Athletes in Motion Podcast - EP 016 2021 Year End Wrap up

Narrator: 0:10

Welcome to the athletes in motion podcast from race to recovery. With your hosts, Tom Regal, and Kenny Bailey.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:28

Hey, Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:29

I'm great. Kenny, how are you today?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:30

I'm doing well. Thank you for asking.

Tom Regal: 0:32

Outstanding! Well, this is it. We've, this is our last show for 2021. Yeah. We've had a great year. Some amazing guests. So we're doing a little wrap up today. We wanted to talk about, of course, the past year. What we've got coming up for next year on our personal races and all that stuff. And then what we want to do for the podcast next year, because we want to have some more fun with this.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:56

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, 15 episodes this year, which is, we're pretty excited about and every one of those episodes, were just a neat conversation to learn about the person learn about sort of what it's like for people to go through their journey, how they kind of embrace challenges, how they embrace victory, how they kind of, you know, lived their their journey. It's, it's, it's a neat conversation to have with them.

Tom Regal: 1:26

Yeah. And I think I'm very proud of what we put together. It's been a learning curve, for sure. But I think we covered a lot of topics and subjects and people that was just not one, you know, one line. And that broad scope, I think, gave us a lot to work from and and to learn from I learned a ton from all of our guests. We had some amazing, amazing guests on.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:48

Yeah, in it. To your point, it crossed a variety of things, right. We've had professional athletes, we've had people that have had high accolades, we've had Olympic swimmers, pro bodybuilders, we've had people that are, that are accomplished. But we've also had people on the show that are accomplished in their own way right there. Their journey is just as important, just as fun and just as, as as great to listen to and to learn from. So that's exciting, too. I think you're right, having that ability to be able to talk to a wide variety people on topics we you know, there are certain topics I didn't know a whole lot about. Oh, yeah. A lot of topics I don't know about.

Tom Regal: 2:28

Yeah, what were? Well, we love to all of them. So we're not going to go down, you know, specific favorites. But what were some of the things that you learned what was what was something that popped out?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:36

Yeah, that's a good question. I think. You know, I'll mention a couple of them by name just as an example. But the one that that kind of stuck out a little bit for me. I think a couple of them are the theme is this sort of going and trying to achieve a goal getting that setback, what are you going to do? How do you react to that? Keionta Davis, playing football right, here he is high school athlete, one of the best in the nation blows a knee out. Everything's gone now. Right? All the scholarships are gone. What does he do? He gets back in goes to college, rebuilds himself gets to the pinnacle of college. Another injury is that it? No, goes to the professional be able to when a superbowl still makes it still still makes it to the professional levels at the highest level. Yeah. That journey is kind of a theme of what we've heard from folks. Yeah. Gerell Webb is you know, same way but it just the way that tenacity of you know going trying to make it into the into the league can't quite get there, but then turns around has an incredibly successful career as, as a trainer as a coach as a motivational person. That drive of Look, I know it's a setback, but we're moving forward. Yeah, it's great.

Tom Regal: 3:53

And listening back on some of these episodes, as I've edited through them and gotten them all set up. I I still listen to Gerell's, and we got so excited during that. He had us totally pumped and jazzed that whole episode. We were like, yeah, the levels on the recording were off the chart! it's just

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:09

like the guys are walking. Yes. Yeah, he's a walking poster of like, motivation

Tom Regal: 4:12

Just being in the room with him. Just gave you that burst of hey, this is all awesome, thanks. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was it was yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:18

it helped me personally. I mean, I went back got that same Yeah, I got that same motivation, obviously, and I was thinking about that I was training for, you know, training for an Ironman this year. And, you know, I had places where I just was feeling not there. And I just remember him going, you know, Hey, man, you know, the journey is, is is the thing. It's not necessarily the endpoint. Yeah, yeah. I think Ryen Reed was ridiculous in the fact that here's a woman that's I mean, I couldn't the the ability for somebody to know that they're getting a degenerative disease and it's going to take that function away. Yeah. And be able to say, You know what, I'm going to do something different and become top of their game. That's, that's a yeah, those are those are stories like to like to hear those are stories that we're blessed to be able to talk to these people to just hear how they've done. And hopefully you folks have yeah, Ryen's story I was so glad she was able to join us and be on there because that that whole and I said it in the, in the episode itself that opened my eyes to challenged athletes and what they need to go through the just just the daily, the daily life, and then trying to get to a race. It's just an insane. So I was super happy that she was able to join us on that one. Yeah, and I think the other ones that were that kind of popped out to your point, there's challenge athletes, you know, being able to understand and and why lock them on, but to be able to be in their place and try to understand sort of where they're coming from. The other one that really that, you know, that got to me was was Christie Beth's story about complete ignorance on my part, because I don't, I don't need to worry about it. I'm a, you know, fairly good sized man. But you know, the fact that women are harassed, repeatedly, and often when they're just trying to do a run to me, I kind of knew it, you know, I kind of knew it was out there. But having that really front and center and learning about that was, you know, was eye opening. And it's both depressing and inspirational at the same time. depressing that that actually has to happen and inspirational, that there's people out there trying to make it better. Yeah. That one, really, I mean, that one really hit home for me, just because, you know, my wife runs, you've got your wife runs, you know, we, you know, we, you know, majority of have people sign up for a half marathon or women now. And the fact that that has to happen, that has to be another thing that they have to worry about, not just the physical, hey, I have to train for something they don't get that freedom, you know, because their risk of Yeah, of that always right there.

Tom Regal: 6:58

Interesting story I just thought of later that summer so that that episode was way back in May, I think it was. Back in August or September, sometime I was running through the neighborhood, doing my usual jog. It's a short, short run, nice, nice, quiet neighborhood. There's a runner, the next street it tees off. And she's she's coming down the road, she sees me, waves, turns and starts running towards me. Right. So she's coming towards me in the meantime, in the background is a delivery truck, a big box truck kind of kind of coming through. And she comes over and she goes, I'm so sorry to bother you run. She goes but this truck drove by me and waved and was really waving at me and then slowed down and stopped. And she just said, Not today. Not today. She just said I'm so sorry. But can you can you I said let's just turn and walk. Yeah, you want to run together? You want to? I felt great that she felt safe with me. Yeah. I don't know her. I've never met her before she lives in a neighborhood. But the fact that that happened, and she snapped to that right away that this box truck said hi. Slowed down right in front of her. It turns out they were making a delivery to that house. Yeah. But still, but still. Yeah, that's the first thing that went through her mind. And that was all I kept thinking backwards to Christie Beth. And when she was talking about our conversation there was like, I'm like, wow, this is yeah, this is big.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 8:20

Yeah. And the more we can get it out there, the more we can talk about it, the more we can hopefully, yeah. Make it safe for everybody but find it find ways what can we do and just increase working on and increase your sensitivity? Increase your awareness? Yes. Like people like, you know, that we need to make sure that we, you know, I admit I run angry, right, I run you know, I run? Yeah, like leave me alone. But I net, but I never really thought about, you know, if I'm on a trail, how does that look? Yeah, the other way? Yeah, I just don't want people talking to me, because I'm trying to get my workout in there. At the same time, I could be exuding a false narrative that may like a piano turn around. So you know, being more sensitive to how others are, I think, you know, I think that's a really, we're really blessed to be able to have that kind of conversation with people. Yeah, yeah, definitely. What about you?

Tom Regal: 9:11

Trying to think there was so many. I mean, I was super, super glad to have our swimming trio on coach Stuart's just been a game changer for me. And I think I'm hopefully paying it forward by helping other people get into that same boat with the swimming because it was just horrible for me and and I missed those guys back in back in California to because swimming with them was inspirational and that level I mean, just watching them and they were so friendly and so helpful. It was really a team atmosphere that I'm I learned a lot from so I'm glad we were able to share their story and come off with that that as well cuz they're just they're just fun people. Yeah, really aren't good people. That's neat.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 9:51

Yeah, I really enjoyed listening to him too. I mean, just jealous of their ability. See, yeah, oh, someday

Tom Regal: 10:02

we keep making improvements. And that was one thing, a coach who's always put in our heads. And that's the thing I try to pay for play forward on that sense is that we're never finished, right? I've always looked at myself as a work in progress athletically, personally, any of that stuff. So any slight improvements I can make, I'm not looking to hit it out of the park right away. I'm trying to do a lifetime. Hopefully, it's a longer lifetime, and that I can just slowly get better at things back to the safety issue and awareness and dealing with people and all of that other things. Just keep improving on those those types of things.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:33

And just, you know, keep moving right? Or challenge yourself. I mean, one of the things that was interesting in our first episode with Copernicus, right, bodybuilder, thought he just go run a marathon like you do, right? So here's a person that's in their comfort zone. Yeah. Decided to say, look, I'm going to be completely outside of my comfort zone. And I'm going to go try something that I, you know, technically shouldn't be doing. I'm a bodybuilder I shouldn't be running long distances. And he did it anyway. And I think he grew and learned from it, where he didn't extend his existing sort of ability, but he decided to challenge something completely new.

Tom Regal: 11:07

And it made him a better trainer from that. I made a whole ton from that. So each experience that we throw out ourselves as how we grow. Yep, we throw that stress out there. And then we grow from that.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 11:16

Yeah. And Danny Dyer's. Oh, yeah. was great. Right. Another another one. You're supposed to be this. You're supposed to be thin you're supposed to be? Yeah. You know, this is what you're supposed to do. And you Yeah. And then she finds out she's got power. Yeah, literally, you know, both mental and physical, physical power. Right. Yeah. And I think the last episode we had with Abby, I think kind of encapsulated it right. Here's a person that's not, you know, doesn't have Olympic ribbons isn't a pro athlete. She's just someone trying to, like you said, wake up every day and do better. And she decided to, to do better encapsulates everything. Felt like, you know, she was at a position where she didn't like herself, took a risk in trying to publicly say, here's who I am. And here's what I'm going to do and then went after that target. And if you keep up with her today, she's continuing to, to work, improve. And now she looks fantastic. She's you know, and looks vital, you know, has more vitality, yes, would be the best way to say not just, Hey, I look good. But you know, you can tell that she feels good that she's enjoying herself a lot more so.

Tom Regal: 12:21

And I hope that's something that everyone takes away from this is that we always talk about, you know, don't don't be afraid of failure. Don't be don't be afraid to fail. I don't think there is a failure type of thing. Unless you haven't learned anything from that. Yeah, it's an experience. And you learn from the experience, whether or not it has the outcome that people want. Yeah. Success comes in many different forms. But I think that's one of those things that almost, I think all our guests have have talked about where they stepped out of the comfort zone, they they went on a challenge, and maybe it didn't happen the way they wanted it to. But they ended up in a better place. Yeah, they took the direction that it went, they learned from it, and they moved on. And they grew from that. And I think that's huge. I hope that's what everybody gets out of this as well, because that's what we always talk about. Off the podcast. We're just in general, just trying to do that. That was the I think the whole impetus for for doing this podcast was to bring these people out and you find these stories, these inspirational stories and just learn from that.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 13:22

Yeah, and, you know, don't be afraid to to be vulnerable. I mean, you hear a lot of times people that are uncomfortable going to a gym because they don't want to feel look stupid, or they don't want to do this and and with any luck. I mean, one of the things you need to do is be okay with hey, if I do if I'm walking to 5k and that's that's what I need to do to do that that you got up you showed up you did it did it doesn't matter that the time it doesn't matter that you walked it. You did it. Yeah. You know that that's what we're hoping people get from this, right. I mean, that's kind of the thing,

Tom Regal: 13:59

move your body just move, get up move. It helps you mentally it helps you basically it's all that good stuff.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:04

So speaking of which, yeah. 2022 What are you doing to get up and move? You have to declare it now

Tom Regal: 14:11

I have to Oh, no. Oh, no. This is...

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:13

Once you declare publicly you got to do it....

Tom Regal: 14:15

Yeah, that's I haven't registered for anything yet. The two the two races I wanted to do I wanted to do the Chattanooga both the 70.3 and the Ironman I have I have other events going on? like family events. I am crewing for Chris Calimano at the Epic DECA race that's two weeks in two weeks in May. That's what kills off the first Chatsworth or Chatsworth. The first Chattanooga Race So that's, that's 10 Iron Man's in 10 days on six islands. And so I will probably have a whole podcast just on that

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:51

we'll have 10 Iron Man's in 10 days on six different Yeah,

Tom Regal: 14:56

so epic five is the race. That was five islands. It's five days five Iron Man's. And because it was the 10 year anniversary, I think two years ago now, and it's been canceled the last two years, they have 10 athletes, I believe it's 10 athletes doing 10 Iron Man's and 10 days on six islands. The logistics are a nightmare. So I'm crewing for Chris on that. So that's gonna take a good portion of my spring through till May and then I might take weeks to recover from lack of sleep and everything else. After that, I've kind of had some running races kind of thrown out there. I do. I do. I don't know if I want to say it just yet. There is there is a hundy in there. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 15:41

100 mile race...

Tom Regal: 15:41

100 mile race....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 15:42

That's what he means by a hundy.

Tom Regal: 15:43

Yeah, coming up. So there, there'll be one of those on the on the schedule, I believe, unless I get boxed out of it. Okay. And then I'm going to find some smaller races and some other things. But I really want to focus on the run. Maybe Maybe I can get back and do the Alcatraz swim or something with the with the swimmers. That would be fun to do at 10k Swim would be fun to work on. So swimming, focusing on swimming and running, especially running next year would be is going to be big for me. Good. So and you What do we got going?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:13

It's a good question. So maybe some of you heard some of you haven't I spent 11 months training for Ironman California, in October in Sacramento, were 220 days out of the year. It's beautiful. Except for the one day that Ironman went on. 3000 people showed up and so did a bomb cyclone. Yeah. So Yeah, apparently that's the West Coast version of a cat three hurricane basically dumped more rain in 24 hours. And it did and in recorded history in Sacramento on the day of the race, not the day before of the race. Yeah, so here I am getting my wetsuit on. They canceled the race. So yeah, I had beer at 930 in the morning. So, yeah, because of that, they we got deferred to 2022 So I've officially signed up for Ironman California 2022 and October start training in there January early February for that. So another long arduous you know training session and that's kind of my A race. Yeah. My I think my B races I do need. I have been wanting to do the 70.3 Chattanooga as well. I want to do that just because of two reasons. One, it's in my backyard. I haven't had an opportunity to do it yet. And secondly, it's a good prep for California, California has a river swim. Chattanooga has a river swim as well. It gives me an opportunity to feel current, if you will. And then the other one I think I'm going to declare is I've never ran a sub 4 marathon. Most of my marathons are after getting off 112 miles on a bike. So that warm up and I had one marathon I did I think I did a for like a 420. And it was like the first I think that year I did. My wife did a half marathon. I was mad. She did and I didn't because I was a cyclist. I wasn't a runner. So I did a half marathon and I thought well, I might as well just do the marathon since I'm doing it. So I ramped from basically couch to marathon that year. My Achilles was not happy. So when I got done, I was crying on the corner. And it wasn't it wasn't a good it was an ugly finish. So what I want is a sub 4 hour marathon. I want that to be something where I'm not. I'm not crying at the end. You know, I'm celebrating strong. Yeah, yeah. So you're trying out a new coach. I'm gonna give a try for 2022 see if he's any good. Tom, you better be good. But like yeah,

Tom Regal: 18:42

we're gonna have some fun!

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:42

Yeah, and like you were same thing I'm focusing the swim is my weakest link. I want to make sure that becomes one of my strongest links and then the run I'm good on a bike. I'm not gonna

Tom Regal: 18:52

You were solid on the bike. You are much much better on the swim. You made huge gains last year. Working with you was fun. Yeah, absolutely.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 19:00

So I, every year what ends up happening is it's like I take a stupid pill at the end of the year, forget how to swim. Start again in January so with any luck, you know, carry that through and start started doing that. So I think 2022 is going to be fun. I think it's a hopefully like knock on wood. Hopefully the world kind of continues to heal and get better that we can have races and get people out there and I think the funniest I just have to say this The funniest thing about 2021 Every race that I've signed up for it was raining. It was just insane. 2021...

Tom Regal: 19:38

Shall we talk about the Bell Ringer.........

Kenny Bailey<br>: 19:39

Yeah, so I had a bomb cyclone hit in Sacramento. Turkey Trot rained like a dog right when we got done. Yeah. And then you and I were supposed to do the Bell Ringer

Tom Regal: 19:48

Bell Ringer 15K

Kenny Bailey<br>: 19:49

Tornado lands in Dixon that morning, and we had a tornado warning.

Tom Regal: 19:53

They still had the race. I know some people who did it and congrats on you. But the drive out There was just a little too scary for me. It's 3am we're texting back and forth because we got the not the tornado watch the tornado warning which is imminent. Right. And those a few as you know, the big one through Oklahoma was horrific. Yeah. But yeah, there were some in our areas as well. And that was enough for us to go. Yep, no, not so

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:19

I don't know what what I did wrong. Or what I'm doing

Tom Regal: 20:22

Hopefully next year's better

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:23

it a voodoo stab, but I don't know what I need to like sacrifice in order to not have 2022 to be you know, rain every time I show up. Yeah.

Tom Regal: 20:31

So rain would be fine. Yeah. torrential. Massive. Storms...

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:35

for anybody out there signing up for 2022. You don't do what I don't sign up for.

Tom Regal: 20:39

We'll put a list out of his races to avoid. Just don't bother

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:44

with any luck. We're gonna we're gonna squash that demon for next year. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 20:47

so yeah, that'll be that'll be fun. And then of course, we've got our own businesses that are running, and we've got lots going on with that. And then the podcast. So we want to continue doing this. We want to make some changes. We have been kind of quiet about it, but we've gotten them all up on YouTube. Mainly because we only the last four or five have been video, this one being our six with video. And that's, it's been a learning curve for us on that side, we really wanted to get the audio side. And that's kind of the easiest thing to do, I have audio background. And the video side jumped in when we got into the Zoom calls when we started talking with people that weren't local. And that came out I think, really well. So I'm pretty excited about that. So the production value on that it's going to go up, you can go see them all. Now they're all up there. Now you can listen to the ones and you can see the ones with with video. Also going to add a better webpage. So what I've one of the things I've learned from this is that we can communicate with everyone out there, but not as well as I would like. It's not as quick. It's not, it's not the community that I was hoping for. So so a couple things that I'm working on. For this, since I'm doing kind of the production side and the background of this is a new web page. It'll be simple. We'll have more photos, more photos of what we're doing with our guests and everything like that. We'll also have Facebook page and Instagram page that are for that will be for the athletes in motion. So you'll see that. And that'll allow us to engage a little bit quicker and easier. Plus, we want to get some more photos up. And thanks. I mean, there's there's more to just the show. And I want to share some of that stuff. I'd like to say outtakes and things like that, but we keep all that in the show cuz..... Sure.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:27

Should we start eating hot wings too? Yeah, yeah, we started

Tom Regal: 22:31

that one. Maybe we'll do a hot wing show. Right after a race now.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:34

Sorry, I don't have to get a copyright violation on

Tom Regal: 22:36

that. Yeah, yeah. So. So that's a couple of things coming up on the technical side that we're going to do on the production and some more guests.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:43

Yeah. And your suggestions on on what you want to see and what you want to do. We're very much open to suggestions of, you know, let us know what if, yeah, we'd love to see more behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, we'd like to see these types of interviews or what genres you'd like us to cover.

Tom Regal: 23:00

We're trying to cover a broad range of things. And we have some subject matter some things that we want to do. And we've reached out to some people, and we're trying to line those up. But if you have other suggestions and things that we hadn't thought of, that you'd be interested in, you know, let us know as much, let us know. And we'll we'll look into it and check it out and see what we can do.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:19

Yeah, a heck of a year, Tom.

Tom Regal: 23:21

It's been good. It's been a pleasure, Kenny. We're really enjoying it. It's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:24

been fun. Yeah. Learning from you learning from everybody else, let's continue to do that for 2022 to like, grow from there.

Tom Regal: 23:30

And likewise. So thank you, everybody, for listening. We've we've covered quite a quite a lot of countries out there because we can kind of see sort of the broad range of things from India to Germany to England to I can't remember some of the others. But it was quite a quite a range. And we really appreciate everybody. Excuse me, thank you so

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:50

much. Open up a little motional now.

Tom Regal: 23:54

But thank you all, we really appreciate you listening, share it with your friends, give us the likes the thumbs up that whatever it is that we need to do, because that really, really helps us bump up in the algorithms that really I keep saying that every time that's my tagline. Right? But that allows other people to actually find it out there. That's kind of a game that we have to play with this show. So we appreciate all that feedback and all that good stuff. Kenny. It's been great.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:17

It's been great.

Tom Regal: 24:17

Thank you guys, and we'll catch you on the next one. Happy New Year!