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Thank you, New York. Today, we're reminded of the power of community and the power of coming together, athletes, on your mark.
The first woman to finish for the second straight year here in the New York City Marathon is Miki Gorman, a smiling Miki Gorman, and why not? 2: 29: 30, the time for motorbikes.
Look at the emotion of Shalane Flanagan as she comes to the line. Pointing to his chest, pointing to the USA, he's so proudly wears across his chest. A great day for (inaudible) McCluskey.
Hey everybody, and welcome to another edition of Set the Pace, the official podcast of New York Road Runners. We are presented by Peloton, and I'm your host, Rob Simmelkjaer. I'm the CEO of New York Road Runners. With me here, still recovering, I've got to imagine from her unbelievable world adventure, Becs Gentry from Peloton. Hi Becs, how are you?
Hi. I am doing very well, thank you. Aside from calling myself a bear who wants to be in hibernation with this gray sky right now. Otherwise, I'm rolling.
Yeah, we finally got some rain around here the last few weeks. It'd been so sunny for so long, but so dry. So the rain's a good thing, but yes, it can definitely lead to some days that make it hard to get up and motivate hard even to get up and motivate to run. I'm really curious, Becs, to hear about what you've been doing since the Great World Race.
And by the way, today's the day that we're going to really go in deep with Becs to hear all about this incredible adventure. That's right. Becs is our interview guest today, so I can't wait, Becs, because there's so many questions I've been wanting to ask you about that trip, about those runs, about just how you feel coming out of
that. So a little bit later on in the show, it's going to be all about Becs and the Great World Race. I can't wait to hear it. Are you ready? Are you ready for me to grill you?
I am, actually, I feel like I am. It's starting to become something that is being processed in my mind, so of all the people to ask the questions first, this is the best podcast for it to be on.
Appreciate that. Thank you. And I know our listeners are so curious.
They are. And we have a little extra as well, Rob, as well. We are not just going to be hearing from me today, though, a little surprise for you. Joining us later in place of our usual member moment interview, we are going to be joined by the woman who claimed the crown in this year's Great World Race, my wonderful friend Hillary Kupish will be joining to help with this debrief.
Wow. Can't wait to hear from her and what it took to beat you and so many others over those seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. So that sounds awesome. So we'll talk to Hillary a little bit later on as well. And then Meb will still be with us later in the episode for our weekly Meb minute.
Today's tip from Meb is all about hydrating during those winter runs, whether you're up here in the northeast or just running in temperatures colder than you're used to. That's actually something I sometimes have to remember is just because it's cold doesn't mean you don't need to drink water. So
Meb will give us some tips on that. Before we dive into our conversations with Becs and Hillary, this past Saturday, we hosted the Ted Corbitt 15K in Central Park honoring one of my predecessors and the first ever president of New York Road Runners, they call him the father of American long- distance running Ted Corbitt. We were joined by more than 4, 000 runners who braved a very
cold morning to celebrate the life and legacy of Ted Corbitt. And Becs, we thank them every week, but this week, I think a special and big thank you to our staff and our volunteers who went out in some very cold temperatures and they didn't get to run. And I went out and I ran just to frankly stay warm, Becs. And
that really did help, although, it took a while. But thanks to everybody out there because it was a chilly day and we had a nice crowd on hand. But thanks again to all of our folks who helped put this race on. Big congrats to our winners, by the way, from last Saturday. For the women, it was Erin Gregoire with a time of 53:02 from the Brooklyn Track
Club. The non- binary winner was Abdoulaye Sow from the Bronx Burners and the men's winner was Owen Ritz with the time of 46: 53. Owen hailing from the New York Athletic Club.
Wow, what incredible times on that cold day, I was thinking of you all whilst I was here teaching my Peloton class in the warmth of the Treads studio, but it did look like everyone was smiling and had the festive fun with them in those miles. So yes, big
thanks to those volunteers. It's something that I always say to runners whenever people ask me about tips for their first races, no matter what distance, one of the things I always tell them is thank the volunteers while you're running. If you forget while you're running, thank them at
the finish line. Just make sure you get a thanks out there because those people show up, they stand in the cold, the wet, the hot sun, and they make sure that we're all safe to do the runs. So big (inaudible) .
A 100% our head of volunteers at New York Road Runners, a woman named Donna Finney always says, " When you see a volunteer, thank a volunteer." And that was definitely a good day to thank them on Saturday and those frigid temperatures.
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Well, we've been talking about it for months here on Set the Pace. And so if you listen to us here or you follow her on Instagram or take her classes, you know that my true beast of a co- host, Becs Gentry, has just completed an incredible physical and mental test, seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. And now, we finally get to hear all the skinny on Becs's incredible
adventure. So, Becs, first of all, again, congratulations.
Thank you.
I'm so in awe of you. I have been ever since you even said you were taking this challenge on. And so the first question I want to ask you is why, and I don't think we really ever dug into the why you decided to do this and take this on. So when you were first approached about it, what was the thing that made you want to do this?
I was essentially inspired by David Kilgore, who we had on as a guest on Set the Pace a while ago to discuss the Great World Race. So he was my kickstarter of, can I do this? Should I do this? But my why is I'd say twofold, Rob, it
is my daughter. I want to be able to tell her the boundaries that were put in place for women before my time and the boundaries that were broken through during my time as a female athlete, as a female in this world. And to show her that no matter how you identify, you can do anything that you put your mind to, but you have to work for it. And this to me was a prime example. It hit
my other why, which was me. And some people may say that's selfish, but in order to inspire other people, to light up other people, I have to make sure that my light is still bright. And in order to do that, I am not necessarily somebody who goes shopping and that fills up my cup. I want to adventure,
I want to experience things. I want to create personal memories and anecdotes and experiences that I can share with my family and friends and beyond. And weirdly, it's running. And so I've always loved adventure running. That's where I started going around the world to do funny races here and
there, unheard of races. And so I thought, what better than the Great World Race to go around the world in seven days and take on the challenge of running a marathon in every single continent?
Becs, we sometimes have guests on the podcast, female runners, moms who run marathons and do it really well. And one of the challenges I know is just fitting all this stuff in, the training, the actual race. I'm curious what it was like when you first brought this idea home to your husband, to your young daughter, like, " Hey, I'm
going to do this crazy thing." And not only obviously the time you'd be traveling for the race, but I mean, the amount of time you have to be training. How much of a team effort did this have to be to even get ready for this for you and your family?
Oh, golly. This was a huge team effort. So Austin was actually the nudge to my acceptance of doing this race. I wanted to do it, but he is my biggest cheerleader. He believes in me more than I believe in me most of the time. And he was so
encouraging for me to do this race. And we sat down and I said, " You understand that if I do this for most of this year, I'm going to be stepping back from parenting duties on an equal level to you. You're going to have to do a little bit more for me to be able to succeed in the training. I can't half- ass this in the long." That was the long and short of it. And he's super dad, he's an absolute super dad. He's
born to be a father. He's incredible with Tallulah. So at the start of the training, it was difficult. I hate missing wake up time. I hate missing bedtime. There's the two things in my life that I think are going to disappear very soon. She's going to be an independent woman who doesn't want me to wake her up, doesn't want me to cuddle her and read her books to bed. And so I cherish those times and even missing
one a week really plagues me with guilt. So I had to get through that by myself of it's temporary, this is something that's going to be a very good example for her in the long run. And then Austin just is a very good at getting up early, which is
fantastic. So the days when I went out even earlier, he's great at getting up, getting himself his coffee and starting his daily routine before Tallulah wakes up because thank whoever above this child loves to sleep. So she goes down easy and more often than not, she will sleep till 7: 00, 7:30. Yesterday, she slept till eight o'clock, gone eight o'clock.
Wow. Wow. What a gift.
Yeah, we can actually get some work done. We can actually both start our days relatively well before Tallulah's normally up. And there were days because I trained through spring and summer in New York, there were days where actually I'd got my workout done by the time she was up and running so I could still drop her off at school or spend an hour with her before our nanny
arrived. So the daylight being longer hours was really in my favor to still be a mom on a level that made me feel happy.
Yeah, that's a good time of year to be able to do this in the fall when you've got those long summer hours to work with, it's so much harder to train over the winter months when there's no light.
It is.
So before we even get to the start backs, the journey to the starting line, I always tell people the hardest thing about running a marathon is getting to the starting line. You had to get to seven starting lines. And I'm just wondering, and I know you had some bumps along the way in training, you had the incident with your bed post.
For the natural bump.
Yes, where you banged your foot on the bed and that set your foot back quite a bit. But how many doubts did you have along the way as to whether you could pull this off?
Oh gosh, at the start, there was a lot, because I had sort of said yes to it along the same time that I ran Tokyo Marathon, should I say, and I got my six star medal and I felt very good about it. However, I didn't enjoy running the Tokyo Marathon. I don't know whether I was just falling out of love with marathon road racing or whatever was going
on. Also, I've admitted this on many of platform, I didn't train to the extent I'm used to training for Tokyo Marathon. I went into it in my personal opinion rather undertrained, so therefore underprepared, which leads me to understand
why I didn't enjoy it. So I think once I started getting into the routine, I sort of felt like, " Oh my gosh, this isn't enough because this is what I should be training for one marathon, not seven, as you said." And I think just as the mileage started to increase and I was really tired or I was searching for ways to just add in mileage in my
day, it was quite overwhelming at the start. And I did have to sit down and just think, okay, what can I do to make this " easier" for myself? Even though it's going to get harder, I just had to make it more manageable, more doable because the more obstacles that were in the way, the easier it is for me as an Aries to just go, I'm good, I'm just going to step back and not do this because it's not
the way I want it to be. So I sat down and I looked at my work schedule, I looked at my social schedule and I carved out ways to add in miles. Now, I'm very lucky, I live in New York. New York is one
of the most highly populated cities for runners. Everyone runs, and I know a lot of our listeners might be based in locations where it possibly isn't that safe to run to work, to the grocery store, to whatever appointment. I am very lucky, I choose to live here, so it's not all luck, but I am able to redirect my commute to foot and that's what I did. I'd send my Peloton outfits or anything I needed for the
rest of the day. I used to send my laptop here in an Uber car on a Tuesday morning. So I'd run here, set up my laptop, then we'd record the podcast. And it was all very manipulated for my success. And I don't mean success is in my win, but in my success to me in that time was just happiness and feeling that I had done what I could do the best I could do day by day,
week by week to get my training in. And that's where it had to be on a sort of daily basis. I wanted to make sure when I went to bed and I looked at my Coros app that I was like, " Yeah, I made the most out of that
day." And that was a really good lesson for me to learn in the long run of, okay, make the most out of your day really, especially in summer in New York City, nobody cares if you turn up sweaty because everybody is turning up sweaty. So again, train for ultras in summer.
I couldn't agree more. All right, so you get on the flight, you get yourself to South Africa, Cape Town, which is your first staging ground for the first race in Antarctica, and the first race started a day early, so the whole thing started a day early.
Yeah.
Why did that happen and how did that affect you?
Oh my goodness. So let me just say the flight from New York to South Africa was so daunting. Austin literally stayed at the security on the other side in LaGuardia until I had gone around the corner. I think he was so worried that if he left, I would just run back out and be like, " I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it." He stood there like a security guard watching me
go through. And so once I got there and I had all of this idea that I was going to go sit in the Delta lounge and have a glass of champagne, and then I was like, no, I'm so nervous. I can't even, no. I just sat there with a glass of water, sort of shivering with nerves. And then I got to South
Africa. I had a wonderful flight. I actually ended up meeting about four other runners from the US that were on the flight from Atlanta to Cape Town, which was lovely because that immediately got the conversation flowing. I think people's nerves were relaxed. I had a wonderful air hostess on the flight who she could not believe what we
were all doing. I was, I think, the only mom and I was by myself, and she was a mom of two I think as well, older kids. She just took me under her wing and she kept just bringing me over the nicest champagne to drink. I think I had about four glasses of champagne and was like, " I got to stop." I do not normally. I don't normally drink that much ever and be on a flight. I was like, "
Oh geez." But it was a 15- hour flight. So I watched the movies. I had a good cry because we all know we cry more when we're in altitude. That's my excuse, anyway, and I slept and woke up and I was in South Africa and felt, thank goodness, fine. We all got off the flight, got to the hotel, we were supposed to have... So the next day was going to be briefings, and then we'd have Thursday as a
free day to organize ourselves. And then Friday morning was takeoff to Antarctica. So I have family in South Africa, my mom's side of the family reside there. I was so excited to see my aunt, my uncle, my cousins who I haven't seen in 10 to 15 years, something like that. So we went for the briefing, and David Kelly, the race director
just says, " Okay, great, got some updates for you. We will be leaving for Antarctica at 4: 45 AM tomorrow morning." Silence. The whole room went from this buzzy, excitable hum to dead silence, and I think I definitely burst out laughing because I thought it was a joke, was like, " Yeah, a way to crack the ice, David, hilarious." I think everyone else was like, " Ha, ha, ha, great joke." And he was like, "
No," this is Irish guy. He's very straight down the line. He was like, " No, I'm serious. We're going to Antarctica in the morning. We have to leave early." So there was a huge weather front that come into Antarctica, a huge storm coming in that would've meant if we'd have gone on Friday, we would've risked having almost whiteout conditions for
running. But that wasn't the worst. It would've been potentially getting stuck in Antarctica, which is the worst, or the options were pull it forward a day or push it back by five days. So the logistics team of the Great World Race took the good idea of pulling it forward
a day. And so that was it. I mean, I don't like change like that, but honestly, it was probably since having Tallulah who arrived three weeks early, I've really had to come to terms with the fact that life does throw you curveballs and you have to be able to pivot quite quickly. So thank goodness, the past two years I've really honed that skill in and I just sat there like, " Oh, this is going to be insane.
The rest of my afternoon is going to be awful." Yeah. But I think in hindsight, having lunch with my cousins and my family was a good distraction for a
couple of hours. And then once they left, I was in my hotel room just organizing everything, I had packed, organized and ready to go, but we just had to get one bag ready for Antarctica, and then we had to have everything else ready because once we arrived back from Antarctica, we had a few hours sleep, literally two hours sleep. We ran the Cape Town leg and then we were leaving, then we were going. So everything had
to be organized and in its place. So that was just, yeah, it was pivoting, it was going with the emotions and getting it done.
So you get to Antarctica, good conditions?
Perfect, absolutely beautiful. You know what? It was sunny.
Sunny, beautiful, the pictures looked amazing.
Blue sky, it wasn't even that cold.
Like what?
When we landed, it was minus 12 Fahrenheit when we landed, so it was pretty cold. So below zero for everybody, let's say, let's just call it that, it was below zero for every, whenever you measure your weather in.
Temperature in. Yeah, that's pretty cold.
Yeah, it was pretty cold, but there wasn't wind, which was the scary thing is that you could have 40, 50 mile per hour freezing winds in your face. So we were layered up and I definitely took off my outer shell layer within the first two miles of the race, and I took off my huge thick gloves within the first four miles of the race.
And you're running on an ice road basically?
Essentially, yeah. Half of it was actually the runway that we landed on with the plane, and then the other half was groomed around the White Desert. They were the organization company that took us to Antarctica around their sort of base camp because they do expeditions there. And so half of it was, as you say, ice, the runway, it was compact, the other half was running on sand
in snow. It was uneven, it was deep and it was not enjoyable. So yeah, that was about a mile.
And you're running laps back, I mean, is it a bunch of laps around a track, four laps?
Four 10K laps of that, and I say about a mile and a half of it was unpleasant and the rest was pretty good.
And you felt good about your race in Antarctica? I mean, I don't know what-
I felt okay.
... your expectations were in a race, in an environment like that, wearing I'm sure not normal running shoes, right?
I did actually run in my Vaporflies.
Wow.
Yeah.
In the snow?
In the snow. Yeah.
You had enough traction with those?
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because it was groomed and it's compact ice. I mean, it's just ice. There's nothing underneath, there's no tarmac anywhere. It's all ice. So it was hard. And they were great. They were absolutely great because it wasn't windy. My feet didn't get that cold, but I did have the layers on, the base layer sock and then the wool sock and then the shoe, and
I felt good. My only issue with Antarctica was that it was very difficult to hydrate because when they poured us water, it froze immediately, and I hate drinking cold water even on the hottest of days. So I found it very difficult to take on board hydration. I normally run with my hydration in my hand, but obviously you
couldn't do that because it would freeze. Even taking gels was just like, this is so different to everything I know about running. I struggled to take on it, I should have taken on more gels and I got a slight cramp. My stomach, I had GI issues, so that was a lot going on, but I was pretty happy with finishing. I think it was around a 3: 30 marathon, something like that, which is great.
Which is unbelievable. Yeah, it was incredible. And so Antarctica is a day trip, right?
Yes.
You finished that thing, you're right back to Cape Town, night in Cape Town, and then what's the route you're running in Cape Town for day number two?
So we got into Cape Town at around 3: 30 in the morning. We got back and we went to bed and we were starting the South Africa race at around 7: 00 AM, so it was very minimal sleep.
Wow, so very little sleep.
It was six loops on the waterfront outside of the Winchester Hotel, basically in Cape Town. So it wasn't down at the waterfront in front of the Victoria and Alfred, but all of that, it wasn't anything that you would know really unless you know South Africa, Cape Town very well. But it was fine. It was great. It was unfortunately all on cement, so it was quite a lot of impact on
the body, especially after Antarctica. So I sort of felt a little bit of that hamstring cramp effect, the pulling of my muscles. I felt it a little bit in my foot that day, but just sort of brushed it aside as, " Hey, you're running another marathon within 24 hours. This one's on concrete. You're used to running on tarmac, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." There's so many excuses in your head.
But that race was pivotal in my understanding of the friendships that I was going to make on that race. I was already good friends with David Kilgore. You all know that. And for him, he had for him a
rougher race. He wasn't blazing it. I can't quite remember what the cause was, but the girls, we'd formed a bond in Antarctica, and we sort of cemented it that day and we picked him up because he was sort of flagging a bit, and I was like, " Kilgore, come on, join us, join our group." Then we had another awesome Irish guy called Jeff Pendergrass. He was running with us too. So there were seven of us running in total
in that group, and we stuck together. We pulled through when we all really had moments in that race where we were like, "Oof, okay, maybe this isn't going to be as fun or as easy or as whatever we thought it would be on day two," and we got each other through, and that was when we came over the finish line, all seven of us holding hands in the air and really, really did make me understand, okay, you can
be friends with somebody. I don't see David and his wife, Molly, a lot in New York. We all travel, we all have very busy lives, but when we're together, I can actually say he's a very good friend, and especially after that day, and then that included Hillary, Shereen, Ash, Jenny, it was just, that was it, the ball was rolling on those really deep friendships.
I love it. I love it. So cool. If you're going to bond, that's a pretty good way to bond with someone is traveling around the world with them running marathons, seven straight days, so I can only imagine you're all going through the same thing. Okay. Right after that, you're off to Australia and that's got to be, I'm guessing, is that the longest flight of the race or-
That was the second longest.
... no, maybe second longest? Yeah.
Yeah. It was the second longest. So very similar. It was about a 15 or so hour flight. We were all really excited to get on that flight.
Sleep?
Yes. It was also the first time we were seeing our jet, the charter jet. It was a commercial jet, but a charter jet, the one that the Rolling Stones had used for their last world tour. I was really excited to get on this plane to
Wow.
find our home for the rest of the week as well. We all coined the phrase our rowmies, whoever we were in a row with, that was our rowmy for the week, and it was kind of cute. I felt really like a kid who'd run away from home and I've got my little backpack, my snacks. It was just all surreal. So we all got on that flight, we all passed out, all of us in our different recovery boots and face masks and noise-
canceling headphones. Everybody had their jam that they had worked for them in training and was there, and then yeah, we got to Australia and it was just so quick. That one to me was the quickest. It was, we landed, and I'll tell you, when we landed that day, I felt awful that it was a really bumpy landing and we were on a very big plane, so it felt like I was at Deep Sea fishing boat coming
into land, or I've never been on one. That's how I imagine from watching lots of movies. And I felt nauseous, I felt just really off and was like, " Oh God, this is going to be a terrible race." Just thinking in my head, you're starting a marathon again in the next couple of hours.
Right off the plane.
Right off the plane. We had a 15- minute journey, so we grabbed our bags, we got on buses and it was all very quick, straight through customs at Perth Airport. We got on the buses, we drove 15 minutes to the track near a stadium in Perth. I completely forget the name of the stadium. Beautiful. It was beautiful. And I will say the people there, the track, the athletics club were incredibly welcoming. They
were so vibrant and funny. The Australians are just such funny people and so, so sweet. They had everything laid out for us, and it was all set up wonderfully. There was some Peloton members there, which surprised me, and they came and brought me my favorite Australian biscuits, which are Tim Tams. And so it was all like, I was like, "Okay, I'm starting to feel good, starting to feel
better." And then we got to the start line and they changed the course. So it was supposed to be six laps. They turned it to 12. So it was essentially a mile and a bit out and backs, which was the first time that we faced that. And it was difficult to wrap my head around. I'm not a track girl. I like running a long way in a straight line. That's my favorite
thing to do. So doing these repeats was a little bit concerning, but with the help that was on hand, had an incredible Peloton member called Nancy who worked for the Athletics Club, and she's an ultra runner out there in Perth, and just a big shout- out to her. She was my savior that day. Anything I needed, she was just there with it. She almost like she could read
my mind. She knew when my hydration was running out and she grabbed my bottle and go and fill it up for me and put my hydration sachet in. And again, the girls, we stuck together. So Hillary, Ash, Shereen, and I, we always took the first few miles to find our grooves individually, and then there was never a handshake or whatever you want to call it, an agreement. It was just, let's
see how we all feel. If we end up together, great. If not, we're all going to still love each other and have a great run. This one, we stuck together again, and we actually got quite professional, Rob. We were doing flying formations, getting in the front, swapping each other in. It just turned into so much fun and as much as I didn't...
Like the Peloton.
Exactly, exactly, like the Peloton. And as much as I didn't want to love the 12 out and backs or 10, I can't remember, it was a lot. It was really fun to go through the start and finish that many times and see the people and also to see the other runners. We got to high- five 57 of us, all running together. We got to high- five each other hundreds of times, and that made it really sink in
that we are a big team doing this. We're a bunch of individuals who agreed to it, but we've become this team who are doing it together. And yeah, it was really, it was kind of wild. The room that the Athletics Club had us in looked like a housing, like what's they called? Natural disaster housing area. It was just mess, suitcases a mess, and people laying on the floor
after the race recovering. But it was just part of the adventure.
And as I recall from your results, you started to get better too. I mean, Antarctica was hard obviously, but I think you did quite well, if I recall, in Perth, which is surprising given the flight you just got off of, you turned around right after this race and flew to Istanbul, right?
Exactly.
There was no night spent in Australia, am I correct?
There was nothing. Yeah, no. So we literally were, as soon as everyone was done, I honestly think the last runners ran from the finish line onto the bus, and we went to the airport, we got straight on the flight. That was the quickest I have ever gotten to an airport. They handed us our boarding passes and we got straight through customs and straight onto an airplane, and we flew to Istanbul. So
again, that was about a 14- hour flight. Again, sleep, and Istanbul, we had Asia and Europe, and I would say that was just probably the worst arrival was Istanbul when we got there, it was raining, it was dark, it was nighttime. The course looked like a jackhammer had been
taken to the pavement. The fishermen who were doing what they do every day, fishing for their food, didn't want to move understandably, but it was unsafe for us all to be running because they were sort of blocking the pathway. So we had to wait, and then it got really cold and it was just a logistical nightmare, not just for us as runners, but for the team as well, the
logistical team for David Kelly and everybody. They were trying their best to make it function quickly, but every minute we delayed, the start was time away from sleeping. So obviously, there's runners. The girls and I were running around three hour marathons at this point, but you have to remember, we had eight hours to complete the race, and there were runners using every single second of that eight hours.
So the longer we delayed the race, especially for those runners, they were then risking having little to no sleep at all before their next race. So it was a little bit stressful. Again, the race had to be cut short, so we were... Not the race, the route had to be cut short, so we were doing multiple.
More laps.
And this one was the shortest, Rob, it was, I think, a kilometer out of that.
Oh my goodness. So you're doing over 40 of those?
Yeah, it was wild. It was really wild. Yeah, 22 times we saw the start finish, I think before, it was just so much, and then again, we started together. I had terrible GI issues for this one, so I spent quite the last, I'd say five plus miles running by myself, which again was fine because we had the camaraderie of all the other runners. We were high-fiving.
You've seen them. Yeah.
Yeah. So it didn't feel like I was by myself, but in my head I was like, " Oh my gosh, I haven't got my girls, this is suddenly got more difficult. I'm tired. I was wet, it's cold." And then I saw Ash on one of my last turnarounds and she was like, " Go catch me up. Catch me up." And I did crack out a 6: 15 or whatever it was. I think we had 6: 12. Every time she told me to catch her up, I ran a 6:
12. I caught her up and we ran the last couple of loops together and finished together on that race, which was really nice to just finish again with one of my girls side by side. An hour or so later, we got to the hotel in Istanbul, maybe two. It was probably two hours from when we finished, and just, yeah,
it's just weird. You're arriving at a hotel in the small hours of the morning knowing you've got to get up and run a race early the next day, but you want to have a shower. Ash and I shared a room and we were just getting our kit out. It was just like being at camp again. We didn't eat that night, which was really not good. We didn't eat after the race. There wasn't food there, and it was so late.
That's tough.
That was really tough. But we were in a hotel, so we knew the next morning there would be breakfast at the hotel. So I think we were all really plowing in the field.
Must've gone crazy for that breakfast, absolutely.
Yeah. But again, knowing you've got to run another marathon pretty quickly after you eat.
On the other side of the Bosphorus to get the Asian leg in. And was the route any different, any better over there or more or less the same?
It was longer. It was a little longer. I think it was back to being about two miles out, so maybe it was 10 laps of that one, which was better. But this is the one where my foot really started to give me some pain. So I started...
Your foot, you'd banged on your bed?
No, the irony being it was other foot.
Other foot, interesting.
This is I'd got cramp in my right leg or just verge on the edge of cramp in Antarctica and what the physio and the doctor on the trip thought was that the posterior fascia in my right leg had tightened up so much in this cramp situation that it had pulled all the way up because I felt it in my hamstring, but I'm used to feeling it in my hamstring. What I'm
not used to feeling, it is in my foot. And so that fascia underneath, which is on the outside of your muscle, was pulling, if you imagine this is the underneath, your fingers are underneath of your foot and you clench your fingers up, and that was what was happening, with every step I took, it was just jarring it back, which actually feels like a shooting pain. It feels like someone's stabbing
your foot. So in my mind, I'm thinking, " Oh my gosh, I have plantar fasciitis." I've never had this. People talk about it's debilitating. Oh my gosh, I'm freaking out. I'm just like, " This is awful. I've got to do more races."
That can be a game ender right there, absolutely.
Game ender, yeah. And so in my mind I'm like, " Oh, I have to get a cortisone shot in my foot in Turkey," or I'm like, " No, I can't do this." So I never take any medication. I'm very much a believer that if your body is... You have a headache, lay down,
if you can, just weird mindset. And when I asked Ross, one of the physio on the team, he was riding alongside on the bike and the girls had left me and he looked at me, he was like, " You're not okay." I was like, " I'm in so much pain. I can't even explain to you, worse pain than childbirth right now." He's like, " Oh, okay. What's going on?" I explained to him. He gave me some anti- inflammatories and some
pain relief, and they kicked in and thank goodness. But I did run about half that race by myself, mainly because I didn't want to hold up the girls. They were so sweet. They were like, " We'll stay, we'll run with you." I'm like, " No, no, no, no, no, you go, you go, you get there." Hillary and Ash, I think ran a sub 3 in that race. So
there was no way I was staying with them. But once the painkillers kicked in, I actually felt pretty good and managed to pick up the pace a little bit more and finish well, I mean, I think I ran a 3: 12 or something in that race.
Incredible, incredible.
But then the fear was there, Rob, to be honest, that was the first time I just thought, " Okay, I got through that using pain relief, but I need to be a mom. I need to be a Peloton instructor. I don't want to break my foot. I don't want to leave this race in Miami, not able to walk or relying on cortisone injections to get through my job."
I was spiraling a little bit. I had a very emotional FaceTime with Austin just crying my eyes out of like, "This is a mistake. I shouldn't be doing this." And you go to the bad spots in those moments. I got some work on my foot. I rolled it with a ball, and then we got on that really long flight, 19 and a half hours, that included a stopover and refueling in
Madrid, and we flew from Istanbul to Cartagena, Colombia. When I tell you I got in my bed, well, my chair, I made it into my bed. I put my recovery boots on, we landed and took off in Madrid. I did not move, no idea. I woke up with about three hours to go on the flight. I slept. I was gone, out.
I'm not surprised. I am not surprised. I could totally see it. Okay, Becs, I watched that race in Cartagena and it looked really, really hot. How hot was it?
Well, the real fear was around a 100, 101 degrees, but it was the humidity rub, it was so high humidity, I think it was 95, 96% humidity. It was really that kind of you lift your pinky finger and you are drenched with sweat. So we got on a bus from the airport, which took us to a hotel lobby where we got ourselves situated and ready. We had the whole day
actually in Cartagena. So the race organizers had booked out a certain number of rooms for groups of people to drop their bags off in so we could shower after. So we sort of dumped our stuff in rooms about five of us per room and headed out. And it was a short walk from the hotel to the start line. And already by the time we got to the start line, you could just see everybody was drenched and the sun was
out. So sometimes you can kind of handle it, especially in New York, if it's a little overcast, it's humid, and it's hot. If the sun is not also beating down on you, you feel a little bit more ready to handle it. But when you then feel the seer of the sun on your skin too, you're like, " Please, no, this is just torturous."
It looked brutal. It really did.
It really was. The saving grace was that we did run along water, which was lovely. There was no breeze whatsoever, but psychosomatically, you look at water and you're like, " Okay, this is a little... I can calm myself down. It's not through a city." Again, a heinous amount of repeats of this short one mile course. And as the irony went, I ended up getting not quite sunburned, but the most drastic sports bra
tan line on my back. But then I got ice burn on my chest because I was putting ice down my sports bra. I was like, " This is just a juxtaposition right here."
Too hot, too cold, run back.
Yeah. But it was all about working together. Even the whole logistical team of the Great World Race, people who weren't medical, just people who were there pitched in to help throw ice on us, throw water on us, make sure that there was enough salt tabs. They went to get some extra salt tabs to make sure people were having enough. And they were also, the medics were running up and down
being like, " Only take three, no more than three." You can't take a salt tab every time you come past because you're going to get hyponatremia. So it really was a big team effort to get through. And that's why I say sticking with the girls with Hillary, Ash, and Shereen on that one. The conversations we had were so linked to each other's mental strength on that one, points where some
of us were just really struggling there. All of us, apart from Hillary on that one, had really bad GI issues and there was nowhere to go. So it was quite a moment to say the least.
Gosh, I'm so sorry for the GI issues, it just sounds like that was a theme of this whole event for you.
It was.
And that's not a theme you were looking for, I doubt.
No, no, no.
But you battled through, truly battled through.
We get through. We get through.
So you battled through Cartagena. You said it was one of the hardest races of your life.
Yeah.
And then it was a relatively short hop over to Miami, and that's where Becs' cheering section was in full effect. You had Becs Beasts, I believe they were called.
We did.
There to cheer you on. That must have felt great to see everybody in Miami.
Oh, my gosh. The anticipation of getting to Miami was obviously there from the minute we got on the flight to Antarctica. So it's building up and it feels like a lot longer than seven days since we got there, actually, it was six days really. And leaving Cartagena was sort of wild because we were all really drained after finishing that race. But we had, as I said, the whole
day in Cartagena. So I rallied the troops and said, " When are we going to be back here? Let's go and see the old town. It's supposed to be beautiful." So we all trudged off and did a little bit of sightseeing that day, which I'm really happy we did. But in hindsight, probably should have slept a little bit somewhere because the flight to Miami was slated to be only three and a half hours. It ended up being
only two and a half hours. We had some big, big tailwinds, which any other flight you take to any other place, you're like, " Yay, I got there quicker." This one where you're like, "No."
Yeah, but that's your sleep time. That's your sleep time. Yeah. Yeah.
That was a sleep time. So we landed in Miami just before 4: 00 AM. And Rob, there was no... The airport was empty. We flew through customs and it was just like a ghost town and we're standing there, okay, we're not running till 7: 00, so what are we doing? And the race organizers said, " If you have a hotel room, feel free to go
to your hotel room." And I was like, " Well, I can't rock up at 4:00 AM, and wake up my daughter and Austin." And also, if I step foot in that hotel room, you think I'm coming back out?
Pandemonium, of course, it'd be nuts. And you would not want to exactly say goodbye to your family.
No, I see massive king- size bed and I haven't seen that in days.
Absolutely.
So I hung around the airport. Some people stayed there. A lot of people did actually go to their hotel rooms who didn't have family members there yet, or if they had an Airbnb, and they got a little rest. And it took me about half an hour of just standing around in Miami airport and getting stressed. I was just like, " I'm getting angry and tense." I said to Hillary was like, " Do
you want to just come to my hotel? We'll organize our bags. We'll sit in the lobby, we'll get a coffee, and it'll be fine." So we did that. We just jumped in an Uber. We went to my hotel and just honestly, there was no one really around. It was quiet and we organized our bags, we threw things out. We got ourselves ready, brushed our teeth, had a coffee. Austin did pop down, so I was happy I got to
see him before the race. My uncle appeared out of nowhere. I just suddenly look up and my uncle's standing there. I was like, " What are you doing here?" I didn't even know he was staying in that hotel. And they'd changed their hotel last minute. So I got to see my uncle who actually sponsored me to do this race. So
I'm really glad we did that. And then just getting to the start line, the start line location was changed with 20 minutes to go before the race started. So there was a complete pandemonium chaos. Everyone's like, " Where are we going? What are we doing?"
I don't even understand how that can happen and still get the right distance, but that's another conversation. So Miami, all I can ask you is how focused were you on during that race on trying to quote win? Were you and Hillary competing at that point, or was it just finish and see your family?
It was finish. It was finished, see our family, I put up on Instagram earlier this week, a video that somebody caught of the first time I saw Tallulah and it brought me to my knees. I was so, so tired to the point where I hadn't allowed myself to feel it. And you'll hear more from Hillary on that
actually in the message with her. We sort of block ourselves from the true emotions when you're doing something like this, and then when you see your true loves, it comes out because you are your most vulnerable in front of the people you love and care about the most. And I fell to my knees when I saw my daughter and the tears just came. I was just suddenly really sobbing because I was so tired. But looking at
Tallulah, she's like, " Mommy crying." I'm like, " No, mommy's fine. I'm fine." I didn't want her to see this as a mommy sad or mommy's upset. I was like, " Mommy's fine. She's just a little tired, but she's fine." And then really it was true chaos. That start line. I don't know if any listeners out there who've ever been to the boardwalk of Miami Beach, it's narrow. It's busy. It's
a very active place down there. It's gorgeous weather. People are always out exercising in the morning, walking, running, cycling, roller skating. There's everything going on. And then there's 57 runners plus the crew, plus all of our now supporters, family
and friends. It was wild. As a CEO of, and you got Road Runners, Rob, I think if you'd have seen that at the start to finish, you would've just been like, " Ted would've been losing his mind as a race director." There would've just been so many red flags. But that was the theme of this race. We just got on with it and off
we went. Hillary, Shereen, and I stuck together. Ash was unfortunately feeling some really bad hip pain after Cartagena and into Miami, and she just said, " Don't wait for me. I'm going to be really pulling the pace back. I don't want to hold you guys back. It's going to be significant change in pace." And so we all hugged
and we're like, " All right, let's do this." Jenny had also had some issues after Cartagena, I think some norovirus or something hit her. So she was sort of walk running the last race, unfortunately. So it was Hillary, Shereen and I set out with a couple of other guys, actually, really cool guy, Anders, who runs the athlete blog and then a very fun Italian dude who fast and
few silly if you find him on Instagram. Very, very great runner. And we sort of stuck together. And another really fantastic runner called Santosh for a while and then dropped off a little bit, and then it ended up the three girls again, and then Shereen had to drop
back. She was feeling a little bit of the GI issues, and then it was just Hillary and I. and we just said to each other, " Are we finishing this together?" And she was like, " Yeah." And neither of us wanted to leave the other one. We'd got so far, not just the seven days, not just that race. It was just like we progressed so far in our lives individually that neither of us was going to break away from
the other one. It just felt like a bad juju to do that. So we said, " All right, mom, stick together right here. We're inspiring three kids between us, A, to be bad asses, but B, to commit." You committed to running this thing together, and I'm not just going to leave you in the dust for glory. It wasn't either of our vibes. So we stuck it out together and ran
all the way in. And again, you'll hear a funny story from Hillary about that moment.
So cool. All right, so Becs, to wrap this unbelievable adventure up, here's what I want to know. How is Becs Gentry different now than she was before starting this? Whether it's as a runner or a Peloton instructor or a wife or a mom or anything? How are you different now or can you even process that yet?
I'm starting to really, in the past few days, it started to settle in to me that without sounding dramatic, it was a hugely pivotal point in my life. And I do have to accept that I have changed, not in a big way. You're not going to look at me and be like, " Well, she's so different these days." But internally, since becoming a mom, a parent, I not lost
some of my vibe, but it changed shape. And I think I needed to reformat what my vibe truly is. And before Austin, before Tallulah, before being a Peloton instructor, travel and running were huge parts of who I was and how I filled my cup up. And definitely, since becoming a parent that has gone, when you travel with a kid, you just relocate your life somewhere else. It's not a vacation anymore.
Yeah, it's just a trip. So I really needed to reset and refill my cup
No, we call it a trip, not a vacation. Yeah.
because I was feeling like my cup was almost empty. I didn't feel I was that inspiring as a Peloton instructor. So goodness knows, I wasn't inspiring as a partner, as a parent. So doing this trip really did give me the opportunity to relight my fire and allow that
bright, bubbly, motivated, inspired human to flourish again. And so by doing that, I truly hope once it really does settle in, I'm going to be able to be a better mom, a better partner, a better friend, a better instructor, and just thrive how I used to thrive. And I know that may sound selfish to a lot of people, but I think we forget and then my job is a lot about giving to other people and making
sure other people are doing well. And they get to a point where you think like, " Oh, goodness me, I'm not doing that well, what do I need to do?" And yeah, slightly off the realms of weirdness when you say, " Okay, I'm going to run seven marathons in seven days in just one week to do that," but that's who I am. And we're all different. We're all different. Someone may go and buy
a really expensive handbag. That's (inaudible) .
Well, I think that these things are so relative, and I think what you're saying about how you feel different doing seven marathons in seven days on seven continents is how a lot of people will tell you they feel after running one marathon in their mind.
Exactly. Yeah. It's a challenge. It's pushing yourself again and realizing what you are capable of by yourself, whether that's one mile, whether it's seven marathons, it doesn't matter what the actual quantitative distance time is, it's the feeling, it's the pride, it's the going to bed at night and being like, " I did that. I did that." Yeah.
100%. I think you nailed it. I think that's what it's all about. And you did do that. You did it, and man, it was a thrill to watch you do it. It was a thrill to talk to you about doing it. And again, we're all so proud of you.
Thank you.
And just thrilled to have had a chance to share in this journey with you, even if it was from afar.
Thank you so much.
So Becs, thank you for regaling us with these stories. They're amazing. And once again, congrats. Can't wait to talk to Hillary and hear what she says about how you did out there.
Let's do it. Growing a business means a lot of audience attracting, a lot of lead scoring and a lot of long days. But with HubSpot, it's easier than ever for marketers to boost leads and score customers fast. Which means pretty soon, your company will have a lot to celebrate. Visit hubspot. com/ marketers to learn more. Okay. Joining us now, again, in place of our usual member moment, we are being joined by one of my
fellow Great World Race finishers from this year. She's not just a finisher though. She's actually the top person to finish this challenge this year. By day, Hillary is a brand strategist, and by night, weekend, and whenever else in between she can, she's a badass mom and an incredible runner. I'm honored to now be able to call her
a friend. And aside from being running moms in common, Hillary and I have also have one more bond following the challenge where we both finished she first, me second overall, we decided to get matching seven tattoos to commemorate this crazy bond that we forged over one week and 183. 4 miles. So Hillary, welcome to the show. It is so good to be reunited with you virtually.
Yeah, thanks for having me. So glad to be here.
We were just talking through my debrief of the race with Rob, and obviously your name comes up a lot in it because we spent a lot of time and miles together with Ash, Poulsen, with Shereen, with Jenny and other runners on our trip. But we thought it'd be fun to have you on today to just talk about you and your life as a runner, because what a week, 10 days before was New York City Marathon for you.
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Jenny as well.
And Jenny as well. Yeah. But outside of the elite professional running world, there is Hillary who comes in with a steaming 2: 44 at the TCS New York City Marathon and then hops on a flight home and then hops on a flight to Cape Town. So Rob, should we ask Hillary some questions about how this happens?
Yeah. I'm really wondering, first of all, how this all came about, Hillary, I asked Becs this question, how'd you first get roped into this incredible Great World Race?
Yeah, it's a great question. I actually was thinking back on this, and I think I was initially targeted with something on social. I saw it came up and I think I had probably a similar reaction to what I hear most people of being like, " That's wild, that's interesting, that's exciting." And in my mind I'm like, " That's for sponsored athletes or people with a certain amount of dollars," I had these reactions
to it, but it popped up multiple times. And then honestly, I was on the Tread, it was I think the first week of August, and Becs started talking about it and I was like, " Oh no, she's doing this." And I was like, " Why?" It's one of those things, there's moments in life where certain ideas or things come into my purview and my mind, and they just have this
tug. And this was one of those where I'm like, " It's not leaving me alone and I need to look at why." And so that's what led me to saying yes and the first week of August. So it was a short runway for me coming into the race.
Did you guys know each other before this?
No.
No, no, no, no. I knew Becs because I run on the Tread. I am a very loyal Peloton member. I have the Tread, it's a part of my training routine. I live in a beautiful place where I can do a lot of outdoor running, but also, I have smoke in the summer and I have ice in the winter, and I have a three- year-
old and a six- year- old. So when you have them full on as a single mom, there's moments where it's like, it's time for a movie and I hop on the Tread. And so yeah, that's how, I knew of Becs, of course, but we had never met or chatted.
I love that. I love that story. And honestly, I think it was the funniest and sweetest moment ever was on Miami when you told me, I'm like, " We were two laps from the finish together," and we'd stuck together literally through that whole race of like, " Okay, let's do this together. We're going to finish, we're going to be
moms who finished this." And there was a point when I was like, " Hillary, David's dropping back, I think we're actually going to win- win this race together." It was just a lot going on. And I had a bit of a moment where I just had a breakdown of tears and emotions overcame me. And Hillary was like, " Too soon, too soon, we've got more laps. Hold it together, Becs." And then the next lap in almost the same spot,
she was like, " I got to tell you something." I was like, "Oh no, here we go. We're both doing it." And that's when she said...
I saved my fangirl moment. Yeah.
Yeah, right till the end, which was hilarious. And then I'm like, she's there having a nice honest moment and the roles had reversed. I was then laughing and giggling and just like, " Yeah, but now, we're friends for life."
Tell them about that officially.
So Hillary, and this question is really for both of you, but I'm curious, Hillary, what did you learn about yourself? You're obviously a very accomplished marathoner, you're running amazing times in New York and other places. Do you see yourself differently now as a runner having been able to complete
this and not just do that but win it? Are you thinking, wait a second, maybe this should be a job for me, maybe I should get some sponsors and quit my day job and do this for real?
That is a great question and a very interesting one. I will say one of the things that surprised me about this trip, other than my own performance, how my body held up, the relationships and the connections that were built during this, and one of the most interesting thing about that is the type of people that this brought were people that obviously were in for a challenge for themselves, but really,
really spoken to each other's lives. And I had a lot of great challenges kind of come my way and push me and pressed me to think about what do I really want this to look like? And so am I going to go for the Olympic trials? No, I've been asked that. I was like, " Absolutely not." I know where my strengths are and I don't know if that's what I want to do and where I would want to play. But absolutely,
I mean, I'm not done with being competitive. I love the trail space, I love the adventure space. And even seeing runners like David, I'm like, " He's doing it differently." He has these incredible sponsorships and his thing is these stage
wild races. And so there's areas I definitely want to explore. Also, I love my day job and I think there's something, the other thing that surprised me about this was the community that reached out to me, the amount of DMs, the amount of people were like, " How are you doing this as a normal person, as a mom with a job?" And I think there was something that really landed
for me there. One, I hadn't posted on social for two years before New York. So, all of a sudden, I'm like, "Oh, I'm starting to understand the value of social in a different way," and thank you to everyone that did send messages because it meant a lot to me. But it was just like there's part of me that I do want to show that these are things you can do and still pursue other passions. It
doesn't have to be one extreme. And so absolutely looking into what does sponsorship look like, especially for some of these big ambitious races that require a lot of travel time, funding, et cetera, but still having some conversations or kicking off some conversations and we'll see how that unfolds, but I don't think I'm going to be quitting my day job anytime soon.
Love that. But that's how it should be, I think, the way you've started is an inspiration, and to change that would be kind of strange in many ways. So fingers crossed, I'm so excited for you.
Freed out my authentic self, and there's different facets of me of my life that I really want to love and honor, running is a really big part of that and has been for a while now, but I don't want to just take one route because it's the path that I've
seen forged the most. I think the beauty of what I saw through this experience is there's really creative ways to live your life and have meaningful impact in the different areas of passion that you want to pursue.
Absolutely.
Hillary, what do you think it was that allowed you to win this thing? I mean, this is not a normal race. This is an endurance event on many levels, running endurance, sleep endurance, GI endurance, I'm sure, I mean, so many things can go wrong over a week with your body and something like this. What do you think it was that spelled the difference for you?
Gee, there's so much complexity and this whole race, seven days of teetering on the edge. And I will say, I actually made a call (inaudible) messages to Becs yesterday because we listened to the Rich Roll podcast with David Roche. I am a massive David- Megan Roche fan, and they really do a deep dive into all these different areas of fueling... They're really focused on the ultra
field, and I've nerded out with them for years. And I think I really trained for this in an ultra mindset. It definitely wasn't any sort of traditional marathoning. And I would say some of the differentiators were definitely fueling. I really practiced a ton of fueling. I think I had more during races than most people, and that definitely left me maybe a
little bit more recovered in some ways. But I will say I looked down at my legs every day and I was talking to them like they're my kids. I'm like, " You look so good today. I'm proud of you." And to rip off that, I think the other part of it that I spent a lot of time around was mindset and how I think people don't realize how their self- talk impacts them or even what their self-
talk is. And I spent a lot of time in my training reframing, and I think one of the biggest game change, things you can do is I can, I get to, and I'm grateful for, and if everything is framed with I can do this, I get to do this, and I'm grateful I get to do this, it changes.
Of course, throughout the first six races, there was not a moment where I was like, " I'm over it, I'm done, I can't, I was tired," but when I felt tired, I knew what to do because I had practiced it. I'm like, " This is when the work starts, so let's go, you can," and I say six because the seventh, I remember that morning I woke up after two hours of sleep and I was like, it was the
first time I had cried. I was just in the chair by myself. I'm like, " Not enough. It's not enough." It was rough morning for me, and it was the first time that I was like, " I don't want to run today." But then I was also like, " Okay," there were so many days where I staying with the pack, running smart, holding back enough, and that was another part of this, just like if I would've pushed harder and maxed sooner,
things could have fallen off. And that's again what you're always teetering with. And so being able to hold some of that back and get to the point where, thank God, it was just the last day that I was like, " No, this is a struggle." And then I happened to be on Miami with Becs' entire fan club who I'm just like, "I'm going to ride this wave. I know you're cheering for Becs, but I'm pretending you're
cheering for me too." So long- winded answer, but there you go.
Amazing. Congratulations. It's phenomenal. Are you going to come back and defend it next year? Is this something people defend or do they just check that box and move on?
Becs is not somebody that does races twice. I'll do races twice. Something like this, I was like, " I would want to, I'd probably run with a different purpose maybe to get people..." I mean, I'm happy to go up against someone just if they want it, I'm like, " I'll give you a run for your money or try to." But also, I really, really believe in what David is doing in building here from
a business standpoint. And if I can support that and if being a part of it helps that, then absolutely, I will.
I love it.
There we go. Funding part, we have to have.
Sub 3, it's all the way, please.
Oh my gosh, yes. We could go lower. We could go lower, but we'll see.
Yeah.
Wow. Well, I'm in awe of both of you, but Hillary, congrats, amazing to meet you and can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you. Yeah, really appreciate it.
Thanks again, Hillary. Now, it's time for today's Meb minute.
Thanks, Rob. Cold weather training and hydration, in the winter, it is easy to forget about hydration, but it's just as important as a warm month is. Cold weather can mask thirst, but your body still loses fluids when you run. Make sure you hydrate before, during, and after your runs, even if you don't feel thirsty. Also, don't skip your
fueling. Your body still needs energy to perform, carry an energy gel or snack for longer runs, and make sure to eat a balanced meal afterward to help you recover. Remember, it is not what you do only practice time, but how you take care of yourself for the next 22 hours. Hydration is something you can control. Make sure you get your rest and have fun.
And that does it for another episode of Set the Pace. Thanks, Becs, for telling us all the great stories of the Great World Race, and thank you to Hillary as well for walking us through her incredible and victorious World Race experience. Thanks as always to Meb for some great insight as well. If you liked our episode today, please go ahead, rate it, subscribe, leave a comment. We'd
love to hear from you. Hope you guys are having a great, great holiday season. Enjoy the miles. We'll see you next week.