The Joe Rogan Experience - #1027 - Courtney Dauwalter

Episode Date: October 24, 2017

Courtney Dauwalter is an ultra-marathon runner who recently won the MOAB 240 race in Utah in under 58 hours.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Welcome Courtney! Thank you. Thanks for having me. First of all, how did you do what you did and how are you right now? We're just jumping right in. Yeah, let's just jump right in. For people who are just tuning in, Courtney won the Moab 240, which is a 238 mile endurance race through the, it'sab right right in Utah deserts canyons mountains and how long did it take you to run 238 miles it took just under 58 hours that is so crazy and you beat the second place person by more than 20 miles right what was the distance yeah I'm not sure the distance I think it was around 20 or so. It was about 10 hours. How did you do that? How old are you?

32. That's young for these kind of races, right? Yeah, that's true. Because these kind of races, usually it's like grit and anger at the world that gets you through. Yeah. grit and anger at the world that gets you through. Yeah.

And you're only 32. You're young. And the way you're winning is so crazy. And you've only been doing this, big-time races like this, for a short amount of time, correct? Yeah, that's right. How long? I've been running ultra marathons for maybe seven, eight years, but getting pretty competitive in the past couple of years.

Wow. So how did you start out? The race? How did you start out running? Did you start out in high school? Yeah. Back in junior high, high school, I ran cross country and track and continued endurance sports through college and tried some marathons. And then it was just like a natural segue into trail racing. But it's just the way you're beating these people is insane. You're not just beating them. You're like demoralizing people.

Well, I hope not. You hope not. Oh, you're too nice. When you beat the second place person by 20 hours or 20 miles, that's so crazy. 10 hours, you said? It was about 10 hours. That is insane. You both start at the same time.

Ready, set, go. You're finishing 10 hours ahead. You could go to sleep, get eight hours sleep, have a nice meal, sit down, and then just show up clean and showered and everything like that. Oh, you're finishing now? How cute. I just slept all night. I mean, that's crazy.

Yeah, it was cool. I mean, it was a cool adventure to travel with your feet for 238 miles. I mean, it was brand new territory for me, so I didn't know how it was going to go. Well, it's pretty much brand new territory for all the runners, right? This is like the first ever 240, Moab 240? Quite a few of them had done a bunch of 200-mile races before. Yeah. There you go.

Let's picture you hoofing it. Hoofing. Crazy. So what is going on? Why are you so much better than everybody else? I think I had a good day out there. Get out of here. You had a good three days. You're trying to be too nice. No, but really like objectively, like how are you so much better than everybody else? I don't know that I'm physically better than any of them, but I have been really

trying to learn how to like tap into my brain when it physically becomes hard because I think our brain can help us overcome so much and it's so powerful so kind of that mind over matter thing and and when it physically becomes impossible to try and switch gears into like have it be a mental thing and just keep pushing. So what are you doing to do that? Like, have you studied some forms of meditation or? No, I think just experience. Like I keep on doing these races that put me in uncomfortable physical states. And, um, and then I, I try and keep in mind that like my brain can help me overcome this

physical pain if I just keep going wow so that's it just just stay tough trial and error yeah wow so essentially self-taught in in terms of like your mental fortitude kind of yeah I guess probably could give some of that credit to like my parents my upbringing or coaches I've had along the way. But in this past couple of years, it's been just not letting myself have an excuse to stop. That's terrifying to everybody else. Because if you did decide to start learning meditation or something, what if it took you to another level? That'd be cool. Do you meditate? Yeah, be cool. Do you meditate?

Yeah. Would it do that? I don't know. Cause I can't do what you do. So I couldn't tell you. I mean, maybe it's just being comfortable with that excruciating agony and pain and just like finding a state of mind

that you obviously know how to achieve. Maybe there's nothing more to it. Maybe it's just incredibly hard work and just grit, which you obviously have both of those. I mean, that could be just it. Yeah. You might have the formula. It could be real simple.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of times people try to overthink things, right? Mm-hmm. Like how many people do you know where their life sort of never changes, but they're always like doing self-help seminars and reading all these books. And fucking nothing changes. They're just the same person. They keep screwing up.

They keep getting involved in bad relationships. Sometimes maybe it's just there's a simpler thing or simpler answer. Right. Set your mind to something. Put in the work to get there. And then just execute the plan. Now, is this the furthest you've ever run? That is the furthest, yeah.

What was the previous furthest? The previous furthest was 155-ish miles. Wow, that's a big difference. Yeah. Wow. And that was just on a flat track. Oh, wow. So this was really different than what I had done before.

Well, that's the interesting thing about these mountain races, like, because it's not just in terms of it's not just your cardiovascular endurance, you have to have muscular endurance because you're climbing. There's a lot of elevation change, right? Yeah, quite a bit. It's nice, though, because then you get the like, reprieve of using different muscles. bit. It's nice though, because then you get the like reprieve of using different muscles. Your hiking muscles might be different than like your flat running or your downhill muscles. So you get to kind of switch it around, switch the effort around. And why is everybody in this race using trekking poles? I noticed that.

For me, they were helpful. I didn't use them until the probably last quarter of the race. Really? And they were helpful just as my feet were becoming a little more tender and my muscles not quite as quick to catch me on the downhills and the uphills just to like disperse the effort a little bit to my arms. Well, Jamie, pull up that video of the sort of preview video of the moab 240 when they showed all these people running over the top there's some precarious section yeah like and when you're tired you've already run like 80 90 miles then you hit these crazy precarious sections like what is that like that's like don't die and no one's there watching you it's not like anybody's running with you other than other runners right like this would be a lonely death. Moab 200 endurance run is a 238-mile foot race through some of Utah's most stunning and challenging terrain.

And it really is stunning. Yeah, look at that. That's beautiful. God, so beautiful. And so Solomon is the sponsor of this? They're the presenting sponsor. And then there's a bunch of, like, sub-sponsors. I love their trail shoes.

Look at this section. That is insane. This is the one that drives me nuts. It's like if you just stumble off the side that's a wrap son. Yeah well and they're making it look like so easy to run down. I'm pretty sure I was like stumbling my way down that a lot less gracefully. Well how come these guys can't do it the way you do it though? Like something's going on because like this has got to be like insane to for the other people that were running it that you win by these giant margins yeah i don't know i think you really don't know like are you what is your diet like oh yeah um

Um, nachos, candy. Nachos and candy? Beer. Yeah? I mean, just a normal diet. I don't restrict or like try and include anything different than normal, I guess, the average American. Wow. So do you supplement with vitamins or do you take anything else?

I take a multivitamin. That's it? Yeah. Wow. No minerals? No creatine? Nothing crazy? No.

No? No. So just essentially a multivitamin and just hoofing it with nachos in your belly? Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. I would expect that someone who is so far ahead of the rest of the pack that you would have some, like, you go to Colorado Springs, the Olympic training program, and they get you hooked up to these Rocky IV machines.

Like, they had Drago, the Russian guy, and you're doing all this stuff, and they got, like, a music video soundtrack playing in the background. You're the best. Around. Right? I mean, that's what I would think. But meanwhile, you're just drinking beer eating nachos yeah does it help living in colorado like you're you're at a good altitude right yeah great

altitude i think it probably helps i mean um i'm right outside denver so there's trails out my door so i that's my like everyday run is on trails climbing around the foothills of Colorado. So quite a bit of climbing. We're already at altitude. So it's got to help. So talk me through your preparation. So when did it start? Like when did you sign up for this race?

When did you know that you were going to do it? I signed up in May. But I also was signed up for a 100-mile race a month prior to Moab, so like mid-September. And so my preparation was mostly for that 100-mile race. And then after the 100-miler, it was just trying to recover, make sure my legs and body felt fresh again, and then got squeezed in a couple more weeks of solid training to get ready for Moab. It's so funny because you say 100 miles. I'm like, that ain't shit.

It's all so relative, you know, because a marathon to me would kill me. But, I mean, you saying that you ran 238 miles and then 100 miles doesn't sound like much. I know. Child's play. How long does it take you to run 100 miles? Usually somewhere around 24 hours or under, depending on the trail and the climbing and stuff. So when you're getting ready, so you're preparing mostly for the 100 mile race, and then it's sort of recovery, and then did the 100 mile race essentially get you in condition for the 240?

Yeah, that's what I hoped is that it could be a good springboard to the next one. So is that condition, is that a mental thing? Or are we talking about a physical thing and a mental thing? I think both. Yeah, your body, I mean, your body is important. So, like, the physical aspect is important as well. important so like the physical aspect is important as well um and just being able to like pound your legs for the the amount of time the amount of miles that you need to for these races is um physically learned for sure so what kind of daily miles were you putting in when you're getting ready

for the 100 i would average about 100 miles per week so i't know. So that's not even too crazy. That's not too crazy. Right. Because my friend Cam Haynes was trying to do a marathon a day. Yeah, he's insane. That's so cool. Is that too much? I mean, no.

He was doing great with it. Well, he came in a day later than you. You're like, yeah, keep it up. You know what? You should do like 40 miles a day keep going buddy no i think it depends on people's bodies like some some people 100 miles per week is a lot their bodies can't sustain that and for some like cam haines he can do a marathon a day and and be in great physical form for it but he's a a meathead, and I always wonder, I love him, by the way, I say this with all due respect,

I wonder if he pushes too hard, like maybe there's a fine line between, there's like a point of diminishing return, perhaps? Yeah, yeah. You know, where you go so hard that you're kind of overtraining, and even though you can sustain it, really you get better performance out of being like pushing less. Right. get better performance out of being like uh pushing less right yeah i don't i can't speak to to his training but um i think he's pretty he's pretty new to all these ultras as well yeah i think so over the last few years he did the bigfoot 200 last year he did just 205 miles

he did that in 78 hours he actually did this race two hours quicker than he did the 205 which is so cool. Crazy. Yeah. Probably because he's just humiliated by you. Oh, no. I hope not. It's like this chick beat me by a day. She beat me by a day.

So, like, forget about the second place person who you could have taken a nice, restful eight hours sleep, gotten a fine meal at a restaurant, had a glass of wine, and took a shower, and brushed your teeth, painted your toenails, if you have any left, do they all fall off? No, still got 10. Really? Yeah. Cam's all fall off.

He takes pictures of them all taped up. Oh, really? Yeah, it's disgusting. So when you're recovering from something like this, how long does it take before you feel normal again? After this one, I felt like a human. So I finished Sunday night, and I felt human by Wednesday, probably. Wow.

And got out for some jogs then, like Friday, Saturday. Really? Yeah. Wow. I would be done with jogging forever. I'd be like, enough of this. This is so stupid. I just take a car next time. So like when you say you felt like a human again, like what do you mean by that? For me, those first couple of nights after I don't sleep very well,

I think like everything's just on overdrive. My legs are throbbing and uncomfortable and it's hard to like turn your brain off as much as you want to. So I was finally like getting good normal sleep by Wednesday and it kind of messed with my appetite for a couple days as well where food just like wasn't, it didn't sound that great even though I was like totally depleted of nutrition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's gotta be such a shock for your body. Oh, for sure. Who knows? That's probably not good for us, but it can't be. Well, I say it can't be, but maybe it can be right.

Because maybe you're recovering and maybe when you recover from that extreme exertion, your vitality ups. Because like, there's all all these people that say, like I've read this, that if you run a marathon, you should take six months off. I've read that. I actually read that. Like someone's recommendation.

It takes you six months to recover from a marathon. From one marathon. Well, who? Who? You, fatso? Who are you talking about? Who's saying this? Obviously, there's people that can do more than you.

People who are writing this stuff down are silly. Because no. Because Cam, if he can run a marathon a day, obviously he doesn't need six months off. And I've hung out with him after he's done this, and he's totally normal. It doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with him. So that's not true. So the question is, who are we comparing to? Who's our baseline?

Is our baseline a guy who barely works out? Or is our baseline you? Because you're going to get two radically different results. Right. Got to take those articles with a grain of salt. Yeah. But that's the thing. What I was saying to Kim, I was like, well, how do you know how much to train?

He goes, no one knows how much to train for this stuff because it's really just guesswork. Yeah. Yeah. Which is part of the cool part. You know, it's like there's a million pieces to the puzzle of ultra running and and figuring them out is part of the fun of doing this sport. Now, what has it been like for you after you won? Because you're like I've talked to so many people that really have no interest normally in endurance running and they've brought you up constantly. Like you're like a superstar. It sounds, I'm sure it sounds crazy to you, but like, uh, my friend Brian Stevens, he was texting me the whole way back and forth

while this was going on. And you know, he was like looking at your numbers and your times. He's like, this is fucking insane. Like this woman is insane. Like how is she doing this? Well, thank you. They had a good tracking system. That was so fun for people to watch. Yeah, that's what Brian was saying. He's like, I've never been less productive. Right.

Because I'm just going online and checking this thing constantly. Yeah. I mean, since then, I had to create a Twitter. You didn't have any social media? Instagram. I had a Facebook, but I wasn't. Maybe that's how you were successful. You didn't have any social media? Instagram. I had a Facebook. Maybe that's how you were successful. I don't know.

You weren't just bogged down by all the nonsense that people just, you know, social media nonsense can eat up a lot of your day. Yeah. Well, I'm still figuring it out. Don't. Don't even bother. Just occasionally post things and just ignore everything else. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll just retweet a few things. Yeah, that's the move. Just learning about those. Yeah, just press that little retweet button whenever anything's interesting. That's a good move. Yeah. So, like, when you finish the race, like, what is the feeling like when you cross the line and you look back and you don't even see a person? Like, you wouldn't be able to see them with fucking binoculars.

Like, they're on the other side of the earth. The curve of the earth, if you believe that thing, the curve of the earth is literally so far. They're beyond the curve. That's true, right? Isn't it? 20 miles? I would imagine you can't see straight

20 miles. I would imagine 20 miles. You might be able to see the top of a dude's head and he's like... You'd have to have one of them crazy binos. Yeah, if you're glassing, you can probably see him. Yeah, if you're glassing. Just glassing. I mean, what is that feeling

like? It felt amazing. You know, with the tracking system that we had, when I left the last aid station, there's like 17 miles to go and it was pretty much um we could see that it was certain that i could get to the line first as long as i didn't like take a nap out there right or become like physically incapable but you could take a nap that was the thing you could take a nice one That was the thing. You could take a nice one. Did you think about that? No. Let me just take a nice nap here. Oh, a nice five-hour nap. And you

still have like five plus hours ahead of everybody. Yeah. Oh, maybe. Yeah, that would be nice. Well, so it was nice because I was running with my husband at that point. We could enjoy the trail and not be super anxious about trying to be really efficient, but just trying to be efficient on the course. But then we saw that getting under 58 hours was possible. So then I got a little like bee in my bonnet about trying to push the pace a little bit more. A bee in your bonnet. I've never heard that phrase before. That's a great phrase.

Oh, you should come to Minnesota. We've got all sorts of good phrases. So does your husband run the same kind of races that you run? Or did he just like hop in every now and then? He runs 50 milers and 50Ks, so 31 miles. But he didn't enter this race? No, he didn't. So he just kind of helped you along?

Yep. Like jumped in at certain spots? So how does he get to these spots? You have to drive? Yeah, yeah. So he's all of helped you along, jumped in at certain spots? So how does he get to these spots? You have to drive? Yeah, yeah. So he's all relaxed and got a Starbucks in his hand? No, I mean, if you picture a 238-mile loop, he had to drive to all of the places on this course. Oh, poor baby.

He spent the day in the car, the couple days in the car, and I had a fantastic crew of friends out there. And in these races, you can have pacers for certain sections. So I could have a buddy run with me who was fresh and like their brain and their eyes and their legs were more alert to help me just keep track of the course flags, like staying on course and stuff like that. That's interesting. Like when you're doing this for this amount of hours, what was the total hours again? 50? Right under 58.

So when you're doing it for this amount of hours, how much sleep are you getting? I slept 21 minutes. Wow. That is so crazy. That was two separate naps. Really? Yeah.

So like 10 and an 11? 20 and a 1. Really? Yeah. The one minute nap you count? Oh man, it was amazing. It was the best sleep I've ever had. Was it really?

It really was. Why'd you get up though after a minute? So I did the 20-minute nap intentionally. I crawled in the back of our crew car. We had a sleeping bag back there, and I tried to get some good rest after. It was like middle of the second night, and I didn't sleep very well. I was just really uncomfortable. Just because you're so wrecked?

Yeah, and I was still pretty amped up, so I couldn't shut my brain off, even though it was becoming pretty delirious. So then I left that aid station after laying in the car for 20 minutes, and I was on the trail with one of my good friends and pacers, and I was falling asleep as I was running, like, zigzagging all over the trail. I couldn't keep my eyes open. the trail. I couldn't keep my eyes open. So at one point I was bent over and I was like face planning towards the ground. And he's like, just lay down, like take a nap right here, right on the trail. So I'm like laying down already snoring as I'm like one minute, just one minute. Wakes me up one minute later and I was like more alert than I've ever been. And then we were super pumped up the rest of the time because we were like, a one minute nap.

It worked. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah. A bunch of people like, I talked to Cam. I think he took a similarly like really short nap and it just like rejuvenates you in a weird way. Wow. I've heard that before that like if you're really tired, a 20 minute nap will make a

huge difference. Yeah. If you could just lie down. I've always like ignored that. Like,'re really tired a 20 minute nap will make a huge difference if you could just lie down and I've always like ignored that like how is that gonna be yeah next time try just one minute I'm too lazy I would I would stay asleep so how did like when he woke you up after one minute were you like why did you wake me up no I was like why did you let me sleep so long I thought it had been I thought it had been at least 30 minutes. And I was like, dude, we got to go. Why did you let me sleep so long? He's like, that was one minute.

One whole minute. Ready, go. And you were just out cold. Out cold. I REM cycled like dreams and everything. Really? Yeah. Do you remember them?

I don't, but it was like the deepest sleep. Wow. And what was cool is as I was laying on the trail for one minute, it was dark and beautiful stars out and there were elk bugling like up on the hillside. Oh, wow. It was cool. I didn't hallucinate that. That was real. Did you hallucinate at all?

I had some hallucinations, yeah. What would you see? You know, in the forest at night, everything just like becomes something. So there were tons of like faces and animals. There was a guy playing a cello. There was a leopard hanging out in a hammock. It was like... How vivid are these? I mean, pretty, like where I think they're real and I'm like waving at them. You're waving at the leopard in the hammock? Well, where I think they're real and I'm, like, waving at them. You're waving at the leopard in the hammock?

Well, I didn't wave to him. I waved to the cello player. Really? Yeah. But did you know he wasn't real as you were running by? Yeah. I mean, now that I've done these quite a few times in the night, I usually see some things. And so now it's just, like, kind of cool to acknowledge that it's happening and try and remember so I can tell my tell my friends afterwards so is there any part of you that thinks like hey there's a

guy with a cello in the woods or is there just a recognition that you're freaking out because you're running 58 miles or 58 hours I think just a recognition like, huh, guy with cello. Noted. So you're just so focused on what you're doing that even the most bizarre thing, like a leopard in a hammock. Yeah, I mean, it just happens now. So I know there's not actually one. But how often does this take place? I mean, how many of these have you done, these ultra marathons? Quite a few. And did the hallucinations start in the early ones? Yeah, basically, like my first couple hundred milers where you go through the night.

It's always the nighttime where shadows just like play tricks on you. And so I'm like in the mountains of Colorado and there's giraffes and like flying eels and all sorts of weird things. And at first I was freaked out about it. But now it's just like, all right, that'll be a fun story to tell afterwards. Have you talked to a doctor or anyone and say, hey, what happens to the mind? No, I haven't. I'd be fascinated to know like what is what's happening that's causing you to have these like extreme visual hallucinations? So you're saying they looked real.

Yeah. But I think it's just like shadows and your brain is too tired to like process. So it just like jumbles them together into something that would make sense. Wow. I don't know. But it's not freaking you out. You're just like, all right. Hey, cello guy.

Hey, man. Rock Hey, cello guy. Hey, man. Rock on, dude. Yeah. Thanks for the tunes. Could you hear him? No. No?

So he was just like silently playing a cello? Which is creepy in itself. Wow. Is that the only hallucinations or was anything else weird? During this one? Yeah. Those were like the significant ones otherwise just a lot of like random faces on trees or rocks and stuff like that now as you're running right and you're running for 50 whatever miles or 58 hours and you're constantly moving forward is there a point

in time where your body like like, what does it feel like? Are you, like, in constant pain or are you just numb to it? Like, what happens? It's kind of, you go in waves. Like, you'll be riding this wave where you're just feeling, like, amazing and really fresh and, like, your legs can cruise pretty well and everything, nothing hurts. You know know everything's feeling really good and then that wave will eventually come crashing down where things are hurting again and you might be like whimpering along for a little bit but the cool part about

these is that those waves like I mean they always come and then they they go so you ride this like high and low the whole race and when it gets really low when you're feeling awful you just have to remember that you're going to feel better again soon you just got to keep chugging along so you're in pain and then somehow or another you feel better even though you don't stop running yeah yeah how does that work i don't know like a switch flips or sometimes i'll like intentionally during those lows take more calories in thinking maybe that will help just like give my body some something to burn for a while to make it happy again what kind of stuff can you eat while you're running this much

um in one this length I was doing a lot of um like water Gade, and then there's this powder you can put in water called Tailwind. It has like electrolytes and 200 calories per bottle. So you're getting in calories. And then like normal athletic foods like Honey Stinger products, which are like gels and shoes and stuff. But then I was eating boatloads of the cheese quesadillas at all the aid stations. They serve cheese quesadillas? Oh my gosh. It was like a whole buffet line. Anything you wanted were at these aid stations. Yeah. And it was good? Oh, it was amazing. Wow. So you could eat cheese quesadillas and just keep running? Yeah. So I would stop at each aid station, demolish a cheese quesadilla, like hang out for just a second to let my body reset and then keep cruising. Wow. Which normally I'm not very good at eating real food during,

but this just felt like too much. There's Cam with the bacon cheeseburger. Yeah. Covered in a blanket. Oh, that's another thing. Like, there's points in the race where it's extremely cold, right? It got really cold. I think we hit nine degrees on the second night. And what are you wearing? A couple jackets, like a windbreaker jacket and a rain jacket and some gloves and, like, a headband, some pants. Nothing, like, absurd. So just the fact that you're constantly moving.

You stay fairly warm. Yeah. And the windbreaker is the rain jacket to stop rain or from wind? Just layers. I just wanted to, like, try and insulate the body heat. Are you eating those little waffle things, those bee stingers? Yeah. I love those.

Those are great, too. You've had them? Yeah, those are great. They're awesome. So you're just trying to take in like the densest stuff, like sugars and cheese and quesadilla, just anything. Just anything that would stay in. I didn't want to get nauseous and start losing it on the trail. And Cam said he doesn't go to the bathroom the entire time.

Like he doesn't have to. Just food just goes in and just becomes burned. Yeah. Is that the case with you too um I use a request ask women yeah no bring it but he said he didn't poop for like three days I don't know if that's healthy Kim yeah he's got a lot of unhealthy problems talk to him maybe listen to you he doesn't listen to me no I used the restroom while I was out there.

Did you have to pee? Yeah. Well, that's crazy because I would think that you're sweating so much that it would just go right through your skin. Yeah, I'm not sure the science of it. For a while, I was peeing like way too much, like multiple times per mile. And I think it has something to do with the amount of salt that you're taking in. That was another question I had. Are you taking salt tablets?

I wasn't until I was having this problem, and then it was like, we got to try and stop this because that's not good either to go as often as that. Yeah. So then I took some salt tabs or whatever pills. Did that clear it up? Yep. Now, what are those? Do you know what milligrams, how much salt you're actually taking in? Nope. No. So they're just like S caps or something. They're just a normal like you can

buy them at any any athletic store. Oh so this is just a little pill of salt I think. And it's mostly for runners essentially. That's all I've seen use them but you could you could probably have some if you wanted. So what's the thought process behind it, though? The thought process is that your body is pushing through all these minerals and the salt helps you retain water? Yeah. And what about other minerals? Do you have to take magnesium or anything else while you're doing that?

I didn't, no. And I don't even really know the exact contents of that tailwind powder that I was putting in. I know it has lots of electrolytes and stuff like that that's supposed to help, but I'm not sure if it has some of the other pieces that people need during these. Now, before the race gets started, do you hyperhydrate? Do you drink a ton of water to get ready? Yeah, I tried. I mean, nothing too crazy. Nothing too crazy? No. What about food before the race?

Do you just eat like a pig and get ready? No. No? No. Just normal. Just normal. Normal nachos. Just normal nachos, normal beer.

And so as you're leaving, as ready, set, go, what's the state of mind you go into when you know that you're about to run 238 miles and kick everybody's ass? It was exciting. I mean, it was this big adventure that I had high expectations of myself while at the same time having no expectations of myself because I didn't know I didn't know how it was going to go and I really wanted to just enjoy being out there like moving my body with my feet for multiple days was really exciting so I was pumped at the at the beginning and spent those first probably 50 miles like running with various people through the desert there's like canyon walls just like towering on every side um and just trying to enjoy that like this is just the beginning if you start to comprehend or think about like how far you have to go you're gonna

freak yourself out so like just be right now so you just sort of stay in the moment that's what i was trying to do yeah just left foot right foot left foot right foot yep that's it easy as that is there ever a moment while you're doing this where you want to stop and quit yes no I never wanted to quit I I knew that the cutoff time was was Tuesday night and so no matter what happened out there I was going to make sure I'm finished I knew that the cutoff time was Tuesday night. And so no matter what happened out there, I was going to make sure I finished this race, even if I was coming in Tuesday night. Like if it meant I had to sleep for many, many hours or multiple times or if I had to like death march my way around the desert, I was going to finish it. Death march?

You know, just like slow. Oh, okay. That's a harsh way of looking at it, though. Oh, sorry. No, no, don't apologize. It's good. Because I did notice that there were some people that were still running. You know, after you guys had finished and, you know, after Cam had stopped uh looking at the uh the time for quite a

while and then i went like eight hours nine hours later and i'm like oh my god people are still running yeah those are warriors they're so impressive i mean they were out there putting on their headlamp for the fifth night that's a long time to be out there and they were it was incredible we got to hang around the finish line and watch quite a few of those you stuck around yep yeah that was one of the best parts we eat ice cream uh drinking beer but did you think to yourself like how the hell did i finish so much faster than anybody um no i thought how the heck are these people so incredible and still going? I mean, I'd like to think I'd be able to keep pushing myself on that fourth day into the

fourth night, but that's mentally really hard. Oh, it's got to be. Yeah. But you do understand that you stomped everybody's ass. You do get that, right? You're so humble. This is kind of amazing. Thank you.

You do understand that, though, right? I mean, it's like, has it internalized? I understand, yeah. I put together a pretty good day. And when you stop and you think about when you reflect and you look back on it, we're like, you know, a week past it was about more than two weeks. How long ago was it? Oh, one week, one week. Yeah. So you're a week past it. And how do you like, how do you process that? Yeah, that's still I'm still working on it. Like just the whole adventure, all the places, like all the sites I got to see,

the people that I got to meet, the fact that my feet carried me that far. What kind of shoes do you run in? Solomon shoes. Okay, so same as the, which ones? They're called the Sense Ride. Have you tried them? No, I haven't. I see you got some Solomons on. Yeah, I always wear these

trail runner things, the speed cross ones. Speed cross. I like those because they're good. They have a lot of grip. When I'm not wearing those Vibrams, I wear those five finger shoes too. I sort of alternate. So do you run the sidewalks in those? No, I just run trails. You run around here? Yeah. yeah yeah that's awesome it's good but it's not like colorado you you're dealing with altitude and a lot more you also have like didn't someone just die some endurance guy just got bit by a rattlesnake near you yeah that's in golden wasn't it yep which is where i live holy shit yeah what happened to that dude just really unfortunate i don't actually know the whole story, but he was out on a trail like it's a couple miles from my house and and got bit and had some like weird reaction to it.

Like he had help pretty quickly and got to the hospital in pretty good time. But unfortunately, something about his body and that bite like wasn't good. Wow. Yeah. Because I've thought rattlesnakes, like, you have a few hours. Yeah. Usually, right? Yeah, I mean.

It's not good, but. It's not good. You have a few hours. And pretty much, if you read anything about what to do after a rattlesnake bite, those things are wrong. Right. Like, you pretty much can't do anything. You shouldn't suck the venom out. You shouldn't, like, slice it you pretty much can't do anything. You shouldn't suck the venom out. You shouldn't, like, slice it open.

You shouldn't do anything. Just get to the hospital as calmly as possible. You shouldn't suck the venom out? No. What was that, a Dan Aykroyd movie? Where he got, like, venom in his butt and he's telling someone to suck the venom out of his butt? Oh, God.

Remember that? No. I remember that. But I bet we're going to see it here in a second. Yeah, I'm sure. Jamie's furiously typing. The reason why I remember it is because Sam Kinison was mocking him. Was mocking it.

They must have had some sort of a feud back in the day. Anyway. It was in City Slickers. Was it in City Slickers? Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, that's why Sam Kinison was mocking it. He got kicked off the original City Slickers.

He was in it. He was in the original cast. Oh, wow. And he didn't get along with somebody and they got rid of him. Well, it wouldn't have helped if he did suck the venom out. Why do people think that you should do that? I don't know. Like Old Wives Tale or something? I'm not sure. Yeah, they say you're supposed to cut it.

Cut it open. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that either. What do you do? Do you make a tourniquet? I think that's actually a good idea, right? The latest thing I read that's the best to do is just have a sharpie along. Circle where the bite is and mark the time. And then like every 20 minutes as you're, if you have to hike yourself out or like you're trying to get somewhere to go get help, circle it again 20 minutes later

to show where the swelling has gotten to so that the doctors have a better idea of like how quickly it's moving through you. I saw a horrible thing online. This young man got bit in his arm and his skin started to die and his tissue started to die you know necrosis yeah and so they had to do all these massive skin grafts and just massive surgeries and it had essentially rotted down to the bone and you can see like the bone in his arm it was rough but he he lived yeah but i think he had gone through more than 10 surgeries. Jeez. Yeah, it was awful. And I didn't know that rattlesnakes could do that to you.

I'm like, whoa. Yeah. You have rattlesnakes here? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I killed one just a couple weeks ago. With your bare hands. I stomped it.

Oh. Yeah, I stomp whenever chance I get. People say you shouldn't, but fuck them. Like, if they're near my house, like, there's no chance. I have kids. I have little kids. Like, any rattlesnake that's in my yard is dead. What else?

You guys have mountain lions out here. Yes. Yeah, have you ever seen one of those? I have seen them, but I saw them in Colorado. I haven't seen one out here. I saw one in Santa Barbara, actually. That was weird. It was in Montecito, which is like this really nice residential community.

And we were driving up the road and I saw what I thought was a coyote. I was like, what a coyote. I go, what a tail. Oh, it's a fucking cat. Just out on the street. Just out on a regular street. Yeah. It was a big fucker too.

Yeah. You know, like probably 70, 80 pounds. Those are scary. Yeah. It's like, I mean, it's not big for a mountain lion. They get to be like 150 and up. What's really interesting on here is people don't – everyone here is so urbanized that their understanding of what a mountain lion is, is like they think it's the Lion King. Yeah.

There's this one that – he has a name too. It's like P-32 or or P41 or some shit. And he went on a killing rampage at an alpaca farm. Okay. And killed like 11 alpacas and a goat. Jeez. Yeah. And doesn't even eat them.

He just went on a rampage. Yeah. And this woman got a depredation permit to kill it because it's her alpaca farm. And this lion has just decided to start fucking up her animals and this is like what she does for a living okay and she got all these death threats from animal rights activists i mean like death threats like she was terrified so she decided not to do anything she was going to hire someone to kill this mountain lion but it's like if you love animals wouldn't you want to stop the animal that's murdering all

her animals right fucking crazy assholes well and it's not doing if you love animals, wouldn't you want to stop the animal that's murdering all her animals? Right. You fucking crazy assholes. Well, and it's not doing it for food, which is unusual. Well, apparently they have a reaction. They can get into a pen when there's a bunch of them in there. They just can't help themselves. Okay.

They just can't help themselves. They just see them all there, and they just jack one and jack the other one. And he wasn't even eating them. He didn't eat any of them. Jeez. Yeah. Yeah, I've never seen one out on a run, i've always got my eyes peeled it would be so scary oh they're terrifying they're terrifying animals and you know for the most part they're important

they're important part of the ecosystem oh yeah but the weird thing about out here is we've sort of sectioned off their habitat by our highway system and so there's some of them that are stuck in the Santa Monica mountains and the genetic diversity is not very strong. I actually had a coyote expert on here who was, he works for the, what did he work for? The, what was the actual organization he worked for? Far, what the hell was it? We can do this for a while. for far what the hell is it anyway some sort of park ranger type fellow really nice guy but he was telling us about um the ones that they have like in griffiths park there's a mountain mine in griffiths park people just jogging and riding their bikes and this guy's just out there eating

deer all day long and they have to capture him every couple of years. They have to dart him because his collar, the tracking device on his collar, runs out of batteries. So every couple of years they've got to put the whack on this guy, put him to sleep, and redo it. But they leave him in the park. Mm-hmm. Huh.

Exactly. They don't want to relocate? No. Well, it's interesting. It's one of the good things about California is that we don't have a lot of car accidents with deer. You know, it's very uncommon. Okay. Whereas you said you're from Michigan?

Minnesota. Minnesota. Minnesota has a lot. A lot of them. A lot of car accidents. Yeah. And these places where they don't have apex predators, they have a lot. Well, do you guys have, what do you have out there?

Like as far as, do you have wolves? In Minnesota? Yeah. Wolves. Yeah. Deer. Some wolves. I think like way north there's even like, I mean, there's got to be moose and.

Do you have mountain lions in Minnesota? I don't know about any mountain lions. Yeah. Well, out here there's a lot of coyotes, which get the fawns. And then there's mountain lions, which decimate the deer. So no car accidents. Very few deer. California is like a really low deer density state.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah. So there's a good to that. Northern Minnesota fighting cougars now believed to be bobcats. Oh, they were fighting each other? They're up in a tree? Yeah, that's a bobcat.

Where's his tail? No, that's fake. Not what this one is, but I don't think Oh. Like, that's Photoshop. What is the one on the left?

What is that? It's like, uh, to probably hide something. It's a cardboard cutout of a typical size. Cardboard cutout of a typical size of a cougar

or mountain lion left is compared to the photograph of a bobcat. Oh, they were just probably doing it for the photos. Oh yeah. Oh, that makes sense. Just Minnesotans passing the time. Oh yeah. Well, I saw a bobcat that I thought was a cougar. I saw a bobcat with its cubs and, uh, in, uh, at Tahone ranch and I thought it was a cougar. Their tail, their tail, give it away. Yeah. Well, I just saw the cat. I saw this big cat in the road. I was like, whoa, is that a mountain lion? Yeah.

And then we eventually figured out that it was a bobcat. But they get to a good size. So we do have bobcats in Minnesota. So I got a question for you. Can you talk about the Run Rabbit Run race you had that you won? Yeah, we can talk about that. How did it end? No.

I'll let her describe it because it sounds pretty crazy what happened um so the 100 mile race that i was doing a month before moab at about i mean 12 miles roughly to the finish line my vision started blurring like in the periphery um and over the course of the next couple miles closed in until it was pure white. I couldn't see anything. So I just like stumbled my way along roughly 10 miles of trails to get to the finish line. Pretty much, I would say like 98% blind. I could see my feet, like right in front of my feet, but it was just white out. So I was running and falling everywhere. It was probably hilarious if people were watching, but I hit my head also on a rock. After you were blind? Yeah. One of the times I fell. So I had

blood dripping down my face, like stumbling along, totally couldn't see the trail. And you still won? Yeah, I managed to finish and hold the lead. You're a savage. You should give seminars on how to be a savage. That is crazy. So what happened to your vision? So since then, there's been tons of people kind of talking about it.

Apparently, it happens in ultras quite often. They are thinking it's a corneal edema. So basically, like, I wear contact lenses to see, and the, like, contact mixed with the air and the dryness and all sorts of things cause, like, a kind of fluid or... I'm not really sure how it works. Have you ever thought about getting Lasix or something? People who have done Lasix also get this corneal edema. So for now I'm just staying with the contacts because I've been learning how to deal with those a little bit

better. Well, did that concern you at all when you're about to run 238 miles? Yeah, I really didn't want to go blind again. Yeah, Jesus Christ. But I... Especially at that course. Yeah, yeah, right off a cliff. Yeah. I was using eye drops just to like get some like tears going in there. And I wore glasses for this whole race in Moab because that's supposed to help as well. Keep grit from hitting you. Yeah. Now, when you got back and you won that race and you were basically almost blind, how long did it take for your vision to recover? Five, six hours.

Oh, that's it? Yeah. Oh, that must have been a relief. Oh, such a relief. Yeah. I was pretty sick of it by the time I finished. But were you concerned that it could be potentially permanent? You know, it didn't feel permanent.

I think because it went white and because it moved in slowly, it felt topical. I don't know. I didn't really consider while I was racing if it was permanent. I was just amped on finishing the race at that point. But once I finished, no one seemed overly concerned about it. Like we went to the hospital and they were more concerned with checking out my head. So it didn't feel like that urgent. Whoa. Yeah. But it was weird. Yeah. Did you think about quitting? No. Jesus Christ. Even though you're blind and you got a concussion, you look like Carrie in a prom night. Like, what the hell?

Well, I hit my head and it thunked pretty hard. And then there was liquid dripping on my face. But I put my hand up to touch it and I couldn't see my hand in front of my face to see if it was blood or not. Wow. So I had no idea. And what is this course like that you're running on? It's in Steamboat, Colorado. So mountains and pretty rough trails on this section where I fell. Yeah. But the last six miles of the race, you finally get to like a fire road. So a little bit wider, a little more room for error.

If you go crooked. That's just so crazy. So how are you knowing where to step? You're not, you're just guessing. So that's a picture of the course. Yeah. So you're running that course blind. Well, that section's quite a bit more technical than the section I went blind on. When you say technical, what exactly do you mean? Like big rocks and cliffs, stuff like that. Why would that be technical? I don't know. That's just the word they associate with trickier trails.

Like you have to be more, use technique? Is that what they're saying? Maybe. I've heard that term before. That's why I always ask. Yeah. People talk about technical terrain. I don't know term before. That's why I always ask. Yeah. Like people talk about like technical terrain, like, you know. I don't know what it, I don't know the root word for it.

I guess you just can't just flat out just hoof it. You have to think about what you're doing. Yeah. Like your foot placement is a little bit trickier. You're kind of looking down a lot while you're running. Yeah. You can't just run straight. Right.

Right. Like, cause most people, like if you're running on a flat trail, you're just kind of looking ahead and you're assuming the road is going to be the same with the left foot as it is for the right foot and the left, same thing. Right. But this, you can't, right? Yeah. Now when you're doing something like that, I would think when you got to constantly look

down, that is when I would be concerned about like mountain lines or something like that. Yeah. Cause you're not looking. Yeah. And they probably think you're trying lions or something like that. Yeah. Because you're not looking. Yeah. And they probably think you're trying to get away. Right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure if you end up seeing the mountain lion,

it's already too late for you. Oh, really? I don't know. Did you hear about that kid in Alaska that got eaten by a bear in a race? Yeah. That's unfortunate. Yeah. He called his mom, too.

Called his mom before the bear attacked him and said, I think there's a bear that's following me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, animals are a real part of it. There was also a guy who was jogging along, minding his own business. And a hawk came and tried to swoop him, scoop his head. He had scratches across his whole head from the talons of this hawk. What? Pull up that picture. Yeah. What?

Like the hawk thought he was food, so he was going to grab him and bring him to the nest. What a gangster hawk. How little is this guy? I don't think that little. I think like an adult, I'm pretty sure. If a hawk landed on my head, I guarantee you I'm going to have a stuffed hawk in here. Right here. I'm going to have that fucker. And I'm going to have like a plastic hand around his scrawny neck. Fucking assholes.

I have hawks in my yard all the time. They're trying to get my chickens. I think they did get one. I think they got one. One of them went missing. We're trying to figure out what happened. Look at that. Wow, that is crazy. That's from the Thumb Talon.

Escaped Harris Hawks are attacking runners and walkers, prompting fears they're now breeding in Britain. Oh, this is in England. Wow. That is a huge gash. For people who are just listening, we're talking like 11, 12-inch gashes on this guy's head.

The whole head. The whole top of his head is like a track, like train tracks, like two straight lines. Yeah. It's kind of a cool scar it's going to make, though. Beautiful scar, right? Yeah. What happened to you? Gangster shit.

scar right what happened to you gangster shit i wonder i wonder if he did he's like oh my this hulk he's trying to take me away oh dear hey someone help me that's not the hawk that one looks too small harris hawk so this is an escaped hawk they're saying so is this a hawk that like essentially was a captive hawk and now they got loose and they don't know how to eat? They don't know what to do? And maybe, that's crazy. Maybe it thought this guy was, give it a shot. I recall hearing what I now know is the bird's wings flapping behind my head. And then suddenly, just talons.

But other than that, there was no warning. Geez. He thought it was a mugging. He thought he got mugged. Wow. What a crazy bird. The bird thinking he could kill a person. Yeah.

That is a gangster bird, man. Oof. Escaped bird. Attacking humans. Yeah, go back to that again real quick. What did it say? Whilst the attacker was originally thought to be a buzzard known to become aggressive during the nesting season experts pointed out the native birds of prey seldom strike in the summer months wow harris hawk yeah those those things they're the claws and those we were just talking about eagles

the other day like imagine like something that can swoop down and grab a salmon out of a river and fly off with it. Yeah. These ridiculous things they have at the bottom of their feet. Can't they even pick up small deer and stuff? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they can. Yeah, the Mongols use them to attack wolves. They have trained eagles that they swoop down and they grab wolves and they

kill the wolves. They drop them from up high or what do they do? No, they just kill them. They kill them with their talons. Their talons are so strong. It's like knives. They just grab ahold of their neck and stick the talons into the side of the neck. It's crazy to watch. I mean, these aren't big wolves. These are like coyote size wolves, but it's still, it's like, it's so weird to watch. It's like this thing just trying to run away, and this eagle just knows what to do, swoops down, just grabs him by the neck and wrestles him to the ground. That's insane. And then the Mongolian guys come over.

Here, you can watch it here. So they're trained. See, they have those little strings coming off the back of their legs. Oh, jeez. And this wolf's like, fuck. Fuck. And so this dude just releases the eagle. The eagle swoops down and just death from the sky just jacks him.

It's crazy to think that this was somehow or another they trained these things to do this too. And then they would, you know, kill the wolves and take their skins. I guess they like make jackets or something. The wolf knows what's going on too. And look, he's so much bigger than the eagle. That's what's really crazy. Because what does an eagle weigh? Like 20 pounds or something like that?

That wolf should have ran a little faster there at the end. He's tired. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. Oh, that's awful. Look how bad ass they are though. Those are huge birds. Huge.

But even a huge bird is a fraction of the size of that wolf. Yeah. And they're just holding them down that wingspan freaks it out yeah i just don't think i think it's just a superior murdering machine you know i mean i think like when it comes to like nature's killers eagles are just far superior to a wolf i mean they have air on their side they swoop down on you which is cool yeah they move through 3d space space. It's just a whole different thing. Yeah, so do they ever get your chickens? I know that a hawk

has. Yeah. Well, we know I saw a coyote get one. I saw a coyote run over the fence with a chicken in his mouth. I was sitting with my wife and my kids and we were playing some game, like Monopoly or some shit. And we look out the window and I see a coyote running through the backyard with a chicken in his mouth and he just hops a fence

and I open the door just to go, you fucker! Like, and then he was gone. You got him. Yeah. And,

yeah, it was a, it was a very complicated scenario because he actually had talked my dog into helping him. No way. Yeah,

I think it was a girl. I think it was, I'm pretty sure it was a girl coyote. And my dog, Trickery. Yeah, my dog thought it was, I'm pretty sure it was a girl coyote. And my dog. Trickery. Yeah, my dog thought it was, I have a big, dumb dog. And he thought, this is my friend.

Yeah. He wants to play with the chickens. I'll help him. Because the dog can, my dog is, he's a nice dog to people, but he's not nice to chickens. Okay. And he's murdered a few chickens in the past. He's got, I think so far he's killed six of my chickens. Oh, wow. Yeah. He broke into

the fence recently. I don't think I talked about this. We were outside and we had heard something. We heard these chickens squawking and making up all this noise. And I look and I'm like, how is the dog in the chicken coop?

He clawed through the chicken wire. He's a mastiff. He's a big mastiff. Oh, wow. Those are huge dogs. And he just smashed the chicken wire enough so he could get his body in there and just went on a rampage and just was murdering chickens. Oops. Yeah.

It's just their instinct, you know? Yeah. They just can't help it. And like a friend of mine said that he had a dog that did that once they killed his chicken and he took the dead chicken and tied it on the dog's head and then chained the dog to a tree and left him there for a couple hours and he said he said it worked he said the dog never fucked with the chickens again. So are you going to try that?

No. Oh. No. I think my golden retriever, he's a sweetheart, and I think he's killed a chicken, too. I don't know if he killed it, but he showed up with one in his mouth, and it was dead. Jeez. And we're trying to figure out if he killed it or if it was already dead, because sometimes they just die. Yeah.

Because we don't like to think he's a kill because he's still a baby. But he might die too. Dogs and chickens, it's a classic relationship. I don't know how we got on this. Oh, runners, animals. Yeah, sorry about that. Being worried about. So do you ever bring any sort of first aid with you?

Do you bring a backpack when you're running? It depends on where I'm going or how long I intend to be out there. So like when you're running Moab, do you bring any sort of backpack or anything? Yeah, I had a pack that was carrying water and like an emergency blanket and jacket just in case and food. So when you have an emergency blanket, is that one of those thin, like sort of silvery sort of blankets? Yeah, it just folds down into a very small square. Yeah, do those really work? Yeah, I mean, fortunately, I've never had to use one in an actual emergency. But you know how after marathons, they give everyone like a tinfoil wrap, basically? I think it's the

same thing where it's like holding in your body heat. So if worse comes to worse out there, you've got something to help you get through. Better than nothing. Right, right. Now, when you're running and you're drinking water, do you have bottles of water or do you have like a hydration bladder and a tube? How do you run it? The pack I was using has bottles, so it can carry, I mean, at one point I had two and a half liters of water with me for like a really hot, long section. And how long did that last you for? I made it last for 20 miles.

That's crazy. That's it? Two and a half liters seems like a tiny amount of water to drink for 20 miles of running. God, that's crazy. And it was a really hot exposed day out there in the desert. Have you ever been running? Like, uh, Cam was telling me that he did the Bigfoot 200 and there was a stretch where he miscalculated and he realized the terrain and he didn't have any water and he had to go for several hours with no water. Have

you ever done that before? That's awful. Um, I don't know if I've ever had to go several hours, but yeah, I've gotten to the point where it's like miles and miles away still. And, and you're fresh out of water. That's gotta suck. Yeah. How much of a performance hit does that take? I think it depends. Like also it can take a big toll out of you mentally if you stress out about it too much. But if you're just like, well, this is the situation. The only solution is to get to the next aid station. Then I think it is just a blip on the radar. That's an interesting approach. I wanted to get to this about how it transcends your mental fortitude,

sort of like how it manifests itself in everyday life. Your ability to just deal with shit is so superior to the average person. When you hear people complain, like, Starbucks is out of fucking venti, lattes is such bullshit, no more caramel macchiatos. is out of fucking venti lattes. This is such bullshit. You know, like, no more caramel macchiatos. Like, normal, everyday complaining stuff is, like, what a lot of people sort of engage in.

Sort of a recreation that people have to complain about nonsense. Right? Yeah. Well, how do you deal with that? To each their own, I think. I mean... You just let it happen?

If that venti latte was going to make your day, I'm really sorry that they're out, you know. But there's got to be a part of you that realizes like how, I mean, so many people are just really very weak in terms of like their ability to overcome adversity, you know. I think they just like aren't giving themselves enough credit. I think they just aren't giving themselves enough credit. And I think we're all capable of way more than we think we are if we just jump in and go for it, whatever it is. Right. And do you think you realize that more the more you push yourself? Do you understand yourself more after running 238 miles?

I'm trying to. Yeah, I'm trying to find my physical boundary. I'm trying to find the mental boundary, like where, where can I take this? Um, and trying to learn about myself and about the world and meet people along the way. But I gotta think that that must give you immense confidence to overcome bound obstacles, boundaries, like the fact that you can do what you can do, that you can just put your mind into this state of just dealing with the constant grind. I mean, you're falling asleep. You're half blind.

I mean, it's like this more than half blind, 98% blind. I mean, that has got to sort of transcend. I mean, it really must sort of make its way into your everyday life in a very weird way. I hope so. What do you do for regular stuff? Like, do you have a regular job? I taught middle school and high school science for nine years. And just this past year, I stepped out of the classroom.

So now you just run? So currently I'm running. Yeah. Wow. So how does that work? You have sponsors or something like that? Yep. yeah wow so how does that work you have sponsors or something like that yep I have some sponsors and a really supportive husband and um and my school like has been super supportive through

all this and they were like go see what you can do without the without the 7 a.m to 7 p.m shift you know like see what you can make of this and uh and let us us know if you want back in teaching ever. Did they freak out when you won the Moab? Well, one of the guys I teach with, Iblam, was actually one of my pacers out there. So he has been really supportive and awesome to train with. And I haven't actually talked to anyone else at the school since then. But they've got to be incredibly proud. I mean, to say, hey, go see what you can do. Yeah. And you're like, hey, look what I can do. Yeah, here it is. Pretty crazy.

And so is this your goal now is to just run? Yeah, for the time being, I want to just see what can happen if I really dedicate more time and energy to training and traveling for races and all of the pieces that go with that. And what is the woman's name that put on the Moab? Candice Burt. Candice. And does Candice like look at, I know she, is she involved in Bigfoot as well? Yeah. Yeah. All those 200 mile races are hers. But does she look at the 240 now and look at you and go hmm, Courtney might be able to do 320. She just the other day suggested on the like

there's a Moab 200 Facebook group and she put it out there what about a 500 mile race? Jesus Christ! Courtney! No, that's Candice. She suggested. I know, but Courtney don't do that. I mean why not, man? Candice, that's Candice. She suggested. I know, but Courtney, don't do that. I mean, why not, man?

Candice, you're a psycho. Candice is a crazy person. Does she run these races too? Well, unfortunately, when you're race directing, she can't run the 200-miles. Oh, unfortunately. I wish I could. I wish I could run with you, Courtney. She does a lot of 100-mile races and yeah is a great runner but 500

that is next level what is the longest anybody has ever run like what's the longest race ever is it the Moab no um let's see so there's races that are called six day races and it's just on a small loop and you try and go as far as you can, do that loop as many times as you can in six days. And I'm not actually sure what the record for that is, but I'm certain that it's higher than 238. So when she's talking about a 500, what? 3,100-mile race.

Oh, there you go. I'm pretty sure it's a relay race, but that's what it says. The Chimoy Marathon Team. Look up six day world record. Look at this. Welcome to the 21st annual self-transcendence 3,100 mile race. You know why they say it's a self-transcendence? Because after 2,000 miles, you run with Jesus.

He's literally with you. You transcend. You're running on air. That's crazy. 52 days. 52 days? They must log an average of 59.6 miles a day. That's fucking baby talk.

Wait, I think this is the one in New York. It's just around like a city block in New York or something. The runners begin at 6 a.m. and run for extended periods throughout the day, taking breaks as needed. If they want to, they can continue as late as 12 midnight when the course closes for the night. Wow. That's pretty cool. Boy. Now, the community has got to be a very strange community of like iron-willed human beings. Oh, it's such a special community.

I'd imagine. Yeah. Like there's the character of those people. Well, and everyone's got a story and they're all out there battling their own battle, you know. Yeah. And it's cool to be at the finish line then and celebrate together and swap war stories, you know. I'm sure. God.

Swap war stories, you know. I'm sure. I mean, it's just like to find other human beings that are capable of putting their mind and their body into that position. Yeah. And want to do that. Like choose. Yeah. Actively choose to do that.

And look forward to it. And look forward to the next one. Pay money to do it. How much does it cost? For this one, maybe 700, 800. Did you win anything? No. Jesus Christ.

We've got to get you a prize. She should have a prize. You should win something. This is crazy. Think about how much they win when they fucking play golf. Oh, you knocked a ball in the hole. Way to go, fatso. That doesn't impress me at all.

What you do is like, I just feel like it's massively underrated in terms of like society's appreciation of it. Yeah. Well, a lot of people don't even know these are happening. Like ultra marathons are a very alien thing to a lot of people. I wasn't aware of them. Yeah. Until I became friends with Cam.

I didn't know anybody who was that crazy. So what mileage are you running now? I only run a couple. Yeah. I run like three. The most I run is like four. I mean, they have even half marathons on trails. That would be cool for you to just check out.

Trail running is so awesome. It is. Well, mostly what I'm doing is like super steep hills. Okay. That's what I like to do. I do a lot of hill sprints. Yeah. But it's made a big difference in my martial arts training.

Oh, I bet. I've only been doing it for like six, eight months maybe. No. January I think I started running. So it's more than that. Incorporated with all sorts of other training. It just makes a huge difference in my wind. And I never used to feel like the thought, I guess it was just laziness or I just didn't want to try it.

But a lot of people's thought process is, well, if you do cardio specific to your athletic event, right? Like if you do jujitsu, just do jujitsu. Just do a lot of rolling, do a lot of sparring, and your cardio will go up. If you do kickboxing, just do a lot of kickboxing, hit the bag a lot, and your cardio will go up. If you do kickboxing, just do a lot of kickboxing, hit the bag a lot and your cardio will go up. It will. But I maintain that just sheer cardio from running is a different thing and that your capacity for cardio is expanded, especially when you do hill running or sprints. Yeah, you'd think so. Yeah, I would think so. Now, do you do anything else other than running? Are you involved in any other athletics? Right now, no.

I played on some adult co-ed volleyball and soccer teams recently, but otherwise just running right now. Do you have a long-term goal, or is there anything that you'd like to accomplish? I don't know. I just want to keep pushing the limits and finding out what's possible going a little bit faster or a little bit further and getting to see parts of the world

is what I'm hoping for in this next year How many other women win these things? There's been in the past couple years it's becoming a little more frequent to have a female overall winner Yeah because for a long time that wasn't the case, right? Right.

Why do you think that is? I'm not sure. I don't know if the confidence or the time women are putting in or just figuring out nutrition stuff. I don't know. I don't know what's been the thing that switched it over, but it's not as absurd as it used to be for sure well what you do is absurd i mean that's absurd to not just win but to win by such an enormous margin you know like what an inspiration you must be to other young runners that are coming up right now and just know that that's possible that someone can can do that yeah i mean, I hope, yeah, to inspire future generations, my niece.

Like, I mean, that'd be cool. I don't know if it's happening, but. Oh, it's 100% happening. I'll keep trying. I have no desire to do it, and you've inspired me. Oh, thank you. But you know the story of the four-minute mile, right? Yeah.

That before, who was the guy, Jesse? Prefontaine. No, not that guy. Who was it that broke the four-minute mile? Was it like Allen? I forget his name. I was going to say Jesse Owen, but it's not him. But whoever the gentleman was that broke the four-minute mile,

they used to literally think it was physically impossible. Roger Bannister. Roger Bannister, thank you. But once he broke it, then a bunch of people broke it afterwards. They realized it could be possible. Which is another one of the reasons why when someone says, oh, if you run a marathon, you have to take six months off. Like, shut the fuck up. Nobody knows what people can do yet.

I mean, it's really true that there are boundaries to human performance that have not been explored yet. I agree. Absolutely. Yeah. So people like you, you're like at the tip of the spear of this shit. You realize that? No. You are. You are.

You are. I'm telling you, you are. Like in human history, I don't think there's a whole lot of people that can ever say that they've run 238 miles. I bet there's maybe one or two other people that have ever walked the face of the earth that have done what you did.

They might not have ever. I mean, maybe there's like some crazy aborigine or some indigenous people that we don't know about. Someone who lives in Mexico in the mountains or something like that has done something crazy like this. But for the most part, I mean, how many people have ever done what you did? I think there were 95 finishers at the Lab 240. But how many people have done it in less than 58 hours?

This year, just one, but I think it'll keep falling. That's my thought process. And do you think that there's anything left? Do you think you left anything on the table as far as like when you cross the line? Was there a thought like I could have done that maybe like five minutes faster? I mean, sure. Yeah, you can cut out time at aid stations, you can do sections more efficiently. So my hope is there's always room for improvement. And if I went back next year, I would absolutely be trying to push the pace and drop my time.

What would you try to get it under 50? I don't know. I think I'd just have to see how the day was unfolding and like what sort of obstacles were coming up that... If to get in under 50? I don't know. I think I'd just have to see how the day was unfolding and what sort of obstacles were coming up. If you did it under 50, I guarantee you some people would just throw themselves off the side of the cliff. They'd be like, fuck this. Fuck this. It'd be like me playing basketball against

Jordan. I can't do this anymore. I don't know. That'd be almost eight hours cut off. I don't think I can't do this anymore you know I mean I don't know seven that'd be almost eight hours cut off and I don't think I can that'd be a lot yeah but but maybe why not aim high talk to the person who came in second if you didn't exist that person who came in second would be a bad motherfucker they'd be like look I just beat everybody's ass in this crazy race he still is yeah he's not so much. He's a little bummed out right now. He's sitting at home going, fucking 10 hours.

I bet that guy gets a good night's sleep and brushes his teeth and forgets about it for a little while, gets in his car, and then he's in traffic and the light turns red. He goes, fucking 10 hours. How'd she beat me by 10 hours? I guarantee you. I hope you're not thinking that, Sean. Sean, I know you're thinking it, Sean. I would be thinking it too. Good news, Sean,

you beat me by 10 days. Think of it in terms of, well, it's, you know, you're the high watermark now, I guess. I mean, I can't imagine there's any other way to put it. You won the first one, but you won it by such a ridiculous margin. Yeah, we'll see next year what people are capable of.

Now, Candice and her crazy idea for 500 miles, are you going to indulge her in this ridiculous quest? Yeah, she threw it out there. She had immediately positive response from everyone in this group. Of course. Bunch of fucking psychos. I know. Yeah.

And she was saying maybe 2019 she'd be able to pull it together. Oh, why does she need that much time? I mean, the logistics involved. And then there's like permitting you have to do. And where would she have one of these things? Yeah, she didn't say. How she have one of these things? Yeah. She didn't say. How about the surface of the sun?

Yeah. Or the moon. Like let's all go to the moon. No, it's too easy. It's cold. Oh. Yeah. Not enough gravity.

You'd be like cheating. It's only like one sixth. One sixth of Earth's gravity. Yeah. I mean, I just, I wonder like what is the limit? Like what, what is the limit of a human? Yeah. One-sixth Earth's gravity? Yeah, I mean, I just, I wonder, like, what is the limit? Like, what is the limit of a human? Yeah. In terms of, like, I mean, you said that when it was over, you were wrecked for days.

You couldn't sleep. You really weren't eating well. But when you cross that finish line, and if someone said, okay, the real finish line is another 80 miles, you just would have kept going. Yeah, if that was real and I had 80 more miles to cover, I would figure out how to do it. What if it was 180? How many more miles do you think you have left in your body? I mean, is there a point where your tissue would just give out? Maybe, yeah.

But, like, for this 500-mile race she's suggesting, there's, like, she's thinking a 10-day cutoff or whatever. Oh, God. You know, so then you just got to build in some good sleep. Yeah. Sorry, Candice, if we weren't supposed to talk about this yet. I don't know. We're talking about it, Candice.

We're talking about it. That's, like, that's 10 days is not, well, I guess, but no one's going to do that, right? You're just going to keep running. No one's going to just go 50 miles a day, right? You could, like you can build that into your plan. Yeah. But no one's going to do that. I mean, for this one, people had sleep plans. There's aid stations out there that have like cots and blankets and you can stay. They say for six hours, they'll let you sleep there before they boot you to the course. Six hours?

Six hours. They go, get up, lazy. Yeah. I don't know if they just want to keep turning them over in case there's a need for more. Oh, that makes sense. So they wake you up at six hours? Apparently. I don't have any personal experience what did you

get off the cot and just lay right on the ground right next to the cot now what yeah look i'm not getting up i'm just gonna lay right here it's over yeah so i guess for this one they'd have to have sleep stations out there and i mean i think what i'm getting at is the fascinating part of this to me is that the boundaries are at least somewhat unexplored because what you did was in a way very revolutionary like what you did was like like you just you just flip the whole thing on its head by coming in 10 hours and 20 plus miles ahead of the second place person like now people are gonna go okay well what what's possible because maybe there's someone out there that could do that to Courtney yeah absolutely there is well I haven't met

them they exist I don't know but that's the question that's the cool part is if people just keep like wondering that then yeah I mean we'll be breaking down all sorts of barriers that's what's fascinating about it to me as a completely outside observer is that what you're doing is it's you're essentially an unexplored territory and even the training protocols right like your protocols different than cams and I'm sure that Sean guys got a different thing that he did and everybody's got their own little methods. And wasn't there a guy that was leading for a while, but he had a, he had a bail at like 150 miles. He couldn't take it anymore. Yep. So I was going back and forth for a while with a guy until maybe, yeah, I think it was 150

miles. What happened to him? I'm not sure. I think his legs or his quads or something was given out. I'm not positive. I didn't get to have a conversation with him. And does that happen often where someone just comes out of the gate too hard or maybe like he's trying to keep up with you and he outpaced himself? Yeah. Unfortunately, they're called DNFs or did not finish. And those happen pretty frequently.

What's the percentage if you had to guess? It was 100-plus people entered, right? Yeah. I think the 200, the Moab race had way less than a normal 100-mile race, for example. Way less DNFs? Way less people dropped out, yeah. Wow, interesting. I don't know if it's like the mindset going in.

You just know it's this big adventure, and you're going to be out there for multiple days. So you're ready for that versus a hundred mile race. I mean, people are breaking down barriers with how fast those can be done. Yeah. And so then you're going out guns blazing from the start and then you've got a higher potential for a blow up that just can't be fixed. So is that what happens? Like your muscles just break down. You get, what is it called?

Atolysis or something like that where your muscles start eating themselves. Yeah. And just like no response. You're getting nothing back from them. Yeah. And what is that thing that those CrossFit people get? Rhabdomyelosis. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Do you ever get that? I've never gotten it. Rhabdo. Rhabdo. Rhabdomyelosis. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you ever get that? I've never gotten it. Rhabdo. Rhabdo. Rhabdomyelosis. Yeah. Something about like your muscles are breaking down into your bloodstream.

Yeah. Yeah. That's not good. It's supposed to be horrible. Yeah. And apparently like way more common today than muscle breakdown damages the kidneys. Apparently it's way more common today because of these CrossFit classes and people pushing themselves. And that's the thing.

It's not a matter of what's possible. Like, hey, Courtney ran 248 miles. I can run it too. Well, yeah, maybe. But you're going to have to build up to that, stupid. You can't just do it tomorrow. That's kind of the crazy thing about all this, right? Is that like you're building like a mountain one Lego block at a time, right?

And someone who's like, oh, well, her mountain's like 5,000 feet high. I'll just fucking build a – no, it takes a long-ass time to build that mountain, right? Yeah. I mean, for me, I've been training for this long stuff for seven years now. So I wasn't like instantly successful at the 100-mile distance. And it's taken a lot of training and a lot of just learning along the way. Now, because of the fact that you ran this 238-mile race at a certain pace and you did so phenomenally,

do you feel like your body is now going to be stronger for the next one? I hope so. I hope if I treat it nicely for a little bit here and let it fully recover, um, that then I can try and springboard off of this for the next thing. Plenty nachos, plenty of beer. Yeah. Just load it in. Now, do you do any other kind of training? Do you do any weightlifting or yoga or anything else? Do you incorporate anything else? Yeah, I go to the gym. Mostly at the gym, I do core work and throw around a couple five-pound dumbbells. But otherwise, no, I think yoga would be a great thing to incorporate.

I just haven't gotten motivated to head to those classes yet. That's so funny. Now, do you stretch? Sometimes. But wouldn't you think that that would be a good thing to do? Oh, absolutely. Why don't you do it? I mean, I try, yeah.

It's just not incorporated into my normal routine very well. Do you think maybe like things along those lines, like maybe yoga or weightlifting or stretching would maybe possibly advance you to another level? Yeah. I mean, I might as well try and see. Yeah. But that's what I'm thinking. I'm like, you're so far ahead now that I would imagine it's a matter of like, what could possibly make you better? Like you're obviously to win by that extreme of margin. Like I would think, obviously, what you're doing now is amazing. Like if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? But are you at your very best? I hope not.

I'm going to keep trying to strive for higher. Just keep putting Lego blocks up? Yeah. Keep building a higher and higher mountain? I love Legos. Who doesn't? But it seems like it's a fairly good analogy. It seems that it's a slow, arduous process of improvement.

And it takes discipline and constant focus and constant attention and just time in. Yeah. And enjoying it, too. Like, that's a huge part of it for me as well. I'm loving it still. But you think that's part of the success as well, the enthusiasm that you have? I think it's got to be. If you're out there grinding every day for hours and you're just hating it,

then you won't be jazzed to go to any starting line. Yeah, well, that's sort of what you were saying about the water thing, that if you're low on water, don't let it freak you out. Just deal with it and it'll be less. That really does apply to life, doesn't it? I think so, yeah. No matter if you run or not, I think just figuring out how to deal with situations like that without freaking out and having to wreck your day is huge. Now, what about runner's high?

How high do you get when you run in like that? Is that real? Yeah. I don't get it. I just get tired. Yeah. Do you get runner's high? Sure, yeah.

I mean, when you're out there, like, cruising along some beautiful trails and you're in an amazing place and you feel really good and maybe you're with people or maybe not it definitely can feel really awesome but people like sort of chase that down right there's some people that that is like the only way they stay sane I think they got to go out and get their medicine yeah yeah that run in do you have like an end goal like do you do that do you look at like this running career and go okay I'm gonna get to be x amount of age I want to accomplish a certain amount of things and then stop or is it just life yeah life it's just life yeah the cool part about this running stuff I mean you alluded to it earlier but people in their 40s and 50s and 60s, they're doing these races and

still enjoying the trails. And I hope to still be doing it in 20 years and 30 years. My friend Ari, his dad, who is a Holocaust survivor, who's 80 years old, just ran a marathon in six hours. Wow. Fucking stud. That's amazing. Stud. I mean, come on. I can't run a marathon in six hours wow fucking that's amazing stud i mean come on i can't run a marathon in six

hours i know burt can't that fat fuck sorry brett i love you it's inside joke that's a total inside joke but his ari's dad is like how does how does one do that how does how's an 80 year old man run a marathon in six hours that's insane that's cool yeah just grinding yeah I mean what is the oldest competitor that you guys had in that race um 69 I think wow yeah how'd they do? He finished. Yeah. It's amazing. 69 years old and he runs 238 miles. I think he had something. He's 69 years old and it was like his 68th hundred plus mile race he'd ever done or something crazy like that. At that age, you're on borrowed time.

Why not just burn that candle with a goddamn blowtorch? Fuck the wick. Just throw that candle in a volcano. Yeah, or maybe he's making more time. He might be. Could be. Dr. Rhonda Patrick, who's this brilliant woman I've had on the podcast a few times, posted

something on Twitter just a couple of days ago that rigorous physical exercise can expand, lowers the biological age by as much as nine years. Wow. Was it? Like you find that? Yeah.

Yeah. It's some crazy study they did on extended. I mean, it just makes sense. Any rigorous exercise. Yeah. Here it goes. Physical exercise reduces cancer incidences lower the race of recurrence inhibits tumor growth uh no it's one that i retweeted it was here it is high intensity

exercise delayed biological aging by nine years as measured by telomere length so this is like scientific analysis of your telomeres that's's amazing. So like what, nine years every time you... No, no, no. But I mean like people who are rigorously exercising. So say if you're 39, your telomeres. Results showed that regular activity accounted for significantly longer telomeres in U.S. adults.

The longer telomeres found in active adults accounted for nine years of reduced cellular aging. Regular physical activity reduces disease risk, possibly due to the preservation of telomeres. Wow. So that's an interesting thing because for the long time, telomeres are nucleoprotein caps positioned at the end of chromosomes, and aging causes telomeres to shorten significantly and results in gradual cell deterioration. And that makes sense because you see people that don't exercise and they get older and they look like shit as opposed to someone who does exercise and they'll stand right

next to him and you go, whoa, those two people the same age? Like that's crazy. That's cool that they're studying that. That'll be interesting to see like how that unfolds as they learn more. It makes sense, right? You're requiring more of your body. Your body has to maintain this much higher work rate than the average person.

Right. Yeah. That's cool. How much sleep do you get a night, a normal night? Normal, probably seven or eight hours. So just normal stuff? Yeah. Like you're not doing anything crazy.

No. Other than the actual accomplishment physically. Like you're not doing anything crazy outside of it. I don think so do you get massages no no really do you wear those uh crazy pants what are those uh those crazy pants that smush your legs and what are those things called those the cam they sent them to me and i sent them to him the compression tights or no no no no they like massage your legs you like oh you, oh, I'll have them send them to you. They sent them to me. I didn't even ask for them.

Are they like the big boots? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're pants. Normatec. Yeah, Normatec. They're supposed to be the shit. No. Yeah, pull up a video of that Normatec system.

They sent it to me, and I sent it to Cam. See if you find Cam's Instagram video. I think he's got him using it. But you climb into that thing and it massages your leg. It says pulse leg recovery system. People swear by these things. Is it water filled or is that air?

Good question. Doesn't show up. That could be cool if it was cold water. Oh, right. Have you done cryotherapy? No. Ooh, you want to do it today?

Place right down the street. What does that involve exactly? It involves 240 degrees below zero for three minutes. Oh, geez. Hey, stand in there. It's awesome. You come out, you feel fantastic. Huh.

If you want to do it, we could do it. There he is. Oh, that's cool. So that's him at a place doing it. It's a convention, it looks like. He has one at home now that I sent him. They sent me one. I didn't even ask for it. I don't know how they got my address or anything.

They just sent me a Normatec. I'm like, okay. And my wife's like, what are you going to do with this? I was like, I'll just send it to Cam. He'll use it. So he uses it. Did you try it? No.

Oh. No. I see a lot of athletes using it, too. Like LeBron James uses it after training. It looks badass. I see a lot of athletes using it, too. Like, LeBron James uses it, like, after training. It looks badass. I mean, there's all these different methods of recovery, but Courtney don't need shit. Go ahead, bitches. You guys keep using it.

When you were running, did you listen to, like, a certain playlist over and over and over again? Like, do you hate certain songs now that you listen to them for 60 hours straight, or no headphones? No, I use music occasionally. I didn't use it for the entire thing. I probably did a couple hours with music the first day and maybe a couple hours of music the second day just to like reboost. Give someone your iPad or iPod, I mean.

Yeah. Hey, I need it back. I'm bored. Yeah, yeah. Or like I want to change it up a bit. Yeah, so most of the time when you're training, do you use music or no? I don't often use music. Some days I will, but especially out on trails. I mean, we just talked about all these animals that can kill you.

Oh, right. Then I'm not using music. Right, if you don't hear the rattle, that would suck. Right, right. Or like the wings flapping behind your head. Right before you get a scalping yeah yeah um now do they test you guys for drugs occasionally some races have that this one did not this one didn't so you could be jacked up to the gills how many people how many

people you think were juiced up to the gills and they still couldn't beat you at least one at this race no one was ju juice shut up there's someone out there no way there's one person who's on epo for sure i won't believe it i believe it one person it hasn't like none of that stuff is like filtering into the trail running scene i mean there was zero dollar prize on the line so i understand that why is someone gonna epo for that i know what you're saying and it it's very logical. You're right. But there was actually an article that was written about Silicon Valley CEOs that were taking EPO and doing triathlons and marathon races. And they were taking these endurance drugs, these performance enhancing drugs, just to try to up their performance in these amateur events.

That it's a big thing. That it's a very common thing lately. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know where the fuck they get it. Yeah. I don't know what all that would involve. But I like to think better of the trail running community and that people are pushing just their natural limits without seeing what any sort of drug regimen will do.

I would like to think better of them, too. Yeah. But I just, because of the UFC, I've seen so many people fail drug tests that I didn't think. I was like, that guy? Wow. Huh. I just think. Did Tank Abbott fail?

No. Tank Abbott's all beer he was my guy he's your guy he's an animal but dudes he's uh he was an anywhere anytime guy yeah he'd fight anybody he would hop off a bar stool and beat the shit out of people we used to rent like four four of the videos from blockbuster and just marathon it yeah those are great that's before i was involved those were awesome no no uh eye gouging no fish hooking but there was probably definitely dudes that you thought that were on steroids i mean i don't know if he ever took anything but there's a lot of people that have took things but back then you could take whatever you wanted and there was no

drug testing right in the early days but you know like it's it's like how much does that help and how much how much is especially when it comes to trail running like what you're doing is first of all you're living at elevation which is phenomenal right then you're also just constantly putting in the work and grinding and it's a full-time job now and you're obviously a special athlete when it comes to your ability to focus and you went fucking blind lady i mean you went blind you kept running you know so there's no drugs out there that can fix that there's no there's no that's true yeah there's nothing that's going to give you that kind of mental fortitude to push past blindness right and they're getting better about i mean mean, more and more trail races are

starting to implement drug testing just to try and like, um, cut it out before it even becomes a thing. That's smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Weed out all the performance enhancing stuff, but you know, there's going to be, there's a line, right? Like what, what are you test for and what don't you test for? What's okay. You know, multivitamins are okay. All right. Well, what about, you know, there's some weird stuff that people take, you know, some weird stuff from GNC. Right. You know, we're having issues with that in the UFC where guys take just over the counter stuff at GNC and it turns out it actually has steroids in it. Yeah. Apparently it's super common that these,

you know, all these muscle building this and stack that, you know, a lot of that stuff is they, they literally put performance enhancing drugs in them, which is why they work. So then it's just your job as an athlete to know what's on the ingredient list and is it okay? Yeah. USADA actually has a list of things that have tested positive for steroids and it is crazy. I had Jeff Nowitzki on who is the head of USADA and now works for the UFC's drug enforcement program and trying to catch people cheating. And we pulled up the USADA website and your jaw drops. You're like, what? All the stuff.

Thousands of fucking supplements that you're buying from just a regular mom and pop vitamin store. That's crazy. It has steroids in them. But you just take a multivitamin. That's it. Yeah. Just a women's multivitamin. Oh, a women's multivitamin.

Yeah. Is there a difference? No, I don't know. It's probably a marketing scheme. Probably, right? Yeah. And do you think that there's anything that you could take that would possibly enhance your performance in any way? I mean, is there?

That's legal? Yeah. I don't think so. I mean, is there something that other runners rely on? Is there something that, like, you hear people talk about, like vitamins or supplements or anything? No, I think more the conversation is always about the diets and changing up what you eat or what food groups you live in and all of that is more what I hear talk about. And I'm just not interested in cutting out carbs or cutting out fat.

Like, I want it all. Yeah, that's one of the guys that ran. He ran 100 miles. What is this gentleman's name? He's actually emailed me. He ran 100 miles faster than anybody ever and he's on some fat burning diet. He's on one of those. What is that, keto?

Yeah, he's on a ketogenic diet. And his whole, here's his name, Zach Bitter. Yeah. Yeah, do you know who that guy is? Yeah. Yeah. He is, he won, there he is. Yep.

Yeah. He eats almost no carbs. Oh, carbs are my favorite. Well, you brought up something, too, that I think is really important that really can't be stressed enough is that everybody's body is different. Yeah. It really is. He ran 100 miles in 11 hours, 40 minutes, and 55 seconds. What a monster.

Yeah. That's on a quarter mile track. Six and a half marathons. That is insane. 402 laps on a track. Jesusons. That is insane. 402 laps on a track. Jesus Christ. That's awesome. Yeah, he's a really great athlete.

That's a monster. That's insane. It's incredible that he can do this with almost no carbs. Right. You're just not interested in trying that? No, I mean, I don't see a need for it. Why should you? Yeah. Yeah. just not interested in trying that no i mean i don't i don't see a need for it why should you yeah yeah i want to um i'm not saying they aren't enjoying life but the things that i enjoy involve just not worrying about it yeah like do you uh regulate your sugar intake at all

no i guess if you run as much as you run you don't have to think about your diet at all, right? I don't. I mean, maybe that could be one of the Lego pieces that I try and fine tune, but it's not on my to-do list for the near future. Yeah. I mean, again, it's like if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Right. But what if someone comes creeping up real close to you, Courtney? Someone's starting to like, you're finishing and they're finishing like a couple minutes behind you. And you go like, wow, I might need to kick in the afterburners.

Is that when you would go to a nutritionist or try to tighten up your diet? Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of people who beat me and I'm just trying to work harder, like train more, train better, get stronger, especially like those core muscles. What kind of exercise do you do for your core? Just like the normal planks and things of that nature. And yeah, that doesn't motivate me to change my diet.

People beating me. No? No. It would take more than that? That just is like, okay, you need to train harder. You need to like put in more work for this.

But don't you think that the fuel that you use in your body, obviously me giving you any advice is fucking ridiculous. No. Don't you think

that the fuel that goes in your body has some sort of an effect on your performance? I mean, it must. Surely, surely. But I also just want to live life and enjoy it.

You know, like I don't want to be counting how many kale pieces I'm eating. Well, it's a good answer. I mean, obviously your enthusiasm is a huge part of your success and your mental state. I think it can't, it can't be argued at all that that's not a huge part of your success. And just to keep enjoying your life and living the way you're living perhaps fuels that mental state. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking they're all intertwined, but who knows, you know, what thing could be tweaked to make it better. Yeah, well, I don't know. You know, I mean, it's all that uh the jack

nicholson the shining you know too much work no play makes jack a dull boy right yeah yeah is it john or jack who is he in the movie was jack too johnny johnny a dull boy right yeah here's johnny that's right that's right yeah i mean I wonder if like maybe the, just the ultimate grind of discipline and no reward is just not, it's not beneficial to performance that there's some sort of a balance that must be achieved. Yeah. Enjoying yourself and being enthusiastic and appreciative and also disciplined. Yeah. I think a good balance of all that is important. disciplined. Yeah. I think a good balance of all that is important. Well, listen, Courtney, thank you so much for being here. You are an inspiration and I'm so blown away by what you've managed to do. And I can't wait to see what you can do in the future.

And if you really can run 500 miles, if you do 500 miles, you got to come back in here. We got to talk about it. You better just be out on the course with a foam finger. I'll wear whatever you want. I'll wear a chicken outfit like those dudes who sell real estate. Whatever you need. Thank you. Thank you so much. And everybody, tell people how they can get a hold of you on Twitter. It's different than Instagram. Instagram is Courtney DeWalter. Instagram is Courtney DeWalter. Twitter is Court DeWalter. And D-A-U-W-A-L-T-E-R. Correct.

Whoever's got Courtney DeWalter on Twitter, give it up, bitch. Come on. That's ridiculous. Give it to her. Because they got it right after you won, right? That's when they did it? Yeah, some weird series of events led to a Twitter being made for me. But didn't they say they were going to give it to you?

They said they were going to give it to you, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Make that happen. Thank you so much, Courtney. Thank you. It's been awesome.