David Magida will teach you what you need to to to stay on top of your spartan race training.

 

 

 

 

Full Transcript 

Rich Ryan: [00:00:00] David Makita is here, David. What’s up, dude.

[00:00:03] David Magida : [00:00:03] Oh, rich. Thanks for having me, man. Of

[00:00:05] Rich Ryan: [00:00:05] course. Yeah. I don’t do a big, long intro. We’re just here. We’re now we’re talking, we’re talking now. We’re still talking.

[00:00:10] David Magida : [00:00:10] Okay. You want me to talk about me? Is that what we’re doing

 

[00:00:13] Rich Ryan: [00:00:13] then we’re going to, we’re going to get into it, but

[00:00:14] David Magida : [00:00:14] first

[00:00:15] Rich Ryan: [00:00:15] I have a couple of questions for you.

[00:00:16] Just some random questions. We call it the rapport round. so first one, what is your favorite breakfast cereal?

[00:00:23]David Magida : [00:00:23] I would say this is a competition because I have like my GoTo, like if I need to just have a spool cereal before I go running and I have like my GoTo, like I was a little kid and I love this stuff.

[00:00:32] Like, you know, like cinnamon toast crunch was like the bomb when you and I was a kid, it was the one that like, you could beg your mom to buy it for you. And she wouldn’t. And then like one day, like randomly out of every like six months you’d come home and there’d be like a, there’d be a box of it in the, in the closet, in the pantry.

[00:00:49] That was my go to, but she always want me golden Graham. She thought I loved those. For some reason, they, they

[00:00:54] Rich Ryan: [00:00:54] kind of look the same cinnamon toast crunch and golden Grahams. I could see how you could visually mistake the two, but

[00:01:00] David Magida : [00:01:00] 10 out of 10. The one is like a six and a half, you know?

[00:01:05] Rich Ryan: [00:01:05] Golden Grahams. I wasn’t that I would never reach for golden Graham cinnamon toast crunch was a staple in the pantry.

[00:01:09] And that’s a good qualifier actually, because there’s a difference between the cereal that you’ve eaten the most. And the one that like you have the most affinity toward.

[00:01:16] David Magida : [00:01:16] Yeah. Cause like, other than that, like raisin bran crunch and honey nut Cheerios and toasted oatmeal squares. Those are like the, my go to cereals, like for like, I’m gonna have a bowl of this, you know, it’s an hour before I run.

[00:01:28] Rich Ryan: [00:01:28] Right. Just something quick, quick carbs, get in there.

[00:01:30] David Magida : [00:01:30] And you’re, you’re not gonna upset me too much, you know,

[00:01:34] Rich Ryan: [00:01:34] that’s how it was. When food companies were pushing cereal as like health food, I thought special, special K was like healthy. I was like, so I ate special K all the time though, like yogurt and berries, one solid it’s

[00:01:48] David Magida : [00:01:48] I’m going to ask you if it was the yogurt, if it was the berries one, or if it was just like the plain.

[00:01:53] The plain

[00:01:54] Rich Ryan: [00:01:54] plain doesn’t do it. Yeah, the yogurt, they had the strawberry one, but they were like, those was weird for freeze dried. Strawberries that weren’t that great with milk, but with the yogurt crunches and that, and the Berry ones, that’s, that’s my go to

[00:02:07] David Magida : [00:02:07] the answer is if the cereal needs you to add fruit to it, to make it good than it.

[00:02:13] Isn’t good cereal. And if I was going to have fruit with my breakfast, I would just make a bowl of fruit or fruit smoothie. So like what, where are we going with this? It’s a good way to live. It’s good.

[00:02:22] Rich Ryan: [00:02:22] Good, solid motto to live by because yeah, if we, these, when they came out, they were. I wanted readers to be something that I actually enjoyed, because, because if you eat those, they make you a good athlete.

[00:02:33] Michael Jordan Needham. Yeah. But think, yeah, they picked him to say so, but yeah. Yeah. You had to put bananas on there. Like I. With like sprinkled sugar on there just to make it palatable. When I was like a little kid

[00:02:46] David Magida : [00:02:46] use just raising brand without the raisins.

[00:02:49] Rich Ryan: [00:02:49] I think so. And those reasons, if you pick those up and you look at them, they

[00:02:51] David Magida : [00:02:51] are just sugar.

[00:02:53] Rich Ryan: [00:02:53] They’re not regular reasons. solid, solid answer, cinnamon toast crunch. I think that that’s a good, a really good, no, one’s gonna argue with that.

[00:03:01] David Magida : [00:03:01] It’s hard to, so

[00:03:03] Rich Ryan: [00:03:03] the question is what is the biggest challenge of broadcasting, a Spartan race that the viewing public might not foresee?

[00:03:11]David Magida : [00:03:11] well, a lot of this depends on the format.

[00:03:13] Okay. Because we have so many, the one format I would say that’s probably the hardest is the live format. Pure live. Because we have live to tape, which is like, it looks like it’s a live product, but we actually film it all edited all together and then record it all in one, take into studio after studio.

[00:03:31] It’s like, it’s like a bunch of folding tables in theaters. and, and then we have the. Tape delay episodes, which are like the ones you see on like NBC and ESPN, where they’re like six weeks of editing and then I’m laying audio tracks on them separately. This is all done very differently. in those ones where I’m like sideline reporting, the challenge was like, alright, we literally jumped in an ATV and like race to a spot.

[00:03:52] And I got to jump out and I get one take to get it right. Like the live ones. The challenge, honestly, the biggest challenge. And you can ask like, someone like Bracken, who’s done these with me for example, is like, you have to sit there for like four hours and not be, and you’ve got to pee so bad, good commentary, but you’ve got to go to the bathroom so badly.

[00:04:12]and then literally you’re like, you don’t have a single instance to get up and go, or if you do, they’re like, we’re going to go to a package. You have 27 seconds. And you’re like, you’re like just peeing off the side of the tent because you know, you just literally have no time.

[00:04:25] Rich Ryan: [00:04:25] Does that change your eating and hydration strategy where you’re like, okay, I have to do this commentating tomorrow.

[00:04:30] I’m not going to drink starting at like 6:00 PM. And just let it go or is eating has to be as trouble too. Right.

[00:04:36] David Magida : [00:04:36] You know, I mean, the thing is, you know, you know, you don’t want anything in your teeth, but like the, the reality is usually I’m going to do the commentary. If it was alive, I would do the commentary.

[00:04:46] As soon as I’m done, we’re talking like 11:00 AM. I’m jumping on the course and running the course, you have to be hydrated. Like, you know, we did Braxton and I did Palmerton. And then immediately ran the course. I wasn’t fricking water before that I would have died out there. So 97 degrees at noon, noon in Palmerton, it’s like 97 degrees climbing mountains.

[00:05:04] Like you gotta be ready for it. So, so no, we’re not, we’re not letting that impact hydration. You got to stay hydrated.

[00:05:10] Rich Ryan: [00:05:10] Yeah. You just have to push that signal aside when that signal hits your brain, but you have to pee. You gotta be tougher than that. You just gotta push through it.

[00:05:18] David Magida : [00:05:18] Well, it’s like, it’s almost the opposite of like, you know, when you’re running and you have to pee and you’re like, are telling yourself, just go.

[00:05:23] Just go, like let it happen while you’re still running and your brain, your body’s like, no, I don’t want to, but your brain keeps telling it to.

[00:05:30] Rich Ryan: [00:05:30] Right. Hmm. That’s good. So that is, that’s an excellent answer to that. I wouldn’t have thought like, man, Makita sounds like he really has to pee right now, but I never thought that.

[00:05:39] So you do a good job keeping that all hold it together. so what is a habit that you’ve developed over the past year or so? That has been like a game changer, like day to day. Ooh,

[00:05:51] David Magida : [00:05:51] that’s a good question. I would say the best habit that I’ve developed is, I’m using, these Firefly, recovery tools on my, you put them, you put them right.

[00:06:04] Below the knee, on the outside, if you’re lower on the upper end of the outside of your lower leg. And, you haven’t seen these before they wrap called Firefly Firefly recovery tools. and they wrap around your, the back of your calf basically, and they stimulate the nerve. Right below the knee and it, and it causes blood to pump through the lower leg and through the foot and then back up and without actually stimulating the muscle, but just rather than nerves.

[00:06:32] So you’re not super sore when you take them off. So it’s like doing STEM, but it’s different. and these have helped me so much because I used to struggle with calf injuries and, and soleus injuries all the time. And I had a couple of years ago when I made a little bit of a comeback, I had like eight cath poles and I’ve been knocking on wood, like.

[00:06:51] Totally totally healthy in my calves. I use them every day. Wow.

[00:06:54] Rich Ryan: [00:06:54] That’s cool. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve just recently started to implement like nerve glides into my mobility routine, which essentially I’m guessing the same thing. So it’s, you kind of bypass the, the muscle belly and you’re, you’re just trying to stimulate that nerve to essentially mitigate warning signals and pain signals to your brain and they work so well.

[00:07:12] So it’s not, it kinda sounds like it’s in that same vein of just, maybe not always focusing just on muscle and using the nerve. Or did you hear about, I haven’t seen these.

[00:07:20] David Magida : [00:07:20] So market debt actually, gave me my first payer. And then I got in contact with, Anthony, the guy who makes these. And, I mean, they work with a lot of professional athletes now, but he’s really supportive of the athletic community.

[00:07:32]he started with them as medical devices. So they were for people that were like post op Achilles surgery, they needed a way to pump more blood to that area without like overdoing the muscle. So they figured out the solution and these, they were accelerating. I don’t, I don’t want to misquote the exact numbers, but they were rapidly accelerating recovery for Achilles injuries.

[00:07:52] Galen Rupp uses these like every day, for example, and you know, he has, so he’s had Achilles issues and

[00:07:58] Rich Ryan: [00:07:58] just localize for the lower leg. Or if you have like, could you wrap it somehow on like your elbow, if you do have.

[00:08:05] David Magida : [00:08:05] You might be able to figure out a way to, but these are specifically for lower legs.

[00:08:09] Yeah, it’s amazing. Huh?

[00:08:11] Rich Ryan: [00:08:11] Very cool. I’ll go check that out. Cause I, that sounds like it is something that would be really helpful. great Firefly.

[00:08:18] David Magida : [00:08:18] So you wrote a book

[00:08:19] Rich Ryan: [00:08:19] on obstacle course racing. What was that process

[00:08:22] David Magida : [00:08:22] like? The process was, that was actually the, the, the, I was told that I was going to be able to write the book, in 2015.

[00:08:32] 13 early 2014. and the plan was to write it. Then as I was prepared to launch my fitness studio, elevate interval fitness, and then as fate would have it, by the time all the agreements were worked out and the planning phases were done. I started writing the book in October of 2014, the exact same month.

[00:08:51] We opened the gym. So I was swimming in, you know, literally like a hundred hours a week of work. With the studio, doing everything, running the studio, coaching or being there for all of the classes all day, doing my own cleaning, all that stuff, marketing, hiring training, and then also. trying to squeeze in time to write these books and, you know, the way books are written, it’s it’s, you have to constantly hit deadlines.

[00:09:16] Like we need chapters one through three by this date, and you hit that deadline though. Can we need chapters four through six by this date? And you keep on working your way through it? so I would say I felt very rushed. I did not get. Every last drop of what I wanted out of it, but actually, yeah, it’s amazing.

[00:09:33] You know, I’m one of those people that works really, really well under pressure. Pressure’s always good. I was always that last minute study or for exams and stuff, so, and for writing papers. So, I actually really enjoyed the process a lot. I would love to have the time to do a rerelease, like updated version of the book with things that I’ve learned since then.

[00:09:51] Cause that was 2014 and now it’s 2020. Yeah, I’ve learned a lot

[00:10:00] Rich Ryan: [00:10:00] and now that’s something we’ll definitely get into on the, on the podcast, hopefully. But the I’m curious about that. I don’t know anything about how books are published, but do you, I know there is a such thing as an advance. So did you work with someone in that case or did you just kind of like independently team up with somebody and be like, all right, we’re going to put this out and see how it does, or was it that traditional model of here’s your money?

[00:10:23] Based on the concept that you have. We need that by. We need this by

[00:10:28] David Magida : [00:10:28] this date. Yeah. I negotiated with my publisher. So, essentially human kinetics and they’re a, they’re a very well known, well respected publisher of like exercise and sports science books. That’s what they do. they came to me a woman who’s like their acquisitions.

[00:10:46] Director, Michelle Maloney reached out to me and I had met her at a obstacle racing conference previously in Atlanta a few months prior. And she said, Hey, you know, we need someone with the, the knowhow, the writing ability to put together a book. And, you know, we think that you’re the right guy for that.

[00:11:05] So, yeah. we just kinda started getting into the negotiations. I did get in it a small, very small advance. And then, I get a small percentage of the sales, which is not much, nobody gets written off these things, man, if you’re not a New York times bestseller, good luck. but I did receive literally two weeks ago, a copy of my book arrived in the mail in German.

[00:11:25] They just published it in German. So every time they get a new language, you get a new copy. So I’m going to do, and I’m going to have like this huge array of. Of books written by me and all these languages. That’s going to be really fun.

[00:11:37] Rich Ryan: [00:11:37] Yeah. That’s something you could also just proclaim like author of a book published in 20 languages.

[00:11:44] And you can say, like, I wrote the fucking book on this. Do you say that to people? You’re like, yeah, no, I wrote the book on OCR.

[00:11:50] David Magida : [00:11:50] We need to do this. I don’t even sell it at my gym. I’m like, I, I’m not really like that person who like. I, I kinda, I like attention, but I don’t like self endorsed, like as much as I should book out of the studio and really whore my gym, like out on like things like this, but I will, I will promote it a little.

[00:12:12] Rich Ryan: [00:12:12] It’s it’s definitely hard that like self promotion. There’s like a glass ceiling that you kind of put on on yourself. I find the same thing, you know, it’s like, I don’t always am like, I’m not selling enough firewall push forward. And you see other people who are just constantly doing, it’s just like volume shooting, right?

[00:12:26] It’s like, I’m going to put this as much effort in to get this little bit of results, but I’m the same way, man. It’s like, if it’s good that people will find it. And if it’s not, they won’t

[00:12:36] David Magida : [00:12:36] kind of, I wish life was that way. I know like, Oh, if it’s, if it’s quality, if you have good quality, like you’re going to succeed, but that’s not how life works.

[00:12:47] It’s actually like, are you self a grand deicing? Like you salute attention or like, you’re like, you’re going to do much better. Like it are you taking tons of professional photos of yourself and blasting them out everywhere? Like, that’s actually the way to get people’s attention these days, which is really sad.

[00:13:06] Rich Ryan: [00:13:06] Which is definitely sad. And that’s definitely a byproduct of like Instagram fame and having these quick quips of your life and having to be extremely curated where on pro platforms like this, like you can’t hide from actually who you are, but on Instagram or social media, you can have everything curated and have it right there and have it presented exactly how you want it to be.

[00:13:26] Whereas like, if you have good content, if you have a good book, you have a good gym, but you’re not doing all those things. It’s like, It’s hard to get to that level. And I’m sure there is people who are the combination of both, but, have you, is that stuff stuff you work on or is that constantly in your mind?

[00:13:42] It’s like, okay. I should probably push myself to promote harder or

[00:13:48] David Magida : [00:13:48] is that yeah, should I have to, I really have to do that. Like all the time, like I have to set like alarms and like reminders for myself to be like, okay, like you should put an Instagram post up now. Like, I really just don’t really care about it.

[00:14:01] And it’s like some shit I’ll just take some old, like generic race photo or something and put something underneath it. But, I don’t like having a, like an agenda on social media and, as far as, like with the business, it’s the same thing. Like I have to put reminders in my calendar, like, okay. Like, You’re going to assemble like new ad campaigns, do marketing campaigns.

[00:14:19] We’re going to shoot a new video. Like, I don’t like, I just like someone in training people. Like I just, like, I like working out. I like training. I like your programming. Like I like these things racing that like, that’s what I meant to, and, and we have a lot of people there. They don’t care about the glitz and the glam.

[00:14:34] They don’t care about all that stuff. They just want to come and train, but there are people out there that if they only knew. That they’re looking at the wrong things. They’re approaching things. It is from like the, like how flashy can it be? And like, how awesome do you, you look in this picture? Like if they just, if they just cast that aside, And really focused on what mattered they would.

[00:14:53] They would be so much more satisfied. They would fall in love with the process, but that’s a hard thing to teach people.

[00:15:00] Rich Ryan: [00:15:00] And it’s, it’s not, it’s a hard conversation to, to have with them. It’s like, okay, well the con concept that you have of what fitness is, it needs to be almost undone. And I’m sure this happens when they come into your gym quite a bit.

[00:15:13] Right. They have, they might have an idea of. What they want themselves to look and feel like, and present you and in a timeline and on their head. So like, what does that, like when people first come into your studio, are these conversations that you’re having with them or what’s that first process it’s like, what are you just kind of put them through a workout and be like, this is what we do.

[00:15:31] It’s going to be fun. You’re going to get good results. Or is there that kind of like. Expectation kind of set for them.

[00:15:37] David Magida : [00:15:37] There’s I mean, it’s a mix. I mean, you know, I think everyone is so unique that they need, they have different needs. Like some people come in and they’re like, you know, I’m a runner or I’m this I’m I play soccer or do whatever.

[00:15:47] And they’re like, I’m trying to get fit. Like I need real true athletic fitness. Cool. Like here’s the program. These are the different programs that we offer and kind of just plug them in. Here’s the first free class. And now you can do a trial, try a few of these different things. And then I’ll talk to you about how we can work this into your training.

[00:16:07]on the other hand, I have other people that, that they’re like, okay, a friend told me to try this place, but I am terrified. And they look at it from the perspective of like, I’m not going to be fast enough. I’m not going to be strong enough. I’m going to, everyone’s going to be like judging me. And you have to kind of show them like, listen, like this is how it is in the beginning.

[00:16:26] Like, yeah, it’s okay to be the least knowledgeable the slowest in the beginning. And you’re going to feel that way, but nobody’s going to really even notice that the only thing that people are going to notice is your effort levels. Like they’re either trying or you’re not. And if you’re not trying and you’re like partnered up with someone for workout or something like that, people are not going to appreciate that.

[00:16:49] If you’re not, if you’re not as good as the person you’re partnered up with, as long as you’re trying, they’re happy. Like everyone just wants to feel the energy of the other people around them and know that you’re going for it. You’re working hard. We’re all here for a reason. And, and I like, I literally like yelled this over Mike today.

[00:17:04] I was like, I think I was, I was turned to someone and I said, okay. I said, listen, like, you really should be doing more than you’re doing today. And I said, so I said, I think I said, man, workouts lead to massive results. So I think it’s, it’s one of those things, like for me, it’s about just driving home to people that like, there is a time and a place to take it easy, but this is not, it.

[00:17:32] Rich Ryan: [00:17:32] That’s what they’re there for, right. Is to. Put that effort in with the people that are, that do surround them. And, and with your gym, it’s you have two locations right down in DC,

[00:17:42] David Magida : [00:17:42] proper.

[00:17:43] Rich Ryan: [00:17:43] Nice. And would you say it’s obstacle course race inspired because some from the branding, it doesn’t necessarily look like it’s a Spartan race gym, or a CrossFit gym,

[00:17:55] David Magida : [00:17:55] you know?

[00:17:57] Bye. Bye. OCR for sure. when I first launched the program, what happened was I was coaching people in back visually and then group coaching, people to train for Spartan races. And then I wanted to open a studio and I was like, I don’t know that like putting all my chips in or all my eggs in this basket for just obstacle racing makes any sense.

[00:18:21] So let me take some of that training and let’s let’s bottle it. Let’s add some more general fitness to it as well, and let’s make it more for general population. And then I have some specialization classes that are really good. Like I have an endurance class that is, you know, like I covered eight miles in that class the other day.

[00:18:39] Like it’s really good volume and it’s robotic threshold work and that it’s and lactate threshold. And we’ll do some Hilary repeats and we might do some compromised running and then we’ll end with pure speed work. So it kind of feels like a race, like when you start a race and you’re running and you’re like, All right.

[00:18:54] The first thing that happens is I feel my heart and my lungs start to kick in and you, you know, and then as you’re going, all right now, I’m settled into halfway into the race and my legs are starting to get heavy and they’re burning a little bit and I’m powering through that section and now, okay, we’re closing the end of the race.

[00:19:09] And now it’s about that kick home. So. It kind of has that feel to it and, and it will expose a weakness in your, in your fitness from that perspective, at some point in that program, I’m like, I know if I’m running that class with Mark, like I know he’s going to absolutely bury me in the aerobic thresholds portion of that class.

[00:19:28] And then I’m going to absolutely drop the hammer on him when it comes to the speed at the end. So, it all kinda comes out to, we ended up running about the same distance by the end of that class. But, I have a different programs. Like I have a pure strength program where you’re just, you know, it’s a lot of, it’s almost like a, our take on German volume training and super setting for an hour.

[00:19:50] It’s gimme your massacred afterwards. and so there’s, there’s a few other things when we were running, you know, and then we started, we were like, okay, now we need, do we need to add more mobility and stuff to what we’re doing? So we added a Vinyasa program and a yin yoga program. So. So there’s a whole range of things right now.

[00:20:07] We had to scale some of that back because of COVID and just trying to run lean a little bit, but, but, then that’s something we’re interested in, like, like rounding out people’s fitness, making you kind of Bulletproof and injury proof, and then not just making, you know, soft scrawny, little runners or big old meatheads, but really bringing about general fitness that is needed to be.

[00:20:28] Like an obstacle racer is my opinion. Is this the best athlete in the world? Like, you know, you have to be, you have to be really, really high level as a runner and then also be incredibly strong. Have. Great landing mechanics and explosiveness and, and put it all together. So we try and train all those elements

[00:20:44] Rich Ryan: [00:20:44] and that I liked that you have that

[00:20:46] David Magida : [00:20:46] approach where people

[00:20:47] Rich Ryan: [00:20:47] can take it when they find it to be necessary.

[00:20:50] And I was thinking that if I was to have my own like OCR class, it would probably just be a running class, like how you had mentioned, but most, most studio fitness. Based classes they’re they’re formulaic, right? Like a, like a Barry’s type of class is kind of what it looks like. Right? Like some do some weights, but essentially it’s cardio.

[00:21:07] Anyway, they do some more cardio and you do some more cardio and that’s, and you’re just kind of in there and you get the sweat and then you’re out of there. But so was that something that you. Came into this as a need for in this space. It’s like, we need to actually give people like a level of performance that they wouldn’t black.

[00:21:24] If they went to orange theory, just throwing out names.

[00:21:28] David Magida : [00:21:28] Yeah. Mean you definitely. Yeah. I, I, I mean, listen, there’s some things that I borrowed from those guys. Like they have some bait, they did a good job with their room layout and they understand the average person wants to run a little bit lift a little bit.

[00:21:39] So I’ve, I have a class that does those elements that you are running or growing. For your aerobic capacity work for half that class, and then you’re doing some strength work. The difference is, you know, we do a lot more stuff with intervals and top of the minutes and partner workouts, and we’ll throw some chippers at you.

[00:21:56] We’ll throw ’em. I go Hugo’s at you where you can go a lot heavier. we’re, we’re, we’re definitely encouraging a lot more of that. And then the run work is much more sophisticated. So,

[00:22:06] Rich Ryan: [00:22:06] yeah. And that’s the, and like taking your background and endurance and implementing it into a group fitness class is something that not a lot of gyms are offering to get that high level endurance.

[00:22:15] I think that’s a really cool added element. So like I talked to some gym owners, like right when COVID was kicking off. Right. And we didn’t really know what we’re in store for. I mean, I’m sure some people could foresee how bad it was going to be. But I think a lot of times people were being mostly optimistic, right.

[00:22:31] It’s like, okay, we’re going to hunker down. Want to do we need to do, we’re going to. Wanna flatten this curve and then we’re going to open again. And, so that, that kind of happened and where you’re, we’re kind of getting into that space now in time where some gyms are open and you’re just kind of getting into that process.

[00:22:47] Right. Bringing people back into an inside space.

[00:22:51] David Magida : [00:22:51] Yeah. So, so when, when COBIT really started spreading, On the 16th of March, a DC shutdown, like everything. I actually sent an email out to my members on the 15th and said, guys, I don’t believe that I can in good faith, encourage people to come into the studio or even allow people to come into the studio.

[00:23:14]and say that I am like a leader in health and wellness. And bring you guys in here and put you at risk. So I shut down and then 24 hours later, DC announced that they were shutting everything down. so we kind of saw the writing on the wall. It was, it was like very obvious. It was about to happen.

[00:23:32] And then, so the 15th that happened on the 16th for DC had even shut everything down. I had already released to our members, our first digital programming day. And so we, we had already purchased some, some. equipment, some lighting kits, you know, audio equipment. And obviously we then had to replace it all.

[00:23:53] Cause it was all garbage. This stuff we bought the first time and we have evolved and evolved and evolved, but I’m essentially, I’m doing it all with one camera angle, a single shot, like, boom, here’s your workout, but we do the entire thing with you. And so we, we lead in with this, with our elevated home program, which I had up on the website.

[00:24:08] I really like the day we closed. That’s

[00:24:11] Rich Ryan: [00:24:11] unbelievable. Like, was that something that you were not, not unbelievable, like it’s. Because there was those Peloton classes that were kicking that were starting to get people in that live class, but from home. So I feel like there were gyms, like thinking about like how they could implement that, but just where their bandwidth was.

[00:24:30] Was that where your

[00:24:30] David Magida : [00:24:30] head was? Or were you like,

[00:24:32] Rich Ryan: [00:24:32] this might screw everything up. So we need to be on top of it

[00:24:36] David Magida : [00:24:36] really, honestly, because I was like this. We, we had a meeting with our team about a week before it all went down and I was like, guys, I have this feeling that everything’s going to get shut down.

[00:24:48] It’s going to get shut down for a while. Like it’s going to mess stuff up. And so we, all of my head coaches that kind of helped me with programming and stuff. They all started working on programming for just pure body weight stuff immediately. And we started releasing a daily workout every single day.

[00:25:07] For the entire shutdown for three months, every single day, there was a body weight workout that would hit our members, email boxes, and then some days we’d also have a yoga workout again, and a Vinyasa went out one of each, each week. And then I would send out a bonus like dumbbell or kettlebell workout for people to do if they had equipment.

[00:25:25] And then we were sending running workouts out to people. So all of that was happening every day. The whole time we were shut down. And we were recording way ahead. So now we’ve, we’ve already sent out to our members, like a hundred. We, we filmed over 150 workouts, just the body weight once then we started doing live workouts.

[00:25:41] So we were doing live either body weight, or live with weights or my strength program. and then they allowed us finally, after about. Three months, ish. They let us start doing outdoor workouts with like up to nine people. So we started, you run into a bunch of outdoor programming. So now I’m writing boot camps for the park and, you know, they, they had, we had originally to announce we’re running workouts too, but they shut that down.

[00:26:05] So we recently brought that back to an outdoor, essentially endurance program. So we’ll do track, you know, so I taught it this morning actually, and I ran it with the class. So I’m running it too. And we’re doing. we’re we’re running today. We were running like 1,212 hundreds on 92nd recoveries. And then.

[00:26:23]after we did a bunch of those, we did some compromised run work with, sets of 40 either like lunges or single leg step ups or jump squats with quarter miles in between and, and did a timed mile that way. And then we ended with some speed. We did rent some 200, so, it’s still kind of feels like that endurance class that we we take before.

[00:26:40] And, and I’m just introducing to a lot of these people that have never done a track workout before. Like, this is how it works. Like this is how you kind of feel for your pacing and here’s how you check your splits and here’s, you know, here’s how, you know, you should be feeling perceived exertion and, and just kind of getting people comfortable with like, this is how it goes.

[00:27:00] And like, you’re going to run a ton of volume and like, and this is good for you.

[00:27:04] Rich Ryan: [00:27:04] And that’s important for people to feel that, and especially on a track and that where that pacing is and being outdoors, right? Like being outdoors and, and figuring out what that feedback from the ground is like, it’s just a different way to pace.

[00:27:15] We’re on the treadmill. You can just kind of turn everything off, but when you’re out outside, it’s a constant check and recheck and just

[00:27:23] David Magida : [00:27:23] do people

[00:27:24] Rich Ryan: [00:27:24] wear their GPS watches and follow the. Just since on the GPS, as opposed to the track during your track workouts. Because

[00:27:33] David Magida : [00:27:33] I wear my GPS watch, but I follow the distance on the track.

[00:27:36] So I come through and I run a 1200 and it says you ran like 0.7, three, and I’m like, I don’t know, like I’m so right. What’s the

[00:27:46] Rich Ryan: [00:27:46] track is the track is still the track. People are like little stop, just like a hundred meters short from like a mile track is right. It’s like, I’m willing to guess. I’m willing to bet that the track is accurate.

[00:28:00] David Magida : [00:28:00] And I actually trained on this weird track. I train on this. It’s like a square, it’s like a square with rounded corners. Turn no hard turns and never along, straight away. Right. But like, so I’m like, got it. It must be two or three seconds slow per lap because you’re just, you’re losing. You don’t, you can’t work the turns.

[00:28:21] You’re like turning too sharp to work the turns and the straightaways aren’t long enough. So it’s a weird track.

[00:28:28] Rich Ryan: [00:28:28] What’s that? You’ve got a public track down there

[00:28:30] David Magida : [00:28:30] in DC. This is the public one. The other ones are for schools and they’ve shut them all down. You can’t get into most of the other tracks. So, so I’ve got this one and we go to it and we hammer, and then they’ve got like a little stone Bleacher thing.

[00:28:42] So we run stairs and do all kinds of stuff there. I like it. You know, usually there’s some dudes like sleeping on the. Bleachers and you got to kind of work around them, but

[00:28:50] Rich Ryan: [00:28:50] it’s of going a group. It’s

[00:28:52] David Magida : [00:28:52] a better fit. It’s all fine. Yeah. So you even asked me about indoor. So we are back to indoor classes. Now we’re running out.

[00:29:00] Here’s the complex, the complexity of the situation is you have a lot of people who were clamoring to get back in the gym. People are stoked. They’re like, yes, the gym’s open again, but I’m only allowed to the open on 50% capacity. And then you also have a number of people that are like, listen, like. I will train outside, but I won’t go indoors around all these other people.

[00:29:22] So I’m like, okay. So I got the indoor people. I got programming for these guys and coaches covering these classes. I got also have outdoor classes and I got to have enough to accommodate all these people who want to go and train outside. Then you have other people who are like, listen, I just don’t know.

[00:29:35] I feel comfortable coming in yet at all, but I want to keep supporting the gym. So they’re like still paying their memberships, but you got to give them an offering. So I’m still producing on-demand workouts that I’m sending them a few days a week. And we’re still sending, we’re still doing live digital workouts, like virtually screaming for those people.

[00:29:53] And then the other people were just like, I’m not in it. Then we had DC introduced a new mask rule. So now you have to, in addition to being 10 feet apart in the gym, you have to wear a mask. Now the

[00:30:04] Rich Ryan: [00:30:04] whole class. Yeah.

[00:30:07] David Magida : [00:30:07] Well, not a treadmill is really hard in a mask and it’s not impossible. I’m doing it multiple days a week and I’m managing, you know, I would say big secret here for me has been the surgical mask where you can bend the nose right around your frame of your nose.

[00:30:19] Keeps it off your mouth a little bit. Really, really helpful. Yeah. But a lot of my people that were not comfortable coming into the gym before, like, well, everyone’s wearing a mask, so I’ll come in. And other people who were like coming into the gym before, they’re like, well, now I can’t breathe in this mass.

[00:30:33] So I’m going outside. So this chief’s like, it keeps changing. Who’s where. And all I know is that I am producing like triple the programming I was ever writing before and trying to just make everybody happy and try to keep the business essentially financially viable right now, which is all we really can ask.

[00:30:53] Rich Ryan: [00:30:53] Do you foresee that and to keep, I mean, the digital stuff, I would imagine you can kind of store that in the library now and offered that out as like one time purchases or even like a recurring membership to just head things on like, so do you feel like there are going to be ways that. You can continue to profit from this later down the road, just cut by essentially elevating no pun, elevating the brand and people can then take that wherever they want.

[00:31:18] David Magida : [00:31:18] Absolutely. I mean, when we first shut down, we turned to our members and we were like, listen, this is the truth. This is where we’re at financially. And we need your support. If you are capable, continuing to pay your dues through this, please, like, we love you. We are grateful and we’ll make it up to you. and we, and we’re doing that.

[00:31:37]if you can’t, here’s another option. We have this digital program it’s just on-demand workouts, but it’s $59 a month. And if you can pay for that. Awesome. We’re also selling these live streaming classes and you can buy a 10 pack of those or whatever. and then if you can’t like we’ll suspend, you remember shaped like don’t stress Mo most of our members were like, we got you, like, we’re here for you, but we’re still selling the digital subscriptions.

[00:32:02] And, there’s now, new program with ClassPass where you can. upload your workouts there and then they pay you based on the number of minutes. People scream, yours content. So, so we’re working, I’m actually working on that this week, getting off, getting some videos uploaded. Cause I have so many, and you can just like upload a playlist to go with it and they can just listen to your playlist while they do it.

[00:32:21] And then, cause I’m not putting music in the videos cause obviously. Then I have to pay for the rights to

[00:32:26] Rich Ryan: [00:32:26] the music. It’s a whole nother thing. Yeah. well that’s cool. ClassPass came, came through like that. I guess they would have to pivot. They probably got hurt really bad from an assistant.

[00:32:33] David Magida : [00:32:33] And listen, they’re taking 30% of the take on these memberships.

[00:32:37] So, you know, it is, but it is what it is. They have a global brand and if we can find ways to, to draw some, some revenue, we have to take it. Yeah.

[00:32:48] Rich Ryan: [00:32:48] And not, and not like develop something from the ground up. Cause I’m sure this was a lot with, this was just like, you have all these systems in place and now you had to completely scrap them and make brand new systems for all this new stuff that like didn’t exist before

[00:33:00] David Magida : [00:33:00] the first month, the first month was like horrific.

[00:33:03] I feel like I didn’t sleep. Like at all. Like, all I was doing was, was editing website and. Filming and then learning how to video, edit this stuff to like, like as quickly as I could, like it just finding a platform to put it up onto, and then negotiating with other platforms to be like, Kenneth, can we do it with you guys?

[00:33:19] But like Vimeo was just way too expensive. They were trying to just charge what know we ended up going with YouTube because we could do it for free.

[00:33:27] Rich Ryan: [00:33:27] And that’s the thing is like, you can’t necessarily outsource stuff. And in times where you don’t know what the financial situation is going to be, so you’re not like paying for some sort of developer to come in and do all the work.

[00:33:37] It’s like, well, I gotta keep this lean right now.

[00:33:40] David Magida : [00:33:40] And you had to do it all ourselves. So, that’s it, man. It’s been a scary time. It’s still a scary time for small business in America. I’m really counting on. the federal government to figure something out where they do some kind of large scale bailout for the service industry.

[00:33:54] And that includes restaurants, places like hair salons, gyms, right. Well, they’re going to need a bailout. Like it’s a problem. What we have going on right now.

[00:34:05] Rich Ryan: [00:34:05] Yeah. Especially in Philadelphia, they kind of got hit the worst. Right? Like they were like the last place to open it and they were just like the afterthought of everything.

[00:34:12] And I can imagine, cause you never know what someone’s financial conditions are. So it definitely went out. My thoughts went out to them and there was a gym that I was working at before. I was just like full time online. That closed down if I was working there a year ago and just been like out of luck.

[00:34:29] So I’m sure a lot of that is happening. but

[00:34:31] David Magida : [00:34:31] now with, yeah, I mean, that’s hard. I mean, you look at like, I employ like 35 people and, we made the active decision that, that, you know, and this is, you know, my dad was a business owner, my whole childhood, you know, We talked things over and you know, he’s always said like your responsibility when you’re an employer is your people.

[00:34:51] You have to take care of your people no matter what. So we paid all of our staff the same that we would always pay them through the entire thing.

[00:34:59] Rich Ryan: [00:34:59] Wow. Wow. It’s fortunate for you to be able to do that. Well,

[00:35:04] David Magida : [00:35:04] it was not easy,

[00:35:05] Rich Ryan: [00:35:05] but

[00:35:06] David Magida : [00:35:06] it’s made easier by the fact that our members are aware of that and that they have been participatory in helping us make that happen.

[00:35:15] Rich Ryan: [00:35:15] Hmm. And people can see that they can sense that from a business when it’s like they’re doing the thing, the right things, the things that like, cause you could have just had everybody collect unemployment, right. Be like, Hey, we’re you’re off now. We’ll we’ll bring you back when it’s time, which a lot of gyms did do.

[00:35:30] So w people want, especially when there’s a title in a community, like what you have, people will sense that. Right. And they’ll know that you’re doing right by their, their coaches and their instructors who they love. So ultimately it will. Act in your favor, just by doing the appropriate thing that you would consider, like quote unquote, like right.

[00:35:47] Thing

[00:35:48] David Magida : [00:35:48] thing in the beginning, you know, we had a reaction, a negative reaction from a lot of people, for obvious reasons. Like one you close to before, like you were even told to close, what are you doing? And then other people, you know, why should I pay you? And then as time went on and they realized this wasn’t a two week thing, this was a.

[00:36:07] You know, month after month after month thing, they were like, listen, like they started to see other businesses going under. And then we started getting emails from people that were just like, listen, I, I just thought about this and when everything is done and we go back to normal, like I need elevate to be there.

[00:36:22] And so they’re just like, just, just keep charging me. It’s okay. So I’ll, you know, not everybody did that, but the ones who did are the ones that kept us here. That’s why we’re here. Yeah.

[00:36:33] Rich Ryan: [00:36:33] Yeah, no, I’m of course, obviously not. Everyone’s going to have the means to hang on, but the ones that can like, that’s good, that that’s just a Testament to the product upfront, right?

[00:36:41] Like focusing on the product, making sure everyone’s getting the best experience that they can. And that’s something that’s going to like, whereas like a global gym, people are going to cancel those right. People, if they don’t feel like an affinity toward them, like they’re out,

[00:36:51] David Magida : [00:36:51] it’s all about community. I mean, that’s the thing.

[00:36:53] And so we spent the last six years. Building community, building relationships with people, you know, people come in, I know the name of their dog, you know, like it’s like, it’s one of those things where you, you have those connections with people and then it is a family. And that, that goes a long way. And when you see that in DC, you see that even with people that like just have restaurants, they like to go to, they feel really connected to it.

[00:37:16] So I think it’s, it’s, you’re seeing. Americans really rallying around, the, their local small businesses in a really special way, you know, and I hope my hope is we start a revolution, which is like anti corporation in every way. And it’s just, everybody only buys local only supports local. You just ignore all those other big corporations.

[00:37:40] And I know people are going to come at me and say, what about franchise owners? Yeah. Another their argument. Another time,

[00:37:45] Rich Ryan: [00:37:45] another time on that one. But so, but right. Like you’ve built this community, you’ve built these gyms. You have two locations in a, in a Metro area that is not cheap, not cheap to have where you are.

[00:37:55] So there’s definitely something there and having the, the, the members standby and still want elevate to be there when it’s, when it’s time again, like, so you’re doing something right in that sense. And. I know there are some gym owners who listen to this or some inspiring gym owners. And back when things were like normal, what,

[00:38:16] David Magida : [00:38:16] what do you, would you like back

[00:38:18] Rich Ryan: [00:38:18] and kind of, what kind of piece of advice would you give to somebody who wants to wants to start something like what you have, where would they start?

[00:38:25] Like what did you do that you would go back and be like, Oh my God, I can’t believe I did that. Like scrap that, like what mistakes can I learn from,

[00:38:33]David Magida : [00:38:33] Man. There’s so many, I made so many mistakes. Honestly, the biggest mistake I made was I. Found success very, very quickly with our first location. And we blew up, we were the, we, we like were so popular, like immediately.

[00:38:49] And I was like, man, like, I can’t even, like, I couldn’t even get enough coaches in time, like to meet the demand. And like, it was like, it was insane. I was like, I was like, we should have gotten a bigger space. Like, this is crazy. Why didn’t we not get a bigger space? And then I was like, we gotta ride this wave guys.

[00:39:03] Let’s open another location. And so we went and rolled out a second location. We were supposed to put it in there. You see like three miles from where we were. but that Lisa goes to Jason, fell through and the same landlord was like, I got this other space and Virginia come take this. It was disconnected too far away, not enough foot traffic and it just never could.

[00:39:23] I never really got the volume of people in there that I needed. I wasn’t able to develop the culture that I wanted to develop there. And we ended up closing it and relocating it back into another location in DC. And so my biggest piece of advice would be, you should be aiming for. Running one place incredibly well.

[00:39:43] And putting your passion and your love into that, then trying to grow like into some big company, because you know, the reality is it’s, it’s just twice as hard to maintain culture, to develop community, to keep an eye on everything and to manage all these moving parts when you have multiple. So, yeah. I, I would say that I was much.

[00:40:05] Life was much smoother when I had the one.

[00:40:11] Rich Ryan: [00:40:11] And, and yeah, I kind of feel that even in my own, just like coaching online where it’s like, if I’m so focused on expanding that the quality hurts, right? Like, and you always think like, okay, my product is good and people are getting results and they’re seeing it and like, okay, let’s expand this out to get, you know, more people and give people better experiences.

[00:40:29] But like, there’s always, I feel like there’s always something. That you can do more to like really make that product better and put the consumer, the customer, the client first, but when things are rocking like that, and you’re like, all right, cool. Like expand to grow scale. And then everything will just kind of feed on each other.

[00:40:45] David Magida : [00:40:45] How would you

[00:40:46] Rich Ryan: [00:40:46] foresee that you’re going like that you need to focus back on quality first as opposed to expanding, like, cause you made that mistake, right? Like that was just something that you, you use. You just went after,

[00:40:58] David Magida : [00:40:58] what would you do

[00:40:59] Rich Ryan: [00:40:59] if you didn’t have had made that? Like, what was somebody, how could somebody see that they shouldn’t.

[00:41:06] Expand

[00:41:06] David Magida : [00:41:06] first. Well, this is a relationships business, right? So like, like in fitness, it’s not about, it’s really not about product. I mean, it is, but what it’s really about is, is rapport that you develop with people. It’s making them feel at home. It’s making them feel comfortable. It’s showing them that you care about them personally.

[00:41:26] Right? So with that in mind, What I came to realize my objective was to make it so that the elevate program didn’t need to be that the elevate program grew beyond me. And people just wanted to come to the elevate program and I was still rewriting the programming and doing all that stuff, but it wouldn’t be about me.

[00:41:44] And what I, and what I’ve realized is that like, regardless of there might be coaches that I have people like more than me and there might be, you know, there might be other people that people like really connect with. But that I am an essential part of the entire experience of elevate. And therefore it is very hard to replicate yourself.

[00:42:05] I can’t call myself. And unless you feel that like you are not the person that makes these things go and let’s see, you’ve put it in a position where someone else is completely carrying that location. It’s probably not a good time for you to.

[00:42:21] Rich Ryan: [00:42:21] Got it because then you’re stretching. You’re, you’re diluting that one finite product of yourself, putting it into place.

[00:42:28] David Magida : [00:42:28] That’s exactly it. Yeah. You’ve

[00:42:30] Rich Ryan: [00:42:30] been able to work on that. I’ve been able to like figure out how to get it going or is

[00:42:33] David Magida : [00:42:33] that still like a, does that mean it’s a learning process. It’s, it’s, it’s becoming better at teaching your, your staff and your coaches. It’s becoming, it’s, it’s empowering other people more and being willing to like.

[00:42:48] Release the reins a little bit and let people take it. and then at the same time, it’s auditing at the same, you know, it’s coming back in and making sure you really are you really given a crap at the same level that I am because I care authentically. And the problem is caring authentically. And now it’s, for me, it’s been six years, right?

[00:43:12] Yeah. In October six years. yeah. It’s extremely hard to care authentically and put yourself 100% all in for six straight years. Like your, your motivation. He does does Wayne at times, and I have to regroup and, and figure out why is my motivation flagging and, and continuing passionate about it. And I think a big reason that for me, when I went through a period time where my motivation was flagging, one was when the second location was not doing well.

[00:43:41]that for me was like, it really took an emotional toll on me. obviously it’s like taking

[00:43:45] Rich Ryan: [00:43:45] personally almost like, Oh, not

[00:43:49] David Magida : [00:43:49] what is quite doubting yourself. and, and also just, it took a financial toll. and then I would say simultaneously, like, It’s it’s I was going away from the things that, that I loved.

[00:43:59] So I wasn’t running enough races. I wasn’t running outside and training and I was taking the classes, but, but, and we, we have to get into this fitness is at least race, fitness, race, fitness, and fitness, different things. Yeah. Like you can look Jack to buff and, and you could still run at a really high speed, but like, Pure racing.

[00:44:20] Fitness requires has requirements of getting outside and putting in run volume. And, and I wasn’t doing that. And therefore, like I never really felt like I was ready to show up to a race and dominate. And if I don’t have that confidence, then it’s like, it’s hard for me to drag myself out to one of those things and know I’m going to get beat.

[00:44:36] And like that’s never a good feeling. So I had to reassess and training and, and do the things, the little things which is going out and getting my volume work in and, and run them with Mark Godette and letting him pound me in the sand for a little bit and, and remake myself as a runner. And that’s made me much happier, actually, just, just getting those elements back into my life.

[00:44:58] Rich Ryan: [00:44:58] Nice. Yeah. And I’m sure there’s, there’s going to be times where that happens and you’re going to have to like, look back on that time where things were just feeling like shit and just recognize those, those. Those markers, do you put checks into place? And this is actually something that would pertain to the motivation that people might feel in training where like, where’s your motivation?

[00:45:16] How are you feeling about it? Like, did you, do you have set times to audit yourself in terms of how you feel about the business and your fitness? Or is it just something that like things kind of culminate and kind of come to a head and you’re like, okay, let me take a step back and look at this.

[00:45:31] David Magida : [00:45:31] I think it’s more of like a constant.

[00:45:33] It’s a constant auditing. I mean, I’m just looking at it, not financials every day. I’m I’m reviewing coaches every day. I’m I’m every, almost every day. Yeah. I’ve got a new coach in training I’m working with or someone like it. And those coaching training processes take months, months, and months. So you’re seeing them all the time.

[00:45:50] It’s as much effort as. You know, they, they get out what they put in and they get out what you put in it. And so, you know, you gotta, you gotta kind of bring it. So, sometimes I find myself still, still neglecting certain things and I have to regroup. It’s partially because I wear so many hats, you know, it’s like, I’m, I’m, I deal with our social media person.

[00:46:09] And then I’m, you know, working on our new advertising and then I’m over here training someone and then I’m over here. And I mean training, I mean, training a staff member, and then I’m over here, coach three classes in a row. And then I got to get my own training in. And then, and then you’re dealing with, you know, whatever reporters trying to do a story, and you’re just kind of like, you’re all over the place.

[00:46:25] And, the thing is having full control of your business can be an awesome thing, but if you’re doing everything. Right. If you’re, if you’re trying to have your hands in every bucket, then you are probably doing a crappy job. And a lot of those things you’re getting five, like eats. Somebody could probably do it better than you.

[00:46:47] Rich Ryan: [00:46:47] And like, where’s the point where like, this is someone I struggle with. Where’s the point where like, letting go is appropriate or like, Making sure you’re delegating in a fashion that is advantageous to everyone. It’s like a hard line to figure. It’s like, Oh, I’m good. I’m good. Especially when you’re in it, you don’t quite realize like how it could be done better.

[00:47:06] So I like that you’re working on like almost a day to day. Cause that ends up being more habit based. It’s like, okay, let’s check. Let’s check. Let’s check. Making sure it’s all the same. If you’re doing it all the time. It’s not like a big ordeal. So your finger might be on the pulse of it a little bit more.

[00:47:20] David Magida : [00:47:20] It’s trusting, it’s trusted their people. And that took me a lot of time. Like not only did I not trust people, cause I’m just, I had to break that habit of not trusting people, but you know, like I also like, you know, you got to break your habit of like, I’m a fiery passionate person. So like I can get, I’m like very positive.

[00:47:38] And then I could also like, I could be down your throat. Right. So like, Like it’s. So my staff, like they, they know this and, you know, like I’ve got like my right hand management, like he was, he was in the military, he served a couple tours and he’s like, He responds to this kind of, of leadership, because this is what he got.

[00:47:58] It’s very like, it’s like, like right on military. It’s not like a lot of like, like gentle touch love, like, yeah, not super soft, but, but my staff also know like, I’m, I’m tough, but you know, and that’s the other thing I’m very fair. And I, and I fiercely defend my people and love my team. You know, it’s just, it’s just who I am now.

[00:48:19] I’ve got a little bit of fire at me. And, you know, so it’s, it’s starting to, for me, like one of the big ways that I’ve tried to improve is like, I really try and just have a softer touch with like everything I do with my team.

[00:48:32] Rich Ryan: [00:48:32] Yeah. And it’s got to take time and that’s the trust and, and trusting that that’s going to work.

[00:48:38] Right. Because you have one style that, you know, would work in response fairly well, but yeah. Trusting that part. And like from the outside in it’s so easy. I remember like, thinking about like back before I started business, I was like, Oh, it’s gonna be so great to like delegate stuff and have my own businesses live this life.

[00:48:53] That’s going to be the entrepreneur lifestyle. And it just, isn’t, it’s really hard to kind of let go and trust those things. So I’m sure it’s a constant work in progress. Well, cool. Let’s talk a little bit about training, cause you were one of the straight up OGs. Do you consider what mean you wrote the book on the shit, doing it a long time and, and you mentioned volume really quick, but I’m interested to hear some of the things that you’re kind of focused on now, but like kind of in the same vein of that question of

[00:49:22] David Magida : [00:49:22] like, Talking

[00:49:24] Rich Ryan: [00:49:24] to an aspiring gym owner.

[00:49:26] Like if you had to go back and talk to a younger, you who was just

[00:49:30] David Magida : [00:49:30] getting into the sport, how would you,

[00:49:33] Rich Ryan: [00:49:33] what would you tell yourself about like, how to focus on your training? Would you change anything or would you immediately be like, okay, all this stuff, you’re doing stop doing it and focus somewhere else.

[00:49:43] David Magida : [00:49:43] Don’t neglect your running volume. Don’t neglect it. Get back to your run running volume one. When I came into obstacle racing, I ran a, a couple of races for funsies. And then I was like, this isn’t like a serious thing. Like I just haven’t felt like 2011, like I’m just having fun. And then I got really into running because of it like actually, like my first Spartan race was like the thing that got me back into running.

[00:50:04] I started training the next day. And then by the end of that year, I had already started running marathons and I was really into that. and I wasn’t necessarily running the training correctly for marathon. but I was running a lot of miles and I built up as great aerobic base. And then I get into Spartan.

[00:50:22] I started actually racing and I’m running less and I’m doing a lot more strength work too, and a lot more speed to it. A lot of speed and a lot of Hill work and not running the same volume. And I encountered like immediate success. Like I was just like, Faster than most of the guys out there right out of the Gates and, and I could grind and, and it went really exceedingly well.

[00:50:43] And then I kept training the same way for like years, a couple of years. And what I found was slowly but surely I was coming back down a little bit and I think what I had done was I built this amazing aerobic base over like a year and a half. Of just running a ton of volume. And then I was relying on that aerobic base as I trained a lot of speed and a lot of Hills.

[00:51:07] And, and I never really continued to be aerobic base. And because of that, it’s slowly, I slowly lost it. And so I had to rebuild it. and, and that’s what happened in 2018. I started to rebuild a head of back injury. And I wasn’t able to like lift weights or do much in the gym gym for a few months. I spent like three months just running volume.

[00:51:29] And I got up to, you know, between 70 and 80 ish miles a week. And then all of a sudden I was I’m fast again, you know, it’s amazing how that works. And then you throw your workouts, you start doing your speed again. And it’s like, Oh my God, I’m getting you with that. That is what I say is like, I look at like the aerobic base work and the high level, all you’re running is like, just like we used to do it in the off season before cross country season.

[00:51:57] Like you’d run all summer and you just run like long, slow distance, like all summer long and just build your base, build your base. That’s the glue that allows everything else to stick. Then you go and you do it. He’ll repeats workout. And that just sticks. And you do some speed work or some threshold, and it just sticks.

[00:52:12] And without that, that glue, that is the aerobic base. Those workouts just don’t stick as well. You know?

[00:52:18] Rich Ryan: [00:52:18] Yeah. Yeah. It’s a way to absorb the training, as opposed to just like completing the training and

[00:52:23] David Magida : [00:52:23] you

[00:52:24] Rich Ryan: [00:52:24] cover better. You can handle a lot, but you can handle more intensity too. If your volume is high, where instead of like, just running yourself into the ground.

[00:52:31] And do you think that when, when the, the competition started to. Like catch up in terms of the results. Do you feel like it was just, like that you neglected it or was the competition, were they training in a way that the volume that their focus was the volume? Like what do you, how do you foresee that?

[00:52:48] Like, was there a changing in how people trained or was it just that years kind of came back down?

[00:52:52] David Magida : [00:52:52] I think it was a combination. Cause my fitness definitely worsened, over like 2014, 2015, in part. I was running the gym. I just didn’t have the time to train. And that’s why I stopped running outside as much.

[00:53:04] I just didn’t have a time, but you need to take the stuff that I was doing in the gym. And you combine that with the volume and it’s like, man, now. Yeah, it can be truly, really, really freaking fast. I mean, like, You know, I’m doing that right now. And I’m faster than I was in high school right now, which is insane.

[00:53:22] I’m

[00:53:24] Rich Ryan: [00:53:24] like some 16 guy. Yeah. Never running. You run faster than that. Now

[00:53:30] David Magida : [00:53:30] I’m running faster than that right now. I mean, I ran a net. I ran a net downhill 5k, so that’s kind of cheating. A few, three weeks ago, I ran 1538, but it was net down. It’s cheating net, net downhill. I know it’s not fast for you, but for me, that’s really good.

[00:53:44] That’s

[00:53:44] Rich Ryan: [00:53:44] fast for anybody. So like that’s, that’s legit man. And so like, and th do you say that that’s mostly because of the volume or how are, are you just kind of building up? Cause right now you’re training for a marathon. Right? And like, what was, what was behind that thought? Was it like, okay, if I’m doing a marathon, like my volume has to go up or was it, I want to see what I’m going to do on the marathon.

[00:54:05]David Magida : [00:54:05] Yeah. I mean, I basically, what happened was I got a, I got re someone reached out to me and said, like, we were, we’re running this charity race for, at the New York city marathon. And, do you want to interview for it? So I interviewed for it and I got it. Yeah. And I was like, okay. I always said, like, I’m never doing that a marathon again.

[00:54:21] I hate these things. Like I hate marathons. It’s just too far for me. I think I just, I just run great for like 18 miles.

[00:54:30] Rich Ryan: [00:54:30] It’s easy until it’s really not. What was your awful?

[00:54:34] David Magida : [00:54:34] What was your,

[00:54:35] Rich Ryan: [00:54:35] what’s your previous PR and I’m in a marathon.

[00:54:37] David Magida : [00:54:37] I’d run two. And my first marathon. I was just testing the waters. So I was like, I’m going to run like three 15 and then I’m out there.

[00:54:43] And I was running and I was on pace for like two 56 or something. And then I, I hit the wall at mile 21 and ran three Oh five. I did the

[00:54:52] Rich Ryan: [00:54:52] exact same thing on my first, almost exactly like I was just at three Oh five. I was like, I’m going to run two 50. And then I started running. I was like, alright, I’m running like two 38 pace, like magic.

[00:55:03] Like it was gonna work that one day and then just completely fell apart.

[00:55:08] David Magida : [00:55:08] So, yeah, I went and did another marathon and I was pacing, a friend of mine who I am, Stacy Albuquerque. She’s actually, she’s running Olympic trials like four times. And, so she’s kind of like one of my running mentors and. she, so I was pacing her to try and qualify one more time for Olympic trials.

[00:55:26] She was like 43 or 44 years old at that time. And, we ran the Miami marathon. We got a lineup with the elites. It was pretty cool to get a line up with like all the Ethiopians and the Kenyans. And, and then the gun goes off and I just didn’t feel right that day. And I ended up, we came through the half marathon slow.

[00:55:44] We were trying to run two 46. and then I just, again, mile 18, I just hit the wall, just blew up and I ran like three 11. Like I limped, I was cramping. I was like a mess. And I was just like, I’m done with these. Like, I don’t want to do this anymore. And now here we go. We’re doing it again. And people are like, well, how fast do you want to go?

[00:56:03] And I’m like, well, you know what, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it. Right. So I’m shooting for sub two 40. And then if I became aware that, Two 38 is sub six minute mile pace. And I said, well, that seems like a fun goal. Like to be able to say for the rest of your life, you ran a marathon in sub six.

[00:56:20] I’m pretty serious. So yeah, screw it, man. We’re going, so I’ve done, I’ve done a lot of 50, 60, 70 mile weeks for the last four months.

[00:56:31] Rich Ryan: [00:56:31] And is the focus specifically marathon or are you still trying to stay like obstacle course race? Ish, sharp electric, not sharp, trying to keep some maintenance work in there.

[00:56:40] Like how are you balancing strength, work and everything in there

[00:56:45] David Magida : [00:56:45] for a while I was doing well. I have to feel them all these elevated home workouts. Like I was doing like an hour, a day of body weight workouts on top of 60 miles a week of training. So I was training what 60 miles a week, like is that six and a half hours of running a week.

[00:57:01] And then. On through our seven hours of running a week. And then on top of that, I was doing, you know, seven hours of body, weight workouts a week. So I was, I was getting plenty of strength, strengthen, you know, body weight workout is plenty of shrank. If you’re, if you’re looking I’m a hundred and almost 90 pounds, right?

[00:57:17] So someone from pretty hefty runner. And so for me, like the strength required for an obstacle race is. Minimal strength training. Like for me, it’s about the running. I need to get it running down and I need to work on grip. So I do a lot of workouts still. Like I did one this past week, which was like, you know, not heavy deadlifts, but not light.

[00:57:38] And I did like two 25. If I was doing deadlifts into, 125 pound, a dead ball over the shoulders is doing five, five, and then five pull-ups. And I was doing. And then a brief rest. And so that’s a lot of grip. That’s a ton of ton of grip. And I was doing that cause it’s support grip into essentially you have to crush grip the, or pinch grip, the bag, and then into support crew began on the bar on the Pope bar.

[00:58:03] So I was doing, I did 10 rounds of that as like a supplementary after a 10 mile tempo run. And then. You know, it’s like, you’re, you’re just trying to find ways to maintain. I want to get no bigger. I’m actually trying to shrink. So I’d like to lose 10 more pounds of muscle. So it’s it’s but, but you know, but I have to work the little thing.

[00:58:23] So, you know, we’re working on grip Mark and I did our own version of, John Jasko, his dog loop workout recently.

[00:58:30] Rich Ryan: [00:58:30] And it’s Ellen.

[00:58:32] David Magida : [00:58:32] It’s a, it’s a running and it’s a carries and running workout. So we found a, there’s a, there’s a big Hill by my house around the school. It’s a half mile loop. And, should we did was we took two, two 53 pound kettlebells each and you go the Hill, the Hills, like 15% incline.

[00:58:50] And you go as far as you can take it. Until you have to put it down. And when you put it down, you have to run back to the beginning, turn around, run back to the weights, pick them up, Karen, as far as you can run back. So the runs get longer and longer and longer. And, and so, you know, that’s a good one where you just like your hammer in your legs, your hammer into your grip.

[00:59:09] And you know, you’re running hard, you’re running as hard as you can during the runs. but you know, so we’re doing workouts like that to try and supplement. But for me, it’s like. A lot of this is just volume trading like Mark and I went and did, did, the, I think it was outcome Quinn park trail.

[00:59:25] It’s like from bull run park to Fountainhead park was an 18 mile technical and nontechnical trail running. we set the FKC on that a week and a half ago. And, and then I did three hour, a three hour training run at Mount Catoctin park this past weekend, this past Saturday. And then this Saturday, we’re going for the fastest known time on the Mount Vernon trail, which is 18

[00:59:46] Rich Ryan: [00:59:46] miles.

[00:59:47] Right. It’s same kind of thing. Like some technical, some flat,

[00:59:50] David Magida : [00:59:50] this one’s going to be paid. Oh, nice. So, yeah, we’re going to roll. This will be the fast one. I haven’t done a, I have not run a tempo. So this long, in a long time I’ve done like 15, maybe 16. This is 18. It’s going to be, it’s going to be brutal. I

[01:00:08] Rich Ryan: [01:00:08] think Casey got to shoot for.

[01:00:11] David Magida : [01:00:11] I think we got to go like six 30 pace, which is, which is, I think very manageable. If it wasn’t the summertime, I wouldn’t be concerned, but you know, like I sweat a lot. And so I’m worried that my 500 milliliters water that I’m carrying is not going

[01:00:25] Rich Ryan: [01:00:25] to be enough. Might not

[01:00:26] David Magida : [01:00:26] cut it that day. It might not, but it’s what we got.

[01:00:29] So. yeah, so, I mean, it’s going to be, that’s going to be an adventure and I guess you can put, when you post this, you can put enough date of whether we got it or not. Cause that’s in three days.

[01:00:39] Rich Ryan: [01:00:39] Yeah. I’m curious because the like carrying the extra muscle, I mean, like there’s a, there’s definitely a trade off, right.

[01:00:45] For like, Power to weight ratio. And like you said, in terms of where your strength is for obstacle course racing, like your, your, your shrink has to far exceed what you actually need, right? Like

[01:00:56] David Magida : [01:00:56] yeah. When people go to the tire flip and they’re like, Oh, it’s so hard. And I’m like, I don’t understand how this is hard.

[01:01:00] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:01:01] Rich Ryan: [01:01:01] For me, if that’s a grip thing, like when it’s wet, that’s the problem. It’s never like the actual. Lift of the thing. It’s a matter, just like, where am I going to get my hands in there? But like, so we’re, I’m curious to see what your opinion is on this. Like where do you think like the line is for how strong is strong enough for say somebody who is maybe an age group, competitor, who’s just kind of getting into sports or, or as new to strength training, like.

[01:01:24] How strong do you actually need to be for this? Like, do you have any idea as far as like what a dead lift number should be? How many pull ups you should be able to do

[01:01:31] David Magida : [01:01:31] whatever. I mean, if you could do it, if you can do 15 on broken pull-ups you’re plenty strong enough. Like, honestly, like that’s seems like a number that’s fine.

[01:01:37] If you can deadlift two 25, 300 ms. Scott, just call it two 75.

[01:01:44] Rich Ryan: [01:01:44] That’s plenty. That’s plenty.

[01:01:45] David Magida : [01:01:45] I mean, you don’t like all these guys are going out trying to deadlift 500 pounds. Like, listen, man, I used to lift. Some crazy weights. I played when I was playing college football, I was frigging massive. I used to, I used to put a 500 pounds on a, on a hex bar on a trap bar and power shrug sets of like 12 with that, like, yeah, I was a very big boy.

[01:02:06]that is irrelevant strength that does nothing for you. All these vanity muscles getting under the bar and bench pressing, like, this is ridiculous. Like, you don’t need this and you know, if you want to get strong, Just do you know, I got a great workout and you want to do chest. Okay. It’s six rounds of 100 pushups every 10 minutes.

[01:02:26] How about 600 pushups then? Good luck. That’s a much better OCR workout. Then bench press

[01:02:33] Rich Ryan: [01:02:33] totally more of, more functional, able to use em, moving your body weight and everything under fatigue. so how do you think you’re going to cause losing muscle, like losing fats one thing, right. I’m sure you see as an in, in the clients that help, like you can lose fat, relatively sustainable, most, not as much.

[01:02:48] It’s kind of hard to, it’s kind of hard once you get, once we slap that on there, it’s hard to put it on over the years, but once it’s time to, to get rid of it, it’s freaking hard. So you just kind of like. Hoping you run it off or what do you think? And in terms of like how to get that, where you need it to

[01:03:03] David Magida : [01:03:03] be, it’s working.

[01:03:05] I got to stop eating so much ice cream, but I mean the actual muscles coming off, I mean, I’ve dropped, I’d say my biceps are probably an inch smaller than they were really like, I’m losing some muscle, like crazy because of all the running and not doing a ton of lifts. I do a lot of pull-ups like, I still do a couple pull-up workouts a week.

[01:03:23] I want to maintain that strength. So yeah. you know, I got one I really liked, which is for 30 minutes, you do 10 pull ups, every 90 seconds. That’s pretty good. One. that gets really hard and that’ll make you, that’ll make you pretty strong. I got another one I do where I do. I’ve got one at my, when I visit my parents, they’ve got a place on a Lake and there’s a monster Hill.

[01:03:43] It’s like 20% incline that you run. Up about 70 yards, do 10 pull ups and then do another 150 yards if that same inclined keep going. So it’s in the middle of the Hills, really effective. I do 10 rounds of that usually. So like little, little things, but I say, I like to work it more into, my, like, if you want it to be functional for actually functional for racing, you need to be able to use those muscles and activate them when you’re just wiped out.

[01:04:11] So like I do another workout. I do, I do a hundred calories on the air bike, 25 pull-ups and I’ll do like six rounds of that. That’s a really good one for like, you’ll attract your, your upper body, but you will trash it.

[01:04:24] Rich Ryan: [01:04:24] Right. And be working under fatigue.

[01:04:26] David Magida : [01:04:26] Yeah. We’re going under severe

[01:04:27] Rich Ryan: [01:04:27] fatigue. Yeah.

[01:04:28]and. So, what do you, what are you doing? I’m just curious about this too. What are you doing for footwear? Like, I’m thinking about a marathon as well. And now that footwear is such a thing, like everyone’s like obsessed about the shoes. I’m like, am I doing myself a disservice? If I don’t get like one of these $250 pairs of shoes, how you been holding up on that stuff?

[01:04:47]David Magida : [01:04:47] I, I buy, I buy last year as models. Nice.

[01:04:53] Rich Ryan: [01:04:53] It was like the best. I remember I had the old Pegasus, like, Oh three in high school and I was like, this is the greatest running shoe I’ve ever had. I was like,

[01:05:01] David Magida : [01:05:01] I’ve always worked in Peggy. I’ve run a Pegasus for a long time. I used to run an Asics. I used to wear like the gel Camino, and then they changed the way they build the shoe and it stopped working for me.

[01:05:09] It started hurting my arches and, But Nike has been consistently good for me. And, you know, for a while, when I was having calf injuries, I was running in literally like Nike freeze. It was just like, not enough support. So the Pegasus has been better for me. I started at the Vomero and then I found the Pegasus was very much the same shoe and a little lighter.

[01:05:28] And, and they’re half the price because I buy them. I get them for like $62. I get like the 36 is

[01:05:35] Rich Ryan: [01:05:35] you’ll always find a pair of Pegasus for like last year’s model for

[01:05:38] David Magida : [01:05:38] sure. Yeah. That’s great. So I use those, I just bought a pair of Hocus. I actually haven’t worn them yet. I think it was the ring cone. And I’m going to test those out.

[01:05:48] And then I, I, where I do a lot of trail running too. So, so I at Pegasus trail, I was running in the Tara kayakers. Those I liked, but the Pegasus has much, much more, support, especially like it doesn’t have a rock plate, but the cushioning is way, way, way, way better. and, and as far as like trail shoes, like I also run in like the Scott super track RCS.

[01:06:10] I really like those a lot. and before that it was like, you know, I. You know, trail runs, I would do in like, Solomon’s like speed cross, but you can’t race in those. It’s just, it’s just way too much shoe. And

[01:06:25] Rich Ryan: [01:06:25] I’ve learned about the trails, the trail. Should I just thought, like any trail she would do and now it’s like, Oh, you need one for a mud.

[01:06:29] You need one for racing and you need one for like different, different, different technical pieces. Cause I was always road runner. So I was like, I don’t know if this is a trail shoe, this should be fine. And like, I just ended up falling like crazy.

[01:06:41] David Magida : [01:06:41] If I’m running like a really Rocky training run, then I like, like this past weekend when I was at Mount Catoctin, like there’s a two mile stretch where you’re just picking on like sharp rocks.

[01:06:50] Like the whole time it’s kind of miserable. I was the first two miles of each lab. And I remember my first lap. I was like, I’m so unhappy that I have to do this. and, it’s. It’s one of those things where if you had like a Solomon speed cross, you’d be like, my feet are fine. Like, there’s, you’re great.

[01:07:06] Like I ran the death race and this we’d cross and my feet were like, fine. but if you are trying to go fast through like a trail, it’s like smoother, you know, I would highly recommend looking Pegasus trails too thick for that. Right. You’d probably go with a Tara kayaker or you’d go with. I know a lot of guys like the VJs I’ve never actually tried the BJ’s, but the super track RC, I loved because you could run some rockier terrain with it.

[01:07:30] It didn’t ever rock plate, but it’s thicker cushion. It’s still light drains. Well, it ran well on sand. It ran well in mud. It ran well on dirt gravel. So I really liked the versatility of that shoe.

[01:07:41] Rich Ryan: [01:07:41] So you’re not going to go find yourself some 4%, some, some, a vapor fly. Thanks,

[01:07:48] David Magida : [01:07:48] dude. I think I have to, right.

[01:07:50] If we’re going for this.

[01:07:50] Rich Ryan: [01:07:50] Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. That’s I was like, do I need to get these shoes? Cause I was like, I need,

[01:07:56] David Magida : [01:07:56] I definitely, because I think now I need to figure out how I was there in pocket.

[01:08:00] Rich Ryan: [01:08:00] They’re impossible. Like I was looking on and someone was telling me that the newer ones. Whatever they’re called the really wacky looking ones are going to be available to the public, like in running stores in August at some point.

[01:08:13] David Magida : [01:08:13] So I feel like I need it. I think I heard, I think it was, I think it was Adidas. Did they come out with an equivalent South County?

[01:08:21] Rich Ryan: [01:08:21] He does. They have like the endorphin Brooks has one that I heard is not great on the soft and supposed to be. Okay. But it’s like the proprietary foam that Nike has that no other company has Hoka has one too, the carbon ex.

[01:08:32] And so they all have, they all have these, all these companies have ones that have these carbon fiber plates in them. But the foam that Nike has, no one else has. And that’s like, what’s doing it for people. So

[01:08:42] David Magida : [01:08:42] because apparently, all right. It’s the way that it redistributes the energy, like back right into your leg and propels you forward.

[01:08:48] Like it’s crazy.

[01:08:48] Rich Ryan: [01:08:48] Supposedly you don’t even feel like you’re running, like you’ve run, like your legs don’t get trashed. So like at the end of a run, you’re just like, okay, I’ll can keep going. So I’m like, yeah,

[01:08:58] David Magida : [01:08:58] what’s the word for yourself?

[01:08:59] Rich Ryan: [01:08:59] So I was like, I need to pair these. If I’m doing a marathon on the road.

[01:09:01] I would prefer to have this then have my feet fall apart. Cause that’s what I’m worried about. Like my feet and ankles and stuff.

[01:09:09] David Magida : [01:09:09] Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s my, it’s my. My soleus and my gastrocs, like they just get demolished the rest of me. I feel like my quads can take any amount of beating and they’re okay.

[01:09:20] In 24 hours, you know, my calves, man, that’s, I’m a big guy running on these little calves. That’s what I worry about.

[01:09:27]Rich Ryan: [01:09:27] yeah, so that’d be, that’d be fun to see. It’ll be interesting to follow that journey for you, if you can make it there. And we were talking a little bit before about like, trying to figure out what, what to do for a race.

[01:09:34] So we’ll stay tuned on where to actually get this thing in. But

[01:09:38] David Magida : [01:09:38] I’ve got a plan. Like I think I’m mapping out a course that I like our own, but we got to find out how to get it certified. That’s our thing.

[01:09:45] Rich Ryan: [01:09:45] Have you, do you even know, have you looked into that at all?

[01:09:48] David Magida : [01:09:48] No, I was going to reach out to like representatives at what?

[01:09:50] Like, do you, do you reach out to like USA, TF? Who do you reach out to?

[01:09:54] Rich Ryan: [01:09:54] I have some friends who are like race directors. I could, I could try to get some information, cause I’ve never done anything inside of a race, but I’m with like, that’d be crazy to have a small group just do it. What’s the course looking like, is it going to be point to point or are you thinking.

[01:10:08] David Magida : [01:10:08] I’m thinking point to point because, I’m looking at a course that has us slight net downhill in the opening half marathon, and then is flat and doesn’t end with like having to go back running in the second half. Like I’d like it to be flat the rest of the way. so. So for me, I’m looking at like, in DC area, there’s like a, this is trail that runs next to the CNO canal.

[01:10:30] So it’s essentially flat, capital Crescent trail. And it’s mostly straight, essentially flat. If we go at like, Six in the morning, we can beat the heat and we want, we want to be heat by then. Yeah, we can do it, but we can beat, we can beat the sun and we can beat all the cyclists right there, which is the big thing we want to be out there before the cyclists.

[01:10:48] Rich Ryan: [01:10:48] Yeah. Cause I know, cause I’ve the second marathon I did was actually on an open course. It was somewhere on like the Eastern shore of Maryland. It was. Ridiculously small. And like the course was just open. So he doesn’t need to be a closed course to be certified. Right. I wonder if someone has to come out and look at it, or if it’s, if we could just send them a Strava segment, it’s like, yeah, it’s this.

[01:11:06] David Magida : [01:11:06] And I’m just trying to find a place that like one, I don’t want to, like, I don’t want to run into like a 12% incline somewhere in the middle of this race, but like, that’s, I don’t mind running a Hill, but I mind like running, like something that like really takes my running economy and destroys it. And then I’m wrecked for the next mile.

[01:11:22] And I don’t want to have a really windy place. So like people were like, you could to run laps at this place called Haynes point in DC, where a lot of cyclists do like three and a half mile loops. And we’re like, we can just do a bunch of loops, but when you come around the turn there, you have a second and where you’ve got a massive tailwind and then you have a section where it’s a massive headwind.

[01:11:39] And I can tell you, headwind is like the last thing that I’m looking for when Mark and I did the, the ultra virus 12 hour. We had a loop that we were like, this loop is so fast. It’s just like an Outback. And we were like, it’s so flat. We’re just cooking. And then what happened was a wind massive winds picked up like, like 25 mile an hour winds.

[01:11:59] And so on the way, and you’re like, I feel like a million bucks, you turn around and you run into a 25 mile, an hour wind for two and a half miles. And it just breaks you.

[01:12:07] Rich Ryan: [01:12:07] That sucks that I get, I get actually angry. Like I have like a visceral reaction when I get hit in the face with wind, like in the winter, I’m like motherfucker.

[01:12:14] I was like, I, every time that happens, I’m like, why do I live here? Why do I live in this place? I hate this, hate this wind.

[01:12:19] David Magida : [01:12:19] Yes. I hate the cold. It’s

[01:12:22] Rich Ryan: [01:12:22] such bullshit. When my doing

[01:12:24] David Magida : [01:12:24] in the summer, I’m like, I hate the

[01:12:25] Rich Ryan: [01:12:25] summer. It’s getting to that point now where it’s like, Oh my God, every day it have to be every day.

[01:12:31] Some comes out every freaking day.

[01:12:33] David Magida : [01:12:33] So

[01:12:34] Rich Ryan: [01:12:34] yeah, that’ll be fun.

[01:12:35] David Magida : [01:12:35] And Mark showed me the

[01:12:36] Rich Ryan: [01:12:36] course that you had laid out for the 10 mile or two. Cause that’s gonna be part of the process too, right? It’s in a virtual army, 10 miler,

[01:12:43] David Magida : [01:12:43] right? It’s

[01:12:44] Rich Ryan: [01:12:44] really good. Cause we have one up here called broad street, which is. Legit like a net downhill, like it’s straight point to point all a little bit down, pretty much the entire way.

[01:12:53] And it’s so fast. so it’s hard to replicate. It’s almost like you have a 10 mile PR, then you have like a broad street PR, but the one that you have out that looks solid, it’s kind of the same fabric

[01:13:02] David Magida : [01:13:02] will be good. And it’s, and it’s essentially, it’s like, it’s like a slightly like a half a percent.

[01:13:08] Downhill, maybe not even, maybe like a quarter of a percent downhill for like five miles flattens for five. It seems like, you know, like you can hit the halfway point and not be trashed and then be like, all right, let’s, let’s kick it up a notch.

[01:13:23] Rich Ryan: [01:13:23] So it’s more going to do these lugs. I talked to him, he was like, if he’s listening at all now, but we’ll talk to him later, but he’s saying he might do some absurd brace, like try to run 125 miles in like half mile increments or something.

[01:13:35] Yeah.

[01:13:36] David Magida : [01:13:36] I don’t, he doesn’t talk to me about that. What I know is that he got like, he got a invite to try out for team USA. It’s like

[01:13:45] Rich Ryan: [01:13:45] a 24 hour team or a hundred mile team.

[01:13:48] David Magida : [01:13:48] I think it’s the 24 hour. They have 24 hours and he has to run 135 miles. So I’d say you’re on your own buddy. He’s got a sucker me into it.

[01:13:57] It’s going to be ridiculous because he’d suckered me into ultra virus. We were just out for a run that week. We were up for a run on Thursday. And we ran like, you know, like 10 miles together that day. And I was up, I would have had them, I believe I would have had like a 60 ish mile week that week. and he convinced me to do the ultra virus.

[01:14:19] So maybe 55 miles a week that week. I’m not sure they’re pretty good. My mileage week is what I was on pace for. And over the course of the previous seven days, I had run really good volume and, And he goes, see, I’m running this thing. Can you paste me for some of it? And I was like, Oh yeah. You know, like, he’s like, how many miles do you do?

[01:14:35] I was like, yeah, you know, like 30, 35 miles, I got your buddy, like, don’t worry. And then, we go to go do it. And I was like, I might as well just sign up.

[01:14:43] Rich Ryan: [01:14:43] Yeah. We’re going to be doing it that long.

[01:14:44] David Magida : [01:14:44] Yeah. And then, and then of course the plan it’s still for me to just pace him. So I ran with him for 32 miles.

[01:14:50] Yes. And then I might have my T bands locked up and he. Took off and I slowed down and then, yeah, it was like, for me, that was like five hours into the day or whenever it was, you know, and then it was like, all right, 35 miles. And I’m like, I’m at five, five hours ish or something. One of those lines. And, And I go, okay, well now I gotta have a rest of my day.

[01:15:10] I’ve blown up already. And now I have to, you know, just kind of power through the rest of the next seven hours, which I did terrible. so he’s going to sucker me into it. I’m sure. How

[01:15:22] Rich Ryan: [01:15:22] many miles did you get on that week then? Did you get to a hundred that week? With the, with

[01:15:25] David Magida : [01:15:25] the ultra virus? I got a hundred and 111 hundred.

[01:15:28] Nice,

[01:15:29] Rich Ryan: [01:15:29] nice.

[01:15:31] David Magida : [01:15:31] It’s a lot of miles.

[01:15:32]Rich Ryan: [01:15:32] well, cool, man. I’m glad that you’re, you’re putting in the miles again. You’re going to try to hit this marathon. I think it’ll be fun and I think it’s cool if like we can get something rolling. cause I’m I’m with them on the same boat. It’s like, all right, let’s just get volume for the sake of doing volume.

[01:15:42] See what happens and just go after

[01:15:45] David Magida : [01:15:45] and virtual race and FK tees and like, like, listen, like this is the thing that I’m telling people like. Yeah, like traditional racing isn’t happening this year, but lots of other stuff is happening. And like, you know, like I find like we’re, we’re, we’re finding ways to make it fun.

[01:15:58] Like we have a Strava group for, for elevate and, you know, people will like take turns, trying to beat each other’s distance over the course of a week. And you’ll see guys will like post take a run and post it on Instagram. And then they’ll they’ll tag. somebody else and they’ll be like, Hey, it’s your turn to do this run or whatever, or, or they’ll do a, or they’re doing five Ks and they’re racing each other every single week or they’re doing.

[01:16:26] The other thing we’re doing is, is, you know, people are competing for the crown of like the most money that’s particular. So, you know, one week I was having a down week and one of, one of my athletes, he. He did a run at like 8:30 PM. And he got like 0.4 miles more than me for the Sunday night. And I didn’t even realize till 10 30 at night.

[01:16:48] So I like got, got my shoes on and went out for like a 10:30 PM run just to do like a martyr, just to get more than him for the end of the week. Like, like we’re finding ways to like, kind of be competitive and have fun. You know, just because you can’t race doesn’t mean you’re not racing

[01:17:03] Rich Ryan: [01:17:03] and it doesn’t mean you can’t be fit.

[01:17:04] Doesn’t mean you can’t better yourself. You know, that’s ultimately what we’re doing here anyway. Just figuring out how to be better versions of ourselves, athletically and mentally. And we can do that no matter what. It’s like having a race as a nice goal to aim for, but. That’s not necessarily why we, why we’re doing this in the first place.

[01:17:21] David Magida : [01:17:21] And that’s it like, you know, like when I ran this three hours in Catoctin mountain this past weekend, like, it felt like I was getting up in the morning and getting ready to go do a race. And then all doing was I drove a car of a few friends out there and we, we ran each at our own pace for, you know, 60 or I think it was a technique.

[01:17:42] My GPS did not pick up. Well, it should have been like 17 or 18 miles. But, and then you finish and everyone is like cheering for each other when they finish. And then you all cry like a beer

[01:17:52] Rich Ryan: [01:17:52] and it was like same deal. Yeah.

[01:17:54] David Magida : [01:17:54] It was great. It felt awesome. It felt the same community vibes that I was getting from.

[01:17:59] Like when I finish a race and have a beer with my friends, finishing a race, and I felt really satisfied, even though I didn’t race, I just ran it. It was good to just get new trails and just explore this as an opportunity for people that I think. Like all of these things are opportunities. You can go out, you can find new trails, you can build your, your, your endurance.

[01:18:18] You can go and do the little things that like you couldn’t do before. Like, one of the reasons I think I lost a lot of my fitness was I was racing so frequently that I was, that I was tapering and recovering all the time. While you have a year where you’re not tapering and you’re not recovering, you’re just running.

[01:18:32] You’re just training. And like, you’re going to come in and next year you’re going to be a freaking monster. So like, Embrace it, if you’re training, if you’re one of those people that Slack it off right now, like shame on you, but like, this is the time, man. It’s go time.

[01:18:44] Rich Ryan: [01:18:44] I can’t imagine. Like, because that’s the feeling, right?

[01:18:47] If there’s no racist coming up, then it’s like, okay, I’ve got to gear up for when my season starts. But like, it’s not like that this year you have this opportunity to really do something special with your fitness and like just train and train and train. So yeah, you got to go after

[01:18:59] David Magida : [01:18:59] it. And that’s the thing is like, so like when I think about like the best races I’ve ever run.

[01:19:05] They have been because I’ve had like a race and event, like up on my bulletin board for like a really long time, nine months out, right. A year out. And I’m like, this is my fucking race. Like I remember my senior year of high school. it was from the day after championships. My junior year for cross country championships.

[01:19:28] My senior year was the only thing I dreamed of. And. And for a year, I trained and chased that race and then won a championship. And, and it’s like, when you have something that eats at you that you’re training for for a year straight, I had my marathon, man. Now, now I’m chasing New York marathons 20, 21, you know, fit.

[01:19:46] I’m going to be, if I stay healthy, like it’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be insane. I will not be surprised if you see the majority of guys that we race with fitter than they’ve ever been. This coming year,

[01:19:59] Rich Ryan: [01:19:59] I’m hoping. So, I mean, I feel like that’s what the sport needs is. Have it had people take that up and have these results get taken up a notch.

[01:20:05] So, and it seems like people are taking a pretty serious from what I’ve seen. I guess it depends on how long this is going to drag out, but people’s mindset seems to be wrapped around getting fit and going after it.

[01:20:15]

[01:20:15] well, cool dude. Well, I won’t take up your whole day. I do appreciate you pop it on. I know you got a bunch of stuff going on, so I’ll work with people, find you in terms of socials or, the website for the, for the biz.

[01:20:27] David Magida : [01:20:27] Damn man. so first of all, if you want to check out the studio, if you want to try our online workouts, you can go to www.trainatelevate.com. There, you can try out really any of our programming. You can try our live programming. We’ve got a couple of live ones you could purchase classes for, if you don’t want to do the on demand.

[01:20:44]and you can also come and obviously visit the studios. our Instagram handle is at train at elevate, and then you can find me at David Makita mag idea. you can find my book book. You went by my book author. Yeah, man, listen to this. This is the pitch. Okay. You can find that my book, the essentials of obstacle, race training, a beginner’s guide on Amazon books, a million through my publisher, human kinetics or wherever fine books are sold.

[01:21:16] Rich Ryan: [01:21:16] And how many languages

[01:21:18] David Magida : [01:21:18] in at least two languages

[01:21:20] Rich Ryan: [01:21:20] English

[01:21:21] David Magida : [01:21:21] it’s in German, German. Listen base. You guys can actually get it to be any German. Okay. That’s great. That’s

[01:21:28] Rich Ryan: [01:21:28] great for them. I’m sure they are rejoicing. That’s awesome. Well, cool man. I’ll make sure to link all this stuff in the show notes that people can get it pretty easy.

[01:21:34] So again, I appreciate popping on dropping knowledge and I’ll hit stop here. We’ll stay on, but, that’s just a sign and off.

[01:21:41] David Magida : [01:21:41] Alright, thanks for having me on.