What Endurance Athletes NEED to Know About Fueling: The Ultimate Pre-Run Plan

A lot of people think that they can just try something on race day and you got to practice with stuff, right? You got to try it multiple times. That's the crazy thing about running like a marathon. And I think a lot of people get in that mindset of all that kind of carb load. And it's like you didn't do that in any of your long runs and all of a sudden the next day you wonder why you have, you know, some stomach issues.

Most of the endurance focus, nutritional brands, supplement brands are focused on your inactivity, carbs, sugars, right energy or the run, the fuel for the run. They're not looking at a holistic 360 view of that of that individual. They're just looking at the sport. And that's where we saw the opportunity. Let's make a product that helps really take care of the body for the long haul.

And then we started realizing that we could put kind of a few different ingredients into fewer products that help really supplement their active lifestyle. And we are live, Cameron. How are you, brother? I am doing well. How are you doing today? I'm good, man, I'm good. It's it's interesting because I don't normally have two separate podcasts with the two founders

of a company and the agency that y'all working with pitched me Dan 1st and then I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll get them on. And they pitched me you and like, you want me? Just do them both together. And they're like, no, they both got their own unique store. And OK, we'll just roll with both of them then. So here we are ma'am. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. Yeah, it'll be fun. The the Ying Ying and Yang of Co

founders, right. And and what we're doing and how we're trying to connect with people. Yeah, 100%. So I think his episode actually went Live Today, kind of going into his back story. It's funny because he talked about kind of his bodybuilding history, which I can relate with in a lot of ways. And then we went into the the running and his, you know, involvement with runway and all that good stuff, but he kept

referencing you. So it'd be good to kind of have you come in on the tail end of that conversation. So how did how did y'all meet again? Yeah, we both, we both met actually at, at Vital Proteins. We both work there underneath on our sports, sports side of the business. So we're trying to connect collagen with athletes at the time. So we had a brand underneath Vital Proteins called Vital Performance, which was, you know, sport focused better for you supplement offering I feel like.

Vital proteins blew. I feel like collagen in general blew up. I want when was the time that that peaked? I mean, that was like super hot,

I think five years ago. Does that sound about right? Yeah, I mean, it's right down during the pandemic is when I started. They're vital. And you know the guy that founded the company, his name's Kurt Seidensticker. You know, he was on a mission for a number of years ahead of that, right? It, I think it from kind of the origin of it to exit was around

10 years. So I think people think of it as just a, you know, really quick thing that happened that they, they, you know, wrote this way, but there was a lot of groundwork that happened ahead of that and making sure collagen was a household, you know, supplement and, and something that you'd incorporate into your routine.

That's always what works, man. From the outside perspective, it looks like there's just, you know, overnight success, but in business and no such thing as an overnight success. Yeah, yeah, even what we're doing now, right, Sometimes I think we forget about that and some of the bricks that we need to lay in. Order. To where we want to go. And before you get hooked up with Vital, you were doing work with Nike, right?

Yeah, I lived in Portland, OR for a number of years, started my career here in Chicago. I'm based out of Chicago with them. I was doing, I was like a tech Rep, right? So I was going to all these different running stores and connecting with high school and college athletes as well as professional ones, but educating on the products and why the, you know, the best technology in the

in the game. And then they moved me out to Portland. So I was out there for almost 10 years actually working in the running group. A lot of different roles and responsibilities, but all with, you know, one end consumer that was these active individuals, these runners of all shapes and sizes. So Nike's got a pretty broad reach me. They're obviously working with athletes from all different sports. You were involved specifically with the running department. Yeah, yeah.

For almost all 9 or 10 years of that, again, varying level, sometimes it was with high school programs doing grassroots stuff, looking at bio mechanics and foot strikes and making sure they're in the right shoes. All the way to overseeing kind

of global initiatives within running speciality, which is where a lot of customers, you know, shop for running shoes stores like Fleet Feet or other smaller kind of mom and pop shops. Were you a pretty avid runner before you ever hooked on Nike? Yeah, I ran in college for, for two, only two years. So I don't want to sell like some amazing D1 athlete, right? This is D3 where you can, you

can walk. And I admit that, but it was a part of me growing up. My dad was into running and doing triathletes and then even my grandparents were very active later in life, which you know, they both lived well into their 90s. So it's kind of a cool thing me just being younger and seeing people every weekend doing long runs and going and doing competitions and stuff. So when I got into high school, you know, in track and field, soccer and swimming are kind of my 3 sports.

But then got into college focused on on running. And then, yeah, it was like a on a bet basically, hey, I bet you wouldn't do a marathon. And I was like, I think I could do that. And it was the very first year in in Michigan, Grand Rapids, MI. And it was about a three-week notice. And so that was my first, that's my first entry into the distance running, if you will, was doing a full marathon.

That was just two loops, which was just a mind, but mind boggle right when you just go around a cone and have to do it all over again when you're not trained. So that was a realization that OK, I, I, this is something fun. I'm I'm hooked. But I got to train and I got to get better at this. Yeah, man, marathon is no joke. I did a marathon, then one marathon, 0 training just like signed up, did it with my buddy and man, I was on crutches afterwards.

Like I was, I was her. I finished it, you know, having not run probably 7-8 years prior to that, but it was not something that I would recommend. I would not recommend it to anyone and if I had a could go back I definitely would do things a little differently. So do you do a lot of running now? Like, are you competitive running now? I do, yeah. I mean, I try to run, you know, 20-30 miles a week is kind of like my staying active type of

type of mileage. But you know, which is a lot to maybe some people that don't run, but it's not a lot if you were a serious marathon or something. So kind of in the middle ground there. But I've got Boston Marathon coming up, which I'm really excited to qualify for that last year. So even as you know, it's, it's a part of my life and you know,

part of my daily routine. But even as I get older, I found I've kind of like understood my body a little bit more, whether that's nutrition, whether that's just me knowing when to push it, when not to push it, and obviously practicing, you know, for years. So yeah, I've gotten started to get faster, which is great as I'm getting older, which isn't the case for a lot of sports and a lot of things that people do. Do you run that 2030 miles a week like consecutive days?

Do you like you'd like stagger to have like higher running days and then days off completely from running or how do you structure that? Usually in the weekends I'll do a little bit longer run that adds, adds to the mileage. I've got a daughter, she's 5. So depending on how the week goes with helping with her and stuff, I can fit, you know, morning work runs and sometimes I run with groups in the

evening. Here in Chicago. There's lots of there's been a massive like resurgence in in this running run culture and like all these run groups are popping up all over. And so Chicago's very active city year round, which is kind of cool to see a lot. Even though it's cold, a lot of these run groups continue to

push through the winter. And so there's a plethora of every single night there's a different group I could go around with, which is kind of nice to know that there's some some motivation there to run with others. But on the weekends I'll just do usually some solo miles. Sometimes I'll run with the group. So it's probably 2 days off a week from running. Nice. Sometimes I'll make sense of strength, but that's where Dan comes in. I need, he needs more endurance. I need more strength.

They complement each other, they go all right, so we're going to dive deep into the bio mechanics here, especially if you're working with, you know, youth on that because I feel like that's where my shortfall is. So I get some selfless questions for you. Yeah, I've got really flat feet and I'm overpronated and like my feet just hurt after a while, man. So like I started doing going on this deep dive rabbit hole of like foot structure, bio mechanics, like how to optimize things.

And I got rid of every shoe I owned that was not zero drop wide toe box because everything I was, you know, diving into and reading suggested that basically if you get too much arch support in the shoe, you're weakening your natural arch kind of like a, you know, an arch of like a bridge. You got the foundation on the toe and the heel. So I basically swapped out everything for zero drop 00 drop wide toe box shoe, like my boots, my shoes, everything.

And I've been wearing exclusively that for the past, I don't know, three years now, I think. But I still have foot pain and I don't do a whole lot of running, but I would like to run more and I feel like I would if my feet didn't hurt so bad. So is there, is that accurate? Am I assuming that correctly or is there? Or is that just fancy marketing from these zero drop by toolbox shoe companies? Maybe a little bit of both, like

they're I I'm a fan of. I guess there's a lot of different point of views on this in general, depending on where you work, in what story you're at, what their philosophy is. I personally think your body's meant to do what your body's meant to do. And so I've tried not to like

correct it necessarily, right. So there are shoes that can like correct your your gait in the way your foot interacts with the ground, whether that's, you know, arch sport like you were talking about, which some people might consider a crutch, other people might consider it supporting and, and being a benefit. And maybe there's a little bit of truth to both of those. We're also not we're, we're running and walking on concrete, right?

So you do need something that is cushion that can lessen the blow. It's been interesting again, being in this working with runners for almost 20 years now. I've seen lots of different things come and go. The barefoot craze and then the Nike Free and then the maximalist. And now it's interesting because shoes are are massive, but they're pretty rigid. They have. Huge man. They're like thick soles. Like I tried one of those and like it was just too soft it seemed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they're big and they and they help you go fast. And there's actually some science too that says it helps you actually improve your recovery as well if depending on how you leverage those, I'd call

them tools now, not just a shoe. It's like a tool that you're training similar to like how the Nike Free back in the day was where I think where a lot of people started doing lots of mileage and these and that's where people are getting injured because you're running on concrete on a lower drop shoe

with, you know, less cushioning. But there's definitely, if you look at elite athletes right after a race or something, they will go on turf and they will walk around on grass and, you know, bare feet and do barefoot exercises so that we can strengthen all those intrinsics in your within your feet. And that's what you're probably experiencing. Some of that is like that's, that's a benefit of that.

But also you got to run the risk of when you're on man made surfaces, you know, you got to protect your body and in the way your, your body's interacting with the, with the ground. So. Yeah, what are you running? I mixed it up a lot actually. It's kind of fun now not being

only with like a brand and and having runway where I I want to work with tons of brands. So we actually been an event with on this past weekend here in Chicago. I just got the new audios pro 4, which is like their newer carbon racing flat. So I that's what I'll probably run Boston in or or the Nike Vapor Fly is also one of the ones that I I do some miles in. Yeah, I'm not, I've not worn a

Nike shoe in in years, man. But I I ran with the ultras, I've ran with the oh shoot, I like those on cloud shoes got really popular, so I tried wearing those yeah. And those were just that that didn't really work for me. Those aren't zero drop. A lot of people recommend 'cause I do like a lot of trail running, like technical trail running, and I feel like a lot of them use like the speed lane or speed cross, whether they're called there.

So I might try those. I've never run into those before, but I have not found a shoe that I just have fallen in love with you. Yeah, well, that's the thing with they change every every six months, right. So they're they're always evolving to try to be try to be better for you, whether it's a reduction in weight or more cushion or a little different geometry that can help.

So I'd encourage you to try, try lots of things all the brands now like technology in terms of foam and geometry of of cushioning and everything is has come so, so far and all of the brands now have access to like some of the the best, lightest weight, most supportive type of shoes out there. So. It is definitely freaking space technology man. Like what shoes can do nowadays compared to what they were doing 50 years ago is mind boggling.

Yeah. One thing that's interesting though, but we're just talking about shoes is like they're a lot of more meant to just be for that race, right? Or for that moment. And now I think there's some, some science behind a lot of the cushioning and technology that allow it to help you for the long haul. Like so like not only just for that moment, but also for recovery. So that way as you continue to

train for something you actually don't do as much, you know, damage or as much jarring to the body as you might have been, maybe an older mindset of type of footwear you should be wearing. So kind of that notion of like athletic longevity, which is fun because that's kind of what runways about in terms of our our nutritional supplements. But the same thing applies when you're thinking about footwear and you know, and how you train your body as well.

What about the you mentioned kind of like foot strike earlier too. There's a lot of conflicting information around how you strike the foot. Some people are about the mid foot, 4 foot, you know, heel strike. From a biomechanical standpoint, is 1 better than the other? Yeah. If you have like a midfoot strike, that tends to like lessen the impact a little bit, right?

If you think of just like landing aggressively on our heel, that sends kind of a shock up versus if you landed a little bit more gently on your forefoot and let your foot actually absorb some of that before just insulin goes into your to your,

you know, up through the bones. I did a good form running clinic years ago just to try to increase my cadence a little bit and shorten my stride and it and it's done, I think for me at least, a world of wonders in terms of allowing me to just run a little bit lighter and not be, you know, so aggressive on my on my foot striking, heel striking. But again, everybody has a

different gait. Everybody runs differently at you have, you know, if I was going to run a 10 minute mile versus a 6 minute mile, my my form's going to be a little different there anyways. So it's all unique to each each individual. Yeah, I was having to that. Pose method running kind of like I guess that's I don't, I don't want to read up on a basically leaning forward and trying to target more that mid foot strike.

And I had like my gate videotaped a while back when I went to one of these run stores as they're trying to sell me on

their shoe, but I don't remember what my strike pattern was then. But I feel like I've made a valiant effort to not heal strike, and I feel like that's probably better from an injury prevention standpoint. Absolutely, yeah. And the running stores too are really good now, like they, you know, they work with all the different brands and all the brands should educate on why, how their technology works with different types of of feet and strides and stuff.

So yeah, if you want any running special shop, they will have a plethora of options for you to to. Pull from totally. All right, so let's talk about runway man. So you and Dan or both a vital proteins you're both trying to recollect from his story, but basically the owner CEO there kind of took him under his wing and helped him start runway alongside you. We all you all kind of like coalesce at the same time.

It was just like a the stars align for you all to kind of work together on building runway from the get go, right? It was, yeah, it was. It's kind of fun to like reverse storyteller a little bit on some of this because you're like, wait, how did this actually happen? You know? But yeah, there is a a massive accent at for vital, right. So a full, full acquisition from Nestle Health and Science, which is great.

Is it a huge, huge exit for all the team and everybody involved and lots and lots of years of hard work getting to that point. And they really wanted to focus on collagen. And and we had collagen some of our products on the performance line, but not all of them. And also we wanted to focus on athletes. And I think, you know, a lot of people know collagen for the beauty benefit, the things you see your, you know, the wrinkles, the your nails and

your hair and your skin. Those are the things that

usually are talked about first. But then it's bones and joints, which is usually sometimes get chopped off in terms of marketing language or just like it's too many things to talk about. So you don't get to the bones and joints. And we were really trying to connect the notion of kind of that joint support and athletic benefit of collagen. And it's actually why Kurt started vital because he was a runner and he had some knee pain and was afraid of like not being able to run, which a lot of

people don't know. And so Fast forward, massive exit, there's an opportunity where we could, you know, Kurt kind of came to us and said, hey, you guys had some great ideas about connecting with runners and better serving athletes for the long haul. Like, you know, let's, let's see what we can do. So now Fast forward 2 1/2 years, almost three years now you know, we we launched a brand a year and a half ago and have a handful of products out in the

world, which is amazing to see. Yeah, a year and a half ago is not that long in the business world, man. I mean a lot, a lot happens in a year and a half, but y'all killing it and y'all are pretty fresh at the gate still. Yeah, Yeah, it's been, it's been fun. You know, we've got a a handful of retail accounts that have brought us in really word of mouth. We don't really have a sales team right now. You know, it's just Dan and I and two interns that are kind of

moving everything along. We also do have a shared service model. So we have in our director and some other people that we share with some of the brands. So that's not like it's just Dan and I doing every single thing, but there is a lot of focus, you know, for Dan and I to to really spread ourselves pretty thin to grow where we've become. So how, how do you, because he didn't have kids or does he? I can't remember if he had kids or not. He does not have kids. You said you got a 5 year old

girl daughter. How do you as a runner that's running 20-30 miles a week, getting some lifts in, have a year and a half old company, 5 year old daughter. How do you keep up with it? Oh man. Because like that's like, I want to tease that out because I look

at my life and there is no balance in my life. I like my life. I, I prefer it without balance, but like I'm always curious to see how people that are doing lots of different things keep everything, all the plates in the air as they say. Yeah, it's, it's day by day, I will say. And it's also having an amazing like partner, you know. So my wife does a lot and I

travel a good amount. You know, I think 3131 weekends, I think it was last year in 2024, either Dan or I were out at an Expo at an event somewhere. And so my wife really helps out around a lot. I don't give her as much credit and in person as I as I need to, but she's really been the one that's helped a lot. And then they're long days, you know, they're, you know, kids get off at my daughter gets up at six O clock, usually on the dot. And you know, my wife is usually

already up, already working out. Sometimes I'll get a run in prior. Sometimes it's right after I drop her off at school and then it's sitting down meetings pretty much all day. Sometimes I'll be able to pick her up from school. Sometimes we'll have somebody drop her off. But it's, it's a lot and it's lots of juggle trying, trying my best to be present when I am around, you know, knowing that I'm traveling around, you know, pretty much every other weekend these days.

Really when I am home and I'm off the clock, if you will, not that there is really an off the clock when you're a founder of a business, but when I'm really trying to just be present and spend some time, it's, it's intentional, you know, having

this next hour making dinner with her or do something like that. So that's where I'm trying to find that balance. And on the inverse of that, when I'm out in an event, I'm trying to overturn every stone at that event. You know, say, we say we fly somewhere for a long marathon Expo.

I'm hitting up all the running stores and running groups while I'm in that city taking products, you know, and, and just blindly cold, you know, walking into these group runs, letting know kind of who my, who my brand is, who I am, giving up some samples and just trying to continue to create relationships everywhere we go. So that's kind of been our our strategy is just getting product out into the world and and connecting with the right people.

And y'all have focused significantly more on that than like the paid advertising model exclusively where it's all just kind of removed, like your boots on the ground, going to these Expos, going to where the runners are and just meeting people face to face, which I think is super admirable, man. I feel like that is a lot more effort, a lot more heartache, a lot more time. But I feel like that's it.

It makes a much better relationship, deeper relationship than just a generic, you know, ad people scroll through on social media. Absolutely, yeah. And we're doing a little bit of both. Like we do have some, you know, spending some money on some digital ads and trying to like hone in what that messaging is, what does resonate with people. But in you go, you go to an Expo and in in 10 minutes, you realize what your copy needs to be based on the questions that these customers are asking,

right. So that's where it's been really, really eye opening to just go have conversations with somebody that's later in life, that's run for years, somebody that's brand new to the sport and a 22 year old just finding running after they graduated college and everybody in between in kind of aligning, OK, what messages connect with different

types of people in person? And then Dan and I literally write stuff down or work, you know, at the booth kind of sending, you know, notes back to our our digital team saying, hey, this has come up five different times in the last 30 minutes. We definitely need to have an FAQ on our website about this or we should adjust kind of the

Amazon listing because this is what people are really honing in on. Is this collagen and electrolytes or vegan protein plus creed, whatever it might be, depending on our products. So definitely want a mix of that digital advertising plus in person. I still love the in person stuff though, because it's you're with your core, you know, the heartbeat of the company, heartbeat of our consumers right there.

And luckily for us being focused on kind of this endurance athlete group, they had meetups every single city, every single weekend. That is big events.

You know, I just, we here in Chicago with Shamrock shuffle this past weekend and there was I think 30,000 people in downtown Chicago doing an akin, you know, so that's there's a moment where all of these people are coming together and that's happening in every big city and only increasing numbers as well as more and more people are flocking to kind of endurance running high rocks. All these different type of events are really bubbling up in a in a really cool way.

And I feel like with supplements too, man, like, like people think of supplements as a business model and they think, oh, that's way over saturated. And there's a lot of supplements out there for sure. There's like all the the bodybuilding supplements that have been there since the beginning of bodybuilding. Then you get all this weight

loss supplementation. So like from a supplement brand standpoint, I feel like if you carve out your niche in the specialty market, I mean, some of it's not a runner would still benefit from your collagen electrolyte mix. But if you're really targeting all of your messaging towards runners, that makes a lot of sense. Like there's another company and that really just started honing in on the hunting community and all of their supplementation is

marketed towards hunters. It's the same stuff that's in any other supplement, but it's like it's all on who they're trying to talk to in the verbiage accordingly. And I feel like that's the only way to to, you know, really make momentum, get momentum because like you've got to talk to the people that are going to benefit from that specific use case and appeal to their needs. And I haven't seen much catering towards runners specifically from a supplement standpoint.

Yeah. I mean, when you think about this kind of why we launched Runway, we wanted like the name itself also alludes to that is that we want to be like the brand to like guide you to make better choices right in this in the nutrition space, because most of the endurance focus nutritional brands, supplement brands are focused on your inactivity, carbs, sugars, right energy for the run, the fuel for

the run or something. They're not looking at a holistic 360 view of that of that individual. They're just looking at the sport. And that's where we saw the opportunity and said, wait, what if we focus on all the other things, right? If if our background is me talking to working with all these athletes and them aging out of their sport and then moving to vital and understanding that collagen can really help your joints in connective tissue and your

cartilage as you age. Put those together and it's like, OK, great, let's make a product that helps really take care of the body for the long haul. And then we started realizing that we could put kind of a few different ingredients into fewer products that help really supplement their, their active lifestyle and make sure that they're supporting it in different ways. So, you know, we have three products right now.

So we've got our runway foundation, which is electrolytes, collagen and like a multivitamin all in one. Great. That's your, your joint support plus your hydration. Take that every day. It's meant to be a daily nutritional supplement and will help, you know, for the long haul. We also then have a protein powder that we combine protein plus creatine, you know, two things that people were doing, but not focused on an endurance minded kind of individual.

Most people in the protein space, as well as the creatine space are more focused on bodybuilding and kind of gym goers and forcing all of these endurance athletes to kind of go

to the grocery store, go to GNC and just like either at the mercy of whoever's working that day or there is no help. And they're just looking at the shelves and seeing what speaks to me. So, you know, bringing those ingredients together and and fewer products to try to create a system that really helps with their their ability to to move and and keep kicking ass in life. Yeah, and I feel like with supplements too, I mean there's so many companies that are just, you know, white labeling.

It's all the same stuff where as y'all have done a lot of vertical integration, you've got everything you know formulated, manufactured through your own lines. You're doing all this third party testing like you're doing it right from a quality standpoint, which I think really sets you all apart as well. Absolutely, Yeah. When I my time in Nike, I met a bunch of a bunch of athletes, right? And these are athletes.

And I use that loosely. Like Nike has a little asterisk that they put after the word athlete. And it says if you have a body, you're an athlete. Meaning everybody has the ability, right? To, to have the potential to be something, but I, I worked with a lot of professional athletes that it is their job to do the sport. And you know that when we started ideating about runway, I, that was my first call to a lot of them and said, Hey, what are you guys taking, not taking?

And all of them said, well, it's got to be, it's got to be tested. You know, WADA and USADA are the are the governing bodies for drug testing within track and field and in, you know, the Olympics. And I said, OK, well, that's a, that's a key element. Then we have to make sure all of our products are tested, you know, by third parties that are certified. So that way any athlete is 100% confident that they're what they're taking doesn't have anything bad in it.

So that was a, a big priority. And then you're right about our, our manufacturing and the ability to control things. We're not on kind of a long list of other brands at the back end, you know, and we'll get to you in a couple months to make your product. You know, we have our own integrated manufacturing that we share with a a few other brands underneath the umbrella and continue to innovate and learn what our customers like and don't like.

And, and we've, you know, we're getting ready to just tweak our foundation formula just a little bit. We're actually going to add some K2 in there, which we're excited about. But this came about because athletes sometimes have bone injuries or shin splints and and other things, stress fractures. And we said, OK, let's we have D3 in there now, but let's also add some K2 so that way we can better support, you know, the bone element of the joint.

So how do you personally like stack it? How do you, how do you supplement with it? Like what's your supplemental protocol I guess? For me personally, and in the morning I usually take I wake up and I actually have runway foundation. I love my espresso, I love my coffee. I feel like I used to be a zombie walking down to my, my espresso machine and now having foundation as the first thing I do when I wake up, it's kind of nice.

It pushes back my coffee intake just a little bit, hydrates me, kind of make sure I'm taking care of my body in terms of joints. And that's, that's what I do first thing of the day. Then I have my coffee. I usually go, like I said, take my daughter to school, get a few miles in in the morning. And then usually for my, my breakfast, I, I'll have our complete protein, which I love making it with banana. I had this coconut peanut butter. It's called Kokomo.

It's amazing. And then I also add two shots of espresso in my protein shake. And so it becomes kind of a my breakfast slash recovery because it's got creatine, the protein, plus, you know, the banana and, and peanut butter in there as well. What? What's the brand of that Coconut peanut butter? Kokomo. Kokomo. It's a coconut peanut butter. Yeah, it's good. It's it's delicious. I got one, one of my clients sent me some from Hawaii, and it's like the tastiest thing

ever made. It's like 1g of carb. I don't know if it's the same Brandon. I was like 1g of carb per serving. Like it's too good for me to keep in the house because I eat the whole jar. That's what that's what we're hearing from from Kokomo as well. So yeah. That's that's I'm guilty. Yes, it's good stuff man. You mentioned espresso make. What kind of espresso make you get? I've got a mealy or meal. I'm not sure how you. Meal, I just got one for my wife for Christmas, like a because we

drink way too much coffee. I spent way too much money going

to coffee shops because like we had a French press. I'm like, man, we got to just get an espresso maker. So, you know, pulled the trigger on that and been a game changer, man, Haven't you? An espresso maker? Worth every penny if you're a coffee drinker. It is definitely. I mean, if you did the math right on just a couple Starbucks runs and it pays for itself in a couple months. So yeah, definitely using that

every multiple times a day. But now with the foundation in my mix, I I push that back a little bit later in the day. Nice, nice. And how many, how many milligrams or grams of creatine is in it? 5 grams, 5g and you're doing 1 scoop of that a day. Amount of hydrate and then there's 25 grams of vegan based protein. Nice, Nice. Yeah, No, super cool, man. Like I've got.

I don't do a whole lot of supplementation because like with my natural bodybuilding sport, they're crazy strict with, you know, banned substances and whatnot. So like simply having third party testing that's legitimate because you're using is it informed sport? Sport, Yeah, yeah, we use informed sport and then we also got an informed protein so. So there's lots of different protein sources out there these days and a lot of not the best

stuff for you. And so Inform Sport also has like another level of certification for just their protein as well. So the foundation product, because collagen is a protein as well as our complete protein have both informed sport, So it says for banned substance, but then also informed protein. So it's making sure the protein source and everything is is correct and the origin of that is is safe. Very nice, very nice. But what's the next thing on the resume?

And Dan was telling me about some of the things that he thinks is in the pipeline from a production standpoint. But let me get it from your side. Yeah, Yeah. I'm for me personally, I'm actually this weekend I'm flying to LA and I'm with a group here in Chicago. We're running from LA to Las Vegas. So that's the the first thing.

But I'm excited because we are working on an Enron product and I'm going to be taking it for our team to use during this 340 mile journey that we're going to we're going to embark on this weekend. So it's it's a pretty gnarly race. It's called the speed project. There is no, no dedicated route, no rules. You just can't go on the highway any run from the Santa Monica Pier to the LA or to the Las Vegas. Now welcome to Las Vegas Sign and.

It's 340 miles 3. 140 miles. Are you doing that with them? Yep, Yep. So I. Like a relay kind of thing, like everybody does a leg of it. Yeah, it is. It is a relay. I'll probably end up running 50 or so miles over the course of the, you know, day and a half, two days. But you don't, you don't really sleep. You know, you're in a van or a truck kind of following the runners around. And so it's definitely a a test of not only your endurance, but also your patients with your

teammates. And luckily we get we all get along. I say that now. We'll we'll find out on Sunday. How many of their? How many of their? All your total. There will be there will be 15 of us on our team. There are runners that do it themselves. So the the solo runners kicked off today, which is insane. 340

miles. Straight up to 15, yeah, we do 15 because we like to enjoy ourselves and have a little bit of fun as well, so. So can you give any any secrets as to this in run formula or is it top secret for now? It's not necessarily top secret. We're, you know, having having created a system of products around the run. It's been nice to because a lot of these customers that are, that are, you know, very loyal to to run away now, which is amazing to see that they're, they're using US daily.

And then they're, you're using our extra mile before they go to the gym or before track session. They're using our protein after for recovery or for like a, a midday snack. And they're like, yeah, but I still have to go to another brand to, you know, have my in run nutrition. And then me personally, I, you know, I, I've tried tons and tons of different carb products and I've still bonked on some of the races. And so I need to make sure I have my carbs, but also my electrolytes.

And so we'll look at, you know, making sure we have a nice kind of synergistic blend of your, your carbs and electrolytes for sodium to make sure that we're, we're pushing through for the run. Do you have like a like with running, do you notice like a certain sweet spot with your ratio of electrolytes sodium to potassium, like you notice this

a sweet spot there? It's, it's one of those things that every, every run is a little different depending on, on the weather, depending on what I ate the day before, you know, my prep work and stuff. And that's where a lot of people think that's they can just try something on race day and you got to practice with stuff, right? You got to, you got to try it multiple times.

That's the crazy thing about running like a marathon as an example, you very few people run beyond the 20 miles, you know, when you're training. And so anything between and it's still 6 miles between, you know, maybe your longest training run and what you need to do on race day. And so you know, you're, you're learning on your actual race, how your body reacts in those last last few minutes.

There are very few sports where you kind of never have done that or, or haven't tried something or, you know, haven't figured it out exactly. So it's it's trial and error. But for me, I've, I've been using some Marten gels actually, which is the gel one 60s. And then I've just the last couple months just been really using the runway stuff. We had some prototypes of it earlier and definitely, you know, I was like, oh, we need some more sodium than this.

And so we upped the sodium a little bit. But yeah, it's one of those things you got to every, every runs different and every person's unique.

And that's where I think when it comes to like the actual race, it's important to look at what the weather is going to be like. If it's really hot out, you might have to back your pace down a little bit and make sure you're increasing your electrolytes, your salt tabs. If it's going to be chilly and windy or hilly, you know, like every, everything, you got to kind of take it into the equation and then see what you want to do for your race day plan.

And how many how many grams of carbs are in in the in run product? We'll have 30. 30 So are you doing that like I mean, obviously it depends on the run, but generally are you doing like one of those every hour or is it like a general protocol? Yeah, I initially I think we were, we were thinking every 90 minutes right here about for an hour, hour, hour and a half of of fuel. I'm a little bit bigger of a runner. So I just assume that I'm actually going to be using a

little bit more than that. So I think it for me what how I was practicing with it or fueling with it on some of my runs was every, every hour I had two bottles that I took, which is, which is great because it is a, you know, powder that will

mix it up in water. But but yeah, it's again, one of those things if it's really hot out and if I'm going too slow and more time on my feet and I'm struggling a little bit, then I need to make sure I get some additional carbs and dishes, sodium to make sure I'm not going to hit the wall. You got any runners on your team of that 15 they're doing like keto, low carb? Not, not on our team.

I, I've, I've run into a handful that, you know, lots of people have different diets and it's interesting seeing the way certain diets do affect the body and, or how they're going through their long runs. You know, I've got a friend that she would just devour steaks and primarily had a steak diet and was one of the world's, you know, best female runners, which is great. And then you've got other people that, that don't eat meat at all.

And you know, that's why our complete protein is perfect for them because it's a vegan based protein and everything. But you do have to find out what's right for your body and how to how do you push through? If you're going to, you know, try to push yourself to the extreme on some of these races, got to make sure you're you're supplementing in the right way.

Yeah, it's interesting. Like I didn't really run, like I've never really run distances in which fueling became an H that when I read that marathon, I did that totally fasted and then like 50 mile, you know, stuff but not running. And I would always do that in a ketogenic state. But I would think if like a lot of these people that are carbon

up having like pasta and stuff before run, like I would just imagine that would totally wreck my gut. But I guess everybody's different. I don't know. Yeah, that's what's crazy about, you know, I'd mentioned earlier about like nothing new on race day. And I think a lot of people get in that mindset of all I got a carb load and it's like he didn't do that in any of your long runs and you didn't try

that. And then you travel, which adds complexities to your diet if you're traveling for a race or something. And then you just think I need to eat, you know, 2 lbs of spaghetti or, you know, just get, get the meatballs and pasta and where that might be something that you didn't normally do. And all of a sudden the next day you wonder why you have, you know, some stomach issues. I, I've been guilty of that and have learned from that the hard way as, as a lot of other

runners too. But yeah, definitely one of those things. There's like nothing new. Nothing new on race day. Yeah, crazy man. Going back to the like the, the parenting in the business and just the jug that I know from a lifestyle standpoint, like what do you, what do you all, what do you think kind of long term? Like is this going to be something that you just continue to pour into and build the point where your daughter would take in take a part of it at some point?

Or is it going to kind of more like vital proteins, exit strategy or what are you thinking personally at this stage in the game? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, right now it's it's sweat equity, right. I am blessed to be in this position where we have a brand that we've launched that connects with so many people and I, you know, when some of the days get, get long and tough, you know, even with Dan, sometimes we're like, hey, we're doing this to make sure that other people have better

options. So that way they can continue to like run, move, live for as long as possible and, and enjoy the things they love to do. So that's kind of what has been the driving force behind, you know, all the things we're doing. But yeah, I think it would be amazing if there could be some type of thing where we build it up and then it becomes self-sufficient and or we maybe keep a foot in the door or there's a full accident, who knows. You know, lots of different

things can happen. It's interesting time we're now with, you know, a slow down. I think of a lot of the M&A activity that happened is have been happening and obviously the economy. Never know what's what the next day is going to bring, but yeah. And then in the in the short term though, we're building a brand out. We're connecting with as many people as we can who we know will will benefit from our products and you know, from

connecting with our brand. That's really the driving force behind what, you know, what we're doing, which is is great. And that, that's what keeps me going.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of crazy, man. Like there's no set path and entrepreneurship, there's no, you know, known fact when you wake up that day. But it's like a lot of like a lot of people find that to be fearful, like they're scared of that, not having that consistent routine. But at the end of the day, I feel like that's that's more job secure, like being the founder, being the CEO, being the owner, being the creative thinker.

Like that to me is more reassuring than working for the man and not knowing you know what your outcome will be like if you're if you are reaping what you sow and you're doing it for the right reason, that excites you every single day. Like, you know, who can ask for a better gig than that, you know? Absolutely. And I've learned so much in the last two years.

If if I went back to any of my other jobs, knowing what I know now and re approaching old situations that you know, could have been thought through a little differently. I mean, I would, I would completely change out my approach on a lot of things. Just just having like pushed through the last year and a half, two years of, of not really having the the playbook right and kind of creating it as we're going. But yeah, to your point on every

day is every day is different. You know, I feel like, I feel like each week, you know, even today, right, it's Monday. And I was like, OK, I think I know what I have set up for the week, you know, but it's only probably 30% of the week is known. And so much stuff happens throughout each day and each week that really fills it up and unlocks really cool opportunities as the week

continues. And it's, it's been like that ever since day one, whether it's people hearing about the brand and kind of Dming us and all of a sudden that opens up a cool work stream and, and new potential partnership, or it's, you know, Olympians that I get a, a text message saying, Hey, did you know? So and so just buys collagen at the grocery store. Maybe you should send them some. And now they use our product up to their lead up to Boston

Marathon, which is kind of cool. And, and they, they used our our products leading into Paris as well. So it's kind of fun to see all these different things happen and it's just they just continue to manifest, which is which is amazing. But yeah, everyday, everyday is different. And there's any entrepreneurs out there like definitely lean in and try some things. There's no, there's no harm in taking a risk and learning from it at the end of the day. Well.

You start to see opportunities that you never would have seen had you not taken that risk to begin with. Like when you have a safety net, it's really hard to think as creatively. Whereas when you like when your backs against the wall, when you are the, you know, when, when the chip falls with where they may with you, it's like you

start getting real creative, man. You start seeing opportunities that you never would have elsewhere. And I feel like that's just exciting in and of itself. I mean, the DM's, like every DM's, a new opportunity, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. In, in, you know, some people say, oh, it's, it's luck, right? Or, and I, I just think it's consistency. It's like consistently showing up and, and being present.

And then all of a sudden to your point, some of those opportunities just they, they feel like they fell in your lap, but they were, they were engineered that way because of the consistency and because of kind of the, the determination and pushing through. That's why they happen more frequently. At least that's my belief as well. Yeah, I mean, I feel like like

luck gets sewn around a lot. And Dan was saying on the podcast that like, he feels like it was a certain degree of luck, but I don't really think it's ever luck, man. Like, like the fact that you and what what was the the owner of Vital? Yeah, him and Dan all coalescing

at the same time. Like, that could seem very lucky from the outside perspective, but like, none of that would have been possible had you all not fostered relationships with one another while you were working there and putting in the hours and just showing up. And I feel like that paved the way for y'all to have in the back of y'all minds, y'all's mind that y'all would work well together on this new venture to begin with. You know, it's like, I don't think any of its luck necessarily.

It's just like putting in the work, showing up, putting forth effort, you know, effort. Effort is what luck is. Yeah, yeah. And definitely timing plays into it too. You know, like they could have had that same situation, but if it was 2 years prior, probably wouldn't have, wouldn't have turned out to where we are now. So, you know, maybe it's about the timing more so than the luck for for certain things as well. Yeah, 100%, man. Well, I think it's super cool what you're doing, man.

Like I, I love the branding, I love the website design, the, the product. I mean, you'll, I think you'll ship me some. I'm going to try that as soon as it gets here. But yeah, I think it's just super cool, man. There's so many supplement companies out there, so ones that are doing it right, putting forth the quality first mindset, boots on the ground, meeting people that are actually in the sports, in the trenches, trying to cater to them and their needs like that speaks volumes.

So I'm, I'm super impressed by what you get going and I'm excited for the future, ma'am. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. And if we give the products a try, we'd love to hear your feedback too. Like I said, we, we take feedback from the field and we anybody that that we connect with, we love to hear what they like or don't like even on the products.

Yeah, well, I'm, I'm gonna ramp up my running game for sure 'cause I do a lot of like, as hunting season gets closer, I start doing a lot more running because I'll do like trail runs to get ready for hiking in the mountains. So I'll probably start ramping that up in the next little bit. Now the weather's getting nice as well. I got this super slick trail run not far from me here, So I'm gonna start running that multiple times a week. And I'll put your your products to test for sure, man.

Yeah, yeah. We'll have to get you our extra mile. So that's that. It's a stimulant free like pre workout. So caffeine free pre workout that'll like kind of get you get you focused and and get you ready to roll for that trail run. Yeah, that'd be good. Because I I try to keep my caffeine limited to that espresso in the morning that we were talking about and then not have any other stimulants throughout the day. That be definitely the route that I would take.

Yeah, that's definitely why we, we actually made that one is because, you know, when we pulled all these athletes in these runners, they said don't mess with my caffeine, don't mess with my coffee. That's my ritual, you know, routine in the morning. And so we said, okay, well, we don't want to have them not have their espresso in the morning, so let's make a product without it.

And then also the benefit of not like negatively affecting your, your heart rate while you're getting ready to do an endurance activity. So yeah, definitely give it a try. It's amazing. 100% ma'am, but where do people go to find out more about the the brand runway, dive deeper into your world, all that good stuff. Yeah, Runaway dot life is pretty much all of our all of our socials as well as our website and our our YouTube as well. So getting ready to get some things cranking on YouTube.

We've got our Instagram rolling and then yeah, Runaway dot Life is our website. We're also available on Amazon and in a handful of running specialist shops. Awesome, awesome. And you're doing events. Is there like a list on your website of all the events that you are going to physically? We don't have a list up there yet. We we do need to put that on there because we do get asked quite a bit, hey, where are we

going to be? But we've got, we'll be at Rock'n'roll Nashville Marathon, Half Marathon later I'll be a Boston Marathon. I got I'm running that next month. And then coming going in the summer, we're going to be a lots of different races and festivals, a handful of Iron Man, lots of different ones. Awesome, man. Well, best look at Boston too. Man, that's gonna be awesome. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited.

It's my first one. I qualified last year in Chicago. So this will be, you know, kind of punching, checking that one off and and punching my ticket to Boston. You have a time in your mind that you're shooting for personally. Not really like I, you know, I, I want to enjoy it. Part of me wants to like race and stuff, but I, I tend to go out too fast. And with Boston, it's, you know, that's where the downhills are and then you hit the uphill, you know, a little after halfway through.

I, I'm just going to go enjoy it, see how my body feels, what the weather's like, just start, just start rolling. If I'm feeling good, you know, at 20, I'll, I'll try to pick it up through the hills. You know, I ran just under 3 hours in Chicago last year, so anything within 10 minutes of that I'd be happy with. Awesome man. Yeah. We'll keep you posted on that for sure. Man, that's exciting. Will do all. Right, Cameron? Well, pleasure as always, brother.

Appreciate you appreciate meeting Dan the other day as well. Just love what you do with the company and keep doing what you're doing man. Thanks so much for having us. Yeah. You bet. See you, brother. All right, see you later.