00)
Did I get it right? How many tries was that? ⁓ my god!

Erika (13:01)
Third time's a charm.

close

enough, right?

Eric (13:06)
Four,

four's fair.

Erika (13:08)
Yeah, that

has to be the whole intro. Everyone will notice if it's cut.

Eric (13:12)
That's your blooper. If you want to know what we're talking about, go to the freaking blooper,

guys. That was awesome. Hey, I think no one better to have it happen to than you because you're funny as shit. I love you already.

Erika (13:21)
Bold move, Cotton.

Ellen (13:22)
Well, I was

going to say it's like me at Boston. Like you got there eventually. It wasn't pretty, you you got there. Yeah.

Eric (13:28)
Right, right. Yeah.

Erika (13:29)
Love that analogy.

Eric (13:31)
I don't think Erica knew that you ran the 777 and then didn't run again into the Boss Marathon. We'll get into that, but yeah.

Erika (13:37)
That was news to me.

Ellen (13:39)
tried

once. I did. I don't know if that counts for anything. Not so good. Not so good. Yeah.

Erika (13:41)
And it didn't go so good.

Eric (13:45)
But

hey, one thing I mentioned, you're from the state of hockey, and I was just in the state of hockey for work. I'm going back. I wish I knew you were in Minnesota. I thought Minnesota was awesome when I'm there, but tell us a little bit about you, Ellen. Minnesota girl, born and raised or no?

Ellen (13:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, born and raised, born and raised. I've been here my whole life except for grad school and I love it here. So lots of green space, lots of lakes, ⁓ lots of terrible accents like mine. Although I will say my husband's from a farm in Minnesota and for some reason, my accent is worse than his, even though I'm from the city. So that's really one of life's unfair things, but yeah, I'm sure my accent will give your listeners plenty of to cringe about. yeah.

Eric (14:28)
So does that mean you're in the

Erika (14:28)
Well, it can't be

Eric (14:29)
tw-

Erika (14:29)
any worse than Eric and his mispronunciations.

Eric (14:33)
I actually, so I was in, I was in Minnesota, I was in the Twin Cities, is that where you are?

Ellen (14:39)
Yes, sir.

Eric (14:40)
So I bought my boys, I'm sure you know because you follow, but I have twins. And I bought the Minnesota Twins t-shirts that just say the twins on it. I think it's awesome. I'm a Red Sox fan here, but I like, I have to get these t-shirts for the boys.

Ellen (14:45)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (14:48)
you

Ellen (14:49)
That's adorable. Love it. Yeah,

you have to. You must. Good job. So you were here for work, yeah? I almost said A. I really almost said

Erika (14:57)
you

Eric (14:58)
Yeah, yeah, I was up in,

I'm sorry, what?

Ellen (15:02)
I almost just said you're here for work, ⁓ Which is just, that's a bridge too far with the, accent. Snacking on some hot dish.

Eric (15:04)
Yeah.

Erika (15:07)
Roll with it, Alan. I love it.

Eric (15:07)
you know,

I thought that was more of a not Minnesota. Maybe it is Minnesota. was thinking what's the, well, yeah, that's Canada, but Wisconsin. I thought it was a Wisconsin thing. There's a guy I follow on Instagram and all that who does the one day living in Wisconsin, two days, and then by a week he's like, ⁓ one week living in Wisconsin, you know? I thought it was more.

Ellen (15:14)
Canada? Yeah.

same.

sure, yeah, no.

Erika (15:33)
Fargo, like a North Dakota or South Dakota thing. Like, don't you know? Isn't that that one? Is that where it from?

Ellen (15:36)
Well, that's how it's, that's, that's how everyone knows

the accent is from the movie Fargo. So yes, we eat hot fish and put people in wood chippers. That's what we're known for. So yeah.

Erika (15:47)
So we're going to stay on

Ellen's good side.

Eric (15:48)
It's all the general area that you're in because it's just kind of that dynamic, that GR, I can't talk about words. It's all that kind of area in which, speaking of which, you're under like a tornado warning right now. We might have a tornado live on the pod. Is this common?

Ellen (15:52)
Yes.

these. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So,

⁓ I mean, in the summer every now and then, ⁓ yeah, I mean, this is our this is our preferred, ⁓ natural disaster, you know, we don't get hurricanes or anything, but we definitely we get some tornadoes. So, like I said, I'm I'm downstairs, so I'm safe. It's my family that's screwed if tornado comes through. So, ⁓ but yeah, make sure to dial up

firefighter becks in Wales if you see all of a sudden my camera disappear. See how quickly she can get over here.

Erika (16:35)
We'll get her on the line. But just to know, your family is more than welcome to be a guest on the pod as well. So the more the merrier. The safer, the better.

Ellen (16:42)
You're full what you wish for.

Eric (16:45)
How many are you there? You got married kids? You living with your parents still? What are you doing?

Ellen (16:47)
It's just so I husband and two boys. Now

husband and two boys, they're nine and 11. So yes, ⁓ they're they're fun.

Erika (16:59)
I'm ⁓

Eric (17:00)
have kids they said right Erica?

Erika (17:02)
I don't have kids you guys you guys can keep

Ellen (17:02)
It'll be fun, they said.

Erika (17:05)
them. You're good ⁓

Ellen (17:06)
Although I will say

with your twins, really do mean it that it gets it gets easier. It does. Although my son did jump out the window ⁓ the other night. So, you you win some you lose some.

Erika (17:18)
Was

that on the dare or something? I need a little context.

Ellen (17:21)
I think he just wanted to see

Eric (17:22)
Or was he sneaking out?

Ellen (17:25)
if he could get out. And he could, as it turns out. He was successful. Yeah. Yep.

Erika (17:27)
Testing the waters, I see. boy, ⁓ boy, gotta be a handle.

Eric (17:33)
So hey, we'll

get into it, but you did just run Boston a week ago from when we're recording right now. How are you feeling?

Ellen (17:40)
Run is too strong of a word for what I did. I locomoted through Boston.

Eric (17:43)
You did pretty good because you passed us at

a moment of a lot of people. You weren't in the back, that's for sure.

Ellen (17:50)
Well, I will say I was really I've never been that far back at Boston. I was so impressed with how many spectators were still out there. Like, obviously, I knew Boston has a great crowd support, incredible crowd support, but I couldn't believe people were still out there. I will say the Boston College kids were a little looser than I've ever seen them by that point. So, yeah. But I mean, I don't know. It went all right. Like I.

Erika (18:08)
Ha ha ha.

Ellen (18:15)
wasn't trained up enough or had an intact leg enough to take it fast. So similar philosophy to the 777 that I feel like speed kills. So yeah, I'm doing all right.

Erika (18:30)
Still getting it done. I'm very proud of you for doing that. Even I know how difficult it is doing it with any sort of injury, but, hey, I it's Boston. Like if you, if you feel the same way that we do about it, it's kind of like the pinnacle and you just make it through.

Ellen (18:32)
Mm-hmm.

No, you gotta do it.

I know, I know,

like my mom and everyone else was like, don't, like, do you have to do this? Like, is someone making you? No, but you got it, you got it.

Eric (18:51)
It's like, Ma, look at all the medals behind me, Ma.

Erika (18:51)
Bye!

Eric (18:55)
I gotta get another one this year.

Erika (18:55)
You

Ellen (18:57)
I know, like I tell my sons that people who are actually good at something don't need to brag about it, which is why Hillary and Vex on here are aggressively humble. And I'm like, look at that. Look at that.

Erika (18:58)
Beautiful collection.

If you could only see my basement, Ellen, like I am ridiculous. So don't feel bad. I like revel in all that stuff.

Eric (19:16)
That's why I have none of my medals hanging up.

I have a medal right here on the floor, so I must be really freaking awesome then. Yeah.

Erika (19:21)
I've got all my race posters. I've got

Ellen (19:22)
You're really good. Right.

don't, you don't have to brag. You're, I did notice the flying thing. like that. Yeah.

Erika (19:24)
like flying pig. There's a Boston. There's a Chicago. Like that's how I brag. hey, you like those? Yeah, I ran them.

Eric (19:26)
Right.

I got a

hat from Mexico, a Daler and Hart hat, and I got what I'm really proud of, our foundation, which maybe this means I'm not a good podcaster.

Erika (19:41)
That one's right there.

Ellen (19:42)
no.

Erika (19:44)
You're great, dude. You're doing a great job.

Ellen (19:45)
I'm not judging.

Eric (19:46)
Hey, so

one thing I want to know from your perspective, because you're the first runner we've really talked to since Boston, what was your perspective of the mile 19.2 on the runs cheer section from someone who's never seen it before too?

Ellen (20:01)
Oh,

it was awesome. And I noticed you folks right away. And it took my slow brain a little second to process, but I heard you all before I realized who it was. And so my first thought was just like, all these people have a lot of energy. And like I said, impressive to still have that much energy after being out there. I mean, the winners probably watched Titanic twice and took a nap. And I was still at mile 19. So like awesome to still be out there. And then when I realized it was

You folks, you know, circled back. That's why the race took me so long was because of that extra, that few steps I took. Yes. Yeah.

Erika (20:35)
It's our fault.

Eric (20:36)
You had to turn around because I remember seeing

a lot of people, a lot of things just happened. Maybe we were kind of getting ready for the, little skit with Beard Erica. And I remember being about five feet back and I heard you say to someone, it must have been Erica, hi, I'm Ellen and I'm coming on the podcast with you next week. And my ears perked up. And I was like, no way. Oh my God, it's you. But I remember being like, yeah. I was like, Erica, she's coming on next week. That's the one.

Erika (20:39)
That was awesome.

⁓

Ellen (21:00)
I'm sorry.

Erika (21:00)
That was

my reaction. was like, holy shit, no way.

Ellen (21:07)
The one. That's a lot. Yeah, it was awesome to see you all.

Eric (21:08)
The one who is the best.

Erika (21:10)
That was super, super cool, Ellen. I was very

happy that we had people we were tracking, but we were just missing people left and right. You stopped and you said hello. I was just super thankful that you did that because a lot of people just kind of went on their way and were lost in the sea of people. But you actually took a minute. I got to thank you for that because that's not an easy thing to do during the middle of a race to stop and say hello.

Ellen (21:37)
Well,

like I said, it was a shuffle fest for me. And in fact, the thing on me that was the most sore right after was this front part of my arm. And it's because I think I high-fived like 10,000 people. So yeah, like I woke up the next day and I was like, what did I do to my shoulder? I'm like, no, that is a high-five injury. So yeah, no, but so it was great. I mean, I figured if I was going to do it, I wanted to just enjoy it and soak up.

Erika (21:38)
Very friendly and I loved it.

you

hurt.

Ellen (22:05)
Boston, you never know when it's going to be your last time there. So yeah, the crowd was amazing.

Erika (22:06)
There you go.

Well, let's hope

it's not, fingers crossed, but that's an awesome mindset to have during a race like that.

Ellen (22:15)
We'll see. This was number eight. Yep.

Eric (22:15)
How many Bostons have you run? Number eight. And so do you have

a goal of trying to do it every year, or is this like eight random ones?

Ellen (22:23)
Nah,

no. In fact, I think I've told my husband six times that I was done. ⁓ yeah, I have quite a history with that race, but I feel like if I qualify, feel legally and morally obligated to do it, but we'll see. Yeah.

Erika (22:30)
Yup.

Eric (22:41)
You

Erika (22:41)
I

don't blame you.

Eric (22:44)
Well, why don't we hear that story? How did you become such this epic Give us the Ellen running story. led up to 777? What led up to eight Boss Marathons? And what were some of the other fun times you've had running? Good or bad, or even the Code Browns?

Ellen (23:01)
That's a big question. So I have no business being a runner in general. I grew up in a family ⁓ of talented endurance athletes. And I might be the milkman's kid. I'm not sure, because ⁓ I am super uncoordinated, ⁓ not talented. My family would do all these backpacking trips and ⁓ endurance things, and I would just whine the whole time.

Erika (23:03)
You

Ellen (23:30)
did one year of JV track when I was a freshman in high school and I was so bad, the coach never bothered to learn my name. I don't blame him. And that's it. I've never, I've never had a, well, if, if you had been my coach, you probably wouldn't have either. You would have been, you. ⁓ so, and rightfully so. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not talented, but I'm very stubborn and,

Erika (23:39)
That's rude.

Aww.

Ellen (23:54)
I didn't do, so I've actually never to this day, I've never had a running coach, ⁓ unless you count that JV track and never, yeah. Well, and it's so it drives like my people who know what they're doing running crazy because I'll say things like, Hey, did you know that your feet are supposed to land underneath you? Like when you're doing running strides and they're like, yeah, I did know that that's pretty basic.

Erika (24:03)
I wouldn't. Not at that point.

you

Ellen (24:23)
And I'm like, this is fascinating information. 38 marathons in. But my brother and his wife, Sarah, who did the 777 with me, she's an actual athlete. They rode their bikes across the whole country this summer before I studied abroad in London. And I guess I must have not been okay having them have the spotlight on them because I was like, you know what? I'm going to sign up for a marathon. And my family was like, you know, you could do like a

5K, that'd be cool. And yeah, no, no. So ⁓ I signed up for Grammas ⁓ in Minnesota. It was my first marathon. That was 21 years ago. ⁓ I studied abroad when I was training. And we were lucky enough to live right on Hyde Park. So I just kept doing slow laps in Hyde Park. And I would also route myself to food markets for all the free samples. ⁓

Erika (24:55)
It start small, but nope.

Mm-hmm. Smart.

Ellen (25:22)
Yep. So, that was my first marathon and then I just sort of, was hooked on them. ⁓ kept signing up for other ones and, ⁓ Sarah and I have recently mostly switched to ultras, ⁓ which benefits me cause I'm, I'm not fast, just really stubborn. So really stubborn. Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (25:39)
Power walking, yes. That's one of the reasons

why I love ultras, because of the snacks and also there's no pressure to go fast. Seriously, you're going the distance, so speed is not really a factor.

Ellen (25:50)
yeah. Nope.

Right, right. So Boston, it never occurred to me that I could even come close to qualifying. I was just sort of trying to finish and soak up a good time my first several. ⁓ But then I will say I did, I once dropped 19 minutes off my marathon PR the morning after doing like a flight of beers. And now that's like a tradition. I have to have a beer the night before the marathon, which was difficult during the 777 because I'd be like,

Erika (26:06)
Mm-hmm.

What a girl.

Eric (26:22)
Love that.

Ellen (26:24)
Okay. I just finished another marathon. have another one in like five hours. We're really gonna have a beer right now, but anyway, so I did finally qualify for Boston. And then on my last long run before my first Boston, I slipped on some black ice in Minnesota and broke my leg. So yeah. So I obviously didn't do that year. That was 2012. And the next year,

Erika (26:45)
no!

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (26:53)
I was pregnant with our first son and my midwife gave me the go ahead to run, but said I had to take it super easy. So I took it super easy and was really enjoying the day and then was stopped a quarter mile before the finish line when the ⁓ bombs detonated. So, and my sister-in-law was in the finishing shoot. Yeah. So that was obviously pretty wild ⁓ and awful.

Erika (27:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

my gosh.

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (27:23)
And I actually didn't get up the courage to bring my family back to Boston with me until the 2022 race. And I didn't realize until partway through the race that the son that I'd been pregnant with in 2013 was eight, which is the same age as the little boy Martin Richard, who was killed in the bombing. And it's really hard to run while you're crying. But.

Erika (27:47)
my gosh.

Ellen (27:51)
Yeah, so that was a lot. I did end up being able to do 2014, the year MEB won, which was awesome vibes. It was really great to see the community come together. But like I had a newborn and I was super under trained. I finished, but it was ugly. And then I didn't go back until 2018, which was the year of like the monsoon.

Erika (27:53)
Mm.

Mm.

I was there that year, that was my Boston, my one and only, it was fricking terrible.

Ellen (28:16)
my- wait, that's the

only one you've done? Do- my gosh. That's awful. That- okay, if it-

Erika (28:22)
⁓ I would love

Eric (28:24)
As of now, as

Erika (28:24)
a repeat, but hey.

Eric (28:25)
of now.

Ellen (28:26)
Dude, okay, I say, and I thought that this might change after the 777, but nope, I stick by this. between an Ironman, all the marathons that I've done, Ultras, unmedicated childbirth, the 2018 Boston is easily the hardest thing I've ever done. Like none of the other ones come close. It was horrible.

Erika (28:46)
Thank you. Validation. I've never experienced anything

like that either. That was something else.

Eric (28:51)
I'm sorry, Erica, my headphones

aren't working. I don't know, was just, whatever. I'm just kidding.

Erika (28:56)
you

Ellen (28:57)
No, seriously, be validated.

It was horrendous. Yeah. Yeah. my gosh.

Erika (29:00)
Mm-hmm. Well, congratulations to you for finishing that one. That one was real, real, every, it was

Eric (29:02)
You're not the only one who said that.

Erika (29:07)
god awful. I see people, like pictures of it, of people wearing shorts, and I can't fathom how they did that. I was frozen. I was wearing probably so many layers, and I was completely saturated, and that didn't help, and it just, I was frozen solid by the end of it, so whoever wore shorts, good for them.

Ellen (29:15)
Yeah.

yeah.

It's,

it was nuts. I, and again, I'm from Minnesota. Like I, I voluntarily go for runs when it's like 20 or 30 below zero. And yet I was not at all prepared for that race. Like I remember looking back, I definitely was hypothermic by like mile four or five. And I remember I got it in my head that I couldn't drop out.

Erika (29:33)
wow, yeah.

⁓ no.

Ellen (29:46)
because I was sure I was gonna die. And I'm like, the people, even the people in the medical tents, I was thinking to myself, I'm like, they can't help me. I have to get to the finish. Only those people can help me. And I was convinced that that was the case. So I did, I finished, but I spent like two hours in the medical tent with hypothermia and like, you know, after a couple hours on their medical grade heaters, my core temperature was like 93. I mean, it was nuts. anyway, yeah. Had a much better experience in, ⁓

Erika (29:49)
No. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

no.

Holy shit.

Ellen (30:16)
the subsequent Bostons. did 19 and wait, 19, 20 and 22 and 24 and then this one. So yes, good time since then.

Erika (30:18)
Yes.

Mm.

Wow. is just such bonkers times you could have at Boston. could be like, like you said, 30 degrees raining, absolutely terrible. And it could be like the perfect day, especially the one where Meb won. We love Meb. So, my gosh, all over the map.

Ellen (30:37)
Yeah.

Me too.

Eric (30:44)
you've done Boston eight times, what about the other worlds?

Ellen (30:47)
in Chicago. And ⁓ I should have done, I wish I would have done London because I moved back for grad school. So I lived in London for a couple of years and I have no, I don't know why I didn't try for it, but now I'd love to get back to that one. And I'd love to do all of the worlds. It's not necessarily a bucket list thing, but ⁓ at this point, again, since Sarah and I mostly do ultras, I feel like.

marathons, I'm attempting to limit it to ⁓ Boston or one where I can pace or help somebody else out or one that's just, I'm doing it for a cool experience. yeah.

Erika (31:18)
Mm-hmm.

Awesome.

Eric (31:24)
Now, Sarah's your sister-in-law,

Ellen (31:26)
Yep.

Eric (31:27)
so how did the two of you build this running bond together?

Ellen (31:31)
Well, it happened over time. So she and my brother got married when they were basically toddlers. they've been so she came into my life when I was, I think, 16. She actually has the same birthday as me different years. So, yeah, I got a birthday twin at 16. But she is like an actual athlete, like, you know, ran competitively and elite cross-country skier, as is my brother. And I was definitely not.

Erika (31:44)
No way!

Ellen (32:01)
⁓ But we didn't start running much together. They lived in Alaska for several years. ⁓ We didn't start running much together until the last few years and ⁓ realized that we're, especially in ultras where it's more of like a chat and shuffle situation that we're just really good partners because we'll distract each other. And we both like the sort of adventure and experience side of things. And we're not particularly

Eric (32:18)
Yep.

Ellen (32:29)
competitive about it, we just are there for the experience. So I feel really grateful to have somebody like that in my life. So we refer to each other as partners in questionable endurance sports, PCOS.

Erika (32:40)
you

Eric (32:40)
Love

that kind of makes me think of ⁓ Leslie and Emily Erica

Erika (32:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep, they are definitely two peas in a pod.

Eric (32:50)
So Erica here is our ultra running queen. She is falling in love with these ultra runs, mostly I think for the snacks and the walking, the run walking. So what are some of the cooler ultras you've done or maybe some of the ones in your area that you love and suggest she could head out there and do herself?

Erika (32:57)
It's a love hate relationship.

Ellen (33:09)
Well, I mean, I've only done a few, but a handful of them, but they honestly, they've all been pretty good experiences. If you're looking for one that's would bring you to the Twin Cities, there's an ultra time-based one, which is you can do six, 12 or 24 hours called fans. It's first week of June. Yeah, yeah, I do too. I like that there's just sort of, it's up to you how long it takes. But we...

Erika (33:26)
Mm-hmm.

Love those.

Ellen (33:39)
see, we did a 100K in ⁓ Nevada that was fun, ⁓ except that was the one that made it clear to us that we should never attempt the Barclay Marathons because ⁓ it was like a really well-marked course. And I think we counted in 100K, ⁓ we took 16 wrong turns.

Erika (33:50)
You

No, that's like my worst nightmare is getting lost somewhere on a course because I am directionally challenged. I'm no good at that kind of thing.

Ellen (34:00)
Stop.

⁓ I am too horribly

direction. And I'm way worse than Sarah too. So like, she might be able to survive, but I mean, they would find my corpse and I'd probably be like a court, know, a third of a mile from the, you know, the yellow gate that everybody passes through. And they'd be like, what, what happened to Ellen? Yeah. So anyway, not so good at the navigation.

Erika (34:19)
Yeah.

That is not the only reason why I

That is not the only reason why I would not do Barclays. That one is just too extreme for me, especially all the climbing. I'm not a huge mountaineer, let's put it that way. I don't really hike very much and all of those altars with the huge climbs and descents, I would roll down that mountain.

Ellen (34:33)
Well, I mean that too.

Fair enough.

Why

Eric (34:47)
Well hey, who

Ellen (34:48)
not?

Eric (34:48)
said you have to finish? You could show up and do one lap just for the experience. don't have to, like most people don't even make it past three. Just show up and do one. Have that be your A-goal.

Erika (34:53)
I mean. ⁓

Ellen (34:56)
true.

Erika (34:57)
I'll be the, what

do they call it? Like the, number one bib is the sacrifice. I could, no, it might take me the 60 hours to do one loop maybe, but they'd probably find me and be like, where the hell were you? Hell if I know buddy.

Ellen (35:00)
Fun run. the sacrif Yeah, ⁓

Eric (35:01)
Yes.

Well, I think that's our goal. Our goal now is to have the two of you get in, get a license plate. Didn't it cost like a dollar or something and you need a license plate? Get in, do a lap for the experience. That would be kind of cool.

Ellen (35:15)
Yeah.

Erika (35:21)
⁓ God. Yeah.

Ellen (35:28)
Bro,

okay, but now my insurance company, my life insurance is not gonna pay out because they're gonna do some digging and find this podcast and be like, she knew that she was gonna die. yeah, we're not paying your family crap.

Erika (35:41)
She did it anyway. This is-

Eric (35:43)
I know how to

avoid that. I just won't put your full name in the description. I'll misspell it because I can't say it correctly. I'll call you Helen. You'll be Helen Alter Cans.

Ellen (35:48)
You'll shank it, I'm sure. Yes. Helen Cairns. Wait, that's like...

Erika (35:50)
You're now Helen. You're Helen for sure.

Your ultra

ego there you go your ultra ego ooh

Ellen (35:58)
Helen Cairns is my, for sure, my alter ego.

Eric (36:00)
Hell it cans.

Ellen (36:04)
Nailed it. Love it.

Erika (36:04)
We got this.

Eric (36:04)
Yes, yes. And maybe

we'll get a life insurance policy for Helen Cairns as well.

Ellen (36:12)
Helen would never get a life insurance policy. No, she is a liability. No, just a pile of red flags.

Erika (36:16)
Ellen is reckless.

Eric (36:19)
Well, you've done some pretty crazy

epic stuff, and I think your sister-in-law has done most of them, because didn't she do the 777 with you?

Ellen (36:26)
She sure did. Yep.

Erika (36:28)
I need

to know whose idea that was. Who dragged you into it? Were you the bad idea? Yeah. Okay. I should have known. I should have known.

Eric (36:31)
Who's the bad influence here between the two of you? So how

Ellen (36:35)
Yeah.

Eric (36:35)
does this work? you, like, you see something and you send it to her from Instagram, you DM her and you're like, all right, let's do this, and she's like, game? Is she a yes person and just says okay to whatever you want to do?

Ellen (36:44)
Yes.

Yeah, well, I mean, we enable each other. ⁓ Like she got me into a Grand Canyon rim to rim to rim, ⁓ which again, I'm so uncoordinated. It is amazing that I'm not, I didn't do the six second tour of the Grand Canyon where you just fall. So ⁓ anyway, we get each other into things. But in the case of the 777, I, ⁓ we've been training for a hundred. And so we had a pretty good base of

Erika (37:03)
no.

Ellen (37:14)
training and like many other people, again, David Kelly with those Instagram ads, I had been targeted in some ads and then I was doing a Peloton run with Bex Gentry and she mentioned it and it sort of, like other people have said, felt like the universe was sending me a sign and.

Eric (37:31)
think David needs to

pay Bex for that when she said it, because you're not the only one.

Ellen (37:34)
a serious, I know,

I know, I know that that's like what solidified it. And I had always thought that I would probably wait till I was an empty nester to do some super big grand adventure. But like not to be a downer about this, but I have a connective tissue disorder, a genetic one that I have no idea what my body is going to be like in 10 years. And it'll be 10 years when I'm an empty nester. And then also my father,

Eric (37:39)
Yeah.

Ellen (38:03)
another big donor, has like late stage Alzheimer's, but his cognitive impairment kicked in in his 50s. so I have no, know, total carpe diem. I'm like, seize the day. Universe sent me these messages. I need to do this. So anyway, we were supposed to do this 100 miler. I took Sarah, Sarah and I went to a Foo Fighters concert in the Twin Cities last summer. And I waited until ⁓ she'd had a adult beverage and was like, so I have a confession to make.

Erika (38:07)
Ugh.

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (38:32)
I said, I will crew you for the hundred, but I cannot do, it was like a five loop course. said, I can't do all five loops with you because it was only like two weeks, two and a half weeks apart from the 777. And I am not, I know there are some people out there that could easily pop from one to the other. Absolutely not. Like wasn't going to be me. And so I said, um, can't do the whole thing. said, why not? And I said, because.

Eric (38:45)
Yeah.

Erika (38:47)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (38:59)
I'm going to be doing this thing instead. And she immediately goes, oh, I want to do that too. So we both ditched the 100 and set forth for this instead. Yeah.

Erika (39:11)
I was going to

ask, I'm like, Sarah one of those people who you were talking about who could just pop from one thing to another? But I'm glad she she was like, right, this is a way more epic experience and decided to do that with you.

Ellen (39:21)
much

more than I could. She probably could have done both. I didn't stand a chance, but it's a lot. Yeah, I'm like, I probably would still be like bleeding after the 100 by the time the 777 started. yeah, anyway.

Erika (39:27)
lot.

Eric (39:36)
What

was the interview process like for the two of you and David?

Ellen (39:41)
⁓ I mean, he, when I, the first time I talked to David, he said that he'd stalked me a little bit. and it would not have been difficult to look Sarah up and, and see like, okay, you know, this she's going to be fine. But he, by the time I talked to him, I guess he'd stalked enough to say like, you know, you are reasonably unlikely to die. ⁓ and so, you know, he seemed pretty encouraging and we jumped in really. Yeah.

Erika (40:03)
Thanks.

confident

Ellen (40:08)
We jumped in really late in the process. So ⁓ yeah, I think probably he needed to hear that we had a base of training for 100 Myler. And I had just done like, I think 85 miles ⁓ at a timed event earlier that year. And so, ⁓ you know, he probably didn't know how slow I was, but he at least figured that I had the mental strength. And that's always my thing. Like I'm, again, I don't think I have any...

athletic talent at all, but for some reason I have an ability to like get in the pain cave and just dig in and hold on. So I was.

Erika (40:45)
That is so

important. That is often the hardest part to get through. So good. I'm glad you have that. You can just, just suck it pain cave. I'm going to do what I want.

Ellen (40:47)
It's big. Yeah. Yeah.

True, suck it pain cave, I want that on a shirt.

Eric (40:59)
Something I said during my intro that I absolutely aced was that you use humor for your fuel. So sometimes when you get in that pain cave, are you using humor at that moment or during those times to keep you motivated and going?

Erika (41:00)
I'll wear it too.

Ellen (41:15)
totally. Yeah. mean, my therapist would say it's a problem. ⁓ But I 1000 % rely on humor. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. Well, and I also I'm known for having just like a stupid grin on my face constantly during events like this. And I, I like asking people spectators if I'm winning. ⁓

But I realized just like, obviously as a joke, I mean, I'll say that when it's very clear that like, you know, the ambulance is right behind me and I'll be asking if I'm winning. And, but sometimes I've now gotten into some crazy events where I realize I have to be a little careful because people will look at me kind of concerned, like, shit, like, should we tell somebody? Like, should we have someone check on her? I think she thinks she's winning. Yeah.

Erika (41:45)
you

Is she okay?

Ellen (42:05)
Yeah, like.

Erika (42:06)
unfortunate

that more people don't get that sense of humor. Like I could have used you during my last ultra. I think I cried the last 20 miles of it. So I could have used the the up. I had no up.

Ellen (42:09)
I know, it's a bummer.

Eric (42:19)
I tried

to provide an up and you just said, dude, not now.

Erika (42:22)
I said, don't record me, because that's all you wanted to do. But anyways, I got over it.

Ellen (42:26)
Okay, well no wonder

that didn't work. What's wrong with you?

Eric (42:29)
was like a hundred feet away and she goes, dude, I'm not in a mood. You know, blah, blah, blah. And then I showed up later trying to get a discreet video and she saw me and she goes, I'll come back in a minute guys. I need to go take a shit.

Erika (42:33)
Yeah.

Ellen (42:36)
Boundary

Crossing.

Erika (42:43)
Yeah.

I did actually, and that was great. But I did that more for like the humor of it too.

Ellen (42:46)
was...

Eric (42:50)
Like that's

why I have the camera out.

Ellen (42:51)
Well, I was going to say the last

thing she needed was somebody being like, how are you doing? Are you in pain? Did you shit your pants? Is it going well? Are you going to survive? Mm-hmm.

Erika (42:57)
you

Eric (42:58)
I was getting

B-roll. It was just B-roll.

Erika (43:03)
He's a good, ⁓ a good crew chief there. He did good, but there was, I just wasn't in the mood.

Eric (43:07)
I was actually trying to get a video of the

Ellen (43:08)
Doesn't sound

Eric (43:08)
boys

Ellen (43:08)
like it.

Eric (43:09)
who are there cheering you saying go go

Erika (43:10)
He's

done better in the past. That was just a low point for me, but humor definitely helps. I know.

Eric (43:14)
I've never seen you at that point. I don't mean to take this away from Helen

Ellen, but I'd never seen you at that point. Of a race.

Ellen (43:19)
you

Erika (43:21)
That's because I didn't

have the skills of bringing myself up with humor at that very moment. So it's very important. That's what I was getting at.

Eric (43:30)
So back to Helen Cans here, 777. You and your sister-in-law Sarah, you fly out to Cape Town, you're getting ready. Let me ask you this question. You have a lot of, a wide range of runners there. You had the amazing runners like Ashley Paulson and Bex.

Ellen (43:33)
Yep, she sounds awesome.

Eric (43:49)
And then he had some runners who've never run a marathon before like Justin and Bex the firefighter. Where did you see yourself in between all those runners, you and your sister-in-law? Were you like, my God, what am I doing here? Or were you like maybe, okay, I'm not that bad because these people have never even run a marathon before. I'm going to be okay.

Ellen (44:09)
definitely more towards the former. And I also figured like, even though I was surprised to hear that, know, people, mean, firefighter Bex was one of the ones I talked to specifically who said that she'd never run one, but like also she had just frigging walked to the South Pole. Like obviously she was qualified to be there. So. ⁓

Yeah, I mean, if I were the sort of person who was humble enough to have imposter syndrome, I would have had it for sure. ⁓ definitely more on the side of ⁓ what are we doing here? And ⁓ especially because our seats on the plane were in what we call called Olympians Row, because it was like Sarah, Sarah, me, Bex Gentry, Ashley Paulson. Jenny was in front of us. Hillary was right here and Shereen was right here. And so Sarah and I were like,

So we're going to be dragging down the average finish time of this section by about 90 minutes. Yup. well, and every everyone else had all like their super fancy gear and everything. And Sarah and I've got our like Amazon ⁓ clearance, like blow up boots that the instructions weren't in English. ⁓ you know, that, but it was fine. And I was just, I was thrilled at how ⁓

Erika (45:06)
you

Eric (45:09)
That's not bad.

Yes.

Ellen (45:31)
genuinely nice and down to earth and humble everyone was. And I'm not just saying that. Like if they were butt heads, I just wouldn't say anything. But ⁓ they really were all super humble and nice. you know, so it didn't feel as weird as you would think. But ⁓ yeah, no, we very, very much were like, all right, well, we're the B squad or maybe the maybe the F squad. But I was just worried about ⁓ like getting, you know, with the time thing, like

Erika (45:50)
The F squad.

Ellen (46:00)
The fact that it's not just you have eight hours to do it. It's like wheels up in eight hours. That part's crazy. Yeah. So like that part, I was nervous going into it about like, you know, am I going to be chasing the plane down the tarmac? you know, anyway, that didn't happen. Spoiler alert.

Eric (46:05)
Yeah.

Erika (46:19)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm glad to hear that you made the plane all those times. But let's get into it. You want to tell us a little bit about your experience with the 777?

Ellen (46:30)
Yeah,

totally.

Eric (46:32)
Yeah, let's dive into it. Let's start with the first one. Antarctica. Were you even prepared because you sat in that meeting with David and he goes, hello everybody, wit and his Irish accent. ⁓ by the way, we're leaving at six in the morning tomorrow and everyone's like, what? We weren't leaving for a couple more days. Now we're going tomorrow. Were you ready?

Ellen (46:52)
We totally thought he was kidding. Like we waited for him to be like, ha ha, just kidding. But ⁓ this is one thing where being lazy really came in handy because a bunch of other people had gone for like a kind of aggressive shakeout run that morning. And ⁓ I was like, absolutely not. So I am so glad that I didn't because yeah, like that was obviously surprising. I mean, to me, it's not like.

going one day early was going to make or break. You know, I was not going to become a talented athlete in those 24 hours. So it kind of was what it was. Like it was fine. We were surprised obviously, but it was fine. But Ann Arka was for sure the one I was the most excited about. I'm a, I don't know if you know who Ernest Shackleton is. He's a like a polar explorer from the early 1900s. And I'm a huge.

Eric (47:45)
Okay.

Ellen (47:46)
⁓ nerd of his, like endurance is maybe what you've heard of, but like their ship got stuck in Antarctica for like over a year. Anyway, so I've read everything there is to know. Yeah, well, so I've read everything there is to know about him, but I for sure my Antarctic knowledge was about 110 years out of date because I was like, don't we need to take like a rickety wooden ship through the Drake Passage? And like I, I didn't even know you could fly to Antarctica. So and

Erika (47:50)
Mmm.

I just watched a thing on that.

Ellen (48:15)
especially, I didn't know anything about inland Antarctica because we were like way in there. So it was so surreal. I know other people have talked about this, but like there was like no dust and like no noise and no like little leaf fragments and no debris of any kind. and it's, yeah, like I've backpacked above treeline quite a bit. And so I think I thought that I would know what it...

Erika (48:21)
Mm-hmm.

That's crazy.

Ellen (48:44)
would feel like to just have no trees or anything like that. But my gosh, it was so far beyond that. Honestly, it felt like another planet. It was so surreal and so cool. So yeah.

Erika (48:56)
One thing that I didn't know about Antarctica that we heard from a couple of other people was that it's actually at a pretty high elevation. So how did you deal with the elevation? Did it bother you at all?

Ellen (49:07)
like compared to everything else that was just sort of weird about the whole experience like that was that didn't even really register to be honest. ⁓ I think the most ⁓ salient thing that we that Sarah and I noticed is well a couple things as cross-country skiers we noticed right away and confirmed when we saw the machine that the the snow was groomed by the exact same ⁓

Erika (49:12)
Mm-hmm.

Well, that's good.

Ellen (49:30)
grooming machine that they use for the American Burka Biner, which is like the largest cross-country ski race in North America. And we do it every year. So we're like, this looks like Burki snow. And it's considered a huge offense to walk on that groomed snow because it's supposed to be reserved for skis. So the whole time we were going, this feels so wrong. Like we're we're walking on there, running or whatever on the yeah, total sacrilege. So that was weird. But then the other one was ⁓

Erika (49:47)
Mm-hmm.

village.

Ellen (50:01)
The sun was so intense that ⁓ like we were sort of running in a elongated rectangle. And when you would turn and face the sun, if there was no wind, it was legit hot. Like we were sweating and stripping off layers. Now again, we're Minnesotans, but still. But then it's a good thing you didn't get rid of too many layers because you turn and if the sun was not directly. ⁓

Erika (50:17)
Mmm.

Ellen (50:27)
you know, on your face, ⁓ and especially if there was the breeze going, like it would get really cold again. So it was interesting. And they had warned us to have super polarized glasses. And again, like as a skier, you know, the snow gets really bright and snow blindness is a real problem. my gosh, at one point I like lifted up my lens to rub my eye and I screamed out loud because like, it was so bright. It was physically painful. So yeah, yeah.

Erika (50:33)
Hmm.

Eric (50:51)
Who's that?

Erika (50:51)
No shit.

wow.

That's definitely not something I would think of either. Just there's so many curve balls that it's throwing at you because you get the, I'm hot. wait, I'm freezing cold again. Like that kind of thing. But I heard you guys had a really great day overall, right? Like it was like not super windy. It wasn't super cold. So that's great. But like, I wouldn't have even thought about how much like reflection the sun had off of the snow. Like that's just extra shit to worry about.

Ellen (50:59)
Yeah.

yeah.

Extra shit, yes. And well, and the other thing I remember is like in Minnesota, we're so used to ice poking through the snow, like a thin layer of snow on top, but it's always just that gross, you know, gray brown muddy ice. The ice, don't, looking around for something that's blue enough to demonstrate, like it is the brightest blue. It looks like Disney fake background blue. It's crazy how...

Erika (51:24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

you

Ellen (51:50)
bright blue the ice was. So anyway, yeah, Antarctica was my favorite one. And I think just probably mostly because of the sheer novelty factor. So yeah.

Erika (51:52)
Wow.

That's

super cool.

Eric (52:00)
Now one of your sons wrote you a letter. Did he write you a letter for just that race or for every race?

Ellen (52:03)
Yeah.

They both wrote, both my sons wrote me a letter for all seven races. So yes, yes. Pretty sure I have my spouse to thank for that.

Erika (52:10)
Aww.

Eric (52:13)
I thought it was cool

how the letter was for this one, in particular the Antarctica race, and he's like, go party with those penguins.

Ellen (52:23)
Yeah, except like there were no penguins where we were in Antarctica. But fortunately, Sarah and I had ⁓ made it to a penguin sanctuary in Cape Town that we are just outside of Cape Town. So we did get to party with some penguins, which is not in Antarctica. Yeah, that was a highlight for sure.

Erika (52:24)
Yeah

That's super cool. I'm a little jealous. ⁓

Eric (52:43)
So if Antarctica was your favorite race, the best race, everything was great about it, the rest of it had to go downhill for you. Tell us about the rest of the 777. You fly to Cape Town. It's super hot out. What was Cape Town and let it even go Australia like? What were those two?

Erika (52:52)
no.

Ellen (52:54)
A very pessimistic view. Yep.

Cape Town was aw- they both were awesome. Cape Town was beautiful. We were right on the ocean. So was pretty windy, but that turned it out to be a good thing because otherwise it would have been too hot. So that wind was welcome and beautiful course overlooking the ocean. And yeah, I have no complaints about that one. We were watching people parasail into the park right next to us. yeah, and at one point some huge, it must've been like several schools worth of kids, ⁓ like walk-

Erika (53:23)
Cool.

Ellen (53:31)
by, I think they were doing some sort of walking field trip, but I think we walked by like, there must have been 1500 kids ⁓ walking by in a giant parade and I didn't have to take care of any of them, which was my favorite part by far. ⁓ Yeah, and like, I don't know, I just kept getting like giddy about elements of it. Like I think I couldn't believe we were really doing it. And there was this tour bus.

⁓ you know, those like hop on hop off tour buses that big cities have this one had a big sign on it that said topless tours. And so I couldn't stop laughing every time I saw it. Cause we, I saw it like, you know, a couple dozen times. And I just kept thinking like, so many people must be really disappointed when they show up for that. Because as far as I could tell everyone had their shirts on. but I'm like,

Eric (54:00)
Yep.

Erika (54:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It's

good to know my head, that's not the only, like I'm not the only one whose head went there, because of course, like how can it not?

Ellen (54:29)
Yeah, well, and they must get

some real dicey Google traffic. ⁓ Yeah, anyway, know, Cape Town was fun.

Erika (54:35)
I could see that.

Eric (54:38)
So I have to, I have to jump in here and tell you something. You mentioned topless. I saw this is totally off topic. I saw this, this ad or not even at just this thing. Like someone says like I have 39 years old and realized today in the movie cars, the Disney movie cars, as the truck is going to pull over for rest stop or he wants to pull over, it's a convertible.

Ellen (54:46)
This might be the most awkward transition of all time, but have at it.

Erika (54:46)
I don't know where he's going.

Ellen (55:01)
Yeah.

Eric (55:07)
It's a restaurant that says convertible waitresses in Vegas or wherever. So it meant the waitresses are topless.

Erika (55:16)
I wouldn't have picked that up, wow.

Eric (55:18)
I was like, my God. So with a silly adult humor in these movies.

Ellen (55:19)
Those Disney Pixar facts, Yeah,

they slip in a lot there.

Eric (55:25)
I'm gonna find this later. I'm

gonna find this later. This is great. But yeah, sorry, totally took you off track. You said topless. I saw this like two hours ago.

Ellen (55:31)
Okay, but now you're going to be sitting

there googling topless Pixar characters and like you're going to end up on a list, dude.

Eric (55:35)
⁓

guess what? I already did. I already did. I found it. I found it.

Erika (55:41)
He's

on a list. No, he's already on a list.

Ellen (55:43)
You're already

on a list. Yeah. I'm not here to kink shame, man. Whatever you're into.

Eric (55:45)
I know I'm on the list. Here we go. Hold on. Share screen.

Topless cars. Here it is. Top down truck stop. All convertible waitresses. Top down truck stop.

Erika (56:00)
Okay, all right.

Ellen (56:02)
It's pretty clever. That's

clever.

Eric (56:06)
Come on, it's good.

Erika (56:08)
Disney does put in like the adult jokes, which I think is awesome because like you got to make it fun for the adults too. It's not just for kids.

Ellen (56:16)
You definitely want to clear your search history,

Eric (56:17)
But, but

you need, you need to...

Erika (56:21)
It's too late for him.

Eric (56:22)
You need to be smart and thinking

like, wait, you gotta read those small things. Top down truck stop convertible waitresses. All right, enough, back on track. Sorry, Helen Gaines Canes.

Erika (56:34)
You

I can't even-

Ellen (56:37)
How many alter

egos can you now you're shaking my alter ego?

Eric (56:41)
I

know, I know. All right, we'll go back. I know I said the last name right that time. I can't get it. can't get it. But Ellen, I'll be respectable the rest of the time. Cape Town was no, not absolutely not.

Erika (56:42)
Helen Cairns.

Ellen (56:44)
Helen

Cairns is the alter ego.

Erika (56:47)
You said canes.

Ellen (56:50)
Yep. Are you though?

Yeah, Ktown was cool.

Eric (56:58)
Cape

Town was awesome. And then you got on this wicked sweet airplane where you were in Olympic row, flying around the world. What was the airplane like?

Ellen (57:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

So we found out before that it was the same exact, not just the same model, but same plane that the Rolling Stones used on their last tour. I know other people have mentioned that. And, ⁓ but like it didn't have any screens or wifi, which when I found that out, I actually found out the no wifi thing from a Peloton run that Bex Gentry did. ⁓ she was my source for pertinent race information since I couldn't be bothered to actually read anything about it. ⁓

Erika (57:18)
That's super cool.

Ellen (57:39)
But ⁓ anyway, I was horrified because I'm like, that's like 90 hours alone with my thoughts, which it's not always great in there. So, but it turns out that that was like that, that element was fine, but it did, ⁓ they, all the seats were lie flat, almost lie flat, not completely. But yeah, yeah, there's Ashley and there's Olympians row. ⁓ Me and Sarah dragging things down. So.

Erika (57:45)
Ooh, I wouldn't want that for me with my brain.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Ellen (58:08)
⁓ yeah. So, I mean, but the cool, I mean, the Rolling Stones element was super cool. I resisted the urge to like bring a black light and try to find out where Mick Jagger had been or, you know, looking for like little bits of white powder where Keith Richards probably was. But, don't sue me the Stones. I'm kidding. That's a joke. ⁓ no, the plane was cool. And, we had fabulous, ⁓ staff on the plane and

I historically am not able to sleep on planes at all and I travel a lot. So I did calculate that I spent more than twice as much time running as sleeping that week. ⁓ but, ⁓ you know, it worked out. So it was fun.

Erika (58:42)
Mmm.

Eric (58:51)
no.

So,

I was gonna say first, like, no internet, no screens, perfect, you'll just rest and sleep, but you were up most that time.

Ellen (59:02)
Yeah, just contemplating my own mortality. Yeah.

Eric (59:04)
⁓ that had

to suck. Honest to God, that had to suck, especially because everyone else is sleeping and you're probably awake, right? ⁓

Ellen (59:14)
Yeah, I

did spend a lot of time like with it being really quiet and like trying to move as quietly as possible. And I had downloaded once I like at each stop, I would try to download ⁓ like some work to do. ⁓ So I'd be able to fire it up without Wi-Fi. so, you know, I got some I got some work done and ⁓ I did download like a couple of shows ⁓ that I could watch like on an iPad or whatever. But for the most part, it was

Eric (59:29)
Yeah.

Ellen (59:44)
It was not as long as you would think because you have the sort of after race shenanigans of getting everything resituated and settled and then you're eating and then you're attempting to rest and do your recovery stuff and then you're eating again. And then the next thing you know, like you're having to do your prep for the next race because they were so close together that you, pretty much had to be ready to go when you got off the plane. It's not like you had a few hours to, you know, dink around.

Erika (1:00:10)
Hmm.

Eric (1:00:13)
Right.

Ellen (1:00:15)
So yeah, I mean, it was not nearly ⁓ as miserable as it sounds. Yeah.

Erika (1:00:22)
Gotcha. So

Eric (1:00:23)
I

would have slept like a baby.

Erika (1:00:23)
I am with Ellen. I cannot sleep on planes. And I also have that irrational fear of farting on an airplane. think that's like the most embarrassing thing ever. so yes, you did. And I forget what it is already too. like, so I would be like mortified and like, I don't know, just it would be too much to let me actually rest and sleep. But

Ellen (1:00:25)
I love that for you.

Eric (1:00:34)
Isn't it? Didn't we look this up before? Wasn't this a phobia?

Ellen (1:00:45)
That's hilarious.

Erika (1:00:49)
So with the lack of sleep that you had, how was your body feeling after? you're two marathons in at this point, you're heading to Perth. How was your body doing? Were you trying to recover with those Amazon boots and was it working? Were you feeling okay?

Ellen (1:00:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, mean, given the back-to-back marathon aspect, will say that I, and overall I say this, like the whole thing went way, way better than I anticipated. I for sure thought I would just be like bleeding and crying and everything by the end, ⁓ nonstop, but that just wasn't the case. Like the whole thing went way better than expected. And ⁓ I attribute a big part of that to the fact that I did take it slow. I deliberately went.

about an hour and a half slower than my marathon PR. ⁓ And some of them were even more, were more like two hours slower. My fastest one was about an hour slower. ⁓ But that was on purpose because like I, ⁓ I've been more sore after like redlining a 10K than I have after shuffling an ultra marathon. I don't know if that's been your experience, but so the people that I absolutely cannot wrap my head around are the ones who were just

Erika (1:01:38)
Okay.

Ellen (1:02:03)
redlining every one of these. There is no way I could get up the next day after having pushed it that much. And the 777 totally confirmed that, yeah, like speed kills, was the only reason I got through it was just having to be in chill mode. Yeah.

Erika (1:02:21)
I

think you played it very smart. mean, you knew that you had to conserve some energy, you had to protect your muscles, like, cause you got to do it again and again and again and again. So I respect you for being smart about it and for, for just trying to take care of your body, like in advance, you know, like you're going to get hurt, like you're going to hurt, but just trying to be a little bit less hurt.

Ellen (1:02:30)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and I think also just having the mindset of like, you know, it's going to be uncomfortable. So it's, it wasn't, I mean, it's not like I expected it to be like, you know, breezy and easy. Like we knew, you know, we were taking on something pretty, pretty massive. Although I will say like I, after Boston, the morning after Boston, Sarah and her daughter, ⁓ came out to Boston and we were having like brunch the next morning. And even though I wasn't particularly sore, I said to her, I'm like, how did we

Erika (1:02:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. No way.

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:03:13)
get up and do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Like, that's still kind of nuts.

Erika (1:03:18)
Yep.

That's the mental toughness you have. You just knew it was gonna suck, but you were ready for it and you were gonna handle it no matter what it threw at you. ⁓

Ellen (1:03:29)
I guess.

I guess. ⁓

Eric (1:03:32)
Did you have the same feeling we thought? We kind of felt like this was summer camp between all the runners.

Ellen (1:03:37)
totally.

Yeah. Yeah. It absolutely was adult summer camp. ⁓ for me, because between getting to Cape Town early and hanging out in Miami for a couple of days after, this was the longest I'd been away from my kids. And so obviously I missed them a ton, but it also like, I'm a freelancer, so work never really disappears. But like I turned down all meetings for that two weeks as well. And so it really did feel.

Erika (1:03:50)
Hmm.

Ellen (1:04:03)
especially without the wifi on the plane or anything. It was just such an immersive, like, yeah, absolutely adult summer camp. And I know other folks have said the same on your podcast. So yeah.

Eric (1:04:13)
You should write about it because you are a professional writer. Maybe you already started.

Ellen (1:04:15)
Imingwana, should. Actually, I am.

Yeah, yeah, I actually I'm fortunate enough to have I am a writer by profession and I have a book contract that is actually due in June. So I got to get on my horse here. But it's not even about me. It's about just sort of the race in general. And so I got input from a bunch of participants and yeah, and I'm going to be getting getting more. It's good thing I work well under pressure because

Erika (1:04:39)
super cool.

Eric (1:04:46)
So did you have this before the race or was this like something that developed after?

Erika (1:04:46)
you

Ellen (1:04:46)
that.

I did not have the contract before the race. I went into it hoping that I would be able to do something written, ⁓ but I didn't know what that looked like. ⁓ yeah, and I was fortunate enough to be able to meet a publisher that ended up being interested. so book writing is not the majority of my writing work, ⁓ but still, this is, I mean, it's a huge privilege and I'm really excited to be able to write about it. Yeah.

Eric (1:04:59)
Right.

Erika (1:05:19)
You got to keep us

posted. Yeah. I've got my whole like running book collection behind me. So I'll add it to the collection when it comes out. You have to let me know.

Ellen (1:05:25)
Please

do.

Eric (1:05:28)
Erica here is the big reader, but I'm actually super interested. I haven't read a book in forever, but I'm super interested in the process. And it seems like you're going through that now. And you know what? Maybe we'll save this for another date, like when the book comes out, but I would love to hear the process of this entire book. We've had a few writers on the podcast before who are professional or maybe even very amateur. And they're just doing it for fun because they love writing. So that'd be a lot of fun. I didn't know that. I knew you were a writer. I didn't know.

Erika (1:05:30)
Love, bye.

Hmm.

Eric (1:05:58)
I didn't know when I jokingly said you should write about it that you were legit currently writing about it.

Erika (1:06:00)
Perfect.

Ellen (1:06:02)
I am.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's probably not going to come out until early 2026, but yes, I will beg to be back on to do some promo. I will say, I will say that this is weird though, because I interview people all the time for my work and I'm always on the other side of things. So this is, this is not my comfort zone, but.

Erika (1:06:11)
You won't have to beg. Trust me.

Eric (1:06:19)
Yeah. It's not weird

for us because it's always, this is the same, very unorganized and chaotic and all over the map. So, all right. We are way off track as we, as we tend to do all the time, but but how was Australia? You go to Australia and then you, you, that looked like some of the best views you could have had during the entire, maybe outside of Antarctica.

Erika (1:06:26)
We're having fun.

Ellen (1:06:28)
You're

doing great, sweetie.

Erika (1:06:31)
You

Ellen (1:06:35)
I know.

yeah.

Eric (1:06:47)
but Australia looked gorgeous.

Ellen (1:06:48)
Yeah,

it was. It was so beautiful. And I remember that was the first one ⁓ that had just a ton of little back and forth. And my first thought was like, this is going to be boring. But it wasn't number one, because it actually turned out to be super cool to be able to see everyone and cheer for them so many times. And number two, because we were running through late afternoon and then sunset. And those of us who are slow enough, we're still running in the dark. But that was actually amazing because

Erika (1:07:07)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:07:17)
you we got to, it was different every, every time. So, ⁓ yeah. And I ⁓ caught a lot of Pokemon in Australia. ⁓ Yeah. yeah. yeah. I told my sons, try to, I try to come back with at least one Pokemon from every place. ⁓ I regret to inform you, there are no Pokemon in Antarctica, at least not that I found, but.

Eric (1:07:26)
you

Erika (1:07:27)
You do Pokemon Go? Me too!

Damn it.

That is very helpful information.

Ellen (1:07:44)
⁓ yep. Maybe there's a Pokestop that I just didn't hit. But anyway, ⁓ yeah, so it was great. ⁓ Yeah, ⁓ Australia is also the only place where there was a bathroom incident. And it turns out that Australia was ⁓ most likely the culprit behind my venomous spider.

Erika (1:08:00)
Hehehehe. Hmm?

Okay, number one, ew, and number two, my God. So both of those things are terrifying to me and I must know the details.

Eric (1:08:14)
Number three, this is the right place for this story.

Ellen (1:08:20)
So the spider was, I actually didn't, it didn't happen until we had just gotten our luggage back from, we hadn't touched it since Australia and we got it back in time to get on a bus in Turkey. And so I had like my, I my backpack on my lap and I had my smaller roller bag underneath my knees on the bus and I'm just wedged in there and I can't move. And all of a sudden I got like,

Erika (1:08:36)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:08:49)
this super, super painful, I thought it was a Charlie horse at first, and then it kept like going. And it was awkward because I was actually sitting next to a lovely person, but someone with whom I had not spoken yet. So like, I did not know them well. And I'm sitting there thinking, what is happening to my leg? And you know, those like ropey tendons on the back of your knee, like the one on either side, I thought I tore one of those. That's how painful it was. And this like,

Erika (1:09:03)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:09:13)
Yes.

Erika (1:09:13)
Mm-hmm.

no.

Ellen (1:09:17)
white hot electric pain that is shooting down into my calf and up into my leg. And I'm thinking I wasn't even moving. I'm like, what happened? And so I, it was really painful for the rest of the 777. Um, but, and I had had what I thought were shin splints leading up to the race that turned out to be a tibial fracture loops, um, that I, so I was already, you know, kind of shuffling a little bit. So this absolutely made me shuffle more, but

Erika (1:09:43)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:09:46)
I don't take painkillers and so the best I could do was like put some topical stuff on it that the race doctor had. But like I had them glance at it at first and they were like, well, maybe it's chafing or something because there was a red line extending away.

Erika (1:10:03)
no.

Eric (1:10:05)
That's bad. That's bad.

Ellen (1:10:06)
Spoiler, it wasn't, it wasn't pee thing.

Erika (1:10:07)
New Fear Unlocked!

Ellen (1:10:09)
It

was the venom. So I actually didn't get it officially checked out. ⁓ I did, I have, one of my best friends is an ER nurse in Minneapolis and I sent her pictures and she was the one who, when I told her how it happened, she goes, I think that's a spider bite. And I bet you got it from Australia. And, ⁓ actually one of the guys from the, ⁓ race and I, you know, chatted about it a little bit and.

Eric (1:10:15)
What?

Erika (1:10:28)
my god.

Ellen (1:10:35)
I didn't, but I didn't get it looked at until I was back in the States and, the doctor just, I mean, they had a field day with this because this is in Minnesota. We don't have a lot of venomous spiders. So he was like, yeah, I a hundred percent think it was a, ⁓ venomous spider bite. And we even think we know which one, but, ⁓ I will save you the. Well, I mean, I could tell you, but Erica says she's afraid of spiders. So we think it's.

Eric (1:10:59)
No. Spare no details.

Erika (1:11:01)
He's gonna look it up and he's gonna show

it to me and I'm gonna cry

Ellen (1:11:04)
We think it's an Australian

Eric (1:11:05)
yes, yes,

what do I look up?

Ellen (1:11:05)
redback is what we think the culprit is.

Erika (1:11:09)
God.

Just tell me it's not one of those giant ones that you see on the side of like people's houses. Like, do you know what I'm talking about? Good.

Ellen (1:11:16)
Well, I never saw it. That's part of why I was like, sort of in disbelief. But

the doctor was like, well, it's too late for antivenom. And you know, they don't have a lot of that sitting around in their desk drawers in Minneapolis anyway. So they prescribed me some antibiotics and they were like, ⁓ keep us posted. So yeah, isn't that crazy though? Like, of all the things my mom was worried about, like didn't even occur to her to worry about that. yeah.

Erika (1:11:35)
Fingers crossed for you! Holy shit!

Uh, that is the most intense thing I've ever heard. That's probably the worst code brown I could think of, because I am, I really don't like spiders. I find like, well, all right, if it's like the tiny one with the long legs, it's not so bad. But like, if it's like a big beefy spider with like the body that like the just big black ones, I'm like, oh God, oh God, leave me alone. And I'll make my boyfriend come in and kill them because I just can't.

Ellen (1:11:46)
Good times.

Yeah.

Erika (1:12:12)
I can't with spiders.

Ellen (1:12:13)
I'm kind of neutral. Like I'm not particularly afraid of them, but I'm not wild about the idea of one ⁓ getting me in the middle of all this. Yeah. It wasn't the best.

Erika (1:12:19)
Oh my God. Yep.

I can just picture trying to be like, oh, what hurts? And if you touched it or something, I would have lost my shit. Sorry, new person sitting next to me. I'm going to be a crazy psycho and just like, ugh, would not. I would not be able to. Well.

Eric (1:12:24)
This is awesome.

Ellen (1:12:34)
Yeah.

Eric (1:12:40)
To not gross

Ellen (1:12:40)
I'm glad I didn't know.

Eric (1:12:41)
Erika out, if you guys want to Google this, just Google Australian redback spider bite.

Erika (1:12:42)
You

You know what? I'm probably going to look at it later just out of curiosity, but I'm not going to like it. I'm not going to like it. But Ellen, holy shit. ⁓ So.

Eric (1:12:55)
You ran more marathons after that. You waited to

Ellen (1:12:58)
Yeah.

Eric (1:12:58)
go back home to get it looked at. You took time off in Miami to relax with this venomous, possibly deadly spider bite. People have died from this.

Ellen (1:12:59)
Four.

Erika (1:13:01)
Holy shit.

Ellen (1:13:10)
I mean, it was sort of an all consuming event. Like it would have been, you know, what was I going to do? Say, a spider got me. I got to stop. No.

Eric (1:13:19)
So wait,

that's your code brown. You didn't have a code brown. That's your code brown.

Ellen (1:13:23)
no, no, there

was that that was and again, I didn't actually get bit until we got our luggage back. and apparently the Australian Redback specifically, I'm so sorry, Erica, likes to hide in luggage and or shoes, which is part of part of why so this they guessed that based on like the way the bite looked and the like red lines because I'd taken a bunch of pictures of it.

Erika (1:13:41)
Nasty things.

Ellen (1:13:49)
But then when I told the story of like, it happened, they were like, yeah, for sure. It's the red back because they, they hide in luggage and shoes. I know, I know. No, but in, so in Australia, well, first of all, everyone and all the like various podcasts and all the things that I've heard the other participants talk about, they're always talking about how they all went either number one, number two, or both, like in the bushes or, know, like

Erika (1:13:55)
That's so gnarly, I hate it. God.

Ellen (1:14:16)
hanging off the steps into the Bosporus Strait or something like that. And I'm like, I would very much like to be excluded from that narrative because I never once went in the bushes. I exclusively used toilets and once super duper in my pants. yeah, well, my gosh, was so it was in Australia and it was like,

Erika (1:14:24)
you

Super duper.

Eric (1:14:33)
Not in a bush, just in the pants.

You should have done it where the

fishermen were fishing because they were assholes I heard.

Erika (1:14:45)
you

Ellen (1:14:45)
That was by far my least favorite race, by the way, but ⁓ we'll get to that. But real quick, was only because it was right at the end of the race and it was nighttime. And I very confidently headed towards, followed the signs for a bathroom and then got there and they had like a full gate down in front of it. And so I timed that poorly. But in my case, I was actually fortunate to get tangled up.

Erika (1:15:08)
You

Ellen (1:15:12)
shortly after with a little kid on like a scooter bike thing and went just full ass over tea kettle skidding across the pavement. So I was kind of banged up. And so I got to pass it off as like, you know, so then when I crossed and like, people are like, oh, you know, let's talk to you on the live stream, whatever. was like, I gotta go. I fell. Which was true, but it was a bit of a cover story. yeah. Yeah.

Erika (1:15:23)
no.

They'll never know.

Eric (1:15:39)
kid

Ellen (1:15:42)
Oops.

Erika (1:15:42)
my God, how traumatizing that spider thing. I can't get over that. So tell me about some good stuff that happened during these races.

Ellen (1:15:46)
Yeah, sorry.

So many good things. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Well, and I will say like in all of them, I didn't just like, I didn't just sort of suffer through. I totally thought I was just gonna be suffering through. I genuinely enjoyed them. Like other than race number four, which was a bit of a suffer fest, but the rest of them, I'm like, I honestly had fun. Like not just, know, this is okay or I'm gonna survive. Like it was.

Eric (1:15:51)
Well, the next race was her least favorite.

Erika (1:15:53)
We can just skip that one then.

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:16:19)
fun. So I think that's one of the most surprising parts. So overall, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:16:23)
I love it. I love it. That's what I like to hear. And I

think that, yeah, definitely you training for the ultra set you up well for these races.

Ellen (1:16:31)
I so. I think

so. think the biggest thing was that ⁓ I actually try not to run on back-to-back days. And I think part of that is just with the connected tissue disorder. Like I'm just so prone to injuries anyway. ⁓ And so the biggest thing was, you know, not just running on back-to-back days, but running long on back-to-back days. Like that was a lot, but I think it was obviously a good thing to have done that because it was not nearly as awful as I expected.

Erika (1:16:41)
Mm.

Mm Yeah.

Ellen (1:17:01)
But yeah, Istanbul. ⁓ In my case, I happen to be super nauseous. I don't know if I ate something weird, ⁓ I have a, I'm proud to say I have a very high pain tolerance, probably to a fault. And I've run through, you name it, in terms of injuries. And I'm just sort of in that too, twice. And... ⁓

Eric (1:17:21)
You gave birth to a baby with no drugs you said so.

Erika (1:17:24)
Hmm.

Eric (1:17:26)
Not a big

deal.

Ellen (1:17:28)
So I have chronic pain resulting from this connective tissue disorder. And again, I don't take pain killers at all. So I've run through all manner of injuries and pain, and yet I have a hard time running through being nauseous. So ⁓ I just did not feel good already. And ⁓ of course, as you've heard, we started super late at night. ⁓ I, again, am so uncoordinated that the really uneven footing ⁓

Erika (1:17:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:17:54)
with the cobblestones and the ramps and everything was already, I'm like, this is going to be a disaster. And I don't mind running in the rain, but cold rain and wind is just kind of unpleasant. Yeah. well, was nowhere near. The weather was nowhere. Again, like I said, nothing has ever to this day. Nothing has topped. I need to knock on wood. Boston 2018. ⁓ But yeah, and then of course, the fishermen just like.

Eric (1:17:58)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:18:05)
Boston flashbacks, Boston flashbacks.

Ellen (1:18:20)
back casting into us. Like it was at that point, it just felt like a parody of a marathon because I'm like dodging fishing lures and yeah, it was, it was just bizarre. But ⁓ you know, still even with that, I give, my gosh, I give so much credit to the staff and the people, you know, cause we're out there like getting glory and medals and everything. And they're out there just getting pounded by this rain and wind and you know, not only having to be out there.

Erika (1:18:46)
Mm.

Ellen (1:18:49)
and not getting medals for it. like, I honestly think I would, I think it's much easier to have run all of these than to have managed the logistics like ⁓ awful. You there is not enough money in the world to make me do that. Like I cannot imagine. So I give them tons of credit that, you know, and if me being like nauseous and damp was the worst.

Erika (1:19:01)
I can't even imagine what it would have taken to put on this race.

Yes.

Ellen (1:19:17)
thing. Like I feel like it was just a slam dunk successful event overall because yeah. And then after that we I remember firefighter Bex told you guys about how she excited she was to sleep in the hotel that night and that you know we were only there for a couple of hours and I remember ⁓ my god first of all I've never been in a hotel room with that many mirrors in my entire life and it was like ornate gold everywhere and mirrors everywhere and I remember

Erika (1:19:35)
Right.

Ellen (1:19:47)
getting in the shower and I turn around halfway through the shower, I'm like scrubbing up my hair and the entire back wall of the shower is a mirror floor to ceiling. So I just had a jump scare like, nearly fell out of the shower because like nobody needs to see that specifically not like four marathons in at four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, and I don't even know if I slept at all. I will say

Erika (1:19:57)
you

God.

Ugh.

Ellen (1:20:15)
My sister-in-law is just in general, she is much more type A. She's a very responsible person. ⁓ She works in education administration. She's really got her stuff together. If she had not been on this with me, I would still probably be like in an airport in South Africa wondering where everybody went. Because like, yeah, she's really sort of kept me on a leash. Thank you, Sarah. Yeah.

Erika (1:20:26)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:20:45)
So anyway, that was Istanbul. Well.

Eric (1:20:48)
Isn't that

also where Ben had the incident with the police? Ben almost got, won't go as far as saying arrested, but maybe he did almost get arrested for just recording apparently. yeah. just seemed like that place just wasn't good at all. Do you know, like, maybe we should talk to David Kelly one day, but do you know, like, are they going back to that same spot or are they gonna move around?

Ellen (1:20:52)
Yes, yes.

Erika (1:20:53)
Mmm.

Ellen (1:21:00)
Yeah, they were not amused. They were not amused.

I don't think they are.

I don't think they are. And I say this, like, I love traveling. I try to keep up with my age and the number of countries I've been to, been to all 50 states. Like, I love it. And I feel like I, ⁓ you know, embrace differences and am not, like, I don't expect places that I visit to be like I'm used to. Like, it's the whole point that it's different and different cultures and everything. So I would never hold other spots to the same standard. But I will say there was just, there were a few.

Eric (1:21:31)
Yeah.

Erika (1:21:31)
Mm-hmm.

Culture. Yeah, different culture.

Ellen (1:21:40)
odd things. Like there was a guy who every time I ran by, he was sitting in a bus stop, he would stand up and blow cigarette smoke directly in my face, like for sure on purpose. Like he would get up, block me and then blow cigarette smoke in my face. And then the next day on the other side, ⁓ there was ⁓ multiple indications, I think that perhaps women in particular were not as welcome there. So.

Erika (1:21:51)
Wow.

I see.

Ellen (1:22:09)
Yeah, but I mean, still absolutely beautiful city, beautiful area and a ton of really, really nice people. So I would never want it to come across as a problem in general. And it's not their fault that I was nauseous and it was raining at night. Like it's definitely, that's not his samples fault. So yeah.

Erika (1:22:26)
Mmm.

So what was next? Cartagena? Was that the next one? ⁓ the daytime one. That's right.

Ellen (1:22:30)
Yeah, well, so then the Asian side of Istanbul,

that one, again, you've heard about the cats. That blew my mind. ⁓ Yeah, that was so wild. ⁓ And seriously, they're very well cared for. I couldn't believe it. ⁓

Erika (1:22:38)
Yep.

Hmm. I would have been super

distracted. I would have been all about those cats.

Ellen (1:22:49)
Yeah,

well, and there was just, you know, like the first ones we saw, we were like, cute and took a picture. And then we're like, no, there's literally thousands. So, ⁓ yeah, it was wild. But, and that one went great. ⁓ But then yes, off to Cartagena, which everyone else said that that was their least favorite, but yes, it was oppressively hot, but I don't know, I loved it. it, ⁓ I think the heat index was 110.

Erika (1:23:08)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:23:18)
which ⁓ is not only the hottest marathon I've done, but for sure the hottest run I've ever done because like at home, it actually, people don't know this about Minnesota, but it gets really hot and humid in the summer. Like it absolutely hits a hundred and it's really humid. So same humid heat as down there. ⁓ But if it was that hot, I just wouldn't run. Like there's no way I wouldn't run. ⁓ But it was super.

Erika (1:23:19)
Oof.

Eric (1:23:26)
Yeah.

Erika (1:23:37)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:23:46)
hot, obviously, but it really beautiful. And they took really good care of us like they had I'm sure you've heard about the big barrels full of ice that we would just stick our stick our arms in like up to our shoulders. And, ⁓ you know, I was constantly putting ice cubes like in my sports bra and under my hat and everything. So yeah, I mean, it was unpleasant. That was my slowest one ⁓ intentionally, because, you know, I was like, Mom, in no hurry and

Erika (1:23:54)
⁓

Eric (1:23:55)
Yes.

Erika (1:24:05)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:24:12)
You wanted

to survive, you didn't want to end up like Mary Morgan there at the end.

Ellen (1:24:15)
Mary

Morgan, what a trooper, man. Yeah. And I will say that one. I know my mom was worried about me, but I think she was more worried about firefighter Bex. In fact, like the whole time because my mom was just glued to the live stream. I know she kept texting me being like, tell the firefighter that she like she's still a firefighter doesn't take away from what she's doing if she doesn't wear her old kit. ⁓ and Bex. Okay, she said in her thing that her whole

Eric (1:24:27)
Yeah, because people are like, take off the firefighter suit, right? It's just too hot.

Erika (1:24:37)
you

Ellen (1:24:44)
kit together, including the backpack, was only like 20 or 22 pounds. I disagree because we shared an Uber after one of the races and I like offered to take the backpack thing with oxygen tank and I grabbed it and just went thunk, like right onto my lap. Like that thing alone had to be at least 20 pounds. so that's not even counting. So she was selling herself short. Like it was, I mean, that was nuts. I still...

Erika (1:24:58)
Mm-hmm.

no.

Unreal.

Ellen (1:25:13)
I still can't believe ⁓ that she did that. And that goes for a ton of people. Anytime anybody asks, my gosh, how do you do that? It's totally not false modesty that I'm like, I don't know. I just sort of shuffled my way through the whole thing, whereas just about everybody you talk to has these amazing stories, which is part of why I'm so excited to write this book is because everyone has these incredible backstories that.

you don't know about and things that they overcame to do it. yeah, anyway, long story short, Cartagena, super hot, but ⁓ not bad. And I got to practice my crappy Duolingo Spanish and appreciated that. So yeah.

Erika (1:25:43)
Yeah.

you

Eric (1:25:56)
I remember.

Erika (1:25:56)
I just love

your attitude. I am invested in this story. This is so much fun.

Eric (1:26:03)
Which makes me want to say this or ask this. I remember seeing after that race, everyone passed out, sleeping, tired, exhausted, hot. Where was your mindset? Because you're the funny one. You got this amazing sense of humor. Were you still cracking jokes at this point or were you, yeah? You were keeping everyone alive and motivated and laughing and going.

Ellen (1:26:20)
yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, I...

Well, I think I was ramping it up because I made it my mission starting in like Cape Town. My goal was at least once during every race to make the live stream guy laugh. And so it became like a thing and I, they were all, all of my commentary to him was totally off the cuff, except I was very proud of, I did plan one and that was in Cartagena and it was something about like, you know, cause he was wearing a

like a black shirt and had like dark colors everywhere. And he just looked like he was suffering miserably. And I was like, ⁓ you got your flannel underwear on too, bud, like nice shirt color choice. And so that was like, if he laughed, it was a successful race. And so I was totally ramping up the ridiculousness as the, as the marathons went on shamelessly.

Eric (1:26:57)
He always had the He looked yeah

Erika (1:27:05)
Yeah.

Eric (1:27:17)
Now,

Erika (1:27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:27:19)
I should have asked him, but he had a new shirt every day, right? He had to have.

Ellen (1:27:24)
I don't

know. I will say it's not like, I know, I know. He was that poor guy. He, yeah, man, he really, he probably had to sleep for three months after this, but yeah, I mean, was woefully, yeah, poor guy. don't blame, I mean, he had a really hard job and like had to stick it out through.

Erika (1:27:28)
He didn't even have a winter coat when he went to Antarctica. Didn't even have to borrow one.

Eric (1:27:31)
Yeah, that's right.

Like you're gonna, you have to wear this so you won't die.

But we had him on like three weeks later, it looked like he just woke up.

Erika (1:27:47)
Don't blame him.

Ellen (1:27:54)
all of those things. yeah.

Eric (1:27:56)
He did

such a good job. What was your, so you had fun with him though. You interacted with the live stream and kicking some jokes around.

Ellen (1:28:00)
yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that was, mean, my main goal on the live stream was to let my mother know that I was alive. ⁓ But ⁓ yeah. Well, and I kept, mean, she, you know, it'd be like 3.30 in the morning or something in Minnesota. And I'd be like, mom, I promise not to die. Like, please go to bed. ⁓ But yeah, no, I absolutely, you know, would be flinging things at Ben on the way by like, you know, at one point he was like,

Erika (1:28:09)
important.

Ellen (1:28:28)
You know, you're from Minnesota, like this must be extra hard for you. And I was like, yup, feel like a polar bear in a hot tub right now in Cartagena. Cause it was just, my gosh, like definitely I'm not billed for that kind of weather, but yeah, no, Ben was a trooper and, and I, a large part of my ⁓ enjoyment for sure was seeing everybody else engaging with other people, cheering them on and also messing with Ben. Yeah. Great source.

Erika (1:28:55)
That would definitely be a high point for me.

Just got to get through it with some humor and if you can mess with somebody too, that's a highlight.

Ellen (1:29:01)
Why not? Why not?

Eric (1:29:03)
I'm going to share my screen. Is this your mom? And she has the, you're doing what? On your Instagram?

Ellen (1:29:10)
yeah.

Yeah. my gosh. It's the best. That might actually be worth watching that poor woman.

Erika (1:29:18)
Yeah

Eric (1:29:18)
Let's

check this out. You ready?

Erika (1:30:00)
you

you

You

Everything about that was incredible. All of the little like side reaction things like, ⁓ you guys need to check out this on Instagram if you don't check it out on YouTube, but like just everything about that was amazing. That's the kind of shit I get from my mom where she's like, you're doing what? What this time? Okay. Basically don't die. Brain explosion.

Eric (1:30:45)
was so good!

Ellen (1:30:52)
poor woman. She's used to me.

Eric (1:30:54)
I'll share. That was so good.

Ellen (1:30:59)
music.

Yeah.

Yeah. So much is, it's just her just being like, why? Why? Yeah.

Eric (1:31:14)
Well, just watching her with the chin dropped the whole time, like just thinking, Cape Town.

Ellen (1:31:16)
I know. And like, if you look closely, she starts to like kind of hyperventilate. That poor woman. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That was the biggest shock was like, well, and I found out later. So she

Erika (1:31:18)
you ⁓

Eric (1:31:24)
And then she's like, did you tell Sarah she's doing it with me? Does he know?

Ellen (1:31:33)
She tries to, she, my mom, tries to protect me from how scared she gets about things. I, when I was in grad school, I backpacked around Africa for a while and I only found out after that, like, you know, she was absolutely panicked the entire time. ⁓ But, so she tries to shield me from her actual feelings about all these things because she's like the, you know, the opposite of a meddling mom. She's actually very sweet, but she worries a lot. And I found out part way through that she,

had like a whole session with Sarah because she thought that I talked Sarah into it and was basically making her do it. And so she's like, you know, basically like, I know that Ellen makes a lot of really not smart decisions and I want you to know, you can tell her no, like you don't have to do this Sarah. And Sarah's like, no, I wanted to. But yeah, no, she was convinced that like.

Erika (1:32:28)
It's a thought that can't

Eric (1:32:28)
You

Erika (1:32:30)
be

Ellen (1:32:31)
I was the evil mastermind,

which is fair because, you know, yeah. Anyway. Well, and it's, every time I want to complain about like, you know, anything to do with my lovely children, I'm like, shit, like I'm in my forties and my mom still has to deal with my crap. Like this is, this is a long road I'm on here. Yeah.

Erika (1:32:36)
You planted the seed.

Eric (1:32:36)
This is amazing.

Erika (1:32:49)
Yeah.

Eric (1:32:54)
Now,

you had a bunch of bubbles popping up in that video. Some were great. I love that you censored it out and had the bleeping noise. Just like this. one. But when one of those bubbles said that you had the connected tissue syndrome or something, tell us a little more about that.

Ellen (1:33:05)
Nice.

Erika (1:33:07)
you

Ellen (1:33:12)
Disorder. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so it's called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. There's something else for you to mispronounce. You're welcome.

Eric (1:33:21)
Thank you, I love it. I'm just gonna

Erika (1:33:21)
Thanks

Eric (1:33:23)
do this every time I can't pronounce anything. I'll be like, Helen, ⁓ Ellen Hunter. ⁓

Ellen (1:33:30)
You need the don't

don't don't don't like the what is that Price is Right one or whatever. Tell me you have that. You need it. That's also good. It's my my ⁓ 11 year old plays the trombone and I think he picked it up specifically to be able to make that noise and just troll all of us. But ⁓

Eric (1:33:36)
I should add that, but right now I got this.

Erika (1:33:41)
That'll do.

Love it.

Ellen (1:33:54)
Thanks. Yeah, no. So Ehlers-Danlos is a genetic connective tissue disorder. So you're born with it, but it often doesn't start showing up until like adolescence for most people, which was the case for me. And it is they just finally did this big article in CNN about it. And they quoted a researcher saying that it's like ⁓ something to the effect of

Eric (1:33:54)
Love it.

Ellen (1:34:19)
the impact it has on people relative to the amount that it's funded and researched and understood. Like there's no other disorder like that that has that bad of a ratio of like being misunderstood. And it manifests in a bunch of different ways because it affects connective tissue disorder, it's, or connective tissues, that's everywhere. Like it's in your brain and it's like all throughout your.

Erika (1:34:30)
⁓ no.

Ellen (1:34:46)
body, it's kind of the webbing that keeps everything in place. So like you have your organs kind of schlumping around where they're not supposed to be and ⁓ all kinds of things. And it leads to I have the most common kind, which is the hypermobile version. ⁓ So like we tend to be the kids that were doing like party tricks with, you know, weird twisting things back before we knew what it was. ⁓ And chronic pain and chronic fatigue are our

Erika (1:34:49)
Mmm.

Ellen (1:35:13)
part of it and yeah, frequent injuries, joint instability. I'm incredibly fortunate that ⁓ I'm textbook in terms of ⁓ the markers that I hit and my symptoms, but my case is obviously mild. So a big reason that I wanted to do this was to bring awareness to Ehlers-Danlos, but I know one other person my age who has it and she relies on a cane and frequently wears a neck brace.

Um, so it is not lost on me and I never, as much as I want to produce awareness, I never want to be like, Hey, other people with, you know, there's downloads, like go do stupid shit like me. So, um, but yeah, I am glad I re I actually just in the airport on the way to Boston, a woman, was wearing a great world race shirt and she approached me and said, did you do the great world race? And I said, yes. And she said, Oh, um, I don't know if you know the woman from Edina that's the

City in Minnesota. I don't know if you know the woman from Edina who did it, but you should tell her, like, I have a friend with Ehlers-Danlos and it meant so much to her to see somebody do this. And I was like, I think that's me. And she started crying and like, it was so weird. She like asked if she could hug me and was like crying. And then she went back to her group of friends, she probably in her 50s and she's like, I just met Ellen from the great world race.

Erika (1:36:35)
You're

famous.

Ellen (1:36:36)
As the

only time anything like that is ever going to happen to me. ⁓ But anyway, so I'm happy to even shed a little bit of light on it. And one of the most frustrating things is that since it impacts so many different ⁓ systems and parts of you that ⁓ often you will go to specialists for years with various ailments. And unless somebody puts everything together.

they're not going to be able to see it. And so when I was finally diagnosed, the doctor went down the list of like reasons that I seen, you know, sought medical care and was like, that fits, that fits, that fits, that fits, that fits. It's like so validating. But there was a study that showed that from the first time someone attempts to seek answers to the time when they get an Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis for men, it's four years and for women, it's 16. So, yeah.

Erika (1:37:02)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:37:12)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:37:12)
Mmm.

16? my

gosh.

Ellen (1:37:32)
Yeah, and for me it was 21, 22. So yeah, it's mysterious and it's for a lot of people super debilitating. So I'm happy to shed a little light on this. And yeah, I don't know where my body's going to be. I will say running is likely not recommended specifically to this level. So I'm aware this is another reason my life insurance is not going to pay out on me, but like

Erika (1:37:44)
Hmm.

Eric (1:37:58)
Well, why is that?

Ellen (1:38:01)
Well, because of the joint,

the main thing is the joint instability. ⁓ like, ⁓ it creates sort of a laxity of near connective tissues. And so everything is looser than it needs to be. so a lot of people dislocate things frequently. I don't tend to fully dislocate, but I'll do what's called like subluxate, which so something will come partially out of joint. ⁓

Erika (1:38:13)
Mm.

Eric (1:38:25)
Yeah,

Ellen (1:38:25)
But then

Eric (1:38:25)
okay.

Ellen (1:38:26)
in general, if you think about like, if your knee is shucking around with every step, everything around there is going to get impacted as well. So ⁓ even though hypermobility, there are parts of me that are like way over flexible. My muscles actually tend to be really tight, particularly around like my hips and everything, because the muscles are trying to save me from myself. And so they'll clamp down.

Erika (1:38:48)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:38:52)
⁓ as tight as possible and then you end up with tears and all kinds of things. So, ⁓ and now looking back, well, I would like to blame this for why I was such a terrible athlete in high school, but no, I was just a terrible athlete. But ⁓ yeah, I mean, I was already just constantly injured way back then.

Eric (1:39:14)
Well,

running's not the only thing you do. You do cross-country skiing, and I gotta imagine activity has to be good for your muscles. it any kind of activity could hurt you or be bad for you here, or is it just the way running happens to be is not as advised for you?

Erika (1:39:31)
It's very high impact.

Running is high impact.

Ellen (1:39:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Disclaimer, I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. ⁓ So yeah, in general, activity is good for those of people who can tolerate it with Ehlers-Danlos. Absolutely, it's good. ⁓ And in fact, one doctor that I saw said that one of the best things I can do is try to build up muscle. It's actually, difficult. ⁓ One of the symptoms is it's really hard to build up muscle. The amount that I lift weights, I should be super swole.

I wish man, but supposedly that has a protective mechanism for your joints to have strong muscles. swimming is ⁓ very much recommended. I actually, I swam in high school, but haven't done much since, at least not ⁓ since the Ironman. But like cycling for a lot of people is, but yeah, the higher the impact, the ⁓ less wise it is. So I may have picked one of the ⁓ stupidest ⁓ sports possible.

Erika (1:40:31)
Yeah.

Eric (1:40:32)
But we love you for it though. We

Ellen (1:40:35)
Thanks.

Eric (1:40:35)
really do.

Ellen (1:40:36)
Thanks.

Erika (1:40:36)
Well, let's talk. Do you mind talking about your iron man? ⁓ When did you do your iron man? Was it a full? Was it a half? also that too. Well, all right, fine. We can skip the iron man for now. We can talk about that when we talk about the book.

Eric (1:40:41)
You forgot about Miami, my god. We have so much. No, I want to hear about it all.

Ellen (1:40:48)
Well, Miami, Miami can be short and sweet that

⁓ I totally feed off crowd energy and in general, and you know, especially with the snarky commentary and everything. And I don't think I realized how much I missed having spectators ⁓ until we were in Miami. my gosh, it was so many people had friends and family coming down. And so the energy in Miami and also just, you know, that, that sort of excitement about like,

Erika (1:41:05)
yeah, because Miami was was hopping basically.

Ellen (1:41:17)
we're done. ⁓ So my gosh, that was just the best, ⁓ best vibes, best experience. So ⁓ yeah, and I specifically to honor slash embarrass my sons, ⁓ I did I don't know if you know enough about football and specifically the Vikings to know what the gritty is. But it's like this dance that our big superstar Justin Jefferson does. It's like his touchdown celebration dance. So I did that.

Erika (1:41:24)
Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:41:45)
⁓ across the finish line in Miami and ⁓ the Vikings did a story on it, which made my son's whole year because he's like, I'm on the Vikings homepage. But yeah, mean, was, Miami had great vibes. was so much fun. And then it was fun to get to hang out for a little bit after. So yeah.

Erika (1:42:03)
was going to ask you if your family came down to visit or if it was going to be like a celebration with you and Sarah together, like, yes, we finished. We're going to hang out in Miami for a few days after, but who came?

Ellen (1:42:13)
Yeah, they would have, I

think, but ⁓ my son actually had both like a band and a choir concert and I was not about to have him miss those. I actually felt terrible that I missed them, ⁓ so they ⁓ stuck around. But Sarah's parents came ⁓ for the final race and so obviously I know them, so I got to see them. then yeah, it's a ⁓ firefighter, Bex and Sarah and a good friend of Sarah.

Erika (1:42:20)
⁓

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ellen (1:42:40)
and me all hung out for a couple days after, which was awesome. Yeah.

Erika (1:42:45)
That's,

that sounds like a well-deserved celebration.

Ellen (1:42:49)
Indeed. And we got matching tattoos, which you've probably heard about. Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (1:42:54)
I think I did, yes. That's so fun.

So you mentioned ⁓ that you're going to be seeing some people at the Grandma's Marathon this year. So that'll be a nice little reunion. Have you bumped into anybody since? And ⁓ is that going to be your only reunion that you're going to bump into some people at? What are some plans coming up?

Eric (1:42:57)
Yeah, bunch of you got sevens, right?

Ellen (1:42:59)
Yeah.

Well, I

mean, that's the only one that I know of. did, I was literally walking down Newbury street ⁓ after Boston and somebody grabbed my shoulder and my initial instinct as a city kid was to, you know, like bopping back, but it was actually, was David Kelly and Dermot, his sort of right-hand guy. And so we knew they were in Boston, it was, mean, you know, imagine just of all the people, you know, and an extra half a million spectators in town. the fact that we.

Erika (1:43:30)
Yep.

No way.

30,000 people walking around.

Eric (1:43:46)
I wish I knew he was there. I would have loved to say hi.

Ellen (1:43:46)
there and I literally bumped into them on

the street was really fun. ⁓ yeah. And I mean, we, ⁓ you know, there's all sorts of chatter in the, in the WhatsApp group. eventually, I mean, my gosh, this is the dangerous part of, ⁓ being part of a WhatsApp group with a bunch of like really unhinged athletes who it seems like for the most part are, and I don't include myself in this, but like are either sponsored or.

Erika (1:43:50)
awesome.

Hehehehe

Ellen (1:44:15)
clearly have a lot of time and disposable income to do stuff like this. And so they're always like, I think I'm gonna run up Everest next month if anybody just happens to be free. Yeah, well, and I mean, it's a constant stream of that. It's just wild.

Erika (1:44:26)
You

Eric (1:44:27)
That was Mary Morgan, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Erika (1:44:35)
I could see how that

would be dangerous. I would be suckered into at least a couple of things. Who knows what it would be.

Ellen (1:44:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

And well, and I keep telling my fifth grader, like, you know, how the people who are around you make you think that certain things are normal when they're not. I'm like, if you're around a bunch of kids who are, you know, like stealing cop cars and selling drugs in fifth grade, like you start to think like, well, that's just what people do. Like, so I got to be careful in this WhatsApp group, because I'm going to start thinking that the most unhinged crap on the planet is like, ⁓ yeah, like I should, I should.

Erika (1:44:50)
Mm-hmm.

you

Ellen (1:45:09)
probably, you know, see if I can roller skate across Canada this weekend. Like, why not?

Erika (1:45:14)
you

Eric (1:45:16)
Not a big deal. Bike across the country.

Erika (1:45:17)
I love it.

Ellen (1:45:17)
Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway.

Erika (1:45:21)
There's no such thing as a really bad influence.

Eric (1:45:25)
To be a fly on the wall of that group chat, that would be fun actually. I love that you guys all still talk though, like the group chat's still alive, people are meeting up, everyone's going to grandma's, and it's cool to see kind of, like Justin's in the airport right now and Tariq came and visited him at the airport. It's just, yeah, yeah.

Ellen (1:45:25)
spoken like a bad influence. Jeez.

Erika (1:45:29)
Guilty. ⁓

Ellen (1:45:34)
It is.

I saw that. Yeah. He teased

Erika (1:45:43)
No shit!

Ellen (1:45:45)
me. He said that he was going to the Minneapolis airport. And so I was all stoked to like, you know, sneak him some Arby's or something. ⁓ but no, he picked, he has not picked Minneapolis yet, which is probably good given the tornadoes.

Eric (1:45:59)
Well, I will

probably be back in a couple of weeks, so you can sneak me some Arby's.

Ellen (1:46:04)
Give me it up!

Erika (1:46:05)
Thanks.

Ellen (1:46:05)
I could sneak you some Arby's. Yeel!

Eric (1:46:08)
Well, alright, I know Erica mentioned the Iron Man, but we're gonna have you back for this book, alright? When this book comes out, we're gonna have you back and we're gonna talk about everything we missed. But we've been talking for quite a long time. I feel like you have a secret to tell me.

Ellen (1:46:11)
⁓ yeah.

Okay.

Erika (1:46:15)
Please, please.

Ellen (1:46:22)
I know.

You only need one thing. Please don't have me back on just for the hiring man. The only thing you need to know is that

The difference between a good swim and a bad swim in the Ironman's like 20 minutes. The difference between a good bike and a bad bike is like five hours. So bad bikers should not do the Ironman. I did it. I finished. However, for context, my grandparents into their nineties would not bike with me because I'm too slow. So they'd be like, honey, we'll, we'll meet up with you after. So

Erika (1:46:44)
you

Eric (1:46:59)
You ⁓

Ellen (1:47:01)
I am for sure the worst Ironman biker in history. So it's not, it's not that exciting. Madison, which, you know, it was nice and hilly on the bike course. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly because like, I mean, I, the bike training alone would be a full-time job, ⁓ 40 hours a week for me, because I just, I still can't quite figure out how to make those pedals go around. So yeah, it's tricky, tricky stuff. You'd think, wouldn't you? I know.

Eric (1:47:03)
But you did it. Which one did he do?

Erika (1:47:05)
So. ⁓

Eric (1:47:10)
Yep. Yep.

Erika (1:47:11)
So was that a one and done for you, Iron Man wise?

you

Eric (1:47:26)
Just one smooth circular motion. Get a Peloton bike!

Ellen (1:47:30)
I know when my kids both learn to ride two wheelers they're like so what part what part is hard for you mom and I'm like I don't know making it go forward.

Erika (1:47:40)
Keeping it upright, that's my problem.

Eric (1:47:41)
Balancing.

Ellen (1:47:44)
Yeah,

anyway, okay, so you're not missing much there. Yeah.

Eric (1:47:46)
Well, we are gonna have you back for the book because

I'm excited now for this But we are gonna wrap this one up with our two final big questions. You're probably a little bit familiar Erica's is super difficult and she gets everyone like just thinking the whole time at mine super easy I am hosting and on the runs pasta dinner. It's imaginary, but we're gonna make it real run day. You can bring

Ellen (1:47:55)
All right.

Eric (1:48:10)
anyone to this dinner, dead or alive, real or fictional, but you can only bring one person. Who are you going to bring?

Ellen (1:48:19)
Okay, well I know

from listening that Michelle Obama is already gonna be there. So I would like to be seated next to her, please. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Erika (1:48:24)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:48:24)
Yes.

We can put you in that table. It might be a popular table though.

Erika (1:48:31)
I think I requested

it too.

Ellen (1:48:35)
Well, this makes me super nerdy, but I kind of want to get that Shackleton guy, the one who got stuck in Antarctica. Like, I mean, he's been dead for a really long time, but I want to swap Antarctica stories with him, I think.

Eric (1:48:46)
And

you know what's fun is I looked him up during this and I'm gonna like obsess over this for the next couple of days reading about that story like stuck in Antarctica. Him and his crew and they survived.

Ellen (1:48:53)
Yeah, it's fascinating. It's wild.

Erika (1:48:56)
I swear I watched, I just

watched a documentary on this. Like I forgot, I'll look it up and I'll send it to you.

Eric (1:48:59)
Send it to me.

Ellen (1:49:01)
Yeah.

Eric (1:49:01)
That'd be cool. Can he come up and tell us a story about the time stuck in Antarctica?

Ellen (1:49:07)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eric (1:49:09)
I like that pick. I like that pick a lot. Well, see, mine is easy, but Erica's is super difficult. and that's why she keeps it every year. She doesn't want to change it up because she likes stumping everybody. But Erica, go ahead with your question.

Erika (1:49:11)
That is a good one.

Ellen (1:49:13)
It is.

Erika (1:49:15)
Ahem.

I'm just making an epic playlist here. So Ellen, we have a Spotify playlist and we like to invite our guests to add a song to it. So it could be anything that would pump you up for a workout, anything that's just going to keep you out of that pain cave, just something, something that's genuinely you. Is there a song that you would like to add?

Ellen (1:49:39)
So I take this question very seriously. And I will say a newer one. So I have the same three songs that I only ever listen to them at the end of a marathon or long race. And now it's to the point where because I don't listen to them very often, I only do it in that context, I have like a visceral response when I hear them. But I'm not picking one of those three because the song that kept me and Sarah going during... ⁓

Erika (1:49:53)
Mm-hmm.

I love it.

Ellen (1:50:08)
The Great World Race was Pink Pony Club by Chappell Rhone. And it was just perfect because it kept getting stuck in our head. And especially like in Cartagena, we'd just be like scream singing, God, what have you done? Because, you know, what have we done? So that's my final answer.

Erika (1:50:12)
Love it.

That

is a wonderful choice. Excellent song. Total banger. It deserves a spot.

Eric (1:50:33)
That was super awesome. This was fun. Like, we're an hour and 41 minutes into this right now. We barely cracked. Yeah.

Erika (1:50:41)
could keep chatting. really could.

Ellen, I hope I can bump into you at a race. If I come to grandma's next year, I hope that I can stop and say hello. I'd love to just pick your brain and hear your jokes and hang out some more.

Ellen (1:50:49)
Please do. ⁓

I mean,

Eric (1:50:57)
Yeah and I hope... Yeah and I hope for-

Ellen (1:50:58)
I'm not just saying this. If you come to Minneapolis, like if you want to come do like fans or twin cities or whatever, you come while I'll be a good host. So yeah, absolutely.

Erika (1:51:10)
I hope your injury resolves itself soon. ⁓ I hope you find something crazy to do that we can hear about and just keep in touch because I think you are absolutely amazing and this was so much fun.

Ellen (1:51:21)
My mother's going to hate that you said that, but thank you. I appreciate. I'll tell her Erica told me to. Erica told me to. Thanks y'all.

Erika (1:51:25)
Sorry, sorry not sorry. I'm

Eric (1:51:29)
Well that was-

Erika (1:51:29)
a bad influence where I'm like, should do something crazy, but you can insert the crazy thing. You can pick.

Ellen (1:51:36)
I can insert the crazy. That has never been a problem for me.

Eric (1:51:40)
Well, that was

Ellen (1:51:40)
Yeah.

Eric (1:51:41)
awesome. Thank you so much for reaching out after the 777. Love hearing those stories and thank you for doing this.

Ellen (1:51:46)
Yeah, absolutely. Take care, y'all.

Eric (1:51:49)
Guys, I hope you enjoyed that. Ellen Hunter Gans on the On The Runs podcast.

Ellen (1:51:54)
You did it!

Yay! Well done.

Erika (1:52:02)
Ellen, AKA Helen Cans. God, that was funny. It is Gans. You kept calling her Helen. You kept calling her Helen Cans. That's her alter ego now. I said Ellen, AKA Helen Cans. That's what you. Yes, I'm making fun of you.

Eric (1:52:07)
I it was GANs.

You said cans!

You just said cans. I'm not even going to edit it out. You'll have to listen.

you make it for me i don't

i think you're just trying to recover yourself

Erika (1:52:27)
No, no, the listeners will back me up on this one. So I have to say ⁓ I had a blast totally nerding out with you, especially about the Pokemon thing. I don't even know if you still play, but I was telling Eric right before we got back that I ⁓ just as we were talking for these trolls, I caught a shiny one. So you'll get it. You'll get it. So Ellen, so much fun. Yeah, it's so nerdy, but I love it.

Eric (1:52:49)
⁓ Yeah, Pokeman people will. Ryan Painter will get it.

Hey, want to tell you, Ellen was amazing. Thank you so much. And fun fact, she's from Minnesota. I was just in Minnesota again. And our guest next week is also from Minnesota, past member of the podcast coming back next week. So take a guess there. There's your clue. Past member, ⁓ current, always full-time pod fan member from Minnesota back on the pod next week. Gonna be a lot of fun. But I want to talk to you about somebody.

Erika (1:53:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Eric (1:53:22)
And what's cool about this is this somebody's listening to the podcast from the beginning. And I don't think they listen to the episodes like as they come out as well. So she's gonna hear this weeks or months from now, right? But I got a message from Lori Bennett. And I don't know if you know Lori, but Lori on Instagram is.

Erika (1:53:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:53:42)
Bennett Lorry, just flop them around. She sent me a message, a couple messages a while ago, just said, I wanted to let you know I love your podcast and goes into details on that and tells me she has a big race coming up. So I tell her, I can't wait to hear about your race. She messaged me the other day, here's an update. I successfully completed my 100K run with the help of 14 episodes of your podcast.

Erika (1:53:45)
Sorry.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

I hope you're not sick of us yet.

Eric (1:54:08)
I would have gotten through more,

but my friends kept wanting to run with me. I love your podcast. Hope to get through them all over the summer while I train for the New York City Marathon." I thought that was so cool. 14 episodes during 100K.

Erika (1:54:14)
Ha ha ha.

⁓ that's excellent.

Lori, congratulations.

⁓ I really hope that you're not sick of us because that's all I would be sick of us at that point. That's a lot of a lot of us. But thank you for listening. That's so cool. And yeah, 100K. That's amazing. Way to go.

Eric (1:54:28)
Hahaha

That's a lot of us.

Insane, insane. So she looks super cool. I don't know the connection, recently found us, but the mutual friends we have are friends from our Will Run For family. So ⁓ that might be a way, that might be a way. And I love that, hey Will Run For, what's up? Keep going, they're still podcasting, they're still doing their things. If anyone wants to be on their Inside the Runner studio, they sent a...

Erika (1:54:48)
Mm-hmm. I love it. We love them.

Excellent.

Yeah.

Eric (1:55:05)
post out here today saying if anyone wants to be on, reach out. So reach out guys, they're awesome. All of them, love them. Yeah, we both get it. Yeah. So all right, let me ask you this. Where are you right now on the pit?

Erika (1:55:09)
it was a ton of fun. We can both attest to that.

So the last time we spoke, was two and a half episodes in. I am now two and maybe two thirds of an episode. I really, I did not get to finish that third episode, but no. Okay. So I have a full house at the moment. have some, ⁓ house guests and they just like, my house is not quiet enough to watch a show like that. need total concentration. So, yeah. Okay. Good.

Eric (1:55:26)
⁓ man, is it not good to you?

Okay, I totally understand because I have not started the third and fourth episode of the Dale Earnhardt

documentary because I need that quiet time and space and I need to prepare myself because I was told I'm gonna cry. Yes.

Erika (1:55:47)
Neither have I, neither have I. Yeah.

no. well, I mean,

we know you cried when it happened. So I can imagine how this is going to bring back some memories for you. Well, yes, but still, seeing all the details and yeah. ⁓ I cry at everything. I'll probably cry during it, too. We can commiserate together over our sad shows.

Eric (1:56:00)
yeah. Well, I mean, I know what happens. Right. But a lot of people talk about, you know, it's a tear jerk or whatever. So I I'm like, really what they do, what direction did they go here?

All right, I know, yeah. So we'll

do that, but I am now six episodes in on the Because I've been able to kind of watch the pit while doing some other things. So I don't want to talk about it so much without giving anything away to you.

Erika (1:56:23)
Six. no.

Mm-hmm.

Well, let me just put one point that I've noticed just from the first two episodes, maybe two and a half episodes. But I enjoy how if they lose a patient, they'll actually take a minute, like a moment of silence. And I was like, I don't know. But I love that they do that. I think that's really respectful. And that just kind of resonated with me. So I'll have to take all these other notes. But I'm so jealous you got to watch more of it.

Eric (1:56:46)
Yeah. Do think that really happens?

So I remember like an ER,

a patient would die, right? And they would all kind of be like just, it would be quiet, but all you'd hear would be like the frustrating taking off the gloves and throwing them in the trash and clean this up. And then eventually they just kind of walk out and they all go their separate ways because they all have to deal with that in their own way.

Erika (1:57:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and these guys have to deal with it in their own way too, but at least they kind of acknowledge what happened. Like, what could we have done? What do you know about this patient? Like, what was kind of special about them? And I was like, ⁓ that's really nice. ⁓

Eric (1:57:31)
Great.

So more people have passed, but what I'm assuming is you're

seeing the person who passed away who was the student doctor. It was his first patient.

Erika (1:57:43)
Yes, he

did like 25 minutes of CPR on the guy.

Eric (1:57:46)
Yeah, he just kept going and they kept letting him go. And I think they're

like, he just has to, you can't take this away from someone on there first. Yeah.

Erika (1:57:54)
It was a it

was a learning experience for him. Well, not just a learning experience, but just an experience in itself, you know, not a great one, but got to try.

Eric (1:58:00)
I think, and I'm gonna, yeah,

I'm gonna call him Carter, even though he's not Carter, but he's Carter and he are, Dr. Robbie, yeah, it's a short for something else, but yeah, something like that. I feel like he was like, I'm not gonna let you stop as long as we don't overabuse it because you don't want to have that whole, I wish I could have kept doing more, they took it away from me. They let him experience it.

Erika (1:58:07)
Dr. Robbie.

Rob, Robin of itch or something like that. Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Eric (1:58:30)
And

it was, yeah, something else. And I think they see something in this young doctor. it's, if you haven't watched yet, this is a teaching hospital at the same time, just like the one in ER. So all the students go to this one and they have to take them and teach them. And it's really cool to see those moments of teaching and showing someone like cutting the skin for the first time, walking them through it. Here's my observation though about ER versus the pit now.

Erika (1:58:38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eric (1:58:59)
The pit is on HBO Max. There's no limits. They can say as many fucking F-bombs as they want.

Erika (1:59:05)
You know what I noticed too? They have some gratuitous nudity in there. Like they'll like cut a lady's shirt and a boob pops out. I was like, did you really need to go there? Did you? I think I saw a peen. I saw a peen in there too. Really? But I'm like, I don't think that's necessary.

Eric (1:59:09)
Yep.

Yep. ⁓ well, you're going to see a lot more. Yes.

But it's real, that's what it is like in real life.

Erika (1:59:24)
No, no,

yes, I get that, I'm just like, factor.

Eric (1:59:27)
I remember watching ER and

having it on DVD and seeing some of those type of like almost nudity scenes and be like, well, wow, they got away with that. And occasionally they could swear more in the nineties on network. They can't now, but there's no limits on this one. None. I'll let you catch up. We'll talk about like, I don't want to put pressure on you, but I would love you to get halfway through. It's 15. So I'd love for you to get to six or seven.

Erika (1:59:41)
Mmm. Gotcha. Gotcha. It's raw. Yes, please. I need the weekend.

I'll see what I can do. We will not, our house guests will be heading out on Saturday. So I have a trail race. Once I come home from my trail race, I'm going to melt into my couch.

Eric (2:00:05)
Yeah, Saturday. That's long.

And we'll probably talk on Sunday. We'll just see what kind of night you have. All right.

Erika (2:00:10)
That's okay. Yeah. Gonna

melt into my couch and hope that I didn't break something from these trails. Thank you, Drummer Hill.

Eric (2:00:19)
All right. Very cool. Hey,

our guest is about to jump on and but we need to we need to end this quickly with a congratulations. I have a congratulations to give favorite patron, Tomic

Erika (2:00:26)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (2:00:32)
he's reached another level in life and he hit that retirement mark.

Erika (2:00:38)
Happy retirement, Tom.

Eric (2:00:38)
Congratulations

to Tom and the McManus family and Mary and Ruev, because I think Mary is long past retired. Guys, enjoy this next chapter. Love you so much. Thank you for all your support you do. You guys are awesome. If anyone else wants to be amazing Patreon of ours, join our Patreon family. We're going to put a lot more out. We just put something out the other day. We're going to do, you know what I thought we could do?

Erika (2:01:05)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Eric (2:01:06)
Like I don't want to over saturate those phone calls. We could, well, I was thinking we could do like maybe that every other, every month, but every other month it's a Patron only.

Erika (2:01:09)
my god, that was so fun. We could call our patrons.

Mm-hmm.

my god. I had so much fun with that. I would love to do that again. That was so much fun.

Eric (2:01:22)
was a blast. That was a blast. And then the real I made

after and me being like, Jess, did you block me?

Erika (2:01:30)
Don't give

up on me. We have in chess. We still love you.

Eric (2:01:33)
It was great

to her credit. Even if she looks, she didn't have my number. Half those numbers you had to give me because I had no one's phone number.

Erika (2:01:40)
And I hope it was okay.

I hope I wasn't, ⁓ like infringing on our trust, but I mean, I was there too. It was just a group phone call, right? Well, now you have a couple extras.

Eric (2:01:49)
I have nobody's number, which is by design. I don't even have pterodactyls

yet. We just talk on Facebook. ⁓ Hey, this was awesome. You guys rock. Thank you so much. Please go out there and support the brands that support us. Check out MyRacedHats, check out RightSock, check out Firefly. Maybe one day I can really say check out UFOs. Erika, get to work.

Erika (2:01:57)
That's on you guys. I don't know.

Ha

Eric (2:02:16)
Don't forget June 28th, the Gostown Gallup. We're going to be there. You can get a t-shirt with our on the runs logo on it. Support us, go, everything's in the show notes. Click the links, support, support, support. We love you guys. Everything you're doing out there to support us.

is really helping. love it. Thank you so much. guys rock. Erica, take us home.

Erika (2:02:38)
Just one quick thing before we leave Eric No, I just want to say I think your kids bikes are really cute And I hope we see lots of videos of them riding their bikes around because that's adorable

Eric (2:02:40)
No, take it home, I'm kidding.

It was pretty cool. I'm super excited. Yeah. I got, I got 10 % offer buying two bikes. It's like one of the first twin discounts. Yep.

Erika (2:02:51)
Yeah. Yeah. We didn't get to talk about ourselves very much. ⁓ Parenting hack. But anyways,

we'll get back to it. Thank you guys so much for listening, for always listening. You know we love you.

Eric (2:03:06)
Don't forget to check out the Ali G Show movement people that dropped this week. You guys rock. Don't fear the code brown.

Erika (2:03:14)
And don't forget to stretch.

Eric (2:04:09)
We are wicked excited to welcome Helen. Helen. See, I did it again.

Erika (2:04:17)
Except for that, ⁓ You were on a roll.

Eric (2:04:18)
Here we go.

Ellen (2:04:18)
was gonna say that was

amazing. You were on a roll.

Eric (2:04:22)
We are wicked excited to welcome Ellen Hunter-Cannsca-

Erika (2:04:27)
on purpose. You totally did that on purpose.

Eric (2:04:28)
No it wasn't!

are wicked excited to welcome Helen Hunter Gans to the On the Runs Podcast! No let me... Did I... What did I do wrong? Ellen, Ellen, Ellen. Like, Ellen DeGeneres. Okay, here we go.

Erika (2:04:33)
Can I just do it? Can I just do it?

Ellen (2:04:36)
Close enough,

close enough.

Erika (2:04:39)
You said Helen again.

Ellen (2:04:40)
Helen, you gotta leave all these in.

Erika (2:04:43)
He should.