149: Should Peloton Still Be Doing Live Classes? Plus our interview with Melissa Bazarian

Last Updated: January 18, 2023By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Keiser M3, Pelodoodles, Peloton, Peloton instructor, Peloton tribe, Stronger U

The Verge has an article about Peloton continuing to hold live classes. Is it the right call?

Tread deliveries are on hold and bike deliveries are “threshold only” due the Coronavirus.

Slate has a “snarky” article on Peloton’s “struggles” during this time.

Bloomberg talks about the spike in connected fitness sales.

Mirror now has an (expensive) app.

Solidcore and Flywheel are forced to lay off 98% of their workforce.

Peloton raised $500,000 for the Food Bank for New York City.

WTOL talks about Peloton encouraging people to “find the beauty in life.”

Medium.com‘s Gen channel writes about how Robin Arzon is powering us through the pandemic.

Brene Brown has a Peloton (and a new podcast).

You can still win a FREE Tonal!

Whoop has uncovered fascinating data about how the Coronavirus is affecting users.

There’s a new workout app from…the F.B.I.?

Fitnessista has a blog post about her favorite Peloton instructors.

Earthly Comforts has a nice piece about the reasons you should get a Peloton.

Forbes talks about the best connected-fitness equipment on the market.

Crystal updates her Fight Camp journey.

We recap our first Zoom call with listeners.

The PGA is going Peloton crazy.

Tons of instructors are doing IG Lives if you want to keep up with them.

Dance Cardio is here!

Jess Simms has a bodyweight workout.

All this plus our interview with Melissa Bazarian

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Should Peloton Still Be Doing Live Classes? Plus our interview with Melissa Bazarian

Are you sick of me yet with my little quarantine?

No, because I’m not in quarantine.

You’ve been un-quarantined and released into the wild.

We probably shouldn’t talk about it because I am bitter.

Costco was weird today.

Tell me about Costco.

It’s like a trendy New York nightclub. There’s a guy with a clicker and then you’ve got to wait. They only let so many people in at a time. I had to blow a bouncer just to get in.

That is breaking the rules. You are not supposed to get within the six-foot bubble.

I thought it was an odd way to go about it.

I don’t think you’re doing social distancing right at all.

They didn’t even have toilet paper. I think I was lied to. They have tables in front where you have the concession stand, so you can’t get too close to people and in front of the service desk. They have lines taped off in front of the pharmacy so you don’t get too close to the person in front of you.

I appreciate they’re taking that seriously.

They don’t take your receipt when you leave anymore either. They just look at it and then they wave from far away.

I’m seriously glad they’re taking precautions because many places in the Midwest are not.

That is not inaccurate. Anyway, that’s the brave new world that we live in. It is a piece of it. What do you have in store for people?

We have many things to talk about. The whole fitness world is upside down. Everything is changing and we have to discuss everything. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to discuss all of the things.

I will also say that there’s a surprising amount of news in here that is not Coronavirus related.

Some of these things are just changing period. It’s fascinating to me that everything has flipped upside down. It’s going fast.

There is a lot of Corona stuff in here, don’t get me wrong, but there’s also a lot of non-stuff. You’re going to get both. I’m putting that out there. Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts where you can go and subscribe, so you’ll never miss an episode or wherever you’re getting your podcast. While you’re there, you can leave a review. We have a new review. This is from PeloPolishMama.

I know that leaderboard name.

PeloPolishMama says, “Be warned, if you hate Peloton and laughing, do not listen to this.”

That is true because we’ve had some people that love Peloton and hate laughing. They don’t like us.

“Crystal and John, just kidding Tom, I heard your last review, are like your longtime buddies except they are way cooler with the benefit of a Peloton Prophet and some sort of fairies. This dynamic duo delivers the weekly inside scoop and behind-the scenes Peloton news. They ask the questions you have running in your head and crack you up while doing so. The format of the show is fantastic with their catchy little jingle.” Thank you very much. We greatly appreciate it. You can find us on the Facebook, Facebook.com/theclipout. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Check out our brand new website. It’s all new, looks very spiffy at theclipout.com. You can sign up for the newsletter while you’re there and get all the stuff delivered to you weekly.

I want to hear what you, guys, think. Check out theclipout.com because I would like some feedback.

That’s all of that. Let’s dig in.

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The Verge has an article. We should probably tackle this at the top. There was some kerfuffle about the fact that as of this recording, Peloton is still doing live classes. The community seems very divided.

As a person who is forced to go to work right now, let me say that I do not consider myself an essential employee. I’m not saying I don’t do a good job. That’s not what I mean by essential. I mean I am not necessary to keep. I don’t need to be in the building to make things work. I have been super bitter about it. I’m angry that I feel like my life is being put at risk. I understand that, and I don’t know if there are, there could be people who work for Peloton that feel the same way. I understand that is a possibility because I don’t know how much say they have in whether or not they have to be there or they get to be there. This is the impression I get. I get the impression that because only certain instructors are doing classes right now, that they are focused on, one, instructors who are close to the studio who can walk and don’t have to take public transportation. Two, I get the impression it’s a little bit of a, “Do you want to?” at least for the instructors. I feel like the instructors want to do this. What I can’t see is what the production crew is feeling.

It’s hard to get a handle on that.

We don’t see them. I don’t know. I know they’re not essential like the firefighters and ambulance drivers and things like that, so I know they’re not essential from that standpoint. I will not argue with anyone on that point. However, I will also say the attendance at live classes has been phenomenal because obviously more people are home. That’s one reason. I also think people are looking for the connection.

By attendance, you mean people taking them online? The studio’s closed to be clear.

That’s correct. Online, how many people are attending the live classes? I’m not talking on demand, although that’s up as well. I feel like that shows that people at least feel like they need it because they’re showing up. There are also a lot of people that just bought their bikes and I feel like Peloton is probably trying not to let them down.

It’s a tough road to walk. The classes are very much in the present tense and a lot of the topics that come up are Corona-related.

The things that they are saying are truly helpful. I took a Robin run that happened and she’s talking about, “We will get through this. This will pass.” I know what she’s talking about. Not just any class is going to hit me in that same way.

A lot of it comes down to this is an indication of how Peloton sees themselves in that the media has been deemed essential and they still go to work. I think they see themselves as a media company.

They’ve branded themselves that way. They’ve referred to themselves that way.

I will say this locally, all our radio stations, they’re still having staffs come in and do work and I’m like, “I can get Led Zeppelin anywhere.” It’s not just the news stations, like even the rock stations.

You could argue. I think that it’s a lot more dangerous because those studios are a lot smaller than what the Peloton studio is. You’re talking into a microphone that other people use over and over again. I feel like that’s a lot more dangerous than what Peloton appears to be doing.

I’m sure they’re taking extra steps, but at the same time it’s like your local news station, that’s essential. The station that’s playing Black Dog for the 400th time this month, not so much. They’re doing it. There was an article in The Verge that was a little snarky.

I feel like they have some valid points, unfortunately. I feel like this is where Peloton does not do themselves a lot of favors by not explaining why they do things. I feel like I know that their heart is in the right place, whatever their reasons are.

I think it would go a long way not just explain why, but explaining how.

Show us the precautions that are taken.

I’m sure that they have.

I completely agree because I do believe that they care not just about the people listening or watching the class, taking the class, they care about their employees. I genuinely believe they always try to do the right thing. I agree. They’re taking precautions. It’d be great if they were transparent, so we could see that.

I think that would benefit them to show, “Here’s what we’re doing to make sure everything’s copacetic in the studio.” On the heels of that, in another way it’s affecting it is that no more tread deliveries because they are big and bulky and require 4 to 5 people. It’s basically like a small ska band to set it up for them. They will still deliver a Bike, but they’re just going to drop it at the door and run away. The Bike deliveries, which they’re still doing but in some areas it’s up to a month to get a bike now. It’s hard to get a bike that people are starting to buy Echelons. That’s how hard it’s got.

For real, that’s a different article but yes, that is actually happening. Those poor people.

They don’t know, “It’s got an orange button too, it’s the same thing. It should be fine.” Slate had an article.

I don’t remember this one.

There are so many. It’s the one about Peloton and the Coronavirus. It’s that article.

A lot of people actually got mad at me for even posting this. I got some snarky comments about this. They were like, “This is not helpful. This is junk.” It is junk. I’m not even pretending that it’s not junk, but I feel like at the same time, we should talk about what people are saying because whether or not you think it’s junk, this is out there. When people google Peloton, this is popping up. I feel like we should talk about it. They talked about the fact that Peloton is taking advantage of the Coronavirus because how dare they not be suffering like all the other fitness companies are?

Are there any articles people bitching about Netflix?

I don’t know. Maybe there are and it just doesn’t come up in my feed because I look at Peloton so much.

It’s not like they created this in an effort to take advantage of this situation. It’s not like they changed their pricing structure. They went the other way.

I did reach out to the author of this on Twitter and I was like, one, they now offer this 90-days free for the app for everybody. Suck it. Number two, at the end of this article they talk about how they want one. This article was written out of jealousy and it’s dripping with ugliness. I was like, “If you ever get to try it, let us know. Come on the show,” and I got zero response back. It’s not shocking. That’s a good example of people putting stuff out there without thinking. They want to be clever and be noticed and be funny. This person was none of those things.

There’s a lot of that with Peloton of like, “It’s only for rich people.” You see a lot of that. Do rich people have them? Certainly, rich people also have toothpaste, but that doesn’t mean it’s just for the rich. Certainly, it’s cost prohibitive for some people. It’s much more affordable than a lot of those people give it credit for. It’s not like they are like, “Now it’s a $4,000 bike.”

I also talked about how Peloton did a big food drive this weekend like all those classes they donated, which I know we’re going to talk about later. I’m saying, I did point that out to the author. Who knows if they even read it, but whatever?

Bloomberg had an article about the boom in at-home fitness or connected fitness equipment.

There are so many of these. They’re saying that it’s spiking, but they don’t feel like it’s going to last very long. They think that this is just a blip on the radar. I agree with that to an extent.

If you feel like you don't need that additional layer of connectivity that having a Peloton device will offer you, a Keiser is great. Click To Tweet

To an extent, there are people that are making this purchase either solely because of the situation or they’ve been on the fence and this pushed them over the edge. I also think that when they’re like, “It’s a spike,” sure it’s a spike, but now you have it and there’s a monthly commitment. That still benefits a Pelotoner or any of these companies. Also it’s that much more of the mainstreaming of these devices. Many more of these devices that people are going to hear their friends having or talking about or maybe going to sample and that’s another sale. A lot of people are going to realize they bought it for this figuring, “I can curtail my gym activity or going out in public for six months and then I’ll worry about it after that.” A lot of people are going to find that they like having this in their home. They’re going to have a lot of converts that are going to go out and say, “I got it because of one thing. I got it because I had to self-quarantine. Now that I have it, I love it.”

The interesting thing about Peloton is many people are the opposite on social media with Peloton than they are about other things. Many times, we’ve talked about people who complain are the ones that go to social media. I have seen many posts about people saying, “Now I get it. I tried it and now I love it and I can’t imagine it without it.” That’s the difference. You don’t see that about any other product, Echelon.

I’ve been going through Twitter looking for Peloton posts to see what’s out there. I will say 99% of the negative Peloton posts are from non-owners.

It’s because they’ve never tried it.

It’s always their preconceived notion of what it is or how people use it or the types of people that will buy it. It’s never people that have it that are like, “This is dumb. Why did I do this?” Never.

I feel like it’s how I used to be about the show, Friends. When the show, Friends, came out, everyone talked about it nonstop and it irritated me. I was like, “I’m never watching that show. It’s dumb. I’m tired of people telling me how great it is. I don’t want to watch it.” It made me rebel against it. Then eventually I watched it and I loved it and it’s one of my favorite shows ever. I feel like that’s the people who are loud about Peloton and they don’t own one. That’s who they are. They’re like, “If everybody loves it, it has to be annoying.” They need to try it.

On the heels of all that, MIRROR now has an app.

I thought this was very interesting because this is the new thing. I saw somebody else did this too. MIRROR now has an app that you can get all of their workouts on. If you own a Mirror, you get it all for free. If you don’t own a MIRROR, you can still access all of their content for $42 a month. I know that’s steep. Here’s the thing, you’re watching it on a giant TV, you don’t come with any equipment. Why does it even matter? I was pretty offended by this one. You guys are insane. The only thing I will give them is that you get up to six people included on your account. If you know enough people that actually care, which I don’t because everyone I know is into other things. I was like, “No.”

First off, please tell me that they called the app Pocket MIRROR.

No, I think it’s just MIRROR.

That is a missed opportunity.

I was surprised that they kept it that expensive. It’s just a TV and you can take live classes on it, but it’s going to be $42 a month and you can’t interact with it, whatever.

On the heels of all that, sad news. Even other companies that sometimes we make fun of, in all seriousness, it’s sad that Solidcore and Flywheel laid off 98% of their staff.

It is sad. When Flywheel is ripping off of Peloton, I’ve got a problem with that, but I would want to see them go down in flames because they lost fair and square. Not because something terrible happened and they had no control over it. That’s what’s happening in the world. That makes it sad and it’s totally different.

Also you feel bad for the workers. For the most part, they are not involved with that. They’re just doing what they’re told. Exactly. You’ve got to think that’s the nail in the coffin for them.

Both companies said it was temporary, so I don’t know. There’s so much up in the air right now. A lot of it depends on how long and where is the long part?

In the immortal words of the great philosopher, Briana, from Teen Mom 2, “We shall see what comes out.”

Only those of you who watch will get that.

Now for some good news, some positive things that have come out of this pandemic. It feels weird. I will stop myself from saying it because I’m like, “That’s hyperbole.” I’m like, “No, it’s literally what’s occurring.”

It’s people finding good in the midst of bad. For example, our beloved Peloton, most of you, if not all of you know that Peloton was raising money. For every ride or every class that you took, they were going to donate $1 to the New York City Food Bank. It is very cool. They were able to donate $500,000 to the Food Bank of New York City and that is over 2.5 million meals to those who needed it most.

That’s a pretty cheap meal.

I’m just telling you. I think they literally make them. The numbers we’re talking about are the ingredients because they have volunteers come in too. I don’t think it’s a business and they’re calculating their time.

There are a lot of costs that they don’t have. Then there was an article from WTOL.com about finding the beauty in life during all this.

I don’t remember this one either.

It was too touchy feely for me to actually click and read. Clicking on that was going to make my laptop smell like lavender.

I remember why I got this because this talked about exercising and that they’re trying to find their peace within all of the things that are happening with the pandemic. Specifically, they talked about Alex Toussaint and something that he said that resonated with them, “Rather than waking up mad and sad, wake up and find the beauty in life.” The author went on to say, “It’s hard thing to do right now, but emotionally this is going to be a marathon. The negativity of the events of the day will eventually beat us all down if we don’t get away from it.” I think that spoke to me so much because I too have been struggling with everything going on. There are people that disagree with me and I’m not here to debate anything, but in my worst moments, I genuinely feel like we are on a slow March to the end of the world if something doesn’t change soon. I feel like there are people that are not taking it seriously enough and it’s very scary to me. Reading this gave me a sense of peace, that there was somebody else out there that understood what I was going through, what I felt. Tom’s uncomfortable hearing me talk about this. He’s like, “This is touchy feely. I feel heard when I read something like this. That is why going back to our conversation at the beginning about the instructors still doing these classes, that in the right moment could save lives legit. There are people that feel like, “What’s the point right now?” That’s a thing.

While we’re talking about positive aspects of things, Medium.com one of their sub-prints or channels, Gen, had an article about Robin Arzon. The lady who wrote this just got her Peloton. He has girl crush on Robin Arzon.

It’s Amy Wallace, who’s a famous writer. She started looking into other things that Robin said. Robin was the first instructor that really resonated with her, then she started digging through the archives of Robin’s stories and found all of these amazing quotes. She has decided that Peloton’s head coach is powering her through the pandemic. This is an ode to Robin. It made me smile. It was all the good that comes from Peloton. It was like, “I like this lady, she gets it.”

We reached out to her and she’s going to be on an upcoming episode.

Watch out for that because it was a joy talking to her. I can’t wait to share that with you.

To be clear, we mean the author, not Robin Arzon.

Yeah but maybe someday. She’s got so many big interviews. I think we’re probably pretty far down the list.

Sorry, people, we need you to get your friends to download so our numbers get higher and we’re more important, then we can talk to her.

That’s how it’s got to work.

Speaking of important people and more feelings, Brené Brown.

Brené Brown launched her brand-new podcast. I’m so excited. She has a Peloton. That is super exciting to me. You need to go listen to her podcast. It’s called Unlocking Us with Brené Brown. She can call it whatever she wants.

She’s doing better than me. It’s funny though because she’s not that touchy feely.

She’s more like thinky, how your thoughts relate to what you do. It’s more like the stuff you know on a level like, “Duh, of course that’s what I need to do,” but being aware of how you’re actually integrating that into your life.

She was on Marc Maron’s podcast not too long ago, so I listened to it. It was fine. With all the spike in sales or connected fitness for the At Home stuff, you probably could use a Tonal.

I can’t because I already have one but I think everybody at home could. I want you all to know that every one of you that sends me a private message telling me to end the contest because you have now entered, I love all of you. It’s really adorable. I am glad that this is going to be picked automatically because I have no idea how I would choose.

It’s why we use this third-party software because we wanted to have our hands not involved in pulling out the magic name.

Here’s the deal. If you go and do the contest on theclipout.com/tonal, each week there will be a new question so you have more chances to win. My point being that you can maximize the chances and the number of entries that you get.

It’s not one and done. Every week is a new opportunity. There are extra ways to enter. You can only do those ones, but there is a new chance to enter every week.

Those extra opportunities that you do, those are not required but they get you extra entries and it’s real. I know some of you might be skeptical but the whole reason we chose this third-party software is because we wanted it to be fun for you guys. It’s not free. My point being is it’s not janky. We are not going to pick like a wheel out here. This is legit. You should get your name in there and enter. Here’s another thing about Tonal that I love, making sure that they are making their classes as available to people as possible. They have uploaded all of their yoga classes onto YouTube for free. I know we have Yoga on Peloton and I love the Yoga on Peloton, that is not talking that down. I am saying for those of you who might know people who don’t have a Peloton membership, maybe you want to try something different because you’ve already done all the Peloton yoga. I don’t know. I want you to know about it because Tonal, like Peloton, is constantly changing things, updating things and being innovative and I personally appreciate that.

It’s also a great way to sample too. I know it’s not the same as a Strength class, but it is a great way to get a feel for what Tonal is like and how the instruction works. If you want to check that out or you want to enter to win, that’s what you want to do, theclipout.com/tonal. There was a fascinating article from Whoop.

I was blown away by this article. A recap, Whoop is a wearable. It checks watching your activity all the time. It tracks your sleep, your temperature, everything. I know you’re thinking, “That’s what Apple Watch does.” This is on a different level. It tells you at a very deep level how much you need to recover, how much you need to work harder. It gives you a good idea of when you’re getting sick, which to the whole point is this article that they wrote, it’s on their blog. It talks about the Coronavirus, COVID-19. They’ve been tracking people that have it to see if they could find any interesting commonalities, any trends, things we should know about. I found this fascinating.

I actually sent this to some of my news radio friends in St. Louis and in other markets. I sent it to Jon Grayson, who is now on the air in Kansas City, and he’s this huge science nerd and loves data. I sent it to him and I was like, “I think you would find this fascinating and you might want to talk about it on the air.”

Did he respond?

I don’t live in Kansas City, so I don’t know if he responded. He said thanks, but I don’t know if he did anything with it.

Check this out. They know that there’s obviously the shortage of tests. People might have suspected cases but they can’t get tested. Maybe they’re not sure if their symptoms are severe enough to get tested. Among their data, and this is a very small sample, those who were able to get tested and they tested positive at the time of publishing, there were eight people that also consented to sharing their data. Keep in mind, this is eight people that we’re talking about. Five of those people experienced a decrease in heart rate variability of 30% or more compared to a recent baseline. Four experienced an increase in resting heart rate of 25% or more, and three experienced an increase in respiratory rate of 15% or more. I am blown away by that. Those are high numbers. They said, “Let’s take these statistics and put it in perspective.” Here are all of the Whoop members that have reported feeling sick for any reason. January of 2020, less than 15% of those members experienced a decrease of 30% or greater in their heart rate variability. In other words, they experienced the decrease, but 30% is astounding.

That’s not just a standard, “Anybody with a cold gets this.”

Then less than 5% of the members experienced an increase in resting heart rate of 25% or more. It’s very small amount are seeing a big spike in their resting heart rate and then less than 1.5% of members experienced an increase in respiratory rate of 15% or more. Which makes sense because this is a respiratory illness, so that does make sense. I was super fascinated by this. The other thing that you might find interesting is that you could see by state how people are sleeping, how much they are sleeping compared to where COVID-19 is. They found that it was super interesting because those people that are hardest hit are sleeping more and their stress rate is at an all-time high. I’m not surprised about that. They also said, and this was interesting, even those states that are not being highly affected right now with cases are still being impacted by stress rates. They’re going up at a national average.

It’ll be interesting to see as these wearables become more common, how much data they will collect and will they start to help us get out in front of things like that?

I think they will because the interesting thing is that it’s any difference between like a decrease or an increase. If you have a normal HRV, a number all the time like clockwork and then all of a sudden it goes up really high, that can also be something going on with your immune system. It will help people be able to see that they’re getting sick. I know that COVID-19 is specific because we’re looking at a very specific thing. I think it will be able to be like, “You’re super sick. You’re having all three of these things happen versus you feel tired.” I do think it will help people keep an eye on what’s going on in with their body.

There’s a lot more data in that article than we touched on. If you’re a big data nerd or member of the data junkies, you might be interested in this one.

I’ve been doing them like clockwork, so I’m not even going to say it’s funny.

We can file this one under, “Nice try.” There’s a new home workout app that nobody’s going to want to download, courtesy of the FBI.

They’re pushing their workout app. The interesting thing is this workout app existed before all of this and they build it as a way that you could get in shape for your FBI exam, because we’re all doing that. Because of what’s going on with COVID-19, they are pushing it out to be like, “You’re stuck at home. Check us out. Go download this FBI app to your phone.” I will say, if you want a good laugh, go check out the Twitter version. Look this up on Twitter because the comments are hilarious. It’s like, “Come on. What are we even trying to do?”

I’m not doing anything. I’m worried about the FBI. Let’s not invite trouble either.

We also don’t need to invite the FBI to be looking at anything else on our phones. I think they’ve got plenty.

They don’t need to know that stuff.

It’s funny though. I could care less because I have nothing to hide. They’re going to have a whole lot of feed of people exercising.

You don’t know what else it does when it’s on your phone.

You don’t know if it’s going to be taking pictures. Check out, Sneek, by the way. That will make you cover up your webcam. That’s a whole other story. We’re not going to get into that because it’s not Peloton related. Check it out, Sneek.com.

Fitnessista had a little blog post. She’s a fitness social influencer. She’s got a podcast and a blog that she’d been doing for a long time. She’s a Peloton advocate. She wrote a blog post about her favorite instructors.

Everybody has their favorites, the ones they gravitate towards the most. What I like about this is that it goes with my theory of the type of instructor you like, there are other instructors. I feel like because of the instructor she likes, it validates my theory. Also I think she had good rationale behind each of them. It wasn’t just like, “I like the way they look,” because some people, that is what they say. She had good rationale behind each of them. I enjoyed the article.

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It was great and it was positive. It was like, “These are my favorites,” then there wasn’t a list of like, “Here are five that sucks.” It was just like, “These are the ones that worked the best for me.”

It was all very positive.

There was a blog called Earthly Comforts, which had a nice little thing about five reasons why you should own a Peloton.

Do you remember those five reasons?

Honestly, it was a nice post and I’m sure it will be helpful for people that are thinking about getting the Peloton. The five reasons were like things that you already know, “The instructors are great and the community’s great.”

It’s for newbies who have seen it, but they’re like, “Whatever.” Then they come across this article and they would be like, “I get it now.”

It was more like that. Then there was anything all that profound earth-shaking for people that already have one and have a passion and love it enough to listen to a podcast every week about it. It was still nice to see. We did our first Zoom call. That was fun.

I loved it. We had several people joined us.

Who set that up for us?

It was Merci. She reached out and she was like, “This would be great.” I was like, “Okay.” I get these kinds of requests a lot, not to do Zoom, but you guys should fill in the blank, whatever that is. Whenever I’m like, “How do I do that?” People are like, “I don’t know, just make it happen.” Sometimes I can figure that out. Sometimes I can’t and I don’t have the energy. I said that to Merci and lo and behold, she had ideas. She was like, “You could do this, this and this.” She had a whole list. She was sweet as could be about it. It was funny though because she was like, “I didn’t expect you to put it back on me.” I was super impressed that she did that. She gave me some things to tell you because you do not like to go live on camera. I needed some ammo to convince you. If I went to you and said, “We should do this,” you’d be like, “What did we say?” Merci gave me lots of ideas and it helped a lot. We did have our first Zoom call, tons of fun. We had lots of people join and it was great hearing from all these different people and like, “What’s going on with them right now? How are they surviving the quarantine?” Most of them were in the quarantine.

It was nice to have the back and forth, there was an action. We’ll probably do one of those again.

I’m definite we’re doing one again.

Breaking news, we’re going to do one of those again. We should point out that when we did set it up, we didn’t share it on the page. We only shared it in the group. If you want to get notifications about maybe participating in one and you don’t have to get put on the spot, you can lurk. That’s okay too.

I did call a couple of people out, but I was trying to draw them in. I felt like they were waiting for their term.

You were trying to be polite. It’s like a strip club. You can engage as much as you want. You can go right up to the front of the stage or you can sit in the back. That’s okay too. If you want to get notifications by something like this, you should join The Clip Out group on Facebook.

We will be doing another one though, and it will be fun. Keep in mind two things. One, we found out the hard way that when you have a free account, it ends after 45 minutes. That was weird.

Also it ended right as I dropped an F bomb, the first one and it was right as I did it and then it timed out. I was like, “Does it know that I cussed? Is this a business account and HR is like, ‘Shut it down?’”

Also we can only have so many people on at a time. If it starts to get crowded, which I don’t see that happening because everyone is nervous about being on camera, but if it starts to get crowded, we’ll do something else with that. Maybe I’ll just do a Zoom call for the people who want to have the Tonal the most. Gina, I’m looking at you.

Forbes.com had a nice little article about the best home gym equipment that’s out on the market. Lots of things we’ve talked about were on that list. Obviously, Peloton is on the list or we wouldn’t have brought it up, but MIRROR’s on the list. Not MIRROR, but we talked about MIRROR. Tonal is on the list and Fight Camp is on the list. I see them getting that. How’s that working in to all your stuff?

As I told you last time, hitting something when I’m so frustrated is first of all, really satisfying. As to the everyday activity, what I love about it is that it uses my body in a completely different way because I’m doing so much with the Bike, with the Tread, even with Tonal, there are so many of the exercises that work my legs. I know that the Fight Camp is an overall, it’s an all-body workout. I feel it in my arms and my abs so much. Do you remember when you were a kid and you played outside? There had to have been a time you played a game for fun. Everybody else knows what I’m talking about. You would just play, you didn’t think of it as exercise. You played with your friends and that might be running or when you went biking with your friend, Nick, and you would go to the mall. You didn’t think of it as exercise. It was getting from point A to point B. I’m having fun, I’m not exercising. For me, that is s important to be able to have fun because if I feel like it’s a workout, I’m out. I lose interest quickly. When it’s fun and engaging, I’m like, “What else can I do? Let me see how hard I can hit it. What’s my output?” I’m thinking about that stuff and it draws you in and I like that.

How’s your punch count? I know you were very excited about how you were outperforming what they thought.

I’m still doing that.

I believe what you actually said was, “Suck it, Fight Camp.”

I never said that.

You were like, “F your punch counts. Take that.”

No, I just named some names and I was like, “I’m coming for you bitches.” In all seriousness, consistently, my punch counts have been above what the goal is. They do these burnouts at the very end of the workout, your arms feel like Jell-O. I don’t even feel like I’m hitting it anymore. I’m like, “Are the punches even still going up? I’m barely moving but I’m going as fast as I can.” It’s like whenever I was running at the Atlantic City Half Marathon and I was like, “It was Ironman, but I was doing the Half Marathon portion.” I felt like I sped up at the end, but when I watched the video back, it was like, “I wasn’t really any faster. I felt like I was going faster.”

It’s like when you’re crossing the parking lot and like there’s a car coming, you don’t actually walk faster. You move your arms very fast.

I will never forget this. Chrissy was standing at the edge. She was like, “Finish it.” I was like, “Yeah,” I ran fast because it was only 0.2 miles and I thought I was going so fast as 0.2 miles. When you play it back, no, I wasn’t.

If you’re interested in getting one, you can go to JoinFightCamp.com. One of the interesting things about this is people are trying to get at-home equipment with the whole like, “We shouldn’t leave our homes.” One of the benefits of this is that you don’t have to have someone come into your home to set it up. It’s going to get delivered to your house and you’re going to set it up.

It’s easy-peasy. Tom and I did it.

You did it and I watched.

I didn’t need you to help me.

You were like, “Hold this or put your thumb here or whatever.” It was easy to set up. You don’t have to have anybody come into your home and you also don’t have to have a special delivery service. It all comes through. You also don’t have to worry about delays. The post offices are going to bring it to you.

I think it was one of the truck companies, I don’t think it was the post office. The point being, it all comes and it shows up at your door and you put it up. It’s super easy.

It’s super simple. You can find out more at JoinFightCamp.com.

If you do buy one, make sure at the survey at the end that you mentioned that you heard about it from us, The Clip Out.

The PGA has gone Peloton crazy.

I’m pretty sure it’s because of Rory McIlroy. He is literally calling people out on Facebook. I think it’s all the platforms. I saw it on Instagram first actually, but he posted his latest stats and I love this because he shows what his average cadence and average wattage and all that stuff, where he didn’t just be like, “I’m number so and so on the leaderboard.” If you’re wondering for a 45-minute class, you’re going to need to beat at least 800 KJs to beat Rory McIlroy. He called out other people in the PGA. He was like, “Let’s go, let’s do it.” We will see if that continues with the competition.

There have been tons of Instagram Lives from instructors, so if you want to stay up to date with what they’re doing, especially maybe some of the ones that aren’t teaching as many classes right now.

Jenn Sherman, she was never huge on Instagram. She didn’t go on all the time, but she has been doing tons of Stories. You can stay in contact with all of your favorite instructors by being on Instagram Live.

Peloton launched five new classes, dance cardio, no equipment needed except dancing shoes.

It’s taught by two instructors for each of these classes. It’s so fun. As an aside, I know it went live on March 25th. Let me say they posted on everywhere that the classes were filmed on March 5th. That was before the lockdown, they were being perfectly safe. Everybody’s healthy and good. It’s okay. I want to say that because you might take that the wrong way.

That’s a very important thing to point out. Finally, Jess Sims is leading a twenty-minute body weight workout.

This happened Tuesday morning. It was cool. It was on Peloton’s Instagram feed with Good Morning America’s Instagram feed. She was on there live, and she did it with Eva from Good Morning America. They were both exercising together. Jess Sims led her through a twenty-minute body weight workout. This is great. One, they both did it from their apartments. Two, no equipment needed. This is something anybody can do. Three, the best part, it was National Puppy Day. Both of these ladies had puppies in their apartments who would not leave them alone. It was good entertainment. Even if you don’t do the workout, you need to watch it because it was hilarious.

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Joining us is Melissa Bazarian. Melissa, how’s it going?

I’m excited to be on the show.

I’m going to call you “Mel” because that’s how everybody knows you on Facebook. Mel, how did you originally find Peloton?

One of my extracurricular activities is teaching indoor cycle classes. You’re always searching for music, playlist and suggestions for class formats. The social media algorithms picked up on that. I started seeing the ads for the app. I feel like Peloton Digital was launched well-after the actual bike came out. I started seeing it when it was free and they were trying to bring in people and say, “Give it a couple of weeks,” which I think they might still do and try it. Every marketer’s dream is when they started posting the price was going to go up from $13 to $20. I panicked and I was like, “I’ve got to lock this in.” I bought it, I don’t even know how many months. Take note, advertiser, I am your dream. You’re losing out on the special. Melissa is going to get on that.

I sat on it for a little while and then I was teaching regularly, but I also have a full-time job that I am fortunate enough to do from home. I was going early in the morning or teaching late classes. I started to not be able to keep up based on my work schedule and I had to give it up. I started panicking a little bit like, “I’m not going to get this workout that I adore. What can I do?” I started researching indoor cycling bikes. Strangely, it didn’t occur to me or click with me when I started doing that that Peloton had its own bike because I was so fixated that there was this digital app thing. I feel like there were a lot of things happening all at once. I thought, “I’m going to go ahead and get the indoor cycling bike.” That’s a different story.

I went ahead and bought one and thought, “I’m never going to use this app. I’m a spin and indoor cycling instructor. I don’t need somebody teaching me how to do a class when I can take myself through a class.” I tried one and I was hooked immediately. It was a Denis class. There was no theme or whatever. It was a straight-up class and I loved every second of it. I thought, “I don’t have to build the class. I don’t have to choose the music.” I kept using the same playlists over and over again so that was getting monotonous. Somebody was telling me what to do and I thought, “This is pretty fabulous,” and then they went from there. The story expands and expands. The original, how you came across Peloton was through Digital.

How long have you been using the app on a regular basis?

I used the app before I ended up selling my bike and buying the actual Peloton bike for seven months.

What made you cave? What was the moment that you were like, “I want the real thing?”

I went to the mothership.

When you went there, were you super impressed or was it like you felt left out?

It was a little bit of both. It was a multitude of things leading up to it. The reason that I even went to the Peloton studio was that I was attending the #FITFAB40s HRI. It was a wonderful time. My sister lives in Brooklyn, so any excuse to see her is great. I’m not shy. I’m an extroverted introvert, but I need to recharge. I didn’t feel like it was going to be a good time for me if I had to go and be with a bunch of people all the time. I thought, “Let me go and see my sister. She gets that I need to recharge alone. I can just hop on the subway from our place in Brooklyn and check it out.” I ended up having the best time. I can get into a comparison of what I had versus the Peloton a bit later, but I was impressed with the bikes. I loved the ability to see my metrics, compete with other people because I am competitive like that. I felt like the experience was so much more immersive than I expected it to be and I felt like I needed to be a part of that. Also, I saw the tread in the showroom and that was it. I thought, “I have to have the bike.” I’ve never met a tech gadget I didn’t want. Tonal, you’re next. I thought I’d need the matching set. I want to be fully immersed in this Pelotonia.

You went from using the app only to having the bike and the tread.

I bought the bike, and when the gentleman who delivered it came into my house, I showed him where I wanted to put the tread because it was a tricky flight of stairs and I knew that thing is a behemoth. I asked him if he could get it up there and he said, “Yes, absolutely.” I went to my computer and I ordered it and delivered it the following week. When I commit, I commit. I’m all-in.

How long were you a spin instructor?

I started getting into indoor cycling several years ago. I was in my mid-30s. I enjoyed it. I found a level of fitness that I had not enjoyed in my prior life. I live on the small island in Northeast Florida and a friend of mine was opening a fitness studio for this particular form of dance fitness. She wanted to incorporate other things, other group fitness classes to bring different people in. Cycling was one of them. TRX was another. I got certified to teach both and I loved it. Being on a bike, getting all that energy out and screaming at people and telling them what to do, that’s my jam.

How was it being on the other side of that?

I love it. Even before Peloton, I would go to the studio and take classes from the other instructors and there was something to learn from each of them, which was great. One thing I thought was funny was when I was teaching, I would try to do these themes classes all the time. My husband is a huge fan of new wave and classic rock music. I love all of it too. I didn’t grow up in this country, so the pop culture is sometimes lost on me. He would put together these fantastic themed playlists for me. My husband adores disco.

I would do these themed rides and people would come up to me and say, “We don’t want to do that. We want to hear a mix of music.” Popular music is lost on me. I like some of it, but I don’t get a chance to listen to it. I’m 60 years old trapped in a 40-year-old body. I have been since I was born. They would say, “We don’t like this.” I tried to get this theme rides off the ground. When I found the Peloton app, I cannot even tell you how thrilled I was when I saw Christine’s new wave ride and Denis’ ‘80s rides. I even joined the ‘90s rides. The new tracks rides are fun for me too because they introduced me to music I would otherwise not be introduced to.

Did you take it to class and show the other people and be like, “I’m not crazy, there’s a demand for this?”

I did do that, but I also use that for my Tabata classes because I would always throw some Tabata into every single class I did. People either loved it or hated it. When I would get like, “Let’s go for round eight,” the sighing and the, “I hate you. Why are you doing this to me?” I’d say, “There are entire classes that Peloton does of this only.”

You guys are getting off easy and you don’t even know it.

I haven’t been able to teach for a long time and I miss it. At least I can ride at home, which is the best thing.

When you’re putting in your details about what would make you a good guest, one of the things that you said that stuck with me is that Denis is a male version of you while teaching. What on Earth does that mean?

If you take a Denis class, it’s very similar to my classes. The level of energy that he brings and the interaction with his students. I haven’t been able to get a live class with him. When I was in New York, I only had the opportunity to ride with a few instructors and he was not one of them, which broke my heart. He makes self-deprecating jokes, that high pitched like, “Count faster.” I do that too. I would count super slow just to drive people crazy. I would start singing lyrics randomly all by myself. I would be having a good time on the bike and sometimes I would have stone-faced people looking back at me. I was thinking to myself, “You all need to enjoy life more. Get on the bike, listen to the music and try not to be perfect.” I feel such a kinship with Denis.

There’s something about the music that he picks that reminds me of growing up. I’m half American, so when I came back to the States, there are some things that I picked up on. A lot of the things that he references pop culture-wise I recognize, which is super thrilling for me because that doesn’t always happen. There’s something about him that amuses me. I don’t surf, I don’t skateboard, I don’t do any of that. I’m bad at yoga, but as a cycling instructor, Denis is me. I think we’re the same age too. There’s something going on there with that cosmic connection. I know he doesn’t have it with me and he has no idea who I am.

I never thought about that though. As an instructor, people like the instructors on Peloton because they have so much personality. If you go to a class and they have that much personality, but it’s not the personality that you want in an instructor, you probably get a lot of push back, don’t you?

You do. The people who gave me the feedback that I mentioned, a lot of them were people that I know. It’s a small island. Everybody knows everybody. They felt comfortable coming to me and saying, “I don’t like this new wave ride that you did.” I would snicker to myself and be like, “It’s not my fault you’re devoid of musical taste, but whatever.” I kid, but I think that it’s the energy that you feel when you’re teaching. Sometimes I would have these classes and they would be packed and people would be in that zone and you could tell they were working their butts off and having a good time doing it. I never needed them to say, “Great class,” to me because I knew they had a great class.

I knew they enjoyed it. I know they liked the tunes. I know they liked the format. There were some times, and especially those times where I would feel like I was giving it all of my good energy, that I wasn’t getting it back. It has a lot to do with the group of people who were in the room, how self-conscious they are about what they’re doing versus how comfortable they are on the bike. The studio had these new bikes that had Power Zones on them and people are intimidated by those. I kept suggesting Power Zone training and getting shot down. It’s an uphill battle if only they knew how great it was.

There’s a lot of good that can come from Power Zone training. It’s fascinating that you had many ideas that Peloton was doing and they were like, “No.”

I feel like if I still taught regularly, I would be able to shape the classes how I wanted. In the beginning, especially with the new studio, you want to get people in. In our area, there was a spin studio that was very popular and the owner/main instructor was very popular. Everybody wanted to push that format. If you weren’t doing her style, they didn’t want to do it. It was cult-like. In the beginning, that’s what you did to get people in to ride. I feel like a few years down the line, it would be easier to implement these things. I only sub because of schedule and I had a couple of surgeries, so I couldn’t do much. I’m looking forward to getting back into it. I know I can because I’m riding practically every day when I’m allowed to exercise, so that’s good.

You said you didn’t grow up in America, where did you grow up?

I grew up in Turkey. My mom is Turkish and my dad is American. He was in the Army and they met over there.

Your accent and the way that you pronounce words do not sound like you grew up in a different country at all.

I’m completely bilingual. Growing up, both my younger sister and me, the one who lives in Brooklyn, we spoke Turkish and English from whenever we can start speaking. I’m almost 42, but I’ve been in the States consistently since I was seventeen. I came to Washington, DC for college and never left. I went to grad school there, lived there until we moved down here to Florida.

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What do you find is the biggest hole in your pop culture knowledge?

Luckily, my husband was born in ‘73. He came of age during the whole John Hughes thing. He’s managed to educate me. For example, Better Off Dead. That’s a movie I had never seen before and it’s one of the best movies ever.

It was one of the few movies for a long time that had a Van Halen song. It was very hard to get Van Halen to let you put their music in a movie and they licensed Everybody Wants Some before they were a complete juggernaut.

Things like this, I don’t know there’s a hole until somebody says something and I’ll say, “What are you talking about?” Here’s the biggest hole, especially considering Super Bowl Sunday, football is completely lost on me.

I know the feeling.

We can’t help you with that one.

I’m okay with that but for me, football is soccer.

The Super Bowl was on but we got all caught up on Mrs. Maisel.

Tell us about the bike that you were using before you switched to Peloton and what the main differences were?

First, I have to tell you one little thing that I think you’re going to want to revoke my Peloton card. When I decided to get the bike, it was at the tail end of a very long road trip. We drive up to New England almost every summer. We’re coming back to Florida. I’m feeling extra voluptuous, all the eating lobster rolls, things like that. We checked into a hotel room and I was looking on the Peloton website and I thought, “This is an expensive bike,” but it’s worth it. I’m all about investing in yourself.

I went away from it because I like to research the ever-loving crap out of something before I buy it. It took me six months to find bath towels. I want to make sure I’m making the right decision. I had a weak moment and I was scrolling through the socials and up pops an ad for Echelon. I looked at that and I went, “I don’t need the screen. I’m going to be taking myself through the workouts.” Remember, I’m a cycle instructor. I don’t need anybody telling me what to do. I ordered one and then the next day, I had major buyer’s remorse and I was like, “What did I do?”

I got in touch with them because it was an immediate buyer’s remorse. We were driving back. I’ve been in the car for days with my two boys and my husband and I just want to get home. I’m like, “I can’t believe I did that.” It was like drunkenly ordering pizza and consuming it. That’s what I’m equating it to. I emailed them and I said I want to cancel my order. They said, “Sorry, we can’t do that. We’ve already placed the order.” I said, “When is it supposed to be delivered?” They said, “Not for several weeks.” It was many weeks out. I can’t remember exactly. I work in contracts so I’m pretty well versed in the legalese aspect. I handed their butts to them and pulled a little bit of Karen with the, “I need to speak to your manager.” After a couple of days of back and forth, I got them to refund my money.

You quickly realize the way you should go. It was a close call. I understand. I have woken up at 4:00 in the morning and I can’t sleep. The next thing I know, I’m shopping and then I go back to sleep. I wake up at 8:00 on a weekend and I’m like, “Why do I have this thing saying that I just bought something?” I will have completely forgotten that I bought it while I was awake briefly.

In the end, my massive amounts of research led me to a Keiser M3 bike. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. I looked around online.

That’s a legit good bike. If you don’t want to have the bike that has the screen and you want to buy something that’s a bike but it’s not Peloton, that is a good one to get it.

It is very well-made. I dare say it’s better made than a Peloton bike. I know that sounds sacrilege, but there are a lot fewer plastic components to it and a lot less maintenance required for it. It’s a sexy bike.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree because I think the Peloton is very sexy and I’m still going to let you keep your card.

I love my bike. I have it in my bedroom because I want to be able to hop on it whenever I get up and I’m ready to go. It used to be in my office and was being neglected. For me, the Keiser spoke to me. Having taken classes on a Keiser, I loved how smooth it was and everything. I came to that decision without ever hopping on a Peloton bike. Had I had the opportunity to compare the two by riding them, I probably would have ended up with the Peloton because of all the other integrated tech with it, but absent that, there is no showroom, there was going to be. In my area, there was no way to try one.

Nobody in my immediate vicinity had one that I could try, so I ended up with the Keiser. I rode that for seven months and it is fantastic. There is a group on Facebook called Peloton Digital App Users. That group has a lot of helpful feedback if you are a Digital rider. They have a lot of conversion charts. For example, the Keiser resistance is a lever and it goes only up to 24. When they’re telling you to take it to 25, you have to figure out, “What’s 25% of 24?” You get the hang of it after a while, but they have these handy conversion charts.

The Keiser does have a little bite of computer on it that tells you what your cadence is and things like that. I did end up getting one of those little cadence devices that you put on your bike so it would project to my app. I started trickling out the Keiser and then I thought, “I’m going to need to find some power pedal converter.” By that time I was like, “Screw this. We’re buying a Peloton.” If that’s what you have, you can’t go wrong. If you feel like you don’t need that additional layer of connectivity that having a Peloton device will offer you, a Keiser is great. My dad bought a mid-range Sunny bike because he was dealing with some coronary issues and wanted to be able to get his blood flowing. I got on that thing and it felt like it was made of little pieces of wood that a toddler glued together.

I feel like there are different areas of the best kind of bike. A mid to high-level Sunny is for somebody who cannot afford a Peloton or a Keiser, but they want to take those classes. I think a Keiser is a solid alternative for Peloton if you don’t care about the integrations as you said. In my opinion, there’s a Peloton. That’s how they go.

Comparing a bike like a Keiser and a Peloton, you are technically comparing apples to oranges. When I say that in terms of its build, one is better than the other, there are certain components on the Keiser that I wish that the Peloton had. The Peloton, you’re talking about a completely integrated piece of machinery that’s connecting you to a community on a level that no other exercise equipment can offer, maybe the Tonal now.

I love the Tonal, but it is different because you do not connect to the community in the same way. At the moment, there’s no leaderboard. I don’t know that it’s in the works, but I know that that’s one of the things that comes up often as a suggestion. They rank them and they said, “Here are all of our feature ideas,” and some of them are in the works. I don’t know if that’s one of them or not. Now you can’t see who else is using the Tonal and what program they’re using or anything like that. There’s no following, no leaderboard names, none of that.

Peloton, the Tread and the Bike are in a class by themselves. The bottom line, and I think that’s one reason that I thought it might be cool to come and talk to you guys, is because this is a question I see come up a lot. Truly the decision that you have to make at your core is, how connected to a community do you want to be? Does that make you more productive in terms of what you do for working out? Is it important to you?

What’s interesting about that is that you don’t know, in my opinion, truly how much you want to be included or not included until you try it. If you would’ve asked me, “How involved in this community are you going to get when I got the bike?” we would not be talking about me having a podcast. That wouldn’t have been a thing.

That’s why I ended up with a Keiser because I’m very comfortable figuring things out by myself. As I started getting involved in the tribes, I didn’t even know they were a thing until I knew and then I went, “I feel like I’m missing out.” That’s what pushed me to get it. If you’re considering getting any higher-end spin bike or treadmill, I feel like even if you think the Peloton is the more expensive option, it is quite affordable when you factor in the financing options and everything else. The fact that you will use it is huge.

I was explaining this to one of my coworkers and he’s like, “You don’t know how to motivate yourself.” I’m like, “No, it’s not that.” It’s not that I’m not disciplined, that I don’t know how to motivate myself. The difference is this keeps me coming back effortlessly. I don’t think of it as work. It’s fun. That is the difference for me and worth every penny. Speaking of your favorite tribes or being part of tribes, what are your favorite tribes?

I’m an interesting human. I mentioned that I’m an introvert. I’m away from the tribal culture because it got overwhelming. There are so many. What I ended up doing was with the App Users, somebody posted about the #FITFAB40s. At that point, I had turned 40 and I thought, “This would be a cool way to connect with people, other women my age.” That led me to that group. That group led me to Stronger U, which has completely changed my life and the Pelo Ladies is a subgroup of Stronger U. From there, what I’m active in is the CDE Tribe because there had been some interesting posts and discussions there. There’s one called Pelodoodles, which is Peloton owners that also have a doodle type of dog.

Anybody who has any doodle will tell you that we immediately become obsessed with these animals. I have two golden doodles who like to sit beneath my feet. They know exactly how close they can get at without being hit by the pedals. It’s sweet. When I’m stretching, they helpfully come and sit on me. I’ve been enjoying them because they posted very motivating things and pictures of any doodle dog, any dog is always going to keep my spirits up. I’m paying more attention to that one only because it’s so cute and fuzzy. My work is bonkers, so I can’t spend a lot of time on social media. I have to say another group I like being a part of is The Clip Out Group because everybody’s nice and normal.

You said you wanted to talk about the Tread too. What things do you love about the Tread? What classes do you like to take? Who’s your favorite instructor?

When I was about 35, I started training for short distance races, like sprint triathlons and half marathons and things like that with a group of local friends. I was always the slow one, complete turtle. Every time you say that, Crystal, I’m like, “You’re like my people. I get you.” The speed never came. There was one race where I did it 8.5-minute mile and I think it’s because the crowd carried me. I feel like I blacked out at one point. It’s called the Gate River Run in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s a 22,000-person run.

It was all downhill. They rolled you down.

Except you have to go up a hill before you go down a hill. It’s bridges here since it’s pretty flat. I avoided running ever since, but there was something about the tread. When I went into the showroom during the #FITFAB40s HRI and I got on the Tread, I loved how the slats felt on my feet. It didn’t feel hard. I did a portion of a walk-run class and I think it was Robin. I deleted it because I never finished it. Also, it’s weird to run in a New York showroom with all these people milling around you. It was awesome. I thought, “I can do this,” but not be “a runner” and training for something. I immediately got it and what I’ve been doing ever since is alternating. I’ll usually ride one day and then do a tread class next. I love the walk-runs for when I’m not feeling super fit, but I’ve been into the hit runs and then there are intervals. I haven’t ventured into a lot of the longer ones yet because of surgeries. I keep having to stop for six weeks and then start back up.

That would make it very difficult to do. Do what you can do. Don’t overdo it.

My favorite thing about the Tread is that my older son, my thirteen-year-old, he needs to be able to run two miles in under twenty minutes to qualify for his first-degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, which is a type of taekwondo. Chuck Norris does it. Our family is not built for running. He has been on that thing three times a week taking classes with Matty who is his favorite. Matty is amazing. I contacted him on Instagram to say, “You finally got through my sullen thirteen-year-old.” He was gracious and kind and wrote me back this nice long message. It wasn’t just a message of emojis because these instructors get many messages. I would never expect them to respond, but he did and I was grateful. I showed it to Alex, my son, and he was thrilled. We’ll always hop on the app together and we’ll look and see what kind of classes he has and do a little plan for him to help gain that endurance and that speed and stuff like that. I think he likes Oliver too.

How does that work? He has to do two miles in under twenty minutes you said to get the black belt. Is that like a standing thing? Do they make them retest that or if you’re 75, do they come and take it away?

They don’t take it away. He has a black belt with a white stripe on it, which is technically a black belt. You have to do this thing called candidacy three months in a row and it’s during a promotion cycle. You can’t do it one at the end of one cycle into the next. It has to be all three in a row during the promotion solution cycle. It’s a two-mile run. It has to be 19:59 or less. You can’t hit twenty minutes. A ten-minute mile to many people, it’s like, “Big deal,” but he can’t do it. I can’t do it. There’s a kid who does it in an 8.5-minute mile. He’s a beast. They come back in and then they have to do 50 full sit-ups in under two minutes and then 30 military-style pushups in under two minutes.

He gets the pushups in the setups because he’s been practicing them morning and night for a year but he can’t nail the run. It breaks my heart, but he’s trying. He’s still doing it. We have a personal trainer we work with who’s also a chiropractor that’s helping him with his breathing and all this other stuff. He’s going to get it. I don’t care if it takes ten years. The treads been monumental and helping him do that because where we live, it’s humid nine months out of the year. You can’t breathe. Running inside is the only way you can practice most of the time.

First off, good for him for staying focused like that, especially at thirteen.

My daughter, as soon as it started getting hard and she started to hit people and stuff, she was like, “No, time out.”

It wasn’t the hitting people that was the problem, it was the getting hit. She liked hitting people. How close is he getting?

There are two laps around a road in the neighborhood where the studio is that they have to run. He’ll sometimes get eleven minutes. The trainer has him do lots of sprint repeats, quarter-mile repeats, and he runs those under time. He can sprint fast. His problem is endurance. He can go hard for a very short period of time, but he can’t make it last.

Add some hills into that.

It sounds like most thirteen-year-olds.

I keep saying to him, “Do you want to give up?” He’s like, “No, mom. I want to get this first-degree black belt.” It’s one of the rare things that I’m seeing him follow through on.

You’ve got to take that win.

Everything else is, so if he’s going to run, I’m all for it.

You said that you went to the studio for the #FITFAB40s group up. Have you been any other time since then?

No, I’m going to be missing HRI, which is upsetting because that was fun. I am going back up to New York to see my sister soon. I dragged her to the studio at that time and I’m going to do it again. I’m hoping it will be when the new space is open. I look forward to seeing what that looks like.

I’m hoping it’s done in time for homecoming, but they keep saying spring. It could be anytime though. Who knows?

The “intel” that we’re getting through the #FITFAB40s, I think they said that the target opening date was maybe the weekend before the HRI, which is mid-April but it will probably get delayed.

The construction, that’s a lot to do.

The studio experience was cool and it was interesting because I rode with three different instructors. They were nothing like what I expected based on my perception of them from taking classes on the app. I quickly became more attached to a couple of them versus other ones because of the interaction that I had.

What is your leaderboard name?

It is QueenMelBee, because Melissa means honeybee in Greek. I’m a little obsessed with bees and I have a bee tattoo. The business that I shut down a while back had a bee in its emblem. It was not my original one. In fact, it used to be MelBeeFL, and I did a review for you that you read on the air ones. Tom, you were all, “Is this beef?” No, it wasn’t. That prompted me to change it. Some of my friends came out of the woodwork and they were like, “We didn’t get why you had that.” I said, “It’s supposed to be Florida.” It was a very not inspired leaderboard name. Christine always says, “Pick a name that makes you feel proud.” I thought, “Is this obnoxious?” I thought, “Screw this. I’m going to do it.” I love it.

Do you have any advice for people starting out?

In addition to that ubiquitous, “Take a class from everybody, join a tribe,” my biggest advice would be, do not discount the stretching, foam rolling and meditation classes. Take advantage of stuff that is available to you that is not the Bike or the Tread. Keeping your body mobile is important. Keeping it stretched out is important. Those foam rolling classes that Hannah has are amazing. If you don’t do them, do them.

Where can people find you on social media?

If you look up on Facebook, I’m Mel BZ. It’s a shortened version of my last name, so you can interact with me on any of the groups there too. I don’t post a lot on my own page. On Instagram, which I have a love-hate relationship with, sometimes I’ll post a lot and sometimes never. It’s @MBeeThriae. I had a photography studio, so you’ll see lots of portraits of old clients. You’ll see me trying to work out, then you’ll see artistic shots of the beach and then I’ll disappear and a lot of golden doodle pictures.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us.

Thank you for doing this. It’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate knowing the perspective of the app, the Keiser, and all of that. Thank you very much for doing that.

Thanks for having me and thanks for doing what you do. It’s a great podcast. I look forward to it.

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That brings this one to a close. What do you have in store for people next episode?

We are going to talk to Tamara. She is a huge fan of Peloton and she has used it. She calls herself the person who has dealt with overweight struggles. She says that even though she has been overweight, she has continued to. She has run, she has biked, she has used this to train, she’s done marathons and she’s pretty awesome and badass.

Until then, where can we find you?

People can find me at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on, Instagram, Twitter, on the Bike and of course the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Check out our website at theclipout.com, where you can join the newsletter. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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