If you know me at all, you know this: I like to run. A lot. Since first resolving to get myself off of the couch back in 2008, I’ve completed more than 30 marathons, including Boston three times and New York City twice.
You might also know this about me: I love to ask people questions.
So, today, I’m continuing the marriage of those two passions with Part 3 of my series of interviews with often-influential, always-intriguing people who live and work in the Charlotte area — conducted while we run a handful of miles together. The hope is that the release of endorphins and dopamine will trigger responses that are less canned, less inhibited, more thoughtful, and more focused.
Here we go again...
This week’s interviewee: Shannon Spake, 49, who serves as reporter and host for the Charlotte Hornets on FanDuel Sports Network Southeast, NASCAR Digital Media, and NASCAR on TNT; she also hosts the “Spake Up Podcast With Shannon Spake.”
Proudest athletic achievements: 3:55:40 at the 2021 Chicago Marathon; 5:28:43 at Ironman 70.3 Santa Rosa in 2018.
Where we ran for this interview: South Prong Rocky River Greenway and Plum Creek Greenway in Davidson.
What we covered: Why she tries to run the stairs at every stadium or arena she works at, how she’s feeling about aging as she prepares to turn 50, and 2.96 miles at an average pace of 11:23.
The conversation is edited to improve clarity and flow.
Q. You recently did an interview on your podcast with Ironman champion Timothy O’Donnell, and during your intro, you talked about being an endurance athlete yourself — in the past tense. What happened?
I tore my hamstring in 2020. I was coaching my kids’ cross-country team at school, and we were doing sprints. I was number four on a 4 by 200 relay. Just took off. I was gonna kill that 12-year-old. I was gonna beat him so bad. And my hamstring just went. That’s major surgery. Six weeks, non-weight-bearing. Took about a year for full recovery, and during that time, just a lot of life changes. Really busy with going through a divorce, moving — and I never really liked swimming. So I just kind of fell out of it, honestly.
I had been training for eight years, pretty much nonstop, and then when you take a full year off, it is hard to get back into it. Not just physically, but mentally more than anything, to find that time again and that space to do things for such a long period of time.
Q. Do you miss it?
I miss the alone time in my brain, when you’re on a long run or on a bike ride. I heard Nick Saban say one time that you learn more about yourself in times of adversity. And I think every time you go out for a run or a bike ride or a swim, you’re putting yourself through physical adversity. So every time, you learn something about yourself.
And getting in that zone — the zone is when you hit six miles, then you look down and you’re like, How the hell did I get to TEN miles? I miss that.
Q. What have you replaced it with?
That’s a good question. I haven’t really thought about it. I still work out. I just don’t do it to a crazy extent.
Trying to stay as active as you can when you have kids, it’s hard. I work out more on the road. Because when I’m home, you get up and this happens, and this happens, and this happens — then it’s 2 o’clock, and you’re like, “S---!” On the road, it’s easier. I do the stadium stairs at the arenas. I’m up to 50 different locations now that I’ve run stadium stairs, between college, or NFL, or in NBA arenas.
I tell the story all the time: I got to do stadium stairs at Penn State, and it was Friday morning, at 7 o’clock. It was so cold, but I was like, I’m doing it. There was not one other human in the entire place. I was the only soul in a 106,000-seat stadium. I’m like, I have this opportunity to do this. If I don’t take it, I’m just wasting this beautiful opportunity to appreciate where I am and what I’m doing.
I want to put together a coffee-table book one day. I always take a picture from the highest location, so I want to do my picture, the date that I ran the stairs, the game that I covered, and maybe a little blurb from the coach. Even if it’s just for me and my family.
Q. Well, how is the Hornets job going?
The job is great. I feel so blessed. I covered football — either college or NFL — for 15 years. And I don’t think there was ever a thought that I would cover the NBA. It’s obviously scary and challenging, but to have an opportunity to do something different and to learn something different 20 years into your career — yeah, it’s been a blessing.
But also ... it’s really important for me to stay in NASCAR. I mean, I’ve been doing it for 20 years. I have all these relationships. To have those go to waste would be a shame.
Q. What’s been the biggest challenge for you in terms of the Hornets job?
Entering a whole new world, getting to know people — it’s hard. It’s like walking into a family party: You don’t know anybody, you’ve got to get to know them one at a time.
I had relationships with NASCAR drivers that I’ll never have with NBA players, because I’ll probably never cover the sport for 20 years. And NBA players, they’re much younger than me. When I started in NASCAR, Jimmie (Johnson), Kevin (Harvick), Kurt (Busch) — we’re all the same age. We were all coming up together, we got married and had babies at the same time, and we went through all these stages of life together. Now, with the NBA, I’m old enough to be some of these players’ — most of these players’ — mother. So it’s a different relationship. Even with the coaches. The coaches are 40. I’ll be 50 in July.
Q. How are you feeling about that?
Sometimes I’m like, How am I 50?, how are my kids 16?, and how are they still living*?*
You also go through this weird thing where you feel like you’re still in your 30s, but you’re not — and you look back at younger people and you’re like, Those people are going through a completely different season of life. My boyfriend and I went to a Red Sox game when we were out there for the Hornets’ game, and there were people in front of us, and we started talking to them, and they had just gotten engaged, and he and I are looking at each other like, They are just starting their lives. And here we are, on the other side of that. It’s a weird thing to think about.
Q. As it relates to your profession, does aging scare you?
It didn’t for a long time — until I started to age. When I was younger, I was a little naive to it. I was like, Times are different! But it made me think ... when I was let go from Fox (in July 2024, as the network scaled back its NASCAR coverage): There are hundreds of women who are just starting out their career, that a lot of networks are going to invest in, because they’re going to be around for 20, 25 years. And ... like, shoot, I’m 48 — at the time — looking for a job.
But when I talk to people — men and women — gosh, so many of them talk about the relationships that I have, the experience that I have. I mean, I’ve covered almost every sport, and so there’s a lot of people that lean on that. So I think yes and no. Definitely aware of it. And I definitely think that it’s different for women than it is for men.
Q. You think that’s still true?
Totally. Yeah. I think men can easily stay in the business longer. There are men working into their 80s.
Q. This was supposed to be changing, though, Shannon!
It’s changing. But it’s just not changed.
Q. What else do you think you want to accomplish in your career? And you mentioned men can stay in the business into their 80s. How much longer do you think you’ll want to be in it?
I don’t know. That’s the scary thing, too, about getting older is that you see a finish line. When you’re younger, you’re climbing this ladder, right? And the top of the ladder seems very far away. Then when you get older, you’re like, Oh! OK. Where am I gonna go now? What am I gonna do?
I don’t know what the next iteration of “me” is. I mean, I think I could do this for another 10 years. What do I do after that? Because I love to work. So how do I use what I’ve done for the last — then it’ll be 30, 40 years — moving forward? Maybe it’s the podcast. Maybe it’s teaching. I don’t know.
But I have started thinking about things. I was forced to over the last couple years — which is a good thing. When you’re comfortable, sometimes you stay comfortable. When you’re forced to not be comfortable, you have to look at things in a different way.
Q. I did want to ask, too: You mentioned in the intro for the podcast with Timothy O’Donnell that you had tried to do a full Ironman on two separate occasions, but that "the Ironman gods did not want it to happen” for you. What went wrong?
So I did seven 70.3s (half Ironman distance races) and everyone said, “Oh, you gotta do a full! It’s not that much more work!” Bulls---. It’s a lot more work.
I trained for Ironman Florida, 2018, when it was Panama City. Two weeks before the Ironman, a hurricane (Michael) just completely devastates that area. So they moved it to Haines City, and I didn’t have any interest in swimming in a lake in Central Florida. I know what’s in that lake. Alligators. And snakes. So I went and did the New York City Marathon instead. That was one.
And then Kona, in 2021, I raised money to get my bid. I was an ambassador for the Ironman Foundation. But they canceled it (for a second straight year) because of covid. I was pretty disappointed. I went and did the Chicago Marathon, which happened to be the same weekend — and I PR’d, in 3:55.
I probably would have done another triathlon the next year, but then I tore my hamstring in March.
Q. As someone who’s always around athletes competing at a high level and seeing them rising and falling — just being around a competitive atmosphere all the time — you don’t still have an itch to do one?
No. I was never competitive with other people. I mean, there would be times where I was like, That girl right there, I’m gonna pass her right now. That’s my goal. I’m gonna pass her. But most of the time, I was so aware of racing my own race. That’s what they say, right? “You gotta just race your own race.” So I don’t know if I had that competitiveness against anyone.
I did it for me. I did it for my well-being, my mental health and physical health.
I do think that one of the reasons I love covering sports so much is because, like I said, they’re all about overcoming adversity. So when I see people overcome that and I’m covering it, I can understand their mindset — mindset of an athlete — a little differently because of having done the races I’ve done.
Q. But you feel like you don’t need to do an Ironman to prove that you can overcome adversity.
That’s part of it.
And working out for fun is more of a challenge now, maybe. Because I’m still doing working. But I don’t have my Training Peaks (an online platform popular with endurance athletes), where it was like, every day, Set my alarm, I wake up, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. Now it’s like, Alright, I’m gonna do it, because I really want to do it.
But talk to me in six months.
Q. Or when your kids are out of the house, maybe?
Yeah. I mean, I’m enjoying life right now, a little bit more than I did for the last 20 years. I’m in a new relationship. My kids are almost 16. They’re gonna drive, which means they’re gonna be gone.
There’s a lot of people in endurance sports that are running from something rather than running towards something, whether it be addiction, disease, mental health, PTSD — whatever it may be. I can list a hundred people that I’ve met like that. And I think one of the things I was running from was a marriage that I wasn’t happy in, and so I was trying to find happiness somewhere else. Now that I’m out of that, I want to be home. I want to be with my kids. I’m in a new relationship.
I can always go back to endurance sports. That’ll be there. Even if I walk/run a marathon, or do a half marathon.
Q. I get it. Being with the people you love. That’s your running high now.
Yeah. Living life. For so long, I was like, Go to the next point, right? Again, you’re climbing this ladder. You have to go, you have to work, you have to do this, you’re off to the next thing, on to the next thing. And like I said, the whole Hornets thing was definitely challenging, trying to learn stuff and recalibrate everything.
But yeah, I’m just enjoying life. It’s pretty cool, at 50 years old. You know?
Coming next Monday (Jan. 26): Théoden runs with Kerrel Thompson, co-owner of the acclaimed Bird Pizzeria in Charlotte.
Do you know of an influential Charlottean who runs — whether for fun, for fitness, or to feed a serious addiction — and who might be willing to be interviewed by Théoden while they log a few miles together? Send an email with your suggestion(s) to tjanes@charlotteobserver.com.