192 | Rob Simmelkjaer | Set the Pace Podcast and New York Road Runners CEO

In this episode of the On the Runs podcast, Rob Simmelkjaer shares his journey from a sports broadcaster to the CEO of the New York Road Runners. He discusses his early experiences in running and announcing, the importance of community in the running world, and his innovative vision for the New York Road Runners. Rob emphasizes inclusivity in races, celebrating all finishers, and the emotional stories behind every runner's journey. His passion for running was reignited during the pandemic, leading to a deeper connection with the sport and the community. Eric, Erika and Rob engage in a lively discussion about the vibrant running community, the significance of storytelling in marathons, and the various programs that support runners, including the 9 Plus 1 program. They explore the challenges of race entry, the importance of volunteerism, and the unique experiences of race day. Rob shares insights into the marathon weekend atmosphere, the role of the expo, and the balance between running for time versus enjoyment. The conversation also touches on the launch of a podcast aimed at connecting with runners and the joy of being part of the running community.

Eric and Erika open the episode LIVE from the Newburyport Half Marathon by Millennium Running where you'll get a little preview of what this Thursdays episode will be like.

Chapters

00:00 Open from the Newburyport Half Marathon
03:16 Introduction to Rob Simmelkjaer
06:10 Rob's New Hampshire Experience
09:13 Broadcasting Beginnings at Dartmouth
12:14 Family Influence and Background
15:02 The Love-Hate Relationship with Running
20:54 Transition to Running Community and NYRR
23:51 Becoming CEO of New York Roadrunners
27:56 Innovations and Future Goals for NYRR
33:01 Unveiling the Stories of Marathon Runners
34:14 The 9 Plus 1 Program: A Gateway to the Marathon
38:32 Navigating Race Demand and Accessibility
39:16 Behind the Scenes: A Day in the Life of a CEO
43:59 First-Time Marathon Experience: What to Expect
48:42 The Birth of a Podcast: Connecting Through Stories
54:22 Final Thoughts and Personal Reflections

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Don't Fear The Code Brown and Don't Forget To Stretch!

Transcript

ON THE RUNS PODCAST (00:55)
What's up everybody and welcome to episode 192 of the On the Runs podcast. We are live from the Newburyport Half Marathon in Newburyport, Massachusetts at Cashman Park. This is super cool because I've spent hundreds of times here.

on the boat with my dad and the family and the kids and everything. It's super cool. And I am here with my kick-ass Rockstar co-host who is all bundled up in a puppy jacket because it is 47 degrees, but the sun is out and it feels nice. Six star Erica, what's up? How are you buddy? This is a beautiful morning, especially to run a 5k and a half marathon. So I may be a little distracted during these trolls just because they are expecting the first 5k finisher.

momentarily. That's right. We've been recording all morning so far, some pretty cool people. just had Andy from Millennium Bill and Patty earlier. We're going to have more after. This is all going to drop on Thursday, but today is episode 192. It is Tuesday. So happy Tuesday. Best day to make better than yesterday. And we are Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday, five days from the New York City Marathon. If you're listening now, if you're listening now, you can also hear the rock band.

to my left and Andy's in front of us. It's pretty cool. So we're going to keep the intro pretty short. Yeah. And we're going to do more of a professional outro probably Monday from a controlled environment. But guys, it is New York City week and I'm so excited to run the New York City marathon. And I'm so excited for our guest today. We have Rob Simmelkjaer from the New York Roadrunners and the Set Your Pace podcast.

I am so pumped up for this one. yeah, you are. You were just so excited to pick his brain about all things New York Roadrunners, especially because New York City is just right around the corner. Right. Rob is the CEO for the New York Roadrunners and we got to hear his story about Dartmouth and living in New England, but growing up in New Jersey, New York, and then his rise to the New York Roadrunners. And also we got a little talk. You know, we need to thank Becs Gentry.

because Becs Gentry is the one who made this happen. She hooked us up. She's a real one. We love you, Becs. You're the best. So guys, enjoy Rob Simmelkjaer on the On the Runs podcast, and we'll see you on the other side.

Eric (03:16)
Our next guest on the pod is a New Jersey kid with some New Hampshire ties who for the last three years has been putting the New York Roadrunners on the map. He was a sports play by play announcer for the Big Green when he went to Dartmouth before going to law school at Harvard. Not a big deal. He's worked for outlets like ABC, ESPN, NBC Sports. And by the way, he's a pretty good podcaster as he hosts the Set the Pace podcast with one of our

pod fam favorite, Becs Gentry. Needless to say, as we're ramping up for the New York City Marathon, we are wicked excited to have Rob Similcare from the New York Roadrunners on the On the Runs podcast. What's up, Rob?

Rob Simmelkjaer (03:48)
Well, I know I'm in New England with the wicked excited line right out of the gate. So nice to be with you guys.

Eric (03:53)
Yes. It's a thing

we do, man. I love it. It's a big thing. Wicked awesome to have you.

Rob Simmelkjaer (03:59)
Thank you very much.

Erika (03:59)
That will not be the first

time you hear it either. I'm sure that we will drop those throughout the whole podcast, but just let, just let us tell you how excited we are to have you. are so welcome welcome to the podcast.

Rob Simmelkjaer (04:12)
Hey, I spent seven of the most fun years of my life in New England, so I'm used to a Boston accent, a little wicked here, there.

Eric (04:21)
Yeah. Well, let's start with that then. I mean, we like to get to know you, but we like to break the ice little bit. And you spent four of those seven in New Hampshire. Erica and I grew up, live still today in New Hampshire. We've moved around for a bit, but we went to Plymouth state, not too far from Dartmouth. How do you enjoy your time in New Hampshire?

Erika (04:21)
We love to hear it.

Rob Simmelkjaer (04:38)
I loved it. I love New Hampshire and Vermont. That's a beautiful area. know, Dartmouth was a really cool place to go to college. was, I don't know, it's a very picturesque town if you ever had a chance to be in Hanover, New Hampshire, right there on the Connecticut River, the border of Vermont. you know, it's just a special place. I mean, back when I was there in the early 1990s,

We had winters like winters used to be. We had legit winters and it would be 25 below, I remember seeing a couple of times on the thermometer and blizzards that would blind you for a day or two. And it was full on snow from December through mud season, as you guys call it up there in April. that was real winter.

Erika (05:09)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (05:29)
Yeah.

Rob Simmelkjaer (05:32)
But so it was, you know, the winter months were rough, we, has one summer thing called sophomore summer where all the sophomores spend that summer on campus. And that was one of the best things to do at Dartmouth. They call it Camp Dartmouth. They're all hanging out on the Connecticut River and, you know, sunning and going on tubes and stuff. And there's a lot of great memories from there. It's a beautiful place.

Erika (05:57)
love the New England life. I actually spent my first year out of college. I worked just down the street in Lebanon and we used to take lunch sometimes and be like, let's go to the campus. You had some great pizza places over that way. So I, I'm familiar with the area and it's just so nice. Pretty sure I have been there several, several times.

Rob Simmelkjaer (06:10)
EBAs, EBAs, everything but anchovies. That was like the place to have pizza and.

It was open till

2 a.m. and the pizza was good, but they were most famous for their chicken sandwich, which every fraternity in town would order en masse at about 1.45 a.m. on a Friday or Saturday night. So they'd be running around with their little cars delivering chicken sandwiches till 3. It was great.

Erika (06:24)
Mmm.

You guys knew the drill.

Eric (06:37)
Yeah. We had

the same experiences. I would say at Plymouth, not too far, you know, we were green too. And a buff chick calzone was a huge thing and we had the river. Yeah. It's just a little difference between Plymouth and Dartmouth though. You know, we were, we were down here, you know, barely could win a football game and Dartmouth was playing D one college level. were doing the play by play, which had to be super cool.

Erika (06:44)
I feel like we were big on the dollar slices, ⁓ right? The dollar slices.

Rob Simmelkjaer (07:00)
It was super cool. That was kind of the beginning of my broadcasting life exactly was doing Dartmouth football, basketball, hockey, little baseball as well. And it was amazing. I got to do some really cool things and had some great experiences. And yeah, it's a small school, but it was playing D1 across all sports. that was one of the things that made it fun to be there.

Erika (07:24)
Is that originally what you went to school for, was broadcasting, or did you go for something else?

Rob Simmelkjaer (07:29)
Not really. mean, I just kind of went, applied. I was a baseball player, but I wasn't recruited. So I kind of walked on and played a little bit of baseball up there. But mostly I was there as a regular student. I was a political philosophy major. So I was really into that stuff, which was kind of a typical thing to study before law school. But I love sports. And once I knew I wasn't going to be a professional baseball player, I just wanted to find a way to stay.

in that world. I had been a runner, but not particularly serious. I mean, I had run cross country in high school, and I had a love-hate relationship as a lot of young people do with running and especially competitive running. My daughter's got the same thing going on right now. She runs cross country in high school. But I never seriously thought about myself as like a serious runner. Baseball was something I was more serious about, but I just wasn't going to play at that level. So yeah, I was looking for...

Erika (08:23)
Mm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (08:27)
opportunities to stay involved in sports from a young age and broadcasting appealed to me from those days. And I was lucky that Dartmouth had a radio station where you could be a student and, you know, be on the station doing news or sports or whatever. So that would turn out to be a great opportunity for me.

Eric (08:43)
to know you in a second, but I've got one more broad.

Erika (08:43)
Such a cool way to hone your skills that way.

Rob Simmelkjaer (08:46)
It was great. It was absolutely great. mean, I'll tell you one of my favorite stories about being on the air at Dartmouth is in 1992, I'm so old, in 1992, we were calling a Dartmouth football game. think it was homecoming. I think we were playing Harvard. And it's always a big crowd for homecoming. And this was the fall going into the New Hampshire primaries.

So guess it was 91 leading into 92 and the New Hampshire presidential primaries are gonna be taking place. And so presidential candidates were always around campus. And Bill Clinton, we spotted Bill Clinton in the stands. He was actually shaking hands and stuff like that, campaigning at the game. And we sent someone down to see if he would come up and do an interview with us. And he came up to the booth and I got to interview Bill Clinton during a Dartmouth football game on the air. It was really cool.

Eric (09:18)
It's a big deal here too.

That's so cool.

That's awesome. That's a big deal up here. The primary every four years, like the whole state gets a ton of attention. And let's just like, I live in Manchester right now and just a ton of media outlets all up and down Manchester and Erica's in Nashwood, not too far. So it's a big deal. That's super cool. You got to talk to Bill Clinton back, back before he was the president. That's awesome.

Rob Simmelkjaer (10:00)
That's right, was

Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. That's right.

Eric (10:03)
Yeah,

has to be awesome. Well, Rob, we want to get to know you a little bit. We know you eventually came here to New Hampshire, but really you were you're kind of New York City based. You're on the New Jersey side of the river. Tell us a little bit about Rob. know I even think there's a story about your mother who sounds awesome, who who somehow got the school to have a school bus come and pick you up and bring you to like another school in our way. Give us a little bit of Rob's bio here.

Rob Simmelkjaer (10:28)
Wow, you've done some good research. I don't know how you found that. That's incredible. Well, I was born in New York City. I consider myself a native New Yorker. No offense to New Jersey. I did sleep there for a number of years. Went to school in New Jersey from third grade to sixth grade or so. But I consider myself more from New York. was born at Lenox Hill Hospital on the East Side.

Erika (10:30)
you

Rob Simmelkjaer (10:52)
I went to, you know, was out in New Jersey, a pretty town called Haworth, New Jersey, but my parents decided they wanted me to go to school back in the city, private school, and so I applied to a school called Harris Man, which is in Riverdale, part of the Bronx, right near Van Cortland Park of cross-country fame, one of the great cross-country tracks in America. And yeah, my mom, who was and is a very...

Erika (11:10)
Hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (11:17)
driven person. She was always about finding ways to help her kids be everything they could be. And so she and my dad decided this was the best place for me to go to school. you know, it was in New Jersey and the school is in New York. But it turned out there are a number of kids from New Jersey who wanted to go to Horace Mann. Horace Mann had brought kids from Manhattan and Westchester and all five boroughs of New York City. So, yeah, she managed to find a school bus company and arranged a route.

to come and pick us up in new jersey every day and drop us off and then there was a bus home and then there was a late bus home for the athletes so yeah that's just an example of kind of the way my mom was and she ⁓ you know she was very driven when i was a kid you know she wanted us to have every opportunity and you know i think i picked up a lot of that in terms of how i am personally and how i am with my kids too so i was very lucky to have ⁓ the parents i i've had you know i don't

think anybody, I always say you can't choose your parents, but it's one of the biggest determiners of how you do in life. And something none of us have any control over. So I get the lottery in that regard.

Erika (12:22)
Mm-hmm.

Sounds like she instilled some good values in you teaching you to be a go-getter and to get what you want.

Rob Simmelkjaer (12:35)
Yeah, she did. I my mom, I love talking about my mother. know, her name is Gloria. And she grew up in Danville, Virginia, which, if you know Virginia, is like the southwestern corner of Virginia. So it's not Arlington, it's not Alexandria. It's like out, not too far from Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, but it's really in the mountains. It's what you call the real southern part of Virginia.

Eric (12:50)
Sit near Martinsville.

Rob Simmelkjaer (13:05)
You know, she, well, I'm African American and my parents are African American. This was the segregated part of Virginia. When my mom grew up, she went to an all black high school. ⁓ The town was fully segregated. Danville actually had been the last capital of the Confederacy in the Civil War as they were kind of like, you know, in the final days of the war and they were, you know, trying to move around and evade the Union troops.

The last place they called the capital was Danville, So she graduated valedictorian of her high school class, but didn't really have opportunities to go to the kinds of schools she wanted to go to because Virginia, even though Brown versus Board of Education had already happened and they were officially desegregating a lot of places, they weren't really accepting many either A, African Americans or B, women.

Erika (13:55)
Mmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (14:00)
into a lot of these schools like University of Virginia. So she had two big strikes against her and wanting to go to a school like UVA, which is probably where she would have wanted to go under different circumstances. She certainly was qualified. So she ended up coming to New York City and going to ⁓ a college called City College of New York, CCNY, which at the time was really famous as an incredibly high quality free education in New York City. ⁓

Eric (14:00)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (14:08)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (14:29)
there were incredible people. Colin Powell went to CCNY around the same vintage as my parents. Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine, went to City College. Like an incredible number of people went to City College. And so she went there and that's where she met my dad. So, you know, that's kind of why I exist essentially is because she came from Virginia to New York to go to college and met my father.

Erika (14:43)
That's awesome.

I love to hear the history.

Eric (14:54)
That's incredible. I love it.

Rob Simmelkjaer (14:56)
Yeah, no,

it's story I don't tell that often, but I appreciate you're asking about my mom. It's a good excuse to tell that one.

Eric (15:02)
Yeah, that's great. We love hearing the whole, as we always say here on the podcast, spare no details. We love to get those cool stories. So especially when they're not heard by many others, like that's so cool for us and for our listeners and just to talk about gets to know you. So that's amazing. You eventually go to Dartmouth and you go to Harvard. Let's talk running. You mentioned did cross country running. is love hate relationship? Tell us a little bit about that love hate relationship and how did it become more a part of your life at some point?

Erika (15:07)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (15:30)
Yeah, you I love sports and I really love team sports more than anything as a kid. I I fell in love with baseball at a very young age and I'm a New York Mets fan and even though they weren't very good when I was very young, I just loved the team and watched it every chance I could get and knew all the players and the positions and I really understood the game for a kid, you know, so I just love playing it and I think for someone, I wasn't a big kid.

but I was able to play the best I could play, I think, because I really loved it and understood it and studied the game and had a great time. I was a center fielder, so that was my thing, was like, you know, really being a very good defensive center fielder and catching the ball wherever it was. That was kind of what I was good at. Hitting was not so much my strength, so, but I was good enough to hit a little bit in high school, but not at the college level. So, but running was always kind of another thing I did. You know, I ran cross country in the fall.

Eric (16:10)
I was just gonna ask, yeah.

Rob Simmelkjaer (16:31)
I would run on my own. ran in college, but I wasn't part of any organized running. And so it was just kind of in the background. And then the turning point for me really with running was my third year of law school in the spring of that year, Patriots Day in Boston, Massachusetts. A friend of mine happened to get tickets to, and there's a baseball tie-in, the Red Sox game that day. And everybody knows the Red Sox play an 11 a.m. game on Patriots Day.

Erika (16:35)
Mm-hmm.

huh.

Rob Simmelkjaer (16:59)
So we got these tickets and I was like, that'd be cool. So I went to Fenway. I don't even remember who the Red Sox were playing, but it doesn't matter. We watched the game and walked out of Fenway and the Boston Marathon's going on. And we're like, let's check out the end of the marathon. It was kind of a ⁓ very last minute decision to walk over to, I think we walked over to Boylston Street or somewhere in that neck of the woods. And we watched people coming down the final stretch of the Boston Marathon.

Erika (17:23)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (17:29)
You know, I just saw it and I'd never, know, truth be told, I never went to the New York City Marathon when I was a kid. I never had any reason to go. You know, was either busy with something else or out in Jersey. So it was just, I'd never seen a marathon with my own eyes. And I saw these people and what it looked like for them. And I could see the emotions and like what it was like to have that experience of finishing a marathon. And I was really...

captivated by it and I just thought, wow, that's amazing, that looks so cool, I've gotta do that, I've gotta run a marathon. And I just started thinking, it was my last year of law school and I thought, well, this summer I'm gonna be studying for the bar exam and I'm gonna have a lot of time on my hands and waiting to start a job at a law firm this fall, I figured, you know what, this is actually a really good time to try to run a marathon. And so I looked into it and found out

how to apply for the New York City Marathon, and this was snail mail. So I had to mail in to request an application from New York Roadrunners, and then they mailed back an application to me, and then I filled it out and mailed it back to them. And sure enough, I don't know, a month or two later, I got a letter that I had been accepted, and I was gonna get to run the 1997 New York City Marathon. And that summer, I trained all by myself.

Erika (18:32)
you

Eric (18:32)
Funny.

Rob Simmelkjaer (18:55)
I would study for the bar exam and go for runs. got a training plan out of a magazine and all the things. And I ran my first marathon on the rainiest day in the history of the marathon at that time. It was a horrific weather day, but I made it through.

Eric (18:59)
it

man.

Erika (19:10)
no.

Eric (19:11)
You're gonna promise

me good weather this year, right?

Rob Simmelkjaer (19:15)
⁓ wish I could, Eric. I wish I could.

Erika (19:17)
It's gonna be

epic. That's what he always says.

Eric (19:19)
It's going to be epic as we like to say, like

we either have amazing weather or the most epic, worst weather. Erica ran Boston in 2018. That was the year of like.

Rob Simmelkjaer (19:28)
That's the year of Des Linden and the absolute horrific weather of all time,

Eric (19:30)
Yes. Yes.

Erika (19:30)
That's the Desi-er, yes. I can relate to

your horrific, horrific rainy New York City marathon.

Rob Simmelkjaer (19:38)
Yeah,

it was terrible. It was really terrible. I had a bunch of friends who came out to see me run, really loyal friends who came to watch me run that year, and I think like two or three of them got pneumonia. It was so bad. Yeah, it was terrible. Yeah, they all recovered, thank goodness. But yeah, so I did that, and I thought, well, it's gonna be one and done for me, and I really wasn't planning on running any more marathons. But then in 2013, 16 years later,

Erika (19:49)
⁓ no! I hate to laugh at that but wow!

Eric (19:49)
No. How do you feel after?

Erika (19:56)
Very good.

Rob Simmelkjaer (20:07)
Something caused me to run it again. think it's because I wanted to run for a charity. had an aunt who passed away from breast cancer and I wanted to do something to honor her. And also I knew that I was probably moving out of the city at that point to come to Connecticut. And so I thought what better way than to run one more marathon to say goodbye to New York City. I was living right by Central Park as well, so I was running all the time. And I ran it one more time in 2013. Had a perfect day that day.

Eric (20:07)
Okay.

There you go.

Rob Simmelkjaer (20:34)
trained much better, was part of a team which really helped, and I ran 16 minutes faster 16 years later. So I thought, all right, this is good. Yeah.

Erika (20:42)
Very nice.

Eric (20:43)
Were you

involved in like the running community? We talk a lot about the running community. And part of that love hate when you're younger is like, I grew up playing ice hockey my whole life. Erica played soccer. Running was, I did cross country. did it just, yeah. I did it just to stay in shape. And maybe to some people it's like punishment. But at some point we always tend to find this sport in our adult life, later in our adult life.

Erika (20:54)
punishment.

Eric (21:07)
Was that, was running part of your life, your adult life there, were you involved in the community or was it just like, I want to do it again in 2013.

Rob Simmelkjaer (21:15)
I was always running. I wouldn't say I was part of any community all those years. I was just someone who would go out for a run. New York City's an amazing place to run. so it was always a fundamental part of my fitness routine. It something I would do probably at least once a week, maybe two or three times a week, depending on what was going on. But that Saturday run was like just a...

Eric (21:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Simmelkjaer (21:41)
part of my life, Saturday or Sunday run when I was practicing law as a young lawyer or whatever I was doing. Running was just always there, you know, and there were so many great places to run. I lived downtown for a while, so I ran on the West Side Highway when I ⁓ living down there, and then when I moved uptown, it was Central Park, and you know, it was just great. So I would like mostly just run on my own. I'd occasionally be moved to go run a race somewhere. I ran a half marathon down in Disney in like, 05, and you know, I'd run a race here or there, but I wasn't like,

Erika (22:07)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (22:11)
running all the time, you know? And when I moved to Connecticut, they've got, you know, town 5K every May that I never wanted to miss. So I run that every year and a couple other races here and there. So I got a little bit involved in the local community in Connecticut. yeah, it's just running. Running is always there for you. you know, I think that when I really reconnected to running was during the pandemic. Like so many people, there was nothing else to do. And I started to...

Erika (22:36)
Definitely.

Rob Simmelkjaer (22:37)
run four or five days a week during that period. And that's what really kind of reconnected me to running in a bigger way. And then it was not long after that that I got the call about New York Roadrunners looking for a CEO. So it all kind of came in that period of 2020 to 22.

Erika (22:56)
Were you still living in Connecticut when you got the call to work for NYR?

Rob Simmelkjaer (23:01)
Yep, still was, I still do. I still live mostly in Connecticut. I've got two daughters who live in Westport, Connecticut with me. I go to the city all the time and I stay in the city a couple nights a week, so I'm kind of back and forth now. But yeah, I lived in Westport and got that call. I had interviewed for a job at Roadrunners actually in 2015 or so. I had been recruited for a role as the chief community officer. I didn't end up being

Erika (23:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (23:31)
that interested in the job. That was when Mary Wittenberg was there and I met her, but it wasn't really a fit. But yeah, I certainly knew of Roadrunners. I knew what a great organization it was. And when they called me, I said, yeah, it sounds really interesting. It's something I'd certainly be interested in talking to them about. It's a New York institution and I love running.

Erika (23:49)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (23:51)
What were you doing before? Like what did they see in you that because they reached out to you, they came to you. think, I don't know if you're at ESPN at the time or NBC, but I knew you're working with networks and sports, but what was your role and what did they see in you or what did you have for them that you were able to help them with?

Rob Simmelkjaer (24:08)
I think that the background I had, I've been in the sports industry for a long time. I stopped practicing law in 2002 and I had been at ESPN for 10 years, NBC Sports for nine years after that, Tennis Channel, a couple other things. So I knew the sports industry ⁓ and the folks who thought of me knew, they knew I had run the marathon, I don't know how they knew if they looked it up or something like that. They knew that I was someone in the industry who just

just kind of like was known in the industry. And I think they thought I'd be an interesting fit. That's all I can remember. And I started talking to them about some of my background. think the other thing about me is that I was known ⁓ to have, was in the sports industry working for corporations, but I always had an interest in giving back in some way, finding some way to be involved in making a difference and an impact, whether that was some

Erika (24:39)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (25:02)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (25:07)
you know, through, you know, I ran for office once, so people knew I was, you know, involved in public service from that point of view. And then I was, you know, I still, you know, did some volunteer things in the state of Connecticut. Governor Lamont in Connecticut actually asked me to serve as the chairman of the board of the Connecticut Lottery of all things. So I did that as a volunteer thing. Still am, by the way, chairman of the board of the Connecticut Lottery. So just, you know, some ways to like try to make

Erika (25:13)
Mm.

Very cool.

Rob Simmelkjaer (25:35)
you know, give back to communities or government or whatever. So I think that was also part of it was like, yeah, this is someone who, you know, is interested in trying to be a ⁓ useful member of society and help, you know, do some things to contribute. And I think that's what appealed to me so much about Roadrunners, that it's not just a business, it's not a business, it's a not-for-profit that is driven by its mission, which I really love.

Erika (25:50)
Yeah.

Eric (26:01)
That's awesome. And I also think your ties to New York play an important role. It's like Dave McGilvery is the Boston Marathon race director. He's run it 50 something years. He's from the area. He has the whole story. You have the New York ties. You understand the New York City community, the people, the lifestyle. Unlike Erica and I don't, if we came from the same background,

Erika (26:13)
and raised. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Eric (26:26)
you have that perfect fit of those ties. And I think that really makes a connection with the community because a lot of that community is, I know it's New York Roadrunners, but it's New York City based. So I think that plays a huge role.

Rob Simmelkjaer (26:35)
Yes,

I agree with that. And I'm actually a fourth generation New Yorker. ⁓ We go back to my great grandfather in New York City. so we have a lot of family ties. I'll still occasionally see someone at the finish line who will know my dad. My dad was a public school teacher or principal. they always tell me when someone who was a student of my father sees me at the finish line, they always say he was a very difficult grader.

Eric (26:53)
That's cool.

Erika (26:53)
No way.

Rob Simmelkjaer (27:04)
He was really tough with grades. I always send him back, somebody saw me at the finish line today and said that you really were harsh on the grades. know, say, well, they gotta do the work. But, you know, yeah, we had a lot of history in New York City and I think that's part of why it's been a good fit, yeah.

Erika (27:05)
You

Eric (27:17)
it paid off. Yeah.

Erika (27:25)
That's amazing. The family ties run deep.

Eric (27:27)
Yeah, So Rob,

one thing we love to do here is we love to dive deep and pump the tires for things. And in your case, it's New York Roadrunners. And we've had plenty of race directors on, but we've never had someone on from your position as CEO who I think your goal is more show how are you going to grow New York Roadrunners? How are you going to focus on the mission? And I want to hear a lot about just not just the New York City Marathon, which we can talk about soon because I'm really excited for it. And I get to run with my sister who lives in New York City, by the way.

Erika (27:56)
to

run it a couple of times.

Eric (27:57)
And she's got to run it few, but we want to hear a lot

Rob Simmelkjaer (27:57)
Nice.

Eric (28:00)
about New York Roadrunners and kind of, kind of start with when you started, what were some of the things that, you know, your goals you set out to accomplish here? We know you did the set the pace podcast. We'll talk plenty of that soon too, but talk about like your start in New York Roadrunners, how you dove in and let's pump the tires for the whole platform and everything, everything New York Roadrunners does.

Rob Simmelkjaer (28:20)
Sure, well, there's so much to say. I think that when I got there, the organization had been through a lot in the couple years before that. The pandemic had been really hard. There had been layoffs and furloughs and there had been management changes. It had been a rough couple of years. And the first thing I wanted to do was come in there and kind of reinvigorate positivity, getting people feeling good about

what we do as an organization, feeling good about their jobs, feeling good about working for Roadrunners (NYRR). And also I wanted to instill some innovative mindsets. I wanted to get people thinking more about innovation, about how we can push the needle and do more, start new things, take risks, try different things to kind of grow what we do across the board.

Erika (29:01)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (29:18)
We went through a strategic planning process. The first year and a half I was there, we came up with kind of five key pillars of what we want to accomplish as an organization. And so since then, we've had some really clear guideposts for what we want to do. a couple of examples of that I can give are, first on technology. We have, I think, a huge opportunity to better engage people with technology. We didn't have a...

an all-year mobile app. We'd have these apps that were put together for the marathon or for the half marathon and then we kind of go away. We didn't have like a full year app to engage people all year long and so we've changed that. We have an app that launched last March. We're about to update that app ahead of the New York City Marathon this year and we've got really big plans to make that kind of the go-to place for anybody in our community who wants to run with us or run virtually or

find someone run with or train or whatever it might be. we got, you know, we're still early in the process, but that's something that we're really excited about. Another example is, you know, we wanted to do a better job of telling the whole story of New York Roadrunners. And so that comes down to creating content that will help inspire people to run. The podcast was kind of the very first foray into that, but...

This past summer, we actually had a short form documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival back in June, and it's gonna be coming out this fall on a platform to be announced. ⁓ And it's great, it's called Final Finisher, and it tells the story of some of the people who finish last in the marathon every year. ⁓ It's one of the things that makes New York Roadrunners and the New York Marathon really unique.

is how late we keep the finish line open. As you know, we don't have the kinds of cutoffs that you'll experience in Tokyo or Berlin or Boston.

Eric (31:16)
Boston, you know, we

love Boston, but we, agree.

Rob Simmelkjaer (31:21)
Yeah, know, well, it's a tradition.

Erika (31:21)
You guys do the finish line right. You definitely do. Partying well into the night.

Eric (31:26)
So you wait for

the last finisher or is there a time like midnight?

Rob Simmelkjaer (31:30)
We basically wait for the last finisher. Now we found ways to bring that time up a little bit, but I mean these people are finishing at 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, they're finishing late. And we keep that line open and it's true, Erica said it, it's a party. It's a party at the end. And so the glow sticks come out and we've got a DJ and we celebrate these people. So this film celebrates and tells the story of five...

Eric (31:32)
I love that.

Yeah.

Yes.

Erika (31:51)
Hey

Rob Simmelkjaer (31:57)
six people who were among these final finishers over the years and why they do it. What drives them? It's incredibly inspiring. I wish I could tell you where it's going to be, but November 1st, it will be out on a streaming platform that you'll hopefully have access to or you can subscribe to. There'll be lots of press about that when it comes out. We're excited about

Erika (32:06)
I can't wait.

Eric (32:18)
Well, nice. Yeah.

Erika (32:18)
I will keep my eyes peeled for sure

because I've just seen clips on social media of all the finish line antics, I suppose you could say. And it is such an emotional thing because people, yes, it could take somebody six, seven, eight, nine hours to finish a marathon, but a lot of people, this is their first one. They're doing it for charity. They deserve to be out there and celebrated just as much as the winner of the whole thing. So I love that you guys do that. I love that there's going to be a documentary and I cannot wait to see it.

Rob Simmelkjaer (32:47)
Yeah, it's really great. We were thrilled with how it came out. The screening people were just like in tears. It was awesome. yeah, so those are some examples. Yeah, but I could go on forever about stuff going on at Roadrunners, Eric. Yeah.

Erika (32:50)
Excellent.

Eric (32:54)
That's amazing.

Erika (32:59)
Hehehe.

Eric (33:01)
Well, one thing I always thought is like we're a storytelling podcast and everyone has a story, but when you have a race with that many runners in the New York City marathon, it's hard to get all those stories out. And it's super awesome that you are, I should say wicked awesome that you are getting those stories out of the back of the pack finishers, because we have friends who run in the back of the pack and you know, they're still there. They're putting in more hours than so many others. Like it's the hours on your feet are incredible.

Erika (33:15)
You

Yeah.

Rob Simmelkjaer (33:29)
Yes.

Eric (33:29)
and the stories are amazing. So, you know, every chance to get those stories out, that's incredible. Something else that I think is really cool is you have a program, and I don't know when the program started, but it's called 9 Plus 1. And so I would love to take credit and say we're the reason my sister started running. But the real reason is the New York City Marathon. She started watching it about two, three years ago. And then she learned about the 9 Plus 1. And she learned that I don't need to

Erika (33:48)
Hey.

Eric (33:58)
fundraised $10,000 like the Boston Marathon, I can earn it by running nine races and volunteering at one. And she did exactly that. She's running her first marathon with me, November 2nd in New York City. Tell us about the 9 Plus 1 program and other programs you have.

Rob Simmelkjaer (34:14)
Yes, nine plus one is really a huge part of the backbone of New York Roadrunners and the New York City running community. You said it, if you run nine of our races in a calendar year and volunteer at one of them, you are guaranteed entry into the following year's marathon. And so it really is a huge give back to New York City and to people who live in New York or nearby, because obviously you've got to live in the area

Erika (34:43)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (34:43)
to

run nine races, you know, for the most part. The reason it started, and it started over a decade ago actually, a little known fact, the main reason that Roadrunner started it was because of the need for volunteers to run the races. So it was the plus one that was really the driver actually of that program because the organization was having a hard time getting enough volunteers to staff these races and make sure that we could leave Central Park or wherever we were.

Erika (34:57)
⁓

Rob Simmelkjaer (35:13)
running clean and in good shape. So it was really the need for volunteers that drove it. And that was brilliant because now we've got a huge core of volunteers at all of our races and they help us leave the park or wherever we are, kind of like just as spotless as we found it when we finish a race. And volunteering is a huge part of the experience of being a New York Road and Remember. But it's great because it gives people that opportunity to know they can run,

Erika (35:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (35:42)
It keeps us being really part of the fabric of New York City. And it's incredibly affordable, Eric, to your point, when you compare it to raising money for a charity or something like that. And it also doesn't have to do with how fast you are. You can run those nine races in any amount of time. It doesn't matter. So it's a great program. And it's something that it's big part of how we operate. And the downside of it is when there's as much demand as there is right now,

for running and races, it's become really hard, not just to get into the marathon, but to get into any of our races. Our races are all selling out and sometimes within hours of going on sale because people are trying to get this nine plus one credit. So one of things I'm dealing with as CEO is how do I create a system that allows people to get into races more equitably and that also isn't putting so much emphasis on

Erika (36:19)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (36:41)
everybody getting in for 9 plus 1, that casual runner who only wants to run two or three races a year has a way to do that. It isn't shut out by all the people trying to do 9 plus 1. So it's something that we're looking at to try to keep this from being so driven by 9 plus 1 that nobody else can run.

Eric (36:54)
Yeah.

Erika (36:56)
Good call.

Eric (37:02)
In a way, it's a good problem to have. you got people signing up, your race is a sound, I learned the hard way with the 5K that happens the day before. Like, it just happens so fast. So, it's a good problem to have.

Erika (37:02)
Gotcha. That's true.

Rob Simmelkjaer (37:14)
It's definitely a good problem to have, but as I say, good problems to have are still problems. So you still have to find a way to deal with them, yes.

Erika (37:19)
That's true.

Eric (37:23)
Well, you're

gonna find a solution, I know you are, because I've been following with your guys will figure it out.

Rob Simmelkjaer (37:26)
Well, one thing we're

actually doing, which I can talk about, which is a little bit of test solution to this problem, is we added another drawing this year. So we have a race that's in January, I think, January, February, we call them Manhattan 10K. And it's not that special a race. It's a big race, 8,000 runners in Central Park, but in the dead of winter, know, like cold, cold race, 8,000 runners. Yeah, but it...

Erika (37:52)
brings out the dedicated runners.

Rob Simmelkjaer (37:55)
was selling out really, really fast. And so we decided to add a drawing for that to see what would happen because drawings are inherently a little more fair than the first come first serve, like sitting by your keyboard with a high speed internet connection, making sure you could get in. So we're testing some more drawings, we're doing some other things to just try to make it as equitable as we can. And we're also adding some events and some races that are not part of 9 plus 1 so that

Eric (38:07)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (38:07)
Yes.

Rob Simmelkjaer (38:25)
the casual runner has a place to run.

Erika (38:27)
Excellent. How many races does the New York Roadrunners put on every year, including with both the 9 plus 1 and the non-9 plus 1?

Eric (38:27)
There you go.

Rob Simmelkjaer (38:32)
we do.

Yeah, this year we'll do about 43 adult races or events of some kind and then another 20 or so youth events. So we're in the 60s. Most of the youth events happen alongside our adult races, but yeah, it's a lot. mean, there's not too many weekends when we're not out there putting on a race.

Erika (38:41)
Amazing.

Mm-hmm.

That's great!

Eric (38:57)
That's incredible. So a little bit about your role. You're not a race director, right? I don't think you're doing the things they do out there. You are Rob Similcare, CEO New York Roadrunners. Let's dive into what your weekend's gonna be like coming up in a couple of days or next week at the New York City Marathon.

Rob Simmelkjaer (39:16)
Well, yeah, so I'm not the race director. Ted Metellus is our race director, our chief event production officer. Ted and I work hand in hand on everything when it comes to events. We actually tag team a lot of the time when it comes to media appearances, and we talk a lot about decisions we're making from an event production point of view. So we're very closely aligned. But my day gets, ⁓ it'll start at 3 a.m. I think I usually have a New York

city police car come pick me up at about 3, 3.30 in the morning on race day and they'll drive me out to Staten Island. So I'm out there by, yeah, about four, something like that. And I'll get there, get some coffee, start to get set up for the day. My first media interviews are typically starting maybe at five, something like that. So from five to about seven, I'm doing media interviews, I'm greeting runners, I'm walking around to some of the different tents and...

Erika (39:51)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (40:14)
wishing people good luck and getting any updates on anything that's going on, but it's usually pretty quiet, you know. And then we have a tent right on the bridge that I'll go to around seven. We have a lot of our kind of VIPs and, you know, people from the city, the mayor, governor if the governor comes, dignitaries, folks like that who will come. And so I'll spend time with them. I'll do a TV interview for the WABC live broadcast.

And then I'll head to the bridge and Ted and myself and whatever dignitaries are there with us will give our speeches, getting people ready to go. This is the national anthem will be sung. And then once the gun goes off, we send the pros out. Then we send the masses out. And then I hop in another police car and we'll speed up and catch up with the pros in Brooklyn somewhere. And I'll follow the pros through Brooklyn into Queens. We'll go over the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan.

and that's around mile 14 or so. And then I'll peel off typically off the course to get over to Central Park to be there ahead of the winners. And I try to get there ahead of the wheelchairs as well as the runners so that we can be there to celebrate them and give them their medals and all of that. then I'm at the finish line for a good chunk of the day, which is a lot of fun.

Erika (41:35)
So you are really

in the thick of things all day long. You have a very, very early morning, even before the runners wake up. ⁓ I don't think I woke up before like five o'clock on race day for the New York City Marathon, but so you are really out there and getting it done, celebrating all the runners. I love it.

Rob Simmelkjaer (41:39)
100 percent.

Yes.

It's a long day. It's a long day. And I'll sneak away from the finish

line a couple times during the day. I actually go and record a podcast with the winners the same day. Yep. So we'll bring them over to a hotel in Midtown and I'll interview each of them, both the wheelchair male, female and the open field male, female winners. And then I'll usually head to their dinner for a bit. Then I'll come back to the finish line. Then we have an after party that I'll make an appearance at.

Eric (42:03)
That's so cool.

Erika (42:03)
wow.

Rob Simmelkjaer (42:23)
and then I'll usually end the day with the final finisher celebration back at Central Park. So yeah, it turns out to be about a, I don't know, 19 hour day, something like that, but you know, I rest up for it ahead of time. Yeah, it's great, it's great. And then know, the other part of the day is just, you know, I've got people with me, you know, who know how to get in touch with me in case anything goes on, right? I mean, you know, the thing about that day is you guys know well in New England, like,

Erika (42:32)
But what a fun day. What a fun day.

Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (42:51)
It's a great day and you want it to be a great day and it should be, right? But you're always, when you're in my position, you're always thinking about every possibility, everything that could happen, from runner health and safety to security to all the things that you have to think about with a mass event like this. So that's so much of it is just being aware of what's going on and being reachable in case anything happens that needs my attention. And we have a huge.

Erika (43:09)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (43:18)
control and command center right by the finish line that I'll duck into a few times a day as well and check in with the team. How are things going? Are there any issues on the course? Any problems that we're aware of? Things like that. So just making sure operationally we're in good place.

Eric (43:34)
For somebody like me, a first timer, first New York City marathon, don't live there, I'm traveling down, I get to stay with my sisters, so that's a plus. But for somebody like me, a first timer, what should they expect? Like what are some things they should look forward to here? I'm gonna be there early, I'm gonna go to the expo on Friday, I'm gonna be exploring, meeting friends from the podcast world and stuff. We do it at Boston, but never done it for New York. What's something we have to look forward to in New York?

Rob Simmelkjaer (43:55)
Mm-hmm.

man, there's so many things. I I would start with the expo. It's an incredible expo and you will love it there. I mean, there's so many amazing people there. We have podcasters, we have authors, we have something called the Citizen Stage where there are panel discussions going on all three days, great conversations happening over there. Our sponsors do an unbelievable job with their activations. mean, the New Balance store, you could spend three hours in there all by yourself.

Then so many of the other stores and vendors who are there and our partners, they just make the expo so much fun. So you'll not get tired of that. ⁓ You know, we have a lot of great events happening ⁓ elsewhere around the city. The Marathon Opening Ceremony is a really cool thing to attend. This year, that's going to be on Halloween. So that'll add a little bit of spice to that. Friday night, October 31st. So that I would recommend going to check out. And you can get a ticket, hang out in the bleachers.

Erika (44:50)
Ooh.

Rob Simmelkjaer (44:58)
You know, we have every country represented. It's like the Olympics. You every country's got a group of people that will march down past the finish line and down Central Park Drive. So that's a fun event. And then, gosh, there's just so much. I mean, the one piece of advice I would give you is I'm sure you've already got your transportation sorted out, right, to the starting line. Are you taking the ferry or are you taking a bus?

Eric (45:21)
Yeah. Yep.

We're taking the ferry, 8 a.m.

Rob Simmelkjaer (45:26)
I'm a fan of the ferry. The ferry is great. It's low stress. You get there and then the buses will take you from the ferry to the finish line. But yeah, I'm a big fan of taking the Staten Island ferry as a way to get over there. It's also a beautiful view and you get a great sense of where you're going.

Eric (45:40)
That's what I thought. Yeah,

everyone was doing the boss and the only options we had or the best ones I thought was fairy and my sister agreed and I was like, this is be so much more relaxing in my mind. Might be cold, but.

Rob Simmelkjaer (45:53)
I think so.

No, I think so. And there's an indoor part of the ferry too, so you can stay warm if you need to. But yeah, I love taking the ferry over. And then, you know, just enjoy the day. I I think your first time running New York, the piece of advice I give people is, to me, that's not the race to run for time. You know, if it's your first New York City marathon, that's just not a race you wanna be like focused on your time, looking at your watch.

you know, zeroed in on your splits. that's a day to just soak in the atmosphere of running through what of course I'm gonna say is the greatest city in the world and with an incredible energy and incredible fun and the vibes. It's all about the vibes. I mean that's really what it is. So that's my advice. I don't care if it's your first marathon or your 31st, you know, just enjoy the experience of running the New York City Marathon and...

Erika (46:37)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (46:48)
If you decide to come back and run for time in the future, you can do that. people who run a lot of marathons know that New York's not the place to get your PR if you are regularly running other faster marathons like Chicago or Berlin or something like that. You know, it's a place to have an experience.

Erika (47:02)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (47:05)
Is that what you're going for by the way? You going for PR in a couple weeks? In Chicago.

Erika (47:05)
That's...

Rob Simmelkjaer (47:08)
In Chicago?

Erika (47:10)
You're going to be at Chicago? Ooh.

Rob Simmelkjaer (47:10)
I am. I am, I am. I'm running Chicago on October 12th, and yes, that is one that I am gonna try to, I am focused on time. I think Chicago also is known as really fun, and so I'm gonna try to make sure I enjoy that too, but yes, I am running for a time in Chicago. I hope that it will be the last time I ever run for a time, because what I'm really trying to do is qualify for Boston in Chicago.

Erika (47:18)
be there too.

Eric (47:29)
Yeah.

yeah?

Rob Simmelkjaer (47:37)
Yes, I've got a new age group, so I've got 10 minutes more than I had last year to try to qualify for Boston, and I'm gonna see if I can pull that off.

Eric (47:47)
Of course, this drops

Rob Simmelkjaer (47:47)
Hahaha

Eric (47:49)
Chicago, but you'll be running it with Erica, by the way. She'll be there in Chicago. It's doing like her fifth or sixth one. She's done New York multiple times. She's a six-star medalist already. She'll be going for her seventh and eighth one day too, but no, you'll be there. Good luck. You're going to crush it. We can't finish this podcast though without talking about...

Erika (47:57)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (48:01)
Amazing.

Eric (48:10)
set the pace because we love doing this. This is our passion project. We've done some cool things now, but we've been able to listen and kind of learn from yours because you've done so many cool live shows that we're just getting into and you've really grown this thing kind of like we've grown ours and that's what I appreciate and you've evolved over time and your show is just so cool and it's how I know how to say simulcare correctly. Let's talk a little bit about set the pace. How did you

Erika (48:12)
Yes.

Rob Simmelkjaer (48:35)
Hahaha.

Eric (48:39)
come up with starting a podcast.

Rob Simmelkjaer (48:42)
Well, when I was interviewing for the job of New York Roadrunners, I actually mentioned the idea to the board and I said to them, know, an example of the kinds of things I'd like to do here are start a podcast. And I did some rough math about how many people train for the New York City Marathon, how many hours they're typically running in the course of their training, multiply that by the number of runners. And it came up with like millions of hours.

of running time that people were putting in to train for the marathon. And I said, you you can't watch TV while you're running. You can't read a book. So you can listen to one, but like, let's give them something to listen to while they're doing all this running. it initially was really focused on the people doing their marathon training blocks. And we launched it Labor Day in 2023 to kind of help people give them something to do during those long runs.

Erika (49:19)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (49:40)
And the theory was that, kind like you said at the beginning, Eric, we have 50,000 amazing people showing up at the starting line of the marathon every year. Surely we can find 52 of them a year who would be really interesting to interview. know, like, that can't be hard, right? There's gotta be 52 fascinating people out of the 52,000. We just need one in 1,000 to be a good interview. So we started.

booking these conversations with people. It started out with me and Meb Kufleski, New York and Boston winner, co-hosting it. And Meb was amazing and that was a great place to start. And then we brought in Peloton as a sponsor of the podcast and Becs Gentry, the amazing Becs Gentry, my co-host and phenomenal runner and instructor, a pro, ⁓ incredibly inspiring, a huge following of people who love her on the Peloton treads.

Erika (50:11)
Mmm.

Eric (50:13)
Not a big deal.

An absolute pro.

Erika (50:28)
We love Becks.

Rob Simmelkjaer (50:34)
So she joined as my co-host and Neb's still involved interviewing our members every week. So it's been a real joy and I love being at the finish line of so many of our races where it's really my favorite place to hang out. Like, you know, if I'm running or not running, it doesn't matter. I'll stay at the finish line for a long time and give fist bumps to our runners. And I have so many of them say, oh my God, I love the podcast and thank you for doing it. And that means a lot to me because it's just another way for us as an organization.

to speak to our runners, to communicate with them, to tell them about what we do, what we're all about as an organization, to connect them to others in the running community. And it's become, hopefully, a really nice hub for especially our members. We have 85,000 members now. So it's a big community that we have. And that's really the target audience, whether they're full-time members or people who just become members of our running community.

in the four months leading up to the marathon. It's a place for them all to convene and get themselves psyched to take on the 26.2 miles from Staten Island to Central Park.

Erika (51:42)
Absolutely. I love that you are out there showcasing your members and your passion for the New York Roadrunners and the New York City Marathon. just totally comes through the podcast and it doesn't hurt that Becs is on it too. I love me some Becs.

Rob Simmelkjaer (51:56)
No, it's all about Becs.

Eric (51:59)
We're big fans.

Rob Simmelkjaer (51:59)
I kind of do the, I do the broadcast stuff. I keep the trade on the tracks, but Becs is the star of that show. We all know that.

Erika (52:07)
No, you guys are wonderful.

Eric (52:08)
Well,

we pumped Becs's tires plenty of times. She's been on here a couple of times. She's phenomenal. She's a huge supporter and we love everything she's done. But I'll tell you what I love about your podcast and about you, Rob, is that you just seem to enjoy it and you're passionate about it. And it doesn't sound like when listening that you're doing it because it's work. It almost seems like you would do it even if you weren't the CEO of the New York Roadrunners. You enjoy it that much. And all what I do is I take in podcasts,

Erika (52:24)
Mm-hmm.

truly is a passion.

Eric (52:37)
whether it's a hockey podcast, NASCAR podcast, some running podcasts. And I started listening when you brought Becs on, and then I started going back and listening to some older episodes of some guests you've had. And it's just what I get out of you. It's a lot what I see in me here with this passion project we have. It doesn't feel like work. And you give that same expression.

Rob Simmelkjaer (52:57)
Thank you.

That podcast does not work for me. You're right. It's that to me is a chance to experience the joy of my job and the joy of what I do, of bringing people together, making them happy all around this incredible activity of running. So that really isn't work. I yeah, I've gotta work a lot during the course of the week. I got a lot of meetings, not all of which I wanna be in. I've got a lot of...

a lot of emails and things to send and stuff to do. It is an organization that we have 275 employees and a lot going on, right? So yeah, sometimes it's work, but that part of it is not work. And I'm glad that that comes through. I appreciate that.

Eric (53:28)
Yeah.

Erika (53:40)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (53:43)
Absolutely does.

Erika (53:44)
The podcast is just an extra little time to unwind and you get to get to know somebody better. And I totally agree with you. What Eric and I do, it isn't work. it just talking to somebody like yourself, it's just so nice to get new perspectives and just get to meet some really cool people. So I'm glad that we get to share the same kind of experiences.

Rob Simmelkjaer (54:07)
I that. It's pretty awesome.

Eric (54:09)
Well, Rob, you've been amazing with your time. Seriously, we loved having you on here. This has been fantastic. But we have two final questions we have to ask you. Not a big deal. They're not hard at all. But I'm going to let Erica go first on this one and then I'll ask you mine.

Erika (54:20)
Ooh,

he never lets me go first. All right, Rob, we have ourselves a Spotify playlist and we like to invite our guests to add a song to it. So is there anything that that kind of gets you pumped up, ready for your day, gets you excited to go on a run that you'd like to add to our list?

Rob Simmelkjaer (54:26)
the

So my daughter's been curating a playlist for my Chicago Marathon run because I do sometimes like to listen to music quietly so I can hear my surroundings, but still I listen a bit when I'm running in races sometimes to keep me calm. And she's got a lot of great, yeah, it's called Rob's Chicago Marathon Playlist. And I was looking at it and I thought, you know, one of my favorite, and I actually placed it strategically at a certain spot in the playlist is,

Erika (54:44)
Yes?

That's fair.

Mm-hmm.

Rob Simmelkjaer (55:07)
Tiesto, I love Tiesto, I love the energy of that EDM. And there's a song called Let's Get Down to Business, which is really great to put in like where you think you'll be around mile 20, you know, is like, all right, let's go, right? Like, let's put our heads down and make this happen, you know, like, you don't want it too early, it's little too hype. But yeah, I love that song Tiesto, Let's Get Down to Business. It starts kind of slow, but then it's got an amazing beat and it gets you pumped for that.

Erika (55:09)
Ooh.

Eric (55:15)
Yes.

Erika (55:23)
Uh-huh.

Perfect.

Eric (55:36)
Yeah.

Erika (55:36)
you

Rob Simmelkjaer (55:37)
when you gotta put the hammer down.

Eric (55:43)
That's it, Erica. That's a good song to have on the list. That's the vibe I like there. Anything EDM. That gets me going, Rob. Yes. So Rob, my final question is this. On the Runs is hosting this gigantic pasta dinner with all of our guests. All of our guests from the podcast get to bring a plus one. You can bring anyone in the world, alive or dead, however you can't bring any living family members. Who are you going to bring to our pasta dinner?

Erika (55:43)
You understood the assignment. Nailed it.

Rob Simmelkjaer (55:49)
100%. 100%.

Ooh, I get to pick anyone alive or dead. So this is that classic, who do you wanna have dinner with in your lifetime? Well, gosh, I'm probably going to choose Barack Obama or Nelson Mandela, ⁓ one or the other, one alive, one dead.

Erika (56:29)
Ooh.

Eric (56:30)
Ooh, is Barack already

coming?

Erika (56:33)
Michelle is.

Eric (56:34)
Michelle is, that's

right. That's cool. Yes.

Rob Simmelkjaer (56:37)
Great, so I'll bring Barack and we'll

Erika (56:39)
Perfect.

Rob Simmelkjaer (56:39)
get

to watch them interact a little bit. Absolutely. I don't know that either of them is a runner. Obama is a basketball player, so I'm not sure how much we could talk about running, but certainly just talking about the world that we live in and what it's been. mean, Mandela probably is my number one because of his life story and what he was able to do and accomplish. And I actually went to South Africa

Eric (56:42)
That would be cool.

Erika (56:47)
doesn't matter.

Eric (56:55)
Yeah.

Rob Simmelkjaer (57:07)
That same year I ran the 97 marathon, the only thing I did other than study and run that summer was go to South Africa. And it was while Mandela was president. And I remember seeing what it was like in that country at that time. It was incredible. So he's to me one of the top five humans who's ever walked the earth. ⁓ yeah, I think talking to either of them over some pasta, some buttered pasta or whatever your sauce. What kind of sauce are we getting? What kind of sauce are we getting on this pasta? Okay, good.

Eric (57:30)
Yes.

Erika (57:30)
What a choice. What a choice. Whatever you want.

Eric (57:34)
Well, there's going to be options. That's for sure. There'll

be options. There's going to be a wide...

Rob Simmelkjaer (57:37)
Yeah, before a marathon, I probably want

Erika (57:37)
Yeah.

Rob Simmelkjaer (57:39)
like a nice kind of a mild white sauce, you know, maybe just simple olive oil. Yes.

Eric (57:41)
Yeah. It'll be, it'll be the best pasta. We're going to get the best cook in New England, probably Boston based. Yeah. It's going to be

Erika (57:42)
I'm all for that.

As long as there's garlic bread too, I'm happy.

Eric (57:49)
amazing, Rob.

You're going to love it. If we really do this, you're welcome to come. This has been so much fun having you on. I, I manifested this for quite a while now since I knew I was running the New York City marathon. I'm like, all right, we do a cool series every April called Boston Weeks. I want to do a mini New York City Weeks here and you're kicking it off. We got New York City in about a week here. Thank you so much for doing this.

Everybody. hope you enjoyed that because that was wicked. Awesome. Rob simulcare on the on the runs podcast.

ON THE RUNS PODCAST (58:22)
Gosh, what an amazing episode. All right, before we get into this, just thank you again. And I apologize for being so very wrong on the Boston tip. I saw something and I just believed whatever I saw on the internet. I mean. Do you want me to put that back in the episode? Did you take it out? Yeah, I took it out. Then let's redo it. No, that's great. Guys, stick around for the blooper. Yeah, you can that as the blooper. It's the blooper. It already is. All right, good. Because I saw something on the internet.

Right before they announced like what the Boston buffers were and God did I make them. Don't believe everything you see on the internet, especially the AI. You what's funny too. I saw it and I couldn't find it again. And I was like, no, no. Cause we were talking about it and I tried looking it up and nope, nope. He was like, really? Because he's like, game changer. yes, I did email after and apologize. He didn't respond because he ⁓

No, I'm kidding. did. did. Rob, you are amazing. Becs, thank you so much for making that happen. That was an incredible, incredible guest appearance. That's right. So New York's in a few days. I'm excited. So what do you want to know? what do you, you know, let me just tell you, I am going to... You've got to fill me in on your whole like sequence of events. Do you have everything planned? Like when are you getting into the city? When are you visiting the expo?

Are you with Hanna the whole time? you going to be putting her out by sleeping on her couch the whole time? and Mike? right, so here's the Tell me the game plan pre-race. All right, so I'm going to head up Friday morning. The question is, am I leaving at 5 in the morning or 8 in the morning? 8 in the morning. Well, if I leave at 8 in the morning, that means I take Adeline to school, which would be pretty cool because it's one of the favorite things I do. I take her to school every She might get a ride.

Okay, she gets a ride to leave earlier because we have the demo day at not the demo the expo day Friday afternoon at like two to four or three to five something like that with Hanna So I'll drive straight to Hanna's house on Friday morning and then Friday night. I might be doing a peloton run ⁓ I certainly hope so because is it I think Mariana's gonna be there. Yes No, but hopefully AllieG maybe Hanna

⁓ Hanna's running the 5k Saturday. Okay, and there is the best shakeout run Saturday I don't know if I'm gonna be a shakeout run guy, but hey you show up to these things you could you could walk a walk I love it. I love ⁓ it. So and also shout out my race to add some right socks. Yes, but ⁓ Saturday she's doing that 5k I might try to see where that is in relation to the facts back shakeout, okay

will be the busy day. ⁓ Saturday be the relaxing day Hopefully see facts and all that and then we're taking the ferry. We have an eight o'clock ferry on Sunday morning ⁓ I'm in the fifth wave and I am going to even roll further back to start with Hanna that you know what that makes me so happy because You were talking you're you freaking out basically. You're like, I don't even want to run anymore. I was joking

I was being sarcastic. like, I'm not in the same wave or crowd. No, that was the bar. And was like, and now like, geez, like, yeah, I hear it's awful race too. Like what's the point in making the travel for just love that you guys are actually going to like, you guys get to make the effort to run together because if you had to find each other, that's just so much added stress on race day and you want to minimize that the best you can. So you can just enjoy the run as it

got to pause real quick. Look at that girl's shirt. That's t-shirt. I need her to turn around. She has the white headphones. She can't hear me because she okay. If she if she were to turn around, it's skeleton hands right here. Right. That is a perfect Halloween theme shirt. But yeah, know Sunday is going to be fun. We're going to start. think

My parents and Alex will be somewhere around mile 12 or something and they'll be other. So guys, if you are listening, check it out. Reach out in the DMs. Tell me where you'll be. You gotta look for me. I do have my kit picked out. ⁓ OK. I got I got the underwear picked out. Yes. I got the shorts. Yes. The shoes. Yes. The socks.

my race kit is going to be I'm going to I'm going to do a flat Eric, but I'm pretty excited. So I went back and forth with a couple of things. What was I going to wear for sure? Was it going to be this white shirt that said Team Force, which I didn't think was meant for the race? OK, I still did. You get a singlet or I got it. I got a package.

I'll post it later this week. I got a pack. It was a t-shirt. But I know some people are going to wear it. And I was like, nah, I don't want it. And then I love the singlets you and the girls got. And so I thought about maybe I could like express order one for me, a t-shirt. And I was like, no, we have the on the runs ones that came in the Sport Tech. True. But the only reason I don't like it is because it's a very lighter blue than OTR blue. That's true. And the light white colors.

don't do me any justice. Oh, not your color palette? No, not my color palette. You're not a winter. The dark gray is great. But yeah, no, especially if I'm sweating and stuff and stuff like that. It just doesn't look good on the move. So I last night found a shirt. Okay. On social media. On social media. All right. It is amazing. And it is. I'll just tell you guys now. I ordered it last night. I ordered it from backline.

you got a back line shirt you know you're gonna get something great and it says New York on it in a fancy way. Are these the ones that ALLIEG was modeling? Oh god those look so freaking cool. I saw the ALLIEG model photos and I don't do singlets but they have it in a t-shirt. Okay so I got the t-shirt ordered yesterday so I to go visit the back line store in Brooklyn to pick it up.

I was gonna say man, I just hope that you get to practice in it because you never know what's shape and where so The other cool thing I did was I used the code ALLIEG and got a discount. ⁓ beautiful. So thank you ALLIEG and BAKLINE Hey, you see this we got drones flying around right here. ⁓ One is a drone one is a bird. So but yeah, that is a bird. Yeah, that is really cool.

getting the bird's eye view. can really get the feeling of what we're doing. up drone? Oh, maybe it didn't catch us. Oh man, this is so cool. What an atmosphere. It turned out to be another epic day. It is beautiful now. The sun came out full force and I am warm now. So I ditched the jacket, I ditched the gloves. My ears are nice and warm from my headphones.

This is how I like to be. We'll do a quick Google check. Google now says it is 49 degrees. Feels like 46. You know, it's beautiful. I'll take it. So can we talk something that's not running? Yeah. And not New York. OK. I spent about let's call it twenty three hundred dollars in the last 10 days. On what? What the hell did you buy for twenty three hundred dollars? Skis. ⁓ my God. Bindings.

I bought Adeline skis. Okay. Boys leases, but I'm so excited. got your own set. My first since 2007. I'm so excited. You're gonna love these. Okay. Guess what color they are. ⁓ Purple. Purple ish. ⁓ I just threw that out there. But mostly pink. no. Yes. mostly pink.

surprise like usually you're all about the OTR blue. had the best pair picked out that were OTR blue and they just weren't the right ski. Okay, so they didn't quite work out for you. No, mean they're an amazing ski. They're also they're also $1,300 and I got mine for half of that. Mine are gonna win like ski of the year. Love it. But it was more for skiing the big pow out west.

Wait a minute, are you planning a trip out west? No, no, no, the ski I didn't buy was more for skiing the Big Power West. I see. So we got a couple guys coming. We're going to jump them on right here. We'll be back. What's going on?

All right, we're having So here's the deal here guys. We're so much fun. We got to wrap up the outro for episode 192 Right. So here's the thing. Let's come back ⁓ in a couple of days. Let's do so It's Tuesday if you're listening right now ⁓ on Thursday should be the New Great Port episode where we are live right now It's so cool. And then maybe we can record later this week

and do a little one more time like getting ready for New York kind of wrap up the whole week of Newburyport New York getting ready packing. mean, I got to know what your food choices are going to be for you Ray. I got to know 30 minute power episode that that drops Friday, which I think will be the first time we've dropped three episodes ever on this podcast in a week in So guys.

That was amazing. really hope you loved Rob's Simmelkjaer on the podcast. That was Manifestation. Thank you again to Becs Gentry. Guys, Becs Gentry made that happen. That's I hope you get to meet her this weekend. I really hope We'll work on this. We'll work on it. Manifest! Manifest, baby. But Erika take us home. I hope you guys really are enjoying this live atmosphere that we're a part of right now. We think it's so awesome and we hope to do more of these in the future.

But as always, thank you for listening. You know we love you. Don't fear the code ground. And don't forget to stretch!

Erika (1:08:57)
⁓ Speaking of Boston, I also heard this year that there was no extra time buffer needed to get into the 2026 marathon. I'm wondering if that bodes well for you for Chicago. I did. I think I literally just heard it today.

Rob Simmelkjaer (1:09:07)
Did you just hear that today? Because I have not heard that. Okay, you're giving me

news. I was just about to text, thank you for telling me that, Erica.

Eric (1:09:12)
Insider information

Erika (1:09:15)
Somebody

posted something, so I mean, I hope it bodes well for 2027.

Rob Simmelkjaer (1:09:20)
I was wondering

when they were gonna come out with that. I was literally just about to text Jack Fleming today like, hey, what's going on? When are we gonna hear about the buffer? No buffer, that's huge. That's huge. That could mean a lot to me.

Erika (1:09:26)
I hope I have my info correct. I hope I have my info correct.

Eric (1:09:32)
If she's wrong, if you're

wrong, you... I love that. Of course, this drops

Erika (1:09:35)
I'm going to get a really angry text later.

Rob Simmelkjaer (1:09:38)
Hahaha