209 | Kayla Zwirko | Running Marathons to Building a Vibrant Running Community

On this episode we get to know Kayla Zwirko, a passionate runner and founder of the H2gO Life Run Club in Connecticut. Kayla shares inspiring stories of overcoming marathon challenges, building inclusive communities, and blending the fun of costumes, food, and friendship into the world of running. Plus, get insights on upcoming races, the importance of mindset, and hilarious Olympic musings.

In this episode:

• Kayla’s journey from hobbyist to marathoner and ultra runner
• The story behind founding the H2GO Life Run Club
• How running helped Kayla find community and support sobriety
• The fun of themed races, costumes, and unique challenges like the Philly founding fathers marathon
• Tips on balancing fun and competition in training and racing
• Insights into the Boston, New York City, and Tokyo marathons
• Olympic highlights and jaw-dropping sports moments
• The creative ideas for upcoming events and March Madness medaling competitions
• The importance of embracing setbacks, walking during races, and staying motivated
• Advice for new runners and seasoned athletes on enjoying the journey

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:19 - Celebrating holidays and personal routines
• 02:27 - Weather, running, and outdoor adventures
• 04:13 - The latest on Barkley and ultra marathons
• 08:24 - Kayla Zwirko
• 10:01 - Building the Connecticut run community
• 12:24 - Running as therapy and sobriety support
• 15:11 - First marathon stories, struggles, and redemption
• 23:13 - How ultras and marathons shape personal growth
• 26:31 - Kayla’s running club events and community partnerships
• 44:24 - Creative race ideas: theme parks, costumes, and relay challenges
• 54:45 - Memorable race experiences and motivational lessons
• 68:09 - Fun costumes, themed challenges, and special medals
• 75:38 - Tokyo Marathon expectations and race day tips
• 80:45 - Outro
• 89:53 - Olympics highlights, controversies, and favorite sports
• 103:55 - Planning a fall marathon and guessing game
• 106:38 - Wrap-up, gratitude, and upcoming adventures

Connect with Kayla:

• Instagram
• H2gO Life Run Club

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Email us at OnTheRunsPod@gmail.com

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

Transcript

Eric (00:54)
What's up everybody? Welcome to episode 209 of the On the Runs podcast. The Barkley Marathons is over quicker than you could light a cigarette. The Olympics are in full swing and it even has the winners confessing that they cheated on their girlfriends. Michael Jordan is a Daytona 500 champion and we have an amazing guest on today's pod. But before we get to any of that, I must say hello to my kick-ass rock star of a co-host.

Six star Erica, what's up?

Erika (01:22)
What's going on buddy? Happy day off. I hope you had the day off. I actually did for a change. It was wonderful. And now I get to talk to you earlier than usual. Yeah. Why?

Eric (01:30)
I had the day off. People gave me a hard time. They're like,

dude, don't you work? And I'm like, guys, it's a federal hall. It's president's day. Actually, it's Washington's birthday. That's a little teaser. We have an amazing guest today who dressed up as George Washington. But yeah, I'm like, I have the day off. Like, don't you? And they're like, no, I don't have the day off. We don't celebrate this day. I'm like, well, that's not my fault. You know, they're jealous that I was

Erika (01:41)
Mm-hmm.

sleep.

Eric (01:59)
Well, they thought I was skiing, because I posted a skiing photo today, because skiing's just been...

Erika (02:01)
Well, that's usually

what you do. You do a lot of work from home, quote unquote, days at the mountain. So it's hard to tell.

Eric (02:09)
Well, work from the I'm working. But

I'm actually, I am taking Wednesday off to do, guess what? Guess what I'm doing on Wednesday.

Erika (02:14)
Yeah?

going skiing.

Eric (02:19)
Yep. I'll be skiing on Wednesday at Jay Peak, actually. Gonna be an early morning, 6 a.m. start, picking up my buddy an hour up the road, skiing all day at Jay. It's gonna be a great day, fingers crossed, you know. ⁓ The weather, the weather lately has been incredible. If you are a runner, you should not be complaining about this weather, the cold or the snow, because it has been so perfect for running. I've been running. Have you? Did you go running? I don't know.

Erika (02:23)
⁓

Mm-hmm. Nice.

you

Ugh.

I did. Sorry you didn't get the invite, but so I will always complain about cold. I just am not meant to be cold. Just that's just my body. I don't know. But this weekend was actually perfect, perfect weather. Like I went Sunday for a long run and the sun was shining and what a difference just having the sun be out. How much of a difference it makes. It's, it's insane. So the 35 degree weather made it feel like I was like,

I don't know, I could have been swimming in the Pacific Ocean and surfing and having a blast. Yeah.

Eric (03:18)
It feels incredible.

Absolutely. It feels incredible. Like you can go from your truck, your car to the door, wherever you're going. And you're not like preparing yourself for 12 seconds of misery. You're like, this isn't that bad. It's been great. So this is kind Right. This is kind of that time, that crossover when you're feeling it, starting to feel better.

Erika (03:34)
I didn't have to psych myself up, you're right.

Eric (03:41)
But it snowed so much and it's cold enough at night to keep it in the mountains and the skiing is incredible. here I'm picking up the miles again. You're brushing the miles. Just not inviting your podcast friend to go running with you, but I digress.

Erika (03:41)
Mm.

Mountains can have it.

Hey, I will throw them out to you, man. If you want to come suffer with us during a long run, you're more than welcome to.

Weather permitting.

Eric (04:02)
Well,

I'll, I will join you when I get that invite if I can make it. But what have you been up to? I know you've been, you've been crushing the Olympics lately, right? Have you been fault? Did you follow the Barclays marathon at all? Like what have you been up to now?

Erika (04:07)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

You know what? Usually this is the time of year whenever the Barclays does come out. There's a guy named Keith Dunn and he will post all of his updates on X or Twitter or whatever it is. And that's the only reason I will pay attention to that app is to just get these updates. But this year it happened way earlier than usual and it was so short-lived. Like the mountain one, like Barclays one. Exactly.

Eric (04:42)
Right. I heard the weather was nasty. Like that's nasty

weather. The rain, the hurricane-like winds. That's worse than what we have up here.

Erika (04:49)
Yeah.

And you are out there for so long and it's so cold and miserable. Like, nope, there were no finishers this year. So this was a very, very quick Barclays. And yeah, really, I really didn't like, I wasn't glued to it this year. It was weird. I don't know. I do enjoy it though.

Eric (05:06)
I feel like the Barclays has

kind of fallen off though. Years ago you saw all the YouTube documentaries and people vlogging it and you got more than just what Keith posted on X. Like everyone talking about it and you just, it's not, I don't know. You said earlier it's not mainstream anymore. I don't think it ever was.

Erika (05:09)
It is, but it's not.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Well, is,

it's very well known in the ultra world and especially after Jasmine Paris won, I think that was 2024. Like she was the first female finisher of the entire thing, like the five laps. And ever since she did that, like there just, hasn't been any finishers. Like nobody's beat it in the past couple of years. So it just kind of has been like, I don't know. Yeah. Next year, next year is a new year.

Eric (05:31)
Mm-hmm.

Did you?

Did you watch the Daytona 500? You're a race fan. You're turning into one. Our guest today talked about it a little bit. She said the science and everything behind it and you're into F1. Did you watch?

Erika (05:55)
Does it?

No, I did not even know that was this weekend. I've been glued to the Olympics.

Eric (06:03)
Erica. There were more

There were more passes for the lead in the final two laps than there are in an entire F1 season.

Erika (06:14)
So I could just watch two laps and be like, riveted.

Eric (06:17)
True. Yeah. But you could

just watch one lap of an F1 race and you know who wins by the turn one. I still don't understand why you love F1.

Erika (06:23)
Honestly, really don't watch F1.

I mean, it's, I don't know, Brandon liked it. So that's why I watch it he doesn't do NASCAR. So it's in the house. But we haven't watched either this like in the past few years since we got rid of our cable. So we don't have an easy way to do it. And yeah.

Eric (06:41)
You know,

I was just telling somebody that I don't have cable, but how do you, they're like, how do you watch? I'm like, cause Adeline wanted to watch the Olympics, right? And I'm like, no, we watch the Olympics or whatever. The opening ceremonies or something, right? Like we have the direct TV app and we just log into my parents' account. Like, yeah, I'm 40 and I'm logging into my parents' direct TV app account. But I'm like, I'm not paying $180 to watch a couple Bruins games a year.

Erika (06:48)
apps.

⁓

It works.

Yep.

Eric (07:08)
But we have that app on the smart TV and it works perfectly. It's amazing. Yeah, we share.

Erika (07:11)
be useful. Yeah, we've been

watching the Olympics. We have the Peacock app from, like I get it for free from I think Xfinity just for like having internet. They're like, you have an app, but it's got commercials and it's so annoying. And so we'll watch like two seconds of downhill skiing.

Eric (07:22)
Right.

I don't hate the commercials though,

not for like free con, like do you, like I'm not the one who's gonna buy the $30 Disney Plus plan to have commercial free when I can pay $8 a month to have a couple commercials before a movie. Like I go make the popcorn during the commercial.

Erika (07:32)
It's the same commercial.

Mm.

This is different because for the Olympics, there's probably 120 seconds of commercials every 10 minutes, and it's really annoying. So we're...

Eric (07:56)
That's fine. That's...

How is that different than watching Boy Meets World when you were a kid?

Erika (08:01)
Now we have the luxury of being able to skip all these commercials. So you get used to it. And I do pay for Disney Plus without ads and stuff. And it's wonderful. I just hate the same commercial. I split it with Brandon, so I'm not shelling out all of it. oh, man. It's a lot.

Eric (08:07)
Well

Well, it must be nice having that kind of money.

Well, you know who you could talk to

about, about that kind of stuff and make more money. You could talk to our political leaders, like maybe some of our founding fathers, maybe some people who, you know, have built this country and maybe they run this country or maybe they just run marathons. We have an amazing guest today.

Erika (08:32)
Thanks.

Mr. Washington.

That's more like it. That's the president I want to talk to. Mr. Washington, how did your marathon go?

Eric (08:52)
We have a really cool guest today. This is

fun. She reached out to us last summer after having, it was John Mortimer. And when we started doing the live shows from Millennium and she's from New Hampshire, she might have lost her way and gone to another state, but she's a local from New Hampshire. She has some really cool connecting the dots. We realized very early on in this episode. And that's, that's why I mentioned NASCAR Daytona and, I'll talk about it more in the outro with you, but

Erika (09:04)
you

Eric (09:20)
It was a lot of fun talking to Kayla Zawarko. ⁓ And you guys, if you don't know her now, get used to getting to know her because you're going to hear her voice a lot more at future races here in New Hampshire. Erica, tell us a little more.

Erika (09:34)
You guys, she fits right in with us. She is just so full of life and fun that you're instantly gonna wanna go say hello and get to know her better because she just brings out the best in people, wants to make you smile and wants the best from you. So you guys are gonna absolutely love Kayla.

Eric (09:51)
Absolutely guys. So enjoy Kayla on the On the Runs podcast and we'll see you on the other side.

Eric (10:01)
Our next guest on the pod is a New Hampshire runner who might've lost her way and moved outside New England to Connecticut, but she never lost her love for running and has built an incredible run club with a social agenda that you might have seen recently across your social feeds. Running is the founding fathers in the Philadelphia Marathon. She's in the middle of her six star journey and she's getting geared up for Tokyo in a couple of weeks and we're wicked excited to have her on the podcast. Kayla Zawarko, AKA Coach K, welcome to the On the Runs podcast. What's up?

Kayla Zwirko (10:28)
Thanks! Eric, right off the bat I have to fact check you. Connecticut still is in New England! Don't do this to me! I'm a New England girl!

Eric (10:34)
No, incorrect.

Erika (10:37)
Heart Heart

take!

Eric (10:38)
Incorrect. Connecticut is not part of New England. Fact check me all you want. It will never be.

Erika (10:44)
Mmm.

Kayla Zwirko (10:45)
⁓ that makes me so sad because I'm just such a New England girl. ⁓ We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Erika (10:50)
you

Eric (10:51)
It makes me sad you would leave New England.

I guess you could divide Connecticut in half. There must be like some kind of line because, you know, there's a line where you're a Yankees fan or a Jets fan. There's a line where you stay on the New England side. But still, I have cousins who live there and they don't, they're not New England fans and they're kind of in the middle. They're in Cheshire. So.

Kayla Zwirko (10:59)
There is.

Yeah,

I have Yankee Stadium behind me. can't take New England out of the girl, apparently.

Eric (11:22)
Are you a Yankees fan? You mean Fenway! You mean Fenway! You said Yan-

Kayla Zwirko (11:24)
No. the sorry, I was, ⁓

it is been right. See, this is, you know what it is, Eric, you're, making me so sad that I'm like, am, am I like a traitor? You're, you're doing this to me.

Erika (11:29)
I can see the Sitko sign!

Eric (11:38)
Listen, we all do it. I moved away. I came back. I believe that one day you will come back because we'll get to talking about some things you're going to be coming back to New Hampshire for. And maybe we just get you to do it full time soon.

Kayla Zwirko (11:42)
Mm.

That's probably true.

That's probably

Erika (11:50)
Don't let Eric

get you down. I mean, you are a New England girl through and through, and I love your vibe already, even just like talking to you pre-show for a few minutes. So Kayla, you are welcome here anytime you want, especially on the podcast. Welcome back. Yes.

Kayla Zwirko (12:01)
Thank you,

Eric (12:02)
She's welcome back.

And she can stay.

Kayla Zwirko (12:06)
She can only come back when she's got a nice little Manchester, Keen New Hampshire area code. Got it.

Eric (12:16)
Yeah

Erika (12:16)
You gotta

bring the Boston accent a little bit, kid guy, I don't know.

Kayla Zwirko (12:18)
Just a wee bit. Yeah.

Eric (12:21)
You mentioned Keen, so you're from Keen originally, right?

Kayla Zwirko (12:24)
I am. Yeah, my parents still live there and I'm part of a huge family. My mom is one of 10. My dad's one of seven and they're all pretty much still over the span of the entire state, which as you know, New Hampshire is not a large state by any means. So ⁓ I have family all over, but yeah, when I go back home to visit my family, they're right outside of Keen.

Erika (12:47)
When did you wind up moving away from ⁓ New Hampshire? I'll say New Hampshire, not New England.

Kayla Zwirko (12:51)
Yeah. So

I moved out of New Hampshire ⁓ back in 2017. I was working for the New Hampshire Motor Speedway and I was doing all of their ⁓ flyover, pre-race show ⁓ aspects for the NASCAR sanctioned events. And then obviously all the other races ⁓ that were not necessarily NASCAR sanctioned or ⁓ the race that Millennium Running actually puts on over there too.

Erika (13:00)
Mmm.

Kayla Zwirko (13:19)
⁓

but we, did a lot of different events over there and I ended up just making a lot of different contacts and ended up going and working for NASCAR in a different capacity. ⁓ and so worked for, ⁓ the FedEx team, the number 11 team, their marketing agency. So moved down here to Connecticut to be close to them and traveled the circuit then for, ⁓ a couple of years. So was that I, yeah. Yeah. So NASCAR, not what you would expect, but yeah.

Erika (13:41)
How cool is that?

Eric (13:47)
We

talk a lot about it actually.

Erika (13:48)
You're talking

to the right guy. He knows all there is about that, especially New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Eric (13:50)
Do know who I used to work for?

Kayla Zwirko (13:53)
Tell me.

Eric (13:53)
Do know who I used to work for? I Joe Gibbs Racing. I did. changed tires on the 20 car for Drew Herring. You know Drew?

Kayla Zwirko (13:56)
You did not!

Stop it! This is the greatest thing! I knew that we were going to be really good friends, but I did not realize that we were going have so much in common.

Eric (14:02)
I, yeah, I worked through.

Yeah, I changed tires on the 20 and it was the nationwide series then I did a lot of trucks and Arca. David Starr, you know David Starr? He ran me over, he broke my wrist, my fingers, my foot, I have the hood and my dad's shed. I was one week away from doing my first cup race and I was out for a while. This is back in 2008, nine, 10, 11. Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Kayla Zwirko (14:13)
Wow!

Yes, I do.

Erika (14:18)
You

Kayla Zwirko (14:29)
⁓ this is really exciting. I traveled

the circuit, got to go to a bunch of different tracks, worked with my team. did pre-race hospitality. I did pit tours and holler tours. I was doing Q &As with the driver. So I had a lot of fun ⁓ romping around and it was the time of my life for sure.

Eric (14:48)
It's

the best. We still go to New Hampshire every year and camp the entire week. I still have a lot of friends in the sport. A lot of them are kind of, I just hit 40. lot of them are like my buddy Shane. He was the Jack man. I was a Jack man too. He was the Jack man on the one car for Ross the last couple of years. He just retired. yeah, that was back in the day. Back in the day for me.

Erika (14:49)
How cool.

Kayla Zwirko (14:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nice.

Wow,

this is so exciting. My husband's going to love this. He's going to love hearing all about this because we never watched a lap of NASCAR until I started working for them.

Eric (15:11)
Yeah, pretty cool.

Erika (15:17)
Mm.

Eric (15:17)
And it's a

wicked cool sport, right? Like when you get to know it. Yeah.

Kayla Zwirko (15:19)
Yeah.

Actually, you know what? Because it's not an Erica's laughing because she's like every other person who's like, it's literally cars going around in a circle. What is this? But when you start to realize all of the science that's behind it and who all the different, you know, people are that contribute to a team success, it gets really interesting. I promise.

Erika (15:20)
you

Eric (15:24)
She likes F1 because of Netflix. ⁓

Erika (15:25)
Mm-hmm.

So you have

me at science. I like that part of the sport. But yeah, and I'm not laughing at Eric. I've just heard that story a bunch of times and it gets better every time I hear it. ⁓ Eric, we love you.

Eric (15:49)
one last NASCAR question just to want you to take. Is Denny going to win a championship?

Kayla Zwirko (15:54)
Ooh, ooh.

Eric (15:57)
So Denny is the driver, Erica, of the 11 car that she worked on and he's come so close, including this last year, he was three laps away and...

Kayla Zwirko (15:57)
think he's, I think he's.

Erika (15:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

⁓

Kayla Zwirko (16:06)
I don't think so. I think sometimes he can be his own worst enemy. Yeah. I was just going to say that. I was going to say that. We are all our own worst enemy for sure.

Eric (16:08)
Yeah. And he's also great for the sport.

Erika (16:09)
⁓ aren't we all? That's what happens.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Let's go, Denny. I like your name. Let's go. You got this, buddy.

Eric (16:19)
Yeah. But anyways,

Kayla Zwirko (16:20)
You

Eric (16:21)
that's really, so how did you get into that world at NHMS then? Because like, I actually applied for a job there when I came back and I didn't get one. So how did you get started in that?

Kayla Zwirko (16:31)
Eric, it's all about who you know. I was working for the Manchester Monarchs back when they were the ⁓ LA Kings affiliate. So worked in sports hospitality for quite some time. ⁓ I was there and my boss was leaving. He and his wife were going to head back back to their home state. ⁓ And his wife happened to be the events director at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. So she was looking for a replacement

Eric (16:33)
I know and I knew people.

Erika (16:37)
Cool!

Kayla Zwirko (16:58)
for someone in the department and she was part of that hiring process. And so I had applied at the recommendation of my current boss who happened to be her husband. So that's kind of how that all happened.

Eric (17:13)
Was that in the Jerry Gappins days or the David McGrath days? ⁓

Erika (17:14)
I love all the connections.

Kayla Zwirko (17:17)
You know what? I was there for the changeover.

Erika (17:18)
Mm.

Kayla Zwirko (17:21)
So I was there for both and during that exciting time.

Eric (17:26)
yeah. Exciting. ⁓

Erika (17:27)
I just wish I could chime in more, but you guys are so happy and it's making me happy.

Kayla Zwirko (17:32)
Erica, we'll

Eric (17:32)
we'll fill you in later, Erica, but this is a running podcast.

Erika (17:34)
Sure, sure. Let's

Kayla Zwirko (17:36)
talk

Erika (17:36)
move on.

Kayla Zwirko (17:36)
offline, the most corporate line ever. We'll take it offline. ⁓

Eric (17:40)
You went to UNH, right? You're a ⁓ wildcat?

Kayla Zwirko (17:42)
I did.

Oh yeah, go Wildcats. It's a great day to be a went there for hospitality and recreation management. Had a blast, had way more fun doing what a college kid should be doing and not so much actual why I majored in actual party planning and event planning. Yeah.

Eric (18:02)
⁓ yeah!

Erika (18:02)
Very nice. That's

awesome.

Kayla Zwirko (18:04)
But primarily

in the sports space because I was super into it and I loved hockey. My family grew up being big hockey fans. ⁓ My family's from Montreal, so we are big Habs fans. It's probably the only big divide that we're going to have. ⁓ I know, Eric, come back. ⁓ But it's really one of those things where ⁓ we always had sports in the house. And so it was always something that I was interested in, even though I wasn't good at any sports by any means.

Eric (18:14)
my god, podcast over.

Erika (18:21)
You can't scare me away like that, no worries.

Kayla Zwirko (18:33)
So, and yeah, ⁓ it was an easy R major at the time, which is what I cared about.

Erika (18:40)
That's really cool. I have to say, I have partied at UNH, but ⁓ Eric and I are Panthers from PSU. So does that make us rivals? Or I don't know. I don't think we're rivals. We're not in the same division. No, not really.

Kayla Zwirko (18:47)
wow!

I don't really know. I don't think either college really had a big rival by any means.

Eric (18:56)
Not in sports, but I'll

tell you what, in 1993, Playboy rated us that everyone in party school in the country.

Erika (19:01)
Because

that matters.

Kayla Zwirko (19:03)
Wow,

that really does matter. When I was two, you were partying and that's super exciting.

Eric (19:11)
Well, we were not partying in 93.

Erika (19:11)
you

Kayla Zwirko (19:14)
I mean...

Erika (19:14)
How old was I in 93? I was seven? I was seven. I was birthday partying in 93.

Kayla Zwirko (19:18)
Yeah.

Eric (19:20)
I might've had the air off there

too, but all right. Now, now we got that down. now is a fun time. So we're all New Hampshire people. This is super cool. You weren't a runner though. You said you loved hockey and eventually love NASCAR. You were not a runner. Like did you do, what did you do? Were you doing dance or something or just kind of like a Jack of all trades?

Kayla Zwirko (19:32)
No!

Yeah, I was definitely like us and I still am to this day, very much a serial hobbyist of sorts. So it's like, my friends wanted to go trap for the soccer team. Let's go for the soccer team. my friends were going to do some drama and some band and all the good stuff. And I was like, yeah, let's let's make it happen. So ⁓ I in high school actually was really into band. was ⁓

also sax player in the marching band. And I actually marched in the parade of lights in Disney, which is one of my biggest flexes to this day, which Eric as a Disney fan, I feel like can appreciate. yeah, I got to college and really was like, I want to actually have friends. ⁓ So I ended up just really trying to expand and getting involved in absolutely everything, which I did.

Erika (20:02)
awesome.

Cool!

Kayla Zwirko (20:22)
But still in college, never ran. I feel like I only stepped foot into that gym maybe a dozen times. It just wasn't really something that I was interested in. I didn't start running until the pandemic hit. My dad has always been a big runner, so it's always been a part of our life. We'd go and watch him run half marathons pretty regularly growing up. He always wanted us to do the kids races and we always hated them. I just remember

Erika (20:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Kayla Zwirko (20:47)
My dad being like, let's go, let's go do these races. We'll do it together as a family. And it was like the bane of my existence. So like, I would rather run. Everyone always complains like, and soccer running was a punishment type of deal. And yes, that's so true. But for me, I just was like, this is miserable, not how I want to spend my Saturday. And I'm 12 years old. And dad wants me to come in like first in my age group in some small town in New Hampshire, you know, running some road race. just never really.

Erika (21:00)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (21:15)
So he was trying to get

Erika (21:15)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (21:16)
you to do really, really good. See, I'm a dad and the problem for me always is getting them out the door. Once they're there, they have a blast. They have a fun. I'm like, no, you're going to have fun. The people make it even better. My nine year old did the Cigna Elliot 5K and we made sure it was fun. We like, it's hot, run through the sprinklers. We go skiing. Hard to get her out the door. When we're skiing, she wants to keep, she doesn't want the day to end.

Kayla Zwirko (21:22)
Yeah.

Erika (21:29)
You you're gonna have fun.

Kayla Zwirko (21:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric (21:41)
It's the same with even dance practice. Going to dance can't get her out the door. But you you got to make sure they have fun.

Kayla Zwirko (21:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, my dad was like, you could come in first. There's only four kids total. You could come in first for the kids and essentially get the age division trophy as well. And I was like, this still is not motivating to me.

Erika (22:01)
⁓ I would be motivated by a trophy, think. But nowadays I am. But I was just like you. I was kind of trying a little bit of everything and you couldn't, you would have to drag me to the gym basically. So I'm just like you and outside of college I finally picked it up. But I get it. It was a little bit of a drag until you get used to it and becomes part of your life.

Kayla Zwirko (22:23)
Right.

You know how like when we talk about running and we probably will talk about it at some point, but I'm a firm believer actually just ⁓ interviewed for a role and got a new position, which is so exciting. during that interview process, I actually like boasted about how I'm a marathon runner, A, because isn't that what we do? But then also I wanted, I had all of these different correlations of like,

Erika (22:42)
Hehehehe

Kayla Zwirko (22:47)
how being a marathon runner was going to make me really great at this job and like the traits and the habits and the things that I've I've you know come to know as now second nature are actually huge huge assets for for me as a person and I selling myself that way but I feel like similarly when we're in high school or college we're trying to find ourselves and we are wearing all these different hats and we are trying so many different things

Erika (22:52)
Mm-hmm. Definitely.

Kayla Zwirko (23:13)
Then all of a sudden I'm like, this is what made me so good at my job now where it's, hey, I'll take on that. I'll try something new. I'll make a career change, or I'll be able to take on something that might necessarily be in the scope of work that I'm used to. And I feel like some of that came from, hey, let's throw caution to the wind and just like try anything that comes our way.

Erika (23:18)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

that.

Eric (23:33)
Let me ask you a question about your interview. Why did you use the marathon comparison and not the ultramarathon comparison?

Kayla Zwirko (23:36)
Again.

you know what? think because I've done that marathon training so many times that I can really attest to the journey and the discipline and the things that come with that. I only trained for an ultra marathon once, ⁓ which I ran a marathon during that training, which is wild enough as it is. ⁓

Eric (24:00)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (24:02)
you ⁓

Kayla Zwirko (24:04)
And yes, that was an incredibly liberating and life-changing experience for me. And I could talk about it all day and try to convince someone to at least do one at some point. ⁓ But I just didn't feel like it was a part of my soul in the same way. I felt like my soul left my body in a different way for those. Because yeah, ultra-training is no joke. mean, those, you know, those mindsets are just...

completely different and I love that about all of you. Like I think that that's incredible and definitely something I would be willing to do again. It's just not like, it's not something that you can just say, yeah, I'll sign up for a marathon at the end of the summer. Like that sounds great. You have to actually like think a little bit harder and plan a little bit more when it comes to some ultras.

Erika (24:48)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (24:52)
Right.

Erika (24:53)
Absolutely.

Eric (24:54)
Well, let's get

Erika (24:54)
so we know how you started running. Your father was big into it and you would follow along and you didn't love it back then, but what kind of changed your mindset on running and got you more into the habit?

Kayla Zwirko (25:08)
think I was an admirer of first. I don't think it was actually something where I'm like, let me get out there. Let me lace up some shoes. Because when I was at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway where I met John Mortimer and the lovely individuals over at Millennium Running, shout out, woo woo, my faves. But up at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, we did a race called You'll Light Up the Night. And so we it's.

Erika (25:18)
Mm-hmm.

Aren't they great? Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (25:35)
A lot of cities and places have it where you can drive your car through the light shows around the holidays. They have them all over the place. ⁓ so Millennium Running would actually have a two mile road race through the lights at night. What a fun experience. I always thought that those individuals who are not only getting out to go in and see this amazing light show on foot,

Erika (26:03)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (26:04)
But also it was not warm when this is happening. Mind you, this is the holidays. We're talking Christmas time. ⁓ And so I don't think that that was the motivator for me to get out there, but I was definitely an admirer and someone who was like a cheer zone. That's my place. That's where I could really shine. it wasn't until 2020 that I actually laced up sneakers and decided to go run something other than a turkey trot.

Erika (26:07)
you

Mm.

awesome.

Eric (26:31)
That motivator was actually, I think, your husband, you said, because you thought he was crazy for wanting to run a marathon.

Kayla Zwirko (26:38)
Yeah, so my husband works for Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which is a nonprofit that's here in Connecticut. It was started by Paul Newman back in the 80s. is. You did.

Erika (26:39)
⁓

friend who attended that because she had cancer

back in the back in the day and she always like gives back and my god I love that cause that is an amazing camp.

Kayla Zwirko (26:56)
⁓ I love that so much. Erica, I try to run a race for them every year so I can do a little bit of fundraising because my niece is a camper as well. But we have such big ties and so for anyone else who doesn't necessarily know, it is a summer camp here in Connecticut. It was started by Paul Newman and it's for

Erika (27:00)
Do you?

Aww.

Kayla Zwirko (27:15)
⁓ children with serious illnesses and their families to go to summer camp for free. And so it is an incredible cause. And so my husband works for them and was working with the marathon team. So anyone who knows I'm going to try to run the New York City Marathon, I'm going to try to get in through a charity program. You learn a lot about all these different charities the country. Hole in the Wallhead,

Erika (27:34)
Mm.

Kayla Zwirko (27:37)
bibs for New York City as they do almost every year. And my husband came back after being at the start line for the New York City Marathon with his marathon team. And he came home and was like, I have to do that. And this was like in 2019. He's like, I have to do that. And I was like, you have to go seek help because this seems like this seems like I go, you haven't run anything.

Erika (27:45)
Mmm.

There's just something about a marathon

though that's just so inspiring. Even at the start line before people are even in it.

Kayla Zwirko (28:07)
Yes.

my gosh. And anyone who's run the New York City Marathon knows like you have all these people who show up and then there's an anthem and then a massive, you know, cannon shot. And then next thing you know, it's, you know, New York, New York is playing as loud as it possibly can. And you're seeing everybody just like these massive crowds and waves going off. Everyone's so excited to get started. And so I just I thought he was absolutely crazy. But sure enough.

January 1st, that man got on the treadmill and he started to run his, he ran three miles and he got off and he was like, that was terrible. That is, which I'd love to also point out, like we owned a treadmill, but didn't use it. We were those people, you know? Yeah. but he, he started to train for this race. He had the bib through camp and I basically was like, well, what am I supposed to do while you're out here training for this marathon?

And my mom said, why don't we train for a half together? We'll find something. We'll do it. It'll be a lot of fun. And so my mom suggested like, let's do like Nantucket or like Martha's Vineyard. I'm like, no, this is something I can get into. Like this seems like, yeah, destination. it just happened where we were just running and then the pandemic hit. And my race that was in the spring got pushed. And then

Erika (29:15)
Right? Okay.

Mmm.

Kayla Zwirko (29:27)
The New York City Marathon got canceled. Jared was put into the render resolution program. So he actually had a draw pull for 2022. And so now we're like, well, what are we going to do with all of this? This training, just like, guess we're just going to keep going. Because if we stop, I had a fear of stopping. What does that actually mean? So my husband ran the Clarence Damar Marathon, which is in Keene.

Erika (29:36)
⁓

Right.

Mm-hmm.

And key,

Eric (29:53)
It's great

Erika (29:54)
love it.

Eric (29:54)
one. It's penciled in for me right now, by the way. Penciled. Pencil.

Kayla Zwirko (29:55)
Yes, it's a great race for anyone who has. Oh, let's do it.

Erika (30:03)
Break out the pen, Gamaphobia, gamaphobia, this guy.

Kayla Zwirko (30:03)
I know, like, let's go, let's get the pens. But yeah, so that just kind of happened. It snowballed, you know, like 2021 was a weird year too, because there was this resurgence of COVID. And because of that, races were pushed. I the Boston Marathon was moved to.

the fall that year. yeah, so it was moved to the fall and camp, which when I tell you the story, you're going to be like this. I can't even believe this happened. Camp couldn't even give their bibs away for Boston 2022 because there were people who had just run in the fall and were not thinking, all right, I'm going to get in for the spring or my body's not going to be ready just with the nature of that race.

Erika (30:25)
That's right.

Eric (30:25)
Columbus

Day.

Erika (30:39)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (30:51)
⁓ People were still so iffy about crowds at the time. was just a very weird time. And so ⁓ we were asked if we would be interested in raising some money and getting these bibs to go run the Boston Marathon. And so that was my first marathon. like, I can't say no. I can't turn down a bib to the Boston Marathon. I'd be absolutely insane. And so that's how it started. I just didn't stop running when COVID hit. And then I decided, all right, I guess I'm going to

Eric (31:11)
Right?

Kayla Zwirko (31:21)
on the Boston Marathon.

Erika (31:23)
Well, that's good. base. So 2022, yeah, that's plenty of time. Beautiful.

Eric (31:23)
So a question.

Right.

Kayla Zwirko (31:26)
builds.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eric (31:33)
So a question I like to ask a lot of people, and we're a storytelling podcast. We love to hear your best stories. Good, bad, ugly, the unfortunate, right? I love to hear that first marathon story. Spare no details on that day.

Kayla Zwirko (31:48)
sure. So because I got the joy of running with my husband, who is now running his second marathon at this time, ⁓ we said, let's do it together. Doesn't that sound romantic? ⁓ so my first man, I'm like, this is going to be great. Let's let's go for it. It's going to be fun. We start and within the first five miles, I'm like,

Eric (32:00)
⁓ yeah, that could test a marriage.

Erika (32:00)
So romantic.

Test of marriage. I hope it went better than that.

Kayla Zwirko (32:16)
Oh, grossly underestimated what this is going to be like. And I'm five miles into this race. So Jared's like, no worries. We're going to do it together. It's going to be awesome. Well, let's fast forward to like mile 16. I am miserable. I can't even think about what a finish line would look like or feel like because I don't even feel like I can run.

I'm like doing this waddle walk. I look like I could be beating a grandma down in like Fort Lauderdale, like a speed walking with the best of them. I have the weirdest gait going on and I'm just going, well, mind you, my fastest pace is my husband's easy pace. So now I'm suffering even more. So my pace is totally out the window. My husband, Jared, he is running like

my God, he's having the time of his life, high fiving every little kid, hands in the air, reading every sign. And then he's like, ⁓ where's Kayla? And he turns around and then realizes that I'm a good 10 feet behind him. And this is his reaction. And just...

Erika (33:15)
You

Eric (33:16)
Yes.

Erika (33:24)
⁓

Kayla Zwirko (33:35)
flows down to an absolute crawl in order for me to catch up to him. I was like, leave me. Save yourself. I don't want you around me. And so we said for the longest time, I don't think I could ever run a marathon with Jared again. It is a recipe for disaster. Divorce will be in my future. I love this man so much and I just don't think I could do it. We had photos. Our family was at the top of Heartbreak Hill because that's where you need it the most.

and when you look the best. I don't know if you know this. The photos, Jared's hugging his mom. He's like, looks great. I look like an absolute ogre in the background. I didn't even know I had a hunchback until I saw some of these photos. And it is just like, it was just, it was absolutely terrible. We're crossing the finish line. The finish line photo is me just like, praise the Lord. This is the greatest day. And my husband's looking at me like, we had so much fun.

Erika (34:34)
You and I have two totally different ideas of fun.

Kayla Zwirko (34:39)
So he goes, but he did say, and so as you know, I think a lot of us go through that where we're like, you either have a great training cycle or you don't have a great training cycle. You don't know what, you just don't know what you don't know going into your first marathon. So a lot of the stories are very similar to that where you go out too fast. You don't know what mile 22 is even going to feel like because you didn't even get close to that during your training, you know, when you're training for your first marathon. So

Erika (34:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (35:06)
It was always so interesting because we crossed the finish line and Jared goes, you're never going to do this again, are you? And I said, I'm going to come back next year and I'm going to have redemption. And so I found a bib for 2023. I used some connections to try to make it happen. And I said, I'm going to go back. It's going to be great. I ran and I cut an hour and seven minutes off of my time.

Erika (35:19)
Mm-hmm.

Holy

shit, Kayla.

Eric (35:35)
There you go.

Kayla Zwirko (35:36)
Which I feel

like is a testament to you being like, wow, you got really in shape. But really, I just was so terrible the first time. But yeah.

Eric (35:48)
Right here, is this the one?

Kayla Zwirko (35:50)
That's literally look at me. look like I'm, I actually look like I am a very religious person in that moment. And my husband is looking at me like we had a blast.

Erika (36:03)
So glad you got your redemption moment, though. That's amazing. Did it make you love the marathon a little bit more the second time around?

Kayla Zwirko (36:05)
Yeah. I do.

Oh,

for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I think it is true. You don't know what you don't know. And also in between that, I did run my ultra. So I was like 26. It does. It really does.

Erika (36:24)
Doesn't it give you a new perspective on things? Like if you're running

more than that, and then you only have to do a marathon. Like it's such a nice feeling.

Kayla Zwirko (36:31)
Only, yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I think that if you have the opportunity as a runner to run the same race the following year, for whatever reason, whether it's a race you just love to do, whether it just happens to lie on a great weekend or you want the redemption, it's really special regardless of the outcome of your race. I believe that it's really special.

to look at your life a year from now and be like, wow, a year ago today, I was at the start line and maybe I hated my job or maybe I was in a bad relationship or maybe I was, ⁓ you know, maybe I was drinking way too much or maybe, and then you look at yourself, you fast forward and even your training cycle is totally different, whether this is your second marathon or your fifth marathon. And so I always tell people, like, I think it's really special when people are granted the opportunity to run the exact same race.

a year later because of how different we become. You're not the same person that you are when you get to the start line as you were when you decide to even sign up for a race, let alone a full year in advance. So I just think it's really special and I think it's a cool thing.

Erika (37:42)
right?

Yeah, you grow so much during these cycles and you never know how you're gonna change what you're gonna learn. It is a learning experience every single time. You could do a hundred of these and still learn new things. So yeah, it's just all about the growth. And I'm so happy that you got to do that and see a difference and it was a very happy difference for you. Good experience, yes.

Kayla Zwirko (37:47)
⁓

Yeah. Yeah.

Totally.

Yes, it really, really was. Yeah.

Eric (38:08)
That was a great story. Thanks so much for sharing. I love those. And I just knew it was going to deliver those first time marathon stories always seem to deliver. And you dove right in because now you're halfway through a six star journey and a couple of weeks you're getting your fourth star. you started a running club in your community of Connecticut, not New England. Like you, you dove right in. What was like, what was the reason for that dive? Right.

Erika (38:21)
Slip?

Excellent.

Kayla Zwirko (38:27)
Yeah.

Erika (38:30)
She literally took the running thing and ran with it. I love

Kayla Zwirko (38:33)
Yeah,

Erika (38:34)
it.

Kayla Zwirko (38:34)
I was like, I was like, I'm not even good at this. And this is just might as well just keep going. No. Yeah.

Erika (38:39)
you don't have to be good at it just as long as you keep trying and if

you're enjoying yourself that's all that really matters.

Kayla Zwirko (38:46)
Absolutely. Yeah. You know what? It just got to the point where I felt like, okay, this is something similar to what we're saying. Something I can do for me, something I can do to constantly be challenging myself and getting myself to next stage in my life. I went through a lot when I was running. I got the opportunity to run an ultra marathon. I actually went sober during that time as well.

just feel like there was so many different, monumentous things that happened for me, and running was always there for me. Whether I was having a really bad day or whether I was having a great day, it didn't matter whether I was laughing or crying or it was raining or it was sunny or it was snowing or it was just a cold day. I had that, and that was really ⁓ a ⁓ cool growth opportunity.

for me so many different ways. And so then I'm like, well, if it's affected me like this, it's got to affect other people. And we had moved to Connecticut, so outside of New England, as some would say. I was just, yeah, I just, because I stopped drinking and I, a lot of the people I was surrounded around, that was.

Eric (39:49)
You're catching on.

Kayla Zwirko (40:00)
the activity of choice. Let's go to a concert. Let's go to the bar. Let's go to a show. Let's go do something. with running, I felt a lot of support in so many ways. And so I thought there has to be other people. And this is kind of before this big boom of run clubs. And my husband and I, we ⁓ worked with a local brewery and coffee shop. And we decided we were going to advertise for this awesome new run community.

Eric (40:02)
Right.

Erika (40:14)
Mm.

Kayla Zwirko (40:28)
and like the very first H2GO event, three people showed up. And I was like, these are three, I was like three more people than I.

Erika (40:33)
Hey, that's three people!

Eric (40:34)
That's awesome.

That's two more than our first turkey trot, Eric, I remember.

Kayla Zwirko (40:42)
See? I think a lot of people who want to start a group or they see these massive groups of people out there and then they have five people show up to their first one and they're like, this isn't going to really be what I want it to be. But for me, I just wanted people. I wanted like minded individuals who were like, yeah, let's go for a run and let's grab a coffee afterwards and just like talk about our lives. And so.

Erika (40:42)
True.

Eric (40:53)
keep going. No, you just gotta keep going. Right.

Erika (41:04)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (41:07)
got into that space. started coaching because I was so passionate and Erica, probably tell, like I was just so passionate about the journey piece of it. And I thought that that in itself was way better than any race day, which I have a friend Tracy and she totally disagreed. She's like race day and a medal or what I'm doing it for. I literally hate every other day of this training cycle. And I get that too, but I feel like, you know, I started to make

Erika (41:18)
Absolutely.

Kayla Zwirko (41:35)
Some of my best friends are in this Run Club. I never met them until they joined. now that, like people from that Run Club, we all ran that Philly Marathon together as the founding fathers. Like those are all Run Club members who I didn't even know before we started this group. ⁓ And so it's really cool when you start to see how it's spider webs, where you have the community ⁓ and it's a community that, you you could say that I built.

Erika (41:57)
Mmm.

Kayla Zwirko (42:04)
But the only reason there even is a community is because we made it a safe space and other people showed up. The community is because other people are there. I just created the opportunity. And I think that like anyone could do that with anything that they like, whether it's crocheting or it's running or it's baking, it doesn't matter. ⁓ running really found me in a time that I needed it the most. And now I get to say, like I get to coach people and I get to run alongside them and I get to

You I get to do, you run with Achilles and ⁓ I get to MC at various different events for Hartford Marathon and Millennium Running. And so it's just really great. it can't get rid of me now. This is what's happening.

Eric (42:51)
Yeah. It's

Erika (42:51)
They

Eric (42:53)
called.

Erika (42:53)
don't want to, they want to keep you around.

Kayla Zwirko (42:55)
Enough!

Eric (42:56)
It's called H2GO Life and how do you come up with the name of H2GO?

Kayla Zwirko (42:58)
Yes.

Um, so initially I just wanted to get involved because I care about the community anyway, but I wanted to get involved with all these different races. And sometimes you go to some of these races and a water station is like poorly manned, right? And you're just like, I'm either grabbing my own cup or they poured them all ahead of time. didn't have volunteers there. And I was like, I want it to be, you know, like this cheer zone meets water station. And so I'm going to call my run club hydration station.

Erika (43:16)
Mm.

Kayla Zwirko (43:32)
And my husband was like, that's dumb.

Eric (43:35)
WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH

Erika (43:38)
He could have been like, hey, let's workshop this, but.

Kayla Zwirko (43:40)
Yeah, no, it was like, how about we try something else? So it was a bunch

of back and forth. And so he's like, how about H2Go? it could talk about like, we could still have your hydration thought process here, but where it's about movement at the end of the day. And I was like, okay, I can get behind that. I would give him full credit for the name creation of it all. ⁓ But that's kind of how it came to be was I was thinking about

Erika (43:57)
Okay.

Kayla Zwirko (44:09)
giving back to the community. didn't even realize as it was, because it kind of built itself that it was just going to become a community. So, yeah.

Erika (44:16)
So what kind

of events do you guys usually hold? Is it on a weekly basis? Is it just one day a week? You do a weekend run? Or tell us a little bit more about what you guys do.

Kayla Zwirko (44:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. So we, ⁓ we have various different meetups throughout the week. And I think it's kind of cool because there are other run clubs in the area that will meet at, you know, this coffee shop on Saturday and then this brewery on, you know, whatever day. they change up their meetups every week. And I kind of love that for, you know, the opportunity to try new places and to meet different people. We kind of took a different approach where we started to partner with

Erika (44:44)
Gotcha.

Right?

Kayla Zwirko (44:53)
the various businesses. we partner with the same coffee shop every Saturday morning. And so what's great about that is we're able to bring them business every Saturday. They know that they can rely on us for that. But then ⁓ our people start to become now brand loyal to that coffee shop or to that brewery. And so it's really exciting. look at how great our little group is.

Erika (44:58)
Awesome.

Mmm.

There you go.

check it out!

Kayla Zwirko (45:21)
ended up essentially every day of the week, we have a different meetup location. We meet at that same location. We form contracts with the different businesses. Mondays, for example, or Tuesdays here at Dockside, those are breweries and restaurants that Mondays and Tuesdays are their slower day. We bring in this group of people who are going to go for a three mile or five mile

Erika (45:41)
Right?

Kayla Zwirko (45:49)
run or walk. And then when they come back, it's, I'm going to grab food to go for my husband who's still at home, or I'm going to like, let's stay and have a beer or let's eat dinner here. Someone want to split a pizza. And so it's kind of great because it starts to create habits and routines for people. We've even had people, you know, go on a date at run club to say, Hey, I'm to go to this run club and then just like grab dinner afterwards. And it's nice. It's this nice like icebreaker and opportunity.

Erika (46:07)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (46:13)
Nice.

I like that.

Kayla Zwirko (46:18)
⁓ But we really love partnering with the businesses. And that's really important to us because it's our community, helping community. And so that was the antithesis of kind of us wanting to keep it really routine.

Eric (46:33)
I'm not familiar with that area of Connecticut, but the towns weren't all the same so is that all a general area though?

Erika (46:33)
I love that.

Kayla Zwirko (46:38)
No.

Yeah, so it's definitely in a regional area, but our two furthest locations are probably 30 to 40 minutes from each other. So what works out is because we offer different locations on different days and sometimes at different times, it allows for there to be more opportunity ⁓ and it allows for more inclusivity as well. Because as you know, like

Erika (47:04)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (47:07)
jobs now, they could be, someone could work on a Saturday morning. And so all of these run clubs that are meeting Saturday morning, fantastic. A majority of people can meet there, but we have people who meet us on a Friday morning or a Tuesday night. ⁓ And they might be from various different locations. ⁓ And it's nice because it allows for people to feel like they can get involved and they can try a different location, a different restaurant. ⁓ And it's just great for everyone all around.

Erika (47:20)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (47:36)
our holiday party was one of the coolest things because it was like, I'm a Tuesday girl. You know, it's like, I usually go to Fridays. And so people were like introducing themselves as the days that they would go to. And so that's always really fun too, because a lot of people who might never have met each other were all in one place.

Erika (47:48)
I love that.

I love that you guys have the different locations, the different days of the week. So depending on what your schedule is, somebody can find the consistency in that. also, I saw you had two different Saturday locations, so people can pick whatever is closest to them. Or if they're feeling a little spicy that day, they go to the other one. I love that you give the option to just kind of branch out and pick whatever works best for them. But it does build that consistency and makes it easier to make.

Kayla Zwirko (48:00)
Mm!

Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (48:23)
make some friends who have the common bonds with you.

Kayla Zwirko (48:26)
A hundred percent. And

Jared and I are very passionate about, like, if you come to our Run Club, I want to know your name and I want to know, like, how did you find us? I also want to know, you local to this location? And then Jared and I will quiz each other the whole drive home about the person. who did you talk to today? And sometimes we make the, you know.

Eric (48:43)
no way.

Kayla Zwirko (48:48)
assimilations of people. We have a friend Tracy and she's like a big Disney runner. And like when we first met her, that's all she talked about was like run Disney events. So we were like, no, it's like Disney Tracy. So we really like trying to associate people with different names. You know, we got eight different Johns. Like how do we say it's, you know, bald John versus tall John versus Dr. John versus, you know, so it's kind of fun for us to quiz each other. But it allows for when that person to come back, I can say

Erika (48:49)
Mm-hmm.

I

you

Kayla Zwirko (49:17)
Hey Tracy, hey John, ⁓ like we've missed you or how was your week knowing this is your job or whatever it is. ⁓ And that's really important because if you show up to a run club and it's got 50 people there and you run by yourself and no one really got the chance to know you, ⁓ like why would you want to come back? Why would that want to be? Yeah.

Erika (49:33)
Mm-hmm.

can be a little intimidating when you have such big

numbers and you're new and you don't know anybody. Sometimes it's hard even as adults to make friends. I get shy. I sometimes need to be like, hey, somebody come with me to this. So I'm not alone. But I love that you're branching out. Good. Yeah.

Kayla Zwirko (49:41)
Yeah!

It totally is!

Yeah. I totally agree. It's really hard. I commend a lot

of people who come by themselves. Like, that's not easy.

Erika (50:01)
No, it's not easy.

Eric (50:03)
I don't do it. I don't do it. I'd like Erica, please come with me. Please come with me. I I'm going to go to the one of the most

Erika (50:03)
Eric's like, yep.

See? See? There's comfort in

the known, and it's hard to branch out. But yeah.

Kayla Zwirko (50:11)
Yeah.

Eric (50:14)
I'm going to go to one of the Millennium runs because Erica's just joined the club. Tara Taradactyl is in the club and you guys told me that I can go even though I'm not in the club and I'm just not because every night I'm doing something, dance or whatever. Monday nights are for this. The happy hour, that's in the summer and that will be a lot of fun because those are Thursday nights. I think I can make that work. But actually, since we're talking about Millennium, you knew John and Millennium before you were running.

Kayla Zwirko (50:19)
Oooooh!

Erika (50:25)
Kids.

Kayla Zwirko (50:27)
Is this the happy

hour hustlers that they do?

Erika (50:30)
Ooh, those are the summer. ⁓ I'm looking forward to those.

Nice.

Eric (50:44)
When you were living in New England, but then when he moved out, you found running. How did you keep in touch with him? Like, was it just one day you're like, Hey, I know this guy from Millennium. I'm starting a run club or I'm a runner now. Or did you stay in touch work wise? Like you're still, you still work for Millennium kind of on the side.

Kayla Zwirko (50:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so these are all very much happenstance. So I obviously worked with John when he was coming to New Hampshire Motor Speedway and we helped to coordinate that race for him. So ⁓ he would bring all of his expertise, but in terms of the property and some of the added engagement pieces that would come with that race being on our property, I assisted him with that. So over time just became friendly with him, had done some races.

I'm also from New Hampshire. So like your girl's done her fair Santa shuffles, right? So, so I just had always had John's number in my phone. And so after I had, after I had gone sober, it was a, it was one of those instances about a year or so ago where I had reached back out to John went to Boston for one of my best friend's bachelorette parties.

Erika (51:34)
Hehehehe

Kayla Zwirko (51:56)
I was still running at the time. ⁓ this was back in 2023. So I had just finished my second Boston and, we were walking back from a Pilates class and I see these, I see bike fence everywhere. I just lock in. like, this is, there's a road race here. Like, I don't know. I got to find it. And so I looked it up and sure enough, there was, it was Millennium Runnings.

Erika (52:03)
Mm-hmm.

Hahaha.

Kayla Zwirko (52:21)
Boston's Run to Remember was happening. And so I signed up for the five mile the day before the race. Because I was like, all these girls. this is, so I'll back up for just a second. I decided to stop drinking the Thursday before my best friend's bachelorette party. And I had stopped and started a couple different times. ⁓ But I just had this feeling of like, you know what, if I could do this weekend, like I can do anything.

Erika (52:23)
awesome.

Right?

Kayla Zwirko (52:51)
because

you all know, like there's always gonna be a reason not to, there's always gonna be something. And so as we were walking back from this Pilates class, I was like, I like to run. I feel like everyone's gonna be super hung over tomorrow. And I am just gonna kind of feel like I'm in a little bit of a limbo, it's, you know, unchartered territory. So I signed up for this race. I asked the bride, I was like, are you cool with this? And she said it was fine. And so,

Erika (53:06)
I can sneak out for a race.

Right.

Kayla Zwirko (53:18)
I went, I ran the race and it was this very euphoric thing for me. And also biggest humble brag, I don't know if you guys see these medals, but these things are honking. Like they are massive, the size of my head.

Eric (53:32)
They're

world major worthy, unlike that Chicago medal.

Kayla Zwirko (53:35)
They're,

Erika (53:36)
shut it.

Kayla Zwirko (53:37)
yeah, fair, fair. ⁓ But they're massive. And so your girl comes in with a massive medal on and Starbucks coffee for everyone. And I just felt like royalty. I felt so amazing walking back in while everyone's still in bed. ⁓ And so last year I went back and I was gonna run the race and I had reached out to John.

prior to just to text and be like, hey, how's it going? How are things? ⁓ And we just caught up a little bit. And I said, I'm coming back to run the race this year. I'm going to run the half with a girlfriend. ⁓ And it's my two year, so reversery. And I'm so excited about this. So I told them about my journey. this will be my third. Yeah.

Erika (54:11)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (54:24)
this coming year.

yeah.

Kayla Zwirko (54:29)
So I actually have the tab open for the run to remember right now. Not even kidding. I'm ready to sign up. Yeah.

Erika (54:36)
Amazing.

Eric (54:37)
You know what? I'm gonna open it too. Because

Erika (54:41)
Yeah.

Eric (54:41)
I know we're already gonna be there. I might as well just do it now. Well, I'll do it when we're done.

Erika (54:44)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (54:45)
Yeah, you might as well do

it now. have, ⁓ I, I, ⁓ but anyway, so John and I have just stayed in touch since then and we were able to connect on a couple of different things. And I was telling you about my MCing that I do down here for Hartford Marathon events. And that's how we've made the connection and I'll be at the Cheap Marathon this year. So really excited. That's going to be an absolute blast, but I'm going to do the

Eric (55:08)
awesome. You'll get to call Erica

Erika (55:10)
I love it.

Eric (55:11)
across in the finish line. Hopefully at a PR!

Kayla Zwirko (55:13)
Ooh,

Erika (55:14)
Are you doing finish line stuff or are you doing the start line stuff? Even better? Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (55:16)
I'm doing start line and doing start line stuff, which is just as exciting. Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ But no, I'm going to do Boston's run to remember with my Achilles athlete who I just ran ⁓ the Disney half with. So she's a blind runner in Boston. Yeah.

Erika (55:30)
Awesome, awesome,

Eric (55:31)
Amazing.

No

Erika (55:34)
Very,

Eric (55:35)
way.

Erika (55:35)
very cool. Now, I don't know if I'm going to jump the gun a little bit with this, but you did mention it before. So I want to get into your Run Club friends who did the Philly, was it the Philly Marathon you guys did?

Kayla Zwirko (55:50)
Yeah,

yeah. So last year I came back from, I love to do the Disney marathon weekend with Achilles. So I've run with

Erika (55:58)
Mm-hmm. Do you like

dress up and get all into character with those races or?

Kayla Zwirko (56:05)
I'm all about a costume. So I will dress up any day. But when you're running with Achilles, you have to wear the Achilles guide shirts, so the bright yellow shirts. ⁓ But I love to still dress it up with some ears or something like that. But I've run with, like one of my best friends runs with me to do, we've guided ⁓ someone who is autistic, have blind runners. We have an athlete who's here in Connecticut who has Lyme disease. So

Erika (56:14)
Yes.

Yeah

Kayla Zwirko (56:35)
We had various runners that we'll do down there, but I had so much FOMO for these runners that had done the Dopey Challenge. And I was like, I need to do that. As you know, like you have an ultra marathon, you're like, yeah. So that's what I thought though. I was like, I have to do that. And what's the next best thing? It's the Freedom Challenge at the Philly Marathon. So that's the...

Erika (56:37)
I love that.

You're talking to the right person here. I'm all about that.

Kayla Zwirko (57:03)
half marathon in the morning, the 8K later in the morning, and then the marathon the next day.

Erika (57:09)
I did that too.

I did that too. So worth it. I'm all about the extra bling. Sure, I'll run for a medal, but throw in a challenge? Rarely will I say no.

Kayla Zwirko (57:13)
It's so great!

Can you answer them?

Listen, I do it for the medals too.

Eric (57:22)
Not only that, like if you travel

to a race, I feel like I would want to do that. Like I don't want to travel for one if it's, I want to travel for a whole weekend of running.

Erika (57:27)
Why not?

Kayla Zwirko (57:32)
Weekend.

Yes, a whole weekend. Yeah, and let's be real. The braggability is so high when you do something like that. Anyone can run a marathon. Yes, he really can. yeah, I had this idea. I saw a bachelorette party in the summer that had dressed up as the founding fathers. And I just love a costume. And so I said to my friends who were running

Erika (57:40)
Right.

Eric (57:41)
You can use it in a job interview.

Erika (57:44)
Ha

Kayla Zwirko (57:57)
Marine Corps and I was like, should we do it from Marine Corps? Like, wouldn't that be fun? I just want to be George Washington. and she was like, why don't we do it in Philly? Philly seems like the birthplace of, you know, the founding fathers. Let's go to Philly. And so we kind of put it out there and like, you know, we didn't necessarily shout from the rooftops for our wrong club, but people started to hear about it and they were like, I want in on that. I want to do that. That sounds like fun. So we had, by the end of it, we had, you know,

Erika (58:03)
obsessed.

Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (58:24)
George and we had, ⁓ we had Ben Franklin ⁓ and you know, you had. Well, I'm just trying to We had a couple of people on the tip of my tongue is we had one of our guy friends who was like, Betsy Ross, let's go. Yes. Yeah.

Erika (58:34)
Don't ask me to name them, because I don't know.

Eric (58:36)
Sam Adams, right? Didn't he have Sam Adams?

Erika (58:44)
He was Betsy Ross, I'm obsessed.

Kayla Zwirko (58:47)
So these, yeah, so these are my friends. ⁓ We ran 26.2 miles. Yep, that's Sam Adams. She ran with like all, dying the whole time. We had so much fun. I would say like I've never felt more like a celebrity than I yeah, we had a friend who ran as Abe. She is a very tiny, petite person. So we thought who's the tallest person that we can get her to be?

Erika (58:57)
God.

Eric (59:03)
Is that Abe?

Erika (59:06)
you

Kayla Zwirko (59:13)
And fun fact, like Abe Lincoln isn't a founding father, but that was neither here nor there in this moment. But look at these. I mean, our friend who dressed up as Betsy Ross, mean, literally people are shouting from the sidelines just like, it's Betsy. Like people just look at it.

Erika (59:22)
are immaculate.

You

Eric (59:40)
It looked like so much fun. So you reached out to us a while ago before this race and you're like, Hey, let's talk. Let's connect. Let's try to do this in person. All these cool things. And I was like, no, you live too far away. You're not in New England, but then this pops up. This pops up one day on my feed and I'm watching it and everybody's sharing it and they're sending it to us and all this stuff. And then one, like an hour later, you sent it to me and I don't really catch it right away. You're like, this is us.

Erika (59:40)
I am, my God, love this so much.

Kayla Zwirko (59:45)
I did!

Easy.

Eric (1:00:09)
I'm like, this is you? This is incredible.

Erika (1:00:11)
I love

the comment.

Kayla Zwirko (1:00:15)
⁓ I yelled that the whole time. I was like, for the revolution. And people are like, for the revolution.

Eric (1:00:16)
Give that a like.

Who's the girl running in with the, well that's Sam Adams, but she ran with a beer the whole time?

Erika (1:00:25)
Incredible.

Kayla Zwirko (1:00:29)
She ran with a stein and we had friends who spectated the course and brought her Sam Adams beers throughout the race so she could actually put it in her stein. We don't, we go all out here.

Eric (1:00:37)
Would she drink it?

Was she drinking the beer though? How drunk was she?

Kayla Zwirko (1:00:48)
But she's fine. Tracy, she was totally fine. This is the 8K. We ran the half as well. ⁓ So yeah, it was just so great.

Eric (1:00:58)
It looked like an incredible

time. I just ran New York the weekend before and I was on a high. And then it was just like, that was what one weekend after. it's like, look at everyone now doing Philly and they're having, they dressed up. This looks so amazing. I love that you did that. Like that's so cool. You see this more and more often now, but you see people just doing silly things like running as a caterpillar or running a Santa with the reindeer. It's cool. It's creative.

Erika (1:01:09)
you

Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (1:01:20)
Right.

Eric (1:01:23)
That was unique. It was.

Kayla Zwirko (1:01:24)
Yeah.

Erika (1:01:24)
I this

one million percent. This is what I live for. I love having fun doing what you love. And if it brings a smile to somebody else, it's even better. So much more. So much more with it.

Kayla Zwirko (1:01:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. We,

so we, two of my girlfriends who also ran as founding fathers, they, we on a whim, we were like, should we sign up for grandma's tonight? It's the 50th anniversary. So we got in, we were in the queue. And so my, everyone was like, I can't believe we're to go run. It's going to be great. My immediate reaction was, so I'm thinking about.

Erika (1:01:52)
Are you running it?

Sorry, I just got really...

Kayla Zwirko (1:02:03)
for our hair. Like I'm thinking if we just like grandma, should my wig be pink? Should be like, I want like a big poofed butt. Do you know what I mean? With like a moomo. Yeah. Yeah. The grannies, that's what I'm talking about. So the grannies running grandmas is what I'm thinking. And my two girlfriends, I have one who I think is like, that would be really fun. Let's go and do it. And I have another one who's like, I just want to look cute.

Eric (1:02:08)
Yeah.

Have you ever watched Bluey? The grannies. The grannies!

Erika (1:02:17)
I am so obsessed with

this.

Kayla Zwirko (1:02:30)
for one marathon, like I just want to have matching outfits. But I just, you know, it's going to be really hard for me to not be dressed as a grandma for grandma's race.

Erika (1:02:40)
Did you happen to sign up for one of the challenges for grandmas? Because they have the...

Kayla Zwirko (1:02:44)
I did not. So that

race sold out in like 40 minutes. And by the time I got in, I was lucky to even be in the marathon.

Erika (1:02:51)
⁓

yes. Because yeah, I was in a queue for a long time too, but I signed up for the Great Grandma's Challenge. So it's just the 5K on the day before and then the marathon too. So I'm like, ooh, I could probably get away with running a 5K in that kind of costume, but I don't know if I could do a marathon.

Kayla Zwirko (1:03:08)
Erica,

me a 5k bib. I'll do it with you. Let's go.

Erika (1:03:11)
I'll see what I can do.

I do know some people, I know that they do the races. I don't know if they have connections, but let me work on it for you. But that's amazing. I do love pickles. What do we got here?

Kayla Zwirko (1:03:18)
Fair.

Eric (1:03:18)
Erica.

Erica, you love pickles, right? You love pickles.

Erika (1:03:30)
Kayla, where are we running next? I'll bring mine. I'm in a match.

Kayla Zwirko (1:03:33)
So this is great because

this was for the half marathon. I don't know if you can see in my hand that's in the air, but I carried a massive jar of pickles and I was handing them out. Let me tell you, mile eight, people were taking them. They were really excited about it. But Dietz and Watts was the...

Erika (1:03:39)
huh.

Eric (1:03:43)
Yeah, you're holding a jar of pickles.

Erika (1:03:43)
Is that a jar of pickles?

For a half-mare-

shit!

Kayla Zwirko (1:04:00)
⁓ was the sponsor and they put out there that it was the year of the pickle. Like most people think, ⁓ you're the fire horse, you're the snake. This was the year of the pickle. And I said, well, this sounds like an opportunity.

So go, anyone can just wear a pickle costume. How about we carry a massive jar of pickles and we'll just hand them out along the way.

Erika (1:04:15)
love you. ⁓

Ugh, you are my kind of people. I just, I'm so happy right now.

Eric (1:04:26)
Now, one thing is you failed to mention, but you are very fast, right? Like you, you be cute, correct? ⁓ okay. Well, I was going to say you're very fast and you have a lot of fun, but you probably are still both.

Kayla Zwirko (1:04:32)
I did not, no.

Erika (1:04:34)
I was like, know, pick a question.

Kayla Zwirko (1:04:41)
I would say that I'm decently fast, but I have not BQ'd yet. ⁓ Yeah, you know what? It's not a near sighted vision for me right now and goal, but I could definitely do it. I just would need to make some adjustments and probably not sign up for three marathons in six weeks. I just enjoy having a lot of fun.

Eric (1:04:48)
Keyword, yet. Yeah.

Erika (1:04:48)
That's the spirit.

See?

you you're my kind of people.

Eric (1:05:06)
Yeah, that's the best way. It's the fun. Let me tell you a

quick thing is I, couple of years ago, I ran a man, the Manchester marathon and I trained what I thought I was training hard. I was like focused on it. had a coach and everything. I missed running with people because I always had to do a workout or my long run. It wasn't the same as Erica's or wasn't the same as Tara's or somebody else. I was always running by myself, which I do quite often. Anyways, I'm running by myself because I do long run on Wednesday. That's when I can get mine in.

Kayla Zwirko (1:05:14)
Yeah.

Eric (1:05:37)
But I missed just running with people in this year training. ran with my sister who I ran her first marathon in New York, but we did a training run together. Some people would join me for training runs and then we ran New York city at like the most fun party pace. And it was just a blast. It was the most fun I've ever had running a marathon. It was my slowest slower than my Ironman marathon, but it was so much fun.

Kayla Zwirko (1:05:54)
Best time.

Yeah.

It's honestly, it's just one of those things where, you know, we're not getting paid to do this. And so I think goals are really important. And I love training for speed and seeing what my body can do. ⁓ Part of that has to be you being okay with your race might not go well. And it just might might really suck. You know, my Chicago race was that I

Erika (1:06:14)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (1:06:27)
I had a terrible race mentally, physically. It was awful. People see the 14 minute PR and that's fantastic. But that's not the race I trained for. And so, you know, I can be disappointed about that all day. But then I turned around two weeks later and ran one of the most fun races of my life. And I think sometimes it's important to just remember that, you you put a lot of time and effort into training for these races.

Erika (1:06:28)
no.

Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (1:06:55)
That is what you really have to harness and think about and do it for the things that you love. Because if you're only doing it for the BQ, you could easily get disappointed. And then that's where people feel defeated or they have a really bad race or they get sick during the race or they don't fuel properly. ⁓ know, something goes wrong. It rained that day, whatever it might be. And so I think sometimes you were like, I did a marathon. I'm never doing it again. It was the worst experience where it's like, but you've got to change the mindset.

Erika (1:06:57)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

you

Mm-hmm. I love your outlook on things. It's just, yeah, you try to just know that things can be outside of your control, especially when it comes to like weather. And you can put all of your heart and soul into a training cycle. And yes, it's disappointment, but there's so much more to that than, I don't know. It is okay to be disappointed and to, I don't know, it's almost like a little bit of grief, but.

Kayla Zwirko (1:07:48)
Yeah. my gosh.

Erika (1:07:52)
It goes on and nobody's making you do another one, but if you want to, that's awesome. just, yeah, feel the feels.

Kayla Zwirko (1:07:55)
Oh, feel your feels. I mean, we all have bad races.

Like, feel your feels, but also be grateful too.

Erika (1:08:05)
Yes, 100%.

Eric (1:08:08)
I love that you have fun. I think fun's where it's at, but it is fun to challenge yourself. It's a lot of fun to challenge yourself.

Kayla Zwirko (1:08:10)
Yeah, Eric is like, Eric's like, what

Erika (1:08:11)
It's like fun.

Kayla Zwirko (1:08:14)
costume can I get Kayla to come up to the Manchester Marathon and run with me?

Eric (1:08:18)
know? I'm gonna have you be Blades, the Bruins mascot.

Erika (1:08:19)
you

Kayla Zwirko (1:08:25)
Listen, if I lost a bet, could do it, I really think my dad would disown me. I think it would be really bad.

Erika (1:08:29)
you

Eric (1:08:32)
You know, scrolling through all your pictures, stalking your Instagram and the H2O life one and everything. did, I went deep where I saw the Denny Hamlin stuff and I saw that your husband's a Bruins fan. So I love him. I think Jared is amazing. But Jared, if you remember back from like, 08 to 2012, we had this bear. wasn't blades. It was a real bear. And we made commercials. say we, cause we're the Bruins. We made these amazing commercials. And one of them was.

Kayla Zwirko (1:08:45)
Yeah.

yeah!

with a Habs fan.

Eric (1:09:03)
And what was the rule? They were called Boston Bruins rules. Like don't wear, you know, don't ruin the Jersey. Don't get ketchup on it. Don't date within the division. Yep. Jared, you broke a rule. You broke a key Bruins rule.

Kayla Zwirko (1:09:08)
Don't date within the league!

Ugh, it's alright. I think you won.

Eric (1:09:20)
You know, you know what though? I love

that you're a hockey fan and growing up now being older and seeing many years of losing to Montreal and many years of beating Montreal. Like I, I try to plan work trips around hockey games and I'm like, okay, when can I go to Montreal for work? Cause we have an office in Laval around a hockey game. We go to Minnesota every year, go around a Minnesota wild game. So fun fact, I was at the very last Hartford Whalers game in Montreal.

Erika (1:09:30)
you

Kayla Zwirko (1:09:34)
Ooh!

Eric (1:09:50)
You were like probably two. was at the Montreal, not the Forum, it was the brand new Molson Center. Yeah. Yeah. And I was there at that game. That was a lot of fun. I was 11. So that would have been 96. Yeah, 96 maybe. Yeah. I've been, I've been, you know, big hockey guy, big NASCAR guy. You and I would get along great except for this Montreal Boston thing. So yeah. You get along good with Boston fans already. It's a fact.

Kayla Zwirko (1:09:51)
Wow!

Bell Center. Molson Center. Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Erika (1:10:13)
It's funny.

Kayla Zwirko (1:10:13)
It's all right. It's okay.

Erika (1:10:18)
It's so funny you say that. I could be like just the only one here, but I've been watching Heated Rivalry and there's a Montreal and Boston team and they're like, I'm freaking obsessed. Yeah, same to you. Okay. Anyways.

Kayla Zwirko (1:10:29)
They love each other very much.

Eric (1:10:32)
All right. Well, Kaylee, you're not off the hook yet and we're going to get to Tokyo in a second, but we have two final questions. We always ask our guests. You get the same questions as everyone this year. I'm going to go first. So I want to know what everyone's hot take is for 2026. This can be running or it doesn't have to be running at all. It could be that, you know, Bruins fans are awesome.

You know, we could, it could be whatever you want. So give me a hot take for 2026.

Erika (1:10:53)
She laughed.

Kayla Zwirko (1:10:58)
Mmm.

I'm gonna go running because I will stick to the theme. But my hot take is real runners walk.

Eric (1:11:06)
Love it.

Ooooo

Erika (1:11:13)
Yes.

Kayla Zwirko (1:11:14)
And

the reason I say that is because I think that we all get really defeated. You walk through a water station or you walk up a hill or you get to the top of a hill and you're so gassed and you have to walk. I think that's not something that you should be down on yourself for by any means. We actually have someone in our run club who ran like a 135 half marathon this year and he walked.

Erika (1:11:39)
Wow.

Kayla Zwirko (1:11:41)
every hill at the Fairfield Half Marathon. so while he and there's some pretty beastly hills here. So when he got to the top of the hill and everybody was gassed, he just he just was able to go. And so he was able to make up the time. So when he was in the, you know, in the area that he was in during the race, he actually did fantastic. And he walked all of the hills. I think sometimes it's really important to remember because people think walking is weak. And so

Erika (1:11:53)
Mm-hmm.

Kayla Zwirko (1:12:11)
I believe that real runners walk. And if you're in the middle of a training run, you get to the top of the hill and you're so gassed, you're going to get more out of your workout. If you walk for 30 seconds, let your heart rate come down. Then you are, if you just power through because your ego won't let you. So that's my hot take.

Erika (1:12:26)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:12:27)
Love it.

Erika (1:12:28)
Beautiful.

Eric (1:12:28)
Nice hot take, set the tone. I'm going to use it as my example for a lot of people going forward. It's a good one.

Erika (1:12:33)
Isn't it great? Honestly,

Kayla Zwirko (1:12:34)
It's great!

Erika (1:12:35)
if you want to know more about intervals and stuff, look into Jeff Galloway, because he is the king. He obviously has his own method, the Galloway method, and it's called Jeffing. And he can run a two-something marathon. So eat that, people.

Kayla Zwirko (1:12:43)
Yes.

Yeah. That's how, that's how they

train people to run the Disney marathon. People rank and train all year. And there are all of the, all of the pacing groups, they'll do 30 seconds of walking in between X amount of time running. And that's every pacing group during the marathon.

Erika (1:12:57)
Mm-hmm.

I love it.

It really does conserve energy. And even if it just gives your muscles a break to reset and just get rid of a little bit of fatigue, it's so worth it. yeah, beautiful.

Kayla Zwirko (1:13:18)
Mm-hmm. Where did Eric go?

Erika (1:13:22)
you've had a little time to think about your answer for this, but my question for the year and actually all the years, because I refuse to change it, I have a Spotify playlist. We have a Spotify playlist and I like to invite our guests to add a song to it. So is there something that you just love to groove to that you would love to add to our list?

Kayla Zwirko (1:13:44)
So knowing that this question was coming, I figured the only song I would have to give you is the one that has won my top Spotify song for two years in a row, which is just wild.

Erika (1:13:49)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Eric (1:14:00)
Can

I guess? Can I guess actually first?

Kayla Zwirko (1:14:02)
Ooh, I don't think you're gonna guess it. Go ahead.

Eric (1:14:05)
Is it this song?

Kayla Zwirko (1:14:09)
Gosh.

my god.

Erika (1:14:12)
That's a very Eric thing to do.

Eric (1:14:15)
Let's goooo

Erika (1:14:19)
Nerd.

Kayla Zwirko (1:14:20)
It's amazing. That's so She's great. You made you made a life for friends. That's for sure. But the song I chose because it's on every running playlist I have, it's like my pump up song, even if I'm not listening to music during a race, I like to listen to it beforehand. And it's the motto by Ava Max and Tiasto. It's a vibe. I don't know, just

Eric (1:14:22)
You're welcome, Jared.

Yes.

Erika (1:14:34)
Mm-hmm.

hell yes!

Eric (1:14:47)
Mm-hmm. It is. It's

a good one.

Kayla Zwirko (1:14:50)
Get

some going.

Erika (1:14:51)
That one is incredible. I think it's probably on a bunch of my playlist too. I gotta put it back.

Eric (1:14:56)
I know I got it on mine, so.

Kayla Zwirko (1:15:00)
I'm telling you, it's so good.

Eric (1:15:00)
That's a good song. Are you into

that Tiesto EDM music when you run? Or do you listen to music when you run? What do you listen to?

Kayla Zwirko (1:15:08)
like something that's just a beat I'm happy with. I'm not like a big EDM person because I don't think I get it half the time. ⁓ But I just feel like. I just feel like if it's got a good beat and it's something that I can run to. And especially if I'm trying to do a temple run like I've created for myself beat per minute playlist so that way I can try to stay so if it's so most of the time you're looking at some. Like Katy Perry and.

Erika (1:15:17)
you

Eric (1:15:38)
Yeah. What are you going to be listening to in a couple of weeks in Tokyo?

Kayla Zwirko (1:15:38)
You know, that's... ⁓

Ooh, I don't know. I have really hard time wearing headphones during a world major race because I just want to be immersed. Like I want to hear the drums. I don't know. Like if you've ever run the London Marathon, but I thought it was the best marathon I've ever run. And like the, I run New York too. Yeah. I'm up, Tokyo will be five.

Eric (1:15:49)
the same. I listen to nothing. People think I'm crazy. Yeah.

You've run New York too, right?

So, London.

Erika (1:16:07)
So just

Berlin left. Excellent. Any, is that on deck for you? Are you working on it?

Eric (1:16:11)
I thought you were three star. I thought you were three

star, you're four.

Kayla Zwirko (1:16:14)
Yeah, I'm a four-star Tokyo OB-5 and we're working on some connections to make that happen because, yeah, I'm really excited. I'm really, really excited.

Erika (1:16:16)
to be fat.

love it.

Eric (1:16:26)
and then

he gotta get seven.

Kayla Zwirko (1:16:28)
You don't have to.

Eric (1:16:30)
No, you got to.

Kayla Zwirko (1:16:32)
You don't have to and I think that, you know, personally.

Eric (1:16:34)
No, no, I'm just saying you

have to go out there and do it. Like, come on! I'm giving you a reason to say, I gotta go to Australia.

Kayla Zwirko (1:16:41)
You

heard it here, first people, Eric's giving me a reason and a budget and I'm excited to go to Sydney. No, just, you know what? I don't doubt that completing the nine star will be something I think about at some point, but I'm really excited to go and do a lot of other races. Like I've never run the Manchester Marathon and I've only run the Dumar half. And so there are certain races that I'm really excited to do.

Eric (1:17:02)
Yeah. It's hard.

Kayla Zwirko (1:17:11)
now that I don't have the ones I have to do. So it'll be nice to take a little break, let the nine come to fruition, and then I can make some decisions and maybe save a little bit more money. But no, I don't listen to music typically when I run a world major just because I want to be fully immersed. I want to the drums. I want to hear the cultural aspects and the crowds that come out for these things. So I will just be embracing it, which I'm really excited about.

Erika (1:17:13)
Mm-hmm.

There we go.

Eric (1:17:40)
That's

Erika (1:17:40)
Very

Eric (1:17:40)
awesome.

Erika (1:17:41)
nice.

Eric (1:17:41)
I'm excited. Excited to watch you do that. And then about a month after Tokyo will be the cheap marathon. You'll be there emceeing and we will have a table there. We'll be recording and I want you to come back and tell us there or when we record at the Boston Run to remember how Tokyo went.

Kayla Zwirko (1:17:48)
Yeah.

Erika (1:17:50)
Say hi.

Kayla Zwirko (1:17:58)
Yes. my gosh, guys, our friendship is just flourishing. We already have two dates to get together again after this.

Erika (1:18:02)
Yay! I'm

so excited.

Eric (1:18:06)
And then

I will go, Jared, Jared better come though. I want to go to a Bruins game in Montreal. And I want you to come because I want to be like, Hey, look, we're cool. Cause we're hanging out with a Habs fan. We're cool.

Kayla Zwirko (1:18:13)
Okay.

Yeah, see, I don't get the same type of luxury when I go to the garden. It's not like, hey, I'm cool, because I'm hanging out with Bruins fans. They're like, we still hate you. Yeah.

Eric (1:18:26)
I'll tell them you're okay. I'll tell them you're okay. I'll tell them you're okay.

Erika (1:18:30)
you

Eric (1:18:31)
But there'll be a lot of this.

Erika (1:18:37)
See, I just think the world needs more love and I'm just gonna, I just want the world to have more love, so.

Eric (1:18:40)
edit that out. That's just for fun.

Love

it.

Kayla Zwirko (1:18:45)
Erica,

say less. Guys, thank you so much. This was an absolute blast. I know that I kind of like weaseled my way in, but I was like, these guys are so fun. I want to be their friend.

Eric (1:18:53)
Well, no, that's the coolest

Erika (1:18:53)
You didn't weasel.

Eric (1:18:54)
thing about what we

do now is the first like 50 episodes, we're like trying to get people like, who can we get? And we, still try to get people all the time, but now people are coming to us. And what's so cool when you jumped in our DMS and said something. And I think your first question was like, Hey, how does someone like me get on your podcast? And I go, this is how.

Kayla Zwirko (1:19:14)
Yeah, take a chance people. That's what that's that's all you got to do. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, well, Michael Scott, Wayne Gretzky.

Erika (1:19:14)
Shoot your shot. Swish.

Eric (1:19:20)
What does Wayne Gretzky say?

Yeah. Right?

Erika (1:19:24)
And Kira DeMoto, technically.

If you've read her book, you'll get it, but you miss 100 % of the shots you don't take.

Kayla Zwirko (1:19:30)
you

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:19:34)
this was a lot of fun. Thank you for jumping in our DMS. I can't wait to meet you in a couple of months and good luck in a couple of weeks in Tokyo. My sister's going to be there by the way. you two should totally connect. It's her second marathon. She got in through the lottery and she ran New York with me a couple months ago, which was the greatest day in the world. I don't know how I'll have to go run London because I don't know how

Kayla Zwirko (1:19:43)
Oooooh!

Eric (1:19:56)
Any other race in the world can beat that New York City marathon. Even Boston. Yeah.

Kayla Zwirko (1:20:01)
I know. I know.

Erika (1:20:02)
Mm-hmm ⁓

Kayla Zwirko (1:20:04)
It's a tough one, but I will say I've run New York twice and the London Marathon was superior.

Eric (1:20:11)
Well I gotta go.

Erika (1:20:11)
London is

top for me, although, so Chicago is still up there, but I think London was number two. If we're talking just majors, there's a lot. But, Kayla, you're going to love Hannah if you get to meet her. That's Eric's sister. She's way cooler than Eric. Is he going to wang wang? No. We just love Hannah.

Kayla Zwirko (1:20:12)
Yes!

Yeah.

Eric (1:20:29)
This podcast is over. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this.

This was so much fun. Kayla Zerworko on the On The Runs podcast. That was wicked awesome.

Erika (1:20:44)
Kayla, you are so freaking awesome. I welcome to the pod fam. You are just, you really do fit right in. You're, you're, you're who I would like to hang out with on the regular and you're another reason why I want the cheap marathon to actually happen. were, we were discussing about whether or not all the snow would melt on the rail trail, but you're going to be there doing some announcing and I want to meet you in person. So I really hope that this, this race is going to happen. So let's manifest it everybody.

Eric (1:21:11)
And that's your goal race because you're going to try to run really fast or I should say wicked fast. And if you run really fast, you can come to the on the runs tent and talk on the pod and maybe even talk to Kayla because we'll be there recording from that race. Kayla will be there announcing and you'll can get to say hi. And I think you'll have more opportunities after that. Speaking of that, you mentioned the Derry Rail Trail and you're hoping you're a little worried right now. You and KJ, your coach are talking about the snow.

Erika (1:21:13)
It is.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. We've just had so much that I'm not sure how the rail trail is actually doing. Because I don't think that that's one that they regularly plow. I don't think they maintain it during the winter. in order for them to hold this race in early April, it's got to be gone. They can't be icy or anything. That's a liability. So I want it. I hope so.

Eric (1:22:00)
We'll see. I think you're going to be just fine. Was it last year, the

year before they canceled it and they postponed it a week though? Remember we like got a big snow storm or was it like just rain and cold ice storm and the trail was fine a week later? Like, no, in a month it's not going to be fine, but in two months you're going to be good.

Erika (1:22:09)
Mm-hmm.

feel like this was...

So this was, think, two years ago they may have postponed it. And I think it was like two weeks. But it was actually still rainy on the day that they actually held it. And so it wasn't any better, but at least it wasn't any snow.

Eric (1:22:32)
Think it was two weeks because the Boston Marathon was in the middle of that. Right?

Erika (1:22:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Yep. And so it used to be that they would hold cheap on the same weekend. They would have cheap on Saturday, and then Boston would be Monday. And a lot of people say, Yuki, she would normally run the marathon, but of course she's run in Boston, so she can't do back-to-back marathons like that. So she would come run the half or do a little warm-up run basically, just doing the half.

and then she would run Boston on Monday. they actually did change the weekends. So now cheap is going to be April 5th and this year Boston is April 20th. So lots of time in between. I really hope you're right.

Eric (1:23:14)
You're going to be fine. I mean, I hope to be

skiing after April 5th, but like down here in Derry, you're going to be fine. Really cool news, by the way. Really cool news, by the way. If you remember like 200 episodes, I finished an episode and I was talking about the Derry rail trail was trying to build a tunnel. So if you at all live in the area and you drive 93, you see they're building this new exit called exit 4A.

Erika (1:23:21)
Like I said, keep it up north.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:23:40)
And it's

going to ruin the dairy rail trail. So the original plan was to build a tunnel and then the department of transportation, Eric is like, don't talk politics. ⁓ But right. One of these, whatever they didn't want to like build a tunnel. It either costs a lot of money. was too much work. It sounded like an excuse, like, ⁓ we can have a cheaper option because they just didn't want to build a tunnel, but this cheaper option.

Erika (1:23:50)
Well, the Department of Transportation, mean, whatever.

Right, right.

Eric (1:24:08)
made the rail trail go from like no turns and no road crossings to like 15 turns and a six lane road crossing. And if you follow these groups on Facebook, like the Trail Alliance, Derry Trail Alliance or something, they're all posting like build the tunnel. This has been going on for years. It just got approved in court where the judge says, nope, you have to stick to plan A, you can't go to plan J, you have to do this, build the tunnel.

Erika (1:24:17)
Sounds awful.

Mm.

Yeah.

Eric (1:24:37)
It sounds like we're getting the tunnel and this is going to be kind of between the London area rail trail and the dairy rail trail. That section that's not complete yet. We ran it years ago in the, ⁓ the relay marathon, the brewery relay marathon. were in that section. So now that hopefully we'll be complete soon it, we're going to get a tunnel.

Erika (1:24:46)
Right.

That's right! my gosh.

I will absolutely love that.

Good, good. I want that to be connected. That'll be so easy. And I'm always looking for options to also have a flat, but I'll just be able to get distance and not get super bored. So if I can connect the two.

Eric (1:25:12)
When that section is done, do you understand you

can run nonstop from the airport all the way to the Tuscan Kitchen in Salem?

Erika (1:25:21)
how far is that?

Eric (1:25:23)
It's almost a marathon. might be a marathon. It's like, dude, just have someone meet us at the Tuscan kitchen on our long run. We go from the airport to Salem and then we have drinks after or something. Like what a cool group one run would that be instead of going back and forth airport to the end of Londare, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It'll be awesome. I've done it before on my bike, but you know, that section has been missing. So the cheap, my God, John.

Erika (1:25:27)
Holy shit!

that'd be awesome. That would be super cool.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Eric (1:25:50)
The cheap marathon could one day be point to point downhill. That's downhill from the airport to the Tuscan kitchen. We get the Tuscan kitchen to sponsor the after party. my God. This would be great. You get to go through the tunnel. Well, DJ Darren Roy can set up his, his booth in the tunnel. So it like sounds so amazing.

Erika (1:25:55)
Damn.

That would be awesome. That would be absolutely awesome. Count me in.

⁓

The vibes, unmatched. That would be amazing.

Eric (1:26:19)
It'd be so

cool. What a cool concept that would be.

Erika (1:26:24)
Well, I'm glad they finally, like, how long has it been? Four or five years that they've been working on this?

Eric (1:26:27)
It's been years, years since before we

started this. Cause it was like, when we started this in Katie's living room, this was a conversation. So, but the construction of the high, like the construction's not even done yet. The ramp is there if you see it, but it's closed. Like they're, finishing all that. Like this was a, God, it seems like highway projects take 10 years, a decade, if not more, but it's happening. We're getting that tunnel. There was like all these studies done too, about if you don't build the tunnel.

Erika (1:26:34)
Wow. God, it took them long enough.

Yeah.

Mm, right. Good.

Eric (1:26:57)
A person gets hit in a crosswalk, an average of this X amount of times a year. And that's going to cost you all this money and lawyer fees and everything. And in like less than five years, they're going to spend twice the amount of money in those kinds of fees than you would on an actual tunnel. So the safe way. Yeah. Nobody would, would go and do that section of the rail trail. If they had to cross six lanes of the road, like you and I are going to do a long run and wait for that. People will be flying off. It's the end ramp of a highway.

Erika (1:27:02)
Mm-hmm.

Gotcha. Safety. Good. Good, good.

No, absolutely not.

Eric (1:27:26)
People are flying trying to beat the light.

Erika (1:27:29)
There's not a chance. ⁓ I like my life. Thank you.

Eric (1:27:31)
Good on everybody who

went out there and fought the good fight for the tunnel. Yeah. Nice job, guys. You know what they get? They get one of these.

Erika (1:27:36)
Yeah. Kudos.

as they should. Well deserved.

Eric (1:27:43)
Yeah.

But Kayla, thank you so much. That was an amazing time talking to you. can't wait to meet you in person as well. We just have to work on this Bruins thing and make sure you're a Bruins fan. The H2 Go Life Run Club sounds pretty awesome. It's a lot better than the Hydration Station Run Club. So H2 Go Life. Nice job and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Good luck in Tokyo too. She's running Tokyo, if you remember. Yeah. You know who else is running Tokyo?

Erika (1:27:59)
Absolutely.

you

fantastic. Yes. Go get that star.

There's a lot of people running Tokyo.

Eric (1:28:14)
lot, but come on. You,

you can see her right now. Right? Hit a banana. I know.

Erika (1:28:20)
Hannah Banana. I love how she's always like, I can see me. Yes, we can. And

it's, I love seeing Hannah in the background. ⁓

Eric (1:28:28)
Yeah, so Tokyo

in a couple weeks. Good luck to everyone. I know probably by the time our next episode comes out, you'll be traveling out there. Good luck. Enjoy taking some of the food, but maybe after, don't have a code brown, you know? Erica, if you were talking to anyone right now who's gonna head out to Tokyo, being a Tokyo Marathon finisher, what advice would you give them?

Erika (1:28:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

my gosh. Just take in the culture. Respect the culture because it is probably one of the cleanest places. So don't go littering. Just respect the way they do things out there. Eat the food. Definitely eat the food. I mean, I tried to be a little bit adventurous with some of my food, but I am not a seafood person. So I couldn't really do like the sushi and just eat all the food. You know what? Even

Though I had a marathon on deck, I was walking everywhere. I just wanted to see as much as I could squeeze in. just see the sights. Don't be afraid to walk on those legs. I mean, if you're going for a goal race, I mean, maybe, maybe not do that, but just enjoy yourselves. I hope you get the good weather. I mean, it's a little too early, I think, when you're out there for the cherry blossoms to start being beautiful, but just, just enjoy. It's, it's a different culture and it's gorgeous and just everybody is so

wonderful out there. You'll have a blast and enjoy the race. Absolutely.

Eric (1:29:53)
I

don't think I could go out there and have that be my goal race. Like, I totally understand how cheap is your goal race. And I go to like Tokyo and New York or Boston, like I want to take it all in. So if it is your goal race, cool, great, awesome, do it.

Erika (1:30:00)
Mm-hmm.

head to Sydney this year, I'm just literally going to be enjoying myself the whole time. I will be taking the pictures. I will get the content. Because that's more of a once in a lifetime kind of race for me, when I can just do cheap whatever. And at this point, Chicago is kind of like ⁓ a goal race. I don't mind doing that, because I've done it before. Exactly. So I know what I'm in for. know what I, well, it's way better.

Eric (1:30:13)
Yes, getting content.

Nice.

Nice.

You've done it 50 times. mean, it's just a, it's a cheap marathon, essentially.

Erika (1:30:36)
crowd for a marathon like that.

Eric (1:30:38)
I think, I actually think the ribbon

you get for running in the cheap marathon is better than the medal in the Chicago Marathon.

Erika (1:30:46)
I do not agree with you. Sorry, John. No, no, I want a medal for these things now. So as much as I do think it's cute to get the ribbon, I mean, it's really not that cheap of a race anymore. I got it for cheap, but some people are paying like 100 bucks for it.

Eric (1:31:03)
Well, speaking of medals, we should, we should throw this out there now. We're brainstorming March madness ideas, right? And in about a month, probably halfway through March, we'll do the March madness competition, but we have a couple, I'll say we have three categories we're really honing in on. One is shoe brands. The other one is medals. And the third one is races. So we had, we had a friend of the pod, Patrick, reach out and give a suggestion. It involves maybe.

Erika (1:31:09)
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eric (1:31:32)
A little more work than Erica wants to do, but do you guys have an opinion? If we did March Madness, would you like to do metal comparisons? Would you like to do shoe comparisons or race comparisons? Now the metals is cool. This is Patrick brought up a neat feature. Have the guests send us pictures of your metals. So we don't just say Boston versus New York or Ironman or this, that we want actual pictures of your metals.

Erika (1:31:57)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:32:01)
Would you guys, is that an interesting enough topic for March Madness where we take your medals and we get 32 to 64? Like if we don't get 64, will be a 32 team bracket and we'll somehow pick them. Erica's like, you can't put Chicago against New York in round one, but I think they should go against each other.

Erika (1:32:09)
Mm.

like you should do it by region. And so you could have a Midwest, like a West coast and East coast. So you can kind of vary it up a little bit, but I don't know, unless you do you want to go marathon versus like have the better medals versus, so I don't know.

Eric (1:32:38)
I think you throw them all in there. Like what's a cool 5k metal throw in my Ironman metal. Like that's the one I'll throw in. ⁓ I think it's super cool. Buckles are cool. Absolutely. Like.

Erika (1:32:44)
Mm-hmm. I got buckles. What about buckles? ⁓ Yeah. So yeah,

this is something to noodle on.

Eric (1:32:52)
So if you guys like that metal idea, let us know and we'll start collecting pictures. I think the easy out, which I was in favor of, of shoes anyways, before metals, the easy out is shoes because I can just take screenshots. also thought shoes was going to be very engaging. Maybe get on the radar of some companies, but the metal thing could be really cool. And, and I agree when you say add buckles, 5k metal, we should definitely throw in the ribbon. Right? So I.

Erika (1:33:18)
They have,

like, some people get different things. Like, you might not necessarily get a medal for completing a race. Like, Patrick showed us an example where he got, like, a ring. That was really cool and different. And so if you get something else that might be cool to include, like, there's so many options we could go with this. So many ways.

Eric (1:33:30)
Right. Right.

So let

us know, we would love to do it. I think March Madness will start in about three, four weeks and we gotta compile everything and I'm just gonna say right now, send everything to Erica. ⁓

Erika (1:33:47)
Sure, do it. Sure,

I can handle it, I swear.

Eric (1:33:50)
I think like we could probably just go to Rachel's house and take a picture of every medal. True. True. We could even do one of like Gooders. Could we do a mini March Madness of Erica's Gooder sunglasses? Could we do that?

Erika (1:33:55)
Mine too. I got a ton. Yeah.

I mean, we could.

Eric (1:34:09)
You definitely

have 32 different gooders, right? Oh my God. I want to do a little mini gooder one and get on gooders radar and then have gooder sponsor the podcast.

Erika (1:34:11)
Yeah, I do.

⁓ no.

They won't even accept me to be on their ambassador team, man. Like, hey, this will help, sure, but.

Eric (1:34:23)
Let's do it. Let's do it

Well,

why do you think that is, silly?

Erika (1:34:31)
didn't even know they announced it. I feel like now is when they announced it, but I haven't seen it.

Eric (1:34:32)
You don't do anything. You don't make, you don't post the photo. You don't make the content.

What have I been trying to get you to do for years? Everyone's like, my God, Erica's a mini influencer, podcaster. She'll be great. They always go to you first. And then they realize you're not even the one behind the on the runs account. And they're like, we don't want that guy. He doesn't have it. He only has a face for radio.

Erika (1:34:39)
Actually.

No, the only thing...

I don't do shit.

Shut up.

Eric (1:34:57)
They don't like me because I'm... I don't know.

Erika (1:35:00)
The only thing I ever influenced people on is I can get people to run ultras when they really didn't think they wanted to slash could. So I do. That's the one thing I will own up to. I can influence somebody to, I don't know, step outside their comfort zone.

Eric (1:35:06)
You do. I mean, you have the ability. You have the ability.

Yeah. Hey, a couple things before we wrap up. One, I'm going to let you before we end guess the marathon. You can get one guest every episode. But ⁓ two, you have been watching the Olympics quite a bit. What are your thoughts so far in the Olympics?

Erika (1:35:19)
Yeah!

you

God, these sports are dangerous. They are so dangerous. We've been watching a lot of skiing and they have this, I forget what it's exactly called, but it's like this downhill course. It's not slalom, it's not moguls. It's just a downhill course. And some of the skiers reach speeds of like 90 miles an hour. That just sounds so freaking dangerous. like, I learned that their little ski suits have an airbag in it.

Eric (1:35:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:36:00)
which I think is great because if you wipe out and you fall, like you have a little bit of safety. So yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I just love people not dying on the mountain. Like I think that's great, but God, some of these events are just crazy. We watched a lot of skeleton over the weekend too. And just, wow, you guys, how do you learn how, how like, yeah.

Eric (1:36:06)
That's actually really cool. And it's science, so you enjoy that.

Right?

crazy.

I know. That's the head first one. How did they come up? Like, why do think they came up with that name Skeleton?

They're like, oh, let's try this thing. Let's go head first down an ice slide. And the first guy died and all they could find was his skeleton. And so they're like, we're going to call it the Skeleton.

Erika (1:36:30)
It's not going to make me want to do it.

It's okay, you have a helmet,

you're fine. It's still cool as shit, you guys. I am glued to it. What?

Eric (1:36:45)
You know what also looks dangerous?

Pairs figure skating.

Erika (1:36:50)
I'm sure like you're spinning people around and like the skates are going everywhere and...

Eric (1:36:54)
And then speed skating, like

it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a NASCAR race, like bumper to bumper. They're hitting each other. They're falling and crashing and they got these massive blades on their feet. Like those would just kill somebody instantly. Hockey doesn't even compare on the danger level. Everything else is so much more dangerous and it's, it's neat that everything uses an edge. So your ice skate is an edge. Your ski is an edge.

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

It's so dangerous. my God. Yep. Yep.

Eric (1:37:21)
the cross-country skiing. Did you see what this guy did when he won the bronze medal in like the biathlon? Did you see what he did?

Erika (1:37:28)
No, I missed that one.

Eric (1:37:30)
He used that moment to confess his screw up. He met the love of his life six months ago. Three months later, he cheated on her and he thought that was the perfect opportunity to win her back and said, I'm sorry. I hope she's watching right now.

Erika (1:37:43)
Bro. No, dude, no. Yeah,

now you look like an ass. ⁓ That's not the way, dude.

Eric (1:37:53)
Not only that, she, she

is like, I didn't ask for this. And now everyone is up in her DMs or calling her out, not her out, like, she's like one person knew me. Now the entire world knows.

Erika (1:38:03)
huh.

Who's fault is that, buddy? ⁓ my god.

Eric (1:38:10)
I think

I think in the moment he had good intentions, not realizing the scale. Yeah. ⁓

Erika (1:38:15)
Mm.

Poorly executed. ⁓ my gosh,

yeah. And I mean, cheating is not something to take lightly. So I don't blame her if she doesn't take it back.

Eric (1:38:28)
I mean,

but it was also only three months into the relationship. I mean, did you have an understanding of where you were?

Erika (1:38:33)
There's no attachment!

I don't want to get it.

Eric (1:38:37)
It's not like you were married

for 30 years or even a you know, a year, but the Olympics have been great. one question. Do you think indoor track should be a sport in the winter Olympics?

Erika (1:38:41)
Yeah.

Indoor track. So just like running indoor track. I mean.

Eric (1:38:53)
Yeah, like all the track

events. got the hurdles, the 1500, it basically all the track events.

Erika (1:38:57)
Let's see why not.

A lot of the athletes stay in shape so they could be ready for a summer and a winter Olympics. You could do, yeah.

Eric (1:39:04)
In the professional runners track

athletes do indoor track every year. There's like the indoor track world championships.

Erika (1:39:08)
Yeah.

Yeah. Isn't it like the diamond league or something like that happens every year? Like there's a lot. So.

Eric (1:39:12)
Something. Do you think it would

dilute the Winter Olympics though? Like, do they need it? Does the Winter Olympics need it? It's also not dangerous. Like the Winter Olympics you said is dangerous. I kind of like into that now.

Erika (1:39:18)
Not really.

feel like that's not, that

shouldn't be a requirement to be a winter Olympic sport. But I'm thinking winter sports, like sure outside cold weather stuff, but I don't know. It might draw in more people who might not necessarily like the winter sports, but may like the track and field kind of stuff. Maybe. Yeah.

Eric (1:39:32)
Your life, should be.

I think it would be great for track and field and running, but I don't

think it's necessary. But I've seen that argument now recently. Wonder what you guys think should, should indoor track be an Olympic winter sport? Yes or no, or

Erika (1:39:54)
Yeah.

Let's just say I would watch.

Eric (1:40:01)
Well, besides that, the only other one I want to mention, and I'm not mentioning hockey here. You can bring that up if you want. Did you see this guy in the moguls? It's like one versus one in moguls. You go mogul, mogul, mogul, mogul, mogul. And then you do a jump and then you do more moguls. This is skiing. And then a big jump. And he messed up his jump. He went so high, upside down, landed, spun around and crossed the finish line in first place backwards.

Erika (1:40:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I did actually see that. I wasn't watching the race itself, but that clip popped up and I am just shocked that he stayed upright. Like all skiing for me, I don't understand how you guys do it, especially at those speeds and with like crazy like obstacles. That's the word I'm thinking of. But so going back to that downhill one I was talking about. So you think you're somebody standing up is like this. These people are literally like, here's your, here's your flat road. And they're like, we're

Eric (1:40:36)
amazing

just gotta trust your edges. Yeah.

Erika (1:40:57)
maybe like a 18 degree angle from like the ground. I don't understand how you can correct yourself after that and like just be like, okay, now I can finish skiing. Like you're freaking flat. You're parallel.

Eric (1:41:09)
especially moguls,

which are like wicked bumps. Yeah, that was incredible. Guys should find that video. Erica will share it on our feed. She will. She'll find it and share it. The Olympics have been fun. Winter Olympics I enjoy and I never really thought of it until you said it. Yeah, they're dangerous. I like that. So, ⁓ hockey. Yeah. Yeah. The women's hockey team is doing incredible. By, by this point.

Erika (1:41:12)
This is what boggles my mind, but that's why they are at the Olympics.

Yeah, guys, I'll totally do that. But that's cool shit.

Yeah. Well, I was not the one to think of it, so can't take the credit.

Eric (1:41:38)
next week when the pods back next week, the Olympics will be over and Erica will give you her full in-depth analysis of every winner and every wrong. ⁓ did you see last one? Figure skating. think it was Paris figure skating. The French judges were corrupt and they gave the Americans a much less score, lower score than what compared to everybody else. It was obvious. Apparently they did this.

Erika (1:41:50)
Hmm.

No way.

Eric (1:42:06)
So the French pair team could win gold and they succeeded. They did it two days in a row.

Erika (1:42:09)
Wow. No, I did not see that.

So shitty.

Eric (1:42:15)
So let's just say like this, if every judge gave the Americans pair a nine, these judges gave the Americans a six. And they did it again the next day, the right amount to allow the French team to win. Like, that's kind of corrupt. Like, you need to have... Yeah, it is. And they do nothing. They do nothing to like... You shouldn't be scoring the team you're against.

Erika (1:42:20)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ okay.

Wow. Yeah, that's shady.

That's true. But how do you find like these bipartisan judges? Like, I don't know how, I don't know how they do that, but they, they need to revoke whatever license they have to judge. That's not okay.

Eric (1:42:44)
Right? You're country-wise.

I know.

They do. They really do. But you

know, you know how to do that. You should, you know, run for office in the Olympic committee. Get involved in politics. Erica's favorite topic. Yeah. The Olympics are fun. I like how they bring up these sports. I would honestly be okay if there was no hockey in the winter or no basketball in the summer, because you just get to see these cool individual athletes. I think that's the cool part about the Olympics and the pairs are pretty cool.

Erika (1:43:03)
Me. God. I would have to learn a lot more about sports. Yes, I would. So, yeah.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Eric (1:43:25)
But that's it for Olympic talk. One last thing I want to, I want to start doing all year long for the rest of the year. I mentioned last week, I tease, I have a marathon in mind. I need to make sure I can make this workout logistically with the boss and the boss isn't my wife. It's my actual boss. All right. So I plan to run a fall marathon. If I can make it work out. I mentioned this last week and you're like, I'll figure it out. And I said, you can't figure this out if you have a hundred guesses.

Erika (1:43:31)
Sure.

you

Eric (1:43:55)
So I'm going to give you one guess at the end of every episode. And I'll also get the fans, know, the listeners one, cause a few have reached in and they've guessed, thought there's one in Tennessee called flying monkey. That's not it. A couple think it's Philadelphia. I'm like, guys, if I said, it's going to take you over a hundred picks, it's not the Philadelphia marathon.

Erika (1:44:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, that one was was shut down really quickly. I think you did like one of these like thumbs down ones. ⁓ You know what, though, I was going to throw one out like if I get one guess an episode until whenever this race happens, I was going to pick something out of the kind of out of the zone of the like I think it's outside the US. I really do. And I think my pick. OK, so ⁓

Eric (1:44:18)
Yeah.

You

And I'm not answering those questions. Because you asked me that last time and

I gave no response.

Erika (1:44:43)
So what I want you to do, if I actually guess it correctly, you write it down and the date that I say it for which episode it's in, and then we can revisit when I actually guess it right.

Eric (1:44:54)
So you want to keep guessing even if you got it right.

Erika (1:44:57)
mean, if you're not going to tell me, how am I supposed to know? I want to know if I get it right eventually.

Eric (1:45:00)
Well, will tell

you, know what, if you ever get it, I will let you know again, I don't know if I can do it. I've asked one person to go, ⁓ if they want to run with me. ⁓ so only one person knows it was a work person. So only one person knows. Right. So again, this is a marathon. I think I'll run if I can make it work logistically and I'll train for it.

Erika (1:45:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It wasn't me. What the hell? Fine. Fine, fine, fine. Okay.

Okay.

Eric (1:45:27)
I won't be able to commit to it until probably call it too much before, but I have it in mind.

Erika (1:45:33)
OK, that's still,

you could still get at least in half marathon shape up to then. And then if you can run it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there you go. Excellent. All right, so my one guest today, the Florence Marathon in Italy. It's called the Forens Marathon. OK.

Eric (1:45:38)
Easy. And I'll run a half or something this fall. Even, I'm going to run a half in May. Boston run to remember. So. All right. What's, what's your one guess?

WAH WAH WAH WAH ⁓

Well, you said Italy after that. I thought you meant like Florence, South Carolina.

Erika (1:46:03)
This a Florence, South Carolina. See, I didn't know that, but this one's in Italy. So I will keep guessing and write down my guesses for you for later on. This is going to be fun game.

Eric (1:46:13)
All right. If you guys have a guess, you can

ask, but if you guess like 50 marathons, like is it this one, is it that one, is it I'll never tell you, but if you randomly just guess this one marathon, I'll be like, that's it. Good job. And I'll send you something.

Erika (1:46:21)
you ⁓

Okay, this is fun.

Eric (1:46:28)
Cool. Great

episode after that awful intro that no one will hear.

Erika (1:46:34)
We were having an off day, you guys, but this is why we're pros. We fixed it. Yes.

Eric (1:46:38)
The internet was having an off day. Yeah.

Yeah. I have, have nothing else here to add. I am going to be enjoying a great day on Wednesday skiing. If any of see it, be jealous. I don't care. You guys are like, do you work? Listen, treat yourself.

Erika (1:46:51)
I hope you have a bluebird day.

Not on Wednesday you don't.

Yes, yes, insert that clip right there. Treat yourself. Treat yourself 2026.

Eric (1:47:03)
Treat yourself.

What a cool episode. Kayla was amazing. You're great, Erica. ⁓ But just invite me after ski season to go on some of these runs. You go, why can't I invite you because you don't know Hester? How the hell am I going to get to know Hester if I'm never invited? Yes, yes, I do. Take us home.

Erika (1:47:20)
He has a point. He has a point. All right, dude. All right. After

ski season, when it gets warm, I will be outside way more often. So you'll have plenty of opportunities to jump in whenever you like. How's that sound? Great. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for listening and sticking with us. You know we love you.

Eric (1:47:34)
We love it.

Don't fear the code brown.

Erika (1:47:43)
And don't forget to stretch.

Eric (1:48:37)
⁓ It's so much it feels so good when we when it goes like that

Erika (1:48:39)
Better. Yeah, the

other one was trash. Total trash.

Eric (1:48:47)
It