Pastries, Performance and Perspective with Rich Ryan

What's up guys welcome back to OffTrack I'm Kat and I'm Morgan and this episode is brought to you by the box rocks network Well well well we have a special guest on our pod today He's waiting in the shadows, but let me do a quick little introduction for everybody who is not watching on YouTube We have got the seventh place singles finisher at high rock world championships this year in Stockholm, Sweden Third place doubles this year in Sweden as well The new father himself the 40 year old legend We've got rich Ryan on the pod Hello, thank you. Thank you. I have a little snack left I started just before I could finish all my snack, but I'm gonna save that snack for later You guys are crushing this intro game intro game is tight so far. That's all Morgan. That was really that was a team effort I saw you guys are both saying stuff. I I didn't even practice like with colipsos I mean, I feel like I didn't have to practice with rich like rich and I have been Close for what like seven years now We've known each other for some time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've known each other for a while So like because of that I feel like I know him so well that I don't even need a research his name Like all the time Google yeah, just off the dome Well you Google back you can clip so is like so accomplished You can google her and like stuff will come up you Google me. It's like there's not you know There's like a problem Yeah, hopefully I'm the first one that pops up. Maybe not I don't even know Well, I so I Google myself recently and just cuz I wanted to see like what happened like what I'm not the first Morgan sholes that pops up a woman or a girl. She's roughly my age. She's 30 She ran for the University of Notre Dame. No way a really good runner So she was at Notre Dame while I was at Illinois and we're both Morgan sholes spelled the same way no T That's that's kind of rare no T at that right you would think there might be a Morgan sholts out there who ran I'd be like yeah, I can see that but a Morgan sholes Seems unlike these against each other. Yeah, what was their distance? You know what she was a long distance like cross country Five K 10 K so we could have ran cross country against each other We did a Notre Dame. We did the Notre Dame invitation what I was in college So there was like a probably a 90% chance that we ran against each other You take it down in a foreign though you'd smoke her in a four or eight. Yeah cross country That makes me want to start the podcast by asking round table. What what do we think we could run a 400 meter in right now? God, let's not do this with me in YouTube In my sickly state like I'm sure I'm not breaking 70, but let's not The group I would get I would get out there and tested every now and then I think I did one last year and I'm just Holding on to sub 60. I will I can do 59 point Hand time so maybe that's not just me a lot that that you're not faster than that It's it's like that's that goes away. It's hard it's a hard way Like when I first started doing track and field and like my freshman year I think the first time I ran like a four by it ran like 58 seconds as like a freshman in high school Right, which like isn't very good like but it was I'm currently still there like that's like my base level I guess with no training is 58 to 59 But if you're not doing 400 stuff like It's it's it goes away. It does what do you think you got Morgan? I think like if I wasn't sick and I wasn't wearing my glasses And when you did your your mile, what do you think you would have done? Like when I did my 5k I felt like I was really good running shape. Yeah, this is like two months ago I probably could pull I think I got a 62 Do you think you got that kind of speed though? I think I got a 62 Yeah, I think and you now you're saying like that's yeah That's what I did in high school. I think I did 63 64 And like good girls in my high school were We're nuts when he came to track. Well, did you make the four by four? We on the the squad or are you just going to go on winter track? I did the four by two And long and triple jump but I did do the 400 at one point and it was just Oh you didn't do outdoor now because I played softball so like oh god yeah, I wish I really wish I could do track again now I could say that Did you uh? Did you guys watch the mile world record? I'll watch it but I saw that's crazy. I watched it. I watched it. I wasn't super locked in like that Like I knew it was happening and it was kind of hard to find some feeds. I watched it after yeah Just crazy. It was great team amazed fit about that. Yeah, right. That's what we're the same. Is a team of data's two? No, he's brooks Oh, he was brooks. Why I think he's a team of data will pretend he wasn't Yeah, we got no You got no connection to Josh Kerr You wish Kat you he is my teammate not yours. Yeah, there you go And I think like an interesting thing with him is he definitely talks the talk right like he was hyping this up for a long time You know project 222 was his thing and like I was following along in his YouTube channel too and like watching him You know do these crazy workouts his his like he was very confident in himself that this is gonna happen So like he talked the talk, but he could also walk the walk which like sometimes doesn't happen in elite sport What are some of the examples of like workouts he was doing to prep for this? Um, so he did a workout like right before he did a 1200 meter time trial in I think 242 Which like is an unofficial world record in and of itself That's attitude at altitude at altitude Wow, that's crazy. Oh my god Yeah, he he's been talking to talk for a long time like that's kind of what he is And he's been one of the best in the world for several years at this point I'm a little surprised he was able to pull this off because it is just like You know, we think talk about track and field. It's like the 100 that's probably like the thing that people care about the most I think the 400 is just like awesome. Just one lap around who can do it and then it's like the mile But it's like I think it's like the 100 in the mile or you know, they run the 1500 But the mile the 1600 is just like yep The pinnacle of distance track and field and like it's not a new thing everyone goes that it's a little bit different because The mile is not often run Right, it's like the 1500 or the 1600 but the mile is like a weird kind of yes, you've got to back up a little bit um But it's still just like the coolest event for distance. It's like it's like a pinnacle distance event Like if you're the fastest mileer in the world you're the best distance runner in the world Like that's the notoriety that he carries which is just so cool to see again broken too Yeah, and there's it was like almost an ancient record at this point like 1999 And what was the prior record? I should know this but I don't it was just like 10th of a second Oh really dang I wish he'd better like like more than No, they were like he obliterates it but it was like by like That's a lot How's dad life going? Yeah, yeah, let's talk about that dad life is happening Baby Scotty is 7 months old. She'll be 8 in like a couple of days. I'm so basically 8 months old. It's uh Yeah, I mean it's it's It's interesting the sleep the sleep is still Yeah, not not like For sure we we can't go to bed every night being like all right. We're gonna get 8 tonight Like that's just not how it's gonna work Uh, and just like the rapidness of the changes Is something I don't think I was quite ready for I knew that they grew fast and they always like oh it goes fast You know that are you know save all the moments but like the rate in which it happens I was not prepared for Um, so she's doing things. She's kind of crawling now. She's very cute. You can I can interact with there a little bit more It's a really cute and fun age Do you think she'll she'll be like Lily Where she's watching like the lab Lily watches Lauren maybe yeah, yeah, she's awesome Meg Jacobi gifted us a little sled. So we already have a sled for yeah, that's cute Starting on high rock's young stars. So right like she has seven should we have seven years to prepare or eight whatever we've eight years She's gonna be ready She's gonna be ready. I don't care which says about it. I don't care She's gonna she hates it who cares. She's gonna be on that start line. She's got a way. She's got a legacy So you were you became a dad this last season and like obviously Things had to change in your schedule including your training right like I'm sure you were doing things like Pre-baby that You've had to kind of mold and navigate and change into like develop a new routine basically So like how how has that been like obviously there's bumps and bruises and like learning curves as a new child, you know Enters your life, but do you find that? It's allowed you to kind of like take a step back from the sport and like put things into perspective and like How is your prioritization change and your thought process around that when I was coming into it. I really thought Everything was gonna change. I thought and I thought Probably not for the better athletically. I was like all right. I put a lot of pressure on myself for that first race at the major last year in Hamburg Because the baby was not born yet and I was like okay, so my last chance to really have As be as like selfish and put as much time as possible into The training and I didn't qualify there and then I thought it was over. I was like all right I'm done like because that was October she was coming in November and once it did. It happened and I realized, 'cause I thought it was gonna be a zombie. I didn't think I was gonna be able to sleep and I think I was gonna be able to get recovery. I thought all my time was gonna be condensed. And it was, but Morgan Hayes said the priorities shifted, right? Like where I might have been spending my time elsewhere, like training was still the focal point. And that comes from yes prioritizing that. And also it's having like a super supportive partner who does kind of like make, like she puts, she gives me a lot of space and a lot of grace to still pursue this thing because it is kind of become a route to support the family. And so that has been the motivation less than like, okay, now I have this child's gonna do everything better, but like it's more my partner who's like, I'm spending this time away. So I have to really, really make it count. And that's, so when I get there, I gotta go and I gotta make it happen. So like the intention and the workouts has definitely been elevated. And what's kind of fallen apart is just like everything else. (laughing) Oh no. So like, family time's good. - Yeah. - Training time has been good, but then like anything else that I wanna do, I just like don't. - Yeah. - I just like, it's like not gonna happen. Like new hobbies aren't gonna happen. Like on the business side of things, like I'm just like gone complete maintenance. I'm just trying to like, I'm just trying to keep things going. I just have like some systems that I can rely on that have been able to keep things moving forward. But like no space for like hobbies or like socialization. And you know, that's actually fun. Because then it is like, these are my priorities. And these are the things that I wanna be doing more than anything else. So there's just like a different type of clarity. - Would you say that like now that you do have like a specific amount of time for training that a lot of, I wouldn't call it junk volume, but like a lot of doing more has been eliminated. Or do you think that you're doing the same amount you were? - Kinda doing the same amount. - Okay. - I was never, I was number one to just do volume for the sake of volume. For me, I've gone that route and tried to like stack and stack and stack and I usually end up tipping over rather than thriving under those conditions. So to me, it's like, hey, I kinda know what works. And if I need to inch things up, I am just like a little bit more efficient with my time. If I need to be like, okay, now we are gonna bump up some volume day over day or week over week. I can still kind of make that happen. And again, there's just, like then I will just take time from whatever I have of like doing work or business stuff or content creation. And then that time goes to train. And I just kinda have to make that trade off as much as I'm willing to do. So I really, my volume hasn't really gone down. - That's great. - But just no more sourdough is what I'm hearing. - That's the cat. - Shoot. - That's a cat. - The massive casualty is like the baking game is poor now. Like it doesn't exist. So we're buying bread at the store. - Oh, I can relate to that though because I was on the sourdough kick as well. But now that like my schedule is different every day kind of, so I don't have that where I was working at home a lot Mondays and Fridays when I was working in my corporate job. So I had that time to do my feeding and then stretch and fold. And now I'm just, I can't, unfortunately can't. - So you still have it? - You still have the starter somewhere, just like full like a slide. - Oh, do you have your name was Fiona? She's back in the fridge. - Oh, she's named. - Okay. - You always name your starter. - I've never been part of the baking club. Like the name of the starter. - I knew something was bad was gonna happen. So I didn't want to form that type of connection with my starter. - Oh my god, that's so. - Still in the fridge. - That's so kind of you. - I don't want my big, it's just sitting there. I'm like, it's never gonna, never gonna happen. - It's just there. - Yeah. - And there's like a bunch of hooch on it. I'm just like, I don't even know if I should touch it. - That's not sad. - Probably not. - Oh, I'll open it. - Open it. - Yeah. - It's like where it's buried. - It's the fridge. - Yeah. - Well, I think baby bread. - I know. - Probably the baby outweighs the bread, baby. For now, you know, while she's still growing and sourdough bread is, I was doing like my last, like I had a couple last herrads, right? And I was like, okay, I got a qualifying, hamburger didn't happen, it was whatever. And then I ran a better race, that didn't have to overblow that. But I was like, I'm gonna make a croissant. I'm making croissants and it's gonna be my last hurrah and the baking side of things. And that actually has been true. I have not had a chance to bake anything other than a croissant. So. - And how was the croissant? - They were like, not, they tasted good. I could not believe how much butter I had to use for croissant. - Yes, crazy. - It's just like a mouth and a butter. It is really delicious. - Did you have a croissant, or did you have any sort of pastries when you were in Sweden? Did you get your hands on it? - What is the thing called? Can you say any of them? Are you able to say the pastry names? - Well, what's one of you, like what was it like? - No, any of them. Can you say any pastry name, any sweetest pastry? Like, yeah, what does it matter? Any of them. Any of them. Any of them. Yeah, did you have any of them? - Yeah, so you're asking the qualifier. You would have no answer anyway. Which one? Oh, I don't know. - We don't know. - We were just saying, we didn't like them. And like, we like to name our favorite pastries. We had Calypso do it. So what's like your favorite pastry? - In Sweden or in general. - Just in general, in general. - In general. I'm a crumb cake girl. - Crumb cake? What was the, what was the sweetest one that was kind of like the braided knot that had like that crystallized sugar on it that was like everywhere? - Don't hold it, we have the name of it. - It was like a cinnamon roll, but with like the. - Yeah, but I thought it was like so mid. - Really? I was into it. - I didn't have it. - You didn't have it? - Oh no, you had the dough. - No, I didn't. So I'm not a big pastry person in general. Like I, I don't really need to, I could go my whole life, the rest of my life without having another pastry. Like I don't. - No pastry. - Do you like beer? Are you into breads or? - Yeah, I like bread, but like candy, like butter. - I prefer candy. - Like chocolate or like gummies. - No, like gummy candy, star-pedge kids, gummy worms, like sour skittles, like that. Any of that, like that. - So that's your favorite little treat. We don't have to do pastry then, we can do treat. - We'll do treats. - Favorite little treat. I'm still on pastry. - I'm still on pastry. - Yeah, don't leave that one. - I mean, I do always go, I lean croissant, even though it's like, you know, it's not that, it's not that fun because it's not sweet. And they're, they're, they only, they kind of top out. Like a good croissant, like the best croissant is probably, like not that much better than like a really good croissant. - Mm. - I don't know, I kind of just, like, so I can't say if I have like a, for sure favorite pastry. I think like, I think the best food that exists is like chocolate cake. - Oh, I know. - Like I think you guys just like the best. - Like a decadent chocolate cake. - Super chocolate icing too. Like I think that's just like the, like if you're like, hey, what's the best flavor of anything? It's like, oh, it's chocolate cake. - Chocolate cake. - It's the best flavor. - You know what's a big thing in the Chicago Land areas. It's a place called Portillo's. They do hot dogs, burgers, Italian beef, salads, pasta. But one thing they're really known for is their chocolate cake shakes. So they put a full slice of chocolate cake in a chocolate shake. - Oh, no. - And they mix it up all together. - Yeah. - Like the hottest top seller at Portillo's. I've never had one because I'm not a chocolate cake or a chocolate person in general. - Okay, guys, kind of skittles and hot dogs into skittles. - Yeah, guys. - They'll take a Chicago dog and then a side of skittles. - Yeah. - You're like, Rita's. You're like a Rita's girl. - Do you know what Rita's is? - No. - No, come on. - What? - Yeah, like, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're staying in very East Coast here. Your East Coast is showing on their other ideas. - I feel like that Rita's wasn't like a nation-wide thing. - No, no, no. Wooder ice. - Water ice, yeah. - No, wooder. - Wooder. - Wooder. - It's wooder. - Oh, like, water. Water. - Yeah. - And sometimes you get a little gelato on the top of it, too. - Rita's at the time. It's like, that is where it's at for the East Coast people. On the first day of spring, I don't know if they still do this. But you get, you can get a free, a free Rita's. One time in high school, we went to like six locations. (laughing) - So you're on the high school. - I'm rich, you know the Pacco, right? - Of course. - Yeah. - So I take that every day. And there's like signs all over for like scan for free. Italian ice. - Is there for Rita? - Yeah. - Do you get off the, what do you get off the Pacco when you go in? - 15th and 16th. - And like Locust or whatever? - Yeah. And then like the last stop and then I walk to the gym. I'm not gonna say where. - Oh, let's get on here. Just some creeps out there. (laughing) You never know. - I lived in that building. Like if you came out, there's a on, I think. Yeah, it's 16th and Locust. It's called the Versailles. - Oh my God, I passed, yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about, really? - There for like, yeah, like three years. - Every time they open that door, you get a nice width of like air condition. - It's nice. - Yeah, it was a good building. That was a good building. - Yeah, it looks nice. - Yes, you guys are both filly, yeah. - Filly peeps. - Filly folks. - I'm a new filly folk. - I'm Jersey. - I'm Jersey still though. Jersey. - I'm a Jersey, she claims Jersey. And then do you claim filly? Like are you from Philadelphia, Rich? Like where are your roots? - Not really. I grew up in a part of Pennsylvania called the Lehigh Valley. So it's like an hour and a half north of Philadelphia. And an hour and a half west of New York. Definitely Philadelphia Influence. It's super blue collar. Have you guys seen, and HBO shows like TASC or Mayor of Easttown? Haven't seen those. - Mayor of Easttown, I feel like I've seen a clip or like an episode, my parents watched that before. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a perfect representation of kind of where I'm from. Like this is really kind of blue collar, Pennsylvania town. like there's, there's, but there is a mix. There's a lot of New Jersey because it's right on the border of New Jersey and PA. Actually, fun fact, when Kat and I first met, Kat was working at the same company that my dad worked at. Oh my god. I totally forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. So my, we grew up in Lee High Valley in Pennsylvania. It's just like cheaper to live in PA than in New Jersey. And he commuted into like central Jersey and into Morristown for like 30 years. And yeah, if you crazy, like it's not, it's not like a short commute. Yeah. And so she started. I was just in Morristown this past weekend. It's, I miss it. It's so nice. It's the best place ever. I love it. Yeah. It's not really. It's much different. Very different. So, so Rich, you know, Pennsylvania, live in, used to live in Philly and then made a move, made the move to Colorado. What, like what sparks that decision? Like, did you, like, was it just like, oh, I'm going to, we're going to try it out. See if it fits with our lifestyle a little bit more. A little bit, a little bit. So yeah, living in Philly, I live there. You mentioned my age 4040. So, so sorry to bring it up. First part of the podcast. It's good to have context. I'm going to be like, well, 12 years ago, I lived in, but it was like a long time ago. So I lived in Philadelphia for about 10 years, just kind of working in different sales jobs. I had some marketing jobs. I was working in like some footwear stuff. And then I kind of started to push my chips into the fitness space. And it was actually pretty good living in like center city Philadelphia, because there's enough gyms to kind of get by with, with some personal training, some small group training and things like that. And I was just like, do, and I was trying to do the online business thing at the same time, kind of like spending on my time doing that. Then I took, I was at the same time, I was trying to take myself a little bit more seriously as an athlete. And it's like pretty, at the time, it was very hard to train for what I was trying to do for high rocks in Philly. And just like, it's hard to run in it. It's like, it's very, it's extremely urban. It's like Chicago. It is. It is like, you know, very congested. So like the runs were always the same. The weather's not that awesome. I had like three or four gym memberships because a place like arena didn't exist back then. So like that would be great. We were like the one of the only gyms like that too. So and like I had to drive into like North and to Ben Salem. And like it was like a whole thing. And then like we were there during COVID. And it was really not a great time to live in that city. And I had become disenchanted by just like the general attitude. And I was like, I need to get out of here. Yeah. And there was a bit of a network out here. And again, same thing. It's like if I can have a network of endurance athletes to train with and also just a little bit more fitness minded like entrepreneurs out here as well. And it actually has been really good for my performance and good for business as well. Just like trying to make those connections. My wife wanted all four seasons. So like here makes sense because I would have been down for just like Southern California, just the nice seasons. But she like she grew up in New Hampshire. So she wanted some some fall. I agree with that. I think that's some that's the move. Totally agree. It's fine. The weather out the winters here are much better than the winters that you guys are experiencing. Correct. And the summer's are insane now too. Like 100 degrees in early June is crazy. Heat waves. Yeah. And the next humid. Yeah. And you guys are getting freaking smoke now too. Yeah. It's happening. I mean last week like our AQI our air quality index was the highest it's ever been in Milwaukee history. Like you could not step outside without getting a whiff of like cigarettes. It's just like cigarettes or like campfire. That's tough. Crazy. Like things were getting shut down. Like our gym we weren't hosting classes because we didn't feel the safe people to commute to the gym. And like you could smell it inside the facility even like it's been a terrible summer. Yeah. It's been it's been a tough one. So yeah. I mean, and I was in Denver a few weeks ago rich visiting a friend and what you said said about like the like-minded people regarding like physical fitness like working out. I could just sense that by walking in the city itself. Like there's like an aura of fitness that I feel like I got well being in Colorado well being in Denver. You know, just like the plethora of fitness facilities and gyms and people running and like they really embrace the outdoorsy culture. Yeah. So like I feel like that's just aligned with our view on you know sport and fitness is a place like that. 100% like it's a lot of outdoor fitness for sure. So it's not like a perfect match when I'm like in the gym all the time and most people here are they're trying to hike trail run bike and things like that. It's not it's not always geared around performance. But there's definitely you know a lot of the professional runners live in boulders. There's a lot of awesome like practitioners that are that really understand the athlete. In fact it's like if I want to define something or some sort of technology or some sort of like professional it's like right up the road. You know it's not it's not hard to find which is which is great like this is kind of the place for that. Probably Austin is the other would be the other place to be competitive. It's awesome. Yeah. And they're they have more of like an indoor fitness. Yeah like a hybrid community. They do. They do. Hybrid fitness. Yeah. Right. And down in Austin makes no sense for performance. How hot it is there. It's crazy. Like I'm telling you like this is like any sense that people live here and try to like do anything other than yeah. Yeah. So you're nice. He's training. Yeah. So the inception of RMR like when when did you want that to be a thing? How did you realize you wanted to do that? How did you shift your life as far as previous jobs or jobs that you might have had at the time to kind of go all in on creating the RMR training platforming group as we know it today? Like what did that what did the inception look like of that? Yeah. So what RMR is now is a training platform for high rocks hybrid fitness racers, right? The first time I actually thought this was this could ever really be a thing. I met a guy in South Jersey was at the adrenaline 5k which is in Haddonfield that would that that had him feel running company puts on. That's crazy. And I was working for Brooks the running shoe company at the time. So I was like kind of at a marketing role. Surprise 2013 2014. And had his conversation with this guy and then I asked my friend who knew him a little bit better. I was like, Oh, what's that guy do? What's like his deal? And he's like, Oh, he's a running coach. And I was like, Yeah, but like what else is he do? What does he do for a job? Yeah. He's like, no, no, like that's like his thing. He's a running coach. I was like, Oh, you can do that. And then I started to and it was right when like online marketing was really kind of ramping up. There was like social media wasn't like it would it existed, but it would not in the way that it that it does now or has in the past like, you know, five, 10 years or so words, that's the only way that you market. So there was an opportunity there to kind of build something in like an online fitness space. So I just did a bunch of research on how to kind of get that going and was just kind of grinded in a way at trying to kind of create some sort of online presence, whether that is writing blogs, doing podcasts, trying to do social media thing, whatever. And just like trying to get clients to coach online. And then that kind of started as running and then kind of pivoted into OCR a little bit when I was doing like Spartan races. But I was always like wanted there to be a little bit more strength, a little bit more. I wanted the training to be a little bit more like quantifiable and easier to grasp like OCR like Morgan, you've done some. Can if you ever done not once. But like that's like the inception. I feel like that's sort of our relationship risk. There's like for sure. Yeah, we were OG Spartan racers. Definitely. Like back in the teens. But it's like, you can't like, it's really hard. I know exactly what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying is like there's no quantifiable like training methodology or program to like elicit in OCR like to create someone to turn someone into an OCR athlete. In like a predictable way, there's really correct. And like you go to the race and it's all different. It's like all these things can happen. You miss the spear and you're like, okay, it's like the goofy games kind of. Yeah, definitely. And then when high rocks came, I was just like positioned well enough to be like, okay, I kind of have an idea of how to do these systems, like how to market to people, how to kind of serve them something in that is effective in an online platform. And then so when I moved out here, Ryan Kent was was one of the people that I said I had a network with. He was one of the people that lived out here as well. And we just like became close friends. And I became connected with Meg Jacobi through a mutual friend Jared Newby. And when she was like just kind of getting started into this. And then we hit it off. We connected really well. And there was a point where I was like, Hey, I think we can kind of build something like together. And that's what RMR initially kind of stood for was just like our names. Yeah. And but like just how we were able to have something that was like a predictable system, a way to market to people and that we all three were able to perform well. Like there was just like a whole lot of marketing that kind of came together at once. And that we've been like coaches and athletes in the space for a long time. So we're already elevated in terms of just like our knowledge because we've been here a long time. So once we decided to kind of put that together, and I think that was early 23 maybe, where we actually kind of switch it to being like, okay, instead of like my own thing, and we're gonna do like RMR. Since that is, it is now my thing again, like with them as part of it. Yeah, and ever since we kind of had this together, and we were like, this is like, this is, I didn't think that HiRox was gonna be like this. I did it. I was just like, this is what I like to train for. This is what I like to think about, and this is what I, they're like, these are like the programs that I like to write. So like, this is now where I wanna spend my time helping athletes perform. And between that and after that, it's just kinda luck. Because you couldn't have projected that there was gonna be like, whatever. Two million participants worldwide this year. You can't get a ticket anywhere even in the United States where like, people know what HiRox is, like when you first meet them. It's like, hey, have you heard of HiRox? People might be like, yeah, I've heard of HiRox. Where? Or like my mom or my sister just did one. And it's like, it's like everyone knows it. - We've seen it on social media. It's like kind of breaking through like the consciousness of like popular culture. So from that perspective, it's like a little bit of luck. - Yeah. I mean, I think it's super cool. 'Cause when I first got into HiRox, like RMR was what, like, it was what I knew. - It was the talk of the town. It still is. - Yeah, and you guys are still one of the most respectable coaching companies. I think, and I would listen to the podcast. And I remember when you guys did that small group coaching and you announced that you were gonna be doing like the applications, I like said a reminder to fill it out first. I was probably the first person to fill it out. - That's awesome. - I'm not kidding. And then I got, like, you sent like a personalized video back. And I just thought that was so cool as like someone who's like just getting into HiRox and you get a personal video from Rich Rine being like, we'd love to have you on the small group. I was like, he's not the typical filly, not the typical filly mean thing. - Jackal. - Yeah. - Right. It was just really, really cool. So. - I'm actually happy that I did a pre-baby post-baby no more individualized videos. So we thought it out the right time. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I first realized videos not happening anymore. - Well, that was the first group too. - Yeah. - Right, yeah. - And that's what Rine Ken's kind of spun his thing off. He's kind of built his small group a little bit bigger. It makes him the same thing. Mine's still small. It's not gonna be like a major focal point around like marketing where like the app is more where spending time for that. - Like do you still do your little calls or not? - Oh yeah, we've been doing them. - Everybody. - That was so great. - Yeah, last night, every Tuesdays were at a couple of people. - Yeah. - But it's not something that I'm like pushing and like advertising. Like we may have been marketing push around that and it worked like pretty well. And like the experience is really good. Like so that is something if for online coaches one-on-one training is very hard to scale because it's just, it's dollars for hours. It's like it's hard to give people enough attention to really like provide a product that is like really good. So what ends up happening is that you gotta take on too many clients to be able to service each client in a good way. Just like it ends up being not doable. Before you gotta charge like 500 to 1000 bucks a month and then you gotta deliver on that product too. So if you're gonna do that, it has to be like a really good product. But with the small group, it can be kind of in the middle, right? Like it kind of forms a community. Like you're not stretched as thin when it comes to like the programming, 'cause that's the other thing too. If you're gonna program for 30, 40, 50 people like every week, every month, it's just like, that's all you are doing. Yeah, it's a good mind. - Yeah, I think I have 20 people and mine is one on one. And sometimes I'm like, I wanna bring a lot. - Bring a lot. - But I've like, I break my week up so it's not like all at once. It's manageable, but like, I know, I think Dylan Scott said he had like 50, one on one clients, I was like, whoa. - Well Dylan's excessive across the board. - Yeah, anything he does is extra. - And like, I was gonna do a ton. But no, like that's the point. Like that was me, like I found my number was 30. And then once I would pass that, the product would just really start to suffer. And then I would just feel really bad about like delivering a poor product and like then I would just think the relationships wouldn't be like the way that I wanted them to be. So I kinda had to stop doing one on one altogether because I just didn't have the time to really give a product that I felt people deserved. And that's where the R-Mars been great to help scale and bring the same type of programming. Maybe not the same type of experience, but people do wanna get better at higher xx scale. 'Cause that everybody wants one on one coaching. It's not for everybody. But then it's where the small group kind of bridges the gap where you can kind of like serve as a good amount of people without stretching yourself too, too thin. - And I think just one funny thing, I'm looking at the screen, I'm seeing all of us here. You know, cat, me, you, Richard. - You're getting right to what I was gonna say this. - One thing, well maybe, maybe. One thing, actually I'm sure you're right. - Say it the same time, say it the same time. - Rich introduced us. - Yes! 'Cause you know, you had previously coached Cat Rich and you're still my coach through and through the last seven years. You introduced us. I mean, we wouldn't be sitting here recording this podcast today if you didn't introduce us, right? - Let's go. - Because that developed our relationship into the doubles pairing that we are. - I don't know if he, like, he introduced, like I know he mentioned you both of us, but you came up to me like, punched me, boy. - So I was the one, yeah, like I don't know, but if you know the story, but, Hyrock Chicago was at 2024, Cat. 2024, I remember Rich. - Yes, that was, that was like your first or second pro. - First pro, died. - Where you're like, hey, keep the pace cool, you're like, no. - And the chin is big. - I won't. - Absolutely not. - I'm waiting right for the start. - All right. - Yeah. - I just remember I got in a text from Rich like that day or that morning and I was supposed to race that race, but I was sick. - Oh yeah, so I just went anyway. And like, here I am again sick. - New? - Yeah. - We gotta figure this out. - Yeah, yeah, we'll figure it out. It's different topic for a different day. But he texted me, he was like, hey, there's just like, this new girl on the scene. Her name's Cat. Like I'm currently coaching her, she's racing Hyrock Chicago. You should link up with her and you know, maybe try and figure out if you guys want to race together. And I'm pretty extrovert, like I'm a pretty extroverted person. Like I'll just go up to people and start a conversation. - Just slow them. - Just slow, and maybe punch them. - I'm like, I love. - I love. - And I had found her, 'cause I had started looking at her Instagram just to make sure I knew what she looked like. So I found her and then I just like punched her. - You're like, hey. - I'm sick. - Hey Cat. Like I'm Morgan, like you know rich, I know rich. Like he had mentioned that we would be a good doubles pairing. And we weren't, we didn't pair up. - Yeah, no, we didn't. I raced with Kelsey that year. - Yep. - But then it was, after Worlds, we were like, we came in first and second, we were like, yeah, this is happening. - Right, they're like, they just made sense at that point. - And Worlds at Deca, and then Worlds at Hyrox. - Yeah. - So we were like, okay. - Yeah, yeah, you've never beaten me in a Hyrox before. But you have beaten me in a Deca fit. - I have gotten three wallballs away two times, Morgan. It's coming. - I hold that trophy. - Morgan, Morgan does sets of threes on the wallballs, so it's not. (laughing) - In New York, she had like a good lead on me, and I come in and was like, now I got here. - Yeah, 35, I think it was 30. I think it was a 30 wallball lead. - Oh my. - And I think for me, I think for me, - And we're in the dead sun too. - It's crazy. - Yeah. It's just like, and Rich, like we've talked about this, like time and time again, like, you know, wallballs as much as they are physical, they're mental too, right? Like at some point, the wallball doesn't get more painful, right? You hit a point where, you know, your shoulders are taxed, your legs are taxed, but it doesn't really get much harder. So it kind of turned into a mental game, and I feel like that's one thing I haven't really unlocked yet, in my repertoire of high rocks, assets, and one thing that I wanted to touch on before we have to, unfortunately, wrap up, which means we'll need a part two with you. (laughing) Is the mental side of the sport? So like you've been open about seeing a sports psychologist previously towards the latter half of the 2026 season, and we've talked in detail, like one on one, but I think it'd be cool for you to share your experience with that, as well as if you would recommend individuals of varying levels of high rocks to seek out some help for their mental performance. - Yeah, for sure. So it was after race in Phoenix, I was having my best race ever, and came in the wall balls, and I was kidding some no reps, and I didn't think they were no reps, and it like, frazzled me to the point that almost lost, like the qualifying position, and like forget about winning the race, almost like completely exploded, like completely imploded, because I just like lost my mental. - I remember watching the livestream. - Everyone's like, dude, don't ever do that again. - The frazzledness. - Yeah, no, I was just like, and I was like, it wasn't really physical, I was just like, and then I thought about it, and I was like, 'cause it came in next to Alex Ronkovich, and I was like, there's no way that he would have let that happen. Like I just know that he would have just, like got in the no reps and kept going, and he's done that before. I think he did that in Nice. He got like 20 no reps, and just did 120 unbroken. - Right, he's like, okay, I'll just take a no rep and just keep going, and I was like, - Yeah. - There's something like missing here, and like the mental side of performance is always something that I was interested in, interested in, but I would kind of do like a self study. You know, I read a book, Kat, since you a book, one of my favorite ones about the training side, about the mental training side of things. - Tell bad do you want it, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, how bad do you want it? Oh my gosh, I love that. - It's really good, it's really good. And I was like, okay, like, and I started to do the little bit more of that. I was doing more research, reading more books, doing like whatever. And I was like, you know, I just need to like, and again, the same thing, I don't have as much time to do like independent research. And I just wanted to make sure that I gave myself every advantage and like, checked every box that I had to make this like, season count. As I'm getting older, it's like my biological window's closing. So I got to make sure that like, I can't leave any stone unturned when it comes to my prep. And this is something I just like never like, went all the way and got real serious about figuring out on a personal level. As opposed to applying all these different concepts and it's just like a little confusing. And I was trying to find like the answer, right? I was like, there has to be like a way to do this. And I was like, but just try different things and leave them go. And like, and then as so I hired the help of a professional. And it was very illuminating. Almost right away. It was like, okay, like one thing that she touched on, I was immediately, it's like, oh, you're self-coached. So like sometimes when you're racing, like you put your coach brain on as opposed to the athlete brain and it's kind of overriding. You're not letting yourself do what you physically can do because mentally you're thinking about it. And it's like, oh, that's like, and that was like one of the first things she just put that she nailed onto me. And it's like, okay, I'm not gonna get that from a book. I'm not gonna get that from anybody else, right? Like there might be a little bit of that in all of us where it's like physically we can't do it, but mentally we're questioning, or even if it's like the discomfort or just like the confidence or whatever it is. And I was getting in the way of my physical ability because I was thinking about it too much. So then I was able to kind of put in some really tacked, like practice and tactics during training when I would feel that come in and just be like, oh, there it is, like let's override it and like having like certain things to say, it's like turn off coaching brain, stay present, like just be the athlete, like your body show up for you. I was just like having like these things to just like constantly remind myself that we're very personalized to me, right? And like things that I could, and I could do that during training and coming into worlds like one, another thing that was really valuable was like having some sort of visualization practice of like visualize the race going perfectly well. Now visualizing it going terribly, like everything going wrong. And now do like kind of like the middle. And that was really effective for my race plan then 'cause I was like, okay, like here's all the things that can go wrong, but I can come out the other side and still like be okay. - Yep. - Because it's like how often does a high rocks race go 100% exactly how we envision it. Like not that much, right? - Like almost like I haven't experienced it yet. - Exactly, like even the littlest thing, like it's important to allow ourselves to be comfortable with the unknowable and for those things to go wrong. You know, like that's just a standard with high rocks is there's never gonna be a high rocks as 100% perfect. Even your best race a PR, there's something that you could have done better, you would have liked to do better, you would have liked to go better. - Right, I think that's just like a good thing to remind ourselves about. - Yeah, pivoting is huge. I had an athlete he was supposed to do like a 5K row with like things thrown in there. And he like messaged me, but I was sleeping and he's like the rows are all taken. What do I do? And then he was like, all right, I got on the ski and I was like, I'm kind of glad that happened to you because you need to be able to adjust like that. Like it can't always go 100% to plan, especially training. So like I'm glad that happened that you were able to handle that pivot because it can happen during the race. - Absolutely. - For sure. - For sure. And just like accepting that before even starting, it's like, oh yeah, I wanted to finish top five. It's like, oh I'm in 12th. So does that mean like, so does like, is it race over? Yeah, exactly. - So like too soon. - No. - So we're on the same boat. - Yeah. - But it's like, is the race over then? Like in the past, I probably be like, this isn't going how I wanted to go. And then I would start to kind of like get in my head. Like, what do I need to do? So this goes better next time. As opposed to just like sticking my nose and it put my head down and just like racing the race that I'm in. - Yeah. - And that's giving me a lot of confidence going forward too. It's like, okay cool. Like I can, and I used to just come to the start line and like, not necessarily hope. Like I always knew my fitness was awesome. But I was like, I would hope the race would go well. And now it's like, even if it's not going well, like I still have to resolve to like, try hard. And like, I haven't go as well as it can. We're in the past to be like, the race either going good or going bad. And there was nothing in between. And like, that's not really how it works. - Correct. - At least how I'm trying to think of it anyway. It's like, there's going to be some good, you can be some bad where I finish. I can't really control, but I can control my effort all the way through. - Right. Yeah. - Well, I appreciate you sharing. - I definitely recommend it. - Yeah, I appreciate the vulnerability aspect with talking about stuff like this. You know, because it's like, we think of high rocks as like a physical fitness test, which it is obviously you have to, you know, have physical preparedness to sign up and complete a high rocks. But it's the mental side that I feel like just people don't discuss or dissect enough. You know, that is equally as important. And we had talked like, and I have to bounce actually pretty quickly, but we had talked rich like how, at some point, you know, I've, we've been in the sport for as long as it has existed basically. - For sure. - Yeah. - At some point, there's only so many physical gains that you can make on the high rocks race course. You know, whether it's an aging athlete or someone who has been in for such a long time, like the newbie gains aren't there anymore. So like what's an aspect of the sport that we can continue to evaluate, fix, work on or improve, and it's the mental game for me 10 times out of 10. So I think it's just one thing that I took from our conversation is it's an avenue for me to become a better high rock athlete is taking care of them inside of the sport. So I appreciate you sharing that. - Totally. And it's like the, and real quick, it's like the physical side where we always are trying to improve the physical. And while I was trying to find the answers, like this is the way, once I have it done, it's checked off, but it's gonna be constant work and progress of like trying to get mental. - Which is why people love high rocks because it's a constant work and progress. - For sure. - Even when you do hit a PR, you're like, dang, I wanna keep going. - I wanna go faster. I wanna work on this. - Totally. - I love it. - All right. Thanks, Rich. - Oh, sure. - Yeah, feel free to tell people where they can follow you. Shout out your sponsors, whatever you wanna say in these last 30 seconds. - All right. - So through your. Rich Ryan Instagram, Rich Ryan 610, sorry, Rich Ryan on YouTube is a really good spot for me. Armour training podcast, for the podcast listeners. Amaze Fit, the home of Josh Kerr, the mile world record holder. - Your teammate. - The feed, the feed with for all your sports nutrition, supplementation and VPN for the same, the same kind of thing. - And awesome. - Look at you so many. Keep going. Come on. - Keep going. - And LLSKD for a parallel top notch parallel. Yeah, I do got, okay. - Love theirself. - Nice. - That's it, that's it. - Okay. - Geez. - Wow, that was a minute. (laughing) - I appreciate you, Rich. Thanks for helping out. - I know people are gonna enjoy this one. - Thanks guys. Thank you everyone for listening. Appreciate it. Bye. - Bye. (upbeat music)