Fitness for All, with Slow AF Run Club Founder and Author, Martinus Evans

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Martinus Evans:

Most races you can track your friends or family, see where they're at in the course, they'll start pulling up those. I've even been a part of races where I've gotten lost because they've taken down all of the directional signs on the course. And I've had at times where I experienced all of those. So imagine you're running a race where you have to bring your own water because they're no longer providing water for you because you slow. You have to find your way to the finish line because they taken down all the directional signs and your friends and families are nervous and don't know where you at because they can't track you. So for people who are in the back of the pack, those are things that I had to experience.

Speaker 1:

The Will to Change is hosted by Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, best-selling author and leadership expert on how organizations must evolve their cultures towards a new, more inclusive workplace reality. She's a passionate inclusion and equity advocate, committed to helping leaders foster healthier and therefore more productive workplaces, ultimately driving innovation and business results. Informed by nearly two decades of consulting to Fortune 500 companies, she and her team advised top companies on building cultures of belonging in times of great upheaval and uncertainty. And now onto the episode.

Hello and welcome back to The Will to Change. Today's episode features a conversation with Martinus Evans as he joins the program to discuss his new book, Slow AF Run Club: The Ultimate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Run. And in the episode, he shares his journey, which includes completing eight marathons and creating the Slow AF Run Club, which encourages runners and walkers of all ages and experience levels. He also talks about what to do when facing self-doubt, the importance of mindset in exercise, and how to make fitness more inclusive. All this and more. And now onto the episode.

Jennifer Brown:

Martinus, welcome to The Will to Change.

Martinus Evans:

Thank you for having me, Jennifer.

Jennifer Brown:

I read your book and so excited to support you and get the word out to our Will to Change audience about you and your message, which is so unique, so needed, and sort of part of my efforts to bring guests onto the podcast whose stories I have not per se heard about. And also folks whose diversity experiences are more varied than what we normally think about when we think about diversity dimension. So it's one of those things that I have committed to for myself and my own learning, even if I don't share those diversity dimensions with my guests, which most of the time I don't. But in my allyship and my efforts in that direction, one of the things I task myself with is really taking a deep dive into other people's lived experiences. And your name was brought to me and I discovered this whole world of bias in the running world and your story through that, which is just so inspirational and amazing. And your new book, which is the Slow AF Run Club, everybody, which just launched June 6th. So congratulations, Martinus.

Martinus Evans:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's a journey that needed to happen.

Jennifer Brown:

Oh yes it is. Did you always want to write a book, by the way? Did you know that was what you were going to do in life?

Martinus Evans:

I didn't know I was going to write a book until about two years ago.

Jennifer Brown:

Okay, and you're like, uh oh, this huge piece of work is coming my way. You don't really have a lot of choice. It chooses you, right?

Martinus Evans:

Yeah. So the calling, you just have to pick up the phone. So that's what I did. So the calling called me and I picked up the phone and heeded the call.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, that's what we got to do. That's what life is all about. So you had such an important story to share and there's so many things I want to talk to you about. But in a nutshell though, tell me more about the calling. What called you to do this, to tell your story? And even just backing up, what called you to put the sneakers on and ignore, I think, some of the things you heard, many of the things that you know in society about fitness and bodies and running and health and all of that? Tell me about how all that awakened in you and the tremendous resolve that you had to say, you know what, I'm going to do this.

Martinus Evans:

Absolutely. So first things first, I'm just a boy from Detroit, Michigan. But that's the thing that I like to just stand on and say, I'm just a kid from the east side of Detroit who's grown up to do amazing things in face of adversity. So with that being said, let's take you back to 2012. In 2012, I was working at Men's Warehouse. You know the place. [inaudible 00:05:01] way you look, I guarantee, that was me. I was working there. I was wearing suits all day, on my feet for eight to 12 hours a day.

I was a suit salesman on hard bottom shoes, on concrete floor. With that being said, I end up having some hip issues. So my doctor sent me to an orthopedic surgeon, a specialist, just to figure out what's going on. And as I'm sitting in a doctor's office, this doctor is, I know what's wrong with you. Okay, what's wrong? You ain't put a stethoscope on me, you ain't touch me. You ain't do any of this stuff. And he went on to say, it's because you're fat. And you need to lose weight or die. So I'm sitting there, Jennifer, and I'm like, I know we're all going to die one day, but what they got to do with my hip today?

Jennifer Brown:

Thank you.

Martinus Evans:

And he went on this whole rant of like, you got a stomach as a pregnant woman, you need to start walking, you need to lose weight. All this stuff. So I get angry, I get frustrated and I say, screw this, screw you. I'm going to run a marathon. He laughs at me and tells me that's the most dumbest thing he has heard in all of his years of practicing medicine. So now I'm fuming. Smoke is coming out of my ears. And I ended up just storming out the doctor's office and on my way home, just driving home, ruminating about this situation. And I seen a running shoe store. So I made a legal U-turn, went in there and told them my need shoes and I need them now. So that was pretty much how I got started. Spite.

Jennifer Brown:

Spite. It's a good motivator.

Martinus Evans:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

That's awesome. Okay. And then, oh gosh, your whole book chronicles you getting started as a runner. So tell us a little bit about the trials and tribulations of all of that.

Martinus Evans:

Yeah, so get home, I get to the fitness center where my apartment complex is at. There's three treadmills and I'm inconveniently sandwiched between two gazelles on the treadmills. So I size these guys up, right? One guy is going like 10 other guys going nine. I think to myself, I can at least go seven because I'm sizing these guys up. 15 seconds later when my body fell off the treadmill and hit the ground and made a noise so loud, you would think there was a earthquake.

So I'm mortified. I am mortified. People looking at me. Why is this fat man on the ground? All this other stuff. So I get my stuff and I get up out of there. That was my first day of I'm running. I get home, I see this tattoo that reminds me of a speech. I have the tattoo that says, no struggle, no progress. And it reminds me of the great 1857 Frederick Douglas speech. And from that point on, I knew what I had to do. I had to go through the struggle in order to get some progress.

Jennifer Brown:

Beautiful.

Martinus Evans:

And since then I've ran over eight marathons, a hundred other different distances, and created this community called the Slow AF Run Club that has about 10,000 members worldwide and just wrote a book with the same name.

Jennifer Brown:

Love that. Oh, I really hope everybody listening grabs this book because it's equal parts running strategy, really helpful. And you've created, Martinus, the downloadable resources for every worksheet you have in the book, which is incredible. But the personal vignettes are what I was living for as I was reading it. One in particular, I don't know if it was your first marathon or one of your races, but you were flagging at the end and what happens with runners bringing up the rear? I found it so interesting, the bias in the running world that I mentioned. I learned so much about everything. Every system that exists, it has not been built for everybody.

So tell about that one incident. And I know there were opportunities to be relieved and picked up by the bus, and it struck me. I wrote this down, there's always someone telling you to get on the bus, meaning to give up. And it was just so powerful. It was such a powerful metaphor, I think for a lot of us that are trying something new, something difficult, something we've been underestimated for and about. But I'm not doing as good of a job describing the scene as you are. But I loved it in a book. I wondered if you could share it.

Martinus Evans:

Absolutely. So let's talk about it. This is one of my favorite cautionary tales, and that's what these things are called and out of my book, cautionary tales. Because we've all have experienced cautionary tales that we should be able to tell somebody else and they should be able to learn from those. So don't get off the bus.

So folks, I want you to imagine. Close your eyes. Imagine you are mile 18 of your first marathon. The music is blasting, people are cheering for you, and the voices are starting to ramp up in your head. Like the voices of doubt, of can I actually do this?, are starting to ramp up. Parts of your body is hurting, that has never hurt before. I don't know if you ever had your teeth hurt while running, but you wouldn't necessarily think that your teeth should be hurting while you're actually moving.

I come across this guy. I'm coming across him and he's starting to slow down. He's starting to walk. I can see that he's starting to give up. So I started to give him some words, some encouragement. These are words and encouragement that I wish somebody would give to me. But you know what? That's that calling. And I had to just give them to somebody else in hopes that I was listening as well. So I give his man's words. I'm starting to walk with him. I'm like, Hey brother, you can do this and I know what you're trying to do, but I'm done. He's done. I have no gas left. I'm quitting.

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:11:04]

Martinus Evans:

I have no gas left. I'm quitting. So he flags down this bus and he gets on the bus and drives away. So as I'm still running, the voices are now turned up on 10. The voices are like, "Yo, Martinez, your teeth hurt. You know what will make your teeth stop hurting? If your butt would've got on that bus." And then there's another battle. So that's my head telling me what to do. You got my heart that's on the other side. That's telling me like, "No, Martinez, keep going. You came here for this race."

And for listeners, there's always going to be a battle between our head and our heart. And that's the thing, our head is meant to for us to get out of uncomfortable situations. Whereas our heart is what's helping drive us through our mission and to the finish line.

So I'm having this battle between my head and my heart, and then this bus comes by and he's, "Hey, big man, you want to ride to the finish line?" And I was like, "No, I'm okay." And I didn't think nothing of it. He drives off. Another mile goes by. I'm still having this battle. "Hey big man, you want to ride to the finish line?" "No, I'm okay." But then I started to notice it was a little odd because there was other people in front of me and behind me that I felt like he didn't stop and ask them if they wanted a ride to the finish line as well.

So I noticed that I'm still having this internal battle, and you get to a part of a race where it's called the wall, where you pretty much hit the thing and there's no more energy left. And this is where your sheer will gets you to the finish line. So I'm at the wall, I'm struggling. I'm starting to run a little bit slower, and the bus comes again. "Hey big man, you want to ride to the finish line?" This time, I walk all the way up to the bus, I get my hand on the door and my heart was like, "Nope, not today." Continue to run.

Now I'm in my mile 25. I'm less than a mile away from this finish line. And the bus comes again. "Hey big man, do you want to ride to the finish line?" And at this point I blew up. I am less than a mile away. And I asked him, "Why would you even ask me this?" And he goes on to say, "I can't help that you're fat and slow. I'm just trying to help you out." That's the thing, folks, is that there are going to be people who are trying to give you outs, quote/unquote, outs that they think you need, which you don't necessarily need in order to get to your finish line.

So I said a few choice words to him that I probably won't say here. This is a family podcast. But let's just say I have some very colorful words for this gentleman. And then I crossed the finish line.

Jennifer Brown:

Woo. Happy ending.

Martinus Evans:

Happy ending.

Jennifer Brown:

Wow. Wow. For a while, I think you brought up the rear. And one of the biases you talk about is in the design of racing and the ways that runners of all sizes and shapes are disregarded in that design. And I just want to stay there for a moment. Describe what happens when you're at the end and you're coming in at your pace. What do you see, not see? What support don't you get? And I hope you, you're going to tell us it's changing. I hope what you're going to say is... But I don't know. So how bad is it? What did you discover about the system that had was so inhospitable to runners like you, and still is?

Martinus Evans:

That's the thing about running. It's all about numbers. And I think the hard thing, the beautiful and hard thing is that running is the only sport where you are on the same course in or around the professional athletes are. There's no way that you can go get on the basketball court and play a pickup ball on a different rim that LeBron is on at the same game. There's no way that you can get on a soccer field and kick around the ball with Ronaldo while there's the world cup going. But in a marathon, this is the only time where, as the elite start, you can go and run right behind them and be on the same course and finish in around the same time as the elite athletes.

So with that being said, I think that for most racing they take that old school approach of they're going to have all the fast people in the front, the elites. They're going to have them go off, then the next fastest and the next fastest and the next fastest. All the way until you get to the slow people, they be in the back.

However, most races have a course limit. We can only have be on this course for however long. And with that being said, since you are starting in the back, you are already at a disadvantage. So you are already at a disadvantage. And then you have this course limit, which then you have individuals who are either working water tables, they'll start to take those down, or individuals who are, we call them timing mats. So by running over a timing mat, most races you can track your friends or family, see where they're at in the course, they'll start pulling up those. I've even been a part of races where I've gotten lost because they've taken down all of the directional signs on the course. And I've times where I experienced all of those.

So imagine you're running a race where you have to bring your own water because they're no longer providing water for you because you're slow. You have to find your way to the finish line because they've taken down all the directional signs. And your friends and families are nervous and don't know where you at because they can't track you. So for people who are in the back of the pack, those are things that I have to experience.

Jennifer Brown:

Yep. No shirts in your size. I wrote down some things.

Martinus Evans:

Yep. That as well.

Jennifer Brown:

No race fuel. Running out of medals you said.

Martinus Evans:

Running out of medals.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah.

Martinus Evans:

Those are things that happens as well.

Jennifer Brown:

Tell us about the portos, the teepees.

Martinus Evans:

Oh my god.

Jennifer Brown:

That's graphic, right?

Martinus Evans:

So yes. So let's take a regular race. Let's take a race that has 10,000 participants. So you're in the back, you're slow, you're starting way after everybody else has started. And imagine you have to go there and use a porta potty. That 9,000 other people have already used up all the toilet paper, no hand sanitizer. And you just got to go up in there with a prayer and sometimes leave out of there with a missing sock because we got to use something to wipe with.

Jennifer Brown:

True story.

Martinus Evans:

So those are things that happens. Yes, throughout my 10 years of running, I can count on my hand how many race shirts that I can actually wear. It has gotten to the point where I pretty much carry my own water, I carry my own race fuel and race snacks. I have to carry a map of the race because you never know. And then I always bring a backup charger. So as a person that's in the back, like I got to damn near be MacGyver.

Jennifer Brown:

Seriously, how much does that stuff weigh?

Martinus Evans:

A lot. Three liters of water on your back is no joke.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, yeah. And then add to this, you are a black man runner. Add to this what's going through your head, your own safety, all of that. And I think that's this other piece. You said, keeping your head on a swivel is the word you used. So what's that vigilance like? And how does it then compound... I might ask, has that ever gone away? Is it there a way that you manage it?

Martinus Evans:

No.

Jennifer Brown:

No?

Martinus Evans:

I wish. I think being a black man who's a runner, when you're a runner and you're a marathoner, there are times of the day where it is best for you to run, because it's cooler. Most of the time, those times of the day is not when...

Jennifer Brown:

Not safe.

Martinus Evans:

When it's not safe and the sun is not up. So you're running in the dark either before sunrise or after sunrise. So you're running in the dark. It's not necessarily a safe in environment, but these are the things that you have to do as an athlete. And I think that me being a big black man who is also a runner, I had to be skilled in the art of deescalation because there have been multiple times where I've been stopped by the police. I've been handcuffed. I've been accused of doing nefarious things even though I was out there in bright orange or bright green clothes, running.

And usually what I tell these officers is that I must be a dumb criminal to be in bright green and bright orange clothes trying to commit some type of crime. But yeah, deescalation is one of the things also, depending on where you stay and with this political climate, you get all types of comments. You get all types of... I've had bottles thrown at me and I've had cans thrown at me. I've had all these things thrown at me, yelled at me, yelled at, called names just because I'm a black man, trying to live in my body.

Jennifer Brown:

Shouldn't have to do that. That hits me hard. And I appreciate... We talk a lot about covering in my teaching work. We talk about the emotional effort that some of us feel we have to do to put others at ease. And in your story, I just hear so many details that you've had to pay attention to and had to prioritize and carry literally and emotionally along with your athleticism and the very real challenge of running the way that you run. Yeah, that's a lot.

So it might want to pause there and just say advice. How do you balance? None of us likes the things that you've just described and the fact that you have to do them to stay safe. And I know that we're probably nowhere near improving on that because I know what's happening in the world. It's always been true. So what is the advice though? If people feel like that's just too much of a burden in addition to everything else, to become a runner, do you have advice? I know the book is full of it, but what would you say now as we listen to this. How did you overcome whatever you can overcome from that and how it feels to have to do that? How do you maybe stay positive and hopeful at the same time and really commit to-

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:22:04]

Jennifer Brown:

How do you maybe stay positive and hopeful at the same time and really commit to your craft? Because what I see in you is a high performance athlete just trying to do what you love.

Martinus Evans:

Staying diligent, I think is the term where I lead. Am I hopeful at times? Absolutely, but I'm also diligent. There's a term that I use in the book of keeping your head on the swivel, and that's the notion of being aware of your environment. I told you that I had to learn or be a master at the skill of deescalation. By being a master at the skill of deescalation, one of the things you understand is body languages. Seeing what people are saying about you even though they're not saying any words about you. Being able to address the situation or come about as I'm running, seeing people, seeing their body language and instantly know whether or not this is going to be a pleasurable experience or it's going to be a experience full of BS. And I think that's one of the things of just using and trusting our gut. And of course, there's some technical things. So, in the book I talk about some of the things that I do. Sometimes I run with my dog.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, I remember.

Martinus Evans:

He's a cute dog, just 10 pounds. You're in a situation where people already feel threatened by your size. Being able to run with a little cute dog deescalates that because, if this guy has this cute dog, there's no way that he can be dangerous. I'm not running around with the traditional tropes or running with a pit bull or a rottweiler. I'm running around with a toy poodle. I think the same can be said with the clothing I wear. This is one of the reasons why the Slow AF Run Club March is the way it is, with cute turtles and a paisley.

Because as I said before, talking to police officers who has stopped me from running and questioning me about why I'm running in this particular neighborhood, I can always go back to, look at me. I'm wearing turtles and a paisley. There's no way. If there was anybody that would call me a suspect, it would be so blatant. Because it's turtles and it's paisley. Other things, always let my family, my friends, know where I'm at, when to expect for me to come home. And if I'm at home at that time, how long to wait before they get concerned and start to look.

Jennifer Brown:

It's a lot of mental gymnastics. But I'm so glad though that you're at least in your now to the 10,000 members you have, which is incredible. Clearly this stuff is resonating and you've encouraged so many people to get out there and follow their dream and just be smart about it because our world is messed up. But to be smart about it and strategic about it like you've been, until such time as we see real change. And you talk about training your brain. I want to go into that a little bit. I love that. I think it's so much about mental discipline and understanding that, I think you say, "You are not your thoughts and emotions. Not everything you think is true and not everything you feel is real."

Martinus Evans:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

You say, "This is the difference between I am sad versus I am experiencing sadness." And I wrote that down because I think I'd be lying to say I don't struggle with this too. But having that distance from that monologue, that narrative, the inner critic. I know you've named your inner critic, Otis.

Martinus Evans:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

He even has a raspy voice like a drunk uncle.

Martinus Evans:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

So tell me about training your brain. You have a checklist. What are some of the elements of that and how have you managed that?

Martinus Evans:

So when you're talking about training your brain, I think for most people when it comes to athletics, this is the thing that a lot of people struggle with. And this is one of the reasons why I started my book, With Mindset, is because I can train anybody else all the other mechanics when it comes to running. Anybody can go on Google and search for whatever things they need to search for and whatever questions they may have about running. But when it comes to that muscle in between your ears, a lot of people struggle. So many things that I've learned throughout my process is, A, yes, we all have an inner critic. Sometimes our inner critic is louder than others. I found that before I named it and gave my inner critic a persona. My inner critic most of the time was in my own voice.

So now it's all of these negative things that I'm telling myself, and then it's all in my own voice. So that's whatever you think and whatever you feel don't necessarily be have to be real or be true because your mind is just making up stuff. And we all know that our mind is there to prevent us from going through discomfort, pain, and or fear. Because by going through those things, our mind is, oh, that's danger. Time to run away. But we live in a modern society. There's not that much danger that's out there. So now it's just our inner critic creating different narratives about what we are, who we are trying to be and what we're trying to do. So if I'm not trying to be a runner and you have this notion of, oh, I want to get off the couch and I want to start running, I want to start getting active. And then, the first thing you hear is your inner critic being like, "Nope. Sit your on the couch. You're nothing. You're useless." Don't follow that notion of, you should be able to do this.

Then you're going to be like, okay, I'm not going to do that. And then you add in the notion of, let somebody troll you. And now, those inner voices are now validated with those feelings of, no, I can't do this. See? Somebody has validated that. So by giving a, like your inner critic, this persona. Mines is Otis. He's a raspy, drunk uncle. Talks reckless. That's what he does, he just talk reckless.

Jennifer Brown:

Reckless.

Martinus Evans:

And I've had a couple drunk uncles growing up. And sometimes you get to the age where you talk back. Growing up in the Midwest, you're taught to respect your elders. However, when it comes to that drunk uncle, it don't matter what age you're at, sometimes you got to talk back to them, let them know that, yo, we not rolling with this. You can be 12, your drunk uncle can be 40. You can be like, "Uncle, go sit down somewhere. Go over there."

Jennifer Brown:

Love that.

Martinus Evans:

I'm not playing with you. And they'll go over there because they know they drunk and they have no business out here anyway. Same thing with my inner critic. He knows he has no business out here, but it's one of the things that it's a part of us, so we can't get rid of it. So this is where, not necessarily reasoning with it, but having this conversation or having dialogue with your inner critic to say, hey. I know what you're trying to do. I know you're trying to protect me. But guess what? I don't need protecting. I got this. And being able to quote unquote, parent yourself and let your inner critic know that you got this and that you're safe, can then help tone downs those inner voices. So that's the first thing. Of course there's other things. I think the list is long, but my favorite is finding an enemy.

So every movement needs an enemy. Every great movement has an enemy, there's always some type of opposition. And I think that as an athlete and honing in on an athlete's mindset, that's something that you can hone in on and use that for yourself. So I use the example of Michael Jordan. I loved him when I was growing up, and he has tons of stories of took offense to what somebody said or whatever in order to fuel him to rise to the occasion. And sometimes for myself, that's what I need.

I know that authority figures, it's not something necessarily that I roll with, especially an authority figure that's telling me that I can't do something and I know I can. So this is where finding an enemy comes into place. Being able to hone in, tap into that feeling of somebody being like, for example, the doctor being like, "You're fat. Lose weight or die. I'm going to run a marathon. You're going to run a marathon or you're going to die." And you being like, "Okay, yep. I got the fire lit under my ass." And that's the thing as an athlete or just anybody in general, my goal is to help people take a match stick.

We all have a match stick, we can light the match and it's a little fire. But you can blow it out and it can go out, or you can foster it and it can grow into this raging fireball. And I think for me and for the people that I teach, it's about taking that matchstick, protecting it, adding kindle into it and helping it to continue to grow so that no breeze can stop it, no water can stop it. And what happens is that breezes actually help your fire because that's the enemy. That's the enemy, that's the opposition. Oh, okay. Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to blow. I'm going to grow bigger. So those are some of my favorite techniques when it comes to mindset.

Jennifer Brown:

I love it. They need oxygen, right?

Martinus Evans:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, I love that. And there's so many other coping techniques that you list. Fear, false information appearing real. And you crack me up about the rats in New York City as a runner. I so relate to that. You and the rats.

Martinus Evans:

Yeah, rats are real out here. I've never seen so many rats in life since I moved to New York City.

Jennifer Brown:

You got to love it. Let me ask you about the revolution in body positivity just taking a bit of a turn. We see it in social media. Brands like money, right? I think some of them are slow to adjust and to, frankly, capitalize on all sizes of shoppers. And high performance gear has not been made for different body sizes to the extent that it should have. So tell us the state of that. Is it getting better? From your time running, from when you began to now, are you seeing a C change in terms of how brands are paying attention to athletes like yourself?

Martinus Evans:

I wish. I think that with this notion of, I just call it body politics. I add body positivity, body neutrality. What's the new term? Body liberation. I add all of those terms and I just make that body politics.

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:33:04]

Martinus Evans:

... body liberation. I add all of those terms and I just make that body politics. And I think that throughout these years it's been mainly a women-driven mission. And I think that for a lot of these brands, they've been able to listen to women and be able to provide them with the things that they need.

However, even though there're is still a whole nother other half of the population out there, that they have, for lack of a better words, ignore. Well, for example, my favorite example, I like Target. Target is one of my favorite places. I like the Red Dot. I even got a Target card. I go into Target, go get my favorite products, deodorant, whatever, go by the women's section. You can see they have banners of plus size women all on the wall smiling, sharing their beautiful bodies, plus size mannequins, plus-sized size women clothing, all in one spot. And then I go to the men's section, you still got six-pack abs Johnny there.

Jennifer Brown:

Wow.

Martinus Evans:

And then you ask them, "Hey, is there any plus size clothes for men here?" And they're like, "Oh, you got to go online to buy it." I shop. I go buy deodorant, I go buy toilet paper and toothpaste and stuff of that sort. And as a larger individual, my whole motto is that if it fits, I buy it in all the colors, so that's just a missed opportunity-

Jennifer Brown:

What a great customer.

Martinus Evans:

... for them. Because I am the customer they're looking for, right?

Jennifer Brown:

Yes, indeed.

Martinus Evans:

Because if it fits, I'm going to buy it in all the colors. And I think that for plus size men clothing, that's something that's still being lost on. That's something that's still being missed inside of the society, is that I think for a lot of these brands. And I want to say pander. I want to say these brands have decided to pander to women. But what I'm trying to say is that I want to be pandered too as well.

Jennifer Brown:

Who wouldn't want to be? Trying to give your money away, honestly. You're like-

Martinus Evans:

Exactly.

Jennifer Brown:

... "Take it please."

Martinus Evans:

I'm trying to give you my money. Throughout this journey, I've went ahead and started to develop my own merch line for the Slow AF Run Club-

Jennifer Brown:

Smart.

Martinus Evans:

... as a experiment. As a experiment of, "Hey, how hard is this? Really, how hard is it to make plus size clothing." If these brands that have millions and trillions of dollars in profit and people who work there who've went to school to go into clothing design and all the other aspects of it and finding factories and things of that sort. I'm thinking to myself, it has to be hard for a guy who has no experience, a $5,000 budget and don't know where to start. And when it was all said and done, I was able to produce clothing with a size range that's way larger than these brands. My size range goes from a size extra small and in most cases to a five X and then extreme cases up to a six X.

Jennifer Brown:

Good for you. What are you calling your line?

Martinus Evans:

The Paisley Turtle.

Jennifer Brown:

Oh, so cute. I love it. Thank you for pointing that out. It's something I've never noticed and now I'm going to be noticing it. And you're so right now that I think about what I see in stores. We've made some progress in one area and then we've completely just missed the boat for men. And it's just what an interesting bias to have. Missed opportunity for brands. Everyone listening to the world to change, if you work for a retailer, pay attention and maybe you'll see your line in Target someday.

Martinus Evans:

Maybe. That's the thing. LYCRA don't care whether it's pink, black or blue.

Jennifer Brown:

No. All the colors.

Martinus Evans:

It can be whatever color we make it to be. To me it just shows that either brands don't care. To me, that's what it seems like. They either don't care or to play angel's advocate, maybe they just don't understand that there's a need for plus size man clothing out there.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. Thank you for educating us. And anyway, you have a 26 city book tour coming up. Everybody that's listening to this, I am sure Martinus is in a city you near you. Please go and support him. And the book is out June 6th, which is by the time of this release, it will be a couple of days before this release. You will be on your way, winging your way around and meeting all these amazing grateful people, I'm sure that are going to be very excited to have this. And maybe have never given themselves permission to think about themselves as runners and athletes before you. I just really so deeply appreciate you. Maybe I could even come find one of your gatherings myself and meet you in person. But everybody support the book, check out the tour locations and dates and where else can we find information and connect into your community and anything else you want us to know Martinus?

Martinus Evans:

Absolutely. If you want to find out about the app, we have an app.

Jennifer Brown:

Awesome.

Martinus Evans:

Slow AF Run Club on iOS and Android. After you get done listening to this, go to your favorite app store and download the app and join us in our community. You can find us at slowafrunclub.com. And then on my personal side, I'm at 300 Pounds and Running on Instagram and Facebook. That's 300, spell out pounds and running.

Jennifer Brown:

300 Pounds and Running. Martinus, the book, the movie, everything is in your future, the speaking. We are all, we're bringing it in here. I know you would love to be more of a speaker and that's coming, no doubt. It's something that I'm excited and committed to help you create in the world and I just appreciate you. Thank you so much for coming on The Will to Change and stay healthy. I don't know if you're masking on the plane, but just keep yourself nice and safe. That's a lot of travel, but to a lot of grateful people I know and what an incredible summer it's going to be for you with this new book. Congrats to you and thank you for coming on today.

Martinus Evans:

Thank you very much.

Jennifer Brown:

Hi, this is Jennifer. Did you know that we offer a full transcript of every podcast episode on my website over @jenniferbrownspeaks.com? You can also subscribe so that you get notified every time a new episode goes live. Head over there now to read my latest thoughts on diversity, inclusion and the future of work and discover how we can all be champions of change by bringing our collective voices together and standing up for ourselves and each other.

Speaker 1:

You've been listening to The Will to Change, Uncovering True Stories of Diversity and Inclusion with Jennifer Brown. If you've enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. To learn more about Jennifer Brown, visit jenniferbrownspeaks.com. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back next time with a new episode.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [00:40:20]