Coach Tom (00:01.727)
Hey Kenny, how you doing?

Kenny Bailey (00:03.157)
I'm Fantastic Tom, are you?

Coach Tom (00:04.79)
I'm fantastic as well. We have Loria Hugo with us today, who's an athlete of mine, I've coached coach Lori and we're going to get Lori's background story. She's got a really good story of perseverance that we're going to talk about and a little bit of craziness. Yeah. And a little bit of craziness thrown in there. You need to get a new circle of friends, Lori. That's all I'm going to say. And then we're going to talk a little bit about

Kenny Bailey (00:21.049)
stubbornness one of the two, right?

Kenny Bailey (00:28.087)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (00:29.55)
can't. I can't.

Coach Tom (00:33.078)
a foundation that you're that you rep and are part of a canine project hero or project canine hero. We're gonna talk a little bit about that as well. But let's get some some business out of the way is like, hey, everybody, give us five stars thumbs up, give us some reviews, send us some notes to all that good stuff. Like the thumbs up thing is great. There'll be something floating on the YouTube to click and say, hey, make sure you subscribe.

Let everybody know I'm repping the athletes in motion podcast t-shirt, which you can get on my website, tritomarendurance.com under the merch side thing. So if you want this nice long sleeve, it's got the QR code on it. You can tell all your friends. For those of you listening, go check out the YouTube channel or just go straight to my website and you check that out as well. So Lori, we're here.

Lorrie Huegel (00:59.438)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (01:04.886)
Nice.

Kenny Bailey (01:14.775)
You

Coach Tom (01:24.31)
Talk to us. So how the heck did you get started in this crazy endurance sports? What did you do? You did sports growing up, right? You were active, you were bouncing around. Tell us about that.

Lorrie Huegel (01:33.817)
Yeah, I was, I played basketball, played softball growing up, ran a little bit. Then when I got to college, I gained that, you know, freshman 30, whatever you want to call it. Well, those late night pizzas. And then when I graduated and got into the real world, then I started becoming more active again, but I didn't really start becoming like uber active until I started to run my own business.

Kenny Bailey (01:47.389)
Yeah

Lorrie Huegel (02:03.052)
Um, there's a lot of anxiety involved in having your small business. Um, and I needed something, I needed some kind of an outlet to, uh, take care of that. Um, so I started running again and I trained with a running group here in Cincinnati for the Thanksgiving day, 10 K managed my way through that and work my way up to half marathon. Um, did a couple of half marathons and then somebody said, Hey, do you want to go to Savannah, Georgia with us and do.

Coach Tom (02:07.496)
Yes.

Kenny Bailey (02:23.404)
Hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (02:33.037)
You know, Savannah full marathon. was like, yeah, bucket list thing one and done eight marathons later. Um, I, I ran probably eight marathons. did Chicago. did, uh, Boston, um, with a charity and the tenacity charity with Boston is where I met Don and Jeannie. Um, we were, yeah, we were charity teammates. Um, we, uh, 2016 and we stayed connected.

Kenny Bailey (02:37.505)
cool. There you go.

Coach Tom (02:39.112)
One and done.

Coach Tom (02:52.754)
Okay, that's where you met them.

Coach Tom (02:57.173)
What year was that?

Okay.

Lorrie Huegel (03:02.859)
We stayed connected on Facebook after that and became really good friends. The following year I went down to Nashville and did the rock and roll when it was like a hundred degrees. I was running, I was running the full, they were running the half. I got through, I don't know, maybe like 18 miles of the full. And I was like, I can't, I can't do this. I, so I cut off and veered in with the rest of the half marathon group. And I just remember standing.

Coach Tom (03:14.582)
You

Kenny Bailey (03:25.015)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (03:31.264)
like in line at one of the food trucks with Jeannie and we were talking and all of a sudden everything started to go like, for me, like in and out and I could feel myself getting ready to pass out from like the heat. so, and then the following weekend they came up for the flying pig and it was like 36 degrees up here in Cincinnati the following weekend for the flying pig. So yeah, we went from one extreme to the other. So, ever since then.

Kenny Bailey (03:37.609)
No. Yeah.

Coach Tom (03:42.411)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (03:53.183)
Yeah

Coach Tom (03:57.022)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (03:57.356)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (04:01.311)
they've come up here every weekend, every year for the flying pig. they're the ones that got me into the crazy Ironman thing. But before that, I took a break from endurance training for about three years and trained to be a, to compete in figure competition in bodybuilding. And, you want to talk about going from one extreme to another. I did that for like a train for like three years and then COVID hit and just kind of blew it all up.

Coach Tom (04:17.16)
Okay.

Kenny Bailey (04:17.367)
Mmm.

Kenny Bailey (04:21.781)
Yeah, no kidding.

Coach Tom (04:22.676)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (04:30.206)
And I needed something to motivate myself again. So Dawn's like, Hey, why don't you do an Ironman race with us? So, I signed up for Chattanooga half and full that year. head first right in and, eight weeks before the half, this is 2021 eight weeks before the half, I had some severe.

Kenny Bailey (04:47.159)
Wow, both feet just went for it.

Coach Tom (04:49.898)
Why not? Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (04:59.944)
like knee pain and I knew something was it was meniscus or something. So went to my orthopedic that I've been going to since 2013 and had an MRI and he's like, yeah, you've got, you know, poor meniscus in there. I was like, I'm supposed to do a half Ironman in eight weeks. And he's like, okay. He's like, here's what we're going to do is like, I can do your knee clean out next Friday. He's like, obviously running is going to be a problem. He's like, but swimming and biking isn't, isn't going to be an issue. So I had the knee clean out.

He clears me to participate in the race. He's like, when you get to the run, don't run. If you just walk, he's like, you don't finish, you don't finish. I was like, all right, no problem. So I got through like 65 miles total. didn't make the run cut off. My knee was like swollen. Um, it was, it was awful. So I just, you know, I was like chalked it up to like, okay, well, I probably shouldn't have been out here anyways, but you know, I paid the fee. wanted to see, I wanted to get, I wanted to get the half Ironman experience just to see.

Kenny Bailey (05:42.583)
Mm.

Coach Tom (05:44.51)
god, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (05:56.161)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (06:00.005)
what it was going to be like in September when I did this fall. So they cleared me for full activity like two weeks later. And I, every time I tried to run, was like, I was getting stress fractures in my lower leg because I had no, I had no cartilage left in there. That was like the third clean out I had had since I was a kid. And he's like, you know, some people can go bone on bone for years. Some people.

Coach Tom (06:13.119)
Oof.

Kenny Bailey (06:15.799)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (06:26.158)
You can't need like, we can try these things. can do ortho visc. can spin platelets and inject them and all that's not covered by insurance. So I'm like, I'm not going to pay out of pocket for something that may or may not help me. So let's just look at the knee replacement route. So that's pretty much what I did that December. And I already had my deductible paid.

Kenny Bailey (06:26.775)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (06:31.03)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (06:35.42)
Yeah. Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (06:41.547)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (06:51.749)
And my max amount of pockets. So I was like, well, I might as well just go on and get the knee replacement. So December of 2021, had, I've got three implants in my right knee, basically. And yeah, he told the surgeons like, well, your running days are over. And I'm like, well, we'll see about that.

Coach Tom (06:51.958)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (07:02.007)
throughout.

Coach Tom (07:08.598)
Famous last words saying that to you. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (07:10.069)
Well.

Lorrie Huegel (07:12.997)
Well, yeah. it's, I mean, Tom, you know me well enough that I can't just, I can't just sit around. So I spent like a year rehabbing. And then, I think it was June of 2023, Dawn's like, Hey, we're going to Augusta to do the half Ironman and Augusta in September. You want to, you want to, you know, come join us? And I was like, and at the time I'd been biking for a couple hours. I was walking on the treadmill.

Kenny Bailey (07:41.335)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (07:43.03)
doing a little bit of swimming. I was like, yeah, let me just get in the lake and start swimming a little bit out. I'll come to Augusta. So I went to Augusta. I ended up finishing the half. And I was all pumped up. I was like, all right, I'm going to go back to Chattanooga and redeem myself.

Coach Tom (07:50.795)
Nice.

Kenny Bailey (07:51.542)
Nice.

Coach Tom (07:59.767)
haha

Lorrie Huegel (07:59.844)
Two weeks after I signed up for both races, what did I do? What did I do? I slipped on the ice with my arm out and basically blew up my shoulder.

Kenny Bailey (08:01.847)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (08:07.294)
You slipped, you slipped, slipped and fell. Yep. Yep.

Coach Tom (08:16.136)
which was two weeks after you reached out to me for coaching and we said, okay, great, let's get this started. We'll get your program going. And then I just noticed like I completely shattered my shoulder.

Lorrie Huegel (08:20.802)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (08:21.536)
Wow.

Lorrie Huegel (08:29.921)
Yeah, I was like, like, so I kind of fell and I might have might be an issue with me swimming for a little bit, but I went, I went to, knew, I knew it was bad. because my, my shoulder kept dropping out of socket. So basically I dislocated. Yeah. I dislocated it to the point where the glenoid bone was broken. the labrum was torn.

Kenny Bailey (08:30.539)
So put you in bubble wrap is what we need to do basically.

Coach Tom (08:32.191)
Ha

Coach Tom (08:39.828)
Might be an issue.

Lorrie Huegel (08:58.154)
my surgeon said it looked like a bomb went off in my, like in the joint and all my rotator cuff ligaments were distended. So he had to re anchor everything and fix the broken bone. Yeah. So I had the MRI and he comes into the exam room he's like, it's like, you're not racing this year. And I'm like, what? He's like, you're not raking. He's like, you're not racing. And he's like, and you're lucky if you're going to be swimming this year. And I'm like, well, wait, I got, like, I got two charities I'm racing for.

Coach Tom (09:01.301)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (09:07.672)
That's major surgery. Yeah.

Coach Tom (09:26.742)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (09:27.645)
One May and one in September. can't just say, hey, I'm sorry, I can't raise money for you. like, there's more than one way to get down that river. I like, I do not have the freestyle. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:31.03)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:34.731)
There you go.

Coach Tom (09:36.35)
It's a river, that's a good thing, right? Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:38.027)
to side stroke. Like, is that lady side stroking the whole thing? You're like, absolutely.

Lorrie Huegel (09:42.11)
Yeah. I was like, well, we'll just, we'll just have to see what we see. So I had, mean, I was in the sling with the block for like six weeks. I couldn't even start active physical therapy for like seven weeks. I mean, my arm was like this. He's like, when you're in the shower, he's like, your arm comes out of the sling, but you hold it like this the whole time. So, I mean, I got to a point where I was like, all I have to do something. I was like, tell me what I can do. He's like, I don't even want you on your bike trainer.

Coach Tom (10:01.012)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (10:10.622)
He's like, I don't want that shoulder moving around. Yeah, he wouldn't even, he's like, you have a, he's like, you have a history of hurting. he's not. So he's like, he's like, you can walk, he said, but anything that causes that arm to swing around, I'm like, it's strapped to my chest. It's not going anywhere. I say, I can't sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix or like YouTube TV anymore. I'm going to lose my mind.

Kenny Bailey (10:11.371)
Really?

Coach Tom (10:13.558)
It's slip or something. Yeah

Kenny Bailey (10:17.783)
He's not lying.

Coach Tom (10:18.262)
Yeah, it does have a point.

Kenny Bailey (10:36.747)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (10:40.062)
So about this time last year, I think I was just starting to swim freestyle again. I have a great physical therapist. He knows when to push me and when to reel me in. I went to therapy three times a week. I did all the home exercises, everything that I needed to do to get me in a position to where I could do Chattanooga.

Coach Tom (10:47.584)
Just, yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (11:09.661)
in September and swim. But I was bound and determined to do the race in May, even if I had to float down the river. So I just remember going into his office, like, I think it was like 15 days before Chattanooga in May and his assistant was walking me into the exam room. said, so don't you have a race in like a couple of weeks? I'm like, yeah. She's like, are you here to ask permission? And he comes, he comes around the corner. He's like, she's going to do it. Whether I tell her she can or not.

Coach Tom (11:16.682)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (11:30.741)
Maybe?

Coach Tom (11:31.381)
Hey.

Coach Tom (11:37.142)
Exactly.

Lorrie Huegel (11:39.901)
He's like, look, I'm going to let you race. He's like, obviously I don't want you using that arm to get down the river. He said side stroke. I've been side stroking in the pool.

Coach Tom (11:50.645)
Yeah. Yeah. You were in the pool, but you were also like, because you couldn't sit still, you were weight training and doing lower body efforts and things like that, which was building your strength. mean, you obviously couldn't run. there was, yes, you were on the stair master like three times a week, three times a week, at least, anything that you could do. were trying to find every kind of

Kenny Bailey (11:50.795)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (11:56.814)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (12:01.712)
Kenny Bailey (12:03.295)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (12:06.894)
Right. I wore out the stair master in the gym. mean, I was on that thing all the time. Yep. Yep.

Kenny Bailey (12:19.82)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (12:19.974)
exercise or some strength training or something that you could do with that also making sure that you didn't slip and fall.

Lorrie Huegel (12:25.914)
Yeah. So I did. mean, I went down and I, and I competed in the race and it was, it was a disaster because I run off, I went off course on the bike. So I was going to be disqualified anyway, but I didn't make the cutoff. didn't make the run cutoff time, but I mean, the fact that I was even there, was, was huge. to top it off, I had a bike that I had never ridden before. So I get to Tom's house.

Kenny Bailey (12:26.475)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (12:45.943)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (12:54.228)
Yeah. yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (12:55.939)
And I have this Trek Speed concept and I was like, Tom, need you to give me a quick fit to this bike. And I get on and he's got all the dots and everything taped on me. like, so when's the first time? He's like, how often you've ridden this bike? I'm like, this is the first time I've been in this seat. And he's like, don't ever do that again.

Coach Tom (13:10.454)
Yeah. It was like, yeah, I was like, okay, here we go. were you riding before? It was like, Peloton or something. just like the gym, the gym.

Lorrie Huegel (13:19.066)
Yep.

Kenny Bailey (13:22.237)
Do you...

Lorrie Huegel (13:24.576)
No, was a code with K factor is what I had before, which yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (13:28.663)
They go. So I have to ask though, it's fascinating to just hear like, you just don't give a damn. mean, you have this sort of like, if I blow up, I blow up. If I don't finish, I don't finish. Was it like that when you were a kid too? I mean, when you were playing basketball? Or is it just something that you're like, yeah.

Coach Tom (13:28.793)
that's right. The quota. Yeah. Okay.

Lorrie Huegel (13:45.754)
No, I was like that when I was a kid too, because the position I played when I played softball was catcher. Because, I played it because, not because I wanted to, but because nobody else was dumb enough to do it. So, I mean, yeah. So think about crouching. I mean, I've got, I mean, I had, you know, jam fingers. I had a couple of bloody noses where the foul ball came off and it hit you in the mask. But back then we had, you know,

Kenny Bailey (13:53.079)
Mm.

Kenny Bailey (13:57.752)
So you hate your knees.

Coach Tom (13:58.153)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:03.766)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:08.737)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (14:08.968)
Okay.

Kenny Bailey (14:11.509)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (14:14.478)
We're talking 1980s. So girl softball equipment was like the baseball themes, hand me downs from the previous year. So we didn't exactly have state of the art stuff. it was, mean, basically I live my life with reckless abandon as a, as a kid. And I kind of still do as an adult, I've gotten a little smarter about how I do things, especially after this, I mean, this past year, I got to be, I spent this past winter really focusing on getting stronger.

Coach Tom (14:16.32)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:16.438)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (14:19.635)
God. Totally. Yeah, totally.

Kenny Bailey (14:22.529)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:29.879)
Okay.

Kenny Bailey (14:38.795)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:44.673)
Uh-huh.

Lorrie Huegel (14:44.698)
and it's paid dividends on a bike. mean, I'm getting an extra mile and a half, almost two miles. I'm one of Tom's insane cycling classes. And my FTP is like seven points higher than it was in September. So, you know, I'm working on, you know, getting stronger, but I, without Tom, I never would have made it through, the, full in Chattanooga because I basically did it on four months of training. And I mean, you have to be.

Kenny Bailey (14:53.387)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:58.881)
Good. Good.

Coach Tom (14:59.318)
It's just great. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (15:06.443)
There you go.

Coach Tom (15:09.075)
That was...

Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (15:14.463)
somewhat unhinged to do this type of sport to begin with, but to go into that on just four months of training. And I mean, I was miserable the whole time I was out there at the bike. was miserable the whole time. I remember telling Jeannie, went, I was on my third loop and I pulled into Jeff Kessler's aid station out there and Jeannie was there and she's like, what do you need? I need a Coke and I need the rest of my Pringles and she just shoving Pringles in my mouth.

Kenny Bailey (15:19.659)
Well.

Coach Tom (15:26.57)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (15:40.149)
Yeah

Coach Tom (15:40.758)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (15:41.495)
And I'm drinking Coke and I said, if I ever, ever talk about doing a full Ironman again, please punch me in the face. And what was it like three weeks after the race? I said to Tom, I said, so I said, if I had trained like someone normally would have trained for an Ironman, would I be less miserable out on the course? He's like, yeah, probably. I'm like, all right, well, Don and I are gonna, Don and I are gonna do.

Kenny Bailey (15:47.999)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (15:53.431)
You're like, yeah, you can do it.

Coach Tom (16:06.417)
So yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (16:08.596)
Arizona in November and he's just like, you need to find new friends.

Coach Tom (16:10.166)
Love love Don Edens Don Edens and Jeanne Goski your your your

Kenny Bailey (16:12.599)
Well, I think that there's a... There you go. But there's a testament to just having that sort of will for ignorance, Of just like, yeah, let's just see what happens. mean, not to the point where you injure yourself, but to the point like, you were fatigued. You didn't put yourself into physical danger. Well, not too much physical danger. Dehydration and all that fun stuff. it's...

Lorrie Huegel (16:20.013)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:39.349)
You know, what the heck, let's just see. Now at this point you're doing a mental test is what you're doing. You're how can I mentally get past this fatigue that I don't like, this thing where this sucks but I'm gonna keep moving forward. That's a huge testament, it's fun to listen to.

Lorrie Huegel (16:43.924)
Yeah, and it is.

Coach Tom (16:52.34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the great part of working with Lori is the fact that her tenacity of doing this thing. like her ability to just go, I'm going to do it anyway. And the fear of failure is not there. It's like if the failure happens, it happens. Right. You were much better at grasping that than a lot of other athletes that are fearful of failing.

Lorrie Huegel (16:54.272)
Right.

Kenny Bailey (17:07.863)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (17:11.317)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (17:20.18)
Like, and what does failure look like? Like, well, you just didn't finish. Well, screw it. well, whatever. You didn't make the cutoff on the 70.3. They sent you, you didn't get to go do the next loop. And they sent you in and you were just kind of like, well, right. You gave it your best. You knew where you were. You were a little bit more based in reality. As crazy as you're going after stuff and challenging yourself in that one same sense, it's okay in a sense for you to just go like, well, I didn't succeed at that one. And then you come back and you do it again, right? You just keep.

Lorrie Huegel (17:48.511)
All right.

Coach Tom (17:48.715)
You keep thinking about it as well, can I improve and how can I get better, which is really healthy. To be honest with you, it's a really healthy outlook and way to deal with challenging yourself on that. And that's fun as a coach, that's fun to work with because we're not worried about you completely melting down or getting afraid of doing something or trying something different. And you understand the pieces of it now a lot better as you're getting stronger and setting up for us to get you to

Lorrie Huegel (18:03.826)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (18:17.908)
you know, be, you more, more, yeah, more, more strong, more durable as an athlete that what you can do and you just keep learning from each piece of it. So that's always fun.

Kenny Bailey (18:26.103)
Hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (18:30.439)
make me run across that wooden plank bridge again though.

Coach Tom (18:33.694)
you're gonna have to run across that bright and you're going. You could do that. You could do that.

Lorrie Huegel (18:36.595)
Yeah, and I'm getting close to like the finish of the Iron Man in September and him and Jeannie and Dawn are standing right at where the you go over the pedestrian bridge in Chattanooga down to the finisher chute and I was And it's sketchy as hell I won't even I didn't even run across it in daylight because I was like I can just see myself face planting on this thing

Kenny Bailey (18:51.403)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Coach Tom (18:54.152)
It's a long bridge and it's a slight uphill. It's a nice loop

Kenny Bailey (18:57.323)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (19:04.329)
yeah, it's holes and everything, yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (19:06.19)
So the guy's like, he's like, if you can get across this bridge in 10 minutes, you'll be declared an Ironman. And I'm like, okay, piece of cake. I can walk across this bridge in 10 minutes. Tom's like, you're not going to walk. He's like, you're going to run. And I'm just like, I'm just like, what? And he's like, I know he's like, I know your legs are telling you your brain that they're tired and you can't do this. He's like, but you can do this. So I'm like, I'm hanging on to, I'm hanging on to his backpack. He's in front of me.

Coach Tom (19:15.126)
No, we're running this.

Kenny Bailey (19:17.784)
Yeah

Lorrie Huegel (19:33.864)
Dawn's next to me and Jeannie's got her phone out in flashlight mode running next to us shining it down on the planktis. But I mean, the whole time I was, I was cussing the whole time across.

Kenny Bailey (19:39.435)
Yeah

Coach Tom (19:40.253)
so she doesn't trip.

Coach Tom (19:45.333)
We, if we walked, we wouldn't have made the 10 minutes across that bridge. That's how long the bridge is. We wouldn't have made it at all. And then we kept, we kept running, made you run a little bit past that kept going. And then I was like, there was one other person in front of you. was like, let's go catch this one. I was trying to like egg you on. You're like, no. And you're like slow down a little bit, but then we started on the downhill and it was like, let's run a little bit more. And we started running a little bit more and we passed that person. So ultimately you were not the last finisher.

Kenny Bailey (19:46.54)
There.

Lorrie Huegel (19:50.341)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (19:50.455)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (19:58.055)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (20:01.691)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:03.893)
Yeah

Kenny Bailey (20:09.729)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (20:14.838)
you were second to last finisher, you were second to last. So that was another thing you kind of checked the box. was like, I don't care if I'm the last finisher, but I don't wanna be the last finisher. That was part of in that thing. So you weren't the last finisher. You got down there, you got to ring the bell as a first timer and came across and run that.

Kenny Bailey (20:15.287)
There they go!

Lorrie Huegel (20:15.315)
Take a left.

Kenny Bailey (20:23.893)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (20:24.403)
All

Lorrie Huegel (20:30.81)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:31.691)
And what does the metal say? It says finisher. The metal says finisher. It doesn't say second to last finisher or first finisher. It just says finisher. There you go. Did you get the tattoo? There you go. There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (20:34.897)
What's that? Yes, it does.

Coach Tom (20:35.732)
It says finisher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (20:40.209)
Right, right. And all I kept thinking about out there, I do. I do have a tattoo. It is, I have a very special tattoo. And it took me like three months to decide exactly what I wanted. That's cool. I will. It had to have something to do with the Iron Man, but it also had to have a personal meaning.

Coach Tom (20:46.56)
She has a special tattoo. I have to take a-

Kenny Bailey (20:56.651)
Tom's gonna put a image on that when we, so.

Coach Tom (20:59.05)
Yeah, you have to send me a picture of it and I'll post an image up.

Kenny Bailey (21:08.044)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (21:08.433)
because of the organization that I race for, K9UB. I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about that in a bit, that was, if it hadn't been for me racing for that organization and the way that I feel about what they do and how passionate I am about their organization, probably would not have, I wouldn't have finished the race. would have been, I would have been thinking about Tom's story about demon babies.

Kenny Bailey (21:11.957)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (21:34.838)
hahahaha

Lorrie Huegel (21:36.688)
on a river walk at like 11 o'clock at night and would have been like, I'm done.

Coach Tom (21:42.248)
Yeah, I'm out. Tapping out.

Kenny Bailey (21:42.999)
It's funny how the Y kind of helps you get across that line. Did you say you're doing Arizona this year then? Is that true? Okay.

Lorrie Huegel (21:50.32)
Yeah. And, um, the water temperature scares me. That's the one thing, that's one thing that, uh, the, years, Don and Jeannie did it, the, the water was 57 degrees and hypothermia was like a big deal. So that's like a mental thing right now that I'm, mean, I'm going to have to get over. mean, I could probably go out in the lake right now, right now our lakes probably about 63 degrees and I could probably start swimming out there, but, um, I'm not ready.

Kenny Bailey (21:56.673)
Too hot or too cold?

Coach Tom (21:58.721)
It's cold.

Kenny Bailey (22:03.147)
Yeah, that's cool. Real, yeah.

Coach Tom (22:18.666)
The cold acclamation, the cold acclamation you don't need to do until the fall, right?

Kenny Bailey (22:19.221)
Yeah, Arizona though, Arizona could be anywhere from 70 degrees to 57 degrees. doesn't do me take a pic when I did it. It was upper sixties. It was perfect. Right. Wasn't an issue.

Lorrie Huegel (22:30.283)
Yeah, she said it was just a really, it was like a really odd year for the water to be cold. So, you

Coach Tom (22:35.338)
Yep. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (22:35.381)
Yeah, yeah. So outside of that, how are you feeling about your training so far?

Lorrie Huegel (22:41.837)
I feel really good. feel this is probably the healthiest, healthiest I've been in, in a few years. knock on wood. I feel really strong. Like I said, I spent the, the winter really focusing on, like the, the leg strength because I know, I can't, I'm not going to be running any full marathons. I do run intervals, but, I'm not, I've never been a fast runner. So.

Kenny Bailey (22:45.633)
Good.

Coach Tom (22:49.77)
Knock on wood, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (22:50.817)
There you go.

Kenny Bailey (23:00.087)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (23:10.99)
Probably the bike is going to have to be my strongest part of the race. And that's what I've really kind of been focusing on over the winter.

Kenny Bailey (23:21.781)
Yeah, I had a buddy of mine that didn't have cartilage in either knee and he thought he couldn't do Ironman. And I'm like, yeah, but you swim fairly fast and you bike fast. And if you get off the bike, you got seven hours to walk this thing. And he's a, yeah, he's a two time Ironman. So, you know, if you do decent on the first two, you know, just keep steady on the third one. You get another medal that says finisher. Hopefully third to last this time.

Lorrie Huegel (23:33.896)
I that's what I did on Chattanooga. watched the entire thing. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (23:45.816)
relentless forward progress.

Coach Tom (23:49.534)
That's it. Relentless forward progress. That's all it is as long you...

Kenny Bailey (23:51.755)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (23:52.159)
And don't forget us. Don't forget to bring a spare tube. Remember that time?

Kenny Bailey (23:55.319)
That too.

Coach Tom (23:55.379)
Yeah, yeah right, yeah, and know how to change it, but definitely bring it with you if you've got that. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (24:00.193)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (24:01.495)
So is your bike your strongest discipline then? Is that what you feel like?

Lorrie Huegel (24:06.765)
Yeah, I do. I don't think I was very strong in anything last year, but I think right now my strongest part is the bike. That's what I really focused on. I didn't do any swimming from like September. The first time I got in the pool was in January when I came down to Nashville for Project K9 Heroes event. Dawn says, hey, let's go swim at the Rec Center on Friday morning. I said, okay.

Kenny Bailey (24:09.259)
Okay.

Kenny Bailey (24:12.855)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (24:18.998)
Okay.

Lorrie Huegel (24:37.015)
So I didn't sleep at all Thursday night. was so like jacked up from winning, from getting volunteer of the year. And I slept maybe two hours and Dawn's like, well, you want to go swim? She's like, I really don't have any food. So I had like a cup of black coffee and two peanut butter crackers. And I'm like, let's just go now before my body figures out what the hell I'm going to do. I went, I swam for an hour and I hadn't swim in like probably three months. And my shoulder was like, my God, what?

Kenny Bailey (24:39.127)
You

Kenny Bailey (24:43.316)
That's neat.

Coach Tom (24:56.85)
Yeah

Lorrie Huegel (25:05.932)
What are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing? So, and then I've kind of built my way up since then. I didn't want to, you know, stop swimming. I didn't want to swim just once and then take another couple of weeks off. if I couldn't get to the pool, I was on the rowing machine. So, yeah, I need to, yeah, I need to, I think, yeah, it is.

Coach Tom (25:06.08)
What are you doing?

Kenny Bailey (25:06.205)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:12.631)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (25:16.972)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:22.455)
There you go. So good. So the progress is going well. You feel like the plan is, like you said, any slippery objects, anything with stairs that may make you fall or anything else, we just sort of put you in a bubble wrap and that's good.

Coach Tom (25:37.492)
We made it through the winter. We made it through the winter.

Lorrie Huegel (25:39.099)
I made it through. Yeah. And winter was, winter up here was, we had a couple of weeks where we had quite a bit of snow and ice. So, and I was training with a running group at the time to, for the flying pig, which was a couple of weeks ago. And, I was like, look, anytime the sidewalks are sketchy or anything like that, don't count on me being here. I'm going to go to the treadmill down. I'll be on the treadmill. I'm not taking any chances. None.

Coach Tom (25:46.986)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:58.668)
there you go.

Kenny Bailey (26:03.659)
There you go. Sorry, before we go any further, you have to explain to what the flying pig is, because it sounds fantastic and I think I want to go do it.

Coach Tom (26:03.7)
Yeah, there we go.

Lorrie Huegel (26:10.279)
You've never, it is, last year it was voted the number one marathon in the country. I think this year it was like, they voted number two. It is the best weekend long. Like event you can possibly imagine. So they've got, they've got a beer mile on Friday night. So you can sign up for the 5k, the 10k, the half marathon, the full marathon.

Kenny Bailey (26:15.251)
Nice.

Kenny Bailey (26:25.633)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (26:32.652)
Nice.

Lorrie Huegel (26:38.131)
There's a little kids run. There's the final mile. there's the flying fur, which you run with your dog. so you can do this in Cincinnati. So the one mile run, the beer run is they kick it off Friday night with a beer run. And then Saturday is the 5k, 10k, the flying fur, and then all the kids events. And then Sunday, they, the half marathon and the full marathon start at the same time, but it's.

Kenny Bailey (26:43.863)
Of course. Oh, okay. This is in Cincinnati? I'm sorry. Got it, okay.

Coach Tom (26:45.248)
Course. Gotta do that.

Kenny Bailey (26:59.915)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (27:05.448)
It's all weekend. Their expo is probably one of the best expos in the country. I know the, well, she's not the director of the flying pig anymore, but Iris Simpson Bush was the director of the pig for 25 years and she did a phenomenal job. I, I know, it has something to do with the city of Cincinnati. I couldn't tell you why. You might want to Google that.

Kenny Bailey (27:09.921)
Very cool.

Kenny Bailey (27:20.437)
What's the history of why it's a flying pig? Do we know?

Kenny Bailey (27:28.951)
Okay, usually the story starts with like two drunk guys, right? most of, that's how think bobsledding was invented. Two drunk guys on the top of a hill, they're like, I bet you won't go down. I bet you I will, all right, and then we have an Olympic sport. That's how I, that's theory on everything.

Lorrie Huegel (27:33.832)
Could be. Could be.

Coach Tom (27:34.176)
Yeah.

problem.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (27:42.085)
Yeah. That's the most dangerous statement in a friendship is I'll do it if you do it. And that's the joke between Dawn and Jeannie and myself because that is a very dangerous statement to make because one of us is going to be like, okay, I'll do it too.

Kenny Bailey (27:51.214)
Hahaha

Coach Tom (27:51.85)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (27:54.677)
Yes. Yeah.

Coach Tom (27:56.66)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (27:59.16)
There you go. Then all of a sudden you have a Flying Pig event and there you go. So that sounds like fun. When is it Flying Pig for those that are listening?

Lorrie Huegel (28:04.679)
Yeah, it is a blouse.

It's always the first weekend in May. the marathon and half marathon are always the first Sunday in May. So it's a good sign. Yep. It's a blast. Sells out early, so sign up. Yeah, you can do multiple. We always do the three-way challenge. So we do the 5K and the 10K on Saturday, and then we do the half marathon on Sunday. yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

Kenny Bailey (28:12.673)
Okay.

Coach Tom (28:15.818)
for some in my heart.

Kenny Bailey (28:15.831)
Okay, market calendars for next year,

Coach Tom (28:18.92)
So you can do multiple races. Yeah, you can do multiple races. You can do like.

Kenny Bailey (28:23.287)
Mm.

Coach Tom (28:29.706)
Nice. It's a good challenge.

Kenny Bailey (28:29.815)
Nice.

There you go.

Coach Tom (28:34.996)
Maybe we'll get a crew to go up, Kenny. We'll get an old group of us to go up. Lake House, there you go. There you go. Or we could do that. So let's circle over to your why. Because that's what's driving you to do all these crazy things. And that's what's helping you get through this when you talk about the... When you talk about the...

Kenny Bailey (28:37.013)
There you go, road trip. I'm smelling a road trip.

Lorrie Huegel (28:39.823)
Lake house, lake house, live on the lake. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (28:42.942)
There you go. There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (28:49.328)
My wife.

Lorrie Huegel (28:54.405)
Yes. Yeah.

Coach Tom (29:01.974)
that no fear of failure is because you've got a deeper purpose. So tell us about Project K9 Hero. Tell us a little bit about this, because this is special and K9 UB, right?

Lorrie Huegel (29:05.7)
Right.

Lorrie Huegel (29:10.759)
Yeah, Project K9 Hero. Yeah, K9, oh God, could, yeah, she's my spirit animal, always will be. So Project K9 Hero is a nonprofit in Whitwell, Tennessee. It was founded by Jason Johnson back in 2016. He had $500 in his pocket and he founded this organization because he felt like

police retired police canines and military working dogs deserve some kind of retirement right now. There's, mean, there's nothing for them. So what they do is they rehabilitate and rehome, retired police canines and military working dogs that would have basically nowhere to go. once their service has ended, he's got, I want to say six or seven of them maybe, at the facility right now.

Coach Tom (29:59.265)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (30:05.765)
Canine blitz spent almost 900 days at the facility being rehabilitated and was just recently adopted out. So, most of these dogs get adopted out to people that have, you know, that are former canine handlers, even either in the military or, law enforcement, cause you can't just adopt them out to just anybody. So.

Kenny Bailey (30:19.447)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (30:24.756)
Yeah, you can't just, they're not family dogs at this point, but they're wonderful animals, but they're not, I mean, they're trained, they're working dogs. They need special handlers for this type of stuff.

Lorrie Huegel (30:34.051)
Right.

Right. And there's also, so to date, I think they've brought 339 dogs into the program. Now, not all of them need to be rehabilitated and rehomed. Quite a few of them remain with their handlers in retirement, but because of the work that they do, their health issues are more extreme than like your normal family dog. So they cover their, like,

Coach Tom (30:44.811)
Wow.

Kenny Bailey (30:44.983)
Wow.

Kenny Bailey (30:59.159)
Mm.

Kenny Bailey (31:02.707)
In what way? Just for my invocation.

Lorrie Huegel (31:05.525)
Like for like German Shepherds that are constantly jumping in and out of cruisers, that type of thing, they have, you know, hip issues. So once they are accepted into the program, this canine's medical expenses are covered for the rest of its life. So just as an example, in November, a police retired police canine, canine Kevin,

Kenny Bailey (31:10.667)
Got it. Okay.

Hmm

Kenny Bailey (31:24.875)
fantastic.

Lorrie Huegel (31:35.191)
from love o p d which is thirty minutes from here was brought into the program and kevin was worked with part back who is now the police chief of one of the p d with the you do task force so they were apprehending dangerous criminals and kevin has he saved parts life number of times when they were trying to apprehend a fugitive because the fugitive was focusing on the dog and not

Kenny Bailey (31:46.551)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (32:04.726)
Bart, there was a time when they, the fugitive had a gun to Bart's head and you know, canine key sent canine Kevin in. So he has attention turned to the dog and it gave Bart enough time to react to where, you know, so basically the dog saved, mean, Kevin saved his life. So, after a couple of years of working, Kevin started to become reliable, unreliable, and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with them. They started going back to the basics.

Kenny Bailey (32:20.919)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (32:20.938)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (32:32.917)
He just wasn't getting it. He was going in and working every day, but he wasn't working up to his usual standards. So they retired him. Well, a weeks later, Bart noticed that there wasn't, there was something wrong, like in his jaw, he felt the lump and it was cancer. So, haven't had cancer in his jaw. was to the point where the tumor was growing up and splintering his lower jaw. So the dog, was in pain like all the time, but he was, he was working.

Kenny Bailey (32:36.503)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (32:50.632)
Go ahead.

Coach Tom (32:58.056)
wow.

Kenny Bailey (33:02.433)
Trying,

Lorrie Huegel (33:03.498)
So yeah, trying to work. and by then he was off the city's payroll. So, you know, that $7,000 surgery falls on Bart because he is now, you know, yeah. So, So he paid for the surgery and he's trying to find a way to, you know, get some kind of assistance to pay for the surgery while he applied. found out about Project Canine Heroine applied.

Coach Tom (33:03.766)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (33:17.13)
He's the owner, yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (33:33.265)
It took a year for their application to get around to them. and they called him Thanksgiving weekend and said, Hey, we're to bring Kevin into the program. We're going to pay that vet bill in full right now. And his medical expenses are being covered for the rest of his life, which is a huge financial commitment. Cause right now Kevin's only only six years old. mean, he's remains cancer free. He could live for another six to seven years. And that's a lot of money that.

Kenny Bailey (33:47.735)
you

Kenny Bailey (33:54.263)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (33:54.464)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (33:57.975)
Hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (34:00.223)
They're going to pay out for this dog over the next, mean, for the remainder of his life. And, um, I actually went and met him in person, um, back in February, I was going to go, I wanted to have a face to face with them because I wanted to introduce myself and say, Hey, I'm a volunteer for this organization. I was only going to spend like 15 minutes with them, but I spent like two hours talking to the guy. a great guy. Basically told me a lot of things.

Coach Tom (34:04.523)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (34:17.91)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (34:29.628)
that about himself and how he got started handling canines because he never had the desire to be a canine handler to begin with. just something ended up happening. which I thought, you know, I said that project came in here. I said, I think it's a good idea. said, if you have anybody come into the program, that's within an hour or two for me, let me know. I'll be glad to go meet them because they put bios out about the dogs when their dog comes into the program. But I think it's kind of interesting to get some information about the handler too.

Kenny Bailey (34:54.423)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (34:59.35)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (34:59.741)
So I kind of went off track there, didn't I? But that's what they do basically. Like I said, they've brought 339 dogs probably into the program so far. They've raised.

Kenny Bailey (35:03.264)
Yeah

Coach Tom (35:03.306)
That's okay. That's okay.

Coach Tom (35:16.736)
So what normally happens to a retired dog? They stay with the handler and the handler is responsible for them or?

Lorrie Huegel (35:24.605)
The handler is responsible for everything. mean, you know.

Coach Tom (35:28.988)
everything at that point. But they were also getting another dog to work with at work. When this one retires, they're still part of the canine unit. They're still working with the dog. They've got the dog that's at work and then they have the dog at home that's now become the family dog and they're responsible for all of that.

Lorrie Huegel (35:35.687)
Right.

Lorrie Huegel (35:46.17)
Right. They're responsible for all that. So Project Canine Hero covers all their medical expenses, any special dietary needs that these dogs need. They pay for that and they pay for all their end of duty, like end of duty services. he's raised, Jason's raised over $25 million, since 2016 for Project Canine Hero. And they are the number one charity for

Coach Tom (35:59.755)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (35:59.757)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (36:09.559)
Thanks a lot.

Coach Tom (36:10.454)
That's fantastic.

Lorrie Huegel (36:15.547)
working dogs in the country. is, yeah, which is huge. I met K9UB. Now K9UB is, she was their national ambassador for four years. She was a Chattanooga police dog. She was a narcotics dog and they weren't working here anymore. So they were using more multi-purpose canines. So she was just narcotics. So

Coach Tom (36:18.504)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (36:19.585)
That's great.

Coach Tom (36:22.07)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (36:45.093)
They, she just spent a lot of time in her kennel. weren't working her. She was in her kennel the whole time. So I think a couple of members of Jason's staff went down there to like tour Chattanooga PD and see what was going on. And you know, there was UB in her kennel and they were like, well, Sheena was like, well, who's this? And they're like, well, that's just UB. So didn't really sit real well with her. So she went back and told Jason about it and like,

I know a while later, I don't know how many weeks later they just decided we're going to go get her. So they basically went to chat a new PD and said, look, if you're not going to work her and she's just going to stay here in her kennel, we'll, we'll take her. So they took her, made her the face of the, the organization for like four years and she took project canine hero to like a whole nother level of. I don't want to notoriety, but basically she basically helped.

Kenny Bailey (37:36.406)
Neat.

Kenny Bailey (37:40.491)
Yeah. Visibility, right? So you can at least, yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (37:41.644)
you know, yeah, visibility. And, I met her when I went down to do the half in, May, Jason said, Hey, if you're going to race for our organization, come down for the facility, take some photos, you know, with UB. And I, Dawn and I went and we spent like an hour there and I was like, just completely blown away with everything that they do, everything they stand for. And I kind of had this.

Coach Tom (37:44.043)
Big time.

Lorrie Huegel (38:11.672)
like emotional connection to this dog that's not even mine. And, um, that's how the whole team UB thing got started. And, um, as I was training for Chattanooga full, she lost the ability to use her back legs. Um, she had a tumor on her spine, um, that they removed and it was causing paralysis in her back legs. So.

Coach Tom (38:20.939)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (38:39.875)
The whole time I'm trying to train to get through an Ironman, she's going through rehab to use her back legs again. it was, I wasn't prepared for, when I met her, I wasn't prepared for the type of journey I was getting ready to go on, through the training and you know, the emotional attachment I was going to have with her through the whole thing.

Kenny Bailey (39:07.499)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (39:07.806)
And then when I went to Chattanooga to do the full Jason Johnson asked me when race weekend was and I said, you know, in two weeks, I want to come to the facility and see you. He's like, well, she's going to be at the veterinary care group in Chattanooga doing rehab because he had to go overseas. He's like, can you go spend some time with her while you're there? So, Saturday after we did bike check and everything, Dawn, Jeannie, myself and Tom.

Went down to the veterinary care group and spent like 45 minutes with K9UV. She kept giving Tom the side eye. Like he was some kind of shady character or something. So we spent like, yeah. So we spent 40 to 45 minutes with her and then we left and Don and I were talking to Jeff Kessler and he's like, hey,

Coach Tom (39:44.086)
They all were, to be honest with you. Everybody was like...

Kenny Bailey (39:44.353)
Yeah

yeah. There.

Kenny Bailey (39:52.055)
They can smell it. They can smell it.

Lorrie Huegel (40:06.134)
He's like, when you finish the race, he's like, and you will finish. He said, come find me at the finish line. He's like, I'll give you an extra metal. So the whole, that's what basically got me through that race because I'm, thinking, okay, if I finish this race, I can give you be her own Ironman metal. There's going to be nothing cooler than that. So I was like, I don't care if I crawl across the finish line. I've got it. I've got to finish this race. So,

Kenny Bailey (40:18.699)
That's cool. That's a very strong lie.

Lorrie Huegel (40:35.953)
I did. then like Monday after, before Don and I headed out of town, we went down to the veterinary care group and gave, her a medal, took a bunch of pictures and I sent them to Jason over and he was over in the Netherlands. had no idea that I was doing this. He's like, my God, that is so cool. So, yeah, that's, basically how team UB got started. it's now a thing. I mean, team UB is known.

you know, followers all over like the country who follow, probably canine hero on, on social media. So, sadly her end of watch was, December 13th, she got pneumonia and never recovered. So, canine Ricky is now, filling her shoes as national ambassador, but her legacy, I'm going to make sure that her legacy.

Kenny Bailey (41:10.615)
It's neat.

Coach Tom (41:13.621)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (41:33.479)
lives on because I have two custom made tri kits that have Project K9 Hero on one side, Remember Every Dog Deployed on the other side. I've got Team Ubi on the back. I I'm all in. I've spent like six or $700 of my own money to have these race kits made because it's not just about raising money, but it's about raising awareness.

Kenny Bailey (41:43.221)
Yep.

Kenny Bailey (41:49.323)
There you go.

Coach Tom (41:50.56)
You're all in.

Kenny Bailey (41:54.711)
You

Kenny Bailey (42:02.537)
It's also about keeping a memory alive, right? It's recognizing that, right?

Lorrie Huegel (42:04.856)
Yeah, and it's, yeah, she's, she is, I've got her picture down here when I'm cycling, she's, she's all over my tri bike. She's on my helmet. And we just did an event. April 19th, we had our inaugural K9UV5K and we had in-person participants.

Coach Tom (42:29.856)
Nice.

Kenny Bailey (42:31.895)
Cool.

Lorrie Huegel (42:33.554)
which I think we had like 73 in-person participants. And then we had over a hundred people virtually all across the country. We like 30 states, people in 30 states that participated. So we raised $10,000 with that one race. And I'm already working on next year's event and it's going to be huge. It's going to be huge. So this is something that's going to

Coach Tom (42:48.18)
Nice. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (42:48.203)
That's fantastic.

Coach Tom (42:58.548)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (43:02.502)
You know, any chance that I get to talk about this organization and tell them what they're all about, I'm, I'm going to do it. I've been on local TV here. I'm trying to figure out a way how to get, get, you know, national exposure, any way I can, especially for, you know, the five K cause the more people we have participate, the more money you raise, the more awareness we get that's, I, this is, I'm a person that I get to seize the whole time I was in college.

Kenny Bailey (43:06.764)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (43:31.184)
One was public speaking. I had the only time I get the only way I got through public speaking classes. I went we went out and had a few beers before class. And my other one was my other seat was teaching soccer.

Kenny Bailey (43:31.479)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (43:39.991)
There you go.

Coach Tom (43:41.301)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (43:45.26)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (43:46.582)
Ha

Kenny Bailey (43:49.537)
Well there you go. Well it's amazing what happens when you have passion behind something, right? It sort of talks itself, right? You get that courage.

Lorrie Huegel (43:49.561)
So, I mean.

Coach Tom (43:50.464)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (43:54.677)
Exactly. Exactly. So I'd never been on, I'd never been on local TV before and I wanted to get the word out about our race. And I just emailed every like media outlet here in Cincinnati and said, Hey, this is what we got going on April 19th. This is why we're doing it. You need to, you know, you need to make people aware of this. And I, called Bart at, you know, little PD and I said,

Can you, do you want to do an interview with WWT with K9 Kevin to promote the 5k and awareness for this organization? He's like, absolutely. So he's been like a huge help. he's helping me, with next year's 5k because we're going to do it in downtown Ludlow, where Kevin's from. So the live, the people that are doing the live event, we're going to be team Kevin. I've given Dawn Cynthia and Jeannie I've bestowed upon them.

Coach Tom (44:45.643)
Nice.

Lorrie Huegel (44:50.991)
Team Ubi responsibilities. So they're going to get together a big group of people if they can through beat or through fleet feet where Jeannie works to get a group of people as Team Ubi to do it virtually. We've got somebody in Texas who's got a K9 K9 Rex. They're going to do a virtual part as Team Rex. So we're going to try and get different teams throughout the country.

where there is a canine in the program and that's going to be their team. So that's how we're going to do it. So I'm working my way into that right now.

Coach Tom (45:22.484)
Nice.

Coach Tom (45:30.153)
outstanding.

Kenny Bailey (45:30.369)
Well, if it's any indication on how you do a race, the tenacity alone, this is going to be successful. Or it's going to spectacularly blow up, or the two. But I have feeling successful is going to be kind of what...

Lorrie Huegel (45:41.294)
If it blows up in a good way, I'm okay with that. mean, if I've gone off the reservation several times, I apologize, but this is how passionate I am about this organization and how cool they are.

Kenny Bailey (45:44.193)
There you go! There you go.

Coach Tom (45:44.31)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (45:50.934)
Uh-uh.

Kenny Bailey (45:51.287)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (45:57.067)
Yeah, yeah. And like I'm a big dog person. I know you are. You've got how many dogs at home? How many Laura do you have?

Lorrie Huegel (46:03.118)
we've got two, we've got a 200 pound English Mastiff who's kind of like, he'd like to have a speed bump in the house.

Kenny Bailey (46:12.051)
That's not a dog, that's a small horse at that point.

Coach Tom (46:12.512)
You

Lorrie Huegel (46:15.284)
Exactly. And his name, his name is Groot. I am Groot. He was, you know, he was named, he was named when we got him. He was two years old when we got him. He was already named, so we didn't want to change his name. And now we have, we have a 65 pound boxer mix named Tilly, who is, she's like a velociraptor in a dog suit. The dog is just completely out of her mind. She's so opposite personality wise. She's on 40 milligrams of Prozac a day.

Coach Tom (46:19.252)
which is outstanding. I am Groot.

Kenny Bailey (46:19.252)
Of course, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (46:36.769)
No.

Coach Tom (46:42.785)
god yeah.

Kenny Bailey (46:42.935)
It's

Lorrie Huegel (46:45.538)
So, but yeah, she, yeah, it's, it's never a moment in this house. So, yeah. So.

Coach Tom (46:46.27)
Yeah. Wow.

Kenny Bailey (46:49.099)
It's funny.

There you go.

Coach Tom (46:53.376)
Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't, I was never aware of the organization and about the service dogs after they retire. mean, so this was, this was wonderful for me to learn when I met you and started working with you and everything that you were doing and going down there and actually getting to meet you was fantastic. I mean, because this is, I mean, I love dogs and very passionate about that side of things and, and just being able to see that, that, you know, we're taking care of them.

properly because they're working hard for us. I mean we utilize dogs for a lot of things in the military and and in police work and they're fantastic. I mean they're amazing how smart they are the ones that get through the program and do that. So it's it's great that we're you know somebody's trying to step up and and help take care of them afterwards.

Lorrie Huegel (47:27.947)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (47:28.96)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (47:33.141)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (47:39.936)
Absolutely.

Lorrie Huegel (47:41.611)
well it's what's interesting is when you tell people there are no government or public funds for these dogs when they retire. They're like just completely shocked because of the mean out there protecting our communities they're protecting our country. And you know what a law enforcement officer retires or you retire from the military there's something there for them in retirement there's nothing there for these dogs. And. You know.

Kenny Bailey (47:57.175)
Hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (48:12.171)
I'll be going to the performance for paws event again in January and I know I'll have I'll have some VIP passes so if this year coming up Tom you should you and Wendy should come and because I had Jeannie and Don and Cynthia come with me and they have Some came they have some canines there with their handlers. They have videos of some of these dogs what they've been through

and what project canine hero is done for them one of the most famous can actually be most famous canine out there is canine maddis and he was there with his hand remark at the event and i mean the amount of money that project canine hero has paid out to medical care for maddis is astounding and i mean you just you see how close these

Coach Tom (48:40.682)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (49:03.584)
Wow.

Lorrie Huegel (49:09.384)
these guys are to their canines. I mean, you think about it, they're in the trenches with these dogs and these dogs are protecting them while they're out there doing their jobs. There's a very strong connection there. So yeah, exactly. So the fact that there's an organization out there that's willing to step up and do what they do is amazing. And they've got the corporate sponsorships that they have.

Kenny Bailey (49:12.791)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (49:15.446)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (49:16.385)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (49:20.329)
without question either. Gleefully. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (49:38.394)
Red Barn Pet Products is one of their sponsors. There's a lot of corporations out there, companies out there that are pet and dog related that help with donations and things like that to this organization to allow them with the medical care that they give these dogs.

Kenny Bailey (49:49.015)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (49:58.529)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (49:58.764)
Sure. So for our watchers and viewers, would you like us to do? What would you need from these folks that are listening to this?

Lorrie Huegel (50:08.327)
Um, check out project canine hero, www.projectcaninehero.com. Get on there, read what they do. Um, I have a fundraising page, um, that's on there. They can contribute to it or they can just make a donation directly to project canine hero. Um, every little bit helps. Um, I right now, I'm, mean, I donate, I think like I have a reoccurring donation. That's like $25 a month.

That's, you know, not, it's, not a lot of money, but when you get 50 to a hundred people that get on there and donate, you know, $25 a month, that's, mean, that's a lot of money. So yeah, exactly. And you know, it's every little bit helps. mean, Jason, he told me that he didn't have, um, he didn't have like a lot of huge donations. Like that $25 million was a lot.

Coach Tom (50:46.322)
It helps. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (50:47.244)
Yep.

Kenny Bailey (50:51.479)
Starts turning into real money, yeah.

Coach Tom (50:51.54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (51:07.92)
whole lot of small donations that added up over time, but they have a big capital campaign that they're pushing right now to upgrade and add some things to the property that's going to allow them to bring more dogs to the facility. And the other thing is

Coach Tom (51:09.334)
small donations. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (51:09.847)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (51:14.679)
Mm-hmm.

Lorrie Huegel (51:28.876)
If these dogs, whatever dogs are at the facility, if they cannot be rehabilitated and rehomed and adopted out, they live out the rest of their life on his 177 acres sanctuary there. So he's got 177 acres there and it's, mean, it's just, it's amazing. So they have, they're wanting to build like an adoption center and some other things there on the property. But you know, that's, you know, as well as I do, that takes money. So I need, you know,

Coach Tom (51:39.648)
nice.

Kenny Bailey (51:39.649)
Nice.

Coach Tom (51:45.108)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (51:53.942)
It takes money. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (51:55.349)
Yeah, does.

Lorrie Huegel (51:56.614)
He's been working to try and get legislation passed by the government, but he hasn't been successful in doing that yet. But he's kind of like me. Jason's not going to give up. So yeah, he's just going to keep going.

Coach Tom (52:09.32)
And just keep going. Yeah, you just keep pushing. You're just going to make those incremental gains and you're just going to keep pushing ahead and moving forward. That's what's going to do it.

Kenny Bailey (52:11.807)
Well, I mean... Yeah.

But in the interim, know, let's take care of these dogs, right? mean, legislation is far down the line and definitely needed, but don't wait for it, right? So, you know, take matters into... There you go. That's it.

Coach Tom (52:20.021)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (52:25.977)
Yeah, just like Tom says, relentless forward progress. Yeah.

Coach Tom (52:29.688)
Relentless forward progress. It just keeps moving. It keeps moving forward. So what's your Instagram?

Kenny Bailey (52:33.523)
Yeah. Well, think of the donation as like gels, right, on your way to the finish line. There you go.

Coach Tom (52:37.364)
Yeah, yeah, you just need a little, just keep consistent, keep going. What's the Instagram? Team Ubi?

Lorrie Huegel (52:38.915)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (52:44.677)
The Instagram is teamk9ub

Coach Tom (52:49.174)
Team K9 UB. Y-O-U-B-E. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (52:50.981)
Yup, that's my Instagram. And I also have a Facebook page that's Team Ubi. I'm trying to post. Yeah, so I mean, anything that has to do with races, me moaning and groaning about Tom's workouts.

Coach Tom (52:59.19)
Team Ubi, so we'll post those up in the notes.

Kenny Bailey (53:09.195)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (53:09.206)
Which happens a lot. That's actually a lot of the feed. It's just like.

Lorrie Huegel (53:13.273)
The first time, actually the first time I met Tom was actually Don and I were doing a ride together. So he set us up so we could do like a couple of replays. So Don and I can ride virtually together and talk to each other. And we were, he gave one of his workouts was he had sprints in there and we were calling him pillars of hell. I was texting Tom while we were doing the biking and all of a sudden his face pops up on the screen. He's like, hi girls.

Kenny Bailey (53:25.589)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (53:32.786)
Hahaha!

Coach Tom (53:39.542)
I have control. I can sit in. How you doing?

Kenny Bailey (53:40.832)
Hahaha

la oops look didn't know that feature existed yeah yeah that's there you go

Lorrie Huegel (53:45.123)
So I was like, it's the devil himself. Yeah. But that was, that was my first like, first time I'd ever seen Tom like face to face was like on TV after I was like, I was trashing his, his workouts to him via text in a good way. Yeah. What? Yeah. But he's Tom's the, Tom's the best coach.

Coach Tom (53:51.006)
Yes, just popping up on your shoulder. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna I'm gonna

Kenny Bailey (54:02.05)
Doh doh.

Coach Tom (54:04.628)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (54:05.22)
That's funny. In a good way, right? So, there you go.

Coach Tom (54:07.606)
It's all good. Yep.

Lorrie Huegel (54:14.699)
I mean, I tell people about them all the time, but I have friends that are just now getting in the multi-sport. have somebody that's doing his first triathlon up here in Cincinnati, which yeah, they actually were having our first Cincinnati triathlon. The inaugural race is June 22nd. I'm trying to get Dawn to come up and do it. it's super sprint sprint, Olympic distance, doathlon, aqua bike.

Coach Tom (54:34.613)
wow, okay.

Lorrie Huegel (54:42.679)
going to be a blast. have a closed course for bike and run. And we get to jump off the Bell of Cincinnati Riverboat into the Ohio River.

Kenny Bailey (54:46.365)
nice.

Coach Tom (54:46.71)
nice.

Coach Tom (54:51.493)
there you go. Jumping off a perfectly good boat is a great way to start a race.

Kenny Bailey (54:54.039)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (54:55.773)
Aim to, yeah, but the Ohio River is not looking so good right now. I'm like, I'm like, I got to swim in this thing in like, I don't know, four weeks and I'm like, please, please cancel the swim.

Coach Tom (54:59.139)
Mmm, yeah, huh.

Kenny Bailey (54:59.561)
Bleh.

Coach Tom (55:12.49)
Yeah, then yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (55:12.493)
You know, if they had canceled, if, if I had done, if they had canceled the swim in, Chattanooga last year, like they did this past weekend, I might've been able to finish the race. I wouldn't finish the race.

Kenny Bailey (55:22.505)
You would have been a hero. There you go. I would have been somebody.

Coach Tom (55:22.934)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're having a lot more of that in our rivers and with our weather and stuff, we're having a lot more cancellations with the water.

Lorrie Huegel (55:28.61)
Sorry.

Kenny Bailey (55:30.907)
Yeah, lately. Woof! Yeah. Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (55:35.326)
Yeah, I saw that. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Louisville is like because that's the Ohio River too. I know last year they had, last year the water quality was questionable, I think two weeks before the race. So yeah.

Coach Tom (55:43.646)
It is. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (55:44.023)
So yeah, there you go.

Coach Tom (55:51.905)
There was big storms, there was a lot of debris. It cleared up, it was okay. But it was probably right on the borderline of like, so I didn't hear any stories of people getting out, getting sick. I've heard that bunch of other races where people get out and get sick afterwards. But I mean, it's hit and miss. know we were, I did Whistler one year and a buddy of mine that did it with me, Adam.

Lorrie Huegel (56:02.764)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (56:11.607)
Hmm.

Coach Tom (56:19.882)
He had all sorts of intestinal distress from a perfectly clear lake. Yeah, it was just, couldn't finish the race. And it was just, it's, there's so much that could go wrong, you know, that way, how your body reacts, what's in the water, could be microbes, it could be all sorts of stuff, you know, no. Yeah, nothing you can do about it. Yeah, so you just kind of, yep.

Kenny Bailey (56:25.111)
We'll leave it at that.

Lorrie Huegel (56:28.906)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (56:40.994)
It's totally out of your control. there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, just be prepared for anything. So you're your racing mobile, right? Your racing mobile?

Coach Tom (56:50.484)
Yes, I'm racing Louisville as well. So is Kenny. Kenny's registered for it. Let's just put it that way. We'll see. We'll see.

Lorrie Huegel (56:53.568)
Okay.

Kenny Bailey (57:00.087)
Back to that, telling you my shoulder really hurts. I've a thing with a thing.

Lorrie Huegel (57:03.041)
Come on, hey, if I can do it, if I can do a race with like one arm. Yeah, don't, that's not gonna fly with me, sorry.

Coach Tom (57:07.954)
She is not one to make excuses to. Yeah. Yeah, don't, don't. Yeah, she doesn't, she doesn't accept any of that. I had this little tight spot right on the top. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Louisville will be a bit.

Kenny Bailey (57:10.186)
Yeah.

There you go. I got a burr right here. like, it really hurts. Right here, it really hurts. It hurts a lot. So, that's funny.

Lorrie Huegel (57:24.928)
Look, since 2013 I've had, I've been in Beacon's Surgery Center seven times since 2013. I should have a frequent, frequent, yeah, and I asked him like last year when I the whole shoulder thing, was like, so let me ask you this. Is there any patient in this practice right now that has spent more time in your surgery center than I have? And he's like,

Kenny Bailey (57:34.475)
Yeah. Dang.

Coach Tom (57:37.6)
Well, we're gonna end that. That stopped as of last year. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (57:40.407)
Yeah, they got a card.

Coach Tom (57:54.389)
No. There's a whole wing that they built because of you.

Lorrie Huegel (57:54.8)
No!

Kenny Bailey (57:58.615)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (57:59.922)
I probably paid for his house somewhere on the beach. Exactly.

Kenny Bailey (58:04.213)
His beach house at this point. Yes, this is not just his house. Yeah.

Coach Tom (58:05.462)
He's driving up in his Lamborghini going like, no, you're my favorite.

Kenny Bailey (58:09.707)
Yeah, I know. Exactly.

Lorrie Huegel (58:11.736)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but I did, you know, and I do, I do have something for you, Tom, when I come down there. After I finished Chattanooga, I mean, Jason Johnson's is one of his people sent me an email and she said, Hey, as a thank you, want to give you, we want you to go, go to our web store and pick out a few items that, we're going to send them to you. So I had three things that I wanted new coffee mug or new coffee tumbler.

a sweatshirt and a long sleeve t-shirt. That's it. That's all I wanted. I had like four boxes, like two boxes of stuff show up at the house like a week later. some of the things that, one of the things he sent me is he me 10 challenge coins to give out. So far, I've given my surgeon a challenge coin and I've given my physical therapist a challenge coin because they're the ones that are constantly putting me back together to be able to do this. And there's four others that I'm going to give out.

Coach Tom (58:46.976)
Ha ha ha.

Coach Tom (59:03.56)
Yeah.

Lorrie Huegel (59:08.585)
Cynthia, Dawn and Jeannie because I mean, they're my people. God love them. They're probably my three best friends in the entire world. And I got to give you one because there's no way I would have ever made it through that race without you. Without you and K9UB. So K9UB got her own Ironman medal. I got to give you a challenge coin.

Coach Tom (59:14.122)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (59:27.446)
There you go.

Coach Tom (59:28.662)
Well, there you go. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yep.

Kenny Bailey (59:33.153)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (59:36.947)
for helping me get through that. that's, I'll be bringing that down with me.

Coach Tom (59:37.18)
Awesome. That's outstanding. Thank you. I super appreciate that. That's fantastic.

Kenny Bailey (59:37.825)
There you go. Congratulations, Tom.

Lorrie Huegel (59:44.275)
Yeah, yeah, so anything I mean.

Kenny Bailey (59:46.785)
So with that, I think we leave on a high note,

Coach Tom (59:49.846)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, no, this was fantastic. Laurie, I always enjoy working with you. We've got a lot to go. I'm glad I got to meet you through Dawn and Jeannie and Cynthia. So some other amazing friends that you have. I joke about that you need new friends, but actually they're the best kind of friends to have. And they're really good people.

Lorrie Huegel (59:50.399)
Yeah!

Lorrie Huegel (59:55.295)
This has been a lot of fun.

Lorrie Huegel (01:00:08.755)
Yes.

Kenny Bailey (01:00:13.079)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (01:00:13.787)
They are the best. I would do anything for any one of them at any given time if they asked me to. So that's just where it's at. Yeah, exactly.

Coach Tom (01:00:21.204)
Yeah. Yeah. And they do the same. Yeah, that's that's good friendship in that. So looking forward to following along. I'll put up on the show notes and everything. All the all the foundation stuff so you can follow along. Track tracker next challenges and things that come up and please support the organization if you can. And and send that so I can throw that up.

Kenny Bailey (01:00:28.001)
There you go.

Kenny Bailey (01:00:41.143)
There you go.

Lorrie Huegel (01:00:44.44)
Yeah, I'll send you picture of my tattoo too.

Kenny Bailey (01:00:47.543)
There you go.

Coach Tom (01:00:49.046)
I'll insert that in the video here as we go through so you can kind of see the it's amazing artwork on that. So cool. Everybody, we appreciate all those thoughts and you know, thumbs up. Give us give us thumbs up gives us good reviews. Hey, if there's something we need to work on, let us know. We're getting better at this. We've only been doing I think this is episode 81. So for five years or so. Yeah, we'll get this right. We're having a good time. Anything you want to know? Questions that you have send it out. We really appreciate it.

Lorrie Huegel (01:00:52.164)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (01:01:05.771)
Yep.

Kenny Bailey (01:01:09.951)
Someday we'll get it right.

Lorrie Huegel (01:01:13.09)
No, this was fun. It's a lot of fun.

Coach Tom (01:01:18.9)
and that gets the algorithm out to everybody else as well. So Lori, thanks for being on and sharing your story. We really appreciate that. It's great talking with you, Kenny, as always, it's great. And for everybody else, yeah, we'll catch you on the next one.

Kenny Bailey (01:01:21.281)
Thank you.

Lorrie Huegel (01:01:26.906)
Thanks for having me on.

Kenny Bailey (01:01:30.561)
See you

Lorrie Huegel (01:01:34.202)
See you at lunch next Thursday, All right. See you. All right. Bye, guys.

Coach Tom (01:01:36.17)
Yes, for sure.

Bye.