Episode 51: Casey Crouse - That New Shoe Day Feeling

Episodes

Apr 12

Listener note: This episode includes discussion of the death of a sibling in a car accident.

Casey Crouse turned grief for his sister into a lifetime of service, ran 1,000 miles across Indianapolis in 100 days, and built New Shoe Day to put new shoes on kids' feet across Indiana.

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About this episode

Casey Crouse is a Carmel dad of three boys, a trail ultrarunner and the co-founder of New Shoe Day, an all-volunteer nonprofit that provides new shoes to youth in need across Indiana. So many people told me to get Casey on the podcast that I asked for almost a year, and this episode came out on April 12, the anniversary of his sister Ashley's death in 2005.

Casey shares Ashley's legacy at IU Dance Marathon and Riley Hospital for Children, and how he went from baseball to cycling, Ironman 70.3 racing and Leadville. We talk about the 1001 City project, when he and Trevor DeWitt ran 10 miles a day for 100 straight days through Indianapolis neighborhoods in 2020, and how handing out water bottles labeled 'a new shoe day' grew into a nonprofit that has given away about 2,000 pairs of shoes. We also get into coaching his wife Danica to her first marathon and his next big race in Ouray, Colorado.

In this episode, we discuss

Watching the 2024 solar eclipse in Carmel and Casey's dream of going to space
Growing up the youngest of three in Carmel and baseball as his first love
His sister Ashley's leadership at IU and her death in a car accident in 2005
How IU Dance Marathon supports Riley Hospital for Children
Starting Carmel Dance Marathon in Ashley's honor and leading IU Dance Marathon in 2009
Getting into endurance sports on a bike his brother gave him at 23
Qualifying for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship at Steelhead and racing in Australia
Coaching his wife Danica to her first marathon at Monumental
Running 1,000 miles in 100 days across Indianapolis for the 1001 City project
Where the name New Shoe Day came from
Turning New Shoe Day into a nonprofit and giving away about 2,000 pairs of shoes
How New Shoe Day works with schools, social service agencies and gear suppliers
Team New Shoe Day and Wednesday morning runs in Broad Ripple
Giving Jesse Itzler a new shoe day
Two finishes and one DNF at the Leadville 100 and training for 44,000 feet of climbing in Ouray

Chapters

Intro
The eclipse and going to space
Family, Carmel and baseball
Ashley's legacy and Dance Marathon
From cycling to Ironman 70.3
Coaching Danica to her first marathon
1,000 miles in 100 days
How New Shoe Day began
New Shoe Day today
Team New Shoe Day and how to help
Meeting Jesse Itzler
Leadville and trail running
Mantra and Ouray

Where to find Casey

New Shoe Day: @newshoeday

Mentioned in this episode

Races: Leadville Trail 100, Ironman 70.3 Steelhead, Ironman 70.3 World Championship, CNO Financial Indianapolis Monumental Marathon, Carmel Marathon, Holiday Park trail run, Running Man, Ragnar
Organizations and charities: New Shoe Day, 1001 City, IU Dance Marathon, Carmel Dance Marathon, Riley Hospital for Children, Riley Children's Foundation, Beyond Monumental Kids Movement, Big Brothers Big Sisters, A Kid Again, Providence Cristo Rey High School, Hubbard & Cravens
Other: Trevor DeWitt, Jesse Itzler, Sara Blakely, Illuminate podcast

Previous guests mentioned

Related episodes

Frequently asked

What is New Shoe Day?

New Shoe Day is an all-volunteer Indiana nonprofit co-founded by Casey Crouse that provides new shoes to youth in need through schools and youth-serving organizations, and it had given away about 2,000 pairs in its first two years.

What was the 1001 City project?

In 2020, Casey Crouse and Trevor DeWitt ran 10 miles a day for 100 straight days through different Indianapolis neighborhoods to bring the city together, and the project became the start of New Shoe Day.

Who was Ashley Crouse?

Ashley Crouse, Casey Crouse's older sister, was a student leader in IU Dance Marathon who was killed in a car accident on April 12, 2005, and Casey has carried on her legacy by supporting Riley Hospital for Children and starting Carmel Dance Marathon in her honor.

Support this show

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically, so it may contain errors.

Welcome to Finish Lines and Milestones with Allie Brettnacher. Incredible stories and tales of triumphs with everyday people achieving their goals and fitness. This podcast brought to you by Athlete Bouquets. Celebrate finish lines and milestones of the people that you love by visiting athletebouquets.com Hello and welcome to episode 51. This is Allie and man, what a week. How is it already over? I don't know, but coming off of spring break back into the swing of things has been crazy but so good. We started the week with a solar eclipse and in central IN where I am, we got the path of totality. So we got about 3 1/2 minutes of darkness and this crazy white ring in the sky.

It was so bizarre and so cool, it almost felt like it was like not real. So that was amazing. I hope wherever you are, you got a chance to experience it as well. And then I've been prepping all week for my first ever Expo on behalf of Athlete Bouquets at the Carmel Marathon. So I'm also making all of the awards and I'm going to be an MC and I'm running the half, and so I may have oversubscribed myself, but that's what I love to do. So I'm really looking forward to this weekend, getting to meet so many people I've never met in person. Getting a chance to run another half marathon, do some new things just really gets me going.

So I'm so excited. And then I'm so excited for this episode because finally, after gosh, probably almost a year of asking feels like I got Casey Krauss from New Shoe Day to come on the podcast. So when I first started this podcast, a number of people gave me his name. Just over and over again his name would come up, oh, you've got to have Casey on. So I finally did. He avoided me for a while, but now we did it and it was really great. I enjoyed having a chance to really finally sit down and meet Casey, and I love everything that he's doing. And I know that you will too.

And hopefully you will want to support him after this and all the cool things he's doing in our community here locally. But just in general. So please enjoy this conversation with Casey Kraus. Casey, Casey Kraus is finally on the podcast. Everybody, you're here. Your schedule allowed for it, I guess, Allie. Stop. I was telling you there were at least three people until I reached out to you and you're like, OK, yeah, send me an e-mail. So I sent you an e-mail and then sent you another e-mail. Hopefully I didn't send you too many emails. But then I met Carly Stewart, and I said Carly, and even I tried to sick Renee on you too.

And that didn't work. So then I met Carly, who works with you at New Shoe Day, and now you're now you're here. Yeah, well, as I said, she started to threaten me and my family and I said it's my time. But yeah, no. As I mentioned, podcasts are aren't my jam, you know? But we're here. We're here. Anything for? We just pretend like we're meeting for coffee. We are just. Pretend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we are. Well, I've got my new coffee mug. Yeah, it's amazing. So I first want to talk to you about something not running related, also something that was not on my list space because we are in Carmel IN.

And yesterday we had the Eclipse and then I was listening to the episode that you and Trevor DeWitt did with Lindsay Heine on the Illuminate podcast. Yeah, I went deep and you said you wanted to go to space. Number one item on my bucket list, hands down. Why? Why not? Because it's utterly terrifying. Partially. Why, Yeah, Yeah. I mean, could you, could you imagine? Yes, I actually do imagine it. And it makes my palm start to sweat. Like if I watch space movies where they're like doing the take off and everyone's shaking and sweating. Yeah, if if you went to my YouTube feed, it's probably 80%.

Just space junk. Yeah, just, yeah. I mean, videos on the Apollo missions, the Artemis stuff coming up, all the above. I do like space. Don't get me wrong. I'm a I'm a nerd. I just watched one of the documentaries on one of the Mars Rovers. I watch that stuff. I like fiction shows about space, but I just don't want to go. I would be like you can go. I'll go yeah, I'm going to find my way to space someday and back to yesterday. Yesterday was amazing. What did you do? So I was at work all day and our older two boys were off school and my wife was at home working with them at home.

Oh, that works well. No, no, I mean, this is disaster coming off spring break. Oh, gosh, I I made, I made my way home. I had glasses in tow. You know the. The Oh, of course. Sunglasses and we watched in the driveway and it was incredible it. Was so incredible. It was awesome. Did you do like the whole 2 1/2 hours? I mean with young kids? Believe me, I it was. Difficult. I pulled into my driveway like 15 minutes. Before totality. Totality. And then you know it ended and was back to working and being a dad 5 minutes later for the rest of the day.

It almost felt. I mean, it just almost felt like it wasn't real, at least to me. Like, yeah, you just it happened and then it's normal day again and you're just OK. Yeah, it was neat. And to see the the boys just kind of in that childlike wonder if you will, it was, you know, it's just like afterwards they're like, can we watch eclipse videos and stuff. And so we did some first grade basic, you know, lunar eclipse education. Fun, Yeah. Now, how old are your boys? Yeah, so our oldest is Remy. He's 5 1/2 OK. He also lost his first tooth last night. So.

What a day. Yeah, Milestone day. Big day in the household. Kirby, he's our middle. He's three. And then we've got baby Louie. He's one. And then you have Lemmy, your dog. Yeah. Lenny. Lenny. Lenny. Yeah, Lenny, the pup. What kind of dog? She's a sheep. A doodle. She's so cute. Yeah, she's a good dog. And then we have an 11 year old lab, Audie. You do? Awesome. I've been we have a 10 year old goldendoodle. And there's the debate with me and my husband of I would like to get another dog. You. Know with him. Young, so I'm losing that battle so far. We lost our minds for the first six months of having a puppy.

Let me be frank there. It probably was the wrong decision, but also the right one. Same time, considering. Yeah, you know. So is your oldest Is is Remy. So he is he in kindergarten. He's in pre-K, he'll he'll get on the bus in in August and. Yeah, I did that last year with my OK. So how'd it go? Great. Any advice? I mean, not really. Yeah, it'll be fine. It's. I mean, we live in. Are you in Carmel? Yeah. So it's like one of the best places in the world. So I'm just like, OK, it's going to be fine. Yeah, and I grew up here.

So yeah, we've got full confidence, you know, But kids and change, you never know times. And there's something about watching them climb onto the bus. I didn't cry actually. I might cry. It's thinking about it, Yeah. Actually, yeah. So we're going to get, we're going to go there. You just start. Yeah, sobbing. Just thinking about it. Yeah, it'll be fun, though. It'll be fun. My mother-in-law actually works at my daughter's school in another kindergarten class as a an IA. So it's amazing. So for me, it's like, OK, my mother in law's there. The school's literally less than a mile from my house. Are you in Carmel?

OK, yeah. Which school? West Clay Elementary. OK. Yeah. Which side of Carmel are you? On we'll be at Town Meadow. OK, that's where my mother-in-law actually used to work. OK, so I forget what the name of her kindergarten teacher she worked with there, but she was nice. So anyway, it'll be good. It'll be great. Yeah, it'll be all right. Man, three boys. That's awesome. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's it's a ton of fun. Life is full. We're scraping for minutes, but. Full is right. Yeah, but it's it's a ton of fun. Yeah. And I when I met Carly, I when she told me that New Shoe Day wasn't your full time job, I was like, oh, what, 'cause you have a normal job, then you have New Shoe Day, and then you're like running 100 mile races all the time.

At least from my purview. I'm like every time I see something come up on your feet, you're doing something crazy. Yeah, yeah, I I do have a full time job. Yeah. New shoe day is it's led by a group of individuals and it's entirely volunteer. So Carly puts in a ton of time. Could not do this without her and she does an awesome job. Super dedicated. Carly and I have known each other for, I don't know, half our lives or more, and we were born on the same day. Did she? I don't know if she told me that. Yeah, yeah. So we go way back and it's really cool that running a new shoe day has kind of like, I mean, we knew each other in high school and then, yeah, we're back to being friends or families or friends see each other a lot.

It's pretty cool. Now, did you go to all the Carmel schools here growing up? I did, Yep, Yep. Went to Carmel High School, loved it, played ball there and then went off to IU. Did you watch the Purdue game? The Yukon game, you know. Yeah, yeah. I don't care. But I just. I was supporting Purdue on behalf of my husband. Yeah, I. Boilermaker I I might lose some some listening ears at this point but you know lifelong who's your fan And if they were in the same shoes as me they they would understand this. I I did try for like a hot 2nd to root for.

I did. I was like, I'm going to give it a shot and see if everything is telling me like, hey, root for the Indiana school. And I couldn't do it. I just, I finally gave in. I was like, I can't do it. So yeah. But I wore my sweatshirt last night that I made for myself. That says go sports on it. Yeah, because I'm just, you know, Yeah, I'm there to be supportive. I like that I. Didn't stay up for the whole game. Once UConn started breaking away, I was kind of like, OK, time for me to go to bed now. Yeah, yeah, totally understand.

And I have no room to talk. Indiana basketball is in it. It's a different form right now, so. All good. So did you play sports growing up? Yeah. So I grew up, I was the youngest of three, kind of a unique situation. I I think for my sake, my brother six years older, sister four years older. So we were never in the same schools together, really not same group of friends. But I spent my childhood kind of chasing after them, if you will. And I think that that kind of brought to life some characteristics and traits of me that, you know, I think I still embody.

And one of them was just trying to keep up. And you know, when they'd play a sport, I'd play a sport and very competitive. So grew up a ball player, baseball, basketball, baseball ended up being my first love. Tell, tell, tell my wife Danica that to this day, you know, my first love was baseball, no doubt. And she gets it. We laugh. And yeah, played that through all the way through high school. Could have played in college but didn't and then but just kind of stayed in motion since then. And was your older sister, was she at IU when you were there, or was your age gap, like just enough so you weren't?

I was 17, so I was in high school and she was 21, so she was at IU. OK. Yeah. Yeah, so I was a a junior at Carmel. And then what about your brother? Where did he go? Did he go? To IU as well. Big Hoosier family. Did your parents go to IU? My dad did, Yeah. So yeah, we didn't change it up very much, I mean. Well, I come from a family where we all went to different schools. It was wild. Me and my sisters, we're all I'm the oldest of three, so I'm the opposite of the older, oldest one. And we all went to different high schools.

I went to Westfield, my middle sister went to Rebuff, and then my youngest sister went to Guerin. Oh, even high school is all different. And then we all went to different colleges. I went to Miami, Ohio. My sister went to IU and then my youngest sister went to Manchester College and my dad went to Notre Dame. My mom went to Saint Mary's. So we're just weird. I don't know how that happens. Just a hodgepodge of, yeah, education and background. That's really neat though. Yeah. I mean we each kind of paved our own way, but I guess you always kind of picture it, especially perhaps Midwest, you know, you just kind of all.

Yeah, yeah, I do at times get a little frustrated that I, I haven't fallen far from the Nest, if you will. You know, grew up here one time. You lived in the Broad Ripple area for a little while and then ventured to the burbs once we started our family, we've got, you know, my parents are up the street, my brother's, he's a neighbor. He's got all his cousins. You know, all the cousins are there. So it it emphasizes the importance of why travel is good you. Know. Exactly. That's what I tell myself too. It's like, OK, we're in the crossroads of America. We can go anywhere.

It's cost of living is great. It's fine because I also pictured myself not here when I would have thought about where I'd be. Yeah, but now I love it. And I'm never leaving because my parents are here, my husband's parents are here. We're we're stuck, but in a good way. Yeah, very blessed in terms of the where we're at, right. It's an incredible community. It's safe. Education is amazing. At the same time, you know it's important in that that you know what else is out there, right. And and you know maybe we'll get into that a little bit with new shoe day and those types of things.

But you know, I, Danica and I will joke at times. I think let's take a different route this time with the kids in the car, just so they can see what the world really looks like outside of, you know, this bubble that is Carmel IN and but we love it here. That's funny, when I sent you an e-mail, I could not believe that this episode is coming out on April 12th. Yeah, I. That is so bizarre, but it isn't it? Because you kind of you avoided me for a while and it's like your sister's like, Nope, this is when it's coming out. So your sister Ashley passed away on April 12th.

What year was that? 2005. 5. Yeah. So almost 20 years. Yeah, yeah. And as I said, I was 17 at the time. So you know, last year and kind of the year before, you know, grief is a, it's a it's a thing that's always in motion and you deal with it in different ways. And but I didn't see it coming. But when the 1718 year mark hit, that impacted me in a whole different way that I was not expecting because I was crossing over into a time frame of being without her. There was longer than the time I got, you know, with her. Not to mention the years that you just you didn't have a memory.

So and yeah, and then next year you know we're coming up on 20 years which is just it's wild so. It's so wild. I would love to hear about her legacy and how like the IE dance, marathon stuff, all the really cool stuff she was doing, and then how you've kind of kept her legacy alive and then how that fueled. I don't know if endurance sports came after that or before, but I would love to hear more about that. Yeah. So you know Ash, there are so few people in the world that can make an impact in a lifetime like Ashley did and she and she did that.

So you know a couple quick things on her. She went to Carmel, student by president, went on to IU, studied abroad a few times. I was running for student by president at IU, just a leader in in a lot of different areas. She was an athlete, played soccer. People say I have a lot of energy and I I just want to tell them like you never met my sister. She had an incredible amount of energy and then she just had a a really unique way of interacting with people that, you know, was just kind of like it was, it was the secret sauce to how she treated life.

And you know, as far as her legacy goes, it will and you know the story is right. So she was at IU and she was involved in IU Dance Marathon. So that's a philanthropic organization on campus that supports Riley Hospital for Children. IU has the largest Children's Miracle Network dance marathon in the country, started in 1991 and she was involved at a leadership level. So, you know, on the council, she was on the whole organization, pretty much the whole campus knew who Ashley Krause was. Which is crazy if you think about the size. Yeah and in 2005 you know social media was barely a thing.

So you really like for you to have community of that size and and to be that close with people you you really kind of had to have done something special or or what have you and she was she was just like that. So she was unfortunately killed in a tragic car accident on campus really just pure accident with a lot of variables and you know it shocked the world. You know, the world stood still for quite a while after that. The whole campus basically, you know, shut down and multiple thousands of people at her funeral, you know, at 21 to have that type of, you know, an impact and following and things like that.

So I was in high school at the time. You know, as I mentioned, I was playing baseball and I was on the fast track to go play college ball. It's all I wanted to do. That was my sole focus, good student to set the other. But I looked up to her tremendously. She she, she was the best big sister ever, always looking out for her little brother. And so when she passed away, I basically made a commitment right then and there that, you know, I'm going to go pursue pushing her legacy in the way that so many people think that it it it needs to for, you know, so many reasons.

So while we were at Carmel, we started Carmel Dance Marathon in her honor my senior year. Then I went on to IU and pursued the Dance Marathon route as well. And you know that's really or my passion for service if you will kind of was brought to life just just going on that route and gave my heart and soul to that organization while I was on campus. Had the pleasure of being president of it in 2009 and then have just continued to be highly you know involved at at Riley since then purely for her legacy. But for a lot of other amazing reasons, you know that that place has for us to, you know, put effort towards so.

Yeah, I just think 21 I was. I mean, I don't want to. I almost said. Like, I was a piece of shit. I wasn't all the way a piece of shit, but I just wasn't. I was in my own world, in high school, in college, you know, the world revolved around me. And so, thinking about the caliber of a human being at 21 years old, yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, she was special. And you know, my my parents would say that. You know they didn't they weren't doing anything special that you know where as I can be like yes of course you were and continue to be you know the three of us kids we all turned out pretty well and you know in her short time on earth she she changed the world and her legacy you know I don't I I'm kind of a believer you don't you don't build your own legacy your legacy is built by those that come after you or you know and.

Not everyone is willing to take a legacy like and and push it in the way we've done Ashley's without understanding, oh, the potential, the impact of of that. You know, the spirit of that that does not come around very often and we've, you know, for very bittersweet reasons, right. There's been a lot of, you know, good that has come from it and I know she's proud of that And you know a lot of future leaders have been built out of this in the dance marathon community and a lot of money has been raised for Riley. So it's been you know, that part has been you know from a, from the younger brother perspective bittersweet but also you know fulfilling and you know she's everyday continue to help me find my purpose and and my calling and you know, but also at the end of the day I wish we weren't having any of these conversations.

So yeah. For people who might not know about what dance marathon is like, like myself, actually I've never participated, so I don't really know anything which sounds, I mean, I feel like I've heard of it over and over again, but I've never been involved. So if you could talk a little bit about that, that would be helpful. Yeah, good question. So it's a student LED organization. You know, it could be in high schools, even middle schools, but mostly college campuses around the country. And they call it a dance marathon because the whole year of fundraising and activities culminates in a typically a weekend event that they call a dance marathon, where everyone comes together.

It's a big party. And the centerpiece of that is that the participants or the committee members or the dancers, if you will, they learn a line dance throughout that weekend. And so then at the end of the the dance marathon weekend, which kind of culminates again the entire year, that line dance is finished. And you know, if you look at the grand scheme of things, it has very little to do with dancing. It is all about supporting and raising awareness for the Children's Hospital that that Dance Marathon is is supporting throughout the year. So yeah, yeah, I always pictured it being like dancing for. Are there some that where you do dance for like hours and hours?

Well, I mean, on that weekend you're learning a line dance that can be, you know, 10-12 minutes long by the end of the the marathon I use dance marathon was 36 hours long. OK, stay on your feet the whole time, you know, several thousand people there, a lot of energy, a lot of fundraising happening. You know, IU, the year that I let it in 2009, we raised $1.5 million that year for Riley and they've since they've since gone up, you know past 3,000,000 on the regular 4 million even. And it is the single largest donor entity to Riley every year. Wow. And so do most schools in Indiana then support Riley That do it.

Most OK. Yeah, but you can. Like you would start a dance marathon and you could choose which hospital yours would support. Yeah. And I think in the in the Riley Children's Foundation kind of umbrella, there's you know, 60 some odd schools. I think at one point they were up over 80. So there's a lot of dance marathon happening in the state of Indiana and across the country. So Indiana, you know I'll give it credit, has really written the textbook for dance marathons across the country for universities and high schools to use. And and Carmel High School, you know, again, back to Ashley's legacy. We don't start that without her initial interest to having she would.

She wanted to do that while she was at IU. She's like, you know, one of my goals is to start a dance marathon at at my high school and she never got the chance. So Carmel, you know, within its first year was the largest high school dance marathon in the country and still continues to be. Yeah. That's really cool. You know, very much part of her legacy, both IU and Carmel, you know, dance marathon is described As for the kids. So that's often portrayed as FTK. And those two schools also say ALC and yeah, her initials. And then IU all says RW for Ryan White, which it was started in honor of in 1991.

OK. Yeah, Wow. So before we move on to the next topic, what will you do typically on April 12th? Do you do anything? Do you just think about it? And then when when was her birthday? Do you do anything special on those days? June 21st was her birthday, yeah. So, you know, on the anniversary we're passing, I try not to treat it as, you know, obviously it's a different day in our family and there were years where I made it more of a thing than other years. And it's very, you know, personal, if you will. And she's buried at Crown Hill. So you know, we get to go see her then.

And yeah, you know we don't, we don't make a make a ton of energy out of it and and just kind of treat it, you know personally across the family and you know obviously a lot of other people as well. So they do a, they do a walk in her honor down at IU during that week and that's really neat to see that you know they honor it as well. So yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. So you you talk about spending 36 hours on your feet for dance marathon and that's a pretty good segue into spending hours on your feet in the mountains wherever it is that you're participating in endurance event.

So did endurance sports come for you when after college? Yeah, so college ends and you know, you're not out trying to make varsity anymore or anything. You know, like it's like everyone's like, hey, join this intramural team. And I think I did maybe one intramural team. Nothing against intramural teams. I just, I, you know, I did it and I was like, this isn't for me. I need something different. My brother. So he's a cyclist. He rode little five at IU he coached for 1015 years, was a semi pro cyclist you know in his in his young adulthood and after I graduated he gave me a bike he was like hey I got an extra bike and I was like sweet, thank you let me give this a try.

I was not a cyclist, but again, ballplayer, very active, competitive, just needed to be moving at all times and the bike was kind of the gateway to it all. So you know, I picked up a bike, I was 23 at the time and maybe went out on one or two rides, could not have been more uncomfortable. But I was fascinated with the learning of a new thing and also there was community in it. And Indy, my brother was doing it. So there's a lot of attraction there and quickly picked up cycling pretty seriously. And you know, besides the physical aspect of endurance sports, you know cycling or running or what have you, for me it's it's my outlet for a lot of things.

Just not just the energy you know, expenditure but it's my form of meditation and prayer and you know therapy and where I go unwind and I have these types of talks with people on the trails all the time. You know, just where does your head go when you're out doing these types of things and can learn a lot about people in those moments. So yeah, it was that, it was that bike that kind of led to everything and you know, the biking turned into what is it, what's a triathlon look like and got into those and did those for a few years and then you know, professional life got busier, relationship with Danica got more serious over time.

You know, we started dating college and all that and eventually kind of, I don't know how you describe this, wound it down a little bit, but just on running and ditched the bike competitively and ditched swimming and now mostly just run, just run and and try to stay, you know, as fit and healthy as possible. So it's funny. So I know this, that you're very humble. I know this because people have told me this, namely Carly. And you say, Oh yeah, I did a, so I did a few triathlons and now I focus on running. But you did a full Iron Man and qualified for the World Championships.

So you, I mean, that is legitimate. So how did that happen and how did you pick which Iron Man, How many Iron Man's did you do in your time of triathlons? Yeah, I'll correct you a little bit. OK, please. So this is going to be, yeah, this is the humble moment. I did not qualify for the full Iron Man World Championships. OK, but no. So I as I just continue to kind of test the limits. I got in to 70 point threes which the most fun event is a is an Iron Man 70.3 distance. It's getting me charged up just thinking about it. Loved those.

But again you know you do those and you wonder what else can I do. So I did do a couple full Iron Man's as well. My sweet spot was a 70.3 though and I did qualify for the world's for those which was just didn't even know it till like an hour or two after. No, I had the race in my life. I did. It was in Steelhead, Michigan Steelhead's The Race Bent Benton Harbor Saint Joe. Area. Did that race and you know that stage of endurance sports I had AI had a coach I was going to like compu trainer classes and just like but more just because it like that's what I did after work or whatever.

Like there were very other little other commitments in life at the time so it was like work and train and hang out with my friends and and Danica at the time so but did that race and just had the the race of my life. I mean, it was wild and probably got lucky too, you know, probably some, some people that were super fast didn't show up or got a flat something. And yeah, an hour or two after that race realized where I'd placed and my folks were there and my family were there and and and it was just like a weird scene of events like, oh, I qualified.

Oh, well, where is it? You know, and the race was in Australia like the next year. But you had to decide within like a, you know, it was like a crazy short amount of time. You had to be like, do you want to go or not? Yeah. And. How many people qualify? I don't, I don't know. It's it was an age group thing. So it was, you know, maybe me and one or two other people in my age group. OK. Qualify. From each race that they do, I don't. Know. Yeah, I think so. And but we ended up we we decided like right then and there.

You know like let's take this trip. Let's go across the world. And I already did the hard part. Now I can just kind of go have fun. And we ended up spending three weeks. 3 weeks. Yeah, we did like a week in Australia, did the race as part of that. Again, just totally had fun. It's hard enough just getting biking gear over there. Oh, I can't even know the logistics of that. And then we spent two weeks in New Zealand and it was just, yeah, racing has taken me to some just really amazing places in this world and and that was that was definitely one of them.

So cool. Experience New Zealand's on my bucket list. Oh, I've been to Australia and I need to go back. I would love to do the Sydney Marathon. My oldest daughter's name's Sydney too, so I got to take her to Sydney. So. Sydney's incredible. I. So big. It's what a cool city. Yeah, great culture over there. I hope you get to go, Yeah. Someday. Someday. Yeah. But you know, it's kind of like this balance of like, you only live once. You don't have a lot of time to like, OK, well, I'll do that at some point. It's like this weird balance of trying to do that, especially with young children.

Oh yeah, as you say, like they just the cards are stacked against us. And again, I got lucky and it was at the perfect time of life and my parents were even like, well, we want to go and all that. Stuff. So what a great excuse to go it. Was a lot of neat. Wow. So then you're like, OK, I'm just, I'm going to start winding down to focus more on running personal life alongside that, when did you become a dad? Yeah, so Remy was born in 2018. OK, Dana can I got married in 2014. OK. Oh yeah. We got married in 14 too. What?

When? October. October. OK, May, May 17th. Nice. So we're about to hit the 10. You are. You're coming up OK, Yeah. Taking a big trip or anything? It's a it's a sore subject because I'm trying to get my husband to book something forever, like literally since last year. But we've had a lot going on this year. He's turning 40 this year too, So we will do something. It will probably not be in the first half of this year, but mark my words, what are you guys doing? Hopefully something. I could just repeat back to you, You know, yeah, exactly the same thing is we've got ideas.

It's it's in an I iPhone note at this point. But you know we're entering that stage. It's like when you got fall break, spring break you got. Yeah, you're getting ready to start. Yeah, going through the actual calendar of cheap. Stuff. And that makes it trickier. But at the same time, Yolo. Right. And it's 10 years. That's a big deal. It's a big deal. So anyway, we'll do Congrats. Thank you. You too. Now I lost my train of thought since we started talking about that. You got OK. So Remy was born in 2018 and so was that, did that kind of coincide with kind of in focusing more on the running side of things?

Probably I, you know these past five years with three like a blurb. I, you know, the answer I would give is probably yeah, yeah. It's probably started to tone it down and focus a little bit more on just the running aspect. But I'll I'll tell you what I love. I love running like it it this wasn't just a factor of me needing to shed biking and swimming it's just you know I I love to run so it wasn't hard. I I love to bike too but you know life has given me so much in the in the form of running so it's it's just a blast continues to be luckily holding up OK physically.

Right. You know, always hoping. Right. Yeah. Like, did I get out of bed OK today? And OK, we're still doing it, so. And at what point did you rope Danica into running? I know you mentioned you actually coached her to run her first marathon after kids. Yeah, that was the best moment of 2023 by far last year. Which race did she do? She did. Monumental. OK. Great year for that. Oh, it was incredible. And she, you know she's done haves and she's kind of just one of those could like if she signed up for 1/2 next week she could just go out and do it.

Kind of one of those you know mom's strength it's it's a whole I mean I, I and and you know it's a whole thing. But you know we we had Louis and decided we were we were done having kids and Louis was a bit of a surprise. So you know, when we found out we were pregnant with him, given as though she was looking for some rest and recovery after the first two, she, you know, it was like, OK, well, let's get this one out of the way. And then we decided we decided we were done. And I joke around, you know, since that decision, she went on this little vengeance tour to get her body back, right.

Yeah. And totally warranted. But she she was like, I'm going to sign up for monumental. And that was, I mean 10-12 months in advance of the race and I I played it cautious of just like how much do you want me involved or where can I help or. Yeah, that's smart. Like at what level do you want me 'cause I can go, you know I will be there every step of the way. Yeah and I I I probably got told to back off a couple times. I'm not, I'm not going to sugar coat it, but put together like a a you know, a nice little 4 block training regimen for her and she nailed it, just nailed it and got to the day of the race, you know, she ran the whole thing, finished it, it was great, yeah, and she had a perfect day for it.

Yeah, that weather was just phenomenal. It was so good and I had the older two boys out to watch her at different points in the race and just felt good to be on that side of the equation, you know. So yeah, very well deserved on her part and was glad I got to support her through that. But it's just, you know, 2023 was a cool year for a lot of reasons, but that was one to to witness her do that for multitude of reasons was just it was cool. Right. Well, it's kind of like her turn too. Oh yeah. Yeah, I can totally appreciate that.

And that doors never, like, closed on. We're both. We're both like, hey, whatever you want to do, whatever your hopes and dreams are, we're there for it. Yeah, so you know, I, I, I don't want to be like, oh, I'm stealing the show 100% of the time. You're like, she made her commitment. She did it. She's got more in the future, hopefully. And it was cool for her. Yeah, that's really cool. So back backing up a bit. So 2018, you become a dad and then you start the what's the name of it? I don't want to get it wrong. 1001 City because that happened, kind of was it in conjunction with the pandemic?

Yeah, so it was more in it. It was on the heels of the murder of George Floyd. So if you remember that time the the country and our own city just erupts for good reason. You know, it it it, as my mentor John Hoden would say, it pulled the scales off our eyes in a lot of different ways. And there's just so much energy happening at that time, plus the pandemic, right? So, you know, there's there's just high tension. Then you've got a very public and focused event that happens and that was, that was, you know, the the perfect recipe for riots to start happening in our own backyard, right, and across our country.

And you know, I had done some some endurance related events tied to awareness and fundraising throughout. Like the beginning of COVID. Well, it's more tied to my sister. So when I was doing Iron Man's, I had done a few races where we did it in honor of her. We raised awareness about Riley, all this stuff. Over the course of two years, we raised nearly a quarter, $1,000,000 for Riley simply by doing Iron Man races, getting other people to do their own races. It was, it was awesome. So I had this, like, I don't, you know, I don't know, I was just kind of like known for doing crazy endurance feats and tying it to A cause.

And so in May of 2020, all this goes down and I'm pretty charged up about it. I'm like, you know, I don't like to see this. These are my neighbors. This is my city and at the time I was working with. At the time you know he's just a Co worker at the time but very quickly became and to this day or you know close to being. We're we're best friends at this point. One of my best friends, one of my brothers his name's Trevor DeWitt. We were working together and Trevor is an OPS mind to the 100th degree and I am the visionary to 100th degree.

Like you just give me a seed of an idea and I'll take it and run with it. And he's like, hey man, I'm the brakes over here, let's think this through, Let's figure it out. Let's do it with some logistics and a framework to it so that it's well thought out. Perfect. God bless Trevor DeWitt. I mean it just like, you know, he he's, he's such a instrumental part of, you know, the past four years of my life for many reasons. But in May 2020, he didn't know it at the time, and I didn't either. But I was charged up. I went to Trevor. I'm like, hey man, we got to do something.

He had just started running shortly before that. OK. This is maybe where I will give myself some credit. Is is we were working together. And I I'm running and he's like, tell me about running, you know? And then he's running now. So all this happens, I go to him like Trevor, we got to do something crazy. Let's use running. And the crazy idea was let's run 10 miles a day for 100 straight days all around Indianapolis in new streets and new neighborhoods every single day. So 1000 miles straight through. The whole reason is let's connect our city back together. So in my mind, I'd already had this like map of the city just being covered by foot and the whole reason to just bring it back together through through running.

Didn't know what it what we were doing yet. Didn't know what it looked like. Yeah, it had no idea how we were going to accomplish this. We're working. Right. I mean it's it's wild. I have a 1 1/2 year old and he said, listen, I will help you figure out how to do it. I'll be your logistics guy and I'll run when I can and we started the next day, so. Of course you did. Yeah, we started the next day, June 1st and. Is June 1st always global running day or is it the third? Never mind, I don't know. Somewhere around there is global running day.

So yeah, I I I know. No, I know. No knowledge. It's even a thing about it's. Every day's running. Day. Yeah. And anyway, so we we just started running and we said let's let's share this out over social media just for fun, just to be like, hey, we're going to do something positive, kind of bring some good news to our community, our network if you will, and just have fun with it and see what happens. So we were doing 10 mile runs each day. Again, new streets and neighborhoods all around Indianapolis. There's a really cool photo of of the final thousand miles. Yeah, I've seen that.

That's so cool. It's so neat. It's. Wild really. And very quickly learned that, you know, as we were doing this, we were meeting people along the way, not even out of our own doing. Most people in the summer of 2020 were outside and what are you doing running here? You know, they see couple guys and then eventually more than just a couple guys. You know, at times at certain days we had 1520 people running with us and they're just like, hey, what's going on? You know, they're outside doing and I can talk to anyone. Trevor, I wish she was here. Trevor's. Trevor's not like a a talker per SE.

He was not going to go through a stranger and and talk to them. But, you know, I just make eye contact with someone and very quickly know a lot about him. And so we're meeting people along the way. We're sharing this out. People are enjoying it. We're finding out what what is on people's hearts and minds just through quick conversation with a stranger. And we're sharing that to be like, this is what people are thinking. This is what's happening to people. This is the good, bad and ugly what, what's going down with the people around our city? No agenda other than that. And in our little world, that kind of caught fire.

But about 1/3 of the way through, this is where I'll tie it back to more or less my running community at the time, which was mostly trail runners and just me and friends. If we get together on the weekends and you know we're running, sharing miles together and we had this sort of an inside inside joke. Maybe not, I don't know. But when someone would show up with a new pair of shoes on, you know, someone would be like, hey, it's a new shoe day for me. Or someone would say, hey you, do you have any pair of shoes on? You shoot every and and it's kind of this, you know, it's just this unwritten rule of like, Oh well, that person feels pretty good right now.

They're ready to throw down, perhaps feeling confident. And you know we can extrapolate that across any time in life when you get a new pair of shoes. It just feels good. You know, just fresh start, vote of confidence, all these things that we say and Trevor and I were sitting there and I'm like, if we're meeting these people, let's do something to make their day. Let's give them a new shoe day. And Trevor, you know what do you. We're not going to carry on new shoe day. I don't know. Let's just give them. Yeah, we ended up giving people, we met a water bottle and it had this very basic like word art sticker on it that said a new shoe day.

Yeah, said a new Shoe day on it. We threw some cash in it and just a nice note and we gave them a water bottle. When we met them, we talked to them. We were like, hey, listen, you know, as runners, the day we get a new pair of shoes is very important to us and it gives us these good feelings. It's a fresh start and we want to give that to you. And so we would give them that gift and, you know, they would use it for whatever they needed. You know, some people were like, oh, my son needs a new pair of shoes.

We're going to do it. Some people needed food or the basics or maybe they wanted to go get someone a gift or who knows, total random act of kindness and we started sharing that out and very quickly people started to send us money and and Trevor, probably the being the thoughtful one was like we have a problem. Yeah, we can't just have people sending us money. This isn't. This isn't going to work. We we have a, we have a we have a problem, a good problem and quickly diverted that into a GoFundMe and actually then we were able to leverage that as saying, hey, this is what we're doing now we can make an ask and raised, I don't know 10,000 bucks by the end of this or something like that.

And we had four or 5000 bucks leftover after all the new shoe days that we had given away and things like that and and we ended up giving a bigger check out at the end to the monumental kids movement organization. Yeah 1000 miles finishes and we've we realized there was this community of I don't know what it was at the time 100 and 15150 people that had joined runs supported significantly. They were just interested and that was kind of the the basis of the community that you see now of new shoe Day and and and really the starting point to it all. But we we did finish that 1000 miles and we just kind of rested for a little while after that.

So life changing experience that was truly God-given. You know none of it was planned. It just kind of just it's it's a lot of the ways I operate in my daily life is just next domino up, knock it down like and good things happen. Do good work, be kind, and life has a funny way of transpiring to to make it amazing for you so. Wow, well said, yeah. Are there any specific stories that stick out during that time, like of people you remember meeting? Yeah, so we saw one woman twice. Oh. It was nuts. How? Where? Right. Two different locations. Right, 'cause you're like 10 miles is that's a lot of.

Different parts of the city. OK, she's like hunting you down now. No, no, I mean, I I mean and they were, they were 100, it was 100% random. That's so cool. And that blew our minds and and the first time we met her, there was like a group of us. So we actually met her in the Butler area. The second time we met her, we were South of that, but it was she. She had this smile and and we came around this corner. We saw her and we just never forget that. Just such a, yeah, funny experience there. We blogged the whole thing so every day we would share the experience, the person we met and we have pictures with them.

I I love writing. I'm scared of writing. I wrote that. I wrote probably 90 of those blogs, and that was the hardest endurance event I've ever done is writing those blogs. It was crazy. Yeah, I like. I like the end result of writing, but I have a really hard time writing. Yeah, it's hard. It is. It's such a practice. But then, you know, there were, there were plenty of other stories that were that were amazing. I have all these faces and names coming across my mind, like in in my brain right now. It's just like all flashbacks. Where do the blogs live now? Are they on the new shoot?

A website somewhere. That's a good question. I'm such a bad person to ask for that type of stuff. It was 1001 City. Travel now. Yeah, Trevor, yeah, he'll know it. It is on social media, the 1001 city account, which isn't really live anymore. But then we we took that blog and we had made it a page on the website at one point. But yeah, is it just a life changing experience? I still can't believe. I still. I still just can't believe we did it. And by the way, Trevor ended up running all 1000 miles. And he had just started running. He was. He was early in running.

We'll just say that. Yeah. Yeah. And he ended up running all 1000 miles. Like with you like every time he so he's like I'll come when I came. Yeah, there were a few days where like we had to like adjust. You know he, I I remember at one point he was on a a trip to Denver and he like still did his runs and stuff like that. So yeah, it was crazy, but we had some people that ran 500, some with us. And yeah, ton of fun, Ton of fun. That's really cool. So after that ends, you now have this community of people who are all connected through New Shoe Day.

And so I guess walk us through how, how the transition has been now to today and what exists now and maybe what you see for new Shoe Day's future? Oh, we get division cast here. Oh, maybe we should get those coffees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so. Whiteboard, you know. Are you a whiteboarder? Sure, we should do that. Yeah. So about a year went by after we ended the 1001 City project and the ideas were floating around in our heads of like, we should we have something here, Should we? What do we do with it? And too many people were saying, what's next type stuff that it ultimately LED us to say, all right, let's let's focus this.

Let's create a nonprofit out of it. We formalize as a nonprofit in 2021 and entirely volunteer LED. So myself and kind of a working board operate it and then we've got a community of supporters that help us kind of push it through various channels. Our mission is that we provide new shoes to youth in need across Indiana to empower them to thrive. The spirit of doing it for youth was really born out of our culminating gift at the end of the 1000 mile Journey to Monumental Kids movement, right? So for listeners of that, that's a after school running program here in Indianapolis that our local marathon puts on as their own nonprofit and they serve 1500 kids now.

And now we have a stand alone event just for the monumental kids movement which is so incredible. Yeah, amazing event, amazing event, amazing organization and mission. And we had ended up giving that organization about 5000 bucks. Seen of that journey and that that started the spirit of like, let's focus on youth and then somehow we're going to figure out a way to get actual new shoes on kids feet and we're going to live out the name New Shoe Day. We're going to give actual new shoe days. Not water bottles full of cash and nice notes anymore. So yeah, Monumental Kids was one of our first community partners as an organization.

So what we do is we fundraise through you know, private donors. We're starting to work with companies. We're starting to go through grant processes. We raise that money to then go procure new pairs of shoes for our community partners, which are youth, youth serving organizations across the state of Indiana and they serve youth in need. And that could be for a variety of reasons. So we deal with we're probably 20 some odd community partners now and in two years we've been able to give away about 2000 pairs of shoes to youth in need. It is. It is the most fun thing right now in my life and it is very much a we're just hustling to do it.

People that volunteer to lead it along with me are working professionals, parents. We got all these priorities and things taking up our time, but we make it happen and we're starting to generate a lot of energy. You know, very early on when we got going we were searching for partners and now it seems like about weekly we are getting partners coming to us, community partners, that's. So cool. Saying, hey, we heard what you're you guys are doing and we need you shoes. Having you know quality new shoes for kids is a problem and we heard you can, we heard you can help. So the feedback we've gotten you know is that you make getting new shoes on kids feet easy and for us it still feels a little clunky but we're making it happen and we're solving a problem and you know anytime you have this type of energy around solving a problem it it just it just invigorates it.

It's like, well, we've we got to do more of this. We got to, we got to continue to streamline it. And it's been so much fun, so much fun. And have you had people reach out from across the country being like, hey, can I start New Shoe Day Illinois or whatever? No, I mean. That surprises me. Yeah. So we have it and and we did make a commitment last year, we said we're going to, we're all in on Indiana, we're going to stay stateside for now because the demand is probably as high as we want to ratchet it up. We're kind of chasing it with the fundraising piece now.

You know if we were a for profit envy we would have built at this point with the demand we've generated the best product in the world and we'd be going out trying to find funding to power this thing. But this is nonprofit, so we're chasing it with fundraising and it it's working right now we are reaching points of, you know, like I I'm figuring out how to maximize my time and I don't I don't sacrifice the home front. So between work family, you know, trying to stay fit and racing and and new shoe day, I'm scraping for minutes right now, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Scraping for minutes. Do you feel that? Yeah, I feel that. Like every moment. Every moment it's like, OK, it's spoken for in a lot of cases and you're like trying to figure out how to prioritize things. And in my e-mail to you, I put balance air quotes in quotes because it's like, there's no real balance. You're just, you're just scraping for minutes. You're trying to figure out how to do everything, which is so hard. Oh, I had another question for you about your oh, I was going to ask you about how you where do you get the shoes from? Yeah. So our operation essentially looks like this.

So we, we have conversations with our community partners and maybe I'll share a little bit about them too. So we kind of work on this spectrum of organizations that we partner with and they have different types of needs. So on one end of the equation, we're working with charter schools or you know Providence Crystal Rey High School as a partner. That's a good example. We outfit their entire athletic department. So any student there that wants to play a sport, they're going to get a new pair of shoes to empower them to do that. Whereas before us and with several other schools that we're working with, Purdue Poly, you know, some might a few IPS schools, some youth assistance programs.

You know, kids are or students are wanting to sign up for something and then they show up and they're like you know, Crocs on or which you know, they're just not. They don't have the gear they need so that they can thrive on the field or the court or whatever. Some schools were carrying around trash cans or bins of used shoes that they would allow students to trade or, you know, things like that. And we said, well, why don't we solve this for you? You know, any student athlete who wants to play a sport, they're going to get the right pair of shoes they need to play that sport.

So on that end of the spectrum is, is we're working with partners in very specific ways. We're getting the rosters, the shoe sizes, making it happen. You swing to the other end of and then. What brand like, I'm sorry, is that what you? Were no no we can we can go there we believe in in nice name brand shoes it's just kind of what we're the way we're operating right now. So we dish out a ton of Under Armour shoes, a lot of Nike shoes, We've done a ton of Adidas shoes and that's where. And do you go work with those those companies or do you literally take the funding and try to find the best deal?

Is this where you're talking about some of the? So this is where my life is so funny. I never thought I'd be slinging shoes. Like, you know, I'm not. I'm not even a shoe or like a what do they call it? Shoe Dog fleet feet for a year and it was like I never thought I'd. Yeah, yeah. I mean I can appreciate good shoes, but I'm also not stressing about it. So I found my way into figuring out, OK, I've got, I need a procure shoe, procure shoes at volume. How do I do that? I can't just be going to stores and like throwing them off the shelves.

So reach out to a few contacts and then have been have been able to develop partnerships with essentially gear suppliers. So these are organizations that supply gears and shoes and uniforms to schools or AU programs or you know, if anyone ever played a high school sport, you remembered this. This Rep would come and you know, like size you up on a shoe and then three weeks later your shoes would show up or your uniform or whatever. So we work with gear suppliers like that. So we will define the need, take that need to our supplier and develop an order. We get some discounts but we're not where we need to be.

You know we we want to drive volume and do work right now and then eventually you know start figuring out ways to apply price pressure and make our dollars go farther and it's working right now. So that's what's important for us. So you know, we don't have warehouses of shoes. We're drop shipping a lot of shoes or with these partners we are a standing up shoe drop events to where you know, it's like it's like a surprise. I mean like we were at Big Brothers, Big Sisters about a month ago and we were taking them through this, you know, some programming related around mental Wellness and healthy habits.

And at the end of it, you know, pulled the overhead projector back and there's a stacks of shoes and these kids got new shoes and they could believe, oh it was great, it was great. One kid took his shoes off and and walked them over the trash can said See ya put his new shoes on. So that's. Cool. That is like the perfect. Yeah, those moments we call that kind of the internally we say that's the new shoe day experience and when you see that lived out means everything to us. But then on the other end of the equation, we work with a lot of youth serving organizations that are more in the social services basic needs type space.

So they don't know what's walking in the door next. You know, if this is halfway houses, foster care, homelessness, like these kids are in some tough situations and the social workers or the caretakers, you know, they need to meet multiple needs in a moment with these, with these youth, a lot of times that's shoes. So those organizations, we are actually stocking shoes at their facility and some super powerful stories coming from these community partners, 'cause you know, kid walks in the door and they're wearing no shoes, wrong fitting shoes, stinky shoes are a problem. Damaged shoes and they size them up and they give them brand new pair of shoes right then and there.

And you know, you've got kids, you give them a pair of shoes like four days later, they've either outgrown them or destroyed them. So, you know, I always like to equate this to if a young kid has improper in all these ways, I just described footwear and you want them to go to class and there's already these mounting elements in their life. You know, how do you expect them to operate, you know, So at the very least, we can give them a new pair of shoes. They can go burn energy. You know, kids are built to move, and we've learned this as we've done more work, and it's only powering our our desire and our mission more.

So the feedback we're getting is really good. Yeah, it's so incredible. Yeah, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And again back to much of this is not. We didn't plan for this a lot. I mean we we are. It's very entrepreneurial. I I'm fully aware this is my life's ministry at this point and you know, it's been put in my life on my heart and I've got the ability to do it. So we're going to go do this and if you want a vision cast, I think we're in version 1.2 of what New Shoe Day could be. I I really do. I this is going to continue to grow.

We're going to stay stateside because there's plenty of need. We believe in doing work here in the Hoosier state for as long as we can. If opportunity tips elsewhere eventually, that's fine, but this is what's going to keep us focused and we've got big dreams. Like, you know, again, we don't stock shoes, but there's no reason we can't be warehousing shoes, taking orders digitally, applying technology to this, maybe getting some Sprinter vans and going and you know, just like when we were doing on those roads like. Just throwing shoes. Let's go make People's Day. Guys. Or you just throw them some shoes. That's a great idea.

There you go. Yeah, that's really, really, really special, what you're doing. Wow. There's a lot of people. Involved, of course, but still. Like, how cool is that? It's cool. That's really, really cool. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So next question is how can people best support New Shoe Day? And also, I know about the Run Club because I see pictures of it and maybe someday I'll I'll just get my ass out of bed and come because I always have FOMO when I see the crew. But yeah, maybe talk about how people can get involved. Yeah, well you do need to come out for, but it's it's, you know, there is a run club component to it.

We try not to treat ourselves as this, you know, big fancy run club. We're just about community. And we did start an initiative this year called Team New Shoe Day. And this is really kind of built on the backs of what we've been doing for several years now, which is just regular runs as a group. So on Wednesday mornings, you'll find folks running out of the Broad Ripple area. Yeah, early in the morning. Yeah. So first run, it's 5:30. We also start a run at 6:00 AM too and get typically 5-10 people out at that on a weekly basis and that's that's I mean week in and week out I I always leave those runs so happy I went it's just it's yeah it can be hard to get up and go at times but then you do it and you know we'll get coffee after we hosted at Hubbard and Cravens down there.

And you know I'm just always grateful I went you know it always feels good to get up and work out in the morning. So we do that but then we we decided and and Carly back to her you know her and another board member Reed Morris really spearheaded this and saw the potential in it is let's more or less formalize this but not in the way of defining ourselves as like this big run club that we just want to unify it and give it a name with the sole purpose of empowering these people to push our mission along however they see fit. So you know they get added to an e-mail list.

We're going to send them resources to spread awareness fundraise on their own if they'd like. Maybe in coordination with a race they're doing. We give them all the tools. But really just we want folks to be an advocate advocate for the new shoe day mission. And you know, if you're on Team New Shoe Day, you could be a part of any other run club. And and my dream is to one day maybe find a way to where Team New Shoe Day or New Shoe Day in and of itself can kind of be this fabric of A cause amongst the running community in Indiana at large or maybe even just central IN.

But we don't want to push anything on folks. We just want to create an environment that's centered around New Shoe Day and you know, gives people energy through that. So if people want to join the club, join the club. If you're not local, I mean and simply want to donate, just go to the website. Yeah. So obviously the the the number one thing we need right now is funding. I'm not shy about that I'm, I'm also the development officer here at at new Shoe Day right. And I don't shy away from that to do what we have to do at the stage that we're at, we have to have funding to to get shoes on kids feet.

And again there's unlimited demand. So you can donate on our website. There's also links through our social media at New Shoe Day. And then yeah, there's ways you can through our social media as well. You can join team New Shoe Day. It's it's no cost. We we give out swag for it and then we'll give you the tools to fundraise if you wish. And yeah, I mean, just keep spreading our mission and there isn't anyone we've talked to yet where this didn't click. Right. Yeah. He could be like, huh? Kids need kids need shoes. Typically most people go to their own memory where they think, Oh yeah, like I remember a certain pair of shoes I got at a certain point in life and they, you know, we've had people oh, you know, I I remember in 7th grade this pair of Nike shocks I got or like it.

I mean it just we get all kinds of stories, but it typically clicks for people and it's working. Yeah, well, I think of myself now. Like, anytime I get a new pair of shoes, I take a picture of them, put it on. I'm like, it's yeah, it's a great day. It's like Christmas. How many new shoes I love? Yeah. Who doesn't love a fresh pair of shoes? Especially in the in the running world, right? Yeah. So yeah. And aren't we just so lucky that we can just you know like I mean we're runners and we it's yeah I could I don't know how many new shoes I get to do what I do in the form of running and that's it's kind of a combating thought to this but also you know paints the picture of this is not available to a lot of people in particular youth and you know we can we can fix that for them And you know if they want to play sport we're going to let them play sport had right shoes to do.

So if they need shoes to go back to school we're going to do that or even like venturing out we're working with some organizations that do like youth camping and hiking experiences for urban youth. We've done like hiking shoes we're working with some dance programs. We've started to work with an organization called A Kid again. So these youth are impacted by life threatening illness and disease, them and their, you know, their families impacted. So we actually support them and their siblings that are dealing with the emotional and mental impacts of that because we know that hey, this might not be an, you know, an economic thing, but we can very well justify that a new shoe day for that.

For that kiddo is is important. So I was thinking, have you, did you tie together the Riley and the new Shoe Day component? Yeah, I I've served on the board at Riley Children's Foundation for the past five years, and I'm patiently waiting for that right opportunity to serve some Riley kids. We'll get there and there. There are ways and we'll make it happen. But to to bring together the brands Riley and New Shoe Day, that's a dream. That'll be cool. That will be cool. I can't believe we only have, like 10 minutes left. This is going to be hard. So I also want to Gosh, there's so many other things I want to talk to you about.

OK. You've been to Sarah Blakely's house. Let's just tie that in. There's no Segway for that. What's her? What's her husband's name? Jessie Itzler. Thank you, Itzler. I don't know how to say. That's why I made you say it. So that was back in your Edge mentoring days, right? You had him as a keynote speaker and so you actually got to meet him, which is really freaking cool. We gave him a new shoe day. You did? Yeah, how perfect. He was a keynote speaker for our Edge X conference. Trevor and I were working at Edge and because it was in COVID and we were doing it virtually, he basically said, hey, I'll, I'll do this.

You got to come down here. You got to film it. So we took a video crew down there. Where? Where does he live? Atlanta. Atlanta. Yeah, yeah. And Trevor? That's so wild. We had just finished up, you know, a couple months earlier, the 1001 City Project, and Jesse Itzler loves to run. Sarah's amazing. We did not get to meet her, though. We didn't. We didn't. We didn't meet her and we did went down there, did the filming, and we were just kind of kicking it with Jesse Itzler and his office. And then we eventually said, hey Jesse, we have to tell you something that we think you'd be interested in.

And I slid him a an 8 by 10 photo of the final 1000 mile map and I was like, hey, do you know what this is? And he's like and and I think he gave a couple of guesses. He didn't know. I was like we ran that in Indianapolis that's 1000 miles on foot. And he was like whoa. And then we kind of told him at the time what new Shoe day was and not that Jesse Itzler or Sarah Blakely need a new shoe day. But we did give him a water bottle. Full cash. We gave him money. No, we were like, hey, we we have to give him a real new shoe day.

Yeah, that's great. And yeah, that was funny, yeah. That's so. So did you and Trevor film it, or did you have somebody else come? With you, we had a film. Crew with us. Yeah, we were there to essentially conduct the well. We didn't do an interview, but we were just there to kind of manage it. I don't know. We probably snuck into this club, but essentially is what happened. But afterwards, during the actual conference, I got to interview Jesse Itzler live, which was fun. And what is the organization that he has? Is it the all day running Co? I feel like I see things on Instagram and it's hard for me to kind of like piece them together and they do.

What event now is he organizing that? What's the event this makes? Sense running, man. Thank you. That's newish, right? I think they've done one year, one or two. I would love to go to that at some point. It sounds great. I I As long as there's like a bed that I can have. Yeah, I think they have like yurts you can rent. And yeah, I'd be OK with that. But I'm not into like, tents. I feel like I'm not. So just. Maybe an air, Maybe an air mattress or something. Yeah, Like, well, I don't know. I'm, I'm about to do a Ragnar in September and I'm going to have to sleep in a van, so that's going to be hard for me because I just, I need sleep.

Yep. Yeah, it's hard. So this is another segue where I'm just going to like, quickly weave in the fact that you've done some, like, casual 100 Millers out in Leadville. I mean that we could do an entire episode, just me asking you questions about that experience. Yeah, Leadville's a special place. I so trail running's my thing. It I don't know if we haven't even. We haven't talked about trail. Running. Yeah. Trail running's trail running's my thing. Yeah. Which is, yeah, it's OK Leadville. I I I went out to Leadville eight times in four years. What 8? Times. 8 times in four years did the race.

Three times I finished it in 19. OK do. You. Have to qualify for Leadville. You don't. You just have to get in via lottery or you can like sign up via some of their charity spots or something like that. But I did it in 19 and then went back in 21 after after injury and some stuff and DNF and that was my first DNF ever and still hard to talk about. But you know two days later I'd signed up for the following year and did it last year, Redemption. So went out there a couple times to train and then raced a few times in a 50.

Miller out there and Leadville is a special place. If if anyone is in the trail running or wants to go see a neat event, Leadville's definitely that so. I'm I am so intrigued by the whole trail running scene. I did the Holiday Park trail run five mile. Let's. Go. Let's go. So there we go. And it was. I felt like I was on vacation in Indiana because I'd never been. This sounds so bad if anyone's from here and like, gets to run over there. I'd never run in Holiday Park. It was unbelievable for me, like running along the river and it was just the beautiful woods.

And I'm like, wow. You got to come out to Eagle Creek on the weekends. See. Yeah, I never run an Eagle Creek. I've done a Sprint try out there like more than a decade ago probably at this point. So yeah, just the idea of running 100 miles like out West is is just really hard to wrap my head around. So did you go crew the other times that you went then? I crew to 50 out there, went to train a couple times. Each time I did 100. I went out to train a few weeks before, did the races, and then race to 50 and crew to 50 out there too.

It's. Wild. Yeah, I'm good on Leadville. I'm I'm two and one there I I could, if I wouldn't have DNF I probably wouldn't have gone back again. But I couldn't. I I needed the rubber match. And 100%. And now you're like, OK, well, now I don't need to make it tied by some weird chance that that would happen again. Correct. So, OK, so now I'm going to ask you the end of the podcast questions because I do want to hear about your other upcoming summer race. Yeah, but favorite running mantra and or song? I'll go with Mantra. It's the first thing that came to mind.

And and typical have a new mantra for each race. I do have one that I say consistently. One of the levels though I had a fun mantra was it was it's time to go to the well, it's time to go the time to go to the well, it's time to go to the distance. So it's, you know, just like you're going to go to the depths here and you've got to accept that. You know you got to expect adversity and if you do you won't be surprised. So it and that happens typically in any 100. So that was a cool mantra. Typically the one I'll say consistently is so in a rate.

I'll get you get tired, you get a little wonky roots, rocks, these types of things. And I will just say to myself, Lord God, my feet, just because I've seen too many ankles and I've wiped out plenty of my time. You're always one step away in a trail race from like significant injury. And when you're taking a couple 100,000 steps in a race in the mountains, when you're from, you're a flatlander, you know, you got to get lucky to not injure yourself pretty significantly. So I just, it's like a little prayer to myself, just, Lord, guide my feet. Lord, guide my feet. And you know, that's a good one.

Yeah. Yeah. So I've enjoyed that. And then next finish line or milestone you are going, how do you say that array or how do you say that? So I believe it's U Ray. Yeah. U Ray. I Ray. WE Ray. Our Ray it's like when you have a kid that's learning to read, which you will very. We might be butchering it. It's but it's also like you try to explain to kids why things are you're like English, just sight. Words. Yeah, they're. Fun. Yeah, yeah. July heading out to U Ray, which is Southwest side of Colorado. OK, so the these are kind of big Rockies, if you will.

They call it the Switzerland of the US if you will. So it's beautiful, haven't been there. It's really hard to get to. So it's like 6 hours from Denver. So most people go to Colorado. They don't go six hours West. From they'll. Go into the mountains, but you got to go through a couple mountain passes to get to you, Ray. So this one is truly the most challenging thing I've ever signed up for. And that was kind of the goal. So I've got a a buddy perhaps two waiting on one to sign up here. Dan Morrow, if you're listening, we need you to ink the steel.

Yeah, but this, yeah, this is a big one. So we get 52 hours to do it. Leadville, we got 30. Leadville was, I think 15,000 feet of elevation gain and U Ray is 44,000. So this is, this is an adventure race. I mean, we know and don't know what we're getting ourselves into, but that's kind of the point. And yeah, we're bumped so. Yeah, 44, OK. Yeah, Mary, I'm thinking about like climbing the steps at Holiday Park and being like I'm dying. I think that too. I think I, I, I mean, yeah, I mean I live in the same area. So we'll see how it goes.

Training's looking a little different, but yeah, that's the big one. We're going out to Virginia here in about four weeks. We we've got a 50 mile route there near the Appalachian Trail. It's kind of kind of the prep race, if you will. Yeah, I mean quick trip, leave it on a Friday race Saturday, come home Sunday, you know? So, so do you use a coach Dow to help or you just kind of? No, I don't. Yeah, I don't. I I I wish I could use a coach. I don't time for it. I got coach. I I like. I love coaches. When I raced Iron Man's, I had a coach.

They were amazing and I just don't have the bandwidth to be a good, to be a good athlete for a coach. Right. Now flip things, right. You're like, yeah, I don't have time to tell you that I need to do something different because I just need to do it. I understand that. Do you, How are you going to adjust for like the altitude and elevation of that? Yeah, two things that are can't control. So first thing is don't worry about things I can't control. Focus on what I can. And you know, I I do all my workouts before the family's up and I don't sacrifice anything else.

And we get our fairly long runs in on the weekends. And I'm just focusing on getting stronger. Like, you know, overall body fitness. And we'll likely do, you know, maybe some like overnight runs to do some sleep training. And yeah, definitely we'll need to put ourselves in some situations while training. But in the same time, we're going to have fun with it. And it's like, you know, what's the real point of this? Like there's some self discovery in it and some fun and some adventure. But I'm not going out there to win any medals or anything. Just have fun. Just being being out there. Yeah.

Yeah. Is the win. That's. Yeah. That's going to be really cool. I can't wait to see pictures of that. Yeah. It sounds beautiful. I've only done 11. I mean, you don't really. Vegas is West I guess. But it's flat. The race I've done, but I've done one revel race like down a mountain in Salt Lake City and that was really fun. But it's like the idea of climb, like the climb of elevation. Yeah, but Ali, the downhills are what hurt you. That's what people, you know They they think that you can just bomb a downhill and say, oh, I'm going fast, but it just kills your quads, it kills your body.

Uphill's hard, but it doesn't destroy your bus, your muscles and things like like downhills. You really got to train differently to prepare for the downhill portion of the race because you know we're going to go up 44,000, but we got to come down 44,000. And you know, there's, I don't know, a dozen sections of the race that are just like 6 and 10 mile just just falling off the mountain just down, you know. So it'll be interesting. We'll connect after. Yeah, wait, we might need to talk then after that. Yeah, yeah, we're all like we have. Whoever you drag out there with, you come on and tell me all about.

That That's wild. Apparently if you get to 50K left with 24 hours left, OK, you have a shot. Which is 30 miles. 50K is 30 mile 31. Yeah, OK. With 24. Hours left. Yeah, you have a shot. Shot. So that's the goal, to get to that, That's the, yeah. Do you do you know like what percentage of people typically finish or you just like, I don't care, I'm we're just going. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's fine. You don't have to think about. That we have intentions of finishing, though, we definitely do. Yeah, man. And you've had run a sub three marathon. That's pretty cool.

You're a badass, Casey. Yeah, I don't know. Right. I mean, it's just, I don't know, like all the things that you're doing, it's just really cool. So thank you for everything that you're doing for the youth in our community. It's so amazing. Everybody listening, Go support New Shoe Day And yeah, anything else you want to add before we before we say goodbye? Well, thank you. I mean you you gave, you gave us the platform to to share the story of New Shoe Day and the mission and you know kudos to you Al. You've built something really cool here, and you don't have to do this right, but yet you do.

And you give people, you know, the opportunity to tell their story and share what they love. And you know, running is is such a community thing, right? And running ends up typically being such a small part of all of it. You know. Yeah, yeah. So you've built a gateway here and kudos to you. You're investing in the craft and you're doing a great job, so. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's gonna be kind. Yeah. Well, thank you for everyone who has listened and happy running. Happy running.

Ally Brettnacher