On The Runs 183 | Socks talk with Russ Coillot from Wrightsocks

In this episode of the On the Runs podcast, hosts Eric and Erika welcome Russ from Wrightsocks, who shares his extensive experience in the running industry. The conversation delves into the significance of socks in running, personal running achievements, and the impact of family on athletic pursuits. Russ discusses the evolution of Wrightsocks, known for their double-layered design, and shares his adventurous experience hiking the Presidential Traverse. The episode emphasizes the importance of community in running and the inspiring stories that come from personal journeys in the sport. In this engaging conversation, the hosts discuss various themes surrounding hiking, running, and the importance of quality socks. They explore personal experiences with hiking challenges, the technology behind sock comfort, and the significance of proper gear in training for races. The discussion also delves into marketing strategies, community engagement, and the impact of trade shows on the running industry. The guests share personal anecdotes, insights on foot health, and the role of socks in enhancing performance, all while maintaining a light-hearted and humorous tone.

Chapters

02:56 Weekend Adventures: 50K Race and Air Show
05:52 The Thrill of the Air Show
08:32 Erika's 50K Race Experience
11:23 Eric's Hiking Adventure and the Presidential Traverse
28:03 Russ Coillot from Wrightsocks
30:27 Russ's Journey into the Running Industry
33:22 Transition from Real Estate to Retail
36:28 The Evolution of Wightsocks
42:30 Understanding Sock Technology
45:28 The Importance of Sock Quality
48:27 Double Layer Socks and Their Benefits
52:03 The Importance of Quality Socks
56:35 Understanding Sock Technology
59:51 The No Blisters Guarantee
01:01:03 Sales and Marketing Insights
01:05:34 Trade Show Strategies
01:09:47 Evolution of Socks for Sports
01:15:43 Hockey Connections and Community
01:23:21 The Great Sock Debate
01:28:07 The Outro
01:28:30 Exploring Running Culture and Community
01:31:20 Upcoming Live Podcast Event
01:34:09 Celebrating Achievements in Running
01:37:08 Podcast Growth and SEO Insights
01:38:55 Book Recommendations and Personal Stories
01:42:42 Closing Thoughts and Listener Engagement

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Transcript

Eric (00:06)
What's up everybody and welcome to episode 183 of the On the Runs just over a month away from Chicago and eight weeks into the New York City was cold and wet, that didn't keep Maverick and Goose away from the skies. Eric Heranda 50k and I decided to spontaneously destroy my body on a couple of mountains.

Plus we got a great episode today for all you feet lovers. But first, before we get to all that and more, I got to say hello to my kick-ass Rockstervik host, the former Gostown Grizzly Soccer star, six-star Erica. What's up?

Erika (00:44)
Wow, dude, you dug deep for that one. I was never a soccer star. Ever. Yes, yes, you were correct there,

Eric (00:46)
I'm the midfielder who rode the bench.

I could do that already just like

this. go, and I got to say hello to my kick-ass rock star of a co-host, the former bench rider for the Golfstown Grizzlies soccer team. Six star Erica, what's up?

Erika (01:07)
And I was damn good at that part. You better believe it.

Eric (01:09)
You kept that

bench warm. Was it a wood bench or an aluminum bench?

Erika (01:13)
did I?

pretty sure it was probably the aluminum one, so it was never very comfortable, but goddamn did I keep it warm.

Eric (01:20)
But no splinters.

No splinters. Yeah. Yeah. How are you? What's up?

Erika (01:22)
Exactly. Yes. That was a good

I'm doing great. mean, it sounds like we both had quite the weekend. ⁓ I just, I have to tell everybody I called Eric over the weekend on my drive home, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but I was so excited about some things that I saw. So I am, I'm feeling it today though. That, that 50 K that I ran kind of kicked my ass, but I'm proud to be this sore. Yes.

Eric (01:34)
Yes, you did.

Well, you, you called me for a reason. Let's talk about that right now. You

called me for a reason. What was that reason? And then when I picked up the phone, not knowing why you're calling me, what did I say?

Erika (01:50)
Yes.

This was probably the best thing that could have happened. So I am driving. I had my race this weekend, the 50K Cherry Hill Farm Ultra 50K up in Gorham, Maine. And so I had to take a 95 all the way up, did my race, went great, came back. And as I'm driving over the bridge back into New Hampshire, the Pease Air Show was going on at the same time. And I'm just driving across the bridge. I'm seeing like these crazy storms forming.

And then I see like this formation of those fighter jets. And I was like, my God, this is, yeah. I was like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. And they just like formation of four of them, just driving like straight across the horizon bank up and go straight into that like black. Whatever. They fly straight into this cloud and disappear. And I'm like, ⁓ my God, it's so freaking cool. And then all of a sudden they just bank downwards and come up straight out of the cloud. And I was like, this is the coolest thing. So.

Eric (02:28)
The Blue Angels or something.

flying, not driving, they fly.

Erika (02:53)
I'm driving, not taking pictures, not doing anything, but the first thought I had was I gotta call Newt because I have to add this to the show notes. So you didn't pick up at first, so. Yes. No, I never ever call him. Like I'm a millennial. I don't talk on the phone. Yes, yes. But I'm like, I gotta find his number. So I give you a call. You don't pick up right away. So I'm talking to Brandon and then you call back and I was like, Brandon, gotta go.

Eric (03:02)
She calls me on the telephone, by the way, which never happens.

It's always like a Facebook Messenger call.

Wow.

Erika (03:23)
So I answer your call and you answer it like, talk to me goose. And I like flip out over that. Cause I'm like, heck.

you know what I'm looking at? Like, and as I'm like on the phone with you, I know it was just pretty perfect. But as I'm talking to you or it might have been even before, I'm driving like under just a little bridge, like an overpass or whatever. And a freaking plane just trots right above it. It looked like it was like two feet off of the bridge. Like it was super low flying plane. I was just like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. I've never actually gone to the air show before.

Eric (03:34)
It's just by chance.

Erika (04:02)
But now I just might because they put on an excellent, excellent show. So I was like flipping out.

Eric (04:03)
Yeah. I think I went to one when I was a kid

and I knew it was happening. I wanted to go, it didn't work out, but at the same time, the boys are too little where there'd be like covering their ears the whole time. So I hope they come back, cause this was the first air show at Pease in Air Force Base in 13 years. So, ⁓ yeah. So I hope they come back in a few years when the boys are ready for it, cause it is cool.

Erika (04:16)
⁓ right.

Mm-hmm. And I had no idea, and I just happened to be right place, right time.

Eric (04:30)
It is super cool. And I imagine like anyone on the beach is getting the same show.

Erika (04:35)
I believe it, but man, I wish I could have like pulled over. It specifically even had signs on the highway that said like, no stopping on highway. There were cops everywhere. And I was like, I just want to watch.

Eric (04:43)
Yeah.

So

I think what made me think of that when I said, talk to me, Goose, was I just went hiking and we'll get to that story maybe in the outro, but during the hike, couple F-35s buzzed the mountains right above me and my cousin Brett. And I was like in the little, you the horns, let's go boys, let's go!

Erika (04:54)
Yeah.

Absolute perfect timing with everything though. It was such a cool moment.

Eric (05:08)
Yeah. And it probably was them. However,

it's not the first time I've seen the F-35s buzz in the mountains. You know, summer, winter, fall, spring, whenever. They come from Vermont usually, and these weren't the Blue Angels. So I think from the way they left, they kept going northwest. I think they were just doing training flights. But it could have been the guys doing the show at Peace Air Force Base 2, and they just wanted to go buzz Mount Washington.

Erika (05:15)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Gotcha.

Hell if I know.

It was super, super cool.

Eric (05:37)
Yeah,

it was. You know what else is super, super cool? Your show notes. Holy moly! Way to go, Erica! Way to go!

Erika (05:41)
Do tell!

They're purple. Did you see that?

It was a good weekend and I had to document it somehow.

Eric (05:51)
So

you ran a 50K this weekend in Maine, the Cherry Hill Farm Ultra. We'll get to all the feet talking a little bit. We have an awesome guest today. And I should shout out our sponsors, our partners. We love you guys. MyRaceTats, big news coming out with them next week. Right Sox, big news this episode. And also I want to thank a couple other brands that help support my New York City fundraising, Firefly and UFOs.

Erika (06:11)
Aw yeah.

Eric (06:17)
You guys rock, but really, Don from MyRaceHats and everyone at Right Socks, you guys are awesome. So thank you so much. Erica, you had quite the weekend with some pod fam. Tell me about it.

Erika (06:24)
Mm-hmm.

did. So this race, I had first run it back in 2023. It was like their inaugural race and it's a super duper small race, which makes it kind of kind of like a little family. And it made it even more special because the race back in 2023, it was when I first got to meet Beth Newt, Newtie. So yeah, so we had fun meeting each other, catching up. And who do I see at this event? Beth again, she was there. So I got to catch up, say hello.

Eric (06:44)
That's right.

Erika (06:56)
And of course I got to give Beth a lot of credit because she always represents on the runs and I don't. So she was wearing her, on the runs now tank top.

Eric (07:04)
She's wearing a t-shirt. I noticed the sleeve

monster got to her t-shirt though. I like it.

Erika (07:11)
I gotta do that man. I told you I wanted a tank top.

Eric (07:12)
I like it. I like it. Well,

you can- you- you make it happen! I told you in Terra Dei-er Dei, like, you got apparel. You're on it next. However, it has to be approved by the boss man.

Erika (07:20)
I'm, we are working on it. Yes, we are working on it.

Not a problem, but yes, we are working on something. So I can represent us as I should, because I have a wonderful sweatshirt, but it's just not cold enough yet. Yet. Sweat away the sweat away the, but yeah. So, ⁓ I decided to go back this year. guess kind of as a last training run before my, my a hundred milers start coming up.

Eric (07:35)
wetter weather.

Erika (07:47)
This race, it's really nice. It's on like a trail on Cherry Hill farm. It's right next to Sebago Brewing Company too, which is pretty clutch. And this course is like one of my favorites because it is a loop course and you know how much I love loops. Everything I do is loops. So the loops are like 2.65 miles, I think. And it's actually got a decent amount of elevation. that, that tested me this weekend. I had to do 12, 12 loops.

And yeah, so it was, it was a really beautiful day, a little bit humid, a little warm, but I was cruising and just like the first time I ran this, I managed to get first female and this year I got 14 minute PR. I mean, had a shot and it actually worked out. Um, I was like the third female running, uh, for most of it, but there was a 25 K option.

Eric (08:29)
that's why you went back. You wanted to defend the title.

Erika (08:43)
And they hit 25 K and left and I was like, ha, I get this. So I got to defend my lead. It was great.

Eric (08:47)
So at any point were you then thinking

like who's in second place? How far are they behind me? What do I have to do to win here?

Erika (08:54)
Well, it was kind of nice because it was easy to keep track of people based on like where you are in the loops. Nobody ever, or no women ever passed me, I should say. And I started off in like fifth place for women. And then I slowly passed a couple of people, but there were two that I just couldn't catch. They were just a little too fast, a little too far. And then that once I finished that sixth lap, I'm like, they never came out. They never passed me again. So I was like, all right, now I just have to hang on.

Eric (09:21)
Very cool, you got a little bit of a competitive drive in you there that, you know, sometimes Well, yeah, but like when you see it, when you see the podium finish there or the medal, and sometimes it's the cool medal, like at ADU, it's the tree trunk, part of a tree trunk, right? That's pretty cool, you got that drive there. So you got a new distance PR, now it's 50k, so it's just 12 laps as fast as you can, right?

Erika (09:26)
Few and far between.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Pretty much, yeah. Yeah.

Eric (09:47)
and you ran it in

five hours, 37 minutes flat.

Erika (09:51)
was my first attempt at it. did it in 523 this year. I was pumped. I was like, all right, I think I got this. I did go out really fast just because I was keeping up with people. And then I gradually slowed down a little bit. It was very hilly. There were hills. It felt good, though. Yup. And my legs are paying the price right now.

Eric (09:53)
⁓ not a big deal.

Yeah, but hills pay the bills.

So was this,

was this a, what day was this? So it was just a day trip. Did you drive up in the morning and came back later that day? Okay, all right. For some reason, I thought you were gone all weekend.

Erika (10:18)
Saturday.

Yup. Yup. I got up at three 25. Nope.

Nope. This was just a day trip. got up super early on Saturday morning, like three o'clock. We're talking three 30. I was up at three 30 and a two hour drive and then yeah, two hours home. It was worth it though. I had a blast and they're always so like, since it's such a small race, everybody just kind of gathers like at the start finish line and they cheer you on by name. Like they're like, yeah, you only got two laps left. Let's go.

Eric (10:33)
my god. That's disgusting.

Erika (10:52)
Like they're just, it's really, it's really nice. Good people.

Eric (10:55)
Well, that's awesome.

Super cool. I saw the pictures. I thank you for not only is your show notes amazing, but you posted and I shared. It was great. The place looked beautiful. Yeah. Well, that the way you do it is fine. I love it. And people comment people like, my God, look at her and stuff. And they loved what Beth Newts had with the sleeveless shirt. It was awesome. It looks so cool. I didn't realize it was that far away. You had the

Erika (11:05)
I still haven't logged back in.

Yes, Newtsey's the best.

Eric (11:22)
early morning wake up call. I had an early morning wake up call. I'm going to tell you about my hike.

Erika (11:27)
hear about it because you mentioned it last week when we talked on our other set of TROES and we never got there. So tell me all about this You said you had something epic.

Eric (11:32)
Well, I didn't mention what I was doing. said, yeah, well, I didn't mention what I was doing. said,

I said, hope to be doing something epic when you guys are listening right now and epically failed code brown DNF. But let me, let me tell you I've wanted to hike the presidential traverse for years. And a couple of years ago, I was in great hiking shape for it.

Erika (11:52)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (11:54)
And I had it all planned out and maybe weather, maybe kids. Earlier this year, I was going to do it in July on my birthday. And July 21st, the day before my birthday, Mount Washington had a Nor'easter and they got over a foot of snow. You remember that? So my cousin who lives in Connecticut knows I want to do this. And he's a pretty experienced hiker. Like I don't...

Erika (12:08)
That's right. Yeah, I do.

Eric (12:17)
I couldn't tell you, like, he never grew up playing sports from my memory. Baseball, basketball, in school and stuff, middle school, I could guess, but I don't remember him being a sports guy like I was. But instead, he's this big outdoors person who lives in Connecticut, so there's not much to do outdoors there. He loves coming up to New Hampshire and going hiking. And my dad took us hiking when we were like 11 up Washington, and we always kind of had that memory. We're a month apart in age, like less than a month apart in age.

Erika (12:32)
Mm.

Eric (12:47)
So he calls me last week or texts me the week before and he's like, hey, do you want to do this on Tuesday or Wednesday? And I was like, ⁓ I can't. But then all of sudden I'm like, hey, I could do it on Thursday. Could you do it on Thursday? I'm telling him this on Tuesday. And he goes, I think I can pull it off if I take work off on Friday. So he works at concert venues. So his weekends are typically Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And he gets...

Erika (13:02)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I see.

Eric (13:15)
He works on the Colbert show and he does concerts and he has a really cool job and it's super fun to hike with him or to hang out with him the once a year I get to and hear about his job because I think it's super cool. It's not your typical nine to five boring job. It's a pretty epic job and he drives into New York City like every couple days a week for it.

Erika (13:28)
That is awesome.

Eric (13:38)
He's like, I can do it if I take Friday off and I'm like, you don't need to take work off, man. And he goes, no, that's fine. I want to watch the Chiefs game. He's a big Kansas City Chiefs fan and they're playing on Friday night. So he goes, I'm going to go hiking and I'm going to take Friday off, watch the Chiefs game. It's going to be great. I'm like, cool. He goes, we should start at four in the morning. I'm like, nope, it's not happening. I can't start at four in the morning. He drives up here the night before. He stays in Crawford Knotts, which is like two hours away from us.

Erika (13:58)
Hard pass.

Eric (14:06)
And I have a busy Wednesday night. I got four hours of sleep. I said the best I can do is I can wake up at four. So I remember falling asleep around 12, getting up at four, driving up, and I picked him up at 620 in the morning. And we're going to attempt the presidential traverse. We start hiking at seven. I think we have enough

Erika (14:17)
Mm-hmm.

So what are we talking for mileage here? I'm not really familiar with like the prezzies or anything like that.

Eric (14:30)
⁓ all right. Well, I'm

going to, as my boys like to say, Google it.

Erika (14:36)
Uh-huh.

Eric (14:37)
so depending on, think there's an extra mountain you can get at the end. It's about a 20 mile hike. The shortest is like 18. This isn't like, so all the mountains in New Hampshire are called, you know, named after presidents, a lot of them, and they call it the presidential traverse. You go Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Monroe, Jackson, a few others. So

Erika (14:43)
⁓ okay.

Yes.

Were you gonna do all of them? I'm very intrigued. This is cool.

Eric (15:02)
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So

it's a point to point. So you leave a car. So we left a car at one end and then I drove to the other end and you hike from point to point. So the first one it's 19 to 23 miles here on the Appalachian Mountain Club's website. Elevation gain about 9,000 feet. So I think you got a few options. You can add some at the end, but the bulk of it is like nine peaks. You could even do it like at 13 peaks. Now it's not like you're going up.

Erika (15:19)
Okay.

That's legit. Yes.

Wow.

Eric (15:32)
and down, up and down, you go up and then you traverse across. So you got elevation gains and drops from here to there. so you're not doing 5,000 feet for every peak. Yeah, exactly. So the night before I'm packing and I'm like, okay, where's all my stuff? A lot of my stuff's in the camper. Randomly I find my hiking boots that are pretty old. They're pretty old, but

Erika (15:36)
And over, Mm-hmm.

but not quite as extreme as if you're starting from the base, Like, of each, yeah. Gotcha, okay.

Eric (16:00)
I don't wear them every day and I looked at them and I go, you know what? It looks like this is their last hurrah. This is going to be fun. This is going to be fun. I really think I can do this hike. I think I got it in a day. Lots of people like to do it in two days and they sleep on the mountain somewhere in one of the huts. I grab my stuff. I go up. We start at seven o'clock and I'm thinking, all right, this might take us 12 hours. We'll be done by 7 p.m. And we have headlamps just in case if something happens, right?

Erika (16:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Smart, yep.

Eric (16:27)
And we hike

up Madison. It's a big climb. You wonder at some points, how did all these rocks get here? These gigantic rocks. It's from billions of years ago with the ice age and all that. And we get to the top of Madison and we're like, all right, we did it. Yes. High five. Cool. Take a picture. It looks beautiful. What a day. It's in the fifties. We're in t-shirts and shorts, not too windy, feeling good. And then we start to hike down Madison right before Adams.

Erika (16:50)
Very nice.

Eric (16:56)
And my boot starts to come apart. Yeah, on the down part. And I'm like, what? And the sole of my boot is falling off. I'll send you some pictures and stuff. And I'm like, this, this isn't good actually. It's coming off from the heel. And so Brett's like, well, Brett is the experienced hiker. And by the way, I got to shout out Brett. goes, I've been working out a little bit. I feel like I could do this. And I'm thinking I'm going to be the more in shape one because I run marathons and shit.

Erika (17:00)
no.

No.

Eric (17:24)
I, when I pulled up, was like, dude, you weren't joking. You've been hitting the gym hard. He, this is the best I ever seen him look like, yeah. And he, he was, he, this was nothing to him, nothing. And my shoe's coming apart and he's prepared. has duct tape wrapped around his hiking pole. So we duct tape my boot back together and I'm like, this is good. And we are at the Madison Hut.

Erika (17:24)
huh.

Okay. Where you're like, uh-oh, he's going to kick my ass.

wow.

Yup. Did it stay?

Yup.

Eric (17:52)
And then we start hiking up

Adams, another brutal like couple hundred feet. And I'm like, all right, well, I think I'm going to eat at the top of this mountain. And I'm sitting at the top looking at the way we have to go. And I'm like, my God, it's so far. And my body's starting to hurt, but I know it's going to get easier because we're starting at the hard end. As we start to hike. Yeah. As we start to hike down Adams heading towards Jefferson.

Erika (18:02)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

okay, that was smart.

Eric (18:22)
Now my other boot is falling apart and we have no duct tape. And now I'm starting to think to myself, yeah, I'm starting to think to myself like, all right, we think we can stop at Washington and we can probably get some supplies. Like Washington has a building. They have a cafeteria. They have every, we can get something. And I'm like, well, you know what? If we go to Washington and then it just takes too long, we could hike down to Pinkham notch and hitchhike back to my car.

Erika (18:26)
no.

you used it all on the one. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Eric (18:50)
I'm like, all right, we're okay. And in the back of my head, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna say, Brett, I'm sorry, man. When we hit Washington, let's hike down Tuckermans, let's go to Pinkham Notch, let's get in a car. And we hit this junction, which I thought was the coolest name in the world. It was called Thunder Junction. And it had five paths to go this way, that way, that way, this way, that way. And one of the paths said, you know, if you go this way, it brings you back to route two where we started.

Erika (18:52)
Mm-hmm.

Thunder Junction.

Uh-huh.

Eric (19:21)
And I looked at Brett and I looked at my shoe and I said, Hey man, right now we're going a lot slower than we predicted. We were doing 50 minutes a mile. And we, we really wanted on the way up the first part, we were doing 40 and 40 was pretty good. And knowing we'd be quicker with the traverse part at the top. But at this point we're 50, 55 minutes. I'm like, that's going to be 18 hours if we keep the, and who knows how long we're going to have to stop at Washington. Who knows what my food's going to do.

Erika (19:21)
Hmm.

Okay.

Eric (19:51)
I just said, dude, we should go back and we should take this trail back. And we ended up, he agreed. And so we hiked down a different path. So it was like a continuous loop. was super cool. Saw some new things we've never seen before, know, hiked on paths less, less traveled. And my shoe was basically both of them like done for at the end. We hiked for nine hours, a total of 10 miles.

Erika (19:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric (20:19)
over 5,000 feet of elevation. we drove home, we stopped at the Lucky Dog, we got food, wings and burgers. We saw Katie, we saw people at the Lucky Dog. It was actually kind of sad. There was this photo at the Lucky Dog of a lot of the regulars when I worked there. Lucky Dog's in Plinth, New Hampshire. We were just talking about like, how's this guy? He's dead. How's that guy? He's dead. How's that guy? He shot himself. And then at the very end, DJ Mike B shows up. You remember DJ Mike B?

Erika (20:40)
What?

Eric (20:48)
At the Lucky Dog, he's been DJing there for over 20 years. DJ Mike B!

Erika (20:48)
Nope.

I was probably really drunk.

Eric (20:54)
I go over and say, hi, how you doing all this? And as we're leaving, go, give my best to Sarah. Sarah's his wife, much younger than him too, by the way. She was only like 48 now. He goes, I need to tell you something. And I'm just thinking they broke up. Nope, she passed away too at 48. Brett goes, man, that food was good, but that was a sad dinner.

Erika (21:07)
Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

No kidding. That is not what you want to hear. Oh, oh no.

Eric (21:20)
Everybody, everyone was gone. Like we just talked about so many people

who are gone. Now a lot of them are old, but two of them way too young. So yeah, but so we get back. I am dead. The next two days, my body hurts. My back lower back is so tight. I can barely like, I can touch my toes. I can almost put my elbows to my toes. I've done nothing but foam roll and stretch. My calves have never been this tight. I skipped my run.

Erika (21:28)
Uh-huh.

you

Eric (21:49)
on Friday. I didn't do my long run on Saturday, but I did my long run today. I did 12 miles. I doubled my workout in it because I just wanted to, and it was fun. I crushed it and I'm feeling, I'm feeling, yeah, I'm feeling so much better. Like thank kudos to mom and dad for babysitting the boys so I could run for two hours. And I destroyed myself. And man, I thought I was prepared to do the presidential hike and I am not. That was the first time I've hiked in two years. So.

Erika (21:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yup. That makes a lot of sense now. Usually you're the Friday runner.

you

Yup.

Well, hey, now you have a baseline. You know what you're in for and definitely have time to get new boots for the next time you attempt it.

Eric (22:21)
Ooh.

You know, Jay, Jay Parent is listening

and I invite Jay every time and I'll tell you one thing, Jay, I'm happy you didn't come because man, Jay would, I would have pushed every limit I have because Jay's like, we gotta finish this. And, ⁓ cause Jay, Jay's elite. Jay is absolutely, so next year. Yeah.

Erika (22:38)
huh. ⁓

Mm-hmm. That's why I'm proud to have him on my Reach

the Beach team.

Eric (22:48)
Yeah,

so we're gonna try it again next year, but we've actually both decided, and you gotta schedule this like six, seven, eight months in advance, we would prefer to do it and spend the night in one of the huts. The only problem is you gotta schedule it so far in advance and you can't predict the weather. So we're just gonna say the weather's gonna be epic. In July, yeah.

Erika (22:56)
Yep.

Yeah, that's part of the experience.

That is true. Well, you know, you know, it will be.

Eric (23:12)
And Brett really wants to see the sunrise from the top. And so that's why he's like, we should start super early. I'm like, no, dude. So we'll, we'll, we'll start mid morning hike, hike to the halfway point, stay at a hut, and then we'll catch the sunrise the next morning. Yeah.

Erika (23:20)
Yeah.

Yep.

There you go.

Well, now you have something to look forward to, the two of you. It's going to be a blast and you have time to, ⁓ train a little bit more. There you go.

Eric (23:35)
And I'm, yeah, I'm going to do some practice hikes because, ⁓

pro tip here from a podcaster, a running podcaster who's training for marathon. Don't do an aggressive hike in the middle of marathon training. Do not. No, not at all.

Erika (23:48)
Probably not the best idea. can't imagine it is.

Hey, learning experience all around.

Eric (23:54)
Yeah,

but it was great. you know, the views were so cool. The

Erika (23:59)
I'm glad it was still fun. It was a fun experience.

really glad that you sent me that text today. You just said, I just crushed my run. I feel great. Something like that. So I'm like, there you go. That's what I like to see.

Eric (24:06)
I did. I did. my god, it feels so good. Marathon

training's going well. It's just about keeping it up and not doing what happened last year. The last five weeks, I have eight to go. With five weeks to go last year, I fell off, fell off the earth.

Erika (24:14)
Good.

Well, hey, you got a lot to work towards, not just that, but you have team force behind you. So it's not just you, it's the whole team. So you can't quit.

Eric (24:32)
You know what does- You know what never hurt though?

My feet. And-

Erika (24:37)
⁓

do tell, is it because of your wonderful Wrightsocks?

Eric (24:40)
Yes. And do you

remember at the Gothstown Gallop, I couldn't find them? Well, I haven't found one of the pairs ever since. And the problem is I have two pairs, but the second pair I'm missing a sock. So I only had one for the last month or so, right? As I'm packing, I grab the bag I'm going to use. I found the socks hidden in the water bottle pocket of the bag.

Erika (24:45)
Yes.

No way!

⁓ they turned up.

Eric (25:05)
So I had my Wrightsocks on this hike

and my feet never hurt. never blistered and it was perfect timing for today's episode because feet lovers, we got one you're going to like here. we have Wrightsocks on the podcast, Erica.

Erika (25:19)
Hell yes. Oh, we were so excited to talk to Russ. Help me with his last name. I need your help this time. Yes. There we go. Russ was so much fun to talk to. He was just a super fun guy and his love of socks rivals mine. it is, oh, he definitely like he's at a 10. I may be at like a nine and a half. He's got me by a little bit.

Eric (25:24)
you need my help pronouncing a last name. His name is Russ Quiloff.

my god, what an expert.

We were talking to

him pre the recording and saying like, is actually the first time we've had like a product specialist. And it was so cool. And you guys are going to love this. Like, and I can't wait to go to the factory. I can't wait. Yeah. Right. ⁓ my God. This is so cool guys. You guys are going to love this. ⁓ Write Socks. Remember Lincoln show notes. You can buy some.

Erika (25:51)
It is. my God. You're right. Yep.

We got to go to North Carolina, right? North Carolina? Yes, we got this.

Eric (26:10)
They're so cool. They've sponsored the podcast this past summer. And thank you so much we should get to it because Russ was great guys. So enjoy Russ Quietlot.

on the On The Runs podcast and we'll see you on the other side.

Eric (26:27)
Our next guest on the pod has spent 20 years in the running industry and currently is the expert on everything you need to know about socks.

After many years of fleet feet, he is now the director of sales and marketing at Right Socks. He's run many 5Ks, half marathons, marathons and triathlons. And we are wicked excited to finally have on the podcast Russ Quilotte, welcome to the On the Runs podcast. What's up, buddy?

Russ (26:50)
Well, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited about doing this. ⁓ We're looking forward to having a nice conversation.

Eric (26:57)
Yes, conversation about feet and socks and all the good things. Those are Erica's favorites.

Russ (27:00)
Yeah, all fun stuff.

Erika (27:03)
few of my favorite things, Russ. You came to the right place.

Russ (27:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I have more useless information about feet and socks than you'll ever can possibly want.

Eric (27:13)
Well, maybe

Erika (27:13)
This is gonna be a fun episode.

Eric (27:14)
you could answer a question. We have a question. I already have one right now. We've been debating should Erica create an OnlyFeed account. What do you think? Yes or no?

Russ (27:18)
All right.

Erika (27:21)
⁓ my

god. ⁓

Russ (27:25)
Yes,

yeah, so I got a great story about this. Like I have a funny story about this. Yeah, all right, we'll just dive right into the weird stuff. So a few years back when I was with Fleetfeet, we had several company-owned stores. And at one of the stores, the store manager got an email from somebody asking to buy worn footwear.

Eric (27:29)
Yes!

Erika (27:30)
Do tell, do tell.

Eric (27:34)
Yes.

Russ (27:53)
like shoes that have been tried on or maybe worn. And so like, well, yeah, we could probably do that. The next email was, well, could you take some pictures of you on a treadmill in these tube socks?

Erika (28:12)
Okay. It's going downhill from here.

Russ (28:14)
And there was a,

my gosh, yeah, it doesn't go too much further because I was able to step in and say, you know, this is probably not a good idea. This is probably not a good idea. But yeah, so from that experience, I would say only feet, yep. There's probably some way to monetize that.

Eric (28:30)
Yes. There's

a market there for you, Erica. Definitely. Definitely. We joke about it all the time that Erica has an OF page on the side. Yeah, exactly. But man, how are you? I think I read from your bio and stuff. Were you originally in California? You're West Coast, but now you're East Coast. Give us the rundown here.

Russ (28:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (28:36)
⁓ boy.

Russ (28:40)
Yeah, yeah, only feet. Yeah, only feet. Yeah, yeah, only feet. Yeah.

Erika (28:43)
Only feet, only feet.

Russ (28:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So born and raised in Northern California, Sacramento. Born and raised. ⁓ I've had a very weird, long career, ⁓ but I'll start where the running starts. ⁓ In Sacramento, I was living there with my wife and two boys, and my oldest son was going into a ⁓ after school.

Childcare program right because my wife I had both worked and so it's part of that though They had this running club this after-school running club that the local fleet feet franchisees had that sponsored and put on so my son started running and he sixth grade fifth grade fifth grade and It kind of inspired my wife to start running so I can assume in the first day. ran a mile. was crazy and then this cutter this kind of

Erika (29:33)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (29:48)
snowball effects started happening in my house. My son's running, my wife's running. She wants to train for a marathon. So she signs up for a training program at Fleetfeet. I was a smoker for 20 years. And I was a good smoker, two and a half, three packs a day. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to go use the bathroom, I'd have a cigarette. It was great. Sun comes along, my youngest son comes along.

Erika (29:58)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (30:07)
Wow.

Erika (30:07)
boy.

Russ (30:15)
And he's like two years old and he's pretending to smoke one day. So I decided, you know what, that's a sign. I need to cut this out. And instead of stopping at the store to buy a pack of cigarettes, I stopped at the grocery store or the drug store and got a pack of patches. And that was 23 years ago and I haven't smoked since. Yeah. Crazy. So, so, so when you're doing that, right, you have this life change, like, I gotta do something else. So I bought a bicycle, out and bought a nice little Trek 10 speed. I don't have 10 speeds anymore, but.

Erika (30:20)
Gotcha.

Mm-hmm.

Nice work. Way to go Russ.

Eric (30:34)
Wow.

Russ (30:45)
by 18 speed at the time. And a trailer for my youngest boy. As my wife was training for her marathon along the American River bike trail, which is an amazing place to run if you haven't run there.

I would ride my bike and kind of be the sag wagon for my wife. And so I got inspired. And so I started training. I started doing a five couch to five K no boundaries program with fleet feet. ⁓ Did it. Then I did their marathon training and then they asked us, my wife and I booked to be coaches. And I was, yeah, which is, I was flattered. I was in the real estate industry at the time. I was looking for a home builder in California.

Erika (31:16)
wow!

Russ (31:24)
and this would be like 2006. So I doing some coaching for Fleet Feet, working for a home builder, and then 2008 happened. And I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember what happened in 2008 in real estate.

Eric (31:37)
recession?

think it was it that?

Erika (31:38)
Mmm.

Russ (31:40)
Yeah, yeah. yeah, so I find myself in 2008, unemployed, laid off because well, it just happens, right? There's that economy. I'm a solid middle manager, and there was no use for middle-aged middle managers at that time. So I was kind of cobbling some work together. Thank God my wife was well employed. And ⁓ I was in the fleet feet one day, just kind of cruising around and the manager

Erika (31:48)
wow. Yeah.

Russ (32:09)
guy named Dusty, great runner, says, man, you should come to work on the store. I'm like, dude, I'm 40 freaking years old. I can't work for a 27 year old kid making nine bucks an hour. And it may have been more than nine, but I might be exaggerating a little bit, 12 bucks an hour, whatever it was.

Eric (32:27)
I worked in retail at

that time in my life 2008. was $9. Yeah.

Russ (32:31)
It was probably $9, yeah.

And I went home, I told my wife, she goes, well, why don't you do it? I go, well, what do you mean? She goes, you're not doing anything anyway. Like it's something to do. So I did it. I went to work at the store part-time. I was full-time in like four weeks and it was fun. It was fun. I was talking about running and feet. I learned a ton about insoles and pronation, supination, know, hip angles, all that stuff.

Eric is nodding her head excitedly about that, I can tell. So anyway, was there for about, yeah, yeah, I was there for about six months and ⁓ I went to the owner of the store and he, you know, I'd gotten full time, I got put on a salary at much more than $9 an hour because after I was there, they figured I knew what I was doing. And you gotta remember before that, the only time I talked to a customer,

Erika (33:07)
know those words, yay.

Eric (33:25)
Right.

Russ (33:30)
they want to their contract from buying a home as the market was crashing. Normally, I didn't talk to consumers in a very positive light. I was a sales manager. I was trying to keep the deal together and politely tell them that we're going to go to court over their deposit. So talking to people about running shoes and not having any preconceived notions that people didn't want to spend $300 on three pairs of shoes, it was easy. It was fun.

Erika (33:39)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (33:58)
And so I went to the owner after about six months and said, Hey man, I love what I'm doing, but I got a kid going to college in a couple of years and I probably need to find a, you know, a bigger job. And these sales reps had to be coming in and out of the store. And I'm like, I can nail that job. That does not look too hard to me. Now all my rep firms are listening. I know it's a thankless hard job, but compared to where I came from, it didn't seem that hard.

Erika (34:08)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (34:24)
⁓ So I asked him, said, hey, you know, do think you could help me get a job as? Yeah, exactly. Get a job as a rep. And he goes, no, no, no. goes, why don't you ever thought about owning your own store? I'm like, no, I don't have $300,000 liquid lying around to do this. He's like, no, no, no. We got it so fleet feed at that time. It's since been eliminated, but they had a program where basically you earn sweat equity for four years, and then you bought the store.

Eric (34:54)
Okay.

Russ (34:55)
And so there's a bunch of those out there right now that were part of my class. There's several of them. Fleet Feet Menlo Park, really famous, Fleet Feet Nashville, really famous one. Anyway, so after about a year of being at Fleet Feet, I went to that program and ended up in Aptos, Santa Cruz, California. And then my wife and my family came over about a year later, and then we got a second store in Monterey, and we did that up until about 2017.

And that was a lot of fun. And then I decided that California was not ⁓ sustainable for the life I wanted to lead and buy a house and pay it off in 20 years. It was impossible. ⁓ there was a plan that didn't go... Long story endless, I ended up in North Carolina working for Flee Fee corporate and I oversaw all of their retail stores for about three years before the pandemic.

Erika (35:33)
Hmm

Eric (35:50)
Is that where they're based?

Russ (35:52)
In Carboro, North Carolina, yeah. Right next to Chapel Hill.

Eric (35:55)
Okay.

Yeah, I used to live in Charlotte. I was in Charlotte for three years, probably 2008 to 2011, 12-ish time. Yeah.

Russ (35:58)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, it's the roads are still under construction when you left there was they were under 77 is still yeah, it's still under construction. Just so you know, I'm sure you were worried about that. Yeah. Anyway, was we worked for Fleet Feet for that was great. ⁓ Great crowd, great franchisees, great operators. Pandemic happened. I got furloughed and it was like, you know, it's probably time for something else. And

Eric (36:07)
Yeah. Yeah. 77 still a shithole, right? Yeah. Yup. Yeah. Yup.

Erika (36:08)
No change.

Bummer.

Russ (36:33)
I ended up the owner of this company, Joey Wright and Barry, ⁓ contacted me on LinkedIn and said, hey, your name's been tossed around a little bit. Would you be interested in talking to me?

Eric (36:43)
Now how did your name get tossed around? Yeah?

Russ (36:46)
It's a small industry, This

is a, yeah, running, running in general is a very small industry and then socks is even smaller. There's, there's, and we're all here, right? We're all based in North Carolina. Balega is just up the road in Durham. Features is just up the road in Charlotte. so, you know, the darn tough is, not too far away. Hickory, Nestor, they're up in Hickory, North Carolina.

Erika (36:54)
Wow.

Eric (36:57)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (37:10)
So North Carolina

is the sock capital of the world basically.

Russ (37:14)
Yeah,

so this is a great, this is interesting little bit of trivia for you. In the mid 80s, there was 2,500 plus textile related mills in North Carolina. There's 340 of us left.

Erika (37:29)
Whoa.

Eric (37:30)
Wow. So a textile kind of mill. I know a very famous person who used to work in one in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Three for Dale Erica. Dale Earnhardt used to work in a textile mill in Kannapolis. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

Russ (37:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Caedapples, yeah.

Erika (37:40)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I learned something today.

Russ (37:41)
Yep, yep, yep, yep, Dale Earnhardt. Yep, that's right. That's right, that's right. I forgot about that.

So yeah, so this is where all the textiles were made. Even though, even if the aren't made in North Carolina, like some of the companies I mentioned prior, they make them overseas, but the company is still based here because this is like the center of the sock universe, if you will.

Eric (38:00)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (38:02)
Mm.

Eric (38:05)
So that worked out where you moved and you still worked for Fleetfeet and you were able to stay there and work corporate. And then you were in the sock capital of the world. All those weird guys who want socks should know that. But, but that kind of worked out great that because who knows, maybe it's a small community or industry, they could be in Wisconsin. You just happen to be in the right spot.

Russ (38:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

in the right spot. Absolutely. And I say this quite frequently and I'll say it for the world to hear. I'm the luckiest guy you ever meet because I really enjoy what I do. I truly enjoy it and I truly enjoy and like who I work for.

Erika (38:43)
amazing.

Eric (38:44)
Now that how how was that when he contacted you because this is a small family business. I am I right?

Erika (38:50)
Yeah, how did that conversation go? Yeah.

Russ (38:50)
Yeah, so let me give you the,

well, he just, was on LinkedIn. He said, hey, would you be interested? You know, I hear your name's been, and I don't know who gave him my name. He doesn't remember. ⁓ And we had a conversation on the phone and I came in the next week, I think, and met with him and his sister that owned the company. So Joey and Sabrina, ⁓ they owned the company. They got it from their dad, Jerry, who got it from his mom and dad.

Erika (38:59)
no way.

Russ (39:20)
So that's three, and then since 1948. So that's three generations. And I believe you guys have spoken with Caitlin.

Erika (39:23)
company been around?

Eric (39:31)
Yes, I have spoken with Caitlin.

Russ (39:33)
That's generation four.

Erika (39:35)
Wow.

Eric (39:35)
No, no way!

Russ (39:36)
So

her and her brother Nicholas are working in the business now and Joey is planning his exit in the next few years. It'll be a fourth generation, it'll be a hundred year company, I have no doubt. Yeah, yeah. So anyway.

Eric (39:49)
Yeah. Well, Caitlin's been awesome

Erika (39:49)
That is incredible.

Eric (39:52)
so far with everything and she's donated socks, not just to us, but to some of our raffle nights and things we've done. And it's just like, I asked her for this and she goes, absolutely. And it's just so cool. Cause we are learning how to work with brands and build partnerships. And this was one of the first brands that has reached out to us versus me reaching out to them. And that's kind of a cool moment for me and for Erica and this little podcast that somebody's reaching out to us. So.

Russ (39:56)
yeah, she's awesome.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Erika (40:17)
Definitely.

Eric (40:19)
What did you know about socks at the time when you got that LinkedIn message?

Russ (40:23)
I thought a lot.

Eric (40:25)
Haha

Russ (40:26)
Because I've been selling them for years, right? mean, was, in rent specialty, you have the Trinity. You have shoes, socks, and insoles, right? Every customer needs to be showing those. You have to have good socks. Most sock liners stink, and you gotta have a good shoe. So that was like the foundation I'm gonna be building our stores on. So I thought I knew enough, but I will tell you, I've been here for five years, almost five years, and...

Eric (40:28)
Yeah.

Erika (40:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Russ (40:56)
I still learn stuff about the knitting and all that. I we use La Notti, Syndrilical Knitting Machines. They're out of Milan. And there's, I think there's three companies in the world that make these type of machines. And two of them are located in Milan, ⁓ which is kind of weird. ⁓ yeah, it is. Well, get textiles, right? Fabric, cloth, yeah, all that stuff. ⁓ So.

Erika (41:12)
Wow.

That's cool though. That's like the fashion capital of the world.

Eric (41:20)
Yeah.

Erika (41:21)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (41:24)
RightSock itself has been around since 1948. We have about 38 employees and most of them make socks or deal with the making of socks. It's a very small organization. We're in 22 countries around the world. We sell domestically REIs, one of our biggest customers. We do socks for the postal service. We make socks for a lot of other people too. We do private label. first and foremost, we're a manufacturer.

Eric (41:53)
So do you make custom socks? Like custom, you put someone else's logo on it?

Russ (41:55)
yeah.

We'll put somebody else's package on it, sure.

Eric (42:01)
Caitlin, let's talk.

Russ (42:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We used to make the Sockany socks, know, the Sockany three packs. used to make those. We've made socks for Ariat, the boot company. We've made them for, who else? other, most of our stuff is, ⁓ most of the sales we do is our brand, which is Right Sock. And Right Sock, and kind of our claim to fame is we make a double layered sock, which we guarantee no blisters in.

Erika (42:05)
You're giving him ideas.

Eric (42:08)
Okay. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Now, was that since... Now was that since day one, 1948, double layered?

Russ (42:33)
And that's kind of our niche.

No,

no, no. So 1948, the business was very modest. They were called jobbers. And what a jobber was, was somebody who would go to a factory that knits and get their seconds. So a lot of times on these machines, you'll miss a stitch. And so you have a little hole. And so you guys know what darning a sock is? So you have to darn the sock. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd so...

Eric (43:01)
Erica says yes, she's acting like a smarty pants.

Erika (43:05)
Hey, like

to, I like to crochet and stuff and like those words get thrown around. ⁓

Russ (43:08)
So you know exactly what we're talking about. So you fix the hole basically,

and they would buy these socks for a penny a pair, fix them and sell them for a nickel a pair. something like that. Yeah. So they did that for many years. And then they did dyeing for a while. They were a dye company, which is horribly toxic and horrible process. And thank God that all went away in the seventies. And the process is so much cleaner now. It's unbelievable. ⁓

Erika (43:20)
Smart business moves right there.

Eric (43:22)
Yeah.

Erika (43:26)
Mmm.

⁓ I can imagine.

Russ (43:38)
But back then all socks were white. When they made them they were all white or yellow, like an off white, and then you dyed them in big, big mats. Now we get the yarn already dyed. So it's much cleaner, much easier to deal with. And then...

Erika (43:43)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (43:45)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (43:54)
glad

that they do that now, like just because socks are so fun and that's why I have too many pairs of them. Well, good. As long as you say it's okay, then I'll never stop. Good.

Eric (44:01)
yeah.

Russ (44:01)
You can never have too many.

You can never have too many, yeah, yeah. That lasts longer then, because you don't wear them out as fast, right?

Eric (44:09)
That's so true. That's so true because I always find

myself going back to Cole's and getting like a couple of packs of boxers and a couple of packs of socks. Like, yeah, she has, you know, you know how everyone has a dresser for all their clothes. She has basically a dresser for her clothes and then a dresser for socks.

Russ (44:17)
Yeah.

Erika (44:17)
You're validating my habit of just buying things. ⁓ Ridiculous amount.

Kind of, yeah.

Russ (44:30)
Yeah, yeah.

My wife has a closet for purses.

Eric (44:38)
Oh man. Oh man.

Erika (44:40)
Which is more expensive,

I don't know. Depends on what kind of purse is.

Russ (44:45)
There's a great

joke about that too. For many years, I am not great with dates. And I get busy. I know something's coming. Like I know my anniversary is coming up. I think I need to get some. And then all of a sudden the day is there. And I'm like, ⁓ So for many years, every time I forgot something of importance, I had to buy, and I don't know if you guys know this guy, and I don't know what he makes purses out of, but Michael Kors.

Eric (44:54)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (44:54)
Hmm.

Eric (45:06)
Right.

Erika (45:13)
yes.

Eric (45:13)
Yeah,

yeah.

Russ (45:14)
For many years I had to buy Michael Kors purses and I'm not sure what he was using to make those purses because holy crap, those were not cheap. Now, since the advent of smartphones, my life has become a lot easier because I have reminders now. Yeah, yeah. I had to do that. Knock on wood.

Erika (45:17)
you

Eric (45:27)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, honestly, you just got to take her some.

Erika (45:27)
Yes, yes.

Eric (45:32)
Yeah. Honestly, you just got to take her somewhere. And we talked earlier about Delta. You just get her at Delta one C and she'll be pretty thrilled.

Russ (45:39)
So we were talking about Delta miles. So I went to, have a new grandson. He was born, he's 10 months old this month, but they're in Germany. My son and daughter-in-law are stationed in Wiesbaden. And so I took my wife over in February to visit for the first time. And I used all points and upgrade certificates. So on the way over, we had premium select, which is not the life flat.

Erika (45:44)
Congratulations! Aww.

Mm-hmm.

Wonderful.

Eric (46:09)
That is nice.

Russ (46:10)
But it's nice. But because I bought those, I cut the upgrade for the Delta 1. And of course, I did the right thing and gave it to my wife. I didn't tell her that, well, I'd rather not sit next to her anyway for nine hours, being honest. So it worked out perfect. And then.

Erika (46:17)
Uh-huh. Good man, good man.

Eric (46:18)
Happy wife, happy life.

Yeah. You just say, honey,

we got the upgrade, but for some reason I'm in Delta one row two and you're in Delta one row eight. sorry.

Russ (46:35)
Right, right,

right. And we both got it on the way back. So I got two upgrades on the way back and we're next to each other. And I just closed a little partition there. was, yeah, yeah.

Eric (46:40)
Nice. Yeah, do they have like a barrier?

Erika (46:47)
to take advantage of that privacy like, oh yeah.

Eric (46:47)
my god. Yeah.

Russ (46:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, so we were talking about Delta miles before the video started. So yeah.

Eric (46:50)
Yeah. You're.

Yeah, we were taught cause he

travels quite a bit and I was in where he's like, I'm a, he's like, he's a Hilton guy. I'm like, I'm a Marriott guy, but we're both Delta guys. So back to back to socks though, the topic here. No, it's cool. We go off the tracks all the time. So when did the double layer become their like claim to fame though?

Russ (47:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah.

Erika (47:01)
There you go.

Russ (47:11)
Yeah,

so that was back in the ⁓ 80s. It was just an idea that somebody had and they started doing it and we had patents on it. They've expired, but we've had patents on it. And ⁓ it works. The military's done a lot of research on wearing two socks and they suggest it. And I got it because I was a Boy Scout growing up. We go backpacking all the time. And we always were supposed to wear a thin inner sock and that.

Erika (47:29)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (47:40)
awful big heavy wool sock on the outside. And I always thought because the wool just felt so bad you wear two socks, but it prevented, I never got blisters. So yeah, that's that technology while not earth shattering. It's amazing that more companies don't do it. And the reason they don't is because it takes a long time. It's really slow. You have to slow the machines down and it's kind of a pain in the butt. Like most sock companies, they buy a machine from Linati.

Erika (47:48)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Russ (48:08)
It comes from Italy, you plug it in and it starts knitting. Ours come, we hit it with setup and then the Italians have to come over for a couple weeks and it takes about a month, month and a half to get ours up and running. Yeah, so it's a...

Eric (48:25)
How many of these machines do you have? 75, wow. So if one goes down, you're okay. I was gonna be like, my God, if one goes down, what happens?

Russ (48:27)
We have 75.

Yeah, Well, but they all,

but they all do different, there's different, different needle counts. So have you guys talked about needle counts in socks yet? Ah, so good stuff here. Yeah. So we make socks, have 108 needle machines, 132 needle machines, 168 and 200. And much like, like, like sheets, the higher the thread count, the tighter the knit.

Eric (48:38)
Yeah.

Erika (48:41)
I don't think so. I'm learning. I'm learning.

Eric (48:41)
No.

Erika (48:58)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (49:00)
the the stuff of the sock. ⁓ So like our our number one seller is our Cool Mesh 2. It's our kind of a bread and butter sock. It's a 132 needle. So it's kind of a wider weave, looser fit, know, doesn't it's not as constricting. ⁓ And then like our 168 would be like, like a Balega Hidden Comfort is a very popular 168 needle. And then like a 200, it'll be like a Features Elite.

Erika (49:22)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (49:29)
And so we make similar socks to all those and those needle counts, but we do a lot of socks, most of our socks are double layered.

Eric (49:35)
So now I'm thinking here, okay, what's my sock preference? And I have many socks, but I only have a couple I prefer to run in and they always tend to be a lighter sock. You have some of those heavy socks and they might be a little thicker or something. And those are fine when if

typical day walking around, whatever. And I purposely wear those socks when I'm not running because I don't want to wear some of those thinner, lighter socks. They almost feel breathable. So what kind of needle count number is that that I'm looking for?

Russ (50:02)
Yeah, well exactly.

That's lower, so that's like the 132. That's like a lower needle count. It's got a more open weave, so you're have more airflow. A lot of times people, the sock preference in a running shoe too is your feet swell pretty dramatically when you run. And so having a lighter weight sock that maybe not be as constricting might feel more comfortable as you take up volume in that shoe when you start running. There's a lot of folks that don't have a high volume foot.

Eric (50:10)
Okay.

Erika (50:10)
Mmm.

Eric (50:24)
Yes.

Russ (50:36)
They might have a narrow foot or just narrowed spots. And so they'll want to suck that has more to it to take up more room in the shoe.

Erika (50:39)
Mm-hmm.

Makes sense.

Russ (50:45)
Yeah, and there's cushion too. mean, we put cushioning in some of our socks. Our lightweight stuff we don't. But like in our run locks, we put a bunch of ⁓ terry loops. You when you fold out a sock, you see all the loops, that's cushioning. So ⁓ it just depends on personal preference. I'm with you. I wear the thinnest socks I can. ⁓

Eric (51:04)
Yeah.

I only have to wear it when I'm running. Yeah. So like if I, for some reason on Valentine's day, get a bouquet of socks and they're not the thin ones, I still wear them. wear, ⁓ no, no, one, one year my wife was like, I just want socks. I got her, I got her 12, like a pink, you know, socks made it look like a bouquet. So that's why I said that. that was, that was a long time ago, but no, if I, like, if anyone ever

Russ (51:13)
Right? Is that a hint? Wait, is that, is he hinting? Wait, sorry.

Erika (51:19)
No. ⁓

Russ (51:22)
You

Yeah. Awesome.

Erika (51:29)
cute.

Eric (51:34)
for instance, we used to have at my work years ago, a gym and we had like a health instructor and she's trying to figure out gifts to give people. I was like, I was like, I know you could, you could go easy and do a Dunkin Donuts gift card. You really could, but you could also do like a gift card to fleet feet. Cause the fleet feet was one exit down the road from us right down the street from Eric's house. And I'm like, you know, like maybe just get people's socks or like shorts or a t-shirt or something. And she did the socks.

Erika (51:56)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (52:03)
Socks are great, people love getting good socks. The problem is once you get a good pair of socks, other socks just stink. Once you get a nice pair of performance socks, know, $15, $18 pair of socks, it's so different than the $2 socks you get at Walmart. It's so different. The material's different, the quality's different. Yeah, it's crazy.

Eric (52:20)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (52:21)
I know, right? It's so hard to... ⁓

It's so hard to spend that much on it, but you know that it's going to be good quality. And I'm one of the runners who actually does prefer to have a little bit of cushion, although my feet do overheat. So I actually really love those Cool Mesh socks. They are fantastic for cooling me off. But I need a little cushion in the heels and the, yeah.

Russ (52:31)
Yeah.

Eric (52:40)
So actually, yeah.

Russ (52:45)
Yeah, so like

you could do like our cool mesh cushion. We make a cool mesh with cushion in it, right? It's a little warmer though. It's a little bit warmer. I'm with you that padding on the bottom, the cushion does generate some heat, especially if you move around a little bit in the shoe a little bit, you get a little bit of friction heat too.

Erika (52:49)
Mm-hmm. Perfect.

So helpful.

Eric (53:03)
Right. So, so Erica here is our on the runs ultra runner, but like four years ago though, she ran her first ultra marathon and she did a couple of these and Erica was it, you got like heat rash on your feet, right?

Erika (53:03)
Mm.

Yep, Resident Ultra on here.

Russ (53:07)
Nice.

Erika (53:17)
It was ridiculous. That was my first hundred miler and I did a lot of things wrong and I just got blisters everywhere. I was covered in heat rash and actually like the heat rash, I think I figured it out how to prevent it for the most part, but the socks are key. The socks, if they trap in the heat, yeah, that's bad news.

Russ (53:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eric (53:31)
Was it the Sox? Yes.

Russ (53:34)
Socks are key.

And did you change your socks at all along the course? Yeah, that's important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I used to work the aid station at Ford's bar for states. And I can't tell you how many people would come with the same pair of socks they started with. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. We used to cut the toes off of people's shoes for them, you know, cause they...

Erika (53:41)
I did, yes. So there was a lot of dirt in there, so that's not the socks fault, but.

Hmm

It's good to just get something fresh on there too.

Eric (53:57)
Yeah.

Russ (54:03)
They would swell up three times normal. You see, take your knife out and cut off the toes. Yeah, brutal stuff.

Eric (54:10)
So what I wanted to ask about her heat rash, her feet rash, whatever she was getting though, like what about a sock can help prevent that? Like she was wearing at the time she likes the cushiony ones. Was that the problem?

Erika (54:10)
Ugh.

Russ (54:13)
Yeah.

Yep, ⁓

the problem is friction and moisture. That's always the problem, right? Friction and moisture. So you have to figure out how you can eliminate one or both. And in ultra, you gotta eliminate both. Because you're on your feet for so long. ⁓ And that's where the double layer comes into play for us. That inner layer is super thin, and it actually moves with your foot. So all that friction that occurs happens between the two layers of socks, and not your sock and the foot.

Erika (54:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Russ (54:49)
And that's why it works. Also, the yarn we use, which is all recycled by the way, all the polyester in our socks is from recycled plastic bottles. And that was just pretty cool. ⁓ But when they make the yarn, when they're spinning it, they actually can embed properties. And one of the properties we have in bed is wicking and some antimicrobial to help with that stuff. Yeah.

Erika (54:51)
Definitely key. ⁓

Awesome.

Mm.

Yes.

Russ (55:19)
And good foot health too, right? Like this is, I'm sure when I was selling shoes in the store, you always get ladies that would come in and they'd have hot spots. And it'd be where they would go get a pedicure and they would take off the calluses. And I tell you, that is a difficult conversation to have with a lady who goes and gets a pedicure every couple of weeks. It's like, hey, tell them to your calluses alone. They're there for a reason, right? They're there because they need to be there.

Erika (55:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm. I don't have

to worry about that. I only have like six toenails. That's not the socks fault either.

Eric (55:48)
Well, I- ⁓

Eric Kuh

Russ (55:53)
Well, not even their

toenails, just the calluses, right? On the bottom of their feet, yeah.

Eric (55:56)
Yeah.

Russ, have you ever gotten a pedicure? It's, it's the best, but now I'm training for the New York city marathon and I was going to take my wife out for one soon. I think I might have to wait. I never thought of that.

Erika (55:58)
I don't want anybody touching them.

Russ (56:01)
Yes, once.

I don't dig it.

No, ⁓

Erika (56:13)
Ha ha.

Eric (56:20)
Yeah!

Yeah.

Man, what a bummer.

Erika (56:33)
You know what though? The leg massage is the best part.

Russ (56:33)
They can do your nails, they can do your nails and get the leg massage and...

Eric (56:35)
No, I go for the good part. I go

for the rubbing and getting all the dead skin off and the foot massage. Oh my God. Oh man.

Russ (56:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you want all that, you

want all that funk on there, buddy. In fact, I...

Erika (56:46)
Save it.

Keep the funk, keep the funk!

Russ (56:50)
I

used to, when I was with Fleet Feet in Sacramento, ⁓ one of the coaches was a guy named Tim Tweetmire and ⁓ pretty prolific ultra, he won states 25 times. I ran it 25 times, won it five. Lived in Auburn, worked in Folsom, would run to and from work. Like 30 miles each way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy was just, he's a beast, right? But I think it was him.

Erika (57:03)
No way.

Natural. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Russ (57:19)
we were having a conversation about blisters and he would tell me that the night before a long training run or a run, he would actually soak his feet in warm water and Epsom salt. He said, it felt good.

Erika (57:29)
That's one of my favorite

things to do after a race, just because it feels so nice. Like, ⁓ I do cool water though. Yep. Yep.

Russ (57:33)
Well, and it dries your feet out a bit.

It dries your feet out. So you try to dry your feet out the night before a long training run or a race. Yeah.

Erika (57:40)
heart. ⁓

Eric (57:42)
Yeah.

Now you mentioned blisters in the double layered socks. Your claim to fame is you guarantee no blisters. How do you guarantee no blisters? Is there like a testing process? Is there something? Do you have people go out there and try them? How do you write that? Cause when you write that down, I'm not a lawyer, but like if someone does somebody come to you ever and say, Hey, I got a foot blister. then are you like prove it or what?

Russ (57:45)
Yeah.

Right.

Erika (57:56)
Beta test, yes.

Russ (58:03)
Yeah, absolutely. absolutely. No, no,

absolutely. Yeah, no. So the scientific process is pretty non-existent with this. ⁓ It's a proven thing. What we do is we guarantee that if you get a blister in our sock, we'll buy the sock back from you or send you another pair. We don't usually ask for proof. We probably sold a million pairs of socks last year.

Erika (58:23)
Hmm.

Russ (58:32)
We probably bought back 100, 110, and most of those were blisters between the toes, we can't help with that. We don't even argue about it though, because we put no blisters guaranteed or your money back, so we just do it. It's easier just to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (58:41)
Uh-huh.

Eric (58:45)
Yeah.

Erika (58:46)
because your feet are going to rub the way they rub, so it probably doesn't matter what sock you have on them.

Eric (58:48)
impressive.

Right, right. And if you know it's about a hundred a year and you're selling a million. Now

that was that, was that like a milestone number for you guys? Or has that been going on for a while? Sales wise? Nice. Unbelievable. That's so cool.

Russ (59:03)
No, I think that's pretty average actually. yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah,

but it's, you gotta remember it's $15 socks too. Like it's not like I'm selling a million iPads. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric (59:14)
Yes. Yeah. $1 socks. Yeah. But it's cool to have that number. Like

it, like it's, it's a lot cooler than 900,000 or whatever. You know, it's a million. We sold a million socks. Like,

Russ (59:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, we probably

sold several billion socks over the years, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. ⁓

Eric (59:32)
Yeah, that's super wild.

We're not even at a million downloads. We got a way to go, but you know, one day it'll be so cool. One million socks.

Erika (59:37)
you

Russ (59:40)
We're

an overnight 75 year success,

Eric (59:43)
So in your job, you're director of sales and marketing. So let's talk a little bit about your job. What are your priorities, your main goals? What are the things you're striving for? What are the challenges you have to face every day?

Russ (59:55)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Every day, I ask myself, every day my question is, how can I sell more socks today than I did yesterday? Right? That's my goal. My purview is pretty large. So I handle all of our international distributors. We have 21 international distributors that I interact with and deal with on a routine basis. We have 22 sales reps in US.

Erika (59:57)
Good questions.

Eric (59:59)
What are your code, Browns?

Erika (1:00:00)
You

Mm-hmm.

Russ (1:00:25)
So I deal with them directly, indirectly. We have some big accounts that I deal with directly like REI, ⁓ some big Canadian accounts like MEC, which is like the Canadian REI. ⁓ So I interact with them. And then the best part of my job is I get to go out and visit customers. So a lot of my time on the road is spent traveling with sales reps in territories, going to fleet feats, going to local mom and pop outdoor stores, ⁓ family shoe stores.

Erika (1:00:36)
Okay.

Russ (1:00:54)
interacting with customers trying to sell more socks.

Erika (1:00:57)
having the fun conversations. what you like to do.

Russ (1:00:59)
Yeah, yeah,

that's my favorite. Well, obviously I have ⁓ a lot of things I could talk about and I enjoy it. So ⁓ it works. And then a large part of my job is like trade shows. So like there's a big one, the big one, my favorite one is the running event in ⁓ San Antonio this year.

Eric (1:01:06)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:01:16)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:01:19)
Yeah, I love watching that on social media. I don't know when we'll go one day, but it'd be cool. But that seems like a cool it's more of a business to business running event, right? Running trade show.

Erika (1:01:23)
Hope to.

Russ (1:01:27)
It is.

for running stores basically. they've included outdoor now with it, which is great. So you get a little bigger crowd and a lot of this stuff crosses over, right? Like trail for sure crosses over running store, outdoor store. There's a lot of crossover stuff. yeah, I've been going since 2011 and I haven't missed one of them yet. Of course, I didn't have them during COVID for a couple of years, but... ⁓

Eric (1:01:31)
Yes.

Erika (1:01:43)
yeah.

Russ (1:01:56)
That's if you go to if you when you go to that event, you will see how truly small the running industry really is Because we all know each other. We've all worked together in some capacity at some point in time Done business somehow. So it's a very for me, especially I it's one of my favorite weeks of the year

Eric (1:02:02)
Okay.

So talk about that week then because what are you doing down there? Do you have a set up or are you going by yourself looking to talk to people or are they coming to you? What's your week like there?

Russ (1:02:23)
Yeah, yeah.

So I usually get there Monday and start setting up our booth. We usually have like a 10 by 20 booth. And part of my job is to come up with something to attract people to our booth. So this last year we had a sock slot machine. Yeah, was a big, you hit the big button, it would spin the reels and different socks would come up and we gave away like some hundred dollar gift cards and some Starbucks cards and so.

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

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

that's so fun.

Russ (1:02:56)
Everybody wants socks. ⁓

Eric (1:02:58)
Yeah ⁓

Russ (1:03:01)
So like that, the year before that I did, I dressed up like Evil Knievel, which is kind of funny. If you all don't remember who Evil Knievel was. Yeah, I got on my phone. I wore it just other, I just wore it last week again at a birthday party. It was somebody's 70th birthday party and it was a 70s theme. So I rolled in looking like Evil Knievel. It was amazing. so we gave away a bunch of, remember those,

Erika (1:03:02)
Still winning.

⁓ man.

Eric (1:03:12)
I need that picture.

Erika (1:03:15)
you

Eric (1:03:26)
Nice.

Russ (1:03:30)
The Evil Knievel toys when you were a kid, where you wound them up and the motorcycle would go and jump. Do you remember those? Yeah, yeah, I'm old. We gave away about 20 of those that year ⁓ and we had people try to jump the motorcycle over the ramps. It was great. And then we had Santa Claus a year before that. So we tried to come up with something unique and different to get people to interact with us ⁓ that we would normally wouldn't see.

Eric (1:03:34)
Now you're aging yourself.

Erika (1:03:56)
Mm-hmm. That sounds like so much

So I'm curious how many different run shows there are. Like we know of the Boston Run Show. Have you ever been to that one?

Russ (1:04:05)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we did that one a couple times. Yes.

Eric (1:04:08)
And how often are you like, you got the running event, you got the Boston Run show, like how popular are trade shows around the country, or the globe for that matter, that you attend?

Erika (1:04:17)
He he.

Russ (1:04:17)
Yeah,

so there's a lot of trade shows I could attend that we could go to. I kind of pick and choose. I just did the Switchback event, which is ⁓ an offshoot of the running event. Same company owns it. That was in Nashville last month. I do a lot of regional stuff. Like there's some outdoor specific trade groups that they do. Like they'll do one in Greenville, South Carolina, and one in Boston, and then one in Florida.

Erika (1:04:24)
⁓

Eric (1:04:29)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:04:46)
Mmm.

Russ (1:04:46)
but they're much more regional. And I like those more just because they're smaller. And I feel like you get more of an opportunity to interact with everybody. ⁓ I just did a shoe ⁓ repair shop industry trade show in Vegas, which is my least favorite town ⁓ last month as well. And it was great. It was super small, but I talked to everybody that was an attendee I had at least 10 minutes with. ⁓

Eric (1:04:48)
Yeah.

Erika (1:04:55)
Yes.

Russ (1:05:13)
which is great. we do that kind of stuff and then we'll do some consumer facing stuff as well. Like I just, I was in Denver for the outside festival in June. Yeah, in June. And that was like 25,000 people and 30 bands over two days and crazy.

Erika (1:05:25)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Eric (1:05:33)
So you're experienced here. You've done a lot of this stuff. You've been around the industry for over 20 years. You do the trade shows. You have booth setups. If you were ever talking to a brand or a company looking to get into it or someone who might have a booth at a trade show soon, what advice would you give them?

Russ (1:05:53)
Figure out how to be engaging. That's the key, right? If you want to be successful at any of these things, I don't care if it's consumer facing or business facing, you got to have a hook. You got to have a reason for people to stop and talk to you in the first place. And once you get that ice broken, you know, like so at the outside festival, we took some corn hole boards and I had them customized. And then we took, I didn't realize they use synthetic corn for.

Eric (1:06:04)
Yes.

Erika (1:06:15)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (1:06:21)
for cornhole bags, did you know this? You can buy synthetic corn on Amazon for cornhole bags and make your own corn. So we did socks. We took a couple pairs of socks and filled them with the corn. And so we had this boards in front of our booth and people would come and you've got a sock in the hole, you got a pair of socks. So we gave away like 1200 pairs of socks. In like a day and a half, we ran out.

Erika (1:06:23)
Mm-mm.

Okay.

Eric (1:06:40)
Yeah.

Wow.

Erika (1:06:45)
200 pairs? Wow!

Russ (1:06:49)
me ran out, had no more socks in my bags. I'm like, I'm sorry folks, we're out. But yeah, so, but I had at least 1200 people that I was talking to, which is crazy. yeah. ⁓

Erika (1:06:53)
Ha

Eric (1:06:54)
It's a good problem to have.

Erika (1:06:56)
I was just thinking that.

That is fantastic.

Eric (1:07:02)
Yeah, you probably

sold 2400 socks after that. Just from, yeah.

Russ (1:07:07)
Well, that's the hope, right? That's the hope.

Erika (1:07:08)
Mm-hmm.

Russ (1:07:09)
And for us, like for our little company, because we don't have a huge budget for like, I can't go out and go get a license for an NBA team, right? So we find the best marketing for us is just getting socks on people's feet.

Erika (1:07:18)
Hmm.

Yeah, the real people who are gonna enjoy it and give you a real, like a real rundown of how they work.

Russ (1:07:24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, I'll do things like the outside festival, but I'll also do like, like Steak-o-rama in in Wooster in outside of Boston there. I did a thing with Wooster. I can't ever say it. Westa, Westa, that's it. Thank you. Not being from the, Worchester exactly, not being from the northeast. I have a hard time pronouncing all the different names of cities up there.

Eric (1:07:39)
Wooster. That's funny. Wooster.

Erika (1:07:42)
Worcester.

Russ (1:07:53)
But like last year, we did a ⁓ Christmas run for their big fun run group in December, where I went up and put our table out and took Christmas socks. people brought in socks to give to the homeless shelter. And I gave them running socks, right? So they would bring in some socks. So we'll do stuff like that too, kind of granular level, and then at the Mac wear level too.

Eric (1:07:57)
Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Erika (1:08:08)
⁓ that is a great, great thing.

Eric (1:08:15)
Now is it only running socks or do you guys, do you make ski socks? Do you make, you know, yeah.

Erika (1:08:16)
Mm.

Lifestyle sucks. ⁓

Russ (1:08:21)
Yeah, I would say that we make socks. So we do all kinds of different socks. Most of our socks are going to be performance minded, right? They're going to be for active activities, running, hiking, pickleball.

Eric (1:08:28)
Shoot. Yeah.

Well,

like if you look at socks today, I'm a big skier. I love to ski. I take a lot of running off in the winter, just go skiing. Like skiing socks are important too, but they're so different now compared to what they used to be. They're more like a running sock that just goes all the way up your leg. Yeah. So I might, think my next right sock order, I don't like socks that go above my ankle, but I might get a pair to try skiing and see how that works.

Russ (1:08:38)
Yeah.

100%. Yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:08:58)
I

Russ (1:09:01)
Well, we

do make some over the calf. We call them over the calf. And we actually make that sock for the Swiss army. And for some of the European markets because they like super tall socks. You will notice when you look at the website, if you look at the over the calf, they're brighter colors because the Europeans like, right, the Germans especially.

Eric (1:09:05)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Okay. It's neat how you

Erika (1:09:22)
That's fun.

Eric (1:09:24)
know that like the market research you do to learn all that and you direct your sales kind of that way and you know what to do. You've been

Russ (1:09:28)
Yeah.

But we make colors

for Germany we don't make for the rest of the world. Like, just, they're very specific.

Eric (1:09:34)
Yeah.

We could go for some nice OTR blue, I'll tell you that. That would be beautiful. Yeah.

Erika (1:09:40)
You

Russ (1:09:40)
There you go, there you go, there you go.

We have that color, yeah, yeah.

Eric (1:09:44)
Well, Hey, we have a couple of big questions and I come up with a few after that we've had before in the past, but these are two big questions we ask every guest on the podcast and they're hard. They're tough because you only get to pick one. So I'm going to go first this year. You are welcome to come to our on the runs pasta dinner. This is going to be a huge dinner. Everyone's going to come at the end of the year. The food's going to be great. The people are going to be great. And every guest on the podcast gets to bring.

plus one. You can bring anyone in the world alive or dead but not including family. Who are you going to bring?

Russ (1:10:26)
Teddy Roosevelt.

Erika (1:10:27)
Hmm. Why are you gonna bring Teddy Roosevelt? There's gotta be a reason.

Eric (1:10:27)
⁓ cool!

Russ (1:10:30)
Ahem.

There's a lot of them, right? I think he was probably one of the most prolific presidents when it comes to public space. He set aside Yosemite, which is very near and to my heart. ⁓ He was ⁓ a reformer, right? Busted up the ⁓ monopolies. I think he was just a fascinating guy. was hypodepressive, manic depressive of some sort because he was always going.

Eric (1:10:43)
Yeah.

Russ (1:11:01)
I think that I would love to be around that energy for a while because I feel like as I try to keep myself slowed down, I feel like I get like that. Yeah.

Erika (1:11:03)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:11:09)
Yeah, that's cool.

Erika (1:11:10)
Good

answer.

Eric (1:11:10)
We have multiple presidents now coming multiple. This is awesome. Yeah. No, the names we get are really cool. And we had to add, we had to add no family because everyone was just starting to be like, well, I'll bring my wife. I would have to bring her. I was like, no, no, no, that's no fun. So families always welcome, but I want that plus one. That's a cool one. Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah.

Russ (1:11:13)
really? ⁓ interesting. Yeah.

Erika (1:11:16)
Got a first lady too.

Russ (1:11:29)
No, no, I get it. Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:11:29)
You

Russ (1:11:32)
Yeah, I've just, I read a couple of his biographies and I've always been fascinated by his character. And yeah, he overcame a lot, right? He was an asthmatic, small, poor eyesight kid that went out and, know, tamed the West and was just an amazingly much bigger character than he was physically.

Eric (1:11:37)
Yeah. Right.

That's cool. Nice pick. Nice pick. Russ for the win there. All right. Here's Erica's tough question. This one's the hardest.

Russ (1:11:54)
Thank you. Thank you.

Erika (1:11:55)
Good answer. All right, now my

turn, my turn. So this will help you bring some energy too. But we have a Spotify playlist and we like to invite our guests to add a song to it. So is there anything out there that you think is gonna pump people up when they listen to it? Just put it on shuffle and a bop comes on, something good. What do you got?

Russ (1:12:18)
Man, my taste in music is really weird. So I don't know if everybody, I love.

Erika (1:12:22)
We

have all kinds on this playlist, so whatever you like, throw it at us.

Eric (1:12:25)
Yes, there's some weird stuff.

Russ (1:12:26)
I'm a big

fan of Celtic punk. know, yeah. So like Foggy Molly's, Dropkick, yeah. So I'm thinking, are the, yeah. So something like, you know, shipping up to Boston maybe or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of my jam, right? Yeah, I like that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:12:31)
Celtic punk. Yes. ⁓ yes. ⁓

Eric (1:12:41)
Yes. We love that song up here. Yeah. We love that song up here. It's a classic.

Erika (1:12:43)
That's always a good good one. Yes Perfect

Eric (1:12:50)
I hope, I hope you come. Well, actually, you know what? I hope you, I hope you come to Boston one day. ⁓ we'd love to hang out and like grab, grab a drink or dinner or something. Yeah. But if we're.

Russ (1:12:54)
Yeah, when is it? When is it and where is it? I come to Boston all the time.

Yeah.

Erika (1:13:01)
We're just over the border in New Hampshire, so not too far.

Russ (1:13:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My favorite

sales rep, hope the other reps don't hear this, my favorite sales rep covers the Northeast and we go to, so you guys shop at Marathon maybe? Yeah, yeah, so Ben Cook, the president of Marathon, is a good friend of mine. We used to work together at Fleetfeet. Yeah, so I go up there, hang out with Ben and Waltham. Yeah.

Eric (1:13:14)
Yeah, marathon sports. Yeah.

Erika (1:13:20)
Very cool.

Eric (1:13:25)
So cool.

Erika (1:13:27)
Full circle.

Eric (1:13:29)
Yeah. Well, what I was going to say is if you're ever up here, I'd love that. if we're ever down there, I would love to see, to see the shop, the factory, how it's done. That'd be so cool. Yeah. Yeah. I would vlog it. I'd make a reel for you. All that. I used to live in Charlotte for a while. I told you that earlier. So, you know, it's not too far. get to travel for work a little bit. We do things in Raleigh Durham area from time to time. I have not gone yet, but

Russ (1:13:34)
Absolutely. Come for a Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. We could do it. We could do a little video of it. Yeah, we could do that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric (1:13:57)
I will make a point when I do go to spend the day and find you guys.

Russ (1:14:02)
Absolutely, yeah, we're just, about half an hour from already you. 35 minutes, 40 minutes. Yeah.

Eric (1:14:06)
Yeah, we'll have to plan

Erika (1:14:07)
going there in September.

Eric (1:14:07)
it around a Boston Bruins Carolina Hurricane game though.

Russ (1:14:11)
A hurricane game? yeah.

Erika (1:14:10)
That's more fun. ⁓ I'm heading down

I'm doing a race in Virginia coming up at the end of September and I'm flying into Raleigh and we do a road trip. Yep, we do a road trip. So I'll be in your way too.

Russ (1:14:18)
I'm driving up, yeah. Yeah, fun, fun, fun. So speaking

Eric (1:14:21)
Yeah.

Russ (1:14:22)
of hockey, you're hockey fan?

Eric (1:14:24)
Go big time.

Erika (1:14:24)
He is.

Russ (1:14:26)
So I was doing ⁓ an event for a group called the November Project. Have you guys heard of the November Project? So they had their annual conference, North American Conference in Alberta. ⁓

Eric (1:14:32)
Yes, yes.

Erika (1:14:32)
Yes, we have.

Eric (1:14:43)
Edmonton, Andrew Ferentz. Is Andrew Ferentz a big part of that? Yes, yes.

Russ (1:14:44)
Edmonton, Edmonton, thank you, Edmonton. Yes, yes, so

we made a special sock form. I don't know I have it on my desk. Yeah, yes, yeah, email me when we're done. I'll see if I can find some. Yeah, yeah, so we did a special November project sock and I went up and hung out during the events and then, but as part of that, that was also the same week as the playoff, the Stanley Cup playoffs. So I watched game one.

Eric (1:14:53)
No way! Can I have a pair?

Erika (1:14:57)
He doesn't ask for much, but he's like, his eyes just lit up.

Eric (1:15:00)
So.

Russ (1:15:14)
downtown at the ice, what they call it, the ice.

Eric (1:15:15)
my god.

The one in Edmonton? ⁓ The Rexall place, I think maybe? okay, okay. Yeah.

Russ (1:15:21)
Yeah, it's It's called the Ice something, Ice District, the Ice District.

Erika (1:15:27)
I'm like,

I'm no help.

Russ (1:15:28)
So in a bar overlooking the mosh pit area with the Jumbotron with 185 drunk Canadians.

Eric (1:15:34)
my god.

Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Erika (1:15:40)
You made it out alive.

Russ (1:15:43)
It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. you guys ever watch Shorzy?

Eric (1:15:44)
Yes! It's the best!

Yes! my god, I love you! ⁓

Erika (1:15:51)
You're

hitting all of his checkpoints here.

Russ (1:15:54)
It was like an episode

of Shorzy, man. It was just like, ⁓ hey boys, gotta crush the gold, Set the tone, boys, set the tone. It was amazing, amazing.

Eric (1:15:58)
Eric? Yeah!

Erica, I'm going to

send you a clip of Sorgi that keeps coming over my feet. I haven't made it at this point in the series yet, but he's in love with this girl who's a reporter. Yeah. And, and he just keeps trying to like, you know, sweet talk his way. And she keeps saying, he goes, what do I have to do? She keeps saying, run a marathon, run a marathon. so eventually he runs a marathon and it's just a classic. And then there's letter Kenny. It's so good. ⁓

Erika (1:16:06)
You got it.

⁓

Russ (1:16:10)
The reporter, the older gal. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:16:21)
⁓

Russ (1:16:25)
Yep.

Letter Kennedy,

I couldn't get into it because I think the dial block went too fast for me and too many, yeah, I had to turn on the subtitles, which is infuriating,

Eric (1:16:36)
Yeah, sometimes, yeah. I

watch shows with subtitles all the time because I love ER and I love those kind of like doctor shows and they have all the language. subtitles for the win. So, okay.

Russ (1:16:44)
Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, but so so that

watch game one and then I watched the game game two. I think was game two. I watched at a sports club. There. With a different level of Canadian. But just as drunk. They they they were playing they were playing they were playing golf. They played 18 holes and they came in and watched the game and they were drinking for all 18. It was amazing. Yeah, it was.

Eric (1:17:02)
Okay?

I think I gotta sell socks.

Oh

my God. So, during the NHL lockout, this would have been 2012. The there was lockout in 2012. So Andrew Ferrence played for the Boston Bruins and he is very into like triathlon running, cycling, working out. And I loved him. He's this amazing Boston Bruin and he scored this huge goal against the Canadians and he

Russ (1:17:14)
One of my favorite experiences of ever watching the games there was amazing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric (1:17:41)
He told all the Canadian fans you're a number one and he, and he has the painting in his garage and stuff. And he called it the glove malfunction, like brand new gloves. The fingers are sticky. was awesome. But he, he.

Russ (1:17:43)
It's right-

Yep, yep, yep.

Erika (1:17:51)
Yeah, good call.

Russ (1:17:52)
Right? Which is also

the inspiration for the finger in ⁓ the Mascots movie. Have you seen Mascots?

Eric (1:18:01)
⁓

no, I got to see this. So, so during the lockout though, he, he, he befriended somehow the guys who started November project. And I think it was just, Hey, for the entire month of November, we're going to run the steps at Harvard stadium. And it blew up and I knew people who were doing this. ⁓ Erica, the, guests from California, Mike, who's, who's wife I went to high school with Katie Deans.

Russ (1:18:04)
Another quirky one. Yeah, Christopher Guest film. Yeah, great.

Erika (1:18:07)
Love it.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Scott.

Eric (1:18:30)
Yeah. Mike Scott, Katie Deans would run the steps and everything. And I would see people I know running the steps. And then we had Laura green on the podcast like two years ago and she brought it up. And I think I free, I like fanboyed so hard over her knowing Andrew Ferrence and she talked about how she camped on Andrew Ferrence's yard in Alberta and stuff. And so, so I've been following the November project thing for years, but that's, that's how it started. I believe. And he was a huge part of making that grow. And he brought it to Edmonton and all over where he was.

Russ (1:18:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:18:42)
You did. You really did.

Russ (1:18:43)
That's awesome.

That's awesome. Yeah.

funny.

Eric (1:18:59)
because eventually he left and he became the Oilers captain and he has such a presence still in the league. His job has something to do with like, think maybe it was fan engagement or maybe it was more like NHL going green. I think, yeah, one of those two things and he's very involved. He does a lot of events with the Bruins still won the Stanley Cup of the Bruins like amazing guy. I remember the day we traded for him. It was a huge trade. We got him and Chuck Kobachu and they were playing for Calgary and I can't remember who we traded.

Russ (1:19:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Erika (1:19:13)
Hmm.

Russ (1:19:23)
Yeah, yeah, kubbutzhoo, yeah.

Eric (1:19:29)
away, but that was a big deal during the whole Bruins, like really building what they had. And Andrew Farrance kind of put this, this seed in the culture of the Boston Bruins locker room and it stuck to today. And I think Andrew Farrance is a huge part of that. And that's why the Bruins have been so successful for years. So if I ever meet him, like that's what I'm going to thank him for, because he built something that stuck after he left.

Russ (1:19:32)
Yeah, yeah.

That's cool.

And big props to the Davis family for building that amazing facility adjacent to their headquarters there in Boston, right? The Bruins practice facility there, that's a beautiful facility. Yeah, that is gorgeous.

Eric (1:20:01)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. I know I used to play

hockey in their old practice rank, the Roshusha Arena in Wilmington. What a dump. my God. What a dump. The new place is gorgeous. The whole New Balance Center there too. And Warrior Arena, the Celtics have their practice facility there as well.

Russ (1:20:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Do know

the Davis family paid to have that train stop put in?

Erika (1:20:25)
No way.

Eric (1:20:25)
I did not know.

No.

Russ (1:20:26)
Yeah,

yeah. Jim Davis and his family are amazing people. Like they do, they've done so much that people don't even know. They're very, very wonderful people.

Eric (1:20:36)
I was talking about this other day to a friend of mine who I've been friends with this guy for years. It's a whole NASCAR connection, but he's, he's a Northeastern alum and he's a huge Northeastern hockey fan. go to the Beanpot with them every year. Northeastern plays in Matthew's Arena, which is one of the oldest hockey arenas in the country. And it was where the Bruins played before the Boston Garden. The arena needs to be torn down because it's falling apart structurally. can't. So now Northeastern has nowhere to play.

Russ (1:20:49)
fun.

Gotcha.

Erika (1:21:00)
Hmm.

Eric (1:21:03)
And I just thought it was a no brainer. play at warrior ice arena where the Bruins practice that we're talking about. Apparently they want to play there, but it's booked out over two years. It's going to be two years to build the new arena. They first have to tear down Matthews and put, so they're struggling to find a place to play. It might work out where they still get to play their games there, but they can't practice. then Boston university, Boston college and Harvard all like, nah, you can't use our facilities. Yeah. Yeah.

Russ (1:21:06)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Erika (1:21:12)
Holy crap.

Aww.

Russ (1:21:18)
cheese.

Nah, yeah, yeah, those guys. That stinks.

Erika (1:21:30)
Aww.

Russ (1:21:32)
That stinks. I hope they get that figured out. That's that. That's rough, man. That's crazy.

Eric (1:21:33)
But man, yeah, yeah. But big,

big hockey fan here, you know, college, I refereed hockey, college hockey up until about a year ago. So, and just taking a break as a family and kids, and also really diving deep into this passion project where we get to talk to amazing people like you. I have, I have one final question though, and I know the answer, but I want to, I want to ask it because this has popped up from time to time. If you could have the choice.

Russ (1:21:42)
nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, thank you. Yeah.

Erika (1:21:49)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:22:02)
of a brand new fresh pair of socks every day or a brand new fresh pair of underwear every day? Which one would you choose?

Russ (1:22:11)
I live that life.

Eric (1:22:15)
It's a no-brainer. I love it. I love it. Russ, this was great.

Russ (1:22:18)
I pretty much have

new socks every day if I want them. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's how I get paid. I don't actually take a salary, I just get socks.

Eric (1:22:22)
Yeah. Love it. I pick socks.

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

Eric (1:22:27)
Yeah. Yeah. It's a win. That's a win. I pick socks by the way, cause I wear underwear way too long with so many holes. It's a joke.

Russ (1:22:34)
⁓ man,

my wife and I, she was making fun of one of my undershirts because I said it was kind of lacy. She goes, yeah, it's not supposed to

Erika (1:22:44)
you

wonder if it's just a woman thing. If it's just a woman thing who would rather have like new underwear every time. Cause I have socks that I love. I don't want new socks.

Russ (1:22:48)
I can't get rid of it. I just can't get rid of it. Yeah. No, no new socks. New socks

Eric (1:22:57)
Yeah.

Russ (1:22:58)
are the best. New socks and new shoes are always the best. Yeah, absolutely.

Eric (1:23:00)
Yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:23:01)
⁓ the new shoes, I'm on board

with those, yes.

Eric (1:23:04)
I, I, I tend to wear everything up until its last point, but man, there's nothing better than a brand new pair of fresh socks on your feet, especially when you're not even wearing shoes. You're just wearing the socks. And I just got shout out to UFOs cause we're big UFOs fans. But for the first time ever, I just got the slides cause I used to the thong and I love it because I wear them all the time with my socks, my Wrightsocks, because you guys hooked me up.

Russ (1:23:15)
Exactly. Let's walk it around.

Yeah, love you folks. Yeah.

Yep, you need the slides, yeah.

Eric (1:23:30)
And I'm so excited. Thank you to you and Caitlin and whoever, everybody at the team for not only supporting my New York for not only supporting my New York City Marathon fundraising, but for hooking us up, getting this, this connection. This is so cool. I know my sister bought some. know a few others have and my sister loves them. She, was like, so tell me what you think. Cause she's a new runner.

Russ (1:23:47)
Nice, thank you.

yeah, yeah, yeah, great. Yeah, great for new runners. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Not gonna make all the mistakes we all made. Yeah. With cotton socks and yeah, yeah. Crazy.

Eric (1:23:55)
Yeah. So this was super cool.

Erika (1:23:56)
Starting her off strong. She's not going to need to flounder around and find stuff. Exactly. Learn from

Eric (1:24:01)
I know, I know. We've

made many. Lessons learned.

Erika (1:24:05)
us.

Russ (1:24:07)
Nothing new on race day. Yeah, yeah, all those things. We've done them all. Yeah, brand new pair of socks and shoes on race day because I forgot them in the bag when I went to the Marriott. Yeah, that stuff, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Eric (1:24:16)
Yeah. Well, listen,

man, when you're up in the Northeast, you need to hit us up. But I really, I really want to make an effort to go down there. This was a lot of fun. Like this isn't always about having like a wicked hardcore runner on the podcast who has some amazing code Brown stories to share or some training stories, marathons all around the world. Like we love. look. Well, we, we can do it when you're, yeah, we can do it when you're up here. We'll have a couple of drinks. We'll record live in person.

Russ (1:24:20)
I'll let you guys know. Yeah, I'll let you guys know.

Yeah.

I got those two. I got those two, but we didn't get there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric (1:24:45)
We'll try on socks on the podcast. It will be like, you know, yeah. Wait, start, you already started it. What are you talking about?

Russ (1:24:47)
That'd be fun. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:24:47)
Let me start my only feet page first you guys before

we start taking pictures and stuff

Sure, yeah I did.

Russ (1:24:58)
That's awesome.

Eric (1:24:59)
This,

this was great, dude. Thank you so much for doing this. Erica, Erica, do you have anything else for us?

Russ (1:25:02)
⁓ thank you guys.

Erika (1:25:05)
Well, you should just let us know and let all the listeners know where they can find out about Right Socks. Socials, all the good stuff.

Russ (1:25:10)
Yeah, yeah. So, ⁓ right sock.com.

⁓ we have Instagram, tick talk, Facebook, REIs, some fleet feet, some marathon sports. ⁓ you know, just, our website has the best information, probably the easiest way.

Eric (1:25:26)
And remember guys, it's W-R-I-G-H-T.

Russ (1:25:31)
But, and that's because the family's last name is Wright and Berry.

Eric (1:25:34)
Right.

And I'm going to, I'm going to leave you on a funny hockey referee story here. There's two referees. you know, in, hockey in college, you have your name on the back. Right. Well, one of the referees, his last name was right. W R I G H T the other referee, his last name was Wong W O N G. And it was great because all the fans would chant in these college arenas. He's right. You're wrong.

Russ (1:25:38)
All right, I like it.

Erika (1:25:39)
you

Russ (1:26:00)
That's awesome. That's awesome. That's great.

Eric (1:26:03)
Yeah, so guys remember it's Right

Socks W-R-I-G-H-T. They're awesome. Thank you so much for your support. Russ, thank you so much for doing this.

Russ (1:26:10)
Thank you guys.

Erika (1:26:10)
Thank you, Russ.

You're so much fun. ⁓

Russ (1:26:13)
Erica, Eric,

thank you guys, it's been a blast. I can't wait to talk to you guys again soon. Thanks for having me on. Awesome.

Erika (1:26:17)
We can't wait either.

Eric (1:26:18)
Awesome. This was great

guys. I hope you enjoyed that. lot of feet talk, a lot of sock talk,

Russ Quietlot on the On the Runs podcast. That was wicked awesome.

Russ (1:26:26)
Perfect.

That was awesome.

Erika (1:26:34)
All right, everybody, let's give it up for Russ. my God. He brought so much energy to this show and I just absolutely love talking to you about socks and about traveling and I can't wait to meet up with you someday. I think it's going to be so much fun. We just, we vibe so well. I think Eric vibes a little bit better with you. Like it's just, you guys have the North Carolina thing going on, right?

Eric (1:26:34)
Namaste.

Well, can... Well that

and we connected with the Delta, the Delta Sky Miles. However, he's a Hilton guy. I'm a Marriott guy. So, you know. ⁓ you should be. Russ would say shame on you for that. He'd be like, I understand the situation. I'm Marriott. He's Hilton. But he would go, Erica, you got to pick and choose. You got to pick a side here.

Erika (1:26:59)
All of it, all of it, yep.

That's why I'm not loyal to like anybody.

you

Mm. Mm. I

do have my favorites, but I'm not saying it on the pot. But Russ, you're amazing.

Eric (1:27:22)
Well, you know, cause we're not a political podcast. It was fun. That was great. Like so

much cool stuff and informative information about socks and the whole double layered thing. And what's really cool with this partnership we've had is I've learned some friends of ours only running Wrightsocks And they have been for years. One of them is Yuki and Yuki's just like,

Erika (1:27:43)
Amazing.

Yuki knows.

Eric (1:27:47)
Yeah, the

Boston Marathon Unicorn who is on the BAA's Instagram posts every day. She only runs in Wrightsocks, the double layered ones. And it makes sense. It actually makes sense. They're phenomenal. It's super cool. So family owned, Caitlin's somebody there too, who I think we talked about, but Caitlin's been working with us for a little bit in the past few months. So super...

Erika (1:27:53)
I saw that.

Only the best, only the best, especially for the marathon unicorn.

Eric (1:28:15)
Super thank you to Caitlin and Russ for doing that and for partnering with the podcast this summer, helping our fundraising efforts. You guys are awesome. You're absolute rock stars. And that was super cool. That was honestly... I hope you guys enjoyed that because it'd be fun to do more of those with product specialists. Really, you know, expand our horizon. You know, maybe one day we'll talk to a shoelace, you know, product specialist or something.

Erika (1:28:26)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys are the best.

She lays.

Eric (1:28:45)
This is the kind

of shoe that if you have the round ones, they don't really work, but you want the flat ones. But this is why you know, can get waxed ones. Like there's probably like probably a market for that and.

Erika (1:28:54)
There's reasoning

for all of it and we want to know all the secrets.

Eric (1:28:58)
Yeah. So, hey, you know what we didn't mention in the intro was coming up next week on Thursday, the 18th of September, we are doing a live podcast for Marathon Sports in Manchester.

Erika (1:29:01)
Hmm. Hmm.

That deserves the horn. ⁓ man. I am super pumped for this. So not nervous. No, because I'm going to have you. I'm going to have KJ. I'm going to have Nicole. We're going to have a room full of amazing people, including Steve. Yeah. You can bleep him.

Eric (1:29:15)
That's a serve for the horn. Yeah.

Not nervous, I'm nervous.

That's right. We're announcing it right now. Erica just spoiled the news. KJ and Nicole are going to be our guests. So we're going to have run coaches. No, no. We're going to

have run coaches. And guys, I don't want to bleep it out, Erica, because I want everyone to start submitting questions. Are there questions you would have for a run coach if you're training for a half marathon or a marathon? It's marathon season here in the fall. And what do you want to know, especially with the few weeks to go?

Erika (1:29:44)
Yes.

Eric (1:29:56)
Like the taper craziness race day strategy. Like, what do you want to know from these coaches who have done it? They've experienced it and they've coached others and they're currently coaching us. So huge thank you and shout out to KJ and Nicole because one there are coaches, they're doing us a favor here and I think we're all comfortable, but it's going to be super fun. There's going to be pizza. There's going to be, you can, it's going to be a great night. Saucony is going to be there guys. Yeah. Cause you guys could run at six o'clock.

Erika (1:29:58)
Mm-hmm.

Sockity. Yup.

Eric (1:30:26)
and do like a 5k in a brand new pair of sockinis and then come for the show at 7.

Erika (1:30:29)
Try them out.

Eric (1:30:31)
but Erica, I actually have a homework assignment for you. And I think it's right up your alley. So as I am envisioning this show and in as I am also envisioning like the ambiance around the show. And when everyone goes out for the six o'clock run, I want to, I'm going to be setting up around then I want to be done before six 30. And I want there to be.

Erika (1:30:35)
boy. Is it easy? Do tell. Getting my pen.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric (1:30:56)
a little bit of an ambiance as you walk in. Not, you know, like a day spa with the waterfalls, but I want, I want some music. I need a 30 minute playlist that I'm going to play, you know, quietly, but loud enough just to kind of like set the feeling. Now I might be on my, in my chair, also talking. If someone comes in, I might be like, yo, yo, what's up Mo?

Erika (1:31:06)
Okay.

Ooh.

Eric (1:31:23)
Imagine if Maurice came or something. He's all in Providence. I'm not expecting that. So I'll use him as an example. Yo Maurice, you know, because they got this thing here called auto ducking. So when I talk, the music naturally goes down, but it still plays. But when we're not talking, there can be some music and, know, so you need to not just find a 30 minute playlist. You have to curate the songs to play in the order you want.

Erika (1:31:24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

how about that?

Okay.

So is this something that we are just doing during your setup or is this going on during the whole thing? Like, okay.

Eric (1:31:54)
No, set up. But it's after

set up before the show. I hope to be done well before 6.30 because we don't want to be like, hey guys, we'll start in five minutes. We're just, this cable, where's that one? We don't want, you know, I'm going to be there early, probably before the run starts, starting to set up. And then when it's set up and it looks like we're ready, like we're not going to be behind a stage or anything. No one's going to be like, now.

Erika (1:31:58)
Yes.

Okay.

Eric (1:32:17)
From Gostown, New Hampshire, and Sandow, New Hampshire, we have the stars of the On the Runs podcast, Eric and Erica, everyone give them a big round of applause. That's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. No, that's not.

Erika (1:32:28)
We could probably make that happen though. All you have to do

is record this and then we'll play it later. Can you imagine? That'd be hilarious. I get what you mean though. You need to get in the right mindset.

Eric (1:32:33)
you

No, I'm almost gonna I envision

like I have a way I'm picturing it like I'm gonna be kind of hang out We could introduce our guests but like, you know, I figured you KJ and Nicole are gonna be mingling with the crowd But I'm gonna kind of stand sit up there and talk to people With the music in the background now the music's not gonna overpower me, but I'm just gonna kind of hang out. So Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. It'll be a lot of fun and I know

Erika (1:32:49)
Mm-hmm.

All right.

Eric (1:33:03)
I know some people are actually running at a running event, a Millennium running event that night, and they're like, I'm gonna run right over there after. So it's super cool. So I'm pretty excited. I did say like, if we get 10 people, amazing. If we get 20, wow.

Erika (1:33:17)
Right.

I will flip out. ⁓ In a good way though, you guys.

Eric (1:33:22)
If we get more than that,

I might be like, my god, my god, my god. I mean, we... None. We're gonna try to keep it as natural as a real show, but also structured towards the topic in hand with KJ and Nicole. So it's super cool. And I'm not depending on KJ and Nicole to bring all their friends and family. No, I'm not. Bring them.

Erika (1:33:27)
No reason to panic, we're fine.

Yeah.

see. We'll see. We'll have a turnout. We will have a turnout. Somebody will show up.

Eric (1:33:47)
Yeah

If

you're real fan of the pod, check the Priceline app and get over here.

Erika (1:33:56)
⁓ He's in Montana right now you

Eric (1:34:02)
what else is going on in your life, Eham?

Erika (1:34:05)
Ooh, so we were talking about me and my 50K. Well, I have to give some kudos, some straight up congratulations to MrBeard for totally dominating a 50-miler, his very first ultra this weekend. Yes, yes. He did the Tark's Fall Classic and his first ultra ever, he chooses a 50-miler on a very difficult course. So I give him all the kudos in the world.

Eric (1:34:17)
right.

Erika (1:34:33)
for making it through, and he did really freaking well. He ran faster on trails than I ever did on road for a 50-miler. Kicked ass.

Eric (1:34:40)
Insane so he

he tagged me in his post post race post. I've yet to read it actually put it back as unread because I just didn't have the moment to read it because I want to read But the one thing I saw was a shirtless picture of him. I was like damn beard Dude looks good. I'm not talking about the beard

Erika (1:34:49)
Yeah.

I have to, I like how at one point he had to put,

he had to put little like elastics in his beard. I don't blame him. It was a hot and humid day down in Mass too. So he had to do what he had to do, but I am just super impressed. Like he trained so hard this summer and it absolutely paid off. He crushed it. So welcome to the ultra world, my friend. Yes.

Eric (1:35:04)
I saw that too.

Yeah.

Yeah, nice.

Wonder you

know maybe we could get him on a re-crap The re-crap is taking a break because it's golf season But maybe like we could we could hear how that went after Chicago and New York and everything too. That'd be cool way to go beard I'm proud of you and You're a rock star. know he's been working towards this one. He really has

Erika (1:35:25)
Yeah. Hell yes.

Aw yeah.

Eric (1:35:37)
Hey, I also mentioned Priceline. if you don't get the joke, that's Patrick Lieber. We, for the live show, so we're bouncing around, but we had to restructure our bio. This was actually really hard. We had to find headshots. We had to, we didn't have headshots, so we had to figure that out. And the whole bio thing was like, you know what? I think we need to restructure our bio anyways. We're up for a bio update.

Erika (1:35:41)
Yep.

No.

Mmm.

Eric (1:36:02)
And

who better to the go to than a professional writer himself. I reached out to Patrick to help us with our bio.

And I'm going to read this to you first, because I'm pretty proud of this. Patrick had a huge hand in this. And then the funny result of this after you upload it in post. So here.

is Patrick's bio. Runners are the best storytellers. On the Runs podcast features running narratives from the best of those storytellers, whether hearing from a runner who started a year ago or 50 years ago. That's Patrick, by the way. The conversation is actually Patrick's 45 years now. But the conversation is engaging, funny, and enlightening. Guest stories range from struggles to outstanding achievements and everything in between, including...

Erika (1:36:34)
you

Eric (1:36:49)
Code Brown tales. Code Browns are situations that are not what you might think. Guests share awkward and unique circumstances and they found themselves in throughout their journey. I'm messing a few of that up, but you guys got it. The cross talk between the host, Eric and Erica is natural and entertaining. Bingo. Friends for over 20 years, they have a gifted skill set to keep the listener glued to the interviews.

Erika (1:36:50)
Mm-hmm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:37:15)
along with the banter between themselves. God, I hope that's true, guys. I hope you're still listening. The conversations come across as fireside chats. Yes, that's the goal amongst friends leaving you feeling like you were there. And then this this next paragraph I added. On the Runs has been fortunate to have a wide range of guests over their nearly 200 episodes from the local 5K runner to epic ultra marathoners, iconic leaders and history makers. Shout out, Kathleen Switzer.

Erika (1:37:19)
you

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:37:44)
in the sport along with nutritionist coaches, race directors, peloton instructors, and running legends. That's our new bio. What do you think?

Erika (1:37:51)
Beautiful.

I love it. That really, I think it truly encapsulates and captures everything that we are. To a T.

Eric (1:37:58)
Yeah, it was great. So what's,

what's neat is SEO works when you do, do stuff like this. I posted this bio up last week or the week before, and the next day I got four emails right away. can tell these are those automatic emails, but they're SEO driven and some of them are from running people. And the funny thing is it's like, I'm a huge fan of your podcast. And you can tell they're not like they've never heard of us.

Erika (1:38:07)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

you

Eric (1:38:27)
Because if you're coming to me saying, we would love to share this story of, know, cause usually it's a, ⁓ somebody else, like a manager saying, I want you to have Erica on the podcast because Erica is this Epic runner. Well,

Erika (1:38:36)
Yes.

Eric (1:38:41)
So because of SEO and how that works, we did get a few from runners and they seem interesting, but my favorite was an email from somebody and it's like, Hey, we'd love you to have this guy on his entire boxing journey is incredible. Coming up from the bottom to the top and his journey about being a boxer and a fighter and all this stuff and all these details. And I'm like, it actually sounds amazing.

Erika (1:38:46)
Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh.

Eric (1:39:09)
But we're not a boxing podcast. So, so we're going to start a podcast called in the ring. In the ring. Yeah. But no, SEO works in it. It proved like we needed an update. Now it doesn't always work to your exact niche. Sometimes it misses. And if we ever did auto-generated type things, sure it might miss, but like the storytelling I think was the SEO there.

Erika (1:39:10)
For a boxing podcast? Aww.

In the ring, on the run, same thing. Close enough.

Yeah.

Eric (1:39:38)
the word that, that caught on to a lot of those emails and it was super cool. And it just naturally helps the algorithm. Yeah.

Erika (1:39:40)
I see.

Okay. Well, hey, somebody

reached out and that's awesome. And I just feel bad for the, the boxing guy. Yeah. I feel bad for the boxing guy. Cause we're, we're not going to work for that. don't think. Yeah.

Eric (1:39:53)
MultiPo reached out.

But you know what's even funnier? Is

they have their email set up to respond again in like four days if you don't respond. It's like, hey Eric and Erica, I would just like, you know, to see if you saw my email about, you know, Ron the boxer.

Erika (1:40:06)
⁓

Yep.

Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Eric (1:40:15)
learned to, ⁓ honor those. We've gotten them in the past, but for some reason they always called us Angela Pol. And Angela Pol, like, I don't know why you're so lucky, but they didn't even get the names right. And I know one time I emailed back and goes, Hey, you know, sounds all cool and everything, but you know, I thought you're a big fan of the pod. My name's Eric and my co-host is Eric, or I got that wrong. My name's Eric and my co-host is Erica. Who's Angela?

Never heard back. and yeah. But it was obviously something in the description of whatever, because it wasn't just one email that thought we were Angela. It was like 12. Like it got insane for a year. The year after Angela was on the podcast.

Erika (1:40:44)
That's when they go whoops and we're off the radar.

Interesting.

⁓ well, Angel is amazing, so I can, I get why. I get why.

Eric (1:41:06)
The best, the absolute

yeah, that was fun. I'm super excited. Like it's all part of the growth and development, the involvement, the evolution of this podcast.

Erika (1:41:16)
Yeah.

yeah. Man, I'm impressed. I, I, I gotta give Patrick so many thank yous because that was just absolutely amazing. And he's just said such nice words about us and I hope it's true too. I hope everybody likes listening and loves the stories that come out of this and that's why we do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric (1:41:30)
Yeah.

lot of fun. It is why we do it. It's a lot of fun.

I got a few few side notes here because Erica did her notes. Justin's new book came out. Are you gonna get it?

Erika (1:41:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,

I want to. I got to add it to my collection. I have quite the collection now. Like, I have so much reading to do. So I apologize to everybody whose book I have not gotten to yet. But I mean, I just love having the pod fam sitting right behind me during every episode. I got to check it out.

Eric (1:42:02)
You know what's cool about that

book? It's called Terminal Anxiety, but that's when he wrote it. He spent like 17 days or something in the Atlanta airport. He got arrested living in the airport. He ran a marathon living in the airport. What's cool is he went back to the airport to give the book to the people in the airport who meant something to him. So the guy who ran the marathon with him, some nice lady, other people, he even left just one on an empty seat with a hundred dollars in it.

Erika (1:42:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he lived in the airport.

Mm-hmm.

Aww.

Eric (1:42:31)
So it's been cool to see that story.

Erika (1:42:33)
And that's why I wanted to check out the book because I was following his social media this weekend and seeing that he was going back to Atlanta. And I just think that is so cool. So I gotta check it out. Justin, you are awesome for doing that.

Eric (1:42:44)
And that book, the turn time on that was fast. That was, when was that? It feels like yesterday. Yesterday I ran a marathon, a half marathon in the of the night with Ryan because Justin called me out on, that was June. That was like June. That was quick. mean, they got a great team there. What's funny is when I went to the state fair, the Hoppington fair, Ashley ran into somebody right away that she knew.

Erika (1:42:46)
I know. I feel like that was just like two months ago, but it really does. See? Wait, when was that? That was June. No shit. Okay. That really was. Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Yup.

Eric (1:43:13)
Last year when I went, I ran into like five people I knew. go, ⁓ let's make this a competition. Who can find more people we know? And then Ashley found a second and a third. I saw that ⁓ Recycle Percussion, their brand, Chaos and Kindness, had a tent. I was like, let's go in this tent. Let's go in this tent. And instantly I saw Corinne, who I knew, and I was like, my God, I know somebody. Ashley goes, I don't know if that counts.

Erika (1:43:21)
Yes.

Uh-huh.

⁓

Yes, it does.

Eric (1:43:41)
Like you purposely

what we didn't run into her you you went and sought them out and I'm like, ⁓ I still lost it's the only person I saw

Erika (1:43:49)
Oh, I would still count that. You had to make your way over there. I mean.

Eric (1:43:55)
i mean actually has a point i'd i walked by them like are a here here's a point for me i can get one kick my ass and waste three to one

Erika (1:43:57)
Thanks

She's still one. There you

Eric (1:44:03)
Did that for you. Anyways,

Erika (1:44:05)
go. Thank you.

Eric (1:44:09)
I got some more notes, but I can save those for next week or maybe Thursday if we're back.

Erika (1:44:14)
Hmm. no, wait. Not on Thursday. No, we're fine. I've reached the beach this week coming up this week. So, ⁓ yeah, we're heading up north on Thursday, but we won't be recording on Thursday. So if you want me again this week, you got me.

Eric (1:44:17)
No prompt. No.

that's right!

All right. We'll see if we can do it. It's a lot of editing, but just in case we aren't good luck at reach the beach. I on my 12 mile run today ran by a person we called a Strava flyby and I gave her ⁓ plenty of space, roads and sand down. Like the one we were on was wide and I just kind of was like, well, way to go. And she goes, yeah. And I go, what are you training for? She goes, reach the beach. I'm like, no way that's next week. It's so cool.

Erika (1:44:38)
Thank you.

Yes.

Eric (1:44:58)
Good luck, have fun. And I said, look out for the penguins. I have to say hi to somebody when I'm running. I have to. Especially if you're passing them. Like if you're catching up and passing, like I gotta say, like, yo, let's good job. You're kicking ass. So, all right, work on your homework assignment while you're at Reach the Beach.

Erika (1:45:02)
I

I always say hi. I wave.

yeah, gotta be friendly out there.

I will do my best. I will hopefully capture the vibe that you are looking for.

Eric (1:45:23)
I'm gonna be critical of this. This is a real test. Yeah.

Erika (1:45:25)
Okay, all right. No pressure at all. This is more pressure

than actually doing the live show.

Eric (1:45:31)
Yeah, but hey guys, thank you so much to my race Tats firefly new foes for helping out this past summer and Wrightsocks Caitlin and Russ you guys are awesome. I hope you loved that episode Thank you to our partners. Thank you to our pot fam Follow the pod share the pod like the pod help grow the pod Erica just mentioned leave a review. We're like, when's the last time we checked that we don't even know how guys just do

Erika (1:45:53)
I'm working on

it. I'm curious.

Eric (1:45:56)
Everything

you can to help this podcast. love you. Thank you so much. Don't forget to check out the alley G show

Erika (1:46:02)
And if you're interested, make sure you follow the Monday Night Media page on Instagram because that's where all of the cool stuff is happening. Motivation. Yup.

Eric (1:46:09)
Well, I post a lot of motivational and

positivity there. I do. But, how can people follow you to reach the beach? Are you gonna post on yours? Are you gonna post on ours? Are you gonna, like, wake up the Penguin's Marching Shelf Instagram page from Forever Go that has two followers? Please don't use that one.

Erika (1:46:13)
Positivity always.

That's not my page actually. That's somebody else's. ⁓ But if I can log back into On The Runs, I will do a takeover this weekend. If not, I will just tag the shit out of everything I post. So be ready. ready. Thank you.

Eric (1:46:41)
Love it, love it, love it, love it. Have fun, have a great week guys.

You guys are awesome. Rockstar is the best. Erika, take us home.

Erika (1:46:51)
All right, all you reach the beach runners, hit me up if you're gonna be up there. I'd love to see you and say hello. But most of all, thank you for listening. You know we love you.

Eric (1:47:00)
Don't fear the code brown!

Erika (1:47:02)
And don't forget to stretch!

Eric (1:47:59)
That's your fart. That's close as you'll get.

Erika (1:48:02)
That is why I'm laughing. does kind of sound like... I bet you're wondering how I got into the...

You're not from Limp Bizkit.

Eric (1:48:13)
I could do this.

Erika (1:48:34)
D-D-D-D-DJ Newt! my god. Did that really just happen?

Eric (1:48:42)
you ⁓

DJ.

Erika Streisand.

Erika (1:48:52)
can't handle this

right now.

Eric (1:48:55)
You actually have tears coming out of your...

Erika (1:48:56)
Wow,

that, yeah, that caught me off guard. I was not ready for a full DJ performance.