What Happens When Two GMA Anchors Run Away Together? They Make a Podcast.
Sure, "Amy & T.J." is juicy, but I'm here for the marathon content.
In the podcast they launched this week, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are just “Amy & T.J.” They workshopped other titles (a wise producer must have nixed “Scandal-less”), but they settled on the casual, first-names-only approach.
The pod doubles as a relationship hard-launch. The GMA3 co-hosts were booted from their network a year ago after news of their romance broke (at the time, Robach and Holmes were both technically in marriages to other people). But as they re-emerge and rebrand, the couple appears to have weathered their “year of hell.” They’re ready to announce their love to the world and to do it on their terms. Enter podcast.
They’ve had some time to work on tag-lines: “We’re the folks who lost the jobs we love for loving each other,” Holmes summarizes.
Divorces under their belts and free of ABC oversight, Amy and T.J. invite you to think of them as an item. (To make matters juicier, their exes were photographed loading cats into a Jeep this past week, leading some to speculate whether they’re now in a relationship.)
Besides the occasional Hoda and Jenna YouTube clip, I’m not one to watch daytime TV. When the Holmes/Robach scandal broke a year ago, the anchors’ faces were familiar to me in the way good-looking famous faces are. The sheer fact of their well-maintained appearances suggested something recognizable. I’ve loosely followed their relationship in the months since. So why not spend 57 minutes of my Friday hearing them recap the past year?
A few main takeaways: it hasn’t been easy. The scrutiny drove the couple to dark places, including an incident where Holmes self-medicated with vodka and weed edibles. They clung to each other, and their relationship grew stronger. At the time their romance was exposed, both of their divorces were already underway. They don’t directly address whether their relationship sparked those divorces, but they regret not telling people –– their children, their parents, their bosses –– about things sooner. The foundation of an eight-year friendship preceded anything romantic.
Sometime during that friendship, Robach introduced Holmes to running. He mentions it only in passing on the podcast, but it’s readily apparent in the co-hosts’ Internet presences. They ran the 2022 New York City Marathon together just days before their relationship news surfaced. In the aftermath, fans turned to videos like this promotional TikTok about half-marathon training to spot signs of romantic tension.
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As they gradually returned to the Internet in the year since, much of their content centered on their journey to the 2023 New York City Marathon.
On August 28, after nearly a year of laying low, Holmes and Robach posted identical black-and-white Instagram photos from the knees down. They’re seated on the stoop of a brownstone in matching Nike ZoomX shoes. Robach’s legs appear in camo leggings, Holmes’s in solid black tights. They captioned the post #NYCMarathon2023 🏃🏼♀️🏃🏾♂️.
A few days later, Holmes followed it up with a kaleidoscopic stock image of clocks, with a heady caption about time’s illusory nature. Still, he can’t be all that agnostic to time, since his feed is filled with screenshots of his Strava running stats. He pairs the distance and paces of his training runs with screenshots of his running playlists.
These are a story unto themselves. His running music ranges from cry-worthy ballads like Madison Ryann Ward’s “Mirror” to covers of classic country hits like “Islands in the Stream” and “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive.” “Acapulco” by Jason Derulo appears on more than one playlist, as does “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran.
According to the routes he and Robach both share on Instagram, the pair seems to keep mostly to the West Side Highway. Holmes made his Strava devotion permanent by getting his marathon route tattooed on his bicep (with space to add each date of completion). He and Robach finished the 2023 race together in 4 hours and 14 minutes.
According to the podcast, Holmes is the more private of the Amy and T.J. duo. He doesn’t like to overshare and makes a point of not reading sensational headlines. On Instagram, he’s found his stride sticking mostly to running content. It is, after all, among the more wholesome forms of social media braggery.
Of all the angles of the Robach and Holmes story, the running plot is of most interest to me. Of course, I’m biased by the subject matter (you can read about my own flirtation with the New York City Marathon in this earlier post). At least on a metaphorical level, a running-focused relationship feels primed for endurance. On the podcast, Amy and T.J. make it clear they intend to go the distance.
I’ll sit and await the release of a marathon-themed podcast episode. Until then, I hope T.J.’s running playlists continue to bemuse.