Art of Prevention
Our mission is to decrease the prevalence of preventable injuries and athletes therein optimizing performance by decreasing the time that our athletes spend benched due to injury. We are going to distill information and practices from experts in the field of injury prevention. High level coaches and top performing athletes. We believe this information should be accessible to everyone so that we can reduce the rates of preventable injuries.
Art of Prevention
Building Community Through Running: Rodney Ripley and the Good Guys Run Club Journey
From collegiate athlete to one of the beating hearts of Houston's running scene, Rodney Ripley's story captivates and inspires. Join us as Rodney, the co-founder of Good Guys Run Club, recounts the transformative power of running and community. Our conversation unwraps the club's evolution from a small pack of friends to a hub of over a hundred runners who gather each week, finding solace and strength in shared strides. The club's inclusivity shatters the intimidating facade of competitive running, welcoming all paces and faces, and proving that connection can thrive in the most unexpected places.
Delight in the tales of triumph and friendship that have blossomed on the pavements of Good Guys Run Club. Discover how post-run mingling and mutual encouragement have turned beginners into marathon enthusiasts and built a support network that stretches well beyond the finish line. Rodney and I delve into the strategies that have made running accessible to every member, fostering an atmosphere where the journey is just as celebrated as the destination.
As Rodney shares the heartbeat of the club, we also explore its evolution into a non-profit and the challenges and joys that come with broadening horizons. From battling through the Texas Independence Relay to dreaming of global expansion, the club's story is one of ambition and community spirit. And as we close this episode, remember: while the stories shared may motivate and guide you, they're merely a starting point for your own health and wellness journey. Always seek professional advice when needed, and join us next time for another dose of inspiration.
And remember: Good Guys always win!
If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you know that strength training is crucial for runners. However a major obstacle for many runners is not know what to do once they get to the weight room. This PDF seeks to change that. It will arm you with the tools you need to effectively strength train to get the most out of your runs.
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Hello everybody and welcome to yet another episode of the Art of Prevention podcast. As always, I have another amazing guest. Today we have a bit of a unique guest. I always try and bring the highest level clinicians, coaches and athletes onto the podcast so that we can distill information that they've gleaned to everybody that's listening. I've got somebody who is an athlete, but really I think of you, Rodney, as a little bit more of like a community leader kind of person. With the awesome running group that you've created and you're one of the founders of this running group You've really cultivated that group to where it's really flourishing now.
Speaker 1:Rodney Ripley, you're one of the founders of the Good Guys Run Club down in Houston, Texas. Although, man, you guys are growing at such an alarming rate Not alarming, but in a really cool way. My brother's one of the guys that goes up and shows up to the Good Guys Run Club and he was telling me how unique it is as a group that everybody shows up and you guys have a huge spectrum of athletes that show up, from people that are qualifying and running at Boston all the way down to people that are just making it around that four mile loop. You're a decathlete over at A&M and then post collegiate, kind of sifting around, and then you started the Good Guys Run Club.
Speaker 1:right Tell me a little bit more about your backstory and how the Good Guys Run Club came to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like a lot of us guys on the Run Club are buddies from the A&M track team, all kind of group around each other and really I think like just the cross-country community, like kind of everyone knew each other really well. So that's how, like I got to be friends with your brother Brigham. He was pretty good friends with another one of the runners that ran at A&M. We've met and then we put together this team of guys to do this amazing relay called the Texas Independence Relay and it was kind of funny. We were all sitting in a room one day and we were like, hey, we've all got good athletic history. Look at this course record for this 187 miles. It's at this pace, it's like at six minute pace, we can crush that.
Speaker 2:And we got like a bunch of us together to go run it and we miserably failed that year. Brigham wasn't on the team that year, I believe. But then, yeah, like we all started running, we lost, we got like fourth place. We considered that like a terrible loss and everything and we were like, okay, like we're going to get our butts into gear the next year. And that's whenever I think Slatt and Brigham like they rekindled or connected and he started running with a standard shape and then he was on the team and everything. He just started like building a squad of guys and I definitely did not fit in with all those runners as far as like the caliber of running that they're at, but it was still just like a cool group of guys, like we're all together and just like mesh really well and encourage each other, and then just built like a huge community out of it and then came back and won it the next year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did you guys transition from being a group of dudes getting together and training for this race which the next Texas Independent Relay is coming up right?
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah, it's in a. We're in the month of March, so March 23rd, 24th, is when we run on a race. Super exciting, I had it?
Speaker 1:How'd you guys grow from, you know, four or five, six guys coming together to now you guys have over a hundred people coming together to go for a run with each other on Wednesday nights.
Speaker 2:It is kind of it just flourished, really like I think people just saw us together running and I think it was also just like like kind of just catching lightning in a bottle, like I think everyone was in that phase like after COVID they wanted to run and stay in shape and that they were seeing us getting out there and everyone feels very comfortable with, like our group of guys, even though, like, some people are faster than others. And then we just started going from like having the 12 people that showed up from the relay team and then it grew to like 20 people. The next day People were inviting their friends or girlfriends and whatnot, and then we moved to a good like. Where we were running from was primarily bars, which is like a typical for a lot of times.
Speaker 2:It was like running we were yeah, we went to Buffalo Bayou Brewery at first, which was the great location, but it's just kind of awkward to get to the run trails. And then we went to Patterson's Park for a little bit and that's when we started getting like 50 plus people showing up regularly and for running around that four mile loop that we had there on the wide of bayou. We found Highline Park and that that's just kind of like been our home since then, being over there in MKT and in that area. And then just the popular location beer bunch of guys run around shortlist then which of course attracted some girls come and just went from from like 12 people to 50 people to like over 100 easily every single week.
Speaker 1:And I think that's such, a such a big thing that so many people are craving.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily, like the guys run without their shirts on, but when we went through COVID and we weren't able to get together, we saw all these different pathological things occur and we saw increases in loneliness and then a lot of the sequelae of loneliness, which includes substance abuse and a lot of like overdose deaths and things like that in the United States. And now another thing of like sequelae of COVID is a lot of people work from home and don't get real face-to-face interaction like we used to, like we don't really interact with the workplace like we used to. So I'm sure a ton of people that go to the run club work from home and it's like and I know a lot of people you were talking about like really like, look forward to Wednesday and going for a run and doing that four mile loop, which is kind of wild, you know. It's almost like a similar to like in the 80s and 90s when, like, the jogging boom began because of Nike's founder, bill Bowerman, made that book jogging. You know, right, what are some of the things that differentiate your run club from other, like get-togethers for running, because I know of a lot of, like you know, quote-unquote run clubs that they get together and it's a group of fast guys or girls and stuff like that, but they kind of stagnate. It's like you know you get like five people right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's made y'all's group really grow? I'm sure it's something besides the discounted drinks over at the bar afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's really just like just the community, like just the group of people that we kind of started with out there like made it fun and we just did a really good job of like being really inclusive with everybody with the paces, like not having just the fast runs there, like we would start like maybe with different pace groups so we'd have like okay, like we'll let the fast guys go first, they're not having to run around. You know everybody at the beginning and then we just had a more comfortable pace with everybody else and there was really just no strict regiment. It was kind of like if you want to work hard, like we got the guys for you, but if you want to just hang out and run, like you can literally sit at the bar and drink the whole time and wait for us to come back, and uh, yeah, like it's just we just we just had a fun group of people out there and and people have stayed and we've we've had small people kind of grow from.
Speaker 1:Ryan, are you familiar with the guy named Ryan Holiday?
Speaker 2:Uh, I should, it sounds familiar.
Speaker 1:So he lives in Texas, just outside of Austin, and he is a big. He like, loves, like stoic philosophy. I just watched him speak, uh, at a convention. It was super good, and one of his books is titled Ego is the Enemy and when we were talking earlier we were talking about how, like a lot of times, running can be this really ego driven kind of sport like really like this pervasive ethos of like I'm faster than you and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:You know and his childhood says that sounds like that can really like progress and permeate a lot of people's like why they run you know, Right, I know the the name is the Good Guys Run Club, but how do you guys kind of take that ego out of the equation so that it is something that everybody feels comfortable showing up and just doing their thing, whether that be walk, jogging that four mile loop or like really getting after it with the training and some of the accessory training they all do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's kind of like a big thing. Like, yeah, with the faster guys. Like usually people like at first we're getting intimidated by like oh, like we're not going to be able to keep up with you guys, you're going to leave us in the dust, and like like, honestly, that's like one thing that Jake Boots like he's like the founder of it all, like I like I helped him out like with getting all the logistics and playing, like getting everyone everywhere. But um, he was just a really fast guy and he was me and him were both like just almost like cold calling people and like telling people, hey, like, if you come, like bring three of your other friends, like everyone, come. Like let's go jog, go for a jog this day, like it's a great day outside and all that.
Speaker 2:And um, a lot of people were just kind of intimidated like yeah, no, you guys are going to be way too fast, like we're not going to be able to keep up. It's like no, literally, like you can walk for a little bit, run for a little bit, but we really just want to hang out with you after that's, that's all we really care about. We just want to see your faces. And it slowly got people like out of like their shell to come and do it. And, uh, we would. Just, we would jog with them, like even though we were way faster, we'd run with them, and then be like, okay, and now we got like our five minutes of talking in, we're gonna, we'd go do our thing. And then, yeah, we just kind of gotta just get people to get out of their shells to come around with us and everything.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna be honest, when I was in, uh, chiropractic school, I was coming from running at Adam State, which you know, some people know about a lot of people don't, um, but it's got a little bit of a reputation and so I was in chiropractic school wanting people to run with because I was training for like the chiro games, which is like a big like games that's in between like schools, so all the schools come together, yeah, so you like Canadians coming down from Canada and we all meet up in Florida in November and it's a really, really good time and I'm trying to train for the chiro games and literally I couldn't get a single person to run with me.
Speaker 1:I think I got I got one guy to run with me and do one workout with me and it was like pitiful. So maybe that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on. Like, how did you make that happen? You know, how did you guys get so much success in the beginning and then really grow it?
Speaker 2:you know, yeah, yeah, and like a lot of our people that had come like, it's kind of like they. They say, like I just don't run, I couldn't make it four miles. I'm like like you don't have to run four miles, you can just run for one mile to one mile back and that's two. It's very easily like, and if you're running really slow, like that takes you 20 minutes, so you're doing 20 minutes of work and then we hang out and like we'll just socialize after, that kind of stuff. So it was really just kind of breaking it down to people and making it simple.
Speaker 2:Farlic runs were like a cool thing to kind of introduce to everybody, because not everyone knows like what kind of workout style that is. So it's like okay, like for you run for one minute and then you could walk for one minute, like, and that's like probably the simplest way to do a farlic run. And then, like once they start stepping up, like okay, like now do one minute running and then one minute slow jog, like then after a little bit you're doing two minutes fast and then one minute slow jog and stuff like that. So like after a little bit, like people are running for 10 minutes, then they run for 20 minutes, then they're running for 30 minutes, 40 minutes straight, and then, before they know it, they're running a full loop around and they're like feel so accomplished by it, like okay, cool. And then they come up with this wild idea like all right, now I think I'm gonna go run a marathon and I'm like you know you got to do what you just did times like seven or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I that's something I was about to bring up is like once people get there, you know they dip their toes in the water with a little bit of running and then they're like hey, this is really fun, I really like hanging out with everybody. It sounds like you guys have had a lot of people transition to now. I have some goals with running. Yeah, I want to do a half, I want to do a full marathon, stuff like that. How cool has it been to watch people make that transformation.
Speaker 2:That's really cool, yeah, like I mean just this other week, whenever I was hanging out at Run Club a little late like I'm usually the last one to leave on our Wednesday socials, like I'll take down all of our like our flag poles and all that kind of stuff we have, like we've gotten like things to like make us look a little bit more official now.
Speaker 2:But I was talking to these two guys and they're just like hey, how did like this all come together? And they just kind of wanted to know like the state of the run club, stuff like that. And they said in the middle like oh yeah, I just love coming Like because, like I just made friends out of this, like me and him didn't know each other before this, like now buddies and we're hanging out all the time. So, like, whenever I see stuff like that, I'm like this is like, this is what it's all about. Like it's kind of cool words, gotten people to meet. And then that same guy he was like winning or race raffle with us, and then he ended up getting to run the half marathon because he just was showing up and got a three half marathon admissions.
Speaker 1:Oh shoot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you went from like I'll just run into getting shape and kind of, like you know, get on top of my cardio game. And then now he's he's running a half marathon and he's never done that distance before.
Speaker 1:So so and the elite sides kind of, or you know the, the, the crew of people that are really, really psyched, that's also growing right.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, like with getting a lot of people in shape for the TIR. So like I'll jump back on that kind of stuff. Like that group that won the TIR in 2023, they were like, they were working out hard that whole entire year and the Houston marathon actually happens, coincidentally, like in the beginning of January. So like a lot of them, like they we were training up for like the half marathon of the full marathon, for for then, and so they're already like at a good block of shape and like they're running PRs, some more Boston qualifying and stuff like that. And we had one guy that Boston qualified that year and still ran on the TIR team and then went and ran his PR in Boston too. So like just from some of the competitive nature that we have in there, like in almost like the network of like high caliber runners that we have, like they all kind of build off of each other too and like they, they they enjoy kind of just having like a good brotherhood or camaraderie around us too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember y'all training hard because I was getting a lot of phone calls from my brother last year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like oh, this hurts, and hasn't? I don't have a training facility at OSU to come and fix me up anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the training facility was calling Nick and like seeing what, what kind of exercises and stuff he should be doing. We got him mostly patched up, I think. I think he's going to do a lot better this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the heck. Yeah, he's been doing pretty good. Like he kind of came out of the works randomly one day Like he's like hey, like like you know, he has Harvey now and everything, so like he's just he's up taking care of the kid and all that kind of stuff and he was like, hey, I can make it out for Saturday long run. Like who's all going to be there? I'm like, oh, bobby's going to be there and Bobby's one of our like really good runners that we have on the team. It's like cool, like well, we'll do a long run. And he did. They just knocked out a 12 mile run and I was looking at their pace and like, dude, they ran like 6, 30s for 12 miles and I was like, brigham, you are in good shape. Thank God you've been running lately. He's like dude.
Speaker 1:I didn't even realize. Before I knew what we were at 10 miles and I was like you're nuts man For those of you that don't know my, I do have a brother and he just had a kid. The kid's name is Harvey, so don't worry, harvey's not like a dog or anything like that. He had to take some time to get that dad bod ready, you know. Yeah, and now he's got that dad's strength, I guess because he's been doing some runs man.
Speaker 2:I mean he's getting some muscle too, Because like I've seen pictures of him when he was running at OSU, so like I've always seen him when he's, I guess, weighed a little bit more, but yeah, he's been gaining some muscle and stuff like that too, and he can still bust out like sub six pace whenever it comes down to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which a lot of runners think that is insane. Like, yeah, I am. You know, I treat a lot of runners right Up in Summit County and and I tell them like hey, you should be strength training, it's going to decrease your chances of getting these injuries because it's going to increase your tissue tolerance. It'll even benefit your running performance and gosh like sometimes that can be a real uphill battle, just just like explaining to people that it's going to be beneficial and you may. There are certain ways in which you can like gain mass with weight training, but there are also things that you can do that won't gain mass but you will gain in strength, right, but I mean my brother's a prime example of somebody who you know he had a couple of injuries and stuff going on. I hope he doesn't mind me talking about him on this podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm sure he doesn't. It's inside of what's it called the hip, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a hip violation, for sure, but I'm sure you won't see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's, I'm giving him free treatment, so he'll be all right with it.
Speaker 1:He, he's gained a little bit of muscle mass but, you know, I think it's really benefited him, and it's benefited him not only like with his running and stuff, but also like longevity wise.
Speaker 1:Because we know that if we look at the lifespan, we have hormonal changes that occur around the age of 40. The changes are more pronounced than women as they're like hormones start to really like go down as far as like estrogen and stuff like that, things that help you recover from bouts of exercise. But really like we reached like muscle mass, like the maximum of that and the maximum in bone mineral density around the ages of, you know, between 30 and 40. And then we see a slow decline. But what we see is that with athletes that are doing strength training and things like running, that decline, instead of being a sharp decline, is a much smaller decline. So people are more likely to stay the same or just have like a really small decline, as opposed to that steep decline that you often see in like the literature and stuff like that. I think that's one of the really cool things about the run club that you've started is you're making running kind of cool again. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not that isolated person on the side of the road that's just going for that run, it's like it. It's been something that's really been really difficult for me to find post collegiate Lee and I'm sure it was something that was difficult for you to find too, and so then you guys just made it right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, like, interestingly enough, like after I so, my senior year of college, I did an internship and it goes into your semester of college, which, luckily, I was able to do it like in college station. Still, I did. I did the construction and management program over at A&M and was able to get an internship with the construction team that was building the new track and field complex, the outdoor track and field complex there.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was just a seriously like such a lucky lottery ticket that I got to go and do that, because they've been talking about that project for years, and so then when they gave me an offer to be an intern with them, it was super awesome. But I had to choose between wanting to still run on the track team and being an intern, and I could have done both, but like I just I was at that crossroads in my life and I was like, oh, like I think I need to focus on the rest of my life versus like trying to qualify for SECs and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So I made that decision and whenever I stopped working out, I like there is an extreme decline in my like, my mood. So I mean I was borderline depressed at that time. And this really tough, tough transition getting getting like back into the gym, like doing stuff on my own, versus having like a coach routine and having the community of like all my athletes I worked out with all the time like now by myself and having a couple of my own workouts, and it was like extremely tough and discouraging for a long time and I was figuring it out slowly because I was still like in college, I had friends and everything, so like got through all that. But even when I went home I was like trying to find a community of people that go work out with. So I eventually founded weightlifting, which did like all the snatches and clean and jerks and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:And then I switched from that and then I like had a swallowing some pride because becoming because when you do Olympic weightlifting and you talk about crossfitters, you're like these guys are that? That's all fake, that's whatever. And then I've been picking up crossfit and I was like no, this is, this is fun. I like this. This is my style of working out on the and found that community and and then now it's transitioned into the run club and everything and like it's, it's a, it's very. It was a very easy transition and like the like the running community is so awesome and Houston too. Like as well as the crossfers. Not like. I left the crossfit community because I was like these guys are too too much Like it was. I'm having a hard time letting go of CrossFit right now, but even even fun.
Speaker 1:Even up in Semic County, like that's one thing that I really found was a really cool crossfit community up there and it's a. It's a real, really small community just in general, and I love the crossfitters I got I help a lot of the crossfitters stay crossfitting, you know, but it's just, it's so cool and it's such an ironic thing because you'd think that you'd need to have something that's like pure, like just enjoyment or something like that, but really like going for a run and going for a crossfit workout, especially like that's not the, that's a pretty painful ordeal, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:But I look at.
Speaker 2:I had like the Garmin actually tracks the hit workouts on it. Oh yeah, yeah, and I I'll calculate. We're all like let it just kind of ride while I'm doing a workout and stuff like that. And I've seen my heart rates gotten the highest or second highest in CrossFit and it's been like 197. Like I think I might have hit 201 one time. Maybe was from CrossFit or maybe it was from doing this other crazy ultra marathon relay that I did. It was a totally different one called the Hoppernero run, but yeah, no, like it's. You get into some uncomfortable places when in CrossFit and we're in the higher rock show right now to do that. I haven't even really done a higher rocks thing yet, but that's another facet of fitness, I think, and like one of falling down my path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say like, are you going to start like blending like the CrossFit style stuff with the run club and it brings him, bring some rowers and stuff out for the club sometime it would be cool.
Speaker 2:But now we're just keeping it just running like I like I have no problem connecting with, like the higher rocks community and like doing some like collaborative, like run clinics and things like that. But we we try to do something like that. Actually, with that the higher rocks manager I think we're talking a little bit about earlier we try to do something and it's just. It's just got a blue and it is kind of like one of the things that you take for granted, like with how great our community has been and being. Like I don't think we've had, like there's maybe been a number of times I can count my hand where you've had less than like 50 people show up.
Speaker 2:Wow, and it has to do from weather or like a holiday or something like that Pretty much. And besides that, like it's it gets to be like 100 people every time. And unfortunately, like when we try to do something with higher rocks, like to do like a Friday morning workout, like we couldn't get five people out there consistently. And yeah, it's yeah, and higher rocks is a big community, a big up and coming community right now. But yeah, it's just, I don't know. There's sometimes there's just a little bit of magic there to get things going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if it happens, it happens, it'll grow, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's just like I think we're just doing fine without, without the good guys.
Speaker 1:One thing I'm curious about how'd you guys come up with the name that good guys run club?
Speaker 2:I think we're literally just messing around and just like we just needed we needed a team name for the TIR and it was kind of already like with the slogan is like good guys, good guys, always win, and we say that all the time now, and if we need to like patent that saying or put some kind of hashtag, everything on it, but you should be hashtagging that good guys always win, right yeah?
Speaker 2:it's on our tent. We got a tent this last year and it's got our team logo on it and then also the always win on there, so it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:And y'all are like kind of sponsored right now Shout out to ASICs. No affiliation with this podcast, of course, but you know, like that's pretty cool that you guys have somebody kind of helping y'all out and kind of spreading the word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was an awesome catch for us to be able to get like we. We've been waiting for something like this for a while, so luckily we were able to like establish a relationship with Chris Anton and CJ Brown, and they were. We were thinking something to work and they're sponsoring us for the this year's TIR relay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that guy was a runner. He was like a real badass runner back in back in my high school days.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I think he is probably your age. Yeah, yeah, but frickin so like, yeah, last year at TIR in 2023, there was another team that ran against us and they were sponsored by by Mizzuno. They're Norr Track Club and we think we scared them off because they're not running against us this year, but they're. They're running a another relay and called the speed project. I hope you've heard of that one. No, no, no, it's, it's, I guess it's some.
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly what it is. I'm probably going to like not say exact the right thing, but I think it's like a relay from LA, to know, from Vegas to LA or something like that. Okay, so it kind of the same aspect of what TIR is Like. For those that don't know, texas Independence Relay it's been a thing for like 10 plus years now in Texas Like I've heard people talk about it for a while and it's a relay from Gonzalez, texas, where the battle of Texas Independence started. We run all the way to Houston, texas, and it's total of 187 miles and you get 12 teammates where you can run it back and forth. So yeah, I can explain further and all that kind of stuff, but basically that team and I'll go back to what I was saying earlier. That team, they got sponsored by Mizzuno the year before and we beat them. So I'm like guys, we cannot be cursed by the shoe deal. If we lose and we have a six like we're repping a six, this is going to be bad.
Speaker 1:So well, I mean, you'll have multiple teams in this year too, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we got five total teams.
Speaker 1:And how many did you have last year?
Speaker 2:We had three. So we had three full, three full teams, two male teams, one coed team. We lost 36 runners this year. We have five teams but it's 52 athletes. We got one, the red team, which is our like a team, that's that's going to be sponsored by a six. There are 12 man staff guys pretty much and then we have all three other teams are coed teams. We had more girls that wanted to run out this year. We thought about making a like a team full of queens pretty much, and have all girls. It just didn't work out, so we split everybody up and now we have three other coed teams green, blue and orange.
Speaker 1:So that's just that's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's 48 athletes right there, and then we have the endo squad, which is comprised of four athletes. So that's actually I'm in that team. Jake Boots the founders in that team. Ian Sanders another really good like runner that we have who loves just challenges like this he's doing it. And we have Aaron Murray, who's also running. He was a former Texan and track and field athlete as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you just have less people covering the same amount of ground, same amount of distance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you run. So when you run the Texan Independence Relay, like I said, you have 36 legs that you split up from 187 miles and it's various distances but it's between a 5k and a 10k distance typically. So like like you could end up running like 12 miles or you can end up running 19 miles total, but you're running and you can run the legs however you want. Like if you want to have like a group of six people, do the first half of the shift and then let the next six do the second half of the shift. Like that's how you can do it. But typically people just do it like everyone runs, like every remember. Like 12 people run and then the next 12 will run, the next 12 will run. So you end up running one in the beginning of the day when you're comfortable and excited. You run the next one when it's like 11pm to maybe 3am in the morning.
Speaker 1:I forgot that it probably goes through the night. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The go through the night part is where you figure out who you are. And, yeah, the third leg is always like the battle that everyone's like man. I just want to go to sleep. I was wondering you can go to sleep.
Speaker 1:Because y'all are also like driving around in like support vehicles and all that stuff, right?
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah. So like you get, you get two vehicles. That's part of the rules, you say you get two vehicles.
Speaker 2:Everyone has to run three legs. Everyone has to run. Well, I mean, with the exception of injuries and however, stuff happens like along the way. But I mean it's not, it's not going to the race director isn't going to knock about that. But yeah, you get three runs, typically split up with everybody, and you have to run one time during the first 24 hour time period, like from the day or the next day, like Saturday, you have to run one leg. Sunday, you have to run one leg.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's how it works.
Speaker 1:So what's, what's next? What's on the horizon for the good guys?
Speaker 2:I just keep competing hard. There's other competitions, obviously, since we got some, some big runners that we want to start putting them in bigger competitions, like there's one in in Austin called the Zilker Relays. I don't know if you've heard of that one, but it's. It's probably just like a Texas local thing, but it's like a four by two mile relay around Zilker Park, um, and that would be a fun one to go join in. And we're actually starting to do a um, a fundraiser, to get our that same team to go to, uh, put the coast. It's a big, uh, the big relay up in Seattle, I'm pretty sure. No, portland Oregon, my bad, and you run from the top of the mountain down to the coast and it's like it's supposed to be the mother of all relays and all that kind of stuff. If you've never heard of that.
Speaker 1:And y'all, y'all do a lot of charity stuff too right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so yeah, glad you said that. So those important thing we are now officially a nonprofit and everything too. Uh, we still have good guys at Ron club as an entity like that is founded by me and Jake we're both partners on it and we have good guys running community now, which is a nonprofit organization that we're uh starting to roll out, like starting to roll out and do some fundraisers and stuff with.
Speaker 1:Tell me about some of the fundraising stuff that you've been doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, we've already done one like, um, like with the Houston marathon, where we've gone through um other fundraisers to raise money so you can get a, uh, a free registration. Uh, with the Houston marathon it's called, like, the, the hero program, so, uh, we had a lot of athletes sign up and do that. But then, after the fact, we did a bar crawl and it was like our first kind of like philanthropy fundraiser event and, uh, we raised money. So, for everyone that bought a registration and I think we even got a kickback from some of the bars too Um, we were getting money back and we returned it back to some of the fundraisers that, uh, we partnered with during the.
Speaker 2:Houston marathon. We raised like $750 there and distributed that between three, uh, fundraisers and um, now the next thing that we're trying to work with is with the YMCA. Like they, they've got a couple of fund backpack fundraisers and all that kind of stuff that, um, they that they're saying like we'd be great to collab with on those kind of things.
Speaker 1:So y'all are talking to talk, but you're walking the walk with being good guys, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that's all. It's kind of we've. We've actually applied to be a nonprofit in 2023, like pretty early on, like I'd say like in June, and like it just takes. I mean, it works on government time. You know, like, yeah, you got to wait for it to get approved, so like when we finally got approved, like late December, um, one of the other girls, like she is kind of like spearheading the whole nonprofit thing, um, I think she's very good and well connected, like in that aspect of of like helping fundraisers and making money that way. Uh, to where, like we're just kind of leaving at her core. So like now, now that we are officially approved, and we've been like working on like connections with organizations that would want to do fundraising and also just coming up with like fundraiser ideas to like um, like barcrawls is a simple one.
Speaker 2:Uh, raffles, like whenever we do. Uh, we're going to do a Founders Day Crawfish Bowl. We're going to have like a raffle going on that day. So whenever people donate money to that raffle for something or is it raffle? It's, it's. Uh, can anybody write your name down on a sheet of paper and, like you bid on like a basket item? Oh, like a silent auction, silent auction, yeah yeah, we're doing a silent auction kind of deal there and that money's going to go towards, like, our cause and everything. Um, what's another thing we're doing Mainly? I mean, the big goal this year is to fundraise for that Hood to Coast race of kids.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's that the fundraiser that goes through is for a cancer organization. So like that's, that's our first goal to raise money for that and it's. It's a walking $12,000 if we got a raise. So we were pretty confident we can do it with, given some of the resources that we've got. Like some of the other ideas we're funding the t-shirts, of course, and then we're doing a beer like label. We're trying to work with some of the breweries here on getting beers. We can have six packs that people would buy from us and like that money would go towards our fundraiser.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like got a bunch of stuff just kind of like in the works, but it's kind of like what you just said, like it's all a talk until it happens, but like we are trying to do things for the community. So like it's a lot of ideas that we're going to kind of just, you know, spit out and see how they work with the community and how it responds.
Speaker 1:So as of right now, what are y'all's meeting locations and then times? If somebody that's listening to this wants to go and show up at a run, MKT.
Speaker 2:We meet up over there and it's in front of Highline Park, a bar that's out over there. It's 7 pm every Wednesdays. It's always been that way so we've never changed it. And then we also meet Tuesdays now at the new Memorial Park Trail timing track over in Memorial Park, and then we meet on Saturdays 6 am or 7 am Also at Memorial Park trails, and usually those Saturday long runs are about like 10 mile runs that we end up doing.
Speaker 1:Okay, Next time I'm in town I'm coming out.
Speaker 2:Whether I'm fit or not, I'm going to come out, yeah yeah, now, if you make it on a Wednesday, it'd be super cool, but you made it even on Saturday, it'd be fun too. It can hang out a lot longer after.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll ride a bike. Maybe I'll start building up my mileage so I can hang with you guys. Is there any y'all thinking about expanding to multiple locations or anything like that? Or is that kind of like a you got to wait and see for a little bit and then see if you can grow like that we thought?
Speaker 2:about going to other places. I mean, like for Saturday long runs we'll go, like sometimes we'll go to like Sam Houston State Park, or like we'll go to Belleville or we'll just go run like somewhere else, like kind of closer in Houston, like a Terry Hershey or something like that. But like for Wednesdays, like we've talked about kind of like spreading out and going to other bars and stuff like that. So I mean it could happen in the future but we're pretty comfortable we're at. I mean it's honestly such a good place. Like if you saw the atmosphere, like you'd be like yeah, you don't want to leave this. Like if somebody else took this away, like it'd be a steal for them.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, sweet. And then other cities or anything other, like little groups, like are we going to fight club this thing where it just like starts popping up everywhere you know?
Speaker 2:that would be great. Good guys, good guys, global. Jake did kind of start a good guy's a Wahoo. So he moved to Hawaii and me and him are like I've said it like we're the we were the partners together on this and he's the big lead that like kind of started this all together and like we've been friends for so long. So I was like piggybacking off and I'm like, yeah, dude, like I got you, like I'll support you, let's get these people together. So whenever he left and ultimately dumped the whole thing in my lap Last year I think around August is when he left he was over there and you can, you knew he just missed like the atmosphere and everything.
Speaker 2:And, as I do, I think I'm gonna start good guys a Wahoo out here. Like I have some people that are interested in running and like I'm just gonna do it and he's got a little a little a small little run club out over there, but I think he's more independent and he just kind of goes anywhere he can on the island. But maybe get like a good guy's Colorado going there you go.
Speaker 1:Come up there.
Speaker 2:Might not be used to the elevation, but that's not too bad, you know, we can travel up there for, like, some altitude training or something.
Speaker 1:There you go, bring that elite team up. You guys can all stay in my one bedroom apartment with me.
Speaker 2:you know like it'll be good, it'll be fun. We'll make it work. We all stuff in a van, to all 12 of us in a van, so we can do an apartment too.
Speaker 1:Oh, with, with running too.
Speaker 2:In the heat right. Yeah, exactly, exactly it's fun, All right man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, winding down now a little bit. I always like to end these podcasts with like a little bit of a wrap up, and one of the big themes that we've been talking about is really fostering community right.
Speaker 1:In that in-person community where people come together they get a little bit of fitness in, get a little bit of social time in all that good stuff. So if we could distill this whole thing into your like you know usually call it like an ounce of prevention, right, an ounce of how you guys fostered that community, what would you tell all of our listeners?
Speaker 2:I would say, like the best way to, I guess, kind of surround yourself and have something successful, like what we had, it's just creating like the unique opportunities for people to improve themselves physically and mentally.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that's something that's been very good to our core values of like what we do. Like if you're running, if you, if your goal is to improve physically, like we're going to be there for you. If your goal is like just to hang out, like want to socialize and improve yourself mentally, like we're going to be here for you. So I mean, that's kind of our mission as a nonprofit is to create those unique opportunities for people and socializing, like we're going to do pickleball tournament or something like that, or just a bar crawl or even whatever. If it just comes down to this, like yeah, we'll just be your friends, like even outside of the run club, come play some Mario Smash Brothers with us or something like that, like we'll do that, like that's just kind of the culture that we keep up. So like just keep it fun, don't take it super seriously, but you know, just have good tension and get hard behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I think I'm going to have your brother on too, because he's a PT over at that Bulletproof Physical Therapy as well at some point, so we can talk about injury prevention for runners. We've obviously had a bunch of injury prevention episodes on the podcast and I'm going to give you guys a good discount for my strength frame for runners PDF.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And man Rodney, thank you so much for spending time chatting with me today, and good guys always win right.
Speaker 2:Yep, good guys always win.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I'll be talking with you soon. Maybe we can get a good guys run club Colorado going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, let's do it Out the two trains, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1:I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Art of Prevention podcast. If you did enjoy and or benefit from some of the information in this podcast, please be sure to like, subscribe and share this podcast, or please give us a five star review on any platform that you find podcasts. One thing to note that this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. No patient is formed and if you are having any difficulty, pain, discomfort, etc. With any of the movements or ideas described within this podcast, please seek the help of a qualified and board certified medical professional, such as your medical doctor or a sports chiropractor, physical therapist, etc. Thank you.