S4E93 Chad Miedel- Scottdale 5k/10k Co Director, Bicyclist, Unicyclist, Coal And Coke Trail Volunteer

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome everybody to the only I Athletics podcast, the show that
values hearing your stories, relieving your adventures and
learning information that can help us improve in all aspects
of our lives. I'm your host, Dean Banco, and I
know you enjoyed today's episodeas much as I do.
All right, today I have on Chad Mytel got that right.

(00:29):
You did. He's the Co race director of the
Scottsdale Fall Festival 5K and 10K race coming up on September
20th. But he's also an avid runner,
huge biker from my understanding.
So I just wanted to get him on and touch base because last year
I ran the 5K version of the race.

(00:51):
So just wanted to see how thingsare going with him go over some
of the course and stuff like that.
So, Chad, welcome on and thank you for coming today.
Yeah, it's a pleasure. Dean, are you signed up already?
No. OK, get on that.
We're a month out as of today. You on track about the meet last

(01:12):
year's numbers or a little behind or?
We are about 20% up from last year.
This time last year, I think we were pushing about 100 people
and I'm showing a little bit over 120 right now.
Most of our participants though sign up in about the last two
weeks, about 40%. So it's really hard to gauge as
the, you know, in charge for shirts and all that kind of

(01:33):
stuff. Yeah, that's usually what I do
know is I'm, I tell people I'm like a week to week cuz like
especially with your race, it's a 5 and a 10K.
So it's like, don't want to do the five, don't want to do the
10, sort of. So I end up waiting in the last
minute and I'm like the day over, I mean, or the night
before. Yeah, If anyone ever like signs
up for the 5K and we allow you to change that up to I think

(01:55):
three or five days out, I can change that on the back half no
problem. We just can't switch from
walking to running as that's a different price point.
But you could swap races no problem.
All right. I guess if you want to give a
brief introduction to yourself so that way people get to know
you a little bit better. Sure.
Yeah. So my name is Chad Midel.

(02:16):
I am born and raised in Scottsdale, Mount Pleasant area.
So I am local, went to school atSouth Moreland here.
I'm currently 31 years old. This is my third year with the
Scottsdale Fall Festival Race. Four years ago Sean Bryson took
it over after a little bit of hiatus.

(02:37):
We could get into the little history there in a bit.
But yeah, so he did one year revamping it and then he brought
me on the 2nd year and I've beenon ever since.
I'm also involved with like the Coal and Coke trail locally,
which I believe you have ran personally.
Just just overall want to see, you know, growth in the
community and and got involved with the fall festival, the race

(03:00):
and the cold and coke trail pastcouple years on both boards for
that. Personally, I obviously bike a
bunch. I I run a little bit.
I'm not like a super runner. I do it when I can or when I
sign up for something dumb. Personally, I work remote
e-commerce, I run my own business on the side and I work

(03:21):
at flat tire bike shop part time.
I I love Turner's tea, pizza, tacos, beer, candy and ice
cream. I'm pretty not poster child for
health on that aspect. We'll call you a typical Western
PA ginzer. Yep, that's.
Pretty. I mean, the beard is.
Yeah, representative as well. I mean, obviously I'm a ginzer

(03:43):
too, so I can't, you know, it's,it's not an insult if nobody
knows. So what about you?
I guess in the running, trail running or biking in general.
Yeah, so I guess like most people always say like they got
into sports in high school or growing up or whatever, I was
not that person. I was in band in high school, I

(04:04):
was on the golf team. But like, it's, I mean, yeah,
that's a sport. I I recognize that.
But it's not like you're pushingyourself with endurance and it's
skill based. I would say.
There's some obviously lifting shoulders, whatever you can
throw in that. But I was a super scrawny
person, less than I am now. I'm still a very thin person.
I'm terrible at normal sports. Basketball, you know, baseball,

(04:28):
soccer, absolutely horrid. But I grew up competitively
unicycling and juggling, which was a very unique thing.
You know, everyone kind of pokedfun at me in middle school, high
school, whatever, doing that, but I was always like active as
a person, you know, just riding my bike in the parking lot, you
know, in, in town or, or whatever.

(04:49):
I I went to IUP in college for college for geology and my
roommate at the time got me intolifting and I was 91 lbs.
At 18 years old. Yeah, it was really small.
I've gained 50 lbs since then. So I'm in this college gym with,
like, these football players andlike, you know, I'm scared out
of my mind. But I stuck with it for about 10

(05:11):
years very consistently. And I still do over the winter
just to switch up throughout theyear.
But that kind of like sparked a whole bunch of like consistency
with like fitness in my life with geology, like a lot of
hiking. I got to go out West in Colorado
for quite a bit, 1 summer for school and that pretty much was
my golden spike of changing me. We were out in the San Juan

(05:33):
Mountains near Durango, Silverton area and I would see
these 6070 year old women 5:30 in the morning ripping mountain
bikes down through the the Colorado trail and stuff.
I'm like, this is what I want. Like every lunch break I would
see people out running and I'm like, I love this.
I loved everything about it. So I got back to into school at

(05:53):
IUP that following semester and I, you know, was out in the
woods hiking. I lived right right by White's
Woods right off Philly St. in Indiana and I was out trail
running just a little bit. No Strava, no watch, didn't
record it was just out doing whatever.
I always wanted to bike but I didn't have the money in college
to afford a nice bike. I just ripped around on like a

(06:14):
$200 Trek. So when I got out into the
working world 2018 ish I bought my first like real bike.
It was a Scott Attic 10. It's still my road bike that I
ride weekly. My boss at the time was into Rd.
biking and he kind of got me into it more.
So started biking 2018-2019, youknow, doing like 1000 miles a

(06:38):
year, nothing crazy. It was still very gym focused.
Then COVID hit so gym shut down.I'm like well I have a bike so
I'm just going to do that. Quickly became a very severe
addiction. I started doing like 100 plus
miles a week and figuring out nutrition and like I was really
nailing it and like growing withit and I loved it.
I didn't realize how athletic I could be and then how much I

(07:01):
could I would thrive on like figuring stuff out with like
nutrition and how far I could go.
Where you bonk, what do you needsalts, etcetera.
So that kind of sparked everything for my endurance side
of things. The first running race I ever
did was the Scott de Opal festival.
I did it on a whim in 2016. My buddy and I that I lifted
with, he actually just like poked at US1 day and was like

(07:26):
let's do this untrained. It was bad we did it untrained
but we did it. So that was my first ever one.
Didn't do another one until probably 2021 ish, which then it
turned into like bike racing. I was doing like you know, 5 KS,
10 KS. I've done 1/2.
I've never done an actual full marathon.

(07:46):
I never signed up for one. But then I got into like
straight into ultra stuff. So just went and did the plunge.
So that's kind of my fitness background and how I got into
things so. You said juggling and
unicycling. I, I, I understand the juggling
thing, 'cause you know, guys, wealways throw things in the air
and toss it around. But unicycling, that's just one

(08:06):
of those unique things. Like what drew you to that?
Yeah, so my dad actually learnedwhen he was like 12 years old or
so, he went out and visited his sister in California, and she
lived near all the kids that worked at Disneyland, and they
all had them. They were like performers and
all that stuff. And he picked one up, shipped it
back here, taught himself to ride it and he always told me

(08:26):
about it. So for a joke for like his like
50th birthday, I bought him one when I was well, my mom helped
me buy him one when it when I was probably like 8 or something
like that. And when he would go to work, I
would change like the seat height and like teach myself in
the basement. And he knew like, he wasn't
dumb, but I taught myself at like 9 years old to ride a
unicycle. And then he started looking

(08:48):
online and there were national competitions.
And so he's like, let's go to 1.And the the one that year was in
Ohio, change his location every year.
So he's like, let's drive out toToledo.
It's 3 1/2, four hours. It's low commitment.
If it's a bust, we're out. We'll come home.
We were there all week and had the time of our lives.
And I competed for 11 years. Yeah.

(09:08):
I do you have any good? Well, I don't want to say good
fall stories, but like, Oh yeah,how much did you fall before you
actually learned how to stay on it stably?
So usually like you work with things like I always use a
tennis court to teach people, 'cause you can use the chain
link fence and then you can use the corner and you can work your
way out from the corner. I've taught a lot of people to

(09:30):
ride and then you move into a shopping cart with like 50 LB
bags of feed in it. So there's like some resistance,
but you're still free learning wise.
It's just a bunch of busted chins.
You really don't fall that much it's when you start getting into
the intricate stuff you like usually end up falling.
I've broken my left arm like 3 times just scrapes, you know,

(09:51):
falling face first on like there's mountain unicycling
trials, flatland St. Picture figure skating on ice
but unicycles on a gym floor. You have solo choreographed
stuff, pairs, group routines, etcetera.
So if you can think of it, they're doing it.
It's. Just I don't know much about

(10:12):
unicycling in general because it's honestly, there's really
not much I want to say in the area per SE, at least that I
know of. But it's just always one of
those cool things that you have to stop and watch when
somebody's doing it. So I'm always interested when
people I see people doing it or know people that do it.
There's a bunch of YouTube videos with some very
representative things. I can send you a link.

(10:34):
There's 2 clubs in Pittsburgh though there is the Wonders
Unicycle Club out of Washington which I was a part of.
And then Butler also has one called the Butler Wobble if I'm
not mistaken. They focus on mountain
unicycling though up there. So it's if you ever heard of
Dave Crack up in Butler, he's a huge mountain biker.
Like I don't think he uses his car more than like 20 days a
year. He bikes a ton, unicycles a ton.

(10:57):
He builds mountain bike trails. He's a really awesome guy.
So you said you bike a lot like you're doing like the more like
the gravel roads like the mountain or are you sticking
more to like the flat? I would say my my gravel bike is
my most used bike. It's my commuter.
I hit the rail trails. It's unstoppable.
I I say it's it does everything can haul stuff on it.

(11:19):
I hit the rail trail, hit some Rd.
I started out Rd. biking though,so I do still do that when I
want some quick fast passes. And then my last thing was
mountain biking, so got into that a little bit, but it's
probably my least used bike. It's my not great Forte, but I
grew up on dirt bikes and ATVs and stuff.
So like, you know, have that skill set and everything.

(11:40):
Just don't. That's honestly time.
Half the time you get 10 miles and you spend 3 hours doing it.
Half like by the time you drive there, unload, ride and then go
back home. Now, do you have any safety tips
or quick tips off the top of your head for bikers or people
that want to bike more? I try to be as visible as
possible. Obviously you have the blinky

(12:01):
light, have a good visible color, so don't wear like greens
or Browns or blacks. I have a mirror on my bike and a
Garmin radar. Those two pair together, almost
a fail safe. I ride really quiet roads out
here in Scottsdale, Mount Pleasant, so I don't have a lot
of issues with cars or anything.But I would say be commutative.
You know when you get to the Crest of a hill and somebody's

(12:22):
behind you like you can see ahead of them, wave them on
immediately and try to get over as far as you can.
I know some people try and like take the lane, but I've gotten a
lot better results if you're more complying with people had.
I think I have about 17 or 18,000 miles and I've only had
like 2 close calls and one of them was my fault, I'll fully
admit it. So.

(12:42):
It's not too bad. What's that?
What's that Garmin radar? Do you?
Yeah. So the Garmin radar, most
cyclists use a Garmin Wahoo or some kind of head unit.
It's like a little GPS for the front of your bike.
You can get a Garmin radar that.Acts as your light on your seat
post and it pairs with your Garmin and also other people
that you're riding with Garmin. So if you're in the back, it's

(13:04):
it knows where you're at in place and it'll send an alert to
everybody and it will say like one or two cars back.
And it's really accurate. It's only given me a couple
false positives and never given me or not giving me an alert for
a car behind me. Well, I see.
I've never heard of that. So that was, it's kind of
interesting because, well, I really don't ride on the roads

(13:25):
because yeah, at least where I'm, well, I know people do.
There's a lot of, I would have seen, there's a handful do, but
I, I just don't trust people around my area, so I just don't
do it. But I got enough rail trails so.
I don't really care. Yeah, the Coal and Coke trail
keeps me pretty happy. I you'd probably see my straw,
but I hit that a bunch. It's just kind of like my

(13:45):
morning ride before work. Buzz into town either on the
bike or drive in real quick and do a quick 10 Miller.
I rack up volunteer miles for the trail by monitoring it, you
know, by being on it and everything.
So yeah, it's it's all good. See, as you said, you're, you're
involved with the coal and Coke trail.
Like what do you do for it or with it?

(14:06):
Yeah, I'm, I'm very new to it. I've only been on the board for
a little bit over a year, I believe.
And so a lot of the founding members are still on the board.
They were there laying down the trail and so I, I look for them
to be phasing out sometime soon in the next 10 years, which I
totally get. They're all 60s, seventies,
etcetera. And so they're bringing on some

(14:28):
some younger people. So I don't really have an exact
title, but I just help with certain projects.
So one of them was the I did a whole bunch of ride with GPS
routes recently uploaded them toour like regional trail
corporation account. And then the other trails will
be doing that as well. So you can be at a point scan
the QR code, get your route and go so from wherever you're

(14:48):
standing, which is super nice. I've uploaded all the
restaurants and like gas stations, ATMs, parking lot,
like anything you want, like bathrooms.
And I have them marked as like, you know, only here from May to
October or whatever. So did that project kind of been
in a hiatus for a couple months of not really having a project

(15:08):
to work on. But recently a gentleman named
Steve Luchens hit me up to do an.
Ultra on the trail. He wants to do a 10 Miller and a
50K, so he's currently in the application process.
I got all the details from him. So I'll be assisting him with
that. So when the Co and Coke trail
people don't know that's I always start in Mount Pleasant

(15:30):
side and then it goes to what? Goes through Bridgeport.
And then it goes into Scottsdaleon the like N like the eastern
side of Scottsdale and then loops through Kennedy Park and
ends up right behind the Scottsdale Police and Borough
building. It extends out to Garfield Park
through town though, if you really want to go that far.
Yeah, I usually just go to that.It's it's really what, 9.89 or

(15:55):
something like that? It's just shy of 10.
It's like 9.9. Four.
Yeah, yeah, you got to do a little bit of work.
You starting at Willow I'm guessing?
Wherever it is the mount. Pleasant like, right there at
that. Well, yeah, I start at Mount
Pleasant at that stop sign, and then I end at that trailhead

(16:17):
where the parking lot is, I think.
Wait, it's not a gate. It's it's more like the sign
right there at the gate, the true end parking lot, I believe.
Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is, it gives me that
main 9 point. Yeah.
Yep, yeah, you can go out to like the police station and come
back to the lot and get you yourlike 10 point O 5 or so.
So if you're really being picky that day.

(16:39):
Because I think before when I first did it, it was saying it
goes like in the town, but therewas really no markings.
I was just following a GPX file and I was like, well, this I
ended up, I think it was like the carnivore fair in town that
time. And I was like, this doesn't
seem right. Yeah, it goes up to Locks Park
from the police station and thencrosses over to the library, the

(16:59):
gazebo behind the Main Street businesses there, and then takes
an alley through like Burlhart'sHardware and then out.
To Garfield Park and then back. So the intent is eventually we
expect Connersville to start heading north.
And then once they start doing that, we're going to start
heading South through Owensdale,Bradford and connect to the gap.

(17:20):
That is the end goal. So I don't know when that is
going to happen. There's no exact timeline, but.
We'll say within 10 years is thegoal.
Oh, hopefully sooner than later,because it is.
Honestly, it's not as well knownin the trail community, at least
locally. Like on, I guess once you get on
like the Greensburg Mount Pleasant, it's not really known,

(17:43):
but it is a clean trail and it'sactually well maintained, like
you're not hitting potholes or you know, a lot of divots or
anything like that. No, our group of guys is very on
it. They're very eager.
If I tell our president Mike, ifthere's a tree down, he usually
is there before I end my ride, which.
Is insane. I I ride pretty fast and he's

(18:05):
there within 20 minutes half thetime.
Yeah, we're very diligent. We just expanded out like we got
a new container with new equipment in it, all electric
like steel stuff. We're gonna get a side by side,
be very like set up to maintain that portion and then extended
portions of the trail. Yeah, super well maintained.

(18:25):
There's no trash along it. We're really on it with all of
that. And the sad part is not a lot of
people know about it. I've had people from
Connersville, 10 minutes away not even know it existed or that
it was paved. And they're running on it with
me and they're just saying how nice it is, how beautiful it is,
and that they're going to come around this all the time now.
It is. Well, I would say it's basically

(18:45):
flat. There might be what, like 100
feet? 200 feet at the most if you do
it out and back. Out and back is like 65 to 80
feet of elevation gain near IronBridge, which is near the old
screw and bolt factory. You go behind like an industrial
building towards Bridgeport. There's a little bit of a peek
out, but there's not much of A grade.
You're never going to notice it.Yeah, it's you got probably what

(19:08):
I'm trying to think three different spots or there's like
3 different trailheads, but two have bathrooms.
There are there's a trailhead behind the police station.
There is the stout parking lot, trailhead, Iron Bridge.
Bridgeport is not a formal one, but you could sneak a car in
there if you had to. We don't claim that as being
formal. But then the Mount Pleasant

(19:30):
entrance, there's four trail heads.
The bathrooms are there's only aport, a potty at Iron Bridge at
the midpoint. I don't believe there's.
One at Mount Pleasant, Yeah, there.
Yeah, there's nothing down there.
No, no. We only have that one though in
the midpoint so. It wait, it would be nice to get
something at least now and there, even by the baseball

(19:51):
fields. Yeah, well, there Kendai Park
has a port, a potty. I know that for a fact.
So if you had to, you could go up to the baseball field and go.
Yeah, 'cause there's not, there's not a lot of woods that
you could store to sneak into ifyou had to.
Yeah, you could do it if you hadto.
I believe at Willow Park in Mount Pleasant.
There's probably a Portage on there.
There's a lot of baseball activity there, so I don't

(20:13):
really ride through there that much, but I would presume
there's one all. Right.
Yeah, I do try to hit the trail a couple times a year just to
mix things up. I'll join you next time.
So you already touched on it a little bit.
What made you decide to take on or take over the Scottdale 5K
and 10K as a Co race director? But like, is there anything else

(20:34):
that like drew you to it or justthe area in general?
Yeah, so Sean forced me is the short answer.
Yeah, Sean was very like identifying me as a person he
wanted to work with. And he not didn't beg, but he's
like, I would really like you tobe on.
I think you're gonna be a huge asset.
You're into all this. You get good perspective.
You know how to really grow and nail things in any aspect of

(20:56):
life. So brought me on.
I've always wanted to see success.
I saw what happens in Colorado. I've been to Phoenix, AZ, South
Mountain and you can just see like the culture and like
surrounding like communities with like biking, running, and
you see how integral it is in their community.
There's not a lot happening in Scottsdale currently.

(21:16):
It used to be an old steel Milltown.
We'll call it blight ridden. There's still things happening,
but you can see some remnants ofRust Belt.
Just it's just how it is. Coal and coke industry was here,
now it's not. So I'm always grateful for
different ways that we can like grow things.
The festival is a huge hit. It's probably the town's.

(21:37):
I think it is the town's biggestevent.
Every year we have people from the city of Pittsburgh coming
in. I see my friends from Latrobe
and Indiana and everyone's just coming in to gather for that
weekend. So my involvement with the
trail, I just want to see. And like the trail and the race,
I just want to see those things happen around here.
I advocate and am involved with a lot of racing, biking,

(21:59):
fitness, etcetera. And I think that.
Something as simple as that would turn a lot of things
around, get more people out. I'm tired of hearing around here
that there's nothing to do and this town is boring.
I'm like, well, leave your houseand find some stuff and you'll,
you'll be all right. 'Cause this place is beautiful.
So yeah, that's kind of my take.I just want to get people out.

(22:23):
Like what kind of things are going to people going to see at
the festival or be able to do atthe festival?
Yeah, so I have a list. I actually, I'm cheating it
right now because there is so much happening at the festival,
it's unreal. So Sean and I are on the
committee for the festival, but the race is our baby and we help
wherever we can, like we'll set up.
Tents and tear down and run electrical stuff and all that.

(22:45):
But pretty much the race is our focus.
So there's three days. It starts Friday at noon and
ends Sunday around 6:00 PM. And there's live music the
entire weekend. There's a parade after.
The race so if you do a race, you get a prime spot for the
parade. You're right there you're filled
up on pizza beverages that you might have hops in them or other

(23:07):
beverages. So you just get to like chill
out right there, watch the parade right after a race, which
is. Awesome.
There is a children's area that has like free games.
We always make sure that anyone in town could come down with
their kids and have an enjoyablefestival and they're going to
have a good time. There's a cornhole tournament.
I I know that happened last year.
Don't confirm if that's happening this year.

(23:29):
Should be there's a chalk contest, historical displays,
the cub. Scouts have their Hot Wheels
Derby. There's like.
An insane amount of food no vendor is allowed to sell what
another vendor has. So if you sell fries, you're
you're the only one selling fries, which is good and bad
because one you're going to be waiting probably forever for
fries, but you could have a hugevariety of food I mean there's

(23:52):
like cheesecakes being sold there there's fries your typical
fair food and then not your typical fair food.
So I really like that about it. There's I want to say like
30-40, fifty craft benders. There's a ton of that.
There's a teen area as well. That was really awesome.
Last year. I was mad that Sean and I didn't
get to do this. They had like the splatterball

(24:16):
things and they set up hay Bale courses so they could like run
through and basically like paintball each other.
It's awesome. Tons of people doing that.
On Sunday morning, there's a carshow, They bring in Bigfoot,
smash some cars in the middle ofthe street.
Super cool petting zoos like theinflatable balance houses.
Just you think of it, it's probably there.
Nice, sounds like a good varietythat I guess the whole family

(24:40):
could enjoy, at least should enjoy.
Yeah, if you go there and you don't enjoy it, you're just
looking for a not good time. Like you need to change some
things around in your life because it's a great time.
So the race is on Saturday and at 9:00 AM. 9:00 AM The gun goes
off. You're correct all right.
Let me see. I'm trying to look at packet
pick up. It's.

(25:02):
A great question. It's usually Friday night from
like 6 to 9 and then we tear everything down and then I
believe we start around 7:30 on Saturday morning.
We'll probably be at up, be set up by 7.
We try to have a little bit of window there of hiatus, but as
soon as you get there on Saturday morning, grab your
packet, run into your car and chill out.

(25:24):
We'd have like a little pre race, like just kind of warm up,
some stretching music, chill out, meet some people.
Now, what year is this race in, do you know offhand?
So it started in 1998. I did confirm that.
Look it up and all that fun stuff.
There was a two year hiatus, onewith COVID, and then 2021 was

(25:46):
also a hiatus year. The original race director did
not continue after COVID hiatus.And just to speak on him, I
don't know if you've ever heard of his name before.
His name is Charlie Ellis. He started this entire race.
He is the most accomplished local ultra runner and just

(26:07):
runner in general I've ever seenor heard of.
I tried to dig into the lore about two days ago and I don't
know when he started running. There was I kept scrolling
through the ultras that he's done.
I mean, I just kept scrolling mymouse and there was a never
ending list of them. So he has done so many it's
unreal. He's the most humble person I've

(26:29):
ever met. He'll never talk about them.
He's never been in the paper. He'll never post it Time.
He he just says, yeah, I went and did that and he won't tell
you did the Loreal Ultra like 30times or whatever.
Absolute legend of a person though, so worth looking up.
If you get to meet him at the race, please do.

(26:50):
I will gladly introduce you to him.
He he's still involved, so he's passed the baton for the
majority of the work, but he is still a sponsor of the race.
He still helps us with the post race Party is at his property
actually. He owns that building there and
he provides all the beverages, just all the signage, like

(27:11):
everything there. He's still a big, big part of
everything. I I just tried to look him up
real quick on ultra sign up. He's what, like 60?
67. Oh yeah, then it yeah, There's
nothing showing for him right now.
I think he's pre ultra sign up. He's he's like the foundational

(27:33):
pioneers of ultra running. Like I'm pretty sure he was
ultra running in the 80s before it was cool.
Yeah, the the old school, what we call the dirtbag area.
Yeah, he's, he's very, that's his personality.
He's very green recycling. I think he was, he saw Earth Day
for the first time in his teens and he just ran with that for

(27:55):
life. And he's just that person.
And I love it. I, I am pummeled with that
weekend with things to do and making sure safety's high point
on our race and like police, firemen, etcetera.
And he's, he's yelling at me, making sure that my can goes in
the recycling bin and things like that, which I commend
because I'm, I'm not going to betop of mind with that.

(28:17):
That's just me. But Charlie's on it.
So yeah, he's just that guy. Yeah, I'd definitely like to
meet him. I'm I'm sure I ran into him.
I just. Probably, yeah.
But, and if anybody doesn't knowthe dirt, when we say like the
ultra runner, like the dirtbag, it's more like the guys like
right now, like it's the non technology guys that like like

(28:38):
it rugged and rough. You know, it's not like an
insult. It's an actual.
It's a compliment, Yeah. He was the OG guy out there with
no GPS, no cell phone, no water filter, just like going from
Ohio POW to Johnstown on a whim and a hope that he makes it
somewhere there's no in reach for him.

(29:01):
So what makes the race special to begin with?
I think a couple of things. We have a really unique town,
which I think you kind of appreciated right off the bat.
You did a YouTube video last year.
I didn't know you were doing it and we saw it after and I
absolutely loved it. It was awesome and the feedback

(29:22):
was great. So the town has rich history.
Henry Clayfrick was born in WestOverton, 2 miles outside of
Scottsdale. He had many buildings, offices,
etcetera in Scottsdale. The town was extremely wealthy
at one point because of coal andcoke and that's why our trail
exists. You probably noticed some
Victorian homes as you ran around town.
Those homes are still being preserved and that's a huge part

(29:43):
of our town. Overall, our town's pretty
quaint. It's small, has a really nice
scenic view. As you're coming down Arthur on
our race, you can see a little bit of the mountains when you're
next to the middle school there,different points in town.
You get a nice Ridge view of the, the Chestnut Ridge there.
And then like we just have really peaceful country back

(30:04):
roads as well. It might be unforgiving with
some of the hills on the 10K, but they're peaceful and nice.
We also try to keep everything affordable kind of along the
lines of the, the, the festival.So we have early bird signups,
which gets you a great deal. And then we have two tiers after
that with timing of the race that they go up in price by $5

(30:25):
increments. So nothing too crazy, but we
always try to provide like the best value for your signup as
possible. You get a shirt, which we're
both wearing, and that changes every year with color.
And do you have a timed course so your time is actually
legitimate? The course does measure out to
an exact 3.16 miles. The course posted is 3.12.

(30:47):
And that's because the Garmin wouldn't let us do the wrong way
on Pittsburgh Street. But it it does measure.
I've corrected it like 10 times.It's 3.16.
The 10K is a little off, but that's all right.
You get medals. Everyone gets a medal for
finishing. We try to load up the goodie
bags as much as possible. The photos are free.
We ask a few friends that are cyclists and such to run the

(31:09):
course with some cameras, and about two weeks after the race
we post them all and you just godownload them.
You don't have to pay, there's no paywall, you can just
download it, print it at Walmart.
We do not care. We have pizza afterwards,
beverages and giveaways. So I think that's a pretty good
bang for your buck. Last year we had ice baths.
I'm going to try and secure that.
Again, that is not solidified yet.

(31:31):
I'm also trying to bring in somemassage chairs maybe from some
local chiropractic places. So trying to get the value
there. Just kind of like if you never
tried an ice bath. Here it is free.
Now I see it because I'm lookinginto the run sign up website
right now. You do have the course maps that
show like the distance, the total ascent, descent.

(31:52):
So you got like the profile on it and the map for both the five
and 10K. So if somebody wants to download
it, they can go to the click on that Garmin link above the map
that we have it on the GPX file.So let's just say by some chance
you get lost or you just want toknow what's coming ahead, you'll

(32:13):
be able to do that. So that's very nice. 100% that's
why we made it like that. If you want to go run the course
before you do it, you're more than welcome to.
If you don't have the ability todo Agps thing, hit me up.
I'll go run the course with you.I haven't ran in two months, but
we'll make it work. So you already briefly touched
on it, but like describe the course in general, like

(32:35):
pertaining like the hills and some of the turns and stuff.
Yeah, the courses, they're fun. You had a good feedback on the
5K last year. So the 5K is just through town.
It goes. It leaves Pittsburgh St. and
then you go up Laux Ave. which has a little bit of a kicker to
it. It's like a gentle grade kicker.

(32:56):
You ride out some flat at the top Pittsburgh St.
It has a little valley. You got there before you hit
West Park. At the West Park intersection,
the 5K turns right into West Park.
It's kind of the extension of Scottsdale.
And then the 10K continues straight out Pittsburgh St.
There's a little grade through West Park and then a little
valley as well on the northern side of it.

(33:17):
And then you crossover homestead, go down Arthur Ave.
into the historic district of Scottsdale and then you loop
back into Pittsburgh St. The 10K is the the one everyone
talks about if they I guess daresign up for it.
You shoot out Pittsburgh St. andyou do this nice long grayed out

(33:38):
and you don't realize it's a Gray, but it'll it'll ruin your
legs if you're not careful. You go down a hill by Lake
Aaron, which used to be an old like swimming hole, like
gathering picnic area, probably back in the 60s, seventies for
families. And then comes the road everyone
talks about is Catalina Farm Rd.which is actually out near my

(33:58):
house. I've hit that a lot on my bike.
It's very unforgiving. You make an immediate right and
you can't see the top of that hill.
It's just a straight raid up. I don't know what the grade is
on it, but it's it's pretty gnarly, especially after being,
I think that's your, you're hit about 3 miles there.
But at the top of that is an aidstation.
So we got the Cubs, local Cub Scout troop out there handing

(34:22):
you water and things out. That way you could go down a
nice descent and go to the corner and you're met with
another climb out was stair stepping climbs.
So it's just kind of like a mentally taxing point where you
go up, it levels out, go up, levels out, then you go down for
a little bit and then you go up to Mount Nebo Church.

(34:43):
Beautiful little spot, though. And then you make a right out on
the homestead and back into townand appropriately named.
I think on mile 4 1/2 ish, you hit Dead Man's Curve, which is
appropriately named. It's a pretty sharp corner and
we usually try and make sure somebody's there to like guard
it. But another little climb right

(35:04):
back into town. It's it's short, but after doing
that at a a race pace, it's pretty rough on the legs.
Then you go loop into the 5K course and come down Arthur.
And for some reason after doing all that climbing that descent
and down Arthur when you do the 10K is pretty nuts on your on
your quads. Just that negative decline.

(35:25):
Yeah, that pretty much sums up the 10K.
Yeah, I think like, I think I, well, I was just looking briefly
because trying to what what I said about the race last year.
So I think I went out way too fast and the hills got me
because I didn't know the course.
So you got to respect the hills.I, I tried to make it as
forgiving as possible, but I think the, the main point of

(35:48):
those courses is that you have the 5K, but then the 10K is just
another bubble on top of it. And we kind of strategically
made those courses that way because it's a safety bubble.
You can't enter the course without knowing that you're
entering the course. There is not a single entrance
point that's not guarded by an intersection, by a fireman,

(36:09):
police officer, etcetera. So it makes for, it's an open
course, so traffic does come through, but they have to know
that you're there. Somebody has talked to them
before they got into the course,which is huge.
It's pretty hard to pull off here.
And that's been the 10K course for a long time, that extension
out Pittsburgh. So we wanted to retain that
aspect of it. The 5K did change a little bit

(36:32):
from what previous race directors have done, so we did
switch it up, but we wanted to make it as streamlined as
possible for Rd. crossings, intersections, etcetera.
And I think we got pretty dialedand now other races in town are
using that course. They ask us every time, but it's
kind of nice because they mark it for me and I don't have to
revamp that all the time. Yes, I just want to caution

(36:53):
people not to go out too fast, too early or or at least not
having warmed up beforehand because it will catch up with
you. Yep, yeah, especially the 10K.
You got to respect those hills. I've gotten a lot of complaints.
Not like formal complaints, but they're like, wow, that 10K
course is brutal and it's all inthe middle.

(37:14):
Like it's right in the thick of it too, and everyone's kind of
struggling. So got to really, really respect
that one. And it's, it's all on pavement.
Like even that like 'cause I didn't do the 10K so the 10K is
all pavement too. Yeah, two years ago or last
year, I cannot remember, it was tar and chipped like the week
before. We had no idea it was gonna
happen. So I was out there with like a

(37:36):
broom on the intersections just to make sure nobody took the
corner short and like slipped and fell.
So I, I brushed everything. But I mean, it's still not great
because it's fresh. So it's still a little loose.
I warrant caution up and down with that but and nobody got
hurt thank goodness. But that was the worst timing
ever so it it looks fine now. I ride that on my bike probably

(37:56):
at least once or twice a week and it looks good.
So you said besides the volunteers like basically every
intersection you have arrows or anything like that on the
course? Yes.
So that week, we always wait till that week just in case
construction, whatever may happen, we want the areas to be
fresh and bright too. Sean and I drive the entire

(38:16):
course about two or three nightsbefore and usually that week's
crazy for us and we do it at night.
So we've almost gotten the police called on us before and
I've had ladies yell at me of what are you doing and why are
you doing that? Meanwhile, I met with the police
like 3 hours before that. They know what I'm doing.
But yeah, we go in Mark with thelike the the road paint.

(38:38):
Usually we we try to do 2 different colors.
I think last year we kept it allthe same but I spray painted 10K
on the road real big. But usually there's two
different colors. I'm trying to get Wolf Creek
this year to do like a color forthe 10K on the bibs and a color
for the 5K and a color for the walk.
And so walkers and runners to the 5K will know to follow

(38:58):
yellow and then you know, 10K will follow orange respectively.
So I'm trying to separate that out.
Nobody has gotten lost. It's a pretty easy course to
follow. But and plus it's guarded and
every person we brief the firemen, police officers,
etcetera, beforehand, they have course maps.
They should know exactly where they're guarding, where people
are going, and if somebody's questioning it, they should

(39:20):
know. So we try to make it pretty
foolproof. Yeah, because that's that's
always an issue because of whether you're out in the lead
or you're the last person that are in between, it's always that
one person that's not paying attention and just misses an
arrow or doesn't see a volunteerjust yeah, you know how that
goes. Catastrophic.

(39:41):
It's very heartbreaking to see somebody I I know you never ran
the course and I know you were top three last year.
I think second. Yeah, I knew you were up there
and like, you're blindly trying to pace a guy and stay behind
him and you don't really know where you're going.
And I want to make that foolproof to where you just
follow the arrows and every intersection, if you're
questioning it, you just look down.

(40:02):
Orange arrow, no thinking go. I think that's where Sean and I
really shine with We're pretty accomplished racers, both of us.
He's done countless Spartans. He's raced since he was in high
school, like track, and he did in college.
Oh man, we've done just countless stuff.
And so us going to races, analyzing what they do, what we

(40:23):
didn't like, what we did like, we can really kind of dial in a
simple setup and race for ourselves.
Yeah, I think last year, if I remember right, the kid who won,
I thought, I kept thinking he was like, I think I thought he
was in a 10K. And then when we went to the
split, because I was just letting him go, I was like, oh,
he's going to, you know, whatever he can do whatever he's

(40:43):
in A10 Ki don't care. But then I saw he went to the
same split. I was just like.
Gosh Dang it. He sort of like, you know, pick
your battle. Like at least I do.
It's like I tried to strategically run a race.
So like if I think somebody's doing a 10K, doing a 10K, I'm
only in the five, Like I don't care what they're doing.
So I sort of screwed up on that.So that if you have bids this

(41:05):
year, then I can look around a little bit beforehand or get
close enough to somebody where he'd be like, OK, I need to keep
him closer to me than, you know,50 yards out.
Yeah, we're definitely gonna have different colored bibs.
I hope. Last year there were different
colored bibs and different stylebibs.
And I'll tell you why we ran out.
Wolf Creek didn't anticipate ourparticipation level, and it

(41:27):
spiked pretty good in the past week.
And so I was digging through their truck, finding bibs for
them to assign while she's checking everyone in and doing
the the bib check in sign in thing, I'm digging in their
vehicle trying to find more and she's telling me where to look.
Just to touch on that for a moment, before we took over, the
record participant level was I think 93.

(41:49):
The first year Sean took over was 121, which is right around
where we're sitting now being a month out.
His second year, which was my first year helping, I think it
was 165 last year 261. So we had a huge spike last year
and this year we're trying to shoot for 3:00 to 3:50 is my

(42:09):
goal last year we started implementing paid ads on
Facebook. I, my business sponsors the race
and by sponsoring it I pay for the paid ads.
That's kind of my sponsorship level, but it makes it easy I'm
already part of that page. I know how to pay for it and do
all the strategic like SEO, the kind of the keyword stuff and do

(42:32):
it by radius and and all that. So really dialed that in.
My ads this year have reached 60,000 people.
It's done about 4000 clicks. Facebook is looking really good
with, you know, interest on the event and the page and
everything. I try to keep active on the page
as well. Sponsorships are looking great.
So it's a very well supported thing that we grew in a few

(42:55):
years really and we took a kind of a net wash event and turned
it into a very profitable event for the for the festival.
And we are a nonprofit just to touch on that.
So Sean and I realized last yearthat we're actually in the
profit zone and with growth comes more expense.
So we have to definitely can't give away all our profit 'cause

(43:16):
we need to anticipate more stuffnext year and we have to have
that budget pay for Wolf Creek in, you know, January.
We got a dish out, quite a few bucks there, but we wanted to
kick back somehow, some way. So we start with the people that
helped us, the Cub Scout troop, we donated to them last year,
and then we donated to the firemen as well.

(43:37):
Both groups have been consistent, helping us in their
dream to work with. Our goal this year is to be
profitable enough to donate to the local police.
I'd hate to say they're last on that list, they are paid, but I
couldn't. I didn't have enough to give to
everybody last year, just how itworked out.
I hate to hand them like 50 bucks.
I want to at least give them a few 100 if possible.

(43:57):
So that's kind of where the raceprofits go all.
Right. So one of the most important
questions that a runner has is bathroom facilities for before
and after. Yeah.
Luckily our race start is right at that children's area which
has a handicapped porta porta John, right there.

(44:20):
Usually one or two are sitting there throughout the festival.
There are quite a few Rite Aid, The entrance of Rite Aid, which
is now just recently been closedsadly as every Rite Aid has
been. But right at the entrance of
Rite Aid, there should be about 5 or 6 there.
I know it's not super close to the race start, but I really
can't move them just for our event and then move them back.

(44:42):
There's a hand wash station there as well.
So there's at least 5 for everybody.
And it's, it's not like it's far.
I mean it's a 2300 foot walk if that.
And if you're just hanging out before the race, you can
definitely buzz over there. I believe there's two more
somewhere along the trail, but Icannot or along the festival.
I just cannot remember where they're at.

(45:05):
Now for awards and prizes, what do you do for like say age
groups or anything like? That, yeah.
So we're broken out into variousage groups.
I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but probably
like a nine year span where it'slike 20 to 2930 to 39, all that
kind of stuff. I really just remember that the
day of the race. It's all listed on our run sign

(45:27):
up link there. So I didn't have the budget
previously to do the placements and medals for walkers.
I got quite a few complaints andfeedback on that and I really
wanted to. It was not a walking doesn't
matter thing. And I know many people,
especially some older women approached me and they said they

(45:49):
trained for this, They did really well and they were really
respectable times too for women in their 60s, seventies.
I was like, wow, I don't think Icould walk this fast.
Like this is pretty crazy. I didn't have the budget for
medals this year. We should have medals for every
age group in every race. So we did overalls for walkers
before. Just to clarify, but.

(46:11):
Yeah, 'cause it. Well, yeah, I'm looking at it
right now. Looks like top three male and
female, 5 and 10K run finishers.Yeah, it yeah, It doesn't say
anything about the walk for thisyear yet.
I'll go in and revise that. Thanks.
Yeah, I'm sort of cheating as well.
I got some. That way I don't miss something
or I'm. Being totally honest, I don't

(46:32):
look at our run sign up on this like a user front very often.
Well, I do the same thing as I sort of have when I do mine.
I go back and forth, back and forth because, you know, things
change or I might want to add something.
So it's, I'm always working on it as well.
So I I that in my spelling. Yeah, I'm the I'm the

(46:52):
grammatical one, Sean. He can, he can slip up a little
bit. One thing I do have to add on
there is accommodations for likean overnight stay.
We had a few people reach out last year.
We had five states represented last year.
I mean, this went from a like paper sign up at the borough
cash deal. You sign up the day of to, you

(47:14):
know, hundreds of people, 5 states represented, people
saying where do I stay, what's around the area?
This festival looks cool. I just want to do this.
It's also one of the few 10 KS around in the fall.
Think there's one other one maybe two weeks after or the
next week, something like that. But otherwise there's none.
It's all just five KS. What about food and drink?

(47:37):
Like you touched on it, like yousay, maybe some like stuff with
hops in it. But afterwards, I think last
year, yeah. What did you have afterwards?
I think it was more like alcohol.
Yep. And pizza.
Yep. So usually we have quite a few
lineups of beer. We'll have some waters.
Beer, like sodas, just like tea,body armor, Powerade, you know

(47:59):
that kind of like a slew of things like that.
We buy bananas and oranges for free or post race.
Usually you get a granola bar inyour goodie bag as well and some
candy just to like boost the sugar levels if you need that.
JJ's pizza, which is like 2 or 3doors up from where the after
party is, provides all the pizzaand it's pretty good.

(48:20):
It's a nice, I know it's 10/30, 10:45 in the morning, but you
know, I mean you just ran so anything will work at that
point. Quick carbs.
We are on private property there, so we are not on fall
festival property just in case this makes it public.
We are allowed beer there. You are not allowed beer in the
festival, so you have to consumeit and have it there.
Now the pizza, you're gonna, I think last year it got a little

(48:43):
low. You're gonna have more this
year. Yes, yeah, definitely.
We're we're gonna make sure everyone gets that.
She just pretty much keeps feeding us pizzas.
We'll just have to collar as needed.
But yeah, we're gonna have more.Well, I mean, with the jumping
participants, you really couldn't anticipate that.
Yeah, it's, it's getting insane.Honestly, if we grow anymore, I

(49:05):
don't know where to park everyone.
Scottdale's a very small town with about 3000 people in it and
that's an extended 3000 with like outside of the borough I
think. So I might be making some phone
calls next year. We we push 4/4 or 500 people.
Duraloy, which is a a big manufacturing facility in town.

(49:26):
They do like aerospace stuff, welding, fabricating, machining,
all that. They have a big lot.
I might have to call them and see what I can do there on up to
grafts. I believe they make Transformers
for like electrical grid stuff. Might need to use their side of
buildings to park like 40-50 cars so that might be a thing.
Now we're both wearing last year's shirt.

(49:49):
You can see his a little bit better than mine with my camera.
But are the shirts this year like performance based like they
were last year they're. Going to be the same material.
We try to go with like a dry fit, nice breathable material
that you can run in a little bitlooser just to accommodate
everybody. It's a little loose on me, but I
don't mind this. I will say this logo will not be

(50:11):
the same. This Scotto had their 150th
anniversary last year and so we adopted the logo and color
scheme. So the the white, the green and
the gold. Were for that.
Sean and I honestly just throw adart and do colors because
there's only so many fall colorsyou can do.
And we're kind of getting burnt out on the the orange, the

(50:31):
yellow, the red, we're like, well, what else can we do?
So I think this year is going tobe like a, a medium blue with
like a Peach ink on it. So switch it up a little bit,
but still a little bit fall. Now, is there anything else you
would want to do with the race in general?
You already talked about like growing the participants to say
like 4-5 hundred people in that range.

(50:53):
But like is there anything else you want to incorporate maybe
down the road or expand it to something else, like just
anything in general? Yeah, I I have a five year plan.
We won't call it 5, but I'm hoping it hope or happens before
five years. So I have been begging, Sean,
and it's going to be a logistical nightmare.

(51:14):
I want to do a half. I want to expand out into a half
and basically have everyone do the 5K course and then
incorporate the trail. The logistical side of that is
that you have to cross Broadway,which is the main drag through
Scottdale, and then the trail's the easy part, right?
It's an approval process application.
I'm on the board. We're going to be in easy.
It's just crossing Broadway is going to be a booger.

(51:37):
Also you have the parade happening that morning so you
have tractors ATV side by side. So you have St. shut down from
the race and the parade. Also we have to be off of
Pittsburgh Street where the racestart and finishes by like 1045
or 11 is my cut off because the parade comes right through

(51:58):
there, which is why the after party in the awards is not at
the finish. It's up the street.
I know people are like, where isthis and why are we back here?
That's why. Because a parade comes through
in like half an hour after that or whatever.
So if I extend to 1/2, that means that we're going to have
to start the half at like 7:30 in the morning.

(52:20):
For perspective, Sean and I get up that morning at about 3:00 or
3:30 and we go and put all the signage out.
We set all the tents up like they're already up, but we have
to like actually compile everything, do all the speakers,
electronics, make sure everything's good.
About 20 trips on a Gator and we're we're set up.
We got it pretty dialed now, butwe still have to get up really

(52:41):
early. I don't know what that would
look like with expansion. So we might need to have two
crews, one set up, one at home base, get more people involved.
My end goal is a full and I wantto make it the most brutal full
and advertise it is the worst full marathon you've ever done
in your life. I already have a course.

(53:02):
I'll give you a sneak peek on this podcast just because
nobody's ever asked me about it.I want to go out the trail from
Scottsdale, go up or out by Green Lick Dam and then head up
Crime Brook, which takes you straight up the mountain Ridge
and it's 1000 foot climb and 2.4miles.
It's grueling. And then head out to White PA,

(53:24):
which is just South of Bare Rocks, and then head back down
the Ridge into Bullskin and loopback into town.
It'd be pretty gnarly. And that would be my proposed
course. Beyond that, if we don't do
anything like that, I would loveto do a backyard Ultra style
course that is somehow incorporated into the festival

(53:46):
where you show up on Friday and it starts at, let's just say
5:00 PM at like the worst timingever.
And when you come back on Saturday night to watch your
favorite band, the same guys yousaw on Friday night started the
race. They're still running.
I think that would be a super cool addition to the festival.

(54:08):
Well, it sounds like a nice additions if possible 'cause I
know like the logistically that would be a nightmare, at least
for me to do so. Yeah, all the street closures,
the activities in town, I don't know how I could incorporate a
backyard ultra, but I would loveto.
It'd be so rad. Just like people.
I, I'll say regular people, justpeople in the public showing up

(54:30):
to that festival and just seeingthose people run continuously
for two days, let's just say is what the most, most backyard
ultras go for about two days. Like 200 miles is usually where
people really start petering outunless you get really elite
people in. Let's see, I'm trying to think
of anything else. Is there anything else you want

(54:50):
to touch on about the race itself or the festival?
I'm just looking at some of yourpre canned questions here.
You went over the future stuff. You asked me like my motivation
and why I don't really have a good touchy feely story behind
any of that. I have like no, I have like a
really sweet life. Like I enjoy my life, no

(55:12):
childhood trauma, none of that. Just I've always found peace and
satisfaction and very difficult things.
I've completed every race I've ever entered and I keep upping
that bar and I'm actually kind of mad.
I want to DNF one because I keeppushing it and I like, I know my

(55:33):
like basically mantra of how I pursue races and stuff.
And I want to DNF one because I want to find my limit and I
can't seem to find it. And that's just kind of like my
motivation. Like I've always been like that.
Like I don't like to stop anywhere.
I mean, taught myself to unicycle when I was 9.
Not every nine year old does that.
I'm a pretty humble person, but I'm trying to be more kind of

(55:55):
out there of like I'm not normal.
So just that kind of stuff just keeps me going a ton with
motivation and seeing this grow so rapidly in such a short
amount of time, it's just keeps me pushing it.
I just want our town to be knownfor something and to bring
people in. So then what is the longest bike

(56:18):
or running race you've done then?
I've done some like 80 mile gravel races, which is if you've
done gravel riding, you know that's kick butt.
I would love to do like, Oh my goodness, what am I blanket on
that one? The one in like Kansas, it's
unbound. I would love to do unbound where

(56:38):
you're self supported for like 100 to 300 miles.
I think is the two different long courses you have to like
qualify for the lottery and everything like that.
Running wise, I've only done a 50K, which I've done the Laurel
Laurel 50K, which is I guess theworst one you could ever pick
for your first one. But I still had gas in the tank
at the end of it. I was, I was really happy I did

(57:00):
it and like felt great afterwards, but I was like, I
kind of want to keep going like immediately, like I wasn't
totally gassed. So I really want to find that
point where I'm like dragging mycarcass along for, you know, 100
mile or something. My friend Dan just did the full
this year and I helped him with it and I learned a lot and I

(57:24):
paced him at the end and it was great.
I loved every second of it. We're running in the dark and in
the rain out near out near you in in Johnstown.
And I was like, this is amazing.I just, there's no other way to
describe that. The community of people like
that and the support and just how that feels helping somebody
get to that point. Well, so then I'm trying to

(57:44):
think what to tell you to do or get you to do.
I mean, the only thing is like Oil Creek and like another month
and a half, two months would be a good one because it's well,
it's loose. So like, so if you I I don't
want to say do the 100 Miller because that might be, but if
you sign up for the 100 Miller, you still doing like, you know,

(58:06):
3-4 loops of 2025 miles. So then if you do reach your
limit, you know, you're still going to hit a new milestone,
you know, like 5075. Yeah.
So that would be. I won't let myself quit.
A lapsed thing would probably benot good for me.
I need to make a huge loop. I need commitment, yeah.

(58:26):
Then I think there's a new one, I don't know the name off hand,
but it's supposed to be 100 Miller on our local rail trails.
It's supposed to hit. I don't know if I can find it
like West Penn, Westmoreland, Heritage and then ghost town.
That sounds fun. I totally do that if I can

(58:50):
handle 100 mile a day on the bike.
I'm just not real fast. When I hit like 100 miles I
start. I start petering out about 7080,
it really starts showing. Yeah, I'm trying to think if
there's. Let me see if I can find it real
quick. Pittsburgh, I think it's in
October. I haven't done a lot of racing

(59:11):
recently though. I did that ultra last year, do
like couple 5 KS and stuff, but the only real race I signed up
for this year was Ohio pile Month of mud Mountain bike race
just kind of took a bye year. I just want to enjoy things I
didn't want to be so strapped down to.
Like if I want to go run today, I can.
If I want to go bike, if I'm a mountain bike, road bike,
whatever, just do it. And that's honestly allowed me

(59:34):
to crack out. I think I'm at like 2900 miles
already this year. Just by enjoying it, I do more.
Yeah, it looks like it's called the Export 100 trailer on
October 4th. It it's new this year, so it's
yeah, I really don't have much. Oh shit, I think you'll let me
know about that. I'll have to check it out.

(59:56):
I don't think I'm in conditionedshape to go around 100 miles,
but I could bike 100 like no problem.
Yeah, I there's not many. It's not well known yet.
It's probably going to take two or three years.
But again, it's all real trail and.
That would mentally be taxing onme.
Just tunnel vision the whole time I get I get more beat up on

(01:00:18):
the road in rail trail than I doon a hiking trail.
I'll hiking trail run all day. Rail trail, you got like 2 hours
of that in me and I'm I'm bored.I just want to go home.
Yeah, I'm, I'm the same way. I hate rail.
Well I'd like rail TRO to bike and do some training runs, but
for me to race on it I'm I'm more beat up after a 5 and 10K

(01:00:40):
on a rail trail than I am on a trail trail.
Me too, I I'm my joints hurt theimpact the hard surface.
I'd rather be on rocks. Roots and dirt cushion all day.
So besides the race, and you already touched on it maybe a
little bit, but is there anything you're looking to
improve on in general in your athletic career?

(01:01:04):
I feel like I'm maintaining a really good status currently.
It's maintainable, it's sustainable.
I try to put in pretty hefty miles every year.
One goal of mine is to do 100 Miller.
I I want to do that before I'm 40.
I'm 31 now, so should be attainable.
I want to definitely do like a 50 before that and then maybe

(01:01:25):
100K and then go for 100. Miller totally think I'm capable
of doing that. It's just dialing in that
training, nutrition, all of that.
I only trained for the 50K for like 3 months.
I have a pretty good base. It was just transitioning the
muscles over really. Next morning I was fine.
I went biked. So like recovery was fine.

(01:01:46):
Like it's, I think I'm suitable to do that.
I think I have the mindset for it too.
I I thrive in those adverse situations.
I absolutely love it. Maybe you need to start doing
more of it, because if you thrive in that, it's just.
I do. Yeah, you need to do more.
We'll just put it that way because I want to see what your

(01:02:07):
upper limit is. And see what.
See what breaks you because it like is like, I wouldn't
normally tell people I want to see them be broken, but you
actually say you want to be broken.
So I want to see you break, and I want to see what breaks you
so. Me too.
Like it's a scary thing to say for most people, but I'm like, I
want to know where that limit is.

(01:02:27):
Like I have never found it. I've always been able to like
keep moving, not cramped up and just kind of keep persevering
through whatever. And I haven't even come close to
that limit. I've been gassed after a race
but never to where I was truly done.
So see, you might be one of those that jumps on the scene
like a Dan Green this year and starts kicking everybody's butt.

(01:02:50):
I don't know if I'm that fast. I'm not speedy.
I just don't stop. Hey, you never know until you
do. Yeah, exactly.
We'll see. I'm going to start helping my
friend Dan, who did that full Laurel this year.
He's going to start diving into like 100 KS and 100 Millers, and
I look for that to be a bad spark for me.

(01:03:10):
We're just going to start divinginto that and he's just like me.
He'll be relentless on me. Be like you're signing up for
the next one. Well, they do have the Laurel
Fall Classic 50K now too. Yeah, I did see that.
It's a reverse right from HiddenValley down to Ohio pile.
No, this year, last year, yeah, was from like Hidden Valley to
Ohio pile. This year it's the opposite way.

(01:03:32):
So you're going to finish in Seward?
Oh, OK, OK. I didn't realize they were doing
that. Yeah, I, I think probably
because I don't want to speak out of not knowing, but I think
it's probably because of the parking down there.
We took up all like too many people were parking in the
business parking spots. Yeah.
Yeah, you know how that is down there.
I believe they have to pull a permit for the Ohio Pal State

(01:03:54):
Park, which I'm sure isn't easy or cheap, so that's a factor and
I get it. Yeah, well, especially after
this past weekend where that micro burst hit.
It looked bad, yeah. I just got out of there in time
thankfully. Nice, glad you made it out.
Yeah, I think we we're doing 8 to 8 and I changed, sat in the

(01:04:17):
water for 5 minutes and then I left and like as I'm hitting the
road by living treasures, that'swhen it started hitting.
I'm like who? Thank God because there's a dude
going on the Laurel Trail doing gate to 8, say he would have
been like 3-4 miles in when it hits.
Sorry to that guy. Hopefully you found some kind of

(01:04:38):
shelter. So when you're racing or
mountain biking, how do you staymentally focused?
I, I don't know, I just, I actually forget most of the
race. If I'm doing like a really
intense workout, I don't remember like 30% of it.
There are gaps where like it's kind of like when you're drunk,
you just black out. I don't know what's happened and

(01:05:00):
I don't know how to fix that formyself.
Like if I keep looking back at pictures or whatever, I'll
recall it, but I kind of zone and go.
I, I don't really know what keeps me focused.
I just kind of start going through distractions in my
brain. I start figuring out things in
life, working through scenarios,you know, maybe some reflection,

(01:05:22):
like there's some really good moments when I'm like running.
I feel very disconnected from obviously technology, whether
you're looking at your watch or GPS, that's not the same as, you
know, doom scrolling some nonsense.
But you know, it's kind of like my piece.
I, I bike every morning before work and it's, I work better
after that. And if I don't, I'm having like

(01:05:44):
a really miserable day. I've been in relationships in
the past and if I didn't bike for like 3 days, I've had my
significant other look at me andsay like, you need to go bike,
like you're being not yourself. And I try to be a very kind,
caring person, very, you know, look at things from other
people's perspective, be very open minded and like apparently

(01:06:05):
I'm just not enjoyable to be around if I don't bike or do any
fitness. Now working.
You said you work at the bike shop.
Where's that located? Yeah.
So I work at Flats Hire Co in Greensburg.
We are right by the Greensburg Salem Stadium, the stereo shop,
Triangle Tech, we're in that little corner of Greensburg
there right off E Pittsburgh St.212 is the street number.

(01:06:30):
I was actually between jobs the past about a year and a half
before. I recently picked up my remote
job about two or three months ago now, and between jobs,
Ashley was looking for somebody.Ashley's the owner of the shop.
She was looking for somebody to kind of run the place when she
was not there. She was going to do a ton of
racing last year and I hit her up and she was shocked that I
applied. She's like, oh, you're

(01:06:51):
immediately hired. I did not think you would have
any interest. I'm like, I don't really have a
job right now. I had my business as a backup do
a bunch of like 3D printing, prototyping, white labeling for
people. So like you come up with a
product idea, I make it, it's your label on it and you sell
it. So I do a lot of that.
But like that was keeping me afloat.
But I definitely needed something to just kind of keep

(01:07:13):
the bills paid. So I took that, Ended up doing
really well there. I really enjoy it.
It grew social media like crazy.If you ever looked at their
social media, I'm all over it, making funny reels.
Over the winter. We got kind of slow and bored
and I was like, let's do some social media website e-commerce
stuff like that's my jam, let's try and grow it.

(01:07:34):
So I grew social media from about 5000 followers, which took
her almost 10 years to get. And we're sitting at like 18
right now in six months, so six or seven months.
So yeah, grew that quite a bit. Now we're starting to work with
other companies that send us product and, you know, people
want to come out and do things and all that kind of stuff.

(01:07:55):
So really notable things there. I'm only there Saturdays now,
part time, just kind of an informant thing.
And I didn't want to leave her high and dry for the summer.
There's only four people that work there.
So, you know, if somebody leaves, it's pretty impactful.
And I've been a customer and herfriend for 10 years now.
Didn't want to burn that bridge.There's no reason to.

(01:08:17):
Yeah, because I'm trying to lookat it now just just to see some
of this stuff. So it's sort of pretty much
feeds the itch to bike more. Yeah, it's the worst place in
the world to work for me. I just want to buy bikes.
I swear. I just spend what I make there.
It during the time where I actually needed that is like a a

(01:08:39):
bill paying income. It was the hardest thing ever.
You get new fox helmets in you get the the sweetest Santa Cruz
E bike in it's, you know, 14 grand, the new Vol or whatever,
and you get to ride them, which is the worst thing ever because
now it's, you know, in your brain.
But it's allowed me to upgrade my bikes really well.
I get an employee discount working there I you know,

(01:08:59):
wireless shifting on my bike so this ram AXS stuff you know,
carbon everything carbon wheels,reserved carbon wheels, carbon
bars, all that kind of stuff all.
Right, so I got a bike question for you.
So cool. I I I forget I have like the
disc room for whatever the giantor the I think it's a giant, but

(01:09:21):
I was looking at tires now not tubeless.
Well, I guess like I was lookingat like more solid tires that
like don't puncture. Yeah I I would recommend a
tubeless setup. I run tubeless on everything
that I ride. Not too familiar with like a
solid tire per SE. Don't really have too much of

(01:09:44):
that coming through the shop. I run tubeless.
It's great. Obviously you set it up if your
rim allows and your tire allows for that and you know, you, you
run a rim strip to protect your spokes and to make that seal,
run a valve stem through, seal it up, pop some stands, latex
sealant in there, set the bead. You're good to go.
If you get a puncture it should self seal.

(01:10:06):
If it's a big slash or somethingI always carry a TPU tube as a
backup. They'll get you home.
Might not be great in a pinch. I've taken a dollar bill or any
any bill, dipped it in your water, made it like a cloth and
then like put it on the slash and then put the tube up against
it. It's worked.
It'll get you home. Because with me is I hate, well,

(01:10:30):
I'm not proficient enough to change a tire.
So if I get a puncture and stufflike that.
So that's I saw they had some kind of solid tire or a thing
that you put in there. It makes it, I don't know the
wording offhand, but looks like you just put something like like
a pool noodle type deal inside of it.
Oh, Kush Core, Yeah, it's like afoam insert inside.

(01:10:53):
I've seen quite a few of those. Those are a booger to install.
I mean, every time somebody asksus at the bike shop to put a
Kush core in, the mechanics justscramble.
It's like you just put like a light on a bunch of mice.
They all just scramble. They're like, I'm not doing it.
Like it's not that they don't want to help the person, it's
just they're going to be an hourputting two of those in and
they're going to be like beat uptheir hands and it's just

(01:11:16):
they're great, they work, but they are horrible to install.
All right. So if I get what I'm coming to
you guys. Great, can't wait.
No, I just go tubeless. Like all day tubeless.
I I've had like 3 flat tires in 18,000 miles.
I don't know, I mean you could have one every 100 miles, but
that tubeless stuff is super nice.

(01:11:37):
You find what's in there, you pop it out, you plug it, you're
done. All right, So do you have any
tips for, say, people getting into running or biking in
general? Yeah, I always say, like, don't
get discouraged. You're gonna see people they've
been running for or biking for 10 years, 30-40 years, whatever.

(01:11:59):
There's some people in their 50sthat kick my butt.
I can't even keep up with them. They're on single speeds,
crushing me up the hill, but they've been riding since they
were 22 years old. I've found out one thing,
though, that like, your mind will tell you to stop far before
your body will stop. That's the biggest thing.
Your mind's going to tell you noand your body can keep going for

(01:12:19):
forever after that. You just have to tell it no.
I think everyone, literally everyone if physically capable
if your there's disabilities andand things that exist, but if
you're physically capable of running, I think everyone can
run a 5K or an ultra of really anything you want.
It's just how much effort and consistency you're willing to

(01:12:40):
put forth to that. And I always say, remember, race
day is just a celebration of allyour training.
And those are my insightful quotes and tips.
All right, yeah, I like that. I like that I can get.
Yeah, especially the celebrationof running, even though I'm a
little bit competitive sometimesand my ego takes over and.

(01:13:00):
But you're celebrating it. You've done your work, you've
done your training and you know where you're going to be at.
You know what you're capable of and you're celebrating all of
that. I feel like people, you know,
they don't train as much as theythought and then they go into a
race and they get crushed in thefirst mile and it's like, well,
you're still celebrating all your training.
You wouldn't be doing this if you didn't train.
But it's just not how it's goingtoday.

(01:13:22):
And that's OK. You've done the miles and the
work. Yeah, hopefully it all works
out. It comes together well if you
plan ahead. Yeah, I've.
I've planned, I've done everything right.
And that day I just couldn't getit together.
You're having the worst day ever.
It's OK, It happens. So what is your single most

(01:13:42):
either important or your favorite piece of equipment that
you use, whether running or biking?
Oh, that's a good one. I want to say water bottle
because I just. Drink a lot of water.
I would say Garmin watch. I had an Apple Watch before,

(01:14:07):
switched to a Garmin watch. One, the battery life's amazing,
but two, it analyzes things pretty well.
So like obviously you can use itwhile you sleep or an Apple
Watch that was charging every night.
So it just keeps track of my sleep score, gives me a
readiness and I make fun of it all the time 'cause I think the
Garmin engineers, software engineers are soft tells me like
a 1 to 9 readiness all the time.But like I've really dialed in

(01:14:31):
the heart rate stuff, VO2 Max, just kind of like all those
potential numbers and stats. I was never really a heart rate
person before. I would like keep track of my
heart rate, but I wouldn't like put a monitor on or, or anything
like that. And I think that's some really
cool data and things to look at and kind of keep track of.

(01:14:52):
I'm now like not making it a, a game where I'm, I'm honed in on
that. But I'm at 59 for my BO2 Max and
I just want to hit 60 so bad. Like I don't know why, but I
just want to hit 60 once. I don't care if I maintain it.
And then watching your heart rate decline from when you start
running or riding down to some ridiculous number is awesome.

(01:15:12):
Where you're triggering every vital when you go to the doctors
like they do your vitals, where you trigger the nurse every time
you go is an awesome feeling. Yeah, I love it.
I think, I think my resting is like 38 to 42 right now.
It's really low. That must be nice.
Must be nice to be younger. I think that's pretty good for

(01:15:35):
31, so I'll take it, yeah. So that's all I had, but is
there anything else you wanted to touch on or bring up about
the race or you in general? I think I think I got pretty
much everything covered from personal to the race and and
everything like that. I I hope you end up making it
this year again. You're more than welcome to make

(01:15:56):
another video. I'm happy to be a part of that
and accommodate you as much as possible with that.
I'm usually bombarded that morning, but I don't mind
setting aside time. Sean and I don't assign
ourselves any tasks during checkin or anything 'cause usually
the newspaper comes and interviews one of us and then
we're dealing with problems. But yeah, you're, you're more
than welcome to do that again. We loved it.

(01:16:18):
I shared it, thought it was great feedback.
So. Hopefully I wasn't.
I don't think I was harsh, I think I gave.
I think it was a good review like.
It was very good and like I, youstarted into it and I saw it and
I was like, oh boy, this is and I'm willing to take that
feedback. Like if there's anything that
you're like, hey, this was terrible.
Tell me. I don't want to be left in the
dark. I want this to be good for
everybody. I'm making it as good as I, I

(01:16:40):
can. What I think is good, but I'm
not everyone. So I want that feedback.
Yeah, 'cause sometimes I am kindof brutal.
But I mean, yeah, sometimes the the criticism is warranted for
some of the races especially have like, I don't want to say
knock on volunteers, but say they either don't mark the
course well or a volunteer doesn't know what they're doing.

(01:17:02):
And like, whether you're supposed to go left or right at
an intersection, you're like, what are you doing?
Yeah, I try, I try to brief, we try to mitigate those issues.
I'm sure something's going to pop up at some point where
somebody's going to be like, what, what are they doing?
And I want to know about that so.
And I'll do everything I can to fix it.
I'm not going to let lingering issues continue if a day exists.

(01:17:24):
As a good race director does. So I thank you for that.
All right, Chad. Well, I guess that's a good
stopping point. Then hopefully you reach the
goal that you want to reach for the participants year this year,
which is you said like 3350. The race is September 20th at

(01:17:44):
9:00 AM in Scottsdale or Scott Dale.
Scott Dale No, S It's OK. We're not in Arizona.
You're good. Everyone messes it up.
And you can't miss it if you go to town.
It's the only thing happening that morning, really.
Yeah, sign ups, runsignup.com, you can find it there.

(01:18:04):
Quick Google search will take you there.
Facebook page, we have an e-mailsffrace@gmail.com if you have
any questions. Very responsive on that, so
we're pretty easy to find. All right, Well, thank you for
jumping on and looking forward to seeing you in a month.
It's actually yeah, Yeah, it's amonth today, so.

(01:18:25):
Excellent, hope to see you out there.
See you then. Yep, bye bye.
Thank you for listening to the episode today.
If you or anyone you know has any amazing stories, adventures,
or interesting information you or they may want to share,
please reach out to me anytime. On the next screen you could
scan the QR code or type in the Linktree website to easily find

(01:18:48):
all the social media locations only on Athletics is located.
Take a second and hit the followbutton as you visit each one.

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S4E93 Chad Miedel- Scottdale 5k/10k Co Director, Bicyclist, Unicyclist, Coal And Coke Trail Volunteer

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