On The Runs 179 | Millennium Running | John Mortimer | New Hampshire First Class Road Race Events | Part 2

In this episode of the On the Runs podcast, you get to hear "The Rest of the story" with John Mortimer of Millennium Running. Part 2 focuses on the birth of Millennium Running in New Hampshire to what it is today. The hosts explore various themes related to running, personal experiences, and community engagement. The episode highlights the importance of community, personal growth, and the shared passion for running. In this engaging conversation, they  delve into the pressures of performance in athletics, the importance of mindset for success, and the journey of building a community through racing events. 

They share personal stories of challenges faced during races and event management, highlighting the significance of teamwork and passion in overcoming obstacles. The discussion also touches on the evolution of the Millennium Mile and the impact of community events on local economies and personal growth. In this extensive conversation you'll hear about the intricacies of race planning, team dynamics, and the importance of community in running events. They discuss the meticulous preparation that goes into organizing races, the feedback mechanisms that drive improvement, and the unique demographics of participants. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced during race day, including unexpected incidents and the impact of COVID-19 on event management. Additionally, the speakers highlight the significance of charity work within the running community and the role of photography in capturing memorable moments. Ultimately, the discussion emphasizes the value of building connections and fostering a supportive environment for runners.

Chapters

00:00 Training Challenges and Triumphs
12:05 The Millennium Mile: A Race to Remember
17:48 Building a Business from Passion
26:11 Navigating the Challenges of Entrepreneurship
31:21 Personal Milestones and Business Growth
37:52 Planning and Improving Races
43:24 Navigating Challenges and Setbacks
48:53 Community Engagement and Charity Work
55:00 The Importance of Free Race Photos
01:00:07 Advancements in Race Photography Technology
01:06:07 Ensuring Runner Safety in Extreme Weather
01:11:16 Building a Thriving Running Community

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Transcript

Eric (00:54)
What's up everybody! Welcome!

episode 179 of the On the Runs podcast. What a week it's been already. We dropped part one of the Millennium Running John Mortimer podcast episode the other day. Vlog number two of the Road to New York City Marathon series. That's right, I gave it an official name, has dropped and you're about to hear the rest of the story on this Friday Eve edition of the podcast. But first, before we dive into any of that and much more,

I must say hello to my kick-ass, rock star of a co-host, six-star Erica. What's up?

Erika (01:33)
Buddy, it feels like such a privilege to get to do this twice in one week. Hell yes.

Eric (01:37)
Yeah,

well, we've done it a lot this year. It's been a little bit of a cruel summer lately, but you know, we've only done one episode and everything, but you know, so what? We're back. We're back to two times a week. We got the vlog. This is a lot of fun. And we got part two of this amazing series, but we'll get to that in a quick few moments. But how are you? What's going on? Anything new happen? Did you just happen to watch something on YouTube?

Erika (01:40)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

We're back, baby. Hell yes.

Mmm.

Honestly.

That is basically the only thing that's happened to me since we last spoke. My life is very boring. All I do is run and watch vlogs, apparently. by the way, that was pretty much the Adeline show. Where were you in that? Yeah, it was fun seeing her like steer the boat, basically. Like she was taking the camera and going off and like, ⁓ she was super cute. And I like how much she enjoyed doing it too.

Eric (02:14)
Especially now.

It was. It was. It was the Adeline Vlog Takeover just dropped. It was so much fun. I had a blast.

Yeah.

she

loved

Vlog number three will drop next week and you have, still, Adeline's gonna make an appearance, but a little less Adeline, but we will be at the Delta Dental 5K in that one. That was a fun vlog where she crushed that 5K, but you're also gonna get a lot of behind the scenes to today's episode because that's where we were. We're at Millennium Running with John, where episode the other day on Tuesday dropped where you got the entire John Mortimer story. And this episode today, you're gonna get the entire.

Erika (02:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric (03:04)
Millennium running story and did you like that little cliffhanger how I ended it there last week or the other day?

Erika (03:09)
totally

did. I'm lucky that I remember what happened. So I'm not left on the on the cliff, else doesn't have to wait any longer for the rest of the story.

Eric (03:17)
Right, right,

right. And then we got a lot to catch up after because, you know, don't blame me. It's been a cruel summer with so much humidity and the heat lately, but you need to calm down and shake it off. As we know, the temps are falling and we're about to do it all in style and not to have any bad blood, but we're 52 days away from the Chicago marathon. We're 73 days away from the New York city marathon. And we're going to leave it all out there and have a love story.

Erika (03:35)
That's probably the nerdiest thing ever heard you say.

Eric (03:47)
as you know it all too well.

Erika (03:47)
And he says he's not as

swift as you guys. He's a total liar.

Eric (03:51)
We're gonna crush 26.2 this fall.

Erika (03:54)
You are a Swifty through and through. Yeah, ⁓ yeah, yeah.

Eric (03:56)
I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. Hey guys, we got

a lot to catch up on in the outro, but this episode is just, it was great. I can't wait. Remember we're going to be at the NH 10 miler on Saturday, podcasting live from the race. Definitely after maybe before too. It's going to be a lot of fun. This whole experience of Millennium has been a lot of fun. Thank you again to John and the entire staff and everybody at Millennium for helping out and making this happen.

But you guys gotta hear the rest of the story

Erika (04:28)
You guys are definitely going to enjoy this one.

further ado, please enjoy the rest of the Millennium running story here on the On the Runs podcast.

Speaker 3 (04:41)
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 (04:54)
I'm not doing it this time. I feel like have to do do do do do do do.

Speaker 3 (04:59)
to December 31st, 1999, because I know Millennium was founded around 2014, really the story goes back to the Millennium.

Speaker 2 (05:07)
2011 2011 2011 yeah 14 years. Yeah, really

It does. Yeah. The millennium for all the you. How old are you? You weren't even you're not allowed to ask that. Sorry. Didn't you say you weren't even born then? I was now. Yeah, barely. She was. She was. 13. OK, so. So if you go back to 1999, right, the millennium, the turn of millennium computers weren't supposed to go past. Right. 1999.

Speaker 1 (05:25)
I was 13 running though. I was definitely not running it that way.

Speaker 3 (05:38)
gonna go wild.

Speaker 2 (05:39)
Why

why 2k like the world's going to shut down? We'll go back to Matt down in my high school buddy We had spent with our friends and high school friends and college friends We like always came back to Boston over the holidays when in the city and you know try to pick up chicks and New Year's Eve was always like the fun the fun thing to do always struck out and Yeah, right. That's sort of like what you did, but and then why do you not gonna take my record though?

Speaker 3 (06:00)
not gonna lie, I the same.

Speaker 1 (06:08)
Hahaha

Speaker 2 (06:09)
Then Y2K

happened and we're like, well, we're not going to Boston this year because if the world shuts down, we don't want to like. He's not going to run back yet. And so this was Thanksgiving that year and we're, you know, hanging out before Thanksgiving. So what are you doing for New Year's? And we decided to just basically have a party in New Hampshire with all our friends.

Speaker 1 (06:16)
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (06:32)
And his Matt went to Wisconsin. He ran track of Wisconsin's. He had all his Wisconsin buddies come. I had all my Michigan buddies come and then our high school teammates that went to different colleges. So we ultimately and Matt's older brother, Andy, who was an all American at Georgetown and was running professionally at that time, too. He decided to have his buddies come. So we had like the kind of like the who's who of guest lists of like runner nerd. Yeah, but they're all really fast. We had like people that had made U.S. teams and all Americans.

Speaker 1 (06:58)
Yeah

Speaker 2 (07:02)
and we added up all. And yeah, a bunch of short shorts and guys, right? Like, they are. So we we were like, man, this is an awesome. would be awesome if we went to like some road race with a bus with all these awesome. Like. Yeah, just like ringers like that, but just some.

Speaker 1 (07:03)
Be in that room.

We're getting back now.

Speaker 3 (07:09)
You

Show up unannounced.

Some local

guys like won it for the last 14 years in a row and then you guys are gonna

Speaker 2 (07:29)
All

Speaker 1 (07:30)
That is...

Speaker 2 (07:31)
these college all-americans show up. They're like, fuck, sorry.

Speaker 1 (07:36)
And so...

Speaker 2 (07:38)
That's how

it kinda came to be that we wanted to do a race because of the party. The only race that existed at the time, and I think it still happens, the Hangover Classic? I think in like Salisbury.

Speaker 1 (07:49)
Right? There's one in Lowell too. that's like first.

Speaker 2 (07:52)
I don't think that exists.

But there's a Salisbury class. You don't have like 40 years. there's Hangover Classic in Salisbury. And there was nothing about New Year's Day. Like our party was New Year's Eve. Like we didn't want a New Year's Day. Like, you know, we're going to be alive. Forget like wicked headache, by the way. The world was any way you get. We were going out hard. So like nothing about New Year's Day was aptized. And so we just said, how hard could it be to like produce our own road race? Let's do that. So we said we're going to do our own 5K.

Speaker 1 (08:06)
Ha

Speaker 2 (08:21)
And then we looked at who was coming and we had these amazing milers, like people that ran the Olympic trials and like finalists that ran the mile. All these sub four minute miler guys that sub four is like a big deal for the mile. And we did the guest list. We looked at it like, well, why don't we just do a mile? Just do a road mile. And in London, I found the where now the millennium mile exists. We found a downhill stretcher road. There was a one mile.

Speaker 1 (08:47)
Yep

Speaker 3 (08:47)
Is

this the road where the high school is going down? towards Manchester.

Speaker 2 (08:51)
Going down. Well, it used to

go south towards. Towards Windham, I guess. But yeah, you basically London High School is at the top of a hill either direction. And at the so we had done some research and that's where my buddy Jamie Staten was involved in stuff. Talking to him about sports stuff. We realized there had never been a sub four minute mile ever run in the state of New Hampshire. Time.

Speaker 1 (09:12)
No way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:14)
And so

WMUR got involved in it. The union leader newspaper got involved. We kind of gave them like, are the bios of these people? Like we're guaranteeing there's going to be a sub for. ⁓ So WMUR brought their TV camera to put the pickup truck. But it was literally just we had. then we put out like ⁓ I think we built a website and called it the Millennium Mile.

Speaker 1 (09:27)
It was

Speaker 2 (09:37)
Again, 1999. And this is all from like Thanksgiving to New Year. So it was all of like, yeah, six weeks. Yeah. Five weeks of actual. And the entry fee you had to mail in a five dollar check to my parents house. And like handwritten, there's no online registration for this in 1999 at all. It's literally. And so I'm back from Christmas and I'm like going through checks and like. I was written out to the Millennium Mile was who was written out to. I'm like, we got to open a bank account or something like.

Speaker 1 (10:07)
We do.

Speaker 2 (10:07)
How

do we even do this? Yeah. Where I was a college senior, like this is so stupid. don't know how to do this. And ultimately, gosh, what we had 121 registrants.

Speaker 1 (10:11)
You

really good for a premier race, like an inaugural one.

Speaker 2 (10:25)
And,

and ultimately that's so funny. My wife called me. She's like, how are you done yet? Yeah, a idiot. I should call her. should get her on.

Speaker 1 (10:30)
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:31)
⁓ No, we just broke it.

⁓ Actually, well, no one's wearing headphones. I could get her on.

Speaker 2 (10:40)
Oh, she would love it, but she would hate it at the same time. Oh, Yeah, yeah. She well, you need to interview her because she is she makes magic happen. We're going to do a millennium and in my life.

Speaker 3 (10:45)
We'll do something in another time.

But I

want to do it right here.

Speaker 1 (10:55)
Yeah

Speaker 3 (11:00)
John's

doing a little hard.

Speaker 2 (11:02)
I her.

Speaker 1 (11:04)
Are you supposed to

do something like that now? I don't know. The kids are doing it different, and I don't know how to do it anyway. This is the way.

Speaker 2 (11:12)
don't know, was like West Side or something like that. Yeah. We won. Yeah. And we had. I mean, they were all our college buddies and I mean, from Delaware to California, they were all they all they all flew in for the party. And so we made enough money to buy two kegs. We donated like five hundred dollars or something to the soup kitchen.

Speaker 1 (11:15)
grip.

Speaker 3 (11:16)
But 120. Where'd they come from?

Speaker 1 (11:35)
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (11:36)
year and we

gave all the extra food we got it all donated we had a whole bunch of sponsors and we just made some phone calls and and it happened yeah and and I think God I forget how many guys broke four minutes I think there was like eight or nine guys broke four

Speaker 1 (11:49)
minutes.

Speaker 2 (11:50)
And

the news interviewed everybody and it was great. And we gave out awards and then we had this awesome party. And then we woke up the next morning groggy and the world still steps spinning. It kept spinning. So that was it. There was the Millennium Mile in 1999. That was it.

Speaker 3 (12:05)
What

was your time?

Speaker 2 (12:08)
I think I ran 357.

I I ran

357.

Speaker 3 (12:12)
I was

like he had to be sub 4 but he's being humble.

Speaker 2 (12:15)
Yeah,

yeah, I think 352 was the winning time. Scott Anderson's 353, maybe Scott Anderson from from ⁓ Washington, D.C. at the time. That's where he was living. So. It was a great party. was a great party. We had a great time, enjoyed it, but it was it was done. And fast forward 11 months later, I was at the Greater Dairy Turkey Trot.

Speaker 3 (12:27)
And that must have been one epic party.

Speaker 2 (12:41)
And members of the running community were like, man, I heard about your mile. I saw it on TV. I can't wait to run it. And it was literally that was the only reason why we did it because of Y2K and we were convinced that morning that you should do this race, you should do this again. And we're like, well, we did it once like this. So we threw it together again. Now we only had 70 people sign up that year. Still people broke for minutes and was it was fun. And then that following year had moved back to Boston.

Speaker 3 (12:47)
And it was gonna happen again.

Speaker 2 (13:11)
So once I moved back to Boston, kind of took that on as, I'm here now. Why don't I just advertise a little bit more? And when I went to local races, I put flyers on people's when you used to do that.

Speaker 3 (13:22)
⁓ We did

that.

Speaker 1 (13:24)
as we go. ⁓

Speaker 3 (13:25)
We did it with Stooley

stickers like at the cheap marathon or something. We put it on mute.

Speaker 2 (13:30)
and cars.

Speaker 1 (13:30)
Yeah.

⁓

Speaker 2 (13:33)
Well, you're not gonna

have more stickers on it. won't know it's...

Speaker 1 (13:36)
I right? I

don't know how long it took her to notice we put.

Speaker 3 (13:40)
Shick,

ooh, this poop emoji on my windshield.

Speaker 2 (13:43)
Yeah,

that's so weird. There's nothing worse than like starting to drive and then all of a like, you're like, you try putting on, try to grab it out the window because you don't want to stop. Yeah. So. Well, I did it. I was a participant in the race director for I think through maybe 2007 was the last year that I ran it, and I think I won it that year. And I'm like, I'm going out. I'm done. I'm not doing anymore.

Speaker 3 (13:54)
Have you done the race every year since then?

Speaker 1 (14:09)
And

on a high note.

Speaker 2 (14:10)
But we did that race for, and I say we, Matt, his older brother Andy, were very formative in helping us do that every year. And then ultimately the race sort of took on a life of its own. Matt and Andy moved away and I kind of just kept it going. And it took on a greater meaning for me personally, because my parents I mentioned had passed away. So they were involved in the event helping on race day and we named a scholarship after them that we would give to a high school senior from London Dairy. that became super personal for me and my family.

and just being something that we did every year. And in its 10th year, I think it was the 10th year, we had a thousand runners.

Speaker 1 (14:49)
Were you prepared for a thousand-

Speaker 2 (14:50)
Well,

it grew every year. It was like it was like 70 people, then 125 and then. I think it was like seven hundred and then we got this one year that was like 60 degrees and beautiful. No shirt on. was like unbelievable. New Year's. Yeah. You race. then so that light bulb moment in in this 10th year where we had a thousand runners.

Speaker 1 (14:56)
but then all of your advertising and then. Yeah, the word.

Speaker 2 (15:14)
And it made enough revenue to endow the scholarship in my mom and dad's honor. And it like it actually made money. And I was like, huh, like, that's cool. I wonder if I did that just like 10 more times. Like, did I work 10 days, four days, five days? Like if I just do this, this is this is a great job. I really like doing it. That spark. That was the light bulb moment that went off.

Speaker 3 (15:37)
just a second.

Speaker 2 (15:40)
⁓ and so millennium mile had again happened for 10 years and I came up with ideas like what could I name my company? If I started a company, what would it be? And millennium. yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, I forget it was just trying. I just always, right. Millennium events, millennium management, like, and then some of them were taken. Yeah. Like there's the millennium hotel. I'm like, God, here's what I know. We should have named it something completely different because 50 % of our Google searches are spelled wrong.

Speaker 3 (15:49)
many

Speaker 1 (15:52)
Thank

Speaker 2 (16:10)
⁓ no one knows how to spell millennium. We're teaching millennium. We're teaching people how to spell one millennium at a time. Yeah, there's two N's in millennium and everybody like they send me an email. Did you get my email? No. Would you? Where'd you send it? ⁓ OK. Well, that's right.

Speaker 3 (16:12)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:23)
As long

as I keep

Speaker 3 (16:24)
You spelled

it wrong half the

Speaker 2 (16:26)
We're gonna,

so we're educating America.

Speaker 1 (16:30)
At least Google is a little bit smarter these days where they'll come up as long as you put Millennium and running.

Speaker 2 (16:35)
Most of the stuff shows

up.

Speaker 3 (16:37)
Yeah. Well, no, I like that you stuck with Millennium because of. And a lot of people, think, know parts of that story, but don't know the whole story. Yeah, feel like that guy from the old day. And now, know, rest. Eric is too young.

Speaker 2 (16:51)
The rest of the story.

Speaker 1 (16:54)
I that and that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm Walter. There's an.

Speaker 2 (16:57)
And that's the rest of this.

Same guy.

Speaker 3 (17:03)
Bye.

You do the voice better than me and John. ⁓

Speaker 1 (17:11)
That's Jim Carrey. What movie was that from?

Speaker 3 (17:13)
⁓ no. Okay. Different movie. You're talking about when he's the news anchor. Bruce. Yeah, no, this is some totally off though. Like I remember driving in the car with my dad, whole hockey practice and hearing the guys are and that's the rest of this.

Speaker 1 (17:17)
Dude. Yeah. Might be. Yeah. Some quotes for you, but that's what I know.

Speaker 2 (17:30)
You're right. That was on NPR.

Speaker 1 (17:32)
Yeah,

my dad listened to the Doobie Brothers. He didn't do NPR or anything, but. Save NPR.

Speaker 3 (17:35)
Good.

So

that sparked it for you though, 10 year anniversary, notice you had, for 10 years in a row, you only put on one race.

Speaker 2 (17:48)
Yeah, so in that time frame, I had I was running professionally and then I started college coaching. I mentioned a little bit and I was coaching at Boston College for six years. Got a job at the University of Kentucky as the as the cross country and track coach there. So we relocated. Jen and I got married. We relocated to Kentucky and which was like literally got back from our honeymoon and got the movers to take us to Kentucky. Literally, we got married. Honeymoon moved and she's like, what am I doing?

Speaker 1 (18:17)
So Kentucky.

Speaker 2 (18:19)
So, so yeah,

so we lived in Kentucky for, for three years, I was a coach there. And it just really, you know, we needed to move back to the Northeast New England. And I looked at college coaching jobs in New England, I started interviewing and I was a finalist for the Dartmouth ⁓ job that was that was open.

And I was recommended by the outgoing coach that was leaving and I was a New Hampshire guy coming back to Dartmouth. I was like, I got this job. I thought I nailed the interview. Jen, who's an elementary school teacher, she ended up getting a job up in the Hanover area as an elementary school teacher.

Speaker 1 (18:56)
That would have been perfect.

Speaker 2 (18:57)
Great. So we're like, we're

We're gone. And I thought again, I like talk about like putting a car before the horse. Like we we had the movers coming. We already were. We're moving. Yeah. No matter what. And the day the movers came, I got a call from the A.D. My sweet. I'm like, I got the job. is. And he's like, we went with another candidate. no. And like the ⁓ shit brown moment. Brown code brown moment in my life was I'm relocating my family, my wife. We had our.

Speaker 3 (19:21)
code.

Speaker 2 (19:27)
on Jack who is three at the time. literally were, holy cow, like we're on now single income. I no longer have a job. Holy cow. And that happened to be that year 10 where that light bulb moment went off earlier that year. OK. And that was like, I think I can do this. Right. So I revisited that.

Speaker 3 (19:48)
What was that conversation like with Jen? Like you have no job.

Speaker 2 (19:51)
Like,

my god, like, what did I marry this?

Speaker 3 (19:56)
Not only do I have no job, but I think I want to work for myself and I'm going to imagine you had to invest some money in to get this thing going and get it kickstarted.

Speaker 2 (20:05)
Yeah, yeah, she ⁓ She was very patient and you know, the most important thing in life is that you kind of stick together on stuff But what was super important us is she had a stable job that had you know teachers get far paid far too little anyway, yes, but it was manageable and she's super smart hard-working and

with that job had insurance for our young family, which was the most important thing for us. And her hard work and her landing that job allowed me to to try it. Right. And, you know, I hit the ground running on it I worked hard. I worked from our house. We rented a house in Grantham, New Hampshire. I don't know if you've ever been there. Beautiful little community rented a house there for nine months. And in that year, I put the whole.

Instinctual stuff together and I came up with five races that I wanted to create. So we had the Millennium Mile. Yeah. And I added five new events to that that year. So the first event we did after the Millennium Mile was the Shamrock Shuffle still exists today. So. ⁓ it's fun. Low bar to entry, which is really so two miles. I. That's right.

Speaker 1 (21:05)
What did you add?

Yes. I've that quite a few times myself.

Yeah. You're going one mile to two miles.

Speaker 2 (21:23)
OK,

so funny enough. the next one, what wasn't a yet to five K, we back to a mile because all those years of doing the Millennium Mile, it's always really cold. It's January, December 31st. Right. it's not warm. Right. Like if we just did this race in the summertime, people would run so much faster. But we picked Manchester to do it. And if you've ever been to Dairyfield Park, you look at it as we see the fireworks from down Bridge Street. Yeah. It was called the Manchester Mile. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:39)
Right?

Speaker 3 (21:48)
yes!

I know where this is.

Speaker 2 (21:52)
So we did that for a number of years and that was a first. I did that Manchester Mile and the winner of that, Brian Gagnon from Yukon. I think he ran three forty six to win the first year. Yeah, it was unlike super fast. Like he's super fast track. Awesome. Manchester Mile was the second one. Come back in time. And then we did the New Hampshire Ten Mylar. Yes. Coming out. My favorite. ⁓

Speaker 1 (22:03)
real talent. ⁓

Speaker 3 (22:17)
What

Speaker 2 (22:19)
And the only reason we used to run there in high school around the lake on the trails. I'm like, this is awesome. We should do Lake Massabeek is Lake Massabeseek is beautiful. Love it. So the idea of of a tent like a 10 miler, like there's not a lot of 10 milers. We should do that. Yeah. Underserved distance. Not a lot of them. Yeah. And if you're training for half, you need a 10 mile or separate. And then we partnered with the New Hampshire Fishercast. We did the fishcast Thanksgiving Day 5K and the Santa Claus shuffle.

Speaker 3 (22:34)
Perfect distance.

Speaker 1 (22:41)
Perfect.

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 (22:50)
So they're all themed and fun and... ⁓

Speaker 1 (22:53)
love

all the themes, but the Santa Claus shuffle was one of, think the first races that I've done with you. Cause I was living in Manchester at the time. was 2012 was when I first picked it up. Yeah. We, we all went, we were like, we're to be all cute and we're our Santa hats and Santa suits. And like, just loved the fact that you would be in a sea of red running down Elm street. Like I just, I remember it. then it, God, it's still so much fun.

Speaker 2 (23:05)
second year.

Speaker 3 (23:21)
That's

your creativity mine from your

themed races, especially like, wouldn't it be cool to have a race and have everyone running down Manchester dressed as a Santa Claus?

Speaker 1 (23:35)
3,000.

Speaker 2 (23:35)
Well,

first ones to ever do a Christmas themed or an Irish themed race. So it was not. But there there wasn't any in Manchester at the time. But there were also parades. So we partnered with the parades with each of the respective Irish parade and Christmas parade and said, I think we can add value to your parade by doing more people out there. The roads are already closed for your parade. We just need. So I didn't have to go like through all this stuff and went to the mayor in Manchester at the time.

Speaker 1 (23:54)
Thanks.

helpful.

Speaker 2 (24:03)
I had just made an appointment, said, Can I meet you? I said, I'd love your support. Here's my idea for bringing some fun things to the city. And he's like, I love it. Yeah. You have my support. Like if anybody gives you a hard time in the city, just call me. Here's my number. And I'm like, dude, that's awesome. Yeah. Mayor Gatzas at the time he's and all the mayor subsequent to that have been awesome because when you stand up at, you know, on Elm Street.

Instead of hearing about overdoses and crime or homelessness or, you know, addiction, you're seeing people there enjoying like you and your girlfriends did come out and then they're, they're going into restaurants and they're eating, having a beer, drinking afterwards. And, and it just, it's a place to hopefully we're making the community better. Yes.

Speaker 3 (24:52)
Think so There's no other sport that kind of does that Especially in our age now as adults, right? I can go play beer league hockey and hang it with the guys in locker room after I have a few beers But there's nothing like this in any other sport that brings a community together Thousands of people and then brings in revenue and income to all the local restaurants and bars downtown Manchester or whatever city you choose

Speaker 2 (25:16)
Yeah, there's an economic impact to it. There's a health and wellness, you know, there. But even in Manchester, I think there's an optics to it of like. Just positivity. And when we've had the mayor's, mean, the corporate five is going to come up, Mayor Ruiz is going to be up on stage and you have thousands of people lining the street like how is this not how is this not like a positive thing? It's on TV. You're not talking about, you know, crime and right.

Speaker 3 (25:41)
Overdoses

and it's you're on live TV like WMUR puts this on TV live. remember doing my first marathon, the Manchester Marathon. Yeah. 2018. Yeah. And I remember being up there in the line and then they go, we're going live on MWMUR right now. I was like, And so and that still happens today. And you have, you know, public figures like a Jamie Staton and you've got a lot of team, a huge support team. But I think you had to build that team. And during that whole process,

Speaker 2 (25:55)
famous now.

Speaker 1 (25:57)
pressure dude

Speaker 3 (26:11)
at one point you're one man team and then a two and you had to have some moments of like a code brown moment.

Speaker 2 (26:19)
So many

code broad moments on stuff like that that are like super crazy stories. Well, first of them, the first of all, was like creating a company like having a going back on one mile, having a bank account. Right. Like I had to open a bank account and do all this stuff. And then I had a credit card that I was just, you know, take a sponsor out to eat or or do whatever or pay for whatever.

Speaker 3 (26:39)
And then you're trying to hide

it from Jen probably. Yeah. No, it wasn't that big.

Speaker 2 (26:43)
literally had a shoot like the old Sarah to the shoebox full of receipts. Do you? Right. I don't know how to set up learning. I didn't go to school. I went to school for architecture. Yeah. Creativity did not go to school for business, did not go to school for account. Like I had zero life skill around that. Yeah. It was all but instinctually.

Speaker 3 (26:49)
Which

on the fly.

Speaker 1 (27:02)
Right.

Speaker 2 (27:05)
had ideas and it kind of built itself. So we actually hired our next door neighbor who was a stay at home mom that worked in accounting at Dartmouth hospital. She was a stay home. Mom didn't do that anymore. And she's like, I can help you out with that. And Bethany did a great job. And she was like, came over to two days a week and just like helped our book.

Speaker 1 (27:24)
Yes. It's one thing you

don't want to let go because it's going to be so.

Speaker 2 (27:29)
overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (27:31)
Is there any moment

that Bethany said to you, you can't do that? You don't have enough. I advise that you don't do it.

Speaker 2 (27:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, there was there was, I mean, she just thought I was crazy. that's just the idea. We're going to do this. This is going be great. ⁓

Speaker 1 (27:47)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:48)
But

yeah, I worked a lot just trying to get it off the ground. But ⁓ the code brown moment that I had, the worst probably in the first year, was the Shamrock Shuffle the very first year that we did it. And I had bought a trailer. The metal barricades we still have today, they're 14 years old. They still work great. They're kept inside all the time, so that's good. ⁓ But it was me, myself, and I. I had hired two people that I know to help me.

Speaker 1 (28:05)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:13)
And but I got there way earlier. I got there like six in the morning, the races until two o'clock in the afternoon. So I'm there. I'm a one man show, though. I'm literally the only one dude. And I'm setting up the tents and the bungee cords that we had for registration. And as I'm setting up the bungee cord, I'm stretching it. I feel to let go. And I look and it like the D ring broke. No bungee cord was fully extended. And the thing came back and I looked away at the last moment. It's almost like I almost took my eye out. Almost like a year like.

Speaker 1 (28:19)
You're ready

Bye.

Speaker 2 (28:43)
Yeah. Trump thing hits me in the side of the head right up here in the scalp. And I'm like, that hurts so bad. It just hurts so bad. And then as I just like this and I go, yeah. And next thing your blood's rushing down my arm. I'm the only one there.

Speaker 1 (29:00)
No.

Speaker 2 (29:00)
There's no one else

there. I'm the only one that knows anything about the race. I have all the stuff. And I'm thinking, my God, I got to go to the hospital and get stitches. So I couldn't do that. So I'm it's it's bleeding pretty good. It's like a face. So probably didn't need it didn't need stitches, but it was just a flesh.

Speaker 3 (29:16)
flesh wound.

Speaker 1 (29:17)
It's but a flesh

wound, yeah. ⁓

Speaker 2 (29:19)
And

so I walk into the hotel over by veterinary. It's now the double tree, but what it used to be, Radisson. Yeah. And I walk in there, Radisson in the front. it's like this like six in the morning. And the woman's like, my God, you've been shot. Like it was literally down like it was down everywhere. And I'm like, no, no, it was just a bungee cord.

Speaker 1 (29:31)
Ha!

But

I

Speaker 2 (29:39)
And she's

like, what? So I like, do you have like gauze? You have anything? And she's like, well, and she's like, well, I'm not touching you like a blood. Yeah. So she all this stuff. Yeah. Total liability. I have no idea what just walked in here. And so she gave me a whole bunch of like paper towels, gauze from her medical kit. I went to the bathroom, made a huge mess, but clean, clean myself up. Yeah. And we are giving away hats for that event.

Speaker 1 (29:49)
⁓ no.

Speaker 2 (30:05)
I ended up getting one of the hats. I wrapped my head with gauze all around it and it stopped bleeding and I put the hat on for the rest of the day.

Speaker 1 (30:14)
That is a serious redic-

Speaker 3 (30:16)
18-hour

day finally made it to a

Speaker 2 (30:18)
cleaned

up the bathroom. I think we had I think we had 11 or 1200 runners that for that first one. It was like a great turnout and amazing day. It worked out great. Everything went as well as it could be with it. You know, I hired two people. One guy couldn't show up. everything is great. And then the biggest.

Speaker 1 (30:35)
Great, okay.

Speaker 2 (30:40)
Amazing moment of that day was I got home and Jen was Jen was at home. didn't go She was watching her son Jack and I got home and I was tired. Yes I had to go honey and I'm like I was like it was awesome like super success more than I thought it would be and she goes well I have some news like I'm pregnant

Yeah. And she let me know that our son, she was, Eldi was our second son, Liam. And there was that night I was like, what? My emotions are like, talk about code brown. was like all over the map. So and ⁓ and then that the code brown was like, OK, we have a second child on the way. Like, I better make this thing work. Right. At this point.

Speaker 3 (31:21)
That reminds me

of the

Speaker 1 (31:22)
What

was race number six, seven, eight?

Speaker 2 (31:25)
Yeah, Yeah, right. 2011.

Speaker 3 (31:26)
Well, that was the first shamrock shuffle. Things are kind

of working out. I I remember the day I found out one was becoming two for twins, right? And I was like. It's like, the hell am I going to make this? I know everything. More than that.

Speaker 2 (31:40)
That's twice as

Speaker 1 (31:43)
Mm-hmm. he already had it.

So one turned into three. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:49)
Yeah,

yeah. So it had to be one of those moments like another back to the my question from hours ago. Those pressure moments like you seem to strive in those moments. I don't know if you feel that pressure or if it's just like the challenge is something you embrace.

Speaker 2 (32:04)
That's a good question. I mean, I think I'm a competitor. Yeah, like my background is hyper competitive and I want to win

Speaker 1 (32:12)
So

that side of you will come out when you're in a stressful situation.

Speaker 2 (32:15)
I like that, like when in the hardest races you focus more. And I think when, know, when your backs up against the wall, you dig down deeper and you and I think I have that approach to how I run Millennium and our in our business in terms of like, I'm competitive.

Against the industry, the industry in itself, right? have every race in New England. I see how many finishers are I'm like, I'm a psychopath when it comes to some stuff like I know, like last weekend and someone's so many people ran this race or that race or.

Speaker 3 (32:46)
It's a healthy.

I would think that's healthy, though. Like, like, know, it's healthy in a way like it makes you want to do better. I'm not talking I'm not talking maybe personally, I'm talking business wise. It makes you it challenges you to be better. Yeah, it's a healthy.

Speaker 2 (33:01)
I would say

my hyper competitiveness athletically has transitioned overdue, like my competitiveness of winning in business, right? And again, I read all the, didn't go to school for business. said, reading all these things and say, can we do better? How can we create a better event? How do we have more employees? How do we pay for those employees? How do we build a building? How do we do the things to have us grow? Like if you're not growing, you're dying. If not running faster, time to retire.

Speaker 3 (33:30)
Exactly.

You need to keep evolving. Yeah every day ⁓

Speaker 1 (33:33)
That's it.

Speaker 2 (33:33)
That's a lot of,

I think my innate, my innateness and I think it's my wife's innateness and many people work for us. like, how do we do this better and keep growing?

Speaker 3 (33:41)
Right. So you got a team now of, don't know how many, but you've been doing this for 14, 15 years now. You didn't go to school for business. You didn't go to school for management. How do you manage all this?

Speaker 2 (33:51)
now.

We have amazing people. So that's number one. They make me look like I know what I'm doing a lot of times. Especially Jen. makes me ⁓ look like...

Speaker 1 (34:02)
So

is that the quality you look for when you're looking to hire something? What's the main? What's the main? Yeah, when you are.

Speaker 2 (34:05)
Everybody. When I'm someone. You

know, I'm going to go the same thing that my dad, that's a good question that my dad asked my college coach when he when he came to our home visit, visit our house. What are you looking for? Most of my son and his response to that was I'm looking for a good citizen.

And that was like my dad was like, ⁓ you're going to run for that guy. It's like, yeah, I'm looking for a good citizen was I just want a good person. Yeah, I can teach you to do any like we can do anything. I want like a high quality first class person that cares about that. That one, that question threw me off. But I'm going back to Coach Good, Coach Ron telling me, yeah, my dad.

Speaker 1 (34:43)
I that. I love that for an answer.

Well,

I you want to surround yourself with with good people. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (34:55)
Good, honest people. We have a lot of people

that run, obviously, run that have a running background. Some people that ran collegiately. ⁓ one of our first employees, Mike Peabody, hired him right out of college. He's been with us for 13 years.

Speaker 1 (35:09)
Awesome. So

passionate about the sport.

Speaker 2 (35:12)
And then we

talk about the World Championships, the kid that just ran 142 for 800 meters last night. That's the office talk, you know, the water cooler talk. So we're fans. We're fans of the sport. And, know, my wife is, you know, the biggest fan of the sport that I know ⁓ from a competitive side and a professional side. And, you know, we just we look for that passion in people.

Speaker 3 (35:33)
love it. If you're yeah, you got to be passionate about it. Like this right here. It's a we one thing we've always said it's a passion project.

Speaker 2 (35:40)
Well, I can see when I listen to your podcast, your passion project is what you love doing. You can see it in your personalities and your products.

Speaker 3 (35:47)
It's what helps

it grow. And I use that word. If you're not the same thing, I'm going to use this forever. Now, if you're not growing, you're dying. I always use the word evolving. need to keep evolving. When we master one thing, take on the next thing. And that's what we're doing now with the video and all this. And, and this right here challenged us to do it. Hey guys on YouTube. So, you know, cause Bridget says to me, is this your first video podcast? And I go, well, no, we've been doing it for years virtually, but never like this in person. tested it other day your house.

Speaker 1 (36:15)
can say

is I really I truly enjoy having an in-person conversation. It just feels so much more genuine and real. And it makes me a little less nervous about something that we have coming up in a few weeks. I think I'll be OK. I was never.

Speaker 3 (36:27)
A a months, huge one. Eric is not nervous at all.

Speaker 2 (36:32)
doing a podcast with Tom Brady.

Speaker 3 (36:34)
Oh,

that's that's kind no, but we're trying to big Z Do you know who's the Dan O'Chara? Do you ever can? yeah, he's quite the runner

Speaker 2 (36:43)
He does, he does. ⁓

Speaker 1 (36:44)
Yeah, it runs a lot.

I was never a public speaker, but it's getting a little more natural. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (36:50)
I you're doing well.

Speaker 3 (36:51)
I

want to keep pumping the tires from Millennium here, but I want to really dive in. So we had Dave McGilvery, who got super lucky. Speaking about Erica stepping out of her boundary of comfort, right? Yeah, she saw Dave McGilvery one day at might have been a Millennium race and she's

Speaker 1 (37:05)
It was the 16 miler

Speaker 3 (37:10)
And she's like, I need

to say hi, or else her who'll get mad and we secured him for an episode.

Speaker 1 (37:14)
That's my motivation. I don't want Eric to be disappointed.

Speaker 2 (37:17)
You

miss every shot you don't take, right? Michael Scott.

Speaker 3 (37:19)
Yeah, that's Wayne Gretzky.

There we go.

So we had him on and we asked a lot of questions about, you know, what goes into all his events and the preparation we learned for the boss marathon, one of the world majors, they start planning 14 months in advance. So let's, let's just pick a race. And if you have one in mind, you can pick that race, but I'm just going to throw it out there. Cause it's been 15 years and this is the last year. The NH 10 miler. So when you're planning a race like the New Hampshire 10 miler, it's not a small race by any means. When do you start planning this race? What's the first step you take?

for the next one.

Speaker 2 (37:53)
Good question. Immediately on race day that year, we're taking notes. I'm taking notes on my phone and our staff is doing the same thing. What's working right now? What's not working right now in the moment? You know, I identified X, Y, and Z out on the course for next year. Change X, Y, and Z. Yeah. So I think that day that is happening, we're already looking to next year on a try to make it better format. that's that's probably day one and then

Speaker 3 (38:21)
Do you like

a Monday morning quarterback type thing you come back after the race?

Speaker 2 (38:25)
We come back on Monday morning, 10 o'clock in the conference room in the retail store on the side of the retail store. Awesome. And the whole team that is the full time employees, which is what? A little 10 of us right now. How cool. We sit down and we roundtable the whole thing. The good, bad and the ugly. And, you know, all these quotes you have from reading stuff, but like you're you know, we're chasing perfection. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:36)
that.

Speaker 2 (38:48)
Knowing that we're going to land on excellence because it's impossible to get perfection, right? So I think Vince Lombardi said that one so You know a race can't be perfect can't go flawlessly But if we're if we're trying to and we nitpick each other all the time Because we're just trying to do a better job and there's two different ways to look at it But the end result is trying to get it to be perfect. Yeah, that's the that's the fun part because the team You know Colin Madden Mike Peabody, know Connor Keely all our team that are part of

our operations team, Bill Godfrey, they all care about the ultimate outcome. And that Monday morning meeting is key to renewing everything. Absolutely. Because then we're renewing the website and Barry Lewandowski is updating everything for next year's numbers and registrations getting renewed. And there's an open date and the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (39:34)
I always look forward to I'm like, all right, when's next year? When can I register? I get I get my stuff on the calendar right away and Eric is kind of a last

Speaker 2 (39:43)
So you know what's funny

about it? I guess I get on the data train all the time on our events that sell out early. It's 65 to 68 percent women. you guys have your act together, your planners and you do it with friends in the races that don't sell out early. The men register last minute to bring those numbers up because men are like, what am I doing?

Speaker 3 (39:44)
I'm gonna set it the t-shirt side.

Speaker 2 (40:08)
And they don't and they don't call their buddy like, hey, dude, you want to get dressed up and go for a run? Like, it's just like not a thing that. You coordinate like, let me check with my girlfriends, because a lot of our running has been in the sport has been, you know, again, upwards of 68 percent women. Women tend to want to do it with a stereotyping, probably, and probably shouldn't. But they tend to want to do it in group in smaller groups where men tend to do it more as lone wolves, which I.

Speaker 1 (40:15)
coordinate

Pretty accurate.

get.

Speaker 3 (40:36)
That's about our number 68 % women listeners to about 30, you know, two-thirds women. I see that stuff. I look at that data So I watch what I see

Speaker 1 (40:45)
I mean, you are pretty accurate because we women are very social or least a majority. And we just like to have an event to something fun to do. So if it's a race, even better, like I'll go hang out and I won't go to the mall anymore. like, but then you have fun.

Speaker 2 (41:02)
You

have the expert runner, the ultra marathoner that is influencing the newbie to try it too. So there's a lot of that. Let's do this together. you can do it. You know, you'll do the shamrocks only two miles.

Speaker 1 (41:13)
Yeah,

the beers are always good.

Speaker 3 (41:16)
But now you got

a race, then you Monday morning quarterback the day after. What's the next step? When do you take the next step for a race? How many months in advance? You have multiple. So I don't know. Always focusing on one race at a time.

Speaker 2 (41:27)
Yeah,

lot of overlapping timelines happen. We've evolved into that a little bit and we try to improve. That's probably where a lot of our work comes in now is evolving timelines together. Such that we're working on something, you know, whether it be marketing or Instagram posts or Facebook telling people about this, like, this, that and other things happening. But

Tomorrow we have this happening. Yeah. So the corporate 5K is happening this Thursday in just a couple of days. But we're doing the medal reveal for the Manchester City Marathon at the same time. Like how do we how do we put those things together and you know different timelines? Sarah Sheldon as mentioned working on graphics for something, you know, it clear water marathon in January. I'd get the medals made for this because they don't just make you can't wait for last minute. But Barry's working on the email that is going out tomorrow at all the registrants. So it's it's.

Speaker 1 (42:17)
Definitely, yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:23)
You ever have an event where like the race day's coming up and the shirts don't sew up or the medals aren't there?

Speaker 2 (42:30)
Yes, those are code Browns. Yeah. The first year we did our Clearwater Marathon, there was an ice storm in the upper Midwest, like I forget where it was like Atlanta time and the medals, only some of the medals got delivered.

Speaker 1 (42:47)
No. ⁓

Speaker 2 (42:48)
And

they so we had to be at the finish line once the medals went out with cards, basically an IOU card. Like we know who you are. OK, here's your like in lieu of a medal, you're going to get this in the mail. And the medals came on Monday the next day. And we spent the entire day like shipping everything. But we got blasted on social media for like, right. You know, which which, you know, metal.

Speaker 1 (43:01)
.

That stinks though, because that's something that was so out of your control. ⁓

Speaker 2 (43:13)
Maybe we should have ordered the medals two weeks earlier, right? We're trying to.

Speaker 3 (43:18)
learning lessons.

Speaker 2 (43:19)
So

there's some code code Browns on some of those, but ⁓ but some stuff is out of your control, right?

Speaker 3 (43:24)
Right, can't control it all, then you gotta manage that backfire.

Speaker 1 (43:27)
Yeah, right. I mean, that happened at Boston when they ran out of medals. But they did. They made good on it. yeah, think.

Speaker 3 (43:31)
didn't get a medal.

Speaker 2 (43:36)
Yeah, you're always trying to do what is right by the your employees and you know, was really hard for that for us. Like our whole business model was about getting, you know, people together in masses. And all of sudden it's like, no, you can't.

Speaker 1 (43:51)
I have to give you guys so much props for what you did during COVID because I ran so many of your races. I was jonesing to get out of the house and the way that you did it safely in your time trial starts and making sure everybody had like an arrival time and a parking time and and just the way you organized it was so well done.

Speaker 2 (44:13)
about a team. mean, our team worked really hard to reinvent like what the format looked like. It was beautiful. And that was our I Barry Lewandowski, marketing director, calls it our Bubba Gump shrimp moment going back to like when the hurricane hit Lieutenant Dan was like, and then they came back to port during the hurricane and all the shipping boats were gone. It's like we kind of felt like we were the only ship sailing at that point, because I don't think anybody else was really doing races. Yeah. And and it was.

Speaker 1 (44:31)
Yeah.

You did.

Speaker 2 (44:39)
Talk about

you mentioned something about being intimate with ultras and for me, COVID the COVID. think the 60 races we produced was some of the most fun I had in my position because I got to give a fist bump to every talk about on the trail. But I got a fist bump to every single person on the red carpet. Good luck. Have fun. Because he started every six or 10 seconds, whatever it was. And like I got to see people where 2000 people to race. I don't.

Speaker 1 (45:05)
So,

Speaker 2 (45:08)
You know, young.

Speaker 1 (45:09)
you don't get to do that.

Speaker 3 (45:10)
⁓

I love the way of all the races started one you could kind of start with the friend if you figure it out and manage it but I loved how you kind of got your moment your name would go on the board yeah and whether whoever it was whether it might have been Ali because I know Ali did it once for me there would say your name and then it was kind of like your red carpet moment like next up

Speaker 2 (45:26)
carpet.

Speaker 1 (45:30)
We still get it during the TV

Speaker 2 (45:33)
We've

kept it for cheap and it's worked out really well. I think cheap is like the sixth best marathon to qualify for Boston and by percentage nationwide. ⁓

Speaker 1 (45:41)
my gosh. Yeah. I keep

coming back. I'm nowhere near a day.

Speaker 3 (45:45)
Buy it at

cheap marathon last year or the year before. Yeah, it's a great rate.

Speaker 2 (45:50)
It's set up to be that time trial start format is fun. It really lets you run without being impeded or in a path.

Speaker 1 (45:56)
especially, yeah, the rail trails can get so crowded.

Speaker 2 (46:00)
when you're one by one, really works.

Speaker 3 (46:02)
Yeah, I remember

lining up next to a guy because you'd line up two by two and we'd just look at each other not knowing we're just like let's go It was such a cool moment

Speaker 1 (46:09)
This past year for cheap, was the only one like whoever was next to me never showed up. I got a really good like shout out from.

Speaker 2 (46:17)
from Jamie was doing that. Yeah. And it's always like I get those in some people just DNF. That's the thing about if they read your DNS. Yeah. If they read for 26 bucks, they're just like, whatever. I'm not going to.

Speaker 3 (46:28)
Well, I got that right here. Like race day, weekend logistics and weather. ⁓ Like, let's talk about maybe bring up some of the worst weather moments and how you guys manage those.

Speaker 2 (46:39)
So we've only had to cancel in 14 years in us and 20 whatever years 20 years of 22 years of 25 26 years of the Millennium Mile. We've only had to cancel outright one race and that was this past year. That was the Super Sunday. That we postponed it a week.

Speaker 1 (46:55)
That's right.

Speaker 2 (46:58)
And then there was another snowstorm that week. So it's like we went out of weekends. can't do anything. But that was the only due to weather. Obviously, at the start of Covid, we we had to cancel races like everybody did. But then we got back on the horse pretty soon. But we've only had to cancel it for one. We've had some close calls.

Speaker 3 (47:14)
Yeah.

Well, like, do you have to go to the town, to the mayor, to the police? Who do you work with there? Do they come to you? Do you go to them? How's that problem?

Speaker 2 (47:23)
It's

all on us to facilitate that, to go through the permitting process and develop those relationships. And I have to tell you, some of the, we've come such good friends with a lot of the law enforcement officers that we get to work with. And, you know, we bring our professionalism, how it should go, and we get to work with them for safety. And it's just like, they're buddies. They've become really good friends. The lieutenants and sergeants and captains that we work with. ⁓

you know, they've just become, you know, really good friends. We'll go get a beer after the race and celebrate together.

Speaker 3 (47:54)
How

Speaker 1 (47:54)
So.

Speaker 3 (47:54)
do you approach them and maybe how do you approach someone for the first time let's use the fisher cats for example Because we get to run on the field How do you approach someone in a business or a town when you have a really awesome idea? To put on a race at their venue in their town on their

Speaker 2 (47:59)
I got a really good idea.

Speaker 1 (48:01)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:03)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, good question. I mean, it's got to be a win-win scenario, right? ⁓ Got to be somehow good for them, whether that's marketing.

Speaker 1 (48:17)
like you're bringing in more like give

him some incentive

Speaker 2 (48:23)
Yeah,

right. And whether it's different cost of whatever it is, there's an economics behind it. Yeah. Like, is it going to cost us? What's the benefit to us? If it's a business or, you know, whatnot, is it going to, is it going to be negative for us? Is it going to close the roads? Is that good or bad? I we work on this. talked about the optics of, know, health and wellness and positivity. And then juxtaposed against my street is closed because people are silly. Humans are running up and down my street. And because the normal person can't

Speaker 1 (48:50)
Great.

Speaker 2 (48:53)
get to Pappy's pizza. Yeah, right. So there's a there's a there's a yin and a yang with that. And that's some of where the part of our mission statement as a company is our philanthropic stuff, right. And like, we always have to go back to that as well. Because if we're if we're not helping the community in multiple facets, and one of them is being charitable, that's super important to us. So

Speaker 1 (48:55)
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:13)
Yeah, I got that here.

Speaker 1 (49:15)
choose which charities. ⁓ Is it based on race? I think in the past, haven't you done a main charity for a whole year? Or I'd know how you choose them.

Speaker 2 (49:23)
Yeah.

So that's a so I'll just go real quick. The mission statement that I created when I said like, here's the philosophy. we're going to do is like create first class events like if they're not first class and then we've evolved that to products too, because we have a store first class events, customer service and products. It has to be fantastic. If it's not fantastic, like if you're not doing a good job, you shouldn't be doing it. Right. And then the second thing is advocate wellness to as many people as we can. So be healthy.

Spread that spread the gospel of running and health. You know, race, gender, creed, really doesn't matter, like as many people can do this. Let's let's do it. And then the last part is if you do those two things well, you can definitely be charitable and give back to the community to our to the least fortunate of our community. And so we've made the philosophy of having to be super, super local.

Speaker 1 (49:56)
Make it inclusive. can do it.

That's the best.

Good.

Speaker 2 (50:20)
All our charities are super local. ⁓ Again, I mentioned my parents passed away of cancer. You know, we're not going to cure cancer with the corporate 5K coming up this week. The Delta Delta LA corporate 5K. just that's not going to cure cancer.

Speaker 3 (50:32)
get that sponsorship in it's NASCAR training right now.

Speaker 2 (50:35)
As car train.

Yeah, you can't. We're not going to cure it that way, but it benefits the Slinsky Center Center for Cancer Care, where both my parents were treated. Yeah. But like my mom got a wig free of charge when she lost all her hair. And what that did for her was like so empowering. So like, yeah, we're not going to cure it, but we can we can give a lot of wigs out.

Speaker 1 (50:49)
Absolutely.

Yeah, you're enriching the lives of people who need help.

Speaker 2 (50:57)
watching them in other ways.

Speaker 3 (50:58)
You've raised

over $2 million for charity.

Speaker 2 (51:01)
Yeah, we're at

2.1 million dollars. I would have never thought.

Speaker 3 (51:07)
We'll give a look at this one. That's the applause button, okay?

Speaker 2 (51:16)
Going back to my history of being a competitive runner, was never... Charity was not something that a professional runner thinks about. A professional basketball player doesn't think about, unless they're super wealthy.

Speaker 1 (51:31)
I feel like they're more like focused on trying to get sponsors. Yeah. More self motivated.

Speaker 2 (51:34)
It's revenue. Motivated.

Yeah. And in our sport charity and who you're running for is like when you go see the Patriots play and you're sitting in your seat, you paid 300 bucks for and you paid $100 for the hot dog and a beer. You're not saying I wonder where the money goes. Like, I wonder who benefits from that beer

but that

Speaker 1 (51:53)
I'm definitely not anticipating that money's doing any good whatsoever. It's just going to the, making the rich a little bit.

Speaker 3 (52:00)
No, 100

% I think the same

Speaker 2 (52:02)
paying

for like really big salaries and really big entertainment. The entertainment value is super high. Yeah. But you're not necessarily thinking about like where who benefits from this. Exactly. And you've never gone to Celtic team and say, benefits from my ticket sales? But when you run a race, you say, who benefits from this? It's a really weird justice position of our industry in sport. That like when you watch the Olympics, do you say who benefits from the Olympics? NBC sports, right? Right. But.

Speaker 1 (52:23)
It's true how it works,

Speaker 3 (52:30)
Snoop Dogg. ⁓

Speaker 1 (52:31)
more like.

Speaker 2 (52:31)
God, he's.

All right. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (52:34)
It's definitely it just feels very corporate. Yeah, that kind of.

Speaker 2 (52:37)
So that mission statement of giving back to local charities, I felt like was the why of the other stuff that we needed to do. And we wanted to double down on that. Each each race has charity partners in some respects, whether it means charity partners are trying to raise 500 bucks for their boosters club to get new uniforms.

Speaker 1 (52:58)
awesome. So we have a lot of that's even aside like a lot of people don't see like don't see that volunteers are helping out.

Speaker 2 (53:04)
So

we don't have, with the exception of maybe a one off volunteer, this is, I want to volunteer today. Every single person that's out there volunteering, they're volunteering on behalf of their charity. And the charity is getting a check from us. So every race, we're giving out checks to different groups, whether the person helps you park when you get to the high school. They're waving you in. They're doing it for a group and they're getting, know, they've ancient order of Hibernians, old Irish guys in Manchester. They've raised, I think we've we've provided them close to 40 or $50,000.

And they're helping with parking at all our events. We're not all of them, but the ones that need it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:39)
Yeah, I see that right now with my daughter's sports teams. Yeah. You know, we go and we volunteer our times to, they asked me the other day, go, no, I'm going to be at the race, but, ⁓ go, go clean the grandstands at New Hampshire motor speedway. the speedway donates a big check to Manchester's cobras, know, and Millennium's doing the same.

Speaker 2 (53:55)
Very similar to that aspect of it. and, there's, cause we can't hire enough employees to like man, water, stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:02)
Absolutely, that's too much.

Speaker 2 (54:04)
just not feasible, each

one of those groups has their own fundraising component to it. And we'd like to say, I remember the Cub Scouts, packed 127 in Auburn by the 10-miler when their den mom said, can we do this? Her name is Amy Binda at the time. And she said, can we do this? We'll be here, volunteer and do this. And I yeah, we'll pay you guys to do that. They stopped selling all their popcorns after. They raised like $30,000 or $40,000 over a couple of years to buy

Speaker 1 (54:28)
because...

Speaker 2 (54:34)
Is it like the richest Cub Scout group? So it's a win-win scenario for them and they their volunteer hours. Yeah, the kids got accountability. So is yeah, but then there's bigger ones that have, peer-to-peer fundraising and true donations that come out of it. So to be a small business and a family business that my you know, we own and have, you know, half a dozen or dozen employees is to have two point one million dollars or something that we've given to charity.

Speaker 3 (55:00)
Let's talk about this one other factor too, because you mentioned like ⁓ at a Celtics game or Patriots. And I know very well, because I've done multiple iron mans, like there are for-profit company and I've paid a boatload of money to get one or two really great iron man photos of me. Yeah. Every millennium race gets free photos. Like, so you're not those people, you you, you, are a company for profit. Like everyone needs to make a dollar.

Speaker 2 (55:20)
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:30)
But at the same time, you are like you're doing this and doing that and you're giving back to the runners here with photos like everyone. I scan through so many photos looking for one. I couldn't find it yesterday.

Speaker 1 (55:42)
Shout out to Zach, who is amazing. Zach Currier.

Speaker 3 (55:48)
look good while running.

Speaker 2 (55:49)
He does a great job. captures things. mean, that putting imagery behind it is amazing. And those moments are I mean, there's sometimes where it's pouring rain and Zach and we have a we have a photo team of about six.

that they can't always make every race. But they're out in the course, they're at the finish line, at the start line. Zach, he does all the promo. So he's out on his bike and he's... How about this? We did the Boston's Run to Remember the first year and he was out in Boston on his bike all over the city doing promo shots, trying to get those aerials on the bridge and close-ups of people. And he's in Boston Common and he put his bike down real quick, was taking pictures. Someone stole his bike. What?

Speaker 1 (56:29)
in the middle

of the city. no.

Speaker 2 (56:33)
And he gets back to the finish line, walks back and at the end of the day, I'm like, Zach, man, how like it was perfect. I'm like, those was awesome. He's like, man, I they were I'm sure they are. But right now, like, I don't have a bike. Got stolen. Unbelievable. I'm like, what? So our running club, Millennium Running Club, Dave, Dave Beliveau put a GoFundMe page up on our club and raised thousands of dollars and they bought a new bike within like a day.

Speaker 1 (56:59)
Way to go. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:01)
It was awesome.

Dave is one of our, he's taken on photography as a hobby and he is one of our photographers.

Speaker 3 (57:12)
He takes amazing photos of me I go I'm gonna run with him on Wednesday like he takes the best photos on just the little runs we do

Speaker 1 (57:13)
Also takes amazing pictures. ⁓

Speaker 2 (57:21)
Yeah,

he's pretty awesome. the best. We have so many talented people. What was the

Speaker 3 (57:25)
that

like motivation or what was the reason behind free photo?

Speaker 2 (57:29)
Free photos. Well, there's these these services that exist marathon photo ⁓ champion. forgot. Photo now, now I got to say, like if some of it is sponsorship driven, the ones that pay for it, like if you have a finish line when you. How much would you pay for that photo?

Speaker 1 (57:35)
So much money.

finished Boston.

Like, um, I paid $70 for a marathon photo package when I ran Boston.

Speaker 2 (57:54)
Well, so we're not so you can't get that anywhere else. It's a once in a lifetime experience for so many people. Yeah. So we're not naive to say that we're in the same ballpark for for those events, but we do capture in our photographs, capture those moments that are precious to people. It be their first ever road race. It might be someone special with them. A great photo, just like this is my new profile. Oh.

Speaker 1 (58:12)
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (58:14)
⁓ my, my philosophy was that we wanted to have a first-class product. And initially when we first did it, we had a service that we had to pay for. I'm like, this is stupid. It's got watermarks all over them. Like it just doesn't work. So selfishly, I wanted to provide a better product for our customers. The by-product of that for us was actually that when it's free, the customers share it more often. And essentially they're helping you guys are helping us advertise.

Speaker 1 (58:40)
That makes

a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (58:41)
⁓ So there's some

marketing. We want to give you the tools to share how amazing you are.

Speaker 3 (58:48)
There's a group chat.

Speaker 1 (58:49)
way you said that because like if you if you have like a great picture and you share it that day and you're just proud of your accomplishment that's exactly what you're on Instagram is going on

Speaker 2 (59:00)
Exactly. Didn't happen

on social media. Never happened. And that being said, like when you have that epic photo and you feel good about your about your cheap marathon and you were awesome and you shared something. And that that post, you know, sometimes social media can be brag book and, know, all the highlight reels, not real life, unfortunately, but you doing that was real for you and you shared it. And maybe you're inspiring to other people to do like I can do that.

Speaker 1 (59:08)
I ring that PR bell.

I so.

Speaker 2 (59:28)
Right. And

I feel like we have, we're providing you the tools to help inspire yourself, like brag about yourself a little bit, but inspire it a little bit.

Speaker 1 (59:35)
I will. If

I'm if if you're helping me, I want to help you.

Speaker 3 (59:41)
We have a group

chat and with. well, there's a lot of. Yeah, there's one of Tara Watt and. A few a few others and within 24, 48 hours after a race. It's usually terror is always first, like photos are up. And then it's like, look at this one, look at this one, look at that one, you know, and we find our best ones. And I love how you can find it by the bib and everything. And it's just.

Speaker 2 (59:43)
Who's on the group chat?

Speaker 1 (59:46)
Okay, well we have Tara, Tara Y, Tara Tardacty. Coach what?

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (1:00:07)
I

mean, the technology has gotten pretty good. It's going to get better. I think they're using more their services. I mean, part of our technology that we have for a millennium in our timing and what we do, you know, is tagged with your bib number or your tag on your number. But it's going to get I mean, it's starting to do more like facial recognition and your bib number had a five in it and you're wearing green. Oh. patterns, so that's going to I think that's going to help the photography deliverable. It might make it more expensive.

Speaker 1 (1:00:24)
⁓ right.

so it's starting to recognize all of those.

That's cool.

Speaker 2 (1:00:38)
But

it's going to give you because if you're in the shot and you're in the background. Or your hand is in front of your bib number, because like that, you know, now you're not tagged on it.

Speaker 1 (1:00:41)
You can't get the full bib.

So,

yeah. you don't have to search through a thousand photos to find it.

Speaker 2 (1:00:52)
I

wish we could just give you all of the... We're gonna implant the little chip in you. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:00:59)
I love that the photos are free because I remember like there's two photos of me doing triathlons in my when I did triathlons before what before I went from one kid to three I Think I spent $33 on one photo because I wanted it to be my at the time my Facebook cover photo Yeah, and I was like

Speaker 2 (1:01:09)
Yeah.

And then got a

digital and then he scanned it and.

Speaker 3 (1:01:22)
Now I'm

kind of like it's just like every once in a while maybe every once every three years now I see it I'm like, I spent $33.

Speaker 1 (1:01:28)
I've done that

too. think my first New York City. I did not buy the package and I wish I did. Because I was like, man.

Speaker 2 (1:01:37)
There are

some moments that like you just want to capture and I think I think those larger major marathons have They have you kind of cornered into like this is what you're

Speaker 1 (1:01:47)
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (1:01:48)
You know, the only

other photo I love of my travel career actually was a Millennium Triathlon. It's mountain beautiful. Awesome. But it's a photo of like me and 20, 30 other swimmers running out from the beach. yeah. Into Echo Lake. And it's overcast, kind of foggy. And we're like just going out into the abyss. I love that. a cool photo.

Speaker 2 (1:01:53)
White

that's cool. Well,

we thought we need to talk about something about White Mountain's triathlon. Brown, literally a code brown. This is crazy. I mean, I think I shared it. We probably should have actually tried to. wish a cyclist was leading the half Ironman and he was like 40 miles into his 56 mile bike, going 27 miles an hour down in his arrow bars and runs in T-bones a black bear.

Speaker 3 (1:02:15)
code brown

Speaker 1 (1:02:38)
My god.

Speaker 2 (1:02:40)
Yeah, I serve a tea kettle right. Yeah, like he checks him out. The bike is crushed. He turtles himself up over road rash all over his back. Fine bruised ego crushed bike. The black bear takes off.

Speaker 1 (1:02:45)
Was he okay?

Ouch.

Way ahead of anybody else. so. I know that, but was anybody around to see the bear like, no, he just like.

Speaker 3 (1:02:57)
So wait, he- Was he- Was Was Was he-

Speaker 2 (1:03:08)
I

don't know if I him afterwards, but like the report came in for our medical. get you have earpieces on. We hear like John, a medical like an idea with the medical. My God, what's up? Like we've had major things happen in our in our events that are that are hard, hard to deal with sometimes. But like we have medical, you know, I can believe this. And I'm like, oh, God, what happened? But I didn't know like what I don't know. Some died. didn't like I didn't know. And he's like, we had a collision. And I'm thinking car with a bear. I'm like, what? I'm like, is he alive?

Like, yeah, he's funny. He's he's in the car. He came back like he's carrying his like he's OK. Yeah. And Road Rash, Bruise Ego, all that sort of stuff. But I'm like the second question was, did he have a GoPro on? my God. Everybody asks the same question. Was anybody have it on film? Because if he had that, that would have gone so viral. That would have been amazing.

Speaker 1 (1:03:56)
Yeah. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:03:57)
You know, you know, actually I asked the same question when I got run over by David star and the NASCAR race. Well, there's where's the video. There was no video. We're running like. The X-rays are there,

Speaker 2 (1:04:03)
Did he have a GoPro?

Never happened. happened. Never happened.

Speaker 1 (1:04:12)
He only has the scars.

⁓

Speaker 3 (1:04:15)
But no,

no, that's a great second question. But what I actually want to know is how did you manage that? We're talking the aftermath here. People are going to ask questions and everything. Or do they? Like, that happens.

Speaker 2 (1:04:27)
That one, I mean, that one was sort of scuttlebutt. Like, did you hear someone hit a bear? It's the White Mountain Triathlon. You see there you saw. mean, you do see animals up there sometimes, but ⁓ it was just more scuttlebutt around. Yeah. And then everybody asked, do you get on video? But the guy was super nice. We gave him a free entry to next year's race called Bear 2020. Here's your code. Someone's going to use that now. ⁓

Speaker 1 (1:04:52)
Thank

Speaker 3 (1:04:53)
I gotta do a triathlon again. That one might be mine now.

Speaker 1 (1:04:56)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (1:04:57)
I know,

entry. don't know, I got it, it was amazing. But dealing with some of the medical stuff that comes up at events is sometimes challenging. It's emotional. I we've had heart attacks and knock on wood. I mean, we have amazing medical partners that are part of our events. I mean, we don't spare any costs to make sure we have great. And those are the fire departments and hospitals and EMTs, EMS, all those sort of things. And you just can't be too careful.

Speaker 1 (1:05:00)
Poor guy.

Speaker 3 (1:05:21)
Well, let's, let's talk about makes me think of actually one of the races you mentioned fire trucks. One of these signal at five Ks I did Delta dental. Now we had the hottest day of year. Yep. And I think there was four fire trucks throughout the course, just spraying water. Like, that something you manage? You go out and get,

Speaker 2 (1:05:32)
yeah.

So we work with

the fire department and stuff on that. So it's part of our the hot weather races we'll put into our plan. You know, we have to hire the detail that day for them to do it. But plug into a fire hydrant, put the diffuser on there and spray a water curtain up there. It'll cool you off. Yeah. Every couple of years, when it's that 90 degree day and 90 percent humidity, we're not going to cancel. Yeah, you know, use caution, go slow. Right. We increase water stops. We.

Speaker 3 (1:05:55)
I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. Every moment of it, I was like, yeah.

You

got to think of these things because you know, you're liable in a way,

Speaker 2 (1:06:12)
I mean, we're responsible

for a lot of, I Andy Shackett calls it people miles. Right. Is a thing he uses and it's how many people are running and how many collective miles they're running. So we have 4,000 people running the corporate 5K this next weekend and it's three miles. I mean, we have 12,000 people miles that we're responsible for ⁓ from a liability or not necessarily liability perspective. I mean, it's way to look at it, but responsibility. Right. And we have the responsibility to make sure people get back. They get to the finish line.

Speaker 1 (1:06:42)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (1:06:43)
Like they'll go the right way. Yeah, and then ultimately they're they're cared and they're safe ⁓ across the board

Speaker 3 (1:06:48)
Yeah. In my opinion, when you do those, when you take those actions and you take that responsibility and you get the fire trucks and you do things, you're looking ahead, here's the weather, like that helps you grow.

Speaker 2 (1:06:59)
like to think producing a first class, mean, whatever it is, whether it's the free photos or the medical response or how easy it is to park. I think there's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that people don't really know or they don't see necessarily. But, ⁓ yeah, I think all those things are collective too. I mean, even time, if you're timing your time, if your time is off, if they missed a bike split in your traffic, you're ⁓ so there's a lot of things that have to go right from pre-planning all the way through race day that collectively make for a good.

Speaker 3 (1:07:27)
I think it all adds up because yeah, you got to pay now for the detail of the fire department to do that, but it's going to help with, Hey, they did this. They took the action to do it. They took some of their own out. You're going to get the positive reviews on that and people are to come back versus if you don't do that, people are going to be like, I'm not going back next year. You know that that could kill you and you take action to not let that.

Speaker 1 (1:07:38)
just shows the commitment that you have to.

Speaker 2 (1:07:51)
Yeah, when we've had those, when we've had like the mistakes happen and let someone down, I mean, we just, take responsibility. Like, unfortunately, this didn't go the way we wanted it to and we'll take whatever correction, corrective action we need to do to make it better.

Speaker 1 (1:08:04)
That just becomes

a point for your Monday meeting. Yeah. Let's get better to do better.

Speaker 2 (1:08:11)
Is this our longest podcast you've ever done? Yes. my God.

Speaker 3 (1:08:15)
Yes. One. Well, Mike Beeman

Speaker 1 (1:08:19)
was pretty.

Speaker 2 (1:08:20)
I

love the B man. So I know Mike. So he taught me the beautiful love of a long run. So I was a high school junior and senior when I met Mike and he he he owned a store called Total Sports in London, Derry. Yeah, total sports and I knew him because I would buy shoes from him and. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:08:34)
Yes, we-

Speaker 1 (1:08:35)
We

were trying to remember what it was.

Speaker 2 (1:08:42)
You know that my dad was laid off when I was in high school. He gave me a free pair of cleats or spikes to wear. mean, just the nicest guy. But we just go and sit in the stool and just talk. You didn't have to buy anything. Oh, And now he's like, so so we inspired when we had this store and we built the store is to make it be a place for community to come in and shop and talk and why are you here? Who are you? You're just buying a pair of shoes. You're telling.

Speaker 1 (1:08:55)
It was like community. a wealth of stories.

Yeah.

You have a reason why you're buying. Yeah. What are your goals? Yeah. Working for.

Speaker 2 (1:09:14)
That's

pretty cool. And so Mike's an inspiration for me, but he's like TikTok famous now. my God. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:09:18)
I

like to say he got the honor run.

Speaker 1 (1:09:23)
I'm not doing it right. Tara can do it better.

Speaker 3 (1:09:25)
to say he got the on the runs bump because he was our 21st episode erica cracked a beer on that one and it was so long we made it into a two episode part you know it was episode 21 and 22 and boy we're approaching my

Speaker 2 (1:09:38)
We're approaching.

Speaker 1 (1:09:38)
I lost it to you guys.

Speaker 2 (1:09:42)
I went on

so many long runs with him in high school. He taught me how to run over, you know, 10 miles and more.

Speaker 1 (1:09:47)
was awesome.

Speaker 3 (1:09:47)
Yeah,

he was a great storyteller. just, one of the other podcasts we produce now, he just went on that one, the LAG show.

Speaker 2 (1:09:53)
I

mean, he's like, 50, 53 marathon. mean, 48.

Speaker 3 (1:09:57)
Boston's 48.

48 two more years for 50. God. Yeah, two more years for 50. So we just saw him at the Gulf's tongue gal.

John, you've

been so incredible right now with your time. It's not over yet. We got a couple of big questions, but I want to finish. I'm saving the store. I'm saving the talk about the store for Jennifer.

Okay. All right. Because I know she's the mastermind behind this. Maybe not the architectural part. Maybe she was, but I know that's your background. I want to talk last about Millennium, about the community you've built. have the Millennium Running Club and I still call it today the best $40 I ever spent on a babysitter was when I, when I paid a babysitter so I could go to your jacket party and meet face to face. So you do so many cool events outside of just a run. Like you got the club where if you're going to go and do three races or get this many miles, you get the ultra jack.

Or you get this jacket that jacket and then you have a big jacket party You've built a community throughout not just you don't have to be a Millennium running club member to be a part of this But you built this community here in the greater state or the general area like you go to Florida now for rain Let's talk a little bit about the community you've built and the people in it because we know a lot of them the guy mark I ran into the other day Tara Watts been party your Millennium running club. Yeah five years now tell us a little bit about the Millennium running club. that's a mouthful

Speaker 2 (1:11:03)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:11:16)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (1:11:16)
Millennium

running club started as the Millennium running social club. We started it. So I had the Shamrock shuffle 2011. Yeah, going way back machine. Not quite that Lauren did, but close 2011. Shamrock shuffle was going to happen for a first year and you get a free beer when you're done. Complementary beer is not free. We pay for it. Yes. You get a beer ticket. Very well. Redeemable. Redeemable. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. People don't know free is not free.

Redeemable one of the three Irish pubs in Manchester after the race. So to a lead up to it, I said, well, why don't we just do a training run each Thursday prior to the race in March? And so I got the Chastain, the Murphys and Strange Brutal do a print. So I said, I.

I think Harpoon Brewery was our, I got them to sponsor it. I basically said, I wanna give out a complimentary beer and a t-shirt for anybody that comes to all three. So we, and I called it the, I forget what we called it the first year. It was Millennium Running Sculpture Club.

Speaker 1 (1:12:14)
Mm.

Speaker 2 (1:12:20)
No, wasn't. No, it was after that. So we did that for the. So sorry, I'm confusing myself. It's been a long time. So we did those each week. Like I think we did a Facebook post. We had like 12 people and we had like 16 people and we had like 22 people show up and they had so much fun. Everybody's drinking beers after the run at the Cheskine. The last one. You need to keep on doing this, John. You have another race. We should do this for the next race, too. Why not? That's a good. Like three beers into it. That's a really good idea.

Speaker 1 (1:12:25)
Thank

Yeah, keep it going.

Speaker 2 (1:12:48)
Okay. That's where the best idea is. Three harpoons and you're like, ⁓ you're staying away from that. ⁓ that, ⁓ so ultimately we did it for the next couple of races that we mentioned the Manchester mile three weeks before we did it again. And then that turning to the next year, then we created the millennium running social club. And then it was every Thursday.

Speaker 1 (1:12:54)
and a Yeager bum.

Speaker 2 (1:13:12)
⁓ and then my, then, I mean, it was probably bad for me because every Thursday I was going out to the bars with ⁓ a kid at home and one on the way. wife was like, what are you doing? so it, but it kind of took on a life of its own. And I think we were at the wild Rover one time and we pulled up to go to the run and we had like 150 people at the bar. Like the police department.

Speaker 1 (1:13:34)
Wow. Overwhelming.

Speaker 2 (1:13:37)
brought the cruise, they're like, do you have a permit for this? I'm like, no, it's just a. Running club things are sort of super vogue in cities right now. They're very cool. They're like all over social media. Yeah, I think we were like one of the earlier social running clubs existed back in 2011, 12 is kind of the Haiti of it. And then when we opened our retail store.

Speaker 1 (1:13:41)
People meeting up together.

Speaker 2 (1:13:59)
⁓ And Jen moved it. We moved down. We moved down here open our retail store Jen got really involved in the running club side of it and It became more a running club because we had more to offer then it wasn't just the races and a pub run It was we have we have the store. have nutrition. We have ⁓ Just a lot more to it and Jen being you know

hyper competitive former all American runner herself has a lot to give and she coaches. So she brought a lot more content and now we still do pub runs once a month, but more people come to our Tuesday track workouts than ever came to pub runs. Our track workouts are just a hundred people every night.

Speaker 1 (1:14:35)
wow.

Speaker 3 (1:14:37)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:14:40)
If I'm going to do like a speed workout or something, I'd rather do it with a lot of people. Yeah. Misery loves company.

Speaker 2 (1:14:47)
But they're doing,

mean, our, you know, and I do them every once in a while when it fits in my schedule. Cause you know, we were all over the map on stuff that she coaches, but maybe 7,500 people out there. And afterwards they're on the track or on the Hill doing core, doing 20 minutes of core exercises after the war. mean, they're, the content is super high. So we have this amazing, ⁓ group of people in our running club that are just the best.

best part of our community. And we were on to a sort of social thing and you're like, why do you like this? Why do you do? And I guarantee you, if we asked every person, what's the best thing about it, they're going to say the people. Yeah. They're going to say the people, the people, the people's relationships matter. We've had people get married because of like meet their future spouse. We've had people get divorced because they met their future spouse. So like all of those things and more. ⁓

Speaker 1 (1:15:31)
I'm

Speaker 2 (1:15:38)
You know, we have two staff members that one got engaged at. Like, it's been really cool to see a part of it. And, you know, ⁓ even our employees, our employee base comes from that. So they're awesome.

Speaker 1 (1:15:41)
No way.

Speaker 3 (1:15:51)
Love what you built. I love seeing when people do this build these things were in especially Locally, it's so cool to see and I have so many questions. I could ask you we can do this again sometime I will go out there and say this is officially the longest we we are at

Speaker 1 (1:16:07)
John ⁓

Speaker 2 (1:16:08)
You know what Jen's gonna

say? She's like, you just won't shut up.

Speaker 3 (1:16:13)
It's me. It's me. I promise you it's me. It's my fault. It's my fault. John's been looking at his watch the whole time, Jen, saying, yo, I got to wrap this up. No. But this you've been so gracious with your time. Final two questions. I'm going to let Erica go first.

Speaker 1 (1:16:22)
Okay.

We promise.

Mine's pretty easy. So John, we have a Spotify playlist and we like to invite our guests to add something to it.

Speaker 2 (1:16:37)
You know, I've heard you do this and I was thinking about that. I did. Well, I've listened to him and I'm a fan, so I've heard him and like, you know, I know Jamie did like crazy train. He likes disco, too. It's like Jamie gets.

Speaker 1 (1:16:40)
Exactly what he had a heads up.

gonna pump us runners up when we need something different to ⁓

Speaker 2 (1:16:57)
So I have a so sometimes

I use my some of the smaller races that I might be on the mic and do the PA. ⁓ I love like Snoop Dogg. Yeah, right. You mentioned before, love. yeah, I know. Right. And unfortunately, I my explicit filter is not always off. So I was at the pool at the kids' bath on my son was there. He's like, Dad, you need to change this music.

Speaker 1 (1:17:06)
I love Snoop Dogg.

⁓ no!

Speaker 2 (1:17:24)
Like these little kids here like gosh, so I'm gonna say Anything from death row records just get let's go

Speaker 1 (1:17:32)
I will scan. you have nothing off the top of your head, I'm going to have my homework.

Speaker 3 (1:17:36)
Hey, she's good at that. She's very good at that. All right. Here's my question I change mine up every year this year's question is On the runs as hosting this imaginary, maybe we'll really do it. Maybe you can help me but this Pasta dinner, okay, and you can bring anyone outside of your family I'm adding that now for the second half the year outside your family because Jen's already welcome

Speaker 2 (1:17:36)
Yeah, yeah.

I don't know, don't think I know this one.

Speaker 1 (1:17:46)
Thank

You

Speaker 2 (1:18:00)
Okay, Jen's already gone.

Speaker 1 (1:18:01)
Kids too.

Speaker 3 (1:18:02)
You

get a plus one you can bring anyone in the world alive or dead who are you gonna bring? Are you gonna bring them both? well, you know what yeah

Speaker 2 (1:18:07)
I'd bring one of my mom or dad. Family. You

Speaker 1 (1:18:11)
you suck.

Speaker 2 (1:18:13)
said family. That's a no brainer. gosh. That's a good question. I'd probably bring either my college coach or my high school coach. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're both retired from coaching,

Speaker 1 (1:18:21)
I can't help you.

Speaker 3 (1:18:25)
Are they still around?

great

yeah maybe we'll really do a big pasta dinner one yeah

Speaker 1 (1:18:34)
I would love that.

We'd have some pretty cool people.

Speaker 2 (1:18:37)
only

if we can have some Chianti. All right. OK. Hey.

Speaker 1 (1:18:40)
Red wine. Wine connoisseur.

Speaker 3 (1:18:43)
This has

been absolutely amazing. Dream come true. I played you that clip from episode one. Like this has been manifesting since episode one. So this is super cool. Thank you so much for your time. We've met so many of your people and staff throughout the last three plus years from Bridget, from DJ, DJ Darren Roy, Jamie Staten, like Miguel. There's so many employees of yours who we know who just pump the tires. And I want to give a special shout out to Bridget because she came over to me at a bar once. I never met her.

She goes, are you that podcast guy? You need to have my boss on. And this was a while ago. And then she talked all about you and Jen. then the other thing is, so Bridget said,

Speaker 2 (1:19:17)
And she goes.

She's an

OG employee at our store. She was the first opening day employee when we opened in 2016. She's been with us for a long time. She's a teacher and and soon to be a mom. Yeah, very good. She's working the story the other day.

Speaker 3 (1:19:37)
close.

Speaker 1 (1:19:39)
Congratulations!

Speaker 3 (1:19:41)
But your

staff, your team rave about you in the company. So I wanted to throw that in there. Oh, yeah. Because and we're super excited. I was telling her I ran into her at Hannaford's actually. Well, this was was about it. This was around the time you gave me the phone call and or shortly after that, and I run into and I go, guess who called me every day? And I told her you called and I was like, I'm going to be there. And then she goes, when? I told her the date and she goes, crap.

Speaker 2 (1:19:45)
⁓ Thank you.

I hope she's pregnant, you don't need to hurt her.

You

Thanks

Speaker 3 (1:20:10)
It's a day after my

last day. ⁓

Speaker 1 (1:20:12)
Yeah,

Speaker 2 (1:20:13)
She's taking a maternity

leave, So funny. That's funny. She's she's fantastic. But you should have said like, well, how'd you get my number?

Speaker 3 (1:20:22)
how do you get my number?

Speaker 2 (1:20:26)
know everything like you signed up for our races. have I know where you live. I know you're so scared. You know, like I got

Speaker 3 (1:20:34)
I'll

tell you this story. There's some stories. right, so So back to the best $40 ever spent

Speaker 2 (1:20:38)
Who's it?

Speaker 1 (1:20:38)
We're

going registering under fake name.

Speaker 2 (1:20:42)
It can

be used for good too.

Speaker 3 (1:20:47)
I get your name. get your email from terror after that or from somebody. I it was Tara and I shoot you an email and then we fired back once or twice and I'm on an airplane flying home and I got wifi and I'm emailing like 10 emails and one of them was to you and I get off the airplane. I walk I get in my truck. I'm driving home and so, know how sometimes your phone will actually tell you who's calling you like maybe it's AT &T or maybe it's like the electric company and you don't know the number of real say the name like it might say Millennium running. Yeah.

actually said John Mortimer.

Speaker 2 (1:21:19)
really?

That's cool. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:21:21)
I don't know,

but I'm driving and then all of a sudden it John Mortimer and I was like.

Speaker 1 (1:21:25)
You pick up the spam call spam spam likely.

Speaker 3 (1:21:28)
I pretended

when I answered it'd be like I don't know who's calling but I took a moment before I hit

Speaker 2 (1:21:33)
the

green button.

Speaker 1 (1:21:36)
that's.

Speaker 3 (1:21:37)
That was cool. That was cool. And I love I mean, I know I can talk a lot and you said you could too, but man That was a cool phone call

Speaker 2 (1:21:44)
I mean,

I think we're emailing and I was like, I love in life relationships and I just rather pick up the phone like you can. We spend too much time on device email. Like talk to see, talk to people. just, don't know.

Speaker 3 (1:21:57)
Yeah, it was a great call. Made this happen.

Speaker 1 (1:21:58)
You're old school. ⁓

Speaker 3 (1:22:01)
This was great. And you challenged us in a way not you didn't like actually challenge me. But when we proposed this concept in the store, I was like, okay, that's the next step for us. And so we got a tripod I bought in high school and a camera I bought for Disney World. got the right cables. I got everything. I tested it out.

Speaker 2 (1:22:19)
Well,

I think I think you guys do a great job. Like I said, I'm a big fan. I listen to lot of the episodes. ⁓ We can't we can't do a great job without having great people that run the races. And thank you guys for spreading love. And well, this is inspiring people. Yeah. Keep on moving. Let's go.

Speaker 3 (1:22:24)
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (1:22:25)
a fan of you and what you've

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (1:22:36)
This great. Sorry

guys for the super long episode. be a two parter. Come see us this weekend at the New Hampshire Ten Mile, because we'll be there, John will be there, the amazing staff will be there, and if it works out, we might be in the back of that church parking lot again doing a little live recording after like last year.

Speaker 1 (1:22:40)
But, hey.

Speaker 2 (1:22:55)
put

you right in that right in the village right in that registration area.

Speaker 1 (1:23:00)
Well,

We're going to party pace, right? We're going to get a whole group together and just have a blast. We're going to ring this thing.

Speaker 3 (1:23:11)
It's great. It's a great event at a beautiful spot and sad to see it go, but it's going to be fun. So we'll see you guys here this weekend and can't wait to see you. And I hopefully before then we'll have finally met Jamie in person at the five K, but I can't wait to see you guys there. That's going to be a great race. So John, thank you so much. This was awesome guys. John Mortimer on the on the runs podcast. That was wicked awesome.

Speaker 2 (1:23:36)
Thank

you.

Erika (1:23:40)
Well, there you have it, you guys. I hope you enjoyed John's entire Millennium Running story with him and his history, his running history, and how Millennium started and how he came about creating all of these wonderful races that we get to be a part of nowadays. So awesome.

Eric (1:23:57)
I don't even think it's

the entire story. we, as I said, right, right. Or as I said yesterday with someone else, pick the scab. barely, like we barely dove into the business part. We failed to mention they've raised over $2 million for charity. There's so much more we could have talked. We could have recorded all night past midnight, but you would have lost your streak.

Erika (1:24:00)
I, we haven't even scratched the surface, I swear.

Uh-huh.

I'm sure.

I would have been doing laps inside the Millennium Store while you guys, you guys keep going on without me. I'll just carry my, my God, they did have a treadmill. I messed up. I should have just done my mile in the store.

Eric (1:24:26)
You could have done it, they have a treadmill there!

Yeah, you should have done it there. So I was there, well, let's just

talk after recording, even before, like this has been so much fun, courting this with John, making it all happen. It's been a couple months in the making actually, because he, I said, know what, John, I want to do this in person and I need to get on video and I don't want to do it the crappy way we did the Christmas episode last year. I wanted a real camera. Right, so I figured things out and we said, we'll kick off.

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

The crappy way. Learning a lot,

Eric (1:24:58)
the second half of the summer when we come back from our break with you. it was so much fun, practice setting up, making sure you had the right thing going on, the right cable here and there, doing trial and errors. And then when we showed up and he was so welcoming, not only that, but after he gave us, you'll see it in the vlog, he gave us this whole behind the scenes tour. You and I are actually the first people to set eyes on the New Hampshire 10-Miler

Erika (1:25:07)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:25:28)
Metal.

Erika (1:25:29)
That is true. That is so true. It was such a privilege to get to see that and know what we're working towards on Saturday when those hills are, well, crushing my spirit. could at least say that for certain. Yes. Yes. Good. Perfect. That is what I want. will, I I will be much happier if we're, if we're all in this together.

Eric (1:25:40)
Well we're gonna party pace you said. No spirits will be crushed, we're gonna party pace. Yes. Yeah.

it's

gonna be great. The weather looks amazing too.

Erika (1:25:54)
Yes. Yes.

I'm glad it starts on the early side. I know it could be a little warm in the afternoon, but hey, if we're just hanging out and recording some guest appearances and to see who wants to talk to us, it can be as hot as it wants. I don't care.

Eric (1:26:07)
Yeah. And if you want

to be the guest, can come over to the table and sit down, say hi. We're going to have open mics for anyone who wants to come and say hi. I'm sure we'll talk to a few people we know, but I would love to meet people we don't know and haven't met. Like this is going to be fun. This is kind of like, I don't know if this was in the picture when we started, but this came into the picture within the first, around episode 50, like

Erika (1:26:11)
Please! Yes!

Eric (1:26:32)
All right, long term and it's happening.

Erika (1:26:32)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and you guys are totally gonna help me with my slight public speaking ⁓ trepidancy. that the word I want? I have a little trepidation. ⁓ I know, it's just people watching me.

Eric (1:26:44)
It's gonna be just like a real episode though. We like to create an atmosphere where you feel like you're in the room. And that's why the conversation

isn't like an interview where we're just asking the questions. We're sharing our personal stories too with the guests. We try not to do it too much. We try not to repeat like my Lake Placid story multiple times.

Erika (1:26:58)
Yeah.

or

you being run over by a NASCAR.

Eric (1:27:06)
Yeah, well you know some people, they miss that, it goes right over the head. They go, wait, you worked in NASCAR? And I'm like, yeah, you know, we've talked about this before in the pod. Well, I joined maybe a couple episodes ago or earlier in the year, so sometimes it's fun.

Erika (1:27:13)
Mm-hmm.

Hey, we

welcome all the new listeners. It's super cool. Just keep spreading the word. We absolutely love it. So if we share a couple stories that you've heard here and there, just don't hold it against us.

Eric (1:27:29)
Yeah. But that's the

atmosphere I hope to have at the race. More like a, you're part of the conversation. You're there. We'll ask you how your day went and everything and who you are. Tell us about you, but we're just getting to know you. This isn't, you know, Oprah or the Ellen show. This is on the runs.

Erika (1:27:33)
Yeah, real chill. We're going to have fun.

yeah.

love to be Oprah someday where we could be like, you get my race tats, you get some right socks, everybody get some stuff. Like I would love to just give out some stuff, especially from our wonderful sponsors.

Eric (1:27:58)
That's right.

Yes.

Well, and we need to mention those partners because we totally forgot to do on Tuesday. I know, I know. We need better structure. But we have a couple brands that have partnered with us for the New York City Marathon, know, fundraising we're doing. So MyRacedHats and RightSocks have partnered with us. And if you go, the link is in the show notes. If you want to get some MyRacedHats for your next big race or a fall marathon, or if you want to get some new fresh socks.

Erika (1:28:04)
Mm-hmm. We spaced it. We're so sorry.

We do, we do.

Eric (1:28:30)
Go check out Right Socks and you're going to learn more about them soon. The double layered socks, they're fantastic. 15 % of your purchase goes towards my New York City fundraising. So no, you don't get a discount. I'm sorry. We went this way. And, and, and I'm not expecting thousands. Like I might, you know what, if I even get a hundred dollars out of this, amazing. I'm so thrilled though, that I do know people have gone and purchased because it shows

Erika (1:28:48)
Hey, they're quality stuff though.

Eric (1:29:00)
it works and these partners of ours who've joined us are like, hey, we want to continue a partnership and we have more on that to come soon. So I'm super excited. Thank you so much, Dawn at my race tats, Caitlin and the entire family at Right Socks. You guys rock. You're awesome. Thank you so much for supporting this podcast.

Erika (1:29:08)
Nice.

And I have to say that was super cool going back to your vlog. We got to see a little behind the scenes of your big fundraising night. That's it was, it was like controlled chaos. I think that's the way to do it because you had Jen standing up with a megaphone yelling out numbers. Adeline was bringing the raffle prizes to the winners and there were so many people there and just the generosity. I could just feel it in the room. It was amazing.

Eric (1:29:25)
What do you think?

It was. Yeah.

Erika (1:29:47)
So congratulations to you guys. And I hope you guys have reached your goals or are getting close. Right, Eric? How are you doing?

Eric (1:29:51)
We're getting close, not there yet. Got a little ways to go.

Under a grand. It doesn't actually say that on the website because all the money was Venmo'd to me after we raised it We raised nearly $4,000 at that raffle night. So about a grand to go for me. About a grand. So go buy some right socks, go get some I-Race-Tatch. I would rather you get cool product versus just giving me money. If you want to give me money...

Erika (1:29:56)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Amazing.

Okay!

Or you could

just give him money because he's got two weeks to get the rest of the money. ⁓

Eric (1:30:19)
I technically I do. Yeah, but we're going to do so

I got to have that thousand by the September 1st and I will just pay it myself. But we are going to do a smaller raffle at an event coming up in September with a couple raffle prizes kind of to the side of the event. And you can also donate in any of that money that happens at that night kind of makes up for what I'll throw in the pot on the first to to finish the pot because it's different. I need to get the money before.

Erika (1:30:27)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:30:47)
two full months before the New York City Marathon where typically I've never fundraised for a race before, but typically you get like until a month after the race, right?

Erika (1:30:56)
Yeah. I mean, that's how it was when I did Boston. Boston, well, that was a ridiculous amount of money. And thank God they gave us until, I think I had May 1st. So just a few weeks later. But I joined the team late, so I already had less time to raise money. So I was very thankful that I had extra time. But yeah, it seems a little weird that it's two full months before you run. But hey, you're getting it done.

Eric (1:31:23)
Yeah, but it's fine. You know, it takes off that pressure.

Like either you made your money or you already paid it, you don't have to worry about it. Focus on training for the last two months because that's really what I gotta do. Yeah, that's really what I I got a couple half marathons in mind. I don't know which one I'm gonna do yet, but I'm thinking I want to do the New England half.

Erika (1:31:30)
yeah. That's what you should be stressing over.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:31:47)
And that's

a couple weeks before the New York City Marathon. So I actually am also thinking, if it works out cheerleading schedule, in September running the Clarence Del Mar half marathon.

Erika (1:31:54)
Mm-hmm.

I love that for you. Clarence Damar is a wonderful race. You will have a blast. That is one of, I had a blast doing it, think two years ago. And then that is one of KJ's favorite races, because she is a keen native and knows the area very well. So yeah, that's a great choice. I would run it with you if I was there. But I think that's my Yeti weekend. I'll be in Virginia again. Is it the 26th or something, like the 27th?

Eric (1:32:16)
Yeah. Yeah. If it works out.

Where are you gonna be?

Yeah,

that sounds right. Well, yeah, it would be a week after NASCAR. Yeah, sounds right. Yeah.

Erika (1:32:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

If it was the weekend before, which I ran the full marathon before my first Yeti. ⁓ cause that's your, yeah, that's your NASCAR. Okay.

Eric (1:32:36)
If it was the weekend before, I won't be there. I know it's not already checked. It's not NASCAR weekend, which is like the 21st or something, which I'll do a

ton of running that weekend around the property and all the people waking up in the morning drinking more beer, they're looking at me running around like a madman. They're like, what are you doing?

Erika (1:32:46)
Well good.

You should do your own beer

mile. Do a beer mile and then watch the race.

Eric (1:32:56)
could vlog a beer mile. ⁓ maybe I could get like, maybe I could organize a beer mile there at NASCAR.

Erika (1:32:58)
That would be, dude, do it.

That would be

so, so fun. Hey, I could join you at that one. I'll be around for that. Yeah.

Eric (1:33:06)
Do it. Yeah. Come for,

let's do that. Can we do that? Let's, let's do a beer mile at NASCAR. Who wants to do this? I need someone to come and watch the boys cause they'll be with me, but there's the perfect stretch, right? With all the campers. We'll just run down and back down and back. my God. Guys NASCAR week in beer mile. That's going to be a thing. Yes.

Erika (1:33:11)
Sure.

huh.

I

bet you could get a lot of people to join you or at least get the people to drink the beers with you so you won't be alone. Ooh.

Eric (1:33:36)
could do it Saturday night. guess

what else we do on Saturday night? Lobster. ⁓

Erika (1:33:41)
What? I don't do lobster.

Eric (1:33:49)
You don't eat lobster, I forgot.

Erika (1:33:47)
Third time's a charm.

No, but that's more for everybody else. I just want chicken fingers. That's all. Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:33:53)
Okay. Chicken fingers are fine. So we talked

about, kind of teased if you guys want to do this, we want to run the Mount Washington auto road race next year. And I talked about camping in that whole field, but we want to do lobsters there after. Like, so if everyone wants to come and get a campsite after we'll in the field steam a bunch of lobsters. I forgot you don't like lobsters though. Okay. Lobsters and chicken fingers, chicken fingers for those like six star here.

Erika (1:34:04)
Yeah, let's get a whole team there too.

And also bring chicken fingers. Yay.

Yay. All right, I'm in.

Eric (1:34:26)
Alright,

cool. Anyways, Bear Mile, that would be pretty epic. Yeah, we're gonna work on those details. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Maybe, maybe we won't do it Saturday. Maybe we'll do it Friday night. We'll figure it out. Alright, cool. You've never, you've never been to NASCAR. it's the best.

Erika (1:34:30)
Come on, that's gotta be fun. That's gotta be really fun.

Okay.

probably do Friday night. Sure. Sure. ⁓ I have not. Well, I've been

there before because one of the old, there was a half marathon that started at the Speedway and ran into Concord. was like the curious traveler half. This was like 13.

Eric (1:34:55)
⁓ Did it run all in 1.06?

That had to be boring.

Erika (1:34:59)
Maybe it was pretty though, because it was October and everything was changing colors.

Eric (1:35:02)
Okay, there's

so many events there and there's so many in the past, like they used to host a Tough Mudder. ⁓ Millennium has a race there, like Yule the Knight.

Erika (1:35:09)
interesting.

Yeah, you'll run the... damn it. You'll light up the night. That's the one. There's like two million Christmas lights or something. Okay, there we go.

Eric (1:35:14)
something, you go through all the Christmas lights, there's over three million. We... Yes, that was it. And then somebody told

me there was actually used to be an official beer mile race and on pit road, you would have your own pit box and your team would have to run a mile, go into the pit box and then chug a beer. And then the next person runs a mile. Like, cause the speedway there is exactly a mile. that would be cool.

Erika (1:35:31)
Sweet.

That's so fun. Did you watch

the new, like they do a beer mile championship every year and, ⁓ I watched the YouTube. Yeah, it's usually during the summer. They had it in Chicago last year. I forget where it was this year, but ⁓ some records got broken. Some real fast beer miles were done. So impressive.

Eric (1:35:45)
I didn't see it yet this year. When was it? It's the summer,

Yeah.

Speaking of records getting broken and speaking of podcast, I mentioned, don't, you know, if you Swifties out there could have counted right away, I mentioned like more than six or seven Taylor Swift songs. Did you see Taylor Swift go on the New Heights podcast? Did you watch it?

Erika (1:36:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't watch the whole thing. course I've seen the clip though, but it's just, I love how she's dropping, dropping her new album and.

Eric (1:36:22)
yeah.

I watched

the whole thing in my hotel at DC. I just randomly turned it on three hours after it dropped and it already had over 4 million views on just YouTube. But by the next morning, it had over 15 just on YouTube. Not including Apple and everything else. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. Like, and she talked.

Erika (1:36:30)
Okay.

Holy shit. wow.

That is so impressive.

Eric (1:36:52)
You know, she talked about baking sour dough bread, but what was what was like amazing to me to hear was the story about her getting her music back. Did you catch that part?

Erika (1:37:02)
No, because I only saw the clip where that was out in social media about the actual release of her album. So no, didn't.

Eric (1:37:09)
Okay, so, but

all her music in the past, she didn't own. Just like Michael Jackson never owned his music. You actually pop quiz, you know who bought Michael Jackson's music at an auction and outbid Michael Jackson? Paul McCartney from the Beatles. Who would do that? Why would Paul McCartney do that? They were like best friends too. And he bought Michael Jackson's music so Michael couldn't have it. Yeah.

Erika (1:37:15)
Yes, I have heard that whole saga though.

No? Who?

No shit. Paul McCartney? What was he gonna do with Michael Jackson's music?

What? And

they're best friends? I don't think so. That's not a best friend thing to do.

Eric (1:37:40)
I wouldn't say best friends, good friends at the time. I know. But Taylor got her music

back and it was such a cool thing. So what I didn't know is if you ever look up Taylor Swift, and I have to look her up on Spotify from time to time because kids want to hear Taylor Swift, there's always two versions of her song. And so...

Erika (1:37:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, yeah,

Taylor's version, was like that was her way of taking her music back was re-recording it. Yep. I did.

Eric (1:38:02)
I didn't know it, so she re-recorded it. I never knew that. And I learned that, so that was amazing. She got her music back,

but also she now owns two versions of them all. So, Teardrops on My Guitar, and then Teardrops on My Guitar, Taylor's version. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Erika (1:38:13)
Good for her.

Taylor's version.

is going to be very proud of you for, for actually like starting to learn some Taylor Swift stuff. She caught, she caught on.

Eric (1:38:24)
I love you, Carolina. I actually wanted to mention that. I'm hoping before she hears this part that she shoots me

a shout out on the intro there when I listed all those songs. So speaking of Carolina, I met her, you know who introduced me to her? Yuki, who made an appearance on the pod. Oh, the vlog. Yeah. You know what didn't make an appearance on the vlog?

Erika (1:38:33)
Probably.

Mm-hmm.

Who? ⁓ yeah, duh. That's right, on the vlog, on your vlog. Mm-hmm, yep.

I couldn't tell you.

Eric (1:38:53)
So

the boys made an appearance, but we're going through the whole, I wouldn't say potty training, but lately there's been a lot of nature

Erika (1:39:01)
you

Yeah, you can't show that on. that's funny.

Eric (1:39:05)
They just whip it out. Right. So everywhere in the middle

of anywhere. In fact, when we get home, sometimes they'll walk right by the bathroom to the, the door, to the yard and they'll just go in the yard. Right. So we're standing for the national anthem at the kids' triathlon. And then all of a sudden I looked to my left and Tommy is taking a leak during the national anthem. And I'm just like, my God, my God. And I was a little off to the side, but.

Erika (1:39:21)
What?

my God.

Eric (1:39:35)
That has been happening.

Erika (1:39:35)
What do I do?

Eric (1:39:37)
my God, what a phase we're going through right now.

Erika (1:39:42)
do you nip that in the bud? How do you? No, no, no, no, no, no, hold it. You can't tell a kid to hold it. Are they? Okay, because that sounds like a dangerous game to play. I know nothing about potty training.

Eric (1:39:45)
Exactly. Well, you know, they're getting better at holding it like on the spot when they have to I guess but

Parents just

look at it and they go, Ben there. Pretty much they go, yep, Ben there, with boys, with boys. So

Erika (1:40:00)
I'm sure, yeah. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Eric (1:40:04)
that

Erika (1:40:05)
I think you've made it. You know what they say? You've really made it when you get a troll, you've got a troll. You're giving the troll that.

Eric (1:40:16)
made it! I

got a troll comment. I was so excited. I was like, I got a hater. I actually called Ali G, who bailed on me, by the way. Well, we can talk about that later. I said, what do you call this? What is it called? It's a thing. What is it? I had a troll comment. Someone said like, my vlogging sucked, basically. It's like, I, she goes, I suggest you get it sorted out. Okay. Okay.

Erika (1:40:19)
you

⁓ yep.

I believe it was your blogging.

Was it a woman? I don't even know, but they just suggested, because they are the experts apparently.

Eric (1:40:48)
Hell yeah, it was a woman.

Yeah, yeah,

no it was it was still funny because I saw it like I had three or six comments or something and I Threw an email. I saw it on an email and so I was like, oh no way people commented

Erika (1:41:05)
Mm-hmm.

Wait,

you get your comments from, they email them to you? does, ⁓ has like a new comment or something or.

Eric (1:41:12)
Yeah, like I'll get an email that says, know, your video has been out for 24 hours. It has this

many views, this many comments, that many likes. go comments? What? And I went and looked at it. I laughed. I was like, this is funny. I know I sent her some kind of response. Like, thank you so much. Oh, because she called it a blog. I go, thank you so much. I will take this into consideration when I decide to finally start a blog.

Erika (1:41:29)
Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm glad you took it in stride.

Eric (1:41:42)
I think it was a bot or something. I don't

think it's real. I don't think it was real.

Erika (1:41:46)
well good. Yeah, I probably would have been like, man. But yeah, you don't let that kind of stuff get to you.

Eric (1:41:48)
But it's funny. Yeah, it's funny. No,

but it's cool. It's kinda cool. Like one day it will probably get old and boring if for some reason that happened all the time. But you just, yeah, you just block it out. But hey, we made it, we made it, yeah!

Erika (1:41:56)
Yeah.

Let's hope it doesn't. We can only go up from here. Yay.

It's really you. It's not me. Sure. Uh-huh.

Eric (1:42:11)
Well, no, it's we. It's like I said, it's always we.

that, it's been an amazing week. got, what did we say, 52 days to the Chicago Marathon. How you feeling?

Erika (1:42:23)
Bring it on. I am ready. I am very, very ready. My legs feel good. I feel good. I am just amped and ready to go. Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:42:24)
Nice. Nice.

You're strong. I mean, you're doing a hundred

milers. You got a hundred miler before Chicago. You got an ultra after Chicago. Like you're insane. You need to do more strength training though, and you need to stretch more.

Erika (1:42:33)
I do. I do. Yeah, probably. Yes. Yes.

Yes. ⁓ KJ is working on that. I already told her I'm like, am ready. Let's ramp it back up again because a majority, like the other races that were so close together, they're finished. Those are done for the season. So now it's back into, I'm pretty much focusing on the marathon though. Like I want the speed and I know that I can run walk the 100.

Eric (1:42:59)
Okay.

Erika (1:43:02)
before that, it's two weeks before. And then probably not my smartest move, but Ghost Train is the weekend after Chicago, but I'll be fine. Like, just going to wing that one. I'll have, I'll have Chad Alter with me. Like, yes. Uh huh. Yep. Yep.

Eric (1:43:11)
You're good to go. Just chill. Just hang out. Hang out with your people because your people are going to be there. I think Jason and Megan are going to be there. ⁓ Ultra Chad's going to be there. Yep.

Erika (1:43:23)
But yeah, and then hopefully whoever I can get from the area who wants to just drop in. mean, Jay lives close. Tara said she would come by. Hopefully I can get Lindsay. If anybody wants to share a lap with me, I should get Shana to come. you think she would want to do a lap with me? It's walking. It's literally walking in the back half of this thing. So, but yeah.

Eric (1:43:34)
Get Shana to come. Yeah.

Yeah, why not? Right, absolutely. That one, that's the one I'm

gonna try to make, because it's close enough. I won't be at, and I won't be at Hamster Wheel. Yeah, 73 days. We're really getting there. I feel like I'm where I was last year, and I got really good last year until I didn't.

Erika (1:43:51)
That, well, yes, because you've got New York City and I want to know how you're feeling for that. Where's your training at?

Okay.

Well, you have a very good reason to keep running. So if you need any motivation or a running buddy that's not, as long as it's not 10 o'clock in the morning when I'm working or five o'clock in the morning when I'm sleeping.

Eric (1:44:10)
Guys, come running with me!

Yeah, and guys, who wants to come running with

us? Like, I want to get someone new in the vlog. I have someone right now locked down for tomorrow on Friday. Like, it looks like it's going to happen. I want to get someone new on every vlog. That's like a goal going forward, get someone new. Like, maybe Justin will come with me. Justin DiFlemmeri, right? Because he just ran another length of a state, Vermont, I think it was. So, yeah, he's wild and crazy.

Erika (1:44:24)
Nice, nice, nice.

Excellent.

that would be super cool.

Yup. Yup. He's taking them off.

Eric (1:44:40)
Guys, no, thank

you so much for supporting this podcast. Don't forget about our fundraisers. Erica's running Chicago for the American Foundation for Suicide Awareness in honor of her brother Nick. I got it. I aced it. Yeah. I'm running for Team Force, which is a nonprofit devoted to improving the lives and individuals and families facing hereditary cancer. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube. Let's subscribe to that YouTube channel. Let's grow that. We're on threads.

Erika (1:44:53)
Nailed it. Nailed it.

Eric (1:45:09)
Sometimes they're a lot of love. Hey, do all that. We don't ask for this every episode. We really should, but we really don't like like fall, subscribe on it at all. But most importantly, share this podcast with everybody. The podcast, the vlog, all of it share it. If you want things to help out with that, like Stoolie stickers with the QR code, we made that. Yeah.

Erika (1:45:09)
Follow us.

share, like and share.

Hit me up.

I just got holographic stoolie stickers. Those are limited edition.

Eric (1:45:33)
Ooh, who wants one? We should do like a thing

where if you show that you shared this with a couple of people, like we'll send you some holographic Stooley stickers. Yeah.

Erika (1:45:44)
yeah.

Eric (1:45:45)
If you love it, you can be a Patreon, but you share the podcast. It's amazing.

Erika (1:45:49)
I almost forgot about Patreon. We love our Patreon. Yup.

Eric (1:45:51)
Yeah, see, we forget to do this half the time because we just have fun chatting and then we wrap it up and

we go, we forgot to do that part. So guys, you're awesome. Yeah. Our pod fam is amazing. You guys rock. If you, anyone's new from the millennium running family, welcome to the pod fam. Yeah, this was cool. What a week. Again, thank you to John. Thank you to millennium running. I'm so excited for Saturday at the New Hampshire 10 miler. Fingers crossed. All goes well.

Erika (1:45:58)
Like we forgot to talk about right socks and my race tats.

Welcome.

Eric (1:46:21)
We might have a tent with our name on it. We might have a backdrop with our name on it. We have more exciting news to mention or to break in about a week or two for September, September 18th. Save the date, save the date. I'm so happy, 179 episodes. This is amazing.

Erika (1:46:22)
Well, it's gonna go and it's gonna be epic.

numbers are getting up there, man. I love to see it. I love to see it climb.

Eric (1:46:42)
Friday Eve, everybody. See you on Saturday. Erica, take us home.

Erika (1:46:44)
Happy Friday Eve.

come say hello if you see us on Saturday. And thank you for listening. You know we love you.

Eric (1:46:53)
Don't fear the code brown!

Erika (1:46:55)
And don't forget to stretch!

Speaker 3 (1:47:50)
I was never recording! ⁓

Two hours 48 minutes. From the beginning when I actually hit them, we started after like 10.

Speaker 2 (1:47:57)
my god, really?

Speaker 1 (1:48:01)
You're like,