Episodes

Welcome back to the Running Around Charlotte Podcast! We’re recording LIVE here at the 2024 Novant Health Charlotte Marathon Expo. Our guest is Maddy Ebbert — the versatile visual artist and illustrator based right here in Charlotte. Maddy says her art is inspired by nature, self-love, the beauty of simplicity, and capturing everyday life with joy and vibrancy. Maybe you’ve seen her work on Instagram, or walls and buildings all over the country… Most recently, she’s brought her unique vision to ...

Welcome to the Running Around Charlotte Podcast. We’re recording LIVE from the 2024 Novant Health Charlotte Marathon Expo. Today, we have a special guest, and friend of ours, Ashley Mahoney. Ashley is an avid runner who has completed the Charlotte Marathon multiple times, and checked the box on her first ultra this year. Most of you may recognize her byline as a reporter at Axios Charlotte.

Welcome to The Running Around Charlotte podcast! Today, we’re excited to have Diego Ferradas with us. Diego is the Director of Community Engagement at The Ability Experience, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using shared experiences to support people with disabilities and develop the men of Pi Kappa Phi into servant leaders. Diego is not just passionate about his work but also about various sports and activities. He recently participated with his team from The Ability Experience in the Arou...

Welcome to The Running Around Charlotte podcast! Today, we have Pauline Schwerbrock as our guest. Pauline is one of the co-founders of the Morning Run Club, Charlotte’s first women-only run club. Pauline, along with her co-founder Jordan Sosa, started the Morning Run Club earlier this year, and it has quickly grown into a thriving community of women runners. The club meets every Monday at 6:05 a.m. at the Atherton Mill Shopping Center, offering both 3- and 5-mile loops to accommodate runners of ...

Welcome to The Running Around Charlotte podcast! Today, we’re excited to have Rick Pryll as our guest. Rick is not only an accomplished author but also a dedicated runner who leads a run club from the unique location of Bart’s Mart, a family-owned small business on Charlotte’s eclectic eastside. Rick Pryll is an independent author with several books to his name. His literary achievements include winning second place in the 2022 Ruth Moose Flash Fiction Prize. Rick’s passion for writing is matche...

If you’ve done any running around Charlotte, you probably know our man, Eric Smith. We’re happy to have him back here on the Running Around Charlotte podcast! Eric is a guy to know here in the Charlotte running community, with a wealth of experience in organizing events and pacing runners to their goals. His involvement spans from leading the Charlotte Running Club to coordinating pace teams for major races – including the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon.

We’re excited to welcome Ruthie Williams to the Running Around Charlotte podcast! Ruthie is the dynamic organizer of the Latinos Run Charlotte Run Club, a group dedicated to fostering community and inclusivity in the running world. Her passion for running and community engagement has helped create a welcoming space for runners of all backgrounds.

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Running Around Charlotte podcast. Today, we’ve got Jeff Fox with us. Jeff is a seasoned runner who’s about to tackle the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon for the fifth time. He’s not just a participant, though – Jeff also has the scoop on of the now iconic parties near the mile 16 mark. It’s safe to say it’s become a highlight along the back side of the race.

Kristin Neuman is the organizer of The Josh Neuman Foundation and is actively involved in the Miles for Meals campaign to support Nourish UP. Her work, and that of the foundation, is testament to their nonprofit’s namesake to do good and to live a good story. Nourish UP works every day here in the Charlotte area to create a community where everyone thrives and has consistent access to the food they need for good health and overall well-being. Courtney Oates is their events and marketing directo...

We are BIG fans of folks getting up, getting out, and getting active. And we’re really, REALLY big fans of folks who help them do it. That’s where our new friends Angi Klick and Sarah Hays at SheTris come in. TBH, if our friend Molly Barker says these are some folks we need to meet, we already know they’re going to be good people! Here’s why: Angi and Sarah are working to make triathlon approachable for women of all ages. None of this hardcore, shark-infested waters and lava fields stuff; but fu...

Have we mentioned how much we love, love, LOVE this year’s crew of Novant Health Charlotte Marathon Ambassadors? Dennis Wilson is one of the reasons why. This guy is repping at pretty much every event around town – even the less-than-exciting stuff, like plogging along East Boulevard with our pals from the Charlotte Running Club, the Charlotte Running Company, and Keep Charlotte Beautiful. (Shameless plug, but hey…) But seriously, Dennis is practically everywhere. He’s relatively new to the Char...

So, how might we describe our next guest? How about, “the fun, silent type?” Joshua Hanson probably isn’t the loudest guy in the bunch, but he’s sure as heck one of the most fun we’ve had on the program. Joshua played hooky from his day job as an industrial designer to talk running – and his company’s BIG team headed to this year’s Novant Health Charlotte Marathon. (Yay, Team Hoover!) He may have one of the most unusual run club streaks we’ve ever heard of. We’ll get into that, we’ll talk about ...

No argument here. Runners are pretty incredible people, in our opinion. It takes a certain amount of self-will, motivation – or whatever you want to call it – to get up, get out there, and log those miles every day. Or even when you don’t run every day. And while running might feel like a personal, sometimes selfish pursuit, we meet runners all the time who are making their miles meaningful by raising money and awareness for great causes. Smitta Warrier is one of those runners. We got the chan...

We are thrilled to welcome our dear friend Tom Perri to the Running Around Charlotte Podcast. Tom is not just an extraordinary runner but an incredible inspiration to everyone who knows him. He has run the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon ten times and has paced runners in marathons all over the world. Despite battling stage 4 prostate cancer, Tom continues to lace up, stay positive, and help people all over the world reach their running goals – and then some. Tom, welcome back to the show!

If you’ve been running around Charlotte at all, you’ve probably rubbed elbows with some of the 2024 Novant Health Charlotte Ambassadors. This year’s team is easily our best squad yet. Not only is the Ambassador team TWICE AS LARGE as years past, it’s also even more diverse, and with members spread far and wide around the area. Sarah Hodges is a member of this year’s Ambassador team. And we’re excited to introduce her to you all on this episode of the Running Around Charlotte podcast. Sarah, welc...

We’re excited to kick off this episode of the Running Around Charlotte Podcast with our good friend Brian Mister! As the race director and co-founder of the Around The Crown 10K, Brian has become a guy to know in the Charlotte running community. His passion for running and commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for all participants makes Charlotte a running community that helps even more folks see and feel that they belong.

As you can imagine, we get a LOT of emails about the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon. Folks have all kinds of questions, and lots of them are the same. Hence the term, “frequently asked questions,” right? A few months ago, we got a question we’ve NEVER gotten before. Mike Lopez emailed asking whether or not the map for this year’s event was finalized – and not for the reasons you might think. You see, Mike has a very cool and probably unusual marathon hobby. But we’ll let him tell you all about...

Our 2024 Novant Health Ambassador squad is bigger and arguably the best we’ve ever had. That’s no shade on previous year’s groups, at all. That’s just our excitement about this bigger, more diverse, and exciting crew that’s out there repping at EVERY event, race, and run club in the area. If you’ve not run into one of these 50 folks, you’ve probably been on some kind of extended sabbatical. Or maybe you’re one of the 100-something people who move here every day. Not to worry—you’ll see them soon...

Head to the start line of most any event, pop into most any running shop, or join in on more and more run clubs and you’ll see more faces, and paces, sizes, colors and shapes of runners than ever before. That’s a beautiful thing for the running community, and for runners themselves. Running has never been a more diverse universe. And there’s plenty of room to grow. People of color make up an amazing 40 percent of runners in the fast-growing 18-24 age group. That’s an exciting trend for running, ...

Based on the article, here’s an introduction and some questions you could use for your podcast interview with Derek Lindstrom: Welcome to The Running Around Charlotte Podcast, presented by Novant Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine. Today, we have an incredible guest who embodies the spirit of perseverance and the power of the human heart. Quite literally… Derek Lindstrom, a man who ran 114 marathons with his original heart, received a heart transplant in 2023, and now dreams of running anoth...

One of the MANY great things about the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon is how this event continues to give back to the community. In case you didn’t know, the event has contributed nearly half a million bucks to its beneficiary, the Novant Health Hemby Children’s hospital. One of the folks that helps us make that connection between the runners and the community and our charitable partner… is Betsy Zarzour. Betsy has been the champion, head cheerleader, and captain of Team Hemby since its start,...

Passionate and nuanced. Those are just two of the many adjectives the CLT Symphony Orchestra uses to describe resident conductor, Christopher Lees. We’ll add fast, quick-witted, and full of energy to the list. Chris was gracious enough to sprint from morning run club and all the way into the studio to join us on this show. Which, we’re certain was a grand departure from what we can only assume are much more high-brow interviews! All kidding aside, Chris had us cracking up. From the cheese jokes,...

A wild and precious life. Yeah, I think we’d all like to live one of those… Kim Kreuzman dropped that little chestnut on us close to the end of this episode, and it was well worth the wait. I’ve called her to the podium on more than one occasion, too. So yes – she’s fast, insightful, and funny, too. There’s probably no other way to describe a local real estate transaction that lands you on the main drag of Christmastown, USA other than “funny.” We had a blast with her, for sure. Kim is one of ou...

It’s totally fair to say that the CLT running community is full of characters. Our guest today certainly fits into that category. And, quite frankly, we can’t believe it’s been this long before we invited Paul Martino to the program. A longtime runner, a 50 states and DC finisher, and former executive director of the Let Me Run program, Paul has been a recurring character, if you will, in the CLT running scene. Paul’s done his own share of running, too, and he has a pretty special milestone on t...