Speaker 1
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Monday Not-So-Live show. I'm here in Atlanta GA. Cheryl's here in beautiful Las Vegas. Dave is out on assignment. We have, not in this place because who can replace Dave, but in a slot that might be occupied by Dave is Kevin Bubbles Gregory coming in from Connecticut?
Speaker 2
Correct.
Speaker 1
I should know where you are, right?
Speaker 2
That's where I am right now. That's a good guess.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
Am I here or am I?
Speaker 1
Well, welcome back to the show. We're having you on because we have a lot of DECA thoughts and questions over the weekend. But I will happily invest in a microphone for you if you'd like. I can't get you this one. This is the super-duper expensive one that took me over 10 years to buy. But I can get you a microphone.
Speaker 2
Wow.
Speaker 1
I can get you at least something as good as Scott the Fane has. How about that?
Speaker 2
I mean, that would be awesome. I'll have to be a regular guest on the show then.
Speaker 1
Here's a question. Have you been on all of them? Have you been on Race Brain?
Speaker 3
I don't think I've been on Race Brain.
Speaker 1
Have you been on Running Public? No. What are they doing over there? They're sleeping on you.
Speaker 2
I can't believe that Bracken wouldn't have had you on at some point. Well, there's no running in Dekka Strong, so that's probably why. They want to stay on.
Speaker 1
I know, but they do pretty good. I haven't listened in a really long time, But I know that they were good at not just getting like, hey, guess what? We have Hunter and Lauren on. They were good at getting lots and lots of guests back in the day. Or back in the day it was, I want to say Hobie and Amelia. But there's been a lot of people since Hobie and Amelia.
Speaker 3
I don't even know who those people are. Listen, I was talking to my buddy Gary today.
Speaker 1
And we were pondering how many people at a Spartan not in the elite wave would know who Ryan and Lindsey are. because it's been like three years yeah uh i want to shout out lindsey webster because i was very randomly watching the golden trail series which uh is this race where it's mostly run up the mountain run down the mountain and again it's a very specific kind of trail runner um there's some money in the series and it's not people that you see doing the like the 50 milers and 100 milers is a different kind of racer. And I know the guy that hosts it and recorded with him recently and now can't find it or put it out and forgot. One of those two things happened. I don't think I put it out though, so I got to have him back on. Anyway, the point is I'm doing my YouTube, falling asleep, like let's just find something to watch. And sure enough, like bounding down the course, sixth place, Lindsay Webster, I was so happy. Like what a pleasant surprise when you see someone that you weren't expecting to see. And the fact they were showing her in six, I thought maybe she eventually made the podium. She didn't. But I think they were just trying to show like the top 10, I guess. But it's funny because most of these teams, they have kind of teams that send their racers to these races. Right. So, you know, there's Team Hoka and Team Solomon. And it said, Lindsay Webster, no team. I was like, that's pretty cool. It's just her and Ryryi out there doing it. So anyway, you want to talk DECA Chicago back at the Navy Pier, Kevin? Sure.
Speaker 2
Where do you want to start?
Speaker 1
Well, where do you want to start? Well, should we start with mostly positives? Sure. Okay. How was it? Was it mostly positive?
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think the production value has grown this year. Anybody that's been to a DECA fit in previous years and then shown up to one this year, would notice that the production value has grown significantly. The venue, if you've ever been to the Navy Pier, there's so much to do on the pier alone, outside of the race itself with the Ferris wheel and the speed boats and its summertime concerts. There's always that big energy as you're walking down the pier to get to the race. Most of the names of the DECA HQ staff, Yancey was out for his anniversary trip, so no Yancey. Mark Jones wasn't there. Nelson was there. Tyler Spencer has been the race director for the decades he was there. But certain names that you might be used to seeing weren't there as far as the staff.
Speaker 1
I heard Mark is no longer going to do it at all.
Speaker 2
I don't know. I haven't talked to him about it.
Speaker 1
I think he's done. I think he's moved on. But anyway, I know Robin was there. I always see Robin's content. Robin was there.
Speaker 2
yeah she she was uh stalking us as we as we raced around the track on her skates which is always fun i was explaining to her that i feel a presence but i don't hear the hook prints so i'm like is someone chasing me or am i kind of free and then you turn the corner with the farmers and you realize it's her so i always appreciate the uh the camera and the content behind um yeah i'll just
Speaker 1
keeps spewing so directly matt please just keep spewing baby well i i said mostly positive listen i heard i didn't hear anything bad about it i think the thing that always jumps out to me is like hey we still don't have a ton of people and i didn't want to cover that to the end but just saying it now like i noticed there was like 400 people on friday and i was like all right friday's probably not the biggest day but it was kind of like deca wants to go bigger the answer isn't just to add more days like you gotta you gotta have reason to have more people there etc etc so um that's kind what jumped out to me and i haven't even looked at the numbers yet but like obviously it's not high
Speaker 2
rocks the navy pier numbers there was notable down times and each day had like a dip in in participation um friday specifically like i raced i wanted to race the first wave of the day so that way i got my solo out of the way so then i could do doubles later in the day so i raced at eight and then my next race is at like 2 30. i raced at eight and then i hung out at nine and ten and then I looked around and the amount of people on the course was going down. And I'm like, I'm going to go under my table here. And I had a table skirt on. I just took a nap. I slept for an hour.
Speaker 1
A little George Costanza move. Nice. I honor it.
Speaker 2
I didn't have a ticking clock to freak anyone else out. But I just put on my H2O audio headphones with the noise cancellation. And I put my head on my backpack and just slept for an hour peacefully. And then I woke up and raced with Zach Seigen. So once the division, like the age group was kind of, if you look at a curve, like it was very participated in early. And then as the hours went on, it dipped. And then once teams started, it got busy again. And then, you know, awards is always at the end. Like the podiums actually were pretty well attended. In Austin, they were like three hours late. So everyone had to leave. So it was like one person on each podium, if that. But they did podiums per day, which I thought was interesting because High Rocks in New York, you're like, OK, cool. When your division's over for the whole weekend, we're going to do awards on Monday at 11 a.m. So when you're back in Vegas, that's when awards are going to be happening. And then at the end of the two weekends for whatever the qualification was, DECA did awards every single day for each division. So that was kind of cool. So some people that may not have necessarily had the best time.
Speaker 1
Because it doesn't matter because it's leaderboard-based, not everyone from race-based like IROC says. So you could do it every day. That's a big race I should have shown up at maybe, Cheryl.
Speaker 2
I've got to snag the podium. You could. I mean, certain – yeah.
Speaker 1
Well, I did look at the leaderboard as – I don't know which version, the race result version or the Spartan version. But I was looking at – because I was counting heads. And the age group drop-down was the normal age group drop-down. wasn't the 120 to 150 or whatever I would be in. It was like 50 to 54, even on doubles. And so, cause I was trying to see how I would do. That's weird. Yeah. The on, where do you, where do you go?
Speaker 2
Do you go to race results or Spartan? Where do you go? I prefer race results, but I could not.
Speaker 3
Is that Jen behind you? Is that Jen?
Speaker 2
Jess. Who's Jess? It's Amber's twin. Okay.
Speaker 1
Could she hear me?
Speaker 2
I'm up on purpose. She knows that.
Speaker 1
She knows. She knows I'm messing with her. Come on.
Speaker 2
I prefer race results. because it's usually updated like faster where spartan has a lag but i could not find the link for my life this weekend and then the spartan one it just showed like the top three it just showed only podium people so top three elite top three in each age group and i'm like i want to see where certain people landed that they weren't in a in the lead or i want to sort so i can see whatever and I just I gave up but um it was sub was better off like I said comparatively Austin had massive timing issues with the timing company and it took them I mean I don't I don't think they're all resolved still people are still like hey my time from Austin's missing or this is the case but um timing wise pretty well done this time awards were very close to being on time uh and each day
Speaker 4
how were start times for people i know that when the season started they were really having a hard time getting people out of the gate when they had signed up for their time to start how have they
Speaker 2
resolved that i'll explain what they did and then answer your question so you sign up for a half hour window and then you go into the starting corral and then they're releasing people like i don't know from six people every two to four minutes or whatever i don't know what the rhythm is it seems change. But when I was at registration and someone would get there and like, oh my God, registration is long. I'm going to be late for my start time. Like relax, take a breath. When you get down there, warm up properly, go to the bathroom. And when you're ready, go to the starting line. So there's a rolling start within that half hour window. If you start, you can start a half hour later if you want to. You can't start before your starting time, but they stayed, they might've got a little behind initially, but no one was ever like starting significantly after their start time unless they were really late themselves so start times are pretty well on i think they can have you know they have 15 16 pieces of equipment per lane they don't have the equivalent judges to support that many lanes except for elites so that's the only time they're launching a wave that big every other time is like like i said four to six people at a time are going um because that's what they had the judges for in the lane in the zones and sometimes maybe not even that much which unfortunately uh well some some honor counting in certain uh certain times so i would count my own reps you shouldn't have to but there were certain times where i was gonna go and count them out loud so i mean dave's addressed this before he's like you got one guy counting two people that's why They got clickers and counting out loud and trying to correct. So that's the future of the open.
Speaker 1
I wonder how we could sell it to Joe and co to get those machines, to get those computer tablets. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3
Like how could we sell it?
Speaker 1
Because they're going to say, well, volunteers are free, right?
Speaker 3
So they're going to say, well,
Speaker 1
why would we spend money when volunteers are free? But if we could figure out a way to say it's actually going to, like trust me, in the long run, you'll get more racers if you're willing to invest because how many do they want to let go in each wave 10 well i don't
Speaker 2
know the answer to that but from hosting my own events i'd like to get as many people through as fast as possible because that increases your but let's but let's but let's right but let's like
Speaker 1
right now if they're doing four to six we can at least double it right yeah well right now there's
Speaker 2
so many waves you don't need there they have enough capacity to four to six they're staying on time people are having a good experience but the goal is to sell more tickets and scale more which is going to run into the we don't have enough judges well this is what this is what
Speaker 1
cheryl cheryl cheryl had a light bulb moment i think it was about a year ago when she was just like wait a minute they're never gonna grow they can never grow at this current capacity like when that was decided it was like oh shit so that's what i'm saying and it's also cutting it super close if we only need four or five but then you have two and three instead it's even worse so getting a dozen of those screens and machines um uh then you've got two people in that station period maybe one even and then you can you could also do that for the
Speaker 4
what else can we use it for well the burpees for sure well i would say the burpees i would say
Speaker 1
i'd say the burpees are the one you don't want to do it because they're last i think you need extra eyes there i think that would be maybe maybe not that could help that
Speaker 2
can make it more or less subjective and have more heads there but also have the technology right yeah you could have somebody looking for the live stream did you watch the live stream that on your phone i i know the men's was terrible it was sideways i couldn't figure out how to change it but the
Speaker 1
women's one came out a lot better i didn't watch it back yet but well i started i i think i you know it tells me bubbles is now live it's weird because i think there should be a way that to turn these off but i'm constantly getting these because somebody somewhere is doing a fucking sim somewhere yeah so um and and our big high rocks weekend it's like somebody's somebody's doing a thing with two viewers two viewers to show their husband then it's like what are you doing don't i don't want you to slow my feet down i mean i don't want to be bothered with it but anyway but i did go back at one point and i tried to do the thing where i could slide my little finger so i could kind of watch right but you can't do that too great on here so i just i didn't watch that long i did um
Speaker 2
i did live stream it on youtube because uh anthony messaged me asking which platform and i was like i don't know i've never done youtube before but it would be more it would be horizontal and more
Speaker 1
oh the that maybe i did try shit that maybe because now i'm remembering oh no okay i want to give you some free marketing advice yeah um you don't have the link in your bio which is exactly where you you should have put it just like put it in your bio you're like go to the underdog bio go to the underdog bio there's 20 links way too many turn off some of the old ones um and none of them say youtube okay they all say whatever like come hang out at fucking you know whoever's house whatever barbecue with uh with aj and then at the very top are those tiny logo things like a little facebook logo a little youtube logo and i was wise enough to touch that most people won't be so anyway next
Speaker 2
time you do it, put it right fat. I'm sure I will be the only one willing to live street Boston. So
Speaker 1
I'll take your advice. Listen, if AJ or whoever's AJ next time, whatever, but put it in a place where
Speaker 4
people can watch it. It will help. I don't know if you remember, but back in maybe 2021, that was the first time I ran Decafit. And I think they were releasing maybe 20 people at a time. I mean, it was a much larger, we had a lot more volunteers. There was a live stream. There was a legitimate live stream. There were-
Speaker 2
A company that actually knows what they're doing? Yeah, you know, really good coverage.
Speaker 4
And we had rabbits. I was a rabbit for a while. I really enjoyed that. Like, it feels like there are so many things that have just regressed in this race. And I'm wondering what your solution is for this. Because I think we're-
Speaker 1
solution is to single-handedly hold up all of deca he is the mayor of decatown we know this well he was just the mayor of decatown now he's the architect and the uh what's the name of that guy in the matrix is the director is it the architect like like deca is like bubbles is deca deca is bubbles i don't know what math equation that is but like he's he's doing it right I'm surprised I'm surprised you weren't like at multiple deca events this weekend because you've done that before you're like I'm gonna be here and then fly here Saturday I just what's the
Speaker 2
solution because no one like look there's no one like you is there anyone like you Kevin no there's
Speaker 4
one like me that's why i started there's no one like you i can wait for the night
Speaker 1
you got him going now well i feel like there used to be a west coast version of you or one or two and now they're all disillusioned you're like you're hanging in there though you you won't you
Speaker 2
won't go down no i mean i what's the solution i don't know i think i had a lot of conversations this weekend with gym owners and athletes and current athletes, former athletes, and then just like people through social and stuff. And it's cool to see DECA is like in bigger cities now. And they're just taking all the same venues that High Rocks has taken because they're good venues. And they're putting all that money into that. But there's other places that they're, I'm obviously not in the office. I don't know why these decisions aren't made. But talking to Tyler, his objective and goal was to have all the athletes paid before Chicago. So when Marcus Wallace and Lauren got their checks, everyone would be excited that we're caught up and everyone gets paid on time. But instead, the monies for 2025 aren't paid out. And those two are fine. But, I mean, people are like, how much do they owe you? I'm like, I don't look at it. It's depressing. But it'll come when it comes. But who else is going to have that patience? And I think, do you guys know Nicole Kelly? She's Canadian. She represents Frontline, the Rucks, blonde girl. She did like the Ruck Ultra.
Speaker 4
Okay.
Speaker 2
All right. So we had dinner after the Ranta Howfit shakeout run. Shout out Lauren Rantala and Mark Howe. Onto their shakeout, which 20 miles is an hour and 45 minute drive from the venue. But it was worth it. And she's like trying to she's been trying hard for the number of years since she found DECA to help get it to Canada and make it a big thing and have a real fit there and this and that. And doing her own research and trying to find a venue and just bringing things to the table. Like, hey, here's a venue. Here's a cost. Here's a discount. This will be a great place for America to come over and join us and Canada to get to. And she's like, it's just frustrating. I do all this legwork and be told good idea and stuff. Then goes up the pipe and then, nope, that's not good enough. And like Amber and Zach went through the same stuff. before when they tried to do the same thing. And not just Canada things, but she's like, how many people left? Like we're here because we are too stubborn to leave, but how many people have come with good ideas? Like, yeah, I'll just move on.
Speaker 4
There are too few people who have a larger vision of what this does for people, right? I mean, you're here because it's important for people to be able to have access to this event, but that's not going to ultimately carry it if certain problems aren't solved.
Speaker 2
Correct.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think what unfortunately one of Spartan's weaknesses is, which comes back to the budgetary things, is if someone leaves, right, Spartan typically doesn't replace them. They just give the job to somebody else. So you've now got, as far as I know, like Europe running most of Spartan America and kind of a lot of everything. So, for example, there was an issue this weekend. There was a series race, which Nicole won, and the woman who's supposed to get third place was not there, and they made it a rule. You know how they like to do this where, like, you have to show up to get paid. So, in this case, they're like, well, we didn't tell her she had to be here get third so we'll give her third but we're not going to give her the money that doesn't make
Speaker 2
sense of course why give her the prize like you're not giving the prize why would you give this
Speaker 1
status i guess so um and listen that was the rule they knew the rule they especially knew the rule because it had come up the previous race because to your point the whole reason i'm bringing this up spartan had committed to paying these things on time we're going to pay the series on time uh there's three spartan series in north south and west we're going to pay those on we're going at the races and we're going to pay deca at these three races at the races so that first deca race came and they did it people were shocked but they did it the series came up the southern series and they were like oh we forgot to actually do the math on the back end to give away the money they actually had like they had like the fake checks and everything standing by now someone could in fact do this like i don't know on a piece of paper but they didn't want to do that So they're like, sorry, everybody. So, but it had come up because there were people who went there. And imagine being even more mad. I came here only because I knew I wouldn't get paid and then didn't get paid. So, like, it was in the air that you have to show up. There was already a mulligan about that. So it's her fault for not going, whatever. But the point is that, like, these decisions are being –
Speaker 3
So they're just keeping the money then?
Speaker 2
They're not trickling it down the fourth? Or what did that decision – I didn't pay attention to any obstacle racing stuff this weekend.
Speaker 1
Listen, I have a company called Lops Gracie Media.
Speaker 2
Maybe you've heard of it.
Speaker 1
Okay, before that, I had a staffing company.
Speaker 2
Basically, finding out all the information I'm bringing you today. Before I had a staffing company.
Speaker 1
How cute are Nicole and Logan going to Harry Potter on Broadway? Nicole only won by like 10 minutes, by the way. It was very close. So anyway, good for her. Hasn't raced in a few years. Boop, drops in, picks up three grand.
Speaker 3
That's not bad, right?
Speaker 1
Three grand? It's not nothing for a couple of races. Anyway, where was I going with this? So who's ever making those decisions is probably too busy deciding like, can we do World's Toughest Mudder again next year? Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3
Like it's all combined.
Speaker 1
And that's been my complaint for a long time is they treat it like one brand, which you definitely don't do. That's the opposite of what to do when you have multiple brands and multiple fan bases. You don't treat them all the same. But you back end things that you can do. You back end some production. You back end some HR. You back end some accounting. but you don't front end all the marketing and all the whatever, and that's part of the problem. So her really good idea probably got really high on the list one day, and then it just got buried because there were 20 other fires they were putting out with Spartan, with Tough Mudder, with La Gruta, and then it just sort of fell off, right? So that's probably what happened, unfortunately. Did you see, by the way, that the middle of Canada is getting a deadly dozen? Did you see that? What? Who's doing that?
Speaker 2
What's the middle of Canada? Is that Alberta?
Speaker 1
I know that's kind of west.
Speaker 2
Like Calgary? Calgary's the west.
Speaker 1
Calgary's the west. Name a city. Type in the comments, guys.
Speaker 2
Oh, wait, we're not live.
Speaker 1
What?
Speaker 2
Winnipeg? I only know my Canadian geography based on hockey teams. Professional ones, not the minors. Manitoba? Hang on, I'm asking Chad.
Speaker 1
Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg. It might be Winnipeg. I'm going to look it up on my phone here.
Speaker 2
It's cold there, so hopefully it's in the summertime. Is it Winnipeg? It's pretty far north.
Speaker 1
I'm going to message Jason while we're talking. Jason, he's up. He never sleeps, that guy.
Speaker 4
So Canada's got a race director that's willing to do this because we're having a hard time getting race directors here in the United States.
Speaker 1
Say that again?
Speaker 4
We don't have a race director willing to put on a deadly dozen in the United States right now.
Speaker 1
Well, I was pushing for Kevin, but basically what we need is a financial backer.
Speaker 4
He's holding up Deca. He only has so much bandwidth.
Speaker 1
Listen, listen. I know he could delegate to some of his cohort. He's got a wife. He's got AJ. He's got the whole family of underdogs.
Speaker 4
He has this massive following. They're all wearing the same shirts.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 4
Somebody's got it.
Speaker 1
But do they want to? That's me, actually. But the question is, Do they want to stay with the brand that may never grow and may stay the status quo or hop on this new hot thing called Deadly Dozen Fitness Racing? I think that's the move. If somebody's listening and has a few bucks, we put Kevin in charge. Kevin will do the exact same thing he did for DECA. He'll put it on the map everywhere. Yeah, I'm going to try this thing. But here's what he's going to do.
Speaker 3
But here's what he's going to do.
Speaker 1
He's going to smartly not put on 20 gym events because that's not the answer. And I don't know why Jason still isn't listening to me about that. The answer is not to confuse the market. I spoke with one Chris Roglowski. Perhaps you've heard of her. 2022 World's Toughest Modern World Champion. 2022 IROX World Champion. I said, hey, they're giving away real money at the Deadly Dozen World Championships. You should do one. And she goes, I don't know. Isn't that the really confusing one? There's too many categories. So she didn't know. And she's pretty fucking plugged in. I go, no, no, no. this is just the track race because they're giving away a shitload of money. You probably heard, I'll be over there. You'll, you'll see me doing my amazing coverage that only I can do. Right. Not that only I can do the way I do it anyway. She didn't even know. So in this fictional world that I live in, Kevin, where a million dollars shows up and we, you promote deadly. Don't just put on some amazing at tracks and people be like, Holy shit, this is awesome. It's kind of like high rocks, but not. And I really like it. Am I wrong or am I right? What's going on here? Oh, it sounds good. Cheryl, back me up, damn it.
Speaker 4
We need more races in the United States and in North America.
Speaker 1
I don't care if it's NGC.
Speaker 4
I don't care if it's TRIKA. I don't know what it needs to be. I feel like TRIKA, like if you're going to, if DECA is not going to be able to pull off what they need to pull off to keep things going, TRIKA is a great substitute, right? I know. But we're two years from TRIKA getting here. Yes. but i i will say like the deck of gym events are still i think they're still great i think they're still they're doing that that one with all the in october you've got to be involved in that one
Speaker 2
as everybody else did but because of uh the end of qualification season ending early further than it was originally posted for strong and mile my late september event i canceled and i may or may not do october i haven't decided yet so let's talk about let's talk about what this is
Speaker 1
by the way let's talk about what this is kevin can you explain it in 50 words or less and you
Speaker 4
need to explain the qualification deadline i didn't realize it changed so every year there's a fit
Speaker 2
deadline and there's a mile and strong deadline they're not the same no because fits are different
Speaker 4
you know that this calendar's a little different they give i think they get they don't ever but
Speaker 1
they don't ever adjust it to make it better like sometimes there's an event like the week after so Why don't they just do that? Matt, stop speaking logically. Gym events, I get it. Gym events, it takes weeks and weeks. Fit, there's only one of it, and you control the data of a fit. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2
So the last fit of 2026 qualification season is New York City, which is the end of September.
Speaker 3
26th, I think.
Speaker 2
So originally, this year, because things have changed every year. I don't know if you noticed. Dates have changed. World Champs has changed. dates and months and qualifications have changed from 15 to 12 to 15, 30 to 15, whatever it is. So I'm like always trying to keep my antennas up because when the season ends, I want to make sure all my athletes are qualified in the categories they want to race in and they're able to. And then last year or two years ago, things changed with, oh, if you ran elite, you're not allowed to run age group in the same day, which threw a monkey wrench into a bunch of our planning. um some people got snubbed because they're like well i'm gonna take my elite race obviously sorry uh so that partner is long because you couldn't replace them so the keeping an eye out as i plan my calendar when can i space in five events to host qualification events for 2026 this year before it ended i originally it was the end of september for everything because that's your age at the end of september is your age for the year different than high rocks it's age on the So all the rule differences, like trying to keep them up to date because I don't want to go to chat every time I get asked a question.
Speaker 3
So originally it was the end of September.
Speaker 2
Then it got moved to the 15th. But the 15th or whatever that Sunday night is, is the last weekend qualification for Strong and Mile, which is also the Fort Lauderdale deck of it. Well, I like to go to the deck of it, so I'm not going to be hosting an event in my gym if I'm at deck of it. The weekend before is DC High Rocks and Labor Day weekend. So if I host an event, a bunch of our athletes aren't even going to be here for that. The week before that is something else and something else. And then we have a strong mile on the 15th and 16th of August. So I'm like, I'm not going to do two in two weeks. Does that explain the first question?
Speaker 4
Yes. So second question is, so you've decided to go ahead and hop on this event that they're doing the first weekend in October. possibly not sure yet what is special about that event i think it's just for marketing to have
Speaker 2
everybody or all the gyms in the world to give them a weekend where it's deck a mile only they're going to host this and then deck hq like worldwide is going to award some sort of recognition to whoever runs the best deck of miles for the day and then the gym maybe it's the average um i don't Thanks for pulling that up because I've looked at it, but I don't have it memorized. The gym that has the most participation for that day gets one recognition and then the one that has the best average time, I think. I don't know if it's overall average time or top five average time or whatever. I don't have any doubt we could win the average time one. We might not have the Grayson Kilgore that can run 17 flat, but we have quite a few people that can run pretty fast deck of mile times in pretty dense numbers. So it doesn't matter if I want to host an event that weekend. So how about I read some of the FAQ?
Speaker 1
Okay. The first time I saw FAQ, by the way, in the internet. Did you sound it up? I was like, why does it say FAQ? I still do that. But that's literally what I thought because I was like – this was like in like an alt. Like before, it was like a board. And it was like – I was like – I thought it was a joke. Like a – Ah! It's a bug on my leg. sorry did i sound like a teenage girl i have stacy killer um dude my boys are such boys they take after me when the bugs come like they run and stacy has to kill them it's pretty funny um uh uh you have full flexibility across the three-day event weekend friday october 2nd to sunday october 4th you can run heats across all three days to maximize participation how exactly is the overall gym versus gym winner calculated there will be two categories in which an affiliate gym can win the challenge age group and teams the average of all deca marks oh my god fucking deca marks would you stop it the average of all deca times completed in age groups and teams are calculated the fastest of those average times in each category win can we recruit non-members to compete in our gym yes in fact it is highly encouraged recruiting local talent friends family and neighbors is a great way to bring new faces into your gym non-affiliate gym members will be able to compete at your gym by booking through your gym directly please note only those athletes who are registered members for your gym will count towards your total average those athletes who compete in your gym but who are not members will be counted toward their gyms total i had so many questions just so so i will stop the screen share to say this that this was oh wait we're back in
Speaker 2
in the void where are you guys well we're in the dark in here i'm scared there might be bugs oh
Speaker 1
so how it was explained to me was first of all like i'm not a member of of uh twisted cycle woodstock that i go to they changed the name a few times but i'm gonna go with that one kevin and mandy shout out kevin and mandy laura i'm sure you know yeah i go to their gym their gym's not close to me, but I love them. And so I, I get on my bike and I pedal up there. That's just kidding. I get my car and I drive up there. So, um, I'm not a member, right. Of their gym. So of course I'll like give them credit for it is what like, but what they're saying, which I'm not quite sure how this works though. They were saying like, Oh, the gym down the street from Kevin's, that's not a deck of gym. Joey's fitness box could say, I want to help you by participating in this. here's my 10 members and we're all going to go under Joey's fitness box, which doesn't like make sense to me. Like I thought when they were first saying you don't have to be an affiliate, like, Oh, let's say you have a gym that has Rams, but isn't a fill. You could participate as a way to like, everybody's welcome to this thing, whether you pay us the thousand bucks a month or not, but it's the other way around. They're saying Joe's fitness box can send five members to Kevin's gym and they don't have to be underdog. They can be Joe's fitness box, which I don't see anybody doing.
Speaker 2
I think there's definitely, there's gyms in our area that are not affiliates, but they always come to our event. They train people for a decade. They're not affiliates, but they have a pretty good presence, and we welcome them because we're a lot of big fun.
Speaker 1
But they would submit under your name, though, right?
Speaker 2
They would race here, but when they register, they pick the name of their gym, and then they put their own gym in. So if you look at the race results on any given affiliate page, like when we host an event, you look down. A lot of them are underdog, but there's some other, like, Joe's Fitness Box or whatever, or some people just make up shit.
Speaker 3
Yes. I hope I get an email next week.
Speaker 1
I hope I get an email next week. Dear Matt, I am the owner of Joe's Fitness Box in Connecticut. Thanks for the shout out. You do not have the right to mention my gym name anymore on that gym.
Speaker 4
But that means that if I'm showing up as Joe's Fitness Box, I'm competing with that Joe's Fitness Box team in this event. Just because I show up to your gym, is it going to help you in your numbers? You can't get any winners to come in.
Speaker 2
Correct. The participation, I'm not sure if it's like, oh, I hosted the event. Is the participation of everybody from my event the winner of most participation? Or I don't need to host an event. We have athletes all over the world. Like we'll just go to everyone else's event and we'll win. I didn't have to do any legwork to put on an event. And we'll have the best average time because all of our athletes are competing in their own states and local box local affiliates is that what i'm understanding all right let's go back to
Speaker 1
these questions what does my gym win if we place at the top and now i do understand that if you do a big enough event you would get a lot of members from other gyms like the events i've been to there's only been like 20 30 people and i think they're all just kind of like from wherever so there's never like a single like i think there's three or four that come down from chattanooga which is a power north of this gym, but I guess it does make sense. The Gym vs. Gym event weekend will offer affiliate gyms and their athletes an epic global event experience. For those who win, ultimate bragging rights are on offer, as well as the coveted Golden Ram Trophy will be awarded to the fastest gym and the gym with the highest participation globally. All participants will receive a finisher T-shirt medal and their official Deca mark featured on the global leaderboard.
Speaker 2
Matt, are they going to etch our name in the statue in Greece and Sparta?
Speaker 1
You know? Okay, well, now they've lost me. They've lost me again, guys.
Speaker 2
I'm listening for what's different from a regular event. And so far I hear Golden Ram.
Speaker 1
Electrolytes.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4
Yeah, Golden Ram and bragging rights.
Speaker 2
You already have bragging rights. Okay, that's true.
Speaker 1
sadly gets slightly worse guys i mean i guess it's it's slowly gets slightly worse so you
Speaker 4
stay are you standing by okay i do have something good to say about this eventually i have a i like
Speaker 2
an aspect of it go ahead matt go ahead matt you're so excited to be officially i'm gonna do this in
Speaker 1
my announcer voice all right you ready okay this is this is uh um this is matt davis uh testing for deca announcer to be officially encountered on the deca gym versus gym leaderboard your gym must to have a minimum of 26 individuals racing age group and or 26 individuals racing in teams, totaling 13 teams across the whole event weekend. Without these, your gym will not be a contention of the top pride.
Speaker 4
You're not going to win.
Speaker 2
I like the minimums included. If I race, AJ races, Josh races, Kelly races, and Joe races, our five people are going to put up sub-20s and we're good. But having that many people that are going to create a job race. Instead of us throwing out our all-star squad. Okay. Right, but you've just – Average time.
Speaker 1
But you've just – how about 10? 26 people is a lot of people. 26 people is an entire event for some people. It is.
Speaker 3
It's a lot of people.
Speaker 1
It's too many. It is, and they have to all register properly. So the difference is – I think the difference, what they're saying is, the difference is rather than all do events, one in the spring, one in the summer, one in the fall, let's give you a fall date. you can all do and we'll keep content around it and we'll make it a thing like it does make sense except that they kind of have half the pieces missing is what it the issue of the fall events
Speaker 2
which is why we haven't had any huge ones is it's after qualification ends so it's like it's fine but now we're all in serious training blocks for worlds we're not like let's fly from colorado to connecticut to put a qualifying time in for 18 months from now do it when it matters you know
Speaker 4
like have it be one of the weekends in September where it would make a difference.
Speaker 2
Everybody's participating.
Speaker 4
That's the hard part for us.
Speaker 2
Like I don't mind. I'll do it. I don't care. I'm I'll race every weekend, but us building volume to a, I don't want to say a non-qualifying event, but the timeline is so vast.
Speaker 4
Basically is. Yeah.
Speaker 2
That people are like elsewhere. And also that's right in the mix of all the East coast high rocks.
Speaker 4
Everything going on. It is the weekend of LT games,
Speaker 1
which I will talk about in a minute,
Speaker 4
But there's plenty going on in the fall to be putting this in the fall.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think like many Spartan things, like it has the kernels of potentially being a good thing. It's like almost really a good thing. Like I think they're looking at it kind of like the CrossFit Open. Like, hey, let's get everybody doing a thing, which I know by the way, they hold either monthly or quarterly challenges. Like I've seen them. And it's like this month we're doing this. Those are fun. Whatever times. Fastest times or whatever. But I don't think those really draw crowd unless you tell me different, Kevin.
Speaker 2
I usually put a team together to win individual overall or each category, and then I call it a day because the prizes that we're supposed to get – I'll plead the fifth on this one.
Speaker 3
Okay. I like winning them.
Speaker 2
The bragging rights are definitely there, especially when the gym that's in second is one that we race head-to-head with at Worlds.
Speaker 1
That's awesome. So I think this should be what they do instead of making up the random challenges. Do this once a quarter around the times that people always do them. So what are the typical timelines of the races you and the other big gyms or gyms consistently do, Kevin? What are the months they typically do?
Speaker 2
Well, as an affiliate suggested that I host four events a year, so roughly quarterly. But for me, I'm trying to forward stack them in the year where wintertime is good after January because everyone's in. I got to get in shape. So get a baseline for the beginning of the year. Then sometime in the spring, usually on the earlier end, but far enough out from like January. So that way we had a couple months between. Then an early summer and then a late summer now because fall, like you don't have much September to fit it in.
Speaker 1
So January, April, just give me months here.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, even if you did three, January, April, and July. Or August. But they really should look at their race calendar. And I think there's three fits between New York and Worlds. There's D.C., Atlanta. I feel like there's another one.
Speaker 1
That don't count until the next year's Worlds.
Speaker 2
Correct. Like last year in Knoxville, I'm like, it's cool if you're local, but you're going to fly in to put up a time that doesn't matter for 14 months.
Speaker 1
But, again, remember, they're trying to get people off the couch. They're not just getting people who are trying to get Worlds times.
Speaker 2
I know, but that's how I sell it to my people.
Speaker 1
Right, but I think there is a way to do both. I think it's not that tough to, again, you can change. If you move the calendar forward, as long as it's not back to screw people, people will be thrilled. By the way, we added this event, and we know it's a couple weeks before Worlds, so now it's the final one. Congratulate. All you've done is give yourself more chance. You don't have to say it's unfair to any other country, to Italy, to who. You know what I mean? It's just like, well, listen, that's just how it goes. They added a race. What do you want? If you want to come, come and do it. But otherwise, again, as long as you don't move it backwards, it would be fine. But they're trying to get the masses. I mean, we haven't had a fit since 2021. We had one of the first ones. And at that time, I didn't even know it was going to become a thing. We were at Ragnar that day. We finished our Ragnar and, you know, didn't shower. We just went to this fucking where they do gun shows. This is really, I mean, it was like one degree below. parking lot kmart right it was really bad and it was like 300 people and honestly at that point it was still before hyrax and deca were a thing it was like is this another obstacle race is this tough motor x you know i mean it wasn't a sport yet so it'll be interesting to see how the turnout goes um as i've said before on here aren't two or three affiliates that do that do events here one's in Atlanta, one's where they live, another one, Columbus is like, you know, like basically like Reno to you, you know what I mean? Like nobody, I'm not going to Columbus. There's only three or four. And then those high rocks emails that come out, it's constant in my region. I might see one Georgia and like 10 Floridas. So for some reason, Georgia does not have the fitness bug yet
Speaker 4
for some reason. We have the beltway. Yeah. So Matt, you're breaking up, check your internet. While he's checking his internet, Kevin, what was the thing that you like about this?
Speaker 2
I think the opportunity for a gym, let's say you're in, you're trying to, you're trying to, you see the value in DECA, you see the value for your people, but you also want to build your name and brand globally, or at least regionally. You want your name to show up on things. You don't, you're just getting into it. Being able to put together a nice event and get your name on the leaderboard that's going to build exposure to your brand I think is awesome. And that's really what's drawing me to consider it because we already know that our brand is good, but I feel like if we don't submit a score or like participate, then we're not like you mentioned earlier. Like, why do I, why did I do a live stream and this event and go to all these fits and this and that? Like I'm trying to do everything I can to continue to help do my part to push the brand forward. So I think when I talk to gyms and like, well, how do you make so much money from DECA? I'm like, well, I actually use the stuff that they give you. I have like I go to events, I host events. There's other things, other gyms that have big member bases that are local do with charging for quarterly challenges or they're better with vendors and getting sponsored, getting sponsored money from vendors and stuff like that. So utilizing the stuff that's already there, especially as a newer brand or an up-and-coming brand perhaps. And then the test, last year, they called it a regional face-off or something. There was a gym in Ohio that hosted an eight-lane Degastrung that was a few weeks before World Champs. And going there to test myself against other people in my age group or whatever, it definitely had potential. It didn't get as big as I know that they wanted. But DECA's strong. We're never racing against five people at once.
Speaker 3
So being able to sit in that allows you to have that competitiveness.
Speaker 2
And I think if this can promote an event and get more people to it where you can go head-to-head, that's good. But most gyms have one lane or two lanes. They're running a time trial anyway. So the comparative, like put a time up and see where it stands against everybody on that day. I think it's redundant against the global leaderboard. What do you think about – why don't you do it on a cruise ship? I don't own a cruise ship. I've never been on a cruise ship, and I don't have the budget to take the team on a cruise ship.
Speaker 4
Wash your hands. Wash your hands a lot. Just a thought.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, Pat Lever is going to let me know how the cruise ship is because he won High Rocks World Championships in the 70-74 age group, and he's taking his ticket, and he's going. So I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 4
Don't we all want to know? we all want to know how this is going to, I mean, this is going to be the story of the century is how that cruise goes. I have one thing to say about this event before we move on. Okay. I love the idea of just trying to team up and, and next time you talk to, are you trying to get attention while I'm talking?
Speaker 1
I want to see if I could do something with the camera lens. Okay.
Speaker 4
Can I keep talking? Sorry. All right. Jesus, like, all right. Next time you talk to Matt Halfhill, talk to him about his idea that High Rocks really should have a team aspect where gyms can compete against each other at these events, where people stay around and cheer on their teams to be able to see who can have the best average time or cumulative time or something like that. I mean, we really are missing that. all too often this is just an individual sport and i think any attempt to make it to where we're all sort of cheering each other on i think is just another level that would be really cool and he's really he's thought it through i think he's got a really good idea and it isn't even something that hyrox would have to do like you could just have an app that everybody joined or whatever to then be able to take all that data and compare times and i don't know bragging rights all that sort of
Speaker 2
thing i think it would be fun remember spartan used to do that i know nor'easter ocr was the first team i was ever part of with kelly sullivan and nathan oriel and kieran mccormick and it would automatically populate and jim on the website yeah yeah you would and it would sort yeah it would show you your your teams everyone from your team that was registered and then your score was like
Speaker 3
the average of your best four athletes or whatever right or the fastest six or something whatever the
Speaker 2
number was. And so we'd send 15 people to a Spartan race and we'll like, all right, hopefully Mike Miraglia runs really well and wins the race, but I'm just hoping to contribute to the team by getting one of the top four times and like, uh, to contribute. So, Hey, I know, listen, I know you
Speaker 1
got to go and we haven't talked about the bike thing. So can we quickly talk about the bike thing?
Speaker 2
Sure. All right. The Matt half hill idea. Cool. I don't know how it would do, but the data is all there so it's all there wouldn't be hard yep gotta identify who's on what team all right what do you want to know about the bike you want me to tell you from top to bottom stepper just just tell people what people are concerned about all right everyone's worried the bike's probably harder they don't know how it works all you need to know is it's easier is it breaking up by the way only for you matt yep all right give me one give me one second hold on don't say maybe you and i are
Speaker 4
actually breaking up and he's not.
Speaker 2
Maybe we're the problem.
Speaker 3
Just don't say anything for 30 seconds.
Speaker 2
Don't say anything for 30 seconds. Hang on. You good? You were frozen for the whole time. We couldn't tell if you started breathing again. Well, I think I've solved it. Go ahead. All right. So bike, step R.
Speaker 3
Step R?
Speaker 2
Stepper. Stepper bike. I would go with stepper. Sure. But there's no ER at the end, so it's like step with an apostrophe. You need to know there's a gear shifter that you can't see what gear you're on until you press start. So the bikes are in calm mode. You press start. Then the screen populates. You shift into the gear that you want, which I'll just tell you, you can figure it out for yourself. But if you're an average person, three is fine. If you're a bike superstar, five is probably your best bet. Any higher is not going to work. If you're Dustin Needham, he doesn't follow this strategy. He just goes on one, rips at 170 RPMs, and eventually he'll get done. But it's faster than his bike used to be. So if you were really, really good at the bike, if you hit a five, you're probably going to hit your same time. If you used to be really bad at the bike, you're probably going to shave off 30 seconds, just use a three. If you go too high, you're going to use energy. It's not going to help. And you won't be as fatigued when you get off either way. That's my 30-second elevator pitch on the bike.
Speaker 1
Should anybody in another company in another country using another bike be upset? Big deal or no deal or little deal?
Speaker 2
I think it's off. I mean, I don't know what. I've never been on one of their bikes. So maybe they've been getting the benefit of having an easy bike for a long time. So I'm not a fan of the easier bike because it takes my home run hitting ability away. Now I'm just hitting line drives in the gap so I can improve by 20 seconds over somebody else. But the thing is, the Likens, even with a lower damper for the ski in a row, they still seem to take more out of you. I don't know because they're brand new, but having them here in the gym and practicing, like when I raced with Lauren, I was holding like a 135 on the row, which is not usually my doubles pace. with zach i was 129 but i was exhausted coming off that where with the c2 i can hold 124 and come off and feel better than a 129 and that's why i had like 135 of aure and i'm like i'll save it i'll make it up on everything else and the ski as well not to mention the monitors take three four or five pulls to get kicked on and you can't touch the handles before your partner tags you so despite what you may have seen from a reel that may have been up for an hour or two um you can't touch the
Speaker 1
handles only the buttons before you get to i did hear you say it will start if you press on it'll start on the third pull if you don't press on it'll start at the fifth pull is that the same thing that concept two does because i never turn those on either i just grab it so is it a number of pulls i just thought it was like half a second but i thought it counted what you what you did
Speaker 3
lichen definitely doesn't count like you're like five holes in and then you finally get your first
Speaker 2
calorie or your first meter this does concept two it's faster if you hit if you hit enter and then start it registers quicker and you can turn your monitor on that's within the rules but with concept two that first pull will count if your monitor's on and you press just row or just ski um it'll pick up right away with the lichen they posted a video on thursday if you hit enter three times on the monitor it will register sooner i didn't but but that's taking longer anyway i mean if you're standing there and doubles like i cool i can hit it a hundred times but in solo you arrive you're already reaching for the damper you're fitting fiddling with your foot straps you're trying to get everything done as fast as possible but then you still sit down and you're like okay i'm five pulls in and I still have zero. So the time we make up on the bike, we're losing on the urge. So I think net worldwide, we're fine. We're back in the same boat. And that's that with the conjunction of like the stricter enforcement of like full extension on the knees with lunges and burpees. I think that's why you're not seeing like the better or like deck of fit times, breaking more records or the average decadent elite time like going lower from year over year
Speaker 1
but weren't we saying they had easier machines anyway wasn't that the beef last year that their that their machines were way easier wasn't there a whole thing with that just well there's you see
Speaker 2
two stuff so for herbs but for the bike yeah it looked like that bike that they had in england was or whatever country spain england maybe china too it was a schwinn it looked yeah the schwinn's we know, Americans, Schwinn's are way too generous with their calories. That's why they're not approved here, but they're not called Schwinn in Europe. I don't know the brands that they have over there. I haven't ridden any European bikes. I should have done it when I went for World's Toughest.
Speaker 1
Do you want to quickly talk about racing with the GOAT and then we'll let you go because I know you said you had to go at 6.30.
Speaker 2
Yes. Any specific questions you'd like me to touch?
Speaker 1
I'm sure Cheryl does.
Speaker 2
Is she as nice as she seems? Yeah, she's 100% nice.
Speaker 3
I know.
Speaker 2
It's funny, as fierce of a competitor as she is and as driven as her face is when she's competing, even while we're competing, we're communicating and she's still very polite. Like, hey, I'm on your left hip height for the tag. And I'm like, wow, I thought I was a good communicator in teams. That is awesome. I'm like, on your left, wave over here. like so like learning being that experience is super cool like okay i can be more uh deliberate with my my vocal guidance to my partner and whatnot but um before after everything like when i found she was on the starting list i was like hey if you're coming to chicago do you want on teams and her response was i if i can make it happen i'm running elite then i'm racing with janelle so if i can fit it in and i'm looking at a two-hour window with an awards ceremony right in the middle. I'm like, women's, like 45 minutes, then awards. Then we have like an hour and 15 minutes until the day's over. But she was super cool with, she's like, oh, let's just figure out how to make it work. And then Janelle too. Also the three of us were chatting at the women's finish. Like, do you guys want to go first? Or do you want me to go first? Or like, what's going to be best? Like both of us are going to put up qualifying times, but do you want to go first with no break or do you want me to go and then janelle gets a break and then lauren she's not getting a break anyway but the whole interaction and peace was super cool and then between the women's elite finish janelle and her finishing us going to the starting line us finishing like lauren spent every minute that she wasn't on the race course like shaking hands kissing like not kissing babies that's well maybe taking pictures of everybody answering questions like i'm like do you want you want me to grab you water hydration because you're going to race again like she was just super nice about hey i have someone that i want you to meet hey come meet lauren like just truly like one for the people so all the rumors about her being the nicest person are absolutely true and she's like i love deck i'd want to race more of them and just schedule wise and training wise but just great
Speaker 4
ambassador for the sport and whatnot so yeah she really seems to to care about this and i know she and Yancy have a really great relationship, but it's nice to know that you can learn something
Speaker 2
after all this time, you know? Yeah. I live in my own world and perspective. So being able, and I do learn something racing with different people all the time, whether it's someone that's haphazard and they're scatterbrained. And I'm like, okay, I gotta, if I race with someone like that, I gotta reel them in and keep them focused. But she's so dialed in and raced at the highest level in teams races with, with a variety of other great athletes. So to, to just take those are, that's what i was excited about like number one everybody has the same feeling when we go to the starting line with anybody i don't want to let my partner down and we both express that to one another and i'm like i don't need to break any records let's just we'll put up a time it'll be
Speaker 1
amazing we'll have fun and if you go to worlds then maybe we can run it back wasn't there he
Speaker 2
doesn't till doesn't want to hear you say that till who's till high rocks commentator who likes world records oh yeah yeah that that's so i got you um but yeah i had another thought and then you derailed
Speaker 1
me but i'm sorry buddy i do that i do that sometimes i jab in with a joke and sometimes it fucks people up but i you know i take my shots i think you made the wrong analogy though with your thing about about home runs wouldn't it just be like more people hit home runs not your home runs
Speaker 2
become triples no i think what i meant by that if i explain it better maybe you'll understand my perspective i used to gain a minute and 15 seconds on my opponents by smashing the bike that way now i'll gain 30 seconds so instead of it being like a big game-changing hit it's like okay i'm just working my way back into the race right where everybody everybody's gonna hit a hit a line drive to the outfield mine's i'm just i think yeah okay maybe i understand i understand all right dude thanks for coming on thanks for having me cheryl thanks for sending your uh other best athlete of uh las vegas to chicago to race with me and and matt thanks for having me see you buddy
Speaker 1
bye guys bye all right there he goes those bubbles that was it um so i feel like i was something i was going to ask you that i already forgot um i already forgot you want to refer to
Speaker 4
our list sure i mean we talked a lot about deca i think we're good on deca but some stuff happened in high rocks and lt games is supposed to start registration this week and i have heard nothing about it i'm supposed to be able to register tomorrow and there's been no communication whatsoever i signed up for a mailing list and nobody's heard a thing uh i'll send a message right now that makes us people nervous they don't realize that our whole lives are you know hanging on it right but that's the thing like you know do we have to listen that the the level of attention and detail that these LT folks put toward this event. I mean, Wes and Connor, you know, their whole team, it's just, it's such a great event. And then somebody's dropping the ball for them and is not getting. Yeah. I can't, again, it's like these, these, these own goal mistakes that
Speaker 1
I always say that I, that fucking baffle me, you know, today ethics is like, guess what this week We're going to announce the workouts, right? And then USA, they've still got a fucking TBC on venue and date. It's like, okay. I've been saying that since March. Glad it's important to you. Glad it's important to you.
Speaker 4
So I work out at LT at least twice a week because their treadmills are spectacular. And so I always do, especially during the summer, I do my treadmill workouts there. And they've got the bank of TVs. And, you know, they've got the sports on. and we're watching the World Cup and all that sort of things and that sort of thing. But there's also an LT TV, right, where it's all just lifetime advertisements. So it's women love big diamonds, or it's, you know, get your teeth done by this doctor, 'cause you know, these folks are different, right? They're very fancy folks. But in that, there are LT events that they advertise. They're currently advertising the Miami Half Marathon that they put on. They're advertising the Miami Turkey Trot. There are zero, zero advertisements for LT games.
Speaker 1
And they still do Leadville, don't they?
Speaker 4
Yes, they did. There's a great gravel bike race in Utah that they do. Like they have some really excellent events and zero information. People don't even know what it is. So there's this giant kind of weak link that's really, really strange. And it's very frustrating because some of us would like to be able to, you know, schedule our calendars and so forth. So shout out to, you know, Wes for making a great event. And then I don't know who we need to talk to that are dropping the ball on him.
Speaker 1
Well, and I just quickly, I'll just show you this. I just quickly looked up Leadville and look at all these races they do.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
This is just the Leadville series plus these training camps. And it says lifetime over here, as you can see. And what's interesting is when I first was brought on, when I was first brought on for this, it was our owner, president, whatever is so about this initiative because he loves fitness and he loves it. Like it was this whole big fucking deal. And it's like, again, it's like you don't know where like on the corporate agenda, it just got pushed down and we're doing these 27 other things and we're going to sell more reformer classes and who knows what else. And for some reason, me and you and Matt Halfhill are like the only people like beating the drum of like, hey, people with money. You want to make some fucking you want to make some money in fitness racing? Because, I mean, I just heard I just heard from another and yet another race series this time somewhere in the Middle East. Looks like they have another X in their name. We'll have a call. We'll see if they have money. We'll see if you want to bring me. But everybody in the world seems to understand this thing is happening. um but we'll let's jump back to high rocks uh we forgot to we forgot to talk to bubbles about this new head judge thing which um i'm bummed about so you can speak to what you can speak to about it because i know your husband did it so whatever he permitted you to say publicly it's not secret so i don't know why we couldn't talk about it anyway but um uh the first thing i want to say is i sent it for this thing called rocks radar i'm sure you've seen them they're in your feed constantly, hey, sign up for notifications. And it was like 15 bucks a month, pick three races. And I was like, fine. And the first thing was- What does it mean pick three races? Like you're watching for three races? Sorry. We will notify you when tickets become available, which I personally was trying to find a way to write code for a couple of months ago. I was asking chat. I was like, hey, when you go on the site, there's got to be a way to show like the difference between like, like zero and one. And can you like, could I set that up? Could I hire someone to write that code? And they were like, probably depends. But you know, these, all these people scrape high rock shit all the time. So I assumed it was possible. I thought it might be a little different with buying tickets. Anyway, these guys figured it out. They're like, pick three races. Now, if I'm going to pick high rocks, Denver, I'm going to ask when men's doubles are available and when mixed doubles is available however my 15 only covers like three races period so like if i think that would be two of the three and i'm like well that sucks okay by the way i wrote them about that they instantly changed it oh yeah so now the same cost covers i think five so that was the way to solve it i said why not just give people the whole race i don't think see why you wouldn't just do that. Like I might want to race solo. I might want to race solo pro. Like why not just say, let me know when anything's available. So sure enough, I get an email 309 PM. There's something available for, for high rocks, Denver mixed doubles. I fucking texted you. You said, go for it. I bought it and three 11, I had a ticket. And so I wrote them and I said, are you being notified? Like when a batch gets it, they go, Nope. As soon as one is available. So I don't know how it works with high rocks. Like when they get, like when I then canceled, our fucking Wednesday Dallas
Speaker 4
we never want to do it. We never open up Dallas.
Speaker 1
Does that mean it's now immediately open? Like, I don't know how the tech works. The point is I'm shouting them out. It would behoove me to not shout them out because the more people use this, the less likely I am to get a ticket. But I am not selfish and I want people to be able to get their fucking tickets. So use RuxRadar. I think for 50 bucks, you get like unlimited. I don't know. I might do unlimited.
Speaker 4
It works. Well, as much money as we're spending. Look, the week before you texted me about Denver, I get a message from Jabari House, our friend of the program. And he sends me, I think it was, I can't remember if it was Dallas. I can't remember which one that he had. He said, look, this is open. Do you think this is legit? And I don't trust anybody, right? Like I didn't know what this was. And I said, I have no idea. And in the course of our conversation about this open ticket that he had been able to score or that he was going to be able to score, it disappeared. Like it had gone out enough that somebody snatched it up. And so it was immediately gone. And he's like, well, there goes that. But I had never heard of it before in my life. And so when you texted me, I thought, well, you know, if he wants to take the risk, I still haven't gotten an email to fill up personalization, but we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1
I thought I'd written it to you.
Speaker 4
No, I'm always, you know how I'm terrified that they're not going to have the right email address and it's going to ruin everything, right?
Speaker 1
You told me to give a very specific email address, so I did it.
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah. So anyway, but yeah, it's clearly getting out that this is the way to get tickets. And I love that idea, right? So the fact that it works, I think I'd pay the 50 bucks. If I was really, really into getting into races right now, I'd definitely pay the 50 bucks. And I think for somebody like you who travels to a lot of them and just wants to hop in, do a fun doubles or something like that, it's a great option.
Speaker 1
well i mean uh rocks radar right i can't r-o-x-a-r-d-i i can't even get fucking i can't even get fucking uh spectator tickets sometimes so it's like um yeah well worth it so shout out rocks radar it worked um the other thing we're going to talk about is uh portland and seattle on the docket
Speaker 4
wednesday the dates are coming out uh portland and san diego not seattle sure are you going to make Phoenix and Las Vegas mistakes with San Diego and Seattle. Oh, God. Because I don't think they're doing Seattle because they've got Vancouver, don't you think?
Speaker 1
Well, Vancouver, by the way, did you see? It's Christmas week again.
Speaker 3
They're like, so congratulations.
Speaker 1
You learned nothing from last year, and I don't think it'll be that way. But who knows? Maybe it will be. Maybe... Am I slow? Is it being slow to you?
Speaker 4
Yeah, you're being a little slow.
Speaker 1
Still fucking up. You seem better. Well, move on completely. Hello.
Speaker 4
Yeah. A little bit.
Speaker 1
Okay. Kevin just sent me notes on judging. You ready?
Speaker 4
Yeah. Should we preface this about what's been going on this past week? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. Okay. But I thought, are the notes about what happened last week?
Speaker 1
Oh, let's back up. Schedule's coming out Wednesday. Portland and San Diego on the docket, along with all the usual suspects. By the time we record next week, we'll be able to dive into the whole schedule, which I currently know, but is not coming out until Wednesday.
Speaker 4
Are we going to know majors or elite series races by then?
Speaker 1
I know those as well. I don't know if they're announcing that.
Speaker 4
And then I may or may not.
Speaker 1
I may or may not. We'll see how I feel about that.
Speaker 4
All right.
Speaker 1
What was going on last week? Can you give me a hint what you mean?
Speaker 4
Well, I guess you say that Kevin's got notes about judging. And my husband and I spent the better part of an evening trying to help him navigate a probably 10-page application with essays to be a...
Speaker 1
Yeah, so this is what I want to talk about.
Speaker 4
This is the notes he sent me. Right. And so I'd be curious to hear about his notes on what he thinks about it. This is what he said.
Speaker 1
I'm reading it exactly. Quick. He says, because I just said, hey, I forgot to ask you. They sent an interest form out via the WhatsApp judges group. They sent out applications to who they wanted to apply with a detailed hierarchy of a development plan. Assistant RD, regional head judge, rotational head judge, leads head judge, head judge, judge. That may not be exact, but that's close. The selected head judges will have required training courses to complete before assignment. Head judges will get paid and assigned locally. Regionals will be comped for travel to lead at other regional events. So my understanding is it's like 200 or 250 per shift with no travel for certain judges. Other judges, the rate's slightly less. It's like 175, but they get their travel paid for. So that's what I know of. I know that Kevin applied. I know that your husband applied, and that's all I know.
Speaker 4
And I don't know when we're going to hear back, but for us, it's going to change our lives if he gets this gig. Change our lives? Yeah, yeah. I mean, as far as right now, he just follows me to races, and then he just judges. The way he became a head judge initially was we were going to Chicago, and somehow he connected with Lauren Rontala, who was working for High Rocks at the time. And so she just got him in. And he was one of the elite judges for one of the first majors. Like the guy, zero training. They just plopped him in there.
Speaker 1
But a fitness background.
Speaker 4
Oh, kind of. I mean, he's buff. I wouldn't say that he knows much. I mean, to be perfectly honest, he's just always gone to the gym. So you wouldn't say he would be a good guy to guess wall ball form? he had to learn what good wall ball form is. I mean, his great superpower is, is that if you teach him that he will do his job. Right. And so it worked great for him, but they, they put him in as an elite judge and he was, uh, he judged a number of majors. Um, and then since I think as high rocks has grown, uh, he's usually just a head judge. He's usually a head judge at wall balls, but oftentimes they'll make him a rotational head judge where he'll move around. But again, Has he had any formal training? The answer is no. Do they know anything about his background? No. Could he be an axe murderer? They never asked, right? Like they didn't know anything about these guys. Anybody could just sort of sign up. And it was always interesting for me to see some of the people who ended up being head judges didn't seem to have kind of what High Rocks was looking for as far as why they were doing it. I would overhear conversations in the group chat that I was, or in the judge's training that I was sort of surprised that people would say some things that they did. And it was very clear that there was no kind of overarching philosophy about what all these guys were going there to do. And so here comes this application process where they want to know who you are and they want to know an awful lot about you. I mean, it's not just why do you want to be a high rocks judge, but tell us every race you have judged and what capacity you judged in. And so we were combing through the calendar trying to come up with all of that. Tell us about a time when an athlete was upset with you and how you handled it. Tell us about a time that you made a mistake and how you fixed it. Like they want to know kind of an extensive background about your experience as a judge. And yes, I do believe a test will be coming and you are going to have to pass that test. They want the North American judges to be, I think, the highest quality in the world.
Speaker 1
Well, I assume this is happening everywhere, no?
Speaker 4
I don't think this is happening everywhere. I think this is Tiffany Peltier's vision that I think it's coming down. I don't get the impression that this is anything but North America and that I may be incorrect in that. And so somebody could correct me. But this was her vision last spring. She pulled some of the head judges aside and was telling them that this is what she was trying to get to have happen.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 4
And so I think we're now doing this. Right. So now we're waiting to see. There are like four or five regions. There's West Coast. There's, you know, Middle America. There's East Coast. There's Canada. So, for instance, he would be in charge of any he would be able to go to any race in in the West Coast region. Right. which goes over to like Arizona, Colorado, but not into Texas, right? So it would be sort of all the West Coast. So we would be up for, you know, Portland, Anaheim, Phoenix, Las Vegas.
Speaker 1
You might end up in all of them.
Speaker 4
So they asked how many. I think that if you're going to be a regional head judge, you need to be able to go to between like three and five at least. But there is the option to go to all of them. And if there is like a major event, I think they might pull you no matter what region that's in. they would pull you in so that they would have the requisite staff to handle the load.
Speaker 1
No, but I'm saying you might end up at that entire West coast contingent. As far as him,
Speaker 4
him working at,
Speaker 1
if they put him in Anaheim, San Diego, Portland, Vancouver.
Speaker 4
Well, not Vancouver, that's Canada.
Speaker 1
So Salt Lake city, Salt Lake city, right. Denver.
Speaker 4
Yes. Phoenix.
Speaker 1
But all those races,
Speaker 4
Phoenix. Yeah. I don't think they're requiring him to do that. They would, they would still ask him, you know, it would still be, it would still be up to him whether or not he could make it, but they're going to require at least some, right. He's not going to be able to pick and choose just the ones I race at. So I may be following him to races sometimes and judging because I could be a volunteer. I wouldn't be able to be a head judge. Would you want to do that? If I'm not racing? Sure. I would love the experience. Give me SkiErg or something though. You know, I'm far too nice. Like I'm not going to be able to do wall balls. I'd be just too, I'd be too happy for them. Right. Just keep going. You can go, you can go check Mark.
Speaker 1
You can go.
Speaker 4
Just wave them through. But yeah, I just think it's just going to be a lot more locked down and it's not going to be who, you know, and we're going to know their credentials. We're going to know that they have.
Speaker 1
This is what we wanted. This is what we've wanted for a long time.
Speaker 4
This is, this is, this should have been done three years ago. It's time that every judge that's wearing a black shirt, we know who they are.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I get that when they started, they were looking at it like an event. In an event, you need volunteers, right?
Speaker 3
Registration, hand out water.
Speaker 1
And they're like, oh, shit, we need a real. Although I should ask Christian because Christian did build this whole triathlon thing. And I wonder how much like volunteers versus like technical directors or stuff you need that rules stuff that you need for triathlons.
Speaker 4
Because that's what he did before this. Yeah. So look, I think it's going to be tiered. I think by the time it trickles down to somebody like me who's just there for a shift just to help out, I would suspect that they're going to get training on how to train me. So hopefully it's just a lot more organized. I do feel like every year the judging gets better. Right. And I just think this is just going to help it be that much better. And so when the major comes to the United States, wherever it's going to be, I think, you know, we're going to have a we're going to have a great team and it's going to go well. And maybe we won't have some random conversation about something ridiculous happening because people have a little more training this time. I don't know. I was very encouraged. And literally, I felt like the application was just to weed out the people who weren't willing to dot the I's and cross the T's.
Speaker 1
Right. That's always the first. Yeah, that's always the first step.
Speaker 4
Yeah. It took him days to get it done.
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's the first step. It's like, will this person actually do the thing? So good for Tiffany. Good for them. This sounds great. This sounds like I'm moving the right direction.
Speaker 4
Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's kind of a great, it's a great pattern for how they could just do it all around the world if they aren't already.
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, I think that's everything. And we're at the magic 90 minute mark, which is kind of what we like to do to, right?
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah. Especially when your internet's kind of glitchy.
Speaker 1
So annoying. Plus now look at me. I look like shit. I haven't shaved today. And when I've got the good lighting and the headphones, you don't see that my hair isn't made up. So now everyone, this is me in all my glory.
Speaker 4
Yeah, we like you anyway. Don't worry. All right, Cheryl. I think that's it. Yeah, nice to talk to you. All right, say goodnight, Gracie. Goodnight, Gracie.