Eight Kids, 10 Marathons, One Routine: Mike Shaw's Path to Lifelong Fitness

What if your fitness journey didn't begin until your 40s?

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Mike Shaw, who recently turned 60 and completed his 10th marathon. Mike shares how fitness became a cornerstone of his life in his forties, and why it's never too late to make a change.

We discuss how he balanced marathon training while raising a full house, the role routine has played in his long-term success, and how his goals have evolved as he's gotten older. Mike also reflects on what keeps him motivated, why consistency matters more than intensity, and how anyone—regardless of age, experience, or background—can begin building a healthier lifestyle.

Whether you're training for your first marathon or simply trying to stay active, Mike's story is a reminder that meaningful change can happen at any stage of life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back to Life in Motion. I have another special guest here today. A now longtime friend, Mike Shaw, on the podcast with us. Thanks for joining.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

So you are not my client, but you are a member of Westwood Country Club where I work. Right. And you do not work with a personal trainer, which is ironic because I am one and am starting this podcast to almost promote training, but not necessarily. And you found success and have made training part of your life. So I do want to talk about that your training at your stage in life and all of your accomplishments.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

You know, I think I'm a weird bird in that um I've been able to find a lot of physical fitness discipline on my own. I think for most people, they need the help of a personal trainer to keep them on track, to keep it fresh and interesting. I've just been able to do that on my own. So that's, I think that makes me a two percenter at best. And you know, the ultimate goal is for everyone to keep moving and have a lot of what I call physical inertia to make sure that they keep happy and healthy so they can push farther time out as far as possible. And if that requires having some help from someone like you as a personal trainer, by all means do that. I also don't like being told what to do, so I like to do it on my own.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

And I I respect that. Not a lot of people do, sometimes it's needed. And if you don't mind sharing with the audience, how how old are you, Mike? Uh just turned 60, the big 6-0. Zero 6-0, yeah. And I was actually at your celebration. That was cool. You were, it was pretty fun. It was fun. Yep. We had some drinks, we had some of those.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Got up on the stage and did a song with the band, which was a lot of fun. So it was long in planning to be at the mean-eyed cat and hire a band and have about 80 of my friends there, and it turned out better than I could have imagined.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

It was fun. Yeah. You know how to work hard in and out of the gym, but you also know how to have fun and let loose. You got to. Life's not that serious.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Right. Life is also too short. So you got to be able to balance the requirements of life with the fun of life. And that kind of an event that my birthday turned into was one of those things that keeps things really fun and jovial. So you got to add that into all the stuff that you got to do. Add in some of the stuff that you want to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah. Like I said, you're now a long time friend. I don't train you, but we see you all the time. You're a regular at Westwood. I somewhat train your wife, Stacy. Right. Not one-on-one, but she comes to circuit classes. Right. She's equally as about her routine as you are. I think y'all bounce off each other, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Right. I I think for her, the reason why classes are so important is she wants that social aspect of interaction with the trainer and other people who are being trained. I, on the other hand, like to put in my headphones and listen to music or a golf podcast and be in my own little world so I can focus. Kind of that I don't want to be told what to do because I can do it on my own. I don't, I don't need that direction. But I also like listening to my music, or I've got a handful of golf podcasts that I listen to. And when I'm at the gym in the morning, that's a time to do it because the rest of my day is too full of meetings and other things I've got to do.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And it works for you. It works for me. At the end of the day, it's about what works for you. Correct. Um, you've mentioned golf. I also got to share you are a very competitive golfer. What's your handicap?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

My current index is 6.3.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

And he's 60.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

You're moving, you're active, and you're very engaged.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I certainly was not born with that gene. Both of my parents were stay up late, sleep in people. And I probably was in that category as a really young person. And then I think for some people who may be born with that, they do it for their whole life. I just had an event that happened to me when I was 42 that made me pivot and kind of slide that paradigm to a different place. And I've kept it there ever since.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

And what was that event, if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

No, no, no. I'm happy to tell that story. I tell this story a lot. I went through what I call a very amicable divorce when I was 42. And I remember vividly waking up one day and looking in the mirror and thinking, holy smokes, you're short, you're balding. I had braces at the time to even just add insult to injury there. Yeah. And I was very fluffy. And so I thought to myself, if I'm ever gonna be able to get a date, I've got to fix this. I can't fix the balding or the height. I got the braces off. I can fix the fluffy. Yeah. Um, so I trained for and ran my first marathon that year. And during that time, that marathon was in February of 2009. There was a random ad that I saw somewhere that was join Gold's Gym for this introductory price on President's Day. Well, I'm a banker. I have President's Day off. So I went to Gold's Gym and joined, and that was 18 years ago. And I've been a runner and I go to the gym religiously ever since. And I go to the gym almost without fail Monday, Wednesday, Friday at five o'clock. I just forced myself to do that because as a banker, I've got a lot of networking and afterwork things I've got to go to. So if I was going to go to the gym, it had to be in the morning, got to get rid of that fluffy, and wanted to run a marathon. And my goal was just to run one and then just run for health and fitness thereafter. And so gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday religiously, uh, run Tuesday, Thursday, and then try to run a day on the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

When was your first marathon? 2009. 2009. Uh, and you just finished your tenth marathon, is that right? In February just passed, yeah. That is quite an accomplishment. Um, it takes a lot of dedication. It does. And even if you let's say you're one of those people that's like, I like running. I mean, maybe we're all half and half. Some people are just like, oh, I don't, and other people do. Even if you were in the category of I do, that still takes a lot of training.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

It takes a lot of training, and I only really had the goal of doing the one, but I I really enjoyed the train up of the people that I met along the way. And after I did one, I was like, Well, I always wanted to break four hours. My first one was a 415. So it's like, well, I'm gonna try one more and see if I can train up and break four hours. And the weather for the next one, which I think was the next year in 2010, it was really hot, had no chance. Uh, I think I ran a 430 that year, which is not fast. I'm uh by no means have I been close to qualifying for Boston. Yeah. Uh that was never in the cards, just wanted to do one, wanted to break four hours. Yeah. And I thought, well, I'll do another one. And a friend of mine that I grew up with that we reconnected at our 25th high school reunion, he told me he wanted to run a half marathon. I was like, Well, I'm actually training for a marathon. Come down to the trail with me, run around town lake, and we'll train you up for a half marathon while I'm training for a marathon. And since then, he's run six marathons. Oh my gosh. Uh, we've run three together, and he actually is broken. He almost qualified for Boston last month running the Eugene Oregon, missed it by 31 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

My gosh, that's that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Also 60.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, also 60.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Never say you're too old.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, it's never too late, right? Never too late. I mean, dude, I have I have six-year-old clients on the dot that are some outplanking my 40-year-olds. Yeah. I'm not trying to call anybody out, but like, dude, you can you can accomplish a lot.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

And and I think as you know, as you get 50 and 55 and now 60, you're just more aware of your health and how your body is changing and probably start to work harder at it because you know that it it's harder to stay where you are. You you kind of, for lack of a better word, erode a little bit over time. I mean, that's just the nature of getting older. Oh, for sure. But the more you work at it, the more consistent you are, you know, mix in some nutrition and things like that to keep everything focused on being better. You know, a lot of people have grandkids, they want to be healthy so they can watch their grandkids grow up. I know when I eventually retire from banking, I want to travel and play golf. And so a lot of the things I've been doing over the last almost 20 years have been with an eye on when I am 60 something, when I am 70 something, I don't want to be old and broken down. So as far out as I can push that, that's part of the goal.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

And there's like so much information out there. A lot of it is good. I don't want to get confused. Like now we know what will happen if you sit on the couch and don't lift weights as you age. Like you said, you're going to decline a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

But you can do something about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

100%. Yeah. And and I I know a lot of people my age that might as well be 70 because they just don't work at it. They never have, and and their excuses, I've just never done it, so I can't do it. Uh that's just not reality at all. You can always start today, it's never too late to start.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

It is never too late.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

So I also find inspiring how you're not just a gym bro, being fit or taking care of your health doesn't mean just living in the gym. You do other things like cross-training, and don't you do yoga?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

I just started trying to do yoga. I'm not very good at it because I'm struggling with coordinating the correct breathing patterns with the positions. Yeah. Oh, it's hard. But it is hard. But I'm getting at least some ancillary stretching out of the thing. So even though I struggle with making it look like I know what I'm doing, I just I just do it for the stretching component of nothing else. Uh my daughter suggested that I do it because she does it. So I went and bought a mat and she sent me some YouTube videos to watch. And so I try to do it, and I'm working on the breathing and trying to get the rhythm together of the breathing with the movements, and I'll eventually figure it out. But if nothing else, it's just something else to add to the overall fitness goals of trying to keep father time at arm's length.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

I respected that. And to do something that you are probably going to be very bad at. Extremely bad. I I acknowledge that. And if nothing else, I mean it won't hurt you, and I'm sure it'll help things like your golf game, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah. That's that's actually one of the things that brought it on because as you know, we do crawfish boils, and recently I was lifting a cooler of crawfish out of the back of my car, and it wasn't heavy, but the way I picked it up and twisted, I pinched that sidic nerve in my hip, and it's just been bothering me. And it was one of the things that really induced me into working on and thinking more about stretching, brought in the idea of doing yoga. I hit the cold plunge at Westwood whenever I can just to try to keep the inflammation of that down. And then I also did a lot of cold plunge on this last train up for the marathon, just because when I ran the first time at 42, I didn't struggle really with any injuries or issues related to the running. Yeah. But now that I've been running heavily for almost 20 years and just things hurt all the time. So anything I can do to battle that inflammation, I'm trying to do. So stretching and I love the cold plunge. It's hard to get your head around the cold plunge initially, but now I really uh enjoy it. And if I don't do it, I I actually miss it. Okay. Because the results are so good. If you can power through that first minute, you're good.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

The first minute is the hardest. It's a mental and physical thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

100%. Yeah. Yeah. You feel exhilarated when you get out of that thing. Again, if you can power through the first minute, you're good. I think I'm also unusual there that I stay in for 10 minutes regardless of the temperature. But if you can get through the first minute, I have my music going or I'm listening to a golf podcast. I can focus on something other than how cold it is and that it hurts initially because I lean on the fact that I know how good I'm going to feel when I get out. You know, my brain is really engaged. And again, I'm doing this early in the morning. So my launch into my day is is very strong based on either running or throwing some iron in the gym and then hitting that cold plunge because you're fully lit up at that point.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Lit up is an understatement. Yeah. Uh it's like drinking five cups of coffee. Yes. You feel great after. You feel great afterwards. And I know you wake up very early. You're in the gym early. How early do you wake up?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

This is another part of my oddballness. I wake up at 4 30 Monday through Friday. And I'm at the gym at five o'clock, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I'm down at the trail at 5 15 Tuesday, Thursday. What time do you go to bed? It depends. Anywhere between 8 45 and 10 o'clock. Okay. That's fairly reasonable. I'm I'm six and a half to eight hours of sleep usually.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

That's pretty standard. It's not like you're sacrificing anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

No, no. And and again, for a lot of people who might be listening to this, they're here 4 30 and they think, I can't do that. Well, of course, if you say I can't do it, you won't do it, right? It's part of the mental game of life. But if you force yourself to do it for a good chunk of time, 30 days, it becomes part of your routine and your habit and you miss it. At least I do.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah. I'm almost convinced there's some social psychology. And I think uh how you said if people were to set aside 30 days to do something that they think is miserable, maybe to a degree, right? They would find that it sticks, something works for them and it does get easier. Yes. It's hard to say or do that unless you're held accountable by somebody.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah. And initially no one held me accountable.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Which is even more impressive, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Because I was I was single, my kids were in high school, so they were busy with school and work and friends, and I had no one to be accountable to other than myself. That's not patting myself on the back at all, but I had these goals of getting rid of that fluffy because that was the only thing about me at that time that I wasn't happy with that I could change. And so powered through, I think the old adage is that it takes 28 days to change a habit, 21 days or 28 days. And so I just forced myself to go. Just go. And then eventually, you know, years roll by. And if I don't get up at 4:30 to go to the gym or the trail at five, I'm I wobble all day long.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

And correct me if I'm wrong. Training now uh versus back then is not something you do. It's like a part of your lifestyle, is it not?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

It's absolutely what it is. I mean, I'm I never really was training for anything, I wasn't in any kind of competition. The only competition I was in was with myself to to meet goals. So it it it came easier than I ever imagined getting to those to this point. It becomes part of the fabric of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah. And that can look like many different routes. People don't have to take one to get there, they don't have to take the route I took or the route you took.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Right. And I'm not ultra competitive against other people with the things that I do. I mean, when I go to the gym, I don't push a lot of iron. I'm not trying to max out ever at all. That I recommend against that, unless you're in your teens or your 20s. I use a reasonable amount of weight, you know, shoulders hurt, knees hurt, things like that. So there's some natural limitations over just getting stronger. And I've been pretty fortunate that I've been able to avoid injuries. I dislocated my left knee about 20 years ago and full reconstruction, not replacement, but full reconstruction. So MCL, ACL, I had a lateral release, chipped off the end of my femur, and had almost full cartilage loss on the back of my kneecap as my knee dislocated. I was actually training for my first marathon at the time, and I'd done a 16-mile run that morning when I got hurt playing basketball with my son and some other kids. And the surgeon who did the work was the orthopedic surgeon at that time for UT Athletics. And when I went into surgery, he was planning to scope my knee. And when I woke up, I had a big zipper across the top of it. He said there was more damage in there than the MRI showed, and I was not able to do it with tools. I had to physically go in there to make all the corrections. And I said, Well, how long do I need to lay off running or whatever? He said, I don't think you'll ever be able to run again because there's just too much damage there. And so I proved him wrong because I've done all those, all of those marathons since, and I've got about 20 half marathons under my belt too. Yeah. But because of that injury, I've got this kind of galloping gait. And so all of my injuries have been on my right side opposite of that injury. So I've had hip flexor, plantar fasciitis, psychic nerve. So things come along with, and I've learned over time as I've gotten older to back off of how hard I train, how far I train to get ready for an event just because of the injuries that I'm trying to stay away from.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

You did prove that doctor wrong. I did. That's cool. We're in your office as we speak, uh-huh, and I'm looking at your wall full of medals, and there are a lot of medals. I've done a lot of events. I've got a lot of race shirts in my closet.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

That is cool. It's pretty fun.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

And at the end of the day, isn't the biggest message is just be consistent, right? It doesn't matter what activity you do, just stay moving, right? 100%.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah. Steep keep moving. I'm not, I'm not trying to get faster. I'm not trying to get stronger. I'm just trying to stay active and strong. I just want to be able to enjoy my later years. I remember when I was a kid, and I talked to my dad about this a lot. He would take me to the barbershop, old school barbershop, and there'd be some old guys sitting against the wall drinking coffee, and they were all lamenting about how they couldn't wait till they turned 62 so they could get social security. And they were old and broken down. Now, this is 50 years ago, right? Yeah. And now I know some guys in their mid-70s that can run circles around a lot of people because they have made it part of their lifestyle to stay healthy. They eat right, they don't drink too much, they stay active whether they run, whether they walk, whether they bike, whether they go to the gym, whatever they do, they've just made it a point to stay active. And I'm just kind of following that same plan. I I think a lot of people are probably intimidated by starting some sort of a fitness program at whatever age, because it's hard, especially if it's changing your routine, if it's getting you out of your comfort zone. Some people I think go to the gym and they're intimidated by the people who are around them. You know, they see younger people that are bigger, stronger, faster, whatever. And it is intimidating, but you've just got to have develop the discipline first and foremost. You got to always keep moving that kind of physical inertia that I mentioned before to achieve those goals and make your goals reasonable. And the word strong is relative. I'm never going to do 225 again. I don't want to. My shoulders hurt too much. And I know that that I potentially bring the risk of injury in if I try to overload myself. And so I go with a reasonable weight, do eight or 10 reps. And a lot of times I'll do four sets of something just to wear my muscles down a little bit more, but with a reasonable amount of weight. And when I go down to the trail and run, I don't try to go and do eight-minute miles anymore. You know, I'm very comfortable doing 10 and I'm happy with that.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Strong is relative. I'm gonna start using that. That's good. Fine.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

It's not, I don't have a trademark on that.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Not yet. Not yet. But it's true. Training can be intimidating, along with that is diets. I want to talk a little bit about your diet. You're conscious of certain things, but you also know how to live a little.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

You you don't want to make life boring and dull by preventing yourself from enjoying food and drink. Now you got to watch it, of course. I'm very fortunate. I don't have a sweet tooth, so I may go months and months and months without having a piece of candy or a cookie or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

That's like a superpower, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

I my favorite candy bar is a Kit Kat, and I've got a drawer at home where Kit Cats given to me at Christmas have accumulated quicker than they get eaten. Um, and so I'm I'm fortunate with that. Yeah. And I think I've got some fortunate DNA, just the body type that I have. I'm kind of a slight guy anyway. So DNA in my favor, don't have a sweet tooth. Um I I try to be smart about what I eat. As a banker, I do a lot of networking. I eat out for lunch almost every day. So you got to be very conscientious of what you're ordering, or it can get away from you in a hurry. There's a protein shake on my desk every day. I make it when I walk out of the door every morning. We love that. Yeah. If you come to my office any day, Monday through Friday, you'll see that on my desk. And I usually drink it on the way home.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

We don't have to track things, we don't have to scale things. You're conscious of what you're putting in your body. You eat some protein, you do a little bit of activity, you do eat out, you make some different decisions. You don't have to have a personal chef or track every single calorie and macro. Like it's it doesn't have to come to that.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

That's right. And if people have to do that. That, God love them for tracking that and just being aware of it. I'm just fortunate that it I'm not so tied into my nutrition that I've got to track calories or carbs or things like that. And I am conscientious. If I pick up a snack, I turn it over and I do look at the calorie intake, but I mostly look at the carb intake because one of my my one of my goals is to just limit carbs. That's kind of the enemy of people my age is your metabolism slows down. Yeah. Those carbs don't get converted to energy for us, they get stored for later in case we never eat again. Yeah. So I am conscientious of the carb intake that I have. You ask about cheap meals. Probably the one that I can lean on the most is going to Whataburger. Okay. But how I manage that down and make myself feel good about myself mentally, I never get fries. I just get a burger.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Dude, I need you on the team. See, he does it. He eats Whataburger. I do. But doesn't get fries. You can compromise on some things. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

That's a great uh great way of saying it.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

It doesn't have to be zero to a hundred, black and white, all in this or all in that. That's right. Yeah. It is cool you don't have a sweet tooth. Dude, I have a huge sweet tooth. I know. I think about cheesecake like hourly.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

I'm falling into a very lucky category of people that don't have a sweet tooth.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

And it's funny you say that. I'll go to Chick-fil-A, I'll get a Chick-fil-A sandwich. It's obviously fried, but then with that I get a fruit cup. And maybe I'm the weirdo, but I get a little bit of what I want, and actually I get everything of what I want. It's just a little compromise.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yeah. Yeah. And I feel a little full of myself when I go to Whataburger and I see people with their large fries, and I think I didn't get the fries. I just got a burger. Still not good for you, ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

But it was a good burger, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. You gotta live a little bit. You do. So you are you're a busy man. You guys like to travel.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Mm-hmm. Try to.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

And with that said, what is training, if you do at all, look like while you're on the road?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

So good question there. I'm also a big believer in that periodically you need to let your body rest. I mean, again, I don't train so hard that I'm close to body breakdown often, but I think periodically it's good to not do anything and let your body rest. If I'm gearing up for a marathon, I don't want to skip days because you slide backwards so fast. We did a trip to um Gulf Shores, Alabama over New Year's, and I had the marathon in February. So we were in New Orleans for a couple of days, and then we were in Alabama for a couple of days. So I made sure to get in training runs then. There was no gym available, so I just didn't do that. But I did a 10-mile run in Gulf Shores and then I did a 16 along the waterfront in New Orleans on that trip. So normally in that eight-day span, I would have run three days. So I only ran two, but they were double-digit mile runs, so it still kind of kept me in my training cycle.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

So you do stay active.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah. Yeah. There's a resort that we go to periodically in Mexico, and they've got a pretty good gym. And so we go in there and move. It's not like what I do when I'm at Westwood, but at least I'm in there moving a little bit. So I'm not just sitting around with a beer and a book on the beach, which is also very awesome. Yeah. But I try to push some iron if I can when we're traveling. I'm more disciplined as I'm running up onto a running event. You know, if we go travel like this summer, we're gonna travel with a bunch of family, and I probably won't go to the gym or run on that trip, but we'll do a lot of walking. And in my mind, that's that's a reset too. And I think you do need to allow your body to rest from time to time. You can't just go, go, go, go, go, you'll break down.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

For sure. And uh during a lot of that training, you had a full house. Another thing people know you and your wife by is y'all's many kids. It's six kids, right? Yep, there's a lot of humans in my house. There are a lot of humans. That is a lot. Oh, we could talk about that. Yeah. How did you balance training during having a full house of kids? Six kids is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

It it really didn't impact me at all because I do so much in the morning before any of those folks are even up and moving around. Yeah. Usually get home from the trail or the gym by 6:30 when everybody's just kind of starting their day. So that many people in my house and all the different interactions and who needs a ride to school or whatever didn't impact my workout schedule because I'd already done it.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Boom. Yeah. So easy answer. You would think that that would be a complication, but it wasn't just because before I met Stacy and was around all the kids, I was already a morning only dedicated workout guy. So having having them under my roof didn't change a thing. You made it work. Made it work.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I look up to you, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Well, we're the same height.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

The same height. That was good. Yeah, thank you. Oh, nice dad joke.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Thank you. I'm I'm known for those.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

And you know how to throw a mean crawfish boil. I respect that.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Stacey and I have kind of got that down to a to a pretty fine-tooth program. Yeah. It's fun. And and you already know this. I don't really like crawfish that much, but I love the production value of that day and having all the people over and doing the uh the presto of of dunking the the crawfish and all that. It's just it makes for a good show. The last one that we had for all the college graduates, I had two crawfish and I boiled three bags, so roughly a hundred pounds. I had two crawfish.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

That is that was fun. Yeah. I I had a couple of cold beers and visited with a bunch of people. Two crawfish. Yeah, two crawfish. And Stacy peeled both of them. I didn't I didn't peel a single one of that hundred pounds. It's a very fun event for people who are listening that have never been to a crawfish boy, figure out a way to get to one because it's just a really unique event.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

So you love you love your longhorns, right? Very much. Just a random question. If you were gonna play a round of golf with any longhorn legend out there, who would you play with and why?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

So the person I would pick is Ben Crenshaw because Ben was really arriving on the pro scene when I was a little kid picking up the game in the early 70s. He was on several UT national championship teams in the early 70s and really made his mark in the mid-70s when I was already playing golf and aware of golfers. But I grew up with a guy named Bob Estes. So we played junior high golf together, we played high school golf together, we were college roommates our senior year. He was a multi-year All-American at UT. He won the Haskins Award, our senior year, which is effectively college golf Heisman Trophy. And he and I played last Thursday. So I've played hundreds of rounds with that guy. So I actually get to play a lot of golf with a Longhorn legend, but I'm not going to say Bob because I've played with him so many times, but I will say Ben Crenshaw, who I've met a bunch of times and has been very nice to me. And I've got Harvey Pendick's little red book right here on my on my shelf that Mr. Crenshaw signed for me, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

That is cool. I actually read that last year. Um and I train for golf. I'm not as good as you, but that's a lot of why I do what I do in the gym.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah. I I do some golf-specific moves for sure. I'll take one of those resistance bands and hook it around the leg press, and then I do torso twists. It's good for loosening up my back, but also to get these obliques stronger so it can try to make a good pass through the ball. Do you have a favorite exercise? Favorite exercise? I like anything that stretches my shoulders because that's kind of at this stage of my life, the thing that kind of hurts the most. So I like anything that stretches and loosens my shoulders. Okay. So I'll do some military press, I'll just pick up dumbbells and come out to the side, get a resistance band and stretch behind my head, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Do you have any exercises you don't like?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Well, I've I've completely torched my knees from all the running that I've done the last 18 years. So I don't like doing leg press or things like that because they just don't feel good. But other than that, I like to do anything that feels like I'm getting stronger. You're training smarter, not harder, right? Absolutely. My harder days are behind me.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And what did your what did days look like in your 20s, 30s? What did life look like? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

So I had kids early. Uh I was 25 when Ben was born. I was 27 when Anna was born. And you're just in in the midst of it. You know, I was on the front end of my banking career, so trying to put in the requisite number of hours there to be seen and be successful. Plus, all the kids stuff, getting kids to school. Eventually, kids play sports. Both of my kids did band through middle school and high school. So there were a lot of band trips involved, which I loved. But I mean, those are time sucks. And so it takes away from things that you can do to take care of yourself. So when I got to be 40, kids were in high school, and at that point I was fluffy, that I mentioned earlier, just because I had been investing time in other things other than myself. So, you know, 20s, 30s, up till 40, I didn't do much in the way of physical activity. I only played a customer or bank event golf. So I'd play eight or nine rounds a year, and now I try to play 60 rounds a year, which is a lot, which is awesome. So I rolled up to 42 in that fluffy mode because I was not very active in my 20s and 30s because I was doing family stuff, which was a priority.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Was there as much attention on health and wellness back then as there is now?

SPEAKER_01 32:24

For me, no. And I think in general, no. I think every year you can see it because you're in the business, it becomes more in the forefront of people's thoughts. There's there's access to podcasts, there's access to videos with all the streaming services. You can watch a lot of different sports, which I think will get some people excited about getting out and moving around. There's there's definitely uh a correlation between someone that wins a golf tournament with kind of a funky putter or something, yeah. And the retail stores sell a bunch of those the next couple of days after that. Yeah. Um, I think that's probably true with physical fitness, is more and more people see it or exposed to it on their phones or on social media, they'll probably be more engaged into it. But you know, when I was in my 20s and 30s, there were no such thing as cell phone or internet. So there was nothing in front of you other than work and your family. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Yeah. So here's the here's where we tie it all together. Uh huh. How would you go about advising people how to navigate the information now? Okay, if it's a good thing and it is overall, right, with all the information out there, how do they not get overwhelmed and find what works for them without this comparison game, or I'm failing if I do one thing wrong?

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah, that's that's a hard question to answer. Because if someone is coming out of being sedentary, they've got a lot of challenges in front of them. And so if you go it get into the weeds on access to information about health and fitness and nutrition, all those things, it can be almost to the point of overwhelming where you do nothing. So I think the first thing to do is to pick some reasonable goals and just get disciplined about staying with those until you start seeing some changes. If you feel like you can not your belt one little bit tighter, if you can feel your shirts fitting differently, those kind of goals that other people may not be aware of, but you're aware of, I think can propel you forward to do bigger and better things. But I think initially you need to pick achievable goals and then just be disciplined about when you execute those goals. Like for me, it was five in the morning, which as I tell people about that, they roll their eyes and think that I have to just have a screw loose. But but it worked for me. People that I work with here at the bank, they work out after work, which by the time I get to the end of my workday, the last thing I want to do is go to the trail or go to the gym. So it's just picking goals that currently fit with your daily living cycle so that you can stay consistent with those and then hitting those goals.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

So with all the information out there, pick reasonable goals that fit your life, correct, and then hit those. Yeah. Because we can rabbit hole into specific topics. Yes. But if you don't have reasonable goals to start with, those topics and the application almost goes nowhere, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah. Don't set yourself up for failure by picking goals that are not really achievable. Maybe they're achievable next year or the year after, after you get your body a little in better tune. Uh, but early on, pick reasonable goals and set aside consistent time to push toward those goals.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

And remind me, what are what are your big goals right now for health and wellness, keeping in shape?

SPEAKER_01 35:57

I'm I'm going to just maintain my gym goals, which is basically going for an hour and a half and and pushing iron around in whatever way. You know, I think about the different muscle groups. I don't necessarily do the same thing every time, but I try to at least um do something that affects those muscle groups every time. And then uh right now I'm kind of taking a hiatus from running, but I still go down to the trail on Tuesday, Thursday and walk five miles. Takes longer, but it's still covering some some territory. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Um Stacy was telling me about that one.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah, yeah. Just kind of beat up after 18 years of running. I think I've run about 15,000 miles down there the last 18 years. So taking taking a little time off to let let some things heal up, but I'm still going down there and walking so I can stay in my routine. Yeah, man. And almost all of my runs or walks are on the trail because I love the trail down there. That's kind of my my safe place after I made that um decision to become unfluffy. So I love going down to the trail. I'm on the trail conservancy board. We're the primary stewards of the Ann and Roy Butler hike and bike trail down there. That's awesome. Yeah. So if I get out of my routine, a lot of other parts of my life will suffer. And so I just don't allow myself to get out of that routine.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

And it feels mentally and physically good to keep moving, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:23

100%. Yeah. Especially the outdoor stuff on the trail. I mean, it's kind of a zen moment for me to be outdoors. I can't do, I can't do a replicable or a treadmill and be indoors and not see the world move past me. Yeah. It's just me. Other people do it. I see people in the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday who are doing that and they've become successful at that, and that's great. But for me, I like the outdoor part of that piece of my fitness.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

See, if somebody listens to this and thinks, oh, I'll try that, and then it works for them, great. Yes. That is amazing. That's what we want. Right. If it doesn't, that's okay. Yes. You can be on a treadmill and be fine. I I do relate to you. I don't find treadmill running or walking to be the most entertaining. I don't feel zen on no that. So I like to get outdoors. Maybe try that. If you're if you're listening to this, try switching up where you work out. Maybe not the workout, but where.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah. Maybe try that. Yeah. Or or walk in your neighborhood or something. Walk in your neighborhood. You know, try to catch some hills somewhere so that you engage different parts of your leg muscles. That's always good. Going up a hill is one thing, going down a hill is another. Walking flat surface, that's totally fine too. But the whole point is just to start moving and just keep moving. It's never too late.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to have the right genetics. It helps. Right. You don't have to have grown up doing the thing. You can start whenever and still do the thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

And and I am by no means very athletic. So you don't have to be a high caliber athlete to start doing what I've been able to make part of my life. I always joke that one of the reasons I play golf is because the ball is stationary. That's a good one. Yeah. But you don't have to be a high caliber athlete, a world-class athlete to go to the gym regularly or get out on the trail or walk your neighborhood. You just have to tell yourself that you need to do it and stick with it.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

I like that. Heck, you don't even need to be good at golf to call yourself a golfer. Just play fast.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

And and as most people learn who play golf long enough, you don't go to play golf, you go to hang out with your friends. It's a social game. So if if you play badly, that doesn't feel good. But if you play great, that feels great. But when you think about it after the round, it's the time you spent with your friends.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

And training can be the same thing. Maybe your thing is classes and you go for the social aspect, and you might not have a good day. You walk in feeling tired, but you were still there. You got to hang out with your people, meet your trainer, hang out with your trainer. Like you still did the thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Not every day will be sunshine and rainbows.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

No, and I and I've even found that on you know on a lot of my running days, there's some variance in how good it feels. There's some days I come back from the trail and just felt like I was really on fire, and then there's other days just felt like you were running with cement shoes on. Same with the gym. There's days where your body feels looser than normal, so you feel like your your form is better, but just still got to go. Still got to go. Show up. Yeah. I guess golf is kind of similar. If you play enough, you know, there's some days where the putter's working, there's days where the putter's not working. There's days where the ball strikes are really crisp and good. There's other days where you feel like you've never played golf a day in your life. It's just yeah, it's just the reality of that that game. But you don't stop playing. You don't stop playing. Keep playing. Because if you hit one good shot, it'll get you back for the next round.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

There you go. Yeah. I'll finish with this, Mike. Another big question. Okay. What is your why? Like what keeps you going in and outside of the gym just in general? Like what is what's your motivating factor?

SPEAKER_01 41:18

I I think ultimately it's that I didn't want to be a broken down old man, that I wanted to be as active as possible for time with my family and my friends as long as I can make that go. You know, I at 60 years old, I don't have any any illusions of being that hot bot on the pool deck. I I just want to be as physically capable as I can as long as I can. That's my why.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

I think you're doing it. It's not a thing you achieve. You're just actively doing it. Yeah. And another side note. This has all been about training. I also look up to you because you're a very friendly and welcoming dude. You host events, you know a lot of people at the club. I see you all the time, and you make everybody you know and stranger feel very welcome. And that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

It's it's something that I actually picked up from my dad. My dad was a pharmacist for 50 years, and he was a crazy social beast. One of those, you know, the cliche, never met a stranger. Yeah. Uh, my dad could talk to a brick wall for hours and hours and hours. And and he was always really good about telling me that regardless of stature in life, we're all equal. So I chat with the locker room attendant at Westwood because that guy has a job and he shows up every day. So he's as good of a human as I am. So why just because I'm a club member, should I not talk to him? So I talk to him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

So I respect that.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Yeah. And uh it's just it's fun to hear other people's stories. So I here I've gotten to share my story, which I think is kind of cool from the arc of my life and all the things that I've gone through. Have some have been good, some have been bad, but it's made me into the person I am today. And I'm I'm really happy with who that person is. And I like hearing other people's stories. And one of the things I've learned in banking, because this is a very social job, I have to go out and meet new people and try to recruit new clients to the bank. People like to talk about themselves. So if you get them talking, you hear some pretty interesting stories or things that they've accomplished in their life, or people and experiences that they've had in their life, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna write that down because I'd like to go do that too. And it's allowed me to meet some pretty fantastic people over my life. If you don't ask somebody about who they are, you never get to hear some of the stories, and that can be a shame if you miss out on some of that.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

And there's a lot of stories and things to learn about people and from people. So funny. You are your dad. Um, you describing him. That sounds like about that sounds like who you.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah. You know, the proverbial chip off the old block. Yeah. But he talked way more than I talk. He was very social animal. And my parents went on a ton of cruises over the years, and they became good friends with people who they sat with at the dining table on the cruise ship. And I'm sure that my mom was happy when they met some other people who could listen to his stories because she had heard of them so many times over the 65 years they were married.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

A lot of stories. Yeah, people are interesting. I've talked to people in line at a restaurant and they might drop a story on you because I like to play the how where are you from? How'd you get here? Yeah. You know, in my world, it's always better to listen than it is to talk. People like to talk about themselves. And if you don't have a conversation starter, where are you from? How'd you get here? Because people will tell you. I did that at lunch today with some new bank clients. Where are you from? How'd you get here? And then they just go.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

And it allows you to find, hopefully, find some common ground. You might find out that they're also a golfer and y'all played this common golf course, or they're from somewhere that's close to where you grew up. Maybe their school was in your high school sports district or something like that. But maybe maybe they're a longhorn. That would be a good one. A lot of times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With me, a lot of times they don't have to ask because I'm probably wearing something.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

You have to ask. You just scream longhorn, man. I do. Yeah. You really do. You love your school. I do too. Sorry to the Aggies. There are a few Aggie listeners out there. Yeah. A few of my clients, but we love them.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

I probably know more Aggie traditions than most Aggies. You think so? Yeah. A lot of my friends are two percenters, and I'm pretty up to speed on Aggie traditions. I've even done a yell off with an Aggie Yell leader. We were in the corridor after AM beat us my sophomore year, and guy that I grew up with, his roommate, as they call it in the core, his old lady was a yell leader. And probably the only reason I didn't get my butt kicked in the corridor with my longhorn gear on is I was doing yells with the yell leader.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Oh, I wish there was film.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Yeah. So that's that's a story. If you ask me, you know, where are you from? How'd you get here? I might end up telling somebody, especially if they've got on AM gear. I always tell that story and they love that. Oh, I bet they do. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Is this our year, man? Is this when the Longhorns football team puts it together?

SPEAKER_01 46:35

I hope so. Seems like everything's lining up right. Hopefully, I mean, it would be great to have Arch for two more years, but I'm assuming that this will be it. I think this is it. Yeah. So maybe we'll have another Vince Young type run with Arch at the helm.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Only time will tell.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yep. Looking forward to the season.

unknown 46:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Mike, thanks again for joining. Really cool to hear your story. And maybe we can chat again sometime.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Be glad to. Love to do it. Thanks for having me.