225 | Boston Marathon Weekend Rundown

Join us as we recount our incredible experience at Boston Marathon weekend, from securing media credentials to hosting live shows, meeting legendary runners, and navigating the bustling expo. Discover behind-the-scenes stories, key moments, and lessons learned from this unforgettable event. Join us as we recount an incredible weekend of live podcasting, community engagement, and memorable moments at the Boston Marathon. From interviews with inspiring runners to behind-the-scenes stories, this episode captures the essence of passion, perseverance, and the power of shared experiences.

Key  Topics

Media credential application process
Event setup and logistics
Meeting legendary runners and guests
Podcasting and live event tips Live podcasting at a major race
Community engagement and storytelling
Memorable moments and highlights from race day

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Energy Check
02:47 Boston Weeks Overview
05:53 Personal Updates and Reflections
08:44 Guest Highlights and Experiences
11:40 Meb's Impact and Insights
13:41 Boston Marathon Weekend Recap
16:42 Fun Moments and Gritty's Instagram
19:37 Future Plans and Aspirations
23:59 The Importance of Structure in Relationships
24:34 The Boston Marathon Media Experience
25:29 Pursuing Dreams: Erica's Boston Marathon Journey
26:33 Building Connections in the Media World
27:43 The Power of Networking and Collaboration
29:51 Planning for Success: The Boston Marathon Preparation
32:18 Overcoming Challenges: The Road to the Marathon
36:10 The Role of Media in the Marathon Experience
37:58 Navigating Media Credentials and Opportunities
38:58 The Anticipation of the Marathon Weekend
44:36 The Excitement of Live Events and Audience Engagement
51:26 Engaging the Crowd: The Power of Connection
54:28 Stage Presence: Hosting the Event
58:28 Heartfelt Stories: The Impact of Personal Narratives
01:01:26 Celebrating Success: The Joy of Making a Difference
01:04:22 The Marathon Experience: Cheering and Community
01:08:23 Memorable Encounters: Meeting Inspiring Figures
01:18:19 Bathroom Breaks and Race Day Antics
01:20:21 Navigating Boston: Transportation and City Insights
01:21:21 Post-Race Party: Expectations vs. Reality
01:22:23 Meeting Fellow Runners and Celebrating Achievements
01:24:27 Podcasting Live: Engaging with the Audience
01:28:21 Reflections on the Weekend and Future Plans
01:34:21 Lessons Learned and Looking Ahead

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

Transcript

Eric (00:00)
What's up everybody? I can't, I can't, I can't.

I got to learn how to express the energy without yelling.

What's up everybody and welcome to episode two 25 of the on the runs podcast. And man, what an incredible week we had. What an incredible month of Boston weeks, the best yet we got to record from Boston city hall Plaza. We had some amazing guests, but would you believe it? I still feel like we've missed out on a few fun things. I can't wait to talk about it all. Let's debrief right now with my amazing rock star of a co-host.

Six star Erica, what's up?

Erika (01:37)
What's up, buddy? I approve of your energetic indoor voice for your hotel room right now.

Eric (01:43)
You wouldn't, you wouldn't do

the intro for me. I'm in a hotel and you know how the walls are. I have been, if you have, if you're a new listener, we were recording once I was in a hotel and then there was a knock on the door. It was late and it was, but I was in Sweden and it was like midnight because it was six o'clock where you were. And so right now it's 9 30 PM. think I'm okay. But if we continue this until 12 30.

Erika (01:54)
Eric got in trouble.

Mmm.

I cannot continue this until 12.30.

Eric (02:14)
Right. There might

be a knock on the door, but yeah, six star. What's up.

Erika (02:18)
We're in the glare.

man, not much. this has been one hell of a week just with life and trying to, figure out emotions after the whole Boston experience. And it's been a total whirlwind, but I'm glad to be total ups and downs, but I am happy to be talking with you tonight. Just like going over our thoughts and sharing it with, ⁓ with all of our listeners and.

Eric (02:32)
Yeah.

I know, ups and downs.

Erika (02:47)
And yeah, I'm glad you could make time for it. know you're busy traveling. Where are you at?

Eric (02:53)
I am in Washington DC. I'm like a couple blocks down the street from the White House. Yeah, I'm right there. I'm right there. ⁓ Dangerous city, say here. Crime is high or crime is low. I don't know. It depends who you listen to. ⁓ We're here for a trade show. I flew in today, Monday. We had to postpone with our guests because I knew we wouldn't be able to record at the normal time because I went out to dinner and this was cool. So

Erika (02:55)
Mmm.

Oh dang. In the thick of things.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (03:21)
I went out to dinner with my boss and a guy from BD and a couple other sales guys in this one younger guy was there. And so he was the son of one of the people we're with and he's a historian. He has like a history degree. He has a podcast, a Marines podcast, and they just did 250 episodes. He's never heard of Riverside. So

Erika (03:39)
Hmm, really?

⁓

things are about to get way cooler for them.

Eric (03:50)
I know, but we talked about podcasting well, because he's here podcasting at this Marine trade show. However, the coolest part was he took us to a restaurant in Chinatown, like this hole in the wall Chinese restaurant, and he ordered for all of us.

Erika (03:56)
Mm-hmm.

Did he have to order in Chinese? Like, is that how it works when you're in Chinatown? I thought that's where you were leading me. I was like, ⁓ man, that's a flex.

Eric (04:11)
Oh, that would have been so cool. That, that would have, well, it was just kind of like we sat

down and, I'm like, oh, you know, trying to figure it out. he's like, you guys just want to do this and that blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and someone's like, yeah. And so the table is a table to round table, but on top of the round table, like two thirds around is this other glass table that spins.

Erika (04:31)
Mm-hmm.

like a lazy Susan, I think that's what they call them. Yeah, that's cool.

Eric (04:39)
Yeah. So he ordered

all these plates for us and we just spun it around and I'm like, I'm, I, I've always hated going to a Chinese restaurant because I don't know what to get. Everyone says a poo poo platter. I'm like, what's that poo poo? Like, I don't know what that is. I get noodles and I know I get noodles and rice, maybe an egg roll. I don't know anything though. So I was just like, this is so cool. He ordered for all of us. He has a

Erika (04:47)
you

Come on. All the best appetizers.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (05:06)
a podcast that we talked quite a bit about. He does all his things in teams and I'm like, my God. So he leaves while looking up Riverside and he's like, I showed him some of our stuff. goes, are you serious?

Erika (05:13)
you

I'm so glad

we don't use Teams because that would like just ruin my work from home hopes and dreams.

Eric (05:28)
⁓ can we let the cat out of the bag?

Can we address the elephant in the room that we have we've dabbled? I've mentioned but nobody really knows and people might be curious of what actually happened. And I think the best way to explain it is people just don't visit the sperm bank anymore. And the sperm banks across the country are closing and your sperm bank is closing.

Erika (05:34)
You've mentioned it so many times.

⁓ man.

Thank you for the laugh, my friend. I kind of needed it. The economy sucks, you guys. My company could not stay afloat, sadly, but ⁓ man, what a ride. ⁓

Eric (05:58)
You're not, you didn't get fired. You didn't get laid off. The bank is closed.

You

explained it as you lost a big client like a year ago. And I translated that as in, ⁓ guys are no longer coming to the sperm bank.

Erika (06:19)
Mm-hmm.

You can think of it however you'd like, but basically that's the case. ⁓ man.

Eric (06:30)
So today, today when people are listening on Tuesday,

it's your last day.

Erika (06:35)
Yes, yes, I think it is. Yep, we have to be out of our building by the 30th, but we're pretty much done. So we're calling it early and that's it. That's all she wrote.

Eric (06:46)
Well,

well, I have a beef with you and about your job, but we'll get to that when it comes to the beef because that's somewhere along our timeline. was thinking we could do a quick, like I say quick. can't do anything quick unless you're going to the sperm bank. ⁓ a recap, a rundown, a re crap is Tara and Lindsay would call it of the entire.

Erika (06:51)
A beef.

you

No.

Jesus. ⁓

Mm.

Eric (07:14)
Boston week. So typically we've always had a recap with runners who run, but we got to do that immediately after the boss marathon live from city hall Plaza at the post race show, which was just an absolute incredible experience. But I think we got to start from the beginning. We need to go back to the first episode when we had Troy Hoyt to kick off Boston weeks this year. And that was cool.

Erika (07:22)
⁓ That was so cool.

Mm.

Eric (07:43)
Especially for us because it's the Hoyt family team Hoyt. Like what a, what a cool. Yeah. And if you remember when Rick and Dick passed away right around the start of our podcast, we talked about them. And I think part of us was like, man, if we started this podcast, like four years earlier, who knows? We could have had them on. Right.

Erika (07:47)
Like total legends.

Mm-hmm.

I know.

But hey, we are 225 episodes in at this point. We are going places. That's just a staggering number.

Eric (08:11)
What? Well, yeah,

but we felt like at the time that we missed out, like they're gone, but we got Troy and we got to hear his version of the story and his dad's still around. Maybe one day he comes on and tells us his version. Like that was so cool talking about team Hoy. And then we saw him at mile 19.2.

Erika (08:19)
Mm-hmm.

I was so excited about that. He came from across the street to give us all high fives, gave us a wave and just kept on going. And he looked so strong out there.

Eric (08:40)
Yeah. And he has that beard. He's trying to catch up to beard, bearded runner. He's on his way. He's on his way. So, I just thought that was such a great kickoff for Boston weeks. And then a couple of days later we had Jordan, Jordan Whitaker, Jordan Marie, whatever you want to call her team. I in here, the story about her daughter.

Erika (08:44)
He's on his way. He is. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (09:01)
Your, your penguins connection. And then the best part is let's talk about it now. She came by mile 19.2 and then she also came to the post-race podcast. She did not sound good by the way. don't sound good right now.

Erika (09:09)
you

no,

I hope you're not getting what Jordan had a case of.

Eric (09:20)
No,

no. Jordan, if you got me sick, I swear to God. No. It's I've lost my voice around Boston and then we had a loud weekend. We had a loud weekend. We had a lot of fun this weekend. There's a lot of cheering, a lot of like I'm talking healthy kids race. Tommy Tyler come back type thing. I, you know, my voice has not recovered.

Erika (09:25)
I think you're in the clear.

We did, we did.

Eric (09:50)
So I'm not sick. I've just lost my voice again. Yeah.

Erika (09:53)
Mm-hmm, that's fair. Can I just tell

you one thing? I think it's acceptable for your children to put like a backpack with a leash on it. You have two of going in opposite directions. I think in their case, it's okay to do that.

Eric (10:03)
my god.

Yeah,

honestly, you know, but that just reminds me of my grandmother. Like she would walk us around the circle with a leash.

Erika (10:14)
Mm-hmm.

I mean, you're being a responsible parent and keeping an eye on both of your kids.

Eric (10:19)
⁓ my god. You

know, I could use it sometimes. Tommy's not my concern. Typically, it's Tyler.

Erika (10:28)
is he like a bolt risk? Like he's just going to take off.

Eric (10:31)
Yeah, like squirrel.

Erika (10:33)
⁓ well, I mean, I get that too. I do that myself. poor kid.

Eric (10:37)
So I've lost my voice, but

Jordan was not feeling well and she sent you a text a couple days later. What'd say?

Erika (10:45)
Yup.

I think she said she, she, she's like, do you guys remember how I told you that I was sick for like two weeks before, before I started this race? Wasn't it bronchitis or something crazy? I'm like, you just ran the Boston marathon in a pretty good time, by the way. And like with your kids saying like, mom, why aren't you running faster? And then come to find out.

Eric (10:58)
Right.

Well that was what you would expect from a kid.

Are you winning? Did you win?

Erika (11:10)
Yeah, but

I just kind of laughed. like, well, I mean, you're out here doing it, girl. And especially with bronchitis, like she had to go on antibiotics and.

Eric (11:19)
She went to urgent care and I

think she said the doctors like you did what yesterday because she went on Tuesday. So Jordan was incredible. If you remember, who do we have on after Jordan? Help me out here.

Erika (11:23)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

All right, give me a second. That wasn't Chris and Elena. Trenton was after. Duh!

Eric (11:35)
I don't remember.

It was meb. We had

meb. I'm not even going to edit our stupidity there. We had meb. I know it's late. All right. Let's talk about how we got meb. This was so cool because this is going to be, this episode is going to have a little bit of these stories about how we met Chris and Elena, how we got to do the live show, how we had meb. So this is the beauty of

Erika (11:49)
You are catching me at 940 at night

Mm-hmm.

Eric (12:09)
what we've built here. We've made connections. We've made friendships.

So I reached out to Bex Gentry to get Rob Simulcare. We had Rob on the podcast in the fall. Because of that, we got to communicate with Rob's executive assistant. She helped me get Meb because I reached out to her. She got me in touch with Meb's team. We got Meb episode of the year episode of the podcast goes on the Mount Rushmore, the compliments we got their messages from other people.

Erika (12:29)
Mmm.

Eric (12:41)
This episode, by the way, did not blow up like a Bex Gentrier and Ashley Paulson episode blows up. And that's completely fine. But the response, the feedback was incredible. And Meb was absolutely incredible.

Erika (12:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. was hoping that this weekend we would have bumped into him somewhere along the Boston course either at Fan Fest or something as we do we still own a beer. Yeah

Eric (13:06)
Right.

Well, that's part of the disappointment. Like we didn't get to do a whole lot and I'll get to that. But Meb was, we almost got the chance to interview him at three o'clock on Sunday. They asked us if we'd be available. Of course we'll be available to have Meb and interview him in front of a crowd. They had us as their backup. They ended up choosing somebody else. And then because it was cold and rainy on Sunday, the whole, the event never even happened.

Erika (13:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm, terrible weather.

Eric (13:36)
So, so, you know, that's their luck. They didn't need us. The event didn't happen. Meb was, my God. Like Eric could just go back into your memory bank. Like, what was that like?

Erika (13:41)
⁓ There's always next year.

Well, I definitely did my dumbass fangirl thing again where I'm like, and I couldn't think of actual words to say to him. But then it got a little bit better and just hearing him recount his Boston experiences was absolutely incredible. I could listen to him all day.

Eric (14:05)
Right.

He almost cried. he was, it's not like he's told the story hundreds of times, but he was emotional. He was so good. He understood the assignment. Like he truly understood because in emails we described what we're looking for in this episode. This is Boston weeks. This is, we highlight runners from the fundraisers to the pros. We want to talk about this and that we want like spare no details, you know.

Erika (14:10)
I know, just pure emotion.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (14:37)
He understood the whole entire assignment and he, just, he absolutely delivered. What a delivery. So I do remember the rest of the order a couple of days later, it was our live episode from the cheap marathon. one that Erica thinks isn't cheap enough, but you know, that's the story for another time. but the next week, this is now race week. This is even cooler. This started.

Erika (14:42)
Yes, he did.

Yes, it was.

We're not talking about that right now.

Eric (15:04)
on April 30th of last year. So we had Chris and Elena Lotzbaum on the podcast. Chris, if you remember, is media and Elena is volunteers. Chris has raised comms in media, Elena's volunteers, right? ⁓ They're both top dogs at the BAA. They're also married, a wonderful, a wonderful two people and a beautiful little daughter, one years old now. That was such a fun episode because they were together.

Erika (15:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eric (15:34)
And it was unfortunate that we had to record somebody else an hour later because we could have talked to them for three hours.

Erika (15:39)
you

Honestly, yes. You just get the... They're so fun and the way that they play off of each other just made it such an interesting conversation. So you're absolutely right. We could have talked for hours.

Eric (15:54)
The way Elena would look at Chris when he was talking was just like, yeah, yeah. So Chris plays a vital role. We'll get to that as we finish up and go into the boss marathon weekend. But the final guest for Boston Weeks, like a normal guest was Trini Casey. And this was cool. This wasn't all Boston. Like this was a little bit Wisconsin, a little bit sports. And speaking of which, your boy TJ Oshie is on my TV right now.

Erika (15:56)
See, that's part of the dynamic, which I love so much.

Mm-hmm.

See?

Mm-hmm.

I barely know who he is. I know he's hockey.

Eric (16:24)
I'm watching, I'm watching, I'm

watching hockey right now on mute on the TV. Pittsburgh just beat Philly and TJ Oshie is on because he has the next game. He's in, it must be Vegas or Utah. So he's doing the sideline reporting, rank side reporting from Utah. So yeah.

Erika (16:36)
Mm.

Can I just

say, speaking of Philly, I am obsessed with Gritty. I love him so much.

Eric (16:46)
Yeah. Gritty's I'm happy Pittsburgh won because I, I, I wanted

Pittsburgh to win this series because of their goalie Stuart Skinner, but they lost the first three games and they changed goalies. So now they're winning without Stuart Skinner. I'm like, well, now I don't care. Gritty grid, So game, the game, the, the, the game in Philadelphia the other day against Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is the penguins. So this doesn't, this doesn't do good for you, Erica. ⁓

Erika (16:54)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

⁓ Gritty has the best Instagram account.

Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Eric (17:15)
There's

a guy dressed in a penguin outfit with like the full mask and he's in Crutches he has bandage around his head Right and he has a sign that says like no more please stop and gritty just like starts beating on him and beating on him and then he takes the crutch and he's like slamming the crutch on the ground and so the penguin falls and then gritty just all of sudden like bends over and grabs another penguin that's like a dummy and

Erika (17:19)
Mm-hmm.

That's cause Gritty beat the shit out of it.

I'm too-

Eric (17:44)
and throws him off the balcony of the hockey arena.

Erika (17:47)
I'm telling you, Gritty's

Instagram account is the funniest thing. like, I have no connections to Philly whatsoever, except I ran there once. And it is like one of my top favorite accounts to follow because it's so unhinged.

Eric (17:51)
Yeah.

We need

to podcast from like the Philly Marathon weekend. And gritty, we need gritty to come on the podcast. Just like Pat.

Erika (18:05)
Can we? that'd be fun. that'd be so much fun.

⁓ my God. He's going to find out

somehow I'm a penguin and just like you, you'll see us in the background and then it'll pan to him and the crowd with like his googly eyes and like, you're going to tell him and you can blow up my spot. Yeah.

Eric (18:20)
You know how he's gonna find out you're a penguin? I'm gonna tell him.

We had Pat the Patriot come on the podcast from Boston, that was incredible.

Erika (18:30)
Which is the most random thing in the world. I loved it. I loved every second of that.

Eric (18:34)
⁓

did you know I was doing that by the way?

Erika (18:37)
No, I had no

idea. thought you were messing with Aaron, Jessalindabend's husband, because they're from Baltimore, so you're just messing with him.

Eric (18:46)
He was not happy with the with

the Pat Patriot and I made Aaron take a photo with him and he wasn't thrilled about it and The thing was Aaron actually did really well with the photo. He played along chess was like don't you dare? He's gonna be so mad. He's gonna be so mad ⁓ But I'm not giving Yeah, he is great, but I'm not giving training Casey her do here

Erika (18:51)
saw the picture it was great

Aaron is such a cool dude, he played along. No.

my God. And you say she's just a normal person. She's cool as shit. We actually tried to we tried to see if we could meet up with her ⁓ for cheering on Monday, but she she had the perfect spot and we were like, ⁓ have our perfect spot. You have your perfect spot. Hers hers involved margaritas, though, which

Eric (19:13)
Mm-hmm. She is cool as shit.

she invited us.

Well...

Yeah. Our spot. don't, I don't know. Like, are we going to go back to our spot next year? That's that's for in a few minutes. We'll get there. If you remember what you said earlier, a couple days ago, I'm like, if you had one or the other, I'm like, okay, we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. Trenny Trenny delivered on the story about her DNF.

Erika (19:29)
may have been more perfect. next year.

I may fight you over that, man. I may fight you over that.

Huh.

Yes, everyone felt that.

Eric (19:57)
What a story. Five Boston's,

one DNF ⁓ running across Wisconsin. just the whole story was such a relatable running story. So Trenny was great. That was our Boston lineup. We had five incredible guests, Troy, Jordan, Meb, six, guess, if you count Chris and Elena, and then Trenny. So six incredible guests over five episodes. Frickin' phenomenal. I really hope in the future we can do the same.

Erika (20:07)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (20:25)
where we have a couple of local runners fundraising. We have someone from the BAA. Maybe we have like a past champion or Boston legend. then Trenny was kind of like that media personality. She's experienced, we didn't even talk about it and we ran out of time, but maybe we do have her back because she used to be the reporter from the finish line and interview the winner. We didn't even talk about that.

Erika (20:30)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

We need to dig deeper into that, absolutely. Let's get her back.

Eric (20:52)
Yeah.

And she's, she's a fan of the pot. She follows, she listens. So Trenny, let's do it again one day. Talk more running. Let's do it in person with the dogs. The dogs are super cool. ⁓ and her husband, I'm sure is pretty happy. I'm sure her husband's pretty happy right now. Cause the Habs are doing a lot better than the Bruins. They suck. The big game tonight. If you're listening big game tonight, but, they did not show up for game four the other day. So that was our lineup. I think we.

Erika (20:58)
Please.

The squeaky toy in the background.

Mm-hmm.

Yikes.

And that's why Eric

is distracted.

Eric (21:21)
Yeah, well they're not on the TV right now, but I'm just mad, mad about the Bruins. We're watching Vegas and Utah now at the puck drop 13 seconds ago. So TJ Oshie is at this game. Your boy.

Erika (21:24)
⁓

Maybe this will make the

Bruins tickets cheaper next year? Question mark?

Eric (21:35)
Never. Oh my god, we

didn't even make the playoffs last year with the second most expensive ticket in the league. Dude, the Boston Fleet played a game at the Garden and tickets were like over $200. It's just, I know, I know. I would give you a hard time, but you just lost your job. Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (21:39)
I just want to go to a game. I hate that they're so expensive. Yes, I know. Still expensive. Give me a $40 ticket, you guys, please.

Thank you. Yeah, that's the only slack I get because I'm

now unemployed.

Eric (22:01)
I'm not going to call you cheap anymore until you're employed again. Anyways, let's talk about Boston weeks. Like, what do you remember? Like, okay, we've built this up in the past couple of years, not just Boston weeks, but I'm talking about the weekend. We just started this 19.2 thing a couple of years in a row. We just went to 19.2 last year is the first year we really took in the Saturday in Boston, but that was only because you ran the five K.

Erika (22:05)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Well, yes, I ran the 5K, but I also wanted to go to Marathon Sports because they had an event that I wanted to attend. not only like, I was a Salt Stick ambassador, I am this year too, but they were holding ⁓ like an interview kind of style thing with Alexi Pappas and Laura Green. And I was like, hey, Laura is pod fam. So I'm going to go check out this like little panel that they're going to have. And so I dragged you guys along with me.

Eric (22:49)
Yeah.

So that was an incredible day and you took me along and showed me all these pop-ups. And the best part for me was that I loved it. It was just so, I was shaking hands, beating people, handing out stickers and cards saying, this is who we are. I'm getting to know the people I need to get to know. And I think the most disappointing part of this year was we did none of that.

Erika (23:18)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (23:29)
We didn't go the expo.

Erika (23:30)
We had

good intentions, but didn't work out.

Eric (23:33)
Yeah, we didn't go to the expo. didn't go to any pop-ups. I would not even say we had good intentions. We wanted to, but we didn't prep enough for it. And that's my fault, but I'm really disappointed it didn't happen. When I say prep enough, we did a lot of prep into the shows that we're going to talk about, but also just schedules were unknown. And ultimately I kind of think like, I think that's why Tara didn't come because of my, yeah.

Erika (23:51)
Mm-hmm.

because we weren't structured enough. She likes to plan.

I get that. I really do get that. Yeah.

Eric (24:03)
I know, and we weren't structured, that's a good word. So

we'll get into that. But ⁓ let's go back to Chris and talk about this relationship because I'm wearing something right now, Erica, for those not watching, what am I wearing?

Erika (24:15)
Yes, you are.

You have our brand new Boston Marathon media jacket on, which I was like, have you taken that off yet? Have you been wearing it this whole time? Yeah.

Eric (24:26)
Yeah, I've actually

I'm very, ⁓ I haven't worn it at all since it's been hanging in the, in the closet. And then when I was grabbing clothes, I'm like, I'm going to throw it in my bag and wear on this podcast. So when, like, when am I allowed to wear this? Can I wear this anywhere? Can I wear only around major marathons? Can I wear going out to dinner?

Erika (24:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm, that thing is sick.

See,

that is the question. mean, there are some people who wear their Boston jackets all the time. I am one of the people who will break mine out for one of the majors or Boston Marathon weekend just to be like, I fit in. I belong here, you guys. But that's a media jacket. There are no rules with a media jacket.

Eric (25:04)
Yeah.

Right. Right.

I mean, and I got some looks from people walking by. They're looking at me in the jacket. They're like, who are you? Should I know who you are? Are you media? Yeah. So Chris is, you know, runs the media team at the BAA. So let's go back to way back.

Erika (25:15)
Mmm, see? Ya hot shit. Mmm.

We have to go way back to get into

how this happened.

Eric (25:29)
So like what's one thing you've been dying to do for years?

Erika (25:34)
Everybody knows this by now. I've been dying to run Boston again. So I went through the same kind of seven degrees of Kevin Bacon that you did to get meb to try to get a bib for Boston. And this was what, two years ago that I reached out? whatever. Jamie Staten. Yep. He suggested that like, Hey, I think you would, you might be able to reach out and get a bib. And I was like, ⁓ really?

Eric (25:38)
again.

It's six degrees by the way, but yeah, yeah. It was, was Jamie Staton.

we had.

He was

the first one to tell us we were media. Jamie goes, you guys are media. And we're like, we're not media. We're podcasters. No, you're media. So if you don't remember Jamie, he worked at WNB or for over 30 years doing sports, right? he he's interviewed everybody from Dale Earnhardt to Boston Marathon champions. Right? So he said we're media and he goes, Erica, if you really want to run, just apply for a media bib.

Erika (26:07)
I know. I never felt like it. No.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (26:33)
So I think the process was you emailed Jamie asked about it a little more. He says, well, you're already built a friendship with Dave Mcgillivray emailed Dave walk me through the rest of the story, Erica, like, cause this was you that, that landed us Chris Lotzbaum.

Erika (26:38)
Yup.

Mm hmm. Yup.

Yes. So I was just kind of feeling it out. I had no idea which avenue to go. So you are correct. I did email Jamie and Jamie directed me to Dave McIlvery and Dave was super nice about it. He's like, I would love to help you, but I don't handle those kinds of things. And that's where I got Chris's name. So I was in touch with Chris and by the time I actually reached out, it was probably like February. So very late in the game.

Eric (27:14)
This is before,

yeah, this is before Boston last year. So Boston 2025, we're probably talking February 2025.

Erika (27:19)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it was, it was very late in the game and Chris was very nice about it. And he said, Hey, we'll like, keep us in mind for next year. And basically, but at this point I decided, like, I kind of kept Eric out of the loop for this just cause I was feeling it out, seeing what happened. But then I finally forward him. Yeah. You don't want me to run. You want me to just be there. And I do want to be there, but I also want to run. I can't be in two places at once, but.

Eric (27:33)
He said, who are you? Who? Who?

because you knew what I was going to say.

Well at the time I want

to build my own 19.2 which might not be the case anymore.

Erika (27:54)
Mm-hmm. C.

So at that point, I forwarded Eric the email. And I think you reached out to Chris after that just to say, hey, I'm the other half of On The Runs, because that's how I had introduced myself. And you guys hit it off. You guys had a lot in common.

Eric (28:10)
Right. Yeah.

So if I, yeah, I went back, I found the first email cause it's a big email thread right now. was April 30th of last year. So one and a half weeks after the boss marathon. And I just said, Hey, I just want to say, hi, my co-host already introduced herself. I'm Eric and I am not looking to run in the boss marathon. Like my co-host Erica is. I said,

Erika (28:17)
Yeah.

I'm

Eric (28:35)
But I wanna work with you. I wanna tell you who we are. I wanna tell you that we're up and coming, we're growing. We might have a small following, but we put out a big game. I wanna tell you everything. Can we please have a meeting? Can we please talk? I know nothing about him. So we set up a meeting. He's so nice. I learned that he's from New Hampshire. learned, no, he's not, but he lives in New Hampshire. I learned that he's a huge NASCAR fan.

Erika (28:39)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Eric (29:04)
Our 30 minute meeting started 30 minutes late because we just talked about everything we had in common. And it wasn't a bad thing that we went late and we probably talked for an hour and 10 minutes, right? It was such a good conversation and we left it off with, he first said, are you around for the BAA 10 K? And I was not. You were running it though. So we knew that you were going to go meet him in person and say hi, which

Erika (29:26)
Yes.

Eric (29:33)
You were a little uncomfortable doing because you didn't know him and I wasn't there. Thank you, allergy. Right.

Erika (29:35)
Well, thanks to Allie G. She was like, hey, I already met him. Like she

introduced and then she was like, he's right there. And so she, she kind of pointed him out and I gave him some, some of our stickers and our card and stuff like that and made the connection in person.

Eric (29:43)
Yeah.

Right.

Right. So I had this meeting with him and we just said outside of you meeting him at the 10 K he and I will reconnect after labor day. And we did exactly that. And we had two more meetings. One meeting was just okay. He, he, he, one meeting was just okay. He kind of told me what his mission and his goals are. And I came up with a way, a plan.

to help them achieve them. essentially there's what 35,000 runners, there's 35,000 stories. There's not enough outlets to get them. And so I came up with this whole plan. I made a proposal. I said, here's what I want to do. I want to give you the ability to have one, two, three or four of people you want to come on our podcast or Boston weeks. And we will, we will have them on. We'll host them.

Erika (30:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric (30:48)
What am I looking in for return? I'm just looking to help expand my network, to help grow. What can the BAA do? Can they share the episodes? Can they give us a bib to the 5K to give away? Exactly, get more eyes. And so he's like, well, let me look into that. Let me see what I can do. Let me talk to their team, see what they can do. We had a follow-up meeting. And at this time, thank God for John Mortimer.

Erika (30:55)
Mm-hmm.

get more eyes on it. Yeah.

Eric (31:17)
believing and trusting us. And at, hold on, let me say that again. And at this time, we just started doing the live shows for Millennium. Thank God for John Mortimer believing in us and our ability to do it. Cause at the first meeting we never did that. And then I was so excited to tell them about it. And I sent Chris YouTube videos and Chris goes, this is the meeting you made, by the way, you only made one of these meetings. was like, I forced you to be there.

Erika (31:33)
Mm.

Yes. Yes.

I had to miss work for that.

Eric (31:48)
Because yeah, you're like, why have work?

I'm like, yeah, but your work doesn't care about you. They'll, they'll leave you, they'll, they'll leave you in a ditch somewhere on the side of the road. You never know. It, it, it came to be true. ⁓ we had this meeting and he goes, would you want to do anything like that for us? Instant? Yes. How do you want us to do it? Do you need us to supply everything? Do you need, you know, what do you need?

Erika (31:54)
They did at that point.

Don't say that, I love my work. Anywho, go ahead.

Yup.

Eric (32:18)
We can do it. Where do you want to do it? We'll do it anywhere you want, wherever you want. ⁓ yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. He says, let me get back to you. Christmas comes and goes, new years comes and goes a couple of weeks go by. Typically I would wait about a month to respond, but this was about six weeks because I, the holidays and everything, I really don't want to bother them too much. I'm about to email them. And then he sends me an email.

Erika (32:22)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (32:47)
Hey, I just wanted to say hi. I haven't forgotten about you. We have a meeting in about two weeks. You'll be hearing from us. We finally hear from Joe. Joe is like this guy who worked in TV production and stuff. And he told us the whole, Hey, we're setting up. We're doing fan fest and city hall Plaza. We have a show. What time slot do you want? I asked for all of them. Yeah.

Erika (32:54)
Mmm.

You're like, can I have them all? Yeah, yeah,

can I have them all, please?

Eric (33:17)
Yeah. He would only

give me one. So he gave us, we took the, the, the, Monday night time slot, but I told him I really want Saturday too, if it's possible. A couple of weeks later that happened. So I have these meetings. I have all these meetings with, without you. You, you don't make any of these meetings. You will soon in the future because yeah. you are in.

Erika (33:39)
I can now. Anyhow.

Eric (33:46)
Myrtle Beach visiting your family. I just had another meeting of Joe and I called you on the phone, like a FaceTime so I could see your facial reaction. Your mom and your dad are in the room. Tara's in the room.

Erika (34:04)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (34:04)
And I told you what we're doing.

What was your reaction? What was your response?

Erika (34:13)
I don't remember exactly what, I was like, ⁓ shit, this is happening. I have to like actually do this in front, like perhaps an audience. Like we have, we've done the live thing. It's like not a big deal anymore. I mean, it is, but it's not like I'm not nervous. But with the prospect of actually putting on a show, I was like, ⁓ dang, no.

Eric (34:23)
Yeah.

Well

Not only that

though, I told you about the potential of being a stage host.

Erika (34:39)
Mm-hmm. The MC

thing, which I've never done before.

Eric (34:44)
And I remember this now very well. I said, are you ready to go outside your comfort zone?

Erika (34:54)
Like, I guess. I'm not gonna say no.

Eric (34:57)
But you laughed because you said, we're just talking about this. There's TJ, he's on the TV again. You laughed because you're like, I was just talking about this. And you're like, I never expected any of this. Like, this is a little, like, this isn't what you ever thought you would do or be comfortable. I forget, I'm paraphrasing, but you were kind of like, I don't know if I'm cut out for this. And then I call and say, are you ready to get more outside your comfort zone?

Erika (35:17)
No.

And

I'm like, shit. Basically, told you growing up, I was never good at public speaking, ever. Yeah. And then I just try to slow myself down a little bit. mean, unless it's like Meb or I don't know, somebody super famous who I love. That's a different story.

Eric (35:33)
I hated it too. I hated it.

There's nothing wrong with fan-curling

though. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, I love that you get excited.

Erika (35:47)
Yeah, but then the brain doesn't work

and I'm like, uh-oh, uh-oh, words, words.

Eric (35:52)
That is true. That is true. Yeah, I gotcha. So

all that led up to the Boston Marathon. now we get to, we do all the planning. We have the Boston Weeks episodes of Troy and Jordan and Mab, Chris, Elena, right, Trenny.

Erika (36:07)
They go smashingly.

Eric (36:10)
So all this happens and then Chris sends us an email around the time we scheduled for him and Elena to come on the podcast. And he says, I really think you should apply for immediate credential. Again, there's the term media that Jamie state and said where we are, we are media. And we're like, we are. ⁓ We did not.

Erika (36:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

you

Eric (36:37)
apply for that media credential until the day after we interviewed with Chris because Chris goes again, did you guys do it? We're like, no. He goes, I really think you should.

Erika (36:48)
Yeah, he definitely was encouraging us like hard after we spoke to him on the podcast. we literally had, I think the deadline was the next day. And I was like, Eric, we need to do this. he tell...

Eric (36:52)
Yeah.

The deadline was

midnight of the night we were recording with him and he just says, do it tomorrow, I know the guy who approves it.

Erika (37:07)
Yeah, so we're like, thank

God. Okay. We got a little bit of wiggle room here, but we spent so much time trying to figure out how to fill out those forms and lo and behold, took no time to get them approved and we were in.

Eric (37:22)
It wasn't like

there were difficult forms, but it was like, what do we call ourselves? What do we?

Erika (37:26)
We've never done, like, are we

internet? Are we radio? Podcast wasn't a thing that we could actually select. We're like, I don't know.

Eric (37:32)
Yeah. And then

it asks for like, what areas do you want media access to? And there are all these other rules or, you know, there's a lot of reading, a lot of reading. ⁓ And we just said general access. And then he gave us access to the hotel and he gave us access to the photo bridge. All these we did not use and

Erika (37:40)
Mm-hmm.

There is a lot of rules. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eric (37:58)
That was disappointing. And when we got to finally meet Chris at the end, the very end of the whole thing, I almost felt like Chris was like really excited to be like, did you, did he go to the photo bridge? Did, did he do this? Did you do that? And we're like, we're like, we did nothing, but, but I mean, we did a lot of cool things. And because opportunities were there, we just didn't get to walk around, explore. So Chris gets us.

Erika (38:03)
Monday night. Yeah.

⁓ Come on guys, I set you up.

Ugh.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (38:28)
the media credential. Now we have our schedule. We know we're on Saturday at six and Monday at six. Here's how my brain works. I need to get somewhere early. I need to see the layout. need to like, I was not stressed. I was not nervous. I was fully confident on our, in our ability to put on a fantastic show, but I had a little anxiety over where is this?

Erika (38:35)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (38:58)
How do I tell everyone else to get there to be there on time? What is the setup? What do I need to bring if anything at all like a camera, a tripod? Where will I be able to put it? So I went there on Friday. I went to Boston. I went to the hotel. Well, actually first, I tried a couple of times including Thursday night as I know you no longer have a job soon.

to get you to play hooky or to call in or to just say, hey boss, guess what? You don't need me in a couple of weeks. I don't need you on Friday. I'm going to Boston to get my media cred. And you wouldn't do it.

Erika (39:40)
I had so much stuff to do. I, don't even want to get into it right now, but the amount of like stuff I've had to do while like not having actual work to do has been like astronomical. So I could not take a day.

Eric (39:53)
But,

but one week later, I call you on a Friday to talk about whatever. And I go, are you on your way to work? And what did you say?

Erika (40:06)
I don't even remember.

Eric (40:08)
He said,

no, I just got out of bed. I don't care anymore.

Erika (40:12)
you call me at 830. I usually roll in around nine. I'm like, I still went to work. Now it was like 830.

Eric (40:17)
I feel like it was like 10 o'clock. All right. But I was like, what?

You don't care anymore? One week later when I really want you in Boston. So let me, let me, let me, you know, play by play my Friday. I drive to Sullivan station, Dan, not Dan, Darren, DJ Darren Roy was supposed to come with me. He didn't come. ⁓ it worked out for the best because I didn't have to like pick any

Erika (40:38)
⁓ I don't even know if I knew that

You could do your own

thing.

Eric (40:45)
Exactly. I could do my own thing. I go to the hotel this hotel the Fairmont and Acopley Beautiful you wouldn't know it from the outside. I don't understand sometimes like Walking by I wouldn't know that's like a really fancy hotel you walk in Wow, I don't belong in here I belong at the court. I belong at the courtyard ⁓

Erika (40:52)
beautiful.

ambulance.

We're courtyard people, not Fairmont people.

Eric (41:13)
the ceilings. I saw Dave McGilvery talking to someone. didn't bother him. ⁓ I walk up to someone. say, where do I find the area for media credentials? And this one woman's like, I'm walking there right now. I'll take you down. She works for the BAA, but she doesn't live in the area. Like maybe it was Florida or something. And she flies up for the race. So she, she walks me to this room and she's talking to me about, you know, this is where you're going to go here. And she just leads me in.

Erika (41:31)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Eric (41:43)
I walk over to this table, there's a bunch of interns, and I say, hi, I'm Eric, I'm here to get my media credential. They get me a media credential and then they say to me, what's your jacket size?

Erika (41:56)
Yeah.

Eric (41:58)
I get a jacket of an XL because I want it before they realize that maybe they're giving it to the wrong person and I want to take it.

Erika (41:59)
Excuse me? Mm-hmm.

man.

Eric (42:14)
And then I grabbed your credential and your jacket, which I did not want to do. I was really hoping they would tell me, no, that you have to get it yourself because that would have forced you to do it.

Erika (42:26)
Mm-hmm.

Of course I would have done it. Absolutely.

Eric (42:32)
But I want, like, the fact I got it, you're like, well, that's one less thing I have to do.

Erika (42:37)
Well, I was still expecting we were going to go there anyways for one thing or another. so it was going to be fine. I would have figured it out.

Eric (42:40)
I know. That's my fault.

So the next thing I want to do is I want to go to the expo. I get a notification on my phone. You have a meeting in 15 minutes. I'm like, I do. I took the day off. I'm on FTO and the meeting notification came from my boss's boss. And I'm like, I'm not taking this meeting. I'm not doing it. I looked at my email, the meeting invite came in a minute ago. So it was like this last minute meeting. I'm like,

Erika (42:57)
How rude.

⁓

Eric (43:15)
I'm not taking this. don't have to take it. I'm walking to the expo. get a text after like five minutes when the meeting was supposed to It's like, Hey, Eric, I hope you can take a meeting. Last minute invite should only take 15 minutes. Like, okay. I just saw it. I'll jump in right now. Not a big deal. The meeting went an hour and five minutes.

Erika (43:37)
an hour and five minutes later.

Eric (43:39)
Yes, unreal. Now, he needed me, we'll put it that way. He was trying to accomplish something he couldn't figure it out without me. So I was a hero for a moment. Will that reflect in my paycheck one day? Probably not, but I missed the expo. I was gonna go purposely and talk to Ashley Paulson, because we were trying to get her to come to the live show.

Erika (43:51)
Hmm

Eric (44:08)
but I did not miss my chance to go to the FanFest. I went down there to City Hall Plaza, I called Joe, I met Joe, I got to meet the whole team, I got to meet Adam, I got to meet Devon, our sound guy, got the layout, I sent you pictures, I think I talked to you on the way home. I was so excited leaving, I'm like, we're gonna crush this, it's gonna be amazing. I can't wait. What were your thoughts? Like when I sent you those photos, I'm doing all the talking here, I need a little more from you, my voice is terrible, guys, I know, I'm sorry.

Erika (44:26)
Mm-hmm.

you

Eric (44:36)
But what were your thoughts? Like I sent the photos, how are you feeling? Are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you like the anticipation or just like Eric, what time are we leaving? you please give me a fucking answer?

Erika (44:36)
you

little of everything. Let's just back up to when you called me and you were like, ⁓ Hey, we get a jacket. And I was like, what? And I was super pumped about that. Yeah. And it was like, I don't know. And I kind of won it, but it fits. Yeah. So I'm all good. ⁓ but yeah, you sent those pictures and just looking at the setup was so top notch. It had everything. Like we were on a slightly raised stage. They had, ⁓

Eric (44:55)
yeah. What's your size?

Erika (45:18)
benches set up in front for people to sit and watch. We had a big table with four mics on it with four chairs so we could have like a couple of guests at a time, which was awesome. Then they upped it with the ambiance. Let me just tell you, they set up like a, yes, they even had a rug and then the backdrop with the FanFest and the BAA logos. ⁓ Everything was just a dream.

Eric (45:18)
That was cool.

Yes.

Yes.

There's plants, lighting.

Yeah, it looked beautiful. was,

mean, in the whole entire Devon with the whole entire sound setup, the PA speakers too. Yeah.

Erika (45:50)
Shout out Devin, he was awesome.

Thank you for taking care of us this whole weekend, Fantastic. ⁓

Eric (45:55)
Right, right. was all of them. It was incredible.

So Saturday is the big day. I was getting a little nervous. I was honestly like, I knew we were responsible to be stage hosts and we didn't really know what we're going to do, but I was getting a little nervous. I was getting a little rushed. Like I had to bring the kids to my mom's then had to go meet you. We originally wanted to like go see Ashley Paulson break the hundred

Erika (46:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Eric (46:24)
mile record on a treadmill. And I think we're going to meet at like 1230. And I'm just like, I'm not going to make it. Like I still got to go to Staples and pick up the printed ⁓ show notes we made. I still have to get the kids here. I have to go get food for the kids to bring them to my mom. At one point, I just made the decision. We're not going to make the expo. Let's just meet at two 30.

Erika (46:26)
Which he did.

Yeah.

And I absolutely could have gone in early. I really didn't have any plans, but you know the city, you know the subway is so much better than me. And if it was just going to be me by myself, I really didn't want to trek into the city alone. So I was like, sure, this is what we're doing. I'm cool with it.

Eric (47:08)
I was relieved and disappointed at the same time, because I knew we weren't going in on Sunday. This isn't like you travel to a race and you get to take it all in because you're in town for the race. This is your hometown race. You still have home responsibilities. I still got kids to take care of and do all this. I'm actually paying babysitters and all that. It's harder that it's a home race versus

Erika (47:13)
I get that.

We don't have to travel for a race.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric (47:38)
like New York when I traveled there and just got to take it all in. that kind of, there was so much left that I wanted to do. And a lot of it was just, wanted to go and get our face out there, which we really did do. I just wanted to go to the pop-ups and walk around, meet people, hand things out. I guess in place of that, what we did was pretty epic.

Erika (47:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It really was. I'm glad I let you kind of do the driving because I am not super quick on my feet when it comes to like hyping up a crowd. I've never done that before. That's totally new territory. So I let you, I mean, this is our dynamic on the podcast. You kind of take over and I'll chime in. I was just helping interview some of the...

Eric (48:18)
Right.

Me neither though.

Right?

Erika (48:34)
runners that we came across, like I'm holding the mic in front of people's faces. I'm like,

Eric (48:37)
Well, you're jumping ahead. You're jumping ahead though.

You're jumping ahead. Let's paint the picture here. We get into Boston for 2.30, 3 o'clock, and we didn't have to rush. And it just made it feel so good that we weren't rushing anymore. Right. Right. So they wanted us there at 4. And the band was going to be offstage around 4.15 or 4.30.

Erika (48:47)
Yeah.

It gave us some time to do recon too, like figure out where things were and what was going on and all the tents at FanFest.

Eric (49:07)
or something like that, whatever it was, there was an hour and a half time gap between bands and they needed a stage host, they needed someone with a microphone to walk around. So when we showed up at four, or maybe it was three o'clock when we showed up, like an hour before they wanted us there, we got like a script of what they want us to do, not like a written script. Shout out to Scott though, who did give me one that he printed for himself. It did, it did actually. It had like one thing for us to say.

Erika (49:21)
Mm-hmm.

It had our names on it.

Eric (49:36)
But they wanted us to talk and tell people where to go. Go to the cafe, go to the beer, go to the food court, go to the Bank of America tent, go to the shocks tent, whatever the adidas pop up. So you and I walked around and we took notes in our phone, like go to Bank of America and play ring toss, go to the shocks tent and, and try on headphones, go to the adidas tent to get everything you could get at the expo without having to go to the expo. We did our research or recon just like

Erika (49:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yup.

Eric (50:06)
that and then they hand us two wireless microphones and we're kind of like holy cow we're doing this yeah

Erika (50:14)
Shit.

Well

that was mostly me. I mean you played cool man. I believe it.

Eric (50:22)
We did it just

like a podcast though. I just had to say loud with energy, what's up everybody? How you doing? My name is Eric, I'm from the On the Runs podcast and I'm here with my kick, I didn't say kick ass, but I'm here with my, I did on the actual episode.

Erika (50:38)
think you did.

You didn't

today, by the way. You've left out the kick-ass part, and I noticed. did. I'll allow it. Fair enough.

Eric (50:46)
Well, I'm sorry, but ⁓ I don't want to get kicked out of the hotel.

We just started talking and we left it at like maybe 40 seconds and we introduced ourselves. This is who we are. We have t-shirts to give away. Some are autographed. Do you want one? Here's what you got to do. You got to come talk to us. And then we said, we'll be back to talk soon. And when we stopped talking, some guy with the soundboard like turned up the music.

Erika (51:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (51:15)
We had our first guest. Do remember who our first guest was?

Erika (51:18)
The first guest. That wasn't Jess, was it? I don't remember who the first guest was. Was she from Dick's Sporting Goods? No, she was like the second guest. Yeah, I don't remember who the first one was.

Eric (51:22)
Nope.

Nope. That was Liz. She was fantastic.

If I had my soundboard, I'd play some Pit Bull right now.

Fireball.

Erika (51:39)
It was Steve, duh. So

we kind of had Steve, he was around all weekend. Thank you, Steve. He was a plant, I guess you could say, just so we could kind of start things off, get people to come engage with us. And we were just like, hey, what are you doing? Are you running this weekend? No. No, what are you doing? And just kept asking him questions like that.

Eric (51:57)
Right.

Used a good word

though, plant. Like, yeah, I said, hey, I'm going to, we're going to interview to like figure it out and also to like kind of have other people know what we want to do. So we kind of did like a little mini one-on-ones with people from the crowd, just like we would on the podcast. Hey, what's your name? Where are from? Where are you coming from? What are you doing? We probably talked to eight or nine people. Steve was one of them.

Erika (52:04)
mean, was,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (52:27)
⁓ Jess,

talked to Jess. She was incredible. She got the shirt. Right. We would pull Liz from the Dick's Sporting Goods. So instead of us saying, go to Dick's Sporting Goods or go to Adidas, we went over there and got someone from their tent to interview. And I even think you, you met somebody. Maybe he liked you. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. We'll let the people judge, but you're Adidas guy.

Erika (52:30)
A few times over the weekend, yeah.

Yeah.

Ha

Eric (52:56)
You're a data sky, you know.

Erika (52:58)
I feel like the Adidas rep definitely took pity on me. I don't know if he liked me, but so it was very cold on Saturday and I was not really prepared. I had like a long sleeve shirt, the media jacket, which is very thin. It's just like a like a light windbreaker. And then I had just a regular pair of leggings, not insulated or anything. I was frozen solid just standing outside. So I had run over to the Adidas tent before we had him on.

Eric (53:19)
Yeah.

Erika (53:25)
and I was just looking, I was gonna buy a sweatshirt. I was gonna say, screw it. And they didn't have my size in the women's sweatshirt. So I came back, then we talked to the rep and then I was like, I should go check the men's sweatshirts. So I go run over. follow, I can't, I'm spacing on his name right now. But I follow him like into the tent. I find a men's sweatshirt in my size and then I go to check out and he goes, hang on. And he runs over.

And he gave me his employee discount to get a sweatshirt so I wouldn't freeze to death. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. ⁓

Eric (53:57)
This is right after I bought this hat for full price. I got this hat for full price

and he hooked you up. So yeah, we got these people to come on and chat. And I really think we crushed it for never doing this and being pretty nervous. I think we not only just like did it well. I think we crushed it. We, we flowed. We were good. Ying and Yang.

Erika (54:04)
Yes, I appreciate it so much.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric (54:25)
We came up with a system like you held the mic in front, which if I could go back, I didn't like how you. Right.

Erika (54:28)
Mm-hmm.

Probably should have just given them the mic. But then

half of the time they wouldn't even hold it up to their mouths anyways.

Eric (54:37)
Yeah, but I just

felt weird kind of standing there. I felt like Ricky Bobby. What am I supposed to do with my hands while you're holding the mic in front of the guests? was maybe I felt too far away at times. I would try to look at the crowd when I was talking, but it was so much fun. We were doing this from like crowd level, by the way, weren't on the stage, but we did have to go on the stage. And this is what maybe you were the most excited for, but we got to introduce the band.

Erika (54:43)
with my hands. I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. On the ground.

Eric (55:07)
And watching the video, I keep replaying it in my mind, like, why don't we walk out to the middle of the stage? Like, we kind of walked and hid in the corner of the stage.

Erika (55:15)
feel

like we didn't want to get in the way of the band and we wanted to make the quick exit. So we were primed for that.

Eric (55:18)
Yeah. Yeah. But not, not

only that, so I go one more time. What's up everybody. You ready to have a good time? We got an amazing band for you today. Couple more things before we do a couple more things before, know, don't forget to get food at the cafe and at this place, right? Get a beer, go over this place. Thank you to Dick's Sporting Goods. Thank you to whoever. And Erica, who's everyone going to get to rock out to today?

Erika (55:35)
Go get a Sam Adams.

Eric (55:48)
And instantly, as you said that, I make a beeline for the exit before you even get to say the words I'm gonna let you say in a minute. I'm like, why did I make a beeline to the, why didn't I wait to see you say it? I was just like, who did I get to see today? And I walked away. I just walked away.

Erika (55:53)
Yep, you did.

Your part was done. He's washing his hands of this whole like MC thing. But I got to yell like you gave me the mic and I just go, let's give it up for booty vortex. Best name ever. So excited. That was a highlight. They were they were like funk.

Eric (56:14)
Yeah. It's like, what are we doing?

So cool, so cool. They were really good too. They were so good. was,

yeah. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. right. They had a couple content people, camera people walk around and yeah, they were so good. We made it in there real, it was just, it was so cool. They were so good.

Erika (56:34)
We made it in there real, by the way, which is super cool. think I reposted it. I'm going to love that forever.

Mm.

We made it on the news

we made it on WMUR on Saturday Forgot about that

Eric (56:52)
We met Kelly and Adon.

They were so cool. Kelly wanted us to go on the news and we were going to go on the news, but we're just a little too busy. And then by the time we were done with our stage hosting, we went straight to the podcast stage to set up and get ready. And we had 90 minutes to fill. We did not have to fill on 90 minutes, but if you remember, like this was pretty well planned out. We made

Four pages of notes, two of those were like fun facts and trivia. the other notes were of people who we thought might come. So this was stressful. We knew Beard was gonna come with a friend from the Bulldogs. And we knew Dan Foley was gonna come. And that was it. Ali G was a hopeful. There were other hopefuls, Justin Dieffel. Mary was a hopeful, Amber was a hopeful, Ashley Paulson was a hopeful.

Erika (57:26)
in case we had to, Phil.

Yes.

Ashley.

Eric (57:51)
All

these people said, we're going to try to make it, but no guarantees. And that was tough because it's like, it has to be between these times. It's not like on the podcast, are you available on Monday? No. How about Tuesday? We were very, I was very nervous that we would have a big time gap in between. we prepped all these notes. But what happened so beautifully was we had beard and Conan on.

And my god, Conan's story, by the way.

Erika (58:24)
I know. We actually could have talked to him for a lot longer. So it kind of worked out that we got to hear all about him. Like it was his, not his origin story. You know what I mean? Like he had his own episode basically. Like it was just getting to know him and learning about how, yeah, please. Yeah. But like getting to know how the Bulldogs helped him. And it was an incredible story.

Eric (58:28)
Right.

Mm-hmm. Well, he we're going to bring him back for him and Megan to have a couples one, but unreal.

But that day was his daughter's 18th birthday who he hasn't seen since she was three. Like that was heartbreaking. And he shared that with us. And you're such a good listener and you know what to say sometimes in those moments. And because I'm not good at it. I'm not good at saying thank you so much for sharing that. I can't do it like you. You have a deeper sense of like sympathy or a connection, emotional.

Erika (58:55)
heart breathing.

Mm-hmm.

Empathy.

Eric (59:19)
Empathy, I don't know what kind of word I'm trying to use but

Erika (59:20)
Yeah. I mean, so we've talked about this before, how you're always thinking a step ahead. I can't do that. I'm trying to focus on what they say so I can ask questions right away. But you're already thinking, where can I go from here? Where do we need to go from here? So you're really good at that part. I'm good at this. I like to think I'm good at this part.

Eric (59:34)
Right.

Right.

You're so good at it because when he

said it I was like, ⁓ shit, where do I go from here? What would I say?

Erika (59:50)
That's, yeah, that was

not an easy thing for him to share whatsoever. And it's deep.

Eric (59:53)
Right. And you nailed it. You

nailed it. And then Jess came on. So Jess is one of the guests we had on as a stage host. She walked over to watch and we were like, Jess, you're here. You need to come on the pod and talk. Remember she's from Chile. And then we just had other people come on and Saturday was a success, even though it was very cold and it was getting dark. And I could tell the only people there listening was a few of our friends. Jess.

Erika (1:00:02)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:00:23)
Aaron, Steve, Mr. 305, the other Jess from Chili.

Erika (1:00:26)
Mm-hmm.

And her family from Utah.

Eric (1:00:31)
And

I see Joe, who's like the production lead on all this, standing there, smiling, enjoying the show. Like, I'm like, he likes it. He probably wants to get out of here, but it looks like he's enjoying the show. And I just was like, this is awesome. We have six people here and they're all really enjoying the show.

Erika (1:00:54)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:00:59)
And hundreds of more will get to listen to it later. And we are putting on an experience and showing others what we can do in a live setting. We're recording it. We're getting video content so they can watch it on YouTube. They've gotten a lot of watches for like what we typically get. And what a high. I left on such a high note. We went to the bar to celebrate with Jess and Steve and Aaron. What a night.

Erika (1:01:14)
Mm.

Eric (1:01:26)
Saturday was and that's not even the best night of the whole week

Erika (1:01:30)
It was such a success. And let me just drop this. So when we talked to Jess, her name is Jess Colby. ⁓ I was able on stage to give her some My Race Tats because Dawn sent us like a package to give them out during the marathon. So I tried to give them out to all of the guests that we had. And then I'm going to give a little spoiler. When we saw her at Mile 19.2 on Monday, she was decked out. And I was so happy to see her. She had the beautiful freckles, the sparkle freckles on her face. She had like the run Boston tattoo on her arm.

Eric (1:01:39)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Erika (1:01:59)
like, you are the most fun. I'm so glad we met. And that was like a highlight of my week.

Eric (1:02:01)
Yeah.

one of the best compliments we got was from her husband at the very end of the whole entire week was just saying, you made this so special for her. That was such a nice compliment. Yeah.

Erika (1:02:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. That makes me want to cry because that's all I want to do. Like,

this is so special for us, and if we can make it special for somebody else too, like, that's just, that is the goal. That is the ultimate goal.

Eric (1:02:22)
You're right.

So that's Saturday. What a day. What an experience. ⁓

Erika (1:02:29)
So much fun. Yep. Long day.

I was so exhausted after that. That wasn't even the longest day.

Eric (1:02:34)
And I

know, but it was just so successful. Like we really, if that was it, if there was no more live shows, I would have been like, this is incredible. But I knew we had the opportunity to do it again. I was so couldn't wait for the post-race one because we knew there was going to be people. We knew there was going to be a crowd. We knew we had people coming finishers and I knew like we would have help getting others to come. But.

Erika (1:02:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Hold on one thought. Okay. So we had Dan Foley on and yes, he had announced that he's hoping to get the rest of the majors done and he's hoping for London 2027. ⁓ my God. If this works, I will like flip out. So, all right. The backstory he's talking about, he wants London 2027 to be his sixth star. It would be his 50th marathon.

Eric (1:03:06)
Yeah.

Dan and Allie G, yes.

This is good.

Well, well, yeah.

Erika (1:03:33)
And he just wants to keep raising money for Team Skinny Pig because of course you do. And we were like, okay, Abbott staring at you in the camera, Abbott, Abbott. And you clipped it. Like I said, I'm like, we're going to clip this. And you did. And then Abbott's like, we were summoned. Please send us like an email. If this works and Dan gets that bib, I will just like the path. This is how you use the internet for good.

Eric (1:03:43)
I looked right at the camera. I looked right at it.

Uh-huh.

Yes.

Erika (1:04:03)
you

Eric (1:04:03)
I mean,

if this works and Dan gets a bib for it, incredible. But if it works even more and they say, hey, you didn't just say Dan, you said Dan on the runs, Team Skinny Pig, Ali G.

Erika (1:04:15)
Ali G.

Let's go to London. Yes, but I mostly want Dan to get it because that would be incredible. And how could you say no for it? Like that would be such a special race. So thank you, Rabbit? Question mark, please. Have you?

Eric (1:04:22)
Let's fucking go.

I know. So, so we've been talking, we've been talking.

Let's talk about Monday, Sunday, nothing happened.

Erika (1:04:41)
Yes, yes, yes, yes,

Sunday I had to work because that is my life. I took Monday off. I had taken Monday off a long time ago, so.

Eric (1:04:46)
What? my god.

Again, they don't care

about, they're going to kick you to the curb, but you're going in on the weekend. ⁓ my God. So why don't you talk about Monday and our chair section? Because I've been talking a lot and I'm tired.

Erika (1:04:53)
Don't say this, you don't even know. You don't even know.

I am obsessed with mile 19.2, our cheer station. And no, I said this before too. we, when we were going into the city for the weekend, I was like, Eric, this is a lot coming down to Mass. Like it may not seem like a lot, but it is a lot of time. Like you're in the car. It's a lot of prep. So we had all of Saturday and I was like, Hey, maybe next year we can just pick one, one day, not both days.

Eric (1:05:12)
She says that now.

No, you said

Saturday.

Erika (1:05:35)
Yes, I wanted to do

Saturday because I want to be at mile 19.2. I just thought the logistics would be a little tricky to get from Newton to the FanFest again or mile 27.

Eric (1:05:39)
So you.

So you text me and you

said, next year, let's not do the Monday show. Let's just do the Saturday show.

Erika (1:05:53)
Yes.

Yes, that was my initial thought. Okay. No, he literally flat out just said no. But so that's that's setting it up. But now ⁓ I know this is a spoiler again. We had a great time and everything went well. And I understand why we would want to keep doing it. But I do have a deep love.

Eric (1:05:57)
What was my response?

No, not a chance. Never. We always do the Post-Race Show.

Erika (1:06:22)
for cheering on the runners. That is a highlight of my day. I would like, if we're gonna keep doing it, we have to do both. We have to do the cheer section. Yes, I wanna run, God damn it. Yes, so we met up at, I think it was like 8.45 in the morning ⁓ at our usual spot ⁓ at the Nashville mall. ⁓

Eric (1:06:32)
Well, if we're gonna keep doing it, you have to be there, and you keep trying not to be there.

So talk about mile 19.2, talk about our day.

Erika (1:06:52)
Jay Duncan show up, Ian Marsh showed up, Lindsay showed up, and then me and you. And we were like, all right, we got to figure out how best to do this because you were going to drive us all like whoever was coming to the mile 27, you were going to drive us. so we took an extra... Yeah. then there were... There we go. And then there were some people who didn't want to come to the after festivities. So we took a few cars. I drove down with Jay.

Eric (1:07:09)
Mile 27 was the post-race party. That's what they called it, Mile 27.

Erika (1:07:21)
And we all just met ⁓ at Newton as per usual. But we had a great crowd this year. I mean, I think there were a few less people, but we still brought the energy. It honestly was so good. Well, we had the best weather and also Patrick.

Eric (1:07:30)
Last year was the most epic. Last year we had the most. Yeah.

We also had Tara Taradactyl last year, who, again, were just going to blame us for not being organized or structured. She didn't come to anything, not one thing.

Erika (1:07:40)
Yes, yes we did.

She had she had shit to do. Work, see work is important.

Eric (1:07:56)
I can still be disappointed.

Erika (1:07:58)
I know you can't, but let me try to remember who went. So we had Renee and Amanda. Yes. I get that all the time you guys. Tara, don't listen to them. All right. So Renee and Amanda showed up again. I mentioned Ian, Jay, Lindsay, ⁓ Kat Brown and Carter, her husband showed up. Yup. And then we had some late additions after they volunteered. had Candace, Jen and Lynn and

Eric (1:08:03)
I'm not mad, just disappointed.

Yeah, he was cool. I like him.

The best. Yeah.

Erika (1:08:27)
I have all these videos. I did my fair share of content creation this weekend with my camera. I had this one video where I'm getting one of our runners, I think it was Dave, was it Dave who went by? But then I flipped the camera around and then because somebody tapped me and you capture it, we're all like, my God, it's Candace and Jen and Lynn. We're all freaking out, giving hugs. They had pom poms and just...

Eric (1:08:32)
You did great.

Yeah.

Erika (1:08:56)
were having a blast. So they rounded out this year's awesome crew of people.

Eric (1:09:03)
It was great. was, I realized I was starting to lose my voice. So I shut up for a while. I have been building up my 19.2 for a long time and I am not saying it's over.

Erika (1:09:10)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:09:21)
But I'm not guaranteeing you guys it's going to happen next year. We were invited to go to a few places. They're pretty cool. We did not go. We said we're committed to 19.2. We also have media credentials and I really want to take advantage of these and get to go to cool spots that not everyone gets to go to. But guys, I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for you. I want to take you with me, take you in the stories, build the content like

Erika (1:09:41)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:09:51)
just show you what it's like. I wanna experience it and still cheer, just maybe from a photo tower, maybe from stories above the finish line in a sweet condo in Boylston. ⁓

Erika (1:09:57)
Mm-hmm.

man.

Honestly,

if we could swing that, I can cheer from up there.

Eric (1:10:11)
We can

swing that. were given an invitation. Have you ever heard of Jordan's furniture? I can't think of his first name. Elliott. It wasn't Elliott who invited us, but it was to Elliott's place. ⁓ And I want to take advantage of these media credentials. I want to see things, not just on Monday.

Erika (1:10:19)
Elliot.

you

man.

Eric (1:10:38)
But throughout the whole weekend, we've been doing this for three, four years now. We've never gone to the expo. Why have we never gone to the expo? Why have we never taken advantage of this? I know some people say the expo is not as good as what it used to be. It's about meeting people. That's what it's about for us. ⁓ if you run in the Boston marathon, there will be no 19.2. I'll try to volunteer and then I'll try to take in the finish line, do some other things, take people with me, hopefully Tara, Tara Dactyl if she comes, but.

Erika (1:10:51)
Yeah.

Hey, I will

totally allow it if I run. I mean, I don't care what you do. But I hope some people would still want to cheer at Mile 19.2. I want to have that as a legacy.

Eric (1:11:19)
I'd

well see this is just, this is, this is hard because I feel like I was the only one pushing for this a couple of years ago and building it. And you're just like, ⁓ now, now we've completely flip flop.

Erika (1:11:34)
I have so much fun. It really is so much fun just screaming your head off, which probably was not the best idea knowing I had to podcast later because I did lose my voice a little bit. Plus, it's such a busy day. You want to make sure that you see all of your friends and you forget to ease. I forget to drink. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm handing out waters and cokes to our friends and I'm like, ⁓

Eric (1:11:44)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Erika (1:12:01)
I haven't had a sip of water all morning. You don't sit down.

Eric (1:12:04)
I, I enjoyed this year

because it was a little less than last year. Less people to entertain, less people to talk to. We could just kind of focus on cheering. Rachel, but I don't like the fact that I felt like maybe I just was feeling rushed in my mind. You kept pushing like, can we leave a little later? Can we leave a little later? I really want to see so-and-so I really, and I'm just like,

Erika (1:12:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I forgot Rachel. Rachel came by the way too. Sorry, Rachel.

I

had the list going on my phone and I was like, we have like three left, man. Can we make it?

Eric (1:12:37)
But it's not about the three.

could be 10. It could be 12. It was about the time. And I don't want to feel I I would love to go there, chair for a little bit and then go cheer somewhere else. I don't know. Maybe I'll change my opinion on this. But I left my own 19.2 feeling like. I'm OK if we don't go back for a couple of years and then and then bring it back to life. We'll see. Like if you're not running next year, if you're cheering, I do say we go back to my 19.2.

Erika (1:12:42)
Yeah, no, I know that.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:13:07)
But do we have to go all day? Do we have to commit to being there till four o'clock? Could we go to the finish line later? Like, could we hop around? I would like to maybe do that. Yeah. So a couple cool people we ran into and got to see. And I will talk about one first where I froze. And then you can talk about the one Candice got. But I saw Emma Bates and I froze.

Erika (1:13:15)
Mm. I mean, we could.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

You did.

Eric (1:13:36)
I

froze. I saw her post on her story the day before where she'll be and I'm like, she'll be at 19. And she's posting what she'll wear. It's like green jumpsuit. And like, that's her. Walked by with her husband. She looked at me dead in the eyes. But it was like the look of who are you? You're wearing a media jacket.

That was that kind of look. She then walked by you and Jay later and Jay was like, is that really her? Because what did Jay say?

Erika (1:13:59)
Okay.

And I was like, yeah, it's her.

She goes, is she really that pretty? And I go, yeah, she's really that pretty. She really is. She is a lot shorter than I thought she was. She's all legs, and I thought she was taller. I was taller than her. I had her by a good probably three, four, five inches.

Eric (1:14:15)
She was gorgeous. Guys, she was gorgeous.

I didn't think she was that short.

but you're ginormous.

Erika (1:14:34)
I know, I thought she was tall. I'm not ginormous. I thought she was one of you. I'm enormous compared to my friends.

Eric (1:14:37)
thought she was one of you. That's what you said. You called yourself ginormous. You've called yourself that on this podcast before. How tall is Emma Bates?

you're right. Emma Bages 5'4". Is that tall or short for girl?

Erika (1:14:55)
I mean, that's kind of on the short side. I mean, it's not super short, but I would say 5'6 is average, so she's a little bit under.

Eric (1:14:58)
Okay.

Okay,

July birthday by the way. Shout out to all those July birthdays. July 8th. Guess the year.

Erika (1:15:08)
July what?

God, she's probably like 30 if that

Eric (1:15:17)
92 so that would put her 02 12 22 24

Erika (1:15:24)
34? Same thing.

Eric (1:15:25)
34, 24, 34. I'm sure if Emma was listening,

she'd be like, I'll take 24. So I froze. And then I was like, when you came back, yeah, but when you came back, I was like, let's go find her. And we couldn't find her. That was sad. But.

Erika (1:15:35)
Yep, but I didn't say anything either.

Yeah. Hey,

we tried. It would have been cool, ⁓ well.

Eric (1:15:45)
we did see

one incredible person, all thanks to Candice.

Erika (1:15:52)
I think I had a part in it too. had him. I was yelling at him. Anyways, Tommy Rives, if you don't know Tommy Rives, you need to look up his story because he is an incredible survivor of this like, I don't even know what kind of cancer, but he was like on the brink of death and he came back and he is just so inspiring to just keep moving. Like that's his thing. Like you are getting out there, you are moving. It counts.

He's a huge proponent of that. And so he was all the way across the street and we're yelling like, revs, Jame revs. And he actually like looks, checks out like making sure he's not going to get in anybody's way. And he comes over to us and we're all like, oh my God, he's coming. Oh my God. So we're starting to out. I get a high five and then everybody else gives hugs. I should have gotten a hug, but I would just like, I, I,

Eric (1:16:46)
I gotta hug.

Erika (1:16:48)
It felt weird. mean, I got the high five and then I'm trying to like get content with my camera, but he's getting selfies. He took your phone and got selfies. Then Jen got a selfie with them. I'm like, this is the coolest thing ever. Like selfie with Tommy Rims.

Eric (1:17:03)
This was

all Candice. And I think the pom poms played a huge role in it. Yeah, to get like the attention. I couldn't believe it when he started walking. I think there's a video you heard me saying something like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my, it's happening, it's happening, it's happening.

Erika (1:17:08)
yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yep. So

in the reel I put together, I have just a tiny clip of him coming over, giving hugs and stuff. And then I have one clip afterwards where everybody's like freaking out at it. And I was like, life made. It was so much fun. He's such an inspiration though.

Eric (1:17:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. Unreal. Unreal. And he was so

nice. He was so nice. He was so thankful. know, thank you. ⁓ I know. ⁓ my God, that was so cool. So.

Erika (1:17:47)
Why are you thanking us? We're thanking you.

I

do. He's like a dream get to hopefully someday have on the pod. I just want to hear his story and yeah. Yeah, please.

Eric (1:17:59)
time of riffs.

Come on the

pod, buddy. Yeah. What a night or day. What a day. And then finally you gave me the green light, like, let's go. And you took forever to pack up. It's like, you could have been packing up. Like I was preparing. I was like trying to get ready. You're like, well, I gotta go. I gotta go to the bathroom now. I got it. But you could have been preparing yourself to leave. So when the last person comes, we walk out and said, then you're like, now I'm going to pack.

Erika (1:18:05)
Ugh.

Yep.

Yes.

You were, but I'm the one with the tracker.

Eric (1:18:30)
I need to go to the bathroom. I'm going to walk over to the far bathroom because it's cleaner. It's like we.

Erika (1:18:31)
So he's butthurt. Yeah, because

the other one was overflowing, I heard, which is gross. I'm so sorry. The last runner, who was Justin Duflamary? And well, he was our last runner, I should say. And he made us all laugh because he just runs by in his tri suit and goes, I can't stop. I'm peeing right now.

Eric (1:18:37)
But you could have done all this while waiting for the last runner.

Why was he wearing a triathlon suit, by the way? my god.

Erika (1:18:59)
That is a question for Justin. I have no idea.

He's a character.

Eric (1:19:06)
We got

in the truck, we drove. Yeah, you saw a car accident.

Erika (1:19:10)
We had plenty of time, by the way. ⁓

god. Yeah, we had to drive. We drove on like 90, the Mass Pike, to go through Boston, which was pretty cool. You could see the runners on the course towards Fenway. And yeah, we were going in tunnel. And you said something about you were reading the back of a truck, and it was like, left lane, good, right side, suicide or something, knowing not to pass on those sides.

Eric (1:19:36)
Right, right.

Erika (1:19:39)
And then I like, I'm like, what are you talking about? And then literally I looked to my left and somebody like rear ends their car. It was like, Ooh, Ooh, this is bad. Yeah. The worst. There's just traffic and if you don't move, dumb probably.

Eric (1:19:46)
Yeah, some truck ran into a car in the tunnel. Like, why did the car stop? Like, ⁓ my God. No, there wasn't. No, the car was trying to. No, it was honestly, I thought it was

it was the car's fault in my mind because the car was trying to go from like the left to the right. And instead of staying with the flow of traffic, he like slowed down so much to let other cars pass so he could turn. That's what I think he was doing. Like.

Erika (1:20:02)
⁓

⁓

⁓ see, I didn't see that. just literally saw

the collision.

Eric (1:20:14)
dude, you have to keep driving. You can't slow down that quickly to change lanes. It's just you're going to get hit. of course, the truck driver who rounded him is going to get be at fault. But whatever we get to Sullivan Station, we take the T in to City Hall Plaza. You you questioned me, though, when I said we're going to get off at North Station, jump on the Greenland, go one more stop. You like, why? Why? Why not get off at Haymarket? Like, trust me.

Erika (1:20:21)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yep, which was easy.

Eric (1:20:45)
Erica, was I right or was I right?

Erika (1:20:47)
You were right, because we literally walked out of the station and the entrance to City Hall Plaza was right there. But we didn't know if you could go in the other direction, because there was a way you could go in through Haymarket. But we think that they blocked it off.

Eric (1:21:00)
Because this was a ticketed event now on Monday. It wasn't like Saturday where you can walk in from any any direction. Actually, actually I couldn't figure out the ticket on my my phone and I don't think it's scanned. He goes, it's fine. I see you have media credential anyway, because I was wearing mine.

Erika (1:21:03)
It was. Yeah. We couldn't use our credentials. No, we couldn't, sadly. Did you try?

Yeah.

shit.

Well, we got some comp tickets, which was very nice. But ⁓ I didn't try it, man. I didn't bring mine.

Eric (1:21:28)
I mean, they're only $5,

but you still complain that they're charging people to go to the post-race party.

Erika (1:21:35)
That's a conversation for another time.

Eric (1:21:37)
You are complaining about people having

to pay $5 to go to a post-raise party.

Erika (1:21:42)
Yes, you pay $5 to go to a post-race party where they don't even have free food and beer for a $375 race. I think you should get some perks. You don't even get the jacket.

Eric (1:21:54)
But that party doesn't happen,

that party doesn't happen for free.

Erika (1:22:00)
Anyways, doesn't matter.

Eric (1:22:03)
$5. I could understand if you're bitching about $50. But at the time it's $5 and you had a job.

Erika (1:22:10)
and $10 at

the door.

Eric (1:22:13)
It was $10 at the door. right. ⁓ That's a tough spot to have a post-race party, by the way, because it's 1.6 miles away from the finish line and the expo. But they're trying to grow it into something big where a lot of people show up. And I think it was their biggest year.

Erika (1:22:23)
Mm-hmm.

I mean, I think so. had a really good turnout.

Eric (1:22:33)
had

a really good turnout. It really did. It's just, I wish there was the spot to do it near the finish line. That would be right.

Erika (1:22:40)
that would be cool and more convenient, but then

you do run the risk of going over capacity.

Eric (1:22:48)
But sometimes having a smaller venue feel really full, you know?

Erika (1:22:55)
It would

have been cool for us if like people had no choice but to come see our podcast.

Eric (1:22:58)
I know. Right. So we get there.

We had a couple beers. We had about an hour and a half to chill. There was another guy podcasting at the time. As we had our time slot at six, six to seven, we saw Laura Green. Like what else did we do? We saw Jess.

Erika (1:23:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Jess and Erin showed up. We just got to on Jess because she got a PR in Boston. This was a perfect weekend for runners. I think the weather was ideal, and the Boston course record was broken. So that just tells you how awesome it was. But we also got to hang out with Lindsay some more, Pat Patriot.

Eric (1:23:40)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay

Erika (1:23:46)
you

Eric (1:23:46)
was clutch. Like I was really, I know I said it before, was really counting on like Tara. Lindsay came in and she...

Erika (1:23:54)
she did.

She like ran down somebody because she saw him wearing a Yeti hat thinking it was like my Yeti trail runners. It said Yeti trail on it, but it was like a different hat. But he turned out to be an awesome person and he actually came back and talked on the pod with us. That was Matthias.

Eric (1:23:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So

let's talk about that. We get ready. There's a lot of people. I set up the camera when it's time to set up. We're on at six, but I'm like, let's start early because I wanted more than like an hour of a show. right now we're an hour and 26 minutes into this recap. said we'd, right. But you're not helping either. And I still have to edit this after.

Erika (1:24:27)
Yeah.

I keep pointing at my watch. like, dude, it's almost 11 o'clock.

Mm.

Eric (1:24:42)
But we started a little early. was fantastic. This one, I think it had a mix of like 50 50 people we've heard before on the podcast and new people. Now, if you're like, why do you keep bringing on Maurice? Why do you keep bringing on Jared or like, cause we had beard on Saturday. Why? Because we're familiar with them. Their story, their story I think is going to resonate with any new listener.

Erika (1:24:51)
Mm-hmm.

We have amazing friends.

Hmm.

Eric (1:25:12)
It also really helps us prep and prepare. We have people we know and it makes us do a better job. Again, we are showing off to the BAA and to other people what we can do and what we're capable of so we can do more of these in the future. And that's why sometimes, yes, we had Mathias and Alan who are amazing and Jess who is amazing for first timers, but we brought people who we knew we could deliver.

Erika (1:25:27)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:25:41)
like Maurice, who absolutely delivered with that one clip I posted.

Erika (1:25:42)
Yep.

Yes. We are so tired, but the people we did get. ⁓ well, it's thorough. But yeah, the people we got to meet. among them was ⁓ Oliver, who is from Louisiana and he was like an 18 year old kid. Like he's going off to college and he just goes and runs like a super fast Boston marathon. And then we had Dylan and Anna who, so Dylan got engaged right after he finished the, like the, marathon and.

Eric (1:25:51)
Cool. We're tired. And this is a terrible recap. I'm sorry, guys.

Yeah.

So perfect.

We need

to find them. We need to find them.

Erika (1:26:20)
We were like, what?

my God. I can't believe we didn't do a better job like getting Instagrams or whatever. But that's, that's incredible. And then, ⁓ who else did we have? Yeah. Mathias. Mathias and his wife bought us beers and gave it to us on stage. I was like, no way. We said it half jokingly like, yeah, maybe we'll like go get us a beer. I forgot what I even said, but they did. And I was like,

Eric (1:26:37)
Yeah, so I...

Erika (1:26:46)
my God, I can't believe you actually did. Thank you so much. Like you guys are awesome.

Eric (1:26:50)
So I got a DM from somebody.

Erika (1:26:53)
yeah?

Eric (1:26:55)
They wanted to know if you were drunk.

Erika (1:26:57)
I literally, I had one beer before you had two beers and then why, yes, I'm absolutely sure. Why, what did I do?

Eric (1:27:02)
Are you sure?

You were very excited and loud.

Erika (1:27:08)
Well, hello. It was probably me trying to overcompensate for having no voice. Had to project.

Eric (1:27:18)
It was awesome. It was awesome.

Erika (1:27:19)
I was not drunk. I didn't even

drink all my beer like while it was sitting in front of me.

Eric (1:27:25)
We had just an incredible time. Some incredible people, guys, like... I... Devon wasn't... Yeah.

Erika (1:27:32)
Devon, we forgot about Devon and Chris.

Chris getting her six star, who knows Kayla and all the connections like.

Eric (1:27:38)
That was so cool. That was so cool. Who

else was there? Talk about them as I'm looking up the questions real quick.

Erika (1:27:46)
So we had Jordan and Jared back on the pod. So shout out to Jared. He did Tough Rock the day before Boston and won. He won, right? Overall, I think he won the whole thing. I think he won. Yeah. And then he goes and just does a fun one of those. He podiumed, yeah, he ran Boston with Kelly from Fit Travel and

Eric (1:27:53)
Mm-hmm.

I think so, yeah. Or I got second.

Erika (1:28:15)
Like, they were just super fun. What else am I missing? I think I hit them all, no? Maurice, you said Maurice. ⁓ and they were interactive. They were like clapping and then we had like Sid and Kate on Ali G's side with her friends and which was insane. Yeah.

Eric (1:28:21)
We had a crowd too, like Candice and Jen came. And Lin, yeah.

You had Pat the Patriot. We had random people walking by, stopping and watching, and then they

would leave and then they would come back or others and people wanted to come on. It was so cool. I want to do more of that guys. We're going to take the best content that we find from this. We're going to send it to New York Roadrunners. going send it to Chicago and others and say, we want to do this. I'm going to send it to Chicago because, and I'm going to say, my cohost is already there. If you're doing anything like this.

Erika (1:28:57)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:29:03)
I will fly out there in the morning, we'll do the show and I'll fly back that night. We'll make it happen. ⁓ Getting our foot in the door. Okay, I got a couple questions. I a couple Q &A questions. All right. I know, and we're an hour and a half into this. ⁓ Well, you know, ⁓ your problem, not mine.

Erika (1:29:07)
you

would be super cool. Sure. I forgot you did that.

Yeah, Brandon's gonna kill me.

11 o'clock.

⁓ until Brandon's

like, you can't record anymore.

Eric (1:29:30)
⁓ You make your own rules. He doesn't make your rules. Here we go. That's staying in the pot. ⁓ How did he get your media credentials? I think we cover that, right? We cover that. Thank you to Chris. Yeah, thank you to Chris Lostbomb. Thank you so much. Here's a good one, Erica. Tell us about Eric's Twizzlers.

Erika (1:29:32)
Sure.

Yes, we covered that. indeed in great detail. Please, please and thank you, Chris.

⁓ my God, Eric, you do not know how to open a fucking bag. So the one thing Eric wanted, I asked him, I'm like, can I get you anything? I was going grocery shopping for the water and the cokes and that was pretty much it. Lindsay took care of the like fruit snacks and whatever for the runners. And he goes, I would like Twizzlers. So I went to the store, checking it out. They did not have the regular bag. So I was like, all right, he deserves a big bag of Twizzlers.

If you are familiar with the big bag of Twizzlers, ⁓ has a nice little pull tab and a zipper to reclose it. Well, Eric does not give a shit about that zipper. That is not true because you did it to my Twizzlers the last time and I yelled at you.

Eric (1:30:24)
Which I'm not.

I was not aware.

I did not know

what I was being yelled at because I was distracted by two boys, twins running around.

Erika (1:30:47)
Clearly not paying attention.

Are you going to remember this now? Do we need to clip this and I'll send it to you every time you open a bag of-

Eric (1:30:53)
I'm now very curious

about this because even though I remember you yelling at me at Ghost Train about the Twizzlers, I don't remember why. I thought...

Erika (1:31:00)
Mm-hmm. That's what it was, Ghost Train,

where I was like, ate my fucking twizzler. ⁓ because she opened up. You just ripped the whole side open. And I was like, it has a nice reclosable zipper.

Eric (1:31:06)
I thought it was just because I ate Twizzlers. I didn't know it was because of the way I opened the bag.

Yeah,

which, thinking about it, that's genius.

Erika (1:31:19)
Well, you opened him up this

way again, and then you threw him in my backpack, and there's free floatin' all over the place. How'd they taste, Eric? There's probably dirt in there. So there we are, ladies and gentlemen.

Eric (1:31:29)
So good, they're so good.

Now

that I know this is there on the bag, that's like genius. It's so smart. Well, I don't read the bag. I just open the bag like you open a bag of chips and you just start like.

Erika (1:31:39)
It literally says that next time you look, it's literally on the front of the page.

you

Eric (1:31:49)
That was a good one. knew you'd like it. highlight of the weekend. Best story you heard, best outfit seen.

Erika (1:31:51)
my god, is that Lindsay? Really? I'm shocked.

Well, outfit hands down goes to Yuki. Although I did see on ⁓ online, somebody went as, this is very niche, Princess Donut from the Dungeon Crawler girl series. And I was like so bummed because I would have yelled, god damn it, Donut, had her if I had known. anyways, but Yuki.

Eric (1:32:16)
Okay.

There was one

yeah, Yuki every year if I was well I The only other outfit I remember is because a listener told me to look out for someone running in a corn on the cob outfit and His name was Derek and we saw him and we yelled for Derek and he looked at us and waved or something ⁓ highlight I think

Erika (1:32:35)
on that gob. He made it in my video I think. There was also a few bananas.

Yeah.

Probably Tommy Rives

and the podcasts.

Eric (1:32:50)
And I'm gonna say the stage hosting,

because I really hope we do more stage hosting. ⁓ Can I come and be with you guys next time? Of course you can. Yes, yes. In fact, that person can even, you know, stage host or podcast with us. ⁓ That's Kayla Zerwarko.

Erika (1:32:54)
booty vortex.

Open invitation to all.

Who is it?

Of course. OK, Kayla. You don't even have to ask. She could just show up.

Eric (1:33:13)
What

runner had the best response to your cheer section?

Erika (1:33:19)
What runner? Huh.

Eric (1:33:20)
Okay, what about

PodFam?

I'm gonna shout out Dave.

Erika (1:33:29)
⁓ Dave Bellovo.

Eric (1:33:29)
Because

yeah, cause he didn't stop last year cause he didn't really know. And this year he got to do it and he stopped. took photos. Yes. Yes. I'm going to say Dave, ⁓ outside of Tommy, which Tommy ribs.

Erika (1:33:36)
He did like the wind up, he's like, here we come. That was awesome.

I mean,

I love when we start cheering for Patrick Karen. We do the Patrick Karen, because we never know. He's always super fast. He runs by, but we always notice him. And he goes, woo, like arms up. It's so fun. Patrick Karen.

Eric (1:34:00)
Yeah, that's become a staple just us all sharing that and

what will continue to happen if this other guy keeps running, will be, have you seen my friends Zidane? Has anyone seen my friends Zidane?

Erika (1:34:14)
That was amazing. Yes. Has anybody seen Zanino?

Eric (1:34:21)
My friend,

did you miss me?

Erika (1:34:27)
Was this Tara? Yes. Patrick? And also Patrick, we missed you too. Yes.

Eric (1:34:29)
Yes. It was Tara. Slightly disappointed still.

⁓ Further questions as I swiped it away. What would you want to do? What would you want to do the same and different the next year? ⁓

Erika (1:34:37)
We did miss you, Tara.

Eric (1:34:50)
I really want to be more...

engaged with the events going on. I want to meet more people and just continue to show who we are and what we want to do and how we want to be a part of this.

Erika (1:35:05)
Mm-hmm.

I want

to spend the whole weekend down there. Get like 17 people to split a hotel room. Easy peasy.

Eric (1:35:12)
Yeah, I do just need a sponsor to pay for that.

What do you want to do, same or different?

Erika (1:35:21)
Well, I would want to spend more time in Boston without having to commute back and forth. That's my only thing. I just think that now that we know how the like fan fest works, how mile 27 post-race party works, I think that the organization can make little tweaks, maybe move our booth a little bit more in the action while still not being close to the stage to draw more people in. Cause I think that us being in

Eric (1:35:46)
Mm-hmm.

Erika (1:35:51)
a corner kind of made it hard for people to wander over that way. So maybe we didn't get as much exposure as we would have liked.

Eric (1:35:59)
And I think they really liked us and they're gonna, they want us back and they wanna talk to us a little bit. Maybe, like they might ask us some questions like what would, they did ask us and I'm sure they'll talk to us more. Like what should they do differently? This is the first time they'd done something like this. ⁓

Erika (1:36:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, they could have just made traffic flow a little bit better towards the back, because they had the Impossible Meats set up back there. The shocks tent was back there. And I feel like it just didn't get a whole lot of ⁓ foot traffic. if they just kind of rearranged things a little bit, I think it would have worked out a lot better.

Eric (1:36:34)
Yeah.

I got four more questions, but I'm going to mix them all into one because this is late. And they all pretty much saying, like, what was your favorite or the coolest par experience? And then one actually asks, OK, here's another one. How many words did Eric mispronounce? So.

Erika (1:36:58)
It was mostly just names.

Eric (1:36:59)
⁓ Well, Matthias. And I called him Matthias. And then I got their state wrong. I said they're from Indiana and they're like nowhere from Illinois. ⁓

Erika (1:37:04)
Mm-hmm, Matthias. Yeah.

I just love

correcting you because that's the one thing I remember in the moment. like since you said it, I was like, I don't know anymore. So I do try to pay attention.

Eric (1:37:21)
⁓ just the whole weekend. The whole weekend was a dream. You know, okay, here's what I'll leave. Laura, and I'm spacing on her last name, but Laura made a post the other day saying, I'm listening to an episode from two years ago, and it's so cool to hear my friends talk about something they want to do.

Erika (1:37:23)
You did really well.

Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:37:50)
and they actually did it last weekend.

Erika (1:37:53)
Man we've been manifesting this for two years, and it

Eric (1:37:55)
Yeah.

And let me tell you something. You can manifest things. They only happen when you do the fucking work.

Erika (1:38:03)
That's you, dude. Yep. This is your baby. You take care of your baby. You have ideas and growth and.

Eric (1:38:08)
And that's just, I saw that quote somewhere

and other people are so like, yeah, well, let's manifest, let's do this. And you still gotta do the work. And I love the work. I love this. really hope we're gonna be doing a lot more of this, guys. I hope you enjoyed it because...

Erika (1:38:21)
It's evident.

Eric (1:38:30)
I don't care if you didn't, we're gonna keep doing it.

Erika (1:38:34)
You're stuck with us now.

Eric (1:38:35)
bigger

and better. ⁓ my plane ride at the airport waiting on delay, I listened to little bit of Wheel Run 4. I loved your reaction guys to the show. ⁓ They were so excited for us. So ⁓ what a cool weekend. Let's do more. Sorry for this extremely long recap. Sorry to Erica for keeping you up past 11. However, I will be up later. Sometimes you forget that.

Erika (1:38:43)
Mm-hmm.

Yay!

Yeah, you will.

Yep. He's got some editing to do. Honestly, you could just drop it as is. It's got mistakes, but hey, that's how we roll.

Eric (1:39:09)
I'm gonna listen to it in like

1.5 speed.

Erika (1:39:14)
There you go. But hopefully next year when we get to do this again, we hope to see you guys there. Come shout out, come hang out with us, come cheer, come do all the things. We want to see you.

Eric (1:39:15)
Yeah, so.

Yeah, some,

some quick housekeeping. Friday, May 1st, we're doing a live show at Ted's, running store in Keene, New Hampshire. Sorry, we haven't been promoting that as much or talking about it, but man, Boston weeks has been insane. ⁓ I know they weren't the official sponsor, but thank you to Dawn for my race tats. Thank you so much for all your support. It was a lot of fun handing out my race tats. And then next week will be.

Erika (1:39:49)
Mm-hmm. We appreciate you.

Eric (1:39:57)
Chasenjeru in the Arizona Monster 300.

And it's already recorded, it's already edited, and it's being uploaded. You will not get the normal Tros. We pre-recorded this. I think not that we're tired, but it's just a way for us to give us one week here.

Erika (1:40:17)
I'm tired.

Mm-hmm. I am physically and emotionally exhausted, so I could use a week.

Eric (1:40:28)
Yeah, so you won't hear back from us like updates for two weeks.

Erika (1:40:34)
And it sucks because like the London Marathon just broke world records like all over the place and I do want to talk about it, but I guess it can wait.

Eric (1:40:41)
Well, maybe you

should record with like Tara or somebody.

Erika (1:40:45)
that's on deck. I'm going to we're just going to shoot the shit and have fun. OK, game on. Eventually.

Eric (1:40:49)
Yeah, so you're going to hear from Erica while I'm on my business trip. Yeah, awesome.

Well, this was fun. I'm tired.

Erika (1:41:01)
Yep. Let's

just close it out. Everybody else wants to go to bed too.

Eric (1:41:05)
Yeah, I'm

tired, but I'm just full like of. So happy.

Erika (1:41:12)
Yes.

Eric (1:41:13)
Yeah. And I'm going to be posting a lot more reels from all those live shows, guys. I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. I want people to see it, to see what we can do. Thank you so much to everyone who supported us. Again, like this is really like 50 degrees of Kevin Bacon. So many people from Jamie state in that story, getting us to Chris Lotsbaum, ⁓ John Mortimer. And I sent John Mortimer a text message saying like,

Erika (1:41:37)
It's been a crazy ride.

Eric (1:41:42)
this never would have happened if you didn't believe in us and we just went with it when you said, let's do it. And two weeks later, we did it. Like one year ago, we never did a live show and now we've done one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight or nine, six, seven. Yeah, this is great. So.

Erika (1:41:56)
Yeah, I can't even count them all. Jesus.

god.

On

that note, let's wrap this up, buddy. You ready? Thank you guys so much for sticking with us. And I mean, if you're listening to this late, thank you for staying up. You guys know we love you.

Eric (1:42:12)
Take us home, Erica.

Don't fear the code brown.

Erika (1:42:22)
All right.

And don't forget to stretch.

Eric (1:43:22)
Without hesitation said yes. So she added Rob to the email. We get Rob on the podcast.

Erika (1:43:30)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (1:43:35)
So I reached out to Bex like last fall to get Rob Simulcare on the podcast. that that's how we got Rob within that communication. We got to meet Rob's executive assistant, Jesse. And I knew that Rob works in New York roadrunners. He's on the podcast with Bex and Rob. So I'm saying meb. I'm 9 41 at night. This is what you're getting guys. This is what you're getting.

Erika (1:43:41)
Mm-hmm.

See, can't hold it against us. No. Yeah.