Have you ever met someone who made you wonder, “How do they get it all done?” Well, prepare to meet another one. Chris Schroeder leads a full life with an even fuller schedule. In April, he celebrated 34 years in a wonderful marriage. He has three daughters and four grandkids under the age of seven. He is a busy manager by day, a fisherman and photographer by hobby, and brews his own small-batch beer alongside a local brewery. Is that it? No! On top of all this, he has an impressive race and training schedule to boot. He missed a few years in racing, but since he rekindled his love of competition a few years ago, he has not looked back!
Chris began running at an early age and competitively in high school as a member of the cross country team. He more-or-less stopped racing after that until a few years ago when, after shedding some extra pounds and taking his health more seriously, he got back into the running scene. And the swimming scene. And, yes, the cycling scene. After all those years, Chris hadn’t lost a bit of his love for competition and pushing his body to excel. Unfortunately, he’d also kept another part of his early athletic endeavors—muscle cramps. For as far back as he can remember, Chris has experience moderate to severe muscle cramps about an hour into racing. While his strong-willed determination has kept him from dropping a competition altogether as a result of cramping, he has certainly seen his finish times suffer as a result of time spent stretching and massaging on the sidelines.
A few instances in particular stand out for Chris. In training swims on at least two occasions, his calves have locked-up so tightly with muscle cramps that he’s had to make his way to the poolside to stretch and massage his muscles for 15 or more minutes. “Had this been in open water or the middle of deep pool,” he says, “I am not sure how I would have handled that.” Earlier this year he was on a 12-mile training run when his calves struck again. He had to sit and pack snow around his leg as he massaged the muscle in an effort to find relief. Needless to say, Chris has been looking for reliable weapon in his battle against cramping.
Chris says cramps usually strike around one hour into training or competing. For his first training run using #ITSTHENERVE, he chose a 10-mile slog on snow-covered, icy streets. He took one shot of #ITSTHENERVE about 15 minutes before he set out and took along another shot, just in case. The results? He made it through all 10 miles with no cramps! Feeling confident, he used the product the next weekend on a training run for #MyTeamTriumph. The run was shorter at 10k, but involved several hills and he’d be alternating the honors of pushing a physically impaired athlete with his two running partners. With the added strain on his body and using muscles he generally didn’t call on during a run, he knew cramps would set in quickly and with a vengeance. To his great surprise, they didn’t! He finished the training run with no cramps.
Our product, formally known as #ITSTHENERVE, was tested by athletes throughout the past year as we prepared to launch HOTSHOT. Read more about our transition from #ITSTHENERVE to HOTSHOT here.
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