Phelan Gallagher: [00:00:00] Make sure our level – so, go ahead, Caleb, introduce yourself.

Caleb Snow: [00:00:02] All right. I’m Caleb Snow. What do I say?

PG: [00:00:09] Thanks for being here.

CS: [00:00:14] Thank you for being here. Can you introduce yourself?

Isaac Vaccaro: [00:00:17] I’m Isaac Vaccaro. I’m a math teacher at GSA [George Stevens Academy]. I’m an avid runner, and I’m the cross-country and track coach here also.

PG: [00:00:28] We’re good. So, you can launch right in, Caleb.

CS: [00:00:32] All right. So, today, we’re going to be talking about Blue Hill Mountain. Could you tell me how it impacted you if it did?

IV: [00:00:41] Yeah. I moved to Blue Hill about four years ago when I started working here. I made a challenge to myself to run up the mountain a hundred times in one year. I tried to run the mountain about two or three times a week. Since then, I’ve run the mountain over 460 times in four years. I’ve spent a lot of time on the mountain, a lot of time on the mountain, probably fifteen days’ worth of time on the mountain. I love knowing every trail, every rock, and every route. It just makes me feel like I’m home when I’m on the mountain, and that’s really important to me. I love to know every inch of it.

CS: [00:01:36] You said it feels like home. Can you explain why that is?

IV: [00:01:40] Well, whenever I go somewhere, the first thing I want to do is run the mountain when I get back. It feels like home because I know it so well, and I’m comfortable there. It’s just a symbol of my life here in Blue Hill since I moved here.

CS: [00:02:02] Have you always been a runner?

IV: [00:02:05] I started running when I was a junior in high school. I joined the cross-country team because it looked like a lot of fun, and it was a lot of fun. I had a great old wise coach who taught me a lot about life. Then, I ran in college, not on the team, but just with my friends. I would coach them. I don’t know how much they liked it. So, now that I’m actually a coach, it feels better to have warranted advice. I’ve been a runner since I was sixteen, fifteen, so I’ve been a runner for ten years now.

CS: [00:02:43] Would you say the mountain boosted your passion for running?

IV: [00:02:49] I don’t know about – well, changed the running style because where I’m from in Kennebunk, it’s not as hilly as it is here, neither in Orono. It’s not very hilly. Since I moved here, I’ve become more of a mountain runner. I’ve done much bigger mountain runs. I’ve done this loop called the Pemi Loop in New Hampshire a couple of times. It’s thirty miles with nine thousand feet of gain. I did that in ten hours, just this huge loop. I’ve done that twice. In the Camden Hills, there’s the Megunticook 50K, which is a 50K, so it’s about thirty miles, and it’s pretty much all of the Camden Hills in one day. I did that around six hours. So, imagine looking at the top of the mountain. You see the Camden Hills. Imagine running every single one of those hills in one day. Yeah. I’ve turned into more of a mountain runner than I used to be. But also, I think the mountain made me a faster road racer because I don’t do strength training. So, running up the mountain is like a free weightlifting workout compared to just running on flat. So, my road race times have also gotten a lot faster since I started running the mountain. It just toughens you up because I have this arbitrary goal of running the mountain twice a week, so it keeps me disciplined. What does discipline mean? It means doing the things you say you’re going to do. It’s like if I’m going to do my homework at night, I do my homework every night. That’s what it means to be disciplined. There are some weeks where it’s super hard to squeeze in my two mountain runs because I’m so busy. There were days where you wake up at 5:00 because you need to run the mountain, and you throw your headlamp on. You’re still sleeping, but you have to go run the mountain because you said you’re going to do it. That’s discipline. I learned that from the mountain. In indoor track, we practice until four o’clock – and you live here – it’s dark at four o’clock. But I still have to go run the mountain. So, I throw my headlamp on, and I run up the mountain in the dark in the snow and ice in the wintertime. I think it made me pretty badass.

CS: [00:05:06] Yeah, definitely.

PG: [00:05:07] Let me ask a follow-up there, Caleb, if you don’t mind. That’s interesting that you don’t – it seems like you probably don’t always want to do it when it’s 5:00 AM or whatever. What is the relationship for you of the pain and suffering of doing this versus the reward? Why do you keep doing it?

IV: [00:05:29] Well, you got to learn discipline to be good at something. You’re a saxophone player, and you have to play your scales to be good at playing music. You have to just grind in the woodshed or woodshop to be good at something. So, every time I finish one of those runs and then I go to school, and I’m like, “Yeah, I ran up the mountain this morning in the dark,” it makes me more confident in my abilities, and it trains me to work hard and to just be very hard working, and then you reap those benefits. Because then, when I go and do one of these long races, I have that mental toughness training of knowing what it’s like to have to do something when you don’t want to do something. So, that’s how grinding is good for you in the end. It sucks in the moment, but you get proud of yourself, and it helps you do hard things.

CS: [00:06:31] All right. In the bio I received about you, it mentioned that you took part in creating the Blue Hill Mountain Trail Fest. Could you tell us a little bit about your role in creating that?

IV: [00:06:45] Yeah. So, the mountain festival is put on by Mac and Phoebe, who are GSA grads who live out of state now. Mac came to me and asked about the route. I got to pick the route, which is really cool. That was my contribution mainly, but now I help maintain the trail a little bit. So, Birgit was here this morning; she does most of the front-face stuff, but I’m the steward of the backside trail, the Becton Trail. That’s not part of the race course, but I also do other general steward stuff. This year, I trimmed the post office trail for the race, so just general maintaining of the mountain while Mac and Phoebe are not here so that the mountain’s ready for them when they get here. And I run it. I’ve won the 50K the first two years that it’s happened.

CS: [00:07:48] You mentioned mental toughness and other races. Would you say that plays as much of a part as your physical well-being as well?

IV: [00:07:54] Definitely. Especially when I’m running like a 5K, something short, I constantly remind myself that it’s nowhere near as hard as the Mountain 50K and that if I can do that, then I can run a little bit faster for just five minutes. I tell the kids that, too. But I ran MDI [Mount Desert Island] last year, which is a marathon. It’s a road race marathon, and it’s pretty hilly. But mid-race, I’m just like, “No, I run up the mountain all the time. This is light work. A pavement hill is nothing compared to running up the mountain.” So, you dig into that mentality even if you don’t have the legs for it. You know the grind. You know what it feels like to push yourself mentally. You got to practice the mental toughness just as much as you practice your running itself. We bring that into cross-country, too. I trick them sometimes; about once a season, I’ll do a workout, and I’ll, at the end of the workout, add a rep on without telling them. So, it’s like a surprise rep to train that mental toughness of keeping going.

CS: [00:09:04] All right. So, obviously, you’ve been up the mountain quite a lot. Do you remember your first time up? If you do, can you describe the feeling and your experience?

IV: [00:09:15] The first time I went up the mountain was my first time coming to GSA. It’s all very serendipitous, my relationship with the mountain, meaning I came here to – it was Covid 2020. I came to pretty much be offered the job. I came for my interview, and then my friend said you should go up the mountain. So, I ran up the mountain. In classic Awanadjo way, it was in a cloud; I didn’t see anything. I went up the mountain. I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know where I was. Then, looking back on that, that was two months before I moved here – it was sort of symbolic of moving to a new place as you’re in the fog and you don’t know what the community looks like yet. So, that was my first time. The other cool thing about that was that route that I took the first time is still my favorite route. Going up the Osgood Trail and down the service road is the most runnable route, and it’s still my favorite route to run. So, yeah, I definitely remember my first one.

CS: [00:10:29] Are there any other ones that may be significant to you that you remember?

IV: [00:10:33] Yeah, I’ve done some really cool ones in terms of the novelty of it. Last April, we had a crazy snow storm here where we didn’t have school. It was pretty much a blizzard. I lived in Sedgwick on North Sedgwick Road on the Salt Pond, which is seven miles away from town. I decided, on my snow day, I’m going to run up the mountain. I ran seven miles from home to here, ran up the mountain, and then ran seven miles back home. I think it ended up being eighteen-mile round trip in a blizzard. That was pretty incredible. I have some other ones like that where I went really far, but I’ve also had some more adventurous ones where I knew that there was a way to connect from Blue Hill to East Blue Hill through the woods, but I didn’t know what it was. So, one day after school, I said, I don’t care if I have to bushwhack, wade through three feet of water, I’m going to make it from East Blue Hill to the mountain. So, I set out with some food and some water, and I went down Jay Carter Road, and I found some trails in the woods. I ended up by Prets Meadow Lane, which is right by the storage units. So, I ended up running from East Blue Hill, connected through the woods, and then went up Turkey Farm, went up the Becton Trail, down the mountain, and then back on the East Blue Hill Road. It ended up being fifteen-mile roundtrip. I do that sometimes – connect from East Blue Hill. That’s one of my favorite parts of running the mountain is the new connections, no matter how legal they are; sometimes you’re trespassing, but it’s making new connections on the mountain, finding new trails on the mountain that aren’t official trails, like old ways up the mountain through the woods. There’s another way to connect from the fairgrounds down to the Peters Brook Trail, which I do a lot. When I’m doing something new for the first time, I call it an adventure run. It’s such a cool feeling because you don’t know how far you’re going to go out of your way, you’re seeing new things, you don’t know if you’re trespassing, if it’s going to be dangerous, if you’re going to stumble upon a dog who wants to bite you, and you’re just making new connections between new places. Those are the most memorable runs when I’m connecting new things. One time, I ran from the Surry Forest, which is another Blue Hill Heritage Trust property. From there, that connects to the end of Turkey Farm Road. So, I ran from the Surry Forest, up and over the mountain to town. There’s a lot of really fun ones. I’ve had some really dangerous times on the mountain in the wintertime when it’s like a block of ice where you go up and you slide down, but nothing too – I haven’t gotten too hurt yet. [laughter]

PG: [00:13:48] Do you wear special footwear in the winter when you run?

IV: [00:13:49] You should. You really should. For the record, I’m going to encourage everyone to wear crampons, but I don’t wear crampons. I just wear my sneakers with tread on them. But I don’t wear crampons.

PG: [00:14:04] We went and checked out – can I ask a follow-up? We went and checked out the Becton Trail. That’s where we recorded with Steve Norton.

CS: [00:14:11] I don’t think I was there for that one.

PG: [00:14:12] You were absent. This is off the Turkey Farm Road. It’s a lesser-known trail. I didn’t know if you were the steward of that. Do you have any comments about that trail? I mean, it was really interesting to see because it’s such a different approach than the front-facing ones. How did you get involved in being a steward, and what’s special about that trail?

IV: [00:14:33] So, the back Becton Trail, in my opinion, is – I used to call it “Neglected Becton” because it was terrible. The first mile of it’s really nice, which is probably what you guys did. But then the Second Mile, it feels like when they were building the trail about ten years ago, they just sort of gave up and needed to finish it because you’re supposed to switch back when you’re climbing to avoid your trail turning into a waterway, and they didn’t. They just went up the mountain. So, it’s so swampy. It’s so crappy. It’s dry this year, but most of the time, you can’t run Becton without getting your socks wet, which is – if you’ve been in the rain before, it’s a breaking point when your socks get wet, right? That’s like, “Okay, now I’m really wet.” So, Becton’s disgusting. It’s muddy. It’s terrible. Sometimes, trees will fall there, and it will take them six months to chainsaw them just because no one wants to go out with a chainsaw. I need to learn how to use a chainsaw so I can do it. So, don’t tell the Heritage Trust I said that, but it’s a pretty shitty trail, honestly. All in all. I got it because it’s so crappy and so long. The people who are stewards of it don’t last very long. The last couple stewards didn’t last that long, so it was the only one that was available, and I really wanted to get involved, so I asked them if I could. I know the guy because we do a lot of trail work with the track team and the cross-country team. So, I have my connections there, and I just asked.

PG: [00:16:13] What does being a steward entail?

IV: [00:16:14] You’re supposed to do it twice a month and you’re just supposed to clean up easy things. I have a handsaw, so anything I can get with a handsaw, I get. But big things, you just report to higher-ups. You’re not trusted to go out with the chainsaw yourself because it’s dangerous. But my job is to do it twice a month and to clear all the small stuff, and that’s what I do.

CS: [00:16:44] All right. Back to the Trail Fest and your [inaudible], when you were starting it, what kind of impact on the community were you hoping it’d have?

IV: [00:16:58] Well, I didn’t start the Trail Fast. We’ve got to give credit to Mac because he’s the head director there – and Phoebe. But I like the Trail Fest because it brings new people to the mountain. There’s a lot of runners out on MDI who run mountains but don’t come out here that much. So, it brought a whole new group of people from away, but then the other half of the racers are people from Blue Hill. Half of the people who run this race are from the area, even if they’re just going to walk the 5K. There’s a lot of people from our community doing it. I like that the Heritage Trust is running races because they’ve got so many great trails that I think they should do more races. So, the race contributing to the community – it also raises a ton of money for the Wabanaki Alliance or something, which is great, and I wish they could get more money from the race.

PG: [00:18:12] Was there any Indigenous participation that you were aware of? Was there a representative there or something?

IV: [00:18:18] Not that I know of. Yeah. It is cool to have people see what I do because I run the mountain a lot, and this is the one time of year where people can see me run the mountain seven times in a row. To see Coach Kane and Bill Gray helping out – they don’t get to see me do that. They know that I’m the track coach and stuff, but I get to prove myself to Dan and Bill during that race because they see me run by seven times. That means something to me, proving myself to them.

CS: [00:19:00] You started running fairly young. Would you say that Blue Hill Mountain would be a good starting point for somebody who wants to get into running, or would you say start a little easier?

IV: [00:19:11] I would start easier. But the other thing is mountain running is a lot more walking than you’d think. When you’re climbing a very steep hiking trail, you’re mostly just walking. So, new people to running, it’s really hard to just go run for twenty minutes if you’ve ever tried that before. As a new runner, that’s not the best option. So, really, I tell people to run/walk. Where I’m going with this is that one way to get into good cardio is just to go for hikes, hard hikes, so just walk the mountain. That’s going to be thirty minutes of cardio for you, and that can help you run. I would not suggest going right into running the mountain. That’s going to be frustrating and, honestly, a bit dangerous. I think you should run on flat first, do some run/walk, and build up to it.

CS: [00:20:08] All right. Why is running important to you? I mean, you do it a lot. You’ve done it since you were sixteen, seventeen years old.

IV: [00:20:21] Running is important to me because of the running community. The people surrounding running is why I love running. I like to say I’m not competitive, but I think I’m pretty competitive as a coach. I like winning. But also, my main goal as a coach is to get kids to be runners when they graduate and to go off to their colleges or after college, wherever they live, to start running clubs and join running clubs because that’s the best part about running to me is people coming together and running. It’s just a great way to bond as a community and to come together. That’s how I met two of my closest friends here was from running. It just helps you meet a lot of people, and it’s a healthy way to come together.

PG: [00:21:19] I got one. Are you done with your questions?

CS: [00:21:21] Yeah, I’m just about out.

PG: [00:21:22] You’re doing great, man. It’s awesome. What I was going to ask was about the relationship of conservation and running, particularly trail running and mountain running. We talked to Birgit earlier. To hear her version of the story, I mean, [she] was very responsible for getting all these trails maintained and [inaudible] some assistance. How do those two communities interact? What do you think is the significance or the importance of that?

IV: [00:21:50] This is hilarious because Birgit – I don’t think she really knows who I am, but I know who she is, and I don’t think she realizes that we’re sort of enemies of each other because she puts up all these signs like, “Don’t go here” to save erosion, and I go there. She’s directly talking to me. So, my secret is that I go off-trail all the time. I’m constantly eroding. I don’t know. Half of the Heritage Trust people couldn’t care less. Half of them are like, “You need to stay on the trail. That’s the rule.” But yeah, in order to run the mountain, you need to take care of it is sort of how I came to stewardship also. It’s like, “Damn, I’ve been running this mountain for three years. I’ve torn it up so much. Complained about Becton so much. Maybe I should do something about it.” So, I feel like any good trail runner should also do trail maintenance because otherwise, you’re just totally taking advantage of what people are working hard to do. But I did follow Birgit’s sign now. There’s a sign on the Hayes Trail that says, “Don’t go up this way,” and I haven’t gone that way. [laughter]

PG: [00:23:11] Well, I would imagine the running community are some of the most avid users of that. To hear her talk about it, she wants people to use it and have access to it. So, there’s definitely symbiosis here about – you all are doing that, which is great. I guess you just said it. It’s like, what’s the responsibility of the trail running community to maintain these trails, and it sounds like you’re saying somewhat.

IV: [00:23:38] Yeah, I would say most of the people I run with on the trails have volunteered for the Heritage Trust before, which is good. I like doing trail work. It’s really enjoyable. Everyone should do it.

PG: [00:24:00] Do you have time when you’re on these grueling training missions to stop and enjoy the beauty? Is that a part of the experience for you?

IV: [00:24:07] Yeah, I definitely stop at the top, and whenever I see something interesting, I’ll stop and look at it. Especially on Becton, if there’s shrapnel in the way, I’ll stop and get rid of the sticks. But no, I’m not a very patient person, I guess. I’m not known for stopping and smelling the roses. I’ll stop, and I take a picture usually at the top in the same place, and then I just go. I don’t stop all that much, to be honest. I get bored hiking sometimes. I’m like, “We could be going so much faster right now.” When else do I get impatient? Biking? I don’t know.

PG: [00:24:57] Was there any particular moment that you remember that did, just something that stuck out to you as either surprising or beautiful or a special moment that caught your –?

IV: [00:25:06] I had such a cool moment last week. You know the guy who parasails on the mountain? Do you know who I’m talking about? I’ve seen him several times, and I’ve seen him take off before. But the other day, the timing was just perfect. I came to the mountaintop where the tower is, the false summit, to stop and take my picture. That guy was there. I don’t think he wants to be named because he didn’t want to tell me his name, even though I know his name. So, I’m not going to name him. But the parasailing guy was there. We said hello, he caught wind, and he was like, “All right, I need to go now.” He jumps off and parasails, and I go, “Wait a minute. I wonder if I could beat him down the mountain.” So then, I hauled down the mountain, and when I’m in the field, we literally ended side by side. So, I ran down the mountain as fast as the guy parasailed down the mountain. Isn’t that awesome? So, that was pretty incredible. That was only last week, so I’ll be telling that one for a while.

PG: [00:26:11] Do you have anything else, Caleb? That’s also a good question. [inaudible] is there anything else that you would like to share that we haven’t asked you? So, you could finish with that.

CS: [00:26:22] Is there anything else you’d like to share that might be important?

IV: [00:26:27] Yeah. I think everyone should do the mountain more, definitely. It’s really hard for some people because it’s steep. Even from the parking lot, it’s five hundred feet of gain. I think more people in our community need to do it because not that many people have stood up there and looked down, which surprises me how few people have actually been up there when the senior hike is their first time ever going up the mountain. It’s like, “Whoa, what are you doing?” So, my call to action is to go up the mountain and look down on our town because it’s pretty incredible. What else do I want to say here? I want to talk more about the grind stuff because the mountain, it punishes you. The mountain is not your friend. The mountain doesn’t care about you. I tell myself mountain doesn’t give a shit about you. If you’re going to mistreat the mountain, it’s going to fight back. If you are too greedy about running times really fast, you’re going to fall, and you’re going to hurt yourself. That’s happened to me before. Not major injuries, but any time your ego gets too big, the mountain will crush you right back down, which I think is one of the best lessons I’ve learned from the mountain is don’t think that you have control over nature or your surroundings because it’s going to fight back. I always feel like the mountain sort of has a personality, and I can’t get mad at the mountain because it’s just doing its thing. It’s not there to be a place for me to run. I’m running there because I like it. If I ever fall, I always look into it a little bit, like, “What was I doing wrong? Was I being disrespectful to the mountain?” There’s probably a reason I just fell, which is sort of superstitious, but it’s a fun way to live your life if you think about the balance of powers around you and look into them a little bit because things happen for a reason. So, when I did the 50K – seven laps. I don’t do that normally. I’ve only done it twice – the two years it’s happened. Every time I would go behind the post office and start another ascent, I would say, “I’m not the master of the mountain. The mountain is my master.” I’d say it out loud to myself, and then I would say, “Respect the mountain and the mountain will respect you.” The first year, I actually ran it faster than this year. This year, I was on track to run it faster through five laps, and then I got overzealous. I started going faster, wasn’t eating enough food – because when you run long, you need to eat food, or your body is going to break down. So, then, on my sixth lap, I started cramping all over my legs, and I didn’t respect the mountain. I got too confident and thought that I could just run without fueling. And then, I suffered the consequences. On that last lap, I lost my time. I was walking most of it, and it was grueling. But it wasn’t the mountain’s fault; it was my fault.

CS: [00:29:56] I like that sort of outlook. Respect it; it’ll respect you. I look at stuff that I do that way as well.

IV: [00:30:03] Right. You should live your life in a way of being open-minded to other people’s experiences and not just other people. For me, it’s the nature, it’s the mountain. But also, it’s your job or your community. Think of those things as energy. If we want GSA to be a good place, you need to respect GSA. If you treat it poorly, it’s going to crash and burn, which I think is what everyone at this school needs to figure out; it’s what we make of it here. But same with everything you do in your life.

CS: [00:30:44] Yeah. I like [that] you think the community should do it more. I’ve only done it twice. I did once in seventh grade before Covid and then this year on my senior hike. I don’t know what way we went up. You might know because I know they plan it, but for me, it was pretty intense. I’m pretty out of shape. I don’t run normally. I haven’t done sports since my sophomore year.

IV: [00:31:10] You got to go from the Mountain Road because, for the senior hike, we go from the bottom. So you can cut off most of it if you go to the Mountain Road. So, yeah, you should do it more.

CS: [00:31:22] Yeah, no, I did enjoy getting up there, and being able to sit down and look at what I did was pretty – whoa, I did it.

IV: [00:31:30] Yeah. Definitely. That’s how I look at the Camden Hills now. Every time I look at them, I say, “I did all that in one day.”

PG: [00:31:37] I didn’t know there was a race that did all those. That’s crazy. That’s awesome. Sunrise is beautiful, too. Birgit had a bunch of photos of the sunrise. We used to go over to Cadillac, but I forgot [inaudible] right up there.

IV: [00:31:50] Yeah, I got some good ones. I’m getting sweaty. Your phone can arrange your pictures by places now.

PG: [00:32:07] This is super good. I’m not going to turn it off just in case something happens, but this can be [inaudible].

IV: [00:32:16] I have twelve hundred photos from the top of the mountain.

CS: [00:32:22] I have family that runs.

PG: [00:32:23] You do?

CS: [00:32:24]  Yeah. I don’t think he’s done Blue Hill Mountain because he’s all over the state. But he did – I think it was – Cadillac this past summer. He said it was six hours up [inaudible].

IV: [00:32:37] This is a crazy picture. This is what it’s like in the wintertime when I go up with my headlamp after practice. This is the sunset, but then I’m in the snow, and this light is from my headlamp. So, that’s the kind of a grind I’m getting into.

PG: [00:32:55] Do you have a favorite time of year to run it?

IV: [00:33:00] Probably this time of year, honestly, because it’s so pretty. But it’s also dry. When it’s wet, it’s sort of challenging. Then this is what it looks like in the morning when the sun comes up MDI. It’s pretty crazy. Lots of pictures on there.

CS: [00:33:21] I go mountain biking. I bike down Great Pond Mountain. I remember going up there a few times, and I’m always like, “Oh, it’d be cool if I could live up here, have a little house, see all the views.”

IV: [00:33:38] Here’s the guy parasailing last week. So, he got a head start. He started before me, and I beat him down.

PG: [00:33:45] So, he just jumps right off the top?

IV: [00:33:47] Yeah. You wait until you get wind, and then you jump. Here’s part of the reason we take the cross-country team up there – share it with everybody.

CS: [00:33:59] That’s fun. My old principal has been parasailing off Blue Hill Mountain.

PG: [00:34:05] Really?

CS: [00:34:05] Yeah.

PG: [00:34:06] Who’s that?

CS: [00:34:06] Fred Cole.

PG: [00:34:07] No kidding.

CS: [00:34:07] Nate’s dad, yeah.

PG: [00:34:08] Yeah, that sounds like a Fred Cole thing. People used to snowboard down one of those spots. You didn’t have a long run.

IV: [00:34:19] This is the day of the blizzard. We got Eddie, David, and Owen. See how much snow there is.

CS: [00:34:5] Wowser.

IV: [00:34:26] Isn’t that crazy? And Eddie always wears freakin’ shorts. It’s insane. Isn’t that crazy? So, endless pictures.

CS: [00:34:33] Shorts though? I understand because, with pants, you will sweat a lot. But shorts is a little much, shorts with at least some leggings underneath.

PG: [00:34:44] That’s another one of these kind of insane running crossover with cryotherapy stuff. I just saw a picture of this dude who did some run in the cold with just shorts on. Do you know about this, Isaac?

IV: [00:34:59] No.

PG: [00:35:00] It’s a combination of like the cold plunge with running. They go run in snowy mountains in shorts.

IV: [00:35:07] That’s Eddie, yeah. And Micah. Micah Bryan wore the same thing all year long: shorts and his GSA crewneck sweater. Even if it was eighty degrees or zero degrees, he wore the same thing.

CS: [00:35:21] I couldn’t do the sweater in eighty degrees. I can barely stay alive in eighty degrees.

IV: [00:35:24] Yeah. It’s crazy, man.

PG: [00:35:25] I was sweating [inaudible].

CS: [00:35:27] I was struggling to stay cool on the senior hike this year.

PG: [00:35:35] That was super enjoyable. Thank you. Actually, if there’s a chance of getting any of those photos that you’d be comfortable sharing, we’re going to do an exhibit at the end of this, November 13^th, which I’ll try to remember [inaudible].

IV: [00:35:49] What about the one of Eddie?

PG: [00:35:50] Yeah, exactly. Eddie. One of the cross-country team shots.

IV: [00:35:54] I’ll give you more obscure ones because you’re going to get plenty of sunrise/sunset pictures. But the more unique ones, like me with my headlamp on.

PG: [00:36:03] Running or –

IV: [00:36:04] Let me see. I bet you I can find some videos.

PG: [00:36:07] Here, I’m going to stop this, but we’re just chilling.