377. Peloton’s New Strength+ App Is In Beta Plus Our Interview With Gillian Robertson
- Peloton’s new Fall Schedule.
- Peloton’s Strength+ app is in beta.
- Blue Dots are now purple.
- Peloton debuts new Teams feature.
- Peloton CFO participating in tech conferences.
- Peloton Quick Hiits.
- Jenn – How to bounce back when your favorite fitness instructor leaves.
- Peloton cycling instructor Emma Lovewell has her baby!
- Peloton cycling instructor Charlotte Weidenbach recovering from an injury.
- Peloton row instructor Ash Pryor asks for your help with Sephora quest.
- New lawsuit against Peloton.
- TCO Top 5.
- This Week at Peloton.
- Peloton tread instructor Becs Gentry has 120-Minute run on the schedule.
- Strength For Soccer in English and German.
- Birthdays – Mila Lazar (9/7), Hanna Corbin (9/10)
All this plus our interview with Gillian Robertson.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Peloton’s New Strength+ App Is In Beta Plus Our Interview With Gillian Robertson
It’s a busy day. Busy day at work. I had the car worked on. I had a doctor’s appointment. Very busy.
That sounds like 1/8th of the things I normally do on any given day.
We’re talking about me. Let’s get into it. What do you have in store for people?
We have an interview with our guest Gillian Robertson. She is a self-confessed Peloton addict. She loves to run. She has run 24 marathons and 132 half marathons. It’s a fun conversation. We also have a bunch of things to talk about from Peloton news, Peloton’s new fall schedule, and Peloton’s Strength+ app. We’ve already tried it. We have all the details for you.
The blue dots are purple and everyone is freaking out. Peloton also debuted the Teams feature. We’re going to talk about that. They’ve participated in tech conferences. We also have some quick hits. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn and everybody needs to bookmark this because we’re going to talk about how to bounce back when your favorite instructor leaves Peloton.
Maybe it hasn’t happened to you, but in the long arc of history, it will it will. Eventually, they’re all going to move on at some point.
We also are going to talk about a new lawsuit. Find out the newest thing to happen that Peloton gets sued over. We also have plenty of news coming in from the instructors. We have contents and we have birthdays. All kinds of fun stuff.
Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode.
We just found out that following makes a huge difference in our ranking in Apples, so follow.
If for some reason, you’ve been tuning in all these years and you haven’t followed us, we’ll wait. We can tell if you haven’t done it.
It’s like when you first get your Peloton, “Can the instructors see me?”
You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. What else? Patreon.com/TheClipOut, where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content. Last week’s was long. It was like 35 minutes. You get bonus content. You get ad-free episodes. If we get them early, you get them early. It’s a great way to support the show if you have the means and the desire. It helps cover the cost of doing business.
There are costs. Was there a story that stood out to you that was going to be over on The Clipped Out?
For whatever reason, the first one that comes to mind is that Kendall popping up in a Lululemon ad.
I have theories.
I love your theories. We can go full-on at Peloton QAnon over on Patreon.
Just call me Q.
Dear God, no. Anyway, that’s over there on the Patreon. If you want to help out, it is greatly appreciated. You can sign up for the mailing list at TheClipOut.com, where you get all the links and stuff sent to you on a mostly weekly basis. You can watch all of these episodes on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. If you’re watching on YouTube right now, subscribe. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?
We shall.
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The fall schedule is out. This makes me nostalgic for the days of terrestrial television when that still mattered. As a nerd and as a full-on dork, it was so exciting when fall rolled around and TV was back. You get the new shows and or your favorite show come back. That was always when the local state station swapped out the reruns. Maybe it gets something new or different.
It also signaled the beginning of the school year, which wasn’t as exciting.
The TV made up for that. We don’t have that anymore because TV is always coming out. The networks tried to pretend like the fall season was a thing.
They do but I don’t know that anybody pays attention to it. Who even watches commercials anymore? How would you know unless they put a little banner at the bottom of your TV?
There’s always new TV, but Peloton’s fall schedule is here.
It changes every year usually in the June time frame, and then we have another significant shift usually in September. Also, let’s plan ahead. There will be another one in January. Expect these seasonal changes, but there are a couple of things that are standing out that are very different. This year, we are seeing all 6:00 AM Eastern classes gone. They have now been pushed to 6:30 AM Eastern.
Any theory on what the logic is?
People are not going to like my theory, but my theory is none of these instructors want to come in that early. A lot of them have been around for a long time. They are divas and they don’t want to come in. I know that is not a popular theory, but that is a theory. Let’s say that’s not true. The other thing could be that they’re trying to condense the workday. They have so many of those behind-the-scenes people. Maybe they need to keep them more condensed in a smaller footprint.
A marathon does take up a lot of your time, and when you come back from a long run, you are shattered. Share on XThat could be another option that is affecting it as well, and people are upset about it. There’s another big change, but this one is much more positive in my opinion. Matty’s Walk and Talk is back on a Friday, which means people will be in the studio. Thank God, because Matty’s Walk and Talk is an amazing class. It deserves to have members in there because that gives them energy.
If there’s nobody in there, it’s like walking and talking to yourself.
He does it great. He has great energy either way.
It has to be hard to pull that off though.
He’s a past newscaster. If anybody can handle it, he can. I much prefer him to have all the supportive enthusiastic people in the studio. Good for him. Another big change is rowing. You’re going to be rowing in the morning, not so much at night.
It’s dark. It’s dangerous. You can get lost out there.
They’re in the studio.
All this time, I thought it was a real boat. I’ve only been half-listening.
For those of you who are new to rowing, you might be interested in this fact. Rowers have long practiced early in the morning for several reasons. The tradition goes all the way back to the early days of competitive rowing in England when dawn races were held to avoid boat traffic. I don’t know if that’s why. Some of the West Coasters might have a couple of things that work for them because there are going to be a handful of things that are going to be in the evening and a handful of things that are going to be in the early morning before they go to work. They might be a smidge happier. At any rate, a lot of the instructors posted their new schedules on Instagram. Some did not. Some are going to be fun for you to find over the next few weeks as they start getting back into the swing of things.
It’s going back to my TV analogy. Some are like Cheers. It’s always going to be on Thursday. Some are like WKRP. They’re going to move that thing around like crazy and you’re going to have to hunt for it. Eventually, it won’t be popular anymore because they moved it around all the time.
That is accurate.
Not that I’m still bitter.
Not at all. I can’t tell that you are. Although I watched all of the seasons of WKRP, and some were better than others.
I think you’re remembering so because I’m a completist.
That’s right. You made me watch the spin-off.
Moving on from our walk down the classic television lane or less than classic television lane, Peloton Strength+ app Is also here.
They are releasing a new beta. This is a massive beta. We’ve talked about before that they put it out to the public, members or non-members alike. They do not care. Anybody is open, which is very interesting.
I was not just a launch.
It’s not a launch because they are still asking for feedback and a lot of it. They have a lot of interesting features in this beta. I thought it was fascinating that it is a completely separate app, and a lot of people are asking questions. Does this mean there’s going to be a separate fee? Peloton says they don’t have anything to share on that at this time. Yeah, it’s going to be a separate fee. I don’t know how else to hear that.
I don’t know how to hear that either but also like yuck.
This is a very in-depth app. This is something you can do at home with your equipment. You can choose what equipment you have. I liked how simple it was. You could highlight like, do you have a cable machine? Do you have a leg press machine? Do you have only dumbbells? It was very easy and intuitive to use. In addition to all of that, they have three programs that they have out there now.
You can choose to take one of those programs that’s already designed or you can choose to do a custom workout. Fascinatingly, similar to Tonal, you can swap out moves. If you go into a program and there’s let’s say an overhead press with a barbell and you don’t have a barbell, you can swap out the moves, which need to be there.
It needs to be there not just because you might not have the equipment, but you might not have the ability.
That’s exactly right, Tom.
Maybe you have some different ability whether you’re not strong enough to do that yet, you’re missing a limb, you threw out your back, or you just had a baby.
They don’t have the ability to swap it out for any move in the library yet but you can swap it out for similar moves, You can also go over to the custom. It’s cool because you can be like, “Corel or full-body, just upper body. I want to do all pushing today or all pulling moves today.” They base that on the equipment and how long you want your workout to be for, and then you hit a button. You got your workout. It’s super fast. The programs still have your instructors going through a program. The custom workout is moving from one to the other. They even have options in there where you can autoplay. Once the timer is up, it’ll move to the next item. That’s something nice.
It’s a tonalist Tonal.
The power zone is great training for your marathon. Share on XIt sure is.
A lot of that is the selling point for Tonal, I wouldn’t know what weights to lift or how many times to lift them.
That is an interesting thing because they do not have how much you lifted. You have to record that manually.
I don’t know how else they would do that.
I agree, but that is a huge thing.
Does it suggest when it’s time to increase?
No. How would it know how well you did the move? One thing they did have that I liked was the ability to choose rep schemes of 1 through 5. If your goal is to build strength Stacy Sims-style people, then there is a place you can choose that. That’s nice because that’s not always easy to figure out. Programming those workouts is not as easy as people think it is. That’s pretty cool. I think that this is going to do well.
It also has very personalized workouts, so it’s going to learn about you. It’s going to learn what it works. I don’t think that they’re going to be able to get to the point where it’s like, “You did this three times. Increase 5 pounds.” Maybe they can. I shouldn’t say they don’t give you any recommendations because maybe they do. I have gone through three workouts. I don’t know. Maybe they do. Machine learning could mean a lot of things. Maybe that’s one of them
You could say like if you’ve been lifting these weights all this time, “Go from 15 to 20.”
You could.
It’s very interesting, especially because I recognize that Tonal is not inexpensive, plus it’s another monthly fee. Although it sounds like at some point, this could be as well.
I don’t know that it’s going to be as expensive as Tonal.
Probably not. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are two tiers in terms of if you already have a Peloton app membership, then it’s one price versus this is the only thing you’re getting that’s a different price.
Is All-access is inclusive of this? There are a lot of questions.
All-access Plus.
A lot of things they could do here.
All doesn’t always mean all. Sometimes it means the most.
Stay tuned. I am excited that they’re not officially launching it because it already looks pretty good and it’s not done. It has the potential to be cool. I think that’s cool, especially if you could somehow link this to your Guide. How cool would that be? Now you are counting reps.
It seems like such an obvious evolution that it would be weird if they didn’t.
It doesn’t seem to be there now because the only place you can get it is on the app. I don’t see the link yet, but that would be cool.
In an unusual cross-promotion with the new Zachary Levi movie Harold in the Purple Crayon, your blue dots are now purple. That’s why. It’s because of Harold and the Purple Crayon.
That was a bit late.
I think they thought the movie was going to be in theaters longer. I know Zachary Levi sure did, but your blue dots are purple. Purple is so close to blue. I think they should have waited until April 1st and told everybody that they’re still blue.
It’s funny because people are very particular. The badges are blue and they’ve always matched the blue dots and now they don’t match.
People are so like blue dots.
Dr. Jenn says blue dot. Now It’s a purple dot. It is harder to say. Purple dot is not easy. It doesn’t flow off your tongue as the blue dot.
Why?
If you need just a little bit of happiness in your life take a Bradley Rose class. Share on XI don’t know.
That’s a weird thing to be like, “F*ck it. Make them purple.”
I have no idea. Maybe somebody hit the wrong hex code that day.
That could be. Somebody is monitoring shooting craps and they’re like, “This color is off. Hang on.” That one guy that’s in control, it’s blue on his screen. He has no idea that everybody else’s screens are purple.
The internet went wild.
I bet they did.
It wasn’t quite as bad as when they changed the Powers Zones, but it was pretty bad.
That’s because of Power Zone people.
By definition, they are the most type A out of the type A. They are self-selecting.
They are top A-plus, like top triple-A.
You mess with their colors. What were you thinking? They thrive on routine. If you know nothing about type A people, you should know they thrive on routine.
You are going to get a strongly worded letter. They should change them for different seasons. On Saint Patrick’s Day, they’re green.
That will be fun. The fall should be orange or something warm like a chocolate brown.
Amber. Christmas is red and green.
I love the dots already, or they make a little shape of a Christmas tree.
You could get like a red heart.
We’ve got all kinds of games to play.
The new Teams feature has been rolled out for people.
You might remember they talked about this in the earnings call that this was coming. We even said that it was going to be soon because they wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t going to be soon. They’re like, “Sure. That happened.” Within your app, you can go down to the bottom where there’s a little icon that looks like three people. If you click on that, that’s your community and then it’ll say “Teams” and it’s new.
There are a few cool things about this. One, anybody can create a team. If you have if you’re part of the JSS Tribe or maybe perhaps The Clip Out, you could have a team just for the people that you hang out with in those groups the most. Within that, you can then create challenges. They have different ones where it’s like a seven-day challenge and you can create a challenge based on who completed a certain amount of workouts.
You could say who can work out the most based on the number of minutes. You could create something completely custom that you can do, which goes up to 31 days. After I contact them, you can send a link out to everyone. You’ve created your team, and now you can send that link out to everybody. Anybody can join your team and you still get to decide whether or not you let them in. No stalkers are going to be joining.
If you’re a weirdo, don’t let in a weirdo you don’t like. It is not an open application.
You can control who’s in and who’s out. The person who started the team can. Maybe there will be more to it at later dates, but that’s where it’s starting. I’m super excited about it. We did start a Clip Out team. We have all the Helper Bees in it. I am stoked.
Peloton is participating in some upcoming tech conferences.
I thought this was super interesting because they usually participate in one but it was interesting that they had two. In both of them, the CFO will be there. I’m blanking on her name all of a sudden. It’s gone, but it’s going to be the City Global Technology Conference and the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Technology Conference,
You can tell they’re number nerds because of the creativity there.
They didn’t even have alliteration.
Communacopia?
That’s what it says.
I get it, but it doesn’t make it any less dumb. They have more money than I do, but on the flip side, I didn’t completely throw the world economy in the shitter, so one for me.
Both of these took place this week. One on September 5 and one on September 6. Maybe we’ll get some highlights from it if anybody bothered to sit through the boringness. I did not. Full disclosure.
Shockingly, nor did I.
We already knew you didn’t. I can’t get you to sit through an earnings call.
What are those? Let’s take a quick look around the world of Peloton, just hitting some things that we might have missed. Irene Kaymer is celebrating her wedding.
She is having a second ceremony because they had a very small ceremony in October of 2022, but sometime in September, they are having a big celebration. How fun is that? Congrats to Irene.
This is a sad one. Bradley and his wife said goodbye to their dog.
Their puppy Archie passed away. That’s so hard. They are such a big part of our families.
On a happier note, Kirsten Ferguson is celebrating her Peloton anniversary.
Three years with Kirsten.
Already?
I know. How is that possible?
It’s because time is linear. That’s how that’s possible. There’s also possibly a new bike bootcamp format in our future.
I know that they had bootcamps that were 50/50. I don’t recall them being bike bootcamps 50/50. Whether we did or we didn’t, they are on schedule. It may be after a long hiatus of not having them or they are new to specifically bike bootcamps, but we had them on the schedule this week with Tunde.
Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn. Your favorite instructor has left the building. Now what do you do? She’ll walk you through the five stages of grief right after this.
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Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. She spent five years as a national team member in rhythmic gymnastics and sports psychology for USA Gymnastics. It’s Dr. Jenn.
Hello.
Full disclosure, this question is from me, but I think a lot of people are feeling it. How do you cope when your favorite instructor leaves Peloton?
Can you also give your answer again in German?
I may have questions for myself as well. It’s been a brutal month for all of us who love Peloton and love our instructors, especially those who love yoga, Ross, Kristin, Kendall, and is it Tobias? I don’t speak German but I know that there are a lot of people who speak German or don’t who love him, his music selection, and his vibe. It is incredibly difficult to lose an instructor. Only people in the Peloton community can truly understand this. If you tell your friend who doesn’t have a Peloton how devastated you are about Ross leaving, they’re not going to get it.
First of all, you want to talk to the Peloton community about this. This is something where you want to reach out to people you know in the Peloton community. You want to go to The Clip Out, Facebook, and Instagram, and be able to talk with the community. You have to give yourself room to grieve. It also creates a lot of anxiety.
I do a lot of Ross meditations. I can see there’s going to be a day as time goes by and they do takedowns, where Ross’s meditations may not be there. While we can all hope that they left the door open for him and Kristin, we all made a mental note on that, those who love those instructors. We can hope and we can pray and all of that, but we also have to accept that there’s the possibility that might not happen.
Part of what this forces us to do is to look at other instructors that we may have less experience with. First, you also want to let yourself grieve this loss. It’s like losing a friend, a relationship, or someone close to you. You’re used to their voices, their selection, their moves that you like, their routines, and all that sort of stuff, and that is a loss.
Understand also that if you find yourself having a bigger emotional reaction to this than you expected, you also may want to look at what other unresolved losses you have in your life. When you have some unresolved grief, whether it is the death of a loved one, a divorce, a breakup, a friendship that ended, anything, or any kind of loss, if it hasn’t been resolved and worked through, when you have another loss, it pushes on that button. You may find feelings coming up that are leftover feelings from that other thing.
Look at your history if you find yourself having a much bigger reaction. If that’s not the case, then let yourself grieve this loss. Let yourself talk it through with your friends. Let yourself feel those feelings. When you turn on your bike, your screen, your app, or whatever, and you see the instructor that you now know is not going to be dropping new content for much longer, if at all that, let yourself feel sad. Let yourself grieve. That’s okay.
Once you get to the other side of that grief, then what you want to do is say, “Who are the instructors that I have not given a chance to because I’m so into this one instructor?” Maybe you’ve taken their content exclusively or maybe you stick to the same 2 or 3 instructors. It’s time to branch out. It’s time to look at this as an opportunity to discover someone new or someone who you might not have thought has a great music selection or does the same moves that you like. It’s time to shake it up and try a new yoga routine, spin class, tread, or whatever it is that you were doing with that instructor. This is an opportunity and it’s important to open the door to some newness.
That makes a lot of sense.
It reminds me of the time when you loved a radio station back in the day when people listened to the radio, and your favorite DJ would leave. At least nowadays, you can still follow these instructors on their social media channels. Back then, if your favorite DJ left, he or she was in a different city.
You also never got any closure. They would just leave. One day, you’d turn on the radio and there’s a new morning DJ. There’s no closure. It is not okay. It’s still bitter.
Tom talked about this on one of your episodes which I appreciate. He was talking about how on the radio, you go to the station and you’re locked out and you’re done. There’s no explanation. They are brutal in letting people go. Tom made references to people who went to go to work and they were locked out of their station with no explanation. It’s crazy.
They might have worked there for 10 or 15 years.
That is a crazy town.
I had one station that I worked for and I had a premonition. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning and I was like, “I’m going to get fired and I don’t know why.” It was the weirdest thing. The next day, they were like, “This is your last day.” I was like, “What?” It turned out that within 36 hours, everyone from the station got fired. They changed the format to a different kind of music. I was doing advice in between music and there were no DJs. They got rid of all the DJs.
It’s brutal when an instructor who you love all of a sudden is gone. The good news is we’ve had some reassurance recently about people renewing their contracts. We’ve heard rumors that this is for three years, so we’re all crossing our fingers like we should be okay. We may not have to face this loss and this grief for another three years, hopefully.
I don’t know though. You can’t think that every instructor is on the same three-year cycle.
I thought that was strange too.
For no other reason, it would give them way too much bargaining power if every instructor was up for renewal at the same time, like if twelve of them got together.
They can form a union.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the contract itself gets reviewed once a year at the same time. I think they’re on different cycles where it’s like there’s a revolving door of 2 or 3 years for people.
That makes a lot more sense. I was curious about usually you get hired and you get a contract for a certain period of time. How is everyone on the same cycle?
Those don’t sync up. It doesn’t work like that. Thank you so much for all of that. Until next time, where can people find you?
People can find me on all social media @DrJennMann.
Thank you so much.
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We have another new lawsuit in the world of Peloton. This time, it’s for a slip and fall.
Originally, this was filed and then instantly withdrawn. It was then refiled in a different jurisdiction. It is now in the Miami-Dade area, which is the County Circuit Court. The plaintiff had a horrible accident. She describes it that way. It’s not like we know her. She was doing a core workout with the bike. She says that the shoes were defective. She is going to sue the shoemaker also. She was getting off the bike to do her core work, and then as she walked to do the floor exercise she stepped off the Peloton floor mat and fell violently to the floor. She is suing because neither Peloton, the bike, nor the shoes had any warnings regarding the defective nature of the bike or the shoes.
Was she represented by Saul Goodman? If this was a problem, there are millions of bikes and shoes out there. If this was a problem, there are millions of bikes and shoes out there.
We would have heard something by now.
This isn’t a new piece of equipment. When there was a problem with the Tread+, that problem came to light very quickly into the life cycle of the Tread+. In case their attorney is listening, I’m trying to phrase this as delicately as possible, but last I’ve checked, shoes aren’t exactly new technology.
They are not. I will say that cycling shoes are slippery but you should know that.
That seems inherent to the product at this point. It’s not like we’ve just come out with those shoes.
It does tell you to be careful somewhere in that product. I don’t know if this brand does because I think it might be a Fila brand. I can tell you for a fact that when you go to the Peloton Studio and you try to set foot on those stairs in your bike shoes, they will flip out on you. I know because I got chased down by somebody because I did it without thinking. I was being careful and I knew the risk. It was my risk, like totally on me, but I get it. They don’t know that I’m not going to sue them if I fall.
There have also been times that I’ve run up the stairs in my cycling shoes from the basement to the kitchen. I have almost fallen. That’s how I learned. These are slippery. Don’t just take off in these. You can’t go full-tilt speed in those. I will also say if she was doing a bike bootcamp and I don’t know because she could have been doing a biking class, stopped, and then did a core workout. Nobody necessarily would have warned her to take off her shoes. If she was doing a bike bootcamp, they do tell you to take off your shoes in between. They do that and they leave extra time. They’re like, “Let’s all go to the shoe store and take off our shoes.”
We’ll wait while we people pretend to take off their shoes.
You have to. It would be so uncomfortable because your feet are not flat like they are in tennis shoes.
I didn’t know what move they had to do. I thought you had to sit up or something.
For this particular one, maybe. Even then, getting up and down off the floor would be dangerous. Don’t do that, but there we are.
I don’t think you can fall violently. Violently, by virtue of definition, implies the use of force. I’m not even saying that the shoes weren’t at fault, the bike wasn’t at fault, or the instructor, but nobody exhibited force upon her when she fell.
If they did, it wasn’t Peloton.
There’s the lawsuit for you.
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Emma Lovewell had her baby.
Little Skylar was born. We say a huge congrats to Emma and her family.
Charlotte Weidenbach is recovering from an injury.
We don’t know exactly what happened. It looks like she did something to her thumb in this picture. I don’t know. It’s extended and it looks a little bit like a lifting glove. You don’t usually keep your thumb like that in lifting gloves. We don’t know. She didn’t say what happened. She said, “A good playlist and a long walk might not fix everything, but it’s a start.”
Ash Pryor has partnered up with Sephora.
I don’t think that’s partnering. She is trying to be chosen. She’s asking for people’s help to go in and fill out this form so that she can be part of the Sephora Squad.
Ash Pryor would like to partner with Sephora.
She would like to be featured. She would like to be one of their ambassadors. If you get a chance, go help Ash Pryor,
They don’t have to do that. She’s a Peloton instructor. She’s a big deal. I don’t understand.
I don’t either.
What’s going on, Sephora? Get it together.
For real.
Coming up after this, we’re going to talk about the TCO Top Five. We’re going to give you the classes that you might have missed that you should check out, so don’t go anywhere.
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It’s time for the TCO Top Five, where I try to come up with a quick and concise way to explain what the TCO Top Five is, but repeatedly fail. Maybe next week, the TCO Top Five should be people sending suggestions of how I could say it quickly. That should be what we’re doing. We ask you to tell us your favorite classes and we tell them back to you. We share your favorite classes with the class. Sharing your classes with the class. It’s the TCO Top Five. Number one is your favorite ride.
Christine D’Ercole taught this on August 26th. It was a Soft Rock ride. Linda Hawk is the one who suggested this. She said, “The playlist was great and Christine stayed quiet several times so the rider could experience the music. I did press heart on every track and I have bookmarked the class for the future.”
Number two, your favorite strength workout.
This class was taught by Andy Speer on August 25th. It is an intermediate-level class and it was nominated by one of our Helper Bees Elizabeth Schlossberg. She said, “For some reason, this was a standalone, not a progression of the month. Andy builds it as a great intro to the classes for anyone new. It was a solid class on its own and I have skipped the last two weeks of TS 60, so I would not have known had he not announced that. It was a hilarious trip through all of Andy’s favorite songs and genres of music. Fans will love it and newbies will see what they can get excited about.” That’s awesome.
Number three, your favorite Powers Zone ride.
This was taught by Denis Morton on July 16th. Kelly Stillwell said that she loved it. It was one of the best rides she’s ever taken. It’s in zones 1 through 4. It was fun and interesting enough that it flew by. She can’t wait to take it again. If she gets a 30 to 45-minute ride in, that’s a great day.
Number four, your favorite low-impact cardio class.
People love these Rebecca Kennedy low-impact cardio classes. Sarah Luster nominated this class with Rebecca Kennedy and was taught on August 30th. She said, “Dust those steps off. For this class, you don’t need a step, but it is made to work with one. It was a lot of fun and challenging. I hope Peloton adds step classes to the lineup.
Finally, your unstackable this week is a run.
This was a run taught by Mariana Fernandez, and it was from May 2nd. It has been nominated two weeks in a row. Stephanie Lotto said, “People need to take this class. It is such a fun playlist. I would love to take it again to stay entertained from a music perspective on long training runs, but I also enjoyed her story about how she came to New York for auditions.” You’ll be super excited that Mariana is on the schedule on a regular basis.
Now we turn our eyes to This Week at Peloton. We’ll start with Tropical House with Ally.
There is a new class coming up this week for Tropical House. I believe this has already dropped. it was on Tuesday, September 3rd at 9:30 AM. If you missed it, you want to check it out. There’s also a 20-minute class that is coming up on the 5th. By the time this is posted, that’ll be out as well.
We also have a cooldown with Christian.
Christian Vande Velde is joining Peloton for a 15-minute cooldown. I believe that might be the first time he’s ever done a cooldown ride in all these years. That’s hilarious. I love it. September 6, you can take it on demand.
We have yoga conditioning with Mariana.
Mariana is everywhere and I am here for it. She is doing a 30-minute yoga conditioning upper-body session. That is going to be posted on September 8th at 11:30 AM. I think this one is live, so check it out.
Double core with Olivia, That will look weird in your browser history.
Olivia is going to be here for a couple of core classes. They are going to be back-to-back classes, They’re going to be 10-minute live core classes each on September 8.
Becs Gentry has a 120-minute run on the schedule.
I am so stoked about this. 120 minutes in a row and it’s at 6:00 AM on a Friday, October 4th. I’m super excited about it. I think it will be great.
Good luck to you.
Thank you. I don’t know that I’ll do it. I might save that for Sunday because I’ll have a long run, but I love it. We’re getting so deep into marathon season. That’s perfect. I’m so glad they’re doing this.
We have strength for soccer in both English and German, which makes total sense.
Didn’t we talk about this last week?
I thought we did, but you put it there, so I’m like, “Here we go.”
I’m pretty sure we did. There it is again, everyone.
You know how much we love sports around here. We can’t get enough of the soccer ball.
Even when I don’t mean to, that’s how I blank it out That’s how little interest I have in sports. For those of you who enjoy sports, this will be good for you.
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We have two birthdays this week. Mila Lazar on September 7th.
Happy birthday to Mila.
Hannah Corbin on September 10th.
Happy Birthday to Hannah.
Get your cards ready.
Write them up.
Coming up after this. We have our interview of the week with Gillian Robertson. If you love Bradley Rose, you are about to meet a kindred soul. Stick around.
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Joining us is Gillian Robertson. How is it going?
It’s lovely to be here.
Start With Peloton
It’s lovely to have you here. We can tell everyone who’s tuning in that one of Gillian’s attributes is patience. We had to do quite a little fixing of our audio that was not working. She was very patient. She is recording from the UK. I love it when we are lucky enough to get guests from across the pond. Thank you so much for joining us. When did Peloton first come into your life and how did you decide, “I want to try this. This is a good match for me.”
It was in the lockdown era like a lot of people. I have a gym myself in the garden. I’ve got all the equipment and I kept seeing these Peloton adverts on the television. It was about October 2020 and I said, “I like the look of that. That looks good.” I want one but I couldn’t justify it because I’ve got a good bike myself. I must have been harping on about it because on Christmas morning, I came down with the family for presents and there sitting in the living room was a Peloton bike from my husband. It was a present in 2020. I got on it that day. I don’t think I’ve been off it since.
That’s amazing. You’ve ridden every day since you got it?
I use Peloton every day but I probably missed 4 or 5 days in the last four years.
I want to talk to your husband about the logistics of how he got a bike delivered and then hid it from you and then put it under the tree on Christmas morning.
I don’t know. It was a big surprise. I came down in the morning and it was there. I was like, “What is that?”
Did you hop on it right that second?
Not quite that second.
Fitness
You waited till everyone got their presents open before you. That’s exciting. Have you been a person who’s been active and fit your entire life or is this something you’ve dabbled in? How does that work?
Fitness is my job. I’m a fitness instructor and personal trainer, although I have recently retired. I’ve given all that up now, but I have all the equipment and all the stuff. I know what to do. When the Peloton came along, it was my fitness regime of what I wanted to do. Rather than putting other people through it, demoing, and doing stuff with them, this was for me. I wanted my thing to do for me and the Peloton filled that.
That makes perfect sense. When you say you’re a personal trainer, how long have you been teaching people that?
I’ve been doing that since 2000, so 24 years. I stopped in November.
Did you have any guilt about being a personal trainer by trade, and then you’re like, “I’m buying this thing,” and that negates the need for people like you?
It’s part and parcel with it. It nicks along with it quite nicely. It gives you new ideas and new perspectives on things. I have known to pull a few ideas from Peloton and use them on clients in the past. It worked out well.
What a great way to get fresh inspiration. You can take the best of what you’re using and then use it for your clients.
They are the current instructors doing all the training and everything now. I said, “I hadn’t thought of that, I’ll do that. I quite like that, I’ll do that.”
Marathons And A Half
Now you have a bike, but you also run marathons and half marathons.
That is right. I do have the treadmill now. I was always an outside runner. I would never run on the treadmill. I hated it. It was boring. I’d go out no matter what the weather was because I couldn’t get on the treadmill. I got addicted to the Pelton bike, which I call Betty. I reckon the treadmill might be quite good. I booked a class at PSL in London. It was a Susie Chan class, and I went in there.
That was on a Friday evening. I came off the treadmill. I came home to my husband and said, “I’m buying one, I’m getting one. Do you mind? I’ve got one already anyway. I have to have it.” The following Thursday, the treadmill was delivered. I got the treadmill. The treadmill is Trevor and I’ve got Betty the bike. We have a room in the house where they are. They’re not in the gym. They’re not for anyone else to use. They’re purely for our use.
What would you name your rower?
Rover the rower.
You like alliteration.
You need to name them. They’re part of the family now.
They are part of the family. Since you live in the UK, have you been to the Peloton Studio London?
Yes, I have. I live about an hour outside. I’m quite lucky. I have been there about 7 or 8 times. I think I’ve met all the instructors, Benny and Erik. I have yet to see Joslyn. I’m trying to get on one of their classes, but then it’ll have a full house.
That’s for London. We need to get you to New York and then you can meet everybody else too. We haven’t talked to a lot of people in the UK who have both the tread and the bike. I think that’s fun. I know many people do, but I also think that the level of excitement in the UK is still going through its growth cycle, which is similar to what it did in the United States.
It’s growing faster than it did in the United States, but it’s also a different vibe it seems. Some people are super fans in the UK, just like there are in the United States. It grew in the United States and then shot off the charts during the pandemic. I feel that it’s still very much in the growth category in the UK where it’s starting to contract in the United States, which is cool.
Yes, it is definitely.
You like to do marathons and half marathons.
I’ve done 24 marathons. I did another half marathon this morning. I did 133 half marathons.
Did I see that your goal is to get to 150 half-marathons?
That’s my goal at the moment. I’m swithering that I’ll stop half marathons at 150, but we’ll see when we get there. I’ll see how the body is and how I feel, but definitely getting to 150 and then we’ll take it from there. I did my six major marathons and that fit. That was always my goal. That takes quite a while to get that. I got that in Tokyo last year. That was my last marathon.
Congrats. That’s a huge one.
Based on the number of marathons and half marathons that you’ve completed, they’re not terribly difficult for you. Have you thought about doing something longer?
I’ve never fancied an Ultra. I’m not a Susie Chan. If you run forever, I can’t. A marathon does take up a lot of your time. When you come back from a long run, you are shattered. You’re lying on the sofa and whatever. It takes a lot of the day up. It takes time away from the family. I’ve done that for so long. I think I’ve done enough and I’ve got my goals. I’m very much goal-driven. Once I’ve got my goal, if there isn’t another goal within that, I’m probably going to stop.
My goal was the six majors. I did loads of marathons, I did another 18 in between getting my 6 majors to keep me at that fitness level, and then the half marathons were up. When I finished that, I had to do 100 to get to the 100th Half Marathon Club. I did my 100 and then at the time before that happened, I thought that I’d stop at 100, but then I’ve since done 33 more. I’ll now do 150. I like round numbers. I’ll go from there and see where it goes. The half marathon is much easier than a full.
That makes a lot of sense. I’m training for my first marathon right now. I did a 21-milter at Big Sur last year, and that was the first time I was going from a half marathon. It was my bridge length and then I thought I could do a marathon. I’m training for it and it’s exhausting because I’m slow. When I say I’m slow, people always say that it doesn’t matter, but it does from the vantage point of how long it takes to train and how exhausting it is. Next weekend, I’m going to try to do 13 miles or 14 miles and that’s going to be four hours of my day because that’s how slow I am. The more miles you add on, the longer it gets, so I agree with that.
I think this is going to be my one-and-done. It’s too hard to get into the majors and I’m not efficient. If I were a runner who could do a 10-minute mile, I would feel much better about that but it’s so expensive. It’s so much work. I feel that I’m not getting to enjoy other things. I can understand why a half marathon fits that better. I am curious about the 150. I get the round numbers, but in the United States, a lot of people will do it based on one per state. Does the UK have anything like that?
No, they don’t. There is something called the Super Halfs, which is very much like the majors and it’s for Europe. You have to do it in Valencia, Lisbon, Cardiff, Copenhagen, Prague, and Berlin. You have to do the halves and all of them, and then you get a big medal like you do in the six majors. I’m booked in Berlin for next year. I’ve done Lisbon. I’m hoping to get those other four done within the 150. That might take me over the 150 and then I’ll have to go to 200.
That’s how you end up keep adding on. I get it now.
There’s only that. If I lived in America, I would be well up for the states.
Cross-Training
You would have done them all by now, I’m sure. Was it different for you to add biking into the mix at home, or was that always part of your cross-training?
I used to teach spinning anyway, which stopped at lockdown, but biking along with running is such a good cross-train. To be honest, whenever I’m injured, I do a lot on the bike because I can’t run, for example. If I can’t run, I go on the bike and it keeps my fitness level up. Not quite as much as running, but it keeps up that level where I can dip back in and I’m not right down at the bottom. It’s a definite part of my training regime. It fits in well with running and training, especially when you do the Power Zone and you do the longer classes and the clients and stuff like that. That fits in with the running training.
That makes perfect sense. I’m curious how you break down the different types of classes that you take. How do you decide, especially when you’re training, how much running and how much biking to do?
When I choose a bike ride, I have about 170 bookmark classes. I go in and I’ll think that I might fancy that one. Some instructors are harder than others. If I need to get a sweat on and work hard, then I’ll pick a harder instructor. If I want to fancy working steadily, I can pick somebody else or I’ll pick a different genre.
I’m not very good at doing the Tabata classes or the HIIT classes. I prefer to do steady. I’m more of an endurance fitness person. I like to keep going, rather than going up and down. I’ll pick the more steady classes. The Power Zone is great. You’re stuck at the same level, which gets you through great training for your marathon with the power zone.
That’s a good point. I’m focused on trying to run as much outside as I can because we have a lot of hills near our home. If I run indoors and I run in a class, I don’t feel like they give me enough hills to train on. If I choose my own, I don’t ever choose enough hills. I have focused much more on the running aspect of things, but also I’ve had my bike since 2016.
I think that running has been new and fun for me like the bike was when I first got it. Now, I want to run all the time. I don’t want to bike as much. I know it’s a good cross-training though. A lot of people do that and it’s very smart to do. Do you do any other classes on the platform? Do you use their strength or their Pilates or anything like that?
I do their strength. I love their arms and lightweights. What I like is being able to press the button before I get off. If I get off, then I might mess around or go and do something, then maybe never come back again. I do like the arms and lightweight, but I do the heavy stuff as well. I like Rebecca Kennedy a lot for the strength. Robin, I like hers. I’ll always do core. I love the five-minute cores. They are hard.
They are hard and I know you can get a lot of work in five minutes on any muscle group, but I feel like specifically core, you can do much in five minutes.
Do you ever get to the States? Have you ever been to the studios in New York?
I have been to New York. I did the New York Marathon, but PSNY wasn’t around then. I never got a chance or maybe it was, but I wasn’t aware. Peloton was not on my lookout yet. I’d like to go to the New York studio. I’d love that.
You’d have a great time if you could go. It’s like the studio in London and I know you love that. It’s also a little bit different simply because so many people are there. When I was in London, I was struck by how quiet it was there, not in a bad way. Everybody is very excited and the energy is good. I feel that the instructors get to have much more fun at the London studio than they do in New York, but the number of people that you might have run into on the leaderboard might also be bigger in New York because there are so many people coming in and out from every class. They have different vibes, but both are very cool.
London is good.
Peloton Community
What is your leaderboard name?
It’s Gillyruns_121.
Why 121?
One-to-one was part of my business name. One person to one.
Got it. I was trying to make it a running distance in my head.
I’ll do my hundred now. I’ll do 121 halves but that’s gone.
You blew past that.
I was trying to convert it into the Rush album 2112. I was translating the classic rock.
That says a lot about us, Tom. I tried to make it into running and you tried to make it into pop culture. That sounds like us. Do you have an instructor who you call your favorite instructor?
It’s Bradley Rose every time. Bradley is a firm favorite and a massive fan of the Rose’s Rebels.
That’s a great group. They’re nice over there.
Sarah, the girl that runs it is fantastic. Very supportive. They’re welcoming. They are constantly putting things out on Facebook. We do group meetings, group rides, and team rides. We do a takeover at PSL every three months and that is crazy. That’s such fun. We’re all good friends now, a lot of us on there. Friends from across the pond as well. We’ve got friends in Texas and all over just from messaging and whatever on Facebook. Bradley is by far the favorite. He’s very funny.
He is very funny. He has quite the character. He lets his character out and I love that. They all do in different ways. He’s a little goofier but in a good way.
He makes me laugh. He brings you up. If you need a little bit of happiness in your life take a Bradley class. He’s fun.
Do you have any advice for people just now entering the world of Peloton?
To be honest, when I got the bike, I got straight on and I pressed the first box on the top left and it was Tunde. I did her class, which was great. I didn’t look at what was going on in Peloton. I think it would take time. Go through the filter, go through all the classes, and work out what genres you quite fancy and what genres you don’t.
Maybe bookmark them because a bookmark is such a good way to find a class. Otherwise, you’ll never find it again sometimes because it’s way down at the bottom. Take your time. Find some music classes that you like and some genres that you like. If you like climbs, HIITs, Power Zone, or whatever, bookmark some and try them out. Find what you like and go from there. That was useful to me.
Those are very good pieces of advice, especially the bookmarking. We don’t talk about that a lot. I remember what a big deal it was when Peloton started letting you filter by taken and not taken on your bookmarks. That was a game-changer because I would bookmark classes left and right, then I would try to go find a class. Even those were overwhelming because I bookmarked so many and I had taken them. Being able to see what I still hadn’t taken was like a new world. I love it.
I agree.
Thank you very much for joining us. Before we let you go, let everybody know where they can find you in all the places if you would like to be found.
It’s on Instagram. It’s GillyRuns_121.
Thank you very much.
I enjoyed that.
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I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?
People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can also find me on socials and the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.
You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Of course, don’t forget our Patreon. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, keep pedaling, and rowing, and running.
Bye.
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