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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 Grete Waitz.
Look at the emotion of Shalane Flanagan as she comes to the line.
Pointing to his chest, pointing to the USA he so proudly wears across his chest. A great day for Meb Keflezighi.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Set the Pace, presented by Peloton. We are the official podcast of New York Road Runners. I'm New York Road Runner's CEO, Rob Simmelkjaer, and with me all the way from her home country of The United Kingdom, my cohost Becs Gentry. Becs, good to see you from across the pond today. How you doing over there?
Good afternoon. I'm doing very well in this sweltering English heat with no air conditioning. But yeah, it's great over here. I'm getting my miles in. Well, when nap time happens. But no, all good.
Sweltering English heat, what's that? Like 79 degrees?
You jest. It's actually in the 80s. I'm shocked. But it feels more like 100 without. I feel precious now, looking for the A. C. I was here for 18 years, I grew up when it used to be hot here properly with no air conditioning and now I'm like, " Oh, where's my air conditioning?"
We have fully spoiled you here in The United States with our air conditioning ways. I get it. You're back in the old country now, where they open a window and turn on a fan.
Yes.
So hopefully you'll survive. It has certainly been hot enough over here, Becs. We had a very hot week in New York last week and still managed to pull off a race on Sunday with our friends at Achilles. We'll talk about that in just a second, but we've got an absolutely packed show today, a lot of information about run clubs,
about coaching and upcoming races. And by the way, we usually do this at the end of the show, but today we're starting at the beginning, to ask everybody out there, if you're listening, to leave us a review. If you're listening on the Apple iTunes podcast app, you can actually not just rate the show, give us a five- star rating, but you can also ask us a question
or leave a comment. We'll actually give you a shout- out on the show or maybe even answer your question to me or to Becs. So go into those comment sections, leave us a review, send us a message or a question or a comment. We'd love to hear from you, and we will shout it out right here on the show, whatever platform you're listening on. It also helps
other people to find the show, as well. But, Becs, speaking of the hot weather, so we had a hot, hot weekend and managed to do a lot this past weekend in New York. We had a brand new event, first of all, on Saturday, something called The Dog Days of Summer, and this was so much fun. This was one of our open runs, Becs, which-
I am so mad.
You missed the Dog Days event, exactly. I don't even know. You wanted to bring your pup to this or do you-
I wanted to bring-
... have a dog? I don't even know this.
I have two, I have two.
What breed are they? What are they? Who are they?
Who are they, who are they? They are two little... they are big dogs. We have Dot, who is a six- and- a- half- year- old Weimaraner, who loves to run. And we have Maurice, who is a four- year- old English Cream Golden Retriever, who detests running.
It's so funny, Becs, I've got a very similar situation with my two Whoodles. I've got two Whoodles. A Whoodle is a Wheaten Terrier combined with a Poodle, so one of the many doodle breeds our there. But I've got Frankie, who's the black one of the two, and he loves to run and loves to run long distances. And then, I've got Mookie, who he'll sprint with you for like 100 meters, but then he's done. He
doesn't want to go any distance at all. But both Mookie and Frankie came with me to the Dog Days of Summer, which was an open run. So it was one of our free park runs that we do every single week all over the city in 16 parks all over New York City. Anybody who's interested in going out and getting a free run with a great group of people can check
out open run and join any one of them. But this was the first time we had one that was specifically dog themed, and it was in Inwood Park in Upper Manhattan, and so I drove down from Connecticut with Mookie and Frankie in the car, and it was so
hot, but they were still so into it. They met some other dog friends and there were treats for them and there was water and we did one loop of the park out of the three that we were supposed to do, because Mookie was like, "No, no, no. I'm done. This is way too hot for me." But it was so much fun. We're going to have three more of those events coming up in Queens and Staten Island throughout
the summer, so check those out at nyrr. org. And Becs, you still have three more chances to get Dot out there for a run.
I can't wait. I will get Maurice to bring his pom- poms to cheer in the shade, but I can't wait to come along to the next one of those, for
sure. But as I'm over here in The UK, I was checking New York Road Runner's social and I saw that you were watching the weather ahead of the Achilles four- miler and that was so wonderful to see, when you put out the announcement that you had confirmed that it was safe temperatures for the Achilles four- mile race to go ahead. There were some really fast times, Rob, for the weather. The top finishers were phenomenal.
Yeah, it was-
I mean, everyone was phenomenal, but wow.
Yeah. It cooled off just enough. There's a reason we have these races in the summer at 8: 00 in the morning or 7: 45, because it makes a big difference, and we just got enough cool air. It was still humid, but a bit of cloud cover, obviously, early morning temperatures made it pretty bearable, I think, for most of the runners who
had a great, great day. We had over 5, 000 finishers at the Achilles four- mile race, the Hope &; Possibility race with our amazing partners at Achilles in Central Park. And yeah, the winners were really impressive. Jennifer Walrad was the female winner at 24:02. It was Guillaume Flamarion at 21: 48 for the men, coming up in the lead. And then, in non- binary, Pierce Lydon at 25: 17. But a great day, an inspiring
day with our friends at Achilles. And also, one of the things that made that race special was that we paid tribute to Dick Traum, who was the incredible founder of Achilles, and also a very important figure in New
York Road Runners, a former board member. Dick passed away earlier this year, and the bibs for the race pay tribute to Dick, showed a picture of him, and I think a lot of people were just really happy to honor Dick, speeches from the stage at the starting line, and a lot of commemorations of Dick and the great work he did. Because creating Achilles really changed the world,
in so many ways, for athletes with disabilities. It really did create, as our race is called, Hope &; Possibility for people out there to be athletes, to run races, to achieve the kinds of things that we all like to achieve as runners, even if they don't have the same physical abilities as many of us. So that was an honor for us to pay tribute to Dick.
Wow. Absolutely beautiful. And then, we've got another race this coming weekend, to round out what has been, I think, a hugely busy June. We have the Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run, four miles. And I know I have a lot of friends who have been training for this, a lot of first time racers, in fact, who have signed up for this race, it's very special to
them. So big, big cheering from this side of the pond for this final race of June.
Yes. I can't wait, Becs, to get out there for the Pride race, four miles, again, in Central Park on Saturday with our incredible partners at Front Runners and this is really a great way to kick off the big Pride Weekend in New York City at the end of June every year, always a great turnout, always a tremendous amount
of pride, literally, out there for this race. So can't wait to be out there and Front Runners is an incredible organization, an incredible club that has done so much for LGBTQ+ people in New York, but really around the country and the world, in giving them a chance to run and to be out there with folks from a wide range, of course, of backgrounds, but all celebrating LGBTQ+
pride. So we're just excited for that event. And speaking of clubs, and impactful clubs, Becs, our guest on the show a little bit later is someone who has created a club that is changing the world as we speak. Tyler Swartz of the Endorphins Running Club is going to be with us to talk about Endorphins and the incredible growth that
that club had had. It just started less than two years ago, already has 18, 000 members around the world, so Tyler will be here to talk about Endorphins and just the story of how this thing has absolutely taken off, Becs. Looking forward to that in just a little bit.
Becs, one other thing I want to touch on before we get to Tyler, we had a big announcement this week at New York Road Runners, something that is really important to me and to so many senior folks on our board and our senior team at New York Road Runners, which is sustainability. And so, this week, we announced something that people love anyway, a new way into the TCS New York City Marathon, a new program called NYRR
Team for Climate. And Becs, this is a way to get into the marathon. It's really hard to get in. We just opened up a couple hundred new spots this week to get in, and it's a way for about 200 runners to raise funds that will help us offset the carbon emissions from the TCS New York City Marathon. We know that people are traveling from around the country and the world to get to these races. We know that
there is a carbon impact of this event. And Becs, we have a mission to create healthier lives and stronger communities through the transformative power of running, but we need a healthy planet to run on, if we're going to do that. And so, these lucky 200 or so runners are going to help us by helping us offset that. The funds that are raised are going to go to
projects in New York state. They are essentially forestry projects that are going to ensure this incredible space in upstate New York is going to be maintained as forest land for years to come, and of course, more trees means more carbon taken out of the atmosphere and a better climate for all of us, so really excited to announce this.
That was a wonderful announcement and I'm excited for everything in that, the 200 people who might get in, well will get in, but there's 200 more possibilities floating around out there of runners who are now doing something extra special for the planet. So yeah, congratulations on that. That's a really awesome thing to be doing. My goodness, are we waiting for our feet up in July?
Oh, yeah. We're going to be excited. June has been an incredibly busy month, and Becs, yesterday was the last day of school for New York City Public School students. Happy summer, kids.
Yay.
I know, one of the best days of the year, right? So in honor of the school year coming to an end, today's member moment guest is a New York City Public School teacher and a program lead for the Rising NYRR program, our free running- based youth program, Christine Fajen will be here, and the great Meb Keflezighi will be
here to interview Christine about working on Rising NYRR. And then, appropriately for today's Meb Minute, Meb will be giving us some of his best tips for youth coaches. So stay tuned for that, as well.
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Becs, I am so excited to have our guest join us today. The Endorphins Run Club has been an absolute sensation. Founded less than two years ago in November 2022, it already has more than 15,000 members worldwide, including many here in New York, and it continues to grow. And
Tyler Swartz joins us today. He is the founder of the Endorphins Run Club, and it really was born from his own personal passions, running and building communities inspired by the joy and energy he personally gets from running. And Tyler started this thing, and look at it now, it has just absolutely taken off. Tyler Swartz, so great to have you here on Set the Pace. Thanks for joining us.
I'm stoked to be here. When we grabbed coffee a couple weeks ago, I was just soaking it all in and trying to learn so much about New York Road Runners. I'm excited to now share my story with you.
Yeah, and we're excited to share your story about Endorphins Run Club. So let's just start at the start of this. How did this begin? Where did you have this idea to start Endorphins? And there's so many running clubs out
there. We talk a lot about the explosion of run clubs in the last few years, but how did you have this idea, and how did you want to make Endorphins different from what's already out there when it comes to running clubs?
Sure. That's a great question. The origin is no different than many other runners. I was training for a race, it happened to be a 50- mile ultramarathon, that may be different from other races. But I wanted to train with other people, and in this post- COVID world, I was lacking
social connection and a way to train with others. Many of my friends were not runners, many of them just weren't interested in training with me, so I started posting on the internet saying, " Does anyone want to run with me?," and the power of social media brought all of us together, and it started with one person showing up
to run with me. And now, we're in 11 cities and we have just about 18,000 members, as of yesterday, and it's growing pretty fast, which is cool to see.
Oh my gosh. Massive congratulations. That is awesome to hear that 18, 000 people around the country are all coming together in the exact same way that you initially wanted that connection. So when you got that connection with people, you got yourself out running, and then what was that transition in your mind like, from doing it for yourself, for that amazing 50- miler, by the way, to starting a run club, official?
Yeah, so I actually did not want to do it. We hosted several runs, and it was more so a way for me to interact with individuals in the running community and meet other people. And then, we actually took a pause and we decided that we weren't going to do it. And then, people started saying, " We want more of these runs," and that's when I realized people in a post-
COVID world were really lacking social connection. People are working from home, people are depressed, people are anxious, people lack friends, people are lonely, and we created Endorphins as a way for people to meet other people that show the same interests, that are like- minded individuals, so that way they can make friends. We don't necessarily say it's about making friends, but that's kind of deeply rooted in what we do.
You're saying the things that I always talk about when people ask me why we're seeing this boom in running the last few years. You're really like a living example, and Endorphins is a living example of what is happening, right? The isolation we all had during COVID, the fact that there wasn't anything else we could do. We started running. Running alone was one thing, but then when people realized, "
Wait a second. This can be a community for me, after all the isolation I've experienced during COVID," and maybe before, for a lot of us. I mean, isolation and loneliness is not a new thing. So what does someone experience, Tyler, when they join Endorphins? What happens?
Sure. There's a million run clubs, as you've alluded to. I think the thing that sets us apart we are very mission oriented. At all of our experiences, we set the intention of our gathering by saying our mission and
explaining why we're there that day. I don't know many other running organizations that even have a mission, I know New York Road Runners has a mission, which we'll speak about, but I don't know many other run clubs that are mission driver or impact driven, and we're very intentional about that. The mission is to spread positivity and happiness through
movement and exercise. At all of our events across the country, we host about 30 events a week, we're on pace to host about 1, 500 events this year, and every single one of those events across the country, you will hear that mission and it keeps us all connected. We all know why we're there and it sets the intention for
the experience to be social first. I also always love to say, " If you've been here before and you see someone that you do not recognize, it's important to say hello and welcome them into the group." And we say that at the beginning of all of our runs, and then when the people are there, they understand why they're there.
But also, we're empowering our existing members, the people who have built our culture, to then spread positivity and happiness by interacting with the new people and making them feel included, and that's kind of been the snowball effect, and I think that's why it's worked so well for us, to date. And that speaks to our experiences and our leaders and people feel endorphins at our events.
That's so lovely, and I think it's a really special way that you are welcoming people into the run club. Because, historically, running and run clubs are daunting. They are quite intimidating places to go to, because for a lot of people, myself included, when I first went to a run club, it was an immediate opportunity to compare myself. And I think what we're learning today with mental health is
comparison is an evil these days. We just can't do that. And so, the fact that you are moving with that social thing first, with the movement, it's just movement,
it doesn't matter what pace you're going at. So can you just tell our listeners a little bit more about how you make sure that with these almost 18,000 runners across multiple cities in the U. S., how do you ensure that all of your coaches are inclusive of everybody when you are actually out on the run moving?
Sure, so we have different tiers of involvement within our group, but I think it's important that all of those tiers, and I'll speak to them, understand their role and their identity within the group, and they're also empowered to be a leader. So that way anyone, whether you're a coach, we have coaches, we also have what we call city leads who manage the cities and make sure all
the events and logistics are happening. And then, we have pace leads, people that set the pace for our events,
and then we also have members. And from the top down, or from the bottom up, everyone understands their role and identity and that's something that I'm working on quite meticulously right now, as we scale, is to make sure that everyone knows their purpose and why they're there and how they can make sure that they're effecting positive change
for our members. And it's really complicated. Now, we have 50 cities leads, we have three coaches, and we have 18,000 members, and we have probably hundreds of pace leads. Making sure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in a volunteering based organization, no one's paid to do this.
So it's an organizational matrix and hierarchy, and it's really complicated behind the scenes of how we're organizing things, and I'm losing sleep over it every day, in a good way, and it's not easy.
It's like a startup, Tyler.
It is.
It really is. It's a startup.
I was just going to say that.
People who have done that, who've worked at a startup or are starting to actually start one themselves, know how all- encompassing it is, so I can understand the losing sleep part. Was there a moment in the early days when you realized you were onto something here? When did you realize, " Oh my gosh, there's really a lot of demand for what we're doing here, and this thing seems to be taking off"?
Totally. We hosted a social event in New York City, there was no run. It was just a gathering for people in Endorphins and the running community to come together, and 500 people showed up. And the next day, I quit my job. It was wild, and part of that story is it timed up really in sync with my 50- mile race. I ran my race, I broke my back, and then this
event happened, and then I quit my job. So all of these things really happened in tandem, but I think what I've been saying is my injury, me hurting my back, actually happened for the community and for me and for Endorphins, because I stopped investing my energy in my personal growth, and I started investing my energy into the growth
of the group, in supporting all of our members. And once that flip switched, Endorphins really took a life of its own. And yeah, that's when I realized, all of those things kind of happening within a week span, that was my calling to do this and be more intentional with it.
Why do you think they showed up? What were those 500 people there, not even for a run, what where they there for?
They were there to meet other people. And that's when I realized, if you go back to the startup mentality, I was in venture capital before this, so I was evaluating startups in the consumer space, which we've spoken about before, Rob, I realized that we were solving a problem. The world needed this. This wasn't just something that we were doing
for fun. There's actually a problem here. People are lacking social connection, and we're now trying to solve that at scale, and our goal is to really impact a million people in the next three to five years.
Yeah, and what's so interesting to me about it, Tyler and Becs, is there's places to meet people, right? You can meet people in lots of different environments. What is it about running and that shared common interest in running that makes people want to meet other runners, right? It's like a common
language you speak or something you can talk about. There's always that opening question you can ask of, " Hey, are you training for anything?," or " What's your next race?," or " What's your favorite distance?" So it it just that bit of a commonality that can bring people together in a way that there's more comfort level than there might be just meeting a bunch of random strangers somewhere?
Yeah. That's a great question. And I'm going to remove running from my answer, and then I'll bring it back. I spent a ton of time thinking about community development and how to create connection, whether that's a knitting club
or just a dinner. Let's think about this as a dinner, if you bring 20 people to a dinner and nobody has anything in common, it could be a success, but you're probably more likely to have a successful event if the people in that room are curated based off an interest. The same thing goes for college. A lot of my friends in college, they're some of my closest friends in the world, and if anyone's listening, please text
me, that'd be hilarious. I hope one of my college friends is listening to this. But they were proximity based friends. They were people that were put in a college town and we were kind of thrown together, and we didn't necessarily have a lot of interests in common. Now, there's pockets and you can find your community. With running, it's a
lifestyle that we all can relate to. It's something that everyone understands what it feels like to put in time and effort in personal growth and development and try and get better, have a goal, and live a lifestyle of health, wellness, and trying to be active. And I think when you put people in the same room that all share those interests and passions, it's like bringing 100 people
together that all like Peloton. It's the same thing. Right?
So for the future of Endorphins, I'm sure, I mean, as you say, you've come from the startup analysis world, you've seen and experienced these new and growing companies, what do you see or where do you see Endorphins going? Where do you want them to go?
Yeah. I think one of the reasons why Endorphins has seen the success that we have to date, and I'm a software engineer, as well, so one of the things that we've done incredibly well is we ask for feedback constantly. We don't make decisions without the community's input first. The reason why I say I'm a software engineer, is because
before you code anything, you talk to your users. We send out these things called community votes, and they're quarterly, at the global level, and then they're monthly to every other month, at the city level. And we basically say, " What times do you want to be meeting? Where do you want to be meeting?" In New York City, we just sent one out yesterday and we asked, " Are we
holding true to our mission? Yes or no? And what else can we be doing to make sure that we are holding true to our mission?" And our members gave us feedback, and now I know people want more social events. They don't even want to do more runs, they want more social events. And then, we can offer those experiences for our members to ensure that they're always happy. And I think that's our future is just I don't know
where we will go, but we have ideas. Our members want us to create singlets for race day. Our members want coaching. We developed a coaching program with Coach Stowe. Our members want cool experiences, we partner with New Balance to offer coffee at the end of our events. So we are listening, and I don't know where that's going to necessarily take us, and we have ideas, but it's unclear, and that's what's really exciting.
Can I ask you a startup based question?
Sure.
So being that you do take the feedback directly from your community, which is beautiful, has there been any moments that you received the feedback and sat there with your team and went, " Oh, boy. This is really not where we were going"?
Yes, and I think that's okay.
Of course.
Right now, I'm spending a ton of time thinking about how to maintain a small community culture as we grow, because it's inherently changed. When it was the first 50 members, that experience is now much different than when members join today and there's 500 people meeting up on a Saturday
morning, right? And those people aren't getting the same experiences they once were, so I'm trying to find ways that we can maintain our culture and keep it a small community feel while it is a huge community, and I spend so much time thinking about that. And back to the feedback, we hear things like, " It isn't the same."
But I think it's important for people to understand that there are transitions happening, and it isn't what it used to be, and make sure people are grounded in our mission and understand the impact that we're making, so that way there's transparency and people understand why we're making the decisions that we are, and it's really to impact a million
people, so we're working on that. And members, running is really personal, run clubs are really personal for people, and it feels like it's much bigger than it truly is. It's a run club, it's important, but it becomes their identity and it becomes the whole world for them. So it's important to listen to feedback, but then also make sure people understand it's much bigger than just New York
City. We're now all across the U. S. and we're trying to make decisions that impact as many people as possible, and I think people need to hear that, and I'm thinking through that every day.
Tyler, we have so many running clubs here in New York and so many different types of run clubs. We have, as you know, something called Club Council, where the clubs all get together and talk about things they want from New York Road Runners or work together to come
up with ideas. We have a club points series that a lot of our runners know about, where the clubs compete to be the fastest in different age categories and genders and all of that. And I remember, when you and I talked about all of this and I said, " Tyler, what, as a run club, do you really want from New York Road Runners?," your answer was a lot different than what I usually hear, because you are not
trying to compete and win races. You're not really thinking that way. You're very different than a lot of the other run clubs out there. How do you fit into that ecosystem, in a place like New York, of all the different clubs and what they offer?
Yeah. I think a ton about community integration, and then not just in New York City, but also globally and how Endorphins can integrate into the community. And I think the first and most important thing to do is pay homage to those who have been here well before us.
What I mean by that is, there's culture that has been in New York, and we talked about this, there's been culture in New York City running that has kind of set the tone for other run crews and clubs, domestically, but then also internationally. So the first thing is, we're trying to make sure that we're not stepping on any toes,
that we're being good community participants. But then, also, as I think about New York, specifically, we're just trying to listen to what our people want, and provide that for them. And prehistorically, it was people were trying to do performance based things, and now it's definitely skewed toward social
and community based in a different way. And we do have people that are quite fast and elite runners, like one of our members placed fourth in the women's half recently, which is amazing, but that isn't what our entire community is looking for, so we don't necessarily highlight that. So it might be a little different, but I think, now, there's been a huge wave of social based clubs.
I can speak to, probably, a dozen in New York City and all the organizers, we're tight. We're talking about when we're going to do a recovery day together next week. It doesn't need to be competitive. So that's how we think about it. We're just trying to integrate. We're trying to do something with WRU
Crew, We Run Uptown, and Hector. We're trying to do something with clubs in Brooklyn and Queens and we want to integrate with everyone, because it doesn't need to be
competitive. And I think the club points makes it a competitive energy between a lot of the clubs, and we just want to say, " Hey, we come in peace, and we want to have fun," and it's difficult because, again, I said this earlier, it's really person for many, and as we grow and scale, I think, initially, people are like, " Oh, this like the darling child of New York City running,
and now people see us as this big behemoth group," and we're trying to combat that with integrating with everyone to show, " Hey, we're just trying to have fun."
It sounds like you are really taking your mission that you take to each run onto the business side, if you excuse me calling it that, but it is really. And that movement in the community is so lovely to hear that you're actually doing that behind the scenes, working with Hector, et cetera, and bringing the love to each and every run crew that you can have, just using New
York for an example. I'm sure there's multiple in Chicago and everywhere else. And the points are the points. We all get competitive, we do. There's no denying that. I think we all get competitive with ourselves and the points do come to fruition when the day comes around, but keeping that mantra of movement being the most important thing in community, is going to lead you into such a wonderful,
wonderful connection around the whole country. It's so positive, that's why I love it. It's just such positivity and joy. It's great.
That's what it's supposed to be about, and it's not just in the U. S. We've integrated with Australian clubs, we've integrated with UK based clubs. I think there's a story that can be told. The story is, it doesn't need to be competitive, and that while we might be doing things differently, we're all here for the same reason,
and that's a really powerful story to be told. And it might actually be a little bit opposite of the club points model. That does maybe foster some competitive energy. We're trying to basically say, " You can do that, but you can also be friends, too."
Yeah, you can be friends with your competitors, absolutely, or just not compete at all. I love it.
Well, we're all doing the same thing. Right?
Yes.
We all can relate. If you were to put all these people around a table, it would be a really fantastic dinner, and everyone's doing the same thing, so I think that's the story that I'd like to tell over time.
Tyler, you have also gone down the road of actually doing partnerships. I mean, this is really more and more of a business. You're doing brand partnerships, like New York Road Runners does. What kind of partnerships get you excited? What are you looking for with partners or from partners with Endorphins?
Sure. That's a great question. This is going to sound like I'm a broken record here, but we ask our community. At the end of last year we said, " What partners, in all of these categories, would you want to see us integrating with?" And then, we went out and we said, " Hey, 1, 000 people from our community said that they want your electrolytes at our events." How is the director of marketing at
that brand going to say no? And we use that model with our current partner, New Balance, who have done an amazing job of supporting us. We said, " Hey, these are the things that our community wants to do. Can you make these things happen?" And the reason why it's a really important thing of taking the community feedback first, is then we can say thank you to New Balance, as opposed to making it an ad, and I think that
makes it a really, really fruitful partnership. What I mean by that in practice is we did Global Running Day. I think that's a New York Road Runner made event, and we had 10 concurrent events across the country at the same time in 10 different cities. New Balance came and provided food and beverage and shirts to every single one
of our participants. And when we were even speaking to the team at New Balance, we actually didn't talk about running
much. We really talked about our mission in connection. What I like to think about is the surface area of connection, specifically, if our run is 45 minutes long, and Rob I think we might've spoken about this in the past, but then we have coffee at the end of the event, the surface area of connection doubles, meaning there's a 45- minute window after the event for people to make more
friends. And New Balance is at the heart of that, or the brand is at the heart of that. So then, when people make friends, and then they go for a run at a different time or not at an Endorphins experience, those people feel like New Balance is at the heart
of that relationship, and that is extremely powerful. It creates connection that I think a lot of brands are yearning for, and we just don't want to do ads, we want to do integrations that really make it feel like the community's benefiting, as opposed to being sold something. And that's how we handle most of our partnerships.
That's amazing, and so worthwhile. As you said, when you make it about the connection. And how does it make you feel now, looking at where Endorphins has come? Earlier in the conversation, you said that your community were asking for singlets for the races that they're signing up for. How does that make you feel inside?
It's a really, really interesting feeling, because it's a selfless act of trying to impact people and their well- being and their lives and trying to make people happier, but
it's also the most selfish thing in the world. What I mean by that is when I see the impact that we create, I'm invigorated to continue creating that impact and inspire people to change their lives, whether that's making more friends or become more fit or become more active, so it makes me fulfilled every single day. I'm inspired by
the stories that I hear of people. I mean, people will pull me aside and break down crying, because it's changed their lives. And when that happens, it's amazing, and that doesn't happen every day, but what does happen every day is at the end of one of our experiences, I like to take a moment and stand off to the side and I like to watch what happens, and that's impact every single time.
It's people exchanging phone numbers, exchanging Strava, exchanging Instagrams, and I know that those people may never come back to one of our events again, but we've changed their lives, and I feel the endorphins when that happens.
I can relate to that 100%. We have people coming up to us, pretty much every race I go to, talking about how running has changed their lives, so it's got that power and you have really created something special with this, so I can only imagine how that feels. Where does Endorphins go from here, Tyler?
That's a good question. I think there's a lot of different ways that it can go. I just really think about how we can support as many people as possible, and I know that, as we grow, it might not be as easy to do so. I know there's growing pains, and I'm just thinking of ways that we can grow and scale while also making it feel like it's a
small, close- knit community, and we still maintain culture. So that's where my head is right now, and I know that if we can create connection at scale, we'll be able to do a lot of different things, and I'm not sure what those things could be, but who knows?
That's so exciting. Okay, we've got one more very pertinent question for you. And you have coaches at Endorphins all over the country, but what we want to know, Tyler, is what is the best piece of advice you have ever received from a coach?
Wow. This is a big question. I have an interesting running journey, in the sense that I didn't have a standard running background when I got into the sport, and I developed a very close- knit relationship with my coach, Rebecca Stowe, who's involved in the New York scene as one of the Nike head coaches. And I don't know, Rob, if you've met her, but Becs, it seems like you guys
have a relationship. The stories around my relationship with her are, I would go to the Nike runs and I would throw up running every single time. I would just run my body into the ground, because that's how I was conditioned. I was a football player in high school. It was when the whistle blows, you give everything-
You go.
... you got.
Yeah, and Stowe-
And I thought that's-
... can throw some-
... how I was supposed to run-
... nasty workouts.
... too. Yeah, she was definitely pushing me. And then, the Nike coaches, at the time, definitely did their little huddles before their runs and said, " We need to keep our eye out for this guy who's definitely a problem.
They don't know what they're doing." And I learned later in life, through Coach Stowe, after five, six years of working with her, maybe it's not one piece of advice, but the mantra is really just listening to myself, because I don't have to do every single workout exactly the way it is. It's make sure I'm listening to my
body, and then I'll perform better. And I wasn't listening to myself, I was more trying to do every single thing, and the second I started listening to myself, I actually started listening to her, and I think that was really important, because now we have a much more stable
relationship, where I'm not overdoing everything and have to do everything. I'm listening to my body, and then it falls right back into our programming, so I think that's been really helpful for me.
Sounds it, sounds it.
All right, Tyler. If someone's listening out there, Tyler, who wants to become a part of Endorphins, what do they do? Is there a cost? How do they sign up and become part of this?
It's totally free. All of our events are free. In New York City, we host four or five events throughout the boroughs each week. Across the country we're hosting runs in Chicago, Dallas, Austin, L. A., Seattle, Boston, D. C., Philly, Pittsburgh, and we're launching Miami on Thursday, which is super exciting. We have a website, it's endorphinsrunning. com. We're on
Instagram, where all the events are posted. I'm posting them on my socials and trying to do the storytelling behind the scenes on my socials. And we'd love to have you, and if you ever do come to one of the events, come say hello. I like to try and talk to as many people as possible at the events. And yeah, that's how you can stay involved.
Amazing. Tyler, congrats. I can't wait to keep talking about how we can work with you at New York Road Runners. I know we're doing a lot already here in New York, but I just think we're probably scratching the surface, so for members interested, put something in the comments, if you have an idea or you want to throw out a shout- out to Tyler and Endorphins, would love to hear from you. And Tyler, it's great having you
here on Set the Pace. I know I'll be seeing a lot of you between now and the marathon.
I can't wait. Thanks for having me on, and I can't wait to figure out more ways to support what you guys are doing.
Awesome. It goes both ways. Thank you. Tyler Swartz, the founder of the Endorphins running club, the incredible, growing Endorphins running club, here on Set the Pace. Some runners run a lot of races, some runners volunteer and run races, and some runners bring their love of running to their schools and pass on the benefit of running to New
York City young women. One of those people is Christine Fajen, a New York Road Runners member and an active runner, as well as a program lead for Rising NYRR, which is the free running based youth program designed to make physical activity enjoyable and accessible for kids all around New
York City and around the country. And this summer, she'll also be a coach for Run for the Future, which is a free six- week program that introduces 11th and 12th grade high school young women to the sport of running.
Thanks, Rob. That's wonderful. Christine, welcome to the podcast. You are a dedicated runner. You have been running with NYRR since 2015 and you run every distance, the 5Ks, 10Ks, four- milers, half- marathons, and even the 2022 TCS New York City Marathon. Why did you start running, Christine?
So, like a lot of people, I started running to lose some weight. I didn't start running until I was 40. I was going to the gym, I had gained some weight, but then I started running, and I loved the feeling of being outside, I loved being alone with my thoughts, the pounds dropped off. I ran about four miles a day near the water. And then, a lot of my friends ran races with New York Road Runners.
I didn't know much about that, but my friend Mike encouraged me to sign up, and I was hooked.
Just amazing, and you are now a program lead for the Rising New York Road Runners program. Why was it important for you to bring the program to your school?
Well, when people run and you love the sport, you want to tell everybody about it, you want to share it as much as you can with people. And we actually had the program, already, in the school, but it had not reached the potential that it could've had. So a colleague of mine, actually, Mr. (inaudible) brought it in. He was using it in phys. ed. He passed the torch to me, I started an afterschool program, and
began to take the students to the races. I wanted them to see the beauty of all the people at the races, because that's incredible, the community of running. I wanted them to see that they could do it when they're older. I wanted them to see that people with special needs, they do it with Striders, there's Achilles, there's
something for everybody. And through Team for Kids, it makes it all possible for the runners, because my students, they come from backgrounds that they could use all the help that they can, financially, so I wanted them also to think of moving their bodies outside of school, not just in gym class, and I wanted to show them that, if they wanted to, they could run for life, and maybe people do, of all backgrounds.
Can you tell us some of the reaction of the students, what their experience or their smiles and things like that?
Oh, yeah. So some of the students are super competitive and I try and tell them they should also be having fun, right? It shouldn't be all so very competitive. There's stage two in Rising New York Road Runners. I do that specifically so that they can learn to enjoy the sport first, before they compete. They have maintained friendships from
the sixth grade through the eight grade. I've had the same group of kids from six, seventh, and eighth, so I've watched them grow. They talk to their friends about it, their friends want to join. They really do love the program, and they love all that comes with it.
Well, now you are also about to begin the first year as a coach for the Run for the Future program. Tell us about what you hope to instill in the young women you will be coaching this summer.
It's my hope that the ladies who participate in the program will continue to develop the courage to start new things. Right? Because this is a new thing for them. I want them to learn to accept the challenges that they face as they grow, not to give up, and that running can help them with that, because life is like
a race, right? You run it to the best of your ability and you come across challenges, and I want them to be able to face those challenges and not give up.
As a seventh grader, that I run about running, sports has changed my life because it gives you confidence, it makes you camaraderie and friendship that, for me, transferred. I hope you do the same thing this summer and you continue to do with the Rising- ... New York Road Runners. On a personal note for
Thank you.
you, what's your next race?
The next one will really be the New Jersey 5K, for me, personally, so a while from now.
Awesome. The New York Road Runners and Team for Kids does a great job as an ambassador for them. They do such an awesome job to be able to help kids get into sports and keep them at it, because I think sports change lives. So thanks for being a member of the week, and we love having you. Thanks for all the work that you put in.
Thank you. And thank you for being the ambassador for Team for Kids. It's an honor to meet you.
Great to meet you, Christine.
All right. Thank you, Meb, and thank you so much, Christine for joining us and for being a member of New York Road Runners. Now, it's time for today's Meb Minute.
Thanks, Rob. This week Meb Minutes are tips for youth coaches. Here's my recommendation, make it fun, teach them about patience and not race all the time, because I've been around kids where they just want to race me all the time. Racing is important, but pacing is important. Speed is essential, but you have to reward kids who are maybe even the last finisher, because all kids want to
win, right? And then, you want to be able to reward them for the fastest person, eventually, but reward for the person that is hit the right time. So, for example, if you're doing 100- meter, they all want to sprint, I want you to run it in 25 seconds or 30 seconds, see if you can strategize about patience, because
kids just want to go out hard. And, obviously, Christine Fajen is also a lead for the New York Road Runners kids, so she will be able to use those essential improvements to be able to be patient, because we want to develop them to be sprinters, but also milers
or 5K, 10K, eventually do the marathon. So by teaching discipline at early stage is such a crucial, because they're listening, if they listen, they should be rewarded.
Thank you so much, Meb. And that brings us to the finish line of another episode of Set the Pace. I want to thank Tyler Swartz of Endorphins Running Club and this week's member, Christine Fajen. If you liked this episode, please go ahead and subscribe, rate, leave Becs and me a comment for the show. We will shout you out, we'll answer
your question, so just send it along. This not only helps us, but it also helps other people find the show, as well. Feel free to ask a question. Have a great, great week and enjoy the miles.