From Operating Table to Runner: How Open-Heart Surgery Gave Scott Strool a New Perspective

Scott Strool: Hopefully, you know, people will, will understand that, you know, getting old doesn't mean stopping. I don't want to stop. I mean, I do have some goals and, Some of them will take some time. So the products that I decided to review and basically learn more about what recovery products, so things that are going to keep me healthy and keep me being able to wear all those shoes that I have and get to that hundred, plus miles a month. The only way you could do that is to stay injury free. Kevin Chang: Hello and welcome to the race mob podcast. This is episode number 30, I'm Kevin entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd, and the founder of race mob. I'm joined by master motivator, founder of two legit fitness co-chair of the Taji 100 R R C a certified coach USA track and field certified official the incomparable Bertrand Newson. When Scott joined the race mob, January challenge and scheduled his consultation with coach B. We had no idea about his incredible backstory. Like so many of our athletes, he found running later in life in his 50s. Unlike any of our other athletes though , Scott found it only a year removed from having a debilitating infection that led to open heart surgery. This conversation will give you a new perspective because you can truly sense Scott's passion for the sport and his new outlook on life. In addition, Scott's a true gear geek, a data guy and a budding YouTube creator. So we dig into his shoe collection, his recovery products, and geek out over our YouTube inspirations. You can find all the show notes online, including links to Scott's YouTube channel and instructions on how to submit your running form for analysis by coach B at https: //racemob.com/podcasts. This episode is brought to you by race, mob, and inclusive community for endurance athletes. If you like our podcast, you'll love our YouTube channel, where we keep you up to date with news for the running world and give you tips that will help you improve door running. Check us out by searching race mob on YouTube and subscribe today. Without further ado, here's our conversation. Bertrand: Hello race mob family. You are in for a real treat today all the way from the East coast. From the beautiful state of New Jersey scotched rule. His story as you will hear very shortly, is inspiring on many levels. A avid golfer who found his love for running a bit later in life. And as he initially shared with us, he had a illness or sickness that completely changed his life. That illness, as you learn shortly, was actually open heart surgery where this athlete has flourished for his love of running Scott, we are so happy and honored to have you. And thank you for sharing your story shortly with our listeners. Scott Strool: Thanks coach. It's a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to talking to your listeners. Kevin Chang: Walk us through kind of where you grew up. Have you always been on the East coast? Walk us through life a little bit. Scott Strool: My earliest memory of being, uh, a person is probably in a town of Paramus, New Jersey. And that's where I went to grade school, middle school prior to that we lived in, uh, somewhere else, but I was too young to remember. So, uh, Good childhood was athletic. Didn't get in too much trouble, but maybe a little bit of trouble. Decent grades, just the basic achiever and nothing extraordinary. The first real thing that I did as a dare devil though, it's kind of in our blood. I guess the Strool blood, is we had an ice skating.... there was a Lake in a pond in the park and I was an ice skater. I just kind of tried to ice skate and there was a rock in the middle of the pond because it was a frozen pond and we all thought it was a great idea to try to jump over this rock. Skate to it, leap into the air and fly over it. I did this a couple of times and we got a little bit more challenging where we said, let's start a little bit earlier than the rock. We'll draw a line. We actually put a twig down to see how far we can be in the air and still clear the rock. But I went first because I was the Daredevil of the big, and he said back about three feet and I landed right on the rock and broke my right leg. And this was third grade. And. that was the first time I, injured myself. And the funny thing that my father loves telling this story. So he came, we're already a few blocks away or not too far away from the pond. My father comes and takes one of those snow sticks that you use to rake the snow off the top of the car, and he tapes that to my right leg. He carries me into the hospital and he said, To the nurse: " I think my son broke his leg and the nurse looks at my father and says, well, which leg went crazy? I just spent an hour taping this stick to his leg. So you would know which leg it was." And that was uh, that was amusing. I don't remember that, but he tells that story often enough that I can kind of remember it. Kevin Chang: That's awesome. How did you get into golf? Was that something you just always grew up with? Scott Strool: Golf also came to me late in life. I was probably in my twenties or maybe my early thirties. We went on vacation, upstate New York. It was called Lake George, beautiful part of upstate New York. And we were near a call for resort and they had a demo day where you can go and just try clubs and I didn't have clubs. So I went there with the kids, cause we said, let's just do something a little bit different. I had two young boys at that time. Maybe they were like six and seven. I hit a couple of shots and you know what happens? You hit a perfect one. You get lucky and you say, well, that was easy. I think I can do this again. And again, I'm going to go home and spend thousands of dollars on golf balls and golf lessons and golf equipment. And like within three weeks I was a crazy golfer. Kevin Chang: I know that exact feeling. It's like, you could spend an hour at the driving range, shank every ball left and right. And then you hit that perfect one right before you're about to leave and it's like, Oh my gosh, I can fall in love with the sport. That's so funny. Scott Strool: So that's how I got into golf, which is very similar to how I got into, uh, you know, running late in life too. Kevin Chang: Yeah. Let's dive right into it. So, I mean, I think you've highlighted this in your YouTube channel. You've talked about this a little bit. You had a virus and it became a very serious illness. I mean, leading all the way up to open heart surgery. So tell us about the virus. Tell us about the symptoms. How did you realize that you were having problems? Scott Strool: So it was in 2014 in the late winter. And we were down in Florida. My son lived in Naples, Florida, so we were down there and somehow my back started to hurt. And I equated that to just playing golf the day before. And maybe I hit too many balls, but I had a little bit of pain in my back. And so I cut to take it easy. And that was in February. We came home and didn't think anything of it. April came around and I'm watching the masters and I'm home by myself. I reached into the refrigerator to take the Half and Half off the top shelf. And as I reached up, I got such a spasm in the middle of my back that I dropped the half and half and shortly after the Half and Half hit the floor, then I hit the floor. I just went down. I couldn't move. I had the most excruciating back pain. I just laid there for probably an hour until somebody came home. I think I might've crawled into the living room when I heard that. Tiger woods was about to tee off and I didn't want to miss that. So somehow I cried. I crawled in, and it was also a Jordan Speed at the time was someone I really enjoyed watching that was a year that he won, by the way too. It was on Masters weekend that I had this. Incredible back pain. Um, it didn't go away. It lasted for weeks. I couldn't sit in the chair. I couldn't lay down. It just hurt constantly like a 10 at a 10. And I didn't really do anything. Right. It just happened. So we didn't know what it was after a few months. It started to subside. And then we started trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was losing weight. I was never hungry. Uh, went to a doctor. They said, well, we don't know what volume, why you have a back pain? Oh, let's do an MRI. And see if maybe you slipped a disc or something degenerative. Nothing that, that looked fine, they couldn't explain internally why there was back pain. This went on for a long time. I started a new job and I went to Seattle for two weeks for a, uh, an intro or a bootcamp. In this new role. And I, we spent the weekend and we're walking around Seattle, you know, downtown Seattle with the group of people sipping on coffee, and this was really scary. I haven't thought about this in a while, but I lost my eyesight. Everything got blurry. And then I couldn't see, my heart was beating really fast and maybe I was nervous that I just couldn't see it all. I mean, my eyes were open and I wasn't seeing anything. Um, I sat down, people were, I said, I'll be okay. I was conscious alert. I told the new coworkers that I was just going to sit here for a few minutes. I didn't really know them very well. I met him like a week ago. Right? I was out there by myself. They weren't friends, they were just people I just met. So I sat there for a little while and ultimately the site came back. I got up and spent the rest of the day. I was just moved a little bit more slowly that rest of that day. Later on in that week, this was in, uh, probably August of that same year, 2014. I got a headache that didn't go away for three days and I've never had a headache more than like 15 minutes. I just never got headaches before it turned out. I ended up having a stroke while I was out in Seattle. Now I didn't know it. And they told me afterwards, when I got home that we can see from your brain scans that. What happened? You had a stroke. I'm 54 years old at this time. Perfect health before this. Right. Didn't know what it was. He came home, got weaker and weaker had trouble walking down a curb. Like I got to a curb and I stopped cause I said, I don't know if I'm going to make it just putting, standing on one foot for just a half a second. To lift that leg up to put it down to the ground. That's how cautious I got in and nervous. I got just about just from walking. So I look for routes where I did not have to step down curbs. I was working in New York for a week at another seminar of some sort. Ultimately I just kept getting weaker and weaker. And, uh, just around Thanksgiving now. So this is from April when it first happened and now we're at Thanksgiving timeframe. I had another one of those massive headaches, and then I started getting blood clots surface to my skin. So first it was one to the Palm of my hand, where there was a big red dot on my hand, my right arm hand, right there, nothing there now it's gone. And that was kind of odd. Oh, in Seattle it happened to my pinky. I had a red dot on my pinky, just like a. It looked like a pimple, but it wasn't, it was just a big, it was a blood clot. Later on just after Thanksgiving, it happened to my entire arm. My arm blew up like a balloon. You couldn't see my veins. My fingers were touching with my hand apart. The fingers were so swollen that my hand, it kind of looked like the one blew it up. It filled it up with air. Couldn't see anything. My elbow was gone. We went to the hospital when they said you're throwing clots. Your heart is throwing blood clots and embolize or being shot throughout your body. After they saw that, they admitted me to the hospital. They were nervous that a clot was going to go upstairs. A clot in the brain generally kills people. So they admitted me. That was on a Wednesday. Turned out that they needed to replace my aortic valve. The main valve of your heart. So surgery was at 7: 00 AM on that Thursday. It was just, you know, you fall asleep and they say, you're going to be fine. You don't think about not waking up, but I woke up and my wife was there. It still brings me like chills that how happy I was to, to have woken up and seeing my wife on my right side. And my son, my oldest son was on my left side and they said, you're going to be okay. And I had this big tube in my chest, it looked like a hose because it was thick as a regular garden hose and it was, it was in my chest. And the fun part about this. My wife was there. The nurse said, Oh, we're going to take the hose out now. And my wife said, Oh, can I watch? And they said, Scott, this is going to be uncomfortable. And they just took this hallway and they pulled it. And Rina's face was Breanna's my wife's name. Her face was like surprised because there was like two feet of hose inside me, but it was two things. It wasn't really a hose. It was. It was tubing. So, um, you know, maybe it was like an inch in diameter, but they just pulled this out like snakes, you said, and that made Rena laugh. And that was kind of comic relief. Cause I was pretty scared. So she was laughing. So I started to laugh and um, I got better. I went home a week later. I stayed there over Christmas. It was in December. So Christmas in the hospital and came home just after Christmas, a couple of days later. Kevin Chang: And you think, or they think it was caused by a degenerative virus? Scott Strool: No, everybody's going to get a lesson now. Yeah, we backtrack as to what happened in February is when I started the back pain. And then April is when I fell to the floor in January, I went to the dentist. And I had an abscess and they kind of dug it out. Well, you plead a lot. When you, when you break apart an abscess in your tooth, there was bacteria in my mouth from not flossing well enough because it broken up something in an open blood vessel. The bacteria was released and got into my bloodstream that bacteria caused strep. So what caused all of this was a strep in my bloodstream, which was caused by visiting the dentist a few months earlier. And we didn't know this for weeks later cause they kind of backtracked it's stripping your blood. Did you cut yourself? Didn't you use a rusty knife? So that's what it was. It wasn't technically a virus. It was bacteria that my body created my body built up in my mouth and it got released by the dentist. Wow. So go to the dentist floss and take care of your mouth because it's, it's an important part of your body. Kevin Chang: Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, w when you, when you talk about this on, on your YouTube channel, you also have a binder of medical, you know, like you have CDs, you have all sorts of things. So. Did you have just a lot of lab tests leading up to this event or was it more afterwards or, you know, how, how do you even go about Scott Strool: like all of those were before? Because we didn't think about going to the dentist and getting bacteria in the bloodstream. So we didn't know what it was. I went to all kinds of doctors, uh, heart doctors, muscle doctors. Um, I had cat scans and pet scans. That's what those CDs were. I went to the doctors. Luckily I had the best health insurance with the company that I was working for. So I was able to see doctors and try to figure out what it was, but ultimately it was just a year of survival. And at the end, we were forced our hand to do that surgery. If we knew what it was earlier, we could have prevented it by just taking antibiotics and killing the bacteria before it basically corroded my aortic valve. Cause that's what happened in the Arctic valve. Just got corroded from the bacteria. It basically looked like a water balloon that did pop. Then after you pop it, it kind of just dangles there. That's the valve look like a broken water water below. I only saw a picture of it. They didn't actually save the valve and show it to me. So, uh, I have part bovine in me. So , it's a cow and I equate that to my new strength because I'm like one, 100% cow. Strong like bull. Kevin Chang: Strong, like bull! Bertrand Newson: We just love your outlook and take us back to, you know, as you mentioned, when you woke back up and you saw your wife there at your side and your oldest son, what changed for you? Cause your outlook changed something. There was a switch that was flipped in you and you just looked at life differently in your own words. Scott Strool: I imagine, and this is the only time that's happened to me. And you hear this in movies, but when you have something that a life-changing event where you reached almost death, you look at life a little bit differently and you kind of, while, while I was waking up, I was asking for forgiveness for everything that I might've done to myself, all the abuse that I might've created. And I didn't really abuse myself, you know, physically, but I didn't take care of myself. I played golf. Yeah. You get a hotdog at the turn and beer at the end of the, there was no protein shake. Right. The protein was, it was barley and hops. So, I just said, you know what, I'm 54 years old. I'm probably close to half my life being complete. And the second half, I just want to do it right. I want to take care of myself and I'm going to do something so that my family doesn't have to take care of me when I'm older. When you get a little older, my age, I'm middle-aged now my father is nearing 90 and you know, he's, he's frail, you know, he's being taken care of all the time and, uh, So you started thinking about that too. And I guess I saw that at the time he also got very sick right around the same time I did. And I don't want to leave that burden to my family, but more so I want to go out with a bang. Right? I want that curtain call. So, um, I wanted to do something better for myself and. I was always into going to the gym and fitness, but once I completed a run, I said, this is, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it this way. Bertrand Newson: Well, take us to that moment, where you were avid golfer. And there were a lot of other ways to stay active, but what was it about running that caught your attention? And it really spoke to your soul. Scott Strool: So, I mean, I love being outside and, um, to tell you the truth, I'm kind of an introvert. So golf, you kind of play with just two or three other people. So it's not a big crowd of people. It's not like a football team and running, you get to do by yourself, but you're not by yourself here within yourself. So when I started running and I started saying, you know, I'm just going to keep running, but you still think when you're running. And you contemplate and you decide things and you consider, and I loved that time to myself that there are no distractions. The only distraction is making sure that I don't get hit by a car while I'm crossing the street. And you just, you have to be conscious, but, um, you just get to, you get to do whatever you want while you're running. And I just love that freedom in my mind. That I can do anything. Um, if I want to think about my kids when they were first born and I was playing with them, I can relive that moment while I'm running. And you can't do that sitting in the house, in the kitchen while you're doing the dishes or watching TV. Cause you know, there's distractions. So there are no distractions when you're running. And I think that's the one thing I loved about it at first, you know, now I just, I count on it. I look forward to getting that intermission from life and any types of aggressions or things that are bothering me. They, they go away when you're running and on a bonus, you get, you get strong and you feel great and you meet awesome people. And there you meet great people like you, two guys and dozens of other people that I've met that I just I'm like in all what they can do. Right. When you see someone that can run like Elliot Kajobi when I chokey, when I saw that he can run a marathon in two hours and I can't even run it a half a marathon in two hours, it's just, I just, these people are super and I don't think I've ever got, I can't. I know I'll never be that, but it's just amazing that Haven, I have something in common. We both put on running shoes and we both go run. Bertrand Newson: And you also both are super, you know, Scott, I, we have some inside Kevin and I do to your athletic prowess, and you do have that capability to run a sub two hour, half marathon that's within your reach. And how many of us can say. As, you know, we're, middle-aged middle-aged as well that we are still experiencing first, you know. Some people, our age feel like man life has passed us by and, , you know, can we still, you know, find that, that sense of motivation and get up and get active? But you are still discovering first, you are experiencing, you know, take us through maybe your first timed event and your first race. , and one of them, there was a race involved. One of your kids. Scott Strool: Once you start running, you say, you know, okay, it's great to go run by yourself, but you know, the reason why you run... not the reason why, but ultimately you want to do a race. And, uh, so as soon as you feel like you're comfortable enough, or, or you find a charity that you're interested in. So I found a charity that was local called Travis Mannion. And it was for wounded warriors and they were doing a 5k close to my house. So I signed up for that, no aspirations. And I remember having knots in my stomach driving over. And you know, the first time you put a bib on like, I even how to do this, you know, safety last time I saw a safety pin is when I put a diaper on, when he said I did not know how to do it, I needed, I needed help. So, uh, you know, you put the bib on it, as soon as you put the bib on, it's kind of like putting on your uniform. It's kind of exciting. It changes when you, when you look down and you see a number on your, on your shirt, it's a Jersey, right? You're a part of a team you're competing a little bit, but you're really just competing with yourself. I'm not at the competitive level where I want to beat you. I did want to beat the lady pushing the stroller. That was the only person I wanted to be. So I don't want to get beat by a baby and a mom that was, and she was great, but I definitely wanted to come in before her. So I did that first 5k and that was great. And then I was kind of hooked on. I said, Oh, run, sign up.com. And I got notifications about. Local 5k. And I started with five Ks. I didn't think about anything large. I did a 5k in Florida with my son lived in Naples and I said, Dan, why don't you come with me? You know, it's $15. I'll pay for it. I know you're not a runner, but you walk a lot. Um, because he works in golf, he worked at the outside services at a golf course, so he's a good shape into a snowboarder. Dan's my younger son. So he came with me and I thought, you know, we'll just run together and he'll just keep up with me. And, um, we kept together for about maybe two miles. And then I said, I thought he was slow down. Well, it turned out that I was the one that slowed down and Dan thought, you know, you invited me here, but I'm going to beat you. Dan wanted to just beat me by a second or two. And, uh, he took off and he finished, I think in less than 25 minutes. Wow. And, uh, yeah, and it doesn't run. Right. I finished at about 28 minutes, maybe 29 minutes. So he'd beat me. And, uh, it turned out that he was like 30 years old. He came in third in his age group. Never ran in a race before I proud. I was hoping that he'd get hooked on it. And he got a, you know, he got little metal and a, and a beer glass I think. . But that was just, that was just, he goes, I'm retiring. I won my first race. I don't have to run anymore. Kevin Chang: Just gotta twist his arm a little bit more. You know, get him in front of coach B here, coach. B's the master of the subtle persuasion. Just a little a nudge here, twist to the arm there Coach B is going down to Florida at some point in time. Maybe he... Bertrand N: And I was in Naples. I was a Naples boy. Last month, actually, November late November. Yeah. Kevin Chang: Yeah, Scott Strool: It was great down there. We went down, we went quite a lot. He lived there for nine years. He doesn't live in Naples anymore. He moved to Reno, Nevada snowboard. Bertrand Newson: Speaking of Naples, I believe our mutual friend, Seth is running the half marathon out there. They had this weekend. I believe that competitive. It's one of his, a list races. So he's gonna look to run sub one Oh six. And what you think is his PR and his, his best case scenario is 1: 04. Kevin Chang: He'll do it. He'll do it. Yeah. Yeah, no question about it. I think he ran 1: 06 on his way to a marathon. So, you know, I think, yeah, he's, ll he'll definitely, yeah. If all goes well, he'll definitely, he has that capability in him. So Scott, I want to go back to when you got into running. I mean, we went through the open heart surgery. We went through the two being pulled out of your chest. How did you start the road to recovery? How did you start walking? Any advice to listeners? Who have gone through, you know, medical challenges of their own and, and the road to recovery and into fitness Scott Strool: So, of course, after you're in the hospital for 10 days, you're weak. And I was weak for the whole year. I started gaining weight pretty quickly. Once my heart was working again. But the doctor says, you know, get stronger, do what you can just walk around. So it was winter time and I got out of the hospital in January, so there wasn't too much to do, but. So I went to the gym and I just started walking around the gym and just on a treadmill just to get a little bit stronger. So I joined a gym and just did minor exercises. You know, I'll walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes, just walk. I got a project. I was a consultant and it was, uh, fortunate enough to get a project in West Palm beach, Florida. And it was now April or may of the year that like a year later, 2017 now. And, um, I wanted to get stronger again and the weather was nice. The guy I was working with was a runner and he would tell me that he would run after work by the beach. And I said, well, that's pretty interesting. And I remember him telling me about Brooks and it's the first time I heard the word Brooks. So Brooks are running shoes. Interesting. I didn't even really know what they were. Then I remember him saying, what kind of shoes he had. He said I can run with you if you want. I said, well, I'm definitely not ready to run yet, but I'll come, I'll check it out. I went to the store, one of these like, you know, department store type stores. And I found a pair of socks, and running shoes for like $64. They weren't really, any good running shoes, but they were shoes that were comfortable enough for me to walk in and maybe start to jog. So when Andrew went running, I said, I'll follow along and I'll go walk with you. So I would walk after dinner and I would walk for a while and then I'd have to walk back to the hotel. I lived in a hotel when I was in West Palm. But I'd always get back after dark because the went at five 30 or six o'clock after in a work day. And I didn't want to walk in the dark. And I didn't think about getting a headlamp that has even occurred to me that you can put a light on your head and go run at night, like I do twice a week now. So I said, I'm going to just walk a little faster. So I get back before dark and I'm not in this neighborhood that I don't know. And as I started walking faster, I said, well, I'm gonna, maybe I'll start jogging. And then I started to jog and it felt great. And it was after I ate, so I felt like I was burning the calories and losing some weight cause I was still pretty heavy. And ultimately that's how I started to run just because I had to get back before it got dark and I wanted to run and I wanted to walk after dinner. And then I said, then I started going on weekends. Then I would look online and I found a website or a software called Map my Run. And I found segments and places where people ran. When I got back to Naples, there were plenty of places to run. I would drive back to Naples on the weekends and stay with my son, Dan. And I would run in Naples. Echo Lake park was a beautiful park. That summer, that was the year that I became a runner. And I say, I became a runner because I went more than five miles in a week. People say, how do you know you're a runner? You're not a runner. I think if you're running five miles a week, you're a runner. You don't have to run a race. You don't have to have a dozen pair of shoes if it, if you like it and you do it, you're a runner. Kevin Chang: Are you enjoying the show, help us out by sharing the podcast. You can win some cool prizes like headbands, wristbands, training programs, shadows, and more, especially if you're part of an existing running group online community, or have friends that you think will enjoy the show. Get your personal referral link at race mob.com/referral. That's a beautiful sentiment. And we say the same thing, you know, we have had so many guests on who have said, "Oh, I didn't consider myself a runner for years. I didn't consider myself a runner." And we tell our audience, if you go out, you put one foot in front of the other. If you are putting the work in, you are a runner. And so many of us started with walking. I mean, so many of us started with just getting out. Out of the door, you know, just starting to walk and then picking up the pace just a little bit, you know, turning that 10 minute, walk into a 10 minute jog, turning that 15 minute walk into a little bit of a quicker pace. And then you get lost in the sport. You start to fall in love with that, as you mentioned, right that time by yourself being able to think. Clearly for the first time in a long time. So yeah, that is incredible. And like you mentioned, you don't have to have 12 to 15 pairs of shoes, but, but Scott, you do have 12 to 15... And we know that you're both a shoe geek and a product geek. So talk to us a little bit about shoes. I am curious, and I want to dive into this with you a little bit, because most people who get into running or novice runners, maybe we have one pair. Maybe we have two pairs. Maybe we have three pairs. So how do you get up to 12 pairs or 15 pairs? Are you following the shoe matrix that our friends set? The more is looking at? Do you have your own way of looking at shoes? Talk to us about shoes. Scott Strool: Yeah. So I actually did some research and I bought my first pair of running shoes. Not very long ago. December 28th, 2017 is when I bought a pair of Saucony Ride 9. Now if you, if some of your listeners know this year, Saucony released the 13 and I'm not sure if they did it every year. And I think one year they didn't even give it a number. It was called Ride ISO. So it's been about four years of four different iterations of the Ride shoe. So the first shoe I had was the ride nine and I wore that shoe, that was my only shoe, I wore it every day and I didn't do a lot of different runs. I just, I didn't have any structured workouts. I just said, I'm going to go run no particular pace, but I'm just going to pick either a distance or a time. I'm going to run three miles today. I'm gonna run five miles today. I'm gonna run around the mall and back as I wanted to try different things and. Let's say I want to run for two hours. I wanted something with a little bit more cushion. So I bought Saucony Triumph, ISOs. I went to the store. I said, I'm going to be running for a while. I want something with a little bit more cushion. So I got a cushion pair of shoes. That was my second pair. Then I think I went back like a month later and I said, you know, I'm running in a 5k. I want something that I can run faster. I want something a little bit lighter and a little bit more with a bit of bit turnover, a little bit more structure. So I bought Adidas Boston 7s was my third pair of shoes. And those that I ran with, those were my 5k shoes. So now I had fast day shoes and I had long run shoes. Then someone told me, after you run fast, you need a real cushion shoe for recovery runs. So there's a new type of run that I never did before. So I needed something really cushioned. So I bought Brooks ghosts and those were going to be my recovery shoe. So now I had four pair. I'm not going to keep going because we'll be here for two more hours. Then I started doing research and watching things like Seth watching his shoe reviews. And Mike . His last name is his name is . So those are the two guys that I started watching the most and they would do shoe reviews. And if they did a review and I kind of felt compelled to try that shoe, I did, once I started planning races, I bought shoes for specific races. I'm going to run a 10 mile race. Okay. So I want a pair of Nike Flyknits, Zoom Flyknits, and I was able to get those. Um, and I ran my 10 mile race. Kevin Chang: Is that the carbon fleeting zooms have the carbon plate in them. Scott Strool: Yeah, this one does the it's the original Zoom Flyknits in it. It came in when I came in a lot of car colors, but I got the orange set. So that was my first carbon fiber plate issue. I say first, because I think I have, I have four carpet played a shoes. Kevin Chang: Okay. Coach, coach probably has you beat coach probably has you beat. He's got like. I helped coach, uh, with some, uh, storage the other other week. And it was like a whole storage unit could have been filled with shoes over here. You Bertrand Newson: got to make the best of it. Right. Got to make the best of it. Kevin Chang: yeah, that's right. Scott Strool: I have a shoe tower it's I keep looking to the left, as you can see, but, um, cause I actually went to Costco and had to buy shelves just to. Hold my shoes on my metals. That's the only thing that's on that. What stack of shelf. So I just kind of got into shoes and, uh, I just like having them and running a different pair. I did find out for recovery that it's really good to not run in the same pair of shoes because your feet kind of get acclimated to that shoe. And then if there's a pain there, you're going to continue that. So I generally don't run in the same shoe every day. I do have some overlapping shoes, I guess some of the shoes that I have probably more than a few would be a tempo day shoes. So, you know, some, a little bit, not a fast day, but something where I'm going to do intervals and then slow down. my favorite shoe in that guard is the Vajra 11. So I've been running in that. And the other shoe that is my fast day shoe, I guess, would be the ring con Coco wrinkles. Bertrand Newson: Nice and light. Good value. Scott Strool: Yep. Those are really light. And, the other shoe that I haven't run in enough yet, but I want to is the Hyperion, temple. I bought that shoe and I probably have less than 20 miles in it, but, I probably didn't need it, but I got it. That was one show I didn't need, but I got anyway. And then the same thing happens with apparel. I had one pair of short gym, short running shorts. I probably have six or seven pair of running shorts and they're for all different, you know, they're different weights and different lengths. I did find out that my favorite length is five inch. And so not many people. If you ask a hundred people, I don't know if they would have a favorite length of short, but Scott does. And you guys probably do. And most, maybe most runners have a favorite lenght, but I can't run a nine, seven, two long. And. Three is on a little bit, uh, you know, maybe uncomfortable with three inch shorts, two inch shorts. Definitely not, but so five is good. I do have three inch shorts and I'll run them maybe on the trail, but not where many people can see me. It's like running an underwear. Bertrand Newson: Two questions for you, Scott. Thank you for sharing your, uh, shoe affinity. Yeah, we all love shoes. It's important. Part of your, uh, running toolkit some would say the most important. Two questions, though. If you are able to tell your earlier running version self, to give yourself some advice, maybe three things that you wish you knew that you were able to do, so now once you, you share that. Scott Strool: So early on, I would say, start slow. Don't overdo it. And another thing would be set up set, high goals, set goals that are, you don't believe are attainable because if you set the goals too low, then you're just mediocre. And I think I did that early on where I said, you know, I'm perfectly fine running a nine 30 pace for five miles. I wish I kind of, worked on things to make me a little faster a year ago because I still feel like I don't, I don't hit the paces that I would like to hit now. So, set high goals, stick to your plan, which I have been doing. So I guess I can't say that something I don't do, but, you know, follow your passion if you love it. I think you're just going to go ahead and do it. And, at some point, if you become a runner, you're either going to love it or you're not, I don't think there are many people that just run because they, they, you know, they say they have to they'll, they'll find something else to do. It's too painful to do if you don't love it. Right. I mean, I feel, I feel terrible five minutes after I'm done, but 10 minutes after I'm done, I feel amazing. I think that's why I run some people say, why do you run? Because you feel great, 10 minutes after you're done. Yeah. And maybe don't buy so many shoes. Maybe, maybe don't don't buy so many shoes. Okay. Bertrand Newson: My next question has to do in part on how we all met. How has the role of a fitness community fitness team of fitness group impacted you? Has it helped? Has it been a level of accountability fellowship? We belong to a gym that you're very active there in New Jersey. Please share that the role of community as it relates to holding yourself accountable. Scott Strool: Like I said earlier, a lot of times people running is a solo sport for the most part. Because you're by yourself and if you're going fast, you really can't talk. But there's that comradery and the community of sharing tips and, and goals together. And you can only do that with like-minded people. You know, if I come home and I talked to my family, they, I think they get very bored. Or when I started talking about my splits, they don't want to know about it, but after a community run, someone would be interested. Hey, Scott, you hit. You had seven and a half minutes for, for three miles. That's that's great. They think that's a good thing where most of the people that are on a runner will not even know what that is. So just talking to people that know your lingo and share your excitement is awesome. And that's, what's great about running communities. the, um, the Racemob team who I've met a couple of times where we've had these, group calls, they're really awesome. Everybody talks about their goals and their challenges and it's inspiring because if someone says, we were talking about pushups last week and there's a pushup challenge, and I never thought of, I do pushups for a workout, but I never thought I'm going to try to do a goal of 50 pushups a day for a year. And there's one gentlemen who is awesome. He said, I've been doing it since. I guess the summertime or late fall, where he's done 50 pushups a day for, and he's trying to break a record for how many days in a row. And that's just inspiring this time. Some people might call that crazy. But to me, I said, no, that's great. I have some of those goals. And I like setting things like that. I like to run, you know, the only goal I really have is I want to run a hundred miles a month. That, that way upstairs. I know I'm healthy and it's just, an obtainable goal and I've ran a hundred miles a month every month since, well, may was the first month. That last year that I did not, I had an injury and I only ran 97. Well, like I said, I want you to go to the top, hop for three miles. I will obtain no, I hit a hundred miles since may, so April through December, and I'm probably going to hit January, even though we're halfway through the month and I'm not halfway, I'm not at 75 miles. I'm not at 50 miles. I'm just at about 50 miles. So I should make it the reason why I know that is because, one of the other things that not only am I a running shoe geek, I'm also a data geek. And one thing that got me excited about running was all of the metrics that happen when you run pace, distance, time, elevation, heart rate. There are so many things that you can keep track of. And so I use Strava today. I'm a Strava premium member and I download my data and I track it all on my own with my own analytics. So I have charts that I can see how many runs did I do. And how many runs did it? Take me to get to a hundred? So that's another goal I have. What's the shortest number of runs I can have in a month to get to 100 miles. I think June was my fastest. I did 17 runs to get to a hundred miles. I usually averaging at about 20 different runs a month to get to a hundred probably in late 20, 19 or 2020. You know, I could certainly go and look, but I'm pretty sure all of 2020, except for may I fit a hundred miles. Then if I look back into 2019, I think I did it as well. And the reason why is when I started training for a half marathon, I said, I got to build up that aerobic base. So I did my first marathon, half marathon in 2018. I wanted to make sure that I was doing it, you know, 20, 25 miles a week. This summer I started averaging closer to 40 miles a week for June, July and August. I think my average was 40 a week. Bertrand Newson: How did your body handle that training load with that increased mileage? Scott Strool: The mileage doesn't bother me one bit, coach. What I do have a concern with, and we're going to talk about this later is how do I run faster? Not get hurt. Cause I told you a couple of days ago, I decided to do some sprints and jokingly. I said, I gave myself runner's knee and my knee, the left side of my knee hurt for luckily only 36 hours. I did some regimen to make it better. I went to the hot tub. I use this here's my product plug, Kevin Chang: deep blue rub, deep blue rub Scott Strool: this ready. So this goes on my knee. And, um, I also use an ice ball and I jog today. And I think I'm better. So I did not hurt it enough to say I had an injury. I think that I just used a part of my knee that didn't get used before. Cause I was running seven minute pace for a minute. I was doing a minute on minute off at sprints and maybe I shouldn't do that. You might tell me, Scott, don't do that. That's not where you need to do to. No to complete a full marathon in four hours, which is my ultimate goal. Kevin Chang: Yeah, definitely something we should chat about in one of our coaching calls. I also sustained a bit of an injury during the speed workout. And part of it was because of not doing speed workout in a while. Part of it was because of not dynamically stretching. I would say the other thing to maybe look at is running form because oftentimes when we do try to go faster, Sometimes we overstride. You have to lengthen your stride, but if you're overstriding and your foot's landing out in front of you, rather than underneath you and you just using lean to get that speed, that can cause injury too. And that's usually where you see some of that knee pain is you're actually impacting either by the heel or out in front. And that impact kind of carries over to the knee. So, coach , you are an expert, you do the running form analysis. So , you know, something for us to take a look at, but we encourage all of our members, all of our listeners to take a video and we have an upload form for them to upload their running form. And we will pick a couple of these every week to review with you guys on our YouTube channel. So I'll make sure that I have the link somewhere , but definitely take a look at running form and take a look at how it changes with the speed work too. Because that is one of those things that, you know, you get used to one thing, but then turning it up. Are you maintaining the same cadence? Are you still landing with the balls of your feet underneath your body? Are you, you know, doing everything else to, to increase speeds? Scott Strool: I will have that opportunity to check it out. Cause you, you mentioned YouTube. And so I do have the ability to record my runs. Kevin Chang: That's right. Scott Strool: I found the cream place to run and record, you know, COVID terrible, of course, but one good thing it did is it emptied out a parking lot that's by my house and I can get on the roof of this parking lot, where there are no cars at all because it's a business, a corporate park. I can bring my camera up there and, and run and record and not be bothered with them. Kevin Chang: We talked a little bit about, you're a product guy, too. You love running products. You love a couple of things. You have a massage gun review on your channel as well. What are maybe some. Lesser known products that runners should, find out about. what are the things that you recommend for runners? Scott Strool: Well, I started my YouTube channel, just, I don't know if it was peer pressure or not, but you know, watching people like Seth and you guys and say, you know, I know enough to, to have a YouTube channel and why don't I just talk about what I know and I'll start with my story. And that was my premiere video is how I became a runner. And, uh, I said, but people might want to come back. I can't talk about being sick all the time. So what can I do differently? And, you know, since I am of the age that I am, the most important thing is to stay injury free. I can't get hurt and not run for a year. If I get an injury that takes me out for a year, I'm probably done I'm 59 years old. And, I can't, I don't know coaching might agree or disagree, but I don't know how many more years I have that. I'm going to be able to run. Personally, Kevin Chang: You have quite a few! Lots of years, right? Yeah. We had Will Turner on. He did 60 Ironman triathlons during his 60th birthday. And that year he did a hundred Ironman triathlons in the two years following his 60th birthday, we had Bob Anderson on 74 years old founder of runners world, still hitting 30 something miles a week and you know, six minutes, seven minute pace. So you've got lots of years. We've talked about people who are in their nineties, who are still keeping after it. So you've got lots of years. And the fact that you're staying active day after day means that, you know, you're going to have plenty of years in front of you. So don't worry about that. Good to know. Scott Strool: Hopefully, you know, people will, will understand that, you know, getting old doesn't mean slow stopping. I don't want to stop. I mean, I do have some goals and, Some of them will take some time. So the products that I decided to review and basically learn more about what recovery products, so things that are going to keep me healthy and keep me being able to wear all those shoes that I have and get to that hundred, plus miles a month. The only way you could do that is to stay injury free. So the two things that I'm doing is when I reached out to you guys to learn more about, workout plans to keep healthy. So not just go run, but what can I do before and after to maintain my health? So that's one product, right? Race mob. There's a product that I endorsed to use to get stronger and stay injury free. But then there are some things like massage guns. so, um, I've affiliated myself with a company from LifePro. I am not a paid sponsor from them, but they gave me a discount code that I can share with people who watch my channel, they can get massage guns from LifePro or other products that they sell with a small discount. Other things that I use that I'm really fond of is this is one of the first things I bought, probably had this for a year and a half. And what's nice about this. It's called a roll recovery. Kevin Chang: Okay. Bertrand Newson: Oh yeah. That's a good one. Kevin Chang: Oh, okay. I've seen one of those things. Yeah. Yeah. Roller recovery Scott Strool: At the half marathon, I saw somebody doing it. I said, what is that? They told me what it was. As soon as I searched for it on Google. Now, Instagram feeds me this every day. Kevin Chang: For our listening audience. It's almost like, um, a clamp or like a vice that has rollers on both sides. So it gets both sides of, you know, your thigh muscle, your calf muscle. And when you roll, it really puts some pressure, on both sides of, of the leg or Scott Strool: multiple sides. Yeah, these are, these are fairly hard, these rollers, but you just open it up and you put that on the side of your leg and just roll back and forth, turn it sideways to get your hamstring and your thigh. At the same time, it really does hurt on the calf cause it's tight, but you can hold it up a little bit. That's snap. You can see that it's a fairly strong spring and, uh, you get it from rural recovery are eight is the model. They have a couple of different other things that they sell. So I'm fond of this. I use this a couple of times a week. Of course, I use a foam roller. Life pro fitness has a very inexpensive vibrating foam roller. Um, the vibrating foam roller is nice because it's, you know, it's giving you a massage at the same time that you're rolling. Also, you kept these little massaging balls that are nice for your glutes. Just turn that on. And it vibrates. Hmm. So you get that same sensation. Kevin Chang: I had one of those vibrating foam rollers. Yeah. My wife got one for me, for my birthday. I love it. I love it. Scott Strool: Yup. So I have that and of course, stretch bands. Seth talks about this and he got me to buy it. So Seth is a good salesman. Kevin Chang: Do you have a slant board? Scott Strool: I got the slant for it. Kevin Chang: That's fantastic. Scott Strool: I keep it under my desk. While I'm here editing my videos. I'll just put that on and stand on it. The slant board, is really great. Kevin Chang: Yeah. Well, we were interviewing him back in September. He was, he had just won the Pike's peak marathon and he was standing on the slant board. We just asked him about recovery products and he was said he was standing on these slant boards. Scott Strool: And, you know, those disks, those disks study stands on those rubber things that kind of look like, pillows. I bought those for golf, because I was standing one on each leg for balance to get my thigh strength. So I get a bigger, a stronger base and stronger legs for turning through. So I've had those for years. And, I still use that to balance on one leg at a time, came back from the gym today. What I usually do is I'll stand on one or the five or 10 pound dumbbell, and I'll try to do like one leg, uh, Rollovers, I call them rollovers where you just kind of bend down. For Kevin Chang: our audience they're almost like a, like if you've seen Bosu balls, they're kind of like miniature Bosu balls. They help with stability because they're, they're unstable. So they force you to work your core, work your other muscles to be stable, especially when you're bending over with weights and doing all these other activities. So great for strengthening your ankles for your strengthening, your feet, strengthening your lower body. Scott Strool: The very first recovery product I bought was I, I thought that my feet would hurt after I ran a lot. Cause everybody said, if you run, you're going to, you might get PF or plantar fasciitis. And I never got it, but I like the way this feels is this is called the foot log. And, uh, this was the first thing that I purchased. This is my first piece of recovery items. So this goes into like the hall of fame for me. Kevin Chang: It's awesome. It's almost like a roller with like Legos, like, like round Legos on there, there that really probably digs right into your. So your muscles and your feet, the massage points in there, Scott Stro: search for foot log. You'll find it. This is pretty inexpensive to under $20. Bertrand Newson: Scott, thank you so much for sharing those, uh, fitness gadgets in your tool, fitness toolbox, and how are all those devices getting you prepared for your next goal? Race, maybe share what that next goal event is for you. Scott Strool: Yeah. So earlier this week I signed up for my half marathon. Now it is virtual, but it is a race that I've been wanting to do ever since I heard about this race, it's the New York city, half marathon. it is virtual, but it is run by the New York road runners. And, that's at the end of March, there's a period of a week to do it. And, haven't decided on the course yet on finding it. There aren't too many places that are completely downhill. Unless I drive up to the top of a mountain and run down, but that would be cheating. I don't think I'm going to do that, but I'm going to try to find a nice flat piece of land, probably an out and back. So I don't have to get picked up. So I'm looking for like a seven mile trail where I can, where I can just run out and come back. And, uh, I do have some time goals there, but ultimately I just want to show up to that starting line, you know, as fit as possible and as strong as possible. And, uh, so I have almost two months to get ready for that. And then my ultimate peak race for 2021 is the New Jersey marathon, which has been delayed a year and a half. so it's going to be happening in October. Of 21. I was originally going to run that in April of 2020. They didn't even have it virtual, but on the same day of that marathon, I ran a half marathon, a virtual half marathon. It was actually Seth, James DeMaurice. He had something just called the SJD virtual half marathon or virtual race. So you can run any distance you want. And, uh, so he, you signed up, it was free. You printed out your own bed and taped it to your shirt. My wife met me halfway to give me water, and then she went to the gym. So I can go take a shower when I'm done. And she met me and she had a little sign that said go Scott. And it was kind of fun. And she had these, uh, gels for me and, uh, some Gatorade at the finish line. So that was kind of virtual, but it was fun back in March. So I got two races on the calendar today. so far I also probably do some time trials. On my own, just to, uh, I want to crush PRS. This is a year to crush PRS and to have another one of my goals for the year is to do more structured workouts. So one thing that I want to do, and that's why I've been looking for help with, from guys like, like, like coach B and Ray's mob. Is to, um, put together more planned runs, as opposed to just saying I'm going to go run five miles and then come home and then stretch. I want to do things a little bit differently. So I'm like ladder drills, which we talked about is something that I want to expand on and maybe make a bigger ladder and not do a three, two, one ladder. Maybe do a, you know, a 12 start at 12 minutes and, or start at three minutes and then work up to 12 minutes or go by distances. So more interval type running. So rather than just running, I've been doing base running for two years. I want to do more. I think I need to introduce more, not worry about finishing 10 miles in an hour. Maybe take a little bit longer, but you know, run for three minutes fast and then two minutes slow, three minutes fast, two minutes, slow. Something like that. I, I, those are the types of structured work. That's what I mean by a structured workout where I'm running, hitting different paces at when I'm out there, not just going out and running and coming back. Kevin Chang: What I love about you participating in this January challenge and, and really it's two way street, right? Coach B is giving you some planned workouts and some things to test out and you're giving us feedback and you're letting us know what's. Working what isn't working. If you're thinking about doing something else or thinking about adding a different workout or you saw something else somewhere else, then we can incorporate that for the other athletes. And we're benefiting just as much from, you know, this January challenge and having people like you who are so inspiring, participate in this challenge as hopefully the participants are having. And, the feedback has been. We just love learning more about, you know, the types of workouts that you enjoy, the types of benefits that you're seeing. And especially from a data nerd like myself and, and a person that likes to analyze every little piece of, you know, what's working, what isn't working. We love it. We have loved every single conversation that we've had. This is. Fantastic. Scott Strool: Thank you, Kevin. Yeah, I'm very blessed this time to have met you guys in, you know, in late 2020. And, so I'm grateful and so happy to know both of you. Bertrand Newson: It's our pleasure and you know, your success is our success. We all want to be happier and healthier versions of ourselves and see our extended running community feel the same way. And that's. The mission here at race mobbing, uh, Kevin, and I believe that we eat and breathe that, um, the world needs happier and healthier people. So, uh, let's continue the three buses to do our part and Scott, your voice, you know, again, you, you know, you're a media celebrity, you have your own, uh, YouTube channel. You're putting out fantastic tips and advice. Helping runners be more aware of the resources available to them. So we're just very fortunate to have you as part of the race, mob community and looking forward to future with you a part of it. Kevin Chang: I was just going to mention, I mean, this is just the start of a wonderful collaboration. I think, you know, you provide such a powerful voice to the community. You have so much knowledge, you. And you're interested in becoming, uh, an influencer and helping influence the next generation of athletes of runners and help everybody become healthier and happier. So we're just happy that this is kind of the start of this conversation, and we know that we're going to have future collaborations. We're going to have you on our YouTube channel. We're going to have other stuff as well. So this isn't the last, as you've heard of Scott, Scott will be around, uh, and we'll, we'll make sure that his voice is. Scott Strool: Excited for that challenge. I do this for myself, but when you get to a certain age that like you want to give back, and it's important for me to, uh, you know, my kids are grown up. I can't educate them anymore. So I have to reach out to other people who might be able to just learn something. No, I bumped my head. And w w why does it hurt? Well, teach them to duck that kind of, that kind of stuff. So, um, yeah, let's just make the world a better place. Everybody will be happier Kevin Chang: and healthier. Incredible. Well, we'll have all the links down below, too. Um, let's see your YouTube channel. Is there anywhere else people can find you online? You mentioned that you have a Strava account, we'll have a link to the Strava account as well. Where else can people find you? Scott Strool: Yeah, so of course I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram as well. So I will take pictures. And when something exciting happens in my life or I'm in my running career, I'll take pictures of my shoes. Or if I go to a beautiful place, I'll share some of that. Yeah. Instagram Kevin Chang: We'll have all the links down below. Scott's also in part of the race mob community sites, which we are planning to keep active. And we're looking for ideas on how to make it more active as well, but come find Scott can find them on our page, on our community online, and we'll have all of the links on dot com. Scott, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Really, really appreciate the time. Appreciate your story. And it's beautiful. What a fantastic start. So thank you so much again, Scott. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the race mob podcast. Check out all of the show notes or find a running buddy [email protected]. Please subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review until next time. Keep on moving.