385. Facebook Launches "Peloton Pal" Chatbot And Our Interview With Latoya Shauntay Snell

385. Facebook Launches “Peloton Pal” Chatbot And Our Interview With Latoya Shauntay Snell

Last Updated: November 1, 2024By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Culinary, Influencer, marathon, Mental Health, Peloton, Running Fat Chef

Welcome to our latest episode dedicated to all things Peloton! Whether you’re a seasoned rider or new to the saddle, we’ve got you covered with the latest updates and insights.

Here’s what we discussed:

Facebook Groups Buzz: Discover the confusion surrounding Peloton Pal in the community forums.
Peloton Apparel Fees: Updates on restocking fees for Peloton Apparel.
New Class Type? We speculate on the possibility of an exciting new class.
ID Verification Changes at Peloton and what it means for you.
Katherine Switzer is set to join Peloton’s NYRR Shakeout Run—don’t miss out!
2024 Annual Report from Peloton has just been released.
CEO Today Magazine shines a spotlight on Peloton as an undervalued brand.
Corporate Wellness gets a boost as Peloton doubles down on its initiatives.
OutWatted Challenge sees more siblings joining in the fun!
Peloton’s Australian Pop-up bids farewell.
Jenn dives into the nuances of motivation vs. discipline.
Marathon Expo features Kirsten Ferguson & Robin Arzon as speakers.
Logan Aldridge shares his inspirational marathon moment.
Ally Love is set to speak at PAC NYC Icons of Culture Festival.
Leanne Hainsby’s Impact on members battling cancer, as shared by Peloton Studios.
Shawn Mendes Artist Series adds new tunes to your workout playlist.
Breanna Stewart spotted on her Tread—catch up on her training insights.
In Memory of Jen Myers (Ep. 172) – our thoughts are with her family.
TCO Top 5 and listener-recommended classes—what should you try next?
Weekly Peloton Highlights give you a sneak peek into what’s happening.
Halloween Classes are here—spooky fun awaits!
120-Minute Global Power Zone Ride announced—get ready to power through!
Jenn Sherman’s Cover-To-Cover Ride brings a new musical experience.
Ben Alldis’ New Program launches on the Strength+ app.
Set The Pace Classes see releases from Peloton and NYRR.
New Apparel Drop—check out the latest styles in the collection.
Peloton Birthdays – Celebrate Chase Tucker’s big day on 11/05.

Join us for this jam-packed episode filled with all the latest Peloton news and happenings. Tune in, get inspired, and keep those pedals turning!

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Facebook Launches “Peloton Pal” Chatbot And Our Interview With Latoya Shauntay Snell

Are you ready for it?

Sort of. I’m so nervous. I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about not being ready, not deserving to be there, like imposter syndrome stuff. I keep having to tell myself that that’s not true. I did the training. I do deserve to be there.

It’s not like you received this slot within the marathon a week ago and you’re like, “Sure, why not?” You’ve been doing all the things.

You pointed it out and it’s true. I am much more prepared for this than I was in Big Sur. Big Sur physically hurts. I think there’s a little part of me that is scared of that. Plus, this is going to be a little bit different. I had somebody I knew was going to be by my side the entire time. I’m not saying I won’t know anybody or have anybody near me, but I’m pretty much on my own on this one. It’s different.

I was thinking of the transcript of the show since it does it automatically if it’s spelled Sir instead of Sur. It’s going to read very differently when you’re like, “Big Sir hurts.” If there’s anyone out there who only reads these, they’re going to be like, “What are they talking about? Savage love? What’s going on?”

Tom is in vacation mode.

For me, it is. Not for you.

I do think that I’m going to enjoy myself. I’m excited.

I hope that will not ruin my vacation.

I won’t ruin your vacation. I’m not going to do the touristy things but I will get to do the race touristy things, and I am excited about that. I guess we should wait till later. It’s probably a point. It’s on the list. I’m going to wait, but I am so excited about the Shakeout Run. I’m so freaking excited about the Peloton Shakeout Run.

We are fortunate that we’ve been in New York enough times now. We’ve done a lot of the low-hanging fruit for the touristy stuff. We’ve done the Empire State Building. We’ve done 30 Rock. We’ve done that.

I don’t get to enjoy like, “Let’s go to a show. Let’s hang out.” It’s going to be a pretty active weekend

For sure. You’re running a marathon. You did nothing else that counts as an active weekend. This comes out on Friday, which is the day of our meetup. If you’re tuning in to this on Friday morning and you’re in the New York area and you want to swing by and say hi, we’d love to see you. It’s at some place somewhere.

The Copper Still in Chelsea. We are meeting from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, Eastern Time because that would be local. I’m excited to see people. We’ll have a fun meetup. Some people will stop by for drinks. Some people are going to be joining us for a meal. You can do either, but I need to know so we can let you know you’re coming. Please email me at ClipOutCrystal@gmail.com or send me a message on one of the DMs somewhere.

We would love to see you. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

Perfect timing for a marathon weekend. I did not do this on purpose. This ended up this way, but we had our interview with Latoya Shauntay Snell. I am so excited about this guest. She is a marathon runner. She talks about body positivity and size inclusivity. I’ve watched a lot of her videos. Her videos are so inspiring, especially if you ever feel othered because you’re larger, you’re slow, or any of those things.

Because you’re not sporty enough to hang with the sports people.

This whole interview made me feel a lot better about the upcoming marathon. If you get to tune in to this on Friday and you’re having nerves about the marathon, this is the perfect interview for you to tune into before Sunday. I’m so excited about it. She is not a Peloton member. I was not sure if she would join us but she did. She was nice enough to do that.

It’s a fun interview. Topic-wise?

There are other things. We are going to talk about this new thing that Facebook and Peloton are doing. This name Peloton Pal, it’s like, “Could you sound more like a toddler?” You could. We’re going to talk about new class types dropping. We’re going to talk about changes that Peloton has made to its ID verification system. We’re going to talk about who is going to be at the Peloton New York Road. Runner Shakeout Run. I’m super excited.

Peloton released its annual report for 2024. There’s a whole bunch of stuff like that. Dr. Jenn is going to talk to us about motivation versus discipline. We’re also going to have a bunch of items for Instructors In The News. We have some past guest updates and a very sad one. I’m going to start crying thinking about it. There is a lot to get into today. We have a good episode. Lots here.

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. Maybe leave us a review. That is super helpful. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. We have a Patreon. We should talk about what’s going to be on Patreon.

What’s going to be on the Patreon?

I saw this from the OPP. Someone wants to know if they should tip the instructors. We’ll talk about that. We will also talk about my never-ending battle with Google Home.

You found a new way to fight it.

I found a way to finally beat it. It stopped recognizing my voice.

Don’t get into it.

I won’t get into it, but we will discuss my solution on the Patreon. It was pretty crazy.

I’m going to say there has been a past instructor who has recently been on the show. I have some things to say about it. We’re going to talk about that.

All sorts of stuff over on Patreon. You can sign up for that at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. It’s $5 a month. What it gets is a bonus episode every week. It also gets you ad-free episodes. That’s the main one. If we get it early, you get it early. It also gives you the pride of knowing that you helped out for just $5. Not a lot of money, but if everybody chips in, we would do one episode and quit because we’d have so much money. If you want us to go away, get everyone to give us $5 and we’re deuces.

We will never be seen again.

We’re out on a private island. It’s a great way to help fund the show. All this stuff costs money. We’re doing it in our basement. Sometimes we do so much in our basement.

It pays for all the articles, the Helper Bees, and the tipsters. It’s a lot. There’s a whole thing happening.

It’s all over there at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. Don’t forget, you can also sign up for our newsletter at TheClipOut.com, where we will send you an article mostly weekly with the links and stuff that we talked about in the show. You can go read the full articles if you want without having to hunt them down yourself. Finally, you can watch all of these over on YouTube. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

We are seeing something in Facebook groups. It’s a chatbot entitled Peloton Pal.

It seems to be that you can change the name for each group because I’ve seen another. I don’t remember what group it was in. Maybe the Positive Peloton group. I don’t remember it. I don’t remember what theirs was called if it was them, but it had a different name wherever I saw it. Otherwise, it had a different name. I’m like, “Really, Peloton?”

This is in the OPP.

It is. The positive thing about this is that even if you don’t search for answers to your question before typing it in and getting yelled at, you can now use the Peloton bot to then answer it. It will go, “These are similar topics that have come up before. Here are some of the answers that have come up in response to this.” It’s an AI-generated chatbot. I think it’s about ten years too late to help the OPP. Most people have most of the questions down now, but it is nice when you can ask about something like recalibrating your bike.

“How do I clip in?”

It’s all there for you. That’s the nice part.

Will it take over if you’re posting or is it like you can message the page?

What happens is when you put up a post, it then puts an option that you and anybody else who can see your post can see like, “This person asked this question. Here are ways that you can find answers to it.” It doesn’t take over. Think about it like adding a widget to the post.

It’ll be like a pinned post that’ll be like other people have said, “This helps you with blah, blah, blah.”

You have to click on it to open it and see what the answers are.

I feel bad. I’ve noticed Yahoo has started doing that on articles. Not all but some were to be like, “Click here to see an AI-generated summary of this article.” I feel bad because a lot of times, I do click it. I hate to support AI and stuff like that, but a lot of times, it’s a dumb article that I clicked through on and I don’t need 8,000 words. I’m like, “That’s what it’s saying. Thanks, got it.” I feel bad that I do that.

Google is also doing that. Whenever you search for something on Google, it’ll give you a synopsis of what it is that you asked about. It’s not that different than the chat. It just comes up right at the beginning of your Google search.

I feel like the Google synopsis is worse because, for years, Google has been trying to get people’s searches like search plus 1 or whatever. They want as many relevant searches on that first results page. They don’t want you to have to dig deeper, which is good and bad, especially because so many ads now populate your Google searches. A lot of times, you have to go deeper.

Now what they’re trying to do is get you to search plus 0, which is they don’t want you to even leave the search results page. What’s so insidious about that summary that you see on a Google search thing is that it’s reading the page, giving you the answer, and then robbing the page of the click. If somebody googled, “What are Tom and Crystal talking about this week?” It goes, “They’re interviewing Shauntay Snell,” but then they never click on our page.

I could see your point. I could see that being a problem, but you’re never going to talk people out of doing it because it’s so easy.

The problem long-term is you will kill the pages that you’re using to pull the information that you’re presenting to people.

Why do people keep doing that for free? They won’t. We do but not everybody will.

At some point, we’ll stop. You’re disincentivizing people from creating the content that they’re trying to monetize without sharing the revenue with other people. It’s gross. Anyway, I went off on a tangent. Peloton Pal is an awful name.

It sounds so childish. I hate all those websites like that.

The goal is to be able to find joy in the things that we are doing. Share on X

Peloton Apparel has updated its restocking fees again. This is not a repeat.

The last time we talked about this, you could still return your clothing to the store to avoid the surcharge. Long story short, the first story is that Peloton was charging you a $9 restocking fee for anything you ordered and sent back via the mail. However, the first time they did this, if you took it back to a showroom, you were not charged anything, but now, they are no longer waving that.

It doesn’t matter where you ordered it from. Unless you ordered it from that showroom, then you can return it for free. If you bought it from the showroom in another state, too bad, restocking fee. It appears to be different per store. Some stores are refusing to do it all together, which is not the company policy. I thought that was interesting. They have not updated their website to spell that out. I find that interesting as well.

It’s weird. We talked off-air about this. You’ve heard stories of people.

Hundreds. If you look at any of these Facebook groups or Instagram groups, people will go on and on about how they have ordered multiple items of different sizes, and then they want to keep in size.

They’re not sure how it’ll fit. They’ll buy small, medium, and large, and then keep the one that fits the best and send the other two back because there was no fee attached. As much as this fee can seem like a cash grab, and for the average person, it is. For people like that, you should feel great shame.

It’s always the few that ruin it for the many. It’s pretty widespread. Some people are upset about it because they sent something and got the wrong thing from Peloton, and Peloton is still charging them.

That is a great able sh*t. If they screwed it up, you should not have to pay a fee because then they have no incentive to not screw things up. That’s horsesh*t.

It is indeed.

Are we getting a new class type?

It appears so. This is fun. Anna Greenberg is going to be teaching yoga and Pilates all in one class.

Is that revolutionary? I don’t know.

It’s not revolutionary. It’s been around for a long time. A lot of places do this, but it’s new for Peloton. Peloton has always been very much like yoga is yoga, strength is strength, and Pilates falls under strength.

Peloton has changed its ID verification software. They were using a third party, which was called SheerID and now they’re using ID.me. That’s the one that a lot of the government sites use. If you’re taking student loans like when we applied for Brian’s FAFSA, I had to utilize that.

You upload whatever ID that it asks you to. In most cases, it’s a driver’s license. Sometimes it’s a passport, depending on the other details. The special pricing program though has not changed and how it’s working. It is still available to the military, first responders, medical personnel, educators, and students. Those individuals can receive a 25% discount on the Peloton app and that takes your AppOne tier from $1,299 to $999. Military members, first responders, medical personnel, and educators can also take a discount of $200 off of Peloton equipment. It does not have a discount for the All Access membership.

Duly noted. The Shakeout Run that Peloton is hosting in conjunction with the New York Roadrunners Association has a celebrity appearance from Kathrine Switzer.

If you don’t know who that is, first of all, you have to go back and listen to Becs Gentry. She had an outdoor run that celebrated World Runners Day, and she told the story of Kathrine Switzer. It’s a great story.

She ran the Boston City Marathon.

She was the first woman.

She entered using her initial so they didn’t know it was a female.

That was back when they thought your uterus would fall out.

They tried to grab her mid-run and physically remove her from the race but she was too fast.

She had a very good friend who was male. He shielded her. As they came in to grab her, he did indeed cock block appropriately. In my mind, she is the mother of running a marathon. I think it’s amazing. She still runs marathons. I think it’s awesome. This was like 1963.

I remember it was a long time ago like the ‘70s maybe.

It could be. I’m not good with dates.

It’s been a long time. It’s very impressive that she’s still running marathons these days. Hats off to her.

The fact that she is going to be at the Shakeout Run. I’m going to be so starstruck. I’m so excited. I hope we get an opportunity to say thank you for all that she has done. I can’t wait.

Peloton has released its 2024 annual report.

I’ll be honest. I did not read this.

It was long.

124 pages.

In a very small font, so trying to finish one is a war.

I feel like what needs to happen here, to give you a good detailed breakdown, is to compare it to 2023. I have not had time to do that this week. I have been completely consumed in preparing for leaving this weekend. That did not happen, but if you want to read it, we have the link. It will be in our show notes, and it will also be in our newsletter.

This feels related. It’s not, technically, but I guess it’s adjacent. CEO Today Magazine has an article about Peloton shares surging after being undervalued. That’s something we’ve been saying for years.

It is. They talk about all the good things Peloton has done.

Somewhat Barry McCarthy is reading that like, “You sons a b*tches.” He’s going through with a highlighter going, “Get that. Did that. That one is me.” Now it’s all a good thing. It’s like when you hear your kids talking to their friends giving advice that you gave to them.

It is like that.

Peloton is doubling down on corporate wellness.

I find this whole thing fascinating. Matt Wilpers will do a walk that was the first of its kind. It’s taking place on Monday, November 4th. It’s going to be a 30-minute class and it’s going to include Dr. Kavita Patel. It’s going to be a Metabolic Health Walk. It’s going to be part of the health-centered collection.

It’s also interesting because these two appeared together at a conference called HLTH, which is roughly health but it’s fancy, in Las Vegas. They shared the stage in a panel discussion. That was also in collaboration with Peloton. Matt shared on his Instagram, “Fitness is a powerful medicine. I’m excited to bring it further into the health and wellness space. We have some exciting things. Cooking, team. More to come.” It is interesting and I can’t wait to see what this looks like as they roll it out.

We have even more siblings joining the OutWatted Challenge.

This is a woman who plays for the Seattle Storm. She is trying to get her sister to play.

She plays for the LA Sparks. Thank you to Helper Bee Nikki because she translated sports into Tom and Crystal because we don’t know.

It’s pretty cool though.

Finally for this segment, one of Peloton’s Australian pop-ups has popped down.

The Claremont pop-up is now closed.

That’s a pretty quick one.

I know. It went fast. I’m curious to see if the Bondi one goes as quickly because if it does, that should be closing next week or the week after.

That would give us an idea if that was intentional or if it just didn’t go well.

I’m curious.

I can’t imagine it would be. I would think there are a lot of people in Australia who haven’t experienced Peloton who would be like, “Let me check this out.” I got to think that was purposeful. It was never intended to last for a long.

Agreed.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn. She’s going to discuss motivation versus discipline and when you should use which, so stick around.

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

As grumpy as we can be here in New York City, the marathon is a time where you'll get so many random strangers who are willing to help you out there. Share on X

Hello.

Maggie has a great question for us. She would like to know how you balance motivation versus discipline.

Did she say how she defines motivation and discipline?

She might have said something else here. Motivation is the overgeneralization of discipline. That is what she added. This is how I hear it and maybe I’m wrong. There are a lot of people who interpret motivation as being disciplined. Some of the instructors will say things like, “You’re not always going to be motivated. You have to do it anyway.” That links to the discipline.

Becs talks about that on her three-day split. As some of the instructors say we’re not always motivated. Sometimes we have to show up anyway. I don’t love the word discipline even though it’s accurate. There are a few things. Instructors talk a lot about finding the why. Part of the reason why they talk about finding your why is because there are days when you don’t feel like doing it. For me, a big motivator is disease prevention. My mom was very ill before she passed away and I think about that a lot. I want to reduce inflammation in my body. I want to be strong. I want to be healthy and I don’t want my daughter to go through with me what I went through with her illness. For me, that’s a big why.

On the days when I don’t feel like picking up those weights or I don’t feel like getting on the tread or the bike, I’m able to remind myself of that. Being able to have that even on a day when you don’t feel particularly motivated, that’s not about necessarily discipline, which is its own entity. I think that creates something in your mind that helps you get there even if you’re not feeling it.

To me, motivation is when you’re feeling it like, “I’m so motivated. I can’t wait to get on the tread. I had such a great workout. I can’t wait to have another one. This is so awesome.” A lot of the time, we don’t feel that way. I guess that she would call this discipline. It’s the act of showing up for yourself. As a Peloton person or whatever exercise you are doing, the act of doing it repeatedly creates a self-identity of someone who does this healthy thing. It also creates a pattern that’s like if you don’t know what to do, you go and do your Peloton.

It becomes your default and it becomes so habituated that it starts to feel weird to not do it. On those days when you don’t feel motivated and you don’t feel disciplined, you can go, “You know what? It feels weird to not do it. It feels worse to not do it. I’m just going to do it.” Also, a lot of the time, starting is the hardest part. We’ve talked about this before. They were putting on their clothes, getting on the bike, and picking the class, which is a whole other thing. Pressing that start button can be the hardest part and that’s a mental game. Sometimes you have to talk yourself through it or say, “I’m going to press the button and start, and if I’m hating it that much after ten minutes, I’ll stop.”

I think that routine or that habituation you speak of is so important for me. There are things that I get tired of doing and that’s different, but if I have a pattern that I go back to and it’s like every morning, that’s what I’m working out, it’s so much easier for me to do without thinking about it.

It’s also easier to do if you always do it at the same time of day and have the same pattern. During the pandemic when we were on lockdown, I would open the dishwasher, unload the dishes, and then do my workout. They became associated and habituated together and I would just do that. I would lay out my clothes the night before so that I didn’t have to think about that. The less you have to think about it and the more you are mindlessly heading towards that Peloton, the better off you are. If you have to think too much, you can talk yourself out of it.

When you were talking about being motivated and wanting to do it, I was like, “What is that?”

I’m curious. I know that you don’t like to exercise. You grow up in a family where everyone else had a very different experience of exercise than you. Now that you’ve been doing it for quite some time, do you feel like you’re experience of it has changed at all?

Not really. I still don’t enjoy it. I do see the results. They’re very tangible. Now it’s more stubbornness like I don’t want to go backward.

You also have said that you feel weird when you don’t do it.

What I feel weird about is I’m afraid I’m backsliding.

The fear of going back to where you were. Do you get any joy out of that like, “I’m lifting more. I just up my weight,” or “I was able to go on the tread for a longer period.” Is there any satisfaction?

Before people start emailing us, I’ve not been on the tread.

You don’t do any cardio.

Whatever cardio, I get from doing Tonal. I like that they give you a strength score and I hit a thousand for about 48 hours and then they took it away.

He was very excited about it.

When I first started using Tonal, my strength score was like 400. That was a long road to 1,000. I hit 1,000 thousand and then I got to 1,005, then one day, they were like, “No, 988.”

To your point, he does get satisfaction from that.

It sounds like you enjoyed the gold star.

That’s the only one I’ve ever been fixated on.

He doesn’t care about the PRs. He doesn’t care about lifting more. I’m always like, “You hit another PR.” He’s like, “Did I?” I’m like, “Yes, you did. That’s so exciting.”

They add weight when it’s time.

He thinks it doesn’t count.

I feel like when I push myself, the machine goes, “Here’s an extra pound. Now instead of doing 998, you’re doing 999.”

You still handle that extra pound. That’s you and your strength. You worked for that strength. You couldn’t done that when you were at 400.

You’ve maxed out some of the moves, Tom.

Just the one.

It happened. You’re downplaying all of your stuff. You’re doing the thing you say I do.

That’s an STI. I did not mean to turn this about me. I was joking and then it went off into a whole thing. Thank you very much for all that. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on all social media, especially Instagram and Twitter @DrJennMann.

Thank you.

—

More New York City Marathon stories. Kirsten Ferguson and Robin Arzon will be speaking at the Marathon Expo.

They’re going to be there on November 1st at 1:00 PM. There are going to be Peloton instructors there throughout the weekend but at different times. Check your schedule if that’s something that you’re interested in because, in theory, you were only supposed to go to the expo at the time that you have been slotted. You picked it but you didn’t know all the things you had to choose from back then. Keep an eye on that because you’re not supposed to keep coming in and out of that place as you want. At any rate, there will be Peloton instructors there throughout the time. In this particular panel, they will be at the Citizens Bank stage and they are going to be talking about essential tips that you need to know to conquer your first New York City Marathon.

Hopefully, they’re tips you can do on 36 hours’ notice. It’s not like starting training six months ago.

I think there will be things you can do. There are a lot of things to know.

Logan Aldridge was discussing his marathon moment.

Peloton has been featuring different Peloton instructors who are going to be running in the marathon. There are seven altogether. We talked about that in the previous episode. It was Logan’s turn to talk about his why behind his running. Spoiler. It was because he was like, “I had a lot of FOMO last year, and I decided no more FOMOs.” I think that’s cool. He will be there.

It’s funny because you’ve been training for this for a long time now and talking about the marathon a lot. I can assure you, I have not one ounce of FOMO.

Because it’s not something you would ever do.

I have FODI, fear of doing it.

I’m sure if somebody was talking about going to another country and watching a Monkees reunion show, you would have FOMO.

For sure I would.

I would not. I would have FODI.

You can mark yourself safe for Monkees reunions.

I was just trying to speak to you in your language.

I see. Ally Love is going to speak at the PAC NYC Icons of Culture Festival.

It’s supposed to be bringing audiences together. The people in the room who are going to be speaking are trailblazers in music, comedy, film, sports, and more to talk about pushing boundaries, making a mark, and elevating the every day to the iconic.

Do we know what PAC stands for?

All I can think of is PAC because there’s a lot of stuff going around right now because of the election. There are PACs everywhere. That’s all I can think of.

In my world, it’s the Performing Arts Center, like in the world of concerts. I was curious if that’s what it meant.

Sometimes, your passions will not translate to someone else. The thing is, when you're moving out there, you're moving for you. Share on X

It is. Performing Arts Center NYC. That is what it is.

Look at me getting one right.

Nicely done.

Every once in a while I know things. Peloton Studios hosted Leanne Hainsby Alldis’s impact on members battling cancer.

Since Leanne talked about her diagnosis, some members have experienced their own diagnosis or been going through their own journey dealing with cancer in all kinds of forms, and they have relied on Leanne as an example to lead the way on what they should be doing and how they should be handling it They all say that they could not have done this without her. That’s nice.

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The latest artist series features Shawn Mendes. It’s a name I know. He’s a big deal. It’s in touch with Top 40 pop music.

I know a lot of his songs because I have a lot of playlists. I know his songs but it’s not like I would be like, “I would like to listen to some Shawn Mendes,” but it tends to come up in the playlist I listen to because if I like to listen to some Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo, guess what happens? They mix in some Shawn Mendes. That’s good. I like it. It’s lots of fun. I think this will be a fun artist series for people, especially the younger crowd. Younger being 30. He’s probably been around a lot longer than we’re giving him credit for

That happens. By the time, we’ve heard of them, it means they’ve been around for a while. After this, we have a celebrity sighting. We have a sad past guest update and we’re going to talk about all sorts of classes and stuff out there that you should check out to keep yourself involved, so stick around.

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The latest celebrity sighting is Breanna Stewart.

She was on her tread. If you don’t know who Breanna Stewart is, and I only do because of Helper Bee Nikki, she is the WNBA’s New York Liberty player. She’s on their team.

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We’ve got a sad one. Jen Myers who was on episode 172, talking about her battle with cancer. She passed away. She’d been fighting that for a long time. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it. I don’t know a nice way to say that. Trying to say it’s softer, but there isn’t a way. She was very well-known in Saint Louis. She was on the morning radio, one of the most popular radio shows.

I listened to her for years.

It was a long, long time. She wasn’t even 50. She had two kids. If you listen to her interview or if you’re from Saint Louis and you want to help out, they do have a GoFundMe. We’ll post a link to her obit in the show notes. There’s a link to the GoFundMe there. If you want to help out, I’m sure that they could use it.

Our hearts go out to her family and close friends. It’s it’s a sad day.

She spent so much of her time dealing with cancer, like helping local cancer groups.

She did so much for Pedal The Cause. For those who have been here for a long time, you might also remember Teri Griege who lives here in Saint Louis. She is a legend in the triathlete community and also here in Saint Louis locally. She’s raised money for years for Pedal The Cause. She and Jen got close because of that. They worked together for many years on Pedal The Cause raising money.

Our thoughts go out to her family.

One story that I have to tell that encapsulates what a lovely person Jen Myers is that when I got hit by a car, she was in the middle of dealing with chemo and all of the things that go with it, and she sent me a DoorDash coupon to be able to order food because she knew I wasn’t going to be able to get up and cook. How incredibly thoughtful. With all the things she has going on, she’s thinking about what I have going on.

I don’t mean this with any disrespect. We were not super close to Jen Myers. We didn’t hang out with her socially. I knew her from working in radio and concerts, and she was on our show once and she did that. That’s the kind of person she was.

She will be missed.

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Let’s talk about the TCO Top Five. People tell us which classes they think are the best, and then we tell you what they said, and then you go do say things sadly. One day, I’ll know how to say all that. Item number one is your favorite run.

This class was taught by Mariana Fernandez on October 13th. It was a 60-minute interval run. Better Netter suggested this class. She said, “The rock playlist was terrific and had me running negative splits. The class had an uphill run and plenty of bouts of running, contrasted with jogging and striders throughout.”

Number two, your favorite walk run.

This was taught by Jon Hosking on October 26th. It was a 30-minute Halloween walk plus run. Courtney Castle Brickerhoffs suggested this class saying, “Not only was this a Halloween-themed class. It had a second theme as well with Jon appearing in his words as your friendly neighborhood party man and secret superhero Captain Hoski.”

Number three, your favorite strength class.

A lot of people recommended this. It was a 60-minute Halloween full-body strength with both Andy Speer and Rebecca Kennedy on October 27th. Stephanie RF recommended this class. It’s gotten so much buzz. Stephanie said, “This class was good for the laughs and the workout. Andy and Rebecca have an Anchorman vibe as Don Bumblebee and Harmonica Morningtoast.”

Number four, your favorite ride.

This had a lot of buzz. Garth McKenna recommended this class. It was taught by Leanne Hainsby Alldis. It was a 30-minute Halloween ride on October 27th. He said the ride was great fun. All of the music is Halloween-themed and Leanne’s It costume complete with a red balloon is fantastically scary.

Finally, your unstackable.

This is a special one. This unstackable is the Pro Shot TCS New York City Marathon course. It is only found on the tread in the scenic runs and it’s amazing. There’s no way you would want to stack this with anything else. This was a very thoughtful add by our team. We want to wish everyone running the New York City Marathon a great deal of luck and enjoyment. Most of all, enjoyment.

Let’s take a quick look at this week at Peloton. First up, we have a Peloton Defected live DJ ride.

That is also taught by Leanne Hainsby Alldis and it is going to be in the studio. DJ Arielle Free from Defected Records will be there. It’s giving that same vibe that DJ John Michael does but London style. You’re going to be able to get that on Wednesday, October 30th at 2:30 PM Eastern.

We got live strength with Camila.

This is going to be a debut live strength class in Spanish. Camila is known for her fiery playlist and her dynamic moves. This is going to be a workout that is both intense and memorable. Friday, November 1st at 5:30 PM Eastern.

It is Halloween time. By the time you hear this, it will be after Halloween, but if you still want to take the Halloween classes or find them, we have them all situated in one spot for you. We had an article about them over at TheClipOut.com.

Helper Bee Kimberly Holiday wrote this article. I have to call out her amazing artwork because what she did is she took a deck of tarot cards and then she placed the schedule in each of the tarot cards. It’s beautiful work, but super cool, all the different classes. I have to say, the costumes that the instructors are pulling out have been amazing and fantastic.

I feel like now it’s an arms race. It reached a tipping point where everybody wants to outdo everyone else and so it’s a real battle.

You get different badges for however many classes that you do.

Peloton has announced a 120-minute Global Power Zone ride.

This is super cool because it will feature Matt Wilpers in the US, and Hannah Frankson in the UK live for two hours together. I have noticed that for all the 120 runs that they filmed or recorded for the program that was for the half marathon, there were a bunch of runs that they did. They teamed up anything that was above 90 minutes. There were like 90 minutes, 75 minutes, or 120 Minutes with two instructors. I wonder if that’s going to be common so that you don’t have one instructor who has to carry the banter the entire time.

That’s a lot. Not just a lot of exercise. They can do two hours of exercise, but it’s still a lot for a class.

It’s a lot to talk about while doing it.

Also, it’s hard to talk for two hours.

People have no idea.

Jenn Sherman has a new cover-to-cover ride. People love those.

It’s going to be starting on October 27th at 10:30 AM Eastern.

Ben Alldis also has a new program on the Strength Plus app if you’re checking that out.

If you’re one of the beta testers, you can still join the beta test, but this new program is called Pump Up Your Performance. Ben seems super excited about it. I was checking out the Strength Plus app and it got me excited to try streaming. It was like I wanted to go back to doing strength as soon as this marathon was behind me. I don’t know. Look out.

Peloton and New York Road Runners have released more Set The Pace classes.

They have a class with Logan Aldridge, Jesse Malone, and Austin Curtis who is Bec’s Gentry’s husband. They also had one with the race director for the New York City Marathon. I took that one and a class with Alex Kowalski. Both of those were amazing. If you haven’t had a chance to read everything that you need to know or watch all the millions of videos about getting prepared for the New York City Marathon, that is a great way to get prepared for it.

They talk about the most important things you need to know. As soon as you get to New York, what to do at the Expo, what to do when you get to the Start Village, how to navigate the bus, all the things. The class with Alex Kowalski was awesome. It was 30 minutes of him talking about transferring his training from rowing to running. He also laid down a little bit of a challenge. He said that his goal for the New York City Marathon, his first-ever marathon, is to beat Becs, Gentry’s New York City PR by one second.

Shots fired.

She was not only supportive and incredibly like, “You can do this,” but also she was like, “You are a very fast runner. I would not be surprised if you got closer to my London PR,” which is saying a lot. He is a fast runner.

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We have a new apparel drop for people.

If you have hardships, if your body is not able or capable of doing something, give yourself the grace to be able to heal. Share on X

This was all a fall and it’s all Peloton. In other words, it’s not some collaboration with Lululemon, etc. It’s just the Peloton and their clothing. There were some new prints and some new colors for fall. I thought it was worth noting. I feel like people are a little over the apparel, but this one at least had some differences to it.

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We have only one birthday coming up on November 5th. It’s former Peloton instructor and country music superstar, Chase Tucker.

Happy birthday to Chase Tucker.

Happy birthday. Coming up after this, we have our interview of the week. We’re going to talk to Latoya Shauntay Snell, so stick around.

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Joining us is Latoya Shauntay Snell. How are you doing?

I am doing fabulous. How are you?

I am doing good. Normally, Crystal asks the first question, but we should veer from that and start by explaining who you are and your background. You have gone viral on the internet with inspirational posts. People are tuning in, so to connect who you are so that they might recognize you.

My name is Latoya Shauntay Snell. Everybody has five jobs. I have five jobs. Why would I be any different? A lot of people got to know me over the last several years as a multi-sport athlete, particularly as a marathoner and an Ultra runner. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone viral at this point. The very first time that scared the living crap out of me was when I lost my job in the culinary industry. I wrote an article for TheRoot.com. It was about being heckled at the New York City Marathon. At this point, it was my 7th or 8th marathon. I was already a lunatic going viral, but it made me up the ante a little bit.

I was running this blog called Running Fat Chef. My friends at the time were like, “We love you. We always have these adventurous stories, but you are super long-winded for Instagram and Facebook.” They expanded the characters there because, at one point, we only could keep it under 500 characters or less. I would count them to see how long I can write.

They expanded those 15-second clips and gave us 30 seconds. I lost my mind. I had to cram everything in there. They gave us 60 seconds and then 90 seconds. Now, there’s no limit. I get to do all that. They were like, “Before we do that, can we talk you into this thing that you used to do on this platform called MySpace? Can we talk you into a blog?” I was like, “Sure, I can do that.” At one point, I went viral for that. That was many years ago.

The nutshell of my story is that I’ve been a person who’s been running away from being in front of a camera for over twenty years. Everything I touched, people were like, “You have this big personality and the way that you express things by proxy of adult-onset diagnosis of ADHD. Everything is colorful.” I found myself here in this fitness being plus size and looking nothing like the stereotype of what a runner is supposed to look like.

Typically, when we think of runners, we think of someone lean. We think of someone fast. My last name is Snell. It translates to fast, but I am painfully slow. I’ve been getting slower over the years. Typically, you wouldn’t hear a story like mine being celebrated or championed. When TheRoot.com reached out to me and said, “We came across your blog called Running Fat Chef,” I named it for what I considered the obvious reasons. I run, I happen to be a plus-size girl, and then I’m in the culinary industry. That went away.

I’ve created a blog called Running Fat Chef for obvious reasons. I run, I am plus size, and I’m in the culinary industry. I was like, “Let me create this space where I can talk about things in an uncensored layer.” I didn’t see people talking about what happens if you poop on yourself. I was like, “That will be a great entry and an introduction because now I can talk about anything.” If you could talk about pooping on yourself at mile-4 as an adult, there is nothing uncensored. I ran with it from there.

I underestimated the power of it. I was like, “I’m going to get this $200 for writing an article. I am a broke New Yorker. You have to have six jobs. It’s going to go out there and life goes on.” I lost my job after going viral. This is the part that people don’t get. If you don’t have a plan and you’re not one of those people who desire to go viral, you’re probably going to be like, “What’s going to happen?” I lost my mind. I got scared. I was like, “I’m not the person. I’m an anti-influencer. I am not a good role model.”

Those are the best role models sometimes. How did you get fired? Is it because you talked about poop?

I wish it was that easy. I ended up bringing in the crowd so much that it was hard to even sell food.

If there’s one thing that restaurants hate, it’s foot traffic. It doesn’t even make sense.

No money. It was like, “Can we say hi to you?” I was like, “Can you buy something? I’m in the back of the house. Can you buy something?” They were like, “No. We just want to talk with you.” I am a person who will talk with someone forever. The next thing I know, something that’s supposed to be 5 minutes turns to 45. After a while, you are put in a position where you have to choose.

When I say that I had interviews around the world, the first thing was People’s Magazine. That freaked me out. They were like, “Don’t worry about it. We already researched you. We just need your approval for a photo.” I was like, “The freedom of the press is real.” I ended up going on a show and nobody prepared me for that process.

I’m not super unfamiliar because I wore plenty of hats. In addition to being in the culinary industry, I did food photography. My husband is a freelance photographer outside of his day job. I knew what was behind the scenes, and that’s what made me mostly not want to be in front. I was like, “Look at those happy, miserable people. They’re walking around and entertaining people, but it looks like a prison.” That was how my brain shaped it. You always have to be perfect. Anytime that we look at people on TV, they are perfect.

I know you started to tell this story in order, but I have to ask. The big question I have is how did you get comfortable with it? You seem to be comfortable with it.

I’m comfortable with doses. Every time that I create a form of normalcy, I have to remix the normalcy. I am in the middle of doing what I call a running tour. I do this almost every year. This is my fifth year doing this, or the fourth because of the panorama that we don’t talk about. That year is not real. I’ve been doing this for four years. Every year, I’m like, “People are going to get bored of me. They’re going to get tired of me,” and it doesn’t happen. I go from city to city. I put out my calendar and that’s when I’m reminded, “People give a crap about my story.” That can make it overwhelming.

My reality check is that I don’t throw out the garbage in this house. They know if I’m cooking, somebody else is cleaning. I’m like, “I’ll make all the gourmet meals in the world for you. I’ll even wash dishes about three times a week, but somebody else is throwing out the garbage. Somebody else is taking out the cat litter.” My family will keep me humble in a heartbeat. They have no problems with making fun of me. I have very close friends.

The thing that makes it hard to adjust to is that my everyday friends sometimes feel a little weirded out. They’re like, “There’s somebody randomly gawking at you and they recognize you.” My neighbors don’t give a crap though. They’re like, “There goes the running psycho that’s running around doing loops. She always does this. She’s lifting weights in her yard.” One of my neighbors thinks I’m a superwoman. I don’t know why. I started jumping rope. She was like, “I want to fly like that.” I was like, “Can I show you how to fly?” It has been our thing for three years. I am not L Shauntay. I am a superwoman with dreadlocks a couple of doors down, and I love that.

The normalcy is in doses. For my mental health, I have to do things that are normal to not be out of touch. It’s a weird reality to be in. My son used to say I’m hood famous. Now, I’m Instagram famous. Instagram and social media, but even mainstream media to some degree, you have this level of notoriety. The balance is that I am not rich. That’s one. That’s humbling.

Many people think that if people recognize you, there must be a paycheck attached to that. It’s not the reality anymore.

It wasn’t the reality before. The one thing that I did not like about this space was how much people were not being transparent about how many of us were not making the money that people were saying that we were making. A lot of these companies want us to do this stuff for little to no pay. I’m 39 years old. I can’t eat likes and hearts. My electric bill doesn’t care. I have Con Edison. They don’t care about me having exposure. The only exposure they care about is how much are you willing to pay for these lights and gas in this house.

You start wearing different hats. You have to ask yourself, “Am I good? Am I able to shift this beyond social media? Am I able to create my own business? Am I able to inform and entertain people? Am I able to give back? Am I able to network with other businesses?” You become the producer. You become the coordinator. You become the travel person. You have to be some type of resource at some point. It can’t be as gimmicky as, “I’m cute. Let me smile on the internet and maybe five million followers later, I have money.” Even these brands are acknowledging that the influencer is still a business.

My name is associated with whatever company I’m working with. When I speak on behalf of it, I have to know the products. I have to have awareness. I’m not willing to sell my soul for a pair of sneakers or a shirt. It has to make sense. A lot of what I do as a “non-traditional athlete” is that I’m not running for first place. I’m not even running for tenth place. I am the person that’s coming in dead freaking last. There is a possibility I’m not going to finish some of these courses the longer the distances get.

A lot of the things that I do are about advocacy work, brand awareness, and things that there’s a direct need for. The things that make more sense to me are how I can listen to my community and use this likability or this voice to make some real change. A lot of my loudmouth antics are to benefit the everyday person. How can I travel around on a budget? How can I get some of these race directors to listen to us when we say, “Fifteen minutes per mile is not realistic for someone who is moving at a 16-minute, 18-minute, or 20-minute pace?” If you are saying that the cutoff is 6 hours and 30 minutes, is it after the last person? Are the amenities going to be out there? Is there water out there? Are there porta-potties? Are the medals going to be there?”

I’ve run plenty of races in the beginning where I will come to the finish line after suffering between 6 hours to 9 hours and they’re like, “Congratulations,” but there’s no finish line and the tape is already down. I’m talking about being within the time limit. The tables and stuff are already down. There’s not a bottle of water. There’s nothing to drape over you. The bling is not there. They’re like, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll mail it to you.” Tell it to a first-timer. A first-timer will never show back up.

These are all fears that I have. New York is my first marathon that I am going after. When I was reading your posts on social media, so much of what you said stood out to me. I have always been a slow runner. I am a total turtle out there. No matter what I do, I cannot get faster. I have heard horror stories about getting to the end. I don’t want to make people wait out there for me for eight hours. I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. That’s always me. I always feel bad about that. I know there’s a balance. I’m probably too far on the nice side of things.

I’m going to shut you down right here.

I sensed it was coming.

I was like, “Inconvenience?” You are not a burden, that’s for one. Let’s change that language. You are not a burden. The people who are there for you and are cheering you on, you have to lean into those helpers. That’s me being a hypocrite for a minute because I’m going to need this over the next couple of weeks where I have to remind myself at the harder miles that people genuinely care about me and they are cheering me on.

I am not here for everyone. I’m not a video game, and I’m not built to be a video game. I’m not designed to be as fast as somebody’s dreams, hopes, aspirations, and ambitions. The goal is for me to be able to find joy in the things that I’m doing. Even when I’m at mile 16, I do not want to touch another energy gel or drink. I’m questioning my life decisions. I could be watching TV. Law & Order sounds amazing. My sofa feels amazing, but I’m here. You’re not a burden.

If it takes you three hours, that’s phenomenal. If it takes you eight hours, that’s fine as well. You are not a burden to those who wholeheartedly care about what you are doing. They may not understand what got you there, what keeps you here, why you’re so dedicated to your training, why you fall off some weeds when you’re training, why you’re grumpy at certain moments, or why you would do something that makes you chafe. That’s completely okay.

The magic in it is that there is no better parade where you can suffer with a bunch of people and you can smell people’s armpits and other body parts that we will never talk about. You did all this for a wonderful bagel or maybe a banana, but it is the idea of, “If I can conquer this, imagine how many other things that I can do.”

We are leaning into fear beyond the start line or the finish line. We’re doing that every time we go out there for a training run, every time that we feel discouraged, or every time that we’re powering through. Whenever something is like, “This doesn’t feel right,” we take that into our mental Rolodex or we have a notebook and write those things down. We’re like, “How can we adjust this every time?”

Those are life skills, whether you’re doing 1 mile for the first time or you’re a lunatic like me who’s going to do a 100K all over again that is equivalent to 62.3 miles. We had a discussion about that outside of this. He’s like, “The metrics system is not for me.” It’s not for a lot of people out here in the United States. That’s the lunatic that goes out there to different places and decides, “Running for 24 hours or more is fun when you’re delirious.” That would be me. You are not a burden. Take as much time as you need on the course.

Once upon a time when it came down to the marathon experience, it was a little tragic with some of these races. I will give these race directors this. They’ve been taking the feedback in. Some of them could use a little bit more work. When it comes down to the New York City marathon scene, I’ve personally, along with several others, have talked to the New York programs. It has been amazing to look at the changes over the years. Some people don’t know that there are actual lactation stations out there.

They tested out a pilot program in 2023 where they took a lot of us who were in the back of the pack. It took me eight hours in one year to finish a marathon. They took a lot of us that was in the back of the pack. We would typically start in wave five to give a time understanding or a time breakdown. For anyone tuning in to this, this means someone who wouldn’t start until about 11:30 when the race already started at 9:00. That’s two and a half hours extra that you don’t get.

The reason why it’s so critical for people who are slower-paced runners is because we’re not offered that grace period of, “I have the extra two and a half hours.” That means our time starts at that very last person who crosses that finish line. That person has 6 or 8 hours out there in the course while everybody else has 8:30, 8:45, or 10 hours. We don’t get that.

When people are like, “We’re running the same race,” we’re running the same distance but the challenges look different. It is not to reduce or minimize anybody’s experience, but realistically, the experience is hard. When you’re on your feet for countless hours, the way that you’re fueling looks different. The hydration looks different. The things that you’re freaking out inside of your head are real possibilities. What they’ve done over the years is they’ve listened to a lot of our feedback. They’re like, “How can we be better?”

One of the first things that I recognized in 2018 was that they had an article with the New York Times where three people were cut off at the finish line. The finish line cut off on them. There were no medals. They didn’t get time or credit for it. The next year, they brought in this party in the back of the pack. Every year for the New York City Marathon, the time usually rolls back. It’s daylight savings time for us.

Once it starts to get dark, that’s when the party begins. They crank up the music in Central Park. They have all these people out there with lights. They’re cheering in the stands and they wait for you. The media has caught onto it so much that they stay out there for the last person. We’re talking about people who have been out there on their feet for eleven hours, tripping from five boroughs and from city to city to make it to that finish line. The experience got way better.

When it comes down to some of the concerns that may be out, let’s say that you’re at mile 18 and they start to cut off. They say, “We need you to pivot over to the sidewalk.” From that section, they started incorporating volunteers out there on the course. You’ll have people who will meet you and say, “How are you doing? Are you still in the race?” You’re like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Here’s a map so you don’t get lost.”

As a person who has done this, and this will be my eighth year of doing this, another thing to look out for is to look at the bottom of the ground. In the street, you’ll see markings. A lot of people are not aware of that. Look at the streets. There are markings in the street that tell you exactly where to go. I know this course in the back of my head. People have made me the unofficial guardian of the course. If anybody sees me out there, please feel free to say hello. The other part of it is if you feel like, “I’m struggling,” I promise you there’s always somebody out there who’s equally struggling too.

Most times, when people are asking me for help, I am sometimes in my head. The more I get quiet, the more that I’m usually in my head like, “I need to finish.” All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my helpers will pop up. They don’t realize they’re helping me by being there. I get to help them because I know the course. I may have extra gel. I may have extra food.

As grumpy as we can be here in New York City, it is a time when you’ll get so many random strangers who are willing to help you out there. This is not the only city that does it. They’ve gotten tremendously better after the pandemic when a lot of these race directors realized, “The times are getting slower for people to finish these races. It’s time that we start catering towards these points.”

I feel like that is why you resonate with people so much. You keep it real by saying, “I struggle too,” but also, you’ve been through it. There’s this sense that, “She struggled but she did it. Therefore, if I’m struggling, that doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” That resonates. Everything I read that you write or that you say in your videos resonates with me. I’m sure there are a lot of people who are like, “Keep talking. Keep putting that stuff out.”

That’s a humbling moment for me. Sometimes I’m like, “Am I just talking to a spring? Am I a weirdo?” I’m always reminded of my age. I’m like, “I am 39 years old. This is a young person’s game.” In my head, I’m always telling myself this is something for 18 to 21-year-olds, or maybe even 25. Once you get past 25, you start to question things. As soon as you hit 30, the muscles, the aches, the tweaks, and stuff like that start to take in. It’s like, “Am I supposed to be doing this for a living?” The answer is yes.

When I get those emails or direct messages or I’m able to troubleshoot something on a post, honestly, it is the power of saying, “I don’t know but I’m willing to help you find the answers.” I think about the sixteen-year-old me who was looking for someone like me. That’s what I try to give out to the internet every single day. I’m not giving you this curated perfection. I’m giving you all the messy, all of the good, all of the unhinged, and all of the realities of what to expect versus, “Here’s this thing of this world of make-believe that I’m going to give you,” and then you’re going out there feeling unprepared.

I’m not trying to put myself out there as 100% of a cautionary tale. My situation is going to look different compared to somebody else’s. My struggles may not be someone else’s struggles. My joys may not be somebody else’s joys. I want to urge people to understand that’s completely okay. You do not have to run at the same pace as others.

Some of your friends and family members will not understand this. Please acknowledge that they are okay too. Sometimes, your passions will not translate to someone else. The thing is when you are moving out there, you’re moving for you. You have no idea of who you are empowering. You are inspiring out there. Your presence alone is giving someone else the green light to say, “I can try.”

All of my stories don’t end with me crossing the finish line. It’s powerful for me to be able to say to someone, “I’ve done 300 races but I have about 11 DNFs.” That means Did Not Finish for anyone new to some of this jargon. I’m the person who made it to mile 21 of a race called the Big Sur Marathon. The Big Sur Marathon is brutal. It’s on Highway 1. It’s the side of a mountain.

I did the 21-miler in 2023. I only did 21 miles because I got hit by a car in the middle of my training in 2023. For me to get to show up to that race was amazing. I walked the whole thing. It was windy, hilly, and brutal. Brutal is the accurate word.

I did it in 2019. It doesn’t feel like a long time, but it is a decent amount of years. The language was not inclusive to me online. The positive feedback that I get now, I was not getting this in 2019. In 2019, I’ve had people who were like, “You’re an embarrassment to this community.” Being a marginalized person, there is an invisible burden that I do get because I am a plus-sized woman, a Black woman, and an athlete with disabilities.

My knee disabilities are not visible to the everyday person, so I’m constantly being questioned if my disabilities are real. It is horrible to be that vulnerable and have someone say, “It’s still not enough,” or I need the show and tell for me to prove to them that I am worth considering or to know that someone will listen to my story and they will fetishize it to a sense of, “If you can do it, then I have no excuse.” That’s not the message I’m trying to get across.

If you have hardships, if your body is not able or capable of doing something, I want you to give yourself the grace to be able to heal. I don’t want you going out there looking at me and saying, “You’re a plus-size woman, so I’m supposed to be able to do it.” Don’t get caught up in the Instagram or the social media bubble where you’re looking at a 60-second reel and then you’re thinking that this is an overnight experience. This is years of me building up, falling down, picking myself back up, and doing it three times over.

Big Sur was that for me where it is one of my favorite races to date but I did not see that finish line. I’ve realized in hindsight that it extended an opportunity for other people to say, “You did 21 miles.” I saw that course. That course from mile 8 to about Mile 12 or 13 where that guy is at the top and he’s playing that piano, it’s like, “It sounds so nice, but crap.”

It’s hard to appreciate at that moment.

I’m like, “Look at where I came from.” I told you I wear many hats. As a freelance writer, it means a lot to me about language. When I hear people say, “It’s only a mile. It’s only 800,” I’m like, “It’s much more than what you’ve done yesterday or the day before.” If you find yourself at a place where you’re injured or you’re unable to do something, look at what you’ve accomplished. Look at how much strength it took for you to take that rest, take that break, go for that run, or do something that you said would probably suck. It’s probably going to suck tomorrow and it’s not going to look like somebody else, but you’re still doing it.

Any time that we decide to deliberately do something and do something that our body may be telling us not to do, our minds are like, “I can find something much more comfortable.” When other people are not giving us that feedback and we need that hype person, when we lean into that discomfort and opt to say yes to it, that’s amazing. That’s real storytelling.

I have a question though. I am a person that I try to listen to other people’s points of view. In doing so, sometimes, I can then question myself too much. You do not do that.

I do. That’s a wonderful thought to say, but I have my moments. Sometimes, we give better advice to other people than the way we talk to ourselves, and I can be that person too. It’s like, “Here are the things that I would do. That’s my hype person. Now, go home and tell that to yourself. You are stupid. You are worthless. There is no way. Why? That is not for you.”

I have to rewind, take it back, do a U-turn, and say, “Is that the way that I would talk to myself if I was hyping up?” Is it okay to be so abusive to yourself or hype up somebody else? What a hypocrite. I have to acknowledge my hypocrisy at that moment and then say, “What if I was my own entertainment 24/7, 365? How would I want to entertain myself? How do I want to praise myself?”

Do you catch yourself doing that? Do you go through those thoughts?

Yeah. When I say invisible medical conditions, it is not from a physical aspect but from a mental health aspect. I have CPTSD. For anybody unaware of the term, it’s Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is why I am very open about it. I have a great deal of depression and anxiety. I’ve gone through panic attacks at one point. Thank God I can say that I’ve only had 1 or 2 this 2024. I say only because considering the other years that I’ve gone through it, it was so bad. I apologize to anyone who needs a little bit of a warning. I’ve had suicidal ideation.

For me, it’s important and pertinent to be able to identify when I’m having those moments where I’m talking so low to myself that I’m like, “How dare you beat that abusive type? Do you know what you’ve accomplished? Do you know the things that you haven’t even done yet? Do you know the people that you’re reaching out and touching? Do you understand how powerful you are?”

Before I can hype up anybody on any of these platforms, I have to be the hype person for myself. It doesn’t matter how many reels, videos, handshakes, or hugs I give out there. If I don’t believe in anything that I’m saying, then what am I doing? There’s nothing wrong with having moments where you’re like, “That sounds like a better idea,” or “That sounds like a better tactic,” or “That person has it together.” I promise you that if you sit down with someone long enough, you realize they don’t have it together either. We’re essentially the blind leading the blind.

When it comes down to it and when it comes down to my depression, I realized the more I started talking with people in my inbox or on a post, we have so much more in common than we ever know. With social media, we are the loneliest crowd. I hurt for so many people. That’s one of the things that I have to remind myself of in this space. It’s not like I have a team that’s reading through these emails. It’s just me.

I read through some of this stuff. People are telling me things that they won’t tell their family members. I’ve lost a follower because he wouldn’t come out and I tried to tell him, “It’s going to be all right. You’re going to lose a couple of people but that’s life.” It hurt. Around that time, that was when I went viral the second time. I wrote this very angry article about being a venous person who’s running ten marathons in a year. I was still being fat-shamed. This was going viral in 2017.

In 2019, I did this Huff Post article. I ended up doing a video with it. People were hung up by the level of profanity that came out of my mouth. I was like, “You have to understand.” This was before I got the diagnosis of, “You have ADHD. You have CPTSD.” It was a mixed bag of how people perceived me. Some people were like, “You go ahead and you keep going for it,” but they looked at it as, “Why isn’t she losing weight? Why is she still fat when she’s doing all those things?”

It became a burden of disappointment. I had to learn how to disappoint others to be able to please myself. In turn, I started building the real audience that I was there for. I can’t be E forever. I’m not a video game. Even the most likable person on the internet has haters. When you take that in perspective, you stop getting caught up in the what-if scenarios. You stop getting caught up in comparing somebody else’s madness, crazy, or their winning strategy. It’s not yours. What gels work for me and my body doesn’t work for somebody else. Why would I adopt that mindset that their mindset has to be the same as mine?

That’s very inspiring. Thank you so much. I have to ask a Peloton question since this is for the Peloton audience too. I noticed that you went to a Peloton and Black History Month influencer meetup and got to meet Ash Pryor. She’s amazing. I was curious. Do you see yourself becoming a Peloton user in the future?

I’m going to be honest. Sorry, Peloton. I can’t afford you. That’s what’s holding me back from being able to do the classes. I have a bike that’s here in the corner. A couple of people were like, “You can hack into it and get the app.” I’m like, “I want the experience.” Seeing people like Ash Pryor on the app and then getting to know her in person, getting to meet her, and then realizing she follows me, I’m like, “My girl follows me.” She was like, “You’re such an inspiration.” I was like, “You’re such an inspiration.” That’s what I like about her.

You both are.

It’s not either-or.

We’re both dope in our own amazing ways. What I love about her is she’s super positive. Every day in life, she’s so positive. To see a fellow person and a fellow athlete who’s plus size and another person who is also chronically ill and still finding their way, I feel like sometimes, that conversation is not talked about enough when people can’t see what we’re going through. It’s almost like, “Where’s your missing limb? There’s no arm missing, so we can’t feel bad when you say you need a day off.” She powers through. She’s honest about it. She’s very refreshing. She takes her time. When she spoke at Black History Month, I believe it was a collaboration.

It was Instagram and Peloton together.

When she spoke on that panel, that spoke volumes to me. The day I came in there, I was going through a flare-up. I was terrified. When I say that I have moments of self-doubt, those are the moments I have self-doubt. They instantly usually think, “You have a roundish belly. That’s what you’re insecure about.” I’m like, “I’m not insecure about my body. I think I’m dope.” I go in front of the mirror and I’m like, “I love myself.” Say it three times so you know you’re dope.

Physically, I feel like I’m amazing at any size visually. When it comes down to feeling that pain, there’s a layer that sinks me into a dark hole where I can’t see myself beyond that pain. I feel like the ugliest thing walking. Everybody can feel it. Everybody can see. I feel like I’m a burden. I am taking up too much space at this time. People have to move around chairs for me. When you add that into being plus size where people already think that you’re taking up too much space and you should get smaller combined with being a Black woman where there’s a level of stereotypes that are associated with people like me of, “She’s too loud. She has too much attitude,” you get in your head.

When I went to that event that day, I needed to have that one-on-one conversation with her and see her on that panel because it reminded me that I need to be okay with taking up space even on my bad days and that I’m not going to always be the hype person. I’m not going to always be filled up with energy, and that is okay too. You don’t have to walk around with this perception of, “I’m an influencer. I always have to be on. I can’t have a bad moment. I can’t say no to a picture.” I can be in pain and be a participant at this moment and take in and be receptive to the good words that are passed around in the room.

All the athletes there that were on that panel were amazing, but Ash has a special place in my heart. I love her. By the time she tunes in to this episode, she’ll know how much I think that she’s dope. I appreciate her pouring into everybody in that room. I can see what she does on the app. I see the clips all the time. She already gave me an invite to the studio, which I got to take her up on. I had a hysterectomy so I couldn’t take it.

I couldn’t take advantage of that offer, but I do plan on going into the studio one day and rocking it out with her. Rowing is not my strongest suit, but if she wanted me to deadlift something up, I would do it because as much as I’m a slow runner, I am an excellent powerlifter. She’s amazing. As far as having the opportunity to be an instructor, you better hit me up. They are probably going to have to bleep me out though because I’m a potty mouth to the fullest.

That’s okay. Other instructors are potty mouths. I’m rooting for you. That would be awesome.

I know you had a hard stop that we already blew by for a couple of minutes. Thank you so much for joining us. Before we let you go, let everybody know where they can find you in all the places. In case they haven’t seen any of your videos, they can check them out.

I’m always going to plug a website in case these apps go down. It is IAmLShauntay.com. People were scared to go to RunningFatChef.com. They’re like, “I can’t say that word.” I’m like, “Let me remind you. That is seasoning. It’s part of the soul. If we didn’t have fat, we wouldn’t have life.” I will encourage you to go to that website as well. I’m changing over to that community. It was my former page where I was a blog, but I want to make it more about the community.

I’m going in the middle of a transition from RunningFatChef.com, from it being about my story to making a community page where we start sharing stories from people around the world. It is not just you hearing something that’s on my page, but you get to hear something that you’re able to relate to. If you are like, “I like you but your stories don’t hit the way that my friend’s stories hit,” maybe your friend can donate a story to the website.

You can also find me on social media. That’s @IAmLShauntay on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok. On Facebook, you can find me as a Running Fat Chef. If you go on there, I got 46,000 people over there who send loving affirmations and they appreciate that I write long. To all my friends who told me to get a website back in the day and were like, “Nobody’s going to read all that,” shout-out to my friends. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I would have what I can say is a career. Once upon a time, people were like, “People like you are abstract or X-Files. You are weird.” Weird is beautiful. Lean into your weirdness. That’s the goodness and the amazing adventures I’ve had. Magnify it.

Thank you so much for all your time.

Thank you so much.

It was wonderful to talk to you.

Thank you.

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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 all the socials, the Peloton leaderboard, and the New York City Marathon @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 at Patreon.com/TheClipOut, where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content and ad-free episodes, and we like you extra.

We are going to record that right now.

Join us, won’t you? That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running and rowing.

Bye.