Live From Dream Run Camp: James McKirdy

I'm drinking quick. This is between two ferns.

It's good.

Are we live?

Yep. Okay, this is how we do it. Okay, welcome to another shoddily put together episode of Live from DreamRun Camp. We're coming at you from the DreamRun house in Flagstaff, Arizona. Thank you to our sponsor, 80/20 Endurance., and we have a full house, the fullest house. You can't tell, um, but, um, for the first time, just trust him. Trust me, there are people here. Um, one of them actually refuses to be on camera because he is a CIA agent, um, which is cool.

I've learned a lot.

Um, but yeah, you can hear the laughter, so there actually are people here, believe me. Um, and my very special guest—

I say this about every guest, but you really are very I am so special that I was not the first one.

Yeah, well, I needed to put in some reps. I'm actually— my interviewing skills are much better now, so this should go.

No, no, I'm really happy to be here.

Well, yeah, so this is James McCurdy of McCurdy Trained, uh, I would say a friend of mine and also a very well-known coach, um, who, uh, has one of the premier— I should just say the premier, uh,, coaching, running coaching business, um, and caters to athletes of all levels. Um, and then James has a bunch of, uh, sort of like a stable of elite athletes, elite, sub-elite.

You get, you get a mix. I mean, honestly, I work with, I would say 5 hours, 5 and a half, all the way to 2:06.

Oh, right on. Yeah, for the, for the 800 meters.

Yeah. Marathon.

Okay.

Right. Yes. Cool.

So very happy to have you here and your wife Heather. Where'd she go? Heather, thank you. And she took a sectional spot. It's very hard. It's like sitting in the front row in class.

It's true.

No one wants to do it. So I wanted to start actually with current events and you have a very exciting event coming up, Olympic trials qualifying experience. And, uh, just dive right in. I want to, I want to help you bring attention to this because I think it's just fantastic. It's great for the sport, it's great that it's happening. I hope it goes really well, that there's no lightning storms or anything else that disrupts it.

That would be, uh, that would be tragic. Uh, about the only thing we can't control is the weather. But yeah, Backlines Mercury Micro is on October 14th, uh, this fall, and it's being held at Rockland Lake State Park in, uh, New York, about an hour north of New York City. And, it's an event keyed in on the Olympic trials for the marathon as well as we're hosting a 10K where every level of ability is welcome to race. And, that's going to be around 10:15 in the morning. So, the marathon is going to go off around 6:30 in the morning, 10K is around 10:15 in the morning. And yeah, we're really pumped. We have about 150 or so marathoners registered right now, which is awesome. And, we still have a few more weeks for registration. And then the registration, I think, for the 10K ends on September 15th. So, you know, the idea behind it is to just give people a chance, to give people an opportunity to have fluids on course, to actually run the distance of a marathon and not have to worry about their GPS failing like some other big city marathons, but really just key in on this aspect of helping as many people qualify for the trials as possible.

Yeah, love it. I have more questions about that, but I do want to mention that Lauren here will be running your 10K.

I just found out. Yeah, yeah, got to register. However, no, it's going to be awesome. The course, it really is fast. It's a flat course. I'm going to be personally marking the tangent line. So, all you have to do is stay on the line and you will run the shortest distance possible. But inside of that, it's, I mean, it's, almost all of it is brand new pavement. So they've gotten rid of a lot of the old divots that used to be on there. So the surface is, I don't want to say exactly like Berlin, but it's pretty darn close to Berlin quality, which is, I'm kind of a pavement snob when it comes to like surfaces.

Yeah, it matters.

It does. I mean, I will say up front, Indianapolis this past year was a nightmare. I went on course and it was potholes and puddles of leaves and, You were running around craziness, and I just, I didn't enjoy the surface myself. Like, I was finding myself kind of weaving in and out as I was pacing one of our coaches, Heather Knight Peck, for a while on court. It was hard. The surface kind of beat up your legs. And I mean, there's a reason why Berlin is so fast and the European road races are so fast. It's the pavement quality. And we just don't really have the pavement quality here except in key locations around the country.

I didn't expect you to get all political. Listen, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. We need higher taxes. Yeah, right.

No, it's socialism for all. No, it is. It's important. It's something that I think, you know, the course selection matters for athletes that are on the cusp of doing something that is— I mean, this is the hardest the marathon trials has ever been, especially for the women. 2:37. It's a really— it's a remarkable accomplishment just Just 8 years ago, that was the Olympic A standard. Like, that was— I mean, we had maybe 8 years ago, we had maybe 45 women that qualified at that level. 4 years ago, it was 65 women. And now we have 119, I believe, that have qualified with 2:37 or faster. We are in the greatest era of marathoning, not just in the elite section, but in the history of the sport right now. We are seeing things we've never seen before. And we just want to try to help as many people we can get to that level and say, yeah, I qualify for the trials. Yeah. You know, I did this.

Yeah, it's cool.

It is.

I mean, I have to say, I mean, you know, when I first, uh, when you brought it to my attention, I thought, huh, you know, you know, in, in my naivete as someone who was never going to qualify, like, I wasn't on the cusp, you know what I mean? Like, I had my goals, um, but, you know, I didn't I think you're, you're positioned in the sport so that you recognized a problem or a need that I actually didn't recognize. I'm like, well, if you're that good, you know, if you're on the cusp, you know, you just, you know, yeah, yeah. But like, say more about that, like where you just saw sort of like an unmet need where you could, you could actually like by hosting your event and, and pulling it off, you could actually make a statistically significant difference in the number of people.

Yeah.

Who run the Olympic trials, right? It's like, that's kind of—

Yeah. I mean, statistics say anywhere from 30% to 40% of attempts are going to qualify at any race like CIM, Indianapolis, Grandma's. Actually, Grandma's was far less this year just because of the weather. The heat was pretty rough. But the key aspects of our race is, yes, we're going to have a tangent line, but every athlete in the race is going is going to have bottle support. And, that is really, really important. When you were running at that intensity level of that speed, that pace, that intensity level for your personal ability, it's not the same thing as a female 2:30 marathoner going out there and just knocking out 2:36. I don't want to say it's easy, but it's not exactly hard at the same time. But, when a 2:36:59 marathoner is going out there to try to run 2:36:59, you need every advantage possible. And, nutrition bottle support is a key aspect as well as hydration. So to be able to offer bottle support for these athletes that are 2:45, 2:44, 2:43, on the men's side, 2:25, all the way down, that's just not a support that these other races can offer to everybody. They don't have the resources to be able to do it because they have to focus on the top professionals and then get out of the way. Yeah. And get the masses out there. So our race is designed specifically to help with all of that. So anybody who qualifies by time, we're being very rigid on it, but if you qualify by time, you're welcome. I've had to have some hard conversations with some athletes that are just over the time, but I've got to be very rigid on it because we have the standard of 2:25 and 2:45 flat or equal on shorter distances. But, yeah, I mean, being able to provide bottle support in that way, yeah, it's going to make a huge difference.

Well, I'm just thinking about my own experience with the Chicago Marathon.

Yeah, it's like, would you run 2:39:56? Come on, man.

48? 30. 30. 2:30. Actually, 27. These are things you don't know. So for those of you who don't know, like, I got to run the Chicago Marathon with a pro bib, and so I got the full elite experience even though I was a 2:40 marathoner. And, um, uh, where were we going with this? Bottles of water. Yeah, it was just like, yeah, I mean, well, but I didn't really think about it in those terms because I'm like, I'm so far out of my league. It's, you know, it's like I'm just pinch me, this is dreamland. Like, there's Galen Rupp, you know. But I can imagine, yeah, if you're, if you're someone who actually has a chance, you know, I was just trying to avoid embarrassing myself.

You ran awesome though.

You, you ran dead even, and I think you negative split just a little bit. Yeah, it was, it was like, yeah, well, you know, Ben told me run 6:05 and then run a 6:05 and then run a 6:05. But so my, so my average pace for that race— this isn't about me, but we're gonna Make it about me the next 5 seconds or 6 minutes and 5 seconds.

That's right.

Um, yeah, my average pace was 6:05.05.

Yeah.

So yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. Didn't want to let Ben down, but yeah, the bottle support, like all those things, like honestly just having a bus to the start line. I mean, that's sort of what you're providing. It's like these, these athletes are at a level above where I was at, but you're giving them every advantage like I had in Chicago.

We didn't really think about hosting this until I've actually reached out to a few courses, a few races, elite coordinators. Said, if you could provide more support for this level of runner, you'll get a lot more people that, that you can serve and find a lot more success. They just denied it, you know, whether that was a personal choice or just financial budget, not being able to do it. They just didn't have the resources for it. I said, screw it, I'm just going to do it myself. And so, uh, we, we created it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that exact phrase has precipitated a lot of great innovations in a variety of fields. I think it's going to be— screw it, I'll just do it myself.

Yeah, I think it'll be pretty special for a lot of people. I'm hoping. Yeah, we can't, we can't predict the weather, but neither can Chicago.

Yeah. Um, not to get ahead of ourselves, but I mean, could this become a thing?

You know, we have plans for, for the future, so we're not going to share them live on YouTube, but we, we do have plans for, uh, for doing something, uh, pretty special for as many people as possible.

Sweet. All right, more to come on that.

Yeah.

Uh, all right, so let's zoom out a little bit. And so the way I advertise this, uh, this event, I have always have to come up with a theme. It's like, it's mainly about the person I get to talk to. Um, but I just—

so is this about beer and lasagna?

That's not how I advertised it, but you know, the menu choice was not accidental. I knew who was coming over. That's true. Um, when Footsome came over, we actually got lucky. He, like, uh, Nataki made like, like a, like a corn chowder.

Yeah.

And we're like, do you want to stay and eat?

And like, he loved it.

Yeah. So I had a little bit of like that Ethiopian Eritrean kind of like starchy goodness. Anyhow, that's neither here nor there. No, but I, I, um, I'm like, okay, what's, what's James in a nutshell? Uh, it's like passion. Like, that's like, you know, you're, you're someone who just exudes that kind of puppy dog enthusiasm.

Was it Heather Peck and I? Heather Peck One of my best friends in the world, we were talking the other day and she was classifying herself as a pit bull, which I think is a pretty accurate statement. And she was classifying me as a golden retriever. And I think I felt honored and also like, just like, okay, like, yeah, I could see it.

Yeah, I feel like a golden retriever.

And also, that makes sense.

You're whiny. That's something you said about Husky. Um, so Lauren's new nickname is actually Golden. Um, all right. Yeah, so yeah, we, we, yeah, we, we all, we, yeah, so themes are emerging up here at the run camp. Everyone gets a nickname and then everyone gets a dog breed as well.

I like it.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm husky, a whiny husky, apparently.

Yeah.

So, but, you know, like, can you talk a little bit about like how, you know, you're a coach and you aim to serve athletes to the best of your ability. And, you know, from my perspective, I see your enthusiasm as kind of tone setting, as infectious, you know, because you're trying, you're not just trying to give athletes, you know, solid workouts to do. Like you're trying to have an emotional galvanizing impact, you know, that makes them dream big and go after it? Is that— I mean, you can't help your personality, I guess, but like, are you sort of aware that is something that you can use, you know, to be a better coach?

That's a good question. I don't know. It's hard for me to answer that. I think Heather would probably be a better responder to that. But if I have a hard time holding back on it, like I wake up in the morning, And I have to be conscious not to jump right into texting, which I fail at often.

That's successful, maybe 5%.

5% of that. I go right into the coaching because I do, I love it. I do. I've got athletes that live overseas and it's fun to like, okay, how did today go? What happened today? What's going on? How were the workouts? How are you feeling? Uh, what kind of crazy weather were you working with, right? Like, it's fun and it's, it's exciting to me. So like, I, I generally like, I wake up in the morning and I'm on it, and, and I take my naps as I'm able to throughout the day, but like, because those are definitely necessary for me because I'm a small child. Um, but like, I, I love coaching. I love trying to figure out— it doesn't mean I'm perfect. I'm by far perfect. Uh, I've made, I've made plenty of mistakes, but, um, when it comes down to it, I just It's like, this is the thing that if I ever had to fall back on something, this is what I had to fall back on. And I did have to fall back on it. And so therefore I've got no choice. Like, this is what I'm going to do and this is what my life is going to be.

Yeah, the sandwich-making gig didn't work out.

Nope.

Fired too many times.

Yep.

Hey, before I wanted to circle back to the marathon, just to mention that Dream Run Camp donated to support the marathon. And is that something that others can do as well? And if so, do you want to share that?

Yeah. Actually, if you go onto the McCurdy Trained website and you click on the marathon itself, you can either sign up for the races yourself, 10K or the marathon, or you can click on a donate page and all of the donations are gonna go right into the prize pool to help the athletes who are qualifying for the trial. So we have a $10,000 prize bonus for that'll be shared equally among all the trials qualifiers, uh, male and female. So if there's 10 qualifiers out of this, they each get $1,000. If there's 20, $100, whatever it might be, it's going to be equal, uh, celebration.

Yeah. Another question I neglected to ask, but did you have any ringers showing up? Like, I know you have pacers.

We have pacers, and we have a lot. We have some ringers. We have. But again, this race is not about— there is no first place prize money. So it doesn't matter how fast somebody is. That is so cool. Yeah, like, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Like, a 2:09, um, 2:09:40 is just as good as 2:17:59.

Equal share of the prize.

Equal share of the prize. Now, we do have a special bonus for those athletes who run under 2:09:30 and under 2:29:30 for the first time, male and female. If they do that, they will have their own separate prize bonus of $20,000 each. So if we have 1 person on the male side and 4 on the women, the male gets $20,000, the women get $5,000 each, and vice versa is true as well. So we have, we do have a special prize bonus for that, but it has to be a first timer. International athletes are welcome to it, but they can't have run that time prior.

Right on. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, also I gotta ask, as someone who's just launched a new business and someone I'm, I'm, that's not, I'm probably the my yearbook probably said least likely to be an entrepreneur. Um, I don't know, like, you, you wrote books. Yeah, that's not entrepreneurship. I don't know, like, that's— I, I can't do a spreadsheet, you know.

Well, you're not talking to somebody who can. Okay.

Yeah, so I guess we're both fucked.

Yeah.

No, but, you know, for me, like, creating Dream Run Camp was really hard, and it's like, it's the scale of it is pretty small, but like, I, I was stretching myself. Part of that had to do with the fact that my health isn't, isn't great. Yeah. Um, but like, how hard was it for you? Because, you know, you're trying to— it's one thing to like open up a sandwich shop. It's like everyone knows what that is. But when you're creating something that is novel in type, yeah, it's like it's not another widget. It's like, oh, this is a brand new thing. I mean, that doesn't exist and no one's asking for it, and you got to make it happen. A lot of logistics. You have to pull in sponsors and all this. How challenging has it been to pull this together?

It's been a lot of work, but it hasn't been challenging. There haven't been a lot of roadblocks because the, the, the folks—

about—

yeah, that's true. Thank you. Um, no, the Backline has been an amazing sponsor. v.02, our, our service.

But you had to get the sponsors.

Yeah, it was just conversation. All right. There wasn't a lot of Am I complaining about it?

I mean, there's a need. You can start a business.

Right? I know. I mean, it's so apparent that it's not about us. It's about the people that are trying to qualify for something. It's not about just— it's not really about making money at all. It's what can we do to help people? Yeah, we want to be paid for our time, but when it comes down to it, for the time we're spending, no, there's nothing there. It's much like the Marathon Project with Ben and Josh and how they created that. Now, they were limited in their scale. They were— they could only have 100 athletes back in December 20th, 2020. They could only have 100 athletes. So they were, they were very limited to who they could allow into their race. But they did it because there was a need. People hopped on. Yeah, some sponsors or some applications for sponsorship, I'm sure, said no just because they weren't in a position. But the people that were, they popped right onto it. I mean, it was on, it was on live TV. Right? Like, there was something that was of need and was really helping a lot of people. I mean, we have some of the best American times in history coming from that race. Sarah Hall ran 2:20, right? Uh, Marty Heyer ran 2:08.59, Noah went, uh, 2:09.07. Like, those are still their best times, and it came out of that race. And it was all because they had this idea that, okay, what can we do to help these professional-level runners? Because that's their circle. And, and they came out of it and, and they helped a lot of people.

As a coach myself, uh, one of the things I love about coaching is that conceivably— well, you see it, like, you see, you know, coaches in their 70s and 80s who are still at it, um, and still sharp and loving it and actually feeling like they're better at their craft than they were 50 years before. Like, that's exciting, you know. Like, if you're going to be alive, you know, isn't it nice to be like feeling like you're still actually on the ascent of learning?

Yeah.

And like with athlete, you know, with being an athlete, it's a little different. Like, you know, just like, you know, performance favors the, the youth. I mean, you know, for me, you know, I was 49 when Long COVID kind of put a cap on things, but I, I still, I felt like I was, um mastering the sport even though I wasn't getting faster, just because I was like— so there is that, right? But like, when you're a coach, like, you can just keep getting better and better. The downside of that is like you're constantly realizing how much better you need to get and that you are making mistakes. But can you speak to that? It's just like, how do you— what's your perspective on, you know, that dimension of the coaching experience?

I think I'm a much better coach now than I was 20-plus years ago when I was starting with high school kids, right? You do the best you can with what you know and what you have. And if you're doing that, then you're serving well. But if you're not doing the best you can with what you have and what you know, then what's the point? So I think right now I'm doing the best I can with what I have, but I hope that in 10 years, that in 20 years, I've learned a hell of a lot more than I know right now. So, you know, we're trying things with our own professional team that I've never done before. I'm trying to learn a little bit more about it. Understanding the science, the background a little bit more, relying on resources that we've never really relied on before for training ideas and concepts. Things that 10 years ago I never even thought was an idea. Like, it just never even occurred to me. It wasn't like I was a bad coach 10 years ago. I was relatively successful for who I was working with and what they were accomplishing. But now it's like, whoa, wait a minute, man, I wish I knew this 10 years ago. I think the more you learn, the more you can look back and say, oh, I wish I knew that, and I wish I could have helped that kid. Now, we had, we had kids at the high school level when I, when I first got into it. I really didn't know the importance of spikes because my own coaching didn't know to tell me to wear spikes in cross-country. And so I'm wearing like regular training shoes in my races. And then as we go, it's like, oh, what are the other kids wearing? Oh, they're wearing spikes. Oh, wow. Like, you can take a minute off just by changing the shoes. That's amazing. How does that translate to road racing? When I first got into road racing, man, I was terrible for the like-abled athletes similar in my range. I was like, wait, what? I'm killing them in training, but what is happening in the road? How can they beat me so much? You learn. And I think the more you're allowing yourself and being open-minded to it— there's a guy, he ran with in the '60s. Who was John Landy from Australia? He ran with him. He trained with him out in Australia. His name is Barry Almond. He's a really cool dude. He lives in Connecticut now, but he's from Australia. When he was running back in the '50s, he ran a 4:07 in the mile on gravel track. He ran a 1:51 in the 800., right? Like, he was great for his time. Like, he was, he was one of the best that didn't break 4 minutes in the mile, right? But I can call him up at any time, and I do from time to time, just to talk about training. He's 87. He's losing his eyesight. He doesn't drive anywhere. And a month ago, we were talking about double T sessions. Like, yeah, like, what? Like, Barry, who are you? You know, he He's amazing. He's just an amazing guy. And he said to me, when I first started the business in 2016, we had a— he actually reached out. We had a conversation about coaching, about high school coaching, because that's where he was at the time and volunteering a bit. He said, coaching is an art and not everybody can be an artist, but you have to make sure you have the right brushes. And so, all the books, all the concepts, the constant learning. He's not coaching anybody anymore. Like he just doesn't have the capacity, uh, or facility to be able to do it, but he's still learning, you know, like that's awesome.

I want to be that. Yes.

Yeah.

Can you, uh, talk a little bit about your elite group? Um, you know, the, the makeup of it, how it works, because, you know, we, um, Dream Run Camp, we have kind of a loose affiliation with NAZ Elite. So a number of, uh, the pri— uh, previous guests we've had here are and he's the, you know, athletes' coaches. Um, and so people sort of like maybe get what that is, like how is your group different? And then, you know, you maybe even talk about, uh, also like maybe how your coaching approach is different for, for the group.

Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to, to kind of dive into that. Um, for the, for the, for the coaching specifically, you know, when I started the business, when I started the coaching service back in 2016, it was just me and 10 people. It wasn't meant to be, let's go create a large coaching service. It was really just, I need to pay for food and my share of the rent and my electricity and my car. That's all I need. And if I can work with 25 or 30 people, I'm going to be okay. Now I'll be fine. And then I brought on my first coach, Michelle Kulak, Kurnick at the time, but Kulak now, and then another coach and then another and then another, trying to give the same opportunity that I was finding for myself. And just helping people. Inside of that, though, it was— the growth happened organically. It wasn't like we didn't pay for advertising. We still don't pay for advertising. It's just this concept of letting people share their experience, the good, the bad, the ugly, the great, all of it. And we hope that we do the right thing. So, we have a fair amount of coaches now, but the mission is still the same, just try to do our best to serve people as individuals. And that's why I'm still working with the athletes that I work with. Some of them have been with me since before I started the business. And just because I'm coaching a professional squad doesn't mean that they should get any less care. Their dreams are just as valid. You know, my athlete Tom, who, you know, 2.5, 3 weeks before New York last year broke his leg at work. He stepped off a curb wrong. And, you know, this is a guy that was just trying to run 4:30 in the marathon. But for him, like, that meant the world. And he couldn't line up that day because he broke his leg at work. And he's been working his ass off for the last 9 months, 10 months to be able to come back. And he's getting ready and he's going to run New York again this year, barring any steps that are mistaken. Um, talking to you.

Yeah.

But you know, like, he's a really cool guy. And I'm still working with one of my best friends from high school, my first best friend from from freshman year of high school, you know, and you just ran a 5K the other day in 20 minutes and 14 seconds in the hot, humid weather of Connecticut.

Yeah, your ears perked up. Yeah, she's chasing a sub-20.

Oh, it's so— you're so close. It's like, you know, it matters, right? It matters. And that's what I hope that we're presenting, and that's what I hope the experience is. Now, again, we're not perfect. Life's going to happen. Chaos happens. But when it comes down to it, that's the mission. I think that's why we have grown because athletes have been able to share their experience, and I think it's been pretty positive overall. For the professional side, my first Olympic trials qualifier was Sarah Bishop, and that happened in CIM in 2017. That was a really cool moment. She actually ran a marathon. She won the Marine Corps Marathon just like 6 weeks before that race, and she ran like 2:45.04 and missed the Olympic trials. And I said, okay, go run this, but like drop out at mile 21. But she was winning the race and there was no way she was going to not finish. And she missed the trials qualifier at Marine Corps. But then she accomplishes the task at CIM. And that was a really cool moment for me as a coach. That was my first Olympic trials qualifier. And not long after that, maybe 6 months after that, Coach John Ranieri, who had been a coach with us for a little while,. He said, hey, I think I want you to coach me. So I started working with him in July of 2017. And it's been a really cool ride since. Was it 2017? No, it was 2018. 2018. It was 2018. He came on. Yeah.

It was 2018.

But it's been a really cool ride since he came on from a professional standpoint because when he came on, he started seeing some really cool results at a professional level. He went from 64:29 in the half marathon down to 62:31 in 6 months. And, it was just working on some technique things and changing his process and his mindset about training. And, that brought the next person, Coach Jack, and then that brought the next person. And so, we've had a little bit of changeover, changing of the guards so to speak over the last few years. But, the mission of the McCurdy Train Team is to qualify for World Championships, to podium at World Majors, top 10 at World Majors, and to win age group— excuse me, age group awards at the major marathons and at USATF Championships. And, we've been able since the official marking of the team in July of 2021, we've had more than a few qualify for the World Championships. We've had more than a few qualify for the trials as well. I think right now we're at— we've helped serve 13 or 14 qualify for the 2024 trials.

Nice.

Yeah. So, there's, you know, we have the pro team, but we have the coaching.

They're—

some of the professional runners are coaches, and that's— this is how they make a living and they get to run, but not everybody that's a coach is a professional runner, and not everybody on the pro team is a coach either. There is a little bit of commingling in there, but they are separate. 50s. Yep.

Yeah, right on. I would like to open up the floor to anyone present. We got a room full of runners here who might like to take the opportunity to pick the brain of an eminent running coach. Anyone?

Happy, because I got more questions for this guy. Can you talk a little bit more about what you just mentioned with some pro runners coaches, but not all coaches are pro runners. A lot of times I see people kind of take shots at coaches like, oh, well, they've never qualified for the trials or they've never done XYZ. And I think you're kind of missing a lot of opportunity there.

Yeah. I'm not a professional runner, to be quite honest. I have— before I started the business, I was a head coach at a high school. I was a personal trainer for a while. I spent a sandwich maker for a bit. So, I have some science background when it comes to that, but the people that hold the gates open or closed for others in this world, in this running world, it's kind of ridiculous. Are you tall enough to ride the ride type of thing? And I think it's all bullshit. If you're really going out there to try to help people, I don't care how fast you are. I get the question a lot, you know, oh, do your coaches have certifications? Yes, some of them do, but like, it doesn't matter. Like, you know, like, yes, you need to know the science, but it doesn't matter how much science you know if you can't help somebody make a better choice that's going to help them be safe and get them stronger and faster. You know, and even then, that's not a perfect world either. You know, there's a lot of crap out there and belittling of people, and I just, I don't see the point in it. I don't, and I don't mind saying it publicly.

Right on. Good question, good answer. Huge opportunity here, folks. All right. No, 'cause I got more. Well, you know, just following up on that, so like you said, spoke a little bit there about like what it doesn't take to be a great coach. What does it take? Like, what do you have to have if you don't have to be a great athlete yourself?

You know, I think it's easy to say passion, but that— to define that word, there's so many levels inside of it. But really, when it comes down to it, is I think the ability to figure out what somebody's issue is in trying to get to where it is they want to be, and then being able to communicate that in an effective way. And there's ways of doing that that I think are appropriate, and there's ways that are doing that that can be pretty harmful. So hopefully more coaches are doing that in the right way than in the wrong way. And I think there's a reason why we have safe sport. There's a reason why we have rules and regulations behind it. I was talking to one of my athletes whose child is in another activity, and the coach is, I think, quite dangerous for what it is that her child is going through and experiencing in the sport. And, I kind of tried to lay what I thought was the law down on this is inappropriate, this is not good, you should be paying attention to these things. And, if you see more of this or continuing of this, then I would suggest finding a different coach or different program itself. Just because somebody's getting faster doesn't necessarily mean it's right for the athletes. And being able to recognize that and being able to part ways hopefully and amicably. But I think passion is a key thing, but if you don't have the sense of truly serving and truly helping somebody, then it's going to be missed. Greatly, and, and you can lead somebody astray really, really easily.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. And it just, uh, reminds me that, you know, one of the things that makes coaching kind of distinct as a profession is that it really is an ethically based profession. You know, it's like knowledge is important, but the foundation is ethics. Um, and, you know, like you have, you have a lot. I mean, there are certain power dynamics in those relationships and you can do a lot of damage as a coach.

We see it all the time. I think we see it more in, and I'm glad it's being reported, but we're seeing it more on the collegiate scene than we are maybe in the professional world, but we're really, I'm glad that we're seeing it though. I'm glad that people are speaking out against it. Because they have all the degrees in the world, they have all the accolades in the world, but they don't know shit about treating people well because for 30 years, they're treating their athletes terribly, but the athletes sometimes don't feel that they have a voice to even say anything. And, I think that's unfortunate. And, empowering athletes to be able to speak up to say something is a key factor. And, it shouldn't just be my way is the highway. Yes, especially in the novice running world, you're paying a coach, you should be listening to your coach, but you shouldn't just take orders either. There should be some science behind it. There should be some questioning. There should be dialogue about why we're doing something. And then, an understanding of, "Okay, this is how we're going to approach and this is why we're going to approach it." Right on.

So, we have piping hot delicious lasagna waiting for for us. But before we pivot to lasagna— yes, I love lasagna— and perhaps a second Guinness, we'll see about that. Oh, maybe 3 or 4. I've got 2 more. That's all right, he's making the beer run. Yeah, so pivoting actually from art to science a little bit, something that, you know, I've been, you know, paying attention to Lately, um, I, I had a really interesting, uh, for my 80/20 Endurance podcast, Hannah Hunstad and I interviewed a sports scientist named Gareth Sanford. He's a great follow on Twitter and Instagram, Gareth Sanford. Um, and he, you know, he, he was talking, and I've heard this from others, um, who have similar competencies, like that the, the final frontier in sort of optimization of endurance training is individualization. That like, you know, the, you know, like, you know, distance running in its modern form has been around for well over 100 years now, and we've learned a lot, and we've kind of figured out generally. So, uh, Nataki, we're live on YouTube. Yeah, would you like to say hi? But that's actually good. It just looks like we're having a conversation. It's true. It's kind of what we're doing. Um, yeah, so we figured a lot out. We're like, we have, we have a jet, like, we're all human, right? And so like, basically what's true for one human is true for another, generally. But we are all unique individuals, genetically and, and otherwise. And, and so I, you know, this is a big point of, you know, what, what, uh, what Gareth said when I— when we talked to him is like, you know, what coaches have mostly been doing up to this point is like, here's the method, this is how we train, this is what we do.

Either you're an egg that doesn't break, right? Yes. Or you're going to find success. But the reality is that far more eggs break, right, than find success.

Exactly.

And I Just call bullshit on it. It doesn't need to be that way. It doesn't need to be that way. Now, I'm not talking about training plans. Your training plans are a great way of getting people into the door of completion or athletic development. And, for many people, that's where they want to be, and that's awesome, and that's great. And then, the next step is individualized care, but your individualized care it really shouldn't be the same training for every single person. There might be some similarities between certain athletes, but clearly— I have this athlete, Nathan. He's a really talented runner. He just ran 2:10:45 at Grandma's Marathon, and it was awesome. It was a lifetime best. He's one of the only 8 or 9 men that have run under 2:11:30 in this Olympic cycle for the US. And it's rare company right now. He ran 85 miles a week to get there because he— and he only runs once a day. Comparative to many professionals who are running 120, 130, 140 miles a week or 110 miles a week, running, you know, their life is all about running, they're fully sponsored. You know, he's coaching high school kids. You know, he's got a life. He chooses to run at night because his day is so so crazy. And he doesn't know— he's a substitute teacher during the school year and he coaches. Like, he doesn't know what is— what every day is going to be. But for him, we get it done on the mileage that makes sense for him. All right, now I've got this other athlete that, uh, who lives across the world in Africa, and he ran 2:10:10, essentially the same time, right? We're talking 35 seconds different. Now, he runs about 130 miles a week, but that's all he does. He runs, and he runs mostly on dirt roads. And even his track is dirt. He doesn't have— he doesn't have the amenities that most high school kids and middle school kids have. His professional track in his village, a small village, is a dirt track. And yet, you know, he ran a 2:10:10, but that's what he needed to find success. Right. He just set the national record in the half marathon at 60 minutes and 35 seconds. And we're doing something very different than what we're doing with Nathan. Who is just as talented, but his life is different. You know, I think it can be a little different when, when you have a professional team. There's dynamics involved and all that kind of stuff. But at some point, if everybody's doing the same work all the time, the eggs are going to break. You know, there's, there's a time and place for the same workouts to be making sense for each other, or, you know, just to get people together to have that camaraderie. But if that's all it ever is, the eggs are going to break and it's not going to be good.

So let's not conclude on that really dark note.

Right.

Say something nice about Dream Run Camp.

Well, I'll tell you what, many people who are watching might not know that Matt and I lived together in 2017 for 5 weeks, 2 weeks, and then a little bit of a break. And then we surprised— Heather and I surprised Matt and Itaki for 3 more weeks to come back. And, you know, we got a chance— I got a chance to watch Matt live his dream and spend time here. And we were here for vacation and we fell in love with the town. But, you know, Matt's purpose was a little different than ours. But I got a firsthand view of watching Matt live his dream to accomplish what he set out to accomplish and run a marathon PR. At 46 years old, right? Um, and that was a really special, special moment for, for, for, for me to watch, for Heather to watch and be there. But to spend that time, um, there, there's something more than just spending like even, you know, 3 or 4 days. If you can spend a week or 2 or 3 or 4 weeks here, uh, with Matt and in the house and in this beautiful town, um, and, and just have it be focused on you and about your training or with your spouse or with your loved ones or your friends or some teammates, this is the place to be. There's a reason why Heather and I moved here in maybe, what, 4 months after that? 2 months after that? Yeah. And, we've been here since 2018. We love it here. This is our home. And, I grew up in Connecticut in a small log cabin in the woods with my parents and my siblings. And, You know, for 30-some-odd years, I never really felt— even though that's where I grew up, I never really felt like that, that was home. When we got here, as chaotic as it's been, this has been home.

Yeah, this is why 35% of DreamRunners never leave.

So you might want to talk to your, your significant other about that. I know a good real estate agent. Yeah, no, it's a special place, and if you, if you, if you get the chance to come out here, you will not regret it, and I'm not being paid to say that. And cut!