Yes It’s Random, But We’re In Sweden!

Hey that folks.

It is Sunday, August thirty first, and picture this Amy and TJ sitting in a hotel room and Stockholm, Sweden, in white robes, a cup of coffee in robox, hand, a metal around my neck.

Now with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. I just described to you the exact scene. And there's a reason we are sitting like this looking like this. There's a metal, a cup of coffee, and two folks in robes because we just actually did something robes we should maybe be a little more proud of and not just say all, wait, runner, it's no big deal. We just completed the Stockholm half marathon yesterday.

You know, it is pretty cool. And I was it's one of those things where I think, whatever you do in life, sometimes you have to remind yourself when you're doing it that it's actually pretty cool that you're doing it, especially when it's a struggle. But I was actively thinking about that yesterday. I was like, I'm in Sweden and I'm running a half marathon right now, that's a kind

Explain that's a very good reason why we end up in random places. But as we sit here, Rodes is doing great, great, great, great physically, how are you feeling? You had to tell there's always something.

I actually, for the first time, there's nothing. I am fine head to toe.

And we say this. Marathons are the ones that do us in at least physically. We're not usually too bad off after a half marathon. We've been doing this a while and that's great, and we're blessed to have that. This was a tougher half marat the toughest half marathon for me because I've been injured, and we'll get into the aftermath of that, which was ugly and nasty and involved the toilet. We'll explain that. But my feet are actually killing me. But we made it through. But we

No, we usually have at least one daughter tagging along, sometimes all three, and then sometimes some of their friends come with them as well, so we usually have a gaggle of teens and young adults with us.

So this was an opportunity where we were looking at the schedule earlier this year and we were like, Okay, we're going here with Ava, We're going here with Sabine, and Lisa is going to roll here and then we're going to see anal. So we're planning all these things and we realized, ah, we haven't done a lot for ourselves. We look up for something to do and this was random. We get into a you can explain as best and however you want to how we get into these moods

Look your look and I have I've admired this in you, and I've it's attractive to me. You have. I've joked about it. But you do have some OCD and it's a serious disorder for some, but you're low on the spectrum, but you have it enough where you like things a certain way, and so sometimes when you get in these more relaxed moods, you're like, you know what I'm not I'm not going to say, just book it, just wherever

We ended up because of that.

Oh it's rome me really, And then the next day I will say, you know, I actually booked that that trip, and you're like, did you? I was like, no, Like,

Now, this is what you have to know about this one, folks. I was in that mindset. But we were both looking around for things, and I gave you option. I think we were actually getting frustrated with being unable to find something that timing didn't work out. I sent you probably no more than three, but maybe two real options, and one of them and this was, Hey, we were looking

Right. So I was laughing because the places we've gone have been well, very white, and we were talking about maybe going to a place that had more diversity, just some you know, black folks, some black folks. And then when one of your options was Stockholm, I started laughing.

Why it's a diverse country.

Everyone looks like me.

It's so funny, so weird. Look my whole life career. I mean, I'm used to being around and being the only black guy. I'm not that's in a room, not usually being the only black guy in a country in a seventeen block area. As we walk around and we talked about, look, that's fine. I am twenty five thousand, ran this half marathon yesterday. I can remember the four black people I saw, and if you put them in a lineup, I could pick them out.

I actually could too.

The two brothers that were running together, that was one sister.

With them a lot for the whole time. I feel like I was in between them half the time I was running.

I couldn't figure them out how they were running. But then there was a sister that looked like Amanda Gorman to me. She had the long brands. Yeah, and then there was another system. Yeah, that's all. I remember.

You just nailed all four who I saw twenty five thousand people and me, right, so you gave me. I forgot what the other options were. But when you said half marathon, that was the hook. And I have been struggling. I think if anyone has been listening to this podcast, they know that I the last my last couple of marathons have been really, really tough and have actually really shaken my confidence as a runner because I just felt like I couldn't trust my body. I didn't know what

And then we always look at for somewhere to go, something new, something neither of us have ever been to, So Stockholm made sense. And yes, half marathon, I'm trying to get ready for the New York City Marathon in November, so this all made perfect, perfect sense. Now we get here, here's one thing, we haven't stopped working. By the way, folks,

Right, so it's nice because we actually get to sleep in, but then we did not account for the fact that we would be having to work all throughout the day, where normally you would want to be sightseeing and going around and looking at stuff. So what we've done is we go out for a couple hours, then we come back and work. Then we go out for a couple hours, can we come back and work. So the first day

That was our free day.

It's our free day where we had already recorded some podcasts so we didn't have to work on Saturday. But then we worked our bodies for two hours straight.

And while Robes has been struggling with your stomach that you've talked about those well documented incidents, my issue has been my foot. First the achilles, which I finally got better, and then I had a foot sprain that hit me last year. Was it August?

Yeah, because you were overcompensating for your achilles, But that was August, right, yeah?

So yes, Okay, So you all remember that I ended up in an ambulance at the end of the Chicago Marathon. That was one year ago this month as well.

No, that was early October was the Chicago's early.

So that injury, which is almost a full year ago now is the same issue giving me a problem here? And this is a race, and we got going, and we will take it in chronological order of the day when we the race, first of all, wasn't until three in the afternoon, which is bizarre any runner listening has done a race, Like what the hell I was?

I was spiraling about what to eat and maybe more importantly, what not to eat, because yes, all those stomach issues I just talked about, like that's a huge concern for any run, and so I just thought, what is one? I know me and I need food, So there's no way I could just fast all day and then run

No, I wasn't a big I wasn't. I don't do that even in the morning, no matter.

When you have boundless energy. I don't understand.

I don't know what that. I just don't like stuff on my stomach when I'm running like that. I didn't stop at all for water station yesterday during the race. I don't think you stop.

I stopped at one and I just I literally just took a small sweag. Look what I have to say. The weather not perfect for you for summer vacation, but perfect for running. It was mid sixties overcast, so I couldn't have asked for better weather. That has a huge impact on my physical being, and so it's true for just about any runners. So that was ideal conditions.

That was an adjustment for folks like us because you actually have to go to bed so early the night before usually because you're getting up at three four am to try to maybe travel over to get to an area. So for us to not have to be somewhere until three, we happen to have a place where staying a hotel. Literally we could walk out the door, make a left, and within five minutes we were at our starting corral.

It was remarks, that was beautiful.

Now you found this out. The reason they started so late, I kind of applaud them for it. It makes sense.

They don't want to disrupt the city. So the fact is if they when they do it later. They truncate the amount of time they allow runners to run, so basically and they were like clockwork. I mean when they say the start time was for each corral, basically you get a corral number or a corral letter. It was right on time. And and so I think the first gral was at three thirty. We ended up running at three fifty and at seven pm it's done. It's over. If you have not finished the race, bye, too bad,

And this isn't a New York city, right that spread out the way we are that has all of the public trends that we have where people can still get around. Hell, every Saturday in August they shut down what fittety streets?

Yeah it's Park Avenue.

Yeah, they shut it down, and the city functions just fine. Here it's a little different. Two and a half million people. You got a few main arteries where this race is running. You shut those down, the city's going to shut down, right, So I thought that was all. I didn't think about that. We were thinking, well they do that. They have a.

Verious The Scandinavians are efficient, they really are. And you really get a sense of the culture. And when you see even how people run in the race, you get a sense of how different cities and different cultures are. So it was kind of interesting running. And by the way, when we went to go get our bibs the day before, which is what runners do, you go and you get your your number and your packet so that you're official

The one the only American reference saw was a guy who had a tag on the back of his shirt that said fuck Trump. Yes, even but that could have been from anywhere. Yes, that was I don't know why, and I'm saying because against the President, I'm saying something about that made it feel like home. As crazy as that's not, I was like, Oh, I'm used to seeing that sentiment. That's okay.

But what was really interesting is that when you run American races, and granted we're running races in New York and Chicago, where you've got serious runners who are really caring about their about pring getting a personal record, and I was like thinking, hey, I'm feeling pretty good. And the moment I started off, I was like, I'm feeling really good. I could maybe best my best. The problem was,

Finally I had to hit that lady in the face.

I did well. She came around. I was like, maybe I shouldn't have done it.

She came around what she was running, having.

Real space for her. Then I realized I won't do that again. But I was just so excited to actually be in my actual gait, to be running at the pace I wanted to be running at. It was a short little sprint over the bridge, but I was so happy to be running. I felt like I was holding back the entire run.

So our excitement about this race was the fact that we got a tour of Stockholm the way most people can't, because we literally ran thirteen miles around the city. So we were very excited about that. It was I will say this might be the most polite race I've ever run, in that the people around were not pushing and shoving and being asses like we have often seen in raising.

Nobody cared about their time, and I guess.

We ran most of our races in New York, but it was that part of the experience I liked. This might be a close second or competitor for first of the worst runs I've ever had and experiences I've ever had running, and that had to do not with necessarily the people the temperature, but it had to do with the course in particular. And even though we finished, the weather was great, the people were great and had a great experience. Why in God's name did I spend so much of my evening at the toilet?

Before we go to break, I have to tell you about new leggings I've been living in lately. They're from this brand called Tona, and fun fact here, they were actually designed by the same visionary behind Lululemon, so from that alone, you already know they're going to be pretty good. These leggings feel like a second skin. They're super flattering, super comfortable, and somehow still supportive. I've been wearing them on my warning runs and they I've quickly become my

Some seven eight nine?

Maybe I actually don't have account I mean official half marathons, because when you're training for every marathon that we've run, you run at least I don't know, the equip run at least two, and then you do beyond it. So I have absolutely lost count.

I think that's right. I should know because of the metal count we have at the house, But I think seven eight or nine.

We do keep all of our medals displayed, so we should go back and count because I really don't know how many half marathons I've run.

We'll go through all this and not keep your metal We have them displayed, folks. Yes, they are up on the wall.

We bought as I packed. Nikki is the one who showed me this very cool, my friend Nikki, who also is a runner, how you can put a metal rod up on your wall and just display your medals. My daughters came in and made fun of me, like really, mom, are you like eight years old with your gymnastics medals? And I said to them, you run a half marathon, you run a marathon, and then you tell me what you want to do with those medals.

And yeah, I got tattoos to commemorate because I ain't ever gonna forget and stop reminding y'all, but I ran a marathon. At some point, you talked about bid pick up. Now, this is something we kind of were grading or judging Stockholm half Marathon by New York City half marathon and marathon standards, and there were some things we saw is that hey, New York can learn from this, like hey, Stockholm can learn from New York. One thing we loved they put the names on the bibs. Everybody's first name

You so, I know that you can get them printed out for the for the like put it on your back. But the fact that everyone's bib looked the same and everyone had their first name, what it made it seem for me was just intimate and communal. I felt like I knew the people I was running with. When you see someone's name and you put it to their face, you feel like you know them, you're with friends. It created a much different atmosphere.

And the only things I've understood that people have said to me in Swedish this week was TJ when they said my name. You know, I'm saying. When we were running, I hear them and then they say my name. I know they're rooting for me. That's the only to hear someone from Stockholm yell out my name to it was Lo.

It was Lou, you had Lou on your eye.

But to hear that as you're going to your point of it being personal, that was very cool. The thing that they absolutely got wrong was the bip pick up situation that you mentioned. There was a line that's longer than you can imagine that we actually left and came back later and it was gone. But there was some kind of a mishap, if you will, to where they tell everybody come between opening and three o'clock because after

Well, well, the funny thing was I didn't look at the directive. So it was open from eleven to eight, and they said after three pm it gets really busy, so try to get here before then. So we got there at noon, not knowing I hadn't read that it was hours long. The line. We got there at what four five, and there was no one there, and that's when the guy said, you're the first American I've seen.

I guess that's a little inside baseball, but the way these things are set up. Usually have these big expo centers where you know shoe companies and sock company. Company related to running has these booth set up you can go in and buy stuff. Usually you can just go into that and then go get your bib when you feel like it in the correct line. This time you had to get your bib before you go into the expo. I've never seen one set up like that. It was awful.

Again, I just think this was It's a different vibe here and I think it was more casual and I appreciate the fact that people have different running skill sets, but I was frustrated because it was narrow and if you were somebody who wanted to run and who had trained to run the whole race, which is what I would think you normally would do when you say you're going to run a half marathon, when people start walking at two miles and more and more and more, and by the time we were at ten miles. I mean

You're going walk two miles. In two miles now, people have injuries. Sometimes you just stretch it out totally again, and we have seen that, and we know what that looks like.

And we've been that. Not in two miles, no, but yes, but twenty two miles.

If that was your issue. At two miles, people just don't move over, get out the way. They still think this is an experience for them as a walker. In the middle of the race, there was a couple of women just walking almost casually, as if it was just a hanging out and a walk in the park. So some of that was obviously difficult for folks who have flown thousands of miles and train for months to come here and do this thing. I get that that was

Yeah, And there were a lot of twists and turns which were actually beautiful and cool, and there were a lot of hills that I wasn't expecting that were actually really I thought, gorgeous. But to your point, it's those bottlenecks. I mean, if you can envision in basically a a bike lane with two lanes coming and going, it got that narrow. It was I was like, how is this possible?

And even on some of those bottlenecks you just mentioned those walkers that we just mentioned, we're still on those, so now you have people walking taking up lanes that you don't even have anymore. That was so so frustrating, it was killer. It was. And then of course the one lady, and this was I don't know sometimes what people are thinking or they're not and whatever experience they're having,

She It was like around mile nine, eight or nine.

She stopped cold in front of me. Imagine driving forty miles an hour behind somebody half a car link and they just stop and just throwing the brakes. She stopped. She didn't slow, she didn't look around, she just stopped running. And to keep from running over her, I had to adjust in a very awkward way with my feet once again, ended up probably what fifteen feet off the course, off in the.

Grass, screaming from my air pods. And I was and I turned around and I saw you flying off the course, and I was like, oh my god, what just happened?

So this is all for me. You come all this way, and you do all this training, and I'm already have a bad foot, and something like that happened. I was furious at that woman. She doesn't no, obviously, but those things added up. If this was a training run, I told you, I probably would have stopped at mile seven to eight, certainly.

Nine, and said, yeah, when that happened, for sure.

Can't go any farther. I'm done. I would have, but because of this, and who knows what damage I do to my foot now. But here we are. We finished, got to the end. I think after was at the New York Marathon. You immediately went to the right, put your head down because you were abut to start puking, so which I did, comes over and starts talking to you and wants to say how are you doing and all this. It's the last thing you want. And at that time it was an older guy, and I'll say, hey, man,

Yeah, because you were I mean, you were in significant pain and you just needed a beat. And I was like, he's fine, he's injured. Does he need a wheelchair? Does he? I was like, no, he does not. He will be all right. We just need a second, please just a second. Just please give him some space.

I love, and I've done that to you several times. I look at you in certain situations, you know, either handle it not well, or I pissed or I'm about to get Please just take care of this. But we make it out of there very slowly. I can barely really, I could barely walk it that you. Yeah, Well, we get up to it and I can't calm down. I can't get to go down. I got total shakes, chills, My stomach is jecked and nothing's in it. By the way,

I do, and I know that feeling of just that unbelievable nausea when you've your body is in trauma. Your body has been taxed for whether whether it's an injury or whether it was just putting itself through so much with the run itself you were. I know that's exactly how I felt at mile twenty two all the way until we like I puked at a final time at the Fulton subway station. So I know, your body just has to get it out, and so sure enough, you had to get it out.

And that's what we were again. It was fresh on our minds, and I felt confident about what was wrong because I was in an ambulance with a nurse who was explaining it to me in Chicago. He said, your body is in trauma. It is trying to fight it off. That's why you have the fever. It's fighting That's why you have the chills, and that's why you feel like you got a puke. But that's she was saying. That's a good thing.

It's a good sign because your body is healing it your body.

Is reacting and healing. And sure enough, on the back of that ambulance, I was up chucking, and sure enough in here because we were getting dressed and getting ready.

For we had dinner at eight fau.

I said, Babs, give me a few momentutes, just give me a few moments, and I was I wanted to be in fetal position and not walking around.

It was awful, I know.

And it wasn't even the feeling anymore. It was the stomach that hadn't settled down from the trauma and the whole thing going on.

And I told you the way you felt, I was like, that is why I am so afraid to run another marathon, because it is the worst feeling in the world. But yes, I know that that you know. And we always have said this. We wish we remembered her name, the kind woman in the ambulance and ch But saying that to you is such a reassurance because you actually feel like you're gonna die and you're like okay, this is my body healing itself. This is my body is supposed to do.

So this was we finished the race at what time? Baby?

Uh?

Six?

Around six? So? And I remember this particular because the dinner reservation was for eight. And I yelled in and said, babe, what because we have you had? You were sitting there, sitting dressed, waiting.

I think rose in my hand.

Now, I think you had your personal on yours. You were ready to go. So she's waiting on me. And I yelled out, what time is it? And you told me it was seven forty eight and the reservation was around the corner, so that wasn't any issue. And I said, babe, let me have these last seven minutes. So I was thinking it was going to be seven fifty five.

You said, I'll be out and seven to fifty five ready.

To go, all right? And then I walked in here to say that to you, and I remember that the time had changed by one minute and it was now seven forty nine. I said, oh, now, I only got six minutes to get this worked out. And I go back to the back and I'm just waiting. I think I was actually posting something on Instagram. I was just waiting, and sure enough the moment came, and I mean everything came out.

You felt so much better.

Well the first thing I said when I came out, well, baby, I certainly feel better.

Yeah, you had a sparkle back in your eye.

The freshman teeth twenty two times. And we went out to dinner and have good night last night. But that's our experience here. But really, baby, I think we do. We don't appreciate enough, but we get to do the fact that we got to come here, the fact that we're healthy enough, the ages we are to run. I have marathon and the whole experience to do it with you, working with you and being in a relationship with everything happened this week, So it's cool, and I do I

Same and everybody on that.

Hill gave him a round of applause as we were running by him. That was just that's fucking.

Awesome, it really and it's just it's a testament to the human spirit. You see people struggling, even those folks walking, they were out there doing something, trying to do something maybe they had never done before. And that's really cool.

So appreciate the experience. Always appreciate you all coming along with us for the literal or figurative morning runs Mondays through Friday. But I always appreciated folks for by Yeah you don't stand out here, you blend.

Yeah, it's just like everyone else. Yes, we all look alike. Don't wet blondes around him.

But folks for my blonde blue Roebuck TJ. Holmes will see also

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