S2 - Episode 10 - Peter McRory

Topics Discussed:

• Peter’s career history, how it relates to what he is doing now, and the reason why he and Phil haven’t spoken in so long.
• Peter’s youth, the troubles in Ireland when he grew up, and how he developed a love for flying.
• How Peter’s love for lying led to his pursuit in the military field.
• The details of Peter’s early military career and he eventually found himself working as a training officer.
• Peter developing his love for sports, and how that helped him figure out what he would do after his military career ended.
• How this led to Peter building a team to attempt the Race Across America (RAAM).
• The difficulty of preparing for the race, getting the team together, and ultimately how Peter and Phil met!
• The statistics of the RAAM; its length and the climates they had to ride through.
• The locusts they had to ride through early on in the race, and the cultural shock they experienced when dealing with America’s wildlife.
• Phil’s memory of deciding to apply for joining the support staff for the RAAM, and why he thinks Peter picked him.
• Phil’s opinion that he thinks the RAAM was actually more difficult for the support crew due to the sleep deprivation.
• Peter’s opinion that support crews are the real unsung heroes in the sporting world and also the commercial world.
• The importance of sleep, and how testing sleep deprivation is for people and their mentality.
• The team’s target to beat the previous military’s four-man RAAM record, and the number of miles they had to cover in order to beat that record.
• The sandstorm which hit them all whilst going through the desert, and how terrible it was for the riders who had to deal with it.
• The team’s decision to stay at a hotel overnight to sleep to help tackle the fatigue, and how it was against the plan but the right call to make.
• The strategy they adopted for the race, and how they altered this throughout the race when needed.
• How Phil got lost whilst driving the Winnebago, and how he had to make some risky maneuvers in order to return to the main road.
• How badly things can go so quickly, and how one of their racers crashed and had to go to the hospital, turning their four-man team into a three-man team with a new strategy.
• How the crash spurred the team on and helped them finish the race with a renewed purpose.
• How the race ended on a freeway, and the feeling when they finally finished the race.
• How during the end Peter needed something to eat, and he ended up eating a subway on the bike towards the end of the race.
• The fact they stopped emptying the Winnebago septic tank towards the end of the race as they were trying to save time, and the tank’s contents ended up coming out of the toilet and onto the Winnebago floor.
• How they managed to beat the 7-day record by a handful of minutes!
• The lessons Phil and Peter learned from taking part in the RAAM, and how they have taken it forward into their careers, especially during recent Covid times.
• The role-clarity there was on the team, the flexibility in the approach they adopted, putting people first, and the other traits they had as a team that helped them achieve their goal.

References:

Peter McRory’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/petemccrory/?originalSubdomain=ca

Peter McRory’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/peter_mccrory?lang=en

Peter McRory’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/peter_mccrory/?hl=en

Olympic Oval Website - https://oval.ucalgary.ca/

Race Across America Website - http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/about.html