Chris Chavez and Ryan Welsh post up at the Brooks Hyperion House at Switchyards in downtown Atlanta to test out a new podcast concept – talking to strangers to get to know their running story. For this first episode, we sat down and got to meet some of Brooks’ Hometown Heroes. They’re sub-elite runners who hold full-time jobs and still manage to find the time to run fast. You’ll be surprised at who we meet. We knew nothing about these people beforehand. It was blind speed dating of sorts.

Garrett Heath of the Brooks Beasts (27-minute mark) happened to be working at the lounge and so we got his thoughts on being in town for the trials, what it’s like to compete for an Olympic team spot and some of his own predictions for the race.

Teresa McWalters (41-minute mark) is a four-time U.S. Olympic trials qualifier with a newfound perspective on running after an injury in this buildup.

Kelly Calway (51-minute mark) is a U.S. Army officer who ran at NC State. She is a combat veteran with two deployments under her belt. Because of her work and service for this country, running has taken place in a wide variety of places.

Elizabeth Gregory and Holly Clarke (1 hour, 8-minute mark) share their experience as teammates on the Impala Racing Team, who qualified together.

You can catch the latest episode of the podcast on iTunes so subscribe and leave a five-star review. We are also on Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify!

Support for this episode comes from Stryd. They’re helping ensure that you nail the perfect pacing strategy so you can keep a consistent effort in challenging conditions – all in real-time. I’m digging all the data that it’s collecting and you’ll see a bunch of people wearing them on their shoes at the US Olympic Marathon Trials. Learn more by visiting STRYD.COM/CITIUS

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