Mark Bell's Power Project - How to Kill Self Doubt: Lessons From The Boston Marathon || MBSS Ep. 43

Episode Date: April 22, 2023

In this edition of Mark Bell's Saturday School, Mark Bell shares what happened when he ran The Boston Marathon. The good, the bad, the slow, the ugly, and how everything he's learned through hosting this podcast helped get him through it all.    New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements!   ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off!   ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order!   ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

My goal is just to not come in last place. He's like, you know where you're going, right? I'm like, no, I have no idea where I'm going. He's like, if you speed up a bit, you might be able to catch up to some people. You plan on doing another, another 26.2? I'm sure I'll do it at some point. The major challenge of the Boston Marathon is the hills. Every single step that you take becomes a big deal.

It took just as long for me to recover as it did for me to do the race. That one time I just all of a sudden got nauseous out of nowhere and just barfed. Which one was the most difficult? Powerlifting, bodybuilding, marathon. If you balance your training out correctly, you should feel good. I've already been hospitalized by, you know, some training with running. I microdosed some LSD. I had some mind bullet and I also had THC acetaminophen and I had aspirin.

Did you not learn from the last time? No, I don't think I did. And Seema, have you ever been to a jujitsu tournament where they're breaking down everything, they're putting everything away, there's nobody else there, you got defeated by every single person that's there, and they're telling you like, hey, you know, it's time to go. You ever had that happen for you? Sadly. I mean, gratefully, no, I haven't. Oh, that's okay. That's what my Boston Marathon experience was like.

I'm probably at mile 20, okay? I'm probably at mile 20. So I was joking. We were looking at the numbers that we were given. Yeah. You know, my number was 30421. 30421. So 30,000, whatever the hell that number represents

fuck ton of people in the race and I'm like okay my goal is just to not come in last place well I might have nailed it I might have pretty much come in close to last place because there's a guy that rides up next to me on a bike like a police officer and I'm just like running I'm not really paying much attention

and this guy just starts talking to me and I kind of look over and I'm like oh it's a police officer so i pull my headphones off a little bit and he's like sir he's like this is pretty much the end of the line we're closing down we're closing down the run we're shutting everything down and so there's going to be people breaking stuff down because you have to stay to the right because there's going to be cars on the street now i'm like oh fuck he's like you know where you're going right i'm like no i have no idea where i'm going he's like well he's like if you speed up a bit you might be able to catch up to some people that you could see that you could uh you know uh run with but there was still people behind me though yeah okay but uh it was just

funny because you know my experience in sports has never really been like that before because I've chosen sports that I'm, you know, we had that one episode where we were talking about some of the ideas that James Smith was sharing. And he was saying sometimes these sports pick us because you're super tall and you play basketball or whatever the case may be. And then you go and you're uncoordinated or whatever, but like, you're a little bit better than some of your friends. And so you get along with it. And next thing you know, you're, you're better than most of your friends and you're feeling pretty good about it. But, uh, this new, the running thing is still pretty new to me. This is my first marathon that I ever did. So I'm just, uh, gonna suck at it for a while and just I'll have to just embrace some of that, I guess. Do you plan on doing another one, another 26.2? I'm sure I'll do it at some point.

It's, you know, it was a hell of an experience. There's a lot to think about, you know, when I think of like, oh, yeah, I want to do another. I totally there's part of me that wants to do another one, but there's a part of me that's like your recovery was pretty harsh you know so but again i have to kind of look back at uh just dating back to maybe like two years ago or so when we had chris uh henshaw on the podcast um he was mentioning hey you know, just get yourself a good goal is to get yourself to be able to run for like 20 minutes straight. And I was like, how the fuck am I going to figure that out? And now I could run for three or four hours, five hours straight. And it's, it's, uh, it costs me something, but it's not, uh, it's not, it's not my like maximum capacity

even. So I definitely will do another one in the future. So let me ask you this, man, uh, when it came to doing that race, cause you've done multiple half marathons, right? How, what, I guess what, what happened? What, what surprised you about this doing a 26.2 versus that? Cause in your runs before this, you've done like an 18 or 20 mile run in training, You've done like an 18 or 20 mile run in training, right? Yeah, yeah. I've done, I went 18 miles. I went over 18 miles a handful of times, literally a handful of times, probably five times. And at one point I did like a 22 mile run.

And on that day I actually made a point to, I ran a mile, I ran a mile into my warmup and I ran a mile afterwards. So I ended up going like 24, 25 miles just so I was pretty close to that 26, and I was like, all right, I'm good. But one of the challenges, there's many challenges because, as you guys know, game day is way different than training. Training is training, and you get to kind of get to like really do whatever you want in training. If you have honest training and you have a coach and you're part of a team,

it's a little different because they could drill you and make sure that you're doing things in a real precise way. But when you're out there running on your own, you know, I could stop off at my dad's house on my route and use the bathroom. I could drink some water. I can kind of rest. I can chill. I could run some water. I can kind of rest. I can chill. I could run to my car. It's very common. Runners will, they'll like loop back to their car. They might sit down for a couple seconds, retie their shoes, drink some water, pour some water on their head. These are all things you could do in a race, but you're more than likely just not going to do some of those things. It's going to be a little tougher to relax with the energy of everyone else running and stuff like that.

And so this race, you know, had the major challenge of the Boston marathon is the Hills. Yeah. It has a net negative in terms of its climb. You know, when you're, when you're, when you look at it, if you look it up, Andrew, you can kind of see like the, I guess elevation of the Boston marathon, maybe what it's called. Or the – it's very like – there's tons of hills.

And there's one hill in particular that's called Heartbreak Hill. And that one usually just makes people give up, makes people quit even though they don't want to. It's like a bonk? Like people will bonk on that hill or some shit people will bonk people will uh they'll cramp up severely and they just don't feel like they can continue any further it messes up a lot of people they actually think that it may have even messed up kip choge who's the greatest you know one of the greatest runners of all time so it shows the course has 891 feet of elevation gain. Yep. And you might be able to find like a little map of it or something, or I could find it on my phone maybe. But the problem is, is the hills come way later in the race.

So as much as I was training, as much as I was trying to be diligent with training and be honest with my training, in Davis, we don't really have much in terms of hills. Yeah. And so what I would do at mile 18 18 so you see like there's some downward trajectory especially in the beginning but just imagine if you're running this race and you look at you look down around mile 15 or 16 there's a lot of murderous hills coming and then there's that real big one at what mile is that like mile 20 i'd say something like that yeah somewhere between 20 and 22 so to kind of put it in perspective for you guys, for me, for where I'm at, like there could be some runners listening to this and be like, come on, give me a break, dog. Not that big a deal.

Every single step that you take becomes a big deal at some point. And on this day, the cool thing is that that never happened to me. I never got really like fucked up when I was running. While I was running, I felt good. I did walk a bunch of the race too, especially in the beginning because I wanted to really try to conserve energy for later. Just the way that my training went and just my own thoughts. I was like, you know what?

I, I need to be really cautious with this. I need to be really cautious with this. I need to be really smart. So I got to stay, I got to keep things kind of slow. I got to stay in my lane, not get caught up with the energy that you're seeing from everybody else. And I just, I wasn't trying to like race anybody. I wasn't really trying to. And that was evident in how long it took me. And here's something I think is kind of cool that goes along

with a lot of the stuff that I share on the podcast about not trying, you know, and just doing and then also staying in your own lane and trying to do. I was just there for, I was there for other reasons other than myself, of course, but I was there pretty much for myself, there pretty much to see how I can progress and to challenge myself. It's like my own journey, you know, and there's people there to support me. My wife was amazing. My coach was, there's a lot of people, a lot of family members went and stuff like that. But ultimately you're facing that shit on your own. It's like, it's a lonely road a bit, you know, and you're out there on that course for a really long time.

And I said to myself, you know, this is your journey and this is your, this is what you're going to go through. So not, not only is it about getting through the race, but it's also about being able to recover from the race. So I had that thought in mind. I know some people might be like deep water, bro. Like just go for it. But I've already been hospitalized by, you know, some training with running, right? I went to the emergency room. I didn't know what was going to happen going 26 miles. I mentioned to some people before I've had trouble with muscle cramps since the time I was a kid. And I'm always kind of fearful it's

always in the back of my head you're gonna like cramp up no one's gonna be able to help you not only is your leg gonna cramp your stomach's gonna cramp your ball up and I just think these like catastrophic things and I do walk myself away from those things because I know how to do some of that but anyway uh it wasn't about just the marathon it was also about how the fuck are you going to recover from this monumental effort yeah and how was that for you like the the recovery post-marathon how did that go it took just as long for me to recover as it did for me to do the race and what i forgot to mention was i don't even know if i'll ever find out how long the race took because at mile 13 when i went to use the bathroom i don't know what happened in that bathroom

my chip died and it stopped like registering so i think some people on the internet thought i took a bus or you maybe fucking rode a bike to the finish line or something um but anyway you anyway, you know, the, the thing died and I didn't, I don't even really know what my time was, but I do know that I started at 1115 and I do know that I, uh, was at the finish line around 6 PM or something like that, but I don't know exactly what the time was. Okay. So it took me a long ass time, but what was interesting was to watch shane who's uh dr gabrielle lyon's husband he he did the race in 345 so he did really really well his first race he did in new york marathon he did it like in like 540 and he like fell apart and he was like dying and everything and uh he just had a hell of a time with it this one he got an opportunity to train a

lot better for it he's a former uh navy seal so he knows what's up he knows about pain yeah and he just went out there and ran like a lunatic i think he did like an 8 30 minute mile pace kind of the whole the whole time he's a monster but what i noticed from him by the time i got back to the apartment he was already starting to do a little bit better. His like skin color was a little off and stuff, but then he was starting to do better and he was starting to feel better. And then he started like eating stuff. So I was like,

Oh, he's doing pretty good. But I was like, I was out there for a lot longer and I'm not as in shape as he is. So ironically, it took him three hours, three something hours to do the race, close to four hours.

It took him about the same amount of time to recover. And it took me the same. It took me about six hours to do the race. It took me about six hours of recovery. So I was up until like one o'clock in the morning or something like that, just kind of pacing back and forth. I had to pee nine million

times because of the amount of liquid that i consumed um at one time i just all of a sudden got nauseous out of nowhere and just fucking barfed like i just one of those like massive massive pukes that projectile yeah it kind of came out of nowhere but i guess that's what my body needed when did this happen? After the race, probably about three or four hours after the race. My body's just not used to any of this. This is the exact opposite of anything I've ever done before in my life. And it was quite obvious. But what I was telling Andrew, which I think is pretty cool, is that I had to utilize every single thing that we've learned on this podcast in that adventure.

And Dan Garner was there to help me. My wife was there to help me. And I had a lot of friends and stuff that were close by to assist. But I'm drinking electrolytes. I'm like, I think I might need more magnesium. So I'm making these little concoctions. I knew I needed to eat, but I also was nauseous. So I was like, it doesn't make sense for me to really, you know, eat a bunch of food right now because I'm just probably going to barf it all back up.

All the breathing stuff that we learned, I noticed that my heart rate would – I didn't have like a monitor on or anything, but I could feel it. I could feel like my heart rate was like elevated. Just if I was just to completely take a wild guess, I would say that my heart rate was probably 90 or a hundred just kind of sitting there because my body's like inflamed and it's, so I had to, I'd sit there and work on some breathing. Huberman talks about the double inhale. I'd do a bunch of that and just really try to just, dude, relax. Fucking let it go. Like just relax. And I kept telling myself that and I kept getting up and going walking and then using the bathroom and moving, moving, moving because I didn't want to cramp.

And so I just was trying to keep everything moving. I sat back down. I'd work on the breathing again. I just put that shit on repeat for hours and hours and hours and that in my opinion was way the fuck more tiring than the actual marathon itself if you can believe that i can't believe that what do you mean it was maddening it was like pissing me off really it was super annoying i mean i don't know what to even compare it to but um it was like i was done like i fucking did the race i want to just have a beer and like a steak and fucking go to bed you know like i i you know i want to just hang out with everybody i want to just kind of chill but i got to do these like drills i had to like stretch i had to keep moving i had to

you know just kind of pick up my legs i had to squat down on the chair and do like little squats and stuff because I could tell that my body like it needed that. It needed to keep moving in some way. And I knew that if I was just to like blob out on the couch that that would have been a fucking horrible idea. idea i kind of know what you're talking about because some like there have been times when i've had like really fucked up workouts where like afterwards especially cardio stuff where afterwards if i would sit down relax it's like my body wanted to seize up and i had to get up and just like move some so i wouldn't just you know what i mean is that kind of what you felt a hundred percent that's exactly what i felt and uh i looked at my bed a couple times i'm like i just want to hit that bed and just fucking lay down but i was like i was like that's not i'm not ready yet i'm not ready yet and i i wouldn't really allow myself to go to bed until i had some food because i thought that i was thinking like i really didn't get a chance to eat

much all day i had like bars and goos and like weird shit all day because i was running and so i finally got an opportunity to eat some rice stomach finally calmed down yeah and i naturally was kind of just like falling asleep in this chair that i was sitting in i'm like this okay this is perfect and so i was finally able to go to bed and i just kind of like rolled on my side and just like laid there and my body just, just blobbed out. And I probably slept for like four or five hours, got up the next day and felt good. Went on a walk, feet were a little fucked up, but, um, that next day, uh, that next day was, was not too bad recovery wise. So it took me about six hours to recover and be like normal-ish from it. And then it probably took about 12 hours for me to actually recover from it and actually be able to like, you know, go on a walk or something like that. Were there any like, I guess like scares as you were recovering?

You're talking about your heart rate, the throwing up would be kind of weird. But was there anything, because you know, you've experienced what that was like going to the ER. Was there any kind of scare or worry with the recovery? Yeah, I was a little nervous, but I also had a lot of people with me. You know, I had a lot of people right there with me. And I also have, like, a lot of friends that are, like, nurses and stuff. I could call people, like, if I just, you know, someone would be like, dude, you know, you got to go to the. The only thing anyone would have really been able to do for me in that instance, I think, would be to like give me like an IV or something.

So one thing I kind of think of, you just got to, you just got to, it's like being sick. You know, what do you do when you're sick? You just got to go through it. You know, you just got to like barf a couple times and then, and then you're good. barf a couple times and then and then you're good um but yeah that i think the you know the main one of the main kind of take homes from the whole thing was for me to be able to get through all that it was really helpful to know all the stuff that we've learned on this show like that was really helpful and that was uh really enlightening and when i was um running the marathon as i got further and further into it i was like oh this is like what people are always talking about.

People are always talking about trying to run your own race. You know, my uncle told me that my uncle has run, I don't know, like 60 or 70 marathons, I think. And he's run a marathon in almost every state. He's been doing it for a long ass time. I think, and he's run a marathon in almost every state. He's been doing it for a long-ass time. Damn. And he told me, like, you know, run your own race.

And he mentioned, like, starting slow. I'm like, I'm not only going to start slow. I'm going to go slow the entire fucking time. And I probably went too slow, to be quite honest with you. I probably went too slow. But looking back at it, it's probably a good thing because who knows what the recovery would have looked like if I would have went a little faster, you know? Dude, it's really awesome though. The fact that like, okay, 330 to 230, you've done a high level power lifting, you've done body, a bodybuilding show where you got extremely lean, like you took it there.

And now you've done multiple half marathons and you just ran at 26.2, you're still around 230. You've, you've, that, That's pretty fucking wild, man. Like how do you feel getting ready for this? What do you think changed with your body and how you feel like even how you feel right now versus how you felt like – because you were two something when you did the bodybuilding show. You were very lean. But there's a difference. Yeah.

to something when you did the bodybuilding show. You were very lean, but there's a difference. Yeah. You know, when I was powerlifting, I felt like very capable of doing the stuff that my, that was asking my body to do. Bodybuilding wise, I was capable of doing a lot of things I was asking myself to do in terms of a lifting portion. But in terms of the posing, I, I still needed a long way to go to be able to learn that and to be able to like show off whatever physique i was able to develop and i just think

bodybuilding wise i think i could do pretty decent with bodybuilding in terms of like i think i could get pretty lean and stuff like that i don't mind pushing into that part of it um however i just don't think i would make like a very good bodybuilder. Like, I just think that maybe if I, if I worked on it when I was younger or something, you know, I just don't feel like I have whatever the factors are in bodybuilding that I see from other people. I don't think I'd ever be that great at that sport, to be honest with you. I guess I could put a lot of effort into it and maybe just not get the same out of it as somebody that is uh more skilled or has been doing it for a longer period of time with running I don't have a lot of gears yet I probably only have

like gears one like I need I need five gears probably and I think at the moment I only have three. So when I was, when I was doing the marathon, I kind of was aware of that. Like you didn't really get an opportunity to really build out the fourth gear. Cause most of my training has been, a lot of my training has been aerobic, which is good. I built out a base, like congratulations, you built out a slow, a slow moving pace. That's perfect. But I haven't been able to tap into those workouts that make you barf, like doing like eight 400s or something like that. Not that I couldn't do one.

I could do them. But I don't have proficiency with them. I don't have a lot of experience with those things so i think over time i'll feel better and better about running as i build out those extra gears because in the boston marathon i basically just use gears one and two and i knew better to not use gear like dude you use gear three you're giving me a lot of trouble quick if you try to like you know really run these hills real hard and shit like that you're you're going to be able to come back from that. Like I don't know what the consequences would be.

But I'd probably get rhabdo. I probably would end up in the hospital. So for now, I feel pretty good with running. But I have a whole nother, probably about another year of being able to build another gear. And then even beyond that, I need to work on being able to build out another gear from there. Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping

on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they can have their own temperature settings. We all sleep hot here. And I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. That doesn't happen anymore because of the Eight Sleep mattress. And I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get

it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash powerproject, and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, eightsleep.com slash powerproject. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. So then which one was the most difficult? Because I feel like a lot of people are going to have that question because I do. Power lifting, bodybuilding, marathon. know i do uh power lifting bodybuilding marathon power lifting you know was just something that i got exposed to at a really young age so power

power lifting power lifting only got hard when i like concentrated on it when i was a little bit older and when i was like trying to squat a thousand pounds and shit like that. Yeah. Before that, it was actually never really even felt that hard even to squat like 800 pounds, 900 pounds. It just felt like natural progression. It felt like natural progression from the style of training that I was doing. natural progression from the style of training that I was doing. Bodybuilding, I really, I admire bodybuilding a lot because the 24-7 of that one is pretty damn intense. Yeah, the dieting, I mean, there's a lot that goes into that. But a marathon, it's hard to really say.

The marathon was only as hard as I wanted to make it, right? So, like, I took my time with it. My brother asked me, my brother was like, how hard was it? I was like, it didn't really feel hard. I never felt compromised, but it was only as hard as I wanted to make it. hard was it was like it didn't really feel hard i never felt compromised but it was only as hard as i wanted to make it and now i could have went out there and been like dude i'm gonna have an 11 minute mile pace the whole time and i could have just put myself through some sort of agony but i also think like that's in the future like but i'm when i when i do decide to do something

like that um i'm gonna have a capacity to run a nine or 10 minute mile pace. You know what I mean? Like, I think that you should be, you should have this capacity that could be pretty intense, but in a sport that doesn't have a lot of intensity like marathon running, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to, to try to smash yourself with. I think some,

you hear so many horror stories of people like going out way too fast. And so, you know, because you know that then you, you got to kind of start it out a little slower. Yeah. I would say, I would say, I would say that most people can probably figure out a way to run a marathon. I would say that most people probably can't figure out how to get up on a bodybuilding stage and just about anybody can power lift because you can have, you could have two left feet and power lifting and you don't need a lot of coordination. And I think you could figure it out. But getting on a bodybuilding stage, I think would be the absolute hardest for most people, unless they were just naturally lean and thin.

You know, the cool thing though about the cool thing about all of this is that a lot of people mention how you cannot, I guess, run a lot of miles, right, without losing a lot of muscle. Nick Bear, when he transitioned to running, he wanted to take it to a place where he's like, okay, I'm going to get pretty damn good at this. I want to be able to do a – was it a sub-three marathon that he ran for? Yeah, he did a sub three. He also ran like a under a five minute mile. Yeah. So the interesting thing is like he had over, you saw how fast he wanted to get that goal.

So he dropped quite a bit of weight to achieve that. But the thing is, is if you want to run and you want to enjoy running, you don't have to take it there. You've, you've kind of shown that like you can become proficient and you can, you can, you don't have to take it there. You've kind of shown that. You can become proficient and you can get a lot of miles in,

but that doesn't mean you have to downsize a bunch. You may have lost a little bit of muscle, but still looking at you, you're still 230 something. You're still in the gym lifting with Kenny, doing bodybuilding work, and you're still going out and you're doing running. It kind of goes into what you mentioned,

how you just need to pace yourself. If you pace yourself and you run where you're comfortable and you just, you're patient enough for yourself to stay in that zone, you can run miles and lift in the gym and probably do strength training and be perfectly okay. Yeah. It's been, it's been a lot of fun. It's been awesome. I actually, when I first started running, I gained weight, which is actually a little bit more common than people might think. Um, but then also after doing the marathon, actually pretty much anytime I did a really long run, I gained weight. Um, just like a true fat kid. I, when I came back, I weighed two 36. I'm like, what in the fuck is going on? I mean,

I did eat some pizza and stuff like that. Like, I definitely ate some things that were, like, off my normal menu. But it didn't feel like I was, like, eating a lot. Why is this happening? Why? Why am I gaining so much weight? I don't understand. Calories in, calories out. I just ran a marathon.

Obviously, it doesn't work. Yeah. This energy balance thing is bullshit, man. But, you know, when you do run run more you are going to be more hungry yeah so i think people need to be conscious of that i actually think that um running for like really long distances i i think it's just it's like a mental thing like you and you enjoy that to a certain extent people start to like that but i don't really think it's i don't think it's that great for your physique i don't think it's that great in general it might be pretty good for like mental health stuff but um anything just i don't know anything over like eight miles i think is just i don't think there's a lot of reasons for

people to really worry about that to be honest with. I think if people could figure out a way to run two to four miles, two to five miles, somewhere in that range. That's me. Well, I think that's – That's how mature. I honestly think that's plenty. If you can run for 20 to 40 minutes straight, that's a lot of running. That's a lot of training.

I think you'll be pretty safe. I think you'll be happy with your results. You can work on being faster within those 20 minutes over time. And I have friends that they'll drop their kids off at like a soccer practice or something like that. And they'll go tighten up their shoes and they'll go take off for like a 20, 30 minute run. They'll zoom back over, pick their kid back up. And's a great way to have it's it's a great skill to learn there you go to be able to uh you know have your whole life you can utilize it whenever you want i try to encourage you know my son and my daughter and other people like you guys can run like decently now so you should try to try to nudge nudge you should try to keep

that like occasionally just go out and just or just run on a treadmill like i think it's a great skill to have yeah like i think actually we'll probably talk about this later um but you know don't you it's it's cool that you don't have to be the person that like lifts and you straight train but you can't run a mile right like we now like we we've seen so many people do it. You can go run a few miles. You're going to keep all your gains. You can go and you can lift all of that and you now have a new skill or a new capacity that you can build out for the future. And just that ability to actually – your body has changed a lot as you've run and as like the way you move. All those things have become more fluid, which is going to allow you to move even better when you're in the gym.

I think you get better recovery too from your workouts. Like the more fit you are, the better shape that you're in, the easier it's going to be to recover from your workouts. And it just – I don't know. It just kind of makes things more fun. If I just – so marathon training is like a totally different thing. But marathon training aside, if you just run occasionally, you'll feel a nice burst of energy in your body. You'll feel good. Like you'll feel like someone says, Hey, you know, can you turn the radio up or something? And you're in the gym, you'll run over to the thing because

you have extra energy and that feels good to you. Normally I'd be like, okay. And I'd walk over, take me a half hour to walk over there and turn the music up or something like that. So it's a lot of little things. And, and from running a cool thing about running is that it balanced out my lifting. And there's, there's been a lot of points where I was actually telling my wife this when we went out to dinner, I said, because I was, I was kind of fucked up the day after, you know, I'm kind of waddling, you know, I'm like, when I was powerlifting, I was waddling. And as soon as I got deep into this training, here I am, you know, back to waddling. I'm like, I fucking hate waddling around. I don't, I don't like being like this wrecked. I don't mind it for a competition or

for something here and there is fine. But, um, the point being is that if you balance your training out correctly, you should feel good. Like you, you shouldn't feel like, what's the point in being able to like bench 500 pounds or, or be really strong, but you can't even get violent with somebody because you're all fucked up from your training all the time. So if somebody,

if somebody is like, do something to me or to my wife, like, and I'm, I just did a marathon. I'm be like all fucking hobbling around, not being able to like do shit not being able to defend myself i mean i just say i thought you're talking about sex doc like you're like get violent i'm like well that's you yeah but when you when you went with i was like oh you like violent sex

hey hey if i if i say I'm into it too, does that help? It's like when your girl finds what you were watching. Do you like this? It depends on how they ask you the question. You're like, well, I was just kind of scrolling. And then they're like, I'm waiting. And you're like, yeah. You're like, shit, I didn't know. Holy fuck, that's hot hot i didn't know you're into that god damn i

could do that you never know until you try yeah well there is that part of it though too i mean even just being able to fuck right yes all that running you know can uh can fuck with you a little bit just like lifting and dieting and all these things that can mess with your dick. And that ain't a great place to be. It is not. So back to the Boston Marathon prep. How was the night before? Did you have a hard time falling asleep or anything like that? In terms of sleep stuff, I paid attention to that a lot.

A handful of days before, I tried to get a little bit extra sleep. I shut things down with like stuff, work stuff here. I stopped lifting for a couple days, probably for six or eight days or something like that. I just had a lot less on my plate so I could just like really lounge around and relax. At the same time, not sleep so much that I mess up my own regular sleep time and schedule. Um, but something I've been working on for a while now is just to get to bed earlier and getting to bed earlier has really helped. And I don't know what kind of truth there is behind this, uh, Harry Potter sorcery, but I've heard somebody mentioned that when you go to sleep at 8 o'clock at around 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., those hours are supposed to represent – and I could be spitting some false bullshit right here.

But those hours are supposed to represent two hours per every hour that you're sleeping. So those are supposed to be – I don't know the science behind it. I would imagine that it matters what time of year it is and all that stuff. But I've been really messing with that for a while now. And that's been feeling really good. I don't usually go to bed at eight. I usually go to bed more like at nine, nine 30. And that's been really, really helpful. And so I did that all leading up to the race. And then when we were in Boston, I just did the same thing. I tried to get to bed early and the night before I slept fine two nights before I slept a little bit weird because that we just

arrived in Boston and just I don't know my shit was thrown off a little bit but yeah the night before was good and that's all I really was hoping for so I I was able to figure that out enough to be able to get good rest yeah because there's the time zone change too so i'd imagine that probably the reason why that first night was messing with you and you know it was amazing like when we got there andy and i got to spend like a day there just kind of chilling not doing a whole lot and then the next day you know my family is like there's this like the fucking giant flock. They just go whoosh. And Dan Garner came in and he was – been my coach.

He's the one that helped write the Faster Than 50 program that you can get from withinubrand.com. All we need is your email and you can get the – you can see how I trained for the marathon. But Dan came in and his flight was delayed and he was just having like a rough day and he didn't know like what his situation was going to be because he was staying with us. But we're supposed to have more people that stay with us and that didn't work out. So he didn't know if he was sleeping on a couch or whatever. And he comes in and we have this like really nice like loft thing that we're in. And he looks at his room. He's like, holy fuck, I get a whole room. I get my own bed.

I go, yeah, and come into the kitchen. he's like holy fuck i get a whole room i get my own bed i go yeah and come into the kitchen we got like tons of steak and he comes in like having like a party we got like i don't know maybe like 20 of us there yeah he's like this is this is crazy i was like my family's fucking nuts man like they're i was like we're lucky that there wasn't like 50 or 60 people here because other people were just in different parts of the country and they just couldn't make it they were like on vacation and doing other stuff. But yeah, my cousins were there. My uncle was there and it was a lot of fun. That's dope. A quick note on the thing you were mentioning about sleep. If you do get to bed within those hours too, there is a bigger growth hormone release while you're sleeping versus if you go to sleep much later at night. So there's

a lot of shit. There's a lot of truth to what you're mentioning right there. Yeah, I need to dig up some of that information and look it up a little bit more. You hear this shit on Instagram, you're not really sure. But I have heard that before too. Cooperman mentioned it with a guest of his. If Cooperman said it, then we got to take it to the bank. We got to cash that shit. Yeah.

You said that in the beginning you were kind of trying to ignore a lot of the hype. You had your headphones on and you were trying to keep your excitement level down. How did you kind of, like, what were you thinking? What was going through your mind as you're trying to, like, filter out all the noise that's going around you and focus on just, you know, doing your game plan? So here's something that's really helpful. If you're ever going to run a marathon my advice is to get really high how with what well let me explain

so i mean i did have headphones on i was listening to joe rogan I listened to four episodes in a row of Joe Rogan, which is a lot of listening, right? You got smarter. Damn. Yeah, it was awesome. But before the race, I micro-dosed some LSD. During the race, I had some Mind Bullet, which is Kratom. And I also had THC chewable thingies that my brother gave me like a few weeks ago and i had acetaminophen and i had aspirin so i had all this stuff in my fanny pack

did you not learn from the last time no no i don't think i did i don't think i did well i was like you know what this is gonna be a long ass fight and uh i was like let's let's see what happens here so all right i have my lsd it's in like a little it's in like a little like mind bullet thing that i that i put the um hostage tape over so it's got black it's got it's just like a black bottle but it's got the hostage tape over top of it i'm like i make sure these bottles mixed up you know but uh it was funny because actually when my wife saw me when her and dan saw me the first time they happen to like i'm like sitting there trying to like sip down i'm trying to like get this uh fucking lsd in my mouth and there they are i'm like oh jesus christ

like just my just my luck you know right as i'm fucking like passing by them or whatever andrew dude you know on mark's page there's a photo of himself where he looks so happy while running i remember i looked at him like damn mark looks so fucking happy oh i'm blasted that makes so much sense now you're just full fucking high my brother my brother has a really good video but i don't i haven't even seen it yet i i'm yeah you zoom in yeah that was me the whole way dog you've probably just seen rainbows and unicorns and shit. THC is a hell of a drug. Nice, man. But yeah, so I had these little chews with me and I had a lot of stuff with me.

By the end of the race, man, I brought more stuff with me than I thought I was going to need. By the end of the race, it was all gone. By the end of the race, it was all gone. But it was actually really nice. I mean, it helped just kind of set me into a zone. It helped me.

I just got into like a little zone at some point because some of those hills, some of those monster hills, I was like, I'm not even going to bother to fuck with those hills. I'm not going to even bother to run half of them. But when I got there and I felt good i was like i think i can just like lightly jog them let me just i just kind of got in a zone where i was able to keep a slow pace i think my pace for the whole time was probably like 14 something might have even been a little higher but um i don't think that's too horrible i had a lot of runs and training that were around a 13 minute 13 to 14 minute mile pace yeah that were much long like long runs and the reason why those times end up my excuse the reason why those times end up being you know slower than people might think is just

because you stop and i drank so much fluid and like i was just again just really conscious of my history with cramping and stuff like that. I was just pound and fluid the whole time. I had like carb drinks and electrolytes and just really trying to be conscious of staying out in front of that hydration. And I would say like during the last half of the race, I must have went to the bathroom at least 10 or 15 times. It was fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have to poop?

I never had to poop. Good. I never had to poop, luckily. But yeah, my brother got some clip of me like coming out of the bathroom and I started running the wrong way. He's like, he's going like this. He's like, he's like that way. It's like the kid that scores on his own goal.

Oh, that might even been it right there yeah it looked like it because you were going the opposite and then there you go yeah and i i went the wrong way a couple times that was like actually like a fear of mine i was like am i gonna get lost during this thing never find the finish line oh nice but yeah to block other people out you know people were talking about the hills and they were really worried about Heartbreak Hill and I heard a lot of negativity. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, you know, I just got to like the hills. I think I think runners, I think some runners, some runners don't strength train.

And so it makes hills really, really hard because they're not super strong. But when you build up a capacity for some strength training, hills actually feel way better to you than even running on a flat surface. Even something like a sprint. Like a big guy has a pretty good chance to do okay sprinting up a hill. They are less likely to probably get hurt on a hill

than they would if they were to sprint on a flat surface because the flat surface you're going to generate more force you're going to move faster and if you're not used to moving faster and spend a while you could potentially get hurt but sprinting up a hill because of the resistance of it it's a little bit similar to lifting yeah where there's like a nice resistance to it slows you you down, and it's a little safer. So the Hills stuff, once I got to those Hills, it wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating. It wasn't nearly as bad as people were making it out to be, and that's because I just never allowed it to be a big deal. They kept talking about Heartbreak Hill.

People buy all these shirts, and I saw all that stuff, and I'm like, I'm not buying any of that shit. There's no Heartbreak Hill. I'm going to'm gonna fucking i'm gonna run through it i'm gonna be fine you've been training a lot you're gonna be good just trying to be positive well since it is saturday school um can you please let the class know and tell us um what did you learn with your overall experience with marathon training? You hear the saying all the time, it's a marathon and not a sprint. You hear that time and time and time again. And if I think back to my, like some of my business career stuff or think about the times where people kind of asked asked me uh you know what i was doing and they

were trying you know people ask you what you're doing sometimes because they're trying to size you up like what you up to nowadays you know like they haven't seen you in a while yeah and like well you know i started like it's uh i'm power lifting and like oh you're still doing that you know and you're just anyway my point being like, I was always confident in the fact that these things, I'm going to do them for a long time. I'm going to learn them. I'm going to absorb them. I'm going to watch videos on them. I'm going to go to the best coaches. I'm going to read the best books. I'm going to learn and absorb, get around when I'm lifting, I'm going to get around the best lifters. When I'm bodybuilding, I'm going to learn and absorb, get around when I'm lifting, I'm going to get around the best lifters. When I'm bodybuilding, I'm going to try to get around the best bodybuilders.

Who are the best bodybuilding coaches? Who's the best, when I was boxing, who's the best boxing coach? If I want to do track, I'm going to try to learn from someone that has pretty damn good experience in track. My friend, James Smith, the thinker, you know, he's worked with some really high level track coaches. So if I have a specific question in that realm or Jake Benson, who ran like a four 30 minute mile thing or whatever the hell, I'm going to ask those kind of people or I'm going to reference, you know, defer out to those people. And I've always done that and I've always taken my time with stuff. So some people that are listening right now, they might not feel like they're anywhere.

They might not feel like they're really making a lot of progress. I know it's really easy probably between the ages of, I think this age gap has extended longer and this could be a whole different podcast someday. But between the ages of like 19 and maybe 32, 35, a lot of young men are confused on what to do with themselves, where to go. They don't feel like they're anything. They don't feel like they know much. They don't feel like they have a skill. But I'm sure there are things that you're doing. There are things that you're working on. And if you just continue to work on those things from the time you're 19 until the time you're 29,

that's a decade of work and that will equal out to be something that will turn you into something. And so, you know, in preparing for this marathon, in preparing for a thousand pound squat and preparing for bodybuilding show, each time it made me into something a little different. Each time it kills off parts of you that you don't need anymore. Those parts of you kind of die off, the self-doubt and the things that you've told yourself that you can't do.

Those parts of you kind of die off, the self-doubt and the things that you've told yourself that you can't do. There's so many things. It's like limitless on the things that you tell yourself you can't, like, why can't you do them? Like, what are the things that you have a hard time doing right now? Whether it's something you feel you can't handle mentally or something you can't handle physically? You know, what are the things, I mean, even just when I was powerlifting, there was certain daily tasks that were kind of hard to do because of my size and because of how big I was. But once you move on to the next phase, once I lost weight and did bodybuilding, I killed off some of that stuff that I just didn't need

anymore because I was going through a different phase in my life. Go from bodybuilding into running, you kill off more self-doubt. So the journey of it all and just understanding that things just really take a long time. I think it's maybe like a lost art right now. I think people have a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress. They're very, very worried about where they're going to end up, which totally makes sense. And I think that, um, I think that most people that are smart are thinking that way and they are concerned. They are worried like, shit, you know, where am I going to be when I'm 28 or 29? Um, I'm not, you know, as I'm not as good as my friends at this or that,

but you got to remember, comparison is always the thief of joy and you're not trying to compare yourself to where someone is at right now. You're trying to compare yourself to who you were formally and comparing yourself to who you're going to be in the future, I believe.

Jordan Peterson had a quote that was similar to that. That's exactly what it's all about. So you might not be great at something right now, but if you take your time with it, put one foot in front of the other for a really long time, you're going to get better at it. And sometimes things don't take that long. It wasn't that long that I really had a hard time getting around the block with some running. I was doing walking and jogging. And now we're doing this show about me talking about a marathon taking me six hours. It's not going to take me six hours. Like that'll never happen again. It'll never take me six hours ever again.

Like that'll never happen again. It'll never take me six hours ever again. It'll probably at some point, at some point I'll probably be able to reach almost half that time or have it take four hours, something like that. I don't know. Who knows where I could push it to.

But the point is, is there's still a lot of room for improvement. And that is where I like to sit is I like to sit in focusing on improvement. And that's why I don't give a fuck about what my time was. I don't care if I ever find out. And people are like, what?

And I didn't get a medal. Cause like they just, right. They ran out of medals. They're probably going to send me one or whatever, but I don't really care. I didn't do it for that. I didn't do it to be like,

again, remember what I say about what I've said so many times on the show before. You're going to fucking suck anyway. No one cares. So even if I came back and I'm like, guys, guess what? I did it in five hours. You're like, all right, well, that's cool. Good for you.

Fist bump. Go on with your regular day. I mean, if I came back and I was like, dude, I got a sub three, right? Like now we're kind of talking about those are, those are like, those are real like runner times. Right. Um, but again, that would be me comparing myself to other people and where they're at and why do I care? They have most of those people probably have a history of running or they have circumstances that are different. And it's great that they're doing great with that, but got my own shit going on. Right. And so concentrate on yourself, understand it's a marathon and not a sprint. Take your time with everything and understand that you might not be super pumped

about where you're at right now, but if you're going to do something about it and not be a bitch and not cry about it, that 10 years from now, you'll be proficient at something and you could do something that you love for the rest of your life. Andrew, take us on out of here. All righty. Thank you everybody for checking out this edition of Mark Bell Saturday School. Please drop those comments down below. Hit that like button and subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already. Follow the podcast at MB Power Project all over the place. My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? And Seema Inyang. We're on Instagram, YouTube. And Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter. Discord's down below.

We did a Discord Q&A for you guys. So if you want to ask us questions for the next Q&A, head to that. Mark. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Fuck you, Boston Marathon. Catch you guys later.

Bye.