Why We Run: The Journey Beyond the Miles

Well , in today's episode we're going to talk about why we run and you should to you probably already are , if you're not , maybe a compelling reason to maybe get after it and good , I guess , talk about how we're going to kind of transition the podcast a little bit , but we'll get into that today . I'm super excited about that .

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All right , that's it for the housekeeping bit . So why we run the drive behind every step ? Angie ? Yes , why do you run ?

You know , running is not easy and I do it because of that and I just love it , like I'm one of those weirdos . I love running .

I would even say even like I mean , I'm a big cyclist to there's something different about running that demands more of your mind . Your mind goes into a different place , I think , even more than like lifting weights or doing other activities . All good for you , don't get me wrong , but when it comes to mindset , you know there's something I don't know .

It's an experience , if you will . Yeah , it goes hand in hand .

It fills me with gratitude and makes me thankful that I love it now and that there's been a mindset , mindset shift . Yeah , just kind of a kind of a big deal . Kind of a big deal to me .

One of my friends invited me on a ragnar race and I didn't want to die and I remember you know my goal not to die .

And then , I don't know what it's , some switch flipped and I was like , wow , I'm , I'm digging this , I love it . And then , if I missed a training day , I was like , man , I really I need to get out there and run .

That one is far more challenging and and that's how it so , that's how you were introduced to it and your goal is die . Yeah , my goal , I did .

That does not sound fun being Crammed in a van for 36 hours with six other or five other people , because on on the Ragnar road race it's a team of 12 and six are the first vehicle and six are in the second and you're in the vehicle with these people , the from start to finish and that could take anywhere , depending on how fast your team is .

You know it could take anywhere from 20 something to 30 something hours and I think we finished in like 34 or something like that . But yeah , it was just . It was the best .

I was like I'm gonna try this . And so I signed up for the Bass Pro half that night and went and ran the Bass Pro half and it was . It was great , but nice . I'm sorry , what was your original question ? What ?

And then , during kovid , I started , uh , showing up to group runs , uh , socially distanced , of course , but group runs and that's , um , that was my intro to group running and I found out , hey , that's pretty cool , I can you know , once you find someone that matches your pace and all that , um , the time goes by a lot faster and uh , even people that don't

like people , you know people that aren't people , people , uh , you might like group , try group running , try it , get somebody , get matched up with somebody with your pace and , um , somebody that wants to have conversation and sometimes you can just talk those miles away and before you know it , you've done you know three , five , 10 , 15 , 20 miles and you're like

yes , yeah , no , I definitely .

Um , I love the fact that Lacey and I run together . We train together like all the time , like we're and she's . We're fairly similar in our , in our speeds , at least right now , which is super cool . We're doing more like longer distance . So it's been . It's a time for for us to bond and have conversation .

There are times that she probably wants to throw up punch me because I'm not always the most chipper , especially the . We do the when we're up in Columbia . We do the 530 . Tuesday and Thursday morning runs . I am , I struggle in the mornings . I'm not .

I don't wake up like just happy and beaming with energy sometimes and it takes me a little bit to get going . The hardest part is getting the shoes and getting up out of bed and then probably like it takes me about a mile to get into it before I start to kind of loosen up and kind of lighten up a little bit .

So it takes me a bit , but but that's that's . That's it's fun , it's . One of our favorite things to do together is is to go for run together .

Clarksville is known for having the highest point overlooking the , the Mississippi River . They've got a sky lift that used to take people to the top and it had like Santa's workshop and and our claim to fame was the Eagle days . People would go up there on the river to watch the overlook up there , to watch the Eagles come in . Small , quaint little town .

It's been flooded a few times that you know . They don't even have the sky lift anymore , it's not . It's kind of sad that it's not an operation mark . It was a cool thing to do . Anyway , I rode my bike every day , six days a week , slinging newspapers , and I did this because my family was poor . We didn't have much .

I'd slow in the newspaper so I could buy myself my school clothes and maybe a Nintendo game the old cartridges you have to blow on , get it to work . I would ride my bike , I'd go to school and I'd come home in the afternoon , I'd you know I took about 90 minutes to do the route , maybe two hours , and I did that every single day . I started that .

I mean , shoot , when I ? I probably started that like when I was 11 . Oh , wow , I had different bikes . I had banana seat bikes , I had like two bikes and all sorts of bikes . I had a collection of bikes and . But I rode my bike around town and I have to climb that hill every fricking day to the top .

I'd be getting chased by dogs , and here in Missouri we have all four seasons , so be the heat of summer snow . If it was really really snowy , I might be able to get my parents to maybe , you know , drive me .

But more often than not I was riding that fricking bike six days a week and Saturday mornings , so it was like after school and then Saturday mornings I got really good cardio . I didn't even realize , like , how fit that I was as a kid . Anyway , I had a kind of a troubled upbringing , didn't have a whole lot .

The paper route was great because it got me out of the house . It's money to buy some stuff that I needed . But I had a cross country coach . He was new . He was a new teacher that moved into the apartment . He just graduated college .

He was a Catholic in college and he became the cross country and track coach for school at Clopton I because I delivered a newspaper with him . I kind of talked to him here or there and he took some interest in me being a teacher and he invited me . He knew some of my , my trouble and whatnot , but he also knew I was pretty fit . He just invited me .

He's trying to put the cross country team together and he invited me to cross country . I'm like what the hell ? What the hell is cross country ? He's like well , we used to have a team of kids , you know , and we go to the school . We typically run in a field and we're running in a field . What the hell are you talking about ?

I don't have a way to get back and forth from school because our school we were very rural so it was like a 30 minute drive , 25 minute drive to get to the school and I didn't have a way to get home . He's like if you can get to school , you ride the bus to school , I'll bring you home . Okay , I'll try it .

And I think I showed up my first practice had my , my Reebok basketball shoes and I had the pumps that was . Those were the thing back in the day . I saved up enough money on the paper out to pump them up . I don't even remember , though that's what . I had the Reebok pumps , like basketball shoes , and I actually did really good .

The team was actually pretty good . We had a pretty good team . They were , like , you know , conference district champs go to state , and I was able to keep up . I was , I was like runner number three , and I liked it so much . It was the first time that I was part of a team . I did something difficult . Some of the cooler kids in school were were there .

I'm like man maybe I can , you know , want to be like them . They kind of inspired me and so I liked it , and the coach was going to bring it back , so I ultimately , you know , got myself some . I think I bought myself some running shoes , my paper up money , mowing money , and I started .

I started going and for the first time in my life , I felt like , you know , someone was looking out for me as part of a team . It was a hard thing to do . It kind of motivated me to keep my grades up and we had a really good team Like we had , like we we would run .

So we were like all conference , all district , we went to state and it was just really really good for me mentally , physically , I felt inspired and motivated for the first time in my life because of that environment that I was in .

I was , I was around other high caliber people that I felt like I was being pushed outside of my comfort zone for the first time .

I always had a drive to work , but it was like I had a , I had a channel for that , I had like a focus and it was just really good for me in so many ways and that led me to , you know , getting out of the situation that I was in .

I'm like , well , if I can join the military , you know , then I can kind of maybe , you know , just just take it , take my life in a , in a , in a direction that was positive and that's what I did .

And then , just being in the military , you know that that that the cross country enabled me to keep my grades up enough , it motivated me and inspired me enough to make that bridge into the military .

And then the military , you know , it's part of your day to day routine and that that having that , having that discipline , enabled the transition into the military to flow really well and I've been running ever since . It's like a because of that mindset and maybe that just a way to de-stress .

It's like I , I , I equivalent , I , I running to me is like the equivalent of like success , like I have to do this like a handrail for me , like I've got to continue to do that , to keep my mind and body and check and and and I don't know it . It's really really deep for me , much more than I ever really realized .

Like maybe I think I've probably taken it for granted over the years , but doing that hard thing every day has been very therapeutic for me and it's , it's a , it's just part of my lifestyle and it's awesome . And yeah , I can relate . So I started young and and I ultimately became a certified coach .

I'm VDOT , I'm a R R R RCA level one , I'm a pose method running coach , and I got those certifications to help other soldiers in the army that were struggling with running and I also wanted to . I've had some injuries over the years . I've kind of I'm Clydesdale , I'm over 200 pounds , I'm a big runner , I'm I'm unusually fast for as big as I am .

But I wanted to , you know , help myself and others learn how to mitigate running injuries and love running , to do it consistently for the long haul , because I know how good it is for your mind and and your body .

Right , I still haven't cracked the code to loving it and getting excited about it like you , but it is part of , like , the daily routine , the discipline . So that's that's where I'm at with running .

Like if I'm in foul mood , you know Lacey might tell me you know what you need to go run like get the hell away from me . I'm about to throw a punch . You go for a run , just get it out of your , get the shit out of you . Whatever's going on , you can still get it out , and running does that for you .

And if you want to change your emotional you know we talk about mindset all the time and if you want to , you change your physiology taking a cold shower , going to the gym , going for a run , like if you want to change your mood , you want to change your emotional state , go for a run , because it it will do that for you .

There's something about get your heart rate up and , like said , it gets the mind working properly .

Just like you know , usually I've got , I got in my training to where I wouldn't even think about going out for a run if I didn't have time to run at least a 5k or 4 miles or some job . I think at one point it was six miles , but I had to Tell myself , dude , just go for one mile .

And so I started just doing one mile , you know , and felt infinitely better afterward . Yeah , there's something about it , and you know , also for me , because I was obese , like morbidly obese , for so long , and I couldn't Physically couldn't , I couldn't barely walk a quarter of a mile . You know , I it's just those .

If you're a person out there who couldn't physically run and now you can run don't ever , don't ever lose sight of how you felt when you couldn't do it , when you weren't Physically able to , and always just try to go back to that , even on the days that you don't want to get out there and run , and it'll make you just feel that much better .

They might get frustrated because they can only run a couple minutes and they got a walk and they don't think they're a runner . And then they all the other fast people are judging me and they're they're reluctant to go to group runs .

I'm like the running community is probably the one of the most welcoming communities I have ever met and you know a six minute mile is it's the same distance as a 12 minute mile . That's right . Generally most people do not care what you run as long as you're there . We'd rather have you there . No one cares , that's right .

I've gotten into more endurance distance like you can walk during your runs . It's no big deal . I don't even think twice about it .

And I was not in the military , but I've been around the military long enough and I know enough military people that you are taught if you have to walk , you're not running , and that is such BS . And so when I started running intervals , you know I would try to get Rudy to run intervals with me and he's like that's not running .

And he wasn't saying it to me like you're not a runner . He was saying it to himself , like no , I have to run . And finally I convinced him to do intervals with me and now he's like I don't know why I fought this for so long . I wish I'd not fought this , because this is the best ever .

You're still a runner if you , if you stop , and if you , if you walk a little bit , guess what ? You're still a runner . That doesn't mean you're not a runner . It doesn't mean you're a walker . It means you're a runner . It just means that your recovery time is going to be infinitely that much faster and you're gonna be able to go longer .

I'm looking at Angie's like background and in my own background I'm like you know what we live a lifestyle . Well , we're doing hard things all the time . Almost everyone that we're nominating is you know that we bring on the weekly spotlight is running . Nearly almost all of our community is runners or ruckers or cyclists or endurance athletes .

Running is a low hanging fruit that that most people can do and it goes hand-in-hand with mindset .

So we're gonna take the do hard things podcast and we're gonna incorporate a little bit more running .

Angie and I are both running coaches , so we're gonna start to incorporate the mindset training with running tips and advice , bringing on some more guests still with that within the do hard things framework of of health and wellness , affluence and wealth , relationships and in development .

And maybe , you know , bring in people with those topics who are runners or endurance athletes in general and , and kind of you know , create a community of of runners and endurance athletes with a growth mindset and kind of merge the two together and I think and use our you know , like Angie and I have a lot of experience and in running coaching to kind of

merge them together to help people run better and then help them with their mindset . It just seems like it's a Natural progression and the do our things brain , like we're already hosting one event per year .

We're gonna add some more stuff to the calendar , so that's where we're gonna go , that's we're gonna take it , and so , pretty excited about the idea of merging , I mean just doing what we're already doing , just kind of highlighting more of the running and using , you know , our knowledge and background and that's talk about more of that .

Yeah , probably do some episodes and shows , or we're talking a little bit more about the runs that we're on and what we're doing .

Is there any final thoughts on the topic of running before we switch to our weekly Spotlight ?

They are too busy worrying about their own , their own , trying not to die to judge you . And if you're a new runner or you feel like you're a slow runner , listen , it's you against you , it's not you against everyone else . I promise you , unless you're like a super competitive , like just you're only running to win , well , that's on you .

But generally , I'm telling you , it's you against you . Show up , put one foot in front of the other and it's consistency and just doing it and you're a runner . I promise you , if you show up and you run , even if you have to walk , you're still a runner . They'll come out and find someone to run with or get out there and do it yourself .

Throw those tunes on , throw an audiobook on , but just the important thing is that you get out there and move your body .

All right , my favorite time of the week . Ladies and gentlemen , this is Andrew Chavez . Andrew , your wife nominated you for being such an awesome human being and we're going to send you a Do Our Things shirt . Andrew is a true inspiration when it comes to doing hard things .

Not only is he an amazing husband and friend , but as a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army , he goes the extra mile supporting his fellow soldiers , whether it's pushing himself past his mental capability or lending a helping hand to those falling behind . He embodies the spirit of leave no soldier behind .

After he finishes his rucks and miles , he turns around and goes back for the last person to run with them , to motivate and push them to the finish line . That's true leadership , and his selflessness and determination make him a perfect candidate for the Do-Hard-Things Nation nomination .

He consistently steps out of his comfort zone to support others and deserves to be recognized for his unwavering commitment . Andrew , we appreciate you . We appreciate you leading from the front and being selfless , and your awesome wife has nominated you , and we appreciate you .

We're going to send you a Do-Hard-Things shirt for embodying what it means to be a leader and doing hard things , demonstrating that . We just ask you to continue to encourage others and lead from the front . We appreciate that .

I was the last one and he would never say he would just be like , hey , how are you doing ? Then we'd just run in what you're doing when you go back for that last person , I don't know if anyone has ever really really told you how much it's appreciated , or maybe they just you just kind of see it and know it . But , dude , keep doing it . That's amazing .

Thank you so much for going back for those back of the Packers or the last ones that are trying to push through , because you are probably the reason a lot of them have kept going and finished . Bravo , thank you .

But when it became a race timer seeing the whole race come through the finish , the very end when all the crowds are gone and the people coming through because it might be someone running their first 5K or they've beaten cancer or I think of David Barnes , who lost his legs deployed fighting for our country and he did the Frog Hill 5K .

He came in like I don't know . It was like way late , the sun was down , we had cars out there with the headlights and he had new legs and he came across the line . So freaking inspirational . Just everyone that participates is a runner and it doesn't matter what your pace is and it's just awesome .

I just encourage people to wait around a little longer to be inspired and support the entire community . That's right , Because it can feel a little lonely back there in the back sometimes . Yeah , Yep , but that's where the most inspiration is to me .