Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - A Man Who Will Run 135 km Around Toronto: Toronto Mike'd #644

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Mike chats with Mark Carey, a man who intends to run around Toronto (135 km) all in one effort on May 30th in order to raise money for the Red Cross's COVID-19 relief efforts. Pledge his run at runaroundtoronto.org.

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to get the Zoom URL for their virtual open house this Saturday. And our newest sponsor, CDN Technologies. Your their virtual open house this saturday and our newest sponsor cdn technologies your it and cyber security experts i'm mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is a man who wants to run 135 kilometers around toronto to raise money for the canadian red cross society mark carrie hi mike welcome mark thank you 135 kilometers i'm trying to think if i've uh if i've run that much in my entire life i'm just doing the math in my head but uh you're gonna do it all in like

one shot you're not doing like you know 30k and then you know having a sleep or whatever and then the next day doing more like this is all in one effort yeah it's uh not designed to be a single run um might take a few breaks to to rest or walk or even sit on a park bench but uh yeah all a single effort but so so no sleep uh i almost broke into some beastie boys no sleep till brooklyn but it's gonna be uh all like you're no sleep at all during your 135 kilometer run around the city no yeah no sleep that's not if i have to sleep then something's not going well. Okay. I have to plead some ignorance. When people go for runs that length of time, they will sleep, right?

What's the normal thing to do for an ultramarathoner who's going for a 135K run? For ultra marathon races or events, typically there will be either 80K or 50 miles or 100 miles, which is 160K, so a little longer than this. But in either case, sleeping is not normally done. Instead of sleep, ultra runners prefer caffeine. So we'd try to stay awake and do it in one effort. Now, there are crazy ultra marathons that are longer than that. In 200-mile races, sleep is strategic, and the participants do sleep a bit. Maybe they do that like a horse. They sleep standing up pretty much.

You can just keep moving and sleeping well i have i have fallen asleep walking in uh during a race in the in the forest at night um i was taking a walking break and i would just kept falling asleep as i was walking it sounds dangerous to me yeah i. I don't know. Potentially. My oldest daughter, I periodically does a little sleepwalking and it freaks me the heck out. So, man, something's wrong with that. Now, okay, here I am diving into the what, where, when, and how, because I can't believe that number, 135 kilometers. I think that's an amazing length. So, I want to ask about like how long like maybe we start with that like how long will it take you to run 135 kilometers around toronto

it's hard to to make a good prediction but i'm guessing somewhere in the range of 18 to 24 hours uh some of the the races that I've done that are longer than this, that the 200 mile races I've completed, those took me 24 hours, 26 hours in the first case and 30 hours in the second case. But both of those were on trails, uh, which means, means you know it's harder and and slower um so that my average pace should be a bit faster in this case although i'm not really going for a super fast time here i'm uh i'll be honest i find it difficult to stay up that long if i'm doing nothing like that's a long time to to stay awake if i'm just like I don't know lounging on the couch or something so I'm just I'm still like I'm still processing this Mark so

please bear with me here okay so why don't we get to the um the reason you're doing this because it's a it's a it's an amazing cause in fact even right off the top if somebody who has heard enough and says I need to help pledge this man's run for the Canadian Red Cross Society, where should people go to give money to this tremendous cause? Well, I've started a GoFundMe campaign for the Canadian Red Cross, and all donations go automatically to the Red Cross. go automatically to the Red Cross. And the easiest way to donate is to go to the website I created for the event, which is runaroundtoronto.org. And if you go to the donate section,

there's a button there to access the GoFundMe campaign from there. Runaroundtoronto.org. And they can go there. And honestly, all the FOTMs and everyone listening, all this money is going to the Red Cross for their COVID-19 relief efforts. And this man, Mark Carey, is going to run around the city,

135K, all in one effort. It's even tough for me to say it. All in one effort. And it might take him to say it all in one effort and it might take them 24 hours but you're gonna do it which is which is amazing so whip out those wallets again it's it's a registered charity it's one we all know and trust and uh an excellent cause so what's your target mark like what how much money you're trying to raise here uh instead a target of $10,000. $10,000. I think the FOTMs are good for at least half of that. So let's go runaroundtoronto.org. And what inspired you? What was the impetus for you to say, okay, I'm going to do this and raise some money during these difficult times?

this and raise some money during these difficult times? Yeah, well, I've often thought of doing something to raise money for a worthy cause. And this spring, I was training for a race that was supposed to happen on May 23rd. Of course, it was postponed. So I was sort of, you know, getting in good training shape to run a long distance. It was going to be 160 K. So I was running one day around the city, not all the way around the city that day, but I came up with the idea to map out this route and to try to do it for

charity. Okay. Let's talk about the route because I know the city pretty well. And I know that it's probably very easy to handle the southern part of this journey. You're going to do, I'm going to guess the waterfront trail along the bottom of Toronto. So help us out with like,

like basically what will be your route around the city? Yeah, so I've tried to follow the city boundaries as closely as possible. As you say, I'm most familiar with the waterfront section. On various runs, I've done as far west as Sam Smith Park and all the way across to Pickering on various runs. So I've done that part. So you got the south part figured out. So, oh yeah, so which way are you going? Like, are you going to go, like, yeah, like, are you going to go, I'm just clockwise, counterclockwise?

What's the deal? Yeah, it's, I still need to do a lot of logistical planning. Okay. uh like yeah like are you gonna go i'm just clockwise counterclockwise what's the deal yeah uh it's i still need to do a lot of logistical planning okay but the plan as it stands now is to go counterclockwise um around starting sort of at the foot of young street is the idea but uh based on logistical planning that might change but um so it would be to go east east um along the waterfront trail through the beaches uh along as close as possible along uh along the the waterfront there at some parts you have to come up because of the scarborough bluffs but i've run a fair bit around there so i i have sort of i have part of that route down path.

There are some trails, some kind of trails that go along the water there for a bit that are on sort of hard pack gravel. So it'll be a nice break from the pavement. And then eventually I'll dip into Pickering a little bit just because at that point, the Rouge River is the border, and it's all swamp at that section. You can't really, there's no path right beside the river. So I'll dip briefly into Pickering before crossing back on Kingston Road, and then heading into the Rouge National Park.

And there are some trails there, so that'll be a welcome section. The most difficult section, I guess, being on the trails, and it's hilly in there. But just to break up all the pavement and sidewalks, I'd be looking forward to that section. And eventually from there, I need to find my way up to the Scarborough-Markham town line,

which I don't think I've ever been. That's a route I've never been on. So I don't think I've ever been. That's a route I've never been on. So straight up to Steeles and then Steeles all the way across the top of the city to the Highway 427, which is the border. And you're going to run on the 427 to get yourself back there. If I stay on the center median, I'll be okay. Okay. That must be the toughest part. Are you just picking parallel streets?

Or how are you? I know that area. That's a tough biking place. So I can't imagine what it's like. Yeah, I was mapping it out on Strava and trying to find roads or paths. I prefer park paths, but they're not always available close to the borders here. So I picked various streets

that seemed to hug as closely as possible. And, you know, I might review that and make minor changes. But yeah, so it was a matter of just trying to find streets that didn't go too far out of the way in either direction. I think I briefly spent a matter of just trying to find streets that didn't go too far out of the way in either direction. I think I briefly spent a bit of time in Mississauga and then come back into the city.

Wow, that's three different cities I've counted there that you're going to be in. So, okay, amazing. How do you go to the washroom? Like, that's a long time, so you're probably going to need bathroom breaks. Am I right? Yeah, and that's a long time so you're probably gonna need bathroom breaks am i right yeah i mean that's uh something i still have to figure out is it like star i guess oh yeah i forget we have a strange time here where there's probably less washrooms public washrooms open than ever like exactly i was thinking like sometimes on my longer runs i will if i need to

stop in at a starbucks or tim hortons but so i was thinking oh i know tim hortons are still open but i wasn't sure about the washroom so i passed by one the other day and i poked my head in and sure enough the washrooms are all caution taped on right right that's not an option so what are you gonna do like uh you're still noodling this one like uh yeah i still try i still i don't have a solution yet i mean uh you know other than you know holding it well i mean i mean uh discreetly behind a tree somewhere i'm thinking uh for yeah for yeah i mean it's you know on a lot of these ultra marathons that are done in the mountains and remote areas, you know, that you sort of plan for that eventuality, right? It's just, you know, in an urban city, you know, a lot of people around.

Okay, what about, okay, so what about food and drink? Like, what food and drink will you typically consume during a 24-hour run of this distance for me i try to have i try to have fruit as much as possible watermelon's good and ideally they don't typically have this at at aid stations for races but I like a berry and banana smoothie. So where I can, I try to put those in, like I'll freeze them and put them in drop bags. A lot of these races let you put on various places along the route. So I may try to do a bit of that. If I can recruit a few crew members to help run those out to me

along the route, that would be helpful but another strategy that i use in training is you know just stopping into the grocery store or convenience store to buy water or other things uh that i need although these days a trip to the grocery store is a little more involved than it was, say, last summer. So I need to plan out all that. So it sounds like you need some volunteers. And maybe we should, because we're all supposed to stay two meters from each other, so we should reiterate that this is a solo mission. You're running alone, but you might have some helpers along the way to get you some smoothies and some berries or whatever.

Yeah. Try to find a handful of people. Maybe I'll even make a smoothie. I can help you with the southern part, anywhere on the waterfront trail. All right. Tell me where to be and when, and I will have something for you. I'll probably take you up on that no i'm serious i have somebody else who might be able to help on the northern part but uh okay so hey if there's any toronto mic listeners that are live in northern scarborough uh that's a section section that sort of northeast section

of the route where I don't know anybody who lives in that area. I guess it's up near the zoo, kind of. Yeah, like Meadowvale or whatever that's called. By the way, when you mentioned the Rouge Park, forever I've known that the Rouge is Toronto's largest park,

but I don't think I've ever stepped foot inside it. I don't have any Rouge Park experience, even though there's this humongous, I'm guessing it's probably a beautiful park. I'm so ignorant. I think I've only been in there twice. And both of them, I think were maybe only once.

Last summer, I did a long run from, I dropped off my wife and kids at Bluffers Beach and uh i went for a long run along the water and then when i got the pickering i went up into the rouge park and it's quite nice um it's just it feels like for me i don't i can't go you know run the the 60 kilometers there or whatever like it just seems so far away but okay you mentioned your wife and kids. So how old are your kids? Six and eight. Oh yeah, I got a six-year-old. I understand. So what do they think about this?

Like it's not your first long run, but like what does your wife think about your plans on? And again, let's remind everybody what day this is happening because I'm not even sure I've said that yet. But May 30th. So we're recording on, what is it, May 12th? Is that what it is? Okay, we're recording on May 12th. Good.

So there's time for you to go to runaroundtoronto.org and pledge this run. It is for Red Cross Society of Canada COVID-19 relief. It's all the money goes to the charity. Mark's going to run around Toronto and you're going to pledge his run. What does your wife think of, of these, these runs? I like to say that she tolerates them, which I'm grateful for.

She's sometimes concerned about my safety and she doesn't always understand why it has to be all in one go. You know, she was trying to encourage me to split it into two, you know, half one day and half the next day. Right. Right. Right. Like when I did the ride to conquer cancer and it was 125. No, it was, I got, what was it? 225. Yeah, it was 225. That's right. So it was 225, but you do 125 and then you camp out at Mohawk College and then you do the rest the next day. You're right.

But that's two runs. That's not one run. I mean, mine was a bike, but you're right. Okay. So your wife, on that note, she's worried about your safety. That's a good thing because that means she cares about you. Is this safe? I don't know i think you're about the only person i know who does ultra marathons but when you go for an 100 135k race is that like does your doctor know does your doctor care is this a safe thing to do yeah i think it i think it's a safe thing to do i mean it's a key thing to remember is that it wouldn't be a safe thing to do if you, you know, just finished your first 5K and you said the next weekend, you know, I'm going to do 100K. You know, you need to be ready for it. And it takes time and a lot of training to get to the point where your body can handle it.

But ultimately, the body can do a lot more than we think it can. And again, I mean, this is, you know, if I get too tired, I'm going to stop and start walking. You know, if I need to sit down, I'm going to sit down. A lot of it is about listening to your body and, you know, if I need to sit down, I'm going to sit down. Uh, a lot of it is about listening to your body and, uh, you know, if there's any kind of injury, you know, knowing when to quit if, if you need to. Okay. How, like, what about hydration? Like forever we've been told, you know, stay hydrated or whatever, but for 135 K, we don't know what Mark, wait, sorry.

We don't know what May 30th is going to look like. Like May 30th, even though it's hard to believe on a day where, you know, it's not too warm out there today. But on May 30th, it could be, you know, 30 degrees in Toronto. It's happened before. Like, how do you stay hydrated? Yeah, I mean, you're right about the end of May. This race that was postponed, it's called the Sulphur Springs Trail Races. It happens in Ancaster, Ontario, near Hamilton. And it's always at the end of May, which you would think is a good, pretty decent weather-wise time to run.

But the first year I did it, it was humid X40. And then it was in the high 30s. The second time I did it is this chance would have it you know both cases the hottest day of the year to date fell on the race day so it definitely can happen uh i'm hoping it won't um but you know if we get sort of a higher in the low 20s or high teens that would be fine i think think. But in terms of water, I don't drink as much as the experts suggest or that most people do, but you know, I will need to, to, to drink fluids, of course, and then run this long.

So I'll carry some and try to get refills along the way, either with people who are helping bring me the refills or going into a store yeah you're gonna need some volunteers hey so fotms we got to step up and help mark carry in this 135k run so reach out to me and i'll we'll i'll put you in touch with mark and we'll uh see if you can Again, we'll do this all very safely. So, you know, I guess wear gloves and we'll be very careful with the current social distancing order. We'll adhere to all the rules, of course,

but let's help out. Now, so many, so many, so like I've known you a while. I've known you for, I've literally known you for decades. And when I first met you, I don't think you were running like 135K runs. Or maybe you were. When did you get the bug to...

When did you realize a marathon was insufficient? Like, oh, a marathon's too easy. I'm going to need to go further. When did that strike you? I don't remember exactly when but you know back when we first met it was probably just an occasional runner but uh as you know i spent seven years living in bermuda from 2005 until 2012 and it was when i was living there that i started to get into running uh a bit more did a few 5Ks and 10Ks and eventually some half marathons in Bermuda and ran my first marathon in 2011 here in

Toronto. And at that time, I had no desire to run anything longer than that. But things changed and I guess one of the inspirations for me and for a lot of other people is there was a book that came out called "'Born to Run' by Christopher McDougall." And he talks about ultra marathons as a major focus of that book. I listened to the audio book,

actually, and that kind of inspired me to the challenge, learning what was possible and wanting to see if I could do it. Okay. Now, I also know that you're a very healthy eater. You put me to shame day in and day out now uh is it difficult like it's legit here is it difficult to uh consume enough calories when you're training for a 135 kilometer run uh with your healthy diet like is that at all difficult well it's you definitely need to to do that i mean the way i approach it is not necessarily the same as everyone else, but I approach it from the perspective of high nutritional density. So not necessarily massive amounts of food, but whatever I do eat,

I try to have a lot of nutrients packed into that food. So I actually eat less than what some people might think or what some other people might do if their diet is, let's say, not as nutritionally dense. So I eat a plant-based diet. So it's about a 97% vegan diet. And plants generally just have more nutritional density than meats and other things like that. I try to stay away from white potatoes and white rice and pasta and things like that, which have a little nutrients, but not that much. You know what that means?

It means I'm not giving you a palma pasta lasagna for this appearance. You just blew it. Your wife's going to be telling you, come on, Mark, we want some good lasagna for this appearance. You just blew it. Your wife's going to be telling you, come on, Mark, we want some good lasagna here. But if you had made the trek, there's a few gifts you would have received. In fact, at some point when this all ends, because you're not a doctor, but you play one on TV,

what does your crystal ball say? When do you think you'd be able to come over and have some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes and some tasty pasta from Palma Pasta and a Toronto Mike sticker from stickeru.com. How much longer do we got to go in this thing? That's me making you make a prediction that you can never possibly make. Yeah, that's a tough one.

I mean, I'm more optimistic than some. You know, I hope that, you know, I think it's going to be a phase thing. And hopefully some of the more restrictive thing, aspects of the lockdown will be lifted soon. Like, you know, outdoor parks and playgrounds and dog, dog off leash parks, you know, those things really should be the first ones to reopen because you're outdoors and people are able to social distance in those settings anyways. And hopefully soon afterwards, you know, people can visit others and, you know, people can still keep their distance in those scenarios, I think so. Well, I'm going to hold you to this prediction here. But after people have gone to runaroundtoronto.org to donate to Mark's run here, they should go to garbageday.com slash Toronto Mike.

Garbage Day ends the guesswork related to the collection of waste and recycling. Subscribers don't need to worry about missing a collection or trying to figure out what to put out to the curb. I highly encourage you to go to garbageday.com slash Toronto Mike because it's a great service. It's free and it really helps the show. So please do that. And if you're working from home, like so many of us are, and you want to make sure that your home network is safe, I urge you to go to cdntechnologies.com slash WFH. There's some tips there on setting up a safe work from home network courtesy of CDN Technologies.

So do that. And we're going to, before we get to some fun stuff, because there was a passing, a celebrity passing yesterday that's very relevant to fans of Seinfeld. And I want the world to know that they're hearing right now from perhaps the world's biggest Seinfeld fans. So want the world to know that there's hearing right now

from perhaps the world's biggest Seinfeld fans. So we'll get to that in a minute. But with this endeavor you're doing, Mark, 135K around the city, raising money for Red Cross, it's a great cause at a terrible time for many of us. I want to know about press coverage. So when I learned about this from you, I wrote a blog entry on Toronto Mic. And that was, I don't know about press coverage. So when I learned about this from you,

I wrote a blog entry on Toronto Mike, and that was, I don't know, last week. I can't remember now, Wednesday or something like that. But since then, you have appeared in the Toronto Star, right? You did an interview with the Star? Yeah, yeah, an interview with the Star and sort of an email interview with Get Out There magazine. So they put up an article as well, which is good.

And I heard you on AM640 yesterday. You were talking to FOTM Kelly Catrera. Yeah, I spoke to her yesterday, and this morning I recorded an interview with Darren and Mo from CHFI. Wow, that's a big leagues, man. I'm going to air that tomorrow morning, apparently. I'm not sure what time. That's a big time morning show. So, I mean, in a very short period of time, you have hit up Canada's largest newspaper.

You've been in the Toronto Star. That's amazing. largest newspaper you've been in the toronto star that's amazing and uh chfi i mean that's one of definitely one of canada's biggest radio stations like you sure you know you sure uh in a short period period of time you've been uh getting out there is any other press stuff coming up or should we just do an open call to any journalists out there who want to shine a light on this uh mark is available for interviews and would love some uh some exposure so that we could raise this ten thousand dollars for the uh for the good cause yeah i mean i don't have anything scheduled but yeah i'm definitely uh ready and willing to to talk uh to talk about it with anybody who's interested to bring the message and help promote the run and the GoFundMe campaign to their audience.

Bring the noise. Absolutely. Now, we lost the great Jerry Stiller. We lost the great Jerry Stiller. So before we get your thoughts on that, a little background, because I guess I met you in the late 90s. I didn't know it.

I just remembered when I smashed up my Mazda, you were in the... Okay, so quick story is, the same freaking car that's in my driveway right now so i've owned that car i got it in 90 june 99 i can't believe that i a car is in my driveway that i bought in the 90s that blows my mind okay so what is that is that 21 years ago yeah okay 20 yeah okay so i guess it was like probably that car was like two months old or something when I on the 401, I rear ended my fault, I guess. I don't know. I got this. I don't know. We won't we won't talk about that. I don't want to compromise myself here, but I rear ended a pickup truck and smashed it up pretty good.

I thought it would be a write off, but it wasn't. They fixed it, obviously, because it's in my driveway right now. And you were in the passenger seat I was yeah I just remember this the cars ahead of us had slowed down and uh we weren't and we plowed into this pickup do you remember the cd that was in the cd player because I do I don't okay it was whitey Ford Sings the Blues by Everlast. That's a good one. I just remember when I picked up the car, it was here. Okay. So what was the point of what I was saying? Oh, yeah.

So back when I met you, you had a real job making real dollars, but your side hustle claim to fame was that you were like the greatest, tell me, purveyor of seinfeld info like what would you say you were and tell us how it all tied in with seinfeld well one of the first uh websites i started was called it's a seinfeld fan site called stanthecaddy.com right uh which is still up there today although I don't really spend any time with it but it sort of started off to have all sorts of any information I could find scripts and quotes and eventually a forum and things like that and at one point this is how I got into search engine optimization I was able to get the site to rank ahead of the Sony site.

So when you search for Seinfeld, my Stan the Caddy site was coming up before the official one. So that didn't last too long, but that was fun. And as I recall, because you had, I guess, you had people subscribing to your Seinfeld newsletter. So these are fans of Seinfeld subscribing to newsletter. When Seinfeld, because they were a bit late to the DVD party, as I recall, like, it was like,

when are the official DVDs coming out? And then eventually it was like, okay, they're coming. And you had, if I recall, you had this, you know, this list. Yeah. Go ahead. I was collecting emails, you know, because everybody wanted Seinfeld on DVD. A lot of other shows were putting it out pretty quickly,

but Seinfeld, they were really holding out. And so I had this, I said, you know, give me your email address and I'll send you an email when Seinfeld is available on DVD. And they just took years and years. And as the years passed, I collected more email addresses. And by the time they eventually released it i had 14 000 email addresses on the list and if people are connecting the dots in their head that means if you were for example if you were like a amazon affiliate or whatever

and you wanted to tell people give people the link to buy it you would make money every time they purchased the DVD from that link. Yeah, and I did. And one slight footnote to the story is a bit frustrating is that like a few weeks before the launch, Amazon revamped their associates program in such a way that like cut my potential commissions in half, which was just really bad timing. You know, I still made some money and I can't really complain, but it would have been probably 50 to 100% more had they not made those changes. But in the end, yeah, I didn't make that much in general with that site. It wasn't really a full-profit site. you pulled up uh to work in a bentley remember you had the uh come on you were right you were just counting the benjamins there yeah

it didn't make enough to to quite get the bentley but it was probably enough to buy a mazda protege that's really that's the ideal car actually hey unbeknownst to me when monica brought a car into this marriage, and it was a Mazda 3, which is pretty much the new branding for that protege, so the great minds here think alike. But Seinfeld, is that still your favorite show of all time, like in terms of comedies? Yeah.

I mean, I don't watch it that much these days, but it's definitely my favorite. I recently watched, there's a newly discovered set of bloopers that is on YouTube. And if you haven't come across it, the video quality is often terrible. But there's some really funny stuff in there. Is that the one where Jerry Stiller cracks everybody up? Is that in the montage?

There may be several scenes like that. He was good like that. that okay so what can you tell us we uh he lived a good long life this is not a a sad passing he uh i don't know into his 90s and that's all we're aiming for i mean mark's gonna live in like at least you're gonna hit 110 i think because of this diet and this uh regime that you have but for the rest of us we'll take what jerry got that's amazing uh anything you can say about the character uh and uh the spice it added to the seinfeld universe yeah well uh you know we've been talking about it but i don't i don't think we've said for those who may not be big fans jerry stiller played george costanza's father on the show frank costanza

and he was you know probably one of the funnier secondary characters, maybe the funniest secondary character that the show had. And some of the memorable moments are when he created the Festivus holiday that some people still celebrate today each year, a Festivus for the rest of us. I think it's bigger now than ever. It feels like it's just larger than it has ever been, the Festivus.

I think it resonates. Do you and the kids and your wife, do you guys celebrate Festivus? Sometimes I'll take the pole out of the crawl space. Was it Serenity Now? Oh, yeah. He was probably the pole out of the crawl space. Was it Serenity now? Yeah.

It's a lot of, that was, he was probably the very best of the secondary characters, if you ask me, but man, he was, yeah, what a great show.

But now the last question, because it just occurred to me, I was going to wrap up and I'm like, well, I have a question. Is it any weather on May 30th? You'll go like, is there any type of weather where you'll postpone it tornado so but we're talking like an extreme like that like so if it's raining

a lot you'll still go uh probably i mean uh it's not like normally like an event would go unless there was something very serious that would cause it to be canceled. I ran a race out in BC in 2017, and they almost canceled it due to the forest fires in the area. And the following year, they did cancel the event because of forest fires. But generally heat and rain are not things that would cause a cancellation. In this case, you know, there's not all this organization and permits and things like that. It's just me going for a run. So, I mean, I could change the date without, you know, major consequences, but I don't know that i i would i can't really conceive of a realistic scenario now i have another question see i'm a professional i think on my feet here like will we will we be able to uh follow you uh as you progress on this route

like uh will you somehow with your phone be updating anything to say here's where mark is at is there anything of that nature i may i mean one one concern with races like this is is conserving battery power on my phone because i do run with my phone and track it with an app and some of these apps do have like you know live trackers uh yeah but their battery drains you're right you're right exactly so you know i'll probably do what i do during one of these ultra races and sort of lock down the phone. But I think every once in a while, I will stop and sort of, you know, reconnect the data or something and maybe send a message or maybe a tweet or something. update on the progress uh you can certainly do that and then and then switch it back off into the sort of lockdown mode where it's just i think i leave it open so that the phone radio was on but not you know turn off data and other stuff like that so i you know even if i'm thinking now if we can get some fotms and some supporters to be strategically placed uh along the route that they could take a photo and we could

have a special hashtag and if you follow the hashtag on twitter you'll get to see kind of the different spots like from other people's phones that might be an idea oh there's lots of lots of things we can do here i'm very very excited here is there any concern that uh much like forrest gump which somehow won won the Oscar over Pulp Fiction. I still don't understand. But do you have any concern that people will follow you as if you're some kind of a cult leader? They'll just start running with you.

We want this to be a solo effort for social distancing purposes. But what happens if people just start to follow you? Yeah, well, I guess we'll to run run extra fast to stay 60 all right so we honestly hope hopefully that won't happen i mean it'd be great if some people do want to come out and say hi from a distance but uh yeah i mean it's it's not intended to be something that would generate crowds, right? I might bike with you, but I don't think I could bike 135 all in one. Not right now, maybe. See, I don't know if I can bike what you're going to run on May 30th,

which tells you everything you need to know about that distance. That's incredible. Mark, can't wait to see how this goes and follow along. And thanks for doing this. You're going to raise a lot of money for a very good cause. And my call to action for everyone who can hear my voice is that they go to runaroundtoronto.org and pledge some money to the Red Cross.

It's a great cause. And Mark's doing $135,000 for you around this city. And that's tremendous. So thank you, Mark. Thanks, Mike. And that brings us to the end of our 644th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Mark, you're at MTHacks. That's right. M-T-H-A-C-K-S. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at great lakes beer. Palma pasta is at Palma pasta. Sticker you is that sticker you the Kytner group are at the Kytner group. CDN technologies are at CDN technologies and garbage day are at garbage day.com slash Toronto.

Mike, see you all next week. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started.