Susie Chan: I just thought maybe I could do this. I didn't think I definitely can
Susie Chan: do this, and that was enough for me to give it a go. So if
Susie Chan: you have any sort of sense of adventure, or just trying to
Susie Chan: do something which is a little bit out of your
Susie Chan: comfort zone, just give it a go.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Hey, everybody, and welcome to Set the Pace, the official
Rob Simmelkjaer: podcast of New York Road Runners, presented by Peloton. I'm
Rob Simmelkjaer: your host, Rob Simmelkjaer, the CEO of New York Road
Rob Simmelkjaer: Runners. And with me week in, week out, my co- host, Peloton
Rob Simmelkjaer: instructor, and currently my coach, Becs Gentry. Hello, Becs, how
Rob Simmelkjaer: are you?
Becs Gentry: Hello. I'm good. How are you doing?
Rob Simmelkjaer: I'm doing great. I feel really good.
Becs Gentry: Okay, good.
Rob Simmelkjaer: We'll talk about my training in a little bit.
Becs Gentry: We will.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I'm feeling really, really good, and the weather has been
Rob Simmelkjaer: nice around here lately.
Becs Gentry: Yes, finally.
Rob Simmelkjaer: God, it just cooled off a bit. The air quality's
Rob Simmelkjaer: not ideal with some of what's left, I guess, from
Rob Simmelkjaer: the Canadian fires. You can see it in the air,
Rob Simmelkjaer: but I don't know, it hasn't bothered me this year,
Rob Simmelkjaer: as it was last year. I've been feeling pretty good,
Rob Simmelkjaer: and we've had some good enough weather, I think a
Rob Simmelkjaer: lot of people have been feeling good with the running.
Rob Simmelkjaer: What about you, have you been getting out?
Becs Gentry: I have not. Today was my first run since last
Becs Gentry: Wednesday, so nearly a week of no running.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Wow.
Becs Gentry: It was fantastic. Yeah, we went away to Canada actually,
Becs Gentry: we went to Lake Simcoe on Thursday, for a big
Becs Gentry: family summer get- together. There's like 16 of us who
Becs Gentry: go. And we just did water sports, so if I'm
Becs Gentry: honest, my back and shoulders and arms are really sore
Becs Gentry: from wake surfing and paddleboarding and kayaking, all of the water
Becs Gentry: sports. So it was fantastic to do other things rather than
Becs Gentry: the regular running.
Rob Simmelkjaer: You are having a great summer, with the running that
Rob Simmelkjaer: you do, obviously, is part of your job, but hey,
Rob Simmelkjaer: you clearly deserve some time just running a little here and
Rob Simmelkjaer: there, given all you've done. It seems really smart and
Rob Simmelkjaer: healthy, and I love hearing that for you. It sounds
Rob Simmelkjaer: amazing, and what's better than being in a lake doing
Rob Simmelkjaer: a little water skiing.
Becs Gentry: Exactly. Yeah, it's funny because you get so tied up
Becs Gentry: in running, as a runner. As somebody who is a
Becs Gentry: hobby runner, yes, it's part of my job, but I
Becs Gentry: love it too. And I don't do other things, I
Becs Gentry: just do running, and life's too short for that, for
Becs Gentry: me personally. Just being there on that lake, I could
Becs Gentry: have got up and went for a run. I took
Becs Gentry: my running stuff with me. I was in a beautiful location, but
Becs Gentry: instead I was like, " You know what I want to
Becs Gentry: do? I want to go for a paddleboard before Tallulah
Becs Gentry: wakes up, because I can. It's right there." We were
Becs Gentry: on the lake with a dock, and I can't do that
Becs Gentry: in New York. I can go for a run in
Becs Gentry: New York. So it's just that, to me, is shifting
Becs Gentry: your mindset of use your fitness to enjoy other activities
Becs Gentry: when you're not training for stuff. It's been really lovely.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I love that. I actually love that. It's beautiful. I
Rob Simmelkjaer: played a little golf myself, for a couple days this
Rob Simmelkjaer: week, which I hadn't done much of lately.
Becs Gentry: Good core workout.
Rob Simmelkjaer: It's not a lot of... Yeah, a good core workout. Definitely the twisting is good.
Becs Gentry: Yeah.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I walked too, so a lot of time on feet, which was good, but
Rob Simmelkjaer: had to get back to the running pretty quickly. We'll
Rob Simmelkjaer: talk about that in a little bit. We had a
Rob Simmelkjaer: nice day in Harlem this past weekend, the Percy Sutton
Rob Simmelkjaer: Harlem 5K. The weather was so nice for the runners
Rob Simmelkjaer: in Harlem. It was so great to see, because that's
Rob Simmelkjaer: been a hot race, as you can imagine, in August,
Rob Simmelkjaer: up in Harlem, but it was a gorgeous day. On
Rob Simmelkjaer: the men's side, Ryan Couch was the winner, 14: 58. Khia Kurtenbach
Rob Simmelkjaer: on the women's side, 16: 49. Non- binary Jack Marley Payne,
Rob Simmelkjaer: 19:35. But I think the best part of the day,
Rob Simmelkjaer: Becs, is for New York Road Runners, this is such a
Rob Simmelkjaer: special event, because all of our programs are on beautiful
Rob Simmelkjaer: display at the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K. Not only did
Rob Simmelkjaer: we have the race with 5, 000 runners, we had the
Rob Simmelkjaer: Run for the Future girls doing their big graduation 5K.
Rob Simmelkjaer: This is a group of 50 young women, high school- aged,
Rob Simmelkjaer: rising for this fall, and none of them had ever
Rob Simmelkjaer: really been runners before. They had been training with their
Rob Simmelkjaer: run buddies and their mentors all summer long, and they
Rob Simmelkjaer: graduate at the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K. And they did a phenomenal
Rob Simmelkjaer: job. As you know, that's a hard course, that race
Rob Simmelkjaer: course, that's some really big hills there, especially in mile two,
Rob Simmelkjaer: but they did a phenomenal job. And Becs, seeing the
Rob Simmelkjaer: look of pride on these girls' faces as they finished
Rob Simmelkjaer: this, and they got their medals, and posed for pictures,
Rob Simmelkjaer: it was awesome, and it's a beautiful program we have
Rob Simmelkjaer: at New York Road Runners, so I really enjoyed seeing
Rob Simmelkjaer: them, hanging out with all of them before and after
Rob Simmelkjaer: the race, and that was thrilling. And then we also
Rob Simmelkjaer: had races for all the kids. We had stage one,
Rob Simmelkjaer: two, and three races happening in Harlem, plus we had
Rob Simmelkjaer: our Striders out there as well, our older adults doing
Rob Simmelkjaer: their walking thing. They walked a 1. 5- mile course, and
Rob Simmelkjaer: it was the 15th anniversary celebration of the Striders program as
Rob Simmelkjaer: well. So it was just an awesome day for everything
Rob Simmelkjaer: that we do at New York Road Runners.
Becs Gentry: Oh, I love all of the celebrations and all of the joy. What a perfect weekend.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Now, I was able to take a Saturday off. I
Rob Simmelkjaer: did not run Harlem, because I did my long run
Rob Simmelkjaer: on Friday, Becs, and I have to say it went
Rob Simmelkjaer: pretty well. Becs had prescribed a 14- miler for me
Rob Simmelkjaer: last week. I did it on Friday morning, beautiful weather,
Rob Simmelkjaer: and it was good. I felt really good. I stayed,
Rob Simmelkjaer: more or less, at my marathon pace. This is one thing I
Rob Simmelkjaer: wanted to talk to you about, which is pacing for
Rob Simmelkjaer: long runs. Because when I had previously trained for marathons,
Rob Simmelkjaer: most of my long runs were just at an easy
Rob Simmelkjaer: pace. I really hadn't focused that much on pacing in
Rob Simmelkjaer: my long runs before, which probably was not a good
Rob Simmelkjaer: thing. And so you gave me an assignment to run
Rob Simmelkjaer: 14 miles at my marathon pace. I kind of alternated
Rob Simmelkjaer: off that a little. I did about three miles at
Rob Simmelkjaer: marathon pace, then slowed a bit, then another three at
Rob Simmelkjaer: marathon pace, then slowed a bit. But I had some
Rob Simmelkjaer: really good sustained periods. I was actually a little faster
Rob Simmelkjaer: than my marathon pace for most of those kind of
Rob Simmelkjaer: pickups, which was good, but then I would drop back
Rob Simmelkjaer: a bit. Can you talk to runners out there about,
Rob Simmelkjaer: for the long runs, for the most part, how much
Rob Simmelkjaer: should they be focused on running at that marathon pace?
Rob Simmelkjaer: Should it be for the whole long run typically, should they be picking
Rob Simmelkjaer: out bits and pieces of two, three miles per push,
Rob Simmelkjaer: let's say? What do you really recommend?
Becs Gentry: I personally, and this is every coach is different, I
Becs Gentry: personally prescribe my runners to run all their long runs
Becs Gentry: at their goal marathon pace. You actually hit it. You
Becs Gentry: were fine, even though you did some fast and some slow.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Net-net, I did. Yeah, net-net, I did, because my average was below.
Becs Gentry: You did. Your average pace was-
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah, just under eight minutes a mile.
Becs Gentry: I gave you 15- second window to fill it in. And that's
Becs Gentry: the thing, is to me, it's more about offering a
Becs Gentry: window of pace range for my runners on those long
Becs Gentry: runs so they get used to having a little bit
Becs Gentry: of variability. Now, the only time I would do something
Becs Gentry: a bit different to that, would be for an advanced
Becs Gentry: runner who is looking to shave time off their previous
Becs Gentry: marathon finish time, and I would prescribe something more along
Becs Gentry: the lines of a tempo versus marathon run in their
Becs Gentry: long run. It's pretty disgusting. It's the kind of workouts
Becs Gentry: I did when I was training for the Olympic trials.
Becs Gentry: It was mile at tempo, mile at marathon, mile at
Becs Gentry: tempo, mile at marathon for up to 21 miles. It
Becs Gentry: was brutal, but it got my turnover so much stronger,
Becs Gentry: not just that, it got my confidence stronger. So already,
Becs Gentry: you already said that. You didn't mean to say it,
Becs Gentry: but you already said it in your description of your run, was "
Becs Gentry: I was actually faster than my marathon pace in one
Becs Gentry: of them." So netting it out, if you'd have just
Becs Gentry: stayed on a progressive run within that 15- second window,
Becs Gentry: you would've been fine because you have it in you.
Becs Gentry: But sometimes just getting that marathon pace in every weekend
Becs Gentry: is all people need in their mind to be ready
Becs Gentry: to hit that 26.2 miles at their goal pace. And
Becs Gentry: no shade to anyone who doesn't do this, I hate
Becs Gentry: that some people prescribe marathon pace only for shorter runs,
Becs Gentry: because when people get to that start line, how on
Becs Gentry: Earth are they supposed to understand the discomfort of running
Becs Gentry: 26.2 miles at their goal pace if they have never
Becs Gentry: run 26.2 miles, or near it, at a similar pace?
Becs Gentry: It's just not fair in my mind. And I've run
Becs Gentry: a fair few races to understand disappointment and discomfort, and
Becs Gentry: you don't need to go into that setting people up
Becs Gentry: for discomfort. So as these weeks roll on, you've got
Becs Gentry: 16 at it this weekend, steady cruise, it's just about building
Becs Gentry: you, and you'll see that your weeks are not overloaded
Becs Gentry: with other things. Your workout, your speed workouts, for example,
Becs Gentry: aren't long and really, really demanding, they're just about pickup
Becs Gentry: and turnover, and the real focus is your long run,
Becs Gentry: because you're going for a hopeful time here.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah, I really like the approach. It's definitely something new
Rob Simmelkjaer: for me, but it makes sense. I mean, you know the
Rob Simmelkjaer: race environment is going to give you something extra, right?
Rob Simmelkjaer: You're going to have a little more adrenaline, a little
Rob Simmelkjaer: more speed, just from being in a race, but it
Rob Simmelkjaer: comes down to how much you're going to rely on
Rob Simmelkjaer: that race adrenaline fr on race day, right? Because you
Rob Simmelkjaer: don't want to over rely on that. If your body
Rob Simmelkjaer: hasn't done the work, hasn't done the 15 miles at
Rob Simmelkjaer: marathon pace to 20, 22 miles, yeah, I guess really the
Rob Simmelkjaer: question is how can you expect it to do it
Rob Simmelkjaer: on marathon day? And so I know there's different philosophies of
Rob Simmelkjaer: how much, maybe it's pick up, drop back, pick up,
Rob Simmelkjaer: drop back, but at least you've done long, long mileage
Rob Simmelkjaer: with a sustained amount of time at your marathon pace
Rob Simmelkjaer: so that you know it's in you.
Becs Gentry: Yes, you do. You got to know it's in you.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I love it. I really love it.
Becs Gentry: Yeah.
Rob Simmelkjaer: The speed work went well this morning. I still had to go
Rob Simmelkjaer: out on the track. I still have not gotten myself onto
Rob Simmelkjaer: the treadmill, but it was better for me today. I
Rob Simmelkjaer: felt better on the track. It was beautiful. Plus I
Rob Simmelkjaer: got my daughter, Julia, to come out and do some
Rob Simmelkjaer: speed work with me this morning, and that's definitely not happening than a treadmill.
Becs Gentry: That's so sweet. But they were longer efforts. When you're talking more
Becs Gentry: like the shorter ones, that can be fun on the
Becs Gentry: tread. It can be fun on the track, as you say.
Becs Gentry: As long as you get out and do it, I don't care. Get it done on the tread,
Becs Gentry: on the track, on the road, you do it, wherever
Becs Gentry: it takes you.
Rob Simmelkjaer: It was so much fun, so things going well from
Rob Simmelkjaer: now. We will keep things going, and I'll keep you
Rob Simmelkjaer: updated as I work towards Chicago. And of course, so
Rob Simmelkjaer: many of you working towards the TCS New York City
Rob Simmelkjaer: Marathon a few weeks after my run in early November.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Well, coming up on today's show, we have a colleague
Rob Simmelkjaer: of Becs is truly amazing. Susie Chan, she runs in
Rob Simmelkjaer: deserts, she runs in jungle, she has run Badlands, and
Rob Simmelkjaer: she runs of course, on the treadmill with Becs at
Rob Simmelkjaer: Peloton. She just celebrated her 50th birthday, and it seems
Rob Simmelkjaer: she's just getting started. She's going to tell us all
Rob Simmelkjaer: about her adventures and her book as well. Then our
Rob Simmelkjaer: friend, Meb Keflezighi, will be here with today's featured member,
Rob Simmelkjaer: Margaret Schwartz. Margaret ran 20 consecutive TCS New York City
Rob Simmelkjaer: Marathons, but lately, she's decided to tread some new ground.
Rob Simmelkjaer: She'll be here to tell us what she has learned
Rob Simmelkjaer: along the way. And we've got a special Meb Minute
Rob Simmelkjaer: with HSS today, the hospital for special surgery, Chrysta Irolla, director
Rob Simmelkjaer: of HSS's world- class Prosthetics and Orthotics service, is here
Rob Simmelkjaer: with expert tips on how to get the right shoes
Rob Simmelkjaer: and inserts to run more efficiently. Ready to see real
Rob Simmelkjaer: results? Try the Peloton app for free and get expert-
Rob Simmelkjaer: designed running programs that build speed, strength, and endurance. Run
Rob Simmelkjaer: outdoors with real- time coaching, as instructors guide your form
Rob Simmelkjaer: and pace every step of the way. Plus strength for
Rob Simmelkjaer: Runners, a program built to help runners boost muscle and
Rob Simmelkjaer: prevent injury, complements your training so you can crush your
Rob Simmelkjaer: goals even faster. Try the app for free for 30
Rob Simmelkjaer: days, and download it now from the app store or
Rob Simmelkjaer: Google Play. Terms apply. Peloton, the official digital fitness partner
Rob Simmelkjaer: of New York Road Runners. Our guest today is British ultramarathon
Rob Simmelkjaer: runner, and Becs' fellow Peloton tread instructor, Susie Chan. Susie
Rob Simmelkjaer: didn't start running until she was 35 years old, when
Rob Simmelkjaer: her brother convinced her to join him for a half-
Rob Simmelkjaer: marathon. Six months later, she ran her first full marathon
Rob Simmelkjaer: in Paris, and since then, she's completed about 20 marathons,
Rob Simmelkjaer: including all six original Abbott World Marathon majors. But, like
Rob Simmelkjaer: so many people we have spoken to here on Set
Rob Simmelkjaer: the Pace, 26.2 miles just wasn't enough for Susie. She
Rob Simmelkjaer: kept going, went on to conquer the Marathon des Sables,
Rob Simmelkjaer: a six- day, 250- kilometer race through the Sahara Desert,
Rob Simmelkjaer: and set a world record by running 68. 54 miles on
Rob Simmelkjaer: a treadmill in 12 hours. That is like my all-
Rob Simmelkjaer: time worst nightmare, I can't wait to hear how she
Rob Simmelkjaer: did this. She also made ultramarathon running history as the
Rob Simmelkjaer: first European woman to finish all three Badwater Ultramarathon races in
Rob Simmelkjaer: the same year. And along the way, she's overcome serious
Rob Simmelkjaer: challenges, including a thyroid cancer diagnosis shortly after running the
Rob Simmelkjaer: Chicago Marathon. Susie's also, as if this wasn't enough, an award-
Rob Simmelkjaer: winning author. Her book, Trails and Tribulations, the Running Adventures
Rob Simmelkjaer: of Susie Chan, won Sports Performance book of the year
Rob Simmelkjaer: at the 2025 Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Awards. Susie, what is
Rob Simmelkjaer: wrong with you? You can't seem to stop doing things,
Rob Simmelkjaer: are you okay?
Susie Chan: No, I don't know if I am. Do you know
Susie Chan: what, it's not until actually I wrote the book, and
Susie Chan: I was forced to reflect, because I'm very much a forward-
Susie Chan: looking person, and I was forced to sort of think about
Susie Chan: all the things I've done. It was like, "Oh, actually, I have
Susie Chan: been quite busy, haven't I?" And also, some of the
Susie Chan: things, hearing them back like that, it doesn't sound like
Susie Chan: me. I don't know genuinely, how I did some of those
Susie Chan: things now, because as I'm a little bit older, I'm a
Susie Chan: little bit slower, things are a little bit harder when I'm running,
Susie Chan: and then I'm like, " How did I do those things?"
Susie Chan: So yeah, I've been very, very lucky, very privileged, and
Susie Chan: I've seen the world through running around on my two
Susie Chan: feet. And I think overall, largely loved it all. There
Susie Chan: were some low moments, as runners experience, but what a journey.
Rob Simmelkjaer: All right, so I don't know where to start. I
Rob Simmelkjaer: guess, let's start at the start. So you run a half-
Rob Simmelkjaer: marathon with your brother, and did that trigger something in
Rob Simmelkjaer: you? You hadn't really been a runner, right, so did
Rob Simmelkjaer: you feel all of a sudden, through the process of
Rob Simmelkjaer: training for and running that half, that, " Oh, my God,
Rob Simmelkjaer: this is what I meant to do?"
Susie Chan: It was a bit of a delayed reaction, I'm going
Susie Chan: to say. I didn't really want to run. I didn't
Susie Chan: have any interest in it. It sounded awful. And I used
Susie Chan: to sit at home and watch London Marathon when it
Susie Chan: came on my TV, in awe of what they were
Susie Chan: doing, but not really having any comprehension of how far
Susie Chan: that is, and how much work you have to do
Susie Chan: to get there. But I was in a bit of a rough patch in my life.
Susie Chan: I was drinking too much. I was a smoker. I was in
Susie Chan: a bit of a life rut. I hadn't had much
Susie Chan: money, I was a single mom. And I think my
Susie Chan: brother could sort of identify that within me, and he
Susie Chan: wanted to run his half. He was signed in for
Susie Chan: a marathon, he was like, "I'm going to do a bucket list marathon. I'm going to run a marathon,
Susie Chan: tick it off." And he picked a local half- marathon
Susie Chan: to me, to run as a training one. And basically,
Susie Chan: he said, " Run this with me, run this with me." And
Susie Chan: I agreed. I didn't really know how far it was
Susie Chan: either. And I started training, this is when it was 20, when did we say,
Susie Chan: 2010, something like that. And I had no watch. I mean, I didn't have
Susie Chan: a watch. I can remember trying to run my first run
Susie Chan: around a field. It had two football pitches in it,
Susie Chan: and I was trying to run around that that without stopping, couldn't
Susie Chan: do it, and it was just awful. But because I had this goal,
Susie Chan: I kept on trying to run a little bit further, a little bit further.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yep.
Susie Chan: And then race day came, I was stood there, terrified.
Susie Chan: Looked around, everybody else knew what they were doing. They
Susie Chan: all had the gear on. I didn't even have a proper running
Susie Chan: bra or running shoes.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Oh, man.
Susie Chan: Oh, honestly. And then as I was stood there, about
Susie Chan: five minutes before the race started, somebody leaned over and said, "
Susie Chan: Do you like trail running?" And I was like, " What's trail
Susie Chan: running?" And the whole thing was this trail half- marathon.
Susie Chan: It was like off- road, over fences, narrow, up mud.
Susie Chan: And so I was so distracted trying not to fall over, I'm thinking "
Susie Chan: What is happening to me," up these hills and down
Susie Chan: these hills. Because I'd been running on a flat road, I was trying to
Susie Chan: stay alive. And then I got to nine miles, and I thought, "
Susie Chan: Oh, my God, I'm going to run this half- marathon." And then
Susie Chan: it just filled me with something which I hadn't ever
Susie Chan: experienced before. I was very tired, but I just suddenly
Susie Chan: believed I could do it, and then crossed the finish
Susie Chan: line. And then of course, all those finish line feels
Susie Chan: that you get, and everybody that's had that first race
Susie Chan: experience, you're on such a high. And I was on such a high
Susie Chan: for days and days, I thought I need more of
Susie Chan: this. I need to keep running. That's how it started,
Susie Chan: and then I went in pretty hard after that.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah, I would say so. First of all, I love that
Rob Simmelkjaer: you were running a trail half- marathon and did not realize
Rob Simmelkjaer: it was a trail half- marathon until you were at the
Rob Simmelkjaer: starting line.
Susie Chan: No.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Very different, very different experience than running on the road, but
Rob Simmelkjaer: that's awesome. And you're right, the focus you get on
Rob Simmelkjaer: a trail run, sometimes you stop thinking about the miles
Rob Simmelkjaer: because you're trying not to break your face, yeah.
Susie Chan: I was just looking at whatever was coming next. It was like, " Oh, there's some trees.
Susie Chan: Oh, there's some mud." Oh, it was just like a fence, and it was like, "
Susie Chan: Oh, gosh." It was very busy in my head.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I love it. So from there, did your mind go right to
Rob Simmelkjaer: the marathon distance?
Susie Chan: No, I then thought, "Oh, I can run a 10K obviously, that's shorter." It's a very
Susie Chan: different kettle of fish actually, running a 10K, because you
Susie Chan: have to run a little bit faster. And then I did
Susie Chan: a couple of more half- marathons, and then I started
Susie Chan: to do a bit more fitness because it was making me feel
Susie Chan: good, so I joined a couple of little fitness groups,
Susie Chan: and they were all running Paris Marathon. And basically, I
Susie Chan: was like, " Yeah, yeah." I was very much " Give it a go," like "
Susie Chan: What's the worst that could happen?" I didn't really overthink
Susie Chan: things too much, which probably was how I've ended up
Susie Chan: doing some of the things I'm doing. I'd rather give it
Susie Chan: a go and maybe fail, than not experience it, so I signed up
Susie Chan: for Paris Marathon, trained so hard for that, and came-
Rob Simmelkjaer: I assume you got some shoes and a sports bra, and all the things.
Susie Chan: I wore the correct bra, and I bought some shoes. I had my
Susie Chan: gate analyzed. Yes, I did all the right things. I didn't have a watch still. Those
Susie Chan: were a bit expensive for me back then, but at
Susie Chan: least I was dressed more appropriately for the thing I
Susie Chan: was doing. And I was so hell- bent on getting
Susie Chan: four hours, aren't we all, for that first marathon. Trained so hard.
Susie Chan: And I think I came at like 407, 409, something like
Susie Chan: that. And I was devastated when that... I was just fighting
Susie Chan: for my life for that last 10 miles, as you
Susie Chan: do in your first marathon. And when the pacer came past me,
Susie Chan: at about 17 miles, and I just couldn't keep with him.
Susie Chan: And then I can remember, I thought I was going to be
Susie Chan: one and done, because I was happy with my half-
Susie Chan: marathon distances. It was fulfilling me enough. And then I remember crossing
Susie Chan: the line, thinking " I'm going to have to do this again, because
Susie Chan: I have to get it." Because it was close enough to think I can do
Susie Chan: it. And then just this is how it happens, and
Susie Chan: you find an excuse, don't you, for every race that
Susie Chan: you do thereafter. And so the excuses started to build, and
Susie Chan: so I did a marathon, and then not long after
Susie Chan: that, I signed up for the Marathon des Sables, which
Susie Chan: you talked about there, which again, was more born out
Susie Chan: of... I had not accidentally found myself there, but I didn't
Susie Chan: think I would end up at that start line, and I did, and
Susie Chan: it was terrifying and life changing at the same time.
Rob Simmelkjaer: So I just want to understand that, it's not something
Rob Simmelkjaer: I'm familiar with. So you're running through the Sahara Desert?
Susie Chan: Yeah. So it's a six- day, it's called a multi- stage
Susie Chan: race, so it takes place across six days, and you
Susie Chan: are running. The course changes every year. You are plonked
Susie Chan: into the Sahara Desert, and you run each day, a
Susie Chan: different distance. And normally, it follows the same format, it's
Susie Chan: something like 20 miles, 20 miles, but technical, with some
Susie Chan: mountains, and then a longer stage, 20, 22 miles. And then
Susie Chan: you have something called the long stage, which is an
Susie Chan: ultramarathon, and then you finish on a marathon, and then
Susie Chan: a fun run. And the hard thing is, is it's self-
Susie Chan: sufficient, so you need everything to survive for the week,
Susie Chan: you have to carry right from the start. So that
Susie Chan: is all your food, which is the heaviest thing, your
Susie Chan: sleeping gear, and anything, any survival kit. So the first
Susie Chan: time in my life, I was like just trying to
Susie Chan: find out what an anti- venom pump was, things like this. I'm like, "What?"
Susie Chan: Just in case I get bitten by something which is
Susie Chan: going to kill me.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Oh, my goodness.
Susie Chan: So they give you a tent. It's not really a tent, it's like a blanket on sticks, and they move
Susie Chan: that further and further away, and then you run towards
Susie Chan: it each day. And it's you're carrying... I'd say for
Susie Chan: women, I'm not very tall, I'm like five- foot three.
Susie Chan: For smaller women, it's harder, because carrying the same amount
Susie Chan: as some six- foot three dude that's done Ironman. So
Susie Chan: it's pretty tough, it's pretty tough. And yeah, I ended
Susie Chan: up doing that, because I had a very long wait list,
Susie Chan: and I couldn't really find out too much about it. This is before
Susie Chan: the internet is what it is today. And I thought, "
Susie Chan: I know, I'll sign up to this very long wait
Susie Chan: list." I was like 198th, or something, and " I'll get
Susie Chan: some emails about it." And I signed up to the wait
Susie Chan: list, and then in three months, I was at the
Susie Chan: top of it. I was terrified.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Wow.
Susie Chan: fortunately, where I live, I live about 50 miles outside
Susie Chan: of London, a place called Hampshire, in UK. And by
Susie Chan: some weird geographical freak, it's very sandy, so the trails
Susie Chan: are very sandy near me. So in the summer, I
Susie Chan: could easily run on sand, because it's just where I
Susie Chan: run. I find it slightly... I don't find it any
Susie Chan: easier, but I'm just more used to it, I'm going
Susie Chan: to say. I'm better. I'm quite good at reading where to put my foot, and
Susie Chan: then seeing... I don't think I'm more efficient, I'm just
Susie Chan: more used to it, I would say.
Becs Gentry: Yeah. And you're probably your ankles and your tendons and
Becs Gentry: your ligaments around your ankles and your knees, are probably
Becs Gentry: just that bit stronger, and as you say, more accustomed
Becs Gentry: to it than somebody who runs on the road or
Becs Gentry: track more.
Susie Chan: Yeah.
Becs Gentry: Yeah. What a feat. I mean, most people do it
Becs Gentry: once, and say " Thank you, that was enough." Susie goes
Becs Gentry: back three more times.
Susie Chan: Yeah. I loved that race.
Becs Gentry: It says a lot.
Susie Chan: I do love it.
Becs Gentry: You do. You do.
Rob Simmelkjaer: So I think people always want to know, just like non-
Rob Simmelkjaer: runners want to know what would get someone to run
Rob Simmelkjaer: a half- marathon or a marathon, I think even people
Rob Simmelkjaer: who run marathons want to know what is it that
Rob Simmelkjaer: would drive you to take on a challenge like that?
Susie Chan: I think you just have to be a little bit... You've got to want to. I
Susie Chan: think at any run, anybody that runs, you've got to have
Susie Chan: a desire to do it, because that is half of the battle. You've
Susie Chan: got to maybe want to see what it's like to
Susie Chan: feel like to finish a half- marathon, to finish a marathon,
Susie Chan: and that desire is going to get you a very, very long way.
Susie Chan: I think it's always, I don't overthink these things. Which
Susie Chan: sometimes, I'll be honest with you, Rob, it hasn't worked out that well for me, because
Susie Chan: I've not really found out as much about race, and I
Susie Chan: found myself in a situation which is nearly beyond how good
Susie Chan: I am. But I think it's only running, it's not
Susie Chan: that deep. If you want to see the Sahara, what
Susie Chan: better way than to try and run around it for
Susie Chan: a few days? And that race is actually, yes, it
Susie Chan: is very difficult, and the terrain is quite tough to
Susie Chan: get through, but the timings are such that a lot of
Susie Chan: people, they hike it, they run very small, they run
Susie Chan: periods of it, and then they walk a lot of it. And the
Susie Chan: timings are such that you can actually probably fast- walk
Susie Chan: the whole thing and get through it. So if you
Susie Chan: just add in just a little bit of adventure, I just thought maybe
Susie Chan: I could do this. I didn't think I definitely can
Susie Chan: do this, and that was enough for me to give
Susie Chan: it a go. So if you have any sort of sense
Susie Chan: of adventure, or just trying to do something which is a
Susie Chan: little bit out of your comfort zone, just give it
Susie Chan: a go. What's the worst? You just stop and you've
Susie Chan: only experienced some of it, it's not that deep. Yeah.
Becs Gentry: I love that. I love that. And that's so true.
Becs Gentry: It's so you. I mean, I'm so lucky that I
Becs Gentry: know you. I've known you for a decade at least,
Becs Gentry: maybe longer, but that's so, so true, that people need
Becs Gentry: to remember that. It's not that deep. And I think
Becs Gentry: yes, of course, if you are a professional athlete listening
Becs Gentry: to this, it is that deep for you. It is your
Becs Gentry: career, it is your whole life. But for the rest
Becs Gentry: of us, as hobby runners, who do things outside of
Becs Gentry: our careers and our other hats that we wear, to
Becs Gentry: fulfill something else inside us, if it doesn't work out, yes.
Susie Chan: It's okay.
Becs Gentry: It's okay.
Susie Chan: I don't know how you do what you do, Becs.
Susie Chan: We've had this conversation off the record several times, about
Susie Chan: how you do that with that. But the time pressure, I mean I'm not the fastest.
Susie Chan: Really, I'm very much a middle- packer, and I'm very
Susie Chan: comfortable with being a middle- packer, and that affords me, and
Susie Chan: everybody else around me, the benefit of it doesn't matter
Susie Chan: if we're slower that day, it doesn't matter if we don't
Susie Chan: get our PB. I'm not trying to do what Becs is trying
Susie Chan: to do and run that fast. And so it's nice to be able to do that,
Susie Chan: but to take that comforting space, and then put it
Susie Chan: in an environment which is actually a bit more taxing
Susie Chan: and difficult, is my sweet spot. It's just being middle-
Susie Chan: packing somewhere a little bit more adventurous and seeing how
Susie Chan: far I could get on my steam.
Rob Simmelkjaer: That makes a lot of sense. I think that's really cool. And
Rob Simmelkjaer: so when we started this conversation, you talked about how
Rob Simmelkjaer: early on, when you were in that first half with your brother,
Rob Simmelkjaer: your life wasn't in a great place, and you had
Rob Simmelkjaer: some money issues, and things like that. And so running,
Rob Simmelkjaer: little did you know, I'm sure, ended up changing your
Rob Simmelkjaer: life, in terms of your career as well. Can you
Rob Simmelkjaer: talk about how that all came about, and what led
Rob Simmelkjaer: you to Peloton? And now you're this star instructor on
Rob Simmelkjaer: the tread.
Susie Chan: I don't know, Rob, how this happened to me. I am not joking. Sometimes I'll turn up to
Susie Chan: work, and I'll think " How have I ended up here,"
Susie Chan: to be totally honest with you. But I did always, I think I
Susie Chan: managed to hit ultra- running at the right time. When
Susie Chan: I started in the UK, there were, I think, 15
Susie Chan: ultramarathons in the whole of the UK. There's now over
Susie Chan: 200. I think I just hit something at the right
Susie Chan: moment. Social media was relatively in its infancy. I'm not
Susie Chan: a huge on social media, but I just started to
Susie Chan: document what I was doing. There were very few women doing these
Susie Chan: sorts of events, and so I just started to document
Susie Chan: it. And I did have a couple of little rules
Susie Chan: for myself. If I've had had a bad day, or I don't know, got a parking ticket,
Susie Chan: or something, wasn't going to come to social media to start
Susie Chan: to moan about that. That's not what I'm there for,
Susie Chan: I'm there just to talk about my running and to
Susie Chan: keep it quite a light positive space. So I just
Susie Chan: chronicled my running journey. And I had a normal job. I've
Susie Chan: worked for 20 years, in the museum and gallery sector,
Susie Chan: putting on exhibitions, so I did love that, but I
Susie Chan: was at the weekend then, doing these races, very long
Susie Chan: races, and coming into work on Monday. And there was just
Susie Chan: a moment there, where social media was beginning to take
Susie Chan: off, I started to get brand deals and invited to
Susie Chan: things. I then got sponsorship, which wasn't a lot of
Susie Chan: money, but it was just enough for me to think
Susie Chan: maybe I could just step away from museums and see
Susie Chan: where this leads me. And I was doing race commentating,
Susie Chan: sort of commentary, I was doing a little bit of
Susie Chan: presenting with it. So I was doing all these little things, and just trying
Susie Chan: to make everything work. And there was a point where
Susie Chan: I was very stretched, and I wasn't doing my day
Susie Chan: job very well, and I wasn't really applying myself to my
Susie Chan: races very well, so I just stopped on the day job,
Susie Chan: which was terrifying, and took the plunge. And I was
Susie Chan: just doing bits and pieces, and then lockdown happened, which worried me,
Susie Chan: because a lot of my brand deals, and things, were
Susie Chan: governed by producing content, which we weren't allowed to do
Susie Chan: because we were all sitting in indoors. And then I just got
Susie Chan: a phone call from Peloton, and I genuinely was like, "
Susie Chan: Oh, what?" And the first thing I said, Becs, was, " Do you
Susie Chan: know how old I am?" And they said " Yes, and
Susie Chan: we don't care." Because I was in my mid- 40s
Susie Chan: by this point, and I just had in my head, I just thought "
Susie Chan: Really?" I'm an older woman, and actually, all Peloton cared
Susie Chan: about is authenticity and if you love it, and if
Susie Chan: you love running, you want to share your journey. And
Susie Chan: did various screen tests and interviews, and things. And here
Susie Chan: I am, working with Becs. And last time I saw Becs
Susie Chan: was when she disappeared off the face of the Earth
Susie Chan: in London. She was like a big name on the scene, big name.
Susie Chan: Everybody's like, " Becs is so cool," and then she just
Susie Chan: disappeared, and then popped back up on Peloton. And then I
Susie Chan: was following, I don't know, maybe three years later.
Becs Gentry: I love that, that Susie always tells me that. Like literally, "
Becs Gentry: Do you know you disappeared? You literally just one day,
Becs Gentry: you were not in London."
Susie Chan: I was like, "Where has she gone? She hasn't posted anything for ages." I started to get worried. Anyway.
Becs Gentry: Oh, my gosh. Okay, let's talk. Whilst we're talking about
Becs Gentry: Peloton and treadmill running, you are such a fantastic advocate
Becs Gentry: for all the ways people can run, whether it's road,
Becs Gentry: trail, tread, and you and I are both in that
Becs Gentry: mindset. I think we're very similar in, I would say,
Becs Gentry: 80% of the way we run, in that we get
Becs Gentry: it done. We just get it done. And we both
Becs Gentry: love a tread for speed work, it's like a set it
Becs Gentry: and forget it sort of thing. But you, Susie, eighth,
Becs Gentry: nearly, no, nine years ago, I guess now, in 2016,
Becs Gentry: you broke the Guinness World Record by running 68.5 miles on a
Becs Gentry: treadmill in 12 hours. I mean, you can hear in
Becs Gentry: my voice, and I just... Tell our listeners about that. What was it
Becs Gentry: like? And I love the tread, but that seems like
Becs Gentry: it would be harder than anything.
Susie Chan: It was grim. I don't know what else to say.
Susie Chan: Well, what happened was I ended up there because a friend of mine,
Susie Chan: so when I do some of the races I do, I tend
Susie Chan: to lean towards hot environments. And so my friend is actually
Susie Chan: a doctor in ultramarathon, he's a sports scientist. And so I'd go and train. He
Susie Chan: had a heat chamber set up at his university, so
Susie Chan: I'd go and do a lot of my heat training there. And then he, as
Susie Chan: part of his research into ultramarathoners and the effects of ultramarathons
Susie Chan: on body, he wanted people to run 50 miles on a treadmill
Susie Chan: in an experiment and just record the effects of it.
Susie Chan: So not many people came forward for that, as you
Susie Chan: can imagine. I helped him out, me and a few
Susie Chan: friends went and did our 50 miles. He was monitoring our
Susie Chan: blood, how we felt, doing blood tests and saliva tests,
Susie Chan: and all sorts of... Did that, so I went along. I
Susie Chan: was super fit, because I'd just finished an Iron Man. I was
Susie Chan: super fit, I just hopped on the treadmill, ran 50
Susie Chan: miles and just went home. And then I just did a
Susie Chan: little tweet about it, or something, like, " Oh, I just did 50 miles on the treadmill." And
Susie Chan: somebody said to me on Twitter, " If you'd kept going,
Susie Chan: you would've broken the world record." I was so close
Susie Chan: and I didn't know. I didn't know that these things existed. And the
Susie Chan: truth is, not many people give these a go because
Susie Chan: they are quite grim, and they are also incredibly difficult
Susie Chan: to set up. And so we set it up, and Dennis sent a 23-
Susie Chan: page document on all the things we had to do
Susie Chan: to make it valid, which was numerous. There were lots
Susie Chan: of things about the calibration of the treadmill, it had to be public,
Susie Chan: it had to be filmed constantly, it had to have independent witnesses.
Susie Chan: There was so many rules that we had to do, but
Susie Chan: we set about with the university, Kingston University. And I
Susie Chan: thought it wouldn't be too bad, because I wasn't that
Susie Chan: far off, just doing that 50 miles on the treadmill. And
Susie Chan: actually, I felt okay. What had happened, was it took
Susie Chan: eight months to set up, and I had lost a
Susie Chan: reasonable amount of fitness. I wasn't quite Iron Man- fit
Susie Chan: anymore. And I hopped on on the day of it, and it had
Susie Chan: gone viral. I had thousands of people watching me.
Becs Gentry: Yeah, I remember.
Susie Chan: You know when you start running, some days you just start running,
Susie Chan: and you think, " Oh, actually I'm not feeling this today." Yeah, it
Susie Chan: was one of those. I just hopped on, I thought, "I'm not really in the
Susie Chan: mood for this." And it was too late. We'd had
Susie Chan: so many people there watching, and I just had to
Susie Chan: run through a day of running when I didn't want to
Susie Chan: run on a treadmill. I got very seasick, because the
Susie Chan: treadmill we had to use was huge, and it wasn't
Susie Chan: too far away from the wall. We couldn't move it
Susie Chan: away from the wall, and so I was just staring at a
Susie Chan: wall for 12 hours whilst running. And do anything, it
Susie Chan: doesn't matter what it is, just staring at a wall for 12 hours, and
Susie Chan: you will get a bit. So I was so throwing up.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Is that what you were doing? So were you staring
Rob Simmelkjaer: at a wall? Did you have something, you weren't watching
Rob Simmelkjaer: anything, you weren't-
Susie Chan: Well, they kind of got a TV screen there. And
Susie Chan: then I had people coming. I had a treadmill next to me for friends and people
Susie Chan: to join me, just to kind of keep me buoyed
Susie Chan: up. But essentially, I couldn't really, because if I fell
Susie Chan: over, it was over. I couldn't touch the treadmill bars,
Susie Chan: I couldn't touch any of it, because it was done.
Susie Chan: So I had to have no sort of assistance holding it, so
Susie Chan: I couldn't really look. I did a bit of it,
Susie Chan: but it was really rough. And I started to throw
Susie Chan: up because I was getting seasick, and then it got very hard
Susie Chan: in the last few miles. I think the YouTube video,
Susie Chan: which we had to record, is out there somewhere, of me just
Susie Chan: going greener and greener around the gills. But I broke
Susie Chan: the world record, and it did go viral. And then
Susie Chan: it's subsequently been broken by somebody else, who she's welcome
Susie Chan: to it, because this, it was hardcore.
Becs Gentry: That's hilarious. Oh, my goodness. I can't even imagine. And
Becs Gentry: obviously, back in 2016, the technology for treadmills was so
Becs Gentry: much... There was so little compared to now, what we
Becs Gentry: have, like our Peloton Tread Plus is so beautiful. And if I
Becs Gentry: had to run on a tread for 12 hours, I
Becs Gentry: would be undoubtedly on that tread. But I can't imagine
Becs Gentry: just banging away on that, on the belt, just (inaudible) .
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah, the old school belt. I mean, Becs, we've had people on
Rob Simmelkjaer: this podcast who've done a lot of amazing things, yourself
Rob Simmelkjaer: included. I don't think there's anything I've heard that terrifies
Rob Simmelkjaer: me more than what Susie did. And I mean, do
Rob Simmelkjaer: you still think back to that and feel the trauma,
Rob Simmelkjaer: Susie? Because I'm feeling it and I didn't even do it.
Susie Chan: Yeah, a little bit. It took me a long time
Susie Chan: to get back on a treadmill after that, for a
Susie Chan: while. I was just outside at any opportunity. It was
Susie Chan: really, really tough. And I've never felt that I'm well running,
Susie Chan: and there was a lot of... I think if there wasn't so much pressure, because so
Susie Chan: many people were watching and there, I think I probably
Susie Chan: would've just gone home. It was a little but you have to keep going because there's so
Susie Chan: many people looking at you, it was a little bit
Susie Chan: like that. But thank God they were there, because actually,
Susie Chan: I did manage to do it. And I think left to
Susie Chan: my own mental space, I probably wouldn't have done it,
Susie Chan: so there's a little bit said about the vanity of
Susie Chan: trying to look good in front of people.
Becs Gentry: Well, here we are today. I just looked it up., The current
Becs Gentry: record, just for your information, is 81 miles in 12 hours.
Susie Chan: Oh, I couldn't have done that. I was aiming for,
Susie Chan: I think we had me down to do about 76, 75, which was within my capabilities.
Susie Chan: Which wasn't really, we were on target for until the
Susie Chan: last three hours, and then all the vomit was really slowing me down.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Oh, my goodness.
Becs Gentry: You got past the record, and you're like, " Tap me
Becs Gentry: out baby, I'm done."
Susie Chan: Yeah.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Well, Becs, Susie is back to the more conventional outdoor road
Rob Simmelkjaer: running marathon distance. She's training for the Sydney Marathon coming
Rob Simmelkjaer: up this fall.
Becs Gentry: Yes.
Rob Simmelkjaer: And she was telling me as we came on the
Rob Simmelkjaer: interview, that she had a little bit of a registration
Rob Simmelkjaer: issue, wasn't actually sure she was going to make it,
Rob Simmelkjaer: but she's in.
Becs Gentry: Okay.
Susie Chan: I hadn't fully completed my registration. There was an extra
Susie Chan: layer, which I didn't know about.
Becs Gentry: Until when, recently?
Susie Chan: This morning, Becs.
Becs Gentry: I was going to say, hold on, I saw you a week ago
Becs Gentry: in London, and you were all go.
Susie Chan: I was getting some. Anyway, some minor detail that I've
Susie Chan: dotted the Is and crossed the Ts, thank goodness, because I've
Susie Chan: bought that plane ticket. Can you imagine?
Becs Gentry: I was going to say she's off with 19 days to spare, and we're
Becs Gentry: officially in.
Susie Chan: Yeah, I hadn't quite completed it. Anyway, I'm in. I'm very excited.
Rob Simmelkjaer: So you've already got the six- star medal, so this will
Rob Simmelkjaer: be number seven for you, on the road to whatever
Rob Simmelkjaer: it will be, nine perhaps. What's got you back in
Rob Simmelkjaer: the marathon phase? Is it just the challenge and it's a
Rob Simmelkjaer: new place, new experience, and all of that?
Susie Chan: Yeah. I mean, this is how they get you, isn't it? The sixth star, so I thought I was done. They announced Sydney, my friends
Susie Chan: are saying " I'm going, are you going?" And I was like, " Oh, okay then," because you don't want to have the FOMO of seeing your friends get
Susie Chan: the seventh and you haven't. So I'm dreadful. I'm very
Susie Chan: easily persuaded in things like this, Rob, very, very easily.
Susie Chan: And so a couple of my friends are going, and
Susie Chan: I was like, " Okay, I'll come too," because I couldn't
Susie Chan: bear to miss out, so I'm off. I haven't run.
Susie Chan: Last time I was in Sydney, in Australia, it was like 20
Susie Chan: years ago, so I wasn't even a runner, so very much looking
Susie Chan: forward to it. Never been to Sydney. Slightly anxious about
Susie Chan: the course profile, which I looked at, and it's 1, 500- foot.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah, there's some legit elevation in there, absolutely.
Becs Gentry: It gives New York a run for its money.
Susie Chan: Yes, it really does. And I've run New York three times, and actually, the
Susie Chan: last time I ran New York, I really felt the
Susie Chan: hills, and they're not my strengths. But on the day,
Susie Chan: this only happens on the day, doesn't it? Race day,
Susie Chan: another world marathon major, I'm way off racing this, so
Susie Chan: I'm just going to go with my friends and have
Susie Chan: as much fun as possible, and do it justice. I'm
Susie Chan: going to do my best that I can, because it's
Susie Chan: a world marathon major. I'm so lucky to be there, so
Susie Chan: I'll give it a crack. Not super fast, but just
Susie Chan: consistent. I'll try and be as consistent as I can on
Susie Chan: those hills.
Becs Gentry: Yeah, you've got this. And as you say, there's something
Becs Gentry: about the energy of these world marathon majors, and this
Becs Gentry: one being the inaugural official one, I think, is going
Becs Gentry: to be really cool. You've been running through extreme heat
Becs Gentry: in the UK this summer.
Susie Chan: I love it.
Becs Gentry: Yeah, you love it. So maybe the coolness of a spring race in
Becs Gentry: Sydney is going to be exhilarating for the body.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah. I think for some reason, Sahara Desert runner here, I'm not
Rob Simmelkjaer: thinking heat's a big issue for you, Susie.
Becs Gentry: No, it's not a big-
Susie Chan: I love running in the heat, yeah.
Becs Gentry: Oh, my God.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I would hope so. Tell us about your book and what drove you
Rob Simmelkjaer: to write the book, what can someone get from reading
Rob Simmelkjaer: your book? What's the story?
Susie Chan: So I didn't really want to write this book. The
Susie Chan: book company, Bloomsbury, they asked me a couple of times,
Susie Chan: and I said no, mainly because, I don't know, I
Susie Chan: just thought, " Well, I'm not that interesting. I haven't really
Susie Chan: done that much." And also, I felt a lot of imposter
Susie Chan: syndrome there, like " I don't know. I really don't know."
Susie Chan: And then a couple of things happened, lockdown happened, and
Susie Chan: then so everything that we could do was taken away.
Susie Chan: And then I got into the race of my dreams,
Susie Chan: which was my final destination race. I finally got into
Susie Chan: that race. And so those two things made me think, "
Susie Chan: I'm just going to embrace them. I'm just going to
Susie Chan: embrace life as it is right now, and say yes."
Susie Chan: So I'd already established myself in Peloton. I'd been there
Susie Chan: for about a couple of years, and I thought, "Okay, I've got a little bit of space
Susie Chan: to try and write the book." So I started to
Susie Chan: write the book. And I'm saying right at the beginning, Becs, that
Susie Chan: writing the book actually made me do a lot of
Susie Chan: reflection and realize that I've been in some extraordinary situations,
Susie Chan: and been really lucky with my running. And I had,
Susie Chan: in fact, I've done quite a lot with it. So
Susie Chan: it's just a story of a normal woman fighting her through
Susie Chan: some very long miles, and on a bit of a journey of discovery.
Susie Chan: I'm going to say a journey from being not confident
Susie Chan: and not confident and a single mum, to just reinvention,
Susie Chan: and just finding my strength, and finding a whole community of
Susie Chan: empowerment within the runners.
Becs Gentry: It's such a great book. Obviously, I've read it, and
Becs Gentry: I've actually listened to it as well. I listened to a lot of
Becs Gentry: it during 7, 7, 7, where Hillary was actually listening
Becs Gentry: to it when we met. It was so weird. It
Becs Gentry: was on her phone, and I was like, " Wait, that's
Becs Gentry: my Susie. You're listening to my Susie."
Susie Chan: I'm so flattered. That's wild.
Becs Gentry: Those were the two of us on the plane.
Susie Chan: Yes, yes.
Becs Gentry: Of course, with this voice, I mean-
Susie Chan: It was an intense three days, but I was like, " I'm down for a
Susie Chan: recording. I can do this." So yes, yes. But really, it
Susie Chan: just chronicles what is that transformative period of my life,
Susie Chan: from being very unfit and unhealthy, and having no confidence
Susie Chan: at all, like terrified to speak publicly, to running on
Susie Chan: a treadmill, talking to millions of people about running. And
Susie Chan: it really is, it's like a love story about me and running and everybody
Susie Chan: I've met along the way, and just some extraordinary, extraordinary
Susie Chan: people out there.
Becs Gentry: And it's very funny as well. You're a very funny writer.
Susie Chan: Thank you.
Becs Gentry: Not all the way through. It's not a comedy of
Becs Gentry: course, but there are some true Susie Chan moments that
Becs Gentry: really make you have a good chuckle. But it is,
Becs Gentry: everyone should read it, because it's such a testament to
Becs Gentry: how strong you are. You've been in some, I'm not going to give
Becs Gentry: away the plot lines, but you have, you've put yourself
Becs Gentry: in some gnarly situations. You've had some very scary experiences.
Susie Chan: I have, yes. And I'm very pleased, because I did
Susie Chan: actually, I refused a ghost writer. I was like, " I'm
Susie Chan: writing this all myself." And it was a slog to
Susie Chan: get that thing out, but I did it. Yeah.
Becs Gentry: So amazing. Trails and Tribulations, everyone needs to go and
Becs Gentry: read it. Susie, while we're talking about scary things, I
Becs Gentry: think one of the scariest things for me, is when
Becs Gentry: people go into marathon races and they fall down. And
Becs Gentry: as another runner, you run past, and you just, for
Becs Gentry: the rest of your race, you're just thinking, " Please, goodness
Becs Gentry: above, please hope that person is okay." And this is
Becs Gentry: what happened to you at the end of the Chicago Marathon, right?
Susie Chan: Yes.
Becs Gentry: In 2017, was it?
Susie Chan: I was about to say, you pointed the date. Yeah,
Susie Chan: was it 2017? Yes, it was. I had been feeling very
Susie Chan: just off and on, unwell for, I'm going to say
Susie Chan: a few months. I couldn't quite put my finger on
Susie Chan: it. I was feeling very sluggish, very slow, sweaty, everything
Susie Chan: was a bit of a chore. And I thought, " Well,
Susie Chan: maybe I'm just getting unfit, maybe I'm getting older." There
Susie Chan: was no obvious symptom, but the biggest symptom I had
Susie Chan: is I kept having this dreadful cough, which was just an
Susie Chan: awful cough, which would come and go. And I was put
Susie Chan: on antibiotics, it came back. And I had this terrible
Susie Chan: cough, and I was doing Chicago Marathon, which was my
Susie Chan: sixth, and then, I thought, final World Marathon major, so
Susie Chan: it was huge. I'd qualified, I'd got in, the hotel
Susie Chan: was booked, I was over there with a few friends, we're all
Susie Chan: getting our six- star medal together. It was a moment, and I had not
Susie Chan: been feeling great coming into it. I had this cough. And
Susie Chan: I ran the marathon. I was running with one of
Susie Chan: my very good friends, Sophie, who's also doing Sydney with
Susie Chan: me. And I said, " This cough, I feel dreadful." And
Susie Chan: I said, I remember telling her, Becs, I said this, "
Susie Chan: If I faint, don't let them take me off the
Susie Chan: course because I need this sixth star. I can't come back a year later." And I was
Susie Chan: clinging on and clinging on. I can remember my vision
Susie Chan: being a bit... She was one side of me, trying
Susie Chan: to make sure I was okay. And I finished the race.
Susie Chan: It wasn't my finest moment. But we were being presented
Susie Chan: with our sixth star medals and being videoed, they were talking to
Susie Chan: us, and I remember thinking, and I was very British about it,
Susie Chan: because I said, " I'm so sorry, I think I'm going to faint." And then I just fainted. I collapsed and I
Susie Chan: was so English about it, " How embarrassing, I'm so sorry." And when I
Susie Chan: fainted, and then I don't really know what happened. But
Susie Chan: the short version is Sophie was very worried. She was like, "
Susie Chan: She can run 100 miles through a desert, there's something
Susie Chan: wrong with you." Phoned a doctor, went home, had an X-
Susie Chan: ray on my lungs, because they thought there was perhaps something my lungs, and
Susie Chan: they found a huge tumor in my neck. It was quite
Susie Chan: a large tumor in my thyroid. And I had thyroid
Susie Chan: cancer, and I didn't know. I was very lucky. I've
Susie Chan: seen and know people that have been on cancer journeys, which
Susie Chan: have been incredibly rough, challenging, and hard. And being completely
Susie Chan: honest with you, I was incredibly lucky. It was a very easy, I had
Susie Chan: a couple of operations, mild treatment, and I dealt with
Susie Chan: it, probably not in the most normal way. I did
Susie Chan: a half- marathon about two weeks after my operation. Didn't
Susie Chan: ask my oncologist, just thought I can. Exactly, I'll just go for a run, and if
Susie Chan: I stop, I just stop. Finished, and then went on and did a
Susie Chan: very, very life- affirming Marathon des Sables with my best friends a
Susie Chan: couple of weeks after.
Becs Gentry: Wow.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Wow, wow. Glad that was a successful journey, a successful ending
Rob Simmelkjaer: for you too, because obviously a scary thing, and clearly,
Rob Simmelkjaer: has not held you back. So, all right, so Sydney
Rob Simmelkjaer: Marathon's next. I guess, in closing, is there another big
Rob Simmelkjaer: crazy thing out there that you have your eyes on?
Rob Simmelkjaer: Is it what Becs did with the Great World Race? Is
Rob Simmelkjaer: there anything else out there that you look at and say, "
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah, this needs to be my next big thing?"
Susie Chan: Rob, it never ends. And I actually, I mean, maybe
Susie Chan: Becs is the person actually. There's one itch left to scratch,
Susie Chan: and I don't know if this will ever happened, because I have to be... I'm
Susie Chan: getting older. I want to be running until I'm a
Susie Chan: little old lady, and I need to just look after myself.
Susie Chan: And I can't run like I used to, I just
Susie Chan: throw myself into anything without much thought, and now I have
Susie Chan: bit more considerate. But maybe I'm just going to ask Becs live on this podcast,
Susie Chan: if she would. I want to run in the Arctic, Becs.
Susie Chan: I know you've run there already, so you're like an
Susie Chan: old hat at this thing, but there is one race
Susie Chan: in the Yukon, where we just run, walk 100 miles
Susie Chan: with a little sled. I love it.
Becs Gentry: Done, in. I did Antarctica, so technically, the Arctic's different.
Susie Chan: Oh yes, there we go. Yeah. I don't know if it'll ever happened, but you only see
Susie Chan: those people with their sledges, and they're like that. Yeah, I'd quite like to see that.
Becs Gentry: Yeah, I would love to do that for the exploring
Becs Gentry: side of it too, because I ran four loops around
Becs Gentry: one base in Antarctica, so I didn't really see it. So I feel like
Becs Gentry: that would be, yes, see it. I think we do,
Becs Gentry: we need to do a big, big ultra together.
Susie Chan: We need to do something.
Becs Gentry: Something like, I don't know, the old-
Susie Chan: You'd have to either get the kettle on when you get over the finish
Susie Chan: line or slow down if you want to be (inaudible) .
Becs Gentry: No, we'll do it together. It's an ultra, we'll do it together.
Becs Gentry: The Hippie Trail, I'd love to be able to actually
Becs Gentry: do the Hippie Trail, the original Hippie Trail, like across,
Becs Gentry: but I don't think politically we can do that anymore.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I don't know. If I ever go to the Arctic, I want to
Rob Simmelkjaer: be pulled by eight Huskies, you know, sled dogs. That
Rob Simmelkjaer: sounds like fun. Maybe I'll pass. Maybe I'll pass, you guys. Yeah.
Becs Gentry: Yeah.
Susie Chan: There's always something. I'm very much driven by experience over experience with
Susie Chan: people to the race rather than a distance or a
Susie Chan: time now.
Rob Simmelkjaer: It makes sense. Well, Susie, congrats on everything. Congrats on
Rob Simmelkjaer: your book, Trails and Tribulations, which is out now. And
Rob Simmelkjaer: good luck in Sydney, hope you have a great, great
Rob Simmelkjaer: time. And the first time Sydney's a major, so you'll always
Rob Simmelkjaer: have that experience to go on. And keep going on
Rob Simmelkjaer: those treadmills for all those Peloton classes, but not for
Rob Simmelkjaer: 86 miles. New York Road Runners is a nonprofit organization
Rob Simmelkjaer: with a vision to build healthier lives and stronger communities
Rob Simmelkjaer: through the transformative power of running. The support of members
Rob Simmelkjaer: and donors like you helps us achieve our mission to
Rob Simmelkjaer: transform the health and well- being of our communities through
Rob Simmelkjaer: inclusive and accessible running experiences, empowering all to achieve their
Rob Simmelkjaer: potential. Learn more, and contribute at nyrr. org/ donate. Margaret
Rob Simmelkjaer: Schwartz is a very familiar face to New York Road Runners,
Rob Simmelkjaer: having run 263 NYRR races, 20 of which were New York
Rob Simmelkjaer: City Marathons. But after completing her 20th consecutive marathon in
Rob Simmelkjaer: 2021, she made the decision to step back from the
Rob Simmelkjaer: 26.2 mile distance. And despite her streaker status, she hasn't
Rob Simmelkjaer: run a full marathon since crossing that last Central Park
Rob Simmelkjaer: finish line. Instead, she's become a devoted marathon spectator, and
Rob Simmelkjaer: has swapped endurance running for endurance swimming. A lifelong athlete,
Rob Simmelkjaer: Margaret is both the certified yoga instructor and trainer, and
Rob Simmelkjaer: she brings two decades of marathon grit and her growing
Rob Simmelkjaer: love of open- water swimming to today's member moments.
Meb Keflezighi: Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Becs. Margaret, welcome to the Set the
Meb Keflezighi: Pace Podcast. How's it going today?
Margaret Schwartz: It's going well. And I'm just really happy to be
Margaret Schwartz: here and talk to you. But we see you from
Margaret Schwartz: afar, so this is exciting for me.
Meb Keflezighi: Very kind of you. It's great to be with you.
Meb Keflezighi: So let's get to, wow, 263 races with the New
Meb Keflezighi: York Road Runners, you run the TCS New York City Marathon 20 times, but
Meb Keflezighi: now you consider yourself retired from the 26.2 miles. What
Meb Keflezighi: drove you to run year after year? How did you
Meb Keflezighi: give yourself permission to stop the 26. 2?
Margaret Schwartz: Well, it's a soft provision, Meb, I'm not going to lie.
Margaret Schwartz: It hasn't been easy. And in my own mind, I
Margaret Schwartz: haven't missed one marathon yet. So when vacations come up
Margaret Schwartz: and someone says, " First Sunday of November," I'm like, " Not
Margaret Schwartz: yet." I still have to be in New York City
Margaret Schwartz: on what I believe, maybe next to the Thanksgiving Day
Margaret Schwartz: Parade, is one of the most happiest times in New
Margaret Schwartz: York City. So it's my favorite day. So permission was
Margaret Schwartz: I just wanted to quit while I was ahead. I
Margaret Schwartz: had a few injuries along the way. We can all
Margaret Schwartz: cringe at plantar fasciitis. I had a labral tear at one
Margaret Schwartz: point, and thought I'd never come back again, where a
Margaret Schwartz: friend of mine convinced me to, or I used the
Margaret Schwartz: Galloway method to do probably what was my 14th marathon, to
Margaret Schwartz: keep the streak going. And then I became a streaker,
Margaret Schwartz: and knew I'd have guaranteed entry. And so I guess
Margaret Schwartz: in the back of my mind, I know that I
Margaret Schwartz: can run the marathon at any given time. And I'm
Margaret Schwartz: turning 59 this year, and then I thought to myself, "
Margaret Schwartz: Maybe every decade I'll just complete it, so I'll do
Margaret Schwartz: it when I'm 60." Who knows? I don't know. Jury's
Margaret Schwartz: out on that one.
Meb Keflezighi: It's a wonderful idea. I think it's great to be
Meb Keflezighi: able to do what you have done, 20 of them,
Meb Keflezighi: and then if you have the desire or the urge to
Meb Keflezighi: come back every decades, we'd love to see you there.
Meb Keflezighi: From your perspective though, how was running the first marathon
Meb Keflezighi: different from running the 20th time?
Margaret Schwartz: The first one is, for me, and this is all
Margaret Schwartz: my personal experience, no one in my family was a
Margaret Schwartz: runner, and I wasn't a runner. And I had started
Margaret Schwartz: working close to Central Park. And back in 2000, yay, Central
Margaret Schwartz: Park Conservancy. The Central Park wasn't what it is today.
Margaret Schwartz: So I would leave. Back then, there were no phones.
Margaret Schwartz: I would leave a note with a person, saying, " I'm
Margaret Schwartz: going to Central Park now. If I'm not back in
Margaret Schwartz: an hour, something has happened to me." So I mean, I feel
Margaret Schwartz: like I'm sort of getting that experience, because we take
Margaret Schwartz: it for granted, this beautiful place that we have to
Margaret Schwartz: run. And for me, as a little girl, I grew
Margaret Schwartz: up in Queens, and I always went to watch the
Margaret Schwartz: marathon, I guess 15 and a half at the Queensborough Bridge, and
Margaret Schwartz: I just thought they were people doing something that I
Margaret Schwartz: could never do. And then one year, my friend, in
Margaret Schwartz: 1999, did it. And so I finally knew someone who
Margaret Schwartz: ran the marathon, and I thought " I can do that."
Margaret Schwartz: And so it's really about completing it for me, and
Margaret Schwartz: I thought " One and done, I'm out." And then it was, "
Margaret Schwartz: Well, let's see if I can do it a little
Margaret Schwartz: better the second time." And then it was "Now I qualified
Margaret Schwartz: for Boston. Okay, I'm going to end it with Boston."
Margaret Schwartz: And I remember talking to someone on the plane to
Margaret Schwartz: Boston, and I said, " Well, no, this was I thought
Margaret Schwartz: it would never happen, so I'm going to be done
Margaret Schwartz: here." And she looked at me, and she said, " No, you're
Margaret Schwartz: not." I don't know what she saw in me. But the
Margaret Schwartz: last one was also special, because it was the 50th
Margaret Schwartz: running of the New York City Marathon, and I got
Margaret Schwartz: to do it with my wife. So I'd like to say maybe in
Margaret Schwartz: my last five marathons, I called them completing marathons. I
Margaret Schwartz: didn't necessarily run them, I used the Galloway, and certainly,
Margaret Schwartz: that last one was a run- walk coming out of COVID.
Meb Keflezighi: Amazing. I said, my first one I did in New
Meb Keflezighi: York, I said, " This is my first and last, I don't
Meb Keflezighi: think I want to do it." But somehow, someway, you've done
Meb Keflezighi: 20 of them, you've done 26, but we're grateful for that.
Margaret Schwartz: Yes.
Meb Keflezighi: So you are also a crazy leg runner, which means
Meb Keflezighi: you have run the Mini- 10K at least 15 times.
Meb Keflezighi: You ran your first Mini- 10K in 2001. What is it about
Meb Keflezighi: that race that makes you want to keep coming back?
Margaret Schwartz: I love that race. First and foremost, I think the new course
Margaret Schwartz: is great. It's a little outside of the park, so you
Margaret Schwartz: got that first mile on Central Park West. But along
Margaret Schwartz: with that, there was a time, and I always say
Margaret Schwartz: this to my running students, where they didn't think women
Margaret Schwartz: could run more than a 5K, and that's the impetus
Margaret Schwartz: of that race, to run the 10K, and that women
Margaret Schwartz: got together, and said, " We can do this." But the
Margaret Schwartz: New York City Marathon, people like me get to run
Margaret Schwartz: next to people like you, or Edna Kiplagat, or Catherine
Margaret Schwartz: Switzer. And it's just mind blowing that we can be
Margaret Schwartz: sort of these non- professionals doing our best. And I
Margaret Schwartz: always say in that race, at the halfway point, the
Margaret Schwartz: race is over. Somebody already won. It's just crazy that
Margaret Schwartz: these women are doing it in 30 minutes. It's just
Margaret Schwartz: crazy. So I love that race, and so in my heart,
Margaret Schwartz: it will always be a crazy... It will always be
Margaret Schwartz: a Mini and one New York City half. If it's
Margaret Schwartz: not the United, perhaps Brooklyn, but there will always be
Margaret Schwartz: a New York Road Runners half- marathon and the crazy lights
Margaret Schwartz: for me, as long as I can do it.
Meb Keflezighi: You're going to keep doing it. Just keep doing those small things, that makes
Meb Keflezighi: a big difference. You're inspiring many.
Margaret Schwartz: Yeah.
Meb Keflezighi: But now, your endurance sport is swimming. How does swimming
Meb Keflezighi: in open water compare to running a marathon?
Margaret Schwartz: They're very similar, except it takes you much longer to
Margaret Schwartz: swim a mile than to run a mile. Whether it's
Margaret Schwartz: me or you, it just takes longer. So I remember
Margaret Schwartz: the first time when I thought I could swim a
Margaret Schwartz: 5K, I had two miles under my belt easy, and I said, "
Margaret Schwartz: What's another one?" It's a lot. And the truth is
Margaret Schwartz: when you're running, you can start to walk. When you're
Margaret Schwartz: swimming, there's no walking, and usually no standing up. I
Margaret Schwartz: swim with a safety buoy, so it's different in that
Margaret Schwartz: respect. They're very similar though, nutrition- wise, so I can
Margaret Schwartz: use the skills I had from running distance events and
Margaret Schwartz: put them into swimming events. And it's much easier on
Margaret Schwartz: my body. I know when I run a 5K, but
Margaret Schwartz: sometimes I can forget that I swam a 5K, I just
Margaret Schwartz: don't feel it in physical body as much.
Meb Keflezighi: No, the impact is definitely less on the body, but
Meb Keflezighi: I think you're doing a great job balancing 10K, the
Meb Keflezighi: mini, or the United Airline Half- marathon, stuff like that,
Meb Keflezighi: to do great job. So how did participating in yoga
Meb Keflezighi: make a difference in your running, and do you find
Meb Keflezighi: it helps with your swimming as well?
Margaret Schwartz: Well, I started yoga probably in the late- 90s, when
Margaret Schwartz: it wasn't as in vogue as it is now. And
Margaret Schwartz: I think like many runners are terrible about post- recovery,
Margaret Schwartz: like doing stretching. So for me, as a student, it
Margaret Schwartz: forced me to stretch. It forced me to move my
Margaret Schwartz: body differently. But there is similarities with it, and as
Margaret Schwartz: a yoga instructor, and knowing more about yoga in general,
Margaret Schwartz: the mind- body connection is, to me, the same. So
Margaret Schwartz: if you're in a hard posture, even if it's warrior
Margaret Schwartz: one, it's been said that the second you want to
Margaret Schwartz: come out of the posture is when the yoga begins.
Margaret Schwartz: And just like when you hit mile 20, for me,
Margaret Schwartz: that's the marathon. The final 10K is the marathon. 20,
Margaret Schwartz: we all do that. That last 10K is more here
Margaret Schwartz: than physically for me. I can't speak for anybody else.
Meb Keflezighi: I think I could relate. The last 10K is a more mental
Meb Keflezighi: thing. But having done yoga since 1994, '95 also kind of
Meb Keflezighi: helps you with everything, to just stretch, be in the moment, and visualization.
Meb Keflezighi: With all your experiences as a runner, swimmer, and a
Meb Keflezighi: coach, what's the biggest insight or piece of advice you
Meb Keflezighi: find to yourself sharing with others?
Margaret Schwartz: Well, with my experience, so in my mind, I know
Margaret Schwartz: that I'm capable in the distance. For those 20 years
Margaret Schwartz: that I was running, I always had a base, always.
Margaret Schwartz: And so when I stopped running the marathon, I thought
Margaret Schwartz: I could just run 10K and just bang that out. I
Margaret Schwartz: cannot do that. You still have to build. So I
Margaret Schwartz: actually had to train for a half- marathon for the first time. I was always half-marathon ready. So knowing where you are in the
Margaret Schwartz: moment, it doesn't matter what you did six months ago
Margaret Schwartz: or six years ago. Although mentally, that foundation is still
Margaret Schwartz: there, I like to train, Meb, on the less is
Margaret Schwartz: more. Less is more. And especially as you get older,
Margaret Schwartz: pushing those miles, and having 40, 50- mile weeks, which by
Margaret Schwartz: the way, if you have any other life besides running,
Margaret Schwartz: if you're not professional, you have another job. So actually,
Margaret Schwartz: to put that time in is very time consuming and
Margaret Schwartz: hard on the body, hard mentally. So I'd just say
Margaret Schwartz: less is more. Have your base before you even start
Margaret Schwartz: training for a marathon, and then build on that. And
Margaret Schwartz: always distance first. I mean, you know this. This isn't
Margaret Schwartz: anything that we can't find anywhere. Speed is second. Complete,
Margaret Schwartz: and then add your speed to it. One of my
Margaret Schwartz: friends told me, who became a full Ironman, Kona Ironman,
Margaret Schwartz: and was injured along the way, she said " The one
Margaret Schwartz: reason why I had longevity was because I never pushed
Margaret Schwartz: the speed," and I think she was right.
Meb Keflezighi: I agree. I think the base is important. You could always
Meb Keflezighi: convert endurance to speed, but you can't convert speed to endurance.
Meb Keflezighi: So as long you can do the fundamental work and
Meb Keflezighi: progression run, and longevity is important. So as long as you're having fun,
Meb Keflezighi: staying healthy, have a maintained lifestyle, a healthy lifestyle, great
Meb Keflezighi: things can happen. So Margaret-
Margaret Schwartz: Can I ask you a question, Meb?
Meb Keflezighi: Sure.
Margaret Schwartz: Because the final marathon you did, of course I did a
Margaret Schwartz: little history here, looked back, a little homework. You were
Margaret Schwartz: one hour longer than you're winning New York City Marathon
Margaret Schwartz: time. How was that for you? Because I'm one hour
Margaret Schwartz: longer than I have ever been, and then you get to
Margaret Schwartz: a time where it is what it is, right? It
Margaret Schwartz: is what it is.
Meb Keflezighi: I was with a New Balance person yesterday, having a
Meb Keflezighi: dinner, I said that win in Boston, or the finish equally
Meb Keflezighi: hurt the last time I did it, last year. Same
Meb Keflezighi: pain. But at the same time, I was ready for
Meb Keflezighi: it. It's just the last time, I had a lot of
Meb Keflezighi: injuries going into the race. But it equally hurts. You
Meb Keflezighi: have to prepare for it. A marathon, you can't just
Meb Keflezighi: walk into it, you have to do the work. And
Meb Keflezighi: if you do the work, we might make it look seamless
Meb Keflezighi: or effortless, but it hurts. Whether you're in front of
Meb Keflezighi: the pack or the middle of the pack or the back of the pack, it hurts.
Meb Keflezighi: But at the end of the day, you could say, "Hey, I
Meb Keflezighi: have done it." Coming across the finish line is such
Meb Keflezighi: a gratifying moment, no matter what.
Margaret Schwartz: I think exactly what you just said, it hurts at
Margaret Schwartz: 208 and it hurts at 308.
Meb Keflezighi: Yeah.
Margaret Schwartz: But yet you feel like you're running as fast as
Margaret Schwartz: you did when you ran that 208.
Meb Keflezighi: The only thing, Margaret, I could say, is if you can do even pace or negative splits, it
Meb Keflezighi: hurts a little bit more than then just going out
Meb Keflezighi: hard. If you go 127 and come back 140, that's
Meb Keflezighi: not pretty, that hurts.
Margaret Schwartz: Heartbreaking, heartbreaking. Go for the negative split always.
Meb Keflezighi: Negative split. Makes it easier. It doesn't mean it doesn't
Meb Keflezighi: hurt, it just makes it easier that day, and also
Meb Keflezighi: the recovery process.
Margaret Schwartz: Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely.
Meb Keflezighi: So great time to be able to talk to you
Meb Keflezighi: as Member Moments, Margaret. Keep up the great work, and
Meb Keflezighi: congratulations on all your accomplishments.
Margaret Schwartz: Thank you. Thank you, Meb. So nice to be with you here, and
Margaret Schwartz: very inspirational. My friends are going to be very jealous,
Margaret Schwartz: that's all I'm saying.
Meb Keflezighi: We had a nice conversation. Pleasure to be with you.
Margaret Schwartz: Yes, hopefully I'll see you at the Streaker Luncheon.
Meb Keflezighi: All right, sounds good.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Now it's time for today's Meb minute with HSS.
Meb Keflezighi: Thanks, Rob. Chrysta, welcome to Set the Pace Podcast. How's
Meb Keflezighi: it going today?
Chrysta: Great. Yeah, it's going really well.
Meb Keflezighi: Great to have you. Many recreational runners aren't sure whether
Meb Keflezighi: their aches are normal or a sign they need help. How do
Meb Keflezighi: you assess runner's gait and foot mechanics to decide whether
Meb Keflezighi: the custom insert could be beneficial, or if a well-
Meb Keflezighi: chosen shoe is sufficient enough?
Chrysta: Sure. So I think there are a few things that we do in a clinical setting that actually,
Chrysta: we recommend patients and runners can do at home, two
Chrysta: types of assessment that they can do of their own
Chrysta: feet and their own alignment. One is a static assessment,
Chrysta: this means just standing and observing. I think the first
Chrysta: really helpful thing you can do is look at where
Chrysta: you have calluses on your feet. Calluses is a little
Chrysta: bit of your body's way of saying, " I wasn't quite
Chrysta: designed for the pressure and forces you're putting on this
Chrysta: section of my foot." So the calluses can be indicative
Chrysta: of areas that have too much friction, or too much
Chrysta: pressure against them, while you're running and moving. So looking
Chrysta: at those calluses and seeing where they're located. The second
Chrysta: is looking at your alignment, standing in front of a
Chrysta: mirror, or doing a footprint test, where even almost like
Chrysta: just stepping with a wet foot on a piece of
Chrysta: paper and seeing how much of that bottom surface of
Chrysta: your foot is contacting the ground. And you can see
Chrysta: online, they're really easy to find, footprint alignments that show
Chrysta: you a high, normal, or flat arch. Essentially, the more
Chrysta: that that footprint is in contact with the ground, the
Chrysta: flatter your foot. The less in contact, where it looks
Chrysta: like it's jumping from the heel to the ball of
Chrysta: the foot, that's a higher arch. And you're sort of
Chrysta: trying to determine what type of arch alignment you personally
Chrysta: have, and that's what we'll use to determine if you
Chrysta: need something more significant. So callusing, looking at your foot
Chrysta: alignment, and then looking at the mobility of... Primarily, I
Chrysta: think the biggest ones for runners are your calf, so
Chrysta: how much ankle movement do you have, and your first
Chrysta: toe. So your calf, you should be able to get
Chrysta: at least 10 degrees of motion, up from 90 degrees,
Chrysta: and you should be able to get that first toe
Chrysta: to be at a 90 degree angle up with the
Chrysta: rest of your foot. And if you're not, that sort
Chrysta: of tightness, or you have significant tightness, that's usually indicative of
Chrysta: maybe some orthotic intervention, or a different type of shoe
Chrysta: might be beneficial. So that's sort of the static things.
Chrysta: And then the dynamic things are really just having people
Chrysta: take videos, or looking at pictures of your running, and
Chrysta: seeing what your foot and ankle alignment look like when
Chrysta: you're running. So if your knees are collapsing inward, your
Chrysta: feet are rolling inward, your heels are rolling inward, that
Chrysta: usually indicates a flatter arch, and that might be something
Chrysta: that we'd want to do an orthotic intervention or a
Chrysta: more substantial shoe for.
Meb Keflezighi: Pretty awesome information. Self- diagnose a little bit, and then go
Meb Keflezighi: to the experts.
Chrysta: Yeah.
Meb Keflezighi: For someone dealing with recurring shin splints, or plantar fascia,
Meb Keflezighi: what role can orthotic insert play in reducing pain or
Meb Keflezighi: helping them get back into training?
Chrysta: Sure. So shin splints happen for a few reasons, one
Chrysta: reason can be overtraining. So sometimes it's just that you're
Chrysta: overtraining, and that might be more of a physical therapy strengthening
Chrysta: adjustment to your training schedule intervention. But orthotics can really
Chrysta: help if one of the things contributing to your shin
Chrysta: splints is that you're over pronating, so that arch is
Chrysta: collapsing a little too much while you're running and putting
Chrysta: a little bit of a rotational force on that shin,
Chrysta: which is more likely to result in you developing the
Chrysta: shin splints. So having an arch support that puts your
Chrysta: arch in the correct alignment and provides good support along
Chrysta: the inside arch of your foot, can really help your
Chrysta: muscles act in the plane that they're supposed to be
Chrysta: functioning in, instead of having this extra rotation put on
Chrysta: them when you over pronate. And I always recommend for things
Chrysta: like shin splints, that people, especially if it's their first
Chrysta: time, or it's a milder case and they've done some
Chrysta: physical therapy, or changes to their training, and it seemed
Chrysta: to go away, that they really start with an off- the-
Chrysta: shelf orthotic insert and see if that's enough. If it's
Chrysta: a recurring problem, then I usually recommend people go to
Chrysta: somebody, like an orthotist or podiatrist, to see if they
Chrysta: can get something custom- made to really more directly address
Chrysta: their alignment if they're continually seeing the shin splints reoccur.
Meb Keflezighi: And how long is too long to have a problem?
Meb Keflezighi: Sometimes you say, " Oh, it's going to get better. It's
Meb Keflezighi: going to get better." Is it a month, is it weeks? And
Meb Keflezighi: for me, personally, when I was at UCLA, I used
Meb Keflezighi: to have, and when I first wake up and the
Meb Keflezighi: first three, four steps were excruciating pain, so when is
Meb Keflezighi: the time to go see a professionalist?
Chrysta: Yeah, I'd say anytime this pain is more significant, like
Chrysta: where it's excruciating, I would say always go to see
Chrysta: a specialist, if you're starting to see a significant amount
Chrysta: of pain. If it's more of a soreness, and it seems
Chrysta: to go away within, I'd say, give it a two
Chrysta: to three- month period with intervention to see if something's
Chrysta: working. If after three months, you've tried off- the- shelf
Chrysta: foot orthotics, you've tried stretching interventions, you've done some exercises
Chrysta: to help strengthen your muscles, like you're intervening, you've changed
Chrysta: your shoes. That's the first thing I tell people, " You
Chrysta: have shin splints, when was the last time you bought
Chrysta: a new pair of running sneakers?" Change your shoes.
Meb Keflezighi: Treat yourself.
Chrysta: Right. Change your shoes, because sometimes it's just that the
Chrysta: padding and the foam has worn down, and the shoe
Chrysta: is just not providing the same amount of cushioning and
Chrysta: impact absorption that it used to. So I'd say more
Chrysta: than three months, definitely go see somebody. Anything that feels
Chrysta: significant or very poignant, like this sharp pain here, very
Chrysta: localized, or it's consistent, it's hurting all day, then definitely
Chrysta: see somebody much sooner than that. I would say within the
Chrysta: first week or two of starting to experience the pain,
Chrysta: you want to see somebody much sooner, because you could
Chrysta: also be misdiagnosing it. It could be something different than
Chrysta: shin splints, especially if it's that acute and sharp. But
Chrysta: the dull ache, which seems to go away and come
Chrysta: back every now and then, try interventions for, I would
Chrysta: say, two to three months, to see if they work,
Chrysta: and if not, then escalate to the next level.
Meb Keflezighi: Great job. I think it's always good to self- diagnose
Meb Keflezighi: a little bit, when you going for a run, kind of
Meb Keflezighi: pay attention a little bit to what the body is doing and
Meb Keflezighi: try to stretch in the stability and exercise. And if
Meb Keflezighi: not, then go see yourself a specialist. But yeah, when you have
Meb Keflezighi: a little bit knee or plantar fascia, it could be
Meb Keflezighi: the shoes, simple as that. But if not, you got
Meb Keflezighi: to go to the experts.
Chrysta: Yeah, for sure.
Meb Keflezighi: Well, Chrysta, I said it all here. Thank you so much for taking
Meb Keflezighi: the time to give out this wise advice to be
Meb Keflezighi: better runners, and be able to move forward quickly and
Meb Keflezighi: efficiently as possible.
Chrysta: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
Meb Keflezighi: My pleasure.
Rob Simmelkjaer: All right, that does it for another episode of Set The
Rob Simmelkjaer: Pace. We want to thank our guests today, Susie Chan
Rob Simmelkjaer: from Peloton, Margaret Schwartz, and HSS's Chrysta Irolla. If you
Rob Simmelkjaer: liked the episode, make sure you give us a five-
Rob Simmelkjaer: star rating, share it, leave a comment so we can
Rob Simmelkjaer: hear from you. We'd love to hear from all of
Rob Simmelkjaer: our great listeners out there. Hope everybody enjoyed the show.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Enjoy those miles out there. We will see you next week.