On The Runs 178 | John Mortimer | Millennium Running | New Hampshire First Class Road Race Events |Part 1

We are wicked excited to bring you this weeks episode's featuring John Mortimer from Millennium Running. 

This weekend we'll be podcasting from the NH 10 Miler after the race and hope to see you there! The weather looks great for a hilly 10 miler!

In this episode of the On the Runs podcast, hosts Eric and Erika welcome John Mortimer, (13:25) the founder of Millennium Running. They discuss John's journey from high school to college running, the importance of community in sports, and memorable moments in his athletic career. The conversation also touches on the unique challenges of the steeplechase and the competitive nature of college athletics. John shares insights on fostering the next generation of runners and the future of running events, emphasizing the role of community engagement. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the journey of a professional runner, discussing the pressures of competition, the business side of athletics, and the impact of injuries on their careers. They share personal anecdotes about overcoming challenges, the significance of coaching, and the emotional highs of participating in Olympic trials. The discussion also highlights unique marathon experiences, including running in extreme conditions, and the supportive nature of the ultra running community.

Chapters

01:00 Intro
13:25 John Mortimer
16:12 The Kids Triathlon Experience
22:08 High School and College Running
27:57 Friendship and Competition in Sports
36:30 The Steeplechase Experience
42:45 Becoming a Professional Runner
47:51 Overcoming Challenges in Professional Running
56:57 Health Challenges and Career Shifts
01:11:25 Transitioning to Marathon Running
01:15:32 The Challenges of Marathon Running
01:22:14 Antarctica
01:30:24 Training Challenges and Triumphs
01:34:56 Exciting News and Upcoming Events

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Millennium's Website

NH 10 Miler this weekend!

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Transcript

Eric (00:55)
What's up everybody. Welcome to episode 178 of the On the Runs podcast. After a week in DC and the beam and score over 200 every day, the weather has finally found its sweet spot just in time for one of our favorite local New Hampshire races. Erica's little sun burnt from the lake and I went camping off the grid and spent some time in nature's ice bath. And we have an amazing guest today that we've been talking about getting on this podcast ever since episode

But first, before we get to any of that, I must say hello to my kick-ass Rockstarver co-host, SixstarErica, what's up?

Erika (01:37)
I love it. love the button. The button. But hey, man, I am doing great. I am a little crispy. Yeah, girls be crispy. But I'm feeling good. This weather is gorgeous. I just, chef's kiss. yes. And I could not be happier for this episode that we have. my God. I've been looking forward to this for so long.

Eric (01:40)
The button.

It's perfect. As you like to say, chef's kiss.

So excited.

Yes, yes, you are in your usual spare bedroom studio, but I'm in a new studio for the first time. 178 episodes, you've never seen I'm at my parents' house. I did a little dog sitting, not for the week, just for the day. Came here to let the dog out, because they're on, you know, they're retired now. They go on these long,

Erika (02:04)
I sure am. Where are you?

Where is that?

Hmm?

Mm-hmm.

Eric (02:21)
full day adventures with their meetup group and they're in Vermont. They're like, we're not going to get home in time. And I was like, well, I've dropped in the camper off last night. I was like, well, wait, what time we be home? And I was like, well, I can go let the dog out if I can podcast from the house. Like this, this will work out. You it's at least I can do all the babysitting they do for me. So, you know, I was like, I'll do that. But I am in a different room and some might say this is Hannah's room that Hannah grew up in her entire life.

Erika (02:22)
⁓

Yo.

Uh-huh.

Eric (02:51)
But to be honest, this was my room that I had to give up when I was eight years old when Hannah was born. And I got put up in the attic with my brother. both got, Alex had this room with him. This was mine first. And then Alex was born and I shared it with him. So here I am, the nice giving brother. I'll share this with my brother. And then when Hannah's born, I'm like, yeah, I'll give up this room for Hannah, sure. So.

Erika (02:55)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

you

I'm

sure you had so much choice in the matter.

Eric (03:21)
Yeah,

I was asked, I remember my parents asked me as a toddler if I would share the room with Alex, right? And I was like, of course. I would love to share the room with my brother. Yes. And then when they said, Eric, we would love to have Hannah in that room when she's a baby, so they're closer to her. And I was like, of course, that makes sense. I'll go to the attic. I'll sleep up there. Let's be honest though, the attic here in my house, my parents' house is sick. It's like.

Erika (03:27)
Uh-huh.

Yes, mother and father, I absolutely will share my room.

Yep. You got

to tell me more about it because when I think of it, like I'm kind of getting the vibes from Home Alone. yeah. Yeah.

Eric (03:54)
No. ⁓ like where he sleeps. no, it's it. might

have been like that way long time ago, but I think it might have been that way when we bought the house. My dad finished the attic. It's really nice carpets and everything stairway. It's like a whole nother room. It was massive, too. Like we would play floor hockey games in one section the whole time. think my parents would think the walls going to the ceiling is going to come down. And we had like a whole lounge set up and a TV. It was pretty sweet. But just I want for the record.

Erika (04:00)
Okay.

Nice.

Eric (04:24)
This was my room first. And I gave it to So when Hannah's listening right now on the subway in New York City or something, she'd be like, it's true, it's true. It was Eric's room first. And he gave up because he loved his little sister when she was born. He's like, she deserves this room, this beautiful room.

Erika (04:26)
huh.

you

It was, but she made it her own. Yup.

I don't see any essence of Eric in there though. I saw a little snowman and it's white and pretty. There's no Bruins posters and God knows what.

Eric (04:49)
Well, it's definitely changed. Well, it's definitely changed.

There used to be probably Harry Potter. You know what it was? It was Johnny Depp. This room had Johnny Depp posters everywhere. Now the room has definitely changed. more of a... Right. Now the room's definitely changed. It's more of a guest room now, but like above me, the shelf, like there's a ton of Hannah stuff up there from college, from high school. There's a wedding picture of my parents. There's pictures of our old grandparents here too.

Erika (05:02)
Wait, because Hannah liked it or you did?

Do I see a plant?

What's the green thing? just like one of the caps.

Eric (05:18)
There's like her, what do you call it that you wear when you graduate high school and college? Yeah,

well, there's a cap, yeah, there's a couple. 2011, class of 2011, funny story, I came home for her graduation. Hannah would tell you that's a lie. would tell you that I came home for the Boston Brew and Stanley Cup Parade and her graduation just happened to be the day before.

Erika (05:27)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Well, that's just making the most of your time.

Eric (05:43)
Yeah,

and then she's wicked smart because she has all these ropes and things that... Yeah. Yeah. So that's where I am. And this is where when we do sleepovers here, this is where typically Adeline sleeps over. And I prefer to just go in the camper because the camper's wicked sweet too. And I guess I don't go in it enough when I'm here. Yeah, it was amazing. my God, the weather. It was so nice to be like...

Erika (05:48)
⁓ the extra tassel things that you wear around your neck. And I never got any of those.

Well, you took it out for another spin this weekend, right? You went camping?

Eric (06:11)
We camped in this spot at Dolly Cop. We talked to Amanda before earlier in the year, like this is her area. That's where she got stuck off-roading. And we're in this field and I've never camped in the field before. And just, this is where we're going to go camping when we run the Mount Washington Auto Road Race next year. And we get a group and we all go do lobsters after, right? I've decided when we go to Dolly Cop, we're going to camp in the field because it just, brings everyone together. It was super cool. And the views.

Erika (06:30)
Yes.

Okay.

more space.

Eric (06:40)
Right, but the views were amazing. You wake up and you open the door and you just see the view, the sun coming over the mountains or the other side, the sun coming down. It was spectacular. And then we went to all these swimming holes and I call it nature's ice bath. And it was just, felt, it was almost that it was cold, but once you're in there for about 30 seconds, it's like, you're good. You can manage it. And it's so good for you. like, my

Erika (06:46)
Wow.

I'm

Eric (07:06)
said thank you so much for just sitting in that cold river for like 30 minutes. It was great.

Erika (07:08)
Mm.

I don't

think I can make myself do it, I don't know.

Eric (07:14)
Well, one of them, went to another

one and I talked about it with Amanda, like you go running for a long run and then you go jump in Moosebrook State Park, 10 minutes away. We went there because like they have this dock that you can jump off of this bridge and the kids just did it over and over and Tommy and Tyler, four year old twins, no fear at all. It was great. And the little beach, I had a great weekend. I probably have a little bit of a burn too, but precautions because I wore a hat the whole time. So I'm not.

Erika (07:32)
Ha

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric (07:42)
burnt

like you, you're a little burnt from the lake, why were you winning a pasaki again?

Erika (07:45)
⁓

yeah, I went back up to Winnie. ⁓ I did reapply a lot of sunscreen over this weekend, but it was just so sunny. ⁓ God, it was beautiful though. Don't get me wrong. I was in heaven. We just floated in that water for hours, hours and hours and hours. It was beautiful.

Eric (08:03)
You in a tube

or you on a boat like a pontoon boat? What do you do? You never invite me first off to these, not that I would come, but.

Erika (08:08)
So my

good friends have a lake house up there. Actually, they have like many lake houses. Like all of the family has like a nice little compound. It's on Alton Bay and we all just gather on the dock and we just hang out. We'll swim. They've got floats, all kinds of floats. I like the noodles. I prefer the noodles. And yeah, we just, we'll have drinks. We'll have, there's a grill down there. We have food. We do occasionally go out on their boat. They have a nice wake center boat.

So you can do the wake surfing and all that kind of stuff. But we didn't touch the boat this weekend. Like it was just nice to chill out and hang. Like beautiful weekend. Gorgeous. it's coming. ⁓ love it. Yep.

Eric (08:46)
It was great. It was so good, but you can feel like falls right here. It's going to happen and then it's going to get hot again for a little bit. But like all this running

we're doing training for Chicago and New York and just this heat and humidity and the beam in score well over 200 has just been kicking our ass. We're going to start having those runs when it's going to feel like all this hard work is starting to pay off.

Erika (08:58)
Yeah.

Yep.

My god though.

Today was that day. I got to go on a run right after work before we started recording. I swear, the summer just, you know how bad it takes like all the energy out of you. feel like you're slogging through it. I was doing like eight and a half, nine minute miles feeling like it was as easy as cake. this is the kind of weather I want. And I was doing some hills, man. I ran around my neighborhood and I got to take you around some time. It is.

There's not a lot of traffic, so it's very safe to run, but there are some killer hills and I worked for it today. I did. You'd be proud.

Eric (09:46)
⁓

Well, proud of you for running some hills. It's about time, because your Instagram handle is gonna change pretty soon to flat six star Erica after quite a while. But hey.

Erika (09:48)
You

Thank you. Yeah.

I'm not mad about that.

Eric (10:00)
We have an

amazing guest today. We have a few things to cover because we're doing it a little different this week. We're gonna have two episodes. We got to go in person at the Millennium Running store and talk to John Mortimer himself, the owner, the founder, the mastermind behind Millennium Running. And he goes, hey, I blocked off 7 p.m. to midnight. I legit took advantage of every second of that block. You.

Erika (10:02)
Yes we do!

Eric (10:26)
You ran out of there at 11 because you're like, got to do my run.

but we had an absolutely amazing time with him.

Erika (10:31)
my God, we did. I don't even think we touched upon it for quite a while, but we recorded in my happy place. Like I was surrounded by shoes. Not only was it cool to just get to know John a little bit better, get to know the man behind all of the races that we love to run, just being in such a cool environment to have this conversation, like it was so much fun.

Eric (10:54)
And we can talk about in the outro on Thursday, because there were two episodes this week, guys. And we'll talk about logistics and everything that went into this, because it was so cool. We're in person. This is the goal. We were challenged to do it. Not like John didn't challenge us, but when this opportunity came, it's like, okay, here's a challenge. We got a little bit of time. Let's figure it out. But here's how this episode is going to go, guys. The first half is John's story, because it was amazing. You're going to learn so much about him. And then on Thursday, we're coming back and we're going to drop.

Erika (11:10)
The setup.

Eric (11:23)
The Millennium Running

because they're both so amazing, they deserve their own episodes. It's going to be great. And then we're going to come back on Thursday for our normal outro. And we'll just talk a lot of, you know, this and that and everything. And I'll tell you about not just nature's bath, but nature peas and stealing wifi while camping and whatever comes up the next day or two for you.

Erika (11:44)
but you can't forget what we have to tell everybody. The special, special, special news, yes.

Eric (11:46)
We have big news. That's right. We have big

news. Not only this going to be an awesome week of John and Millennium, I mentioned in the intro, one of our favorite races because of the Hills, we're going to be there just like last year we podcasted from the race in the back of that parking lot. Well, this year we're going to be right there at the start finish line area. We're going to be recording the podcast and maybe before, definitely after we're going to have a little setup.

Erika (12:03)
Yep, the church, yeah.

Eric (12:13)
for watching. ⁓

Erika (12:30)
I check out vlog number one. ⁓ it was so much fun. I love seeing where your training is going and just all the hard work you're putting in. And I believe you've got another one coming out soon too, don't you?

Eric (12:41)
We do

dropping tonight, vlog number two. We're going to try to keep this weekly up. right. So vlog number two drops tonight. So enjoy the episode, Sean, check out the vlog episode two of the vlog tomorrow, the New York city training. It's a little, uh, vlog takeover. Someone does a takeover on the vlog. It's going to be super fun and entertaining. can tell you this, Erica has not seen this one yet, so I'm super excited. And then we'll be back Thursday. We'll be back in the outro. Just say hi real quick, but.

Erika (12:45)
Right on.

Mm-mm.

Eric (13:10)
We'll be back Thursday for the Millennium story. It's going to be amazing. What a week. I know I've been saying for months and months and months, big things are happening, but guys, these things are happening. They're coming. It all takes time. I love it. This is amazing. And we've been talking about this one for the last 178 episodes. We did it. We finally did it. We got the man. We got the legend. We got John Mortimer from Millennium running.

Erika (13:30)
you

Eric (13:34)
on the on the runs podcast guys enjoy this and we'll see you on the other side and we'll talk to you again on Thursday.

Speaker 3 (13:44)
Our next guest on the pod is a New Hampshire local that many of you have heard of before. He's an Olympic finalist, a big 10 star at Michigan and a New Hampshire high school legend who was part of one of the most iconic New school sports moments of all time.

He's also the founder and mastermind of Millennium Running for the last 14 years. If you're at a Millennium Running race, you might see him doing a little bit of it all from behind the mic all the way to cleanup. We are wicked excited to finally have on the podcast, John Mortimer. Welcome to the On the Runs podcast. What's up?

Speaker 2 (14:11)
Thank you so much for being here. Was that like the guns?

Speaker 3 (14:14)
Yeah

Speaker 1 (14:15)
⁓ That's a ba-ba-ba-bwaa! Like this. My favorite button. He taught me the buttons the other day and that's why it's all the way across the...

Speaker 2 (14:22)
Well, I've listened

to them so often that I thought I would hear them. But when you're here, you don't actually hear them. It's just on the audio for this. So, yeah. You heard it. The headphones. So give me the gun. Give me. OK.

Speaker 3 (14:29)
I heard.

That's right. Hey, we just saw each other yesterday. Yeah, and I threw this in my intro and I thought of it after I ran to yesterday. I said, if you go to a Millennium Race, you'll see John doing a little bit of it all. At the beginning, you had the microphone, you're getting all the kids ready. It was a kid's triathlon. And then at the end, you're cleaning up. You're grabbing all the barricades, you're throwing them all in the trailer. You do every job.

Speaker 2 (14:41)
We did,

Speaker 3 (15:01)
On race day at least and you were working on a, on a weekend, on a Sunday, like you're so involved and that's so cool.

Speaker 2 (15:07)
Well, I love what I do and it's not work. It's fun most days. Yeah. Except when it rains really bad, then it's not as fun. But no, I do a little bit of everything for for Millennium. And I love what I do. And we have a great team. So it is a teamwork. So I'm just a team member like anybody else.

Speaker 3 (15:23)
Yeah,

I was looking for you. walked up to Andy. said, Hey, I saw you with the microphone before the race in the pool. I wasn't going to sneak in or do anything. You were getting all the kids hype. This lady was there getting. So my daughter was in the eight, the eight to 10 year old division. So they had to wait for the older kids because they had a longer course.

Speaker 2 (15:40)
So

this is this is the kids. It's a kids only triathlons, which I know you're triathlete. But it's a good way. It's called the kids triathlon, spelled with a Y. That's right. It's try it. So it's in the Bedford town pool and the little kids only have to do 25 yards right across the pool and they have lifeguards in the water with them. But the older kids go first up to 15.

and then ultimately the younger kid, but holding an attention span of an eight year old for 45 minutes while there is like torture.

Speaker 3 (16:12)
credit typically

it goes off really smooth it said they start at 830 and I think they started at 835 so but but they're there so the older kids Erica had a course double the length okay so they need to wait for the last biker to get off the bike course so then they can make an adjustment because the the younger kids only bike one mile the two or maybe it was longer I don't know

Speaker 1 (16:34)
Okay.

This is only for children?

Speaker 2 (16:38)
Well, they might have

an Erica division movies, right?

Speaker 3 (16:40)
Thank

Speaker 1 (16:42)
Okay.

Speaker 3 (16:44)
It's it's but you'll have to do the big kids the two laps in the pool

Speaker 1 (16:47)
I could do two laps in a pool. Just do the little doggy pattern. my god.

Speaker 2 (16:49)
Flip turn. Flip turn.

Can you imagine?

But that's one of the events that is so special. Our team just had a debrief from that today. mean, put in on event for kids only. Yeah. Having like 300 kids, your daughter being one of them. You said she's done it for a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (17:05)
Third year and I did the whole I looked at all the splits today every year faster every year an improvement She ran her mile at a 720 split yesterday the half mile So but the first thing she goes my run felt slow I go year over two minutes faster than me

Speaker 2 (17:15)
Are you?

Speaker 1 (17:15)
Seriously? ⁓

Yeah

Speaker 2 (17:26)
That's

perfect. it gets kids into it, right? It's the next generation of triathletes or runners. that event specifically benefits a great charity and the friends of Anya, local to us here and very special people. And then ultimately, get to have kids try something new and exercise and get them off the devices.

Speaker 1 (17:44)
I'm excited about stuff.

Right.

Speaker 3 (17:47)
Yeah. It's

a great, she gets so pumped for it every year. This year we did a little less training, but she's been so involved with her.

Speaker 1 (17:54)
super active like with cheerleading.

Speaker 3 (17:56)
I

said, you're going to be fine. She does red line, athletics, dance, cheerleading, right? We'd go on the bike. We're at the point where I can run on a rail trail and she'll bike with me and she'll bike by me and then turn around and come back. it's great.

Speaker 2 (18:09)
And

that's the best. Rail trails are great for that too. You don't have to worry about cars.

Speaker 1 (18:12)
You

just have to teach her how to carry your snacks for you on a long run. Like that's going to be the bike mule. Sherpa. Sherpa. Sherpa, yes.

Speaker 3 (18:20)
But John

I want to share one thing with you before we get to know you okay, because we've been a podcast for about four years Our first two years it was very sporadic our first year It was like three episodes the next year maybe 20 but weeks apart and then ever since that moment We had an episode every week. Yeah for the last two years

Speaker 2 (18:30)
I listen to many of them. I love them. I'm a fan.

Speaker 3 (18:45)
so I'm gonna play this for you. want you to hear this. Four years ago, almost to the day.

Speaker 2 (18:51)
Four years ago, we're looking, I mean, we're looking at. Okay.

Speaker 3 (18:54)
First ever podcast episode,

right after the brewery chase relay. I want you to hear this because I had a run in on one.

Speaker 1 (19:03)
Is that the

inaugural? Yes. Yeah. OK.

Speaker 3 (19:06)
Give this a listen.

Speaker 1 (19:10)
Who owns Millennium? Does he own it?

Speaker 2 (19:23)
Like go faster.

Speaker 1 (19:25)
you

Speaker 3 (19:27)
You

Speaker 2 (19:38)
Laughter

Speaker 1 (19:40)
See you.

Speaker 3 (19:49)
her instagram someday be like that was the guy who said great job

Speaker 2 (19:53)
Hahaha!

Speaker 3 (19:59)
Aww.

Speaker 2 (20:04)
I'm pumped for you.

Speaker 3 (20:05)
That was episode one. Wow.

Speaker 1 (20:07)
Episode one. And he's still pumped for everyone who completes the who tries the races, even if they don't get to complete. Like, if you show up with the intention of doing your best, you are there.

Speaker 2 (20:07)
⁓ god.

think if you just show up, sometimes people don't even like they show up. Just getting there is the hard part. is. Beat everybody on the couch that didn't show up.

Speaker 3 (20:28)
Yeah, that was

my observation. First episode, I saw you, you're all around running around and it's, holds true today from what I saw you yesterday throwing everything. You're not just like sitting in the back going on Caribbean Island vacations when everyone else is working and making you money. You're out there too, working with them. You're not letting anyone else feel like, you know, they're working for the man. You're working right there with them.

Speaker 2 (20:51)
Well, I tell you...

I read a lot of leadership like things. try to consume stuff and educate like how to be a boss and, you know, better leader or whatever. And one of them stuck with me is it was like a cartoon. It was like the Egyptians carrying this big stone, right? And it was leader of the and it was ⁓ the Egyptian pharaoh on top of the stone pointing like carried this way and they're carrying him. And then the other one was the Egyptian. The pharaoh was in the front point and carrying it with everybody else. Yes. And that stuck with me of like, if you want to be a leader

of people and things, you gotta do the work just as much as everybody else does. It's us, it's us.

Speaker 3 (21:26)
Yeah, I love it. have, kind of follow a lot of those accounts on the Monday night media account. Like that's what I follow. So when I go there, I see more of that kind of stuff, that kind of content. love it. But we'll talk more Millennium and pump Millennium's tires later. I want to get to know you. I want to go back in time. We like to go into DeLorean, hit 88 sometimes, or that that's the Wayne's World reference there. And we like to go back to the future, Erica. Come on.

Speaker 2 (21:39)
Good.

great movie.

Speaker 1 (21:52)
Please

join me some more. he. I don't know which.

Speaker 3 (21:54)
Erica gets one of these right now. ⁓

You'll laugh when you hear it. All right. I want to go back. want to get to know John. Like, I know you were a high school star in the 90s, but you were you born and raised?

Speaker 2 (22:08)
like

a child ⁓ high school star that I like like an old husband TV guy you're a child star in the 90s ⁓

Speaker 1 (22:17)
90s 90s kids

Speaker 3 (22:19)
Britney and Justin.

Speaker 1 (22:23)
Okay.

Speaker 3 (22:26)
Give us a little bit of your history growing up here. You're a local from New Hampshire, right? ⁓

Speaker 2 (22:31)
Yeah, I am,

you know, raised in New Hampshire from the time I was four to the time I went to college. So my youth and childhood was, you know, New Hampshire, right? I'm a Granite state or through and through. but yeah, I grew up in Londonderry, New Hampshire, not too far from here. And had a, you know, great childhood, went through public schools in Londonderry. Right. Thought I was Michael Jordan.

Speaker 1 (22:45)
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (22:50)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:52)
When I was younger, a basketball player, dude, I even had the knee brace and I didn't have a knee injury. That's how I'm like, yeah, it's like, just need the black neoprenee brace and fold it over just like MJ does. But I played high school basketball and, youth basketball and growing up in all sorts of different sports and.

Speaker 1 (22:54)
Okay.

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:11)
When did

running become part of like, when did you get involved in running? For me, it was middle school, cross country. So I grew up playing ice hockey. So I only ran cross country. The, the gym coach was like, you should run and it will get you in shape for hockey. Sure. That's how I got into it. What was your introduction?

Speaker 2 (23:24)
Well,

not too indifferent that but by the way, hockey players make the grittiest runners. But they definitely. We'll get to it later, but I was a college coach and I had a couple of kids that used to play hockey and they were they just had such a high pain threshold. They would run through the wall. I loved I loved that means a lot to guys. I loved them. But no, my intro to running was actually going back in time.

Lennard High School in the early days of that high school had won a bunch of state championships and track and cross country. And then they started to really stink. there the legendary coach there, who is my mentor, Larry Martin, decided he needed he was losing too many kids to soccer lacrosse in the feeder programs. So he started at the time in order to get kids in high school to run well. He started a elementary school mile between the three elementary schools.

Speaker 1 (24:15)
That's really smart.

Speaker 2 (24:18)
And ultimately, I was at South School and the gym teacher was in charge of, I think they had three practices. And it was South School, North School and Matthew Thornton, the three schools. And ultimately they had the practices and then you go to the high school and you have the one mile championship between the three schools. And I just was pretty good at it. So I recall I ended up, I think I was the

Speaker 1 (24:25)
Okay.

Thank

Speaker 2 (24:45)
the top kid in South school going into the meat from the time trial we had. Right. And then we went to the high school and did it. And I was winning the race finishes on the high school track and with like 50 meters to go. An eighth grader just blew right by me. Snagged it from me and. ⁓

Speaker 1 (25:01)
⁓ it sniped it from you.

Speaker 2 (25:05)
⁓ It was that moment that I was like, I'm coming back next year and I want like that was my intro to it. I think if I had won that race, I don't think I would have done the sport anymore. ⁓ I think losing that race stuck with in the brain that it made me want to do it more because I lost. Right. So defeat means.

Speaker 3 (25:24)
What a moment. Yeah. moments

that stick with you sometimes.

Speaker 2 (25:28)
That was the defining moment for me getting in the sport. And then ultimately ran in middle school and high school, and I was faster than most kids.

Speaker 3 (25:39)
Yeah. So I want to, want to know about that actually, because I think you competed in something called the foot locker national championships. it just one year, multiple years? ⁓ tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (25:50)
Well,

high school again, I had this great coach, Larry Martin, at Lender High School, and he he coached there for 30 Fantastic. And he was a great mentor and he got me to run pretty darn fast and cross country was one of them. And my best friend and I met down and who went to you went to Pinkerton, right? Timberland. Yeah, and wrestling, too. I think you guys have.

Speaker 3 (26:08)
went to Timberlake. Yeah, we would beat you in hockey. You

did. Huge wrestling school. Wasn't for me though.

Speaker 1 (26:16)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:17)
Stick with ace hockey. So at the end of the day, ⁓ yeah, I got to compete at the highest level at high school track, full locker nationals is like national championships for cross country. And I finished runner up in that to my best friend who went to Pinkerton. He was my best man, my wedding many years later, too. So what's.

Speaker 3 (26:31)
And was he your best man?

Cool about this story.

And as we like to say, spare no details, but this was like a year long battle between you and Mike and Matt. And it went not only in New Hampshire, but it went national. And so this became a huge New Hampshire story. Like the.

Speaker 1 (26:38)
did some digging on you.

Speaker 2 (26:55)
New Hampshire so small the number one

huge story ⁓

Speaker 3 (26:58)
story, the number,

Hey, we're bigger than Rhode Island. There we go. The, number one and number two runner in New Hampshire, also number one and number two in the country. And you're that race. you guys went back and forth all year, right?

Speaker 2 (27:11)
did, yeah. mean,

again, we were best friends in high school, so we would train together, run together on weekends, but he went to Pinkerton and I went to London area, arch-rival school. We even had the Mack plaque, the competition between them, and we raced each other six times that year. He won three, I won three. We went back and forth, back and forth from... Yeah, that's not a seven, right? All the way through, you know, the division championships, the New England championships.

Speaker 1 (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Best out of seven.

Speaker 2 (27:39)
and then Footlocker Nationals as well. So I went back and forth and I finished runner-up in the country at Nationals to my best friend, which was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (27:46)
Between all that you two were best friends Yeah, like you never let the battle get to you weren't like it wasn't like your arch rivals Even though you were but you weren't like you had this French. Did you guys train together too in the office?

Speaker 2 (27:57)
We were

friends. We were just talking before about just going for a run and talking. We'd just do long runs on the weekends together and hang out. took trips together. he's lifelong friend of mine. ultimately, we did a lot of miles together. But it's like the time they say, like I was running in Paso Canoé with him and the bear came out and I wasn't so much worried about the bear. I just had to beat him.

Speaker 3 (28:27)
Was told to ask about the bear story so wait was there another bear story cuz he just had a bear at an event recently we'll get to that but Was there another bear event of another bear?

Speaker 1 (28:34)
That's the way I am.

Speaker 2 (28:35)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:42)
says the bare analogy. yeah. That's like the typical code. Brandt will not tip.

Speaker 3 (28:46)
Well, I've used that as an example of I've used an example of like, well, a code brown doesn't have to be an actual crapping yourself. In the literal term, it could be like a bear walks out in front of you and oh crap. And then we had one guy say like that happened to him. We're like, oh crap, what's he do? And you just had one recently, but I find a lot of the best athletes in the world train together too. So you and your friend train like in hockey, I'll go with hockey in the off season, all the best hockey players train together.

Speaker 1 (28:54)
moment.

Speaker 3 (29:16)
Like they'll go, they'll go funny enough. They'll go to Arizona and then they'll go. ⁓ And they train twice a day. Then they go play golf and everything. And then they go train again on the ice. you notice like McDavid and Crosby and all the best players McKinnon there together. So sometimes running with the best runners in the world kind of pushes you and makes you better.

Speaker 2 (29:20)
and warn

Well, they say that you love your competition because they bring out the best in you. Yeah. Right. That's part of it.

Speaker 1 (29:39)
me of I'm gonna I'm gonna mess up the names but Connor Mance and who's his running friend like they just like won the Olympic trials together absolutely ran the entire thing together they're like best friends and always like just choose each other on you know

Speaker 2 (29:54)
you're pushing each other, right? So someone there doing it. You actually like them and you respect them. It's not like in some sports, there's someone to like referee between the two or stop you from achieving something. There's no one stopping anybody. They're just helping each other get better, which I think is pretty amazing. And you develop mutual respect for that. And but more than anything, you develop a relationship over time. And that's what I think the coolest thing about our entire sport, any sport really. But like you develop these.

great relationships because you're experiencing the same thing together. So I had that very good fortune with Matt down in high school and then continued a lifelong friendship with him to this day.

Speaker 1 (30:23)
totally agree.

Speaker 3 (30:30)
Yeah, well, I was just gonna ask. was gonna say cover years have been 30 years, but you still run to them today. Is he still local and does he run your race?

Speaker 2 (30:34)
I know, I know. We were just on a text today. He

lives actually in Delaware ⁓ now with he and his wife and three kids. So he's awesome. And he's in the industry of running on the technical side of it and online registration area. So. Very cool. kids run, his daughter's a fantastic athlete. ⁓

Speaker 3 (30:50)
All right, very cool. So small world still involved in the sport. Yeah

Well, that,

that story I got from one of our good friends on the pod, Jamie state, Jamie, Jamie. Jamie told me he did stories on it on like the 10 year anniversary of the 20 year anniversary.

Speaker 2 (31:07)
He

did. He did. He we care that one. It's probably coming up on Wednesdays coming up on 30 years now. So we got to revisit. Yeah, but no, it was a lot of fun. It was interesting because those there had never been two kids from the same state to go one to at Nationals ever. There's only 32 kids that make Nationals. In a small and at the time, New Hampshire had only had like two people ever to even make Nationals. So they only take 32.

Speaker 1 (31:13)
So sweet.

Hampshire on the map.

out of the whole country.

Speaker 2 (31:35)
out of the whole

country. They take eight from each region at the time. Now they take 10 from each region. There's four regions and that goes to the national championships in San Diego. And we went one, two and it fun. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:45)
in San Diego. That's

where the plaque is at Top Gun, know? Yeah, exactly. ⁓

Speaker 2 (31:51)
It's actually not

that far. It's literally right down the street from that, from the from the Air Force base. Hotel Del Coronado.

Speaker 3 (31:56)
that's so cool.

Speaker 1 (31:59)
He's a Top

Gun guy, he knows all the weird...

Speaker 3 (32:01)
always like to say, know, day, one day.

Speaker 2 (32:03)
Chop gun like ⁓

Speaker 1 (32:07)
He hasn't

even put a fart noise on there for me and I'm so disappointed in him, honestly. He's got work to do.

Speaker 2 (32:12)
I can't un- I can't un-hear that.

Speaker 3 (32:14)
The thing

is, I would do Top Gun references all the time and it would just go right over her head.

Speaker 1 (32:19)
I did

eventually watch them and they're the 80s one is just super cheesy. Couldn't get over it, but I did enjoy Maverick. That was a great movie. That was fun. I understand your love for it.

Speaker 2 (32:27)
I was. If

we're going to do quotes or stuff, we least have to listen Billy Madison or Tommy Boy quotes in here because I can.

Speaker 3 (32:36)
Such classic

movies. You know what's funny is I can't wait to play one of my twin boys, his name's Tommy. Can't wait to play Tommy Boy for them when they can get an understand.

Speaker 2 (32:42)
Really?

Speaker 1 (32:46)
Everybody's got a... he knows!

Speaker 2 (32:48)
Hey

Tommy, quit playing with your dinghy!

Speaker 3 (32:51)
Yep, I call

so I called Tyler time in and I call Tommy Tommy boy all the time So I think of that, know Chris Farley and I've been seeing a ton of Chris Farley content lately because of Adam Sandler and happy Gilmore and everything I love it. So

Speaker 1 (33:04)
wanna hear more about where he went from high school, because we didn't touch upon where he went to college.

Speaker 3 (33:11)
that but like you

ran D1 college so what was that recruitment process like too?

Speaker 2 (33:16)
Oh, that was it. That was awesome. So I felt so lucky as a young. I mean, now kids are looking at school. I have a 16 year old, you know, the high school program and like that whole process of looking at colleges or your future can be so overwhelming. And I just felt very fortunate that I had great institutions calling me and saying, hey, would you like to come to our school? And probably got in over my head into universities that otherwise couldn't get into.

Speaker 1 (33:18)
What influenced your decision?

Speaker 2 (33:46)
you

Speaker 1 (33:46)
You know, ⁓

Speaker 2 (33:51)
It's flattering to have

Harvard and Stanford and all the best academic institutions saying, we'd love to have you come here as well as, and ultimately I ended up ⁓ choosing the University of Michigan and having a full scholarship to go to U of ⁓ and run cross-country, indoor and outdoor track there. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (34:09)
must

have been cool because you got what they call it the big house, right? Yeah, big house and they got a huge like it's a huge sports school. And in the 90s, I remember watching all the time because they're the Wolverines, right? Yeah. So they would always have the striped helmet.

Speaker 2 (34:12)
the football stadium,

Speaker 1 (34:25)
I told you.

Speaker 3 (34:27)
As a kid growing up in the 90s watching a ton of college hockey, Michigan was the top. Michigan and Boston University.

Speaker 2 (34:34)
Yeah, so well, Michigan has a great hockey program, a football program. So in football, they won more football games than any other school in the they have over a thousand wins. No one has come close to that. So they're the most successful college football program in history. I might say Alabama, because they more national titles, but

Speaker 1 (34:44)
Thanks

Speaker 3 (34:51)
But yeah, you chose Michigan. Have you ever gone out that way before? You know, you're in New Hampshire. A lot of kids here go to UNH, go to Plymouth, Keene, maybe some of the schools in the greater Boston area. You don't typically hear of many going far away and then coming back.

Speaker 2 (35:07)
Yeah, well, I mean, I loved the choices I had. I again literally could have probably gone anywhere. ⁓ But I was looking for architecture as a major. Little little known little known fact that was my academic choice. And then ultimately I wanted a top 10 track and field program. So you combine those two, you get a pretty short list programs. Our pictures are rare. It's not like going undecided or.

Speaker 3 (35:17)
I got that on my notes.

Speaker 1 (35:30)
that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (35:35)
or like communications or something that's pretty specific. So ⁓ it was a rare. There's a couple of schools that didn't fit and some did. And Michigan, Colorado, Penn State, Stanford, all these were at the top of my list. And I took recruiting visits to each one of them, did the whole thing. Actually being a basketball player, that was the year of the Fab Five. I don't know if you follow back college basketball time. The Fab Five was anyway, they

Speaker 1 (35:58)
so much.

Speaker 2 (36:01)
I was able to go through the shoot around with the Fab five before a home basketball game. That's cool, which I was like, this is amazing. And then and then later that day, Michigan at home track me and the distance medley relay set the world record in the DMR that night at home on their home track. And then they had an awesome party. And by the time the party was over, I'm like, I'm I'm coming here. This is great. That's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is amazing.

Speaker 3 (36:26)
What a college.

Speaker 2 (36:30)
But yeah, but it was a, I had an unbelievable experience there. I amazing friends.

Speaker 3 (36:36)
You're in the steeplechase, right?

Speaker 2 (36:37)
Yeah,

well, they make you run everything. OK. Yeah, yeah. The with water in it.

Speaker 1 (36:40)
This will chase is that really cool one, right? To explain

that to me, how did that start? Do you know the history of the steeplechase? Because what?

Speaker 2 (36:50)
I

mean, it goes back to like horses.

Speaker 1 (36:53)
Zero sense to me. I know right. I mean if it's a horse thing that makes a little more sense But I watched it during the Olympics and I'm just like I don't have a clue what's going on

Speaker 2 (37:02)
Yeah, right.

We know it's five hurdles every lap, 3000 meters. And then they throw in a water pit in there like there's alligators in there. Yeah, it's a nuance is a niche thing. They don't do it very much in high school. So you don't see it too frequently. it's not in the state of New Hampshire. don't. OK, yeah. So there's a few states, but they'd have a national level. And in fact, ⁓ my high school senior year outdoor track, had a.

Speaker 3 (37:14)
I don't think it was in high school when I ran track.

Speaker 2 (37:27)
being I had won high school nationals indoors for the for the two mile. So they brought me to outdoor nationals and they asked me to run the two mile again and then ultimately pick another event. And I didn't want to run the five can the track. So I'll try the steeplechase and I end up getting I think third or fourth in the two mile outdoors. Then the next day was a steeplechase. I'd never done that event and ultimately ended up winning it. no. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of funny. And this is amazing. Yeah. I think my basketball skills of like hand eye coordination.

Speaker 1 (37:49)
Bye.

Speaker 3 (37:55)
Being like cross

that you

Speaker 2 (37:57)
kind of athletic

on that side. ⁓ and ultimately my college coach was like, I guess you're a steeplechaser. And so that's the, that's the event I focused in when it got to the national level, the national championships and, and team USA and international. that was my, that was where I focused as a, as an athlete.

Speaker 1 (38:14)
That's really cool. All right, one question before we move on a little bit. So you mentioned that you did indoor and outdoor track and also cross country. Yeah. What did you prefer?

Speaker 2 (38:25)
that's a good question. I preferred what I was in. In the moment. Yeah, I you know, I loved cross country because it's grit, collegiate cross country and high school. It's like it's so pure and it's just times don't matter in cross country at all because every course is different. Yeah, it's uphill, dale, up, down, muddy, you know, could be hilly flat.

Speaker 3 (38:29)
in the moment.

Speaker 1 (38:41)
Just beating.

Speaker 2 (38:50)
And it's just you against the competition and it's a team sport. So it's the top five. So that's a whole different animal. And then indoor track. grew to love indoor track because it's like a, almost like a, a going back to basketball. It's a environment that's louder. ⁓ it's enclosed it's 200 meters. So it's, it's a shorter track, a little bit like roller Derby, a little bit more contact. ⁓

Speaker 1 (39:05)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. ⁓

Speaker 2 (39:13)
So I

always found that to be just stimulating and fun bank tracks on there. So it kind of feels cool. And then outdoor track, I got to the steeplechase, which I really love. And that's what I thrived in. So I think each sport offered something a little bit different for me. I don't know. But I loved it.

Speaker 3 (39:31)
Biggest difference running high school to running college. I'm talking everything from coaches, trainers, training plans, hours on the track, hours off the track. What was the biggest difference when you made that change?

Speaker 2 (39:44)
That's

a really good question, Eric. I think. Intensity and volume when I got to college was the thing that was the biggest difference. Yeah, we trained hard in high school and I mentioned Coach Martin, a mentor. ⁓ He kept us fairly fresh. We trained hard, but he didn't burn us out. He could have probably got more out of us, the whole team, but he kept a love of the sport going and kept it fun when you get.

you know, you're in a full scholarship to D1 program, the Big 10, that's your job. Yeah. You're and now you're doing, you know, running twice a day. You're in the weight room and nutritionally gets you're in study hall. ⁓ It's it's a job. And if you're not performing, you know, you're you're you're gone.

Speaker 3 (40:28)
Were you on any kind of scholarship? Did you have that pressure then? Like if you don't perform, do you lose a scholarship?

Speaker 2 (40:37)
Yeah,

well, technically, college college scholarships are, you know, one year renewable. so you have a one year. All I mean, they offer you a four year scholarship, but it's on an annual basis. So. There's some degree of pressure, but I think when you get to that level, you also you don't go there thinking I'm not going to do it right. I'm going there thinking I'm going to get to the next level and the next level and next level. So innately, you're.

Speaker 1 (40:43)
You're not even guaranteed like.

That's it.

Speaker 2 (41:04)
Let's go. mindset. Your mindset is success, not how do I keep it. It's not like how do I stop failing. It's how do I win.

Speaker 3 (41:12)
Right. So why listen to a podcast? Actually, one of them that we produce movement people, she had an Olympic, not an Olympic, but a high school in college track star who went, who ran high school in Buffalo and then went to Miami and he struggled in Miami. Now he figured out a new love, a new passion. went to the Olympics for bobsled, but he struggled. Yeah. Yeah. But he struggled in college where he ultimately got like just

I guess you'd call it redshirted and not allowed in the training room anymore. And he had that pressure of trying to perform. I'm kind of, you know, that's, that's what made me think of that question for you. It's like, you ever felt that same pressure.

Speaker 2 (41:51)
felt, yeah, definitely there's pressure there. There's definitely pressure there to retain your scholarship, to keep it. But a lot of it's self-imposed because you wanna be the best, right? So, wanted to achieve all American status, all Big Ten status, win at championships, win at races, and make the US champion. All those things that, I guess I look at it as funny, what I do now is not in running that we see. It's not like...

hyper, hyper competitive all the time. It's a lot. It's very participatory. It's you versus your potential, but it's not necessarily about winning. When I went through college and ultimately ran professionally, it was about my job was to win. So it's very professionalized in that aspect. So ⁓ run faster and win. did you? I wonder my fair share.

Speaker 3 (42:45)
What were your, well I didn't dig too deep into the Big Ten in college, but what were your steeplechase still, I believe, anything else?

Speaker 2 (42:52)
Yeah, mean, I was, you know, I guess humble brag. I don't know. ⁓

Speaker 1 (42:56)
Hey, let it

out.

Speaker 3 (42:58)
Spare no detail. ⁓

Speaker 2 (42:59)
I mean,

I won six Big Ten championships individually. You know what that deserves. ⁓

Speaker 1 (43:09)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:10)
Yeah, that was extra loud. It deserves one of those. I was just, you know, again, I had great coaches in college. had great teammates. I ran with some of the best, like my my best friend in college at Michigan was the Canadian record holder for the mile. He was like a three time, four time Olympian. You know, Kevin Sullivan, great guy. was in my wedding as well. ⁓ But he made me so much faster because he was so good. Yeah. So I, know, he was a miler and I did like the five K, 10 K steeplechase. But.

Well,

Speaker 3 (43:40)
me ask

you this question. we talked about earlier, we made the comment about the bear, the code In high school and college, do you have one of those code brown moments, like an ⁓ crap moment that maybe you had to overcome?

Speaker 2 (43:53)
Are you talking like literally the shit in your pants or like-

Speaker 3 (43:55)
Sure,

if you have one. But like, maybe did you ever like have a fall during a cross country race? Exactly. Shoe comes untied and he had to overcome that to this guy.

Speaker 1 (43:58)
of all the stories.

Speaker 2 (44:07)
coming to so many stories about like things that didn't go well actually at the story of the national championships and in running the steeplechase in Bloomington Indiana I was on the starting line and there's 12 guys in the final and this guy Ray Hughes from Missouri is next to me and we all start and you're sprinting and you get to the first

barrier to hurdle and he hurled in a way that he sort of flailed his arm out kind of the side and I was right next to him were crowded and his he like kind of mistakenly he's a great guy didn't mean to do it like karate chopped my sauce I guess. I just went whoop. And he was all dude sorry but um I just think so things like that but I think the biggest oh crap moment that I've ever had my whole life running is

Speaker 1 (44:33)
Okay.

Speaker 3 (44:43)
mistakenly

Speaker 2 (44:56)
I was running in Europe on the European circuit and my agent from the US had arranged for me to, I was in Italy, had arranged to have me compete in a meet in Lignano, Italy.

And I know it was a whole experience of this, but Lignano and he said, I'm going to meet this guy, Jean Parlo at the at the train station. So take the train. I was over by Florence and was supposed to be by Venice. And it was like a three hour train ride or whatever it was. But he the way he ⁓ wrote it down and I was on the phone with the Italian translator was Lignano and he spelt it out. But in Italian.

If you know it, eyes are pronounced like E and E is I. ⁓ there's a it's like going to like Newark and New York. Like you kind of. That wrong. I the train ticket to the wrong city. and I get there and I'm like, where's this guy Jean-Pierre Lowe? Like. Definitely before. Yeah, yeah. And this was 1998, 99.

Speaker 1 (45:42)
You

So I spelt it.

Speaker 3 (45:56)
Just before smartphones.

Speaker 1 (45:58)
Smartphones.

Speaker 3 (46:04)
Just before phones

had a camera on it.

Speaker 2 (46:05)
Yes, definitely.

so I get there, get to a people call back to the US, I got the time zone changed. I'm like, Mark, I don't know where Jean-Parlou is. And he gets Jean-Parlou and he's at the other train station. ⁓ And then he starts just laughing. He's like, my God, you went to the wrong city.

Speaker 1 (46:21)
far apart was this?

Speaker 2 (46:23)
It was like a nine

hour train ride. my God. It was like five hours. The other directions down by Naples. So like I ended up having to and there was no more trains that night. I ended up sleeping on a park bench in the train station and then got on the first train the next morning and and and went all the way back past where I was and then got to the hotel, the meat hotel at like four o'clock in the afternoon. I had to run it like seven o'clock that night. Wow.

Speaker 1 (46:40)
my god.

Speaker 2 (46:48)
And but I went to like the dining car and got like an apple in the tray, like the Excel, like the. But I ran my PR for three K that night. that's.

Speaker 1 (46:49)
You

Speaker 3 (46:54)
At the time.

the,

those, you know what, that's when it happens. Yeah. It always happens in those kinds of moments.

Speaker 1 (47:02)
I feel like you

had all that extra stress just from the whole week.

Speaker 2 (47:04)
I

lost 20 pounds for not eating all the time. But in reality, that's that over. You have nothing to lose at this point. Right. I'm here. Might as well run my ass.

Speaker 3 (47:13)
Like

my life classes PR I had no pressure. I'm just like, Oh, let's do it. And then PR, right.

Speaker 2 (47:17)
Sometimes the pressure of stuff creates undue stress. You can just let your mind go and just go on instinct.

Speaker 3 (47:25)
I had a

long run to do when I was in Lake Placid for a wedding and there was a half marathon the next day and my long run was 15 miles. So like, I'll just do the half marathon, get a medal, get a t-shirt, get a pint glass, stayed up to like two in the morning, eating pizza, drinking beer, three hours of sleep, walked down to the outdoor skating rink they had there and then ran a half marathon and PR'd.

Speaker 2 (47:40)
Perfect prep. ⁓

Perfect. Right. You had you probably thought like, don't even gonna finish this one today. Right.

Speaker 3 (47:51)
All right. That Hill, man, I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (47:54)
You

Speaker 3 (47:55)
But that's so back to I don't want to skip over how you became a professional, but I want to stay in that moment because you're a professional runner at this point. Yeah. Yeah. So the pressure again, like, or do you feel the pressure to get there on time for your race as a pro runner? Like we know Mark Dubrik, like he needs to perform.

to continue his triathlon career. Like, did you feel that pressure like, ⁓ you're nine hours in the wrong direction and you, I don't even know, did you have to pay for your own way to get out there? Because Mark would have to pay for his own way to get out there and he'd budget his flights and everything to have the best, have the greatest margin of difference.

Speaker 2 (48:31)
Well,

there is.

There's a business behind professional sports, professional running. There's a huge business. And I was lucky enough to be sponsored by Adidas when I graduated college and signed with an agent and signed with Adidas. And they have travel budgets and different things, a small salary. But you eat what you kill. I mean, the salary, the contract, wasn't like a LeBron James contract. There's nothing about that. It was like basically paid for my apartment that I split with a guy and there's enough to put food on the table, put gas in my car to get to practice every day and train my

off in hopes that when you run fast enough at certain races, certain meets, there's either bonuses in your contract, you get paid for it, or you win prize money at the race. So that's true. ⁓ you know, we would pick out my coach and I would pick out races that we knew had paid out prize money. I mean, when you think about the Boston Marathon, these guys aren't just and women aren't just run the Boston Marathon because they want to run Boston at that point. They're running because there's $100,000 prize.

Speaker 1 (49:28)
And I'm sure you

have sponsorship deals and anything. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:32)
Yeah, sponsorship deals are diverse when it comes to they have time bonuses. If you break X amount of time, like PR by X amount, you get X amount of bonus, some of that can roll over to your contract next year. Yeah. But you also have reduction clauses in those contracts. This is a true thing. So, you know, your base salary will get deducted if you don't hit a minimum threshold of times or performances. Like if you're outside the top 10 rankings in the US, you'll be reduced, things like that.

Speaker 3 (50:00)
This was all before you met Jennifer and before kids, right? So at least you don't have that pressure of supporting a family at the time. So you're kind of just living your life. You're running, you're going around the world, you're having a blast.

Speaker 2 (50:09)
Yeah, it was. I mean, I enjoyed that part of my life dramatically in terms of being able to try to be an Olympian, try to try to PR chasing dreams, trying to become the best athlete, best runner I could be. That's with my mindset. And ⁓ and really, I didn't want anything more than the than the small apartment we had and a massage once a week. And I was living in Ann Arbor. You know, I graduated from Michigan ⁓ and then was living there for a year and then. ⁓

Speaker 3 (50:30)
living.

Speaker 2 (50:38)
And then things kind of turned a little bit for me on my health, in the health front, and moved back to Boston. OK. Wow.

Speaker 1 (50:47)
So making running a career is such a huge goal. Did you ever do anything with your architecture degree?

Speaker 2 (50:54)
Good

question. My dad used to joke, you just draw flies, like attract them. Do you have one of those? The rim shot. Oh, something different.

Speaker 1 (51:03)
He does have the rim shot.

Speaker 3 (51:06)
There you go.

Speaker 1 (51:07)
That's what it's called, the room shot.

Speaker 3 (51:10)
I'll memorize it without looking but I had to look at that way. Yeah, no this building for it, you know, once someone told me ask about this building maybe we're in by the way if none of you are watching if you're listening we are in the amazing Millennium running store

Speaker 2 (51:12)
I

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:25)
Maybe solid

45 minutes without mentioning that that I am in my happy place. Yeah. And sweatshirts and beautiful run New Hampshire gear. I how I haven't spent a thousand dollars here already. I don't know. It is.

Speaker 3 (51:30)
We got the

Speaker 2 (51:30)
the candy shop. It's the candy shop.

the gift.

Speaker 3 (51:40)
just spent 45. I'm

Speaker 2 (51:43)
I'm going to...

Speaker 3 (51:43)
going to shout her out because she's amazing. Bridget told me that you might've had a little bit to do with the design of this store. Maybe there is a building being put in the back. She didn't tell me that somebody else did actually that you still have your degree and you have, it seems they talked about like a love for it, even though it's not your career.

Speaker 2 (52:01)
It's not my career. I majored and graduated with a degree in architecture. ⁓ But I do I have a creative. I don't think they teach you in architecture like they don't teach you T square and design buildings. They teach you creativity.

Speaker 1 (52:16)
That is great. You can apply that anywhere.

Speaker 2 (52:18)
You

know, they said any, you know, they can teach any chimpanzee to draw a straight line. It's really like how to how to think creatively and critically around problem solving things. And that's what I think they taught us more than anything as an undergraduate at U of for that. And that has stuck with me quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (52:35)
definitely important

skills.

Speaker 3 (52:37)
It's

a skill you probably still use today. just- Listen, we'll get there.

Speaker 2 (52:38)
I use it a lot. I use

it a lot. I actually I find it I have a because I was art and architecture was the degree that I was in the School of Art and Architecture. And so there's a big art component. Yes. To that degree. ⁓ And so I see things creatively on designs on logos and Sarah Sheldon, is our creative director. ⁓ She probably hates that about me because. yeah, it's a problem. I just I'm like.

Speaker 1 (53:02)
Are you micromanaging?

Speaker 2 (53:06)
I think this is a little bit better. Have you thought about this? Or I tried to be great, but she does amazing work. Yes.

Speaker 3 (53:12)
I'm the same way every time Erica tries something and I try to encourage her to do it. Yeah

Speaker 2 (53:20)
⁓ but you know, funny enough, I did practice at an architectural firm in Boston when I moved back. Yeah. So, ⁓ kind of getting to know me, I guess. Right. So a lot of people don't know this background to me, but, in, at the end of 1999, ⁓ approaching the 2000 Olympic trials, I had, was ranked third in the U S one of the favorites to make the Olympic team in 2000.

Speaker 3 (53:44)
like to say Erica?

Not a big deal.

Speaker 1 (53:47)
you

Speaker 2 (53:48)
It wasn't like thirds. wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 1 (53:51)
I

Speaker 3 (53:51)
That's

podium. ⁓

Speaker 2 (53:54)
So

I was, you know, very hyper-focused on making the Olympic team. in 2000, I got injured at the end of 1999. I had a torn meniscus in my right knee.

Speaker 1 (54:07)
So is this when you were already sponsored by Adidas and you were going pro?

Speaker 2 (54:12)
It was right at the end of my college career going pro and they signed me and I ended up needing knee surgery. Oh no. So I ended up having a torn meniscus. They repaired it, had complications and infection. I had a second surgery on that to fix what didn't work out the first time. And I was so eager to get back to, think in life lessons stories, like learn from these mistakes and whatnot. And I was so eager to get back to that podium.

Yeah, that I wasn't listening to my body. I was pushing through everything. I was actually cross training three times a day during that time was on day I was on the bike. I was in the pool and on the elliptical and I just rotate that every day. Yeah Just you know that that those trials are not too far away. Yeah, right and

Speaker 3 (55:01)
And

it's hard not to do anything. It's so, so you're thinking, I'm not, I'm in the pool. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. You know, it's so hard not to do something.

Speaker 2 (55:03)
Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:11)
I mean, that

was me the other day. I broke my toe. ⁓ I was like, ⁓ I can't run. I had a big altar coming up this past weekend. I it's fine now. God. It took like a week to get better. But anyway.

Speaker 3 (55:14)
and

Speaker 2 (55:19)
You ran an ultra with a broken toe?

You have nice

tone ass.

Speaker 3 (55:25)
another.

Speaker 1 (55:26)
There's only

like three real ones right there. Real ones. But basically I told my coach, I'm like, I can't run. Can you just give me something? I can't just sit here. I have all this energy. And so I just, I rode the bike and I, well, I hate the bike. So that was not, not my cup of tea, but.

Speaker 3 (55:42)
Well.

Speaker 2 (55:42)
I think as runners, when you get into it, you will do anything. Yeah, anything. And I think it's also like once you've gotten addicted to that, there's worse things to be addicted to than exercise and running, by the way. ⁓ It's not the worst thing in the world, but but you just create like I need I just feel like I need it. You don't feel the same.

Speaker 1 (55:47)
have to get some sort of movement.

Speaker 3 (56:01)
You need

something.

Speaker 2 (56:02)
Yeah.

And so ultimately that year, that season, I was cross-training my butt off and ⁓ I was complications on knee surgery and ultimately I was on anti-inflammatories as well. ⁓ And I ended up developing a kidney ailment ⁓ from the anti-inflammatories called membranous nephrotherapy. So basically the inner lining of my kidney was damaged by...

the naproxen that I was taking and that scarred it and it made it that there was a 33 % chance that I needed a kidney transplant. There was a 33 % chance that it would get better with ⁓ medication and there was a 33 % chance that it would just remain the exact same. So in those couple months, I had gained 25, 30 pounds of water weight. This is like a little known story about John that people don't get to hear very well. ⁓ And I had had this contract with Adidas and they were saying, you might not ever run again.

Speaker 1 (56:52)
Bye.

god.

Speaker 2 (56:58)
And my

my like earth was shattered and I immediately pivoted living in Ann Arbor and I put resumes out to architectural firms in Boston and I got a job at a firm in Cambridge, moved back, lived with a high school buddy of mine who lived in in Cambridges or Somerville as well and immediately started working at this architectural firm. And I did that for about six months. ⁓

Speaker 1 (57:07)
Okay.

Speaker 3 (57:26)
How's the

kidney today?

Speaker 2 (57:27)
It's the 33 % chance that it got better with treatment. So that's no. Yeah, I felt really lucky. ⁓ So I went through, I ended up seeing by the reason why I moved back to Boston, other than being closer to family that was in Hampshire. But I, I got hooked up with the head nephrologist at Harvard. Okay. kidney doctor, a nephrologist, and he was doing most of people that have this issue are like elderly patients that have been taking

Speaker 1 (57:31)
Okay. Scary. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:55)
a leave because they're arthritic. Right. And they're like old. Yeah. And like.

Speaker 1 (58:00)
And here you are in what your 20s.

Speaker 2 (58:02)
I'm

a hundred miles a week and the head nephrologist was like this is really this is you are gonna be my I'm gonna write about this so he actually published it in the New England Journal of Medicine Wow the treatment a lot of experimental stuff that we did with controlling blood pressure and stuff so I was on medication a lot and It was a long journey of probably a year year and half going through that and

Speaker 3 (58:27)
What time was this? year? 99?

Speaker 2 (58:29)
This

is a 2000 now into 2000 2001 that I was working for that firm and so my best one of my best buddies that I was living with is Ted is his name. He went to prep school after Lunder High School. He was a high school buddy of mine and his friend he met in height in prep school was the captain of the Harvard track team and.

Their coach at the time was about 75 years of age, Coach Haggerty, on the twilight of his career. ⁓ And my buddy Ted said, ⁓ hey, I heard Harvard might need an assistant coach or a volunteer assistant. So I had just moved back and seen the signs. I I need to do something. So I was on the side. I was helping coach at Harvard. Wow. And that got me into college coaching. And I only was an architect for six months. And I then got offered

Speaker 3 (59:16)
six months.

Speaker 2 (59:19)
the full-time position at Boston College. Yeah. So probably would not have moved back if it weren't for.

Speaker 3 (59:22)
No way.

Speaker 1 (59:23)
So at this point, well.

Speaker 3 (59:27)
Right. It's

those moments against like getting beaten in that race in the last 50 yards. And then this moment with the kidney and everything.

Speaker 2 (59:34)
It

fails that right. And in that scenario, you know, it's sad, but it happens for a reason. Life happens for a reason. And in that scenario, during that time frame, my my my late mother got diagnosed with cancer and I was there present for her in her last two years. You're home. I was home. If I were running all over the world, I wouldn't I literally wouldn't have been. I would have been like, sorry, Mom, I'm right in Lignano at the wrong city.

Speaker 1 (1:00:00)
⁓ yeah.

Speaker 2 (1:00:01)
Right. But

so that was fortunate for me. Yeah. And then and then ultimately my father also passed away of cancer two years after that. So my whole life journey happened for a reason. And in that time, lived in Boston. I met my wife. So. Yeah, and she was she she ran track at Boston College and ran Olympic trials. I was on the men's coach.

Speaker 3 (1:00:14)
Yeah. Who's quite the amazing runner.

Speaker 1 (1:00:14)
Go. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:00:22)
coach and athlete.

Speaker 2 (1:00:28)
She was on the, she was on the women's track team. I was on the men's, I was the men's coach. So about five years older than she is. And started dating after the Olympic trials in 2000. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:00:35)
That's a really cool story.

Speaker 3 (1:00:39)
your Olympic trials. Like,

let's not skip over that.

Speaker 1 (1:00:42)
That's what I wanted to find out after you were recovering from, from your kidney ailment, your, knee surgeries, were you allowed to do any running at that point?

Speaker 2 (1:00:52)
The

treatment that the nephrologist put me through was all symptomatic based. Like I started to feel better. I was running a little bit better. I was coaching the men's track team. Yes. And I was only what 25, 26, 27 at the time and 26. And I'm like, I'm actually starting to feel good. Like I'm running with the guys. I'm like, the old man.

Speaker 1 (1:01:12)
feel a little puffy.

Speaker 2 (1:01:13)
Yeah,

feeling old self and, and slowly started to run faster and then ultimately hopped in a couple of races. And, and actually in probably when I was 20, 2004, 2003 had the best year of running and I still retained a sponsorship this time with Reebok. And I was later in my year career there. And my last couple of years in the track were my most successful track.

Speaker 1 (1:01:32)
Okay.

can

see there's all come back. Yep. Yeah. If you put your mind to it, you can get back.

Speaker 3 (1:01:45)
And like you see occasionally they have the track and field world championships. They might be in LA They might be in what were the hungry the other year Erica, right? They're in Hungary Buddha Buddha So were you doing that at the same time? You're competing those and then you're working your way for the Olympic trials

Speaker 1 (1:01:56)
us.

Speaker 2 (1:01:56)
Budapest,

Yeah. How'd that go? Yeah. I mean, the Olympic try the way the Olympic trials work is you have to qualify a certain time and then they take a descending order list and then you go through the Olympic trials week and same as the US championships. Right now is the US championships as we're filming this right now in Oregon, Eugene. ⁓ So just like that. And I mean, that experience of big meets all over the world and be so cool on TV and yeah, people watching it is super cool. Did they ever

Speaker 3 (1:02:31)
give

you like TV training, interview training. That's how you talk to a reporter when they ask you questions. You say this, you don't say that. Don't forget your sponsors.

Speaker 2 (1:02:39)
Yeah, well, definitely, you know, the sponsorship thing is a big is a big deal, right? Like the.

The logos or the shoes you see athletes when they get done running. You see this Olympics Olympics are sponsored by Nike, but you don't have to wear Nike shoes when you're in Olympic teams. So you'll notice next time you'll see like the sprinter take off their shoes. It might be Adidas, right? And they'll lace them together and throw them over their shoulder. So they need a shoe and they happen to be covering up the Nike swoosh right there. Yeah, there's a little bit of a nuance to it.

Speaker 1 (1:03:02)
you

Okay.

Speaker 3 (1:03:10)
Why

you see the NASCAR drivers, you know, drink the water like this.

Speaker 2 (1:03:12)
And your big NASCAR. Yeah, just just perfectly. Drink that dintily.

Speaker 3 (1:03:16)
Good place, the logo.

Speaker 1 (1:03:19)
That's

great.

Speaker 3 (1:03:21)
But yeah, no, I am a big NASCAR. I worked in the sport for a few years, had a blast, got run over only once.

Speaker 2 (1:03:26)
And talk ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:03:30)
And that's that's

yeah, I did get pretty hurt, but that's what got me back here. Jack man.

Speaker 1 (1:03:34)
hurt.

Speaker 2 (1:03:38)
Were you like pit crew?

jobs and

Speaker 3 (1:03:49)
No, I was for three years. I was I was working my way up and ⁓ it was

Speaker 2 (1:03:53)
That's a big deal, too. ⁓

They recruit college football players like linemen for some of that stuff because you're to be so quick and strong.

Speaker 3 (1:04:02)
And that's how I learned

about it and I promised my mom would go to college for four years get a degree But then I could go down and do it and I did I did II actually had a class in college This isn't about me, but I'll share this with you now and he's like, all right, you guys got it Remember monster you could have a monster account. You got to create a monster account. You got it

Speaker 1 (1:04:19)
Indeed.

Speaker 3 (1:04:20)
You got

to find the job and do all this. Are you going to go to school here or grad school? And I said, I did my whole report on me going to NASCAR school, pit cruise school. And I think I was the only one who followed through with my report and went down North Carolina, did that school, did that training. And I couldn't believe like I was in Daytona a few months later, pit and race cars. And I had a blast traveled the country, mostly by van, ⁓ got to fly in some of those fancy private jets in my last couple of years. And then I did, I got run over, broke all the

fingers in my hand, my wrist, my foot, probably, probably.

Speaker 1 (1:04:53)
I'm laughing at it, but I've

heard the story a lot.

Speaker 3 (1:04:58)
Yeah, he came down for the pit stop and he never stopped. So my own driver, but no, it actually, you know, it's funny is, is I got his name was David star. The only, the only, the only, the only thing famous about him is his last name star. Like there's nothing about, he's just a star. it actually opened the door for another opportunity because that ultimately I lost that job because I was injured and.

Speaker 2 (1:05:02)
⁓ man.

It was a famous driver.

Yeah.

You

lost the job because you got run over. Yeah. Did you get workman's comp for that?

Speaker 1 (1:05:27)
No, no, you can't.

Speaker 3 (1:05:29)
I

didn't pay a penny in medical bills though. Like I didn't have to pay a penny. But that opened the door for me to work for Joe Gibbs Racing later that year, which was pretty cool. And everybody knows who Joe Gibbs is. Nobody knows who David Sto- Eric is like, no, no famous football coach, many Super Bowls and now many NASCAR championships. So I did that. But ultimately that's what led to me coming back home to New Hampshire, which was around the time you started this company. And we'll get there again later, but

I want to talk more about you and more about your career. The Olympic trials had to be so cool. And then what happened after that? Like, was that the end of the road for John with professional running or?

Speaker 1 (1:06:09)
events did you did you try to call

Speaker 2 (1:06:11)
So I qualified for

the 3000 steeplechase at the 2004 Olympic trials. those are the steeplechase was the events that I made US teams in in 97 and 98.

Speaker 1 (1:06:23)
Cool sport. It's just so weird, but I love it. I mean the Olympics. But now. I was watching everything.

Speaker 3 (1:06:25)
She never knew about it until years.

Now she's just like all the time when she hears you she's

Speaker 2 (1:06:33)
Well,

I have to say, like, when you get a USA like that is the from a pinnacle of a career like getting a USA jersey and putting that on.

Speaker 1 (1:06:41)
can only imagine.

Speaker 2 (1:06:42)
Oh,

my God, I get I get like emotional talking about it sometimes, but I have one framed in my office of my two uniforms. But it's this cool thing where you get it and they give it to you, give you all this, all the swag, all this. I mean, the swag that you get a race. It's like you get a whole bag full of travel bag of all this cool stuff. And you put it on for the first time. And I think just about everybody that has ever made a team does this. They go in the bathroom, they are in the hotel room alone. They put it on and look in the mirror. Yeah. And it's.

Speaker 1 (1:07:11)
a little bit. God. would be. My I mean, I know.

Speaker 2 (1:07:13)
And I think that's.

Speaker 3 (1:07:14)
You

Speaker 2 (1:07:16)
⁓ and I don't know if it's like this for everybody, but you know, when you watch the Olympics and then you have the podium ceremony and let's play the national anthem, I was never able to podium at any world championship level and like that. But when you see that and you see the athlete tear and like someone asked me a question, my kids will talk to me like. And talk right now. Yeah, it's so overwhelming, I think, just that that so be able to represent the US and.

B-inth trials, the US Championships, just, that was like the highlight of my, the highlight of my running.

Speaker 3 (1:07:47)
Kind of cool when you look at the entire thing from the beginning to that point, middle school, know, that the elementary school mile and everything that led up to that, all the factors that, know, maybe at one point you thought you weren't going to do it anymore. And then he got back into it. Like, it's kind of cool to talk about that story, share that story and hear the whole thing and then go back and remember those moments.

Speaker 2 (1:08:09)
Yeah, a lot of people don't know that like my full story or or they see me from running events and they know he is the guy that moves barricades and drives the truck or dude does what?

Speaker 3 (1:08:18)
He's just a regular worker for Millennium. The owner's really somebody else taking the paycheck.

Speaker 2 (1:08:23)
We've had,

uh, sometimes we have, I'm not at a, at a service, like an event we're helping out. Um, someone says John here and they're like, no, Oh, where is he? Oh, we've had some restructuring. No, they sent to like, you know, a friend there. Hope things are okay over there.

Speaker 3 (1:08:35)
And they're like, say that to you.

Speaker 1 (1:08:41)
Well, this

is why I love having these kind of conversations, because you do get to learn so much about somebody who you just may know in passing and they have such a deeper part to them. There's a history. So it's so much fun to get to dig into it.

Speaker 2 (1:08:54)
It is fun to talk about.

Speaker 3 (1:08:56)
Like four years ago when I played that clip for you. Yeah from episode one. like that was what we knew about you You're the guy who built this we didn't know

Speaker 1 (1:09:04)
I didn't even know what your

name like- What's the name of the guy?

Speaker 2 (1:09:08)
You

Speaker 3 (1:09:08)
I thought at that point I would know how to edit, but I wouldn't edit a thing back then. Today I would have been like, you know what, I'm gonna make myself look good. ⁓ yeah, you know John? John Mortimer, yeah, he was there.

Speaker 1 (1:09:13)
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (1:09:22)
But yeah, it's super cool like to go back and think of those things and see how far you've come back from that kid who beat you in the last 50 yards to the mirror.

Speaker 2 (1:09:31)
The

hotel room. think it's kind of crazy, though, to think that, you know, losing a race when you're in the fifth grade is like that pivotal moment. Chris, Chris Gagnon is his name. He's a soccer player. I'm damn soccer.

Speaker 3 (1:09:38)
Remember who he was?

Speaker 1 (1:09:45)
Damn.

Speaker 3 (1:09:45)
Yeah,

know, they fall easily. Yeah. Barely when they fall down. just look at me now, Chris.

Speaker 2 (1:09:52)
It was day. was a good get there. But it is interesting just to go through everything that happens for a reason. I truly believe that I don't know. In the moment you don't. That's the thing. And when it's happening to you, you're like, well, I can't believe like whatever life throws at you. That curveball feels so hard to hit. Right. And then with some perspective later on, you look back on it like when you get run over is like the worst thing in world. And you look back after with some perspective on you like, well, I'm kind of glad I got run over. Maybe anybody ever.

Speaker 3 (1:10:08)
So.

Speaker 2 (1:10:22)
that, but you know, things happen for a reason. Yeah. My life has been

Speaker 3 (1:10:25)
I

see that and you definitely see years later. Yes,

Speaker 2 (1:10:28)
It's not immediate.

mean, perspective is sometimes many years later on that.

Speaker 3 (1:10:33)
Now you were a cheap, ⁓ steeple change. Yeah. No, those are next. the cooler is over there somewhere. No, you ran all these cool events in, in college in high school, but you weren't really a marathon runner. And if you go and look at everything you've done, you've only run about six marathons, but you've run them in some really cool places.

Speaker 2 (1:10:36)
A cheapo stacer. You haven't even had any IP. ⁓

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm not a marathon runner. I'm a track and field athlete. So there's a very different thing. And I'm you see some of the Kenyans that some of the slight of frame athletes. I'm a broad barrel chested sort of runner and, you know, hundred and sixty five pounds out of hundred and twenty five pounds. So I was made for the track. So going long distances kind of a I was like.

Speaker 1 (1:11:23)
Woo,

baby. That's a transition. It is a transition.

Speaker 2 (1:11:25)
So

I ran my first marathon in when I moved back to Boston that year in in 2001 when I was dealing with my kidney stuff and Since I was sponsored with Adidas that time Adidas was sponsored the marathon that they gave me a number the longest I'd ever run was 16 miles in my life and the BAA was like you can run if you want to and

⁓ as a, know, coming off, you know, us team member and all this sort of stuff. They put me in the, in the VIP corral and all this sort of like in the church at the end, get the charter bus and like John, you'll be great. You can run. I'm like, I do not know what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (1:12:01)
I'm

winging it.

Speaker 3 (1:12:02)
Did you train

for the marathon?

Speaker 2 (1:12:04)
I know I just I was like, you know what? I what do I have to lose? I'm dealing this kiddie stuff. I can't race on the track. I'm just going to do. He was. Yeah, I just go ahead with it, and I think that I ran 229. And. And we do it's not, I mean, compared to what it should be like.

Speaker 1 (1:12:19)
my god!

Speaker 3 (1:12:21)
big deal.

Speaker 1 (1:12:25)
That's like my first half marathon. He's running his first marathon.

Speaker 2 (1:12:30)
I had fun.

had fun with it. Funny story, though, like I hadn't even been on the I'd never been on the course. didn't preview the course like there wasn't all I knew is Heartbreak Hill was there. So. Yeah, I had only lived in Boston at the time for that. Yeah, so I wasn't even there yet. I had never been on the course. And I remember. ⁓

Speaker 1 (1:12:39)
Yeah. So even living in Boston, really didn't. Six months.

Speaker 2 (1:12:50)
Because Newton Hill and I didn't know the Newton Hill, the heartbreaks, the fourth of the four hills. And we get to the first hill and you start going over what? Well, I know the course like heart now, but going up over the overpass and is this uphill over by what coming up from ⁓ lower falls? And I'm like, is this heartbreak hill? And they're like, no. All right. Keep running. And then you get to the next one a little bit later. Newton going at my like, is this heartbreak hill? And they're like, no. I'm like, son of a bitch. No one told me there were four hills.

Speaker 1 (1:13:19)
We get asked that question just spectating all the time. It's just heartbreak. ask. it? I think it's like the very. Johnny, Johnny Kelly statue. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (1:13:24)
Where's that heartbreak?

Speaker 2 (1:13:27)
You guys are, you guys are just at the base of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Just past, ⁓ the, ⁓ heartbreak Hill running company, Johnny Kelly statue. And then you going up. Yeah. Yeah. Right there.

Speaker 3 (1:13:38)
We've

Speaker 1 (1:13:40)
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (1:13:40)
built kind of like a two years three years now search the tradition. We'll keep doing it We always go to mile nineteen point two Mm-hmm POYNT as we like to call it We're gonna make t-shirts next year for it and we get a pretty big crowd like we had fifteen people

Speaker 2 (1:13:54)
Were

you guys the reason why the Newton police had to come that?

Speaker 3 (1:13:57)
We

were about 50 yards down the hill from them. Yeah. Yeah. Which at the time, I remember reading this and everything and be like, I don't remember anything like that. But we were maybe we're on. Yeah, we were maybe half a mile, to be honest. But no, it wasn't us. No, we were on TV, though, past year. Was anybody it was Erica.

Speaker 1 (1:14:19)
was.

Speaker 2 (1:14:20)
You're on TV. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (1:14:23)
But no, marathons,

that's what we're on. So that was your first marathon. All right. You never ran more than 16 miles. Yeah. ⁓

Speaker 2 (1:14:30)
That was have a try.

It was awesome. It was awesome through like 20 miles to Heartbreak Hill coming off the other side. And then like 22, 23, I'm like, this sucks. Like the typical like and like everything started to lock up muscular, skeletal is never. So I don't think for me, cardiovascularly, I've never struggled running like you shouldn't struggle aerobically running a marathon. It's all skeletal, muscular breakdown. And I hadn't run that far. And I was like, God, this.

Go!

Speaker 1 (1:14:59)
That's

marathoner fashion because everybody experiences Yeah. of some sort. ⁓

Speaker 2 (1:15:03)
All of a sudden, so, and,

I had fun. It was great. Great experience. Yeah. Then I ran Boston again as my second marathon. the year now, I ran New York after that, but I ran to Boston's Boston, the year that my wife and I got married. Unfortunately, she was trained for it. I was trained, but she got injured and, couldn't do it. And I ended up running it. And it was one of those years. I really talked about the 2019 year, but this was prior to that.

Speaker 3 (1:15:09)
Two Bossens,

Speaker 2 (1:15:32)
2007 that was, ⁓ like a headwind raining. They 2007.

Speaker 1 (1:15:37)
didn't do that one. Boston,

that was that, but not the New York City one. Oh no, I did 2018. It's awful. 2018 was the awful.

Speaker 2 (1:15:42)
And no Boston 2007. Yeah. 1818 was a year that was just. That's that Dez's

year that she won. Yes. So 2007 was a year not quite not nearly as bad as that, but it was a big headwind and I had trained. I had actually trained for it and I was hoping to run the Olympic trials qualifying standard at the time. I think it was 218 or 216. I was I was on. That's where I was kind of headed. And it just was one of those days that you put all this work into it. And the weather was just.

code brown and head. That's a code brown. And that's the unfortunate thing about marathoning that like you just can't do another one tomorrow. Right. And we're track like if you're on the mile, five K three K like the next weekend, you can lace them up and get after it or the trials didn't go well. You'd run better in the final. So but running is actually have you heard of

Speaker 3 (1:16:14)
That's a code,

Speaker 2 (1:16:37)
that book, the five or the article in runners world, the five case frickin awesome. You haven't. ⁓ you're boat reader. So Lauren Fleshman, who, you know, yes, super talented. Yeah, she's awesome and a huge role model. And she was a great athlete at Stanford as she was about my little bit after mean collegiately. But ⁓

Speaker 1 (1:16:42)
I so.

Speaker 3 (1:16:43)
She's a book reader.

Speaker 1 (1:16:48)
I have a book by her. For a girl.

Speaker 2 (1:17:01)
Phenomenal she has this great article about the 5K is freaking awesome because she was on an airplane. Just I guess short story. Yeah, she was on an airplane and sitting next to some guy and she obviously is attractive. She had like running stuff. Look, a running look. And he was like, oh, you must be a runner. He had a hit on her. And she's like, yeah, yeah, I run. You know, I run. So she's an Olympian. Yeah, by the way, at 5000 meters on the track. And she's like, so.

He says, ⁓ you run, must have you run a marathon. She's like, no, I run 5Ks. Like very humble, right? I run 5Ks. And he's like, he's like, well, I've run Boston. Right. And started to like mansplain to her basically this whole. And the value.

Speaker 1 (1:17:42)
When they're like, fighting

her time.

Speaker 2 (1:17:46)
And you have to read the

article. I'm not not doing the justice, but the short story of it is like the 5K is an awesome event and you can really enjoy it. You can do a lot. You can put all this work. Your value as a runner isn't just in the marathon, right? And I just I but the mansplaining part makes it.

Speaker 1 (1:18:02)
K's are so difficult. Yeah. Honestly, I have a worst time running a five K because it's so short that I will go balls to the wall. Yeah. I'll out and go like.

Speaker 2 (1:18:14)
Totally anaerobic. You're anaerobic. Physiologically, it's very different. Totally different. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:18:16)
Crawl across the finish line. It's all right.

Speaker 3 (1:18:21)
Everything

when I Ironman trained was based off like my 5k PR in every four or five weeks I'd have to run another 5k and I hated it. Oh, yeah Scott would make me do it and I would be at the signal at one the Delta dental now now and He'd be like, right No, you got to focus on this and I would have someone else watch that align and I would be like hurting up that hill and I'd be like this sucks Why do gotta do a 5k test?

Speaker 2 (1:18:45)
5K makes you tough. I think it makes you it's like it's like gut wrenching. Yeah. If you do it hard, it's it's all I a 5K. But for depends if is the area cashed a 5K or you run in really hard. mean.

Speaker 3 (1:18:59)
Do you hold the New Hampshire 5K?

Speaker 2 (1:19:02)
I I used to, I held it for about 27 years. Got recently, recently ⁓ eclipsed by Scott Jenkins, I think last year. Okay. Yeah, but I held it for 1997 to...

Speaker 1 (1:19:11)
That's a good run.

Speaker 3 (1:19:15)
14 something

right? it 14 minutes?

Speaker 2 (1:19:18)
1421 if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 1 (1:19:21)
clap one there.

Speaker 3 (1:19:23)
No, no, he gets this.

The clap's too... No, it's not. The clap is too long.

Speaker 2 (1:19:30)
So

that was I think that was my junior year in college and I was home training, home a little bit and I ran the at the time it was the health source 5k then became the Cigna 5k now the Delta Dental Elliott. Yeah. So the corporate 5k. It was in 1997. So wow.

Speaker 3 (1:19:51)
1421

Speaker 1 (1:19:53)
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (1:19:53)
That

was on the roads though. So when you get to run on the track you get to run a little faster. Yeah

Speaker 3 (1:19:58)
No, that's true.

That's true. So I don't want to skip over a couple of these other cool you've run at the very very top of the world

Speaker 2 (1:20:05)
Yep. And the very, bottom. Yep. South pole North pole marathon just last year. Yeah. I did. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Literally a polar punch. And, then I was able in 2019 was fortunate enough to run the Antarctica ice marathon. Yeah. As well. So

Speaker 3 (1:20:08)
North Pole.

Did you jump in the water after?

Speaker 1 (1:20:18)
but like cold water.

Speaker 3 (1:20:29)
it like going down to Antarctica like everything the whole process did you have to go to Chile then jump on a plane and what was the ⁓ like landing there like because we've heard stories about how you the debt reception with the the white snow and ice you can't tell

Speaker 2 (1:20:34)
Exactly.

It feels like Mars.

Yeah, it feels like Mars. I like if I can imagine what Mars is like. ⁓ I was very fortunate to have.

know someone that is just super generous and she gifted me this opportunity along with some others to do the Antarctica ice marathon as an adventure in 2019. But it was very cool, know, fly to Chile and then you get on a the way we did it that year. A Russian airplane called illusion 76. I don't know if you've ever had anybody talk about.

Speaker 3 (1:21:15)
Because

why it went on one because he just did the same that's that plane

Speaker 2 (1:21:20)
And

the reason why it's it's very it's like Circle World War Two cider plane. But you where the Antarctic ice marathon is on a glacier towards the center of the continent, not towards a lot of people get to Antarctica by boat over Drake's Passage. Really rough. But they go to like McMurdo Air Force Base on the coast. I get to a by boat. You go fly away over this and land in the center of the continent, which is a glacier. So the runway is a three mile ice runway.

Speaker 1 (1:21:47)
So you

land on runway, right?

Speaker 2 (1:21:49)
It gets worse like when you

see like JetBlue just went off that. All right. So this airplane is designed that it's a reverse thruster engines, so it doesn't have brakes. just slows down slowly, so it doesn't go. But we were there for what, three days and ran the marathon. And that's so amazing. Sleep. It's I don't I don't I don't like camping. I'm not a camper. I don't like insects and I like.

Speaker 3 (1:21:59)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:22:02)
That's really cool.

I you didn't have any issues with that.

Speaker 2 (1:22:16)
Like I'm like I'm

like a hotel. I like turndown service. I wish I had that all the time.

Speaker 1 (1:22:21)
I don't think there's any convincing him to come to Notchview with me. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:22:25)
It's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (1:22:26)
It did

Speaker 3 (1:22:27)
He doesn't like those deer.

Speaker 2 (1:22:28)
have to stay. my God, the deer flies. ⁓ The green who was just gotcha. But you in a tent for three nights.

Speaker 3 (1:22:38)
It had to

be like, it was a tent tent. Or was it like one of those bougie tents?

Speaker 2 (1:22:41)
It was, yeah.

No,

it was like a two person like. Yeah, two cots in it. Oh. Yeah, like a minus 40 sleeping bag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With 65 other people. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And well, but it's an amazing experience.

Speaker 3 (1:22:48)
Like a little tent and when you- ⁓ my god, yeah, okay.

You were camping in Antarctica basically.

You get close, body temperature keeps you warm. What was it like being upside down the entire time?

Speaker 1 (1:23:06)
You're

a

Speaker 2 (1:23:08)
You know, talk about code code brown. So it was amazing because you have to I guess we're going to talk about it. yeah. yeah. You can't they take you like you can only pee in one and you poop in another. It's the hardest thing to do because I get that I get that all the waste with you.

Speaker 1 (1:23:14)
Tinkle pot.

Speaker 3 (1:23:25)
How can you take a number two and not go number one? I totally get it.

Speaker 2 (1:23:28)
It's hard. got to really its focus. Yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 1 (1:23:32)
Oh man, the struggle is real. is I am not like...

Speaker 3 (1:23:36)
Tell me about your

time in Antarctica. Well, let me just tell you, going to the bathroom was awful.

Speaker 2 (1:23:39)
But

Speaker 1 (1:23:39)
You

Speaker 2 (1:23:40)
amazingly, they take everything in the plane. They take all the human waste and they it back on the plane and fly home with it. So you can't leave any these like no trace. Right. Which is amazing. It's like a sterile. Yeah, yeah, it's very cool.

Speaker 1 (1:23:49)
That is leave no trace on Steer. That's

crazy.

Speaker 3 (1:23:53)
That had to be such a cool experience.

Speaker 2 (1:23:56)
But you're not running,

I mean, it's all on ice.

Speaker 3 (1:24:00)
We were told it felt like running on sand.

Speaker 1 (1:24:07)
that's the experience is all.

Speaker 3 (1:24:10)
good day like like I'm not saying running wise but like

Speaker 1 (1:24:14)
like wind did you have a lot of

Speaker 2 (1:24:15)
Was that yeah, it

was. So it was a six mile loop. You basically did it multiple times and it was kind of long. And so it was pretty windy that day. So you'd run into a headwind the whole way. So you're all geared up and then you get in the backside and you run with a tailwind and then you start overheating. So you like I'm running like with a jacket off tight around my waist and sweating. And then you turn the corner and like back on. I mean, I think I like do four hours, almost five hours. I think it took me.

Speaker 3 (1:24:38)
gotta put it

We're gonna throw a name out there just because you said someone gave you this opportunity. Was it Becca?

Speaker 2 (1:24:47)
No, no, no, no. Becca Pizzi? Yeah, she's involved in Runbuck, the company that puts it on. Cool. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:24:49)
Is that your marathon though?

Speaker 3 (1:24:54)
Yeah,

I feel like she race directed it the last couple years

Speaker 2 (1:24:58)
Yeah,

last year I think she did. ⁓ And ⁓ she's super inspirational. And super gritty and does a great job with it. yeah, I was fortunate enough to be gifted that and amazing opportunity to do it with friends. And then ultimately just last year did the North Pole Marathon.

Speaker 3 (1:25:20)
and then took the penguin plunge or the polar plunge. Would you have done it, Erica? Would you have done it?

Speaker 2 (1:25:23)
Yeah, jumped in.

You

have to if you go that far.

Speaker 1 (1:25:28)
When in the North Pole.

Speaker 2 (1:25:31)
I will.

Speaker 3 (1:25:31)
Yeah, yeah,

she's a tough one sometimes to get to be you know she likes her being

Speaker 1 (1:25:37)
I'm a creature of comfort. I like my creature.

Speaker 3 (1:25:41)
like that if you were in the North Pole, you would jump in. I'm jumping in.

Speaker 1 (1:25:45)
You to.

Speaker 2 (1:25:46)
Well in

reality it's like literally you decide you're doing it you're either doing it you're not. there's like no one ever... Yeah yeah yeah you're like I'm doing it.

Speaker 3 (1:25:51)
There's no walking up and then turning around. ⁓

It had to be so

cool. speaking, we just mentioned Becca, she just did it the other day.

Speaker 2 (1:26:00)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, she did. Just just happened. I follow him on social. Yeah, right. They do a good job. Same company. But those are those are unique experiences because they're it's you know, you run in a marathon with 35 people. That's not like you're in Boston. I am running Sydney. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to be seven star, John.

Speaker 3 (1:26:11)
Yeah.

You're getting to do another one soon, you're running Sydney.

Speaker 1 (1:26:21)
Six star.

Pick your brain on it. obviously, that's the one I'm missing. Yeah, I'm going to try. We'll see.

Speaker 3 (1:26:25)
She wants to go next year.

Speaker 2 (1:26:28)
Well, the group of people that I have gone with, they all have the six stars. But now Sydney is added. So they're going back to they've already run Sydney, some of them. So they're going back just to get the seven that they didn't like retroactively. Good markers.

Speaker 1 (1:26:38)
I hate how they do that because they wanted. I mean,

they had to get all the people to run it in order to get it qualified, but you would think that the people who helped get it qualified could get the star and they don't do it that way. I don't like that. That's why I'm like, Nope. I'm waiting until they're official. Like I'm not going to Cape town. These are big ticket trips. Yeah. We're not making the podcast money yet. So I need a little time. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:27:04)
Well,

that's got to be cool. So you've been, you're in the middle of marathon training now. These last, we'll call it six weeks. We've had three heat waves. How you doing?

Speaker 2 (1:27:12)
You know, I'm pretty decent. I'm healthy and getting it through. I did 18 last weekend. Took a down week this week, had 20 this next weekend. my wife Jen ran 12 of the 20 or 18 with me the other day and pushed me through it.

Speaker 3 (1:27:27)
This past Saturday and we're, two weeks in advance here when you guys are listening. two, three saris ago, was a group of millennium runners running around the NH 10 miler course. was there running on my own. Yeah. And they said, yeah, John, John didn't show up today. Where were you? Saturday. This pack true Saturdays ago, this past Saturday. Yeah. Just a of days ago.

Speaker 2 (1:27:43)
This one was at last.

This path, like just.

Where was I? I ran from my house, I think. Where they give me, given. No, I ran 13 miles on Saturday. Oh,

Speaker 3 (1:28:01)
They were selling Millennium running to me.

They didn't know who I was. This guy comes running up next to me. I'm running the, ⁓ not, I'm not running the 10 mile course, but I ran from my house to the lake. And then I ran about a mile and a half backwards on the, on the route. And then the last mile and a half of what will be the New Hampshire 10 mile. And this guy, Mark catches up to me on the Hill and then he runs down the Hill with me and he's selling me on the Millennium running club. You should join the Millennium running club. run a lot around here. These people are great. meet over.

We meet there and I go oh, yeah, and I mentioned your name not mentioning that would be here Yeah, and he goes oh, yeah, John usually here, but he didn't show up today. I don't know where he is

Speaker 1 (1:28:40)
I

love it.

Speaker 2 (1:28:41)
Well, usually I'm working,

you know, all these. I don't get to run them all. have to work them. But I was actually I ran for my house. did 13 this Saturday. It took a weekend.

Speaker 3 (1:28:50)
You beat me by three miles.

Speaker 1 (1:28:53)
I did 52 and a half. my god.

Speaker 2 (1:28:55)
Nobody cares. I have a like digesting a marathon again. I'm a shorter distance guy, but like, are you kidding me? That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (1:28:58)
Eric.

Speaker 1 (1:29:07)
The race I did was called loopy looper. ⁓ my God. That was it was great because it was paved. It was on like a nice sidewalk.

Speaker 2 (1:29:11)
D-Race.

I mean we have some

club members and yourself included that do that like these ultra. How do you so how long did that take you?

Speaker 1 (1:29:24)
I did it for 12 hours. I did a 12 hour ultra and our good friend Allie G ran. That was her very first ultra. And she, she said during this, this is an exclusive. I'm so bored. I'm very bored. I'm very bored dirt like halfway through. we all just started laughing.

Speaker 2 (1:29:39)
So

is it like a multiple lap loop? So it's loop. How many how long was the loop?

Speaker 1 (1:29:43)
do 3.75

miles. So you just run it until you run out of time. But she did 67 and a half miles. So she's I took my damn time.

Speaker 2 (1:29:55)
For hydration

and nutrition, do you stop for lunch?

Speaker 1 (1:29:59)
They had the aid stations are great. Ultras are great for food. Everybody like I will stress this a lot. But I had like a grilled cheese sandwich like they they hook you up. They had like turkey roll ups at one point.

Speaker 2 (1:30:11)
Your stomach just gets sort of numb to like running on food like you just kind of yeah, just does it.

Speaker 1 (1:30:17)
Another fun fact. This

is I haven't even talked about this yet. Oh, what?

Speaker 3 (1:30:24)
I was just going to say 12 hours last week and this week and she's doing a 24 hour.

Speaker 1 (1:30:28)
Mm That was my warm up. It would not.

Speaker 2 (1:30:31)
your training run like my

18 and 20 are like really bad

Speaker 3 (1:30:36)
Yes.

Speaker 1 (1:30:36)
We

talk about like how stomachs do during it. like a lot of times the heat will just totally mess me up and I will feel like total crap. I won't be able to eat or drink and it just could be a total code Brown situation. But this weekend TMI, I did not poop for three.

Speaker 2 (1:30:54)
days

afterwards. ⁓

Speaker 1 (1:30:57)
And I like still couldn't poop and I was like, what is wrong with my body? It was like rebelling. Like it was like, see what you did to me. Yeah. I'm not happy with you. Right. Total total to you, but yeah. This is for.

Speaker 2 (1:31:05)
Time to have some corn and raisins. Don't chew them.

that's. Holy

Speaker 3 (1:31:13)
this podcast.

Speaker 2 (1:31:15)
smokes. That's a long way to go that. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:31:17)
big. So

I you know, it's funny, I mentioned our first episode with the clip at the very end of that episode, because I listened today as I was preparing for this, you mentioned what's next. What's next was her very first ultra marathon, which was called it's called anchor down, which is this coming weekend two weeks ago, if you guys listening now. And so it's just kind of funny how that all timed out, right? She did her first marathon, the week after our first ever episode, first ultra marathon. Yeah. So and she can go for 24.

Speaker 2 (1:31:21)
Yep.

my God.

Speaker 1 (1:31:47)
for I've done the 12 hour for four years and then I quote unquote graduated for this.

Speaker 2 (1:31:52)
That's amazing the ultra

community so tight they're so supportive, right?

Speaker 1 (1:31:55)
They really

are there. That's why I keep coming back because everybody is a little bit crazy like me.

Speaker 3 (1:31:59)
Yeah, they're

awesome. I've loved not an ultra runner. I love going to these and meeting them. It's so cool. And then the Sherpas, as I like to call us, like we just get along so well. And it's fun when we go back to the race and I don't go to everyone. But when I go, I'm like, oh my God, Kelly and Callie, right? Like the two of the best ones that we met the very first time. then we got people like.

juice box guy and and Candace and everybody like the community is so cool. And it's partly I think because it's smaller. Because there's races coming up like the the corporate 5k we talk about for sure largest 5k in the state. And it's a huge crowd. You don't have that

Speaker 2 (1:32:34)
Yeah.

It's

not intimate.

Speaker 1 (1:32:42)
you

Speaker 3 (1:32:42)
But

these ultras are like, ⁓ my God, help me out crazy hair lady. Celeste. You meet people because you're out there on the course with them. And as I get to be a support runner at the halfway point, I get to meet them too and hear these stories and they're phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (1:32:58)
And when you're out there, you share, I mean, you're talking to people, you're encouraging people.

Speaker 3 (1:33:02)
Share every...

Speaker 1 (1:33:04)
No limits to topics, but a lot of times with these long races, you're really not running a lot. You're taking your walking breaks. You're preserving your energy. So you do get to meet up with people and you just have random conversations. It may only be for five minutes, but you still get to get to know random people. And it's really fun to see what they do.

Speaker 2 (1:33:21)
You're all doing the same.

Speaker 3 (1:33:24)
It's a cool

community and I've never run one I will one day but you know maybe in ten years when I hit 50, but he's gonna be

Speaker 1 (1:33:30)
I'll run when you when you do a triathlon and I'm going to be like, I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (1:33:34)
I did run 30 miles when I turned 30. See, I did that. And then, and then I had like Grant delusions of grandeur doing like 40 when I turned 40. That didn't happen. And then, and now I'm turning 50 next year. Hey, thanks. And, um, but I'm like, 50 K 50 K. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:33:56)
See, that's a good transition to switch it to the K.

Speaker 2 (1:33:59)
What's the?

Speaker 3 (1:34:00)
McGilvery do? Does he do his age or does he do a distance?

Speaker 2 (1:34:04)
I think he's gotten to the point where he just does ⁓ whatever he wants the combination. It somehow adds up to. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I mean, amazing that he can even do that sometimes.

Speaker 3 (1:34:11)
Once he hit 60s, it's like I'm gonna do it on the bike run combination

Speaker 1 (1:34:17)
That's fair.

Speaker 3 (1:34:22)
Well, something else that's amazing and something I've always loved to say this term is I love to pump the tires and I want to pump the tires for Millennium. We've been talking forever and we haven't really broken the ice. We like to, like I said, go in the DeLorean and go back in time.

Speaker 1 (1:34:35)
I'm not doing it this time. I feel like have to do do do do do do do.

Speaker 3 (1:34:40)
to December 31st, 1999, because I know Millennium was founded around 2014, really the story goes back to the

Speaker 2 (1:34:48)
2011 2011 2011 yeah 14 years. Yeah, really

Erika (1:34:59)
Sean, we have to thank you so much for sharing all of your wonderful history with us, like getting to know you so much better. It was such a privilege. So thank you. And I hope everybody stays tuned for Thursday's drop, learning about how you started Millennium Running and all the fun things that you guys are doing. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Eric (1:35:19)
Yeah,

it was amazing. guys Thursday is going to be great. Like we barely, I feel like we barely scratched the surface and we were there forever. And I'll tell you Thursday in the outro, like about after recording with John, because we got some behind the scenes and that will be on the next week's vlog. Right. And yeah, I stayed, well, we'll put it this way. We stayed until the clock like was digging 12 outside in Bedford. And we were like, that's a sign.

Erika (1:35:26)
Really? I don't think we did.

Yeah, you definitely stayed for a lot longer than I did.

If I stayed, I would

have broke my streak and I had to make, I had to make a sacrifice you guys. No, for me. Yeah, Mo. ⁓ He did it for, he had to getting his body back to back to health. So, yeah.

Eric (1:35:49)
I know! And did you see who else lost their streak?

Mo. Yeah. Right. Especially with Chicago coming to some big events for him.

So guys, though, amazing. What a story by John. like I know a lot of you know him because he's at Millennium. He's in on the YouTube or the Instagram and Facebook. And you just see him there because he has such a presence. But none of you probably knew all those stories like getting on the wrong train. Amazing.

Erika (1:36:14)
He's super friendly.

Can you imagine?

Eric (1:36:25)
Anyways, yeah,

Erika (1:36:26)
He handled it well.

Eric (1:36:27)
I hope you enjoyed the first part. don't think we've done a two parter since Mike Beeman. So, ⁓ go figure like they're buddies and they can talk. I can talk. we have a good time guys, Thursday, the entire millennium story is going to be out. It's going to be great. And then Saturday we'll see you at the New Hampshire 10 mile podcasting live from the race. I'm so excited. This is going to be amazing. And then we have more big news in about a week to announce it's going to be great. Erica.

Erika (1:36:32)
Been a while, yeah?

Eric (1:36:55)
Take us home.

Erika (1:36:57)
We hope you guys enjoyed that. Thank you so much for listening. You know we love you.

Eric (1:37:01)
Don't fear the code brown.

Erika (1:37:04)
And don't forget to stretch.

Eric (1:38:00)
six-star Erica. What's up?

Erika (1:38:03)
Hey, dude, you're going to hate me. This is episode 178. Yes, it is.

Eric (1:38:09)
No it's not. Whoa!

I just ruined that perfect intro!

Erika (1:38:15)
I had to, I had to, I had to. Yes, our Mike Bridges episode is 177. I had to look because I'm like, I swear to God, that number sounds familiar to me. Okay, sure.

Eric (1:38:24)
All right, let me do it again. Now the dog's barking, but here we go.

178.