Frozen Toes And Amish Marathon Runners

A broken AC on the first hot day, a sudden cold snap, and two dads trying to keep up with life’s pace sets the vibe for a wide ranging “over the fence” catch up on Operation Game Night Podcast. We start with the kind of home maintenance surprise nobody budgets for, then jump straight into the real schedule maker: kids flag football. Clayton breaks down why flag football is actually fun to watch at the youth level, how positions and simple plays keep it engaging, and why the sport’s growth (yes, even the Olympics angle) makes it feel like more than a passing trend. 

Then we get honest about fitness motivation and the competitive mindset. Clayton recounts running a half marathon with less training than he wanted, choosing a conversational pace with friends, and still getting humbled by runners he did not expect to see flying past. Travis adds his own running injury story and the truth every athlete knows: even a free community 5K can trigger “I think I can take them” energy. If you’re into running, half marathon training, or just trying to be healthier without making yourself miserable, the takeaways land in a very real way. 

We close with entertainment and lifestyle: house hunting in Colorado, a Project Hail Mary movie review, and a theater experience so cold it feels like space. There’s also a laugh out loud breakdown of 4D movies (Godzilla Minus One included), plus quick TV recommendations like Big Mistakes on Netflix and The Pit season 2 with a clear warning about the medical drama intensity. If you like friend to friend talk with practical details and strong opinions, hit play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome Over The Fence

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. Today we are going over the fence. Joining me over the fence is Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I'm doing good, Travis. It's nice over here.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Is it?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

On your side of the fence or on your side of the country? On my side of the fence. Has it been uh you get you get a lot of snow? I saw like a big storm rolling through the the northeast.

AC Trouble And Sudden Cold

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Well, not lately. Oh no, but there it has shifted. So we'll just hop into it real quick. Um let's do it. Well, I'm over the fence and I'm gonna talk about whatever I want. Uh so my AC went out. Uh, first hot day we had. Okay. I realized I was running the AC, but the house wasn't getting any cooler. So I got that changed up. That wasn't fun. Um, they're expensive. Uh but anyway, we rushed, we got it in, and there was like two hot days, and now it's cold again here. So that might be the storm you're talking about. Yes. It's not snowing, but it is it has gotten chilly, and I think it's supposed to be chilly for a good portion of the week.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

That's chilly down here. It was like 55 today. Oh. Well, this is not a this is not a weather podcast, but uh, what else have you been doing?

Kids Flag Football Takes Over

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Um replacing your AC. Speaking of weather, my kids are big into flag football. Nice. I'm big in, I mean, this is the first year they've done it, and they're both on different teams. So we're at flag football practices a lot of the nights of the week, and then on the weekends, there's games on both days. Okay, and I gotta say, I like flag football. I mean, my kids are still learning. I wouldn't say they're all stars out there, okay. But in terms of sports that I've had to watch at the youth level, and it could just be that they're older now. Um, but watching flag football is actually kind of fun. It resembles regular football enough that I understand what's going on, but it uh and the kids, you know, seem to have plays that they're running, and yeah, it's cool. I enjoy it. I can see why I think it's gonna grow and be a pretty huge thing, especially now that it's in the Olympics.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

It is in the Olympics now, and they're gonna field all of our NFL players. Uh, do the boys have like set positions that they play, or they just rotate them through? It's pretty big.

Half Marathon With Little Training

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Uh there's uh there's a quarterback that is pretty standard on both their teams. Okay. And then everybody else kind of shifts around. There's a few different receiver positions. I think it's like five on five or six on six, so only six people are on either side at a time. Nice. There's a there's a center, there's a quarterback, there's a running back sometimes, and then there's like receivers split out or in tight. Um, yeah, I don't know the rules very good, but I do know it seems to be the people are just moving about, and that's probably just a product of their age level and just getting them used to different positions. Yeah, but it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Yeah, that's rad. That's pretty awesome. Uh and you uh undertook a physical challenge by running something.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Oh, yes, I did. I have it on right here. I'm wearing my half marathon t-shirt that I got says pace with purpose. Okay, I'm guessing this half marathon was like for a charity of some sort, but I I would be pressed to tell you what it was, but that's just based on what the shirt says. Um really, I just signed up for it on a whim because two of my buddies from high school were doing it, and they said, Do you want to do it? And this was a long time ago, and I was like, Yeah, that sounds great. I've done a few of those before. And then, like a month before it came time to do this, I realized, oh, I have to run 13 miles in a few weeks. I should probably get on that, and yeah, so it was the least prepared I've ever been um for a physical endeavor like this, but I made it and I was proud of myself because you know, almost every time, and you're probably the same way, being athletic, competitive, you can tell yourself that you're not gonna take it seriously, yeah. And that you're just gonna go out and have a good time. I don't know how many Air Force PT tests I showed up to where I said, Clay, you can run the mile and a half in 11 minutes and get a 95. Yeah. If you run the mile and a half in eight minutes, you'll get a 98. There is no reason to push yourself like that. Nobody cares. Yeah. And I every single time I would make myself miserable just to you know get as close to that max mark as I could. Yeah. And historically, I do the same thing in one of these races. I would push myself to no end, but I was like, listen, reality is Clay, you didn't train, you didn't train like you should. I did a couple long runs, but the furthest I went was like seven and a half. Okay. So there was all five miles that I didn't know about. Never seen those last five miles. And I was like, you just need to go out there, just run with your friends and chill and just have a good time. And I did that. We didn't push, we just trotted along at a conversational pace. The miles just ticked on by. Last four to five got a little iffy, okay, and uncharted territory for my training plan, so it started to hurt a little bit, but I was able to rein myself in enough to you know not be miserable, which I think is growth.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Yeah, that's great. Good for you. Yeah, that's far too long for me to run. I uh had grand ambitions of running the uh was it the Rocky, the Rocky half marathon in Philadelphia that they do every year. Oh, yeah, and you uh I think you start and finish at the Rocky Steps, um, and you race like kind of all through downtown Philadelphia. And I had grand plans to do that, and then I got I got like maybe halfway through my training, and I like really pulled my groin really bad, and I kind of it derailed me far more than it should have. Uh, but it's interesting that you say like as an athlete, you can't help but be competitive because Rachel signed up for a 5k uh a free Easter 5k, like the Saturday before Easter, okay? A free community Easter 5k. People were showing up wearing bunny ears and costumes and stuff. Yep. And she got there and she's like, you know, looking around, like, I think I can take them, I think I can beat them. Like, it's a free 5k. They're not handing out medals, okay. Uh, and there was a like a 14, 15-year-old that won the whole thing, and he ran this 5k in like uh shoot, it's like 5k. He ran it in like 15 minutes, like 15 lion. It was crazy. Um, that's insane. Yeah, but yeah, Rachel did the exact same thing. Like, oh, I think I can take these people. Like, yeah, you're running a free pre-Easter 5k, like just calm down.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

It's it's hard to shake that, but you wait. Rachel would have really been tough pressed at my half marathon when she saw what I was uh up against because talk about humbling. We were in the heart of Amish country here in Pennsylvania, and we had all these Amish families out there that were in this race. I'm talking about women in dresses and like hair things, yeah. The bonnets, men in overalls. Like I'm at like mile nine, and there's this guy with a big long beard and overalls, and these aren't running shoes, these might be work boots, and he is just trucking in front of me, and I am like, I have to pass this guy. That is incredible. Yeah, it was the wildest thing I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Wow, nice. But you finished. Do you get like a metal free t-shirt?

Hyrox Plans And Staying Motivated

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Oh, metal t-shirt. Look at me. Wow, I'm I'm looking up, and this has inspired me now to uh revisit uh my me and my buddy Scott, who's he's my friend from high school. Scott, he doesn't listen to this, but where I'd like to be real friends with him, but in reality, the only time he has for me is to work out with me. So we work out once a week together, and basically the only that's the only time we see each other. Um, so we're pretty much workout friends who are best friends, like we've been friends since preschool, but we did a high rocks together a few years ago, okay. And a doubles partnership, and where we just signed up for another one on Labor Day on the heels of our raging half marathon success. So nice, yeah. Let's keep it going. I always get always have something to keep me engaged physically, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah, we should live stream your high rocks on Operation Game Night. How about that?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Let's do that.

House Hunting Stress In Colorado

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Yeah, let's do these. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

I've been over the fence for too long. You you tell me what's going on with you.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Uh well, we've been shopping for houses in Colorado for to no avail. Uh still on the house hunt in Colorado.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

You know where to find, you know where to look, right? I do know to the V to the R.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

The OBR would be ideal, uh, but we are looking on the exact opposite side of town. Um, just because we have we have such different commutes going up the hill versus down to the airport, and balancing the distance slash time between those two is becoming increasingly difficult as the weeks pass by.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I went out to the airport from OVR all my time there, you know, except for when I was at the academy one, it was really nice, but it was only like 30 minutes.

Project Hail Mary Theater Experience

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah, I one of us is gonna probably end up having to commute a little bit, which kind of sucks, but um, I saw Project Hail Mary. Ooh, it was really good. Um they had to gloss over a lot of the stuff that they kind of explain in the books, and in the or in the book, uh Grace uh explains a lot about his thought process on how he communicates with Rocky, and like they have to establish a baseline for numbers, and like Rocky's planet does not count the same way that Grace and like humans count, and it's like a base of 10 with like a logarithmic scale, and like he has to like do all these calculations that is explained in the books. Um but it got the point across. I I think it hit all the points that needed to be hit. Um, I think that they added some cool like visual type scenes that were like striking, and the cinematography was pretty awesome considering most most of it was green screen. Um do you know if they did like an actual uh like robot for Rocky? Like, did they have practical effects?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, that was practical.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

That's badass. I know some of it was not like you can tell when they go like CGI, but the practical effects were really good. Like yeah, they were really, really well done. Um but man, that of that is a long movie. Yeah, 236 runtime, plus another like 10-15 minutes of ads and Nicole Kidman telling you that it's okay to cry in the theater. And I man, I would like I have not sat through a long movie like that in a long time, so that was kind of a slog.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

But did you have your popcorn with Bunch of Crunch?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Had the popcorn with Bunch of Crunch, and we ate it probably before like the first 15 minutes of the movie, and then we felt terrible. But yeah, good time. It was a good like oh, that was another thing. So we go to this AMC theater, okay? It's 90 degrees outside. I'm in shorts and like a button-down, like light summer cheap shirt. We go to the front of the theater, and on the front door, they have a sign that says, Beware the theaters are very cold and very is underlined. And it says, like, the AC is set on you know cool mode and cannot be changed, it's on it's automatic, we can't change the temperature. And I'm like, okay, theaters are always cold. We walked into this theater. I kid you not, it had to be 50 degrees in there. It was freezing, it was so cold. Like I'm in flip-flops, shorts, and a button-down, like you know, t-shirt. Jeez, and we were freezing. I went out and I got a corduroy like uh like dress jacket out of my car to wear with my shorts and flip-flops in the theater because it was so freaking cold. That's crazy. When we left, like my toes were numb. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

That's not great.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Anyways, it felt like being in the cold vacuum of space, and I can appreciate that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

There you go. You and Ryan Gosling were bonding.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

The four, yeah, the 4K adventure. The the was it the 4D? The 4D. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

You got all you experienced the taste, the feel, the hearing, yeah, the moving, all the senses were engaged.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Um, the last time I went to go see a 4D movie, I did not know that I was buying a 4D ticket. Are you have you been to a 4D movie? So the seats in the theater move around with like what is happening on screen, and then there are certain special effects. Like if you're flying through, let's say you're flying in a jet or something, you will get like wind in your face. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Oh, okay.

Netflix Big Mistakes Quick Review

SPEAKER_02 14:48

So I bought a ticket and I'm like, man, this ticket to Godzilla, uh, what's it Godzilla minus minus one? Yeah. Godzilla minus one. I'm like, man, this is really expensive. So I get there and the seat starts rocking around and moving, and I'm like, this is what I paid for. Okay. Then they like half of the movie is out in the ocean on the boat, kind of like a Jaws movie where they're hunting Godzilla. And every time Godzilla pops up or an explosion goes off in the water, they spray you with water. Oh my god. And so I like left the theater wet because I'm like getting sprayed. And then you talk about eating the popcorn and stuff. We start eating. I'm eating popcorn, and then every time they're out on the boat, the seat gently rocks you side to side. And I'm like, I'm about to get seasick in a theater eating popcorn. I'm about to yak this popcorn. This is the most ridiculous movie going experience I've ever had. That sounds awful. It was something, it was something. Uh, last but last but not least, uh, Rachel and I watched Big Mistakes on Netflix. Uh, it is a new show from uh Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega. Um, Dan Levy of uh Shits Creek Fame.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Oh, yeah, I saw this.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

It's a cop show, right? It is kind of like a crime thriller. Okay. Um, but it is like a comedy crime thriller, I think. Uh so Dan Levy plays a local pastor, uh, kind of with a dysfunctional family. His mom played by Lori Metcalfe, um of what's she from? Oh, Ladybird. She plays a mom and Ladybird. Uh his family is like just very dysfunctional. Um and he and his sister, played by Taylor Ortega, get kind of wrapped up in this like crime thriller when his sister steals a necklace from a store that they go into, and they kind of get pulled into this like seedy underworld that is happening right under their noses. Uh, and it puts him at odds with his pastoral duties in the church. Um man, like really fast-paced show, really easy to watch, um, really easy to follow. The characters are all like nuanced and believable and interesting. Uh, his mom, played by Lori Metcalf, is running for like public office, like the town mayor or whatever, and she's just like falling apart and stressed out and yelling, and like it's not a uh relaxing show to watch, um, especially the first couple episodes. Like the music that they pick to underscore the show, the characters, like everything is very frantic and kind of stresses you out a little bit. Uh, but once you hit your groove, like probably episode three or four, it like slows down a little bit and you get kind of get your feet underneath you just for things to like ramp back up and get crazy again. I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was really funny. I think it was pretty well done. Um yeah, check it out. It's called Big Mistakes, it's on Netflix.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

I will. I've been we're we're coming to the end of a show we've been watching, so I am looking for the next one.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yeah, it it goes by super fast. The episodes are like 35 minutes long, uh, and there's only eight of them. And it ends with a good twist at the very end that is like you really don't see it coming, and uh I'm sure that they will set it up for season two in the future.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

I love the 35-minute episodes, honest to God. Like I nowadays with our kids don't go to bed till you know 8:30 or later. And so for us to sit down and watch a show that they can't watch, it's like yeah, I should be going back to my bedroom around 9, 9.15. Yeah. So an hour-long show sometimes pushes me uncomfortably past where I should be getting ready for bed. Yeah, 35 minutes puts me right at, hey, okay, so perfect cutoff. I can head back, you know, get ready for bed. Yeah, do all that.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

And then you don't like binge at all, you don't watch it all in one sitting. You watch your 30 minutes once per night or however whenever whatever day of the week you have time. I I really like that versus the like hour and 20 minute episodes that are just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I can't, I mean, during a weeknight, I will watch like half of an episode, and that just I that feels not good to me. Yeah, I hate having to cut an episode off in the middle. Yeah. So that's good.

The Pit Season Two And TV Pace

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Well, speaking of longer seasons and longer episodes, we did finish the pit season two. Oh is that good? The pit is great. You have to be able to put up with some like medical viscera. Um, there's some like pretty gnarly scenes in that show that are very realistic. Um, but you know, it's winning Emmys and winning all sorts of awards. I don't I don't need to tell you how good it is. The characters are great, the show is frantic and awesome to watch and interesting to watch visually. They keep track of every little detail in the emergency room so that the continuity between scenes is like spot on. You could literally like trace out a character's footsteps through the entire uh season because each season is one day in the ER. And like you could keep track of a single character, all like everywhere they go and everything they do during that day or that shift. Um, this second season, I don't think the patients that make appearances are as quite as compelling as the first season. Um, but they do have some great characters on there that show up. Um, lots of real talks about like mental health for um emergency room doctors. Uh they wrote some storylines that are very like relevant today, but they wrote them like over a year and a half ago. Um so yeah, so pretty interesting storylines in season two, although I don't think they wrap them up as nicely as in season one. But if you're into the pit, it's more of that. It's a great show.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, we watched the first season of The Pit literally up until the season finale, and there was the uh well, the event that happens in the last the season finale of season one, it was too much for Mary. Yeah, she we had to turn it off. So I didn't get to finish season one, uh, but up until that point, and even to that point, I thought it was an amazing show. Yeah, um, so maybe we'll be able to hop into season two and hope that something like that doesn't come up. But Mary is sensitive to some of those uh like real life things that can yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Well, season two takes place on fourth of July. Uh so you can imagine the types of things that the emergency room might see on the fourth of July. Yep. So there's a lot of that. Uh okay. Uh, but if you can handle some of these like Face being pulled out like they did on season one, which is by far the grossest thing I've seen on that show.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Um I mean I closed my eyes for most of that show.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Dude, it it's yeah, that's it's gnarly.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I'm not having a pretend like I wanted to see that.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah, there's some gnarly stuff in this show. Not for the faint of heart for sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, well, still worth watching. I I would I would I literally hate any of that type of stuff, like guts and but just close your eyes. It's worth it. Yeah, it's still good, even if you close your eyes.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah, I mean, the just the interactions with the patients and like their interactions amongst the doctors and how they solve problems and stuff, it's always fun to watch. Yeah, and or listen to if you're closing your eyes.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

So it's basically an audio book for me.

Wrap Up And Shout Outs

SPEAKER_02 22:51

It's an audio book in the ER, right? Yeah. Did we do it? We did it. All right. Uh this has been Operation Game Night. We have been over the fence. I have been your host, Travis Smith. He has been my co-host, Clayton Gable. He ran a half marathon. He's got pace with purpose. Give him some love in the comments. This has been Operation Game Night, and we are out.