“I was a competitive snowboarder but seeing what I’m doing in running right now is above and beyond what I thought I was doing in that sport. Finding a sport this late in life and seeing that constant progression, which is what I lost in snowboarding, I hit this point where I don’t want to hit jumps anymore. I just want to have fun on the mountains. You stop seeing yourself become better at a point. You’re not learning new tricks. You’re skiing and snowboarding on the same trails. With running, I’m continuing to get faster and PR in different events and progress. I mostly get messages from friends saying, ‘I can’t believe how fast you’ve gotten’ or ‘What kind of running shoes should I buy?’ or even ‘Hey! You’ve really inspired me to sign up for a race.’ It’s pretty cool, especially to have people who I looked up to for so many years to reach out to me and ask for my advice on running.” – Brian Schroy

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If you enjoyed last week’s motivational episode with Pat Jeffers about his marathon progression after some time away from the sport, I offer up another inspirational story but this time it’s someone who found the sport much later in life.

Brian is a super nice guy who I met in Boulder a few months ago. He’s a member of the Tinman Track Club and he’s run 2:30:14 for the marathon. He ran his first marathon in 3:18 just four years ago. His background doesn’t have much running. He was a snowboarder growing up and then really partied in college. He decided to make a change in his life when he stepped on the scale and wasn’t happy with where he was at. It led him to boxing, which then led him to running following an injury. It’s all interesting to me and I think you’ll enjoy it as well.

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More info on Haymaker Harriers – a new community run club. All proceeds are tax-deductible and go towards the fight against cancer.

5K Virtual Turkey Trot to raise money for cancer.

SHOW NOTES AND QUOTES

– “It’s way more of a party culture in skiing and snowboarding where there’s a rule in winter sports called the 10 percent rule. If your friend wins, they have to spend 10% at the bar. It’s such a small industry that you’re going to know the winner. No matter what, your friend is spending a couple of thousand dollars at the bar. It was always very fun to be a spectator and not a participant.”

– “My first weekend in New York, I went out with some friends and I woke up on the Manhattan Bridge – just on a bench. I had new shoes and I perfectly put them next to me. I thought, ‘Oh! My room is so breezy.’ I turned around and I was 500 feet off the ground…I have no idea how I made it through that night. I was like, ‘Man, I need to change my lifestyle more than just exercising a bit.’ I never thought I had like a problem but it was so much of the culture. I was like, ‘You know what. I’m out of college. I don’t need this culture anymore to that extent.’ I don’t need all my social interactions to be about getting wasted.”

– “I was a competitive snowboarder but seeing what I’m doing in running right now is above and beyond what I thought I was doing in that sport. Finding a sport this late in life and seeing that constant progression is what I lost in snowboarding, I hit this point where I don’t want to hit jumps anymore. I just want to have fun on the mountains. You stop seeing yourself become better at a point. You’re not learning new tricks. You’re skiing and snowboarding on the same trails. With running, I’m continuing to get faster and PR in different events and progress. I mostly get messages from friends saying, ‘I can’t believe how fast you’ve gotten’ or ‘What kind of running shoes should I buy?’ or even ‘Hey! You’ve really inspired me to sign up for a race.’ It’s pretty cool, especially to have people who I looked up to for so many years to reach out to me and ask for my advice on running.”

– “I am very young in running years. My legs do not have the pounding that other legs have had. I feel like I, fortunately, have not dealt with a great deal of injury. That’s probably because I focused so much on getting stronger after college. It hasn’t been years of stress fractures. I approached it at a very healthy age and a very healthy time in my life. That has helped me get to where I am now.”

– “I never expected the leaps and bounds from that 3:18 to where I am now. My wife was always like, ‘You are capable of this.’ When I first started running, I remember seeing all these fast people and what their PRs were and slowly getting closer or surpassing them. Just the evolution of the last four years has been insane. It was those 10-minute jumps and those 15-minute jumps. It’s definitely going to be harder to drop those 11 minutes – hopefully, that’s the standard for 2024 – but I know I’m approaching it in a realistic way. I don’t think I’m going to run 2:19 in my next marathon but I do think I can run 2:24 in my next marathon. From 2:24, then that’s maybe 2:21 or 2:22 in the next training cycle. Then, I think if I jump into CIM and have a 100-person to work with then it’s not unrealistic at that point. I’m trying to look at it long term.”