Episode 63: Brittany Koether - Chaos Breeds Excellence

Episodes

Jul 5

Veterinarian Brittany Koether ran her first ultra before her first marathon, helps crew some of the toughest endurance races in the country, and co-founded Chaos Crewing to connect runners with crews.

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About this episode

Brittany Koether is a relief veterinarian and equine chiropractor who grew up in Orange, Connecticut, the daughter of two police officers and their police dogs. She walked on to the UConn rowing team, went to vet school at Oklahoma State, and moved to Indiana about a year before we talked. Trena Roudebush from episode 31 introduced us.

Brittany got into ultrarunning through her partner Matt, who puts on the Grind on the Grid backyard ultra, where she ran 28 miles as her very first ultra. We talk about her first marathon in a thunderstorm at the Flying Pig, her Mohican 50-miler a few weeks later, and Chaos Crewing, the company she runs with Ashley Crosby and Kelsey to build a network of crew and pacers for ultrarunners. She shares wild stories from crewing a four-person team to a course record at Race Across America, gives me tips for my first time pacing, and talks about her first 100-mile attempt at the Hennepin 100.

In this episode, we discuss

How Trena Roudebush introduced us at Grind on the Grid
Moving from Connecticut to Oklahoma State for vet school
Growing up with police officer parents and the police dog who saved her dad's life
Walking on to the UConn rowing team with no experience
Culture shock in Oklahoma, from casseroles to tornadoes
Falling for horses at the Santa Anita racetrack
A career-changing concussion while treating a horse
Working as a relief vet and doing chiropractic work on horses
Meeting her partner Matt, a veterinarian and Barkley Marathons runner
Running 28 miles at a backyard ultra before her first marathon
Her first marathon at a rain-soaked Flying Pig and the Mohican 50-miler weeks later
How Chaos Crewing started and its free Slack network for crew and pacers
Crewing a four-rider team to a course record at Race Across America
Tips for my first time pacing at the Indiana Women's Running Festival
Training for her first 100 miles at the Hennepin 100

Chapters

Intro
How we met and moving to Indiana
Why she became a vet
Twin sisters and police dogs
Walking on to UConn rowing
Vet school in Oklahoma
Horses, racetracks and a bad concussion
Relief vet life and meeting Matt
First ultra, Flying Pig and Mohican
What Chaos Crewing does
Building a crewing network
Crewing Race Across America
Tips for pacing a half marathon
Mantra and the Hennepin 100

Where to find Brittany

Chaos Crewing
Instagram: Chaos Crewing Company

Mentioned in this episode

Races: Grind on the Grid Backyard Ultra, Flying Pig Marathon, Mohican Trail 100, Barkley Marathons, Race Across America, Hennepin 100, Bigfoot 200, Cocodona 250, Black Canyon 60K, Western States 100, Indiana Trail 100, Indiana Women's Running Festival, OneAmerica Indy Mini Marathon, Wawasee Flotilla road race, The Speed Project
Organizations and charities: Chaos Crewing, University of Connecticut, Oklahoma State University, Beyond Monumental
Other: Alyssa Godesky, Lazarus Lake, Distance to Empty podcast, Eat and Run by Scott Jurek, Slack

Previous guests mentioned

Related episodes

Frequently asked

What is Chaos Crewing?

Chaos Crewing is a crewing and pacing company co-founded by Brittany Koether, Ashley Crosby and Kelsey that is building a free network, on Slack, of volunteers who can crew or pace ultrarunners at races around the country.

How did Brittany Koether get into ultrarunning?

Brittany Koether got into ultrarunning through her partner Matt, who puts on the Grind on the Grid backyard ultra, where she ran 28 miles as her first ultra before she had ever run a marathon.

Who is Brittany Koether?

Brittany Koether is an Indiana-based relief veterinarian and equine chiropractor from Connecticut who rowed at UConn, went to vet school at Oklahoma State and runs trail ultras.

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Transcript

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

Welcome to Finish Lines and Milestones with Ally 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 63. This is Ally Brettnacher. And today as I'm recording this is the 4th of July. So I am up at Lake Wawasee in Syracuse IN which is about 2 1/2 hours north of Indianapolis, and I did our annual Wawasee Flotilla road race. They have a 3.3 mile option and an 8 mile option and I usually opt to the eight mile.

So last year I won my age group and I got the most ridiculous age group awards that this year I had to go back and win my age group again. I just had to see what they had for these awards. So last year I got a an inflatable pirate's booty boat and an inflatable like watermelon popsicle float and some other stuff I forget. And then this year everybody got a bucket hat that's reversible AT shirt koozie. And then the age group awards were also fascinating. The overall winners got plants of some sort, a trash can full of like, from what I could gather, there's like a Little Mermaid stuffy bars of soap, a toothbrush, I mean, all kinds of stuff.

I just, I really wanted to win that so I could see what all was in there. But I won a Lantern which my daughters loved, thankfully 'cause I was worried they'd be disappointed that I did not get another inflatable pirate's booty boat. But the Lantern is. Also a hit. So I managed to beat my time from last year, which was one O 5 something, almost one O 6 and then this year I was at just under one O 5. So I was at 810 pace, which given the humidity was quite the effort. I felt really good. I was just so excited to be out there and, you know, just trying to go as fast as I could.

I shared a couple miles with one of our lake friends up here, Jess, who's from Arizona. She was doing the three mile. She actually won her age group as well and got some Herbalife headphones. So random. So yeah. And then afterwards, we spent a day hanging at the lake. It was pretty rainy. I feel like the state of Indiana was not the place to be on July 4th this year, but it was great nonetheless. So this week's guest I was introduced to from Trina Radebush, who's previously been on this podcast, and Brittany Kother is just amazing. There's so many incredibly interesting things about her life that we talk about before we even talk about running.

So I loved hearing about how she went through vet school. So she's an east coaster. You'll be able to tell when she says things like water. And she moved from Connecticut to Oklahoma for vet school. She grew up the daughter of two police officers with police dogs. And she ultimately got into running and ultra running through her partner Matt, who actually helps organize Rhine on the grid Backyard ultra. And that's kind of how we got connected. So she talks about all of that. And she also walked on at UConn on the rowing team, which was fascinating. She works on horses where I went to college, which is wild.

She has done a 50 Miller. She did her first marathon in the Flying Pig Monsoon. And now she's part of a company. Her and two other women have a company called Chaos Crewing. They're building a community of people to help crew ultra runners essentially and provide resources. And I just love what they're about. And Brittany was just so fun to talk to. We had a blast and talking about stories too, from some of the crewing that she's done. And then coming up in October, she is attempting her first 100 Miller. So she's just incredible and I'm so happy that she's here in Indiana. So I hope everybody.

Enjoys getting to know Britney. Hello Britney kother. Britney Kother welcome. Thank you for having me. This is the first time we've ever met, yes, which is always really fun, and I always feel like a little awkward at first. Now that we're all set up, we're good to go. Trina Roudebush introduced us. How do you know Trina? I met Trina at Grind on the Grid. It was, it's a backyard ultra that my partner puts on and Bob is running every year. And so that's How I Met Trina. She's amazing. She is unbelievable. I looked it up before this so I would know. She's episode 31 of this podcast.

I recently listened to that one. Did you? Yeah. She is, like, the most humble, too. She's run like a million marathons. I swear. She paces every single marathon that exists here locally. And she's just the most wonderful person. So thank you to Trina for connecting us. Thank you, Trina. Yeah, she she's like you have to have Britney on like, OK, so here we are. And you are of chaos crewing, which we will talk a ton about, but I want to get to know you really as part of this. And when we were chatting before you said you've only been in Indiana for a year. So I want your thoughts on that because with all that you do for work, both works, being out here in the Midwest has to be tricky.

So anyway. Yes, but so I'm originally from Connecticut, so I am a New Englander. I'm pretty feisty, fast speaking. I went to University of Connecticut undergrad but I went to Oklahoma State for vet school so moving from Connecticut to Oklahoma was a culture shock. Jeez, I cannot even imagine. Yes. So people talked real slow with their accents and I'm like, speed it up guys, let's go. So that was a big culture shock. I was there for four years for veterinary school and then moved to North Carolina, which is also kind of more of a S feeling place for an internship. And then I moved to Ohio for about 7 years and now I'm in Indiana.

OK. So being like being in Ohio for a while and then coming to India is not so bad. Nah, yeah. Versus the shock of moving from Connecticut to Oklahoma. OK So how did, how did that happen? How did you end up going to school in Oklahoma? I got into vet school there. There you go. Purdue didn't want me. Oh. I was weightless at Purdue I applied to at the time I was applying to vet school, there were only 29 schools in the United States, so I. Did. Wow, that's there's more now and bigger class sizes. But yeah, I applied to 13 different schools and got into one in England, Wait, listed at Purdue and then got into Oklahoma State and I was like, well, we're going to Oklahoma.

Why not England just I mean, that seems like it would be expensive just or just. Expensive and then the testing to get back into the United States and license in the United States. Right. Oh, yeah, You wouldn't want to have to go through all that unless you just wanted to move broad and stay there. Yeah. OK. Wow. And then how did you know that a vet is what you wanted to do with your life? I've always wanted to be a vet and my parents were both police officers. We grew up with working police dogs and there was one instance our dog saved my dad's life and our vet saved my dog's life from that.

Wait, say that one more time. My vet saved my dog's life, the working police dog and the dog had saved my dad's life. Mm hmm. How tell that story what happened? So there was actually a psychiatrist in our small town of Orange who was doing like a hostage situation scenario. And so my dad was first on scene. I think my mom was there shortly after and my dad had the dog and trying to do negotiations and whatnot and they ended up getting into like a fistfight and my dad has a necklace used to wear a necklace and the guy had twisted it and was choking him out.

And so Deacon, our police dog was ended up going after that that guy and he was able to help release my dad. My dad went to the hospital, Deacon went to the vet. Whoa. So and then. Wild. And so this was in Connecticut. Yeah, this is back in Connecticut, in a small town called Orange and. Orange What if? I used to end up going to the vet all the time and just the veterinarian. Doctor McGee let me listen to the dogs and I just loved it. He was so nice to me, so I wanted to be just like him. Wow, were you born at the time that this happened to your dad?

A couple years before, but we always heard about that story and we Deacon the police dog was like my dog, my dad's dog, but like he was my favorite dog. Yeah, I love dogs. So what was it like growing up with parents as police officers? I I mean generally pretty good. Like my parents weren't too strict so people. So interesting. It's like really good, you know, 'cause you're like, OK, well, if I get in any sort of trouble, you know, they know how to help and whatnot, you know. But I feel like for I mentioned before, I was not the nicest teenager and so I'm like, oh, having cops for parents for me would have probably been good to keep me in line.

Yeah, so I have, I have two sisters. My twin sister is a little bit crazier than me. I like to follow the rules. So I am like. Yeah, I'm a rule follower. Straight rule follower Caitlin, my twin kind of pushed the boundaries a little bit, but we all are pretty like the three girls. We're all motivated. We're all I know. It's was a pretty good upbringing. Yeah, so, wow, that's crazy. I'm the oldest of three girls, so that's what gets me. The rule follower aspect. Are you an identical twin? Fraternal. Fraternal. So my twin sister is like 5-1 like 100 lbs. She's energetic, outgoing. I'm definitely more introverted and quiet.

She's super creative. She's a chef. She's a high end chef. Whoa. OK, that's cool. Currently lives in Australia and OK, my little sister is a year younger. She's a lawyer in Florida. Wow, and I'm in Indiana. That's crazy that none of you are in law enforcement, actually, yeah, No, I I wonder how common that is for either. It's probably like, oh, I don't want to do that, or I'm going to follow in mom and Dad's footsteps. I. I don't know. Law enforcement, No. Yeah. And you have a German Shepherd? Yep. Are all police dogs German Shepherds? Not all of them, no. There can be bloodhounds.

There's there could be GSPS, so pointers. There can be at labs, a ton of different kinds depending on their purpose. Mallinois. So bite dogs. Drug dogs. I guess that makes sense. Like at the airport you see some of the bomb sniffer dogs. Aren't aren't German words OK? But I had German Shepherds growing up, so we had German Shepherds and Dachshunds, OK. And so those are like my two favorite breeds. So whenever they come into the clinic, I'm like, I get them dibs. But I, I have a German shepherd, long hair right now named Kalua. And then Matt, my partner has a Chihuahua min pin mix named Sprocket.

Sprocket Yep, that's so cute for that little dog. Yeah, and the two of them are two peas in a pod. They're best friends. Oh, that's so funny. You're going to have to show me some pictures of them together. I will. Yeah. They're so cute. Oh my gosh. That's the best. And Matt has kids. Yep, Matt. Matt has two kids. He has got a 13 year old son named Izzy and then a 6 1/2 year old named Ellie. Oh, and so you refer to Matt as your partner versus husband? Are you married or you? No, we're not married. We own a house together. OK, yeah, we're.

Committed to each other. Right. It's like we don't need the paper. We're together. OK. And how many have you been together? One day I want health insurance. Oh that would be nice. We've been together for about 2 1/2 years. OK, nice. And is he what brought you from Ohio to Indiana or? OK, Yep, he's an Indiana native and he's what brought me into ultra running as well. OK, so he and his dad have been doing this for years and years. They've done a hundred, a ton of 100 Millers, 50 Millers, you know, all across the country. And I've always been an athlete. And Matt is what's kind of pushed me to push the boundaries and see what I can do.

Wow, how did you meet him? I met Matt several years ago because he's also a veterinarian. And so when he would go on these runs across, you know, the country or vacation, I would cover his shifts at the clinic. So my one of my best friends is his associate. And so when she couldn't do it, I would come on over. I'm licensed in Connecticut, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Arizona. OK. So. So you would fill in for him and then at some point how did you end up actually meeting then if he was like you were filling in while he was gone or did you just meet through?

It just like text messages when he was out of town and then both of our relationships ended, that we were in ended at the same time and it just worked out. That's kind of cool. I know I got lucky. Yeah, You're like, huh. Oh, I'm single too. Yeah. And he was probably going out of town for races and stuff then, right. So you're probably like a little intrigued by that because I would have been like, you're doing what? Yeah, when he was in the he was in the Barkley Marathons in 2021 and I was like, Oh my God, He's like the most famous person I know.

I don't know much about Barkley. Could you tell people what that means? So the Barkley is one of Lazarus Lake's creations, and it's held down in Frozen Head State Park, which is in Tennessee in. Tennessee. Yeah, and the there's a obscure process of like getting into the race. There's an application by a certain date, which I don't even know when it is. Matt keeps it very close to his chest. It's a kind of a secretive thing. And then it's a basically 100 mile race through these mountains off trail. They have to get different book pages. It's a little bit of orienteering and just masterful trying to navigate and endurance and all of that stuff.

Jeez, yeah, that sounds very intense. Yes, I would get lost for sure. Oh, me too. Yeah, there's no question. You say off trail and I'm like, I feel like there's a lot of trail races where it's hard enough to stay on the trail. I know, take a wrong turn. Yeah, right. Yeah, especially when you get up in those high distances as I could imagine, not that I have done that, but like being delirious and just trying to figure out where you're, where the heck you're trying to go. So you've always been an athlete. Was in your upbringing at all like cross country or track or what kind of sports?

Yeah, so I grew up playing soccer and being a sprinter in track and field. Okay. And the goal was to be me a ham and being a professional soccer player, but I was not good enough. So I've I was a sprinter in high school. We ended up trying to get my twin sister and I get recruited for colleges and there are some several D2 schools that we're looking at me and then my twin sister could have run at Boston University and she ended up having surgery. But I I didn't want to go to AD two school. I just wanted to stay in state just financially, and U Conn is AD One school, so I ended up actually walking on to the rowing team at UConn, Yeah.

That's so cool. So rowing is big in Connecticut and I had no clue what it was, no clue how to do it, but I knew I'm pretty athletic and they held tryouts and I tried out and I was one of the few to make it on to the team. How did you prepare to try out? Nothing. I with athletic, I would run in general, like after I graduated high school and then started college, I started running a little bit further distances, like 3:00-ish miles here and there. And I always would lift and I stayed pretty fit in general. And, and so I was just like, well, I will try this.

I had to learn how to err, which is the indoor rower. I yeah, yeah, had to learn all of it. Well, it's so because there's a form to it, you know, obviously like I can't even really describe it because I suck at it. But I, I mean I remember learning and thinking, oh you pull a lot with your arms but like in reality it's like majority of the power comes from your legs. From your legs? Yep, and then your core and it's a fantastic workout. It is hard sport. Yeah, we have a rower in our basement, which is really sad to admit because it doesn't see the light of day.

I mean, I have a Peloton treadmill and a Peloton bike. And so when I'm working out, I'm usually choosing between one of those or I'm outside running. And so then the rower, I keep telling myself now that Peloton has rowing content that I'll like, hop on there and give it a shot, but I've yet to do that so. It's a great workout. It's hard. It's so hard. Highly recommend though. Gosh, your hands had to be like going from never really being a rower in your life to walking on to a collegiate team. I just imagine your hands like falling apart. The first, one of the first like big events we had was an indoor 6K kind of time trial to see where the athletes were at.

The fall they were 6K races, the spring they were two K races. So we did our first kind of time trial and I didn't know how to pace myself. I just went all out and after that ended my back and my muscles were sore for probably 2 weeks, just like muscles I've never used before. Yeah, wow. Well, that's really cool. And how did you how did you do as a collegiate athlete? Did you sit right in the team? And. Yeah, I was. I made the my freshman year. I had made the head of the Schugel like top team so so I was lucky and fortunate to go to there down to Pennsylvania for that.

And it was it was awesome being a collegiate athlete like practices. We would wake up at 4:00 AM, be on the water by 4:30. It created some awesome habits of waking up early and and just getting a workout done, lifting, learning more about form and and working with trainers which it was awesome. Yeah, that's really cool. And for rowing, I picture obviously you can like row by yourself and then I picture like a team of people. How does that work at the collegiate level? Are there or just in general, are there multiple events where it's sometimes you're by yourself or just with a partner or with a whole team?

How does that? For us, we had boats of eight and boats of four. Eight and four, OK. Eight and four, we did not have any single or double rowers and I honestly don't know. How that works in college or if that happens in? College. Yeah, so we were we had eights and fours, so I was usually like the bow seat in an 8, which is the back of the boat. Not a lot of power back there. I was one of the smaller athletes on the team and then I was considered a lightweight rower and then I was also in a four. And then I dabbled with coxing, so motivating the team and then staring the boat.

OK, really bad at the steering. Coxing. That's the right term. That's fun. Yeah. Never heard that in my life till today. I learned something new every time I talk to somebody new. It's great. Wow OK so collegiate athlete you knew you wanted to be a vet and so so after you go to U Conn then do you take any time between then going into vet school or do you just go right into to vet school? If you're lucky enough to get in on the first try, you just go. And my goal was to like not take a year off. And I was very fortunate to get in right off the bat.

We had, I think close to like 28 people from my animal science major group get into veterinary school, which was a huge number to get in. Most people don't get in on the first try, so they often take a year off. They'll do a year of research, they'll do more educational things. They'll do a job for a year to get more experience. I knew I wanted to get in immediately because the more time passing, I may have really never want to do this anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's how I ended up in Oklahoma, that they accepted me and I was like, well, we're going to Oklahoma.

I have no clue where the state is in the country. Where is wait, did you go to University of Oklahoma? Oklahoma University, Oklahoma State. State. OK, I yeah, the Cowboys. The Cowboys. That's so good. So where? What city? Not that I would know where anything is. I've been to Tulsa for a wedding. It's an hour from Tulsa, an hour from Oklahoma City. Didn't visit those places very much. Stayed in my little college town, which was great. I loved vet school. It was so fun. I mean just you're all your friends are in one place. Well, you all care about the same thing. We did every intramural known to mankind.

We had our veterinary team called noxious stimuli, which is like a pain. It's pain. OK, that's so nerdy and so fantastic. Oh gosh. What team? What team was that? What sport? We did all the sports. We did soccer, basketball, softball, dodgeball, water polo, a ton of things. Wow, yeah, that's so fun. That's wild. So what was the biggest? I mean, you mentioned already like slow speaking, but like what else were were the big culture shocks going from East Coast to Oklahoma? Of food, so many casseroles, like I had never had a casserole until I went to Oklahoma. In Connecticut, we had like my mom always made meals which we were very fortunate for, like pot roast, seafood, a lot of fish, a lot of clams, lobster, shellfish.

But going to Oklahoma, like, just casseroles everywhere. Like at a restaurant. Restaurants like little potlucks we would have. Yeah, he'd be like, what are you bringing, Brittany? He'd be like something that's not like a shrimp. Cocktail. Yeah. Frozen shrimp cocktail. Yeah, right. And then the speed of everything was just slower, I felt, and people were way nicer, way nicer than at home. Yeah, you're it's almost like you're describing the difference that I hear people, the way they describe Rd. racing East Coast fast, you know, Well, not you know that I don't mean that, you know what I mean? And then going to Oklahoma where things kind of slower people are friendly.

You got weird. Food. Yeah. Fried Okra. Fried okra? I've never eaten that. People eat calf fries, which are like fried testicles. What? Yeah. Did you ever try one? I did. I mean, you had to. Disgusting gross that sounds. Disgusting. That sounds really horrible. Yeah, in the world. Yeah, people eat like raw ground beef out there. Get the hell out of here. OK, well. It's just very weird. Very weird. So when you were done with school, you're like, I'm getting out of here. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you I didn't want to live in Oklahoma. I loved my time there. I also didn't have a single place.

I was like, I'm going to move here. I I've lived in multiple places. I've spent a lot of time in California with race horses and Idaho and Texas. So I've been around. You have been around. I knew I didn't want to go home to Connecticut. And why not? I just wanted to see something different. Yeah, just ready. Yeah, I love my parents, loved our house growing up. My parents built it themselves, which is like close to my heart. But out of here? What? Yeah, that's. Cool. It's awesome. I don't think I've ever met anybody that lived in a home growing up that their parents built.

Yeah, like my dad, mom and their friends just did everything. House. They're like, let's do it. Yeah. OK. Are they still out in Connecticut? Yeah, in the house. No, Yeah, that's really. Awesome. Yeah, so. Jeez, you were, you had to be. Just feel so safe growing, growing up. Parents and law enforcement, they could do just about it. I mean, yeah, anything breaks, take care of it. Yeah. Wow. And then I moved to North Carolina for an internship. OK, we're in North Carolina. It was a town called Tryon, which is like the West side of North Carolina. So not on the coast. Nope. 45 minutes South of Asheville, NC which is beautiful.

I've actually never been. I I need to go Love Day. Yes, I loved it. The internship was a really intense year, so I didn't get to see a ton. I would on some of my weekends off, I would get to go hiking and whatnot. And it was, it was just incredible. Yeah. So if I had to pick any place now to live, maybe North Carolina or I'd go out West. Yeah, Well, yeah, save some, save some of that travel money. Yeah. Yeah. Back to Oklahoma really quick, just 'cause I'm fascinated by them. Did you ever see a tornado during your time there? Yes. Yeah, my, my first tornado was like my first tornado was April 12, 2012.

OK, we had just had like the school rodeo and we were all out on Main Street out there and like they, they dance a ton, like all 2 steps. So like most of the bars will have like this huge dance floor in the middle. So we were out dancing. We get home super late, I'm sleeping in my room. Roxanne, my roommate is in her room and the sirens start going off. It is like downpouring. Roxanne has to dress me. I'm like I'm not supposed to die this way. So she's putting clothes on me and she's like we got to go to the school. So the because we didn't have a basement in our house, but we lived right next to the school.

So we ran to the school and the water was mid Shane. Like the rain had rained so much really quick. Yes. And the tornado hit like 2 miles South of where we were, so I didn't see it. It was like 2:00 AM in the morning. But like that experience was terrifying. Do you? Hear it while you. Were running yeah so the it's so eerie like people will describe like eeriness and like there's a calmness right that. It's just like a shop raining and. Then and then just wild. And you said your first tornado. Yeah. And then there were definitely others never hit close to us.

I did see a funnel a couple of times in the distance. I was in Idaho during the more tornadoes that came through that school and through Moore. OK. I don't remember actually being in Ohio. There is maybe more tornadoes in Ohio near like Xenia and Beaver Creek area that did more damage than. When you were in Oklahoma? I saw no when I was lived in Ohio. No, I mean but like compared to. Compared to Oklahoma. That is crazy. Yes. Weird. Yeah. Yeah. I just as a little kid, was always terrified of storms. Our neighbor's house got struck by lightning. This is in Carmel, IN. Our neighbor's house behind us got struck by lightning.

I remember watching the firefighters, like, climb on the roof after it had happened. Like, I never saw, like, I don't think I saw flames or anything, but I just remember looking out and seeing them climbing on their house and being like, oh, my gosh. And then I'm pretty sure lightning struck our backyard or maybe it was the same situation that, like, made all our electronics go like. Yeah. And that experience just, like, terrified me from the get go. And then as I got older, I got more interested and, like, fascinated by it. Like now I love to watch a good storm, but I've never seen a tornado.

I don't know that I would ever really want to unless it was like from a very serious start away, but wow. Yeah. And then so in Ohio, they followed you there too. Yeah, Ohio was was really weird. Like Zenia is known for having tornadoes come through. I lived a little bit South of Zenia but I worked in Zenia some and Beaver Creek and Xenia got hit a couple times when I lived there. Is that in southern Ohio? Beavercreek. I should know this. I went to undergrad in Ohio but my geography is still pretty limited. Between Cincinnati and Dayton, so like Southwest D. Ish Yeah, that's like I went to Miami of Ohio.

So that's like Oxford? OH, that's. Where I work on my horses. Which is between at that nice equestrian center there. Well, there we go. Look at that. That's so crazy. I'm super allergic to horses. So let's talk about horses. It's really sad. I was not as a child growing up, we used to when I would go on vacations, we do like a horseback ride somewhere. And, and, but when I was an adult, we were in Europe, we were in Austria at this like horse show, like inside. And we're watching this story and I'm like telling my mom, I'm like a teenager at this point or in college, I can't remember.

But I remember just looking at my mom and dad being like, I like, I'm having starting to have trouble breathing. And they're like, are you serious? And I'm like, yeah, I'm sure it's fine. But we, the longer we stayed, I was like, I need to leave. I need to leave. And then we did like a carriage ride at some other point and it still was bad. And so just grew into it, I guess. How weird is that, that you like grow in weird stuff as you get older? So anyway, so how did you end up around horses then? I end up around horses mainly because of college.

Like growing up, I always wanted to work with police dogs and it's still a passion of mine. But I worked on the farm at UConn and got to interact with cows, goats, horses. And I was like, this is so cool. And you can be outside and you can be, you know, more physical activity. And I applied for this contest to fly out to California to work on the to shadow a vet on the racetrack. So I ended up getting that with one of my good friends named Kelly. So we spent a week out in Santa Anita, California, at the racetrack at Santa Anita, and then also at Hollywood Park, which is no longer.

They've since knocked it all down. And I loved it. I mean, you would wake up at 3:34 AM, go to the barns, watch the sunrise. And where Santa Anita is is at the base of the like, Sierra Madres. So the mountains are in the background. It was just amazing and I kept going back out there and hot walking horses, which is like walking them before and after they work out. So hot walk you're like walking at a fast. Yeah, you're just, yes, hot walking. I'm hot walk. Yeah, I hot walked for like 5 or 6 hours from like 4:00 AM to about 11-12. And then in the afternoons I would go work with the vet how and ride around and do all that stuff.

So I did that multiple summers in a row. Have you? Ever ridden a horse at that point? I had, I started taking lessons when I was at University of Connecticut, but the first horse I ever handled, I was working, I was at Bob Bafford's barn and the assistant trainer, Jimmy Barnes had handed me off a four year old colt and we're in a small area. I mean, this is, these are really small circles that you're walking in, like very small circles. And there's young Phillies, young Colts, so young females, young males. And they hand me this Colts Mr. Charlie, and he starts, he's feisty and he's trying to go after the girls.

And so this horse like dragged me and they're all just standing watching and laughing. And so I learned how to handle horses pretty quickly. Being out there with the youngsters, they're definitely a little feisty. And then I, I absolutely loved it. So that just the kinesiology of the movement of the horse, thinking about the mathematically, the bio mechanics and all that is super fascinating. Yeah. So that's how I was like, I'm going to do horses. And all through vet school, we at Oklahoma State, you track all species. So I had my small animal, minimal exotics, horses and then farm animals and ended up doing an internship solely in just equine, medicine, cool and surgery.

It was medicine and surgery. So. All right. And so then how, how did you end up in Ohio? During my internship I sustained a really bad concussion. From riding from. Trying to tube a horse. Horses can't vomit, so you have to pass a tube in their nose down their esophagus to essentially help them vomit. God. Learn all kinds of stuff. This this 17 two hand mare, she had colic surgery. So is she had surgery on her intestines. Horses have like 96 feet of intestines that like to twist and get things stuck in there and it's no bueno. So she had just had colic surgery on a Sunday.

She started acting sick again so had a tuber. At the time my boss did not want me to use sedation, which hindsight like. Should have done that. Should. Have done that and I kind of fought a little bit for that, but he was like, well, how are you going to do this in the real world? So I ended up he came in because I didn't feel comfortable and he was like you better do it in the not nicest way. And so I ended up trying to tuber and she reared up so she went on her hind legs came down and her head slammed into mine and mine into the stall and I just I passed out.

So I had micro hemorrhaging and that was my fifth concussion. So other concussions from soccer and or to the head when I was rowing. So that was enough, enough concussions. So I hope your boss felt bad, no? Yeah, it was. It wasn't the best internship. Jeez. Which they they know my experience, but yeah. Wow. It's he was. Probably like when you like come to. You needed to do this differently so that you didn't get. Yeah, when I came to, I think it was, oh, I think you just have a stomach bug because I woke up and started vomiting. So, oh, Lord, OK, well, Jesus. Well, I'm glad you're OK, because I'm sure that that can end a lot differently if it if you just got hit slightly differently, slightly harder.

Yeah, I mean, my boss there, he's gotten kicked and lost a kidney from it. So horses can definitely be dangerous. And so when I, I interviewed for one job afterwards, because I'm like this internship, internship did me in like I'm going to apply for one job. I'm not going to get it. And then time ago be a security guard at Sikorsky like my dad and try and pay off my student loans. I enter, I interviewed in Ohio and my boss at the time, Doctor McFadden, truly took his employees safety and his own safety and the human safety like as a priority and which I really liked.

Yeah. That seems nice. So I ended up taking that job there, did that for a couple of years and then just being on call 24/7 and not the best salary. I ended up transitioning to small animal medicine for more full time job and then I do the chiropractic and needling on horses at this point now. Wow. So. And so when do you go to Oxford for that? So I go to Oxford, Yeah, I've been doing that for years now. And I go once a month basically. And I work on anywhere from like six to ten horses, different chiropractic depending on who's showing next. And. And yeah.

Cool, so are you like cracking horses backs? Yeah, cracking horses backs I'm. Gonna have to look that up on YouTube. Some of the crack videos are a little wild, like so veterinarians can go to chiropractic school specifically for animals and then human chiropractors can also do the animal course. So I had a couple of human chiropractors in my course who were, they were great people, but there are definitely some people out there who make some stuff up. So it's a, it's an interesting kind of Wild West of vet Med in a, in a way. Yeah, so so now you work at like a normal vet clinic, do you do?

So now I since 2018, I've had my own LLC where I essentially do contract work OK and I fill in for vets. It's called a relief vet. So I fill in for vets. That's How I Met Matt so. It was like a travel nurse. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Nowadays I drive to Cincinnati for 2/3 day shifts basically and I work at an ER called care center. So I work 312 hour shifts in a row. I drive down Monday morning, work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I stay at one of the oncologist, Dr. Norquist has like a she shed. So I stay in that at night and then I drive home Wednesday night.

So that's kind of a consistent gig. I really love the people that I work with there and it's been hard to not not go. Do I love the drive? No. And then in Indiana I've worked at several of the E Rs around just filling in and what not. OK, gotcha. Yeah. And what does Matt do? Matt is also a veterinarian. Oh, that's right, you said. That that's how you met. OK, so he works at where? He had his own business that he recently sold to a corporation, positives and negatives to that. And he works mainly general practice. He likes more consistency where I'm kind of like, I like the ER.

So I like the chaos, the trauma cases that I like all of that stuff. I like clients and emotional States and I like the short term relationship whereas Matt really loves like long term watching. Watching a family and their dog yeah, yeah, yeah. OK Oh that's cool. So that's what you brought you to Indiana was his Matt was him and his business and his kids and his kids. Wow. And then so transitioning back to running. So before you met Matt, had you done you mentioned running like, you know a little bit and caught like 3 miles here and there and. So when did you do your first race?

My first race was I've always had a coach. So when I graduated college, I've always had a running coach without any strong goals to do anything crazy. Yeah, I wanted. I had done a couple of half marathons in like 2017, 1819 and that it was just just a coach to like keep. I've, I love having a coach. I have love having accountability. I'm really good at doing things on my own, but it's it's also nice having that support system. I'm the same exact way. So I've just being in college, vet school and stuff. I've always had someone kind of guiding me along and I've always wanted to do a marathon.

So I hit a couple of halfs, did the Flying Pig half a few times, which is that marathon. And half marathon is just awesome. I've never done it. Oh, it's so good, so good. And then when I met Matt 2 1/2 when we started dating 2 1/2 years ago, I ended up running more and more with him. So we kind of had like date runs, kind of like Trina and Bob, and we would go like push the distance a little bit more so I'd run further than the half marathon. It was like, well, maybe I can do this. And so Matt put on Backyard Ultra, which is 4.17 miles on the hour, every hour.

And that was my first ultra run that I did. And I ended up running 28 miles or like 7 loops or whatever and that was my first ultra before the 1st marathon or anything. That's wild. And I was like, huh, I did that. That was pretty cool. So I then signed up for Flying Pig full Marathon and then a couple weeks later did the Mohican 50 Miller so. And what year was this? This was 20/22/2022 I think. OK. Was that the Rainier? Did you the Flying Pig Marathon? Yes. OK. It was wild. But it was so like the thunderstorm was so big the water was up to your ankles.

For some reason. I was like enthralled by all of it and watching kind of the chaos of the people of like, what do we do? Do we stop? There's Yeah, people are saying we need to stop, but it do we really stop? Are we supposed? Yeah, Yeah. So we only heard. Yeah, we did not stop. Matt was a little terrified going over the bridges with the lightning and I'm like. Well, we have rubber soles in our shoes. But it was entertaining, like it made the time go by so quick. We would run under bridges and you'd get cars driving over and like waterfalls coming out.

And you, you were. We were. Just I mean, at that point it didn't matter. It didn't matter and so that it that to me was super fun like. You and Matt run the whole thing together. Yeah, and Matt stayed with me and I, I tried to push the pace. So my, my ultimate goal was to, to be like close to four hours. I ran like a 420 and I would push the pace a little bit early and Matt is like relax, relax. So. But it was great having him with me. It was awesome just running that race. It is such a good marathon. Lots of people, lots of spectators, volunteers.

It's so fun so. It's pretty hilly, right? Especially is it the back half that's the hilliest. I can't. The first half, yeah, I mean, to me it's not that hilly, but I also tend to do more trails with a lot of yeah, so it didn't seem that bad to me. Yeah, I really would love to do Flying Pig at some point. Half or full. I don't because usually I run the indie mini, which is the day before and one of these days I'll I'll probably end up doing them back-to-back, like just doing the mini marathon and then doing the half of Flying Pig. I've certainly known of people that do that.

I met a guy during the mini a couple years ago was wearing a Flying Pig shirt and I asked him, hey, you running tomorrow? And he's like, yeah. So I mean, that doesn't seem that crazy since I've run full marathons before. Like the idea of doing 13.1 back-to-back, as long as I'm not racing both of them would be, would be fun. So we'll see. So that was 22. Have you done any other Rd. marathons since then? No. OK. But then a few how many weeks later you did the Mohican 50 Miller? I did the 50 Miller. How did Matt rope you into that? You just like you're like, hey, I did that ultra, now I've done a marathon.

It was more me because I'm like, at first I'm like, I'll never, Matt, you're crazy. Like I'll never do this. And then I'm like, I kind of want to see if I can do it. And so he ran the 100 Miller. It was kind of a redemption run for him. And I was like, well, just jump into the 50 Miller and it was great. It was so fun. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're talking to somebody who, Yeah, my furthest distance is a full marathon, 26, two. And I've always thought that is great. Like people who do Iron Man races, I'm like, cool, props to you.

I'm super happy with my full marathon. And now just the more people I meet, you know, it's like, OK, well, why? Why not? Why can't I right, dabble? You know, having young kids does make that tough. But, you know, as they get older, I'm hopeful that I can kind of start to to dabble a little bit more. Where is the Mohican race? Where does that take place? Northeast Ohio, North Central Ohio, it's, I forget where the town it's in, but it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's really quite beautiful. It's there's Amish country basically around there. And it's a each loop is 25 miles.

So I did two loops, Matt. Matt ended up doing 5 loops or 4 loops and it was it was so fun. I like was shocked with how I felt like my toes hurt but that was about it. Jeez, yeah, that's. Wild. Congratulations. Thanks. It's interesting doing ultra distances. So like I was in the mindset of like I can't walk. And for, for some of these ultras, like I have had to learn to walk at some points and walk the up hills as a middle of the pack runner. Like you're not going to be running the whole thing, which is hard for me sometimes 'cause I I'm pretty hard on myself.

I'm like, no, this is a running race. Yeah, I'm a runner. I will run the whole time. Yeah, that's, that is what gets me a little. I'm a road racer. Yeah. I'm very competitive, mostly with myself, right. And so it's like, you know, even on my stupid like easy runs or like just my workouts, I do. I'm like, I cannot stop. I cannot walk. I cannot slow down. It's like why? It doesn't matter, you're out there doing it. Yeah. And so just, I, I, I think that the ideas that come with trail running and ultra running would just be good for me, kind of reign me in and help me just kind of enjoy the experience more versus always looking at my watch, always feeling like, OK, like what?

What's my exact pace? How about fast? Do I need to run this next mile? And it's like, no, just like, chill out, calm down, chill. So yeah, wow. OK. And so we'll talk about future stuff at some because I'll ask you about that at the end. But I I want to know then how chaos comes into the picture. Yeah. So, and I love the word chaos. And what was it that you say? Chaos breeds excellence, which I love that. But chaos crewing is part of the business that you're a part of. Tell people what chaos crewing is. So Chaos Crewing is essentially a crewing slash pacing company with several goals.

We started about a year and a half ago and our goal is to build kind of a network of people across the country. And hopefully at one point the world of, you know, if you were going out to Washington and going to run a race but your family couldn't go with you for whatever reason, you can hop into our network and say, hey, I'm running XY and Z. Is there any one who could crew or pace me at this? So it's creating a network of people who are willing to volunteer time and just be more involved within the trail and ultra community. And the the way it started was Ashley Crosby and her husband Cole, and then two of their friends, Kelsey and Desandra did the speed project.

So Cole was running from LA to Las Vegas and then Ashley, Kelsey and Desandra rented an RV and was basically his crew for that whole thing. And I heard them on a podcast and I ended up DM ING Ashley and she was talking about crewing in general, how fun it is. And I've crewed for Matt for the last few years and I absolutely love it. It's super fun. It's fun to jump in for 2550 miles to pace and and get a workout in that way. See some of the course without having to sign up. Yeah. So IDM to Ashley. And I was like, hey, like if you ever need volunteers or because she was talking about this crewing business and if if you need volunteers, I'd love to help.

I love this. And she was like, well, why don't you just do it with us? So, yeah. So that's how it ended up getting started. Ashley is like a grants manager for Princeton University. She's got multiple masters in like accounting and finance. Her husband Cole is a runner. He runs for the Northeast era VIPA team. And then Kelsey is a graphic designer for the Boston Globe. And then I'm the veterinarian and I really like networking and the people side of things. So the three of us, Kelsey, Ashley and I kind of worked together to create this business in the hopes of it growing, creating allied partners, hopefully highlighting certain crews at big event.

So there's a lot more coverage of these ultras like Western States is coming up this weekend and you can watch it. And me personally, I'm glued to that. And so our goal is hopefully to interview more of like the crew side of things because there's so many cool stories, not only of the runners, but the volunteers, the crew, the race director. And with as much as the sport is growing, it'd be nice to get some outsiders coming in too. Yeah, or people who just who don't even. Run. Don't run. Yeah. Can participate. So Kelsey's not, she doesn't run, but it's something that she absolutely loves being a part of.

And going to an ultra event is a little bit different than, for me, than a marathon. Like, there are so many people who are so kind, supportive, nice. It's really a great community and Kelsey has truly enjoyed being in that community and something she never thought she'd be a part of. Right, right. Yeah, That is crazy to think about. Does she have somebody close to her that runs or she literally is just like I? I like this community. Ashley and Cole, Cole's really who she knows and that who she knew first in this running world and now she's obviously met several people and then it.

It's been interesting to see and have her learn a lot about this sport in general. She does a lot of kickboxing, but yeah, it's been super fun to to watch that and then to get other people coming in. We just worked with an athlete running Coco Dona and his parents. We kind of coached his parents on the best ways to crew and pace Coco Dona, 250 and his parents found it really helpful. Bryant found it really helpful. And and that was really fun to, to get to show them a little bit of what we love about. Being crew well and people who might just want to go watch, it's like, well, hey here, make yourself useful.

Here's how you can do that. Because I'm sure people want to, right? They just don't know how. And there's certain communities like volunteers are always necessary and it they are hard to come by sometimes. So getting people to be more interested in volunteering and being part of something bigger than just themselves is is cool and, and hopefully we grow that volunteering aspect aspect, we grow kind of that team aspect. Yeah, I'm, I'm on the board for Beyond Monumental here in Indianapolis, and they have several events throughout the year, the C&O Monumental Marathon being the biggest one. And yeah, volunteers always, always, always needed. And, you know, through that experience, which I've been part of the last few years, I have started to volunteer more.

And it really has opened my eyes to like, OK, I've been a runner for, you know, quite a while and like 15 years. And I never had once kind of given back to that community. And you think now it's like, well, what the heck was I thinking? Why didn't I just on a weekend where I wasn't racing? Why wouldn't I go to the local race and volunteer like especially before kids, right? And now, now I'm just trying to kind of learn more into that as I am part of their team and, and just in general. So I am going to be pacing my first race, which we got to talk about.

You got to give me all you got to give me all the things. So, so how tell me about building that network of people. So I know because I've been on your website, but tell people how how you're building and creating that network and how they can access and perhaps be a part of that. So we have a Slack network and if you go to our website or Instagram Chaos Crewing Company or Chaos crewing.com, you can easily access that Slack network. And we have the general network, but then also locations like the Southeast, NE W Midwest and just start communicating and chatting with people. And Slack is for people who don't know what Slack is.

It's like a communication platform, messaging platform for several people. A lot of businesses use it like I. Was like if you work in corporate America. Yes, you're probably on Slack, yeah. Or small. I was in startups for a long time. We yes, I like lived on Slack. So that's what yeah. So one of my startups that I'm a part of, that's where I first met Slack years ago. And so that's the network we're using and we're starting to process and get regional leaders to help be a part of growing more local communities. That makes sense. But joining the Slack network is the first thing to to do.

And then and it's free. It's free. It's a free network. Yep, it's free. We've got some different ideas coming up of, of engagement and trying to figure out, you know, how best to get people involved because I don't always look at Slack like it's something I have to remember to do. So we're trying to figure out ways to make that a little bit easier, more accessible. But just joining the network is the first step. Yeah, I use. I just downloaded the app. What is it? GroupMe. So I'd never really used that. Actually, when I downloaded it, it looked like I'd used it years ago and I didn't even remember that.

But it's like, yeah, there's ways that are better than communicating, like via text group Lord Facebook groups, like some of the typical things. I think, you know, now that I've started using GroupMe, it's for a, a Ragnar race coming up for our teams. Because not everybody uses Facebook, not everybody's on Facebook. Email's really tough because it just a lot of it gets buried. Oh, yeah. It's so noisy there. So having a dedicated space where, you know, like, hey, this is where I go for this community. Yeah. And building communities is really hard. So how how have you approached that? And typically are people before something like this type of community is a lot of that through just like people in Facebook groups for like ultra runners being like, hey, anybody go in here or how does that typically work?

Before it's definitely like some of the two hundreds will have Facebook groups that will put out like, hey, my pacer crew dropped out, can anyone help? So that's kind of the original way of doing it. And then also knowing people like Cole has known people across the country from his racing team and whatnot and they'll reach out and say, hey, do you know anybody or Cole will do that for some of our runners. And so that's been the way. It's kind of been organic in a sense. There's been nothing formal that I know of at least. And that. So our goal is to make something a little bit more formal and all in one place.

Yeah, yeah. Much needed. Yes. Yeah, that's really cool. We hope to start working with like specific races too and maybe help with the. This is all all still kind of up in the air of how we're going to approach this because we all three of us have full time up still. And so but ideally work with certain races and try and gain the volunteer side of thing and then also allow people to to be part of crew and Pacers and and help find each other that way. Yeah, that's really neat. And I saw you also have a guidebook that people can get, Yes, where it's like, here's a, here's kind of like the starter guide to crewing.

If you don't know, you know what your athlete might need or all the thing, what are kind of some of the aspects for somebody who doesn't know anything about like how to crew somebody? Yeah, the some of the aspects are one, getting to know the runner and having like an open dialogue of types of motivation. They like understanding they're fueling or talking through fueling if they don't fully know it. We are not nutritionist, but I'm like, I work with a registered dietitian and I know enough, I've read enough and you know, Scott Jurek's book on each run and and whatnot. So talking through like really building a connection and kind of like a quick connection in a sense.

If you're unknown crew to runner and then depending on the race, the guide for crew of like driving to aid stations, thought process of like when they're going to eat, when they're going to sleep, if it's a, you know, 100 plus mile or. And then just kind of gear that they might need, gear and types of things that the runner might need, which you try and talk through before you ever get to the race. So it's a lot of logistics before and then leading up to the race, it's always kind of chaotic no matter what. But our goal as crew is to have those runners or riders like we just did a group of cycling like not have to think like it's just all happening for them.

And then the chaos is kind of behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's so much to that, to your point about like interviewing and talking to people who are those people behind the scenes like you? Yeah. You want your runner just to be like, you know, grabbing for whatever it is they need at that moment. And they don't have to think. Here you are like scrambling trying to make the peanut butter Jelly or whatever the heck you. Organizing logistics, Making sure you're somewhere at the right time. Like all of those things. And yeah, I've never, I've never crude. I don't, I mean, I'm sure I will make perhaps at some point because it sounds fun being involved in like, what I know is that I, I always, I felt like I couldn't go to races if I wasn't running because I just had too much FOMO.

Like I just wanted to be running and it made me mad that I wasn't running and I was just jealous. But now, you know, I've started to appreciate being there as a spectator or, you know, volunteering. And so, yeah, so I think that's really cool. It's fun because like for me, I love running and getting a workout in. So if I can volunteer and pace a little bit awesome, I get my my miles in. Or if I'm crewing, just being in that atmosphere, like we did it 100 last fall and being around that was so fun. Like the aid station captains are amazing and the volunteers are amazing.

And just seeing different parts and watching these runners come through. I mean, it energizes you in a way that takes you away from like the real world, which is super awesome to be a part. Of do you know Lindsay Welty or Ashley Haynes? I don't. OK, well, you should. They'll listen to this. I know at least Ashley will. I know she listens every time. And then I just recently saw Lindsay. They were both at the IT100. Awesome. They both did the 100 miles too. So sweet, badass ladies. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I think like OK, like maybe I can some point. I don't know can.

So I, I definitely want stories from behind the scenes. I know that's so hard though, just like generally speaking. So maybe let's zero in on the recent cycle race that you just mentioned called you said Ram, is it race across America? Race Across America. Yep, it's a cycling race from it went from San Diego to Oceanside, San Diego to Atlantic City, NJ. There's solo riders, groups of two, groups of four and groups of eight. So we had a group of four riders and then we had 10 crew members. So we had a team of 14. Essentially. We had an RV and then two vans. So for this style of race, what we did was we broke our team riders up into twos.

So my group was Brian and Rick, and then we had me, Kelsey from Chaos, Ted, who's a photographer and big into sailing, and then Carol who is a cyclist and athlete from Texas. So it was 4 crew members, two riders. Our crew chief was Alyssa Godesky, who's a very prominent athlete herself. She's done a ton of things, triathletes, Barkley marathons, 1 water races. She's phenomenal. And watching her be kind of a crew chief was pretty impressive. Like she just was amazing. We had Jerry, who's an 80, almost 80 year old former track coach so. That's the best. So Jerry drove our RV most of the time.

That's sort of terrifying. Sort of terrifying, especially when lacking sleep. And then our other group was Amy and Dave, a married couple who were cyclists. And then we had Ashley, Robin, Barb and Rolo. Rolo is from Argentina. He's a kind of a bike mechanic, does a lot of endurance stuff there. And so we had separate teams, like we rarely saw the other team except for transition change. And Carol and I were in the follow vehicle, which literally driving 20 mph behind the bike. And our bikers would ride 7:00-ish miles and then switch every seven miles to the transfer vehicle would go ahead, find a spot to transition riders.

Brian and Rick would transition transfer vehicle would get the bikes in the bike, the rider in the bike and then drive up further and the follow vehicle's just behind which staring at those red lights at night got real crazy. And we would do essentially like 6 hour shifts basically. So six hours on six hours in the RV to sleep, do whatever. And we had it's, it's so hard to explain some of the moments. Like we had so many hilarious moments and like moments of bizarreness like our RV running against the side of a bridge or just like people being so out of it and not realizing because we're we're all sleep deprived.

Like Ted, at one point we were doing 7 mile pulls so they would rider would ride 7 miles, then we'd transition and put the next rider out. And Ted stopped at like 2 miles in and Brian comes up, he's like, why are we stopping? And Ted's like, well we're doing everything we've been doing the last, you know, four days, like 7 miles on, 7 miles off. And Brian's like it's been 2 miles. And Ted's like, no, it hasn't. No, it hasn't. And Rick the rider was like, well, do you want to ride more? And Brian is just takes off. He's like, yes, I'm riding till 7 miles and they get back in the car and just like keep going.

And later Ted realized he was like, yeah, I just had no idea what was going on. Didn't know where I was. Nope, that'd. Be hard, you know, running across the entire United States of America. There's a guy from from Indy that's running around the entire perimeter of the United States right now. Really. Yeah, you got to. I got to introduce. Some people, yes. I'm new, I need some. Yeah, me, we'll be back. I think in August. He's going to, I'm going to have him on this podcast at some point. But yeah, he just made it to North Dakota like he's been all the way around the whole anyway.

So just remembering what the hell state you're in. Time of day it. Is Yeah. What time of day, morning is Enter crew Yeah. So was this the first cycling race that you've been a part of? Yes, so this is the first cycling race for me, Kelsey and Ashley as crew. And honestly it was the first time to do any sort of race of this magnitude. Any of us, the riders all are big triathletes. Alyssa's done some crazy experiences, but having a team this big, three vehicles and the logistics was definitely challenging in itself. And like finding places to dump the RV. When our RV got clogged with shit and it was at one point someone forgot to close one valve and they went to go dump the RV and they opened up something and shit just comes out and Jerry, Jerry, the almost 8080 year old track coach comes over like Superman and like plugs the hole.

It was horrifying. That'd be so bad. Yeah. We did RV trips as a kid when I was a kid. And so we'd been all over. And I just remember my mom would have the KOA campground, like book. It's like, it looks like a phone book in her lap. So thank God now for like, technology, because you literally Google where the next place is versus my mom would be like in the book, looking at the Atlas. And you're just like, Oh my God, can't. I don't know how they survived that. Yeah. So we had the way we did it was there were certainly GPS track that we could follow, but the rule book was like turn by turn.

And so I don't love driving and Carol liked driving. So Carol was a driver. I gave her directions based on the turns of like left in four miles on to blah, blah, blah, which is wild. And like I come from like I started using MapQuest and then we all got these like GPS. So I'm not school. Yes, dashboard GPS not really good with directions. Right. Yeah. As a result of that, yeah. Yeah, No, I'm the same way. I remember, Yeah. Having MapQuest directions, like printed out on my lap, like trying to figure out where to go wild. Yeah. Wow. And so does RAM take place every single year.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of insane, like a lot of people try and do it solo and. How many miles is that? It's just over 3000. It's insane. Like I don't know much about cycling and I've learned a ton. Like now I want to get a bike but riding on the roads and like some pseudo highways is absolutely terrifying. Yeah, Where was like, what was the craziest part of the country during that? Oh gosh, like we would go through some Navajo nations where we had to be really careful about follow vehicles and like leapfrogging, which is going in front of the rider. Kansas was so windy.

Colorado was absolutely beautiful. But one of our our transfer vehicle got pulled over by a cop. Oh great. And he was like, what is going on here? And he was, he didn't give us a ticket, but he was just annoyed by the whole thing going on. Yeah. And so after that interaction, which the board of RAM and like RAM started in Colorado years ago. So don't you know this is? Yeah, this happens every year. He had no clue. And so after that, our goal is to never impede traffic on these things. But when you're going 20 mph, there's no shoulder. Like it's hard not to slow people down.

So after that event, when we're going into the night, Colorado, the whole state was like, you have to leapfrog, so you can't be right behind your rider, which is fairly unsafe. Yeah, sounds like it. Just because that one police officer was pissed at what was happening. And so all of Colorado turned into a little bit of a shit show of well, we're going to leapfrog. We ended up direct following and we're like if we get a penalty we get a penalty because this is much safer and we'd rather be safe than not. Not yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah. If somebody dies and you're like. Someone has died, not this past year, but in previous years.

Oh, yeah. God, yeah. It's crazy when you get pulled over. Have you ever been like, my parents are cops? Because that's what I would say every time. Hello, officer. My parents are police. Would you like to see my my license registration? Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I'm like, I'm so sorry I have to go to a euthanasia or surgery. There you go, an emergency. So most of the time I get off with that. But. But there's a dog bleeding out. I gotta go. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just wasn't. I'm just so intent on getting to this place because it's an emergency, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you.

I mean, yeah, growing up, you know, you know how to. Yeah, that's funny. Gosh. Well, anyway, across the US, that's crazy. That's really cool. It was pretty awesome. It I was a little nervous like at first, and then when you're doing your first day of driving, you're like, Oh my God, this thing is never going to end. It took us six days, 12 hours and 11 minutes. OK. And it seemed to go by really slow in the beginning, like I'm not going to survive this. But it ended up working out really well. There is the all of our crew together did awesome. Like there's a few moments of tension and frustration and, you know, there's a lot of opinions in one place.

But generally we came together and like, we're there for one goal. And that was to complete this race and set a course record. And and they we did set a course record, so congratulations. And that's pretty awesome. And like everyone hugged each other before they left. And like, no hard feelings. So that would be hard sleep deprived, all the stress of coordinating everything. Not pooping regularly, all of that. Jeez. Yeah, being in an RV or you're like in the transfer vehicle, you better like have gone when you needed to go. So you don't want to mess up the schedule. Yep, Yeah, yeah. I also, when I was listening on to the podcast that you guys were on, say the name of that again if people want to listen to that.

Distance to Empty Peter and Kevin. It's an awesome podcast mainly based around the two hundreds across the United States. Crazy. Yeah, I mean there's podcast for everything specific niche of I'm like wow, that's really cool. But it had all three of you on it. I thought that was kind of cool because when we first met, you're like, do you want all of us or you want me? And I'm like, I don't know how to interview three people at one time. So we'll start here. Wow. Oh gosh. I want to talk more about pacing. We don't have any time. What happened? Where did it go? That's crazy.

OK, Well, shit. OK, so now, now we're going to talk about pacing because selfishly I need your help. So I am going to pace for the first time at the Indiana Women's Running Festival. It was on Saturday, August 31st. So anybody who's listening to this sign up for it because I'll be pacing 155. So that is comfortable for me, which I've been told it's like you don't want to run a pace that's too slow. Obviously you don't want to want run one that's too fast. But I did last year. I like shadowed my friend. She did it 210, which for both of us was was pretty slow.

And that's not to knock on anybody who runs that pace, by the way, but it's just to each, you know, their own. And so, yeah, so 155 is my pace group, my first time doing it. Tell me what to do. So it's interesting because pacing like that is different from pacing in an ultra. Pacing in an ultra is probably a little bit easier because you're out there One, it depends on the runner. So one, you could have conversation, you can talk, you're just motivating to take one step forward. Or you could truly be pushing them and say like, Hey, you wanted to get under 24 hours, like let's pick it up.

You gotta go for pacing the like a marathon, 1/2 marathon in a pace group. What I've experienced is having someone who's fun and energetic and kind of aware of the people that are around them. I like when when the pacer kind of engages a little bit, that's kind of a little bit of a motivator and just having like an energy and an excitement and then just keeping track and almost like some people will almost do like a coaching type mode of like, you know, we're going uphill, just keep it steady and then we can we might pick it up on the downhill. So it's I like a motivator, but everyone's a little.

Bit different yeah. Well, so I, so when Christy and I did it, like naturally, I just, when I'm nervous too, I like, I talk, I chat, you know, So I'm like trying to be motivational, trying to like be like, oh, hey, like what's your name and yadda, yadda. You know, I am more of an introvert by nature. And so, so running and engaging, it'll wipe me out. I will be like at the end of that, I will be like dead. No people, yeah. For like just put me in a closet. But like during that moment, like naturally I'm just like, OK, like I want to pump people up and I, I want to gather up all the mantras that people have told me on this podcast, 'cause I ask everybody their favorite one.

My plan is to, I'm saying it out loud. So I do it is to gather them all up and kind of have those in my back pocket to like just kind of continually motivate. Thanks to Shay Aquilano. I bought these the Gold Star tattoos for Under Your Eyes. So I have those and I'm planning to hand those out to anybody who would like them because like, yeah, let's go, let's have fun. And it's a women's, you know, it's a women's festival. So it's I like that aspect of it too, because obviously I am a woman. So I feel like I can speak to them. I feel like motivating men is obviously different, but it's motivating anybody is different.

It's different, it's all unique to each person. Yeah, I heard you guys talk about like tough love, like, you know, wanting to know, like, hey, you said you wanted this goal time and that's why you're doing this. Like, do you want me to remind you of that or do you want me to shut up or you know? And it's hard when you're pacing multiple people. You're in a group, so who knows what people want. Just throw it all out there. Just be like, hey, you suck, you need to run harder and then say hey, one step at a time and just kind of just go through them all.

I don't know. But I I really just want to everybody enjoy the experience. And I think that for like a woman's event like that, like all the, and most of the time, it's all about the experience, the community, the just feeling, I don't know, positive that you're out there moving and that your body is taking you to these places. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It'll be fun. So I'm nervous about it. Well, I, I think this is where maybe my treadmill running will help me because, you know, set it and forget it. If I'm doing a tread workout that's just like just the same pace. I feel like that helps my body like rhythmically, like get in a, you know, cadence.

But when I'm in a race environment, I tend to get really excited. And so I just, I know that I'll just need to be like, chill out. And that's what you have. To do with your runners. Too, Because they need to start out study right. We all kind of jumped the gun a little bit. But one of the goals to success is taking it easy at first. Like holding it in and now thankfully with a run coach, I've been able to, when I personally race, I do that. I negative split, which is like I never in a million years thought I was like, oh, that's what the pros do.

Like I'll never be able to do that. And now I can because I actually train the right way and race the right way. Who knew? Oh man, yeah. I can't believe how fast this time has flown by because we could talk, we could literally talk forever because there's so many things specifically for me about ultras that I don't know. My world has always been Rd. racing and road runners. And so that's typically who I've had on this podcast. And that's why I love this podcast because I have people like Trina who's like, you got to meet, you got to meet Brittany. She's doing crazy stuff over here.

And, and how cool is it you're based in Indiana doing all of these incredible ultras in such a unique way where you have this business that's helping build a community around the sport. How freaking cool. So yeah. And now since you're new to Indiana, I get to help you meet people, which makes me like super excited because I am also, I naturally am a connector. I love being able to bring people together that can you know that I'm like, you need to meet. And it's so fun, especially if I end up getting to know what happened as a result of that, then I get really happy to be able to do that anyway.

So I'm going to ask you the end of the podcast questions because it's already been. Yeah, so weird, I feel like. So first one is what is your running mantra or song? My running song that I love and listens in pre race or like during races, sometimes I don't listen to music during races is I'm on Top of the World by Imagine Dragons. Love that one. I love that one. When I'm training and running, it's mostly podcasts, mostly podcasts about trail and ultra and outdoor things and then mantra like at Black Canyon 60K. It was a struggle bus for me, but I was just like telling myself over you like you can do this, you can do this, you can do this.

Matt always changes his. His was just forward progress. He just did 384 miles for part of the South and he was just like forward progress, forward progress always. Well, we didn't even talk about you've had 10 surgeries. Oh yeah, we. Didn't even talk about any of that. Yeah, which I'm thinking like, you have to tell yourself you've come back from, yes, I started from zero multiple times, yeah. There has to be like, you have to have that like forward progress type of mentality to come back from. Yeah, starting from zero. Yeah, OK. And then second one is what is your next finish line or milestone?

So my next finish line as a runner is Hennepin 100 in Northern Illinois. So it'll be my first attempt at 100. Miller quite anxious. When is that? October 5th ish ish? Somewhere around there that first weekend in October. Whoa, so I am. How do you spell that? Hennepin Hennepin OK, so it's in Northern Illinois. It's a pretty flat 100 that my coach and I chose that one because it's it's fairly flat. And then our next crewing event is Bigfoot 200 in Washington. We have an athlete who's doing the Grand Slam of 200. So this will be his 3rd 200 that he's doing. So Ashley, Kelsey and Cole and I will be out there.

OK, the Grand Slam. I have a previous guest on this podcast, Om Gandhi. Yes. Do you know who Om is? I've heard yes. He's doing the Grand Slam of two hundreds. I believe he just did Tahoe. See, I like, I'm feel like I'm speaking Spanish because I like. Try to start saying things about ultra running and then I'm like, I know nothing except what people have told me, so I'll just repeat it and then I sound smart. So yeah, that whole world is so cool. Well, that'll be fun. And when is that? That is August. We'll be out there August 8th through 14th. OK. So that's coming up.

Yep. Cool. What? Where in Washington is it? Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere in Washington. Near Mount Saint Helens. Cool. It's beautiful. So yeah, it's all all around that area. And so people, and this is kind of a good way to end too, because if people, you've mentioned the website already, but if people want to work with you, so does an athlete, like they reach out to you and they sit and you they're like, hey, how much would it cost me to hire you to come out and be my crew? Is that like a typical scenario? Yeah, so athletes can reach out and like have us go out there.

We're a little bit limited just because our full time jobs and then there's only so much time we can take off. I'm probably the most flexible in that as I kind of make my own schedule. Right, because you're filling in for others. You can be like, I can't do that time, but I can hear. Yeah, Ashley and Kelsey are a little bit more regimented. So DM ING us on Instagram through the Slack network. And if we can't be available, like our goal is always to find someone else to help. And through our networks of, of connecting people we had for Bryant shook his, we coached his parents kind of virtually three or four sessions before the race.

And then we are available the whole race of Kokodona 250. And so they, we helped them like prior to the race. So we can do coaching like that. That's cool. And then really just joining the network and seeing our goal is to hopefully connect people and initially try and get like a a quick relationship built in a short amount of time. So yeah, through the network DM us, we can go over all the logistics and details. Wow, so cool. Well Brittany, I'm so glad that Trina introduced us. This was so much fun. This is great it. Was great to get to know you. So thank you and thank you to everybody who's listened to this and happy running.

Yes, thank you.

Ally Brettnacher