Ordinary Marathoner

Not just one, but two guests on today’s podcast! And more guests from The World’s Toughest Race Eco-Challenge Fiji! A few weeks ago we had James Lawrence, The Iron Cowboy, on the show. Today we get another one of the show’s main storylines – The Macy Family.

Travis Macy grew up watching his father Mark compete in Adventure Racing events. As the years went by, Travis formed his own team. Both were expected to compete in the Eco-Challenge in Fiji.

At some point, Mark had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Father and son decided that instead of racing on their respective teams, they wanted to compete together. So, Mark joined Travis’ team and confronted The World’s Toughest Race.

Once you hear their story, you’ll understand why their story was one of the more prominently featured ones on the show. Two humble guys who work hard and embrace family. You can’t help but cheer them on.

Need a triathlon or running coach? Reach out to Coach Scott at [email protected] and set up a free consultation.

Join the Official Ordinary Marathoner team at TEAM ORDINARY!

Check out our homepage at www.ordinarymarathoner.com.

Or join the conversation at our Ordinary Marathoners Facebook Discussion Group.

I’ll also follow you back on Twitter if you follow me @OrdMarathoner.

Check out our annual virtual charity race, The Ordinary Marathon. Register early and be eligible for giveaways between now and race day.

This past weekend I took a short little drive up to Lake Placid to meet Matt Schorer. Matt’s plan for us was to climb Whiteface Mountain – about 5 miles and somewhat North of 2500-feet of elevation. A bucket-list item for some, this was no easy task. Getting to the top? That took a lot of effort. Getting down? A lot less effort.

Lots going on in the Ordinary Marathoner world. Our Team Dietitian, Allison Knott, joined us this past Friday Night to discuss Fad Diets. If you missed the discussion you can check it out on our YouTube Channel.

On Wednesday night, I will be leading the USA Triathlon Workout Ride on Zwift. It’s an honor that they included me and I’m very excited for the opportunity.

We are also in the final week of our 6-week FTP builder training program for our Early Morning Workouts. I’m looking forward to seeing if there has been any improvement in my FTP in the days following.

Keep busy, keep training!

Need a triathlon or running coach? Reach out to Coach Scott at [email protected] and set up a free consultation.

Join the Official Ordinary Marathoner team at TEAM ORDINARY!

Check out our homepage at www.ordinarymarathoner.com.

Or join the conversation at our Ordinary Marathoners Facebook Discussion Group.

I’ll also follow you back on Twitter if you follow me @OrdMarathoner.

Check out our annual virtual charity race, The Ordinary Marathon. Register early and be eligible for giveaways between now and race day.

Lots of Zwift news today. I will be leading a USA Triathlon Event workout on 9/23. Would love to see you there if you are on the Zwift platform. Attendance at our Thursday Night Trivia Ride has been great recently, and our early morning training rides have been consistent over the first five weeks.

Recent podcast downloads are up due to some amazing recent guests like The Iron Cowboy and Sue Reynolds. We have more great guests coming, including another participant from The World’s Toughest Race – Eco-Challenge Fiji. Travis Macy will be joining us next week, perhaps with his father Mark. If you watched the series, you’ll know that the Macy’s storyline was very prominent in the show.

This weekend I will be heading up to Lake Placid. There, I will be meeting Matt Schorer and doing stupid things on bikes. Hoping to get some good footage from it and bring you back a new podcast and/or video.

Lastly, the intermittent fasting continues with fairly good success. It has helped me develop some good habits. Despite some recent short-term hiccups that may or may not have involved a brownie sundae, the general direction of my weight has gone down. I’ve adapted some of the tenets of fasting to my training plan and hope it produces continued success.

Need a triathlon or running coach? Reach out to Coach Scott at [email protected] and set up a free consultation.

Join the Official Ordinary Marathoner team at TEAM ORDINARY!

Check out our homepage at www.ordinarymarathoner.com.

Or join the conversation at our Ordinary Marathoners Facebook Discussion Group.

I’ll also follow you back on Twitter if you follow me @OrdMarathoner.

Check out our annual virtual charity race, The Ordinary Marathon. Register early and be eligible for giveaways between now and race day.

After three podcasts in a row with some of the most fascinating guests, I’m back! We’ve been livestreaming our morning workouts and working our way through Zwift’s 6-week Beginner FTP-Booster program. So far, so good, with only a few minor hiccups.

In addition, Matt Schorer (Follow the Fat Guy to Ironman Kona) talked me into trying out Intermittent Fasting. I gave it a solid week and the results were pretty good. I did lose weight, but felt I lost some energy on some workouts. So, I’m adjusting it, adapting to my schedule and training needs, and continuing on with many of the core concepts. I can train all I want, but the fact of the matter is that the best way for me to get faster is to drop weight!

Sue Reynolds was 60 years old and weighed 335 pounds. Pulling late-nighters in the office, cookies and M&M’s were available in droves, and she didn’t hesitate to consume them. She had tried going on diets before, but with varied success. She always gained the weight back. Until one day, she simply had enough. She just wanted to be able to put her own socks on!

As we see often in this sport, the combination of food discipline and exercise took over. The competitiveness and the drive to become better. But not even Sue would realize how far she could progress in this sport.

With very little background of athletic ability, she started with her first 5k. The kindness of volunteer at a water station flipped a switch and gave her the feeling that she belonged. From there, in her 60’s, she blossomed as an athlete. Running led the way to triathlon – for a woman who didn’t know if she could even swim and hadn’t ridden a bike in decades.

Then… there was the podium. Who cared if she was the only one in her age group. She was ON THE PODIUM! One podium led to more podiums and even more podiums. Before she knew it, she was competing in Nationals, murdering the competition (almost literally). She continues to train today, setting an example for many and sharing her incredible story in her book, The Athlete Inside (proceeds go to the USA Triathlon Foundation). Take a listen on today’s podcast.

Need a triathlon or running coach? Reach out to Coach Scott at [email protected] and set up a free consultation.

Join the Official Ordinary Marathoner team at TEAM ORDINARY!

Check out our homepage at www.ordinarymarathoner.com.

Or join the conversation at our Ordinary Marathoners Facebook Discussion Group.

I’ll also follow you back on Twitter if you follow me @OrdMarathoner.

Check out our annual virtual charity race, The Ordinary Marathon. Register early and be eligible for giveaways between now and race day.

A week or two ago I recorded a podcast with John Tipton on his show, Talks With Tiptop. That show will soon be released on his YouTube channel, Running With Tiptop. Today we return the favor and bring John into the Ordinary Marathoner world.

John started running a few years ago and caught the bug. He dropped some weight and climbed the racing ladder – 5k, 10k, half-marathon and then the full. He currently works for the University of Alabama as a videographer. What a great way to combine two of his passions – running and video – by putting together a YouTube channel on running.

I want to thank John for being a gracious guest, and a gracious host… and wish him the best of luck with his podcasting future.

Some people just blaze their own trail. James Lawrence, known to many as The Iron Cowboy, does just that. We sit down with James to discuss some of his accolades and recent adventures.

James can be seen on the Amazon Prime series, “World’s Toughest Race.” The 9-part special follows teams of athletes as they trek across Fiji in the 2019 Eco-Challenge. One of four inexperienced adventurers, all of them Ironman athletes, James and his team were given no chance to finish by the race organizers. Well… let’s just say that James isn’t in the business of letting people get the best of him. Stefany and I watched the series together last week and thought it was really good.

Of course, you can’t have The Iron Cowboy on your podcast without discussing the 50/50/50. You can find the documentary, The Story of the 50/50/50, also on Amazon Prime. It depicts James’ attempt to run 50 Ironman distance races in 50 different states in 50 consecutive days. You read that right. In the podcast we get James to discuss a bit of the controversy that surrounded it. Whether legitimate or not, James takes the question head-on. He explains why it’s best never to listen to the naysayers and the bullies, and to never quit. It sure helped him in the long-run.

Need a triathlon or running coach? Reach out to Coach Scott at [email protected] and set up a free consultation.

Join the Official Ordinary Marathoner team at TEAM ORDINARY!

Check out our homepage at www.ordinarymarathoner.com.

Or join the conversation at our Ordinary Marathoners Facebook Discussion Group.

I’ll also follow you back on Twitter if you follow me @OrdMarathoner.

Check out our annual virtual charity race, The Ordinary Marathon. Register early and be eligible for giveaways between now and race day.

Ever just have one of those weeks where everything seems to go wrong? Our Happy Hour guest last week had to reschedule. Our podcast with John Tipton got canceled thanks to a ZOOM outage. Then the hurricane delayed our next Couch-To-5k participant, Chantelle Sandberg. And we decided to move back our potential podcast with Matt Schorer, as well.

You’d think I’d be upset. You’d think I’d throw my arms up in disgust. But I’m not. Instead, I’m optimistic.

We are still talking to John Tipton next week – he was gracious enough to reschedule. Our Couch-To-5k folks will be on again – possibly as early as this weekend. Our podcast with Matt was rescheduled for mid-September, when we meet up in Lake Placid and hopefully do an even-better podcast/video.

And so many other good things!!!

The Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence, will be a podcast guest next week! We’re so excited to discuss his experiences in the Eco-Challenge. And our daily livestream of our Morning Workout Rides have now been a success for 9 straight days! 5AM never felt so good! In addition, Thursday Night Rides are gaining popularity, our Wattie TriKits, Cycling Jerseys and Running Singlets are still available, and I may be leading a USA Triathlon Zwift Event in September. So… things are looking up!

The Team Ordinary Wattie Ink Store is OPEN for business. For the next 10 days, you can purchase custom Wattie-designed tri-kits, cycling jerseys and running singlets. They’re pretty sharp!

Today marked the end of a pretty busy week! On Monday I declared my intention to get up early every day and re-form the good habits I had built, and subsequently lost, earlier this year. I have been joined by some pretty brave souls, and we livestreamed our Zwift Rides Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday… along with our weekly Thursday Night Ride.

Also… maybe The Secret works after all. Check out the proof at the end of today’s podcast.

***UPDATE: Subsequent to this podcast, we had to cancel our speaker for tonight’s Happy Hour***

Matt Scoletti is an animal. For a lot of people in the sport of endurance running, 2020 has been a washout. Too many canceled races, too may dashed dreams and medals unearned. It can be depressing. But Matt Scoletti is not one to sit on his butt and sulk.

No, not Matt. His 100-mile ultra got cancelled? Oh well… he’ll just run around the block 250 times. And when he looked for his next challenge, he thought of how he could help people – especially through his wife’s non-profit, Young Adult Survivors. They set up a GoFundMe, and for the month of August, Matt decided to run a mile for every $10 donated.

Leave it to the public to want to see a man suffer. Over $7,000 in donations already means that Matt has had trouble keeping up his end of the bargain. That’s not to say he’s not trying his best though. Today is August 19th and Matt has already completed 16 full-distance marathons!

SIX – TEEN!!!

Check out the podcast and hear Matt’s story. Then cheer him on as he continues his challenge and see how many miles he can complete in August.