TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

198: Christine D’Ercole Battles Cancer plus our interview with Andrea Verdone Gorsegner

Last Updated: April 30, 2023By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

John Mills joins us to discuss Peloton’s new partnership with Adidas.

Peloton expands to Australia.

Dr. Jenn – Losing weight over 50.

How’s MetPro going for Crystal & Tom?

Sessions are back.

The Clip Out now has its own room on Clubhouse.

Peloton hired a lobbying firm to represent their interests.

Peloton tops the list of Most Innovative Wellness Companies.

Yahoo Finance writes about Sessions.

John Foley was on Fox News Sunday.

Golf.com has tips for the best Peloton workouts to improve your game.

Christine D’Ercole is battling cancer.

Is Becs Gentry headed to the Olympics?

People Magazine spotlights Jess King.

Matt Wilpers was on the Marni On The Move podcast.

Peloton Closet – Three tips on how to look good while doing good.

Kristin McGee partners up with Terez leggings.

Peloton Birthdays – Happy birthday to Sam Yo and…Peloton?

All this plus our interview with Andrea Verdone Gorsegner

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Listen to the podcast here

Watch the episode here:

 

Christine D’Ercole Battles Cancer plus our interview with Andrea Verdone Gorsegner

198, ever so closer to 200.

We are so close to 200, it’s just two episodes away.

We have lots of cool things planned for 200.

You guys are going to love 200.

At least of which we won’t be here.

We will not be here. We’re going to celebrate our podcast anniversary by leaving.

There will be an episode and we’ll record it.

You won’t even miss us because we’ll still be here. We just won’t be here. We have so many surprises.

Lots of cool surprises.

You guys are not going to want to miss 200. It’s not Tom working out surprise because we’ve already done that.

We shot our wad there. All new and different surprises and guests. It’s going to be a jam-packed show. It’s probably the most work we’ve ever put into a show. 

This has been weeks in the making.

If not longer.

It’s been months in the making.

I’m looking forward to finally having that done.

You haven’t done anything.

Listening to you and all the work you’re doing is just exhausting. You don’t know what it’s like the cross I bear.

I’m still working a lot of hours. You better watch it, Mister.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

Speaking of all the work you do, what do you have in store for people?

We’re going to talk about delivery times. We’re going to talk about new partnerships, expansions. We’ve got Dr. Jenn. We’ve got new features. We’re going to talk about Clubhouse. We’ve got Peloton in the news, a million different places, what’s going on with instructors and Peloton Closet.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, TuneIn and wherever you find your podcasts, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you would be so kind, maybe leave us a review. That way, people that come along after you know that we’re worth listening to. Here’s a new review that we got, it’s from Senafamily.

This person says, “My one and only review. I never write reviews and I’m an avid podcast user. I feel compelled to write this review because the Peloton community always encourages openly supporting anything that brings inspiration or motivation. This podcast is the cherry to my already beloved fitness Sunday. I started listening the minute someone shared this podcast on a Facebook page,” which is why we ask you guys to do that. “I really just wanted to get updates on all things fitness and this did it for me. Crystal and Tom has such a fun way of providing information and also sharing relative information. I’ve even gone back and listened to older interviews with different trainers, shared certain clips with my family and hummed The Clip Out theme song. Thank you, Tom and Crystal. Keep up the great work.” The leaderboard name is #searching4myAbs. Thank you very much.

We appreciate all the reviews and kind words. It’s very nice. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group and you can check out our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch all of these in their entirety. If you’ve never done it before, we’re thinking you’re probably going to finally cave and check it out on episode 200, because there’s a lot of stuff going on in 200. Some of it is pretty visual. You’re going to want to see things.

You’re going to have to hop over. You don’t have to, you’ll still enjoy it, but I have a feeling you’re going to want to.

There are people you’re going to want to see, there are pieces of Peloton history that you didn’t even know existed that you’re going to want to see. It’s going to be very exciting. YouTube.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, subscribe to that as well. You can get every link and all the things we talked about sent to you in an easily digestible format. You can check out the articles later if you want by signing up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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I’m not sure what to say. Normally, I say, “Joining us from Run, Lift & Live is John Mills,” but he’s got the big fancy sweeper that did all that for me.

We could just be like, “Hey, John.”

You don’t need me anymore.

Play that sweeper back.

You only get one.

We don’t want to burn it out.

I’ve got to wait until the next episode.

We’ll send it to you. You can make it a ringtone.

Don’t play with me. That’s going to be my ringtone. I’m not going to be answering any calls. I’m just going to be listening, “There it is.”

Delivery times are really falling into line, 3 to 5 weeks.

All that refreshing paid off.

I thought I was making it longer. It went down.

You should’ve started that months ago.

It’s all my fault. It took me all that time to figure it out.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

Here’s my question, I don’t know if I should even say this out loud, but 3 to 5 weeks is kind of where things lived before. Now that they’ve done all this extra stuff, are we going to see it get even faster?

My thought process is twofold and John, jump in if you disagree. One, I don’t think so because people are going to be transitioning to that Bike+, which is not down to 3 to 5 weeks. Two, I have been told by numerous people who have clarified for me, only on new orders. There’s still quite a backlog that we’ve got to get through. We still would need the demand to come down. We have no equipment probably coming.

That’s the thing, I was hoping for this and I was hoping it would continue. That’s the reason why I’m still refreshing but I agree. The 3 to 5 weeks, that sounds like you’re back to normal. I also have the question in my mind, are we back to normal strictly because of the $100 million that they spent to improve logistics or has the demand changed?

I will say during the last earnings call, I remember John saying, “We have more product than we do demand.” They had already caught up. Maybe it just is en route now. Before, it wasn’t on its way and now it is, and that allows that delivery time to go down. I don’t think the demand has dropped, but of course that’s based on how there still seems to be a lot of people clamoring to get them. That’s all I’m basing it on.

We’ll know. Their earnings call is in May. We’re going to hear what the numbers are and we’re going to understand what was going on in this quarter. We’ll quickly know right then whether this was strictly logistics or if anything changed in demand. We’ll see.

It will be interesting to see.

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Peloton has launched a new partnership with Adidas or anyone who was ever an 11-year-old boy will tell you, “All Day I Dream About Sex.” John knew exactly what I was talking about.

You take that back to the ‘70s, we were saying that.

No way. I never heard that.

It was even a song. Korn had a song called ADIDAS. It was All Day I Dream About Sex. 

Clearly, I wasn’t a teenage boy. Adidas and Peloton. I think it’s interesting for a couple of reasons. One, we have several of our Peloton instructors that are Adidas ambassadors. Two, this ride was posted with Cody and he talked about it and it was like an oopsie. It wasn’t supposed to be released yet. People think that that ride is going to be put back up. I’m not confident that it will because Peloton doesn’t tend to put things back up once they delete them, but maybe I’m wrong.

You explain things for me because after I posted it, people were coming in with that whole Cody thing and I’m like, “Huh?”

Apparently, he was wearing the pink shirt that’s going to drop. Tom, I don’t know if you got my other link. I don’t even know if I sent it to you because it has been insane, but there was a sneak peek that you could go to from Googling.

As a matter of fact, I do have that link.

It’s interesting because if you’re able to see this link, if anybody’s watching YouTube, it has images that all show out of stock. I don’t know if Adidas put these up and they weren’t supposed to or what, but they’re there. Everybody’s assuming this is a sneak peek at the look. The only thing that stood out for me, personally, was the pink hoodie that looks super cute. A lot of people, the reaction already is kind of nah, they’re not excited. Also, it’s different when you see it larger than a thumbnail. That might be different for people too. 

I was surprised when you sent that out, that it was out there.

I think it was an oopsie. I don’t think this is supposed to be out there, but it is.

That footy site, I’m looking them up and they’re like an Expedia for activewear. They’re pulling from a lot of different locations to show you apparel that you could purchase. I don’t know where this is really at. That site is bringing it in to show us, which is wild. I was hoping when we heard about this collaboration with Adidas, you know how Lulu buys Mirror and now you’ve got the athleisure wear and the connected fitness device, and then Tonal is now going to be in the Nordstroms. You’ve got the same thing there, you’ve got the activewear and the connected fitness. I was hoping this was going to be something more than just, “We’ve collaborated on apparel.” I was hoping it was going to be more of a campaign with these two things together, physically in a shop or something more than just a new apparel line. If I’m being honest, that’s what I was hoping for.

I guess we don’t know if this is it because the press release was like uber vague. There was nothing there. 

It’s like two lines basically saying, “We’ll tell you more later.” I’m interested that there are many Peloton instructors who are already Adidas reps that I’m like, “What’s the upside for Adidas?” I feel like they’ve already penetrated this market. If I was them, I’d be like, “I’m already all over Peloton because I have so many deals with instructors directly. What am I gaining from working with you officially?”

They’re gaining a lot of people like me that buy Peloton. I like a lot of Adidas stuff and I’m not going to spend my money on it because I’m already spending a crap ton over at Peloton. Now you put both names together, I’m going to buy it. There are people that only have so much to spend.

Hence what you guys said, maybe there’s more to it. I also wonder about where is this going to be distributed? Where is it going to be sold? Is it strictly going to be through the boutique or is this going to be where other Adidas apparel is sold?

My guess is it’s where other Adidas apparel is sold. The reason I say that is the boutique, their business model thus far has been for things to sell out super quick. Adidas is probably like, “How about we sell as much of these as we can? That’s our business model. I know what you’re doing is really cute, but it isn’t what we do.”

This is probably why it took so long for this partnership to occur. Plus, I was hoping that the UltraBoost shoes would be included in this because I am always eyeing those. Robin wears those all the time and they have great designs on them. I was hoping there would be a special edition Peloton one that I could then justify buying because it would be Peloton. I was a little sad about that but maybe it’s not a one-time thing.

My guess is it’s not because Adidas is big and so is Peloton, but Adidas is huge and they’re not a boutique outlet. They don’t want to do a one and done, they’re going to want this to be, “I think this is going to be for their fashion stuff like Beyonce. It’s going to be a multi-year thing.”

Putting all that together and saying it in another way, the reason this is such a big deal of Peloton and there’s this big announcement around it would make sense that it’s going to be sold in stores. This will be the first time that just anybody can go and get a Peloton anything. That would be the first time it would ever be in a regular store that a person could go into.

This press release is from Adidas. This isn’t from Peloton. That lends it to that thinking.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

It does, that they’re taking the driver’s seat. We just cracked that code. 

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Put a Peloton on the Barbie, Peloton is heading to Australia.

We’ve been hearing a lot about that Peloton is expanding. We’ve been hearing that Australia is next based on the tweets that Bob Treemore had sent, where he had a table of all the different places that they had filed.

The trademark things.

We know it’s going to be the Bike+, at least to start. We also know that the classes that already exist can be taken because everyone speaks the same language. That’s done. One thing that I’m curious about, will they add more classes? If so, specific to Australia, will they be from the UK studio? Will they be from the US studio? These are the questions I have.

I’ve got to imagine there are going to be new instructors. I’ve got to imagine you want someone local to that market. Where they’re recording, I don’t know, but I’ve got to imagine there are going to be new instructors.

There’s nothing about a new studio. I don’t know what to think of that. I’m leaning toward the UK for the studio. That would make sense to me.

They would film the classes in the UK studio and beam them to down under. As they say, “They call it the down under,” I don’t know if you know that or not. 

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We’ve got expansion into Australia. We know we have classes that are going to be coming in other languages soon, probably Spanish. I think those will be out of the New York studio. Here’s the other thing, if all of this is being announced prior to homecoming, what’s homecoming going to be?

I’m all excited about that. The expansion is amazing. It’s great. We knew they wanted to expand. We knew they were talking about expansion and all of this is going to be amazing. This is some good stuff we’re hearing lately. I’m still hoping for a new product at homecoming. We’ll see what that is. I’m still hoping for a strength product.

I just hope it’s not like Super Bowl commercials where they’re all on YouTube first and when you watch the actual thing, you’re like, “That’s lame.”

That would be so sad. I hope people leave it alone so we can have some enjoyment. It’s fun to be surprised. 

Crystal has all sorts of great Peloton sources. I have a few myself. I have a lead. I’m going to share with you, not only the first Australian instructor, but the location of the studio. I’m going to start with the instructor. We have reason to believe it’s going to be P Sherman and the studio’s going to be located at 42 Wallaby Way in Sydney, Australia. Bold prediction. I’m going on record to say first instructor, P Sherman, studio location, 42 Wallaby Way.

The Peloton Prophet just got replaced.

John, thank you very much for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

You can find me on Facebook in my group or page, Run, Lift & Live. They can find me on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

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Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist and sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four best-selling books, including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy.

It’s so good to have you back. What a treat we get to see you. This episode’s question is from The Clip Out group, it’s from Kim Head. Kim would like to know what kind of weight loss she should be following for gals over 50. She says it’s a struggle, she doesn’t see any results as much as she cycles, she feels like she’s doing something wrong. She would love some direction and tips to help.

I have a lot to say about this. First of all, any time you do not see results when you feel like you should or are starting any weight loss journey or exercise or anything like that, you always want to meet with your doctor first. Get a blood work up, it sounds like there can be something going on metabolically, have your metabolism, hormones, and blood checked, all that sort of stuff. You want to always rule out the physical first. The other thing is that you may want to work with someone who is an expert in this area. A lot of the time we tend to take on things that we think, “I can look up online and follow some diet where I can do what my friend did, that she lost weight.” It doesn’t necessarily work for us.

Sometimes we need something that is a little more catered to us. First of all, a lot of the time we tend to eat very unconsciously. You and I have talked a lot about mindful eating and intuitive eating. A lot of the time, we will be watching TV and eating and not realize how much we’ve eaten. I remember a study done with kids, they found that when kids were watching TV and eating, they eat fifteen times more food even though they’re not watching TV. That’s an important thing, to be mindful about your eating and eat without any distractions so you are aware in tasting and enjoying your food to the fullest. I am not a fan of diets. I’m very anti-diet.

I had an eating disorder for a decade and for me, the thing that was most helpful was to break out of that thinking, that’s why I have my app that’s called No More Diets. It’s all about tuning into your body, listening to your body, understanding how to eat when you are hungry, not starving, stop when you are satisfied, not stuffed. Allowing your body to give you cues about what it means so that you can tune in and listen to it. All the studies showed that there’s a 95% recidivism rate for diets.

Typically, when we do something that is restrictive, we tend to have a rebound effect and most people aren’t able to lose weight and keep it off for, I think the standard marker is two years. I’m someone who was once 50 pounds heavier than I am now. For me and for the people that I see in my practice and the people that I talked to, a non-diet approach has really been the answer. The other thing I would recommend is books like Intuitive Eating by Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, and Breaking Free from Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth. Those are books that address the emotional aspect that will also teach you how to tune into your body and to listen.

I think with diets it’s right there in the marketing of it. It’s not designed. You don’t go into it with the mentality that you’re going to do it forever so when you’re done, it’s like VE Day and all bets are off. It’s never psychologically in your head as a long-term plan. 

It’s also become a cliché about lifestyle changes that are typically just diets wrapped up in a different package with a different bow but really the same thing. If you’re going to lose weight, it needs to be something that you can maintain and feel good about and also that doesn’t leave you deprived of your favorite foods. Psychologically we are not meant to live like that. We’re not meant to eat the perfect diet that has no sugar, no fat, no chemicals, no anything ever. All those studies show that the more we deprive ourselves of foods that we love, the more out of control we tend to be when we have access to those foods.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

That makes total sense. Anybody over the age of twenty has probably lived through that cycle to some degree. It’s the same way when you talk about the Freshman 15, that’s part of what’s driving that. There’s no longer a throttle around a parent to be like, “What do you eat?” You go crazy.

We all read a lot about, “Once you hit a certain age, it’s hard to lose weight.” There are scientific facts to back that up. At the same time, sometimes it becomes almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know that my metabolism now is better than it was in my twenties when I had an eating disorder, starving myself, overeating, undereating, doing all of that crazy stuff. If you follow me on Instagram and see my Insta Stories, I’ve always posted, “Here’s the pizza I made last night. Here’s the salad I made. Here’s the cookies I baked.”

I eat a lot more now than I did when I was in my twenties, and that was a long time ago. The point being that we have to be careful that we don’t buy into this certain mentality, “Once I hit a certain age, this isn’t going to happen for me,” and at the same time, it sounds like this person is genuinely struggling and could use an appointment with a doctor and a blood test to make sure that everything is okay.

You might not agree with this entirely, but as someone who likes to eat while they watch TV, one of the things I do is I don’t bring the bag with me. I pour some in a bowl. If I’m sitting there with a bag of chips, I’m going to eat, serving size is one bag of chips. That’s regardless of the size of that bag. I know intellectually you’re right and I shouldn’t do it but that’s not going to be a thing for me. 

In human nature, there is something fun about, “We’re doing movie night, we’re going to have dinner while watching the movie,” but in the beginning, if you’re someone who is hoping to lose weight and to change your habits, it’s important to tune in. Also, I like food to be a passionate, exciting, wonderful experience. If you’re distracted in doing other things or having a stressful conversation, watching the show, especially right now watching the news.

Doing something stressful, even it’s distracting, you’re not going to taste your food to the fullest. It’s important to develop the habit before you reintroduce TV and other distractions. The other thing is, my No More Diets app is a year of intuitive eating type of therapy to help you to tune in to your body. Use things like the hunger scale, increase self-care so that you’ll not turn in to food in order to deal with your emotions. There are tons of exercises and videos and all that sort of stuff in the No More Diets app to help you with stuff like this.

Thank you for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on social media, @DrJennMann. I’m especially active on Instagram and I post my Peloton workouts on my Insta Stories, since you guys know I’m obsessed with my Peloton.

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Speaking of losing weight over 50, at least for one of us, we’ve been doing the MetPro thing. We are taking a socially distance romantic getaway in a few weeks. They’ve had us in a stasis period. They’re upping our food, knowing that when we’re on vacation, we won’t be as good as we would be normally. That’s why we haven’t seen necessarily big drops, but what’s been fascinating to watch is how much more food they keep shoving down my gullet and my weight does not change.

It is super fascinating. I had to cut before we left on vacation because I started a couple of weeks before you, but now I’m back on my way up. They did an up adjust where I was up to 275 carbs a day, which is insane for me. I had not gained weight. I lost 6 pounds in a couple of weeks and now I’m going back up on my carbs so that by the time we leave and we’re able to get away, I won’t have this major bounce back where I gain a whole bunch of weight when we’re gone. I find that fascinating with MetPro that they’re able to do that. It’s super effective. People whose metabolism like they have to keep eating less and less to get results. That’s why they need MetPro to be able to correct that metabolism.

It’s like a race to the bottom.

I feel like somebody never told me that. I feel like it’s missing information. Everybody said it’s calories in, calories out, but then they forgot to tell us that if you keep eating less, your metabolism slows down, which means you have to keep eating less and it’s this never-ending vicious cycle.

It’s like the opposite of a pyramid scheme. I feel like I eat so much food right now. There is so much food. There are times where I have to stop in the middle of the day and be like, “I was supposed to eat.”

Which has never been a thing in my adult life. It’s like Andrew eating every couple of hours. You never even have a chance to get hungry. It’s amazing. It’s very satiating, it’s all real food, it’s healthy food. There’s no weird stuff that you’ve got to buy. There are no gimmicks, it’s just science.

I’m eating chicken, cheese, corn tortillas and beef, and it’s all regular things. It’s nothing goofy.

It’s stuff you can easily find at the grocery store. It’s nothing that you’re going to have difficulty finding anywhere. It’s really convenient. I like their tracking process too. It makes it super simple. They send over what you’re going to eat. They’ll tell you, “Here’s how many carbs you should eat.” You choose it from your food diary. You make your own meals up and you create them. When you’re done eating them for the day, you just check a box.

They know that we’re going to go on a little getaway. They’re like, “You’re not going to want to follow the rules. That’s okay. We’ll set you up to when and we’ll put on a little bit, but when you come back, we’ll get right back to it and we’ll knock it right back off and you’ll be good.” I’ve never gone on a vacation with a plan like that before.

It changes the game.

If you want to check it out, it’s MetPro.co/TCO. That’ll save you some money there.

It’s up to a month free.

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People can finally stop bitching, Sessions is officially here.

It’s here. Ironically, it still says beta, but it is here. You can schedule sessions with friends, which was the number one requested feature. It’s not shocking. This means that you can send it to your friend and be like, “I want to start this session with you,” and you can make a group, which means we’ve got to have a Clip Out session. How fun would that be? This has been long-awaited. You can go to the blog and check out anything. You can also start the sessions on your app. It’s super easy to do. I have a feeling there are more things coming with the schedule.

If you haven’t checked it out already, definitely make sure you check it out. Sessions allows you to basically go in and do almost any class on Encore. You’re probably going to have the best luck finding one that works that’s most recent. What you want to do is you can choose any of those classes and then take it with a fresh leaderboard. Only the people that you were in the class with at that moment will be on the leaderboard. You can lock it down. You can’t close other people out, but you can choose certain people to take a class with if you would like. It’s a cool, much better way to do races and things like that. All these private events that people do, this is going to be helpful for them.

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We finally have our own clubhouse on Clubhouse.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

You can easily find it, go to the search bar and type in, it’s called Peloton The Clip Out, we will come right up. That’s all you have to do and you can join the club. We’ve got over 300 members already and we are excited to have a little get together every Sunday afternoon at 4:00 Central time, 5:00 Eastern time. What we’re going to do is talk through all of the topics that you guys vote on from this episode.

You’ll get to pick your top three things that we talk through. It will be on the Facebook group. You can go in and vote. Look for that on Friday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon, we’ll get together, we’ll chat about those top three topics and then we’ll open it up for anything about Peloton. It’s tons of fun. I love hearing from all the different people. I love having the random people who don’t know anything about us come by. It’s interesting to hear their take on things too. It’s a great way to meet people outside of our normal community and expand. Also, I love hearing from everybody.

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Peloton has hired a lobbyist.

His name is Justin Kintz and he had joined Peloton as a senior VP-government relations & public policy. He is the first in-house Capitol Hill lobbyist.

His background is pretty impressive. He was director of government affairs at Orbitz. He was a corporate and PR manager at the European-American Business Council and special assistant external and intergovernmental affairs in the W. Bush Administration Interior Department. That’s a track record.

It sounds like what he’s going to be handling, “Made In America” manufacturing, social justice and equity, and health and wellness issues with a focus on COVID-19 recovery. I am super excited to see what they end up doing with this. Do you have any thoughts?

It’s fascinating that they’ve gotten so big that they have to start thinking about, “How do we interact with the Federal Government?”

It really is. Wow. We’ve come a long way. Congrats to Peloton. I feel like that’s another big milestone.

I would concur.

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Fast Company has released their list of The Ten Most Innovative Wellness Companies of 2021. They have the most unfortunate logo, I’m not sure what’s going on there.

Your comments in the group, I hadn’t thought of anything like that. I can’t unsee it and now I’m like, “They need to fix their logo.” I think it’s supposed to be some trophy.

Peloton tops the charts coming in at number one for motivating consumers to keep working out, even after weeks and months at home.

I can’t remember what number they’ve come in in past years, but they’ve been on this chart before and it wasn’t always number one. It’s so exciting to see them moving up the charts.

It’s great to be on a chart like this, no matter where you’re at, but we’ve talked about this before, I’ve had zero recollection of it. I’d remember the butt plugs they give out, but that would stick in the old noggin, among other places. They had a different logo and somebody was like, “Can we make it look more like a butt plug?”

Congrats to Peloton for making the top of the chart.

Careful where you set that trophy though.

I have to say, I am so excited to see that Tonal is on this chart as well.

I was going to point that out as well. They come in at number three.

I love seeing my two favorite companies right there at the top. This bodes incredibly well that Tonal is at only number three and they’re so much earlier in their run than Peloton. I feel like they are on the exact same kind of trajectory. They’re going to be amazing like Peloton. I love both of them.

While we’re talking about Peloton and now they have a lobbyist and they used to do it in a closet. Yahoo! Finance had an article about the Sessions feature coming out, which I find fascinating that like, “There’s a new feature on the Peloton bike and to Yahoo! that’s worthy of a news story.”

It makes sense because Yahoo! Finance covers them so closely with the stock market and this could affect the stock market.

Yes, but also it’s just ultimately a feature within the thing. Is anybody going to buy or not buy a stock over this little tweak?

It’s possible that they would, especially in combination with the Australia announcement, but I still get your point. The point is absolutely taken that we’re starting to see more and more major news outlets covering the topics that we’ve been covering for a few years. They’re finally like, “This is newsworthy.”

The stuff that used to be the minutia.

These little detailed things. It’s amazing.

Finally in our Peloton In The News segment, John Foley was featured on Fox News Sunday.

He was talking all about what the pathway to success has been. We’ve heard versions of the story many times, but he talks a lot about how it was not a successful journey. There were a lot of noes back at the beginning and it’s been a very long climb to the top and well-worth every moment. He says that they are having a great time. I love that they’re still having fun. I love that he still has a smile on his face and he clearly still loves Peloton. It’s so exciting to see.

I was about to say, “I would hope he has a smile on his face because he’s like a legit billionaire,” but how many billionaires do you see that look like sorry sons of bitches?

That’s fair.

Many people reach that point, it doesn’t seem like it makes them happy. I don’t know if it’s the money that’s making them happy. I’m sure he likes the money, don’t get me wrong. This is the pinnacle of his career. I feel like he knows that and he’s excited about it.

It’s cool to see. By the way, at the end of that little video was Rebecca Kennedy back when she was a model for Peloton, not an instructor. That’s cool that they showed that.

There’s one more, Golf.com has a list of four great classes to get in shape for golf season for your Peloton.

It’s all Peloton. Every major news outlet is finding ways to pull Peloton into their news. You’ve got to love it. Everything from yoga to barre.

—

Christine D’Ercole reported that she has been battling cancer.

She had some spots on her face that turned into squamous cell carcinoma. She talked about how she didn’t want to share this with anybody until she knew how it was going to turn out. They got everything, they were able to remove it. She seems like she’s in good spirits. I posted about this the day that she posted, probably a lot of our listeners already know about this, but we wanted to make sure that you guys saw it and sent your love to Christine so she knows that we are there for her in the same way that she is there for us. All of our best wishes to Christine to heal completely.

People Magazine featured Jess King on Ruling the Fitness World and Planning for the Future with Her Fiancée.

Do you think that People Magazine is going to go through and start having features every week? This is number two. Robin having her baby was obviously a huge number one, but it’s two weeks in a row.

Obviously, the Robin layout was preplanned and I’m sure they paid her a fee because that’s how baby photos work. This was probably planned before that because it takes a little while to turn around features like this. My guess is they’re seeing that they get lots of clicks on Peloton stuff. It’s another example that the Peloton instructors are becoming legit celebrities and they drive clicks and you will only see more and more of this.

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If you haven’t had a chance to read it, definitely check it out. It talks about Jess King and her fiancée, Sophia. Sophia has her own history of how she got into the spotlight. You can read all about that in People Magazine. Of course, we’ll be sending that out whenever Tom sends out the newsletter. It will come straight to you.

You can sign up for that at theclipout.com. An exciting news from Becs Gentry.

We’ve been hearing for a while that Becs has been training and she let everybody know on Instagram that she has been training for the Olympic Trials. She made it in. She will be going to the Olympic Trials in Great Britain. She qualified. I could not be more proud to have this woman as one of our instructors. She is amazing and deserves this. If you’re wondering, she qualified a few years ago at the New York City Marathon that she did with Peloton. It was her first time at New York City Marathon. She came in the first female who was not a qualified athlete. She was the very first one of the non-elite people that finished. Here she goes, how exciting.

These are the people that teach the classes to you. That says a lot about the caliber of people.

She’s so excited. She’s cute. All of our love to Becs.

Matt Wilpers popped up on the Marni on the Move Podcast.

It’s from January 9, 2021. You might have to go back in time a little bit, but he was on the podcast and it’s definitely worth a listen. He talks all about his path to fitness.

It’s episode 71, if you want to check that out. 

—

Joining us is Torrey from Peloton Closet. Torrey, how is it going?

Everything that you give away will always come back to you in some way or another. Share on X

Hey, Tom. Hi, Crystal.

How has it been in the Peloton Closet? What’s going on?

It’s been very busy in the Peloton Closet. I am excited to tell you about a couple of looks that got a lot of attention over the past few days. I have a theme. The theme is looking cute and doing good at the same time. As you all probably know, March is Women’s History Month, Peloton has been doing a series of Women’s History Month classes. The first look that I want to talk about comes from Leanne’s Women’s History Month class. She taught a Broadway Ride on March 2, 2021. She wore this cute tank and it said Woman Up. It’s a black tank. It looks like a sports bra.

If you’re like me and a very close observer of Peloton fashion, you’ll notice that it was a tank that she cropped, tied in back and worn over a bra. It is in fact a tank. I took a deep dive on this and found out that it’s made by a non-profit company called Spark Company. It retails for $32. If you buy this tank, you can turn it into a sports bra if you want as well. All of the proceeds go to purchase sanitary supplies for women and girls at shelters and in other high-need situations. You can wear Leanne’s tank, you can turn it into a cropped top or a bra and you’re going to do good for women and girls in need.

I love it. It’s great. Good find.

I have all the information about where you can get that on Peloton Closet. I’m going to post all of this for you if you want to make those purchases. Second, I’m going with the girl power theme as well in honor of Women’s History Month. The second look was from Kendall Toole and on February 26, 2021 she wore a really cute monarch butterfly print bra and it was a quick five-minute post-ride stretch. It turned out that this bra was made by Brittany Allen. She was a former contestant on Project Runway about a year ago and made it all the way to the finals. She wasn’t the winner but she made it really far. She went back home to Austin, Texas where she lives and works.

I don’t know the story, I’ve been so curious to know how she got connected with Jess King. She started making these elaborate, crazy costumes for The Jess King Experience rides. Those caught my eye right away. Brittany is a smart businesswoman because she too realized the power of Peloton fashion platform. She took some of these elaborate looks that only Jess King would wear, maybe Crystal would wear them, I don’t know. She took some of these elaborate looks and copy the essence, kept the fun fabrics, kept the great cuts but turned them into much more wearable athletic sports bras and leggings for still a fashion-forward Peloton rider, maybe not Jess King per se. All these looks retail from about $78 to about $182, for the most elaborate leggings that she sells. They’re on the pricier side but they’re unique and special. It’s not like those black leggings that everyone’s wearing to the supermarket. This is a cool look from an up-and-coming creative.

What makes it elaborate? As someone who knows nothing about fashion, in case my hoodie doesn’t let you know that. Is it the pattern? Is it the fabric? 

She designs these fabrics herself and they’re unique and one of a kind. She does a lot with butterflies. There’s a cool psychedelic print, one that has dollar bills but they’re sort of glittery, things that you’re not going to see at every store. Some glitter, some appliqués, all kinds of fun stuff. She is a Peloton rider herself and all of them are made to work out in. She also does very size-inclusive looks, everything is made extra small to 4X. No matter what size you are, you can rock a Brittany Allen look. It was exciting to see Kendall wearing it as well, not just Jess King, to see a platform to support an up-and-coming young designer. Another way to look cute and do good by supporting someone who is on the rise.

Does she have her own website that you can go and peruse?

It is ShopBrittanyAllen.com. The third look-cute-do-good look comes from Emma Lovewell. Emma taught a ride in January 7, 2021. Again, as a keen observer of Peloton fashion, I’ve noticed and you might too, Emma loves her tie dye. She is always in a tie dye. In that ride, she was wearing a cool black crop tie dye with all sorts of colors. I don’t even know how this happened, but I finally connected with the small businesswoman who made that tie dye. She is based in Massachusetts, she’s a mom, she’s putting her stuff out there. Emma picked up on it and everyone went crazy. People were ordering off of my site. The shirt is $46 including shipping.

I continued my relationship talking to this woman, Lindsey. Let’s just say for the record, tie dye is gender-neutral. Tom, listen up and for the gentlemen as well. From the Grateful Dead to pandemic 2020, anyone and everyone can wear tie dye. What she will do is if you send her your black Peloton Century shirt, she will do this technique called reverse tie dyeing. It is so cool and super colorful. She can customize it. If you love blue, it can be blue. If you want rainbow, it can be rainbow. People went crazy when I posted this on Peloton Closet, everyone wanted to tie dye their Century shirt. It’s $40 including shipping. Again, I will post that info. Another great way to support a young and independent business person.

I feel bad now because I hate tie dye. It’s not my thing. 

It’s pretty, though. This is exciting. I love this topic. This is great. It’s cool that you have found all of these and put them together into a theme. I love that you’re taking people from the community and raising them up. That’s what we love to do here. 

Thank you very much for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Instagram, it is @PelotonCloset. My website is Peloton Closet. I’m on Facebook, PelotonCloset. You can find me on the leaderboard at the very bottom, #PelotonCloset. Reddit, PelotonCloset. Peloton Closet, I’m everywhere.

Thank you so much. 

—

Peloton Closet found this. Back in December, Kristin McGee, the yoga instructor, she teamed up with Terez to make her own special design of leggings. They’re blue and purple tie dyes with little lightning bolts on them. They sold out incredibly fast because they were limited edition. Peloton Closet, Torrey, noticed that they were back on sale. I had to get a pair. Also, they’re already selling out again really fast. If you haven’t had a chance to get them, absolutely do. They are adorable and they’re the high-waisted Terez or the mid-waist Terez, which is they don’t roll. The waistband doesn’t flip over so they fit much more comfortably than the low-rise. I hope that you get those.

—

A couple of birthdays, March 16th is Sam Yo.

Happy birthday to Sam Yo.

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March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, it’s Peloton’s birthday. According to the filings I found, March 17th is when they officially registered as a corporation in the state of Delaware. It is the birthday of Peloton.

Happy birthday to Peloton and to Sam Yo.

—

Joining us is Andrea Verdone Gorsegner. I practiced that.

It’s a tough name. I would have practiced it too. It took me a while to learn it myself.

Which part was harder, Verdone or Gorsegner?

I was born into Verdone. That came a little more naturally, but the Gorsegner is a tough pill to swallow.

It’s a lot of letters, but you’re right, it is exactly the way it looks.

It’s intimidating. You see all those letters together and you don’t think if I separate them.

They made it easy on us.

I butcher names all the time. That’s why I call everybody sweetie. It’s easier.

It’s a little harder when you have to introduce though. What do you do for introductions? Tom says hello to people when he doesn’t remember people’s names. He’s like, “Hi.” I’m supposed to fill in. Do you do that too when you don’t remember names? 

At events, my husband is always my wingman. I’ll be like, “If I’m not introducing you, it’s because I don’t know who this is and I should know who it is. You need to interject with the, “I’m Dan,” and they’ll say their name.” I’ll be like, “I’m sorry.” We do that game a lot. Not so much now with COVID because we have no in-person events.

I’m upset that Crystal said all that on the show. When we run into people, they’ll know that that’s what I’m doing. It doesn’t matter because the audience wants to meet her, not me. I don’t have to contend with that too much. 

At the end of the day, everybody does it. If they say they don’t, they’re lying.

They’re some savant and they’re good at it.

There are some of those freaks. They remember everything. I personally wished that it was mandatory that when you wake up, you had to slap a name tag on your shirt. When I went to different things, I wouldn’t even have to think about, “Who is this person?”

I get where your heart is at. We can’t get people to wear masks during a pandemic. I don’t think a name tag thing is going to fly. They’re going to be like, “There’s a chip in that name tag. They’re using that nametag to ID me.”

When I was on the bike, and I know we’re getting to that, for 24 hours, I had a couple of different childhood cancer families come to visit me. I had a couple of different friends, all staggering at different times so no one overlapped, but when they would come in, they had their masks on and I would put on my mask while I’m riding. I thought multiple times like, “I’ve already been on this bike for eight hours. I am talking for an hour with a mask on and I’m still here. Why is this so difficult for people?” That’s a whole other episode.

Since you mentioned being on the bike, I want to hear all about the Spin 4 Kids Peloton-themed fundraiser and how it came to be. 

I have a childhood cancer foundation, it’s called Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer and it was inspired by my daughter, Natalie, who’s now healthy and eleven. She was diagnosed with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia before her 3rd birthday in August of 2012. She was in treatment for a little over two years, finished up in November of 2014. She’s been cancer-free which is incredible. Previously, I’d worked in publishing. To go from having this fast-paced full-time job to my kid has cancer, this is my full-time job. I have to leave. It’s a lot. As a parent, you feel so helpless because there’s nothing you can do to make this better for them. You can’t take away the pain. It’s excruciatingly painful yourself just experiencing that.

I started digging into childhood cancer, learning more about it. I was blown away to discover how underfunded it is. With that, I was like, “What can I do right now to help fund research?” At that time, we had a Facebook page to keep friends and family updated. We called it Infinite Love for Natalie Grace. I was like, “What if I get a bank account, a PO box, and take a picture of Natalie and I holding a sign that says, ‘Will you send us $1 for childhood cancer research?’” Long story short, that post went viral. We decided to put an end goal on it. When we started, it was in April of 2013. We made the end date September 2013 because it’s Natalie’s birthday and it was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We’re like, “Since it had gone so viral, let’s be crazy pie in the sky say $50,000.” We ended up raising $110,000. That was year one. After that, we’re like, “We’ve got to do this again.” We kept doing it. Eventually, it became a 501(c)(3), and it transitioned to Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer.

Up until COVID, we had raised $1.2 million we’ve given for research. That’s two medical facilities all over the country. People can go to our website and see exactly what we funded. We also help children all over and their families with anything and everything they could need. When COVID happened in 2020, suddenly we’re not having any of our in-person events, we had to get creative. It’s like, “What can we do virtually to get people excited to want to give?” That’s when I randomly thought, “What if we see if people would register to do a live ride with us, also known as give us a $25 donation?” We’ll pick the live ride. I used to work in editorial. It needs a spin to collect any interest or traction. I’m like, “What if I say I’ll ride the bike for 24 hours?” Everybody thought I was crazy. They’re like, “You’re never going to be able to stay on a bike for 24 hours.” I was like, “You’re right. I’m not going to be able to be on this bike for 24 hours but I can try. If I don’t, I don’t. What’s going to happen? I’ll give it my best and hopefully, this effort will generate donations and excitement,” which is great because it’s awareness and funding for the foundation so it’s a win-win. That’s what we ended up doing.

Did you build in breaks? Was there a catheter involved? How do you go 24 hours? 

The number one question is, “Did you go the bathroom?” I’m like, “I’m not a robot. I’ve got to go to the bathroom. I’m not wearing a diaper on a bike.”

Maybe you would sweat it out, that you don’t have to pee.

I allowed myself to use the bathroom when I needed to. One of my team members, Rachel Kanapka, who helped me do everything for this, she made these signs that I could hang up in front of the computer because we streamed the whole thing live on Facebook. People can hold me accountable, and they could visit me, and give me motivation. I would hang the sign up and it says, “Bathroom break, be back in 5:00.” This way, if someone checked in and they didn’t see me on the bike, they wouldn’t be like, “She’s a liar. She’s not on that bike.” I only needed five of those breaks, and they ranged from 3 to 5 minutes.

I’m a 50-year-old man. If I pee five times in an hour, that’s low.

You were right in the beginning when you said I sweat some of that out. That was some of it for sure.

If you were to ever do something like this, Crystal, what you could do for your bathroom breaks is we could set up an Echelon because you’re pissing on that all the time. 

Sometimes, my breaks weren’t even just for the bathroom. Sometimes I needed a chafing cream. Three were bathroom, two were because I’m like, “This fabric is rubbing. I don’t want to get to a bad point. Let me re-apply.”

My first thought was the pee, and my next thought was how are you not doing this interview standing?

It was hard. I had my teenager daughter, Hannah. Ever since she was little, when Natalie was in treatment, she is an old soul, she always has been and innately knows what people need and how to take care of them. She was my Mama Bear all night long. She hung in the entire time. She fell asleep for fifteen minutes at 6:00 AM and she was so mad. Aside from that, I couldn’t have done it without her. She got me food and drinks. She thought of things that I’m blown away by. For instance, at 1:00 AM, I felt my knees were killing me, which I didn’t even expect to happen or I would have purchased some knee braces. They hurt so bad. I was forgetting about how much my butt hurt.

My girls have so much medical equipment. I was like, “Do we have any wraps or something?” They were like, “No, we don’t have anymore.” I’m trying to think of what I can use to brace them a little tiny bit. I had foot surgery a year ago. It was a horrible recovery, and I had these compression socks. She came back with compression socks and was like, “What if I cut the foot off of these and you can bring them up to your knees.” I’m like, “You are a genius.” You’ll see in the pictures I had these black and white stripe things on my knees. Those are compression socks that she cut the bottoms off of. It wasn’t perfect, but that got me through the rest of the ride. It stabilized my knees so they didn’t feel so bad. She was giving me Tylenol and Motrin on a loop. She was keeping track of when I could have each one. She froze towels to put around my neck to wake me up when I was feeling like I’m dragging. She would get a frozen towel and put it on my neck.

My family needs to take notes.

I did great. I ran to the store and got stuff for you when you did your thing.

No bedside manner for Tom?

It’s not that. He did what I asked him to do. I did a walking marathon on my treadmill for my birthday. It was 42 kilometers because I was turning 42. I amassed some major blisters at mile 10. It was bad and I wanted to quit.

I ran into Walgreens and I found all sorts of stuff.

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He got the Moleskin.

Stuff that you didn’t even know to ask for, I came back with.

You were like a magician for blisters.

I was going to tease him because there was no ice. There was no Motrin, but they did make a toilet paper finish line for me to pass. I’m jealous of how well your family took care of you. No offense, Tom.

I’m going to make you a little more jealous because my parents have been here that weekend. My mom is your typical Italian mom cook. She was like, “Can I get you some chicken? Do you want some soup?” I had a bowl of soup on the bike.

What was your 24-hour timeframe? When to when? 

We asked people to register. It was a $25 donation to ride Tunde’s 9:30 AM hip-hop class. That was the kickoff to my 24 hours. Once they registered, they got an email that gave them the hashtag to change to. It was #InfiniteLove4Kids. I was curious when we got on the ride, I was like, “How many people are going to remember to change their hashtag or going to do it?” There were 206 people that had the infinite love hashtag. For having a small mom-and-pop foundation, it was super cool. I could hear the rocky music in my head on my bike. I was like, “I’m ready. I’m going to kill these 24 hours.” I did not kill myself on her ride because I’m not going to go all out and then go on with 23.5 more hours.

I was wondering like these 24 hours were low impact. You were taking it easy.

I didn’t just pedal it. I did put some energy into it. I didn’t kill myself on it. When that class was over, for the next 23 hours, I did scenic rides. My basic pace was between 7 and 14 miles an hour. I was going to do the plain black screen so I wouldn’t have to keep getting in and out of classes, but the problem is when I tested it, no one could high-five me if you’re in that. I was like, “I want to give people an opportunity to join me at 1:00 AM and high-five me.” They did. In almost all my scenic rides, somebody showed up, people showed up. I kept picking. I told them I was like, “Follow me, QueenAVG.” This way I didn’t have to come up with a schedule because I was afraid, with the bathroom, I’d go off the schedule. I said, “Follow me. If you’re up, you’ll see what scenic ride I’m in, jump in.” That’s what I did until 9:00 AM. That was when I told everybody as well, that 9:00 AM on the nose, I’m going to hit the button for Emma’s Coldplay Ride. People talk about crying during fitness and working out. I’m like, “How do you cry when you’re working out? Why?” I took that ride having no idea. I love Coldplay and I love Emma. I was feeling emotional through the whole thing. I’m like, “What’s going on here?”

When it got to Fix You, I started hysterical crying because I was thinking of my friend’s daughter who had passed in February 2020. I was so close with her. In fact, I’m wearing a necklace she bought me which has a little pineapple on it. Her name is Angelina. She’s the coolest kid in the world. We spend a lot of time together. I love her so much. When that song came on, I started thinking about her. It’s flood gates. That was my best ride. I’m never at the top of the leaderboard, I’m always midway or maybe the end. I’m never at the front of the pack, but for that ride, it was the first time I was prior to that halfway mark. I’ve taken that ride probably six times since then. I knew I had a close on that. I cried again during that ride. It’s Facebook Live, but I’m like, “I don’t care. These kids are unbelievable.” If you don’t cry, you’re an animal. I unclicked and I spoke to everybody on our Live page. About 300 people tuned in for my finish line. It was great. After that, I went right to bed, Hannah went right to bed. We nap together in her room. She has a trundle bed. I was like, “Why don’t I sleep on the trundle? We could be together napping.” We both crashed. We woke up about 2:30 and then crashed again at 9:00.

You deserved it. 

I didn’t even shower. I took the Italian shower. I sprayed a little perfume.

You freshened up.

I did. It just wasn’t a priority.

After that long on the bike, I get that. You were ready to sleep, I’m sure. Were you trying to keep your energy up? Did you add in any supplements?

I couldn’t have been less prepared for this because people are on the official Peloton page. Everybody has been so wonderful, supportive, and loving. It makes my eyes well up when I’m reading all their messages. Many of them are like, “Can you tell me what you did to train? Can you tell me what you did to eat?” I’m like, “I pulled this one out.” I didn’t do a ton of research. I had my husband buy a couple of rotisserie chickens. I figured I’d eat chicken the whole time. I got Gatorade. That was pretty much it. If I get hungry, I’ll have fruit. I assumed whatever my mom was making for dinner, I would eat that. That was a beef soup. There’s a picture of me. My mom put it in a big wonder woman mug. I’m sitting on the bike and my daughter and I are eating our beef soup. I pretty much had rotisserie chicken the whole 24 hours, a couple of bowls of pretzels, the soup, blueberries, water, and Gatorade. That was pretty much it.

That was a good plan especially with the Gatorade. The Gatorade would do what a GU packet would do anyway. You were taking care of yourself. You may not have done the research, but your instincts were good. 

I love to eat. I’m an eater. I’ve thought I was going to eat like I normally would. I was expecting, come 9:00, I was going to break out my little Reese’s cups because that’s what I like to eat at night. I was surprised at how my appetite was curved on this ride. They kept checking in, “Do you want something to eat?” I was like, “No, I don’t want anything to eat right now. I’m good.”

Your body was busy. Your body was like, “We’ve got enough going on. We don’t need to digest on top of this.” 

I don’t know what kicked in there. Every once in a while, I was like, “I could use some rotisserie chicken.” My daughter would give me a big plate of chicken.

How many people showed up in the middle of the night to cheer you on? Did that help keep you going? I know you said you had people get on and high-five you. Were they on Facebook Live and chatting with you? 

The middle of the night was rough. The visitors are gone, my parents are asleep, my husband is asleep, my daughter is with me, but there’s none of that interaction. She and I were huge Marvel fans so we watched Infinity War and End Game. I watched Invincible. It’s one of my favorite movies. We tried to hang in there. All my scenic rides, there was at least 1 or 2 people in every scenic ride that popped on to give me high-fives. As far as Facebook Live, my daughter would look and she’s like, “It says there are five people here.” People would tell me, “I went on. I was up at 1:00 and I was like, ‘Let me see what she’s doing.’ I’m like, ‘She’s still riding.’” It was almost like I was the zoo animal, the panda in the snow. People are bored, they have nothing else to do, and they’re like, “What can I buy? Let me see if Andrea is still on her Peloton. She is.”

At about 2:00, it was rough. I was like, “I still got a while. This is tough.” I said to Hannah, “I feel like we just have to get to 7:30.” I feel like that is the magic time. I’m going to press the button at 9:00 so I’ll be all souped up on adrenaline at that point because I’ll be done. I love that ride. At 7:30, the sun is coming in, everybody in the house is going to be waking up. Dan is going to make some coffee. Hannah makes me espresso at 3:00 AM. That was my goal. I was like, “I’ve got to get to 7:30 and then we’re home free.” We did it.

My job had to do overnights for a period of time. Mine was 11:00 to 7:00. It was around 4:00 is we hit a wall. Those last two hours are the worst. 

What sucks is that I love music so much. My kids are often the ones saying, “Mommy, can you turn Queen down? It’s so loud.” I love to blare music when I’m not working. Whatever else I’m doing, I love to blare it in here all over the house. During Tunde’s ride, we noticed about halfway through my ride, we didn’t know the ride was over. When it was over, we looked and Facebook Live’s cut out. I was like, “How long has that been out?” I saw the message on the screen. It said something about the music and the copyright. I was like, “I didn’t even think about that.” I didn’t want to watch TV all day. I’d rather listen to music. That keeps me going a little bit more.

They would do the same thing to TV. Crystal posted a video of the dog doing something cute. In the background, and I’m not saying this because you’re Italian, we were watching Jersey Shore. 

They’re not from Jersey, by the way. They’re from Staten Island.

A lot of them are saying they’re from Rhode Island.

They’re not from Jersey. They filmed in Jersey. They give Jersey a bad name.

She’d never watched it. I was like, “You’d like it.” She got sucked into Jersey Shore.

I have never seen an episode. I’ve just seen the characters.

The show is much better than you think the characters are.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

The characters are way more likable than you would think.

They grow on you.

It was playing in the background and Facebook muted it. It was like Jersey Shore season 2, episode 9.

I was like, “I didn’t even know Facebook could do that.”

We locked out because the computer screen was facing me. The TV was behind the computer. We were blaring those movies. Maybe it cut out on the movies. With Marvel, when Guardians of the Galaxy seem to come on and they’d play a song, I’d have my remote, and I’d be bringing it all the way down so the computer wouldn’t hear the song playing. When the song was over, I’d put it back up. That was hard for me. Had I been able to play music throughout the evening or at least when I was super tired, that would’ve helped. My daughter did have earbuds for me. She made me a little playlist. She’s like, “Mommy, you’re looking tired. Put these on. I’m going to play you a song.” She put on Katy Perry’s Roar on. I didn’t want to ride with the earbuds all night. I felt bad because she’s staying up with me. It’s like if you’re sitting at dinner with somebody and they start looking at their phone, you’re like, “I’m right here.”

You wanted her to be part of it with you because she was doing it with you. I get that. 

I’m like, “I don’t want to do it without her.” We stuck with the movie. They did the trick, but it was a struggle.

You have good taste in movies. 

I want to listen to your show. Our TV can’t be big enough. I know our room is so small, but it needs to be bigger because our favorite thing is movies.

I’m glad you have kids that want to watch it on a big screen. I get so mad. I walk into the living room. We’ve got a 70-inch TV and they were watching things on their phones. I’m like, “What are you doing?” 

We got the ridiculous speakers that make the glass shake next to you. Lights out. I want to feel like I’m in a theater. It’s a tiny room too, but I don’t care. I love it.

It’s a private screening room.

TCO 198 | Cancer Fundraising

 

How much money were you able to raise? 

First, we started the fundraiser weeks prior via our website. We had all these different teams that were named after kids who are either currently fighting cancer in our Infinite Love family, or who have fought cancer in remission, or they’ve passed. The point of the teams was to honor them, be able to tell their stories, and show their pictures. We had Team Mia, Team Juliana, Team Mighty Mack, and Team Joshua. You have to go to our website and check them out. It’s adorable. We got the parents’ permission to do this. Everyone’s parents were so proud of their child and their team. They shared their team links for the last few weeks with their own family, friends, and community. Before we even got to Saturday, those teams alone probably raised about $35,000 to $40,000.

I like people to know that because there’s so much excitement around my 24-hour ride that people are assuming it was just about me. That’s the last thing I want them to think because all this stuff takes a village. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this by myself. One phenomenal seventeen-year-old girl who wrapped up treatment for osteosarcoma, her name is Sona. She lives in Connecticut. She was like, “I want to do something to get back to the foundation. Can I start a page?” This is between her and our Vice President, Jim McCaffrey, who also lives in Connecticut. He and his wife, Mary, lost their daughter into rhabdomyosarcoma in 2017. She’s near and dear to Jim’s heart. He was like, “We’ll get a page set up for you and see what you could do.” The goal of the team pages is $1,000. Thinking, “We have fifteen teams we could do pretty well if they all raise $1,000.” Long story short, this incredible girl with her best friend, her parents, and her community raised over $11,000 on her page alone.

I’m like, “What seventeen-year-olds are doing this?” Some of our other teams sync. We had team member’s page that raised $3,000. Team Brady was $2,500. I want to name them all but I know I can’t. They were all phenomenal. In conjunction with my ride, my team member, Rachel was like, “For your ride, I’m thinking since Facebook makes it so easy for people to donate, they just click the button, rather than sending it to our website where they got to get off of Facebook, put in their credit card, and do with the whole thing, let’s make it easy for them. I want to set up a Facebook fundraiser that’s for your 24-hour ride. Pie in the sky, let’s go for $10,000.” We both thought that was ludicrous. How are we going to raise $10,000 in 24 hours just because I’m on a bike? There’s no way. That Facebook link is still up and last I checked, it was past $30,000. Our total and everything just started is over $75,000.

Congrats. That’s amazing.

Thank you. My friend Rachel is the one that was keeping track of it the whole time. She was blowing up my phone with messages to myself and to Jim like, “We got to $60,000.” To our viewers, we kept saying, “The original goal was let’s get to $50,000.” It blew pass $50,000 halfway through my ride and I’m like, “I’m not riding the rest of this for nothing. Let’s keep going.” I’m sure people are like, “What are you doing here? We keep up in the thermostat. We’re not there yet.”

Nobody can be too shocked at that. Nobody says, “That’s enough money for charity.”

Especially kids. That’s an amazing organization. 

I like people to know we’re not a big box charity. We are like Rocky. We are the mighty foundation. We’re doing great things because we are a volunteer-run and we don’t have a building. Everything that comes into us is going back out, which you can’t say for a lot of the bigger places. I always tell people, “You’ll get a lot of bang out of your buck when you donate to small foundations like ours.” You don’t say, “If we’re not your bag then find another small foundation because they’re underestimated and they’re all getting stuff done.”

On that note, how can the Peloton community support you now? Are you still accepting donations?

We were saying to people, “We’re grateful for everything that has come in through this fundraiser, but at the end of the day, we’re still not able to have our in-person events.” We would be having our annual gala that yields about $300,000. We didn’t have one in 2020 and we’re not having one in 2021. Yes, $75,000 is wonderful. We’re still not where we should have been for 2020. I don’t want to have to ever tell a child with cancer family that I can’t help them. We need every bit we can get. I tell people, whether that’s through your donations or word of mouth, like our posts, share our posts, and comment on our posts so they stay relevant in social media feeds. Doing those simple tasks help us grow. The more we can grow, the more we can ultimately raise. We’re encouraging people to keep giving. We have a Monthly Giver Club. You go on our website, it’s right there, click on it. Depending on what level you do, $25 or $50 a month, and so on, you get a little infinite love swag bag. Who doesn’t want that?

It also gives you perks, such as every month we do a giveaway raffle. It’s the second Thursday of every month, we do a live spin the wheel on our Facebook page. You don’t have to check-in or even have Facebook to win because if you win, we’re going to be honest and send you the prize. We give away anything from high-end beauty products to Amazon gift cards, all good things. They get automatically entered into that raffle every month, plus when we do have our events, they get discounted ticket sales. Our events luckily sell out. They usually get a free sheet of raffle tickets. We make it worth their while. At the end of the day, it’s worth giving up one cup of coffee a week to do $25 a month. That’s what we’ve pushed on our Monthly Giver Club because at least we can see that money coming in and we can depend on it. It’s not like, “How much will we make at this next fundraiser?” It’s a little bit of a security blanket for us.

If you haven’t already, because I know you’ve sent me a couple of emails, but if it’s not in there already, please send me your link to be able to do that.

I’ll send them to you, for sure.

We’ll make sure that it gets posted in our group and our page.

We are going to do this again in 2022. We’re telling the Peloton community to follow me @QueenAVG, and if possible our VP, his is @MakeItAmazing, it stands for Mia, his daughter, so that we can keep in touch. We’re thinking we’re going to start a Facebook group for people who want to be involved specifically in the Peloton community with Infinite Love. This group will be, “Next time you’re doing a spin event, let us know so we can connect with people quickly.” On June 13, 2021, we’re holding our 5K Tutu Trot. That’s a family run-walk. That’s virtual. Jim started it when Mia was in treatment. It was a live event. He has been doing it in Connecticut ever since but when COVID happened, he’s like, “I’ve got to do this virtual.” I was like, “If it’s going to be virtual, we might as well push it near us too.” I had the idea of, “Why don’t we see if we can get walkers in every state in the country?” Long story short, we got 48 of the 50 states involved.

Which two punked out on you?

It was Arkansas.

We are Missouri.

We had Missouri, Canada, Germany.

When you appreciate the strength that kids show, you will complain a little less about your life. Share on X

Those aren’t even states.

I should have said other countries as well. That was great because we sent everybody a virtual bib for themselves to print out. People started flooding that day on social media, pictures of themselves holding their Infinite Love bibs wherever they were in the country or in the world. We ended up raising $40,000 from that one. The Peloton community would come in handy for that since we’re based all over the world. If they can connect with us through our Facebook page, this way, they’ll know when registration opens. I want to see you walk. If you walked a marathon on the treadmill, I want to see Crystal signing up for my tutu trot.

When is it? I’ll be there.

June 13, 2021. Tom, it’s a tutu trot and real men wear tutus. I have tons of pictures of men who wore tutus in 2020, and women and boys and girls. I want to see a rainbow tutu on you. If you’re not going to ride the Peloton, you’ve got to wear a tutu.

You got a better chance to get me to wear a tutu than you do get me to do work.

I’ll see what we can do. I’ll do the walk and he can wear the tutu.

Seems like a fair division of labor. 

I want that picture. It’s going to be big in my promo video.

Thank you so much for joining us and sharing that with us. That was a fun story.

There’s nothing fun about it, but if we can bring communities of people together just wrapped around the essence of children, that is fun because children are amazing. I always tell people that are complaining about stupid things like wearing a mask. Go hang out in one of these clinics where these kids are having transfusions or chemo. Why don’t you complain a little less because if you could see how strong they are to say things like, “Give me some Play-Doh?” They’re so inspiring. People need to get a little perspective.

We could all use that.

Thank you so much for all that you do and for taking time out of your day to share some of it with us. 

Thank you for having me on your platform.

—

That brings this episode to an end. What pray tell do you have in store for the next episode?

We are going to be talking to Jennifer Storm, also known as #BlackoutGirl on the leaderboard. She has a fascinating story and I can’t wait for everyone to know it.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, 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, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group and wherever you get your podcasts from, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you’re so inclined, you can watch all of these at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. You can see all the pictures we’re talking about and all of that stuff in full HD glory. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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