A lot of people think that they can just try something on race
day and you got to practice with stuff, right?
You got to try it multiple times.
That's the crazy thing about running like a marathon.
And I think a lot of people get in that mindset of all that kind
of carb load. And it's like you didn't do that
in any of your long runs and all of a sudden the next day you
wonder why you have, you know, some stomach issues.
Most of the endurance focus, nutritional brands, supplement
brands are focused on your inactivity, carbs, sugars, right
energy or the run, the fuel for the run.
They're not looking at a holistic 360 view of that of
that individual. They're just looking at the
sport. And that's where we saw the
opportunity. Let's make a product that helps
really take care of the body for the long haul.
And then we started realizing that we could put kind of a few
different ingredients into fewer products that help really
supplement their active lifestyle.
And we are live, Cameron. How are you, brother?
I am doing well. How are you doing today?
I'm good, man, I'm good. It's it's interesting because I
don't normally have two separate podcasts with the two founders
of a company and the agency that y'all working with pitched me
Dan 1st and then I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll get them on.
And they pitched me you and like, you want me?
Just do them both together. And they're like, no, they both
got their own unique store. And OK, we'll just roll with
both of them then. So here we are ma'am.
Yeah, well, thank you for having me.
Yeah, it'll be fun. The the Ying Ying and Yang of Co
founders, right. And and what we're doing and how
we're trying to connect with people.
Yeah, 100%. So I think his episode actually
went Live Today, kind of going into his back story.
It's funny because he talked about kind of his bodybuilding
history, which I can relate with in a lot of ways.
And then we went into the the running and his, you know,
involvement with runway and all that good stuff, but he kept
referencing you. So it'd be good to kind of have
you come in on the tail end of that conversation.
So how did how did y'all meet again?
Yeah, we both, we both met actually at, at Vital Proteins.
We both work there underneath on our sports, sports side of the
business. So we're trying to connect
collagen with athletes at the time.
So we had a brand underneath Vital Proteins called Vital
Performance, which was, you know, sport focused better for
you supplement offering I feel like.
Vital proteins blew. I feel like collagen in general
blew up. I want when was the time that
that peaked? I mean, that was like super hot,
I think five years ago. Does that sound about right?
Yeah, I mean, it's right down during the pandemic is when I
started. They're vital.
And you know the guy that founded the company, his name's
Kurt Seidensticker. You know, he was on a mission
for a number of years ahead of that, right?
It, I think it from kind of the origin of it to exit was around
10 years. So I think people think of it as
just a, you know, really quick thing that happened that they,
they, you know, wrote this way, but there was a lot of
groundwork that happened ahead of that and making sure collagen
was a household, you know, supplement and, and something
that you'd incorporate into your routine.
That's always what works, man. From the outside perspective, it
looks like there's just, you know, overnight success, but in
business and no such thing as an overnight success.
Yeah, yeah, even what we're doing now, right, Sometimes I
think we forget about that and some of the bricks that we need
to lay in. Order.
To where we want to go. And before you get hooked up
with Vital, you were doing work with Nike, right?
Yeah, I lived in Portland, OR for a number of years, started
my career here in Chicago. I'm based out of Chicago with
them. I was doing, I was like a tech
Rep, right? So I was going to all these
different running stores and connecting with high school and
college athletes as well as professional ones, but educating
on the products and why the, you know, the best technology in the
in the game. And then they moved me out to
Portland. So I was out there for almost 10
years actually working in the running group.
A lot of different roles and responsibilities, but all with,
you know, one end consumer that was these active individuals,
these runners of all shapes and sizes.
So Nike's got a pretty broad reach me.
They're obviously working with athletes from all different
sports. You were involved specifically
with the running department. Yeah, yeah.
For almost all 9 or 10 years of that, again, varying level,
sometimes it was with high school programs doing grassroots
stuff, looking at bio mechanics and foot strikes and making sure
they're in the right shoes. All the way to overseeing kind
of global initiatives within running speciality, which is
where a lot of customers, you know, shop for running shoes
stores like Fleet Feet or other smaller kind of mom and pop
shops. Were you a pretty avid runner
before you ever hooked on Nike? Yeah, I ran in college for, for
two, only two years. So I don't want to sell like
some amazing D1 athlete, right? This is D3 where you can, you
can walk. And I admit that, but it was a
part of me growing up. My dad was into running and
doing triathletes and then even my grandparents were very active
later in life, which you know, they both lived well into their
90s. So it's kind of a cool thing me
just being younger and seeing people every weekend doing long
runs and going and doing competitions and stuff.
So when I got into high school, you know, in track and field,
soccer and swimming are kind of my 3 sports.
But then got into college focused on on running.
And then, yeah, it was like a on a bet basically, hey, I bet you
wouldn't do a marathon. And I was like, I think I could
do that. And it was the very first year
in in Michigan, Grand Rapids, MI.
And it was about a three-week notice.
And so that was my first, that's my first entry into the distance
running, if you will, was doing a full marathon.
That was just two loops, which was just a mind, but mind boggle
right when you just go around a cone and have to do it all over
again when you're not trained. So that was a realization that
OK, I, I, this is something fun. I'm I'm hooked.
But I got to train and I got to get better at this.
Yeah, man, marathon is no joke. I did a marathon, then one
marathon, 0 training just like signed up, did it with my buddy
and man, I was on crutches afterwards.
Like I was, I was her. I finished it, you know, having
not run probably 7-8 years prior to that, but it was not
something that I would recommend.
I would not recommend it to anyone and if I had a could go
back I definitely would do things a little differently.
So do you do a lot of running now?
Like, are you competitive running now?
I do, yeah. I mean, I try to run, you know,
20-30 miles a week is kind of like my staying active type of
type of mileage. But you know, which is a lot to
maybe some people that don't run, but it's not a lot if you
were a serious marathon or something.
So kind of in the middle ground there.
But I've got Boston Marathon coming up, which I'm really
excited to qualify for that last year.
So even as you know, it's, it's a part of my life and you know,
part of my daily routine. But even as I get older, I found
I've kind of like understood my body a little bit more, whether
that's nutrition, whether that's just me knowing when to push it,
when not to push it, and obviously practicing, you know,
for years. So yeah, I've gotten started to
get faster, which is great as I'm getting older, which isn't
the case for a lot of sports and a lot of things that people do.
Do you run that 2030 miles a week like consecutive days?
Do you like you'd like stagger to have like higher running days
and then days off completely from running or how do you
structure that? Usually in the weekends I'll do
a little bit longer run that adds, adds to the mileage.
I've got a daughter, she's 5. So depending on how the week
goes with helping with her and stuff, I can fit, you know,
morning work runs and sometimes I run with groups in the
evening. Here in Chicago.
There's lots of there's been a massive like resurgence in in
this running run culture and like all these run groups are
popping up all over. And so Chicago's very active
city year round, which is kind of cool to see a lot.
Even though it's cold, a lot of these run groups continue to
push through the winter. And so there's a plethora of
every single night there's a different group I could go
around with, which is kind of nice to know that there's some
some motivation there to run with others.
But on the weekends I'll just do usually some solo miles.
Sometimes I'll run with the group.
So it's probably 2 days off a week from running.
Nice. Sometimes I'll make sense of
strength, but that's where Dan comes in.
I need, he needs more endurance. I need more strength.
They complement each other, they go all right, so we're going to
dive deep into the bio mechanics here, especially if you're
working with, you know, youth on that because I feel like that's
where my shortfall is. So I get some selfless questions
for you. Yeah, I've got really flat feet
and I'm overpronated and like my feet just hurt after a while,
man. So like I started doing going on
this deep dive rabbit hole of like foot structure, bio
mechanics, like how to optimize things.
And I got rid of every shoe I owned that was not zero drop
wide toe box because everything I was, you know, diving into and
reading suggested that basically if you get too much arch support
in the shoe, you're weakening your natural arch kind of like
a, you know, an arch of like a bridge.
You got the foundation on the toe and the heel.
So I basically swapped out everything for zero drop 00 drop
wide toe box shoe, like my boots, my shoes, everything.
And I've been wearing exclusively that for the past, I
don't know, three years now, I think.
But I still have foot pain and I don't do a whole lot of running,
but I would like to run more and I feel like I would if my feet
didn't hurt so bad. So is there, is that accurate?
Am I assuming that correctly or is there?
Or is that just fancy marketing from these zero drop by toolbox
shoe companies? Maybe a little bit of both, like
they're I I'm a fan of. I guess there's a lot of
different point of views on this in general, depending on where
you work, in what story you're at, what their philosophy is.
I personally think your body's meant to do what your body's
meant to do. And so I've tried not to like
correct it necessarily, right. So there are shoes that can like
correct your your gait in the way your foot interacts with the
ground, whether that's, you know, arch sport like you were
talking about, which some people might consider a crutch, other
people might consider it supporting and, and being a
benefit. And maybe there's a little bit
of truth to both of those. We're also not we're, we're
running and walking on concrete, right?
So you do need something that is cushion that can lessen the
blow. It's been interesting again,
being in this working with runners for almost 20 years now.
I've seen lots of different things come and go.
The barefoot craze and then the Nike Free and then the
maximalist. And now it's interesting because
shoes are are massive, but they're pretty rigid.
They have. Huge man.
They're like thick soles. Like I tried one of those and
like it was just too soft it seemed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they're big and they and
they help you go fast. And there's actually some
science too that says it helps you actually improve your
recovery as well if depending on how you leverage those, I'd call
them tools now, not just a shoe. It's like a tool that you're
training similar to like how the Nike Free back in the day was
where I think where a lot of people started doing lots of
mileage and these and that's where people are getting injured
because you're running on concrete on a lower drop shoe
with, you know, less cushioning. But there's definitely, if you
look at elite athletes right after a race or something, they
will go on turf and they will walk around on grass and, you
know, bare feet and do barefoot exercises so that we can
strengthen all those intrinsics in your within your feet.
And that's what you're probably experiencing.
Some of that is like that's, that's a benefit of that.
But also you got to run the risk of when you're on man made
surfaces, you know, you got to protect your body and in the way
your, your body's interacting with the, with the ground.
So. Yeah, what are you running?
I mixed it up a lot actually. It's kind of fun now not being
only with like a brand and and having runway where I I want to
work with tons of brands. So we actually been an event
with on this past weekend here in Chicago.
I just got the new audios pro 4, which is like their newer carbon
racing flat. So I that's what I'll probably
run Boston in or or the Nike Vapor Fly is also one of the
ones that I I do some miles in. Yeah, I'm not, I've not worn a
Nike shoe in in years, man. But I I ran with the ultras,
I've ran with the oh shoot, I like those on cloud shoes got
really popular, so I tried wearing those yeah.
And those were just that that didn't really work for me.
Those aren't zero drop. A lot of people recommend 'cause
I do like a lot of trail running, like technical trail
running, and I feel like a lot of them use like the speed lane
or speed cross, whether they're called there.
So I might try those. I've never run into those
before, but I have not found a shoe that I just have fallen in
love with you. Yeah, well, that's the thing
with they change every every six months, right.
So they're they're always evolving to try to be try to be
better for you, whether it's a reduction in weight or more
cushion or a little different geometry that can help.
So I'd encourage you to try, try lots of things all the brands
now like technology in terms of foam and geometry of of
cushioning and everything is has come so, so far and all of the
brands now have access to like some of the the best, lightest
weight, most supportive type of shoes out there.
So. It is definitely freaking space
technology man. Like what shoes can do nowadays
compared to what they were doing 50 years ago is mind boggling.
Yeah. One thing that's interesting
though, but we're just talking about shoes is like they're a
lot of more meant to just be for that race, right?
Or for that moment. And now I think there's some,
some science behind a lot of the cushioning and technology that
allow it to help you for the long haul.
Like so like not only just for that moment, but also for
recovery. So that way as you continue to
train for something you actually don't do as much, you know,
damage or as much jarring to the body as you might have been,
maybe an older mindset of type of footwear you should be
wearing. So kind of that notion of like
athletic longevity, which is fun because that's kind of what
runways about in terms of our our nutritional supplements.
But the same thing applies when you're thinking about footwear
and you know, and how you train your body as well.
What about the you mentioned kind of like foot strike earlier
too. There's a lot of conflicting
information around how you strike the foot.
Some people are about the mid foot, 4 foot, you know, heel
strike. From a biomechanical standpoint,
is 1 better than the other? Yeah.
If you have like a midfoot strike, that tends to like
lessen the impact a little bit, right?
If you think of just like landing aggressively on our
heel, that sends kind of a shock up versus if you landed a little
bit more gently on your forefoot and let your foot actually
absorb some of that before just insulin goes into your to your,
you know, up through the bones. I did a good form running clinic
years ago just to try to increase my cadence a little bit
and shorten my stride and it and it's done, I think for me at
least, a world of wonders in terms of allowing me to just run
a little bit lighter and not be, you know, so aggressive on my on
my foot striking, heel striking. But again, everybody has a
different gait. Everybody runs differently at
you have, you know, if I was going to run a 10 minute mile
versus a 6 minute mile, my my form's going to be a little
different there anyways. So it's all unique to each each
individual. Yeah, I was having to that.
Pose method running kind of like I guess that's I don't, I don't
want to read up on a basically leaning forward and trying to
target more that mid foot strike.
And I had like my gate videotaped a while back when I
went to one of these run stores as they're trying to sell me on
their shoe, but I don't remember what my strike pattern was then.
But I feel like I've made a valiant effort to not heal
strike, and I feel like that's probably better from an injury
prevention standpoint. Absolutely, yeah.
And the running stores too are really good now, like they, you
know, they work with all the different brands and all the
brands should educate on why, how their technology works with
different types of of feet and strides and stuff.
So yeah, if you want any running special shop, they will have a
plethora of options for you to to.
Pull from totally. All right, so let's talk about
runway man. So you and Dan or both a vital
proteins you're both trying to recollect from his story, but
basically the owner CEO there kind of took him under his wing
and helped him start runway alongside you.
We all you all kind of like coalesce at the same time.
It was just like a the stars align for you all to kind of
work together on building runway from the get go, right?
It was, yeah, it was. It's kind of fun to like reverse
storyteller a little bit on some of this because you're like,
wait, how did this actually happen?
You know? But yeah, there is a a massive
accent at for vital, right. So a full, full acquisition from
Nestle Health and Science, which is great.
Is it a huge, huge exit for all the team and everybody involved
and lots and lots of years of hard work getting to that point.
And they really wanted to focus on collagen.
And and we had collagen some of our products on the performance
line, but not all of them. And also we wanted to focus on
athletes. And I think, you know, a lot of
people know collagen for the beauty benefit, the things you
see your, you know, the wrinkles, the your nails and
your hair and your skin. Those are the things that
usually are talked about first. But then it's bones and joints,
which is usually sometimes get chopped off in terms of
marketing language or just like it's too many things to talk
about. So you don't get to the bones
and joints. And we were really trying to
connect the notion of kind of that joint support and athletic
benefit of collagen. And it's actually why Kurt
started vital because he was a runner and he had some knee pain
and was afraid of like not being able to run, which a lot of
people don't know. And so Fast forward, massive
exit, there's an opportunity where we could, you know, Kurt
kind of came to us and said, hey, you guys had some great
ideas about connecting with runners and better serving
athletes for the long haul. Like, you know, let's, let's see
what we can do. So now Fast forward 2 1/2 years,
almost three years now you know, we we launched a brand a year
and a half ago and have a handful of products out in the
world, which is amazing to see. Yeah, a year and a half ago is
not that long in the business world, man.
I mean a lot, a lot happens in a year and a half, but y'all
killing it and y'all are pretty fresh at the gate still.
Yeah, Yeah, it's been, it's been fun.
You know, we've got a a handful of retail accounts that have
brought us in really word of mouth.
We don't really have a sales team right now.
You know, it's just Dan and I and two interns that are kind of
moving everything along. We also do have a shared service
model. So we have in our director and
some other people that we share with some of the brands.
So that's not like it's just Dan and I doing every single thing,
but there is a lot of focus, you know, for Dan and I to to really
spread ourselves pretty thin to grow where we've become.
So how, how do you, because he didn't have kids or does he?
I can't remember if he had kids or not.
He does not have kids. You said you got a 5 year old
girl daughter. How do you as a runner that's
running 20-30 miles a week, getting some lifts in, have a
year and a half old company, 5 year old daughter.
How do you keep up with it? Oh man.
Because like that's like, I want to tease that out because I look
at my life and there is no balance in my life.
I like my life. I, I prefer it without balance,
but like I'm always curious to see how people that are doing
lots of different things keep everything, all the plates in
the air as they say. Yeah, it's, it's day by day, I
will say. And it's also having an amazing
like partner, you know. So my wife does a lot and I
travel a good amount. You know, I think 3131 weekends,
I think it was last year in 2024, either Dan or I were out
at an Expo at an event somewhere.
And so my wife really helps out around a lot.
I don't give her as much credit and in person as I as I need to,
but she's really been the one that's helped a lot.
And then they're long days, you know, they're, you know, kids
get off at my daughter gets up at six O clock, usually on the
dot. And you know, my wife is usually
already up, already working out. Sometimes I'll get a run in
prior. Sometimes it's right after I
drop her off at school and then it's sitting down meetings
pretty much all day. Sometimes I'll be able to pick
her up from school. Sometimes we'll have somebody
drop her off. But it's, it's a lot and it's
lots of juggle trying, trying my best to be present when I am
around, you know, knowing that I'm traveling around, you know,
pretty much every other weekend these days.
Really when I am home and I'm off the clock, if you will, not
that there is really an off the clock when you're a founder of a
business, but when I'm really trying to just be present and
spend some time, it's, it's intentional, you know, having
this next hour making dinner with her or do something like
that. So that's where I'm trying to
find that balance. And on the inverse of that, when
I'm out in an event, I'm trying to overturn every stone at that
event. You know, say, we say we fly
somewhere for a long marathon Expo.
I'm hitting up all the running stores and running groups while
I'm in that city taking products, you know, and, and
just blindly cold, you know, walking into these group runs,
letting know kind of who my, who my brand is, who I am, giving up
some samples and just trying to continue to create relationships
everywhere we go. So that's kind of been our our
strategy is just getting product out into the world and and
connecting with the right people.
And y'all have focused significantly more on that than
like the paid advertising model exclusively where it's all just
kind of removed, like your boots on the ground, going to these
Expos, going to where the runners are and just meeting
people face to face, which I think is super admirable, man.
I feel like that is a lot more effort, a lot more heartache, a
lot more time. But I feel like that's it.
It makes a much better relationship, deeper
relationship than just a generic, you know, ad people
scroll through on social media. Absolutely, yeah.
And we're doing a little bit of both.
Like we do have some, you know, spending some money on some
digital ads and trying to like hone in what that messaging is,
what does resonate with people. But in you go, you go to an Expo
and in in 10 minutes, you realize what your copy needs to
be based on the questions that these customers are asking,
right. So that's where it's been
really, really eye opening to just go have conversations with
somebody that's later in life, that's run for years, somebody
that's brand new to the sport and a 22 year old just finding
running after they graduated college and everybody in between
in kind of aligning, OK, what messages connect with different
types of people in person? And then Dan and I literally
write stuff down or work, you know, at the booth kind of
sending, you know, notes back to our our digital team saying,
hey, this has come up five different times in the last 30
minutes. We definitely need to have an
FAQ on our website about this or we should adjust kind of the
Amazon listing because this is what people are really honing in
on. Is this collagen and
electrolytes or vegan protein plus creed, whatever it might
be, depending on our products. So definitely want a mix of that
digital advertising plus in person.
I still love the in person stuff though, because it's you're with
your core, you know, the heartbeat of the company,
heartbeat of our consumers right there.
And luckily for us being focused on kind of this endurance
athlete group, they had meetups every single city, every single
weekend. That is big events.
You know, I just, we here in Chicago with Shamrock shuffle
this past weekend and there was I think 30,000 people in
downtown Chicago doing an akin, you know, so that's there's a
moment where all of these people are coming together and that's
happening in every big city and only increasing numbers as well
as more and more people are flocking to kind of endurance
running high rocks. All these different type of
events are really bubbling up in a in a really cool way.
And I feel like with supplements too, man, like, like people
think of supplements as a business model and they think,
oh, that's way over saturated. And there's a lot of supplements
out there for sure. There's like all the the
bodybuilding supplements that have been there since the
beginning of bodybuilding. Then you get all this weight
loss supplementation. So like from a supplement brand
standpoint, I feel like if you carve out your niche in the
specialty market, I mean, some of it's not a runner would still
benefit from your collagen electrolyte mix.
But if you're really targeting all of your messaging towards
runners, that makes a lot of sense.
Like there's another company and that really just started honing
in on the hunting community and all of their supplementation is
marketed towards hunters. It's the same stuff that's in
any other supplement, but it's like it's all on who they're
trying to talk to in the verbiage accordingly.
And I feel like that's the only way to to, you know, really make
momentum, get momentum because like you've got to talk to the
people that are going to benefit from that specific use case and
appeal to their needs. And I haven't seen much catering
towards runners specifically from a supplement standpoint.
Yeah. I mean, when you think about
this kind of why we launched Runway, we wanted like the name
itself also alludes to that is that we want to be like the
brand to like guide you to make better choices right in this in
the nutrition space, because most of the endurance focus
nutritional brands, supplement brands are focused on your
inactivity, carbs, sugars, right energy for the run, the fuel for
the run or something. They're not looking at a
holistic 360 view of that of that individual.
They're just looking at the sport.
And that's where we saw the opportunity and said, wait, what
if we focus on all the other things, right?
If if our background is me talking to working with all
these athletes and them aging out of their sport and then
moving to vital and understanding that collagen can
really help your joints in connective tissue and your
cartilage as you age. Put those together and it's
like, OK, great, let's make a product that helps really take
care of the body for the long haul.
And then we started realizing that we could put kind of a few
different ingredients into fewer products that help really
supplement their, their active lifestyle and make sure that
they're supporting it in different ways.
So, you know, we have three products right now.
So we've got our runway foundation, which is
electrolytes, collagen and like a multivitamin all in one.
Great. That's your, your joint support
plus your hydration. Take that every day.
It's meant to be a daily nutritional supplement and will
help, you know, for the long haul.
We also then have a protein powder that we combine protein
plus creatine, you know, two things that people were doing,
but not focused on an endurance minded kind of individual.
Most people in the protein space, as well as the creatine
space are more focused on bodybuilding and kind of gym
goers and forcing all of these endurance athletes to kind of go
to the grocery store, go to GNC and just like either at the
mercy of whoever's working that day or there is no help.
And they're just looking at the shelves and seeing what speaks
to me. So, you know, bringing those
ingredients together and and fewer products to try to create
a system that really helps with their their ability to to move
and and keep kicking ass in life.
Yeah, and I feel like with supplements too, I mean there's
so many companies that are just, you know, white labeling.
It's all the same stuff where as y'all have done a lot of
vertical integration, you've got everything you know formulated,
manufactured through your own lines.
You're doing all this third party testing like you're doing
it right from a quality standpoint, which I think really
sets you all apart as well. Absolutely, Yeah.
When I my time in Nike, I met a bunch of a bunch of athletes,
right? And these are athletes.
And I use that loosely. Like Nike has a little asterisk
that they put after the word athlete.
And it says if you have a body, you're an athlete.
Meaning everybody has the ability, right?
To, to have the potential to be something, but I, I worked with
a lot of professional athletes that it is their job to do the
sport. And you know that when we
started ideating about runway, I, that was my first call to a
lot of them and said, Hey, what are you guys taking, not taking?
And all of them said, well, it's got to be, it's got to be
tested. You know, WADA and USADA are the
are the governing bodies for drug testing within track and
field and in, you know, the Olympics.
And I said, OK, well, that's a, that's a key element.
Then we have to make sure all of our products are tested, you
know, by third parties that are certified.
So that way any athlete is 100% confident that they're what
they're taking doesn't have anything bad in it.
So that was a, a big priority. And then you're right about our,
our manufacturing and the ability to control things.
We're not on kind of a long list of other brands at the back end,
you know, and we'll get to you in a couple months to make your
product. You know, we have our own
integrated manufacturing that we share with a a few other brands
underneath the umbrella and continue to innovate and learn
what our customers like and don't like.
And, and we've, you know, we're getting ready to just tweak our
foundation formula just a little bit.
We're actually going to add some K2 in there, which we're excited
about. But this came about because
athletes sometimes have bone injuries or shin splints and and
other things, stress fractures. And we said, OK, let's we have
D3 in there now, but let's also add some K2 so that way we can
better support, you know, the bone element of the joint.
So how do you personally like stack it?
How do you, how do you supplement with it?
Like what's your supplemental protocol I guess?
For me personally, and in the morning I usually take I wake up
and I actually have runway foundation.
I love my espresso, I love my coffee.
I feel like I used to be a zombie walking down to my, my
espresso machine and now having foundation as the first thing I
do when I wake up, it's kind of nice.
It pushes back my coffee intake just a little bit, hydrates me,
kind of make sure I'm taking care of my body in terms of
joints. And that's, that's what I do
first thing of the day. Then I have my coffee.
I usually go, like I said, take my daughter to school, get a few
miles in in the morning. And then usually for my, my
breakfast, I, I'll have our complete protein, which I love
making it with banana. I had this coconut peanut
butter. It's called Kokomo.
It's amazing. And then I also add two shots of
espresso in my protein shake. And so it becomes kind of a my
breakfast slash recovery because it's got creatine, the protein,
plus, you know, the banana and, and peanut butter in there as
well. What?
What's the brand of that Coconut peanut butter?
Kokomo. Kokomo.
It's a coconut peanut butter. Yeah, it's good.
It's it's delicious. I got one, one of my clients
sent me some from Hawaii, and it's like the tastiest thing
ever made. It's like 1g of carb.
I don't know if it's the same Brandon.
I was like 1g of carb per serving.
Like it's too good for me to keep in the house because I eat
the whole jar. That's what that's what we're
hearing from from Kokomo as well.
So yeah. That's that's I'm guilty.
Yes, it's good stuff man. You mentioned espresso make.
What kind of espresso make you get?
I've got a mealy or meal. I'm not sure how you.
Meal, I just got one for my wife for Christmas, like a because we
drink way too much coffee. I spent way too much money going
to coffee shops because like we had a French press.
I'm like, man, we got to just get an espresso maker.
So, you know, pulled the trigger on that and been a game changer,
man, Haven't you? An espresso maker?
Worth every penny if you're a coffee drinker.
It is definitely. I mean, if you did the math
right on just a couple Starbucks runs and it pays for itself in a
couple months. So yeah, definitely using that
every multiple times a day. But now with the foundation in
my mix, I I push that back a little bit later in the day.
Nice, nice. And how many, how many
milligrams or grams of creatine is in it?
5 grams, 5g and you're doing 1 scoop of that a day.
Amount of hydrate and then there's 25 grams of vegan based
protein. Nice, Nice.
Yeah, No, super cool, man. Like I've got.
I don't do a whole lot of supplementation because like
with my natural bodybuilding sport, they're crazy strict
with, you know, banned substances and whatnot.
So like simply having third party testing that's legitimate
because you're using is it informed sport?
Sport, Yeah, yeah, we use informed sport and then we also
got an informed protein so. So there's lots of different
protein sources out there these days and a lot of not the best
stuff for you. And so Inform Sport also has
like another level of certification for just their
protein as well. So the foundation product,
because collagen is a protein as well as our complete protein
have both informed sport, So it says for banned substance, but
then also informed protein. So it's making sure the protein
source and everything is is correct and the origin of that
is is safe. Very nice, very nice.
But what's the next thing on the resume?
And Dan was telling me about some of the things that he
thinks is in the pipeline from a production standpoint.
But let me get it from your side.
Yeah, Yeah. I'm for me personally, I'm
actually this weekend I'm flying to LA and I'm with a group here
in Chicago. We're running from LA to Las
Vegas. So that's the the first thing.
But I'm excited because we are working on an Enron product and
I'm going to be taking it for our team to use during this 340
mile journey that we're going to we're going to embark on this
weekend. So it's it's a pretty gnarly
race. It's called the speed project.
There is no, no dedicated route, no rules.
You just can't go on the highway any run from the Santa Monica
Pier to the LA or to the Las Vegas.
Now welcome to Las Vegas Sign and.
It's 340 miles 3. 140 miles. Are you doing that with them?
Yep, Yep. So I.
Like a relay kind of thing, like everybody does a leg of it.
Yeah, it is. It is a relay.
I'll probably end up running 50 or so miles over the course of
the, you know, day and a half, two days.
But you don't, you don't really sleep.
You know, you're in a van or a truck kind of following the
runners around. And so it's definitely a a test
of not only your endurance, but also your patients with your
teammates. And luckily we get we all get
along. I say that now.
We'll we'll find out on Sunday. How many of their?
All your total.
There will be there will be 15 of us on our team.
There are runners that do it themselves.
So the the solo runners kicked off today, which is insane. 340
miles. Straight up to 15, yeah, we do
15 because we like to enjoy ourselves and have a little bit
of fun as well, so. So can you give any any secrets
as to this in run formula or is it top secret for now?
It's not necessarily top secret. We're, you know, having having
created a system of products around the run.
It's been nice to because a lot of these customers that are,
that are, you know, very loyal to to run away now, which is
amazing to see that they're, they're using US daily.
And then they're, you're using our extra mile before they go to
the gym or before track session. They're using our protein after
for recovery or for like a, a midday snack.
And they're like, yeah, but I still have to go to another
brand to, you know, have my in run nutrition.
And then me personally, I, you know, I, I've tried tons and
tons of different carb products and I've still bonked on some of
the races. And so I need to make sure I
have my carbs, but also my electrolytes.
And so we'll look at, you know, making sure we have a nice kind
of synergistic blend of your, your carbs and electrolytes for
sodium to make sure that we're, we're pushing through for the
run. Do you have like a like with
running, do you notice like a certain sweet spot with your
ratio of electrolytes sodium to potassium, like you notice this
a sweet spot there? It's, it's one of those things
that every, every run is a little different depending on,
on the weather, depending on what I ate the day before, you
know, my prep work and stuff. And that's where a lot of people
think that's they can just try something on race day and you
got to practice with stuff, right?
You got to, you got to try it multiple times.
That's the crazy thing about running like a marathon as an
example, you very few people run beyond the 20 miles, you know,
when you're training. And so anything between and it's
still 6 miles between, you know, maybe your longest training run
and what you need to do on race day.
And so you know, you're, you're learning on your actual race,
how your body reacts in those last last few minutes.
There are very few sports where you kind of never have done that
or, or haven't tried something or, you know, haven't figured it
out exactly. So it's it's trial and error.
But for me, I've, I've been using some Marten gels actually,
which is the gel one 60s. And then I've just the last
couple months just been really using the runway stuff.
We had some prototypes of it earlier and definitely, you
know, I was like, oh, we need some more sodium than this.
And so we upped the sodium a little bit.
But yeah, it's one of those things you got to every, every
runs different and every person's unique.
And that's where I think when it comes to like the actual race,
it's important to look at what the weather is going to be like.
If it's really hot out, you might have to back your pace
down a little bit and make sure you're increasing your
electrolytes, your salt tabs. If it's going to be chilly and
windy or hilly, you know, like every, everything, you got to
kind of take it into the equation and then see what you
want to do for your race day plan.
And how many how many grams of carbs are in in the in run
product? We'll have 30. 30 So are you
doing that like I mean, obviously it depends on the run,
but generally are you doing like one of those every hour or is it
like a general protocol? Yeah, I initially I think we
were, we were thinking every 90 minutes right here about for an
hour, hour, hour and a half of of fuel.
I'm a little bit bigger of a runner.
So I just assume that I'm actually going to be using a
little bit more than that. So I think it for me what how I
was practicing with it or fueling with it on some of my
runs was every, every hour I had two bottles that I took, which
is, which is great because it is a, you know, powder that will
mix it up in water. But but yeah, it's again, one of
those things if it's really hot out and if I'm going too slow
and more time on my feet and I'm struggling a little bit, then I
need to make sure I get some additional carbs and dishes,
sodium to make sure I'm not going to hit the wall.
You got any runners on your team of that 15 they're doing like
keto, low carb? Not, not on our team.
I, I've, I've run into a handful that, you know, lots of people
have different diets and it's interesting seeing the way
certain diets do affect the body and, or how they're going
through their long runs. You know, I've got a friend that
she would just devour steaks and primarily had a steak diet and
was one of the world's, you know, best female runners, which
is great. And then you've got other people
that, that don't eat meat at all.
And you know, that's why our complete protein is perfect for
them because it's a vegan based protein and everything.
But you do have to find out what's right for your body and
how to how do you push through? If you're going to, you know,
try to push yourself to the extreme on some of these races,
got to make sure you're you're supplementing in the right way.
Yeah, it's interesting. Like I didn't really run, like
I've never really run distances in which fueling became an H
that when I read that marathon, I did that totally fasted and
then like 50 mile, you know, stuff but not running.
And I would always do that in a ketogenic state.
But I would think if like a lot of these people that are carbon
up having like pasta and stuff before run, like I would just
imagine that would totally wreck my gut.
But I guess everybody's different.
I don't know. Yeah, that's what's crazy about,
you know, I'd mentioned earlier about like nothing new on race
day. And I think a lot of people get
in that mindset of all I got a carb load and it's like he
didn't do that in any of your long runs and you didn't try
that. And then you travel, which adds
complexities to your diet if you're traveling for a race or
something. And then you just think I need
to eat, you know, 2 lbs of spaghetti or, you know, just
get, get the meatballs and pasta and where that might be
something that you didn't normally do.
And all of a sudden the next day you wonder why you have, you
know, some stomach issues. I, I've been guilty of that and
have learned from that the hard way as, as a lot of other
runners too. But yeah, definitely one of
those things. There's like nothing new.
Nothing new on race day. Yeah, crazy man.
Going back to the like the, the parenting in the business and
just the jug that I know from a lifestyle standpoint, like what
do you, what do you all, what do you think kind of long term?
Like is this going to be something that you just continue
to pour into and build the point where your daughter would take
in take a part of it at some point?
Or is it going to kind of more like vital proteins, exit
strategy or what are you thinking personally at this
stage in the game? Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, right now it's it's sweat equity, right.
I am blessed to be in this position where we have a brand
that we've launched that connects with so many people and
I, you know, when some of the days get, get long and tough,
you know, even with Dan, sometimes we're like, hey, we're
doing this to make sure that other people have better
options. So that way they can continue to
like run, move, live for as long as possible and, and enjoy the
things they love to do. So that's kind of what has been
the driving force behind, you know, all the things we're
doing. But yeah, I think it would be
amazing if there could be some type of thing where we build it
up and then it becomes self-sufficient and or we maybe
keep a foot in the door or there's a full accident, who
knows. You know, lots of different
things can happen. It's interesting time we're now
with, you know, a slow down. I think of a lot of the M&A
activity that happened is have been happening and obviously the
economy. Never know what's what the next
day is going to bring, but yeah. And then in the in the short
term though, we're building a brand out.
We're connecting with as many people as we can who we know
will will benefit from our products and you know, from
connecting with our brand. That's really the driving force
behind what, you know, what we're doing, which is is great.
And that, that's what keeps me going.
Yeah, it's, it's kind of crazy, man.
Like there's no set path and entrepreneurship, there's no,
you know, known fact when you wake up that day.
But it's like a lot of like a lot of people find that to be
fearful, like they're scared of that, not having that consistent
routine. But at the end of the day, I
feel like that's that's more job secure, like being the founder,
being the CEO, being the owner, being the creative thinker.
Like that to me is more reassuring than working for the
man and not knowing you know what your outcome will be like
if you're if you are reaping what you sow and you're doing it
for the right reason, that excites you every single day.
Like, you know, who can ask for a better gig than that, you
know? Absolutely.
And I've learned so much in the last two years.
If if I went back to any of my other jobs, knowing what I know
now and re approaching old situations that you know, could
have been thought through a little differently.
I mean, I would, I would completely change out my
approach on a lot of things. Just just having like pushed
through the last year and a half, two years of, of not
really having the the playbook right and kind of creating it as
we're going. But yeah, to your point on every
day is every day is different. You know, I feel like, I feel
like each week, you know, even today, right, it's Monday.
And I was like, OK, I think I know what I have set up for the
week, you know, but it's only probably 30% of the week is
known. And so much stuff happens
throughout each day and each week that really fills it up and
unlocks really cool opportunities as the week
continues. And it's, it's been like that
ever since day one, whether it's people hearing about the brand
and kind of Dming us and all of a sudden that opens up a cool
work stream and, and new potential partnership, or it's,
you know, Olympians that I get a, a text message saying, Hey,
did you know? So and so just buys collagen at
the grocery store. Maybe you should send them some.
And now they use our product up to their lead up to Boston
Marathon, which is kind of cool. And, and they, they used our our
products leading into Paris as well.
So it's kind of fun to see all these different things happen
and it's just they just continue to manifest, which is which is
amazing. But yeah, everyday, everyday is
different. And there's any entrepreneurs
out there like definitely lean in and try some things.
There's no, there's no harm in taking a risk and learning from
it at the end of the day. Well.
You start to see opportunities that you never would have seen
had you not taken that risk to begin with.
Like when you have a safety net, it's really hard to think as
creatively. Whereas when you like when your
backs against the wall, when you are the, you know, when, when
the chip falls with where they may with you, it's like you
start getting real creative, man.
You start seeing opportunities that you never would have
elsewhere. And I feel like that's just
exciting in and of itself. I mean, the DM's, like every
DM's, a new opportunity, you know?
Absolutely. Yeah.
In, in, you know, some people say, oh, it's, it's luck, right?
Or, and I, I just think it's consistency.
It's like consistently showing up and, and being present.
And then all of a sudden to your point, some of those
opportunities just they, they feel like they fell in your lap,
but they were, they were engineered that way because of
the consistency and because of kind of the, the determination
and pushing through. That's why they happen more
frequently. At least that's my belief as
well. Yeah, I mean, I feel like like
luck gets sewn around a lot. And Dan was saying on the
podcast that like, he feels like it was a certain degree of luck,
but I don't really think it's ever luck, man.
Like, like the fact that you and what what was the the owner of
Vital? Yeah, him and Dan all coalescing
at the same time. Like, that could seem very lucky
from the outside perspective, but like, none of that would
have been possible had you all not fostered relationships with
one another while you were working there and putting in the
hours and just showing up. And I feel like that paved the
way for y'all to have in the back of y'all minds, y'all's
mind that y'all would work well together on this new venture to
begin with. You know, it's like, I don't
think any of its luck necessarily.
It's just like putting in the work, showing up, putting forth
effort, you know, effort. Effort is what luck is.
Yeah, yeah. And definitely timing plays into
it too. You know, like they could have
had that same situation, but if it was 2 years prior, probably
wouldn't have, wouldn't have turned out to where we are now.
So, you know, maybe it's about the timing more so than the luck
for for certain things as well. Yeah, 100%, man.
Well, I think it's super cool what you're doing, man.
Like I, I love the branding, I love the website design, the,
the product. I mean, you'll, I think you'll
ship me some. I'm going to try that as soon as
it gets here. But yeah, I think it's just
super cool, man. There's so many supplement
companies out there, so ones that are doing it right, putting
forth the quality first mindset, boots on the ground, meeting
people that are actually in the sports, in the trenches, trying
to cater to them and their needs like that speaks volumes.
So I'm, I'm super impressed by what you get going and I'm
excited for the future, ma'am. Awesome.
Yeah, yeah. And if we give the products a
try, we'd love to hear your feedback too.
Like I said, we, we take feedback from the field and we
anybody that that we connect with, we love to hear what they
like or don't like even on the products.
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm gonna ramp up my running game for sure
'cause I do a lot of like, as hunting season gets closer, I
start doing a lot more running because I'll do like trail runs
to get ready for hiking in the mountains.
So I'll probably start ramping that up in the next little bit.
Now the weather's getting nice as well.
I got this super slick trail run not far from me here, So I'm
gonna start running that multiple times a week.
And I'll put your your products to test for sure, man.
Yeah, yeah. We'll have to get you our extra
mile. So that's that.
It's a stimulant free like pre workout.
So caffeine free pre workout that'll like kind of get you get
you focused and and get you ready to roll for that trail
run. Yeah, that'd be good.
Because I I try to keep my caffeine limited to that
espresso in the morning that we were talking about and then not
have any other stimulants throughout the day.
That be definitely the route that I would take.
Yeah, that's definitely why we, we actually made that one is
because, you know, when we pulled all these athletes in
these runners, they said don't mess with my caffeine, don't
mess with my coffee. That's my ritual, you know,
routine in the morning. And so we said, okay, well, we
don't want to have them not have their espresso in the morning,
so let's make a product without it.
And then also the benefit of not like negatively affecting your,
your heart rate while you're getting ready to do an endurance
activity. So yeah, definitely give it a
try. It's amazing. 100% ma'am, but
where do people go to find out more about the the brand runway,
dive deeper into your world, all that good stuff.
Yeah, Runaway dot life is pretty much all of our all of our
socials as well as our website and our our YouTube as well.
So getting ready to get some things cranking on YouTube.
We've got our Instagram rolling and then yeah, Runaway dot Life
is our website. We're also available on Amazon
and in a handful of running specialist shops.
Awesome, awesome. And you're doing events.
Is there like a list on your website of all the events that
you are going to physically? We don't have a list up there
yet. We we do need to put that on
there because we do get asked quite a bit, hey, where are we
going to be? But we've got, we'll be at
Rock'n'roll Nashville Marathon, Half Marathon later I'll be a
Boston Marathon. I got I'm running that next
month. And then coming going in the
summer, we're going to be a lots of different races and
festivals, a handful of Iron Man, lots of different ones.
Awesome, man. Well, best look at Boston too.
Man, that's gonna be awesome. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited.
It's my first one. I qualified last year in
Chicago. So this will be, you know, kind
of punching, checking that one off and and punching my ticket
to Boston. You have a time in your mind
that you're shooting for personally.
Not really like I, you know, I, I want to enjoy it.
Part of me wants to like race and stuff, but I, I tend to go
out too fast. And with Boston, it's, you know,
that's where the downhills are and then you hit the uphill, you
know, a little after halfway through.
I, I'm just going to go enjoy it, see how my body feels, what
the weather's like, just start, just start rolling.
If I'm feeling good, you know, at 20, I'll, I'll try to pick it
up through the hills. You know, I ran just under 3
hours in Chicago last year, so anything within 10 minutes of
that I'd be happy with. Awesome man.
Yeah. We'll keep you posted on that
for sure. Man, that's exciting.
Will do all. Right, Cameron?
Well, pleasure as always, brother.
Appreciate you appreciate meeting Dan the other day as
well. Just love what you do with the
company and keep doing what you're doing man.
Thanks so much for having us. Yeah.
You bet. See you, brother.
All right, see you later.