193 | LIVE from the Newburyport Half Marathon | Millennium Running

LIVE from the Xfinity Newburyport Half Marathon, Relay and 5k!

This live recording explores the vibrant world of running, celebrating achievements, community connections, and personal stories from races. The speakers share their experiences, the joy of participating in events, and the importance of community in the running culture. They also discuss the journey of race announcing and the excitement surrounding future races and personal goals. In this engaging conversation, Eric discusses various themes surrounding running, community, and personal growth. The dialogue transitions from NASCAR and local politics to the importance of enjoying life and taking action. Personal running stories and achievements are shared, highlighting the connections formed within the running community. The conversation also touches on pacing in races and future goals, emphasizing the joy and camaraderie found in running events.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
02:34 Newburyport Open
09:56 Bill and Patty
20:42 Andy Schachat | Millennium Running Race Announcer
38:53 5K Finish
45:55 Finn
51:09 Eli Bailen | Original Newburyport Race Organizer 
01:05:20 Sherry
01:21:50 Amber Ferreira and Joey
01:30:57 Ellison and Sterling
01:38:34 Sterling and Janet
01:45:26 Michael Bernier |  Enjoy Your Life
01:59:38 Clint and Ericka
02:12:42 Outro

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

Transcript

Eric (00:00)
What's up everybody? Happy Tuesday. How you doing today? How you feeling after that New York City marathon? Wow, that was incredible. I can't wait to tell you all about it. It was the absolute best day ever. But you're gonna have to wait a few days because one, I just got back to New Hampshire. It is late Monday night and I'm tired and I'm hungry and I gotta go back to work. A whole lot of things.

So today, actually, you're going to hear an episode that was supposed to drop last week on Thursday where we were live from the Newburyport Half Marathon. And we talked a lot about like getting ready for New York City. We even were like, we're going to do a bonus episode next week on Friday and really dive into New York and do three episodes last week. And then I got really sick, like super sick last week, just days before New York. It wasn't pretty. And it really actually played a role into the day.

Thankfully, you know not that bad, but I'll spare no details guys. The weekend was incredible But first enjoy this from the Newberryport half marathon And if the recap from New York doesn't come out before this weekend We will be at the Manchester marathon on Sunday recording live too. It's so much fun So if you see us there in Manchester on Sunday come by say hello jump on the pod It's absolutely incredible. We love doing this with Millennium running. It was fantastic. So enjoy the episode

I'll talk to you hopefully in a few days and I will spare no details about the New York City Marathon with my sister Hannah because it was that incredible.

Eric (02:32)
What's up everybody and welcome good morning to the Xfinity Newberryport half marathon 5k relay we are live live streaming on YouTube Erica We are at Cashman Park in Newberryport, Massachusetts. Have you ever been here to Cashman Park? This is my very first time well I guess how many times I've been to this exact spot. I couldn't even fathom over a hundred

Over 100. When I saw that this was here, I was like, no way. I've been coming here since I was a kid with my dad. This is where we park the boat and the truck and the trailer. We take the boat out right there. We go out to New Rayport, Plum Island, sometimes make it to New Ipswich, Gloucester, Rockport, maybe go up river and go swimming. There's a sandbar. You get it at low tide. OK. That's where I spent my birthday. That sounds really fun. Dude, it's a blast. It's absolute blast. So how are you?

I'm doing just fine. many hours of sleep did you get this last Never enough. It honestly felt like race day, even though we're not racing today, which I'm kind of excited about. We get to just chill today, enjoy the race day vibes, and not have to actually put in the work. That's right. We're not running today. Pretty nice. Last time we did this, we ran the New Hampshire 10-Miler. We were scheduled to do it. This is a whole, like, let's try this. And it worked out. We're going to do more of these. It's going to be a lot of fun. So this is, by the way,

This will be episode 193, dropping on Thursday, and we are Thursday.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three days from the New York City Marathon when people are listening to this on the pod feed. Can we just give it up for you? I am so excited for you to embark on the New York City Marathon journey. ⁓ you have been training so hard, and I think this is going to be your victory lap. I hope you have so much It is. I don't know if it'll be a PR, because we'll be running with Hannah, but it will be victory lap-esque. will be the best I've ever felt. Here's the other cool thing about that is

When after I do New York and after we get into Chicago next year through the lottery, which I applied for. I'm already in. already into the Chicago Marathon? I got a guaranteed entry with the. Yeah, I'm a legacy runner. So I already got my acceptance. After I run New York and after I check out Chicago, Chicago will drop to number three because there's no way Chicago's going to top New York being my first major. Yeah, I mean, I just really want you to experience it.

I don't care if it's your favorite or not.

But I just want you to see the hype and why I love it What was up with everybody taking a leak at the starting line? know, that I have never seen before. So I'm like, you guys are animals. You got VIP bathrooms, though. yeah. Well, I had to pay $100 for it, which I also bought again because it was worth every penny. So I'll have that opportunity when I get into the lottery. You get that fast pass. You hopefully everybody else does. In fact, Chicago will do this live from your expo, too. Hell yeah.

New very poor half marathon brought to you by Xfinity. We got the Live Your Life guys right to my right. Michael Bernier. My left actually. They got a table right there. I kind of have to lean to see it because we have these beautiful banners again. Millennium Running hooked us up. You can see me on live screen. Since we're not running today, I am bundled up like you would not believe. It's not even that cold, but just sitting here. I got my nice thick mittens, but all the better to show off our banners. The other fun thing, just trying to...

paint the picture guys to our left we got a band state that's going to be different podcasting with a band about 150 feet and then you got all the registration tents they get that music rock and we're a little further away from the music from last time but I still love it yeah in front of us is the Newburyport or the Merrimack River we got people walking by getting ready and we were right in front of the finishing line

So they'll be, I don't know if the camera will pick it up, the live stream won't, but the camera might when everyone's finishing later, we'll be podcasting. There'll be the med tent there. Hopefully we don't catch anything going on there, or maybe we do catch some awesome con. Maybe we see John Carter, AKA, you know, Noah Wiley, or he's Dr. Robbie from the pit. Maybe, maybe we get some of that action in here. Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Let's, let's, not. But yeah, this is, this is, I spent hundreds of times here on the boat.

You know, with my. And this is a whole different experience. Same place, different Same place. I was wondering, like, what if someone wanted to take the boat out this morning? Like, they must have, like, locked this down. You know, want to know what else I want to know? How does Google Maps know all the time that there's a race going on? And it told me there'll be road closures. yeah, mine did too. It's like, main road that we're supposed to turn on is closed, and there are no alternate routes. So was like, I'm just going to try this and see what happens. But you're right.

I did see a boat earlier when I was getting your your Celsius from the car. I saw trying to get in Yeah, they must have been so mad probably they got to go to the other side over the bridge to Salisbury Beach over there and probably the boat launched Yeah, they must have been mad. I have no idea my dad would have been like what's this race going on? you know that was before we do this just a minor inconvenient for the non-runner folk right so we saw a few people We already know yeah, we saw the winner of the New Hampshire 10-Miler

who was our guest on the podcast last time, Mike Durkin. still beautiful, flowy hair again. So we're hoping he does well in the half marathon today. We also saw, I think his name was Liam, he stopped by. What's funny is a lot of people come by and they've asked you more than me. I was asked when you went to my truck, but they've asked you like, where's bag check? Where's registration? Do I look like I know what's going on? You do, you have the official Millennium tent here.

the gear on I'm wearing like a very puffy like rabbit jacket like I do not have any Millennium gear on I actually couldn't find my Millennium jacket when I was coming here I look for it mine I needed some real warmth today and as much as I do love that jacket from last year that I just needed a little more today so the other the other cool thing is last time we did this we had on the mayor yes J Rue yeah guess who I ran into yesterday during my run

Did you run into him? ran into Jay on my run. was running. So I did the quick, easy run from my house all the way uphill to the top of McIntyre. Yep. That's your usual route. And all the way back. And I saw Jay walking door to door because voting day is coming up November 4th. I did know that, but I didn't know he was actually going door to door. Going door to door. Yeah. Even though he's mayor, he's still going up for reelection. OK. And he was with a few others, but it was so cool. I saw him. I knew it was him just from his walk. He the hat on. And I go, Jay!

And we were chatting, so that was super cool. So we had him, we saw Mike. We're hoping to get more winners this time because we're not running. We actually could get winners live here from the show and we're hoping to get other people. The only downfall is we don't have tarot tarot act all here. Like walk it around this general area. Hey, I know you come on the podcast. Hey, you in the orange pants. Hey, you over there in the blue hat, you know? So guys, when you finish the race today and you come through this 10, if you have a great story, good or bad.

funny or not. We got Tom Raffio. I see you, Tom Raffio is here. That's awesome. That's great. We'd love to talk to him again and talk more about Washington. But hey, we are here. We're going to be back with more people. Michael's talking, so I want to give him some time to talk. And we'll be back, hopefully, with some more people around the start of the race. And I say, why don't we do the TROs for Tuesday as well, once this race starts? I love that. Live on the scene. That's right. So live from the Xfinity New Report Half Marathon 5K relay, guys.

We'll be back right after this.

Eric (09:57)
All right, we're already back and we have Bill and Patty here and it's gonna be a lot of fun, but let's first talk about Bill then we'll talk about Patty. I think you need to congratulate Bill or say something to Bill. What do you got to say? Well, very excited. So Bill will also be in New York City running the marathon along with you. But he is going, this will be his sixth star. He is going to have that beautiful, beautiful six star medal and he has worked so hard for it. So you deserve every, every.

And you just know that you're going towards that, the big one, the big finish. Absolutely. And I'm very excited to get this major marathon done and get my six star medal and celebrate and move on to getting into Sydney for my seventh star. Yes. Now, is this your first New York? It is my first New York. Okay. He would already have the medal if he ran that's right. I see, see, podcast brain. Yeah. All right. It's my first New York too. It's also my first star. So of the other five you've done,

Boston, Chicago, how do you rank them? That's all I want to know. So Boston is by far my favorite. ⁓

I had a tough day in Chicago. It was red listed. ⁓ I walked the last 12 miles and ended up in the med tent. So I'm gonna go back and repeat that one. That's a great story though. Okay, so after you get the seventh for Sydney, we need you on to talk about all the stars. Sure. But it's gonna be fun. Are you excited for New York? I'm absolutely excited. Have you ever been a part of it? Like this is all gonna be new to me. I'd never been a part of it. I'd never seen it. My sister's been going for years. So I'm running with her and she's

She's, it's her first marathon. So we're really excited. I'm going to run the whole time. Do you know what wave you're in? ⁓ I am in wave four. ⁓ Corral five, I believe. All right. I'm in wave five, corral one, but I'm going to back up to her corral. I forget, it might be four. So I am going to back up to run with her, which lets me run on the top of the bridge. Okay. Because I was originally underneath. You found the loophole. Yeah, found the loophole. So that's exciting. I mentioned the Bosch and Chicago.

I

will die on until I get to run Boston again because I had a bad Boston. So I get I see how it how it could be skewed like based on the experience. So I just need another shot. Maybe it'll change my mind. But who knows how would you rank the international ones if I were to only get to go to one? Which one would I go to? You'd go to Berlin. ⁓ really? Absolutely. Just the other day I said Berlin doesn't get me excited. But Bill here is saying Berlin. I would almost say

London for me, but I had the weird London that was in October that one year and it was just the crowds turned out. It was the first one after COVID and everybody was just happy to be out there and being able to run again. And so that was a crazy one. So London for us was 26.2 miles surrounded by people. Oh, just so crazy. Yeah. We expected it to thin out. It thinned out after 68,000 people? Oh my God.

Yeah. Wow. I can never thinned out. So you don't even have room to really run. You don't get to run your pace. I expect that to kind of be like New York, but maybe because they'll separate it. got 50 plus thousand. We got five ways. So 10,000 plus a wave. Sorry. All right, Patty. We got to talk. Why is dance so expensive? ⁓

Trouble. Dance is very expensive. It's insane. You know what else is karate? That's another story for the pod. But ⁓ we did the New Hampshire 10-Miler recently. And sometime around then, there was this dance expo, we'll call it. It wasn't a competition. And you were hanging out with this woman and her daughter. And then all of a sudden, you wrote on my wife's Facebook, now I know why you look so familiar. ⁓ You were hanging out with my wife and my daughter, and you didn't even know it.

love the connections. So Patty and Bill have been part of this running community for quite a while. You're more Manchester-based, right? New Hampshire-based. New Hampshire-based. New Hampshire-based. So we see you at Hamster Wheel. We see you New Hampshire Running Events. We're in Massachusetts right now. This is easily an hour drive for a lot of us. What drew you to this race?

I went for a two hour half marathon last year. I pulled my IT band like a week before, so it did not happen. So I like, I've got to come back and try again. And of course we have New York next week, so it's not going to be today. You better take it easy and have a wonderful New York. This race will always be here. Exactly. So I'm just here for a nice fun run. Good. And you ran this last year. Yes. So what's the course like? ⁓

quite a few hills. It's a decent course. There's a lot of downhills with those uphills. So OK, at least you get the roller so you can get some momentum. That's good to know. Is there any you running along the Merrimack or you running out towards the ocean here? Do you have like coastal views? It's going to be windy. Honestly, I don't remember. was I was so focused on hitting my paces. I was not looking and I had Ed Roxanne yelling at me every time I tried to talk.

Shut up. Breathe. Save that. There you go. I would be yelling, Roxanne. And she would probably yell at you for doing that. Exactly. All right. You didn't ask me what my favorite marathon was. Well, actually, was getting to what's next for you. But now I'm going to change it up. What's your favorite mari... Have you run any majors? I have run all six of them. You're a six star. Six star Patty. That's right. OK, so let's go. New York is my favorite. All right.

So we're all over the board here. and it where Chicago rake number six Okay, wow you got a PR on the New York course that's they say one of the hardest I think Sydney now is the hardest but at the six 2018 2018 I ran that year. It's a good year. What was so special about that day to get your PR? My dad and my sister at the finish line

In Central Park? Central Park. Yep. Yep.

It was just amazing. Just the whole energy of it. I gave a guy $20 at mile 18 to give me a rub down on my leg. If you want to pre-roll, by the way, I got the roll recovery for you too. That's cool. When did you do Boston? 2023 and 2016. OK. ⁓ What was 2016 like? Because that was kind of before I really was in this scene. Was that a great day? was before I ran. Was that a hot day? No.

That's not too bad. year before was a hot year. I'm trying to think. was what, 10, almost 10 years ago now. Yesterday. was yesterday. Well, 23 was recently. How was that? Because 23 was the rainy year. It was kind of wet. It was cold and wet. Yeah. And I was hypothermic at the end. Oh, no.

You two run together? The only one we've run together is London. Okay. How do you choose that? How do you choose, we're gonna run together or we're gonna go out there and just run our own race?

Typically, it's we're going to run our own race. London was a special event, so I decided I'm just going to run and finish with her. That's cool. I'm glad you did that. feel like if you separated, you'd never find each other after with so many people. It was hard to stay together in 60,000 people. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, man. And my. Oh, that's right. Because that was the crazy race. So what were there no waves? Well, no, actually, it was waves and they just kept starting people.

Yeah. With three start lines. Yeah. That's right. That's the unique thing about, well, actually, New York City pretty much does that, where you start on different spots, and then they merge together about three miles in or something like I actually looked at it. It's around mile eight. Oh, for New York City. The colors go, you got pink, blue, and red, maybe. They go in opposite directions. Yeah. But at eight, they all really merge. Yeah. All right. So Patty, what's next for you?

as she's doing her hip flexor stretch here. next? Well, I'm running the half marathon in about 30 minutes. She's got a half marathon. What's next? Well, I know you did tell me that you're looking for 2026 hamster wheel. Oh, yes. 2026, yeah. That is, however, what's next. That is true. What's next? What's before? Hamster wheel this year? 2026. Well, what's next?

Sounds like- no You're doing Dopey!

Yeah, bury the leaf pad. We're so excited for you. That's going to be amazing. Have you ever done any of the Disney races before? Just one. Which one? Yeah. Just the half. Where are you going to stay? We're staying at the Riviera. Oh, that's cool. That's really cool because that's more like a hotel and it has the Skyliner. Yes. Have you been on this Disney Skyliner before? I should. never been on it. I didn't go with you last time. It's a game changer. You walk right out and you don't have to

wait for a bus or anything. You just jump on the Skyliner, this big gondola. So that one will bring you right to Epcot and it will also bring you right to the Hollywood studios. I was going to call it MGM. You remember when it was MGM studios? I remember that. Bill and I know. Bill and I know it was MGM studios. But yeah, it brings you right to those. Plus also you can go to Art of Animation and a few others. Not that you're going to go there, but you're at Riviera. You're right next to Pirates of Caribbean.

Magnets and stuff you guys are welcome to some I was gonna say I code Brown before I came over here Well good luck I'll see you in New York Guys on the on the runs podcast live from the Xfinity New World Court half marathon that was wicked awesome. Thanks

Eric (20:45)
All right, so the half marathon just started. The 5K is going to go off in a few minutes. And we got an amazing window of opportunity here before this guy has to go to work. Yes. We have Andy Schakek here. And if any of remember, you will recognize his voice instantly when he starts talking. He's the one at all these Millennium races, more than just Millennium, who's calling your name when you cross the finish line. Andy, how you doing? It's great to be here. I'm very honored. You guys have been

to build up a tremendous reputation. You've become an important part of the New Hampshire running community that have been a part of decades. So I'm very honored and flattered to be here with you guys. Thank you. And you've been doing this for quite a long time, if I understand correctly. When did you start doing your announcing? Wow. I started running in the early 1990s. And I was spending a lot of time in Boston with major races that had announcers. I have a

broadcasting background and I'd stand at the finish line and say, you know, I could do this, I can do this. You definitely have the voice So in 1996, New Hampshire's largest, 10K at the time, market square day, 10K, that was my favorite race to run and I wasn't in shape to run it. I called the race director, said I have an idea. Get somebody with a sound system at the finish line. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna announce the names of the finishers, whatever. That's how I got started and one thing led to another where, at my peak...

Before the pandemic, I was announcing 85, 90 races a year. Wow. Wow. That's definitely more than that's like at least like one to a weekend. Like, so you're a very busy person. I was at the time and still busy. It hasn't been the same since the pandemic, but I'm still up close to 55, 60 races.

Is this your main thing? Is this a side gig? Is this a hobby for you or is it just a passion of yours? Well, it started out as a passion and it became something that I was paid for. I also have a full-time job as a social worker, Monday through Friday, working with senior citizens. Oh, wow. But this is where my heart really is on Saturdays and Sundays. It's the same. We all have to have that normal nine to five, and you want to make sure it's something you enjoy that you can do for 40 hours a week, but then that...

passion project on the side, something you look forward to doing, whether it's at a Thursday night Millennium event or a weekend. I'll tell you, along those lines, I was at a race a number of years ago on a Sunday morning announcing, I'm getting paid, so this is my job. And it was on the, near the seacoast area where there's a bunch of warehouses. And I walk into the warehouse and these guys are working, know, pallets and lifting stuff.

It's a Sunday morning, seven o'clock, said, I can't imagine working at seven o'clock on a Sunday morning. Await. I'm working.

This does not feel like a job. Uh huh. This is not a job. I'm not working. They're working. You look forward to getting up and doing it like we woke up. The alarm went off at 5 30 this morning. Yeah. And I can't even get up at 5 30 to go for a run or go to my real job. this I can. Yeah. Like this is great. No problem getting out of bed. Even though I'm not running today. It like race day. starts getting excited about working on a Wednesday or Thursday? Two or three days before. Nobody. Nobody I know. I don't even call it Thursday. I call it Friday Eve. So I get excited for the weekend.

Yeah, it's just an incredible thing and as the two of you known as on the runs has grown just this community You know what I say is we all want to feel like we are a part of something. Yes now for everybody It's different. It could be a personal relationship. It could be family could be your church or temple. Whatever It could be the photography club for us Part of being feeling like we're part of something because we're part of the New Hampshire running community is really an incredible feeling So you're new are you New Hampshire based? Are you New Hampshire?

born and raised. us a little bit, like give us a three minute Andy Bio here. Born in New Hampshire, moved to New Jersey when I was five, came back to New Hampshire when I was 17, spent a few years in Boston, but I'm basically New Hampshire. I live in Dover, over by the seacoast, so I'm really part of the New Hampshire running community. What makes the New Hampshire running community so special is compared to other states, we're small population wise, of course. So I always feel this special pride that we're this small community and sometimes like

You know, we're in Massachusetts going up against the bigger state population. So I take a very special pride in being part of the New Hampshire running community. Yeah. So one thing you have in my mind is a legendary voice, because for years and years I've been doing all these millennium races and just races in general, New England. And I hear your voice. It was the New Hampshire 10 mile last year. I listened to all they do is take in podcasts and I listened to this one hockey podcast where they talk to a play by play announcer. You got to hear his whole

And I heard your voice at that New Hampshire 10-mile or and I said to her into a group chat We need to get someone who does this whether on a local level of national like I'm a big Mike Riley fan I'm sure you know who Mike Riley is absolutely right, and I said this would be so cool So we're very fortunate that one of our very close friends had a personal friendship with Jamie and so that that happened with Jamie and that's how we got the connection and then that's how we got DJ Darren Roy and then we met my John and now you're here and what I think is really

cool is you, Jamie and Darren are all very well known throughout these Millennium races, but you do it on your own too. So everything you bring in is your own gear. Like you have your own audio gear to do your own setup and everything. So tell me a little bit about that. So it's very interesting. when I was first doing this, as I mentioned in 1996, I was relying on other people's equipment and races will contact me, but I don't have the equipment. Yes. The Market Square Day 10K pouring rain.

you

the guy who was supposed to supply the equipment didn't show up. Oh no. I no equipment. I'm the finish line. So the timing company handed me a mega, you know, one of the mega phones. Yeah. And I used that and I drove away and I'll never forget this. And I said, I will never let that happen again. That afternoon I went to a store and bought sound equipment and said, nobody will ever, ever hold me back from doing my job. And that's how I, that's how I started with the sound equipment. Didn't know anything about sound.

I had YouTube at the time to learn it all. You didn't even probably have the internet. would say to me, how much is the water to whatever? said, I have no idea. I plug this stuff in and I talk. it's loud enough, I'm good. If it's not, I'll get louder equipment. So that's why I did that. And it started to, it was an advantage for me to convince races, if you hire me, you're not even going to have to worry about sound equipment. I'll provide you every

And I think that's what helped my reputation grow and my business grow. service and it's giving a vote of confidence to the company that's hiring you that they don't need to worry about everything. It's taken care of. You've got it covered. that's yeah, it's great. It's what I'm talking about lately with John. John's like, we're going to get to it. I go, it's OK. I can do it. I want to be self-sufficient. But he goes, no, we're, you know, they're first class. We're going to have it all set up for you. And I'm like, let's find a happy medium here because I don't want to be totally dependent either. And speaking of John, if you follow the growth of Millennium Running, that's

He started with A and then he added B and then he said so I've always joked with him. He had it sound equipment I said, but he's gonna draw the line. He better not start buying his own porta-johns ⁓ can you imagine I said John you park ten porta-johns in the backyard of your house Your wife is packing up the kids and leaving you in a second. So that's where you're gonna have to draw the line It's not gonna be ten porta-johns You better not you better not go self-sufficient with the poor

Because then you gotta buy the truck to dump it you can imagine if you guys are living in a house and all of sudden somebody says We're parking ten portage on in the back. Yeah, you know it just sounds like a shitty job ⁓ I've always joked with him. That's that's

Oh, Eric. That's where we're drawing the line. You better draw the line because think Jen is not going to be happy. Some things are better left to the professionals. Absolutely. You can keep going with making races larger. which also brings me to a story. When you do that, you're counting on other people. I was once the announcer of a triathlon company that did many triathlons every year for years. Their portage on company always would deliver the portage on tonight before one

One race, they said we're gonna bring them Sunday morning. They were late. ⁓ We can tell all the jokes we want.

But you've got hundreds of people with no portable bathrooms. You've got a problem. They had to find like a school that was willing to let them use their facilities like half a mile down the road. wow. So, you know, it's one of those things. And speaking of which, I have actually been at a couple of races where they said we don't need your equipment, but I brought it anyway and the sound company forgot to show up and they needed my equipment. Wow. Wow. So you've done this. You started in 96 well before Millennium D. Two questions.

Do you remember the first Millennium Mile? Like you're involved in the community and then how did you get your start with John and Millennium? So I was not part of his first Millennium Mile which was brought in the new Millennium hence the name Millennium Running. I don't remember which year it was. was one of the early years where John was he was in a race director. He and his friend had started Millennium Mile and he knew who I was as an announcer so he contacted me then just to do some of the announcements.

announcing at his millennium mile. But I remember back 15 years ago, he sent me the email. He and Jen are moving up from Kentucky. We're starting this business.

And he explained, but at the time he was not talking about putting on his own races. So he was just doing logistics behind the scenes. Then he calls me. He said, Andy, do you know that there's a St. Patrick's Day parade in Manchester? I said, John, I'm in Dover. I did not know that. He said, I'm thinking of starting a two mile road race.

to kick off the parade. What do you think? I I closed my eyes and I imagined hundreds of people in green running up and down Elm Street. And I said, John, it's going to be huge. It's going to be huge. That's a beautiful start to the Shamrock Shuffle. So that's how the Shamrock Shuffle got started. A very cold, windy day. Now the funny thing about John, John had hired two people. One of them was sick. So there's two of them to do everything. There's over 1200 people signed up. John is on a ladder like five minutes before the start of the race, hanging something up.

up

over the start line and I said, he's gonna learn. directors do not be standing on ladders, should not be standing on ladders five minutes before the start of the race. he, and of course he's evolved into this incredible I don't know if he's learned, I saw him when we pulled in, he had a speaker above his head and Michael had to run over and help him put it on the that was two hours before the start. This was five minutes, but it was just 20. And then I remember he calls me, did you know that there's a Santa, a Christmas parade in Manchester?

I told you I live in Dover. I don't really follow man. And he said I'm gonna start a race and everybody's gonna get a Santa suit and I picture close my eyes picture hundreds of people running up and down Elm Street the Santa suits and I thought this is really gonna be huge and it was it was these holiday themed races that got John started and I was very flattered and that he turned to me because of all of the race announcing I had done in New Hampshire and I've been with him ever since that's cool. That's cool. So outside of Millennium

People hear your voices at other races. You mentioned the code Brown earlier I'm gonna call it a code Brown That was when your your speakers or your your audio gear didn't show up But what are some other memorable moments you had whether it was good or bad at a race like did you ever? Call somebody across the finish line like a Bill Clinton or a presidential candidate during the primary or did you ever have something go wrong? Where you like how do I recover from this? Well, I've had some equipment problems that I'll just gloss over that I'll tell you my favorite moments as a racer now

The first time somebody broke 14 minutes at a 5k at the Delta dental signal at 5k it had never been happened before that was incredibly exciting, but I think my favorite one is this the most what I call prestigious and iconic race in New Hampshire is the Mount Washington Road Race. The Delta dental Mount Washington Road Race. was a guy from St. State College Pennsylvania named with George Edsweiler who became legendary was actually doing the race into his late 90s. He was 91 years

He was going to do it when he was 90, but he was injured. He was 91 years old. He finishes the race. This is just an incredible thing. I'm standing on the stage at the awards ceremony. Race director comes up to me and says, we need to start with the awards. We need to announce George as the finisher. 91 years old. Wow. the Delta 10th on Mount Washington Road Race. I got emotional. Like, my god, what am I about to do? And the race director said, are you OK? I said, I can't believe I'm a

about to announce an award winner of the Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race, who's 91 years old. And that's probably my favorite. Oh, I love it. most disappointing thing is related to that. George was turning 100 in 2020, and he was determined he was going to finish the race. And the race was canceled because of the pandemic. was never capable of coming back and passed away a few months

ago depriving us what I was telling people this isn't just going to be a New Hampshire moment this is going to be the CBS evening news right yeah this is going to be a national story a 100 year old man going from the bottom to the top of the Mount Washington Auto Road and that's probably my most disappointing experience that I never got a chance to announce George finishing in his 100 year old. is a bummer. You were still part of history though that's absolutely incredible.

Oh man, that's gotta be, it made me think of Betty White. What, seven days before her, like 14 days before her 100th birthday, the magazines and everything. I already took the photos and did everything it was gonna drop on her birthday, and she passed away right before. Oh, that is a bummer, but this is super cool. Listen, I think...

We're hoping to do more with Millennium next year, not just races, but like a little Millennium series. And we want to talk to everyone. Millennium, Millennium Running Club, Millennium employees, get some behind the scenes. And I love to hear these kind of stories. So I really hope you'll come back one day. Absolutely. For a real episode, your own thing, not a quick 10, 15 minutes at a race with a band playing in the background and all that. But listen, it is truly been an honor because I've been running. We've only been doing this podcast for 192 episodes now.

but a few years. We've been running a lot longer and your voice is one we always hear. It's that voice. It's a legendary voice. forward to hearing it. I'm flattered. don't just do the big races. You do the kids races too. And I'm a part of that because my kid did the triathlon the past three or four years. And you're doing those races too. You're not just doing you know you're not picking and choosing. You're just doing it because it's a fun passion of yours. Yeah. Well I appreciate it. You know it's my way of saying to all of you. I always tell the story.

It's like you have a job, you're given a report, you walk into your boss's office, hand the report, the boss looks at it and says in five seconds, wow, this looks really great. And how better you feel versus just tossing it on the desk and not saying anything. The fact that the boss took three or four seconds to say, boy, you did really great at the end is how you feel when you hear somebody announce your name at the finish. It's like you have accomplished something pretty extraordinary. And we're going to acknowledge that in front of in front of everybody. That's what I what I.

I'm trying to bring when I'm announcing at the finish of a race. And you do a wonderful job of it, too. It's very nice of you to say that. Yeah. Last question, actually. When you're reading all those names and they come in really fast, how do you manage that? I just experienced. Yeah. I've just learned how to do it. I've just you know, they come down a screen fast and I've just it's one of those things anybody you do it enough. As I jokingly say, I better have figured it out by now. Yeah. I think you nailed it. Not only that, he doesn't like rush through it. He he take it's like

Eric Hamill, Goths Down, New Hampshire. It's almost like you're just reading it and you're taking your time. You're not rushing like Eric Hamill, Andy, Jamie, Mike, John, Eric. You put a lot of good work into it. We can talk about the prep you do when you come back for your real episode. Well, again, I'm very honored and very flattered to be a part of this. Yeah, this will be a lot of fun. We're going to do some fun things. So thanks for coming. The band was playing for us. The 5K is about to start now. No, the 5K is we go.

He's got to get ⁓ out of here. You can't wait to hear you announce the winners. That's right. Well, Andy, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Take care. Guys, Andy Saktik on the On the Runs podcast. That's why I can't raise an ounce because I can't pronounce last names that well. But Andy was awesome. I'm super glad when I saw him and he was talking about it. So there he is. He's like, he's got to make it. He literally probably has like three minutes until the first finisher. He's running right now to.

his spot. So we got to thank him for joining us. That was that was a cool nugget of information. You know what else is cool. And I talked to John about this with Tom Raphael when he came out. Some people just know how to talk into a microphone. See, he's had practice and it shows what he's doing. Yeah. And we think I don't know if you can hear him, but that's him right now. That's him right now talking on his microphone. He legit just ran over there. That was great, guys. I hope you enjoyed that. We'll be back with more in a little bit.

I'm on it,

Eric (38:54)
That was a half-assed thing. People are running really fast right now in this area to see the finish. I think the 5K is about to It's got to be. 5K is about to finish. We're actually standing. We're excited. We're excited for this. I even know. Are we cut off on the video? Oh, well, he. People are running like wicked fast.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. I'm trying to think. Where's the ambulance to go? The ambulance is right behind the arch. Alright, so nobody needs the med tent yet. No. think it's just precautionary. Yeah.

No, this is okay. But I see people facing that direction, there's also people facing that direction. Where sprinting for a second and I was like, where are they they going to see? The finish. We got, this is cool. This is cool. The band's cool. I did see a whole bunch of people when we were talking to Andy ran right along the water and they went towards the right. So do they come back that way? Hey, can Man, I should have studied a map. Can we talk about something else? That's really cool. Sure, sure. Over there. Yes. They have saunas.

And an ice bath. So I'll make a deal with you. Oh, oh, oh. I will go in the sauna. No. If you go in the ice bath. No, no. I'm already bundled up enough. I want nothing to do with being colder. I do want. Oh, man, I do kind of want to check out the sauna. I mean, the sauna is perfect for day like today. It's 47 degrees. Like you finish the race, you go in the sauna. I see somebody coming.

And I see the photographers getting ready. where they're coming from this direction. Red shirt. There we go. We got our five K winner. Well, don't don't don't call it so yet. He hasn't crossed the finish line. OK, now he's the winner. He crossed the finish line. So the clock says 1957 when the first female. Wow. Oh, wow. There we go, girl. Go, girl. Let's go.

It's Amber. We get to talk to Amber. Amber. Amber.

So we get to talk to the winners eventually and we had Amber Amber's gotta come on the podcast. We've had Amber on the podcast before we got to record at her house. Amber no way. Okay. I'm not going to bug like like she's congratulating the men's Give her a minute. And that's ⁓ who's that talking to her? That's That's Barry. She's going to take the photo.

Amazing. They're talking about the course and everything. Let's see if she can. Oh, look at those super shoes she has. Those look good. Those are like OTR blue. We got to talk. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be our. Listen, we don't want to know how the race went. Where did you get those shoes? Did get them from Relay Goods? Because I've seen them. All right. So now we got some more finished. These are very fast.

Like this is a fast course. If people are still coming in, let's go. think I think we should definitely shout out my race tats, by the way. Oh, absolutely. I wonder if she has some right socks on those feet. She should. We can ask her all the hard hitting questions. We got more finishers coming in. Oh, we need to get Amber on the podcast. We do. This is cool. This is because we are. mean, we're.

30 feet from Amber right now. We're 30 feet from the finish line. Can I just tell you how fun this is to just be commentating and to not really have to do any running today? Typically, we're like in the back of the pack. Yeah. The last time I did this was the 10 miler to the New Hampshire 10 miler. And it was just like I literally had to finish my race and immediately come over here. I was sweaty. Where Amber? Oh, there she is. Oh, Amber ran a 20 oh three. Oh, wow. Goranson is the overall winner with a 1950. OK.

Nice. Very fun. Let's see if I can get her attention here. I'm waving. She's kind of looking. does she got her kids with her? Yeah, of course. Little Charlie and Ollie. Yeah. Well, those kids are bigger than Charlie and Ollie. Maybe they're around somewhere. guy just finished the 5K. He's acting like it's no big deal. I mean, he just ran a 20-minute 5K. I can't run a 20-minute be dead. I'd be in the med tent. I'd be in the med tent, guys.

There's Andy's voice. ⁓ man. Legendary. All right. So this guy in the red, though, let's be honest. He just looks like your average Joe regular runner and very very obviously handing him stuff right now. ⁓ I thought she was waving to me. was some. She gave a kid a high five. totally ignoring him. Well, no, she doesn't know I'm here, guys. She wouldn't do that. We all know Amber. ⁓ man. Amber has the most beautiful running form, by the way. Do you see her knees? How high they get when she runs? She runs the.

I tried to do that the other day during my run and it felt amazing but it felt hard to continue for miles and miles and you have to work on it, perfect it, make it natural. So here's this guy who acts like it's no big deal. He just finished, he's walking fine. He's got some sock and he's shooting. He's number 2373. So we got Bubba Wallace and Charlie McAvoy there, 2373. That's how I look at numbers. I'm like, okay, what was his number? Okay, Bubba Wallace, Charlie McAvoy. That's how I

Look them up. All right, now they're standing on the podium. We got the winner in third place. Third place got quite a bit of hair, but we're second place. Well, that's the guy who just walked by, maybe. I don't know.

I wonder if anybody's going to be able to ring that PR bell over there. That was the bell that I got to ring after I ran the cheap marathon this year. So that's a lot of fun to do. I really hope people get a chance to do that today. I'd love to hear some on the mic. Don't lose eyes on Amber. This is cool. Guys, we're going to work on getting Amber. We're going to take a break on this pod. And I'm going to go and say, yo, girl, got to come on the pod again. there she is.

She's have her She has requirements right now for winning this race. Yeah. Okay, when you win a race.

You don't just get to go. You got to take photos. You got to do the hat dance. They do it. NASCAR. If they had a dance, they don't do that for one. They could do it. They could totally do it. I they get their trope. They get a check. They should get a big check. John, you to the big check. So you mentioned that this is a the the Grand Prix race for New England. Is this the final race of the year or are there more to come? Don't know. We need a grand prix personnel to tell us about it. All right. I don't know. I'm to look into it. Yeah. Here come the.

This is cool. So there's the winner. Red shirt. Nice work, Peter. Congratulations. 2120. And that was a 1950. That is fast. I don't know. I can't read the font way over there to see what the pace for me. mean. What I do notice is the one in one. So that's pretty cool. You know what? So if it's a 1950, I am

under the impression that's actually like this must be a very hilly course. I feel like some people can do like a 15 minute we're going to have to ask Amber. I'm going to take a break. I to go. I'm going to go tell her to come over here before the end. We'll be back guys in a little bit. You got

Eric (45:55)
somebody joining us who just ran the 5K. What's your name? Finn. Hi, Finn. How did everything go this morning? It was beautiful. Over the bridges, just seeing the water and the ships and the boats and absolutely beautiful. What bridge do you run over? The ones over there, like the two little ones or did you run over the big one? we don't go over the big one, but it

It

was just so beautiful. People are super nice. It's so fitting that your name is Finn too, by the way. We're at the ocean. And are you Finnish like me? I'm a Finn. Irish. You're Irish? Yeah. Well, that's pretty cool too. So you rent the 5K. Yes. Are you from the area? I'm from Methuen. OK. I teach fitness at Cedardale. ⁓ my god. I went to Cedardale all the time as a kid. Very nice. Yeah. Love the connection. There's a guy there. His name was PT. His name wasn't PT.

did PT, his name was Andy. can't think of his last name. Andy took care of my shoulder from Cedardale. What's his last name? I have no idea. you know what talking about. You know the other fun thing about Andy? He taught me how to drive a stick. Really? Yes. That's a skill that does not really exist anymore. His kids went to Timberlane, where I went. And I think his son or daughter was my brother's age. And as I was bored at soccer practice and I just started driving, he took me out in his Tacoma and taught me how to drive a stick. Nice.

like 15 times in the Timberland Middle School parking lot. Actually, do have a little bit of drama that happened at the end. Do tell. We love this. I want to hear about it. Some woman shoved a sign in my face that said, is better than the government's running. it is. So I just went, not here. Well, you know what is fun is you do see some creative signs. I'll go with the opposite of government. Yeah. But in a triathlon, they always have a

sign that says smile if you peed your pants like peed in your wet suit. Hey, you don't have to do a half marathon. You could do a 5K and pee your pants. could. No judgment here. People do get very creative. ⁓ So you're from the Thuart. Do you typically do Millennium races or do you just do races in Newburyport area? What's your deal? Next week, I'm going to do the Healy 5K. He was the Navy SEAL that went back and got all his troops out and was killed as a Navy SEAL.

We do that every year. Where's that? That's in Exeter, New Hampshire. Oh, OK. That's not too far from us. of that one. Yeah, Dan Healy. I've heard the name Dan Healy. OK. It's for him. Yeah. Now, how many years have you done that race? This will be my third. OK. And then the week after is the Spartan race in Fenway. You just do races every weekend. No, no. I eat like a toddler. I eat chicken fingers and fries all You're a girl after my own heart. absolutely. So you're very involved. You're in this running community quite a bit, it seems.

You do something almost every weekend. It's it's it is I did it for social because I hated running right, right? That's that's the same for us. Love is a We all have a love-hate relationship with running. Yeah, but it's the people in the community that make it so much better Especially right now like nobody's rushing to get out of here after the run Whether they grab a beer food or some shopping at the enjoy your life book, right? Yeah, and you finish quite early. How would how did your race go? What was your time? 33 which is it? Well, I like

I'm 56. So like, no way. Guys, guys, she looks like I'm like, she's 36. Looks like you did amazing. I heard this course was not an easy one. Yeah. And yeah, crushed it. Have you ever run like a marathon, a world major or do you just strictly stick local? No, I've just done local. a half marathon in Tiana and I timed with an 80 year old.

man. That's amazing. My friends took a picture of me like crossing the line with the hyenas. Was that the one in like February or March early in year? This is like years ago with like the Kennedy compound we went by. I feel like I know that one. That's not an easy course either. Good for you. I did it for the food. Yeah the food, the drinks, the people, the comedy. Especially here you got to make sure you get your pizza. There's also beer if you

So choose to have one.

is looking for me because she's got the keys to my car. Oh, I'm like, wait, she's on a radio show right now or a podcast? I'll get Sherry over here. She's like the mayor. We are running, and everyone's like, Sherry. Yeah. This area is beautiful, too. I love it. So it's cool. Yeah, bring her over in a little bit. would love to have her on here more about it. But Finn, this is so cool. I your Thanks for stopping by. I'll never forget it, too, because it's just like, I'm a Finn. You're Finn. This is so cool. And you're at Muthuin's great. So no, we love it. We love it. Thank you.

I you guys have a wonderful day. I cry every time they play taps and like raise a lot of money for ⁓ the I would be there but I'll be in New York so yeah but that's you know that's awesome we've got to check that out for next year have a great time and thanks for having me thanks for coming on awesome that was fun that was fun

Eric (51:13)
We have the original OG owner, operator, race director of this race. Something just fell. there we go. Bye, Finn. Tell us who you are.

Oh, it would be best if I turned up my thing on yeah cool. Thanks for having me. Absolutely Yes, I'm Eli Bailen and I this has been my race since 2011 Amazing we were wondering about the history of this because this is my first time being in the Newberryport area for this whole shebang and it's awesome it started off as uh me just going to a lot of races with my wife and she was always a into races and I used to always go to them and run in them as well and

Being from New Report knowing the running community in New Report and there was never a half marathon here. I had no idea anything about what I was doing. was like, I'm just gonna do put a half marathon on and Yeah, it generally stayed has stayed similar in terms of the course It started the first year right on the other side of those buildings is a private club that I'm part of called the the North End Boat Club Okay, so that's where actually it finished and then when it started to grow we brought it over here to like

cash report. Very nice. Yeah. Are you originally are you like born and raised Newport. Yeah, I 50 yards away. way. backyard. This is my backyard. The dog park on the other side of this field. That's my backyard. Yeah, that's amazing. So she's never been here. Yeah. I've been here hundreds of times. ⁓ Exactly where we're sitting right now. My dad and I would park the truck in the trailer right here. We always we have a season pass for cash and park. We in sand down New Hampshire. Okay. We truck 40 minutes to get here. I actually

go farther now because I'm in Manchester. But we go out here all the time in the Marimack. I've been going to the Yankee Homecoming for years and years and years. It's amazing. I haven't been in a few now since kids, but like it's such a cool fun. My dad actually used to work in Newport. And in the summer, I'd go with him, ride and grab my bike and ride my bike all around Newport. And just the whole area is amazing. The sandbars when the tides down. yeah. And he's from Gloucester. So sometimes you actually take the boat from here and go all the way to Gloucester.

this area I love when I saw it was here. I was like this is awesome. Nice. I was so excited. Glad you made it. This is your first time coming to a race here? Yes. You mentioned Yankee Homecoming which is obviously like a week long but we also have that Yankee Homecoming race that's here. That's got a lot of history. That's like 60 plus years in now. Wow. Yeah. earlier you came by we didn't know you were but you pointed at your hoodie you go I got the OG. Yeah so okay so the way this started was when I first came up with the idea of doing a half marathon

and I met with the mayor, Donna Holliday, the time, we were just talking, I wanna do this race, and I also was on the cross country team, and that coach, who's a great coach, still the cross country coach for New Report High this year, we still have all the New Report High cross country runners on the course as volunteers. I love it. And ⁓ so we all went, and anyway, she had asked about, is it gonna be maybe a theme to the race? And we thought about it, and I said, well,

not gonna do a Halloween because that already kind of existed knowing that we wanted to do it like late October. Yes. And we're like well New Report had just gotten some sort of like green certification. I was like well what if we do things that are you know kind of like just promote sort of the like recycle stuff or whatever it was. So I came up with the name Green Stride. So the Green Stride Half Marathon that first year but then after that first year when I really like loved putting on races I started putting on more races like locally Salisbury, Amesbury and

And so I kind of just called the company Green Stride and then this was just immediately became the New Brayport half marathon I say very bad. So that's sort of kind of cool to hear the evolution of things, right? This race at over 5,000 people before Wow, yeah like you're for I took on the partnership with race wire You know those guys were and I've been doing it solo for three years and it was you know gaining track like first year was maybe 1200 then 15 16 plus hundred. Yeah

then I was using Racewire at the time and they were they wanted to start kind of being part of races owning or whatever and so they had a big network I wasn't aware of so it went from like one year like 1600 to over 5000. Wait what? And that was and we used to do the start right on Merrimack Street like that for that year I think it took like 10-15 minutes for the last person to cross the start line. ⁓ wow. That's a huge jump. How do you get cash from park? Like

Maybe, mean, we just winterized the boat. But like, I don't know, when does this park close for taking the boats in and out? So it's not officially closed yet, but so, cool thing about being from here is that like the harbor master who kind of controls right where we are now is a close friend of mine. And so we just worked together with him to basically after, what's it, what's the Columbus day, right? That or, you know, that,

long weekend, it slows down a lot. We actually technically do stay open for boats coming in and out, like even right now. Boats coming in and out, we're not going to stop them. But we don't really need the parking lot. Like if there are those few boats, there is a few parking spots open for that. So hasn't ever been an issue in terms of you know, boats trying to get in and not being able to, things like that. That's great. Tell me a little bit about the partnership with Millennium because I see you got the Millennium shirt.

So yeah, so just when you then when I was in the industry you just get to know everybody else right like that's it and he had been friends with John forever John's obviously a great person that I working with him and I mean he took him and I kind of started around the same time but he took it to another whole level like you know John is a person and we're like buddies but like I'm like all over the place I pride myself on certain like creativities but like from an organizational standpoint I like to partner with guys like John yeah so ⁓

So he was interested in just kind of growing and he wanted it so so like I said green stride Was a bunch of races I like I came up with the idea of like the cheap marathon, you know about that I heard that every year. It used to be here. It's always great. Yeah, because I did the St. Patty's race now, so he basically I partnered with John on green stride except this race because I had a different partnership with this race. So that wasn't ever originally part

of the Green Stride combination. but then at the same time as that was happening, ⁓ COVID happened. So he, and there was more leniency in New Hampshire. that's the reason why St. Patty's in the Cheap Marathon kind of immediately moved to New Hampshire. Right. Where he has them now. But yeah, but that idea for the Cheap Marathon came from like

Take care.

where I was doing the St. Patty's, which is a great area, lots of parking, but overall it's not expensive to put on an event. don't really shut down roads. So I, so being able to kind of make that looped course in the area in Salisbury, this dead flat, was like, want to qualify, certify a course, make it $26.20. And John's able to kind of carry that on. Yeah. This is her favorite races. I PR'd there this year. Yeah. So that was a great race.

So anyway, so as far as the partnership, it started with all of the Grease Dried, Earth Rock Run, whatever other races I This is all ringing bells now. I totally recognize all your races. And then... ⁓

So Racewire, my partnership, they got bought out by a big company. So this is even before my partnership with John. so that kind of, I was part of that with New Report, but stayed on as the race director. ⁓ whatever ended up kind of going on with Racewire, when sort of my contract was up with them and they were figuring out what they were doing, I was able to bring Millennium on.

to help manage the course. Like I was able to get them hired, you know, because again, I was the race director, but still just a one man show. So I wanted to still bring all this. And so when they were ready to, when Millennium, when Racewire or whatever they were called, Stack, think, ⁓ was, kind of doing away with their races at that point, then me and John went to the table and said, all we want to take it back. That's nice. So now it's been officially kind of Millennium for this, this is third year.

I think so because that's when this became on my radar. Yeah, that's when it came on my right Let me tell you so since you're from here you you live. Yeah, there. Yeah, there All right, so I've been here like I said a lot. Yeah, really New Hampshire guy. Yeah, I've been here quite a bit I do know right on the other side of river of Salisbury is a rail trail that has a dead end and then there's rail trails right here 50 feet from us and the only thing missing the connection is the river and you have this bridge and I've gone over that bridge many times on a bike

When I'm not supposed to ride my bike over I'm supposed to walk in it says I don't know if you have any power in the town But how could we one day maybe connect those two make it like a ⁓ fun way? Yeah, said you've been here hundreds of times But you must not have really been here much over the last year because guess what they connect ⁓

Wait through the bridge right they they so is that different from five years ago? Yes, okay? Yes, so it is so So they connect so basically here when you're done with here walk over there. You'll see exactly they are so the way it is now what the way that bridge used to be and job is that it was two lanes on each ⁓ Each direction for cars traffic. Yes, even though it was never really needed Because it's just never that busy so they turned it into

One lane for car traffic with a nice big buffer and then they connect the rail trails to to have like the biking walking path big buffer in car traffic and it connects right to the rail trail the other side So yeah, you're asking about the future Newburyport Marathon, that now makes it lot easier to extend those 13 miles ⁓ that would be great because no it has been about five years because I haven't biked this area since the twins are born and they're four

So I would bike from Manchester to Plum Island. And I would hit that rail trail, go across the bridge, get to Plum Island, and then let my wife and my daughter be out there with their friends, I would drive back. But I'm always like, I'll bike to the beach, and I'll ride back with you guys after. Yeah. Yeah, so now it's great because the rail trail over the bridge or the bike lane is on both sides. So let's say you're coming from downtown, and you want to get over the bridge, but then get onto the rail trail in Salisbury. It's really easy.

transition where you get you'll see the opening for the rail trail you go over the bridge and then you can go under the bridge so you don't even have to cross the you the route one traffic okay you go under the bridge and it just connects to the rail trail in Salisbury I'm gonna check it out yeah originally I was going to tell you to take the old train bridge ⁓ every time the bridge goes up for a boat just the train bridge also turns and I thought it would be so cool on a bike or runner but no I'm glad to hear that that was

was hoping to get somebody like you or the mayor or whoever and be like, yo, how can we connect those two? They already did it. They're on top of and there's more going on. you're going be able to take this to the real trail to Maine. Wow. Yes. And it's already connected a lot. I you might know up there, like, through Hampton and everything. Right. And there's really just a few small pieces. There's really just a few small pieces that they've got to kind of connect to make it all just flow nice and seemingly. It's going to be great. I take my bike there all the time. I take my kids. They can see.

Eventually,

you're gonna be able to ride from Lebanon to Manchester all the way to Portsmouth and jump on that one in Maine and do it's gonna be great when we connect them all and then Strava heat maps just gonna have that all over. That's my goal. Yeah, that's good maps. This is so cool Yeah, it's just so cool to have you on. I'm glad we did this. I'm glad you came over Yeah, it's our magic. You're gonna have to go on that podcast. Yeah, they're talk to you then Michael walked over because they're ready for you ⁓

Because you stopped by earlier and you just kind of said something with and I was like, okay cool green stride. Okay, cool I should you know what I could do because I live very close You know come back with the original The original medal. Oh for this was a yo-yo. Oh professional I've always been the idea Reuse recycle all that. Yeah, you know that was kind of like the idea of it and I can remember with like my kids that were like two and four years old at the time or helping me

like rubber band little like lanyards on like a yo-yo that just had like grease right on it. That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, hey, it's a great day. Great event. The weather turned out a little windy. Yeah. Yeah. Breeze always kind of picks up, you know, over by the waterfront. But we'll come with a beautiful care, right? is great. Late October on the seacoast can be a few sometimes. We got an epic day. Great job. It was so nice to meet thank you for having me. Guys, really appreciate it. Guys, I hope you enjoyed that. You got a little story there.

of the New River Port Half Marathon and maybe one day soon. Yeah, marathon. The full one's coming. That'd be awesome, guys. Enjoy. I hope you enjoyed that. Thank you so much, ⁓ man, everything's blowing away. It is windy. Thank you. you. Thank you. It is windy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what you get with doing a live podcast.

Eric (1:05:22)
All right, we got our next guest on the pod. got Sherry here. Sherry is a friend of Finn and we love Finn because we met her earlier. Finn just got third in her age group, the way. Congratulations, Finn. So did I. You did too! We got a couple of winners. You got a cool little bottle here. Let's show that bottle off right here. This is what the third place? Yeah. Well, actually, think any, well, except for probably like the real winners. Hey, it's still something and you guys get to count it. Yeah. And it gets some pizza. You got, yeah. go wrong with Have you had a bite yet?

we get a pizza score here? Can we get a score live on the Yes, exactly. Remember, no rookie scores. No rookie scores. Hold on, let me see. One bite, everybody knows the rule. Crust looks bubbly.

One bite one bite everybody knows the rules. She's thinking, you know, she knows she knew right away Dave like a Dave score. ⁓ Yeah, yeah new report half marathon pizza score. What do you got? well

don't think it's gonna be a good one. Well, maybe. Seven. Oh, that's a rookie score though. Seven, you gotta give it a point. Point what? Seven point three. Okay, I like that. Three for Dale, three for finishing third. I'd still eat it. warm, it might be. Oh, wow. Yeah. Nice. We know Finn is from Methuen. Where are from? Salisbury. Oh, you're right across. Yeah, I'm right over the river. Did you swim here? Did you take a kayak? I would not go in that river. It's gross. Oh, I've been in that river for

so

many times. So you're a local, we'll call it. Do you run this area a lot? Do you run the rail trail right across the river on the That area just connects now. Yes. I only run when I pay for it. Oh, that's the way. I like that. And when there's free beer and pizza at the end? I don't drink, I give away, I find a thirsty person. only a 7.3 pizza. Like they should have done you better. don't know. So do you do local races like this?

Or do you paid to go and do big races somewhere else? ⁓ usually smaller races usually ones with a You know good cause Dan Healy Healy Healy. Yes, know a Dan Healy. Yes, Dan Healy. Yes, we've done that one for the past few years. They have a nice shirt this year. So like Finn you might not run for free you just pay to run but

You do a lot of races. You may be Spartan in a couple of weeks. She's doing Spartan. I've already done it a million times. I'm kind of done with it. I call them ankle breakers. Oh, yeah. Once you get older, everything starts to hurt. What are some of your favorite races locally? I like the Flag Day 5K. Yeah. Do that one.

Boy. hangover classic. that's always a good one. And then you jump in the ocean after New Year's Day. You like to pull her pledge. I'm not a fan. Are you going to do the cold pledge that they have here? No, absolutely not. either. answer. Sauna, yes. I think I want to go sit in my car and warm up. but good choice. The hangover classic's really fun. Yeah. The Winter Circle running club has ⁓ Great Salisbury Square. OK, so well center. of course.

it's coastal then you jump in the water yes yeah yeah it's awesome but yeah erika's like no you have to do it as soon as you finish running yeah otherwise if you have time to think about it you're done yeah but the thing is you get a popsicle stick and with that popsicle stick you get a pint glass that says you know polar plunge you know i do like the swag i could probably be convinced but then i would regret it yeah you have to bring like a snuggie and have like some stuff to change

What's it called you only live once why oh hello, hello, yo, come on Erica I'm trying to get her to do some of these things that make her It's invigorating. It's a great way to start the year That is a better way to get me to do something because he's trying to get me to do a triathlon I don't want anything to do. She's just scared of water. I'm not scared of water. I just am not a great

usually swimming in these lakes and ponds. You get kicked in the face too? You do and you have like these creepy stuff like touching you. Not a fan. all I think is I'm going to look down and I'm going to see a dead body. Oh, God. New fear of luck. New many are in the river? Because you said this river's gross. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. all kinds of bodies wash up in Salisbury. Yeah. Yeah. But we're in Newburyport. This is the nice side. This is nice side. Well, this is so cool. So you got the big one in Exeter next weekend. But what is in the future for

Oh

boy. wise? Yeah, race wise. Okay, let's see what else do we have going on.

Is there a hangover classic in your future? There is. Manchester. Thanksgiving. Well, not that you're going to do a marathon, but Manchester weekend's coming up where they got the 5K and a half there. OK. So that's November. And then you got Thanksgiving races all over. What turkey truck do you do? I am doing the one in sorry, Fortsmouth. Oh, yeah. So it's straight down in Strawberry Bay. Yeah. It's a nice Beautiful area. Beautiful area. That's cool.

Are there any fun stories you have from a race? So here's the deal. We're the on the run podcast. We have stories, good and bad, including code Brown. But are there any memorable stories? It can be a good story or bad story, something that's like, my God, I can't believe that happened. I'm never going to tell anyone. And then one day you tell a podcast because you just think you're having a fun conversation with two cool dudes. Dude, dude. I'll ⁓ take it. I call everybody. I don't know if I mean this one right here.

She's got some. Do you typically run together? Not together, but we run a lot of races. I usually sign up for a race and I say, I'm doing this. And then she'll say, OK, I'm going to do it. And we have another guy that usually comes with us, too. He left. And he's been running for about, he's one that would have some stories, but he's gone. He's been running for over 50 years. Wow. Yeah. You do accumulate a lot of stories before running that

you stories from his first run where he ran his one run that nobody else showed up to. He was the only person because there was a snowstorm. So he came in first and last.

That is the best thing I've ever heard. I don't think I've ever thought of it like an opportunity to do that. That's awesome. Completely insane. Yeah. Yeah. He just was like, yeah, I'm nuts. And I'm like, you think I'm going to show up and get the winners award for a Millennium Running Store or something. Yeah. Well, it's cool. What a day we had. What is it? Where are you guys from? So we're a New Hampshire based podcast. I'm in Manchester. She's in Nashville. And we've been doing this for a few years now. 192 episodes.

Wow, that's incredible. We have a lot of fun talking to people like yourself. We just love to hear about people's experiences and what drives them to run and whether you run for fun or run because you paid for it. Everybody's got their own stories. I run because I teach through fitness classes so you always have to be on at the gym and people are like, so here, it takes me out of my comfort zone. I hate it when I'm doing it, but when I'm finished.

I'm like, oh, I'm glad I did it. Kind of like racing. You're like, why did I do this? And then you're like, oh, I did the damn thing. Because you mentioned Cedar Dale earlier. Yes. So what's Cedar Dale like today? Because I haven't been there in 20 plus years. It's awesome. Yeah. They burned down probably six or seven years ago. Oh, wow. And so they rebuilt it. And it's just, I've been teaching there for over 20 years. Wow. And is it there a park? And the park might be called Cedar Dale, but there's like some park around

a pond or something with maybe two miles of trails that go around the pond. would, so I went to Timber Lane in Plac D'Als, not too far. And so we would go to this place to run and do training runs. I feel like it was next door to Seardale. It's incredible. It's Winokitty Castle. Yes, Winokitty Castle. That's the name. Yeah. Beautiful area to run and walk or dog walk or whatever. So yeah. Yeah. No, it's a great spot. It's funny bringing up nostalgia here. I'm here. I come here, you know, lucky if I'm here three

times a year now versus I used to come to this place all the time with my dad we take the boat up right here. Oh and then but that you mentioned Cedardale Winni-Kinney. Oh so much nostalgia. How do you say that word nostalgia? Nostalgic. nostalgic. Yes. Cedardale is totally different than it was back Well I remember when they had like the huge play area for kids with the tubes and all the slides and everything and kind of like a McDonald's play place on steroids. Wow. So a lot of parties and all that.

batting cages and everything still to you. Yeah. All kinds of fun. I'm going to have to go check it out. But this is cool. Congratulations on your third place. Finish three for Dale. Yeah. Thank you for the pizza review. Thank you for the poop sticker. Yeah. His name is Stooley Stooley and he likes to travel. So if you find anywhere cool that has a sticker, just pop him up there. And he has an Instagram account called Stooley in the wild. Oh, Stooley. Take a view. Oh, he's going to be all over the place. Erica's in love with the pins.

I'll be honest if you put a stoolie on your water bottle, it's a conversation starter. Everybody loves Feel free to take, we have a whole bunch. I do have stickers on my water bottle. They also have them on my iPad. There you go. This is great. So thank you so much for stopping by. The hoodie looks amazing by the way. The hoodie looks amazing. and Finn did good. Finn, thank you for bringing her by. She's on Soulful Media right

You did great! you for bringing her by. This was a lot of fun. Guys, I hope you enjoyed that. us out. great. We'll be on YouTube in a couple days, so enjoy. Awesome. Thank you so much. that was super cool.

Eric (1:15:52)
That was so cool of to come by and bring her friend who got third. Yeah, Sherry. Third Sherry, three for two. Sherry, you guys are amazing. We got Michael over here doing some push-ups. Michael's doing... Now can we get some one-handed push-ups? Nice work. He's got no shoes. I love it.

What a day we got guys, what a day. The half marathon finishers are about to come through I think. The half marathon is already going man. No finishers, finishers. Yeah. ⁓

It's like we already have a bunch of we missed the winner then because I was just we're probably talking to finner somebody Yes, yes, I think that was a case We did I did see Mike Durkin finish. I don't believe he won, but he did very well I think he was maybe like sure that hair was flowing beautifully. I saw it, it was gorgeous. Yeah And Amber so I talked to Amber earlier. We were mentioning Amber and she won the girls race I went and talked to her I said come by she was going on a cool down run I I think her cool down run

is actually longer than her race. that cracks me up. I appreciate these. I'm going to call them legit athletes, even though everybody here is an athlete. But they are so regimented in their cooldowns and warmups. They really are leaving it all out there. So they have to do a quality warmup and cooldown. I would just try it around for like five minutes and see what happens. But she's really putting in the work. Let's talk about Amber for a second. Have you seen these photos? She did a race yesterday.

Photos all of social media. Do you see her stride? Do you see her knee? She's got she's like running form a goal So I looked at this stride these pictures in the form and I went on my run yesterday and I tried running like that It made a mass it made I started running like 730s and it felt easy 730 right crap right and I was like, how can I keep this and not just be like a shuffler miles and miles? Yeah, cuz I felt so

much

better. The only thing that felt hard was keeping that form. So yeah, it does. That takes practice. That's like core strength. That's going to like hip flexors. And I act like I know what I'm talking about, but it's not easy to have that. the correct form. We need to talk to a form expert. got these two girls walking by right now. They have these metals again, the metal conversation, Millennium's metals. They do a good job. Their, their world major, their world major class, world major.

First-class medals. Like, that's massive. It's a massive medal. Chicago, where are you here? New York. You know what the...

So back on the Chicago talk, seen as though I am already accepted for next year, which I'm so excited about. I didn't realize that until today that you're a Oh I got the guaranteed application. So I'm just very excited because I want to keep this up until the 50th anniversary. So the 50th anniversary was supposed to be 2027, but now it's 2028 because they canceled the year, or COVID of course. So I'm just going to keep going until then. Then I'll probably let it lapse a little bit.

But I want to see what they pull out for the 50th anniversary. I have, let's see, I've got the New York City and that 50th medal was gorgeous. Hold on, we're blown away. We're blown away, oh we're fine. This tent has stakes. No, no, it's Oh, stoolie? Stoolie, come back. Go get a stoolie. I'll keep talking about the medals here. Like, the New York medal.

I'm seeing the pictures and everything. It looks amazing. It looks gorgeous. It's got the gold. It's got the elevation profile. I'm curious of the size. I'm trying to get it. It's hard to get a judge when you're talking, not talking, but when you're looking at photos or seeing it in person. I want to try to get somebody here. Hey, Mel, let's see if Mel can bring someone over for us to get a view of the medal. And then maybe we can get a look at that and really compare the size and put it in Erica's hand and compare and try to imagine it.

Because your hand is going to be the hand of scale. It's going to be the hand of scale. the wrong one because I don't have nice nails. Your hand up next to mine. Oh, who cares about the hand, the nails? mean, yours is only a little bit bigger than my hand. Let's try to get someone with the metal if you see someone who comes by really, really close. Who's going to walk over close? Right. But the metal talk. So yeah, I feel like the size matters, where a lot of people say size doesn't matter.

comes to your metal and Michael's like what when it comes to your metal size matters and these metals are huge. This is a hill that you're gonna die on.

care less about the size of a medal. mean, obviously, it's cool to have a big giant medal, but it's not going to make or break a race for me. I think it does world major wise. Millennium's first class, as we mentioned earlier. I love how Yuki like we're talking. You made a great post. And I love that. I love that this conversation has got an engagement here. Yeah. Yeah. The evolution is great. I'm not saying if your 2003 medal is not big enough because at that time that was pretty awesome.

20 something years ago, we're talking skis. They couldn't even make a ski curve. Now they're making like everything's evolved. Like look at this. Not only the size, but it's not just round. It's I'm looking at the guy's metal. looks like like a badge, a big badge.

Yeah, it's awesome. So we're hoping to get some more people over here Maybe someone with the metal so we can do a little metal look at in comparison and we're gonna We're gonna have some more fun. We're gonna try to get Erica to jump in the cold plunge. Not happening All right, we're gonna make it happen. We'll be back guys in a little bit

Eric (1:21:53)
audio and guys did you hear that I just said Amber we got her here and we got her friend Joey and Amber we were so excited when you crossed the finish line because we didn't know you were gonna be here I didn't think I was gonna be here either yes it's amazing welcome back and congratulations you are the woman finisher second place though right overall that's incredible

Fantastic work today. And Joey got a PR. Way to go. what? Back to serves one of these. Air horn. Imagine the air horn if you can't hear it. And it's impressive because I told you, well, we're to say 50 people went the wrong way. Oh, yeah. So they ran like 3 and 1 half, but we rallied. That makes a lot of sense because I'm like, you did like a 20 minute 5K, and I was like, seems a little like, I don't know.

I just thought it was really hilly, that makes a lot of sense. Three and half miles. So you won, but you got a PR. So was the course, is this a fast course? Was it fair? Rolling Hills, what did we have? It would have been a fast course, but we went off course. So we ran like half a mile longer. my gosh. But yeah, no, it's a great course. And it's good. This is like the perfect running weather. Yeah, right. It is beautiful. It's nice. I got to tell you something. I saw it you ran the other day last week.

and

someone posted pictures and I was telling Erica, if you listen to this, you'll hear us talking about it. Your form is incredible. very jealous of your running I'm like, look at those legs and the knee. And so I ran yesterday and I'm trying to mimic your form. And one, it felt amazing. But two, I was like, how does she keep this form for so many miles? Joey knows, you must know what I'm talking about. I totally do. Yeah, I get to run with her quite a bit when I'm training and it's, yeah, I just try and copy her. I look nothing like

like

her. Yes, you do. We're all beautiful. am the most best looking. I think I look like her when I'm So are you part of team Giuseppe? I'm Giuseppe. I'm proud of Giuseppe. How do you like, like how long have you been part of Amber's team here? I think about three years. Three years. And triathlons? Oh yeah. Joey raced, oh you had a huge year. It was like Marathon, she raced Ironman Placid. Wow. Jones Beach 70 points.

Okay. Another marathon in B-Town.

Not a big deal Joey's pretty freakin impressive Man all because of Amber Amber how is it? We only got a few minutes. How's Charlie and all he doing? know you just want to like soak it up. Yes

He's walking around. He's got it. He's got it because Charlie's like a bulldozer. So he's like, I need to be on the move. Nice. Nice. He's got to keep up with his sister. Well, amazing. real quick, Joey, where are you from? you New Hampshire? Are you New England? I'm from New York originally. OK. And New Hampshire. The city or the state? Westchester County, just north of New York City. I'll be in New York City next weekend. That's exciting. He's got the Marathon. Oh, yeah.

Yep, my first major. Yep, running my first major. What are you running? New York City Marathon. So I'm pretty excited. I'm running with my sister. It's her first ever marathon. She lives in New York City, so it's going to be a lot of fun. then you're going to be at the... Well, you've got a lot coming up, but you also will be at the Mount Washington Road Race next year. And we hope to be here doing this because we've had Tom on. This is our second time. Actually, I'm going to tell you something cool, 192 episodes, a couple years.

I bought this for your episode. is our, Amber, this is our first paid event. We made it! We made it! It's pretty freaking cool. Like we have so much fun. congrats. Thank you. It's because of people like you, because here's what I told Laura Green and a few others like you who've come on, who are big in the area, is when they see that Amber's come on the podcast or that this guy or that girl has, they're like, we

Figure out who they are get them on the radar and it's work because of people like you. Thank you Not only that you welcome Dustin to your home

on my porch. That was such a nice day with the rain. It was raining. Beautiful. The ambiance was unmatched. And I just got a picture right here. Joey, I want you come on the podcast. Yay! Yay! I want you on for your own episode. For your own episode. Yes. But this is great. Are you going to do last question? wait. What? going to say we're doing the jingle bell one again. It's in Conquer, though. And Joey's the medical honoree. Woo! OK.

Okay. What's that mean? It's December 7th, conquered. NHTI. Okay. Yeah. What's medical honoree mean though? I know. I'm not in touch.

for the Arthritis family. Oh, excellent. Yeah, she's a spokesperson for the event, for Endurance. also has... So I have rheumatoid arthritis. Okay. But I think I use it to make me a more empowered Ashley in a more empathetic position. And I'm really excited to be raising money for the Arthritis Foundation. Oh, I love it. I love it. So December 7th in Concord, NHTI. 7th in Concord to 5K, super fun. Okay.

Jingle Bells. were there last year. Well, the Manchester one. Take a pic. Take some stickers. We got a lot of stickers. These are awesome. Listen, we'll sponsor your bike for your next Ironman. We don't have any money to sponsor you, but you can put Julie on your bike. It'll be great. Oh, yeah. And good luck. Listen, I want to catch up soon, but we'll see. We'll see you December. DM me about that race again. And let's get you on early 2026. Tell us the whole story. I want to hear Ironman stories. I haven't had a triathlete in a while.

Hey But hey, you gave me seven minutes. Thank you so much. Go home. See Oli and see Charlie We were so excited

was so much fun. That was so much fun. Hey, we did it. We did it. We set a mission to go find Amber and do it. And we got the winner. And it was someone we know who we love so much. How you doing? We still got to find someone with the medal. Anybody have a medal nearby? How did neither of Oh, they were in the 5K. Where did Lee go? Do remember Lee? name is Lamb, and he was just here, and he got stickers. Where did he go, He had one. But this crowd. I don't see him.

Wow, it's getting big. You know what? ⁓ I messed up. was supposed to say, so ⁓ I saw Darren and I think that he was with his girlfriend. Was it Michaela? Darren did walk over. but he came and he was like, yeah, finished. And I meant to say thank you because they sent me a cheer card at Chicago. no way. Yeah. Darren, where are you? Darren Roy. DJ I just wanted to say thank you. So if I don't get to see him and thank him in person, let this serve as my thank you. Yeah. That was so nice to see that. What was real funny was,

I grabbed the stereo cable. I haven't bought the cables yet from the website he sent me. I'm kind of waiting for like all the New York stuff to calm down. And also like Black Friday deals. So I'm going to like colored cables that are our color and everything. So he let me the stereo cable and I pull up to his house Friday to get it. And there is another car in the driveway, an Uber that picked him up. And as I'm driving home, I'm going right by the airport and that Uber followed me.

to the airport. was like, dude, where are going? Where are you flying to? Like, it's Friday. You're going to be here in two days. It was a quick trip down to Florida, take a dip in the ocean and come back or whatever. No, turned out he was picking up his sister's car that was parked at Manchester. was like, I wish I knew I would have given you a ride and you wouldn't have to pay for an Uber. But he hooked us up with, he's been so helpful getting us prepped for these live shows. Like, especially the first one. Look at all that pizza. Pizza man, you got to deliver that right here. I could go for a slice. Not gonna lie.

7.3 score. That's a good score. Honestly, if your pizza is like at least a four, I'll eat it. Do you want that? Do you watch the? Well, you know, I found this amazing. Well, do you you watch the day for my pizza reviews? I've seen a few. They to be a lot. They to be like a daily thing. They might still be. But like the algorithm gave it to me daily. I found this beautiful neighborhood pizza joint called Domingo's. Domingo's. Yes. You ever heard of it? I have not. Oh, Domingo's.

That's the Kings of Queens reference. I don't want to show either. It's when Kevin James and the King of Queens. you know what? Hey, can we see your medal? We're having a medal conversation. we see could she hold your medal real quick? You want to take a seat real quick? Hi, Congratulations on your you're on a podcast. ⁓ my God. This even has a It's a very cool medal. my God. has some 3D elements. How very, very cool. I only have one set of headphones, but you can roll if you want.

We are live on YouTube, but this is really for Thursday real quick you two are matching. What are your names? got oh you did the relay So here I want to fill you into this middle conversation have you ever run a world major marathon no, no, not yet

But you will one day. So Erica just ran Chicago. I'm running New York. This is about the size of her Chicago marathon medal. That's definitely a lie. really? Do you think this is the size of a world major marathon right here? Is it? No. I don't think so. This. This is first class medal right there. Look at that thing. It is a very, very nice gadget. Very colorful. I love the spinning mechanism on it. Absolutely. That's of a vintage spinner.

It's got some weight to it. So that is Julie. That is our mascot. So real quick, let's get names here. Who's who? Ellison. Ellison? Sterling. Sterling, how do know each other? We're the sister team. Sister strides. Very nice. How'd you guys do today? Were you happy with how you did? Was it good race? I think so. Congratulations. We honestly did like one week of training.

I think we did pretty good. You guys did. Pretty bad. Our press won. They won the... They won their age division. We'll get them on after. We'll save the winners for after. We were going to check how we did, We interrupted, we're so sorry. We've been talking about getting the medals. So real quick, where are from? Are from the area? Yeah, we're from Maryland.

Okay, that's the Merrimack mass, okay So you ⁓ do you grow up in this area running new very poor going up and down the Merrimack River going to like Palm Island and stuff We were we ran in high school and we both ran in college to Wow these two are legit We were never distance people though. We always did like the heptathlon and like hurtling and more kind of like that What is it?

have tap water. Seven events in track and then you add up the scores. There's like a point system for every event. Add up points at the end and you get scored. A little running, jumping, throwing. What's the one you love from the Olympics? Steeplechase? Steeplechase. Do you ever do that? No, I always wanted to that. That one is just like absurd. I know. I have to have like a tough mental. Why are you jumping like a puddle water? If we ever have an on the runs race.

It's gonna involve something like that. That's just like an obstacle race. Like I'm saying like if we did like a beer mile, it's got to have that type of Where'd you go to college? an Andover amazing. Yeah, I went to Babson college So I've referee I referee hockey I've done many Babson games. Yeah, many I did some playoff games a couple years ago double overtime against Norwich It was amazing. Wow, is one of my last college games

actually. I went from one kid to three like that twins so hockey took a backseat podcast jumped up a little bit so Babson College is amazing but I grew up my whole life this is how I became a huge hockey fan going to Merrimack College hockey games yeah that's a cool little barn they have there did you go to the games where you involved much you know another Merrimack game to Dave McGilvery you know Dave McGilvery you ever heard of the name Mike Beeman you ever

heard of Mike Beeman. Alright. ⁓

They're much older, but they're legends in the running community and they're roommates at Merrimack College. Dave, they both ran at Merrimack. Dave is now the race director for the Boston Marathon. Mike is going to run his 49th Boston Marathon in a row this year. So Merrimack College legends. is actually TikTok famous now. So Merrimack's featured in some things pretty cool. But no, this is awesome. You run in the area, you you stayed involved in the running community.

Last question. We are the on the runs podcast. We love stories good and bad. Even the code Brown to code Brown isn't an actual wrapping yourself moment, but it could be an old crap moment in a race. Do you have any old crap moments from college or something like this where maybe

A bear runs on the course. Something's just like, oh crap. Or the course was a little not marked well and people went the wrong way for the 5K and it ended up being three and a half miles instead of three and half. Or any from college, any fun ones here? Just like, I mean, one time I ran the hurdles and there was just no hurdle in my lane. So I just had to run straight. You just ran straight. What'd they do? they have to do like? It was like the 400 hurdles, so the lap of hurdles. So they're spread out a little bit more.

Was it just your lane or the oh wow that's hilarious I just ate it one time the track was really slippery. Oh, I have a video of myself on like the third to last hurdle in the hundred hurdles just completely flat like I Oh, I did lose a shoe in the

Keep going? That's what you gotta do. Honestly, I slowed down to like kind of keep the shoe on my foot. I should have just like kept fast and just let it fly off. I don't know what I was thinking. Those are code brown stories. for real. Those are real. I understood the assignment. Yeah. Are you two competitive against each other being sisters? Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. We were teammates today. Who typically wins?

You are the older sister the younger the younger. She's got a bit of a height advantage on me. You let her win because she's the baby sister. Yes. Yes. It's nice to have a training buddy, though, like throughout the summers and college and stuff, there was always someone to motivate you and go out to go for a run. Yeah, I love that. That's pressure. It's fine. It's like distance wise. And I was like, you're doing this relay with me, by the way. It's awesome. We had a great time, though. Great. That's perfect.

I never start a question with last question, what's next? What's next? Next we're gonna go drink a beer. That's perfect! That's a great answer. Beautiful. That's a great answer. Well, we hope to see you again another one. Thank you so much. Thanks for letting us check out your medals. We want the winners. Thank you for showing us the medal because that is a first-class Millennium running medal. our discussion on how big a medal should be. It's been ongoing. Yeah, take some Julie stickers.

Check it out. Enjoy. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Enjoy the beer. You want to come on? Get the winners? Come on. So these are the winners who beat their friends. How are you? What's amazing is they're all matching team-wise. Well, pretty close, actually. didn't memo. Actually, we're matching, so I guess I did get the memo. Yeah, we got the memo. So real quick, what are your names? I'm Janet. Janet. Savannah. Savannah. And are you friends with these two here behind us? Yeah, they're my cousins.

⁓ are you sisters? No, I'm just a friend. a friend. Just a friend. But we're all sisters together. Yes. So did you go in competitive? Like we got to beat them. We got it. We got to make sure we can't let them beat us like bragging rights. Honestly, both of us kind of felt like we were out of shape. So we're like, we just want to run and finish and see how it goes. She's coming back from an injury. I haven't been running like as much as normal. So these girls come in here. The other two are we trained for about a week? You two.

I'm injured. I haven't been running in a while. But you won. You won the relay. Yes. We did, yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. How do you pick who goes first? She's faster, said. You have to go first because it's uphill.

strategic. love it. And I'll go downhill. There we I like going out of the gate anyways. I don't want to sit and wait around. So it works out perfect for a good relay match. what time did you arrive? Like, did you come later? Did you come together? You rode a bus, right? Yeah, I had to take the bus. Yeah. So like, are you cold? Do you get warmed up? What are you doing waiting for her? Are you like, come on, hurry up? She was really fast out the gate, and I was just kind of waiting for her. We wore sweatpants and sweatshirt this time. We did this race last year, and we were very unprepared.

who just kind of went, I got on the bus.

We didn't know what we were gonna Okay. Now you know you got to lay the land. got to prepare a little bit better. the sweatpants and sweatshirt that I finished. you traded! Yeah! That's so smart. It's so smart. Alright, so let me ask you this. Are you also from, I think they were from Aramaic. Are you from the same area? Yep, I am. Okay, so you grew up running around here. Do you run track, cross country, college? What do you do? Track and high school and then in college I did field hockey. Very now post-college.

I'm

just running. Where you go to college and play field hockey? Endicott. Endicott, very cool. So all you kind of came, went in this whole area and you became, you still stay close. You go to different schools, you still stay really close. How about you? I grew up in Groveland. So just sitting like school district, but different town. And then I was a gymnast growing up. So I actually didn't get into running until I finished college gymnastics. So it's been like five or so years of like in the running game now. All right. Nice. You liking it? I love it. It's so much fun.

some of the other like what do look for to do in an event? Are you always looking to do relay half marathons? Are you doing 5Ks? Have you done a marathon? Like do you have goals here? Do you just want to have fun and get a free beer? So I ran the Boston Marathon two or three years ago now and that was super fun. experience. And she killed it too by the way. She did really good. But I have to say I love like a 10K or half is definitely my favorite. And then the relay is like now it's like our yearly thing. We have to do at least a relay.

because they're so much fun. Definitely. Do you ever make your way up to New Hampshire? Do any New Hampshire races? I mean, the border's right there. Yeah. We both run at the beach a lot, actually, up in Hampton. Very So we did, I did Rockfest last year. I didn't do it this year, but she ran Rockfest this year. That's one of my favorites. Nice and flat. That's just the way you like it. And fast, too. Hopefully you get a good day, not too much wind. A day like this has to be the perfect weather day, right? that too. if you just coming off an injury and not running much lately, and it was that hot to do it,

day in July, different story. But this weather, everyone feels like a rock. I feel like everyone who ran feels like a rock star. You can just tell by the way they're all hanging out and just having fun. There's a band going on right now. It's like a beautiful day. It is a party. Unbelievable. Well, this is so cool. I know. I ran a race in March and it was like pouring rain, freezing cold, like not fun at all. this has been like, yeah, this was like perfect race weather. I love it. So what's next? What's next for you? Next week, I'm pacing the harbor side.

half marathon for beast pacing so I'll be back here next week. That's amazing. And last weekend I did the Bay State relay. All right. So pretty much every weekend I'm doing some type of race. Good. Even though I'm injured. What's the goal here? Do you want to keep doing this? Like you're pacing now. Like that's a big deal. I love pacing. I love like being able to cheer people on while I'm racing. What pace will you be pacing next week? 220. The 220 for a half, right? What's that? 10.41. All right. She knows.

it hard to stay at a 1041 from start to finish? It's hard because you have to stay per mile no matter if the course runs long or short. So you have to be like really on it and pay attention to the mile markers. So even if your watch is maybe ahead or behind, you have to pay attention to the course. So it's a lot of thinking, but I really enjoy it. Have you ever paced before? Is this your first time pacing? This will be my third or fourth time. Do you to run with the signs? The signs not bad.

It's something to do, but you don't have music or anything. So I usually run with music, so that's a little bit of a challenge. I just talk to people instead. That's amazing. That's taking it to another, like we talked about everyone involved in the running community, whether they volunteer or something. We don't really talk to paces as much. I mean, we haven't had a chance to yet, so I'm glad we least get to try this time. Reach out to us after. Tell us how it goes. And if you keep doing it, we'd love to like dive more into the pacing world. Yeah, I love it. How about you?

⁓ I actually don't have anything on the radar right now, but probably just like putting in some more mileage. I want to increase my mileage over the winter and then I'll sign up for some spring races. I'm kind of like a...

weeks or like a month before just sign up randomly. I know somebody like that. You know what that's called? That's called gamophobia. Fear of commitment. Fear of commitment like months in advance. I'm like a week off. You know I almost did the five I feel good. I might as well run it. She always has the racist plan so I normally just hey what are you doing next weekend? I'm just like you. I have my whole year planned in advance. Want to do the relay? I just show up. like okay. It's amazing. Well go have a beer. Enjoy it.

Bring your friends back, your sisters, and we'll get a group photo. But this is so cool. Thank you for coming. Congratulations on the win. Thank Come do this race again next year and back up that win. want to see you do it. Amazing. So we have Janet and Savannah on the On The Runs podcast. That was amazing. Good luck in everything you do in the future. Thank you. It was a lot of for coming on. Thank you. Guys, that was cool. We'll be back in a few minutes. All right. Have fun. Thank you, ladies. Thank you.

Eric (1:45:26)
It's all good. I'm excited for this because about a year ago, our good friend Maurice went on this guy's podcast and I checked it out. The Marathon Panda. have we have Michael Bernier here who you are the Enjoy Your Life guy. We see you everywhere. You're here rocking the MC Mike. You're having a blast. How's it all going? hyped. The vibe is insane.

I mean everybody's just wait, you know, everyone watches attention and we're like, come on. How you doing, Let's deal you away for a couple of minutes. ⁓ yeah. I'm doing great. Yeah, it's a good life. We're living a pleasure to be here on the on the runs podcast. You know that.

So you got to ask him the question that you mentioned earlier. You got to talk about. All right, Michael, everyone who's been to these races where you MC, we've all noticed the shoe situation or lack of shoes. You're very free with your feet. They don't live in shoe presence. I am free with my feet.

I want to know what your threshold is to wear your wear shoes. I saw you earlier this year at the Hampton half marathon and it was probably a solid 20 degrees. ⁓ was cold. And I was like, you know, it's cold when Michael's wearing shoes. So I think that I first I was born barefoot. I don't know how y'all came out. So I kind of put the hand.

and a feet in the same category. So if my hands aren't covered, why would my feet be covered? Am I trying to make my feet weak? Also, I have the understanding, which is, I'm comfortable to say is factual, when you have a barefoot lifestyle.

You're in better physical shape in the sense that with running, we know this is the case, right? As in I'm not a heel to toe runner. I'm running on the tips of my toes. I'm not wrecking my knees and my lower back with every stride, right? So this is a large part of it. Also just connecting to the earth is so often that we forget that we are animals, right? Like when you look at me, you gotta know that I know I'm an animal. I come from the earth very naturally.

process so I feel more connected when I have no shoes on and as far as the temperature there has been one or two occasions over the decades where I've put on shoes and normally it's somewhere you know 10 degrees or lower and it's typically at the beach with the wind yeah but the thing is I'm not

Wearing or not wearing shoes for others. This is for myself. Yeah, so if my feet start to get cold I'm gonna put shoes on. Yeah, I love you guys, but it's not show time if it's gonna kill me. Hey, you gotta do you that's the most important thing. Do you carry like a pair of flip-flops around when you got to go into a Dunkin Donuts or something and you know the rule? I don't break rules. You know I'm a rule breaker. I'm just a nice person. I wear shoes inside the establishment. I'm not the guy

in the grocery store with no shoes on. I wash my feet before I get into bed with my wife, you know? Good man. Let's talk a little bit about you right before we get to know more about Enjoy Your Life. But where are you from here? Where are based out of? I sleep and own a home in Newburyport, Massachusetts. ⁓ is this where you grew up too? Nah, nah. Where are from originally? I was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts at the Lawrence General. Yeah. I grew up in Drakeit, Massachusetts.

I the world and as much as I thought I was gonna like live in the bush like out in the jungle, you know, I couldn't leave my mom, my dad, I like you too, and my brothers. I was like, I can't be that kid. So I chose Newberryport as my home. It's a spot. It's a great spot because you got the amazing Yankee homecoming week in the summer, you know, the ocean, the seacoast, all of it.

right there you got all this whole area is great. It's beautiful. I'm a sand down New Hampshire guy, but my dad and I spent I've been here over 100 times. put the boat in the ocean right here. So good. And we even take it a gloss or sometimes on a full day. It's a blast. So enjoy your life. I've been seeing more and more and more of this over the last couple of years. I see you emceeing at like the Delta Dental Signale at 5K. I see Yuki wearing your stuff. I think Maurice wears your stuff. I even think beard. ⁓

Yeah, have a lot of pod fame and where's your stuff? Tell us about Enjoy Your Life. So, you know...

As I've traveled, like my life has been entertainment for 25 years. Like I was successful as a musician when I was like 19 and that transitioned into speaking. And something that I've always said, you you probably heard me say it this morning is like, I don't wake up wondering if it's going to be a good day. I turn it into the day I want it to be, right? With some effort. That's how life works. So I've always said in all my talks, like you got all these things you're planning out, right? Like are we planning in the time

to enjoy your life. Is that in your schedule? So, you know, there are other operations out there that are similar, that are kind of passive with it. for me, it's like, take action and enjoy your life because it's going by every day. Yes. Like, I wouldn't have sat down with you here right now if I didn't think that I was going to enjoy the process, right? Right. So that's it. Like, take action every single day to enjoy your life. As I travel doing 80 events a year around the country, the brand goes with me. And it's in wonderful

position and that is being received very well by audiences that know me or that don't know me. So the brand is thriving enjoyyourlifebrand.com 25 % off your first order with code enjoy. That's it. But it's people like me. Like we have our own race that goes on the enjoy your life race and it's just happy people that understand. There's this confusion right and I'm getting excited now but this confusion that exists between like being a serious athlete

and having to be serious, But now there's all these folks out there that are the best of the best racers that are laughing and smiling and having a couple of beers after and wearing things that say enjoy your life. it's have a good time, but still understand that hard work is your best friend. yeah. Yeah. And I can tell your passion about it, which is like, which makes it so much easier when that happens. ⁓ absolutely. You know that it's true when you just, you practice what you preach.

You've mentioned nationwide like I didn't know you were outside of just this general area where you taking this around the world? Listen to me. Eric hasn't been around very long. He's had to go a year around we'll be in Huntington, West Virginia for the Marshall University Marathon, half marathon. It's constant. The keys, all over the country. work with a number of different groups, including Millennium Running, which I love very much. But yeah, for probably 10 years it's

I love it because I found you around the time you had Mo on and I call him Moba, and I was like this is like your studio your

production and it was all top notch. have also I own with my wife a beautiful yoga massage natural facial studio right here in Newburyport the biggest yoga studio that is here in this town. Erica loves yoga. Riverside yoga and I need to get better at yoga. She needs three blocks. Let's go. I still will do it. That counts for something. What do we have to look forward to with Enjoy Your Life and your events coming up?

in this area. Wow. mean, I'm honestly a kind of person that kind of lives in the moment. Yeah. There's a lot of weight if I look forward to what's going to happen in year. ⁓ I'm excited about the winter because in the winter I'm off in the Keys or the Bahamas doing events and I love that. I'm also looking forward to the Enjoy Your Life Happy Half Marathon at Friendly 5K in Amesbury in May. But really, I'm just excited.

Like excited to be alive. Yeah, and I really appreciate the fact that with hard work That I have out of nowhere created a life that I enjoy I hope that other people understand that you can determine what your passion is and just take like like chip away every day or little steps love the journey and for and like having a life that is financially able to provide for you is

You just work at it every day like you do at AT &T or whatever you do. That's all. I'm excited about being alive. Yes. I love this. And meeting both of you. The feeling is mutual. Yeah, it's funny we're both excited for the winter for different reasons. He's going to the Keys. I go to the mountains and ski. But I love it. It's one of the most things I get enjoyment out of is a solo ski day by myself. Yeah. Like sometimes people love that solo

Sometimes you love it with a friend or something, but I love just like to reconnect with yourself, right? And I feel the way you kind of feel with your feet bare feet in the earth. I kind of have the same thing at the top of a mountain in the. Yeah, it could be winter, summer, spring or fall, but winter has a whole. So I I'm just super. I also just bought new skis. I'm really I'm wicked. I've never purchased skis during my lifetime. I'll take you skiing. I'm not purposely going to the mountains. This is a summertime or a trail.

You know, that's more of my speed. If you ever get away from the keys and want to go, I'll take you. I've never been to the keys. Maybe we'll do it. I'll take you skiing. Listen out. I'd love to go back we're going on dates together? Yes. It didn't take You just met. This is going to be a beautiful relationship. Eric's just trying to enjoy his life. That's all he wants. I love it. I'll say one thing about the brand, because there's a lot of people who I respect. And when I see those people in a brand like yours, it tells me, OK, you you keys, but want

Yuki is the best. Huge respect for Yuki. when she's wearing your stuff and everything, I'm like, okay. I saw him from the Maurice's podcast. Now I see Yuki doing this and all these people who I respect are showing the same appreciation and respect for everything. And then I'm watching your stuff and I'm like, okay, I like what this guy is going on. And sometimes I get a little shy, but you were also busy at the five-pointer. I told Jason Parent... be shy with me. Jason Parent will listen right now, but you're on stage with Eido. You know Eido. Yeah.

like, right, Jason, gotta go say hi to this guy. And then all of a sudden I'm like, where'd go? Where'd he go? And I couldn't find you. But no, I'm glad because this worked out. saw you and John Always say hello. Yeah. Let's be friends. Are we friends now? I think so. This qualifies right? First thing I did when I in 6 in the morning, was like, hey, my name's Eric. But no, I'm glad we finally got to meet and make this connection. Can I ask you guys a question? Yeah, go for it. So like, did you both like come together because you poop your pants while you're running?

Is that kind of how you met? have a history together. We went to college, so we have like a 20 year friendship. As far as I know, there was no pooping of pants. OK, I mean, in the woods, we were long, long distance running buddies. I was training for Iron Man. She training for marathons. So we ran every Sunday together during covid or even before that. Before. Yeah. But I always had to stop one or two miles in. This is his brainchild. And when I said let's do this,

We came up with that name and we'll go and all that and I'm like this is perfect on the runs Some people think we just talked about people crap in their pants But what we love is this the code Brown story it could it doesn't need to be a crap in your pants It could be running into a bear out there could be the girl just here told us about she's doing the hurdles But have you done this in your pants?

not running. Not running. More of a sharding situation. I'll tell you what. we going now? And then the number ones during a triathlon are extremely difficult to do. I would actually save more time if I just pulled the bike over and did it. But one of them was like we had this concept of Code Brown stories, things that and then how do you recover from it? And so we have guys who've run into bears on the course of the girl who's just here. Her shoe flew off during the hurdles in college. And you know what she do?

back and get it. She finished. with one shoe on one foot, nothing on the other barefoot with the earth. So that's kind of the birth of this is. Our identity is we've claimed over a hundred and ninety three episodes. A hundred and ninety three episodes. A hundred and ninety three. It smells good over here too. It doesn't smell like the picture. Our shit smells good. Roses. This is great. You're doing an amazing job with the mic. You're walking around here. What a crowd you got today. This weather is perfect. Hey!

Happy Sunday y'all. You would be remiss to overlook the fact that the on the runs podcast is over here. Get on over talk about your race. Good people and they smell so nice. This is great. Thank you so much for coming on. We'll connect again. Absolutely. love you guys. You're so awesome. Thank you. you. Have the best day. You too.

Eric (1:59:41)
We got somebody back and I am super glad you're here because last time we did this live show where the New Hampshire 10 miler you came over Tara Tara dogs like who spells a ERI CK. And it's sweat right. Sweat. my God. ⁓ God. my God. Eric is what. So now another guy I think his name is Larry showed up. Yes. And so maybe he took a little bit of you know like Larry Larry did a great job. Larry did great but we didn't really get

to talk to you and what I realized after was you and I have gone running before and we did it at one in the morning at the Memorial High School track and I didn't realize this till after but that was the two of you. We have your husband here too. We're running with Ryan from Recycle Percussion at one in the morning.

And I was sleeping. Yes, that was crazy. Remember that? We didn't realize there was one until someone mentioned it. And I think it might have been you, Eric. Yes. I think you were like, my wife.

⁓ or something like that. And then we're like, wait a second, what time? Yeah. Because she bartends and she got home just after midnight and I ran to the track. And that was so much fun though. That was crazy. That was kind of like, it was kind of, it wasn't cold, but it was kind of wet, like little mist. Yeah, yeah. Very, like the pictures looked amazing with the sky and the mist and the moon and the light and all that. And so you two didn't stay much longer. Maybe you ran with me for five miles. So funny enough, that day,

I

ended up running 10 before. Oh wow. So when Clinton said like at 11 o'clock at night, let's go ahead and do this, I was like well I've already done my 10. I think we ended up doing 10 with him.

ended up doing 22 total. Not a big deal. Not a big deal. So how did you guys find out about that with Ryan? Do you know him personally or did he put out a call to whoever wanted to join? how did Eric, how did you find out? Justin called me out on the Facebook live. And everybody's like Eric, Justin's calling you out on Facebook live. And I'm like looking into this and I found it and I'm like, oh yeah, I gotta go. I gotta go. I broke I think it's kind of cool that you guys were there too. So I'm just curious.

as

to how you got roped into it. Well, not roped into it. Well, it's been the last year. just started following the group. We to their New Year's show. I think we followed. did the hitchhiking. I forget which other thing. So fairly recently, we've been following him. Awesome. I went to one of their workouts. Me too. I it's the one time. Like, almost puked. Like, I've done a lot of work, you know. I'm not quite the sheep I used to be. He stopped. I kept going. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's a badass workout. So get some notifications, like we saw he's running. Jeremy Woodward, I don't know if you're familiar with Jeremy. I don't know. He's out of Concord, he does a lot of fitness, so we're good friends with Jeremy. He showed up first, I'm like, Jeremy's there, we gotta go. So we got there, and then we were there when you got called out. That's so cool. Yeah, fun, small world. And he didn't have any fuel. I know! So we brought fuel for him, that was the thing, like we were noticing that he was running this marathon.

in the middle of the night with no fuel. We were like, at least we need to bring him down some stuff, right? So that's why we ended up going down. Clinton! We got Mel back. and I her sunglasses. The Mel-fee you did on her phone. I'm just you. I found it like 20 minutes later, which is amazing. ⁓

So let's get to know you two real quick. Was it Clint? Clint, yeah. Clint. Clint. Clint. Yes. All right. I did get it right. I get some things right. You actually work for Millennium Running. Yes. What do you do for John and for the Millennium Team? Yeah. So I'm a weekend guy. So it's not doing the timing. So it'd be either in the trailer, doing the database stuff, setting up all the timing equipment. Pretty much everything. Anything they need me, want me to do. When I have them off, Erica's

running all these races anyway, they will give me the time off every once in a while, but we're still here. So still doing the race. And you've been doing it for years from what I'm About 11 years. So it's been a while. That's in history. She was saying you had because the New Hampshire 10-Miler was the last, might not be the last. We'll see. We'll figure it out. But you were like, oh, the memories of when you were working there 10 plus years ago with the little kids. Now your kids are older and just. Yeah, Carter's now working for Millennium also.

He helped us set up the whole tent thing the last time we did this. Yeah, Carter and Jack, they grew up together and now they both work together and John and Clinton. It's strange. Now, we don't get to do this often, but I'm going to take full advantage right now. We love a good love story. How'd the two of you meet?

on a blind date in high school. Yes. Who? I love was it your friend that set you up, or was it yours? Both of ours. Yeah. So her friend and my friend were dating. They were like, kept on setting her up with like a bunch of other ones. I think I was like third rung in or whatever. And I was like, no way. You've already set me up with too many. I'm done. Oh, I was training to be a ballet dancer. And I was like, I don't have time for this. No, no, no. You've got to meet Clint. And I did. And I said to my mom, I'm

We're to marry him. Number three stuck. I love it. Yeah, we're going on 30. So we've been married for 19, but we've been together for 30. Oh, I love it. And we run. We run all the time together. Were you running then, or were you just focused on ballet? No, well, I You weren't running. I wasn't run- I tried. I tried. But no, I was not running. Were you the runner? Fanta was the runner. runner. So Drew, like, probably early middle school, high, ran track, cross country. Wasn't quite good

I went to UMaine, they were D1. were kind of in the middle, I might have been able run there, was kind of like, think again, tons of people were running my time. They weren't too interested. I was doing engineering as well, I'm not sure if I have the time. So it was high school, did you go to college shepherds? You didn't go all the way up to Orono, did you? I did. You did? Oh my God. Two years later. Two years later. Oh, you married younger. Yes. Yeah. I was there two

years by myself. came up. Yeah. I danced up there. That's awesome. Back to that date though, that blind date. was what did you do on the date? Did you go hiking? Did you go bowling? Was it dinner and movies? No, because what happened was I had.

rehearsal. So I said, well, I'm going to meet him, but it's going to have to be after my rehearsal. so they ended up, it was my art friend's birthday. So they ended up meeting at my house at like eight o'clock at night with Clint. And the worst part was Clint showed up early and my mother had this really bad picture of me and he almost left.

was weird high school picture of like braces and curly hair. They were like, no, no, no, you have to stay. And he did. That was the first meeting. Our first date was probably going up to the main mall or something. Yes. Oh yeah. you grow up? In Maine. Southern Maine, time of Samford. was active. Okay. So I went to Wells High School and he went to Samford High School.

know the area, yeah. That's awesome. We were talking earlier about rail trails, like and how they're all connected, but Maine has that very long one, and it will connect with this one soon if it hasn't already. Because right behind you, Clint, on the other side of the river is where the Salisbury Rail Trail ends at. Now it connects to this one over here at Newburyport, and they're all gonna be connected one day to Manchester soon too. Oh, that's amazing. I feel an ultra coming on. I need to run

Yeah, not a loop. Yeah. No, you just got to the whole country down. Yeah, it'll be great. We're talking. We'll we'll we'll. He has a beer now. Yeah. Thank you, Eric. Well, you can tell now. No, that would be awesome. That would be so cool. I just something I love to do. Are you on Strava? Both you? Yes. I love I love my heat maps. Yes. And I love to run somewhere new and just grow the heat map. Yeah. Let it keep growing. So that's really cool. But yeah, no, I was like, hold on a second. After last time, you're on. was like,

She's the one I ran with that one in the morning. It was dark. It was dark. And then I think some of the Starbucks runs too. That's what you told me at the track was that you met me at Starbucks runs with Terra Pterodactyl. But at the 10k I didn't put either those together. no, but this is cool. This is really cool. You're very involved. Your whole family's involved in Millennium. It's great to see. You've been working with them since 2011, right? So we'll call it

that post Bruins Stanley Cup. Or no, that was the year of, well, if you've been doing it since 2011, you've been doing it for about the whole time. Probably more like 2014. 11 years. 11 years is what you said. And then you run all the races. Let's see that medal real quick. All the races. All the races. Such a nice I am so proud of this one. I just got under two today. She PR'd today. Can we give her the button?

Congratulations! I am so excited. This was my 29th half and I'm like this is cool. Yes girl! so happy for you. What's next for you? Manchester. I already filled her in. full marathon? ⁓

So my friend is running the full marathon and

gonna do 17 miles today, so I already did 14. And I'll finish up, and we'll see how that goes. In two weeks, we'll be there. Why don't you come on after, us how it goes. Maybe by the time you finish the marathon, you'll be back. I hope so, yeah. I already feel during that I'm running the BAA half that day, and I'm gonna book right back up to Manchester to hopefully make it After you get your content, though. Oh, yes, I have to get the content. Sign partnerships. yes, yes, yes. Remind me! That's the important thing.

But yes, I hope to be there and I

cheering for you 100 % and just that's gonna be an amazing day. That looks like an amazing race too. I I run this I think one other time but they changed the course so I don't know what I'm in for I know it's Billy but so is Manchester and it's gonna be fun either way. Yeah. I think we need to recognize one thing this is the second time we're doing a live podcast not only ever but for Millennium in both times the weather has come out to play. Oh the weather is amazing. beautiful this is

Epic gorgeous weather. I know you're wearing the puppy. I just had to put it back on because it got a little windy I think this is gonna be a common theme. Yeah, we do if you want good weather you have you have on the run you hire So this was great social I hope to see you more in Manchester two weeks either you ski Yeah, you're for me. So you're skiers

Where do you ski ragged mountain every weekend, but I will go where you want to go once. ⁓ so where's your ski mountain? Past peak is great. I'll go night skiing. I'll bring my daughter. She's nine. She's a great skier. I'll show up for the apres ski. You show up for the beers at past peak. Past ⁓ is amazing. Yeah, I'm a big fan. Grew up skiing there quite a bit as a kid. So I'll I'll ski past peak and then come with me to ragged one day. I'll let you use a buddy pass.

It's like 40 % or something off. Cool. Ragged. Have you ever been to Ragged? We have. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a great spot. It's a diamond in the rough because no one wants to go 40 minutes off the highway to get there. It's a weird drive to get there. But it's everyone, all those mass holes can go to Gunstock. right? Ragged is for us. It's amazing. I would love to go ski. That's my goal. Carter does love ragged. Yes. All right. Let's do it. How old is Carter? He's 16. OK. Yeah. It's awesome. I'd love to go ride. We'll go ski. It's amazing. Clint and Erica.

sweet. Oh, I did it wrong again. You got to give him a pass. Hold on. got this one. Sweat. Sweat. Sweat. Sweat. Erica Sweat on the On the Runs podcast. This was wicked awesome. Thank you so much.

Eric (2:12:47)
We just had a cool, cool, cool, cool moment. Millennium assembled. Millennium. OK, a couple of things. We're holding beers. Eric Eastman. You're a Eric Eastman. he his name right. Thank you so much for the beer. I've been burping ever since, but I it. This was a nice treat to wrap up our wonderful day of podcasting. What a day. What a day. This is so cool. Who would have? I know we say this all the time. Who would have ever thought? So a lot of learning experiences. I'm going to tell you.

You

want the memory card I need to get a few extra memory cards because that filled up pretty quickly on the camera But it's okay. I deleted a bunch of other listen. That's just an organization management part Your power portable power we drain the shit out it was at 94 % Like and I said how long was last you go a couple days. It's dead 1.6 days you guys and whatever he was powering up Well, it's this road. So yeah, the best part was it powered the road caster powered the camera powered the computer and I was

not even

charging my phone on it. Oh, we were asking a lot of Yeah, we really But you got the generators and backup. So we're learning things. We're going to go to the checklist and all this. You forgot the this or that question. But I mean, we had great conversations either way. We actually had a lot of people to stop by and want to chat with We didn't need it. But it was a lot of fun. don't want to. We've got to bring that back. Next time. I will laminate stuff, you guys. I will make this legit. But the coolest thing just happened, Erica. Tell them what just happened.

So we're sitting here in our lovely booth and across the parking lot we see the Millennium Rudd Club just getting together for a picture and we hear from Mel. Millennium Assemble!

So we just spoke with Erica sweat and her husband Clint and they run over and Mel's still calling Millennium Assemble Like yeah, we had to check and make sure but she was talking to us So we got to go in take a picture with a wonderful Millennium crew. I feel so included Amazing like we're not and we come back and you instantly just said I'm joining next year. I was planning on it anyway

You know, before any of this happened with Millennium, we hear the stories all the time. And it's super cool. Like, Tara especially pumps the tires for Millennium. And she won the comeback run of the year award. Like, do so many cool events outside of this. They do the live show and not the live show. We're the live show. They do the award show. The jacket party. It's not just you show up to a race. They do other cool events that are part of the community. And I don't...

I've lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. I've been around a little bit not you know Charlotte is one place I haven't lived in other areas for a long period of time, but I Don't know of other running Running clubs like this that do the races these I'm sure they're out there

Somewhere. I love that we have one. This is probably the closest knit run club. That group. That group was huge. just in that group photo. And that's not even all of That's not even all because they obviously don't make every event. But yeah, this was great. me proud to live in the area. Like, everyone is so welcoming, inclusive, and just you get to see the same people everywhere. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. And it's cool that. You really get to know somebody. What's cool is that you see people walking by.

And they're like, can I come on and stuff? And it was so awesome that Andy came by and Erica and Clint, but like the girls, the sisters and the cousins who won the relay. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. And we had, oh my God, Amber. Amber's amazing. She's always such a delight. I don't know how else to describe her. She's just so wonderful. She's amazing. And then her friend too. So, hey, I hope if some of you checked it out on YouTube, the live stream, the raw live stream, eventually we, everything died. The battery died, my phone died.

We're

gonna work on this you guys. Well, no, we like we'll work on the checklist and stuff and it's it's amazing We're figuring this out. It is so cool. Yeah the The the setup the placement they put us like this is amazing We are in the middle last time you saw us at the New Hampshire 10-mile er You got those five six Millennium 10 set up. We were the last one right before the step and repeat this one We're in the middle We're in between everybody like there's been hundreds of people walking around us and people were watching stop and

We do need to buy some signage like that. ⁓ A big sign that says scan me and people can scan and go right to the, like, we need that. Yeah, we need a big sign with the QR code because everyone's like, what's this podcast? And they see a sticker. There's no QR codes anywhere. So we're learning what to do to make this all better. Yes, yes, yes. It's going to be amazing. We're almost at 200 episodes. I think 200 will start the year. I teased that earlier, who I want to try to get. Like, guys, if I...

It's a long shot. hey, what did Wayne Grekski say? You missed 100 % of the shots you don't take. That was also Michael Scott. Yeah, Michael Scott, Wayne Grekski. This was fun. Thank you so much, Millennium. I do need to say I need to remind you to thank some people from Ghost Train. Yes. Oh my God. So the other day when we were chatting with Mr. Chad Ultra, we didn't really get to dive into Ghost Train very, very much. Don't dive in. Just think.

I'm getting there. But I just want to say thank you to my Pacers, who I don't think I would have gone the whole way. I don't think I would have hit 100 without them. So J Parent, we got Hester from my Penguin team. She's amazing. We have Lindsay, lavatory Lindsay. It's just Lindsay in my book. ⁓ And J Duncan, you four got me to that finish. And I got there well ahead of schedule. But you know you didn't. You were behind schedule.

Hey, I finished outside of the golden hour. I was there, I couldn't. But I am just so thankful to have friends like you and just keeping me moving, motivated and eating. Those were the three important things and you all delivered wonderfully. Especially Hester with those Code Brown stories, which I will not share on the podcast until she comes on. Okay, I was going to say she better come on and She's got to share them herself, not me. Amazing. So hey, we're going to do

Thank you. We're going to do this again at the Manchester Marathon in two weeks. That is the ninth of November. So just know, I have to run the BAA half marathon to complete my distance medley. But I will try to shoot right up after the race and try to make it. And hopefully, you guys are still enjoying yourselves and having a good time covering the race. So I will try my best. We also hope to have it. Tara's going to be here, right? Is Tara doing that with you? Yeah. Excellent. Tara's running the half marathon.

So the plan is to actually start around the half marathon finish. okay I might like I don't know if I can get Ali or someone to come and start with me early and have like a rotating I'm worried Tara don't take this any the wrong way, but I'm worried that like we might miss a lot of good stuff if ⁓ We start when you finish. I kind of want to start at the start of the half marathon Yeah, and get the vibe so I might start early I might try to find someone to come on and till Tara gets there and then you come on

at the end. That will be a full day and we might even spread of that content. Andy's coming over. Yeah. Let's get Andy real quick as we're up. Andy. Hop him back on buddy. So I just want to say I just realized all morning my speaker was pointing right at you guys so I hope I didn't disrupt the podcast. was amazing. I hope I didn't disrupt you guys too much. It was amazing because it has this cool effect and we're just talking about our placement. We love that we're here in the middle and people this will sound when you hear it I really hope it

good because just the way it sounded in New Hampshire and Mylar the music sounded amazing in the background your voice in the background will sound amazing and some might be like oh my god that was my name and they heard it it's not overpowering. set up speakers because like I never disrupt the timers I call that the timers rule yeah and I didn't realize all of a sudden I just realized after three and a half hours the speakers would point it right at you and I might have disrupted your podcast. No such thing Andy. But I also will say this because you guys have been in lot of races all by you

can't put a price on wea because if it's rain to be there. The greatest care if it's a road race, you don't want to be there if don't blame the race secr doesn't want to be there. kids, our parents think y raining runners. go outs and we have been out here when you have weather like price on it because nobody

guys were a very important part of that. And know on behalf of the New Hampshire and Massachusetts, because we're sitting in Massachusetts, thank you for what you guys did today. We were saying with Erica and Clint, we did the New Hampshire 10-Miler. The weather was beautiful. We did the New River Half Marathon. The weather was beautiful. I think the key ingredient is on the run. There's no question. That's the key ingredient. There's no question. I'm honored that you had me on earlier, and I look forward to continuing to work with two of guys. And we're going to do it. was our pleasure, We're going to get your whole story later next year, 2026.

much of a story but I'll give it my best shot. Thanks guys. It's amazing. Thank you Andy. Your voice was incredible the whole time hearing Very nice. Yes, yes. Well I think I think we got to wrap it up. Yes, yes, yes. This has been so much fun. What a day. What a day. One last nostalgic whatever. Sure. I mean four years ago we're on the floor of Katie's living room with one little business mic and

Holy fucking shit. That just shows you what kind of growth is possible when you work for it and consistency. Eric works for it and you stick with it. Get used to me saying those kind of things because we're going to do more cool shit like this. And one day we'll be in Sydney, Australia at an expo saying, you remember when we were on Katie's floor? ⁓

Never forget. That's our origin story. And I love this community. I love this local community and the blink 182 in the background is amazing right now. Guys, I really hope we have another bonus episode out tomorrow. This is Thursday when you're listening. So Friday, a little preview for like pumping up the tires from New York. Yes. And I hope you have time for a buddy when next week's episode might not be Tuesday. It might be Wednesday because I don't know if you knew this, but you got to give the guy his wiggle room.

I'm running the New York City Marathon. has never mentioned this on the podcast before. So you gotta give him some time. Time to figure shit out. Hannah and I might record Monday morning post race. And maybe that's short and we put it out Tuesday. But there will be another episode where Erica can be like- You guys can do whatever you want.

mean, I would love to talk to Hannah if you guys can wait maybe till Monday night or something. When are you coming home? Monday. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, you could jump in on Riverside. Well, that would be Monday morning. That's right. Yeah. We'll figure it all out. You do you. And I will just I I think Ali G has the Hannah Hannah recap. OK. All right. Well, I still want to talk to you. We we can call her. Yeah.

We do phone calls. So have a wonderful race. Good luck putting up with your brother. I hope you have fun. Enjoy the city. Enjoy the atmosphere. You guys are going to have a blast. Especially my friend. Yes. I'm excited for you. Just in case we don't talk, but we will. Oh, well, you said you're already putting it out there. You're like, oh, Friday. Listen, well, we got to record that by Tuesday. It was amazing. Guys, thank you so much. John Millennium running in the entire millennium running.

Thank you, Millennium. Thank you. especially. This whole team, when we get here, they're like, we got you. We'll set up the tent and everything. And they do a phenomenal job. guys, have a great weekend. Have a great week. Recover. Go out there. Do more Millennium races. Erica, take us home. Thank you guys so much for listening. You know we love you. Don't fear the code Brown. Millennium assemble. And don't forget to stretch.