Over the Next Hill Fitness
Welcome! We all know, as we age, it’s harder to put ourselves first and get in enough fitness, flexibility, and nutrition. Maybe you’re new to formatted exercise, maybe we need to push to the next level or set some goals. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to run a 5K, a marathon, or even an ULTRA marathon. This podcast is designed to get you moving and headed towards those goals. You’ll have opportunities for general coaching during each episode or you may contact me for personal coaching afterward. Are you ready to get over this next hill in life? Let’s get started.
Over the Next Hill Fitness
S2 Ep 20 Resilience and Creativity: Ken Skrien on Running Against the Odds
Ken Skrien's journey into running is nothing short of transformative. From his early days of reluctantly lacing up his shoes in high school to his passionate pursuit of marathons and ultra-marathons, Ken's story is filled with resilience, creativity, and an unyielding spirit. Discover how running became Ken's sanctuary through a series of life-altering events, including battling depression, witnessing the Boston Marathon bombing, and enduring a brain injury that changed everything.
In this episode, Ken opens up about the profound challenges he faced after his accident, losing his business and home, and how running provided a lifeline. Adaptability became his mantra as he navigated neural fatigue and visual impairments, finding ingenious ways to continue his passion with limited resources. Listen to Ken's vivid recounts of nearly 150 marathons, where his resourcefulness and determination helped him overcome physical and logistical obstacles, such as hitchhiking to races and running barefoot.
Perhaps most inspiring is Ken's unique approach to marathon running, which includes volunteering for race directors and participating in the six major marathons in body paint, each design reflecting a personal connection or honoring the host city. From becoming a giant Japanese flag in Tokyo to embodying the Statue of Liberty in New York, Ken's story is a vivid reminder that embracing individuality and a resilient mindset can lead to extraordinary achievements. Join us for an episode that highlights the importance of focusing on what can be done rather than limitations, and be inspired by Ken's incredible journey.
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Thank you, but that's a lot for me, so I really appreciate everybody who's sharing and reading the program starting to grow a little bit. There are a lot of discounts in the show notes. If you want to take advantage of those, feel free to do that, and if you know someone's whose story needs to on the podcast, please have them reach out to me and we can get them on. Maybe you're that person. Don't be shy, it's super easy and it's fun sometimes. It's fun for me All right.
Speaker 2:Today we're going to be talking to Ken Skrien .... Amazing athlete, just amazing, so warm and just such a giving spirit and has accomplished so much. You guys are really going to just be drawn to him right away. So you can listen here on the podcast. You also can go to the YouTube channel and see it there as well. For those of you who are listening on YouTube to the intro, I promise you will get to see the actual recording. I just did this separately from the actual podcast and was not camera worthy, so all you get is a voice. So there you go, so listen or watch and enjoy. Welcome to the show, ken. It's so great to have you here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2:So let's start with your beginning of your running journey. When did you start and why?
Speaker 1:Well beginning if we go way back. When I was in high school, my parents quite frankly told me we're not picking you up until after practice, so you need to choose a sport and go, and I was not very good at soccer. I was of a size that would make me best qualified to be the ball on the football team. So I chose running and, honestly, at first I hated it but it grew on me pretty quickly, got my first runner's high running Started out in my early years. Honestly, it was what got me through depression and stuff like that and I got lazy in college. I admit to that. I kind of wish I could go back and change that, but later on I realized that I couldn't continue to run off of training. That I did in high school and I should probably go out and start running again every day. And that was 12 years ago now and since then it's kind of snowballed and running has become the very core of my being.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you had a little break and now you've been running for 12 years, pretty consecutively, yeah.
Speaker 1:I got humbled when I tried to run a marathon with no training in 2012. And when I say no training, I mean like I hadn't run all year, but I still had the 18-year-old young man mentality of I can will my way through it and I started running. I got about, I think, eight miles in and I had to walk the rest of the way. Wow, I would not give myself the permission to quit. The mentality at that point was you brought the sign yourself, you idiot. You're going to pay the price of it. And I had a very long, slow, painful walk and realized that I need to start training.
Speaker 1:Started training 2013 was the first year that I had actually trained and, ironically, I thought was going to be the first year that I was prepared to run Boston, and I was at the finish line when the bombs went off.
Speaker 1:It ended up being the event that I was least prepared for, in a very different way than I'd ever imagined could be possible. But after going through some PTSD from that, it made running far more important to me than it had ever been, and then it's just built from there. About a year and a half after that, I was bike commuting down to Miami Beach and was hit by a car from behind. I think, statistically speaking, at the speed that woman was traveling, there was an 85% chance of fatality Counting my blessings that, despite all the health issues I'm still dealing with, I'm running ultras. I'm the lucky one. But when I lost my business and my home from the brain injury that that caused, running was pretty much all that I had left and I just jumped into it wholeheartedly and said, all right, let's go. And it has been an adventure from there.
Speaker 2:Wow, I guess. So you ran your first marathon. Well, you walked your first marathon and then, right after that, you went to Boston.
Speaker 1:Okay. So first of all disclaimer at this point. The culture has changed. Don't do this anymore. But once upon a time banditing was part of Boston's culture. Oh wow, boston's culture.
Speaker 1:I went to Boston College and in the 90s, early 2000s there were thousands of bandits. The race announcer would literally be like all right bandits, go have fun. It was an unspoken, unwritten rule that don't get in the way. You start after every single official runner started and you go and you don't get in the way. And so my first year as a freshman at Boston College I was out watching the marathon and everyone that ran by I couldn't help but think that should be me. So the next year I went and I jumped in and I ran. So my first marathon was Boston 2000.
Speaker 1:But I'm not in the results and again I'm going to emphasize that culture has changed. Don't do that again. I I you know Boston is the only race I ever have or ever will even consider bandaging. I know how my work race directors put into things and with the security concerns now and all the other costs and everything involved, it's a very different world than it was in the year 2000. So my first unofficial marathon was the 2000 Boston Marathon. I kept running it every year without training.
Speaker 2:As a bandit. Yes and no training.
Speaker 1:And no training. Don't do like I do. Seriously, everything I could do wrong, I somehow did wrong. In 2003, I did something a little different. I was the crazy sports fan at Boston College At this point. I've seen BC sports teams play in 36 states and you know I was a lunatic when you turned on the TV that you saw bouncing around covered in paint. Cool, I was graduating and how can I go out in style? I know I'm going to run the Boston Marathon painted red All right.
Speaker 1:And so red shorts, shoes and a whole lot of body paint. I ran from Hopkinton to Boston screaming and yelling and just pretty much partying the whole way, and it was supposed to be my last time painting, but the reception I got from pretty much everyone was so positive it's now become my thing. In 2004 I ran my first official marathon. A local politician who had seen the paint that I had done, thought it was awesome, and he's like I'm sponsoring you oh, very cool, and I got an invitation.
Speaker 1:an invitational entry in 2004 was like brutally hot, 85 degrees, but still unpainted, decked out in red, and went out and had fun for about four hours on that course. And so 2004 was my first unofficial or was my first official marathon. It's crazy. It is now looking at it the first marathon that I ever ran that was not named Boston was the 2018 Cleveland marathon.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what took you there?
Speaker 1:Um, as I mentioned, the culture was changing and uh, it's like, well, I guess I got to get myself a Boston qualifier. Okay, so I signed up for Cleveland, I went to Cleveland it was supposed to be a one and done, I'll get my BQ, I'll run Boston every year and requalify for the next year, and I don't ever have to waste my time with another marathon.
Speaker 2:But I saw your room with all your awards, so clearly that's not how that story went.
Speaker 1:I saw your room with all your awards. So clearly, that's not how that story went. Nope, I had fun running Cleveland and I realized that, yes, boston was still Boston, but other marathons could be fun too, and at that point this was after the marathon, bombing PTSD and getting hit by that car TBI. So I was really really full in on running at that point. So I had fun in Cleveland. Next thing, you know, later that year I'm doing Philadelphia.
Speaker 1:I paced my first marathon in College Station, texasas, and at the end of 2018, 2019 I believe I did 56 marathons that one year alone. Um, I had fun. It was. It was crazy. Like that year. Um, that year, that year, that was my. That was everything to me.
Speaker 1:I had, um, from the brain injury, I lost my home in 2018 and I was quasi homeless. Um, when I had no place to go, I decided you know what, where's the next race, that's where I'm going, and I started doing a lot of hitchhiking to get to races. My social media handle for a while was the Hobo Runner, because that very well defined what I did. I'd hitchhike to a race. I'd just sleep on the side of the road, I'd get up in the morning and I'd run, and then I'd hitch my way to the next race, so that 2019 was the first full calendar year that I didn't have that after I'd lost my home.
Speaker 1:So that year alone it was 56 marathons or greater. But when you factor in all the other events I did, I think I did about 85 organized race events that year. Um, it was literally one after another after another, and it was. It was such an amazing experience. Um, I paced a lot of them, pacing. I love pacing. It's it's a great way to give back to the community. The running community is my family. At this point, I don't recall if I told you the meaning of my surname.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Did I mention that to you earlier?
Speaker 2:No, you just sent me the recording on how to, so I can pronounce it properly.
Speaker 1:Okay, so skrien is actually a Latvian word that means you run, and when I lost my old life because of the brain injury, a lot of the people I had relied on turned their back on me or just told me to move on like nothing had ever happened.
Speaker 1:When I'm dealing with these major health issues, the challenges I went through were more because of being abandoned rather than the brain injury itself. And as I started in 2018, 2019, pre-pandemic, 2020, going to all these races, the running community took me in like family. Um, it went from starting I had to hitchhike to every race and I had to sleep on the side of the road at every race, to the other amazing, crazy people that I've met along this journey being like, hey, I'm going to this race tomorrow, do you want to come? Sure, and you know, when the weather's bad, I'd have other runners being like come, stay at my hotel. I had, uh, my hotel. I had some race directors who would literally be like if anybody asks your security, go sleep in the tent where all the stuff is. And you know, the just the crazy number of races I did became possible because the running community became my family, and so I decided to make that official and legally changed my name to Scrian and quite literally, the running community is and always will be my family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really awesome story, wow. Yeah, that's a really awesome story, wow. So how did your body hold up doing all those races every?
Speaker 1:day, my necessity gradual increase process. I've always been stronger at longer distances, even in high school. My high school cross country team. We were one of the best teams in the country, but I was pretty much a scrub on that team. I wasn't fast enough to keep up with the best guys on my team, like in Connecticut where I grew up. I would have been like top two or three runner on every team in the state, except for mine and one other On mine. I wasn't even top 10. But my strength was the longer races I was doing.
Speaker 1:I was a half marathon every year in high school and all the guys that would destroy me in the 5K I'd take the prize in the half. Later on, when I got back into running, the half was my preferred distance. But because of a whole bunch of issues, in large part from the brain injury, um, I've been dealing with vision issues so I can't drive. I never actually got my license. I didn't need it living in the city when I bicycled everywhere, um, but now I needed my license but because of visual issues I can't get it. I'm out of work, I have no money, so I can't afford to Uber places, so my way of getting there was hitchhiking or running In 2017, 2018, when I was doing a bunch of half marathons, it was not unheard of for me to have a eight mile warm up, run the half marathon, have an eight mile cool down and that was like well, I'm already ready for marathon distance because that's what I end up doing.
Speaker 1:So I ended up doing that with marathons and now I'm ready for ultra marathons because I just had a 10 mile warmup before I ran my marathon, um. So it started off with much lower mileage uh, base around 40 or 50, which is what I was doing in high school and then, adding all these other stuff in, suddenly I was doing 60, 70, 80 mile weeks and it was no big deal. At this point, I do a hundred miles most weeks, um, and my body thrives on that volume. The more I'm running, the better I tend to run.
Speaker 2:Really. So no injuries along the way other than, obviously, the main one.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how to answer that. The reality is, because of all the brain injury stuff, I also apparently fractured my L3 vertebrae. There's been ongoing brain, spine and gut issues for nine years now. I just learned to deal with them. There have been minor things Um the. There have been minor things Um, last last year in New York, I either stress, fractured or broke my foot.
Speaker 1:Um, because I'm not used to running on cement oh yeah, used to running on cement. Oh yeah, I'm used to running. I do a lot of my running on dirt road, trails, gravel roads, um, and to complicate things in many ways, I'm effectively running barefoot. Um, because of the finances from that hit and run, I literally have not bought a pair of running shoes since 2015. So my running shoes approach 4,000 miles on them. There's not much padding. That's one thing when I'm running on dirt roads and trails. It's a very different thing when I'm pounding cement on New York City sidewalks the week before the New York Marathon. So I may have broken the foot, considering how it felt and what I know about things, but just babied it and let it heal and keep on going.
Speaker 2:So now, how many official races have you run Marathons? Let's start with the marathons. How many official marathons?
Speaker 1:Official Okay, so you know like you didn't band it.
Speaker 1:Yes, um, my overall count is approaching 150. If you include the ultras, the um, there were maybe it's 12 bandit bostons in there. And again, don't do that at home, don't? I'm not encouraging that if you have a time machine and you can go back to 1990, go bandit Boston. But if you don't have a time machine, qualify, get in, run it. It is an amazing event. But yeah, I think if you don't include those in your numbers, I'm at about 130 or so. I can tell you in just a second. I have a database with everything in it, but the number that I keep track of is more the overall Um. So I have. I'm at 145 marathons and 125 club qualifying marathons.
Speaker 2:What does that mean?
Speaker 1:Um, a lot of the clubs, like the 50 state club and the marathon maniacs, have specific rules on what does and does not count, because they don't want people to go out and say I just going to run 26 miles and loops around my house and call it a marathon right um, number one, you have to be registered so the the bandit ones don't count there.
Speaker 1:But also there's got to be a certain number of starters and finishers to each race. So I've done a handful of like time-based race or or ultra marathons or, um, a couple of different things that have not had enough runners to count. Um, I mean, I did one 50 K where I came in first place and last place. Oh no, so clearly that doesn't count for club standards as a race. Yeah, everybody else that had signed up for the 50K distance dropped down and just settled for a half marathon or a marathon, and I'm the only one that was crazy enough to keep going, to keep going. So you've got the different. I've got the different counts there because I want to know what counts Like 50 state marathon club.
Speaker 1:I've run marathons in all 50 states. However, the race I ran in North Dakota was a marathon-ish trail run. The race distance is not certified. The race was actually like 28 miles or something like that, but it wasn't certified, so it doesn't count by those rules. Oh yeah, I'm going to be in Bismarck, north Dakota, at the end of September now pacing the four-hour group at the marathon there, and I believe that will be my official 50 state finish. Okay, um, because the the other actually. No, it won't be, because the race that I did in West Virginia was also a uncertified trail marathon. Oh man, so when I go to West Virginia in October, two weeks later, that will be my 50-state finish.
Speaker 2:Okay. That happened to me in Ohio. There wasn't enough finishers, and so I have to do Ohio again. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, on one hand it's kind of frustrating, but on the other hand it makes sense, yeah, and it provides more opportunities. Um, I'm I've got sub goals. Just because I can, I want to. I'm trying to go through and do faster now as the the health issues have improved, and they've improved in leaps and bounds in in the past four or five years. The brain injury was almost nine years ago at this point. Um, I mean to give you an idea, the I lost my sense of smell and my sense of taste for probably about half a decade. I'd be at all these races with you know, at the start finish line there's tons of port-o-potties. I couldn't smell it. So when I started getting my sense of smell back, the first time that I was able to smell that line of port-o-potties, I was excited.
Speaker 2:You're the only one.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely the only one. It is not an excitement that has continued, but it was one of those things where it's just like, after not being able to smell for so long, it's a little victory, sure, and every little victory is a huge thing. Every little victory is a huge thing. But a lot of the brain injury issues and the spinal issues have been improving, which is allowing me to be more aggressive in how fast I run. And you know, if I could get to a point where I've got a proper nutrition plan, proper running gear, all that normal stuff, it'd be interesting to see what I could do out there. But even with doing everything wrong and one of the things that I focus on a lot when I talk to my pace groups is mindset. Find your why, find something that's important to you, and you will blow your mind with what you're able to accomplish because your head's in the right place. The the timing of our interview actually makes this a perfect story. As you see, I have a small army of cats.
Speaker 2:And I hear them as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, those are the tinies. They're about four months old right now. But I had a running buddy puppy. His name was Hermes and Hermes was about two and a half years old when on Labor Day weekend last year he was hit by a car and killed. I was not happy. My why? When I'm running, every day has since the marathon bombing been for Dennis, for Sean, for Crystal, for Lou and for Martin the five that we lost from the bombing itself and in the manhunt afterwards, and that's always what gets me through when things start to suck. But when I lost Hermes, to say I was pissed at the world would be an understatement. I lost Hermes. To say I was pissed at the world would be an understatement. Have you seen the movie?
Speaker 2:John Wick.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's not much of a spoiler alert because it's literally like the first scenes in the movie, but John Wick has this puppy that his late wife gave him before she passed, and when some bad guys kill John Wick's puppy, he takes on the entire underworld. The week after I lost Hermes, I signed up for Revel Big Cottonwood and I John Wicked the course. Basically I carried his collar and just tore it up. I finished the race in my garments like 5k PR, 10k PR, half marathon PR, marathon PR. I set basically a 10-minute marathon PR and that was after the last five miles, easing up significantly because I knew that I was pacing a race in Ohio the next week and I couldn't destroy my legs, so I had to ease up, but I still said a 10 minute pr? Um.
Speaker 1:Your why matters and it's something that I'm always telling my pace groups is if you could find something that means that much to you. It does not matter what the world throws at you, you're gonna get it done. If you're're wise, strong enough, you win. Period, end of story. And for everybody that's listening find your why If you can find something that means as much to you as honoring those that we lost in Boston over a decade ago now does to me, and and running for Hermes, especially that day, meant to me you'll get it done like I'd done. No speed training at all, zero speed training. My training was volume pacing, marathons. And then all of a sudden, I don't that that speed came out of willpower and nothing else.
Speaker 2:That's great, wow, great story. So you said you also run ultras. Is there a favorite distance of ultra that you like?
Speaker 1:I want all the miles. I've just started getting more into ultras. There's a couple major logistical challenges for me with ultras at this point that I'm still trying to figure out that make it hard for me to participate in ultras With marathons. Again, I've mentioned the financial situation a couple times. I live off of a few thousand dollars a year. That's it. I laugh when I see people talk about how expensive the sport is. It's like, oh no, you just got to get rid of your standards. If you get rid of your standards, then you could do it all with nothing. Trust me, I've done it. But you want to sleep in a bed, you want to eat food, you want shoes? Okay, that costs you money. With the ultras, the races are more expensive. Yes, yeah, you also don't have pacers for time, so I can't earn an entry by being a pacer. You also have the logistical challenges of getting to it. A lot of your marathons are in cities. Finding a ride to a city is very different than finding a ride to a very rural area five hours outside the nearest city, so it's logistically much more challenging. I did do my first 100 miler in Oklahoma last year and I ran the Vermont 100 this year, nice, um, and unfortunately, some brain injury issues complicated that I um, my brain gives gives up before my bat, my body does, um. I try to use analogies to explain things that people otherwise don't understand, because you see me, you see me running sub three hour marathons and you think, oh, he's fine, why doesn't he go get a job? The way I try to explain one of the biggest issues for me is neural fatigue.
Speaker 1:Imagine your smartphone cannot charge past 10 to 20% ever and you don't have a charger readily available. And now you've got to get through your day. How much can you actually do? Not much. But that clock on your phone it keeps running and it barely drains your battery. And for me it's very similar in that. And for me it's very similar in that you know anything that requires me to think I'll shut down. I can go a few hours, but I can't make it a day. I would not be able to survive a nine to five shift. I just would not be able to do it. Um, but running doesn't take too many brain cells. You put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over and over again. So I can do that all day long without draining that battery, except when it gets dark. And now the bobbing of a headlamp means my eyes and my brain are constantly adjusting to shifting lights and I shut down In both cases.
Speaker 1:In both of those hundreds I did. I was running comfortably. I was at the top or right near the top of the field until dusk and then I had to walk the rest of the way. And then I had to walk the rest of the way as things continue to improve. I'm anxious to see what I can do when my brain is not the limiting factor and my body is, because in both of those races I still had a lot in the tank.
Speaker 1:As far as running went, in Vermont, I will confess I still had a lot in the tank. As far as running away In Vermont, I will confess I was done climbing. If it stayed light, I'd still be walking up the hills, because 17,000 feet of vert is a lot more than I'm used to, especially having spent over a decade in South Florida where there's no such thing as a hill. But had there been light on the flats and the downhills, I'd still be cruising at a comfortable pace. So as time goes, I'm excited to see what I can do with ultras, because that has always been my strength, what I can do with ultras, because that has always been my strength, and as I learned to better manage the injuries and the neural issues, it's exciting to think of what I could potentially accomplish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, and I know even myself running at night. It's a struggle, and if you have vision problems as well and the neuro fatigue, wow, that's good for you for not giving up. You're still doing them.
Speaker 1:But, that said, give me a nice full moon and an open road. That is the best thing for my brain. There's just enough light to navigate but there's not stimulation. I don't have sounds or sights bombarding my senses and forcing my brain to make sense of what's going on around it. And forcing my brain to make sense of what's going on around it A nice moonlight run.
Speaker 1:When I first got hit, that was the only way I was able to do it. I was almost like a vampire. I couldn't go out during the day. The sunlight was too much. At that point I'd have a five minute phone conversation with someone and I was wiped out for days. So I would go out.
Speaker 1:I lived in Miami Beach at the time and as soon as it got dark and the tourists were all off the beach, the moonlight, even in the light, in the closer to a new moon right on the the water, you still get enough moonlight reflecting to just be able to run along the beach as a. As an added bonus to that, um, I have motor skills issues, sometimes because of the brain injury, and I just fall um for a for a while. My mantra was right foot face plant is still forward progress and I'd tell my pace groups that and they'd laugh, thinking I was joking. And then five minutes later I just fall for no reason whatsoever. I would just fall and I'd get back up and they'd look at me like you aren't kidding. Nope, I'm dead serious. Early on when I was falling all the time. Falling in sand is much nicer than falling on cement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd have to agree.
Speaker 1:So going out to the beach after the sunset and getting my runs done was the only way I could do it. I didn't mention before, I'm a streak runner, so I run every single day, no exceptions period. End of story.
Speaker 1:Today will actually be day 3059 of my streak when I go run dealing with the health issues, it became an issue of how can I make this work. I have these obstacles. There's nothing I can do about those obstacles, they're just a fact of life. But how can I get around them, through them, over them, or even use them to get what I want to get done? And it's forced me to be creative, it's forced me to focus on the can rather than can't. Yeah, in those 3,000 days, there's a whole lot of days that I had every valid reason to say I'm not running.
Speaker 1:Today, when I broke stress, fractured, whatever I did to my foot, I kept running. I cut my mileage down. I was only doing about 50 miles a week, but I adapted my stride, made sure that I was only doing about 50 miles a week, but I adapted my stride, made sure that I was running on dirt and gravel rather than harder surfaces. And on that foot I was deliberately heel striking not what you normally want to do. If I landed, normally I was putting stress on a portion of bone that I knew was, to an extent unknown to me, damaged. So I had to adapt and I spent a month and a half deliberately. He's striking's striking.
Speaker 1:It's all been about finding ways to overcome things and, again the whole thing, find your why. If something means enough to you, it gets done. It's a pet peeve of mine when somebody's like, oh, I could never run a marathon. I call them out on it every single time. It's like bull, if I had a gun to your head, would you finish? Well, yeah, well, then you don't want to run a marathon, not, you can't run a marathon. That word, choice, matters.
Speaker 1:When you start framing things as I don't want to do this versus I can't do this, it really transforms everything in life and you start realizing it's like, yeah, I could fly if I wanted to, but the landing makes it not worth it. There's nothing that you can't do. There's a lot of things that aren't worth doing. There's a lot of things that you don't want to do, that you don't care to do. But when you start to recognize that the limitations are simply a matter of desire, rather than a desire, than a matter of ability, it reframes everything. It reframes everything, um, when I pace a lot, I do a lot of pacing at women's bq times.
Speaker 1:So, like 330 marathon, um, 325. Now the cutoffs are getting tougher. Like it's funny, I went from being the boston bandit to someone who whose greatest joy is qualifying people to get there, like that is the highlight for me. If I qualified somebody to go and experience Boston for the first time, if I help them to punch that ticket, it's a good day. I want everyone to experience it and I can't say just show up, anyway it was like come, come on, I'm going to pace you to your first Boston.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of times I'm pacing in the 320 to 330 range and actually in a couple courses I've been able to increase my own pace, that I've paced a couple three-hour marathons to get the guys' BQ time in as well. But I tell the women in my groups all the time is like it's going to hurt. No matter what you do, it's going to hurt. Is it worth it? Physiologically you're designed to handle that better than I am, thank God. I will never know how much it hurts to bear a child, but if it's worth it, you go through the pain. If it's worth it.
Speaker 1:The pain is not a problem, it's just part of it. And with my personal running, with all the issues that I've been dealing with my health, that's the same mentality that I take. It's worth it. To me it's been nine years since I've not been in pain. But I can cry about what I lost or I can celebrate that statistically speaking, I'm an anomaly and still being alive and running the speed and the distance that I'm running, despite having a motor vehicle hit me from behind at about 40 miles per hour.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've seen the news but Johnny and Matthew Goudreau, the hockey players as a BC guy, I used to watch them play at BC. That news this past week or so was devastating for me because the way they died had so many similarities to what happened to me similarities to what happened to me, and so it stung. But it also helped me to refocus and reframe that. Yeah, this hurts. Yeah, this is wrong. Yeah, this is a problem. Yeah, I can't do what I used to be able to do neurologically, but I'm alive and by so many accounts, I probably shouldn't be. So it all comes down again to the you know how do you frame something? How are you going to look? What lens are you going to look at something through? Are you going to look at it as a debilitating problem or a speed bump? Are you going to look at it as this is the end, that wall's too high to climb, or how awesome is the view going to be when I get to the top?
Speaker 2:It's such a great outlook on life that you just don't get that from very many people. So we really appreciate hearing that, because obviously in our world not as many people can have that kind of outlook.
Speaker 1:I mean, I hate to say it, but when the pandemic happened and everything started shutting down, I was just cringing. It was like, oh man, people have no idea how to handle adversity. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of things that by necessity had to change, and I'm not challenging that, but the way your average it was just wow, people need to to focus on what really matters. It's like okay, yes, we can't do this, but we're alive.
Speaker 2:Why are we crying?
Speaker 1:about what we can't do when we're alive. And there's all these other things that we can do. And again, pacing I keep mentioning that because it's one of my favorite things to do is like. I love organized race events.
Speaker 2:If there's a race that you could pace that, like right now, seems out of reach, what would it be? What would be like your ultimate race to pace?
Speaker 1:So for me it's the pacing is a hundred percent about helping people. The more people I can help, the more tickets to Boston that I can help people punch, the happier I am. So simple mathematics on that the bigger the race, the more people I can help. Simple mathematics on that the bigger the race, the more people I can help. So, pacing london, pacing chicago, pacing berlin I'd love to do those. Pacing tokyo I'd love to do those because the groups would be massive. Yeah, there's a lot of the races, like when I'm in north dakota later on this month at four, four hours, I might have a couple people with me at the finish. It's a smaller race. There's been a couple races that I've paced and I finished in the top 10 as a pacer. If I'm pacing and I don't have someone in my group, that's not fun. But the bigger my group, the more that everybody else's energy I feed off of an amplifier and that's how I've always been, whether it was the crazy fan at the Boston College Games or pacing. If I've got an energetic group, I'll amp that up to another level.
Speaker 1:I love when I've got groups. I've had races where I've had a group of a couple people and we get into conversation and, again, focus is what you're focusing on matters. And we'll get into conversation. And we'll get to mile 24 of the marathon. We'll be like, wow, how are we here already? And these are people who are going for a five minute PR. They get to mile 24, they're still conversational, running five minutes faster than they've ever run in their life. And it's frustrating and funny to see that once they notice that they're a mile 24, something in the back of their head is saying it's supposed to hurt right now. So they go from being conversational to just in a split second and it's just like no, it's what you're focusing on. If you're focused, if we're having fun as a pace group, those miles fly by. But if you're focusing on oh man, I still got so many miles left to go, it's gonna hurt more. And having those groups is so rewarding Seeing those goals just get demolished.
Speaker 1:And you know, uh, one, uh, one of my highlights as a I wasn't even an official pacer. There was a race I did, um, the race director I. I learned to swallow my pride early when my whole life blew up on me and I'd reach out to race directors and be like look, here's my situation. I have no money but I have time. What can I do to earn an entry? I can't give you $150, because that's 33% of what I have for the entire month, because that's 33% of what I have for the entire month. But I got all day Tell me what to do and the vast majority of race directors would work with me. I've done so many packet pickups. I've done so many course markings. I've done so many breakdowns after the races, like I've done pretty much all the secondary roles of race organization. I know what's involved so I'm a great worker for them. Because it's not my first rodeo and it's allowed me to do, I told you I did like 85 races. I think the only races I actually paid for that year were the majors.
Speaker 2:So you've done the majors too.
Speaker 1:Yes, I told you I did the body paint when I decided to do the majors. I pride myself on not being normal. It's like, oh, thousands of people have run all six majors, but how many have run them in body paint?
Speaker 2:How'd that go in Tokyo?
Speaker 1:Because they're kind of strict, aren't they? I was basically a giant Japanese flag. Okay, so I did. They do have strict rules, but paint is makeup, it's not a costume.
Speaker 2:Fair.
Speaker 1:So I'm not violating any rules and while Tokyo does have strict rules about political messages and religious messages and so on and so forth, basically being a giant Japanese flag is not going to offend anybody in Tokyo.
Speaker 2:It's their flag, yeah.
Speaker 1:So when I decided to do the majors, to paint the majors, it's like, do I continue doing what I do in Boston and my Boston at BC my thing was red face with a gold cross on my face.
Speaker 1:I rode crew and that was the design on our oar, and BC's a Jesuit Catholic school. So that was a perfect fit for being the crazy BC fan. I was a BC super fan. I was at every. I was at more games than the mascot was and the red paint with the gold cross on my face was my thing. And so I kept that for Boston and for the Boston marathon. I've done that every time I've run Boston, with the exception of 2021.
Speaker 1:2021, I inverted the colors because 2021 was not on Patriots Day, it was because of the pandemic. They had moved it to the fall and I said, well, the red body paint is a Patriots Day tradition. I'm doing something slightly different and I painted gold with the red offset. But in 2019, when I decided to do the majors, it's like, do I do everything BC colors or do I do it different? And I decided I'd do each major a different color. So after I did Boston, I did London. So what should I paint myself for London. You know I'll paint for the charity I'm running for that one. I did fundraising for action on hearing loss. Um, and I wasn't even thinking I'll just paint whatever their colors are. Went to their website oh, it looks like I'm purple and pink. So I kept the cross design on my face. I did all purple with a pink cross and a pink Action on Hearing Loss logo on my chest.
Speaker 1:And then Berlin I basically I started to make it so each race the colors were something related to the location in some way shape or form. So when I did Berlin, I was yellow with red cross and a black German eagle design on my chest, so they're flag colors. I went to Chicago and I did blue with and a black German eagle design on my chest, so they're flag colors. I went to Chicago and I did blue with a flesh-colored stripe and three red stars on my chest, so basically the Chicago flag with a yellow cross on my face. Inadvertently, I didn't realize it, I was Sweden, so I got a whole lot of go Sweden and it took me a while to figure out they were cheering for me. New York I did painted green with a Statue of Liberty design in white on my chest. So basically I was a Statue of Liberty and a lot of the New Yorkers started calling me Mr Liberty, like Statue of Liberty, and a lot of the New Yorkers started calling me Mr Liberty.
Speaker 1:I'm like cool, I could run with that. And then when I did Tokyo, it was red and white. I was inadvertently a Brit because I had the white face with a red cross on it, but I also more most predominantly, people notice the big red sun on my chest. I was a giant japanese flag.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm annually continuing to do boston and new york painted that's really cool and the crowds go nuts when I go by and it's just so much fun. The paint's a huge project but it's so worth it and I mean we're 50-something days from New York I'll be painted green again.
Speaker 2:I changed my offset color to orange because that's what the NYR chose as their color for branding for the race going forward. That's very cool. Well, we are going to need to wrap this up. Do you have any last um thoughts or words?
Speaker 1:for my listeners that we need to know again to focus on the whole mindset matters. Find your why and and another in the same line of thought as that is the mentality that numbers are somebody else's standards. If you're doing your training and your life based on oh well, somebody said that I need to run a Boston qualifying time why are you judging yourself based on their standards? Run your best, choose aggressive standards based on yourself, and those other standards just naturally happen If you're chasing after a BQ. That Boston qualifying time becomes a mental roadblock and even if you're physically capable of it, something in the back of your mind telling you this is unachievable. So don't set your goal as your BQ time. Set your goal as your New York qualifying time, which is about 15 minutes faster, and then you have a bad day and you still qualified for Boston by 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Numbers are somebody else's standards. If you're focusing on their standards, you're not achieving your potential. If you focus on who you are, what you're capable of doing, and stop judging yourself by those standards, you blow yourself away with what you're capable of.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, ken, I really could talk to you all day, but, yeah, we do have a cutoff. Thank you so much for being on the show and I hope the best for you for your next few races, and I'll talk to you again after you've accomplished some more things that are just out of this world thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:It's been a pleasure and I hope we'll get to see each other at a race somewhere out there in the not too distant future.
Speaker 2:I hope so too, thanks, bye-bye all right well, thanks for listening to the episode. I hope so too. Thanks, bye-bye, take care, all right. Well, thanks for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Please continue to follow, share and rate the program. If you're needing that coach, reach out to me. There's a button in the show notes that you can contact me directly. Share it with a friend if you think their story needs to be on the podcast, I'd love to hear from them. So thanks again and have a great day.
