Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. 40 - 60 year old 13x Ironman competitor - Ross Thompson

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

Most people at any age don't run long distance. Now put yourself at age 60 and you have Ross who has competed in 13 Ironman's, has qualified for the world ironman race in Hawaii and to top it off he has his eyes set on running a 100 mile race. Just let that sink in.  Enjoy.  

Hi, this is Ross Thompson. Welcome to the Sean Newman broadcast. This episode is brought to you by Factory Sports Excellence. With the Saskalta hockey season just right around the corner here, October 26 it kicks off, Metal Lake at Lashburn and Wainwright at Kids Scotty. They want you to stop in, take a look at their twigs. They got excellent selection.

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I'll make sure to try and get you a shout-out on here. And, yeah. Now, this week on the podcast is Ross Thompson. And you heard from right at the beginning. He is a 60-year-old guy from Lloyd Minster, who runs an absolute, it just hurts your brain how much he runs. And on top of that, he's completed, or not completed, he's been in 13 Iron Man's. And I believe he'll correct us right at the start here.

But, and he's looking to do bigger and better things. I mean, it's just, it's hard to fathom. Anyways, without further ado. I'm sitting with Ross Thompson in Lloydminster here. Actually, we tried doing this a couple times now. And I almost backed out on him again tonight because it seems I don't have my stuff together. But we're here tonight at the Upgrader, so a new spot for me to go, which has been pretty cool. Because I locked myself out of the office.

My comfort zones here, right? That's right. So the good thing is, we're in your safe place. So we're going to learn a little bit about you running Ironmans, you're running your triathlons. for listeners, I've been saying this since I said you were coming on. You're 60 years old. Yes. And just completed your 13th triathlon, correct?

Iron man, Iron man. Iron man, yes. Just to correct that, I have started 13 and finished 12. 12 is a magical number for getting invited to the legacy program and going to Kona in Hawaii. So, yeah. 12 is the number you got to get to in order to get invited to world. Yeah, the world championship in Hawaii. So if you've done it long enough, you will get there.

And it's just a matter of time. There's different ways of qualifying, is winning your age group. Yeah. Or going through the legacy program, which is that's sheer amount of just doing it. Just doing it, yeah. And I hit the magic number.

of this year. So it was good. Has that always been the goal then? No. Or did you even know about that in the beginning? No, no. You know, we're lined up, ready to sign up for one, I think it was my third or fourth one in Penticton. And I was chatting with a guy and he said it was his, I think it was his 10th. And at that time the magic number was 10th.

And I go, oh, okay, well, that's kind of interesting. going to Hawaii and competing, like I don't compete well in heat. And you got heat, humidity, and the wind, and you go, yeah, not really what I wanted to do. But as you keep doing more and more of them, you know, it becomes kind of a realistic goal that, hey, you know, maybe someday I can get there. And, yeah, it's not going to be a lot of fun racing there for me because of the heat and everything. but yeah that's kind of where we ended up. He just kept going and going and going until he hit 12. So let's go back to an ear kick because I'm curious.

Like did you just always run? Was that something that you were just in from a little kid? You just popped out and way you went? No, no. I grew up playing hockey and played hockey right up through Till High School. And after high school, I needed something to, you know keep myself in shape and started kind of long distance running long distance at that time was like maybe five kilometers you know and then i got well geez i'm not very fast at that so

moved up to running a little bit further which is 10 and hung there for quite a while you know just i used that as a conditioning tool to play hockey and uh after After a while, they just got to a point where, let's try something different. And did a few half marathons, moved up to a marathon distance, and ran a few of those, and found out that, geez, I'm not very fast at that either. So what else been doing? A hockey player in me is curious. What did you play growing up in hockey?

Center. And did you midget and quit, or were the... Well, midget, AAA. Yeah. And then the summer I graduated, I said, well, let's go out and play some junior V hockey. So play for medicine hat? Yeah, Cubs. Okay.

Right? And, yeah, that was, wasn't that fun. Because I'm not the biggest guy. Yeah. What's your stature? What do you? Five, six. Five, six?

Yeah, 150. Really? Yeah. Oh, geez. I used to be five, six and a half. half and you start to shrink after a while i would have given you i would have given you five seven five eight when i walked in i guess we're going to have to stand side by side i i call myself five seven but uh well okay well you'll uh no i you know i have five six one fifty okay and that's what i was when

i played played hockey yeah yeah yeah so you had to be uh i had to be fast pick your pick your places yes and you know thankfully i always had larger wing mates that uh you know you know kind of always doled me out of problems. How was playing hockey back in that time? Well, I was going to say, do you remember the gas offs and the end and the recurrents and those guys? You probably don't because it's long before your time in the late 70s. Yeah. And it was goon hockey.

Okay. I mean, that's when... So was Ross Thompson a scrapper back in the day? No. No. I would... I would... jab and run.

It would be a jab with my stick. Yeah. And the big line mates would come rolling in to make sure that you... They took care of business. Yeah. I always had a stick that was very robust, right? It would not break. And that was...

Wood sticks? Yeah, they were wood. But then they started to fiberglass shafts, right? Yeah. And you could get some pretty mean sticks. that they would not break. You know, I didn't bring you on to talk hockey, but thinking back to the old sticks,

those weren't that expensive either. Like, I mean, the newer ones at the time, maybe were a little over 100 bucks, maybe? No, no, no, no, no. We had one my first, let's see that, my first expensive hockey stick, I remember my dad spent five bucks. Five bucks?

Five bucks, and it was a coal hole. I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to race that part. $100. No, it was $5. You know what they're paying now for a bloody stick? Oh, yeah. $300 and like $40.

Yes, and they're doing that with, you know, kids are spending that kind of money on it. And to me it's crazy. But, you know, that's the price of playing hockey, I guess, nowadays. It's almost become like, or maybe it always has been. I don't know, the rich man's game. Because I don't know how the heck you afford a $340 stick. Right?

All that equipment adds up. That is like... Absolutely. You know, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I was in Edmonton that was at one of the pro-fitting skate places getting my last pair of skates. Yeah. And I think they were like $4,500, custom fit. Custom fit.

And there's a young guy beside me that was trying to talk his mom into replacing his skates because they were, you know, three or four months old, and he'd gone through three or four months old. Yeah, seriously. You know, and there, she was getting talked into buying a second pair of skates because they were, I don't know, worn out or whatever. And I'm just looking at my son going,

Jesus, you know, this is, this is nuts. And, you know, from there we walk over and you take a look at the hockey sticks, you know, and at that time they were only $100. right and they just gone up from there yeah it's yeah no it's been pretty amazing to watch how expensive I would like I don't know what they put in that sticks anymore gold well I mean I know the technology is getting better but you think at some point they'd just be able to find a way to create a hundred dollar stick that would be well absolutely they do you know what there's why

would they sell them at a hundred dollars right you know it's the same as bikes you know they've got you know they've gone from metal bikes to chrome or uh carbon bikes yeah and you know like when they first carbon came out and what 2006 2007 um very expensive and now they're pressing them out left and right and they're still expensive yeah and uh yeah that's with the you know same thing with carbon sticks you're just crazy and they don't last very long no well no that's that's the whole thing with a new stick you try and you kind of try and break it in the first month so you can at least get a second stick right you got a month warranty you're like geez let's get rid let's just at least get a second so at least now instead of paying 340 i'm paying 170 and at least it kind of

makes sense which it still doesn't make sense yeah no it's uh crazy crazy sport can't wait for my grandson to get there sorry i got exactly five dollars for a stick yeah Yeah, and my dad was sweating over that. You know, it was... Well, cost of living back then was different, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it was... And, you know, that stick went on to last almost the full year, right?

So, you know, you got one in the fall and kind of won maybe for Christmas. Yeah. You know, another $5 sick. And that was good enough for the year. And, of course, the older you got and the different levels you played in, There was some sponsorship that kicked in and bought sticks and that type of stuff. You thought you'd won the lottery. Oh, absolutely.

You know, you started off the year with six sticks. You know, like, that was awesome. And, of course, I'm so small. I didn't break them anyway. You know, some of my buddies were a little bit larger than I was, and they went through a lot more sticks than I ever did. Yeah. I got to ask, as people are going to hear.

my voice is going to be cracking, probably in this entire interview, I'm fighting the dang cold. Motion centers? Why the lights go off? Motion sensors? Timers. Timers. So you got to get up and walk around? No, no.

You just got to yell down the hallway and they'll turn lights back on. Really? Yeah. So do we have to do that, or are we going to? We're good. We're good? All right, okay. I can still see in the dark.

Hey, I'm telling the list there. I wish I had this on video, but as the sun slowly goes down, me and Ron, You're going to have this really interesting time of not being able to see each other. And that's going to make this really interesting. But I'm game for it. I'm interested to see how this goes. Yeah, no, I'm okay. So let's go back.

You're playing junior B hockey. You're running at the same time to essentially condition yourself for hockey. Yeah, yeah. Did you play any other sports back then? Did you like... Fastball. We played fastball in the summer. Okay.

And... Now fastball, baseball, you mean? No. Fastball like windmill. Yeah, fastball. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I preferred fastball over baseball.

It was a, it's a quicker game. You know, there's, you know, the ball moves quicker. Fields are shorter. Yeah. Everything happens faster. You can make, as a pitcher, that ball can go anywhere. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I never pitched. What position you play? Center field. Center field. Yeah, they just got me out chasing balls. That's right. I was a left field. I was pretty good at chasing.

down balls. How did you guys do? Actually, Western Canada. We play second. Western Canada when I was playing midget, so I'm not sure what level or what age group that it was. But, yeah, we placed a couple times second. And we lost out to a team from Vancouver.

You know, they had some pretty good pitchers, so did we. Yeah. And, yeah, we lost out, last game, 2-1. and that was the end of my fastball career. I also grew up playing fastball back before baseball became the craze in this area, back when fastball was the craze in this area. And we won Westerns once in Medicine Hat. Awesome.

And why that sticks out is because it was 40, I want to say 43 above. Yeah. It was, you couldn't keep fluid in you quick enough. It was just vacating your body. Well, it's a dry heat down there right too. So, you know, when you're from Lloyd Minster, 43 dry heat or not, it feels like it's about 150. Yeah, no, I've done very little training back there because there, they are like five degrees warmer than we are. Yeah.

And I've been down there a couple times riding my bike around. And, yeah, I just, that heat down there, it's, yes, it's dry and it's warm and it's windy. You know, you think Lloyd Minister is windy, but down there, it's, you know, it's, that's where the wind starts. That's where the wind starts. Yeah, and there's nothing that slows it down. Here we've got a few little hills or whatever, but yeah. So you finish out your ball career, your hockey career.

Do you obviously go to school then? Well, no, all my training was done through like correspondence, right? Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So I went to work at petrochemical plant medicine app. Okay. And they introduced me to this power engineering system. So I just took all my courses through correspondence. And then he challenged provincial exams from there.

So I did that for my third class, fourth and third class. So, yeah, so that's not recommended. Not recommended way of going about it. It's go to school. Go to school. Get your education. Yeah, it's a tough way of doing it. do it that way so i gotta ask at what point then do you get this crazy idea of like well not crazy

you shouldn't say that nah i'm gonna say it's a crazy idea of let's start running to me it's a crazy idea let's start running longer than 10k 10k i can understand that 10k doesn't seem that bad like does it start back in your 20s you start doing triathlons and kind of working towards this or Is this something later on in life you kind of stumble upon and maybe you can lead me through a little bit of that? Sure. No, when I was, we were down in Madison Hat, we moved to Kidamat, BC for three years. Okay. And out there, I played senior hockey out there.

What was that like? You got to remember, I love how you always bring it back to hockey with me. I'm a hockey guy threw him through. So for people who are listening to the first time and haven't listened to one of the 30-some episodes before this, I'm a hockey guy through and through. Still playing senior hockey. I love senior hockey. What was senior hockey like out in BC?

Again, it's different, right? Up where we're at where we were. The big battles were with terrors, which is 50 kilometers away. And not being from the area. I mean, those battles really meant nothing to an outsider playing hockey. And, yeah, it's good. You mean fans? No.

Not many. Not many, eh? No. It was more of a, yeah, like, 20, maybe. Mostly girlfriends at that time. They would show up for games. It was, to be quite honest, it wasn't very entertaining. It was, you know, there was a few goals scored,

but there was a lot of scraps going on. And once again, you were poking and leaving. Absolutely, yes. I'd stay, you know, like some of the old barns up there, like those are old barns. And the boards were well used. And, I mean, you did not want to get hit into those. You know, there's the ones that they've got, you know, bleachers right in behind.

They don't move. Yeah, they don't move. And for a small guy like me, yeah, I was plastered up a couple times up against the boards there. And I just learned very, very quickly to stay away from their poke and run, get out of there, let your wingers do the work for you. Yeah, that's my hockey career. So playing up there, we played there three years. And it's actually, it was awesome because it got me into meeting a lot of the locals, right? Yep.

And, you know, they kind of, you know, bring you into the fold because you could, you know, he could play hockey. And so we did have three years there was good. So up there, he only ran like 10K. It was up in the mountains, which was. That'd be a little different running than out on the flat prairie. Oh, absolutely. It was, you know, well, Kittamat stands for the valley of the snow. Okay.

And when we moved out there, it was August. My wife or my girlfriend at that time was living back in Madison Hat. And it was, you know, the weather was beautiful. And that changed. October, November, December, it rained. And, like, it rained every day. and so you got to a point where there's well there's no sense

running in a jacket or anything you just run out in your shorts and running the rain and run for 10K and you're soaked anyway and away you go so then you know it changed from rain to snow most people though I would argue if it's rain on the side they go

yeah not today oh yeah I'm not yeah it's kind of shady I don't think I'll go today. Right? Did you ever experience where you could talk yourself out of it or it was just something?

Oh yeah, no, I can, like, you know, I'm normal. To be quite honest. I could sit on the coach and watch football as well. Yeah. But, you know, like you just get to a point where, okay, so I want to, you know, I just keep a schedule. And that was, you know, I had a goal of X number of kilometers per month. and what was your initial goal per month well i used to run 10k a day 10k a day yeah and uh not very smart and after a while why is why is that not very smart well you just kind of wear your where your body

down and uh running that distance at the same pace and it's the same um distance same route all the time uh you just you're never got any better so you're um Body gets accustomed to it is what you're saying? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you just, you know, your body just really doesn't change. And, you know, every day I'd get 10K, look at my time, oh, 40 kilometers or 40 minutes. And you go, yeah, okay, well, let's try something different. So we moved up into the half marathon distance.

Which is 21. 21 kilometers. Yeah. So by this time we're living in Bonneville. And so I ran a few 21 kilometer runs. I got introduced to some guys from the base, Coal Lake Base. Air Force Base? Yeah.

And they wanted to do the Banff-Jasper Relay. This was probably about 87 or so. And in that relay, you run from Jasper to Bath in segments of, I think about 10 miles. So it's 16 kilometers. Okay. In the mountains. And Bonneville is flat, right? So my leg was 10 miles running, and you got a profile.

And the profile indicated that it was flat, right? And, well, between Banff and Jasper, there is nothing that's flat, right? There's rolling hills, you know, anything that was three, four hundred meters, years long they don't count as a hill right it's just flat so these these air force guys were actually runners and and i wasn't right so i plugged along at my my pace did my work can i ask what do you mean they were runners and you weren't i you're talking to a guy who the longest i've ever ran probably a little over 5k i'm not bill well i shouldn't say this i'm going to sell myself short because probably out there is somebody who's built like me and runs a ton.

I just don't think I'm built for it. I have never really enjoyed it. So for you to say you're running 10K a day and to say things like that and then to say these guys are runners, what does that mean? Well, I mean, they went to school and track and field. Yeah. You know, or they were either sprinting or doing the 1,500 K or 1,500. meter runs.

And in the Air Force, they were also, that was, their jobs were payload specialists, but, you know, represent the regiment in track and field. And so, I mean, these guys were fit. Athletes. Athletes. Okay. Yeah. And at the time there were, you know, mid-20s.

And at that time, I was 30-ish or so. Okay. And very, very fit. and yeah so we you know got a little bit longer distances and then I found out at you know at the half marathon distance that wasn't very fast so you know moved forward into the 90s and I figured well let's try a marathon and my first marathon in Emmington was quite the learning experience you know we had no idea on what it took to prepare to run you know, for three or four hours.

I had run for two hours. I thought it was pretty good. And again, go from 10K to 20 to half marathon and then kind of say, well, let's run a marathon. So what did you do to prepare for your first marathon then? Because you seem like your guy who brings out schedule, routine, it sounds like you just didn't walk in there and go, you know, I'm going to try this and never ran before.

You're running quite a bit. What did you do to prepare for your marathon? Well, for my first one, I only ran like a two-hour run for your long run. Okay. And that would cover a distance of? At that time, probably 25 kilometers or so. Okay. So, you know, moving on to the marathon, so my long run was two hours.

and didn't experiment at all with drinking fluids or anything. You just plow through it. So my first marathon I got to the 30K mark, and I'm thinking, geez, you know, maybe I should stop for a drink, and I got a watery Gatorade, and let's go. And, yeah, nothing moved. My mind was saying, yeah, let's go, but my legs were saying, no, you're not going.

So I had a The simple stop to have a drink locked everything up Yep Yeah And it was You know in marathon running You hear of people hitting the wall Well that was my wall

And my whole goal For my first marathon Was to try to hit the four hour Or be under four hours You know for a marathon distance If you're at four hours You're an average runner And so I thought

Well I should be a little bit better than average So I wanted to be under four hours. So I got at the 30k mark in two hours and 30 minutes and yeah it almost took me an hour and a half to finish that last 10k where normally it's done in you know 45 minutes right and so I had a few little discussions with myself and walking and running what was that like having because I mean as a runner up until this point I'm sure you've had a sore muscle. or something you've had to work through,

an ankle that's not feeling 100%, a knee that's not feeling 100%, something that cramps, X, Y, Z. I'm sure there's 100 other things you could list off. Coming to this point, where you've had to at least been like, okay, just keep going and it'll work itself out.

It's not as bad, et cetera, et cetera. What was the first wall experience like? It was interesting. Because, I mean, you read about it, and you can talk about it, But you never know until you actually whack into it. And it's literally like your brain says, okay, let's go. And your feet say no, or not.

Or your feet are saying, yeah, I'm ready. And your brain says, no, you're not. And it's that little discussion that you have to take place inside of your body. That, you know, at that time in that race, like I had sore feet. That was my biggest issue. And but they weren't going to move for me. And I could walk, which wasn't a problem. So I figured, okay, well, let's.

Let's walk this out and, you know, sooner or later, it slowly got to move. And I literally crawled across the finish line and thought to myself, man, why do I do this? No sooner did I get across the finish line and you get, you know, you get your little, your trophy and T-shirt and you go, geez, I got to do better than this. And so I went back, you know, the following years. and did better each year. So what did you take away from that first one? What was the next thing you went? I need to figure out this, this, about this.

I guess actually, let's go back. If you hadn't stopped, would you've hit the wall, do you think? Like if you, well, I had gone. Yeah, you know, to be honest, I, you know, I was probably dehydrated. Yeah. And, I mean, and if I hadn't had got something in me, I would have probably gone on probably another couple kilometers and had leg cramps because later on as I did a little bit more running and wasn't looking after

my nutrition I get cramps and my calves you know they just you know and it's they just seize up so you got to work your way through that and had I not stopped I probably would have got another couple kilometers and had other issues right but you know having to stop and just kind of walk it out and figure things out. You know, that's... I assume that was a bit of a confidence booster, though, too, right? Like, you worked your way through the wall. You didn't walk off and go, yeah, okay.

No, I'm a little stubborn that way. Okay. I, you know, like, you know, one of my things my dad always told me is when you start something, finish it. And, of course, he was there watching at the time. So, I mean, That saying came back several times. Yeah.

And, yeah, so I just kind of finished it out and walked it out. That's a good saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he was there at the end. And he's kind of looking at his watch and saying, like, you know, what the hell? It took you so long.

Easy for him. Yeah. So what lessons after you finish your first marathon? You're going, I got to do better. than that. Yeah. And you mentioned nutrition. I assume that's something that you looked at and then obviously you mentioned maybe a little bit longer of a run leading up to it. Yeah, the following year, I got a few other running mates and one of the fellows that we ran with had had done multiple marathons over New Zealand. And so he started walking us through kind of a schedule, what we had to do.

So the next year we went back, we had three, I think was at least three runs of over three hours, which takes you up to that 30 kilometer mark. And we are experimenting at that time with water, Gatorade, and gels. And can I ask about the gels? I know nothing about this. So I always hear gels. What is a gel do? what does a gel do?

Well, a gel has got, and it depends on what brand you get, but it's got sodium, potassium, electrolytes in it. Okay. It's got, and again, depending on what brand it is, some of them have shots of caffeine. Okay. They also have sugar. Why caffeine?

Gives you a little bit of a jolt. Why sugar? Gives you a little bit of a jolt. It gives you a little bit of a jolt. You know, if you think, you know, about feeding a little bit of a jolt. a little one, a candy, right? And you watch them 10 minutes later. Yeah, they're climbing the ceiling.

Yeah, that's exactly what a gel dust here. Yeah. But it's got, like I say, the sodium in it, which, you know, keeps your, for me, it keeps me from cramping. Okay. And along with water, I'm not a Gatorade fan. But a lot of people on a lot of courses, you know, you just slug back a little bit of Gatorade.

again it's got a little electrolytes a little bit of salts lots of sugar in it yeah and uh it you know keeps you going so sorry you're experimenting with uh the gels the gatorades the waters that kind of thing yeah so the first first marathon or my second marathon we go back we've got all our long runs done and uh gels were i think they were power aid it had just come out and they tasted horrible they were they were bad and there wasn't a lot of guidelines as to when you take these things. So my first one I took, I went through the age station, got the water, and I said, okay, so took a slug of water.

And as I was leaving the age station, I thought this would be a heck of a good time to take a gel. And these things were powdery, oh, they were just, they tasted horrible. So for the next 10 kilometers, I'm trying to choke this stuff down, and I'm going, oh man, That was dumb. You go through the aid station, you take your gel, drink your water, and go. And, yeah, so it's always kind of a bit of a learning opportunity through each race. And now, of course, gels are a lot easier to take.

And you don't require water. They taste a little bit better, not much. Yeah. So you've just learned to prepare better for... Absolutely. Every year you learn something different. Is there a have you ever had where you do a marathon? And it just doesn't hurt. You just get done 42K and you're just like, geez, that'll be pretty good. You know what? Those are the ones you don't learn anything from.

And that's the sad part about it is I've had some good Iron Man races, you know, where everything just, for some reason it works. and I've had actually the last marathon that I did it was like that it was just it just went and you know all my nutrition hit I had no cramping I finished a few little blisters on my feet but then that was you know you don't wear anything from that and you just go well that was good easy and so that's when I got into triathlons after that so what's next So what draws you, so I got to ask, what draws you into this then is some of the learning, pain sides of it? Yeah, probably. Because are you trying to get first in these races?

Or is it just a competition against yourself? It's a person in the mirror, right? I mean, if you go and you try to, like, I'm not a gifted athlete. So I just try to beat myself. And, you know, as you get a little older, it's always. fun to beat the 23-year-olds as well, but, you know, but, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just the person in the mirror. Okay. You know, and each race is so different, you know, depending on the weather, you know,

you're conditioning, sleep the night before, all that sort of stuff, you know, some days it goes really well. Other days, it's a real head scratcher, but that's what keeps us going back, I think. is the learning slash pain you put yourself through? Well, I don't know if it's pain. It's discomfort. Discomfort, okay. Discomfort. Yeah.

And, you know, one of the things that, you know, when I would train with people is you really have to learn between like a knee pain and just being uncomfortable. And, you know, nobody can do that except for yourself. You know, you have to be able to judge, okay, so is this serious pain or is it just, I'm just, my body dislikes Mary. Yeah, yeah. And most of the time it's a dislike, right? And you've got to learn to kind of argue back against that.

And push forward and just keep going. And because, I mean, quitting's easy. I mean, you can quit and the suffering ends. But then, you know, I've quit once in my one race that I just, I quit. And I kick my butt for a year. you know, of being so stupid about my nutrition and all that sort of stuff. And really it's not worth it. Just keep going, struggle through it.

And especially with a lot of these larger events. I mean, you think you're having a rough day? Just look around. You know, there's other people that are just as miserable as you are or having as much fun as you are and, you know, slugging it through. And that's, at the end of the day, that's what it's all about, is getting to the finish line. so you go from doing marathons where it somehow becomes almost easy for say yeah and decide hey gee you know maybe a triathlon sounds up the alley

actually yeah so there's there was a period there where uh because of the kids and hockey and stuff you know I had to tail my training back a little bit. So I did a couple years of half marathons. Then I got into, you know, say 2004, I think it was. Lori Leach moved back to town. She was a professional triathlete and got a group of interested people together. What do you mean professional? She's a professional athlete.

Like paid. Paid. Yeah. Sponsorship. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're some of the best conditioned athletes in the world, and they don't make a lot of money out of them.

So, I mean, she took, I think there's probably about a dozen of us under her wing and her guidance and got us through our first couple iron map. And that was, you know, I mean, she got us into this, into this sport. And because, you know, you get into it and you go like, what do I do? You know, I can swim a little bit. I can bike a little bit. and I can run a little bit, but how do you tie all of those, all of those things together? And, you know, with her guidance, she got us through the first couple years of training. And, yeah, but draft loans are time consuming. So it takes a lot of time to train.

You've written in the questionnaire that you train six days a week. Is that correct? Yeah, twice a day. Twice a day. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious how you balance that with your family satellite. Speaking, myself, I just have young kids. Yeah.

And I get questioned all the time on how on earth I do a podcast, work a full-time job, go to the gym, and still play senior hockey. It almost comes up daily. Like, well, it's, I'm just curious. Yeah, sorry, I'm just curious. From my side of it, I understand how I think I do it. I'm curious how you train twice a day, not running, I'm assuming not 2K. You're doing extended runs, et cetera. Well, there's, you know, like one, I typically swim at noon hour, right?

Oh, okay. I mean, that doesn't tie up any time. But to get into this sport, like you really need the good support from home. I mean, my wife is very understanding. She pushes me out the door at some days and, you know, get out there and do some running. Probably because you're happier when you're going to be after. He doesn't go running. It's going to be miserable.

Get on your bike, go. Yeah. No. Speaking of your wife, did she ever just go, you're going to do what? No, no. She's very supportive. You know, I don't think she realized, and we didn't realize when we first got into goofy sport, how much time and effort it takes.

And like I say, I swim at noon, and then 6 o'clock every evening, we do either a run or a bike. And how far, on your noon or swim, how long you swim in? 30 minutes. 30 minutes just continuous. You don't stop, I assume. Because I get paid to work, not to do the sports. Absolutely. So you hammer over there, swim for 30 minutes.

And then back. And then back. Yeah. That's how I spend my noon hours. And then, you know, on nights, you know, we're either running outside or we spend a lot of time cycling upstairs in the multiplex. We've got a little corner up there that we've been very fortunate enough to be able to store our trainers up there. So we drag our bikes up there and ride all winter. and when we're outside, we head outside and do a, you know, a 40 or 50k ride on the nights.

And Saturday, again, is a long run and a swim. And Sundays is a bike and a run. I just got to know. And you kind of said your wife some days has to kick you out. But has there ever just come a point? Because you said you've been doing this now for, Well, 2004, exactly this training regiment then would be about 15 years? Yes, yeah.

Six days a week, 15 years. Yeah, yeah. Actually, we used to go seven days a week, but I got a little smarter than that. I figured I need, you know. A day for the body to rest? Body to rest, but I need to cut the grass, right, so. So Fridays is my grass cutting day and catch up on a few things. around the house. And yeah, so we knocked it down to six days a week. You're right. I think it's more

of a rest thing. You know, it is also getting caught up at other items that need to be done. And yeah, so we've narrowed it down to six days a week. I've been training that way for a while now. That works for me. It doesn't work for a lot of people, of course, because, you know, both of our kids are grown and gone. Yeah, grown and gone. You know, there's young families that are trying to get into the sport. And, you know, like, if you train three or four days a week, you know, one sport a day, that's an ampoli gets you, you start into a sport.

Absolutely. Yeah. But I don't want, you know, like, the other thing is I don't watch a lot of TV. You know, I just, you know, I get home, I get do things. Yeah, get on my bike and go for running. It's cool. It's really cool to me that you have the discipline to do that. I just, I'm surprised you don't take like two months off or a month off just to reset and then go back at it again. Well, actually, that's good because this year we're doing something different.

Typically after Iron Man, which is in July this year, got into, we're doing some ultra running. So, you know, we're running like a 60K run we did out just of Brad Creek. Okay. Around Calgary there. Yeah. Up in the mountains, that was fun. And we're just getting ready to do 100 kilometer run. McKenzie was telling me this, that you're doing 100K.

Yeah. A 100K run. Yeah. And how long do you got to run? What is the time limit for 100 kilometers? I think it's like 20 hours. Yeah. So they run two different distances.

It's 100 kilometers and then 100 miles. And as long as a 100-mileer is behind you, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so McKenzie and I did this mountain run, which was a lot of fun. And so we're getting ready to do another one. So this is kind of...

When do you do this? Two weeks. So we go October, I think it's the fifth. We go. So basically you run from St. Paul to El Point back to St. Paul again. Through the different, so long the Iron Horse Rail, it follows that a little bit. And then you're up into the fields and roads. Yeah, it should be fun.

This episode is going to come out after you guys are even done that. Oh. Which will be interesting. Yeah. Because we might have to have you and McGregor. McKenzie come on here after you're done because I don't know do you know of anybody else in Lloyd that does a hundred kilometer 100 mile yeah ultramarathon yeah there's uh yeah we're not the only ones okay this year we've got I think there's five guys they're going five guys that are going

the St. Paul yeah yeah from McKenzie myself uh Monte Christi he's he's an ultra runner oh okay so he's done all sorts of mountain like real races and uh And Randy Beaver's going. And there's another fellow. I can't remember who it is. That's Chris Bogues going. Yeah, so there's about five or six of us. Oh, kidding.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's going to be fun. I mean, it's last year we did it. We did it as a team. McKenzie did it as an individual. And it wasn't a lot of fun last year because we ended up being so far ahead that, like I ran my 21. kilometer lake and nobody nobody around me and it was and I'm a city

runner so I got to have streets and street signs to follow so I was a little I was a little bit challenged out in the trails yeah so it was yeah it was a lot of fun and McKenzie he did it last year solo and so we all looked at him and said geez you know if you can do it solo we should be able to do it as well so McKenzie did a hundred last year Yep, yeah. That was his first, first alter run. Did 100 kilometers.

Yep, yeah. It's a run, walk, crawl, roll, do whatever you got to do. I know, I just, I know you make it sound so, like, I know there's people listening when they hear this. They're going to be like, what? Right? Like, I mean, to do 5K run for you guys is almost laughable, right? Yeah, yeah. And I actually laugh at people when they go, 5K runs.

Geez, I don't know if I can fish that. It's like, I can't run. You can walk that in an hour. Like, you're not really challenging yourself. With a 100 kilometer race, I assume that is a challenge directly at you guys. Absolutely is. Yeah, we've, like I said, the furthest I've run is 60 kilometers. And I was spent after that.

Yeah. But, I mean, we climbed, I don't know, it was about 27, 2,800 meters of vertical up and down. and this run that we're doing in St. Paul, the Iron Horse, is what ultra runners call flat. And so it should be interesting. It should be relatively easy. No, considering you don't have to go up and down? Yeah, I guess so. I've never done one.

So it's going to be like I've done a 50K Ultra, which ended up being 54 because I couldn't fall. signs. Yeah, that was, yeah, I'm not very good at following those signs. So the 60K was up in the mountains. It's a lot easier. I mean, you're on good trails. And the ultra that runs from its, from St. Paul that out point, it's not really well marked. So is this on highways or this is on trails?

No, it's on, well, the Iron Horse Trail. runs from Elpoint St. Paul, right? It's an old rail bed. Oh, the old rail bed. Yes, I know what you're talking about. So you zip on and off of that to make up 100 kilometers. No kidding. Yeah, yeah.

So what's the, I'm pretty sure I know the day, but you got to be paying attention then while you're running. Absolutely, yeah. And that's the part that makes it interesting. Like, you know, you could do a few of these bush runs or trail runs. Yeah. And you're always looking, you know, ahead.

And where you get onto these, you know, like street running now is, to be quite honest, it's boring as heck. And you're on asphalt and concrete, it's hard on your body. Where you get on trail runs, it's on, you know. Dirt grass, a little softer. Yeah, a lot softer, easier on your body. Yeah. And, you know, you literally have to pay attention to figure out where you're going.

And, yeah, so it should be. be a good time. So with your training regimen, doing it twice a day, swimming that much and then doing biking, running, whatever it is at night, six days a week, I assume your nutrition intake and what you put in your body has to be very specific? Well, yeah, I'm not a, I get, there's two different types of nutrition, right? It's the day-to-day eating. I don't eat a lot of processed anything.

Okay. You know, it's all basically clean eating. And then you've got your race nutrition where it's, you know, it's something totally different. But eating on the day to day, so I don't think there's anything wrong with it. You know, like I eat very clean. It drives my wife nuts, right, because I don't try anything different. You know, like I don't like sauces or. gravy or any of that sort of stuff, right?

So what's your staples? Chicken and rice? Chicken and rice, broccoli, steak and potatoes. Pretty basic. Bacon and eggs? Absolutely. Yeah, bacon and eggs, pancakes. I could eat that meal anytime.

How many calories are you putting in your body every day? I don't know. I don't really track that. Okay. I just, like I eat. every probably every couple hours I have something to eat yeah you know in the morning it's a little bit more you know it's once every hour I'm eating them something I never sit down and eat a you know a large amount of food it's you

know I basically graze through also the whole day oh the whole day yeah yeah yeah yeah no pizza I love pizza what's your what's your go-to pizza Uh, like, uh, pretty much anything that doesn't have mushrooms on it. Mushroom? You can't get a little pepperoni mush in you? No. No. Really?

Yeah. I just, yeah. You'll take a wine with pineapple all over? Yeah. Yeah. Like there's, when I get into a pizza eating frenzy, as my wife calls it, I pretty much eat anything as long as it doesn't have mushrooms on it. No, fair enough.

Well, what's your joint meat? town you like to order from that? Typically it's BPs. We'll go out there. BPs, really, a little progy pizzazz. Yeah, yeah. You know, like a pizza and a beer once a week is my kind of, not every week, but, you know, once a much long.

It's kind of your, not your reward, but something along that lines, you cheat? Yeah. If there is such a thing, is it cheat? I mean, you work out six days away. I mean, you expend that much energy six days a week. It'd be hard to, I would think you'd have to graze in order to have enough energy and everything else. Well, you want to try to maintain that energy level

throughout the whole day. I mean, you're constantly having something. Like when I talk about it, you know, I eat like my staple is Tim Hart's coffee and a cinnamon raisin bagel, right? I mean, that's every day I have that. Black coffee? No, I actually have a little bit of cream in it. A little bit of cream.

Yeah. So that's how I start my morning. I have cereal, 8 o'clock, snack at 10 o'clock, a banana at 11 o'clock, and then swim, run. Yeah. Supper, 8 o'clock, and in bed by 10 and starts all over the next day. How many, are you going to do this for the next 20 years? years you think actually the the triathlon side of things probably another few years like I like I don't know like it's I really have a plan that way I really like to get into

more ultra running I've you like the long distances yeah I'm finding that you know I will do this 100 kilometer one and then sooner or later like to do 100 mile I think that'd be interesting, you know, to be able to go through the night and run. Like, again, I'm challenged directionally, so that's going to be an interesting, interesting feat to, you know, get 100 miles. It'd be fun. So next year, I've already got my schedule planned out for next year. It'd be the following year we'll probably tackle somewhere along the line a 100 mile run

just for see if we can do it. Is ultramarathon triathlon, whatever you, no, I think ultramarathon, as you lead towards that, is it an older person's jam? No, no, again. Again, like the elite ultra runners are mid-30s, right? I mean, there's very seldom do you find, even in triathlon, very seldom do you find a,

a 20-year-old that's really good at it because, you know, it's... Lack experience. Yeah, lack of experience. And it's the mental training that goes along with it, right? And like with ultra running, again, I've only competed in three ultras so far. Typically, I'm the oldest one at the line. There's, you know, one or two others. But most of them are all like mid-30s.

Really? Yeah. mid 30s you know the odd 41 40 year old and then there's a few gray hairs in the back and uh it's it's like i say it's quite amazing when you you know you just hold your pace plug along and uh eventually you just end up finishing and that's the whole idea it's just you know the reason why i reached out to you is it's just right like if you just ran well actually i should say a couple things here even talk to mackenzie night right like he just says you're like if you're into this in lloyd you're the guy and everybody just knows to go talk to ross but i would say that's part of it but the other part of it is is like

i just i look at all the 60 year olds i know and i'm by no means am i saying you're over the hill that's not what i want to say it all right i'm not saying thanks i appreciate that but i mean 60 ain't 30 yeah 30 ain't 20 60 is you know long Lots of people are getting close to retirement and I don't know, want to quit their job and, I don't know, whatever retirement is. And when I see what you're doing, I'm like amazed. I think it's like super cool that a guy at your age is hammering these out. And instead of going, you know what, I got like, you know, I've done 12. And I'm going to go to Hawaii.

I'm going to run one more and it's going to be done. And then, you know, I'm going to ride off in the sunset. It's like, actually, I kind of want to do 100 miles. an hour, run through the night and see what I can do. Yeah, no, that's like, age is just a number. True, 100% agreeing. Yeah, and if you use that as a, you know, a stumbling block or whatever to not want to challenge yourself and see what you can do, you know, there's, I mean, some of the,

some of the best learnings that I've had is when you fail, right? And, you know, instead of pouting about it, you kick yourself in the butt and get up and carry on. And one of the things that we've got in Lloyd Ministers, I've got a good support team around me that I train with. And, you know, we've been doing it on and off for 10 years or so. People come and go. But there's always, you know, a group of people that you train with. And, you know, there's an average eight, you know, some of them are 20, some of them are 30, some of them are 40, some are 50, you know, and we've all got, you know, one thing we want to do is just keep moving. And, you know, some are faster and some are slower.

But, you know, it's, yeah, if you're going to use Asia as an excuse, yeah, it's, it's, it becomes that. And I just think that, you know, you're, like, if you can keep your body moving, you're going to have a happier life. Absolutely. And, you know, like I've talked to a lot of people that are worried about, well, your joints are going to wear out and this and that. And, you know, I'd rather wear something out than rust out and sit on the couch and not do anything. And, you know, you're challenging yourself all the time. Some days it's just challenge getting out of bed because you're stiff. Like pretty much every morning.

But, you know, that's just, yeah, you know, like 60 isn't that old. I got to assume that the guys you go to battle with every single day has got to be a tight little camaraderie. Absolutely. Some of the things we say each other during those times, you're like, you don't repeat. great. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's same as on a hockey team. You drag a hockey dress room. Yeah, you drag people along. That's right.

Some days, you know, like they drag you along. Some days you drag them along. And, you know, we all hold each other accountable for showing up. And I think that's, you know, the big thing is, you know, we all start off the start of the year with the goals and we talk about those goals. Because once you've, you know, are written them down and talk about them, then they become real and then you start to say okay so how are we going to do this what are we going to do what training program are we going to follow and yeah we just you just work it out and and

you hold each other accountable so you're there you know like not to show up to something I mean that's easy to do once once in a while but you know you have everybody there they hold each other accountable and you manage to peck way and hit your fin and finish your goal whatever that is that's a cool way to start a year set goals because once once you've talked and said them aloud and everybody knows them it's hard to uh walk away from them i would assume very difficult because you get reminded about it every day every day every day so how are you doing on your goals this year um actually it's it's pretty good um generally for a few years there i'd only race like twice twice a year. This year we started off a little odd. We did a 25K River Revenge run in

Evanton and we had no idea what we're doing. McKenzie was there the year before, said, you know, like it took him like five hours. We were looking at five hours to run like 25 kilometers. What were you doing? He says, no, no, it takes you that long. You know, okay, well, again, what? We can do it. We can do it, right? So there's half a dozen of us started off. And of course we're, you know, we're following the line of people up and down the river valley. And there's, with the amount of ice and snow that we had this year was, it was really interesting. They, you know, they encourage you to put, you know, screws in your shoes where ice plates do something, right?

And so we all did. And now we started the year off with that and finished. I finished in just over four hours. Of course, I got lost and ended up going to doing about 27 kilometers. But I got some bonus time there. I'm seeing the theme here where you get lost. Trail running, yeah. Yeah.

And of course, McKenzie was there just to kind of bother me about that. But, yeah, and then Sheila, one of my other training mates there, she talked in doing a half marathon in. February. Okay. And it was an awesome time this year. In February. Yeah. Minus 39 with a wind chill. Where was that? Emerton. You did a half marathon. Yeah. In minus 39. Yeah. Yeah. Please tell me what that was like. Why would you do that? Yeah. Well, I'm wondering, A, why would you do that? But I'm also wondering, do you run in a parka? Or what do you put on yourself? We had multiple layers of clothing on. You know it's cold when you're you got two tukes on a nylon shell over top of that. So again like you know we're running and it had there's about a 10

kilometer wind. It's minus 29 I think 10 kilometer wind and of course when you're running with the wind it's I'm going to say relatively warm. Okay and you turn around and you run into the wind you know it's cold and so anyway we that was our goal we started at the start of the year actually I think it was in September of last year we said we're going to do this so I was kind of hoping that she had she would chicken out and not show up and and I'd get some bragging rights there but of course she she shows up and so we got at her and along with a few other hundred people or so and finish that off so that's how we started our year and then yeah so River revenge in June which is 50 well it's a 50

kilometer run and I extended that one as well did that then Stony plane puts on an awesome triathlon in the multiple not multiple lengths and so we had probably about a dozen from here that went up there this year and and the cool thing about that is whether you're doing the half iron man or the duathlon or the Olympic distance you all cross paths because you're all running at the same time and it's it's kind of neat where you get to you know touch base with a few people that that I know I've never done it before and you know you meet them at the finish line and and you look at the you know the expression on their face and it's literally

priceless you know first people to who finished an Olympic distance. Triathlon was awesome. One of the guys that we ran with, he's never done a half-iron man before. And he finished two years ago. He couldn't swim. And meeting those guys at the finish line, it was awesome.

Just to see their eyes and how proud of their selves they were. That, yeah, they finished it off. So, yeah, so it's been a busy year. next year we've got it planned out already i think it's going to be a little busier so i i gotta ask what part of the three don't you like so you swim you bike you run yeah out of those three what is the one that and maybe it now it doesn't matter but in the beginning maybe what was one that you're just like i dislike you swimming swimming yeah yeah i dislike swimming so i swim five days week. I have

I know that makes no sense. No, it actually makes complete sense. Just focus on your weakness. Yeah. Right? You don't like getting in the water? Get in the water. Yeah.

Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Well, you know, it's not that I'm uncomfortable with it. I just, you know, I don't float very well. So it's, it's no matter how hard you work at it, I sink. And you're talking to the guy that his brother's nicknamed him the tugboat because we did one, I've done one. It was just a, you runners will probably laugh at me, but it was like a small triathlon or half triathlon or whatever.

And this is back when I was in, when I would consider peak condition, I was playing junior hockey, we just come off the summer before biking Canada. And so, like, I was feeling pretty good. And we got up every morning, me and two of my brothers, we're living together, and we'd go in and we'd swim at the pool, swim at the pool. And they started laughing at me because I'm going to talk about it. I'm just built like a brick shit house. Yeah.

And so I just plowed water. I wasn't a great swimmer. And so we go and, you know, I'm just, I'm laughing in my head when you talk about, you know, you just don't know. You just learned things. Well, we went to this triathlon. I went to a pair of board shorts, right? And we looked around at everybody and everybody's got their, you know, their skin tight,

whatever's on. And I'm like, yeah, I got this, right? I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm that 20-year-old guy that's like, I got this. And you had to do two laps of this, imagine Budmiller Lake or something along that lines. And so I get swimming. I'm one of the last guys in because I'm not a strong swimmer. I'm like, I'm not going to fight with them.

But I was such a bad swimmer, they caught me on the second lap, and I almost drowned. And then the guy in the canoe comes strolling up beside me, and I'm like, you're here to make sure I don't drown? He's like, yep. I'm like, okay. And I doggie paddled. The entire thing. It was the slowest swim, but I did finish it. Absolutely, yeah, that's what it's about.

That's what it's about. But I've never gone back because I was like, I'm petrified water after that. I should be swimming five days a week, I guess. Yeah. Try and build that confidence. Well, you know, swimming in the pool and swimming in open water is totally different, right? I mean, open water you can't see. No.

Right? And, you know, I've trained with a lot of very good swimmers that when they get an open water, they just, you know, they have a difficult time at it. There's no black line to fall. They're not used to putting their head up. You get any sort of wind and you get a little bit of a wave. Choppy. Yeah. Choppy, thank you.

Yeah, no, and it's understandable. What is maybe something if you could look back at your career in running, biking, swimming, doesn't matter, where you went, I can't believe I did that. Like, for me, it's the board shorts. You're howling, right? Was there a time where you showed up and you were just ill-prepared? No. a lot of time preparing for races. Okay.

My biggest moments is when I can't believe I did that, is when I extend races by not following the trail. That's a fair point. You know, I've done that out of Vermillion. I've done it a few times.

And, yeah, I just can't believe I do that. Are you guys constantly searching for new races then? Like, just new, like, courses to just like keep your mind engaged? Well, with trathons, there isn't a lot of like new courses. You know, there's like Ironman Canada's moved from Penticton to Whistler

back to Whist or back to Penticton again. If I do trathons, I'd rather keep it fairly close. Okay. Traveling a bike with a bike is a real pain. Okay. For me anyway. Like, I can take anything apart, but putting it back together is a bit of a challenge. So, but these ultra runs, they're kind of interesting where, I mean, there's, they're popping up all over the place.

Yeah. And there's all sorts of different destinations. And, like, running is pretty simple, right? You need a bag full of clothes, a couple pairs of runners, off you go. Where with Traathlon, I mean, there's a lot of gear you got to haul along. and yeah so I typically like kind of the same old same old is what I prefer there's a few other people I train with they they're doing marathons all over the place and that's just that's not my my job tea yeah yeah is there a specific number of events you won't go over any year like

is there something that your body is just not capable of hands? handling or could you do as many as you wanted to do? There's a few races that I do that I do as a training day, right? So you actually go to a race that's a little shorter to train for a longer race? Yeah. So like the race that we do in Stony Plain, it's three weeks in front of Iron Man Canada. So when I go there, I'll go there and just train but train hard, like not really race it. you don't want to spend yourself out in that race

because you know come the next day you got to get them run again where if you go in your race you know there's two or three days worth of recovery there that needs to take place and you know I just don't have that time so there'll be a few that you go as a competition you go you know what this is just going to be

kind of a fun day and just get through it And it, I know it sounds kind of goofy, but. A fun day. It's going to be a fun day. But it's, you know, that's, you just, you can't race hard every race. Yeah. And, you know, you have to pick and choose. For me, anyway, there's a lot of people that do it.

And they typically don't last very long in the sports. What is, if you look back, like, what is maybe one of the best lessons you've learned, learned either about yourself or just in general of doing what you do, running this much, just competing in this type of strenuous activity. It's not like you're going to the gym once a day and just lifting weights. It's not like you're going to noon hour hockey and just playing hockey and that's, you know, your social outing. This is pretty like life altering, right?

It's a big time commitment. Well, what's maybe something that you look back and that's, a big lesson you've learned or it's taught you about yourself? I think the biggest lesson is, you know, is, you know, I keep telling people, you know, you need a goal, right? Once you figure out what your goal is, then you need a plan, and then you need to execute that plan. And the biggest thing is being able to find a plan that works for you,

a training schedule that works for you. And what I do works for me. I've got a lot of other people that I train with that, you know, we all train together, but not necessarily six days a week. There's, you know, some people will show up, you know, two or three days a week, others once a once a week, that type of thing. But the biggest thing is, is, you know, get a goal and, you know, make it something you really want to accomplish.

And once you do that, you know, find a plan and then execute it. And, you know, there's no short-term. shortcuts in this training. I mean, I've trained with a lot of people that shortcut things and they don't have a lot of fun. And I know in my questionnaire, they're one of the things that, you know, when it comes to the end of a race, you got two options. You got to go to the massage tent, have a beer, meet your family, or you go to the medical tent. And every time you go by that medical tent, those people in those medical tents, they're not having any fun. having any fun. You know, they're having IVs, they're, you know, they're just not having any fun.

And my preference is to go the other way, you know, to go and have a nice massage, have a beer, meet your family, be upright and go that way. And so the difference between those two, you would say is shortcuts, meaning do the work, put in the time, preparation versus trying to essentially short-term. cut it so you don't have to do all the heavy lifting. Yeah. In your training, I mean, that's where you learn to push yourself. And you really need to, you need to push yourself, but you have to know how far can you push yourself. And there's, there's a lot of people that, you know, whether they're doing a marathon or a 10K run or whatever, you know, you're saying, well, I want to run faster. And I know

during the heat of the moment on the race, I'm going to be able to run. I want to push my pace. And I don't Well, you got to push that today. You got to know where you're going to be at. You got to get to that area where you're really uncomfortable, and then you know you've got to be able to back off from that. And when you back off from that, that's the pace you're going to be able to do your run at or your triathlon at. Don't try to push yourself too far because, yeah, there's a lot of people to do

and don't have a lot of fun at it. And it's a shame. Have you ever either pushed yourself too hard or maybe that's not, have you ever pushed yourself too hard or push your body and hurt something? Like, have you had bad injuries doing this? Oh, yeah, torn a meniscus in my knee. Okay. But that was, you know, early on when he first started.

But, I mean, there's always aches and pains, right? I mean, if you don't have aches and pains, then there's... You're not doing it. You're not doing it right or something, right? You know, I did that walk with Paul LaBersh, right? He did the walk from Saskatoon to Lloyd for mental health. And I forget, I think it was like day three, and he was talking about how sore he was. And I was like, you knew when you got into this, you were going to be sore, right?

Like, there's no talking yourself around when you walk that much. You don't walk into the grocery store back once. I think you're walking 50,000. day, that's going to take its toll on the body. Absolutely, well. Especially when, you know, like you talk about, like, whether you've prepared for it or not, it's still going to take a toll. You've still got to put it in the miles, which your body's going to react to that,

and then you've got to mentally react to what's going on with everything else. You know, the best thing to do is, you know, I mean, if you're prepared, and, you know, you've got a good nutrition plan, you should be able to take. on whatever task you want to do, right? Yeah. And what nutrition plan do you prepare for, well, you're about to do 100 kilometer run? What are you packing in your satchel backpack? What do you wear on you and make sure you have to complete something like that?

Well, with this race, there's an aid station every 20 kilometers. Okay. So basically you have to be self-sufficient for 20 kilometers. So what's at the aid stations? No, actually, trail running, eight stations are very unique. Okay. They've got, you know, they'll have watermelon, oranges, bananas. Oh, wow.

They have a lot of gummy bears and candies and that sort of thing. That's not my thing. I take a lot of fruit in. Some of them, like the later ones, will have like soup, something warm, hot chocolate. Some of them have coffee. some of them have like sandwiches all that sort of stuff right but in this particular one you have to be self-sufficient for 20 kilometers okay i think the longest portion is 25 kilometers again so you have to carry probably a liter and a half liter of water with you at all times at all times yeah

you want to make sure that you're hydrated again depends on the temperature um if it's nice day like today, yeah, a liter, leader and a half. You want to be carrying with you. You want to have a good assortment of gels that all carry with me, probably about four or five gels. Will I use them all? Probably not, but... Better to have them than not to have them. Yeah, it's a real bitch when you don't have them. Yeah, it's not a lot of fun when you run out of, you know, if a segment takes a lot longer than what you think it is and you don't have the calories to get you through. But One of the things that I need to learn at these trail runs is you've got to spend more time in the eight stations eating. And, you know, I'm not used to that.

I'm used to going through grabbing what you need and off you go. Off you go. And, you know, so I spend time on the trail eating when other people are passing you. And you go like, you know, that guy was back in the eight station, but he powered an innate what he needs to eat. And off he goes. and so yeah so every 20 kilometers you know you need to fill up and go and my wife will meet me at every aid station and she'll have like alpac and gels and food probably later on in the section I'll have like a bagel and peanut butter something different you know that potato chips is another

big thing again it's not something that I experiment with You know, like soups and while you're running, and you know your wife's going to be at one of the aid stations. What's the one station you look forward to because you know she's got X with her? Oh, yeah, bagel and peanut butter. Bagel and peanut butter. Yeah, which sounds odd, but that's kind of a reward, right? And do you put that at a certain spot late in the race?

And if I get here, I get that, the way we go. And your mind is like, whoo, way we get going. Yeah, that's, yeah. And in this particular race, it's probably going to be about it to 60 kilometer mark. Yeah. I think I'll have, that'll be my reward, get to there. And then basically there's only one more aid station, right? So, you know, you break your 100 kilometers up into five into eight stations and away you go.

And, yeah, don't look at it from zero to 100. That's just too far. You just break it down into small little segments. 60 kilometers, I think, or I'll have my peanut butter bag on. Yeah, hell of a reward, I know. I got to, you know, I read the in the paper about your qualifying for Hawaii. We've kind of talked briefly about this. But now we've gotten into this ultra marathon running and you really want to try and go further than that.

Yeah, I got to ask, like, are you going to go to Hawaii? Are you qualified? Are you going to try and... You go through the legacy program. So what that enables you to do is you go on a list. And that list will take you maybe anywhere from two to three years to get a spot to go to Hawaii. If I get a spot, yes, I'll go. Do you have to keep running Iron Man?

Well, you have to do one Iron Man on the year that you get selected. So, you know, if it's two years down the road in 2021, you have to do an Iron Man event in that year when you get selected to go to Hawaii. But I'll just, I'll continue to do one until I go anyway. So your plan then is to do an Iron Man every single year for the next couple of years until you're selected and then go to Hawaii. Yeah, yeah. That's badass. Well, that's like freaking cool. I mean, like, come on.

You are you going to have like 14 or 15 Iron Man's under your belt and then be heading to a Y. Yeah. Yeah. What do you get when you finish an Iron Man? Not much. You get a metal. Yeah. The coolest thing is, you know, as you cross the finish line, is, you know, be called an Iron Man.

I mean, that's cool. But that lasts like 10 seconds, right? And then you're like, my body hurts. Get me out of here. That cool feeling doesn't last very long. And, you know, it was real, it was a good year this year. I got to share with Terry, the other fellow in the paper. Yeah, that's right.

And that was his first Iron Man. And like I told him, he says, you know, like, it's going to feel real cool for about 10, 15 seconds. And it did for him. You know, and then you feel like all of a sudden now you quit. You're going for 13, 14 hours, and then all of a sudden you stop. And then everything probably seizes up on you? It doesn't take very long. But that's, I always go and have a massage right after.

Okay. They have a massage tent set up? Yes. Yeah. And, you know, they try to get as much of the lactic acid out of your legs as possible. And, again, you feel pretty good for a little while. And you hobble back to the, you got to pick up all your gear. you hobbled back to the hotel and then if your hotel is lucky enough to have a hot tub,

that's where you head. And then you just sit there and soak for a while. But, yeah, no, it was a real cool experience being able to share that with Terry this year. And next year, I think there's four of us that are heading off to Penticton. So that'll be another good year. Okay. Well, we've been going for roughly an hour and a half. So here's, I got five questions.

One of them, your eyebrows are probably going to be raised, and you're probably going to have a chuckle. But essentially, to kind of slowly end this off. The first is, I don't know why, and you can tell me if I am completely off my rock around this. I thought runners took salt tablets. Am I just wrong on that? No, that's the, yeah, yeah.

So do you take salt tablets? Yeah, yeah. So what is the theory on salt tablets, just replenishing all the salt you're sweating out? Well, sodium, it's your sodium and, And basically my salt tablets that I take have sodium and potassium in them, right? So it's a chewable salt tablet, which easily is dissolved and dispersed through your body. Okay.

Just to replace lost sodium. How many times while running a... On an iron man? Yes. On a bike. Say the bike takes me six and a half hours. Okay. I'll have one salt tablet per hour.

Wow. Yeah. And then, of course, you'll have, I take three bottles of electrolyte drinks and five gels, right? So you do that. So I'll have six bottles of electrolytes, 10 gels, and one salt tablet every hour or so. How fast do you get going on the bike? Depends on the wind and... Yeah, the length of the race.

and whether you're going uphill downhill yeah but on average on average like all race half ironman distance yeah at about 31 kilometers an hour 31k yeah okay and then it drops down to 29 probably for an iron man okay yeah I was curious because going across Canada we averaged about 18k a day so you can imagine the leisurely pace where we were going different riding that's correct I'm assuming probably a little different bike as well Yes, we were on a touring bike. Yeah. Were you riding into the wind or with the wind? So we did the, well, we don't call it a mistake. I shouldn't say that.

But the prevailing wind is west-east, and we started in St. John's Road east-to-west. So out of the 69 days we did it, which 11 days we took off, so out of the 58 days we did it, 56 of them were straight into Gale-Force winds almost every single day and it was brutal. and if I were to ever do it again, I'd go west to east and I'd take on the mountains first thing. Yeah, that's most people do it that way. The reason we didn't is because there was a young girl that came with us. So it was myself and then my brother Dustin, and then a younger girl that I'd never met until the day we left. And she was from Calgary, and we assumed if she got over the mountains, she wouldn't go any further than that.

And we actually did a podcast about it. And she basically was like, yeah, if we'd stop at Calgary, I was going to. going no further. She won it out of it in the first, well, we joke about you have to go back and listen to that one because, I mean, she came on a bus or on a bike trip with two brothers. I'm sure the first little bit was complete hell for her, right? I think she even talks about it, right? It's just like, it was, you know, none of us did any training for it. He just hopped on your bikes and went. And started going. Yeah. Right? And every day, you know, we had to take several days off

at certain different times. And I've been playing hockey, right? my legs were in phenomenal shape. But for Dustin and Lori, specifically, their knees were what gave them the biggest issues right off the hop. So we had to, you know, once again, I'd have to go back and listen to the episode we did with it. But we got talking about it, and they got me all wound up because they're going, you know, the first day we rode 40K. And then the next day we rode like 30-some K. And I'm like, how are we going to get across this country if this is what we're doing?

We're supposed to be doing 100 plus K a day. right and uh it took probably two weeks and then we it started to get better and then by the time we hit western canada man it was just like we were machines and away you went but you learn things too right you talk about learning things it takes putting yourself into those situations to learn like that hurts that really hurts don't do that again and you know for us we learned um that leaving at 4.3 in the morning when the wind for us was less no heat of the day traffic was down you could just get further quicker faster feel better and if you could feel better on a day then it didn't translate into four days feeling like complete crap right and that is a huge chunk of it when you're trying to

ride such a long distance absolutely saddle sores are problems as well oh man let's let's not go there let's not go there i heard you got a Bird at home. Parrot, yeah. I heard he's a talk of a little stinker. Corona, yeah. I hear he's got his own room. Yeah, he owns actually probably half of the house.

Why a parrot? Oh, that's a gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, that was a mistake, Christmas time. When you leave it up to. you know last minute Christmas shopping. Yeah. My daughter at that, she was probably grade 12, 11 or 12, and she was working at a pet store.

She said, Dad, this would be really neat. And I was out of ideas. I had nothing. So I said, okay, well, let's get this. And, yeah, no, that's literally a gift that keeps on giving every day. How old is the bird? I think he's 11 or 12, no.

How long does the bird live for? There's rumors of like 70, 80. What? Yeah. Oh, this bird is with you forever. Well, I get the last laugh, right? My daughter will inherit that bird. I heard you even had to buy it, Treehouse.

The channel. What? I thought it was Treehouse. Treehouse? You bought a certain cable channel because it likes to watch it. Am I wrong on this? Yes, sorry. Every time I go in there, he's got the whole living room, dining room area of the house.

Yes, he watches tree house. Because he will pick up, he does pick up a colorful language. And thankfully, he's only picked up the language that my wife speaks. Okay. And he hasn't picked up anything that I've had a little chat with him about. So what's the coolest thing he says right now? Like if I was a walk-in and he could pick any of the words or sentences he can say, what would be the one that I'd be like, holy crap, I didn't realize he could say something like that.

Well, he always sits high. And he's got three or four different tones for that. He's got three or four different tones for Amber, my daughter's name. Okay. And I love you. Yeah, he just comes up with things. But, you know, the neat thing about a parrot is they said over and over and over again. And it does get a little.

So is this why you're out of the house six days of week running? When did you get this bird again? When did you start running? Yeah, there's a bit of a coincidence there. But we've got two dogs and a bird. And we don't need a doorbell because it's, if somebody hits the doorbell, it's just all hell breaks loose. All hell breaks loose. Yeah.

Yeah. If you can have a time machine, take a time machine anywhere you want to go. Mm-hmm. Where would you go? Don't have to stay there forever. You just stop in and say hello, witness an event. Where would you take it? Oh.

You know what? I don't know. I have no idea. I like hockey. I like the others. I'd take it back to when they won their last Stanley Cup, probably, 81, or sorry, 91? 91? Yeah.

Are they going to be any good this year? Oh, man, yeah. They're going to be better. They're going to be better this year. What do you think of Holland and Tippett coming in? You know what? That's going to be better. I think one of the things that,

they've had a history of is not doing a very good job of evaluating talent. And, you know, you think of all of, you know, the high draft picks that they've had. You know, they've had some success with them. But, you know, and then you take a look at a team like Detroit and what they do for talent. You know, they go out and they scout all over the world and find people that are not first, rounder optics and they you know they manage their team that way and hopefully can holland kind of bring some of that uh wisdom with them and uh because i mean they've got a good young core of players yeah well they got the best player in the game on absolutely and dry said there's no slow to score in 50

no you know they've got some good young talent and and they've also given up a lot of good young talent and that's true and uh have got very little in return for it so if they're There's one race you haven't done yet. What is Ross wanting to do? If you could just go do it? You know what? I think the World Championship, you know, why we need, I would like to get that cross,

kind of crossed off my bucket list. Yeah. And get that over and done with. And move on to more trail running. I think this trail running thing is pretty neat. You know, and there's all sorts of races, you know, trail run races in Europe. That would be we're going from France to, you know, through the different countries and stuff. Yeah, I think that would be really neat.

But, yeah, I'd like to get this Iron Man championship. Crossed off. Yeah, crossed off. It's going to be a good day. It'll be a long day, but it'll be a good day to get done. Final question. If you right now could go back to your 20-year-old self, what piece of wisdom would you impart on you?

Oh, geez. I know, a lot of deep questions, but I'm curious. You're, you know, if you could go back and talk to yourself, and whether it's in just what you're doing right now with running, if it's life, if it's kids, if it's, you can go back, say, hey, dummy, how's it going today? and talk to your 20-year-old self, would you say what? Yeah, I don't, I'm really not sure.

You know, it's, you know, it's been a journey up to now, right? Yeah. Yeah, I have, sorry. No clue. Yeah, no. I mean, no, I don't, you know, I guess it's, every year you learn something different about yourself and, you know, know it's been it's been a good journey so far yeah there's you know there's always yeah i don't

i have no idea what i would what i would say to myself well i got to stop you on something right yeah might as well be the last question of the podcast yeah yeah no that's uh yeah sorry no that's right well i hope you enjoy this i really enjoyed you coming on um and i look forward to hearing about how you do in the hundred k rate I think that's that's freaking awesome. Well, I'm sure there's going to be a few stories to come out of this one. We've got, like you say, there's probably half a dozen guys that we're going to be kind of running and kind of racing against.

So it should be a lot of fun. I mean, what we'll have to do is get three on and chat about it. Because, I mean, the lovely thing is, is I can do this with more people. And so to have a group of you that complete it, come in and talk about the experience, Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing because I can't believe you're about to run a hundred kilometer race. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. It's going to be, like I say, it's going to be a fun day.

I mean, it's going to be, of course, the best part of the day is when you're done. And, yeah, no, it'll be interesting like I've never done it before. So it should be, yeah, it should be a lot of fun. See how it goes. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Hey, guys, thanks for tuning in.

Ross Thompson and I talk a little bit about his running and just the fact of how much he runs. It still hurts my brain. I mean, it is pretty crazy that a guy of his age, I know age is just a number, but the fact that he's as old as he is still running that much is just freaking cool. I mean, most guys that age don't do that. They're definitely not doing that. So best luck to Russ and his compadres out there as they continue to run these long races. I look forward to seeing what they accomplish.

Next week on the podcast, I got a bit of a surprise. I'm not going to give you a little clip. Let's just say this. It's a pretty big one. In my books, it's big. I'm excited for it. I am going to leave you at the cliffhanger because I think you just need to tune in next week. see who's on and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

All right? So we'll see you guys all next week.