Episode #40: Wilkerson Given & James Perez on running culture, fueling the body, and playing mad scientists

Our guests on the show this week, we sit down with Wilkerson Given and James Perez, creators of Stoke Performance.  

During their collegiate running days at Furman University, Wilkerson and James noticed that just about every athlete they knew ate some form of peanut butter before training and races. 

Connecting this information with their knowledge that peanut butter inherently has inflammatory properties, the pair set out to make a nutritionally complete and effective pre-race fuel alternative to peanut butter during their post-collegiate running careers.

In this interview, Wilkerson and James discuss their time at Furman University and how a coaching change completely transformed the program in just one year. Both guys explain how changing the culture of the team affected not only the way they approached running but the way they lived their lives when they weren’t training or competing. 

This evolution in mindset led to the development of Stoke Performance. 

“People spend hundreds of dollars on running shoes that might give them a fraction of a second edge over the competition yet won’t take a second to think about the fuel they’re putting in their bodies,” explains James. 

When they’re not running a side business, both men still have full-time jobs and run competitively. Wilkerson is an Olympic hopeful and current member of the Atlanta Track Club while James won the 2018 Novant Health Charlotte Marathon in 2:31:37. 

James and Wilkerson talk to us about the product launch, juggling life, running, and career, where they see the product and company going and, perhaps most importantly, the proper way to say pecan. 

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