SEASON 1 EPISODE 2 with

episode transcript +

Racing to Help w/ IRONMAN’s Sarah Hartmann Season 1, episode 2

Guest: Sarah Hartmann, Executive Director of the IRONMAN Foundation

AARON KWITTKEN Broadcasting from the 10 Hudson Square Building, home of WNYC Radio in Soho, New York, welcome to Brand on Purpose, the podcast dedicated to uncovering the untold stories behind the most impactful purpose-driven companies.

My favorite company is a purpose-driven company, and I'm really proud to say that my guest today is Sarah Hartmann. Sarah is many things, I’m going to rattle off the list here: a marathoner, a triathlete, a certified USAT race director but, most importantly, Sarah has been serving for some time now as executive director of the IRONMAN Foundation. And I'll let Sarah talk about what the IRONMAN Foundation does and her role there.

But one of things I find really interesting is that you've had three careers. And I'm going to assume that at least for now, this is your most favorite career. And Sarah has been with the foundation for about two-and-a-half years. Before that, she was co-founder and President of an amazing organization called Race to Rebuild, which I’m sure we’ll hear about. And has a background in theater. And also was an executive at a technology startup for number of years.

For those of you who know me, and of course Sarah knows me quite well, and, full disclosure, IRONMAN and IRONMAN Foundation is a client, one of my favorite clients, because I, myself, am an endurance athlete, a very mediocre age grouper. But, you know, sports and participatory sports, endurance sports, changed my life not too long ago. Personally, I only race for charities, big races. Small races, no, but any big race that I have I always raise money. And the foundation’s amazing, I had the opportunity to race with the foundation back in 2014. So, Sarah welcome to Brand on Purpose and it's great to have you in studio.

SARAH HARTMANN Thank you so much for having me, what an honor.

AK In the endurance world, and in the athletics world, we talk about journeys, right? And I'm a big believer that nobody just gets up off the couch and does an IRONMAN. Or decides to do a Rock and Roll, which I should mention, IRONMAN also owns the Rock and Roll race series now. Some people get off the couch and decide to do a marathon but there’s usually, for an endurance event like an IRONMAN or half IRONMAN, there’s usually a personal purpose.

And what I find really interesting about the foundation, is that you’re at that nexus of both a personal purpose, but also a purpose for the greater good. But, talk a little bit about, maybe we can start with just your own journey in your own career and what brought you to IRONMAN Foundation, which, I'm going to say, is the pinnacle of your career, but I know you’ve got a lot of runway left. But, talk a little bit about your journey, I'm very interested in the theater portion.

SH Alright, well. Let’s go backwards. So, the IRONMAN Foundation is the charitable arm of the IRONMAN group. And you already mentioned that in addition to IRONMAN events, the company owns the Rock and Roll Marathon series, additionally Absa Cape Epic and the Cape Epic mountain bike racing series, Velathon Cycling and we’re also a partner with the Abbott World Marathon Majors. It’s the largest endurance sports brand in the world, engaging millions of athletes and they’re all having profound life changing experiences by crossing finish lines, like you have, like I have had.

AK Right.

SH And the foundation’s role is to work, you know, inside the brand as a community, to change peoples lives and, more specifically, by creating positive tangible impact in all the communities where our race events are held. And we do that by providing grant funding and supporting volunteer efforts. And so, this year we’ll give over $1.8 million dollars over 64 different race communities. That’ll go to about 1500 local non-profit organizations, and it’s a way for us to leave our legacy, our IRONMAN legacy if you will, behind in the community after we race. And so, our tagline for some time has been Race for More and, as you said, every athlete has a personal story. What is motivating them to cross that finish line, which in and of itself, is a life-changing event.

AK Right. And you guys have raised, correct me if I’m wrong, in excess of $50 million dollars since the foundation has started, right?

SH Correct. So, across all of the IRONMAN charitable giveback programs, it’s over $50 million dollars to about 8,300 organizations. And we like to say that we’re creating change in countless lives, but it’s tangible and it’s been a real honor to be part of certainly a pinnacle moment for me. When people ask, “What’s your job like?” I, without abandon, say, “I feel like I’m living inside my wildest dream.” That I’ve been able to marry several things that are really important to me, and we’ll get back to my career path, but certainly sport and power of endurance sports and what that means and to work inside the biggest brand is tremendously exciting. And to be able to work with athletes on a daily basis is truly remarkable.

AK And the tagline is Anything is Possible for the IRONMAN group, right?

SH Right, correct.

AK And it’s funny because I feel that’s just as appropriate for the foundation, right?

SH Absolutely. Absolutely. It resonates for us every single day. So I get to be inside a sport where anything is possible. I get to be in service to people, to communities, to non-profit organizations and I get to create change through sport and it is, as I said, really, really remarkable for me.

Just prior to sports and non-profit, as you mentioned, I spent over a decade in a technology start up and it was a really interesting time in my life and very informative and got to learn a lot about being a business leader about what kind of leader I wanted to be in business. And towards the end of that role, I started racing triathlon. I had moved from LA back to NYC. I fell in with a group of people who were racing and training for triathlons all the time. And after work they’d sit around and talk about how far did you ride and what were your watts and what did you eat and what’s your long ride this weekend and I had nothing to say in that conversation.

AK Well, it’s a very specific culture.

SH Mmmhmmm.

AK As you soon learned, right?

SH Absolutely, and so I set on the path of racing my first sprint triathlon, which I did in Staten Island. And I’ll never forget the feeling of crossing that finish line and being able to say “I am a triathlete.” And later that year, I raced my first NYC marathon. So, I went from always being active and in sports to being a triathlete, and then to being a long distance runner.

It was a pretty good first season and second season. I think I did 27 triathlons, including my first IRONMAN 70.3 race. And, so I just completely drank the Kool-Aid and fell in love with this sport and knew that I wanted to make a life inside of it. And, you know, change is hard by it’s nature, but when you’re in a career that’s really solid and very secure and you realize you want to make a change, it takes some guts and some grit and so the way it all played out was I was training for my 2nd New York City marathon in 2012, which you know was cancelled because of Hurricane Sandy.

AK Right.

SH And so myself and a bunch of my triathlete and runner friends banded together, and we coordinated relief efforts all around the New York City metro area. So we, marathon Sunday, had five different groups in the surrounding area in Staten Island and out in Long Beach and Long Island, and it was such a chaotic time but our group was…

AK I mean half Manhattan was still out, right?

SH Yeah, it was really, really an incredible experience. And so, we would get calls from different groups, different leaders, the Mayor’s office would call and say “Sarah, can your group send 50 runners down to Coney Island, there’s no power in the high rises and we need you guys to run up the stairwells, knock on the doors, make sure the seniors have their medications and enough water make sure they’re safe.” Like, perfect job for a runner, you know, for a triathlete.

AK Right.

SH And so we did that for about 6 weeks. And worked all in the area with different groups and in the Rockaways and out in Long Beach.

AK So you were based in the NY area already.

SH Yeah, I was living in Brooklyn at the time.

AK That’s very hip of you.

SH I love Brooklyn and I miss it a lot.

AK I like that part of Brooklyn where it’s like that flat 4 miles in the NYC marathon where you can just put your head down and crank. It’s amazing.

SH Exactly.

AK Yeah, and it’s good vibe. But, just going back a second so, being in a start up is not probably that dissimilar from being in a non-profit environment, right? You have to have a lot of grit a lot of resilience you’re constantly raising money and you’re strapped for resources. And, at the same time, you have a vision that you’re solely focused on. I mean, I think there’s a lot of similarities.

SH Absolutely. And my mom and dad always remind me that every part of my journey is leading to the next part of the adventure.

AK Right. Even if you don’t know it what that next part is.

SH I had no idea at that time. Had no idea that Race to Rebuild would be the group that was formed out of what happened, out of Hurricane Sandy. So, it’s a non-profit, 501c3. We expanded from the Sandy market, you know, not only rebuilding homes in Long Island and in New York and in New Jersey and Brooklyn. The program brings together athletes in communities that are recovering from disaster to raise funds to race there, and then stay and helps rebuild. We expanded to New Orleans and Detroit and Texas and South Carolina and, eventually, Ecuador. And it was in Texas and Ecuador that I was first, we received some grant funding from the IRONMAN Foundation, and…

AK Oh, I didn’t know that!

SH Yeah.

AK That’s so interesting.

SH That’s how that conversation started.

AK So that’s the next step, that’s the level of connectivity. That’s how you found out about IRONMAN Foundation.

SH Exactly. And I was, so you know, invited to join the team and Race to Rebuild now lives in Washington DC. It is a program of a 40-year-old national non-profit called Rebuilding Together. They have 145 affiliates around the country and they are racing and rebuilding and fundraising and engaging athletes to give back in a tangible way. And then I get to do that kind of work at the IRONMAN Foundation but then across all kinds of different sectors, you know, were feeding the hungry and building schools and community centers and all kinds of great work.

AK So, I think what’s really unique is often times people in your role, it could be a huge corporation, right, usually have to carry the heart for the organization, right? And they’re constantly pushing their way in and making sure that the C-Suite knows that you’re there and that it’s not just something to do just for reputation or for brand but that it’s actually part of the core. You’re in a very interesting role in that IRONMAN, in its very essence, is a very purpose built and purpose driven brand, the IRONMAN group, right?

And then you have this, like, additional role to help really bring it to life and to bring that back to the communities in which not just you’re racing in, but the communities we all live in. And you must have known, there must have been something inside of you since you’re very young, maybe you didn’t know it, but there’s a path for all of us, I think. But you must have known that eventually you’d be able to kind of combine both you’re commercial skills and your theatrical skills which we still need to talk about, along with, kind of, the give back and the purpose in being able to provide more to society.

SH For sure. Again, it’s interesting how the journey unfolds and you’re right, you know, at IRONMAN, our mission is to create these incredible life-changing race events for our athletes and the foundation does add an additional layer to that in that were not only creating this experience for athletes, but, we are then, in turn, creating incredible life changing moments and impact for the people who live in the communities.

AK Right, you’re like the exponential factor. You’re taking something that’s already amazing individually and you’re making great for the greater good, for the collective.

SH For sure.

AK There’s no other organization I can think of that functions like that.

SH Well, it’s certainly been really interesting. And I’ll tell a quick story about one of the partner brands that we work with at IRONMAN and the IRONMAN foundation, and that’s our global running shoe partner, Hoka One One. We just came from IRONMAN Santa Rosa a couple of weeks ago and, as you probably know, that area was really badly hit by the Tubs Wildfires of 2017 and ongoing wildfires really all throughout…

AK Sure.

SH California. But the Tubbs Fire in 2017 damaged over 8,300 homes and businesses in that area. And now, it is almost 2 years later, and they feel completely forgotten. Right? Nobody’s talking about the wildfires of 2017. But we had an opportunity to partner up with a local organization and neighborhood, where the homes are coming back, which is amazing, but there’s still a whole area where it hasn’t been cleared of the wildfire debris. And nobody’s really helping them or reaching out to them and so we made this connection.

Hoka One One came in as a partner. They’ve been extremely generous to work with us and social impact is a huge part of their ethos and their brand. And so we have this really incredible relationship where they give generous donations to the IRONMAN Foundation, and then they bring their staff and participate in our service project opportunities alongside our athletes, our IRONMAN staff. We went to this neighborhood and worked alongside ten of the homeowners. Each one of them had lost their homes. Each one of them, still, almost 2 years later, not back in their houses. And 50 athletes and Hoka staff and IRONMAN staff worked side by side to clear out all the remaining wildfire debris. There were a lot of tears that day.

AK Oh yeah.

SH The homeowners couldn’t believe that athletes would carve time out their race week. They’re getting ready for like 140.6 miles, to come and help them. And in turn, the athletes were so moved by that opportunity and the gratitude that they felt. It was pretty cool to have the staff from Hoka there with us. And Mirinda Carfrae, who’s an IRONMAN foundation ambassador, pro triathlete, 3 time IRONMAN world champion.

AK An incredible person.

SH Incredible person. She wasn’t racing so she felt like she could get a good workout in and she slapped on a weed whacker and just went to town for 2 hours. And at one point I looked over and somebody handed her a Gatorade and she took it just like she was at an aid station.

AK So, was she wearing swim goggles to protect her eyes, or was she just wearing regular…

SH Goggles, goggles, yeah.

AK That’s great!

SH Yeah. It was an astounding day but I loved the convergence of all of those things, right? There’s purpose, there’s impact, there’s an issue that we can help solve. right? And then we bring together amazing people, the people who are actually impacted, our athletes, our partner brands, our staff and we have this remarkable moment where change occurs. And I’ve always felt really drawn, in non-profit, to the opportunity where, cause we all feel good when we give money or when we raise money…

AK Oh, there was just a big study in Harvard that talks about volunteerism and how that’s actually the route to happiness.

SH Absolutely.

AK Especially for people, you know if you’ve lost a loved one, but you know, if you’re trying to battle loneliness, the best thing to do is volunteer. I mean, volunteer with like a capital V can be anything, but yeah.

SH Yeah. There’s something when you shake the hand of that person whose life you’re changing, it’s a life changing moment for everybody.

AK Sure. Sure.

SH So, yeah. Sports and nonprofit has been a pinnacle moment. For me being in the technology company was a bit of a fluke that I got into it. My initial career was in theater and film and TV. So I grew up in NY, I did my undergraduate work at Hofstra University in the theater program there.

AK: Sure, Long Island.

SH On Long Island. Lived here in the city for a little while and then did my graduate work at the Professional Theater Training program at the University of Delaware, which is a really intense three-year MFA program. They take one class per cycle so there’s no upper or under classman and, you basically, it’s like a very intense boot camp.

AK So, did you always want to be a thespian, as they say, or did you always want to be in theater and arts and be a performer?

SH From a very early age, yeah.

AK Do you still? It’s got to still be gnawing at you a little.

SH You know, when you adopt a craft it becomes ingrains in your DNA.

AK It’s muscle memory.

SH It is muscle memory, exactly. So, a big part of my life is still arts and culture and supporting all of my friends who are in the industry, seeing their films and television shows and going to their plays and from time to time ill do a reading or a small project and every once in a while I get a hankering for some of the great women, you know I’ve had the honor of playing all of Shakespeare’s great women. And, I grew up in the theater.

AK We’re your parents theatrical? Or siblings?

SH Not at all.

AK No. Do you sing?

SH I do. It’s how I started. My brother’s a musician, lives here in New York. And my parents are both teachers so we’re not quite sure how they, how two artists, how we came about but, yeah, started at a young age. There was a professional theater in town and so I would, you know, after school, go to play practice for the school play. I’d then take the bus over to rehearsal at night for the professional show. I’d come home take a quick nap, do my homework. I learned at a really young age how to work hard and how to get it all in.

AK Quite frankly, how to get your game on, right, because I’ve had the great fortune of hiring folks who have theatrical backgrounds. We’ve got someone in our London office, we’ve got someone in our NY office who actually is a magician on the side and helps with this podcast, his name is Magic Matt. We’ve got a couple of Matts so he’s Magic Matt. And I’ve found that people who have theatrical backgrounds know how to get their game on, know how to stay focused, and they handle stress very differently in a really good way. And pressure.

And because at the end of the day we’re all asked to perform in our jobs, right? Being performative is what we’re all, it’s a common thing that we’re all asked of and I feel like people of those backgrounds are very special. Unlike anything else, you know everybody goes to law school, they get a law degree and they’re like “oh, that’s the best thing you can do, it’s a good basis.” And I’m like, “Mmm, for sure fine.” But what you’re talking about is like a real life skill.

SH It has served me in multiple capacities. You know, certainly the amount of speaking and media and things that I do in my role now are informed by that. Being able to tell stories. Being able to express my passion for service and sport and all the opportunities that we’re able to provide through the IRONMAN foundation, that’s all informed by where I came from on stages in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles and producing plays and producing galas and that sort of thing from an early age that all wraps up into non-profit and the kind of things that I do now.

AK And it’s a form of persuasion, and that’s what you’re doing now, right? I feel like you are persuading current athletes, runners, triathetes, endurance athletes not just to race but to, you call it Race for More?

SH Yes.

AK So how, I mean, I know how to do this, but for people who are listening who may or may not have ever done a half-marathon or marathon or full IRONMAN or half IRONMAN, how do they get involved with the IRONMAN foundation? What are the options? What’s the optionality? Is it choose your own adventure in terms of picking charities? How does that work and what are some of the charities that you’re working with?

SH Multiple opportunities to get involved, and again, to race for more. And just, again, thinking back to our collective feeling about crossing finish lines, it’s a life changing moment, it’s something you know I would love everybody to experience at some point in their lifetimes, whether it’s a 5k or a sprint or a full distance IRONMAN, or Leadville 100 or you know any number of races.

AK I often say, my wife doesn’t love it when I say this, but I’ll say the only thing greater than crossing a finish line at an IRONMAN was the birth of my two children, seeing them take their first breaths. And my wife’s like, “What about our marriage?” I’m like, “That’s in the Top 5, Top 10, maybe my Bar Mitzvah’s up there?” I don’t know, but like there’s no other feeling beyond having a child and seeing that happen, seeing the tiny little human being take their first breath. There’s no greater feeling that you can describe than crossing a finish line knowing that you didn’t just do it for yourself, but you’re saving lives and you’re impacting others.

SH Absolutely. So as I mentioned the IRONMAN Foundation provides grant funding in all the communities where we race. It allows us to leave a positive lasting legacy behind after race day. So it’s about 1,500 organizations that will receive close to $2 million dollars this year.

AK And many of them repeat, right? Because races that obviously occur every year, some don’t, but many do, then there’s an opportunity for it to happen again and again.

SH Continuity, definitely. So, one of our primary ways that an athlete can race with us is on Team IMF, IMF stands for IRONMAN Foundation.

AK Sure.

SH It’s our peer-to-peer fundraising program. We’re essentially, we give you a race entry to an IRONMAN or an IRONMAN 70.3 event and you commit to a minimum fundraising commitment in exchange for that entry, for your race kit, for this one in a lifetime experience where you might be standing next to Mirinda Carfrae, three time IRONMAN world champion, giving back in a race community in a service project.

It’s been extremely popular this year, we have a lot of younger athletes who are racing with us this year for the first time, and that’s a pretty exciting thing to be a part of because it’s kindling a real excitement, not only for them inside the sport of triathlon, but they’re also having this community service experience where they’re creating positive social impact and really, really making a difference in others peoples lives. And so, if there are any Team IMF athletes out there who are listening, or any potential Team IMF athletes, I would say, “Good for you and thank you for being part of this community.”

The theme this year for IRONMAN, we always choose one in advance of the IRONMAN world championship, this year it is Ohana. And that’s the Hawaiian word for family. And when you’re part of the IRONMAN foundation, you’re part of a larger community of family, or a family that includes all of our athletes and our staff and the volunteers who help make the races possible. And, in turn, also all the non-profits that we serve with our grant funding and all of their constituents, we are all racing for more.

We have another option called Community Fun Entries, which is a little bit easier when you register for these races, and there about 15 of them in North America, where you register and pay twice the sticker price, where half of it is a tax deductible donation to the IRONMAN foundation. And, it’s yet another way where you can really impact lives through your IRONMAN journey.

AK And I guess the one footnote to this, or disclaimer, everybody said this to me but I didn’t believe it is how addictive the sport is. Right, so, I remember I did my first IRONMAN in 2012, which was a one and done.

SH One and done.

AK But I remember being on the run course and literally dry heaving on the west side highway at Mile 23, loving every minute of it though, and saying to people, like, spectators and, I think I saw my wife and one of my children at the time was there, and I said “This is one and done, I’m never doing this again.” And you know, seconds after you cross the line and you’re crying, you know, you’re like, I can do that again and actually I could do better I think.

My first IRONMAN, I raised funds for an organization called Center Lane. I wasn’t familiar with the foundation unfortunately at the time, but fortunately I was on the board of Westchester Jewish Community services and they have this organization called Center Lane, which is an LGBTQ organization for teens and their straight allies. And they were about to go out of business. And I figured, if I’m only going to do one IRONMAN, I might as well raise money. And I raised $30 thousand dollars.

SH Wow.

AK And, thankfully, half of it because I went to my clients and I think people are like, “Wow, this is crazy. You’re going to swim that long in the Hudson River and you’re going to do all this, you know, you’re going to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 and then run a full marathon?” And I said, “Well it’s not going to be a run. It’ll be like a walk-run type thing.” And I knew that I had, actually, the Wall Street Journal did a story on it which was kind of serendipitous, and I think my final quote in that story was, “If I have to crawl, because you’re allowed to crawl, right? I’ll crawl. I’m not gonna not finish. I’m not gonna, as they say, DNF, right?

SH Yep.

AK Or DNS, which is do not start. For those of you who don’t know who are listening, DNF is did not finish. And the other thing that drives you when you are doing something for charity not just for yourself is you don’t want to let those people down. Right? I mean, yeah sure I already raised the money and it’s going to them but I have to finish the deal. The deal is I need to finish the race. So, warning to everyone, it’s highly addictive.

SH Highly addictive and it does give you purpose.

AK But it’s the best addiction to have, right?

SH Absolutely.

AK Yeah.

SH You’re doing something for yourself and proving something to yourself, but you’re also impacting lives of other people. And I’ll tell another quick story about some of our IRONMAN foundation work and what our athletes have helped us do. When natural disasters strike our race communities, we call upon our whole IRONMAN community around the world to help support our humanitarian relief efforts and we’ve become pretty adept at launching these campaigns and helping to create impact in terms of communities’ recovery. So Hurricane Harvey, and Irma and Maria and the wildfires in Santa Rosa I mentioned and last year Hurricane Florence and of course Hurricane Michael. When Hurricane Michael hit the Panama City Beach area, which is the home of IRONMAN Florida and IRONMAN 70.3 Gulf Coast, we were poised to celebrate the 20th year of IRONMAN Florida.

AK Right, and those are very popular races.

SH Very popular races. And it’s an amazing community, as you know, it was completely decimated by Hurricane Michael and IRONMAN did something that it had never done before which was move the location of the race. So you can imagine, we’re all in Kona at the time at the IRONMAN world Championship, and behind the scenes the team worked to move the location from Panama City Beach, Florida to Haine City, Florida, which is outside of Orlando.

AK Which is, for our listeners, moving an IRONMAN even with 6 months out let alone how many, what we had a week?

SH Three weeks.

AK Three weeks, okay. Three weeks out. That is almost impossible. Right? And to pull it off correctly and safely, because safety is the number one goal, right? That’s an amazing thing. It’s absolutely amazing. And most organizations would have just said, no, forget it. I’m sorry, but you know we’ll see you next year.

SH Yeah, and as our CEO Andrew Messick has said before, it was our finest moment as a company, as an organization. And what was even better was that the athletes came. You know, they didn’t have to change their travel schedules and their hotels and their flights. They came. And not only that, they helped raise over $200k to support Hurricane Michael relief efforts with the IRONMAN Foundation. And that was also in large part, to generous donations, from again, Hoka One One and the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation. The race was incredible and everybody was there with a focus on doing for the residents of the Panama City Beach area. So they were racing for more and with purpose. And so now, we’re back in Panama City Beach, it’s beautiful and open for business and ready to host our events. And we just came from the IRONMAN 70.3 Gulf Coast in Panama City Beach and awarded our first round of grant funding. We gave one hundred thousand dollars to the Panama City Housing Commission. They’re trying to build long-term sustainable housing as quickly as possible, it’s a massive crisis for them.

AK Sure. That must’ve been a very emotional moment.

SH Yeah, it is something else to hear from the gentleman who runs the housing commission, that he still has a blue tarp for a roof. And that he has neighbors who are homeless. And he’s doing everything that he can. And so, the solution we came up with was that he’s gonna take our grant funding and they are building 3D, 3D printed concrete homes.

AK So cool.

SH Super cool, new technology. These robots can build a house in four days. And they’re great. They look like craftsman cottages. And we’re excited to go back there in November for IRONMAN Florida. We’ll get to see the houses and meet the families who live there. But, we’re also offering more grant funding to local non-profits who are helping the community recover. And the day after the race, we’re bringing 100s of volunteers to do a large scale rebuilding project. So helping a neighborhood recover. And, it again, is this idea that you can be involved in a sport that is highly addictive, as you said, very empowering, I also think it’s a really unique sport. I can’t think of any other sport where an age group athletes in racing on the same course with professional triathletes.

AK Sure.

SH It’s a very unique opportunity to be with athletes like Sara True, who’s a multi-time Olympian, she’s also an IRONMAN Foundation pro-athlete ambassador, incredible athlete. She was our top American finisher at the IRONMAN world championship last year. You are racing on the same course, next to an Olympian! It’s pretty amazing to come together in this incredible sport, it’s highly addictive, very unique, providing life changing opportunities for it’s athletes, but then being able to change other lives.

AK You are also either, maybe inadvertently, but you’re also creating many case studies for others to follow, right? So I think about the example with the 3D printed housing option, right? I can only imagine that others are going to look at that and say, how do we do that, right? And, so what you’re doing is that you’re also building scale, that you might not be executing all the time, but you’re imprinting in a positive way for other organizations, both for profits and non-profits to follow your lead and I think that’s incredible.

SH Well, we’d like to set an example or thoughtfully choose non-profit partners who are doing incredible work and leaving lasting impact. And that’s very often the conversation we’ll have when we go into a community where we’re racing. And, how can we make the biggest difference? What kind of impact can we make? How can we be a great partner? And that’s a pretty exciting conversation to be able to have.

AK So, what’s the best way for people to find out about IRONMAN Foundation and get involved? Is it the website, follow you on social, how do they do that?

SH All of the above.

AK Yeah.

SH So, visit us at IRONMANfoundation.org. You can read all about our giveback programs and how to get involved, whether you’re racing with us or if they’re any organizations that you work with that are, perhaps, eligible for grant funding. We have multiple giveback programs, that include community grant program, volunteerism grant program, Women for Tri has some grant opportunities. That’s a program that works to increase female participation in this sport. And the funding goes to local tri clubs all around the world who are creating programming for women to break down barriers and help them become triathletes and reimagine their potential as athletes.

We have a new program called IRONAID, those grants are specific for medical-related causes and health-related non-profit organizations. Again, improving our communities, that is our focus and we’re fortunate that we have multiple ways that we can do that, as an athlete or a potential athlete. And a lot of people say, you know, I don’t know if I could do the whole 70.3 miles, you know, I’m not sure I could get the swim done or I could get the bike done or running’s not my thing.

AK Right, and the cut off times.

SH The cut off times, and I always say you know we do offer relays at our IRONMAN 70.3 events and that is the gateway drug to the rest of you know the opportunities to race with us. But, it’s an easy way and it’s a fun way.

AK Relays are super fun.

SH Super fun.

AK Yeah.

SH And it’s another I think, hallmark of this sport is the community aspect. You and I both have communities of friends and athletes who we train with, who we race with. And I’ve built relationships that will last a lifetime and that are extremely important to me. Again, it goes back to Ohana. And family. It’s an incredible sport and a relay is just an easy way to get involved.

AK Well, Sarah Hartmann, I’m so happy that you were able to join us for our Brand on Purpose podcast. And I also want to thank you for everything that you do, everything that IRONMAN group does, everything that IRONMAN Foundation does. Because I do think that you guys show us that anything is possible. So thank you.

SH Thank you so much for having me, for all your support of the IRONMAN Foundation, let’s race for more.

AK Exactly.