215 | Allison Yamamoto Code RED

 We welcome Alliston Yamamoto to the podcast for a fun episode were we explore the fascinating world of marathon running, cheerleading, and learn about Code Red with our amazing guest, Allison. Discover tips for race day, training insights, and fun stories that will inspire and entertain every runner and sports enthusiast. In this episode, Allison Yamamoto shares her journey through cheerleading, her deep dive into REDs (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport), and her mission to raise awareness and support for women facing menstrual health issues related to athletic performance.

During the Tros Erika recapped a cold Eastern States 20 milers. We have some fun with Chuck Norris Memes, JT brought sexy back to the jail cell and we get pumped for March Madness and Boston Weeks.

Chapters

00:00 Intro | Eastern States 20 Miler 
07:01 Chuck Norris
11:43 Introducing Allison Yamamoto
17:23 Experiencing the New York City Marathon
26:18 Food and Recovery After the Marathon
37:12 Allison's Journey: From Childhood to Running Passion
48:50 The Code Red Experience: Understanding Menstrual Health
55:17 The Impact of Missing Periods on Female Athletes
01:03:17 The Broader Implications of Low Energy Availability
01:14:19 Bridging the Gap: Awareness and Accessibility in Athlete Health
01:16:56 The Importance of Preventative Health in Athletics
01:19:57 Elevator Pitch: Spreading Awareness on REDs
01:22:58 Final Thoughts: The Future of Athlete Support and Community Engagement
01:33:20 Outro
01:37:02 March Madness and Race Medals
01:40:00 Justin Timberlake's DUI Incident
01:42:33 Tapering for Upcoming Races
01:44:50 Team Hoyt Taper Race Announcement
01:45:54 Excitement for Boston Weeks

Allison's Instagram

Allison's links

Team Hoyt Taper - 25% off CODE BROWN

Main Topics

• The importance of recognizing and supporting Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs)
• Personal stories from New York and Boston marathons, including course nuances and logistical tips
• The intersection of cheerleading, performance, and systemic health signs
• Alison’s journey through cheer, running, and developing her interdisciplinary health program
• Humorous banter about Chuck Norris, Justin Timberlake, and viral TikTok jokes

Key Insights

• Overtraining and underfueling lead to systemic issues like hormone suppression and risk of stress fractures
• The significance of listening to body signals beyond just menstrual health, including mood and energy levels
• Practical advice for marathon day, including course elevation awareness and final recovery tips
• Alison’s mission to democratize access to holistic health support for female athletes
• The value of sleep, rest, and proper nutrition as foundational to performa

Strava Group
Linktree - Find everything here
Instagram - Follow us on the gram
YouTube - Subscribe to our channel
Patreon - Support us
Threads
Email us at OnTheRunsPod@gmail.com

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

Transcript

Eric (00:55)
What's up everybody and welcome to episode two 15 of the on the runs podcast. It's springtime, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Six star ran 20 miles and still can't feel her fingers. TMZ had a field day this weekend with the bachelor and Justin Timberlake March madness is upon us. And we lost a legend who built the hospital he was born in. But first, before we get to any of that and so much more, I must say hello to my kick ass rock star of our co-host six star Erica. What's up?

Oops.

Erika (01:26)
No, that's pretty accurate. No, I like that. No, that's how I feel right about now. I am so low energy. I'm still cold. I'm going to try to rally for you guys. I really am, but...

Eric (01:36)
You ran

the Eastern States 20-miler today. It's Sunday night. We're recording a night early, but yeah, you're still trying to thaw out. Like, do you remember two years ago, I ran this with you and you said, this is my last Eastern States. And you're still doing it every

Erika (01:39)
Sure did. Mm-hmm.

I always say that.

I don't remember saying that and that's probably for good reason, but yeah, it's a good thing. It's a good way to just keep getting your long run in because at least you have to do it. You get aid stations and a medal at the end. So why not? It was a nice medal. It's downstairs. I can go get it if I need to.

Eric (02:05)
And a medal.

You could add it maybe last minute to the March Madness bracket that will be coming out in a couple days. We're doing medals. Yeah. I mean, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Episode coming soon for March Madness and guys in the next couple of days, look out for the March Madness votes on the run style. But yeah, it was. We kind of had a winter storm today and you had a 20 miler on the seacoast with the wind. It wasn't snow. It was more like.

Erika (02:15)
Hmm. I could. It's worthy. I think it's worthy.

Sure.

Freaking awful.

Pelting rain in my face. yeah, it was not the most fun race that I've done recently.

Eric (02:39)
hard rain? Yeah.

You had a good start though. I mean, John from Millennium was getting content which you were not

Erika (02:52)
I just, I've been so tired. I haven't done anything with it yet. But yeah, so this morning just getting on the bus to go to the start line, John jumps on the bus and he's like, all right, you guys, got to hype this up. Let's go. So he like runs down the bus and we're all like, woo, let's go.

Eric (03:08)
Well, he knew you were on the bus and you weren't going to hype it up.

Erika (03:11)
don't know if he knew I was on the bus. I did say hi to him this morning when I was pulling in though, because he was directing some traffic. he knew I was there, but I think he just picked a bus. I was on the first bus. So that helped.

Eric (03:17)
Yeah.

So for everyone,

yeah, for everyone who doesn't know, who's not like local to New England, the Eastern States is like this perfect 20 miler a month before the Boston marathon. you park at Hampton beach state park, right? And then you bus up to Maine and you run from Kittery, Maine through, you used to run, you used to run from Maine through New Hampshire to mass, but you no longer end in mass.

Erika (03:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. Yep. It was a whole logistical thing for why we don't go into mass anymore, but it kind of does ruin the appeal because you're like, this is so cool. I get to run through three states today. How often can you say that? But it's still an incredible race. So well put on just today was not the best weather day. mean, big March in New England. What do you expect? Absolutely.

Eric (04:09)
I know. Great training for the Boss Marathon. You are still

trying to get in the Boss Marathon. Like, the content you are doing is trying to get yourself a fucking bib. And you're like, hey dude, you gave me some news the other day that I can't share. You're like, hey, we need to make it big and make it big fast. Well, you're not doing anything.

Erika (04:15)
Who frickin' knows?

I have pr- I have priorities, man.

I have stuff. I'm just, my God, today was a day you guys. I am just, man, that wind just zaps everything you have out of you. Yeah. Yep. I did get to see some awesome pod fam today though. Jamie Staten was doing the announcing at the start line again. So I have, I got to see him. Yuki was there. This is her last long run before Boston. Eric, her husband was there.

Eric (04:41)
Yeah, no, I totally know the feeling. Yeah. ⁓

Nice.

Erika (04:57)
It was a lot of fun and I do have content. I just haven't posted yet.

Eric (05:01)
Can I say one thing though? This is, I think, But I don't realize it until I see photos. Yuki posted the photo of you and two others. You're so tall!

Erika (05:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, Sheila and Kathy.

Dude, I am enormous. Why do I have such short friends? So we were taking a picture and I think Sheila was like crouching down a little bit. I'm like, why? I'm like, I'm just going to stand up straighter. I think it's funnier that way, but I'm really not that tall. I'm five, nine. That doesn't sound that tall. Maybe a little bit more with my super shoes, but.

Eric (05:15)
I know, you look like a giant!

I know. And it doesn't,

it doesn't feel that way around me because you're just a little shorter than me. Tara and Lindsay are also tall, so when the four of us are together, you don't, you don't think like, ⁓ somebody's really small. But when you put side by side, you're like, my God, Erica's a beast.

Erika (05:38)
Mm-hmm. Yup, it's great.

Mm-hmm.

I

am enormous. I'm just very tall. What can I say? Runs in the family.

Eric (05:53)
I'm glad you had,

I'm glad you had a great day. ⁓ next week, speaking of Boston is the beginning of Boston weeks. And I just want to say to everyone listening out there, just to get it out of her system. If you have a bib for the Boston marathon, can you just give it to Erica? Cause she, then she will like actually do some podcast work.

Erika (05:58)
Mm-hmm.

Please

Eric (06:13)
but she's only posting to get in the Boston Marathon right now. it's, I'm just, I saw it and I was like, wait a second, I thought that was from you, and then I realized you're just reposting to try to get yourself a bib.

Erika (06:14)
⁓ man.

One last shot. We'll see.

Eric (06:25)
I I know. I want you to get it. Because I want to be done with this. I want, no, I want to be done with this. Put you to work.

Erika (06:29)
No, you don't. ⁓ you want to be done with it. Well,

next year is another year, so we'll see what happens. I'm going to keep working on getting faster, so maybe I'll qualify. I'll be in a new age group, so it'll be maybe a little easier. We'll see.

Eric (06:37)
Yeah. Hey, you.

Doesn't matter.

Once you get your redemption race, you're done for a while. We have exciting news to talk about soon and it's only going to get bigger and better every year in Boston. yeah. Hey, question for you. You ever played Jenga?

Erika (06:51)
Ha ha ha

Mm-hmm. Sure thing, dude. Whatever you say. Whatever you say.

Uh-huh.

Yes.

Eric (07:06)
You ever play it with a stonehenge?

Erika (07:10)
can do that? No, no. Well, you know what? Chuck Norris has also played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. And won. What?

Eric (07:11)
Chuck Norris does.

you know what?

Chuck Norris uses pepper spray to season his meat.

Erika (07:25)
Such a beast. Well, I've got another one for you. The flu has to get a Chuck Norris shot every year.

Eric (07:33)
Did you know Chuck Norris had a diary? It's called the Guinness Book of World Records.

Erika (07:39)
Well, I know that Chuck Norris cannot turn left because he's always right.

Eric (07:45)
Well I know that Chuck Norris won a arm wrestling tournament with both his arms tied behind his back.

Erika (07:51)
Did you know that he doesn't need a GPS? He decides where he is.

Eric (07:55)
Did you know that the boogie man goes to sleep every night and checks his closet for Chuck Norris?

Erika (08:03)
Well, I heard that he was once arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and he was only wearing a towel.

Eric (08:11)
Well, I heard that Chuck Norris doesn't worry about high gas prices. His vehicle runs on fear.

Erika (08:16)
Here's a good one. ⁓ Chuck Norris doesn't flush a toilet. He scares the shit out of it.

Eric (08:22)
Mmm. Chuck Norris makes a Happy Meal cry.

Erika (08:24)
you

Well, you know that Jesus can walk on water, but Chuck Norris can swim through land.

Eric (08:34)
You know that Chuck Norris beat the sun in a staring contest once?

Erika (08:40)
My retinas hurt just thinking about that. Well, did you know that Chuck Norris can never fill out an online form because he will never submit?

Eric (08:52)
You know that dinosaurs looked at Chuck Norris the wrong once? You know what happened to them?

Erika (08:57)
No.

Eric (08:58)
I became extinct!

Erika (09:01)
you know that guns carry Chuck Norris for protection?

Eric (09:04)
Did you know that it takes Chuck 20 minutes to watch 60 minutes?

Erika (09:09)
man, we lost a legend. We really did. And kids these days don't even know who he is, which makes me very, very sad.

Eric (09:16)
I no clue.

I learned a lot about him in the last couple of days just because of social media. So he was like in today's terms an MMA fighter, right? And he was a world And Bruce Lee said to him, I want you to come here and be in a movie in 1972. And that was the world's introduction to Chuck Norris in 1972 for this Bruce Lee movie. So in a Bruce Lee movie...

Erika (09:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (09:44)
Everyone always gets their ass beat and Chuck was like, well, do I have to lose? And Bruce Lee is like, yes, you have to lose, but because you're a world champion, we'll make it a fair fight. And so Chuck Norris got some blows and people have never seen anyone ever hit Bruce Lee before and like really knock the crap out of him. And ultimately he loses, but then he got all his fame here in America and stuff and all those.

Erika (09:55)
Mm-hmm.

So that's where the lore

started.

Eric (10:08)
Yeah, yeah, and then it wasn't until like 2005 when we were in college and the internet was like here for good things, not for things that you see today. And all those Chuck Norris memes came out.

It was amazing. Like Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.

Erika (10:23)
They're so good too.

Eric (10:30)
Chuck Norris knows Victoria's secret.

Erika (10:35)
man, these are so good.

Eric (10:36)
Swiss army uses Chuck Norris knives. ⁓ man. was like, yeah, 2005 and six. So many Chuck Norris jokes. So Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone. my God. Just Google it guys. If you've never, well, our listeners have heard of him. So it was, yeah, it was kind of funny how he all of a sudden just died. He posted, you know what? I hope.

Erika (10:40)
So good.

Mm-hmm, yep.

Eric (10:58)
to be like Chuck Norris when I'm his age. Because 10 days ago before he died, he celebrated his 86th birthday. And he posted a video of him like boxing. You know, like when someone else has the gloves, the mitts, and he's hitting them and he goes, I don't age. I level up. So 10 days before he died, he was kicking ass. I hope to be like that. I don't know. No, a medical emergency.

Erika (11:05)
Mm-hmm.

huh.

⁓ that makes me so sad. Do we know how he died? What happened? There's probably a joke in there somewhere.

Eric (11:23)
rumor has it he's actually been dead for a long time. Death was just afraid to tell him.

Erika (11:33)
That was both pretty funny. ⁓ Chuck. We'll miss you. We'll miss you, buddy.

Eric (11:36)
Chuck. Yup.

Yup. He built the hospital he was born in and he once bowled a perfect game of bowling with a marble. I could go on and on. I digress. I digress. Erica, we have an amazing guest today brought to us by an amazing sponsor of the podcast. Please tell everybody.

Erika (11:47)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Thank you, My Race Tats, for sponsoring the guest segment today. We have on this week's episode, Alison Yamamoto, who is a sports nutritionist and a run coach, and she's going to tell us all about reds. Now, if you've heard of it, It plagues a lot of athletes out there, so it's very, very good that she's bringing it to our attention because a lot of people... Yeah, a lot of people don't know about it.

Eric (12:17)
A lot of female athletes. Yeah.

I learned a lot about things I don't know and I asked. Guys, I asked the stupid questions.

Erika (12:23)
Code red, code red. They're not stupid

questions. No, you're asking it the right way to get the most answer. There you go.

Eric (12:36)
Just actually because I don't know and I wanted to know like you'll you'll find out. But guys enjoy Allison was incredible. Dawn for my race. Thank you so much guys. Check out my race. And the show notes and get yourself some amazing Boston. My race that just came out just in time for your Boston Marathon. So enjoy Allison Yamamoto on the on the runs podcast and we'll see you on the other side.

Erika (12:51)
Brand new.

Eric (13:02)
Our next guest on the pod is a former D1 cheerleader turned marathoner who had her own version of a code brown, we'll call it a code red. Her experience has helped her specialize in helping female runners fuel properly, recover from their periods and break their injury cycle. Alongside she's a nutritionist, a run coach, and she's run in the two greatest marathons in the world. And we're wicked excited to have her on the pod. Alison Yamamoto. Welcome to the On the Runs podcast. What's up?

Allison (13:27)
You nailed it, yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation.

Erika (13:29)
you

Eric (13:31)
Yes!

Erika (13:33)
We are so thrilled to have you and I'm kind of excited because I think we're gonna put Eric a little bit outside of his comfort zone with this conversation today. Hell yes, let's go.

Eric (13:40)
I'm ready to dive in.

Allison (13:42)
I

think he's the most excited. He's ready to go.

Eric (13:43)
Yeah. Right.

Erika (13:44)
Probably is.

Eric (13:45)
⁓

Erika (13:46)
He's learning stuff today.

Eric (13:48)
first thing, let's check in. How are you right now? We always record these about two weeks ahead. So when you're listening now, two weeks ago right now, we're buried in snow. This winter just continues to deliver. And I saw your story as I'm snow blowing our driveway. You're buried in snow too. How are you doing?

Allison (14:07)
doing well. I left the apartment this morning just out of pure novelty to just see what was going on. And of course I step outside and my entire leg essentially up to my knee is legitimately sunk into the snow. So it was just funny because on two days ago, on so on Saturday, the temperatures were really rising. It was starting to get warmer. I went for a beautiful run on Saturday.

Erika (14:22)
⁓ no.

Allison (14:33)
and I was starting to feel like it was spring. And then there was all this messaging that was warning us about these blizzards that were gonna come in. And I feel like I just didn't believe it because I'm like, it's so warm. The snow could not possibly stick. We already had our big snowstorm of the year a few weeks ago. So I feel like we're in the clear. And no, that was definitely not the case. I woke up in the morning and there's definitely a huge amount of snow outside, which is fun, but it was...

it caught me off guard and I should have been more prepared. Everyone warned. Yes. Yeah. I had no reason to be unprepared. Everyone had warned. I just chose to stay in my own bubble in terms of what was, what felt like it was going to be good out of, in terms of the outcome. Yes.

Erika (15:04)
What a cruel joke.

You're not alone. I would have done the same thing. Like, no, we're not

getting more snow. I said no. But it doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

Allison (15:21)
Correct, yeah.

Eric (15:24)
I think you posted this, but you made some posts like, when did we start to listen to a groundhog?

Allison (15:31)
That's exactly what I said. Yeah, I was walking because I was like, I really want to try to go to the coffee shop. Of course, the coffee shop is closed. Everything, everything closed. ⁓ And I was laughing about how this is what happens when you put your fate in the hands of a groundhog. And I was.

Erika (15:33)
Stupid rat.

Eric (15:49)
I'm trying to remember,

he saw the shadow. So that means still six more weeks of winter, right? I mean, so he was kind of spot on.

Allison (15:52)
Correct.

Correct, yes.

he was spot on. Yeah, he was spot on.

Eric (15:59)
You

Erika (16:00)
Stupid

groundhog. How dare you.

Eric (16:03)
Now, for everyone listening, you're south of us, and think the south actually got hit harder. Where are you?

Allison (16:10)
I'm in New York City. I did not realize the South got hit harder. That sounds, meaning that they have more snow than what we have here.

Eric (16:18)
Yes.

Erika (16:18)
I think so.

Didn't it hug pretty much the coast all around? It went down into Rhode Island from Boston and down into New York. Yeah. I think that was in the two feet zone or something like that.

Eric (16:19)
Well.

Yeah, I know as you got closer to us, we got more around that eight inches. The wind drifts though make it look like five feet. But definitely like Massachusetts, like our office is closed today. And my office is down there Boston. So they closed like 24 hours in advance. But I know south of us got hit hard. And you're part of that. Where in New York City are you? I'm familiar with the sunny side area of Queens.

Erika (16:37)
Mm.

Allison (16:42)
Yeah.

So specific, yes. The classic place that everyone comes to visit whenever they come to New York is... Absolutely, ⁓ Manhattan's overrated, just go straight to Sunnyside, Queens. That's where it's happening. I have to say.

Eric (17:00)
Is that true about Sunnyside?

I will say I liked

it. Like I was like, okay, this isn't the worst. This isn't like, I know no one has grass in New York City or lawn to mow, but know, Sunnyside was quiet and quaint maybe. Or maybe that was just her street.

Allison (17:23)
Okay, okay.

I've never been to Sunnyside. Yeah, have to say. I have to say I've never been there. I've been Brooklyn and I'm specifically in ⁓ kind of just near Prospect Park.

Erika (17:27)
place to go.

Eric (17:31)
Okay.

yeah I know, yeah yeah yeah.

Allison (17:39)
Yeah, did you get to run there or anything? it out. You did.

Eric (17:41)
We were in New York City this past year in 25. Yeah, greatest

day ever. Greatest run ever. New York, yes, yeah. It was the greatest run ever. Like, I love the Boston Marathon and I want to hear your opinions of the two as we get there, but I don't know how any other race can compare to that New York City Marathon. It was that incredible.

Allison (17:47)
Was that your first time doing New York City? What'd think?

Eric (18:07)
And I had this goal. ran with my sister. It was her first. She's running Tokyo, ⁓ in a week or two. And I ran with her and we ran like an hour, not an hour. my God. We ran five hours and 10 minutes. That was slower. It was my slowest marathon ever. Slower than my Ironman marathon. But I trained hard enough where I could probably do a sub four and that where I knew I would feel amazing for the entire five hours. And I just partied. I loved it. Like mile eight going through.

Erika (18:19)
you

Eric (18:37)
some area in Brooklyn, probably close to you was insane. I was just like, it was so incredible. The best run ever. I want to go back. I'm not going to go back this year, but I'll try to go back the following year. And, it was that incredible. I don't know how any other run will ever compare.

Erika (18:58)
We got to try other runs, Eric.

Allison (18:58)
Yeah.

Eric (19:00)
Well, I know one thing's

for sure, Erica, Chicago stands no chance.

Erika (19:05)
You never know

until you run it, man. You gotta run them and experience them both before you can really compare.

Allison (19:11)
How is your experiencing trying to get into the New York City Marathon?

Eric (19:11)
Alison, that.

How did I get in?

Allison (19:16)
Yeah, how was your, how

was your experience around that? Cause I feel like that's usually a really stressful, especially if you're out of state.

Eric (19:23)
I got very lucky. I knew some people because I have a running podcast and someone was on a team and that person got pregnant and I think I took her spot. So I pretty much got an email and said I had 24 hours to decide and I had to raise, Erica, what did have to raise? About three grand? I was like, okay, I can do that. Boston's scary. Yeah.

Allison (19:28)
about it.

Erika (19:34)
you

Wasn't it like 37 or something? $3,700

or I don't know, but not terrible.

Eric (19:47)
Yeah, Boston's scary. I'm never gonna fundraise for Boston.

Erika (19:49)
Oh yeah,

that's up at this point it's upward of like $12,000 you have to, yeah. Boston is something else. It's tough.

Eric (19:53)
12. Yeah. Yeah.

Allison (19:57)
I didn't realize that. Wow. Wow, that.

Eric (19:59)
But it was awesome.

So that's where you live now. How long have you lived in New York?

Allison (20:05)
Wow, okay, so I've been here a little over five years and I originally came out here thinking, this is gonna be my study abroad. I'm just gonna be here for maybe a year or two, see how it goes. And then, I don't know, somehow COVID happened and then five years later I'm still here. I still don't feel like a New Yorker to be honest. I don't know the train systems as well as other people.

The first time I had ever been to all five boroughs was the New York City Marathon. So I'd already been here for several years and that was my first time going to all five boroughs. So I still sort of feel like I am a visitor and I'm not fully embracing the New York City culture lifestyle. I don't know if that's fully me, ⁓ but I really like, I mean, the city is amazing. The energy on the New York City Marathon day is unreal.

So I'm really glad that you got to have that experience. And I hadn't had that experience either ⁓ from the marathon perspective, but everyone that I spoke to said, you should do the New York City Marathon. It's the most memorable experience. But also if you do it, then every other marathon just doesn't feel like what New York City feels like. And so, yeah.

Erika (21:12)
you

Eric (21:18)
Yeah, I can only run New York now. I think that's settled.

Yeah.

Allison (21:21)
Yeah,

especially if you liked the energy and the cheering. They're like, there's nothing like that. And it just completely, if you do it as your first marathon, you're kind of ruined because you just do all these other ones. You're doing the majors and you're like, I mean, it was good, but remember when we did that first one and that's what we expected everything to be like. So.

Erika (21:21)
I'm outta man.

You know

what? feel like that's probably why Chicago is my favorite because that one was my first major. So I think I just did it in a weird order. And so that one is my, that one is just automatically my favorite now. But I did, I ran, oh, it's, it's so flat and that's, that's my cup of tea, but, I, I'm going to be running Chicago for like the fifth time coming up this year. Like I just keep going back, but I did, I did run New York twice. And so I have my comparisons and I don't know, Chicago is still up there.

Allison (21:47)
It's also supposed to be a good course.

So you're trying to draw us into Chicago. You're trying to convert us too.

Eric (22:08)
She's been trying

Erika (22:08)
I've been trying

Eric (22:08)
for a long time. Yeah.

Erika (22:09)
for years. Yeah, it's not working. Eric, Eric's a little mad at it because he didn't get selected in the lottery for this coming year. So he'll get there someday.

Eric (22:15)
Multiple times, multiple times. If Chicago wants

Allison (22:18)
The rejection is hard.

Eric (22:19)
me

to praise it, they gotta pick me. Yeah. Nope. Erica also can't run without music, so when she ran New York, she didn't get to experience everything, because she had headphones on.

Allison (22:20)
Right. Yeah, the rejection hurts. Rejection hurts. We don't forget that.

Erika (22:22)
Mm-hmm, they do.

They're all special in their own way.

That's not true. No,

I have shocks and so I can hear everything going on and half the time the crowds are so loud that you can't even hear what's going on in your headphones. So you're still getting the full experience and trust me, I could feel the vibes.

Allison (22:45)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (22:46)
Allison, when did you get to run New York City?

Allison (22:48)
Same year as Eric, we did it. Yes, I can't believe we didn't see each other. I how did we not run into each other? Right? I was in wave one.

Erika (22:50)
just last year. Excellent. Love it. Love it, love it. Yeah, Eric.

Eric (22:55)
She's

yeah, how could I have missed you? What wave were you in?

⁓ damn girl, you fast.

Allison (23:05)
Thank you. It was actually fairly circumstantial, but yes, yeah, I was in.

Eric (23:11)
So you

had to wake up like, we had two totally different experiences then, cause you had to wake up like at two in the morning to take a bus probably. I woke up at six, took the subway from sunny side, got on a ferry, had a lovely morning, got to the area plenty of time, took two poops and then got to run the marathon. And I made sure I was on the top level of that bridge.

Erika (23:23)
You

Eric (23:38)
I don't think I started the marathon until like 11 o'clock. You probably done by the time I started. I was in the fifth wave.

Allison (23:44)
I definitely wasn't done by 11, but that is a completely different experience. I woke up, it was so dark outside. I was so grateful for the time change because that extra hour made a huge difference. took a bus over actually. And we got lost. And so we ended up somewhere in Staten Island that was not the right place. Yes. And then we finally got off the bus. So we had been on what was supposed to be

maybe like a 25 minute bus ride. We were on that bus for 90 minutes. And by this point, mean, that's a long time to be on a bus when you're not expecting it. And so I was getting really nervous about having used the restroom and doing all excited warm up things that I wanted to do beforehand. I didn't know how I was going to get to my right corral. anyways, finally got there. Luckily there's just so much time though, like even for us, we have to get there so early, but we still don't start.

Erika (24:16)
⁓ no.

Mm.

Allison (24:40)
that early, you're still standing around for a solid three plus hours. So that was also definitely the longest time I had been in Staten Island. It was funny because you go to all five boroughs and they say, yeah, you're not really in Staten Island because the first thing you do is just leave Staten Island in the marathon. But I was like, no, I, I, sat in Staten Island for at least as long as pretty much the whole marathon. Exactly. Yeah.

Erika (24:59)
Yup.

You probably spent more time there than you did the rest.

Allison (25:08)
was like, was in Staten, that was the majority of my day was in that moment in Staten Island. And I was only briefly in all the other boroughs by comparison. So ⁓ it was maybe more contained because I wasn't really freely roaming Staten Island, but yeah, that was probably the longest I'd spent. And then I didn't realize that you could rig it so that you knew which you could go over the bridge or on the bottom.

Eric (25:31)
Well, I didn't rig it per se, but I was on the... My sister and I were in the same wave, but different corrals. I was like pink and pink goes underneath the bridge. She was blue or orange or something. They go above. The rule is you can start in any corral behind your corral. So I can't move up, but I can move back. So I moved back to go with my sister and she was in the one that ran on top. And I am thankful I experienced that. Now,

Allison (25:51)
Hmm.

Eric (25:59)
If I get to run New York again, I don't care, which if I'm on the top or the bottom, that's fine. I'm not going to be like, ⁓ you know, but.

Erika (26:07)
to do the top and then the bottom, and it's equally as fun. You get echoes on the bottom, so people just yell the whole time, and it's pretty cool.

Eric (26:13)
It was really cool being able

to hear them because I could hear people below us yelling, but being on the top on that perfect day, it was the perfect day, right? Maybe some people might've complained it was a little warm. I didn't care. I had sparkles on my bald head and I, yeah, I know I did. I did it right. And, and I took, I know. Well, these, all these girls are going around sharing the sparkles. I was like, give me some, give me some.

Erika (26:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Isn't it great?

Allison (26:31)
Well, you had so much time. What else were you gonna do? You could be dazzled carefully.

Erika (26:36)
Next time, bedazzle it.

Eric (26:39)
But it was such a perfect day

Erika (26:40)
I love that idea.

Eric (26:41)
and I'm glad I got to experience the top of the bridge. And now running again, like I said, I'm fine. Whichever way they want me to go, I'm fine. I'm not gonna be that picky. But top's the way to go.

Allison (26:44)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (26:50)
you

Allison (26:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I mean, I actually didn't even know that, see, this is my own Navy Day. I didn't know that there was a top and a bottom. And so I just got lucky that I ended up being on the top. And I was super grateful, because you still get the echoes when you go ⁓ over the Queensborough Bridge. And you're kind of contained there, so you get the echo experience. But then to your point, it was such a beautiful day. It was so clear.

Eric (27:02)
⁓

Yeah.

Erika (27:10)
That's right.

Eric (27:12)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (27:17)
And then when you go over the top, it just feels very expansive, especially after you've been sitting for so long, just kind of waiting and waiting. And so I agree. I endorse the top bridge experience, but both, you know, I'm sure are really amazing.

Eric (27:22)
Yeah.

Maybe they should make a rule that everyone who runs their first New York City gets to run on top. And then if it's your second, you just need to get lucky. Now,

Erika (27:42)
All right, you

need to get in touch with Rob Simulcare and see if he can make this happen. There you go.

Eric (27:45)
Yeah, I'll give him a call. I emailed

his assistant the other day, got some help there. But, but, you know, that's a different story. Let's stick with New York, though. This is fun. I want to know, this is the year of the hot take, and I did not prep you, but I'm going to ask you at the end of this episode for a hot take. My New York City hot take is this. New York City is not as hilly as they say. What do you think? Is it hilly?

Allison (28:12)
So I think that the last five miles are hillier than people expect it to be. And I was really happy that I looked at the course because I've been burned by other New York City races where it seems like it's going to be flat because it's in the city and then everyone says, just the bridges are the hills. And so then you look and you say, well, I just have a bridge in the beginning. And then I have a bridge at, you know, roughly mile, maybe 14 ish.

Erika (28:34)
Mm.

Allison (28:42)
And then presumably I'm mostly done with bridges. And then I think that people don't realize that there are not huge Hills, but there are some Hills that are going to occur between mile 21 and mile and the end essentially 26.2. And that's where I saw gradual exactly. And then you go in the park and it's kind of rolling. And at least for me, that's where I saw people really struggle in terms of

Erika (28:51)
Mm.

That's right. Fifth Ave is like gradual, like two miles. Yeah.

Mmm.

Allison (29:12)
stopping or experience really bad cramping in their legs or pulling out of the race. And I think it might just, I mean, there's so many factors I can go into that because it's also the last leg of the marathon. But for me, I thought that if you don't study the course, then there might be unexpected hills at the end. But I agree. don't think it's a, it's definitely not a flat course, but maybe people think of New York and they assume it's going to be flat. And that's what creates that reputation.

Eric (29:40)
Good point. Good point. See, when someone tells me hilly, I'm thinking rolling hills, what I'm used to here in New Hampshire, right? But that first mile, I love the incline pitch. I agree, Fifth Ave definitely felt, it feels, it looks flat, it kind of feels flat, but you can tell if you were going the opposite way that you were going downhill. It's like running on a rail trail here, Erica. You go up the Goffstown Rail Trail.

Allison (29:45)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Erika (30:05)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (30:07)
You don't know you're going uphill until you turn around and come back down. You're like, my God, I'm flying because you're going down. So I enjoyed it, but yeah, it's also like, that's the last six, seven miles or so fifth Ave, but had to get that in Erica. Yeah.

Erika (30:11)
I know, right?

Allison (30:20)
And just be, just gotta be ready. Just gotta be ready for it. I

think it's like a mental, it's partly mental. Just prepare for, prepare for very big hills at the end and then you'll be pleasantly, pleasantly surprised versus I'm just gonna straight shoot the end the last six miles or so. Cause you're already, I mean, we're all already tired at that point. So the, even the gradual.

Eric (30:38)
Right. What was your,

what was your post-race experience like? Like you have the mile walk after the race, you get your poncho and your medal. Was it, it was dark for me. Like the, just started to turn dark and we had to get back to my sister. So she lived in New York. You live in New York. So like, what was that experience like for you being a local New Yorker? Was it crazy, busy, crowded, or is that just what you're used to?

Allison (30:45)
Yeah.

I will say that the, I think one of the best things I did for New York City was talk to enough people to have really clear expectations for arrival, start, start time, and walking that extra thing, having to commute, because it's easy for us to focus so much on the training and then the marathon, obviously, because that's the main event. But there's so much logistics that go into New York that it was really, really helpful for me to know in advance, okay, you're going to finish.

Eric (31:27)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (31:35)
and be prepared to walk, to have to walk for a mile just to get out and then have the uncertainty around whether or not cell service is going to work because there's so many people around and then there's crowds and some of the streets might be closed. So figure out which train stations you might want to get to and which ones are nearby. And I essentially got out and then onto the normal streets and then

just got into a subway and commuted straight back into Brooklyn, into where I live. And I think there's a lot of run clubs. So the nice thing about being in New York is that when you live here all the time, a lot of the run clubs have so many participants in the marathon that they have events or end race tents or parties and all these other things. So I was really debating, do I do one of those or do I just go back and

Eric (32:23)
Yeah.

Allison (32:30)
For me, just optimize for like, I just need to get out of the crowd. I'm not really in the most social mood. I'm more in the like, lie down, get, I live on a fourth floor walk up. I'm like, there's gonna be a very narrow window of time that I'm still gonna feel like I have it in me to get up the stairs. And so I, yeah, I came back. I went straight to get something to eat. And then ⁓ I was like, I'm only gonna go up those stairs once.

Erika (32:33)
Mm.

you

⁓

Allison (32:57)
So I'm to eat now. And then once I get up the apartment, we're just going to stay in there. So yeah. And I was grateful. actually, ended early enough. There's like NFL games that are still happening that day. Yeah. And so we were also debating like, well we could try to go to one of the bars to go watch one of these games. And that's what we would normally do on a Sunday when some of the games are showing.

Erika (32:58)
You

That's a good strategy in itself. Yes. Yep. That's got to be like a... Go ahead.

Nice.

Eric (33:11)
yeah, yeah.

Allison (33:23)
And that was also the cause like no, there's no way but we can definitely watch the game from the comfort of maybe like my couch. I just want to take it easy. I don't want to be standing. I don't want people yelling the whole time. I don't have to fight to get some water. You know, I just want it to be an easy. So I was really grateful for that because I feel like, especially if you're out of town, those logistics and having to navigate the subway and

Erika (33:26)
Yep.

Mmm.

Allison (33:48)
Even making some of those decisions, if you don't have a guide, I can imagine that being really frustrating. And that was my experience when I did Boston where I wasn't from there. And so trying to navigate some of those logistics and even just not knowing like where I really was at the finish line in relation to where I needed to be versus when we finished here, it was pretty clear. Like I know where the stops are and so I can get back pretty easily. I mean, how was, yeah, how was your experience? Were you able to get back to Queens? Okay.

Eric (34:09)
Yeah, nice having a hometown run.

Erika (34:09)
That makes it a little easy.

Eric (34:15)
Yeah, just the subway was insane. Right. Just, mean, it was shoulder to shoulder and they couldn't sit down and it was just insane. As we started getting more and more to Queens, you had a little more room, but just, was insane. There were so many people, not just runners, but you know, family members and everything. was, once we got to

Allison (34:19)
it was for you, like that crowded?

No way.

interesting.

Eric (34:44)
Once we got to Queens and we went to a place where they had the football game on, like that got a little better. I was hungry. I was just like, I need food. And the funny thing was we were going to a bar, apparently that didn't serve food. I'm like, what bar doesn't serve food? I thought we were going to eat. I need to eat. Apparently that's a comment over there. It's like, what do you mean they don't, it's just a brewery. That's what it was. So my brother-in-law, Mike, my sister's husband,

Erika (34:51)
Mm.

not a good surprise ⁓ my gosh

Allison (35:09)
you

Eric (35:12)
He was very nice and he went and got us pizzas and he got me my own personal pizza with no cheese because I can't eat cheese. So he brought it over. I ate the pizza. I started to get in a better mood. I would say I was hangry, but I was really trying not to show it.

Erika (35:27)
Mm.

Allison (35:27)
that is a very relatable experience. And such a a noble endeavor right after a marathon is to have to also be hungry and then not show the hanger.

Eric (35:38)
Well, like my family saw it, but I was really trying to contain it. I was like, wait, they don't have food? What doesn't have food? What brewery doesn't have food? I know. I know. I mean, we're going to get beer, but...

Erika (35:45)
I mean, you worked hard out there. need to refuel your body, right? You've got to get something in you. So I don't blame you at all.

Allison (35:50)
Mm-hmm.

I

the cheese-less pizza was another hot take. I think that might have even been a hotter take than the marathon comment.

Erika (36:00)
you

Eric (36:01)
That's a great pizza.

Should have it. know, 40 years I've been eating cheeseless pizza, so. yeah, load it. Load it. Mushrooms, pepperonis, sausage.

Allison (36:04)
You were, do you put toppings on it? So it's like just load it with toppings.

Erika (36:10)
I can picture him just eating

like bread, just a round circle of bread.

Allison (36:13)
Wait, is that serious? So you put a bunch

of toppings on it, no cheese.

Eric (36:16)
Yeah, well I'm allergic to cheese, so that's why. I would die. So actually, sometimes I like a pan pizza. I don't like a flat one. So the pan pizza's kind of already very, ⁓ I don't wanna say bready, but just chewy, I guess. But also like a meat lover's calzone is so good. It's so good. So yeah, sometimes.

Allison (36:18)
Okay, and then do you fold it or do you?

Bye.

Erika (36:33)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (36:38)
you

Erika (36:41)
Here he

is talking about food and I haven't had dinner yet and I'm like, oh, I could go for some of that right now. I'm hungry.

Eric (36:47)
So New York was

incredible. I'm glad you and I both had the same experience. I will be back and when I'm back, we should go for a run through Prescott Park or something. You should take me through your neighborhood. Hannah will come with me. She's my tour guide, essentially. I won't know how to get to you without her. yeah, Hannah's coming. But let's get to know you little better. You're a former D1 cheerleader. You're not from New York.

Allison (36:55)
Yeah.

You have an escort. That's amazing.

Eric (37:12)
So give us a little bit of the Allison story and you had a code red experience. Let's lead us up from Allison as a little girl to the code red experience. Yeah, spare no details. You can spare some of the childhood, like you don't need to tell us, but you know, give us the rundown here.

Erika (37:18)
you

Allison (37:22)
The full life story. It's very naughty.

Erika (37:23)
We want to know Alison, let's go.

Allison (37:31)
⁓ Yeah, so I grew up in a really active household. And so I've always been really active in terms of my family. always kind of joke that I'm the least athletic one in my family. ⁓ My mom was a swimmer. My dad has he does ultras. Now he's a rock climbing. He's always done surfing. So he's very active. And then my brother was in the lacrosse. And then, of course, here's me where I was always interested in dance. I would do some soccer, but I didn't love

the ball component, which is pretty core to the sport, which is kind of how I eventually got into running. Cause it's like, wait, so I can do the part where I'm running around, but I don't need to deal with the logistics of the ball. Yeah, exactly. Yes. And so that was, ⁓ and then eventually when I got to high school, I had this sort of decision tree moment where fork in the road that I had to determine if I want to do cheer or if I wanted to go into running.

Erika (38:01)
Just a little bit, but that's okay.

There you go. Okay.

Allison (38:28)
because they were both the same season, so I couldn't choose both. I ended up choosing cheerleading in high school, and then I ended up doing it again in college. And I'm grateful I did that because I got to get the cheerleading experience. And then once I graduated, I really increased my love, passion, but also just time investment into running. And that's when I kind of ever since have been more involved in running and built it from the typical

Erika (38:31)
Gotcha.

Allison (38:58)
kind of slippery slope, you know, you do a 5k and then all of a sudden you're like, okay, guess marathon seems like a normal thing to do. So I'm going to do that now. ⁓ but it does, it does snowball and it's crazy how we've normalized doing a marathon, which is like, just such a miraculous thing. And there's so many people doing it, which is so inspiring because it really is. mean, it is hard every single time I do a marathon. I'm like, that is the last, that is the last one I'll ever do. I can't believe how much time that was just intense. And it.

Erika (39:01)
Ha ha ha!

It really does snowball.

Mmm.

Allison (39:27)
feels a little bit too long. Like you have to kind of manage how you're going to feel hours down the line of continuous running. yes.

Eric (39:36)
Let's dive into cheerleading real quick though, because

that's a big part of my life right now.

Erika (39:39)
Well, I want to know, where'd you

go to school, Allison? ⁓ excellent. There we go.

Allison (39:42)
I went to Cal. I went to Berkeley.

Eric (39:44)
⁓

not only is fast, she's smart. But cheerleading, when you started young, like, it wasn't just on the sidelines of some like little youth pop war in a football game. Like this is very competitive. It's these massive cheer competitions where they honestly, like some of them travel the entire country. Were you part of like a little city cheer team or were you part of like a bigger cheer team that's like elites and stuff and you go and you're part of the club, you got kids from other towns and you travel the country?

Erika (39:49)
Duh.

Allison (40:15)
That's a great question. So for me, I was involved in my high school cheer team, which we competed as a high school. I never did what they call, I guess, like comp cheer, where you just join a club and it brings together a bunch of random cheerleaders at various levels and you have to try out and then all you do is compete as a team. actually, and maybe this is my number one of...

Erika (40:37)
Hmm.

Allison (40:43)
potentially there will be many hot takes, but my potential hot take is that I actually preferred doing more of the performance aspect of cheerleading than the competition. And I would do, we would do competition when we were in off season, which means that when we weren't doing football or we weren't doing basketball or any of this other commitments that we would have for the actual school, then we would compete in high school. And that would be a few months where we would really refine and perfect our routine.

and then compete within essentially against other high schools. So against other, never against a team that was like those all star type conglomerates. And it does feel very different because there's an energy with being under the lights at a game with an entire stadium full of people. There's the dynamics that are going on with the game, whether it's football or basketball, it kind of differs a little bit. And then when you're at a competition, it's

Erika (41:14)
Gotcha.

Allison (41:40)
Different pressure, you're not feeling that same performance aspect. It feels more like you're being evaluated, which is, you know, what, what is actually happening. And I found that that pressure was, it was fine, but I loved the performance aspect. And I think that in college that it was only the performance side of things. ⁓ and in any, if anything, it was almost like you were an ambassador for the university where some of our, our commitments would be, you know, cheering and.

Erika (41:49)
Mm-hmm.

nice.

Allison (42:09)
going to football games, et cetera. But then a lot of our commitments would be just getting into uniform and doing a little performance for alumni or having to interface with different school sanctions, whether it could be ⁓ groups or alumni or donors or faculty or whatever it was. And that was also sort of interesting. And that's not what I had expected fully, but in that sense, you kind of get exposure and you see the university through a different lens.

Erika (42:38)
So were you guys doing more, you were saying more performance. So I'm picturing more of like a dance, ⁓ maybe less tumbling. Did you guys have to do like the gymnastics side of that stuff? that's so cool. Like I'm very envious of you guys for being able to do that cool shit.

Allison (42:39)
because of that experience.

Yeah, it was, yeah.

Yeah, we had to do

⁓ stunts, which is when we were lifting each other, tumbling, which is when we're flipping around, dance, which ⁓ is probably what you were thinking of, and then also cheers, which is when we're also yelling. ⁓ And then there's jumps, which is, the conventional thing is when you see someone doing the splits in the air or something. Yeah.

Erika (43:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yep, yep.

Those are those crazy like, your legs are like going, woo! Definitely

some bring it on stuff. that's so fun.

Allison (43:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

It's, is funny. It's funny to think, to remember back to it, but yeah. So during the tryouts, we would have to do all these different modalities. And in a way, what I liked about that is that you really got to know yourself and your team about where their strengths were and how to leverage those. And that's what I actually really loved. It felt like it was a very collaborative experience because you could start to see

Erika (43:47)
Mmm.

Allison (43:58)
you know, how to, how to work together to showcase whatever that person's or that group of people's strengths were. And because there was so much diversity, people would peek in a lot of different ways. Like someone would be amazing at stunting and may have a gymnastics background. So might be really incredible tumbling, but maybe not be as familiar with as an example, like dancing or something. And there was an opportunity for people to shine in whichever way.

they really peaked and I thought that that was a really cool part of the sport. And that's very different from running, right? Where it's like running, you might have a different event, but at the end of the day, it's like, you're kind of, you have one thing more or less that you're doing. Whereas cheerleading, it's like, there's these five different dimensions. And if you don't do really well on this one, you might do really, really well on that other one. And that's actually the beauty of what we think about in terms of the strategy of putting together the squad and what makes it really strong.

Erika (44:41)
It true.

Absolutely. man, that is very dynamic.

Eric (44:54)
I'm gonna share this picture guys. swear I'm not

this good, Google is pretty smart.

Allison (45:02)
Please!

Eric (45:05)
Got a picture there of you cheering at the University of California, Berkeley. You got the pom poms. That must be at like a basketball or a football game or something. So you probably did a lot of cool events like that too.

Allison (45:17)
Yes, yeah, that's a basketball game. That's, yep, that's throwback, throwback. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, the other thing that was crazy about it is I have not worn that much makeup since that era. And I'm not very good at my own makeup. So that was a whole other side of the learning curve for me is we would get tutorials and we'd have to learn how to do our own makeup and meet these certain standards for our makeup. And I was like,

Erika (45:23)
You're adorable!

Eric (45:23)
That's a throwback.

Allison (45:47)
I don't, the fact that I'm being evaluated on this, this is, that's crazy. And so a lot of the times my, I'd luckily have other girls who could help me on that area, but I had to learn and I had to practice. so whole, whole other elements.

Eric (45:52)
That is nuts.

Erika (46:00)
It's a whole other element to add to everything.

Eric (46:02)
Yeah. Being

a girl dad, man, it is a whole nother element. Like just learning it all. And it's, ⁓ I'm not learning it. I'm just seeing it. I know. It's like every morning, come downstairs and eat breakfast. I'm doing my makeup. I'm like, you're nine. Almost 10. But don't, for the, you know what? I was really good at doing a pony for the longest time. Really good. Yeah. All I could do.

Erika (46:11)
Yeah, because your daughter's going through all that stuff right now. She's on her cheer team and bows and braids and hair and Jesus. ⁓

Allison (46:21)
Have you helped her with the hair, the hair yet?

Wow, that goes on the resume.

Erika (46:30)
Doesn't she have to do like curls

now? And is that Ashley's deal? Yeah, so his wife is good with that.

Eric (46:32)
I can't do anything else. do anything else.

Allison (46:35)
But you're doing a slicked

pony. It's not just like I'm throwing up the pony. It's like there's a part and it's slicked, right? That's amazing. That's advanced.

Eric (46:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. I guess so.

I mean, I'm not doing it for cheer. was just doing it in the mornings when she couldn't do it going to like preschool. But it's been a long time. I would get the algorithm would show me things like how dads would do the vacuum and stuff. And I'm like, that's so cool. Adeline, let's try this. Let me put a vacuum on your head and put all your hair in it.

Erika (46:49)
Hahaha

Allison (46:50)
All you gotta do is add the sparkles.

Erika (47:00)
my

god. I love that. I've seen that.

Allison (47:01)
What?

Eric (47:03)
I didn't actually do that, but I've seen those.

Allison (47:05)
No, I mean, I want to see the videos.

Eric (47:08)
there's

some cool like, Girl Dad Instagram accounts and stuff. It's pretty cool. So especially when your daughters are like, super little, it's like, adorable. you know, now she's a big girl. And my boys are monsters.

Erika (47:10)
my god. ⁓

Allison (47:12)
Girl time.

Erika (47:15)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (47:17)
is so cute. Yeah, mean, cheer is an extremely dangerous

sport. So

Eric (47:22)
It is.

It is. You know, they throw her really high. She's a flyer. And she goes high. And I'm like, yeah. But it's super cool to see. She does things that I could never do. It's so insane. So I grew up playing ice hockey, not cheering. But it's pretty insane. The tumbling, the dance, the commitment, the practices. ⁓ The moms are insane.

Allison (47:28)
she is.

yeah.

Erika (47:48)
you

Allison (47:49)
The moms, the tumbling,

moms.

Eric (47:51)
Yeah, a mom.

Erika (47:52)
Hahaha!

Eric (47:52)
No,

no, I'm not saying like they're hot moms. They're just insane. It's like it's like an episode of Dance Moms. You ever watch that?

Allison (47:56)
There's an intensity.

Erika (47:59)
man.

Allison (47:59)
No, but there definitely is an intensity.

yeah, that's, so that's the other thing is I think when you go to a competition, pretty much everyone in the audience is either a cheerleader or cheerleader's mom or one of the coaches for yourself or one of the other teams versus, which is a very different energy than when you're at a football game. And then you have a stadium full of people that are there. Some are there for just the experience. Some are there for the football. So it's, it's a very different vibe. And I think.

the intensity and the pressure can feel even heightened when you look out and you see a bunch of yelling, screaming, like high pressure, high stakes parents or friends and family that are very invested in, like it can really become what feels like way more than a lifestyle. Like it feels like there's a lot on the line.

Erika (48:38)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (48:50)
Yeah. Yeah. And it should just be fun, I think. But I digress. Let's talk about you ladies for a moment. Let's talk about Code Red. How did this start? We always say spare no details. I'm gonna stick to that. Spare no details.

Erika (48:50)
Mm-hmm. Man.

Allison (48:59)
yeah.

Yeah, so Code Red. ⁓ It's funny because like Code Red was really like lack there of Code Red in the sense that, when I, right around the time that I graduated and started getting a lot more into running, I ended up losing my cycle and not getting a period for multiple years. And at the time this was happening, I didn't really think that much of it. And when I was having conversations with

My doctor, for example, who I would have flagged this to because I was otherwise what I would have disclosed or perceived to be really healthy. I would get information like it's not really that much of a concern and really if you want to get your cycle back, we could just put you on the pill. But as long as you're not trying to get pregnant right now, it's not that high of a priority. And of course, I think that since that era, there's been a lot more information, hopefully.

in, I'm also a little bit of an echo chamber, but there seems to be more information and more attention around this type of issue. ⁓ but it's one that's fairly common in the running space. And that was something I didn't realize when I was going through this, because it wasn't something I was talking about super openly. And by the time I realized how much it was impacting my running and how it was impacting my life in general, I

luckily made the decision to prioritize it and take it more seriously before it went down a really bad spiral and had worse outcomes. But when I realized it was more prevalent amongst a lot of other athletes, especially the females that were trying to invest really heavily in their nutrition and being very disciplined and regimented that

It was something that I became really passionate about because a lot of information I was realizing that I had been following wasn't really supportive for me as a female and as an athlete, and especially as a female athlete in combination. And I think that that it was the process of recovering from that experience and getting my period back and investing in my menstrual health required a lot of unlearning of what I had thought was really supportive to make me the most.

Erika (51:10)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (51:26)
optimized healthy person based on what I had seen or what information I had gathered up to that point.

Erika (51:32)
So what are some of the reasons why your period might disappear? Like one thing that just pops into my mind is just overtraining, but I'm sure there are a ton of different factors that could go into why it might disappear in the first place.

Allison (51:46)
Yeah, I mean, there are so many reasons that your cycle can disappear from a full diagnostic criteria perspective, which is why it's so important to like narrow it down and prioritize it because in no instances is it like, oh, just normal, like regular, go on as you may, like nothing is wrong here. But the one that's really, really common in female athletes is this condition called reds or relative energy deficiency in sport, which actually can impact men and women. And the interesting thing is that

Erika (51:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Allison (52:16)
⁓ women get their cycle. so that feedback loop is one that if it starts to become a regular or go missing altogether, they're getting that pretty clear indicator, like explicit indicator of, something is off. And to your point, ⁓ a lot of times this is caused by some combination of over-training under fueling. And essentially your body is going into survival mode and, and it can be.

Erika (52:25)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

shit, yeah.

Allison (52:45)
high risk situation for yourself as an athlete, for your performance. And in reasons that I hadn't really tied together, because I think it was really easy, especially for me at the time to sort of think that things were happening in silos of like, well, my menstrual cycle, this is just like, hormone stuff. And my training, this is like training stuff and training related and nutrition. That's nutrition. And that's maybe related to my training, but that still is like kind of its own bucket. And in reality, was

Erika (53:00)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (53:12)
very much a systemic issue. And because it's a systemic issue, it's not like, just my hormones were impacted. It's like, oh, my digestion system was impacted. My moods were impacted.

Erika (53:21)
It's such a web, right?

Everything is just intertwined.

Allison (53:24)
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that that's what can get really easily missed, especially when you are an athlete and athletes are often taught that to some extent in order to be effective, it requires us to ignore some of the signals that we might be getting that it could be we're out for a run and we want to, you we feel like we're really tired and then we're conditioned of like, oh, and I'm supposed to just sort of push through that.

and continue to running because that to run, because if it's your first 16 mile run ever, part of it is that your body is going to feel fatigue and you want to be able to hit that distance. But then the line gets really blurred in terms of, but at what point are you actually pushing through signs that are no longer just like the normal expected signs of fatigue or conditioning or zone four or zone five? And now you're pushing through things that are like

Erika (54:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Allison (54:21)
actually your body's indicating to you that something is off and it's impacting your performance and it's impacting your health. And I think that that was really hard for me to discern during that period of time, especially when it's super easy to ignore a missing period. I think it's really easy to procrastinate and to think, well, I could.

Erika (54:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Allison (54:44)
You know, in my logical brain, like, well, when I had a cycle, there might've been certain parts of my cycle that were uncomfortable, or there might've been certain parts of my cycle where I didn't feel super great. So thereby, if I don't have one, then maybe it's supporting my performance or maybe it's not that big of a deal. Or if I'm not injured right now, then why should I prioritize this? If I feel like I'm running really, really well and I feel like things are going well. So I think it's a very easy thing for.

⁓ female athletes especially to just sort of deprioritize or to procrastinate on.

Erika (55:15)
That makes, yeah, makes a lot of sense.

Eric (55:17)
Okay, welcome to this new little mini segment called Stupid Questions by Eric, because Eric doesn't know. But I got two I'm ask and I want you to kind of talk about it. One, you say it disappears, like it's no longer active. What is actually happening? Where is it gone? Why is that happening? ⁓ Two, there's, I've heard this many times before where someone would be like, I haven't had a period in forever. And then someone's like, my God, I wish I could, you know, not have a period every 30 days. What?

Allison (55:23)
Amazing. Yes.

Eric (55:47)
cross your mind to make it that concern. Like I haven't had this and I should investigate it.

Allison (55:51)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Erika (55:55)
So hold

on, before you go answering that, that's actually me. So my birth control, I have an IUD and I don't get my period anymore just because that's the way the IUD works. You guys can Google that stuff, but I don't specifically have one anymore just because of that. So I can't use that as a factor to find out if I'm overtraining or what those factors are. So yeah, if you want to speak to the differences between that, that would be really, really informative.

Allison (56:03)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. These are amazing questions. Not stupid questions at all. Not stupid. So the first question was where, where has it gone? And

Erika (56:25)
you

Eric (56:32)
Right, like

you said it's disappeared. I'm like, well, like what happened? Why don't they come anymore? Right.

Erika (56:36)
What happens to it? Yeah.

Allison (56:37)
⁓ What happened to it? Like bring it back. Like, let's just bring

Erika (56:41)
you

Allison (56:42)
it, like bring it back. I'd like to resubscribe on this listserv. ⁓ So what essentially is happening is when we're in this, our body's shutting down in survival mode because of these lifestyle factors. So like we're overtraining and or usually is what we're seeing and or under fueling.

Eric (56:45)
Hahaha!

Erika (56:46)
Hahaha!

Allison (57:02)
then what happens is that our HPA access, which essentially is signaling our reproductive hormones, giving them the green light, like, okay, fire out the reproductive hormones in order for us to produce a cycle because our body feels like it's in a place of safety where we can be fertile and potentially prepare to be pregnant if that's something that we want to do. And so what happens is that our body becomes down-regulated.

And it becomes down regulated because essentially says, I don't have enough energy available and my body is under so much stress that I'm going to shut down systems in my body that I don't think are absolutely critical for functioning. And so it's not just our hormones that are getting shut down. So, but one of the processes that does get shut down is essentially our brain is like, Nope, we're not safe enough. So we're not going to produce those reproductive hormones.

And if we don't have the reproductive hormones, we don't have a cycle. And so that is kind of what's happening. But because it's a systemic issue, that is not the only thing that is becoming down-regulated. When we're down-regulated, it's also saying, you know what? Our metabolism needs to slow down. So we're not going to reliably fire hunger cues either. And slowly, that's why also we're not recovering as effectively from workouts.

Erika (58:16)
wow.

Allison (58:21)
And with the down regulation, the reproductive hormones, our bone tone or turnover is now offset such that our bone health is being negatively impacted, increasing the risk of stress injuries like bone stress injuries, which of course would be a runner's nightmare. Those are absolutely terrible. Yes. Terrible, terrible injuries to get. the one, one of the many signals that it's firing is our reproductive hormones are getting shut down. So

Erika (58:38)
Mm, stress fractures. No.

Allison (58:50)
It's actually the systemic issue where our entire body is starting to down-regulate and it impacts our performance. It's impacting our adaptations to training. It's impacting our injury risk. It's impacting our mood. It's impacting our energy levels. But it's also impacting our reproductive hormones. Was that fair? Was that helpful in terms of where it went?

Eric (59:10)
I actually understood

Erika (59:10)
Science is

so crazy. my gosh. No, I really appreciate that answer as well, just because you really don't realize what is going on when this kind of stuff happens. It really is a tree worth of stuff. It's insane.

Eric (59:11)
some of that.

Allison (59:24)
Yeah, for sure. And I think

that that also kind of alludes, you know, Eric to your second question, which is what, you know, what it when all these women are like, ⁓ man, I have this period pain and periods are so uncomfortable and I don't like to train us. They're moody.

Erika (59:35)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (59:37)
they're moody and they're not moody

Erika (59:38)
Like really, is your

period essential to your, like, I don't know. I don't want kids, so that's why I'm keeping this thing around. like, I don't know if it's impacting the rest of my, like, the system or if it's literally just like hormones. I don't know. I don't even know.

Eric (59:40)
and all those things.

Allison (59:42)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, and

I know, think that these are all really valid questions because this is exactly the process that I went through, which is like, what exactly is impacted here and what are we talking about? Someone just explained to me what the risks are and what, and that's why it's confusing and also inaccurate when I was told, if you don't want to have kids, this is not a priority. They just don't even, don't even deal with it. So the compelling event for me was that I actually had somebody that I deeply trusted who was a

Erika (1:00:07)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Allison (1:00:26)
kind of almost like a pseudo run coach for me who had helped me train for my first marathon, helped me qualify for Boston, helped me understand that I should probably periodize my training and think about how I was building a training plan and not just go out and run based on a set mile target that I try to hit every single day. The basics, essentially, looking back on it. ⁓ And that person, when they found out that I didn't have a cycle, essentially was like, I don't think that you should be

training for these events. And I was like, wait, what, what do you, what do you, that seems extreme. Like I clearly, this is something that I, I was struggling at this point in my, my career. I wouldn't take very many rest days. So the idea of someone being like, yeah, I kind of think we should just scale back running altogether was extremely alarming and not something I was very open-minded to. But the fact that

Somebody that I really respected from a running perspective was telling me who I know really values and prioritizes running was telling me, hey, this is actually a really big issue that indicates that there's a broader systemic challenge that's going to impact you beyond just your fertility right now was the compelling reason that I decided to do something about it. But since then, I've actually learned

And there's been so much more research that's come out. are such incredible women doing research in this space about low energy availability and how it relates to runners and women in general and female athletes. And there have been several studies that have come out that have indicated that it negatively impacts your performance. And so one was showing the relationship between low energy availability and Boston Marathon performance.

and showed that it increased the likelihood of having an injury before or after, the likelihood of having a medical encounter during the marathon, and also worse performance. And then a similar thing came out when they did a study on low energy availability in pre-season as it relates to competitive female athletes during their competitive season and how it was actually predictive of worse performance, controlling for other variables. And so now it's a completely different narrative of like, wait, this isn't just like a

Erika (1:02:27)
wow.

Allison (1:02:48)
Yeah, I should probably do this to prevent my injury risk and I should probably do this because I care about my fertility, but it's such a broader systematic effect that is also impacting your performance, which as athletes, think can often be a way more urgent and very relevant motivator, I would say. ⁓ That is something that I would encourage. I mean, now I'm glad that I did that.

Erika (1:02:50)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:03:17)
with the information that I had. And I wish that that had been communicated to me from day one in terms of like, no, you're going out there and you're running. You're caring about trying to PR right now. You're caring about trying to get better times in these higher, higher mileage races. And the fact that don't have a cycle, that's negatively impacting that exact goal. And all the other things that I'd been doing in my life were trying to improve my chances of that goal, to be healthy, to be ⁓ fit.

Erika (1:03:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Allison (1:03:46)
And I think that that really got lost in the weeds when I lost my cycle in terms of like, well, I don't know, maybe this is fine. And like, I'm, I feel like I'm fit. So it's not a big issue. And now it's very clear actually it's impacting your performance.

Erika (1:03:58)
Mm-hmm.

So were you feeling any of the other symptoms? Were you having the not being able to eat well enough or I already forgot? So that was not the only symptom that you were feeling was just the loss of the cycle.

Allison (1:04:11)
Yeah.

No, 100%. And I actually think

that this also goes, to your point on being on ⁓ some sort of hormonal intervention that can make it really hard to use your cycle as a feedback loop. ⁓ And similarly for people who don't menstruate, so like men or female athletes, that there are so many other signs that we can be looking out for that we don't technically require, like need to be only using the cycle. And in fact, once our cycle is missing,

Erika (1:04:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:04:44)
It's a much more extreme indicator that we are falling into these patterns. And so a lot of my journey also involved learning how to catch some of these signs and symptoms way earlier so that I wasn't waiting towards, yeah, my cycles now I've been missing again to get the feedback of like, yeah, maybe I'm overtraining, maybe I'm under fueling again. And like that, I think that you can kind of split the signs and the symptoms into two different camps where one is like, what are the physiological like day-to-day symptoms? This could be like,

Erika (1:04:50)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Allison (1:05:13)
mood. That was one that I experienced a lot that I didn't fully realize, but I was very, very irritable. My mood would feel like I would get stressed very easily. And it's not to say that when I get a normal cycle, I never feel stressed, but ⁓ my stress levels felt really elevated. And it actually increased my wanting to be in control. And I think that that's also a counterintuitive thing that people don't always tie together.

Erika (1:05:24)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:05:42)
But when I learned that it was really eye-opening, it's like, it actually kind of makes sense. When I was in that state, it was harder for me to be more at ease and feel more flexible and feel like I could let things go. ⁓ But I'd also experienced really bad fatigue. Like after I would go for a long run, I didn't feel like I had really the energy to do much else that day. And I didn't realize like, actually you could go for a long run. It could be the longest run you've done in a while. And you could still have the energy to hang out with people.

Erika (1:05:53)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:06:11)
go for a walk, walk to go get dinner and like do these things. And it wasn't like I was completely a potato, like felt like I need to go to the hospital, but it was just like, I just feel really tired, like really tired. Don't feel like I could go for a hike if that was something that I wanted to do. And so my energy levels would be really impacted. But it was funny because like at the time I didn't think of any of these symptoms as like, ⁓ this is concerning. Why is this happening?

Erika (1:06:12)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:06:40)
I just thought that that was how I was at the time. I just thought that that was how things were. So I actually didn't tune into these things as signs or symptoms, but even like the feeling of kind of like dread and obligation of having to get to like wake up and do another workout of like, man, I kind of.

Erika (1:06:56)
⁓

which is not what

you're wanting to do when you're trying to train for something. Like you're supposed to be looking forward and if you're like, oh my God, this is not what I want to do, then yeah, just that's so rough.

Allison (1:07:09)
Yeah.

Yeah,

100%. Which kind of leads to my other, like the other camp that I usually think about this is like, not just the symptoms, but also there are signs in terms of your behavior and your decisions and what routine and kind of predisposes you to have some of these challenges. And this could be things like feeling really, really guilty about rest, feeling restless when it comes to taking it or anxious.

Erika (1:07:41)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:07:41)
about taking

a day off. It could be feeling like you demonize certain foods or food groups or feeling like, or maybe you just have a really, really, really busy schedule and you're not as disciplined about how you're fueling around your workouts and how you're consistently supporting your energy availability, maybe eating something regularly throughout the day. And so there's also these really subtle kind of behavioral patterns that you can see that could increase your risk. And they've actually demonstrated that ⁓ perfectionism.

So, which is, I will kind of raise my hand. Like I tend to be, have more perfectionist tendencies. ⁓ That can also increase your risk of developing reds, like this type of issue.

Erika (1:08:25)
Wow. Yep. I'm one of those people too, who also just like, I get a prescribed workout from my coach and I have to hit it like exactly or else I'm not pleased with my performance. I just like kind of spiral, like how can I improve? But I am a like ⁓ a true believer in a rest day. That is one thing that I will preach that from a rooftop.

Eric (1:08:46)
she takes it to the extreme. Like she doesn't get out of bed until

like it's.

Erika (1:08:52)
I love sleep. I'm leaving it at that. I love sleep.

Eric (1:08:53)
Yeah. She'll sleep well into the afternoon.

Allison (1:08:53)
That's amazing. Wait, so how many hours of sleep are you?

Really? So how many hours of sleep are you getting that?

Erika (1:09:00)
So on a daily basis, like on a work day, I usually get between seven and a half, eight hours. So I get my usual amount. because I don't have kids, I will probably get nine, 10, maybe a little more than that on the weekend. But that's me. it's because I don't have, well, unless I make plans to go out for a run. But if it's just my schedule, I'm like, I'm going to do my run at 2 PM. I'm going to sleep in. I'm going to do this. And so I love sleep.

Allison (1:09:15)
Wow.

Eric (1:09:25)
She also stays up late.

Erika (1:09:27)
I am a night owl. Yes, I am not a morning person, but I will make do with whatever plans. If I'm trying to just do a group run, I will get up early. I will be happy about it. But if I can get my eight, nine, 10 hours of sleep by, I will do that.

Allison (1:09:44)
That's

amazing. And you feel well rested after either seven and a half, eight or 10 plus.

Erika (1:09:50)
I feel lazy on the weekends, usually the eight hours does it for me, but I just love to sleep. If I can roll over and not have to have an alarm, yep, I just wake up when I wake up and I'm usually pretty rested.

Allison (1:10:02)
That's amazing.

That's amazing. sleep is so underrated. So, so, so underrated. Yes.

Erika (1:10:09)
It is one of the most important things you could do to recover in addition to

feeling properly and I don't know, regular massage or compression, like just flushing your legs out. Like it helps. It really does.

Allison (1:10:21)
in every way, not even just for running, but like your brain and just basic functioning. Yeah, no, I can definitely tell if I haven't gotten very good sleep in like several days in a row that I just, I'm not the best. It's like the sleep version of hangry where it's like, I'm gonna try to mask that things are okay, but you can tell that it's probably not my most evolved self.

Erika (1:10:23)
Mm-hmm. ⁓ Mm-hmm.

Something's up.

Eric (1:10:39)
Mmm.

Erika (1:10:48)
Exactly.

Eric (1:10:49)
So you've really taken a deep dive into this. So you've created your own company. You're the founder. Tell me a little bit about KOA. When I think of KOA, I think about campgrounds. You're also a coach. You're not just a run coach, a nutrition coach, but you also you coach women on Reds. Tell us a lot what you're doing now with everything you've learned taking a deep dive into this.

Allison (1:11:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I essentially was really frustrated in my experience because I felt like a lot of the treatment pathways were super siloed and it wasn't addressing the full suite of issues from all the angles that people experience us at. So by that, mean like it was frustrating to me that I could go to somebody and then maybe get support with nutrition. But I knew that training was a component of this for sure. And I was

unlike Erica, not being disciplined in my rest and recovery. And I really struggled with that and felt like I would really feel anxious and guilty about taking that day off. And I think part of it was that exercise had become such a huge coping mechanism for me. And as somebody who was also in this kind of chronic state of being in elevated stress, it was really hard for me to take rest days and feel like, okay, now I'm, you

going to potentially become more stressed because I'm not working out as much as I would like to be that day. ⁓ And anyways, I think that there was, it felt to me like I had to manage my own care where I had to go to an endocrinologist or go to an OB-GYN and then try to get support with this, part, like my hormonal part, and then go to somebody else and then maybe try to get some sort of nutrition support. And it felt like I was having to manage a lot of that on my own.

Erika (1:12:15)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:12:35)
And I had a very specific problem and very specific goals in the sense that like, knew my period was missing. I didn't want to be missing. I knew I'm a female athlete and I want the solution to help me be a better version of that. And ⁓ what that kind of led to me doing is, as you said, I got a lot of information, but in doing so, actually ended up connecting with a lot of incredible providers and researchers that were ⁓ understanding.

or treating this population and this issue. And the reality was that a lot of that wasn't accessible to the women that were struggling. And so I started to package together this interdisciplinary framework that touches upon all these different facets and angles that get impacted when we experience this problematic low energy availability or REDs ⁓ and then putting that together for other women who are struggling with it.

So that was kind of like the origin story of that. And in doing so, it was just very, I've learned so much in terms of how, what trends exist in terms of what issues people experience in this area, where there is, there are gaps, ⁓ where people tend to get misguided, ⁓ just from my own anecdotal experience. And so that has also been really interesting because I'm so passionate about this topic in this area.

Erika (1:13:58)
Mm-hmm. I'm really glad that you're here just kind of bringing awareness to this, because I feel like this is something that isn't normally talked about, or at least not in the social media space. But I hope encourages somebody, if they're dealing with this problem, to reach out and to try to see if there's anything that can be done about it, try to get back to normal levels and feeling good.

Allison (1:14:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric (1:14:23)
Where do you hope to take this? Like it looks like you're something here.

Erika (1:14:25)
Hmm.

Allison (1:14:29)
that is such a tough...

Eric (1:14:30)
I'm stalking your LinkedIn.

Erika (1:14:34)
Nice, Eric.

Allison (1:14:35)
That is so funny. ⁓ That was a good question. ⁓ Coming out of that, having looked at what I did. It's still to be determined in terms of where I want to take this, but I will say that the problem statement that I'm really, really passionate about is how do we provide either prevention, support or recovery for athletes in this issue at scale?

Erika (1:14:41)
Hehehehe

Allison (1:15:01)
So how do we either make it more accessible? How do we drive more awareness? How do we ⁓ provide better support tools that people can use to either support themselves or to support more people if we're the people that are already supporting people. So I think that that's the angle that I'm really passionate about, which is why the, ⁓ you know, one of the programs that I do provide is, ⁓

is driven to be in that model. It's supposed to be something that makes a lot of this information that's currently ⁓ kind of like you have to go down the rabbit hole a little bit to get all of that information together. It packages it together and it's like, okay, if this person's doing amazing research, like let's get that out. we should, people should be doing that in their lives to the population that it's serving. And so that was kind of the motivator for me and kind of where I'm at right now, which is like, how can I take and connect with

Erika (1:15:44)
Mmm.

Eric (1:15:45)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:15:58)
the people that are doing this amazing work and help to bring it to the people that would really benefit. And over time, and what I would love to do eventually is how can we continue to make this more and more scalable so that it's ideally less of an issue. ⁓ But for those that do experience it, they have pathways that are supporting them through that.

Erika (1:16:15)
Mm-hmm.

I really think that more preventative, do I want to call it preventative maintenance? Yeah, preventative health. It's going to be more beneficial for people and then they don't have to worry about it going down the line and just, yeah, it makes it easier for everyone. So let's make this public health initiative and get it out there.

Allison (1:16:41)
Well, it's so on the noise that you say that because I think it's interesting because I think athletes or people who are really active and runners especially typically care a lot about their health, whether because of their running or because that's how they got into running. And I think it can be really frustrating, especially in this type of condition where... ⁓

Erika (1:16:49)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Allison (1:17:06)
Sometimes, at least in my experience, when I went to the healthcare system, it felt like, it has to be a certain severity level for it to be a real issue. yes, or like in order for us to treat or prescribe or whatever it is that we're gonna do. Or ⁓ kind of the other narrative, which is like, well, you're running a lot. You seem to eat pretty healthy. And I can really empathize with this because if you think of their entire patient population, I'm sure that they look at someone who's like,

Erika (1:17:14)
⁓ really?

Allison (1:17:36)
running marathons or whatever, thinking about and caring about their nutrition. They think of that in the grand scheme of things like, you know what, I mean, this person's healthy. So we're gonna just let this one go.

Erika (1:17:52)
I see. So it's not the right problems to get you the preventative maintenance that otherwise they would work on. like you're still healthy. it's a but.

Allison (1:18:00)
Yeah, exactly. And I think it

can be really frustrating because then like it's easy to dismiss labs that are slightly irregular or off. And that can be one of the other indicators or one of the early indicators that you're going down this pathway is through your lab work and seeing that things are off. And there are issues where like, well, maybe it tested within the one or more range, but given your output, that's actually not good enough.

Erika (1:18:07)
Mm-hmm.

Gotcha.

Allison (1:18:27)
Or there's also issues where it's like, oh, that seems like an abnormal thing. Like your cholesterol is kind of high. Well, but you run and you're healthy. like either just like exercise more, eat healthier, or like it's not a problem because you seem to be really healthy. But in reality, that could be one of the red flags, especially when we look at some of the other biomarkers. So it's just, it's, it's an interesting, I mean, to your point on preventative, it can be kind of frustrating because it's like, yeah, there is an opportunity for us to be more, um,

reliable and accurate and disciplined about catching these issues earlier, flagging them and helping educate in terms of triaging like this is the issue, this is the, and that isn't always happening right now.

Erika (1:19:06)
Mm

hmm. Gotcha.

Eric (1:19:07)
If you ran into somebody in the elevator, right? Like your elevator pitch here. And, and they, they told you something and it just reminded you of yourself when you were learning about this, like what would you say to them in that elevator ride to hopefully like get them to think about something that you thought about or to like find more information or, even to coach them.

Allison (1:19:12)
Okay.

Erika (1:19:12)
You

Allison (1:19:28)
Mm-hmm. I think the number one thing that's important for people to understand is awareness at that phase. And awareness meaning like just explaining to them, hey, there's this thing, it's called reds. It's really prevalent despite you not knowing about it. And it's super dangerous. And it's really risky for your own health, your performance, and it can have systematic issues. And if you wait too long, the issues could be as bad as like early onset bone weakness like osteoporosis. It's something I would...

definitely prioritize getting support for, and then giving them that pathway to just be like, if I'm that person that you want to reach out to, I could be that person. If you want support from other people, you can reach out to me and can support you getting the support that you need. But sometimes it's just the, let's name it, let's attach it to things that we're seeing in you. That can be a huge pivotal moment for somebody. And the amount of people who've even come to me who's been like, I didn't even think that this was an issue until

Erika (1:20:16)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:20:27)
this one person mentioned it to me and it completely, and then all of a sudden I looked into it and I resonate with so many things. And then all of a sudden I did see that I should probably prioritize this. It really only takes like one person to just kind of insert this idea of like, Hey, this could be a thing that you should think about that can make a lot of impact in terms of how somebody prioritizes it and what decisions they make thereafter.

Eric (1:20:55)
awesome and they can find you what's the easiest way Instagram or in the link tree you got a lot of cool things in there too so I see you have like I did I did not sign up with my email but like you can reach out by typing in your email and reach out but honestly I would just say shoot you a DM right slide into your DMs because you're active in there that's how we met it was really cool so I did not go reaching out to her for advice on periods guys she came to me

Allison (1:21:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Erika (1:21:22)
Eric,

Allison (1:21:23)
Eric, I got a DM from Eric and he was just like, what's going on with my period? I

Erika (1:21:23)
come on, you can. ⁓

Allison (1:21:28)
got it. I got to understand. You know, can you help? have some

Eric (1:21:29)
⁓ I saw this thing

on the pit or ER, Grey's Anatomy.

Erika (1:21:32)
Hey, most of his

friends are women, so he's got to know what's going on with us.

Allison (1:21:35)
Yeah, exactly. He's like,

I'm doing this new series on stupid questions and I just have so many of them.

Eric (1:21:41)
Stupid, stupid,

the new segment, Stupid Questions by Eric. Where did it go?

Allison (1:21:45)
Stupid Questions by Eric. That is

Erika (1:21:47)
You're not

Allison (1:21:48)
great.

Erika (1:21:48)
stupid.

Allison (1:21:48)
No, I would subscribe to that. These were, you said Stupid Questions and they were like amazing questions.

Eric (1:21:52)
It's like, have you ever watched, okay, I don't think you have kids, but Toy Story on Disney Plus has this little mini-series, and in the fourth Toy Story there's a character, name's called Forky. He's a spork, like a fork and a spoon, and he comes to life. And so, Forky doesn't know anything, so it's this whole, ⁓ Forky's got a question! And he asks us the stupidest questions. What is money?

Allison (1:22:07)
amazing.

Erika (1:22:14)
you

Allison (1:22:16)
Well, what's it? Wait,

that's a good question.

Eric (1:22:20)
It's

on ⁓ Disney Plus. It's funny. The kids love it. It's like little five minute things. What is love?

Allison (1:22:28)
Do you have a favorite one that you would recommend?

Eric (1:22:30)
there's one, I don't know what one it is, but he talks about, he's trying to talk to a cup and the cup has a smiley face. And the cup, he calls it, what? No. Because Andy's mom always takes a sip while on the phone with a friend. She just goes, what? No. What? No. And I laugh because I'm like, yep. ⁓ I can hear the conversation in the other room. What?

No.

Just laugh, because...

Allison (1:23:00)
That's amazing.

Erika (1:23:01)
Hey, if that

Eric (1:23:01)
learning on this one though.

Erika (1:23:03)
encourages you to ask some questions, especially when it dives into medical stuff. Even though I do have a science background, I only have the general science. I understand a little things, but if you can give me details, and you like to say in layman's terms, make it the easiest way to understand possible, I think it's beneficial. So keep asking the questions, man.

Allison (1:23:23)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:23:26)
was a lot of fun. got a lot of amazing knowledge and if anyone listening wants to know more, like we could bring you back and maybe do a questions and answer thing one day, but you're not off the hook. We have some fun final questions and I think you already know mine cause I still have hot takes, but I'm going to let Erica go first. Cause hers is really hard.

Erika (1:23:49)
are you?

Well, before I get into my question, it's not that bad. I just want to make sure, did we cover everything that you wanted to come on here and talk about today? We just want to make sure that we touched on everything, but I'm really glad that you brought up the whole red situation. And just, I'm hoping that people will reach out if they have any questions, but I just want to make sure we got everything according to you.

Allison (1:24:13)
Yeah, no, I mean, I could talk about this for hours, so we should just cut it off. But if people do have questions, if people do have questions, I would be more than happy to do a Q &A segment and or just chat about Boston and other marathons and random philosophies there. But yeah, no, thank you for all of the stupid and non-stupid questions. were all amazing.

Erika (1:24:16)
You got...

All right.

All

Eric (1:24:33)
Now,

Erika (1:24:33)
right, we'll sign you up already for another episode. Like, I'm excited.

Eric (1:24:35)
yeah, we could definitely do something one day, because we had that with the nutritionist from like two years ago, and then she came back the next year, and we got a lot of questions, so we just kind of compiled them, and it could be really interesting. I wonder if the guys would have any questions too who listen, but, because our podcast, it's like 60-40, 60 female, 40 men. We get those cool stats, so, ⁓ no, it'd be cool. If people are interested, let us know.

Erika (1:24:57)
All right.

Allison (1:24:57)
Alright guys, I think that was a challenge.

We want some questions from the guys and the females. Where'd it go?

Erika (1:25:00)
you

Eric (1:25:03)
Yeah, like, where'd it go?

Erika (1:25:07)
That's legit.

Eric (1:25:07)
is why is my wife always

moody and now she's not? Why'd you make it come back? It was perfect!

Erika (1:25:12)
All right. Why did you make

it come back? Eric.

Eric (1:25:19)
Her cycle

was good with me, now it's...

Erika (1:25:24)
Not going to touch that one. All right, but Allison, my question, that's really not that bad, but we have a Spotify playlist and I like to invite our guests to add a song to it. So whether you run with music or not, is there anything that just pumps you up, motivates you, gets you going that you would like to add to our playlist?

Eric (1:25:27)
Alright, Erica has a cool question for you.

Allison (1:25:35)
Mm.

I am so passionate about this topic. I am kind of an obsessive music listener. So when I find a certain song, I listen to it a lot. So I'll just tell you the one that I'm listening to right now, which I know very little about, but I've just have been listening to it obsessively, which is... Okay, yeah,

Erika (1:25:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's okay.

Eric (1:26:04)
I'm gonna take a guess.

Allison (1:26:07)
the song that I'm listening that I like literally cannot stop listening to right now in this moment is a song called Drive. I can send it to you. I don't know how famous it is. I think it's by ⁓ David Guetta and ⁓ Black Coffee and Delilah.

Eric (1:26:23)
So it's got... Okay, so it's got like a cool

Erika (1:26:25)
Hmm.

Eric (1:26:27)
techno probably mix. It's not just like drive, it's drive with this guy and that guy collab mix something.

Erika (1:26:28)
I love it.

Allison (1:26:34)
Yeah, there's a collab. It's a really catchy song ⁓ that I just, it's funny because like my Spotify wrapped, it very much indicates like you listen to certain songs like obsessively. The amount of minutes you listen to this song, I'm like, are we just, is this just the point of the year when you shame me? Yeah, they're like, we're gonna have to cut you off. Like this is not normal listening behavior. Yeah.

Eric (1:26:54)
Spotify's like, this is a problem.

Erika (1:26:58)
I get the same way. Don't feel bad. If you find a song

that you like and it makes you happy, go for it. Just keep listening to it on repeat. I support that. I do it too.

Allison (1:27:08)
Great,

yeah. If you want any, I can tell you the last five obsessive songs that I listen to and it ranges like FK, Twigs to Dua Lipa. So it's just whatever I latch onto.

Erika (1:27:13)
I

Very nice. Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:27:20)
Very cool.

Erika (1:27:21)
I feel that.

Eric (1:27:22)
So my question is, I change mine every year. So I want to know everybody's hot take. Last year we had this one hot take, it blew up. I'm like, let's add this to the end of every episode. Probably should done it in the beginning actually, but this can be fun or it can be serious. It could be like pineapple doesn't belong on pizza.

It could be political if you want to get political. It could be like carbon plated shoes don't belong on the trail. Why you take any carbon plated shoes on a trail run or a 5k.

Allison (1:27:52)
Was that the hot take that exploded? What was the hot take that exploded?

Eric (1:27:55)
⁓ it was a Boston hot take on one of the other podcasts we, ⁓ we produce and edit and it had to do with. BQs or something along those lines. yeah. Boston was overrated maybe, or like, yeah, I'll have to go find it. But when I say it blew up, like the comments section, just like, you know, I'm, that's what I'm looking for here. Like just to get people going in the comments. Like if someone says pineapple doesn't belong on pizza, I want someone to be like,

Erika (1:28:05)
thought they just said, like, wasn't it overrated? Boston is overrated. We love Boston. I don't know.

Allison (1:28:11)
wow.

Eric (1:28:23)
Pineapple, absolutely, Long John Pizza's the best pizza. know, so we might, you know, I need to do a better job of clipping these hot takes, but I want to know a hot take. It can be fun or serious, I don't care.

Erika (1:28:26)
It's a good conversation starter.

Allison (1:28:31)
Okay, okay.

Well, the first hot take that came to mind, it might not be exploding in the comment section, so I might have to think of another one. But the first one that I thought of was because it's so snowy out, I think that we should extend snow days, like how they cancel school and it's just like off, you're on vacation. Like, I think we should do that for adults. Like just, it's too snowy. Just take the day off. We're all gonna take the day off. Impromptu holiday for everyone involved. ⁓

Eric (1:29:00)
I like that. And you

Erika (1:29:00)
love that.

Eric (1:29:01)
know what else?

For schools, let's not make those up. Like it adds a whole nother week into the summer, sometimes more.

Allison (1:29:06)
⁓ yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I feel that. Well, I guess like that would be fair because in work, like it's hard to make it up. There'd be logistical complexities. Maybe the commons can help us figure out how we could iron out some of the kinks, like how to be communicated and you know, what is it? But that would be really great. Today I would have loved to just have frolic all day today or just been like cozy.

Eric (1:29:16)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:29:31)
you

Allison (1:29:34)
If the schools are canceled and there were so many, the crazy thing is that there were a lot of establishments that closed. ⁓ I think that most establishments closed today. So it felt like we were really close, but we just didn't, we just need to make it a little bit more streamlined, I would say. Another, another hot take. I don't know how hot this take is, but. ⁓

Erika (1:29:49)
Mm-hmm. I like that.

Allison (1:29:58)
I do like to put salt on anything. So oatmeal, putting salt on it. ⁓ Yogurt, salt. I've never tried that, but I would absolutely do that.

Erika (1:30:07)
Watermelon?

Eric (1:30:10)
What's something

you wouldn't think to put salt on, but you do?

Erika (1:30:12)
Delicious.

Allison (1:30:16)
I I'm literally making like a yogurt bowl or like ice cream, like anything that's sweet, I'm still...

Eric (1:30:23)
Do you have a favorite

salt? a favorite, like my wife always buys this pink salt. I feel like it has a crown on it.

Erika (1:30:28)
the Himalayan sea salt.

Yeah.

Allison (1:30:31)
Yeah,

I'm not super picky. really like salt. I I justify it to myself because I'm like, just sweat so much that probably just my body just craves the salt. But to me, I'm kind of like, I don't know. At the same time, salted caramel, salted chocolate chip cookies. I feel like there's kind of a backing here. why do we not make oatmeal?

Erika (1:30:40)
Electrolytes, woo!

Eric (1:30:44)
Yeah.

Erika (1:30:54)
Mm-hmm.

Allison (1:30:58)
you know, put some something like honey or maple syrup in it and then salt like so you got to put salt on it. So yeah.

Erika (1:31:02)
Yep. You're on

Eric (1:31:04)
Allison's

Erika (1:31:04)
to something.

Eric (1:31:05)
hot take, put a little salt on it.

Allison (1:31:07)
Pull a little, yeah.

Erika (1:31:07)
Seriously though, that's how the ultra world works. Like you'll go to an aid station. I'm thinking of Anchor Down. So this is in the middle of summer, super hot out, disgusting. But they will have like boiled potatoes and just literally a thing of salt next to it. So you could dip your stuff, like even watermelon, you dip it in salt and you go. So you're getting the extra electrolytes and hopefully staying hydrated and.

Allison (1:31:26)
That'd be good.

Erika (1:31:31)
It is a thing, so I'm on board.

Allison (1:31:34)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:31:35)
Salt it up, baby.

Allison (1:31:35)
Yeah. Just try it. Just try it once if you're listening. Just try it next time you make something that's on the sweet side. Just a little bit of salt. Just a little bit of salt. Just a little bit of salt.

Erika (1:31:37)
Mm.

Eric (1:31:44)
Put a little salt on it. Yeah.

Erika (1:31:44)
It's balance. It's balance.

Eric (1:31:48)
Next time you're on We'll Talk Boston, but what do you got on deck this year or next or just what do want to do?

Allison (1:31:55)
I just want to enjoy for a little while. I am not signed up for anything right now. And I'm really happy about that. So we'll see. I'm still running. I'm cross training a lot. I like to cycle. So I kind of like to do both and tow the line there. But my real goal would be getting more runs in in California this year. Yeah. So if I get more.

Erika (1:32:13)
Mm-hmm.

Do you still have family out

there? Like, do you visit often? Good.

Allison (1:32:25)
Yeah,

the long game is I would love to get back there. And so if I'm doing more runs on the West Coast, that would be what good looks like for me. Still in New York too, but I think that the like four to five feet of snow are gonna make that, maybe it's not four to five feet, but I think that the knee deep snow is gonna make it pretty hard for me to, you know, do a true threshold workout.

Erika (1:32:41)
you

Eric (1:32:44)
the snow drifts.

Erika (1:32:46)
Yeah.

Eric (1:32:50)
Well, you know,

Erika (1:32:51)
Absolutely.

Eric (1:32:51)
Well, this was awesome again. Like I said, thank you so much for reaching out. Guys, I hope you're still here listening. Ladies, I hope you love this. And let me know if you want more, if you have questions for Allison. We'll bring her back maybe at the end of the year or in about a year from now and we'll take all those questions you have and we'll ask away. This was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it. I did.

but Alison, thank you. That was wicked awesome guys. Alison Yamamoto on the on the runs podcast.

Allison (1:33:19)
Thank you so much.

Erika (1:33:24)
Listen, thank you so, so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your knowledge with us. That was very important. It was something that I wasn't even familiar with. So I hope that this can help athletes out there and just help you not over train. That's so important, especially in the days where people are trying to qualify for Boston. And that's all it is training, training, training, training. Rest days are so important. So I hope people will take this knowledge and use it wisely.

Eric (1:33:27)
Hey, I need, I need, I

That was awesome. I had a blast. Allison, you were great. Thank you again to my race tats for bringing us that episode with Allison. Next time in New York, I want to go running in New York. And I also hope you get all those miles you want in California this year. You wanted to do more miles in California than you wanted to run in New York. So I hope you get back out there to see family and friends. And also when we're in New York, we'll say hi.

Erika (1:33:55)
Mm.

Eric (1:34:15)
hope all you who listened enjoyed that. And if you want more episodes like that, the survey we did earlier this year really kind of told us you enjoyed those kinds of episodes. So if you liked what you heard from her and maybe you're left wanting more.

having more questions, just like you were with Alex Larson, right? ⁓ If that's the case, let us know. We'll bring Alison back later this year. ⁓ Send us your questions and we'll do a fun little mini episode with her. She said she's down, so we'll talk about Reds and anything you want to know and I'll ask the stupid questions that I know every guy is wondering. Like, wait, if it's gone, where'd it go?

Erika (1:34:28)
Mm.

I love that. Yes.

Honestly though, that's not a stupid question. good to know.

Eric (1:34:56)
Like, here's a stupid question actually. I heard this theory. I don't even know if it's true, but I heard if you're female and you're like a really strong runner and you're training for like a, say a BQ, it's much harder for you to get pregnant while you're in that training cycle. But then say you get your BQ, you get your marathon and you take a solid month break. You can easily get pregnant within that solid month that you take off because of whatever's going on.

Erika (1:35:09)
Mm-hmm.

That is an Alison question. That's definitely an Alison question.

Eric (1:35:25)
Like Allison could maybe even answer that. it might be, it's, it's a stupid

question, but when you hear the theory from somebody else, you're like, is that true? It could be totally false, but.

Erika (1:35:39)
Who knows? Allison would know.

Eric (1:35:40)
I ran into a

guy who they had a surprise. He says, I think this is what happened. And that's what he told me. go, that's interesting. That's really interesting. Running a form of birth control.

Erika (1:35:51)
No idea. I hadn't heard that.

Yeah, because everybody's too tired to do it.

Eric (1:35:58)
Hold

Erika (1:36:00)
No, I gotta go to bed.

Eric (1:36:05)
That was a good one. That was really good. That's you right now. You're like, dude, I have no energy. I couldn't even hard wire in. I know. Are you, what are you going to do right after this? Like how much longer can I keep you up? You going straight to bed? Yeah. Well, let's, let's let's wrap up soon because we are going to have another episode later this week. Cause guys it's March madness and we had a lot of submissions of the medals.

Erika (1:36:06)
Am I wrong? Am I wrong though? I am so.

You can tell I'm wearing my glasses. My eyes were so-

go into bed. And that's early for me.

Hell yeah!

Eric (1:36:33)
plenty, we had more than we needed. And I, because I was tired apparently or something, I, found a new bracket. So the last couple of years we've done March madness and I created my own bracket was kind of messy, but I wanted 32 seeds for foods. Right? We did breakfast, pre-race, post-race, whatever. Thank before hamburger one. Remember that? Tara's like, this is stupid. Pasta is going to win. Well, hamburger one.

overall, this is a champion. I picked a new bracket.

Erika (1:37:03)
So random.

Eric (1:37:06)
It's half the size. So it's 16 seed. So we had 44 metal submissions and that's not including any of yours. And I know that for a fact, cause you never sent me a Chicago. So you must not think Chicago's metal is in the top 44. I didn't include any of mine.

Erika (1:37:23)
I specifically

asked for unique. Fun unique one.

Eric (1:37:26)
True. But you wanted to do the New York,

like I'll tell you, there's a Boston, there's a Tokyo, there's a New York.

Erika (1:37:34)
I don't know if I want to talk about the Boston.

Eric (1:37:33)
And then there's, there's some other cool ones. There's a ribbon. There's a cowboy

hat. There's a nail that goes into the railroad. One of those big thick, yeah, railroad spikes. That's, that's what it's called. Yes. Duh. ⁓ so there's 16 and then less for some reason. I'm like, no, I want more in a couple of days. You're going to get a bonus March madness episode. And then throughout the weekend, you're going to get to vote for the champion. And we'll talk about it next Tuesday on March 31st to finish.

Erika (1:37:43)
A railroad spike, uh-huh.

Eric (1:38:03)
March madness right before we start our Boston week series, which is going to be so much fun. I can't wait. It's a big year for Boston. have some exciting news. We're going to talk about starting next week and maybe dropping throughout the entire series of Boston weeks. But Erica, while I have you here right now and while you're still awake, let me ask you, have you been checking out TMZ lately?

Erika (1:38:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Not particularly, unless it's something that you have sent me.

Eric (1:38:31)
This

is the only thing I do is I send you stuff. Your boy, JT, Justin Timberlake, bringing sexy back in the jail cell. Did you see those videos?

Erika (1:38:35)
Yep.

Sexy back Yeah, he's bringing sexy to the back of a cop car. That's what he's doing. Yeah, this is so it's slightly old news, but new footage has come out of him when he got his DUI. So, ⁓ Justin, don't do that.

Eric (1:38:48)
Yeah.

Which feels like forever ago, but it was September,

was two and a half years ago, 2024.

Erika (1:39:02)
Why are they just releasing it now? Or they just got their hands on it? that like...

Eric (1:39:06)
Probably. Yeah, exactly. Someone paid for it. Apparently. Well, you know why? Because he was trying to

stop it from getting, getting out. He was going through the court system and so it was obviously frozen. You know, you can't release it until this process is done. Right. So he probably spent a lot of money to not get it out. But honest to God, I don't think he, I mean, he looked drunk, but I don't think he looked bad. He was actually kind of funny. Did you see the clip in the jail cell? They give him the paperwork and they say, can you please read this?

Erika (1:39:18)
TMZ said no no no

Eric (1:39:36)
and go through it and confirm it's all correct. Did you catch that? Did you catch what he did?

Erika (1:39:40)
I did not catch that, but I just saw that he was super bummed that he had to spend the night in a jail cell.

Eric (1:39:44)
Yeah,

he goes, wait in here for real? Are you guys for real? No, so they give him this piece of paper. They go read it. And so it say something like 40 year old white male, you know, driving, whatever. And he looks at it, he's going through it and he looks at the copy goes white.

any freezes.

Erika (1:40:01)
As opposed to what? Wait.

Eric (1:40:03)
And then he goes, I'm just messing with you. I'm just messing. I almost think like PR can spin it into a, Hey, you know, he did something and he learned his lesson and he's now saying, nobody go out there drinking drive. Even if you have one martini, you know, get an Uber. There's so many ways to get home. Now you don't need to go drink and drive. You can totally spin this PR wise and take the cop to a show, get him floor seats and

Erika (1:40:08)
Okay, cuz I'm like wait a second

you

It's easy, I know.

Eric (1:40:33)
say, hey, he and I are gonna do a little PR campaign

Erika (1:40:34)
Who are you? What tour?

Eric (1:40:37)
and tell you not to drink and drive.

Erika (1:40:39)
I mean, if gets the word out, it's doing some good. He did something bad to make good happen. that make sense? I'm so tired. Literally. Well, also I'm trying to keep my glasses low on my face because I have a ring light that lights me up. And you can see it in my glasses lens. ⁓ It's useful. Watch this. Watch this.

Eric (1:40:48)
Erica is seriously, guys, her eyes are falling asleep. What else can I talk about?

I need to get one of those. got Adeline one for her birthday. I should just use it. Well anyways...

Erika (1:41:09)
See how

Eric (1:41:09)
wow!

Erika (1:41:09)
shitty that looks? Yeah, I'm telling you. this does some, it helps.

Eric (1:41:13)
You putting some

money into your production. Way to go. What do you got on the deck for this week? Like you ran the 20-miler. You got... Are you tapering now for the cheap?

Erika (1:41:16)
I do okay. I do all right occasionally. Yeah.

It's taper time, baby. I have to have a call with KJ this week and we're going to go over what went right and also what went wrong at Eastern States. But yes, I am tapering and I'm sure it didn't help that I ran a marathon two weeks ago and then I did this and I'm probably messing up my chances of doing well at cheap. But tapering, it is getting easier and I will be resting a lot more.

Eric (1:41:55)
So two weeks, two, three weeks is cheap. Cheap is the day before Easter. And that's your goal race. You're going for a big PR. What's the number? Can we put a number out there?

Erika (1:42:00)
Yes. That's the one.

I'm afraid to put a number on it. Honestly, I'm going to try to shoot for like a 350. It's a slight PR and I don't know. I I swear to God, the paces are there. I just need a perfect day. And I know that's a lot to ask for, especially in New England. But hey, I think I can get there provided

Eric (1:42:07)
Do it.

Erika (1:42:29)
The Mother Nature cooperates with me a little bit.

Eric (1:42:33)
Well, I think you could still do it if the weather was the same as today, because you're going to, you're technically going to be in the woods. So the wind's not going to be as bad for you. The cold will be the only factor. If it's raining, like you kind of have that canopy above your head, you're going to be fine. You're going to do good. Don't be a little candy ass.

Erika (1:42:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eric (1:42:51)
a little icy hot on it turn it sideways Yeah ⁓

Erika (1:42:57)
KJ is super good at like talking me off of ledges and that's one of the things she brought up. She's like, you're going to be in like a tree tunnel. You'll be fine. And I'm like, you know, if I could get a 50 degree day, even 45 last year was 45. I was, I was wearing shorts and I was just fine. Cause I, I feel like the less layers I have, the easier I'll be able to move. it just, just don't give me rain. I know it's going to happen now. Give me a little heat.

Eric (1:43:04)
Yeah, you're gonna be fine.

Maybe, maybe your boy Wyatt could pace you.

no! Kat Brown is going to pace you, that's right!

Erika (1:43:30)
I think I scared her when I told her that I was aiming for a 350 though. Maybe a little bit. I would take any pacing from anybody, honestly. I think it would be helpful. But what's hard is that they do the time trial start. So I would have to be like, all right, my pacer is right here next to me. I have to set that up. Probably.

Eric (1:43:34)
She's faster than you, you said. One of them could pace you.

It's not going to be me. I'm slow, slow right now.

yeah, we could make that work. We'd make

a couple phone calls. Yeah, would you like to be the first one? We could make you be the first.

Erika (1:43:57)
We do have connections.

The first what? We what? No, I don't want to go first. No, no,

Eric (1:44:01)
Yeah, the first one. just go first. In fact, that would actually be ideal

because then you'll get to the podcast booth quicker.

Erika (1:44:08)
But then everyone would pass me. No, that would take my self-esteem when I just get constantly passed.

Eric (1:44:11)
But then you just use them as a draft. Every time they pass, you just tuck behind them and get the draft.

We could get them to form a V in front

of you and have the perfect draft the whole time like Elliott Cachobe did. I know you're going to correct me. Don't correct me. I'll get it right for when he's on the podcast.

Erika (1:44:24)
Kachobay! it kills

me. It kills me. Anyways, I mean, I don't know. Just stick me where I'm supposed to be. I'll make it work. There's no hill anymore. The course is objectively easier. I have high spirits, but I just need to taper and rest correctly and eat all the carbs, all the carbs forever.

Eric (1:44:50)
Well,

speaking of taper on April 11th, there is the team Hoyt taper race. It's that that's the weekend before the Boston marathon. This used to be the team Hoyt Memorial, but now it's called the team Hoyt taper. And it's in Hoppington at the start finish line. There's a beer garden, ice cream truck, just a fun atmosphere. Right. And we're going to take care of you with a 25 % discount code. If you use the code.

Erika (1:44:50)
for it.

Mmm.

they're going to take care of you.

Eric (1:45:17)
Code Brown because we got our own code, Erica.

Erika (1:45:19)
Aw yeah.

Here's Stooley. Stooley's saying use code code brown and save on that race.

Eric (1:45:26)
Yeah.

It's so, if you haven't figured it out, actually, we have team Hoyt coming on the podcast in a couple of weeks. It was really cool. Erica and I won't be able to be at this race. Erica will actually be in California. We're hoping in the future, cause this is kind of a last minute on our end with the code and everything, but we hope we have more of a presence at this race and at more team Hoyt events. So the team Hoyt taper to five mile run or a two mile walk plus a kid's race. So check that out.

It will be in the show notes, link in the show notes. If you want to go to the Boston Marathon starting line, do a little taper race, get ready, get pumped up for Boston Weeks because it's Boston Weeks, baby. And we got an amazing month of episodes, guests, big news to drop soon. I can't going to add some more buttons on the soundboard because I'm jacked up. I can't wait.

I just think I woke Erika up from her little slumber! I'm so jacked up for Boston Weeks,

Erika (1:46:20)
Little bit.

Eric (1:46:23)
It's gonna be freaking incredible! I can't freaking wait! Merrimack College Warriors, congratulations! Patrick Leaver, congratulations on a beautiful wedding! That was awesome! Your wife's dress caught on fire. Incredible! I'm sure the whole wedding was absolute fire. Erika, take us home!

Erika (1:46:44)
Congratulations, Haley. You're awesome.

Thank you, MyRaisetats, for sponsoring the guest segment and being so awesome, as always. And to thank you to the listeners, you know we love you.

Eric (1:46:55)
Don't fear the code brown.

we know what i think ⁓

Erika (1:47:56)
Okay.

Eric (1:47:57)
That didn't go well.

Erika (1:48:03)
Nice, nice.

Holy shit, okay.

Eric (1:48:09)
Alright.