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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

Peloton Shuts Down “Peloton Closet” IG Account plus our interview with Kelly Anne Backus

It’s been a busy day for us. I had to drive to work and drive back home and then drive back to work.

It was a good reason.

They’re doing COVID vaccines where I work and I was able to get my son, he’s sixteen. They were doing Pfizers, which is approved for sixteen and up. Good thing we nagged him to bring his driver’s license because they did not believe he was sixteen. She was like, “How old are you?” He was like, “Sixteen.” She was like, “Do you have an ID?” He was like, “Yes,” and she was like, “Okay.” First, she stopped because I think they’re so used to, “It’s seventeen and up,” and then she was like, “It’s a Pfizer day,” but she wasn’t convinced.

Good thing he brought it. Good thing he knew where it was.

You and I do the Moderna trial and then this little bastard goes and gets the Pfizer. Everything we do to help them out and he turns around of the traces by getting the Pfizer vaccine.

I’m just glad he has a vaccine.

Moderna won’t let them.

He was so happy and I know you’re just joking.

He was bouncing off the wall. I’ve never seen a kid so happy to get a needle stuck in his arm. 

It’s been a weird year. Kids want to go back to school and get shots.

A funny incident when you were cleaning the house and you were straightening up the bedroom. You found a box you were going to throw away.

Seriously? You’re going to out me like that. Are you kidding me?

What happened? I don’t seem to fully remember.

This is hard to admit, everybody. I found an order of Peloton clothes that I had completely forgotten about.

You didn’t even remember they existed. They were still sealed in the bag, they weren’t cheetah print or Hearts On Fire. They were in another box and then you almost threw away that box. At the last minute, you were like, “Let me take a peek,” and surprise.

It’s a pair of leggings and a shirt. That’s better than finding $20 in your pocket, let me tell you.

It’s like finding five $20 in your pocket. If I open something up and was like, “There’s that Monkee CD I forgot I purchased,” but that’s never happened. Clearly, I don’t have too many Monkee CDs, but you have too many Peloton items. Hopefully, you can read the look she’s giving me right now. Enough of all that, what pray tell do you have in store for people this episode?

We have lots to discuss. An update on yet another lawsuit issue, we’ve got more Eric Villency news just for fun.

He’s like a bad penny.

We are going to give an update on Peloton Closet, the closet is closed. We have our Tonal contest, it’s kicking off.

We’ll give you all the details on how you can win a Tonal.

We have Dr. Jenn back this episode. We’re going to talk about changing strategies when your goals change. All of the Peloton news and all of the things happening with all the instructors, we have it all wrapped up for you.

Before all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, wherever you find your podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you’re there, you can also leave us a review. We have a new review. This is from David8, “Great Peloton information. My first podcast that I listen to and now I listen every week. They discuss all the great things about Peloton and do mention the problems Peloton has.”

We try to be fair.

Everyone knows they’ve got one and we bring it up. “The podcast has many enjoyable guests. Best part, it keeps me motivated to keep exercising.” Thank you, David8.

That is the best part. I love hearing that. Congratulations and thank you for listening and leaving us a kind review.

You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. You can sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com, and of course watch all of the shows on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. There’s all that. Let’s dig in, shall we? 

We shall.

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Joining us from Run, Lift & Live is John Mills. How is it going?

It’s going well. How is it going?

Good. I didn’t recognize you in that Peloton shirt. 

This is like my Grandpa Shark shirt. I don’t have enough Grandpa Shark shirts. They’re all dirty.

What are we talking about in this episode, Tom? Who is it this episode?

Another lawsuit.

 

We’ll spin the wheel.

It’s Icon, right?

Yes, NordicTrack.

I opened this article that you had and it wanted me to pay for it so I didn’t read it. Lay it out for me. What’s the deal? What do we have going on? Are they suing them again?

I thought they already had a lawsuit against them about the Auto-Follow feature or maybe I’m wrong.

They totally did.

This one seems like it’s a little more involved because I guess there’s some patent that includes not only Auto-Follow or a mechanism that will increase resistance but will also do something relative to transitioning into strength training. They have some patent that incorporates both and they’re trying to tie that to Peloton’s Auto-Follow and the fact that in the class, it tells you when you’re supposed to go pick up a weight. They’re trying to tie these two things together to one of these patents.

That sure sounds like a stretch, doesn’t it?

I guess that’s why there’s a new lawsuit.

The fourth one.

When you’ve got lawyers on retainer, it’s like, “You might as well.”

You might win one.

Somebody’s got to lotto, it might as well be you.

I don’t think they’re going to get anywhere with this. I’ll be honest, this is going to be a big fat fail.

It probably will be as well. I don’t know how far this is going to go but you never know. I didn’t think of the lawsuit that Eric Villency had. I thought he had a case. It turns out he didn’t.

He sure didn’t. His name is going to come up again here. Hang on to that. Hang on to your evil jokes.

Before we get to that, you found an interesting article about a little bit of background on cancelling trademarks in relation to Peloton and Mad Dogg and the word spin.

 

Mad Dogg owns that spin and spinning trademark and have for a couple of decades now. They fought vigorously to stop folks from using that term to indoor cycling, but now Peloton has challenged them with regards to that saying, “That’s kind of a generic term now. You can’t have a generic term as a trademark term.” Peloton’s trying to get that trademark removed and cancelled. I thought, “How can they do that? They don’t really have a case there.” I’ve been reading a lot of articles where in talking to it, the test to determine if something is generic, this seems to fall in line with the test. I think they might have a case. This article is talking to that like, “Are there publications where it’s been used generically?” There are a whole bunch of them. A whole bunch of publications and big-name magazines.

New York Times, Washington Post, they’ve all used it generically.

The second test is, “What does the public think?” This article is suggesting that if Peloton is able to produce some type of survey that shows that the general public has no association of that to Mad Dogg.

Let me fill it out.

You would have to lie.

No, I wouldn’t. I know it now but when we started this podcast, we were going to use the word spin. Somebody reached out to me and was like, “No. Mad Dogg owns that.” Somebody had to stop me because I had no idea that that word was trademarked until we went to start this podcast.

Do you want to know what we were going to call it? We were going to call it Spin City.

I like that. Maybe after this sue, you go back to that.

I’ll get sued by Michael J. Fox but I’ve always wanted to meet Michael J. Fox. It’s a win-win. I’ll be like, “Sir, before I sign over my house to you, can I get a quick picture? Would you sign my Flux Capacitor?” Mad Dogg wants to make sure everyone knows that it’s not spinning unless it’s from the spinning region of France. Otherwise, it’s just sparkling indoor cycles.

I didn’t follow. Somebody out there that understands, would you please send me a note?

Do you think they’re going to run this survey and the article is going, “They can give 75% of the population?”

I think they can. They’ve got a real strong point.

I think they do too.

It’s going to be 90% plus.

I agree, I really do because most people say that. Before Peloton, people were saying, “Do you want to go to a spin class?” Nobody said, “Would you like to go to an indoor cycling class with me?” No one said that.

The only people who say that are IP lawyers. You also came across an interesting article.

This was me, I found this one but I wanted to discuss it with John because it mentions his man, Eric.

 

You said that to me and that’s all I saw, I was like, “Eric is in this too?” He’s everywhere.

Let’s go back in time. When we first started the podcast, people used to talk all the time about a studio in Chicago called Studio Three. Peloton legend has it that back in the day when Peloton first started, they had a deal with Studio Three. Studio Three in Chicago was going to be the second Peloton studio that was going to be a thing. All of a sudden, it never happened and nobody ever talked about why.

It had a bunch of Peloton bikes in it.

Part of the legend, and this part is absolutely true, whenever you go to the bike, when you go to this gym, they have a whole bank of Peloton bikes. There are tons of them. I forgot to mention this too so I’m making sure to say it now, those instructors not only do they teach on those bikes, they teach their own content on those Peloton bikes. Do you remember all this now?

I remember all this. Back then, I wanted to go to Chicago to go to this place because they kept saying it was a thing. They were talking about all these Peloton bikes, that it’s all Peloton-based.

At somewhere along the line, no one talked about it anymore. It just went away. The studio still exists, I haven’t heard about it until I came across this article. It says, “Studio Three,” and I’m like, “The same Studio Three?” Here’s the deal, this guy that they’re interviewing.

David Blitz.

He owns this real estate, but also they have a whole health club chain. The chain appears to only be Studio Three in Chicago but they want to expand. This is where it gets crazy, they start talking about their kits, which I’ve never heard anyone refer to a club as your kit. This guy says in interviews, “We’ve got a whole bunch of special spin bikes. They were designed by Eric Villency, also the guy who designed Peloton bikes and Soul bike.” I’m like, “Those aren’t specially designed bikes, those are the Peloton bikes. They’re from way back when.” He’s talking about this huge expansion they’re going to do and they want to have these clubs everywhere. Combine that with the timing of the fact that, I’m getting deep, John, you posted that there was a thing on Reddit that Peloton said, “We’re not going to sell to gyms anymore.” What are the chances that this guy does an interview about they’re going to buy all these Peloton bikes and right after that, “Peloton puts a kibosh on selling to gyms?”

This is interesting here.

Every time Eric’s name comes up, it’s weird.

One caveat though, I’ll have to go back and look, I’m pretty sure I heard about a little over a year ago, someone went to the Studio Three in Chicago and posted that all the bikes were different which has me wondering. I have no doubt that the bikes in Studio Three still are Peloton.

Is he up to it again? Is he over there designing another bike which is what Tom said? As soon as I start telling him the story, he’s like, “He’s going to design another bike for these people and call it a different bike because it’s going to have something different.” Here we go again.

Three years is like a million Peloton years. Share on X

That’s what my thought is now. I’m wondering what that is. They said Eric Villency so that is his bike there but I bet it’s not a Peloton branded bike.

It used to say Peloton but now I don’t know. Make of that what you will, all the readers out there but I thought it was interesting because it goes back in time on the Peloton history and I find that fascinating. The rest is all complete conjecture on my part and I have no idea its accuracy or validity. I got a little crazy when I saw his name and Peloton next to each other again.

You’ve got to start thinking when you see his name.

Finally, you found an interesting article about wearables and the plethora of wearables.

Where do you think Peloton is headed with their wearable?

I find the whole space interesting. I was never into the wearables. I wasn’t big in to the trackers or the newer smart watches.

You don’t have an Apple Watch, do you?

I’ve been considering but no, I don’t have one. Once Peloton percept Atlas Wearables, this has got me interested in the space, I’m like, “What is going on in the space?” It was clear that Peloton is looking at these fitness trackers because Atlas Wearables does not have smartwatches. They don’t have watches that you can control the volume of the music, answer a call or GPS tracking. It’s not like that. It’s just heart rate, activity-based and things like that. What made me think is how much can they get out of that?

That’s what I keep wondering too.

This makes me think, “Maybe it’s bigger than I thought,” because every time I turn around, there’s another wearable dropping that’s aligned to fitness tracking, not the smartwatch piece. That’s what I found interesting out of that, “Here’s another tracker.” Peloton has some unique features, if you’re just talking about trackers. The fact that it’s not just measuring how many steps you took or how much activity you produced but this watch that Peloton will now have as a part of the Atlas Wearables acquisition can tell if you’re doing 1,000 different exercises. It’s like, “That guy is doing push-ups, let me count reps for push-ups. That guy is doing curl, let me count reps for curl.” It can detect exactly what exercise you’re doing. That’s what it says it can do. If they can truly do that, that tells me that there’s an innovation in the tracker space relative to what Peloton will be able to produce.

I feel like I’d eat a donut and it will be like, “You did six reps.”

I’m super skeptical of how that can happen. I’m skeptical that it can pick up on all those different exercises and auto-detect. The reason I say that is I’ve used a Whoop, Fitbit, Garmin doesn’t auto-detect, everything else I said does, the Apple Watch auto-detects as well. Whoop sometimes will be able to tell but it’s only if I do a vigorous activity like if I run. If I am leisurely walking, it doesn’t care. It’s like, “That’s nice.” My heart rate goes up accordingly but it’s not enough to trigger that I did something. If I ride the bike, it never is like, “You just rode a bike. Do you want to record?” It doesn’t know. It says it’s supposed to know but it doesn’t. I’m super skeptical that it could be like push-ups and bicep. That’s so specific. 

I want to see this thing now.

I’m skeptical of that, but you make a good point that if it works, there are a lot of things.

This watch that Atlas Wearables was about to produce never actually released. Peloton acquired them before they released it. They have a video, this guy is wearing the new watch that’s supposed to be coming out and he doesn’t do anything, he just starts doing push-ups and the camera is focused on the watch on his arm. It automatically goes, “Push-ups,” and starts counting. That’s cool. We’re going to have to test this thing out if it comes out.

I think they know they’ll sell a bunch of them to people who want everything to be in that same ecosystem. 

John, you brought up something else in your synopsis that you always do and that is a thing that Peloton would have is like, “Maybe there are a lot of people that wouldn’t go buy one but wrap it into what you’re already getting with Peloton, and your monthly subscription, now you’ve got people.” People are going to be like, “I’m already paying for it, might as well.”

I was thinking a couple of benefits. The Whoop has a monthly membership and if they absorb this in your $39, you’re already paying for your other connected fitness devices that would be a benefit. You’d take that instead. Like you said, you’ll probably go, “Fitness tracker too? All right, add that to my cart.”

We’re going to be like, “I’ve got to go try it.” For the show, we’re going to try it on.

You’re going to have an Apple Watch and a Whoop. You’re going to have to put that on your anklet that they can sell you.

There are people that have taken the Apple Watch and the Whoop and put them together. They’ve managed to slide the arms and they wear them all as one device. There are people that do that.

That’s it for this. Until next time, John, where can people find you?

 

Let us know if they send you the first prototype. They’ve been reading. You can find me on Facebook at my Run, Lift & Live page or my Run, Lift & Live Group. I’m on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

Thank you, John.

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It was announced that new Pilates classes were dropped.

They had twenty that had dropped before and now these twenty just dropped. There are a couple of interesting things about it. One, I thought it was interesting that they referred to this as season two. I think that means this is what we’re going to start seeing. They’re going to drop these classes, then there’ll be a significant time period and then we’ll have another drop. The other interesting thing is it’s all new instructors. This time we have Kendall, Rebecca Kennedy, Jess King, Ally Love and Anna Greenberg. They all are doing these classes. We already had twenty that were on the roster and those classes were from Kristin McGee, Sam Yo, Hannah Corbin, Emma Lovewell and Aditi Shah. I find that fascinating. It’s also interesting that they’re adding 5 instructors but there are only 20 of them. It means each one only did four classes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like, “That’s not very many classes,” but to call it a season and we’re not going to see this again until next year, or is it the fall or spring season?

I wonder if those seasons will start to get a little bit closer.

That’s what I’m curious about. What is that going to look like?

I’m also surprised that they would drop twenty. If they’re going to have a season, why not do two a week to buy you more time? It does feed in to what I’ve been saying for a while, is that they view it more as a TV station.

It does. A lot of people are frustrated about this so I’m sure that this will generate frustration for people, but it also speaks to when people are like, “There are not that many classes on the schedule,” and I keep saying, “That’s because of COVID.” They only have so much time they can record in the studio. They have all these things they’re recording to drop on demand later like this. There are things happening in the background that we don’t know about yet. That’s part of why it’s not just a constant number of classes a day.

They’ll get there.

They will but until then, there are people that are frustrated that it’s not the way it used to be. Change is constant, that much we know.

—

This is a cool feature. A lot of people have been wanting this, it’s a small tweak. In the iOS device and the app, you can mix the audio from the instructor separately from the music audio. 

Just like you’re taking a tread class or an indoor cycling class, now you can do that same thing on your app with any of the classes. This is good that they’re rolling this out. It’s good for people who only use the app to be able to do that. If you’re an app-only user, you’ve never been able to have that feature that’s built-in to the bike. That’s one of the premium things. You also have to wonder, at some point they’re adding so much to the app that it’s weird the way they break it out. I know that that’s their loss later but if everything that we get as part of the bike is also available for the app, what’s the point?

People already are like, “Why shouldn’t I just get another bike and pay $14.95 a month instead of $39.95 a month? I spent the bigger chunk of money with you.” A lot of people feel that those prices should be flipped.

I still see enough of a difference but if those things keep changing, I’ll always have it but I can certainly see more people feeling that way. That number is going to go up. I’m curious to see what Peloton continues to do with that. It’s a great feature to get in to the iOS device though.

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Joining us for the last time, I don’t know, is Torrey from Peloton Closet. Your walk-in closet became a walk-out closet.

You got a letter from Peloton and here we are. What exactly were the issues? People keep saying to me, “She can just change the name.” I keep saying, “It’s not just the name.” You tell us.

It’s a little bit more complex than that.

First of all, I have to spill some truth here, which is that Peloton Closet was never about me as a person. It’s about a community. I should fess up to the fact that I have legal training. I don’t currently practice law but I am an attorney. I passed the Bar in the State of California and practiced law for a number of years. I went to law school and I learned intellectual property from the guy who wrote five volume treaties on intellectual property that is used at law schools across the nation. I would like to own that I was fully aware when I started this. The format I used, which was pictures of instructors and their outfits, that it’s copyrighted Peloton property. I knew that.

Let’s dig in to that because I’ve had a lot of questions about that too. People keep saying, “How is that different than me posting a picture at the end of my ride?” because Peloton owns all of that. Peloton owns it and most of us are just putting a picture up and that’s the end of it. We’ll get into exactly what you were doing.

I received a letter from Peloton and let me say, it was a really nice and friendly letter. They were complimentary of me and were like, “We’re so grateful for your enthusiasm.” They didn’t say, “You’re a terrible person. We hate you. You suck.” It was like, “We get that you’re super enthusiastic and we admire that but you’ve taken it too far.” The issue that they raised with me was that I was using their instructors, their name and brand to promote clothing that is in competition with Peloton Apparel. They have their own clothing line. You can talk about the fact that instructors are allowed to wear non-Peloton clothing and that’s on Peloton, that’s not on me. I seized on that and told people where to get that because if you see the bra with a P on it, you can probably go to Peloton Apparel website and find it unless it’s a leopard one or Hearts On Fire. That’s cheetah, actually.

Leopard and cheetah, they’re very similar. That’s something I’ve learned from running Peloton Closet. The issue is that the way that I was using intellectual property was to promote other clothing lines that were not related to the Peloton Apparel brand which they’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money to build up. They want Peloton users to buy their own apparel line and not for me to sleuth out, “You don’t have to buy Peloton Apparel. You can buy this other stuff,” and that was the issue. It was that I was using their intellectual property to divert, essentially, business that could have gone to their own apparel that was going to competitor’s apparel.

Even though in most instances the stuff was no longer available for purchase, was that still troublesome to them?

I do not work at the Peloton intellectual property.

Which is good because you’d be fired if you did right now. They would have given you boxes and said, “Pack your desk.”

I don’t know and like I said, I did take intellectual property in law school but it was at 8 AM and I used to party a lot in those days.

It’s nuances and it’s also probably having some control over that. It’s how it looks and how it appears. It also could be, I’m going to pick on Adidas because they’re in a partnership with Adidas, “If you’re sending everybody over Adidas to get all that stuff, people might stop going over to Peloton to get their stuff.” Which we all know would never happen but you don’t know what the next big thing is and maybe the next big thing would pull us away from Peloton. They don’t know that. I know we were talking about this, they have to protect it not just from the Peloton Closets of the world but from people that would do them harm, that don’t love Peloton as a brand and would not have their best interest at heart.

If they go to defend their intellectual property, they have to be able to say, “We’ve done it across the board. We’re not picking and choosing. Peloton Closet is super cool so we’re not going to hassle her,” but it has to be across the board that they are defending their copyright, trademark and whatever element of intellectual property that it is. They are 100% justified in doing what they did.

It’s like when we talk about Mad Dogg and the trademark on spin. Mad Dogg has been a mad dog going after people that used spin in a generic sense. They’ve been blazing that trail for years and even though they’ve been doing it, there’s a good chance that they might lose that even though they have been doing those things. If they hadn’t been doing those things, it would happen 10 or 15 years ago. 

I did take that class in the morning but I remember that much. Let me say the reason I did it, knowing it was the IC and we talked about this when I first came on. I thought, “I’d love to be able to show to my friends and ten people on Reddit where to get some of these looks. This would be fun.” I didn’t think that I would have almost 24,000 followers in the space of four months. That never occurred to me. I thought it would be fun to have 2,000 followers. It turned into a lot of work with additional followers. I didn’t monetize and use an affiliate link. I didn’t do any of that until I was at 10,000 followers because it got to be so much work and everyone’s like, “You need to do affiliate links so you can try and get a little bit of money off of this.” I would say maybe my total profit from affiliate links has been $400. I make money from doing codes and partnerships with brands. The pure affiliate link is at $0.02.

You have to generate some traffic to make money off of affiliate links.

It’s not paying the rent.

That is a lot of work. Obviously, we put a lot of work into this and we have ads. People know that because sometimes we say, “Here’s an ad.” It is not a secret.

We’ve been very transparent about that process.

That was 3 years practically before we got to the point where it was enough to start doing that. 

We feel you and we get that. From what I understand, that’s left you in a good place with all of this. Since it was this massive amount of work. I know you changed jobs, I’m sure that’s been a different workload as well. My understanding is that leaves you in a good place with all of this, mindset-wise. 

Absolutely. This couldn’t have been more fun, I have had so many incredible experiences. I’ve met many awesome people, like the two of you for example and other followers who I never would have met but I have true relationships with. These are people who I maybe have not yet met in-person, I hope I will someday. We talk about real stuff and it’s pretty crazy that you can form connections over the internet, especially during such a weird time with COVID and so much disconnection. I’m so proud that I created a space where I found connections. A lot of people found connections, happiness and they were like, “This account is peaceful. It’s easy and fun. It’s sort of like a detective, ‘What’s the outfit today? What’s it going to be like? Where does that bra come from?'”

It’s a very charming, happy place. I know a lot of people, like myself, are going to miss it. I also really appreciate that you understand intellectual property and you don’t blame Peloton for this. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me and be frustrated with Peloton and I’m like, “It’s not that simple though.”

It’s their sandbox. You’ve got to play by their rules.

At the end of the day, we’re all making money on the backs of Peloton. They did this thing, we love it and we’re enjoying it. It’s not like you did this in a labor of love because you were like, “I’m money hungry.” Like you said, that’s not the goal. You did it because you loved it. It’s a passion and it turned into something cool because you had that passion but none of that would’ve existed had you not had the bike in the first place, and had you not had Peloton not been doing what they were doing. The same for our podcast, everything that’s related to Peloton all starts with Peloton. It’s important for people to keep in mind that as you said, they were nice to you. They weren’t mean.

Honestly, people were like, “Did they send a cease-and-desist? Are they threatening to sue?” I shouldn’t give this away because I don’t want to give Peloton any ideas but to me it was like, “What if they cut off my accounts?” That was the worst punishment I could imagine. “What if they say I violated copyright and the user agreement and they’re going to suspend my accounts?” That’s the worst downside that I could think of because what was I going to do? Give back the $400 and the pairs of leggings? I don’t want to go without my Peloton. That would be a disaster. I was like, “Before they think of that and start threatening that, I don’t want that consequence.” At the end of the day, maybe that makes me selfish, I want to be able to get in Tunde’s newest arms and intervals. That’s very important to me.

I totally get that. I’ve had a lot of people ask me too. Many people assumed this was just about the name because you call it Peloton Closet. It doesn’t sound like it was at all about the name. 

They reeled off a list of things that were wrong and the name was one of them. It was also using the logo, photos, instructors and all that without authorization. There are entities that are using Peloton instructors as brand ambassadors or paying for them to do advertisements. All that must be blessed, I assume, by Peloton. It’s just that I didn’t ask permission.

There are other Instagram accounts out there that it’s pretty safe to say, “Haven’t been blessed by Peloton but have Peloton in the name,” and they still exist.

There’s another account, who shall remain nameless because I’m not trying to get them in trouble, but they literally do the exact same thing that you were doing and they don’t have as many followers. They only have about 4,000 followers. Somebody sent me this account, it was one that I did not know of. This is a different one than you and I have talked about before. It doesn’t have Peloton in the name and I can’t help but wonder if Peloton hasn’t reached out to them yet because it doesn’t have Peloton in the name. Maybe they haven’t found it yet and also because they don’t have as many followers. You gained a lot and you gained it very quickly.

I gained a lot and I gained very quickly. If there’s an account that you think is not doing the right thing, you can speak to my friend’s trademark at OnePeloton.com.

At this moment in time, are there no plans for you to try and figure out a way to do this within the acceptable parameters? Are you just going to take a beat?

I’m going to chill for a minute. It was really fun to sleep in. I’ve been waking up at 4:30 or 5:00 every morning to post and start answering DMs and story, do my work out and then go to work. I slept in this morning until 6:30.

I’ve got to say, this time I’m a little jealous.

I’m going to rest a little bit. I’m a pretty creative person and this is not the first idea I’ve ever had, it won’t be the last idea. I can’t say what the future would hold. I did love so much Peloton Closet, getting to promote causes that were important to me and getting to build this awesome community, getting to promote small businesses and up-and-coming designers. All those things you’ve heard me talk about. If there’s a way to keep doing that without invoking the Peloton name or Peloton raft, I’m open. I have to just think on it for a little bit. I think that I’m going to pause and see what percolates.

Do you want ideas from the community? I had a whole lot of people weigh in about what you should do. Do you want to let your own brain work through that?

I have about 500 comments that I need to read. I think people had some suggestions for me, there’s probably some inspiration in the comments section of my post announcing what happened. It might not be related to Peloton at all, I’m not sure. I’m open to suggestions. I’m going to see what happens next. I want to say, we talked about this a little bit before, I thought about not enabling the comments and I went into some of them. By the time I went to bed, it seemed that everything was like, “Tear emoji. That’s a bummer. I’ll miss you,” pretty positive but then I did notice that there were some comments going in the direction of, “You suck Peloton. This isn’t cool.” I just wanted to speak to the two of you to say, “I don’t blame Peloton. They’re doing their jobs and they’ve done so much for all of us.” I apologize to Peloton. I’m sorry that my comments got negative and that’s not how I feel. It’s flattering that my followers feel passionate and upset with Peloton but I don’t. As I said, it was a great ride and onto the next thing.ccccc

It’s great that you have such a positive outlook on it. Thank you for having been on the show as an interview and as a segment. If you figure out another way or you want to try something different, you know where to find us.

We’ve got that cool sweeper made and everything. 

You owe us $7.

I’ll send you my proceeds from April’s affiliate links.

She will send me half a legging to make up for the cost of that sweeper. Normally I end by saying, “Where can people find you?” If people want to find you, where can they find you or do you not want them to know? It’s okay to say no.

I haven’t taken my site down yet. I’m going to keep it up for a while. I might have to change the name eventually but I’m not doing what Peloton told me not to do, which is selling clothes or telling people where to buy clothes that aren’t Peloton Apparel. Just a few posts that are adjacent because I have a heated debate happening about if you should wear underwear under leggings or not. That’s the hard-hitting journalism that I think people need access to. I didn’t take that stuff down. It doesn’t have anything to do with Peloton. I kept a few posts up. It’s still called Peloton Closet for now. You can DM and follow me.

Thank you very much for all of it.

We’ve had a fun ride with you. Thank you for letting us join.

Don’t be a stranger.

I will not be a stranger, I promise.

I will be stranger and stranger every week.

—

We have a new contest.

We do. I’m so excited about this.

It’s everyone’s chance to win a Tonal.

You can win a Tonal and all of the proceeds go to Make-A-Wish Foundation.

One hundred percent of the proceeds go to the Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area Foundation and Tonal was kind enough to donate the Tonal, which is why all of the money can go to Make-A-Wish. It’s the Greater Bay Area because that’s where Tonal is based on.

Not only did Tonal volunteer to donate the Tonal, but also the accessory package. All the smart accessories that come with the package and an entire year of membership on the Tonal.

People always ask when we do these contests, it’s available in all 50 states. Alaska and Hawaii, you can also enter the contest. Many times it’s the 48 contiguous states and then people think those states are excluded. Not this time. All 50 states can participate. Your next question is probably, “How can you participate?” What you do is you go to theclipout.com/WinATonal, nice and easy. When you’re there, you can purchase entries for as little as $5. $5 will get you 10 entries and $10 will get you 30 entries. Every increment you spend, gets you more entries into this contest. You get additional entries if you share it on your Facebook page, or if you share it and then a friend buys, you could earn more. There are all sorts of ways. As I said, 100% of the proceeds will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

A fun fact about Make-A-Wish, the average wish costs $10,000.

That’s an average, some or more. If you get a kid that wants to go to Antarctica, which is a thing, that’s a little bit more. Maybe some kid just wants to do a week at Disney World or something and that can be a little cheaper.

It depends but we would love to reach our goal of $10,000.

That would be amazing to provide a wish. We were certified wish granters. We’ve done that in the past. We’ve worked with Make-A-Wish before and if you’re thinking, “What can my money do?” $10 can provide a Make-A-Wish cap for a wish bag or $25 can provide the Twinkle Whites to decorate a Playhouse wish. $50 can get you a wireless mouse for a gaming computer wish. You can go up and at $500, you can provide a tablet computer for a virtual celebrity wish. Right now, those all have to be virtual. There are all sorts of different ways you can. $1,000 can provide a canopy bed for a bedroom makeover wish. $10,000, you just bought a whole wish and you probably won the contest.

It’s cool. One thing about Make-A-Wish that I enjoyed during the process is that you sit down with each individual child and the whole reason that you get trained as a wish granter is to help the child come up with what they want, not what their parents want or what their aunts and uncles want.

You can try and weed out any undue influence. They want to make sure that this is a kid’s wish, not someone else’s wish being funneled through a kid.

It’s a cool organization and a cool process. I absolutely am so excited about this. For those of you who already belong to the Tonal community and you’re like, “I already have a Tonal. What can I do?” I want to send you over to The Superset and the official Tonal community because there’s going to be virtual workouts you can participate in. There’s going to be all kinds of things you can do over on the Tonal side and all of that money will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation as well.

If you already have a Tonal, you could still win another one, give it away, and donate it to a school or something. Once again, that’s theclipout.com/WinATonal. 

—

Peloton has a new commercial for the Bike+. If it’s Peloton, it features music.

It does. This song, I guess, made an impact on people that kept talking about it. I’ve seen this in three different news outlets that were like, “What is that song?” They found the song and it is from Sofi Tukker and the song is super upbeat. Whenever I posted about it, I was like, “Do you guys already know this song?” Everyone then told me about Purple Hat, which is the name of the song, was also the “theme song” for the Jess King Experience Season Two. Every week, when they would do their little dance moves or whatever they do, that was played. Everyone who takes those classes already knew the song. I thought it was interesting that then Peloton chose to use it over in the commercial. It’s a really fun little song. I don’t know if you’ve heard it.

I have not heard it.

It’s very upbeat. I dig it. I’ll put it on my light.

Bustle.com had an article, 2000s-Themed Peloton Classes That’ll Bring Nostalgia to Your Sweat Sesh.

I love how that’ll bring nostalgia for the nineteen-year-olds. I’m like, “Who’s finding nostalgia?” I’m not ready. These are funny because as you’ve mentioned, we’re starting to get these all the time. I am starting to think that Peloton is just paying people to do these.

I don’t think Peloton has to pay people to do these things.

These people are paying Peloton for ideas, but they’re repetitive. There are a billion 2000s classes out there, my favorites are not going to be their favorites and vice versa, but I think the idea that the article exists amuses me.

PCMag.com tested out the new Peloton Tread.

This is interesting because I haven’t seen a lot of news outlets, or in this case it’s an electronic outlet, but I haven’t seen them do a lot of reviews on the new Tread. There were tons when the Tread+ came out. I can’t even count them all. They compared both, they did the Tread+ and the Tread. They tried both of them out. They came to the conclusion that it just depends on what you’re looking for. If you have the space and the money, obviously, it’s Tread+ because of the slats. If you don’t and you want the Peloton world, it’s a no-brainer to get the smaller one because it’s a lower profile. It’s much smaller, quieter and cheaper.

Peloton Senior Vice President and Head of Global Marketing, something like that, Dara Treseder, is going to be speaking as part of OPTIMA21, which sounds like a transformer.

This is an HR conference. The interesting thing is that they build themselves as number one. I have to wonder how many of those are number one. I do find the people that they have are very interesting. There are only four main speakers and their keynotes are pretty badass. They have Guy Raz and Dara. They have other people too, they just don’t stand out to me as much. They might stand out to other people who know who they are.

We have Baratunde Thurston.

He’s going to do deconstructing racism in the workplace. He wrote the bestseller, How To Be Black. I definitely recognize him in that book. Patrick Lencioni, he’s going to close it down with talking about The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Those are pretty awesome keynote speakers for this thing. I would love to see what Dara has to say. I feel like Dara gives off the vibe that she’s pretty fun.

In our Peloton News Roundup, there was an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch that was Peloton-related and it was about us. This is a couple of weeks ago and we kept forgetting to include it. They wrote a big feature and it was in every Friday. It’s the GO Magazine. It’s the entertainment news insert, I’m sure every city’s paper has a version of it. The cover story was about podcasts that originate from St. Louis. We were on the list. There were only fourteen that they featured and our logo is dead center on the cover of the magazine. We were featured in the spread with a huge picture of us in our studio recording.

It was the first selfie I ever took in this room.

A real nice write-up on us about the history, how we started and all that. That was nice. It was also cool because we were featured in there with some other pretty big podcasts like the local CBS affiliate has a podcast and they talked about them. They talked about The Office Ladies because Jenna Fischer is from St. Louis. There are three St. Louises on The Office. If you don’t know, Phyllis is from The Office. Jenna Fischer’s from St. Louis and so is Ellie Kemper. 

I think that’s cool.

It was very nice. Thank you for thinking of us Post Dispatch. We found an interesting rumor.

I have to say, I did not find this. Marty sent this to me.

Thank you, Marty. The Instagram account name is Deuxmoi, I think it’s supposed to be French. They post a lot of celebrity gossip apparently and they have a fairly solid track record. 

Apparently, a lot of the things that they post happened to come true.

Take this with a grain of salt, but this is what they put out there.

They say that there’s this big collaboration coming this summer and it’s going to feature several high-profile athletes and celebrities, such as Michael Phelps, Jay Cutler, Kate Hudson, Ciara, Diplo, Awkwafina, Kyle Richards, Leslie Jones, and more. Supposedly, the team is also in talks with President Biden. If the timing works out, given the craziness of the world, it says that the series is going to be tentatively titled Ride & Relate, and then insert the celebrity name. It will feature fun rides and it will have interviews that are conducted from the Peloton instructors. They say that the goal is to stay ahead of the curve as group fitness reopens in New York City and elsewhere. On the one hand, I put a lot of validity in here because there were a lot of people I found very interesting following this count. That’s all I’m going to say about that. The other thing that makes me not think it is because whoever wrote this email does not know how to spell anyone’s name that works at Peloton. That makes me not think it’s real. 

If they don’t follow Peloton then it’s the sort of thing that they’re not even going to think about.

I feel like this email came from an employee at Peloton because how else would they know? This was clearly a mole, if it’s true and if it is true then like, “You need to figure out how to spell Ally Love’s name. Come on.”

They spelled the Love part wrong.

We will wait and see if that happens or not. Also, Peloton is Peloton. They could be like, “People already found out about, we’re canceling it.” That could be a thing too.

It would not surprise me.

—

Joining us once again 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. She also has a wonderful app called No More Diets. 

We have a new question for you from The Clip Out community.

I love the questions from The Clip Out community.

This one is from Angie Pruer. She wants to know how she should change strategies now that her goals have changed. She was focused on losing weight and maintaining that loss in 2020, but now she’s down 20 pounds and she wants to work on dropping her body fat percentage. What should she do?

First of all, I have to share that I have a little bit of a bias when it comes to goal setting that I tend to like process-oriented goals as opposed to end-oriented goals. In other words, instead of, “I want to lose X percentage of my body fat,” I like goals that are more, “I am making a goal to run 10 miles a week. I’m making a goal to do three upper body classes and three lower body classes.” I like process-oriented goals because we cannot control how our bodies respond to exercise but what we can control is what we do and what we participate in.

My first recommendation would be while you are making new goals, make those goals about the process as opposed to the outcome. If that becoming leaner goal is important to you, then what I would recommend doing is meeting with an expert like a dietician, physician or someone you really trust. Make sure that your goal is healthy and reasonable for your body type, age and medical issues and then to break down what it is going to take to accomplish this goal. Try to turn that into a more process-oriented goal. We can end up feeling terrible about ourselves when you find you’re working your ass off and instead of going, “My endurance has gotten better. I’ve gotten stronger. I’ve gotten more flexible. I’m a better athlete but I only lost 3% when I wanted to lose 10% of my body fat,” and then feel bad about ourselves when we’ve actually done great things. Not only in terms of ourselves, as athletes, but in terms of our longevity and our good health. To me, it is to shift that focus.

We have to look at what motivates us. Sometimes we get so used to having the same goal and this is particularly common with weight loss. Sometimes people are just, “My whole life I’ve always been oriented towards losing weight. I’ve always felt bad about my body.” Sometimes when we work on ourselves, even if our bodies are not perfect, if we’re able to come to some level of peace with our imperfect bodies, we can make our goals about making other things that motivate us. For me, when I get on the treadmill and I go, “I don’t feel like working out today.” I think about my daughters. I think about, “I want to be there to dance at their wedding. I want to be there to see my grandchildren one day, many decades from now.” I also think about a friend of mine who was in a terrible accident, who is not able to walk and she wishes she could do this. This is something that motivates me so that I can still do this and I have that good fortune. I think about her a lot of the times. We have to look at what motivates us, what goals are outdated for us and to try to focus on process-oriented goals as opposed to endpoint goals.

Picking back on the idea of process versus endpoint, I would think it’s also beneficial in terms of if you set it up as an endpoint goal, you also run the risk not just of beating yourself up if you don’t hit it, but also undermining it if you do. You get there and then you go, “I’ve done that,” and then you lose it all because you’ve got to keep doing things to maintain that. It’s not just once you drop 20 pounds, it magically stays off. 

We tend to get fixated on numbers. To give it a great example of why that is dangerous, in the very olden days, many decades ago during my eating disorder days, I did this program that had a liquid diet. It’s like Optifast that Oprah did in the ‘80s but it was a different company. What happened is I did this liquid diet and during the refeeding stage, I started to gain weight. I had this talking scale. I would get on the scale and it will be like, “You weigh X pounds a day. You have gained 1 pound. Have a nice day.” I’d get on again and it will be like, “You weigh X pounds. You’ve gained 3 pounds. Have a nice day.” Long story short, at the time, I was focused on the numbers and the external and this totally triggered me into an eating fast. I was like, “I’m working so hard and I’m gaining pound after pound.” I got all bingey and awful and it was terrible. I went down the rabbit hole.

As it turns out, the scale was broken. It was giving me inaccurate readings but because at that time I was so focused on the external and the number, as opposed to the internal and the experience and the health aspect of all the good things I was doing for my body at the time of the eating disorder. Not all of it was good but it threw me off. To me, it speaks to how important it is to be focused on the health aspects and the process-oriented aspect of it. I’m grateful that I’m now a fully recovered person when it comes to this stuff and that I don’t even weigh myself. If I did, it wouldn’t matter what the scale said. We have to focus on the internal and on the bigger issues.

I know this isn’t the point of the story but I’m curious, how did you figure out the scale was wrong? I would never think to question the scale.

At the time, I was also getting weighed at a medical facility but it wasn’t as frequently. I was weighing myself every day. It was over the course of seven days, I thought I gained 10 pounds. I was seeing the doctor every other week and after two weeks, their scale said something totally different.

Good thing you were going to the doctor. You comped that fast. That could’ve been worse. 

You don’t even get the joy of being, “I told you so,” because it’s a scale.

At the time I was having an eating disorder. Once you have an eating disorder and you fall down that hill, you’re just rolling. It’s hard to stop that momentum and be like, “Wait a minute.” I was overeating because I had that f*** it attitude like, “I’m just going to eat. It doesn’t matter now,” which was part of that unhealthy diet mentality and eating disorder thinking that is a disaster. I’ve done a lot of work on myself since then. That could never happen to me because I don’t have that diet mentality. I remember what it was like to have that, how painful that was and how easily triggered I was in how things could leave me astray that were externally-based.

It’s a very powerful example to drive that home.

Thank you for that. Until next time episode, where can everyone find you?

You can find me on all social media, especially Instagram, @DrJennMann and also my InStyle Magazine column, Hump Day with Dr. Jenn.

—

Ross Rayburn had a big reveal. Apparently, in a past life, he was on an episode of Sister, Sister.

Look how young he looks there. He doesn’t look old but he has this baby face in that picture. I love this. He was an actor and he was on the show.

It must have been around 1997 because the shirt he’s wearing has the 1997 National Champions for some football team.

I didn’t even notice that because I can’t get away from the face that he’s making and those eyebrows. That’s awesome, I love it. What a gem.

DJ John Michael made a seven-layer rainbow cake for Jess King.

They did this on Zoom and they each made one because they had to do stuff at home. They each made one and DJ John Michael said that hers turned out better. I thought it was great that they did this and it was all in anticipation of her seventh-year anniversary at Peloton, which occurred back on March 27, 2021.

Technically, they made a fourteen-layer rainbow cake separately. Speaking of seven-year anniversaries, it’s Hannah Corbin’s. I wish she had a ride to celebrate it on April 2, 2021.

There’s a wave of instructors that happened all at the same time. Those were the first wave after we get past Jenn Sherman.

People from the other wave, with the exception of Jenn Sherman, are they even still there? That’s like Nicole Meline and Steven Little.

Robin is obviously still there because Jenn and Robin started about the same time. Right after that, it was Jess King and Hannah Marie Corbin because she went by Hannah Marie back then. There was another instructor I’m totally blanking on. Sorry guys, my brain failed me.

You can also expect a Spring drop. It will probably have already occurred by the time you’re hearing this.

It’s supposed to happen on April 8, 2021. There was a really pretty preview of it on Rebecca Kennedy’s Instagram Story. It was this pretty pair of leggings and bra that was black, but had royal blue and yellow accents. You can expect to see that soon in my room because I will be buying that.

Will it be in a box and you’ll forget about it and you’ll find it in a year? I wonder how many leggings you’ve thrown away, that’s all I’m saying.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the new drop is. I always love the Spring clothes. I love all their clothes, who am I kidding?

Jenn Sherman’s Mixtape rides are back.

It’s going to kick off on April 11, 2021, that’s on Sunday at 9:30 AM Eastern. If you have not taken Jenn Sherman’s Mixtape rides, you need to know that they’re amazing because Jenn Sherman, in my opinion, is the best at putting an eclectic mix of songs together. She’s known for it in her circle and in college, she was known for putting mixtapes together. If you got one of her mixtapes, you were special, you were one of her friends. Now we all get to share with Jenn Sherman’s Mixtape rides. I can’t wait.

Starting next episode, we will have a new feature on the show.

This time we are going to have a nutrition expert on from MetPro.

We’ve been doing MetPro and I’m just about ready for my first cut. It’s so weird, they keep giving me more food to eat and I still keep losing weight, which seems to deny the laws of physics.

You were eating so little. This is the thing, I can’t believe how many carbs we’re eating a day and not gaining weight. This is insane. I’m so excited about repairing our metabolism.

We put a post in the group, people ask questions about nutrition, food, how to eat, what to eat, when to eat and all that sort of stuff. We will be basically tackling a question a week with MetPro and talking about the best way for you to eat.

It’s things that you can apply to your everyday life. You don’t need to be doing MetPro to benefit from this.

It’s not just going to be a five-minute commercial from MetPro. It’s going to be about things that you can incorporate into your life. If you also want to check out in MetPro, feel free. You can do it at MetPro.co/TCO.

—

Joining us is Kelly Backus. Kelly, how is it going?

Good. How are you guys? Thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining us.

Before anyone wants to @ us on Twitter or whatever, I did the Gilligan’s Island Jim Backus, Mr. Magoo conversation before we started.

It was in the pre-show.

It didn’t escape me. We’re just not going to do it now.

You didn’t ask her if she was related. That’s always your question.

I assume she would have volunteered that information.

I definitely would have but no.

That was my contribution to the pop culture conversation. Kelly, how did you originally find Peloton?

I only know this because I wrote this down at some point. I don’t know why. Back in December 2016, I had joined a local gym, and I hate the gym. I have never been good at it. I used to be an athlete in high school and college, and then I got hurt. I herniated a disc in my lower back and continued to reinjure it. When I would go to the gym, it’s like, “I know how to do five things. How do I make that last for an hour and be productive?”

I was at the gym and I couldn’t run anymore because of the way that my back had been injured. I figured why not Google, YouTube spin classes if there was some spin class that I could do since I could never make the time of the class. All of a sudden, this thing came up. It was a website, but it was one of those things that looks like an ad because it opened the App Store and it said Peloton. I clicked on it and I downloaded it. I tried it. I took a class with Christine and I was like, “Where has this been my whole life?”

When I got home, I did a lot more research and I found out that there was a bike involved. I tried the app for about a year but I was solely going to the gym to use the app. This was before you could pre-load classes, it would buffer and buffer and it would drive me crazy. I started looking into, “How much would it cost to finance the bike? Is that something that’s going to fit into my budget?” I had just started working full-time and you’ve got to try to think about those things.

I talked to my mom about it and this was before they had all the content. They had some on strength and some yoga but it was nothing like it is. She was like, “Are you going to do enough spinning for it to be equal to what you’re paying at the gym?” I signed up around the time they had a sale to work with a trainer. It went pretty well but it was becoming a lot costlier because you had to start paying for the group classes on top of the one-on-one training sessions. It started to add up quickly. Finally, once I realized the cost of financing it plus the membership, I was like, “This is a no-brainer.” I was moving into a new apartment that had a gym if I needed some free weights or something. I got the bike and so it was finally delivered in January 2018. As we know, so many things have changed from that point and I literally cannot imagine my adult life without Peloton.

It’s so funny because that’s only some years ago but that seems like a million years ago in Peloton years.

Just try the Peloton classes. Without a doubt, you will find the workout that works for you and it will exceed your expectations. Share on X

I always think too, how on point the digital marketing team for Peloton was. They still are but there are many stories from this timeframe that follow that same trajectory of, “I googled spin classes, digital spin classes and I got peppered with ads and I caved.” Many people tell that same story.

Including me. What was your fitness level like? You were going to the gym but were you able to get a lot of a workout? It sounds like it was a hassle. Were you going 3 days or 4 days a week?

The apartment that I lived in in 2017 was at the top of a hill, and my gym was at the bottom. It wasn’t too far of a drive but my work schedule was frustrating at the time. It’s much more regular now. I was working and we had busy seasons. In the summer, I would be working Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday, I was like, “Don’t talk to me, I’m sleeping.” When I could get to the gym in the summer, it was sporadic, but I was moving enough during the day that I felt like I had a decent level of fitness.

Growing up as an athlete, I did soccer, Taekwondo, swimming, and dancing. I did a little bit of everything. When I was looking at colleges, I was wearing my field hockey rain jacket at one of the schools I was looking at, and this woman comes up to me out of nowhere and was like, “Do you play field hockey? Do you want to join the field hockey team?” I was like, “What? What’s happening?” They’re a Division II Field Hockey team. You have to go through the clearinghouse. It’s a big deal. I was like, “I’m not good. I just happened to be on my high school team.” The college team at the time was not great. They needed numbers. That was the issue. They couldn’t recruit the numbers. It ended up working out that I went to that school, I joined the team but I had to redshirt.

I couldn’t play the first year but I was able to work out with the team and hang out. Sophomore year happened, and preseason happened. It was great. “I’m going to get to play this year,” and the team itself had improved a lot that year. The last night of preseason, classes started a little late. Everyone got together and went to a big party at the hockey house. It was exciting. I was getting out of the car and someone’s like, “Good to see you,” and hit me on the back.

I fell and broke a bottle with my knee. I had to get stitches. Of course, the coach found out. One thing led to another so it didn’t go well. I couldn’t play, and then when I could play, I played maybe two games. It was hard. Coming back from that injury after having been into the preseason, the workouts, the two days and whatnot, it was hard to get back to that fitness level again. When I did, I was ready to go, and then I herniated the disc in my back. Once again, it was one thing after another.

 

I went to physical therapy. I did everything that I could to try to get back to that level because I always found when I had sports, I had that structure of the schedule, and the ability to move my body, everything else in my life went a lot smoother, the way that my brain worked. I wasn’t diagnosed with it until some years ago, but I have ADHD. I had an IEP growing up. I needed extra time to take tests and focusing was always an issue, but when I was able to move, you could tell a clear difference of everything going better.

I’d gone through the cycle of physical therapy, not needing physical therapy, and whatnot. I decided to have surgery because I was still young. I was only 23 and they said, “You’ll heal quickly, and it will be better to do it now this way than to continue this cycle for the rest of who knows how long.” My dad played baseball and football growing up. He played football in college. He was a firefighter paramedic. He had a physical job. He does not go to the gym. He does not work out. He’s basically my Tom.

It sounds like he gets exercise in other places, though.

He definitely does. That’s what he always says. “I used to work out, so it carries through.” Three weeks after surgery, he would go to the gym with me and I’d walk on the treadmill at point two, but it felt good, just the fact that I could do it. That helped bring me back up to a better fitness level. Even though I couldn’t run, the pounding on my body didn’t feel great at the time, I was finding other things that were working better whether it’s with lifting weights or whatnot. That’s how spinning came along because I never thought I would step foot on a spin bike ever.

When I was ten, I was at my aunt’s house. My aunt helped write the spin instructor book like when people take the test. She’s into it. We had a workout bike back in the ‘90s. I was sitting on her spin bike, and I was, “This is like my mom’s.” The pedals weren’t locked or I was playing with it, I’m not sure but the pedals kept going and cut my leg. I was like, “I’ll never go near a spin bike again ever.” Finally, I guess I got over it. I went to some spin classes at the Y and found that, “This is feeling nice with my lungs. I’m able to do it even with my asthma but it’s not hard on my joints.” It felt good. That’s where I started and had a lot of issues but ended up with cycling being my main and favorite thing to do until now which I do a little bit of everything. That’s what Peloton is.

How do you think that your workout process has changed since Peloton has grown? What did it look like at the beginning compared to now?

I don’t know if you remember but back then, instead of PR badges, you did three workouts in a row. It was weird, instead of three days’ streak.

It was 72 hours. It was over hours because you could do three workouts in a row, even though it was over four days.

Trying to understand that, I would do my workouts to match this reward or whatever that may be. Also, at the time, I lived with a roommate and the bike was in the living room. She’s one of my best friends but she’ll be like, “You breathe hard when you’re on the bike.” I would then get anxious when she was home. I’m like, “I’ll do it later.” My consistency was a lot different. When I moved home in January of 2019, it started to get more consistent. All of a sudden, I realized, “I’ve had this bike for over a year and I haven’t even hit 250 rides. Who the heck am I? What am I doing?” I started going nuts. I would do warm-up, ride, cool down, strength, and toning. I would do absolutely everything a little too much.

In the summer of 2019, I house sat for friends of mine, and it was going to be nine weeks. I was like, “This is long enough and they live far enough that if I don’t bring my bike, I’m not going to touch it this summer.” I did. I got into a good routine of, “I have to be at work at 9:00, if I get up at 7:00, I can get a twenty-minute ride in and then work all day. Come home, do some stretching or yoga before bed.” It felt good. That’s when I started to get into a more overall routine of cycling, strength, and stacking those things before the stacks were a thing, and the little additions of the standing yoga or the meditations, I would do those things.

I don’t know if I’ve said it but I’m a professional photographer. I have a day job. I work at ESPN. I’m in the corporate world from Monday through Friday, but on the weekends, I still freelance and shoot weddings, whether it’s for myself or for other people. I drive pretty far. I’ve driven to the tip of Vermont, almost Canada, in a day. You get bored so I’ll put on a meditation to bring me back, energize me, or whatever that may be. Having those little options have changed the way that I do everything to do with Peloton.

You do a meditation while you’re driving?

Yeah. I would never do a sleep meditation.

The do-anywhere meditation.

They’ll say, “If you’re commuting, try to focus on something,” so I’ll just focus on the road.

Don’t close your eyes.

I was like, “This doesn’t sound right.”

He’s worried for your safety.

You’ve already had so many accidents during this conversation.

It’s the last thing I need.

The knee, asthma, you were attacked by a cat. You’re the first interview we end early for the safety of the guest.

You didn’t know you’re going to get a bonus tummy workout, didn’t you? I’m curious about the meditation. Whenever you do those, do you find that that helps with your ADD symptoms? Does that help you empty your mind?

Yes. There are some days where I’ll do it after our department meeting where we have 50 people in the meeting and you process all this information. You’re like, “I have a long to-do list, but I can’t stop thinking about that.” I’ll do something to recenter and then, “Where can I begin?” I find that to be helpful. Since moving home, my mom started to be like, “Tell me a little bit more about this Peloton.” She started to do it and she would do it pretty consistently.

It then was around the time of Peloton this summer of 2021, she was like, “What are these badges? I want more of these.” She joins the challenges and she was like, “The easiest way to do it is to do a meditation every day.” She likes to lay with a warm cloth on her eyes, she’ll put on a ten-minute, usually it’s either Chelsea or Aditi meditation and she’ll zen out. My dad was like, “Ten-minute nap? I’m in.” Now, they do it too. The meditations are big in our household, for sure.

I love the meditations.

The real question is, do they have a cat meditation?

We have pictures of him sitting on my mom’s lap and he’s completely zenned out. We call him Zen Ren.

You’ve got to do something to get that wildebeest under control.

Do you have a favorite content? You’re doing the bike, you’re doing the meditation, what is your favorite content to do at this point?

It’s been an interesting year. In 2020 with the pandemic, at first, the loss of structure blew my brain up. I could not handle it. I started having to do virtual therapy twice a week, because I was like, “Help. I couldn’t figure it out.” I would try to ride during the day. I feel like they were doing that at the beginning, they were trying to be there more. They were accommodating the schedule so that people could attend live rides on their lunch hour or whatever it may be. I was writing a ton, and doing more of that, but I was having a lot of issues with inflammation, like an autoimmune type of thing.

They couldn’t figure it out. The problem was moving helped, but too much was affecting me more. When I was riding or doing vigorous things, it was affecting me. It took me a while, but I found a decent balance of, “If I ride four days a week but maintain with some good yoga and outdoor walks, that definitely helps.” I got everything under control with a diet. I eat non-inflammatory foods, it’s boring sometimes, but I feel good so I don’t care.

I started that around November 2020, and at that time, I had recently become an ambassador for this foundation called Bright Pink. It’s a breast and ovarian cancer awareness foundation but they focus mainly on women between the ages of 18 and 40. It’s more about early detection, knowing your risk, and all of that sort of thing. I turned 30 in August 2020, and I will start imaging for breast cancer this 2021 because of my family history. That’s how I got involved with them.

I get monthly text reminders like, “Do your monthly exam. Make sure you’re on top of things.” In October, I always post something. There used to be a meme that would go around or something that was like, “Make sure that you mammogram your boobs if you’re going to Instagram them,” or something like that. I would add additional information of what I’m doing, and so I tagged Bright Pink, and they’re like, “Would you like to be an ambassador?” In the fall, around the time I got all my inflammation stuff under control, I attended a town hall for other ambassadors. They told us, “If you run for team Bright Pink in the Chicago Marathon, your registration is covered. There’s a training program that is covered, and you can do it all through us.” I was like, “Interesting.” At the same time, I was like, “Who said that? What is going on?”

At the beginning of 2021, when I got my cool down video, it was so many rides. Running, zero. That’s about right. Now, all of a sudden, I’m like, “Marathon. Interesting.” Something about it was triggering my mind. I’ve talked about this quite a bit but the fact that Bright Pink is focused on this younger age group and many women who are around my age, which is young, will do things like have preventative double mastectomies or hysterectomies and do these things that change your entire life. I thought, “Just because I’m not a runner doesn’t mean I can’t be a runner. I have Peloton. They have that whole program.”

This all went through my head in 45 minutes. Once I got off that ambassador call, I contacted my friend who turned 32, but when she was 29, she had breast cancer. I photographed her wedding. She was halfway through chemo treatments at her wedding. She ran the New York City Marathon. I was like, “If you can go through this and then run a marathon, do you think that this is something I could train for?” She was like, “Yes, do it. You’re going to do it.”

I Instagram messaged Rebecca Kennedy because I was like, “Who knows? Maybe she’ll answer.” If you respond to her story, she’ll respond back. She was like, “Absolutely, if you’re even thinking about it, you have plenty of time. You should do it.” The kind of content that I’ve gotten into in 2021 is different than in previous years because I’ve been doing a lot more outdoor running, standing strength work, and core work. I’m doing the Matty’s enCORE 28. All the new strength for runner’s content is nice. I live in Connecticut, the weather in the United States is ridiculous, but it’s been obnoxious here. There are not enough clear spaces to run. I don’t have a Tread+ yet. I’m working on it. I was like, “What am I going to do in this time where I can’t get outside?” I did. I tried. One day, there was no snow and then there was an inch of snow.

It can be dangerous to run.

Is it worth breaking a bone and putting myself out of commission for months?

Not with your history.

We’re going ahead and say no.

You should start a GoFundMe.

We need to get you a tread to prevent anything from happening to you.

Put a cat pin around it.

That’s a good idea, GoFundMe for the tread.

It’s because of my accident-prone history, I need a tread.

It will be one of those bad infomercials.

Whenever you get your tread, whatever you do, wear the little clip key thing. For a lot of people, it’s like, “That’s a thing. It’s a safety thing.” For you, that is mandatory, Danger-Prone Daphne.

With a mattress behind so when I go flying off, I bounce right back.

If you’re not going to wear one, be sure and film it because you could go viral. Those are always fun videos when they happen to other people.

The thing I decided to do was I retook my FTP test. I’m going to do the Power Zone program because I haven’t done it. I was taking Christine’s Endurance Ride, and I found myself getting bored. I hadn’t taken my medicine, but that’s what it is. It was the weekend. I was like, “If I plan to run 26.2 miles, I’m going to get bored quick. I should probably figure out a way to get with the mental portion of these endurance type of things.” For the winter with the weather, the way that it is, this will be a good way to do it. To do the Power Zone program having redone my FTP and see the strength grow from that way. As spring comes, I can get back outside on the road again.

Remind me of when the Chicago Marathon is, I can’t keep track.

It’s October 10th. Last I knew that’s when Boston was rescheduled too. There were a lot of unhappy marathon people, but I don’t know about that. All I know is October 10th, 2021, I’ll be in Chicago.

That’s great because that gives you a ton of time. It will be warm before you know it. The Power Zone is a great way to get your endurance up. The endurance runs, even if you take them outside, they’re amazing. A lot of those longer runs, and maybe you’ve taken them, I might be telling you something you already know. They will talk to you about preparing for a marathon and why you need to increase that mental strength and get better at those longer blocks of running. You are on the right page for what you need to do, that mental toughness. It’s a real thing. Also, make yourself an amazing playlist that you love. You’re going to need it.

Will they let her because when you did yours, you couldn’t wear headphones, right?

That was because I was at an Iron Man competition where you have biking and swimming, and they don’t allow music during those competitions.

Is it because of the transition?

The other thing is, they don’t want you out there in an open road with headphones in. It’s so competitive. There are many people out there. I believe, and don’t hold me to this, the Chicago Marathon, they do let you because it’s all runners and the streets are closed. It’s a lot safer than what I was doing from that standpoint. Triathlons are usually a lot stricter about the no headphones thing.

Twenty-six miles with no music. That would be brutal.

Also, I have a great class for you to take as you prepare for your marathon. There is a ton of great training but my favorite class is Robin’s. She does a thing where she goes through the New York City Marathon and it’s virtual. It’s like, “You’re at mile 14 now, and here’s what you’re going through.” It’s amazing, and the music is awesome. You feel like $1 million by the end of it.

I’ll look into that.

The New York City Marathon virtual thing she does is authentic because, at mile 17, you get mugged.

I know Becs did one too. I haven’t taken it. It might be just as awesome. I know the one Robin did, I’ve taken it three times because it’s my favorite running class.

That’s good because I’ve heard about Becs. I saw her Instagram Stories about it and heard from other people who have taken it, but I hadn’t heard about Robin. It’s good to know that there are probably two that are good.

There are a lot of great ones, but that one is my favorite to pump you up. That’s exciting. Are you raising money for this venture that you’re doing?

Yeah, that’s the only commitment that you have to make since they cover many things. You have to raise some money. The total is $2,000, which I didn’t think was too much. I was, “I can do that.” First of all, I come from a big family. I’m kidding. I was like, “That feels reasonable,” and the amount of time that I had to do it felt plenty. What I try to do is, after I do my runs, and I’m sure people are annoyed and I don’t honestly care. I will be like, “I do this whenever I run,” or post something like, “Great playlists Becs.” Whatever it may be, I constantly talk about it.

People will be like, “Do you have that link?” I have the link in my Instagram profile, or I’ll throw it up on my Facebook. Slowly, they’re coming in and I haven’t done too much promotion because that’s not who I am. I have to figure out the wording behind it so that it doesn’t feel like, “Please, help me.” Once training ramps up summer of 2021, because the program through Bright Pink will begin in June, I will start not advertising but moving forward with that.

That makes perfect sense. Who’s your favorite Peloton instructor in general? Do you have one?

That’s not fair. In 2020, on my cooldown, Christine was number one, but I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have a list of, “Christine was number one but here were your other top ones, or here’s how many classes you took with everybody.” I would say I frequent Jess King, Rebecca, Cody, Dr. Chelsea. Your interview with her was the highlight.

Isn’t she amazing?

She’s an angel.

What a bright light.

Matty, I love. There’s truly no one that I dislike. If they’re on the schedule and I have the time, like Jenn Sherman, I love. I love everybody for different reasons. You talk about it all the time. There’s a different instructor for every mood or for every workout. You can’t just pick one.

What is your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is #WontBackusDown.

I was going to recommend #CatAttack, but yours is good too. #CatAttackus?

It’s true, the cat did attack us.

It was a virtual attack. You don’t want to get Cat COVID.

It’s a good place for a shameless plug, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch cat attack. We’re branching out.

He always has to make an impression whatever meeting I’m on.

He’s back, brace yourself. Do you have any advice for people entering the world of Peloton?

Something that I always tell people is, “Just try the classes,” all of them and everybody. My mom was able to start riding, and I’m like, “I don’t love this person all the time if I’m in a happy mood, but you might like them.” Go through, take 10, 15-minute classes, get to know everybody. Don’t take certain kinds of classes with certain people until you know that’s the class that you appreciate them to be teaching.

Christine, especially for endurance rides, is good because of the way that she helps you change the chatter in your head. If you want something to fly by quickly, then I would take something with Cody because he’s going to make you laugh. He’s going to distract you from the clock counting down. Most of the time, what I tell people is without a doubt, you will find somebody in some workout that works for you and it will far exceed any experience you’ve had at the gym. Keep up with it. Keep working it out. Everything’s going to change. Who you like is going to change. The workouts that you do are going to change. Nothing stays stagnant, that’s the only thing that’s guaranteed.

All great advice. I approve.

We’ve done about ten of these where she didn’t approve, and we’ve never aired them.

We have to air the cat. Your cat stole the show.

You could have said something completely insane like, “I pick Peloton classes based on taste,” but there’s a cat attack. You’ve got to roll with it.

Maybe that’s why I like Christine because she always is posting cat content of her own cats. It’s this subconscious obsession with her cats.

Thank you to you and Ren for taking the time to join us. Before we go, where can people find you on social media if you would like to be found?

On Instagram, you can find me at @KellyGiggler. If you want to find me on Facebook, I’m in quite a few Peloton Facebook groups. My name is Kelly Anne Backus.

Where can we find Ren’s Instagram?

He is primarily featured on my own. After we end this, if you want to share your address, I can send you our Christmas card because he is the star of the show on that too.

We’re going to need that.

She will never say no to a cat picture or video.

Cute animals of any kind, I’m always happy.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us. We appreciate it.

Thank you, guys.

—

That’s it for this one. What pray tell do you have in store for people on the next episode?

Next episode, we are going to talk to Gayle Fine. I really am looking forward to this conversation all about music, pop culture and Peloton, our favorite things.

It was a lot of fun stuff.

Gayle is a hoot.

She’s very connected in the music industry. It’s a fun chat. 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 the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. Don’t forget, you can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Be sure to subscribe while you’re there. Sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. That’s it for this one. Thank you for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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