On The Runs 184 | Jason and Meaghan Geroux | Ultra Running Power Couple

Podfam you are in for a treat! In this episode, Eric and Erika discuss their recent experiences in the running community, including a giveaway announcement, their participation in the Reach the Beach relay, and the excitement of an upcoming live podcast event. They delve into the dynamics of being part of an ultra team, share insights on sponsorships, and introduce their guests, Jason and Meaghan Geroux, who share their journey from casual runners to ultra marathoners, including their incredible trek to Everest Base Camp. The conversation highlights the importance of community, resilience, and the joy of running adventures. In this engaging conversation, Jason and Meaghan share their experiences of traveling and racing together, highlighting the importance of community, support, and personal growth through challenges. They discuss their recent ultra race in Nepal, the dynamics of traveling as a couple, and the lessons learned from their adventures. The conversation also touches on daily routines, the significance of camaraderie in racing, and their future goals in the running community.

 Can't wait to see everyone at our LIVE SHOW this Thursday at Marathon Sports in Manchester, New Hampshire. Saucony demo run starts at 6pm and the LIVE Podcast recording begins at 7pm.  

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
03:19 Excitement for Upcoming Live Show
06:32 Reach the Beach Weekend Recap
28:10 Introduction to Jason and Meaghan Geroux
30:32 Experiences at Anchor Down Ultra
39:20 Megan's Background and Athletic Journey
41:56 Jason's Story and Transition to Running
52:20 The Shift from Marathons to Ultras
54:38 Discovering the Last Man Standing Race
56:56 The Journey to Everest Base Camp
01:11:33 The Nepal Stage Race Adventure
01:12:20 Epic Adventures in Nepal
01:14:35 The Race Experience and Challenges
01:17:41 Community and Connection Among Runners
01:20:34 Race Logistics and Accommodations
01:23:41 Health Scares and Overcoming Obstacles
01:26:36 Reflections on the Journey and Future Plans
01:34:11 Racing Plans and Goals
01:38:46 Independent Racing Strategies
01:43:03 Nutrition and Race Preparation
01:48:45 Early Morning Routines and Training
01:53:35 Reflections and Future Races
01:53:44 Exciting Announcements and Giveaways
01:54:45 Upcoming Events and Live Shows
01:57:46 Playlist Planning and Music Choices
02:00:41 NASCAR Weekend Adventures
02:03:35 Running Stories and Personal Achievements

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

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

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

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

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Email us at OnTheRunsPod@gmail.com

Transcript

Eric (00:00)
What's up everybody, it's Eric from the On The Runs Podcast and I'm here with one of my favorite pod fam friends, Don from My Race Tats, and we're teaming up for a My Race Tats giveaway this fall.

Don Oswalt (00:09)
right, be on the lookout for a future MyRaceTats giveaway. Coming soon is your chance to win a MyRaceTats prize pack just in time for your fall marathons.

Our tattoos encourage mental resilience, fun, joy, and community You can find out about My Race Tats by following us on Instagram

or you can click the link in the show notes. We're so happy to be partnering with On The Runs this year, and I hope that you enjoy today's episode. Remember, you're stronger than you think, and you can go further than you can imagine.

Eric (01:42)
What's up everybody? Welcome to episode 184 of the On the Runs podcast. It was a heavy week in the greatest country in the world and we're here to take your minds away from Insta chat and Snapface. We're here to provide you with an opportunity to get off of Twitter X and turn up the radio dial because it was an awesome week for us here on the pod and a lot of you out there. The penguins marched south at Reach the Beach.

I got to enjoy one of my happy places and I got to go running with my sister for the first time ever. before we get to all that and more, I have to say hello to my kick-ass Rock Star of a co-host, the former Plymouth State Party alum, six star Erica, what's up?

Erika (02:24)
There is so much to unpack in that that I don't even know where to start, dude. How are you? I am good. What a weekend. What a... I am so fucking tired. 14 hours of sleep did not get rid of the tiredness effect that the 38 hours that I was awake. Yeah.

Eric (02:29)
⁓ man. You are not good. You just told me you are exhausted.

14 hours. Guys,

14 hours of sleep. I can't tell you the last time I got a solid four in a row. I'm so lucky if I get four uninterrupted without having a kid jump on me or having to go to the bathroom. Yep, that's happening. Now I'm 40. I woke up in the middle of the night in the camper. like, I got to go pee. Do I go outside or do I pee in the camper and break one of my rules? No peeing in the camper toilet. I don't know. But you got 14 hours. Wait.

Erika (02:49)
That's because you have children!

I needed it.

Eric (03:11)
Was it

14 un-unerrupted sleep or were you like laying in bed looking at your phone, fall asleep again, sleep a little more?

Erika (03:19)
looked at my watch before I went to bed last night. was 822, probably the earliest I've been to bed in a long ass time. I woke up at 5 a.m. to pee, which is still a lot longer than I usually go. And then at 1045, I was like, what year is it? And I had to like, look, was like, and I know, right? But I needed it. was awake for, I think we figured like 38 solid hours. got.

Eric (03:37)
Do ⁓

Erika (03:46)
maybe 15 minutes of shut eye, not even sleep in the van overnight for reach the beach weekend. The best weekend of the year for fun, for fun, right? Total type two fun. Yeah, man.

Eric (03:49)
God.

the things we put ourselves through for fun, for type two fun. Yeah, reach the beach. Let's get to that in a second, but I first, need

to to cover a few things on the list here. In two days, we are doing a live show at Marathon Sports in Manchester, New Hampshire. 7 p.m. is when the show starts, but show up at 6 p.m.

Erika (04:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric (04:16)
actually I would say show up before 6 p.m. And you can go running, it's like a run group, but there's gonna be sockinies. So try some sockinies shoe demos at 6.45. There's gonna be pizza. Question, should I order my own? Because I know they're not getting me special pizza. I am the star of the show. Actually I'm not the star, I'm number four on the list of importance. But, are you excited? Are you nervous? How are you feeling before the live podcast?

Erika (04:29)
you

you

I I have a lot of, not anxiety, but I'm just like, ooh, how's it gonna go? Like, I have nerves for that, but I'm excited to have it happen. I'm excited to see KJ. I'm excited to see Nicole again, because I just saw her this weekend at Reach the Beach. So we got to kind of vibe a little bit and say like, ⁓ we're gonna do it. We're gonna be great. So I am putting those vibes out into the universe that we are gonna have an excellent show and it'll be even better with all of you there.

Eric (05:06)
Yes.

I can't wait. I'm excited. I'm pumped. I'm nervously confident. Like as I said before with the NH10 Myler, I have a meeting, an in-person one. I'm going to try some stuff with speakers and things again. Just see if we can do a little better and just try to familiarize myself a little more. I'm taking time out of my day Tuesday to go do this. I'm hoping to go work out with Justin too and have him kick my ass because he's back in town. I think that's going to happen later this week.

Erika (05:09)
Mm.

Mm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Excellent.

Eric (05:37)
You know, all those things will help me with the nerves, but then I'm behind on emails and behind on show notes and I'm like doing the schedule and you're like, well, wait, wait, wait, you forgot to put someone in the schedule that you were going to put in. like, yeah, like I've just got a lot going on, but it's good. And I'm excited. This is going to be fun. We had a meeting last week. Yeah. And we had a meeting last week with KJ and Nicole, just the four of us going over actually. No, Nicole didn't show up, but that was fine.

Erika (05:42)
you

Mm-hmm.

These are good problems to have.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (06:06)
But we had the meeting where we went over our structure and how we want to go about it, the way it's going to go. We want it still to feel engaging for everyone there listening. We want everyone there who's listening later to feel like they're part of the show. It's going to be a lot of fun. Like we're putting the work into this one. I think like, when you put the work in, even when you don't feel that way or, or like you got the butterflies, you do a great job. And that's just.

Erika (06:10)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (06:35)
We're excited. you're nervous, you usually do better than when you're not.

Erika (06:36)
you

Yes, because it means it is important and that I want this to go well. So the more nervous I am, the happier I'll be that everything will be fine. Yeah.

Eric (06:42)
Yes!

gonna be great. September

18th this Thursday, Marathon Sports Manchester. So again, show up at 6 o'clock for the run, try some sock in-y shoes, and then pizza at 6.45, the show at 7, it will be about 30 minute show, followed by a Q &A, followed by pictures with six-star Erica.

Erika (07:10)
And KJ and Nicole and you. We're a package deal. We're a we. The royal we.

Eric (07:13)
Just the ladies, just the ladies. I did just get a fresh haircut,

but I won't be having a good hair day, so no pictures with me. Unless you really want one. We'll do one off to the side. We'll do a selfie, you know? So any of my Kelsey's out there, Kelsey's coming, we'll take a Kelsey photo. Kelsey's Unite! Did you see, by the way, I don't watch football, but I see all this stuff, speaking of like get off TwitterX and InstaChat and SnapFace. Did you see?

Erika (07:21)
Nice.

That's the only exception, okay, unless ⁓ you're...

Eric (07:43)
Taylor Swift at the football game on Sunday, the Chiefs game. No, you didn't see her, you know why? Nobody saw her because when she walked in, she had a moving wall blocking her from anyone who could see.

Erika (07:46)
Nope. Nope.

Are you serious? That's weird. Why would you do that? Huh.

Eric (07:59)
I'm serious. I don't

know. I don't know. mean, technically we might not know if that was Taylor back there. That could have been somebody else who just didn't want to be seen. Could have been. You know? Correct. was at the Chiefs game. They're all waiting to see. It was all these girls waiting to see Taylor. And as she walks in, like they take this wall, they open it up and then people on each side of the wall are walking with it.

Erika (08:11)
mean, so everybody was just assuming it was Taylor.

Okay.

That's so weird.

Eric (08:28)
and you know somebody's on the

other side, you just don't know who, and everyone's saying it was Taylor Swift. If I was her, I would say that wasn't me. I would say that was... I think it was her. Everyone's saying it was her. But anyways, we love Taylor. We're Swifties, but as you know, last week I turned into a Kelsey. I'm a Kelsey. And I can't wait to go to the wedding. Can't wait.

Erika (08:38)
I don't know.

I don't know. Where Taylor stands,

my God.

Yep. You and Carolina together.

Eric (08:54)
Counting

it down It's gonna be a fun wedding Just like our guests today. They're awesome. They're ⁓ well, we got a couple on today. That's cool We'll get to them later,

Erika (08:57)
you're too funny. You're too funny.

Eric (09:03)
And then one other item we have to talk about real quick, before we get to everything else. Be on the lookout this week for a giveaway. We're gonna have a My Race Tats giveaway. We're partnering with Running Up That Hillary for this giveaway in My Race Tats. That's gonna be super cool. So be on the lookout. I know you guys now hear the My Race Tats ad read before the episode. Erica, what did you think of that last week?

Erika (09:26)
I love it. Don, you're so cool.

Eric (09:29)
It was fun. It was fun and interesting. And ironically, the same week we did the same thing for the Allergy Show. And that wasn't like on purpose. That was just by coincidence. And then last week was our Right Socks episode. And I heard from a few people, Yuki being one of them. And then we had an ⁓ ultra runner who just did an ultra run with them. And then somebody else said how they wore these thick socks. You got to help me, Erica. It's your friend.

Erika (09:36)
Cool.

Eric (09:54)
And she's like, I didn't like them. And I just happened to be listening to the episode and they ordered right socks. Yes. Yes. And she made a post that she bought right socks and 15 % went towards the fundraising, which is amazing. So that was a fun episode. think a lot of people enjoyed the feet talk, Erica.

Erika (09:59)
Was it Marta? Did that ring a bell? Yeah!

some good compliments from it too. But yeah, we have to just thank MyRaceTats and RightSocks for just being so awesome throughout this whole summer and being so supportive of the fundraising that we're doing. Like you guys are just absolutely amazing. We cannot thank you enough.

Eric (10:28)
they've been awesome so thousand dollars to the person who can find erica's only feet page that's the other fun thing thousand dollars

Erika (10:36)
May the odds be ever in your favor.

Eric (10:39)
but you and a bunch of the penguins marching self team PMS had a great weekend

Erika (10:39)
Mm-hmm.

We did actually, technically there's the Penguins marching south is our 12 person team, but we have recently, well, since 2023, we've branched off into the ultra penguins. So we have both a regular team and an ultra team. So I am part of the ultra team and yeah, not a big deal. Oh God, every year I do this, we all question our decisions, but it turns out to be so much fun at the end. We're all exhausted.

Eric (11:02)
Not a big deal.

What other pros and cons

have you found of being on the Ultra Team?

Erika (11:16)
⁓ it's just lack of downtime and that can either be a good thing or a bad thing. The good part of not having downtime is your muscles have less time to get sore before you have to run again. Cause there's typically about like five hours in between your runs. Five, seven could be three hours depending on how short the legs are. But yeah, with the ultra team. Yes. because if you're on the regular team, you could have like 12 hours before you do anything and you get totally sore. If you're not like a.

Eric (11:34)
with the Ultra. Okay.

and you only run three times.

Erika (11:46)
Yes, you only run three times. So we're running six. Another downside is you never know how many long runs you're going to have in a run. In a row, I had an eight-miler, a nine-miler, another eight-miler, and then I had a four-miler and a three-miler. I had a five-miler to start. So it's five, eight, nine, eight. It's just a lot of running. So that can suck. And then there's hills, but...

The team, the team is what gets you through and it's so, so much fun to have good people on your side and in your band.

Eric (12:21)
Well that's awesome. Talk about before the race. I think you and the penguins were up to some shenanigans. What were you doing?

Erika (12:21)
Total blast.

⁓

You were up to more shenanigans than we were. We all parked at the Londonderry Park and Ride and a certain somebody found our cars and fucked with them.

Eric (12:32)
Well, what did I do?

yeah!

That was by chance, by the way. We were in by your car

one, two, three times until we noticed it. Yeah.

Erika (12:47)
Okay, yeah, yeah.

I also took a video. I didn't post it because I thought it would be a little rude, but we pulled back up at the end of the race coming back from Hampton and I got out of my car and I was like, who is the asshole? And I went around my car who was fucking with my shit, put down like the windshield wiper and I was like, my magnet's still fine. And by the way, that magnet has it's been there since. Yeah, basically. It was a magnet, though, but I hadn't touched it in

Eric (13:07)
Well the magnet was weird because it's like it's been there for 12 years and so it peeled like a sticker and I was like, aw shit.

Erika (13:17)
since I put it on my car like last April or whatever. Two marches ago.

Eric (13:20)
Yeah, but I wanted to flip

it. was like, hey, and people flip magnets when they see somebody. They know, they flip the magnet. That's a thing apparently. And then I try to peel yours.

Erika (13:28)
They only do that with certain

magnets. Mine don't count. So don't do it to mine. No. It's gotta be the she runs his town magnet. my God. Don't be an asshole. Don't.

Eric (13:33)
Well, next time I'm gonna flip your license plate. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do it! my god, I'm not even

gonna tell you!

Erika (13:43)
I

will watch me get pulled over. Be like, why is your license plate upside down? I'll be like, what? I had no idea. I hope so. But anyways, yeah, what an epic weekend. was beautiful weather. Absolutely fantastic.

Eric (13:47)
cop will laugh. He'll laugh. He'll laugh.

You know, I, when I,

when I, ⁓ lived in North Carolina, I got a North Carolina license plate and you only have to have one on the back of the car. I kept my New Hampshire license plate on the front. was young, probably naive, didn't know better. I just thought it was cool. Represent the greatest state in the world, in the country, in the universe. New Hampshire. Live free or die. And never, nothing ever happened for a long, well over a year.

Erika (14:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

ZZZZ

huh. Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Eric (14:23)
living

in North Carolina. I even remember going through like DUI checkpoints and they never even said anything. So yeah. And then one day all of a sudden I'm driving in Londonderry. This was like my first year back in New Hampshire. Less than that because I still have the North Carolina plate on the back. This was like January. I came back around Christmas. I got pulled over and the no clue why I'm getting pulled over. And he walks right to the front of the car, looks at it and he goes, which one's your real plate? And I go,

Erika (14:28)
No way.

Yeah.

Eric (14:51)
And I say, I'm only home for two months because I didn't even know I staying home at that point. He checks my ID, my registration, everything. He comes back to the car. Instead of a ticket, you want to get ticket. Instead of a ticket, you want to guess what he gave me.

Erika (14:54)
Yeah.

I couldn't even fathom. No, tell me.

Eric (15:09)
He gave me a screwdriver and he made me take the plate off.

Erika (15:12)
take it off. That's pretty

smart. mean, I wouldn't have thought of it either, but it makes a lot of sense. You are lucky though that you didn't get dinged for that.

Eric (15:23)
I drove

for months, maybe over a year with it like that through 15 different states all the way from New Hampshire to Alabama like

Erika (15:29)
It's because

the New Hampshire cops know to look for the front plate. You get dinged if you don't have one of those. Yeah, yeah. damn. ⁓ please don't. That's just such a hassle.

Eric (15:35)
That's right, because none of the other cops have front plate states or yeah, yeah. Anyways, I'm gonna flip your license plate. That would be hilarious.

And then you're gonna have to make Brandon fix it for you. ⁓ my god.

Erika (15:50)
Are you shitting

me? Come on, I can do some things by myself.

Eric (15:53)
Okay,

see? But you work to like porta potty shenanigans, goofing off, like you don't take it super seriously, you have a lot of fun.

Erika (15:58)
Yeah.

We have to have fun or else it's going to be a miserable time because everybody's going to be tired. Everybody's going to be sore. Everybody's going to be hungry and the more fun we can make out of it, the better. So you will be pleased to know that we gave out so many on the runs magnets. We, I wish I had more stickers. Like I did give out some stickers, but I left them all with you. Yep.

Eric (16:22)
We need to get the ones with the QR code soon.

Erika (16:25)
I'm actually gonna,

I think I'm gonna invest in stoolie magnets because people were loving that and just get the little like stoolie shaped magnet. So that's next on my list too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll be a fun addition to the vans next year.

Eric (16:36)
⁓ of just Stooley. Yeah. No, I like that. It will be. Yeah.

So Stooley magnets, but then we need something with the On The Runs logo and the QR code.

Erika (16:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes, that'll be a lot of fun too.

Eric (16:52)
We need that because we need people scanning that code. Like they see it, they're like, it's cool little cute poop emoji. And one day there'll be a Mrs. Stooley. we need them to click that. We need you guys to click that. But we need you guys to click that QR code to follow everything. We need to keep the growth. Share this pod and do all those good things. Guys, we're going to give that shout out here in the intro. Share, like, subscribe, share, share, share. Keep going, Erica.

Erika (16:58)
Mm-hmm.

Share,

share, I don't even know where I'm at. I'm still just so tired. Yeah, the lack of sleep really catches up to you. But like I was saying, the weather was absolutely perfection. Like sunny skies, 70 degrees, actually pretty cold overnight. Like you said, 40 degrees, it could snow. you never know, chance of snow. Funny story about that, by the way. You're like, why can't you open one side of your windshield wiper? I was like, what?

Eric (17:37)
That's why I put your windshield wiper up.

Yeah, why not?

Erika (17:47)
I tried it the first time. I was like, who the hell designed this thing? This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. When you shut your car off, you have to hold up the windshield wiper thing in the car, and it'll make them go up, and then you can put them up. Does that make sense? It's terrible way to describe it, but that's the only way you can get the left driver's side one on.

Eric (18:02)
Okay.

You know, somebody who designed it obviously

was someone who had their windshield wipers flipped up all the time for no reason.

Erika (18:11)
Apparently

so, but you could do one side and not the other. Like it just didn't make sense to me. So, but I had to Google it.

Eric (18:15)
Yeah. But it's actually better because

you sit down and you're like, ⁓ I have to go around to the other side of the car to put the passenger side windshield wiper down. It's almost better.

Erika (18:23)
Yeah.

man. Overall though, Reach the Beach was a fantastic success. I got to see so many pod fam. ⁓ We were pretty much leapfrogging Nicole's team like the whole time. It was awesome. ⁓ I actually think my team beat them by a little bit. They were a regular team and we were in an ultra team. We had them by maybe at least like 20 minutes or so. Maybe 16. I feel like 16 is the number, but.

Eric (18:38)
But who won?

D'ya? Yeah.

Erika (18:53)
I don't know, we were so close together. I got to see Tracy and Eric and.

Eric (18:55)
How fast, like how long did it

take you guys? What was your stats? me the rundown here.

Erika (19:00)
We finished

in 31 hours, 16 minutes and 20 seconds. 204.1.

Eric (19:06)
How many miles?

Okay, what's that equal for like a pace?

Erika (19:13)
They gave us a 9-11 average pace. Not too bad, right? Between the six of us and the hills, 204. 204, 204. Yeah. Yeah, we were cruising. We...

Eric (19:17)
Whoa! Between the six of you for 200 what, 40 miles?

Insane! You guys had to- wait, where'd

you finish? Like that has to be up there like a podium finish.

Erika (19:34)
I wish. were eighth place out of the ultra mixed ⁓ open teams.

Eric (19:41)
Seriously?

Out of how many? There were seven teams faster than that?

Erika (19:49)
If you look at these results, there are some people who did it in like 21 hours and had like a six minute pace, the whole thing, like that. Can't Hey, we beat last year's time. We beat last year's time by a solid like 45 minutes.

Eric (19:54)
Oh my god. You know what? I was about to give you a huge kudos, but you know what? I'm not impressed anymore. 21 hours? Well good for you, but you're like super

slow still apparently. 31 hours? 9-11? Not impressive anymore.

Erika (20:09)
No way! Dude, okay.

I told you that you can comment on this when you contribute to the team. So when are you on the team? When's the next time you could do it? Bullshit. Hey, I ran up the entire hill to Meredith, going up into like past twin barns and stuff like that. And dude, this is a personal like accomplishment for me. I did Hills. I did Hills.

Eric (20:17)
What are you talking about? This is the first I'm hearing of it. I'm not impressed anymore. You guys are slow.

Yeah, but other teams ran 10 hours faster than you apparently. Wait, 20? Hold on a second.

204 miles broken down to 21 hours? What's that for a time? If you were 9-11, how does that make sense?

Erika (20:49)
Dude, it's bonkers how fast these people went. Probably. I'm looking it up right now. It was absolutely insane. So the first team, the first place overall was an ultra team mixed open. They did 21 hours, 50 minutes, 43 seconds, which is a 625.

Eric (20:51)
They had to be like pros.

It is insane.

What's that pace?

Okay. You know what? Hot take coming right here. I got a hot take. Are you ready for this?

Erika (21:16)
Same hot take. Sure.

Eric (21:21)
They didn't have fun like you did.

Erika (21:24)
Hopefully not. You know what was funny though? As I was finishing my early, early morning run, so it was my fourth run, I was waiting to hand it off to ⁓ E1 Eric. And he was telling me afterwards that he... He was telling me...

Eric (21:38)
guys that was a great episode enjoy Erica

just disrespected me it's over

Erika (21:45)
He can get his spot

or his ⁓ his ranking up when he joins our team But so there was some guy it was like so cold out just ever better. Let me let me tell my story We remember when we

Eric (21:51)
You know what? No, that's bullshit. When did I ever get demoted to E? How, how, when was I ever

demoted to E? Just being an E. I'm not E. He can be E1. I was never E to begin with.

Erika (22:02)
Because we always talked about you. You're derailing

my story. Shut up.

Eric (22:11)
The disrespect here.

Erika (22:13)
Yeah, you're interrupting me. May I continue? Eric was saying, see, that's why we call him E1 because you're always Eric and he's an Eric and it's very confusing. anyways, E1.

Eric (22:19)
please.

You know what? We

could go on about this, I'm gonna let you go here. Like, you just stop with the air, you know.

Erika (22:34)
You're making me lose my train of thought. I'm so tired.

We were talking about how cold it was at night and there was a guy who was very underdressed who was talking to Eric and he was saying like, I don't know, like my team was sleeping in the van, nobody would come out with me. So when he got his wristband, he didn't even bother telling his teammate where the van was and he just left. So literally like this other guy's like, I have no idea how to find my van. And of course it's the one right before Barebrook. So it wasn't totally crowded, but still like.

You have 75 vans like it's going to take you forever. But I was like, I would never ever do that to my teammates. but I like we would let our teammates sleep, but I took a minute like we didn't care. I took a minute. I'd be like, Hester, our van is right over there. You can't miss it. The one with the big inflatable penguin on the roof. And she's like, OK, great. Have a great run. So like.

Eric (23:09)
It was murder juice.

Yeah, that is true. That is true.

Erika (23:30)
We at least had the common courtesy to be nice to each other and to, we did have a lot of fun. So I cannot speak for those fast people, but hey.

Eric (23:37)
Yeah, I was going to say like, like

I get maybe you're running a 6-11 like, and you're trying to win. Cool. Maybe there's a prize, but Reach the Beach to me just seems like an event that's more for fun and friendship and just hanging out, having a good time, getting away from every day. Like you actually take one, sometimes two days off of work for this. So like you, I don't think I would want to, I wouldn't want to be a part of a team like that. Maybe when I was younger.

Erika (23:43)
Uh-huh. I don't even know what prize area it is. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (24:04)
It'd be cool to say like, yeah, we ran this fast. But now today I'm like, no, dude, I want to see how many beers we can chug in between runs and complete the race and how fast of a time. Oh, it is.

Erika (24:10)
you

That's a no-no.

Yeah, drinking in a van while you're driving, dude, no. Yeah, you'd get... Well, if you're in the van drinking...

Eric (24:19)
Well you're not driving. How about just drinking while not in

the van, drinking at the ⁓ You can't drink at all anywhere.

Erika (24:27)
Well, not as an ultra team at least. You can drink if you're off, like if your van one is done. that's, but speaking from an ultra perspective, yeah.

Eric (24:33)
Okay, no drinking, but just having fun. Maybe do

something else like, you know, how much cotton candy can you eat in between?

Erika (24:42)
God, how much can you puke in between your runs? Yeah. Primo weekend. Ooh, also, I just want to give a shout out. Yep. I, I got to give a shout out to Shayna Marie. I got to meet her this weekend. I was just getting out of my van at the state park waiting for our runner and she goes, my God, are you Erica? And I was like, yeah. And I was like, my God.

Eric (24:47)
boy, we're out the tracks, but hey, it's the best way to do this podcast. Yeah, we're just hoping to bring you guys cheers and laughter after last week, so.

Erika (25:12)
So it was the, no, it was really fun, but I was like, it's so nice to get to meet you in person. We only get to see people, well, most people just face to computer screen, I guess. And it's nice to get to meet people actually, actually in the flesh. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric (25:12)
Recognized!

That's super cool. Shana Marie.

Episode 97, I think? Take a wild guess at that. 97. Yeah. Pretty good.

Erika (25:33)
dang. Got a good memory. Well, it's

better because you're like, we're episode 184. And I was like, hell if I know. Even this one.

Eric (25:42)
So

your team though, was Karen, Eric, Jay.

Erika (25:45)
Mm hmm. Yep.

Yep.

Eric (25:49)
Sheila and then there was another penguin I'd never seen before. Who was that?

Erika (25:50)
Mm-hmm.

Her name is Hester and she is absolutely amazing. She's another excellent ultra runner who's working on a 100 miler coming up and she fits right in with our vibes.

Eric (26:04)
Nice. Well, it looked cool. I love that you guys tagged me on everything, so I just reshared, reshared, reshared, tried to make it look like you were posting for the pod. You wou- You didn't even dare log in, I don't know why.

Erika (26:11)
I can't get into the, I can't get in.

Cause I don't want to be the one who's going to lock you out of it. And then we lose the, on the run to count somehow. You figure out the password, change it to something we'll both know. And then I'll work on it. Dude, we've, we've been like, it password one, password two, password three? Like it just doesn't.

Eric (26:22)
Yeah, true. All right.

What is the password? my god, I don't know what it is. Please don't get locked out.

Nobody tried to log in because then I'll get logged out.

Jesus Christ. I'll figure it out. I didn't know what-

Erika (26:41)
Yeah,

Happy to at least tag you and stuff.

Eric (26:46)
Well, it was fun. I got to go to one of my happy places again, but nobody wants to hear about me. Yeah. Nobody wants to hear about me. Everybody wants to hear from our two guests today because we've known them for a little while. They're wicked awesome. They're in love. They have a love story. They travel the world and they take stoolie all over the world. Erica, tell us who we have.

Erika (26:50)
That's how you write Loudon, right?

you

I'm so so excited to have you guys here this episode from Megan and Jason Jarreau. Jarreau? Jarreau? I forget how they said it, but I think we all say it wrong. But they are one of my favorite power ultra couples who just run together, have fun together, and like you said, travel the world. They are absolutely goals, couple goals.

Eric (27:33)
I'm willing to bet if they did reach the beach as a duo team, they would like kick everybody's ass. So they're awesome. They have so much fun. We tried to get like some stories out of them. We're like, when were you at each other's necks? And they're like, never. And then later they're like, wait, there was that one time.

Erika (27:39)
I would not doubt that.

Well,

there's always a little something, but they get along so well.

Eric (27:53)
It was great. The

only bummer about this recording, guys, is it wasn't in person. So the next time, I promise you, it will be because it will be epic. But Jason and Megan are awesome. Enjoy, everybody, and we'll see you on the other side.

Eric (28:10)
Our next guest on the pod, that's right, I said guest, it was plural. They're two amazing people we met while doing God's work, cleaning up the trail section at Anchordown so no roots would jump out at Erika. They travel the world taking Stooley in the wild with them everywhere they go. And if you thought the 440 crew was crazy for running that early in morning...

You haven't met these two yet. We are wicked excited to finally have on some really amazing people. Jason and Megan Gereau. Welcome to the On The Runs podcast. What's up guys?

Erika (28:40)
You

so pleased to see you guys within like a week of like the last time I saw you. It's way too few and far between that we get to hang out and interact. now that I get to see you like, acre down was just last weekend. Now we have this or two weeks ago. I'm so excited to see you both again. Welcome to the show.

Jason (29:02)
That's

Thank you very much. It's a long time waiting, I think. Yeah.

Erika (29:07)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (29:07)
is it?

Well, you know, it's not your first time on the pod, technically. You two were on the pod a year ago when we were live at Anchor Down for a quick intro and we did a little like round the circle microphone, everyone say your name and you two got on there. But what was really cool about that day, Erica and I showed up to do some trail cleanup and I just thought maybe you were on the email and you just go, Hey, I think it was Jason. Jason goes, Hey,

Erika (29:07)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (29:35)
You're the on the runs people. And we're like, yeah. And we just thought you knew that from like years before. We didn't think you were like first timers, never been to ADU. You volunteered for cleanup and you're like, those are the podcast people.

Jason (29:49)
Yep. I will admit I was not familiar with you. Jason is the social media guy, so I don't really follow social media that much. So I was like on the run. What's that? ⁓

Erika (29:59)
you

Eric (30:01)
He's like, yeah, everyone

who goes poop while running.

Jason (30:05)
That's right, right? That's where we took took schoolie from you and then took.

Erika (30:09)
That's true. ⁓

Well, we won't hold it against you, Megan. You're a pod fam now and you guys are definitely Anchor Down veterans at this point. Because, ⁓ so last year's was your first go around for Anchor Down and then you did it again this year. So it was so nice to have you guys in there in the swing of things lap after lap after lap.

Jason (30:32)
It was really nice to be back. really enjoyed it. We loved all the people we met last year and we did not like the 24 hour, but we really wanted another crack at it. And we're like, Hey, let's sign up for the 12 and see all these awesome people again and see how we do.

Erika (30:42)
Mm-hmm.

We totally flip-flopped. did the 12 last year and went for 24th this year and instantly regretted it, but still so much fun was had.

Jason (30:54)
it.

Eric (30:57)
Let's actually just go back to last year and then we'll talk more about ADU from this year later on. But how did you find out about ADU and then, and then how did you find out about that trail cleanup day that when we all met at the same time?

Jason (31:13)
So Flat Lori reached out to me a couple of years ago and was like, hey, you want to check out ⁓ this run that's 24 hours in Rhode Island? And I was like, man, maybe next year. I never really gave it a thought because we've been doing a lot of local stuff and it's traveling and stuff. It just didn't hit my radar. And then I looked at it and I saw it. like, hey, that looks like a lot of fun. Let's get in on it. And I was like, hey, Megan, you're going to do 24 hours. And she's like, right.

Erika (31:30)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (31:42)
So signed up for that and then just social media following Candy, she reached out to me and was like, hey, you and Megan should come and help clean up trails. You guys are awesome. We follow your social media. And I was like, this is weird. I don't know you, but okay. And we happened to take a vacation that week. So it actually worked out because we are really far from Rhode Island. We're about six hours away. So we just happened to be there that week and we're like, hey, let's go meet some awesome people.

Eric (31:59)
Rangers are cool.

Jason (32:10)
You are two of them. yeah, it just kind of worked out that way. Yeah. Yeah, it was a really good experience. Like I said, I had no idea. He's like, we're going to go meet some random people. We're going to go clean this trail. And I'm like, all right, sure. It was like instant family and hugs with strangers. And like, this is kind of weird. You're Instagram people and you know, it was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it was really fun. Yeah, we had a good time. And it was actually a really

good preview for the race because we did get to run it, ⁓ I think a couple days before we get to kind of go see the course, but we actually went in the wrong direction. We were going in the opposite direction and somebody was like, are you, are you guys running ADU? And we're like, yeah. And they're like, you're going in the wrong direction. And we're like, we're into it now. So it was really fun and it was good to meet people because it actually made.

Erika (32:49)
⁓

Jason (33:06)
like made us more excited and more comfortable being somewhere we're not familiar with. it was fun.

Erika (33:13)
So yeah, that's pretty much how we make friends these days. It's either with running or social media or a combo of the two. So it works out for the best. But man, I'm so glad you guys were there and you had the chance to experience all the wonder that ADU has to offer, even though last year was probably the worst weather I've ever experienced with that. That was hurricane year. But this year was a complete 180. This year was.

Jason (33:22)
Yeah.

and rain the rain and rain structure.

Eric (33:35)
It was a hurricane.

That was a nec-

Jason (33:39)
We

had everything type of weather. Yes. ⁓

Erika (33:42)
perfect for it. And we can get

into that, but you guys had quite the amazing race between the two of you. You guys basically swept the 12th. No, this year they did awesome this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just a teaser. ⁓

Eric (33:50)
At last year's race? Oh, well, no, we'll save that for later. But last year, last year was epic with the rain. Like all the

trail work we did, did nothing. Like the rain destroyed it, what, by 730 at night? And, and the video and everything you posted were just like, you're going through this, you know, mud. And what, was there a lightning hold or anything at any point too? Like, do you remember, this was actually really cool. We all had like Jason, the, race director.

Jason (34:01)
Yeah. It just, it's variety. Yeah.

Erika (34:01)
destroyed.

Slop, slop, slop, slop. It was awful.

Eric (34:20)
We all had like a meeting and he asked us for his opinion. In the middle of the trail, we took a break while cleaning and he goes, how do we handle like a lightning hold? Not only like, how do we approach it and announce it, but then like, if you have someone who's halfway done with a lap and you make them come back, or if they're only like 400 yards into the trail, it was a great conversation actually about like how you manage that if this happened. Cause we knew, I think we're like five days out, maybe four, we knew the weather was coming.

Jason (34:21)
Yeah.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah, and I remember we did all that talking and all that talking and planning, and we never even had to use that conversation because we never had a lightning hold or anything. ⁓ But yes, I do remember that conversation, and I still don't know if you had an answer for that, but maybe you never. But we never had to. We had all those talks and we never had to use the lightning weather. I felt like that scene in Forrest Gump.

Erika (34:58)
Mm.

I don't recall.

Jason (35:17)
when he's running through Nam and it's just like the water just kept coming and coming. And that's how it was at times, it was just buckets. And then as soon as the sun came up, it was a hundred degrees and all that steaming humidity just kind of took the air out of my lungs and the wind out of my sails. And I was like, I'm over it. Well, in the trails too, they were so muddy that it just, use so much extra energy to climb those, climb like,

Erika (35:24)
you

Mmm.

Jason (35:44)
to slop

through it. so you're exerting more energy and then that sun comes out and you're like, my gosh. And unfortunately, I don't think Jay was feeling good at the end. He was kind of feeling a little nauseous. So ⁓ he lost motivation, which unfortunately made me the champion. So we, I got 100K and you got... I think I got around 70 miles or something like that. Yep.

Eric (36:08)
What a big deal.

Erika (36:08)
I

don't blame you guys at all because that just, I did the bare minimum to get a medal in the 12 hours. So I did like 39 miles and I was like, I don't even have time to do another lap. Like that's how long, like how bad it was out there. ⁓ congratulations for you guys for sticking it out for that long. That's insane. Good work. I had to, I had to get it.

Jason (36:10)
What's

Well, you two have done a medal, so that's always important.

Eric (36:27)
the other-

Hey, the other name you mentioned actually is a favorite of ours, Flatlory. How did you get connected with Flatlory?

Jason (36:42)
I bumped into her at races in Maine. And I think we started following each other when we did a relay run that starts in bar Harbor and ends in like Washington. think she ran across the state of Rhode Island. That's I'm getting hurt. I think that it was a, it was like a firefighter relay. I forget what it's called. So we did run to respond. And I think we started following each other around then. And then we had some interactions that,

Erika (36:57)
Whoa.

wow.

Jason (37:12)
Last Man Standing, we've had interactions at Pineland Farms. So we kind of knew each other was, you know, in the race world, but not in social media. That's about it. And so she just would send me links to like, you should look at this race someday. you know, that kind of thing, give me bad ideas. And then I want to pursue them. Thank you, Slatt Lori, for giving me bad ideas.

Erika (37:27)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (37:35)
good kind of people giving you bad ideas. Yeah. The best.

Erika (37:36)
you

I wouldn't say they're bad ideas.

Jason (37:45)
Challenges. Challenges. Hard challenges. That's what we're all about.

Eric (37:45)
We only, we only met...

Erika (37:45)
Glory would never.

Eric (37:51)
We

only met Lori once, but we've known her for years, right through the pod, through Instagram, but there was this, the one time we met her for 12 seconds. It was only like 12 seconds. This is the Boston Marathon, where, you know, section 19.2, where we're cheering, and Maurice is coming over. And Maurice is like big arms out hugging, and we're like, Maurice. And then all of a sudden you can just see coming behind him, because she's running with him, was Lori. And we're just like, Lori, Lori.

Jason (38:18)
you

Eric (38:18)
Maurice

over to the side, Laurie. And it was the first and the only 12 seconds we got to meet her. Erica's might have met her a couple of times, but for me that was my only.

Erika (38:24)
Hey, I got to see her

at Anchor Down this year because she showed up for Chris Cappellini. So I got to see her and talk to her for few this year too.

Jason (38:33)
Yeah.

Well, her husband runs ADU, think also. I think that's, yeah, that's where we met. I met him last year. that the That was the first time I think I met him too. Yeah.

Eric (38:37)
Paul, yeah.

Erika (38:45)
Paul is awesome. Both

Eric (38:47)
Yeah,

some badass people right there. But anyways, speaking of badass people, the two of you are badass. Let's learn a little more about the two of you. I think you're from a little northeast of us. You're New Englanders, but you're up in Maine, right?

Erika (38:47)
of them are awesome. Seriously.

Jason (39:01)
Yes we are. We're in central Maine, we're about an hour from the coast, or just outside of Bangalore.

Eric (39:06)
Okay, now-

Erika (39:06)
I was sad

to know you're not closer to Portland, because I'm actually headed up that way two weeks from now for a race. And I'm like, damn it, you guys aren't closer.

Jason (39:10)
So.

We're like a couple hours from Portland. so.

Erika (39:19)
I'll allow it.

Eric (39:20)
You're up there, you're up there. Well

let's start, you know, ladies first, let's start with Megan. Let's get a little bit of Megan's story here. Megan, tell us a little bit more about you. Before Jason.

Jason (39:30)
Before Jason, oh gosh. Okay. While you were in high school. Yeah, I wasn't. So I grew up in a town called Vassabur, which is just right outside of Gustamane. And I went to a high school, Erskine Academy High School is where I went. I did three sports each

Eric (39:33)
We'll get to the first date later, but you know, let's hear about you before that.

Jason (39:59)
Let's see, I did three sports and I took dance lessons. So I was very active. However, I probably didn't put in the best effort as a kid. I kind of just did it more for social conversation and to make friends. And I didn't maybe put in my full effort. So I played field hockey in the fall and I did winter and spring track. And I was horrible at all of them. I was not good.

and then dance, I actually did dance from, I don't know, the age of, if I had to guess, maybe the age of five until I was a senior, I did it for my whole, my whole childhood. ⁓ and then when I got to college, well, before college, I didn't really know what I wanted to major in. My mom was like, you should, you like to work out, you like to run, you, you should do nutrition, you should study nutrition.

Erika (40:41)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (40:58)
And so I don't really have a good story about why I study nutrition, but my mom suggested it. And so I went to the University of Maine up in Orono and got my undergrad there for nutrition and dietetics. And then I went to do my master's through the University of Maine as well. that time period, I was going to school is when I met Jason when I was doing grad school.

Erika (41:12)
Mm.

Jason (41:24)
so I graduated with my master's degree in nutrition in 2014. And we met in 20, sorry, 2011 is when we first met. So I was only 21 years old and we've been together for 14 years now.

Eric (41:47)
Just babies, you two are babies. So, wait, you may or no, you go to any hockey games up there, I heard that's like an amazing barn.

Erika (41:50)
Hehehehe

Jason (41:52)
Yes.

It's so at, so I will admit I'm a little anti-social, I get social anxiety. So I am not one to maybe go to events, particularly by myself. ⁓ So I did not, when I was in college, I didn't go to a lot of hockey games. ⁓ But with him, ⁓ we do go to some hockey games because his father has season passes. So we get to go occasionally.

Erika (42:21)
Nice.

Jason (42:22)
But I never went in college. I wasn't one of those crazy people that was like screaming from the rooftops and like shouting and I wasn't in the band, so. But it's fun. If you haven't been, you should go.

Eric (42:35)
I would love to. ⁓ One day, one day. So I refereed college hockey for quite a while. I never did a UMaine game, but I did do, there's these two schools in Maine and the Division III hockey, huge rivalry, Bowdoin and Colby, and so they never let referees from Maine referee that game, because it's this huge rivalry. So they bring in crews from New Hampshire, Vermont, or Mass.

and I got to be on the crew once and the game went to overtime and there was a goal and overtime with three seconds to go and we waved it off and the crowd went like crazy. They're throwing like their Dunkin Donuts or there's big gulps from 7-Eleven at us. It was wild. The coach was going insane and we had like a police escort out of there. This is at the old rank at Colby. They now have a brand new one that's beautiful too but that was my experience. Those two schools, you're up there near Colby I think like that.

Erika (43:18)
Wow.

Jason (43:19)
Yeah.

Eric (43:25)
What an environment. We're talking like 3,500 people on top of you. Atmosphere right there. So I've had that experience in Maine. They didn't care about their coffee apparently. They were just throwing at me. They missed. They didn't hit me. They don't have a good aim. They're armed. They're not Tom Brady's.

Jason (43:30)
Yep. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (43:42)
man.

Jason (43:43)
Is that the closest you've been to Orono?

Eric (43:45)
Yes, it has to be. It has to be. I know Orono's like eight hours away from me now, so yeah.

Erika (43:51)
I

Jason (43:52)
Okay, yeah, Kobe is about an hour and a half from us, so.

Eric (43:57)
Okay, and Orno is probably what? How far away from Colby?

Jason (44:01)
From Kobe, probably 2 hours. Yeah, 2 hours. No less. That's Kobe's water bill. Yeah, water bill is about... But it's a half an hour for us to get to Orono from here. Okay, hour and a half. Hour and a half, we'll say. It's worth it. Yeah, so it's a little... Well, it's not an hour. Yeah, it's about... From Kobe to Orono is about an hour and half, hour 40, something like that.

Eric (44:12)
North. So it's more north. It's up there.

Yeah. Are

you anywhere near Baxter State Park?

Jason (44:29)
We're about an hour, an hour and a half. Yeah, that's still an hour and a half north beyond us.

Erika (44:32)
You

Eric (44:34)
Yeah, that's

an amazing spot. That's a place I've been to many times. Yeah. And that's like Millenocket, the marathon that Lindsay loves to run every year because it's free and they have Fireball over the course.

Erika (44:39)
It's Katadin, Pretending I know something about Maine. ⁓

Jason (44:39)
Yeah. Okay. ⁓

Erika (44:45)
Yeah, that Lindsay does all the time.

Jason (44:46)
Yeah.

Yep. I don't belong. You should do it. We ran it in costumes. Yep. Yep. They're really hot in suits and costumes. We live close to, we're like an hour from Bar Harbor, like Acadia National Park. yeah.

Erika (44:50)
you

Eric (44:53)
You did it!

Erika (44:54)
really? ⁓ You've probably been up there with Lindsay.

Eric (45:05)
Okay, you're in a beautiful spot.

Erika (45:06)
very nice. So

that's like Patrick Karen's land where he loves to go romp around. Very nice.

Jason (45:09)
That's a care and territory. Yes, that's a care and territory. Yep.

Eric (45:14)
Amazing.

Well, how about you, Jason? Give us a little bit of Jason's story.

Jason (45:18)
Jason's story. So Jason is, am six years older than Megan. ⁓ My upbringing is from old town Maine. ⁓ I only played baseball really growing up. Running was not on my radar ever. I never wanted to be a runner. I thought running was stupid. never tracked stupid, not for me. Just baseball. Just wanted to be a professional baseball player like every other 12 year old. And so I played baseball all through high school.

Erika (45:39)
you

Jason (45:47)
I think I was a good player. I wasn't the best. I didn't go to college for it. I know scholarships, but I enjoyed it. ⁓ Did well in school, went to college, because I was supposed to, because everybody my age is supposed to go to college after high school. But I went for a couple of years and it just wasn't for me. And I would rather work and make money. So I got a job from my dad's painting company where I worked for over 20 years, which I'm still employed by him.

Erika (45:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason (46:16)
And I started my own company in 2017 of doing epoxy floors. And I kind of pursued that heavily. ⁓ But really, that's that's me in a nutshell. I worked a lot. And luckily, I met Megan while I was going to a job. I was not dressed to impress. I was a 26 year old on the prowl, but not that night. I was going to the mall to paint.

Erika (46:38)
Hey.

Jason (46:45)
And Megan happened to be working at a store at the mall that had to keep the doors open till the painter showed up. And I met Megan and I was like, ⁓ I think I like this girl. And I gave her the old sales pitch and sold her myself. And as I went back to my toolbox, I found a little note with a phone number on it. And I looked at it for about

Eric (47:07)
Yes!

Jason (47:12)
six hours that night and I left her hanging and I never text her and the next morning I waited till like mid morning because I didn't want to text her and you know as I was leaving. And yeah so I text this this girl I met at Hallmark at the mall and I got a response and

Erika (47:25)
Didn't want to seem too eager, right? You just had to play it cool, man. Play it cool.

Jason (47:38)
You know, shortly after that we had a date at Dunkin Donuts and uh, yeah, fairytale just, just kept them going. So, so, so then, so then Megan and I, Megan had been a runner and I would go and be her photographer at every finish line and no interest in.

Erika (47:51)
I love a good love story.

Eric (48:03)
you're the social

media boyfriend.

Jason (48:06)
I was like, I was like, I'll take a picture. I'll go wherever you want. But for social media was like, yes. So I would go to all these races, all these local races in the area. And we go to any other statement. But think so. But you'd bring like the dogs. I bring the dogs and I would bring a camera and I'd be in a hoodie and a coat on these cold days. And I'd be like, she comes. Hold a sign. OK, go make it go. And I go back in the car and then drive to the next spot.

Erika (48:14)
Mmm.

Jason (48:36)
And I was like, nah, this is cool. Still no interest. And then, you know, we, started a gym routine because I was getting married that year. It's just four years into us together. And I'm going to interrupt and say, I was also, I was actually going to the gym very routinely and he was like, Oh, I should probably start going back to the gym. was going, but I took a break. got comfortable. I took a break, right.

Erika (48:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (49:04)
And then I was going on a regular basis, sometimes a couple times a day, because I wasn't working at the time. I was still in school, so I had a little more free time. And he was like, I guess I'll start going back to the gym. So that was step one. then she's like, you ought to introduce some cardio to your lifting. I'm like, no, I want to be huge. I don't want to be a runner. I want to be a monster. Which is OK, too. So for like, I don't know.

Erika (49:11)
time. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jason (49:33)
a year and a half of just gym and then you know on our honeymoon Megan's like hey will you come running with me I don't want to be by myself and I was like all right and I was like let's go and so we you know went for I don't know how fast I don't know anything about pace I just went to the park with her and followed her and complained and I was like we done yet are we done yet and maybe maybe two miles

Erika (49:57)
you

Jason (50:01)
And then I was just more petting stray dogs and getting chased by stray dogs and getting, don't touch them. They're going to get fleas and you know, that kind of thing. And that was it. That was the end of my running. And then I think I did it one more time on the trip on the honeymoon. And then she signed me up for a 10 K like the following year. And that kind of blew my mind. I'm like six miles. you kidding me? I'm never going to get six miles. And then I worked at it.

Erika (50:06)
you

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason (50:31)
Here we are today. It's thousands and thousands of miles since that day.

Erika (50:36)
I

was going to say it escalated quickly, but I mean, it took you a while to get up to your hundred milers and even more than that. Good.

Jason (50:43)
Yeah. But Megan planted that seed and

I don't know how my brain works, but I really like to pursue things that I enjoy almost to the point of obsession. And sometimes it gets annoying and I understand, but I've been pretty good. Like once I realized I had an ego, I learned how to dial it back. I think I I'd be pretty good. And I try to stay humble.

Erika (50:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (51:11)
But I do enjoy what I do and I love putting my mind towards something no matter what it is. It could be just my job in general. I love my work. I love what I do. And so I become really passionate about these things.

or like you said, Erica, actually, like he didn't start off like going into these ultras or these hundreds beyond that. He started with a 10 K and then he went to a half and then we, his first marathon, we went to Iceland and we were like, oh, this will be fun. You know, it's international, like, you know,

Erika (51:45)
No way!

Jason (51:51)
And the temperature was great, but the difference that we found and that we enjoy, and I think Erica, you probably would agree with this, is that a marathon, have to go full speed for 26 plus miles. You have to go, if your goal is to PR, you have to go as fast as you can. You have to kill yourself, hit that wall. The thing with ultra running that I think we both enjoy,

Erika (52:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (52:20)
I know I do and I think you do is you do get to slow down a little bit, but you can push yourself longer. And I think that that's where the, when you say like, you have to do your best or you have to go the longest you can, it's because you are able to slow down and are able to run longer. like me personally, I think, I think it's cooler to tell someone I ran a hundred miles or I ran 50 miles.

Erika (52:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (52:49)
rather than saying I ran 13 miles in X number of minutes or hours. So I think that it's always cool to be like, oh my gosh, we ran like 26 miles as a training run today, rather than, oh my God, that was a marathon race, which is still really impressive. But I think for us to run fast for 26 miles is a lot of work.

Erika (52:56)
Mm-hmm.

you ⁓

Yep. Half the time I feel like if I'm doing a fast race, I am more broken from that, even though it's much less mileage than I'm like I would usually do during an ultra. And the stress level just isn't there unless, I mean, if that's your goal to do like the fastest you can for a hundred or something. But like for me, I'm like, I just want to finish. I just maybe try to improve a little bit, but it's, still just about.

Jason (53:18)
So.

Exactly.

Erika (53:46)
getting the endurance and it's more about discipline too, which I know the two of you have in spades. Those three o'clock runs, I'm just blown away by. So yeah, the ultra world is just, it is a different realm and it's a little bit more chill. I love that.

Jason (54:04)
Yeah, I agree. I think after that first marathon, you were like, am never running again. I'm not running that far. I would, yeah. I'm never gonna run a marathon ever again. then, yeah, and then obviously, and then in 2019, that's when things changed for us specifically, but that 26 miles turned into a hundred plus miles.

Erika (54:15)
Famous last words.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (54:28)
How did that happen then? Like, let's dive into that. What happened in between that time to get you to go, I'm never gonna do that again, to let's do 100.

Jason (54:38)
So in 2019, we had heard about this race before in Maine, last man standing, it's at Island Farms. And I I kind of read about the concept and it's like, oh, you're on 4.2. And this was, I feel like the backyard scene has exploded since, but it was very small niche, you know. Especially in Maine. In Maine. And so it was like, I don't know, maybe 70 people. And we went.

Erika (54:45)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (55:07)
And I think it was maybe the third or fourth year had been going on and it's starting to get some steam. I'm like, Oh, what do we do? We brought like a cooler and two chairs and nearly enough calories. don't know anything about ultras. You know, we were, we're, very consistent with our training and we run, you know, decent mileage every week. And we're like, yeah, let's go give it a shot. Let's see what we can do. And.

Erika (55:19)
Hmm.

Jason (55:34)
I don't remember coming to my club party you ran that first time. think I did. I think I did just under 30 miles because then after I got done the race, I ran to get 30 miles and I was like, oh my God, I ran like more than a marathon. It's so cool. I mean, I probably could have went longer, I had no expectations. And I'm so, and then I followed the format and so it started at noon and at midnight I was at the 50 mile mark.

Erika (55:53)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (56:02)
And I remember you looked at me and you go, are you done yet? And I'm like, I don't know. I guess so. Cause I don't know. thought you had to like to run 50, you have to run 40, you know? I don't know how training works, right? I thought you had to build up and build up and build up. But so I ran 50 miles and we're like, well, we don't really have any food or water left. I guess sometimes. Well, it was also getting cool. Yeah, it's pretty close. Right.

Eric (56:05)
Yeah. ⁓

Erika (56:05)
Yeah.

right.

Jason (56:27)
It's during Labor Day weekend. So it starts to get pretty cool overnight. And I was all done and I'm sitting there like kind of freezing and I'm like, are you like, are you like done? mean, like, I'm just, you know, I'm getting cold. So, I knew, so, so that's in September and we're like, wow, we're ultra marathoners now because we ran further than a marathon. And then that kind of stemmed into like, what else can we do? How far can we go? What's the ceiling here? And we happen to have a

Erika (56:51)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (56:56)
big trick plan that November where we trekked to Everest base camp. And I was like, we just walked 40 miles in the Himalayas and we just ran ultra marathons two months ago. We might be on to a new hobby that's gonna consume our lives. What did we know? So it's really, you know, progressed, I guess, into a lot of

Erika (57:02)
Wow.

you

you

Jason (57:23)
Now we're doing ultras out of the country and well that but also I feel like all we do now is ultras. You know, I don't we like we don't do and I am not saying anything negative about half marathons by any means because I love them too. But we don't we don't even do half marathons or marathons anymore because we can do 13 miles in our backyard. You know what I mean? Right in our backyard. So it's like, well, we used to travel New England for a half.

Erika (57:47)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason (57:52)
And was fun. We'd make a weekend. But I don't want to drive for a race that's going to be two hours or less, you know? So.

Eric (57:59)
I'm kind of the same way

Erika (57:59)
Yeah.

Eric (58:00)
where I said I would never travel far for a half Ironman when I was really into Ironman. So I'm like, if you travel far, you gotta do a full Ironman, even five hours far. It's like you gotta do the full. You can do the halves locally within a quick driving distance and hang out with the cool people in the community and have a beer after and then still be able to drive home that day. And you two are traveling the world now.

Erika (58:12)
you

Jason (58:16)
Yeah, right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Eric (58:28)
doing ultra marathons. The trip to the base camp at Mount Everest, that was not an ultra, but that was just like an adventure, a planned hike.

Jason (58:35)
It was

Erika (58:36)
Still pretty epic.

Jason (58:36)
just, it was a two of us, the two of us and a guide and we, we didn't know we was just going to be the two of us. I just assumed we were going to be the group, but we were with, it was just her and I and a guide. And we walked to Everest Base Camp from the world's highest airport to base camp and back.

Eric (58:53)
Did you land

at that airport?

Jason (58:56)
We landed in a helicopter. We just got lucky. They were sending in a chopper and they don't like to fly things empty. So they're like, hey, do you want to get on? We're like, ⁓ yes. But we flew out of that airport and it looks like you were going to crash. Yes.

Eric (59:05)
I know this airport.

Well, this is the one, it's like a huge cliff. It's

an extremely short runway. And the runway, I guess landing is uphill, taking off is downhill, and you just, you go all the way and you go right off the edge. The plane never lifts. It just eventually goes off the runway. And then instantly you're thousands of feet above the ground. Erika, if you've never seen this, you gotta YouTube it. It's crazy. It looks so sketchy, and I wanna try it.

Jason (59:27)
Yes.

I will send you photos. I will send you photos. Yeah.

Erika (59:34)
Will you do it? Please do.

Jason (59:38)
Yeah, I mean, I unsafe. No, it's like you're watching, you're waiting for your turn like it's a carnival ride, know, just like anticipation. Because if there's bad weather, then obviously you have to kind of wait your turn and whoever's first gets pushed out. And the day we left, I think we waited around for like, I don't know, six or seven hours just to fly out. Yeah.

Eric (59:52)
Right.

Erika (1:00:01)
Wow.

Eric (1:00:01)
Well, we

have a friend, Dooser, I know he's at least had to spend the night there because the weather was so bad, they wouldn't let him take off. But what you got to do guys, if you're, if you're Googling this, I don't know the name of it, I'll throw it in the show notes or something, but you need to watch from the POV, you know, the point of view camera in the airplane while landing on this airstrip, especially in like bad weather. And you see nothing and then all of sudden, boom, you're on land. It's, it's, it's, it's insane. It's absolutely insane.

Jason (1:00:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's I think it's called Luke Luke, Luke, love airport, I believe.

Eric (1:00:37)
Yeah,

it's wild. So how was that trip? Actually, I'm more interested right now just to hear about that since we're talking about it.

Erika (1:00:38)
Wow.

Jason (1:00:44)
It was amazing. It was amazing. was our first really our first adventure trip. would say like we we didn't really Yeah, yeah. In general. Yeah, like a couple or otherwise, but we ⁓ didn't really know what to expect. We went in November of 2019. ⁓

Eric (1:00:53)
as a couple

Jason (1:01:07)
is for kind of like his birthday for him. I mean, it just happened to me. Yeah, we got to base camp on my 35th birthday. It just happened to be by chance. We didn't plan it that way. We kind of did. But. But and it was amazing. I you go really slow. I would work if anybody is watching this and they're interested in going to every space camp. I highly we highly recommend it. It was.

Eric (1:01:20)
In Megan's head it was your birthday gift.

Erika (1:01:20)
It worked out well. ⁓

Jason (1:01:36)
We would do it again. All walks of life, all body types, ages. It doesn't matter what you look like or how physically fit you are because you go so slow. It's how your brain can process the oxygen. So you could be the fittest person in the world. If your brain can't handle the oxygen, they're not going to let you continue and they'll send you back down. So yeah. Yeah.

Erika (1:01:54)
Gotcha. Yeah, you got to acclimatize, right? I have

like this insane fascination with Everest, even though I have no desire to climb it, but I read books on it. I watch the videos, the documentaries. It's so fascinating to me. So the fact that you guys actually got to experience some of that is so, so cool. That's so cool.

Jason (1:02:04)
No.

Yeah, we touched the bottom on it. It was unbelievable.

Eric (1:02:15)
Was that the goal? Was

that like the end goal? You just wanted to make it to base camp?

Jason (1:02:19)
Yep. was the whole trip. was a base camp track and you go and you touch a rock that says Everest base camp. And, then I think it took us, so it didn't take us 10 days to get there, but it was a 10 day trek. So it took us maybe seven days to get there and three days to get back because it's all downhill. was like 40 miles in each direction. Yeah. And, um, but that really like almost spoke to my soul then like, want to come back here.

Erika (1:02:26)
Hahaha!

Yes.

Jason (1:02:49)
And so we just went again this year because we love it so much and just Everest the people are amazing and well before that though we we went to still he's been there well not not to Everest Base because we didn't know what you guys at that time but it has been to Nepal before ⁓

Eric (1:02:58)
Wait, has Julie been there?

Erika (1:03:07)
you

Eric (1:03:10)
Yeah, I knew that, but

Erika (1:03:11)
He is

Eric (1:03:11)
I was

Erika (1:03:11)
tagged Stooley in the pictures. He's on the site. So both of you are on the site with Stooley.

Eric (1:03:11)
like... Yeah, so what do we have to do to get you back to base camp with Stooley? Like, I'll get you a huge, like, fathead Stooley.

Jason (1:03:21)
of give me a banner. Give me a banner. Or a fat head. Yeah, that'd be awesome. We want to go back to the basement. We want to go back. We don't have anything to wear. Oh yeah. Will Stooley sponsor us?

Eric (1:03:25)
When are you going? When are you going back? when you go back, you let me know.

Erika (1:03:32)
We'll hook you up.

Eric (1:03:33)
my god.

Stooley doesn't have any money. Stooley has... Stooley... The bank account is not even zero. The bank account is non-existent.

Erika (1:03:44)
If we can get somebody to sponsor Stooley, then we'll shove some of that your way, but we'll see what we can do. Seriously.

Jason (1:03:44)
Ha ha.

Eric (1:03:46)
Yes. Yeah, we're looking at you, Sharman.

Jason (1:03:52)
Well,

you have to carry your own teepee. chocolate will be great. It helps with the sprains.

Eric (1:03:55)
Yeah. Bare butt wipes, butt napkins.

Erika (1:03:56)
Bare butt waves.

Eric (1:04:00)
⁓ isn't there another, there's a toilet paper company out there where you can get your own custom printed toilet paper. Yes. We got to find that. Like naturally you would put Stooley, but if it were me, I would put the Montreal Canadians logo on it. Just like a Red Sox fan would put the Yankees logo on it.

Erika (1:04:04)
Dude wipes.

Jason (1:04:05)
to do flights.

Yes? ⁓

Erika (1:04:08)
Oh god. Oh my god. How have we not done that already?

Jason (1:04:21)
you

Erika (1:04:22)
I get it.

Eric (1:04:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jason (1:04:25)
There's a lot of code browns that take place on these ⁓ trips.

Eric (1:04:28)
So speaking

Erika (1:04:29)
I can

imagine.

Eric (1:04:29)
of that, and you know the real definition of a code brown, code brown doesn't have to be crap in your pants moment, but was there, and sometimes it's better when you just tell us what's an crap moment. Did you have any from that trip?

Jason (1:04:42)
from that trip? The only thing I can think of for myself, it's not, it's not stooley related, but ⁓ there was a point we were doing in, ⁓ was that the acclimation day? Okay. We were doing an acclimation day and I had only gone up a small amount ⁓ and I started to get nauseous, lightheaded.

and I sat for like 30 minutes and I got all worried, you know, that I was like, oh my, like I didn't want to not continue. And so after like 30 minutes, I recovered from that and we were able to continue on there. I'm trying to think if, did you have any? Not there. Yeah, not there. He does have some uh-oh moments. But I think Everest was actually pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty We got sick. Altitude.

Erika (1:05:08)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Jason (1:05:38)
Not altitude sickness, but it gives you a cold after some after a point. And when we got to ever space camp, we stayed at a camp that night and we were pretty like sick, like a cold sick. Yeah, but she brought me a birthday present and it was freeze dried ice cream ice cream sandwich so I could have taken ice cream on my birthday. I carried it away. ⁓

Erika (1:05:52)
Mmm.

It's the cutest! So thoughtful.

Eric (1:06:04)
Yeah, Jason, what have you done for her to top that, man?

Erika (1:06:05)
Worth it, worth it.

Jason (1:06:09)
boy.

I've got a few things, so.

Eric (1:06:13)
That's so cool though you've

been there. Erica, I'm the same as her. However, if I had the opportunity to hike it, I would hike it, but you're making it sound like everyone who wants to hike to the top of Everest, they also have to make this 40-mile trek.

Jason (1:06:28)
Yes, yep, they have to because that's part of your aclum, aclum, however you say it, aclamize it.

Erika (1:06:35)
But there's

like a whole ritual. I've seen documentaries on it. They stop by a temple. They bless you for safe travels. That's a whole part of it. You would want to do the whole shebang, right?

Jason (1:06:43)
We've been to that temple. It's... Yeah.

And you're starting at... So, Lukla is like 9,000 feet and Base Camp is 17,500 feet. So you need to walk that slow trail to start to build it up. And what I've been told is they do that multiple times in a couple of months. Like to go back and forth and back and forth.

Erika (1:07:06)
⁓

Jason (1:07:08)
And then they'll spend like six to eight weeks right at base camp before they start those types of up and downs. And they used to fly people in like halfway to base camp. But obviously people weren't able to acclimate. So they, so people were dying. ⁓ And so they stopped that. They don't allow people to do that.

Erika (1:07:16)
Mind boggling.

Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:07:34)
They have people you're allowed to do like an airplane or a helicopter tour and maybe stop for a second at base camp, but you're not able to get out for a long period of time.

Eric (1:07:47)
I was

going to say like, has to be a way to get a helicopter or something in there, right? Because like, if people are dying, they need to get them out of there, right? Yeah.

Erika (1:07:49)
Makes sense.

Jason (1:07:50)
Yes. Yes. Helicopters. Helicopters are going to be. Yes,

yes, yes. And while we were there actually, yes, yes, there's a bit insurance. you have to have helicopter insurance.

Erika (1:07:57)
That's so expensive. ⁓

Eric (1:08:01)
Well, apparently there's a lot of money

in painting, so.

Erika (1:08:04)
you

Jason (1:08:04)
Yes.

But what if you work in Procter & Fet's? When we were there, somebody did get rescued, think. Australian guy. We didn't want to use our insurance, so...

Erika (1:08:10)
They didn't need the rescue, they're good.

Eric (1:08:18)
Bye.

Erika (1:08:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:08:21)
Yeah, that's absolutely

wild. I know someone who used to do travel insurance and it was all these kind of scenarios.

Jason (1:08:24)
Yeah.

So I highly recommend anyone to do that for sure. Yeah, we really love the mountainous adventure. ⁓ yeah.

Erika (1:08:31)
You gotta protect yourself.

That's as far as I would go up Everest. That's it. Stop

Eric (1:08:38)
Well, that actually sounds

like a once in a lifetime opportunity just to go to the base. I didn't know that was like a thing that people just traveled to the base to say, I went to the base of Mount Everest. That's kind of cool. Like our friend Jay Parent, who I think Jason, you would get along really well with Jay Parent. Jay loves to do, I love to do it too, I'm just fat now. Handstands in cool places. And that's an absolute like.

Erika (1:08:40)
it, base camp.

Jason (1:08:44)
Yeah.

Mr. Thune.

Yep. Yeah.

Erika (1:09:02)
you

Eric (1:09:04)
handstand spot or me in the wicked awesome t-shirt. That's a wicked awesome spot.

Jason (1:09:06)
Yes.

Yes. Yes. I did that phase for a little bit and I did do a handstand at the Taj Mahal. Yeah, but you would do the crow. I would do the crow. I do the crow, the yoga pose, the crow. I've done that on some pool mountains.

Eric (1:09:20)
yes, yes, yes, yeah. So

you two travel all around the world, like do you travel well? Has there been any moments not trying to like pick a scab here, but let's pick a scab. Like, what? ⁓ yes.

Jason (1:09:32)
One is one Oh

And it wasn't anything to do with me kind of but not really it was in Greece. Oh It's only only time we've ever like she was ever like mad, but wasn't mad at me She was just taking it out on me some some street peddler Put bracelets on her arm and then we gave him money and she gave him money and like we were scammed and it was just Well, and he wanted more money. He wanted more and it just a stupid

street hustler and we learned to never make eye contact with those types again. So it was a good travel learning experience. But other than that, we get along very well. really good. We should be on the Amazin Race. We are really good navigators.

Erika (1:10:06)
⁓

can't think of a better couple to go on that show. And I don't even really watch that show, but the two of you just have the adventure spirit. So perfect.

Jason (1:10:19)
No, you don't need that.

Yeah.

Eric (1:10:23)
Have you ever applied

for that?

Jason (1:10:25)
No, my parents put me up to it though. They're like, you should do it.

Eric (1:10:28)
Well, I mean, you're not going to get it. What is

Wayne Grekski and Steve Carell say? Michael Scott.

Erika (1:10:33)
I'm like, Michael Scott,

you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take.

Jason (1:10:39)
No, we travel very well together. I think to be honest, we probably have a hard time traveling with other people because we're so used to traveling together. We know our quirks. We know what we like to do. You know, we like to walk like we like to get out there and explore and you know, everyone's different. So it's always different when we travel with people. I mean, we've never had a bad experience, but we're we're very good at traveling together.

I don't, can't think of a time where I was upset at him or anything. No, we've done a couple of adventure trips in other countries where we were just putting a group of strangers and you're like, here you go, here's your family. And then you're like, and it's so awkward. The first couple of dinners, because everyone kind of like groups together and you form their own clicks. And then by the end of it, they're your best friends. And you're like sad. It's like you're breaking up with somebody at the end of the trip because most

Erika (1:11:33)
you ⁓

Jason (1:11:36)
There's a few people that we keep in touch with from each trip once in a while, but you're not going to see these people again, especially in this group. know, it's so rewarding, you know, and you really got to, can't take anything for granted on these because, you you form these bonds that only this group of people can really talk about because I could tell you all these stories, but you didn't, I can't get that same experience across to you unless you're there to experience it yourself.

Eric (1:11:42)
It's like summer camp.

Erika (1:11:43)
Mm.

Well, why don't we talk about your Nepal trip that you just did? Because I do believe you have a killer code Brown in there somewhere that I heard about, but, the stage race is absolutely incredible. Just following along on your social media pages. Like, so why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

Jason (1:12:04)
Uh-huh.

Jason (1:12:21)
So we took our love for traveling and our new ultra lifestyle and we wanted to kind of combine them together. And so we did some research and sent Megan some links and like, hey, let's do this arts thing. And she's like, let me look at it. I was like, ⁓ I don't know.

Nepal. ⁓ It looks really it's like eight days, a lot of elevation. You're also like altitude is really like high, high altitude. And I was like, I don't know, I'm not good enough for this. Like, like, know I shouldn't. And then what really drew me in though, was the photos. They posted so many amazing, like beautiful photos of the terrain. And it was actually very

When you think runnable trails, it was certainly runnable compared to say a very technical trail. They were very runnable. And so when I saw that, was like, okay, like it looks a little more manageable. So I told them, go, you know what, let's do it. And so we ended up being, it wasn't really a wait list per se, but we had to sign up for the come first serve. It was first come first serve. Yeah. So we signed up for.

Erika (1:13:15)
Mm.

I see.

Jason (1:13:38)
Like a year in the past. For the following years race, we wanted to make sure we could, know, it's a lot of logistics when you're going. We take three, it takes three weeks because you know, we take, it takes three days to get there and at the beginning we spend some time to acclimate and then the race and then, you know, then you got to do that back in reverse order. So it's a long flight. Yeah. But it was 105 miles was the race, but there's a lot of days where the mileage doesn't count. You have bonus hikes.

Erika (1:13:52)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:14:07)
And well, there's only one thing that the mileage stream, but there was like optional excursions. We're going do another walking around. So you're covering a lot of ground. And I think it was over 30,000 feet of climbing, but you're doing it in the thinnest day possible. we never came down below like 13.5, I think was the lowest. And then you reach, I think 17 was the highest we were, you know, we're at, but I think around 15 was pretty much your average.

Erika (1:14:08)
⁓ fun.

Okay.

Right.

Jason (1:14:35)
elevation every day. So when you're going on a nice, easy, gradual downhill, you're like, why am I lungs working so hard? Yeah. And like you can only run for a little bit. Then you have to walk on these easy, should be easy runs. So the mileage per day, I think our, our, our lightest mileage was nine miles. And then our longest was about 16 and a half.

Erika (1:15:03)
Okay.

Jason (1:15:04)
So it wasn't the mileage itself was manageable and I think that's another reason why I was like, okay, it's not like we're doing like 30 miles every day. It was a little more manageable, but I mean, 16 miles. We had 2 days that were 16 miles. The 1st day was day 2 or day 3, one of the 2 and we actually did very well. got good at long stuff. We got like 2nd overall that day, which was amazing.

Erika (1:15:25)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:15:30)
Wait, are you running together all the time?

Erika (1:15:30)
you

Jason (1:15:32)
This race, 100 % together, we weren't being competitive. We wanted to take this in. We didn't want to rock through it. We took a million photos, videos. That's the one. So that picture, that was our acclimation hike, which was nine miles, and it did not count towards our final mileage. Yeah, we did it every second we went.

Erika (1:15:39)
Yeah.

Eric (1:15:42)
Is this the race right here? That's, ⁓ my God, what a beautiful, wow.

Erika (1:15:46)
Told you. ⁓

Yeah. ⁓

Eric (1:15:58)
⁓ That's crazy. You have to

do an acclimation hike just to do the race. So it's not like you show up on race day and you just like, you know, a couple hours, up your tent and your gear. You're showing up and you need to pass a test before you can actually race. I, I.

Jason (1:16:05)
Yeah, that was to get to the start line.

I know.

Yeah, I mean

it was hot. I mean didn't know what to expect. We're getting sunburned immediately because we're at elevation. Yes. We had the crispiest cabs on the trip. we did not bring enough sunblock. That is 100 % true. So the first 60-mile day we actually did very well. I think maybe because we were fresh. ⁓ But then the second 60-mile day

Erika (1:16:27)
⁓ wow.

Jason (1:16:44)
or 15, something like that is the day that maybe he didn't feel his best. But overall, I think we did very well. We were on the top or part of the ranking, which again, didn't really matter. We were just having fun. But it was kind cool that we ended up closer to the top. And we met so many different people. We were ⁓ only the maybe like six Americans out of 50.

Well, 53 people, were one of six Americans. I mean, sorry, two of six Americans. So it was like, it was very strange almost because there was folks from Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Australia. There was like a large variety of people. the best part about that variety is we're all the same. We were there for adventure and to run and to share our passions.

Erika (1:17:15)
Wow.

Wow.

Jason (1:17:41)
Like it makes me emotional thinking about it. Like it was so fun just to here you go strangers and you're instantly like, where have you been? What have you done? You like to run this too? Like we're all the same. It's so cool. it was all different age ranges. There was, there was a 19 year old Nepalese male and female. I think they were both 19.

Eric (1:17:54)
Continue.

Jason (1:18:05)
Um, and then I think our oldest gentleman that was there was 69 and a woman there was, think, Brenda, I think she was 65, 65, I think for a woman. So it was a really big age range. And that's what's impressive to me is to be 65, 69 years old and in running in, in, in Nepal, doing a staged race, you know, it that was, that was very cool to me to see that. Cause that's what I want to do.

Erika (1:18:29)
How cool.

Jason (1:18:33)
you know, when I'm in my eighties or sixties or whatever. All the way.

Erika (1:18:36)
Yeah.

Eric (1:18:36)
No, 80s. Go all the way through 80s. Yeah. So

you know what actually sounds really cool and it's a part of the race that I would love is the actual part when you're not racing.

What was that like? Was it all set up? Did you have to bring your own stuff or was it all pre-planned, part of the package? And then just the mingling with the people, like, were you eating meals together or were you on your own? Tell us about like those parts of this race.

Jason (1:19:05)
So everything was all inclusive. So the race entry fee covered an all inclusive trip. All the lodging was in like very nice, but very simple ⁓ tea houses. There was actually a couple of really nice ones that surprised me. They had our own bathroom, which didn't happen on the Everest trek. We were going in holes. ⁓ But this one, there was a couple of workable flushes, which was nice with access to water. Showers. We didn't shower every day because

Erika (1:19:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Jason (1:19:34)
The water wasn't hot and so. You weren't the first ones there. You didn't get the shower. didn't get that. So, but yes, so you would have these community rooms. You'd eat breakfast together. You'd have a packed lunch that they would give you. You'd eat on the trail as you needed. And then we would have a dinner. So we had a traveling cook with us that was fantastic. Fantastic staff. All traditional cuisine. All vegetarian. Yeah, yeah. All vegetarian.

Erika (1:19:36)
you

Jason (1:20:04)
So it was all well-cooked food for you. didn't go hungry. They'd always give you seconds or thirds and force tea down you. They wanted to make sure you were hydrated. And so you're sitting in these rooms, these banquet rooms, sometimes be two rooms, because it was a large group. And you would just kind of, you would have the people you'd gravitate to. You have the people that were from Germany and Switzerland. They would kind of click together because they would like to speak their own language where everybody's spoken.

Erika (1:20:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Jason (1:20:34)
And

so we would kind of like try to switch it up with people just to kind of get a feel from their background and you know, what are they like and where have they been? Where do you run? And you know those kind of things and but most of the time we find ourselves going back to maybe people that we had more common with or maybe someone that we might actually see again because they're closer to us or ⁓ we met these people from Germany that we might go see next year because they have a beer marathon.

right after or before? After Berlin Right after the Berlin Marathon, they host a Berlin Marathon that kicks off Oktoberfest. So like I would like to go and hang out with them because they were so fun. And you know and. And they just did the they just did the Trans Rockies race in Colorado.

Erika (1:21:10)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

That's amazing.

Eric (1:21:24)
That's the one I

Erika (1:21:25)
Uh-huh.

Eric (1:21:25)
know about. And

Erika (1:21:26)
That's Karen. Our friend Karen does that one.

Eric (1:21:26)
I was trying to think of the name. Yeah. Karen, Dooser, others have done that. And that's why I asked about what happens when you're not racing. Cause all those tents are set up. Yeah.

Erika (1:21:30)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:21:35)
Yeah, you learn

all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. I will say for me, it was probably the hardest part only because again, I'm not, it takes me time to loosen up and get comfortable with people. Once I get comfortable, it's fine. I feel like it's perfectly fine. But it's hard when you're surrounded by like 52 people that you've never met before, you know? yeah, it's a little overwhelming.

Erika (1:21:37)
It's a party, you have fun.

That can be overwhelming, for real, yeah.

Jason (1:22:04)
But I think like Jay said, kind of connect with, you know, we connected with all the Americans, obviously, because we know what we're talking about in the States and stuff. But like you said, everybody's there because you like adventure, you like to run. You always have something to talk about. You know, it's you always have a connection with with that, which I think makes it easier for sure. So but it was good. Yeah. And the race director, the race director had been putting this race on for

Erika (1:22:27)
love that common bond.

Jason (1:22:34)
10 plus years, but he's always had, he has two races that go on there in Nepal and he always hires the same staff because they are so good and he is so good to them. And then the Polly people, they cater to you. They make sure that you don't touch a bag. Like, you're like, Hey, I can carry my own element. This is what I'm here for. No, no, no. You tell me where your room is or they know where your room is. It's super cool. you know, very well organized, very well organized. And that was the Mustang trail race.

Erika (1:22:50)
Wow.

Aww.

Awesome.

Eric (1:23:04)
Erica, add it to your bucket list. You gotta find someone to go with. I just feel like you gotta go with someone who will stay with you that whole time and do it together.

Jason (1:23:04)
Yep. Yeah? Yeah.

Erika (1:23:04)
Coolest thing. it's already there. It's already on there.

Jason (1:23:13)
But I definitely

had a code brown moment, not a number two moment, but I thought it was. ⁓ I was in a good mood most days. So Megan would be like, maybe not so enthusiastic at times. So I always try to stay positive to boost your spirits in any situation. Well, this day, Megan was doing phenomenal. The one day I'm feeling really good.

Erika (1:23:17)
Yeah, you did.

Jason (1:23:40)
It was a very runnable day, like a couple of steep climbs, but lots of flat tabletops on the mountains. And the terrain is like packed dirt. It's not loose gravel. It was like rolling hills. Rolling, yeah. You could really crank. And this is, you know, towards the end of the trip and Megan is like flying. I can't catch her. And I'm like, she's like, what's wrong with you? And I have stomach pain. like, you know, I've been eating weird and I'm at elevation. I think I just have to go number two.

Erika (1:23:54)
Very nice

Jason (1:24:09)
And so she's like, I'm like, just go ahead. I'll catch you. So there's no trees. There's no cover. There's just little thorny cactus bushes and just sheer drop-offs. And I'm like, I can see quite a ways in either direction. So I'm like, okay, nobody's coming from behind. There's nowhere to go, but the side of the dirt trail. I try to like perch behind a rock. I didn't have to go. I tried and I'm like, I think I'm constipated.

Erika (1:24:37)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:24:38)
So

I'm like, well, I got to pee. So I stand up to pee, straight blood. I am peeing a straight red line and my heart sank. First thing that comes to mind was they're gonna make me end the race. I'm not telling anybody. So- That did not make me very happy. So, Nathan doesn't know at this point. So I hobble along and I try to like hold in the pain. It was all in my abdomen. I've had hernias before. So I'm like, you know, it's just kind of like-

Erika (1:24:43)
God.

Jason (1:25:07)
below my belly button, you know, kind of like a constipation cramp. So I'm like, ah, I just, you know, I just don't feel good. And we hobble along and then I, you know, I'm kind of in a bad mood. So I'm, being short and snappy and she's like, what's wrong? You got to tell the doctor. I'm like, you want to see what's wrong? I peed in the sand right in front of her. Blood. I peed blood. And she's like, you need to tell the doctor. And I'm like, no, I'm going to die here. They are not taking me off this mountain. And that didn't go over.

Erika (1:25:11)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:25:36)
Yeah, Eric, when you asked earlier, was there a time that this is the time. Now it's coming back to me. This is the time that I may have said ⁓ something that I maybe shouldn't have because I was feeling a little annoyed and ⁓ irritated. But I know what I said.

Erika (1:25:36)
Can't imagine it would.

Eric (1:25:40)
Yes, this is it.

Yes!

Erika (1:25:46)
Yup.

Eric (1:25:48)
Let's pick that scab.

Erika (1:25:58)
You

Jason (1:26:06)
But anyways, I did get a little irritated at that. So we had like, and it was really like maybe 20 minutes of like, I'm pissed off and I'm gonna run as hard as I can. Good luck catching me because I'm finishing this race. And so I take off like an idiot, cramping up. And then we stopped, hugged in the trail, kissed, I'm sorry, made up. I'll tell the doctor maybe. And so we make our way to the end of the race day, across the finish line, I'm doubled over.

I'm, I, we had a traveling doctor and I'm like, doctor, I need to see you when you get a minute. Let me drink this tea and then come to my room. I can't do this here. And, uh, I took some photos of my urine in the toilet and it was, it was like, yeah, it was like, it was Coca-Cola. It was very bizarre. And I drink a lot. I know my body and I know my fluids.

Erika (1:26:59)
my god.

Jason (1:27:04)
So something was going on. He gave me some medicine. He goes, you can finish the race. So that's all I needed to hear. He said, just monitor it. Yeah, but you didn't say what he thought the reason was. ⁓ he thought I hate beets. He's like, he goes, you had beets yesterday. I maybe had one or two. And he's like, it's just beetroot. And I'm like, all right, I beets at home. I had beets last night. I didn't have red beet today. So it's like, most likely I passed the stone.

⁓ We think but the next day it was spotty. had a cup I had he told me to drink beer that will actually push things out So I don't know if it's true. He's a very new doctor. So I drank beer I peed clear but the next morning I peed dark again, so it lingered all day and into the next room, but Drink more beer, but I finished the race. I stopped peeing blood and life's good. That was yeah, that was Two days before

Erika (1:27:34)
⁓

I don't know what...

Ugh.

Eric (1:27:52)
So you just drink more beer then?

Jason (1:28:04)
So we were going into our last day of the race. so he didn't want to have to stop the last day of the race. a couple other people had gotten altitude sickness. So we had ⁓ one woman from Germany, she had gotten like a, like a respiratory kind of infection. And so she couldn't run for two or three days. And then another gentleman who was also from Germany, he got a respiratory infection and had to.

Eric (1:28:10)
Right.

Erika (1:28:21)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:28:30)
He had to have like one of those. Yeah, they're really like stripped on if you can continue or not because you did sign a waiver saying, you know, you're under our supervision. So if you're sick, you need to either seek medical help or get below elevation. So I was nervous. I'm like, I do not want to end this trip. This is it. So all good. But that was my scary moment on a trip. Besides speaking my feelings.

Erika (1:28:45)
Mmm.

Eric (1:28:52)
Megan.

Erika (1:28:55)
my gosh.

Eric (1:28:57)
All

right, Megan, tell me if they made him leave, if they helicoptered him back to home base and you have one day left to complete this race, what are you doing? He's not here. He's not here. He's not listening right now. Speak your truth.

Jason (1:29:08)
So.

finish it because I know he would want me to finish it because it was only one more day. ⁓ Okay, well, I don't know. That's a tough one. I'm not gonna lie, it was very expensive to get there. So I probably couldn't continue. But because you're asking that there was a husband and wife that did it together. And his wife

Eric (1:29:18)
All right, what if it was day one?

Erika (1:29:27)
you

Jason (1:29:37)
When we got to, I think stage three, she got altitude sickness and had to go back to the finish line basically. So he went back with her for a day and then his wife was like, you need to finish the race. You don't need to hang out with me. So I think that's exactly what you would say too. So I think because of the price of the race, I think we would have agreed that- As long as I'm not dying. Right, right, right.

He didn't say he was dying, so. If he was not dying, yes, I think he would want me to finish. Yep. And vice versa. But we did the race together, which I was very thankful for because, I mean, we are in a different country and, you know, I don't want to get lost. I signed it up for us. was for us. It was to celebrate our accomplishments and what we can put ourselves through. And I just wanted to enjoy it with my wife. didn't want to. I had nothing to prove. I didn't want to go.

Erika (1:30:25)
Mmm.

Eric (1:30:28)
Yeah.

Erika (1:30:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:30:35)
There was probably five to eight people that I would have been competitive with. And it doesn't matter. Like I want to take more pictures of them. Like I just wanted to do it with Megan. was, it was, you

Erika (1:30:45)
Yeah.

Eric (1:30:45)
Right.

Right. You're not

going there to say, like, you don't want to, you're not going there to be like, we went there and we won. You want to, I mean, that would be cool, but you know, it's like when the person asks you, did you win? You traveled all the way. Did you win? No, you had the experience.

Jason (1:30:53)
Yeah, we went there. We went there.

Yeah.

Hey, the one thing that we can say we did was we beat a Nepalese guy. Yeah. We beat a woman and a man. So that's an accomplishment. They were unbelievable. They They invited some young Nepalese runners and they were running an eight minute pace up like a 22 % grade. Yeah.

Eric (1:31:08)
Yeah, there you go.

Yeah!

Jason (1:31:28)
on in it would be oxygen work. We're slowly sticking. And these guys were just zooming by us. It was pretty impressive. have you ever done a stage race before? No.

Erika (1:31:35)
Wow.

Eric (1:31:35)
Insane. Insane. So cool.

Erika (1:31:38)
Well, I'm glad, yeah, go ahead.

No, I

have not. would totally be up for one though. That sounds like fun.

Jason (1:31:47)
Yeah,

yeah, we, if it my only suggestion, I would say is if you've never done one, I would start with one that's maybe a little, a little shorter, like five days only because eight is is a lot. I think if we do it again, I'd like to do one that's a little bit shorter because I mean, we did have to take like three weeks off from work, which is fine, but that's kind of a long time. Not everybody can do that, but. But hey.

Erika (1:32:10)
I feel like I would not be able to get away with that. I would try,

but hey.

Jason (1:32:15)
If you want to do a stage race, let us know. Yeah.

Erika (1:32:18)
I know who to call.

Eric (1:32:19)
Are there

stage races that you could do together like as a threesome?

Jason (1:32:23)
Yeah, sure. yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll definitely do it.

Eric (1:32:25)
You should do- You should do trans Rockies.

Erika (1:32:29)
don't think they're doing that anymore. I think this was the last year. I think, I feel like that was a thing. Don't quote me on it, but we can ask Karen.

Eric (1:32:31)
What?

Jason (1:32:32)
Really?

⁓

Eric (1:32:39)
I'm gonna quote

Jason (1:32:39)
Yeah.

Eric (1:32:40)
you on it.

Hey, you know what we learned about trans Rockies? Would you do a baby bird shot from a complete stranger?

Jason (1:32:48)
I don't know. How's that, where someone spits in your mouth?

Erika (1:32:50)
Say no.

Eric (1:32:52)
Pretty much.

Erika (1:32:52)
Somebody takes a shot and puts that shot in somebody else's mouth. It's too much germs and I'm so grossed out by that. I'm so grossed out.

Jason (1:32:58)
Probably not. No. ⁓

Erika (1:33:06)
He might, I don't

Eric (1:33:06)
Between

Erika (1:33:06)
know. You said total stranger. Am I drunk first or what?

Eric (1:33:07)
friends? Yeah. Stranger? You know what? I probably would. I probably would. Yeah. Yeah. It's for a good story and for a good laugh.

Jason (1:33:12)
Yeah, if it made people laugh, it didn't make them.

Yeah.

Erika (1:33:17)
Depends

on how drunk I am to begin with. If I'm not drunk at all, no. If I had a few, maybe. I thought it was at the end. I don't know.

Eric (1:33:21)
Well, this was at this was at Trans Rockies. did it in the middle of the race.

Jason (1:33:21)
you

Eric (1:33:27)
might have been at the end, and it might have not been with strangers, but...

Jason (1:33:31)
Yeah. ⁓

Erika (1:33:32)
I'm out.

Would do the race, not a baby butt shot.

Jason (1:33:36)
I'm

Erika (1:33:38)
But I'm so glad that you guys made it through that, guess, essentially in one piece and you didn't have to quit. So you guys got to complete that together. And I know that you guys do love doing stuff together. And I know that you guys completed Ghost Train together last year. And I was privy to seeing you guys at the halfway point. I was volunteering out at one, the middle aid station. Yep, I was in my penguin one thing.

Jason (1:33:43)
Not mentioned.

Who's that? ⁓ hi,

The penguin. The penguin costume.

Yep.

Erika (1:34:05)
So

it was really good to see you guys out there just absolutely crushing it. But Megan, was that your first 100 miler? What a perfect one to choose.

Jason (1:34:11)
Yes, it was. Yep. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. And I'm going to go back this year. So I know I'll see you. So I'm going into it with a different plan. So Jason wants to run by himself this year because he wants to push it and try to see how fast it can go. But I think I'm going to kind of go my own pace and see if I can hopefully do better. But if I can just get that 100, that's all I care about.

Erika (1:34:19)
Yes!

Awesome.

Nice, nice. That's my

goal for this year too. And hey, if I see you out there, I will happily share miles with you.

Eric (1:34:44)
How will you then, will you have a crew if you're not gonna run together? Are you gonna have support there or are you just gonna have a base camp and kinda like high five when you pass each other?

Jason (1:34:44)
I we'll see each other.

So we didn't have a crew last year either. ⁓ invited my mom to come and spectate because my mom will text us all through the race because she wants to follow along and I love that. But typically we don't have crews or pacers. We do things independently. ⁓ We set up our base camp at all of our races really and we've run together in the past for stuff but we don't have a pacer.

per se. this year we're going to be independent. Yeah.

Eric (1:35:27)
Have you done that before then? Have you run independent before? Same race, but not different plans.

Jason (1:35:34)
Well, ADU that we just did, ran separately. But just to touch back on Ghost Train, I do have a friend who just did 100 at Pineland Farms this year, and she did offer to pace me at Ghost Train. So she might come out and help me. But.

Erika (1:35:52)
awesome.

Jason (1:35:55)
ADU is one race that we've ran together, different plans. I would say when we run individually, Jason's just so much faster than me. He kind of just does his own thing. ⁓ so he ran 20 miles more than me at ADU this year. It was a race. ⁓ there's no competition there. But, ⁓ I'm trying to think like Pineland Farms is another one that we've run separately, but.

Erika (1:36:08)
Mind blowing, mind blowing.

Jason (1:36:21)
we've merged together towards. Yeah, near the end. Usually when he kind of gets to the point where he knows he can reach his goal, he'll kind of stick with me for a little bit and help me feel better about myself. Because by that point, I'm usually sad and crying. But I think next year, we've kind of had a conversation that I think we need to do races separately because I think me personally, I would

Erika (1:36:36)
you

Jason (1:36:49)
actually benefit from his help as a crew member, ⁓ because it's really hard to like get all your water, get your food, get, you know, the ibuprofen or whatever it is and try to remember it all. And we've never had any crew help us. We don't have friends that come and hang out with us for the whole weekend. And it's really hard to do that. So I think we've kind of had a conversation about a couple of races next year where he...

Erika (1:36:52)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:37:17)
He's done 15 plus hundred milers and you know, he can probably help me out on a couple of them. I think that's what we might do for a couple of races, at least next year. then he can pace me and he's not in the race. He's got fresh legs and he can keep me positive and enthusiastic. So that might happen a little bit next year, but Ghost Training will run separately for that just because he wants to. It's a good course to run.

Erika (1:37:23)
That's fair.

Yeah.

Jason (1:37:46)
Yeah, I want to try to continue that pace ahead of ADU and see if I can do it for 30 hours.

Erika (1:37:52)
my God. so you're going for like a course record then, huh?

Jason (1:37:54)
Well, I

mean, I have a goal, but I don't know what the course record is. I don't want to look it up. I just want to go. I just want to go. I just want to go and whatever happens happens. And I'm sure it will be a great time. He'll fly by us like two or three times, four times, Erica, you know, don't worry about it.

Erika (1:38:01)
I couldn't tell you, don't worry about that.

That's fantastic. I will be out there every time I see you being like, yo, keep going.

Definitely. We'll be trucking, just trying to get in under the wire. At least me. I'll be like last minute golden hour. That's my thing. And just, just getting it done, but Hey, whatever you can do is going to be awesome.

Jason (1:38:32)
Yeah, yeah,

Eric (1:38:34)
So then Jason, if you don't have a crew and you're going all out, but Megan's also racing at her own pace, like what's your setup? You make pit stops, you gotta be efficient, you gotta be fast. Do you have it all figured out?

Jason (1:38:43)
So.

Um, I've so I feel like I have really good experience now doing these types of distances. So I don't have it all figured out, but I get better every time. So I know what works for me and I know where I'll have a downfall if I don't stay on eating solid foods, I will fail. So I've learned from that lesson. And so I'll have my, I have my food box, and I've got my gearbox. And I know that I'll probably

I carry a handheld or this time I'll probably carry a bag but I'll keep food and I'm really diligent about every hour eat something even if I'm not hungry get it down like and then when I get to my base camp I'll eat something solid whether it's a sandwich or eggs or lunch meat something substantial other than you know just gels and sugar but he can guzzle a protein shake

Erika (1:39:41)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (1:39:45)
in like three seconds. can run. I can eat Thanksgiving dinner and run whatever pace you want me to run. And like, doesn't, I like having a full stomach. So, but there's times where I'm like, that's terrible, but I got to get it down. like at ADU, I, towards the end, like I stopped, I didn't want pizza slices that was there. So I'm like, I know what I have. I have peanut butter. I didn't want peanut butter, but it was in a squeeze tube.

Erika (1:39:49)
special skill.

It's a beautiful thing.

Jason (1:40:14)
I filled my mouth with it and swallowed it like a pill. don't know how I didn't choke, but it tasted terrible. But I just, peanut butter, swallowed it, and then I continued my race. You did have pizza too. I did, but after that. I think a little bit. Yeah. The peanut butter is very impressive. But I knew it would fill my belly. A lot of the races that we do are the ones that are, what do call that? Like a loop?

Erika (1:40:28)
Uh-huh, wow. No, that really is impressive.

you

Jason (1:40:44)
So like having that home base is really nice for that purpose. I feel like there's not a lot of races that are point to point. There's the mid state NAFTA, which is point to point, but a lot of the ones that we've done are the loop style. they're either like ADU is what 2.45. Last Man Standing is like 4.2. I think we've, and Pineland Farms is like 6.5. Yeah. So it's like, they're short enough that you can like,

Erika (1:40:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:41:04)
number.

Erika (1:41:11)
Okay.

Jason (1:41:14)
kind of fill up your hydration pack where you're handheld every map or two. Mid-state and Riverlands I've done and it's just different packing. know, because mid-state, especially where it's point to point and I did it without a crew. I had some visitors, Megan helped me for a couple of hours just to keep it company. She forgot my sandwich at mile 30. No, but I know what I'm in for.

Erika (1:41:38)
you

Jason (1:41:43)
Yeah, you did. But and then our friends Nick and Jackie, they're people that they were crewing actually stopped. So they're like, hey, do we want to you want to want us to follow you? Like, sure. So I had something to look forward to every stop. You know, it was great. But but no, carrying enough calories is definitely is something you want to try to perfect the best you can. Like drinking is easy. Like I'm pretty good. ⁓ I can, you know.

get down liquids, but food is, you know, you gotta get those calories. It's so important. One tip I would say for anyone who's not doing this that I started this year is, and I gotta have, I gotta give credit to my friend, Sibley, cause she's the one that told me about it, is I have a Coros watch, but I think Garmin, I'm sure any watch does it, is I have a nutrition alert on my watch and it goes off every 45 minutes.

And for me, that's very, very, very helpful because I can't put a whole pack of peanut butter in my mouth. So I like to have the reminder to ⁓ eat something. ⁓ And it's very helpful. I did that at ADU and I did that at Riverlands this year in Thailand kind of, but ⁓ it was very helpful. that's one thing I want to say to.

Erika (1:42:46)
you

Mmm.

Jason (1:43:03)
anyone that's watching is that they're not doing that and they have trouble with their nutrition and remembering to eat. Get the nutrition alert. It's very helpful.

Erika (1:43:12)
I do like that tip. I'm writing that down.

Eric (1:43:16)
That's cool. That's cool. I feel like we haven't even picked the scab here on everything that two of you have done. I don't know. I don't know. It's a good one. It's a good one. But like, I know Jason's bed time's coming up because we haven't even talked about you running at three in the morning before three in the morning, like super long runs. Right. We haven't talked about ADU. We haven't gotten to our final couple questions yet. I have a feeling.

Erika (1:43:21)
What is with you and scabs today? pick a new metaphor.

Jason (1:43:33)
Yeah.

Eric (1:43:44)
You have to come back on the pod. Maybe after ghost train, maybe in person, you know, we got the whole, we'll get, yeah. Ghost train special, but.

Jason (1:43:47)
Yep. In caution.

Erika (1:43:49)
Let's do a ghost train special. Cause Eric

said he was gonna, Ooh, that'd be great to do. But Eric might be my crew or he might show up at some point. Yeah. You are close enough where you can come by. Well, I got Tara, possibly Lindsay, but you won't come. Come on, come on. It's like, it's like a half an hour from your house.

Eric (1:43:58)
Me? What? When did I say that?

I don't think I ever committed to crewing.

Jason (1:44:09)
If you have any ideas for any people

who want to crew us, you let us know because we would take any crew.

Eric (1:44:18)
In fact, yeah, if

I were to crew anybody, I'm crewing them, which honestly I wanted to say, I feel like if you had a crew, that would be a whole new learning experience because you're so used to what you're used to.

Erika (1:44:20)
will happily share mine. Tara, we got Tara.

Yeah,

you got to let people do things for you. That's very difficult. I've learned that the hard way. They know what's best.

Eric (1:44:33)
And you got to listen, like, like Megan, when you start just crewing

for Jason, you think when you have a level head and he's at mile 99 and you tell him to do something, you think he's going to be like, I know what I'm doing. Or you think he's going to listen to you? Like, Oh my God, I want to be there for that. Or at least I want to hear that story. But Hey, we got a lot more to cover, but we also have these two final huge questions. They're super important. They're super tough.

Jason (1:44:43)
right.

Eric (1:45:00)
Some people say they're the hardest questions in the world to answer, and I'm going to go first. So you know the drill. We're having this huge pasta dinner this year. Everyone from 2025 is welcome, including the rest of our pod fam, and you can bring anyone you want, dead or alive. But I added something. I don't know if you know this yet. No family.

Who are you going to take to our pasta dinner?

Jason (1:45:25)
god. Okay, I know, easy. I'm gonna bring my friend Brett Tarr. He passed away a couple years ago and I really would like to see him again. So you would come with me for sure.

Erika (1:45:39)
Aww.

Eric (1:45:41)
That's a great answer.

Erika (1:45:43)
But my big question, we have a Spotify playlist and we like to invite our guests to add an awesome song to it. So I don't know if you guys listen to music when you run, but ⁓ if you would like to add a song, what would you add?

Jason (1:45:57)
Oh, you go first. Should I say that? Should I choose? Okay. Nope. Should I choose it? I've been on a podcast. I choose a different song. the same song. Eric's like,

Erika (1:46:08)
You can pick whatever you like. Wait, did you already

pick one for this? Because it might already be on there.

Eric (1:46:14)
And what are you talking about? You've been on another podcast.

And they asked the same question. Yeah, see, told Erica, I told you forever ago, like everybody does that.

Erika (1:46:25)
Maybe,

I don't know who it is, but.

Jason (1:46:27)
Okay.

I can sing the same song, but you don't. So we just went and saw Volbeat. So I've been on a Volbeat kick lately. yes, Danish. Danish, they're awesome. So I definitely put some Volbeat on there.

Eric (1:46:31)
I love to give Eric a shit. I love it.

Erika (1:46:36)
Yep.

Eric (1:46:36)
Swedish rock band? Yeah. Danish. Okay.

Erika (1:46:44)
What's, is there

a specific song you like best?

Eric (1:46:45)
Is like

warrior's call is one, right?

Jason (1:46:49)
Warriors call I'd go still counting still counting is the best

Erika (1:46:53)
You got it.

Jason (1:46:54)
to say the same time because I really like it because I don't know why but it it pumps me up. It's called ⁓ Winner's Circle

It's okay so Winner's Circle by Rockness Monster. That is pretty bad. And I like it because it's just a beat. It's basically saying it kind of relates to running a lot because it's saying you put in the work. You trained for this race. You have put in the time. You put in the effort and...

Erika (1:47:11)
love that.

Jason (1:47:24)
If you make it to the finish line, you're a winner. Even if you make it to the start line, you're a winner. It's like we're all winners here. that's. Yeah, so I don't know who I bring to a party, but I know that that's the song that I like.

Erika (1:47:31)
is perfect, that's what we were looking for, you nailed it.

Perfect.

Eric (1:47:43)
You know, I'm gonna pick your guest for the party. I want you to bring flat Lori.

Jason (1:47:46)
Yeah. Go for it.

All right.

Erika (1:47:52)
She's basically pod fam at this point. Isn't she going anyways? Okay, you got it.

Eric (1:47:54)
Yeah, but, but she's not a guest yet this year. Laurie, come on the pod. And that's

your plus one because I want Laurie to come.

Jason (1:48:02)
How about, flat

Ronnie? Do know who that is?

Eric (1:48:05)
No.

Erika (1:48:06)
Flat Ronnie?

I know who Flat Stanley is.

Jason (1:48:10)
Flat Ronnie's from the Howard Stern Show, so only those who follow the Howard Stern Show would understand.

Eric (1:48:18)
I don't know that,

I don't know, that name doesn't ring a bell. They got the one guy. I only see Hardstone clips. And there's been a lot lately, because isn't he done soon? Isn't he retiring? Yeah. Yeah.

Jason (1:48:24)
⁓ It's literally, it's.

Yeah, probably at end of the year. Yeah. Well,

not officially, but maybe at the end of the year. ⁓

Eric (1:48:34)
He'll go on to something else. He'll start a podcast or whatever, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Produced by Monday Night Media, maybe. We can't confirm or deny that yet.

Jason (1:48:37)
sure. Yeah.

Erika (1:48:39)
you

Jason (1:48:42)
You

Eric (1:48:45)
So, hey, I do want to know one more thing, and we'll have you back one day in person, like we said, we can hear more of these stories, but you have a bedtime very early. It's coming up, it's fast approaching. think once we hang up, your head's going to hit the pillow because you wake up like before most of us go to bed to run. Yeah. When did this start? Do you do it daily every day or is it only like when you're really focused on something?

Erika (1:49:00)
you

Jason (1:49:06)
Sometimes. ⁓

Well, I work, my workday starts at 7 a.m. and I can work up to an hour and a half away sometimes. So I always make sure I get my either gym or run done before I have to commute to work. And so my alarm goes off at 2.30 for, I don't know, at least five or six years, but it was probably three before that, you know? So I'm just trying to set it back earlier because I can get more done. So I like.

I like running in the dark. I don't know what else to say. So I'll sleep 730 to 230 most days. And then if I'm going to do a long run, like if I want to run 20 or 25 miles before work, I might get up at one or it's not all the time, but Megan, gets it tomorrow is our one day together. So Megan will get up at 330 and I will be ready to go because I'll still get up at 230 have breakfast.

Erika (1:49:46)
you

Jason (1:50:10)
and we'll be out the door before four o'clock tomorrow.

Erika (1:50:15)
Woof.

Eric (1:50:15)
What's the breakfast for the day?

No, sorry, let me ask that again. So what's for breakfast so early in the morning?

Jason (1:50:17)
no.

Always oatmeal. Always oatmeal. Hot oatmeal with about 20 chocolate chips and two tablespoons of sugar-free maple syrup every day for like years. Every day. Before that, you used to eat raisin bran. That's it. I eat the same thing for lunch. That's a whole different podcast. That's a whole podcast.

Eric (1:50:23)
Oatmeal. Hot.

Erika (1:50:34)
You got it down to a science there.

Eric (1:50:49)
Jason eats the Jason eats pod. Nice. Well, this is fun.

Jason (1:50:50)
Yeah. ⁓

Erika (1:50:51)
you

Well, commend you

guys for sticking to your routine and getting it done. I am the complete opposite. I will milk every second out of my morning sleep that I can. I wake up probably five minutes later than I should every day, and I barely get to work on time. ⁓ I need the discipline in my life.

Jason (1:51:15)
You're

still getting your exercise in though. That's important. So it doesn't matter when you get it in as long as you get it in. matter. doesn't matter. Mile to mile, care how fast or how slow it is. Miles a mile, don't care how far you go. Any effort is all that matters.

Erika (1:51:19)
That is true. That is true.

Ugh.

Ugh.

That

is true. I went for a run right before we started talking actually, and the weather changed and it's not humid and it was like 75 degrees and I was like, this is my happy place. Thank you fall, almost fall. Sure was.

Eric (1:51:37)
It's been amazing.

Yeah, this is the spot. This is the sweet spot.

Jason (1:51:41)
Yes, it was like ideal today for sure. Yeah.

Eric (1:51:47)
Yeah.

Well, this was amazing. It was a lot of fun. It was spontaneous in a way, because we just planned this in the last like 48 hours.

Erika (1:51:54)
I'm

glad you guys were so flexible. was a lot of fun to get to know you guys a little bit better too. You guys are just awesome.

Jason (1:51:57)
Yeah, it was very fun. Yeah.

Eric (1:51:58)
Yeah, we didn't even... Right. And

we could have talked for hours because we didn't even talk about ADU this year when you actually crushed it. Absolutely dominated. Will you be back at ADU next year?

Jason (1:52:14)
Probably not. Not because we don't enjoy the race. That's not why. It's just, it took us to get down there. It took us seven plus hours and to get home it took us seven plus hours. summer traffic just, it was horrible.

Eric (1:52:30)
Get a helicopter!

Erika (1:52:33)
Easy for you to say. They need the stoolie money. Let's get them the stoolie money.

Eric (1:52:36)
They do. They do.

Jason (1:52:36)
I told Jerry,

said we have to do the six hours because we've done the 12 and the 24, but it's going to take us longer to get down there to actually run the race.

Erika (1:52:46)
You're right

Jason (1:52:48)
So we may not be back next year, but maybe certainly in the future years. it just took us so long to get down there. was a little, we were exhausted. It took us a long time to get home.

Erika (1:52:56)
you

Eric (1:52:59)
Yeah. Well,

Erika (1:52:59)
That is fair.

Eric (1:53:00)
I'll tell you, I'm really glad you saw us there when we did trail cleanup last year. And, and you were like, you're the podcast guys. And I was like, yeah. And it blew my mind even more after I realized you like, there was no email connection or cross talk and you just saw us. You were actually following us for quite some time.

Jason (1:53:04)
Yes.

I'm

Now, yeah.

Yeah. And then I see people that have been on your podcast that I see at races and I'm like, I've seen them before. And you know, it's just kind of cool.

Erika (1:53:28)
They pop up on social media. Good stuff.

Eric (1:53:28)
That's awesome. That's awesome. What a cool thing we're doing. This was great. You two

are amazing guys. really hope you enjoyed that. Jason and Megan on the On The Runs podcast. That was wicked awesome.

Jason (1:53:35)
Yeah, that's great.

Thank you guys.

Erika (1:53:44)
Megan, Jason, I love the two of you. You are so much fun and you're just a wealth of knowledge and stories and just so fun to be around. You guys were amazing and I'm so excited that I get to see you again so very soon at Ghost Train, which is coming up in what, less than a month from now. I'm just, I cannot wait and it's going to be such a good time being out there with you.

Eric (1:54:08)
Lots of cool people gonna be that ghost train. That's gonna be fun to see. Maybe I can be there and show up. What do you think? You think I should do an altar right before New York City? Think that's smart?

Erika (1:54:11)
hell yes!

I really hope you can.

I think you should walk one lap with me. We could do a run walk, 15 miles.

Eric (1:54:24)
⁓ Maybe I sign up

for the 15 milo or something.

Erika (1:54:28)
It's either that or you can get me to run, walk, and you could be the hard ass to get me to keep going.

Eric (1:54:35)
That's also the same week in his New England half. Yeah, that's coming up fast. It's coming up really quick. So.

Erika (1:54:39)
It is. It's a month,

about a month, the like 18, 19th of October, something like that, 17, 18th.

Eric (1:54:45)
Speaking of

other races, I think we're going to be at the Newberry Port half.

Erika (1:54:51)
I certainly hope so. think that'll be so cool to get to do another live recording. Man, is this our life now? Do we get to do this now? What happened?

Eric (1:54:55)
We're thinking live recording. This is life. This is life.

We're gonna be, yeah, it looks like we're gonna do it again. I really wanted to do New England Half, do it in front of the State House, but we'll do that next year. You'll have to miss Ghost Train. But we're, we're, we're.

Erika (1:55:09)
⁓

I will save the date. Maybe I'll volunteer the night before.

Eric (1:55:15)
All right. But we're going to do more

of these live shows, guys. Not only the one we have in a couple days at Marathon Sports, so be there please on Thursday and come say hi. There's actually, we do encourage you to sign up for the event. It's free, but you should sign up. Find the link in bio and everything and I'll be posting about it again. But we're going to do the Newberryport half. I am going to be at the Manchester Marathon and I'm going to bring in an amazing co-host to sell in for you because you...

are running the Boston Half Marathon, but you will probably still show up to Manchester right after.

Erika (1:55:44)
Yes.

will swing by.

Yeah. Cause I'm only running a half marathon. starts a little bit before the whole marathon does. So the best I can do is run as fast as I can and shoot right back up North. So I'll try my best. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yup.

Eric (1:55:59)
Get the content, You gotta get the content. Yes, that one's a must. Your homework,

by the way, you did a great job on the playlist. You really did. I have one, I looked at it again, there's one more song I want you to remove and one I want you to add in its place. And I like that you made it, it's almost an hour. I would almost encourage maybe add two or three more songs to get it over, only because we'll play it before the show starts.

Erika (1:56:07)
Did I? Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:56:27)
But when

the show ends, we'll continue the playlist from where it left off, as everyone's kind of funneling out and taking their pictures with you and KJ and Nicole, not me, of course. And it will be kind of cool. It's just like, I'm trying to set the ambiance and the feeling of like just this good, good energy. Good energy.

Erika (1:56:31)
Sure.

Gotcha. I'm

glad you liked it. ⁓ I took your suggestion and when I created a playlist, it kind of gave me similar songs and I just kept scrolling. I was like, Ooh, I like this one. Ooh, I like this one. This one kind of fits. And then I, just kept going from there. So, ⁓ I'm happy to take your notes and make some substitutions and make it the playlist you like.

Eric (1:57:09)
Well,

I'm going to tell you what to remove right now and everyone can get a little bit of a vibe. I'm having you remove every little thing she does as magic by the police, which is a great song, but I actually prefer a version by the band called Raw, their rock band from New England. You know who they are? You know Raw? Amazing. I think we've talked about this before and I had the same reaction. But I want you to add Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim.

Erika (1:57:11)
Right now? Sure. I got a pen.

huh. Yep.

I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, because of you. Yeah. Yeah. We have. Yeah.

Okay.

Eric (1:57:41)
Yes. Have you ever seen that music video?

Erika (1:57:44)
Probably. I was very big into the MTV VH1 music videos, so there's a good chance.

Eric (1:57:46)
Christopher Walken is the guy. Yeah, same, same.

And then, I don't want you to be, so the other song I had you add to it later, I noticed it, you removed the song I asked you remove, and you added the song I asked you to add, but that song is now the last song. I don't want Weapon of Choice to be the last song. I want it be in that first three or five.

Erika (1:58:11)
So on the phone, you can't pick where it goes. I have to do it on the computer because I can drag and drop it. I will just, when we're done with this, stay on the line and I will do it while you're right here.

Eric (1:58:15)
Okay. Okay.

Alright. I don't

mind the song that's last being last because I just I think it's kind of cool that it's last but at the same time not trying to rub it in anyone's face but I could picture one or two people would be like ⁓ they're rubbing it in my face that's not

Erika (1:58:26)
Just tell me what song you want last or...

you

I don't even know what's last right now.

Like, I forget what I did for you, but we'll check it out after. It is kind of funny. Yeah, yeah. So we'll play around with it. You can tell me where you want it and we'll make it work.

Eric (1:58:42)
How do you like me now by the heavy? Right? Come on.

Jason and Megan were awesome. Next time it has to be in person. So maybe a year from now or something. That was cool. Did you guys like that it was a couple? Two people, two guests? Let me know. Let us know if you liked it. Tell us, of course, that you loved them. But if you didn't like the two guests, if you loved it and you want more, we'll do more of that. It doesn't have to be couples. It could be... Well, I would prefer it to be actually because it just provides better content.

Erika (1:58:59)
Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

I enjoy that

myself, just to give my opinion, because we had Darris and Star, and just the way they play off of each other, I think it's really cool. You get a bunch of different, I don't know, you get more banter that way, and you get to see how they really are as a couple. I enjoy that.

Eric (1:59:25)
They were, you're right! We don't do it enough maybe. Do you guys like it?

Yeah.

Right.

Well alright, we've talked enough about all that fun stuff, now we can go to the board, we can go to me.

Erika (1:59:48)
How was your weekend, man? How was... So you... I know that NASCAR weekend is this coming weekend, like the 20th, right? So you went to set up,

Eric (1:59:48)
Because Erica never asked about me.

It's NASCAR week right now and we just...

Yeah, so everybody starts filing into the racetrack the week before. So we show up with the campers on Saturday. We have our spot. We get our set up. We spend the night. Like there's thousands of campers there already. And there'll be over 5,000 campers by Friday of this week. And... yeah. my God. Maybe even more. Like you should see these pictures just like campers galore. Like a huge...

Erika (2:00:04)
Mm-hmm.

5,000 campers? Holy shit.

Wow.

Eric (2:00:24)
A NASCAR race is a tailgate party all weekend long. That's what it is. Unlike football where you tailgate for a couple of hours. Like just picture a parking lot at a football game, everyone's tailgating. It's NASCAR. That's NASCAR, but campers all weekend long, including sometimes the day after. So it's like, yeah, definitely over 5,000 campers by Friday, but we enjoy, like we ride the bikes all around the property. You can like, we went...

Erika (2:00:30)
Okay.

Wow.

Eric (2:00:51)
We took a walk last night at 9 PM with the kids in their pajamas and the boys were in victory lane. Cause we walked through the tunnel underneath the track into the infield. It's just like, can go. Yeah. Which you can't typically do, but all the gates are open. It's weird, but it's actually kind of nice during race week by Wednesday or Thursday. You can't do that. There'll be security everywhere. So we couldn't do it next week, but that's what we do. And we kind of check out everything and drive around and just.

Erika (2:01:01)
You can do that?

Mm-hmm.

⁓ yeah.

Eric (2:01:20)
see everything they've done to improve and grow like to see I always would say how this podcast evolves but to see how that racetrack has evolved since 1990 we've been going since the 90s it's incredible and you can find pictures of it from like the first ever race in 1990 there's a freaking swamp in the middle of the racetrack and there's still a river like a stream that goes through the racetrack and they've built whatever to make it go underneath and you can find it on both the north and south end but

Erika (2:01:31)
Wow.

you

You

Eric (2:01:49)
It used to be like you would watch a NASCAR race in the 90s, early 2000s and they're going over a river, essentially in a way. So it's cool. It's fun. It's one of my few happy places because it's like the first day of school. It's a lot of fun showing up and you always see the same people because everyone camps in the same spots. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So we went there, did all that and I ran with my sister.

Erika (2:02:10)
It's your homecoming. It's your homecoming. Yeah.

Eric (2:02:18)
Here's the funny story about how the two connected. So one, Hannah was home to pick up a car. She bought a car and she's taken it back to New York City. She bought my parents' car. That's why she came here. So we planned this run for a while now and we ran the London Dairy Real Trail and we met at the park and ride. So we had it, we would pass the car a couple of times and we could get fuel and water. And she ran her fastest run ever.

Erika (2:02:18)
Mm-hmm.

gotcha.

Amazing.

Eric (2:02:44)
And she did it while holding a conversation the whole time. I think she's quicker and faster and stronger than she actually knows. Cause she's like, I've never run that fast. I definitely couldn't hold that up for a marathon. like, I think she did nine with me and ran like a 924 pace and she's never run like under a 10 minute pace. So she's, she's got it. And I found out some, you know, sad news from Hannah, but, um, apparently

Erika (2:02:51)
Mm-hmm.

How many miles did you do?

That's great.

Lies, now she has.

Eric (2:03:13)
You and I are not the reason she started running.

Erika (2:03:17)
I am okay with that. How is that sad news?

Eric (2:03:20)
She started running because of the New York City Marathon, not us. Yep.

Erika (2:03:24)
Mm-hmm. That's still

a pretty good reason. Whatever somebody's reason is to start running is great. I will never criticize anyone for why they started.

Eric (2:03:29)
I thought it was us.

No.

I thought it was us. I thought we were the magic ingredients to her running journey.

Erika (2:03:38)
Check your ego, no ego amigo. ⁓

I

love those buttons. Oh, no way.

Eric (2:03:48)
so anyways we had a great ride she's the one who found your car she's like all i got six

she knows your car she pointed out the license plate

Erika (2:03:57)
that's too funny.

And then you're like, wait a second. You also found Jay's truck as well, because I saw you gave him the windshield wiper treatment as well. ⁓

Eric (2:04:01)
But so...

Yeah, yeah, had to.

But I'm telling her during the run that I lost my flip belt and I think I'm going to buy a new one because we're talking hydration packs, vests, flip belts, all this. I go, I lost it and I'm going to have to buy a new one. And then less than 24 hours later, I found it. You want to take a guess where it was?

Erika (2:04:12)
⁓ no!

Mm-hmm.

One of the boys stole it. ⁓ well good. I'm glad you found it so you didn't have to buy a new one. Yeah. Good.

Eric (2:04:28)
It was in the camper.

when we brought it to the racetrack. yeah.

So it was a great weekend. was a heavy week in the country, but we had a good time. I think everyone got away, enjoyed less Facebook and more running. Reach the Beach was a success. You ran a 9-11. I'm feeling great for New York and you got Chicago in less than a month.

Erika (2:04:49)
Mm-hmm. Lots of running.

I was super pumped. Good, good.

I have Yeti in like a week and a half.

Eric (2:05:01)
things are going good

i know that's right like chicago's like five races from now for you

Erika (2:05:08)
get to run a hundred miler and then hopefully taper for two weeks and then go try to run a fast marathon. ⁓ I'm dumb.

Eric (2:05:14)
And then we got our f- big

live show!

Erika (2:05:18)
Ciao!

Eric (2:05:20)
I got one more thing for you actually. I had this in the notes for last week and we never mentioned it and I'm kind of glad we didn't because more developments happen. Because sometimes when things happen it just blows up and goes viral and it's amazing. Sometimes you're like, what were you thinking? And in this case, did you see the Phillies' Karen who took the baseball from the kid?

Erika (2:05:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ my god.

Never take a ball from a child. Ever. You will get destroyed.

Eric (2:05:50)
So

you see everyone giving all the hate and screw hate, hate sucks, no hate. Just they, don't think they ever identified her. The only shitty thing was they like thought they identified her and then they said it's so and so from this school and the school's like, nope, that's not her. And if it was her, she would have caught the ball. And then somebody else was like, well, got pinned to be the girl. And she goes, I'm not even a Fillian's fan. I like the red socks. So I don't think they ever figured out who she was, but not the point. ⁓ the boy.

Erika (2:06:06)
⁓ no.

geez. Yep.

Eric (2:06:20)
Did you see what the family got after all this?

Erika (2:06:24)
Yeah, didn't he

get like a signed baseball bat and you got to meet the player and. I don't know.

Eric (2:06:28)
Mm-hmm, but what else? What else?

The CEO of Camping World gave their family a camper.

Erika (2:06:37)
No way. No way.

Eric (2:06:40)
Yeah,

the same one I have, the same CEO who gave me a camper. Yes.

Erika (2:06:44)
Well, then should I, no, I shouldn't say that. was

like, no, no, no. I was going to be like, well then, hey, all the Karen's go take baseballs from children and make the children get all this fun crap because you're mean. That's just not, no, no, don't, don't, don't do that. my God. So, so much happened is yeah. Unreal.

Eric (2:06:55)
Yeah, you could be like, I was doing him a favor.

That was something else. What a week. What a week. What a crazy... It was weeks ago. We need Taylor

and Travis to do something again to just unite the country.

Erika (2:07:12)
They're gonna elope.

Eric (2:07:15)
I know it's going to be boring. It's not even going to be like, it's just going to be one day like, we did it. And Instagram posts, your gym teacher and English teacher eloped. Not even going be fun. Like they're not going to let us enjoy watch. We could all like, they could do pay per view. We would all pay pay per view for that.

Erika (2:07:16)
You

You're not gonna elope. No.

man.

telling you!

I'm telling you they will dot like there will be a documentary on it. I like can almost guarantee it. Yeah Absolutely, they got to pay for that wedding somehow Yeah, Worth it though entertaining Hey you put it out there, maybe they'll say yes, you never know you shoot your shot shoot your shot, man

Eric (2:07:40)
Sure, Netflix, Amazon, they'll get a big payday. Yeah. They'll do their own thing and you'll have to just pay them for it.

We should offer them to like come run a 5K with us.

Taylor and Travis, wanna go for a run?

Let's do like a 10 miler. But we'll, we'll, yeah.

Erika (2:08:05)
think you do it. Taylor is

like an elite endurance athlete. I'm not even kidding.

Eric (2:08:11)
Come to New Hampshire,

John at Millennium, like what could we do? Could we get them here? Could we get them at a race? Like run with Travis and Taylor. DJ Darren Roy will be playing Taylor Swift tunes the entire time.

Erika (2:08:20)
God, that would sell out instantly.

We're going to need an in with Millennium because we'd never be able to get in otherwise. Those entries would be gone immediately.

Eric (2:08:32)
We'll just... Let's make it happen. Let's make it happen. Let's manifest this. Let's do it! ⁓ my god!

Erika (2:08:36)
Manifest. Do it.

I would be there. I would 100 % be there.

Eric (2:08:42)
Kelceys and Swifties unite. Let's make this happen. Erica, have a great week. I'll see you on Thursday at the live show. Take us home.

Erika (2:08:52)
I hope to see all of you out there at the show as well. Thank you for listening. You know we love you.

Eric (2:08:58)
Don't fear the code brown!

Erika (2:09:00)
and don't forget to stretch.