• Peloton appoints a new CMO – Leslie Berland.
• Peloton is testing milestone notifications for live classes.
• Peloton UK & Susie Chan will be at the National Running Show.
• With new limits on in-person class bookings, we now see what reaching your limit looks like.
• Peloton has live beginner classes this month.
• DR. JENN – Working out while working through grief.
• Alex Toussaint is writing a book!
• Jess King and Sophia Urista got married…two years ago!
• Daniel McKenna is holding an in-person workshop.
• Camila Ramon celebrated her 7^th wedding anniversary.
• Ash Pryor bench-pressed Adrian Williams.
• Instructors went out to celebrate Adrian Williams’ birthday.
• Emma Lovewell will be at SXSW with Katie Couric & Christy Turlington.
• Matt Wilpers partnered with Stich Fix.
• Emma Lovewell also partnered with Stitch Fix.
• Cody Rigsby was on the Chicks In The Office podcast.
• Cody threw shade at people who manipulate their rides for milestone shout-outs.
• Peloton instructor caught a showing of Aladdin on Broadway.
• Erik Jager celebrated 3-years with Peloton.
• Benny Adami brought his bestie to work.
• METPRO –  Angelo gives you a peek at a MetPro session with Crystal & Tom.
• The latest artist series features Kygo.
• NKOTB’s Joey McIntyre was in-studio for a class.
• Anya Adams (Episode 282) was at the TCA’s to promote Prom Pact.
• Mindy Scheier (Episode 290) will be speaking at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show.
• There’s a virtual Row Instructor event on January 31.
• There’s a new series for yoga beginners.
• Christine D’Ercole added an on-demand classical class.
• There’s a new “We Don’t Quit” challenge.
• Birthdays: Ben Alldis (1/22), Logan Aldridge (1/25)

All this plus our interview with Kirsten Beverley-Waters.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Alex Toussaint Is Writing A Book Plus Our Interview With Kirsten Beverley-Waters

I guess we should start by talking about we have another meetup coming up. You have a little bit more advanced notice on this one. You have no excuses.

We have fourteen and a half weeks.

Not that you’re counting because this is tied to your marathon.

It’s going to be tied to Big Sur. It’s not a marathon. I’m running 21 miles. For all of you out there that say, “That’s not quite a marathon,” that is true. It is not.

It’s tied to your marathon asterisk.

Let’s just say 21-miler.

We will be in California in the San Jose area come April. We’re going to have a meetup. We haven’t picked a place yet but that’s coming up. We have someone assisting us.

We do. Tim will be putting a poll out on The Clip Out group. Keep an eye out for that because there will be input needed for anyone who wants to come.

We don’t know where it will be, but we do know and we can guarantee you, they will have chicken wings, or they won’t have me. It will be one of the two.

That’s fair. Also, we do know San Jose, we do know the 28th, and we do know 4:00 to 6:00-ish.

It’s going to be more of a happy hour thing because we have to drive to Monterey. It’s about an hour and a half, we’ve been told. We will do it earlier in the evening so then we can drive.

Ask off now. Take the afternoon off. Come and drink with us. It will be amazing. It will be so much fun. I’m very excited. I can’t wait.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

I want to start with our interview with Kirsten Beverly-Waters. She is joining us. That name might sound familiar because Kirsten did an amazing thing 22 times. Kirsten broke the world record for the most number of consecutive 50Ks.

It’s like one a day for 22 days. I get winded just saying that.

You need to listen to the interview later and find out why Kirsten did that so you can understand where they are coming from. It’s an amazing story. I’m so excited to be able to share it.

Topic-wise, we’ve got all sorts of updates from the world of Peloton.

Peloton is coming in hot with a new chief marketing officer. There are a bunch of updates on instructors with everything going on. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn for a very special topic, working out while working through grief. There are more updates on things happening in the Pelo world. We have a visit from. MetPro/Angelo.

This is an interesting one. I mean it’s an interesting one every week, but it’s a little different because we thought we’d give you a window into what it’s like to have a session with a MetPro coach. Angelo goes through a weekly update with me and Crystal.

Have you ever wondered how much I weigh? You get to find out.

If you hate spin classes, it might just be because of bad instructors. Share on X

Same with me. I get guilted into saying how much I weigh. It’s not guilt, it’s more an act of solidarity. Shameless plugs, before we get to all that. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. Hello, Overcast listeners. While you’re there, follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’s super helpful for the people that come along after you so they know that we’re worth checking out. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. If you are so inclined, maybe share an episode on your social media stream. That’s super helpful to us as well.

If you like Peloton, chances are you have friends or loved ones that also like Peloton. You make them aware that, “Here’s a thing that’s out there,” so you can hear people talk about Peloton, and not bore your non-Peloton friends. You can also find us on Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut, where you can get ad-free episodes. You will get them a little bit earlier. When we have them early, you get them early. You also get bonus content by doing that. Finally, don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch these episodes in beautiful HD. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

Peloton appointed a new chief marketing officer.

Coming in hot with the hire, Peloton. I love it. Leslie Berland was the chief marketing officer over at Twitter. Before that, she was the Head of People from 2017 to 2021. She did a lot of things over there. Now she is at Peloton.

She is a great hire based on her resume. Obviously, we don’t know her.

She’s won awards. She’s amazing.

We’ve won awards. That could mean anything.

We’re amazing. At least some people think we’re amazing.

Especially Twitter right now is a bit of a dumpster fire. They’re literally auctioning off their office supplies online. They are auctioning off a neon Twitter bird. My larger point is there was great staff over there that found themselves unemployed. Based on that pedigree, this seems like a great acquisition.

It absolutely does. Good for Peloton for scooping her up while the scooping opportunity was there. We’re very excited to see what is up her sleeve.

Peloton has been testing milestone notifications for live classes.

It’s important that we point out that it’s live classes because if one more person says to me, “I already had this,” I know. Read the comments. It is new because it’s in live classes. That’s why you’re going to start seeing things like 2,000th ride, not 8th ride or 3rd day in a row. It’s a much bigger milestone. Reportedly, there was a live class that Cody did, and there were hundreds of these that went down the leaderboard.

People are already like, “We are begging you. Please put a filter on this. We need a filter,” because it takes up your whole feed. I understand. Do you know how I understand? Do you know how I’ve explained about my stalker? That’s how I feel. It keeps going the whole time I’m trying to ride. You can’t ignore it because it’s scrolling by. I get it, but in general though, if you wanted to quickly give people a high-five, this is a great way to do it. Imagine you’re an instructor. This is how they feel.

I was thinking this has to be a window into what it looks like for an instructor. They probably have a version of this so they know who to shout out.

They have had a version of this for a long time. Now, theirs shows up in the leaderboard so they can see it as they’re looking at the leaderboard. I know you don’t ride Tom so I’m giving you a little bit of info. This shows up on the rider’s left side of the screen. This is where you get your high-fives. On the right side of the screen is where you have your leaderboard. What people are already asking for is, “Can we have it on the leaderboard maybe with a different color so that we know that it’s there?” I think people are missing that this is new. It’s probably going to be a while before we get to change it.

They’re testing it. Maybe it will change because this is just something somebody saw and sent to us. Maybe there’s another version of this out there.

There could be. This is only in live classes and we are only seeing it on the bike. We are not seeing this yet on the tread or the rower, but there are no live classes on the rower yet. I think I got all of my caveats. Got some sticklers out there.

Peloton UK is going to be at the National Running Show.

 

This is going to be at the NEC Birmingham. Susie Chan is going to be hosting and talking about all things running. You can book your tickets. Everyone who gets to go is so lucky. Susie Chan is my girl. I love her so much and I’m so excited she gets to do this. Apparently, it’s not the first time she has hosted. It’s pretty exciting for everyone.

I feel like we’ve talked about this before. It’s an annual thing, not like we forgot about it. I guess it’s only the National Running Show for our UK audience. For everyone else, it’s the International Running Show.

Maybe someday we’ll get to go. That would be amazing. I would love to meet Susie.

In the previous episode, we talked about the new rules for booking in-studio classes. Since then we’ve seen a sample of what it looks like when you reach your limit.

Peloton was nice enough to send over a screenshot. We know that at the top, it’s going to say, “You are registered for the maximum number of classes for this week. Try a later week.”

I think they did this in response to my reporting that it was going to be Robin Arzón waving her finger at you. They were like, “We can’t,” but they should switch to that. You get a gif. It’s like you can say something else and enjoy being wrong.

I am excited about this. We’re recording on Wednesdays like we always do. This officially starts tomorrow. I am curious to hear how it goes because we’re now seeing a totally different booking process. We know that this is for classes in February, so we’re going to be able to see a larger booking window because that’s when the booking window now begins. It’s in February. Good luck to everyone at noon eastern. You will have already done it by the time this is published, but I’m excited to hear how it went for people.

I’m sure they will complain. It’s tradition.

There are going to be some people that are excited. There are going to be some people that are like, “That was much better.” That’s going to happen.

Anyone who doesn’t get in is going to be like, “This doesn’t work.”

Let me be clear. It’s never going to be enough. There’s never going to be enough supply to match the demand. We all need to wrap our heads around it. It’s always going to be tough.

It’s like a Taylor Swift ticket.

It’s actually harder than a Taylor Swift ticket.

Peloton will have live beginner classes in January 2023.

Not only will they be doing that but part of the exciting thing is Peloton has put out a video that showed instructors talking about they were going to be doing these live beginner classes. Everyone got very excited because Ash Pryor is in this video. Ash Pryor teaches rowing. That means rower classes are coming. We’re going to have them live.

They should have her do a strength class to mess with people.

People would lose their sh*t.

That would be great. It’d be so funny. Leslie Berland, you should listen to that idea. Have her do a strength class to piss people off.

It’s day two for Leslie. Let’s wait for the high jinx. Save it until April 1st.

At the end of the class, she can pop up and be like, “Hi, I’m Leslie. This is my idea.”

Anytime you can reach a larger audience to get them moving is a wonderful idea. Share on X

That would be amazing.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn about working out while working through grief.

—

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 VH-1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn or her long-running radio show, the Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

I have a question that is going to call on the psychology side of things and the sports psychology side of things. It’s a toughie. This is from Karen, and she did say I could use her name. She says she has a question for Dr. Jenn. Her wife died at 55 four months ago after a year-long battle with esophageal cancer. I am so sorry for you, Karen. Karen was her caretaker and she did hospice at home, and Karen watched her die.

She’s 49 and a widow. She’s brokenhearted and deeply mourning. She forces herself to workout because she’s happiest when she’s in motion. As someone who has had clinical depression in the past, she forces herself to workout every other day, yet some days are much more difficult for her to handle and she struggles in her workouts. She’s afraid to not push herself for fear of getting depressed. Most days she’s exhausted because all of her brain power seems to be going into the morning process. How can she know when it’s okay to let her body rest as a form of self-care during this difficult time versus when it’s okay to push through it? Karen in Maine.

First of all, Karen, my heart goes out to you. You have my deepest condolences. I’m so sorry that you had this terrible loss. It sounds like you are already predisposed to depression anyway. Now to go through this, there is a normal healthy grieving process that you have to go through. On the positive side in terms of your own mental health, it’s great that you realize that exercise and movement are helping you. That’s fantastic. It’s important for you to think of the movement as medicine.

Regarding when to know when it’s time to say, “I’m out. I can’t do this today,” versus when you should push yourself because you know that the movement is helping you. What I would recommend is to commit to doing something for five minutes because sometimes just getting your clothes on is the hard part, or walking yourself into whatever room you have your Peloton or your yoga mat. I would start with something gentle.

Maybe commit to those days when it’s feeling so hard. Do a 5-minute stretch class or a 5-minute yoga class, and then see where that takes you. Sometimes once you start, it takes you down the Peloton rabbit hole and good things happen. When you finish that class, they suggest another class. You’re like, “You know what? I think I will do that 10-minute class. I will try that 20-minute class,” and that can help you. It’s important that exercise is not your only therapy. I’m hoping that you’re already doing the things I’m going to suggest, but just in case, I’m putting them out there.

Individual psychotherapy is super important right now. If you have a history of clinical depression, meet with a psychiatrist to see if meds are appropriate for you or if your depression is so bad that you are struggling to get out of bed. Sometimes we get so depressed that we can’t do the work we need to do to work through the grieving and participate in the grieving process. That’s really important.

The other thing is I would recommend joining grief and loss support. There are a lot of amazing grief and loss groups. There’s something about being in a room with other people, especially young widows like you that is helpful to know that you are not alone. You can feel especially alone when you lose a partner. Make sure that you are surrounding yourself with the support system that you’re asking for help.

My best friend’s husband died when she was in her mid-30s. She was a very young widow as well. I remember when I said to her, “Do you want me to get on a plane right now?” She said to me, “In two weeks everyone will disappear. Right now everyone is surrounding me, but people go back to their lives.” That’s what tends to happen so it’s going to be important for you to make plans for yourself, reach out to friends, and let people know what you need. Sometimes you may think, “I just need to be alone,” when in fact you may need the support and the love of the people who are closest to you who you can cry with and talk with, and who also have memories of your wife.

It’s smart when your friend was like, “How about you wait two weeks?” That is so true. I remember when my mother died, everybody was there in the first 3 or 4 days, and then everyone goes home. I know that’s drastically different from losing a spouse. Of course, losing a parent especially as an adult is sad, but it’s the order of things. To lose a spouse, especially young, is a much different thing. I had people at home when I went home, but a widow or widower does not.

We went for lots of walks. I showed up with DVDs of Sex in the City. We watched season after season. She had no appetite and I would take her out and feed her. Many years later when she is healed and has moved on in her life, which at the time she probably thought she never would, we look back on that and we have these wonderful memories of sharing that grieving process together and going through it, and that closeness and that bond.

I want to encourage Karen to bring in whoever close friend she has near her. A lot of the time, I have a lot of friends that are very type A. They’re like, “I’m fine. It’s okay. I will get through it. I will just white knuckle it.” Don’t do that here. You will mess up with your grieving process if you don’t allow yourself to get that support and let it out.

You’re absolutely right. That very thing is difficult for me. Karen, listen to Dr. Jenn. If there’s any way Tom and I can help you, we will do it.

I’m also now fascinated by the idea of watching Sex in the City with Dr. Jenn.

I can never watch it too much. I am happy to watch with you guys anytime.

I feel like her take on that show would be fascinating. “No, that’s not what you should be doing. Yes, but not like that.”

 

Thank you for the great advice for Karen. We appreciate it.

Until next time, where can people find you?

You can find me on all social media @DrJennMann. You can also find my Peloton workouts on my Insta story. I try to post them daily. Sometimes I lag behind but I’m always trying.

Thank you.

—

We have another instructor making a foray into the world of authorship.

Alex Toussaint wrote a book. It will be released, right now they are saying October 10th, 2023. I say right now because these things shift sometimes.

As we saw with David Miller’s book.

It shifted a lot. It’s ready for pre-order so you can go ahead and do that. If you do pre-order it and it releases on time, you will have it in your home if you order it through Amazon on October 10th. Be sure and do that. This is all about Alex’s history and how he got to Peloton, but it’s also a motivational guide for people that are looking to up their game, so guide to greatness.

I think you will see more and more of this. Tunde’s book did so well. I’m sure the publishing world takes notice. Jess King got married…two years ago.

She got married to Sophia. They quietly got married in March 2021. People had told me before that Jess had referred to Sophia as her wife. Two things about that. One, that happens every once in a while when you’re not wanting people to know about it, but also people often refer to their significant other as wife or husband even if they’re not officially married.

If they’ve been together for a long time. We were together for two years before we finally got married, and you would call me your wife sometimes.

I totally did that. They had the ceremony on March 2021. This is all from Jess’s reel. This is not me coming up with my own scenario. These are facts that she shared on Instagram. In the video, Jess said that they had gotten married quietly in the middle of the pandemic. They had always thought that when the pandemic is over, they will have this grand ceremony. Since then, having the baby, having a new house that they’re still working on and designing and getting ready, that they’re going to be living in, it’s not as important right now. They’re happy with what they have.

If they change their mind, I’m not disparaging them. I would think they’re like, “We will have a big ceremony later,” and then all of a sudden it’s been two years and you’re like, “That seems a little weird.” It’s like, “Do you know we’ve been married for five years? You should come to our wedding.”

This is a great opportunity to do a vow renewal at a later date if they do want to do that. That seems like a good opportunity to do that, and still be able to celebrate with everybody. Knowing Jess, she’s going to put her own spin on it and do whatever she wants because that’s what she does. I thought that was pretty cool. You can read the comments for your own amusement, to the people that like to argue with me. That all came from Jess. Not a word of that was my interpretation. Congrats to Jess and Sophia two years later.

Daniel McKenna is doing a weekend workshop on February 11th and 12th, where you can workout with him live and in person in New York City.

Just to be clear, they’re already sold out. If you didn’t buy it, you can’t.

Good for him. He’s got a fan base and so that’s a great way to monetize it.

It will be interesting to see how many of these occur. I will be watching. If anybody goes, let us know. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Camila Ramón had a post celebrating her seventh wedding anniversary.

During COVID, every 45 seconds, an LGBTQ youth between the age of 13 and 24 would either consider or attempt suicide. Share on X

She’s been married and calls her husband her best friend, which I love. They seem like they have a lot of fun together.

Earlier I was saying that you could have Ash Pryor do a strength class just to mess with people thinking they were going to get a rowing class. She would be more than capable because she squatted Adrian Williams. Not out squatted him. She literally picked him up.

She picked him up. Put him on her back and squatted him. That was amazing because Adrian is not a small man. He’s tall. I stood next to him and I was like, hello? She’s a very strong lady. Do not mess with Ash Pryor because she can squat you, and then she will throw you across the room if you make her mad.

If she can squat you, she can throw you. Those are words to live by. Take note.

I love seeing the rowing team has so much fun together.

Speaking of Adrian Williams, it was his birthday. A bunch of Peloton instructors went out and celebrated.

They had a nice big night out. I wanted to make sure that we share the photos. There were lots of them from the instructors, but this one came up first, so it’s the one I snagged.

Emma Lovewell will be part of South by Southwest.

She sure will, alongside Katie Couric and Christy Turlington. That’s not bad. That’s going to be March 11th and 12th in Austin, Texas. It’s part of SHE Media.

Matt Wilpers has partnered up with Stitch Fix.

Isn’t this fascinating?

The lesson I have here is Stitch Fix has pants for short people. I say that as a short person. I’m not calling out Matt Wilpers.

You and Matt were the same height.

Roughly, so we get confused all the time. It’s hard to find pants that fit. Duly noted, Stitch Fix.

I didn’t know you could do Stitch Fix men.

I knew that was out there.

I know. I’m teasing. You could have been doing that the whole time. Anyway, that is pretty exciting for Matt. Congrats.

Speaking of Stitch Fix, this is not a commercial for people listening on Patreon. We’re not going to give you a promo code at the end. This is an instructor thing. Don’t get mad at us. Emma Lovewell also partnered with Stitch Fix. I didn’t know you could do Stitch Fix for women.

Do you know what’s surprising? It was around long before men. They have winter essentials, and Emma has a whole shop. You can go and get her curated picks from her shop at StitchFix.com/EmmaLovewell. That has nothing to do with our link. It’s still not an ad. Congrats Emma as well.

I guess it is. That’s why they partner with instructors.

 

There’s a whole bunch of people that want to partner with instructors, and the instructors will continue to do that because it is revenue outside of what they make at Peloton.

I don’t begrudge them for this at all.

I know you don’t, but there are people that do. I am pointing this out again because I want to remind people, they’re only young for so long. There might be a day they don’t want to do Peloton anymore, and so they got to make that cash while they can make that cash. They can get in there and do it.

As I say to people who are upset by things like this, grow up. It’s how the world works. I’m sorry that you don’t like the world, but it’s not going to change for you. I feel like I’m talking to the children now. Cody Rigsby was on an episode of Chicks in the Office, which is a podcast. He was discussing Britney Spears because he has two settings, Peloton and Britney Spears.

Also, apparently hating Taylor Swift.

He might have dialed that back.

I have no idea if he did or not.

Speaking of Cody, he was throwing some shade at people who like to play games to get milestone shout-outs.

He’s like, “Peloton community meeting. First order of business.”

It’s like he’s lip-syncing a quote from a movie. He’s like, “Even the weakest of us,” as he whips his head at someone else in the meeting.

“Members that delete rides to scam multiple milestone shout-outs. Look at you.”

I thought this was great because so many people are frustrated by that. I know that there’s only so much they can do and they have so many people that are potentially trying it. It’s hard to weed them out with 100% accuracy.

Just so everybody knows, and I feel like a lot of people will remember this, Cody has called people out on rides for doing that when he caught them. He’s like, “I saw you yesterday. Nice try.” He will do that and good.

It’s not fair. There are so many people that would love a shout-out at this point. It’s hard to get one. I’m surprised they don’t have some sort of system. The people in the production room just start marking people like, “You got one.” It’s like when you’re caller 10 at a radio station and they tell you that you can’t win again for 30 days.” I’m surprised they don’t have a way.

At the moment they don’t because they delete the ride.

I would think there would be a way to mark that user overall like, “You don’t get another milestone shout-out for 30 days regardless.” It’s like the blackout period isn’t tied to your milestone number. It’s tied to your account name.

What I’m saying is I have no idea how you do that when you have all these clicks. That means somebody has to manually track every single freaking shout-out, and they do 50 in a ride. That seems impossible.

If anyone in the production team is tuning in, they’re like, “Shut up.”

They’re like, “Tom, that’s a lot of extra work for somebody.” You don’t even know how half of them are spelled because the instructor is pronouncing them to the best of their ability. They’re all cut up now. It’s not like Cody123.

It could be like Cody Loves Chocolate and some people spelled it L-O-V-E-S, and some people, L- U-V-S. A bunch of instructors went out on town and caught a showing of Aladdin on Broadway.

Peloton can really help connect you with a lot of people from other states who can come out and support you. Share on X

Aditi posted about this. It was a ton of instructors. They said it was the instructors’ Broadway night, which I love.

It’s interesting that of all the plays on Broadway, they picked Aladdin.

It looks like somebody from the Disney on Broadway team gifted this to the instructors because it says thank you to that person and the whole team for making this happen. That’s just my interpretation.

That makes a little more sense. Not that there’s anything wrong with Aladdin. We’ve seen Aladdin.

It’s a great show.

It’s a perennial show on Broadway, so I figured if you wanted to see it and you lived in New York, you probably have by now. It’s been running for a decade.

I have a feeling that there’s probably something here with all the people that the instructors know on Broadway. Not to mention the Disney tie-in because Peloton has done a lot with Disney in the last few years. I don’t know where the connection came from, but I’m guessing it was a connection of some kind that made that happen.

Erik Jäger had an Instagram post celebrating his third year at Peloton.

He celebrated his premier ride on 1/14 of 2020 just before the insanity of the pandemic. Look at all those pictures with everybody together. Everyone was sitting next to each other.

“You’re a monster. Why would you do that?” Now, we can do anything so it’s okay.

We’re back now. Anyway, it’s cool to see that he’s here three years later. It’s hard to believe. I swear the pandemic stole some time because I still feel like that was yesterday.

It does feel that way. Benny Adami was celebrating Bring Your Bestie To Work Day.

I think that Benny has a great sense of humor. He decided to bring an autographed picture of a woman. I have no idea who she is. She is a German actress. That much I know. The thing is it’s hilarious. He took an autographed picture to the studio and did a reel of spending the entire day with her. He talks about how they had coffee and a break time. They had this deep conversation. All of the other instructors posed for pictures with her.

She was like a Flat Stanley kind of a thing.

I thought it was so creative and so fun. Even though I am not familiar with this actress, I know that she’s a big deal in Germany. I wanted to share it with everybody because it’s hilarious.

Coming up after this, you get a peak behind the MetPro scenes as Angelo does a session update with myself and Crystal. Stick around.

—

Joining us from MetPro is Angelo here to answer all of your fitness and nutrition questions, except for this episode, he’s not going to do that.

We’re not doing that.

We’re going to put Angelo on the spot. Angelo, we were thinking that since we already had you on the phone, maybe we could do our coaching session now. How does that sound?

 

Let’s do it.

This could be good insight for people who are wondering what it’s like when you’re interacting with your coach. This is sort of one-on-one stuff.

Uncut and unfiltered. You are brave souls. Let’s do this.

Full transparency for the audience. The last couple of weeks has been a little scary with the food because we’ve been out of town.

The holidays were rolling out. We were actually good through Christmas.

We were and then we went into New Year’s. We were pretty good. We’ve had some ups and downs because we went out of town to go visit my parents. We had Christmas with them but it was before New Year’s, then we got back to right where we had been and then we had to go to Norwalk. Kids had to go do a college visit kids, and then we did a Peloton meetup at this place called, O’Neills in Norwalk. I was good the first night we ate there, but the second night we ate there, I was not good.

It was good, but we were not.

Having said all of that, I am up about where I was before Christmas. I’m above 160 at this point. I’m putting it out there. People can judge me or whatever.

You guys are doing just fine. I did review your numbers, but not in preparation for this. I didn’t know we were going to do this, but I am prepared. I will comment on this for the audience. Believe it or not, it’s common to make it through the occasion, vacation, holiday or weekend fairly unscathed, and then the week after run into trouble. This is what happened to you guys. You ended up chaining trips back to back. Life happens, but for a lot of people what happens is twofold. One is mentally and emotionally, they’ve been hanging on to behave, at least hold their ground through a travel, vacation, holiday or whatever, and then get back.

We let our hair down come Monday’s free day. We’re not thinking about, “I’m on the other side,” and then you’re catching up on all your to-dos and you’re busy. Because you’ve been out of town or you’ve been eating out or you’ve been at the family’s house, your fridge is bare. You don’t have your food prepped. What often will happen is you make it through the weekend and then on Monday and Tuesday, you ran out of food so you ended up getting something on the go, two days back to back. That’s where we run into troubles.

For you guys, Crystal, you said you are over 160. You’re up a few pounds. That’s normal. It happens this time of year during vacations. I know what phase you’re on and where your intake is at. What we’re going to do right now is we’re not going to change your meal plan. You’re going to drop about half of the weight that you regained and simply get back on track. I know you’ve kept your running, your Peloton, your Tonal, and everything that you’ve been doing all intact.

We’re going to just reintegrate with you at the same intake level. Your case is going to be different from Tom’s, knowing your metabolism quite well at this point. You are going to drop back down probably 60% of what you popped up, then we’re going to have to push the last little bit back off. What we will do is probably a brief cut. Because I know you have that run coming up in a few weeks, we will probably execute what we call a zigzag versus an actual down-adjust cycle.

A down-adjust cycle would be a few weeks. We will probably end up executing something for a few days because it will be adequate for you to get you back to your low, and then we’re going to hold you there as we gradually go into a performance cycle leading up to your events. About five weeks out, we will have you at your highest intake, and then we’re going to go into another cut.

It’s about fifteen weeks out, just to give you that heads up because I know you have a lot.

I was thinking five. We will probably have time to do another cutting cycle if need be. We will see how low we get with you getting right back on track. Meal timing is going to be critical. Always air for earlier in the day. If you’re like, “I could either have my snack a little earlier or a little later,” go earlier. Make sure you’re getting adequate hydration. You know the drill. Within about 72 hours, you’re going to drop right back down. If you don’t get all the way, we will instigate a zigzag, and then we will decide probably at end of the next 7 to 10 days if we want to go into a cutting cycle or just do a slower ramp-up. We will reserve that decision to watch your numbers over the next few days.

That’s perfect. Thank you.

For Tom, it’s going to be a little bit different because we were already at a little higher intake. You’re not going to have to do it. You’re just going to go into a cutting phase. The meal plan you’re on now will be enough to do that even at your higher intake because I know where your metabolism is. We’re going to ride this out until you stop losing weight.

Knowing where your numbers are, I’m estimating that you’re going to lose 4 pounds, probably a couple of pounds real fast, and then you will bounce up and down for a couple of days, and then drop another couple, then you will level off. You won’t drop further because we know where your numbers and your intake are. In your case, we are going to manipulate some carbohydrates. I would estimate that that next cut, if we’re behaving and if you’re clean, probably a week to ten days out is when we will need to hit that. Does that make sense to you?

I feel like I should say my weight because Crystal said hers. I feel like everyone is waiting, no pun intended. The woman said her weight, which she is much more guarded about it.

If I get one nasty message, I’m blocking you.

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Good for you, Crystal.

I was 183.5 for those who keep the score at home. I don’t care if people know or not, but I felt like in an act of solidarity, I should say my weight as well.

That’s a good spot, all things considered, coming off of the holidays and travel. We know how your body is going to respond. You’re going to drop right back down. For everyone here, this is completely normal. I tell this story frequently, especially when people have a larger weight-loss goal. When somebody has 70 to 100-plus pounds that they want to take off, I have worked with a multitude of individuals who have lost over 60 to 70 pounds, and a handful that has lost over 100. There are not as many people out there saying, “I legit have 100 to drop.”

In every single case where that type of weight has been dropped, there has always been at least one season where some weight was gained back in the process. I have been doing this for twenty years. I have never seen it where someone is like, “I lost 8 pounds the first month, and then it was 5 pounds a month, and I did that straight for 13 months, and then I was at my goal weight.” It never works that way because we are human beings living real human life. Life doesn’t hand it to you that way.

It’s like you always say. Sometimes people think that this is just about lose, lose, lose. You’re still supposed to enjoy yourself and food is part of enjoying yourself and that’s okay. Coming off the holidays, I went up 5 pounds. I don’t feel bad about that at all.

Tom and I compare it to where we were last year and at this time of the year. A big thing that has shifted for us is we’re much better at getting back into things. There would be time periods when we were like, “Three weeks at a time. Whatever.”

It was like Requiem for A Dream but instead of heroin, it was food.

This year, it was like there would be a couple of days of that and we’d get back in. I know that may not sound like a huge shift, but mentally, that’s huge.

Metabolically, here’s the truth. Unfortunately, this isn’t presented as candidly in literature, the media, and the news as it needs to be of how metabolism actually works. Before you guys went into this season long before, we knew we were going to acclimate your condition and your metabolism up. You can condition your metabolism up. All of the research shows that the greatest indicator of metabolic pace is going to be your total overall intake.

The mistake people make is knowing that something is coming around the corner where they’re not going to necessarily be on a stricter protocol or watching what they eat. They will go into it dieting harder or cutting harder, and then the body biologically, your body is now in a state where it wants to superimpose glycogen stores into your muscles and hold extra sugar. What will happen is that’s where you gain that rapid rate of weight.

Weight loss, a preferred reference is body composition shifts, is a combination of knowing when to sprint and push for a cutting cycle and when to focus on winning not just the battle but the war by speeding up your metabolism. Now here’s a painful truth. You don’t get to do both at the same time. If even in a perfectly executed scenario where you are in a state of weight loss, your metabolic rate is slowing down. I know that is crushing to consider, but it is the truth.

We can manage that because when we go through these cycles, we prepare your body by speeding it back up and giving your metabolism a reprieve from aggressive cutting, your metabolic rate will rebound right back up. It’s the same mechanic. We always think of that stubborn effect of, “When I cut, I lose weight but then I plateau.” The switch is when you eat more, you gain some weight, but you don’t just keep gaining. You’re gaining and your metabolic rate rises. When we harness that and we plan for that, that’s how we get great long-term results beyond the short-term cutting cycles.

All very good information.

If people would like a session like this for themselves for their own fitness goals, where can they find you?

—

The latest artist series features Kygo. He’s either an artist I’ve never heard of or he’s a radio station west of the Mississippi.

He is an artist we’ve never heard of. We are not the demo, but a lot of people are very excited about this. It’s tropical house music.

You’re going to love it if you know. If you don’t, just try it. You might like it.

 

Tropical house music. I am moderately intrigued.

If you are moderately intrigued, you should take a class with Ben Alldis, Marcel, Erik Jäger, Joslyn Thompson Rule, Aditi, or Adrian Williams.

Duly noted.

—

We had a celebrity sighting in the studio and it wasn’t part of a giant promotion like when Usher or Lizzo showed up. They’re just there using the bike like you and me.

It just happened to be Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block. I am not a boy band fan, but this still would have been pretty cool to see.

Do you think he signed up or do you think someone got him in? I think he just signed up and here’s why I say that. He would have a better bike.

I don’t know. He’s in the front row.

He’s not in the bike that’s super easy to see. It’s dark on him.

He may not have wanted it. I don’t know how it went down. I tend to agree with you because it says that he was celebrating, and he happened to have some performances in Carnegie Hall. He stopped by and celebrate his 50th birthday. New Kids on the Block and he’s 50? He was the young one in the group. How did that happen?

I didn’t realize they were the same age as me. I remember when I was in college playing them at parties and stuff, but I didn’t realize that we were basically the same age.

He took one of Robin’s classes. It was her Pop Punk ride. If you missed it, you can still take it. Another reason I do not think that this was all staged in any way, shape or form is there were no New Kids on the Block songs played, which tells me Peloton does not have a deal with them in place. They do not have a licensing agreement. In all seriousness, people were complaining about this, so I feel like it needs to be addressed.

He’s taking a class. He probably doesn’t want to hear one of his own songs. I remember when I would talk to Peter Tork, there were times we were having conversations. He couldn’t remember from which album songs were on. He would literally do a radio interview and turn to me and be like, “Which album was that song on?” I would tell him and he was like, “I didn’t listen to them. We would go to a studio. We would record a bunch of songs, and then they would decide which ones make the records. I didn’t listen to the records.” He’s like, “1967? I’m not listening to Headquarters. I’m listening to Sgt Peppers and Pet Sounds.”

I love the honesty. The great late Peter Tork. I can understand. It’s not at all the same, but I don’t re-listen to these episodes.

I’m barely listening now.

I know. I’m very well aware.

—

Past guest updates, Andrea Barber lost her sh*t with the last thing we just talked about.

She was so excited. You have to remember, she is a huge New Kids on the Block fan. She interacts with them on Twitter all the time. She was so excited when she saw that he was in the studio. She said she screamed, and there were screaming-face emojis. She sent me three of them. She was so excited. I love it so much.

We have other past guest updates. Anya Adams, episode 282. She is a director. She directed lots of episodes of Black-ish and so many things. She talked about working on a project for Disney called Prom Pact. She was at the TCA, the Television Critics Association, where they unveil all the new shows. If you’ve been seeing lots of stories about new TV shows like Night Court and stuff like that, it’s because this event is going on. She was there promoting Prom Pact.

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Congratulations to Anya.

That’s going to be on Disney+ if you want to keep an eye out for that.

I do because whenever she was talking about it, I definitely wanted to watch it.

Also, past guest Mindy Scheier from Runway of Dreams, episode 290, was at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show. She was a speaker there.

I just want to say that the reason this is a big deal is because her mission is to bring people up to speed with the adaptive category. Being able to be at the Retail’s Big Show and talk to people about how important inclusivity is, that’s a huge deal. I’m so glad that she was able to do that. Mindy was a delight to have on the show.

—

There’s going to be a virtual rowing event for people.

I’m super excited. That’s on January 31st. It’s going to be a Meet Your Row Instructors virtual event. You’re going to kick off the year with motivation. You can submit questions ahead of time. You can register to get a reminder about the event. The part that I’m most excited about is the fact that in my mind, this means we’re close. This means the live classes are almost here. That’s what that means. They would not be doing this if it didn’t mean that. This is all a lead-up. Ash Pryor, Alex Karwoski, and Katie Wang are going to be there. Adrian Williams is the host of the event. I did submit a question. I can’t wait to see if it gets asked. I am excited to attend this event.

We also have some beginner yoga classes happening for people.

It’s not just a class. This is a program. The reason it’s so exciting is it’s a German program. It’s the first beginner yoga program that’s going to be entirely in German. If you haven’t had a chance to take classes with Nico, this is a great opportunity to do so.

If there’s anything that I think helps bring people peace internally, it’s the German spoken word.

Yoga will bring the tone down.

I guess if you’re German, it doesn’t sound like that too.

I’m sure we sound like that to Germans.

We all sound like cowboys to them. It’s funny whenever you see on English TV shows and someone was doing the American accent, it’s almost always a country accent.

Their go-to is not like the northeast or the south. This is a funny side note. When we landed in Boston a couple of weeks ago, I asked somebody at the airport for directions to get to the car place. The guy started talking with a Boston accent. I was like, “We’re in Boston.”

We were in Boston for ten minutes. We’re getting a car and we’re driving to Connecticut. All of a sudden, somebody starts talking and Boston falls out. We’re like, ”We are in Boston.” In my head, we weren’t, but my body is definitely in Boston as is this man’s mouth.

He was super nice. He gave very good directions.

There’s also a We Don’t Quit challenge coming up, which I am taking part in. I quit. I did it.

We don’t quit. That is how that works.

To me, that is the challenge. It’s like, “Are you telling me I can’t do that? I can absolutely do that.”

 

That’s why you don’t join challenges on Peloton. You know that January 12th is called Quitter’s Day. This challenge is the polar opposite of that. You keep going for the week after it. You have to work out at least seven-plus days between January 16th and the 23rd, and you get your badge. Make sure you do that because you’re already going to be working out at that time anyway. Get your blue dot and you’re all set.

—

We have two birthdays. Ben Alldis, who is celebrating a birthday on January 22nd, and Logan Aldridge, who’s celebrating a birthday on January 25th.

Happy birthday, Ben and Logan. That’s so fun.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to KB Waters all about 22 consecutive days of 50K runs.

Kirsten also goes by KB on some of her socials. You can call Kirsten either. At one point, we called her Kirsten. At another point, we’re calling her KB.

—

Joining us is Kirsten Beverley-Waters. How’s it going?

It’s going great. I’m glad to be here.

Before we find out some more about you, I’d like to start with Peloton and how you originally found it. When was that in the whole scheme of the timeline of your life?

It’s about three and a half years ago. It started with me looking for a bike for my wife. My wife enjoyed spin classes. In the gym that we were at, people love to go “sweat out” their sickness. Anytime we would go to spin classes, we would end up sick. I was like, “We need to find something to bring the studio into our home so we can stay healthier.” This was pre-COVID. That wasn’t even on the radar. It’s like, “Let’s go free,” and then we got it and then everybody’s like, “I should get a bike.” We are like, “You should now.”

She was more into spin than I was. I thought that I liked spinning. It turns out I just don’t like bad instructors. That’s why it never clicked for me before. I was doing some research about Peloton and the instructors. I liked the personalities and the variety of music and classes. It seemed like the best option. That’s how we initially started down the road of Peloton. I was searching for a bike for my wife, then in the process, I got sucked into it. I was like, “I can get into this. I enjoy this.”

Do you now fight for control of the bike?

No, my wife still likes shorter classes. She enjoys Lanebreak. She likes to game aspect of it.

What kind of a weirdo likes Lanebreak?

I am not doing Lanebreak. It feels very much like Dance Dance Revolution for me, which I think is awesome. Anytime you can reach a larger audience to get them moving, it’s wonderful. Peloton tapped into something in a different demographic of people, and also just to change things up. As an endurance person, I am drawn to a lot of the longer rides. I end up in the Power Zone rides. I spend more time on the bike than she does. She also loves the yoga classes, strength classes, and the variety of options on the platform. The bike has not been a fight yet. There’s always 2023.

I was curious because you’re a coach, a yoga teacher, a trail runner, and an endurance person. I was surprised that you enjoy the bike as much as you seem to because it tends to be like you have sports that you love. I would have thought you would have come to spinning before that. I was curious how you got into that. Do you like being a coach designing your own classes? What is that like taking other people’s classes?

A relief? Part of what has kept me with Peloton is I spend hours a day coaching people one-on-one and writing individualized programs for athletes all over the world. I refer to everyone as an athlete. Anyone who has a plan and an intention to move their body with fitness is an athlete to me. Some people are coming because they want to lose weight. Others want to run a 5K. Some want to be Olympic rowers or competitive cyclists.

There’s a full world out there but I am always deeply steeped in so much research around exercise physiology and everything that’s coming out. I’m always challenging myself and my athletes that when it comes time for my own stuff at moments, literally whatever you put in front of me, I will do. Just don’t ask me to come up with it myself. Peloton works well because there’s much variety to what I can get into. I know enough about my body. I’ve done training and coaching long enough that I can manipulate the platform to fit my needs. That’s helpful.

You’re like a chef stopping by McDonald’s on you your way home from work.

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I don’t think Peloton would like to be compared to McDonald’s.

I don’t think I’m going to enjoy that comparison, but I get what you’re saying. It’s a grab-and-go.

I have to ask about this amazing thing you did in June 2022. It sounds like you’ve done a lot of amazing things. This is one of them. You decided to break the world record for the most consecutive days of doing 50K a day. First of all, how many miles is a 50K?

That’s around 31.1 miles a day. It’s more than a marathon.

What made you decide that this was the thing you wanted to do?

In 2020, I got pretty burnt out in coaching because everything got shut down all of my stuff went digital. I have a lot more athletes that I was coaching and people who are reaching out to me, but because people couldn’t access therapists, friends, and family, those things became amplified. As a coach, I always hear those things they’re a part of coaching, but it was very heavy and dark all the time with my athletes. I was struggling because now I’m like being dumped on. I wanted to take a step away from coaching for one month to reset myself. I told my wife that I was going to put on my hydration pack full of snacks. I would call her when I got to a location where I was done walking or running. I would leave the house and go out.

The first day that I did it, I was 50 kilometers away from home. I’m like, “I don’t want to walk back.” I got curious about continuing to go out there, and connect with nature and myself. I listened to a lot of the outdoor Peloton runs and walks if I felt like I needed someone to converse with in my mind. I had come across an article about the suicide rates among LGBTQ youth due to COVID hitting harder than any other community. I have coached many youths in LGBTQ communities, as well as adult athletes who are LGBTQ+.

I’ve watched too many who contemplate quite seriously suicide. I have also seen the ramifications of not having a space to call for help or to be safe. When we think about COVID and everybody being home, while families are joking about like, “I can’t stand my kids anymore,” people forget that not every parent is accepting of LGBTQ youth. Schools may have been a safe place. There might have been a teacher, a coach, or a group of friends that were safe, and now they’re not. Now they’re just bombarded.

The Trevor Project does extensive research on LGBTQ youth suicide, health, prevention, and legislation. If you look at some of their statistics, the statistic is that every 45 seconds, youth between the age of 13 and 24 in the LGBTQ community will either seriously consider or attempt suicide. In 2021, their statistics showed that nearly 720,000 US youth between those ages attempted suicide. We’re talking about almost one million children in this country alone. I set my watch one day to beep every 45 seconds when I went out for my run to remember that there is a youth that was thinking that there was no one out there and there was no one to help. I made it about an hour before I fell to my knees in tears, thinking about my own struggles with depression and suicide growing up.

I wanted to do something. I knew that to do something would require a radical event to draw attention to raise enough money because people are like, “We’ll go run a 50k and honor them.” I’m like, “One 50k isn’t going to be enough.” I want people to talk about this and to have a conversation. That led to me contacting a friend of mine who’s a fellow coach. I was like, “Am I out of my mind to think I should go for a world record?” She’s like, “For anyone else, I would say yes but for you, no.” It seems like another day of what crazy thing I can do.

It started with that. I was like, “I could go for the women’s record,” which at the time was eleven days, but I identify as non-binary. My concern was that people would contest that I was “stealing” a woman’s record. I said, “If I take both records, you can’t contest it.” The men’s record was 22 days. I said, “I’m 21 days. I’ll go for 22 then. Why not? Let’s go for it.” That’s what started the process. Thinking about mental health for LGBTQ youth carried me through some adversity in that challenge. Something I didn’t foresee is I had to wear a GoPro every single day and you can’t stop the footage.

I had to have an external battery pack that was quite heavy. Between that and my pack, I was carrying 25 to 30 pounds on me every day running. The GoPro rubbed my chest completely raw within the first three days. I couldn’t have it there. Getting in the shower was painful. It was causing swelling. My diaphragm would swell up, and then I couldn’t get any food down. In the first few days, I couldn’t get much in other than water and salt tabs.

Did you acclimate or did you find a solution?

I definitely began to acclimate. How I acclimated was by telling my body, “This isn’t going to stop. We’re going.”

“I will win this.”

“Let’s find some answers.” My wife becomes the master of crewing to help figure out how we could tape, adjust, and Tegaderm, which they use post-surgery to keep wounds from getting infected. We started using that and taping it down underneath the shirt and putting it over so that it wouldn’t slide and move as much. With the heat and then I had several days that were like monsters, the water would seep and rub. You stop feeling that. You shift, pivot, and find new ways.

Eventually, then I was able to get food down and I got faster as the weeks progressed. Some people said they were going to come on and run with me and were like, “I thought you’d be broken and you’re going faster.” It’s amazing what happens if you can fuel yourself. It is such a huge part now that I have food in my body. Although the little plastic popsicles and frozen oranges became my go-to on things that I could get in like quick sugar and things like that, and then a couple of local pizza places started to come by.

You just run to the pizza place and eat.

When you burn that many calories, you might as well enjoy it.

The best part was my Garmin Watch would tell me every day because I was keeping a steady pace. It was taking me around six hours a day to do it. By the end, it was closer to five and a half hours. Every day my watch would be like, “This was a great recovery run. You’re ready for tomorrow.” I’m like, “Recovery run? Silly you, Garmin.” It’s like, “You didn’t try hard enough. We know you can do more.”

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The Garmin sounds like my parents.

After June, every month since, it’s like, “Are you still running? It seems like you’ve dropped off.” I’m laughing because I also kept the Peloton app running like the Just Run. Peloton the next month is like, “Here’s your month recap.” I was like, “Well, crap.”

My favorite parts of ours are how your friends were like, “We’ll run with you but deeper into it when we think you’ll be slowing down.”

That’s one of my true friends. One of the best things was Peloton helped connect me with a lot of people in the community who came out and traveled from other states to run or cycle alongside me. Quite a few of the You Get To Crew for Jess Sims’ group came out. Quite a few of Christine’s I Am, I Can, I Will, I Do group came out as well and supported me. For that, I am grateful that here’s the Peloton community showing up like, “I’m going to drive from Connecticut, New York or Massachusetts to come up to Maine, come alongside you, and do whatever I can.” I was grateful for that.

At the risk of sounding like your Garmin, did you get to 23 and you’re like, “I’m done,” or did you go a little further to try and add a little extra padding to make it harder for the next person?

I did finish with the 22 days and then went out for a run the next day that wasn’t a 50k, and continued running. I had a lot of people who said, “If you’re still out there running, why aren’t you still doing more than 50k?” The point wasn’t the record. I don’t need a record to be a better person. I don’t need the record. The record was to gain coverage to get enough people to have a conversation around it. I certainly received a lot of death threats in my DMs when things started popping up. Women’s Running Magazine did an article and a local news station.

What?

Because people say that I’m perverse or that those youths deserve it. There are a lot of conversations, but the thing is I welcome those conversations. I welcome those threats because I want to know where they came from. I want to know why they have come to that conclusion. The reality is that because I didn’t engage in yelling at them back or trying to prove a point to them, I offered an invitation. I said, “Come out. Run with me. Tell me why you believe this. Tell me why you feel this way.”

There were some who took me up on that offer and had conversations. Some walked away saying, “I got this wrong,” and others also said, “I still disagree, but I also realized I could still be a decent human being to other people.” That’s always important. I always challenge people. I always want to feel like there’s a seat at the table to have a conversation. I don’t care where you come from, or how you view me. I’m willing to listen. That was part of the journey. I feel like I needed to keep going to prove anything to anyone else.

I have to ask how you have the patience and the energy to do that. I don’t understand how you have patience for those people, or how you can welcome those conversations. I think you’re amazing for doing that. I don’t say that as a criticism.

We are not trying to talk you out of being a decent and better human being than we are.

It is so energy-sucking to read those messages day after day. I’m talking about the messages I get. I’m not trying to do some big amazing things like change the world like you’re doing. You’re trying to have real conversations with people that are important. I see what I see every day. It is soul-sucking. I don’t know how you do it. How did you do that?

It’s not that it’s not hard. I also know how hard it was for me to have conversations with people about who I am like when I first came out, and people are unwilling to listen to me. If I do the same to somebody else, I’m not any better. One thing that saddens me a bit in our current climate of culture is, “If I disagree with you, I’m going to blast you on social media. I’m going to try and destroy your life.” I don’t desire that for anyone. I like to believe that deep down, we are all good people, but we’ve been educated and raised in different ways.

Hate is not something you’re born with. It’s something you’ve learned. It’s hard to hate someone when you have a conversation and realize you have more in common. That’s part of the conversations I tried to have with people. It’s like, “There’s one aspect of my life you disagree with, but I noticed that you enjoy running. What took you to running?” When you start down that path, it becomes harder for people to build that wall of hate. Even if it’s one brick less, you take one down on the wall. If we could extend more of that, I think we could see more kindness as a whole in the community.

That’s what I enjoy about coaching. I have athletes who when we first met it was because of some of those DMs and now I coach them. People are like, “How could you coach someone who has such a different view of you?” The world is full of people with different views. If I turn everyone away with a different view, I don’t want to surround myself with everybody who has the same belief, system, and thought as me, which ought to be super cheesy to tie it in, but isn’t that what Peloton does? With all the different instructors, there are people you can go to on the main page with polarizing views of every instructor. I have no problem sharing these polarizing views, forgetting that there’s a human on the other side of that screen who has seen those things.

It’s the same way we’re talking about. It’s soul-sucking and crushing. I know from personal experience and knowing several different instructors that it is hard for them. It is hard to be like okay, “Great. I’m not for everyone.” You’ll hear this tongue-in-cheek in classes like, “You don’t like my music? Go to this person. You don’t like my personality? Go to this person.” The beauty of having a diverse eclectic culture as a whole in the world. It is that you can learn new things if you listen.

You were very hopeful for mankind and I appreciate that.

If we go down the torpedo of crap, it doesn’t seem like that’s any more fun.

I know the DMs that I get. Sometimes people forget there’s a human being on the other end of it, then you’re talking about something that is sadly controversial, and I say sadly because it shouldn’t be controversial in my mind. It seems like it would take so much energy to try to explain it over and over again to people. I’m amazed by your ability to be able to do that.

In college, I studied Comparative Religion. I’ve studied religions and philosophies all over the world. I had a college professor who would require us to go to different religious services that were outside of our norm to push our boundaries. If there’s nothing else that I’ve learned through those teachings, readings, and my continued education is that those words they’re projecting are their hurt and pain. What they’re saying is, “Nobody is listening to me and I feel unseen.”

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That’s one of the things I’ve tried to do as a coach and a person. I always want people to feel seen, whatever that means. I read those messages through the lens of, “What is this person asking for?” A lot of times, they want someone to hear where they’ve come from, and how they came to this space, and nobody is. They’re trying to shout at whoever is right in front of them. Sometimes that’s me, you, the Peloton instructors or whoever that we see on social media. If I can look through that, which I can’t always, sometimes it requires a raging run or ride.

You are human after all.

I work through it. I use that as fuel on a 50k. It’s like, “Bye. Here I come.” Some people, when they have disagreeing opinions with me, and they want to yell at me, I pick up the pace, and then it’s a lot harder for them to keep shouting those things.

The rage training.

It’s like, “You write something offensive to say, add five cheer resistance.”

How much do you want to say it?

It cost you a 5% incline.

When you were doing this for the Trevor Project, do you feel like you reached your goal to get people talking and have that conversation?

Yes. In the midst of all of the angry or terrifying DMs, there were many wonderful messages from especially grateful parents. My mantra for the event was, “The only pace is forward.” First of all, everyone kept asking me, “How fast you can run it?” I’m like, “As fast as it takes to finish it.” I don’t know if that’s an arbitrary thing. Finally, I got to the point where I was like, “The only pace I need to go is forward.” That also became a big visual in terms of I want to hold the line for the LGBTQ youth that I refuse to have us pushed back. The only place I am willing to go is forward.

The t-shirt I had, “Arrow is my business.” The Arrow Track Club was on the front, and “The only pace is forward” was on the back of the shirt. It’s partly because I also wanted anyone who purchased the shirt, that 100% of the profits went to the Trevor Project. I can’t put a rainbow on everybody’s shirt because I have worn those shirts where I have been spit on or had threats. I don’t want somebody to wear something that could threaten them. Something people don’t even realize is a lot of times, when you see LGBTQ clothing, they put the rainbow on the front. The reason for that is if it’s on the back, you can’t see someone attack you.

Do you think that Nike, Adidas, Peloton or any of them are thinking about where their logo is out and that somebody might attack them for that reason? Not generally. That’s not crossing their mind. This gave people a safe way to share and represent. Many parents bought shirts for their kids. I had parents who said, “My child always wanted to be active, but they didn’t feel like there was a space for them, and running is freeing for them.” It‘s like, “Open the door.” My mom would always be like, “It’s free. Open the door. Go ahead.”

It’s not really free. The shoes and everything gets expensive, but you get the point. It opened the door. The roads are open unless you were living in Buffalo, then it was closed because of a terrible blizzard. To hear those stories of those kids feeling seen and confident for the first time. That’s why I was out there. That made me so happy. To get messages and they sent me little posters and stuff that they made. There were kids who came out to some of the runs with posters and sharing. It makes me so happy to be able to do this tiny thing. In the grand scheme of things, it is tiny but it also lets kids know that there’s someone like them who’s healthy, happy, successful, and is an athlete, and they can be the same. That was certainly the hope and I feel like I was successful in that. I’m going to continue that, hopefully.

Your Garmin won’t leave you alone about it.

My Apple Watch does the same thing. It’s like, “You’ve been sitting down all morning. I know you ran yesterday. I know you ran a lot, but you’ve been pretty lazy today. Come on. Let’s go.”

There was a person who did Instagram Reel or YouTube video where they coached as an Apple Watch, Garmin Watch, and all the different ones. Apple was super snippety like, “You’re not worth it. No rings for you.” Garmin was like, “I won’t even talk to you. You don’t even matter. You stopped trying. You gave up.”

It was funny because it’s true.

There was a time a long time ago when your brain used to say, “I’ve been sitting well. I should get up.” If there wasn’t this little thing that vibrated on you that said, “You should get up.” Now, if we’re not told to get up eat, drink water, and do it, we don’t know how to live.

That is sad and true. I do pay a lot of attention to that. I was thinking conversely because I was running. I was like, “Before I would have had an Apple Watch, I would have only known how far I was going because I was at a park and it had the mile markers. That’s the only way I would have known.” I wouldn’t have been able to do my paces other than to be like, “It took about two hours.” There’s good to it too, but it can be a little overboard with the direction that we go.

What is your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is Struggle Guru, which is also the name of a book I wrote, which discusses how if we want to like discipline and master ourselves that our greatest ally and training partner is struggle, how we find that, and how we tap into that. That’s how Struggle Guru became the leaderboard name, not because I think that I am the guru of struggle. Guru is a very important word in the yoga lineage. It’s something that I respect. People who have any connection to that, recognize that it’s like mastery. There’s a nod to my connection there too.

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What kind of yoga do you teach?

Most of my yoga is Vinyāsa yoga, so flow patterns. I also teach Hatha. Those are the two that I’m trained in, but I will personally practice in a variety of lineages. Ashtanga is perhaps the strictest there. With as much running as I do, I end up in the same three movements that my teacher would allow me to fall through. In most Ashtanga, your teacher gives you this part of a sequence and you come in a Mysore Studio. You come in during a certain time period and perform that. Everybody is performing their own sequence in there. Your teacher is then adjusting you. I would end up in a circle, doing the same three because I’m not progressing in a way that would keep me safely in a position for that. I stick to more Vinyāsa flow more than anything.

I love some yoga Nidra, which is you’re just above sleep. You’re not sleeping but it helps to relax the mind and body as much as possible. It is great for the nervous system resetting. You’re coached through this relaxation process with a very heightened consciousness. It’s wonderful. If you do it for twenty minutes, it’s a great reset during the day to help you focus. The neuroscientists who are researching it are calling it non-deep sleep or something. I can’t remember the exact thing. There’s a lot of neuroscience behind the benefits of doing the yoga Nidra.

Do you have a favorite instructor?

It’s hard because instructors vary for me depending on where I am in my training or my life. First of all, I always encourage everyone to check out as many instructors as possible. Check them also often because they might not have resonated with you the first time around, but maybe you’re at a different stage in your life and their verbiage, music or class style is suddenly helpful to you. Don’t get stuck in that lane, but I’ll give you three that are always moving around for me.

Robin is one that I resonate with because she has been the only instructor that I’ve gone on any class that acknowledges non-binary riders. She specifically calls them out. I saved rides at first because she calls them out. That helps me feel very seen and also brings awareness to a community that people are still trying to figure out where we fit into things. I appreciate that. I also appreciate a good neon yellow tight to kick my butt.

You will get it.

Christine and I have a friendship, and coaching and athlete relationship. I appreciate Christine on our long ride especially because I do a lot of Power Zone Endurance. I appreciate her. Jess Sims is my all-around most diverse. I enjoy her strength, thread, bike boot camps, and her no-nonsense like, “I am going to make you hurt and I’m not mad about it.”

She is so cheery when she does it. I don’t know how she pulls it off.

I appreciated it when she did the Boston Marathon. Kirsten Ferguson had videotaped in all of her stories of her crawling back to it. I was like, “There are things that are hard. I don’t wish you ill, but I am thinking hard about how you are feeling right now.” I saw her out there running the race because I was in Boston for some of my athletes running. I was like, “I see this. I get this.” She does have a smile while she’s like, “I’m going to ruin this song for you. That’s just how life goes.” We’ll do burpees and all those things. All the instructors are wonderful. It depends on what you need and when you need it. I’ll give you those three. Check them all out. Don’t get caught up or hung up on what I say or what anyone else says because you never know.

That’s good advice. I was going to ask if you have any advice for people who are just finding Peloton. Do you have anything that you want to add to that? Any other advice?

The biggest thing that I could say to newbies and long-time lifers is don’t get so caught up in the metrics and the blue check mark. I have been there. I have been obsessive. I was at an Airbnb for an event I was teaching at, and the walls were so thin that the only quiet spot was the bathroom. I was doing a Peloton strength workout next to a toilet. That’s commitment. In retrospect, that’s insanity. I have a video of me somewhere doing push-ups next to a toilet just for a blue check mark. We should probably talk to somebody about that. I did talk to someone about that. That’s why I don’t do it anymore. Especially a stranger story like, “What was I thinking?” There are so many things.

Don’t get caught up in the metrics and having to do the longest or the “hardest” workouts on there. Be drawn to what feels good because consistency is what matters. If doing 5-minute yoga, 5-minute meditation, and then a 10-minute ride is what’s keeping you consistently showing up, stick with that. It doesn’t matter how long you are on there. Just that you’re finding something that works for you. I watched so many people obsessed over, “I must do all the classes, all the HIIT, and all this.” I’m going to tell you something as a coach. If you can do four HIIT classes back to back to back, you didn’t do it correctly. When they say go all out but you still had “enough” to go another three rounds, that’s not all out. That’s literally the opposite of the definition of all out.

I never follow queues when I do my long run day and I take a bunch of classes back to back. I do what I want to do or I’ll play these like, “Add half of a point of speed.” I’m like, “Point one it will be.” I play games with it.

Alex is now a thread instructor. I did one of his runs the other day. He’s like, “We’re going to do a run for 3 minutes. Hit 9.0. I’m like, “9.0? That’s a 6-minute pace. Who is running casually outside of Becs Gentry and/or Susie Chan at a 9.0?” I’m saying it casually. I’m also watching him and I’m like, “I’ve watched enough runners in my life. I’m not running. That’s cute, but I know you’re threading at that speed.” It is a lovely thing to tell newbies, “Don’t be fooled by how quickly you see their light turning over because you could be at a zero.”

That’s why when people are like, “I didn’t match the call-outs.” I’m like, “Whatever you could do is fine. It doesn’t have to be that. You’re not a failure because you didn’t do what the instructor said. It’s totally fine.” I think you get more confident with that over time. It’s not something that you feel like you couldn’t necessarily start with. I think as you go through the stages of Peloton ownership, you come to that realization eventually.

Know that there’s always going to be Joe, Jane or Jim Bob, no offense to Jim Bob, who is going to put it at 100 resistance, but be crawling in at 22 and fade in. I’m like, “This person is standing up and this is what they look like.” If you can’t see it I am moving in slow motion. They decided that they needed to make it a family event and their kids are exhausted from pulling on the pedal with them. They’re like, “I’m glad Peloton Row came out because my kids had been doing it for years to give my pedals so I can be number one on the leaderboard.” I see small children doing all the work for your parents. I see you. You’re working hard.

Thank you so much for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you and all your stuff or help The Trevor Project.

The easiest way is probably to go to my website, KBWaters.com. It’ll link you to my Instagram, which is @KateBeverlyWaters. There are links on there to connect to The Trevor Project. If you want to have an Arrow Check Club T-shirt and wear it, all the profits there are going to The Trevor Project. There are lots of different colors, or sweatshirts too. They are nice and very soft, and helping kids be seen and know that there’s support which is what The Trevor Project is doing. I’m grateful for those resources.

Thank you for everything you do every day for people, and for motivating, inspiring, and reminding them that forward is a pace. All of us can be reminded of that on a daily basis. It’s a good thing.

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I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

You can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online on Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and rowing and running.

 

Important Links

• Kirsten Beverley-Waters
• The Trevor Project
• @KateBeverlyWaters – Instagram
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
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• Dr. Jenn Mann
• The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• StitchFix.com/EmmaLovewell
• episode 282 – The Clip Out episode with Anya Adams
• episode 290 – The Clip Out episode with Mindy Scheier
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• @RogerQBert – Twitter
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About Kirsten Beverley-Waters

Kirsten Beverley-Waters is a Yoga Medicine teacher, fitness coach, author, and motivational speaker. Kirsten is known for using innovative movement methods to bring a modern approach to yoga’s ancient wisdom. Teaching movement through the lens of mental wellness, whole body health, and spiritual groundedness, they help others find their sacred body and soul connection.

As the founder of Aiiro Wellness, their work is a practice of cultivating your inner warrior, changing self-talk that does not serve us, and finding strength in our struggle. Sharing her experiences with cancer, mental health, and grief, Kirsten shares the power of harnessing our inner guru. Kirsten adds levity to the moments that grab hold of us the hardest and helps her students transform the weight into strength. While much of her early teachings focused on her experiences in sports and athletic training, Kirsten has evolved her practices into an adaptation of athleticism and power anchored in healing and therapeutics.

Kirsten leads yoga and mindfulness trainings around the world and offers trainings for educators and coaches across the country. As a dynamic speaker and lecturer, Kirsten has been invited to work with local universities and high schools in creating mental health mindfulness training programs for athletes. They continue their work one-on-one with cancer and chronic pain patients developing personalized therapeutic yoga practices that address each student’s cranio-sacral rhythm and nervous system response.

Kirsten holds a Bachelors of Science from Kent State University, as well as multiple certifications through the American College of Sports Medicine, Crossfit, and Precision Nutrition. Kirsten also holds training and certifications in Emergency Medical & Neurodiagnostic Technology.

 

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