From Trails to Triumph: A 2025 Recap

Summary

In this episode of "Ginger and Chocolate," hosts Mike Ergo and Lindsay S. Hiken reflect on their experiences from 2025 and share their aspirations for 2026. Lindsay recounts her recent trail race, where she achieved second place in her age group, highlighting her newfound confidence in downhill running. Mike discusses his transition from a long career with the VA to new opportunities in therapy and insurance, emphasizing the importance of helping others overcome mental hurdles. The conversation flows into a recap of their favorite podcast episodes from the past year, featuring inspiring guests like Patti Lynn and Raul Ponce, who have overcome significant challenges through endurance sports.

As they delve deeper into their personal goals, Mike shares his journey of running the Marine Corps Marathon and the challenges he faced, including a recent injury that may require surgery. Lindsay discusses her commitment to strength training and her plans for upcoming trail races, emphasizing the importance of enjoying the process rather than just focusing on performance. The episode wraps up with a discussion on the mental health aspects of endurance sports, the balance between pushing limits and self-care, and the community spirit found in trail running. Overall, the episode is a heartfelt exploration of personal growth, resilience, and the joy of running.


Keywords

trail running, endurance sports, mental health, podcast recap, personal growth, Mike Ergo, Lindsay Hiken, 2026 goals, Marine Corps Marathon, strength training


Takeaways

'I figured out how to run downhill.'
'It's time to move on.'
'You can't just sit and talk; you need to move your body.'
'The trail community is great for celebrating being out there.'
'I want to find a balance between pushing myself and enjoying the process.'

Sound bites

"I bombed down the hill."
"Done with that."
"Get it out of the way before you're awake."

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Transcript

Mike Ergo (00:01.122)
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to Ginger and Chocolate. This is Mike and along with me as always my co-host Lindsay. Lindsay, how are you?

Lindsay S. Hiken (00:09.497)
Hello, I am doing pretty well. Let's see. Little tired this morning, but I think I say that like 90 % of the times that we record, so nothing new there. Nope, nope. How are you doing?

Mike Ergo (00:22.476)
Nothing new there.

Mike Ergo (00:27.266)
I am still waking up. I'm not that tired, believe it or not, but I'm just kind of dazed. So for those of you don't know, Lindsey and I record at six in the morning generally. So not too early for most of our endurance crowd, but depending on the night of sleep, you know, it can be a little touch and go when we start.

Lindsay S. Hiken (00:30.297)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (00:38.821)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (00:42.916)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (00:50.863)
I should say I'm not tired. I'm doing what you're doing. I'm just waking up. So throughout the episode, you'll probably hear me suddenly become a little more chipper than I am right now.

Mike Ergo (01:00.45)
Yeah. So if there's any constant or not, if there's any like occasional space outs or you're like, they said something that makes no sense. Stick with us. We'll, we'll roll through it we'll get there together.

Lindsay S. Hiken (01:12.261)
Exactly. So I did my first trail race of 2026 over the weekend. Yeah, I had a good race. I ran. I mean, you know, it it was in Hunter Park, which is my favorite place to run. So if you live on the peninsula, the Bay Area Peninsula, you probably are familiar. It's in Woodside and.

Mike Ergo (01:21.025)
So that.

Lindsay S. Hiken (01:39.107)
So I was totally familiar with the trails. It was only 8K, so about four and a half miles. And then you kind of run downhill for a little bit. Then you go uphill for quite a bit. And then all the way back downhill, which was fun. And I figured out how to run downhill. It's something where I have beat people up the hill and then they would just pass me on the downhill because I couldn't run quickly. And I figured out

Mike Ergo (01:50.978)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (02:04.994)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (02:07.895)
how to freaking do it for myself. And so I bombed down the hill. I was so stoked. huh. I came in second in my age group, which was fun. That's right. But I have to say most of the women I saw that were my age were like are in my age range. I think they were hiking. You know what I mean? I think that not very many of them were running, but there was one woman that we she and I were going back and forth.

Mike Ergo (02:10.039)
Nice.

Mike Ergo (02:14.016)
Nice, that's a good feeling.

Oooooh, podium!

Mike Ergo (02:30.754)
Okay.

Lindsay S. Hiken (02:37.273)
And at the end of the day, I put a bunch of space between us on the downhill. So I was stoked about that. She looked unhappy when she came across the finish line.

Mike Ergo (02:41.39)
Okay. Yeah, well, there's you.

Mike Ergo (02:47.298)
They're scared to run downhill and you're not now, so good.

Lindsay S. Hiken (02:50.973)
Mm So what was your weekend like?

Mike Ergo (02:54.412)
My weekend was like kids sports and home improvement. And I've been doing a lot of landscaping, kind of in between jobs. I've been doing some work for my grandparents, thankfully. And it's been nice. Yeah, yeah. So been out and get, yeah, well I've...

Lindsay S. Hiken (03:06.569)
Mmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (03:12.225)
good.

What kind of home improvement? Sorry, go ahead.

Mike Ergo (03:19.786)
I've taken a front yard and taking it from weeds and mud into like landscape covering with tan bark on top of it. So put down that tarp that prevents the weeds from coming up. this is so, this is riveting podcasting, but.

Lindsay S. Hiken (03:33.061)
Hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (03:38.629)
Welcome to Weed Man with Mike and Lindsay.

Mike Ergo (03:44.046)
Yeah, yeah. But I've been outside feeling good, doing some physical labor and getting in the sun feels good. So not stuck indoors. A lot nicer now that the weather is nice compared to when it was pouring rain. That was a little more difficult. So yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (03:49.989)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (03:53.871)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (04:05.285)
So for those of you who don't know, and if Mike doesn't mind, I'll just update you, because we've talked a lot about how Mike works for the VA and as a therapist, essentially helping veterans. And that job is done now.

Mike Ergo (04:21.121)
Done, yeah. Done with that. Yeah, I gave it 13 years and I loved the people I worked with. I loved the people I saw and wanted to help. And it's just time. Time to move on. So for the first time in my adult life, I'm not working for the federal government, so that includes my time in the Marine Corps. Yeah, it's been a while.

Lindsay S. Hiken (04:23.365)
Mmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (04:39.641)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (04:47.361)
Wow, wow. Huh, that must be different. Very cool. And you're doing you're going into the insurance thing now.

Mike Ergo (04:52.011)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (04:58.509)
well, I was been, been dabbling in that and then, I'll be doing a most almost full-time job at one of our local hospitals coming up, doing some more therapy. Yes. Yes.

Lindsay S. Hiken (05:12.97)
cool, that's awesome. I'm really glad you're doing therapy because I can imagine that you would be really, really good at that.

Mike Ergo (05:20.823)
Thank you. I do like getting in there and helping people clear out mental hurdles and looking at what our perceived barriers are and just listening to people. Because I think it's a, it can be, when you don't have someone to listen to you and you finally have someone that actually listens, I mean, as someone who's experienced it on both sides of the table, it feels pretty good.

Lindsay S. Hiken (05:46.55)
Mm-hmm. Awesome. I'm very excited for you.

And on that note, we are going to start dipping into today's topic, which is we're doing it's a little bit. I don't know if it's late, but we're a couple of weeks into January, but we're going to do sort of a recap episode. Just talk about what 2025 meant to us, what we hope for for 2026. Talk a little bit about some episodes that we enjoyed from 2020.

Mike Ergo (06:10.4)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (06:16.773)
So that if you haven't listened to him, you can go back and hear those. Yeah. So, so Mike, what was your favorite episode? Would you say of 2025?

Mike Ergo (06:25.89)
you

Mike Ergo (06:29.225)
Mm-hmm. Well, really stick out. We had so many guests that were inspiring. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had them on the show, right? And two that really stick out for me are my friend, Patti Lynn, the swimmer, and Sue Reynolds, who has just an incredible weight loss and triathlon journey.

Lindsay S. Hiken (06:46.753)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (06:56.035)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (06:58.205)
They both really inspired me and Patti Lynn for what she had to overcome physically and mentally and emotionally. And the same for Sue, know, different paths, but just overcoming, you know, just massive feats.

Lindsay S. Hiken (07:10.137)
Right.

Lindsay S. Hiken (07:15.787)
huh. huh. Yeah. I would say on my list is Sue, just because I loved listening to her and I'm excited to read her book when it comes out, her second book. And just the idea of like, why not me? She talks about, if listeners, she talks about working with Olympic level coaches just to see

Mike Ergo (07:30.284)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (07:43.127)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (07:45.38)
what that would be like and how that would change her triathlon training. And one of the things that she talked about a lot that I found fascinating was actual overtraining. Like I have felt like, I overtrained and now my knees are sore, but that's not really what it is. And she, she talked about how, you you, can, you can end up in the hospital that it's this months long process.

Mike Ergo (08:01.932)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (08:07.319)
Alright.

Lindsay S. Hiken (08:15.469)
if not a year long process to get back to where you can do what you love to do. And yeah, we had around two for two episodes and I just loved I love listening to her and I loved I loved the way that she describes just her.

willing to her strength and her willing to just keep freaking going. I found that inspirational. I would have stopped way before she did. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (08:43.181)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (08:47.085)
Lindsay, you and I would have been chilling at the health club spa. I'd like, I don't know guys. Yeah, not today.

Lindsay S. Hiken (08:54.021)
Not doing it. Yeah, it's very little chance of me over training.

Mike Ergo (09:07.181)
It's a good sell if you're getting a new coach. You'd like, look guys, I'm not going to overtrain. I might not train all the way, but I'm not going to overtrain.

Lindsay S. Hiken (09:15.319)
Right. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. I'm in I'm in jeopardy of not training enough is really what it what it is. But yeah, from the just off the winging it, I'm going to call that winging it syndrome where you don't do anything and then you're like, I'm going to do an Iron Man. But I trained, you know, three hours a week or something. And my other favorite one was Raul Ponce. And I just was thinking.

Mike Ergo (09:21.365)
Yeah. You're to get under training syndrome.

Mike Ergo (09:31.714)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (09:36.833)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (09:42.22)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (09:43.174)
He was very, very end of 2025. And did we actually drop the episode in 2025 or 26? I can't remember. Yeah, I interviewed him in 2025 for sure. And he's an ultra runner and just talked about his journey from drugs and alcohol and and.

Mike Ergo (09:53.645)
It was right on the cusp.

Lindsay S. Hiken (10:07.811)
being overweight and just living a really unhealthy lifestyle and what running did for him in terms of just completely turning around his life. he's a cool cat. He's the way he shared his story I really enjoyed. we've become good friends. mean, if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend it as well. But.

Mike Ergo (10:30.254)
That's cool.

Lindsay S. Hiken (10:34.861)
The way that I met Raul is interesting because we were having some work done on the house and he's in the trades and he was in our garage and he saw all of Josh's and my bikes. And so he asked about, he recognized, there's another endurance athlete in here. And he asked about,

He asked Josh about the bikes and I was sitting in my office working. I could kind of hear them talking a little bit. And I heard him say ultra runner. I like can't peek my head out of my office was like, well. And then I just asked him to come on the show. And we've since become friends because on the show he talks about this group that he runs with the Prisma trail runners. And I happen to be near the Prisma open space and.

Mike Ergo (11:04.526)
What? Who? Huh? Huh?

Lindsay S. Hiken (11:23.011)
I started running with them and in fact they were all at that race that I did. Yeah, they were racing each other. Raul came in second place in his age group, third place overall for the whole race. He crushed it and then we had like a little potluck afterwards. Super fun. So I recommend that one as well.

Mike Ergo (11:26.616)
Nice.

Mike Ergo (11:41.74)
Nice.

Mike Ergo (11:46.35)
I'm just getting this picture of you coming out of the house, just sniffing around and just like, what? Ultra, Ultra, who? Me? You? You? What?

Lindsay S. Hiken (11:52.262)
I said, did I hear you say ultra running? And he said, yeah. And I just immediately was like, well, I have a podcast. And I talked to lot of people and love talking to ultra runners and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, OK, I'll talk about it. I got a story to share. And it's fascinating because some people just get into endurance sports just for the fun of it, which I think is completely fine. But I love hearing the stories about people who get into it.

and it changes their whole life and that they might be have been living a sort of unhealthy life lifestyle. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (12:23.97)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (12:28.128)
huh. Yeah, there are a lot of, there are a lot of us out there. A lot of people either in recovery or going through or experienced some severe emotional distress, trauma. And I might've said this on the show before, but I remember running the...

Lindsay S. Hiken (12:34.329)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (12:54.114)
It was one of the years at Santa Rosa, just being on the run course for Ironman and catching up with a guy I knew. And he was saying, don't you just kind of think about normal people sometimes, how they can just work out for an hour or so and call it good. And you got psychopaths like us here for 12 hours chasing some high.

Lindsay S. Hiken (13:16.579)
Yeah, it's a different thing. It's definitely a different thing.

Mike Ergo (13:22.138)
Yeah, because there's people who can run a 5k be like, love it, done. Don't need to go farther. Right.

Lindsay S. Hiken (13:26.051)
Yeah, totally. No, yeah, there are. I'm not one of them. And most of the people I hang with aren't aren't those people either. But I think kudos to them for just, you know, getting out and doing it, even if it's not their favorite thing in the world. You know, we recently had an episode. So in twenty twenty six, we had an episode with a woman named Julia, and she has an amazing story about.

Mike Ergo (13:42.508)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (13:55.16)
I mean, she's an ultra runner as well, but her story goes through, you know, addiction and sexual assault and anorexia, you know, all of these trials on her way to becoming who she is today. And she's shared something where I kind of felt it, which was.

Mike Ergo (14:13.123)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (14:19.361)
And you've talked about this too, just the anxiety building up and it needs a physical release. You know, it's, good to meditate and talk to someone and get some help and with your, you know, mental and emotional stability, but that a lot of times there's this like buildup of the feelings and that that she said, if she just gets out there and runs, it's like, okay, I can.

Mike Ergo (14:26.978)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (14:40.035)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (14:47.769)
I can get another day, it's going to be okay, I'm safe now, know, kind of thing.

Mike Ergo (14:52.398)
Yeah, exactly. mean, and I tell almost all, maybe all the people I work with that sitting and talking has its place, but if they're not moving their body, you you got all this energy built up, especially, I mean, the people I'm working, I've worked with that carry trauma with them. You know, sometimes pretty severe trauma is like, you build it up.

Lindsay S. Hiken (15:12.633)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (15:18.382)
because their body's wired for fight or flight and has nothing to fight and nowhere to take flight, then it's just gonna buzz around inside you.

Lindsay S. Hiken (15:27.567)
Do you think that's true? And I agree. And I had trauma in my life and I always feel better after I do some sort of physical exercise. And with my job, I'm prone to just sitting and I'll kind of towards the end of the day start feeling like very anxious. And if I get out and move my body, I'm like, okay.

Mike Ergo (15:52.984)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (15:53.656)
And that doesn't show up if I move my body before work. So I've started these 5.30 AM strength workouts. And if I do some workout early before I start work, I feel like that anxiety doesn't crop up later in the day. So I'm putting in a plug for early morning workouts. you are somebody who'd.

Mike Ergo (16:08.802)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (16:17.913)
doesn't do it, but then later in the day has like work or something take over and can't do it later. You know, those morning workouts, just forcing the get up and go is really had really been helpful to me.

Mike Ergo (16:24.204)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (16:30.958)
Yeah, I'm a big proponent of the early morning workout. You get it out of the way before you're awake enough to come up with all the excuses, because the brain's not quite humming away yet. And so you're like, I'll just go, because I can't even believe the bullshit excuses that I have not to go right now.

Lindsay S. Hiken (16:50.017)
100 % and there's nothing else to do. There's no work. There's nothing where you're like, have to do something else. It's a good thing. 2025, you had some goals. What just remind us all what were they and talk a little bit about how they went.

Mike Ergo (16:55.309)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (17:05.571)
Yes.

Mike Ergo (17:11.95)
Sure. My goal was to get back into an endurance lifestyle, to run a marathon, and to just reconsider the career trajectory I wanted. So I had a few different big goals.

major life changes, well, one major life change was the job. And I was able to accomplish those. I was in doubt about the marathon though. I did run it, I did finish it just fine. Went a little slower, went with a group of guys, one guy was really fast, probably could have finished an hour before the rest of us. And one of my guys struggled a little bit, so.

But we carried the flag together, so we stuck it out together.

Lindsay S. Hiken (18:14.277)
that was the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C.

Mike Ergo (18:15.978)
Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital, and loved it. I loved it, loved it, loved it. It was one of those things where I was thinking of ways to get out of it. If I'm being honest with myself, I was thinking of ways to get out of it, because I hadn't put in a lot of the training as much as I normally do.

Lindsay S. Hiken (18:33.82)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (18:43.808)
And then I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna at least show up. You know, it's like, it's like when you're in a race, you don't think you can finish. Like, I'm gonna at least get to the next street or wherever the next thing is. And then I got there and I just saw so many people who were, cause I ran with the Semper Fi Fund and you know, some of the recaps on their thing. But I just saw a lot of people who had overcome so much.

Lindsay S. Hiken (18:46.735)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (18:53.252)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (19:13.1)
whether it's missing legs and arms or a guy who's blind, we're gonna run this and we're so just have this such joy to run it. I was like, I can't not start. And I decided I was like, I'm just not gonna quit. So that fire kind of was reignited and so that went well. Continuing on though, I came back and I got.

Lindsay S. Hiken (19:24.313)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (19:31.416)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (19:40.59)
I'm getting an MRI on my foot now because I have, I don't think I broke a bone, but I've done something to where I cannot run, even run in place.

Lindsay S. Hiken (19:47.013)
Lindsay S. Hiken (19:52.089)
Oof.

Mike Ergo (19:53.421)
So that's fun. So might be a lot of swimming in my future, but I have a half Ironman and Oceanside coming up and I don't think I'm gonna make it. I really don't.

Lindsay S. Hiken (20:06.135)
Yeah, you're gonna need to run for the half Iron Man. I mean, I guess you could walk it. You could I have I've done a half Iron Man and walked the run. I've done it. It's a long walk. I, you know, yeah.

Mike Ergo (20:09.4)
That's right here.

Mike Ergo (20:22.466)
That's a long walk, yeah. That's approximately 13 and some change. The thing about me though, is the whole reason I got injured in the first place is...

Lindsay S. Hiken (20:27.845)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (20:38.924)
I'm like a dog with a frisbee. If the game's on, it's on. Like I can't go half speed. Especially with the run. just, I got a lot of stuff in my head, whether it's, well, I'm less of a person because I'm walking and they're running and just wanting to go and having that itch. So I don't know if I could trust myself is what I'm trying to say to walk.

Lindsay S. Hiken (20:46.629)
Right, Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (20:57.73)
Lindsay S. Hiken (21:03.973)
I get it. You might just make the injury worse.

Mike Ergo (21:08.844)
Yeah, so I'll have more information about this. get an MRI in a couple weeks. So that's good. I'll know a little bit more. Yeah, I jacked up my, okay. I'll tell you how I did it. Listeners, since you all wanna know, I jacked up my wrist, my shoulder, and my foot. This all became apparent after I was diving for a ball on the outfield playing.

Adult co-ed, league, kickball.

Lindsay S. Hiken (21:41.093)
you

So not like some killer endurance type of situation.

Mike Ergo (21:49.921)
Nope, not, you know, not the Spartan Death Race, not an Ironman, not a marathon in Antarctica. Nope, I was playing in a beer league kickball and do for a ball and just jacked myself up. It was right after I did the marathon, so I tried to wait it out and see if I'd get better.

Lindsay S. Hiken (21:53.817)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (21:59.247)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (22:11.305)
yeah, I mean, maybe the marathon contributed to some tightness or something while you were going for this ball, but it seems like it's a lot of the times it's this way. You know, I I broke my ankle and had that two year like.

sort of like journey back to doing any kind of endurance stuff. And I didn't break it doing endurance stuff. I fell off a curb at SFO wearing flat shoes, you know, and just tripped off the curb. That's all it took. So it's like I could do an Ironman, but then I can't walk, you know, in SFO. So it seems like something like a kickball. I could see that being a problem.

Mike Ergo (22:40.898)
Yeah, that's right.

Mike Ergo (22:57.942)
Yeah, and you know, it's one of those start stop kind of sports. So I'm used to the steady motion, endurance stuff like you and you know, standing still and then running as fast as you can. can, can lead to injuries for some of us. And then I, know, the worst part about this whole thing, Lindsay is not, not being injured. That sucks.

Lindsay S. Hiken (23:12.919)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (23:18.885)
That's...

Lindsay S. Hiken (23:25.509)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (23:26.958)
It's just really annoying for everything I do. The worst part is listening to people like, know, you're not so young anymore. It's like, uh. That's what you sound like. That's what I do in my head.

Lindsay S. Hiken (23:35.846)
huh. Yeah, aging, we could do an episode and maybe let's do it in 2026 on aging because it's true that it's a thing. I don't want to hear about it either. And, you know, Josh says it a lot like

Mike Ergo (23:53.186)
Yes.

Lindsay S. Hiken (24:01.941)
I'll wake up and be like, how did I injure my neck in my sleep? You know, and he'll be like, well, we're getting old and I don't really want to hear that either.

Mike Ergo (24:06.819)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (24:11.95)
Yeah, I agree. There's got to be a middle ground because I initially resist completely like, no, I'm still 22 and you know, deployed and, and this Marine Corps guy who never gets tired or hurt. Um, and so there's that approach and then there's the, well, might as well just give up on everything in life and wear adult diapers and fucking shit my pants and never run it again.

Lindsay S. Hiken (24:38.639)
Yes, that's definitely the other end of the spectrum.

Mike Ergo (24:41.614)
Just give up, no more racing, because I'm old. it's a, there's a middle ground, right?

Lindsay S. Hiken (24:46.017)
Yeah, there's somewhere. Yeah. I saw an interesting article Josh sent me recently recently talking about how people don't really slow down until they're later in their life like late 60s. If you have been

consistently training this whole time. can run at 50, 55 like I am. You can run the same pace, like off by seconds as you ran when you were younger. The problem is that on the way to that, people, as you age, things come up in life.

Mike Ergo (25:07.544)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (25:11.842)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (25:21.282)
Hell yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (25:29.335)
And so then your training becomes inconsistent when you are a little bit older and the bounce back from that is the hard part.

Mike Ergo (25:37.871)
Let's see. Yeah, so this would be good episode. I'll tell you one last thing, maybe before we move on from aging and training and how it relates is I really cringe and I get that kind of feeling every time I see those commercials for some kind of like lifestyle.

Lindsay S. Hiken (25:46.437)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (26:01.964)
you know, drug that fixes whatever. And you see these old people just walking, smiling, power walking, and, like being active playing pickleball, but you can tell they, it's like their first time swinging a racket. And it's like, is that me? Is that me?

Lindsay S. Hiken (26:03.179)
Lindsay S. Hiken (26:18.309)
I get the ick anytime I see any like drug ad because it's always like they're like skipping through daisies and the music's like la la and then there's reading off all of the side effects and one of the things I think about is like why don't we just let our doctor tell us what we need? Like I don't need to go to my doctor and be like how about giving me Abilify or whatever. I mean truth be told I'm on Abilify.

Mike Ergo (26:21.018)
Mike Ergo (26:31.63)
Exactly.

Mike Ergo (26:37.582)
Yeah, exactly.

Mike Ergo (26:43.191)
Yeah, exactly.

Lindsay S. Hiken (26:46.669)
We've talked about meds before and high five, virtual high five. It is a good drug, but.

Mike Ergo (26:48.586)
I'm on Abilify too, hey. Yeah, you listen to pretty gnarly side effects while people are like making toast or like going on their morning walk in the commercial. like, include.

Lindsay S. Hiken (27:03.109)
their grandkids running into their arms and it's like may include suicidal ideation or, you know.

Mike Ergo (27:07.798)
Yeah. Bleeding from your eyes. Uncontrollable bowel movements. Yours should jump off things and you're like, what the fuck is this?

Lindsay S. Hiken (27:14.373)
But if you don't have those things, you will have the energy to pick your grandchild up. my goodness. So let's see, what did I want to do in 2025? I can't even really remember. did want to initially, I think I did want to do a little bit of triathlon. I had pushed my

Mike Ergo (27:21.642)
Yeah

Mike Ergo (27:33.539)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (27:42.426)
not a little bit, had pushed my California Ironman out from the year before and initially I was like, okay, I can go long, my job isn't particularly busy right now. But I just lost the, and I had talked about this before, like two years before that I had just lost the motivation to do triathlon and.

Mike Ergo (27:44.5)
little bit. It's a small iron man.

Mike Ergo (27:56.073)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (28:08.119)
I did some long swimming early, like in February I did 50,000 yards in the month of February, which is long. And I came out of that waterlogged as fuck. You know, I was like, I don't need to see a pool again. I just really wanted to run. I really wanted to start running. And I knew that if I

Mike Ergo (28:20.407)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (28:31.041)
wanted to do that I needed to start doing strength training. And so I did a few different things like I initially just went to the gym and tried to use the machines and I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing. Then I got a trainer and she was pretty good but

Mike Ergo (28:34.85)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (28:47.449)
She was young and she is a triathlete. She is a Ironman triathlete. qualified that same race I was going to do. She went and qualified for Kona. yeah, and the issue I had with her is that.

Mike Ergo (28:57.619)
wow.

Lindsay S. Hiken (29:02.531)
Given her age, she was really challenged in adjusting for my age. And so she would just be like, you can do more, which was true. But the amount more that she wanted me to do, I would be like, well, my back hurts. It's not like I have muscle fatigue. My back actually hurts. And so we would have this sort of, I think I was obviously not over training, but I was definitely overdoing it with some of the exercises.

Mike Ergo (29:09.464)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (29:21.261)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (29:30.914)
That's dangerous. You can get hurt and then your training is just done trying to get one more rep in.

Lindsay S. Hiken (29:35.01)
Mm hmm. Right, right. And so that was happening with her. So I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. But I stopped working with her as a trainer. And then I found this I found this class here at Half Moon Bay that is like almost like a hit class. It's a lot of

Mike Ergo (29:53.699)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (29:55.382)
strength training, lot of like squats with heavy weight, use kettlebells, free weights, but also like TRX and bands and you know, all those different balls, you know, you can do like wall balls and ball slams and things like that. A lot of pushups and core work and

Mike Ergo (30:04.334)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (30:10.828)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (30:18.851)
I've been doing that four times a week now. It's like perfect for me because I get in the strength, but I don't, I'm not injuring myself.

Mike Ergo (30:26.988)
Yes, yes, exactly.

Lindsay S. Hiken (30:29.165)
Yeah. So in building the strength, was like, okay, my body's getting rebalanced because that was one of the big things about my run was that it I had overcompensated for my broken ankle for so long that I every time I tried to run, it was like not my ankle that was a problem anymore. It'd be like my knee or my hip or whatever. So

Mike Ergo (30:50.188)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (30:54.381)
Yeah, so in 2025, I got that strength. Finally, after all these years, I finally figured out like what I could do strength wise and I'm so stoked on that. So that was a huge goal. Just it had been a goal for years to try to do it consistently. And, you know, I wanted to like it while I'm doing it.

Mike Ergo (30:58.743)
Nice.

Mike Ergo (31:08.994)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (31:12.558)
Yes, I get that completely. I get that completely and I'm worried because I'm not just totally interjecting and interrupting and derailing it, but I want to like triathlon again. I want to love it like I did. My big fear is that that's passed me by and then I have to find something else. It's like, what's wrong? I want to like this.

Lindsay S. Hiken (31:24.549)
That's fine.

Lindsay S. Hiken (31:30.401)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (31:36.934)
Yeah. Right. Well, you know, with our the addictive nature of our addictive nature, or at least I'll speak for myself. One of the characteristics of Mike just raised his hand. One of the characteristics of my sort of mental health challenges is that if I don't like something, I really don't want to do it.

And when it comes to working out, like, you don't have to do it. Like, I don't like having to work, but I have to work, right? So I put on my big girl pants and go to work. with working out, if I don't like it, I start not wanting to do it and falling off on the training. And that's what was happening for me last year with triathlon and just kind of like you're talking about.

Mike Ergo (32:12.14)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (32:30.467)
I was like, no, I don't really wanna go meet up with my team and go for a long ride. I really don't care. And it is a little scary, because then, you know, what are you gonna do? And there's certain amount of identity attached to being a triathlete.

Mike Ergo (32:39.106)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (32:49.098)
yeah, I fell into that completely. My almost entire identity was, you know, Mike the triathlon guy. it's a big shift. So approaching a sport or an activity with moderation.

Lindsay S. Hiken (33:05.701)
What's that? What's moderation? Well, I'm excited on fire to do trail running. So that's like my thing now. And I'm really doing everything I can to have my body cooperate with me, including being slow and kind of

Mike Ergo (33:08.824)
Exactly, what the fuck is that?

Yes.

Mike Ergo (33:27.576)
Yes.

Lindsay S. Hiken (33:31.685)
You know, that's my goal for 2026 is to do a bunch of races that I want to do, but not feel like I have to throw the hammer down and kill myself and end my run for the rest of the year.

Mike Ergo (33:37.164)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (33:47.769)
That's the trail community is great for. There's so many different kinds of people who do trail running and it's more, it's more like celebrating that you're there rather than the culture from like road running to trail running is so different. You know, you got people like, shit, I didn't even turn on my watch to time. So well, you know, for trail running and just enjoying it and be like, Hey man, I saw like.

Lindsay S. Hiken (33:49.509)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (33:58.787)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (34:05.283)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (34:11.119)
ring.

Mike Ergo (34:15.372)
Two red-tailed hawks and I saw, you know, all these things and celebrating being out there where it's like road running is just, you know, fixated on the pace, beating other people. There's no talking beforehand. There's no like, Hey man, where are you from? What you about? Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (34:19.481)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (34:23.897)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (34:28.837)
Yeah. It's just like road riding versus like gravel or mountain biking, like completely different vibe. These people that I've been running with up at Parisma on Sunday mornings, some of them are like gravel are bad asses. do, you know, a hundred miles. They are in contention, you know, for top spots, things like that.

Mike Ergo (34:53.368)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (34:55.747)
But what I noticed is if it's beautiful out, they'll stop and take a picture. Like, ooh, look at this. And it doesn't matter that they can kill it in a race. They're just like trail runners, and they're there to enjoy the outside as much as they're to run.

Mike Ergo (35:01.336)
night.

Mike Ergo (35:14.85)
Yeah, I like that. And I just, want to find some kind of balance, some kind of sweet spot where I can push myself to improve and get better, but not have that be the end goal of just, you know, the very, you know, lowest time I can have on an event and just crush myself. But at the same time,

not give up completely and just walk the whole thing. So I don't know what that is, but that's one of my goals, just to find that.

Lindsay S. Hiken (35:46.253)
Right, right. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (35:52.666)
I've been run walking quite a bit. Well, first of all, trails around here are pretty steep. even even these these people are like power walking part of it because the person was very steep. So it's like run downhill or run while it's kind of rolling. And then there's some steep uphills and I'm like, good power walk time. And that's been really good for my body, too, which is different than the road, you know, is that

Mike Ergo (36:17.037)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (36:18.443)
that in a way it forces you and some, you know, to to power hike and so. Getting better at power hiking uphill is one of my goals for twenty twenty six is to just work on my technique for trail running, you know, work on my downhill technique and work on the power hiking uphill. I did pass some people this at this race last weekend, I passed some people on the.

Mike Ergo (36:33.919)
huh.

Lindsay S. Hiken (36:46.627)
the switchbacks going uphill, walking. So yeah, I was like, here I come.

Mike Ergo (36:49.329)
cool. Nice.

I had a quick question about that, because I wondered about this. What do you do or what do you say when you pass somebody?

Lindsay S. Hiken (37:01.731)
on your left.

Mike Ergo (37:03.36)
Yeah, well, I know that on my bike and if I'm hauling ass, but I go.

Lindsay S. Hiken (37:08.259)
It's a more friendly version. It's like, hey, I'm coming up behind you, coming up on your left. And people just step to the side and stop running for two seconds to let you. Now, I don't know what it's like on the front. I don't know if they're just running up under the bush around people. I don't know what it's like on the front of the pack. But everybody else is just like, step aside.

Mike Ergo (37:12.354)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (37:16.354)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Mike Ergo (37:32.578)
Yeah, well, because I'm thinking like when I pass people, what I've done in the past sometimes is if they're really out there and I'm just going a little bit faster and passing them, you know, I give them some motivated like, hell yeah, keep on going. You got this. But then that can be patronizing if you do it like you got a little buddy. You can you can do this big race. You little guy.

Lindsay S. Hiken (37:44.741)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right.

Lindsay S. Hiken (37:52.742)
I've had that, especially in triathlon with women, like, on your left, go girl. And I'm like, Exactly. But I did see some people I know out there. So like I was passing a woman, she was like, Lindsay, actually was Raoul's wife. And so we walked for.

Mike Ergo (38:01.008)
That's what you sound like.

Mike Ergo (38:12.814)
Nice.

Lindsay S. Hiken (38:14.981)
like a couple of minutes and just chat it, you know? And then I was like, I'm going to take off unless you want to go ahead of me. And she was like, no, you you go. And so I ran up the rest of the way. but I love it. And the other piece of it is you can use those polls. So like some people use those polls to get uphill. And I noticed that even these guys like that from that group that were coming in, like two of them had.

Mike Ergo (38:31.308)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (38:43.781)
poles like on their hydration pack. Most of those guys were running without hydration really. I mean, they just had a handheld or something, but there were two that just had them and they probably just had them in their pack from their normal like long distance running, but because they collapse, right? And I actually have a pair of collapsible poles and that's something that I want to work on technique because right now, like I can't jog with those or run with those. It would help my downhill. It helped my knees and hips downhill, but

Mike Ergo (39:12.846)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (39:14.457)
the placement of those poles is something you have to learn how to do in practice, because otherwise you can just trip yourself. Yeah, yeah. So I'm excited to do some trail. So I'll just tell you my big.

Mike Ergo (39:21.967)
Yeah, that would be absolutely helpful.

Mike Ergo (39:31.215)
Here we go.

Lindsay S. Hiken (39:31.245)
trail challenge for this for this year is I'm trying to do what brazen racing, is a if you don't live here in the Bay Area, they've got it's a production company race production company for trail trail runs and the other they put together some really good events. Very chill. Everyone's you know, everyone's kind to each other and it's just fun fun times but they have a thing called the brazen ultra half.

Mike Ergo (39:44.078)
Love them.

Lindsay S. Hiken (39:58.09)
And it starts in October and I'm a little late to the game. So it starts in October, ends in September. So you got to do five of any five of their half marathons, which they have quite a few plus this one race in September. So it's six total. So for me, it's doing one every month starting in April, just one half. And you know,

Mike Ergo (40:23.427)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (40:25.475)
they have a thing that's like an early start if you want to hike it. So you can start early and run, walk it if you want to. So that's sort of my goal is to just do the early start and run, walk these until I feel like I'm going to run as much as I possibly can. But some of them are very steep, like Mount Diablo is friggin straight uphill. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (40:44.367)
done that one. That's a fun story. Great race, but yeah, I had an experience. We got to get someone from Brazen this year on the show because yeah. So I've done the Mount Diablo Trail Challenge, half marathon, and then I've done the Trail Hog half marathon in the South Bay, and that's a fun race. I love that

Lindsay S. Hiken (40:54.824)
that would be amazing. Yeah, we definitely should. Yeah, that would be awesome.

Lindsay S. Hiken (41:05.029)
Mm.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna see, I picked one out. The thing is there's only six left plus the one that you have to do. And I have to do five of them. And so on Sunday when I was talking to some of these other trail runners, I was gonna skip Diablo.

Mike Ergo (41:15.716)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (41:26.179)
And they were like, just go hike it, just go hike it and get it done. Cause it's, it's an April. And then the other one Badger Cove that I want to run end of April is there too. And I was like, I don't want to do two in April. And they were like, just go hike Diablo because if you don't and something comes up later in the year and you cannot make one of these, then you have no place to go. Well, I was going to.

Mike Ergo (41:31.044)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (41:46.573)
Yeah, yeah, do Diablo. It's a good one. The poppies will be in bloom.

Lindsay S. Hiken (41:51.194)
I was gonna ask if you wanted to hike it with me, but it sounds like you've already done it and that it wasn't the experience that you were looking for, or maybe it was, but.

Mike Ergo (41:59.714)
No, because I was just a fucking idiot when I did it. I just finished like my second half Ironman and I was like, a run only please. And yeah, exactly. I showed up. I was like water pussies. I don't need that. like I ran, I ran this thing and I did, I was doing well. I was really doing well. I was pushing it a little more than I should have probably on the, Hills. and then disaster struck when we got to the top of the

Lindsay S. Hiken (42:06.149)
I'm

Lindsay S. Hiken (42:14.405)
no.

Lindsay S. Hiken (42:29.573)
Mm.

Mike Ergo (42:30.087)
course elevation and like halfway up the mountain and the aid station was not there.

Lindsay S. Hiken (42:32.601)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (42:40.719)
That really was a bummer for me. And, you know, it's like they were on the old course maps where Rondevoud with the road. And so they were where they're supposed to be last year. And so then I was about to run down the hill. Some guys saw how I looked and he was like, it, yeah, he was like bottle feeding me like they do for like stray kittens. He's like, here you go, little fella.

Lindsay S. Hiken (42:42.508)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (42:49.557)
Lindsay S. Hiken (42:53.957)
I'm out. no.

Lindsay S. Hiken (43:00.681)
Would you like some water?

Mike Ergo (43:08.749)
And then I ran down the hill and then I tumbled and fell just ass over teakettle kind of swoop. And then my legs were like, we are done. So I, I bonked hard. And then I walked to an aid station that was like less than a mile from the finish line. could hear everybody finishing and I was just sit standing there like a goon waiting, waiting to finish it out. And so beautiful race though.

Lindsay S. Hiken (43:29.285)
Okay, I'm gonna

Mike Ergo (43:36.899)
But so if you don't do that, Lindsey, you'll be just fine.

Lindsay S. Hiken (43:40.462)
Yeah, yeah, I'm planning on hiking it so that I can run Badger Cove because Badger Cove is at the end of April and it's way flatter. So it's more of one where you should be able to run like most of it. Whereas Diablo, know, I could probably run quite a bit of it at this point. I'm starting to feel better, but that might ruin me for other ones following that. yeah.

Mike Ergo (43:49.987)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (44:04.779)
Yeah, if you hike it, it's perfect. I mean, I will say, like I said before, the poppies come out and bloom around there, right around then, it is perfect. Just total hillside is covered with them. It's worth it alone for that.

Lindsay S. Hiken (44:10.862)
Hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (44:16.825)
So excited I get to power hike and take pictures and yeah, that's gonna be that's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. So those are kind of my goals for 26. And then in terms of the podcast, I want to get more more interviews, we've got some good ideas, and probably get more ultra runners just because that's kind of the crew I'm hanging out with as well. And, you know, we haven't had a lot of strength people on.

Mike Ergo (44:21.655)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (44:39.927)
Yes.

Lindsay S. Hiken (44:44.357)
We had Diana who runs the Empowered Fitness where I'm doing it. And we had Stephanie who you were working with early in the year and I think we had her right at the beginning. If you guys haven't listened to that one, I recommend that because she got lost in the woods for days and almost died. So that was an interesting show. But maybe we have a little bit of strength.

Mike Ergo (44:44.93)
No, that's true.

Mike Ergo (44:49.721)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (44:57.219)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (45:07.917)
Yes.

Lindsay S. Hiken (45:15.224)
interviews.

Mike Ergo (45:15.405)
Yeah, because that's a great idea because quickly my goals are get strong. I've been hitting the gym and in the weights. Get strong, swim well, and then heal my body.

Lindsay S. Hiken (45:23.109)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (45:31.727)
Yeah, I get that foot worked out.

Mike Ergo (45:34.159)
Yeah, it might require a slight surgery, so we'll see how goes. Because it might be a nerve has regrown. I had a nerve removed there about 15, 16 years ago. And so if it's not a broken bone, it might be that. So either way, looks like foot surgery is on the horizon.

Lindsay S. Hiken (45:38.86)
wow.

Lindsay S. Hiken (45:52.92)
Okay, well, that sounds fun. And I'm sorry that's happening because I know how I fully aware of how having an injury and then surgery can set you back and then it sort of fucks with your head a little bit and all that good stuff.

Mike Ergo (46:10.295)
Yeah, yeah, it's true, but that's why I'm trying to look for that non-impact like swimming that I'll be able to do more quickly or sooner than running. then playing plays as I can sit down and lift weights at the gym. I've set myself up pretty well, I think, to get a good mental space. So we should be good.

Lindsay S. Hiken (46:18.105)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (46:22.691)
Right, right.

Lindsay S. Hiken (46:29.605)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (46:34.093)
Yeah, yeah. All right. That sounds good. And the other thing I would like to have on the show is just a few more people around in the mental health space. I think that would be

Mike Ergo (46:45.039)
Got one, and I'm gonna talk to her today. And yeah, so we'll get some of that too, because the interaction of mind and body is huge. Like we touched upon and joked about like, why are there so many people with trauma and former addicts in the endurance scene? Well, let's talk about a healthy way to do this, right? Because we see the people who go so far extreme and they're like, you know, I'm gonna be like the iron cowboy and run a.

Lindsay S. Hiken (46:48.257)
All right.

Lindsay S. Hiken (46:54.392)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay S. Hiken (47:03.013)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (47:15.183)
Iron Man in every state. You're just like, commentate me, huh? Let's pump the brakes on that.

Lindsay S. Hiken (47:19.437)
Right. It's good to like have some physical activity to help with some of the buildup of anxiety from trauma. But also then there's the like you're doing too much and you might need to get some therapy, some talk therapy instead of doing an Ironman a day. OK, well, I think we've covered what we.

Mike Ergo (47:34.091)
Yeah... Yeah...

Lindsay S. Hiken (47:43.109)
what we did in 2025 and some of our plans for 2026. with that, I think we can probably wrap it up unless you have something else to talk about, Mike.

Mike Ergo (47:54.027)
No, I'm just so good to see you. And it's been a few weeks and we've, we've tried to collaborate and have none. And this is so good when it works out. And I can't wait to do this just about every week with you in 2026. And I wanted to give a big shout out and a thank you to our listeners for, you know, taking the time to listen to our show, to join us, to send comments and suggestions and to point us to guests and

Lindsay S. Hiken (47:58.821)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (48:06.468)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (48:10.661)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (48:22.881)
to refer us to your friends when you think an episode is good or you like the show. so thank you for sticking with us and we're going to bring you some more great content for 2026.

Lindsay S. Hiken (48:26.787)
Yeah.

Lindsay S. Hiken (48:35.064)
That's right. Okay, guys. And as always, if you want to share an episode or rate us and review us on the podcast app of your choice would be greatly appreciated. See you next week. Bye.

Mike Ergo (48:48.056)
See ya.