Barbell Shrugged - Division 3 To The Olympics to CEO: An Inspiring Underdog Story — Real Chalk #74

Episode Date: May 7, 2019

In this episode we touch Nick Symmonds story of running for a division 3 school that ultimately put him into the Olympics... Twice... When asking the coach of his top choice college (Oregon) if he could be part of the team — the coach reciprocated with a definitive “it’s never going to happen.”   Even with double Olympic glory and this amazing underdog story, Nick still became depressed and had a 1 year slump of finding himself that he describes as “needed to happen.” Nick talks about how he’s found a new love for working out again, but this times it’s CrossFit and other outdoor activities.   With a New love for working out and a new outlook on life, Nick has more energy and spring in his step then ever to create something great. His company Rungum is actually more than great and is now sold in huge storefronts including Target and a few other huge superstores that are not allowed To be spoken of just yet ;)   Stories like this one are exactly why I do this podcast and I absolutely LOVE everything about this episode. Get inspired and give it a listen!   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-symmonds ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Tuesday, time for the Real Chalk Podcast. Your boy, Ryan Fish, was out in Oregon for like the last 10 days. And I got to meet up with some really cool people. And, I don't know if you guys watch my Instagram at all, but I got to get inside of the University of Oregon's entire football situation, which was insane. I got to go into Phil Knight's locker and wear his helmet and just see everywhere

where the football players warm up, all the crazy performance stuff that they have access to. And I mean, it was just an amazing, amazing experience. Their weight room is out of control. Check out my Instagram, Ryan Fish, and check out some of the stuff I posted on there. Anyway, I also got to link up with a man named Nick Simmons, who is going to be in this podcast that you're about to listen to. And basically, his story is just one of those amazing underdog stories that just gives you motivation for the week, gives you motivation for life. And it's just everybody loves an underdog story. I love underdog stories so much. And they are literally the reason that I

started this podcast, because I love inspiring stories. I started with my own story and then wanted to, you know, break off and find some other people who have some really cool stories and just have this podcast that inspired a shit ton of people like you guys. So here we go. Nick Simmons started at a Division III school because he went to University of Oregon and asked to be on their track team, and the coach said absolutely not. And then he went right down the street to a different university. I want to say it's called Willamette, and I'm probably saying that wrong. But anyway, he ran for this Division III school, wound up going to the Olympics twice. Second time he got fifth at the Olympics, which is fucking damn good. And eventually

wound up creating this brand called Run Gum. And it's a humongous brand now. It's a caffeinated gum. He wanted something that you could put into your mouth and instantly have that caffeine effect right away. So he invented his own thing. I guess the time for coffee and some of these other supplements to digest through the liver just takes a little bit too long. So through the mouth and then getting it down into your saliva, it just gets in there immediately. And he could take it right before his race, and he's good to go. So this Run Gum stuff is pretty cool. And he's just done a lot of really cool things in his life. And a lot of the things he goes through throughout the podcast is just super inspiring.

Like he talks a little bit about how he got depressed after the Olympics, and I think that's really common among a lot of these athletes. Michael Phelps, Sean White, a lot of them I've heard on different podcasts, and they all get a little bit depressed afterwards. It's just like how do you come back from an experience like the Olympics? It's insane, you know? So having that, you know, balance in your life to come back to just your equilibrium that is just regular life, it must be hard to do. So he talks about all that. It's really, really cool. I just love the way that this episode flows. I'm so, so excited about how it came out,

and I'm excited for you guys to listen to it. So before we get started, I want to talk about our beautiful sponsors that we have, and I have a new one right now. You guys are probably familiar with High Elite, H-Y-L-E-T-E. They make a bunch of different clothes, and now they have shoes and backpacks and all sorts of stuff. They've been in the CrossFit realm for like ever, but now they're getting really big all over the place. So Highly basically makes premium clothes, kind of like Nike or Adidas or any of these other brands are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, but their price point is just a little bit lower than everybody else, but the quality is still super dope. So I don't personally have a ton of their clothes, but I do have their shoes and their backpacks that I'm super stoked on. And the shoe is kind of like a Metcon. I'm actually wearing it right now.

It's a, it, it looks very similar to a Metcon. So people in my gym are like, are those the new Metcons? And no, they're just the highlight shoe. But the difference between the shoe and the Metcons is they come with three different soles. So one is for running, one is just for being in the gym working out, and another one is for lifting. So they have different heights on the heel for different millimeter heights, and they feel a little bit different each one. So when you trade them out to do whatever you're going to do, it makes the shoe feel like a whole new shoe. And I think that's really cool because you almost have three different shoes for one. I think the best part about having a new shoe is it's a new shoe. So you put a new sole in and it feels like a new shoe. So it's really cool. The shoe is a little

bit heavier than normal. So it definitely has some bite to it. It has a Vibram sole. If you guys remember those five finger shoes, that really aggressive hiking sole. They're in a lot of the shoes that you buy now, like an REI. So the shoe is definitely top quality. I'm a fan, big fan. And then as far as the backpacks go, I love anything that has like 7 million pockets so I can put everything in my life in the backpack. And they actually exceeded that. They actually have so many pockets in that damn backpack that I can't even fill them all up. So I'm a huge, huge fan of that. Their backpacks are pretty out of control. I have the middle backpack. It's like the middle size and it's still just plenty, plenty, plenty of backpack. You guys, if you want to put, I don't know, potentially your entire house inside the bag, you can get the really big one. I'm not sure how big it is, but it's just

the biggest one on the site. So they have 100% performance guarantee. If you don't like it, you get a full refund or return in 60 days, which is pretty dope. And if you guys obviously listen to the Real Chalk Podcast, you guys get a discount. So 15% off and they don't have discount codes anywhere else. So all you have to do is type in RC15. RC, capital RC15 and you get 15% off at the Hylete store. So it's Hylete, H-Y-L-E-T-E. I highly suggest you guys pick up a pair of the shoes. Those are my favorite thing they have. And then the backpacks are really dope.

Also, on May 13th, that'll be the start of my next carb cycling challenge. If you guys have seen all the before and after photos on those things, it's pretty insane. And it is potentially the most popular nutrition challenge right now on the gram. There's a lot of people doing it. I have had some actually pretty famous people who are in the fitness industry that have actually been like, can I do your challenge? And I'm like, absolutely. If you want to do it, it's no big deal. So I have them.

I have a bunch of professional athletes on there. I've had a couple NHL players, a couple NBA players on there, a couple NFL players on there. It's insane. I'm really excited about it. It's been doing really, really well. And I don't really get nervous for anyone. Like pretty much everybody has a doe before and after photo.

And it's really, really hard for me to figure out who's going to win all the doe. So this one, particularly, I think I'm going to fly somebody out to California to come hang out with me for like a couple days. We're going to go paddleboard and go have some fun, ride some bikes and work out in the gym and stuff like that. So that's going to be the grand prize, I think. So all you guys have to do is go to jimryan.com. So G-Y-M-R-Y-A-N.com. And you guys can just click on the carb cycling challenge link and check out everything. And then also if you type in REALCHALK in all capital letters, you get 25% off anything that's in my

store. And I just released the new high intensity interval bodybuilding 100s series. So all the workouts, the main lift equals 100 reps every single time. It's like a mixture of German volume training, which is my favorite for gaining mass of all time. And also a mixture of the high intensity interval bodybuilding that I incorporate into all of my workouts, which has made me a popular human on Instagram as well. So you guys can go check those out on jimryan.com. For Highly, it's just H-Y-L-E-T-E.com. Again, the promo code is RC15. Highly recommend the shoes and the backpacks. Super dope. And they look clean. I like stuff that looks clean, you know? You know. Anyway, let's get into this podcast. It's going to be so hyped up.

You guys are going to be pumped up for the week. Super excited for you guys. I absolutely love you guys. And I have some really good podcasts coming up for you guys from all over the damn place. So without further ado, Nick Simmons and his Run Gum Company and his entire experience as an Olympian twice. All right, here we go. All right, guys, back out here in Oregon still, sitting down with Nick Simmons, two-time Olympian, owner of Run Gum. We will talk about what Run Gum is. And as far as the Olympics go, is it the 800 meter?

Is that what you're talking about? 800 meters, yeah, half a mile. I would say that's probably the most brutal event in all of the running. It's unforgiving. it's an acquired taste if you're really fit and and you're made for it then it's not so bad but yeah if you're if you're not fit and not prepared it will punish you i remember in high school i ran the two mile that was like my jam yeah and like i was always as every young kid who's in track i was a huge pre-fontaine fan sure well you Well, you're in his backyard now. I know. It's amazing. I've always wanted to come here. First time in Eugene?

First time in Eugene. Great place. I've only been to Portland. And actually today I was walking the Wilmette River. And it said this is his trail and everything. It was so cool to me. It was just amazing. And actually the first thing I bought when I actually started to make money was I bought

the 1972 Sports Illustrated magazine with him on the front of it. Very cool. So I had that in my office. sports illustrated magazine with him on the front of it very cool so i had that in my office very cool with him on the cover but uh anyway in high school i think my best 400 or my best 800 meter run was 203 that's good especially for a two miler and i was a sophomore but my best two mile was like 958 oh that's good running as a sophomore yeah and then i stopped running distance in like my junior senior year but i was a huge huge runner for a long time yeah see i see i just started when i was a sophomore and ran cross country actually i was a 5k then two miler and i was really late bloomer like 90 pounds soaking wet you know my freshman

year smallest kid 90 smallest kid in my high school male or female and i was i loved ice hockey i loved soccer i loved like the real sports yeah I say real sports. And I, and I wanted to go and play varsity and the coaches said, no way, man, you're just, you're gonna get murdered out there. And so I actually went out for the cross country team where no one could touch me. And I just kind of ran away from people. And I, I love, I hated running. I absolutely hated running in high school, but I loved being really good at something. And I ended up winning nine state titles and everything from four by four all the way up through 5k cross country. And I kind of begrudgingly, you know, decided to run in college, but I'm glad I did. What were some of the times you ran in high school? Let's see. I could list

off my high school PRS. I think 49, nine for 400, uh, four 24, 1600, 935 for 3200 My 800 was 153.5 And 5k was around 1630 So good times That 800 stands out as probably the best time And then what did you run in the Olympics?

I ran 142.9 Is that your best time? Yeah in the Olympics At the time it was the third fastest time ever by an American. And subsequently I think I'm sitting on fourth on the list now. Okay. So I devoted almost 20 years of my life to running around in circles. It was, it was a great career. It was, you know, ups and downs. I didn't love it in high school. Um, I kind of goofed around in college and had some fun with it. And then, um, when I turned pro is when I really said, Hey, this is awesome. You know, when I didn't have any other obligations, I didn't have to study. I didn't have another job. I woke

up every day. I said, all I have to do today is get my workout in. That was really kind of like when I fell in love with it. How long were your workouts typically when you were training? You know, when we were in season, um, we would train every day from about nine to noon and then we'd go and have a big lunch and take a nap and get up and then do another session again from five to six oh wow monday through saturday sunday you only have to run once but it would be a 14 mile long run you know half marathon that was the off day every sunday well you call it your off day because you actually get the afternoon off yeah but yeah it was it was you know so you ran every day seven days a week and most days we ran and

where were you running when this was going on? So I was based in Eugene, Oregon from 2006 until 2014. And then I went to Seattle for a few years when I was running for Brooks Running. And I love Seattle. Great city. But I like no traffic. I like quiet. And so I decided to move back to Eugene where I based my business.

So you actually were a division three athlete in Idaho. Correct. Well, I grew up in Idaho and then I always wanted to be a duck. Like you, I'd seen the Prefontaine story. I fell in love with everything about it. And I said, I have to go to Oregon. I've seen Without Limits at least a hundred times. I've read every book on Prefontaine. I've seen every movie a hundred times. And I said, I have to go to be a duck. And so I came to university of Oregon on my own dime. I wasn't recruited. And I met with the coach at the time and I said, coach, I want to run for you. My dream is to be a duck. And he said, well, what are your PR son? And I listed them off. He goes,

you'd be lucky to walk on my team, walked away. I said, wow. Okay. You know, and those are still like really good numbers that you have. They're good. I mean, they're good, but like, you got to understand the ducks. I mean, they want the. But you've got to understand the Ducks. I mean, they want the best of the best. And so I wasn't there yet. And so I drove up I-5, stopping along the way at different schools. And I stopped at Willamette University, which is in Salem. And the coach there, he said, hey, we would love to have you.

And at Willamette University, you'll be a student athlete and not the other way around, which was refreshing to hear because a lot of coaches I had been talking to to when they heard that I wanted to go down the pre-med route, they said, well, you can't do that here, right? Because practices are in the afternoon and labs are in the afternoon. So they, they, they overlap and you can't do that. So I said, you're going to have to get, you know, major in something else. It's one of the reasons why I absolutely abhor the NCAA. And we can definitely dive into that. But I, I decided I hate the NCAA. That's what I really want to get into oh gosh i know that you became a pro athlete and how we hit the ncaa is the biggest racket that's ever been created freaking mafia out there so we'll get into that

later but i decided to go to willamette university because they would schedule uh practices around my labs and so i could study biochemistry which is what i wanted to study and i could be an athlete and i was in a fraternity and i had a part-time job. And so I was working from like 6am to midnight every day and I loved it. And so it was a good place for me. Wow. 6am to midnight. And then, so you're this bad-ass athlete with like little to no sleep. Yeah. And, and, and that's, I would say I was a good athlete in D3. I could get away with it. I mean, obviously looking back on it, I had the talent, the genetic talent to become an Olympian. And I was just, you know, goofing around with my athlete in d3 i could get away with it i mean obviously looking back on it i i had the talent the genetic talent to become an olympian and i was just you know goofing around with my frat bros and

running a little bit and i was winning national titles so like it's pretty common though when you find out these like people yeah yeah i mean pre was like that too yeah you know i think madman i think that that there's you know some some of the best most successful people i know are very high strung and i i think that i'm a high strung person and sometimes I have to blow off some steam. Now in college, I wasn't doing it in a healthy way, you know, and I was very unhealthy and, and probably, you know, spent too many nights in a bar. But when I turned pro, I said, Hey, here's a chance to really find out how good I could be. And I really cleaned up my attitude when I turned pro, when I signed that first contract, I said, Hey, if I'm going to train 70 miles a week twice a day every day i owe it to myself to at least find out how good i can be and

i didn't touch alcohol sunday through friday saturday i'd blow off a little steam with my buddies but we were pretty focused and it's a really cutthroat profession if you're ranked number 10 in the u.s you're you're lucky to make a dime if you're ranked number one in the u.s you're making good money you know but the difference between those two can be pretty, it's small, but it's, it's difficult to make that, that jump. And I was ranked, you know, I think I was ranked 50th, my senior year of college. And then when I made that switch in my mind, I was ranked number two, my first year as a pro. So it was a really noticeable change. Wow. Yeah. Um, so, okay. So now you went from the division three school and then while you were training there is that when you sign your contract to become yeah so the way it worked for me and

everyone's a little different you know some of these young phenoms they might sign a pro contract right out of high school okay some will run a year or two in college and then sign and some maybe won't sign their first uh pro contract until they're well into their mid-20s um my timing was perfect i ran really well my senior year of college, and being in Nike's backyard, Nike's headquartered just about 90 minutes from here, they offered me a very small contract, but it was enough to train full-time. And they said, hey, we're starting this new team called the Oregon Track Club Elite down in Eugene, and we'd like you to go there.

So there was about this two- month lag where i had graduated from college but hadn't signed my pro deal and i just went over to europe and raced a few times and goofed around and then came back and packed all my stuff up and moved down to eugene i've been here 15 years now and you have a bunch of really great training buddies i'm assuming to run with yeah so when we started the team um it was basically the remnants of a team called the nike farm team from palo alto that moved up with the coach and about 10 guys. And then he recruited another 10. And so we had about 20 guys that were all mid-distance and a few girls, but mostly mid-distance and distance.

And we just beat the crap out of each other. I mean, it was truly like you stand on the line looking at left and right at practice. And it's who's who of middle distance running in America. And you realize that there's eight of you and the next year only two are going to continue running right and you better be one of those two and that's kind of how it was every single year that is kind of stressful i mean the practice was like game time every time basically i mean we loved each other you know don't get me wrong we love each other like brothers we trained and we had each other's backs but when we stood on the line of a race especially at a u.s championship we we weren't

friends it was like one of us is going to get to continue this awesome journey of pro running and one of us isn't and i was going to bleed to make sure it was me nice and i did i ran pro 12 years i was i was i was i was good at some things i was really bad at some other things the one thing i was good at is compartmentalizing things in my mind. Whether I was having a good day or a bad day, I was going to crush my workout or crush my workout. I'm very consistent. So that was kind of my strength was my mental game.

I'm not the fastest. I'm not the strongest. I'm kind of a short, stocky, white kid from Idaho. But mentally, I could be very consistent throughout the season. That was something I was always good at in like all my professional sports careers was like game like game day i could create a performance that i had never like recreated you were a gamer you stepped up you know in practice it was just like something that and some people are the exact opposite right they they crush practices and they can't even run as fast in races as they can in practice yeah and that's it's a hard it's hard

because it's it's something you can't really coach you either you either game up or you don't and you see these these incredible athletes that just can't bring it on game day. And, I mean, I don't know how to address that. Yeah, the stress of game day is an amazing thing. It definitely makes or breaks you. I think it's – So this is what I tell young athletes. They say, you know, especially in high school, and you probably remember this,

like just the nerves, right, trying to deal with that. They say, you know, how do you deal with the pre-race nerves and anxiety? I say, you embrace that. Trust me. You want those feelings because that's adrenaline. That's going to allow you to do some freaky stuff if you embrace it and you harness that for good. But if you don't, it's going to wear you down and you're going to beat yourself before you even get to the start line. So I really, I think, especially with today's youth that are a little bit anxiety prone anyways, I'm like, you've got to learn to channel that. Yeah, that's a big thing, I think, for sure.

Who was making your programming at this time for your training? So I had a couple different coaches. When I first turned pro, a guy by the name of Frank Gagliano was coaching me. He's called the godfather of track and field. He has this thick accent, East Coast accent. He's from New York, and he's coached more Olympians in the middle distances than anyone else in America. I'm from New Jersey. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So he, he was, he was just the perfect coach for me. Tough, but loving. Um, and he recognized his own limitations, um,

especially when it came to weight training. So when I graduated, I started working with, uh, a guy here, the head strength and conditioning coach at university of Oregon, guy by the name of Jimmy Radcliffe. And he took took kind of this you know frat boy and turned him into an actual athlete like i was a good runner but i wasn't an athlete by any means i mean i didn't know the difference between a you know a clean and a jerk or a snatch and i'd never seen a barbell really and he says we're going to make you an actual athlete i was going to say did you wind up lifting weights yeah and and you know we met this morning at the CrossFit gym. I really love lifting now. But the way we used to lift was kind of brutal.

We would run seven to eight miles easy and then go in the gym. So you're tired. You're in the middle of a 70-mile week. You know you've got another run that evening. And so we would lift. We never maxed. I never maxed in my entire life until I joined a CrossFit gym. I don't even know if it's appropriate for you at that time.

No, it's not. Cause you might injure yourself. And so we were using, but you don't even need that power out. You don't even need that. It's more about posture and running economy than it is about like explosiveness. So, you know, we were mostly focusing on lightweight, moving it, moving it quickly and efficiently. And really he, he was just like a stickler on posture. He's like, how are you going to carry your frame 800 meters at this pace

if you can't even do an overhead lunge? And so he's constantly watching our mechanics and making sure that we are posturally efficient. What were some drills that you did to work on posture? A lot of box step-ups, especially with loaded weight on our shoulders. A lot of, uh, like box step-ups, you know, especially with loaded, loaded weight on our shoulders. Um, a lot of form drills, plyometrics. Um, it it's, uh, I know a lot of people struggle with their running form. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's something that you can get a lot better at, you know, but you need a coach that's watching you and really identifying where your weaknesses are. Cause every, every form has some characteristics that are

great and some that aren't so great. And you also have to recognize that some bodies are just made up differently. I'm never going to run like a graceful gazelle. In fact, they called me the bison because I'm this short, muscular guy that's running around like a bison. And they said, you know, the bison doesn't get up to speed fast, but once he's at speed, it's hard to stop him. And it's true. I was really slow off the line. It took me 100 meters just to catch up to the pack and then once i was at full speed i could just hold this pace you know and i didn't fade like a lot of the sprinters they'll fade the

last 100 200 meters and i was just turning it on then so it's you know everybody's different the the bloods are different the musculature is different the structure is different um you got to play to your advantage but also recognize your weaknesses and find a coach that can help you work on those was there anything that you did with your technique specifically between all of those years that made a huge impact like you just all of a sudden started taking like i would say that the time off you know the olympic lifting changed everything okay um and i'm i you know there's this kind of like this this debate in distance running like should you lift or not like i don't want to bulk up i'm like you're not going to bulk up you know cleaning 45 pounds this kind of like this, this debate in distance running, like, should you lift or not? Like, I don't want to bulk up. I'm like, you're not going to bulk up, you know,

cleaning 45 pounds. Okay. But if you add some functional strength training into your program, you are going to become a stronger, leaner, more, you know, postulate posturally correct, more efficient runner. And I really believe any distance from a hundred to a marathon can benefit from lifting weights if it's done right. Yeah. If it's done right. I like to hear that. That's really cool.

So now you've gone to the Olympics twice. How was that experience? Was it just the greatest thing in the world? The first one was overwhelming. You know, like it's your dream come true. And I'm just looking around. And I got Kobe to my left and LeBron to my right. And, you know, 90,000 people in the stadium cheering.

And I'm just like, I can't deal with this. And I bombed out of the semis. But I was young and I hadn't had a lot of international experience. And I said to myself, I want this again. I want to come back because I know I'll be more prepared next time. And so I signed another four-year deal with Nike at that time and trained for the 2012 games. And I was more prepared. I ended up making the finals and finishing fifth there with the best time I ever ran.

So I think of all the – and I ran for 20 years, of all the races, that's the one I'm most proud of. It's the Super Bowl of track and field, right? An Olympic final. And I was able to run my best time there. So that's all. You finished fifth. I finished fifth.

The time I ran would have won the Olympic gold medal in every single other Olympic Games except that one. Happened to be the world record race and the world record holder, David Radice, just towed us all to some really incredible times. So I'm proud to be in that, to be the world record race and uh the world record holder david radisha just towed us all to some really incredible times so i'm proud to be in that to have been in that race and to have brought my best product but man it's it's it's a hard pill to swallow when you're on that fast and you don't get a medal yeah that is insane i mean fifth place is freaking damn good considering like everybody in the world you know i think that's pretty pretty great yeah it is but

you know obviously as a pro athlete as a pro athlete the cash stops at three yeah like one two three gets paid real well four five six seven eight you get a pack on the pad on the back and a kick in the butt you get bonuses too if you hit a world record correct absolutely huge bonuses so i always thought that like when you see like usain bolt run and stuff like he wouldn't break the record i'd be like well he's probably waiting for they wanted to do it at the right place so like you know if you do it in the in like a small meet you're not going to get anything you do it in a meet like monaco or world championship and you might get like a half million dollars yeah no i mean it's wow it's a big payday yeah i always wondered i'm like i don't know i look like he could have ran a little faster and i was like

i'm pretty sure they get paid at like big events there's a there's a really like great story um about sergey bubka who had a deal and a clause in his contract that every time he broke the world record in the pole vault he got a bonus and so every weekend he would break it by a quarter inch even though he could jump way higher he didn't want to set the bar too high because he had to do it each time at a different meet so he just set the bar the bar a little bit higher each one just cashed that bonus over and over holy crap i didn't realize they were making that much money oh i mean it's it's exponential so like i said i know i know and it's also um it's very much focused on events so if you're a women hammer thrower you could be an

olympic champion and living below the poverty line if you're the 20th best sprinter you're probably making pretty good money you know 100 meter runner and then you've got all the other events and and it's it's exponential like i said in the eight, which is what I know best. I knew guys who were ranked in the top 10 in the U S that live below the poverty line. But it, you know, I was ranked number one for almost a decade and I was doing well, you know, I was, I was working hard and living a great life and I was making good money because of it. So now this is all over. How long did it take you to start this new business that we have that's called RunGum? Well, fortunately, I started it when I was ranked number two in the world.

And I say fortunately because I had so much earned media. If I had started it after I retired, I don't know that it would have been as successful. But I started it in the summer of 2014 because I got injured that year. And I was ranked number two in the world following a silver medal at the World Championships in 2013. And I got an avulsion fracture in my knee and it took me out the entire year and it just killed me. I had meet directors offering me like five, 10, 15 grand to come run at their meets, just appearance fee. Just say, Hey, come run here. I'll give you 10 grand cash. And I'm like, I can't, I physically can't run a step. And it just, it sent me into this crazy

spiraling depression, like suicidal thoughts like this. If I can't run, if I can't, I physically can't run a step. And, and it just, it sent me into this crazy spiraling depression, like suicidal thoughts like this. If I can't run, if I can't cash these checks, like what am I doing? And, um, fortunately I have a great mentor and business partner, um, who was my coach at the time, Sam LaPrey. And he said, he said, the only way that we're going to get you out of this is by making up that lost income. We have to figure out some way to way to channel your frustration and your energy into something that's going to pay you dividends down the road. And so we had had this idea for an energy gum. Basically I was sponsored. I was getting products sent to

me by a lot of energy drinks and I loved the way they made me feel, especially Red Bull. I love Red Bull to this day. Caffeine, taurine, B vitamins. It's kind of a, this magic, you know, blend of, of stimulants. And the only problem was when you drink that heavy acidic liquid, you get a lot of indigestion, you know, and especially for runners, the last thing you want as a runner is like this heavy carbonated drink sloshing around your stomach. So I applied the lessons that I learned in biochemistry at Willamette. I applied that to kind of formulating this new product. I was going to take a piece of chewing gum, just like Nicorette uses chewing gum to deliver nicotine to the lining of the gums.

I was going to use chewing gum to deliver caffeine, taurine, and B vitamin to the body sublingually, faster absorption, bypass the stomach, zero calories, zero sugar, just the stimulants you want. Is there a specific like delivery mechanism that you use? Just by chewing, you're kind of, um, taking those stimulants and putting them next to your, it's called sublingual and buccal absorption. So through the lining of the gums underneath the tongue, you're absorbing these things much faster

as it dissolves into your, into your blood system. So, and also, um, when you digest something, it goes straight to your liver, your liver starts scrubbing it. It eventually makes it up to your brain. Sublingual absorption is different, right? That's going to go straight to your brain. So when you chew a piece of run gum or a packet of run gum, you're getting the same caffeine equivalent of coffee or an energy drink, but it's hitting you so much faster because of the absorption mechanism. And so I always encourage people, we put two pieces of gum in a pack and I say, just start with one because this is a different experience. And if you don't feel it, then you can have two. And if you don't feel that we have an extra strength formula for like you you big guys or

you people who are very tolerant to caffeine for me a packet of run gum is perfect to boost my workout you know whether i'm going into the crossfit gym or whether i'm going biking or going running but i also use it when i'm in the office so you know one of the luxuries of being a pro athlete is i used to get to take a nap every day so like 1 or 2 p.m i just all i can think about is those naps but as you know as a businessman now i don't have the luxury of that so about 1 or 2 in the afternoon as i feel that sluggishness coming on i'll chew a pack of run gum and i'm so much more productive for it have you heard of the nappuccino no what's that so you drink a cup of coffee like just before you go to take your nap yeah because apparently oh yeah so you fall asleep but then it wakes you up real quick it's supposed So you drink a cup of coffee like just before you go to take your nap. Yeah. Because apparently –

Oh, yeah. So you fall asleep but then it wakes you up real quick. It's supposed to be 15 to 20 minutes before coffee actually hits you. So you drink it right before you take a nap and you wake up and you're just ready to go and they call it a nappuccino. See, now that would work with a cappuccino because the absorption time is so slow in the stomach. But run gum, you feel it – I mean you feel it 30 seconds later. I mean it's so quick. Is there a way that you could make – like slow down the absorption rate so that it would kick in in a certain amount of time?

Only if you were to swallow it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, sublingual absorption is known to be... So maybe have like run gum Starbursts. Oh, there you go. Some chews. And you can chew it. Because maybe you want to take it at home and it takes 15 minutes to get to the gym.

See, man, we're all about speed here. Everything's got to be now. What see man we're all about speed here yeah everything's gotta be now we gotta we gotta need for speed people like people like starbursts and skittles and stuff you never know yeah it's it's different though you know there's there's a lot of goos on the market you know and there's gel packs and there's chews and and everything whether it's an energy shot an energy drink an energy goo an energy gel it all has the same commonality swallow somethingallow something, sit around and wait for it. I'm an athlete, man. My event was a minute and 44 seconds. I don't have time to sit around and wait for stuff.

I want stimulants and I want them right now. That legit just made me want to have a pack of Rungo. Well, I'm going to send you with a bunch. I'm going to send you with a ton. You can count it out. I want it now. Hell yeah, let's go. Exactly.

It was one of these products where i was like no one's doing this and and i made it for myself to to boost my training in my competition caffeine has been shown to have performance and serious performance enhancing effects if you don't have it like for a little bit of time well it's way better than it yeah so so that what can happen is you can develop a tolerance, just like any drug, heroin, alcohol, you name it, you can develop a tolerance to it. So sometimes pros will go on a caffeine wash before a big competition. They won't touch caffeine for seven days and then they'll hit it. Yeah. And so, you know, we, I can't, I'm probably too addicted. I couldn't go a day without caffeine, but what we did was we created the extra strength formula

for me basically when I was really in need of it so have you with your biochemistry background have you heard of like the phosphorylase enzyme yeah so like basically that's like what buffers lactate in your body so bicarb loading yeah there's two different things that i mean well there's caffeine there's also baking soda yeah we used to take pills and pills of baking soda i was gonna say have you thought about adding that into the gum is that possible the amount that you have to take to be a fit like that i mean you're talking about tablespoons and i remember we would try to do this right bicarb load and you'd be taking a hundred pills of bicarbonate and yeah the science is sound that it's going to buffer your blood but you're pooping like crazy yeah if you do it wrong if you know

even if you do it right i mean that's a lot of like baking soda going into your stomach i've tried it a few times i've had some days i had one where i almost didn't make it to the toilet that's what i'm talking about i've had somewhere i was like oh that was pretty good yeah for me it was just like i i could with a pack of run gum i can get the three to five percent boost that that you know caffeine's been shown to have in athletics and it was legal you know i'm not trying to do it the illegal way unlike some of my competitors it was legal it was simple it was affordable and so i start using it i'm using it in and out of competition my friends are asking for it my teammates are asking for it my family's asking for it my coach says dude we've got something here yeah and so we we bought a million pieces of energy gum we threw it in a package, called it Run Gum. And this warehouse we're in right now, we rented out a space and started selling it.

That was 2014. It was quick in the running community. Like we had saturation in the running community real quick. And then we said, okay, now how do we branch outside of run? And we went to REI and Vitamin Shop, right? So now it's like it's called Run Gum. It was built for runners, but it's perfect for anyone on the run. And so cyclists love it because it weighs nothing. Climbers love it for the same reason. People love it before they go to the gym as a pre-workout

boost. And then we said, okay, now that we've got athletes of all demographics, how do we branch outside of athletes? And we said, we need to go for like the working class, you know, people that are working a nine to five nurses, lawyers, truck drivers, busy moms and dads. And we landed target. We went nationwide and target last year. And of all the retailers, target is kind of recognized as the toughest one to get into. So we, we skipped a couple of steps and got target. And then everybody else came calling and said, okay, if target's bringing you in, we got to bring you in. And we're in over 15,000 stores nationwide. Now that is, it's, it's crazy. It's like a snowball rolling downhill.

We're just trying to keep up with it now. So what are your orders like now? Instead of a million pieces, how many are you ordering now? Several million. Several million pieces. So last year, this was a tough moment for us. We had a machine that we were really pleased with, and then the target order came, and we couldn't keep up with demand.

And so my business partner and I looked at each other, and we said, we're going to need another machine. It cost $70,000 to buy this machine. And we hadn't taken on any outside investment at the time. So get out your checkbook, start writing checks. I mean, when you're scaling a business, it's everything you can do to keep up with it. And fortunately we eventually brought on some investors and that's, what's allowed us to keep up with the growth this year. But, uh, I wish I had known that I would have invested. Yeah. It is, you know, CPG, the industry that we're in is called CPG, Consumer Packaged Goods. And in that giant category, we're in sports nutrition or supplements.

And it's just so much fun because when someone asks me what I do, I can literally pull out a packet of gum and hand it to them. And I say, here you go. This is what I do. And they get to try it. And I get to see the experience and tell them this is how you can use it. And then they're a lifelong customer. And that's another thing I love about consumables. I like the name too. Yeah. And, and we, we, people were worried that maybe we pigeonholed ourself early on as like a product only for runners. I'm like, no run means something

different to everybody, to a mechanic. He's thinking about his engine running right to a fisherman. He's thinking she, he, or she is thinking about the fish running upstream. Parents are running errands. I mean, we use run and running all the time to connote energy and movement. And that's what run gum is really about. It's saying, Hey, let's make the most of our busy days. We were all, we are all so busy as Americans. We wake up early, we go to bed late and we are trying to maximize those 16, 18, 20 hours that we're awake and we get tired. Everybody gets tired and having this little secret tucked in your back pocket can make the difference.

I think caffeine right now is just on the explosion right now. Coffee right now is like insane. Oh yeah. Our society has decided that we run on caffeine. 90% of Americans use caffeine every single day. And of those that do, average dose per for an American is 300 milligrams throughout the day. That's three cups of coffee, three Red Bulls, three packs of run gum, a couple of coffees, a hundred milligrams, about a hundred milligrams, give or

take how it's brewed and how it's, uh, how it's roasted. Um, so, you know, we, we decided that that's the, that's the stimulant for us. And I'm just, I'm just glad, um, you know, that it's a relatively safe drug. I'm glad that it's,riminalized, deregulated because it helps me. It helps me in the gym. It helps me in the office. It helps me when I'm driving. It is an absolute wonder drug. Well, for people who are trying to improve performance, there is an amount that becomes diminishing returns, correct?

Because I think that's why they decided to not ban it in NCAA because they're like, well, if you want to take a certain amount, then it's not going to help you anyway. The studies that I've shown recommend that you have three milligrams for every kilo you have. So I'm a 75-kilo person. That's 225. So a packet of extra strength has 200 milligrams. That's just about right for me. Yeah. But let's say you had like 600.

The diminishing returns. Yeah. Like go ahead. Waste the money. That's what I'm saying. And have the heart palpitations that you're going to feel but the science is pretty sound that that that plateau hits right about three milligrams per kilo so figure out how many kilos you are multiplied by

three that's how many milligrams you should have before workout okay cool yeah is there any other products even kind of thinking about branching off into now are you yeah you know it's it's one of those things where we have all these ideas and we'd love to do them all, but we're working around, we got a team of 10 now working around the clock, just trying to fulfill demand for RunGum right now. We have two more major, major retail partners coming on this year.

I can't tell you who they are just yet, but if you follow RunGum anywhere on social, you'll find out. He told me on the side. It was pretty exciting. It's big, yeah, it's big. But you can find it nationwide in Target, REI, Vitamin Shop, and on Amazon, and at RunGum.com, of course. All right.

Cool. So now you have this product, ex-Olympian, all these things. What gets you excited nowadays? Besides business, what gets you excited? I went through a weird year last year. We talked about climbing mount hood yeah yeah i like to climb i like to fish i like to fly airplanes you know those are my hobbies but i'm a helicopter pilot oh are you really yep dude we got to go up in the air sometime yeah i'm a i'm a few hours into my fixed swing uh ppl but i've got i did that when i was 16 wow really my private and then i did like

um i want to say i did like 20 hours until I decided to switch to helicopters. Yeah. And that's what I did straight out of high school. I went to a pilot school before I went to college. Do you still fly? Not really. Yeah. It's really expensive.

It's so expensive. I mean, even fixed wing is expensive. It's like three times that for helicopter. Cool. Wow. At the time when I was doing it in 2006 yeah 2005 2006 it was like 250 an hour wow to fly the helicopter yeah i could get up in a rental fixed wing for like 110 140 you know but still that's crazy expensive i went to hawaii okay that's where i went i mean i don't

know if it was more there or not i just figured if i'm going to be a pilot might as well be in someplace beautiful with i'm gonna learn that that was the spot that's so cool man it's like running like eugene is the spot for running like for flying i was like islands is the is the license valid for life like a ppl no uh i mean i just all i have to do is recertify whenever i want to do that yeah but i'd have to like get a check ride and i'd have to go through like a whole bunch of hoops medical and everything else yeah i think like the amount of time it would take me to get back to the the level of flying i was at would probably be like yeah you get rusty like 20 grand probably oh my god like a casual 20 grand just to get back into it so yeah but i like that you like to fly what else i like to fly so but you know i i felt lost last year so i i retired

um in december of 2017 and then 2018 for me was like, I call it a rebuilding year. Like I had run gum and I was passionate about that and we were growing it and that was cool, but I was drinking every day, you know, not like blackout drunk, you know, I would go home and I'd felt like run, like, like run gum was stressing me out and I missed training for something and I was bored more than anything. I was just bored. So I'd go home and have a six pack of beer, you know, or a couple, you know, fingers of whiskey and call it a night i wake up and i'd go to work and i kind of am like

is this my life is this my life for the like the next 50 years it's just so this was like a year that this was one year roughly it was one year at least you didn't let it go too far no i think i needed the year like i needed to just like say goodbye to running and then say what what does life look like for me moving forward and it took me a year of kind of just, I fished a lot, and I climbed a little bit. I climbed Mount Carsten, excuse me. I climbed Carsten's Peak down in Papua New Guinea, and I climbed Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Like I wasn't totally just like sitting around doing nothing. But I wasn't, I would say I was enjoying life. I was having some fun, but I wasn't pursuing excellence in any way, you know? And I think pursuing excellence is, it's a lifestyle. It's not like I'm going to go to nine to five and pursue excellence nine to five. And then I'm going to come back and, you know, be a drunk every night. It's saying I'm going to pursue excellence in every aspect of my life. And so as, as my 35th birthday approached last December, I said, I got to get back to that mentality. I got to get back to the, the, the not a nine. I'm not on nine to five. I am on 24,

seven pursuing excellence. And I realized that the, the glue that held everything together for me was fitness. If I don't work out in the morning, I don't think as clearly, I don't have as much energy. I'm not as excited about life. I'm just kind of this guy floating through life. And so I signed up for a CrossFit gym, you know, and I wish I could run every day, but my knees won't let me anymore. My ankles won't let me. So I found this CrossFit gym just down the street, tree line CrossFit, where we were at this morning, which if you guys are listening to my podcast in order, he was my last podcast. Yeah. And I, and I just fell in love instantly. I said, this is what I've been looking for. i i go to crossfit gym monday wednesday friday and i run uh tuesday

thursday saturday and sunday i rest and everything changed like i so you still go out and run i i but like three or four miles like i would go out for a 10 mile run if i could those days but i can't what about going to the track in just two intervals you ever do that anymore uh occasionally i'm trying i'm training for 100 meter runs so like i'll go out um you know maybe once or twice a week and just like try to sprint still but my my ankles and knees just don't give me many miles so but the crossfit doesn't seem to bother me at all like it's such a full body workout so i'll do that and starting my day off with just you know 30 minutes to an hour of of you know intense you know physical fitness whatever it is whether it's cross or running, all of a sudden I just have way more energy and I stopped drinking and I signed up to

get my PPL, which is something I'd always wanted to do. And then that kind of like snowballed into the, you know, there's a lot of studying you got to do for that. And I hadn't studied in 15 years. So, and all of a sudden I'm like, I gotta, I gotta do everything throughout the day to make sure that when I get home at five or six, that my brain is still sharp enough to study. And so the booze went right out, and my energy levels – I'm eating healthier, and everything just all of a sudden fell into place. And now I just feel like every single day is the way I want to be spending my days. I freaking love that. If nothing else happened in this podcast, I'd be like, that part right right there i'm gonna go re-listen to because it just motivates me

well, you know, it's not it's not something that like I'm, not infallible I mean, I'm I slip back into like my lazy ways and sometimes I have to go back and listen to old interviews from me When I was like a pro runner or now i'm sure i'll come back and listen to this podcast and remind myself That it's about a lifestyle. It's not about you know, it's not about diets It's not about quick fixes. It's not about diets. It's not about quick fixes. It's not about instant gratification. It's about slowly and steadily every day waking up and saying,

I'm going to pursue excellence in all aspects of my life today. Well, I had a point where I was training with the Olympic team for bobsled back in the day, and I had a lot of injuries and the CrossFit career. Some certain things happened to me, and I got to the point where I was just like so, you know, bummed out. And like I lost my job and I was like sleeping on a couch for a long time and like with someone I didn't even know. My listeners know this whole story. But basically one day I just was like not anymore. Like I'm going to fix this.

And I started just like a completely different mentality. I would just spring out of bed in the morning. I'd get really excited about everything I was doing. Like every person I met, I made sure that they knew that I was extremely passionate about what I did. And a bunch of people believed in me, invested in me, and I built this whole little empire that I have kind of going on now. And it's basically like now I spring out of bed. I'm so excited to like talk to you or go see Justin at the CrossFit gym that I haven't seen. And I've been friends with him for like three years.

You know, go do a crazy like hike in the middle of freaking Norway, which I've been doing and like different things. And I do think at this point, especially for you right now, your business is starting to do well. I think it's cool to have like little benchmarks that you – and I think CrossFit is a great way to kind of coincide with this. You see progress so quickly. Yeah, I think everything in life should be a benchmark, right? We always talk here at Rungub about setting concrete goals. What is the famous quote? But a concrete goal could be like Fran, right?

Be like what? It could be like Fran. It's a benchmark. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. Exactly. So, but, you know, you have to set a goal so that it has a concrete, you know, metric to find.

Like, it's black or white. Did I succeed or did I not? Like, when you're trying to set a new personal best snatch, you either get that over your head or you don't. Like, you either did it or you didn't. And so, like, all the things, like, with the PPL, for example, the private pilot's license, I said this has to happen before the end of 2019, period. You know, not I'm going to get it sometime because then I can skip a lesson and I forget to study. And I said, no, this will happen before the end of the year. You have to put a timeline on it.

So we talk a lot about setting those concrete goals. And again, CrossFit is really good at teaching people how to set their goals and achieve them. Yeah, I think it's great. There's actually a bunch of CEOs in Switzerland I heard of, like bank CEOs, and they make everybody work out at a CrossFit gym. That's awesome. Like the CEO. I mean this guy probably makes millions of dollars, like billions. I don't know. And he just is like, all right, we are all doing CrossFit today.

And like you can scale and do whatever you want. I'm going to do this. And like the camaraderie of it, he said like it's boosted his business by like a crazy amount. Well, and it's one of those cool workouts. Like running is not the case where if I'm a six-minute – my easy pace is six-minute miles and my secretary's is 12-minute miles. We're not really going to work out together. Yeah. At a CrossFit gym, we can.

Everybody is working out together doing the exact same workout. You adjust your weight accordingly, but everybody know everybody is working out together doing the exact same workout you up and you know you adjust your weight accordingly but everybody is in there working out together we've got 60 year old ladies and 25 year old you know you know world champion crossfitters all working out together it's insane yeah it's so cool i think the people that are in a crossfit box are literally like the full spectrum yeah oh for sure you'll sure. You'll see every body type, every age. In my gym, I've got an Olympic gold medalist volleyball player. I've had an Olympic gold medalist swimmer, the guy Jason Lezak. He's the one who won.

He got that photo finish for Michael Phelps in the relay. He was working out there. And I have CEOs of massive companies because I'm in orange county like these guys are just crazy and then you have you know just oh actually my business partner he sold myspace oh wow for like 55 million dollars at the time you know what i mean it's like and these people are all just driving up in f-150s you have no idea you know what i mean it's just such a crazy group of people and i try to tell everybody all the time, just treat everybody so nice. And just let them know what makes you passionate every day. You know what I mean?

And I think that's a big thing is waking up, springing out of bed, and just knowing what your purpose is for the day. And after your workout, you probably come in here and just crush. Try to. I love what you were saying about sitting on the couch and kind of not knowing what you're going to do. That's kind of where I was last year. I'm like, I don't know what I want to do. And I always tell, especially, I don't know if your listeners are male or female or how it skews, but especially young males in their 20s, I feel like we're all, at least I was, a lot of my friends were, it's a little bit lost. Like, we have a good work ethic.

We just don't know how to apply it or where to apply it. And there's so many things to do. And I say the hardest, there are so many different paths to take. The hardest thing to do, working hard is not hard. I mean, it's easy to work hard. It's fun to work hard. The hardest thing is to find something that you actually want to apply your time and energy to. Once you figure that out, once you figure it, the one out of 10,000 paths that you want to take and you're excited about that path, you're out of bed at 5am because you're so excited to go do it. I get up every morning at 5am. I'm like so excited about my fitness goals, excited about my business goals, excited about

my hobbies. And I'm like the only way to tackle all these things that I'm so excited about is to just get up and get going. But I remember like you said, like when you don't know where to apply that energy, you're just kind of sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling like, send me the information. Where do I go? I think it reveals itself though like in its own way. Yeah, you can't rush it. You its own way. Yeah. You have to, you can't rush it. Yeah. You can't rush it,

but you have to be open to trying new experiences, talking to different people. You have to be somewhat curious. You know, the wonderful thing is we've got the fricking internet, you know, just start Googling stuff that you're interested in and it'll fall. You'll find a path.

Yeah. I definitely believe that. Cause I didn't even know what I wanted to do. It kind of just like fell into my lap. I didn't dream about being a gum salesman, but I had this problem and I went on the internet and I said, I need some caffeinated chewing gum because I can't drink these energy drinks anymore before I work out. I couldn't find any. And so, you know, that's just me like exploring my curiosity and my interest. And all of a sudden I'm like, Hey, maybe there's something here and then you follow it. And for every run

gum, which, you know, is one of my more successful, you one of my more successful endeavors, there's nine that just dead-ended. And that's okay too. It's okay to chase something and it turns into a dead-end and you go, oh, okay, I'll go try something else. You learn so much in the process. Absolutely. Like I honestly can't imagine having success with no bumps in the road at all. I'd have never met anybody. Maybe Usain Bolt.

Yeah, maybe. But, yeah, I think it really makes you who you are. It's, it's, it literally is the, yeah, the, the, the cement that you're made of is literally just be how many bumps did you have and what did you do and you know, where are you at now? Yeah. And I think back to like that, that summer when I was injured and we started run gum, that, that summer could have gone a lot of different ways. So stuff like that is interesting to me right like really bad shit happens to people and because of it amazing things happen it's like i i don't mean to imply that my injury was as serious as anything that like cancer or but yeah i couldn't run and i was depressed but you hear like cancer survivors that said it was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me like in the moment it was

the worst thing that ever happened to me but Like in the moment, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But when I came through that darkness, I had an appreciation for life that I'd never felt before, you know? And, and I've, again, I'm not trying to relate my, my small injury with cancer, but 2014 was a very dark year for me. And I seriously had suicidal thoughts and I emerged from that darkness and was stronger for it as a person, stronger for it as a businessman, you know, more financially secure. Now that I had a business that would last after I retired, like you found your purpose in general. And I found a purpose. You know, I found something I'm really passionate about entrepreneurial business. And, and I kind

of really learned that through that summer. So I hated that summer. I look back on that and I'm like, man, I was in a bad place, but I couldn't be where I am today without having gone through it yeah i those moments are are crucial i try to tell people all the time they're like oh man this is all going on right now like they'll message me and be like what do you think i should do and i'm like dude i promise you right now if it's really that bad yeah there's a light at the end of this tunnel and it might be like the greatest thing that ever happened to you all you don't know what it is it could be a person it could be a thing you don't want to hear it at the time yeah it's like when you break up with a girl, it's like, I don't want to hear it. I hate my life. Sometimes you just need to lick your wounds.

You need to wallow it in a little bit. And I would say the one constant that I've had throughout my entire life is fly fishing. I think we all need to have that constant. It could be fitness. It could be meditation. But for me, fly fishing was always my escape. Um, and you know, when my grandpa died, I went fly fishing. When I was injured, I went fly fishing, you know, through the ups and downs of life. I've always just gone out to nature and, and you know, the, the, the, it's kind of like meditation, just being out on the water and working the water and interacting with something bigger than yourself that doesn't really give a crap about my problems. So that that's gotten me through a lot of, uh, a lot of great moments and sad moments.

And, and I think we all need to have something like that in our life. Bicycles are that for me. Yeah, for sure. For sure. For some reason, working on them and just being out riding.

And I love bikes, man. I have like an electric mountain bike. I have a good, a regular mountain bike. I have a road bike. And every single day I ride between 10 and 20 miles. Wow.

That's cool. No matter what, like it's, I'll be at work and I'll have like the busiest day ever. And I'm like, I need to do this ride. And I'll literally just hop on my bike and I'll sprint it. Like as hard as I can, I'll come back to the gym. Everybody's like, you okay?

I'm like, I just rode a bike like really, really fast. I'm good. I'm ready to go. But you talk about like the glue that can hold a life together. Something as simple as just going for a walk every day or going for a bike ride every day or trying to get your fly fishing in once a week. It's something that's just for you. That is something you can always look forward to it's the constant in your

life through life's ups and down full reset you got to have that and i've i've seen it in people's eyes and the way they talk about crossfit and and it's funny because i'd never been to a crossfit gym you know but cross have been around for a long time and people just talk to you like this is the coolest thing ever and that's why there's a thousand i know before i'd ever been to one i'm like oh god this guy's you know he's a cross memes about CrossFit. Before I'd ever been to one, I'm like, oh, God, this guy is a CrossFit guy. I'm going to have to hear about CrossFit all day long now. And so now that I've actually gone and I'm telling everybody I see about CrossFit, I understand why it's so important to people. It's not just a workout.

And it never ends. Yeah. You know what I mean? You can always get stronger. Maybe you get good at snatching and your running goes down. Maybe you get good at the assault bike but you suck at the rower. Maybe this. Maybe that.

Maybe you get a muscle-up and all of a sudden your whole workout regimen is different because now you're doing muscle-ups instead of pull-ups. See, I'm telling Justin. I'm like, we need more running in this gym. I'm like, I want running every single day. And everybody else just yells at me. They're like, no, Nick. No more running. It's amazing how many people hate to run.

I'm like, you like running less than the assault bike? How is that possible? I will trade anything for assault bike. I do not like that machine. It is insane. You want push-ups. You want running. You want ski.

Whatever it takes. Just keep me away from the Assault Bike. All right. Well, at this point, I'd like to talk about where everybody can find you, find RunGum. And then you just add anything you really want people to know about. Yep. So I'm across all social at Nick Simmons. I would say –

Is it just Nick simmons straight yeah just nick simmons okay um symmond s i've gotten really interested in youtube lately i kind of i miss running you know i can't do it anymore so i kind of sat down and said i've got like 20 years of knowledge built up and there's a lot of young runners out there who could probably benefit from this so i put out three videos every single week on my youtube channel it's strongly running focus so if you're a runner out there looking to be faster stronger happier um that's the kind of content i'm putting out on youtube um instagram i'm pretty active on twitter facebook occasionally um and then run gums on social everywhere at run gum and you can find it um at run gum.com and you can

actually start a trial for 4.95 there where you get to try all five of our flavors for five bucks which is okay yeah cool yeah i actually just put out a um a running video with oh really with this guy diaz out in um malibu oh cool and we hit like over 300 000 views on a running video and it's like i've only i've only had youtube for like two months now wow and i love it i love youtube and i love consuming content I love consuming content. I love creating content. Yeah, I could try to tell you a couple little tricks and stuff on that. But yeah, I'm excited.

That was a great podcast. Yeah. And I think that people are really going to connect with this. Good. Get some good stuff out of it. Thanks for swinging by.

Hopefully you guys all try RunGum. I'm going to load you up. You'll be fine for your drive after this. And see how it goes. But yes, thank you so much for being on the show.

And I will see you guys all next Tuesday. Thank you very much for listening. And I will – yeah, I love you guys. Love you guys.