Two Black Girls Talk to Quinton
TWO BLACK GIRLS TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING PODCAST: EPISODE 14
In this week’s episode Dee and I talk to fellow runner Quinton Jacobs about the intersections of running and social justice, and how running can strengthen our communities.
Show Notes
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Transcript
Speaker 1:
[inaudible] two black girls talk about everything, podcasts , I’m Diane and ID. And we’re going to be talking about every bill talking about yoga and fashion and just everything black girl talk about. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the two black girls. Talk about everything. Pod with D and myself. We are excited to be talking to Dee’s friend and fellow Lululemon, ambassador Quintin Jacobs D refers to him affectionately as que Quintin is a father community connector and runner. He’s a fuel technician by day, but an avid active coach in his community. He is the supporter of the start to finish running and reading club, which is an afterschool program for children living in underestimated and priority neighborhoods, giving them access to free recreational afterschool pro programming. He’s also a run coach at Lord Dufferin, public school and program director of the spruce courts juniors public school. The program is to provide children with the importance of growing their reading skills while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. And two other programs that he holds near and dear to his heart is lead up crew and kickback connect. The kickback connect is a nonprofit organization rooted in empowering children in marginalized communities. While lead-up program is an empowerment program for young women, where they’re able to connect with each other and meet inspiring women along the way, a program or event that really excites me, that queues a part of his escape Tio, which is an ultra relay from Toronto to New York city, raising money for Skylark youth, mental health counseling for you. So you see that running has a lot of possibilities. You can connect running to almost anything and know this. Anybody can learn to run. So let’s jump into the conversation between Q D and myself on how running and social justice connects
Speaker 2:
You . And I met well, I, when I was getting onboarded for my Lulu lemon and bats or ship back in last summer, that’s how I came to know of , like I said, the legend Quintin , Jacob just own it. Yeah , yeah , yeah. It was , it was, it was cool. And it was kind of like my first, you guys that ran the , um, the training, it was the first space is of what I had from the actual like company, which was cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And I stopped . Yeah , that’s right. Yep .
Speaker 3:
Yeah. And Sophia jumped on her . She was on the love call this afternoon right before. But right before this , uh, she sort of oversees a lot of the ambassadors and I met Sophia at the summit a couple of years ago. So yeah .
Speaker 1:
Is that the one in Whistler? So we’re talking about Lulu lemon here, right? You guys are both lemon ambassadors and you went to Whistler, was it two years ago? Two years ago. Yeah. And how was that? Are you allowed to talk about that? Is that proprietary?
Speaker 3:
It’s gorgeous. It’s beautiful. I’d never been a Whistler before. I’d never been out that way. You’ve been there.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. My brother lived in van city for a couple of years and I took it upon myself as an opportunity for a free place to stay, to go and pack up my kids. So I went to van city, I want to say in 2016, maybe it was a while ago. And we rented a Airbnb in Whistler and we did the whole gondola over the mountains and we did all the Blackmore stuff and it was like, I liken it to be standing in front of a green screen because you can’t believe what you’re looking at around you is actually real. And it’s so breathtaking and I’m very attracted to the idea of mountains and ocean. Um, I’ve been to California a bunch of times and it reminded me Whistler and van city, Vancouver itself reminded me of Vancouver, Canada. For those of you who are listening , um, it reminded me a lot of like , um, Berkeley and Northern California up that way. And then there was English Bay that actually had Palm trees and I just lost my mind and had a hundred pictures in the forest. That’s English fan . I remember posting it all over my social media going I’m in Canada and I’m in a forest of Palm trees. And I don’t know for American listeners, a lot of things that are supposed to be filmed in California will be filmed in Vancouver because there’s a tax credit to filming Canada. And a lot of things that look like they’re filmed in New York city will be filmed in Toronto because it has a similar feel. It has a similar feel and look, but if you’ve been to those two cities, you know that they’re very different,
Speaker 3:
Man. You said it like mountains and ocean together. Get it, forget it.
Speaker 1:
It’s like it feeds my soul in some kind of way. Like, it just there’s a different feeling there. And when we were there, they had had a thunder storm and everybody was talking about this thunderstorm and it occurred to me. They don’t get thunderstorms there. It’s just like a drizzle all the time. But people in shops and all over the place were talking about the phenomenon of this thunderstorm. And everybody was like, did you hear the thunder? Last night? We live in Windsor. A thunderstorm is like, we could have one right now if it’s warm enough. Right. Like it’s just not, it’s not a thing in Ontario. We have them all the time. So it was really interesting to see the culture difference between the two places.
Speaker 3:
Were you both brought up in winter ? Like, were you both recently , like, are you from was, well, I was,
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I’m from a small farm town outside of Windsor. So half an hour, 45 minutes, but small town called hero. Um, yeah, so that’s where I was raised. And then I bought 20 years ago, I moved to Windsor
Speaker 1:
And I grew up in , uh, Burlington. So just down the street from you, the thing
Speaker 3:
Yeah. From places where it’s flat. So when you see mountains and you see it , like it hits you, it hits my first time going to experiencing that actually wasn’t even in Canada , it was , uh , in South Africa. My mom is from Africa. And I remember stepping off the plane in, in Cape town and you see table mountain and you see the ocean. And that was it. It was just like both of them . And I was like, that’s it , I’m in it. Right? Yeah , yeah . Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I don’t, I don’t know you, but I read your bio and felt very , um, what’s the word I’m looking for? That I need to be new and more in my community. Um, your bio was very full and I love all the community work. You are doing. The one that spoke to my heart was teaching kids that running could be a therapeutic practice. So is running a big part of your movement practice?
Speaker 3:
It is. It is. It’s something that I took to , uh , actually when I became a father, I’ve got three kids. My oldest is 16 turning 17 this year. Wow. And you know, before that was always active, played sports soccer. But as a dad running introduced me to a sport that was flexible. I can, I can play soccer. You got to base your whole life around the game time or practice the whole team with, with running. I was able to just get out and go short clock in the morning, five o’clock in the morning . I can, I can use these little windows. And that’s how I got hooked. You know, just having something that was, for me, that was flexible athletic at first. But I think I quickly fell into the therapeutic and the even emotional sort of connection to the sport. And so I’ve been able to kind of lean into both in all the years I’ve been running. And now, like you said, I get to share it. Um, share it with the people in my circle, which is a pattern
Speaker 1:
How’d you get started. Cause that’s what everybody wants to know. How did you get started running? I wish I could run for an hour. I wish I could run to the bottom of my driveway. Like these are the things that show up Graham and all these things . Yeah . Little secret
Speaker 3:
Just between, just between us girlfriends.
Speaker 1:
Oh , you want to drag race? I love you.
Speaker 3:
Yes . That’s my, that’s my thing. Um, you can, I mean, as a runner, that’s one of the most , um , inspiring things for me and I’ve run marathons. I’ve run ultras. You the most inspiring thing is not the guy at Fred wins. I mean, that’s cool. Great. He’s got the genetics and the training, but seeing somebody who you wouldn’t expect to be whooping your in a race, whooping your in a race is so inspiring to me. I’m people, I’ve seen people that blind people. I’ve seen people with one leg. I’ve seen big people, small people, and I’ve seen the back of them because they were working my butt. And if it’s they’re whooping your butt for like three hours, you have nothing to do, but look at the back of their head. Yeah . And that to me is so inspiring. Like I love that aspect of it. And so like the, the key thing that I try to like share with people is that if I know you could run a marathon, doesn’t matter as I literally know you can, because I’ve just shared with you that I’ve seen people with with less , uh, do it. How do you convince someone to take that first step on that journey? And , and , and , and no matter who you are, it takes that first step. So running around the block, it’s running to the end of the street it’s running , uh, and then coming back and just celebrating those little tiny things. And I think what happens is people do too much too soon and then beat themselves up, pack up running, and they let it go. Like part of what I, I like to do, especially with kids is go out, do little, little bits and celebrate the little bits. And then before, you know, it, they all add up. And so I’ve been able to do that in a lot of the different programs start to finish as one of them came back as another. So tell us about those programs. Uh , start to finish as a running and reading program for at-risk youth got , um, programs, all, it’s a pretty big program. They’ve got over 50 programs and there , you know, all over on Ontario. Um, I started, I want to say seven, maybe eight years ago as a coach, just a volunteer coach. And , uh, and then about three or four years ago, they launched a new school in Regent park in Toronto and the program director. And so I stepped up to be a program director. And so what it is, it’s an afterschool program. We , we run with the kids. There’s a portion where we do snacks and we do a word of the week and we lean into literacy. So there’s a reading portion of the program, but at the end of the program, which is at the end of the school year, all the kids pre COVID of course, and post COVID would run a 5k is big 5k. And a bunch of kids from all there would be 700 kids would come to one of the big university campuses and all of them would run a 5k run. Like, and these are kids that are grade two all the way up to grade six. So you got kids that are like, I always say it’s the best because they they’ve got t-shirts down to their ankles. A lot of them are crying for most of it . And then they , they turn the corner into the stadium and this finish line, they see the people screaming and all of us here’s dry up and the takeoff and just watching them sort of cross that finish line is something spectacular. Yeah. So , so yeah, definitely a program that’s really, really close to my heart. Any of your kids run? Yes and no. Like they they’ve all said they don’t like running, wanted to, to kind of like force it on them. Right. They see daddy run , but several years ago, my eldest, she would’ve been 13 at the time, three, four years ago. She asked if, if I thought she could run a 10 K because lemon was doing a 10 K in Toronto and I knew she hated running. So I was like, yeah. Okay. And she didn’t even train. Like, she just, she walked, ran this thing. Um, and that sparked something in my other daughter and her, her younger daughter was like, do you think we could do it? And actually that kicked off this other program that, that I created called the lead-up . Um, but it was a lot for them. I mean, running 10 kids was a lot. And so I think there were a big kind of put off by the, they did it, they did it, but they realized how much work goes into it. And so act off right now. But I don’t think it’s off the table. We’ll see
Speaker 1:
Running this practice. Oh, sorry. Do you go ahead. I was gonna say is kind of like a practice I’ve done the start and stop and start and stop and start and stop my whole life. Uh, I was in a running big time in my thirties before I have kids before I had kids. My oldest is 16, just turned 16, like two days ago. And my youngest is 14, just turned 14 a month ago. And before I had kids, that was my jam. Like my husband and I would sign up for five Ks every weekend. And that’s what we did. We would run a 5k to every weekend to get the t-shirt. And we did that for a solid five years. We ran the Detroit free press. A couple of times I ran the Toronto marathon. Once I ran around the Bay, which was my favorite, the was my favorite because it’s 19.3 or two miles, listen around the bays . No joke. And I like it because it’s just short. Cause I hit my, when I used to run marathons, I hit my wall at 20. It doesn’t matter how long my long run is. I could run 23 miles for my long run. For whatever reason is I start out too fast in the marathon pace. I hit mile 20. And my body’s like, okay, we ran 20 miles, bro . And I have to say to my body, 10 K people, 10 K 10 K to the end, 10 K to the end. But I ran around the Bay and loved it. I even loved suicide Hill at the end where the grim reapers on the bottom of this Hill, I was like, you can’t, you got nothing on me. I already ran. Miles is nothing. And you know, I left my girlfriend in the dust one year. She’s like, where’d you get this pickup ? And like, when I see the finish line, I’m out, like, I’m just like, I’m going to get to stop running and there’s going to be snacks. But , uh, but yeah, I really did a lot of it in my thirties. And then I got pregnant and had a couple babies and I just couldn’t, I couldn’t get my groove back. Like pushing them in the double stroller was hell like you’re running like Iran for me. And then when they had to come along and I had to have snacks and we had to stop and look at flowers, then I was like, you know what? I need to go at a time when I don’t have to bring these two individuals with me. Cause pushing that double running stroller, I’m telling you everybody in this area, I knew me because I had this huge double stroller and it got to the point that I would put them in and then they would fall asleep. Oh, perfect. I would treat it at nap time. So I would run around with it. But they started getting too smart for it, bringing them outside. But they were going in the stroller and they were going to nap time . So then they would both start throwing a fit and get upset. Oh yeah . So that was kind of over after that I had the double stroller and they get heavy, like pushing sometimes like 40, 60 pounds while you’re running. Like I watched this woman run a marathon and do a sub four hour marathon where she had a double stroller. And I said, hats off to you because I quit . Like I tried to do the Terry Fox run when Nathan and Nathan was not happening . He was just like, I’m getting out. And I want to sit by the side of the road and look at things. I’m like, dude, can I just finish this ?
Speaker 3:
Well , I never took to that. I mean, that was why the mornings was my secret weapon. I would, I would creep out when everyone was sleeping, I’d leave her room . I would say that is out for a run. Be back at this time. And then I would creep out like a deep in the night push anything. But Hey , around the Bay is an Epic ride . It’s you said you liked that heal . People don’t even like to drive up that Hill. It’s
Speaker 1:
It’s serious. It literally looks straight up. It looks straight.
Speaker 3:
It’s brutal, but it’s, it’s a special one too, because it finishes in the stadium, which is really a cool experience. So like you, you run down and you can see the stadium in front of you. And then it just sort of curves underneath the building. Like you’re in the Olympics and you shoot and the finish lines in the middle of the stadium. So like it’s, it’s a really, really cool and unique experience to finish that way. So
Speaker 1:
It is, it’s very similar to running the Detroit free press. It also finishes, it produces that Ford field and it’s the very same feeling you come around and you run through the stadium , you put your arms out, like, you know what I mean? Like you’re running the Olympics. And then somebody at the end comes with the foil blanket. And it’s, that was our jam for a long time. My husband, before we had kids and my husband had before we had kids, that’s all we did was run. That was, that was my yoga. That was my connection to my body. But what I liked what you said , um , about running, when we were talking about how you got started, how you see all kinds of bodies running, because I just sort of following a running group in Toronto called I think it’s black, black people running black folks running anyway. It’s a, it’s a group where a few days ago they were talking about how there’s no one way to look like a runner. Like you said, people with disabilities run, you know, people in large bodies, small bodies fit bodies, what we consider not so fit bodies, all those Bonnie’s run. And I can’t tell you how many questions I get in my social media. Like, do you think I can run? How do you get started? I had a person reach out to me about a month ago and say, I’m going to run a 5k. Should I get gels? Should I get gels ? I’m like 5k. I think you’re going to be okay. Not to get a gel. Like, should I carry a water bottle only if you want to, because you’re not. I just realized that she was just going to run it. Like she signed up for a 5k and thought she had to run it. And I’m like, you can walk it or you can walk, run it. But I didn’t encourage her to start a 5k and just run it that day. Like there was no training. She was asking me all these questions. I’m like, Oh, you’ve never run a 5k. Yeah . Well not today. Don’t yeah. Don’t,
Speaker 3:
You know, it’s what I tell people all the time. And if I see somebody say, I want to anything in life, but running is a great analogy for it. If I say, if I see someone say, I want to be good at running and they put on their running shoes and they jet out the door as fast as they possibly can. I’m like, Oh yeah, because I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to get to the end of the street. They’re going to be killed over. You’re going to feel defeated. There’s nothing nice about that feeling, right? Like feel terrible. You’re going to feel defeated embarrassed. You’re going to walk home , take off the shoes. And it’s unlikely that you’re going to go back to it. But if you go out and I , and you know, and you can just listen to music or use that run to think or reflect. And if I tell you, this is like a little secret between runners, but like are people that like, know a little bit about the sport of, I could tell you that it’s okay to stop and walk.
Speaker 1:
That’s the thing. It needs to be like the Nike commercial. And they need to have right .
Speaker 3:
Look like superheroes . And you can just stop and walk. If you feel uncomfortable at any given point it’s, it’s almost as if there’s this feeling like the Brum police are going to run up to you. What are you doing? Keep moving. Keep it pushing. No , just walk and me getting injured. I got injured. Um , a couple of years ago I had several injuries. So I was in a cast for, for three different times throughout the year and returned to running was literally run for 30 seconds for 30 seconds. And it was so frustrating because like I’m used to running 20 K 30 K 40 K and I ran for 30 seconds and then walked for 30 seconds, ran for 30, came home, my laundry still smelled nice. I’m like, I’m folding this away. We’re going to wear this tomorrow or times before that’s getting washed because I was like, what’s the point? But the point is that those little steps add up and that 30 seconds turns into a minute, turns into two. And before you know it, like last week I ran 37 cages on a training run like this . And it came from that same thing because it’s like, you need that one step. And so for me, it’s most of the things that I do when I’m talking to people about running or sharing, I like to say sharing the sport of running backs from themselves, pushing them back too much. And no one’s going to take the sport from you. It’s going to be here tomorrow. You know, I love that. I like that too much. And then you can see people like actually have a chance to like fall into it for me, you know, touching on that therapeutic part. I went through about, I went through separation about five years ago and with three kids, it was a , it was a huge upset. One of the darkest periods of my life. I went through depression and I remember at one point, one of my therapists said to me, in relation to running, she said, it seems, she said, Q , it seems like the only time you can breeze when you’re out of breadth . And he hit me, you know, it hit me that, you know , that running to me was more than just this sort of athletic endeavor. It was something that offered me some grounding, some perspective and maybe most of all space that I was doing , oops, am I allowed to say, I said.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we swear here . I dropped the bomb. I’m a big swimmer Diaz got really family friendly language. I appreciate that about Dee . She keeps thinking about it. Can I say without swearing , but no, I am. I’m a , I’m a huge proponent of swearing. My kids.
Speaker 3:
He was the thug
Speaker 1:
A hundred percent. I see her in action. She’s like, okay , I need to watch him, but she just elbowed the keyboard and you see that she just dropped her. Do that to me is a hundred percent in the best awesome way though. Of course. Right.
Speaker 3:
I saw do with talking about how she saw me on the looping . I had secretly been doing some recon for a project that I’m working on and I started following her and I S I just saw Asia lives in Windsor, which isn’t very far. I just love the energy that , that she’s putting out. Uh, but one thing that hit me even just recently, and I reached out to was just her outfit run with her son. And of course me with kids, I don’t want to push the sport onto them, but just seeing how enthusiastic he was just even to spend time with his mom, I don’t know if you know how special that is because I have two teenage daughters and
Speaker 2:
They want nothing to do with you.
Speaker 3:
You just don’t know. That’s the thing. Mystery thing is a mystery. So , um, yeah, it’s a really, it’s a really special thing. It was really heartwarming to see. And , and it made me just want to kind of reach out and just touch on show . That was that you you’re able to not just create spaces where , where you’re spending time with them . But , uh, like he’s like, that’s, that’s really cool.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I, you know, I , um, I learned a lot. I give it up to my father. He was , um, he was a competitive boxer, so we watched him train and run. And so that kinda got me into that way of life because I watched him as a child. I got pardon? Oh yeah. Yep , yep , yep . All through school. So I actually, I was a sprinter all through school. Yeah. I was a competitive switcher . So , um , I did well with that. So when I wanted to start running long distances, that was hard for me because it didn’t feel natural. It was like 200 meters I’m done. But yes. So after I had the boys, I started running longer distances , um, just to get out, just get back in shape. And I wasn’t so great at it. I, I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t great at it. Um, I have to honestly say that my most enjoyable time running was when Diane and I started running
Speaker 1:
Run with somebody and Dee and I both teach yoga and D and I are very similar. Our kids are pretty close in age. They’re born in the same months, days apart from each other. And we had a , like, what I loved about running with D was I sometimes have this mindset and I’m really working hard. I keep repeating. It’s not all or nothing. It’s all or something. I keep repeating that. That’s something I learned from my friend, Louise green , and I keep repeating it in my brain. And what I loved about running with D is when we, when I was starting to feel myself, get heavy or tired or whatever, she’d always say, let’s recalibrate. She’d always say, what do we need to do? Do we need to slow down? Do we need to stop? Do we need to speed up? Do we need to stand up? Do we need to drink? And when I run by myself, I don’t take care of myself in that same way. So one thing I loved about running with D is we need to get back to it. But what we loved about running with D is that she was very conscious. Like it was like you brought your yoga into the run. Like it was a very mindful practice for di and as a person who does intention setting and is very aware of her space. It was nice to have somebody to check in with, because I sometimes get in this competitive mindset that I’m going out today and I must run 5k. It must be 5k and don’t come home until it’s 5k. And I sustained an injury. I have a patella tracking problem on my knee, and I haven’t been able to run cause it’s been pretty painful. So I’ve been off running for , uh , six weeks now. And I just started back this week and I’m like two K, two K is good. And I ran three K today and I actually stopped and walked for a little bit. And I had to tell myself, walking is part of the process. Like that’s how I learned to run a marathon. I did the Jeff Galloway method where you ran and ran and you walked. And I mean, I think he’s in his seventies or eighties. And all his learned to run clinics were getting to run just like you said, 30 seconds or a minute one run run one minute, walk five. And so when people ask me about running, I always say that run for a minute and then stop and walk and go. I didn’t die. Okay. I didn’t die. I didn’t die
Speaker 3:
Calibration. Right? Like that’s, that’s the process that you’re, that you’re sharing with people is got, because they don’t have data room when you’re giving them that moment to reflect and say, okay, what do I need in this moment? Right. And then pick up running after that and be like, that was too easy. We’ll go faster. Right. They could also be like, I almost died. Maybe I needed to slow it down. If it’s too fast, it is too fast . I always say like, I w my long run , sometimes I’ll do this long run to work. So I’m about 36 kilometers out of the city. So if I’m doing a long run, sometimes I’ll just bring my stuff to work the day before, and then it’s like fun. Right. Cause you’re going one way, your destination. Right. Yeah . And you know, so you’re , it’s a long run and you stop at the stoplight and you see those people that are just like, they’re jogging. Like , and I’m not hating on anyone listening to you. But I’m just saying like, for me, they might look at me, stopped and think this guy, ain’t no runner, why’s he stopping? Right. Seven . Yeah . What’s this stop sign. Right. It doesn’t, my legs don’t know the difference between the stop sign and no stop sign at the end of the day. Right. Walking, stopping, taking a second. If I need to pee, that’s part of it. Like it’s all included in . Um, I think the more that the pressure comes off of it, the more people can just enjoy it and celebrate it. And that to me is the best part. You know, you having experience in a big race. Uh, I shared this recently too, if you’re at a big race around the Bay or any of the world majors, for instance , uh, Toronto, that is one of the most diverse fields of people you will ever see colors, nationalities, sizes, disability, you name it. Everyone lined up with the same bit ready fin to do the exact same task and embark on the exact same journey that in a personal way. And I think that is such special aspect of the sport. There are not very many sports that have that built in that, that amount of diversity. And so like, that’s what I hope to, like, I hope all the running communities can start to reflect like a big city race vibe. If you don’t see something, then you’re at the Ronald race in the wrong place.
Speaker 2:
Yeah . So cute . I’m so sad to talk about this because when we were talking about a month ago, you were explaining to me about escape.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. And you know, what’s cool this sneaky. So nobody knows where we’re escaping. I’m about to tell you first time publicly on here, we haven’t even launched what we’re doing
Speaker 2:
First . We’re getting an exclusive, we go, here we go,
Speaker 3:
Is going to know we did an event. Uh , two years ago, a buddy of mine, we were just sitting around just as crazy runners do. And the idea came to run nonstop to New York city in a religion .
Speaker 2:
Yeah . I’m here.
Speaker 3:
Here’s how it started. A dude had a , uh , an event called random Montreal was Toronto to Montreal. You get an RV, you get a team and it’s broken into chunks about 10 to 16 K chunks.
Speaker 2:
That’s doable,
Speaker 3:
It’s doable, it’s doable. And , uh, so we put a team together, we got an RV and we just did it. Tech nonstop . It took us, I think, two days or something like that to do. But the way that the event was kind of run, didn’t really resonate with us. And the whole, while we were thinking to ourselves, like if we did something like this , uh, the other thing was the guy who was one of the guys who was gonna run with, with us, got injured to go to Montreal, but can I still come on the, on the RV? And I’m like, give me , of course, like , and he ended up like being the manager, but he didn’t run a lick, but of course he missed out, right? So we got some Montreal . And while we were there, he, I saw him on his phone. He’s looking and he’s mucking around and he looks at me. I don’t know where you look , where you smiling at. And he shows me his phone and it’s a map Toronto to New York city. And it was a lot more distance. But having missed out on this Montreal journey, he’s thinking, how can I do redemption? And I’m looking at him like, I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. Like, let’s do it. And so we created this event called escape to New York. We hollered at some people that were just as crazy as us. And we , we set out to kind of lean into what we could do as a community. And so we, mental health was something that was important to everyone on the team. And so we partnered with Skylark, which did programming for mental, for youths, struggling with mental health issues. Uh, we picked like an arbitrary number where like $10,000 is let’s try to raise 10,000. We ended up raising over $15,000 by having fundraisers by bringing the community together. Uh, and then we embarked on this escape to New York journey in 2019. Um, and one of the cool, like, I mean, it’s cool. Looking back. New balance was one of the sponsors. And they’re also the, they’re also the , uh, official sponsor of the New York city marathon. So happened to be running into New York the weekend or the New York city marathon in two days before the race. And so when we talked to a new balance, we said, you know, be cool. What if these crazy, these crazy cats ran from Toronto to New York. And then the two captains ran the marathon. A couple of, you know, like if you’re going to be crazy, just lean into it.
Speaker 2:
You can’t see my face. No mama can see your face. Oh , you mean the viewers ?
Speaker 3:
So , uh , they gave us two bibs, but here’s where it took a , it took a drastic turn. Uh , about a month before I escape, I tore my Achilles. That’s a hard injury. And I plan this week , you know, Andrew and I had planned this thing for year for like an entire year. And I, and so that, that hurt my heart a lot. I went and I helped. And I, and I kind of coached and managed the trip. Um , and I saw it through, he said, you know what, queue , I’m going to run that marathon for both of us to the start line for the marathon. He was all suited up. And in the stark corral , before the gun went off, he had an epilepsy attack, swear to God, couldn’t make this stuff up. He’d left his medication in the RV, which was Yonkers. And the two of us had two bibs. And so we both kind of had unfinished business, you know, like, and it was beautiful and it was a success. And it was, it was such a, a happy sort of story to watch this whole thing that we built come to a close, but there’s a piece missing. Right . And so we for sure said, look, we gotta, we gotta go back and do something different. Uh, and as we were piecing it together, we thought, you know what, maybe we don’t go to New York. And, and so here’s the thing. We had a plan to do our next escape journey last year, we had it all set up and then COVID threw a monkey wrench in neck to everybody’s life, everybody. Uh, and so what we did was we, we just continue to do community type stuff with our team in Toronto, we reached out to organizations instead of just one organization. We felt like, you know what, instead of just, it’s very difficult at a time when people are affected by so many different things to like get people to focus on one thing. Yeah . So let’s just, let’s just look at any, any area that we see where people could use some support and let’s use our team and our efforts. And , uh, and then instead of picking like a big monetary number, which worked for New York, that, you know, what people don’t have money, like I’ve lost jobs. We re-look at what support means. And it doesn’t mean money’s off the table. We still raised quite a bit of money for different organizations last year. Um, but support just old fashioned rolling up your sleeves and volunteering. Like you’ve been able to like really rally the community that supported us for any, for New York , uh, for this next project. Um, and so for the next project, we, what I really wanted to do was celebrate the community that helped make New York happy. And one of the ways that we were doing that is for the sendoff for New York, that first leg was 10 K and we invited the community to run it with us. Uh, one of the girls from Skylark, the organization we were raising money for was her first tanking, but she said, you guys have been raising money for our organization. So she trained all summer. And then she ran at first to her very first 10 K to send us off on this it , to be a part of this race that we were doing, that was such a special piece of escape. And I was supposed to run the first leg and I didn’t get to, when we were doing the second project, I said, let’s lean into it . Let’s let’s celebrate that. Let’s make that 10 K sendoff special, but then I thought we’re running through, we’re running through another city on our way to our destination. Why just run through there’s a community there. Why don’t we pull up, do a little circle, do a 10 K run there with that community and just have a little mid, mid race been down there, a little celebration with that crew. If we’re going to do a send-off and we’re going to do a mid race South , like community run, you got to have one at the finish line. And so the last 10 K will be sort of another community , um, 10 K to the finish line with the community in that city, instead of going to New York, one of my favorite marathons I’ve ever that I’ve ever run, I’ve run out a few times in Chicago. Oh yeah. So the, the idea then for our next escape project is escape to Chicago. And , uh, and so running through Detroit and seeing Dee and her son stomping around Windsor, there’s a party rolling through , please pull up. And so we talked about what that looks like. And so like, we were really excited. The idea is for us to pull up , um, I think we’d be running through on the 6th of October planning to roll up to Chicago two days before the Chicago marathon with hopes of maybe greasing that marathon and making up for what we missed out on in New York. So yeah, we’ve got a really dope running community in Detroit that we’ve been working with and connecting with that, we’re excited to like, you know, we could run through Detroit or we can run around Detroit.
Speaker 1:
Right, right. I think it’s worth welcome through it. Detroit’s a beautiful town, the food , um, it’s, it’s an , a Renaissance it’s coming back from a very depressed spot. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs, individuals, small businesses and entrepreneurs that are doing excellent things in Detroit. So I think it would be worthwhile like we’ve run the half marathon and the full marathon in Detroit in the first part of it starts out downtown Detroit. And then you run over the bridge, you run through Windsor and then you run through the tunnel back and you finish in four field . But we run through, I think it’s called Indian town and the architectures and , um , like Detroit , some beautiful city. I don’t think people really realize that because it’s gotten such a bad rap over the years. But , um, last time I was in Detroit, which was like two years ago, there was a running group where I was, and there was a group of , uh , people of black people and people of color who were running in Detroit. And I wasn’t , I wasn’t running at the time that I was like, you know what, this almost makes me want to get back into running just to run with that crew. And it just amazing.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. There , there’s some really great , uh , running crews out there. And so like, we’re piecing the logistics together. We’re going to do our launch officially next month. Um, so this is sort of like a pre-launch for us. You know, we were talking earlier about that. Check-in like pausing for a second. You’re out on your run and what are you missing if you, if you don’t just take that pause this time. Um, we want it to pause and pause and reflect and celebrate community there . There’s been talk about like shifting and making this sort of like a speed project. There’s there’s other races where they were similar format, actual races where we’re not about that. We’ve got legit runners on the team, but it’s never been about speed. It’s been about just trucking and just enjoying and savoring the journey. Um, but yeah, so I am excited to like all of the people that we meet along the way to find ways to roll them in. And now it’s spring. And, you know, do you and your husband has been a while since you have been running, right. Like I already know D D this D’s going to be fine, but you said, you know, once your knee or patella problems better you and your hubby can train.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I’m in , Oh yeah. I like any community centered , um, projects. And I love that cue . I love that you’re Canadian that you’re doing this whole escape and go out. So most definitely. I , like I said, I just started running this week. I run two, two cases, three cases . I’m like, all right . Okay. All right. I’ve been biking in the off season to keep my, you know, to keep my window. Cause you know, when you, when you, like, when you learn to run, I think the hardest thing about it is putting down that mileage or that base. But once you have the , that’s the grind of running, right? Like laying out your base. And I had a solid base that was like 15 K, like I could do 15 K anytime, anytime . Right. And now my base is free . And so the grind is going to be this summer, getting back up to that 15 or 20 K when I would go out on a Sunday and run for 20 K, like don’t run 10 K turn around and run home. And I’m excited to get back into it because something about running, feeling the wind on my face, feeling my body move, feeling my feet, hit the pavement, whether I’m listening to music, which is like today, when I started running, I was, I was singing to the pointer sisters. That’s how old I am. And people around me were like, Oh , what’s going on? But I was just so happy to be out. Like, it’s just, I run to run away from my anxiety. I run to run away from the problems that are going on in the world that I feel , um, I feel compelled to try to fix from all of those things. And that’s what I’m running from running has been my saving grace through COVID. I do yoga. It’s great. I’m on my bike and I love it. I have a spin bike and I love it. Like, I literally love my spin bike, but I really love being outside. Like I can’t run on a treadmill. I can run maybe seven minutes on the treadmill. And then I’m like, I’m running to nowhere, but I will bundle up in minus 15 degree weather and go run like that doesn’t bother me. But running on the ,
Speaker 3:
You do the same. You got there, Nicole,
Speaker 1:
I’ll see you in the sprout . Yeah . I’m a fair weather runner. I tend to like lift more weights and stuff in the winter time. Yeah . I was running a lot last summer. But before that, like before last year, it was never really crazy, consistent, right. For a beer. So when it’s nice, I like walking. I like running.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. This, you know, a few of the people, like the there’s only two RVs on there’s no registration. The tunes are really selected through our communities and they weren’t really, it was never like, who’s the fastest, like I’ve got like legit running friends. It was like, who can I tolerate on an RV for three days and three nights? Like I don’t one of my boys, he , he had just started running and I’m like, Hey man, you want to run in Montreal with us? He’s like, fool. I told you I just ran six K, but the running I said, but like, you know, just his vibe and his energy would be an asset on, on an event like this because we’re not trying to break any records. This would be actually the first time that we’ll have to pay attention to speed for New York. We didn’t really worry about it. But if we’ve got a community in Detroit and in Chicago that we need to connect with, we need to point, but we’ve got a lot of space, right. Space. So we can easily switch around and pick up and slow down paces to make sure we hit those targets. But , um, really, it’s just an opportunity to celebrate community in a really fresh and exciting way. And what turned out to be a huge blow to our event last year, I think is going to end up being even a bigger and more powerful, you know, positive because people need and want community. Now more than ever, we had set out to celebrate community before COVID setting . And we had no idea that it would get taken away from us when I always thought that was cool. Looking, looking back at the pandemic and its effects . Like if I told you that, like, I don’t know the weather, there’s been times I’ve gone to buy kale and there’s no kale. Like, I don’t know the crop just didn’t you , you can kind of piece together. Wow. Like the weather must’ve been, but if someone just came out and said , we’re just going to take away hugs. There’s no more hugs. You’d be like, take away hugs, hugs, hugs. But here we are right with , with, with something as like sacred, as community being taken away, the ability to just walk up to someone and like be in their space. Um, and so, so yeah, we’re excited. We’re hopeful. Um, you know, there’s , we’ve got a long way to go. The borders are in open and there’s, there’s, you know, the vaccine’s got to do its thing, but we’re also flexible. Right? We , we proved that last year. So if it , if it gets pushed , uh , or another months or whatever the heck it’s going to be, we’re going to do it. It’s just a matter of when the right time is.
Speaker 1:
Well, I say that I am I’m in for whatever you guys think .
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah, no , really have a choice. Like once you do that post with your son, I was like, Oh, this is it. You would have had an RV pulling up to your house. Let’s go. Let’s go. What are you going to ask?
Speaker 1:
I was just going to say, so we’re coming up on the hour. So I wanted to ask, can you give our listeners three tips for getting started in a running program? What would you, what would you say to a brand new runner? Who’s like, totally scared. Always wanted to run, but doesn’t know how to get stuck .
Speaker 3:
Stop. First one is stop . When you need to stop, like don’t get pulled into this idea that you need to, your feet need to be moving the entire time running . Is yours. Your relationship with running is yours. Like if, if your breath gets out of whack, if you know, if you need to take a breath and recalibrate , uh, do that, stop walk , and then go back at it. I’d say that. Um, another thing that like, I’ve kind of tried to incorporate is like, if there’s one run that I do try and give yourself a run during the week, that’s just personal. Like, it’s got nothing to do with , uh, with a goal. Or like, if you’re trying to do a 5k, does nothing to do with speed. Just use it to reflect running. Like, why did you even put on this tech fabric and these running shoes and go outside? Like, what is it that drew you to it and let your body tell you how far and how fast you want to go. Like that runs . Sometimes I look forward to it. Like, I’ll just go out. And like some days I feel fast, it might be a week where I feel fresh or weeks where like, it’s been a rough week. I really just needed to be outside. And I’m moving at a snail. There’s like old ladies passing me walk , but I’m still running. But like, that’s what I needed. And so just give yourself that. And then the other thing would be to , um, to throw a goal out in the distance as well, something to kind of keep you moving. And , uh, I, if you said three, but I had an extra one because you shared something that was like the dopest. And I actually saw it now, looking back at some of these policies, like find a friend, like what D brought to your writing experience. Like here you are, you’ve run around a base. So to me, you’re , you’re , that’s legit. Like you get, you get strikes for that, but it’s still we’re depending on D to kind of get you through all of the runs to get you to that point. Like to have somebody that can keep you consistent, like invaluable.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. Yeah .
Speaker 3:
Good to see you guys. Soon, as soon as we get a chance to incorporate you guys and your families in this. Yeah .
Speaker 1:
I would love that. Yeah . And to meet in person. Yeah . Yeah. It’s just a matter of time. Absolutely. So Q where , where can people find you if people want to connect with you or donate to any projects that you’re doing, or be a part of any of the runs that you’re hosting, where can we find you?
Speaker 3:
I’m pretty easy to find. Um, it’s just my name, Quintin underscore Jacobs, but , um, there’s links to the escape too , right now, just as escape 2021, because no one knows that it’s escape to shy, but in , uh, in August, in April, that’s going to change. And our , like our whole team would be keeping that up-to-date all of our fundraisers, all of our community driven stuff and all of our details , uh , for like the progress of the escape project, be there as well. Um, I think there’s link to lead up, which is another program that I’m running with , uh, with young girls, including my daughter that’ll run throughout the year as well. So yeah, once you , I keep all that stuff right out in the forest. Right. So that people that are interested can kind of jump in and we’ll share that out . So we’ll link to that in the show notes, are you on any socials?
Speaker 2:
Hey, everyone. I want to Quentin Jacobs for DNI, very excited to talk to him about his running programs and his radical commitment to the community community, like the podcast and subscribe anywhere that this is your podcast. Get head on Apple podcasts. It helps us to get the podcast out to people as well , because we think the topics are important and interesting. And we look forward to reconnecting with you again in the future. Thank you for listening in. Thank you for being part of the two black girls. Talk about every thing , podcasts , family, and we’ll catch you next time.
Speaker 3:
I’m not gonna lie. Good. Good, good, good.
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