Episode 404: Mike Erwin - West Point to Team RWB
Mike is a 2002 graduate of The U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he was commissioned as an officer and went on to serve three combat tours with the First Cavalry Division and 3rd Special Forces Group. Mike continues to serve the nation as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, assigned to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he is an Assistant Professor. He is the co-author of LEAD YOURSELF FIRST by Bloomsbury Press (2017). Mike and his wife Genevieve live on a 32-acre farm in North Carolina, where they raise their five young children. Mike is helping organize a project slated for May 2025, where a group of 12 veterans will run from San Diego to DC in relay style.
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Episode Transcript:
Alright. Well, Mike, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for taking some time to come chat with me. Absolutely, Zach. So, so stoked to be here and talk about some of the glory days for team Red, white and blue and some of the exciting things you got on the horizon. So thanks so much for having me. Yeah, no, we go way back. We basically go back to the beginning of my ultrarunning career. I think I remember I want to say it was in 2011, I did the JFK 50 mile for the first time, and you sent out. You sent me and I think David Riddle, maybe, an email saying, hey, we saw you guys. I mean, I think David won JFK that year, maybe broke the course record even, and he was like, hey, we I've got this, this, project I'm working on called team Red, White and Blue, and we're looking to kind of use endurance sports as a way to kind of give veterans returning from, like, Iraq, Afghanistan an outlet to kind of reintroduce themselves into, kind of civilian society. And I remember thinking, well, that's a great idea because you kind of have this, like, really productive activity. I think generally speaking, running the running community is a pretty welcoming space. So, it seemed like, yeah, that's a great idea to kind of give these guys and these guys and gals an outlet to kind of reintegrate in. So I was all in on it. I ran my first Desert Solstice Track Invitational with the team red, white and blue singlet on. yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it was kind of fun to kind of hear the idea and see it kind of take off because I mean, man, TRW has gotten massive since then. I think you've had partnerships with like the NFL, NASCAR and, much bigger organizations than ultrarunning. So, yeah, it's pretty crazy when you think about how things evolve. You know, they come up, you come up with an idea, and then how over time, different people pour into that and they shape and influence it. But yeah, you're exactly right. I started it in 2010. That was at the 2011 JFK 50 miler. We actually had a bunch of us, probably 35 or 40 veterans, come to run that race. And I remember just seeing how fast, you know, you ran it. And that was back in the day when, you know, people didn't get 1 million to 1 solicitation emails or a million people, you know, reaching out on social media. So you probably didn't hear from very many people back then. The world was so different. And you remember reaching out if you're like, hey, this is a bit of a long shot, but, you know, would you just be willing to, like, wear our shirt and like, you know, just tell people that you support the military and veteran community as they take off the uniform and become civilians. And you're like, yeah, man, sounds good. You know? And so the world of sponsorship and everything has just evolved so much in the past decade. But I tell people frequently about how important people like you and David Rydell and Dom Grossman and Liza Howard, Mike Morton, were to the credibility of the organization early on because, you know, the first couple of years you create an organization. I don't care how great the idea is, you are going to be in a fight for legitimacy, like, is this legit? And when people who are out there doing really well and whatever the discipline or the vertical might be like, it adds a ton of credibility when they are willing to put their name behind it. And so you and many others doing that were really instrumental in helping the organization get off the ground and set the stage for us to grow into what we've become. Yeah, yeah, it's a cool story and I think, like, it's probably worth going back a little bit further and just chatting a little bit about your kind of your, your introduction into the military and then through that experience, like maybe the idea of an organization like TMR. WBE so I guess the question there is like what got you interested in the first place to join the services. Yeah. So I come from a big servant family. So teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, you know, people who a lot of them are public servants. But I never really thought about going into the military. I didn't have anyone in my immediate family that, you know, had been in the military. And one day at the end of my sophomore year, my mom came home from work and she was like, hey, if you've ever thought about going to West Point. And I was like, no, not really. But you know, at the time, the big Army commercials were all you can be. And I thought those were pretty cool. And, so yeah, we went down and visited it and it was just incredible. I mean, a beautiful place. So much history and tradition, and it was just a challenging place. And I saw that in my four hour visit there. And I left Zach being like, well, I've got to at least give this a shot. I've got to try to get in here because if not, I'll always wonder what if? And that really changed. Not just the future of my life, but really my entire family. I mean, my brother ended up going to West Point and going into the Army. Both of my sisters married West Point graduates. and so like the entire, you know, shape of the Erwin family, you know, has been influenced by that. And it's one of those crazy things that when sometimes one decision by one person has this ripple effect, that it takes a couple of decades to see how that really fully plays out. But yeah, I mean, I graduated in two, a time of war. So my senior year is when nine over 11 took place. And so I, you know, graduated. And it was like, all right, you guys are going to be going to Iraq or Afghanistan pretty quickly. And so, you know, things got really serious really quick at West Point, you know, after nine over 11. And then I went on to serve a total of 13 years in active duty. I was an intelligence officer, so my job was to look at all the various forms of intelligence, imagery, intelligence, signals intelligence, human intelligence, open source intelligence, and to assess validity and to try to make sense of all of them, with the goal to be able to forecast what the Taliban, what Al-Qaeda in Iraq, what the insurgents were going to do next and to tell. People in my unit. Soldiers in my unit. This is what I think is going to happen, right? So that was my job, you know, on and off for that 7 to 8 year period between oh two and oh nine, when I deployed three times, once to Iraq, twice to Afghanistan, you know, and that's really what set the table for me then to found team Red, white and blue. Because after my third deployment, I went to grad school at the University of Michigan. I studied positive psychology and leadership, and that's really where the idea sort of came to me that, hey, when you're in the military, you have to exercise, you have to work out, and then you leave the military, whether you want to or whether you're medically retired or whether you've been in for three years or 35 years, at some point, your military service ends, and that requirement to be physically active also ends. And so we just realized in having conversations with lots of fellow service members and fellow veterans, that we almost all couldn't believe that a nonprofit like team Red, White and Blue did not already exist. Like, how has no one created an organization with the goal to keep. Service members as they become veterans, physically active. Right. And then the second part of that was when we formed the organization, you know, the lawyers were like, there's no way that the name team Red, White and Blue is not taken. They're like, someone's got to have that name. And they sure enough, they came back like an hour later, they're like, sure enough, you're not going to believe this, but the name team Red, white and blue is not taken by anyone. I'm like, well, let's get on that as quickly as we can. Yeah. You know, and so yeah, those, those things there really kind of just come together to explain the founding part of the organization in 2010 and 2011, when I was in grad school and when the organization was so young and none of us knew what we were doing, we just all knew that we wanted to support and to make a difference and help veterans to be as healthy as they possibly could from the time that they leave the military for the rest of their lives, which could be 30, 40, 50, 55 years for a lot of them. Yeah. It's interesting because it makes sense. I think like when you think about it where you sort of have a semi similar scenario occur when you know you graduate from high school, you graduate in college where you kind of have that structure removed from your life. That was maybe offering an input. Maybe, maybe this is more of a historic input. Maybe that's not happening as much anymore. But like, you know, when you're in school, you kind of have that structure there and there's going to be a physical education component. There's going to be extracurricular sports components where you kind of just show up and you're going to get put through the fitness paces, essentially through gamification of it. And then you graduate and you go out into the real world, and it's just like, there's stuff there, but there's a little more friction, I think, in terms of accessing it. And then depending on what your sport was in high school or college or what you preferred and PE, or if you go far enough back recess, it's like it might be harder or easier to find that publicly available. So I guess the hope is that at that point, you're kind of surrounded by people who are active and can kind of welcome you into whatever structures are there. But when I think of a service member returning, you're kind of removed, I would imagine, like coming back, you sort of feel like your life was on pause, but everyone else was moving forward. So you're kind of in an awkward situation to begin with. So then. Priorities may not line up to where you're thinking, okay, I need to maintain this fitness regime. That was kind of set up for me before. Is that what we see a lot with, like, service members when they come back? Is it harder for them to find spots or is it the structure? Is it the priorities of other things for them, feeling like they have to catch up with the rest of society or some combination of all that? Yeah, I think it's probably a combination of it. I think about a couple of things. First of all, in recent years, this is like the first time in American history since they've been tracking this that veterans are less healthy on average than non veterans in America. you know and so that's that's a challenge right. Because typically veterans are more healthy because you know you exercise. And that became a part of your life and a part of your routine. But I think that the transition from service member to civilian has become psychologically more difficult in the past 1520 years since Iraq and Afghanistan, and the response to nine over 11 than it was in previous years. so many of the folks that that left the military, you know, in 0307 ten. Right. A lot of them had multiple deployments under their belts over a multi-year period of like five, six, eight, ten, 15 years. but I think that part of it is also tied to the fact that there's not necessarily a very positive association with physical activity when you're in the military. Right? You know, we do it typically at 6: 30 in the morning when you're in, you do kind of mandated, you know, mandatory calisthenics and running. so there's not a lot of opportunity to personalize your fitness. So, hey, you might love running, but at the end of the day, you're still doing a lot of push ups, burpees, sit ups, you know, and then maybe you go on a three mile run, you know. And so there's not necessarily the chance to do very much personalization. So a lot of times veterans associate exercise with waking up really early and doing something that they don't want to do. You know, and also, you know, fitness is also a punishment in the military when you're misbehaved, you know. And so all those things kind of come together, I think, to make it so that when veterans leave, especially for the dudes, like they stop shaving and they grow their hair out, you know, are typically the two things that male veterans do. Right. And then, you know, we just see veterans across the board no longer have to wake up early into exercise. And so they say, oh, well, I don't have to do that anymore. I don't want to do that anymore. And that's not all. Certainly some veterans still maintain that early morning wake up, that early morning run in fitness. But a lot of them do not. In my message and our message at team Red, White and blue Zach, a big one is that number one, if you hate burpees or hate push ups or hate running, like find something that you love, right? Find CrossFit, find Pilates. find, hiking, you know, whatever it might be. Find something that you do enjoy. And number two, you don't have to do it at 630 in the morning. You know, if you're not a morning person, like, hey, especially when it's cold out, like go in the middle of the day, take a lunch break or, you know, go in the afternoon, you don't have to go do it. You know, at the time that that makes it be associated with being tired, you know, which is what, you know, a lot of soldiers feel when they wake up at 5:00 in the morning to get to PT formation by 6: 15. Yeah. Yeah. Is there like a type of exercise that you find that some of the returning service members gravitate towards. Is it a logistics thing where it's like what they have access to or do they tend to gravitate towards certain types of stuff? I think a lot of times you see a lot of them younger, right? So they focus a lot on weightlifting, you know, and that kind of stuff. So a lot will often go into CrossFit. But what's really interesting, especially when you look at a lot of the elite units, is that you see a lot of elite units, like there's a big focus on running, you know, and I also see this right now happening. I'd be curious to get your take on this. If you see this happening writ large across like, America or the world, but we're starting to see it from the military and veteran population. There seems to be a rise again in the focus on running. You know, there is a big focus on running that I saw in team RDB in 2010 to 20 13 or 14. And then, you know, we used to say a team already is, hey, we don't just run like we do other things. but that was also kind of in parallel with, like, a surge in other fitness activities that we saw popping up. but it seems to be that when I go to big cities, I'll see like a run group of like 60 or 70 people on a random Tuesday night. it seems to be that running is making a bit of a comeback in that regard. So yeah, we'd love to hear if that's consistent with what you've seen. Or maybe it's never I know for you it hasn't left personally. But what have you observed? Like not just in Austin but more broadly across the country. Yeah, I've definitely seen an uptick in running in general. I think it's kind of probably multifaceted. I think there was a big catalyst with the pandemic where you'd have a scenario where some people just got motivated to exercise because there was a lot of rhetoric around kind of health and how that would amplify your chances of not being compromised as much with, you know, just getting sick. I mean, some people want the opposite direction, obviously, too, but it almost seemed kind of polarizing, where no one kind of just stayed the same. They either, like, completely fell off and then or went all in and decided, okay, this is where I'm going to kind of really turn my health around and running is such an accessible sport in people's minds. and it can be something where if you have the right kind of entry points to it, you can really just kind of start at your own pace. It's not like, oh, I want to play basketball. I need to find a team or a league. And then you do and it's like, oh, these guys are all way better than me now. I just kind of like out in the deep end, so to speak. and then you also saw people that were already fitness minded, but, like, lost access to the gym, lost access to team sports, lost access to big CrossFit gym type stuff. Although I think the CrossFit gyms probably tried to stay open a little bit more than average. but it's like, yeah, I think we saw a huge growth into that. And then I think this also kind of phased in to just the way people are starting to consume media. So you'd have people either on Instagram X podcasts where they didn't really look like a runner, but they really got into running. And I think the biggest example is probably David Goggins. It's like, here you have this guy who's, you know, former military and just like, has a really interesting story. you know, reversed his life trajectory with fitness and really, like, leverage the running side of that for quite some time. So you'd have people who are like, whether they were like, really out of shape and needed to start exercising like David was in his early days. Or if they were just built more like someone you would expect to see kind of under the squat rack at the gym, they said, oh, well, if Goggins can run 240 miles, why can't I just go out and do like the local five K or go around the block a few times? So I think it was like some of it is just like seeing people that resembled you a little bit more, doing an activity you otherwise would have been like, yeah, well, that's not me. and then it's like one of those things where it's kind of like you were saying before, where running has a history of being punishment. So you sort of had to get over this like this entry curve of like, it does kind of suck in the beginning as you're like getting into it for the first time. But then if you can make it to like four weeks and you start kind of seeing some of that progress and you start getting kind of that, like type two fun of like, oh, you know what? I feel better the rest of the day when I go out and run for 60 minutes in the morning, or like I feel way better about how I'm progressing in other areas when I can see the improvements happening there. And then they're kind of hooked and it's almost like. I like to call it kind of like the reverse, where in the beginning you look forward to the day off because it's like, okay, I can get back to what I was doing before. I don't have to do this run to the point where now you take a rest day. And that's the thing that feels awkward. You're like, oh, I want to go for a run, but I'm going to take a rest because I know it's going to be better for my longevity in this sport. I'm smiling because, like, this is exactly my story right now. You know, after having been I've been, you know, did a lot of ultras and a lot of running marathons and all that between oh eight and 14. But I've really done very little endurance running since then. And to your point, it made me feel good. And I'm older and I'm 44. It took me about six weeks, maybe even eight weeks to build a base where I was able to go out for A56 mile run and then not be completely, you know, gassed. You know what I mean? Like, it really, has been awesome now. And I'm in that phase now where I love it. I look forward to the run, even on the hot days, and I feel so good the rest of the day. But I remember that I remember getting into running for the first time. It takes time to build that base, but I forgot now just how long it takes to build the base when you haven't had it for a long period of time, and it's just been so cool. And then your other point is so spot on. And we talked about this at RDB a lot, but you know, hiking, running, rucking, you know, those things right there, like in walking those four things right there that I call them the ankle express. Right. Like you're getting there on your own two feet. and when you do that it is accessible. You can do it almost anywhere. It costs very little, you know, and it's just so powerful to be able to not have to go during a Covid center. You don't need the gym. You don't need like the yoga studio, you don't need, you know, the CrossFit box, you just need your sneakers and get outdoors and, and golf saw a similar sort of boom during Covid, and I never even connected those dots that you just did that, you know, really, Covid in many ways was, hey, get outdoors, you can go do it. and I think a lot of people got hooked on it. So yeah, we saw a surge of like the kind of 1V1 or U versus u type of pursuits where, you know, you could do it on your own. You didn't have to rely on another person or another group to be able to do it. And yeah, it was so I'm, I think we're still seeing kind of an uptick in just that because of now. I think people were far enough removed from, you know, the lockdown stages of the pandemic or the closure stages that you get people who've now been doing it for a couple of years and they're all in. So they're sort of experiencing different stages of their running journey, or different stages of what they're going to do with running because, you know, there's always just a limitless number of things you can do between, like your local five K or the Moab 240. That's right. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the other thing that I think is kind of interesting too, is just like the component of a TMR, WBE there was like this emphasis on it's one thing to kind of tell you, hey, you know, you gotta keep up your fitness and stay on top of that. That's an important component in life. And then tell people like there's a directive here, but there's another part to just adding the community aspect of it, which kind of adds that value of, oh, I'm here for more than just one reason. So like when TMR started, how much of that was about just kind of getting people connected to not even just other service members in that same, that same, pursuit, but like people who are kind of already in the community, already doing, running, already doing CrossFit and all these other activities so that they had kind of a home for themselves to get integrated. Yeah, a big part of it. You know, when I was in grad school, when the Red, white and Blue team started, the positive psychology movement was beginning to really gain steam. And the number one finding in the research of positive psychology is that, the number one driver of life satisfaction. Is the quality of our relationships with our family, friends, teammates, coworkers, roommates, you know, basically who we do life with. And if we have good relationships with those people, we're going to be happy. Doesn't, doesn't mean that money and status and what you accomplish doesn't mean anything. It's just we way over assess how much we think those things will make us happy. And we under-estimate how important the relationships in our lives are to our overall happiness and well-being. And so knowing that research, that was a big part of what we poured into team Red, white and blue, you know, this idea that, hey, veterans are going to leave the military, move back to either their hometown or a new town or whatever it is like. Either life will have changed a lot in their hometown, they will have changed a lot, or they're moving to a new town and helping them to assimilate or to the. The buzzword back then was reintegrated into a community was a huge deal, and there was a lot of writing about it. A lot of people like telling stories about it. So that's why we existed, really? Yes. Was the physical activity part to drive the demons away from the mental health side with PTSD? But a big part of it was also to help them to connect with and build relationships with fellow veterans. And as you may remember, 30% of our members are not veterans. Their military family members are just good old Americans who want to support and be a hand out to help a veteran when they're having a bad day, you know, to pull them out of of, you know, a dark place or to have a conversation when they're going through it and they're in a funk. And so all of that coming together was really the idea of being a community. And so we at Team Reb, we call it, you know, a community of communities. We have this national community signify by wearing the the red, white and blue eagle with a star is a body that we have that's, you know, our logo that's been sort of been, you know, in lots of different places from the International Space Station to the white House to the Super Bowl, you know, to a question on jeopardy, like all these things. but really, at the end of the day, it's about the micro community. It's about those smaller groups of relationships that form most of them by geography, but sometimes across geographies. Sometimes when we bring veterans together for a trail running camp that I think you were a coach at down in Texas, or we bring them together for a specific event or the old glory relay for a day. They come from different parts of the state or different parts of the country, and they still have an identity that they forged together around, hey, I'm a part of this community. We've got probably 15 couples married, right? Because of team Red, white and blue, you know that I know of it might be three times more, you know, than that, or four times more. So the idea of relationships forming, you know, under that umbrella of community, is a big part of the psychological underpinning of who we are and why we do what we do. Yes, to physical activity. But the purpose of the physical activity is ultimately to drive better health, physical , mental, and emotional. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that actually because like Nicole and I, we knew who each other were before the TMR camp. But that's where we met and stayed connected afterwards and then ended up dating and getting married. So you can add one more group to that number. Yeah it's crazy. And we're not even service members. We were just counselors. So, it just goes to show you the power of a kind of community when you get people kind of together and you set it up right. So it's not like, you know, when it would have probably been different had we gone there and it would have just been like, you know, kind of a forced activity. Then you may disassociate with the people involved with it because it's like, I don't want to do that again. But the way those camps were set up, there was just so much, so much kind of fun, excitement and learning and, you know, and a lot of running too. So it's like, how do we just combine all the valuable things that come from that community to show people, connect people, and then send them back with those resources? I thought that was like a really cool experience, being able to help out with those camps. Yeah, that was amazing. And, you know, one of the mistakes we made in the organization building was that, you know, after a while, we sort of consolidated them and made them all national camps. And then it became too cumbersome to manage, you know, and so, you know, looking back at those are some of the things we're trying to get back to. You know, we call them Eagle Expeditions now, but we've really tried to get out into nature hiking and running and doing more of that in these small groups of like 15 to 20 veterans together, because, as you said, like that's where the relationships are forged is in those smaller groups and in those conversations. But yeah, it's really cool to see what happens, especially in the world today has just gotten more and more digital, more virtual, more augmented reality, all the things of technology. I made this post recently, but like, you know, it's pretty clear to me we don't need more technology, we need more leaders, and we need more community. You know? And I really think that, you know, team B is an example of what does a authentic community look like? but we're still continuing to have to push people coming out of Covid to remind them of how important, like the in-person experience in life is, because a lot of people have gone to this digital virtual mentality, right? That is, I can do almost everything virtually, whether it's board meetings or whether it's grocery shopping or whatever. And some things I think are totally fine to do remotely or to do virtually. But at the end of the day, relationships are forged and built. When you come together in person at a rate that you can't even compare it to when you're trying to do that, like via a computer or, you know, some sort of digital chat room. So. Yeah, yeah. And we all learned that during the pandemic. I think of just like where the threshold was between just kind of being a little bit of a hermit for a while versus like how important some of those, just like you almost took it for granted. It was like, you get this, like this, like internal emotional benefit from engaging with someone in real life. And you just kind of had that built into your day to a degree where you didn't really have to think about it too much. Or at least I did. And then it's like all of a sudden now you have a scenario where, oh, okay, well, I could go days if not weeks, without seeing someone other than Nicole. But had I been single, I could have just been myself. And then you start to notice, like, you know what? Like, I don't feel like something's missing. I'm losing motivation, certain things. And then you go out and you do something social, and it would just be like, you got like a total recharge and you're like, oh, okay. So there's something there about that. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we learned that over and over again. You know, during that process of, you know, Covid. But then it's also something that I think we have to continue reinforcing because, you know, we built a lot of habits as humans during that time period to think that, like, we can sort of function mostly digitally, right, or mostly remotely. And there's a lot of benefits to that. And we know that there's a lot of things that you actually can do virtually, and it's fine. But not forgetting that the power of the in-person experience, like we had out at Camp Eagle with that trail running camp, or when you're out there like, you know, on a trail with other people and seeing other people and interacting them, even if you're a big introvert, you still draw some energy off of that experience and seeing other humans saying hi to you or, you know, looking at, in your case, looking at you as you're flying by them, you know, but, like, that stuff is, you know, that's part of the experience to be human. And I think we have to keep fighting to not lose that. Yeah. How hard was that in the early stages? Because now you have chapters like all over the place it seems. So I think if someone hears about Tmrw WB and they're like I'd like to get involved with that, they can probably find something not too far away in a lot of cases. But in the early days before you had that structure set up, what was sort of the like, what was the first thing that you would do to try to connect people? at, at a, at a big enough scale to feel like it was enough to kind of keep moving? Yeah, that was a big challenge we had in the early days. You know, we never envisioned ourselves being a chapter organization. Honestly, the initial concept was, hey, let's create an organization that people can join. They can get a shirt and be a part of this team, and then they can fundraise money to support wounded veterans. That was 1.0 of the organization in March and April and May of 2010, but it wasn't too long after we started hearing from veterans and hearing from other people that, hey, I'm a wounded veteran, and I preferred not to, like, be singled out as a wounded veteran. I just want to be like a veteran, you know? And a lot of times, veterans who needed help were those that were not visibly wounded. They were struggling with the invisible wounds of war with PTSD. And they necessarily did not want to be recognized as being struggling because they were like, well, my buddy over here lost his leg and he's, you know, able to keep it together. And so there was a lot of this social comparison happening, you know, within the veteran community. But yeah, when it started it was very. running gun. Like, we just sort of said, hey, if you can get together with other people, you know, in Phoenix that we had Bill Egan, who had lost his son, had lost a leg. He was a marine. He lost a leg in an IED attack, you know, so we had various people standing up to read to, to lead our chapters. But it was very much the Wild West, you know, there was minimal structure. It was, hey, we're meeting here, you know, at the park in Tempe where they do the Ironman course or whatever, and we're going to like meet there at 6:00 on Friday night and let's go for a run and go get a drink. You know, I mean, it was that ad hoc to make it happen. And we knew that wasn't sustainable. it also wasn't very predictable. So, over time, that's where we started to build the structure. And we said, hey, we have to have a volunteer leadership structure at the ground of all these chapters. And now we're about 160 chapters across America. At the high watermark, we were over 200 when there was so much emphasis and focus on supporting veterans. The reality, I mean, is that, you know, we're further and further away from 911. We're further and further away from Iraq and Afghanistan. And the number of, you know, people who feel to be called to be a part of the veteran reintegration. The veteran health and wellness mission is lower than what it was in 2013, 2016, even all the way up to 2018. And that's just a natural ebb and flow of life. And so at team RDB, we've had to adjust and say, hey, we don't have as many chapters as we used to. We need to continue to make sure that veterans, wherever they're located, know that they have a home. They have a community that they belong to in team Red, white and blue. We want them to get together in person wherever possible. But if they can't, we want to make sure that we've got programming to support them, because they might live an hour and a half from a chapter, and they're not going to get in their car and drive an hour and a half to go do a 45 minute run or workout. So that continues to be a part of our evolution as an organization is how do we keep building this, this team, the national community, and then operationalizing as many local engagements as possible where people come together to break a sweat together, because we know that's where the real power and the real transformation happens. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I remember some of those early camps where I think the last one that I was at, there were well over 100 participants. There might have been even a couple hundred. And it was just kind of a cool vibe because it was like you had people that could just sign up, like you said, like civilians and, and kind of join. And, I mean, we had plenty of counselors there, so, like, you could learn something whether you were, if you're just interested in running. And I thought that was just such a great way to do it, too, because you're sort of like, not only are you showing the veterans that, okay, this is something I can engage in this community is great. I'm going to find a spot back home that, you know, I can get some runs in with other people, but then you're also like showing other people just, oh, there's these there's this group of people out here who are very capable of participating in this community, but they may feel like there's some sort of roadblock there. So maybe I should, like, actively reach out. Maybe I should volunteer at my local chapter and help out and kind of start keeping the momentum going. That's exactly right. And that was the greatest thing about those camps, is that people got shot out of the out of there like out of a cannon, you know, and they went back to their local community and started to do whatever they could to put on events to take the knowledge that they just gained at that triathlon camp or at that trail running camp or the CrossFit camp to then help other veterans. And what's really cool is that we're kind of coming full circle on that at team Red and blue. We've just set up a scholarship fund where we're looking now to certify veterans in running in, nutrition sleep. Certified personal trainers. and, you know, yoga, CrossFit, all these different, different disciplines within the fitness realm and the health and wellness realm. We're looking to certify more and more veterans so that they can give back, that they can pay it forward in a way to help other veterans be healthier, because, as you know, like you have to actively in the world today in our country, you know, whether it's what you're eating, what you're drinking, your exercise, like how you spend your time consuming things through a screen that you have to actively work, you know, to be healthy. It's not just like, ah, like it's kind of easy to be healthy because, like, there's junk food temptations at every corner. Yeah, right. That didn't used to be there. all that stuff. So, like, we're really working with the veteran community to help them understand, again, caffeine in moderation, alcohol in moderation. Sleep is important. How you think about adversity is important, how you move your body. Critical. All these tenets and principles of health and wellness that we all might kind of get them. But a lot of people, honestly, are just very busy going through the grind of the day to day, and they're like, I'm going to wake up. I'm going to be tired. I'm going to slam, you know, a bunch of caffeine, right? I'm going to eat some junk food because it's the most quickly accessible, right when the day is all over. Right. I am going to try to get to bed, but before I do that, I'm coping with some booze because I've had a long, stressful day, you know, and that's a vicious cycle that a lot of veterans are in that's hard to break free from. And as you know, you know better than I do, but like the next day, if you're if you've had even a couple of drinks the night before and you're waking up early the next morning to go run or train like it ain't worth it. And so you start to say, all right, I'm starting to sacrifice some of these other things because I'm putting in too much work on my fitness to, like, flush it down the drain, you know? And so these are all the things that we're trying to integrate into our programs to really build a health and wellness community for veterans. Yeah, it's a really interesting point. I think just for my own, my, my, my own, kind of development with running it was I always think about this. It's like when I went to college, I was on the cross-country and track team, but I think about, like, the decisions that I made that I would not have made had I not been on the track and cross-country teams, and they generally would have skewed towards bad versus good, most likely. Like there's been a lot more available anyway, I guess is probably the way to say it. But like you said, when you have that motivation of oh well, we have a workout on Tuesday morning or Tuesday afternoon and I got to feel good for that, or we got to race on Saturday morning and I want to really see what I can do there. It just takes so many bad decisions off the table, because you're not going to engage with them because you know that they're going to negatively impact the primary thing. So it's just one of those things where like, not only is it good to do, it's also kind of it just provides a framework to build off of for decision making that is going to be more, more productive, because you kind of see firsthand how those things impact you. Absolutely. It's really interesting. I keep saying this over and over again to like to again veterans within team RDB. But as you get older, if you don't get smarter with your habits and better life gets harder and harder, right? If you're again, you need caffeine to get through your day. If you're drinking too much, if you're eating junk food all the time, if you're not exercising all those things like when you're young, you're in your 20s. Like you can kind of roll with the punches, you know what I mean? Like, most people can. Yeah. You know, when you start getting into, like, you know, your late 30s, 40s and I'm guessing it's like, keep getting older, like you cannot, right? You gotta get serious about that stuff. Otherwise your mood and your energy level of what you have the energy to accomplish or do is greatly affected right by those factors of what you eat and how you hydrate and how you sleep or how poorly you sleep, and then your exercise or not. And as you know, these things are all beautiful when they work together. You limit your alcohol intake. You sleep better, you exercise better. So therefore you sleep better than you don't need. Alcohol is a coping mechanism, nearly as much as it's all a beautiful thing when it comes together. And again, we're really working, you know? Yes, we're still a community. That's the big focus. But we are also really driving towards educating and inspiring veterans to live a healthier life. You know, because you do build a lot of habits and you're in the military, there's a bit of a drinking culture there. You know, you have to exercise. And so if you retain the bad habits of tons of caffeine and drinking, but then you lose the habit of exercise, right? Which is what a lot of veterans do. That's where the problems emerge. And so we are just driving them to really consider how much better their life can be if they make these decisions around what they eat, what they drink, how they move, how they sleep, in a way that will make them better. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when you say it like that, it's almost. It's just kind of like a reminder of how convenient all the like the short term fixes that oftentimes have long term consequences are to be able to continue to make and how convenient they are to be able to do versus the ones that are going to be like long term positives things you kind of have to be like consistent with over long periods of time, how easy it is just to like kind of stop doing those. So it's like the good things are hard, the bad things are easy. So you get a combination of both those happening at the same time. And it's just, you know, things can spiral quickly 100%. That is exactly correct. So in the spirit of, doing epic stuff or focusing on positives, you've got a really interesting project coming up, which is one of the catalysts for this, this podcast episode, actually, you have a or you're putting together, I guess, a group of men and women to make a push across the country in relay fashion. You want to tell us a little bit about what you're thinking about? Absolutely. Smiling ear to ear, because this is just something that I just get so excited about. So a little bit of background. So since 2014, we've been doing something called the Old Glory Relay, where we work to move the flag either by bike or by foot, anywhere between 50 and 70 miles a day. And we've moved all kinds of different routes, right? from San Francisco to DC, from Seattle to Tampa. We've moved it from Boston to San Diego. Right. Like this. All these different routes east and west across the country. and it's been awesome. But we also realized that a lot of our members, you know, are now older. They're in their 40s. they may not be able to get off time from work to be able to dedicate a full day to this. And so we've really looked at sort of innovating, at least for the short term, the short term, on what that old glory relay should look like. And so we've evolved that into the old Glory ultra relay. And so first of our first of its kind. So we're setting the record no matter what. Because as far as I can see, no one's done this yet. But we are going to relay an American flag from San Diego. Big military town, of course, home of, you know, the Navy Seals and a bunch of Marines. And we're going to bring it, you know, through the South, and we're going to kind of come on up, I think I think it's Dallas, is where the closest we would come to Austin. But, you know, we're going to be there and then work our way up through Tennessee, probably into Carolina. And we're finishing in D.C., either at Walter Reed Memorial Hospital or Congress or the white House. We don't know. We're going to finish somewhere in D.C. but really, really excited about this. It's going to be 3000 miles, just about, we're aiming to do it in 16 days or less, which means about 200 miles a day. running the flag around the clock. So we're assembling a team to think about this like a special forces team in the military. Green berets, if you remember back to the show, the A-Team, you know, with Mr. T and and Murdock. Right. With that. You know, the music, like the Special Forces team, is 12. And so we're going to have a team of either 2 or 3 women and 8 or 9 or 9 or 10 guys, all of them veterans. So no one is on active duty. All right. Everyone who has been in the military and is now out, and they're going to form this team, and they're going to move this American flag around the clock, and it's not going to stop. One of the mottos is like, don't let the flag hit the pole, right? Like we just want it to be moving the whole time, right? And blowing in the wind. And, and so, yeah, we've got some, some big, ambitious plans for how we're going to accomplish this. It's going to be in May. So it's going to start May 1st, finish on May 16 or 17, 15th, 16th or 17th, depending on how it all goes. Which is Military Appreciation Month. It's going to finish ideally on Armed Forces Day, right? ten days later. Nine days later is Memorial Day. So it's a big time when the country is thinking about the military and military service. and so it's going to be a really epic experience where, you know, that means on average, people are going to run about two hours a day. We need them to be holding an aggregate pace of about 730 per mile, I believe, if my math is correct. so it's not like you, right? you know, whatever sub6 is, you know, and holding that pace. But, you know, you have to be good enough to be able to do that day after day after day while not getting a great recovery. And, you know, hopefully getting good nutrition and getting as much recovery as you can, but not excellent sleep. And, you know, each person is going to be on the clock for a total of about 120 minutes per day, for 15 to 16, 17 days in a row. And so it's, it's pretty awesome too. Think of how this is going to inspire and motivate the veteran community, and also give us this megaphone and amplify our message around how important physical activity is to mental, physical and emotional health. Yeah, that's really interesting. How did you or maybe it's not firm yet but how did you come up with kind of like the target. duration that someone will carry the flag for. Is that kind of more loosely established? Yeah. It was probably, you know, it was the idea of, like, we wanted to go coast to coast, you know, and, and I think that LA, San Diego is the biggest military city in California. And so that was part of it. And in finishing, you know, in DC, where there's so much of, you know, the VA headquarters is there, Walter Reed Memorial Hospital is there so much, so much is going on there. and so we kind of looked at that as is the general route. And then looking at the miles, you know, it kind of sounds cool to be able to say, hey, we're going 3000 miles, you know, which means, you know, again, a little over 200 miles per day. So it kind of keeps the math breakdown pretty clean. but yeah, we really wanted to just say, hey, we want to set a mark and say, like, this is what a team of 12 veterans did working together. and, you know, there's some potential ideas for the future. I mean, we have to see how it goes and how much energy is behind it, but we'd love to be able to see this be something that, like, you know, the Army, the National Guard, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines that they maybe put together a team in the future. And it's almost like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You know, think about like, you know, the ways to do that, like the speed project, right? Like I, you know, I've been tracking that for a little bit, but hey, come up with your own route. Your job is to get from point A to point B, choose your poison. Right. Do you want to go through the windy plains you know of Kansas or do you want to go through? But that means you have to go through the, you know, the elevation of Santa Fe, or do you want to stay further to the south? You know, there's some, I think some pretty cool things that could come of it. but ultimately like to drive the message, you know, to the American people to include younger people who are thinking about military service that they like, look at what these guys are doing, like after they've worn the uniform. Because a lot of the focus, honestly, Zach, around people in the veteran community is like where they're damaged or where they're, you know, battling PTSD or they've got physical pain. And yes, that's part of it. Sometimes people get hurt and sometimes people struggle when they leave the military. But a lot of veterans are able to sort of alkermes that pain right into a better second chapter of their life. And that's a lot of us. And I think it's important to tell that story as well. Not just for younger kids in America to think that, hey, I can go join the military one day. but also, you know, fellow veterans who are looking for some inspiration to get going, to get off the couch, to get moving again, to reestablish that fitness level and fitness routine that they had in their lives. So we have a lot of reasons for doing this. and they all involve inspiration to, you know, the American people. Yeah. It's actually interesting to think about just if someone is looking at something like let's put someone in the position you were at one point where you're deciding whether you want to go into the military or not, there is the decision to go with that career. But then there's the, well, what's on the back end of that? And what's on the back end of that, if the general thought is it's a bad second half of your life, you're not just thinking about like the experience in of itself, you're thinking of like, you know, that next set. So when you have a scenario like you described where the average person's kind of connection to the post military lifestyle is of like doing really cool stuff like this, I imagine that helps with just kind of recruitment and just the general kind of like feel of like, this is a career path that's got opportunities available to it outside of just what I'll be doing when I'm serving. Absolutely. And to be super clear on that, when you look at our country right now, over the past 3 or 4 years, you know, there is a recruiting shortfall. Bumping up against the crisis. You know, the Marines are barely making their numbers. And the other Air Force, Army, Navy, our Coast guard, they're all falling considerably short. So a lot of young people are not considering military service as something that they want to do or that they would do, and that that is a problem for the future of our country. That is a problem for our national security. And so part of this is, yeah, we want to inspire, you know, people out there. And I saw this firsthand, you know, just earlier this year, you're probably tracking a Navy, oh three, named Paul Johnson, who did the transition run from Los Angeles, to New York City. And, I was out there in Effingham, Illinois. never thought I'd go to Effingham, Illinois, but there I was, you know, on a cold day in in April, and my son and I ran with him through this town and like, the word got out that, hey, this guy's running across the country and he's coming through our town. And you had like, it was almost like Forrest Gump, right? Where you saw, like at one point there were like 15 or 20, you know, middle school to high school age kids. There was a dad who came out with his, like ten year old son. My son is, you know, 13 at the time. And like, he came out and ran ten miles, but he never even came close to running ten miles, you know, in his life. And he's out there doing ten miles and he still is so proud of himself for that. But you saw this younger generation, like being inspired by this. And yeah, that's again, that's not the driver of why we're doing this. We're doing this to really send this strategic message about the power of when we come together and we do hard things right, that the veteran community is capable of that. But for sure, we do want to highlight, you know, to that younger generation who I think is very much in search of inspiration, that we're going to give it to them. Right? And they're going to see this flag moving all the way across the country. It's, you know, seven to 7.5 minutes per mile all the way through the night. They're going to see the video of that flag moving all the way across the country. And, our hope is that it can really inspire them to, you know, consider military service. You know, if that's something that they think they might be a good fit for. so we're looking forward to that element too. Yeah. No, that's really cool. I'm curious about the logistics of this, like you. So you got 12 people and they're doing two hour shifts. Is there any sort of shuffling that you'll do throughout? So like because someone's going to draw that is going to draw the straw that has the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. shift and someone's going to draw in the hotter part because we're doing it in May. Someone's going to draw that. Like that's true. You know, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. run in Texas, you know? Yeah. For sure. This is where part of this is what we're thinking in terms of like, you know, a big part of this will be a crew chief, you know, you know, someone who can kind of manage the egos, right? Especially when people are getting tired and getting frustrated, you know, in that element for sure. So I don't think it'll be, hey, you know, you've got 2 to 4 every day no matter what. Right? There's probably going to have to be some give and take. I'm certainly no expert on this. And honestly, that's kind of the fun is that no one on our team, you know, is an expert in cyber leaning on people like you to, you know, kind of, I think, help us think through this. But, we are really excited for the chance. This is not a guarantee, right? Like you're thinking about James, Michael Easter in his book, The Comfort Crisis. Right. The message is like, you have to have a 5050 chance. It's succeeding, for it to be him. And so you can't be this guaranteed thing. We guarantee we're going to get there, right? The question is going to be, are we going to get there in that 15 or 16 days that we're saying, I don't know. Right. But like, we're we're confident and optimistic that with the right plan, the right nutrition, the right hydration, the right stretching, all those things coming together that we can give ourselves the chance to be able to do that, you know, in a way that will allow us to hit that target goal, but for sure, like, we've got a lot to learn and hopefully a little bit of trial and error between now and then to figure out how the team will work together. Yeah. You know what would be interesting would be because with 12 people the easy framework just unpack would just be two hours and you're kind of on that two hour stretch. And that's going to account for the 24 hour cycle. What you could do is you could try to figure out like well what are the hardest parts to do? Like which are the least desirable sections, or times of day. So maybe that is like the heat of the day and then those like late hours at night and just make those segments a little shorter. So maybe make them like 90 minutes so that as you move through, people get phased in and out of it versus being stuck on it the entire time. So then at some point you're doing the overnight shift, and then at some point you get the great like, oh, it's 8 a.m. I've woke up, I've had my coffee, I'm ready to go. Yeah. So this is a, this I'm looking forward to on the coaching and here is invaluable because yeah, we're gonna have to think through all of that because, you know, there's just a lot there's a lot of factors to consider, as you know. Right. It's sleep. It's like the hills, the heat, the late nights, the nutrition. All those things come into play. And we're gonna, we're gonna have to get people like you who are really smart about this stuff to give us, you know, some guidance and direction for sure. Well, no, I think it'll be fun. It's going to be really cool to see it all come together and then eventually see what? See, we got the, So are you going to have just, like, a bunch of RVs following the group? Is that how that is? Yeah, that's the plan. So yeah. So we're working, you know, one of our big sponsors, over the past couple of years has been BMW. And so they provided during the glory relay, they provided our vehicle, you know, like a bigger vehicle, like an SUV. So we're working with them to figure out, you know, get some vehicles donated, right to help with some of it. But for sure we're going to need several RVs. You know, where we'll be, places to sleep and eat and all that. And we're looking for partners across all of it, right? Looking, you know, for everything from tracking to caffeine to biometrics to food to you name it. Like, to help us, you know, think through what's the optimal use of their product to help us? because, you know, we also want to tell the story here with this. It's not just about doing this like, you know, in a vacuum. We want to talk about whether it's, you know, again, a Fitbit or a ring or whatever the biometric device will be able to show like, hey, this is how the heart rates affect when you do that midday shift in the sun. And this is how their sleep scores after a rough stretch or after a good stretch. So we want to use this also to help educate our community about these things that are health and wellness related that they might typically not care about as much. Like hey, yeah I don't care about sleep scores, but now they want to see the sleep scores after someone's been on, you know, on the road for 8 or 9 days and putting in, you know, these, you know, two hour runs or whatever it might be. Yeah that's really interesting. There's a lot of different inputs there that I think would make sense. And yeah it is there any like interest or thought into having like a film crew coming along to document a lot of that. Yes for sure. So we've got multiple different sorts of irons in the fire there, but absolutely. You know, I don't know that, we need to have like, that we'll be able to afford a full crew, kind of like, or even a team of like three, you know, for the whole thing. But we definitely want to get a team there for parts of it, and we want to have at least somebody there taking pictures and or video the whole way through. So we actually got a new member to our team. you know, lives in Texas and, we feel this is right in his wheelhouse. So, you know, Tim K is an army veteran, and this is, you know, part of what he has done in the past. So, we definitely want to make sure that we're telling the story and telling it as close to real time as possible so that people are following it and they're waiting for the updated story on Instagram, or they're waiting for the updated post to see where they are today. Who crushed their leg? Who did not, you know? How's the weather going? You know, like you know, is there a tornado warning or is there hail? I mean, we're running through, you know, in May, you know, there's some dicey places there. And just a quick story, Zach. You remember you know, Dave James, right? Like, you know, a big ultramarathon runner. Yeah. Dave was out in the very first Old Glory relay in 2014. Dave stayed with the flag almost the whole way. Almost. I think like 45 or 50 of the 60 days. and he was there as they went through Nevada and they started to climb into a hill, and it was like apparently a lightning storm like no other. Right. And here, here he is running with the American flag with a medal right in the back. But we were told we should never tell these stories. You guys like, oh, man. Like. But, it's just too good to not tell. And he's like, we are not putting the flag in the van. Like. And, you know, because some people are like, hey, man, we don't want to get someone killed here. He's like, we are going to keep moving it. And so eventually, like, he came in after getting yelled at by one of the one of the teammates of like, dude, your life is worth more than like, you know, holding on to the flag in a lightning storm. So he came in and he waited. But like, I mean, he sometimes put in 20, 25 miles in a day because we didn't have enough runners, you know, you know, to do it. and it was just an unbelievable story. So we're looking for some epic stories. We don't want the weather to be perfect. We want there to be, you know, storms, and we want there to be adversity. But, capturing all that on film, you know, is going to be a big part of, I think, what captures the American people's attention in their hearts, you know, with what this team is going to do. Yeah, no doubt. I think having some of that content will be really cool for people following along and then. Yeah, and hopefully it will help get some sponsors knowing that they'll get a little bit of a I mean, there's no way that there's no way around them getting involved with, when you have all sorts of content like that. So, really cool. yeah. So what is, what is the general you said May is when you're starting. Yeah, I believe it's May 1st. Yeah. In San Diego. Okay. So perfect. And then so the, in terms of getting the team put together where you all are at with that. Have you selected a team? Is it partly put together? Yeah. Yeah partly put together. So anyone out there listening. Right. Who's Zach? Bitter fan and like you know listen to him for all these things who either is a veteran or knows a veteran. you know, please let them know about it. Please drop a line and see, comment for, you know, more information will jump all over it. You know, we are trying to put together this like, you know, a very, you know, diverse team from, like, different branches and services. And, you know, it's not going to be all special former special forces, you know, guys. Right. We want to come together, and really kind of reflect the diversity of the military population. Right. We also want to make sure that, you know, we have people who are able to do this. Right. Because if you could want to do this all day long, but if you're only going to be able to get to, you know, 830 miles, then hey, we'd love to have you maybe be a crew member, right? Or maybe be someone on the logistics side. But the team of 12 is going to need to be able to be physically fit enough to accomplish this daunting task. but the bottom line is we still have, applications are still open. We've had, I think, around 50 or so people apply right now, and so we're continuing to take in applications. Some of them are just absolutely amazing stories. people were wounded in combat and people who have done amazing things in summer never been to combat at all. Right? They were in the military at a very different time, you know, and they didn't ever go to Iraq or Afghanistan. So to the extent that someone out there may know someone who would be interested, we'd love to talk with them. And, we still have some time before we fill out the team. Yeah, well, I think it'd be an amazing experience. I signed up if I had the service requirement. Yeah, you were definitely lower. You change that average from 730 to, like everyone else, could probably add together and go, like, 750, you know? it's your time. We don't need people as fast as you, but we need them, you know, to be fast enough and be willing to put in the, you know, the train to be healthy enough. Because, as you know. Right. It's also that you can be healthy on day one through four, but really can you stay healthy? You know, as you get into a deep fight, all that kind of stuff. And so we need people who are deeply committed, you know, to train up to make sure that they are ready to be able to, you know, put in the work so that they're ready for game day and really game weeks. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense if they're going to be like 12. And then if there's any sort of attrition you're going with a shorter crew or is there can you take something in the debate that's been up for debate on the staff as we think through this? but, you know, Mike Sullivan has been pretty big on hey, no, this is the team 12. There's no subbing in like somebody else, that there will be an alternative if someone gets hurt or, you know, something happens, like in their personal life where they have to drop, you know, at the last minute. But, you know, once the team shoves the ship off the shore on May 1st, that's those 12 ladies and gentlemen who are working. And if someone gets hurt or has to drop or has to alter their mileage, that someone else is going to have to cover down on that and make it up. We might be open to it if there's a family emergency or something like that, that someone has to leave. Right, that we could maybe then justify putting in like the alternative. But yeah, we don't want to go to someone's hurt on day five. So we're going to sub them in, you know, with the alternative we want to keep this really these 12 people pure and, that's that's the intent right now. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, if you're jumping in midway, you don't have that attrition in your legs. What you could do is have the alternative of running two hours every day. So if they do get called in, no one can say hey, but they haven't been. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. That would be yeah. Make the alternate pace once per day. And then if they get called in they still get the fatigue in. That's right. Yeah that's a good point because yeah you want this to be you know as much as possible you want this to, you know, be Yeah. Again, we're not trying to set a Guinness Book of World Records. I mean, we kind of are, but, like, we don't care if, like, they actually recognize it. This is really just the idea that, you know, we want to be above board on all this stuff as possible so that people don't have any doubts or concerns we don't need. The last thing we want is, like any sort of drama distracting from, you know, the incredible mission and the reason why we're doing this. And so we're taking all those precautions on the front end. Yeah. No, it makes sense. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's also something we kind of chatted a bit about this the other day, but it'd be fun kind of through the process we've got about is it eight months or so until you have eight months. Yeah. September 1st is when we're open to finalize the team on September 1st. And that'll be exactly eight months until the time comes. Awesome. Yeah. And we kind of fun to kind of for those willing that are on the team to kind of come through the podcast and share a bit of their story and kind of what motivated them to do it, how their training is going, and then go over some questions and things about what their how their training and everything like that. I think that would make a fun series of episodes to hear from the team members as a lead up to it. so at least listeners from this podcast can have some information when the project kicks off about some of the participants. Absolutely. Yeah, that'd be phenomenal. And a huge honor for us and for them as individuals and us collectively at team Red, White and blue. So that'll be wonderful to get at least some of them to be able to share their story, because we're picking some people who've got some amazing stories, you know, because that's part of it, is the storytelling aspect here. And then also why we're doing this is going to be a big part of it. But the combination of storytelling plus the Y is a really powerful one two punch. Yeah. Yeah. So if listeners are able to sign up or know someone that they can refer to, is there a spot they should head to check out from applications? Yeah. So cool. Things like, well, it'll be on all of our social media platforms out there. You can just go to team RDB, org, you know, and submit there. But we've got a link as well that we'll put out there. So when you drop this, we'll make sure that we comment with the link for anybody who sees this. But if there's not a link, if it's, if you're just listening to the podcast or whatever, you just go to team Wbez.org and, you can just drop a note in there saying, hey, I heard about this old Glory Ultra relay, and I'm interested. So. Awesome. It will definitely be in the show notes too. So for anyone who is listening and wants to just click through that way, that'll be available. Where can people find you, Mike? Yeah. So I'm, I'm on most of the social medias, I guess, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. So. Irwin. So e with an e so Irwin FB is my handle for both Instagram and X, and so, yeah. And then you can just find me, you know, on LinkedIn as well, right. Doing more out there to kind of put out into the world, like what we're doing at team Red, White and blue and the impact we're having on the veteran community. And, yeah, we're just really grateful to Zach for the chance to be able to connect with you and talk about all these things and recount some of the glory days stories from, you know, 2011, 12, 13, 14 of team Red, white and blue, but also for amplifying and giving us a voice for for this incredible, ultra relay that we're putting together. It's going to be, I think, really powerful and deeply inspiring for anyone who follows it and sees what we're doing. So, really thankful for you, man. Yeah. No, my pleasure. And no doubt about it, I think we'll be plenty of inspiration coming out of this project. And yeah, so if anyone wants to donate or sponsor wants to reach out and see how they can support, I'm guessing they just go to TMR dawg for that info as well. Absolutely. Yeah. Or just reach out to me directly as well and on any of those platforms for sure. Right on. Well, thanks a bunch, Mike, for taking some time and sharing your story to Adobe Story and then this project. I'm really looking forward to it. September can't come quick enough. Thanks so much Zach. Really appreciate it bro. Take care.