We Run 313's Joe Robinson: Building a Running Movement in Detroit

Building Community Through Running: Joe Robinson & WeRun313's Inspiring Journey | Episode 2

Join us in this special interview featuring Joe Robinson, co-founder of WeRun313, one of Detroit's largest running clubs. In this follow-up episode, Joe reflects on the humble beginnings of WeRun313, how they grew from a small group to a community movement, and the importance of building a run club around inclusivity, charity, and performance. Alongside his 10-year-old son Jojo, Joe shares insights into the power of community engagement, the impact of running on mental health, and the benefits of giving back. Don't miss out on learning about their unique partnership with Sneaker Impact and their plans for future marathons and community events. Get inspired by their incredible journey and find out how you can get involved!

Stay Connected & Learn More
https://www.werun313.com
https://www.instagram.com/joerobinsonapx
https://www.instagram.com/werun313

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Welcome Back
00:11 Revisiting Joe Robinson's Previous Interview
00:47 Introducing Jojo and Family
01:22 The Origin of We Run 313
01:32 The Growth and Impact of We Run 313
05:26 Lululemon 10K Event Recap
15:46 Miami Running Community and Personal Connections
21:37 Winter Training Challenges in Detroit
28:26 Coaching and Future Aspirations
30:57 California International Marathon (CIM) Plans
36:22 Discussing the CIM Race Experience
37:03 Ambassador Program Insights
38:25 Run Club Membership Benefits
39:29 Community and Charity Initiatives
42:55 Building a Sustainable Run Club
49:54 The Importance of Inclusivity
58:20 Personal Leadership Journey
01:09:14 Sneaker Impact Partnership
01:16:38 Final Thoughts and Farewell

Transcript

Introduction and Welcome Back

Bryan The Botanist 0:05

​welcome back. We got Joe Robinson. We run 313 in the house. Joe, how's it going? It is good, man. How you doing? Awesome, man. Uh, doing happy to be back. Yeah. Special edition. This is our first time. We've had a follow up interview with one of our previous guests, guys we had Joe on in the last year.

Joe Robinson 0:19

Uh, I wanted to redo that one anyway because, um, um, uh, the quality'cause we was like on the phone or over the computer and the wifi was going out and stuff and we had a good talk, but I just think that the, um, internet connections we were having was causing the issue. You know mean we've sorted

Bryan The Botanist 0:35

out some audio on our end here and now. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 0:36

Oh man, y'all set up this. It's pretty like, I wish people could see this, like, I like this. Yeah. Well you're live

Bryan The Botanist 0:41

on Instagram right now, so. Yeah,

Introducing Jojo and Family

Joe Robinson 0:42

yeah, yeah. So they'll get, Instagram will get a sneak peek and then we'll publish this and not people see the whole

Bryan The Botanist 0:47

thing. And we're gonna get a third camera eventually. Right now we have two, one aimed at you and your son. Jojo. Welcome. Jojo in the house.

Joe Robinson 0:53

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 0:55

How you doing, Jojo? Good. Cool. How old are you? I'm 10. 10. Oh my god. Yep. And I like to play games. And that's it. All right. All right. We're gonna ask you some more questions later. Jojo was

Joe Robinson 1:15

also an honor roll student too. Amazing.

The Origin of We Run 313

The Growth and Impact of We Run 313

Bryan The Botanist 1:17

Yeah, I can tell you're very, I can see that, that that focus in you. Yeah. I'm sure you got some of the athleticism of your dad too, so. Mm-hmm. Guys, if you don't remember, I'm gonna reintroduce Joe Robinson, he's the founder of, we Run 3 1 3. Yep. Co-founder I of Detroit. Co-founder. Co-founder. Yep. And that's a big run club out of Detroit, Michigan. Absolutely, sir. It's been a movement and you guys have really built a big following I've seen.

Joe Robinson 1:44

​Yeah, it's been, the growth has been like phenomenal. And it started like, I don't know if you were gonna ask me this question, but I just kind of wanna. Uh, fast track it, like yeah, lead the way, man. Like it, we run 3 1 3 started from just like an idea, like me and my partner Lance Woods, shout out to Lance. Um, we met in February of 2019. Actually, our roots are here in Miami. Um, I did the Miami Marathon half marathon in 2019. He did the Miami Marathon in 2019 and we didn't know each other.

Bryan The Botanist 2:19

Okay.

Joe Robinson 2:20

You met

Bryan The Botanist 2:20

in Miami. Wow.

Joe Robinson 2:21

Well actually, but you'd

Bryan The Botanist 2:22

heard of each other. You just hadn't physically met yet, is that what you're saying? So No, no. You hadn't even heard of each other. So we

Joe Robinson 2:26

both were here.

Bryan The Botanist 2:27

But you're both from Detroit?

Joe Robinson 2:28

Yeah, we both were here, didn't know each other. And then when we got back home, mutual friends saw our Miami post and was like, wow, y'all don't know each other. Y'all because we, at the time, um, I was putting together small run groups, like four or five people. Okay. At that time. Yeah. And he was also doing the same thing, but he had a little bit more, he probably had about eight or 10 people in some of his old photos. And, um, people was like, wow, y'all doing the same things. Y'all at the same place. Y'all don't know each other, y'all should meet. Mm-hmm. So that was January, 2019. Okay. And then February, 2019, we linked up, went for a run. We started to say, okay, man, you a good guy. You a cool guy. We had a lot of similar beliefs. Hit it off. Yeah. And then we were like, you know what? Uh, I think in March we was like, let's, let's invite some people to run and see what happens. Mm-hmm. And then we put a flyer out in, uh, may of 2019, May 4th actually, and we had like 200 people sign up to come run with us. Wow. It was crazy.

Bryan The Botanist 3:30

Like I had never How did you put the flyer up on Instagram? Or did you do it? Yeah, we did like a

Joe Robinson 3:34

splash, that link, which is like an Eventbrite. Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we did like a splash that link. And I don't know where them people came from because people

Bryan The Botanist 3:43

started sharing it. I'm sure people

Joe Robinson 3:44

just started sharing it. Um, this is way before what you seeing today online with like the run club boom, how like people got run clubs everywhere now everybody want to get into run. That's like the new hot thing. Mm-hmm. This is way before this. So man, we just put that link up and I always say like. Run club in Detroit was something that Detroiters needed, but we didn't know that we needed it. You know?

Bryan The Botanist 4:11

Yeah. Brings a community together and

Joe Robinson 4:13

Yeah. Kind of like Velcro. Like I watched the story of the guy who started Velcro. Mm-hmm. And he created this thing and it seemed like a pointless creation, but when he made it, the world needed it, but they didn't know that they needed Velcro. Right. Yeah. That's a good, yeah. So, um, but when it came out they was like, wow, we really need this. Yeah. You know, so that's kind of how I like the liken the Run Club to that. Like it was just that thing. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 4:38

That's amazing story. Um, thank you sir. Cool. So we're gonna come back to, we, we run 3 1 3. It's a little bit of a tongue twister for me.

Joe Robinson 4:46

Yeah, no. Even for me too. Like, I find myself saying it so much throughout the day on Zoom calls and stuff. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it, it gotta say it

Bryan The Botanist 4:54

slowly and enunciated. Yeah. Three one threes the area code, obviously. Area

Joe Robinson 4:57

code in Detroit. Yeah. We're in the

Bryan The Botanist 4:58

3 0 5 right now. 3 0

Joe Robinson 5:00

5 Dade County right now.

Bryan The Botanist 5:01

We run 3 0 5. We run 3 0 5.

Joe Robinson 5:03

We gotta do that man. We run 3 0 5.

Bryan The Botanist 5:05

They got like the, um, Frankie does something with like, you know, um. 3 0 5 Run. That's something, yeah. Frankie? Yeah, we run Miami. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 5:12

His run group is like, uh, run Miami. I think they call it three oh five Run Club or something like that. Yeah, something like that. Um, I don't wanna butcher the name. Frankie. I, I really apologize. I just saw him too. Frankie is a good guy. He got me into a Miami marathon last year.

Bryan The Botanist 5:25

Yeah.

Lululemon 10K Event Recap

Joe Robinson 5:25

He's a good guy.

Bryan The Botanist 5:26

Yeah. Awesome. So let's talk about this morning. I see a medal around your neck. Yeah. It says Lululemon on it. Tell us what happened this morning.

Joe Robinson 5:32

So Lululemon put on a series of 10 Ks. They've been doing it. Uh, they did like every year they do a new place. Mm-hmm. Um, they did Atlanta. Before then they did, um, Scottsdale, I think they used to do, they used to do this big event called seaweed. I've heard

Bryan The Botanist 5:50

of Seaweeds. Yeah. That was in Canada, right?

Joe Robinson 5:52

Yeah. Pre Covid. Pre Covid in Vancouver, they used to do like a big event out there.

Bryan The Botanist 5:56

Mm-hmm.

Joe Robinson 5:56

And, uh, I think Covid kind of messed it up. And then they was like, well, what can we do? Like, right. Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't, I don't know the, uh, the conceptual idea for what they do today, but, um, I can only imagine that's what it is.'cause as an ambassador. They were going to take me to Seaweeds, but then they was like, oh, COVID happened, so mm-hmm. Then they popped up with this. So this is the Lululemon 10 K tour where they do these 10 K events all around the nation. Um, they did, uh, Miami today, last March was um, uh, Los Angeles. Okay. And then before that was November was Scottsdale, Arizona and then they did Atlanta before that. So I believe there are four events in. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 6:41

Yeah. I mean I love that the 10 K is more accessible.'cause the half marathon's great. People love it. Yeah. The marathon is, you and I know and you've done ultras. We're gonna get into that a little bit today too. Those take so much discipline to train for and I think a 10 K doesn't scare people as much. So you can get more people. 10 K scares,

Joe Robinson 6:59

10 K scares people who want to perform.

Bryan The Botanist 7:01

Sure. Because it's harder to run. It's like a 5K, it's like two

Joe Robinson 7:04

five Ks. Yeah. And you know the 5K is the most difficult thing to do. So I sometimes would rather do

Bryan The Botanist 7:09

a marathon or half than a 5K. Yeah. Feel the same way. 5K is like all out from the gun accelerate. Yeah. You like running

Joe Robinson 7:15

seconds, above mile pace. Trying to hold on for dear life for 20 minutes or

Bryan The Botanist 7:20

15 or whatever. You 15

Joe Robinson 7:21

six. I ran 16 minutes at my fastest, but, but a 10 K is like doing that twice. Twice. So competitively a 10 K is just like, what am I doing? But to

Bryan The Botanist 7:32

get like the yogis out and you know the, but to

Joe Robinson 7:34

get the everyday runner out, there's a lot of

Bryan The Botanist 7:36

yogis in the lemon community. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 7:38

Lululemon community is like, mostly, it's more

Bryan The Botanist 7:40

than just runners. It's also like lifestyle people. It's

Joe Robinson 7:42

mostly yoga and

Bryan The Botanist 7:43

for them they might be chilling and just supporting the brand. And I know there's like Run with purpose or lead with purpose. Is that what one of their slogans,

Joe Robinson 7:49

they got a lot of slogans.

Bryan The Botanist 7:51

They got some good

Joe Robinson 7:51

slogans. Yeah. I think that Lululemon. It is in a very unique space, in an athletic, uh, community. Like they're not trying to be Asics, they're not trying to be a Hoka where they got 30, 40 different kind of running shoes. Mm-hmm. And they got huge racing teams. I don't think they really want to do that because the bread, their bread and butter is in yoga.

Bryan The Botanist 8:13

Okay.

Joe Robinson 8:14

You know what I'm saying? Women's yoga. Yeah. Leisurely, but ath athleisure, I think you call it. Yeah. That's their bread and butter. So like, but I will say with, with that in mind, I am very impressed with how they activate in the running space. Like their 10 k event. Like when I went to Scottsdale last year to see their 10 K event, I was. I didn't, I didn't expect for it to be so well produced. Yeah. For, for a a, for a a, a yoga company. Sure. Essentially

Bryan The Botanist 8:46

like tell us like on the course, like mile marker signs. Man. It was

Joe Robinson 8:49

like anything else. Crowd support. Yeah. It was like produced like anything else. Like they didn't spare no expense at hiring the right people. Yeah. The people that you and I respect that produced the events,

Bryan The Botanist 9:00

like Dave McGillivray company produced today's race in Miami, Miami Beach. Right? Yeah. I saw the star. I saw some photos on Instagram, like a beautiful start, finish line. And then Dave McGillivray is the race director basically for the Boston Marathon.

Joe Robinson 9:11

Oh yeah. See that's what I'm saying. So they got, they didn't spare no expense of getting the right people. It wasn't

Bryan The Botanist 9:16

logistically it was perfect. Yeah. Logistically is perfect. Of course it was over the MacArthur Causeway, the 3 95. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 9:21

We ran Miami Marathon backwards. Okay. So, so that first six miles of the Miami Yeah. We ran that. The other way. So do you

Bryan The Botanist 9:29

finish downtown or did they have you come back to the beach?

Joe Robinson 9:31

You finish downtown at, um, what's the name? What's the name of that park next to In

Bryan The Botanist 9:36

Bayfront?

Joe Robinson 9:36

No, no, no. It's before the Kase. So the Kase has two parks. You got Oh yeah, yeah. Bayfront. Then you have the one that start museum,

Bryan The Botanist 9:43

park,

Joe Robinson 9:44

it, start with a m It's like something

Bryan The Botanist 9:45

Museum, park.

Joe Robinson 9:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So right there, right by the art museum.

Bryan The Botanist 9:49

Yep. Right by the Kaseya Center. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 9:50

So we finished it in for the heat

Bryan The Botanist 9:51

play.

Joe Robinson 9:52

Yeah. Yep. We finished in there. Awesome. So it was a

Bryan The Botanist 9:55

good event. How did it go? Was it hot? I'm sure today it was like 92 yesterday. I mean, it's been ungodly hot down here.

Joe Robinson 10:01

So like wave one is like, um, wave one is like, is like, uh, it's like big. So it's a big corral. That's the only thing that I would say they probably should fix. There were a lot of people in Wave one. Yeah. Wave one was like from like the people who want to win, which are like the uh, 33 minute guys. Sure. That was up front and then all the way to like the, the 7 30, 7 45 people. Mm-hmm. So like it was wave one was, so they should

Bryan The Botanist 10:31

have had an elite start. Almost. Maybe.

Joe Robinson 10:33

Yeah. They, they probably should have had like, Hey, sub six guys if you wanna run 35 minutes. Sure. That's what the

Bryan The Botanist 10:39

Flanagan's rocking rib done Run. Run does. That's a 10 K in the fall. That Runners Depot, I dunno if you've heard of them. They're one of our partners in Broward. They have seven stores they put on a big 10 k where they bring down all these pros, Joe. Yeah. It's like they bring in Kenyans even that are like, wow. From Colorado Springs. They have a prize purse of like 50, 30,000. But like they give the top male and female each like 10 K and if they set a course record, they get like another 5K. What Like Top Master gets 500. Like I've won Top Master there. Wow. Like 34, 35. And like it's a very professional race in November. And so there's not a lot of might come do that. Yeah. It's called the Flanagan's Rocking Rib Run. And they give you ribs.

Joe Robinson 11:15

Sound like Boulder. Boulder.

Bryan The Botanist 11:16

Yeah, exactly. I know about Boulder. Boulder. That one is even bigger in terms of its history and its professional field. Yeah. But this flanagan's rocking rib run, they have a professional start where, uh, I've been lucky to be in it a couple times, but this last year I wasn't in it for the first time. And I did that respectfully because I'm coming back from an injury. Right. And uh, but they have like 30 people in the professional field. Wow. And it's all these people, like the girls are running like 31 Joe 30. Wow. I think the course record for the girls that have run like under 30 there and then the guys, they have guys that have run 27. Crazy. They show up. So this like, that's elite. It's a little different level than even the Lululemon one. Yeah. But I love that Lululemon. Like some of my friends, we can give him some shout outs right now, are ambassadors. I want you to do some shout outs to people you met. Mm-hmm. But I know Elliot Mason, one of my dear friends is Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the pacer,

Joe Robinson 11:59

I believe.

Bryan The Botanist 12:00

Uh, Hector Orana. Yeah. Uh, the owner of I run, co-owner of I run, Hector was

Joe Robinson 12:04

out there with us at the shakeout run too. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone

Bryan The Botanist 12:07

else you wanted that you saw today? Man, so

Joe Robinson 12:09

many ambassadors, man. First of all, I shout out to Jorge. Jorge is one of my close friends. I've been around the world with him in the last year. I mean, Berlin, is he a Miami

Bryan The Botanist 12:18

guy?

Joe Robinson 12:19

He's from Chicago.

Bryan The Botanist 12:20

Okay. So he had people coming down here that were from Blue Lamon, ambassadors from all over the country. He's

Joe Robinson 12:24

a city ambassador. So Lululemon has different levels. Um, okay. Sorry if that's bothering you. No, I can set that right here. Yeah. They have different levels of ambassadors, like store ambassador, city ambassador, global Ambassador Uhhuh. He's a city ambassador for Chicago. So key little limit cities get the special type of ambassador. So Jorge's a city ambassador. Okay. Um, uh, my guy major, he's from Chicago. Um, coach Kyrie, she's from Detroit. She's ambassador at, at my Lulu Limit store as well. Okay. Um, uh, Charlie Dark, he came in from England. Charlie helped, uh, this year and last year at least 10 people from our run club get bibs. Wow. For the London Marathon. Oh

Bryan The Botanist 13:06

my God.

Joe Robinson 13:06

Yeah. Um, that's hard.

Bryan The Botanist 13:08

I've run that once and it's not easy. I had to qualify through the World Majors.

Joe Robinson 13:11

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 13:12

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 13:12

I run London too. I like London. I like it.

Bryan The Botanist 13:14

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 13:14

I

Bryan The Botanist 13:14

like it. I

Joe Robinson 13:15

like London. Um,

Bryan The Botanist 13:17

so how did you become a Lululemon ambassador and when did that happen?

Joe Robinson 13:20

I became a Lululemon ambassador. I believe it was 2021 in 2020. I think Lance walked in Lululemon and said, Hey, we have a run club. And they was like, cool. And we got on the phone like a Zoom call. Uh huh. With the community specialist for that, for our area. Sure. And she was like, oh, I was already gonna reach out to you guys. Oh, wow. And I'm kinda like, what are you waiting for? You know what I'm saying? That's awesome. But yeah, she was like, yeah, I was already gonna reach out to y'all, but I'm glad we connected. Right. Yeah. So we started to do, um, some activations. With them. Nice. And um, they, they was doing some pretty cool stuff for us, man. They gave us like a bunch of, uh, shorts and they shorts are like a hundred bucks. Oh

Bryan The Botanist 14:12

yeah, yeah, yeah. I only have a couple pairs. Yeah. My favorite pants are Lululemons ABCs.

Joe Robinson 14:16

Oh yeah. Yeah. Work pants. Like a work pants. Yeah. It's

Bryan The Botanist 14:19

funny what it stands for. I don't know if it you should say it. I, I don't remember. One of my friends has a joke. She works there and she told me, oh, anti ball crusher, but oh my God. That's funny. That's funny. Um, I don't know if that's for real or if it's a joke.

Joe Robinson 14:31

I don't know. I have to do some research from that. Someone

Bryan The Botanist 14:33

that told me Christina Ramirez, shout out to her. She's my very dear friend. She's a community organizer for Miami.

Joe Robinson 14:38

Oh. You know what? I think she just followed me on Instagram. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 14:41

She was there today. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. She's been with them for like 15 years. I

Joe Robinson 14:45

followed two, uh, Christina's from Lululemon. Yep. Today Christina

Bryan The Botanist 14:48

Ramirez, her and her husband, Rafa Rafa Ramirez Uhhuh. They're both the big Lululemon people down here. Is she pregnant? She has a couple kids, so it wouldn't surprise me. It was a pregnant Lululemon. She has like blondish curly hair. But she's Latina, so it would be like, she's more Latina, blonde. But anyway, she's amazing. Shout out to Christina Ramirez. She's been supporting, she's part of the I Run community and she's been supporting the running people down here from day one. Mm-hmm. And Hector's been a big person. And then recently Elliot came on board in the last couple years with Run Addict. They actually are launching a store I just saw yesterday for Run Addict Who Run Addict. Yeah. Run Addict Has, is selling Lululemon through their app now. And it's co-branded clothing for runners with the Run addict and Lululemon collaboration. Wow. Dope. So that's like, I was like, that's dope. Whoa, that's super dope. They got a partner, they got a license to sell Lululemon on their app.

Joe Robinson 15:33

That's super dope. That's super dope. Super dope. Dope. So I'm,

Bryan The Botanist 15:35

and I love their, their gear. I have a couple of their shorts and hats and, mm-hmm. I have a, a couple tank tops and mm-hmm. I love how it, it anti stink, you know? It's got that. Yeah. Shout out to Lululemon. Yeah. We love you.

Miami Running Community and Personal Connections

Joe Robinson 15:45

I bet Lululemon got some great technology and clothes. I've been learning a lot about the Miami running community, man. Like Miami is the, my most visited place ever. Really? Yes. I have been down here 20 times. Oh

Bryan The Botanist 15:59

my God.

Joe Robinson 16:00

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 16:00

Even before like 20. Oh yeah. I started coming

Joe Robinson 16:03

down here before my son was born.

Bryan The Botanist 16:05

Wow. You have friends down here?

Joe Robinson 16:06

Well I did. I was, um, a tour manager at one point and the first time, that's right. Yeah. You have a

Bryan The Botanist 16:13

background in music? Music? Yeah. I was in

Joe Robinson 16:14

music for 10 years. Wow. So my first time I came down here was, um, through music. Okay. Came down here and I just loved it. Met some cool people. Came back.

Bryan The Botanist 16:27

Yeah. I

Joe Robinson 16:27

did another event. Came back, came, came back on two, um. Uh, two trips just by myself, just to meet some more cool people.

Bryan The Botanist 16:36

Yeah. Just hanging.

Joe Robinson 16:37

Yeah. Then I came back, um, with his mother one time. Yeah. And then like came, I met

Bryan The Botanist 16:43

the family. Yeah. You met the family on Friday here. You brought your daughter to him and your wife? Yeah, my daughter Joie. Yeah. That's awesome.

Joe Robinson 16:47

Yep. And then I came back again and I mean, it's just, and then I run down here. Yeah. Four times. Like I, it's just something about South Florida that, that just kinda keeps bringing me back to this place. Like it's

Bryan The Botanist 16:59

a magical place. I moved here from Madison, Wisconsin. Mm-hmm. Mid-Westerner. Like you. Yeah. Um, I lived there for 30 years and I moved down here in 2008. Really? So I've lived here for about 16, 18 years now. Wow. I lived in the beach for most of that time, but I just fell in love. Now I live in the city near Sneaker Impact. Yeah. We're in Little River right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just fell in love with the city because of it's, it's a melting pot of diversity. Mm. And of different people like in Madison. It's an intellectual city. It's a capital city. It's a university. Yeah. That's the capital. Yeah. There's a lot of interesting people there too. But it's so cold. So partially it was the warmth and the tropical climate. Mm-hmm. And I have a degree in botany and I love plants, so it's like a great place to be for botanists. But also I fell in love with the fact that you meet people here from all over the world. Absolutely. Cubans, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Haitians. We have so many friends here that are Haitian and I have so many friends. Russian, it doesn't matter where, anywhere in the world. We love to welcome people. I got a

Joe Robinson 17:50

Haitian friend here, my friend Naps. My friend Naps used to, uh, run, uh, this clothing store here. Um, called Eight Nine Clothing. I don't know if you ever heard of them, but Yeah,

Bryan The Botanist 18:00

they're, yeah, we're on the edge of Little Haiti. We're like two miles away from Little Haiti right now in

Joe Robinson 18:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they're, they're, um, they were based over there at one point. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, man, I had made a lot of, we have many Haitians

Bryan The Botanist 18:10

here at Sneaker Impact that help us. I see. I be walking

Joe Robinson 18:12

through the warehouse. Did Mo

Bryan The Botanist 18:13

show you the, the Haitian area where the Haitian families sort? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they actually ship'em to their family in Haiti.

Joe Robinson 18:19

He told, uh, some, a lady over there was, uh, saying how she, um, paid for her daughter's college. Yeah. Through sneakers. I met her too. She

Bryan The Botanist 18:27

put her daughter through medical school or through college. A couple of'em put her kids through college from the

Joe Robinson 18:31

work that she was doing, sneakers from recycling shoes. And one of

Bryan The Botanist 18:33

em started as an employee on the floor. Mm-hmm. And then she got her own, she started her own business. Wow. So like, it's just showing how they're so like. The entrepreneurial spirit Yeah. Exists in us all.

Joe Robinson 18:45

Absolutely.

Bryan The Botanist 18:46

And you don't have to play small and just start and stay in, in on the forklift or in the sorting area, which we value every single person here. We got Maya and Jessica back in the sorting station. Jessica is recently here from Cuba. She doesn't speak any English, but every day I talk to her in Spanish. Mm-hmm. What I, can I say yo? Right. Which I learned recently. I am trying, yeah. I learned how to say it. Yo,

Joe Robinson 19:09

I have a practicar.

Bryan The Botanist 19:12

What I say, like I'm trying to practice with you every day and she doesn't know much English, so we're teaching each other and Right. That's, there's a lot of people like that. There's Paul, who's from Puerto Rico, or he's from Dominican Republic. Paul works in the grinding station. Did you meet Paul?

Joe Robinson 19:24

Yep.

Bryan The Botanist 19:25

Yep. So did you go back in the grinding and see all Absolutely. The technology Mo showed you Well saw of technology. Beautiful. We should go grab some sandals and show'em off. Yeah, you got

Joe Robinson 19:31

some right there. Yeah. These

Bryan The Botanist 19:32

are, um, these are not the official sneaker impact. Um. Uh, grinded foam. Yeah. But these are made by the same company that we're working with called Flex. Yeah. Ours are gonna say sneaker impact and they're gonna look like many different colors of the shoe. Mm-hmm. So they'll be like, if you took a, a bunch of shoes and you put'em in a blender, you know, it'd be mainly white, but there'd be speckles of like pink and purple and blue and yellow. That's how ours, we are not gonna dye'em. These are dyed black. Oh wow. But yeah, this is a California company and we're gonna have, Mo's probably showed you the shoes we're working on.

Joe Robinson 20:02

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 20:03

Like a company outta LA called Community Made is already making shoes. Yeah, I saw'em out there with the mid, mid sole is made outta our foam. And then yoga mats, foam rollers. So that's all gonna coming soon. We'll get some to 3 1 3.

Joe Robinson 20:14

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 20:15

So that's awesome, man. Um, we were talking about, you know, how much you come down to Miami. Mm-hmm. Uh, what else do you like to do when you're down here? Uh, what have you been doing with the fam? Did you guys get out to the beach? Did you get to every day? Yeah. They just want to go. Did you go to the Ocean? Beach?

Joe Robinson 20:28

Beach. Beach.

Bryan The Botanist 20:29

Beach Beach. What do you think of the beach? Jojo?

Joe Robinson 20:31

Oh, it's very great.

Bryan The Botanist 20:33

You like the ocean

Joe Robinson 20:33

fish case? There's too much seaweed in the

Bryan The Botanist 20:35

water. That's recent. Yeah. It was in the news. A bunch of seaweed came in. Yeah. But it's not always like that. So now you gotta just kind of Yeah. But I went out there a week and a half ago and did a little swim. Mm-hmm. And uh, I was, I was moving it around a little bit, but it's gotten worse. I think in the last week they said on the news, like, be prepared. There's a big seaweed flush coming in.

Joe Robinson 20:52

Crazy. Yeah. But over on

Bryan The Botanist 20:53

the west coast it was worse.'cause that one was with like a fish kill and it was called something else, like the red tide or something. Mm-hmm. And that one, you weren't even allowed to go in the water. Really? It was like bad for your health. Wow. Like this seaweed is just annoying. It's not actually bad for your health. Right. But it's, it's a little, but you still, did you like the water temperature? Do you like the way it feels? Yes. Did you go with your sister? Did you meet any friends? Make any, do you have any friends down here? No. So it's just you guys hanging out at the fam? Yes. Yep. Do you like the heat?

Joe Robinson 21:24

Yes.

Winter Training Challenges in Detroit

Bryan The Botanist 21:24

Basketball. And then you like the actual sun. Do you like how warm it is here? Kind of Or do you prefer Detroit? Both. Both. Nice. Yeah. We love our city man. Of course. Yeah. But you got the winners and we don't, so yeah. What do you think of the winner? Can you train up there in that winter? Is it, you stay consistent?

Joe Robinson 21:42

Um, yeah, we train in the winter modify. It's a, it's a, it's some treadmill days.

Bryan The Botanist 21:46

Like if it gets below 20, does the run club still meet?'cause in Wisconsin, I don't know if it was below 20, I I would run indoor.

Joe Robinson 21:52

No. So we don't meet when it's below freezing.

Bryan The Botanist 21:54

Okay.

Joe Robinson 21:55

Because you could slip and this whole thing. So, um, I assume, yeah, so we, uh, we don't run after December. Okay. So first week of December we, we shut it down. Okay. Um, first week of December we shut it down and we opened back up in May. Okay. And, you know, people be. Begging us to do winter runs. Mm-hmm. Y'all should run over the winter. Y'all should run over the winter. But the thing is, man, I, I'm just gonna be honest here. Like, it's difficult enough getting our community out. Mm-hmm. Just to run two miles Sure. When the weather's great. And to tell them, Hey, now come do this when it's 25, 30, 20 degrees and it's getting dark at 4:00 PM

Bryan The Botanist 22:39

You're right. So you're running in the dark. It's dangerous. It's

Joe Robinson 22:41

freezing. Freezing

Bryan The Botanist 22:43

10% of the people you're normally gonna get.

Joe Robinson 22:44

Oh yeah. Yeah. Plus it's a lot of

Bryan The Botanist 22:46

work for you guys. It's a lot work to

Joe Robinson 22:48

organize and do that. And when you do

Bryan The Botanist 22:49

it, you wanna do it big and you guys Yeah. Have a lot of benefits for your runners. And that's

Joe Robinson 22:53

the thing. I'm so glad you said that. Yeah. So like the, one of the, probably the main reason why we don't organize in the winter is because we run 3, 1 3 is so much more than just two miles. Right. We have things to offer people, we have things to benefit people and benefit the community. Mm-hmm. And we have, we don't like to. Uh, just kind of like show up, tell people to run and then everybody get in their car and go home. Okay. We want to connect, our slogan is connect, run, build. We want to connect with people, we wanna offer people things. We want people to use the things that we have. We wanna get to know you. We want to know what you got going on. And we can't do that when it's pitched black outside 20 degrees and only 15 people showing up.

Bryan The Botanist 23:37

Vendors don't want to come out their Yeah. Nobody wants to come in their chiropractor because we nutrition people,

Joe Robinson 23:42

we bring all them tent to r run big tents and stuff, so like, imagine Yeah. Food and

Bryan The Botanist 23:46

stuff and Yeah.

Joe Robinson 23:47

Like nobody wants to be a part of it when it's just cold, super cold, super dark. And

Bryan The Botanist 23:51

right up in the Midwest it, the sun sets so much earlier down. It sets at four o'clock. Yeah. Even in like December, well, December's the shortest month of the year. Yeah. The daylight.

Joe Robinson 23:59

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 23:59

And we get more light down here in Miami.'cause I remember when I moved here from Wisconsin, it was December 1st.

Joe Robinson 24:04

Mm-hmm. And

Bryan The Botanist 24:05

I remember that I drove down here, Joe, and the first day I was here, the sun said an hour later than it did. And it wasn't just a time change, it was an actual hour more even on top of the time change. Oh wow. We were closer to the equator. Right. So we get an extra hour a daylight down here.

Joe Robinson 24:19

Oh yeah. So in the summer, so Detroit, the summer, Detroit being in Canada in the summer, Detroit, the sun set at like. Nine o'clock. So

Bryan The Botanist 24:27

you get lot. You get guys, it's still sunny when it's still sunny. When we meet at 6:00

Joe Robinson 24:31

PM we meet on 6:00 PM That's so Tuesdays. Yeah. And like they do at

Bryan The Botanist 24:34

6 45 down here. So six is a nice early Yep.

Joe Robinson 24:36

Yeah, everybody get off work, you know. Um, we do 6:00 PM and we do six 30 on uh, Thursday.

Bryan The Botanist 24:42

Okay.

Joe Robinson 24:43

Take off at 6 45.

Bryan The Botanist 24:44

Okay. So it's like, oh, that's cool. So you gather a little bit beforehand. Yeah,

Joe Robinson 24:48

yeah, yeah. Strict takeoff at 6 45. Do

Bryan The Botanist 24:50

you guys use like a loudspeaker? Like Frankie uses Bullhorn. Yeah. Bullhorn.

Joe Robinson 24:53

Yep. Yep. Um, I think that most run club organizers have a hive mind when it comes to that. You don't even have to pretty, you don't even have to watch anybody else run club. If you're a, a natural galvanizer of people to know like, hey, we're going to, we're gonna meet up, we're going to give people time to get off work. We're gonna give people time to get here. We're gonna give people, um, some time to come to the space. Socialize. I'm gonna get on the bullhorn because there's no way three, 400 people can hear my voice. I can't project it like that. Get on a bullhorn. And give instructions, and then we're gonna take off. Right. So Nice.

Bryan The Botanist 25:27

Get nice and comfortable. They might have to drop their gear. They wanna come in and get comfortable. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We, that's smart. Versus like, we're starting at six 30 and people show up at 6 35 and, or at 6 25 it's like too close. You want'em to Yeah. Come at six. Get to know some people, make some friends chill. Socialize beforehand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You socialize after. That's cool. It's like a happy hour.

Joe Robinson 25:48

Well, yeah, because people is like, like, oh, this is my first time and they're really nervous. Mm-hmm. See, we run 3 1 3. We, we, we take the people who like don't run. Mm-hmm. That's like our demographic. Like people that either don't run, wanna get into running, used to run and they wanna find their way back into it. Okay. That's our two mile Tuesday. You know what I mean? So that's why I said it is bigger than just showing up. You know, telling people to run,

Bryan The Botanist 26:20

knocking out eight miles and going home. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 26:22

And then going home. Like that's not really how we. Jive. We really don't do it like that. You're

Bryan The Botanist 26:27

building the community there. Yeah. We, we, we, we fostering people like Yeah. We bring

Joe Robinson 26:31

people in and let them know, Hey, this running thing isn't bad as you think.

Bryan The Botanist 26:35

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 26:35

It's not bad as you think. And the benefits are great. Here's what you can do. Look, we, we, we do, uh, one mile out. We take a, on average 15 minutes because we wait for everybody to finish that first mile. Mm-hmm. And then we go back. Okay. You wait. Yeah. Just to show people like, look, it's not bad as you think.'cause most people show up and say, I don't know if I can do this.

Bryan The Botanist 26:56

They're intimidated because they might have seen someone that's a very fast runner or just

Joe Robinson 27:00

a word run. Like if you think of like, public school, running is a punishment.

Bryan The Botanist 27:05

Yeah. If

Joe Robinson 27:06

you play baseball, basketball, football, because if you late, what did a coach make you do?

Bryan The Botanist 27:11

Run some laps.

Joe Robinson 27:12

Run some laps. So when peop people grow up with that and then they be like, oh, I gotta run. And then it's triggered with this punishment from playing sports. That's so

Bryan The Botanist 27:20

true. Yeah. So if you're not like. Super competitive runner like you and I are. Yeah. Like we wanna run, I wanna run. You

Joe Robinson 27:27

know what I mean? But, but I'm

Bryan The Botanist 27:28

a cross country coach and I never use it as punishment because I'm aware of what you're saying. Yeah. Is that I never, if someone is talking while I'm talking, I just give'em a warning. Yeah. I'll say, please don't talk while the coach is talking. Mm-hmm. If they show up without their clothes, we instruct them to go home. Yeah. Supposed to come with their uniform. So we, we make that clear on day one. Yeah. You don't want them to running run hands. Yeah. That's the only, it's not a punishment, but we have consequences. Yeah. Because you have to teach kids, you know, it's different than with adults. With adults, we're really, this is a varsity sport. Mm-hmm. You know, that I'm dealing with so. Right. But I don't ever punish them by, once in a while I'll make'em do five to 10 pushups, Joe.

Joe Robinson 27:59

Yeah. Now pushups are good.

Bryan The Botanist 28:02

Planks and pushups. I never tell'em they have to run extra. Yeah. I want'em to fall in love with running. And I don't want them to think that I'm a mean guy either, but I can't be their best friend. Yeah. Right. I'm the coach. Right. And they're not allowed to negotiate the workouts. That's. Hebrew Academy. Listen. Yeah. So I coach out in Miami Beach and, uh, at the Hebrew Academy.

Joe Robinson 28:19

That's dope. Yeah. That's dope, man. Good for you. 15 years. Yeah. Good for you. High.

Coaching and Future Aspirations

Bryan The Botanist 28:21

I wanna coach college someday, but I, I've just never had the opportunity, so maybe that's my dream someday is to be. How about you? Do you coach besides adults? Are you doing a I told myself, yeah.

Joe Robinson 28:30

Um, funny, I'm gonna say this on air officially. I do want to get into coaching. Mm-hmm. However, though I want to do it different, right? Mm-hmm. Um, a lot of people's kind of like getting into coaching and the way that they're doing it is fine and it's unique. Mm-hmm. A lot of it is just kind of like textbook stuff, standardized program. Standardized, yeah. Like, Hey, I'm gonna prescribe a program to you based on who you are, where you live, and what you wanna run. Mm-hmm. Um. Which actually I just jumped on this, uh, runner app. They got like chat GPT doing that now, basically. Yeah. Yeah. I've

Bryan The Botanist 29:13

heard of that

Joe Robinson 29:13

coaching now. Yeah. So runner is like a prompt. It's like just a bunch of prompts where they do the same thing. Um, so yeah, one day I do want to get into coaching, but I just want to go about it in a super unique way that doesn't like, clash with any way that anybody else is doing it. Okay. And I did tell myself two things. Yeah. The first thing I said was, if I do coach a runner officially on paper, it'll be one of my kids first. Mm-hmm. Um, I want to share some of the thing and I, I don't know. Um, everything about running enough yet to jump out there and say, Hey, I'm a coach. I'm a coach. I'm not even, um,

Bryan The Botanist 29:58

take a few courses at least. Yeah. I gotta really research.

Joe Robinson 30:00

Yeah. I gotta really get out there more and learn a lot more.

Bryan The Botanist 30:04

Yeah. And look for a good mentor too that you jive with. Yeah, I,

Joe Robinson 30:07

I, I found, I believe that

Bryan The Botanist 30:08

thank is a great coach down here in Miami. Yeah. There's other coaches I've learned from too. And

Joe Robinson 30:12

yeah. I learned a lot from, uh, from Knox Knox. I don't know if you know Knox on Instagram first run, uh,

Bryan The Botanist 30:17

what's his name?

Joe Robinson 30:18

His Instagram name's First Run. Okay. Yeah. I learned a lot from Knox. He trained me to my first and uh, he trained me to run under three hours. Awesome. Yeah. So I learned a lot from him. And, uh, y'all around about the same age too? Yeah. Yeah. He run, he's run. Where does he live? Los Angeles. Okay. He's run, uh, he'd be a great person to get on this show. He's run about. 40, 30 or 40 marathons all under three hours or something like

Bryan The Botanist 30:41

that. Amazing. Yeah. Um, if he wants to come on, we'd love to have him.

Joe Robinson 30:44

Yeah. I'll introduce you. But yeah, I said I would coach my kids. So you have a

Bryan The Botanist 30:47

personal coach that you've looked, that you've looked to for once?

California International Marathon (CIM) Plans

Joe Robinson 30:49

He's the only person I've ever coached with or ever been coached by. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, and then for, uh, CIM.

Bryan The Botanist 30:57

Mm-hmm. Let's talk about CIM. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 30:59

I'm not thinking of coaching people per se, but I do want to take a focus group'cause they gave me 10 bibs. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I do want to take a focus group of people with me and huddle up with them. Train

Bryan The Botanist 31:19

with'em if you can. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Robinson 31:20

Yeah. Not coach them per se, maybe have a

Bryan The Botanist 31:22

WhatsApp group where y'all can Yeah. Well we talk, support each other. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 31:25

And, and then I can, I can share. What I've learned,'cause I haven't run, I've run 12 marathons and I've run about 20 half marathons and an uncountable number of five Ks. Mm-hmm. So I do have experience with the bib, you know what I mean? So I want to share that with people. And nutrition. And nutrition and all that. Yeah. I would, I just want to share, um, my thoughts with them and allow them to learn as well and allow them to teach me some things too.'cause I don't know everything. So that's,

Bryan The Botanist 31:57

we're always learning.

Joe Robinson 31:58

Yeah. So hopefully, you know, I can put together a nice group of people that want to run, that want to be goal oriented.'cause not everybody in the running space is goal oriented. Sure.

Bryan The Botanist 32:09

Some people just want to do their first marathon finish. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 32:12

Some people just wanna run their first 5K. Some people just want to complete two mile Tuesday. Mm-hmm. Some people just want to. Believe that they can do it. They just wanna know they can do one mile. Sure. You know what I mean? So Yeah. That's

Bryan The Botanist 32:22

a big deal to some people.

Joe Robinson 32:23

Yeah. That was a huge deal for me. Yeah.'cause I never was a runner in school, so when I first did one mile, I was mind blown.

Bryan The Botanist 32:29

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 32:29

And I know that a lot of people share that same sentiment. Um, but I do want to get with some people who, and I'm again, I'm talking about for CIM.

Bryan The Botanist 32:37

Yeah. So let's, uh, introduce that. The California International Marathon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the

Joe Robinson 32:41

people listening. Sacramento. Don't know what it is. CIM is the California International Marathon. Um, in Sacramento, and it's the first week of December. And I myself has just become one of 10 ambassadors for that event. And um,

Bryan The Botanist 32:56

and you're running it in December? Yes. So we're gonna, I'm running it too. You

Joe Robinson 32:59

run it. We'll be there. You will be there. My fifth. I am.

Bryan The Botanist 33:01

I'm a previous ambassador. Right. Because I told you about outside the pockets. So my birthday's December 4th this year, CI m's. December 7th. But in many years the race was either on the third or the fourth. So several times this would be my fifth time running it. So we can jam on this right now, like Yeah. If it, if you had run it, have you run it before?

Joe Robinson 33:17

No, I, I signed up and paid for it before, but I, but I had to sell my bid because I couldn't

Bryan The Botanist 33:22

make it. It's a very competitive, they called an OTQ factory or a BQ factory. They literally call it a factory for Olympic trial qualifiers. Right. So when I ran my personal best of my life there of 2 30, 1 20. Wow. And I ran 2 30, 1 50 there as well. Wow. Four times I've run, I've run 2 32. Two 30. 1 2 30. 2 31. So, very, so. I was 166 plays Joe at that time.

Joe Robinson 33:44

Damn.

Bryan The Botanist 33:45

So there's plenty of people to run with. There's one year when I ran, I think the first time I ran 2 30, 2 a hundred women. Got the Olympic trials standard there. Damn. A hundred women, Joe went under 2 44. That's crazy. Now it's 2 37 and there's guys there, it's the California State Championship race. Yep. Yep. So it's a big deal. It's in early December. The weather is amazing. The course is. I heard it rains

Joe Robinson 34:06

every year.

Bryan The Botanist 34:06

Well, it doesn't rain every year. It has rained. I don't know if I've been rained down the fourth times I've run it, but it's usually about 45 degrees, which is like that sweet spot. Mm-hmm. You know, according to researchers, the perfect marathon temperature for your best time is between 45 and 55. Absolutely.

Joe Robinson 34:22

That's my favorite. 45 degrees. 45 55.

Bryan The Botanist 34:24

Yep. Like,

Joe Robinson 34:25

like, um, which we don't

Bryan The Botanist 34:26

get in Miami very often.

Joe Robinson 34:27

Yeah, no. Like I'll, uh, go to the starting line freezing, but when we, when, when it's like they're doing a countdown. That that frigidness just wears off. And like that 45 degrees is just perfect. But

Bryan The Botanist 34:38

30 sometimes can be too cold. Where you lose the feeling like, I ran Philadelphia one time, it was 32, I ran my best half. But like I had the gloves on, I had the arm warmers. Mm-hmm. And it was so cold. You can see your breath wears 45. You're not struggling. You know, I'm from Wisconsin so I can take 32. Yeah. But some, and you can take 32 as well. Yeah. I've run 32 degrees, but like there's people who are from Miami and that they can't even breathe in 32. Yeah. Like some years when I've done Chicago, I've gone up with people from Miami and they're freaking out'cause it's 34.

Joe Robinson 35:07

Yeah. And

Bryan The Botanist 35:08

like I'm like, it's okay. You know, just breathe. But they're like, I can't breathe.

Joe Robinson 35:11

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 35:11

So like being from Detroit, you guys have like the ability to handle that cold

Joe Robinson 35:16

given we go out and train in it.

Bryan The Botanist 35:18

Even though you might not always train in it, at least your body is used to used to being cold. It, you know how to layer up. Yep. You've probably trained in some colder weather too, but it doesn't get down in the thirties. For CIM it's in California. Mm-hmm. Um, it starts in Folsom. It's a point to point. And the first. 13 miles are rollers. Mm-hmm. And then it, it goes down from 13 to 20 ish, and then the last 10 K is straight flat into downtown Sacramento. And you finish at the capital building. Right. Which is in a beautiful giant, like it's the same type of capital as Madison, Wisconsin and Washington DC with a big dome. Yeah. So you do a circle around the dome and then you finish, uh, and you come in and you're counting down the streets, Joe from like 90, 80, 70, 60, and you end at the tens and like the seven. Don't

Joe Robinson 36:01

tell me too much.

Discussing the CIM Race Experience

Bryan The Botanist 36:02

Sorry. I don't wanna tell you too much. Yeah. I'll tell you this. People say that it's an easy raise to PR in and I got my two fastest times there. But it's not an easy course because it's got a lot of rollers, but it's nothing like Boston and, and New York. Oh, okay. You know, it's got rollers in the sense that, you know, rollers. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a lot of rollers. It's got like 20 plus rollers in the first 10 miles and then it's downhill and flat. Wow. So it finishes very fast. But that's all I'll say. Um, you know. It's not Boston and Chicago in the terms of crowd support, but mm-hmm. But the, the field is so competitive. I'm head over heels about that race as a former ambassador, you know, I used to do parties like you're gonna do now. They encourage you to get people out for fun runs where you educate them because it's very well known in California. And CIM is legendary. So if you're a serious runner, you want to go to CIM because along with Chicago and Houston, it's probably the fastest course in the US. So,

Joe Robinson 36:56

yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 36:56

Yeah. That's my quick take on it.

Joe Robinson 36:58

Yeah.

Ambassador Program Insights

Bryan The Botanist 36:58

But I'm so excited for you to experience it. And we're gonna be at the same, we're gonna be there together. We're gonna be there together. So we're gonna do something from there.

Joe Robinson 37:04

That's fun. That's so dope that you uh, um, we're in the same seat that I was. Once

Bryan The Botanist 37:09

you're ambassador, they don't really want you to do it again.'cause the second next year they were like, we're picking new ambassadors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they told us. It was nothing personal. Yeah. They're just like, you guys were awesome. I think it was 2022 or three. Mm-hmm. But they're like, this next year, you know, we're, we're picking a fresh crew, but I was the Miami ambassador.

Joe Robinson 37:24

Nice. Yeah. But other, anyways,

Bryan The Botanist 37:25

yeah, they pick people from all over the country. I think that's really cool. Yeah, and they, and I didn't get any bibs, unfortunately. I mean, you've got this big run club though. Like I didn't have a big run club. So you got the opportunity to share that. I

Joe Robinson 37:34

think they, I think that they,

Bryan The Botanist 37:35

yeah.

Joe Robinson 37:36

Prioritize that. That might be a new thing too. Yeah, like if you got a run group, like they want to, they want to get you some guaranteed entries or something. That's awesome

Bryan The Botanist 37:43

that they gave you ton entries. Man, I don't

Joe Robinson 37:45

even know if I'm supposed to say that publicly. I got a free

Bryan The Botanist 37:46

entry for being an ambassador, but I, yeah, they give you

Joe Robinson 37:49

that, but they give you guarantees.

Bryan The Botanist 37:50

I think I got discount codes. But Well, whatever. I mean, if they want, we're fine with

Joe Robinson 37:54

that. Yeah. But I think they changed it up because the race sold out so fast. That's the

Bryan The Botanist 37:58

thing is people don't understand that all three tiers

Joe Robinson 38:00

sold out.

Bryan The Botanist 38:01

This race sells out by September and it's in December and it might sometimes even sells out in the summer. It

Joe Robinson 38:05

sold out two weeks ago.

Bryan The Botanist 38:06

Oh, it's already sold out. Yeah, sold out. Yeah. All three tiers, all promoting it. They just like share the love with the community. Yeah. Like you being an ambassador from Detroit means they're gonna get more people from Detroit area. Yeah, because I plan on

Joe Robinson 38:17

using all those guaranteed entries, I plan on using them. Nice. So again, like I said, I want And

Run Club Membership Benefits

Bryan The Botanist 38:22

how do you choose who gets it? Is it fundraising at all? Is it people that are doing good in the communities that first come, first serve? You know,

Joe Robinson 38:27

so we run 3 1 3 has a a membership program away from our group runs. Right. So our group runs are always free no matter what. Right. Okay. Tuesday, Thursday. So you don't charge anything for No. You do stuff

Bryan The Botanist 38:38

on Sundays too, or Saturday, yeah. Yeah. We do a run on

Joe Robinson 38:40

Sunday as well. Okay. Yep. So we do Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Tuesday, Thursday,

Bryan The Botanist 38:44

Sunday.

Joe Robinson 38:45

Yes sir. And that stuff's always free, but. Away from that. We have a membership program where people pay a membership to, uh, to the run club. And we throw bibs in there like crazy, like nice. We sent five people to, uh, London. Wow. Free bib. Yeah, free bib. We got, I put 10 bibs in there for Sydney. That's like

Bryan The Botanist 39:04

$300 value.

Joe Robinson 39:05

Oh yeah. Well for the bib the crazy thing is our membership is$9, but we give you hundreds of dollars in value in it. Yeah. So, um, I put 10 bibs for Sydney in there,

Bryan The Botanist 39:19

Australia.

Joe Robinson 39:19

Yeah. So me and nine other people are going, whoa.

Community and Charity Initiatives

Bryan The Botanist 39:23

Um, so you're good at like communicating with races. Yeah. Yeah. We got some partnership club and I, I never was able to get bibs. I never tried.

Joe Robinson 39:30

Yeah. So

Bryan The Botanist 39:31

it's all about putting that effort out there that you're educating them. Yeah. See, I,

Joe Robinson 39:34

and, and the thing about membership is like if you're going to like. Like pay, have people pay into something.

Bryan The Botanist 39:42

Mm-hmm.

Joe Robinson 39:42

You gotta be on the other end doing the work to deliver the value. Deliver

Bryan The Botanist 39:47

value. I was But you took, yeah, I was thinking those same words. Deliver value. Yeah. You have to deliver the value. It's your responsibility then if you're collecting money.

Joe Robinson 39:54

Yeah. And then we go above the value you wanna over deliver. Yeah. We overdeliver on value. Did they

Bryan The Botanist 39:59

get a jersey ever or is that an extra fee? Do you guys have your jersey? Yeah, we gave

Joe Robinson 40:02

away, we haven't gave away any tanks or singles, but we gave away something cost more than that. We gave away jackets.

Bryan The Botanist 40:08

Oh

Joe Robinson 40:08

yeah. So we,

Bryan The Botanist 40:10

3 1 3 jackets. Yeah. We took, so we run 3 1 3 on'em.

Joe Robinson 40:13

Yeah. Like Anac, uh, half zip. Nice. Yeah. That's advertising

Bryan The Botanist 40:16

too.

Joe Robinson 40:16

Yeah. Uh, rain proof weather, weatherized jackets. We took, um, 10 people to the Washington DC half marathon and we gave them all jackets. Oh. We took like 20 people to, uh, uh, rock and roll Las Vegas, and we gave them all racing singlet, custom racing singlets. Wow. And we took another 30 people to rock and roll New Orleans and gave all of them custom singlet for free.

Bryan The Botanist 40:44

Wow.

Joe Robinson 40:44

Yeah. So you gotta just deliver, working with

Bryan The Botanist 40:46

some of your partners to do that. The printing. Yep. Yep, yep. So the materials.

Joe Robinson 40:50

Yep. Local run clubs who wanna partner with us on the products and different things like that. Wow.

Bryan The Botanist 40:55

Yep. So you're, you're beyond a run club leader. You're, you're a community organizer, you're also a marketing genius. Yeah. So,

Joe Robinson 41:01

thank you.

Bryan The Botanist 41:01

I'm just gonna say it because Thank you, sir. I, I had to. Two or three run clubs in my life and mm-hmm. We struggled just to get those jerseys printed with local printers. And it costs 45 to$50 to buy one. That was the cost. That was cost.

Joe Robinson 41:12

Are you, are you gonna be a TRE? That's,

Bryan The Botanist 41:14

yeah, we'll be a TRE. So Pack's gonna be there.

Joe Robinson 41:16

Hopefully we're gonna keep our fingers crossed. TRE,

Bryan The Botanist 41:19

um, in San Antonio.

Joe Robinson 41:20

Yeah. So hopefully right

Bryan The Botanist 41:21

before CIM I'm going right from TRE. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 41:24

And I, I honestly, I did to Sacramento. I didn't realize that they were so close. They're

Bryan The Botanist 41:28

days apart. TRE ends on Thursday and my coworker Jasmine, she is getting us into the San Antonio marathon. Fingers crossed we're talking to them.

Joe Robinson 41:36

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 41:37

So we're going right from having our fourth year in a row, our booth at TRE to being part of, she's gonna stay for San Antonio. I said, jazz, I love you. You're amazing. You got San Antonio. I'm going right to Sacramento on Thursday night to get ready for this marathon, because, you know, which, which would be on Saturday? Uh, the marathon's on Sunday.

Joe Robinson 41:54

Sunday. Okay. Sunday.

Bryan The Botanist 41:55

But I'm gonna need two days to just chill.'cause TRE, you're on your feet. We're loading in, we're loading out. We have a booth. Yeah, we're right next to Hoka every year. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'm coming back from, I met you

Joe Robinson 42:04

at TRE. Yeah,

Bryan The Botanist 42:05

yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. That's where we first met.

Joe Robinson 42:07

Yeah. So the thing about it, um, you said marketing genius, so I kind of wanted to Yeah, let's go

Bryan The Botanist 42:11

on that.

Joe Robinson 42:11

I wanted to speak on that. So. TRE, um, hopefully they approve my curriculum course class. You know, they do the, the breakout rooms. Educational. Yeah. So I put in for a curriculum on run club growth and build and sustainability as you should have. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 42:29

Hundreds of, you're getting two to 300 people a week. That's incredible. Well, more than that,

Joe Robinson 42:32

because we, we get that just on Tuesday.

Bryan The Botanist 42:35

Okay. So on a weekly basis, you're getting maybe

Joe Robinson 42:37

500 people Wow. In a week.

Bryan The Botanist 42:39

Plus Detroit's the area. We really need to really support even more than like Yeah. Chicago and New York have great scenes and so does Miami, but mm-hmm. We don't always think of Detroit as like a running mecca. Right. And you're helping

Joe Robinson 42:50

create that.

Bryan The Botanist 42:51

And, and also it's an underserved community, let's be honest.

Building a Sustainable Run Club

Joe Robinson 42:54

Oh, absolutely. And we could talk about the disparities in Detroit soon. Yeah. But I wanted to do a course to, to tell us about the course to tell people like how. And why. Mm-hmm. Right. So you said marketing genius and really, it's not really marketing genius, it's just I figured it out like this. Okay. Creating a run club, there's four pillars of success in that run club. And if you're missing these things or if you lean too hard into one of these things mm-hmm. You won't get the success. And obviously success looks different from person to person, but there is a universal thing that we can agree with. Success is, yeah. What are

Bryan The Botanist 43:37

those four pillars? I'm curious.

Joe Robinson 43:38

Um, the first one is, um, uh, socializing. So above all things humans just want to connect with one another. Above all things. Humans don't care where they are, they just want to meet another person, which is

Bryan The Botanist 43:54

instead of favoring the fastest runners,

Joe Robinson 43:56

I'm gonna get to that.

Bryan The Botanist 43:58

So you want everyone to connect regardless of their speed, regardless of their body type of anything and their background

Joe Robinson 44:03

regardless of anything. Their skin color and their religion. Because that's how community is built. Community is a bunch of people that don't look alike. Sure. It's just a bunch of people that's not like you. And there's some more people that's not like this is a bunch of people, right? That's how you create a community. Um, so socializing, you gotta have some, like, some sort of socializing aspect to it. Then after that it's um, uh, charity, right? You gotta do some, you gotta exercise your social responsibility.'cause we all have that. You have to do some type of thing for the community that, um, helps uplift your run club. In a positive way. And the, the, the power that you garner, you gotta give that back out. Right? With great power comes great responsibility. So we do, we run 3 1 3, we gave away 1200 pairs of running shoes this year. Oh my God. Just in May, may, the first week of May. Whoa. And this is our fifth annual shoe giveaway. Whoa.

Bryan The Botanist 44:56

So

Joe Robinson 44:56

if you don't have running shoes, you come to, we run 3 1 3 at the top of the year. That is

Bryan The Botanist 45:00

incredible, Joe. Yeah. I can't even imagine a thousand shoes. And you're just in one month you were able to accumulate. Not one day. One day. How did you, we could talk about that, but I mean, how did you, you must have had a

Joe Robinson 45:11

partner. Yeah, we got partners run, run club store partners that pitch in and just bring us shoes. Wow. Yeah. And, and we, they, we just, that's

Bryan The Botanist 45:18

like$50,000 value.

Joe Robinson 45:21

Oh, more than that. I mean, if we get into 1200 pairs and they average a hundred dollars, that's 120,000.

Bryan The Botanist 45:29

I can't even think to see hundreds of thousands of dollars of value. Just in one day. In one

Joe Robinson 45:34

day, yep. Through

Bryan The Botanist 45:34

collaborations.

Joe Robinson 45:35

Yep. And we do that and we give that to the running community. So let me

Bryan The Botanist 45:38

rephrase. Marketing genius to just logistical genius slash someone who's very motivated to help others. That's the biggest thing. Being motivated

Joe Robinson 45:47

to help others. And that's, that's me and Lance. See, the Run Club was started in that. Mm-hmm. When me and Lance started the Run club. Mm-hmm. It was like, hey, very candid. Hey, you was depressed. Yeah. So was I. What helped man running dang, me too running helped me too, man. I know a bunch of other people who could be going through something. You want to get'em out for a run and see if this helps. So we started with what can we do for others? The same things

Bryan The Botanist 46:12

that helped you.

Joe Robinson 46:13

Yeah. It was never about let's run fast or let's start a business. It's gotta be six miles. Yeah, no, no. A serious run. It was never that. It was really, we are in a city full of disparities, whether they be health, I mean physical or mental, full of disparities. And let's do what we can to try our best to help people. Hopefully this running thing works out. Mm-hmm. So anyway, we got, um, socializing. Then we got charity slash community. Right. And then you have, um, uh. Which one do I wanna say next? I'm gonna say business model. Okay. Business model is you have to create a business model arm to sustain the work that you're doing. Absolutely.'cause you're not always going to get grants, you're not always going to get, uh, donations. So you gotta have something, even if it's not at the runner's expense. Right. So if you're gonna say, Hey, we're gonna do some socializing, we're gonna go to a restaurant, a kickback or something, then you as the leader need to be talking to that restaurant like, Hey, if we spend 10,000 in here, you know, can we get 5% of that back as a kickback to us? Because it you. This work costs time.

Bryan The Botanist 47:25

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 47:26

It costs a lot of time.

Bryan The Botanist 47:27

Mm-hmm.

Joe Robinson 47:27

You know what I mean? And you gotta sustain it. You gotta, and

Bryan The Botanist 47:29

you're bringing them a lot of business.

Joe Robinson 47:31

Yeah. You're bring them a ton of business and then they provide

Bryan The Botanist 47:32

some free food too. Yeah. They gotta, I've seen like run clubs here that partner and they at least get some free food. But if something Yeah. You're creating tens of thousands of dollars in value

Joe Robinson 47:39

in a year, they can

Bryan The Botanist 47:40

donate a little back to the run club to support that run club and people are gonna remember that and they could potentially become a sponsor.

Joe Robinson 47:46

Absolutely. And, and, and going further into business model, um, again, we didn't start like that. Um, we only sold shirts because people were asking us about shirts. Mm-hmm. They asked us about it. Hey, y'all got something we could wear to represent? We was like, no, but we can make some shirts for you guys. And when we made'em, they were selling them out, selling them out, selling'em out. So, um, and that, that's just been helping me and Lance sustain this thing and buy tents and buy tablecloths and buy confetti for our cheer club. I mean, cheer squad. Mm-hmm. And, and being able to, um. Get our run club to go to different places, race and do, and be able to do things to help uplift the run club you

Bryan The Botanist 48:28

buy-in from your community.'cause if you don't have buy-in, then you're not gonna be sustainable or grow. Yeah. You gotta grow. People are asking for this stuff they're asking. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 48:35

Again, we didn't, we didn't start the run club to start a business. That wasn't our thing, but our community kind of demanded it from us. Mm-hmm. It, they demanded it. So you got socializing, you got charity, then you got like business model you gotta incorporate and you

Bryan The Botanist 48:48

can grow it. When you're a business, you can grow it. Grow, grow. Yeah. You can serve your, you can better

Joe Robinson 48:51

serve. That's a good point. Serve your members. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 48:53

When versus being like cash poor and like you can barely even get bananas or water for'em. Exactly. Now you can get like support services. So

Joe Robinson 49:01

our, our leadership board, they reach out to me and Lance and say, Hey, we got a big run coming up. Can we go get, can we go to Costco? And we're like, yeah. Because we've, because we've created a way to do that budget. Yeah. Yeah. A bank, bank account. Can we go, I shoulda have a

Bryan The Botanist 49:19

business account for that, right? Yeah, absolutely. Can we go to

Joe Robinson 49:21

Costco and get some waters? Can we get some neutral game bars? Can we get a bunch of bananas? Yes, you can. And that just makes the experience at our group runs better. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then we gotta buy speaker systems. You mentioned the bullhorn. That stuff costs. Yeah. I'm

Bryan The Botanist 49:36

a dj, I know about av. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Robinson 49:38

All that stuff costs money. Yeah. But, but when you wanna put

Bryan The Botanist 49:41

some music on, you wanna make it fun.

Joe Robinson 49:42

Yeah. But when we get all that stuff, it makes the, it makes the environment a better place. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 49:48

Yeah.

The Importance of Inclusivity

Joe Robinson 49:48

Um, the last thing I wanna say is, um, and you, you kind of, uh, fast tracked it a little bit. There was, um, performance. Mm-hmm. So performance is important, but is is not that popular because nobody, the, a very small, tiny percent of people, single digit. Want to actually like, qualify for Boston or run fast like that. Right. Most of the running community are hobby joggers. Like they don't really,

Bryan The Botanist 50:18

they're just trying to stay healthy and socialize.

Joe Robinson 50:20

Yeah. They, they don't really want to do that.

Bryan The Botanist 50:22

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 50:23

I mean, mean go fast,

Bryan The Botanist 50:24

Jason. Intensity level and a competitiveness. Yeah. But the reason why you personality, the reason why you wanna, you

Joe Robinson 50:30

wanna have performance. You do want people to who can be q you do want people who can cross the finish line or even win age groups. Mm-hmm. Like, you do want those people. Yeah. Because you do wanna see your brand on podiums. You do wanna see your brand break tape. Right. And you do want see your brand, get afforded opportunities like to go to Boston, which the, the run, the running world descends on Boston. And you wanna make sure that if you can, that you and your brand is in that place to be. Right. And when you perform well, like again, performance and running is not that popular. Right. When you look at a, a major marathon, I mean, it's only a hundred guys. The rest, the other 60,000 people are just people. Yeah. Regular people.

Bryan The Botanist 51:22

Yeah. They're training to complete the marathon usually. Yeah. Like struggles along the way. Yeah. They're not dreaming of a sub three,

Joe Robinson 51:27

they're not dreaming of a course record. No. Or they're not dreaming of any of that. Winning money. Yeah. Winning money. So like performance is very small. Yeah. But it's, it's a great way to open doors to other things.

Bryan The Botanist 51:38

Yeah. You're providing something for everyone then too, but you're focusing your efforts on the charity and on the business, and on the socializing. Socializing, yeah. And the least important, but still, it's important a, it important. It's a pillar. It is. The building wouldn't hold up as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I like that you have the focus first, and I like that you say performance for last. Yeah. That shows how committed you are to serving everyone. Mm-hmm. And not just favoritize, Jojo the fastest. Right. Thing as a high school coach, if I just show my attention to the fastest and best runners or the most popular kids, then what about the kid who's getting bullied or the slowest kid? They're not gonna feel like they're loved. They're not gonna feel like they're mm-hmm. You know, like, you know. So I, I try to always support, you know, every kid that

Joe Robinson 52:18

I work with. Yeah. Which is smart because most people join high school sports because of the, uh, principles and characteristics that they can take from it. Not because all belonging

Bryan The Botanist 52:28

to a group.

Joe Robinson 52:28

Yeah. And not, not always because they want to be a pro athlete. I'm sure that's in their mind. But really, parents put kids in sports because they need discipline.

Bryan The Botanist 52:36

Yep.

Joe Robinson 52:36

They need structure. They need some type of character building. Makes'em

Bryan The Botanist 52:40

well-rounded. Makes

Joe Robinson 52:40

em well-rounded. Yeah. So if you just focusing on the fast guy though, those other kids came for. The, the, the, the lessons in this.

Bryan The Botanist 52:48

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 52:48

You know what I mean? So

Bryan The Botanist 52:49

Yeah. Yeah. To become a leader, but also to just feel like in a group, you're, everyone, you know, is important in a group. Right? Absolutely. You don't want any weak links. You want, so we encourage the slowest, and I actually spend most time with some of the beginner runners mm-hmm. And the, the more experienced ones, they get their marching orders too, but they, they lead their own group. And then I can work with some of the younger kids. Mm-hmm. But it's, you have, it's so good that you have that two mile Tuesday.

Joe Robinson 53:14

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 53:15

Because some run clubs, even the ones I've had in the past, the focus was on the long run Always. Or the focus was on the speed workout. Mm-hmm. Or getting at least six miles in and progressing and

Joe Robinson 53:24

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 53:24

Being so performance driven.

Joe Robinson 53:27

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 53:27

And that reflected me, but looking at what's been successful, and I'm gonna shout out, run Little Havana. Mm-hmm. And Brickle Run Club. You know, Frankie is with Brickle and then run Little Havana. It's Leddy. Leticia. She was there today at the race today, Letty and David. Mm-hmm. And, um, Winnie, the three founders. They have a two mile run as well on Wednesday. Yeah, man, little Havana and they're all about socializing and they're all about supporting each other and showing love. And when they got this WhatsApp group with like 300 people in it, I'm sure you got one of those as well. Yeah, we got

Joe Robinson 53:56

one of those too. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 53:57

So you just see that it, the groups that are thriving are the ones that make it fun. And don't inclusive make it so Competitive. Inclusive. Yeah. Inclusive. Inclusive,

Joe Robinson 54:04

inclusive is more than just like race. Right? Yeah. I know we saying like diversity, equity, inclusion, but mm-hmm. Inclusive is more than just saying, Hey, this is open for Latinas and blacks and this and that. Mm-hmm. Inclusive is,

Bryan The Botanist 54:17

and people that weigh over 250 pounds.

Joe Robinson 54:18

Yeah. Yeah. Inclusive is, is like the distance. Mm-hmm. Like, like the shorter the distance, the more inclusive it is. Okay. Like if you saying, like you said six miles, we have a six mile run too, but it is a company with a 5K. Mm-hmm. So it's a 5K or a 10 K. Okay. Right. But if you just out the gate, say once a week, seven miles, like. You know, I know Run Club. It's funny, I know Run club who, whose um, group run is seven miles. But the point I'm trying to make is like, the shorter the run, the more inclusive it is. I I hear you.

Bryan The Botanist 54:54

A hundred percent. And honestly, life's lessons have showed me that to be true. If you're gonna try to train performance only, it's gonna be a very small group.

Joe Robinson 55:01

Very small group. Yeah. And you can't, and you, and

Bryan The Botanist 55:03

you're not gonna make an impact in the community.

Joe Robinson 55:05

You're not gonna make an impact. It's not gonna be

Bryan The Botanist 55:07

business successful.

Joe Robinson 55:08

Nope. Nope. Because, and it's not gonna

Bryan The Botanist 55:09

give back much to the community.

Joe Robinson 55:11

It's not gonna do anything. That's why I said like. I want to do like a focus group with these people and make it away from like the run club or something like that, that don't have anything to do with the running, with the Run club. Because running fast is not what we are about. I mean,

Bryan The Botanist 55:30

personally you're, you're personally, yeah. I saw you training last year over the summer. Yeah. And you were putting in a lot of work doing those long runs Yeah. To get ready for some ultras. You did? Yep.

Joe Robinson 55:38

Yep. I like to run fast, but that ain't what we put on the run. Run. I

Bryan The Botanist 55:41

like that. You can separate that.

Joe Robinson 55:43

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 55:43

So TREI hope you guys, I know a couple people that work there and, um, Christina, I know I've sat next to, and a couple of people at. Couple of different, I I hope they see this. I'm, I'm nominating my friend Joe Robinson here for educational'cause I think he's hitting it on the head with those pillars.

Joe Robinson 55:59

Yeah. I think more people need to see that. I mean, I mean, hear that too though, because I talked to some of my run club friends and I know we can rap some. I gotta get we I have one

Bryan The Botanist 56:07

really? Go ahead. Okay.

Joe Robinson 56:08

I wanna say this last part, like I know some, some of my run club friends and I'm always chatting with them about, Hey man, what you doing with the run group? Are we doing this and that? Well, how you gonna sustain that? How you gonna do this? How you gonna grow? How you gonna grow your uh, your group size? How you gonna do this? And we always just having these conversations. Mm-hmm. And they know me. And if they listen to this, they know who they are. I have the same conversation with them, yo, you gotta. Get on your chair just sharing this advice. Yeah. Not holding, it's not gatekeeping. Like you gotta get on your charity stuff, bro. That's big. Yo. You gotta get on your socializing stuff. Throw some picnics, tell people to put on jeans, leave the running clothes at home. We run 3 1 3, do barbecues every year. Nice. Where you leaving the run clothes at home? Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like we're doing a, uh, I don't wanna say it, but we're doing something else in the park this year. Okay. I don't wanna say it for the, but, um, but

Bryan The Botanist 57:01

also the business side. You gotta get a personal or you gotta get business bank account. Maybe you do gotta get business LLC. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta separate it from your personal life. Separate other that. Yeah. Because that's gonna conflict, you know, with how do you, that money separate from your personal money. You wanna, you wanna be transparent. Yeah, absolutely. You wanna involve probably more than just one person so that there's shared responsibility. Yep. You got your partner, Lance. Mm-hmm. I'm sure you've got some leaders set out the lance. Oh yeah. We got,

Joe Robinson 57:23

we just hired, uh, not hired, well I guess I could say hired. Yeah. We brought in like, uh, 10 new leaders, 13 new leaders to join us. You know what I mean? And that's that extra layer of responsibility on us because mm-hmm. We can't mess up the money because they're watching. Yeah. I'm not saying that they're watching the bank accounts, but they're watching us. You know what I'm saying? And they got demands of us too, as leaders. Mm-hmm. And we gotta be able to fulfill those demands that they have.

Personal Leadership Journey

Bryan The Botanist 57:48

Yeah. And you have to file taxes, I'm sure. Oh, absolutely. Every year. Yeah. So that's the government's watching. Yeah. But, hey, I got important question. What is the question that I'm not asking Joe Robinson that I should be asking? Joe Robinson. That's of my favorite question. What, what question should I be asking, Joe? What is Joe? What made Joe that, what, where did, where did this drive come from to to be a leader? Did it come from having kids? Did it come from Yeah, it's your young, your youth from your dad, from your mom, from your teacher in school. Yeah. It, where did this come from that you, you turned into this big leader in Detroit?

Joe Robinson 58:23

I, if we gonna go back to second grade, second, third grade has nothing to do with running at all. Um, I was always an introvert and I know I take a lot of pictures of people, take a lot of pictures of people online. I'm smiling big and always shaking hands and stuff. Um, I'm still an introvert though. Mm-hmm. And when people in school would be like doing stuff, I would be like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Just'cause y'all doing that. And then I would also say like, that's not even sweet. Like in Detroit we say Sweet. Yeah. So for cool, right?

Bryan The Botanist 59:03

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 59:03

Like that's not even sweet. Like I don't like it. Like I don't want to do it. Like, no, I don't want to do that. Like, I'll tell you one specifically, this is so funny. Um, you open up a can of worms with this question.

Bryan The Botanist 59:16

Um, I know we gotta get you to the airport, but I wanna learn a little more about you. It is,

Joe Robinson 59:19

they used to do this thing in, in elementary school called like boys versus Girls. I mean, I'm sure every school did that to some degree, right? Where during

Bryan The Botanist 59:28

recess or

Joe Robinson 59:29

something? Yeah. Yeah. Where the boys would chase the girls and they would like wrestle. Mm-hmm. I hated that because I was, I was, I was taught like, don't put your hands on a girl.

Bryan The Botanist 59:39

Yeah.

Joe Robinson 59:40

So why would I sling a girl by her shoulders? Or I, I just did not under her down or, yeah. I just did not understand that game when I was in elementary school.

Bryan The Botanist 59:49

You didn't go along with the crowd.

Joe Robinson 59:51

I did not do that. And I always thought like, man, y'all shouldn't do that, but I didn't have the voice to say it. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And that's just the, uh, the, uh, what do you call it when the baby is being formed? Not a fetus, but the, uh. You

Bryan The Botanist 1:00:08

know, the, um, origin story or the embryo. Okay. The embryo.

Joe Robinson 1:00:12

Yeah. Yeah. That's just the embryo of where leadership for me came. Okay. Was just like not doing what everybody else is doing. Being an independent thinker. Yeah. Just not doing it just because I just don't want to do it.

Bryan The Botanist 1:00:23

Yeah. So you listen to your inner values too.

Joe Robinson 1:00:25

Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 1:00:26

And I mean, I did. Did it come from your mom and dad? Do you think? Did that come from, um, your family? Did it just come from something that was ingrained in you?

Joe Robinson 1:00:34

My uncle was the one who raised me. My dad was in prison actually most of my

Bryan The Botanist 1:00:39

life.

Joe Robinson 1:00:39

Okay. Um, my uncle was the one who raised me as far as if I had to say a man that raised me, it was my uncle. He was a leader. Mm-hmm. He didn't follow, follow the crowd neither, so. Okay. My mom always would be telling me, like, she would say it a lot too though, like, don't do what? Don't do it. Just cause somebody else doing it. Don't do this. And if you don't wanna do something, don't go.'cause my mom pretty much was a single mom, so she didn't have help. Over like watching me, like I watching my son 24 hours a day. She didn't have that. So I had to be her additional eyes and ears for myself. Oh. If that makes any sense.

Bryan The Botanist 1:01:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Robinson 1:01:18

So she would always tell me these precautionary things and she still do today to this day, so. Wow. Um, yeah, I just, people, I've never had a drink, I never had a smoke of weed, never in my life. And people, and nothing against people that do. You're steer

Bryan The Botanist 1:01:32

clear of a lot of these

Joe Robinson 1:01:33

things

Bryan The Botanist 1:01:33

that have, yeah, I just did like, because I was gonna ask you, in your community, I mean Chicago, you know, and I'm sure Detroit has, in Miami, we all have crime. Like I'm sure there's people you've helped in the community that. That would've probably gone down the wrong path, but Running's helped them

Joe Robinson 1:01:45

hopefully to

Bryan The Botanist 1:01:46

change them. Or maybe their background was such that they, I know some people have drug addictions, they turn to ultra marathon running to be Yeah. Or alcohol

Joe Robinson 1:01:52

addictions. Alcohol or drug addiction. Yeah. A lot of people became sober, you know what I mean? Running

Bryan The Botanist 1:01:55

helps them stay sober.

Joe Robinson 1:01:56

Yeah. Um, so yeah. Even with that, like yeah. Drinking and smoking and stuff. Like, I just never wanted to do it and all my friends was doing it. Yeah. Early. Sure. I'm, I'm not trying to get them in trouble by high school middles and high school. Yeah. High school, middle school. Yeah. I got

Bryan The Botanist 1:02:12

exposed to that stuff in high school too. Yeah. Yeah. Like everybody was done. I mean, I saw it happening, Jojo. And it was like, also I, sports kept me away from it. I was a soccer player. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I also saw people getting in trouble, getting suspended, getting, because they

Joe Robinson 1:02:23

brought liquor to school or they brought weed to school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just never like liquor when I was that young, it just didn't smell good.

Bryan The Botanist 1:02:32

No.

Joe Robinson 1:02:32

I think the kids in my school was experimenting with like, beer. Beer just did not smell good to me. Yeah. Weren't, and I just was like, why are y'all drinking that? Yeah. And so. I guess to go all the way back and answer your question and kind of wrap it up is where did, where did it start? It started there. It was just being an independent thinker and just not doing the things that everybody is doing. But I also had a vision for what people could be doing. Mm-hmm. But I just didn't always have the voice to get it off. Mm-hmm. But I practice my voice over time. Voice meaning, uh, you communicate your voices, your actions. It's how you communicate, not just like the tone of your voice, your integrity. Yeah. It's everything about you. Character is your voice, right? Mm-hmm. Um, so I practice that over time. And then I just happened to get in a situation. I was in a leadership position in music too, though. I was a manager. I oversaw a bunch of artists, you know what I mean?

Bryan The Botanist 1:03:28

So that probably helped a lot with the run community. Yeah. Oh

Joe Robinson 1:03:31

yeah. Absolutely. That's where, that's where my, you understood

Bryan The Botanist 1:03:33

what people were looking for. They're looking for, that's where my leadership, my

Joe Robinson 1:03:37

leadership was. Created and honed at in music,

Bryan The Botanist 1:03:41

the origin story as a leader probably did start in, yeah.

Joe Robinson 1:03:43

It came independent thinking. Started as a, as a child. Yeah. And then becoming a leader was like music, because I got into music when I was 18. Wow. So becoming a leader and, and recognizing myself as a leader started in music. Okay. And then when I got into running, I began to be able to show the world I am a leader. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? So it was like run the running was my introduction. Not introduction, but running was my threshold into real, like, leadership. Now

Bryan The Botanist 1:04:12

to really show off those in a sense, not show off in a egotistic, but prove,

Joe Robinson 1:04:16

prove that I could

Bryan The Botanist 1:04:17

lead people. You, that that's where you spread your wings even more than music. Yeah. Because music, you could do so much. It's more about the industry. Mm-hmm. It's more about money and about the art. Yeah. And the beauty of it. But,

Joe Robinson 1:04:28

and at the end of the day, it is not my music.

Bryan The Botanist 1:04:30

No.

Joe Robinson 1:04:31

So I can't do everything. I can't, the ideas I have. I have to hope that you want to do them as a artist. Oh, okay. And then when I do tell you, I say, Hey, I got this great idea. We should do this. You might say, uh, I only wanna do one third of that.

Bryan The Botanist 1:04:45

Mm-hmm.

Joe Robinson 1:04:46

So I couldn't always get my my You didn't have full executive

Bryan The Botanist 1:04:49

power. Yeah. I

Joe Robinson 1:04:50

didn't have that over other people. But

Bryan The Botanist 1:04:52

in the running community you're with 3 1 3. You guys have really, you guys were the first to put the formula together in Detroit. Mm-hmm. Others may have had run clubs before you and they might have been more serious runners. Yeah. But you figured out the formula and kudos to you and other people and around the world and my, and Miami and the US that have really figured out that it's about giving back.

Joe Robinson 1:05:12

It's really about that.

Bryan The Botanist 1:05:13

Yeah. And organizing and mm-hmm. Serving everyone instead of serving a small percentage.

Joe Robinson 1:05:18

I wanna tell people this. I don't want nobody to listen to this and be like, how can I get 1200 pair of shoes? Like, don't think about that. Or I don't want people to think.'cause we also have a

Bryan The Botanist 1:05:28

how to get 300 runners on a or 400 on a day. Yeah.

Joe Robinson 1:05:30

We also have a, um, pay it forward grant where we give away money, real cash to organizations, wise guys, chess club, Phoenix Women's Shelter, Umoja Debate League. Like we give away real money every year to organizations. Um, but, but I wanna say like the best way to give back is with your time. And if you've been through something in your life and you survived it through your words of encouragement, you know, that's the best powerful. That's the best way to free. Yeah. That's super free. Super free, super fun. You don't have to think about, oh, I need to put 1200 pairs of shoes in my run group, or I need to give away 500.

Bryan The Botanist 1:06:09

Yeah. You can compete against anyone.

Joe Robinson 1:06:09

Yeah. Don't do that. I mean, you can do that if you can do that. But

Bryan The Botanist 1:06:13

it evolves to that. It evolves to that. You start off with the authenticity needs to be the. Always there. And it has to be the bottom of the foundation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that you authentically wanna help people and you're supporting them, encouraging them. Yeah. Which is a beautiful thing. Yeah. Like, that's what a coach does, to be honest. A coach, teacher, coach. I was just about to say for you a coach.

Joe Robinson 1:06:30

Yeah. I exactly. I was about to say for you, like you teaching, uh, high school kids. Yeah. I'm sure like that what you earn from that doesn't break the bank. It's more so about your time, the

Bryan The Botanist 1:06:41

relationships.

Joe Robinson 1:06:42

Yeah. It's more so about, Hey, look, I, I'm a pretty fast, uh, well established runner. I know as an adult, I'm 30 years older than you. I know where you can go from this. You may not see it, but I can. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna take my valuable time and spend it with you. With you. Yeah. Although I have bills due. Okay. My stomach growls too. I have things that I wanna do in my life, but I'm gonna take my time'cause I only get, and I only get one life, but I wanna spend some of it with you. That is charity. That's charity that you can, I don't

Bryan The Botanist 1:07:16

have any kids yet, so I'm looking over at jojo and the beautiful relationship you, you have with your kids. Yeah. And I'm sure it's something that's been very healing for your family at, after what you went through, you know, not having your dad all there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, now you're there for your son and you stayed outta trouble. You're showing him the path. Mm-hmm. And he's hearing this in the background and I see him nodding right now about how you built this beautiful movement in Detroit that's serving thousands of people.

Joe Robinson 1:07:39

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 1:07:40

Two people did that. Jojo. Two committed people impacted thousands of people and are now sending them around the world. And you know, something I tell my high school kids is runners, uh, in cross country, the sport, they have the highest GPA of any, um, athlete, more than football, more than basketball, baseball, soccer, because runners are very goal driven.

Joe Robinson 1:08:02

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:02

Even if you're not a competitive runner, you're very goal driven and they're very disciplined.

Joe Robinson 1:08:08

Absolutely. So,

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:09

um, Jojo, I can tell you're very disciplined over there. He's a very, do you have anything you wanna say? Uh, do you wanna join your dad's run club when you get a little older? Are you already out there running with them here and there, or,

Joe Robinson 1:08:19

I run with them sometimes, but the last time I did, I walked.

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:24

Okay. That's awesome.

Joe Robinson 1:08:25

That's awesome. Jo. What sports do you

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:26

like? Yeah,

Joe Robinson 1:08:27

long as you come out there. I like

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:29

baseball.

Joe Robinson 1:08:30

Baseball? He been practicing chess.

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:31

Chess?

Joe Robinson 1:08:32

Yeah. He's been practicing chess too. So chess is

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:34

a big thing in your life.

Joe Robinson 1:08:35

Mm-hmm.

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:36

What do you wanna do when you get older? Jojo. He

Joe Robinson 1:08:38

also got a really nice piano for Christmas and he was, he was practicing on that too.

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:43

Okay. I wanna perform. And you like to read?

Joe Robinson 1:08:48

Yes. I love to

Bryan The Botanist 1:08:49

read. That's awesome. So what do you think you wanna do when you get older, like your dad his age? I

Joe Robinson 1:08:56

want to run and I want to sing.

Bryan The Botanist 1:09:00

Ooh,

Joe Robinson 1:09:00

that's good stuff.

Bryan The Botanist 1:09:01

Yeah, that's good

Joe Robinson 1:09:02

stuff.

Bryan The Botanist 1:09:03

The arts. Yep. Awesome. That's beautiful. And it's been really an honor to meet your family, Joe Robinson, uh, Jr. On the second trip to, uh, well I think it's, you've been to here before, but,

Sneaker Impact Partnership

Joe Robinson 1:09:13

oh, quick, my second trip to Sneaker Impact.

Bryan The Botanist 1:09:15

Quick, quick. Uh, how's Sneaker Impact getting involved with your run club? I know you guys had the box. Oh man. You were sending us a bunch of shoes last year. Yeah. We

Joe Robinson 1:09:22

sent y'all 10 boxes last year. Yeah. Um, I just sent another box of my personal running. Mm-hmm. Ash. Um, but like I said, met you guys at uh, TRE. Yeah. Just walking through the venue. Uh, TRE is an amazing place just to connect with people. Good people Saw y'all booth. Matter of fact, it was you who stopped me. Yeah. Away. Yeah. You was like, Hey, come check out Sneaker Impact. I was like, oh, what's going on? Sat down, talked to Mo me and Mo kicked it off. He got roots in Detroit. Mm-hmm. Which is crazy. Um. Mo is a Muslim like myself. So we connected on that front.

Bryan The Botanist 1:09:59

Beautiful.

Joe Robinson 1:10:00

And um, he just saw where Mo saw how we run 3 1 3 and sneaker impact could leverage one another and ultimately benefit the running community. Yeah. Because we have tons of runners who go through running shoes. You a runner yourself. You know how that can be. And then it's like throwing away a pair of running shoes in the garbage. It just doesn't feel right. It's like, what do I do with these shoes? I don't wanna put them in the garbage, but I've for sure maxed the miles on them.

Bryan The Botanist 1:10:31

Yeah. It's not like a water bottle when you're dumped that or like the thing that the milk comes in or whatever. Yeah. That needs to go to the, get recycled at the Exactly. Everything should get recycled ideally. And food should get composted, but running shoes cost hundreds of dollars. Yeah. Like sometimes plus they stick out a second life. We can clean'em, we can, you know, the vinegar can remove the, um, stink and the um. Al uh, it's alkaline or it's acidic, so it removes some of the alkaline I was watching today, a video that when the shoes start turning yellow Yeah. You just use a little bit of vinegar and it, it helps to de stink'em and de al. Same thing in the wash. Wow. But there's so many ways to clean a shoe and it sounds like you're educating the runners about what they can do. Mm-hmm. You know, like you let them know pretty regularly that Hey guys, you know, like you can just go your website. Oh yeah. All the time. You have the boxes out there pretty regularly. All the time.

Joe Robinson 1:11:14

Yeah. Yeah. And I told Mo that we need to, uh, put some more boxes out.'cause we used all the boxes he sent. Okay.

Bryan The Botanist 1:11:20

Anytime you need'em.

Joe Robinson 1:11:21

Yeah. He said he was gonna send a bunch, but, but that's pretty much how we got connected, like TRE walking through you said something to me and then we chatted with Mo and we just saw how we could both benefit each other and ultimately benefit the running community. And then ultimately. Benefit the, the world of shoe disparities abroad. Mm-hmm. By helping people get these shoes. So Sure.

Bryan The Botanist 1:11:44

The people that are aren't able to afford a pair of shoes brand new or get'em imported to Guatemala or Haiti. Right. Dominican Republic. We can get them the shoes here for, and they'll buy'em for like maybe$5 and they're re cleaned. They might put new shoe laces. Yeah. They might put, um, sometimes they paint them, sometimes they stitch'em or glue'em, whatever they have to do. They make'em beautiful as much as they can to make'em appealing. And a lot of times we get brand new shoes too.

Joe Robinson 1:12:07

Yeah. Oh, I see. I come, they just don't

Bryan The Botanist 1:12:08

like the way they fit or so, or they maybe wore'em twice, Joe. Yeah. I came through here and those shoes could have gone in the trash. Yeah. And they would've just caught at a loss. Oh. I bought that shoe for a hundred dollars and it didn't feel great on my feet and I tried it a couple. Well, okay. Give it to someone else in the world that needs it. Yeah.'cause 25% of kids in the world lack proper footwear. Wow. And 75% of the world depends on the secondhand market. The secondhand market being where they resell things,

Joe Robinson 1:12:32

what's the percent depend on it? 70,

Bryan The Botanist 1:12:34

75% of the world. Wow. So the us here's an interesting fact, I know we gotta get going real quick, but four, the US makes up 4.5% of the world's population, but we conser, we consume over 20%, I think 20 to 25% of global resources. So we consume four to five times our size in global resources. We're the largest consumers in the world and we're the wealthiest country in the world. So we need to give back, just like you're giving back with, we run through in three. Mm-hmm. You know, the US is giving back and helping some countries that, you know, aren't as fortunate. Like we send a lot of aid to Haiti, you know, and Haiti's been through a lot with the earthquakes and you know, now they're getting, they're our number one partner for shoes. So the shoes are most likely going to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala. Places where, you know, the average annual income might be under a thousand dollars. Wow. Under five to$10,000. And that might be a lot of money to them. Yeah. Versus here in the US we need a hundred thousand, 200,000 to make, to

Joe Robinson 1:13:26

live.

Bryan The Botanist 1:13:26

Yeah. So it's, it's just a very powerful, I love what I do. We're not millionaires here. We're all Yeah. Working hard to change the world, make it a better place. And that's what ICU doing in Detroit. So it's just like we're brothers in the sense that we're all part of the human race, but we're also on the same mission, which is to improve and leave the world a better place than we found it. And to help people. Absolutely. And to encourage them. Like you said, I think that word encouragement is so important. Like that, that's such a great service. You're encouraging them, you're saying something positive to them, you know, instead of, like you said, favorite izing, the fastest runners in the group and showing them all the love. You're mm-hmm. You're encouraging the mom that came out mm-hmm. Who just had the baby a couple months, or a single mom, single mom.

Joe Robinson 1:14:10

Yeah. We, we get a lot of that in Detroit, you know what I'm saying? A lot of single parent households out there and they come to run club because. It is stressful just being out. I grew up a single mom, so I know the struggle, you know what I'm saying? It's stressful just raising a kid by yourself. I don't wanna get too much into that, but I'm just saying the kind of people that come out and be a

Bryan The Botanist 1:14:30

part of running can

Joe Robinson 1:14:31

inspire you to

Bryan The Botanist 1:14:32

help improve your life day by day. Absolutely. You build off of it, right? Oh, you

Joe Robinson 1:14:36

said something. I wanted to say something real quick. Yeah. You said yo uh, runners, runners have the highest GPA, you know, you ever heard of Allen Touring? Yeah. The touring, uh, principle.

Bryan The Botanist 1:14:46

Yeah. Uh, that's what tells us if it's a robot or not. Yeah. He,

Joe Robinson 1:14:49

he basically won World War ii.

Bryan The Botanist 1:14:51

Okay.

Joe Robinson 1:14:51

So in his movie, he got a movie, um, played by, um, Benedict Kuumba Uhhuh, and he plays Alan Turing. Alan Turing was a runner in the movie, and he was like, running makes me smarter. You know, Alan Turing was a math genius. You should watch this movie. Yeah. What's it called? Uh, the Enigma. I know his machine was called like Turing movie. I'll look up. You just look up Alan Turr movie. Uh, Alan Tur. Alan Turr movie. The thing about

Bryan The Botanist 1:15:19

running is, you know, physiologically it boosts, um, brain blood flow to the brain. And then there's something called neurogenesis, like the creation of new brain cells. And that happens after aerobic exercise. Mm. So you ever notice after like a run

Joe Robinson 1:15:32

imitation game?

Bryan The Botanist 1:15:33

Imitation game?

Joe Robinson 1:15:34

That's the movie. Yeah.

Bryan The Botanist 1:15:35

You ever notice how after a run you're so energetic, but like, also like you're solving problems on the run? Oh, a lot of the world's, like Bono is a runner from U2. Like I think Steve Jobs is a runner. Like many like Mark Zucker. Mark Zuckerberg, yeah. There's many runners that are world leaders. Like I'm forgetting a lot of people right now, but some of our most famous, you know, thought leaders have been running. My

Joe Robinson 1:15:55

greatest ideas come from running. Yeah. My greatest ideas come from running my greatest ideas. And I don't just mean like. Concepts, but problem solving. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, I didn't know how I was gonna do that. Oh, I can do it like this. Oh great. Yeah, cool. Or I'll say, oh, why didn't I email that person? Oh, I can send them this type of email, or I could call them back and say this. You're

Bryan The Botanist 1:16:20

processing a lot on the road. Yeah,

Joe Robinson 1:16:21

absolutely. Yeah.

Final Thoughts and Farewell

Bryan The Botanist 1:16:22

That's because it's encouraging brain activity. Like I'm a research scientist and the studies have shown jojo that running in sports help your brain to become stronger, not just your body. Yeah. So I think that's really cool that we had the opportunity to talk about that, but man, it's been an inspiring conversation. Yeah, I know. You gotta get the fam to the airport. I do, I do. It's been a beautiful weekend. Thank you for visiting Sneaker Impact. Joe, do you have a final shout out or any words you wanna say to, I want to give you the last words. Just,

Joe Robinson 1:16:46

just follow. We run 3 1 3 on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. We run 3 1 3 WER. UN 3 1 3.

Bryan The Botanist 1:16:55

Amazing.

Joe Robinson 1:16:56

Mm-hmm

Bryan The Botanist 1:16:57

Guys, Joe Robinson and his son Jojo from, we run 3 1 3. They're visiting us from Detroit. Let's show them some love and drop a comment in here if you wanna get involved. And, uh, thank you guys for visiting. We'll have you back in the future. This was a really amazing sit down, so

Joe Robinson 1:17:11

thanks for having us.

Bryan The Botanist 1:17:12

Yeah. We'll see you at CIM. Absolutely. Alright guys. Thank you. Bye