Rise and Run
Rise and Run
145: Racing across America With Wendy Larsen
What happens when a world champion hand cyclist tackles one of the most grueling races across the American West? Wendy Larsen joins us to share her incredible journey, detailing the immense physical demands and unique training regimen that propelled her through the 2023 Race Across the West. Wendy's story is one of resilience and inspiration, highlighting her mission to motivate more women to embrace the challenge of racing and push their own boundaries. We'll also touch on her world championship jersey and the documentary following her intense preparations for the Race Across America.
Fresh off a thrilling Disneyland Half Marathon registration, we explore the evolving dynamics of race sign-ups post-pandemic. From the challenges of securing a spot to the potential for tiered pricing in future Run Disney events, our discussion sheds light on how the landscape of race registration has shifted. Plus, we'll share recent race experiences including Kristen's warm half marathon in Charlotte and Dan's rainy 15K on Canada Day, celebrating the camaraderie and triumphs within our running community.
Join us for an episode brimming with inspiration, perseverance, and the joyous spirit of runners supporting each other through every challenge and victory.
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3 am again. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? Welcome to the Rise and Run podcast. Join our group of Run Disney friends. As we talk about running at Walt Disney World and beyond. We'll discuss recent runs, training, upcoming races and surprise topics suggested by you, our listeners. Well, the alarm's gone off, so let's go.
Speaker 1:Tara here from Ottawa, ontario, canada, just out for my 15-miler training run. I'm actually training for the Berlin Marathon in September, Having a great time listening to Rising Run podcast. Love these guys. So happy you're all here to join this gang and listen to Rising Run group. Happy running.
Speaker 4:Why? Thank you, tara. What a lovely intro. We appreciate that. In Canada, training for Berlin. Good luck, tara, we're rooting for you. Hey, speaking Canada, just as we record here, yesterday was Canada Day and, as we release this, today is Independence Day in the US of. A. Happy 4th of July, everyone, and welcome to episode 145 of the Rise and Run podcast. We're so happy that you're spending your holiday with us. I'm Bob. I'm here with Jack.
Speaker 5:Hiya.
Speaker 4:With Greg, it's a glorious three-hour finale. But mostly America. With John hey, how you doing? With Alicia, hello. And with Lexi, hello, friends. This week our special guest is hand cycling world champion You'll understand more when you hear it Wendy Larson. What a remarkable, remarkable person Wendy is. She's been with us before. We're glad that she's back In the race report. Spotlight Kristen did a very, very warm half marathon in Charlotte, north Carolina.
Speaker 3:If you enjoy the Rise and Run podcast, please share us with your friends and introduce them to the Rise and Run family. We want to share in their Run Disney journey as well as your Run Disney journey, too their run Disney journey as well as your run Disney journey, too. Please remember to follow us on Facebook at rise and run podcast, on Instagram at rise and run pod, and be sure to check out our awesome YouTube channel, head up by the wonderful Jack. Also, be sure to visit our amazing webpage, headed up by John, at rise and run podcastcom. If you have a question, a comment, a race report, you want to talkcom. If you have a question, a comment, a race report, you want to talk about what fireworks you set off illegally this 4th of.
Speaker 3:July. We want to hear about it. Give us a call on our hotline at 727-266-2344 and leave us a recorded message. Craig, we need new intros.
Speaker 4:Yes, we do need a ton of those as well. We just used up the last one we had in the queue.
Speaker 6:We also want to thank our patrons, whose support helps us keep the Rise and Run podcast rising and running. If you'd like to join our Patreon team, please check us out at patreoncom. Slash riseandrunpodcast. Thanks.
Speaker 4:John Rise and Run podcast is sponsored by our friends at Magic Bound Travel. Brad and Maggie were with us last week talking about a whole raft of things, but right now is a great time. If you registered for the Disneyland half marathon weekend in January, get on the website right now. Get on the website right now. Magicboundtravelcom. Send them a form, tell them hey, I'm looking for accommodations or tickets or whatever it is you're going to be looking at for Disneyland, and they'll get right on it. No cost to you. All of that is covered. They'll take great care of you, I promise. Magicboundtravelcom is the site. Check them out In the apologies and alibis section. This one's kind of this one's kind of fun. It kind of reflects on the group. Last week in the race report I mentioned that Megan and I Megan from the New York area I'm almost positive that overslept for a race, but that was okay because Megan from the New York area had a race scheduled on Monday. Did you know we have more than one Megan in the New York area?
Speaker 3:What are the?
Speaker 4:odds. We have bunches of Megans, so not to say Megan. Shame on me. I should have looked at the last name, but I didn't. The other thing that I find unique's not the right word, but a little different. I don't know how many Megans we have, but I think they all spell their first name differently. I don't know how many ways there are to spell Megan, but it's at least four or five, so Megan and Megan. My apologies for getting you confused. Let's take a look at the training schedule, kids, because and we'll talk more about it in a moment Today was a big day on the training schedule.
Speaker 4:First the Disney Halloween race weekend. Now, nine weeks away, single digits in weeks, we're in training week nine. This is a three mile long weekend nine weeks away. I need to get my board back out where I make my friendship bracelets and start going into production for disneyland wine and dine and marathon weekend. Training started unofficially. Today Starts this week.
Speaker 4:A lot of us use Tuesdays and Thursdays for our weekly runs. Training started today. We'll talk more about this in just a moment too. If you are running wine and dine, this is one of those ones on the Jeff Galloway schedule that I cannot explain If you're running the half marathon, your long run this weekend is two miles. If you're running the challenge, your long run is three miles. I didn't know they had a two mile long run on Jeff's schedule, but week one, I guess that's where they start Long runs on marathon weekend. Whether it's one of the challenges or the marathon, it's three miles. Another big event today Disneyland half marathon weekend registration. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Next week, next Tuesday, is registration day for the 12 K's of Christmas. Fa la, la, la, la, la la la la.
Speaker 4:Go Normally, not the same amount of pressure on the registration for the virtuals as there is, but they still do sell out. So good luck if you're trying to register for the 12Ks of Christmas.
Speaker 6:We know Joe's signing up for that.
Speaker 3:I was going to say if there's one person who's going to feel the pressure, it's definitely Joe.
Speaker 4:Yep, well, maybe we can get online and help Joe out, although he'll do fine, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:So, lexi, you've been having a lot of success with your accountability group, and I know there was just a June challenge. Do you want to tell us about that?
Speaker 8:Yeah. So I wanted to give a special shout out to the weight loss accountability chat. If you're not on it, go check out the Facebook group. You should be able to see it in the list of the chats once you go to the Rise and Run podcast page. And we had a June step challenge, step challenge.
Speaker 8:Now I'm not 100% sure on the exact number of steps, but we had about 55 people doing steps every single day for the entire month and we did a giveaway. So shout out to Tiffany for winning the giveaway. She won a massage from Massage Indie and a Walt Disney World water bottle. And then also we had I believe it was eight ladies, eight or nine ladies who did not use a single allotted free day. Like they hit their step goal every single day for the whole month. That's amazing. So I'm just I'm really proud of them. And then we're also we're redoing it for July. We're doing a July step challenge, kind of a choose your own adventure again, whatever step count that you feel like is a challenge for you, go ahead and put that in the spreadsheet that's pinned in the weight loss chat. And then we're doing a water challenge along with it, of making sure that we are all staying accountable. Drinking enough water.
Speaker 4:Well, glad to see that's going well. The group chats are phenomenal and I'm glad to see that that one's been a success. Let's talk a little bit. This is an exciting day. You've heard me say, I think, there are three very exciting days in the Dopey Challenge or the marathon or whatever your long race weekend is. The day that you register is very exciting. The day the training starts is very exciting. The day you cross the finish line is the most exciting of all. But between day two and day three it gets challenging Because the training for these events are tough, particularly the training for the Dopey Challenge. But look, don't let me dissuade anybody or try to scare anybody off. Just keep going, Keep doing it.
Speaker 6:John, great idea on that playlist, man. I haven't call it interactive. If you have Spotify, you get. You got the link on our Facebook page. You could go there and said let's add two songs that you guys like to go on your training run. Right now we're up to about three and a four and a half hours of music. So when those long runs start coming in, we're going to have a lot of music and, as I think Catherine said, it's a very eclectic mix of songs and I found one song that I am like jacked on right now.
Speaker 3:I forgot about it.
Speaker 6:Baby Shark remix goodness, no Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem doing Dancing in the Moonlight.
Speaker 4:I forgot about that that was the first song that came up for me today. Yeah, it was one of three songs that I recognized.
Speaker 6:Are there two of the ones you added? Nope, they didn't come up yet.
Speaker 4:I would like to thank whoever added Dolly Parton 9 to 5. I got that one right away. The rest of them I didn't. No, but that's okay. Hey, I'm getting exposed to some different tunes. That's good. Would you all get started today, gang? I started yesterday, but yes. Well, you always wear a go-getter, Alicia.
Speaker 2:I usually, because of my schedule, will do Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I work most weekends, so that's why, but yeah, I got started.
Speaker 5:I'm a bad example, supposed to run yesterday and then I just got caught up with work and I didn't but I did my workout today, so okay.
Speaker 4:Okay, I haven't talked with chris today. I mentioned that Sherry was on the chat this morning. Chris is out in Colorado. I have been aqua jogging during the week to try and save wear and tear on these old legs, but I think it's time to get back out on the street. So I ran this morning. I will reiterate what I've told all of my friends that look, it's hot. If it's hot where you are, it's hot. Each of us is acclimated to a different heat level. It's really warm here, it's really warm in other places, but it doesn't matter. If it's warm to you, it's hot. Take it easy, Go slow if you need to, but get these training miles in. That is, and we're going to say it. We've got 26 weeks in this training. We're probably going to say it I don't know 50 times. This is the key. This is the way to succeed on a marathon weekend or wine and dine weekend is to get those training miles in, especially during this hot weather.
Speaker 3:You'll be surprised, when the weather cools off, how much better you'll be doing yeah, I, I started today as well, but I mean in theory, ever since I've joined customized training, like I, you know, you feel like that it's always a continuous cycle where, like before before, you know, I knew coach twigs and and that wonderful community it was like okay, yeah, like today would have been the day, but like it's just an ongoing cycle. But it's exciting, though, to be able to say that, okay, this was the official first training run for Wine and Dine and, in my case, the marathon. I will say I'm a little nervous right now. I want to thank my co-hosts here, because on Saturday I had speed work and I pulled up my first 800 in and um tweaked what I'm thinking is a calf muscle and achilles I'm not 100 sure. So you know.
Speaker 3:Thank you for giving me sage advice to tell me to, to stop what I was doing so I didn't cause, you know, further damage, but got out there today it's still there, it's still telling me that it's present, but at least I wasn't limping. So I I'm hoping that, you know, even though I have been training for a while and I'm training for bird in hand and everything else for the year, I I'm hoping that this isn't like starting over, but hopefully I'll be able to push through it and, you know, be able to stay along with everyone to keep reaching our goals. But I got to say, too, what's really awesome about today is, even though I was really apprehensive about going up because I didn't know what my, what my calf was going to do, it was everyone's Facebook post, instagram post, instagram stories, seeing the, the, the templates that get made and so many people sharing in the excitement that is day one is is what propelled me out the door today.
Speaker 3:So, to everyone who did something like that, um, thank you. And for me, if you ever need like an extra kick of motivation while these videos are several, several years old now, if there's one thing I love watching at the start of any run disney training season, it's gerald resnick's training journals on his YouTube page. You know, even though they date back to like 2016 and 2017, you know the fact that it almost kind of you know, if you take one episode per week, it, you know, it will, you know, go with you throughout your training. If you're interested, go check out Res Runs on YouTube.
Speaker 5:And his race videos are really good too.
Speaker 4:We haven't watched them. They're amazing, good motivators. Well, look it is. It is absolutely an exciting time and, especially if this is your first time through, we're excited for you. We know what that's like, so hang in there, keep it up, keep that excitement level up, keep going. We can't do it for you, but we can do it with you.
Speaker 4:Race registration for the Disneyland Half Marathon was this morning. Now this is the one that was rescheduled from two weeks ago, gang, was it two or three weeks? I think it's two. It went off this morning.
Speaker 4:I was in our chat group for the Disneyland half marathon weekend. I got in there about quarter to 10. The first thing I noticed is that even before then, about 20 minutes to 10, a registration link opened. The half marathon registration link opened first. I went well, that's a good sign, because two weeks ago that never happened. And then, right at 10 o'clock, we all got our. You have one hour to wait notifications standard issue. But things went swimmingly after that. Numbers started coming down for most people right away and they started coming down pretty quickly. I was I am, I am always proud to be part of this group, but I was really proud this morning on the chat, the way everyone was offering to help everyone else, and we did so well that by about 20 minutes after 10, I made a post and I said look, I've still got two more browsers open and they're counting down. Does anyone need them? And and nobody did so. We had great success this morning you know what's crazy is?
Speaker 5:this is the first race that none of us are going to, since we started the podcast.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're right, this is the first race, first race that none of us will be at seems unnatural we can still get in if you want it to right now.
Speaker 6:I know that's very true.
Speaker 4:Well, that's a good point.
Speaker 5:What's still open, john the half still open well, and here's the thing is, the 10k has been opening on and off all day and it's been staying open for a hot, like good what five, ten minutes and it'll go away and then, like two hours later, open back up again. It is the weirdest thing and honestly I kind of wish registrations would be like that, like how they used to before the pandemic, where once it's sold out, it's sold out. You know what I mean. There's no it coming back all of a sudden for like five minutes and then going away, like the fact that the half is still open.
Speaker 5:I kind of like that because it gives me an option to be like oh okay, I still have time probably to sign up, because I remember when I signed up for my first marathon, uh, it was open all the way up until september and there was still an option to do it. And then I was like, oh, if it's open till this date, I'll do it. And then it was. So I was like, okay, cool. And then sooner or later it sold out.
Speaker 3:Like I missed those days you know, this could be the first instance since runs disney started doing this, because when they changed the verbiage on their website, I I literally audibly laughed because it was like tier one pricing it, you know, is, you know, from the day it opens until this day and then it's tier two pricing. I'm like, why even put that? Out, because these races sell out in under an hour, but maybe this could be our first iteration where we see tier two pricing, but yeah it's a.
Speaker 6:It's a ten dollar jump for the half marathon uh not terrible pricing.
Speaker 5:But that's december 17th, so do we think we could last on this I give this about like maybe like two weeks, to be honest, I think it's because of, honestly, how the first race went. I just people are probably waiting to hear if it got better yeah, I think I that's true.
Speaker 4:You talk about the first race at disneyland yeah, that could be, yeah, but they're doing the halloween.
Speaker 3:When I saw I was gonna say I was gonna play devil's advocate there and say halloween sold out, but really, really quickly though. That's a whole new theme.
Speaker 5:People don't know what to expect with the Halloween aspects of it, whereas they already know what to expect with the regular Disneyland Halloween could be this epic Halloween party.
Speaker 6:It's probably still course. That's the same thing, probably.
Speaker 8:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh, I also think the fact that there were problems with this registration just threw people's timing off, threw their schedules off. That not everybody recognized that it was this morning and some of the people who had put aside time to do it two weeks ago could not do that again this week.
Speaker 6:And because it was kind of short notice that they're saying it's opening up, it did come up all of a sudden.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2:I think there might've been people that didn't realize that it had gotten rescheduled.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think so at all for today. So no, I think you're right, alicia, I think you're right, I was figuring me personally.
Speaker 6:I was figuring the week after the 12th case of christmas because, like they're doing it on fourth of july week, when everyone starts their summer vacations, a lot of people which you know that could be another.
Speaker 3:Another thing they're not around computers yeah, it's funny, I've been racking my brain about this all day because you know, john, you know you brought up the.
Speaker 3:The point in our group chat and what you just mentioned is, you know, you know, doing it on a holiday week. But then I also wonder, though, if you know what I had brought up two weeks ago about it being like an aws issue or, you know, just like almost a website, like behind the scenes type thing issue, because if you really think about it, people really wanted to run this race. They, you know, regardless if they remembered or not, it would have sold out today. So, yeah, you know. So that's why I kind of more fall in the camp of either people are really spooked by how Disneyland went the last time but also I wonder if this will change one Disney's mind of what types of races that they do in the future, because for the second or for the third run, disney registration in a row. For disneyland, the 5k and the 10k were the first two things to sell out and obviously people are really drawn to those events because those are pretty much park, exclusive events, and I wonder if people just aren't feeling the whole.
Speaker 3:You know really only getting like three to four miles on disneyland property and then the rest of the race being out on the roads in anaheim. So it'll be interesting to see, you know. If one, will it sell out? And two, you know how many days is it gonna take?
Speaker 3:because I don't think we've had anything like this since it's been before covid or wasn't there a springtime surprise that, like the challenge was open for like a couple of days, or the 10 mile, I can't remember what specific year, but I remember there was a registration where it was a couple of days until it closed yeah, it could be, greg, I don't remember I one of the things.
Speaker 4:I was amused one of our friends in the chat when we offered hey, I've got stuff that 12 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever said no, I'm hoping it sells out so I don't have to do the half marathon and then later on he comes back and goes well, I'm in.
Speaker 5:Well, you know, run Disney. None of the hosts are actually registered for the race. If you want to, you know, go ahead and host one of us for the race weekend. Jack, I like where your head's at girl. I'm just saying you got six to choose from.
Speaker 3:Run Disney. That's thegangatriseandrunpodcastcom.
Speaker 5:That's right. I know you guys are listening because you guys got that snack box with that roll-up in there that one year. I know you are. My name is Jack, it's spelled J-A-C-K.
Speaker 3:Jack, don't give out your credit card number again, no, I know I learned my lesson, All right friends, I think it's a good time to visit with our guest for this week.
Speaker 4:All right, friends, I think it's a good time to visit with our guests for this week. Friends, our next guest was first with us a couple years ago, episode 58. And then we ran a replay of Wendy's episode not too terribly long ago, say. I am speaking with the 2021 and 2022 Boston Marathon hand cycling champion course records each year and the 2022 New York City Marathon champion, and the thing that's really impressive is, if you ask Wendy, those aren't a big deal. She's done other things that are even greater. Wendy Larson, welcome back to the Rise and Run podcast.
Speaker 7:Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 4:Gosh, you can tell I hope you can tell from talking to me that I'm excited that you're here. It's just fantastic. It's awesome to be able to meet and chat with somebody like you. Now, when we last spoke with our hero, it was prior to you were getting ready, wendy, for the 2023 race across the West. Now, I know you set that up back then, but let's talk about that just a little bit. Give our friends an idea of what this is, what's involved, how far the challenge is and, spoiler alert the fact that you're a hand cyclist competing with able-bodied bicyclists on this thing.
Speaker 7:Yes, so Race Across the West is part of the Race Across America organization. Race Across the West is a 900-ish mile race. The course is a little bit different each year. Last year it was 925 miles. So you start in Oceanside, california, and you end in Durango, colorado, california, and you end in Durango, colorado, and a lot of people immediately think of something like the Tour de France or a Grand Tour, but it's not, because this is an around the clock, nonstop race, so we don't stop, and that was what I set my sights on. And um, yeah, 900 miles, I was actually the first hand cyclist to complete that distance. Um, I was racing with able-bodied upright cyclists, so yeah, it was. It was pretty exciting, huge, huge accomplishment. Um, yeah, I, it's one of those things. It's just it's so hard to sum up and oh sure something like that into words you're going from california to Colorado.
Speaker 4:I've got to imagine you're climbing most of the time.
Speaker 7:Yes, oh yeah, there was 56,000 feet of climbing, oh lordy. So it is a ridiculous amount of climbing, ridiculous. And of course I live in Houston, which is flat as a pancake, so you can't train for that in Houston as a pancake, so you can't train for that in Houston. So what I actually did is to train for these races. I will drive to and from Austin a couple of times a week to the Texas Hill Country, so that made for some very long training days because I would have to set my alarm at about 2.30 am, get up, drive three hours, go do my day's training, turn around, drive back home another three hours. So it's, yeah, it was some pretty intense, pretty crazy training that I did to prepare for that.
Speaker 4:Wow, I'm going to step back and I know we talked about this back in episode 58. But for new listeners, for our new friends, describe the hand cycle just a little bit for those of us who, for whatever reason, are unable to use our legs.
Speaker 7:So I have an incomplete spinal cord injury, which is why I am a hand cyclist. So essentially what happens is we are laying in a recumbent position with our legs out in front of us, and then we are pedaling a bike with our arms of us, and then we are pedaling a bike with our arms. There's one wheel in front, two wheels in the back, and our drive train is actually on our front wheel and it's set up like a bicycle, but it's all flipped upside down and backwards, so you have your drive train in front instead of in the back, which makes it a little bit different, especially when you're climbing hills and you don't have weight over that front wheel which is your drivetrain wheel. So that's essentially what a hand cycle is.
Speaker 4:Does it make shifting more difficult because of that?
Speaker 7:Not necessarily so. Shifting can sometimes be more difficult depending on what your disability is. I have friends that are quadriplegics that actually hand cycle so yeah, so their shifting is going to be a little bit different. So it's more you know what your level of disability is is more the issues that come up with shifting. So most hand cycles you will see them competing in running races, not with able-bodied cyclists, or they will be in paracycling specific races.
Speaker 7:And the reason for that is you'll never get as much power in a hand cycle as you will on an upright bike.
Speaker 7:If you think about it, your legs are much larger than your arms are, so you have about twice the muscle mass in your legs than what you have in your arms. So we're trying to do what an able-bodied upright cyclist is, but with half the muscle mass is a good way to think about it. So we're just going to be a lot slower than an upright bike. And the other thing too is when you are on an upright bike you're in more of a power position. Your weight is over your pedals, so when you're climbing, for instance, you are able to get extra power by really using your body weight. So sometimes you'll see cyclists up out of their saddles, standing on their pedals, to get that additional power. Where we can't do that, ours is very isolated to just our arms and shoulders because we're in such a recumbent position we're not even able to use our core really to get any power and we don't have our weight over that drive wheel. So yeah, so it's a lot different than an upright bike.
Speaker 4:I can picture the physics of all this. I've ridden a bike. I got a nice road bike. I ride at Summon. This is amazing, the physics of all this. I've ridden, I got a nice road bike. I ride at Summon. This is amazing, the ability to do this Just arms and shoulders yeah, Really fantastic. So tell us how the 2023 race across the West ended for you.
Speaker 7:Oh, it ended with me finishing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it sure did.
Speaker 7:So I the only goal ever was to just get across the finish line um, which a lot of people thought I would never be able to do. Now, I was not giving given any additional time over what the able-bodied upright cyclist were given, so I missed the official cutoff time to be considered an official finisher. So, even though I went the entire distance, officially I was listed as a DNF. Oh, I got you.
Speaker 7:You know, honestly, I wasn't the least bit bothered by that. I think a lot of other people were more bothered by that than I was, because the goal always I just wanted to cross that finish line and I did and it was the most amazing experience I've ever had, just what I went through and it just was pretty incredible.
Speaker 4:Yeah, again following on Instagram. I remember seeing all that. That was cool.
Speaker 3:Regardless of finishing within the time or not. As you just said, crossing the finish line is such an incredible feat, but let's put this into perspective for the listeners. Can you give us the average amount of time it takes an able-bodied bicyclist to finish this race and then compare that to the time that you finished in?
Speaker 7:So an able-bodied cyclist has four days to finish it and it took me six days. Okay, I mean approximately, so it took me about two days longer than it did the upright cyclists.
Speaker 3:You know, and we've heard stories of people you know from a running perspective. You know, back of the Packers who you know like sometimes we'll get frustrated by oh you know, I'm not going to make the time and they start. You know, like taking out timing mats and you know, maybe there's not as many like aid stations. You know, since there was a 48 hour gap, you know between you, know, the, there's not as many like aid stations. You know, since there was a 48 hour gap, you know between you, know, the, the average finisher and yourself, what you know. Are you then more responsible for you know, your, your aid stations and everything, or is there still core support from from the race organizers?
Speaker 7:So in a race like that, you are racing with your own crew and your own support. So I have a crew of six people. They follow behind me the entire race and in my crew I have runners, I have cyclists, I have a bike mechanic, I have a nurse to make sure that I am on track, to make sure that I am staying healthy, and I don't have to take care of any bike race support in a race like this. And we have the van that follows behind me, that has all of the coolers and the food and the hydration, and my crew tracks everything I eat, everything I drink. They are constantly monitoring my calories, my carbs, my protein, because in a race like that you've got to have protein as well, because you're on the road for so long. They're monitoring how often I'm going to the bathroom, all of that stuff.
Speaker 7:It is not a pretty job, it's just not, but it's part of ultra racing. At that level it is. It is ugly and it's gritty and it's gross at times, but it's also the most amazing experience and just learning exactly what the human body is capable of and pushing yourself to limits that just you know you think aren't even possible. But then you go out there and you try it and lo and behold, you do it.
Speaker 4:Really phenomenal, really is. We're going to. You think that's tough, greg. We're going to talk about race across America in a little bit here, okay, but I'm going to. I'm going to take things chronologically Okay. Quick question, though going to, I'm going to take things chronologically, okay. Quick question, though you did finish these 900 miles. Are you the first hand cyclist to do that?
Speaker 7:Yes, I was the first hand cyclist.
Speaker 4:I thought so, I thought so yeah.
Speaker 7:Yep.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 7:So it was, yeah, it was. It was very exciting. It was very exciting to do that and you know just that feeling of accomplishment and doing something that nobody ever thought was going to be possible.
Speaker 4:Fantastic, you're breaking barriers. That's fantastic. Let's go to the fall. Let's go to November of last year. Okay, the World Time Trial Championships 24-.
Speaker 7:Yes.
Speaker 4:World Time Trial Championships. Tell us about that, please.
Speaker 7:Well, that was in November. It takes place out in Borrego Springs, california, every year, which is out in the middle of the desert, and the way that works. It's for the six hour, the 12 hour and the 24 hour world championships. And of course, you know if I'm going to do something, I want to go big. So I you know my goal was always to do the 24 hour world championships, so I managed to win that and I set a course record for female hand cyclists.
Speaker 9:Yeah.
Speaker 7:So that was another really exciting race to be considered an official world champion.
Speaker 4:It is awesome 24 hours, 217 miles 217 miles, 117 miles, yep.
Speaker 7:So planning to do it again this year and, uh, my goal is to do at least 250 yeah, why not?
Speaker 4:why not?
Speaker 8:so were you competing against other hand cyclists, or were you competing against bicyclists or like how did? How did that?
Speaker 7:So I was the only hand cyclist there last year. Um, so it was me with a bunch of other upright bikes, but I don't compete directly against them, so hand cycles have their own category. So last year I just was the only one that showed up. It's not something that you're going to find many hand cyclists even attempt. There are very, very few hand cyclists in the world that will even attempt a nonstop 24-hour race like that.
Speaker 4:Do you take any breaks on that?
Speaker 7:So the way that one works is it's about a 35-mile loop, your support crew is in one designated pit area and you ride the loop. You come back. You can keep going or you can stop for for your pit stop. So I stopped pretty much every loop. Some of it was longer stops, some of it was just quit. Change my hydration bladder, go again. So you come back through the pit area. That's your chance to go to the bathroom to change into dry clothes. You're in the desert in November, so overnight it was down in the low 30s and then it's 100 degrees in the afternoon. So you're also changing clothes and changing your wardrobe, all of that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Wendy, do you have the same type of crew for that race versus the other one, or is it different?
Speaker 7:So for that one, because it is essentially in one spot, my husband just comes and cruise for me and so it's just him. We have the van set up with everything I need in it and ready to go, and at this point everything is really organized with where we put everything, and we've got checklists and you know, food logs, hydration logs, so that he knows exactly how many scoops of this and how many scoops of that I need in my hydration bladder each time. And all of this it's the logistics side of it. It gets kind of kind of crazy. Um, but for that I just need the one crew, and that's my husband. For Race Across the West, all of that is the larger crew and luckily, most of those crew have been able to return to help me each year. So we're experienced.
Speaker 8:So, Wendy, you mentioned a couple of questions ago that not very many hand cyclists attempt anything like this, much less the world championships or the 24 hour races or anything like that. What, uh, what drove you or what possessed you to want to do something like this and like excel at it so much?
Speaker 7:Um, I'm just crazy.
Speaker 4:Driven, driven.
Speaker 7:We call that driven. I really, really enjoy pushing myself and you know some people like running ultra marathons and ultra races.
Speaker 8:Pointing to Jack right there.
Speaker 7:I know and this is just one of those things I enjoy the mental and the physical challenge of it, and when I realized how difficult it is for hand cyclists to get involved in these races, I kind of wanted to make it a mission of mine to try to open the door to more hand cyclists to be able to do races like that, because there have been males that have done it but basically there are no other females doing races like that, none.
Speaker 7:It's just me. So I'm really trying hard to get other women interested in it, because at some point somebody is going to look at me and they're going to say well, if Wendy can do it, I can do it. And they're right, they can. But somebody has to be the first, somebody has to get out there and do it and crack that door open just a little bit to really encourage others to do it as well.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love the encouragement of women and the positivity and inspiration. I'm wondering if you have a mantra that you tend to look for when you're doing these races.
Speaker 7:Oh gosh, a mantra to look for when you're doing these races. Oh gosh, a mantra In the moment. While I'm doing the race, a lot of times I will repeat to myself just one more mile, just five more miles. And I just try to focus on that because if you start to think I've got 500 miles left to go, you are never going to make it. So, you know, I just chunk it up and I just think one more mile, one more mile. You know I can do one mile, that's not a big deal. And just think about it like that. And I guess you know it's probably not exactly what you're thinking about when you say mantra, but in the moment, during one of these really really long races, that's kind of what you know I'm thinking about is just, you know, I'm just looking just a short distance ahead and I just have to focus on that. You get to that and then you focus on the next little bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, now we've talked about little tricks like this in running, and it's really very much what you just said Anything that can refocus your mind and get you to keep going, that's exactly what we're talking about Absolutely. Yeah, awesome, awesome. So you get a race shirt that says World Champion on it. Yes, how cool is that.
Speaker 7:No, it's a cycling jersey. Yeah, yes, how cool is that? No, it's a cycling jersey. Yeah, and yeah, it's got my world champion on it and world champion stripes, all of that. So, yeah, it's pretty cool to be able to to wear one of those I don't have one of those. Yeah, not many people do.
Speaker 4:Greg, greg, do you have one? I don't have one, I do not no I don't. No, it's awesome. It's awesome. I'm not if I sound like I'm making. I think it's absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 7:I mean, it was, you know, one of those silly little things, but my gosh.
Speaker 4:Oh golly.
Speaker 7:When you win a, you know, a world championship jersey like that, they will size you for it at the race, and then they have them custom made. Oh, neat, and you know.
Speaker 4:And they have them custom made, oh neat.
Speaker 7:It's weeks after the race that you actually get it. So yeah, when that came in the mail, I was very excited.
Speaker 4:I'll bet you were To get my champion jersey. How long did it take before you took it off? How many days?
Speaker 7:About a week. Yeah, yeah, oh man.
Speaker 4:I think that's awesome. I think it's absolutely tremendous. Another thing I think is kind of tremendous you talked about this a little bit in chat groups. You've had a documentary about early 2023.
Speaker 7:He was looking to make a documentary about someone undergoing an extreme physical challenge. He had been doing a bunch of research and came across Race Across America, which is the full distance. You start in Oceanside, california, you end in Atlantic City distance. You start in Oceanside, california, you end in Atlantic City, new Jersey, and it is known to be the world's most difficult ultra endurance cycling race. So you know, it's longer than the Tour de France, there's more climbing than the Tour de France and you have to finish it in nine days, as you know, opposed to several weeks. So he started looking into that and then he went into some Facebook groups and posted looking for someone that had a very compelling story, that was signed up and going to do either a race across the West or race across America. And I got tagged and we connected and ended up having a documentary made about me. So that was yeah, that was kind of kind of crazy.
Speaker 7:Um, he came to Houston several times before the race and he spent several weeks, um, just filming me, my day-to-day life, filming my family. He went to doctor's appointments with me, he interviewed my doctors. He went to my infusion appointments with me. He filmed all of my training, my prep the night before, everything, everything. And then, um, he and his crew flew out to Oceanside and met my crew and I out there and filmed everything the whole way to Durango.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, do you know by chance? Uh, well, I know this is going to be going out to film festivals and whatnot, um, but do you know by chance if there's going to be a way for us to view it via streaming?
Speaker 7:So not in the foreseeable future. Oh okay, eventually. We hope so. So it has won one award so far won a Gold Remy Award from the Houston International Film Festival. We're currently waiting to hear back from a few other film festivals and hearing waiting to see if it makes the cut for any of the big awards. We're hopeful he is the filmmakers hoping that it will eventually get picked up by a streaming service like Netflix or something. That would be so cool. We got to go through the film festival circuit first with it and the award season first with it before anything like that happens. So yeah, so stay tuned.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we will. We will. The Shattered Expectations is the name of the documentary yes, and I.
Speaker 7:There is a trailer up online, um, if you go to my instagram, I have a link on my instagram, um that'll take you to the website for the film and it's got the. It has the trailer, and that website will also have updates on when and where it's going to be shown.
Speaker 4:Oh good.
Speaker 7:Hitting film festivals, which should be in the fall.
Speaker 4:Okay, we will try to post those links on our social sites also. Yeah, that would be exciting, Wendy. I wish you a lot of luck with that and we hope we get a chance to see it. That would be exciting, Wendy, I would. I wish you a lot of luck with that and we we hope we get a chance to see it. That'd be really cool.
Speaker 7:Eventually, eventually it's going to get out there. I have confidence. Yeah, yeah, we've got to got to wait for wait for the film festival and awards and see what happens with it first.
Speaker 4:So Patience yeah.
Speaker 7:Patience it's tough. It's a long process. I never thought about just how long the process takes for filmmaking and all.
Speaker 4:And it's tough when you're not in control of that process and you can't fix the timelines. You just have to wait, exactly. Yeah, we'll wait. Let us continue on this journey which has been so much fun. 2024, you're back Not that long ago. Now You're back at the race across the West. You're going to give it another shot. Yeah, Training's going fantastic.
Speaker 7:Amazing Training went amazing this year.
Speaker 4:I'll let you take it from there.
Speaker 7:So yeah. So last year, leading up to race across the West, I had a few nagging injuries that I was dealing with, and you know training always ebbs and flows, you have your ups and downs, but everything, everything went well and I did it last year, won the world championships. Training this year had gone so well. My power was much higher this year than it was last year. My endurance was up, feeling absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're knocking out PRs in training, aren't you?
Speaker 7:Oh, just one after another, one after another. We all felt really, really confident that I was going to finish within the time cutoff this year. Most of my crew was returning from last year, so very well practiced at. You know how to make the stop super quick and how to you know get me in and out of my hand cycle to go to the bathroom really, really fast, and how to change my hydration bladder out in, you know less than five minutes and keep me moving all of this. So we started in Oceanside. The first day went fantastic. It's broken up into time stations, so the first time station is about 90 miles from the start I was. I checked into the first time station five hours faster this year than I did last year, which was just huge.
Speaker 7:Get through the first, and I started at midnight. Get through the first morning, then you're out into the desert where they were having record high temperatures. So it was about 10 to 15 degrees warmer this year than it was last year. So I was out there hand cycling through 114 degree temperatures in the middle of the desert. So, and in a hand cycle, I'm only about three inches off the ground. Right.
Speaker 7:And I'm laying flat on my back almost so heat radiates up off the pavement. It affects a hand cyclist a lot more than it does an upright cyclist, but I felt great. But I felt great. We had all of the you know the protocols going just perfectly to keep me cool and keep me from getting overheated. Got through the day no problems and about 10 o'clock at night I started getting really nauseous and ended up had to pull over. Told my crew I needed and ended up had to pull over. Told my crew I needed to rest and it just went downhill from there and I ended up throwing up all night.
Speaker 7:My nurse was on the phone with my dietician at like 2 am, my dietician's here in Houston, and I think she's like 2 am. She's going through everything with my dieticians here in Houston and I think she's like 2am she's going through everything with my dietician and then they're texting my husband and they're texting my coach and I don't know. I'm just in the back of the van throwing up all night and they finally had to make the decision that to pull me from the race and take me to the hospital. So yeah, so that's how it ended, not the way any of us wanted it to end, um, but you know the these things happen sometimes when you're dealing with a race like that, you just never know what you're going to end up having to deal with.
Speaker 7:And this year there were a lot, a lot of DNFs, a lot of very experienced ultra cyclists that um DNFed. A lot of people ended up in the hospital. It happens with a race like this. So, yeah, they, they took me to the ER in the nearest town, which was in the middle of nowhere, small town, rural ER. I do feel like I got really good care, but it was very different from the hospitals I'm used to here in Houston. Yeah, and you know, once they got me pumped full of fluids and you know, anti-nausea meds and potassium and all of that, I I was, I was feeling much better and I got released later that day, but I did have to withdraw from the race.
Speaker 3:Wendy, you mentioned the heat before, but now that some time has passed since you had to make that unfortunate ER visit, have you been able to sit back and almost kind of armchair quarterback this a little bit? Do you know what potentially led to you having to make that difficult decision? Or, at this point, are you just chalking it up to the heat and just moving on from it?
Speaker 7:So we have gone around and around with this. I have been to my doctor, I've rehashed it with my doctor, with my dietician, with the nurse that's on my crew. We've gone through all of this over and over and over again. Long story short, we don't know exactly what happened. It may have been the heat, but I wasn't showing any signs of heat exhaustion until 10, 10.30 at night is when I started feeling nauseous. I was feeling fine before then.
Speaker 7:I have severe, severe migraines and I'm on preventatives for those. I've had issues with severe migraines overnight during races in the past, but this time I didn't have a headache. Could have still had the migraine, and it was just an abdominal migraine and the headache was masked. That's a possibility. I have dysautonomia, which is where your autonomic nervous system does not function as it should. Autonomic nervous system controls stuff like heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, things your body does without you consciously doing it. So it could have been the heat triggered my gastroparesis, which is essentially it's a digestive disorder where your food doesn't digest. So you know and you vomit a lot. So there were.
Speaker 7:We're still not sure. We have done so much armchair quarterbacking trying to go over every little detail. My doctor wants me. We're changing my migraine meds and we're going to give it a couple months and we're going to do an overnight training with the crew and see if it happens again to try to replicate. You know kind of what happened. So you know we're working on some stuff like that. I am supposed to have a scale and get weighed during the race multiple times every day and I forgot the scale multiple times every day and I forgot the scale so my crew was not able to weigh me to see how much water weight I was losing. So my dietician read me the riot act about that, I imagine.
Speaker 7:Read me within an inch of my life, I think, if I forget my scale again, because that absolutely has to be done, because there's a certain amount that you are allowed to lose before you know your crew is supposed to pull you off the road. So that was. You know we made a mistake there. We know we did so yeah. So there's a lot of stuff and you know this is always a learning process. Every race you do, you learn from. You make mistakes and you try to figure out how to correct those mistakes so they don't happen again. And you know that's how I try to look at any anything like this is it's not always going to be perfect. In fact, it's never going to be perfect. You can always pick stuff apart, but when something like this happens, about the only thing you can do is try to figure out what did happen and make those corrections so it doesn't happen again.
Speaker 4:Wendy, we've had the privilege to talk to other world-class athletes on this podcast once and again, and they all have their DNF stories too. It happens at the top level. There's lessons in there for our friends too, and one of the big things I hear from athletes who DNF is there's there's the physical part of it, what went wrong, and there's a mental part of it too, and so I'm going to ask you here a couple weeks later how you doing.
Speaker 7:I'm doing good. I'm doing good, I've had my moments, I'm not going to lie it mentally. It takes its toll on you and it's hard, it can be hard to bounce back from. So you know, I coach also. I coach other paracyclists and always try to tell the athletes I coach look, these things happen.
Speaker 7:But ultimately, you know you have to look at failure as a lesson. The most successful people they have failed over and over and over again but they keep getting back up. I mean this was not my first DNF, it won't be my last. I mean this was not my first DNF, it won't be my last. But you just have to focus on the fact that, yeah, yeah, you might have failed at this one, but there's going to be another one that you're going to go back out there. You're going to try again, you're going to learn from this one and you're going to succeed. And you have to look at it from that perspective and realize that you know your, your character is not determined by how many times you fail. It's determined by how many times you get back up yeah.
Speaker 7:So, yeah, I had my moments I you can ask my husband there were. There were a few moments when I just randomly had a little breakdown and I started crying and had my little pity party, but then you just got to start focusing on the next goal, and that's where I am at right. Now is I've gotten back out there, I'm back to my training and I'm focused on the next goal and excited about that. So time to move on.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Well, regardless of the result, we are just so proud to know you and what you have accomplished and the fact that you are such an inspiration for not only hand cyclists. You know, push from cyclists and and runners and alike, you know, just continue, you know to. You know, set your goals high and and we know that you're, you're set to achieve even greater things than you already have. So we know you. You know you're going to come back on the comeback tour real strong.
Speaker 7:Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 4:Well, greg, speaking of other challenges, I think you found out about something just today, about the Race Across America.
Speaker 7:Yesterday.
Speaker 4:Yesterday.
Speaker 7:Yes, yes, so I have been invited to be on a Race Across America team for next year. So it's going to be an eight person team of athletes with disabilities and we will be doing the full distance, starting in Oceanside, california, and ending in Atlantic City, new Jersey, next year. Ending in Atlantic City, new Jersey, next year. So it's going to be a very different type of race than doing it solo, like I have been doing, but I am super, super excited about it.
Speaker 4:Oh, you can tell you should be.
Speaker 7:Yeah, so kind of what happens with a team like this is well, you do have a shorter time cutoff than what you do if you're doing it solo, so you have to be fast. So what you do is you rotate these riders. So we'll have eight people on our team. We'll each take about 20 to 30 minute pull and then the next cyclist will go. So it is very, very fast paced. When you get on your bike, you're going for 20 or 30 minutes and you're basically sprinting for 20 or 30 minutes and then you get a couple hours rest and then you go back and do it again, and you do this around the clock, nonstop, all the way across.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no breaks. No breaks on this one Again, unlike the Tour de France, no breaks Exactly.
Speaker 7:Yeah, there's no breaks you go, just go. Yeah, you go all night.
Speaker 4:About 3,000 miles, I'm guessing.
Speaker 7:Yep about 3,000 miles. So, I'm excited.
Speaker 4:It sounds amazing.
Speaker 8:So how do you train for something like that? I mean as many miles as you have to go, but also like sprinting the sections that you have to go. What does that look like for you? So?
Speaker 7:we'll see what that looks like, because.
Speaker 4:I've not done the training for weeks like this before We'll see what that looks like.
Speaker 7:No, essentially what it's going to look like is I will be doing a lot more power intervals over the next year.
Speaker 7:We'll be doing sections where you know I may do a 30 minute sprint. A 30 minute sprint, I may rest for a couple hours, then I may get back on my bike, do another 30 minute sprint, rest for a couple hours and do some training like that. I'll also be doing training at all hours of the night. Yeah, I may sleep for a couple hours and then I'll get up and get on my hand, cycle and sprint for 30 minutes just to kind of get your body used to this really crazy schedule where you may be asleep in the back of an RV from midnight to 2 am and then you have to get up and you have to immediately go and you have to go hard for, you know, 20 or 30 minutes. So it'll be a lot of stuff like that and then a lot more um interval work. Not as much of the really long endurance rides, um, that I have been doing, so, yeah, but it it will still be a lot of mileage, really high mileage.
Speaker 4:So yeah, real quick math 350 to 400 miles per rider there If it's a 3000 mile race and there's eight of you right. Right, right At a sprint though.
Speaker 7:At a sprint Right. So it's it's going to be very different.
Speaker 4:What's the tough part of this course? Coming over the Rockies or coming over in the East coast?
Speaker 7:So for me the tougher part is actually getting over the Appalachian Mountains.
Speaker 4:The Appalachians yeah.
Speaker 7:Because they are steeper. They're not as high and the climbs aren't as long, but they're steeper and on a hand cycle that is tougher and it's the end of the race, so you are super tired. So when you hit the Appalachians is when it's going to, you know, be really, really tough.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that surprises folks, but I've read that before. I read about our settlers who went from east to west that they thought the Rockies were going to be tough, but the Appalachians were tougher.
Speaker 7:Right. So there are actually hills out in West Texas, outside of Austin, that are tougher for me to do than the Rocky Mountains because they're steeper. They're shorter but they're steeper and it's just a different type of climbing. So the Rockies not that they're even remotely easy no right Of course but it's just it's a little bit different type of climbing.
Speaker 8:And how long does something like the race across America take? Like what is, what is the time limit that you're trying to meet?
Speaker 7:So the time limit is nine days for a team. Our team's goal is going to be probably about six days. Wow. So people that I'm doing it with, it's all a bunch of very experienced ultra cyclists, Um, and they're they're aiming pretty high for this.
Speaker 4:They're aiming pretty high. Quick math 500 miles a day. About 25 miles an hour.
Speaker 7:It's yeah, Wow, yeah, so that now I don't know that that's going to be realistic. So I think more like averaging 20 miles an hour is going to be more realistic.
Speaker 4:Which is already fast.
Speaker 7:Which is right, right, but we're also going to be doing some very specific splitting up of the time and trying to really utilize everybody's strengths. So for me, I am a super, super fast and really good descender. I can do those descends like nobody's business and I can do 50 or 60 miles an hour downhill. Yeah, it's crazy, yeah, it's crazy, and I have very good technical skills all of that. So I will be taking, yeah, a little bit scary. I'm an adrenaline junkie, what can I say?
Speaker 4:You're six inches off the ground wearing your underwear and a helmet, yeah.
Speaker 7:So I'll be taking more of the descents, but then I also I do really good with wind. So if we get a really strong headwind I'll be taking more of that piece of it and maybe doing you know, doing back-to-back pulls to give teammates a little bit of a break in the wind.
Speaker 4:Because you're a lower profile.
Speaker 7:Because I'm a lower profile. I train in the wind a lot where a lot of people don't. Because we're close to the coast. It's windy here, I intentionally go out. If we have a tropical storm coming through, I'll intentionally go out and I'll train for the practice in the wind.
Speaker 5:Good for you. Wait. So it's not so much handoff, like scheduled. This is when we see each other per mile. If something feels right for somebody, they'll go ahead and hop in, so we will have a schedule and we will have a set rotation, but we will also be looking ahead.
Speaker 7:And if so for instance, there's a big climb coming up and there's one of the upright cyclists that has fresh legs, that is a really good climber they may jump in and they may take my turn in the rotation and then at the top, when we're going downhill and I can go down faster than the upright cyclist can, then I will hop in and I will take that turn. Or if we're flat and we're having really strong headwinds and I may take two turns and then everybody else will pick back up, just to give everyone else a little bit of an extra break. So we'll have a set rotation, but then it also will be kind of flexible so that we can really play to each person's strengths.
Speaker 8:I'm just fascinated with all these logistics of it. So are all of y'all from Texas or are you spread out across the United States, or how? How like we are spread out, yeah.
Speaker 7:We are spread out across the United States so we have met at other ultra cycling races and and other para cycling races, that sort of thing. We are going to try to have everyone in attendance at the world championships in November so we can all get together then. And then in the spring there's an event actually in Texas that we're going to try to get together at and try to get our crew out at that one too, because we will have to have weekends where we practice with the crew, because the handoffs getting one bike on the road while you're getting one rider off the road all of that it's like an F1 pit crew. Essentially it is very, very fast paced. Everybody has a very specific part to play.
Speaker 7:You're trying to get one rider going without missing a beat. You want somebody in their hand cycle or on their bike waiting on the side of the road when the rider before them comes up. The wheels have to overlap, but the person that is getting ready to go next. You also want them to have a you know, a running start. Essentially, so it's it. It's all very complex. And then you're dealing with a bunch of people with disabilities that may need help getting in and out of their hand cycle or their recumbent trike or whatever it may be. So it's, yeah, the logistics are insane. It's crazy.
Speaker 4:Exciting times. I know the Race Across America just ended, last week, I think.
Speaker 7:It did, yeah. So Race Across the West and Race Across America Solo Riders all start the same day, on Tuesday, and then on Saturday Race Across America Teams start, so they're going simultaneously, but Race Across the West ends earlier.
Speaker 4:An amazing challenge.
Speaker 7:Yes.
Speaker 4:Just another notch in your belt there, Wendy.
Speaker 7:Oh, I hope so yeah.
Speaker 4:We're going to be following and I hope we get to talk to you again before and after, and I will be doing the Princess Half Marathon in February. I was just going to ask that. I was going to finish up asking when you're going to be back at Disney. Princess, half huh.
Speaker 7:Princess half. Yes, we're actually going to Disney this week for just a little trip. We needed it to decompress from race across the West. But the next Disney race I'm doing will be the princess half. So I'm already registered. I registered with the charity. So, yeah, I'm doing will be the princess half. So I'm already registered. I registered with the charity. Um, so yeah. So I'm excited about that because we haven't done a Disney race in quite a while, because I've been so involved with all the ultra cycling stuff.
Speaker 4:We are going to look for you there. I'll be there. I'll be there. I don't know who else plans to come.
Speaker 7:Awesome, I'm definitely going to look for you there. Yeah, I'm really. I'm so looking forward to seeing all of my run Disney friends. So, I don't. Yeah, that'll be awesome.
Speaker 4:Well, wendy Larson, world champion. I love saying that. That's right, I've been talking with a world champion, congratulations. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. We appreciate it and we wish you all the best.
Speaker 7:Thank you so much for spending some time with us. We appreciate it and we wish you all the best. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4:It's always fun to talk with y'all. Well, I get it. I get a huge kick. If you couldn't tell, I get a huge kick out of talking with Wendy. What a champion, what an amazing individual, and I'm just delighted that she gets a chance to stop by and chat with us. We wish her a lot of luck on that race across America. It's still a year out, but it'll be here before she knows it and we'll be following along. Let us see here, friends, what have we got going on? We talked about the shop reopening Not quite yet. We're getting real close. Hopefully, before we talk with you again, the shop will be back open. When it does open, we won't have a whole lot of merchandise right now. We have ordered hats and visors. They should be here in less than a month, in less than a month, and we're going to have a pre-order for shirts pretty soon. That's as definite as I can be right now. Pretty soon, that's a that's a specific time in it. Pretty soon. Okay, greg, you got something you want to tell us about yeah, bob.
Speaker 3:so so here's the thing. Yeah, right, we want to take this time of the podcast to wish our wonderful friend, fellow podcaster and one of our absolute favorite run least top five, john Pelkey. Happy birthday, my friend. I hope you had an absolutely wonderful day, a wonderful celebration. I hope you listened to the original cast recording of 1776, and maybe you and Riley had an opportunity to talk on the phone about the Kennedy assassination some more. But we hope you had a wonderful day and we can't wait to see you soon.
Speaker 4:I will see John on the day this podcast is released. John is the race announcer at the St Petersburg Pier four-mile race on the 4th of July, so I look forward to seeing him there and as well as some other Run Disney friends I know that are going to be there. Let us see Upcoming episodes. We plan to have some. We're just not sure. We're just not sure right now. Who's going to be with us next week.
Speaker 3:That's not a tease. I don't know what is.
Speaker 4:Bob. We have a couple of ideas, but I don't have any confirmation yet. But we'll be here. I promise it'll be week two of marathon training, so we'll be here. All right, my friends, it's time for the race report. Race report brought to you by Stoked Metabolic Training, our friend coach Tom Stokes. Stokesfit slash Rise andruncoaching is the website Link at the top of the Facebook group for a discount on Tom's one-on-one coaching. And this is the last week. Monday, july 8th, is the beginning of the Stoked Summer Challenge and the end of the discount to join that eight-week challenge. The price for Rise and Run Friends right now is $47, but on Monday that price goes away. I don't even know if Tom will take anybody else after that, but if he does, it'll revert back to the full $97 price.
Speaker 4:I've been doing it, I've been keeping up, I can feel it, I feel good, I've dropped some pounds, and so I'm pretty excited. We got a head start. Some of us did, so that's going well. I hope you got a chance to sign up for it and if not, it's not too late. Let's take a look at the races for the week. Let's start on Thursday somewhere in New Jersey. John, why don't you tell us about it? I?
Speaker 6:ran the Brookdale Shopper 8 Tom Fleming Sunset Classic. This race has been going on for at least 30 something years in my town, runs by my house. I only started doing it in the last couple of years, when I'm not hurting myself before training starts, which has been a theme for me, which I'm hoping doesn't happen again. But yeah, it's a race I did. It's a fun race around town. Five miler runs through Bloomfield and Glen Ridge. They call it the Sunset Classic because we start at 730 at night and it's always the last Thursday of June, which is kind of like a pre-kickoff before 4th of July weekend. It's a real fun race. I had fun. I mean I had a goal of trying to get under an hour. I didn't make it, but I was fine. I did it in about an hour or two Hour and two minutes. Okay, that's good, john. I didn't make it but I was fine, I did it in about an hour or two.
Speaker 4:An hour and two minutes.
Speaker 6:Met a lot of people on the course, Stopped, talked to them and hung out. That kind of maybe slowed me down a little bit, but not that much.
Speaker 3:John, I have a question, Since this race runs by your house, did you just start the race at your house so you didn't have to go to the start, or did you stop and make that?
Speaker 4:your finish line.
Speaker 3:Or did you do the whole five miles?
Speaker 6:I could have stopped at my house for a little bit, waited for the elites to come by and then just hop back in Because there was no cheater mats anywhere else. There was only one at the start and the finish. Ah, you know. But yeah, it's one of those things. I do get an extra like aid. Stop if I, if you want to call it, or or an extra corral P I mean at least you'd be, you know, you'd be comfortable, you know. Yeah, right, right, right there. You know it's a clean bathroom.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 6:It was a good thing. Afterwards, hot dogs.
Speaker 4:Takis what Hot dogs and what.
Speaker 6:What are they called, takis, those little?
Speaker 2:chips, taki chips, yeah Taki, I don't know, Lime and chili or lemon and chili.
Speaker 6:Oh, yes, yes, yes. Chip things. Ice cream. And then you go across, you walk like another quarter of a mile to the pub and you get to Yingling's. Well, I picked Yingling over Coors Light, which is a good choice, I think. Good call, yeah, good call.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, I'm glad you enjoyed it, john. That's a good way to start off the race report. Let's go to Friday, to Akron, ohio, the National Interstate 8K Lori ran that. Lori's been running great lately, got a little emotional on this one because she won't be running here again until next year. She's going to miss the Akron Marathon in September because she's getting her right knee replaced. She's only missed three years of running this particular race in his 21-year history. So it's a little upsetting. Lori, of course I get it. I will be happy to help you however I can, but you're going to be okay. You just have to be patient and take baby steps, but you will be back. There is life as a runner after having your knee replaced there is now. You know, five years ago that wouldn't have been possible, but now, with the advances in surgery, we can get back out there. Let's move now to Saturday in Charlotte, north Carolina, the Run the South Half Marathon and joining us in the race report spotlight our friend Kristen who finished that race. Hiya, kristen, how you doing.
Speaker 9:Hey there, Bob. Yeah, I'm doing great. Thanks. I'm so excited to be here. I love this podcast.
Speaker 4:That's awesome, always good to hear. We love the fact that you're part of the Rise and Run family, kristen, and we appreciate it. You're a big part of it. You're a big contributor on Facebook and on Zoom and it's good to have you here. Ok, let's. I don't know, I always think I should change things up a little bit, but I like the answers I get to this first question. It's a standard first question.
Speaker 9:How did Kristen get started running? Yeah, so I think. Um, so back in college I cheered and I ran two miles almost every day, but I never thought of it being a runner. I just like went out and did my two mile loop and came back and, um, after college, several of my friends got into running races and, uh, they were fast people and I was like well, I'm not a runner, Like that's crazy, I would never be like that. And one of my really good friends he started running, doing run Disney races in 2010. And so I was like that's pretty cool that he does that, but I'm not a runner, so I'm never going to go and do that. And over time, he eventually wore on me to try and do a half marathon, and so I signed up for my first half marathon with my brother. It was the Savannah half marathon. It was a rock and roll race back in 2015.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 9:And so I trained for that and I had a hell Higdon plan and, you know, just went out and ran. I didn't always do my short runs, but I always did my long runs. When you do that and your body's not adapted to running, you can get injured, and so I ended up getting a stress fracture. When I was doing a long run in New York City when I was visiting some friends where I used to live, and I was really disappointed, the doctor was like you can't do this race. It was just a few weeks out from the. It was my 11 mile run.
Speaker 9:It was a few weeks out from the race and I was like, no, but this is what I've been working towards and I want to do this. And that friend his name's Dan, no-transcript, wherever you need to go. So my brother was still going to do the race and so I decided, well, since we're going down, I might as well walk it and I guess I'll just stop at a medical tent if I can't make it. And, uh, I made it and I wasn't the only person walking and it blew my mind. Um, I had a completely different expectation for what the race environment would look like. So, um, I um signed up for my second half marathon the following year in Charlotte, uh, which is where I live, and um I also had signed up for the half Disney half marathon for marathon weekend in 2017. That's when it got canceled with the rainstorm.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's right, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, the lightning.
Speaker 9:So, but that's kind of how it started, and then I got hooked on Run Disney after that.
Speaker 4:So Welcome to the club. Yes, exactly A lot of that going around. We'll get back to when you're going to get to Disney again, but let's focus in on this weekend. Tell us about the Run, the South Half Marathon.
Speaker 9:Yeah, so Run. The South Half Marathon is a race that's held in Charlotte. It's in June, which gets really hot here, so last year the race was actually a relatively cool day for June, so it was actually not terrible. This year was a little bit of a different story, but they call it the hottest half here. I think it's probably the only half marathon we have in Charlotte throughout the summertime, but it takes place on a greenway, which is nice.
Speaker 9:I've never understood why they choose the course in the way that they do, but because it's on the greenway, it's a relatively flat course, which is unusual to Charlotte, but the first half of it is it's like you start in the middle and then you run one direction a quarter of the way and then run back to the middle and then run the opposite direction a quarter of the way and come run back to the middle and then run the opposite direction a quarter of the way. Okay, if that makes sense. It's like how the course, but the first half is in trees and then the second half is not in all trees, so I always wonder why they don't flip that just because the other way, yeah, right yeah, so it was a really hot day on saturday.
Speaker 9:Um, when we finished the race, it was, I think my car was showing like 89 or 90 degrees. Uh, we had a lot of people were not feeling well on the course, like I think I was giving it. I gave salt tabs out to several people. That just kind of rough, rough go of it. Um, and I know when you get on our Facebook groups and everything that everyone's talking about the heat and this race is just so important that you learn what your limits are and you learn how to hydrate and then you just have to slow down so, um, so I was really lucky at the start line for this race. Um, we have a little, there's a little run Disney Charlotte group club.
Speaker 9:It has a Facebook group and I met them at a half marathon last year and um, so I met up with some of them beforehand and then at the start line we met another girl and one of the things when you're in this community I think is funny you notice a gym boss. And a gym boss means run, walk right.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 9:So I asked her. I said, oh, do you do Galloway running? And she said, oh, yeah, absolutely, Um. So I ended up spending the whole race with her. She's working on her 50 states half marathon race and this was state 46 for her.
Speaker 4:Well on her way.
Speaker 9:Yeah, exactly, she was almost done. She's going to be done in a couple months, but she was starting to train for Dopey this coming year. So it was really fun to get to spend time with her, but we ended up essentially at the end just walking the whole thing because it was. It was just not worth it to push it and we were in the same location.
Speaker 4:So, it was just a really it made for a really really fun day and a really fun race. Yeah, I did one in Charlotte I. This is not the same race I did, because the way you described it it's different, but it was the same organization run the South. And I remember the medals just said suck it up, buttercup on them. And I had a hard time and one of the things that I remember about the one I did it was mostly flat but at the end, like the last mile, was a wicked hill. I mean it was awful, but so obviously this has changed. But golly, yeah, it sure does get warm. Uh, let's see you. So you made a bunch of new friends and you're going to meet up with them in January.
Speaker 9:Yes, yes, I am. Yeah, we exchanged numbers and we're going to meet up um up when we're at Disney this coming January.
Speaker 4:You need to bring them to our meetup.
Speaker 9:Yes, no, I told them about the podcast.
Speaker 7:And.
Speaker 9:I'm going to send. I was like I told her, when the next episode comes out, I'll send it. So this is exciting to share this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that'd be great, let's see. The other thing I remember seeing is you got some gooders when you finished this race, but they didn't end up with you.
Speaker 9:No, they did not. I think they bribe you for this race by. You get a T-shirt and a pair of gooders if you sign up to do this race, which for me is all the motivation I need on top of a medal to come and get some hot miles in.
Speaker 4:But yeah, when I got home I let my dog wear them and I thought they looked pretty cool. They look pretty good. I just remembered, and just apropos of nothing, we got a cup. You know those soft plastic cups almost made of the same kind of material as our rise and run wristbands. I still use it almost every day. It's my standard water cup and it does. It says right on there run South and suck it up buttercup.
Speaker 9:That's a great thing yeah it is Um.
Speaker 4:so you're obviously back at Disney in January. Will you be there before then?
Speaker 9:No, I've always wanted to do wine and dine, but I haven't gotten to do that one yet. It's not going anywhere, yeah, you're young, you'll have other chances.
Speaker 6:I hear you're an ambassador for the Charlotte Marathon.
Speaker 9:Yeah, actually this year I'm an ambassador for the Charlotte Marathon. It happens on November 16th, so one of their marketing strategies they do is just have people from the local running community act as ambassadors, host events at run clubs and attend all of our local races to promote the Charlotte Marathon, ask questions and give information. So, yeah, I'm really excited to get to serve as an ambassador this year to people and share, share the word. Charlotte has a really really awesome running scene and a running community. It's very popular and the race is a really good race. It's really well done.
Speaker 6:It's a flat, it's a flat course, right.
Speaker 9:Oh yeah, super flat. Where you come to get your hill workout.
Speaker 4:I will tell you Charlotte's a great area to visit.
Speaker 9:It truly is like, and they try to make the race as accessible to people as possible. So there's a half marathon, there's a 5k, the marathon, and then there's also a relay, and the relay is really fun. I did that a couple years ago with a group of friends and unfortunately two of the five got sick that day, so two of us picked up the second segment, so we did about 10 miles each and I got to run the back half because I've not done the marathon before, I've only done the half, and it is a party back there.
Speaker 4:It's entirely different.
Speaker 9:Oh yeah, it's so cool. So if you're on your 50 state journey or you're in the area and you're thinking about a race, or you just want to come down to Charlotte, it's it really is a good race and it's very professionally put on all right, is Chiquita involved at all?
Speaker 6:no, they left Charlotte a while ago. I remember when I found this in the big Chiquita building yep, yeah, they left.
Speaker 9:Uh, when did they? They were not here for very long.
Speaker 6:They left a few years ago yeah, it's next to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, right? I think so, yeah.
Speaker 9:Okay, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 6:Get your bananas there. I figured it'd be a good place to that's right. Yeah, you would think They'd be a good run sponsor, wouldn't they?
Speaker 9:Yeah, they would yeah, but the start isn't too.
Speaker 4:All right, kristen, we're going to let you go. Thank you for spending some time with us and thanks for a great description of the race. That sounds good and we'll keep on let us know about the marathon. How that's going on too. Sounds great. Thanks, kristen. And Bryce was also at that race and, as you know, friends, we don't necessarily record these things in order.
Speaker 4:We talked to Kristen earlier this evening and just before we got to the spotlight she sent me a note talking about the marathon, the Charlotte Marathon, that she was telling us about. There's a discount code and it really is a lovely place to run. The city of Charlotte really is nice. Weather should be okay. It can be cold in November there. Anyway, if you're interested in that race, look for it. Disc cold in November there. Anyway, if you're interested in that race, look for it. Discount code KRISTIN10. She spells Kristen, k-r-i-s-t-i-n. Kristen10. No spaces in there. 10% off of your race registration. Moving to New York the Front Runters New York LGBT Pride Run. A four miler Grace was there Wouldn't have a good time. Not worry about chasing a time goal in this one, which is wise when it's hot and humid throughout most of the US. Very happy with how the race went. Great post-race festival included popsicles, schmackeries, cookies. Help me out somebody from New York. Schmackeries, schmackeries cookies, help me out somebody from New York. Schmackeries, schmackeries, schmackeries, yeah, schmackeries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, schmackeries, there's a bakery in Hell's Kitchen. Okay, and I will say, until I was introduced to Gideon's, schmackeries was my top cookie that.
Speaker 4:I've ever had.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so yeah, if you're ever in new york city in the hell's kitchen area by the theater district, uh, definitely go check it out there. They're really, really good that's a.
Speaker 4:That's a pretty good treat then for the end of the race and in addition to and grace says she's not normally one for the rainbow bagel, but she'll make an exception for this race. Yeah, I, I've seen them, never had one.
Speaker 6:I imagine they taste just like a regular bagel. It's like the green ones for St Patrick's Day.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's just food coloring, isn't it John?
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's pretty much it. Our friend Taylor ran the Red, White and Brew 5K in Ashburn, Virginia. She did it while pushing Emmy in a stroller. This is a new course, Taylor says she pulled a jack. Jack's a verb. Now Taylor thinks she's one of the first to say that. Greg, we may have to investigate.
Speaker 5:I love it. I'm a verb. Yeah, pulled a jack. That's good. It's like Google. That's a I'm a verb.
Speaker 4:Pulled a jack.
Speaker 5:That's good.
Speaker 3:It's like Google, you Googled it. I'm sorry it's a noun.
Speaker 4:Pulled is a verb Jack's a noun in that case. So you're still a noun, but you're a noun other than you're known for something else.
Speaker 3:You're more than a proper noun.
Speaker 4:That's right when people say pulled a jack. Anyway, cloudy weather for this one that helps. Humidity was still high, of course, uh, doing really well. She was pushing Emmy in the stroller, even on track for a PR, but the last half mile was uphill and the wind was coming right at him. That makes the drag and the stroller even tougher to push. Altogether Very proud Finished this 5k in under 30 minutes pushing a stroller. That's very, very good. First time she's ever done that. The stroller Little princess in the stroller on the hill kept saying Mommy, go faster. And Taylor did the best she could and Taylor just celebrated the big birthday. So happy birthday, taylor. Yeah, first race in a new age group, so good job.
Speaker 4:Let's go to Lincoln, new Hampshire, the Vineyard at River Walk, wine Run. Lauren and Laurie were there. Everybody's talking about humidity this time of year, of course, understandable. Still, the views of the White Mountains were gorgeous. They walked up some of the hills ran. The views of the White Mountains were gorgeous. They walked up some of the hills ran the majority of the time. Happy to get the free wine souvenir cup apparel and the medal for this. One doubles as a coaster for your wine glass. How appropriate. How appropriate Finishing up.
Speaker 4:Saturday in Gilbert, arizona, the Arizona Sunrise Series race number four Molly was there, not sure who thought it was a good idea to hold races in Arizona in July. First mile was great and the sun came up. That was the end of that. Still, she and the group she was with finished. Good job. Let's go to Sunday, indianapolis, indiana. Kaylee. Kaylee ran the she powered 10K Beautiful day. She usually does this distance with walk breaks at the water stops and just at the water stops, but after mile four she was going back and forth with somebody doing run-walk intervals so she switched to a 90-30 run-walk interval to the finish. Didn't improve her POT, but she's feeling a lot better and her words not walking like an elderly cowboy the day after the race. So that's a different type of progress. Good for her. By the way, the photo of the medal for this thing was huge. I mean it's square. It rivals Space Coast medals in size. I think if Kaylee had.
Speaker 4:I think it was bigger it might have been. Yeah, it was, it's, huge. Total surface area it probably was, I think, if Kaylee had held it up in front of her face. Total surface area it probably was, I think, if Kelly had held it up in front of her face, we wouldn't have been able to see her.
Speaker 4:It was that big. Yeah, yeah, that's impressive. Cambridge, massachusetts, the Cambridge classic 5k Avery was there. St Louis, missouri, chris. Chris with Woody and Jesse ran the Macklin mile. Woody and Jesse are Chris's beagles and they won the dog mile edition finishing and I am really impressed with this under seven minutes. I didn't know beagles could run a mile in under seven minutes. Maybe I should have. They're hunting dogs, but that's impressive. Hey, jesse said a PR. Apparently, the pups were complaining to Chris that he held him back. There's a cool medal on this thing. It looks like it's a piece of paper jagged at the bottom. It looks neat and on it it lists every possible way to measure a mile, including inches. Did you realize that a mile was 80 chains?
Speaker 6:80 chains 80 chains.
Speaker 4:80 chains Apparently, and I had to look this up, my friends, I am not trying to fool anyone here. There are 10 chains to a furlong, oh, and 10 furlongs to a mile. No 8 furlongs to a mile, 8 furlongs to a mile. So this was 80 chains long.
Speaker 3:I want Chris now to get two more dogs to race with him and then name them Prospector and Bullseye, and then you have the entire Woody's Roundup gang.
Speaker 4:There you go, there you go. That was neat. We had a race on Monday. It was Canada Day, as mentioned at the top of the episode 15K, Canada Day. 15k in Edmonton, Alberta. Dan ran this one because Tanya was benched with a broken leg and Tanya get better soon, my friend, I know you're healing up. She volunteered for this one at the water station. It was rainy and this was Dan's first 15K. So I just want to acknowledge in general, we had a group of friends who were posting every day in June that they were doing their June running streaks. I don't have all the names so I'm not going to mention any of the names. But congratulations, ladies, I know you know who you are. Well done, All right, my friends, and if you run, you know you are our friend.
Speaker 4:Episode 145 of the Rise and Run podcast is coming to an end. This normally would be a Zoom week. However, with the Independence Day holiday, most folks in the US are busy either barbecuing or watching fireworks. So we're going to put the Zoom call off until the 11th and then we'll pick up the schedule from there. It's an exciting time. Training has begun. Go with it, Stick with it, Do the best you can Until we see you again, which I hope will be soon. Happy running.
Speaker 3:The Rise and Run podcast discusses general information about Run Disney and is in no way affiliated with Run Disney or the Walt Disney Company. Any information or advice discussed on this podcast should not be considered medical advice and should always consult with your healthcare provider or event organizer.
