Sneaker Impact News
Weekly interviews, news, updates and more about Sneaker Impact and our work in the recycling and running industries. Hosted by Bryan the Botanist. Please send us your guest recommendations and topics you'd like us to feature. Email: bryan@sneakerimpact.com
Sneaker Impact News
Arthur Alexander: Late Night Menu Crew, Pacing Miami’s Running Community & Beyond
In this episode of Sneaker Impact News, host Bryan the Botanist welcomes Arthur Alexander, captain of the Late Night Menu Crew and Nike Run Club pacer in Miami for the Baptist Health South Beach and Brickell Run Clubs. Arthur delves into his transformation from a Nike employee to a key figure in Miami's running scene, highlighting his involvement in creative entrepreneurship and DJing. He sheds light on his various projects, including the Late Night Menu Crew's bi-monthly runs and major marathon preparations for events like Chicago, Berlin, and Miami. The discussion emphasizes community-building, sustainable running practices, and collaborations over competition. Arthur also previews an upcoming Father's Day event with J. Wakefield and shares a message of commitment, hope, and optimism. This episode underscores his dedication to enhancing physical and mental well-being through running and community engagement.
Stay Connected with Arthur
Instagram: @lordlaflare and @latenightmenucrew
YouTube: @LateNightMenuCrew
Alright, hey guys! Welcome back to Sneaker Impact News. doing? I'm your host, Bryan the Botanist, and today my special guest is Arthur Alexander. Arthur, what's up, bro? How you doing, man? I'm good, man, I'm good. Happy to be here, thankful for you guys having me. It's a nice day here in Miami, so Absolutely. I'm glad to sit down and talk. Thanks for coming by. Lovely place, by the way. It's a great place. Thank you. So guys, Arthur is the captain of Late Night Menu Crew and also a Nike Run Club pacer for Brickell Run Club, and he's a creative entrepreneur and director in Miami. He's was referred to us through one of our dear friends, Frankie, and I've actually run with him, I believe, at the Run Clubs. Many of you have, too. Arthur, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having me, thank you for having me, yes. So tell us about some of these things, these projects you've been up to lately in Miami. Right now. The run scene. Right now, I'm very much focused on Late Night Menu Crew, which is a crew that I'm a captain of founded with a bunch of other runners here in Miami. We came up under the umbrella of Frankie Ruiz under Baptist Health Run Club. We did a lot of work for South Beach Run Club for on Lincoln Road on Thursdays. A lot of support for Brickell Run Club as well. And that kind of helped us get our identity aiming for races like Miami Marathon, trying to do out of town races. Right now we're very much chasing majors trying to get Chicago done this year. We have some people doing Berlin as well. So that's one of the projects I'm focused on. I'm also involved in a creative group called That's Besides the Point. Very much focused on Trying to affect the market in Miami as far as creatives go Trying to do detailed events. We had a couple nights at spots downtown like over under We are now focusing on a Father's Day event. We have coming up actually with J. Wakefield in
Bryan The Botanist:Wynwood.
Arthur Alexander:Yeah, I love J. Wakefield Yeah, we're creating a beer there and we're gonna be serving that on Father's Day. So I'm looking forward to that a lot I've also been DJing So that's been good. I've been Got an opportunity to play a couple places that I frequent, also a couple places that are, like, on my mood board of playing, so I'm pretty happy about that right now. Wow. Most recently we did Tam's one year anniversary. Okay. It's a Michelin star restaurant in Miami, downtown, right by the courthouse where you guys have one of your Sneaker Impact boxes as well. The chef there just received a Michelin award and they were celebrating their one year anniversary. I got a chance to DJ that. A lot of the community was out for that. So really happy about that. Yeah. Damn that's awesome, man. We got some good topics to talk about today because I love DJing. Before we get into your projects, take us back. Where did you grow up and what was your youth like? I grew up in South Florida, pretty much between Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, and Port st. Lucie County. I did My younger childhood here in Fort Lauderdale and Broward, closer to us right now in Miami, then I did more like my teenage years in Port St. Lucie. After high school, I went to, I played for basketball at Broward College for a year, then I moved to Boston where I played college basketball there, small school, called LaSalle, got my bachelor's in psychology, came back home. Started just getting into the workforce, worked in finance for a little bit after that I wanted to more chase my creative side, so I was getting into styling work, getting into fashion work, and that's what brought me to Miami. I took a job at Nike just because I wanted to be down here, closer to the action. Working at Nike is what kind of brought my running journey out. We spoke briefly off camera, and I met people like Molly Metivier, David Kilgore's wife, and she Put the battery in my back as to becoming a pacer. I was working at the store and I saw this run club happening out of the Nike store and I had no idea what it was and I was just trying to get off of the sales floor and go run with them. Molly was the one who told me I don't need slow pacers. I need people who are running eight minute miles and nine minute miles and I was like, all right, challenge accepted. So that's what geared me into running. Not knowing what it would be and what it would build after that, but it was mere just me trying to get out there, definitely clear my head, mental health, getting involved with the community, and a couple years later, five years, six years later, it's built into something major with my late night menu crew and my own personal journey, so I'm happy for it. That's awesome. South Beach Run Club is where I met most of my friends when I moved here in 2008. That's where I met everybody that I know in Miami. I literally knew one person in Miami when I moved here in 2007 2008. And I went to South Beach Run Club within a year, like mid 2008. I think Frankie had just started in 2009. It quickly, from Mr. R's, grew to such a big group, and then it moved to the Nike store, and then the Brickell one started, and then all the other ones, so I want to talk about, how your life as a pacer, we're going to do a separate little area about that coming up I think I've been at some of the run clubs and seen you there, and There's a lot of music involved, to be honest. Yeah, with the speakers. It's fun, it's not your typical run club. It's more it's got energy. Not all run clubs are great. I don't want to poo anyone. It's just got a certain style. But, Late Night Menu Crew. Tell us about that. Where do you guys meet? What time? What day? Who's behind it? Besides you and what do you guys do? What's your specialty? So right now our scheduled runs happen like bi monthly. Okay. Twice a month, I'm sorry. So our official runs that we do are happen at twice a month. It's first Saturdays we run with Shoe Gallery. Okay. Right here on 79th. We do a three mile run with them and every third or fourth Saturday we run with, Saturday or Sunday, excuse me, we run with Soho House on South Beach. Oh, nice. So through those partnerships, but Actively, we also have a lot of people that are involved in the Late Night Menu crew are big in the community as well. Every Wednesday, we have Nike World Collective that's led by Laura Carter, and she's part of the Late
Bryan The Botanist:Night
Arthur Alexander:Menu crew as well, but she's been doing amazing work. with Collective at Nike on Wednesdays and that happens out of the Brickell City Center. Okay. And that's every week. A lot of the pacers there are women of Late Night Menu crew. Individually they all have their own followings, their different ways they impression on the community as well. Of course. This week, actually, one of our male runners, Shane Steele, is leading a run for Sweat Pals and so that's going to be happening this Saturday as well on when this airs, but it's happening this week for Late Night Menu crew, for myself, I love that we affected The community separately and not only as a group. Sure. For me, I look at it as like a creatives run group. We each have our own talents. Like even though we're working full time jobs, we have our lives. I try to push everybody to. Embrace that creative side. For me, I have my job, but I still want to DJ. I still want to leave things relating to my to do different things. We've been shooting short films with a guy named Billy Graydon, and those are amazing through his, company as well, too. Which is Kent One Collective. We've been shooting short films. We've been trying to activate differently. One of our runners, we're raising money now for the Chicago Marathon. Another runner of us Bryan Ramirez, he's also doing like a Smash Burgers pop up because he's very much into food. He has his own food blog called Growling Stomach. Different things like that. A lot of cool enterprises and creatives. For sure. It's a collective. Yeah, it's more of a collective and that's what I love about it. It's not necessarily like this is our crew and like we run here. It's like We support all the crews through Miami. We go to all the runs. It's organic, it's creative, it's more than just running. It's more than just running. It's more of what running lifestyle can be to you. And just like you said, like you move to Miami, you don't know anybody. And right now it's a very much like in thing to be in like a run club or like a run crew. But it literally helps people like acclimate to a city. Sure. Get a sense of this is what I belong to. This is, these are my people. This is like my tribe. And for us to lead that main crew, that's just really what we're about. When did you guys form the Late Night Menu? We started around 2018 We got the name because a lot of us at the time were working at the Nike store So what we would do is running after work. So our store was closing at 11 o'clock. We were Closing the store, cleaning up, starting a run from Bodega on South Beach at 11, 45, 12 in the morning So you gotta imagine like on South Beach. Yeah, that's where the name Late Night Menu comes from. We were running A lot of routes down down the South Beach Boardwalk. We did a lot of Venetian runs, a lot of North Bay Road runs. Just to get extra miles in, have a sense of Those are safe areas to run at night too, because you got to be careful. And we can talk about that Wynwood versus Because you guys do vents like all over the city. Yeah, we do. Now Sounds like Brickell and South Beach, which are awesome areas. Soho, that's very safe on the Boardwalk. But now, more it's in the mornings. It's in the mornings. We have our runs. We don't necessarily run in the middle of the night anymore. But you do once in a while, and I like running any time of day. For sure. And if your lifestyle aligns with you needing to do that's a really cool origin story. That it was a crew from Nike that was done cleaning the store and they wanted to run together. Just took off for a run. Yeah. Yeah. Do something healthy and also hang out a little longer. Definitely, yeah. Miami's a fun place to do that. Besides Late Night Menu Crew, let's shift over. So how do people find it? What's the easiest way? Is it Instagram? On Instagram is our easiest way. Late Night Menu Crew on Instagram. We also, if you come to our runs, we recently started like a WhatsApp chat where we blast each week what we're going to be doing that week. We have a lot of events happening, especially now. Major Marathon Training is about to happen, so everybody's going to be very active. Social things that the crew is doing outside of the normally scheduled programming. Yeah, the Marathon Training, that sounds really cool. And the other events that you've got a team that is training for some big events. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about, the running scene in Miami. As a pacer what are some of your favorite stories? What are some of your favorite moments? You've been a Nike and a Brickell pacer? Yeah. And yeah. Like overlaps. I definitely say we've had some major moments. One that comes to mind like right now, we're talking about South Beach for Miami Music Week a couple years back, we had Cascade, and we were running with Cascade. Yeah, I saw photos yeah. I saw the photos, yeah. We had a huge boom speaker that we're running, we were playing his music, and we actually ran. 5k down the beach and took him to his pool party at the SLS like he got off the run and onto the and right on so he ran our plane to his head to his set Oh, no shots out to Frankie cuz Frankie's always Finding different innovative ways to have major moments in Miami and running And over years, not just like right now. Didn't Pitbull come once to Brickell? I thought I saw him there for Frankie's birthday. He had to. Was it a real Pitbull? It wasn't a real Pitbull. It sounded just like him now. It's Pitbull and we talked about that recently. Honestly, I was at that one. Because I hadn't been in a few years, but I was at that one. And that was Frankie. Shout out to Frankie. He's the Frankie's Pitbull. Frankie's Pitbull party at the Pitbull Market. It looked just like Pitbull and it sounded of course, I'm sure you could see the difference if he looked super cool, but he was like 99. 9%. It wasn't someone that was like This was like the best Pitbull impersonator in the world. Definitely. And his wife got it, for real. And that's why I'm pretty sure that guy was a Pitbull impersonator. And he had a top notch career. You know set up with like group behind him or whatever and DJ helping him with the music and he was crushing I thought it was a real pitbull But you just yeah that Frankie has created this incredible movement and it's so cool to meet the pacers Jose has been a dear friend of mine. Shout out to Jose Miguel Garcia I've known him since 2009 or 8. The John Daly of running. Yeah, we've had a lot of conversations on the run Sometimes I'm annoying sometimes I'm quiet But yeah, you guys have a great group of women and men pacers. Any cool stories besides that? Moments of just helping people that you've seen, as a pacer? There's so many stories that happened between Brickell and South Beach. For me, it's not like one specific thing. One thing I do love to say is this running community, we're with each other more than when we're just on the runs. We've supported each other through so many things, ups and downs. We've been through graduation, we've been through job losses, jobs gained personal losses of life, of having children, for good stuff and bad stuff, yeah, good stuff and bad stuff, so there's, it's just that everybody's there for each other, even when you're not in your best mood, even when you're not in a good, like you're saying, sometimes you're talking a lot to Jose, I'm sure there's days where You're not feeling good and you just want to get on a run. It's hard when you're like, Oh, I'm going to have to run into everybody. And people are like, what's wrong today? But I feel like in the running community, we're so open about today's not my best day and I'm just want to go for a run. And we're very supportive of that. Being a pacer, I get to see that. I get to see people super happy when they showed up. People not so happy when they showed up. Certain people have seen me. They've been fighting traffic or something bad happened at work. I've been there. I've been at run clubs where I was upset about something too, and I just needed to go to run club. Yeah, and it's just that day. It's But once you start running, you feel better usually. You feel better. And I do take that personally. As a pacer, you've seen I try to be high energy every day. I know a lot of us, we have our music, there's certain people that like, even though I'm having a bad day, somebody might be coming out to get rid of their bad day, so I try to make sure I'm like, somewhat always attentive to that and paying attention to that, so I can't pick out any specific moment. I will say that since I've been running, I've seen four or five, maybe Running community, baby's being born now, so those moments are important to me we had one just born recently in Late Night Menu crew, we have another one on the way. Hopefully not during the run though. Not during the run no. So we're gonna have a lot of strollers. But you've seen the journey from just being even getting married, meeting people and getting relationships, but just having a baby, that's huge, yeah, that's a big change. So it's, moments like that are more on my mind when I'm thinking about pacing or I'm thinking about, Leading things for late night menu crew versus like I love the Cascade Run. I love when we do that with the mayor And oh, yeah thousand people. We've done major moments Let's take over Miami for those that don't know Brickell Run Club. You got it up on YouTube or Instagram because Tuesday Sorry, people go to brick on average right now It's been insane lately. We're seeing 700 average. Unreal. Yeah. And it's 500 to 1000. It used to be 300 to 400. South Beach was like a hundred or so. Like it was like under control. It still would take over. Depends on what time of the year and what's right before the Miami Marathon, the week of the Miami Marathon. It gets crazy for us. Yeah. But that's the best part about Miami and like our running culture. It's it gives you something else to do. You don't have to be caught up in partying all the time, you don't have to be caught up in nightlife all the time, but you can come and run, and it's not like we're separated from that, like it's Miami Music Week, but Cascade's here. It's, Mayer's running with us. During Art Basel, we've had Super Bowl runs. Personally, I did the Super Bowl run for Late Night Menu Crew with Shoe Gallery, and Dan Marino was there. It was like we try to find a way to bridge those gaps, to, Promote an active lifestyle, but also Not to take you away from anything what people would and fun. Yeah, you can still have fun I see you guys go to places and oh for sure like partners of like local Yeah, and afterwards i'm sure there's I know there's a group that goes to what's that? Taco place. Yeah, Red Brickell They're always going. Oh, Coyo. Yeah, Coyo, my friend Antonio. Shout out to Antonio Pagan definitely, especially like I would say there's a lot There's probably more partying than running going on sometimes. It's what, three miles? So you don't have to, this is not a long run? In general. Not in general. It's meant to be accessible. That's the cool thing about Brickell Run Club, though, is it just grew so large, I think, because of how many people live down in Brickell. And so people just come from all the buildings and it's Like you said 700 plus I saw in some of the videos lately that Frankie was saying I've got to build a bigger building to something You guys are on Fortune International, which is some giant building, right? And then on the steps and you're putting him up on eventually He's in the Red Bull DJ booth. He's in the he's in the window. I don't know Where are you gonna put Frankie so you can so everyone can see him, he's mic'd up now. Frankie is like over there and it's like trying to tell people like listen to Frankie over there But How do you get everyone's attention when you have 700 people? Do you have a bullhorn out there? You talk loud and use your speakers. That's why as a pacer you have to have your personality, you have to be a little bit out there. Because, at the end of the day, the first thing is safety. There's nothing to stop that second time runner from just
Bryan The Botanist:There's a lot of different people that
Arthur Alexander:the road and I
Bryan The Botanist:and I try to
Arthur Alexander:people They're so excited, but you gotta wait for traffic.
Bryan The Botanist:It's like you gotta
Arthur Alexander:like you gotta wait for traffic. It's gonna
Bryan The Botanist:get a
Arthur Alexander:bad reputation, but they can get hurt really bad. Definitely, we definitely don't want anybody getting hurt. We don't want anybody having a bad experience. So trying to communicate, I try to speak as much. I'm that pacer that's yelling all the time. You Okay you're watching out for people though and you're saying hi to people. I might just be yelling nonsense and just singing songs and having a good time. Maybe you're the guy I remember when I came to one of the South beaches a year or two ago and you had the music and you're super just energetic just singing on the Venetian highway. And I was singing proudly, that's me, yeah. What grip do you pace? I try to pace, party pace is what we call it. It's the middle pace. It's from 9 minutes to 12 minutes. Oh, that's perfect. I've never heard of that. So it's party pace. I've heard of sexy pace. We have sexy pace, we have party pace, and then we just have our fast people at the end. The cheaters up front. Yeah, those are the ones back there. If you've heard me sing, it's probably because you were passing me and I was in the middle of a song. But, also with the DJing thing, it helps. I literally just Sample songs that I might want to play, and if people enjoy it while we're running, they have to enjoy it while they're partying, that's a great segue, so tell us how you got involved in the music scene, when your passion for music, and what your background, what you're up to with music. It was probably, definitely more, cause I'm definitely somebody who's passenger seat all the time, so I'm definitely on the aux and playing music that way A lot of my friends are into music, it's just something that we're all about, and I do have to salute like my group around me. They just supported me when I was just like, hey I think I want to DJ and I was just on my phone on the app Just like making them listen to me DJ and I do tell them now because I've been doing it almost a year now You're in some change that Thank you a lot, because I must have been very terrible in the beginning. The transitions get better. Yeah, it wasn't that good. I know, that same journey. Now, I can see their face, some of them, when they're like, oh, you're actually alright now. A lot of it is the selection, yes. It's the most, one of the most important parts, along with reading the crowd. But the selection, the selecting of the music is perhaps the most important part. Important part, yeah. So if you're good at selecting the music. Initially, only the people who give other give hell is the other DJs. And that's the one thing I've learned too. And that's the same thing at the club, and the same thing at the gigs, and the same thing Most people don't care. Most people don't know when you train wreck, unless it's a really bad train wreck. Yeah. We can talk DJing now, like Oh we've trained, I've trained wrecks for sure. Recently, one of my friends Everything shuts down, or you just Oh, I slapped my laptop clean off the stand. Oh, no. Dr Give it a friend a high five. Oh no, the laptop won't play. The music started playing backwards. At least there wasn't a drink on it. Yeah. The drinks getting on. No drinks. No. So you use what type of gear are you using out there? I'm just scrimming through Serato on my laptop. Okay. Yeah, so I bring everything out. I haven't transferred over to sticks. I do. Say thank you to like modern technology. You're able to do it without a controller right now. Yeah, the gigs you have which is more minimal. Yeah Walking around with my controller Cuz I was learning on my own little DJ learning how to play a controller and I had not stepped up to any other ones but I'm more comfortable now. Yeah. I'd have say thank you to people like Louis Arson is a big guy who's helped me a lot. One of the places that I played at a lot was over under, there's a woman there named Ashley. She's one of the first people to like, just let me go and practice and play. Nice. So if you guys are ever downtown, where's over Under is downtown. It's right on Flag List right across from Julian Henry's. So like the first Street area by Flagler ish. Would you say downtown? I would say yeah. By Bayfront Park? No, like Flagler, like closer to like by the government. Do you know where Lost Boy is? Yeah, it's next year in a lot of ways. It's a great place. But you can look it up over under? Over under, yeah. I've heard of it. So I played there. I played there a lot before. I mentioned a guy, Louie Arsene, he plays at Rite Fruit. I've heard of Louie Arsene. Every Thursday, I went to Andrew Luckey, Rite Fruit. He's one of the, when I was buying all my equipment, I'm on FaceTime with him, showing him stuff. Oh, nice. Those are just two people that come to mind for sure that have definitely been like embracing about hey, you can play here, or this is what you need to do, and things like that, so I gotta say to them for sure. That's awesome, dude. The DJ life goes well with running it sounds because you can listen to the mixes, you can sample music ahead of time, and you're sharing it with your the run crew while you're running with them too. 100%, yeah. Is there a DJ name online people can look for you on SoundCloud or YouTube? You can no, everything's on my Instagram is LordOfTheFlare, but I do DJ by Sounds By Art, so if you ever see that. Sounds By Art. Yeah, if you see that anywhere. Okay, that's you DJing? Yeah, Instagram, that's cool. That's me. Sounds By Art. Yeah. Oh, cause it's Arthur. Arthur. Alexander. Sounds by art. Sounds by art. I did not put that together. I just learned your first name yesterday. This is the next section. I know you initially as Lord the Flare. Recommended by Frankie Ruiz. As someone that should be on the podcast. That is a very interesting story. He's one of his pacers and he said you should reach out to Arthur. He said Lord the Flare. I think he did say Arthur initially and I forgot. I wrote down your Instagram. So tell us, how did you get the Instagram Lord the Flare? Funny story, I was just a very much like Gucci Maneflan, who goes by Gucci Manefler. Oh, okay. Scott Disick, it was Lord to be with you. Is Gucci Man the Flair? Is that an artist? Gucci Man, yeah. Oh, Gucci Man Yeah, but it goes by Gucci Man the Flair. Oh, he goes by Gucci Man the Flair. So I took that and Lord Be With You from Scott Disick. Okay, so you got another musical influence. I've never had to explain that. But that's why, yeah. Okay. The origin stories are important. I thought it was clever. Years ago. It is. I still think it's clever. Instagram names can change over the years. Initially, I was SoBeachy. Yeah, because I was a running instructor in South Beach. And so it's just tied together. SoBeachy. Everyone knew me as SoBeachy and I explained it. I'm a Chi running coach. I live in Miami, which is South Beach. But it's just a cool word. SoBeachy. It worked. Yeah. No, I definitely get. But the flow is very cool, too. And Botanist. It's very boring, but it's cool. Tells you who I am. Frankie Ruiz is Frankie Ruiz. Remind you where I'm from? Sneaker dot Impact. And then we have the Late Night Menu Crew is a big one. Yeah, we're doing well on Instagram. Yeah, and I've seen you guys making an impact in Miami because you guys are like more of an alternative group, I feel like. Than the traditional run club store model, and we talked about that. You guys are more than just, a serious group of runners. You do have serious runners. That's a good thing for people to know too, like me, because I'm generally a serious runner. But I've learned that having fun is just as important. And you've got to have people that are easy going too, and It's not just we're just running at 6 a. m. or 5 a. m. and that's it. It's gotta do other things too, like running late at night is fun. The challenges where you're running for days on end, I used to do those with some run clubs, but also just doing things like supporting the burger enterprise that you're trying to start, and the Smashburger thing. That's definitely the biggest part about it is like, We're this year. We have a thing called major moments. It's what's inspiring us to get to Chicago Marathon was inspiring But a couple of us in New York last year. I've done Chicago before We have people that are chasing these majors. We recently had a young woman Emily Suarez. She just did Boston She ran in 307 Wow. Yeah, she's an amazing runner. She just moved here recently similar story to what you're saying it was her birthday yesterday. We're all out We went to Chili's, RIP Chili's, this is the last time, but we we're talking to her and she's Yeah, I've been here nine months and thanks to the Running Community and the people that she's close to, she's met new people, but It goes to show that we can still have our fun and enjoy ourselves, but we are trying to chase major goals. We are trying to be serious runners, and the more the running community grows, I think that term serious runner is gonna Get Dissolved. Yeah. Yeah. It used to be a big term, back 10 years ago when I was in the run club scene in 2010. These are the serious runners. Bryan and Frankie Ruiz are here. Bryan Huberty here tonight. He's run Chicago recently in 232. Put some spotlight. And Frankie was just being sweet to me. But it would make, I didn't want to make anyone else feel, just because I'm running a sub 16 5k, that they're not a special. And not a runner, no. Not a real runner. We would zoom out there and get our workouts in. But what I found, too, is that it separates too much. That you have to stop. Thinking about people in terms of comparing and to see, yeah, some people are naturally faster or they're just working super hard to get to a fast level, right? And some want to just be more chill. And definitely not Or just improve at their own pace, not improve at some mega fast pace. No, but that needs to be celebrated as well. I don't think we should lose this serious running career. Highlight someone who does really well you run a two something in a marathon. Or someone wins a race the week before, giving them a shout out. But also giving a shout out to someone we had a guy, one of our good friends, Sharif, who used to go to Run Club. I don't know if he still goes, but Sharif, and he was recognized, and he was not your traditional runner. No, you need that. And there's a gentleman out of New York Hector Espanola, who's leads WUKRU, we run Uptown in the Bronx and he's a major inspiration and a major catalyst for why I do what I do in running as well too. He was one of Running World Mag Runners of the Year last year, but he was completing his last major at Boston this year. So he was completing the whole thing, but his time was over six hours. Oh wow. So He technically didn't get the cutoff. Yeah, the cutoff. So for a story like that, a guy like Hector who has been working in the Bronx and doing community work and running majors, and if you look at Hector, he's not your traditional runner. He's not the serious runner, but he's done more serious running things than anybody that I would know. You know what I mean? He's committed. He's committed, and he's more committed on a personal level. So I do think when we speak serious runners, the groups get smaller, because not everybody is elite. Not everybody has that in them. But They don't want to feel pressure either. They have to come every week, or that someone's keeping an eye on them, or judging them. Some people just want to come and come as you are, just relax, have fun. It's hard when if you're, if I'm running five miles and it takes me 30 minutes versus you're running five miles and it takes you an hour and a half. It's not fun. You know what I mean? Like by the time you get back, everybody's in their cars and they've gone home. Like we're all dry. You don't want to feel like that last kid had recess. You know what I mean? But I feel like when there's community involved in those elite runners and those people who are not the traditional runners. And that's why in late night, I try to strive like, even though you might not run the fastest, you have more to give to the group. You know what I mean? You have inspiration to give to the group. There's that sense of And your personality. Yeah, if you're like that's a big define sexy pace by the way because I see Technically what we call 12 minutes and over. Okay, if you run anything over 12 minutes and over a sexy face I'm not caring at all about time Swing to the hips or something Under and you feel sexy you are running sexy face. Okay, so sexy places state of mind It's a state of mind, but in general if we had to categorize it, it's over 12 minutes 12 minutes and over, that's what we do. And 16 to 17 is a walking pace, or 18 is a fast walk, is my understanding. Yeah, sexy pace to me. Anything over 12 is sexy to us, that's what we say. On my recovery from my surgery, I'm going to be in sexy pace for the first month or so back. For the first month or so. I'll be coming to the South Beach in Brickell, definitely. You're at both run clubs, right? I'm at both. Today is Thursday, we'll be at South Beach today. Tuesday was a big day. Another big day, we partnered with Berger Meister in Brickell. Okay. And it was a very big run, Yeah. So You did Earth Day recently, I know. Earth Day, yeah. Let's talk about Sneaker Impact, cause I know we were part of the Brickell Run Club for Earth Day. And we have our boxes at the Brickell Run Club every week. No, you guys are a part of Brickell. Yeah. South Beach too, right? We have our statue in front of the Nike store. Tell us about how you found out, what your initial impressions were, and today you got to walk and see the facility here in Miami. No, first and foremost, I do think more people should come and see this facility, just because it's different when you just see the box. And, shout out to you guys for that box, it's all, it's great branding, it's clean people know, even your cardboard boxes, people know, we do have to stop people from throwing actual trash in there sometimes. I, every, I always, every event I'm at, whether it's the Marathon Expo, you have to say, no trash. But, at Brickell, we do have A committed community that is donating their shoes. Yeah. So that was my first introduction through Sneaker Impact, was through Frankie and Brickell Rug Club. Just having the box there, telling people what it's about, where the shoes are going. But now that I've actually seen the facility, it means a lot more to see the actual, not only community effort, because I know when people think, oh, I'm just donating to community, but It's supporting more than community is supporting business. So Sure, local employees overseas, people that are working hard. There's people working here, yeah. They're making a living here, and you were telling me some of the success stories of some of the employees here actually opening their own businesses to funnel the system that you guys put in place. Yeah, they started on the floor with the exporting, and then they moved their way into being a business merchant. For sure, and it's not only You can buy shoes. Yeah, it's not only Oh, I'm getting shoes, and if they're good, I can bring them somewhere else and sell them, or if they're getting donated, they get to go somewhere to somebody who needs it. It's giving people a way to make a living for themselves. That was And getting them to people in need, too. Yeah. Because they're all leaving the U. S. For sure. Which is important, because it's a second hand market, and it's also, there's people overseas that are not as fortunate as we are. And, even in America, there are two, but we're helping here, too, and, I think the bottom line is, it's You got to see the volume and it's a big operation here is all the employees are working hard and it's created a nice business out of shoes that would've normally gotten thrown away trash. 87 percent of shoes get thrown No, you were saying that's that and it's, when you see the warehouse, you're like, yeah. If 87 percent are getting thrown away, and this isn't even 1 percent of the shoes, then where are all those other shoes going, so yeah, salute to you guys. I definitely think Sneaker Impact is doing a great thing. You are finding a way to integrate yourself into the community. I know I've seen the boxes at multiple places, even if I'm not there. I'm like a working thing. I pass by and I'm like, oh Sneaker Impact. Like I know Sneaker Impact. I'm familiar. So I guess that's just like the first big step is getting people familiar with the process. Yep. And who doesn't want to do some good? If all you had to do was give your old shoes away to do good for somebody else it's a great thing to be a part of as well, too. Thank you so much. So I do want to applaud you guys for that. Thank you. What'd you think of the floor and meeting some of the employees today and seeing the grinding program? These are the Oh yeah, we were saying I got to offer you a drink. No, let's go. Actually got your gatorade. Yeah, we have it there. When I met Paul downstairs, it was Very interesting to see, because you can see he has a passion for the work that he's doing down there. The creative process. Yeah and to see that he's done some engineer work. You guys have your grinding machine, and the filtering system, and it's filtering through a Sneaker Impact's glass box, and I had to ask him like, isn't that cool? Did you make that? He's yeah, I made that. Yeah. And I'm like, you made a whole like, Filtering system for grind it up sneakers and soles. It's hard to describe. It's like a giant grinder that's got all these tubes and boxes and bags and vacuum cleaner type things looking going on. You can see like the passion when he was explaining it. Everybody else there, you can see they're focused. Everyone's focused. They have goals in mind. Like I said. Hard working people. Humble. Yeah, it gives people an opportunity to do for themselves and I think a lot of charity Is just giving without actually educating and giving a drive So I that was my biggest takeaway is that you guys are actually like empowering people to do more versus just Here's some shoes. Have a good day or just shipping them overseas Them to some store or shipping them to some school and then a box shows up. It's like This is your liaison. This is somebody, they're from your community. You guys are saying you do a lot of work here in Little Haiti right now. And you're saying you do a lot of work in Haiti and in the Haitian community. It's our number one export country. I guess recently there's been some issues, of course, getting the shoes there. Yeah, a very hard time there right now politically and socially. That might have been another reason why there wasn't a lot of people down there today. Yeah. Because it was a beehive a couple months or, it's been a beehive the last couple years. For sure. And things like that matter. It should matter to everybody, there's just conflicts happening all over the world. So I think when you're in a community like Little Haiti and you have an opportunity to give back and have some resolve for one of their conflicts, I salute you guys and applaud for being that space for people to actually like work and make a living for themselves. Yeah, thank you. It's an interesting stat is 75 percent of the world, apparently, this is, I have to triple check this, but I'm, I can take that part out. 75 percent of the world depends on the second hand market. But, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, because in the U. S. we really don't depend on it at all. No one really does. Some people go thrift shopping, we go to Goodwill. Let's be honest, we go there just because we're curious and we just want to get a good deal. Some people are really going there to save some money. I go to Aldi's because I love it. Or actually, I end up saving money. But the bottom line is a secondhand market is something completely different. That's like where all the clothing you buy is second most Americans don't buy second hand clothing or second hand shoes, but 75 percent of the world does, and we're only 4. 23 percent of the world, the U. S. That is a stat I looked up the other day. We're 4 point, the United States makes it 4. 23 percent of the world, but, and we consume, according to Google, 20 to 25 percent of the world's resources. Wow. And we're only 4%. So we're consuming five times our own resources. Normal amount. That's, yeah. And it's everything. It's, the new car every couple years, it's a new iPhone every year it's new stuff that every Black Friday and every time a year that it's a sale comes around, or, we just have to be more mindful about how much we're consuming. But I, the great thing is when people get educated, they really wanna change. And until you really know the problem in this, in the alarming statistics it's outta sight, outta mind. And so it's such a big problem that it's like a really bad problem we're like, shoes are coming out of the rain forest, because they're literally not even, the ocean's full of them already, I'm being a little dramatic, but at the same time. No, you're not being dramatic at all. We know they're floating in the ocean. Yeah. We know that people don't know, I see people throw trash out their windows on a weekly basis in Miami. And I, every time I see it, I honk and I just, I, once in a while, I had to talk to one person. I was like, stop littering. And they understood, it was a young person. Oh, okay. You want me to go pick it up? Yeah, please pick Definitely. It doesn't make sense. Why would we litter? Why wouldn't we recycle, I'm sorry, this is my. No, you're right. Sneaker impact, tie in. Yeah, for sure. And it takes Some education on topics like that. Yeah, because like you were saying if it's out of sight out of mind It's like ignorance is bliss So you passing that knowledge along to somebody if that was happening at a rapid rate Then we might have some improvement in those areas, And that's what we're speaking about running kind of ties into what's happening globally and what's happening in social situations is like we just did our plug run. We do plug runs probably once or twice a year. It's not the funnest run to do, but plugging for people who don't know is you run and you pick up trash. So we ran through La Havana down 8th street all the way back up into Brickell. And we've recently done those. We've done it on the underline, like places where people frequent and we come back with a lot of trash, pounds of trash. Pounds and pounds of trash. And that's from one hour of running. Wow. You know what I mean? And like it's a dent in a big problem, but little things like that and little initiatives like that kind of help things go in the right direction, plugging. That's awesome. Yeah. So I was actually going to ask you, how do you live and run sustainably? Because that's a question I ask every guest. So do you have any other ways that you've learned or that you just do as a runner, live yourself that you're trying to? Not, to be more sustainable, is there other things you're doing or learning about or just even being here today? Did you get excited to learn more? Being more, definitely, make new things out of recycled materials, like they're making a fashion bust downstairs. What are those called? Mannequins? Yeah, they're making mannequins out of recycled shoe soles. That's crazy, but Shasta Paul again for that. That's really great. To live sustainably through running is just, A, initiatives like Sneaker Impact not just taking shoes off, cause I know with running community it's like we're watching how many miles we put on a shoe and oh, we hit 200 miles, we hit 250 on this mile, it's done, throw it away. Like having an opportunity to be like, okay, I don't want to throw it away, thrifting and like you were mentioning before like being involved in fashion as well and being involved in creative like even though it's a trendy thing Like a lot of my friends we do. Okay. I'm doing a cleaning. I'm gonna drop this at Goodwill. It's right in Wynwood It's right there by 1 800 LUCKY. Like you guys can drop those off if you want. There are other people who may need it. Sure, trying to find a way definitely with Brickell Run Club We are very adamant about picking up the water bottles that we give out. Okay We, that's how we check our attendance. You have to provide water, and there are jugs, like bigger, what do you call them, Gatorade coolers? No, we don't do the Gatorade coolers anymore. No, we don't do the Gatorade cooler anymore. We have a small water bottle, but Because it's dangerous to run without water in Miami. It was 91 the last couple of days. And right now, I'm not sure again when this will come out, but, summer running, please hydrate. We've had In the past year, we've had a lot of issues where we don't want to call the fire department in to give you guys hydration. Bring your water bottles. We have space to store your water bottles as pacers. We will give you extra water if you need. But you can't provide 20 water bottles per person or 10. There's 700 people there. When we talk about sustainability, it's one water per person. It'd be 700 bottles a week. It would be like 1, 400 bottles if we gave people two a week. One day. Yeah, and not everyone takes one. Yeah, exactly. We're not talking, everybody takes one. But everyone needs to put it in the right spot, and that's a problem is, I see you guys cleaning up, but imagine if there is a more of a, just, I don't know if it's important to people as much as looking good was. Putting stuff in the right place, which is just a joke because we all want to look good, right? How do I look? You want booger on my face? No, it's but also, Make sure to put the stuff you just ate into the proper thing. And then if the wind messes everything up and throws it out, okay, then that's not your fault. We'll go pick that up. But if you're just throwing this stuff on the ground, and I used to see it on the Venetian Causeway, and it drove me nuts as a runner, because people were throwing their goo packets on the ground. And I went out there, and They're in the middle of a race, and they're like, And there were some times. It was actually after some of the races. And we're tossing yeah. And the racers do the best job they can to clean up, and sometimes they miss a spot. Yeah. But on the Venetian in particular, I was living in Miami Beach, and I haven't talked about this in a while, but I went out there a couple times, and it was at one of those little green islands, like the little, they had the little where there weren't any houses on it, but you cross it, and it was just right off the side of the road in the grass, and 20 goo packets, or all the different brands, of gels, and it was from runners, and there were no trash cans in the area, maybe, but it was just like, put it in your pocket. But there's worse problems than runners. But you know what? That's right on the bay. And I was like, all it takes is a little gust of wind, and we got all types. Plus, if you're doing it every weekend, and runners are running on there every day, and the goo gels are adding up, and that's the same thing that happens with the Red Solo Cups, and the people on the boats and the jet skis that are, the bay. We live on the bay and the ocean here in Miami. We're half a mile away right now, and it's a very sensitive place. I think that the discussion about sustainability and recycling and throwing stuff in the proper, even just sorting your recycling is very challenging. I recently moved into a home. It's not easy. It's not easy at all. Not easy. You've got to take the caps off of stuff. You've got to clean stuff a little bit. They don't want it half full of salt system. There's certain best practices. You don't have to completely scrub stuff down. I learned that recently. Because there's always going to, not everything even gets recycled. It's a very complex discussion. No, for sure. But you want to do the best you can. And the best, the biggest thing is at least get it into a, what do they call it, a garbage can or a recycling can. Don't let it just fall by the wayside and then it's part of nature all of a sudden. You see it on the beach, you see the red solo cups and they're gonna be there for You see it everywhere. You see the liquor stuff, the people that aren't mindful. For sure. And it ties back, because you were mentioning running and sustainability if you have the mind state of compound interest when it comes to work you put that effort into getting Three seconds faster every week. You're trying to get a minute off your time. You're trying to get two minutes off your time. As a runner, that doesn't happen in one session, it doesn't happen in one long run. So if you're going to think about sustainability in the same sense, it's like, all right, it's one cup. Yeah, it makes sense. Okay, maybe people tear a go pack in, they throw it on the floor. But if you consistently are doing that, then what does that compound work look like to you over your whole life? How much has it lowered your impact? How much is your impact on that? Because we all fly and we all Exactly. I think it's drive cars. It's in a sense like that, and there's quotes a around it. It's compound interest. It's compound interest. It's how you do sustainability. It's how you do anything. It's how you do everything is another thing. If you can't stop, that's having a good attitude. You don't have to complain about it. Reaching down, just do it just because it's the right thing to do, right? But sometimes we, I even, I complain probably more than anyone. I'm, but it's not that I want to complain, it's just that I'm a canary in a coal mine, and I'm, I also love the phrase, a squeaky wheel gets the oil. Because if no one complains about anything, it's going to go bad. Yeah, it's a complaint is almost like a customer in the customer service cycle. Yeah. We're earth citizens. We're complaining because we're seeing trash. It's okay, we're actually the alarm system going off. If you don't pay attention to it, then all of a sudden we're just gonna be, like, living in trash. We're already becoming part plastic, I think, I hope that we can move away from the plastic bottles, but it's challenging. I know it's very expensive to get Other forms. You guys are definitely preventing people from passing out there. So and you're educating a lot Frankie and the group educates more So that little bit of plastic isn't the end of the world compared to what you guys are doing as a community you're empowering people through running to just really support each other, which is beautiful. The run club scene in Miami It's legendary man. I mean i've traveled the u. s. I'm sure you have too. In fact, I heard you recently were in l. a Yeah, what were you doing? I was just a group of my friends just to get away for the weekend But okay It was actually A bit of a eye opening experience. Usually when we do go on trips, we try to inspire each other creatively, what things we're going to work on. So a big part of that group is the part of That's Besides the Point, which we are doing that event for Father's Day. So we're doing a lot of talking about that, mapping out What is That's Besides the Point in a nutshell? I know it's a creative it's a creative collective that is a group of guys and we just focus on It originally started for us just As a focus group to get our ideas out, talk about what's going on in life. But, we are always together, we've known each other for years, so it's just to push different initiatives creatively, different storytelling platforms. So like an art platform? I've seen the Instagram page, that's besides the point. It's on your profile. It's on our profile too, so I mean It's like a lot of good art, composed in the sense of, is it always art, or is it also more than art? It's more it's just storytelling for us. It's how we can take things that are happening in our lives and creatively in events and Storytell through our point of view. So For instance, just use the example of something that's coming up for the Father's Day. We'd like, how do we want to celebrate Father's Day? What connections do we have? So through Maria at J. Wakefield, we've talked to them. We have some local artists working on renditions so we can have that on our beer cans. We want to do a Crafted Beer Day. We're gonna have some vintage shop partner with us as well too, Retro City Vice. Okay. Through a gentleman, Steven, he's gonna be doing Locally connecting with us. So it's just ways of taking things from our community and Storytelling in our way. So that's really what the storytelling so powerful it is You know, it's how you advertise and I feel like we are a loss with that in a sense Because everything is always so fast but like when you ask like what are memorable things when you look back on big brands like Nike and we always talk about like How their advertising used to attract us so much, like you've seen Michael Joss Ryan in his gold cleats, and you can remember that, you've seen Ronaldo back in the day, his gold cleats, Jordan, his iconic things they were story told, they were slower. Advertising things that kind of captivated you down to I'm a big LeBron James guy, all the LeBron James commercials of the past, we remember with him and Kobe, and they had the puppets, and the puppets were arguing with each other for months and months and months, cool. To slow down and to actually pay attention to storytelling, and seeing what somebody has to explain to you or somebody wants to introduce you to. I think is a big part of what we're trying to gear towards with that size of play, but also that's what I'm trying to overall multitude I'm trying to do. Storytelling and just. That's cool. So that's basically filmmaking, art, in a sense, but multidisciplinary can be also music. For sure. Music is one, too. Cool. Let's get into one of the next sections. I know we're running out of time soon here, but it's 11. 10, so we're keeping an eye on the clock. And this will be out in a day or two, by the way. It'll take a day or two to turn this around. Arthur, what are your favorite running shoes lately? My favorite running shoe, I have I've been a victim of trying the newest and best thing all the time, and I've recently found out that Alphafly's are just not for me. Okay. Vaporfly is probably my favorite shoe. Okay. Alphafly's are great, but Vaporfly So you're loyal to Nike, mainly? I've And I love Nike. I just, it is what I know. That's what you know, and what you like on your foot. And it's what I like on my foot, so So you mainly run in Nikes. I mainly run in Nikes. And you're a Nike Run Club pacer, so that makes sense. I've tried some on shoes. And you worked for Nike. Yeah, I worked for Nike. Do you still work used to work for Nike. No, I used to work for Nike, yeah. You've tried On. On has some great shoes that I've liked. Hoka's are a bit high for me. Okay. I've run in them. I do like them. So you said you like the Vaporfly Nike is probably my favorite running shoe. Like the Next Person or the Pegasus? Like the Next, anything in that line. Even the Alphafly? Do you wear them? Alphafly I've tried. Zoomfly's and Vaporfly like Rode's are probably my favorite ones. Alphafly's are a little bit high for me. Yeah. I tried them for. They're good for a marathon. I wore them once in a marathon. I tried for the Miami half and I was great for nine miles and then afterwards I feel like I had bricks on my feet. So I was like not, but also I didn't really train in them. Yes. They were new. I put them on because they do feel a little heavy. Not heavy. It's not the right word, but like you said a brick where it's like more of a substance. Yeah, it's not like I'm running with the shoe. It's like I'm pulling the shoe along sometimes, but Vaporfly, Like Next Percents are like probably my Yeah, I've worn both of those shoes, and I wore the Next Percent a bunch, and then I got a pair of the Alpha Flies for London last year, or two years ago. How'd you do? It felt like in the Alpha Flies and I wore them in Chicago last October. I love Chicago. Is it felt like they're like more lower to the ground like as far as not in an explosive position? What I was told by someone at the running event in Austin, which is like a big running conference once a year I met someone from Nike and he helped design the alpha flies And he they interviewed like Kelvin Kiptum rest in peace before he passed away and they also have worked with Kipchoge extensively So this guy actually had physically worked with Kipchoge and he was telling me how You It's all about the position of the plate sometimes, like the next percent's like at a more of an aggressive position. And then the Alpha Fly was more of a flattened position, but now the newer Alpha Fly, they're getting into more of an aggressive. I think it just depends on how you like to run. And Kipchoge is a very smooth, efficient runner. And if you're more explosive, maybe the the next percent's gonna put you in more of a position. Maybe now they're learning and they're, all the shoes are changing and morphing and they've got a a new shoe line, I know, in between even, like the Pegasus Turbo was just re released. It re released, yeah. The 42 or 41, and they're going back to the 39, the most popular one ever, 38, right? I just read some about it where it's it takes a They took the carbon fiber out of it though, they're just using really nice foam. To get to it, because I think they had ZoomX foam before or something like that, and that's something When peg turbo came out before it was like a big thing like the zoom x turbo and the light carbon fiber plate instead of doing like heavy on each side of the scale but i think when it comes to especially nike running or like on running or hoka running it's goes back to that conversation we were having like because running is growing so much if you focus on the elite only you're gonna miss out on the broadscape the broad view but what are the goals of the new running community? Is it to be the fastest anymore? We don't know. I don't think it's to be the fastest anymore. There are people out there who just want to accomplish goals at their own rate. It's not always about, there is always going to be elite runners, there's always going to be people who are above average runners, or below average runners, but there's going to be Something for everybody and like an Alphafly or an elite running shoe might not be for everybody. Like how the Pegasus was so popular because that peg You would see people walking around in it. That's one that almost anyone could wear though, to be honest. Because you want to give someone a shoe that makes them feel like a runner, even if they aren't. But the Alpha Fly is like for the fastest runners, like the Kenyans. Yeah. And let's be honest, the people going for the Sub 3 Bostons, and the stuff. But you don't need, you don't need a 250 shoe normally. Not to do that, to run that. But what other gear do you like? What other running stuff do you favor? What do you use when you're running in Miami? When I'm running in Miami, I feel like now it's like Especially now it's like the less I have on or the less gear is best. I love like a Nike running biker like a Like our running half tights. I'm very much half tights. A Singlet if that yes, I don't we have a lot of late. I mean you can singlets that we do We definitely make a new one for each race that we do. We try to recreate Something for each race. Chicago's coming up. We'll probably do something very interesting for that soon. But as far as running goes, in Miami, I think you should be wearing as less as possible. That's a good point. It's especially Well, sunscreen, though, and a hat. Do you wear a hat? Because I see you got the Marlins on today. I wear my Marlins in my daily hat. And you got your late night menu crew shirt on. Yeah, we do have late night menu crew. I always wear my Marlins hat. I do love the Marlins as well, too. Shout out Sarah Penelope from the Marlins. A couple years ago, we did a Marlins run with Late Night Menuc Crew, where we got to actually run on the field. Okay. And I also wear this one because it's Daily Miami is a sneaker store here on 7th. But, I think as far as like running gear goes, I'm gonna stand by that, guys. Drink your water, and wear as least as possible, less as possible as you can. Have you learned a lot about nutrition as a runner? Because you said you weren't a runner in high school or college, necessarily. No, I wasn't. You came to it as an adult. Nutrition. You learned training for these races. Yeah, it's to stick to your program. Don't do anything crazy. So you eat a fairly normal diet still? I try to eat a normal diet if I'm doing a longer run. I'm not really like a goo guy. I don't like goos. I'll bring like some Twizzlers with me. Okay. Yeah, candy works. You can use anything. Yeah, I'm a Twizzler guy. I'll eat Twizzlers anyway. That's cool. So I'll try to sneak one. It's a sweaty Twizzler after a while, but it's okay. I'd rather do that. Oh, so you'll bring one even to Nike or not? You won't see you at Nike? No, not at Nike. Not at Three Files. No, but on the weekend when you're doing more. If we're doing longer runs as we start and that's Training for the races? Yeah, training for the races. And that's another thing I would stress. Find your group that you're gonna train with. It's much easier to get to that start line with the group. It's huge, yeah. And I always say this before any bigger race or any race that we're doing. Like The process of getting to the race was the race. The race day is a celebration for me. That race day is a celebration. You put all that work in already. When it comes to nutrition, don't try anything crazy. Yeah, they always say nothing new, but nothing spicy either. Like a day or two before the race. Exactly. Or three or four days. We always think Week of the race. And you know those people Minimize alcohol, minimize spicy food, minimize new things. That's the thing, yeah. We try to minimize the alcohol for sure. We definitely did that. Oh yeah. It's Maximize hydration. And other things like iron, I'm sure. Like, when we did Brooklyn when we did New York Marathon last year, a group of us, we went Lucali. Frankie has taken us to Lucali before. It's a great pizza place in Miami Beach. Yeah, we went to the one in Brooklyn as well too, things like that. Find your group, get a plan together, plan a group dinner, or if you're going to be doing that, especially with Nutrition Now. One of our pacers, Lindsey, on Instagram, she's Lynn Held, she's like a nutritionist. Okay, so you'll find that support in the Run Club. You can find support from her, like she's definitely somebody who details on her Instagram. And that's Lynn McArdle. Like meal prepping and healthy. I meal prep here and there when I can, I'm not the best, but yeah. What to eat before runs, what to eat throughout the week, what to eat when you're training. Frankie's wife Carla as well is a great person. Yeah, shout out to Carla. Yeah, Carla's a great person to look to as well too. So again, in these communities, there's so many people that, Are offering advice, are offering help, offering different details and nuances to get you through different parts of running. socially, if it's nutrition, if it's mentally, there's a lot of spaces now. Thankfully, because of the growth of the running community that, that got you covered, Awesome, man. It sounds like you guys are supporting each other in tons and tons of ways. Literally, it's so much, Run Club has always been so much more than just a workout, but, Frankie and the model that he's created and that you've helped also build and implement is just really cool to see because it's really authentic and it's fun, and it's not so serious anymore, and it's just, I'm sure you've seen people come that are, didn't think they really belong there, and then they Fell. They got, they liked, or what I'm trying to say is that people that didn't think of themselves as a runner before but came to try it out with Nike and then fell in love with it For sure. And then they come every week. Yeah. And they would've never thought that they were gonna become a runner, but, and they might not be the typical, sub 20 minute 5K runner. They might be a 30 or 40 or 50 minute, but whatever. Or, but they just covering the distance and they're having fun and they're laughing and it's not about judging what time you had. And, as far as the amount of time it took, it's about the quality of the which is all about energy, attitude, and, attitude's everything in life. And your attitude as a pacer, I'm sure, sets the tone for the entire run club. And that's you made a great point there. There's so many people that are like, I'm not a runner. Yeah. And I have, Very much closer group of friends, like even my close group of friends in That's What Size Is Point, two of them, Devin and CJ, they're photographers. You talked to them years ago even now, they've ran multiple halves, they've done photography events for running, they've shot running in different places, and they'll still say, oh, I'm not a runner. And they're like, oh, I'm a runner now, but they'll still stand by that I'm not a runner thing. Because they didn't run in high school or college. They're not a traditional runner, but They came to it late in life. But I feel like our community is so embracing that, even if you don't identify. As a runner, you're not like on shopping. Or someone who's never done a mile before. Yeah. Or, someone who might be a little overweight and might be a little what's the word? Just, not feel they might not feel, oh, I'm not some skinny runner. Yeah, they don't feel like they belong, but especially here in Miami, we're great about that. Yeah. Another person. All body types are welcome. Yeah. All nationalities, all faiths. All walks of life. All types of people. We just did a walking event last week with Nike. Shout out to Kenzie. He's running Nike. He can hear. And even when brands push in initiatives like that, they have a new shoe that's meant for walking. There's a huge walking event that happened with the Wellness Wellness Wednesdays Walk Collective with Lara. I actually got to DJ that as well, and it's oh, that's cool. Yeah, and it's yeah. With things like that happening, I feel like there are the spaces for the elite, and there's the spaces for our non traditional runners and our walkers. For just everyone to get involved. It makes you healthy. Honestly, have you seen that? People just get healthier? Healthier, yeah. There's And happier, too. Mental health, we were talking about earlier. Yeah. Physical health's very important, too. Because there's an obesity epidemic. There's a diabetes epidemic in the U. S. There's a cancer epidemic. And running does help prolong life. Studies have shown that. No, for sure. And I've Cardiovascular exercise is so important. There's examples around I have closer friends who they started running and turned their life around. They're different people. Things are going well for them. And it's not Necessarily like by luck or by chance, it's like when you start to focus more on yourself and you start to focus more on your health and your mental health and your physical health, other things tend to happen. You know what I mean? You put yourself in the right place. It's momentum, right? It's energy going in the right direction. It's that compound interest that we were talking about before. One thing is connected to the other. You know what I mean? I do I'm very thankful for the community in Miami, especially for being embracing to me as they have been and allowing me to have some say so and some influence on things that are happening in people's lives, so I don't take it for granted. Why do you think you were chosen as a pacer? Have you ever thought about that? Why I was chosen? Do you know why or do you know how you were chosen? Tell us that story. I said to Mollie was the one. I tapped Mollie on the shoulder that I wanted to pace. Okay. Oh, so you took the initiative. Yeah, because I wanted to go run and not be on the, not work. As an employee that you could probably, of Nike, they could be, yeah, you get paid to go to run club. Yeah. So I was like, why am I still in the store when I can go out there and run? So it all started as a means of just escaping the sales floor, but It turned into being able to talk to wonderful people like yourself, and working with Sneaker Impact, and working with Brickell Round Club, and having Frankie be the leader he's been. brought me on the news with him to speak about late night menu crew, partnering with different things in Miami that I never really thought would happen, but was hopeful that would happen. That's awesome. So I'm just more excited for next steps and yeah, what is the future hold? Can you what other projects are coming up in the next six months? I know you have this event for Father's Day Yeah, and you have something with J. Wakefield. When's the J. Wakefield? J. Wakefield is on Father's Day. That's the one on Father's Day. Yeah, but for this six months, it's very much focused towards getting everybody ready for Chicago Marathon, and Berlin Marathon, those are the two. The fall marathon season. The fall marathon season, and then going up to winter, where we have Miami Marathon, which is our home. Yeah, the summer's hard in Miami, it gets extremely hot, it's not as crazy here. But after that fall marathon, we're like, Good to go for Miami. Oh yeah. Once like October, November gets here, then we're good until like April. And then now it's May and it was 91 the last couple of days out. And I'm going to restart my running June 5th. I've had the last two or three months off. Okay. Right after World Run. No, I may never take Global Running Day. Yeah, June 5th, Global Running Day. Global Running Day. We're going to be doing some activations for Brickell Run Club. Awesome. That week I believe the late night meeting crew has a run that weekend as well too, I can come to the Tuesday Global Run Club, but Wednesday I'm going to be at Runner's Depot on Global Running Day. Oh, that's One of our partners were, we were invited to their Fort Lauderdale Run Club on Thursday. Oh, congratulations. Runner's Depot? I've, yeah, I've heard of it. I'm familiar. Yeah, they're good people. They're up in Broward more so than. No, yeah, and there's great crews in Broward too. Broward Run Club. Yeah, do you want to give any shoutouts in this section? No, definitely. Broward Run Club, where I was about to speak on it. Kev Lee's a great group out there. Kevin Blair. We have No RSVP, formerly known as Unknown Run Club. They run from Wynwood every Saturday. What's the name of that one? No RSVP. No RSVP. So their whole thing is just pull up. That's led by Sean Motley. They run from Panther. Coffee right there on second and in Wimbledon next to Coyo. Yep. We have Christian Lee's Coconut Grove I've heard about that. They Run Club, Late Night Menu Recurrent Club. If I'm forgetting anybody Oh, a gentleman by the name of Alexander. He leads Morning Miles. They run on Saturdays. You can find them We have Did you DJ the ON squad race? Yes. I remember you there. Yeah, I did the ON squad race. The 600 meter relay. That was DJing that too. We ran, we lost. I remember, you did a great job DJing it. You brought a lot of energy. Cause I'm a DJ at the time. And I came with my small group, my team. And we were like, wow, they got a great DJ. This is really good. That was a wild event. Thank you. That was like the first event I've probably ever done, too. Running event. You brought a great sound system. Thank you. Thank you. Louie was also DJing with me as well, too. Yeah I think, yeah, I almost, I forgot. Oh, The Herd on Thursdays. They run for Baco Studios. The Herd. The Herd. They run Thursdays. If I'm forgetting you, I'm sorry. No, there's so many run clubs. I've got five of my own that are so low key that they haven't met recently. But there's hundreds of run clubs in Miami though. Not hundreds. There is. There's dozens. No, and that's a big thing too. In Fort Lauderdale, Miami area. Between us and there, I think that what people, what I would want to say and I want people to know is it's not a competition. I feel like it's a community, not a competition. and we can all Support each other. Yeah, you can go on a tour and go to everyone's run clubs. Yeah, I definitely want to make that, because it can become, when it becomes branding, when it becomes supported by bigger companies and things like that, like it can create separation because What you want to do great for the world is not any less than what I want to do great for the world. So it's, I feel like we can all co exist. Just exercising in general, we can all run together, for sure. So that's really cool. But guys, you can find Arthur on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Tuesday at Brickell, Thursday at South Beach. Arthur, it was really amazing having you today in the Sneaker Impact studio. What do you think? Thank you. Amazing area, amazing studio. This is good work. So we're going to go talk to the founder now. And we're going to Today's Thursday, so I gotta get over there as well, too. Do you have any final thoughts you want to share with our audience today about your message of, I always ask people about hope, about love, and about optimism, and just what, why, what keeps them going? As Frankie would say, don't stop. I, yeah, Frankie's definitely don't stop. I recently was speaking with people and I posted about it as well on Instagram, but community is key and commit to your community. We are there for each other. We have people who are watching out for us, people who depend on us, and I just say keep your commitment to your community, and that's awesome. Alright, thank you for your inspiring message today, Arthur. We'll have you back in the future. Alright. And yeah, have a great rest of your summer. Thank you. Take care, brother.
