Running Form, Training Advice, and Returning from Adversity from Coach Jay Ridgeway

I was never in race shape this year. I started out in February, did the San Francisco half marathon. Did not do the preparation, but I had a pretty darn good race. And that was my positive sign. I'm like, okay, I'm at a pretty good baseline to begin to build off of it. And then a month later I'm sick for five straight months. Hello and welcome to the RaceMob podcast. This is episode number 93. I'm Bertrand, head coach of RaceMob. And founder of two legit fitness. I'm joined by my dear friend, Kevin Chang, entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd, and founder of RaceMob. Yes! Back by popular demand, coach Jay Ridgeway with PacWest endurance. . We listened to our loyal expert, master running and triathlon coach, his first podcast is one of our most popular. Father husband accomplished athlete opens up and shares his inspiring journey, overcoming injury and illness that plagued them for most of the year. He gives us more priceless insight and tips on how every athlete can elevate their fitness and overcome obstacles. All the show notes can be found online. And if you want to reach out to coach J you can find them on Instagram or via his website at http://pacwestendurance.com. Without further ado we hope you enjoyed the episode as much as we did! Hello, RaceMob family. We hope you're doing well. We're in for a real treat today. As we're welcoming back, coach Jay Ridgeway with PacWest endurance. Coach Jay's been a wonderful friend of the family and a good friend and an excellent mentor to me in being someone who's helped me grow my coaching awareness and we owe him a lot and we're in for a treat to hear what he's been up to over the last year+. Welcome coach J! Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks Coach. "B" Kevin. Pleasure to be back. Thanks for inviting me back. Excited to, to be here as a resource and sharing whatever nuggets of knowledge that I can. So thanks for having me. Absolutely coach. I mean, we know that you have a wealth of knowledge. You've been doing this for a long, long time. You've coached athletes all the way from beginners, all the way to elite athletes. And so every time we chat with you, we feel like we're picking your brain. We're getting smarter, we're getting better. We're getting way more knowledgeable. And it's a lot of fun to have you on the podcast. So thanks again for jumping on. So, coach, I mean, what have you been up to in the last couple of years? it's been a while since we chatted with you on the podcast. I relocated out of the bay area. I know you guys are still there. My hometown, where I grew up San Jose hometown. But I'm in Reno, Nevada. Lake Tahoe region. So loving the, the lifestyle out here of the, the four seasons and the snow on the ground in the winter and the hot summer days, which is what we're going through right now, 95 degree days for the rest of this month, probably. But now, yeah, just really trying to stay active in really last year because of COVID coming out of retirement from at least from the triathlon Ironman world and got a couple races under my belt and was fortunate last September. So coming up actually a year from now a couple weeks or so of racing, the 73 Ironman world championship. So that was a good initiation back into the sport. And then this year I had great expectations of, continuing the momentum. But as I mentioned to both of you um, it's been a struggle for me. I am going through fatherhood 2.0, I've got a 29 year old who is excited about kicking my butt competing wise. But I also have a two and a half year old I took her to her first ever preschool after a long wait list of preschool in early March and ended up getting extremely sick. Because those little two year olds are a little assassins of PRs of death and destruction, and literally was really sick with the non COVID. At least we were tested non COVID cold virus that took me out for five solid weeks and then lingered with some respiratory issues for a total of four months. And then as I was starting to feel better and going on some second rounds of prednisone to deal with a bronchial infection, I got COVID on top of that. So it's been five months of struggle for me. So I don't know if there's anybody else in the audience that, and I'm probably sure there are Kevin, you're not there yet, even though you're a new father, you got a little, you got a couple years or year and a half before you got to go through. I went through for the second time as father going through fatherhood. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to dig in a little bit more, I mean respiratory issues, you're definitely not alone in struggling with both illness, sickness, injury, other things that cause you to have to pull back and almost start from scratch. And I guess talk to our audience a little bit about that journey. What happened? Any tips, any, anything that you took away from that experience? Yeah, I think the, the biggest thing is definitely hopefully everybody has healthcare and coverage and, and definitely do not hesitate in these strange times with the COVID things and the, the "monkey pox" and all that stuff. Whatever else is out there now relied upon your healthcare providers and trusting them and making sure that you're being very thorough. And, and quite frankly, I was not as upfront and demanding of saying I know my body I've been competing for what, 43 years, 44 years, whatever. It's 43 years. I'm 50, 54 started when I was competing, running wise. I was 11. So that's 43 years. So I know my body. Right. And finally, after four months of just suffering, I finally went in to the doctor for like the fourth time. Just said, I want an x-ray on my lungs, cuz I know something's not right. So I saw a resident young doctor, but she, she was like, sure, what the heck, we'll take an x-ray for you waited for that. And she said, sure enough, there's something there. And it's a, a bronchial cuffing episode. So it's a, a form of bronchitis, but it'd been there lingering for, for after the five weeks of being sick for another three months. And, and, I just didn't press the issue. I just said, at some point my body's gonna heal, but it didn't. And so I don't know if there's other people that are out there that are suffering. I'm sure there are, you gotta be proactive and you gotta trust your instincts and, and then share that with your healthcare provider and where, and when you, you think something's not right address it. And I was probably two months later than I should have been with addressing it. So, I mean, I guess talk about, if, do you have any advice for those coming back from injury or those coming back from illness? How do you get started? How do you know what your new baseline is? How do you not get frustrated with like, having to build a lot of that back up? Yeah. Well, that's the benefit of one having been a coach for many, many years and working with athletes when they have setbacks and helping them along the way, because it is, there's a mental component. There's a major mental component to that. I was never in race shape this year. I started out in February, did the San Francisco half marathon. Did not do the preparation, but I had a pretty darn good race. And that was my positive sign. I'm like, okay, I'm at a pretty good baseline to begin to build off of it. And then a month later I'm sick for five straight months. Right? So having the sounding board of a coach is really instrumental. So for me having been doing this for so long at a pretty high level back in the day, I know. I use the terminology, coach peacock feathers. Tuck your peacock feathers in your pocket. Don't flare 'em out unless you're in damn good shape and you're in a race environment and you know, those peacock feathers are appropriately flared out. So going into Santa Rosa marathon, I was registered for the marathon that Saturday, the race was Sunday, but I knew it's just not worth it as much as I have as big a ego as anybody I have as big a competitive nature, probably more so than anybody else. But I knew I just didn't have the training underneath me. The volume, the speed work that's necessary to hold pace. BQ, Boston Qualifier was not in the cards. So I tucked my peacock of feathers for that one moment in one pocket to say, okay, I'm gonna drop down to the half marathon and then come race morning. The second set of peacock feathers that go in the other pocket is I'm just gonna run by feel. I'm not gonna run by heart rate. I'm not gonna run a concern about my pace. I'm just gonna run by feel. And surprisingly, I did pretty darn good. I mean, I was tired and fading towards the end there, my per mile pace was, was dropping, but overall, I mean a sub 1: 45 for an old man. Wow. Was pretty, pretty darn good concerning of where I would normally be but that is because I have a lot of experience under my belt. A lot of people don't. And so that's where leaning on the Coach Bs of the world to kind of view the sounding board, cuz there are a lot of people that would be screwed. I'm gonna go for it. And then they end up being hurt and sore, mentally depressed cuz he didn't perform well all the you the full gamut there. And coach Jay um, let's stick with Santa Rosa and the half marathon. Why? Because I think our audience anytime we have, podcast guests that come on, they have a recent race. A lot of times the audience would like to know how did you navigate the course and the measurables. And we thank you for sharing what your finishing time was, thereabouts. But the gear, what the race day weather was like your hydration and nutrition schedule where it's relatable. So those are good takeaways for our audience. Yeah. Again, just leveraging on experience and been doing it for a long time, but you know, just,, I'm still racing I'm just not racing at race pace, but I'm still racing. So you still have to do all of the, the many different little preparation pieces. Right. So got there on a Friday, the race is on Sunday. Again, if you're in a relationship so I, remarried, I have a daughter. So part of the deal is like, if I'm gonna drag my wife and my two and a half year old somewhere, I put them in the Higher Regency in downtown Santa Rosa. You gotta do what's right. So a grand is spent for two days of making sure that they're taken care of. So that's first and foremost is you take care of the people that are supporting you, so that's a good knowledge that I learned the hard way when I started coaching athletes and then making these big commitments like Ironman and how it affects the other people in their lives and how important it's to make sure that they're being sensitive to that and making sure they're not being completely selfish, which sport of triathlons, a very self, very, very selfish sport and, and, and competitive racing can be, running wise can be selfish too. So that's that. But then I did, my prep runs. I did my 30 minute prep runs on Friday 30 minute prep run on Saturday, shaking it out on the routine. And quite frankly, I've been not been training at sub you know, I went sub minimum per mile pace. Right. Not by much, but I went sub pre on, the half-marathon, 1: 43, whatever. But I hadn't been training like that. So you gotta make sure that, you're shaking out, doing the shakeout run and again, 20, 30 minutes is app. You don't need any doing anymore. And Santa arose, of course, right now we're all in the bay area is freaking hot in the afternoon. But come race day, Coach, "B", the beautiful thing of that being on California, outside the central valley is that it's foggy in the morning. It was like perfect race conditions. It was 50 degrees. Oh, great. Perfect. Still wore tank top. Didn't have to work gloves, which actually quite frankly, in cooler temperatures, I even do better, but it was perfect temperatures. So yeah. Hydration getting nutrition. I had three goo packs with me again, whatever choice of nutrition. Well, actually four. So I took one before the race and then had three on course. And just to make sure I had some degree of calories there. But again, I wasn't planning on going into my deep, into my red zone. My, my zone five, if you will, when I was really competitive racing. So again, it was a different standpoint. But hydration, fluids, all that stuff... Did not take as much fluid as I probably should have on the course. Just didn't wanna deal with it because I wasn't really racing that hard. So that's probably not a good example for everybody else. You really should take what's out there and, or pack it. If you're less apt for like trying to run really, really fast. And if you can have a hydration pack or carry a water bottle, and you're comfortable with that, having your own little, what I call Gogo juice is, is a good thing to have. But more importantly, there's a lot of volunteers out there who taking their time they're there for you take advantage of it, but I probably took only one glass of water on that race. Mostly I was just taking the, the gels to get me across the finish line and I was fine. Did you have a bite to eat pre-race at all? No, I did not. And that's probably not something that I would probably coach. Again, different scenario, half marathon to marathon. If I was doing the marathon, absolutely. I'm eating three hours before the start of my race. And depending on where you are at fitness-wise will depend on the amount of calories you're doing. But I'll give you an idea. We'll flip to the, the big end of like, if you're doing a full Ironman, I'm getting my athletes up at probably three o'clock in the morning to get 1500 calories in various forms, whether chewing and or mostly swallowing is probably easiest way to get those calories down in your belly by 3:30, cuz they're races at 6: 30, right? So I would probably do something similar to that. Maybe a thousand calories or so for a marathon because that's like a strap in an extra five gallon gas can to the side of your car with your fuel tank already fueled up because it's sitting there when you get started. So you use that to burn into, so I don't know if there's a good analogy or not, but that's typically how I use that. Excellent advice. Yeah. You did very helpful. And just staying in that same lane in regards to racing and training. A lot of our athletes are at the peak of their training block right now, as we're training for half marathons and marathons. We have a couple of marathon majors on the horizon with Berlin and London, etc. Et cetera, Chicago, Chicago. Yes. On the ninth of, next one same day as ironically the San Jose rock and roll half marathon, which we can talk a little bit more later in our conversation. Talk about tapering for the half war, really the full distance, your take two weeks or shorter, two weeks or longer. Two totally different races. Half marathon to marathon. So marathon, the full. So depends on the athlete. Depends on the training they've done. If they've done, let's say they're trying for a PR. Disregard a Boston qualifying time, cuz that that's a, that's a small percentage of people, they're trying for a PR there are several years into their training. Mm-hmm and I wanna make sure everybody understands that. You're not gonna have your best personal best for an event like that unless you put in some time, you gotta put in some years to get the best of it. And now what that is, is building the foundational slab of concrete underneath you so that you can get the proper training in. And then with that proper training is the base training, the zone two training, that's what builds your base. But most importantly, it's the stuff that I didn't have on Sunday, which is the speed work. The, the track workout, the temp work the extremely long runs that come with training for that. So let's just say you have an athlete. That's got the couple years of training in they've raced along there. They've probably done one or two other marathons, but that's in preparation for this, A race that's coming up. And let's just say it's Chicago, Chicago's a phenomenal race to have a PR cuz it's super flat. It's dependent upon the weather, right? But it's, it's definitely a potential PR course. So in that particular case, if they execute a training plan, like I would design for that athlete, they would probably go on the three week taper. Full three week taper to allow the body to rest, recover, mend, heal physically, and also mentally with some "sharpening of the pencil" workouts during those three weeks. And I, when, I mean "sharpening of the pencils", these are high quality, speed workouts, high quality tempo works, but they have short duration. So the risk of injury is very minimal. These are quality workouts. That's like a perfect scenario for a taper for a marathon. And that's no different quite frankly, for a, an Ironman, full Ironman training too. It's a three week taper. If all goes well. That said there are not a lot of people that have the successful sort of build up for that and the successful execution of their training plan Which a training plan is not law. It's a guide. You execute 75 to 80% of your training plan. You're set up for good success. No coach expects an athlete to execute a hundred percent of a training plan. It's just life doesn't allow for that, right? Now that said probably majority of the athletes Coach "B" that you have, and that I've coached Kevin. Coach. I'd love to pick your brain a little bit on, on running form. And we talked about this before. We know that you're an expert of running form. In fact, you've analyzed my running form in the past. I'd love to pick your brain if there's any tips, any advice, anything that you're focusing in on when you're on the course to, to help maintain that running form. So a couple things to do when you're in a race, the beautiful thing is that there's usually mile markers. So on those mile markers, you use those as if coach Jay is standing there ready to kick you in the pants. That's your, that's your checkpoint, Darren. Every mile marker is your way to say do I look good? Is my form, am I doing everything that coach Jay taught me to do? Cause coach J's gonna be there at the next mile looking at me. So it's just a virtual way. So probably a better image would be the handsome Deir Coach. "B" think of Coach "B" there on each mile. But Coach "B" has got some tough love too, right? nobody ever wants to disappoint Coach. "B" right. That's one tip. The second tip, what I do when I'm in a big race, Ironman marathon, I actually write on my hand and I know this is a podcast I'll write down the word with a, with a permanent black marker a Sharpie, the word form. Because guess what? It's on the hand where my watch is. The key is like, when I go check my watch, I also see the word form on there. So that's a little tidbit on making sure that that's a little subtle reminder of like, okay you get your mind drifts, you get tired, you lose focus. And when you do that, I pretty much guarantee you start to lose the execution of your form or your proper form. And that happens on the later stages of the race. People begin to slouch when they get tired, focus on your arm movement, arm movement should be in sync with your leg movement, it's just like the pistons in your engine. If they go outta sink, your leg slow, or your arm slow, your leg slow. If your leg slow your arm slow they're they're they're, they're in sync. They're instrumental. So if your form goes awry, It affects everything that you do in terms of your form, which again, we go into detail when I do form analysis and all that stuff. If you like our podcast and sign up for our newsletter, where we give you weekly tips on how to run your best race and have fun in the process, just go to RaceMob dot com and sign up today. I love how you kind of mentioned a little bit, the, the core is extremely important to make sure that you are using and, and leveraging you know, all the momentum that you're pushing off of. If you have a, a sloppy core, if you're loose in the core, you lose a lot of energy through your base. So I love that you're focusing on core and that you're focusing on arms. I, I don't think enough of our audience really realizes how important the arm swing is to actually maintaining pace to actually making sure as you're keeping that speed up. What are some of the things that maybe beginner athletes will get the most bang for their buck if they focus on and, and maybe those that are running their first marathon or first half marathon. And then what are those things that you have to work on time and time again, with elite athletes. Yeah, well, a couple things in terms of a beginner level athlete and I there's a lot of cross-referencing here, so I apologize for those that are not multi-sport athletes, but I'll give you the good example of uh, you know, you go buy a bike, Kevin, a brand new bike, and you don't just, you just don't pull a bike off the shelf. You hopefully work with a bike professional store owner or, or someone that's working at the store that knows what they're doing. One, you gotta make sure you're wearing, you're getting the right size bike based upon your dimensions you don't get a large size bike when you're a smaller person, cuz it's not conducive and you don't get a super small bike when you're a bigger person. You have to get the right fit. And the same is true for shoes. The shoe industry is very much a multibillion dollar industry. There's so many different varieties with so many different makeups from zero pitched to high, pitched to minimalist, to heavily cushioned and everything in between, right? That's overwhelming. Again, intimidating. So again, like I mentioned early on about being struggling through illness and relying upon your healthcare providers and trusting them and their guidance, their expertise. It's the same thing here in the sport of running. You gotta make sure you get the proper equipment proper technical clothes. You're not running in cotton socks and cotton shirts and things like that. You wanna wear all the proper stuff. And then most importantly, it's proper shoes properly fitted, not too tight, not too loose. You wanna have a little bit of gap. So there's a toe box there. Half inch to be specific. how about the intermediate athletes. So those going for maybe the first half marathon, their first marathon what are some of the things that you're working with them? Yeah. So I, I kind of brushed off of that simplified too much for the beginner level. Yeah. The beginner level from a training standpoint, these are all best base builds. These are all zone two builds. They've gotta build their concrete foundation, like I referenced earlier. Introducing speed workout, yeah. Coach "B", you've got your Wednesday morning track workout. Definitely get 'em there, but not expecting them to do. I'm not, would not be expecting them to be up there chasing your elite guys, your elite men's and women, the ones that are Boston qualified and stuff, they shouldn't be right? They should be just introducing the speed to expand the lungs, understanding the breathing concept and all that stuff. And understanding executing on their proper running form at different cadence and different pace speeds. Right? That's the most important thing that a beginner level runner needs to learn. And then just the consistency of getting the workouts in. So if it's a true beginner athlete, I'd probably giving them two rest days a week, and then they're doing some variety of low zone two endurance, a little bit of speed workout. And then quite frankly, introducing to them to cross training or, functional core strength training, not really cross training, but functional core strength training. Those are the most important things for beginner. Intermediate. It's all of that. Plus it gets in a little more exciting because then I'm more apt to be wanting to see data. If you notice, I didn't say, Hey, a beginner level runner needs to have a smart watch that tracks your heart rate and your cadence and all that stuff. It's not really that important. But if, if a person is let's just say an engineer, they already deal with data for their work. Like I know you do Kevin, then you're gonna get one, oh yeah. Because you're about data and that's fine, but where really gets fun from a coaching standpoint is then when you get into the intermediate and more advanced level athletes, that's where data really comes into play. That's what really can help accelerate someone's significance improvements in perform. And that's using heart rate. It's using pace using time and duration. And then, like I said before, if you really want to get into some fun details, you're using power using a stride power meter in, in a shoe. Is that because you're trying to take a look at where there are the majority of their weaknesses, whether that's like, Hey, they're the VOT max or they're, they're pushing this zone and they don't have enough you know, stamina at this point or, Hey, we need to push more on endurance and get their long runs going? What, what is it from the data that you are trying to, to look at? Yeah, data does not really help in endurance training on a day to day basis. If everybody understands what that means, what you do today, and the data is helpful, but it's the accumulation of data over a period of time that really shows trends of improvement, which is great. Or diminishing returns, gaps. That begins to show signs in that data. I would say, did you have an injury? Did you take time off or why are your, why is your performance going down? Are you over trained? The coach put too much volume, were you not responding to that well. Or do you have some extracurricular activities going on outside of your training? Like new job, that's demanding like new fatherhood child, sleepless nights, all that kind of stuff. I can see that in the data. So the data is what's important for me to see as a coach, to be able to say, okay, Kevin's burned out. Kevin needs recovery. He can't complete this block of workouts. We need to give him a recovery week, cuz his numbers are not showing positive. And then you mentioned vO2 max, but also there's the whole industry of the sleep tracking industry. That's something that I have good for dear friends that are in that industry. That's big, big, big, big information. These days, all elite level athletes are tracking their sleep. HRV, heart rate variability. That is a massive indicator, whether or not you are performing well and and set up to perform well with the big block or, oh boy, we need to wait an extra day, give Kevin more rest before he goes out and does this big block of workouts because his HRV numbers are shit. Excuse for the language there, but that's happened many, many times. It's like, oh man, whole wait on second. I know you're planning for a big training weekend. Dean, your HRV numbers are not good. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna regroup. We're gonna push that out. We're gonna give you some rest and give you some easier workouts. And so that's where the stuff that I enjoy doing. And again, no disrespect to the beginner level athletes. I get just as much enjoyment to see their improvements, cuz usually their improvements are massively huge improvements, whereas you get into the more of the intermediate to advance to elite level it's, it's, it's incremental small improvements, but they make a big difference, right? They make a huge difference. And so that's, that's the difference between the two scenarios you start using data. I do want to get into the upcoming race: Rock'n'Roll, the history behind it, the transfer of pacing duties. And I'd love to get into PacWest Endurance what's, what's your daughter up to you know, how are you, how are you growing things over there? So yeah, definitely. Wanna make sure we're taking time to talk about these things. Yeah. Yeah. Rock'n'Roll San Jose. The transfer of power, if you will, from PacWest Athletics originally rebranded, to PacWest Endurance to now Too Legit Fitness crew. Couldn't be more happy, could be more honored. Couldn't be more prouder, honestly, to be able to do that transition. Fourteen years since it's inception PacWest was honored to take that. I was there at the live press release in the convention center in San Jose with the mayor. And then at the time the owner of. Oh, I'm blanking on the original founding race event, production company outta Carlsbad. Um, Elite racing, I think is what it was called, actually. They started the, the whole rock and roll series. Came outta San Diego and they brought it up to San Jose. It was a big deal. It was 2006. If I recall correctly, 2006, I'm trying to match your 36 days countdown there, coach. Yeah, in and we provided training programs in the early days, but the most important thing that we did for 14 years proudly to great success is that we professionally coached, and I don't say that loosely, we were a professional pace team. For 14 years while we provided the pace teams for the, the 1: 30, it used to be every 10 minutes, 1:30, 1:40, 1:50, 2 hours, 2:10, 2:20, 2: 30. Then it went to 2 45, 3, and we always provided two a, we always provided two athletes per pace group because I was a strong believer. And quite frankly, a victim of other pace companies at race events that had one pacer who could not handle a pace and could not do their job. And so we made sure the, the, we always had a two Pacers there in case one faltered, but more importantly, it was a camaraderie piece. My athletes loved doing. They always piggyback. So if it was Coach "B", I God, can you imagine us as a pace team? That would be ridiculous. It would be ridiculous. We should do that. Actually, coach let's let's do that. I mean, we would have, we would have, 10,000 runners following us because it would be entertaining. So that's the thing that I, I love about that. Show up for sure in droves. Yeah. Yeah. And so we did that to, to the T. We did that, for other race events, the giant race that they didn't do the half marathon this year. So, and then obviously with COVID and stuff like that. So it's been three years. I only did a 10 K this year, but we did that. That was probably going on year 10 now. Whether or not we do that again, we'll see. Or I may pass that over to you too, Coach "B" so be prepared. But that's, that's what we did. We did that for years. There was other events companies that wanted us to do it and just it's it's time consuming. It's it's tedious. And because we did it at such a high level, or I took it pretty darn serious. At some point with me moving to Reno and just the transition of PacWest, it was time to find a new torch bearer and lo and behold, this guy came to my booth one year. Two weeks out from Chicago. Didn't know what the hell he was doing, asked all kinds of questions. Like, how do I, what do I eat what do I do? Should I race this, whatever like that. And lo and behold, the guy's name ended up being Bertrand Newsome. And, and here he is right now on the same screen with me go figure Yeah. And the rest is history, and the rest is history. Eternal friendship has flourished since then. You've been a fantastic friend and a wonderful mentor and incredibly grateful for the opportunity to shepherd this iconic community event. It has been a joy. I've loved this event personally. I know that many runners here in the south bay put it on their calendar and they train all year for that 5k PR, 10k PR, and hard earned half marathon PR. So there are a lot of pace companies that have been doing this longer than Too Legit Fitness. So for you to have the trust in us to take over after 14 years after the inception of this event, again could not be happier. And we're really looking forward to race weekend, October 8th and ninth. Coach Jay reference will be pacing from 1:30, all the up to three hours. And two Pacers per pace slot following coach Jay's lead, and we're gonna have a lot of fun on the run space, still available, promo codes available. Let's see here, RNRSJ10 for a $10 discount on the 5K and 10K and RNRSJ20, so $20 off the half marathon.We'll be with you from start to finish. Love it. Love it. Well, it's a hundred percent because of you Coach "B" and just knowing your team, but it's a hundred percent for you on the transfer, so just just so you know. Far too kind, not about, not about Coach "B" it's about we. But don't screw it up. That's the most important don't screw it. Ups you your well, I showed up last year. That's why I showed up last year for the, the torch bearer. Make sure it's being done promptly. Pop in on, on a pace group. You know, we're happy to slot you in. We happy to have a pace group with three, especially with the you know, original gatekeeper and OG coach, Jay Ridge ay. Love it, love it, love it. Love it. Not gonna commit, not gonna commit to that, but it is my hometown. I grew up in San Jose, south San Jose, and so it's near and dear. So it was definitely not a decision taken lightly, but it's the right decision that I'm super thrilled. So I expect another, I expect 14 years outta you, coach "B". Yes. That's the game plan every year we, we look forward to it and let's see half Ironman for your daughter on the horizon? Yeah, so my daughter is Emily Ridgeway, is on fire. just, everybody knows. I had intentions of holding onto the torch of her not beating me till I was in my eighties at the very least. Okay. But now she beat me by 30 something seconds at Ironman, 70 odd 3 Hawaii last year. I struggled with just not proper training and she beat me. She's a way faster transition. So it's like from swim to bike, bike to run. I taught her too well. Let's put it that way. That's a weapon for her. That's that's easy time. So I, I credit her faster transition times. She and her boyfriend, Keith who's been racing for me, started racing for me with PacWest long before those two had eyes for each other in 2009. So expecting expecting a phone call from him at some point and expecting to be my son-in-law. But he's an elite level race team athlete of mine and he also requalified earlier at the Oceanside which is the 73 California. So they both are racing Ironman world championships again, which will happen to be because of COVID it was supposed to be New Zealand this year, it's actually back in St. George Utah, which is where it was last year. So St. George Utah is world championship, Ironman central, cuz they had also the relocated Hawaii Ironman from last year, they did that race in may of this year. So three back to back to back Ironman world championships in St. George. And that'll be, I think on the 22nd of October. So, so she's she's gonna race against, well, I'm not racing against her. I'm participating in the same race. So she's racing again to be with, racing with coach dad as I'm affectionately called coach dad, which is awesome on the 11th of this month. Wow. And that's in Santa Cruz. So the 703. So she's gonna use that as a final race taper in preparation for world championships. And then I've got a couple of my coaches slash surrogate daughters, coach. Karina's racing that as well, too, actually she's over at the house right now, visiting all the way up in the bay area as we speak. So so yeah, I've got a lot of my athletes that I've trained too well that looking forward to kicking coach Jay's butt, which is not sitting well with me at all. At all. We all find our motivation in different sources and you have plenty of it right now. So best of luck to coach M. Yeah, she's doing great. She's doing good. Appreciate you asking. Yeah. Yeah. And Well talk to us a little bit about PacWest Endurance. Where can athletes find you? You know, obviously you've coached so many triathletes coach M is doing a fantastic job. You have a number of other coaches there. So for those looking for instruction and for those looking for a coach, where can they find you? Where can they find PacWest Endurance and what is going on over there? Yeah. So the simple thing is just the website PacWest endurance, all one word, just like it sounds P-A-C-W-E-S-T-endurance, all one word, com. It's all there. I'll be honest with you you know, with the transition out to Reno, Nevada, and, lake Tahoe area. I was really hoping to really launch a secondary sort of region here, but because like anything, going through fatherhood 2.0, Kevin, that you're going through right now. And then quite frankly, with this year with all intentions of like really kind of getting some momentum, being sick for five months and going dark because of that we've lost some momentum with it. But the exciting thing is, is that I've, as I am feeling better and we're getting to the second half of the year there will be plans, there'll be announcements. So yeah. So if any of the listeners wanna come on out and I'm sure there's probably more that I'll be barely able to hang on to their wheels, but, yeah. We'll, we'll Coach, "B", I'll, I'll keep you updated all that stuff, but definitely that's, that's the plans going in next year, which is exciting. Looking forward to it. Can't wait. Incredible. Well, thank you so much, coach, for joining us on this podcast, it's been an absolute thrill, just a ton of fun. I'm sure we're gonna have plenty more of these podcasts going forward as well. We'll, we'll try to pick your brain as much as we can. Thank you again. The time has been fantastic, man. Always, always a pleasure. And again, hopefully there's been some good nuggets of knowledge that people share. And again, quite frankly, I'd love to, if we're able to do a survey, just to see what other interests of, whether other subject managers or questions that they have. You know, I'm happy to answer those. Just shoot those over to me guys via email or whatever like that. And I also know from the previous thing on Wednesday Coach, "B" not to prolong this, but, Beth reached out to me with her video for her form analysis. So I'll work on that this weekend and get that back over to her. So yeah, I'm happy to do that. Love doing this stuff. And I love you guys love what you guys are doing. Don't stop doing it. So if I can be part of that again, would love to do it. Oh, you stuck with this, that already. I mean, this is your second, what? Your third time? This week, second, third time doing? We're good. Yeah. RaceMob Legit PacWest Endurance Central, right? Love it. There you go. So all things wellness. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the RaceMob podcast. Check out all of the show notes or find a running buddy online at RaceMob dot com. Please subscribe to us on apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast and leave us a review until next time. Keep on moving.