Blood, Sweat & Spikes: Lyle Smith on The Wetmore Way, NJ Running Lore & Finding Meaning Beyond the Mile

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Airy Brose Radio. Be there or B
Square because it's all killer, no filler. This is Lyle
Smith and you're listening to Airy Brose Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Ladies and gentlemen, Howdy and aloha, we are here, You
are there, and you are now rocking with the best.
Thanks for tuning in to another live episode of ABR. Tonight,
we're lacing up with author, runner and Jersey native Lyle
Smith talking all things running, writing in his new book, Blood,
Sweat and Spikes the wet More Way. Before we get roll,
y'all know the drill. Make sure you smash that like
button and are subscribed on YouTube. Drop a comment, every view, review,

(00:45):
and share helps us grow and give back to the
sports we love. As always, this episode is fueled by
Black Sheep Endurance for all your ultra marathon and nutrition
coaching needs. And as always, let's not forget while we're
here at Airy Brose Radio, We're here to shine a
light on the coaches, pro athletes and stories we wish
we had access to growing up. If you love New
Jersey running stories, mark Wetmore lore, and distance running culture,

(01:08):
this one is for you. As I mentioned, tonight's guest
Lyle Smith is joining us. He's a two time high
school All American and the sixteen time New Jersey State
championship champion from Bernersville. He's the author of Blood, Sweat, Spikes,
The Wetmore Way, a deep dive into the legacy of
Mark Wetmore and the roots of New Jersey distance running greatness.

(01:28):
Without further ado, it is an honor and a pleasure
have you joining us this evening. We do greatly appreciate
your time, Lyle Smith. Welcome to Hary Bros. Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Thanks so much, Rich, I appreciate you guys having me on.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, it is an honor and a pleasure to have you,
and we're looking forward to diving into the book. It's
great to fill in some of the gaps of some
of the things that I knew about the history of
not only Burnersville High School, but Mark Wetmore as well,
and so we're really excited to dive into that with you.
Before we get too far along into it, anything you'd

(02:00):
like to plug or promote anywhere that people fans of
Aaribros can find the book anywhere that you want them
to find you. The floor is yours.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, sure, I mean you can find me. I have
an author site at Lylesmith dot net and there's a
link there to all the social platforms I'm on, basically Instagram.
I have an author page on Facebook, and you can
buy the book through that site or link out to

(02:28):
you know, anywhere else you can you you buy books,
you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, any of your digital
purveyors of books, and your your physical bookstores will order
it for you if you want it.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
So awesome, we will put all that stuff in the
show notes for you, Lyle. Probably the most important question
you're going to ask you this evening, and I think
we know the answer, but we're going to ask it anyway.
Is it pork roll or Taylor Ham.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I was expecting this question. I will agree with one
of your previous guests and say, who cares as long
as they get my sandwich. Okay, But honestly, you know,
Taylor Ham is the brand work role is what we
always called it growing up. I didn't really know connect
it to Taylor Ham until later someone from the next
town over called it that. So again, don't care, just

(03:18):
make it crispy.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Okay, yack? Yeah, Well, Jim, we just made a history
on area bros. We have our first New North Jersey
guest who claimed it to be Taylor or pork Roll rather.
So yeah, what's winning.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
We're winning. We'll take that. That's a Dave Santa Maria answer.
We'll take that one.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Well, to clarify one little bit, we were sort of
not so much North Jersey as the phantom land of
Central Jersey.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
So there's a second question. Does Central is Central Jersey
real place? And the answer is.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yes, Well, because we always thought the moment you crossed
the Driscoll Bridge, you're in South Jersey. That's what we thought, okay,
which you know may or may not be actually true.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, we always claimed Central Jersey even though we were
South Jersey and sectionals. And then as we've learned that
more and more people say the Central Jerseys and the
thing that we just say that we're from the shore.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
That's fair enough.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, one thing I must say before we get into
the meat of it. I was still emerged before we
logged on. When I was listening to you read the book.
The thought I had was, this book is the sandlot
for running.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's funny. I had never thought of it that way.
I could see it though I couldn't see that.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Just your stories growing up in it, and like Rich
told you, we were kind of raised wrestling running. That
was the only thing on the table you're talking about.
You know, you didn't play baseball because you got a
couple of balls thrown at ye. Rich had a similar experience.
I didn't even go to that. But you also talked
about the athletes in your town and how you looked

(05:04):
up to them as heroes, and those were your professional athletes.
And I don't want to absolutely, I don't want to
speak for Rich, but that's how it was for me.
The wrestlers of my town growing up to me were
like larger than life. And then when I got to
my twenties and now my thirties and like, oh, they're
just normal people like me.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, we were really fortunate to have a pretty strong
tradition of running, even by the time I was just
a kid. Like I started running when I was about
ten in our local Recreation Commission sponsored run for fund
program that was really run by Ed Mather was the

(05:46):
head coach of Bernard's, but he had all the high
school kids would come and coach in the evenings. You know,
we'd eventually get to know some of the older college
kids who came back to train. You know, it's a
small town, so it has all that, all the all
the great things that a small town has, and so

(06:09):
you see these guys with success and they've gone on
to run for you know, big schools. You know, Buck
Logan held the New Jersey state record in two miles
for years at age fifty two, and he trained with
us in the summer all the time. And you get
to know them, you're I mean, you're just a kid,

(06:30):
you're ten eleven years old and you're talking with these
guys who are you know, eighteen twenty twenty two, and
it feels like they're you know, the Yankees. You know,
it's like this this connection, and the more you get
to know them, the more you feel like you belong there.
And you know, one of the one of the things
I always I still today even get asked, you know,

(06:51):
what was the secret? What was you know, what was
what Moore's secret? And I'm sure you'll ask a bit
more about him, but and my quick answer is always,
there is no secret. You just show up on time
and do the work. But if you dig a little deeper,
I mean, I think that's really where the secret is.
You have this sort of sense of tradition, sense of continuity, continuum,

(07:15):
and you know, like when you're on a cross country team,
even though it's really an individual sport, it feels like
a team. You don't want to let your teammates down.
But when you're part of a longer line of history
in the sport, you don't want to let your you know,

(07:36):
the people who came before, you don't want to let
them down. You don't want to let the parents and
fans who came out to cheerry On down. And so
it feels like you're part of something bigger than just yourself.
And that's I think that's really where the secret lies.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
I know you talk about it a little on the book,
but did you start running because it was such a
big thing in the town and the other sports didn't
really appeal to you?

Speaker 1 (08:05):
This is well, this isn't. This is sort of an
a couple of different answers to this. But I was
I had really really bad allergies. I was allergic to.
I used to say allergic to anything you could breathe
when I was a kid, So I was allergic. I
had something I was allergic to every season and severely

(08:25):
enough that I got, you know, taken to the hospital
in anaphylaxis more than once as a very young kid.
And so my parents took me to an allergy specialist
down in Philadelphia, a guy named doctor Wood, who in
those days, because I was diagnosed as you know, borderline

(08:46):
chronic asthmatic, and in those days, the treatment was rest,
don't do anything, don't don't aggravate anything. And doctor Wood
was of the opposite opinion. He said, you know, the
only thing that's really going to get any better is exercise.
Go exercise, get involved in any sport you know he wants,
and all that kind of stuff. So you know, that's

(09:08):
that's how it gets to the baseball story too, because
you know, after that, my parents were, you know, any
sport I wanted to get involved in, they were encouraging
me to get involved in. So I tried baseball, I
got hit by a few pitches and decided I didn't
like that. I got involved in football. I couldn't really
I could run fast, but I couldn't catch, you know, soccer.

(09:32):
I had a little bit of success at as a
young young kid, but then you know, you have to
kind of make a choice down the road. And then
there was this run for Fun program in Bernersville, in
the town and all the little kids came out to
run a couple of nights a week, and they had
us try everything. You know, you'd jump in the high
jump pits, you'd jump in the long jump sand, you'd
you know, try and throw a shot put all this stuff.

(09:53):
And you know Ed Mather again, it was the head
coach of the high school, and he was sort of legendary,
but he had an enormous personality and you know, I
refer to him in the book as sort of the
pet Barnum of distance running because he just got everybody
excited about being part of it. And and so as

(10:14):
a little kid, you're like, yeah, I'll show up, I'll
keep going, and you know, and I did okay in
a couple of a couple of little like recreation meets.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
And then at one of those meets, somehow or another,
my dad ended up walking me over to meet Mark
Wetmore and then he sort of invited me to become
part of this team they were putting together, this club
that eventually became my Mountain Road Department. And so that's
how I got into the into the sport. I you know,

(10:49):
I wasn't really good at the ball sports. Ah, and
you know, I found I was decent at running, and
I like the like the kids, like the people, and
heard the stories. And I'm a sucker for nostalgia. So
that's kind of how I got connected to it.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Did you want to ask about the quote, Jim, Oh,
which quote is.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
That I'm not.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Your favorite wrestler? Oh? Yeah, I did.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
I have to give you dabs and ask if you're
a fan or you were just looking for for quotes
for the book Bret Hart? What made you put Brett
Hart at chapter one when you're opening up the book.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I think I was just looking for a quote that fit,
all right. I hate to tell you I do. I've
always had a you know, I've had I've had friends
growing up who were wrestlers and and and always loved
the sport. I was always sort of, you know, interested
from a distance. I never really wanted to do it,
but I was. I had. You know, again, I think
it's a connection because it's it's it's an individual sport,

(11:59):
but it's connected to a t sport, and there's a
there's sort of a single mindedness to it. That I
that I enjoy. So I enjoy watching but uh, you
know those are those are the types of people I
you know, I talked about the you interviewed Phil Leggott,
you know, legendary cycling broadcaster and and so I watch

(12:23):
even even that in a sport that's been so horrifically
damaged by cheating, scandals and and everything over the years,
he still springs this joy to uh to the effort
of these guys. And that's a it's a real single
mindedness to that kind of a sport. And that always
always appealed to me.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
So you said you were looking for quotes, so you
found that, But you have a couple of songs towards you.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Oh yeah, that was another idea.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, we were those songs that you fancied. I believe
you got the outfield in there, you got the talking
heads you.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, a lot of these were songs because it is
so connected to that time, So the eighties kind of
early to early to mid to late eighties, and so
much of our traveling to meets on buses and everything
involved you know, carrying a boombox around with you know,
cassette tapes. Walkman kind of came later even and but

(13:24):
we played loud on the bus, and you know, so
these were some of the songs that were on the
bus all the time. And they weren't even necessarily my
favorite songs at the time. They were just kind of
connected to those adventures we had, you know, and and
some of them connected to particular people, you know. Yeah,

(13:46):
but I remember, you know, the big one, like the
Police were huge, the Clash we played. Clash was always
played on the bus on the way to a meet.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
The outfield came later, but it was. But that's that's
the connection there. And I initially I thought I'd kind
of quote all songs throughout the whole thing, and then
I just got more and more particular about what I
was using. So that's where the quotes came from.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah, that's funny, this story about the being asthmatic as
a as a young youngster growing up all through elementary school.
Multiple times a year, either had upper respiratory infections or bronchitis.
I've made a couple of trips to Children's Hospital in
Philadelphia as well. I had all kinds. I was like you,

(14:35):
I was allergic to everything. Yeah, And I can remember
we were at the Aligis office in New Jersey, and
I played soccer, and you know, the doctor came in
and he was like, I don't I don't know, we
I don't know if soccer is a good idea, and
I was just I broke down. I was crying and
doctor left the room and my dad was like, don't

(14:56):
don't let you're playing soccer. And so in that time,
and when I was in the fourth grade, I had
a grandma seizure and my mother and my aunt had
to do cprmy until the paramedics arrived, and so couldn't
figure out what it was. I was on seizure medicine

(15:17):
for a while. And then when I graduated from fifth
grade and went to a new school, to the middle school,
I wasn't sick ever.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Oh boy.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
And then the following year, when I went into seventh grade,
the elementary school that I was in was condemned for
black mold.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, that's it, sick. It's a sick building. Yeah. No,
I've had that. I've I've had offices I've been in
and stuff, and you can I can sense it almost
right away. It's like, oh, it's not yeah, And I
start to get really congested and scratchy and all that stuff.
Even now, and I'm way better than I was when

(15:54):
I was a kid. But you know, this guy, the
doctor we went to, he was really kind of revolutionary
in those days. So his his theory was, if you
could strengthen all the musculature around your your lungs and
your diaphragm, that's going to support any issue you have.
So if you if you end up, even if you
end up having a reaction or a you know, some

(16:18):
kind of allergic something, the musculature will support you enough
to keep it from being dangerous.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
So you know, and of course the more running we
did the more the less that became a problem.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Absolutely. You know, another thing that was really near and
dear to Jimmy and I growing up, we used to
hear a lot about our pops and our mom and
some aunt and uncle that were runners and stuff. Every
December thirty first they would make the trip to Central
Park to do the midnight run. So that, you know,

(16:57):
that story in the book was some and that really
got us, you know, because my dad they used to
do the centipedes where they were connected, oh wow, and
so like they would my dad always tells the stories
as they would because my younger or my older cousin,
she was a track runner in high school, so they
brought her along to fill the team. But they would

(17:18):
put my dad in the back because he was the
best of the group. And he would always tell the
story how he would come around and it was they
were making like a u because he was trying to
get to the front of that group so he could
push the pace and pull them along.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Oh, that's funny. I probably saw that. I remember seeing
that when I was there. Yeah, that was a fun
you know. We had again all all tied to Mark Webmore.
He came up with these ideas and you know, trips
and races and things that he thought were unusual, and
so we ended up going into the Midnight Run multiple

(17:54):
years in a row. And it was fun. You know,
we just all piled on a bus, you know, we
you know, we take thirty forty people to some of
these events and sometimes more, and you know, some of
the guys would run hard, and some of the guys
would run just for the fun of it and just
for the experience. And you know, I remember Brad Hudson

(18:17):
was one of our guys. State champion from North Hunterdon
and he ran it to win more than once. So
it's yeah, it was a great you know. And it's
just a way of, you know, a consistent way of
keeping your energy up into the sport and your enthusiasm

(18:38):
for it.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, And I think that's so important for younger kids
in high school kids is making it fun, making it exciting.
We took I coached cross country down here in South Carolina,
and I took the kids to a night meet this
year just because I thought that would you know, We
did that when I coached in New Jersey. The kids
love running at night under the lights, and it was

(18:59):
just a great experience. So I appreciate that too, of
just doing things that gets kids into running and wanting
them not only to show up the practice, but ultimately
getting them to want to do it on their own.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
I'm glad to hear you say that about the night
meet too, because we had. We're out here in Boulder County,
Colorado now, Naiwatt and my son's on a NIWAT team
making his way up bit by bit, and they went
to the Desert Twilight Meet out in Arizona. That's his

(19:36):
his first time there. They go sort of annually and
he had such a good time, and I was I
was worried because it's like it's night and it's cross country.
Wait a second, there's gonna be a hole or a
you know, a little dip or something. But he had
such a good time, and and you know, all the
kids traveled together and it was really his kind of
first time traveling without us, So it was you know,

(19:59):
it was a nice sort of growth experience for them
and and uh and all the kids, and it's it's, uh,
it's nice to see that there that there are events
like that still going on and and uh, you know,
it's yeah, I kind of wish we did. We did
a lot of cool stuff, but that's that's a fun one.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Another fun one they do down here in South Carolina
is they do two miles I'm sorry, they do four
mile and six mile relays two person teams and so
kind of like I know you talked about Lake Takanassi
as well. Yeah, that was that was big for us.
And uh, the last race of the summer was was
a ten k relay.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Oh cool.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
And so you would alternate laps where you know, I
would run one lap and then you would run the
next lap and we would go till we accumulated ten k.
So that's what they do down here. I've took the
kids to two of those or three of those actually,
just because it's it's a fun way to kind of
you know, you tell them they're going to do mile repeats.
They might not be as excited, but you tell them,

(21:00):
you put a like competitive aspect to right, he's pretty
much going to get the same stimulus out of them
that you were hoping to get in that kind of
a workout.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
So right, No, it's great stuff. I follow a page
on Facebook called it's something like the History of Steve
Ovett or something like that, the Running History of Steve Ovett,
and so they post all kinds of pictures of Ovett,
who was a you know, sort of a hero of
mine growing up. And you realize as part of his

(21:29):
training he did all kinds across country races, all kinds
of road relays, and all kinds of these crazy events
they did over in Britain that you know, I didn't
know anything about growing up. And I'm like, oh, that's
really cool. I want to learn more about that.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
I got one more gym and then I'll let you go.
You mentioned Brad Hudson. Yeah, so there. I used to
go to the CBA cross country camp in the summertime.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
And there's an urban legend. And I don't know if
you can back this up or put any fact behind it,
but there's an urban leedg Ganill. Internet wasn't a thing,
so all we had to rely on back in the
day was track and field news.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
The urban legend is that the most recent track and
field news came out with the high school two mile rankings,
and Brad Hudson was in class saw the Track and
Field News rankings and I guess you could see the
track from the classroom that he was in. Told his
teammate he was going to go out and run the
top time, and his teammate timed him, watched him from

(22:28):
the classroom. I don't know if there's any truth to
that or that's just old New Jersey running urban legend.
But have you heard something like that.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I can neither confirm nor deny that, but I can
tell you it rings true. Okay, it's because out here
Also Andy Martin is out here in Boulder and he
also state champion, also from North Hunterdon may have been
the one who timed him in this little town. Well,

(23:01):
I'll ask him, yes, but it's, uh, it wouldn't surprise
me one bit if that was the case, you know,
because we we'd go, we'd look through track and feel, oh,
Bill Micheesney did this, what what's going on? And you know,
off they'd go and try and do all kinds of
and and And Brad was sort of famous for you know,
because he trained under under Mark, but more when we

(23:23):
were young, and the joke was he would do all
the Mark stuff and then he'd go home and do
a long run because he never quite got enough miles in.
But I've known, you know, I've known Brad's and Andy
and those guys since I was you know, eleven. So

(23:44):
it's that's an That's another thing about this sport. It's
like all these people I've known and raced against and
we're still a lot of us are still friends. And
then having written the book, a lot of people have
started to reconnect and it's like we were we talked
yesterday because it's it's it's it has this community element

(24:05):
to the sport. That's, you know, we have this common
you know, mud we've all tread over the years, and uh,
it's fun. It's it's nice that way. So yeah, those
like I said, that rings true, that story.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
All right, that's pretty awesome. Rich, I've never heard that
one before.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, that was like campfire story at cold Camp.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, so you met.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
You mentioned your son and he's on a kill across
country team, and you mentioned in the book that there's
a lot of sons and daughters of Olympians on that
cross country team. Do you see any similarities of what
you grew up on in that team.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
It's really funny, there's it's it's the same. I'll I'll
tell I'll answer that this way. I have people when
I go back and visit Bernardsville and visit friends in
Bernardsville and whatever, and then leave, people will ask me, oh,
you went to Burners, what's what's it like today? What's
it Is it different? What's how you know, how's it changed?
And I will say it is so different, but it

(25:08):
is one hundred percent the same. And that's kind of
like this team out here is there's so much about it.
It's you know, like it's a it's a huge, it's
the biggest, it's it's in the big school category out here.
So it's much bigger than bernards Bernards was a you know,
teeny tiny school, but Niwad is a tiny little town

(25:30):
and it feels it has a Bernardsville feel to it
for me. A lot of people know each other, you
wave when you walk by or drive by, and there's
a tradition. So yeah, and and the coaches really Kelly
Christensen's the head coach, and they really you know, support

(25:51):
that kind of feeling of tradition and and you know,
wanting to do something uh new, something that has never
been before. That was a big thing. Mark Wetmore was
always big honest is trying to come up with something
that hadn't been done before. And and so that's that's
sort of a sense of the culture here. Uh And

(26:12):
there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of love.
They just they really these kids really get along and
they're all good kids. And they work hard and they
like to work hard. And that's one of the key is.
I mean, as a coach, Rich You'll probably know this.
You know, you guys both know this is the biggest
battle is you know, getting not getting them to show up,
getting them to want to show up, you know, and

(26:35):
they do They just they want to be there and
if they're not, they miss it. That's a real commonality.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah, how are you as being a father of a runner,
does that competitiveness come out or do you let them
do his thing?

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I think I do all right. I don't, you know,
I you know, I know, I know the coach a bit.
I know the coaches a bit. I try not to
stick my nose in. I think most of the parents
are the same way. We really do. We just want
to be supportive in any way we can without being

(27:11):
you know, not getting in a way, you know, And
you know it's because my opinion, you know, of what
I used to train, how I used to train, it
doesn't have any impact on how they train today. And
they do it differently. There's a lot of things that
are the same, and there's a lot of things that
are very very different from what we used to do.
I mean, we used to put in a lot of

(27:31):
miles compared to these kids, but they have really high
quality miles. So you know how almost a parent. I
like to cheer. I like to I like to get
to all the meats. I didn't go to the one
in Arizona, And you know, I wish I did. But
on the other hand, he had a great trip without us,
and that's a great thing. So you know, I try

(27:53):
and be I try and tell as many stories without
being boring as I can.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
They just had the Colorado State Championship this past weekend.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yes, they did, they did. It was a great one.
They the girls won uh one o three to one
oh eight I think, and Addie Ritzenhein took the individual title.
Uh and the boys won with twenty eight points.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
So it was it was a good It was a
good day for those guys.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Where was that meet at.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's down in Colorado Springs. There's a park down there
where they race. Okay, so again I did not go
to that one. Actually did, but it's uh, it's it's uh.
I'm hoping Aiden will be uh knocking on the varsity
door next year and we'll go to everything.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
You talk about. Mark wanted to do things that have
never been done. In twenty twenty five. It would almost
be unheard of in New Jersey for a group one
school to win the MEETIA champions or maybe even a
public school for that matter, even a public school. Was

(29:13):
it just the.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Training, No, no, no, the training, training, was part of it.
But like I said, it's it's all. It's all that
they like to throw the word culture around these days.
It was you know, you know, we were a tribe,
we were a family. You know, for years they called

(29:34):
Bernard's the pack because we all ran together. But we
we had a you know, a real familial quality to
all of us as you know, brothers and brothers and sisters.
The girls teams were just as good and you know
so and we were competitive with each other, but we

(29:57):
were supportive of each other. We challenged each other, We
joked like crazy, We laughed a lot. So you know,
the training is a big part of it. But you know,
like I said, it's it's not just showing up. It's
wanting to show up. It's wanting to be there. It's
wanting to you know, because you know, you see a

(30:19):
it's like you see a racehorse that's that's ready to go, right,
and they have an energy about them. They can't wait
to get out there on the track. And that's kind
of how we felt. We were very businesslike about it.
We were very business like about our approach to it,
but it was we had none of all of us
couldn't wait to get out there and and start tearing
it up.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
How important was the feature program to all of that?

Speaker 1 (30:43):
I I to keeping it going. I think it was integral,
you know. And and over time when those things, you know,
it's tough to keep those things going sometimes and over time,
you know, it starts to to hurt because you know,

(31:03):
you get kids want to they want to play soccer
or they want to play you know, video games, lacrosse
or god, video games. Yeah, that was not as big
a deal in those days because we were always outside,
so you know, uh, yeah, the feeder program was important.

(31:26):
The two coaches. Ed Mather was the head coach for years,
and he had a real talent for making people feel great,
making people feel like champions.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
You have that.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
There's a quote on your website from from Lineared about
their their champions walking around all over the place. They
just need to be trained properly. And he really had
that sort of an attitude where that you know, oh,
that kid looks like he could be a runner. You know,
why are you going out for that team or why
don't why aren't you going out for a team at all?
Coming out and run cross country? And uh and then
Mark was he was a Bernard's High graduate and a

(32:03):
runner for Ed Mathers teams. And then he came back
as a coach and you know, amassed this deep knowledge
of you know, the linear method and everything else in
the world he could absorb. He was another sponge with
with you know, what are things that can help us

(32:26):
get to the next level and uh and he had
a talent for not so much. You know, I like
to say Ed Matther was sort of a ring master.
So it felt like a show mark really made you
feel like you were doing something important and and and

(32:49):
he was able to, you know, get other people to
come out. He got we had a soccer a kid
soccer kid, a kid who played soccer who came out
as a junior and never ran track before, came out
in the spring and ended up winning the group one
eight hundred meters and then the next year he came
back and did it again. And so you know, soccer

(33:10):
players are kind of built for that in my opinion,
because you know, you run ninety minutes a game, there's
no excuse for not being fit. You just need to
get focused on what the event is. And so he
was able to sort of, you know, nudge these kids
convince them, hey there's something else you could be good at,
and out they'd come. And so, you know, the feeder

(33:31):
program's important. But that idea of welcoming other kids in
who are willing to who are willing to do the work,
or who just want to be part of something, and
that's that's a big thing. Identifying that as a big thing.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, yeah, we have soccer in the spring down here,
so I've been that's been my sales pitch to the
soccer kids, like, hey, you run further into the game
than you would in a cross country race, Like you're
built for this, right, and not only that, because it's
in the ring. I'm going to help you get in
shape so you're ready, ready for preseason. And I have

(34:05):
gotten two kids out. My number two runner right now
is the first time kid who came out from the
soccer team. So fantastic, pretty excited about that. I'm curious.
You know, we see the interviews of Mark when he's
at Colorado, right, very calm, He's got this kind of
very chill demeanor about him. Is he was he always

(34:26):
like that?

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, he's he's he's he is who he is, He's
he's authentically him as far as I can tell there.
You know, there are moments when he would talk to
all of us, so there was a certain sort of
presentational quality to things sometimes. But the one thing people
kind of miss out on, I think not being in

(34:51):
it day to day is just how funny he was
or is. He's like I saw him over the summer. He's, uh,
just hysterically dryly funny, and you know, has just this
enormous mass of references to pull from. You know, he
was an English teacher, so he has all kinds of

(35:12):
literary things that he brings up all the time. But
he's he has a very keen sense of truth and
a keen sense of humor.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
So well, you tell a story in the book that
really hit home. And I used to have a wrestling
coach and he used to annoy me when he would
say this. He'd always say, this sport is going to
teach you lessons that you're going to keep with you
for the rest of your life. And I always, dude,
just shut up, right, But you tell the story in
the book of you guys had a cross country race

(35:50):
in middle school and you didn't know about it. Oh yeah,
and you ran home. You didn't you weren't prepared. You
mentally weren't thinking about it all day, so you didn't
want to run. And Mark came and he got you
and he talked to you and he got you to run,
and you had a really good race. And I just
think stories like that are so important because there's times

(36:12):
in life where we're not going to be ready to
do things, but if we just go put our best
effort out there, who knows what you could do?

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Right. No, that's one hundred percent true. I have to
thank my wife, Heather for for that. Not that story,
because the story was in the book, but she really
was like, you need, you need, you need something at
the beginning to kind of tease this whole thing, and
and I think it's that story. So she she pointed
to that one in particular, and so I wrote kind
of a teaser version of it as the first chapter

(36:42):
as the intro. And uh, yeah, it's absolutely true. It's
it's uh, it's one of those things. I you know,
I was a fifth grader maybe, and I heard I knew.
We were all getting ready for the Bernard's Invitational, which
was the big invitational. A couple of weeks on the road,
and there was a meet that day on a Friday,

(37:05):
which was usually just kind of a light day, and
I didn't know, and I was I was petrified to
my core and just ran crying home and didn't want
to have anything to do with anybody. And somehow or
another Mark came down in his old white van. And
it's funny, I'm what ten years old, maybe eleven, ten,

(37:26):
probably ten. I turned eleven in the spring. Yeah, anyway,
so he can he looking back on it, experiencing it.
This is this big mentor kind of figure, this legendary
figure in my head. But you know, at the time,
if I really think about it, he probably was only
twenty five or twenty six years old at the time.

(37:48):
And so he drove back, got found me at my house.
My mom sent me out to talk to him, and
he convinced me to come back and give it a try.
And you know, in the end, it worked out fine,
It worked out great. But you know, there are those
moments where you're like, especially as a kid, you're brand
new to the sport. You know, some kids like my son,

(38:12):
that would never happen with my son. My son is
just okay, let's go. I was just I had so
much you know this idea of this this is a
big deal, and I'm like, okay, but to have somebody
sort of you know, if I had to point to
one coaching moment in my life that helped more than anything,

(38:34):
it was probably that one.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
It's funny to talk about Mark at the time was
probably only like twenty five or twenty six, because Jimmy
and I talk about all the time. I have a
wrestling had a wrestling coach my senior year in high
school who's still coaching wrestling. And yeah, at the time,
you're like, just oh, it's just like an adult. Right
now you're looking back on I'm like, man, he must

(38:57):
have just been like fresh out of college, probably like
twenty five. But this, again, it's just larger than life, right.
You just think of him as like this older adult.
But I mean now now looking back on it, now
I see him and it's like, oh, we're not really
that far apart in age.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's right. It's nice he's only fifteen years older me
or so. But it's you think, as a kid, you
think the adults know everything, and it's not until you
become an adult that you realize we don't really know
much of anything any more than anybody else does. Right,
we're all kind of figured out, and it's just you.
You come across these people who have the knowledge or

(39:38):
the or the confidence to get you over that hump.
That's a big deal. I mean. I had a good
friend of mine from college, as we used to go
skiing in the Poconos at his family's house, and his
dad used to just laugh at us walking around talking
about things that were so important to us as college kids.
And we'd say, oh, mister Clod's what's what's wrong? What

(39:58):
are you laughing at? And he'd say, you don't know
nothing until you're thirty five.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah, I agree. So the legend goes again, you could
probably feel some things in sure, But to my knowledge,
when Mark left Burnardsville he went to Seaton Hall. He
was a coach at Seaton Hall. I think he might
have been pretty pivotal in getting Brian Supoonneer there from

(40:24):
Asbury Park. And then the legend goes that he got
in his car and drove to Colorado and showed up
at Jerry Quiller's office and worked his way into becoming
the head cross country coach and later the head track
coach or the director of cross country, track and field.
When you heard that Mark was going to Colorado or

(40:46):
had started working with the program, did you think it
was going to be as successful as it had during
his time.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Yeah, I wouldn't think anything else, honestly, you know, I
was not surprise he We had come out to Colorado
for the Junior Olympics in nineteen eighty. We actually the
Junior Olympics was in Cheyenne, but we stayed in Boulder
for a few nights at the Boulderado Hotel under the
sort of you know, mistaken concept of getting used to

(41:20):
running at altitude, which you know you can do in
three days, right, But we had the experience of traveling.
And I was eleven, you know, we're just kids, and
and but Mark always had a sort of a connection
to Boulder to Colorado. And you know, the only other

(41:43):
place I ever would have seen him going as a
college coach would have been Virginia University of Virginia. But
he came out to Colorado. I don't know the details,
but like the Brad Hudson story, all of that rings true. Uh.

(42:04):
And yeah, he came. He went to the Quiller's office.
I guess somehow got on as he was a volunteer
assistant for a while, and then when Quiller retired, he
ended up getting the job. And he had been coaching
some of the distance guys as a as a you know,
volunteer assistant, Alan Culpepper being one of them, I think,

(42:27):
and you know, combine his approach and his personality with
the sort of vibe and personality of you know, the
Greater Boulder area and the people who want to come
here to run at altitude and run the hills and

(42:49):
run you know, the trails. It no, it would not
surprise me. None of that surprised me one little bit.
You know, he has a gift for making people want
to be there. You know, you want to be there,
you want to do the work. It's you know, I

(43:13):
tell people this and it comes off as kind of boring,
but it's like, you know, he was never big for
big on pep talks or inspirational speeches or hated t
shirts with slogans on them. You know that the girls
all did. But when we go to the line, the

(43:33):
speech was basically, look, you've done the work, you've prepared
for this, you know what your job is. Let's go
out and do it. And that was it. And the
gun goes we take our sweats off, the gun goes off,
and there you go. So you know, it comes off
as kind of boring, but you know it's it's deeply

(43:53):
ingrained in all of these people. I know growing up.
I don't know, I say the book, I never ran
with the Buffaloes, but I feel connected to all of
them for the same kinds of reasons. Uh, you know,
as a fan if nothing else. So you know, that's
that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
And I used to love you know, they have the
pre meet press conferences across country or a post race interview,
and a lot of times, you know, the coaches up there,
they have their their gear and all that stuff. And
Mark would always have like his kind of western cowboy
flannel and his cowboy hat and that sort of stuff.
And you know, the only guy up there with the ponytail.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah, and he never you know, even with us, you know,
like the idea of you know, a photo with the
trophy and the kids, you know, I mean we had
him in a few, but it's like that he was
always kind of uncomfortable with that. You know. It's like
the moment, you know, ah, I remember we won the

(45:00):
pen relays, distance Medley. I was a sophomore in eighty four,
and you know, we were so excited and all happy
and and the next question was, okay, we're coming back
to around the four by eight tomorrow. You know, it's like, okay,
that's great, but now it's in the past. Let's let's
look at what's coming up next. And so that's what

(45:22):
That's the way it always was. It was just always
very It was challenging and and forward looking. You know,
no no time to rest on your laurels.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
You bring up the pen relays. One story that you
told in the book that kind of pulled out the
heart strings is when you were in high school, they
couldn't give out the watches, yep, because the NCAA rules
or whatever. And then later on they started giving them
back out. And then you had two and you gave
Mark one and Mark. Mark doesn't keep any trophies or anything,

(45:58):
but he still has that wat that you got me with.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
That once there, that got me. I got to tell
you I that came in that was I had finished
the book, and you know, I was the book's funny
because I sat down my son Aiden started going to
summer training here in at nwat and as a freshman

(46:23):
incoming freshman, and I had a notebook and I had,
you know, an hour and a half while he was
a practice and I had to So I just started writing,
jotting memories down in this notebook, and by the end
of the summer I had a full notebook and that
became this book. And so I finished the book and

(46:43):
I was like, Okay, what are we going to do
with it? And the only person I really was worried about,
concerned about having any kind of opinion about it was Mark. So,
you know, I emailed him and said, hey, I have this,
I have this, this project I did, I have this
thing I did. I'd love to get your thoughts. And

(47:06):
he said, yeah, sure, So I sent it to him,
and you know, like a day and a half later,
I get an email back saying, no, you have a
really good memory all of this. You know, I remember
a lot of this from a different perspective, but it
all rings true. And he made a couple of corrections
for me. One was Arthur liteared Arthur would be I

(47:33):
don't remember exactly what he said, but basically he'd be
tweaked of it if he heard you say long, slow distance.
He would say long steady distance for Arthur's slow training
leads to slow racing. So that got into the book.
And then he told me, he said, you know, I
don't keep I'm not one for keeping things, trophies, you know, memorabilia, whatever,

(47:55):
but I have your watch and I was like that
was like that got me too.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
So I know we're talking a lot about Mark, but
there's one question I want to ask you. You know, we
talked to a lot of coaches and the reason behind
this podcast is for our younger selves, right looking in
the college process. You talk about your time at Villanova.
You also refer to a doctor as a mustachio peti ass,

(48:22):
which popped me. I was, I was, I was.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Eating my he was one of the trainers, to be.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Fair, Okay, okay, I was laughing out loud. But you
talk about your time at Villanova. Now, obviously we didn't
have hindsight when we were in college, right, but knowing
what went on when you were at Villanova, how would
you look at schools? What would you look for going
to schools to make that right decision then?

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Or what advice would I give?

Speaker 3 (48:50):
What would you give to your sixteen seventeen year old.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Self, I question things more. Don't fall victim to nostalgia
or you know, history glory days kind of stuff, because
I had, you know, I had this vision. I like
many New Jersey milers in of my age was I

(49:16):
had Marty Laquori as a hero. So I had this
you know, you have this vision of who you want
to be and who you want to you know, compete
with over history, and so in my mind and I
had all kinds of you know, we used to go
to the Penry Lays from my first time was when
I was a freshman. I went to watch and so

(49:37):
you see all of this Villanova glory at the pen Relays,
and it gets foggy, you know, it fogs your reality
to what it was. And it didn't occur to me
that the the coaching climate would be so different there

(49:58):
from the Jumbo days Jumbo days through to what came
after that. And so I never really questioned it. I
just said, oh, that's where I want to go. I
want to wear that uniform and and uh, you know
we had you know, I had some problems and I
talked about it in the book. From there Mark probably
somebody asked me this the other day where where would Mark?

(50:19):
You know, did Mark ever tell you where he wanted
you to go or try to influence it? And I said,
he never really did, you know, he knew, he knew
what I had in my mind, and he never tried
to tell a kid what to do. He tried to
guide him if he could. But you know, I think
he would have liked me to go to Wisconsin run
for Marty Smith. But you know, I had my ideas.

(50:41):
So my advice would be, you know, question what you know,
be sure, be sure you know before, be sure the
truth you know is really true, you know. And another thing,
and I had this conversation with Pete Carrol, who I
talk about in the book. He's the head coach. He's

(51:03):
been the head coach at Swathmore for years, and we
were talking about it. He was out here visiting over
the summer and we kind of came to the same conclusion.
I said, you know, you're I always thought of my
mile time as like an extra SAT score, right, So
it's like, if it can help me get into a
better school, then I might have otherwise gotten into. That's

(51:27):
the choice, you know, And I would I would recommend
concentrate on the school first and the program second, you know,
and that's because I think that's going to serve you better.
You know, unless you happen to be one of those
very very few who are able to advance and become
a pro and which is often unpredictable, especially in our sport.

(51:55):
You know, get the best education you can.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Amen to that rich right, that's a clip right there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
You also another tugging at the heart heartstrings you talked
about when you were talking to Mark at some point
at home the park. You're at home the park, yep,
and he asked you if you had any regrets, and
you just let it out. I was like, man, and
I started thinking. I had a like, no, you're listening
to the book. Stop thinking about your regrets and what

(52:25):
you were because like so many times in life, people
say I have no regrets, and I'm always like, that
is bullshit. Now, not that like I'm not better off
for those I didn't because of those regrets. I've had
certain experiences or I've done other things because of that.
But to me, when someone's like, oh, I don't have
any regrets, I'm like, you're lying to yourself.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, no, I think that's true, and you're you're trying
to convince yourself you don't have any regrets.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
It's like it's, at least in my case, it came honestly,
it's like, I'm really trying to make myself be better
or feel better by saying I don't have regrets. But
the fact of the matter is, yeah, there's all kinds
of regrets in life, you know. It's it's how you
choose to live with them, is what the problem is
where the challenge lies, right, so, you know, and it's

(53:15):
funny writing this book. I I my friend Jeff Simpson,
he said, when I told him about the book, he said, oh,
what is it? Is it a love Is it a
love letter or a cautionary tale? And I said it
was a little bit of both. And he said, good,
that's it should be. And it kind of is because
it's it's really I said. And I sent it to
him and I said, here, welcome to my you know,

(53:37):
personal therapy session. And that's kind of what it felt like.
Writing this thing is from remembering these things and trying
to you know, there's a few things you kind of
try and set right, you know, like some of these stories.
Because we had a funny one that I even hear
today is how much Bernard's recruited athlete. They recruited all

(54:01):
these track guys in all these distance runners into to
run for Bernards and it never happened. There was no
such thing as that when it was six hundred students school,
you kidding me? And I had somebody insist that I
was recruited to run at Bernard's. And I moved to
Bernardsville when I was four, So if I was recruited,

(54:23):
somebody knew something a lot more than I did, so,
you know, and I've wandered off a little bit on this.
I'm sorry, but the regret thing is for me working
putting some of these things right. Was That's what it was?
Putting some of these things right?

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Was?

Speaker 1 (54:42):
You know, like the Villanova story. I always felt like
people had ideas about what happened to me there because
everybody whatever happened to that guy. You know, not that
I have any vision of people wondering what happened to me,
but you know, I get quitetions like that sometimes, and
it's like, you know, there was more to the story

(55:03):
than people really knew or presumed, So you know, I
try and kind of just tell an honest story, that's all.
And that has helped me anyway kind of work through
some of these ideas and and uh, you know tell
you know, try and tell a good tale. That's all.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Well you did for sure, so thank you.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Yes, yes, Rich, I know we could talk to Lyle
all night. We could get into Melrose game Van Cuirem
park Well workouts, but we want to be respectful of
this time you get anything else for him.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
They don't want to give away too many spoilers, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Yeah, I want them to go read it. Well, I
think there's there's plenty left in there. We didn't even
get into any any of the workouts.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Final floor, Lyle. Is there anything about you or the
book that we haven't really covered that you want to share?

Speaker 1 (55:59):
No, I I just appreciate you guys taking the time
with me. It's been it's been fun. Uh. Like you said,
there's a lot more in the book. There's there's you know,
there's thoughts of of maybe some other exploring, some other ways,
because I think we have sort of a a missed

(56:20):
opportunity and are the literature of our sport right? And
I think you guys are filling some of that whole.
There's a handful of other podcasts out there filling some
of it. There's a few writers out there doing things.
For example, I have this one just sitting here right now,

(56:42):
Chris Lear, who beat my meet a champions State meat record.
I'm friendly with Chris. I'm not mad at him. But
you know, I think I think there are a lot
of these stories out there, and they're not just about
like the championship store. I think it's a deep stories
about the training and the friendships and the connections, and

(57:04):
that's kind of missing, you know, like boxing is a
literary sport, horse racing is a literary sport. Baseball is
maybe the most literary sport in America. Track and cross
country cross country maybe even more so, has sort of
a missing link there in the writing about it, I think,
And that's why I wrote this. That's one of the

(57:24):
reasons I wrote this thing. And you know, maybe there's
more to be done.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Oh, we're excited. I'm here for it.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
So we usually ask our Colorado friends when we have
a mom We usually ask them at the beginning of
the podcast, but we didn't ask you. So before we
get in the final four, I'm going to ask you
this one, Rich and I spent six years, five years
in Colorado. Do you have a favorite fourteener?

Speaker 1 (57:52):
A favorite fourteener? I haven't real I'm embarrassed to say
I haven't climbed any of them. But I sit here
and I go out every day and look up at
Long's Peak, okay, every day, and there's something about it.
It looks different every time I look at it, so

(58:14):
just it's weirdly, you know. I haven't been here that long,
only lived for two years, and it feels like home.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
So yeah, we miss it. Yes, have you been skiing yet? Uh?

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Not since we've been here. Really, I lived in Florida
before we moved out here, so I haven't really been
skiing much. I do ski. My son is dying to
go ski, so we're going to go scan this this year. Okay,
all right?

Speaker 3 (58:39):
First final Flora got for you, sir. Are you a
coffee drinker?

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Absolutely? Purple espresso? All right? Now we have My wife
convinced me that we needed a Mocha Master coffee maker.
I'm looking across the room at it right now, which
was I thought exceedingly expensive. I don't know if it's

(59:04):
true or not, but it's it makes really good coffee.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
All right?

Speaker 3 (59:08):
How do you how do you take your.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Coffee cream or milk, no sugar?

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Do you have a favorite roaster out there?

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Uh, I'm still I'm still deciding. We're trying them all.
There's so many of them.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Lyle. Do you have any rituals or daily practices that
you do on a regular basis to show up as
the strongest version of Lyle Smith?

Speaker 1 (59:38):
I've heard you ask this question. It's a hard one.
I I try and exercise every day. I don't run
the way I used to. I run a little bit.
I walk and hike a lot. I'm my dog is
sitting right here. She goes with me, and my wife
walks with me, and we spent we spend a lot
of time walking and talking. And that's just sort of

(59:59):
a really for me. It anchors me into being human.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
I do a bit of meditation. I'm not ritualistic about it.
I read every day, and uh, I try and get
some quality conversation with my son every single day. Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Have you been on Magnolia Road yet?

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
I have. I haven't run it really a little bit,
not much. But we had this this summer. We had
a group of guys came out. They're former former Bernards,
guys older than me. Uh, sort of my Yankee Yankee team.
So John Sullivan, Pete Carroll Buck Logan and Chris Wilde
came out to visit. Uh, and we had we hiked

(01:00:49):
and had dinner with Mark and Heather and and my
Heather came with us and all that stuff. And they
went over to run Magnolia one morning. Chris ended up
doing about six miles, I think. And that's it, ain't
you know, it ain't easy anymore. We've got a few

(01:01:10):
years under our belts.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Well what are you listening to right now?

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Music?

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Podcast, audio books?

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
What are you reading?

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Well, I just showed you. I'm reading Chris Lear's Sean
Carlson's book, that's the running stuff I'm reading. I'm reading
a book by Maria Ressa who won the Nobel Prize
Peace Prize a few years ago, who's a journalist in
the Philippines, And so I'm reading that. I listened to pod.

(01:01:49):
I've been listening to your podcast lately, which has been
a lot of fun. But I listened to pret Bararro
was a former prosecutor in the Southern District of New
York as a podcast called Stay Tuned with pre about
sort of contemporary politics, people who are doing interesting things.

(01:02:11):
It's and and that I listened to, and music wise,
I just listened to. I've gotten into listening to some
of the stuff I used to listen to as a kid.
I saw a Rush is reforming to go on tour
with a with a not a replacement drummer, but a
new drummer. And uh so I've been listening to some

(01:02:31):
of the old Rush albums and I used to listen
to when I was a kid, and I'm like, I
forgot how much I like this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah, it's good to go back to the old school
yeah tunes. Every once in a while, Reminiscent get nostalgic
about whenever I hear ramble On by led Zeppelin. Oh yeah,
that one reminds me of again of Cold cross Country camp.
They were they were playing that one night in the
in the cabin and one of the older CBA guys

(01:02:58):
is like this and this song is about cross country
and he's like the leaves are falling all around and
it's like, oh, it just stuck from that point forward.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Oh, this reminds me. It's a I don't know how
I got ramble on to banjo, but a friend of mine,
Steve Martin, just put out a new record with Alison Brown,
their banjo players, and my friend Jody Nardon, who I
went to high school with, is the piano player on
the record and it is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Okay, all right, look get that was a little banjo
down here. So it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
It's good stuff, you know, I listen to all kinds
of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Yeah, it's good to be eclectic. Last one we got
for you to close as a lighthearted one. Maybe it's
a fun new unique food item out there and Boulder.
Maybe it's one of those tasty craft beverages they serve
up so well in Colorado. Maybe like golf, maybe like fishing.
Do you have a guilty pleasure?

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Oh, a guilty pleasure. I grew up with a summer
job as a caddie and Bernardsville, so I play golf
when I can. I don't know if that counts as
a guilty pleasure, but it's it's kind of a passion.
And movies of all kinds. Really, it's I'm a sucker

(01:04:16):
for a good movie. I sat and I did. They
had a Turner classic Movies had a twenty four hour
Robert Redford movie thon this weekend, and I just kind
of had the TV on all weekend, so it was like,
whenever I walked in, there was something else, another movie
I'd already seen that I could just get into at
any moment. So movies, it's probably the guilty pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Okay, Well you and me, bolls.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
I am a fiend for movies. I went to school
for film television, so, oh wow, I'm a little bit
of a film geek. I don't know if you know.
I don't know if you're a theater guy. But Back
to the Future is now in theaters again for the fortieth.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
Annivers Oh that would be fun.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah, and Imax.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
It's a good time.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
I gotta get. I got and I have a list.
I have a list of like my top hundred movies
that I'm trying to make sure my son sees before
he turns twenty one.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
That's awesome, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Breaking Away is towards the top of the list.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
Exactly what was it? What's your thoughts on Vision Quest?
Have you ever seen vision quests?

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
I have?

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
This is funny, I have I've never seen vision Quest.
I had a friend of mine growing up. He's mentioned
in the book Runge in Sinha, and he he was
a huge vision Quest and he'd quote it and all
kinds of stuff and play the soundtrack all the time.
And I just I never saw it. I should. That's
gotta I gotta put that on my list. Yeah, it
seems like my kind of movie.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
It's good. That's good.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
I don't want to put you on the spot because
I hate when people do this to me. But what
are some of your favorite movies?

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Oh? I think about this all the time. Ironically with
the Robert Redford thing this weekend, the Sting is probably
my favorite movie, my favorite movie of all time, which
is not to be confused with my opinion of what
the best movie of all time is, which is harder
and harder to get at anymore. It's it's you know,
I I I used to watch Citizen Kane like over

(01:06:18):
and over again, just for just for every little trick
they pulled. So, you know, as far as like a
movie education and how to make a movie, that's a
great that's a great one. You know, the first Everybody
says the second Godfather movie is better, but I love
the first Godfather movie. I think it's a perfect film. So,

(01:06:42):
you know, those are the kind you know, and small
movies I like. You know, High Fidelity is a personal
favorite of mine. I love the book and then I
love the movie. You know, I that that's hits it.
I don't know. Breaking Away is it's hard hard to

(01:07:05):
beat for me at anytime, the commitments, you know, And
so I don't know if there's even a trend in here,
a trend line to find what type of movie I like,
because they're all different types of movies. But uh, you know,
my my wife is big into uh she loves fantasy,

(01:07:26):
sci fi type stuff, so we watch a lot of that.
I'm I'm less so, but you know, there's a lot
of movies and even bad movies, like you know, like
I always say, Caddy Shack is maybe the best bad
movie you ever made. Have you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Going in the line of Breaking Away? Have you seen
American Flyers?

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
I have, I have. It's another one. It has it
has some weak points, but it's it's really it's a
joy to watch. Yeah, I love that open, that opening
sequence where he's he's riding his bike. I think it's Manhattan, right,
He's running through riding through the city and rides into
the elevator. Uh, that's like, I just love that sequence.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
So sorry, Rich, I was just gonna say, Quicksilver is
another one with Kevin Bacon's.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
With the fixed gear up and up and down the
hills in San Francisco. That's amazing. Yeah, that's a lot
of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
So I never get to ask a runner this question.
Prefonte movie gone with Without Limits or Prefontaine.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Fire on the Track. Yeah, I think Without Limits is
a better film than the other one. But but it's hard.
You know, You're you're doing a movie about somebody who's
so unique. You know, all all great cheer to uh

(01:08:54):
to Billy cut up, but it's it's hard to do
that guy justice. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
So we had Fire on the Track taped rich Rich
taped the Prefontaingne Classic the year that they played it
before the Pontane Classic, and then he went to college
and he lent it to someone and so it didn't
We didn't get it back for years later until it
was you could buy Fire on the Track, and my

(01:09:22):
dad finally bought it and we had it. But that
was like such a heartbreaker for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Oh, I know there's because they not everything was digitized,
you know, so some things are hard to find.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Yeah, Chris Bennett, if you're out there listening, you're the
one that has it's cold.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
While thank you so much for your time. Thank you
for writing this book. If you're listening, make sure you
go pick up this book. It's a must read or listen.
In my case, thank you so much for sharing your
and yeah, this is a great conversation, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Oh, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. It's it
was a joy to put it together, and I'm just
glad people are finding finding it of interest.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Yeah, it was a great book. It's great to get
into the lore and the history behind not only you,
but the program Mark. So if you are listening, like
Jimmy said, go out there check it out. You won't
be disappointed. Lyle, thank you so much for joining us
this evening. We do really appreciate your time. It was

(01:10:37):
on our pleasure to chat with you, get to know
you a little bit, and we look forward to more
stuff in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
Absolutely my pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, make sure you go check
those links in the show notes, go grab a copy
of Blood sweat and spikes the wet More Way. If
you go check out Lyle on the socials, let them
know the area Bro sent you. We will be back
next next week We're going back to New Jersey. We
will have Mike Terercy. He is the head cross country
coach at Brookdale Community College. We'll be talking about all

(01:11:08):
things NJCAA again. And then on Thursday evening again we'll
be talking NJCAA. But it is getting down to matt season,
so we're going to be doing the NJCAA Coaches Preview
for some of the top ranked teams in the junior
college ranks. That is all for us this week. We
hope you have a great rest of your week and
enjoy your weekend. Until next time, We'll see then

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