—

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

201: Will We See A Peloton Fitness Tracker plus our interview with Lara Lambert

We’re back at home. We don’t have our fancy fake backgrounds, where you were on a beach and I was under the Northern Lights. Someone was like, “Crystal got a better location.” I was like, “Northern Lights, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip. You can go to the beach any time.” 

I don’t know, I will just say it was warm where I was and it felt great. I’m wearing a sweatshirt right now and last episode I was not. Thank you, guys. The community, all of the love from everybody.

It was very flattering.

It was so sweet. My favorite part was especially the OG crowd posting all of their, “I was at episode so-and-so.”

Pissing match over whose number was lower. If only we had known, we could have auctioned off those interviews. Before we did that, no one cared.

It has been so much fun reminiscing, especially that Homecoming because we would go up to people and be like, “We’re starting a podcast. Do you want to be on it?”

They were like, “What? Okay. Sure.”

 

People just said yes, they didn’t know what they were saying yes to. It does my heart good, thinking about all of it.

It was a combination of, “Sure. You’re starting a podcast,” and the look that said, “That’s an awful idea.”

Also, for some, “What’s a podcast?”

There was a lot of like, “That sounds horrible but okay. If that’s what you want to do with your time, we won’t stop you.”

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the YouTube version, I highly recommend that you do. It was a lot of fun. I just had a great time. I’m glad that we got to be off to enjoy taking in all the comments and stuff that people sent. We had spotty Wi-Fi so we didn’t get to answer everybody but it was really nice.

Enough of that. Now we look forward, we’re like a shark that’s constantly moving. What do you have in store for people this episode?

John Mills is back, we’ve got some great updates to discuss. I cannot wait to get into that. There’s a little lawsuit that we’ve got to get back to. We’re going to have a whole bunch of updates, including talking about our brand-new Peloton instructor and new hires that Peloton has done. There are about a billion things going on with the instructors. We’ve got to hit as many of those as we can, probably not all billion.

Let’s keep it to like half a billion. Three quarters of a billion if we’re making good time. Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, wherever you find your podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to follow us so you never miss an episode. If you would be so kind as to leave us a review, that’s always helpful. We have one from KellyGiggler.

Kelly Backus. She’s our interviewee. It’s coming up.

She says, “Much like my discovery and instant subscription to the Peloton app, and then bike, 4 years ago, I have listened to every episode of this wonderful podcast since happening upon it a year ago. Tom and Crystal’s connection with one another, as well as the content, is fun, easy to digest and full of interesting information. I love the guests as well as the weekly check-ins with other knowledgeable Pelotonians, talking about you, John Mills. I, and so many others, appreciate all the effort and hard work put into this podcast. Crystal and Tom, keep them coming. See you, just Crystal, on the leaderboard.”

I love Kelly and her cat. She’s great. The best Christmas card giver in the world.

She also says her leaderboard name, #WontBackusDown. “By the way, even my 69-year-old dad does meditation and standing yoga. Come on, Tom.” Maybe when I’m 69. 

You’re doing Tonal. Meditation is easier than Tonal.

Baby steps. Also, don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. You can watch these shows and sometimes there are visual elements, and that’s fun. While you’re there, subscribe to that. Hit us up on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com. One more thing if you want, share an episode in your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram feed just to let people know that we’re worth checking out because if you like Peloton, you probably have friends that do too. There’s all of that, let’s dig in, shall we?

We shall.

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Joining us once again is John Mills. John, how is it going?

What is going on episode 201?

We didn’t get to talk to you last episode but you still were represented in episode 200. It was a wonderful parody. Thank you. It’s quite the honor.

Tom asked me though, why you chose not to have a beard for him?

I have a lot of prop hair. I have one that was full but it was a little too thick and it was weird. I started trying to trim it and I screwed it all up trying to trim it. I was left with a mustache part. It was a whole mess.

 

It wasn’t that noticeable. 

He wasn’t bitching.

I was honestly like, “I think the bottom part is pretty grey. He might not know that I have one,” because it blends in to my Irish pale.

I didn’t know it was there. I screwed it up trimming. I was sitting there trimming and then I was trying to do Chelsea Jackson Roberts’ hair and I screwed that up. Erica had to help me.

You did so well. I loved your outtakes whenever you were doing Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts, that was so funny.

If people want to see that, they should go to your Facebook group over at Run, Lift & Live. There’s a shameless plug for you.

If anyone hasn’t heard, Dr. Jenn loved it. Even her head exploding, she thought it was amazing.

I was nervous about that. That’s not right to have people’s hands spontaneously exploding on camera.

She’s so nice and down-to-earth. You don’t have to worry about that type of thing. I know she presents a very professional image but she can also be a down-to-earth normal person too.

She was really cool. She reached out to me and we chatted back and forth. She was kind too.

—

There was an update in the world of Peloton lawsuits. 

This is my favorite story all week. Eric Villency. 

I hate to say it because he would probably hear it as a compliment, but he looks like a Bond villain. He legit looks like he’s teaming up with Spectre in his photo.

He had a company called Villency Design Group and Peloton hired them back in the day, I don’t know what year, at some point to design the bike. His company designed it. While they were designing it, they discovered that Microsoft held a patent for something relative to his design. He finishes the design but immediately then starts a new company called VR Optics, which then held that patent and then tried to turn around and sue Peloton for the bike he designed for them. Unbelievable.

He’s a big alleged jerk. Let me say that, I don’t need him coming after me and sue me. 

I think you’re okay to call somebody a jerk. It’s when it’s something that’s opinion-based.

Isn‘t this the same guy that went and designed all the others? Isn’t he involved with Echelon? He sold them the design and all these other stuff too. Is this behind-the-scenes shadiness that happens? Echelon is involved with this guy who went after Peloton after they hired him to do a job. He did the job and then turned around and sued them for doing the job. That’s not cool.

When you read the press release, I think they hired him specifically because of some of those patents that he held. Ultimately though, in the end, that case against Peloton fell apart in April of 2020. Peloton won the case basically saying, “Your first company should’ve defended Peloton against the second company and since they didn’t, we’re just going to invalidate the whole patent. Now, there’s no patent.” The court says invalidate the patent. That’s when Peloton turned around and asked for damages. That’s what we just learned, that they awarded them $4.3 million in attorney’s fees and another $1.2 million in interest. Which has me thinking, is Eric Villency somewhere going, “$5 million?”

I was also thinking, that’s nothing to Peloton but it’s probably a lot of money.

Many of these things, you don’t ever get the money, right? It doesn’t matter. It’s the point and it’s the point that Peloton won.

My question is, what does this mean for Echelon? We’ve said for a long time that Echelon just seems like pretty much a rip-off of Peloton. I think that they were hanging their hat on the fact that they hired this guy and his company owned the patent and they licensed it through them. Does that mean Peloton can go after Echelon? Since they voided the patent, does that mean anybody can make a bike that looks like a Peloton now?

I thought all of the Echelon stuff had been settled, except for one claim. I think there’s only one claim out there that Peloton has against Echelon still. Everything else has been dropped. The counter lawsuit from Echelon was dropped. Peloton’s original lawsuit towards Echelon was dropped with the exception of one aspect of it. I don’t remember exactly what it was because I’m sure it’s about a specific piece of this technology.

I hear you. I don’t know that it does. Maybe it opens them up for something another case to come open. I always find humor in these things. What strikes me interesting is he had a patent. Had he just not try to sue them, now nobody has it.

That is a lot of irony. I didn’t think about that. I feel like he got what he deserved. Sometimes the good guys win and Peloton won. I’m very happy that they did.

It’s rare that you get justice from the court system. Even rarer, that you get poetic justice.

I find it also interesting that Microsoft is like, “We’ll sell it to you. Take it.” At that time, probably nobody was on their connected fitness.

They didn’t even know what to do with it back then. It wasn’t even a thing.

That’s funny, they didn’t even recognize the value of what they had. That’s very telling.

How the world has changed in a few years.

In other news you came across from, Inc. Magazine discovered a leaked marketing deck from Peloton.

This isn’t really news. As you said, Crystal, this has been out since December of 2019, but Inc. decided to talk about it now. I never dug into the details of it. When this deck was leaked or released back in December of 2019, since then, there are a lot of marketing sites that use it as a template. You can find it in a lot of marketing sites now. It’s easy to find. I read through it because Inc. Magazine decided to post it. What I found interesting about it and it talks through how Peloton wants to be perceived, what their demographic is that they’re trying to hit, the income of the households that they’re trying to market to, and they’ll use these terms of who they are and who they aren’t. That was what was interesting to me. I thought it would have people have a discussion in my group specifically when they describe themselves and who they are, they say they’re streetwise. I was like, “Who are they? Starsky & Hutch?”

It’s funny because my interpretation of that was that people can make a quick deduction of the situation. That’s how I took it. Maybe since I thought they were talking about me, I just chose to look at it positively.

Of all the words on there, that’s the one that I thought was the oddest, streetwise. I think a streetwise is like, “I don’t have the book learning, but I know how to figure things out.” I don’t think of Peloton like that.

It also says highly-educated so I don’t think that’s what they’re going for. I don’t think that’s their intention.

To me, streetwise and highly-educated are different things. Those are different ways to be smart, but you typically are going to be one or the other.

I don’t know what they meant, but this is a great example of it’s funny to look at the evolution of a company because they were sitting around brainstorming this. I have no doubt and then this is being covered in a news article two years later. They probably did not expect to have it picked apart at that level. It was an internal document. I think that your comments are all very fair and it’s funny that they’ve evolved so much that they probably wouldn’t use these terms today. They probably are going to have a different set of terms.

 

In the deck, you can tell it looks like it’s rough around the edges. Maybe they weren’t done with it. You get that impression. It wasn’t finished but it was a comical reading. Some of the folks in my group, they’re laughing. They’re like, “I’m between 35 and 50 and that’s how much money I make and I have that number of kids. They know me too well, this is scary.”

They’re good like that. I like the things that you’re not supposed to say in relation to them.

You can tell what they don’t like.

I like that they like premium, but not exclusive.

John pointed out, he did not like that. He was like, “They’re the same thing.”

Doesn’t that ultimately manifest itself out to be the same thing? I know they’re different from a definition perspective, but doesn’t it end up being the same thing?

It can, but I think exclusive sounds exclusionary. It sounds like, “It’s for me, not for you.” Premium is more like, “This is next–level quality or next level of goodness,” as opposed to like, “This is mine and you can’t have it.”

That is an important distinction because Peloton works so hard to be inclusive. That is a fair distinction to make, but I get what you’re saying too, John. I would also be curious to see now that we’re so far down the road, and they have a new marketing person, Dara. I would love to see what this list looks like now because we know that the fastest–growing demographic is a younger generation. It’s no longer 35 to 50. 23 to 40 is the fastest–growing demographic. I would be curious to see other things. I would love to compare a side-by-side. Peloton, if you’re reading, we would love to compare and nit-pick. I’m sure they’ll send it right over.

It sounds like something that they would do.

Finding something early is the way to prevent it. Click To Tweet

I thought it was a fun look to go backwards though and see it.

I love all of the gifts and stuff because I was going, “I’m too old for the demographic. Now I’m outside of the demographic,” and then people were like, “Me too.”

Thank you so much for joining us. Until the next episode, where can people find you?

They can find me on Facebook in my Run, Lift & Live group or page. They can find me on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive, or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

—

The arguably worst kept secret inside of the rower, Bradley Rose was announced as your next Peloton instructor.

After Bob Treemore had posted that he was going to be like, “At one point Bradley Rose was just interacting with people,” like, “I’m totally going to be the next instructor.” Until Peloton was like, “Stop it.”

Is that how it works, Bradley? The reason it wasn’t in the last episode, we recorded early because we were on vacation. I was unplugging all the equipment in the hotel room and she was like, “There’s a new instructor.” 

We almost recorded an update and then we were like, “We’re on a vacation.” It’s very exciting to have a new instructor, though. Bradley Rose is going to be teaching out of the UK studio. He’s going to be the cycling instructor. He did his premiere ride. My understanding is it was something like 13,000 people on. It’s fascinating to see how, as Peloton keeps growing and they do these live instructor premier rides, how many people join. He is all settling in. My understanding is he was pretty nervous, but he had it down by the next time he took a ride. He was a little nervous coming out of the gate, which is understandable.

Everybody’s nervous the first time. 

That’s a lot of pressure to know all those people are on there. When you see a number that big, you look down and you’re like, “All these people are there for me.” That’s a lot. Congrats to Bradley Rose.

People are starting to theorize that Peloton might be launching its own fitness tracker.

We talked about Peloton acquisitions that they had done and that it was a potentiality. People are starting to theorize what it’s going to look like. If you read the article from DC Rainmaker, we didn’t cover it because I thought I’d just cover these all at the same time. He’s leaning more toward, “It’s going to be more of a Whoop-like device that’s not going to have a screen. It’s going to give you things like your heart rate and recovery rate and things like that. They’re going to purposely come out with something that does not compete with Apple directly.” That’s DC Rainmaker’s theory.

TechRadar on the other hand is saying, “No, we think that because they acquired Atlas Wearable, they’re going to take one of their wearables that they had and redo it for Peloton. It’s going to be focused on indoor classes that you can take and it’s going to track all of the other things. It’s going to track your reps and it’s going to be able to show you what kind of workout you’re doing as well as how well you did it and what your recovery also needs to be.” This will be very interesting to see what they do end up doing with the wearable because it’s all speculation at this point.

Although, I liked the idea better of it not having a screen, of it being more like a Whoop that it syncs and forces you to interact with the app. I would think that would give them more screen room to play with. It forces you into the app and interact there and you can do more stuff while you’re in the app than you could on the screen on your wrist.

 

Peloton users are traditionally Apple users. I know we have a lot of newcomers to the Peloton community and they’re not necessarily, but if you go back to the beginning of Peloton, they’ve been Apple.

A disproportionate number, crazy high. 

It’s over 80% and those users tend to already have an Apple Watch and don’t want something else on their wrist. There are not a lot of people like me that are going to have an Apple Watch on one hand and a Whoop on the other.

To that end, you’re more likely to get somebody with an Apple Watch to wear a second device that doesn’t have a screen than to walk around looking like they’ve got two watches on.

That’s also true. That’s a very good point. I don’t know which it’s going to be, but it will be interesting. Will it be something that needs to be worn all the time? The Whoop is something that you need to wear all the time because it’s constantly tracking where your stats are and that you want to have it on all the time to collect that data. Whereas you could on other devices, let’s say a Garmin, it’s a watch also, but it’s something that you could just wear when you’re exercising to be able to track your GPS and your distance and things like that. It will be interesting to see what Peloton decides to do. Do they have something else planned? We can’t even imagine.

They could very well. 

Homecoming’s coming up. We know there are going to be some big announcements. If you guys aren’t listening to Clubhouse, I’m moving Clubhouse up.

—

Here’s the thing we talk about. We get off on these topics, these tangents, just like this and there was some really interesting conversation about people’s thought process about what is coming up. We can talk a little bit more about it when we get to the yoga studio being closed. There are people that are bringing information to the table that you would not hear otherwise. Let me say that and it’s not recorded. If you miss it, you miss it. I know that it can be annoying because it’s an Apple-only thing, but I think that they’re working hard on the Android. It’s only going to be a couple more months. Anyway, every Sunday, 4:00 PM Central, 5:00 PM Eastern, we get into some deep Peloton topics. We’d love to see you there to hear your opinions as well.

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Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist and sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn. She also has a long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four best-selling books, including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy.

It’s good to have you back again. 

My pleasure. It’s great to be here.

We’ve been reaching out to The Clip Out community, asking them, “What do you want to know from Dr. Jenn?” Our question this episode is from Elizabeth Romaine. She wants to know how you deal with the fear of missing out. There’s so much content on Peloton, she wants to experience it all. She has a million classes bookmarked across all disciplines. How does she be happy with what she has chosen and not feel like she should have done a different class?

I totally get this. First of all, I think we’ve all felt this at some point. I know that there are a lot of times where I will see someone host something on Instagram about a class they took. I’m like, “I’ve got to take that class,” but then I encountered a different class, it can make your head spin. These are good problems to have, obviously. There’s so much great content that it’s hard to pick. It’s going to sound weird, it’s like a spiritual belief when it comes to Peloton. I believe that we ultimately end up in the class that we’re supposed to be in. There’s usually something that we are meant to hear in the class that we’re in then. A lot of the time, I find myself going, “Maybe I’m having a little bit of Peloton remorse of like, ‘I pressed this for this class instead of this.'”

The self-talk I do for myself is, “I’m here for a reason and I’m going to stick this out. I’m going to have an open heart and open mind to hear whatever message I’m supposed to hear right now.” As we know, our Peloton instructors are super inspirational and there’s always something, some nugget of information, whether it is about your form or about your heart that ultimately we hear as we are working out. I find with the yoga classes in particular, is that a lot of the time I’ll start a class and be like, “I wish I’d pick the one with that song,” but I find that I’ll be doing the yoga class and be like, “My hips needed this class. That’s exactly the stretch that my body needed.” We have to be open to the messages, information and the body things that are tended to each class and take the attitude that, “This is where I’m meant to be.” I do think that they’re in the bigger picture, psychologically speaking as a shrink that we also have to look at, “Where else does this extend to?”

How we do our life is how we do our life. Peloton can sometimes be a microcosm for how we function in the world. If you’re feeling that kind of FOMO at Peloton, are you feeling it elsewhere? Especially in a pandemic right now, we’re missing out on a lot of things in our lives. There are a lot of activities, milestones, birthdays, school plays, graduations, theatre, movies, and family events that we are missing out on. Sometimes we can project that feeling of, “I feel like I’m missing out on these important things,” on to our workout, spouse or other things. It’s important to track in and say, “Maybe this is just about Peloton,” but also is it possible that it’s not? Is it possible that this is just about a bigger yearning for missing things and feeling left out? Especially in this weird time, as some places are transitioning back and some places aren’t, some people are vaccinated and some aren’t. There may be some FOMO that’s going on outside of Peloton that’s worth looking at as well.

There’s going to be a lot of that as the vaccines phase in. You get this two-tier society for a little bit, where some people have it and some people don’t.

She needs to look deeper. She needs to see what else is going on there. 

Also, to try to be a little more spiritual about it and open to, “Maybe this is where I need to be. I can always take that other class.” God willing, she will be here for a very long time and get to take every class that she wants to take. Sometimes it can also help, now that we have the scheduling option that schedules something but also to be open to, “Maybe I’ve scheduled this, but then I just learned about a cool new ride that speaks to me.” Being a little flexible with that stuff is important.

You’ve got to learn to let go.

When I work out, it’s so important for me to take a class that speaks to me in that moment because if I don’t, then later I’ll never feel like I had the best experience if I don’t just go with my gut instinct. If somebody else pushes me to take a class and it’s not what I want then I feel like, “I should’ve taken the one I really wanted to take,” that was what I should’ve done.

I do think that there’s that moment where you’re standing on the tread or sitting on the bike, you’re scrolling through and you’re like, “Do I do this one or this one?” You do have to listen to your gut. You can always do the other one tomorrow or next week.

Unless there’s a purge.

That time we started about the purge. I dug a hole. I may need therapy. You know how I feel about anything with Billy Joel.

Now it’s gone.

That was very traumatic. You guys are going to need to do some therapy on me about the purge.

We’re going to breathe through it.

They say grief and loss, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I’m in denial. I’m pretending it never happened.

I’m hopeful there will be a new one replacing it someday. That’s going to be my hope.

I hope so. I’ve got to talk to Jenn Sherman.

Thank you so much. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Instagram and all social media, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, everything, @DrJennMann. Every week, my InStyle Magazine column, Hump Day with Dr. Jenn.

—

Peloton picked up for Australia a former Spotify managing director and Slingshot CEO as their first-ever Australian country manager.

She’s going to be reporting up through Kevin Cornils, who is over all of Peloton’s international division. It’s going to be Karen Lawson. I’m not sure, is country manager a term that is used only in Australia? I don’t know that.

Also, if this is a new thing that they’re going to have for each country?

I don’t know the answer to that. It is very exciting that they have this woman who is coming from all these other great companies that they’re going to have in charge of all this growth in Australia. I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do. As we’ve talked about before, are they going to have studios there? Are they going to be using a studio somewhere else? We got into a really deep Clubhouse conversation about this as well. A lot of people had some good thoughts on this. Some people even think strongly that there could be a West Coast studio out of America and that they could broadcast there. I still don’t think that’s going to happen. At any rate, the point being, it will be interesting to see how they service the Australians with classes.

—

We have a new class type.

DJ John Michael and Anna Greenberg came together for the first-ever deep house flow. It’s house music and yoga. It makes sense because that house music has that lowkey vibe going on. Then taking yoga, which is relaxing and soothing and putting those two together, I love it. It’s a great way to bring, what DJ John Michael has always done, that club feel into the yoga studio. They’ve started adding live DJ runs. Before, it was only rides and now we have live DJ runs. Now, we’re having yoga. That’s pretty cool.

—

This comes from The Clip Out Group, which is why you should be in The Clip Out Group. Go to Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there from the page, you can get to the group or you can search The Clip Out group on Facebook. Someone posted this and it was from the Christine D’Ercole page.

They had permission to share and I assume since they put it in our group, we also had permission to share.

Someone had bought a bike and the accessories and they got these extra things in there. They didn’t know what they were.

It came from Peloton, this isn’t like a third-party. This came direct from Peloton and come to find out they are Mag Grips. Mag Grips can be used on various things. There was a discussion about this within the group. Some people felt that they were used on cable and pulley machines, that’s strength. Other people felt that they could also be used on rowers. I have no clue if that’s true. I’ve never seen anything like that on a rower, but they said that it could. I have no knowledge if that’s accurate. With all of the upcoming theories about the strength device and rowing device.

It’s like if somebody accidentally throws something in the box too early.

They might have because as we know from our Clubhouse discussion, we know that people have been invited to check out some things so maybe this got sent to the wrong person.

If you want to see what we’re talking about, you can go dig through the Facebook group or you can check out this segment on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut.

—

An update on Becs Gentry’s Olympic journey. 

Good news and bad news, the bad news is she didn’t quite make it to the Tokyo Olympics. The good news is that she shaved five minutes off of her PR and at the level we’re talking about, five minutes is crazy. You might remember back in 2019, when she ran the New York City Marathon for the first time ever, that’s when she qualified. She was the first woman to finish non-elite. She got a record for herself at 2 hours and 37 minutes. She finished the Great Britain marathon trials at 2 hours and 32 minutes. The cut-off was 2 hours, 29 minutes and 30 seconds. It was so close. I know at that level, a minute and a half is still a lot, but I could not be prouder. Only one woman that was in her trial group passed that day.

I want to point out that her full-time job is in fitness and all she does is practice for the Olympics and train for the Olympics. She made it and Becs Gentry almost made it in addition to having a full-time job at Peloton. That is incredible. I could not be prouder of Becs Gentry. I know I had nothing to do with it, but it’s amazing that we have these instructors at this level. We have Christine, who’s been a world champion. Now, we have Becs who’s close to being in the Olympics. They are phenomenal instructors.

The New York Post had an article about someone unhappy that they’re too short to ride their Peloton. You can tell here because they have the Peloton set at the absolute highest levels.

 

She has the handlebars up way too high. Nothing about it would be considered ergonomic. My understanding is that this woman is 4’6″ and Peloton has a cut-off of 4’11”. It’s interesting because the Shortie Tribe has hundreds of members that are under 4’11”. Many that are 4’6″ and have no problem riding the bike. She kept asking all these questions and Peloton was like, “You don’t fit the requirements so we’re not going to sell you one.” That ended up being the end result. She called them out in the New York post, basically was like, “You guys need to make bikes that fit everybody and do it for me.” Let me explain that all spin bikes that are made, it’s the cut-off, it’s standard. Every instructor that I’ve talked to, who’s a spin instructor, says the same thing. All spin bikes have a standard of 4’11”, that’s the cut-off. There are kids all the time that are riding bikes that are younger or shorter than that and they’re still able to ride the bike. I will also say Peloton doesn’t want anybody under the 4’11” riding because they don’t want you to get hurt and blame them. That’s something you’re choosing to do.

There’s an additional liability aspect if you ride it against their recommendations. 

It’s great to say, “Let’s make everything as accessible as we can for people.” I think that every company should strive to do that. I also think that it’s unfair to pick on Peloton because they’re the ones in the news right now. It’s a bad look for her because she is a comedian and a lot of people are coming away from this feeling as if she’s doing this for publicity. Reportedly, the New York Post came to her, which I don’t know how they would have known of her story unless she complained about it publicly, but I guess she put it on Twitter. They decided to invite her to be in the story. She’s getting a lot of negative response to it.

I deal with that. I’m not 4’6″ but I can’t buy jeans off the rack that fit me. I either got to get them hemmed or I have to go to people that make jeans for short people. That’s why I was excited when Kevin Hart was launching his own line of clothes. I’m like, “That might fit me.”

He’s your height, isn’t he?

I think so. He might be a little shorter, but clearly he’s over 4’11” because he loves his Peloton.

Maybe he’s in the Shortie Tribe too, we just don’t know.

Business Insider had an article about Peloton’s head of music, Gwen Riley.

I thought this was an interesting article because it talks about the new initiative where Peloton is teaming up with Verzuz. Verzuz is this online battle that’s done on Instagram. It was started by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland. Those two, they put together these artists go head to head live on Instagram and then whichever the fans vote for becomes the winner. Peloton has made a deal with them, a collaboration. It’s a year-long deal. They’re going to take artists from Verzuz and do the vote live during the Peloton ride, run or whatever. It’s very cool. They’re heading this whole thing up. They’re starting it off and it’s starting with Brandy versus Monica. They’re going to be voting.

All you have to do to vote, by the way, is put these tags on your leaderboard, whichever one you’re voting for, and you have to do that by the end of the month. How does this relate to this article? She’s talking about this, but she also was talking about how Peloton specifically, has basically made their own record label. She says that Peloton has become a new version or a new model of a record label. It’s like we have our own little record label going because we have to balance all these moving parts to make sure our members are hearing the best music and having world-class music experience anywhere. I find that fascinating because how many times have you said to me, “It’s just like a music label.”

I’ve said radio stations, but radio stations are format-specific. Peloton is not format-specific, but it is like a top 40 radio station. It isn’t limited to a timeframe. I’ve said for a few years now, I could have been there, had a music development.

You should have applied. Gwen Riley has the job and she came from Disney.

I probably would not have won that battle. I would not have won that Verzuz. Bustle had an article about what happens to your brain when you get a high five. 

Basically, they’re talking about how it’s more feel-good chemicals for your brain. All the stuff that you get from exercise, you also get it every time you get a high five. I’ve got to say, if you get too many high fives or high fives from a******* who won’t leave you alone, even though you’ve taken them off of your profile, then it can go the other way.

It can be counter-productive. We talked before about how Chase Sapphire reimburses you for your Peloton subscription. Now, they have a promotion for card holders that they can earn 5 to 10 times points on their Peloton purchases.

I believe it was John Mills who wrote this. He is wondering if they did this specifically in time for the new products that he believes are going to be launching at Homecoming.

That would make sense. 

It says up to $1,800 accessories and products. That was the number.

Colonoscopies are not fun, but what's worse than a colonoscopy is chemotherapy.  Click To Tweet

We should say, this was not a commercial, that’s an actual news story. No one paid us to say it.

Chase, if you want to send us some money, that’s cool too.

Bustle.com had 10 Motivating Quotes From Peloton Instructors that will Inspire You, which is redundant because if it’s motivating you, it’s inspired you. 

The interesting thing is, they didn’t do one-liners like I thought they would do. They’re not quotes, this is more like direction, the best tips from your instructors. These are not motivating quotes. Instead, I asked everybody what their top motivating quotes are. There were things like Jenn Sherman saying, “Just f****** do it.” This is not that, this is tips.

I will say, as I was scrolling down, that’s not what I was expecting to see. I was expecting to see what you described.

I think Bustle is starting to just grab anything and talk about Peloton. We’re getting a lot of those.

Speaking of a lot of those, Parade Magazine chimes once again with the best insert workout type here for Peloton, Best 45-minute Peloton Rides for When You’re Looking to Get a Solid Sweaty Workout in.

What 45-minute isn’t? They all are.

It’s the third one of these that they’ve done. Clearly, they see what’s driving the clicks over there at Parade.

Maybe they have some deal with Peloton.

Parade normally skews a little older. 

—

Joining us is Torrey from Peloton Closet.

How are you doing?

I’m doing well. How about you?

I’m good. What is going on in the Peloton Closet?

I would like to talk about shopping resell sites for Peloton Apparel that has sold out or is highly desirable, maybe something that you wanted and missed from the Peloton Apparel store.

I know those prices get pretty crazy.

They really do. It’s incredible. You guys know before I was a Peloton rider, I did the fancy SoulCycle and Barry’s, places like that. They also have clothing lines but the level of obsession and desire around those lines versus Peloton, it’s like, “That’s kindergarten and Peloton is grad school.”

A lot of people have always thought that, “Peloton Apparel is not that big of a deal.” I know it certainly increased in popularity in the last couple of years. It’s gone up quite a bit. It’s always had this very strong grip on the community. It’s always been, “I must have the new item.” 

It’s like trying to get concert tickets.

It’s like getting merch from a concert or a festival, except instead of going to that concert or festival once a year, it’s like every six weeks.

That’s what Jill Foley said, “We commit to fourteen drops a year,” and they have hit that every year since. 

It’s amazing. If you have a Peloton Apparel habit, that can get expensive. It’s not much of an issue now but in the past, they were operating on that drop system which is similar to Supreme or other very exclusive brands. They produce a small amount, drop it and if you get it, fabulous, if you don’t, you’re out of luck. You have to stock it on secondary markets. That’s what was happening with Peloton merchandise. There are people who are spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get those items that they might have missed from a drop that just sold out quickly. Maybe they weren’t at their computer at that moment in time, that nanosecond, when it was available in their size.

Oftentimes, they’re buying it for hundreds of dollars used. It’s not even brand new. 

I have gotten a lot of these information from a friend of mine who is a connoisseur or aficionado of the Peloton merch world. I’m befuddled by the idea of spending hundreds of dollars on a used sports bra or leggings. I don’t know how I feel about that. There are people who are into it. One of my friends has given me a lot of this information because full disclosure, I’m not that gal who is stalking the leopard or Cheetah bra on Facebook Marketplace or Poshmark. I like new stuff that’s why I do Peloton Closet. That’s my issue. Other people like to get that special item that they missed out on and that’s their thing. Everyone has their thing.

I wouldn’t even mind buying it used if it weren’t so crazy marked-up. That’s my issue. 

Normally when you’re buying something used, the trade-off is that it’s less expensive. Here, the trade-off is it’s out of print so you’re going to pay more.

 

It’s like buying a comic book but it’s used.

I was thinking this the whole time, “This is like comic books.”

A sweaty comic book.

I wouldn’t buy a sweaty comic book. 

It’s not even in a protective sleeve.

If you’re buying it used but they’re telling you that they’re not going to launder it first, you’re on the fetish side. That’s a different thing. The upcharge is for something entirely different. The upcharge is for discharge.

I hope we don’t have children reading, Tom. You’re going in a direction.

We’re 200 plus episodes in, they’ve got to know by now.

They really should.

I can go off the rails at any time. I’m the loose cannon. 

I talked to my friend, Erica, who is this Peloton-style stalker. I wanted to take a deeper dive into these pieces that are going for the big bucks. The date, that is the marker of the popular hard-to-get merch, is about 2019. These are things in the Peloton world are known as Unicorns. These are the hard to find items. The Cheetah bra is going for $150 right now, and that originally sold for $50 to $60. The Hearts Will Race set is going for about $400 and that’s for both pieces. The Emma Lovewell set, which had a name but it’s known as the Emma Lovewell set.

I’m curious. You said that the Cheetah bra is going for $150. Are the Cheetah leggings not sought after? 

I don’t think they are sought after.

No. It’s that Cheetah bra.

Why? If people want the Cheetah, why do they like, “I want my boobs to be Cheetahfied but not my legs?”

I don’t like the stripes on the pants, maybe that’s why.

I would think they want the whole set. I’m legitimately asking. I don’t understand as a boy.

You pair the Cheetah bra with so many things. You could go with black. You could wear it with a brown, a bright color because Cheetah works with that.

Cheetah’s almost a neutral, Tom.

I didn’t know.

You add those stripes at the bottom and you’re reducing your neutrality. That’s my theory.

It’s got a little stripe on the back.

Yes, but nobody’s paying attention to that.

No one’s looking at that.

I’m the weirdo for looking at the back of the bra. Normally, I’m the perv.

I interviewed Ben and Leanne in person at Homecoming, whenever we did the 5K race, wearing that set. 

That would get it at least an extra $50. It’s been on the presence of Ben and Leanne.

I even got a hug from both of them. They touched it. 

I’m still stunned by this. Is there a big problem? The people in the comic book world, you would have to contend with speculators and they would come in and buy $5 and $10 if it was a hot book.

That’s something that has been talked about, at least on online forums, about people buying up pieces from the Peloton Apparel store with the plans to resell it. People are angry that everything sells out and there have been talks or posts that, “This is all sold out because someone bought 5 or 10 with plans to go on eBay, Facebook Marketplace or Poshmark and resell.”

After that happened, people talked about it a lot. I don’t know how prevalent it was happening but it was talked about as if it was happening every drop. Peloton started reducing the quantities that you can buy. Now, there is a limit on quantities per purchase. However, it’s not hard to get around that because it’s just by email address. I can have multiple email addresses.

In the comic world, we’d have people come in and if a book was hot, they’d try to come in and buy all of them. We’d be like, “No,” and they would be a jerk about it.

It’s like toilet paper in early 2020.

The other thing that you should know is that even though these prices, to me, seem high, $150 for a bra. Right now, it is a low price time. Prices are down for these Unicorns. According to my friend, Erica, the expert, there are bras that were going for $300 a year ago that are now down to the reasonable price of $150.

That whole set was selling for $700 and $800 not that long ago. We talked about it on this show. That was used and that’s crazy.

There are bubbles like anything else, whether it’s Beanie Babies or used sports bras. People are into what they’re into.

There’s an ebb and flow, at least for the comic book, where it might continue to go up in value. I can’t imagine this stuff. You’re buying it for the moment. In ten years, nobody’s going to be like, “I’ve got to have that Peloton Cheetah bra.” Do clothes do that at all? I honestly have no clue.

Things come back in style. Remember we had that talk about vintage t-shirts?

The vintage t-shirt feels more tied to the band and whatnot. Beyond that, do people seek out old clothes?

Yes, there’s a huge market.

For instance, the Hearts On Fire, that was the year that they had a very brief sale and it went to all the stores first. It didn’t go online which is why it’s so sought after. There wasn’t that much of it. It was for American Heart Association Month and it went fast. People know that and they’re like, “I want that set.” The other two sets were like the fall and the spring of that same year. Those things all came out, people know that that’s what it’s from. I don’t know if the stuff that’s coming out now will be sought after in three years because there’s so much more of it. To your point, Torrey, there’s not as low of a quantity anymore.

If Peloton keeps adding new members.

Peloton has been rereleasing outfits. 

That was going to be the next question. Do they rerelease this stuff? If so, has it affected the value or do we have enough data to know that yet?

I don’t know if there’s enough but there was a very popular set called Sunset hombre. It was a navy that went into red and orange. It was sold out and was super popular. Don’t forget the sparkle. They released it.

With comic books, if they do a second printing, then that’s not worth as much money. People want the first print. I’d be curious to see if that would work the same way with clothes or if you would just go, “No, a Cheetah bra is a Cheetah bra. I don’t care.” If someone’s looking to buy this stuff or check out the resale market, you mentioned a couple of sites, is there one of them that’s better than the others?

The one that might be better in terms of convenience standpoint is there’s a Facebook Peloton Apparel, it’s called Buy/Sell/Trade. One thing that’s nice is that you can post on there in search of. If you’re saying, “I want the Cheetah bra.” They do allow you to post what you want. That’s a nice feature. Otherwise, you’re just searching. It depends on how much time you have. Do you feel like going online and looking for that Cheetah bra or is it a medium? It is nice that some of them do allow you to post what you want instead of just peruse the merchandise and hope that you’re going to strike your luck that day.

In comic book, the Issue 319 of Batman, they’re all the same size. How do speculators know which size to stock up on?

People who sell a lot start to see. If you spend time on these resell sites, you are going to see that larges fly and extra smalls take longer to sell. If you are somebody who’s in it to sell and you’re making money off of it, you’re probably paying close attention to what goes and what doesn’t.

It’s very similar. You can see it on Peloton’s website. It probably matches that very closely, what sizes go the fastest, and small and extra small don’t go the fastest. It’s usually other sizes that go faster than that because a lot of people feel that the clothes fit small anyway. It probably mirrors that same cadence.

Thank you so much for joining us. Until the next episode, where can people find you?

I am all over different channels, PelotonCloset. I’m on Facebook, Instagram, I have a website, Reddit and on the leaderboard at the bottom, all PelotonCloset.

Thank you very much.

—

Quick instructor roundup, Cody Rigsby was featured in Yahoo! Life. I feel like Cody Rigsby hired a new PR guy.

He’s been everywhere lately, but I think part of it is because he has his new Adidas thing going on. Maybe he did hire somebody new because suddenly he is everywhere. This is a whole article, motivation, affirmations, dream workout buddy. You can find it all if you get our newsletter and this link will be sent directly to you in your inbox.

Aditi Shah was featured on the Claim Your Crown.

It was a talk on Instagram Live. I think they do a lot of these with different people. I wouldn’t call it a podcast, it’s an Instagram talk.

It’s a lengthy one, it’s 35 minutes. If you want to go check that out on Instagram, it is there waiting for you. We will send you a link so you can find it nice and easy. Matt Wilpers was featured in Triathlete.com.

They called him Peloton’s resident triathlete.

PR Newswire talks about how Hyperice partners with Robin Arzon to inspire women worldwide to move better.

This is a different company that I believe Alex Toussaint was working with. I can’t remember if he still is, but now Robin is working with them. It’s funny because this is another recovery tool. Cody Rigsby is now working with Theragun. They’re all working with different ones.

It’s like a compression thing. It’s the thing that punches you when you’re done working out.

 

They have lots of different things, it’s not just the gun. I think they’re also the ones that do Normatec and they have the leg things. Remember when we were at Atlantic City and they had people in the booth laying down using those. I think they do those too.

VerywellMind.com, that’s a new one. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about them before. 

It’s a podcast.

They sat down with Kendall Toole.

They interviewed her all about how to make mental health a top priority, which is great. Kendall talks about her mental health a lot. I appreciate her transparency on that. I’m sure this is a great interview and you probably need to check it out.

—

We talked about the Verzuz collaboration with Peloton and AceShowbiz gives us a little bit of background on the Monica & Brandy “feud.”

Apparently, there was a fan that thought that the singers were fighting over a man for real with the song. Monica cleared up the misunderstanding. The fan said, over the weekend, “The boy in mind gives me such secondhand embarrassment. Fighting over a man when they’re both goddesses makes me sick.” Monica caught wind of the post and didn’t hesitate to clap back. She said, “I think she and I both are more concerned that twenty plus years later, you’ve still not come to grips with it not being real.”

It’s a song topic.

I thought it was fun since these two are the first artists that are being covered in the Verzuz. It’s fun that it also has some drama, I guess you could call it drama.

Micky Dolenz wasn’t really on a train to Clarksville.

They would get together and sing a song, “Let’s write a song about how mad we are.”

—

Peloton launched a new Strength Bracket Battle.

On Clubhouse, one of our listeners, Matt, I can’t remember Matt’s last name, but he brought up that perhaps the Ride to Greatness was thought up from a March Madness perspective. We got into a deep conversation about that. Right after we talked about that, I saw this post from Peloton. There was a Strength Bracket, which clearly is based on an NCAA March Madness type of thing. What they’re doing with it is you pick, you vote on your favorite moves like single-leg deadlifts versus human-makers. Whichever one wins moves to the next bracket. At the end, there’s going to be a series of moves that are the “winners” and that’ll be on Friday. I think on Sunday, Rebecca Kennedy is going to be doing a special class that’s going to feature the moves that you vote for. How cool is that? I think it’s April 9, 2021 that the class will be, so you can vote. I’m getting all my dates mixed up. It starts April 2nd, 2021 the voting through the weekend. Next Friday after that should be the Friday 45 with Rebecca Kennedy.

Sam Yo wrote an essay about stopping Asian hate.

It’s called The Places I Come From. There’s a little quote here, “I was compelled to write something due to the rise of attacks within the Asian community during the pandemic, while also recognizing that xenophobia and racism is something that has been prevalent within our society for generations. I personally believe that in telling our stories through generational chapters, we can help rewrite the narrative with our collective voices moving forward.” It’s a very beautiful essay and I invite you to take the time to read it.

On March 31st, Peloton put out a statement in support of International Transgender Day of Visibility.

They had a little statement. “We are proud to celebrate and support the entire transgender and non-binary community today and every day. We applaud the courage it takes to live openly and authentically. You make our community richer for being a part of it.” I also want to point out that it was in 2020 that Peloton added non-binary to their gender. It’s male, female and non-binary.

A brief reminder that there are no live yoga classes until 19th of April, 2021. This has spun out all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Everybody wants to know what’s going on. Peloton said right in their statement that they’re doing some stuff. They’re giving their yoga studio a break and working on some things behind the scenes. What are they working on? It’s interesting timing that we know for a fact that everything moves over from Precor. They stopped selling Precor not long after this and all sales go on hold. Also, an interesting timing is we know that they bought Aiqudo and Otari and the other acquisition, Atlas Wearables. It makes you wonder if they are filming things in anticipation for big announcements that are coming. If they’re using a new strength product or if there’s something new, maybe there’s a rower out there now and they can’t show us what’s going on. They’re filming all this stuff behind the scenes to get ready to be launching it. That is a good theory. There were also a lot of people that brought up how Otari could be used for things like giving Form Feedback within yoga and barre. It’s interesting that it’s the yoga and barre studio that are going to be closed. There are lots to think about and another reason why you should definitely come to the Clubhouse.

We should remind people that the virtual half marathon is coming up.

A bunch of people from the Becs’ Beast group are going to be running with Becs live during a virtual half marathon on April 10, 2021. We want to make sure that if you’re out there, if you need any more information, let me know. I will put you in touch with the ladies running this, or you can go over to the Becs’ Beasts and you can find all the posts that are about this, and you will get all set up. There is still time to register and run with the team.

Also, we are a sponsor of Peloton4Parkinsons this 2021.

With Peloton, do it consistently, try out lots of instructors, and see who fits for you. Click To Tweet

We are proud to be a sponsor. It is a really cool event. Peloton4Parkinsons, I believe this is the fourth year that they’ve been doing it. The event is on April 24, 2021. You can ride virtually, you can ride in person, you can do one ride, you can do all the rides and they even have a Zoom option this 2021. They’re going to be Zooming together as they ride so that you could ride with everyone. Eric Tostrud is a wonderful man who is very dedicated to doing everything he can because his mom had Parkinson’s and sadly, she passed away last 2020. If you haven’t participated in this or you haven’t seen the video, I strongly encourage you to do so. It’s a great organization. I’m happy to part of it. I know Tom doesn’t ride the bike, but John Mills is going to join me that day. We are both going to be riding for Peloton4Parkinsons.

Thank you, John, for filling in.

—

We’ve got two birthdays coming up.

Ally Love on April 6 and Jennifer Jacobs, who’s no longer at Peloton, but she’s still one of our instructors to us, April 7th. It’s back-to-back.

If you see either of them, tell them happy birthday but from a social distance.

—

Joining us is Lara Lambert. Lara, how is it going? 

I’m good. How are you all?

We’re good. We’re so happy to have you here. Where do you live, if we may ask? 

I live in Charleston, South Carolina.

We’re going to do this a little differently than I typically do. Your story has so much to do with how you found Peloton. We’re going to start with that if that’s okay with you. Do you mind sharing with us your cancer journey, how it all started and how that intersects with Peloton? You can go slow because we’ll interrupt with questions. 

I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in May of 2019. I was 40 years old at the time. I have no family history of colon cancer. I have no family history of any cancers at all. It was a shocking diagnosis. On top of that, I am a physician and led a healthy lifestyle. I’ve never been overweight. I worked out 3 to 4 times a week. I had been having some blood in my stool for about 2.5, 3 years. I put it off to thinking that I was stressed out, that maybe it was hemorrhoids. It would come and go. It was never consistent. Finally, my doctor said, “Let’s get a colonoscopy and see what happens.” I put it off for another year. Finally, when I had it in May, they found a 10-centimeter tumor. My fiancé, who’s now my husband, fainted when he heard this news. I was completely shocked. It was two days before my daughter was to graduate from college. It wasn’t great timing to be honest. At that point in time, I was worried that she was going to have to start planning my funeral instead of planning on what to do after college. I started my cancer journey in May of 2019. I’m trying to raise awareness for colorectal cancer now.

I know that you told me that March is the month for Colorectal Cancer Awareness. I think that that’s great timing. I’m glad that we’re raising awareness. You mentioned that this is a completely preventative kind of cancer. How does that work? You named off all the things that all of us try to do that you were doing. How is it preventable? 

Getting screened for colon cancer starts at age 45. It was 50. They’ve lowered it to 45 because of the incidents of colorectal cancer and people that are younger than 45. Getting checked to do a fit test every year, which is checking for blood in your stool at the age of 45, and then getting a colonoscopy every ten years, is how you go about preventing it. Finding something early is the way to prevent it. If you have stage 1 or stage 2 colon cancer, you have a 95% chance of surviving and doing well. Catching it early or catching it before it becomes cancer is the main thing.

Is there a test for checking blood or do you just take a peek? 

You can check your stool for blood. They have a little card that you can either send in to the doctor. They do it while you’re at your annual exam. They check for blood in your stool and then getting your colonoscopy every ten years. Those are the tests.

What do treatment and recovery look like? I feel like with every kind of cancer, it’s different. What did that look like for you? 

I was diagnosed at stage 3 colorectal cancer. It was a little bit more aggressive of treatment. After my colonoscopy, I met with my surgeon. I was ready to have it taken out. I was like, “Let’s go. I haven’t eaten all day. I’m ready. Bring me to the hospital and let’s get this taken out.” He’s like, “It’s not that easy.” I had to do radiation first. I did 28 rounds of radiation to my pelvic area, specifically aiming the tumor. It was daily. We took a little bit of a break. I then had surgery, and then I had six months of chemotherapy.

Were you able to still go to work and do all the things? 

I still worked and did all the things during radiation and before my surgery. I took a little bit of time off after my surgery and then took some time off during chemo. I worked half-time because I would do chemotherapy. I do it once every three weeks. I would take a little bit of time off, then go back to work part-time and then do it all over again for eight cycles.

If they had caught it in phase 1 or phase 2, how different would your treatment have been? 

For stage 1 and stage 2, you’ll just have surgery and that’s it, which is a lot different than what I went through. I don’t recommend it at all, which is why I’m trying to push people to get their screening colonoscopy starting at age 45. It makes a huge difference. Colonoscopies are not fun. It’s not great to talk about poop and blood in your stool but what’s worse than a colonoscopy is chemotherapy.

Is colon cancer the same as colorectal cancer? Are those the same? 

They’re same and different. Colorectal cancer is a catch-all of colon and rectal cancer. Colon cancer is treated a little bit differently than rectal cancer. In rectal cancer, you need radiation. I had the tumor that was part in my rectum and part in my colon. They treated it as rectal cancer. You get radiation, surgery and then chemotherapy. If you have colon cancer, you’ll just have the surgery and then chemotherapy.

I was asking because my paternal grandmother passed away from colon cancer. I’m listening to all this and I’m like, “Do I need to tell my doctor? Do I need to have a conversation about this?” I don’t think I have any symptoms of anything. You didn’t have any history and you ended up with it. It’s scary. 

They say that if you have a family member that has colon cancer, then you need to be screened earlier. I would definitely use this as an opportunity to talk to your doctor.

What do you wish that you had known before you started going through this process? 

I wish I had known that colorectal cancer was being seen in people younger than age 45. I’m a doctor and I didn’t know that. I think that’s what made me dismiss my symptoms for so long. Anyone that has blood in their stool, dark stools, changes in their bowel movement habits, weight loss, abdominal pain, those things are warning signs that something is going on in your body. You need to listen to your body. I thought that I was doing all the right things. I was eating okay. I was healthy. I was working out. I thought, “Why would I even think about something like cancer?” When you think of colon cancer, you think of old man cancer. I named my tumor Walter because I felt like that was an old man’s name. Once I had my surgery, it was eviction time for Walter. It can happen to anyone at any age. It’s listening to your body and making sure that you’re getting screened if you need to get screened and if you have any symptoms.

 

I’m curious also what kind of doctor you are, if you don’t mind sharing.

I am trained in internal medicine and pulmonary critical care. I do lots of lung stuff. I work in an emergency room at the Veteran’s Hospital in Charleston and I love it.

I bet that’s a challenging and fulfilling job. 

With COVID, it’s been challenging but it’s a good experience. Thank you for being in the trial with the vaccine and everything.

I looked at it like, “I got the vaccine early.” I didn’t have to do anything sketchy to do it. 

I didn’t think about that going in but I sure am glad about it. In Missouri, we’re not doing so hot on getting it to people. 

In order to get the vaccine in Missouri, you have to prove you voted for the governor. They’re only setting up vaccination sites in districts he won. 

He’s not joking but won’t go down that road. Here’s another question. I heard you say you exercise. You were doing all the right things. How did Peloton come into your life throughout all of this? Since you were already working out, what changed? 

What changed was I was undergoing my six months of chemotherapy and I started getting the side effects from the chemo. It got to the point where my hands and my feet started peeling and were red. It’s the side effects of the oral chemotherapy that I was on. I was having a hard time walking. I would see patients that would roll in a chair from room to room because it hurts so much to put any weight on my feet. After Thanksgiving in 2019, my coworker came up to me and he was like, “What shoe size do you wear?” I was like, “I wear a size nine.” He was like, “My sister is giving away her Manolo Blahniks because she doesn’t like wearing them.” I was like, “She’s giving them away? That would be awesome.” He’s like, “What’s your address?” I gave him my address. An hour later, he was like, “Check your email.” I got an email that said, “Welcome to Peloton.” This was his whole elaborate plan. My coworkers from the emergency room bought me a Peloton so that I could continue to work out. I was ugly crying. It was so wonderful for them to think of me. I loved working out. I wanted to be consistent during my chemo treatment and it wasn’t happening. I couldn’t walk on the treadmill. They bought me a Peloton. That’s how my journey began.

Was there a part of you that’s still bummed that you didn’t get the fancy shoes? 

I was a little upset about that. I get to buy different shoes for the bike and all of the Peloton clothes. I think it makes up for it.

You can take the money you would have spent on the bike and buy one pair of shoes. 

They were so generous. I couldn’t believe it. That’s how I came to Peloton. I don’t think that I would have been into it if it hadn’t have happened like that.

Now that you have the Peloton, how has it changed what you were doing for workouts? You got a lot healthier after you stopped having to do chemo. Do you love it? Are you glad you got it? What is Peloton like for you? 

I love it. I work out about 90 minutes a day on the Peloton doing rides and strength classes, a little bit of meditation, a little bit of yoga mixed in. It helped that I work from home for a little bit when chemotherapy ended and COVID started. Trying to be safe and not being exposed to the virus was important for me. My bosses let me work from home. I was able to work out a lot, which was wonderful. I hit 1,000 rides before my year mark of having the Peloton because I kept on doing it and I loved it.

How does a doctor work from home if you see patients and stuff? Did it become telemedicine? What happened there? 

It becomes telemedicine.

That’s a win-win for everybody involved. 

You get to see patients and still help them out. There are a lot of interesting stories coming from my coworkers about the things that they saw. For me, everyone was closed, wasn’t driving, awake and alert, having conversations with me on the phone. It was still nice to be able to use my skills and be able to take care of the vets.

You didn’t have to wear a mask because you were at home. 

I wear them ten hours a day now.

Are you wearing the N95s or the KN95s? 

I’m wearing the N95. We have plenty of stock, which is nice at our VA.

They’re so tight. 

I have permanent marks right through here.

I have to wear them when I staff the COVID testing facility, when I’m standing out there in the parking lot. That’s only for 1.5 hours, 2 hours. It’s brutal. I can’t imagine wearing it for ten hours. 

Thank you for doing all that you do. Thank you for taking good care of the vets. We appreciate that. 

Thank you. It’s my pleasure. They’re a great bunch of people. I do get called a sweetie more than I get called doctor. My nickname is Dr. Sweetie. I roll with it. It’s okay.

You’re like, “You can call me sweetie but if you call me nurse, I will end you.”

That happens a lot too. That’s okay though. I’m okay with that.

You are a nice person. Given that March is Colorectal Awareness Month, is there anything that the community can do to help the cause? Is there anything they should be doing? Is there any kind of education? 

I think the main thing is if you have a colon, you can get colon cancer. I hope that what I’m saying maybe resonates with someone saying, “You’re 45. It’s time to get your colonoscopy,” or “You’re having symptoms. Let’s go in and get checked.” Awareness is a big thing with this disease and being proactive is important.

With the timing of everything, did you get to do any Peloton events? Did you get to meet anybody in person? I feel like no because between going through what you were going through and then the world shuts down, there hasn’t been an opportunity. I know that there’s a Peloton Carolinas group. They’re active. Are you part of that community? 

I’m not. I was in chemo from September of 2019 until March of 2020. That’s when COVID hit. I’ve been stuck and haven’t gone anywhere. I never got to do any rides up in New York, which I wanted to do but maybe one day. If not, that’s fine too. I’m anxiously waiting for things to open up. We’ve got to get people vaccinated. Things have got to slow down. I’m patiently waiting.

That has to be super frustrating that you’re going through this recovery process and things are wrapping up, and the whole world shuts down. 

I got married right before I had my surgery. We haven’t been on a honeymoon yet. I owe that to my husband. He’s been wonderful through this process and supportive. Not supportive about the Peloton because he doesn’t ride it but that’s okay. You guys will get along very well. I owe him a trip. I’m ready for things to slow down a little bit.

Do you have a favorite instructor that you like to take classes with? 

I’m in the Cody, Robin, Tunde group. I think that you’re either in one group or another group. Those are my go-to people. I also love Jess. I love the Bike Bootcamp. I do a lot of outdoor walking with my dog. I like to listen to her outdoor classes.

I assumed you meant Jess Sims in that regard? 

Yes. There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s from South Carolina. I love people from South Carolina. I think she grew up in Myrtle Beach so we call it Dirty Myrtle.

What is your leaderboard name and how did you come up with it? 

My leaderboard name is unoriginal. It’s LaraL79. When I got my 1,000th ride, it was with Cody. He’s like, “LaraL79.” I was like, “That’s me. Not really but it’s me.” I’ve had the name forever. I’m very unoriginal.

I guess you can’t really go with Dr. Lara. That’s been taken. You probably get a lot of shout-outs if you changed your leaderboard name to Dr. Sweetie. 

That’s a good one. I have never thought of that. That’s a great idea.

That would be fun to say. I bet you would get tons of shout-outs with Dr. Sweetie. 

You can change it anytime. 

Do you have any advice for people who are just entering the world of Peloton? 

The advice that everyone gives is do it consistently, try out lots of instructors and see who fits for you. I’ve taken quite a lot of rides. In 2021, I’m going to branch out. Maybe once or twice a week, I’ll try someone different. I don’t usually ride with the UK people or the Germany people. Maybe I’ll start doing rides with them. You get into a rut. It’s not a horrible rut but it’s always nice to branch out and see what else is out there. I did a Christine ride the other day that I love. She did a Pop Ride. She was like, “I never do Pop Rides but here it is.” It was great. It’s always good to branch out and see what else is out there.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. Do we owe you a copay that we pay on the way out? Do we see the nurse? 

I charge my friends bottles of wine whenever they need a script called in or a renewal of their medicine. Wine would be perfect.

We can do that. 

Send it to Dr. Sweetie.

Before we go, let people know where they can find you on social media if you would like to be found. You’re a doctor. Maybe you don’t want to be found. I know doctors are sometimes like, “No.”

I don’t mind being found as long as you don’t mind me posting about Peloton and COVID because those are my big things. I’m on Instagram. It’s @LaraL79, very original but I might change it to @DrSweetie. On Facebook, it’s Lara Lambert.

If you’re going to change it to @DrSweetie, you should do it before this airs or someone will steal it from you. You have a couple of weeks to think about it before you make the big decision but just kick that around. 

I’ll keep that in mind.

Thank you so much for the time, walking through all this and educating us. I guess I need to call my doctor. That will be fun. 

I’ll stay on you and make sure that it happens.

Thank you very much for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. 

You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it too.

—

That brings this episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people next episode?

It’s Kelly Backus, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I confirmed it is her. I want you to watch the YouTube video because you need to see her cat. The cat makes a very strong appearance. When I say strong appearance, I mean physically strong. The cat took over the interview, stole the show. We had so much fun talking to Kelly.

Until the next episode, where can people find you? 

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

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. Find the show online, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Wherever you get your podcasts from, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling.

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• Facebook.com/TomOKeefe
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/RunLiftAndLive/permalink/3637742066349162/
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/RunLiftAndLive/permalink/3636404089816293/
• https://www.TechRadar.com/news/peloton-could-soon-launch-its-own-fitness-tracker
• https://www.BandT.com.au/peloton-lands-former-spotify-md-and-slingshot-ceo-as-first-ever-australian-country-manager/
• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/291767607940786/permalink/1166274540490084/
• https://www.BBC.com/sport/athletics/56537269
• https://NYPost.com/2021/03/27/pelotons-height-requirement-leaves-some-users-in-the-lurch/
• https://www.BusinessInsider.com/peloton-head-of-music-gwen-riley-partnerships-beyonce-timbaland-2021-3
• https://www.Bustle.com/wellness/peloton-high-fives-brain-benefits-workout-experts
• https://www.CNBC.com/select/chase-sapphire-points-peloton-purchases/?fbclid=IwAR38CanIH6TPct5zo9us9W6xETI9ETU5mPJ4BAjexGoZt60tr1xACKpgDUw
• https://www.Bustle.com/wellness/workout-motivation-quotes-peloton-instructors
• https://Parade.com/1184059/kimberlyzapata/best-45-minute-peloton-rides/
• https://www.Yahoo.com/lifestyle/pelotons-cody-rigsby-motivation-affirmations-050000807.html
• https://www.Instagram.com/tv/CMnMpUPl66I/?igshid=dwe4latjbi6m
• https://www.Triathlete.com/culture/people/matt-wilpers-is-pelotons-resident-triathlete/
• https://www.PRNewswire.com/news-releases/hyperice-partners-with-robin-arzon-to-inspire-women-worldwide-to-move-better-301258674.html
• https://www.VerywellMind.com/kendall-toole-the-verywell-mind-podcast-5118446
• https://www.AceShowbiz.com/news/view/00168531.html
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CM93CQoD-wy/?igshid=1v9qmh4heg3er
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CNFRNTFAupN/?igshid=id6ydbc706wj
• https://www.Instagram.com/p/CM4t6NXDMn7/?igshid=1ie8t6iw9xm7a
• http://www.Peloton4Parkinsons.com

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