172: We Have Details About the New Bike and Tread plus our interview with Jen Myers

Last Updated: April 30, 2023By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: breast cancer, Cancer Survivor, Peloton, Peloton Instructors, self-care, Stage 4 cancer

John Mills joins us to discuss all the info leaking about the new bike and tread.

Peloton stock reaches yet another record high.

There’s a new clothing line in the boutique.

You can now share your workouts on Instagram Stories (IOS only).

Peloton creates a Health & Wellness Council.

Crystal talks about starting a new program on Tonal.

Peloton makes another update to their Android App.

Dr. Jenn Mann – What to do when couples who workout together can’t agree on how to workout together.

Robin Arzon makes Fortune Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list.

Matty is now a Pro Ambassador for Athlete Ally.

All this plus our interview with Jen Myers.

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

We Have Details About the New Bike and Tread plus our interview with Jen Myers

What do you have in store for people this week? It is a pretty epic episode, I do believe.

Rumors abound, we’re going to break down the new bike and new tread coming very soon.

We have tons of info. We’re going to delineate what we know at this moment in time. Things are moving quickly.

There are all kinds of new features that dropped this week. One for Android, which I was super excited about until 30 seconds later, we’ll get to that later. I’ll save my complaining. Don’t worry. Then there are lots of fun stuff going on with the instructors. It’s a big week for news.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, wherever you get them, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

I have to break in and tell you, somebody sent me a message and said that Cody Rigsby on one of his rides gave shameless plugs. He said shameless plugs for his meditation classes and they thought of you.

I wouldn’t get mad at him for stealing it, but I stole it.

It’s pretty common, but I thought it was cute they thought of you.

That’s very flattering. It’s not very often people think of me while looking at Cody Rigsby. I can tell you that. We have a new review. This is from jesusrunningbachelor. They say, “Great Todd Phillips interview.” They stumbled upon an older one, which Todd Phillips for people who don’t remember was the guy we interviewed who was trying to raise money to help Liberia have clean water. He was stationed on a barge for however many days until they reached their financial goal. He had a Peloton with him. We talked to him about that and about his goal and his love of Peloton and all that stuff. They didn’t reach their goal, but I’m sure they’re helping other places. If you want to dig that up and donate money, I’m sure they’d take it. He says, “I wanted to find Todd speaking somewhere as I used to be one of the members of the church he pastored in DC over ten years ago. It’s a miracle the impact he and a thousand others have had on Liberia. Loved the way you both conducted this interview to find out a lot of details, and even bring in crass humor.” I feel like I can take full credit for that one.

That’s definitely a gift to have.

“Thanks for featuring Todd.” It’s also nice that we could talk to a pastor and I could still be me and it didn’t run this guy off. That’s great too. Thank you, jesusrunningbachelor. I’m assuming that’s probably your leaderboard name. I don’t know that for a fact, he didn’t put a little pound sign in front of it. Any who, also don’t forget you can find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. If you can get enough of us and you want to see us do this instead of listen to us do this, you can find us on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, subscribe too because you’ll get notifications when we post new episodes or when we post other videos sometimes. That’s a good way to check things out. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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There are all sorts of new information this week. The internet was all a buzz. Information is starting to leak about the new bike and the new tread. We’ve got tons of scoop. Then of course, we’re also bringing in John Mills because he’s very wired into this world, and I’m sure has all sorts of interesting thoughts. Hi, John.

How’s it going?

Thanks for coming back.

Thank you, both. This is exciting stuff.

I cannot think of anybody I would rather share this moment with than you. This is truly exciting. You’re a given. John gets it on the same level I get. He’s as excited as I am.

He uses the stuff.

It’s mutual. I thought the same exact same.

Thank you. I think we should start with the tread. We’re hearing that the smaller tread is going to be shorter, has a significantly smaller footprint. It’s going to be good for apartment dwellers. The monitor size as we had previously heard through other articles is going to be the same size as what’s going to be on the bikes. We’re looking at 23.5 inches.

That makes great sense for manufacturing purposes on their end, that they can just mass produce the monitor and it plugs into both fitness devices.

I like the idea. Also from a trend perspective, when I would go to the tread studio to take a class in the studio, I always liked the low profile of that monitor. I thought having that thing in front of me, the size, I love that too. When you’re at a studio, that low profile, I liked it. This design makes me think that people are going to probably enjoy it.

I will also say playing devil’s advocate, you would expect a man to say, “It’s not necessarily about size. It can work.”

“This is just some ingenious marketing.”

To be clear though, this is quite a reduction in size for the tread, 31 inches on that screen to 23.5. As a woman, size does matter.

It’s not a small increase. Some folks might have a little problem with that. I think that it works out perfect for the reasons that you guys stated. We’ve heard reports that it’s one specific manufacturer who’s making the new bike and new tread. They got the exclusive maker. If you’re making the same monitor for both devices, it seems logical.

I will say anecdotally from the people we talked to, we have talked to tons and tons of people who say that they want a tread they want to see how big it is. Especially people that live in big cities that they rent an apartment, space is premium. They see how big that tread is and they’re like, “Where am I going to put that thing? I’m giving up 4% of my available floor space.”

Also overseas, all the countries that Peloton has moved into like Germany, UK, I don’t think Canada really falls in this category because that Canada is much bigger. European-wise, they definitely need the space. The tread can actually be shipped to all these other places now.

Speaking of shipping, it probably also lowers their shipping costs.

That’s right. I’m assuming it does. Two things on that thought. When I’m looking at these other devices and other categories of the connected fitness space, they’re all trying to create these devices that work in a small space or will operate in a smaller space. We’ve all heard folks say, “I got the tread, but I couldn’t get it up to the second floor or down to the basement.” This kind of works in that scenario. To me, I think it makes a lot of sense, on top of the fact that it’s lower cost. It’s likely going to be half the price. You get a whole other demographics.

I wonder if at some point you’ll see some package deals of like, “Get a bike and a tread for X amount of money.”

I suspect that would be. I’ve been talking to a lot of folks over the last few months. A lot of them are waiting for this saying, “I can’t afford out 4k for that thing. The lower price of the tread, I’d be in. I’m going to wait and hold out.” I know there’s a market for it.

Peloton doesn’t do anything if the numbers don’t make sense. We know that, Android users.

I’m lucky on that front because I’ve got my Android phone as my personal phone and then for work, they provide me this iPhone. I use it whenever there are these Peloton things that come out, otherwise it just sits in the corner.

The other big thing that came out with the tread is that it’s not going to have the slats. They’re saying that it’s still going to have some similar cushion knee thing, but it’s going to be underneath on what you would typically see as the belt on a treadmill. I’m really curious that because I love the slats on the tread. That’s a huge thing.

I’m really interested in this thing. I had an old soul treadmill for years. My knees are bad and it was rough to run on. Like you said, Crystal, the slats and the comfort of the slats is a big deal for me. If they now have a belt-driven treadmill, but have incorporated in something else to give you that added cushion, that’s pretty neat. I’m interested in that, the fact that it’s a belt. We knew Jill Woodworth talked about that in a bunch of times. I’m interested in the whole comfort and the cushion that they added.

Given how close you are to New York, you’ll probably get to try it before I will, so we’ll need a detailed breakdown of that.

The next question would be, do we know when you can get it?

We are hearing that you’re not going to be able to buy this for several months. That it’s going to be probably around the first of the year that you’re going to be able to get it, which I find interesting. It matches up with the research that you had done earlier on with the articles that you found from Taiwan.

An analyst who’s famous for doing a lot of analysis relative to Apple products and making predictions, sometimes he’s way off but sometimes he’s dead on this one. This one, he was like dead on. In June, he’s going, “It’s going to have a monitor that’s 23.8 inches. They’re going to have the same monitor on the bike that’s on the new tread.” He said, “They’re going to announce it in the third quarter. It won’t be a calendar on the fourth quarter. They’re going to announce it in the third quarter.” He started talking about numbers and the numbers relative to how many treads would be shipped in 2020 versus the number of bikes. Bikes far outnumbered the treads, so maybe they’re not going to announce the tread at the same time. Pretty much everything he said was spot on.

Good to know that research is looking like, so far.

Also, if you have to focus on which one, you know they’re going to sell more bikes than treads. It stands to reason that if you can only get one out in time for Christmas, you go with the bike. Speaking of, what do we know about the bike?

Let’s talk about the bike. I’m pretty excited. There’s going to be a whole bunch of things. I’m going to use this moment to break the news that I have made the decision, Tom, that I’m going to go ahead and buy an Apple watch and an Apple phone. That will be as soon as the Apple 12 is released. I’m telling you that to tell you that this is huge because now you’re going to be able to take your watch just like you do your Apple Pay and you’re going to be able to tap it to the screen. Then your heart rate magically shows. That’s going to be a thing. That’s crazy. I have no idea how rings work, but somehow it updates your rings. Do you have any words on that because I don’t really understand it?

I know a little bit about this. The way the rings work is that if you like it, you put one on it. I thought this was common knowledge.

It’s a little different for Apple.

I think the rings actually measure different metrics relative to your day. If you’re trying to get into a number of steps in a day, the ring measures things like that. If this thing is going to automatically update those things for you, I think that’s pretty neat for an Apple user and folks that are actually using an Apple Watch for that purpose.

It makes me wonder though, there’s been some talk about how Apple is stepping into the connected fitness world. People were like, “Is it going to be an app or will there be products?” You know how Apple loves to shut out competitors. The fact that their software will work with Apple to that degree makes you think that maybe they’re not coming out with a product.

I thought that as well. When they came out with the information they’ve already published, you get the impression that they’re trying to stay in the subscription world. Maybe they’re not going into like a hardware world, they’re staying in that subscription world. That would align that they’re really not coming after a Peloton or a true competitor in the connected fitness space. That would add up to me.

As far as the bike goes, here’s what we know. It’s going to have the same monitors as the treads. We’re moving from 21.5 inches to 23.5 inches. It might be 23.8 or something like that.

Screen measuring is always a little wonky on that last little bit.

The big news is that now it’s going to swivel.

That’s crazy. I love that because you’ve heard that so often. I got the bike. I’m trying to do some off bike work. It would be nice if I could swivel the screen. Then you’ve seen a lot of the competitors come out with their products and then they sell the fact that, “Peloton doesn’t swivel.”

Echelon definitely does.

When I heard that, I thought that’s pretty well. That’s an interesting one that I think a lot of folks would like. That second thing, which I think you were about to go to is the front facing speakers.

I had one more thing to say about that because this is brand new breaking news. You don’t even know this yet, but we’re going to post this tomorrow, so I figured since it will be up on Friday, we can talk about it. The Bike Bootcamps definitely are coming. We know at least a couple of the instructors. We know that it’s going to be Cody Rigsby and Robin Arzon and Jess Sims.

I will be in all those classes specifically because running stuff. Bootcamps for the bike, I’m in.

I think it’s safe to say you’re interested in the premium bike.

Yeah.

Luckily, Erica will let you buy it because your Peloton stock is doing so well.

It’s some exciting stuff. I’ve been asking about some things I want to buy, but she hasn’t been biting lately.

In a way, it’s like Peloton bought you a bike.

I didn’t even buy it. Peloton bought it.

Since you knew what I was going to talk about, tell us about the new speaker.

I think that’s an exciting thing, the front facing. I’ve always thought it’s a little odd as well. You’re riding and the sound is actually projecting away from the bike. In this scenario now, they have front facing speakers and a subwoofer. I’m assuming the sound quality is going to be much better and you’ll probably have a better base level, along with the fact that the sound is coming towards you. That’s pretty cool as well. It makes me wonder some of these capabilities, the monitor and some others we haven’t talked about yet. I’m wondering also what does this mean from an upgrade perspective from the existing bikes? Is there any type of merging of these capabilities in the existing bikes or is it they’re just disparate products?

It’s funny you say that because I’ve had that question asked of me about a million times. I know nothing, this is just my gut that no, it’s going to be premium versus regular at least for a while. The whole idea is that you have the better best model. If everybody can have the best, then you don’t have a better best model. That’s just what I think.

It makes sense especially if the plan here is to leave the new bike at the price point that you’re used to paying and bring the cost down on the original bike, what we will now call the OB. That product is a phenomenon. It’s a phenomenon that you see once every 10 or 15 years in the world. It’s like an iPhone or a pet rock.

I do hear what you’re saying.

I think if you’re saying that the OB that was $2,200 bike is now $1,500, making that price point up, the perceived value on that, because people know that they’ve sold a shit ton of those at that amount of money. That seems like the deal of the century. If it means that, “My screen can swivel. Maybe I don’t care about bootcamps anyway, or I don’t care about the sound so much because I’m going to wear headphones.” I feel like these for the most part are nice bells and whistles, but it doesn’t affect your usage to the degree that you feel like you’d got completely cheated by having the OB.

I agree with you. They’re nice things, the front-facing speakers, slightly larger monitor, but I don’t think it doesn’t give them the experience. Another thing I’m interested though is relative to whatever this price point is going to be for the older bike. We just saw Bowflex come out with their VeloCore bike and they came up with two different price points as well. Their price points were $2,199 and that aligns with Peloton’s better bike, and then $1,699. I’m wondering if Peloton prices there is below the $1,699, what does that do to perceived value? Do you have to do $1,699?

This is just my feeling. I don’t think Peloton thinks that any of these companies are really that strong of a competitor. I don’t get the sense that they’re like, “We’ve got to follow what you follow.” I suspected that if they do a different price point, Bowflex will change their pricing.

John, were you asking essentially if they came in below, does it make the Peloton look cheap?

Originally, I was thinking based on their numbers from last quarter, so it varies depending on how much marketing they do and a lot of other factors, but based on their numbers last quarter, it costs them somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,200 to $1,300 to make the bike. Everything on top of that is great. I was wondering, they can’t really come in below $1,300, so there will be something above that, but it’s probably not going to be much like I was thinking $1,400, $1,500.

I think that’s a good question to ask. It’s a fair point about does it make your bike look almost too cheap? I know that they felt like in the beginning that they had done that, that one that John Foley talks about how when they raise the price, they actually sold more bikes. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think there was a period of time where if that bike was too expensive, you just think, “What kind of janky contraption are you foisting upon me?” Peloton has commandeered the marketplace. They basically invented the marketplace and then dominate it. People already know that people have a deep and abiding passion for this bike. How many Echelon podcasts are there? I think if they drop this price, if they dropped it to $1,500, just totally spitballing, I don’t think it makes the value look lesser. I think that it makes it an absolute no-brainer for anyone shopping based on price to go, “If I can get a Peloton for less than I can get a Bowflex, my research here is done. Take my money.”

I was just going to say based on the fact that John Foley has said many times that they want their equipment, their features to be available to as many people.

The democratization of connected fitness lowercase.

That’s where I am too exactly where you guys are. Prior to that Bowflex announcement, I was thinking the lower price bikes in the space are generally like $999, $799. They get really, really cheap. I thought Peloton is never going to go there. We don’t want them to because we’d want them to be at a higher price point. My mindset was if they get down to $1,500, we’re good. It matches. When Bowflex announced, that was where my question first came into bear. They’re trying to play themselves as being this more progressive bike. They’re trying to play that similar space. Then your lower cost bike is $1,699. That’s when it first came to my head. I hear you. Peloton has created such a lead in the space and they’ve created such a name in the space. I’m hopeful that it doesn’t play that way. We can see a bike that’s around $1,500 so that we can truly democratize this, but we’ll see.

It will be interesting to see how the pricing works out. We never even got to the other feature that you’re going to be able to change the resistance based on what the instructor calls out. My understanding is you can change it right on the screen. You can turn it off, you can turn it on. You can be in mid-class and be like, “I don’t like that right now, I’m going to turn it off,” or you can turn it on mid-class. That’s going to be pretty freaking amazing.

That reminds you of the NordicTrack s22i bike. They can control your incline.

You can't control your cancer coming back or your own mortality, but you can control taking care of yourself and putting yourself first. Click To Tweet

It’s not going to go like this.. I don’t think it’s going to raise up. I don’t get the impression it will raise up.

I don’t think that they can control resistance. I don’t know. It reminds you of that capability, like the instructor is saying something and your bike is reacting to whatever their call out is. That’s pretty neat too. It makes it a lot much more valuable that the user can actually readily turn that on or off.

I know there are going to be people that are concerned about it, especially if you’re just starting out. That’s not necessarily a great feature to turn on.

When I first started using the bike, that was somewhat of a pain point for me in that I’m trying, I’m learning, I’m listening to the music, I’m figuring it all out and sometimes I would miss, “Where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be at?” Early on, I may have one of that feature. Now when I go into classes, I’m listening but a lot of times you’re playing to your own kind of exercise regimen, what you’re trying to get out of it, what you’re trying to do. Newer riders might love this. This might be perfect for somebody.

That’s true. I was thinking of a person who may not be ready for 50 resistance on day one.

Let’s do a Robin class and she’s talking about resistance.

“Let’s go all the way,” and you’re like, “What?” I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot more to come about this in the next few days. It is exciting. I wanted to also ask your thoughts on the stock market. I know that you basically said, “Here’s what I think is going to happen to the stock market.” I want to hear it.

Enough with all these bull predictions. People are going to be throwing and I’m going to get all kinds of weird mail if this stuff doesn’t prove out. I think that yesterday, the movement felt more like just momentum leading up to earnings. Today, I think it was a combination of that along with JP Morgan raising their price target from 58 to 105. Along with it, putting them on a list of stocks that are like A-list, which include things like Facebook and Snap, I think those two items drove what happened today. I’m hopeful that it’s only that because the information that we’re hearing now in the rumor mill, I would like that to be the catalyst or continued movement up and this not be the catalyst for that.

I think the rumors are out there but I think the rumors are at a level where the average person is not hearing them.

A normal person does not pay attention to the degree that we do.

Even some of the financial houses have a little bit of this information, but I don’t think it’s trickled down to everyone who has Peloton stock. That’s my take on it for what it’s worth.

Not knowing anything really about how the stock market works, at what point does a company start to think about doing a split? What’s the metric for that? Do you happen to know?

I think generally when companies start thinking in those terms, they’re looking at other companies in their common space. They’re looking at how they’re priced. They don’t want to look too exorbitant above them. They don’t want to look too defeating below them. Based on where they’re falling, they may do a reverse stock split or stock split just to get themselves in common stock areas, common stock price.

What’s a reverse stock split?

A stock split would be today, you have dumped twenty shares and we’re going to give you five for every one share you have. The next day instead of having 20, you’ve got 100. Whereas a reverse would be the reverse of that. Today you have 100, tomorrow you have 20.

You have fewer, but they’re each worth more.

All of a sudden, they’re each worth more. Either way, the stock price now if you do the stock split is now lower because of it. Or if you do a reverse, now the stock price is higher. Companies use that to get their stock price in a common area with their competitors. In this scenario, I don’t really know that Peloton has any publicly traded like true competitors. The people that they’re competing against, I guess not a list, but not as it’s trading at like $10 a share. I don’t know. Echelon, which is a private company or an ICON, which is also private, I’m not sure that there’s anybody like that that would create a need for them to do this. Another reason that they might split is if the stock price got to a level like a Tesla, where you’re trading in the thousands of dollars a share. The folks that you’re looking to invest in your business can’t afford that. They do a stock split to get it down to a level, which would bring them in to invest. I don’t see that either. Neither of those scenarios I’m really thinking apply, at least not yet.

I have no idea when companies start having those conversations. That’s interesting to know.

At some point, we may be talking about that, but I don’t think this is the time. Unless they’re comparing themselves to someone that I’m not thinking like a Lululemon or someone, but I don’t think they are.

I agree, but I could still see it happening in the future because that stock’s going to keep going up.

I’ve been putting out all these bold predictions and you know that, Crystal. “Peloton is going to make money this quarter like net income $20 million. Then I’m looking at like the market EPS, Earnings Per Share estimate, and it’s like $0.09 a share. Then I started doing the calculation and that’s like $19 million. Do you mean everybody already knows this? I’m the only one that didn’t know. The whole world already knows that.

I didn’t know because I didn’t do the calculation. You still educated me. When you did your prediction, you were really close.

I can take it that way, “I was right.”

We love it when you make bold predictions because if you get it right, you’re John Mills from The Clip Out and if you get it wrong, you’re John Mills from Run, Lift & Live.

This actually tells me and this is what my hope is, that because I was so close in the market estimate, and the market estimate is generally wrong, that we’re both wrong. It’s going to be something other than $20 million.

At least you were wrong in the same way that the smartest people in the industry are.

That’s a win.

Next week when you join us, we’ll have just listened to the Earnings Call, so we will have so much to talk about. I cannot wait. I’m sure you’ll be listening.

Don’t read through the list and go, “John, you were wrong on this one and this one.”

We’re going to have a scoreboard up. It’s going to be right behind me.

It’s going to be like you’re going to be like Sylvia Brown, where we take all your predictions and we put them in a vault for a year and then pull back out.

I would never call you on that because honestly, it’s hard to put yourself out there like that. You have a real thought behind it. Regardless of whether you’re right or wrong, you had a very logical way that you got there.

I learned that as a kid. That’s how I got out of trouble. I learned to come up with logical reasons why I stayed out too late.

You probably should stay away from our kids.

I’d be fine if they applied a little logic.

Brian cannot come up with logic to save his life or something like that. Sydney might.

She would weaponize it. It would still be okay with her using logic.

You’re right, Tom. Okay. You can teach them.

You can be around our children again. We allow it.

I just meant you could be around them to tell them about that. You’re welcome around our children. Now, it sounds terrible.

The two things I’m really interested in hearing about from this earnings report. Number one, how much did they spend on marketing and advertising?

It’s got to be little I think compared to what they’ve been spending.

They normally spend somewhere around 30%, 35% of revenue. All this period is all the core to the COVID era. This is April through June. This is when it was all hidden. If they cut that significantly, then all the estimates could be all off.

Have they started their marketing back up yet? Do we know?

I don’t know. I haven’t seen much.

I don’t watch TV, I mean real TV.

The only time I remember seeing Peloton in a commercial lately is within ads for other products, like the Amazon ad that’s running and stuff like that.

Ultimately, based on what I’m predicting their quarterly revenues should be, if they were going according to past, they should be spending upwards of like $200 million in revenue this quarter. You cut from that and that all then falls into the profit estimate. I just don’t know how to play that. I don’t know how much they spent, so we’ll see.

It will be interesting to see. From a marketing standpoint, if they’ve reached that COVID, that rarefied air that they don’t have to explain what their brand is. There are certain brands like when you see a commercial for Coke, they don’t have to tell you it’s a carbonated beverage that’s sweet. You just know what Coke is. I feel like Peloton has achieved that status in record time.

This may be the portion of the call that is the information is shocking or new on what they spent on marketing. Even when you look at the analyst estimates, you look at that EPS, you look at what they are thinking from a quarterly revenue perspective, it assumes the same thing I assume. It assumes 30%, 35% in marketing that. To me, that there is the big question. We’ll see what they actually spent.

Thank you so much for joining us to talk about this stuff. This was a lot of information to unpack. We appreciate it. Until next week, besides the Earnings Call, where can people find you?

They can find me on Facebook, Run, Lift and Live page. They can find me on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive. They can also find me on my webpage, RunLiftAndLive.com.

Thank so much, John.

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There should be a new clothing line dropped by the time people are reading this.

The much anticipated September Drop, the fall one drop, will be occurring according to what I’ve heard on September 3rd. By the time people read this, it should be out. and I will have spent lots of money probably. I haven’t spent any in the last couple. We’re due.

You’ve got to save that money for the new bike.

We’ll see. I’ve got to have stuff to wear on the new bike.

Yeah with all this stuff you already have.

We’ll talk.

I don’t feel like we’ll talk. I think I’ll just suddenly pull stuff out of the mailbox.

That’s the way I get the mail.

The advantages of working from home, you can beat me to the mail. The story sharing is now available for iOS only, for your little ride things that you see on Facebook.

It’s really actually very cool because it shows the instructor and it’s like they’re moving. You can also share hashtags. You can only share it in iOS. You can’t share it from the bike. You can’t share it from the tread. You can’t share it from web and of course you can’t share it from Android.

You’re going to get an Apple device as you said.

Yes, but I don’t have it now.

Pretty soon you won’t be making that face anymore or at least not about that.

I’m sure I’ll find something else.

Peloton instituted a health and wellness council.

This is really cool and we’re going to be hearing a lot about this. Basically, they put together all of these amazing people in their fields like a top-rated neurologist for example, top-rated sports injury person. They’re going to look at Peloton’s programming. I don’t know what the output is going to be from these conversations, but I think we can assume, given them Peloton, something cool.

They have a pretty good track record of making “something cool.”

I don’t know where this will go, but I am really excited to find out about it.

You’ve been enjoying your strength training lately I have with your Tonal.

I just started a brand-new program called Muscle Building Burnout. It does just that. I was reading about how when you’re first starting out and you’re building muscle, doing that burnout can be super important to increase your endurance. I think that it’s going to be a game-changer. This particular program will be yet another game changer for me. I can tell that I’ve gotten so much stronger. I did a DEXA scan this week and I found out that I’m fat. Between the Peloton and the Tonal, my hope is over the next six months, I’m going to watch what I’m eating and I’m going to work on strength and pull back on that the heavy cardio. I’m still going to be using cardio, but I’m not going to push my heart rate as much. I’m curious to see what those results are. If you’re interested in that, you can follow me on the other podcast and I’ll talk a lot more about it. The thing that continues to amaze me about Tonal is they keep adding things. They just added, now you get PRs. Every time you go up in strength, there’s this little celebration on the screen and it’s so cool. It’s very motivating. I love seeing it go up.

They’ve also added the form feedback. If you’re not doing it quite right, it gives you tips on how to do it more accurately. That’s pretty nifty as well. You can try Tonal 30 days risk-free. You can visit www.Tonal.com for $100 off smart accessories when you use the promo code, The Clip Out, at checkout. Tonal, be your strongest. I know you’ve been very frustrated with Peloton in regards to Android.

What made you think that?

Everything you’ve ever said. There was an update to Android and then this week, there was yet another update.

Now, whenever you’re on your phone, you can click on a workout and see the details. It’s something. I think they’re working on it. It’s going forward.

Maybe it’s a sign, because they’ve brought in many new users over the last four or five months, especially when COVID hit and their sales went through the roof. They did three months free on the app, so they probably brought in a lot of Android users. They’re probably worried about the whole goal of that, besides letting people be able to utilize their product for free during a stressful time. Also hopefully that they would convert to either paying a monthly fee or purchasing a piece of hardware. If all these Android people are like, “I don’t get what the big deal is,” that’s counterproductive.

You can look at the reviews within the Play Store and you can see that people are not happy. I’ve never seen a Peloton product be rated less than four stars, and this one is. I’m sure that Peloton is numbers based. That’s probably what’s driving it. I’m glad to see something moving forward.

—

Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family and child therapist, sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn. She’s got a long running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection & Intimacy. She’s also got an app called No More Diets. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Jenn.

Also Peloton addict.

Peloton addict is my most important title.

We wanted to talk about I’ve heard this hypothetical concept, but I guess couples where they both work out.

It’s a thing.

It’s something that really does happen, Tom. I’m still hoping for it to happen in your household.

You and me both.

Let’s call the one person, Crystal, and we’ll call the other one, Snuffleupagus. What happens if they want to work out together, but somebody doesn’t want to do the other kind of workout? They just have different goals that don’t mesh. How can they merge those two things?

There are a lot of different factors. If Crystal and Snuffleupagus are at very different levels, what’s going to have to happen is let’s just say hypothetically Crystal were to be the more advanced athlete than Snuffleupagus. She might need to take her workouts down a few notches and really focus on the level of Snuffleupagus. If someone who is not a very experienced athlete and is not used to working out trains too hard, they’re going to get injured. If they pick classes that are too advanced, they’re going to be discouraged and they’re not going to come back again. What we’d want to do is have a couple in a situation like that really play to the newer athlete, the newer workout partner of the two. That’s the first thing.

Also what may need to happen in a situation like that is that Crystal works out with Snuffleupagus. Let’s say they do a five-minute Core class and they try to do a more basic class. Maybe later, Crystal will do another ten minutes on her own or whatever it is she usually does. Or if both Crystal and Snuffleupagus are taking a Spin class, let’s say they do a low impact 10 or 20-minute class, then Crystal would work out later and do her harder workout. It is about playing to the level of the person who’s newer, so that it’s a positive experience and an encouraging experience. Then the other person will work out more later, but it’s really about bringing the first person into the workout fold and helping them to feel encouraged and inspired instead of feeling bad. You have a partner who’s an advanced athlete, feeling like, “She’s so much better. This is discouraging. This sucks. I feel bad about myself.” We don’t want that.

Taking it from that, what happens if the two people are both people that like to work out all the time, but they just don’t have similar goals and it’s hard to find things that work together?

A few things, sometimes couples do what I call parallel play. Have you ever seen two kids in a sandbox, especially boys do more of this than girls typically, but like they’re sitting in the sandbox and one is playing soldiers and the other is playing cars? They’re side-by-side, they’re enjoying each other’s company. They feel like they’re playing together, but they’re doing parallel play. Sometimes just being in the same room together, let’s say one person is doing weights and the other person is doing the bike, that’s cool. That’s still working out yet. You don’t have to do the same thing at the same time for it to count as working out together. You can still encourage and inspire each other, even if you’re doing different activities in the same room. The other thing is compromise. Let’s say one day, one person picks the class or the activity and the next day the other person does.

That is a particularly great way, especially if both people are into Peloton, but maybe one likes the tread and the other likes the bike or one is into Strength or one is into Yoga. It’s a great way to diversify your workout to discover new teachers, new classes, new activities that you might not otherwise to become a more well-rounded athlete. That benefits everybody. If you have a partner who let’s say is a runner and you’re into yoga and you’re able to get your runner partner doing yoga, that’s going to help their running because now they’re going to be stretching their muscles. They’re going to have good balance. All of these things complement each other.

I have one more hypothetical. What if this partner, we’ll call her Crystal, really loves her Peloton, but this other partner, we’ll call him Snuffleupagus. What if they prefer Echelon? Now what?

That’s a deal breaker.

There's no point in worrying about things that haven't happened yet because they might not. Click To Tweet

What is Echelon? What is it?

It legit is a complete copycat off of Peloton.

Even NordicTrack, that’s grounds for divorce.

You know it’s bad when the therapist is like, “You’re done here. You’re free to go.”

There’s no saving that relationship.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard a therapist tell me that. Where can people find you?

People can find me on my social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, @DrJennMann.

Thank you very much.

It’s my pleasure.

—

Fortune Magazine had an article about 40 Under 40 and Robin Arzon made the list.

She made the list for fitness. It’s an honor. To not talk about this would be rude. There’s not a whole lot to say about it, but it’s really freaking cool. She’s 38 years old.

Fortune Magazine, that’s huge.

It highlights the achievements that she’s done, and it’s pretty darn cool.

Not only her achievements but also Peloton’s. A Peloton instructor is on the radar of something like Fortune Magazine. It’s amazing how far they’ve come in such a short period of time. Finally, Matty is now an ambassador for Athlete Ally.

I did not do justice. He is technically a pro ambassador. My fault for not including the word. It’s a really neat program that works to provide access to all athletes regardless of sexual orientation. I know that’s something that is very near and dear to Matty’s heart. I think that’s a great, cool thing that he’s doing. We love you, Matty.

—

Joining us is a local St. Louis personality. You’ve been doing it for an appropriate amount of time for the age that you are, which is older than you look.

She’s like, “Did you make it worse?”

Jen, how’s it going?

I’m good. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. You are our second most patient guest ever. The only reason you don’t get the first one is because there was someone who we lost the entire interview and had to do it again.

They were nice about it.

They were patient while we were dealing with this computer that we will not be using much longer.

I had to do that before. I’ve had interviews where I’ve gone to hit stop and then I realized that it never recorded and it’s bad.

We haven’t had many St. Louis people. We’re excited to have somebody local that rides a Peloton. It’s exciting.

Tom and I talked years ago when you first started the show and I was like, “That’s interesting. I’ll never ride a Peloton.”

You’re like, “The show’s about Peloton. That’s adorable.”

Since you’ve already seen it that you were not into the Peloton, how did you make the securities route back to now you’re riding Peloton?

I’m sure all of the longtime Peloton people are eye-rolling because I’m one of those people who impulse purchased a Peloton during Coronavirus, but I did it early on. It was like the first week we were on lockdown. I went on the website and it said due to increased volume, it might take a little bit longer to get your Peloton and because we have a showroom here, I was like, “Let’s see how long it’ll take.” All of a sudden, they said, “We can get it to you in seven days. Is that okay?” I was like, “Yes.” I said to my husband, I was like, “Do you think this is crazy? Tell me this is crazy.” He’s like, “I’m not going to get in the way of your exercising and your mental health.” I bought it and then later on he’s like, “By the way, that was crazy. I didn’t think it was a good idea but I’m glad you did it.” He’s hooked now, too.

It was a Coronavirus purchase and then I found out that you’re a road rider as well and you have an interesting story about that. I would like to hear about it.

I have some friends who ride a lot and have been a cyclist for a long time. I got involved with a charity and I was like, “I’m going to do this.” I’ve been riding for a few years and then my son, during Coronavirus, it was our weekend ritual. Every Saturday or Sunday we’d go out. We’d ride how many miles. We’d go and eat outside and have a little time together. It was one of those things where we had to get outside of the house and have a little quality time. At one point, he looked at me one day when we came home and said, “Mom, even when Coronavirus is over, can we still do this?” It melted my heart because he’s getting into those tween years where you don’t get those moments anymore.

We went out and we were maybe half-a-mile from our house when I hit the brakes, hit a patch of loose gravel and I think broke on the left side more than the right and went over the handlebars. Luckily, I broke my fall with my face. I hit first on my chin. It’s all happening quickly, but also in slow motion at the same time. I could feel my jaw moving and doing things it wasn’t supposed to do. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I knew it was bad.

I got up and luckily this is the first time we had ever ventured out with a friend. We were with a friend and her son and I was like, “I broke my jaw. I broke my wrist.” She said, “How do you know?” I’m like, “Because my jaw was kind of crooked.” My husband picked me up and I said, “We need to go to the hospital.” We went. I had CT scans and X-rays. I broke my jaw and I broke my wrist. They cut the rest of the wires off. I had to have my jaw wired completely shut for two weeks. I’ve been on a liquid diet for over a month.

Could you not talk when you had your jaw wired shut?

I could. I had this metal tearing up my mouth. I fell on my chin. I hit right here and then my jaw went like this. When I’m looking straight at you, you can’t see anything but when I was talking to the oral surgeon, he did his residency in San Francisco where there were tons of cycling accidents. In the ER and with the oral surgeon, people kept saying like I’ve seen worse. When I went into the ER and they did all these scans, they put in a neck brace on me right away and kept saying does your neck hurt?

I’m like, “No. My neck’s fine.” I knew exactly what was broken. When they came back with all the X-rays and the CT scans, the doctor said, “I can’t believe you didn’t break your neck.” As soon as he said that, everything became crystal clear. I was like, “I’m going to be fine.” It’s not going to be great and looking back on it, it was brutal, but I tried to remember. I can move both my hands. I can move both my legs. I’m not, “Look at that.” You can’t see all the metal because I had all this wax over the metal because it was tearing up my face and those eyebrows were brutal too.

Was it during the pandemic?

It was. I broke my left hand and I was left-handed. I couldn’t use a tweezer.

That looks like it hurts a lot.

That was at the ER.

That had to be scary.

I can’t even imagine. It sounds like you were calm.

When your jaw was wired, did you lose weight?

How do you eat enough liquids to sustain you?

I had to water things down because there were some smoothies that I couldn’t get through because my jaw was tight. Any sort of fiber or anything, I couldn’t get through. I lost 10 pounds in the first ten days. It got to the point where I said something like when I first had it wired shut, people are like, “That’s a good weight loss trick.” Some people do that to lose weight. I was like, “Anyone who tells you that you can lose 10 pounds in ten days, you need to walk away from.” I could not even walk across the room. I had no energy.

You can tell riding a Peloton, you know how much energy you need to go through a workout. I knew when I walked from one end of the living room to the other and I had to sit down on the couch to catch my breath that there was something wrong. I was drinking full-fat coconut milk smoothies with olive oil and I tried to get as many calories in a smoothie as I could. I wished I could have had milkshakes. I’m dealing with this accident, but at the same time, I have stage four cancer. I was trying to eat healthily, not lose weight, and make sure that the cancer is okay at the same time.

That’s a lot to juggle.

Are you still battling cancer? Are you officially in remission? What’s your status?

I currently have it. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016. I had no evidence of disease for 1.5 years after I finished treatment and cancer then metastasized to my lungs in 2018. I have some small tumors and they treat them with targeted radiation as they are large enough to treat, but they were keeping such a close eye on me that the tumors that I have on my lungs are millimeters wide and too small to treat.

That’s good and right before Coronavirus, I had a CT scan and my tumors had shrunk a little bit. That was great news. I think the week before my accident, I had another CT scan and they were stable. I was excited. I felt like I was making good progress. I had the best nine months of tests and CT scans that I had since it metastasized to my lungs. This bike accident happened. I was calm later on when I looked at it in perspective but I was having a full-on panic attack and hyperventilating. I had to apologize to my friends, “I’m sorry you saw me hit rock bottom.”

When you have surgery, your immune system takes a dip. That can mean that your tumors can grow. I wasn’t even thinking about these bones. I’m like, “I don’t care about these bones. I can’t have surgery.” They were afraid that I was going to need surgery on my wrist and my jaw. I explained to them that when I had breast cancer, it was on my left side and they removed all the lymph nodes in my arm. I was hesitant to have surgeries. They’ve been working with me on that. The bone that broke was small that they couldn’t do surgery, so they wired it shut.

I’ve had a lot of quiet alone time to sit and reflect be with my thoughts here. When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I was 41. When I turned 40, I had a mammogram, everything was fine. I ran a half-marathon that year to celebrate like, “I’m 40 but I can still run a half-marathon.” Six months later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was in stage three. It was aggressive and that’s the thing. A lot of women who are diagnosed at a younger age tend to have more aggressive forms of breast cancer.

I started with chemotherapy and while I was getting chemo, the cancer came back on my skin. It was on my skin and in my lymph nodes, which was aggressive if you’re having chemo and it’s still growing. They did chemo and radiation at the same time, which was brutal. I was in a bad place when that happened. I would wake up in the middle of the night and try and figure out what was going to happen. Luckily, I go to Siteman Cancer Center and they’re amazing. They have a free counseling service for cancer patients. I remember going in there talking to the counselor and feeling despondent and she said, “What can you control?” I said nothing and she said, “No, you can control showing up.”

I’m like, “That’s a given.” She said, “No, a lot of people don’t. They don’t show up to appointments. They refuse treatments. This is what you can control. You can’t control your cancer coming back. You can’t control your mortality, but you can control taking care of yourself to putting yourself first that you can be there for your kids. You can control showing up to appointments.” That whole showing up mantra for me has is when things turned around for me. A lot of people who have breast cancer ended up having something that’s called posttraumatic growth where after they go through cancer treatments, you appreciate things.

You appreciate the small things on a larger scale, little things like sunsets and getting to hug my kids at night. I don’t take any of those things for granted, which I think was after they gave me something in my IV that stopped me from hyperventilating. I realized like, “I’m still here and these bones will heal.” One day, I will look back on this and say like, “This isn’t that bad.” I feel like I’ve been through way worse. I can do this. It’s not going to be fun. I’ve been sitting around watching cooking shows like making a list of all the food I’m going to eat.

That’s perverse. You can’t eat and you’re watching cooking shows.

That’s like food porn.

I don’t know why this happened. I have crummy luck, I guess. In the beginning, I was trying to stay positive and I kept saying it could have been much worse. I think I was trying to convince myself of that because looking back on it now, I’m like, “That was awful.” If I sat around every day thinking about how awful it was, I think it would have made the pain and everything worse.

They talk about how you have this tape in your head if you’re saying negative things to yourself. You’re doing the opposite. You’re bluffing yourself.

They tell you to smile because it helps your endorphins. You were doing the things you’re supposed to do.

You said that you had a mammogram at 40. You checked that box as to what you’re supposed to do, but then six months later you were diagnosed. If you were clean at 40, what tipped you off six months later that something was up?

It was a little over a year after my first mammogram. It was about six months after I did that stupid half-marathon. The answer is I don’t know. They didn’t know why. When I had my first mammogram, I had one of the 3D ultrasounds, which are newer when it comes to mammography. I had some dense breast tissue and I had some fibroid cysts, which puts you at an increased risk for breast cancer later on. I had no family history. No one in my family with cancer, period. I think I drew the short straw.

Did something happened that made you go, “I need to go to the doctor and get this checked out?”

I could feel a lump. I’ve talked to some of my friends about it because I had a friend who had a mammogram and she said, “Everything’s normal, but I have dense breast tissue.” I said, “Don’t worry. If you feel a lump, you will know.” She said, “I don’t think I’ll know.” It feels like a frozen pea underneath your skin. No one had ever described it to me like that before. For a little while, I was like, “This is nothing.” A frozen pea to me didn’t equal a lump. I explained it like, “It’ll go away.” My husband said, “You call the doctor and get it checked out.”

This sounds familiar. I don’t want to name any names, but I have a wife that also does not like to go to the doctor and I have to push her into it. It’s a role reversal because normally it’s the guy that won’t go to the doctor. Every year, I go to the doctor.

He has a good doctor.

It’s the one healthy thing I do.

I’m glad that your husband was like, “You need to go.”

I was like, “I’m busy. I’ll get to it.” He’s like, “No, call the doctor.” Looking back on it, it makes sense. I had gone to the doctor for years saying, “I’m tired all the time. I have no energy. I could sleep twelve hours and wake up and still want to sleep.” My doctor who is not my doctor anymore, said, “How much of that is you being a working mom with little kids and waking up early at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning to do your job.” I explained the fatigue away too. After I was diagnosed with cancer and went through all my treatment and had NED, No Evidence of Disease, I wanted to figure out why at 41 when I ran a half-marathon six months before and thought I was healthy, when I would go to the doctor, they would ask me questions.

I’m like, “Other than this cancer, I am healthy.” I tried to figure out what caused this. It was driving me crazy. I started seeing a naturopathic doctor and they ran all these tests and I learned that I have a lot of inflammation. I had some food allergies, which is maybe another weird reason why I watch all these cooking shows. I watched things but I can’t eat anymore. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, which a lot of people treat like Celiac disease. I had to cut out gluten. That was maybe a bigger loss than breaking my jaw.

I guess your jaw did technically cut gluten out.

As we would be doing all these different tests, at one point, my doctor said, “With one of these markers, it seems like your body’s still inflamed. Let’s try not eating any dairy for three months and then we’ll test.” Every time one of these things would come up, I would say, “That’s fine. They’re going to test. The blood work’s going to be the same and then I can go back to eating cheese and eating ice cream.” My levels took a nosedive. I was like, “Apparently, I can’t have dairy anymore.” It’s because I have some sort of sensitivity to dairy. I cut out some of these things from my diet. My diet is strict now, but I’ve seen a difference in all of my CT scans and my tumors. They’ve stayed stable. The answer is I’m living with stage four cancer, but I feel better and I feel healthier than I did before I was diagnosed.

When you say that it’s like the cancer is super tiny and they can’t treat it. Do they watch it and see what happens? Is there a chance that because it’s small, eventually your body will knock it down? is it like it’s always going to be there and you got to keep it on your periphery?

I get a CT scan every three months so they can check the size of the tumors. I’m on a maintenance drug that slows down the growth of any cancer cells but it also slows down the growth of your healthy cells. My white blood cells and red blood cells are lower than the average person’s, which is one of the reasons I bought a Peloton because I realized that I was not going back into a gym anytime. They keep a close eye on it. I feel like every six months, there’s a new cancer drug that comes out. My goal is don’t think about what’s going to happen ten years from now, think about what is going to come out six months from now that can maybe help.

That’s a great outlook.

I’m always amazed when we have chats with people who are battling cancer, have battled cancer or any illness, difficult thing they’ve gone through. I find it amazing because many people have this positive outlook. I feel like everybody thinks that’s easy. I’m here to tell you, it’s not. I’m not a naturally positive person. I think of the worst-case scenario with everything.

It’s because she’s a project manager. It’s your job to find the worst-case scenario and then prepare for it. I’m in marketing so it’s my job to be like, “It’ll probably be fine.”

Tom is like my husband. I used to say like, “I don’t understand why you worry about things that haven’t even happened yet.” I was like, “I worry because you don’t. I have to worry for two people.” I used to worry about everything and then it’s funny because all the things that I worried about never happened. I never worried about cancer and it blindsides you. I realized there’s no point in worrying about things that haven’t happened yet because they might not. It’s still hard with the cancer mindset. When every CT scan comes up, I warn my husband like, “I’m sorry. I am going to be cram for the week before.”

One of our interviewees, Susie Beris, has a clear scan now but she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Every time she has a new scan because she has to have hers often, she calls it scanxiety. That’s probably exactly what you’re describing. It’s like, “It’s coming up. It could start all over again. You don’t know what it’s going to bring. You don’t know what it’s going to do.” You have to go through the rollercoaster probably.

That is the unknown, the thing you can’t control. There were days where I would walk into the office feeling like, “This is great. I can do this,” and then the floor would drop out from underneath me. There were other times where I worried and everything was fine. There’s no rhyme or reason. Worrying doesn’t change the outcome, but I still worry sometimes.

It’s human nature but also because you’re on the radio locally, you host a popular morning show, and you did this in front of the whole world.

That takes a lot of guts.

When I was first diagnosed, I knew I was going to have to be out for a while on medical leave. I remember my bosses telling me, “You don’t have to talk about this. We can say you’re out.” I said, “That puts my coworkers in a weird spot.” I also sat and talked with my friends and we said, “What is the goal of this?” One of the goals for me was I was young. I had no family history. There was so much that I learned after being diagnosed and I thought, “If I can get one woman who’s been putting off a mammogram to get her mammogram, then it’s worth talking about.”

I don’t feel like it was someone’s plan to have me have cancer so I could talk about it on the radio. One of those things like I do have a microphone in front of me every day and it would be a great disservice if I didn’t talk about it. It’s something like, “Let’s talk about ugly stuff.” I did and that first day the phone rang and people said, “I’ve been putting off my mammogram. I’m going to get it.” A year after I was diagnosed, I wrote a blog about the one-year anniversary and how there was much uncertainty in my life.

I was worried, but I’m still here and a woman said she had a lump in her breast and she read that article and everything she was afraid of. She was like, “Jen did this. She’s still here. I’m going to go get a mammogram.” She found out she had cancer and she caught it early and things like that. When I was diagnosed, it was my daughter’s half birthday, which I blame the schools for. It’s not a thing, but we started it with my son. He has a summer birthday. They used to always celebrate his half birthday.

That makes sense for the summer kids.

Much like being the person who gives out full-sized candy bars for Halloween, you have to realize that if you do it once, you have to commit long-term. I didn’t think it through. My daughter wanted to have a half birthday as well. I had my biopsy on a Monday and it was a Thursday, it was her half birthday. We had put the cake in the oven and the phone rang and it was my doctor telling me that I had cancer.

Do they tell you over the phone?

Yes. It was my OB-GYN. I had known him for a long time. He called me about it. I’m sitting there and I’m like, “I still have to get this cake out of the oven.” I think that’s something else behind trying to stay positive with kids. You still have to get up and get out of bed and take care of them. If it weren’t for them, I might’ve stayed in bed every day.

Kids don’t care. They’re like, “Mom. Anyway, where are my socks?”

Where’s my cake? Why are there no sprinkles on it? When I was diagnosed, my daughter was 3.5 and my son was 7. I was like, “I have to be here for all the birthdays.” I’m committed to these half birthday cakes. I’m going to be making these until the end of time. They’re going to be 47.5 and I’m going to be baking the half birthday cake.

Here’s how you get out of that. Make him a gluten-free birthday cake.

We’re talking about you experiencing all of this publicly.

I think my kids were young when it happened. I realized that there are many parents like me. You’re busy with work, kids, practices, and driving all over the place that you tend to put yourself last. “I’ll make that call to the doctor tomorrow. I forgot about it today.” I did that a lot. I would say, “I’ll do it when I get home from work.” I would get home from work and I would have to pick the kids up from school. Once they were home, I forget about it. It’s embarrassing to say that part of the reason I put off calling the doctor was because I forgot. I didn’t make myself a priority and especially when you’re young and you have an aggressive form of cancer, those days matter.

That’s a good message to hear because I am guilty of that.

I think everybody is.

I think also everybody has the mentality and more often than not you’re right, statistically, but everybody’s got the mentality of put that not to me.

I don’t want to overreact. I don’t want to go to the doctor.

That’s where I’m different because I will overreact.

How many times do you not want to go to the doctor where you’re like, “I don’t want to have to take a half-day of work to go to the doctor and they’re going to tell me it’s nothing?” That was another thing it’s like, “I’m going to waste a day where they’re going to tell me it’s nothing.” Do you how many doctor’s appointments I’ve had to go to now because I thought it was nothing? A lot more than that one.

You thought it would probably be a while before you would go back to the gym. I’ve been reading a lot of articles talking about how there’s a lot of people that don’t ever plan on going back to the gym. Now that you have your Peloton, where do you fall? Do you have a plan? Are you definite in one camp or another?

I think with my health and my suppressed immune system that I’ll probably be one of the last people to go to the gym until there’s a vaccine to be safe. I think all gyms are different. I think we’re learning more every day in terms of safety protocols and what works and what doesn’t. The Peloton is a game-changer. I didn’t understand for a long time what the fuss was, but I knew I had many friends who were passionate about it and loved it and I don’t even know.

I think I saw the Peloton van in my neighborhood and a week later, everything shut down and I impulsively bought a Peloton, not even having taken that many spin classes. I was more of a yoga person. I love it. At the beginning of COVID, it was the only thing I feel like that kept me sane because everything was stressful and I would get on that bike for 20 or 30 minutes at night. It was my stress reliever.

It’s like you can’t let go.

It kept me from losing my mind.

I’m curious since you did yoga before, have you tried any of the Peloton yoga content?

A little bit. I know that the whole family can do. My kids were into that. I do a lot of meditation too. What were you going to say about yoga, Tom?

Were your kids into that? I think that’s cool.

Yes. I think when they can join in, although then I have to do a workout after they leave because most of the yoga with them is like, “No. That’s not it. You’re going to hurt yourself.” I love the Peloton meditation.

Who’s your favorite voice to listen to?

I love, Aditi and Ross Rayburn. I’ve done a few other ones, but they were the first two that I would listen to. I would do the sleep meditations at night and then when I broke my jaw and my wrist and I couldn’t be on the Peloton, but I was still addicted to it. I was doing the healing meditations, which helped too. I think those are good if you’re an athlete recovering. It helps with your mindset. You can breathe through the pain a little bit.

That’s smart. I wouldn’t have thought of that. I get a little too in my box sometimes. I fall asleep before they’re done and I love them.

I do too. I know you’re supposed to sit up.

I would sleep before it starts. My youngest son was like that. When he was younger, I have a collection of photos of him falling asleep in weird places like grocery carts, laundry baskets, rock concerts, or hockey games.

No earplugs either. The dude can fall asleep.

If you and your son are like that, they need to study you. What is your body producing that if you could bottle that you would be a millionaire?

It doesn’t help being next to him.

I also snore.

Who’s your preferred instructor?

I think it always goes back to the first person, the first ride you do, or the first meditation that you listen to. When I first got my bike, one of my friends suggested some different instructors. The first class I took was with Cody and it was fun. It didn’t feel like working out and that’s it for me. I’m not hardcore. I’m not working on increasing my performance. It’s great if I PR but I want to have fun. I want to laugh a little bit. It’s all for stress relief for me and you get some exercise, so that’s a plus. I love Cody. My husband, Alex Toussaint is his guy. Every once in a while, I’m like, “Take a Cody ride.” He took the Britney Spears. He didn’t realize he was taking a Britney Spears ride, but it was great.

I think your husband tells you it’s Alex Toussaint so he doesn’t have to say one of the female instructors.

He’s like, “I’m one of the guys.”

“What? There are female instructors?”

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s good that they’re diverse.”

I don’t know about you, but a lot of times I picked the class I’m going to take based on the music.

Every once in awhile, I’ll be in that place where I’m in a certain mood and I need to go find something that matches that mood. Usually picking an instructor based on my mood works. It doesn’t matter what class it is. If I’m in a mood to laugh and have fun like you were describing for me, that’s a Jenn Sherman type of ride. If I’m in a mood to like I need to process my feelings and things like that, then Christine is your girl. If I’m in a mood to have somebody kick my ass, then Robyn and it depends. I pick that person and enjoy whatever class they take. I can take any class and enjoy it. There are a few times that I have taken a class and be like, “That didn’t hit spot.” I don’t even think it’s been three.

I don’t think either but there are many classes. You’re like a kid in a candy store like, “What class am I going to take?”

I hardly ever go back and take old classes. I always take new classes and I have a list going of things that I want to do. I’m going to attempt to walk fast 26 miles on my treadmill and we’re going to see how this works. The whole point of that is I’m going to do Peloton class back-to-back and they’re all these classes I haven’t gotten to do on the tread. I’m excited about doing it.

You’re getting to do a marathon on the tread with all these back-to-back classes?

That’s the plan.

Tom, you’re all about the snacks. You better get her some good snacks to eat while she’s on the treadmill.

I told him he’s my water boy.

She got them all laid out on the counter and I’ll bring them down in chips. I’ve got a whole five-minute routine about bringing her goo packets.

What about Facebook communities? Have you been joining any of those? What are your thoughts on them if you have?

I’m part of the St. Louis Peloton page. You might’ve heard of it. We have a mutual friend, Teri Griege and when I first told her I bought a Peloton, I was like, “I finally bought a Peloton.” She had been talking about it too. She’s like, “It’s great. You should join the St. Louis Facebook page.” I think within the first week, I jumped the whole St. Louis community and did a ride together. I need to do more digging. I heard you talking about people reselling Peloton clothes.

Yes. It’s a thing

We’re doing the 401(k).

I told my husband about it. I’m like, “By the way, I think I found my new side hustle here.” I’ve been one of those people who haven’t bought any Peloton clothes yet. I look at them and I’m like, “They’re cute. Do I need this?” I go back and the next week they’re gone and it’s apparently because they’re being sold for ten times more on these Facebook pages.

It kills me how much business the boutique does. By virtue of definition, you’re doing this at home. Nobody’s seen you and it’s tough. We should we down here in gym shorts.

We like to look cute. The thing is that we like to represent Peloton. The clothes are amazing. I love them. The thing is if you want to buy it, you have to buy it in the first hour or two when it comes out. If you even think you want it, you got to buy it. Put it in your cart and don’t leave it in your cart because it can be taken out of your cart. You got to hit buy and then when you buy it, if you don’t want it, you can always send it back or resell it. You got to have that mindset.

This is good to know.

She’s got all the tips.

I have all the tips.

I know. I feel like Crystal is going to be my spiritual Peloton guru here.

I’m here for you anytime.

She’s a lot of people’s spiritual Peloton guru.

Do you care to share your leaderboard name? Do you want to keep that on the DL?

It’s Spin2Remission. It’s positive and it puts it out in the universe there.

Do you have any advice for people who are getting fit or they’re starting their fitness journey?

When working out feels like a chore, you’re not going to make it a habit. When it’s fun, you look forward to it and you carve out time in your day. At least I feel like I do. I try to make it fun and I go back every once in a while and take one of the old classes that I’ve done to see what my progress is because for a while I felt like, “I’m going through the motions every day working hard. How do I know if I’m getting stronger?”

I took the first ride I ever did. All I did was follow myself on the leaderboard and watch the games that I had made and I felt proud. It’s taken a lot for me to hide that leaderboard but you’re only in competition with yourself and I learned that especially when I had my injury because I know that I wanted to get back on the Peloton and as soon as my doctor said it was okay, I was riding one-handed. I know that exercise helps your body heal and repair. I knew it was good for me to get back on the bike, but I wasn’t even close to my record. I was terrible.

The Peloton is a game-changer. It keeps you sane when everything is stressful. Click To Tweet

You probably had to pick classes where you did like the music so you wouldn’t try and sing along.

It was hard at the beginning because I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t exhale through my mouth. It was intense. I’m trying to get all the air out and my teeth were like blocking it. That restricted my exercise. You never know what somebody else is going through. You might pass them on the leaderboard, but everyone’s going through their own stuff every day.

Everybody bikes a little different too. It’s all apples to oranges.

You could come over and try my bike and you would probably find that it’s different in some way whether it be harder or easier than your bike, you would probably be shocked at how different it feels.

They’re all a little different. You can’t put any stock in that ultimately. Thank you for joining us. Where can people find you on social media?

On social media, Instagram and Twitter, it’s at @Y98Jen and on Facebook, I’m Jen Myers.

You got your wires out. Are you in trouble for talking to us?

I don’t know. If I’m not on the air, then you know.

Before we go, because most of our audience is not in St. Louis, if people from other cities would like to listen to you on the radio, how could they do that online? Where can they find you?

They can listen to Y98 on the Radio.com app. You can download it wherever you download your favorite apps. The morning show is the Wake Up with Jen And Tim.

Thank you for doing this and not only your patience.

Thank you for having me. I feel like I’m a Peloton newbie and I’m still learning from many other people. I’m sure some people are like, “She knows nothing about peloton. What a waste of time.”

Maybe you don’t know a lot about Peloton, but I think you had a lot of other important things to teach people.

One of the great things about the community is they will embrace that. They are a loving community, except for the OPP. The Official Peloton Page gets nasty over there, but in general, most of the people are wonderful and they are loving and they’re going to be supportive. They’re going to be excited that you shared your story. You’re probably going to get messages from people randomly telling you how much they appreciate you.

I appreciate the community. That’s another thing that I didn’t realize. I thought it was going to be me on a bike. There is a community for sure.

Thank you for spending much time with us. Please enjoy the rest of your week. Be careful if you go out there on the road.

Good luck on your treadmill marathon.

Thanks. I’m going to need it.

I’m going to need it. Do you know how many times that I got to go up and down the stairs?

See you later.

Bye.

—

That brings this one to an end. What pray tell do you have in store for people next week?

We are going to talk to Donna Carr. Donna Carr was affected by the paradise fires that happened in California. We’re going to hear her story and how she’s doing now and how she relates it all to Peloton.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, on the Bike and of course the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Don’t forget to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch episodes in their entirety. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.