Podcasts about Marine Corps Marathon

Closing out National Bike Month with a young man from Auburn who just completed "Bo Bikes Bama" for the 4th time. We have more on that event (started by the famous Bo Jackson) and (5:15) avid cyclist Jared Bowles shares about the importance of doing challenges for causes, this one for storm relief victims in Alabama. It was instilled in him early in life about lessons of discipline - for all of us. Make sure to subscribe to "Run The Race" to hear stories like his of fitness and faith. (13:40) This single father his fitness journey from swimming at 11 years old to now triathlons. What has his training looked like for his Half Ironmans? He breaks down the numbers for swimming, biking, running...plus being a healthy example for his 4-year-old son. (22:01) Rebelling at a younger age, Jared's son being born was a wakeup call that got him back into church and exercise! The ups and downs of his health journey included a failed full Ironman, a snow skiing injury, and learning to lean on the Lord more. What does he reflect on about God while running and cycling? (29:21) The challenges of having his own single family residential construction company and being a single dad means finding balance...and waking up earlier than he wants to bike or run. (33:16) Jared shares a little more of his cycling story, the costs involved with this hobby, what the average bike ride looks like for him...his recent Marine Corps Marathon experience, and aiming for a full Ironman in the future. Thanks for listening to the #RunTheRace podcast! Also, write a quick review about it, on Apple podcasts. For more info and all past episodes, go to www.wtvm.com/podcast/.

This week on GenX Journeys, I'm officially hitting the pavement—again. After months of knowing it was coming, I finally pulled the trigger and signed up for the 50th Marine Corps Marathon. But here's the thing: even though I knew I was going to do it, something shifted the moment I actually signed up. That one action sparked a wave of motivation, momentum, and commitment I hadn't felt in a while. In this episode, I talk about: Why physically signing up or speaking your goals out loud creates a powerful mental shift How small steps like Day 1 of the Couch to 10K plan can reignite your fire What it felt like to return to the Boston Marathon as a spectator for the 4th year in a row Shoutouts to my amazing friends Kerri Nelson and Maurice Lowman, who crossed the Boston finish line this year like absolute champs And how seeing people of all backgrounds and abilities out there reminded me what resilience and reinvention really look like Whether you're chasing a marathon, a creative dream, or a comeback in your life—it all starts with one decision. This episode is your reminder to stop waiting and start moving.

In this episode, we dive deep into Mike's transformation from despising running to embracing it as a significant part of his life for over 23 years.Mike shares fascinating stories, including racing in Costa Rica alongside a herd of horses and details his typical running routines and race preparations.He emphasizes the lessons of discipline and consistency and gives practical advice for new runners.From favorite races like the Prodisee Pantry Turkey Trot to bucket list goals such as the Marine Corps Marathon, Mike's journey is full of inspiring anecdotes and wisdom.Whether running downtown early in the morning or challenging himself in various races, Mike's story is bound to motivate and uplift anyone, runner or not!Mike Megginson - https://www.facebook.com/mike.megginson.31Rudy's Hands - https://www.rudyshands.com/Races MentionedProdisee Pantry Turkey TrotAzalea Trail RunTamarindo Beach Marathon Costa RicaSpring Fever ChaseMarine Corps MarathonSupport the showFor more details on Run Your Story happenings, including signing up for our upcoming training program, visit https://runyourstory.com/For web development, coding tutoring, or tech services, visit https://gaillardts.com/Go Run Your Story and take a piece of this story with you! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for the latest news on upcoming episodes. Support me on Patreon!Can't wait to hear Your Run Story!! Thank you to all of our Patreon supporters!Kristen RatherSteve TaylorMary TrufantSuzanne CristSuzanne ClarkAnna SzymanskiDave McDonaldKarla McInnisJames ContrattoJordan DuBoseCristy EvansSharonda ShulaNell GustavsonMeredith NationsAllyson SwannChris Strayhorn

In today's Power Surge, we're diving into the incredible true story of Dashrath Manjhi, a man who spent 22 years carving a path through a mountain—by hand! His story is one of determination, resilience, and the power of a single person to make a massive impact. Episode Highlights

I want to introduce you to our guest this time, Fred Dummar. I met Fred through Susy Flory who helped me write Thunder Dog. Fred is taking a class from Susy on writing and is well along with his first book. I look forward to hearing about its publishing sometime in 2025.   Fred hails from a VERY small town in Central Nevada. After high school Fred went to the University of Nevada in Reno. While at University, Fred joined the Nevada National Guard which helped him pay his way through school and which also set him on a path of discovery about himself and the world. After college Fred joined the U.S. army in 1990. He was accepted into the Special Forces in 1994 and served in various locations around the world and held ranks from Captain through Colonel.   Fred and I talk a fair amount about leadership and how his view of that subject grew and changed over the years. He retired from the military in 2015. He continues to be incredibly active serving in a variety of roles in both the for profit and nonprofit arenas.   I love Fred's leadership style and philosophy. I hope you will as well. Fred has lots of insights that I believe you will find helpful in whatever you are doing.       About the Guest:   Colonel (Retired) Fred Dummar was born and raised in the remote town of Gabbs, Nevada. He enlisted in the Nevada National Guard in 1986 and served as a medic while attending the University of Nevada. He was commissioned as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army in April 1990.   Fred was selected for Special Forces in 1994 and went on to command at every level in Special Forces from Captain to Colonel. He trained and deployed in many countries, including Panama, Venezuela, Guyana, Nigeria, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Most notably, Col Dummar participated in the liberation of Kurdish Northern Iraq in 2003, assisting elements of the Kurdish Peshmerga (resistance fighters) with the initial liberation of Mosul.   Colonel Dummar's last tour in uniform was as the Commander of the Advisory Group for Afghan Special Forces from May 2014 to June 2015. Immediately after retiring, he returned to Afghanistan as a defense contractor to lead the Afghan Army Special Operations Command and Special Mission Wing training programs until May 2017.   Beginning in 2007 and continuing until 2018, Fred guided his friend, who was blinded in Iraq, through 40 Marathons, several Ultra marathons, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, running with the bulls in Pamplona, and a traverse of the Sahara Desert to raise funds and awareness for Special Forces Soldiers. He personally ran numerous Ultramarathons, including 23 separate 100-mile runs and over a hundred races from 50 miles to marathon.   Fred graduated from the U.S. Army Command and Staff College and the U.S. Army War College with master's degrees in military art and science, strategy, and policy. He is currently pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Organizational Psychology and Leadership.   Since retiring from the Army in 2015, Fred has led in nonprofit organizations from the Board of Directors with the Special Forces Charitable Trust (2015-2022) as the Chief of Staff for Task Force Dunkirk during the evacuation of Afghan Allies in August 2021, as a leadership fellow with Mission 43 supporting Idaho's Veterans (2020-2023), and as a freshwater advocate with Waterboys with trips to East Africa in 2017 and 2019 to assist in funding wells for remote tribes.   Fred has led in the civilian sector as the Senior Vice President of Legacy Education, also known as Rich Dad Education, from 2017-2018 and as the startup CEO for Infinity Education from 2021-2022, bringing integrity and compassion to Real Estate Education. Fred continues investing in Real Estate as a partner in Slate Mountain Homes, Idaho and trains new investors to find, rehab, and flip manufactured homes with Alpine Capital Solutions.   Fred is married to Rebecca Dummar, and they reside in Idaho Falls, Idaho, with three of their children, John, Leah, and Anna. Their daughter Alana attends the University of Michigan.   Ways to connect with Fred:   Here is a link to my webpage - https://guidetohuman.com/ Here is a link to my Substack where I write - https://guidetohuman.substack.com/   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet, but it's more fun to talk about unexpected than inclusion or diversity, although it is relevant to talk about both of those. And our guest today is Fred Dummar. It is pronounced dummar or dumar. Dummar, dummar, see, I had to do that. So Fred is a person I met Gosh about seven or eight months ago through Susy Flory, who was my co author on thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust at ground zero. And Susy introduced us because Fred is writing a book. We're going to talk about that a bunch today, and we'll also talk about Fred's career and all sorts of other things like that. But we've had some fascinating discussions, and now we finally get to record a podcast, so I'm glad to do that. So Fred Dummar, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Fred Dummar ** 02:22 Yeah, no. Thanks for having me. Michael, yeah, we've had some some interesting discussions about everything unstoppable mind and blindness and diversity. And yeah, it's good to be on here.   Michael Hingson ** 02:34 Yeah. And one of the things I know that you have done is ran with a blind marathoner, and I'm anxious to hear about that, as well as what an ultra marathon is. We'll get to that, however. But why don't we start by you may be talking a little bit about kind of the early freight growing up and all that you grew up in, in Nevada, in a in a kind of remote place. So I'm going to just leave it to you to talk about all   Fred Dummar ** 02:57 that. Yeah, Michael, so, and actually, that's part of my, part of my story that I'm writing about. Because, you know, obviously, where we're from forms a large basis of how we sometimes interact with the world. And I came from a very remote town in Nevada. It's dying, by the way. I'm not sure how long that town will be with us, but, yeah, being from a small town where, you know, graduating class was 13 kids, and it's an hour to the closest place that you could watch a movie or get fast food, those types of things, it's definitely a different type of childhood, and much one, much more grounded in self reliance and doing activities that you can make up yourself, right? Instead of being looking for others to entertain you.   Michael Hingson ** 03:50 Yeah, I hear you. So what was it like growing up in a small town? I grew up in Palmdale, California, so it was definitely larger than where you grew up, we had a fairly decent sized High School senior graduating class. It wasn't 13, but what was it like growing up in that kind of environment?   Fred Dummar ** 04:12 Yeah, it was. It was one where you know, not only did you know everybody, everybody else knew you, and so you could pretty much count on anyone in the town for for assistance or, or, you know, if, I guess, if you were on the house for not, not assistance, so, but no, it was. It was a great place to have many, many, many friends from there. But it was, certainly was an adjustment, because I think growing up, there are our sort of outlook on life for us, you know, certainly from the people that that ran our high school and the other adults, most people were seen as, you know, your life after high school would be going to work at one of. The mines, or going to work on one of the, you know, family cattle ranch or something like that. So making the jump from there to, you know, even a few hours away to Reno, you know, to start at the University of Nevada, that was a big it's a big jump from for me, and because the school is so small, I ended up graduating from high school when I was 16, so I barely had a driver's license, and now I am several hours away and Reno, Nevada, going to the university. And, you know, quite an adjustment for me.   Michael Hingson ** 05:32 It's interesting. A few days ago, I had the opportunity to do a podcast episode with someone who's very much involved and knows a lot about bullying and so on, and just listening to you talk, it would seem like you probably didn't have a whole lot of the bully type mentality, because everyone was so close, and everyone kind of interacted with each other, so probably that sort of stuff wasn't tolerated very well. Yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 05:59 it was, it was more so outsiders. I mean, kids that had grown up there all sort of, you know, knew where they were or weren't in the pecking order. Things and things sort of stayed kind of steady stasis, without a lot of bullying. But yeah, new kids coming in. That's where you would see for me, from my recollection of growing up to that's where, you know, I remember that type of behavior coming out when, when you know, a new kid would come into the town,   Michael Hingson ** 06:31 was it mainly from the new kids or from the kids who are already there?   Fred Dummar ** 06:34 From the kids? Sometimes it was the integration, right? Some people integrate into new environments better than others. And you know, generally, no problems for those folks. But some, you know, it takes a bit more. And in a place like that, if you're you know, if you're seen as different, so you know to your theory on or your you know the topics you cover on diversity and inclusion. Sometimes when you're the one that that looks different or acts different in an environment like that, you definitely stick out, and then you become the target of of bullying.   Michael Hingson ** 07:10 What? What happens that changes that for a kid? Then, you know, so you're you're different or in one way or another. But what happens that gets kids accepted? Or do they?   Fred Dummar ** 07:21 Yeah, I don't know. I think, I think it's learning to embrace just who you are and doing your own thing. I think if you know, if you're trying to force yourself into an environment that doesn't want to accept you, I'm not sure that that's ever an easy battle for anyone. But just being yourself and doing your own thing. I think that's, that's the way to go, and that's certainly, you know, what I learned through my life was I wasn't one of the kids that planned on staying there and working in the mind, and I wasn't, you know, my family was, you know, at that point, my mom and dad owned the, the only grocery store in town, and I certainly wasn't going back to run the family business. So, you know, look, looking for a way, you know, for something else to do outside of that small town was certainly number one on my agenda, getting out of there. So being myself and and learning to adapt, or, as you know the saying goes, right, learning to be instead of being a fish in a small pond, learning to be a fish in a much larger pond,   Michael Hingson ** 08:27 yeah, well, and there's, there's a lot of growth that has to take place for that to occur, but it's understandable. So you graduated at 16, and then what did you do after   Fred Dummar ** 08:38 my uh, freshman year at college, which I funded by, you know, sort of Miss, Miss misleading people or lying about my age so that I could get a job at 16 and working construction and as an apprentice electrician. And that funded my my freshman year of college. But, you know, as as as my freshman year was dragging on, I was wondering, you know, hey, how I was going to continue to fund my, you know, continued universe my stay at the university, because I did not want to go, you know, back back back home, sort of defeated, defeated by that. So I started looking into various military branches of military service, and that's when it happened upon the National Guard, Nevada National Guard, and so I joined the National Guard. And right after, you know, I think it was five days after I turned 17, so as soon as I could, I signed up, and that summer after my freshman year, I left for training for the National Guard. Missed first semester of my sophomore year, but then came back and continued on with my university studies using, you know, my the educational benefits that came from being in the National Guard.   Michael Hingson ** 09:55 So you're in the National Guard, but that wasn't a full time thing, so you were able to go back and. Continue education. Yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 10:01 it was, you know, it's a typical one weekend a month, one weekend a month for duty. Typically, we would go in on a Friday night, spend Saturday and Sunday for duty. So we get a, you know, small check for that. And then we were also allowed to draw, you know, the GI Bill and the state of Nevada had a program at the time where you didn't get paid upfront for your classes, but at the end of every semester, you could take your final report card and for every class, for every credit that you had a C or higher, they would reimburse you. So yeah, so they were essentially paying my tuition, and then, you know, small stipend every month from the GI Bill. And then, you know, my National Guard check, so and in the 80s, you know, when I was going to school, that that was enough to keep, you know, define my education. And where did you go to school? At the University of Nevada in   Michael Hingson ** 10:59 Reno, in Reno, okay, yeah, so, so you kind of have ended up really liking Reno, huh?   Fred Dummar ** 11:07 Yeah, I, yeah. I became sort of home city. Obviously, no one would ever really know where. You know, if I would have mentioned that I grew up in a town called gaps, most people would, you know, not, not really understand. I sometimes, if they're, you know, press and say, hey, you know, where are you really? Because, you know, often say, Hey, I went to school in Reno. If they say, where did you grow up? I'll, you know, it's a longer conversation. I'll be like, okay, so if you put your finger, like, right in the middle of Nevada, in the absolute middle of nowhere, that's where I grew up.   Michael Hingson ** 11:40 Well, you know, people need to recognize and accept people for who they are, and that doesn't always happen, which is never fun, but Yeah, gotta do what you can do, yes, well, so Reno, on the other hand, is a is a much larger town, and probably you're, a whole lot more comfortable there than you than you were in Gabs, but that's okay. So yeah, so you went to the university. You got a bachelor's, yep, and then what did you do?   Fred Dummar ** 12:11 Yeah. Well, so along the way, while I was in the National Guard, you know, being a medic, right? I was convinced by a lieutenant that met me. I was actually doing the physical, because it was one of the things our section did when I was first in, you know, we gave the medical physicals, and this lieutenant said, you know, you should come transfer our unit. The unit was an infantry unit, and I became their only medic. And so that was much better than working in a medical section for a helicopter unit where I'd been and and the lieutenants, you know, said that I should consider joining ROTC, since I was already going to the university. So I did in my junior year, started the Reserve Officer Training Corps there at the University of Nevada. And so when I graduated college in the winter of 89 I accepted a commission into the army. So then a few months later, I was, I was off on my my Grand Army adventure,   Michael Hingson ** 13:11 alright, and then what did you do?   Fred Dummar ** 13:15 So, yeah, that was, you know, because it was an infantry Lieutenant went to Fort Benning, Georgia, and I believe now the army calls it fort Moore, but yeah, I trained there for about a year, doing all of the tasks necessary to become an infantry officer. And then I went down to Panama, when the US still had forces in the country of Panama. And I spent two and a half years down there was that past mariega, yeah, right after, because I had graduated from college in December of 89 while operation just caused to get rid of Noriega was happening. So year after my infantry training, I sort of ended up in Panama, and sort of as at the time, thinking it was bad luck, you know, because if you're in the army, you know, you want to, kind of want to go where things are happening. So I'm in Panama the year after the invasion, while Saddam Hussein is invading Kuwait, and everyone else is rushing to the desert, and I'm sitting in the jungle. So, you know, as a as a young person, you start to think, you know, oh, you know, hey, I'm missing. I'm missing the big war. I should be at the war, you know. So that was an interesting take, not what I would have now, but you know, as a young man,   Michael Hingson ** 14:31 what caused you to revise that view, though? Or time,   Fred Dummar ** 14:37 yeah, yeah. Just, just time. And, you know, later in life, you know, after, uh, serving combat rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan, I realized it wasn't something one needed to rush towards,   Michael Hingson ** 14:48 really quite so bad, where you were, yeah. So,   Fred Dummar ** 14:52 yeah, I spent a couple years in Panama, then I came back to Fort Benning, uh, Fort Moore, and worked at the Army's Airborne School. So. Uh, you know, the place that teaches people how to jump out of airplanes. And I did that for for a year. So it's, it's really fun because watching, you know, watching people go through the process of of training to jump out of an aircraft, and then sort of their very first time on an aircraft might takes off, and you can see the, you know, sort of the realization that they're not going to land with the plane for the first time in their life. You know, they're they're not going to be in the plane when it lands. That's always, you know, it's always a good time. And then, of course, when you know, then there's another realization, moment when the doors pop open right, and the doors, doors on the aircraft are opened so the jump masters can start making checks, you know, and out, yeah, and they're looking, you know, their eyes get larger and larger, you know, as as preparations for the jump. You know, when they're stood up and they're hooked up inside the aircraft, and then finally, you know, told to exit. Yeah, it's interesting. And during the time when I worked there, that's when I was eligible, because I was a senior lieutenant at that time, that I could apply to become a Green Beret. I could go through special forces training if I was selected. So I left from Fort Benning, I went up to Fort Bragg, now fort liberty, and went through the selection, Special Forces Assessment, selection, and was selected to become a Special Forces soldiers that I went to Fort Bragg, you know, spent the year or so becoming qualified to be a special forces team leader, and then the next I spent the next 20 years of my Army career in various units at at Fort liberty, and third Special Forces Group, Special Forces Command, seven Special Forces Group, Special Operations recruiting, just, you know, bouncing around in different assignments and then, but obviously during that time, 911, happened, and you know, was on the initial invasion in 2003 up in, up into the north. We were flying in from Romania, you know, before the war started. And so being there during that phase of the Iraq combat in Iraq, and then going to Afghanistan and and spending multiple, multiple tours and multiple years in Afghanistan. So, so   Michael Hingson ** 17:25 did you do much jumping out of airplanes?   Fred Dummar ** 17:29 Yeah, in combat, no. But over the years, yeah, I accumulated quite a few jumps. Because what, you know, every, every unit I was ever assigned to while I was in the army was always one that was, you know, airborne, which are, you know, the designation for units that jump out of airplanes. So   Michael Hingson ** 17:47 have to, yeah, yeah. Well, you're a pretty level headed kind of guy. What was it like the first time you jumped? I mean, you described what it looked like to other people. Do you think that was basically the same for you, or did you, yeah, kind of a thicker skin,   Fred Dummar ** 18:01 yeah, no, no, I think, I think that's why I was able to, you know, in large measure, that's how a lot of us are able to have empathy, right? If we've, if we've, if we've been through it, and we are able to access the memory of, okay, what was it like when I was doing it? It allows us to be, you know, more compassionate to the people that are going through it at that moment for the first time, but yeah, I can remember being in the plane, and then you know, that realization is like, hey, you know, in the pit of your stomach, I'm not, I'm not landing with this plane. And then, you know, the doors opening up, you're like, you know, kind of hey, those, I don't know what the gates of hell look like, but right now, that's that's in my mind, what, what they would look like, you know, and then going out the first time, and and then I think the second time might have been worse, because it was the anticipation of, oh, wait a minute, we're doing that again. And by the but if you do five jumps to qualify before you're given your parachute as badge, so I think by the third one, I'd come to terms with, with, with dealing and managing. You know, you know the fear of it, of leaving an airplane. And people you know often ask, you know when, when you're older and you're past the 100 jump mark, you know it's like, still, is there still fear and like, I think, I think, if there's not, I mean, then you know, there's probably something wrong with you, but, but it's not, it's nowhere near you know how it is when you know your First learning and your first learning to trust yourself and trust the equipment and trust the process. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 19:45 what you're learning a little bit along the way is to how to control fear. And you mentioned my book earlier, the one that's coming out live like a guide dog, which is all about trying to teach people to control fear, because we have so many things happen to. Us, or we think about so many things, that we develop so many fears consciously or not, that when something does unexpectedly happen to us, especially something that isn't necessarily a positive thing, we just automatically go into a fear reaction mode. And the the reality is it doesn't need to be that way you can learn to control fear, which is what we talk about in live like a guide dog, because it's important that people recognize you can learn to control fear. I would never say, Don't be afraid. Yeah, but I think you can learn to control fear, and by doing so, then you use that fear to help guide you and give you the the the the tools to really be able to move forward and focus. But most people don't really spend much time doing that. They don't learn introspection. They don't learn how to to slow down and analyze and develop that mind muscle so that later you can analyze incredibly quickly.   Fred Dummar ** 21:06 Yeah, we in the army, we call that stress inoculation, good description, you know, it's, you know, once you're, once you're, you've learned to deal with stress, or deal with, you know, stressful, fearful things. Then, you know, the next time you're you're better equipped. And that fear and that stress can be, you know, can be continually amped up. I used to laugh when I was doing Special Forces recruiting, because the you know, it would require a special physical for candidates to go get a special physical before they could come to training. And one of the boxes we would joke about was, I have no fear of heights or enclosed spaces. No everybody has those fears, is whether you can, you can manage those fears and deal with. You know, things are very uncomfortable. Well, that's   Michael Hingson ** 22:05 really it. It's all about managing. And so I'm sure that they want you to check no, that you don't have those fears when you're when you're going through. But at the same time, what you're hopefully really saying is you can manage it. Yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 22:20 that you can manage and that's why I was saying, that's why I would always laugh, because of course, everyone has those fears and but learning to deal with them and and how you deal with them, and that that's, you know, one of the things I discuss in one of the chapters of the book I'm writing is, is, you know when fear, when fear comes to You, you know, how do you deal with it and how do you overcome it? I think people are more and more recognizing you know that there are techniques through stress inoculation, you know, things like that. They'll teach you how you can overcome fear. And you know simple breathing techniques to you know, slow down your breathing and engage your brain, not just your brain stem, right? When you breathe, it fast, your brain stem is in charge, not your brain and yeah, and think your way through things, rather than just reacting as a, you know, as a frightened animal,   Michael Hingson ** 23:19 right? And it's one of the things that that, as I discuss in the book, and I talk to people about now a lot, that although I didn't realize it for many years, after September 11, I had developed a mindset on that day that said, You know what to do, because I had spent a lot of time learning what to do, how to deal with emergencies, what the rules were, and all that, and all of that just kicked in on September 11, which is as good as it could get.   Fred Dummar ** 23:45 Yeah. Well, Michael, you have a you have a distinct advantage. You had a distinct advantage a couple of them, but, but one being, you know, because you already live in a world without light in your sight, you're not dependent on that. And so another, when other people are, you know, in, you know, when I'm reading the book, I'm nodding my head knowingly, you know, as you're talking about being in the stairwell and other people being frightened, and you're just like, this is okay. This is an average, I mean, maybe unusual circumstances, but an average day for me,   Michael Hingson ** 24:21 yeah. But they side of it is, I know lots of blind people who would be just as much in fear as anyone else. It's the fact is, of course, we didn't know what was going on. Yes, September 11, a   Fred Dummar ** 24:35 bit of ignorance is bliss, right? Yeah. And   Michael Hingson ** 24:38 that was true for everyone. I had a great imagination. I could tell you that I imagine things that could happen that were a whole lot worse than in a sense, what did, but I, but I like science fiction and horror, so I learned how to imagine well, but the fact is that it isn't so much being blind that's an advantage, really. Really was the preparation. And so the result was that I had done that. And you know, of course, the airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. So the reality is going down the stairs. None of us knew what happened. We figured out an airplane hit the building because we started smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. But by the same token, that was all we knew. We didn't even know that tower two had been hit until, well, much later, when we got outside, colleagues saw David Frank, my colleague saw tower two was on fire, but we still didn't know what it was from. So yeah, the the fact is that blindness may or may not really be an advantage, but preparation certainly was, yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 25:43 how you reacted, how you reacted to being blind. Because, yeah, you can just, just like anything, right? You can react in in several different ways, and how you acted, how you built your life around,   Michael Hingson ** 25:54 sure. And most people, of course, just rely on reading signs. And so they also have the fear, what if I can't read the signs. What if there's smoke and all that? And again, they they build fears rather than doing the smart thing, which is just to learn what to do in the case of an emergency when you're in a building like that. But you know, it is part of what what we do talk about, and it is, it is pretty important that people start to learn a little bit more that they can control fear. I mean, we have in our in our whole world, politicians who just do nothing but promote fear, and that's unfortunate, because we all buy into it, rather than stepping back and go, Wait a minute. It doesn't need to be that way.   Fred Dummar ** 26:37 Yeah, I think the other thing, like you talked about your your preparation and training. And I always that was one of the way ways, or one of the things that brought me to ultra marathoning, you know, after my initial training in Special Forces, was, you know, if you're, if you're going to push your capacity to see, you know what you're what you're really capable of, or build, you know, build additional reserves. So, you know, if you are counted on to do something extraordinary or in extenuating circumstances, what do you really have, you know, yeah, how far can you really push yourself? And so it really brought me into the sport of ultra running, where, you know, the distances, or those distances that exceed a marathon. So a marathon being, you know, 26 miles, yeah. So the first ultra marathon is a 50k because, you know, Marathon is 42 so eight kilometers farther. And then the next, general, you know, length is 50 miles. And then there's some other, you know, 100k which is 62 miles. And then, kind of the, although, you know, now we see, see races longer, but kind of the the longest distance being 100 mile race and so, and the gold standard in 100 mile racing being, you know, for most, most courses, every course being different, but for most courses, is to finish under 24 hours, so within one one day, but to keep moving for one, you know, one entire day while, you know, while fueling yourself and and, and some people say, Well, you Know, wow, that pace doesn't seem that fast. Troy   Michael Hingson ** 28:22 yourself then and see, yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 28:24 and, like a lot of things, it doesn't, it doesn't exactly seem fast until you're factoring in, okay, but you're still gonna have to stop at some point to you, you know, relieve yourself, and you're gonna have to, you know, walk while you eat. And, you know, there's hills to climb and all these other sorts of obstacles. So, yeah, finishing under 24 hours is, you know, sort of the, you know, the standard, I guess, for the people want to achieve. And anyway, yeah, I became, for a bit there, became addicted to it. And then, so when I met Ivan, my friend, who you were talking about, who, who was, was blinded in in Iraq in 2006 when I met him, he had already been injured, and I realized that he really wanted to run marathons. He'd run one, and had to use, like, several different guides, right? You know, there were different people jumping in and out, and it really wasn't an ideal situation for him and he and he also needed someone who who wanted to do that, who would be a reliable training partner, right? Because it's not like, okay, you know, you might be able to find people that show up on marathon day. Want to run the marathon, or a few people, but, you know, day in, day out, to be training. And so I was like, Hey, this is one of those things that ends up in your path, right, that you can, maybe you can walk around it, but, but for me, when I, you know, when I saw. I was like, Okay, this was, this was something that, you know, for whatever reason, is on my path. I meant to do it. I meant to be the guy that does this. And so, yeah, we started training together. And, you know, ended up running 40 plus marathons together, you know, from London, Chicago, you know, every, every the Marine Corps Marathon, just everywhere. And, you know, summiting Mount Kilimanjaro and running with the bulls together. And then our last race was, it's often referred to as, you know, the world's toughest foot race. It's the marathon to Saab, and it's a, it's a distance race of 150 some miles across the Sahara Desert. And they break it up into stages. So on different days, some days, you run 30 miles. Some days, you know, 26 one day is a 50. I think we were at 53 miles on one of the days. But anyway, and you start the you start that race with whatever you're going to eat and whatever you're going to need, you know, in terms of gear on your back. And the only thing that's provided to you during the race is water. So, and that was our kind of, you know, he's like, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to run, and so I just want to do that before I stop. I stopped, right? So, but anyway, yeah, so that was how I ended up meeting my friend Ivan, and, you know, over the course of a decade and a half, we did all of these, you know, what some people think are incredibly dumb things, but, you know, sort of embracing the discomfort of training and competing to, you know, to make ourselves better, you know? Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 31:44 so while you were in the military, I know you mentioned earlier something about doing some work in as a medic. Did you do that most of your time? Were you specializing in that? Or what?   Fred Dummar ** 31:54 No, no, that was only when I early on, when I was a soldier, I was a medic, and then when I was commissioned, I was commissioned, I was commissioned as an infantry officer, and then, and then, when it became Special Forces, you know, the officer is, sort of has, has no specialty other than leading the team. The team has medics and weapons guys and engineers and communicators and all that. But, you know, the officers sort of assigned as the as the planning the planning agent, you know, the to lead the team, rather than have any of the specialties,   Michael Hingson ** 32:30 right? And you participated long enough that you rose to the rank of colonel. Yeah, yeah, my participation   Fred Dummar ** 32:38 trophy was attaining the rank of colonel. And I would often tell people the arm don't think the army doesn't have a sense of humor. I was promoted to Colonel on April 1, so April Fool's days when, when I was promoted? And yeah, and I, after almost 30 years in uniform, retired in 2015 so I don't know that I would have went that long. But you know, they're about the middle of my career, from 1986 to 2015 you know 911 happened, and for me, it wasn't, it wasn't really a choice to to leave. Then, you know, it was like, Okay, we, you know, we have to do this. These Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, my my very last, my last year in in uniform. I was in Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan commandos. And when I returned from that tour, you know, was told that, hey, I had to, I had to finally leave Fort Bragg after 20 years and and either go to, you know, the Pentagon or another headquarters. And that's when I decided to retire. Because it was like, okay, you know, if, if the wars don't need me anymore, then I, I can go home and do other things. Yeah, I can do other things. If the wars don't need me, you know, then I can probably hang it up. So   Michael Hingson ** 34:11 when did you get married? So   Fred Dummar ** 34:15 over the course of my Army career, I was divorced twice. Yeah, it's just not an easy No, it's not. It's just not an easy lifestyle. I'm not making any excuses for my own failings in that regard. But, you know, it is, it is, I think, easier to become emotionally detached from someone, especially, you know, as in my case, I think I often put the army, first, the army, my soldiers, the mission, you know, as the first on my mind. And you know, for someone else, you know that to be a pretty strong person, to sit in the back seat during that so. And I did not have any children and then, but after I retired, when went through my second and four. I met someone. And so, yeah, we were married in in 2020, and so I had a, I was able, you know, after not having children, my first son was born when I was 50. So I have a son who's, you know, four, four years old, four going on five. And then we decided that, you know, he should have someone to be with. So we were going to have a second child. And my wife had twins, so I have twin, three year old girls. So, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 35:37 you're going to do it. You might as well go all the way, huh?   Fred Dummar ** 35:40 Yeah, and and, and I haven't, and I adopted Rebecca's older, the child that she that she had. And so now we have four children, Alana being much older, she's already finished for freshman year at the University of Michigan, and this get ready to go back to Ann Arbor and continue her studies and and then we have, you know, the small pack of humans that are still here in their pre, pre kindergarten phase. So   Michael Hingson ** 36:10 she is a a Wolverine fan, and there will ever be an Ohio State Buckeye,   Fred Dummar ** 36:18 yeah, something like that. Yeah, that rivalry is pretty intense. And, you know, never being part of a school that was, you know, in that, in that division, you know, not really realizing, well, you know, watching college football, I kind of understand the rival, all the rivalries. But once she started going to Michigan, and, you know, attending a football game there myself. And then, unfortunately, you know, we were able to go to the Rose Bowl this year, which, you know, when Michigan played Alabama. So we were able to go to that together. So, yeah, it was, it's interesting to learn that dynamic. And like, I tell her, it's like, never, never take for granted being part of a big school like that without those sorts of traditions. Absolutely.   Michael Hingson ** 37:06 Yeah, I went to UC Irvine, so we didn't really have a lot with with football, but my wife did her graduate work at USC, and I always like to listen to USC football games. I judge a lot about sports teams by the announcers they hire, I gotta say. And so we've been always so blessed out here in California, although I think that announcing isn't quite what it used to be, but we had good announcers that announced for USC out here on I think it was originally on Kx, and then it went to other stations. But anyway, when we got married, the wedding started late because a bunch of people were sitting out in their cars waiting for the end of the USC Notre Dame game. And so the wedding was 15 minutes late starting because everybody was waiting to see who was going to win the game. And I am quite pleased to say that we won, and God was on our side, as opposed to Notre Dame. And, yeah, the marriage lasted 40 years, so until she, she passed away in 2022 but I love to tell people that, you know, God clearly was on our side, especially when I tell that to my Notre Dame friends,   Fred Dummar ** 38:15 yeah, the touch touchdown, Jesus wasn't, wasn't there for them, not   Michael Hingson ** 38:19 that day. Yeah, but, but, you know, and there's college football is, is in a lot of ways, I just think so much more fun, or it has been than professional. But, you know, now a lot more money is getting into it, which is unfortunate too. Yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 38:37 I think that's caused some of the you know, teams re evaluate what they what they do happen, how they operate. And I think it's forced some of the older coaches to leave the game, yeah, because it's not the game they recognize, so not   Michael Hingson ** 38:53 what they had well. So you've been to a variety of different places. You've been a leader. And I think it's pretty clear that you really still are, but how did all the the different experiences, the different places that you went to, and all the the experiences that you participated in, how does that affect and shape your leadership style?   Fred Dummar ** 39:19 Yeah, Michael, you know, I think one of the first things, right, if you when your surface looking, and some people never go below the surface. So when you talk about things like diversity and inclusion, the things, the things that they will think about that make people divert diverse are not generally what I think about. Because, you know, when you look below the surface, you see a lot of commonalities in the human experience. You know, from my time living, living in Panama and operating in Central and South America, some countries in the in the you know, the Caribbean when I was first in special operations, and then. Obviously, I went and did some time in in Africa, some peacekeeping operations in Nigeria, some other exercises down in the south, southern countries in Africa, and then my time in Iraq and Afghanistan. People, you know, they're they come in different colors. They they have different their path to God or the universe or the higher power that they recognize that the cultural artifacts that they use may may look different, but you know, they're generally pointing if you if you can step aside from your own preconceived notions about things, you can see that they're they're just different signposts to the same God, right to the same, to the same, power to the same, to the same things, and people want the same things, you know, for their families, you know, for for security and prosperity, and you know that that sort of thing. So it's, that's where I, kind of, you know, came to my leadership philosophy, which is pretty easy to remember. It's just lead, lead with love. And you know, if you use, and I haven't tell people, doesn't really matter what denomination you are. If you read, you know, the Gospels of the New Testament purely as a leadership guide. You know it's, it's hard to find a a better leadership example than than what, what Jesus was was doing, you know, the way he was serving others the way he was leading. It's, it's, it's pretty powerful, pretty powerful stuff. And you know, even, even at the end, right during the Last Supper, when he tells people, you know, who, who's the most important is the most important person, the person sitting at the table getting ready to eat, or the person serving, you know. And of course, you as humans, you know, is based on our, you know, the way we think about the world. We think the most important person is, you know, not only the person sitting at the table, but the person at the nicest table, or the head of the table, and not the person serving. And so that was something I tried to embrace during my time in the military, and what I try and embrace now is, you know, being the person that serves others and using your position. You know, if you if, if and when you are promoted or asked to lead that, you approach it from a position of, you know, what? What can I do from this position to help other people and and just be compassionate to their actual circumstances. And that doesn't mean, you know, when people, people hear me say that they're, you know, they think, Well, that's pretty how does that reconcile with you being a Green Beret and being around, you know, a bunch of you know, meat eating savages, you know, how do you how do you reconcile that and like, well, leading with care and compassion doesn't mean you know that I'm coddling anyone, because I'm certainly not coddling anyone you know. You know, I demand high performance for myself and from from people in those positions like that. You know, when I was a member of a special forces organization, but not everybody's supposed to be doing that. And so I think recognizing the circumstances and the people and what the organization's supposed to do or and how it can care for people, I think those are things that became really, really important to me   Michael Hingson ** 43:33 well. And I think you raised some really valid points. The reality is that September 11, for example, was not a religious war, a religious event. It was a bunch of thugs who wanted to have their way with the world. But most people who truly practice the Islamic faith are the same as the rest of us, and they and they seek God just like we do, like Jewish people do and others do, and we've got to keep that in mind, but it's, it's so hard, because we mostly don't step back and evaluate that and realize that those 19 people on those four airplanes are just a bunch of thugs, pure and simple.   Fred Dummar ** 44:15 Yeah, that, yeah, that, and, and the organizations they represent, right? You know, they're, they're, they're, and they're not the only ones, right? People from of all faiths have harnessed, you know,   Michael Hingson ** 44:30 their various back to the Crusades, yeah, you know, you know, their   Fred Dummar ** 44:33 various religions have harnessed themselves up to, you know, to sway people to to hate, or to, you know, to engage in combat or whatever. So yeah, to to lump that all in. I think our, some of our responses, and then also some of the way people think, has really led it led us to a more a more divided we're. Well, then you know that are more inclusive and and you know, thinking of ourselves as one we we think of ourselves as, you know, many and different, and sometimes things that we think would bring us together or help us make things more fair, like, you know, talking about diversity and inclusion, if we aren't really thinking about what we're trying to do and what that looks like, we can end up making the world more divided and less inclusive.   Michael Hingson ** 45:34 And unfortunately, we're seeing way too much of that, and it isn't helping to do that. And hopefully at some point we'll, we'll figure that out, or we'll realize that maybe it's a little bit better, or can be a little bit better than we think. Yeah, and I know you in 2003 did a lot to help the Kurds in northern Iraq, right?   Fred Dummar ** 45:55 Yeah, that was primarily, you know, my, my experience in Iraq was, you know, before the 2003 invasion, I was in Romania with my special forces company. And, yeah, we flew into northern Iraq and linked up with a group of Kurds and from where they were at and primarily our mission, you know, at that point, nobody really knew what Saddam might do when the main offensive of, you know, conventional army, conventional Marine Corps, British, you know, other allies, started from the south towards Baghdad. What would Saddam do? Would he, you know, send his forces in the north against the Kurds to create a destabilizing effect, you know, one both killing Kurds, but causing Kurds to flee to Syria and Iran, and, you know, probably most importantly for people that were planning to Turkey, you know, to further destabilize the region. So obviously, out of a desire to protect, help protect the Kurds and help stop or prevent something like that from happening. You know, we went in a couple weeks before the actual ground war started, we were in place with the Kurds and started organizing them to to defend themselves. And do you know, take back the land that they considered theirs, because, after, you know, Desert Storm, the you know, the 90s, the 90s war against Iraq, Saddam had pushed into Kurdish territory and established, you know, what he referred to as a, you know, his, his buffer zone. And then, you know, the US had been forcing a, you know, a no fly zone up in the Kurdish areas, but the Kurds had still never been allowed to go back to some of the cities that they considered theirs. So, you know, when we got in there with them, we were able to get, you know, move currents that have been forced out of those towns moved back into their towns and and our particular sector we we cleared down to Mosul Iraq, which, you know, people in the Bible will recognize As as the city of Nineveh. Or maybe not know that, but yeah, so we were, I was able to go drive through the, you know, the biblical, the some of the remains of the, you know, city of Nineveh as we got to Mosul. And then once we were there, that was sort of when, you know, we stole the Kurdish allies that, hey, you guys can go back to go back home, and then at that point us, we're only there a few days before us conventional forces. Now this is a couple months into the war, but us conventional forces made their way up there, and, you know, started doing stabilizing the city, and it was probably best to get the Kurdish militia out of there at that point, for things between the Kurds and the Arabs continue to deteriorate. So yeah, but it was a it was a great experience for me being with the Kurds and helping them, you know, sort of move through and retake towns that they had historically lived in. And, you know, along the way we passed and were able to clear Assyrian monastery that's on one of the mountains on the route to Mosul. So some, definitely, some history along the way, history lessons along the way. I   Michael Hingson ** 49:38 had the pleasure of going to Israel last year in August, okay? And spent a day in Jerusalem, so we got to go to the Western Wall and so on. And I really appreciated, and do appreciate, the history and just the awesomeness of of being there and touching the the temple and the wall that's been there for so long. And, you know, there is so much history over there that I really wish people would more appreciate and and on all sides, would figure out how they could become better at working with each other. One of these days, there's going to have to be peace, or it's going to really get a whole lot worse, very quickly,   Fred Dummar ** 50:21 yeah, for sure. Yeah, it was. It was interesting, though, when we were there, obviously watching the various groups of, you know, Syrians, Kurds, Arabs and others that had various claims to different parts of Mosul and different parts of the area around it. So it's fascinating, you know, to watch history try and unwind itself from some of the decisions that were made. You know, post World War Two, when lines were being drawn in the desert to create countries and and the ramifications of that? Yeah. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 51:06 you certainly have a perspective that's built on a lot of knowledge and being there, which I think is great on the other hand, well, not on the other hand. But then you left the military that that had to be a major change in terms of what you had been doing and what you were used to after almost 30 years. What's it like when you decide to make that kind of a major change and then, in your case, go back into civilian life? Yeah. So   Fred Dummar ** 51:38 my first, my first step, wasn't that far away from the military. And I started referring it. Referred to my first job as sort of an addiction clinic, because I went, I went to work as a house, yeah, I went to work as a contractor, or, you know, defense contractor. I went back to Afghanistan for about a year and a half running training programs for some of the Afghan special operations forces. So, you know, it was, it was really, you know, there was, if I, if I was a heroin addict, you know, I was in the methadone clinic, you know, trying to, trying to get off of it. And then, yeah, I realized, you know, kind of needed to go home. And my marriage, you know, dissolved, and so it's like, Hey, I probably time to, like, go home and have, you know, a different kind of life. And I moved into a civilian job with a friend, a friend at the time, who was doing investment training around the world. And he's like, Hey, we, you know, I know you're, you will travel. There's a lot of people that, when I talk to him about travel, it's involved with our business, you know, they don't, don't really want to do that. And he's like, but I know, you know, from where you're at. And he's like, hey, I'll buy, buy a ticket. Fly to Hong Kong, see what our business is about. So I went there and learned about the investment training they were doing in Hong Kong and throughout Southeast Asia. And then they had an office in Johannesburg, and, you know, one in London, Canada and the US and doing all this training. And so for about a year, little over a year, I worked in that business and and learned, you know, the various things that they were doing. You know how they were teaching people to invest in real estate and stocks and that sort of thing. Started doing it myself less, as I wish I would have known earlier in my life, but started doing that, and then when I left that company, that's a lot of what I've been doing. I've taken some smaller jobs and smaller contract projects. But by and large, that's basically what I've been doing since then, is, you know, working in real estate investing or real estate projects   Michael Hingson ** 53:50 and continuing to hone your leadership skills. Yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 53:54 yeah. Well, you know, I kept continue to work with or a couple of, you know, jobs where I was helping people start up businesses, you know, as either in CEO role or in an operations role to help help them start their businesses. So I did some of that which, which is always fun. It's great working with new talent and establishing procedures and helping people grow that way. So that was, that was really fun. And then got to be part of a couple of nonprofits, Special Forces, Charitable Trust, probably my longest stint. I did that for, you know, about seven or eight years on the board of directors, you know, running, helping to develop activities and programs to support our Special Forces veteran. So, yeah, it was, it's been, it's been fun. And then obviously having a new family and spending a lot of time in my role as a dad has been probably the most rewarding.   Michael Hingson ** 54:53 Yeah, I bet. And that is, that's always so much fun, and you get to help bring some. New people along into the world and hopefully help to make a difference that way. And on top of that, you continue to study. You're getting a PhD. You mentioned it earlier, but you're getting a PhD in organizational psychology and leadership. There we go with the leadership again.   Fred Dummar ** 55:14 Yeah, you know, it's, it's fun, because, you know, when I do get the opportunity to speak at events. I move around and speak at different events. I know you do a lot of speaking. You probably do much more than I do, but the events I do speak at, I want to make sure that sometimes being a practitioner of something doesn't always mean that you have the exact language or the academic credentials to go along with being a practitioner. And I've been a practitioner of leadership for so many years, but now studying it and applying, you know, one working towards an academic credential in this says, Hey, this, this guy knows what he's talking about. But then also having, you know, the the latest developments. And studies on leading people effectively and and how people are doing it wrong, and how you can help them. I think it's, it's been, it's been, been a great journey to be on as well, especially keeping my mind active in in all things leadership and helping organizations do it better.   Michael Hingson ** 56:21 Well, you, you have been a leader for a long time, but now you're studying it. Would you say that you're also discovering new things along the way? And you know, I guess what I'm getting at is, of course, none of us are ever so much an expert that we can't afford to learn more things. Oh   Fred Dummar ** 56:39 yeah, for sure, both, both learning new things, learning why I might have done things wrong based on, you know, studies, you know, like, okay, you know, if you if you have this type of personality, you might do this wrong, or things I was doing right, but not exactly, knowing all of, You know all of the mechanisms that were going into why I was making that decision. But you know, when you look at the psychology behind it, and you look at organizational structure structures, you look at cultural artifacts within organizations, then you can start to you start to unwind why teams do what they do, why leaders are developed, the way they're developed, and why people make certain decisions. And, yeah, it's been fascinating, you know, and then also looking back, as you said, back at things that you did, decisions that you made, and what you know, what you could have done better as you as you look that, through that, and how you can help someone else, and that's also really helped me further, you know, synthesize down this way that I look at at leading people with with love and compassion and why it's so important to be that servant type of leader, you know, not just a transformational leader that's trying to transform an organization to move that, but then, you know, how do you serve and care for the care for the people that are that are going to be part of that transformation?   Michael Hingson ** 58:10 Yeah, because if you are just looking at it from the standpoint of being a transformational leader, I'm going to change this organization that that doesn't really work. And I think that the most important aspect is being a servant leader, is being a person who serves, because that also opens you up to learning along the way and learning how to serve better.   Fred Dummar ** 58:34 Yeah. And you know, as I learned in the many organizations that I was part of over, you know, my time in Special Forces is, you know, just because, you know, alluding, you know, we were discussing roles, and I was saying, you know, this officer's role to often, to plan and to lead, but that other people are the experts. And that's something you know. The sooner you embrace that fact, the faster, the faster you become effective, and the more effective you are when you realize that understanding the people and and caring and serving them, and then getting their their best performance and understanding what they know and what they can do, and where you need to put them to maximize their potential, then those things start to become the most important thing that you're doing, how you know, how people play against each other, who works well with who? How that works, how that betters the organization. Those are all, all all things that are fascinating, you know, to me, and things that kept me up at night, trying to figure out, you know, how to how to be more efficient, how to take better care of people, while, you know, getting, not only getting the best out of them, but them, realizing they were giving their best and being happy and proud of what they. Were doing   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:01 and getting the best out of you as well.   Fred Dummar ** 1:00:03 Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, bringing the best out of them is bringing the best out of me, right?   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:08 So you've gotten work also in the nonprofit sector. You're continuing to do that, yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 1:00:13 yeah, yeah. Now, after leaving this Special Forces Charitable Trust, I realized, you know, after I'd moved out to Idaho, where I live now that I wasn't as connected to the regiment as I'd been my first retired and I was still kind of in the North Carolina area or but after moving out here, you know, just felt like that. I probably there were other guys more recently retired, knew more of the things that needed to be done. So stepping down from that organization. And then, obviously, one of the other things that happened was, you know, the the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the fall of Afghanistan, and I found myself with many other Afghan veterans, sort of, you know, both wondering, you know what it all meant, why? You know, and then, but then also what we can do. You know, not dwelling too long. I know, you know, poor me. You know what? You know. Why did I go? What did it mean? But more so, hey, you know, we had a bunch of people that we made promises to, a bunch of people that follow alongside America, some certainly, you know, in the interest of Afghanistan. But there were also many, many of the especially on the Afghan Special Operations sides, that were not always necessarily doing things at the behest of the Afghan government, but operating with US forces on things that the US wanted to do, but then, you know, we're sort of left hanging when during the withdrawal. So, you know, working alongside other veterans to try and get as many of those people out during the withdrawal and then. But so now I work with an operation or a organization called Operation recovery that is still following these families, following these cases, people that are either still in Afghanistan, some in hiding, some in other countries, illegally, but trying to help them resolve visa issues and either get to Canada or the United States or someplace in Europe, just someplace safe for them and their family, away from the from the Taliban. And so that's been it, and it's, it's hard work, you know, because the in work like that, we're trying to make government bureaucracies realize that they should be issuing visas or allowing people to move, it's not always a rapid process. So feels like, and, you know, and I'm not pointing fingers as if anyone should still, you know, be completely focused on Afghanistan. But you know, other things happen. You know, Ukraine, the war in Ukraine draws attention away. You know, the war in Israel. You know, hurricanes, storms, everything that's going on. You know, Assassination comes. You know, assassination attempts, you know, all of that stuff diverts people's you know, draws people attend. You know their attention to that. And I'm not sure many people, you know, they support the troops. And you know, you often hear them, you know, you know, thanking troops for their service. And the only response I can have to that, you know, for for for years, I struggled with how to respond to that. When someone would say, Thank you for your service, you know, just Okay, thank you. You know, I don't know, thanks for your support, but you know, I heard a good response, and I've been using it since, and it's like, America's worth it. So,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:54 yeah, on top of everything else that you do, you've also been dabbling or going into real estate a little bit, yeah,   Fred Dummar ** 1:04:01 yeah. So that's, that's a lot of what I've been doing, you know, for because, you know, providing for your family, right? So, yeah, I started doing some investment real estate, and out here, got a partner, we did, worked on a couple of mobile home parts, larger projects. And I still, once a week, I still teach a clas

Welcome to the One CA Podcast. I'm your host, Jack Gaines.  Today, Colonel Andreas Eckel, commander of the NATO CIMIC Center of Excellence, joins us to discuss the center's work to prepare the alliance for future crises or disasters.    So, let's get started.  --- One CA is a product of the civil affairs association  and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership. We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations.  To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com  or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www.civilaffairsassoc.org --- Special thanks to Jan Křtitel Novák, Jimmy McHugh, and Dorothy Fields for the original version of Diga Diga Do, which aired in 1928 and was then performed by Duke Ellington.  Ellington's version can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3aJ_9IAIjQ&t=1s --- Transcript 00:00:05 JACK GAINES Welcome to the One CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. Today, Colonel Andreas Echel, commander of the NATO Civic Center of Excellence, joins us to discuss the center's work to prepare the alliance for future crisis and disasters. So let's get started. 00:00:19 ANDREAS ECKEL What we need to understand a little bit better, and I think that was a very brutal lesson we identified in Afghanistan and in Mali as well, is that military functions in different societies. very, very differently. We have an idea how military looks like and how it works. It might work more the Italian style or the German style or the US style. But basically, I think we have a common set of ideas how military works. And military works completely different in Mali than in Afghanistan than in Germany. And that is based on different societies. So how do we figure that out? It's a very good question. If I had a quick and sharp answer to that one, I think I would be the winner of the $1 million question. There are some ingredients to tackle that problem. And one of the ingredients is to understand the environment a little bit better. And that leads to civil military cooperation. The one centerpiece of civil military cooperation is to understand the environment better. to nest military activities in the civil environment in a better way. It creates more converging effects and creates less harm to the civil population. And I think the next thing is you need to have long -lasting relationships. Relationship that is built up, that's great. If it lasts one year, that's great. And if you just end it then, Basically, you have achieved almost nothing. So long -lasting relationships and to understand the civil environment better. And we have to understand that we are not the ivory tower of knowledge. What do we know? What does the military know about Mali and Afghanistan? Basically nothing. We have to be more and better in contact with the civil organizations, with academia, with knowledge centers. that are engaged in those areas since 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And we have to be in a dialogue with them and have to extract their knowledge about the key civil factors and have to integrate that better in military considerations. 00:02:32 JACK GAINES So you have to be a diplomat in two directions because you've got to be reaching out to the partner nation like Mali, working with her counterparts there. You have to be a diplomat with partner agencies within the government and academia, as you were saying, or else you're going to miss a step. So you really have to work your way across the spectrum. 00:02:52 ANDREAS ECKEL Yeah, I like your picture of being a diplomat because exactly as you mentioned, it's a diplomat in both ways, but you have to be a translator as well. So civil environment, civil actors, civil counterparts speak a different language than we. And we really have to make sure that what they say. is understood by the military and what the military means properly translated in how the civilians understand it. 00:03:17 JACK GAINES You know, and that's a good point because I've seen civil affairs civic officers come in and try to brief leadership on certain issues. And if it wasn't absolutely clear and in the language that that matter knew, they usually were dismissed and it wasn't as effective an operation because of it. 00:03:34 ANDREAS ECKEL And by the way, at the beginning of my career in the military function of CIMIC, it happened to me too. So one of my first appearance of the stage briefing the commander about some civil factors was a complete disaster because I underestimated how many minutes I only have to bring over some key messages to the commander. So I talked too long and did not come to the point. And I think that's the point where the CCOE is really in a responsibility. We have to provide in our courses the overview, the background, and we provide expertise and challenge them with tasks to apply the expertise. But at the very end of every course, we tell them, hey, CIMIC is important, and it is important to understand the environment, and it is important to integrate civil factors and military considerations. However, when you are confronted with decision makers, Your product needs to be crisp and sharp. If you provide a product to your commander, which exceeds three pages, then you can throw it in the dustbin. By the way, one page is better than three pages. And I think simakers have the tendency, and I include myself specifically into that one, to speak too long and to explain too long and not to come to the point. And if at the end of your statement there is no so what and what's next, well, then don't say anything. That's better. 00:05:08 JACK GAINES Well, for this podcast, I appreciate you speaking too much. That's a good thing. But I also understand it's a challenge, but once you get used to it, I think it's super, super helpful. 00:05:19 ANDREAS ECKEL helpful. What we both concluded coming to the point should not be mixed up with not doing your analysis. Only because you have two minutes to brief your commander about a major actor that will impact his operation. doesn't mean that your analysis should only be two minutes. So you have to provide the analysis for an in -depth briefing, if required, to integrate that knowledge and your assessment in the staff work of the other branches. So it needs to be both a very in -depth, precise analysis and assessment. And then it is your time on the stage. The light will shine on you for two minutes. That's it. 00:05:59 JACK GAINES That brings up a story on my side. sent one of my pitch decks to a former boss. And he took it, he read it, and then he read all of the sources that I had put in the back. And so he knew the subject just as well as I did when we met. And I was like, holy cow. Yes, it's important to do good research before you put together your summary because you never know how deep somebody's going to dive into an issue. And if you've done bad research and they catch it, you're done. So one of the things that... Being that diplomat, both to the military and to other government bodies. One thing that I found at the Strategic Foresight Conference, and it was in your report as well, is that SIMIC needs clarification of capabilities in peace and crisis. And what feedback I got from meetings was that not all militaries have a strong relationship with their public. That's a big concern because if a military doesn't have the trust. When you get to a crisis or a disaster, you've got to really overcome a lot in order just to provide aid and support. 00:07:07 ANDREAS ECKEL Yeah, that's a crucial point. I have two takes on that. The first one is we have nations that do allow, on the very lowest tactical level, the interaction between military and the civil world. But it is a question of being honest to ourselves. That is not applicable in all countries. Our countries in the alliance are very restrictive interaction with civil environment, with civil authorities, at least on the lower tactical level. And that brings me to my second point. It's a national responsibility. So when we talk about CIMIC as a military function, then we have to look at it from two sides. One is NATO CIMIC is embedded in a NATO command structure, NATO force structure. However, NATO is operating. on the soil of sovereign nations. So we promote and stimulate that nations build up, maintain, and integrate a kind of simic capability. We call that domestic simic. We made a proposal for what domestic simic is. However, nations are completely free to fill that skeleton with their structures. They can call it a domestic simic. They can call it territorial forces. They can call it Homeland Defense Forces. It doesn't matter how they fill in that skeleton as long as they do provide civil factor integration, as long as they execute civil -military interaction. And for the Alliance as a whole to plan and prepare and conduct successful operations, we need to plug in to the national simic domains and the domestic simic domains. And we have to do that. via the national military structures. So what we do in deterrence and defense -related scenarios is a little bit differing from what we have done in international crisis management in the past. When CIMIC teams from the alliance or whatever security force was implemented in that, we very often did the civil -military interaction with civil partners on the ground by ourselves without using any layer in between us. But when we do that now as NATO in Germany and Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and we have to plug into their military structures and via them with the civil actors on the ground. And nations consider that very differently. So there are nations that say, hey, great that you're in. Please feel free to speak to our civil organizations by yourself. It would be nice if you inform us afterwards. Everything's great. The nations are more restrictive and say, hey, guys. a ministry, whenever you talk to an organization, whenever you talk to civil partners, please do that via us and ask us first. So there is a variety of how nations would like to have that executed, and we as Symmakers have to adapt. 00:10:08 JACK GAINES Right. What I've seen is that disaster relief and crisis coordination between the military and the civil governments is fairly good, but I'm not seeing the emotional side as much. What I mean is, We just had the Marine Corps Marathon. And people all crossed D .C. and around the country came. They ran their 24 miles. These kind of military events where people go, they see some type of form of patriotism, honor guards at sporting events or marathons or the military band performing on the park plots. Those things make a difference. And I don't know if that was also included in your... Have you seen anything like that? 00:10:55 ANDREAS ECKEL In the last years, when we talked about the use of military assets in our nations, it was to overcome disasters. It was to provide military assistance to civil organizations to overcome flooding, fires, or whatever. But the situation has changed a little bit. And now it is not so much about military assistance in case of man -made big disasters. It's more about civil defense. It's more about stimulating the civil support to military operations and the mutual support in case of crisis and war. And I think that notion is quite new to many European countries. In Germany, it was... support of the military to the civil authorities in case of disasters. But when you look into Sweden, Norway, and Finland, they have since decades a kind of total defense strategy. They have a DNA about that the whole of the nation needs to be ready to defend the nation. And that starts already when you go into your cellar. Is there water? Is there food? Are there batteries? And when you do that in Finland, Sweden, Norway, the answer is yes, there is food and there is water. And I was quite astonished. A couple of years ago, I had a NATO course in Helsinki. At that time, when Helsinki was still a NATO partner and not a NATO nation. And it was an exported course from NATO School of Ammergau. And during the weekend, we had the opportunity to visit Helsinki. And we... came across a protection infrastructure was located to protect the civilians. And the lady asked us, do you have an idea for how many citizens of Helsinki we have shelter? And I said, well, 50%. And she was smiling and she was collecting all the numbers. And then she came up and said, for every citizen in Helsinki, there is shelter. And that's the difference. A regularly trained system of civil defense. And military defense working hand in hand. I think that makes a difference. And I see that coming up in Europe. And again, I would like to use the example of Germany. Since the last couple of years, a lot of more effort has been put into the training and the exchange of information and the exercising of those structures. And I think we are getting there. The point is... When you have dismantled those structures, those strategies since 1990, because our enemy was disappearing, never disappeared. He was just dormant and has been woken up a couple of years ago. But to reinstall that, reactivate that, revitalize that, that takes years and years. So we are at the beginning. I'm a very optimistic person. I strongly hope that we are getting to a point quick enough that when The Russian beer is looking again to Europe when he has solved his problem in Ukraine, that we are ready at that point. And there are substantial measurements that we need to be ready latest in four to five years. And CIMIC plays a role in that because your armed forces can be as good as possible when the civil environment is vulnerable and stays vulnerable and is not able to absorb shocks and to compensate the shocks at a better level after the shock. then you will lose the conflict. That's crystal clear. Even in that time in 2023, where it seemed, at least for some time, that the Ukrainians have regained the initiative, the Russians did attack the civil infrastructure, the energy infrastructure, the transport infrastructure, the health infrastructure. And they were still winning at that battlefield, although they had massive casualties on the fighting battlefield. And I think where Ukraine will run into massive problems this year is that the Russians may not have the big tactical victory. They may not have the breakthrough through the Ukrainian defense lines. But what they will do is they will seriously damage the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, health infrastructure, transport infrastructure. Third year in a row. And I'm not sure if the Ukrainians will be really able to compensate that this time. 00:15:40 JACK GAINES It's a real challenge. The thing that I see with Ukraine is that there's also a recruiting issue. They're struggling to keep up with manpower. And there's some international volunteers coming in, but probably not enough compared to what the Russians are bringing in. So it's a challenge of numbers in a lot of ways. They do build that trust and that familiarity with the military. So having the military band come out and play on the Konigstrasse makes a difference. Or like they did in Poland, having American and Polish troops go with a vehicle and park in the middle of a Platz and take photos with kids, it makes a difference. 00:16:24 ANDREAS ECKEL You're right. Your argument is good. And it connects pretty well with the... decisions we have to make in Europe right now. And that decision is that we have to nest the military better into the societies. But what needs to be installed, reactivated, and built up is a whole of society approach for resilience and civil defense. 00:16:52 JACK GAINES Okay. The biggest challenge right now is sabotage, which has been happening. in and around Europe, the Chinese ship that cut the communication lines, the water poisoning in Germany. So there seems to be already challenges in security. 00:17:09 ANDREAS ECKEL SIMIC plays, first of all, a vital role in understanding the impact of such events, as we do not only look at the impact on military infrastructure and military organizations and units, but it's our task to look how those events impact the civil actors in the civil environment. And that will have definitely a result on the capability of a civil environment to provide support to military activities. So it's a kind of circle. And we are pushing that constantly to have a permanent assessment cycle on what we do, what happens to us, how does that impact the civil environment and the impacted civil environment? How is that still able? to provide the support to the military. And I think as we are in that position to have those connections to the other organizations and to provide a holistic assessment about the civil environment, that plays a vital role in that one. Absolutely. 00:18:11 JACK GAINES So do you see that as the future of CIMIC from now going forward is to build that more holistic partner nation? 00:18:17 ANDREAS ECKEL I would like to use the... definition of multi -domain operations as it is currently used in NATO, and that is the orchestration of all military activities to achieve converging effects. And I see the future role of CIMIC very much in that synchronization effort. So military capabilities are much, much less available than in the past. So when we think about what we need about capacities and resources to achieve our military strategic objectives, when we go into the details, 60, 70, partly 80 % of what we need as resource is not generated within the military. It needs to be contracted and provided by a civil environment. And that means that there needs to be a constant assessment process about the availability of those 60, 70, 80 % civil support. And it needs to be thoroughly assessed because that has a pushing out effect on the civil environment. When we use the trains for military equipment, then those trains cannot be used to support and supply the civil environment. So I think the future of CIMEC is in that synchronization bit with the non -military activities to reach those converging effects. And that pretty much fits into the whole of government, whole of society approach of defense. 00:19:49 JACK GAINES Interesting. So CIMIC is in multi -domain operations, has its own multi -domain operation because it's coordinating the civil, government, NGOs, whoever is not formal military. in cooperation or in conjunction with the military's multi -domain operations. So you've got a multi -tiered coordination process. 00:20:12 ANDREAS ECKEL process. I think we do not run our own multi -domain operations. A multi -tiered task, I think that that captures it quite well. But I personally prefer to speak more about cooperation because coordination is a very tricky expression, especially in Europe. as coordination requires someone who allows to be coordinated and someone who has a coordinating authority. And in the interaction with our civil partners, it's more cooperation, ranging from we do exist beside each other to full integrated planning and operations. There's a continuum of that area of cooperation. So I do really prefer to speak more about cooperation than coordination. 00:21:04 JACK GAINES Is there any other topics or thoughts that you want to add to the conversation? 00:21:11 ANDREAS ECKEL For me, it's really important to highlight the future concepts like multi -domain operations and to establish and maintain the connection with the current concepts. So it is important to keep the future world of NATO connected to the current operational world of NATO. That is exactly why we run the annual Simic Foresight Conference, is to connect the here and now with the time period of one to two years to the future concepts, 10, 20 years. And secondly, the closer connection and the better synchronization of the national efforts with the alliance efforts. That is really, I think, a key centerpiece of our future success. So in my understanding, it is ongoing. It is happening in the alliance as we speak right now. So alliance, joint headquarters, strategic headquarters have established contacts to national military authorities and do exchange information. But I think that needs to become more intensive, more regularly and more information flow to both sides. And that needs to be not only... foreseen conceptually and structurally, it needs to be trained and exerciseda reagularly. And I think that's really a clear measurement of success if we are able to exercise it in the future massively. And thirdly, I think the aspect of human security and protection of civilians, that is something which creates a dilemma for every military leader because he would like to achieve his military objectives. That is either to defeat the enemy or to force him to do something or to force him to stay away from something, which means the application of massive violence to the enemy. However, when we learn something from the recent international crisis or from the war in Ukraine, then what we have learned is the battlefield is full of civilians that have requirements, that have needs. The battlefield is full of organizations, non -governmental governmental organizations that try to provide a certain amount of services to the civilians. And it doesn't matter if it is a war zone or the rear area or the area behind the rear area. We have to realize that it is and will remain full of civilians. To evacuate a city like Kiev is nonsense. That will never happen. 23 million people. Yeah, good luck with that one. And even if you try, the majority of the capabilities will be provided by the civilian world. So human security, protection of civilians are concepts which are mandatory for NATO. NATO has adhered to it. We have adopted it in our strategies, in our plans, into our operations. But what does that really mean? How do we really translate protection of civilian and human security? into operations on the operational and even on the tactical level. And I think that needs some assistance, how to operationalize it, how to conduct, how to do it. This assistance, in my understanding, is called mindset and SIMIC. Terrific. It's good to do SIMIC, but you have to talk about it. It's good to increase the awareness, but you have to publish it. So I am very grateful and very thankful to have the opportunity to talk with you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much and have a good day. 00:25:00 JACK GAINES working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U.S. relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, One CA Podcast.

"When I was in college I saw a lot of people struggling, not just myself, because it's just a very difficult time."  Tessa (Tess) Barrett won the 2013 Foot Locker National Cross Country Championship as a senior in High School. She was featured on a billboard in her hometown! The highs were high, and it could seem like everything was going well at the time. But she was also struggling with her own health, and with a sick parent. She went on to compete at Penn State, grieving the loss of a parent and navigating the often-fraught world of collegiate athletics, with a lot of eyes on her.  Tess eventually moved to Washington DC where she trains and competes with Georgetown Running Club, and had a huge year on the run in 2024. She won a couple of local races, including the Marine Corps Marathon with a personal best of 2:39:38. We talk about all of the above, and how Tess balances running with working, and having a life, on this episode.  Follow Tessa Barrett on Instagram @tessabarrett_ and via the Georgetown Running Club updates.  Lane 9 working to improve the menstrual and mental health of female-bodied athletes. Connect with a practitioner or coach through the Lane 9 directory by going to Lane9Project.org. Follow on Instagram @Lane9Project.

Amy Shinneman was born with Muscular Dystrophy but wasn't diagnosed until the age of 44. During this episode, we talk about: How her and her husband, Jamie, did the 50th year at Berlin and NYC … maybe Marine Corps Marathon in 2025? Tokyo in 2027? All about the Berlin Marathon and getting to Europe for the first time  Tackling the World Majors and how they're thinking about it  Living undiagnosed with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy for 44 years  What it was like becoming a mom with an (unknown) disability  How she finally got a diagnosis of Bethlem Myopathy and how life was different after The MDA and the work she's done with them  What it's like being a mom with a disability     How her husband, Jamie, got into running because of their kids  Getting a duo bike from MDA and doing her first marathon with her husband pushing at the Chicago Marathon  How her son finished third in his age group at the New York City Marathon and received a Tiffany's plate    Race experiences and what she keeps in the duo bike during a race  How one of her sons taught her to run on an underwater treadmill  Using stem cell therapy as a way to treat MD The mental health side of having a disability  “Once you've met a person with a disability, you've met one person with a disability” The fact that people judge her (and have screamed at her) for parking in an accessible parking spot Thank you to Fringe Heals for supporting this episode. Use code ALLY25 for 25% off your order through 12/31/24. This is a SandyBoy Productions podcast.

Ultra runner and thru hiker Mike Wardian joins Doc in the studio to talk trail and endurance. Settle in and buckle up as Mike shares his latest adventures, which include a 60-day scamper down the 2,197-mile Appalachian Trail, running the Marine Corps Marathon with his son, and pacing a special needs runner in the NYC Marathon. During the discussion, Mike, as he is wont to do, covers some serious ground, including talk of prototype trail shoes, Sparkle Pony, Bog Balls, Yard Sale, the suck factor, a broken hand, mangled toes, sub-three hour pacing, thousand-calorie shakes, and the importance of being stubborn. Epic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this heartfelt solo episode of Inspiring Journeys, we honor 20 incredible veterans whose lives were lost to the battle with PTSD. Each of these heroes was honored during my Marine Corps Marathon run, dedicating a mile to their memory and legacy. The episode begins with gratitude and reflections on the transformative experiences of this year, including the rebranding of this podcast and the marathon journey itself. I also share the mission of 22 Too Many, an organization founded by Keri Jacobs to bring attention to the silent epidemic of veteran suicide. Keri joined us on Episode 27 to share her inspiring mission and her personal story, which has touched countless lives. As I share the stories of these 20 heroes, their bravery, dedication, and humanity shine through. This episode is a tribute to their lives, a call to remember their sacrifices, and a reminder to offer compassion and support to those who may still be struggling. Let's walk this journey together as we celebrate the human spirit and honor these remarkable individuals. Links and Resources Learn more about 22 Too Many. Listen to Episode 27 with Keri Jacobs for more about 22 Too Many's mission. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the Veterans Crisis Line or call 988 and press 1. Help is available. 60 Minutes episode on Clay Hunt - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poxKILRDvCA _________________________________________________________________________ You can find Paul - The Rhode Runner in the following places: Twitter: @TheRhodeRunner Instagram: @TheRhodeRunner Facebook Inspiring Journeys can be found on: InspiringJourneys.net Instagram: @InspiringJourneysPod Facebook Email: paul@inspiringjourneys.net You can also download and subscribe to the Inspiring Journeys Podcast at: Apple Podcasts iHeartRadio Spotify

In this episode of Maybe Running Will Help, we sit down with Ryan, a first-time marathoner who recently crossed the finish line at the Marine Corps Marathon. But Ryan's journey was about more than just miles and medals—it was about building community and making sports accessible to kids through his work with the Volo Kids Foundation. Ryan shares how training for the marathon gave him the structure to balance life's chaos, the creativity to fundraise in unique ways (think playlist challenges and chocolate milk miles), and the drive to make a difference in the lives of others. He also reflects on how running has helped him find "margin" in his life—a space to reflect, grow, and better serve his community. If you've ever wondered how running connects us to something bigger than ourselves, this is an episode you won't want to miss! Key topics include: The power of community in running and life How sports can be a bridge for belonging and equity Unique fundraising ideas that inspire connection Ryan's journey from soccer player to marathoner Tune in to hear how Ryan is running to create a more inclusive, connected world—one mile at a time.

Special Guest Episode with Joseph Emas-  his philosophy that running, like fine wine, only improves with time. Joe's inspiring story includes overcoming health challenges, running marathons, and finding joy in every step of his running journey.Key Highlights:Introduction to Joe's Running JourneyJoe shares insights from his 47 years of running, including completing 50 marathons and building lasting friendships through the sport. His positive mindset and determination have helped him face both personal and health challenges, including cancer and heart issues.The Power of Community and ConnectionJoe discusses the sense of camaraderie running fosters, bridging age gaps and building friendships. Whether in training groups or races, he emphasizes the value of shared experiences.Memorable Race StoriesFrom a Halloween costume run in Miami dressed as a cow to dodging falling iguanas in a South Florida race, Joe's race stories are unforgettable! He even recounts a special moment from running alongside Oprah in the Marine Corps Marathon.Racing Plans and Future GoalsJoe plans to keep running and celebrating milestones with unique races, including the Marine Corps Marathon's 50th anniversary in 2025. He shares his goal of continuing to run, enjoying the journey, and keeping up with the friends he's made along the way.Tips for Longevity in RunningJoe attributes his longevity in the sport to maintaining a balanced routine with cold showers, using massage tools, and allowing time for proper recovery. He stresses the importance of adapting training as you age, including hill work instead of track speed workouts.Travel and Racing PreparationJoe gives practical tips for managing stiffness and recovery while traveling for races. He advises giving yourself extra time to acclimate and stay loose with light movement before the race.Maintaining Motivation in Your 70s and BeyondReflecting on his journey, Joe highlights the value of continually learning and adapting. He encourages runners of all ages to focus on enjoying the sport and the relationships it brings, not just race results.Episode Sponsor:Today's episode is brought to you by Garden Cup, making it easy to fuel your run with nutritious, ready-to-eat salads. Find the link in the show notes for 20% off your first order!Closing Thoughts:In Joe's words, retirement is just the beginning of new adventures. Keep exploring, connecting, and embracing each run as part of a joyful life journey.Today's episode is sponsored by Garden Cup. Enjoy their convenient, delicious salads on the go! Get 20% off your first order using THIS LINK.Favorite Things: https://runningwithgrit.com/favorites/

In S4Ep20 of the PRP, Adam symposiums with blossoming all distance runner, passionately unique cinematographer & digital creator, altruistic combat veteran and papa bear extraordinaire Joshua Hubbard who has been preparing for the Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday October 27th, 2024.  Tap in to learn more about the origins of Joshua's running journey as the lads discuss why his experiences both as a military veteran and as an artist have shaped his outlook on the sport. Whether he is out for a fun run, filming content for his YouTube channel or pushing towards some kind of lofty goal, Joshua's perpetual permeation to uplift others along the way is distinctive and inspiring. Things get vulnerable in a very real way when Joshua opens up about his experience as a combat veteran and delves deep into the numerous challenges that veterans face. From struggling to reconnect with societal norms, to survivors guilt, to hesitation to seek the help they need, to suicide - the list of obstacles for those who have served this country is long, intimidating and disheartening. Although the realities that lie ahead for those who transition from soldier to civilian are harsh, learn how Joshua has leveraged his love for the digital arts and his new found love for running to help provide him an outlet to reflect on what's important moving forward. The impact he leaves on his family, the military community, the running community, and all others who are part of his story remains paramount in his pursuit to find and maintain the best version of himself. Running for a reason - a phrase Joshua has coined and made his ethos when approaching the sport, and a practice he hopes to be lifelong with aims of being qualitative rather than quantitative. Errr, just how much does Joshua love a good run streak?! The Murph?? Ummm is Joshua the most photogenic runner in all of Michigan?! What the hell are go-fasters?? The vlog-verse?! Wait wait wait… did Joshua run his first two marathons WITHOUT pooping beforehand?! Devil dogs, Liverpool & micro-influencers, oh my! This and so much more in this unique, educational & galvanizing episode of the PRP! Explain that Strava section: Joshua's Strava Activity Sponsors ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ann Arbor Running Company⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Recorded Wednesday October 23rd @ 5:30PM EST  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/preracepodcast/support

This past weekend I had the privilege to be a part of the 49th annual Marine Corps Marathon. Just to be clear, I did not run the race, instead, I was able to be a part of this amazing event from a very different perspective, one that most people don't ever get to experience. I came away from the race feeling all the feelings and it really renewed my love of the sport of running. In this episode of the podcast, I share some of the big lessons learned at Marine Corps Marathon and how this event has changed my life for the better. The post 253. Lessons Learned at Marine Corps Marathon appeared first on Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray.

Jordan Huffman and I met through our running coach, Rachel Sinders. Jordan just completed her 9th Marine Corps Marathon and still had the marathon hobble to prove it! During this episode, sponsored by Athlete Bouquets, we talk about: The 49th Marine Corps Marathon How she ran 10 miles of the MCM and then snuck off the course to hide her first pregnancy Her first Indianapolis Monumental and her first non-MCM marathon Both of us contemplating running the 50th Marine Corps Marathon next year How she found running to find connection while her husband was deployed overseas What it's like being a military spouse and how her husband has supported her goals from afar How it's hard saying goodbye to running strollers Her 76-year-old dad finishing the MCM skipping after taking a shot of Fireball Running a virtual marathon before an 8:30am soccer game How spectating and volunteering might actually be harder than running a marathon Meeting through our running coach, Rachel Sinders, and why we love working with a running coach Taylor Swift concert in Indy What it's like having a husband who works for a commercial airline If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe, share and review!

In this episode of Rehab for Runners, Dr. Lisa shares her experience running the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM), where she conquered rolling hills, cold weather, and pre-race jitters to cross the finish line stronger than ever. Join her as she reflects on her race goals, training improvements, and a huge personal record (PR) moment. Dr. Lisa breaks down her approach to pacing, fueling, and, most importantly, enjoying the journey of each mile. She discusses the mental shift that helped her stay relaxed on the course, emphasizing the benefits of trusting the process without fixating on a specific time goal. Listen in as she reviews the good, the bad, and the "neutral," unpacking what worked and what didn't. From dialing in her fueling strategy to adjusting her mindset, Dr. Lisa reveals the training and mindset changes that made a difference. As she looks ahead to the next season, tune in for insights on marathon recovery, setting new goals, and the value of enjoying every step of the journey. Links and Resources: Runners Complete Program: Use this program to build strength and mobility so you can run stronger and prevent injuries Toe Spacers: Use code DRLISA10 for 10% off these toe separators that will help align your toes so you can use them more when running AG 1 Welcome Kit: Use this link to get free year supply of Vit D3 K2 and 10 travel packs. Ag1 is perfect for your gut health and to improve your energy levels Join the Complete Runners Club Waitlist and be the first to know when doors open so you can improve your performance and build strength with a personalized training plan and strength program for $39/month

On October 27, 2024, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. Everything did not go as planned. It was an unforgettable journey filled with highs, lows, and a lot of lessons learned. Whether you're a runner, a dreamer, or someone working toward any goal, this episode is for you. If you've ever had a big goal that didn't go the way you hoped, you're not alone—and that's exactly what I'll be diving into today. I'll take you through the race, my preparation, what went right, what went wrong, and why I'm fired up for next year. Plus, I'll share some amazing highlights from my D.C. trip, including a little throwback to my inner GenX nerd!   You can find Paul - The Rhode Runner in the following places: Twitter: @TheRhodeRunner Instagram: @TheRhodeRunner Facebook   Inspiring Journeys can be found on: InspiringJourneys.net Instagram: @InspiringJourneysPod Facebook   You can also download and subscribe to the Inspiring Journeys Podcast at: Apple Podcasts iHeartRadio Spotify

Did you know that the most opportune time for injury is during the weeks after finishing a goal race? Join us for our drive home from the Marine Corps Marathon during which we discuss how to approach your running in between training cycles. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook. Looking for coaching? Email us at julieandlisa@runfartherandfaster.com to set up a coaching call. Thanks for listening!

In an annual tradition, Ben and Ricky Dimon convene the day after the Marine Corps Marathon to discuss the year in men's tennis. This year the top line story is pretty clear: Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz dividing and conquering the calendar, claiming the tour for their generation. Which one of them had a better year? And how much of a shadow (or a doubt?) does Sinner's positive test morass cast over his stellar year? We also discuss the generation of 90s-born guys getting passed by, Djokovic hanging on, and young guys like Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard who have arrived in a big way. We also salute some of the guys saying goodbye, including Dominic Thiem (much more on him soon). Thank you for listening! Our Patreon is back up and running to ensure NCR keeps going and stays ad-free, and we hope you can join in supporting NCR! And we especially thank our GOAT backers: Pam Shriver and J. O'D. And please check out Ben's new writing home, Bounces!  

Support the show: http://www.newcountry963.com/hawkeyeinthemorningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Send us a text#301 - Since 1976, the Marine Corps Marathon or MCM has been pounding the streets of Washington DC and Arlington, Virginia in late October to celebrate not only the US Marine Corps, but enjoying our terrific sport in one of the most beautiful settings in the world. This week, I talk about the race's history, some race facts and some things you may want to be prepared for if you decide to run it yourself. Also, I go into my training from the past week a little bit. I will talk a bit about my training each week as I get back into running a little more each week. Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showMartha Runs the World websitehttps://www.martharunstheworld.com/Email:martharunstheworld@gmail.comInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/martha_runs_sf/

Margo Baltera is a badass. We've known each other for about a year and I was so happy to finally get to sit down and get to know her better. During this episode, sponsored by Athlete Bouquets, we talk about: The story of how we met and why it involved Kraft Singles How she's 59 and I'm not sure I believe her Going out for cross country in middle school and having to run with the boys since her school didn't have a girls team at the time How one morning she woke up and told her husband she wanted to run a marathon Her first marathon at Monumental in 2012, the year it sleeted and the year it was the same weekend as IU Parents Weekend Becoming a mom of three kids by the age of 26 Finding the running community Running the New York City Marathon in 2015 Running the Marine Corps Marathon with her son while he was working in the White House Pacing her first marathon at Monumental for the 5:00 pace group What it means to be an Abbott World Majors Gold Member Battling plantar fasciitis in Berlin and Boston and an asthma diagnosis she doesn't think is accurate How she came to compete at The State Games and then at The Senior Olympics Figure skating and roller skating and how it was her life when she was young How Meb Keflezighi became her running coach (yes, that Meb) Exciting announcement about the podcast coming next week and there's someone mentioned in this episode who is involved...

Sign up for Marine Corps Marathon shakeout run HERE Sign up for Newsletter HERE Welcome to taper!! The easiest part of training they said...wrong. Just because the mileage decreases doesnt mean our schedule should fall apart and we can let loose the weeks leading up to the race. Today we go over tapering do's and don'ts so you can improve your performance. Research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10171681/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34651125/ https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2007/08000/effects_of_tapering_on_performance__a.19.aspx

In this episode, Coach Christine shares the next part of the Top 100 Running Books list, covering books ranked 50 to 26. Before diving into the book discussion, she addresses the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene in Appalachia and the southeastern US, encouraging the running community to come together and help those in need. For those looking to donate or offer support, check out the Hurricane Helene Relief Resources.Coach Christine also reflects on her recent training for the Marine Corps Marathon 50k, sharing a personal lesson about relying on discipline when motivation fades. As the miles get longer, it's crucial to put in the work during training to avoid penalties on race day. She offers practical and fun tips to banish long-run dread and gives a special shout-out to her other half for encouraging her through a tough run, even promising a post-run margarita!The episode includes a recap of the Berlin Marathon 2024, celebrating all the runners who completed the race, and offers encouragement to those preparing for the upcoming Chicago Marathon, the next big race on the horizon.Finally, we dive into books 50 to 26 from the Top 100 Running Books list. You can find the full list of books from 26-100 here.Limited Coaching Spots Opening:Winter training is just around the corner, and if you need 1:1 help to get ready for your spring races, now is the time! Spots are opening up, but they're limited, so don't miss out. You can also join The Extraordinary League for group coaching and accountability. Sign up here.Links and Resources:For donation information: Hurricane Helene Relief Resources.For more about the Top 100 Running Books: Full list of books 26-100.Have questions or want to chat? Send me a text!Support the showJoin the newsletter list for updates, special offers, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.Join fellow pod and running enthusiasts at The Stride Collective community on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.

Send us a textWhat if a simple commitment to running could transform your life and strengthen your family bonds? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Cassandra and Elijah Beach, a dynamic mother-son duo who have maintained an incredible 1,897-day running streak. Elijah began running to counterbalance his love for gaming and to combat weight gain, while Cassandra started to support her son's health after he faced bullying at school. Together, they share the heartwarming and challenging journey that not only improved their physical health but also brought them closer than ever.Imagine turning a spontaneous five-year anniversary trip to Vegas into a marathon adventure! We recount the exhilarating story of how a casual vacation turned into the Marine Corps Marathon, showcasing the hurdles and triumphs of their first marathon experience. From running separately to hitting the dreaded "wall" at mile 23, their resilience shone through. And just when you think it's over, they reveal the surprising twist of a family trip to Disney World right after this grueling event, exemplifying their commitment to staying active and finding joy in every step.In our final chapter, we delve into the highs and lows of consistent running, from participating in multiple mini marathons to the aspiration of tackling an ultra marathon. We discuss the culture of running in different regions, including some humorous run-ins with the police due to their unconventional routes in rural Indiana. We also shed light on the crucial role of nutrition and fitness in achieving peak performance while sharing invaluable lessons on body composition, muscle mass, and self-confidence. Through our experiences, we aim to inspire others to embrace a healthier lifestyle and discover the profound impact of running on both physical and mental well-being. You can reach out to us at:https://coffeycrewcoaching.comemail: Carla@coffeycrewcoaching.com FB @ Over the Next Hill Fitness GroupIG @coffeycrewcoaching.comand Buy Me a Coffeehttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/Carlauhttps://hydra-patch.com/discount/OTNH10https://rnwy.life code: OTNH15https://jambar.com code: CARLA20

Jim Patton and I didn't meet through the running community. You'll have to listen to hear the story. I like to think of Indy as a "small, big town". During this conversation we talk about: How Jim and I know each other His sub-4 hour marathon in Mesa 2024 Working on his nutrition, strength and following a running plan helped him find “edge” How he got into running 15 years ago The story of him being the first person to register for the Carmel Half Marathon (ever!) and one of the first members of the Carmel Runners Club Why he joins Indy Runners and Carmel Runners Club every year 2011 Marine Corps Marathon was his first marathon Getting sober 15.5 years ago and how that ties into his running journey Finding ways to give back - Back on My Feet (how he met Timmy Howard), Drumstick Dash, American Cancer Society (his wife, Jennifer, is a survivor), and Big Brothers Big Sisters The unfortunate injury he's dealing with right now heading into the NYC Marathon in November How we used to suck at training for races Our virtual race experiences - “The Jim-athon” A health scare he had at the Indy Mini in 2015 The Ragnar events he's done - 7 of them! And his team won their age group one year after another team admitted to cheating Donate to Jim's NYC Fundraiser

Rachel joins the show to talk about a more recent Andrew track. We take a break from SoCo summer to discuss how it's helped inspire her to challenge herself in multiple ways. Next, she is raising funds to run in the Marine Corp marathon for the Dear Jack Foundation. The link is below if you'd like to donate to the Dear Jack Foundation on her behalf. Song Visualizer: https://youtu.be/K3Au51VfGwA?si=Nl0lRPOmFEh7WfcS Rachel's Dear Jack Fundraising page for the Marine Corps Marathon: https://donate.hakuapp.com/donations/new?fundraiser=c09f443769be50367135 Rachel's DJF Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/teamimaginationrunningwild Andrew describes the song on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmhAUM1oU0U/?hl=en American Songwriter article, 2023: https://americansongwriter.com/review-andrew-mcmahon-sifts-through-his-past-in-tilt-at-the-wind-no-more/ Consequence of Sound article, 2023: https://consequence.net/2023/03/andrew-mcmahon-in-the-wilderness-tilt-at-the-wind-no-more-track-by-track/4/ Live in Manhattan, April 2023: https://youtu.be/lX2Gn4YEQnI?si=dlXgmTULV_84QD_Y

Send feedback for the showEver wondered how accurate nutritional labels really are or the hidden dangers in everyday products? This episode kicks off with a bold revelation about the FDA's regulations, exposing how nutritional labels can be misleading by as much as 20%. We also uncover the toxic substances lurking in items we use daily, from aluminum foil to talcum powder, and share a hilarious story about a friend's quirky habit at a wedding to lighten the mood.Join us as we share our marathon training experiences and the role of gadgets like the Garmin Phoenix in optimizing recovery. Hear our firsthand accounts of the camaraderie at major marathons, from New York to Chicago, and our exciting plans for the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. We also delve into the mental grit required for qualifying and running in international marathons like Tokyo and Berlin. Our fitness journey takes an inspirational turn as we talk about overcoming gym intimidation, discovering CrossFit, and the resilience needed for continuous improvement.Balancing the entrepreneurial grind with personal life gets real as we navigate the challenges of running a gym in high-cost cities, the emotional toll of financial struggles, and the support systems that help us through tough times. Personal stories of family loss, financial hardships, and the therapeutic power of intense physical training underscore the essence of brotherhood and collective support. This episode is a heartfelt testament to facing adversity head-on and finding strength through life's challenges.https://www.instagram.com/john_pooch/https://www.instagram.com/tomdegiuli/Support the Show.YouTubeInstagram Tik Tok

Send us a Text Message.This week's episode of The Bo & Luke Show is an episode that transcends the ordinary and dives deep into the extraordinary journey of Jorge Toledo.Jorge Toledo is not just any guest. He's a marathon runner, a former oil and gas executive, a survivor of almost 5 years of wrongful imprisonment in Venezuela, and most importantly, a testament to human resilience and the power of the human spirit. His story is one of transformation, wisdom, and unyielding determination. Key Highlights of the Episode:- Two Decades of Marathon Running: Jorge emphasizes the crucial role of training, stretching, and nutrition in maintaining good health. His consistent practice has not only kept him physically fit but also mentally strong.- Buddhism as a Beacon: Since 1985, Buddhism has been Jorge's guiding light, helping him navigate life's internal and external challenges with grace and understanding.- Harsh Imprisonment: Wrongly accused of corruption and collaboration with the US government, Jorge endured 1,775 days of illegal detention in Venezuela. He survived this period, marked by physical and psychological torture, deprivation, and dramatic weight loss.- Triumphant Return: Just 100 days after his release, Jorge ran a half marathon, symbolizing his victory over adversity. In less than six months, he completed the Boston Marathon, and within a year, he conquered the Marine Corps Marathon.- Activism and Awareness: Now an activist, writer, and musician, Jorge is dedicated to spreading awareness about hostage diplomacy and advocating for sustainable solutions to prevent such injustices.- Inspiration for All: Jorge's story is not just about survival. It is an inspirational narrative about purpose, resilience, and the importance of maintaining mental, physical, and spiritual health.In this heartfelt episode, Bo and Luke delve into Jorge's incredible journey, exploring the profound lessons he learned along the way and how his experiences have shaped his mission to inspire and educate others.Thank you for being a valued member of The Bo & Luke Show community. We are grateful for your support and hope that Jorge's story brings you the motivation and encouragement to overcome your own challenges, just as it has for us.Stay strong, stay inspired, and always keep moving forward!Warm regards,The Bo & Luke Show Team

“It was just such a redemptive, wonderful experience. I am so grateful to The VBAC Link for seeing me through it, for giving me the information, and just the inspiration to even take this on because if I had never found you, I don't know for sure if I ever would have gone through with it. So, thank you so much for that.”Amanda's episode will warm your heart, give you chills, and bring tears to your eyes. Her birth stories include a rough induction at 36 weeks due to preeclampsia with an 11-day NICU stay and not getting to hold her baby for 32 hours. When she found The VBAC Link, Amanda was given hope that she could have another baby and that her experience could be very different. Equipped with information and drive, she was able to do just that. Amanda's VBAC birth was spiritual and powerful!Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Episode Topics:Review of the WeekAmanda's storiesMonitoring for preeclampsiaCervadil, Magnesium, and CytotecConsenting to a CesareanThrowing up during the C-sectionWaiting 32 hours to hold her babyFinding The VBAC LinkPraying for a babyScared or scarredSigns of wavering provider supportPhysical and mental preparationContractions beginAdvocating during laborThe night nurse“It is done.” Importance of lactation supportMeagan: Hello, everybody. How are you doing? I hope you are doing great. Right now, I can just tell you that my face is already hurting from smiling just from talking to our guest for 5 seconds. We have our friend, Amanda. Hello, Amanda. Amanda: Hello. Meagan: Oh my goodness. She has just been the sweetest thing just pouring on the sugar and sweetening me up. I mean really, she is saying just the nicest things about The VBAC Link and it has just been so fun to hear how The VBAC Link was part of her life. You guys, I love this so much. Thank you for supporting this podcast. Thank you for supporting us on Instagram and Facebook and all of the places. I truly from the bottom of my heart love you. I know I haven't always met you but I love you and I love this community and I love what we are doing here. I am so grateful for the opportunity. I just wanted to say that it really wouldn't happen without all of you so really from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Review of the WeekMeagan: We do have a Review of the Week so I want to jump into that and then we are going to get into Amanda's stories and maybe even some other things. We will see what this episode transpires to. Okay, so this is from Liz Judd and it doesn't say where it was from, but it says, “Empowering”. It says, “I found this podcast around week 30 of my second pregnancy by searching for ‘VBAC'. I had a traumatic C-section in 2019 and I knew I did not want to go through that again. It was helpful for me to learn the evidence on VBAC, how to advocate for myself, and healing to listen to other's stories. I just had my second child by VBAC and I thank you for the role you played in that.” Seriously, it warms my heart and you just said the same thing. You carried me through my whole pregnancy, and then this was back when Julie and I took a big 10-month break and you were like, “Oh no, they're gone!” But here we are. We are back and I hope that we are carrying someone else or many other people through their pregnancy journeys as well. Amanda: I'm sure that you are and that review could not have related more to my story so I can't wait to get started for you. Amanda's storiesMeagan: Okay, well without further ado, let's do it. Let's get started.Amanda: Here we go. My husband I met in 2004 which yes, was 20 years ago. We got married in 2009 and we were just living our best lives. We were traveling, doing all of the things. I had lost 129 pounds and I said, “I want to run a marathon and have a baby.” Meagan: Dang, yeah. Amanda: I was even a group exercise instructor at the time. Life was good. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2015 in October and in 2015 December, I got pregnant. What was really special about that was we got engaged on Christmas Eve so on the 10th anniversary of our engagement, I got to share the news with my husband that we were expecting. Meagan: Yay! That's so awesome. Amanda: It was really special but other than that, I really had no knowledge at all about pregnancy and birth. I just knew that I wanted an unmedicated birth. Where I came up with that, I'm not sure, but I just was going to trust my doctor. That's where my brain was at. I went to my normal OB who I had always gone to and it was a very small practice. There were three doctors and a nurse practitioner and up until this point, I had always seen the nurse practitioner. She confirmed my pregnancy and she advised that I limit my exercise from what I was currently doing and to only maybe just walk and do some light cycling. Meagan: Oh my gosh. My OB said the same thing. I was wanting to run a half marathon and he was like, “Oh no, you're having too much round ligament pain. Just go for a walk.” I was like, “What? Okay,” so I stopped working out. Amanda: Right. That's exactly what happened to me. Now I know that was the first red flag of this practice, but I didn't know at the time. I was just like, Okay. Listen to what the doctor says. So I just kept going to my appointments and I generally felt okay but at my appointment check-ins, my blood pressure started to be high. They would put me into the room and I would lay down on my left side and they would have me do the whole appointment that way and then they would check my blood pressure at the end and it would be okay so they would have me come back in a couple of days for a re-check and it would be okay. We just continued on that way until I circled through all of the doctors and back to the nurse practitioner. She was really the only one who seemed a little more concerned than everybody else about what was going on. Monitoring for preeclampsiaAmanda: I got back to her and she sent me to the hospital for a blood pressure monitor. It wasn't super high so they sent me home, but they told me to do a 24-hour urine collection. I did that and my protein in that came back at 299 and she said, “Well, 300 is preeclampsia so we are just going to keep monitoring it.” Meagan: Mhmm, okay. Amanda: Okay. That's exactly what I said. Meanwhile, I'm not exercising. I'm just taking my prenatal and going to these appointments. I didn't have any preeclampsia symptoms either. I had no headaches, no spots, no swelling. I just felt yucky. I just chalked it up to pregnancy. I thought, Okay, I'm pregnant. This is what I should feel like. Meanwhile, people around me are pregnant and they are like, “I feel fabulous. I love this.” I was like, I don't love this. This is not great. I'm excited to have a baby but I don't love it. I also got carpal tunnel. Meagan: That is a thing by the way during pregnancy that people don't talk about. Amanda: They don't and I didn't know about it. My doctors were just like, “It'll go away when the baby is born. It will go away when the baby is born.” I'm like, “But I'm really in pain. My poor husband has to cut my food. I can't function here.” Finally, one of the doctors said, “Well, if it hurts that badly then you can go to a hand and wrist doctor.” Okay, so I did and I ended up getting a cortisone shot because it was unmanageable. I had the braces. I was doing night braces and day braces so that did help a lot. A high blood pressure and getting admitted to the hospitalAmanda: In the meantime though, we moved from an apartment to a house. I was the matron of honor in a wedding and then we moved into our house on July 17th. I had a surprise baby shower on August 6th and August 8th which was my 36th week, I had a non-stress test at the hospital. I went into the hospital for the non-stress test. They took my blood pressure. The nurse didn't say anything. She was like, “I'm just going to take it when it's over,” which is something I had heard the entire time. I do the non-stress test. She takes my blood pressure again. She says, “You know, the doctor wants to talk to you.” I was like, “Okay. That's fine.” I go into this little room and the doctor starts saying things like, “Not going home” and “Going into triage” and “Keep you pregnant as long as possible”, so I was like, What? I just couldn't even process those things. Meagan: And there wasn't any extra talk of, this is why. Amanda: No. Meagan: Yeah, okay. Amanda: No. I called my husband. I was like, “Listen, you might want to come be with me because I'm not sure what's going on.” So I go over to triage which was right around the corner and I'm waiting in that waiting room for over an hour. I'm still not thinking there is any type of emergency. They take me into triage and they take my blood pressure which was 214/111. Meagan: Okay. Amanda: Yeah. Meagan: Okay, well that's high. Amanda: Yeah, so then everyone starts going a little bit crazy. They start giving me medicine. They have me only lay down. I'm not allowed to get out of the bed and they start talking. I start hearing words like, “Possible seizure” and I'm like, “What is happening here?” A nurse finally comes over and says, “We are going to admit you. We just don't know yet if it's to labor and delivery or high-risk OB.” I looked at my husband. I was like, “Are we having a baby right now? Are we having a baby?” Then at that point though, that's when all of the things started happening to me and I was not a part of any of these decisions. Cervadil, Magnesium, and CytotecAmanda: I realize that that was a very high blood pressure and I didn't really check it after that, but they do take me up to labor and delivery where the doctor starts with Cervadil. This is on a Monday night. She inserts the Cervadil but I had zero dilation. They also put me on magnesium and when they did the magnesium, they also wanted to give me a catheter because they didn't want me to move. I said, “I don't really want that.” At this point, I still felt fine and nobody was really explaining to me–Meagan: The severity of things and what was really happening, yeah. Amanda: Right, right, right. So then they were giving me the saline. It was just so much fluid so I had to use the bathroom a lot. They were just letting me use the bedpan and teh nurses were so irritated by me. They would just stand there and watch me. I just felt horrible. It just was a very uncomfortable experience. Then there was the magnesium which–Meagan: Bleh. Thumbs down. Amanda: Yes. It was awful. I just felt terrible. They also gave me a shot for lung development because I was only 36 weeks. Yeah. My water broke on its own but that is the only part of labor that I experienced at all with him. After my water broke, they gave me a dose of Cytotec, and literally nothing happened. Not one thing. My blood pressure was still unstable. The magnesium made me feel awful and then I felt decreased movements. I just kept telling the nurses, “I can't feel the baby moving. I can't feel the baby moving.” I was scared. At one point, we knew nothing was happening. My husband and I actually called the doctor and said, “Should we have a C-section? Is this what is going to be happening?” They said, “No. Let's just see how this plays out.”Looking back, I'm shocked that that was the answer they gave me because of everything else that was going on. They just kept doing cervical checks and they were very uncomfortable because I had zero dilation and I didn't know I could say no. In fact, one doctor came in. This was actually the doctor who ended up delivering him. She said, “Do you want an epidural?” I said, “No. I don't even have any pain.” She said, “Well then, you need to let me check you.” Meagan: Wait, because you didn't want an epidural then you had to let her– what? Amanda: Right. I think she was saying this because I was acting like it was uncomfortable. I mean, it was uncomfortable. I wasn't acting. Then they gave me another dose of Cytotec. Nothing is happening. Now this is late Tuesday night. My blood pressure is all over the place. They keep giving me different doses of medication. I was on fire from the magnesium. I just kept saying, “This room is so hot.” They said, “But it's the coldest room in the wing.” “I don't care. I'm burning up.” Meagan: You're like, “My skin feels like it's on fire.” Amanda: So they gave me a fan. That was their accommodation for that. Consenting to a CesareanAmanda: It was around 12:45 so now this is Wednesday morning at 12:45 AM. The doctor comes in and she is just sitting on the end of my bed. I was in and out of awareness. I remember having her be there, but the magnesium is terrible. They just kept taking my blood pressure and she just kept giving me medication. All of a sudden, she stands up and she says, “We need to do a C-section right now.” I still don't know to this day if it was a decel. I don't know if it was his heart. I don't know if it was my blood pressure. I don't know what happened that made her stand up, but I just remember watching that happen and the look on her face. They were laying me down. They were giving my husband scrubs. I'm signing all kinds of consent forms laying down and then they gave me this awful drink for nausea and wheeled me into the OR. Because I had the magnesium, they were lifting me. I wasn't allowed to do anything by myself and I forgot to mention that since I wasn't exercising or doing anything, I gained 90 pounds during this pregnancy which was terrible but I didn't know. I wasn't small and they were moving me around. I get a spinal. As soon as I got the spinal, I said, “Oh my goodness. I'm going to be sick.” I just felt so nauseous and I remember the anesthesiologist behind me saying, “It's okay. We're ready,” and other people saying, “Lay her down. Lay her down.” They immediately lay me down and then I vomit into the bucket. Meagan: Oh yeah, that's the most miserable feeling. Amanda: It was terrible. He was ready. He did have a bucket. He wasn't lying, but then they squirted something on my stomach and I just remember saying, “I can feel that. I can feel that.” The doctor says, “Yeah, but is it cold?” I said, “No.” She says, “Starting incision.” She just is going. Throwing up during the C-sectionAmanda: Literally every time they pushed on my stomach, I was throwing up. Every single push and shove they did, it was awful. It was awful. But at 1:38 AM, our first son was born and there was one squeaky little cry and then he stopped and the NICU team got to work on him. They were about to take him up to the NICU and God bless my husband. He stops in front of the door and says, “Can she at least give him a kiss first?” They brought him over really quickly. I got a kiss and then they took him away. All was quiet. I was still nauseous and I just remember the anesthesiologist saying, “They're just putting you back together. Why don't you try to take a nap?” I was like, “Um–”Meagan: Okay. Amanda: Right. Needless to say, the bedside manner all the way through was not great. Meagan: Not great, no.Amanda: But once I got into recovery, I was just holding onto the fact that they said I could see my baby in 24 hours. I was like, Okay. I just have to make it 24 hours and they will take me to see him. I set an alarm on my phone. I am pumping. They gave me the pump. I am pumping. Any colostrum I am getting, I am sending up to the NICU. My blood pressure is still not settling down. Waiting 32 hours to hold her babyAmanda: 24 hours goes by. I call the nurse. I'm like, “It's 24 hours. Take me up to see my baby. Please take me up to see my baby.” She's like, “Well first, we have to take your blood pressure.” It was not good. She was like, “Wait 2 more hours and then we will check.” I was like, “I just waited 24 hours and now I have to wait 2 more.” They take my blood pressure again and it was fine. I was like, “Yes. I'm going to go see my baby.” They were like, “Well actually, you have to walk and go sit in this chair first and then we can take you up. We have to take your blood pressure from this chair.” I sit in the chair. My blood pressure is not good. “Oh, you have to get back in bed. We can't take you up.” At that point, I just lost it. I was like, “I can't.” I told my husband, I was like, “You have to tell people to stop texting and stop calling. I cannot do this. I just don't understand what's going on here.” I did not know it at the time, but after they got me back in bed, my husband went back into the hallway. He told the nurses. He was like, “You have to take her up there. You have to take her up. She has to see that baby.” Sorry. Finally, the nurse came in and she checked my blood pressure and it wasn't great but she thankfully had I guess fewer patients so she came up to the NICU with me. She did take me up there and after 32 hours, I finally got to meet him and hold him but as soon as we were together, both of our health's dramatically improved. My husband knew that that's what we needed. I'm so grateful that he did that. Meagan: Absolutely. Amanda: I ended up staying admitted for 5 days because they just couldn't get my blood pressure situated and then our son Jeffery David came home after 11 days. Physically, my healing was okay because I had 11 days of sitting. Meagan: Hanging out in the hospital not doing much. Amanda: Yeah, and you know, God bless my family and friends who drove me to the hospital every day to go see him. Some of them sat with me for hours and hours and hours just because I was by myself but my mental healing was not great. Because of everything that happened, I had just closed the chapter on kids. We were apparently one and done. I told my husband, “I am not doing that again.” I mean, I was on blood pressure medicine for 2 years after that. Meagan: Wow. Amanda: Yeah. It was bad. I just said that I always wanted more kids, but I'm not going to do that again. That was terrible. Finding The VBAC LinkAmanda: So my son was about 2 and I was listening to a different podcast. They were interviewing these two doulas who had VBACs and I was like, Who are these women? Then obviously, it was you guys. Meagan: That's awesome. Amanda: I went over and I found The VBAC Link. I was like, Oh my gosh. I didn't even know a VBAC existed up until this point. I was listening to your podcast and I listened to all of the episodes and then I finally said to my husband, “Listen, I found this information. It's really inspiring and really informative and if we ever had another baby, this is what I want to do.” He is the most supportive person that exists. He is my biggest fan and biggest cheerleader. He was like, “Okay. That's fine.” With a list of questions from your website, I went and found a new OB who I interviewed and I decided that they were supportive because aside from answering all of those things positively, she could also tell me the nearest provider who delivered VBAC twins and the nearest provider who did VBAC breech births. Meagan: Wow, that's awesome. Amanda: She said, “It's not here, but these are the two places that you could go.” I was like, Okay, I feel like this practice will work. It was also much, much bigger. They had two midwives on staff which I was very interested in because I'm definitely more of a midwifery mindset. In the meantime, I also went to pelvic floor therapy and while she fixed a lot of internal things, she also did a scar release which was very intense but very, very needed. I didn't know that until I had it and then I was like, Oh my gosh. I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was just living my life all of the time. It was amazing. Meagan: How game-changing it really is. Yeah. Not even just for birth, but for life like you said. Amanda: Yes. I couldn't even sit criss-cross applesauce just because I had so much tension in my hips and everything. It fixed so much. Praying for a babyAmanda: Then my son is approaching 4 years old and then one night we were saying our prayers just he and I at night and he says, “I pray for a baby in mommy's belly.” Meagan: Aww. Amanda: I was like, “What?” Meagan: “What did you just say?”Amanda: Yeah. There was no one pregnant around us at the time. I didn't even know at that time that he knew that babies in bellies were a thing. That continued for weeks. I never once reminded him. Every single night, he would pray for a baby in Mama's belly. I talked to my husband. I was like, “We need to address this one way or another. We either need to tell him that that is not happening or we need to have a serious discussion.” So since I'm here, you know what we decided on. Meagan: Spoiler alert. Amanda: We were blessed with a second pregnancy. Now, the day I took that pregnancy test, I went on The VBAC Link website. I looked up your doulas and I found doulas in my area. I just kept scrolling back to this one profile that just kept speaking to me. Her name was Mallory. I sent an email to her which was “Seeking doula, have questions”. She wrote back to me and that is actually who I ended up having as my doula. She was literally with me from day one. But I started this pregnancy at advanced maternal age because I was 35 at the time. I was plus-sized so while I wasn't 90 pounds heavier, I had lost some weight, but I still had a higher BMI. I also consistently worked out 4-5 times a week and I was loaded with information. I had a new OB and I instantly became their worst nightmare. I know it because–Meagan: Because you had all of the information. Let me just tell you. Providers, I think it catches them off guard when people come in and have information and they are like, “Oh, wow. This lady knows what she is talking about.” That's how it should be. We should know what we are talking about. Amanda: I agree. I always say that I wish there was a second-time mom the first time because I just went in armed with so much information that I never would have gotten if I didn't have such an awful experience the first time. I started taking a baby aspirin every day just because of the blood pressure issues before. Scared or scarredAmanda: This is a much larger practice. Like I said, they had two midwives and as I rotated through those doctors, I realized that some were supportive, some were tolerant, and some were scared. Meagan: Oh yeah. I like that you say that. Scared. Because I think that's the case with a lot of the “unsupportive providers”. I think they are scared or scarred. Amanda: That's a good point. Yeah. That's a good point. Meagan: They just haven't had a great experience. Amanda: Right. So along with all of this medical information, I also am very strong in my faith and I was having a hard time. I was having an internal struggle because I had all of this information and I wanted this so badly but I was struggling with the fact of what if this wasn't God's plan? I was fighting for all of this stuff and what if it wasn't His plan? I shared that with my doula, Mallory, and she actually said to pray then if this is not Your wish, then take the desire away. Meagan: That just gave me the chills. Amanda: Yeah. I wanted to share that because it changed me so much. I prayed it every single day of my pregnancy and the desire never went away. I felt like it was okay. Because I was able to pray that and the desire was never going okay, I just felt so strongly and continued going along in this happy, healthy fast pregnancy. There were no physical issues. I had no carpal tunnel. I gained a total of 16 pounds. Total. I mean, I worked out up until 39 weeks. At my 39-weeks, I was doing body pump. I lifted the weights over my head. The instructor was like, “How long are you going to do this for?” I was like, “Actually, I'm all done today.” Meagan: Today is the last day. Amanda: If I knew though that I was going to go to 41 weeks, I probably would have kept going but I just wanted to some time to be done with the gym and just get in the right mental space. Signs of wavering provider supportAmanda: At 30 weeks though is when the support started to waver a little bit. There were more questions about heart decels and reminding me of the continuous monitoring. At 32 weeks, I was having a scan to make sure baby was head down and I had been going to the chiropractor this whole time. This baby liked to hang out transverse. Before my 32-week appointment, the night before, I went to the chiropractor and I was like, “Listen. I know you have been doing Webster the whole time. I have an appointment tomorrow. They are checking to see if he's head down. What can you do?” He's like, “I got you.” So I don't know what he did, but I was driving home from the chiropractor and it felt like I was on a rollercoaster. You know how your belly does that flip? It was so intense at one point that I actually pulled over and chilled for a minute. It was just so much movement happening. The next morning, I went to my 32-week appointment and he was head down. Meagan: Awesome. Amanda: That was pretty cool. Then at 36 weeks, they started to pull the big baby card. Meagan: Oh yeah. Amanda: They gave me an ultrasound and they said that the baby was measuring 11 pounds. Meagan: Whoa. Amanda: I said, “That is impossible.” First of all, I gained 16. There's no way 11 of that is him. Then they were like, “Well, you do have a high BMI.” I was like, “That does not mean that he is going to be a big baby.” I had the article that I brought with me about all of the evidence and I declined a re-scan. That blew the receptionist's mind. I said, “No. I'm not.” She said, “Well, the doctor said you have to.” I said, “I don't have to though so I'll make my next appointment, but it's not going to be for an ultrasound.” That night, I actually got a phone call from a doctor who was like, “Why did you decline the scan?” I said, “My baby is not 11 pounds. He's not.” We had a big conversation and we agreed on a different type of scan. Now, I can't actually remember. I apologize. I can't remember what kind it was. They took different measurements but at that one, he measured 6 pounds. Meagan: What? That's a dramatic difference. Amanda: I know. Where I thought, that's where I thought he was going to be in my head so then I was given the green light to proceed with the way I wanted to. This whole time, I just had such amazing support from my husband but also from my doula. She would check in before every appointment. She just was amazing. I would be in the parking lot and the text would appear, “How are you feeling about this?” Then when I would come out, she would check in with me. In fact, even before recording this podcast, I got a text from her, “How are you feeling about this?” I was like, She is a gem. But I got the green light. Meagan: We should have had her on. Amanda: I know. I did think about that. I feel so bad. Meagan: That's okay. That's okay. Amanda: She's got a new newborn of her own. I know, it's wonderful. At 36 weeks, I also started to get the on-call schedule of all the doctors. I would say, “Who is working this week?” I would keep it in my phone so I knew who would be working because there was one doctor who at an appointment told me directly that she is terrified of VBACs. I knew that I should avoid her at all costs because I just knew that if I had her, she would find some reason to deem it C-section worthy. Physical and mental preparationAmanda: Throughout this pregnancy, I'm doing chiropractic care. I'm drinking raspberry leaf tea. I'm eating the dates when I was supposed to eat the dates. I also went back to pelvic floor therapy and told them that I want to have a VBAC. Help me prepare for that. That was wonderful. I became so passionate about this whole thing. Everybody knew. My poor coworkers had to listen but if there was anybody around me who was getting a C-section, I had to tell myself, “They didn't ask you. They didn't ask you. They don't want a VBAC.” Meagan: I know. Amanda: I also got acupuncture because I was just trying all of the things. Also, in The VBAC Link Facebook group. I found someone was Catholic affirmations that they had made. She shared that file with me so I had them all printed out. I was ready to go and then my due date comes and my due date goes. Meagan: Hello, goodbye. Amanda: Yes. I had never been pregnant past 36 weeks before so I was like, Well, this is pretty awesome, but I felt incredible. I still was coming to work. I came to work on my due date and my principal was like, “I did not expect you to be here today.” I thought, Don't underestimate me just like those doctors. I'm here. Contractions beginSo on a Monday, I was 40+3 and I had an appointment. I saw a midwife at the practice who was actually a VBAC mama herself. She and I just had this vibe and I was like, Yes. I love her. I knew at that appointment at 40+3 that I was going to ask for a membrane sweep. So I did and she tried but I wasn't dilated at all. She was really giving it her best shot, but she couldn't do it. I felt fine. I was fine with it, but I was also a little disheartened because I knew that pressure was going to start coming from the providers. This is where my BMI came in handy because I could qualify for an early induction because of that because like I said, I had the work schedule and that doctor who was terrified of VBACs was working on Friday. Meagan: So just a couple of days later. Amanda: Yes. Yeah. This was Monday at this point, so I scheduled an induction for Wednesday. I was like, Okay. Let me give myself a couple of days to see what I can do, but I also knew I didn't really want to go too far past 41 weeks because I know at 42, the risks go up and I knew time was of the essence. After that appointment, I go back to school and I'm standing on the playground with my partner. There are all kindergarteners running around and running around. I felt this intense squeeze in my belly. I looked at my partner who has had three babies and I was like, “Oh my god, what does a contraction feel like?” I was like, “I think I just had my first contraction.” We were just cheering out there and they continued every 10-12 minutes all the way through Tuesday. I come to work on Tuesday. I was still having contractions but they weren't increasing in intensity so it was okay. Meagan: Yeah, just happening. Amanda: Yeah, but Tuesday, I did decide to leave work early. I just checked in with my principal and I said, “I think I'm going to go home. I think being in a better headspace knowing I'm home and relaxed might help.” As I was leaving, one of my coworkers who had a C-section several years ago came up to me and she said, “There are a lot of women who would love to be in your shoes so good luck.” I thought that was really special. Meagan: Mhmm. Amanda: I appreciated that. I knew. I was like, Yes, I'm doing this for me and for a lot of people. So anyway, sorry. I was in constant contact with my doula. I go home. My contractions are increasing to 7-10 minutes apart. They are more intense at night. Now they are 5-10 minutes apart but I still decided to go to the hospital on Wednesday morning for the induction because I know my body. With my first baby needing the NICU, I knew that as much as I would dream of a home birth, I know that I was afraid in case intervention was needed and I knew that my body would just relax when I knew I was in the place where the interventions could be if I needed them. Advocating during laborAmanda: I send my son to preschool and I go into the hospital with my birth plan and all of the things. I tell the doctor I want Foley but no Pitocin. He was like, “Uh,” and then he watched me have a contraction and then he said, “Are you having contractions?” I said, “I am.” He said, “Okay, we can do it then.”I got the Foley and he also when I was talking with him about my birth plan said, “Listen. We all read it and we want this for you.” I just thought that was a cool thing for him to say. Meagan: Validating. Amanda: Yes. So I'm in New Jersey and here, VBAC after two C-sections is not a thing. I knew that this was really my chance and I also knew that really, two was enough for me. I knew I wanted two children to make our family complete and that was it. One of the things for a VBAC here in the hospital and with the practice is continuous monitoring. Trust me, I tried to not have them do that. Meagan: It's a real fight if you decide to try to fight it and that's really common everywhere. Continuous fetal monitoring is usually pushed really hard and it's one of those things where it's like, is it worth fighting for to you? You have to weigh it out because you really do have to put up a fight. Amanda: I tried, but like you said, I wanted the VBAC more so I was like, Okay, fine. We can do this. They did thankfully have a portable monitor because I really wanted to labor in the shower. They had a portable monitor. It could go in there. I was like, “Good. We're golden.” But then my baby did not want to be on the monitor so he kept falling off but there was no decel. There was never a concern. Meagan: Just loss of heart rate because baby moved away. Amanda: Because the monitors fell off. Yeah, so at one point, one of the midwives– not the VBAC midwife, the other midwife– comes in and says, “We're just going to put an internal monitor in.” I remember my doula looked at me and she said, “Do you know how they do that?” I said, “No,” so then she explained that to me and I declined. Meagan: Yeah because they do have to break your water to do that. Amanda: Oh, I'm sorry. My water did break. Meagan: Oh, your water did break. Amanda: I apologize. I missed that. Gosh darn it. Meagan: I might have missed that. Amanda: No, I missed it. I missed it. But I didn't want the internal monitor. I just didn't feel like that was right for me. I was like, “I'll just keep struggling with this. He is safe and happy and comfortable. I'll be fine.” The night nurseAmanda: Everything was going fine. My body was doing it. I didn't need Pitocin and I was loving labor. Everything that I had practiced and done and just my head space was good and I had listened to some fear-release meditation prior to this and it was just wonderful. I was living in labor land. It was wonderful. Then shift change happened and the night nurse came. The night nurse was very, very intense. My day nurse would let that monitor ride a little bit without being on. This night nurse was not having it. Continuous monitoring meant continuous monitoring and she felt that she needed to do that 3 inches from my face with her hands just pressing and touching me and I really was feeling very overwhelmed by her. Meagan: Yeah. Amanda: I was trying to ignore her and they brought in the bar and I was laboring on the bar. It was wonderful but I still remember that I could smell her breath through her mask. It was too much. She was too much. I said, “Please can I labor in the shower and then we can get together?” She was like, “Okay, as long as baby stays on the monitor." I was like, Please baby, stay on the monitor. So I get in the shower and I was like, Okay. We're fine. Life is good. This is wonderful. I feel great. I'm rocking. It's great. Then I hear the bathroom open and I turn around and she is standing there in a full raincoat. She's got a head cover. Meagan: A raincoat? Amanda: She's got a plastic gown on, plastic shoes, and she comes in the shower with me and is trying to adjust this monitor. Meagan: Oh dear. Amanda: I lost my mind. I don't remember what I said but all I remember is screaming at her and her leaving but telling me I had to come out of the shower. So she leaves and I walk out and my husband and my doula are just snickering because I just kicked her out. But I was like, “Why is she in the shower with me?” I get dried. I get redressed. I'm back in the bed and she's back. Then my blood pressure starts spiking and I start hearing, “High blood pressure, high blood pressure.” I'm like, Oh my god, it's happening. Meagan: It's her. It's her. Amanda: Right, but I got scared because of what happened before. Meagan: Of course. Amanda: I was like, “I can't have this.” I remember Mallory looked at me and she said, “Do you want an epidural?” I didn't initially want one because I wanted to feel this. I wanted to feel all of this. She said, “It would just be a tool to reach your ultimate goal.” Now, I knew two things at that time. It was one, an epidural would help keep me still which was going to help keep this monitor one and two, it's known for bringing blood pressure down. So I agreed. I was kind of sad about it, but I knew ultimately that I was going for the VBAC. That's what I wanted so I had to keep that in my sights. In my head, I didn't say this out loud, but I said, “Okay. If I am a 6 or less, I will get an epidural.” I had a doctor come in and check and I was a 6. I get the epidural and obviously, it doesn't work so I get a second epidural. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Amanda: It was lovely, but that one did work. That brought my blood pressure back to normal and I was still, but then man. Between my husband was helping my doula and she had the peanut ball and she was still moving me. She was holding that monitor on. She was watching that monitor for me. It was just amazing but the problem was that the epidural stopped my contractions. Meagan: That is a downfall that can happen.Amanda: Yeah, so then I did consent to Pitocin at that point because everything stopped. “It is done.” Amanda: I had the epidural. I had the Pitocin. Things were progressing. I was dilating. We were moving me as much as you can with the epidural and then around 4:00 PM, my epidural wore off and I felt it wear off. I was like, Oh my gosh. At 4:45, the midwife came in and she checked me. She said, “Oh, you are 9 centimeters. This is wonderful. I'll be back in a few hours.” I'm thinking, A few hours, I don't feel like I have a few hours here. I felt my body start pushing all by itself. I was like, Oh my gosh. This is amazing, but I was like, “You have to get her back here. I know she said I was just 9, but you have to get her back here.” She came back and she said, “Oh, you're 10 already. Let's do a practice push.” I was like, “Wait. I need the mirror. Where's the mirror? I want to get the mirror.” There was a full-length mirror that they brought in and I thought there was going to be a little hand mirror situation so I was really happy with the full-length mirror that came in. She said, “Let's do a practice push,” and she was like, “Oh, you are an excellent pusher. You've got this.” I'm watching in the mirror and I hear from the hallway, “Don't let her push until I get in here!” And it was the doctor that I originally interviewed. She came in. She said, “I want to see this through.”Now, meanwhile, I had not seen her throughout my entire pregnancy as one of my providers but I thought that was so cool that she remembered that and came in for this. It was the midwife, not the VBAC midwife but another midwife and her were there with me and as I started to push him and his head came out, the midwife said, “Oh, do you want to feel his head?” Before I could even answer yes, the doctor said, “Oh, she does,” and takes my hand and I feel him. I'm pushing. I'm watching. My doula is taking pictures and all of a sudden, the midwife is blocking the mirror. I'm like, looking at her and I'm like, “I can't see.” I'm hearing her say, “Amanda, Amanda, Amanda.” Finally, I look over and she's blocking the mirror because she is holding my baby in front of me. Meagan: Oh my gosh! No way. Amanda: I was like, “Oh my gosh!” Then I'm looking at him and then there is a bright light behind him and I feel this moment of peace and I feel in my heart and I hear, “It is done.” I just know that God was there with me the entire time and I'm so grateful for that. My husband got to cut the cord and I got to hold him immediately– well, we didn't cut the cord until it stopped pulsing. he was so cute. He was like, “She told me to wait until it's white. Is it white? Is it white? Is it white?” It was just wonderful and he cut the cord. I got immediate skin to skin and I got to do his first latch right then and there which was so different. It was so different than my son. It was just such a redemptive, wonderful experience. I just am so grateful to The VBAC Link for seeing me through it and for giving me the information and just the inspiration to even take this on because if I had never found you, I don't know for sure if I ever would have gone through with it. So, thank you so much for that. Meagan: Oh my gosh. You are so welcome and thank you for sharing this beautiful story. I'm looking at your photo right now and oh my heck. I don't know who took it–Amanda: My doula, she took it. Meagan: Mallory?Amanda: Mallory. Meagan: Mallory killed it with this photo. I mean, seriously it is beautiful. Amanda: Thank you. Thank you. Meagan: I highly suggest if you are listening right now, head over to Instagram or Facebook and check out this absolutely empowering photo. The emotion, oh. Congratulations. I'm so stinking happy for you. Amanda: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It was quite a journey. Importance of lactation supportAmanda: I just wanted to add one more thing if I could. Meagan: Yes. Amanda: I got to nurse Jeffrey David eventually, my first baby once he left the NICU but it was a rough time and then with Charlie, my second, I got to latch him right away and I am still nursing him now. He'll be 3 in June. I just want to say just like you get doula support for your birth, get yourself some lactation support if breastfeeding is the way you want to feed your baby. Meagan: 100%. 100%. Amanda: Yeah, so I used my friend, Lauren. She is from Cozy Latch Counseling and she has seen me through this entire process. I went back to work. I was able to pump and provide milk and now like I said, he's almost 3 and I'm still able to do that. If I hadn't had that lactation support from the very beginning, I don't know if that journey would have been as successful as it was. Meagan: Yeah. I mean, I full-on believe having lactation support even before the baby is here to talk about it. Talk about your plan. Discuss what you are wanting, your desires, your needs, and then getting that help right away even if it's your second, third, fourth, or fifth baby. Everyone is so different and I love that you brought that up because definitely, we are passionate about that for sure as you know or if you have been listening. We love The Lactation Network. We absolutely 100% would agree with you on that. Oh my gosh, well my face is just so happy. Can you just see my face right now? Amanda: I can. Meagan: I'm just smiling so big. My cheeks are throbbing a little bit, but that's a good thing. I'm just so grateful for you. This is such an amazing episode and congratulations again.  ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this week's episode we talk to runner and Naval Office, Paul Johnson about:The logistics of running across the United StatesRaising money for Team Red, White and BlueFueling for 3,000 miles in 52 days (and change)In 2018 Naval Officer Paul Johnson went on his first deployment overseas to Spain. While it led to amazing opportunities, it was a difficult tour that weighed heavily on him and his fellow Sailors. His next duty station took him to San Diego in 2021, and once removed from the constant stressful environment of his first deployment, he began noticing the issues he had been dealing with, like persistent sleep issues, anxiety, and depression. He had been using alcohol as a coping mechanism, but his narrative began shifting in 2022, when a Marine friend asked Paul to train and run the Marine Corps Marathon. He trained for months, and they both ended up finishing the marathon in under 3 hours, and receiving their Boston Qualifier. During this time, he realized how much running helped him cope with the anxiety/depression symptoms he was experiencing. In January 2023, with a move to the East Coast, he started a run streak. This quickly evolved into entering the ultra scene, running 100 mile races by April 2023. Running was his therapy, and he found release and escape in a positive way. This year (2024), he tackled the TransCon, running 3,000 miles from California to New York to raise awareness & funds for mental health issues facing veterans through Team Red White and Blue, which exists to enrich the lives of veterans by providing opportunities to build a healthier lifestyle.Please note that this podcast is created strictly for educational purposes and should never be used for medical diagnosis and treatment.***Keep up with Paul Johnson:IG: @pauijohnsonYT: @pauijohnsonWebsite/Donate to Team RWB: www.pauljohnson.run Mentioned:Sports Nutrition Education ProgramBoston Athletic Assn. Marathon Training PlanTailwind: https://amzn.to/457iGnyNR recommends: Metagenics OmegaGenics EPA-DHA 1000 Fish Oil, available on FullscriptTest your blood before & after a big race w/ Inside TrackerMORE NR New customers save 10% off all products on our website with the code NEWPOD10 If you would like to work with our practitioners, click here: https://nutritional-revolution.com/work-with-us/ Save 20% on all supplements at our trusted online source: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/kchannell Join Nutritional Revolution's The Feed Club to get $20 off right away with an additional $20 Feed credit drop every 90 days.: https://thefeed.com/teams/nutritional-revolution Interested in blood testing? Use code NUTRITIONALREVOLUTION at InsideTracker for 20% off any test: store.insidetracker.com/nutritionalrevolution If you're interested in sponsoring Nutritional Revolution Podcast, shoot us an email at nutritionalrev@gmail.com.

Tania (@this_phoenix_runs on Instagram). gave us a fantastic episode about the MCM weekend.  She's back for a bonus discussion that we wanted to share this week from the time when we stopped recording, but there was so much more to share!    The Penguin Award at Marine Corps MarathonIt's in honor of Maj. Megan McClung  (KIA 2006)— it symbolizes the belief that finishing is what matters in this or any race!  Here is a link to a video that highlights this award and its history:  https://www.marines.mil/News/Marines-TV/videoid/490355/dvpTag/run/.  It is called that, as the video says, because Megan was reading and following John Bingham, who we have seen on several documentaries like Spirit of the Marathon.  John Bingham had a website called the Penguin Chronicles, and people can find out more about him at http://www.johnbingham.com. We found the 2023 winner of the award on https://www.dvidshub.net/image/8094953/48th-marine-corps-marathon-penguin-award. We have requested permission to use the photo in this episode's artwork.  Credit:  Photo In Episode Artwork taken on 10.29.2023.  Photo by Sgt. Bryce Hodges Marine Corps Base Quantico.  U.S. Marine leaders and Marine Corps Marathon officials pose for a photo with the 2023 Penguin Award winner, Soon Kim, in Arlington, Virginia, Oct. 29, 2023.  Kim completed the 48th Marine Corps Marathon with a time of 06:40:41.  The Penguin award is presented annually to the MCM's last finisher in honor of Maj's life and service.  Megan McClung.  (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Sgt. Bryce Hodges)Connect with Tania Herehttps://www.instagram.com/this_phoenix_runs Port City Brewing Companyhttps://www.portcitybrewing.com/Aslin Beer Company https://www.aslinbeer.com/Big Buns Damn Good Burger Co. (boozy shakes!)https://www.eatbigbuns.com/menu Cheesetique (lobster mac & cheese)https://www.cheesetique.com/menus/ Busboys and Poets (fried chicken platter)https://www.busboysandpoets.com/ Bluejackets (in Navy Yard; good food AND beer)https://www.bluejacketdc.com/ The Museum of the American Indian (green chile bison burgers)http://www.mitsitamcafe.com/content/menus.asp  Support the Show.THAT'S A WRAP! Thank you for listening! Because of your support, we are in our seventh year of the podcast! Don't forget to follow us and tell us where to find you next on our website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Also, check out our store on the website and get some NEW swag, thanks to Pure Creative Apparel. Thanks to www.PodcastMusic.com for providing the music for this episode, too!

Episode 109 features one of our own local runners here in New Hampshire.  Blake Tyler (00:31:00), a social justice organizer and runner, shares his experiences and journey in this podcast episode. The conversation covers topics such as childhood snacks, running clubs, COVID-19, and the joy of making friends through running. He also discusses his involvement in the Greater Manchester Running Club and his role as El Presidente. The conversation touches on the impact of COVID-19 on running races and the sense of community that running brings. The conversation covers various topics related to running, including different types of races, pacing strategies, and personal experiences. The speakers discuss their preferences for race formats, such as mass starts and rolling starts. They also share stories about their own races, including funny moments and challenges with pacing. The conversation veers off into other topics, such as Halloween costumes and Taylor Swift concerts. Overall, the conversation is lighthearted and entertaining. In this part of the conversation, Blake dives more into his role as the President of the Greater Manchester Running Club (GMRC). He explains how he became the president and the open social structure of the club. He also discusses the perks of being a member, such as free singlets and buffs, discounts at local businesses, and access to demos and events. Blake emphasizes that GMRC is a community-based club that welcomes runners of all paces. He also mentions his upcoming races, including a half marathon in Argentina and the Mount Washington Road Race.  He also reflects on his past marathon experiences, including the challenging Marine Corps Marathon. Blake emphasizes the mental health benefits of running and the joy it brings him. He also discusses the importance of staying true to the fun and enjoyment of running, rather than letting it become a chore or job. In this final part of the conversation, Blake discusses the mental clarity he gains from yoga and the physical benefits it has had on his running. He also talks about his decision to give up drinking and the positive impact it has had on his life. Blake emphasizes the importance of practicing mindfulness and being present in the moment. The conversation concludes with a discussion about the Code Brown commandments and Blake's song recommendation for the podcast playlist.During the Tros, Eric and Erika discuss Erika's recent 50K race and their plans for the podcast. They also answer questions from listeners and talk about upcoming races. Erika shares her experience of the race, including the challenging terrain and her fueling strategy. They also discuss the possibility of starting a book club and the benefits of using Canva for podcast graphics. The episode ends with a shoutout to a new patron and a discussion about future race plans. In this conversation, Knute and Erika discuss various topics including Erika's mom running her first half marathon, their upcoming races, and their summer break plans. They also give shoutouts to their Patreon supporter and the Boston Bulldogs running group. The conversation is light-hearted and filled with banter.Greater Manchester Running ClubStrava GroupLinktree - Find everything hereInstagram - Follow us on the gram YouTube - Subscribe to our channel Patreon - Support usThreadsEmail us at OnTheRunsPod@gmail.com

SHOUT OUTSIf you want a shoutout for you or someone you love on the show,  email us at info@runeatdrink.net or give us a call and leave a message at 941-677-2733.Thanks to all our patrons and everyone in the Runcation Nation for your support and encouragement.  Because of you, we have kept the show going over the last two years, so thank you!Thank you to James Gray and Dean Gerber, Associate Producers of our show.  Thank you to Josh Ozbirn, Executive Producer of the podcast, too!  We couldn't do it without you.RED Episode 283 Runcation Recap with Tania: Marine Corps MarathonPatrons, we will have a bonus episode over on Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee as Tania shared some of her favorite race weekends when it comes to bling, crowd support, and more!https://www.patreon.com/Runeatdrinkpodcast https://buymeacoffee.com/runeatdrinkpod Connect with Tania here: https://www.instagram.com/this_phoenix_runs Check out Tania's hydration, fuel, food, apparel, and beverage recommendations here:Rabbit Apparelhttps://www.runinrabbit.com/ Tailwind Nutritionhttps://tailwindnutrition.comLost Dog Cafehttps://www.lostdogcafe.com/ Lost Boy Ciderhttps://www.lostboycider.comEven after our episode, Tania contacted us with a list of places to explore and indulge after crossing the Marine Corps Marathon finish line.Port City Brewing Companyhttps://www.portcitybrewing.com/Aslin Beer Company https://www.aslinbeer.com/Big Buns Damn Good Burger Co. (boozy shakes!)]https://www.eatbigbuns.com/menu Cheesetique (lobster mac & cheese)https://www.cheesetique.com/menus/ Busboys and Poets (fried chicken platter)https://www.busboysandpoets.com/ Bluejackets (in Navy Yard; good food AND beer)https://www.bluejacketdc.com/ The Museum of the American Indian (green chile bison burgers)http://www.mitsitamcafe.com/content/menus.asp  Support the Show.THAT'S A WRAP! Thank you for listening! Because of your support, we are in our seventh year of the podcast! Don't forget to follow us and tell us where to find you next on our website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Also, check out our store on the website and get some NEW swag, thanks to Pure Creative Apparel. Thanks to www.PodcastMusic.com for providing the music for this episode, too!

On today's episode, we chat with Carrie Sheffield! Carrie Sheffield is a columnist and broadcaster in Washington DC. She earned a full-tuition Harvard scholarship, managed billions of dollars in risk at Wall Street firms and competed in a Miss USA system beauty pageant. A journalist and former White House correspondent, she challenged the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and testified as an economic expert before the US Congress. Carrie achieved all this while overcoming a life of extreme poverty and psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse. A recovered agnostic, Carrie eventually found peace and anchoring in Christianity. Carrie shares insights on networks like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS News, CNBC, BBC, and more. From ABC's Good Morning America to HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, PBS, and C-SPAN, she uses her dynamic voice to resonate with audiences of millions. A traveling enthusiast, Carrie visited every continent—including Antarctica—before age 30. She ran the Marine Corps Marathon and won the National Press Club 5K three times. Named a “Most Inspiring New Yorker” by the popular connection app Bumble, Carrie is passionate about instilling resilience and joy in others. Motorhome Prophecies is the story of Carrie's unbelievable, yet in many ways, very American journey. It resonates with those trapped in difficult situations and awes all who are enchanted by the depths and resilience of the human spirit. carriesheffield.com @sheffieldcarrie christianmusicguys.com @christianmusicguys Check out our merch store! christianmusicguys.com/store --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christianmusicguys/message

We welcome back a friend of the Pod for her own episode, Denise Freeman!  Denise is the manager of Fleet Feet in Fredericksburg, Virginia, shares her running journey and upcoming races. She grew up in New Hampshire and started running in high school. After a break, she started racing at the age of 30 and got hooked. Denise has a busy race calendar, including 5Ks, 10Ks, a half marathon, a 50K, the JFK 50 miler, and the Philadelphia Marathon. She also organizes a weekly trail group run and pushes for Angelis Angels in the Marine Corps Marathon. Denise and her partner, John, often run races together and support each other. Denise shares her experience of balancing work, races, and personal life. She talks about the challenges of overbooking herself and the need to prioritize. She also shares some of her favorite running stories, including getting bit by a dog and running in freezing temperatures. Denise emphasizes the importance of taking care of your feet and using body glide to prevent blisters. Denise shares her upcoming race plans, including the Jarman's Invitational Marathon and a 50-mile/50K combination race. She also talks about the Furbutt Backyard Ultra and the unique shoe competition that will take place. Denise's friend describes her as a bulldog who is always up for any challenge. Denise expresses her love for working in the running community and helping people find satisfaction and happiness in their activities.During the Tros, Erika and Knute discuss various topics including Erika's recent marathon, Knute's training for a 100-mile race, their upcoming trip to Cincinnati for the Flying Pig Marathon, and their thoughts on running-related issues such as wearing sponsor gear and missing race cutoff times. They also talk about their recent experiences with food, including Knute trying dairy-free cheese and Erika making pancakes. The conversation concludes with a discussion about Knute's car troubles and a bathroom mishap with his kids. In this conversation, Knute and Erika discuss their recent home repair issues, upcoming travel plans, and updates on their YouTube channel. The conversation ends with well wishes for Erika's upcoming race and a reminder to stretch.Strava GroupLinktree - Find everything hereInstagram - Follow us on the gram YouTube - Subscribe to our channel Patreon - Support usThreadsEmail us at OnTheRunsPod@gmail.com

Have you ever wondered what it's like to run for a charity team at a major marathon? How do you get selected, what is required, and why might you want to consider it for your next race?   Today we're talking to Amber Weiner. National Development Director for Volo Kids Foundation. An organization dedicated to building communities of active, resilient, and confident kids through quality sports programs and opportunities at no cost to families.   For over 5 years their New York City marathon team has served over 1,000 kids! This year they were selected once again to participate as a charity in the New York City marathon! Just recently were also selected to participate as a charity in the Marine Corps Marathon also known as the People's Marathon - Its impeccable organization and iconic course managed by the US Marines has given it a major reputation in the community.   This episode is not only going to explore how running for a charity team works but why it matters and more specifically how running can help…kids run for free.   For more information on Volo Kids Foundation or to register for one of their marathon teams go to ⁠www.volokids.org⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mayberunningwillhelp/message

When Tamara Milliken stepped onto the scales at her doctor's office, the verdict was clear: Change was crucial for her health. Now, she joins us to recount the remarkable transformation from a stark doctor's warning to crossing the finish line at the Marine Corps Marathon. Her journey defies the age barrier, showcasing how starting a fitness regimen in your mid to late 50s isn't just possible—it's a gateway to rewriting your life's story. Through arthritis, knee surgeries, and the complexities of training on medication, Tamara exemplifies the resilience of the human spirit, underscored by the unwavering support of a personal trainer dedicated to her success.Imagine lacing up your running shoes and feeling the weight of every stride, the challenge of distance compounded by the whispers of your body, urging you to listen closely. That's the balancing act Tamara navigates as she shares the intricate details of her running regimen, her transition from full to half marathons, and the mental fortitude required to discern when to push and when to pause. Her commitment lights a path for listeners considering their own fitness goals, illustrating the profound impact of tailored coaching, and the beauty of running not just for oneself, but for causes that touch the heart.As we wrap up our time with Tamara, we're left with more than just her story—we're armed with the inspiration to take on our own fitness endeavors. Her narrative is a powerful reminder of the importance of maintaining a strong base, the strategic benefits of power zone training, and the life lessons etched into the soles of a runner's shoes. Whether you're a seasoned marathoner or someone just starting out, Tamara's courage and conviction are sure to ignite a spark within you to embrace your next challenge with open arms and steadfast determination. You can reach out to us at:https://coffeycrewcoaching.comemail: Carla@coffeycrewcoaching.com FB @ Over the Next Hill Fitness GroupIG @coffeycrewcoaching.comand Buy Me a Coffeehttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/Carlauhttps://rnwy.life code: OTNH15

I believe the biggest fight comes from wrestling with the demons inside us - those past unhealed traumas. My next guest is a former shipmate I served with during a very stressful carrier tour, which has now transformed his life. He has created a holistic environment around him based on the hard work we must all do when we suffer. Dave Snell is a retired Navy Cryptologist who spent the majority of his career focused on the Pacific theater but enjoyed deployments to the European theater and multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. Relatively early in his career, Dave began dealing with depression and anxiety.  It got so bad that he saw suicide as the only option. He did not talk about the subject with many of his peers because of fear of stigma and the lack of opportunities presented to him in his career.  He was able to continue his career with a second tour at the National Security Agency, followed by the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and Special Operations Command, Pacific where he could again deploy to the Afghanistan theater after a deployment to the Philippines. After his naval career, Dave went into industry conducting risk management assessments of Fortune 500 company cybersecurity programs to ensure they met different regulatory requirements.  And yet, he could not shake the traumas.  The traumas began adding up and he eventually found himself in therapy again, and again, and again.  Finally, the pandemic offered an extreme period of self-reflection for Dave and he found a means of getting beyond his traumas and associated depression and anxiety.  Dave found that Movement, Mind, Meditation, and Meaning were four areas he was able to integrate to ensure that he kept the depression and anxiety at bay. Having lost a lot of weight during the pandemic, Dave focused on a near 30-year goal of running the Marine Corps Marathon and eventually did in 2022 and again in 2023.  These marathons culminated in working through the 4Ms and putting them into action when things during the races didn't go as planned.  And yet, he was able to make it through both and looks forward to doing more in the coming years. Today, Dave is a security consultant, combining his experiences in cybersecurity, intelligence, and private investigations to help companies protect their critical information and infrastructure from internal and external threats.  Simultaneously, Dave has continued his service, shaVisit my website: https://thehello.llc/THERESACARPENTERRead my writings on my blog: https://www.theresatapestries.com/Listen to other episodes on my podcast: https://storiesofservice.buzzsprout.comWatch episodes of my podcast:https://www.youtube.com/c/TheresaCarpenter76

Angelica McMurtray and I are both residents of Carmel, IN, but started out as virtual friends. During this episode we talk about: How we met IRL The “cheese video” The Houston Half How I refuse to believe Angelica is 52 How she started running at age 38 after having her three boys Running for Ainsley's Angels Her running bucket list The timeline of her running journey Why we love talking about running Air Force Marathon, back to back Chicago and Berlin The Sam Costa Half Marathon - March 23rd this year How Angelica SINGS and used to be part of a pop/hip hop acapella group that had a song on the radio, Pinay How she loves CrossFit “because she sucks at it” The Monon Pirate Cat (RIP) Running the Marine Corps Marathon in a deluge of rain

After serving in the Marine Corps, this week's "Run The Race" guest may not be active duty but he's extremely active, aiming to run 50 marathons this year alone. How does he do it at almost 70 years old? Listen to find out, and make sure to subscribe to this pod for inspiring stories about fitness and faith! (4:38) Colonel (Ret) Hank Donigan - who joined me from Honlulu after his latest 26.2 mile marathon there - first talked about continuing to run even amidst brain surgery this past summer. He talks the benefits of running for our overall health and stress, helping people like him face depression and anciety. (9:25) He opens up about PTSD, after his numerous deployments overseas, and how the scars can be unseen. (13:48) COL Donigan has been running around a marathon per week, on average, for the last 7 years. First, what was his motivation to run as a Marine then beyond the military? He talks about setting an example as a leader, being physically fit. Now, at 68 years old, the extreme volume of long distance running is a litmus test for his health plus a way to motivate others of any age. He gives us a quick recap of the latest one in Hawaii. We dive into (21:45) his three decade career as a Marine full of adventure, with prayers getting him through peril. (29:45) Fast forward to his 60s, how is he able to still be in good enough shape to run so much? There's inflammation, arthritis...but "Hammerin Hank" (as he's known) explains how a big change in his diet helped him overcome that pain and run as long as he wants. Hint: it involves meat and a certain kind of smoothie. He also has a message for people as they get older, that it's never too late to get started...with small steps. (37:56) Donigan talks about the emotions of running the Marine Corps Marathon, which he's finished 24 in a row now. He's also run the Boston Marathon 3 times, in the city where he grew up. (43:58) Most importantly, his running allows him to fundraise for The Semper Fi Funds, benefiting wounded warriors and their families. In our chat, he talks about what they endure and visiting Marines in the hospital. Here's more on the cause and how you can give: https://runsignup.com/Race/47358/Donate/rpy06X1vBee5NBTB?fbclid=IwAR2y8WSL-Z4HzZQK-EVUX7gOug3FyVzFUJibQBdztWtDqXk_6scwpUREn14. (51:38) As a young marine, after running his first full ironman triathlon, this star athlete almost left the military to pursue the Olympics. But a deployment to Beirut changed him. On the heels of hundreds of marines killed, his unit landed on Grenada to liberate the island. Despite facing that trauma, he stayed in the Marines. Decades later, he dedicates miles in those marathons to wounded warriors and heroes who gave their lives for us. He still teaches at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College on Camp Pendleton. Thanks for listening to the #RunTheRace podcast! Also, write a quick review about it, on Apple podcasts. For more info and all past episodes, go to www.wtvm.com/podcast/.

A year and a half ago Paul Johnson accepted an invitation to run the Marine Corps Marathon. Since making that fateful decision Paul has run UTMB, Canyons 100, PR'd the marathon in 2:46, and done much more. It's been a whirlwind that few people could have pulled-off and there is much more to come. In this episode we learn all about Paul's amazing journey and his preparation for a world record attempt of running from Los Angeles to New York beginning in March 2024. Paul also talk about his extensive training while also being a full-time Naval officer. You can follow Paul at www.instagram.com/pauijohnson . Sponsors: Oladance - Save 20% on the OWS2 open-ear headphones with superior sound and 19 hours of battery life at www.oladance.com/rambling with code "rambling" Janji - Save 15% on the best running apparel, that includes a five year guarantee, with code “rambling” at www.janji.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I recap my Marine Corps Marathon and how I am feeling after the race. I share about my training cycles, the experiences I had during the race and how I handled the gremlins and judgement that came up after my race.    Interested in Food Freedom Runner Academy, DM me @serenamarierd

Introduction:Hello my endurance athletic old friends. Welcome to episode 5-481.How are we on this fine fall day? Up here in New England we have set the clocks back and it is now officially dark at 4:30ish, which makes me want to stab myself in the eye with an olive fork… Is there such a thing as an olive fork? We like to tell ourselves up, with puritanical zeal, and righteous fury, that all this lack of sunlight and crappy weather makes us harder and more able to transverse this fickle world filled with chaos. We say things like, “I was doing hill repeats in the freezing rain,” – wearing that suffering like holy stigmata. But, what if it's all a lie? What if all the adversity just makes us grumpy and hard to live with? I don't know – but I do know the best policy is to take it one day at a time, do what you can and embrace what the universe brings you because time is short! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you love a good race report, this episode is for you! First, co-host Sarah WF, fresh off the Marine Corps Marathon, shares how her day in D.C. went, and how she was able to walk away with an upbeat attitude despite it not being her best race. Then, the hosts bring back Better Together partners Sarah Jensen and Linda Bahnson, who completed the Indy Monumental Marathon together as a protege and mentor, respectively. The pair share how their race went, plus the perks of having a built-in training and racing buddy.  Next, BAMR Kate Kneifel shares her experience at the Blue Ridge Ultra, part of AMR's Race Like A Mother: Ultra program. Kate ran the 15K at Blue Ridge in Georgia and she chats about how that went and the camaraderie that came along with racing with a group of Mother Runners.  Want to join Better Together in 2024? We'll be releasing information for our 2024 program in early January; sign up here to stay in the know! What was your 2023 athletic highlight? Tell us here! When you shop our sponsors, you help AMR. We appreciate your—and their—support! Find quality candidates fast: Visit Indeed.com/amr to start hiring now. Get $30 off your 1st box + free croissants when you start your subscription at Wildgrain.com/AMR or use code AMR at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Ricky Dimon in town to run his sixth Marine Corps Marathon, he joins Ben for their annual wrap show on the year that was in men's tennis, which was another season of Novak Djokovic, now 36, lording over a much younger field. Ben and Ricky get somewhat granular, going over the top seventeen men in the rankings and spending a few minutes on each, assessing their years and their prospects for next year. In order: Dimitrov, Shelton, Tiafoe, Khachanov, de Minaur, Paul, Ruud, Hurkacz, Fritz, Rune, Zverev, Tsitsipas, Rublev, Sinner, Medvedev, Alcaraz, and Djokovic Plus a few honorable notable mentions: Murray, Auger-Aliassime, Kyrgios and Nadal. Thanks for listening! And thanks for pre-ordering Ben's new biography of Naomi Osaka!

RED Episode 265 Fellow DONNA Marathon Weekend Enthusiast, Meredith Chambers SHOUT OUTS Thanks to all our patrons and everyone in the Runcation Nation for your support and encouragement.  Because of you, we have been able to keep the show going over the last two years, and now that the races are returning, we look forward to meeting up with you, too! We want to shout out Cheryl (@lookslikewalking) for her courage, determination, effort, and perseverance at the Marine Corps Marathon!  Cheryl, everyone in the Runcation Nation is proud of you! We offer the same shoutout to Tania (@this_phoenix_runs).  You are determined and inspiring in your attempt, and your husband is incredible for supporting you on the course, too! If you want a shoutout for you or someone you love on the show,  email us at info@runeatdrink.net or call us and leave a message at 941-677-2733. For anyone who would like a shoutout on the show, please don't forget to send them to us.  We do our best to collect weekly shoutouts, but please send them our way!  Please send them to info@runeatdrink.net or call 941-677-2733! Thank you to Joanne Blatchley and Dean Gerber, Associate Producers of our show.  Thank you to Josh Ozbirn, Executive Producer of the podcast, too!  We couldn't do it without you. Become a patron if you'd like more of the Run Eat Drink Podcast, including bonus content and early access to episodes!  Go to www.patreon.com/runeatdrinkpodcast.  We want to thank everyone who has supported the show and the ways we've had to adapt this past year.  We can't tell you how much it means to us to have this community.  We love you, Runcation Nation.  We can't wait to runcation with you soon! Breast Cancer Awareness Month and The DONNA Foundation: A Chat with Fellow Runner and Donna Marathon Weekend Enthusiast Meredith Chambers This week, we chatted with fellow fundraiser and runner Meredith Chambers.  She runs to honor her mother's battle with breast cancer, and her stories of the course and tips for exploring and indulging will inspire you to run with us in February 2024!! Some places she mentioned that you  need to check out whenever you are in Jacksonville for the race weekend or on any occasion: Cousins Maine Lobster:  https://www.cousinsmainelobster.com/locations/neptune-beach-fl/  Taco Lu https://www.tacolu.com/menu  Jax Beach Brunch Haus:  https://www.jaxbeachbrunchhaus.com/    And here is the information for the host hotels for race weekend:  https://breastcancermarathon.com/travel/  Runcation Nation, we hope you will join us virtually or, even better, in person at the Donna Marathon Weekend, February 2-4, 2024.  Go to https://runsignup.com/runcationnation2024  to donate or register and join the Runcation Nation Team!  Don't forget to use our discount code RCNATION5 to register, too! Find out more about Donna Marathon Weekend at https://breastcancermarathon.com/  Take a virtual visit or plan your Donna Marathon Weekend in Jacksonville at https://www.visitjacksonville.com/  THAT'S A WRAP!  Thank you for listening!  We are in our 7th year of the podcast because of all your support!  Don't forget to follow us and tell us where to find you next on our website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Also, check out our store on the website and get some NEW swag, thanks to Pure Creative Apparel.  Thanks to www.PodcastMusic.com for providing the music for this episode, too!

In another evergreen coaching episode we talk about how best to race a marathon in the heat. We recorded this episode because this the Marine Corps Marathon will be held this weekend in less than desirable conditions and we want everyone to be at their best on race day! In this episode we cover pacing adjustments, cooling strategies, and nutrition recommendations. Sponsor: Janji - Save 15% on the best running apparel, that includes a five year guarantee, with code “rambling” at www.janji.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Hetherington is the race director for the Marine Corps Marathon - but he's not your typical race director. Alex is a retired Marine aviator and a member of the All-Marine running team for 14 years. His resume includes a win at the Armed Forces Marathon Championship in 1998 as well as an astounding 27 finishes at the MCM. Our conversation focuses on what you can expect from this year's race: What makes the MCM so special, and why it is referred to as “The People's Marathon” Why there is no “typical” weather for MCM The importance of planning pre-race logistics to get to the starting area How the newest race sponsors help support its environmental ethic Locations of hills on the course and how to tackle them How the course layout helps runners runners approach it in segments Fueling and hydration options and pace group support Unique aspects of the race, including support from active duty Marines throughout Links & Resources from the Show: Follow the Marine Corps Marathon on Instagram and Facebook Learn more about the Marine Corps Marathon Watch more about the Marine Corps Marathon on YouTube Want to PR your next marathon? Maximize Your Recovery with a Lagoon Pillow Our newest sponsor is Lagoon, maker of the most comfortable pillow I've ever used. And that's no hyperbole. I'm pleasantly surprised every night I lie down because this pillow is just perfect for me. Since I know that sleep is the #1 recovery tool at my disposal, I'm taking it a lot more seriously. I took their sleep quiz to find the right pillow for my body size and sleeping position at. It only takes 2 minutes and you'll find the type of pillow that will work best for you. I'm using the Fox and absolutely loving it. A big reason why is because it's adjustable. Since you can add or remove fill to get your alignment right, it's a great way to optimize the most important way you can become a better runner that isn't training: sleep. We all know how important sleep is. It's the best recovery tool that you have at your disposal - better than compression, ice, heat, massage, or anything else you can think of. Sleep is when the magic happens and your sleep quality matters. Take your rest and recovery to the next level with Lagoon and get 15% off your purchase with code strengthrunning here. Optimize Hydration with DrinkLMNT A big thanks to DrinkLMNT for their support of this episode! They make electrolyte drinks for athletes and low-carb folks with no sugar, artificial ingredients, or colors. They are offering a free gift with your purchase at DrinkLMNT. And this does NOT have to be your first purchase. You'll get a sample pack with every flavor so you can try them all before deciding what you like best.  DrinkLMNT's products have some of the highest sodium concentrations that you can find. Anybody who runs a lot knows that sodium, as well as other electrolytes like magnesium and potassium, are essential to our performance and how we feel throughout the day. My favorite flavor is watermelon salt, but citrus salt is also a banger. I'm drinking one a day now to help me get enough fluids in our dry Colorado air. It's tasty and delicious and I find that I'm not peeing every 45 minutes throughout the day, which might be an indication I wasn't eating enough sodium. There's now mounting evidence that higher sodium intake levels are not unhealthy – and athletes need substantially more than your typical sedentary person. Of course, ask your doctor if you're worried. But for those athletes running outside in the heat, an electrolyte replacement makes a lot of sense. So check out DrinkLMNT to try their new flavor or get a free sampler pack.

If you're training for a fall marathon or half-marathon, you'll want to listen to this episode as we chat about running all the miles in all of the heat and humidity. First, Sarah WF shares how she's navigating training for the Marine Corps Marathon (check out this blog post for more on how SWF's surviving the summer miles!). Then, the hosts bring on Better Together teammates Sarah Jensen (the protege) and Linda Bahnson (the mentor) who have paired up to build up to the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. Tune in for tips for training through the warm temps and plenty of honest insight on topics including: Giving yourself plenty of grace (and adjusting your pace!) when it's super-hot outside; Keeping things lively by getting creative with your mileage; The importance of hydrating on the go; and much more! Be sure to listen all the way through for the third installment of our Nourished on the Run segment. Dietitian Ellie Kempton, RD, MSN, and Dimity talk through accessible ways to mitigate the 2 a.m. wake-up—and Dimity learns a new fact about the liver. If you're curious about the red screen, here you go. Two apps we love: Breathwrk and Insight Timer (for Yoga Nidra). When you shop our sponsors, you help AMR. We appreciate your—and their—support!  Drink up! Save 25% on $50+ any GU products w/ code AMR25 at GUenergy.com Find balance: For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com/amr  Use code AMR10 for $10 off 13.1 or 26.2 + AMR5 for $5 off 8K at RichmondMarathon.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices