Transcription of Chris Kast, Deb Ivy & Byron Bartlett for the show Sharing Strength, #90
Dr. Lisa: The theme of this week’s show is sharing strength, and many of the things that we do to share strength involve messiness of a sort, so we thought we’d have a couple of very dear friends of mine, and also a coworker of mine come and talk to us about this messy thing that’s going to be going on very soon, called the Dynamic Dirt Challenge.
In fact, today, it is going on. We have Chris Cast and we have Byron Bartlett who are both going to be doing this Dynamic Dirt Challenge. Why do this dirty deed, and how is helping Share Our Strength with the people of Maine?
Chris Kast: It’s easy to answer the second question first because the “why” is still something that I’m still wondering about. The beneficiaries of this race are Strive and the Center for Grieving Children. Strive is an organization that helps people with mental impairment, Down syndrome, normalize into their world.
My godson has Down syndrome, and the Center for Grieving, as many people probably know, is the place that helps children who suffer loss of a parent, or someone very close to them, get through and understand the grieving process and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Those are very important things to be part of, to help support. The why, for the Dynamic Dirt Challenge, I’ll leave the answer to Byron.
Byron B: Why? I think it will be fun. It’s a chance to get dirty and have fun and do something good.
Dr. Lisa: People who don’t what the Dynamic Dirt Challenge is, describe this for them.
Chris Kast: People, they’ve been described as tough mudders, but essentially what it is, it’s a running grown-up obstacle course-like race, where everybody starts and you slide down, basically, a wet mountain, and then you run through a swamp, and then you have to climb up a hill, and you have to push over hay bales, and you have to crawl on your belly through total darkness. Then you have to run through an unmarked forest, and then you have to get through a mud field. Then you have to climb a ladder wall, and then you have to walk a plank and forge a stream, and push tractor tires. It’s a chance to do all those things, those fun things that you haven’t done since you were a kid…
Dr. Lisa: How do you train for that? How have you been doing that, Byron?
Byron B: Well, running has been my only training recently, but a few miles, I think I can handle most of the things, we’ll see.
Dr. Lisa: You haven’t been sliding over hay bales, or crawling on your belly through the garden mud, or anything like that?
Byron B: Not yet; although, apparently we are going to be going running up Bradbury Mountain today or tomorrow.
Christ Kast: Actually we had been looking for places to go cow tipping, but that’s just passé in Maine. For me, getting ready for it is just getting ready mentally, understanding that I have two goals in mind for this, to start and to finish. I’m not running the race to beat anybody, I’m not running the race to prove anything, except to myself, that I can actually start and end something like this, and have fun doing it. That’s the whole thing, and be part of the community of people that are all in it for the same reason, and all having fun for the same reason, and all getting dirty and maybe spraining something, maybe not.
Byron B: Our buddy Deb is doing it with us too, so we are doing it as a team.
Christ Kast: Yeah, right.
Byron B: Deb Ivory
Dr. Lisa: What’s the name of your team?
Chris Kast: We are doing it as Team Spice, and it’s a joke because Deb Ivy’s husband is Herb, so it was Team Spice without Herb, that was our lame attempt at humor.
Dr. Lisa: This is you, Chris, that was coming up with this, I take it as the Principal here at Brand Co, the main medial collective; you’re all separated?
Byron B: Actually competing in that was me-
Dr. Lisa: Oh, no.
Byron B: That is not a Brand Company brand; that is a Byron Bartlett of TD Bank brand.
Dr. Lisa: This sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve known you both for a while, and we all do a lot events together, a lot of dancing and socializing, and we are out and about, but this is something that you actually have to train for, and sometimes you have to train for it together, I would assume. What has this been like for your relationship?
Byron B: The training has just helped us keep each other motivated, we have to do it, and having the dog, we have to get mud out, and more focused over the past weeks of getting up and getting out after work, and even if I can’t run four miles, just if Byron got home and had to run, I’d say, well I have to go for a run. It’s just being able to keep motivated, and it’s actually helped on a lot of levels, not just training for the race, but just, we are leaving and stress and just feeling better about myself in general, about ourselves in general.
Chris Kast: Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Dr. Lisa: You’ve had to be sharing strength even as you’re training for his?
Chris Kast: Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Byron B: Sure.
Dr. Lisa: This is an event that is also sponsored by Maine Magazine, and the Maine Media Collective.
Chris Kast: Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Dr. Lisa: Why does Maine Magazine care about the Dynamic Dirt Challenge?
Chris Kast: That’s a really … I don’t know that it’s necessarily about the Dynamic Dirt Challenge, as much as it’s about sponsoring something that does so much good for the community, and that’s what Maine Magazine and Maine Media Collective looks for, is sponsorships are great, but they have to have impact. They have to do something for the greater good. They have to do something that really does things for the people of Maine. I think that that’s a really strong filter through which all sponsorships get vetted. This in particular is something that’s near and dear to everybody’s heart, and it’s put on by She JAMs, and that was actually started by a breast cancer survivor, and again, it’s something that just keeps giving back and back to the community, so I think that that’s a real part that’s in the fiber of Maine being the collective and Maine Magazine, that’s really baked right in, or woven right into the fiber of who we are and what we are trying to do.
Dr. Lisa: Byron, what are your goals?
Byron B: I’d like to do a little better than starting and finish. I’d like to not break anything. I don’t … again, I don’t have any … I don’t imagine that I’m going to be finishing first or even 10th, but I’m just looking forward to the day, spending it with my teammates and having people cheer us on while we are looking like fools, doing tomfoolery things. It’s kind of fun.
Dr. Lisa: How can people find out about the Dynamic Dirt Challenge?
Chris Kast: They can go to www.dynamicdirtchallenge.com, and they can take a look at the course. There is a photo gallery of lunatics like us who’ve done it before, and they just keep people updated, and it actually shows the course map, and it’s being run at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, which is an amazing, amazing property. That in and of itself is going to be a treat, to be able to run around this incredibly pristine bucolic piece of Maine, just right in our backyard in New Gloucester, which will be … Yes, it’s part of the magic.
Dr. Lisa: Thank you so much for coming in and talking to us about the Dynamic Dirt Challenge, and I believe that you both bring so much good into the world, and you’re just bringing more good into the word by going out and doing this event for the Center for Grieving Children and for Strive. Thanks for putting the time in to train for this, and I don’t know, thanks for being a part of my world.
Chris Kast, and Byron Bartlett, good luck.
Chris Kast: Thank you.
Byron B: Thank you so much for having us.