Richmond Marathon

Mm-hmm

... throughout the year, right? Like i- especially the bigger races, and I'm, I'm gonna assume, like, the Richmond Marathon and Half Marathon-

Mm-hmm

... is probably that for you all.

So if I would not say that to others, then why am I thinking it about myself? So I wanna thank you, Sarah, for going down this little, these little independent rabbit holes before we get into the, the meat and potatoes of this episode, which is your favorite running memory.

And I'm curious, do you have a favorite running memory to share with us?

I have so many, but I do, and you know, I, I bring it back to, to the Richmond Marathon because Richmond's home.

It was my first half, my first full.

Shout out to Melissa, and congratulations on your marathon.

Speaking of marathons, don't miss the Richmond Marathon weekend.

Unfortunately, the full and the half are sold out, but you can still do the 8K.

I highly recommend it.

And running's bigger than ever.

I think the Richmond Marathon, tiny little marathon in Richmond, it's not anymore.

It's sold out faster than ever.

Wow.

I couldn't even get a spot in the Richmond Marathon, which used to be like, oh, yeah, like I can sign up for that 12 weeks out.

Now you have to be like months in advance.

Yeah, it's cool.

Like the industry has changed and I feel like there's so much momentum around shoes right now and running is bigger than ever.

I think the, the Richmond marathon, tiny little marathon in Richmond, it's not anymore.

It's sold out faster than ever.

Wow.

I couldn't even get a spot in the Richmond Marathon, which used to be like, oh yeah, like I can sign up for that 12 weeks out.

Now you had to be like months in advance.

Yeah, that's cool.

Okay.

And then they sent me a flyer in the mail that said run the Richmond Marathon.

Wow.

And you were

But more like, quote unquote, normal races.

One of my favorites, and I think it's become a favorite, I think it's selling out this year, is the Richmond Marathon.

Oh, okay.

And the reason I love that race, I've run it three times.

But Mountain Dew does too.

That's right.

In fact, the first time I ran Richmond Marathon, that was my first official attempt at a BQ.

And I chose Richmond for the BQ attempt because I have family and friends between Richmond and Fredericksburg, Virginia.

And it was fun, but man, there were too many people.

Uh, and then I did the Richmond Marathon, and it was fun, but there were too many people.

[laughs] And so somehow I ended up on trails, and in 2011, I started running ultras and it seemed like after about three, three, four years of that, I felt like I had to drive everywhere to get to an ultra.

Um, you had David Horton.

And so like I was saying, a lot of the people that have run a lot of my events, their introduction to me was at Piedmont.

Um, they came out.

They wanted, um, oh, I wanna, I wanna do some trails a few weeks before the Richmond Marathon or something like that.

And, uh, so you know, that's, that's where it started.

Richmond actually currently is in a very interesting explosion of running communities.

So we have Richmond sports backers who hosts the Richmond Marathon.

And they also have a training team called Marathon Training Team, MTT.

But then there's also Richmond Roadrunners who does a marathon training team in the winter.

Yeah.

I got ready for the Richmond Marathon.

Or no, I ran a half marathon in Wilmington, and I was warming up, headed to the line, and someone was like, "That guy sounds like a Clydesdale." I was like, "Thanks, dude."

That's what they sound like, though.