Bertrand Newson 0:00

And when you get a chance to get out, run, hike, bike, somebody have conversations as social fellowship fitness, you start to peel layers back of the individual and get to know them on a different level.

Kevin Chang 0:16

Hello, and welcome to the RaceMob podcast. We're all about having more fun on race day. This is episode number one. I'm Kevin, entrepreneur, technology and fitness. novice runner and founder of RaceMob. And I'm joined by master motivator, founder of legit fitness, co-chair of the Taji-100, RRCA certified coach, the incomparable Bertrand Newson. In today's episode, we give you a glimpse into what to expect from this podcast, a brief history on our friendship, how we think about team building, the fitness community, and life and we give you four reasons why we're really excited about this podcast and why you should subscribe. Before we begin, let me first apologize for some of the audio challenges that we had when recording this podcast. There were some technical difficulties, but I think that we have a fix going forward.You can find all of the show notes online at race mob comm slash podcasts. And without further ado, here's our conversation.

Kevin Chang 1:21

All right. Well, Bertrand, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I can't tell you how excited I am to get to collaborate with you on this podcast together. For everybody else can you give them a brief history on who you are and how you got into running?

Bertrand Newson 1:35

Thank you very much, KC. And believe me The pleasure is absolutely all mine take for seven years and counting. I remember the day was at a Expo in the North Bay on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge and believe in Corta Madera at a Sports Authority. Hundred percent. Yep, yep, yep. Yep. I was with my family. You are with your family. It was a Race, the 415. And then there was a mile a mile race that had a lot of historical value in the local community. And we just hit it off is just hit it off. And here we are fast forward seven years later, collaborating on the opportunity just to talk and to share perspective about our common love for mankind, staying active running and all the good things in between.

Bertrand Newson 2:34

So, Coach B Bertrand, my little story, military brat, born in Germany. My father was in the army made my way back to the states with a family when I was four years old. moved around a bit before we eventually settled on the central coast on the Monterey Peninsula by way of Fort Ord, California and all the stuffs Six siblings four boys and two girls. My sisters are twins. Mother's retired educator for Father's retired military and retired law enforcement. I'm the Bay Area. I call home because of my primary position, profession as a hotel executive on business for the last, you know, 25-30 years and it's afforded me the opportunity to meet people and I just love people. And you talk about running. That really wasn't in my my fitness toolkit up until probably 2011. Before that, I played baseball in my growing up I played it in JC baseball, high school baseball, a lot of nearly softball, but my partner when I met her, she was an avid runner. And I remember getting out to a couple of San Jose Rock'n Roll half marathons and cheering for her with the signs in hand and watching people cross the finish line. And I love the diversity of the running community. And I said, You know what? I wonder if I could do that. So where let's see circa 2011. Um, I tried to run my first mile without stopping and it was a complete, utter disaster is a very, very humbling experience. I probably got a quarter mile in pounding lungs, overdressed, wrong shoes, and they made it seem so easy in those sounds a rock and roll people in some cases. twice my age finishing 13.1 miles, what is it with me. And at that time from a fitness perspective, I was more of a gym rat. I enjoyed doing systems training, and playing softball, and that was about it. No progressive cardio workouts. So I took it as a bit of a challenge. And the one thing with running you get out of it, what you put into it. So the more that I ran, my endurance got better meaning cardio speed, physique started to change a bit.

Bertrand Newson 5:34

And this is all within a very short amount of short timeframe, which was March of 2011, my birthday month, and that month, there was an event going on in Oakland, California, the Oakland running festival, and I've always again, as I mentioned earlier, I love people, and I love planning events, hosting events. This happened to be a race that had a group marathons. Split up between four people great in retrospect probably too early for me to bite off that that portion which is about maybe 10 k distance split between three other friends including my partner. I ended up with the shortest leg distance wise, but the hardest because of the elevation gain again rookie move, I was a novice in the group. Base layer long sleeve, second layer short sleeve, compression pants to the knees, sweatpants and a skullcap completely overdressed and once you hit those hills man I tell you, I'm was like dragging you know 50 train cars behind me. But as much as I struggled on that Particular leg which is leg number two, there were so many fellow runners who probably saw that I was little that I was struggling. And that was probably new to the running experience. But they were all you got this Good job, keep going. And I just I just soaked it up. So I managed to, after handing off the baton, and making the lady a taxi to the final leg and watching the fourth runner, cross the line, the finish line, I was able to experience that in to see the closing corral with people on this side of the barriers cheering like this. These were all just, you know, blue collar athletes. And it was super, super cool. And I was I was like, man, I was hooked. The adrenaline, the endorphins, a sense of accomplishment, the bling being put around your neck, the sense of camaraderie and you The friendliness of the running community was very profound. So from that moment on in 2011, I think I participated in maybe 40 plus running events. Oh, wow. Yeah. Five K's 10 K's and I completed my first half marathon in November of that same year. So it was it was hard and fast you know, trial by fire trail road and just soaked it all up. So and I can go on and on from the some of my closest friends or runners that I've met through my love of staying active. That just gives you a little sneak peek into Coach B.

Kevin Chang 8:45

Thank you Coach B. also wanted to highlight something else that you're really well known for. Here in the South Bay. You've helped create the Too Legit Fitness Club. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the history there. The team there and your philosophy for building an all inclusive running community.

Bertrand Newson 9:06

Thanks, KC. Yes, let's see Too Legit Fitness a South Bay based running family, fitness fitness family, I wouldn't say that we only run we like to just get out and move. There's no membership fee. The only means of currency we take is sweat equity, you know an effort. And if you come in and you and share we want you to share. If that's your, you know, a mile walk, or you're running ultra marathon, you're participating in a race that may inevitably get you to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Any of those moments where you're just moving forward. We want you to share that on our common social media platform. Draw so much inspiration daily, because the page is full of positivity in social media feed, I don't have to go on. It's not about coach number one, it's about the team. And people are just going and sharing organically. Um, and you know, I've had multiple team members say, you know what, I know that every time I open the page, I'm gonna get something good from it. And that is so rewarding. And that it, it's, it just kind of takes, you know, it grows and we don't. We don't recruit. It's all by word of mouth. You know, it's all by word of mouth. We opened up a website a couple years ago, which has been really cool. But primarily the daily engagements all through our social media Facebook feed, we know the Instagram account that gets a little bit of exposure as well, but it's It's all about that feed and people sharing their you know their their fitness journey and being able to to have a seat in their fitness living room watching them make progress and you know we have some good days and days that are tough and be able to share that but know that you have the support. We can always get advice. I'm in pre shelter in place you always had running buddy always had a running buddy, like RaceMob.

Kevin Chang 11:33

Thank you be and thank you for allowing me to highlight RaceMob just for a minute here. You know, RaceMob's sole mission is to help people have more fun on race day. And really it goes back to the first races that I attended. I, much like you really struggle to get into running. I also got into it pretty late in life. And that first mile was oh man, that was a complete and utter disaster. So really running my first 5K's was just a tremendous accomplishment. And each race after that just felt like a massive triumph. The problem was that, you know, my wife doesn't like to run, I didn't have a lot of friends that like to run. So even though I had that real sense of accomplishment at the end of the race, I was missing that camaraderie that somebody that's part of your group gets to experience.

Kevin Chang 12:31

I know these clubs exist, and I knew that these clubs existed, but I didn't really know how to find them. And you know where to go. And if you're like me, and you like to train by yourself, how do you get to be a part of one of these clubs? Can you be a part of a online virtual community? So at RaceMob, what we really do is we partner with running clubs like Too Legit and even if you're training with Too Legit and the Too Legit crew, you can still meet up with, you know, a Tenacious Turtle or a Bay Area Runner or somebody that's part of this Silicon Valley Triathlon Club. You can meet up with all these different people on race day and just have a better, more inviting, more fun atmosphere.

Kevin Chang 13:18

I have a technology background. So my instinct was to build websites. And I built one, even though I'm a pretty novice developer, so please go easy on me. But you can find the website at https://racemob.com, and we have features that allow you to find races across your local area and really across the entire US. We've built some tools that allow you to track your race results over time, build and share your upcoming race calendar with your friends, and helps you find race discounts and add race discounts if you find them elsewhere. We also have some tools that allow you to set meetings on race day, and it's completely free to sign up. We're also starting this newsletter and starting to build content like this podcast.

Kevin Chang 14:11

On the back end, we also help races with their marketing and promotion, and building their online presence. And we also have some tools that allow them to gather unbiased feedback from their runners, which really helped them improve the races year after year. We've got race mob gear, we've got headbands, we've got wristbands. We're gonna have some giveaways with the launch of this podcast as well. And really, that gear is there to help break the ice and allow you to meet new people on race day and have that kind of common thread and be able to say hey, I know you or I know that you're part of RaceMob, yay. We've got this budding community, but I'm pretty terrible at social media. So if somebody out there wants to To help me out, that would be amazing. please reach out to me. But the real reason that I'm so excited to be able to collaborate is that I love the Too Legit culture. And I really want to bring it to a global audience to the RaceMob audience, and and potentially to help you get more members as well.

Bertrand Newson 15:21

You know, more than how many members it's the, the time we spend in our community, more than more than the blink, you know, more than than prs and how many miles how many events, it's making time to give back to our fellow citizens. And, you know, we've really, since early 2017, I think, approaching 50 community based volunteer opportunities that I couldn't could not be prouder of that work right there. And, you know, the berry has some really Wonderful, very accomplished, incredibly capable, super competitive fitness groups. They do. Many of them, my friends, you know, the team captains from those entities. And I think there's opportunity for more collaboration within the fitness community to give back to the community more than signing up for a race. Let's go on a run, you know, yada yada, yada, yada. So,

Kevin Chang 16:28

Yeah, B I couldn't agree with you more. I definitely think that there's more opportunity to give back. And there's definitely more opportunity to collaborate with with other running clubs, especially those in the area. But there's also opportunity to really inspire and inspire fitness and, and you're no slouch yourself. I think you told me that you just ran 30 miles this morning.

Bertrand Newson 16:54

I should'nt have told you that man shouldn't have told you that. Yeah. They told you that know what this is. This is what happened. That this morning. They were we had maybe six or seven team members running. And, two of them had run more than 300 miles in the month of May. One of them had established a new monthly milestone the previous month right around 220. Plus, this individual surpassed that by almost 100 miles and finished the month with completing a marathon, as did another team member who was recovering from injury who qualified for the Boston Marathon. Jackie Silva Torres you know, locked 300 miles and finished with a marathon today. Just incredible. Nando Gonzales, half marathon today. Silvia and her husband Fernando surprised us and jumped on the loop down in San Martin, California and got in trouble Miles as well. Ranchi pavlina, eight teen miles today. So, you know, I'm just getting out there and the why still events, no events going on, no one is signed up or anything. But it's the, the emotional therapy, you know, because we're all hurting in our own way right now. Especially, I mean COVID 19 pandemic, and there's the social unrest and the the sense of uneasiness and leadership in our countries being questioned. And you see very clearly that something is wrong and it's been wrong for a long time and people are expressing their outrage in different ways. And we're just, you know, having to work away and understand that it's all impacting us one We're going to see those business owners who've worked a lifetime to see property damage. You know, that's just not right. And trying to find a voice to bring us closer together. And the one thing about running is that it knows no, you know, no, it's not. It's not by political party. You know, it's one thing about our group. There's it's an incredibly diverse ethnically and with political views, and we still find a way to coexist, because we all get something out of staying active, getting together, you know, pre-COVID modifying that what's, you know, practicing social distancing during COVID.

Bertrand Newson 20:00

Just getting together and supporting each other, taking a fresh breath of air, challenging yourself and then getting the reward at the end. You know what, I'm glad I got out and did something, especially in these times and like I'm circling back, you know, staying active knows no color lines. It doesn't, doesn't again. So I love the running community so much because it is so open. It is so welcoming, and so supportive. You can have conversations that are tough to have, where in some circles you might not be able to someone who has a different political view than you do, and where you don't feel that you're being judged immediately. Um, But we're all better off for because you trust the other person or people involved in that conversation we, we generally try not to, because, you know, they make the page very political, but ultimately there's going to be, um, you know some things that come up like we're dealing with right now. But the ability to know that even though you may have a different view, I know you, you have supported the team, you're a good person, we see that you're able to look into somebody's emotional living room and get to know them that way. And when you get a chance to get out and walk, run, hike, bike with somebody, have conversations at social fellowship fitness, you start to peel layers back of the individual and get to know them on a different level. And immediately, you have something in common, the love of staying active, and in many cases, when you don't have that common Common denominator, you tend not to engage as much or as much depth. And, you know, in our social circle through the fitness community, the commonality, the common denominator, it's it is very, it's good, especially in times like this, you know, so

Kevin Chang 22:22

Yeah, man, well put, and well said, honestly, I could talk to you about this stuff for for hours and hours on end. Not to entirely switch gears. But I also wanted to chat with you about this podcast. And and chat with you about what gets you excited, what type of content Are you excited to be able to deliver to this audience in the future here?

Bertrand Newson 22:50

Good question. KC. I'm looking forward to sharing and learning. This platform gives us a a wider opportunity to get to know other like minded individuals who want to share their story. And for us to be able to share ours as well. And connecting people, supporting individuals. And just building building a sense of meaningful content that can inspire somebody who may be lacking a little bit of direction, a little bit of confidence, knowing that they have a resource, or resources that have been there, that are still a work in progress, that has have a blue collar approach. We like to share and involve and engage. Much like we have over the last seven plus years, you know, so just being able to continue what we have, have been doing, um, and also being able to reach out to industry professionals, experts and be able to hear from their perspective and grow our, our fitness family that way where they're getting again, meaningful, real content that speaks to them, and being able to have some some good q&a. Um, and keep the momentum growing that way. I think there's there's a gap in the fitness industry from a podcast slash YouTube channel engagement perspective with some diversity, you know, and we're both, you know, accomplished professionals who have a love for fitness and love people and like our perspectives and being able to speak with individuals that again, to share their story, both from a, you know, active active, physical fitness perspective. But also, you know, from a life perspective, it's also professionals who's a mothers and fathers that have their own perspective and wisdom that we all need. And you know, just being able to, to organically share and communicate is good for all parties involved. that's those are things that I'm looking forward to. he'll grow in expectations with our collaboration. Yeah. And yourself. That question right back at you, brother.

Kevin Chang 25:30

Well, I mean, you know, just being able to hang out with you on a more consistent basis would you know,

Bertrand Newson 25:38

I told you, I probably told you at that Expo back, thousand and 13 you're stuck, dude. You're into spider's web.

Kevin Chang 25:46

As long as we've got that, then I'm happy. I'm absolutely happy. But I mean, just to echo what you're saying. I think you know, the stories, the inspirational stories that are out there, every time I meet a runner out at a race You know, and and thankfully race mobs given me the confidence, I guess, to just go up to people and introduce myself and just just say hi. Which I think, again, I look back to myself all those years ago when I first got into running and I had a very similar story to you that my first runs were awful you know, that was that first mile I struggle struggle, right. Challenging, yes, and all the things I I want to be able to tell my former self about, you know, the proper gear, the proper equipment, you know, and and many of the marathons that I've run I've come out injured You know, I've I've come out with injuries and and so I guess for me like understanding proper training techniques, understanding proper form, diving deeper into nutrition and diving deeper into you know, kind of strategies for race day. What if you're feeling well, what if you're not feeling Well, some of that had I known that years and years ago, would have been invaluable. And so, you know, I love the idea of helping other runners helping other fitness enthusiasts. And again, you don't have to be a runner, walkers, joggers, crossfitters people that love to get out there that want their body to to compete at the best that it can compete. What are those tidbits? What are those nuggets, and I think your community already does such a fantastic job with the town halls. You know, being able to have those live conversations with some of the industry experts and people out there. And I think if we can publish that, get some of this content out there. It can really hopefully widen both the people that we can bring onto the show and the audience too. And I guess one more thing that I forgot to touch on was, I hope, my hope is that with this podcast that we will start to connect with people outside of Local geography and local area and so so when we go to a race, you know, across the country when we go, you know, share people on in Boston because, you know, I'm not going to qualify for Boston but when we go out there, you know, we can we can head out to the starting corral and you know, meet other like minded individuals, other people that are hopefully listening to this show this podcast and are connecting with us. And people that can email in contact us online through social media, right, like, like really just try to try to have fun, interesting, meaningful conversations and see who else kind of shares the same values and wants to connect with us elsewhere.

Bertrand Newson 28:43

The great thing about the, the, this this platform that we're we're working our way through and getting more familiar with it as much as you and I have back and forth and they're going to they're going to be multiple cases, we have a featured guest speaker we're part To the conversation, but to have the audience that real time, questions being sent to us being able to introduce those questions to the speaker or to us on the answer on the spot. I look forward to that. You know, I do it. You know, it's it. It's a I, I look forward to it, you know?

Kevin Chang 29:21

Yeah, man. Yeah, Yeah, me too. I guess one thing that we haven't touched on yet is, I think some of the guests on the show, they're not always going to be these ultra elite athletes. I know that when I first got into running one of my idols was endorphin dude, and I didn't really know who that was going into running. But his story just really, really spoke to me. Here's a guy who, you know, was was on a couch, thought he had a heart attack. You know, very, very overweight and and decided one day that he was going to run a marathon. And not only was he going to run a marathon, but he got part of the marathon maniacs club and ended up running 50 marathons in 52 weeks. So if you can imagine getting off the couch and getting up and running 50 marathons in 52 weeks, and it's stories like that, that really inspire me and that I'm really excited to be able to tell

Bertrand Newson 30:28

you that those stories examples like that, and Endorphin Dude, wow. I mean, what an incredible story. It's like Jake McCluskey, another individual. fantastic story. And as much as you know, you know, so many incredibly gifted athletes that we know and accomplished individuals that will have the opportunity to have a conversation and to share Their training regimen, diet tips, you know, their trials and industry struggles through their whole growth process as a as a competitive athlete, but it's those blue collar mom and pops stories while working a full time job while raising a family, still finding the time to put in the work and to be a weekend warrior with success and that doesn't always mean coming in, you know, eighth grade, eighth grade placement, but finish and feel good from a self esteem standpoint to hear those stories because the relatability is across the board in situations with individuals like that you know, it is so yeah,

Kevin Chang 31:51

Yeah. Hundred percent with you and I mean, I think with with Jake especially, you know, I don't know him as well as you do personally but to hear about him massive weight loss transformation. And, you know, and also to know that he is now turn that passion into potentially a career with getting coaching certified and paying and paying it forward. Exactly, exactly. And what if we can connect him to other people that, you know, have been in his shoes, where he was before? I mean, that, that kind of that that's also just another reason for us to, you know, be able to talk about these stories to be able to connect people with again, people that can be their heroes, people that have been in those shoes A long time ago.

Bertrand Newson 32:39

And and you mentioned, I mean, been in their shoes, the opportunity to do product reviews as well. Yeah, I mean, so many so much gear up here. You know, running backpacks, shoes, apparel, supplies, supplements, you know, re supplements, gels and things along those lines. Being able to one when we're speaking to individuals, get their, you know, their tips and suggestions along those lines is able to share with our fitness family. And then as you know, we're gonna have opportunities where people are, we may want to share our own experience in particular piece of gear from our perspective where people feel that we're trusted, and they respect our opinion as well. So just keep it keep it real. Yeah, like it. This is why this is some areas I'd like to see, improve given the opportunity, and, you know, looking at opportunities to save people money, there's good values out there partnering with some local running stores as well. Because, you know, they're they're facing an uphill battle right now. You know, so,

Kevin Chang 33:52

yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think, you know, as you touch on that subject, a lot of races a lot of race directors are facing a A real uphill battle right now as well. And, you know, I think, I think some of the early conversations that we're likely to have is with some of the local race directors who are around here and get their sense of, you know, what does the industry look like? What are things that we could be doing to help them to make sure that we've got races and years to come? Because, you know, we'd hate for these, these companies who have supported us supported these experiences supported these memories for us. We'd hate to see them fall in the short term when there are things that we can do to help them in the long term. And so, you know, having those conversations and then when when we're able to get back out there on the road, really dig into, into deep into races themselves, right. So I'm looking forward to maybe running in the San Francisco marathon again this year. It's been a little bit a little while for me, and, you know, really, can we get the race You're here on the show, can we get people who are going to go to the events? You know, talk about? Talk about their experiences, talk about things to watch out for on the course when you're running here and there find meetup points along the way. Can we do food reviews and you know, other other things for the people traveling from out of town and, you know, what should you know when you're coming to this event, to come into this race? And so I look forward to you know, some of that too, for, for people that are really into races, how can we make race day, more fun, more interesting, you know, and, and really enhance that entire experience, because, hey, you're out there to run. But you're also out there to make memories and we can help you make the best out of your time, no matter where you are. And so, so I'm looking forward to all of that. I mean, I think all of these things are like they're bubbling on my mind. I want to do all of it all at the same time.

Bertrand Newson 36:00

It's great, the canvas is blank, it's, I love that there are gonna be so many meaningful topics, and wonderful individuals and conversations and really gain, like emotional traction with people and resonate with him. Um, and they'll they'll share how to how to find us in the future, you know, if we are putting compelling, meaningful content out there, and I hate to say content, but something that just speaks to people, and they get it again, you know, that's, that's, I can see a little bit of me and that individual. Um, I know exactly how they were feeling at that time. Wow, were those aha moments go off and somebody said, we're able to see that in to connect the dots that way and just have open honest conversation and have fun in the process, you know, and there gonna be some times when And it's it's it will be some heavy, heavy topics, you know, especially when people who have worked very hard and put in a lot of training time, and some things times things don't go their way and that all affects us differently. failure and the ability to have someone resolve and to get back up, dust off yourself and go get it again. And realize to have some perspective looking at the bigger picture. Moses versus this, you know, I, you know, letting the when you don't have days that go as expected to know that there are better days tomorrow there are you know, it will get better. It will.

Kevin Chang 37:50

Well said B well said.

Kevin Chang 37:53

And with that I think we should end this first episode of our podcast. We could go on for hours and my guests believe we will. So, thank you so much for jumping on with me and for starting this collaboration.

Bertrand Newson 38:07

My pleasure.

Kevin Chang 38:10

And thanks to our audience for checking out this first episode of the race mob podcasts. On the next episode, we're gonna dive even deeper into coach Bertrand past. So if you liked our chat today, you're really gonna love the next episode, you find the show notes online at https://racemob.com/podcast. And we've got a giveaway to celebrate this launch.So go check us out there.

Kevin Chang 38:36

Please subscribe to us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. We hope that your day just got a little bit more enjoyable. And we will catch you next time on the RaceMob Podcast.