Like an Antelope
A new podcast exploring the intersection of the Running and Music (Phish) Communities.
Like an Antelope
Episode 6: Divided Sky Fun(d)-raising with Radha Lewis
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In this episode we experience some highlights from the 2026 Divided Sky Fun(d) Run and Music on the Mountain with Radha Lewis. Radha and her "About To Run" team raised over $25,000 to support the Divided Sky Foundation's Recovery Center. Radha shares her tips for folks looking to fund-raise for charity bibs, an inside look at the race and festival experience, and her perspective on health and friendship.
You can donate to support the Divided Sky Foundation at https://give.dividedsky.org/campaign/723976/donate
Visit and share Radha's Facebook group supporting Phish Chicks and Cancer (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1462392920562537) and the Co-ed Phish Cancer support group Wave of Hope (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1654226855991092/).
Learn more about the Antelope Running Club via our web "app": http://www.anteloperunningclub.com, or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/anteloperunningclub) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/anteloperunningclub/).
Music by Luna Hochron
Hi, and welcome to Like an Analogue, a podcast exploring the intersection of the running community and the fish from Vermont community. I'm Alex Hochren, and one thing I love about our weird little fish running community is how we come together to support other people. Last weekend, hundreds of runners and thousands of music lovers came together in person in Ludlow, Vermont, and virtually across the country to celebrate the fifth annual Divided Sky funding. These kind folks donated their time, energy, and financial resources to support others through recovery and sobriety. Today's guest, Rada Lewis, not only flew from California to Vermont to support the Divided Sky Foundation, she and her about-to-run team raised the most in donations. The team raised over $25,000, and Rada herself raised over $9,200, which more than covers an entire recovery stay for someone at the Divided Sky Recovery City. Rada is also a doctor, yogi, rail rider, and kind-hearted soul. When I hurt myself running in Mexico at Fish, Rada took time out of all the celebrations to assess my injury, talk me off the ledge, and share some kind but stern wisdom, exactly what you need from a true friend. Today we'll talk with Rada about her experience at the Divided Skies Big Weekend, her fitness journey, and her fundraising tips for those of us who support charities all over the country raising money through charity resource. But now set your gear ships on high and take care of your shoes and join Rada and me as we run like an antelope. Radha, hi, thank you for joining us on Like an Antelope.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. It's nice to be here. This is a real fun treat for me. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Of course. So, Rada, most of our listeners listen to this podcast while they're actually on the run. So we like to mimic going for a run here on this show. And with every run, we start by warming up. And at every Antelope Run Club run, we circle up and we do introductions. We share our name, where we live, and we answer a question of the day. So I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourself. And today's question is what is your favorite live music day?
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. My name is Rada Lewis. I live in Northern California in a town called Nevada, which is the town the Grateful Dead moved to when they left Hayde Ashbury. Uh it's a little bit north of the city. And um, I mean, the problem with that question now in the modern era is that nothing compares to the sphere, and especially now that Chris Corroda has figured out how to light up the sphere, you know, properly. It's very hard to compete. Sorry. Sorry, Red Rocks. Sorry, Gorge. You know, I there's a beautiful music venue here in Northern California in um the Armstrong Woods in Guernville, which is a beautiful redwood forest. It's a tiny little venue. And I'm sorry, but the sphere wins.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll tell you, the sphere is incredible. And they're actually there's just today uh or someone sent me a GQ article, not that I'm a GQ reader, but it's a good article about what was going on behind the sphere. But I'm gonna say that is not my favorite live music venue. Uh I'm Alex, I live in New Orleans, and New Orleans Jazz Fest, the the fairgrounds are four blocks away from my house. And so as much as I love the sphere, I'm not a big Vegas guy. And to be able to like truly sleep in your own bed, have friends over for drinks beforehand, walk over and see incredible music in your neighborhood, that's in me. So Jazz Fest is definitely my favorite live music. If any if anyone's never been to New Orleans Jazz Fest, y'all got to put it on your list.
SPEAKER_02That's fair. That's fair. That article is so funny. That article is so funny because it is the latest in a long line of articles over 30 or 40 years of people writing like, wow, fish did something no one's ever done before. Everybody else wants to know how they did it because they want to do it too. And that's happened like again and again and again. This is just the latest version of that. It was a real good article about how that came about, you know, worth watching, worth reading.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So, Rada, I remember one thing that really sticks out about us, I remember being on the beach in Mexico, freaking out about being injured and telling you how important exercise was in my life. And you said, Well, hey, exercise is really important to me too. And so I wanted to start by hearing about your exercise journey. Why is exercise so important to you?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I've always been pretty active, but not as aggressively as I am now. I had uh breast cancer diagnosed when I was 38 years old. And because I'm a doctor, there was a night where I had just a ton of anxiety, and I stayed up till morning trying to figure out what I could do so I wouldn't get the cancer again. And then it happened again, you know, when I was 44, uh twice. Same thing, breast cancer. And uh, and again, I just tried to figure out what I could do. And at the end, you read all this research from all the places, um, the evidence-based trials, but then also just the stuff people are talking about in the herbal medicine community and the holistic health functional medicine community. And honestly, the only thing everyone can agree on is getting enough sleep and exercising as many days as you possibly can. And once I read that, I just um it like the next day I put on my sneakers and I just thought the easiest thing to do is to just put on my sneakers, go outside, start walking. And as soon as I started walking, it was like a jogging, and so I've been running ever since. I by running, I mean jogging casually down the street, not like racing running. And I and that's what I do. And it's easy.
SPEAKER_00We love all runners here. We love uh sloths, we love fast, slow llamas, we love camel walkers, everyone. If you go outside, you put on running shoes and you move, you are running.
SPEAKER_01So that's right.
SPEAKER_00Well, as we explore the intersection of running and fish, love to also hear your fish origin story. How did you first get into the band?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so uh what I was in high school on Cape Cod and my boyfriend Rift had just come out and he gave me Rift and the and it was a CD and the insert had the words to the songs backwards, and I fell in love with that song Sparkle. I thought it was really pretty. I didn't know anything about music. I um grew up on Cape Cod listening to Top 40. I don't have any family members into music. I didn't know what a hippie was. It was, I don't know, 1992 or something and uh 93. I don't know. And and I just love, I thought this song was so pretty. And so I sat in the car with the lyrics in the rearview mirror and I memorized all the words to sparkle, and then I memorized all the words to its ice. And then I went to college. I was at that time I was at the University of Michigan, and and in the spring of '93, I saw a flyer up on a like a utility pole. That fish was coming, I think, to the state theater. And so I walked up to the thing by myself and I just bought a ticket to the concert, hoped that they would play that pretty song I like, sparkle, and like went inside and stood in the back. It was pure chaos. It was pure chaos. They played my friend, my friend. It was real scary. They played big black furry creature from Mars. I was terrified. I I just had never been in any kind of anything like that ever, ever. And I I left. I um I made it through the first set, I made it into the second set, and like a couple songs into the second set, I just took off. And I was in a sorority at the time, and I went back to my sorority house and I and I and I told my sorority sister that I ran away from the rock and roll concert because I was afraid. And she thought it was so funny.
SPEAKER_00And then everybody never see fish. Yeah, right. They didn't know.
SPEAKER_02I was terrified. I was terrified. So the next year she she saw the flyer and she said, That band's back in town. Do you want to go see them? I want to go see what scared you so bad. So I was like, Yeah, let's do this. So then we go back. It was not at the state, it was at a different theater in Ann Arbor, and and we go back and we get into the show and the show starts, and um, and it and it and and and sure enough, we get into the second set and she looks at me and she was like, Can we leave now? And so we left again. And that was my second show. And my third show was in my home venue in Massachusetts at um what it was Great Woods, I don't know what they call it now. And um, it was a game hen show. And again, I had no idea and what was happening. I was up on the lawn with my friend. We were like, why is he talking? Why won't they play music? What are they talking about up there? I don't understand. Oh my god. And I didn't realize that until years later, like years later, when I was like, Oh, you're such an idiot. You're like, how did you miss that? Great stuff, you've been here for history. No, didn't find that out until 2000. I really admire the people who get brought to a show and like prepped with the music, and they're like surrounded by people organized and experienced. I do not know how I made it in. I didn't even like fish was the first real music I listened to, and then the musical education was like stuff fish covers, like go check out those bands, right? And then like bands fish has been on tour with every so often. You know, go check out Santana, you know, and those the country horns, you know, like that kind of stuff. My whole musical education has begun there.
SPEAKER_00Oh, Rada. I love how, and I don't know if you know how special that song is to me and so many of us. Sparkle. I love that it started with Sparkle. Uh, we have a group called we call Team Sparkle, and it's because of our friend Heather, who's one of the captains of the run club. Heather is actually in your Facebook group. Uh Heather was diagnosed with cancer. Uh, I think it was 2023. She had tickets to the entire summer tour, had to sell them all. Uh, it was stopped running, had to get all these treatments, and is now on the other side, is back going to shows, is back running. Obviously, it's still a long journey, but the one song Heather's wanted to hear this whole time is Sparkle. And they are now playing it so rarely. I think she missed the one time they played it this year. And so we have team sparkle hats. We made stickers that said sparkle, damn it. And like we are all manifesting a sparkle for our friend Heather. So love that, love that you have that connection.
SPEAKER_02I love that. I saw her, she was in Vermont. I went over to see her. The Antelope Running Club had at that event, the run part of it had their own special table. There was they had their own group picture, and I went up to find her at the table. We took a picture together. It's like one of my favorite things about these fish events is bumping into the other ladies and the fish, chicks, and cancer group. It's fun. It's a treat to meet them in person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I would love to know more about that group. So Antelope Run Club started his Facebook group with like 10 people uh 10 years ago, 11 years ago, and now has several thousand. And I recently learned you started a Facebook group as well. Could you share a little bit more about the group you have for it's female fish fans with cancer?
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. Uh, and now there's a co-ed group. We just started it. So uh what happened is um I finished my last round of cancer treatment uh in 2018. I had a double mastectomy, um, and that ended the whole situation. And um, when it was over in the fall, when I got better from the surgery, I went to the garden for the New Year's run. It was Mercury, that was the Mercury year, and um, I was going down the escalators on my way after the show, you know, those interminable escalators you're trotting down. And there was a lady in front of me who was clearly in the middle of chemo, and I had this thought that it wasn't just me. There were probably more of us. And so I started on the first uh 2019, I guess, I started the group and another lady joined immediately who has since died of her disease. And um, and and then it just kind of took off from there. And we have over 300 members now, women, and you know, I did some demographics last year or the year before for the Fish Academic Conference. And it turns out that most of the women in there, of course, because it's cancer, are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, uh, mostly long-term, more than 20-year fish fans, mostly people who came aboard in the early to mid 90s, 60% breast cancer. And then, like all the other cancers are represented, people from all over the country. I think we had 20 or 30 different states and a couple international folks on there. And it's just a real slow burn that group. It's not a lot of chat, but people log in when they first get diagnosed, and that's a real good time to log in because it's always a shocker, you know, when you're a younger woman, a healthier woman to get a cancer diagnosis, and it's very disorienting and it's a really great orientation. There's something about dropping into this group where all these people have the same life experience you've had. It's like you just feel safe landing. And as soon as you land and say, you know, thanks for having me. I just got diagnosed with this, I'm completely freaking out. There are 20 women right there saying, It happened to me too. You're not alone. We're here for you. You know, we believe in you, we help you. And then all along the way, people are talking about their treatments, or um, there's a whole section that's people like, Well, I just had this surgery. Do you think I could make it to that show like this many days after surgery? Like that kind of chat too. Like, how do I do this? What do I expect next? And it's just been real sweet. People have made friends who are on the same cancer, like, and and then become cancer buddies. People just send each other random care packages. I mean, it's a very sweet group. It's like half people in treatment and half people who finish treatment with like a smattering of uh caregivers and um and siblings of people. We're very careful about who we let in. We don't let in people who are like, oh, I just want to support the community. That's not the kind of group it is. You know what I mean? It's a group for people sorting out their cancers or who have sorted out their cancers. And then, you know, we I mean, it's it's a it's a big group. So so someone dies from time to time, you you know what I mean, and we kind of follow everybody's life journey and kind of stick in each other. I have met a bunch of them. You know, I've met a bunch of them, and it's been a real treat.
SPEAKER_03How many?
SPEAKER_02It's been a real treat. Yep. Maybe okay. We also started a that's called Fish Chicks and Cancer. We also just this year, because we've had so many men this year suddenly interested, we started a co-ed group called Wave of Hope. It's a little more relaxed. We will let um cancer supporters or cancer adjacent folks in there. It's it's a young group still, it's like 30 or 40 people right now. It's pretty quiet, but people come in as they need to. It's a little harder to find. It's called Wave of Hope Coed.
SPEAKER_00Got it. Yeah, I'm glad, so glad that exists in our community. Um and uh how many beautiful moments must there be when someone comes to their first show or meets someone that that's helped them out over for years, they've been chatting, but they've never met in person. And then you're in town and you go and and visit them, bring them something, like, yeah, just just how beautiful that that is and the opportunity for relationships.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it's real special. And and you think like this is an untapped world of healing. I mean, our community is special, uh, like agree, but like the Dave Matthews community and the widespread panic community and the giz community, like there are all of these music communities, and it it may be that we've tapped into something here, just like how Fish keeps being the first, you know, like the first and everybody else follows along. This is a really um, really beautiful healing environment for people who just immediately trust each other. It's been quite extraordinary, and and I hope that the word gets out and and that people in these other groups, you know, open it up inside their groups.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, it's out. People know, and and tell a friend, tell someone who needs. Uh Rod, I feel like we're warmed up now, and so let's go ahead and let's get in some miles, but we're still going to keep it slow and steady. We'll call it uh a sexy pace or slow llama pace. Uh, I wanna wanna turn the conversation to the divided sky big weekend. And it's I think you're the person, you're likely the person who traveled the furthest to get there. So, why was the event so meaningful for you? Why fly from California to Vermont for a 5K? There's 5K's everywhere.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I've never been to music on the mountain. The lineup was really good. I'm um getting a divorce right now from an alcoholic, and it just felt like a part of my personal healing. Like so many of us have been touched by substance use disorders, and it is just a devastating family disease. And I'm just putting myself back together this year, and it just felt appropriate. My best friend lives in Vermont, you know. I wanted to see her kids, and everything just lined up for me to get to go this year. It's the fifth year. I'd never considered it before. And and once I signed up, you know, once I signed up for the run, it's a 5K, it's not a big deal. Then they sent us this uh fundraising pages, so we had our own fundraising page, and I just got it in my head that I that I was just gonna try and raise some money, you know what I mean, as sort of a restitution to myself and to my marriage, the entity, you know, because I couldn't help my husband because you can't help people with substance abuse problems that don't want to help themselves. You there's nothing you can do except for take care of yourself. And this just felt like the altar of sound, you know, it felt like an offering. And so I signed myself up and I figured it out. And you know, I didn't have to train for a 5k, it's just go run the race, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Uh well, and and also like to your point, you're not in this alone, right? And and one thing that I was so struck by looking at the pictures and hearing the recaps was the team you had, right? You had uh, so tell us about like how to be about to run team together. You all have 5k portray hats, those were cute. Tell us about you.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. It was so funny. The team just started out, you know. Mary Orley reached out and was like, Do you want to make a team? And maybe there were four of us, five of us, and we were like, Yeah, and we figured out the name, and and that was it. And then I started fundraising because uh I thought I didn't realize it was visible. I just was doing it. And then suddenly I had raised some money, and then people kept joining our team. It was a team made up of alumni from Divided Sky, people who had gone through the recovery program, you know what I mean, who were friends of Mary's who wanted to join. So we had like four, maybe four or five other people from that community, and then people from our fish community who, like a couple of them, were interested in fundraising and they were also raising some money. And so they wanted to join a team where people were raising money. And then just a bunch of people that we're friends with wanted to be on the team with us. And so we ended up with it like over a dozen folks, I think, on the team. Um, Kim Napoli, when she joined, she was like, I want to be part of this team. She'd already raised a few thousand dollars. She raffled off a sphere ticket. I want to join the team that you're on. I was like, Great, that's good because there's not a lot of fundraising, just me going on. So come and join the team. It will raise our total. And as soon as she got there, she's like, Okay, you guys, I'm making a logo. And she drew out this beautiful about to run logo. She made three different versions, everybody voted on it. She ordered us all t-shirts to say about to run on them with the little logo she made, like we're a corporation. And we were like, this is awesome, this is great. And then all of a sudden, like three weeks ago, four weeks ago, people really started fundraising. Like it just happened little by little. Like, uh, because you know, when you start fundraising, you're like, I don't want to ask people for money. What does it mean about me? And they're gonna like they have to do me a favor, and then I'm gonna have to do them a favor. And I like I just can't do it, I don't want to do it. It's uncomfortable. But like once you start doing it, then it becomes like a really pleasurable activity. And and and people really sort of started doing it. And what was so incredible was that in like these four weeks, I mean, I raised about $9,000, but my team raised about $26,000. Like, what night? That's like $15,000 or $16,000 in a couple of weeks. Like, just because they decided, like everybody just got over themselves and they were like, oh, I'm gonna try this. And you reach out to one person, you have a great conversation, and then you're like, oh, great, they gave me a little money. And then you reach out to the next person and you have another great conversation, and then it just kind of takes from there. People were egging each other on, we were posting the totals every day, and we had a great time. So then a few weeks ago, this lady Mari Alvana, who is a um front of house fish lady, she's always in the front. This woman makes a different hat for every show. Every show gets a hat. And if you have a special song and it's your birthday, she'll make you a special hat. They're like these uh trucker hats, you know, with like a little thing on. So she joins the team and immediately she was like, You guys need special hats, 5k for Trey. And so she made us all these 5k for trays. We're in our about to run t-shirts and our 5k for Trey hats, and we blew it out of the water. It was really, really fun. We granted a house together, and so then everybody stayed at the house. People got to know each other, you know what I mean? We threw a little brunch, an alumni brunch. So a bunch of people came over, you know, uh uh before the events got started on Saturday, and it really generated a very team uh thing, but but also like these are all the fish people. So it's like every friend you make in the fish community, like every effort you make in the fish community is like a friend that you have for life because we all just keep showing up. So then you just have more and more people at a time in our lives that most people are making their circles smaller and have less and less people because they have their children and their family and their job responsibilities. So they just have less time and the friends are historical friends and they don't really see them and not for us. We just keep going and the circle keeps expanding. You know what I mean? And this was a really good example of that because I now have like a whole bunch of people I did not know before that are my buddies, you know, and that's cool because I'll see them at all the shows, you know?
SPEAKER_00It's amazing. And it's like I think a testament to this idea of like when you put an idea, you put yourself out there. Like the world brings you the right people, right? And it's like the same thing with our run club, right? It's like we started doing like, oh, let's just do a little virtual race. And then we had a beautiful, amazing graphic designer show up. And then we have like people with all these different skills and a vendor who makes these cool shirts. And like Melanie from the Vited Sky Foundation reached out and she's like, Oh, I see what you're doing. Would you like to partner with us and plan a run? And we were like, We've never done that, but sure. Like, let's let's try that. And then just to see it, and then the Phoenix, Chris and uh and Brett showed up and they're like, let's add a music festival. And it just like takes on its own, its own momentum. And sometimes all we have to do is just open the door and like put it out there and let it in.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Isn't that interesting? We just have to show up with our ideas and what we have, and then the thing kind of takes on a life of its own. And like, I'm not responsible for what happened. I'm just responsible for my little section. You know what I mean? My little section was raising money and then reminding everybody to start raising money and how fun it is. That's all I did. And all the other people did all the other work. Everybody shows up with what they've got here. I think that this community is one of the places, and probably not everybody has this, but the parts of us that feel like they don't belong or that they have nothing to offer or shouldn't speak up or are not going to be okay, all that stuff washes away. That in the music, people learn to dance and to express themselves with their bodies and to have preferences about I like this song, I liked this night, this thing happened, this is how I want to do it. And then as we exercise those muscles, then it's like a healing of these inner parts of ourselves that, you know, for whatever reason, just had the feeling like we couldn't or we shouldn't. And then people just start offering what they've got. And the thing is quite magical as it grows. Yeah. Just like what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00I think people forget to have had friends say to me, like, you forget how special it is, to your point of like a lot of people don't like have a really hard time making new friends. And sometimes, like, we brought two new friends down to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. We met them at Fish, they'd never been in New Orleans, and we brought them down and they were so much fun because they wanted to experience everything and go to every show and taste all the new food and do everything. And all my friends who I've known for 25 years and always go to shows where they always go to Jazz Fest, they're like, How do you like make these new friends? Like we like you have to and you don't realize or I don't realize how special that is until you talk to other people who are like, that's actually really hard to do. But but it becomes easy to do and it becomes natural. Like, of course we're making new friends, of course I'm going to new venues, right? I'm alive. Like, this is how I celebrate. That's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_02We're good at it. We're good at it. And it's not just new friends, it's new friends in their 20s. I have new friends in their 70s. I have new friends in their 20s I met at Fish and new friends in their 70s, and the whole range in between. All the generations are represented there. And to have a band that is drawing in generation after generation, they're in their 60s, right? So the 60s, the 50s, the 70s, sure. But like the people in their 40s came in, the people in their 30s, and now the people in their 20s are coming. It's interesting, it's joyful, and it's full of adventure. And and and that's a universal human experience. It doesn't matter what age you are.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, I wanted to get a little technical for a minute, Rod. I could hear like the opening the world and the and the people, the finance donations just like did it seem like organically figured themselves out. But for those of us who are like, some of us it's it's hard to put yourself out there. Like, what how did you go about like what what do you think made your fundraising so successful? Did you all do like a online Facebook, Instagram? You mentioned someone rampled off tickets. Like if someone's like, I'm not good at fundraising, what advice might you give them if they're interested in fundraising?
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, you just have to start because you know, and you start with the people you know will give you money, like your mom and your best friends. And you know, the people I mean, here for this thing, it's like your friends in the fish community. The thing about divided sky is it's our community's gift back to Vermont. Vermont gave us fish, and our community, as led by Trey, it was his idea, but we're all here supporting it, is to give Vermont a rehab. And it's not a detox, it's a recovery program, which is an old way of doing things. The people have already detoxed. They have 46 beds for people, and it's a program to teach people how to be human and live in the world without the substances that were propping them up. So it's like uh mindfulness, it's 12-step, it's um emotional sobriety work, it's being in nature, it's music, it's teaching people the skill sets that either they didn't have or that they've lost. And the way that that is working is under the subsidies of the people in the fish community. Some people give a lot, some people give a little, but we're underwriting what's happening there. Some people just go to the divided sky events, you know what I mean? They just go to those beautiful shows in Albany and whatever else is happening and give their money that way. These programs, recovery programs around the country are extremely expensive. A one-month residential stay is usually $20,000 or $30,000. Vermont Medicaid won't cover that. They'll only cover detox. A lot of states don't cover anything. People in deep in substance abuse do not have a lot of extra money. They've spent it on drugs and alcohol, and their lives are a little bit dysfunctional and disorganized because of the drugs and the alcohol. And so to be able to offer a place for people to rediscover their humanity, you know what I mean, and have it be subsidized in this way. It's $7,500 for a month stay, and nobody is turned away for lack of funds. We're doing that as a group. So if you're talking about fundraising for this thing, to go to the people in our community and say, hey, will you give? Isn't that hard? And in the in the process of doing that, it's not just like you reach out to someone and you're like, hey, will you give me some money? I mean, maybe you'll do that with your best friends you talk to every day, but it's like, who can I reach out to today? It's just like two or three or five people a day. And the reaching out is also fun because they're like, oh, hey, great to hear from you. How's it going? And then you chat a little bit and catch up a little bit and maybe make some plans for the next show you're going to be together or just share some information about what's going on in life. And that part's really fun. You know, that part's really fun. And then you're like, hey, this is what I'm doing. This is our community. Would you like to help? And some people help for 10 bucks or 25 bucks or 100 bucks. And every so often someone helps for 250 or 500 because they have plenty. You know what I mean? And it just like sort of begets itself. The thing in the way is our thinking that we're problematic and asking one another. And our community is huge. And then, you know, of course, like there were three or four posts on Facebook. You know, I went to some of the other, you know, I work in recoveries from time to time, you know, and um, it's not my main job, but there are other doctors in the recovery community. I asked a few of them for a donation and just colleagues of mine and and and non-fish friends, my high school friends and my local Marin County girlfriends and all my Sonoma County friends, you know, the other people who love me and want to support what I'm doing. But at the end, it's like um, there's nothing to be ashamed of because we're raising the money to do good. And if people don't want to donate, they just don't donate. You know, you send them the link and they never donate, and that's fine. I try not to ask twice.
SPEAKER_00I'm thinking here too, about one of the hardest race I ever ran uh was Rocky Raccoon uh outside of uh Houston. And someone telling me before I started, they're like, when things get tough, you need to know your why. And sure enough, like getting deep into the race and my foot was hurting me, and like it was getting dark. And I was like, I went back like, why am I doing this in the first place? And Ronda, what I'm hearing from you is like, yes, it's like you're not just like out there like, hey, can I have some money? Hey, can you donate? Hey, charity, da-da-da. It's like you so clearly know why this is important to you and expressing that to people, like why this isn't why, whether it's uh supporting divided sky, whether it's running a certain race or supporting a certain charity, like what that means to you. And when you put that out there, like how can people not be invested in that, whether it's financially or whether it's some other support, or like reaching out to people you know, and it's it's over time you get better at expressing it, right? The first person you talk to, you're kind of figuring out this is why it's important to me. And then by the fifth person, it's it's come it's evolving, and by the tenth person, and then like your true feeling about the importance come out to you. And I feel like that's like that to me is so such a powerful part about this step is in addition to like getting the news out there about something else, but also why it matters to you. How could people not how could people who care about you not get excited about something that matters so much to you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, this is part of our legacy as a community, yeah. You know, and it's not like we're responsible for Chris Corroda becoming the best light person in the world, but our community is responsible for taking lighting to the next level and making the lighting person an integral part of the band. Just the same way this GQ article is talking about how we officify the sphere. I didn't do that. All I did was go and dance at the show and give them my money. Like that's part of our legacy as a community, including the band, including the team, including the, you know, the management, including the people. And this piece, we have a drug rehab, not just for our community, because it is for our community and the people who get in trouble with substances, but also for northern New England and Vermont in particular, which has a huge problem with substance use and nowhere for people to go. We're doing that. We're the fish fans, it's part of our give back. And it really to donate to them is such a it's just like a way of saying thank you to Trey and thank you to the band.
SPEAKER_00Despite all the great Facebook energy and the donations notifications, maybe don't check your phone right now and get it all sweaty. But while you're taking a pause for the cause, now's a great time for a few announcements from the Antelope Running Club. Uh also leading up to divided sky, May 16th was the end of our My Friend, My Friend running challenge. We had 189 Antelope runners participate. And as a group vlogged over 2,869 runs for a total of 14,046.6 miles. I did not add in the 69 or the 46. That's naturally how the numbers broke down. But team, we crushed it. Uh, 71 antelopes exceeded their challenge goal, and we had some friends, some uh folks in 46 days log an insane number of runs. Miriam Biz up, Miriam logged 62 runs, 62 runs in 46 days. Cosmic Corno, Thomas Clancy logged 55 runs. Garrett Huck logged 52 runs. Garrett in the cold rain and snow, Wisconsin. And we had folks just put up some wild mileage. Uh Donnie Ratcher ran uh 429.7 miles, just edging out Trail Lama, Greg Opendorth, who ran 428.4 miles. And whether folks ran 400 miles or 400 miles, we're proud of all of you who had to get out on the road. We're gonna keep this running momentum rolling, rolling, rolling with a June. You enjoy my miles challenge that's gonna start June 1st and go through the end of the month of June. Great way for folks to stay focused on summer race and training goals and building up that stamina for summer fish tour. To participate in this challenge, just log on to our Antelope Run Club app, Antelope RunningClub.com. Free to join and click on current challenge to sign up. And speaking of summer tour, we're once again coming to your town. We'll have in-person meetup runs at every tour stop on Vicious Summer Tour. We're also right now looking for summer tour hosts who are interested in leading our group runs. Just uh go back on that app, click on, click on club events, and then submit your interest form if you're interested in hosting, making the round, pulling folks together, and leading one of our summer tour runs. For more information on these events and much, much more, you can join the Antelope Running Club community on Facebook, on Instagram, come and add your own energy and enthusiasm to the most positive place on the interreds. Now we're gonna speed up a little bit as we shift from our sexy pace into our race pace. Uh so many folks who are listening may have not been able to make it in person uh to the big weekend or to the divide of five sky fund run yet. And so we'd love for you, for folks who couldn't join, could you set the scene for us? Tell us what was the the experience like? What was the fun run like? And then also we'd love to hear about the uh the music on the mountain and the entire weekend schedule.
SPEAKER_03Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay, the whole thing takes place in Ludlow, which like about a mile or two from the Divided Sky Recovery Center, okay? And it and it and it's at Okimo, which is this Vermont, old Vermont Ski Mountain, and they they have a beautiful yellow lot. It's all very New England and it's early spring and everything is budding, not blooming, there's like early blooming. There are some tulips, but everything is just in bud. And it was sort of like I think the first hot, genuinely like warm summery day. So when you drive into the place to run the run, everywhere, everybody's outside. It's like eight o'clock in the morning, and people are outside all over the town, all over Vermont, because it's finally a nice hot day and they have a real long winter there. So there's that. Okay, and we got there, they had a DJ, and there was like a group warm-up, you know, and there were all these pictures getting taken, and they had goodie bags for everyone. The night before there was an opening event, there was a music. Uh Daniel Genato played with uh Anders, uh Samborn, I think. Um there were three of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one other guy, Jackie, somebody, and they were great. The three of them with their guitars, they did a brilliant job. And so there was, and a lot of people stayed at the venue, you know, we stayed off site, and so uh things are already come together because there had been, again, music to bring everybody together and kind of an opening night. There were a lot of people to socialize with, a lot of old fish fans there and and like fish adjacent people. And so when we all got back together on Saturday morning for the race, I mean, people were already gathering at eight. The race didn't start till nine. There were a lot of people, there was a lot of music going, and it was sort of a jubilant experience. I ran into a lady that I knew from summer tour in '99. And I really I don't think I've seen her and her husband. They were just dating then since '99. They're East Coast people. They live in New Jersey, you know, and she got diagnosed with cancer last year and popped up in the group. And it was so special to get to see her and give her a hug. You know what I mean? Because I've been following along with her and she's like in the middle of treatment. And then Heather Parker was there, and and then our whole team was there with the hats and the shirts. And so we did this warm-up. All the pictures got taken. The run, you know, you have a bib, so it, you know, it's a run. So it times when you start and it times when you stop, and everybody spreads out the run itself. It's 3.1 miles, and it was a beautiful Vermont run. There was like a little skinny river we were running along for a little while. There was a beautiful pond. There were just the very early spring flowers popping up everywhere. There was a whole residential section. And in the residential section, people who live by Okemo year-round, they um they came outside with their children. So there were all these little children jumping up and down, like we were in some kind of big race for all the hippies, like jogging on the thing. I heard there were 440 people or so in the race, which is really, it's a lot of people, you know. And when we got to the end, that the beginning was downhill from the from the you know, ski mountain down to the road. There were like two hills on the road, but then you had to run up the hill at the very end to get to the thing, which was like a little challenging. But when you got across the finish line, there were these local Vermont dudes, like old dudes with bins full of water. You know, they just they were like waiting for you with the water, and then and then, and then, and then that there was um a medal for everybody, like a real cool divided sky medal. And then um, you had to peel off the bottom of your bib and put it in a box because there was gonna be a raffle when everybody got back. There were a bunch of people walking. The last walker was someone who was just about to enter divided sky the following week. That was the last person who showed up. There were a bunch of walkers, there were a bunch of slow joggers. I'm pretty sure I'm at the sexy pace. I am not at the runner pace, you know. We love a sexy pace. It was like um, I was under 29 minutes, which was really nice for me, you know. And I didn't even really try super, super hard. There are photographers all along the route, so you kind of felt like, you know, you're like an important runner. You know what I mean? Someone this morning sent me a picture of that a photographer had taken of me. The pictures are so beautiful, you know. It's like the only time we're wow, I'm running with this girl, like for some little section near the end, and a photographer comes like zooming by on his skateboard, and it's got like a slight downhill. So the dude's going like real fast on his skateboard with his camera. And the two of us are like, first of all, I cannot skateboard like that. And second of all, I cannot take pictures like that. This guy is doing both at once. It's like this kind of stuff was happening all over the run. It was fun. Right when the run started, my friend brought Kim brought her two kids and another kid, and they were like, We're gonna go, we're gonna go so fast, we're gonna work so hard. And as soon as I started the run, I look over to the right, she stopped. The kids are next to her. One of the kids is over peeing on a tree, like right at the beginning of the race.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you're outside in Vermont, you got your little river there.
SPEAKER_02Like, yeah, yeah, it was a fun race. It was beautiful track, the vibe was high, everyone had a great time when we got back. Um, there was more time to socialize, you know. Um, right after the run, somebody drove me over to Divided Sky because all the people who were staying there, the residents at the time came over to the race. So the place was empty. And about, I don't know, 15 or 20 of us, you know, had a beautiful tour of the of the food and the kitchen and the um and the the meeting room and the bedrooms, which are lovely, and this gorgeous yoga room and and this incredible view of the Vermont Mountains. It's a big red building, it looks like an old red barn. It was a beautiful spot. And meanwhile, while we were there, they were doing the raffle, you know, raffling off the prizes. They gave a great shout out to about to run, you know.
SPEAKER_00So speaking of, you know, as runners, we love we love a bodily fluid story. We love our when when you had to poop in the woods or with something. So I got a story. I'm not gonna say the name of the person that this happened to because it's a little embarrassing. But our first year, you mentioned that hill. The first year, uh, and I've only gotten to go to two of the runs because New Orleans to Vermont, it's a long way, and it's a busy time here with kids and all that. But our first year we're coming up, and so we're like at the bottom of the hill, and she's huffing and puffing. She's like, I don't know, I'm so tired. I'm like, no, come on, we got this, we got this, let's go. And so the two of us are just like walking it up the hill. And I'm like a little faster than her, and so but I'm like, come on, come on, we can do it, we can do it. And she's huffing above it. We get we crest to the top of the hill, and right there, you're you know, you the there's the tent, there's the finish line. And so we get to the top of the hill and we look, and Trey is standing right there, and she got so overwhelmed by the effort and the hill that she ducked behind the timer van that's right there and and puked all over the place behind the van. But she was so worried, she's like, wait, and now Trey's there, and and luckily, like she's behind the van. So Trey didn't see anything, she didn't throw up on anyway. But and then I felt so bad because I was like, but I was the one pushing her. I was like, Come on, you can do it, you can do it. Uh, that was, I know, a first year only thing, Trey. No one knew he was gonna show up. He showed up, he put the medals around everyone's neck, and it was small then. I mean, I think we had like maybe 150 people there. Uh, and so to hear it's grown into 400, you know, 400.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's huge, it's huge. And the event, I mean, there must have been a couple of thousand people at the event and the music, I mean, the fest, just the run was really fun. Like, it could have just been the run, and that would have been great. It was its own complete entity. But when it was over, there was this beautiful music festival in the in the in the backyard of this lodge and up against these mountains with this hot weather. And um, it was the first time I've ever been at a sober music festival. I it's just unheard of. Everybody was sober. The mocktail bars had like the deli, there was like a strawberry, coconut, colada thing. There was like a ginger, lime, minty. They had delicious mocktails, like really good. There was an incredible ice cream stand with these massive scoops of ice cream. There's a hot dog stand, Mike's, and they give all of their proceeds, if you ever see them in a festival, to the organization throwing the festival, the nonprofit, or to a nonprofit of their choice, which is cool. So everybody got hot dogs. There was like um like a mini golf course there. So all the kids were playing mini golf and jumping in a bouncy house, and there was something they were calling the roller coaster, which was kind of like a track with cars, and you could go and do that. And then and then there was all this music, and it's daytime, everyone's just hanging out, you know, and you could just wander about, visit with people, nobody was crazy. I mean, I was up next. The rail for the music.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna ask. I know you're a rail rider, so were you reading?
SPEAKER_02That feels like such a privilege that you think I'm a rail rider. I really feel like I've made it because it's the last few years I've been real interested in being as close to the band as possible. And there were a bunch of people from the front who went to the festival. And as soon as the festival doors opened, they went and claimed their spot right on the rail. There were probably eight or two.
SPEAKER_00That's how we program, right? We don't know.
SPEAKER_02It was so fun. It was so fun. And so we had a whole nest set up right in the front. It was real, real sweet. And it was the same people we always see. You know, the the the front of the show is like, in some ways, it's like the heart of the community because you always go, all the same people are going. It's a real labor of love to get up there. There's hours spent outside in line. You know what I mean? It's it's like the whole day is just spent like organizing to get to be close to the band and and be inside this little sweet community up in the front. And so a bunch of those people showed up for the festival. And so they, of course, made a little mini nest in the front for the whole day. And it was so sweet. The festival opened with Embodied Groove, which is a um dance experience that a lady here in the Bay Area, her name is Leah Taylor. Uh, and she does this beautiful warm-up for the day where you kind of like get your head moving, get your different body parts moving, get them moving together, and eventually start using the space around you, start engaging with the people around you. It is such a gentle welcoming to a I mean, she should do it for every festival everywhere. So she started training people like her to kind of be able to do that. So she doesn't have to go to every single festival, but she was a really great beginning. And then the music was incredible. It was incredible. I love Lamp so much. I can't say enough good things about Corinne Reichman, who's this very young bassist, but she's so enthusiastic and she loves Vermont.
SPEAKER_00Mike Gordon uh last year at Jazz Fest, and like she stole the show. I mean, like, she's just got so much, and and Mike was smiling and laughing. And of course, we know Mike, he never smiles, and he was just like doing so much that Mike couldn't help but smile and laugh. So, like, yeah, she's she's wild. She's awesome.
SPEAKER_02She was awesome. She had a gold sparkle guitar, like like uh rock and roll Barbie. I mean, she had this huge bass and it was like gold and sparkly, and she's in her rainbow sweater and she's dreading, you know, like she's dreading like an aged rock star and just blazing around the stage. And when it was over, she went and had a spot where she sat down at a table and sold merch and took pictures of people. This festival, aside from it being like a sober music festival, where even in the front, there were no shenanigans, there was no pushing, there was no nothing, nothing except music and connection, the whole place because it was sober and clean. The other thing is that the musicians were hanging out. You know, Russ Lawton, you want to talk to him? He's hanging out. Dale and auto, he's rolling around. You know, you can see who Karina Reichman, she's just hanging around. You know, Natalie Cressman was there, Jennifer Hartswick was there. You could just go say hi if you wanted to. They were all hanging out. It was cool.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. It's the other thing that that I think is so cool. And again, thinking about the first year we did this, like, because I I came at this heart of like, it's a fund run, right? And I'm like, I'm a math guy, I used to be a math teacher. I was crunching all the numbers about how much we made and how much we spent on this, da-da-da. And Melanie had to reel us back in and she's like, hey, like, yeah, fundraising is important, but really what we're trying to do here is like establish a place in the community, right? Like let people know because there's a lot of resistance, right? Like there's a golf course right next to uh right next to the center, and they're the you know, NIMBY, the people who live there, and they're like, we don't want to see these like you know, struggle, strung out junkies like hanging out in our yard, and there was a lot of resistance. And Melanie was like the bigger thing here is if we can get our word out about what we're doing and like establish ourselves in the community. And now five years in, and actually it's the same thing happened when we first started the music festival, right? Like, even the the Okimo, they were like, well, okay, we're gonna cap it at a thousand people, we're like gonna close down the restaurants, like we can't do this, we can't do that. And now you have the town of Ludlow already for next year being like, Okay, what's the date? We the sheriff's department wants to save the date, let's put it on the calendar. Okemo this year opened the ski lift, so people have to go to the top. They're opening the restaurants, they're encouraging people to come, they're giving discounts, and it's become like we to your point before, we have created like such a positive impression in the community that people are looking forward to it. And it's become part of like just what Ludlow is and wants to be, and how special that is, and how we've created that.
SPEAKER_02So it's a win, it's a win. I mean, every way you look at it, it's a win. It's a win for the people who need some recovery help, and it's a win for the fish community, and it's a win for the everything is done in a simple way. That's a win for everybody. It's like the fundraising. You know, you do the fundraising, it's a win for the connection, it's a win for you personally because you have this goal. It's a win for the organization, it's a win for the community. The people on our team who are graduates of the program, every single one of them had benefited from subsidies from our community that got them through. And every single one of them, you know, 98% of the people who go through Divided Sky come out of it and say that it profoundly helped them change their life. That it was a profoundly meaningful experience for them. That's a pretty high percentage in that community of folks. It's cool, you know. I'm so glad Ludlow's gotten on board. It was such a pleasure to be in that town. It's a real sweet spot. It's a real sweet spot, and everyone was very, very nice, and it's a beautiful part of Vermont.
SPEAKER_00And one shout out to if folks, and it is a bit of a haul, right? Like you can't fly to Ludlow. You got to fly to Burlington, you got to fly to you probably do you fly to Boston. Like it takes a while to get there, and then you got to rent a car or hitch a ride, and it's like two hours to Burlington, it's three hours. But it is so worth it. It's just such a beautiful place, uh a beautiful community and a hidden gem. So if folks haven't gotten there, and look, if folks can't get there too, shout out to the virtual runners because another, I think it was over 200 people signed up to support Divided Sky virtually. We got pictures and posts on the on the Facebook page from people all over the country, some people internationally. Jonathan Schwartz uh in Israel posted his run. He's wearing the shirt, right? He did a 5K uh to support this ahead of time. And so, like people, even if you can't get there in Ludlow to support an amazing cause, uh, to fundraise and just to give back as Roddy noted today.
SPEAKER_02Oh, Jonathan Schwartz is such a gem of a human being. He's really given a lot to our community. I love that he's participating from Israel and I hope his family is safe.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Roddy, we're now gonna enter the cool down phase of our show, just like the cool down phase of a run. We want to slow down, uh, walk, but also talk to our friends and get excited about well, what's happening next? Are we gonna go go out for breakfast tacos after a run? Can we meet up next week and run again? Because it was so nice. So I want to look forward together with you uh and start by asking you so what are your fish plans this summer? You mentioned you're gonna be on the shelf a little bit, tilt Deer Creek, but are you jumping back on tour? What are those about this year?
SPEAKER_02I'm going to Deer Creek. That's my first expedition out of the house. I'm going to Deer Creek for the week. I'm going to take it easy. I'm probably not going to be right in the front. I'm going to get a seat in the pavilion. It's my first time out after surgery. And then I'm going to go for the whole week in New York. We are just at the beginning phases of organizing a special uh divided sky event for women in particular. So more on that coming soon. We're just starting to gather the forces for something real special for the ladies. And um, I'm really excited to get to be in New York for all those shows. And um, it's it's so nice to have the anchor of more fun and more fish, you know, to look forward to at all times. You know, we finished the sphere, summer tour is right behind you. You know what I mean? Thank God. Thank God, because the world is kind of a crazy place. It's nice to be able to take a joy break.
SPEAKER_00It is, but also thank God that they're not playing 150 shows a year. So we do at least get a break between because both financially, sleep, nutrition, and health. I need to take a break too in between.
SPEAKER_01And adulting, we have adulting things. We're middle-aged people with responsibilities, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, I'm excited. I'm gonna be at uh uh two of those MSG shows the uh the Friday, Saturday. Actually, we're gonna be in up in the Hudson Valley visiting my wife's family so I can take the train down, catch the two weekend shows. Uh, and please keep me posted so I can let our community know once that that uh New York event comes together.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I would love that so much. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Um the uh other question I was gonna ask, so you brought it up, and a little selfishly, I'm gonna ask this question, uh, but also hearing about your experience. Um, so I know you're a doctor. Many of us, as you told me and reminded me in Mexico, like many of us are middle-aged, right, in our 40s, in our 50s, still trying to exercise, still trying to go to all the shows, but also like what advice do you have? What to keep in mind to those of us who might be recovering from an injury or recovering from surgery, like you mentioned, like from if you put your medical hat on and think about our our fishy runners, like what guidance and wisdom can you share about being healthy and still being able to go to live music, still go for a run into our 70s, into our 80s? What should we be thinking about?
SPEAKER_02Uh, three things. I would say three things. One is sleep, because sleep is where we repair uh the injuries that we do during the day, the micro injuries from our runs. Two is um yoga, something that is because because our natural tendency as we age is to get less and less flexible. And there's something about the working out that things just tighten up after. So I think the yoga is a fundamental piece, the sleep, the yoga. And the third thing is um, you know, the recovery supplements, I think are really helpful, like a super solid multivitamin. So we have all the zinc we need to repair things, all the vitamin C and magnesium. But also, um, you know, a huge review article just came out about the benefits of collagen to um ligaments and tendons. It was like uh 16 review articles of 113 randomized controlled trials of about 8,000 people talking about how helpful collagen is in the long term to rebuild our tendons and ligaments. And then, of course, creatinine, right? Creatinine, which helps build up our muscles and helps them repair and just helps us recover more quickly after these runs. And that's my trio of things that I think are probably at the top of the list. They're all so basic and simple and easy to do. Get enough sleep.
SPEAKER_00It's like the S it's the S show from Dix sleep, retch, and supplements. All S. Although I did want you to say uh carbs instead of collagen because that's all. But again, we're we're being wise, we're trying to keep up with our agent bias. Well, Rada, the last question I have that I asked to everyone here on the show is what do you listen to while you exercise, while you run? Are you listening to fish shows? Do you got something else? Podcast? What's in your ears while you're exercising that you might recommend?
SPEAKER_02This is a sad story. So right now I'm going to a gym. I go to Orange Theory. That's my workouts right now. It's a combination of running, rowing, and um weights, and it's like an hour, it's real efficient. They have, I love them so much, but the music really leaves something to be desired. And they have a competition once a year, and they let whoever wins the competition make a playlist. And I'm I'm like waiting for my chance to make a good playlist of fish songs for the whole class to work out to. The music is not so great. I mostly listen to fish. I have a thing. There's a um on Spotify, there's a few best of jams, you know, and I like those live fish, you know, jams that they release. And that's usually where I go if I do a run on my own.
SPEAKER_00Nice. I've been at the well, I've been at the gym and still kind of doing rehab stuff, but I've been listening because I went to the first weekend of sphere, and I I always every year like I want to hear every note the fish plays. And so I've just finally finally worked my way through the last sphere show. Um, and that not the last night, but the second of last night. Man, that night just hit me right.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's good. It was good.
SPEAKER_00That was incredible.
SPEAKER_02I just I'm waiting for somebody to start a gym who's a fish fan. You you know what I mean? To be in control of the music.
SPEAKER_00Could we call it Runaway Gym? And someone, if you do that, someone send me a t-shirt. I don't need any money or trading ready, but I do want a t-shirt. Runaway gym. Well, Roddick, thank you so much for joining on today's episode. Uh, really appreciate you sharing your exercise journey and sharing your perspective. For those of us who couldn't make it to Ludlow last weekend, I know you helped me feel like I was running along with you, dancing, celebrating all together with you uh and your team, for which we are truly grateful. Uh, you know, as we heard from you and such a good reminder today that when you open up your open yourself up to the world, the people that you need find you and bring their perspectives and their talents. Uh, and I feel like the people that we share these brief connections with, maybe it's through running together, maybe we need at a show, become those people who fly across the country for us, wear goofy hats, t-shirts, and be uh party together and are partners with us through our very best and our very uh worst moments. And it allows us to recognize those people who are already destined to be our lifelong friends. Well, thanks folks for listening to Like an Antelope. We plan to release our next episode in mid June. But until then, keep your gear shift on high and take care of your shoes.