The Rich Roll Podcast - 4,000 Kilometers On Foot: Nedd Brockmann’s Epic Run Across Australia

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Imagine running 2,500 miles across Australia, in some of the most brutal conditions on Earth, in under 50 days. This is the remarkable story of today’s guest Nedd Brockmann. A charismatic young electrician apprentice with a legendary bleach blonde mullet and world-class personality, at just 23 years old, Nedd audaciously set out to become the fastest person to ever run across his native Australia–4000km (2,500 miles) from Perth to Bondi Beach in Sydney. This is a phenomenal conversation in which we unpack Nedd’s extraordinary and inspiring journey. We cover why he got into running, how he progressed so quickly, and the intrinsic motivation behind his trans-Australia adventure. Nedd shares how he grapples with hardship—including his post-run PTSD. But more than anything, today’s conversation is about what we can all learn from his example when it comes to human potential and the power we all have to do amazing things when the mind, body, and spirit are dialed in. I loved getting to know him—and I know you will too. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: ROKA:  http://www.roka.com/ Whoop: http://www.whoop.com/ Calm: http://www.calm.com/richroll Express VPN: http://www.expressvpn.com/RICHROLL Athletic Greens: http://www.athleticgreens.com/richroll Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. There was never any doubt in my mind I'd get there. I just didn't know how that would look. Ned Brockman. Ned Brockman. An absolute legend of a man. Running a whopping 3,800 kilometres from Perth to Sydney. Day one.

Woo! In pouring rain, strong headwinds, blaring sun, and pain no normal human should cope with. And I've never been in so much pain. I'm just like wriggling, like in terms of like the run pain, and I'm just like, my eyes pain. I'm just, like, wriggling, like, in terms of, like, the run pain, and I'm just, like, my eyes roll in the back of my head. I'm going, this is, what am I doing? Like, I am in the middle of freaking South Australia,

and the doctor goes, look, mate, it is going to fucking kill you to run. But it was never, like, I'm going to quit. We're coming home, baby! Ned Brockman reached his goal of raising a million dollars. He raised more than that to combat homelessness. The 23-year-old Sparky receiving a rockstar reception as he ran the final steps to Bondi Beach. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Ned Brockman.

In this conversation, we cover why he got into running, how he progressed so quickly, the motivation behind his Trans Australia adventure, the many extraordinary obstacles that he faced and overcame along the way, including a near debilitating injury suffered early in the campaign. We discuss his post-run PTSD, how he's dealing with sudden kind of overnight fame, his new role as an inspirational figure. Most importantly, what we can all learn from his example when it comes to human potential and the power we all have to do amazing things when the mind and the body and the spirit are totally dialed in. And also this insane story about his toe becoming maggot infested. 40K into the run, it's pissing down rain and I thought it must be water in my toe. So I've pulled my socks off and then I'm like, I've got maggots in my toe.

It was like five maggots in there. Ned is a real deal. As they say down under, he's a bloody legend. I love getting to know him a bit. And this one is both fun and inspiring. I got a couple more things I would very much like to mention before we dig into this one. But first, we're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing

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option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Special thanks before we get into it to Peter Ostick and Gary Garrow of Soma Byron, which is the most extraordinary and gorgeous meditation retreat center I have ever visited. They graciously allowed me to host this conversation at their exquisite facility. If you ended up watching the Nicole Kidman limited series, Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu and wondered what is that beautiful place?

That is Soma. That show was filmed almost entirely at Soma. And Peter also hosts a great meditation mindfulness theme podcast called the Soma Collective Podcast on which I was a guest recently. So check that out. Anyway, thank you, Gary.

Thank you, Peter. So here we go. This is me and Ned Brockman. I'm super excited to be with you here today, a legend in the flesh. I'm on my sabbatical here in Byron Bay. And typically, I don't do any podcasts or any work. I try to avoid everything. But come on, man. I'm here. I got to get together with Ned. You have to make it happen. I know. And you drove eight hours from Sydney to come up here?

Yeah. We just established that you flew 15, So I made it halfway, eight hour drive. You did. We're here now. So I'm very excited. I appreciate it, man. I was just so enthralled and enamored, not just by the sheer kind of physical and mental feat of you running across Australia, but really how you comported yourself throughout that experience and the manner in which you shared all your vulnerabilities throughout that insane adventure. I'm excited to unpack it with you. And I think in thinking about why I wanted to do this and what makes you special, as you might suspect, I'm on the receiving end

of a lot of messages alerting me about this person and that person. There's always somebody doing something crazy. I can imagine. And after a while, I sort of become immune to it. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Amazing. Hat off to that person. But those feats have become less and less interesting to me unless there's a compelling story behind it. And you're such a unique character. I think I said to a friend, like this guy is not only supremely authentic, he is also like the most Aussie, Aussie in the history of all Aussies.

Like you're a full on character, dude. I guess, I guess the, the lingo is, is strong in me and the mullet and the tradie, I guess. Yeah. It's pretty Aussie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had the honor to talk to a bunch of guys who've run across the United States. Yep. of guys who've run across the United States. Yep. Hella Sidibe, Robbie Ballinger. I did one with Mike Wardian that hasn't come up yet. Ricky Gates.

I reached out to all those guys and I was like, I'm gonna be getting together with Ned and they're all fired up. Oh really? They all followed you and they're all like massive fans. Yeah. And I asked them for some questions to ask you, which we'll get to.

Amazing. No, I'm pumped. And yeah, I actually, like Robbie and Heela. I remember a message with Robbie a bit. Yeah. Robbie said he talked to your crew recently, I guess. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, to have that, you know, I kind of, it's now almost worldwide. There's people all over the country who's been able to talk to about their experiences and it's been, yeah, pretty, pretty wild. Yeah. It's the best of what social media has to offer. Social media has a lot of problems, but- A lot more negative than positive, but when you can use it for the good, it's awesome.

The ability to just inspire people all over the world without any kind of filter or middleman is a really powerful thing. And you are like this amazing example of that. Yeah. Thank you. See people all over the world. But what clinched it for me was, you know, I was like, oh, this guy's doing this. Okay. I'm sort of paying attention from a distance. Like that's cool. But it wasn't until you rolled into Bondi and I saw thousands of people there and I was like, what the fuck is going on? How did that happen? Because my friends who've run across the United States, they finish, their friends are there, family's there. It's

pretty uneventful in terms of, you know, kind of mass enthusiasm about that accomplishment. But in your case, it felt like the entire country was just holding their breath, waiting for you to finish this thing. And the kind of reception that you received at the finish line was something I've never seen. Like, how did that, is that just an Australian thing or like, what was that about? I think the Aussie thing was a part of it, but I also think it was quite a, I would almost say, it's been a pretty crappy time for people and kind of coming out of COVID and it's been like everyone's trying to do more stuff now. And so it was almost a shining light in a kind of crappy time. And so people were just relying on me to show up each day and kind of used me as a fuel

for them. And yeah, I was showing up and I got quite injured along the run but I was showing my, as you said, vulnerability day in, day out. Whether I was feeling amazing, I'd be screaming at the thing saying I'm feeling amazing or I'd be crying and just showing all the hurt I was feeling. I think people were like, oh my God, if this powerful person can do this, I can too and I can get behind it.

And so yeah, the further and further I got and the more and more I showed myself and what I was doing. And like the original goal was 100k a day and which is 60 odd miles, 62 miles. Right. And I stuck to that, stuck true to that for the first 11, 12 days and then got a pretty severe shit injury. And I kind of, I went, disappeared for one day on social media. I was so present, you know, posting my daily update. Yeah, there was a gap on the Instagram feed for a couple of days there. I reckon I got a good hundred messages going, mate, are you okay? And meanwhile, I was 14 hours away from where I'd marked the pink line on the road

and getting an injection and trying to work out a plan to get back and get running again. And then yeah, the day after I just screamed, let's fucking go on the screen. And then people just like, oh my God, he's back. And it just, yeah, built this momentum, which was just, gives me goosebumps thinking about Bondi like that, those scenes there and coming down and I wish I could relive it, but it was such, it was over in a flash. Right. Yeah. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the power of inspiration and the difference, the qualitative difference between aspiration and inspiration. So I know like David Goggins is like a North star for you. He's somebody who's unbelievably, you know,

powerful in his ability to motivate people and be this, you know, kind of beacon of inspiration. But there's something inaccessible about him because he's so extreme, right? And he's so taciturn. And so I think it's a challenge for somebody to kind of emotionally relate to his interior experience because it's so, you know, on the far end of that spectrum. Whereas you fall more into this, you know, kind of in the middle between aspiration and inspiration because people can see themselves in you because of that willingness on your part to be vulnerable, to show the warts and to talk about how much you're hurting and how much you hate it and like how it sucks and like all of that. Absolutely. Even like,

like for me, Goggins was not, it still is a big form of inspiration for me. And it kind of kicked my mindset into gear, like kind of kicked me into a, oh, you can actually tap into that and start doing more, you know, with your day and start running more and start, you know, doing uncomfortable things. And then I was exactly that. I found that it's not all about staying hard all the time. Like I tried to emulate that a bit, but it just, you will burn out. Like there is no, I just don't know how it's possible to continue to be like that. Because if you do something, for example, run across the country and averaging 80K a day or 85 plus, you are going to crash at the end of that. Yeah. It's not going to go smooth. No. And you're like your adrenal fatigue, your mental

state and that, you have to keep showing up and you have to keep getting in that mindset of fight or flight every day. So when you do get out of that, it's like your body's going, oh, he's resting now. Let's chill out. And if you keep trying to fight that, it's just going to end badly. So I think there's beauty in getting really uncomfortable and showing up when it's the time to, but when it is the time to not, it's like, allow yourself to relax and appreciate what your body's done for you. Because, you know, you've only got one of them. You've only got one set of legs. It's like, you've got to, you know, allow it to be settled down. Yeah. We're going to go

through all of it, but I want to start with like how you're doing now, because in the post-mortem, how many months has it been now? Like three months, about three months, right? Like, so how is the body doing? How are you doing physically? And how are you doing emotionally? Like what has this, you know, couple months been like for you? Yeah, it's been, it's been interesting. And it's like, I don't really know how you navigate these things unless you do a lot of them, right? Physically, I'm actually pretty good now. I've still got like, you know, fat pad in my feet issues because I was running on just tar, no dirt, no grass.

And then I've got like had a few hip wear and tear, like glute, med, tendons. But other than that, I'm pretty good to be honest. I've been running just like six or five soaks. And strength training in the gym, stretching, doing all the stuff. Emotionally and like, you know, spiritually, I'm like exhausted. I'm still not waking up. Like I usually in the go time, I'm a 4 a.m., wake up, go, go, go.

You know, there's no stopping. But now it's like 6 a.m. and I'm like, open my eyes. I'm like, what's going on here? Sun's up. So that's usually a bit hard for me when I see the sun up, when I'm usually used to getting up before it and go getting it. But I'm getting there. It's like I had a rough probably month in the middle where I almost a lack of purpose. So I've had this idea of this two-year goal, got the goal, woke up every day thinking about it, went to sleep thinking about it every night. And then to be finished and then to have nothing almost to push for, it's not that I don't have any other goals

or any other happiness in my life. It's just that I don't have any other goals or any other, you know, happiness in my life. It's just that when you're so devoted to something, it's really hard to, you know, oh, amazing. Now let's get on with the next thing. It's like, I've got to be okay with sitting back and trying to ponder what I've just done and appreciate it, you know? So yeah, I had a tough four weeks or so where I just found myself a bit lost. But yeah, I guess I think that's probably the lack of exercise too, to be perfectly honest. When you're moving for 17 hours a day, you go cold turkey on it. You're not going to be able to feel that same excitement.

But yeah, I'm actually pretty happy with where I'm at at the moment. And I've just got to appreciate that my body has done a lot for me. But you did, you have talked about PTSD, like night terrors, the alarm would go off and send you into a panic thinking you have to get up and run a hundred K and like the kind of, you know, the emotional residue of, of like enduring that trauma and having such an intense experience. Yeah, absolutely. And the PTSD, I think that started probably 10 days into the run, to be honest. Because I'm like, I don't know about America.

I know it's pretty, there's a lot of people in America. But it's pretty similar distance running across as running across Australia or probably a thousand K. Yeah, it's well, four thousand K versus like thirty one hundred miles okay so five and a bit it's in the range i guess so it's it's yeah so for me it's like when you get out of wa so west australia um after about 400k it's pretty remote so you go from civilization and people to maybe a town every 200 kilometres and then in the middle of it there's nothing for like 800 kilometres. Yeah, that's a mindfuck. Yeah.

And so when you get to, so you go, you head east, you go down and then you literally, it's called Norseman, you head across and you don't see really any people until you hit New South Wales to be perfectly honest um and so that's scary and knowing that you've had you got 900 kilometers in your legs you've got a good 11 day stint of running 100 kilometers a day with no health care not really any access to good food um you know you're very isolated no service so you can't reach out to many people if you you know, it does go wrong.

So that gets you incredibly on edge. And so the fact that it was feeling like I was almost going to war, like, okay, this is it, we're going. We're out in the depths of hell here. So, yeah, I think knowing I had to put my head and body through that, when I would go to sleep of a night in one of these roadhouses, which is all that they have in these towns, it's just like a place to sleep.

I mean, what are those, like bunkhouses or something? Are they like motels? Well, they're just like fuel stations with a few beds in them. And the food is like, it's your pub grub, steak or chicken schnitzel. Yeah. You're not getting, getting like you'd be tough to be a vegan out there, I'll tell you that. No vegan pad thai.

Yeah, no, no, no, definitely not. And so for me I'm like, well, and even like a chicken schnitzel, chips and veggies, it's like got all the oils and all this. It's like not the greatest nutrition but for me I was just craving this, whatever I could get there I would eat, you know. And so of a night, of a night on the night on the run i would be waking up in the middle going who's taking me back so i would have these like out of body feelings i'd be waking up going oh fuck i'm 300 meters 300 kilometers back from where

i was so i'd wake up in this terror of oh no i've got to run an extra 300 kilometers on top like someone's taking me back in the middle of the night. But yeah, so a culmination of all that. And when I did finish, I was, cause there's so many road trains as well, like, you know, 50 meters long, 120 plus tons. So that wind, when it's coming at you is like. Yeah. Road trains are just the 18 wheelers, the big, the trucks, the cargo trucks. Yeah. The 18 wheeler is one carriage. So there's like four carriages. Oh, wow. Yeah. They're like, Australia's pretty well run off trucks where they just going every three minutes probably across the country. So that road I run is really only for trucks

to be honest. And so they, they would just go every three minutes. So I would, even if I had music, there'd just be this like, i'll pass you every time and so when it when you're in that mode it's like it's just you can't control it but you still like there's nothing you can do about it and there's no shoulder really right absolutely not and any if i was to run on the like rocky dirt on the side it'd be on a tilt of 30 degrees, which meant, you know, my body's out of the line. Yeah. So yeah, definitely no shoulder.

The shoulder was all of a foot. And so I'm getting brushed and I'm, you know, some trucks were pretty good to me, but a lot were like, get off the fucking road, mate. And so, yeah, I just, when I finished the run, I was probably for the first week out, I'd wake up and just like screaming, just going like dodging trucks in my sleep

and, you know, like going, oh no, I'm back on the road. And so, yeah, that hurt a bit, but I got on top of that and I'm not still thinking about trucks at night. Yeah, that's good. And what about the brain? Like I've spent time with the Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence. Yeah, incredible.

He was a massive inspiration of mine too. Yeah, I was there for the final day of his 100 consecutive Ironmans. How is he going? Well, he's been pretty transparent about how difficult the recovery has been and the brain fog and his inability to like- He was in such a trance with me. He's probably, I'm sure he's fine now, or at least mostly fine,

but he was concerned that his body might not ever recover. His brain was having difficulty. I know you talked about some brain fog stuff. I mean, sort of healing the shin and all that other stuff is one thing, but you know, your cognition and just the emotional, like, you know, waking, like you talked about like spitting all the time because you're used to doing that. You couldn't stop spitting afterwards. Again, I woke up in the middle of my, after the run, spat at the wall

and my girlfriend was like, you can't do that, man. It was, it was like, it was traumatic. Because you're getting the red dust? Yeah, just so much dirt. And I even had like my AirPods in all the time, right? And so I must have just been pushing dust in there. And when I went on a bit of a holiday when I finished, I couldn't hear out of this left ear. And I'm going, what's going on? But I got an ear check and it was just so much buildup of red dust.

Right. And I was like, oh, this is not good. Have you had like blood tests done and stuff like that in the aftermath? I was low iron and like a few other things. I was still inflamed internally, so potentially a gluten problem. But it was, it's all sorted, which is good. And, but yeah, back like on the, on the trance, like on the, with the same as Iron Cowboy,

it's like when I finished the run, you know, I'm doing all these media, you know, all this media, all these podcasts, all this stuff. And I actually limited it as much as I possibly could. But when I'm in them, I'm talking like I'm there, but I'm also talking like I'm out of it. So I'm in this confusion between the two. And so when I get prompted a question I would be like oh god I'm you know this is really hard for me to talk about and it might be either the trauma or the

fact that I am still trying to process it so I was finding that really really hard and so a few of these chats I'd have I'd just go blank and then I'd be like oh my god I'm so sorry guys I actually like I think this is like my brain trying to block out what I've just been through. Right. But now I'm, it's cool because I'm, you know, I'm starting to do a few keynotes and get the words, you know, try and actually work out what I was feeling. And it's, yeah, it's pretty insightful, I guess. Have you, do you have a therapist that you're working this stuff through with? I haven't yet. I had him in place, but there is obviously clearly benefit in having a therapist.

For me, I wanted to try and see how I'd go manage it myself. But yeah, I guess it would be good to get tools to be able to deal with it much easier than having to find the way myself. So you just turned 24, right? Just, yeah. So you were 23 when you did this. Incredibly young. Most big ultra endurance feats are people that are in their, you know, at least like their mid to late 30s, if not 40s and into even their early 50s. It's like a, you know, it's like a sport that a lot of athletes get into later in life when they've got a lot of Ks under the belt.

Absolutely. You know, so it's very, yeah, it's very unusual for somebody so young. I think it's cool. Like the ultra world is exploding and more and more young people are getting into it earlier than traditionally has been the case. But, you know, the added kind of flavor here

is that you'd only been running two years, right? You didn't even get into running until you were like 21. Yeah, literally. I, yeah, I just honestly was about to have a shower. I'd looked into the mirror and I saw back fat and I went, I'm going to start running, lose some weight. And that was, that was when I was just started just turned 21. So you grew up, you grew up on like a farm, right? Like not like sort of how far, like not, not anywhere near Sydney. No, we're at 600 kilometers. So west of Sydney, pretty well bang smack in the middle of New South Wales. Yeah. We're 60 K from town. So the nearest town to healthcare food, whatever, was 60 kilometres away.

That's, yeah, obviously people would have thought I might have run into town assuming my running ability but no, I didn't. Yeah, I mean I always did sport like rugby and swimming but it was never, it was all our parents' choice, not us. I would have loved to have not but then I found a love for sport probably through going to high school and then just fell out of love with it when I finished high school. And I, you know, do what every 20, 21 year old would do and went out partying, went out drinking, you know,

skipped exercise. And yeah, then I saw a bit of back fat and thought I had to get on with it. Yeah. Yeah. So you, you moved to Sydney to become an electrician, right? So you're doing your apprenticeship, you know, lifestyle caught up to you a little bit. Yep. On the early side though, you're lucky, man. Yeah. Most people don't have that kind of epiphany until they're like mid to late 30s or something. That's probably 40. That's probably the distinct correlation between Ultron is starting at 40. Uh-huh. Yeah. Just had a bit of a blowout at 38. An early midlife crisis, a young life crisis. That's right. Right? Absolutely.

So where does the impulse... So you have this realization like, you know, I don't like the back fat or whatever. So where's the leap to putting on the running shoes come from? Just that's the easiest way to... And then when I ran and when I knew that I, you know, energy out, energy food in. I knew that eat a bit more, eat a bit less and run a bit more,

you'll burn the fat. I have a pretty good basic knowledge of strength training and all this stuff through sport. But I just went, I've got to get out. And so I actually started doing it literally for weight loss. But when I quickly realised what the feeling I was getting of this, of running kilometres feeling I was getting of this, of running kilometers, I was like, oh, wow. So then I just literally went, okay, ran 5K, ran 10K,

next time ran 15K. Then literally by two weeks later, I was running 21K. Never run up over six kilometers before other than the school cross country. And all of a sudden I'm running half marathon. I went and ran 30K. And then I asked a mate, I said, do you want to go run a marathon today? And I just went and ran a marathon. So it was just like this. Oh, and then I heard people, you know, run marathons and I never even thought of it. Like that was a wild thing for me. So this is all in a matter of like six months.

And then I'd heard of ultras. I heard people had run 60, 80, 100 kilometers. And I'm like, this is pretty cool. I'll see if I can do it. And then, yeah, within a year, I had finished a 100K run and 50 marathons in 50 days. Within a year. Within a year.

So the 50 marathons in 50 days was still within one year of you beginning running. Yes. Yeah. And like the 100K and those other, you know, running the marathon, those weren't races. You just got up in the morning and was like, I'm going to do this. Yeah, I actually got home from work.

Like you ran to Palm Beach, right? I actually literally got home from work and went in Roto. So I'd do an eight, 10-hour day at work, get home, try a nap. Couldn't nap because I'm so excited about the thought of running 100 kilometers. Put my pack on. All I had was a muffin, a banana, and two of the water bottles. And then I came back with the two water bottles empty.

I didn't fill them up. I just literally had no idea about nutrition or hydration or electrolytes. Got there, got 50K by 2 o'clock in the morning, turned around, ran home, found a way. I didn't obviously know where any water was. Right, but you could stop at gas stations or something like that and get like water for me i was i didn't even touch the water till i was at 30k because i was trying to trying to keep it to yeah use it for later and then i literally had a muffin and a banana that was all my nutrition and you know i know

how many people you know it's gels and cliff bars and everything and And I was just, I guess I was like, oh cool. I've now run a hundred K with minimal nutrition. Like I can, what else can I do? Just kind of. Like a light bulb moment. I got, I got something in my tank. I was just hungry to see what I actually could do. It wasn't like, you know, find your possibilities. It was like, I'm not actually sure where i can where this stops so let's go find it and then i remember running the 100k and being in that like immense pain but like you know that awesome feeling when you're finished laying in bed looking up at the roof going i'm gonna do something the next day i posted a thing on instagram saying we're gonna run 50

marathons 50 days in a month's time and then i've never back to back any runs like that. And I did a half marathon and a half marathon, like 21, 21, like two days later, back to back and went, I'll be sweet. And then, yeah. And so I, um, on August, no, September the 1st, I did it all with August the 1st. I posted that. And then September the 1st, I was working full time while I was running the marathons. And yeah, I'd finished work about 3.30, put the shoes on at four, run out the door and run for four and a half hours and get home and go again.

Wow. Yeah. There's something really powerful about the naivete of the whole thing. Yeah. I think a lot of people get up in their heads and they have an aspiration, I'm going to run a marathon or I'm

going to do a 50K or even outside of running some other challenge. But then they sort of get lured into this analysis paralysis. Like, oh, I got to work out the logistics. And then the start date keeps getting pushed back out of fear or whatever. but the impulse to just like, be like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to do it anyway. And I have that confidence to do it. And like the fact that you just ran a Palm Beach, like there's a lot of instances in your story

where you're just out over your skis. Absolutely. Like when you started the run across Australia, like I've heard you talk about like not knowing that there was all kinds of elevation in Western Australia, right? Like you didn't even get a topo map and figure out like what you were dealing with.

I knew there was about 20,000. Other people would have that like fully mapped out. I had the route, that's all I had. Yeah, I guess I saw there was 20,000 meters elevation over the whole country and I went, it must be in New South Wales. So I reckon I'll be fine by then to run elevation over the whole country and I went, it must be in New South Wales, so I reckon I'll be fine by then to run elevation. And, yeah, it was obviously not.

It was always a lot in WA. Yeah. Probably about 8,000 metres elevation on the first 12 days. But, yeah, it's just like I think people, as you said, people just overthink it and get so stuck on the fact, you know, there's all this scientific research that you've got to incrementally load by 10% each week if you want to start instead of otherwise you'll get a stress fracture, you'll get this or that. And I'm going,

I'm young, bones are strong, you know, I'm good, I'll be right. And if I'm not, I'm not. And more times than not, I'll find that I actually was okay. And I think, you know, as soon as you have that mindset of like, oh, you know, something could go wrong, the first moment of anything slightly off the track of what you planned will be gone. You'll be done.

Yeah. And it's not without its perils though. Like we're going to get to day 11. Yeah. What happened there? So, you know, maybe a little bit of wisdom and and preparation might have avoided that yeah who knows but i guess my preparation is more mental at this like still um i don't i obviously like i strength train a lot i do a lot of strength training my k's i like

to be probably under prepared in kilometers but, but overprepared in strength training. But when you put out what you're doing and you've put it out there, you've gone on, you know, today's show live television and said, I'm running across the country in September. You kind of can't get it pulled out of it. And that's a powerful accountability. Absolutely. And I love the whole nation. Yeah, absolutely. And they're while they're eating their weight mix. And I, yeah, I, once you put it out there, you can't stop. But I had three MRIs in my tibia from April till September. September was the start. And I had three MRIs to stress fracture in my tibia

because I was just so aware of it. And so my kilometers were like all of 40 plus K a week. Yeah. Well, a couple thoughts on that. I mean, first of all, you can't, there's limits to how much you can train to prepare for running across the country, right? Like it's more important, like to your point

of making sure that your strength training is on point and being fresh when you start, like you can't show up tired because you've been you know cranking out so much volume yeah right and the iron cowboy talks about this like when he he barely did any running before the hundred yeah uh iron mans because he just figured he would walk and run his way into that fitness and too much running ahead of time would set him up for injury absolutely i think if you're running know, if you're to run 700 kilometers a week,

like the time it would take you to be able to run 500 kilometers a week consistently would be so long. Like, you know, it's just so much time on your feet throughout your training. Like you just can't do that. Yeah. But getting your head around it and getting your strength and your, you know, time on your feet, it's just, it's a mind game. Yeah. So walk me through the kind of mental decision. Once you did the 50 marathons in 50 days, I'm sure that was a huge accomplishment

and made you feel like you were capable of even greater things. It's a leap to say, okay, now I'm going to not a huge accomplishment and made you feel like you were capable of even greater things. It's a leap to say, okay, now I'm going to not only run across Australia, but I'm going to break the record, which was 42 days? 43, yeah. 43. 43 and a half, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

So how did you land on that? So it was actually midway through the 50 marathons. When I got to day 10, was like i'm gonna do this no worries what's next i want to have that in my head because you know i was saying you know when i you feel a bit lost after you want to kind of have what you want and so yeah i was running and i did the run and i met up with a mate after um i finished the marathons and we're sitting in in the pub having a schnitzel and he's like, I told him my plan of running it, running 60K a day because the Guinness World,

the Guinness record was like 67. And he goes, why don't, I'm sure there's people who have done it quicker. I went, oh, right, I had a look and I saw that it was 43 and I go, what's that average out to be? And it's like, I think it was 93K a day or something to beat it. And I went, fuck, 100K a day would be pretty cool. And then I looked up the guys, you know, people in America,

running across America and Pete Kostolny, he's, you know, ran 114K a day or something. I'm like, why can't I do that? And so, you know, someone's done something. What is limiting me from not being able to do that? Why is it that someone can't, you know what I mean? Like that mental block isn't there for me. But where does that come from? Is that instilled in you by your parents, like that level of confidence and capability?

I think so. I think it comes from them allowing them, I can believe in allowing, in doing something comes from belief in you to do whatever you want. So as long as you're allowed and you allow yourself to be okay with getting whatever it is, I think that is the crucial part. So not having your, not basing your, the idea of achieving a goal of who you are but achieving whatever you want, who you are. So like when you, if you don't get the record, then it doesn't matter. But if you do, if you don't get the record and you haven't been okay with who you are, you're going to probably align your self-worth with this record. So you're not worthy of getting it. For me, I'm just

okay with who I am. So whether I go out on a limb and I've failed, but I've still tried, I have no issue with that. So by being like, my parents have always been like, just whatever it is, do it, but do it with absolute conviction. Don't sit back, do it half-assed. And I was always like, right when I rode at school, I was always, I was never in the topassed. And I was always like, right when I rode at school, I was always, you know, I was never in the top boat, but I was always like, how can I get in this top boat? I was never in the first 15, but I was like, I want to get in this football team, like so badly.

So I'd rock up to training earlier. I'd run to training. Just a combination of things. And I think watching dad as well on the farm, like has never complained his whole life. And he's, you know, rocked up to work every single day for 40 plus years. And so, but not just talking about it, but actually seeing him do it, that was kind of a big thing for me.

So I guess another thing, I went back to the farm and saw him actually just show up again and again and again. I'm like, this bloke is the biggest workhorse I've ever met. And to see how hard he has worked, that for me was like, oh, you can actually just keep doing this. And I guess, yeah, it came about by that, I guess. And your parents were part of your crew. Yeah.

Right? It was pretty. What was their response when you told them you wanted to do this? Mum was all for it. She was like, their response when you told them you wanted to do this? Mum was all for it. She was like, whatever, if that's what you want to do, I'm supportive of you, but just don't half-ass it. Don't, you know, don't get all these sponsors and then get halfway through it and go,

I don't know if I can do this. But, yeah, a mother's love is, you know, her sitting back and watching me put myself through that was a lot. And I can tell you every day she would have been going, fuck, I want to tell him to stop. But if I do, it's going to shit him off because, you know, the plan was 100K a day.

This is what we're doing. Yeah. But to have them there for the whole thing for 47 days, like, you know, you leave school, you leave, you know, your parents, they're, you know, gone. You're probably on the stand for Christmas or New Year's or, you know, your birthday potentially. But to spend 47 days with them on the road, you know, so intensely was a life memory I'll, you know,

I'll never forget. So you make this announcement you're preparing uh you're starting to talk about the challenge with the media and i know that you went on on mark boris's show and he asked you like how are you feeling and you're like oh great you know ready to go i'm feeling perfect yeah quietly though you're fully injured your knees are fucked fucked up. Your trainer wrote a whole blog post about all your injuries and like everything that was going on behind the scenes. Yeah. I read it behind the scenes before we're not even at the start line yet. And you were, you were fully tweaked. Yeah. Yeah. My, so I did prior to announcing this round, I hadn't run a hundred

K since November, 2020. And I was like, well, I need to remember how running 100K feels. Right. And in my, I went and did like a bit of a hell week. I went and trained out at my family farm for like a hell month, sorry. I went out and I did two 100Ks in a week plus probably, you know, another 65K on top of it. And after the first 100K I did, I went pretty quick and I felt good, did all the food right.

And I finished and I woke up the next morning and my knees, I've never been in so much pain. And I'm like, this is not good. And I ran, I think, 12K the next day just to kind of, you know, try and run on very sore legs. But I, they were just, I was obviously pretty patella, like patella femoral pain. Right. And, but it was just like I had to keep running on it.

So I was just like just damaging it more, damaging it more. Obviously just tight quads, tight everything. And it was just referring to my knees. And then I had to run 100K on the Saturday because I had just said, this is what I have to do. I have to run two 100Ks this week. It's just a no brainer. You have to do knees. And then I had to run 100K on the Saturday because I had just said, this is what I have to do. I have to run two 100Ks this week. It's just a no brainer. You have to do it. And so I just started and went, it's going to have to find a way. Like if it's not a bone, I'm fine. Like if it's not a stress fracture, we're all good. And it wasn't. So I just had to show up. And yeah, so when I finished that, I didn't really run until the start of the event.

Yeah. Yeah. Which wasn't great. I'm not going to lie. Like the kind of like youthful... I'll be right. Arrogance is the wrong word, but like... Stubbornness. Yeah. Stubbornness. The wise thing is, you know, just make sure when you line up on day one, like you're fully a hundred percent, like rested, no injuries, none of that. But none of that but i remember the two days you could have pushed it like let me just push the start date yeah but i the problem is australia is just so freaking hot especially in the middle of the country if i went another month yeah i'd be oh i'd be a i'd be blistered up on the back of the back of my legs and arms um and it just would have been

too hot it would mean just like the heat would have just been so intense that it would have just factored in so much more like time. Yeah. But yeah, I got to two days before leaving and I went for a run with my girlfriend and I was just complaining about my knees the whole time. I'm going, this is going to be pretty like, I guess I was only complaining though because I knew about the pain

I was about to put myself in. It wasn't that, oh, my knees are hurting. It was like, oh, fuck, my knees are hurting. I'm going to do some serious damage here. That's all that was going on in my head. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to be able to find a way to pull out because I couldn't. I had it like, I just don't pull out. And how far in advance of the beginning?

This is about two weeks. Wow. So I flew over like a week and a bit to go um but two days before i flew over from sydney i yeah i was like telling my girlfriend that this is going to be fun yeah i'm like potentially looking at walking for 20 hours a day to get 100k out and no breaks you know what i mean it was i was It was just finding a way. And then, yeah, I flew over. I ran once when I was over in WA. And like a lot of people think I just, you know, I was running because I turned my Strava off because I wasn't running these Ks.

But I was just like, yeah, 100 plus, all good, running all these Ks. And I got over there and I'm like, oh, no. Anyway, and I just wanted to be in it because all I was doing was thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it. And then when I finally got to the day one of that morning, I was just so happy because I, now I'm in it. Yeah. Where do you, where do you compartmentalize that, that doubt? Cause that doesn't have any room. No, it doesn't. And I, there was just no, it was all affirmations of you're going to do this.

There was no like, oh no, oh no. It was like, I was thinking about the, I just want to start, but I wasn't thinking about, once I was in it, I was like, I can't wait for the knee pain because it's going to be there. I knew it was going to be there, right? But it was all just like positive words. It was like, I'm going to get to Bondi.

I'm either going to get sent out of here in a body bag or I'm going to get to Bondi. Yeah. There was no other way. And so each day there might've been a few like, fuck, I'm not, like, this is fucked. But it was never like, I'm going to quit. There was never any doubt in my mind I'd get there. It just didn't know how that would look. So you kick things off. You pull to get, First of all, you pull together a bunch of sponsors. You got Puma. You got a camper van, right? Yep. So you were able to string this together.

Because financially, it's not a small thing, right? Especially when you bring five or six people in as well the whole time. And you get to the starting line. You kick things off. It's all fucking rainbows. And you're sharing positivity on social media. A little bit of like, whoa, didn't see all this elevation coming. It's beating you up a little bit. So let's get to day 10, 11 and like walk me through like that whole

insanity. Yeah. So well, like starting my first day was like like it was really good to be like okay cool 103k amazing i was done by 5 30 that night i still had a lot of light in the ice bath and i was like right we're in this however i wake up i'm gonna wake up earlier and get the data because i knew the adapting would come at some point but i didn't know when uh I got to day three and that was pretty well where I was like my worst in terms of DOMS, like just muscular soreness. And then about day five and six, my core temp was just shot. So I just could not regulate my system. And so as soon as I'd finished, I'd be freezing my ass off

and then I'd be trying to warm up, trying to warm up. We were getting massages and I was just shaking. I couldn't stop. And then I'd get in the camper van bed and just sweat, sweat all night and the walls would be dripping with my heat, sweat. And so I just couldn't sleep. So that first week I wouldn't have slept more than an hour a night because I was just so out of whack. I got to day nine. We've just hit that Norseman section where there's no,

nothing. I've just camped on the side of the road on the day 10. My physio leaves. Hi. Just in time. Just in time. And I've woken up the next day on day 11 and I got to, so I got to 42K and my shin, my right shin just was like, there's so much swelling. I was just like, okay, this isn't good. This might feel, this feels a bit bone stressy because I've had a few before and I was like, this feels an awful lot like bone.

This is not good. Then we're running my fingers down it and it was not, didn't feel like it was on the bone, but there was just so much swelling. So it was kind of, I couldn't really work it out. I got the 100K out, took me a long time. I was finished at nine o'clock that night and woke up the next day, could not run for life. I think I tried close to 40 times to get in a bit of a rhythm with running, but I couldn't, it was just jarring. And I've called my physio, but it's like crackly on the line. And he's like, mate, oh, can you try to strap it this way?

Can you put this in it? Can you do this? And we try to do everything, Voltaren all day. Nothing would work. And so I walked 40K that day and I went, look, I've got to give myself the best chance of, you know, healing. So I went and finished at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, went to the roadhouse, iced and just slept,

just tried to get some sleep back because I knew the lack of sleep was really fucking with me as well. I was starting to get a bit delirious. My body isn't actually recovering the best it could. And so I gave myself one till 3am the next morning, so 14 hours, which was much more than I was getting before. I was getting all of six, seven hours.

And then I went again, I couldn't do it. And so my physio was rung up the nearest MRI place, which was 14 hours away. 14 hour drive. 14 hour drive. So about 6,800 kilometers. Yeah, middle of fucking nowhere. Yeah, middle of fucking nowhere.

It would have been longer to go back to Perth. And so I got to 40K and my physio had rang up the support stock and support stock had ordered an urgent MRI for the next morning at this place. And so we stayed the night in Seduna, drove another four hours to this place to get the MRI. Got the MRI at 12 o'clock that lunch midday on the 14th day, so the 14th of September.

And then we got the results back. I'm in the car sitting and there he goes, good news is your bones are as strong as I've ever seen for someone being 14 days into this monstrosity. However, you've got psoriatino sinusitis and that's not great. And we're going, okay, what does that mean? He goes, look, usually it's a six-week in the boot, do nothing, but you're not going to do nothing. So we're going to work out what you're going okay what does that mean he goes look usually it's a six week in the boot do nothing but you're not going to do nothing so we're going to work out what you're going to do

shin is this injury to the shin so sheath yeah so the the tendon sheath has just become so inflamed but it can actually get infected because of the inflammation and so the further you know the longer you delay it and so i've gotten there and I go, what do I do? And he goes, look, we can cortisone it, but usually you have to take five to seven days off. But I know you're not going to do that. So we'll cortisone it and we'll just try and blast it, like try and just disperse it everywhere.

And if you can find a dictus band, which is for people with dropped foot, it allows, it's a rubber band, goes through your laces, allows your foot to pick up and down. If you can find one of those that'd be ideal and so we're so my girlfriend's on the mission to find a dictus band i'm in the um injection part of the hospital and i'm getting injected into my shin no anesthetic just straight cortisone in and i've never been in so much pain i'm just like wriggling like in terms of like the run pain and the shin injection pain and i'm just like my eyes are on the back of my head i'm going this is what am i doing like i am in the middle of freaking south australia getting injected in my shin after 1500 yeah

you're only like 20 and literally and so that was a big like and also the record slowly getting dragged away was also weighing on my head. And so I got this injection. It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I'm adamant I'm running on the 15th morning. We're 15 hours away. I get the injection and the doctor goes, look, mate, it is going to fucking kill you to run but this dick disband is going to allow you to lift your foot up

because you have no function of it. But you're just going to have to work it out because it's not bone. So you're right. And I went, done. Got in the car at 3.30, drove 15 hours. Back to where you left off. Back to where we left off. But thankfully the time zone would go back.

So we actually made up some time. Not like actually, but in terms of the time we started. Got there at 2 a.m. Slept, well, laid down for two hours. Started running at five. Got 700K out of that next week. You know, I've got this injury, right? The record's gone.

This is the point I was saying before is like if I based my worth or my, you know, who I am on me getting this record then I'd be on a plane the nearest plane back to Bondi as soon as I could but for me I was like what you're doing is so much more important than any record any putting a flag in the ground could ever be it was like you know you you caught on to it so people were catching on and seeing this, this person just continuing to show up, continuing to like keep fighting. And so when, you know, I, I had that option to go, well, this is, you know, it's incredible. You've done 1500 kilometers. Um, no one would excuse you for, no, everyone would excuse you for going home and you'd be congratulations. But I went,

this is not what I set out to do. I set out to get from A to B and raise a shit ton of money for charity. And I'm not sober now. Yeah. Well, let's get into that. I mean, you've spoken quite a bit about how you're an intrinsically motivated person. Yep. That motivation, meaning it's coming from within yourself. Yeah. So I want to understand that a little bit better, but at the same time in parallel, there's a lot of extrinsic motivation because it was this groundswell thing where slowly more and more people, you know, in Australia and across the world, we're starting to tune in, pay attention to what you're doing. You have media figures in Australia who are talking about you on the radio, like Hamish and like all these people are like,

you know, and a lot of these people are also donating money to the charity piece, which I want to get into as well. So that's a lot of external pressure at the same time. So how do you think about those two factors in, you know, when you wake up in the morning and you're staring down the barrel of another 100K and you just feel like you can't even move. I guess like the Instagram and the media and the talk is cool

and I loved it because it allowed the awareness of what I was doing, but also the money raised. Like that allowed that to go. Yeah. But getting a message from Hamish or getting a message from like Adesanya, the UFC fighter. Right, you were getting videos. Yeah, I was getting videos and all these cool things

which if I wasn't doing the run would have been amazing. But mid-run, it's like that doesn't wake me up on day 10 or day 11 to go to Boyala and get this injection. It's like why is it you're doing this? And so when I'm, if I boil it down, it's like, it has always been from that day one running to Palm Beach and back about me wanting to succeed at something for me. So when it comes to about, like it was even with the 50 marathons,

I did that because I wanted to see what I could do. But raising the money was the byproduct of people seeing it. And so the same thing with this run. It's like you're a 23-year-old who's never run before or never really run before, who's attempting to run something of like a magnitude that very few people have done. How fucking cool is that? Like that is wild. And so the pride that comes

out of me when I talk about it is like, yeah, it's, it's, I'm just, I'm so proud of the fact I've been able to go, oh my God, I can make a life in this. I can, I continue to push myself while helping people to know they're more capable of a lot more because I haven't come from a running background or, you know, anything like that. It's all just come from, fuck, let's just see what I can do. And so, yeah, when it's, when it gets to that point, it's just like, yeah, every day is exciting. The experience of, of, you know, being so deep in that pain cave where you can't hide from yourself and the demons are coming out and they're talking a big game into your head and telling you to quit. And you're having this out-of-body experience. I mean, it really is a spiritual odyssey that really shows you exactly

who you are. Absolutely. So what did you take from that? What did you learn from the experience of just being in that other place that very few people flirt with? I think that because you're not doing it all the time, right? But when you are doing it, it's like you would know with all your runs you've done. There is nothing like that feeling of getting up and going again.

So I think it's like the pressure of people saying you can't for one, for me, but also the what if you just take another step? And so when you do take another step, what is that going to bring? What new thing are you going to see? What new feeling are you going to feel? What is that going to bring? What new thing are you going to see? What new feeling are you going to feel?

And so like I can't, there is no words I've found yet to explain the feeling of getting to Bondi and seeing that because that was a culmination of not just 47 days but three years or two years of busting my ass every day, making up at four o'clock, having cold showers every day, strict food, doing like, you know, it's not just like, I didn't wake up one day and go bang. It was like, I'm doing hard things every day. So when it does get there, it's like, it was all worth it. You know what I mean? I get to Bondi and say that it's like, holy shit. And that out of body spiritual feeling I got when I got to Bondi, like a finish line feel through getting through something

that was so hard and, you know, everyone would have said you couldn't have done it. But knowing I went through all that with my injuries and through all that with, you know, when you look up on the highway in the middle of this country and you can't see anything but the horizon of nothing, it's like, oh, we're out here. We're out here alone. Even though I had my family and my crew with me,

I was so alone. Like I was so vulnerable out there. And yeah, to get to Bondi and feel that, like I want to get the words to describe that, but I don't think I will for a while. But it must give you this profound sense of purpose, like a sense of like, I made the right choice. There was something deep inside me that guided me to do this for a reason beyond myself. Because in many ways, like you've run yourself into an entirely new life. A hundred percent. I literally ran from being relatively unknown to then like this person

that people are like, oh, fuck, what's Brockman going to do again? What's his next thing? What's like, yeah. But like purpose is cool. I really like, I think we all have purpose. I think there's purpose for everyone. But it's like there's purpose in everything it's just as long as you do it fully like i like for me this has all come about so

quickly so i'm not sure there might be purpose in me doing something else in two years like my purpose might not be running across continents it It might be to motivate people or to, you know, I'm not sure what it is, but it's like, as long as I'm giving it everything, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Not like, not just sitting back going, oh, that's cool. That'd be nice.

It's like, no, whatever it is I'm deciding to do, I'm fucking doing it wholeheartedly. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty healthy. I mean, I think I see two different kinds of people who do these hard type of things. On the one hand, there's people that continue to do it. Like they're just, you know, in a healthy way, like they're testing themselves

and they're always trying to find that outer edge in an unhealthy way. It's almost like they're stuck. Like my value or my identity is so wed to doing hard things. If I stopped doing that, then who am I? You know what I mean? I think a lot of people get caught in that trap and it's like, I have to plan the next thing. You know, if I don't, then, you know, what are people going to think of me? And then the other group of people who are like, what are people going to think of me? Of course. And then the other group of people who are like, I did this thing. It's changed my perspective on capability, potential, who I am, et cetera. Now, what do I do with what I learned to continue to grow? And sometimes that means,

yeah, I'll do another hard thing, but sometimes it means I need to apply this in other areas of my life, you know? Absolutely. And I think that's the healthier plan. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't go and do more stuff like this, but to not get caught in that trap and feel like you're doing it because you have to, or that you need to be in a rush to do it. Yeah. And I think that's like, I get asked that a lot now. It's like, what's next? What's next? And I go, I don't know yet, but when I do do what I'm going to do, it's not going to be for anyone else but me. In terms of, I'm not doing it for external pressure of doing it. I'm doing it for the fact that I want to do it because I know that spiritual feeling I got when I finished that run. I know of that, the amount of people I had inspired and motivated to go and like the messages I get, like you were saying, it's like some are like,

oh, you should go see what this person's doing now, Ned. But a lot of them are like, mate, I know you probably get all these messages, but I just wanted to say I was addicted to meth or I was, this is literally like, I've had five or so messages like that. Now I'm running, I would love to run with you. Wow.

I'm like, the power of being you and doing you, you know what I mean? Like, if you're trying to be someone else, like people would have seen through what I did if I was trying to be someone else. Yeah. But because I was being me and I was being so true to what I want to do, that's why people were so excited about it. Yeah. There was no like, oh fuck, he's doing this for fame or he's doing this for, to be seen. It's like, no, Aussies are very attuned to that too. Any sniff of that and you're, you're out. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's like, don't get too big on yourself, dude. They'll turn on you quick. Absolutely. It's like that Aussies love the underdog. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but it's even now.

But now you're not the underdog anymore. No, I know. I know. But I feel like when I, so be it. Some people aren't going to like it. But that's all part of it too. Like you don't want, I'm not doing my days hoping that everyone likes me. I'm doing it because I want to be me and do me.

And so whatever comes of that comes of it. Yeah. There's an adage in the ultra world that you should never compile a crew of your friends and loved ones because those dark moments are going to snap back on those people. And you defied that rule.

Your crew was comprised of your girlfriend and your parents, the people you love the most. And you had a little bit of a learning curve with that too, right? Yes. Yeah. It's probably grown my relationship with my girlfriend and my mother. I just finished, got back from the injections and we're seeing that horizon of nothing and there's nothing in front of us. And I was just in a really foul mood.

I was obviously in a lot of pain. I was still in this pain from the shin. It hadn't got easier yet and I just was just foul. I was foul. I'm plus 1,000 K in and I just snarled at my girlfriend and I think I told her to fuck off. And she was, I think she was just like, I'm scared. Like this is not, because I was in a dark, dark, I had to,

I had to go to that place. And I don't really know when I'm going to go there, but when it's fucked up out there, you've just got to find whatever it is you need to use as fuel. And so I just did it. I just went at my girlfriend. I wanted her to turn on me, to be honest. I wanted her to go, you know, you can't do it.

Something, you know what I mean? Any fuel, any fuel, give me fuel. And so instead of appreciating that they're there for me to help me and use that out on the, you know, use that, give me fuel on the roadkill or the road trains, I used it on my family and my girlfriend and my, you know, photographer. And so when I got to the van and my girlfriend had spoken to my mum, mum got out of the car and just like the mother's look of like looking through me, it was through me. And I was like, oh no, she goes, don't ever,

can talk to your girlfriend like that again. Don't ever speak to like to that. Don't ever speak to us like that again or we're all gone. And I was like, noted. I'm really sorry. I needed that. I needed a slap in the face because I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. If they kept going on and kept allowing me to do it, I would have kept pushing the boundaries. Yeah.

And mum just, yeah, went. And I think she, I think i've spoken to mum since and she said i was so worried everyone would leave and there would be you me and your dad that's why i had to turn on you just at that point and i was like oh so mum was like managing all these little relationships because yeah i've never been so intensely with my girlfriend like that never been so intensely with a photographer like that or my physio so my mother has my mother's there with me so she was just managing these little fires that I was, or they were starting.

And so she was just like, we cannot have Gemma leave. We cannot have Brad leave. Yeah. So she's like, Ned, you know, we're going to leave. Meaning they will leave if you don't freaking shut up. Yeah. Or, you know, appreciate what they're here for and take it out on something else.

And so from then on, it was like smooth sailing, but I'm sure they all would have got on a freaking- Yeah, I mean, crew rebellion's a real thing. And if you don't have that cohesion, these people are taking, you know, 47 days out of their life to devote it completely to you and to know that you being this kind of affable, fun guy can be that dark is its own teacher. Absolutely.

You have that inside you. And you're putting this up on your video, but that's why I was putting up the terrible stuff too. Like, I'm not just, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's actually, it's hard. And my family and my friends got that. Yeah. Talk about the roadkill. That's real, right? Like I didn't realize that that is so intense. Yeah. There's so much of it. And the stench is just with you like the whole time. Yeah. It's putrid. Especially when you're eating so much food all day and then you get that waft probably a minute before you see the animal. But yeah, because Australia is so, with so much wildlife. Yeah.

Kangaroos are running, trying to eat the food along the side of the road. And so, you know, in the headlights come along, they decide to run in front of the vehicle, not run away. And yeah, there's just literally, there'd be a kangaroo or a possum or a wombat or a fox or anything just on the road.

There's even a dead camel. Yeah. They reek the most. But yeah, it was just like, it just on the road. There was even a dead camel. Yeah. They reek the most. But yeah, it was just like, it just stuck with you. And then you can't, you don't want to eat. You know, gagging at the thought of what you've just run past. You're trying to hold your breath. You don't want to hold your breath because it's.

It stays with you. Yeah. So if you smell it now, does it bring you back? That sense of memory bring you right back? Road trains are the worst. They bring me back to the road. Wow. Yeah. I just, I kind of got used to the road kills. I was like, here's one, run past and then get on with it. But yeah, sometimes you miss them and they would just pop up when you're right next to them. In the questions that like Wardian and Hela and Robbie shared with me for you,

there were a couple, I mean, Wardian, I think Robbie also asked, wanted to know like, what was the most unreal act of kindness that you experienced? Because I think these guys, they're running across America, so they're going through towns all the time. They're interacting with lots of people, plenty of opportunities to have chats and stuff like that. But I don't know that that would have been an experience that you would have had, right? Because there's so few... Well, you're in these roadhouses.

You are seeing some people along the way, right? Yeah, I was. I was seeing a lot of truckies. So the truckies were starting to recognize me and when i would get to halfway across here he's still going how far has he run where's he going to um there was a few like really cool times where i like when i got to mildura which was like the first big kind of town since you know perth um the whole town was lining up and I was like, if this is what Mildura is like and Wagga was pretty well the same, what's Sydney going to be like?

This is wild. Yeah. And honking and cash donations and I think someone rocked up and gave $1,500 cash just on the side of a freaking highway. Wow. This is like Nalapur area. I guess like majority of people were so like had heard about it by the time i got halfway through so there was always like every second

car was a honk or um filming or stand up donating and there was no real um i'm trying to think about stand out um yeah i can't really what about uh you have any run-ins with the cops? Yeah, on day two. So because I initially in the planning with the legal, like the state and governments, they said I had to run at sunrise and sunset. I couldn't run any time either side of it. And, yeah, I obviously can't do that. That's not going to work.

When there's 17 hours of the day I'm running. Yeah. And I got to the end of day two and the local cop had clocked me at like 60K and he'd pulled up and go, you've got to get off this road. I've had my, one of my best mates was killed walking along here. So I need you just, I think it was his own thing. I was like, yep, no worries. But like I'm about to go into 30. I was like, yep, no worries. But like,

I'm about to go into 30 or 40 plus more days of this. Yeah. Like, I appreciate that, but I've got to get going. That feels so far away. I'm only just picturing that again. Like day two felt so much longer away than what day 46 was. Like that feels like six years ago, that moment. But Bondi feels like a week ago. Yeah. Where? Time's weird that way, right? Especially when the first couple of days probably feel a lot longer and then time starts to like morph where the later days

when you're starting to feel good again. But you're in this trance and this flow state for so long. You just wake up and when you do get into it, it's like, okay. And then you're at 80K and you's like, okay. And then you're at 80K and you're like, okay, I remember this roadhouse. I remember that where I left, but you don't really remember the in-betweens. And I think that might be a bit of PTSD. And you had AirPods in all the photos. So what were you listening to? Were you listening to music? What are you pumping into the head? I was first 10 days funny enough didn't listen to anything that was all mute no music uh and then about day 20 i was at 4 30 in the morning acdc

blasting yeah because i just was like i was using it um kind of the way goggins talks about it as cheating how you like if you put music in it it makes it easier yeah so i was using it like the last 10k of a few days last 10k but it's like torture when you aren't using it when you know it's there and because it wasn't hard enough you had to make it harder yeah exactly exactly um but i as more podcasts when i could um when it was like you know fine for me to listen and not actually be in pain, so to speak. I could listen to it. But when I was hurting, which was majority of the time,

I was just playing. Yeah. Yeah. Robbie wanted to know if you had any kind of mantras or mindset tricks that allowed you to kind of weather the dark moments. I just, it was always the just, if you can't run, just walk. Just go and walk to the next post. So there's obviously the signposts along the way. And I'd be like, if today's a day

where I'm not really feeling it, I would run to a post, walk to a post, run to a post, walk to a post until I got into a rhythm of like, okay, this runs good. But it would be like at the end of each day, I wrote my Instagram post up, which was almost like a reflection for me it was like this beautiful amount of time for me to sit back do my diary journal but on Instagram and I at the end of each one I was just like telling myself I've got to just find a way like find a way find a way and that would be why I got through the shin and why we got, you know, it's just like do not give in, just find a way of what you've got to do. Yeah. And so I think find a way was a good mantra I had.

And then just keep showing up. So it's a similar thing. Uh-huh. Yeah. Talk to me about the mullet. Yeah. Did you have a mullet beforehand? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You did. How long have you been rocking the mullet? I've been in and out of them for probably since year six. But in between job interviews, I had to cut them and go again. I think the main reason for it is like the breaking down of like a stereotype. So when I walk into a room, you already have an idea of me if you don't know who I am.

And if I go in there and I can into a room, you already have an idea of me if you don't know who I am. And if I go in there and I can hold a conversation, I've also raised $2.5 million for charity and I can run. You know, you've already got this preconceived idea of me being some bullhead tradie that, you know, goes out all weekend. But, you know, you can also not. And it's like if I walk in a room with, you know, people in suits or whatever and I rock up like this,

breaks down barriers straight away. And it's like this, you know, I can, it's just like tattoos or it's like I, this is me, you know? Yeah. There's no like, I don't have to be clean cut to be a good person or to be a good man. Like it's just me. Uh-huh.

Yeah. And I think I like doubling down on it as well. But now it's iconic. Absolutely. You can't, you can't, you can't, there's no way. Right. And it like, it, it, it precedes you every room you walk into. Right. And now that you're like this media darling, like highly you're recognizable at like 200 meters. Yeah. Way more recognizable from the back than the front. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How has that been? Like now, you know, three months later, you know, you go from this just, you know, kind of normal bloke into being somebody who, you know, is probably recognized everywhere you go, especially in Sydney. Especially in Sydney, especially around the beaches. Yeah.

Even Byron, like I went up here yesterday, I'm going, it's going to be nice, it's peaceful. I'm going to walk around Main Street, get some food to eat, just chill out. And I'm like getting every third man's going, Ned. I'm going, oh, no. Should have worn my hoodie. It's too hot though. Yeah, it's been fine.

And I was saying before, it's like I can't raise money, can't, you know, be this person to use inspiration without being known. So now I am. It's like you take the good with the bad. Like, you know, sometimes walking down to Woolies and getting your food, you don't want to be pulled over and say, can I get a photo?

But it's all part of it. And it's like that might be their one time to meet me. And so I don't want to be seen off as being a flog or I want to be myself, but I've also got to appreciate that I don't want, you know, I've got to be by myself and with myself a lot too. I can't always give my energy.

But there's got to be a lot of gratitude with that too. They're not doing that because they saw you in a reality show or they're recognizing you for the, you know, the valor of the accomplishment. And people felt like they were on the journey with me. Yeah. They're your friends. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm somewhat approachable on my Instagram. So I think people... They already know you. There's Ned. Absolutely. Hey mate, how's that this? I'm going, how do you? Oh, that's right. Social media. Yeah. Yeah. So no, it's been cool. It's been a weird transition and it's like, I'm just, I'm starting to find peace in it as well. Knowing

that, you know, people are just going to know me. The more and more I do with this, the more and more people are going to know me. Just go with it. All right. So talk to me about the homelessness issue, why you decided that this was going to be the cause that you wanted to direct your attention towards and leverage the run to raise funds to combat. Yeah. On the homelessness, I think a lot of people were a bit confused with me doing the whole run for homelessness.

I do want to clear that up. It's like I wanted to do it for, see what's possible, what I'm capable of, to help inspire and then to also help on the side. The homelessness came about when I moved to Sydney from the country and I saw a heap of homeless people in Eddy Avenue, which is in the city, when I went to, I would ride or run or walk into TAFE. who I would ride or run or walk into TAFE.

And I was like just confronted by how much homelessness there was. And so initially I'm like, how do I talk to these people? Like I don't know how, you know, approaching them, how to approach them, how to, you know, interact. Where I'm like now it's so fucking stupid because they're just people who need help. So my initial, you know, hesitation was obviously I think what a lot of people feel. They don't know how to go up and help.

I just called my mom and said, what do I do? And she goes, just talk to them, mate. Get down to their level and just talk to them. I went, yeah, that's right. So I would go up and I'd go, hey, how you going? I'm Ned. Get to the eye level, introduce myself, make me feel as comfortable as possible and just be like, can I get your food?

Can I get your water? Can I get you anything? And a lot of times they're just like, I don't want your help. So they didn't acknowledge me at all. But a lot of times they would. They'd go, thank you. I'd love that. This would be great.

And it just was like every time I left, I had this profound feeling of like it just I needed to help. I needed to every time I walked past someone, I needed to help them. And so I was like, fuck, my running's starting to get a bit wild. My 50 marathons, I just said, I'm going to do this homelessness. So I raised 100 grand when I did the 50 in 50. And then, yeah, it kind of just went, I want to do something with this run. I want to keep in theme of the homelessness as well

and let's raise a million dollars. And, yeah, it kind of just came about that way. And how did you decide upon the nonprofit that would deploy those funds in the best way? Yeah, so Noah, who owns Mobilize, we are Mobilize, which is the charity I raise for, he reached out to me during the 50 marathons in 50 days and was like, what you're doing is incredible.

We're a homelessness charity that all volunteers, the most they'd ever raised prior to this run was 15 grand in a year. And they literally, a lot of them were just literally getting money out of their own pockets and buying stuff and going and starting conversation but their bread and butter is conversation so going up and starting talking with these people and seeing where the help can be given um so it was quite cool that it was the way i went and started talking to people on the street

um and yeah then i went oh that's right. Noah reached out and they did really cool stuff. Hey mate, do you want me to, I'm going to raise a million dollars for you. You can. He's like, yeah. Um, and then, yeah, fast forward to now we raised 2.5 million. Yeah. You got two and a half. Yeah. What's interesting is that, that when you started, I mean, you didn't even have a hundred K raised, right. When the run started. No. So it just picked up steam along the way. Yeah. I think I hit $100,000 on like day six. And then I was about $450,000 with 10 days to go. And then I was $1.7 million when I hit Bondo. Right. I think people, especially Australians, want to see the person finish before they give their cash. Mate, honestly, it is. This is what happened with the 50 and 50.

I think I had 20,000 raised with 10 days ago. Then I raised 100,000. But they just love it when you, and they want to say and help. Because a lot of the donation was to help for homelessness, but a lot was to thank me for what I'd done for them. Yeah. And so. That's what, like Mark Boris said that to you.

Like he donated. He's like, yeah, I know it's for this, but I'm really doing it done for them. Yeah. And so. That's what, like Mark Boris said that to you. Like he donated. He's like, yeah, I know it's for this, but I'm really doing it for you. Yeah. Yeah. And for what you've done for me. And that was cool. But I think that's what a lot of the later influx was for. It's like, this motherfucker's done it.

Go, he's been ready. There you go. Yeah. Homelessness is such an intractable problem. You know, it entails socioeconomic conditions, systemic issues, political issues, mental health, addiction, all of that. Like, it's a sticky wicket, right? Absolutely. You can buy somebody a meal or, you know, maybe, you know, give them a helping hand. maybe give them a helping hand,

but solving the problem itself is, I mean, I don't know the nature of the problem here in Australia, but in the United States. Yeah, it's massive in the States. I think the misconception is that it's addiction, it's alcoholism, it's actually like here in Australia, it's housing affordability, domestic violence and like a few other things that have just like not having a family that's there for you and something goes wrong.

You know, a lot of people are one paycheck away from being on the street. And so like with Mobilise now, their bread and butter obviously is the interaction and conversation for change, but they're now implementing another pillar which is they go out and they, for example, because they have so much funding, they can actually help. So say you're homeless, you need healthcare or you need, you know,

you need a place to rent, you need to gather together 10 grand. I'm from Mobilise, I go up to you and say, you know, what need a place to rent. You need to gather together 10 grand. I'm from Mobilize. I go up to you and say, you know, what is it you need? They go, I need 10 grand for this. If you can raise five grand, we'll give you the other five. So you can show and we can help you and see where you can save it and we can do this. So actually helping allow them to get into somewhere.

Right, like instead of giving them a fish, helping teach them how to fish kind of thing. Being like, well, if you're willing to give this a go and we'll give you all the tools to help, we will help fund half or, you know, whatever it is to help make that happen. But it doesn't have to be about healthcare or housing or whatever, it can be anything.

But as long as it's going to aid them in potentially making them get off the street, then that's what we're hoping. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. Homeless, like whether we like it or not, everyone has needs. So money is like, you know, me saying I gave them food or water, it's like I'm having a preconceived idea of what they can do with the money.

So instead of being, you know, like going, we need to just give you food or water because that's what I'm having a preconceived idea of what they can do with the money. So instead of being, you know, like going, we need to just give you food and water because that's what I think you need. It's like when they have needs, the money is theirs to do. If you're going to give them something and they want the money and you're willing to give something, you know what I mean? It's like that hard, we all have needs. Sure, sure, sure. And is the fundraising still open?

It is still open and you can still obviously donate to Mobiles. And is the fundraising still open? It is still open. And you can still obviously donate to Mobiles. And they are incredible. Like the one volunteer, he's 26, he started it. Just all young volunteers who I was on, I've done a few Zoom calls with them. And they're just the most passionate, helpful people. I'm like, this is great.

This is what you want. Doing the real work. Yeah. And like, just, they're all volunteers. There's no one doing anything. And I would hope that Noah who started it would be able to pay himself a bit of a wage to start going full time at it

because of how passionate he is about it. But he won't. He just won't do it. So anyway, they'll work it out. Right. So it's we are mobilized with an s right in america they use a z but yeah ns.com.au yeah okay we can go to run yeah cool yeah um what is it that that you want people to you know take away from this experience that you've had in terms of how they reflect upon themselves? I think knowing, limit your limitations. So I think a lot of people sit back and go,

there's no, there's no way I could do that. No way I could do what they've done. So it's like, allow yourself to think, you know, there doesn't have to be ambitious people that people love just happy with their day right and happy with getting on with whatever it is but I think if you're hesitating in wanting to do something but I don't know how it's like don't overthink it just go for it you're not gonna no one's gonna rouse on you for having to go no one's gonna you know what I mean you're not gonna let anyone down by having a crack at something. I think it's showing people and giving people that hope that they can also, whatever it is they want to do, go and do it.

So you're now in a situation where you're going to be getting up on stages and doing keynotes and kind of delivering this type of message, including an event. I know you're going to be at an event where Goggins is also speaking, which is very exciting for you. That's great. It is, especially on your first keynote.

Yeah. It's your very first one. I've done it like the Q&A. Yeah, it's a different thing. Very different. Yeah, so you're working it out? Yes, getting there. I've only got two weeks,

but I've got a pretty good plan. That's good, man. So, are you still doing the electrician thing or is that no more? It's been... Mate,

if there's something, I will not be doing it to that. I just... Again, it's like, for me, when I moved to Sydney, it was exciting

and, you know, I'm doing it, being an electrician and I'll be able to, you know, even if it was electrical that I ended up doing, it would be, I would have 100 guys working for me or I would, you know what I mean? I'll be able to, you know, even if it was electrical that I ended up doing, it would be I would have 100 guys working for me

or I would, you know what I mean? I'd be just pushing, pushing and pushing. But now it's not. It's this ultra scene and it's this motivation and inspiration. And in five years' time, it might be something different. But hopefully, I've now got somewhat of a name to be able to then use that to continue to live and be able to do this. You're so young, man. You got your whole life ahead of you to figure this out. And you're in

a position now where, yeah, you have a girlfriend and stuff like that, but you don't have a ton of liabilities and responsibilities and you have the flexibility to kind of pivot and move and, and, you know, create the life of your dreams it's it's cool man yeah and um yeah i'm just i'm just pumped about what i you know i i have actually created this yeah so now it's like where to now yeah so speaking what else for the moment um yeah i'll be on the on the speaking circuit and just like back into training, back into like getting fit and healthy and happy and being like excited about training. And then, yeah, working on probably another event just

because I want to do it. I'm stinging from that, what I've just been through. So I'm just trying to, nothing's set in stone. There's no, like, you know, there's still, there's a few ideas I've got circulating, but, um, yeah, nothing yet, but I think it'll be just like, Ooh, we can try this and we could do this and, and maybe I'll get a lot more sponsors together or whatever and make it even, even cooler. What is the, uh, what was the nutrition strategy when you were doing the run? Like, I know it gets difficult to keep food down and all of that, but knowing you're, you know,

you got to get, I don't know, some ungodly amount of calories in you every single day. Yeah. So I, the plan was 10,000 calories a day, but it's quite hard to do when you're moving so much and the lack of food along the way. So we had to store everything or, you know, what we could purchase wasn't great. I was every, so in the morning would be oats, heap of brown sugar on it and then a coffee, banana, strawberries. And then I would usually vomit that up by about an hour in.

And then because of just like the phlegm I had from the dirt and mosquitoes and the, you know, it was just pretty wild. And then I would probably try and eat every hour on the hour, 500 cals if I could. But I was never really getting that in. I ended up losing about 12 kilos over the whole run. So I think I plateaued at about 70 kilos and i was probably eating and burning the same amount by then but all the way up i was burning

way more and eating heaps less yeah um but i came into it quite heavy like with extra weight sorry um so i had that to lose but not 12, but I had probably six or so to lose where I'm at my probably peak weight. And then, yeah, obviously I probably lost a few more kilos than I would have liked, but put that back on, no worries. Yeah. When you were coming into Bondi that final day, is it true that your final marathon was a 2.53?

Oh, no. So that was in the 50 marathons in 50 days i mean okay okay i misread that or i misheard that on my 50th marathon of the in 2020 uh-huh it was a um yeah 253 yeah that's freaking epic right um but i was i ran 60k on the last day from Campbelltown into Bondi. But even then, like, we woke up at like 7.30. I still had 60K to run that day. I felt like I'd finished, but I still had to run 60 kilometers. But that's the way it works, right?

You're like, oh, it's just 60 kilometers and I'm done. Like, I'm basically finished with this whole thing. Yeah, and then I'm like, fuck, 60K is a long way, isn't it? And, like, I was running through towns with no, like, road paths, like through suburbs with no paths. No one ever runs out there. And so I'm like, this is fucked up. Like, I've just run on this highway the whole way and now I've been trying to navigate streets and work out where I'm going.

But, yeah, it was pretty nice when I got to Bondi. I got to Bondi about 20 minutes early because I told everyone 5.30. I got there about 5 o'clock. And it's like cop, convoy, like people storming

helicopters above me and I'm like, oh no. Did you have a sense that that would be waiting for you or was that a total shocker? Total shock.

Yeah. I knew it was going to be, like I knew there'd be a few people there, like a thousand or two maybe. Uh-huh. But even that's a lot.

And I just like, I remember running halfway up the road before Bondi Road and I just saw two helicopters and I'm like, what's that? But they were like hovering with me. Mm-hmm. Oh, no. This is for me. Yeah. And then I just, I remember coming down.

So I'm running down Bondi Road from the south end and just every person was like and you know when there's this like this hysteria

of like they don't know what's going on they know something's going on so there was like half the people knew what was going on but the rest were like what's all this commotion about

and so there's just me in this left lane in the Bondi Road, which never gets shut. They've blocked it off for me. I'm running down and I just saw the beach, like the promenade, and it was like a summer's day in Bondi on steroids. Yeah.

Like you don't see it like that. Yeah. And then I got quite taken back. I got quite like almost like tall poppy syndrome. Like you don't deserve this sort of like, and then about 10 seconds later, I went, you've been through hell and back, mate. You just, you are.

And then there's just like, I'm just like screaming at everyone. I'm like, yeah, it was pretty cool. It was crazy. I mean, people who are watching or listening, go to Ned's Instagram and you got the videos there pinned and stuff. It's wild. I mean, I don't know Instagram and you got the videos there pinned and stuff. It's wild.

I mean, I don't know how many thousands of people were there, but plenty. Yeah, I don't really know. And the number changes every time I say it. So I'd say around 10,000 to be honest. Yeah. Maybe more, I'm not really sure. But then you go like the wide shot from the drone.

It's like the whole beach and the whole like, it's wild. Yeah. It's so wild. One of the injuries that you you sustained that i gotta hear more about is uh the fact that you had like maggots burrowing in your toe yeah so is that due to like blisters and swelling or whatever and then it's the flies like laying eggs um yeah. It's pretty well lit. So when your toenails peel off, my big right toenail had like half come off.

So it was like an opening, but it wasn't fully out. So I didn't like try to pull it off. And we were just cruising along, finished a run, a lot of flies in the outback of Australia. And it had flown in and I'm obviously like kicking him away. And then two days later or three days later, I'm in the Nullable Roadhouse, like the most remote roadhouse of Australia. And my toe was like aching.

It felt like an ingrown toenail. And I'm like, I'm trying to pull the skin away. And I'm like, this is keeping me up. Like like it's full on I could not sleep because of it I couldn't really sleep anyway but that was just like a whole nother thing so I've clipped my nail half my nail off and still wouldn't still didn't fix it so I've got out the run I'm 40k into the run it's raining pissing down rain and I thought it must be water in my toe so I've pulled my socks off rain and I thought it must be water in my toe. So I've pulled my socks off and there's no like,

like I've dried it and it's like all good. And I'm like, fuck, maybe we need to dry it out, get some alcohol spray. So I sprayed some alcohol into it and then maggots just start crawling out of it. Yeah. And so I'm like, oh no, because I obviously wanted to get out of the alcohol. So they've just dispersed.

I'm like, I've got maggots in my toe because I saw this red blood thing move, sliding away. And it was'm like, I've got maggots in my toe because I saw this red blood thing move sliding away and it was freaking, it was like five maggots in there. So then we got the cotton bud, scraped it out, and then, yeah, put the new sock on, freaked out a bit, worked out, like, trying to work out. Did you take a video of that? Yeah, we've got a video.

You haven't shared that one. I haven't shared it. I think we're going to try and use it in the documentary. Are you making a documentary? Potentially, yeah., we've got a video. You haven't shared that one. I haven't shared it. I think we're going to try and use it in the doctor. Oh, you're making a documentary? Potentially, yeah. Because we've got a fair bit of footage. So we'll see. Yeah.

We'll see about, I just, yeah, it just depends on like the work to put into it and first outcome. But your PT said that possibly the fact that you had maggots in your toe kept it from getting infected. Yeah. It was actually a blessing. Absolutely. And I think they used to do that, didn't they? Which is fucked up to think about.

Yeah. Well, did they? I think they had like- You had to clean a wound. Yeah, if you had a wound, you'd put a maggot in it. Like not obviously the big ones, but like the small. And they'd just eat away at the infection and take them out, which is fucked.

Like it is so gross. Yeah, I did question my life choice at that point, but we scraped them out and we were good to go. And I didn't have any pain after that, which was great. Yeah. So life after the run, you went to the GQ Man of the Year Awards. A lot of people are calling for you to be Australian of the Year 2023. Yeah.

That's a bit of a head fuck. It is a head fuck, especially when, you know, when I was out there on the road, like I'm not thinking any of this. I'm thinking about getting back to Bondi and like, you know, some people being there. So when, you know, I do get invited to those things or I feel weird going out there and accepting an award because I'm like, but I guess all the people in there were just the same at some point, not necessarily

the running part but, you know, had a dream of being a singer or a dream of being an actor and then finally an actor and then they're up there accepting their award for the best solo actor, you know, or best solo artist. And when I went up there, I'm like, it's hard to believe I'm up here to be perfectly honest. Like being in, you know, two weeks into the run, on the nullable, having no clue what was ahead of me to being here

dressed up in a suit that I do not feel comfortable in is very like, it's very surreal. And like, you know, I've got the Prime Minister in front of me, Russell Crowe, you know, all these people and I'm like, I'm swearing my head off and I'm like, oh, well, it's just me, isn't it? No, it's very cool. And it's been, yeah, I do pinch myself, but I know I've got so much more to give and I know I've got so much more in me that people want to see

and that I want to give to people. Yeah. So it's like embrace it. The fact that it's GQ and you're rocking the mullet like that, there's just something really beautiful about that. I love that, man. Yeah, but no, but it's powerful.

You're going to bring it back. Absolutely. Are there a bunch of like, you know, Ned acolytes cruising around now with bleach blonde mullets? I get,

there's always like, you know, the sports parties or people have parties and it's like, rock up as your favorite athlete or your favorite person. Like for Halloween,

people dress up like you? The amount of freaking things I got tagged in on that was great. But there's a few, there's a few bleach miles. Yeah. My favorite of the things that you've done though, didn't you, did you do a thing with the, uh, uh, the inspired unemployed? Uh, the podcast. Yeah. Those guys like those, I love the, like, I don't know. I can't remember when I tuned into those guys, but I love those guys. They're so funny, those dudes.

They're such good boys. They're just like your everyday dude, but they've just done some funny content and it's just blown up. People love it. They've got some anxieties. They're just their everyday dudes. You know what I mean?

They're just doing their thing. They presented the award at the GQ for me. They were so nervous before it, you know what I mean? They're just doing their thing and they're like they presented the award at the GQ for me and I was so nervous before it and it's like, you know what I mean? It's like this stuff is you have to be trained to, you know, you have to do stuff like this to be good at it. But, you know, you're doing like for me like going up there, I'm like this is fucking wild.

But now the more care notes I do, the more, you know, this sort of stuff I do, the more comfortable we are talking about your story. But, yeah, those boys are so good. They're so funny and they've done so well out of it. On the keynote thing, you know, if you're just yourself and you just, you know, like double down on just the authenticity of who you are and keep it real,

all the rest of it takes care of itself. Yeah, cool. And you've done a few, haven't you? Yeah, I'm not great at it. It's not like my, I can do it and I've done plenty of them. I don't think it's my strength. Um, I've learned a lot doing it though, but I think the, the ones that I've done that have been the best are where, like, I know what I, I know like the things that I want to say, but I just, I don't try to like be so tied to that. And I just kind of like show up and be present. Yeah.

And relaxed, then it's better. That's more important than like staying on script. And then I think just making it about the audience. Yeah, of course. Like not, it's not about you, but like how, like, okay, who are these people? Like, where do they come from? Yeah. What are they interested in hearing about?

And the more you can like customize it or make it about them because once you have the script it's like you know well then it starts to just become i mean i did it so many times after a while i was like is this even true like i i just i felt so disconnected from what i was saying that i was like i don't want to do this anymore or you know if i'm going to do it i have to just throw that out and yeah like show up blank slate. Yeah. So I don't know, but I'm excited for you, man. It's going to be,

and I know, you know, the first one's going to potentially suck and that's all part of it. I've done a few already, like on my own, not in front of anyone or like in front of my girlfriend, but I, yeah,

it's going to be like, you know, you're rehearsing it. You got the power, the slides and everything. Yeah. I need pointers to remember like, you know. You're rehearsing it. You got the power, the slides and everything. I have to. Yeah. I need pointers to remember what I'm doing. Do you have any plans to come to the States?

In April, hopefully. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Potentially speak with like a sponsor, like a global sponsor. And do you know Cam Haynes? Yes. Yes, I do. I know that he likes all your. Yes, I do. Yeah.

I know that he, he likes all your posts. I saw that. Um, and I was like, oh, that's cool. Cam, I've never met him, but we've communicated a little bit on the internet and, uh, super like, you know, really like, you know, has a positive attitude about like, you know, just supporting as many people. Yes. Yes.

And he's just like, no bullshit. And like, yeah, I think it's great. I think we need people like that, you know just supporting as many people yes yes and he's just like no bullshit and like yeah i think it's great i think we need people like that you know yeah so you're gonna go hang out with him we go and try and pull a bow and um that that's a video i want to see yeah yeah bow hunting in oregon with with cam haynes and go for a run nice man yeah well i'm sure there's plenty of uh eager hosts for you in the States. Yeah, thank you. That'd be good. Just as a final thing to kind of, you know, close this thing down, I already asked you a little bit about like what you want people to take away from your run. But, you know, I think, you know, there's a lot of people, you know, to your point, who get

stuck in their head or walk around with a sense of incapacity about their own possibility and potential. You, you know, you serve as this really, you know, kind of shining star in terms of, you know, what we're all capable of, because in so many ways you are like the everyman and you just discovered running a couple of years ago, you're so young. But, you know, speak to that person who, who does feel kind of stuck on the couch or every time they feel like they take a stab at something, it snaps back on them and they're just, you know, feeling a little bit directionless. I think making sure that you're not doing it because you feel you should do it because it's like the right thing to do.

As you said before, it's like Aussie see-through the bullshit of people trying to do it for something other than them wanting to do it for them. So when, if you're doing it for someone to like you or, you know, someone to compliment you on something or, you know, whatever it is in that way, it's like that will not be enough to get you to continually keep getting up off that couch. And so do it for you to feel good or for you to succeed in something

that you've always felt, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I guess like not doing it for any other reason than for the, the reason that you want to do it, if that makes sense. Not like, not for any external validation. Yeah. Yeah. I, I wish I want a bit more time to probably word that, but that, I guess that's the essence of them. Yeah. I mean, when I, when I reflect upon, you know, how, how you've accomplished this thing, I mean, it really, it feels to me like it, you know, it started with, with one little jog because you, you had the back fat and you didn't like it.

And there wasn't, it wasn't like some grand ambition that you were going to run across Australia. It was one tiny step. And, you know, when I asked you about mantras and you're talking about just getting to the next lamppost, it's breaking everything down into really easily, repeatable, digestible actions. And the levers really moved through those tiny things undertaken every day anonymously. You're just a bloke at home going out for a jog here and there, and you strung some things together that led to something fantastic, but it didn't begin that way. So I think like

being humble and just getting into the habit of kind of flexing the muscle of self-care wherever that kind of instinct or inspiration is leading you is really the kind of impulse to pay attention to. Absolutely. And like how many New Year's resolutions are like a two-week setup? You've changed everything dramatically and then they're back into normal. Slam out.

And so I think it's like, you know, I didn't start with running 100K. I didn't start with ice cold baths every day or ice showers every day, cold showers every day. I didn't start with reading 100K. I didn't start with ice cold baths every day or ice showers every day, cold showers every day. I didn't start with reading 10 pages of the book. I started with go for a run. Okay, I'm getting further in my running. Now I can incorporate eating well.

Oh, this eating well is actually really helping me. And it was just like this incremental increase in doing the more uncomfortable things. So when that became comfortable, I just did the next thing. And then all of a sudden I'm, you know, beating down marathons and I'm running further and I'm, you know, I've got this energy about me that I'm running around being like, hello, how are you?

Happy freaking Friday. How good is this? How good is living? Blah, blah, blah. Like it was never like there was just this energy coming out of me. So I think it's just these slow steps that allow you but being consistent disciplined to make sure you continue to do it um and then you know even like with the weight loss it started out as a external you know lose weight but what I found when I was trying to do that was this feeling of achievement

by getting the next run by getting the next run, by getting the next run. And all of a sudden I'm, you know, doing these long runs and I'm feeling this excitement about how far I can push myself. So when, you know, now it's got nothing to do with losing weight. The weight is a byproduct of now me being happy, me being content with what I'm doing. Yeah. Beautiful, man. Well, I appreciate you taking the time here. I wanted to say, I asked you before you came out, I was like, bring me a bud, a budgie smuggler. So here's, this is your sponsor, right? I love that. Like, like an ultra runner who ran across Australia had like basically like a, a, a bathing suit company as your sponsor, but there is nothing

more Australian than the budgie smuggler. I asked you to bring me one. This is like perfect. And I feel like I'm an honorary citizen of Australia now. Thank you. I'm proud to be able to give you a pair of closet budgies. I will wear it proudly. Yeah, absolutely. On the surfboard today. Yeah. Super inspired by your feats, by your example. But I think more than that. And like I said at the outset, like the reason I wanted to talk to you has less to do with the fact that you ran across Australia and more about like how you comport yourself. And I think in this age of social media influencers, there's a lot of like not so

great influencers out there. And I've got four kids. And I's a lot of not so great influencers out there. I've got four kids, and I think a lot about who are they looking up to, who are the North Stars of people that they can draw wisdom from. And the fact that you, being at your age, can serve that for young people and old people like me, I think is really cool. And so I just wanted to honor you for that and let you know that I appreciate what you're doing and I'm at your service, man. I love everything about you and it's been great to meet you. Thank you. And you, I've been, yeah, it's been an honor to be here. I'm really, truly am very grateful and I'm blessed to meet you. Cheers. Everybody, definitely check out Ned's Instagram. If Ned's new to you,

because you're probably new to a lot of people in the States, you can scroll through his feed and get a pretty good sense of not just the adventure, but like who this guy is. Pretty cool. Ned with two Ds, Brockman with two Ns. Double D, double A.

Yeah, there you go. That's unique in and of itself. We'll put up links to We Are Mobilized and your website and all that other good stuff, man. So thank you. Cheers, bro. Cheers. That's it for today.

Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch,

my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube,

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