Speaker 1: 0:00

So you're thinking about running, but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's Rompod. Hey there, fellow runners and fitness enthusiasts. Welcome back to another episode of brian's rampart, and I'm your host, brian patterson, and today we've got an inspiring guest who's sure to ignite your passion for running. Joining us is tj daly, the founder of the mtc club, and I will find out what the m means soon. Tj's journey from rekindling his love for running in 2012 to establishing a thriving running community is nothing short of remarkable. We'll dive into his personal transformation, the inception and growth of the MTC Club, and we'll explore some of the club's notable achievements, including the victory in the Great American 5000 virtual race. So lace up your running shoes and let's hit the ground running with this captivating conversation. Welcome, tj.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Thank you so much. It's nice to be here. Thank you for all my fans out there.

Speaker 1: 1:24

I couldn't get enough of you first time, great. Right now take two. So as I sue with most of my guests is I just like to find out a bit about your relationship with running growing up through high school.

Speaker 2: 1:38

So so this is an interesting story because I was not somebody who gravitated towards running Initially. I wasn't somebody that was very good at running. I went to a very small private school and in elementary school, a family who has some runners I'll talk about later but had a son who was in my grade and they established a cross country team all school, so it was one of the few sports we played. That was about fifth grade and I was exposed to it. I, you know, I had a class of 12, so you would think I would be in the top five on a cross-country team.

Speaker 2: 2:13

But even with that small yeah, you know, I kind of I was kind of on that cusp um, but I think something cool that is kind of retold later in my story was that that became my friend group. So I wasn't necessarily going to practices or going to meets excited about executing the event at that time, but I got to hang out with my friends and so that was a real catalyst for me when it came to high school. I of course got better over those years, but was still not near the upper echelon at all. However, at the end of my eighth grade year, my middle school closed and so I had to go from a class of 12 to a class of 400.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Oh right.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Right and I ran cross country that freshman year kind of as a way to help me with that transition from that small school to a larger public school. So it served me really well there. But because I didn't have that passion at the time because I didn't see the progress that I wanted to see, that was kind of where my relationship with running ended was after my freshman at least for me in time, after my freshman year of high school, again struggling to kind of even make the JV team at that point.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I know when the equivalent over here in high school. I know it was something I quite enjoyed because it was something I was, I know, academically school was kind of quite a struggle for me, reasons being, you know, I was on medication and whatever, but I seemed to excel at cross-country running and basketball. I think maybe the basketball because of my height at the time, but was there something at the time that you kind of just gravitated to because you quite enjoyed it?

Speaker 2: 4:03

You know I enjoyed the community of it and I do remember around eighth grade yeah feeling that freedom you feel after a good run. I remember going to a neighborhood next door to mine and running around the neighborhood in my 10 to 12 miles, which was considerable, you know, because races back then were were a mile or were 2k yeah um, and so we never really ran more than a couple of k or a couple of miles on a regular basis.

Speaker 2: 4:29

And so to go out there and run 12 and I remember looking back and feeling so accomplished that I could just keep going felt really empowering, and I was very similar to you in the fact that who was a major struggle and I was also on medication for all kinds of things yeah um, so so it.

Speaker 1: 4:45

It definitely the community side of it, but I did feel some a boost in self-confidence, you know, towards the end of middle school and early high school yeah, able to do things I thought I could yeah, I mean you, from what you were just saying there about you know you sort of having to, you could run and run, and run did bring to mind a film about steve profane, profane, profane sort of thing, and he's, he sort of had a uh, a natural um, uh, a natural ability to running at a run an early stage, and he could just keep going, keep going and keep going.

Speaker 2: 5:17

Yeah, but he's a big, he's a big uh presence in this household I'll talk a little bit okay, all right, we've watched. We've watched every steve prefontaine movie, all the clips on youtube and, of course, being over here in the us, he's kind of a deity here. So yeah we go to the prefontaine classic every single summer.

Speaker 1: 5:36

We'll be going again, yeah, in this july, so it's a big yeah, yeah, as an aside, I mean it's an incredible story and it's a shame that he didn't reach his potential. You know, like the 72 Olympics and yeah. So it's quite a tragic story, but if anyone out there wants an inspiring story to see the film, then please do go and see it. So yeah, and also, it's the start of Nike, that's true, that's how nice it's.

Speaker 2: 6:07

Starting like, yeah it is. It's great to see that kind of bubble up with the, the waffle, iron and power man and it's, it's such a such an interesting individual yeah, I agree yeah now.

Speaker 1: 6:21

So talking about high school, so did you, you know, did you go on to college or did you sort of take your running on to college or not?

Speaker 2: 6:32

I didn't. I had a really big break from running. From probably my freshman year in high school, I shifted over into football.

Speaker 2: 6:41

So I played football for a few years and then started to introduce running back into my life, probably five or so years after that. So I took some breaks there, really, you know, and that was just your standard fitness running right, running a couple times a week to maintain cardiovascular health, more of a health play. And then in 2007, that was my first marathon and the approach to that was more of a do hard things approach let's accomplish something we didn't think we could accomplish. I had shifted and started working a lot in the bodybuilding space, so I was doing a lot of weightlifting, spending a lot of time in the gym, but accomplished going through that phase of my life and see the next natural progression with endurance. So 2007 was the first marathon and that was the seattle marathon, out in seattle, washington, and then took another break until 2020 and that's when things got rude did you have to train much for the marathon at the time, or?

Speaker 2: 7:42

I thought it was. So.

Speaker 2: 7:44

You know we're talking 2007, so the internet was there, but yeah you know it was basically runner's world and hal higdon would put together these programs and you'd go to runner's world and you had your entry level, your intermediate, your advanced programs. Although I have to beginner, I took the, the intermediate program, which I think was 30 to 40 miles a week. I still have some of that data because I was using like tracking methods when they were in their infancy back then. But yeah, I didn't run as much as I thought I would, but I didn't. You know, I didn't get. My farthest run prior to that marathon was 11 miles, so I didn't quite get where I needed to be. Do you ever think?

Speaker 1: 8:24

I know we're kind of like jumping about, but do you ever think that, with the advances in technology and data capture we have now, do you ever think if only you had it, then were you kind of glad you didn't?

Speaker 2: 8:38

have it then, it's like a double-edged sword right.

Speaker 2: 8:41

It is yeah we've dove as a club, we've just jumped into the data and I think it does get a little bit overwhelming at times and maybe pull some of the joy and the fun out of it, like thinking back to those times where you know you didn't have the gps data or you didn't have strava to prepare yourself to other people, or there weren't all of these different approaches to training that have you jumping all over the place and, and you know, at times it's fun and it's engaging and it keeps you interested because your approach to training is always shifting.

Speaker 2: 9:14

But at the same time it can also make things overwhelming and I've kind of faced the situation in that regard recently. So I definitely miss the freedom. Yeah, I love. The one thing that I refuse to do is run with the phone. I still obviously have, you know, my, my, my watch on my hand. But, yeah, that's my time to kind of disconnect and uh, yeah, I'm with you. I do miss some of those days where I don't I don't need to know my stride rate or my ground contact time you know all of the other things.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Yeah, it's kind of, uh, paralysis by analysis sort of thing. I always think that because I remember the days when I mean I was running to early, um, early 2000s or to, to mark out the run that I was going to do. I would go out my bike one day and then just mark it out and I think, right, that's three miles. If I do twice that, then it's six miles. So it was pretty basic.

Speaker 2: 10:08

We would just drive the car and use the odometer on the car.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Exactly exactly.

Speaker 2: 10:12

Mark it out. And then I knew, running from this house to this end of this cul-de-sac and back was a mile and you just look.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Yeah, yeah, we're out and back yeah. Yeah, like you said, I mean, you know nowadays maybe we bought the fun out of doing that. They'll never know, you'll never know. So what's the story about now? First of all, let me get. How do you pronounce the M word?

Speaker 2: 10:36

This is hard.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Okay.

Speaker 2: 10:38

In most of the people. Unless you grew up where we grew up, they're probably only five or six years old, right? So it's Mishingo Misha.

Speaker 1: 10:54

So Mishingo Misha M, shingo misha, that is so as shingo misha, mishingo misha. Yes, ah, great, okay, um, because I was trying to say it all day at work and uh, and I was trying to look it up on wikipedia now does it have kind of, uh, native indian connotations? Yeah, it does, yeah, it does. What's okay? What's the story?

Speaker 2: 11:09

here's what's kind of ironic about that how this? Also, we grew up in indiana in the united states, in a county called grant county and there was a famous indian chief, miami indian chief from that area and his chief, chinga bishop. There was a local kind of country club that a lot of us grew up either around or going to. So it was kind of this because there are four or five different towns in this county, we didn't have a center point. So this kind of country club where, again, we lived by, worked at and this is the collective original group kind of was our.

Speaker 2: 11:47

You know, the thing that tied us together and and what was interesting about it was that years later this is, you know, we were there in the early 90s, late 80s, right, and the club started in 2015, 2016 yeah, um, fast forward to 2021 we started a race in one of the races we produce in a park. The park is named Katiwi Park and that is a Miami Indian work. So when we developed this, we had no clue. You know, 20 years after we had been there and 10 years after the formation of the club, or six or seven years after the formation of the club, we were in another environment or situation where that miami indian heritage is popping up again.

Speaker 1: 12:32

So it was kind of cool, um, and that's how we got the name of the race all right, okay, so, um, so your mission is basically to support sort of runners of of all backgrounds, so how did you kind of start up the community itself?

Speaker 2: 12:50

so it was really built around family, um, whether that's our core family or our extended family. Yeah, so I began, you know, running again in 2012. Premise, or the reason I began running again a phone call from my brother yeah we'll dive into that a little bit later.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Uh, he got me back into running. Subsequently, the following year, my other brother was like well, I want to join and I want to run with you guys. And then another, another person that we had grown up with in very close proximity. He was on a weight loss journey and he wanted to, you know, find a community to help him there. He was interested in at different paces and different types of races that he were. And then we had another friend move back from across the country who looking again for faster road races, so it kind of snowballed it was.

Speaker 2: 13:38

It was interesting how people from such a small town and we're talking about a town of 30 or 40 000, so not large by any measure were just all at the right time in their life and all at the right place in their life, all of it within 20, 30, 40 minutes of each other, to lay a foundation. And then, as, as it continued to grow, we had somebody that you know. Here's this oh, I want to. I'm a, I'm a new runner or I'm an experienced runner. I want to. I'm a, I'm a new runner or I'm an experienced runner, I want to do fast road racing Well, this person here is doing that, training Right. Or I want to pursue ultras Well, this person here is doing that and it's grown significantly um through that method. And then, just happenstance, running into people, I think you spoke with Christy P, who is like the epicenter of our running community right, like the epicenter of our running community.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Oh right, oh, I see she helped us expand tremendously, so it's very much an organic, very much so.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Yeah, and I think I kind of get the impression with a lot of these communities. I know I interviewed someone over here who started a running community and basically you know it's all been kind of word and mouth within the local uh, when I live in twickenham, which is not far from uh, which is on the suburbs of london, sort of thing, but it's just you know, it's all word of mouth, and then going to meets and that kind of thing, and then I don't know, do you have a like a t-shirt which kind of helps advertise the club or something?

Speaker 2: 15:07

Yeah, we have all kinds of things this hat.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:10

So we have people in these. You know, for us that's exactly what it was.

Speaker 2: 15:16

And the other thing, too is, you know, continually reinforcing that we're here to support because we're our own club and I think a lot of times other clubs kind of push, push that away, you know, like we have other local running clubs that are surround us yeah and if you present yourself as too competitive or too to whatever, whatever how you know, you want to maintain a perception of we're here to support you, and so we also try to um partner with other running clubs, even though we're our own thing, to create awesome experiences.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Right, okay, so do you think you've kind of carved out like a little niche for yourself or you don't want to sort of bottle yourself into a kind of a?

Speaker 2: 16:03

I think we have. No, I think we've done that because we produce races. That's a big thing for us, and so we are engaging in conversation with other running clubs that are supporting those races. But we'll reach out and highlight some of the strengths of these other running clubs.

Speaker 2: 16:19

Hey, could you come bring your energy to an aid station at one of our races, because you know you have a lot of people in your club participating and you guys bring great energy, so we'd love to have you do that. And here's what we can do from a partnership perspective to enhance your club's experience at our race, as well as maybe provide some other support for endeavors that your potential club has outside. So we have that unique aspect and then we have some other things that we do, um, specifically some of the relays and some of the work elite and the things that we can help other people from different clubs participate in. They may not have enough people within their club that want to do that thing, so kind of mix and mash and put do you do?

Speaker 1: 17:04

let's say, you know weekly meetups, or do you? Or do you? Is it very much a club which is very much more spread out than that, more of an online kind of presence?

Speaker 2: 17:13

it's definitely the latter. Yeah, one thing about our club that I've noticed and this is just my perception or of the whole thing is that we have a lot of individuals that are in that stage of life if we've both been through where it's just it's almost impossible. You know, you have our core is probably as young as 30 yeah into into early 50s.

Speaker 2: 17:35

We have some people older than that but like professional, yes, a whole nine yards, so meetups, uh, on the weekend mornings there are, or there are search committee or whatever that looks yes, yes, that's right and we have. We have runners in seven states. So okay you know we do a lot more virtually and then we'll get together physically a couple times a year, especially again relays um or other other, you know, just races across the country. But we're definitely more virtual all right, um.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So this isn't something you do full time, is it? No, or is it?

Speaker 2: 18:11

no, it's, it's growing, it's growing pretty significantly.

Speaker 2: 18:15

We had one of our races sell out seven months in advance this year, which was awesome oh my gosh and our second race is close to selling out here and it's in a couple of months, and then the club has grown from six people to over well over 100. So we're we're getting there. But, yeah, we want to just again kind of follow that organic path and not really push anything too hard and really ensure that we're creating the right experience, that people feel like they're offering them something for where they're at within their journey and where they're at with it.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Do you, do you offer, like not only just um you know, sort of the races and putting on races? I can't? Do you offer sort of advice on training advice or physio, that kind of thing? So what, what sort of um services do you offer on that side of?

Speaker 2: 19:08

yeah, so we have all of them. Uh. So from a coaching perspective, we do have two coaches. We have christy christy's's, kind of our broader road running coach. She will tackle the majority of people that we have wanting to participate, whatever they want to participate. She's extremely experienced with marathons and ultras. And we have Corey Nuro, who is kind of our more intense he's more Norwegian method really high mileage, pretty aggressive and pretty condensed workout sessions within a week, um, so if somebody's very serious when it comes to road running, they will engage with him. We've also put together plans with other people that have field specialties. So like there was a track club here in the United States called 10 man and 10 man elite and it was indeed a track club and we've worked with their strength to develop a strength plan.

Speaker 2: 20:01

And then we have a couple of local physiotherapists guys that we will send or recommend to our runners. That are local anyways as it relates to getting through injury. That are local anyways as it relates to getting through injury, what's an injury versus what's a naked pain, and how you can work biomechanically through a lot of things that may be ailing now going.

Speaker 1: 20:24

Going back to you. You you said that you're you're overcoming, or you kind of got back into running in 2012. Overcoming a 70 pound weight gain mean. Looking at you now on the screen, I can't imagine what 70 pounds would be like on you. So in our metrics it's five stone. But were you quite muscular then? Or was it just you were just out of condition?

Speaker 2: 20:55

It was a little bit of both. Yeah, I've always struggled with yeah going I had a really high metabolism and then going into high school just ate as poorly as I could.

Speaker 1: 21:03

Yeah, I went from 145 pounds, same height that I am now, to 225 by the high school and that was fully out of shape oh my gosh, all right, yeah, so 140 is 10 stone over here in the uk, and then yeah, so another 70, yeah, so yeah, you're looking at 15, 15 stones. I've never like, yeah, and you're what?

Speaker 2: 21:22

six, six foot, about six feet, yeah, about six feet, yeah um, and then from that point I got, like I said earlier, I kind of got into the bodybuilding side of things yeah I got my weight back down to 160 pounds and then started to build muscle and lose fat, so I got up to as high as 260.

Speaker 2: 21:45

So there was more muscle there than there was in high school, but it was still, and then it kind of fell out of that like let's call it 2005-ish, and then, you know, got back down to a reasonable weight and then from 2006 on it just kind of slowly tipped back up I call it from 180 to 230, 240, about where I was when I got that phone call from my brother.

Speaker 1: 22:08

From there was it kind of a gradual. You gradually went down to a, a particular good running weight I did in six months oh, right, okay but it was very regimented.

Speaker 2: 22:23

It was, you know, chicken broccoli, all right yeah, and it was that meal four times and it was like I mean it was definitely not sustainable yeah, exactly, I mean I.

Speaker 1: 22:34

I mean I've known over the years that diet is 80 percent of the, the success rate. No doubt about it yeah, so no doubt about it okay, good so, and and did you notice that there was this? Um much more? You had more energy, increased performance in terms of your times.

Speaker 2: 22:52

Oh, it was unbelievable. It was. I mean, I couldn't tie my shoes without losing my breath when I was two. Oh my God, it'd be really big. And then just watching the progression, I think that was what was interesting. The second time around in 2012 was that I started to see the progression. I started to find issues that I hadn't explored in the past and it maybe played to some of my strengths earlier on and then it kind of grew from there. So, getting in shape like that, I noticed a major difference climbing stairs, just doing everything. Really it was super impactful, you know health.

Speaker 1: 23:32

So, um, then you kind of obviously embarked on doing marathons. Tj Daly's running journey was unlike any other. He started as a kid who barely made his cross country team out of just 12 students. Running was just a way to socialize back then, not a passion. When his small private school closed, he had to go to a public high school with 400 kids. Running became his way to cope with the big change. After high school, tj tried football bodybuilding, but then came back to running. He ran his first marathon in 2007. He remembered those simpler days of running, using a car odometer to mark his route and just enjoying the experience, not worrying about all the fancy data points that technology gives us now. They made him think about how we're so focused on metrics and fitness these days.

Speaker 1: 24:24

The real Kent change came in 2012, when his brother called him up. Tj had gained 70 pounds. He decided to get into shape by eating healthy and running. In just six months, he went from barely being able to tie his shoes without getting winded to discover he had a lot of athletic potential, and that personal transformation became the basis of something bigger the MTC Running Club. The name MTC comes from TJ's hometown in Grant County, indiana, and it has cultural significance that connects to Indian heritage.

Speaker 1: 24:57

The club started as a small group of family members and grew to over 100 runners across seven states. Mtc put on races that sold out in months in advance, offered special coaching and worked with other running groups instead of competing with them. They also had a virtual first approach that worked on their busy members, mostly professionals in their 30s and 50s. Tj talked about running changed him not just physically, but also it helped him build a strong community, whether you're looking for motivation or a fitness journey or advice on how to make meaningful connections with others who share your passion. This conversation was full of real wisdom that TJ earned throughout all those miles and hard work. Now, this was just part one of my chat with TJ. Part two is coming out next week and here is a taster for next week where we talk about one of his heroes, roger Bannister. So see you next week for part two.

Speaker 2: 25:57

Yeah, because it's such a monumental moment in sports I mean people thinking that you couldn't physiologically do that exactly, die before they and for him to do it and then do it the way he did it. So I, I um have my daughter, who's 11 and I'm a runner as really cool achievements herself. Um, watch that and just you know she doesn't quite realize it yet, but but what he did and like the, the track that he ran it on and the shoes that they ran it in, and his training during lunch while he's trying to become you know a doctor and just the way it all came together.

Speaker 2: 26:35

Yeah, yeah.