Something that I say on the show all the time to the celebrities I dance with is, " You can do anything. If you apply yourself, you can succeed." And this is a huge testament to that.
Hello everybody, and welcome to Set the Pace, a special episode of the official podcast of New York Road Runners, presented by Peloton. I'm your host and the CEO of New York Road Runners, Rob Simmelkjaer, and we are here live at Maimonides ballpark. That's right. It's the official RBC Brooklyn Half After- Party, and
what a party it is. This field and this stadium are absolutely packed with people with this beautiful RBC Brooklyn Half medal hanging around their necks. Congratulations to everybody who finished today. It was a warm day, it was a bit of a humid day, but it was a great day, and you guys all deserve those medals, so congratulations to each and every one
of you. All right, before we bring up our amazing guest today, I want to give a shout- out to our friends at RBC, which has been both the exclusive title partner and exclusive financial service partner and investment banking partner of the RBC Brooklyn Half for four consecutive years. As a purpose- driven global financial institution, RBC, just like New York Road Runners, is strongly committed to giving back to
communities. I'm sure you saw the great run inspired with RBC giant inspiration wall at the RBC Brooklyn Half Pre- Party, presented by New Balance. And of course, the photo booth where so many of you turned yourselves into custom trading cars. Quick reminder, by the way. Every time you share one of those trading cars on social, hashtag # RBCBrooklynHalf, RBC's going to donate one dollar to the National Alliance on
Mental Illness, NAMI. So it's Mental Health Awareness Month, we want to thank RBC. Make sure you check out the RBC- branded finish line photo booth, which is out there in the field somewhere. Get that photo here at the after party, and thank you again to our friends at RBC. All right, our
guests today are incredible. I had a chance to meet, right before the race, the one and only Dancing with the Stars dancer Alan Bersten, who is here with me on stage. Alan just ran his first ever half- marathon in his life, and we're going to talk to him about that incredible achievement. And then with us right after Alan is going to be Kim Conley, our two- time
Olympian, and came into this as a defending 2024 RBC Brooklyn Half champion. We'll talk about her race today and what happened out there in the winner's field, it was a great day. And then lastly, we'll have some exclusive advice from our partners at the Hospital for Special Surgery, HSS, on how to transition from running today's race to beginning their training for the 2025
TCS New York City Marathon. Make some noise out there if you're planning to run the marathon this year. Who's running? Who's running the TCS New York City Marathon, all right, well we'll talk about that as well, so don't go away.
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All right, well we're thrilled to have Alan Bersten here with me. He's best known for his standout performances on Dancing with the Stars, where he's been a pro since 2017, and he won the mirrorball trophy with Bachelorette star Hannah Brown. He started dancing at the age of seven in his family's Minnesota studio, and he's trained in styles ranging from ballroom dancing to Bollywood dancing. He's done it all.
He's a former So You Think You Can Dance finalist and a Dancing with the Stars Juniors champion, and he has spent years performing live and pushing to all of his physical limits, especially today. Alan, congratulations, and welcome to Set the Pace.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much, this is so fun. It was really... Well, great job to everyone that did this. Let's go with finishers.
Well, all right. We got to ask the obvious question. You have pushed your body to the limits as a dancer. You obviously are a great athlete to dance the way you dance on that show. How did running a half- marathon for the first time ever compare to preparing for and dancing on the show as you do?
Absolutely zero comparison, it turns out that it is a lot of fun. I've always wanted to push my body, and a lot of people don't consider dancers as athletes, but I think this is a great opportunity to prove to myself that I'm more than just a dancer. Running a half- marathon is not easy. Kudos to everyone. I'm so proud of myself for finishing, I'm so proud of everyone for being here.
Amazing, congratulations. What inspired you to take this on? Why, after all the success you've had as a dancer and an amazing career you've created for yourself as a dancer? What made you think, " This isn't enough. I got to take on a half- marathon"?
Honestly, I was on tour and my (inaudible) who ran this with me, his name's Danny, he's like, " I'm running a half- marathon in May." I was like, " My schedule's free, let me do it too." Big mistake. No, honestly it was so much fun. So he's the one that, honestly, he did it, so I was like, " I'm going to join him."
All right, well I saw you at the start and then I saw you at the finish line. Your official finishing time in your first ever half, 1: 38:43. That is an outstanding (inaudible) half- marathon time. Congratulations on that. Tell me, take me through your race today. How did it feel? Did you feel strong throughout? It was a warm day, were you struggling at any points? Take us through it.
Honestly, I think the biggest thing everyone told me was, " Stay hydrated," so I was drinking a lot of water. The hills in the beginning are hard. I was not used to that. And then they were like, " Oh, mile seven. That's going to be easy." It didn't get easy. None of this was actually easy until the end. But honestly, I think it was just pushing. You know? Everyone around you's doing it,
everyone's cheering you on. It's a lot of fun. Ask me in a few days if I'll do another one. I can tell you maybe. If you ask me right now, no.
I never ask right afterwards. I never ask at the finish line. That's not the time to ask.
Yeah, yeah.
I've been there, I know. But there is a question that of course will start to dog you, just so you know. Now that you've run a half- marathon, you know the question is going to come. Would you ever even think about running a full marathon?
I genuinely don't know how I could do two of that. That was really hard. If I slow down my pace, maybe. But yeah, no, what an accomplishment it is to finish a full marathon.
What accomplishment to finish a half marathon. It's a huge accomplishment to have.
(inaudible) proud. Yeah, so I'm going to take it more half at a time.
I like it. That's a very sensible answer. You know, listen, I am not a dancer, so I have no idea what goes in to doing what you do on Dancing with the Stars, but just watching some of the routines, that looks like a massive physical challenge. Can you
compare the endurance, the strength? What do you think is the biggest similarity and difference between the physical challenge of dancing at a high level and running 13.1 miles?
I think there's a few. There's a dance that's similar, like a quickstep or a jive. They're very fast. You only have to do it for a minute and a half, so it's a lot easier. I think this was more just mental over physical. You put in the training and you realize that as long as you just keep going and don't stop, you're fine. That was my mentality
the whole time. Just keep going, don't slow down. Because if I slow down I'm just going to stop, and I do not want to stop.
Have you had a lot of your Dancing with the Stars co- stars or your former partners or other people out there on social reacting to your run?
Yeah, everyone's been so supportive. My girlfriend actually, she's from the show, and now she's here supporting, so that was nice. Lindsay Arnold did a half- marathon, she's one of the pros, I think like three weeks ago, and I didn't know she was running one, so that really inspired me and she gave me a lot of tips. She was like, "
Just hydrate a lot." So the support's been incredible, but it's honestly just running and seeing all the people on the sides being supportive and cheering on all the other runners. It's just so fun.
I took a photo with you at the start, post it on my social. It wasn't like five minutes before my teenage daughter was like, " Oh my god, all my friends are texting me. You know Alan Bersten? How do you know him?" So clearly there's a following, there's people out there who are excited. What's your message to all those folks out there who follow you as a dancer,
and about what you've just accomplished? What do you think is the lesson that you can teach all of them from this?
Something that I say on the show all the time to the celebrities I dance with is, " You can do anything. If you apply yourself, you can succeed." And this is a huge testament to that. The longest I've ever ran before today was 10 miles. The longest I ever ran before
that was like five miles. You know? So it was more of just, commit to it, put in the training, you put in the work, you get the results, and my message is just to believe in yourself and do it, you know? The worst that happens is that you have to try a little bit harder and that you have to try again, but as long as you keep going, the finish line is there.
All right, let's talk about Dancing with the Stars for a little while. First of all, who out there is a fan of the show, Dancing with the Stars? Are there any fans out there? (inaudible) that show has been so successful for so many years. I worked at ABC Disney when that show first went on the air, and it went on as like a midsummer replacement.
Yeah.
It had no expectation of being successful, and here it is. How many seasons now has that show (inaudible)
We're about to start season 34.
Oh my god, that's unbelievable.
Yeah. (inaudible) Yeah. Yeah.
It's a couple seasons a year. I'm like, " I'm not that old." But I know they do a couple seasons a year.
(inaudible) This is the 20th year anniversary.
That's incredible. Why do you think it's been so successful as a franchise?
You know, I think there's something so endearing about seeing these incredible celebrities or athletes try something new, and that's also what inspired me to do this. I've never ran before, but I wanted to just go out there, go out of my comfort zone. I think what makes the show special is you see people trying, you see people caring. And like you said, your teenage daughter is a
fan. Usually it's, " Oh, my mom's a fan," so it's nice that the teenage daughters are fans now. But it's a show for the whole family. It's fun for everyone. Families sit down and we go on tour, and there's four generations that are watching together, and it's just so cool.
It's incredible. It really is great family entertainment, and there's a lot in common, actually, between what you guys do on that show and what we do here at New York Road Runners, because we do have a lot of folks, like you, who are stepping out of their comfort zone to run a race like this. I think the difference is, on Dancing with the Stars, you're doing it on primetime television
in front of tens of millions of viewers. And it's live, right? So a lot can go wrong. When you are working with a dancer, a celebrity who's coming on to dance with you, how do you work with them to get them comfortable and take them out of their shell to turn them into someone who can have a successful performance?
You know, I think comfortability is the big proponent there. Making sure you're comfortable, making sure you believe in yourself. My job on top of teaching somebody to dance is also to make sure they feel confident and comfortable in themselves, and I think the only way to do that
is with practice, with repetition. It's a lot scarier to go and do anything the first time, but the more you do it, the easier and the more comfortable you get.
So you have a minor in psychology, basically. I mean, dance is your major, but you got to be able to really have a little psych work on-
A lot of people say that first we're dance instructors, but then we're therapists. So there's a lot that goes on in that room.
Yeah. I love it. What has been the most memorable dance performance of your career on Dancing with the Stars? Which one would you say has been your favorite?
That's a good question. My last partner was Ilona Maher, and she's so... Give it up for Ilona Maher. We did some really cool dances. I feel like our freestyle was really cool, it was just a lot of fun. And you know, we were bending the norms from the traditional couple on Dancing with the Stars. She lifted me, I lifted her. There was so much going on, and she really inspired me to go out and do things that you're not
comfortable in. You know? She's a big proponent of, just because she's a rugby player doesn't mean she's only a rugby player. And I think that's what was my mentality for this dance... " For this dance." For this race, is I'm not just a dancer. I'm so athletic. I take pride in physical exercise, and this is a great way to not only prove it to myself, but prove it to other people.
I love that. We love Ilona Maher. She's an incredible role model, and has been in some of our races as well, so that's fantastic. Who would you say was just the most talented dancer who you were paired with? Who just had the goods and was just a talented dancer who you were paired with on the show?
You know, one season I was with Amanda Coutts. She used to be a Rockette, actually, so she's got her New York roots. She was great. She knew how to dance. She was so committed to it and she had a great story behind everything, so it was really fun dancing with her.
And my last dancing question, because I don't have very many dancing questions, I couldn't talk about dancing for more than another minute or two. If you had to dance one style of dance, okay, for the win, for the championship, what is your go- to? What do you think is your best style of dancing yourself?
I like the Argentine tango. There's cool lifts, there's cool tricks. He knows what I'm talking... Oh yeah. Argentine tango.
There is something about the Argentine tango that everybody knows. There's something just dramatic about it, right?
Exactly. The drama, the passion. I think anyone that can run a half- marathon has passion, and passion is what drives me. I love it.
How you feeling?
Honestly, I can't get up.
That's okay.
Everyone told me, " Don't sit down," and okay, you guys are sitting down. I said, " Okay."
That is one of the secrets to running a half or a marathon, is stay on your feet.
Yeah.
Well, I want to thank you for sitting down, literally, with us for a few minutes. Good luck getting up. Congratulations on the race.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Alan Bersten! (inaudible) He's getting up slowly, making his way out. An incredible, incredible day for Alan and a great accomplishment, running the RBC Brooklyn Half. All right, well. We had a very competitive race today, and I'm actually going to ask my producer Catherine, I'm going to ask you to pick up the card here that has the winners on it, because I want to go through them. I threw it
down to the ground. We have our 2024 defending champion Kim Conley on stage with us. And Kim, first of all, congratulations on a great day today. Now, I know today did not go exactly as you planned, but you had a great day, you finished second, and we'll talk about the women's race. The winner, by the way, on the women's field was Felicia Pasadyn with a time of one
hour, 15 minutes, and 39 seconds. Congratulations to Felicia. Kim finished second at 1:16: 27, then it was Grace Heymsfield at third. But Kim, take me through your race. First of all, welcome to Set the Pace. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Take me through your race today. You came in as the defending champion. There's a little pressure that comes with that. Did you walk up to the start line today with an intent to defend that, or how did you feel as you started the race today?
Well, I felt great as I started the race. Absolutely wanted to defend the title, but mostly was just excited to be back at this race, because it's such a fun environment, and the volunteers and the fans that come out and line the course, and the way the course doubles back on itself through Prospect Park, and so you have everybody else coming behind you that are cheering for
you, that energy, is just so infectious. So I got a little bit carried away and ran significantly faster than I should have over the first 5K.
I was in one of the lead vehicles and I had a laptop there following the race, and I'm following, following, following, and you are out in front, and you were out in front pretty comfortably. And I actually got out of the lead vehicle, made for the finish line just behind you, and I thought you'd won the race, and I saw you right before this and it turns out you'd finished second. So can you talk about what
happened in those last few miles? And obviously Felicia, tracking that, I think Felicia's a runner who's a new name to a lot of us here at New York Road Runners. Did you see her coming? Were you expecting someone behind you? Take us through that last few miles.
Yeah, I know, she really did come out of nowhere on me. It was really hot out there, coming down the parkway. It was sun exposed at that point in the day, and I was just starting to suffer. But when she came, she came with a full head of steam and she was rolling and blew right by me. That was somewhere between miles 10 and 11, so it hurt. It
was tough. But the exciting news is I'm running the mini and she is running the mini also, so we're going to have a little showdown there.
That's right, that's right. You'll be showing up at the MasterCard Mini 10K in June, which we're excited about. So, rematch, rematch! We love a good rematch, and we will have that between you and Felicia at the MasterCard Mini 10K. Kim, you are someone who really started out on the track.
You were really excellent on the track, you had so much success, even qualified in Olympic success on the track, and then you recently moved up to running the marathon. You qualified for the 2024 Olympic trials, which is no small feat. Talk about that transition from the track to the marathon, why you decided to do it, and how it's been going.
It felt like a natural progression to me. I reached a point in my career where I felt like I'd accomplished everything that I could accomplish, wanted to accomplish on the track. And you know, I think everybody is lured by the marathon. I think everybody that ran this race can relate to that pull of wanting to conquer 26.2 miles. So for me that was just something that I felt like I had to do next.
It's just such a natural progression, and I'm sure some of it probably comes a bit with age, right? You get into your mid to late thirties, finding that track speed gets a little tougher, right? But you can tap into the endurance that lasts, for so many runners, well into their forties. So are you feeling that transition in your body, and you feel like you've got a future at 26. 2, you've got a present?
Yeah, I think both the half- marathon and the marathon, those are the distances that I'll be focused on for a little bit longer. Yeah. And there's a puzzle to the marathon, which is really appealing.
It is. Just, it's something that you got to figure out over time. How does the half factor into your marathon preparation? How do you approach half, so what do you get out of running a race like this?
It depends a little bit on the situation. Sometimes you're in a marathon buildup and use it as a tune up for your marathon. Sometimes you're not going to run a marathon in that season and it still gives you a race to put on the schedule and have a peak effort that you're building your training around.
We got so many people out here, so many women who really look up to someone like you, the people who get to start right at the starting line, right? It's a dream for so many people out there. What's your advice to somebody who, maybe he's out there with a dream of getting to the point of being able to run as a seeded athlete at an event like this, or just wants to find a new level and
set a PR? What's the best advice you can give them?
Running really takes consistency, and it's just the more you put into the sport, the more you're going to get out in the long term. Right now, especially with the New York Marathon on the horizon for a lot of people, especially in this area, I'm on the phone almost daily with people that are asking me, " When should I start training?"
And my answer is always, " Today." Because the sooner you start, the more it's going to build on itself, and the better you're going to feel, the more confident you're going to feel, when race day comes.
All right, so there's the advice. You're going to run the marathon in November, start training today. Well, I think you all did just start training today. So congratulations. You've all just taken Kim's advice and started training today. Well done. You coach as well, right?
That's right, yeah.
Talk about that. How many athletes are you coaching?
We have about a hundred and fifty athletes in our business right now, Next Best Run. A lot of them are actually based in this area, and we do a special program for the New York Marathon called Next Level New York, and we have a lot of fun. We come out here as often as we can, because we love the running community. It's so thriving.
Are you your own coach, or do you have another coach?
So I'm coached by my husband Drew Wartenburg, who also coaches in the business.
How does that coaching practice help you as a runner? Do you feel like you're learning something by teaching others?
It's definitely given me a way greater sense of purpose with my training. I'm definitely the type of athlete that can be a little bit of a knucklehead and just think that in every situation, faster is better. But there's a lot of nuance to training in terms of accomplishing what you're supposed to accomplish with a physiological system in
the body. And so because I'm explaining that so often to people now, I find in my own training, I'm a little bit better about adhering to my own advice.
All right, well Kim, congratulations on a great day today, finishing on the podium for the second straight year, and we look forward to seeing you at the MasterCard Mini 10K. Congratulations.
Thank you.
Kim Conley, everybody. Our second place women's finisher today in the RBC Brooklyn Half. Thank you very much. All right, we're going to wrap up today with a special minute from our friends at the Hospital for Special Surgery, HSS. Our friend from HSS Jason Mayerhofer is here. Jason is a doctor of physical therapy from HSS with a lot of letters after his name, including PT, DPT, MTC, STC, CSCS, SFMA. I
don't know what most of these things are. PT, I know what that one is. But he's got 18 years of experience working with athletes who've had injuries of the kind a lot of you out there have probably experienced. Hips, knees, ankles, all the things that runners get. Jason, nice to have you here on Set the Pace. Welcome.
Thank you so much. It's great being here. Beautiful day, even a little sprinkle to cool things off, but appreciate it.
All right Jason, we're looking at a sea of humanity right now, thousands of runners who have just completed the RBC Brooklyn Half. What is the first thing that all of these people out here should do when they get home?
Everyone listen up. Don't run. Rest. Please take at least seven to 10 days off, let your body recover a little bit, both mentally and physically, and then you can start to ramp back up again. But please, they need to rest, need to recover, focus on nutrition, hydration. Think everyone should be in a good place at that point.
How long do you think you should typically take off after running a half- marathon?
It's speculative. Some places will say each mile that you run, you take a day off. Doing 13 miles, take a couple of weeks off. I think that's a little excessive, but I think what it boils down to, you really just got to listen to your body. If your body says you're ready to run again, you can start to
ramp up. Wearables are a big thing nowadays, so lots of recovery sores that may come about, really focus on that and see if your body's prepped for running again.
What about icing? What about icing? Some people like an ice bath or a cold plunge. Do you think that's a must- do within a few hours after running a long distance like that?
Actually I tend to steer away from that, because it actually stiffen you up a little bit. You know? As Kim had to try to get up, it's a little bit rough when you have to be static. With ice, you're actually going to really constrict your blood vessels. You're really looking to pump all of the toxins and metabolites that form out of the system. So icing for right now, I would steer away from it. Key, just move, move,
move. Don't sit, don't get too static.
Should people out there... And we're now, maybe it could be an hour after most people have finished, some more if they were faster, maybe even two hours. Should folks be stretching immediately after finishing, later in the evening? What's your stretching advice?
Yeah, absolutely. I think stretching after activity is good. I wouldn't stretch before. You're looking to do dynamic warmups before, but definitely stretching after, foam rolling after. You could even do some functional movements, squatting, lunges, things like that, just to get blood flow, get some fluid exchange to your joints. I think that's healthy.
And what about, there's a lot of cross- training options, you know, swimming, weight lifting. Are all those things good to start right after running like this? Especially if you're planning on entering another training cycle, maybe for a fall marathon.
Absolutely, yeah. I cross- training's critical. I find a lot of runners that come into our clinic tend to be running four or five, six days a week. I actually steer against that. I actually want people to run two to three days a week and do some cross- training in the interim, as well as strength training, to really have a nice balance in their training system, not develop overuse injuries and
things like that. So yeah, I highly encourage swimming, any sort of cross- training.
I've actually talked to a few runners today who did not have the day they had hoped to have because of the humidity, right? It was warm, it was humid. What's your message to those runners in terms of how to be maybe better prepared for these kinds of conditions in the future? Again, we're here in the Northeast, you can get a humid day any time between March and
November, you could get a day like this. What do you think are some lessons the runners can learn if they may be crashed a little bit today because of the humidity?
Yeah, I think it's really unpredictable with the weather, especially for this run. But I think you can learn from it. You can go back and process your times, how you ran, how you felt with those. I think afterwards you can also, especially if you're going to be training for the full marathon, hire a coach. That could be beneficial. They
could help break down things. You can revisit your hydration and nutrition during the run, really see if that was a deficit for you. But I think that the mental fortitude that you get to develop as well. Some people like to sign up for another interim run, just to boost their confidence a little bit. So the mental and the physical is just as important to capitalize on.
All right, we're just under six months out from the TCS New York City Marathon. For folks out there who just ran today, who are planning on training for November, when should they start? We talked about taking a break. Of course it depends on the fitness level, experience, but when do you think is the window when people should start really focusing on a block for the marathon?
Yeah, I think now is actually the perfect time. I would obviously, like we just discussed, focus on your recovery for now. Give it a couple weeks, and then you can start to kick it into high gear in June. But really, really, really monitor your system, monitor your body. If something doesn't feel right, don't wait for too long to
get it looked at. I give it a couple weeks, and if you're having persistent pain, seek out a medical specialist.
All right, Jason, thank you very much, appreciate it. Great advice. Jason Mayerhofer from Hospital for Special Surgery.
Thank you Rob.
Thanks, good luck to everybody out there on your recoveries. And I just want to say once again, congratulations to everybody out there for completing the RBC Brooklyn Half. Hey, if you don't already listen to our podcast, Set the Pace, now's a great time to start. You can just go right in your phone, look it up. We're on Apple
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be. So please join us. Thanks for joining us. Thanks to all of our guests today, Alan Bersten, Kim Conley, and Jason Mayerhofer from HSS. Have a great trip back to wherever you're from. Thanks for running, congrats, and we'll see you next week on Set the Pace. Enjoy the miles. New York Road Runners is a nonprofit organization with a vision to build healthier lives and stronger communities through the
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