Welcome to another exciting episode of The Clip Out, where we discuss all things Peloton and fitness-related! This week, we’re dishing out some juicy updates, exclusive partnerships, and thrilling challenges that Peloton fans won’t want to miss. Plus, we have a special guest, Sara Confino, joining us for an engaging chat!

• Apparel Restocking Fee: Peloton introduces a restocking fee for apparel returns. What does this mean for your next purchase?
• HSA/FSA Purchases: Learn how you can use your HSA or FSA to buy Peloton equipment.
• Nashville Store Reopening: Get the scoop on when Peloton will reopen its doors in Nashville.
• Partnership with GirlTREK: Discover how Peloton is teaming up with GirlTREK to empower women through fitness.
• Hyatt Points: You can now earn Hyatt points with your Peloton workouts. How cool is that?
• Quick HIITs: A rapid roundup of the latest in Peloton news.
• Jenn: Tips from Dr. Jenn on breaking free from those stubborn plateaus.
• Strength with Joslyn Thompson Rule: Check out her new strength program and supportive Instagram channel.
• Teaching Barre? Will Leanne Hainsby-Alldis add barre to her teaching repertoire? Tune in for hints!
• Jenn Sherman on Tour: Catch Jenn Sherman as she takes her podcast on the road.
• Outwatted Challenge: TJ Watt and JJ Watt announce a new Peloton challenge—are you up for it?
• Becs Gentry gearing up for the Great World Race—it’s going to be epic!
• Ash Pryor is hosting a virtual event for mental health awareness.
• Enrique Iglesias & Charli XCX are featured in the latest artist series.
• Peloton Member Spotlight: Did you know Sam Claflin is a Peloton member?
• Running Feats: C.J. Albertson’s plans to conquer both the Chicago and NYC Marathons.
• TCO Top 5: Our favorite classes for the fall season.
• Christian Vance Velde launches an exciting new series for Peloton members.
• Peloton’s Metal Collection and World Mental Health Day Classes are now available!
• Spanish Language Program and the Split Program Review offer new ways to engage with your fitness.
• Birthdays: Celebrating Steven Little (10/18) and Matt Wilpers (10/24).

We chat with Sara Confino about her Peloton experience and how it has influenced her fitness journey. Don’t miss her insights and stories!

Join us for a jam-packed episode filled with news, tips, and inspiration that’ll keep your Peloton experience fresh and exciting. Hit play and pedal along with us!

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Peloton Now Charging To Return Apparel Plus Our Interview With Sara Confino!

Before we dig into things, we should remind people that we’re going to be in New York in two weeks. Only two weeks until you have to run 26.2 miles.

Not one point more than that, I wish.

There’s a car waiting for you at the finish line that you can collapse into. We’ve already scheduled an Uber.

Could you do that for me, Tom? I know that’s not true. If people are tuning in and they’ve done the race before, that’s not true. It takes another mile to get out of the village.

That last village mile should count.

It should. They should run you through the village. That’s how it should work, but it’s not.

Like a Viking soldier.

It would be hard to do the security that they do if they did that.

You’d be a Viking soldier. Nobody wants to take on one of those.

Anyway, our meetup is happening.

In my head, I was replaying Hagar the Horrible come to us.

You were in a whole different way.

I’m sorry. That was a whole other thing. We’re doing a meetup while we are in New York. I’ll be the one in the Hagar the Horrible costume.

Do not tempt me. Yes, we are having an event on November 1st. It is going to be held at Copper Still in Chelsea. If you’re interested in going, we do need to get the numbers together for the people who are running it.

If you’ll show up, you have to let us know.

It has occurred to me through conversations that people did not realize that you have to sign up. You have to pay, then you can go. We’d love to see you though.

Just to be clear, that money goes to the bar for the food. This is not a profit-making scheme on behalf of The Clip Out.

Not at all. You’re very clear we are not doing that. That is our Patreon. This all goes to the Copper Still for food and there will be a cash bar so you can have all the drinks you want. We’d love to see you. I don’t want to promise anything but I talked to some guests that might be coming that are special guests. I’m pretty excited about it. You never know, but you’re all special guests to me. Not to Tom but to me.

I thought you meant I wasn’t special.

You are special too.

I know how you mean that. We would love to see you. I was promised chicken tenders.

There will be chicken tenders. You can email me at ClipOutCrystal@gmail.com if you want to go. You can also DM me on Facebook or Instagram. All kinds of ways to get a hold of me.

I’ll slide into your DMs like old times. Hopefully, we get to have fun. What a wonderful opportunity for people to have a chicken tender with me.

That’s so true. That is going to be the highlight of the weekend. Having a chicken tender with Tom.

Also, we talked in the previous episode about the bike and/or the tread do metric. Trish Lalonde, our roving Canadian reporter, has confirmed that the bike and the tread can both display metric.

You can choose. I don’t know what’s up with the row and why they don’t have it.

As you said, it’s because that’s how row stuff is always measured.

I know, but then why can’t they flip it into miles?

It could be a software thing but they never thought of it because it’s not the way rowing works.

It’s also possible they haven’t made the classes because the whole thing that started this conversation was that they had these new classes that you could do. Maybe that was why. I don’t know.

 

Now that we’ve done all the house cleaning, what pray tell do you have in store for people?

Our guest for this episode is Sara Confino who is an amazing author. I love her books and she is also a Peloton user. She loves the Peloton. We had a lovely conversation about both, so people should join us and enjoy Sara Confino. She is funny. We will also be talking about this new restocking fee that Peloton has decided to add. We will be talking about ways to save money with Peloton. They have teamed up with Truemed. We’re going to get into that. There is a store opening.

What? Like a Peloton store where they sell Pelotons in a store that’s physical, that exists in this plane of reality with bikes, treads, rows, and one dusty Guide?

We’ll talk about that. We will also talk about Peloton’s newest partnership with GirlTREK, and this fun challenge coming up with the Watt brothers, which is hilarious and probably the best thing they’ve ever done organically through social media. My hat tip to them. We have the new Hyatt points partnership. There’s also the quick HIITs that we’re going to talk about. Instructors have lots of news. We have some Joslyn news.

We have Leanne Hainsby news. It’s a big old question mark, but we’re going to talk about it anyway. Jenn Sherman has news, Becs Gentry, and Ash Pryor. Not to mention, we have the latest celebrity sighting and the latest art artist series. We have a past guest update and a whole bunch of content that we’re going to talk about too.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, were 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. Maybe leave us a review because we’re shallow people who need admiration. It also helps the people who come along after you to decide it. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group.

You can check out our Patreon at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. We’re going to be talking about an instructor taking a little heat for moving to Florida, how they are responding, and how that might affect other things potentially. We have all sorts of fun things over there on the bonus episode on Patreon, which normally takes 15, 20, or 25 minutes, depending on how chatty we are.

For $5 a month, you can help out the show at the Patreon and you’ll get a bonus episode. Every week, you’ll get an ad-free episode sent to you. If we get it early, you get it early, so you can lure over your friends who aren’t Patreon members. It’s quite the badge of honor. It’s a way to help the show fund the website and all the things that go into that. It’s greatly appreciated. You can watch all of these over on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Sign up for our newsletter at TheClipOut.com, where we will send you the links and everything mostly weekly. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Peloton has finally found the magic bullet that will fix their financial woes. This is it. I don’t know if you saw this, but the stock price is up to $85 a share based on this latest revelation.

Why are you lying like that? Another bold-faced lie.

John Foley is returning as CEO, they rehired Steven Little, and they announced an elliptical all because of an apparel restocking fee.

That part is true. The actual truth is that if you want to return apparel through the mail, you are now going to be charged $9 for a restocking fee.

Does “You can return it in person” mean that while we are in New York, you could return your stuff?

Yes.

Really? You could walk into the showroom and be like, “Give me my money back” and they won’t charge for stocking fee?

Correct. Yeah, because it’s probably mostly about shipping costs. Shipping is ridiculously high. I’m sure that’s what they call it.

They should call it bullshipping.

The frustrating part about that for many people is they’ve closed so many showrooms. It’s ridiculous.

Is your daily thing like, “You can just return it to a showroom to avoid their restocking fee to one of the three?”

It’s 24 about to be 25.

Don’t get ahead of yourself.

People were not happy about it because they didn’t announce it. They just threw it up on site and you don’t find out. You go to return something and when you try to return it, it’s like, “How would you like to do that? Here’s your $9 charge.” “Excuse me?” You can get charged an additional fee if you want somebody to come pick it up, so $9 and $6.95. If you want somebody to come pick it up. They will pick it up from your house. You go ahead and do that math. I’ll wait.

If I live in a town that doesn’t have a store, who are they going to send to pick it up?

A courier? I don’t know. Do you know how when you want to return something to Amazon, you can leave out a label or you can take it to a certain place? Maybe it’s that thing, but it says they will come to your house and pick it up. I don’t know who’s doing it. What I do know is that people are not happy about this.

After $9 to send it back, $7 to have it picked up doesn’t sound so bad.

Additional.

I know, but I’m like, “I don’t have to go anywhere.” That part is appealing, I’m not going to lie.

It’s $9. You could stick it in the mailbox and put the flag up. Why do you have to go anywhere anyway?

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I hate to put it in the mailbox and put the flag up.

Why?

Because then I feel like I’m supposed to tip the mailman or something.

Why? It’s their job.

I don’t do that and I don’t have to. Their job is to put things in your mailbox. I don’t feel like their job is to take things out of your mailbox.

Then why do they have flags?

Because they’re trying to get a tip. It’s the big postal.

I thought you tipped mailmen, mailwomen, mailpeople, letter carriers, or postal workers once a year during the holidays when you give out your holiday tips.

Right, but if you’ve been putting that flag up all year, you’re almost something. I’m like, “Don’t put the flag up. I don’t feel bad.” Are there any letter carriers? You should let us know what the etiquette is here.

I’d love to know from a letter carrier what is the average and what you expect because those could be two different things.

For sure. Have we been angering our postal workers all these years?

I don’t know. When I was a kid, we had the same letter carrier for years. The same person, same car, same route. We lived out in the middle of nowhere. We know the exact time they would be there. Now it changes daily. I don’t know who’s going to be out there. It could be at 5:00 PM. It could be at 5:00 AM.

It’s a moving target.

I never know. It’s a different person every day. I don’t know. The whole world has turned upside down.

Here’s a good thing. Is this with a certain HSA or FSA or does this apply to all HSA and FSA?

It’s a partnership with Truemed so it’s only Truemed.

I bet you this expands. This seems like something that would that would branch out. If you have Truemed mad, you can use your HSA or FSA funds to purchase Peloton equipment, which makes total sense.

Truemed says that at the checkout, you can use HSA. In other words, if you have an HSA, you can use Truemed to then use your HSA funds to buy it. You don’t have to have an agreement with Truemed because Peloton has. It gives the ability for you to buy the equipment using their checkout system. You can use your funds in their system. Does that make better sense? That’s pretty cool because that can be quite a tax savings.

A lot of times, you have money left over. What do I do with it? I guess I’ll get myself a row.

This would have saved us thousands of dollars in taxes. Some companies even fund your HSA. You could get a savings in both.

It makes sense because it’s good for you.

This is a great system. I’m glad that they are doing this. This is a very cool partnership. I don’t think this thing because it’s boring and not sexy. It doesn’t get enough attention. It’s funny because people will sit there and complain all day about the restocking fee. That conversation will be had in every group. Everyone is upset, but no one even cares about this.

I wonder if this stuff ever will go on sale, or if you’re buying it this way if you’re always paying rack rate.

It’s a good point, although tax-wise, would it be that big?

I don’t know. Probably, it depends on how much you make. We are not tax accountants. Please do not listen to our advice.

God, no.

Now you can talk about a Peloton store opening. Kids, once upon a time, there used to be physical or what they sometimes refer to as brick-and-mortar locations where you could acquire yourself a piece of Peloton equipment.

In the United States, there are 24 brick-and-mortar stores.

All of them are in New York City.

No, but a chunk. Now, they are reopening a store in Nashville. When I say reopening, they used to have a store in Nashville. I don’t believe it’s in the same location. I don’t know, I haven’t confirmed because I didn’t have the moment, and I don’t want to. Regardless, the city of Nashville will have a Peloton store again. There’s that. They did not call it a pop-up like they are calling for stores in Australia, which I think is notable as well. We’ve talked about the last couple of weeks, there have been two pop-up stores announced.

 

They have thrown two pop-ups on the barbie.

Can we get one in Bondi? I remember that, Roselyn. That was for you, and Claremont was the other one.

The one in Bondi will have a personal appearance from Paul Hogan. The one in Claremont will have a personal appearance from Glenn Shorrock, former lead singer of Little River Band. Also, neither of those things is true for our Australian listeners. Please don’t go do that to those people, although in Australia, Glenn Shorrock is a national treasure. Paul Hogan, one track. Peloton is partnering with GirlTREK for some walks.

It’s a series of walks. They’re having a series of walks in Dallas in Houston. I don’t know what the DMV is.

The Department of Motor Vehicles?

I don’t think so. I feel like it’s a location and it’s a number of cities.

I think it’s like the DC area, like DC Maryland Vermont. They all are not in Virginia but they are super close. They are all cool and they said DMV.

That could be it.ll cool and they said, DMV. It’s at the DMV and then one in New York City. That tracks. Anyway, that’s pretty cool that GirlTREK is partnering up with Peloton.

TJ Watt and JJ Watt are doing the OutWatted challenge.

I don’t know if you’ll remember this because you got to go back in time. This is a deep cut for the audience and I do not think you’re going to remember this. I think it was back in ‘23, there was a post on Twitter. I think it was JJ Watt who came in 8th out of 50,000 people. He was like, “I’m a little humbled by that because who are these other seven people?”

“I’m an NFL player. Who were the other?”

TJ Watt took the same class and he came in 7th or higher. Now, the brothers are in a little competition. They want everyone in Peloton to be part of it. For people who have jacked their bikes, this will come in their favor because, for those people who have messed with their bikes and calibrated them, there are good reasons to genuinely calibrate your bike. There are just people who do it and it’s a joke. I say that by knowing both are true. You can enjoy this challenge in 20 minutes all out as many Watts as you can get. That’s the idea. That’s the challenge. It’s coming soon. They haven’t released all the details yet, but as soon as we see them, we’ll be posting them.

If you’re a fan of Hyatt Hotels, you can gain points by using your Peloton while you’re there because they have a bunch of Peloton and if you log in, you get points or something.

It says that you can earn 100 bonus points per completed workout on up to ten qualifying workouts. They have to be at least 20 minutes a month at 700 participating Hyatt Hotels.

How are you going to go to all 700? What a ridiculous promotion.

Members can earn up to 12,000 bonus points per year. That is enough to redeem a free night. If you are a World of Hyatt member and you don’t have a Peloton account, you can still create one for free at the participating hotels. Every Hyatt Hotel where Peloton currently operates, which includes the United States and Canada, except for Quebec, the UK, Germany, Australia, and Austria already has or will soon have a minimum of one bike. That’s what the company is telling TPG. Additionally, every Pike Hyatt and a bunch of others will soon have or does have one Peloton row machine. That’s new.

That’s a great way to get people to try it out though.

It is a great idea. I love it.

We have Halloween classes coming soon.

They start the second half of the month. I think it starts on October 26th, and then there’s a bunch of them. Several classes, if you take them, you’re going to get a special Halloween badge. I am hopeful that when we are there on the 31st, there will be a special class that I could be part of.

That would make sense.

I’m excited.

Here’s a special joke for all the trick-or-treaters out there.

Do you know why witches don’t have babies?

Because warlocks have halloweenies. You are welcome, America. Also, we have a Deadlift SmackDown on Instagram.

Peloton posted a debate about the traditional deadlifts versus Romanian deadlifts. They talk about the different forms and execution and how they target different muscles in each lift so that you can decide which to add to your routine.

Romanian deadlift sounds very Halloweeny. It’s like how Dracula does them. Be careful with that cape. You’ll hurt yourself. Don’t get all tangled up. That could be bad.

It could. That’d be terrible.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn. She has tips for what to do when your plateau won’t end. Those are the worst.

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Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. She was a five-year national team member in rhythmic gymnastics and sports psychology for USA Gymnastics. It’s Dr. Jenn.

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Hello.

I can’t wait to hear your answer to this. This question comes from Elizabeth Schlossberg who says, “What do you do when you have a performance plateau that lasts a long time and it becomes like treading water just to not lose the gains you have been gaining? How do you handle that mentally?”

The first thing you want to do is you want to go to your doctor and rule out anything physical. You want to have blood tests. You want to check nutrients. Are you deficient in Iron? Are you deficient in vitamin D? There are a lot of nutritional deficits that can cause this. You want to rule out any disease, any deficits, any hormone issues that could do it because those are quick easy fixes that you want to rule out first.

The next thing you want to look at is why might this be happening. Are you hitting menopause? Have you been doing the same training program for too long and your body has gotten tired of doing the same thing or mentally, what’s going on with you? Are you thinking in a way that is creating this standstill that you are hitting? I know for example that I was stuck on 10-pound weights and I was like, “This is as much as I’m lifting. This is what I’m capable of, and then along came Rebecca and Andy, and Rebecca’s split where she’s doing heavier weights.

I listened to Dr. Stacy Sims on your show and how she talked about the importance at a certain age of lifting heavier and doing less cardio, and I changed things around. Now, I’m lifting 15s and 18s because I changed my mindset. I thought I had hit a plateau. I can’t go any further. Granted at the same time, I’ve changed some other things in my life and that could be part of it. I got the feeling that when I made the shift in my head like, “I’m going to pick these up and see what happens and I can do this, it changed things for me.

You want to rule out mentally whether your thinking is preventing you from moving forward. It’s maybe time to take a break. Take a week off to rest your body. What are you doing to encourage recovery? A lot of the time, we make such demands on our bodies that our bodies are not having enough recovery time to perform well. I would look at how you can up your recovery game, which is a whole other thing. Are you getting massages? Are you taking baths? Are you using Epsom salts? Are you doing cold plunges? This is a new thing that I’m into. Are you doing LED saunas, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and all of that stuff?

I found that since I started doing that, my recovery is night and day. It’s completely different. I can do a workout and be incredibly sore, and then I do LEDs and a cold plunge, and I’m fine. It’s completely different. I think it’s important to look at what can you be doing at home. Can you pull out the Theragun? Can you pull out the Epsom salts? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating enough food to get you through your workout? Are you eating the right kinds of food for your body and your workout?

All of these things are important to explore. Take a week off. Take it easy and do nothing. You want to make sure to take that time off. If you want your purple check mark, then do some stretch classes, do some light yoga but rest your body, and then come back. I would also say shake it up and create a completely new program for yourself, get help doing it, and consult with someone who knows about this stuff like Crystal who’s trained in this and could help you put together a program, or someone in your area. It’s important to give yourself a fresh start and give yourself a recovery time.

Thank you so much for all that. Until next time, where can people find you?

When I’m not in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, sometimes I’m doing both at once. I’m in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber and on social media and posting. You can find me @DrJennMann.

Thank you.

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Joslyn Thompson Rule is launching a strength program and her own Instagram channel in support of the said strength program.

This has a few differences. First of all, the name of the program is called Discover Strength. The second thing that you need to know is that it has a Mobility Program built into it. The first week is four separate 20-minute sessions. Each one is weeks 1 through 4, and then weeks 5 and 6 is an extended warm-up and so they are built into the workouts themselves. That’s different because Peloton has never done anything like this before.

The other thing is that she wants people to make sure that they are asking questions and that they can have a community. She is building, as you said, the Instagram channel that you were going to be able to talk to her. She’s going to be able to send out information to everybody. She’s asking people to start putting the questions in as soon as they want to. She will be putting together that broadcast channel and it will be specific to that program.

Peloton is doubling down on strength.

Word on the street from the complainers is that they are spending too much time on strength at the expense of the bike content that they were used to. That’s the complainer camp.

We had an Instagram post that would lead one to believe that Leanne Hainsby Alldis might be teaching barre.

She’s all of a sudden posting photos and photo shoots of her doing barre-like moves. You have to wonder if that’s coming, and all these instructors have added new elements. It would not shock me at all. Congrats to her if that is the case. I’m sure if that is the case, we will be hearing the official announcement within 30 to 60 days.

That’s about the right time you think on those sorts of recordings?

It’s hard to say because they were doing just a photo shoot. That means they are probably pretty close to the publicity side of things. If that was so true like they were filming a class, then who knows? Sometimes that stuff can sit in the can for six months. It’s hard to say.

At my age, I’ve sat in the can for six months, especially when I had the colonoscopy. Jenn Sherman is going on tour.

Monday, December 2nd in Wilmette, Illinois which is around Chicago.

That has to be in Chicago.

I just don’t want to have people at me. The last time I said something was in Chicago, it turned into a stupid conversation.

That’s three blocks outside of Chicago.

That’s right, because of the traffic, etc. Anyway, it’s near Chicago. That is where it is going to be and she has the podcast with her friend, Pam Sunshin. I’m sorry. Sunny and Jenn is the name of their IG Channel and podcast. They will be going on tour with Dear FoundHer. I’m sure that’s going to be very exciting. It’s going to be moderated by Lindsay Pinchuk. I saw Lindsay post over on The JSS Tribe that she was hoping that they would be taking it to other cities as well. I think we can all expect that because how can this not go well? If you put a Peloton instructor in front of a microphone, money is going to follow.

As a live event promoter, I’d be interested to know what size venues they’re playing.

I could DM Lindsay and see what I can find out.

Becs Gentry is gearing up for her Great World Race.

 

She posted that it was four weeks away.

You need to remind people what this is. It’s obvious to you.

It takes up so much of my brain to think about it. I’m so excited for her because this race is the Great World Race. You start in Antarctica and you go to each continent and complete a marathon a day for an entire week. All seven continents in seven days.

Seven marathons, seven continents, seven days.

That’s their tagline.

I’m a marketing genius.

How crazy is that? I asked her. She said that she was starting to pack things and everything. She was putting it in her post. I was like, “Are you going to post all of the things that you are packing? I need to see this packing list. Think about it. You will be running in the heat. You will be running in extreme cold. I need to see the layers that go into this. I am so curious.

I listen to the New York Roadrunners podcast and Set the Pace. Becs is a co-host on that. She interviewed David Kilgore. You might remember Rob who was on our podcast and he’s the other co-host of the show. They were talking to David Kilgore because he’s done this race before. I guess he was the inspiration for how this started with Becs.

He was telling her that how you do the recovery is very key to this. I can’t wait to see her recovery because the way he described it was you laying flat on the airplane because they’re flying you from one country to the next. You get to lay flat down. He was like, “Bring your Normatec so you can put it on your legs while you sleep, so you can recover while you’re sleeping before you start your next marathon the next day. It’s intense.

That’s crazy.

It is crazy and she’s nervous.

Going to seven continents in seven days is a lot. I would need Normatec for that.

I was surprised by how nervous she is as she said in her classes. I don’t mean like it’s not worth being nervous about. Let me be clear. She’s such an accomplished runner.

Even someone like her still gets nervous about challenges like this.

To other instructors who know she’s doing this, they think she’s crazy for doing this. I think it’s amazing. If you could run a marathon in three hours, this would be wild.

If you have the physical capability to do seven in seven days in the first place and this falls in your lap, you have to do it.

This is not an inexpensive thing. This is a $50,000 venture. You have to be all in if you’re going to go. How exciting. I can’t wait to see. She said she was going to post everything. She was packing by the way. There will be a YouTube post. We will surely push that out to everybody because I’m excited about this for her. We will be tracking.

Ash Pryor is hosting a virtual event for mental health awareness.

This is going to take place on the 17th. It’s a virtual event. This is going to be a virtual panel. It’s going to be alongside Jared Denzel Keller. It’s going to be in conjunction with the Steve Fund, which is the nation’s leading organization that is focused on supporting the mental health and emotional, well-being of young people of color. A lot of Peloton members received an email invitation. You can register for it through that link. It’s a free event. You can also use our article and sign up because it’s virtual. There’s no reason to limit that.

The article that we put out there also talked about the fact that Ash Pryor talks about how important emotional health is and taking care of yourself, especially on social media. Social media is no joke. There are a lot of you that I know who just scroll it and move on, but when you are a person who is creating content of any kind on a regular basis, it can mess with your head. If you’re a person who has to consume it for your job or something that you’re doing, it also can mess with your head.

I think also if you’re older, it’s easier to be dismissive of it because it didn’t come into your life until later. If you grow up with it always being there, it’s a lot harder to insulate yourself from some of the damage that it can do to your life.

I agree. Just talking to my daughter about it, the kids have a harder time turning it off. You can turn off your notifications She’s like, “No, because somebody needs me.” That’s hard for them in a way that it’s not as hard for adults at this point. At some point, those kids will be adults. What a great conversation to have and I hope that it’s super helpful for people. I also hope that they post the conversation so that people who couldn’t make it can go. That’ll be very helpful.

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We have not one but two Artists Series.

We did talk about the Brat thing. We just weren’t sure if that was it because we said it was going to be taking place in October. We were not sure if that was related to Charli XCX because it said Brat ride. It didn’t explain, but it was. Spoiler.

Oh, that’s the next one.

I’m sorry.

First, the store opening and now this. Get it together. We have to run a show list for a reason.

I’m a failure.

Enrique Iglesias. That’s where we’re starting.

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Also him. That leans toward the Latin Hispanic Heritage Month. There have been a lot of different voices that they have been highlighting this month which is cool. A lot of people will be super excited about this one because he’s huge. He’s mainstream media huge, not like a person with one album that some of us have never heard of. He spans multiple generations.

He on for a while now. I remember him when he was just Julio’s kid.

Now he has his own whole empire of creativity.

It’s nice to see one of the nepo babies finally making it.

I know, right? They fought it so hard. Sometimes we should do a whole separate bonus episode on pop culture nepo babies. When we watch TV, it’s insane.

If you go down the rabbit hole looking up actors sometimes on shows, it’s insane.

Good luck with finding one that isn’t. Back to Enrique who is talented in his own right.

Just because someone is a nepo baby doesn’t mean they’re not talented. They just have opportunities that a lot of other people might not.

Enrique has eight classes, so you’re going to have eight opportunities to be able to take these classes.

I don’t know if you know this, Crystal, but there is another artist series to talk about and it features Charli XCX.

I didn’t know that.

Now you do.

There will be several Lanebreaks but only one live class and that was on October 11th. It was a live DJ ride with DJ John Michael and Cody Rigsby. There was also a walk, a run, and a ride all for Lanebreak. If you want to make sure that you get all of your Charli XCX, you can do that by the Lanebreaks or the live DJ ride with Cody and DJ John Michael.

They asked her to do more live classes, but she’s a Brat. Coming up after this, we have two celebs spotting with a Peloton membership. We have a past guest update and an overview of all the cool content that you should be checking out so you get full usage on your Peloton membership. Stick around.

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We have a new celebrity sighting. I know we’ve never had this one before because I’ve never heard of this guy’s name, but he’s still a celebrity, Sam Claflin. I think he was on an Amazon show called Daisy Jones & the Six, which people loved. I don’t think it’s designed to have Season 2. I think it was designed to be a miniseries. I think it was loosely inspired by Fleetwood Mac. It’s about a band in the ‘70s and they’re all romantically entangled and then they’re putting out a record. It all comes out in the songs. People went crazy for this thing. I saw so many social media posts about it. It was a lot, especially considering it was on Amazon Prime and not Netflix.

That is very notable.

Apparently, he has a good abs. The one that I’ve been told recently.

You can count them. There’s the whole six-pack right there. Technically, an eight-pack. Also, when he posted, he had a 30-minute run and he was in 22nd place out of 28,000 runners who had taken the class before him.

He has earned each and every one of those abs. Well done, Sam.

Good job, Sam.

‐‐‐

CJ Albertson was on the show a while back, a big-time marathon runner. He posted that. He is running both the Chicago and the New York City Marathon which are three weeks apart.

Chicago was this past weekend. He did do that. Not only that but when he was in Chicago, he PR’d by 1 minute and 36 seconds. He finished in 2 hours, 8 minutes, and 17 seconds. He finished 7th at the Chicago Marathon.

That’s shorter than the runtime of Joker 2 and would only be slightly less miserable.

I can’t even imagine running it in that time frame. That’s insane. He is going to be at the New York City Marathon. He is excited, according to his post. It’s not like I talked to him. He was saying that his training has improved. He PR’d and now he is super stoked to get in there and do what he can do at New York. I can’t help but wonder how this is going to go. He is so fast. I just see big things for CJ.

He keeps getting faster.

I know because he keeps running. That’s what happens. Keep improving. It’s so cool.

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Let us now turn our eyes to the TCO Top Five. We will start with your favorite bike bootcamp.

Your favorite bike bootcamp was with none other than Jess Sims. It was the Sims 60 taught on October 8th. Melanie Martinez said this was her favorite class because Turkish get-ups are fun. Not true, but I’m glad you love it.

 

Number two is your favorite row.

My favorite row came from Alex K. He has been hitting our list hard. There have been Alex K’s all over this thing. This was a 45-minute ‘90s row. Mindy Jensen said she enjoyed it. Alex built it as ‘90s guilty pleasures and any playlist with Achy Breaky Heart is certainly a guilty pleasure playlist. I’m not sure I could do that.

It might be guilty. I don’t know about the pleasure part.

I don’t know that I could listen to that because that’s a ridiculously long song and you can’t escape it. You can’t turn it down. For Alex, I would try. He’s great.

Number three, your favorite ride.

The Brat ride. Kimberly Ray Jessop, the Law Mother, and Super Trish nominated this class. Kimberly said, “Cody knocked it out of the park again with this ride. Having DJ John Michael and Ren because if you know you know along for the ride made it even better. With a live DJ, fantastic music, and a party-like atmosphere with Cody, a ride couldn’t get much better.”

Number four, your favorite class pairing.

Sarah Lester nominated this. Any 5-minute post-meal walk followed by a 10-minute restorative yoga class. She said that this pairing was perfect because you can get out and get yourself digested, and then you come home and clear your mind while you relax. You’re ready for bed.

Get the farts out before you do the yoga.

It’s important to do it in that order.

Everyone else in the house would be very grateful. Number five your favorite unstackable.

This was taught by Ally Love. It was a 30-minute Tabata class. Michael Davern said, “What a way to start the day or week. A warm-up, then 30 on, 10 off, 7 times for one set. A two-ish minute cool down and then repeated four times. An average of 8.8 difficulty, rated by 5,000 members who have taken it.” You’re not going to slouch if you take that class.

No, you are not. We will take a look around the world of Peloton for what’s going on this week at Peloton. We have a Boss Ride with Ally.

October 20th, 12:00 PM Eastern. You’re going to be able to take a live Boss Ride.

Endurance hour with Becs.

Becs will be doing a 60-minute endurance run. That will be on Tuesday, October 15th. That will be live at 12:00 PM. Eastern. By the time you hear this, it’ll already be out on demand and ready for you.

We also have Discover Yoga.

We are now in week 5 of the Discover Yoga series. It’s going to be Denis and I believe there’s going to be balancing poses.

Finally, Bollywood Pilates.

Aditi is teaching this class on Thursday, October 17th at 9:30 AM Eastern. You can enjoy Bollywood while you do your Pilates. How lovely.

Christian Vande Velde has a new series.

This is fun. It’s called Real Routes. This is not under Collection yet. This isn’t any weird thing that you have to go to. You just hop on the bike and if you filter by Christian Vande Velde, there it is. The first one was called Col du Galibier. It is the eighth-highest paved road in the Alps. He’ll take you on the ride mentally but with turning up the resistance as you would, but also describe what that would feel like and what strategy you should use as you do it.

Is it also a scenic ride?

No. It’s like when Christine did her right up the Kīlauea, the big volcano. She did that in four different parts.

Did he have you restrict your windpipe to replicate altitude?

I don’t know because I haven’t taken the class.

That seems dangerous.

I wouldn’t think that he would suggest that. That doesn’t seem like a great idea.

It would be reckless to even mention something like that.

Good, glad we agree. These are all bike routes that he has tackled during his career as a professional cyclist. I think that’s cool.

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We also said eight-highest paved. At what point do they stop ranking the altitude of paved roads?

It’s in the Alps. Here’s how it is. The climb is 18.1 kilometers long. It starts at an elevation of 1,397 meters and reaches a summit of 2,642 meters. That’s an elevation gain of 1,245 meters with an average gradient of 6.9%. The final section of the climb also includes a maximum gradient of 10% at the 17.5-kilometer mark. It is considered a difficult ascent and it is known as being decisive in determining final standing standings in the Tour De France.

I know none of that meant because it was all metric, and I love America.

It’s high and it’s really hard.

Bust out your rock horns. Peloton has your Metal collection.

She has a Metal collection and Charlotte is in it, but so is Bradley Rose and there are some other instructors as well. There will be more than just bike classes. There will be some different things like Metal Barre, Metal Shadowboxing, Metal Ride, Metal Row, and all kinds of things.

We also have classes for World Mental Health Day.

There were some classes for that. There were rides, yoga flow, and meditation. Kirra did a special creating space class with Adrian. There was also a ride, body weight, strength, row, run, full-body strength, and another ride that was in German. There were a few classes in German. If you didn’t get a chance to get them, it’s not like you can only do them on that day. They’re still great.

There was also a new Spanish language program available.

It is called Dale Duro, which I probably didn’t say correctly but I’m going to pretend that I did. It will be all in Spanish and Camila will be teaching it for four weeks, three days a week, all strength. It’s very exciting. That is our second Spanish program for strength because Rad put out the other one a couple of weeks ago.

We also have a couple of articles from TheClipOut.com to share with you. The first is we have an overview of our Fall picks.

Helper Bee Tina did this lovely article about all the different Fall classes so you don’t miss something. Sam Yo did an Autumn Recovery Ride. It’s a great example. That was taught back on September 22nd. You might have missed it because there are a lot of different classes. In case you did, this would be a good time to make sure you take it. There’s also Erik Jäger’s Oktoberfest ride. That one took place on September 20th. That’s out there.

Also, all of the All For One classes. There were so many of them. Some of the top ones that we wanted to highlight were Hannah’s 20-minute Keith Urban ride. That was when he did the live concert in the studio. Robin’s 30-minute teeny ride which celebrates Latin American Heritage Month. It also includes some of your favorite instructors as riders in the class. That would be a good series that you could put a few together and make a nice stack. Of course, Peloton’s Fall apparel edit. They have some great new colors that they put out in time for Fall. There was red grape, brick red, and ash.

We also have a split review for people over on the website.

This is a super comprehensive review and it’s Split-Plus. These are all the new classes that dropped. There are four new programs that just dropped. Katie’s four days split-plus-row. Cliff’s four days split-plus-ride, Ben’s four days split-plus-ride, and Olivia’s four days split-plus-run. The gang at the clip out, the tipsters, the helper bees, everyone worked together.

All hands on deck.

Everyone wanted to join in and take this. Everybody worked together. It was cool and it’s neat because Tina also has a bonus point of learning. She took the one that was in German. It was cool because he still says words like bicep curl in English because that’s the word for them. You can still pretty easily follow along. I thought that was a nice little bonus for that. This is a great article because it breaks down the pros and cons of each of these series. I recommend it. It’s good.

‐‐‐

We have two birthdays coming up. First is the aforementioned Steven Little, former Peloton instructor extraordinaire. That is on October 18th.

Happy birthday to Steven Little.

On October 24th is Matt Wilpers’s.

Happy birthday to Matt Wilpers.

Coming up after this, we have our interview with author Sara Confino. Stick around.

‐‐‐

Joining us is a new full-time author, Sara Confino. Sara, how’s it going?

This is my first week of full-time authoring.

How did it go?

I finished the draft of book five. It’s amazing how much I can get done when my children are in school and I’m not.

I am a famously slow reader. I am like, “If you’re writing books faster than I read them.” Crystal is doing this one by herself. My ego can’t handle it.

To be fair, I did write Don’t Forget to Write in 39 days. I would rather give birth unmedicated than do that again.

 

You can. You can still be mad. She did it.

Maybe if I took a whole week off work, I could finish a book.

You would still get distracted by the television. That is the problem. That’s the real problem. Anyway, that is quite an accomplishment. How excited are you to have a draft done?

I don’t know because I haven’t looked at how messy it is yet. I’m going to start reading this thing and be like, “You don’t know how to write,” but we’ll see. I pleasantly surprised myself before. Hopefully, it’s good.

That has to be very different to need to have a schedule that’s not around work. How did that go, week one?

So far so good for the most part. I did have a few other author engagements. It wasn’t all just sit down and write time. I did have to go run a couple of errands because my children decided they would only certain foods and nothing else. I had to take care of that in the morning, but it was nice to not have to write from 9:00 to 11:00 PM and get to be a human being instead of a vampire. That was great.

You probably had so much actual time with your family.

I did. Some of that was still how it was because I was writing mostly after my kids went to bed. I get to feel a little bit more present. I’m not as worried about everything else that I’m doing. I get to squeeze in my workout before they get home, which is great. So far so good.

You need to start doing the thing in your interview space where the book’s cover is facing forward behind you.

I had to redo my entire background because I was in a magazine. They came out to do a photo shoot and I was like, “They can’t see my office the way it is.” I look like a crazy hoarder lady because I was still sending out book boxes and everything. I was like, “They’re going to send somebody to check on me if they see this.” That was a three-day project, everything on my shelves and making everything look like I’m a human, not some troll in a basement writing books.

That’s where books come from, trolls and basements.

It’s very well known. That’s a well-known fact.

I am upstairs but the Peloton is in the basement.

Writing Advice

The best writing advice I ever heard and as someone who doesn’t write. I had a short story published if that counts. I don’t remember the guy’s name but he was a writer for the Simpsons. He’s written a lot of episodes and a lot of classic episodes. They asked him how he wrote so many episodes and he was like, “I sit down to write it. I write it as quickly as I can and I don’t care about being funny. I just get it all down and then I walk away from it for like 48 hours. I come back to it and I like, ‘What idiot wrote this piece of trash? Let me fix it,’ then I can go through them. I start by writing something bad and then I pretend like it’s not mine and I fixed it.”

As a die-hard Simpsons fan, I now want to know who that is. The bottom shelf is Simpsons books. I taught a class one summer on the Simpsons and Society. I’m a Simpsons nut job, but not recent seasons.

The good stuff.

The classic. That fifteen especially. Season 5 and 6 where we’re hit Bob and everything. I was a Journalism major for five semesters in college and then I taught Journalism for 21 years, which is insane. I’m very good at drafting very quickly. I’ve heard that I turned in very clean drafts in general. There’s not a lot that I have to go back and rewrite typically, which is not the norm. I think it’s just that journalism training because you have to write so fast on a deadline and it has to work.

You have to edit as you’re writing.

In college, when I wrote for the college newspaper, I remember having to sit in the newsroom and write my article. It would get published that day. That writing helped me pump stuff out a lot quicker. It’s helping me with conciseness. For example, when I was selling my first book for the love of friends. I was telling the story. My agent said, “We need to get it under 90,000 words. Nobody’s going to touch it if it’s not under that.” She started talking about scenes to cut and I said, “I’ll tell you what, give me a weekend.” I sat down with it and I used the rules that I teach my students. I cut 6,000 words and she said, “How did you do that? You didn’t cut a single scene or line of dialogue?”

You’re like, “No adjectives.”

Basically and a lot of contractions but I got it down to 89,000 words. We were good to go.

That’s amazing.

A little superpower from teaching.

Writing Full-Time

I’m curious what was the moment that you were like, “Now is the time to go ahead and try writing full-time?” What prompted that?

I’m not sure I’m there yet. That’s all very new and scary, to be honest with you. It’s like I have to make money off of my brain now. There’s no guaranteed paycheck, but I was down to part-time. I went down to 0.8 to get my kids to school and then 0.6. I went from teaching 5 classes to 4 to 3. In 2023, I was at school. It was still most of my day, despite teaching fewer classes. It was bringing in a third of our money. I was like, “Why am I torturing myself when it’s not what I want to be focusing on right now?”

My husband got a job with a band. He’s still teaching part-time but he’s also traveling a lot with this band. When he’s not home, I have zero time to write because my children don’t like to sleep. I don’t understand that. All I want to do is sleep. My four-year-old in particular is not a sleeper, which is great. It’s so much fun. You can put that child back in his bed 50 times. He will sneak out of his room 51 times.

Every single night, you hear a door freak open and little footsteps running down the hall. You’re like, “Please be an intruder.” It’s never an intruder. It’s always Max and he wants to sleep in my bed. We had to get a preschool-style nap caught to put in our room to keep him out of our bed because I was not sleeping at all.

While my husband is gone, by the time I get the kids down to bed at 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, or 9:30 if my four-year-old naps at daycare and then I have to clean everything up. I make the lunches. I have to do all of the mom stuff. I’m exhausted. There’s no time to get any writing done. That’s why this fifth book didn’t get finished until this week because there was no time and it was rough.

Finally, I sat down and looked at finances. I had saved up close to a year’s salary. I was like, “I’m going to try to do this,” and he was very supportive of that. Now it’s terrifying but hopefully, it’s going to work out and we’ll see what happens. The goal is to get to two books a year. If I can do that, I can make this work. Fingers crossed.

I’m rooting for you. I think that’s amazing.

 

Our goal is for you to get big enough so when we ask you back for an interview, you blow us off.

That is our goal.

I’ll make you jealous. My youngest, when he was that age, he would put himself to bed. We’d look around.

She’s going to punch you. She’s going to find a way to punch you through the screen.

We’d be like, “Where is Brian?” We go into his room and he would have crawled up into bed. Pull the cover. He was like, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” That’s it.

I have to lie in the bed with him and I have to pretend to go to sleep too because if my eyes are open, he’s like, “You’re not sleeping.” It’s like, “Great. Thank you.” I do super quite creeped out of the bed and hope it doesn’t squeak at all then a dog will come in and I have to start all over again. It’s great.

One hopeful thing for you, a lot of times when kids are like that as they’re little, they’re easier to deal with when they’re in their preteens. I will hope that for you.

I have two boys. I’m hoping that era will be a little bit smoother. My best friend for example has a thirteen-year-old girl and I found something off a couple of months ago and she gave me the mean mug. I was like, “Come here.” She comes over all grumpy stomping over. I was like, “When you want to dye your hair purple and get things pierced and your mom says no, who do you think is taking you?” She’s like, “You?” I was like, “Yeah. You don’t make that face at me anymore, kid.” We’re good now but her mom’s in for it. We’ve been friends for almost 30 years, so she can’t get mad at me no matter what I let her daughter do.

Peloton Journey

I guess we should ask her about Peloton. How did you originally find Peloton?

I am a total lemming and as soon as one of my friends does something, I’m like, “I want that, too.” We had all seen that commercial that went viral. That was a horrible commercial. I’m going to back up a little bit. During virtual teaching, this is 2020-2021, I was home that whole year because my four-year-old was born in May of 2020 and my school worked it out. Even though some people went back in the Spring, they kept me home because we didn’t have any childcare.

It was me and a baby head on Zoom. I would wear them for the first year of his life, which we joked was going to be great birth control for the students, except if my mom came and took the baby, everybody signed out. He was their little mascot. They were only there to see him. It’s hysterical. She would come over and take him usually during my lunch break. I have a treadmill that you can’t see in my office. I would get on the treadmill and run for most of my lunch break because that was the only time when I did not have a baby attached to me.

I started to get some hip pain. I am a Googler and a total hypochondriac. I wind up on WebMD. It means that I’m dying every time anything hurts. It’s like, “My nose feels weird. Oh, nose cancer.” I diagnosed myself with bursitis, which I’m going to tell you was wrong. I wound up getting a knee pillow and I completely fixed my hip pain. When it came back a little, we got a new mattress and I have not had a single issue with my hips since then. It was not the running but I was like, “Clearly, my body is giving out. I am developing bursitis. I need to find something lower impact to keep me working out.”

I was always a total gym rat but during COVID and with little kids, I didn’t have time to go to the gym. I was not somebody who was in the cycling. I have a bike. I like outdoor stuff but exercise bikes bored me to death. Even if I was reading or watching something, I did not want to do it. My best friend told me she ordered a Peloton. Our other best friends in our group chat were like, “I’m going to do that too.”

I was talking to a different friend. I was like, “Jen and Sara are getting Peloton.” She was like, “I should get one,” and then she ordered one. I was like, “What are you all doing?” I talked to my parents about getting one first so I could try it because it was still early in COVID. We were going to each other’s houses. We were bubbled together. My dad is a huge cyclist. He got an eBike in 2023 but up until he got the eBike, he would still bike 17 miles to work in the summer. Now he does it with the eBike.

How was working the shower?

They do. He’s at the University. He’d go to the gym and take a shower, then he’d bike home. It was like, “Dad, you’re in your 70s. What?”

That’s amazing.

He has stamina galore with exercise. He can kick my butt. We’ve done some bike rides together. He destroys me. I’m like, “You’re 73. How are you doing this?” It’s wild. I go out cycling with him. He does not look behind him ever so you better keep up or he’s gone. He has the car keys so you’re in trouble if you get lost. I got them to get a Peloton so I could try it. I wound up getting totally addicted to it. My parents barely used it which is hysterical. They do sometimes.

They took my old treadmill when I upgraded. They used that a little bit more than the Peloton, but then finally, I was like, “I want to be able to do this. This is good.” I ordered one. It came in April of 2021, and then my knee started bothering me. My knees, which had been fine on the treadmill when my hips weren’t. I was like, “I bought a $2000 paperweight. I’m not going to be able to use this thing. What am I going to do?” I did one of the Matt Wilpers virtual fittings. I love you, Matt.

It didn’t do the trick?

It didn’t. They were trying to say one of my legs was longer than the other. Not that. That wasn’t it. I found a physical therapist who would come to your house, but I couldn’t leave because I had a baby that I was full-time watching. That was just fabulous. She came over during nap time and I told her the whole issue. She moved my ankle for ten seconds.

She was like, “Did you break this?” If you would ask me before that if I broke my ankle. I would have said, “No, I never broke a bone.” I thought about it and I was like, “I fractured that when I was eleven.” Long story short, my brother was jumping off my parent’s deck and I was like, “Why are you doing that?” He’s like, “You can’t do it.” He was correct. I was in a cast for weeks when I was eleven. I completely blocked it out.

You could do it but just once.

I never did that one again, but that ankle was causing the majority of my problems.

You did not have flexibility?

No, and I have worn heels for a million years. I have short Achilles tendons from it. She gave me three exercises, went downstairs with me, and adjusted the bike. I’ve had zero problems since then. She’s a miracle worker. I’ve recommended her to everybody in the area who has any issues. I’m now helping to diagnose people like, “If you’re having problems send me a picture of your bike and I’ll show you what you’re setting has to be for this.”

Ever since then, it’s been literally when I’m home, it’s pretty much every day if I’m healthy that I’m on that bike. It’s a total lifesaver. I love it. I still like running. If it’s nice out, I’ll still sometimes go out for a run. I don’t think I run on the treadmill more than a half dozen times since I got the bike. I’m loving it. That’s my very long story of how I got into this.

I’m curious if you ever take any of the other Peloton class content or are you a bike person? That’s okay.

I do mostly arm stuff because I’m trying to make sure I don’t get that old lady wing going on. I’ve seen enough of those. I don’t want that. I’ve done a few other strengths things. I’ve done a few of the outdoor walks. I have not done any of the runs yet. I’m very much on the Peloton treadmill, especially now that it has Kindle on it. I’m like, “Maybe I pulled the trigger on that.” When I signed my next book contract, that might be my splurge for myself.

I hear you.

 

We’ll see. I did not get to splurge in 2023. I was going to splurge on myself and then I hit a parking pole in a garage. Everybody was screaming because I forgot quarters for the arcade at the movie theater. Everybody was yelling and the price of the damage was $30 off from the price of the purse I was going to buy myself. That didn’t happen. Next time around, I can splurge on something other than bad driving.

Motherhood

Now that it has Kindle on it, I think that if you read one of your own books on there, you can write it off.

That’s interesting. My cousin is my accountant and I’m going to call him right after this.

You’re like, “I just talked to a nut job on a show that had a dumb idea. Can I do it?”

People are claiming that I can write off my dogs and their expenses, and use them in promo videos. I’m like, “There is a Schnauzer and don’t forget to write, so I can make this happen.”

You can do that.

If you use the kids in the promo video, can you write off the kids?

You can to a certain extent. I know somebody else who’s an influencer who pays her kids by putting it in their college fund and then writes that off, so maybe.

Maybe the kids need to be in our new videos.

My seven-year-old thinks that every time I do an interview, it’s about him. I did this big local book festival and they had TV crews there. He begged to be interviewed. One of the reporters sat down and did a ten-minute interview with him. At the end of it, the reporter goes, “Thank you so much. This was great.” My seven-year-old goes, “It was an honor.” My latest book launch party was the first book launch party that I’ve had because my first two books, my kids couldn’t get vaccinated and I didn’t want to go do something I couldn’t bring them to.

2023 was the first week of school and I was not mentally capable of that right then, but we had this big book launch. A hundred people showed up. It was crazy. Standing room only. Some of them came up to me afterward and shook hands. I’m sitting here like, “I am so much more afraid of you than you were of me. You don’t know that but okay.” At the end of it, my seven-year-old goes, “Can I get on the microphone?” I go, “Sure.” I handed it to him and he said, “Thank you all so much for coming.” My four-year-old runs up and grabs some microphone from him and goes, “Poop.” That doesn’t sum up my motherhood experience. Nothing does.

Give the crowd what they want. People love poop jokes. I’m 53 and that’s what I do.

Great. I have how many more years of this with him?

You’re going to have a long ago with that.

I was not prepared for two boys. I want to know when I’ll sit on a dry toilet seat again in my life.

Maybe when you have someone clean it for you.

It’s bad. I have a friend who has three boys and she tiled behind every toilet in her house to make it easier to clean. I said, “I don’t want to have to do that.”

I remember when I met Tom and he had two boys. When we all started living together, I was used to doing all of my own cleaning and I said, “No, I am not cleaning up your children’s pee. That is a road too far.” We didn’t feel comfortable having the kids clean up each other’s mess because they were step-siblings. We didn’t want them to resent each other.

That feels like some punishments or Cinderella thing going on. We hired every two weeks.

 We have somebody come in to clean the bathroom.

We have that too but it’s not enough.

Not when they’re little. You’re right, it’s not.

Not at that age. When they’re starting a little bit older.

It’ll be more manageable.

Every two weeks is okay.

My favorite is when they go outside and they’re like, “There’s a tree.” It’s like, “There are people everywhere.”

That’s a bit of it being a boy.

You’re like, “We’re at Disney.”

I’m not even going to get into that story. It’s happened. That’s all I’m going to say. They’re not going to let me back. I was very concerned about this. There was an experience on the National Mall and I was like, “We’re going to jail. FYI, this is a national park.”

Peloton Moms Book Club

You have your hands full. You do. Back to Peloton. I have to ask about the Pelotons Mom’s Book Club because you are very active over there. I’m curious, did you find out about it or did they find you? Tell me how this happened.

 

I joined that before my first book came out. It wasn’t about promoting books or anything. It was I got into Peloton and then joined all the Peloton groups that I could find because it’s a cult. You get a bike and all of a sudden, you’re knocking on doors like a Jehovah’s Witness like, “Can I tell you about our Lord savior Peloton?” Do you know how CrossFit people are? We might be worse.

I think we’re worse because we have a little bit of a snob that may be CrossFitters.

It’s CrossFit though.

It’s a different kind of snob.

There’s my brother who’s both. I’m like, “You’re insufferable. No.” I did do the same ride one time though while he completely kicked my butt, but it was pretty funny. I’m texting him during it. He’s like, “Just ride already.” I joined that I think it was before For the Love of Friends came out. I was scared to tell anybody that I was an author because I am very much a rule follower. I don’t want to break any rules. I don’t want to upset anybody.

After the first book came out, I very much did not feel very legit as an author yet. It was during COVID. I could barely leave my house still with the baby and everything. I wasn’t that comfortable talking about it yet. When She’s Up to No Good came out, it was in Amazon’s first reads. You could download it for free for the month before it came out and people started posting, “What are you picking for first reads?” Another author in the group was Kathleen Willett. She is also with my publisher and her book was in that same promotion.

She did a post about it and I was like, “Is this something we can do?” I just mentioned, “My book is one of those too.” It snowballed and became this thing. People downloaded it and loved it. Don’t Forget to Write was in the first reads and that one exploded. I have a couple of haters in there, but for the most part, it’s been a positive experience. My friends who have bikes are in the group and they’re always like, “All they do is talk about you.” I’m like, “I know. It’s a little embarrassing.”

You’ve made it when you have some haters.

I always tell Crystal, “You’re not popular until people don’t like you.”

It is true.

I had one person who joined after. There was somebody who would post something anonymously that they didn’t think I should be in the group. I left the group for a little while and I had 150 people message me and say, “Please come back.” I talked to the moderators before I left. I said, “I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. If it’s a purely reader space, I’ll respect that. I’m fine.”

People asked me to come back, so I did. Somebody joined right after that. It had a completely blank profile and only commented trashing me whenever I posted anything. It was like, “Are you in this group, or are you just here to troll?” I’m a fan of blocking. The best thing I did. I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. If you don’t like someone though, I don’t get it. If I’m that annoying, block me. You’ll never see me again.

There’s just something not right. They have time on their hands and a lot of hate. It’s not about you. It’s about something broken in them and I can say that. I still get obsessed when people do it to me. I know better but I know that it’s true. I hope helps you.

That’s like three people in the group out of like 46,000 or 47,000 people. If that’s my ratio, cool.

You’ll take it.

It’s such a positive community overall. That’s what’s been so awesome about Peloton and Peloton Mom’s Book Club. It’s been a positive place. Think about the high fives on the leaderboard. I don’t know these people high-five me. I don’t know these people I’m high-fiving but it’s great. I love it. It’s so happy.

I agree. That’s the thing it’s always drawn in Peloton.

It’s very much so Legally Blonde thing. Exercise gives you endorphins hoping people don’t kill their husbands. There we go.

Defining Moment

Was there a moment where you felt like you were a real author? I should ask which book got you there in your mind.

Probably Don’t Forget to Write. That’s been the hit so far. I have a lot of imposter syndrome and people are like, “Why?” I’m like, “I don’t know. My brain is broken. I can’t help it. I’m sorry.” I don’t even know how to explain it. One of my very favorite authors is Beatriz Williams. I think she thinks I’m a total stalker because I’ve been trying to get a blurb from her for years. She probably thinks I live in the bushes outside her house. I don’t but I have the top fan badge on her page from commenting on stuff, which is a little embarrassing. It’s fine.

She read this new one and posted that she was loving it. I feel like I have a ride moment. We’re not best friends yet. I think she still thinks I’m a stalker. The acknowledgment that I was not a crazy person. I’m like another author too because she’s been influential in my work. She was the first place where I saw humor in historical fiction. She’s how I learned how to do a dual timeline. She’s the queen of that. For her to read my book and post about it was a very defining moment for me. I geeked out.

Does that mean you’re getting a board?

It hasn’t happened yet but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen later. I will say Taylor Jenkins Reid was super supportive with She’s Up to No Good which was another very cool moment. Somebody posted both of our books and something. I did a story saying, “My book and her book are best friends. I can die happy now.” Something like that. She commented and that meant I could message her all of a sudden, which was crazy cool. I was like, “I’d love to send you a copy.” She did this whole post about it, which was very cool.

That year that I was teaching, it was when Carrie Soto Is Back was coming out. I got an ad for a pair of Kate Spade shoes that had like a tennis ball for the heel. I sent it to her and said, “You got to wear these on the book tour for Carrie Soto. You have to get these shoes.” I was teaching my creative writing courses the first day of school and I’m doing all the intros. I get a message on my watch.

I glance at it because I have kids and I have to make sure they’re not throwing up everywhere at school or something. It was Taylor Jenkins Reid responding. I said, “Hang on, guys. I got to go answer. This Taylor Jenkins Reid just message me.” They were like, “She did not.” I showed them on my phone and they were like, “You’re a real author.” Another fun school moment. I was teaching one day and a kid was sitting there reading a book. I’m happy she’s reading the book. I said, “We’re doing a lesson here. Ali, put it away.” She held it up and it was my first book that she had checked out of her school library. I said, “Carry on.”

As you were.

I blocked her face and took a picture. That was a cool moment. It still feels very surreal. I’ve wanted this since I was eight years old. I think eventually I feel like it’s real. We’re not quite there yet.

I get that.

Peloton Community

What is your leaderboard name?

It is SaraGoode11, which was also my AIM screen name. I was thinking about that. I’m not that creative.

 

For future show interviews, that’s probably not something an author should say like, “I’m not that creative.”

That’s true.

“I’m not that creating but please buy my book.” That’s like working at cross purposes. A little tip from the marketing guy.

Screen names with the same thing.

There you go. I am surprised you’re not like Sara Confino so everybody can find you or maybe you don’t want to be found. Maybe you don’t want the crossover. I don’t know.

Again, I signed up for it before anybody knew who I was. I’m sticking with it for now. I did change my Instagram name, which I’ll say used to be @SaraGoode11.

You’ve branched out.

I think that was the login for my first college email account too.

I understand.

I’m so old my login for my college email was my student ID number. It was like 94732@blahblah. They don’t what to do with it.

Our student ID numbers were our Social Security numbers so they made sure we didn’t put that anywhere near her email addresses.

I’m old enough to have pre-printed it on my checks.

Do you remember that? I remember that.

Everybody asked for it. You’re like, “Print on the check.”

I never had it on my check. I worked in a grocery store and I know you did too, Tom. They still use them. People still had checks that had it.

I remember the first time we were in the grocery store when I told somebody like, “I need your Social Security number on the check.” They were like, “I’m not giving that to you.” We’re all like, “What a nutjob?”

I remember that, too.

It turns out they were right.

Now you’re like, don’t put it in your phone just in case.

We didn’t have phones back then.

 Do you have a preferred instructor?

I have a few that I bounce between. It depends on the mood. Overall, Cody because he’s hysterical and awesome. Also, I’m not a speed person. He isn’t either, which is very helpful. Music-wise, I’m probably most closely aligned with Jen Sherman. I love her taste of music. I’m a huge Springsteen nut. My author bio is true. I have danced on stage at a show and I’m going to try and recreate that at the upcoming shows because I was wearing my Obama shirt in pictures with him.

I bought a sparkly Kamala shirt to try and see if we can recreate it. Her music with classic rock and everything. I’m very much into that. I have been into Bradley lately because one of my best friends from high school just got a bike because I wouldn’t shut up about it, so he got one too. Bradley has more dad rock which I do listen to. He was doing those rides. We’d do the same rides together and not at the same time, but keep motivating each other.

I like both Hannahs a lot. I stumbled on Hannah Frankson by accident. I think I clicked the wrong person. I said, “I’ll try this.” The first Friday, I did a first. She was not having a great day and I was like, “What’s wrong with her? No, I don’t like this at all.” I tried another one and I was like, “She’s awesome. I like her a lot.” Leanne for arms and I’ve done the wicked ride more times than I cared with her. My husband knows I’m having a bad day when he hears me singing along to that from the basement.

That’s a good way to have fun.

I do bounce around a little bit. I do like to mix it up. I did Hannah Corbin’s ride. It’s sometimes music-based and sometimes whatever I feel like doing speed-wise and how tired I am that day and how much my four-year-old let me sleep.

That makes total sense. Some days you do need to choose a ride by music. Some days you do need to choose a ride by your favorite or your mood or whatever. It’s good to have flexibility. I also think it’s good that you have a variety of people that are your go-tos.

You’re searching for one and you’re like, “They don’t have anything new. I’ve done all the stuff that I want to do with them.” You can switch to somebody else and you’re like, “That works.”

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to join us. We greatly appreciate it. Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you in all the places, where they can get the books, which one you think they should start with, and when it will be a show streaming on Peacock, streaming on Netflix.

I am cool with Peacock because Tina Fey is my personal hero and she is so closely aligned with NBC stuff, so if she wants to adapt something. Tina, I love you. I’m here.

I’m hoping she replaces Lauren Michaels.

That would be cool.

That would be amazing.

I think she’s the obvious choice. Anyway, where are we going to find your stuff?

I am on all the major social media platforms. I’m on Facebook and Instagram, all that stuff. It’s Sara Confino for Instagram, Threads, and Twitter, which I don’t use anymore because it’s become the Wild West. It’s there. I check it sometimes but I’m afraid to type anything. Facebook, Sara Goodman Confino.

My books are pretty much everywhere. They are all stand-alone. You don’t need to read them in a specific order. If you do go in publication order, which is For the Love of Friends, She’s Up to No Good, Don’t Forget to Write, and to the new one, which is Behind Every Good Man, there are some fun Easter eggs. The grandmother from the first two pops up in all five books now. The one that I just finished as well. Maryland from Don’t Forget to Write makes a cameo on Behind Every Good Man.

The main character from Behind Every Good Man pops up in the fifth one which is tentatively titled Good Grief, which is funny because then three of my books will have the word good in the title. It works. I don’t know if they’ll keep it or not. They’re available on Amazon. Target and Barnes and Noble have them. They’re everywhere. They’re on Audible. The narrator in the last two is fabulous. I adore her, Helen Laser. She’s just wonderful.

Good luck with the new career and being at home full-time. That’s awesome. I hope that it goes just the way you want it to.

Thank you so much.

‐‐‐

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

They can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on all the 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. Don’t forget our Patreon where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content and we like you extra. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, keep pedaling, and running, and rowing.

 

Important Links

• Sara Confino
• Don’t Forget to Write
• She’s Up to No Good
• For the Love of Friends
• Behind Every Good Man
• Facebook – Sara Confino
• Instagram – Sara Confino
• Threads – Sara Confino
• Twitter – Sara Confino
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
• Spotify – The Clip Out
• iHeart – The Clip Out
• TuneIn – The Clip Out
• The Clip Out – Patreon
• The Clip Out – Facebook
• The Clip Out – YouTube
• Dr. Jenn Mann
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• Crystal D. O’Keefe – Facebook
• @ClipOutCrystal – Instagram
• @RogerQBert – Twitter
• Tom O’Keefe – Facebook

 

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