The Rich Roll Podcast - Badwater – What It’s Like to Run 135 Miles Across The Desert

Episode Date: October 27, 2014

This show is about chasing dreams. Making stuff happen. Helping others. And sharing the journey. We can all use a little education. Some solid information. And a dose of experience-based inspiration to guide our own path towards self-betterment. My goal is to help you see and understand that we are generally our own self-limiter. That we are all capable of being better and doing more, irrespective of circumstances. That we all have a more authentic self lying dormant within yearning to be more self-expressed. We owe it to ourselves to fertilize that seed. Why? Because life is short. Trite? yes. Cheesy? definitely. But nonetheless oh so true. Right now I'm up in Palo Alto at Stanford University for my 25th Reunion. 25 years since I graduated from college. How is that possible? Translation: I am old. Old is a mindset. Another lame idiom I choose to believe. Honestly, I feel like I am about 28. But this weekend made me acutely aware of the fleeting and transitory nature of our lives. It seems like yesterday I was in school with all these amazing people with whom I spent the last few days reconnecting and reminiscing. People that have ventured forth to do extraordinary things like found billion dollar startups; create non-profits that have helped millions; and launch movements that have forever altered how we think and live. This not hyperbole. This is Stanford — a place; an institution; and a mindset that fosters the ethos that truly anything is possible. That you should challenge authority. That you must question the status quo. It's a culture that empowers the philosophy that not only can you change the world, but that it’s in fact your responsibility. This weekend I was surrounded by people who have done and are doing just that. I am tremendously grateful for the experience. And it left me inspired to do and be better. 25 years, man. Life is short. There is no time for idleness. There is no time to equivocate. Speaking of eradicating limitations, today marks the return of my ultrarunning buddy Josh Spector – if you are a long-time listener you will recall our conversation from last year, recounting our respective experiences crewing for Dean Karnazes and Ray Sanchez at the Badwater 135 ( RRP 40 ). Widely accepted as the “World's Toughest Foot Race”, Badwater is a 135 mile running race across Death Valley — the hottest place on Earth — where temperatures average 120+ in July and can reach as high as 130 with pavements temps typically in the 170-180 degree range. Starting at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level, approximately 100 invitation-only runners from across the globe begin a jaunt that takes them across bleak and scorching desert terrain as well as three formidable mountain passes, including the culminating 13-mile ascent up the portals of Mt. Whitney — the highest peak in the lower 48 — to finish at 8,300 feet. This past summer, and for the first time, Josh stepped up his game and ran the legendary — but recently revised — race himself. This week's show is a rare peek behind the curtain at exactly what it takes to prepare for, endure and complete one of the most difficult running challenges on the planet – a race that requires...

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 110 with Josh Spector. But before we get into it, three quick things. The first thing is a big announcement. You've heard me talk about the documentary Cowspiracy on the podcast, right? No? You're new to the podcast. You don't know what this is. Tune into episode 91. It's my interview with the filmmakers, Kip Anderson and Keegan Coon. Do this immediately. But if you have been listening to the podcast, you know that Cowspiracy is a new documentary. it is an incredibly sobering and powerful and entertaining film that takes a hard unflinching look at the deleterious impact of animal agriculture on the environment and the reasons behind why this crucial issue fails to get the airtime and the attention that it deserves in the global environmentalism conversation. Imagine an inconvenient truth meets blackfish and you

get the picture. The filmmakers have been crisscrossing the U.S. hosting screenings and with the help of tug.com, people have been hosting their own screenings. I think there's been like about 100 screenings across the U.S. over the past couple months. And personally, I've been fielding a lot of questions. How can I see the film? Where is it? When is it going to be online? How can I get the DVD? Well, now you can.

The DVD is coming out in November, and it's now up and available for pre-order at richroll.com. Actually richroll.com forward slash products is where you can find it. It's just $19.95 and there are special prices for bulk purchases. So go there, do that, get this important film, share it with your friends. It's awesome. You will not be disappointed. The second thing is, did I tell you guys that I have a restaurant? I've talked a lot about Joy Cafe, but I'm not sure that I've made it clear that we are actually the owners. We are partners in this new restaurant.

Yes, we are. It's called Joy Cafe, J-O-I, and it is awesome. It's all plant-based. It's all organic. It's all awesome all the time. So if you are in the LA area, please come on by. At lunch, you're likely to find me there. I eat there probably three or four times three or four times throughout the week. And Joy and Nick, the on-site main proprietors of this fine establishment, are always there. They'll chat you up. They'll answer your questions. They'll serve you incredibly tasty food. And well, they'll just make your day better. So we're out in the Westlake Village area, the West Valley. You can take the Westlake Boulevard exit off the 101 freeway. And we're just off Agora Road.

You can find it on Yelp online or at their website, joicafe.com. So give it a shot, all you guys out there. The third thing is if you want to get healthier, if you want to focus your mind, if you want to take your consciousness up a notch, if you want to better fuel your body, get a better grip on this whole plant-based thing, well, we've got stuff for you. I've got a couple courses, online courses at mindbodygreen.com. Go there. They're right on the homepage down at the bottom. We have nutritional products, an e-cookbook, a meditation program. We got merch.

Find out about all of these things at richroll.com and subscribe to my newsletter. Do it, you guys. All right, on with the show. The Rich Roll Podcast. All right, you guys, it's that time again. My name is Rich Roll Podcast. All right, you guys, it's that time again. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Yes, that is my real name. And it is my two-syllable nickname.

Hey, Rich Roll. What's up, Rich Roll? Yo, yo, yo, Rich Roll, Rich Roll, Rich Roll. Welcome to my podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for spreading the word with your friends. Thank you for Instagramming all the cool ways and places where you enjoy the show. And thank you for supporting the show by clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Bookmark that bad boy. So when you go to Amazon next time to buy something, you don't

even have to go to my site. You just got it up there in your browser. It doesn't cost you a cent extra. Amazon kicks us some loose change. It helps keep the lights on. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for all of you guys who have been making this a practice. And if you're not doing it, hey man, what's up with that? Come on, show's free. Throw us a little love. Okay. This show is about chasing dreams. It's about making stuff happen. It's about helping others. And it's about sharing the journey. And the idea, the idea is that we can all use a little solid education. We can all use a little good information. We can all use a little inspiration to guide and pave our own path towards self-betterment. And the goal, the goal is to help you guys see that so much more is possible, that we are generally our own self-limiter,

and that we all have a better, more authentic self lying dormant within yearning to come out, to be more self-expressed. And we owe it to ourselves to fertilize that seed because you know what? Life is short. Life is short.

Right now, I'm up in Palo Alto. I'm at Stanford University for my 25th college reunion. 25, 25 years. Holy crap, man. You know what that means? That means that I'm kind of old. It means that more time has passed since I went to college than before I went to college, which is not an easy pill to swallow. It's easy to say that old is a mindset. And I believe that. I really do believe that. Honestly, I feel like I'm about 28. But this past weekend, I became very acutely aware of just how fleeting life is. Because truly, it seems like yesterday that I was in school with all of these

amazing people that I've spent the last couple days reconnecting with. And many of these people have gone on to do extraordinary things, founded startups, created nonprofits, launched movements, you name it. And Stanford is really amazing that way. It's a truly inspired, unique place that really promotes the idea that you should challenge authority, that you should question the status quo. And not only that you can change the world, but that as a student or an alumnus of this university, that it's almost your responsibility to do that. And this weekend, I was surrounded by people who have done and are doing just that. It's really cool. And I'm very grateful and blessed to have had the experience of going to school there and being part

of a community of truly incredible people. And I have left that experience inspired. I'm inspired to do and be better. 25 years, man. Life is short. There is no time for idleness. There is no time to equivocate. There is no time to rest on laurels. Speaking of dreams and making them happen, today marks the return of my ultra running buddy, Josh Spector. If you've been listening to the show for a long time, you might remember him from episode 40, because last year we did a podcast recounting our collective experience crewing athletes for the Badwater 135. What is the Badwater 135 if you're new? Well, this is widely accepted as the world's toughest foot race. and 35-mile running race that crisscrosses Death Valley, the hottest place on earth,

where temperatures average 120 plus Fahrenheit in July and can reach as high as 130 with pavement temps typically in the 170 to 180 degree range. It's complete insanity. Starting at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level, approximately 100 invitation-only runners from across the globe begin this jaunt that takes them across the bleak and scorching desert terrain, as well as three formidable mountain passes, including the culminating 13-mile ascent up the portals of Mount Whitney, which is the highest peak in the lower 48, to finish at 8,300 feet in elevation. So, I had the honor and privilege of being a member of Dean Karnazes' crew, not this past summer, but the summer prior, along with three other amazing dudes, Jason Koop, Brandon Freese, and Nathan Pierbold. And together we paced, we fed, we hydrated, and generally did all that we could to help Dean complete this unbelievable race for the 10th time.

It was an extraordinary experience. It's one I will not soon forget. And by the way, I am sitting down with Dean finally this week to get that long overdue podcast with him in the book. So stay tuned for that. I have no doubt that that's going to be an amazing episode. Anyway, simultaneously, Josh that year returned to Badwater for his third crewing experience, that time for runner Ray Sanchez. And episode 40 was all about our crew experiences, what his experience was, what my experience was, and how integral and crucial it is. The idea that ultra running, as solo as it may sound, is truly indeed a team sport. Anyway, this past summer, Josh stepped up his game,

and he ran the race for the very first time himself. And it's a race that's undergone a pretty interesting transformation in the last year, because Death Valley National Park, for the first time since the inception of the Badwater race many, many years ago, started denying permits for any racing in the park. No more racing. No more Badwater race many, many years ago, started denying permits for any racing in the park. No more racing, no more Badwater, no more Furnace Creek 508, which is a cycling race that is also in Death Valley. And there's a number of other races as well. So that left Chris Kossman, the Badwater race director, having to improvise. Do we cancel the race? Do we change the course? And ultimately, they ended up changing the course, altering the course. And so, in any event, this week,

I sit down with Josh. He tells us all about that. And we get to hear his firsthand personal account of his experience running the race, which gives you guys, the listener, the listeners, running the race, which gives you guys, the listener, the listeners, a rare peek at exactly what it's like, not only to race this race, but to prepare for it, to endure it, to complete one of the most difficult running challenges on the planet. A race that requires and demonstrates a most incredible display of the indomitable nature of the human spirit. Josh is a great guy. He's a humble guy. And his experience, I think, is really powerful because he's not a professional athlete. He's not Dean Karnazes. He's a normal dude with a normal job who had a dream. He's a regular guy who fell in love with endurance sports. He

fell in love with running. And he set about putting the work in brick by brick, year after year. He was patient. He invested in experience. Each year, trying a new race, upping the ante. He made sure that he crewed all of these races and got as much experience as he could. And finally, he saw it all pay off when he accomplished something really extraordinary, something I'm sure just a few years ago, he just might have imagined was not just beyond his reach, but maybe just impossible for him. And so when we're done with this conversation, I promise you guys, you're going to find yourself revising your own limitations, the limitations that you impose upon yourself.

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or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. So congrats, man. Thank you. That is a huge accomplishment. Yeah, I'm pretty psyched. I still am definitely feeling the afterglow of the race. So my first biggest question is, did you go running today? No, I haven't run.

I'm always interested in like the, you know, it takes a certain obsessive nature to tackle this sort of world, right? And, you know, even though you're super hurting, like still, you know, it's like, I can't help it. I gotta go run. I, uh, I generally try to give myself two weeks without running after a big race, but, um, uh, but I've been at the gym. I've been, I No, not sedentary. I gave myself, I think I didn't work out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, like four days, four full days of doing nothing except for like late walking. God forbid. Yeah.

Totally. I don't think I would have lasted any longer. I don't think Elizabeth, my wife, would have let me in the house. Will you please go to the gym? Exactly. Right. Start getting antsy and testy and things like that. with my attitude. You please go to the gym.

Exactly. Right. Start getting antsy and testy and things like that. But I also have something little going on in my foot that seems to be resolving, but- Yeah, I think in your race report, you said it, is it the same thing where you felt like you had a peach pit in your shoe or something like that? Exactly. Yeah, it's definitely gone down.

And now I actually saw a chiropractor today and- I got a guide for you. Oh, really? You probably have a guide, but- I have somebody that I see, but yeah, I'm always open to recommendations, but it's, it's pretty clear. I was worried it could be a stress fracture. It could be plantar fascia. Like, you know, you go online and, and, and never go online. Yeah, exactly. I try not to. Um, but the, uh, it seems like it's either just, it's just muscle or like soft tissue, some other kind of soft tissue thing. And it's, he seemed pretty certain that it would resolve itself soon.

So, right. Well, you can, you know, use like the rollers and the stick and stuff like that to try to rub it out a little bit. Right. Exactly. Yeah. He worked on it and both doctors worked on it pretty hard. And so, but I'll continue to do that as well.

Rolling it. One of the things is rolling it on the ground on top of a, like a golf ball. Right, right, right. A small ball. But, but overall intact.

Yeah. One piece after this. Yeah. I feel, I feel actually. Oh, we got the dogs. That's all right.

That's the flavor. Actually, I feel really good. I, um, I, I don't feel. That's all right.

Guys. Come here, guys. It's all right. Guys, come here, guys. It's all right. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Sorry about that. It's okay. Come here.

What's that guy's name? Charlie. Charlie. He's the alpha. He totally is. He's all of like 10 inches long. They combine. I think they weigh 15 pounds.

Right. I know that I have like that deep, deep soreness, I'm sure. But not having run yet, I haven't really felt that. But other than that, I feel good. Like I don't feel, I'm not tired like I was immediately after the race. I don't feel sore at all. Right. And to put it in perspective, this is your third 100 mile plus race this year, right?

We did September, you did the run yeah and then you went to brazil and did the 135 exactly in january yeah and now and now bad water and it's been how many days it's been like eight days eight days it was uh tuesday so right right so you're still basking in that Are you getting into that depression mode? A little bit. You know, as anybody who's friends with any of my crew on social media or me saw, it was just like this bombardment. Like, they were great. They posted all kinds of stuff, all kinds of photos. And I was getting, you know, all these Twitter and Facebook, Instagram notifications all over the place and emails. You're getting a little cortisol rush from it.

Totally, 100%. It took me a while to go through it all, but I'll admit that it's sort of been, it's been a little sad now that my inbox is less crowded. Right. And that, you know, that's not something that is, you know, just about running or ultra running. It's anytime you set a goal and you sort of, you know, basically devote your entire life towards seeing yourself through something and then you get to the other side of it, you know, it's only natural.

Yeah, totally. Totally. I don't, I'm not. And, you know, I've already had new goals in play, you know, new goals sort of in play. So those help. And once I start running again, that'll take care of the rest of it too. Well, what's so cool is that we sat down together. It had to have been basically exactly one year ago i think so we sat down and did a podcast where we talked about our you know respective experiences crewing uh last year's

bad water race and now here we are again you having uh been a competitor so i'm interested first of all in hearing you, kind of whether it met your expectations, like sort of you've, you've crewed for that race three times, right? So 2010, 2000, 2009, 10 and 13. Right. And so you had a pretty good idea of what to expect going in. Did it meet that expectation level? Did it exceed it? How is it different than what you were anticipating with the experience that you had accumulated pacing people? You know, it totally met my expectation. It was, it was, I'm glad that I had the, one of the things that, that Chris Kossman, the race director really likes is, is, is pacing and

crewing experience. And, and I could totally see why, because i was ready for i was able to help my crew who one of whom had been there before another of whom uh crewed me at brazil in january but um and they're all experienced ultra runners but uh i was able to help them anticipate what i was going to need from my experience in the race and then also also just like being there, it really is. I mean, I've always thought since the first time I was there, it's just this like crazy magical experience being in the midst of that race for the days leading up to it. And then the, however long, you know,

the 30 ish plus or minus hours that you're out there. And so I think I was pretty well, it was pretty much what i expected um on the other hand i had a better race than i i you know minus a few little things i had a right i had a pretty perfect race for me so i mean you had an amazing race you were 18th 18th place like out of i think 87 finished out of 93 starts, something like that. I think 83 out of 97 or something like that. So, yeah, you're basically in the top 15% or whatever of the entire field in your first time out at this race.

I mean, that is huge, man. Yeah, I really couldn't have asked for it to have gone better than that. Right. And, you know, and the other thing I didn't have, I didn't have any of those. Not everybody I've crewed, but every time I'm out there, you hear these horror stories, you see these stories of people just like flopping down and falling asleep or like throwing up all over the place or these massive blisters, like, like, like sort of like what I had in Brazil. But, uh, I didn't have any of that. Like it was pretty much, you know, relatively speaking issue free. Yeah. I mean,

there's no other race like this and it takes down the best of them. I mean, I was looking at the results earlier today, uh, and, uh, I was like, where's David Goggins? Like I knew that he lined up and I was like, Oh wow. He pulled out after seven hours and you know, like there's nobody more mentally tough or fit than that dude. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I don't care what you say or who you are. That guy's an absolute beast. And if, you know, he had to pull out, I don't know. Do you know what happened? I mean, I don't, I heard, I think I heard him. Actually, I don't know what happened. Right. So just a tiny, if some, if, if, you know, 0.01% of whatever is off, you know, that's going to pull you out of the race.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, it was one of the things that Chris Cosman, again, the race director said before the race, and he said it afterwards about, about David, about, about Dave Goggins is that, you know, almost all of the top people, almost everybody who's won this race or podium, this race has on other occasions dropped out of the race just for like anything else it's a long or any other super long race you have no idea that anything can happen like you just said like something little happens and it can build into something insurmountable and yeah that sucks and for the most part it's not a question of if something is going to happen it's when it's

going to happen and what is it going to be you know you're not going to get through that race without having to meet all sorts of unforeseen obstacles. And, you know, as a crew member, it's your job to anticipate those and prepare for them, but you know, you don't know what it's going to be. And generally it's the thing you're not expecting it to be. Totally. That's so true. So yeah, no. And, and, and on that note, my crew, well, we can get, uh, we can talk about that more later or whatever, but I mean, just briefly, they were awesome. They did everything right. So you had Billy, you had Colin. My friend Sally McRae and my brother Aaron.

Uh-huh, cool. And they— Had your brother crewed for you before? He's the one who crewed me at Brazil. Oh, he did? Pretty much solo. I mean, his—well, no offense to the other guy who was there, but we were supposed to have, it was supposed to be my brother. And then somebody from the United States was going to, she's a Brazilian woman who was in the United States, but then she had visa problems.

And so at the last minute, we picked up this guy who, he had never run. He'd never crewed, he's not a runner. He'd never crewed a race before. He didn't know how to drive, but he spoke Portuguese and English. So he was able to translate, which was a big help. But my brother did for the 34 hours of Brazil, he drove every, every step, every, you know, every kilometer or whatever, every, every, every minute, every mile of the, of the, of the course. And he paced me, he, he was, he never slept. He, he did like, he would drive ahead

and then run back to me a couple of kilometers and then run me back to the car and then drive ahead and do that same thing. So he really like this, hopefully this was a lot of, and he, hopefully this was a much easier experience. Does he, does he live in Los Angeles? He's in San Francisco. He is. Okay. And the Brazil, let's talk about Brazil first, before we get into Badwater. Uh, I mean, a lot of that race is like jungle off road, right? So if you're crewing, you can't, there's not roads. So how does that work when you're that whole race is actually along a dirt. Almost all the whole race is along a dirt, a dirt road.

So the crew, the car actually does, except for the first, there's like 12 mile, I think 12 mile section at the beginning where no crew was allowed um but maybe it's only 10 miles but after that it's all dirt road all through the mountains of brazil and the cars can actually can actually go with you the whole way oh i see now there there are if since it's dirt roads and since there's like they're pretty sketchy dirt roads at times like at one point part of the part of the course got flooded um flooded for runners, but flooded for cars. It was an uphill. So he had to do a big detour then. But besides that, it's similar to, it's similar to Badwater where they're actually, um, you know, within a couple of kilometers of you jump

leapfrogging you the whole time. Right. And, and was that the first time that you'd gone 135? That was. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the difference between running a hundred and running 135? Um, or is it more about the terrain and the climate? And I mean, does it make that much a difference that they take 35 miles? It seems to me that it would, but it's sort of like you, when you get over 50, it kind of seems all the same 50, a hundred. And it's like, no, I don't know. It's actually nice. It's not as, I think the jump from 50 to a hundred is really, really dramatic, or I felt like that, that, that, but, um, the jump from a hundred to one 35 for, I assume that for, I mean, for me, it's, it's added time. It took my longest hundred took me 26 and a half

hours. And this one took me, you know, and then my longest, the one 35 in Brazil took me you know and then my longest the 135 in brazil took me i think almost 34 hours so it's like you know that's another six hours five or six hours yeah um but it could take i mean you know uh the the cutoff for most 100 mile races is 30 or 32 hours 33 hours and the cutoff for bad water is 48 and there were people there was a guy who was out there i think 47 and a quarter hours. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's a whole nother ball. That's, that's, I mean, it takes almost, it takes more mental toughness to be less of an athlete because you're out there so, you've, you're with your athlete and they've crossed the finish line and you celebrate. And then you go down the Hill from Lone Pine to the, down into the state,

the little hotel, and you go to sleep and you wake up the next morning and there's people still coming in. And it's, that's just a mind blower. It's great. It's, it's really crazy. Those people, I mean, I think that not to take anything away from me or like the other people in the middle, but the people at the front who like, I mean, I saw some of them running and just redlining for 24 hours. You know, I don't know if they're redlining, but pushing it that hard for 24 hours. And then the people at the back who have to be on their feet or moving for 48 hours. Those two extremes.

Yeah, those extremes are, yeah. Those are crazy. You know, I mean, finishing, I'm really, you know what I mean? I worked hard and all that. I'm not taking anything away from myself or anybody else, but those two are crazy. You know, I mean, finishing, I'm really, you know, I mean, I worked hard and all that. I'm not taking anything away from myself or anybody else. But those two are ridiculous. It's insane.

So the guy who won Badwater is like a teacher, right? He's a principal, I think. Really? Or maybe he's a teacher. I've never heard of him. Has he been off winning tons of races or did he come out of nowhere? I mean, he won the race by like 45 minutes, right? Yeah, he, if I remember correctly, this was his fourth Badwater, and he went from like 11th place to 8th place to 3rd.

I think last year he came in 3rd, or maybe even twice he's come in 3rd. No, he's solid. So he's worked his way up. Yeah, he's a solid. Like, I don't know what other races he's done, but I follow him on Facebook or am friends with him on Facebook. Right. And see these like running adventures he does.

And he's like all of, you know, recently this summer, he was like all over Europe running these crazy mountains. So he's, uh, he's legit. He's definitely legit. Yeah. All right. So in Brazil, um, you get through this race and kind of an interesting aside to that experience was that, uh, you made this video video that ended up on, I don't know if it was commissioned by BuzzFeed or if you made it and how did that all happen? But ultimately you create this video of your experience running this race.

BuzzFeed puts it on their website and to date it has two and a half million views. Did you know it had that many views? Well, I haven't looked at it in a while. I knew it was well over 2 million, but yeah. It's yeah, it's like, wow. I mean, I remember when that hit Buzzfeed, I was like, that's so cool. Like why would Buzzfeed cover ultra running? Like that's kind of awesome. And then I looked at it when I was getting ready for, I was like poking around the internet, getting ready for today. I was like, holy shit, two and a half million views.

Like Josh has done more to raise awareness about the world of ultra running than like Killian Jornet in the minds of like the average person. Well, it did get, I mean, that's the funny thing is that it got, you know, is, well, going back to it. So I have a, a close friend of mine is pretty senior at Buzzfeed. And so I approached him before the race

and just asked him, I mean, my request was to borrow, I don't own a GoPro and I knew that he did, he or Buzzfeedeed. And so I approached him before the race and just asked him, I mean, my request was to borrow, I don't own a GoPro and I knew that he did, he or BuzzFeed did. So I just asked him if I could borrow one. I figured it'd be fun to document something and, um, um, and then just have it sit on a file somewhere and probably never do anything with it. But when I started talking to him about it, he, he offered to provide me with the, with the equipment. And then if, if, if anything came out of it, they were going to edit it or, you know, he, he said that they might, you know, they'd look at it and see what they could do with it. And, uh, so when I got home from the, from the race, I, I gave them the files and did an interview with, um, Henry Goldman, who's one of their senior video guys. And he and my friend Zay then spent some time and they put together that video

and, and I got any, I got, you know, it had been a while. I think think that was like january and i think in like march or beginning of april i don't remember exactly when i got a text from zay and he for my friend zay and he just said you know check this out and it was to their their buzzfeed yellow which is their youtube site and i watched the video and i was just like amazed i was blown away they did such a kick-ass job like editing my my not so great voiceover and taking all the footage i got and they just they just really knocked out of the park and and then like you just said i sent it around to some people but just being on on buzzfeed and and then getting coverage like all of a sudden it was on like you you uh video and like the spider webs you know from there

go out that just must have blown your shit up all over the place. It totally did, and it was wild to watch. I mean, at one point it was like, oh my god, this video has 10,000 views. And my wife and I, I was just blown away that it had 10,000, and then as we watched, and all of a sudden it's at 100,000,

and 400,000, and a million. It was fun. I got a lot of really good response. It was on the cover of Reddit. They're running their subreddit. Right, right, right. Whatever it's called. Subreddit for running. Yeah, yeah.

So it got a lot of non-runners' comments. It was interesting. I had a fun time reading the comments. Tell me you didn't read the comment. I totally did. You know, because I didn't care. YouTube comments are the worst. Oh my God. There are people just, they're, they're crazy. I know.

And, and they don't, you know what I mean? But it was easy for, in this sense, because it wasn't anything, you know, I didn't take them as like personal stabs. I just took them as like, these people have no idea what they're talking about. The guy who says, you know, that dude too skinny, if he just, if he would do some push-ups and weights then he'd be much more fit he's not fit he's just walking like like that kind of stuff i got right that guy knows nothing about about what what the sport is so but there was nothing and that and there was also plenty of encouraging like awesome notes and and and support on there from all over the world. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, you know, two and a half million views, it's like, do two and a half million people even know what

ultra running is? You know what I mean? So, so, you know, it's one thing to, you know, sort of speak, you know, preach to the choir or kind of, you know, be embraced by your community. But for the average Joe who's on Buzzfeed or watches TMZ at night to like, I mean, this is crazy that, that they would cover it at all. So I just thought it was awesome. It was, I was really psyched and, uh, and, and yeah, it was, it was, it was really fun. Did you get some ribbing though? Like from the community a little bit, a little, not as much as I sort of expected. I would, but showing up at Badwater water. Oh yeah. It was a guy, the Buzzfeed guy. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. He's hot shit. I have gotten a little bit of that. You know, um, I think that they, uh,

that, yeah, but I think that probably partly because of how the ultra running community is like people are just like that kind of stuff. Like people don't care so much. Like, yeah, I mean the,

you know, people, well, they're not on Buzzfeed. Yeah, that's true too. So yeah. Right.

But it is that interesting thing in the community. like, you know, it's rooted in, you know, very, being very grassroots and trying to preserve that kind of ideology of what it's all about. And that's an awesome, beautiful thing, but at the same time, it's growing in popularity. And so I think it, it's going through some growing pains and how to, um, manage that. Like, do we embrace the growth or do we, you know, put up the hand, talk to the hand, you know what I mean? Like we like it when we're sleeping at tents, you know, at the, at the start line and we don't want it to change. And I don't have the answer to that. I appreciate both perspectives on that. I mean, I think it's great when it gets enough awareness and gets more people interested in it. And then somebody who never thought about running suddenly is, you know, training for a race. I think it's hard to

be disappointed about that. But I also understand that there's something really great about how it is so low key. And when you get to the finish line, there's no one there. And like, that's, that's a really cool thing that's worth protecting. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that it's, it is, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with ultra running in the next, in the next few years, because I mean, like for example, lifetime fitness now in the last few years that they bought that Leadville series. And so they've made like, you know, they're, they're obviously, they're not going to sit back and let that be sort of a quiet, quiet race. But then on the other hand, like, um, I think as long as let that be sort of a quiet, quiet race. But then on

the other hand, like, uh, um, I think as long as it's done sort of true to itself, like there's an article that said somebody sent me today from Gawker, from one of the Gawker affiliates. I don't even know which we don't, they have all those different blogs about with an interview with Tim Olson from his, uh, hard rock race where he really struggled. And it's an interview and it's not like it's you know that kind of thing getting his voice out there and him explaining what he goes through in a hundred mile race i think that's pretty cool to get out to the masses yeah um like the gawker media covering timothy olsen exactly yeah that's very interesting that would never have happened even a couple years

ago not a chance right um he's a great guy by the way so cool yeah he definitely suffered in that race and that was that was his key race like that was what he was caring for and everything but Right. He's a great guy, by the way. So cool. Yeah, he definitely suffered in that race. And that was his key race. Like, that was what he was caring for and everything. But, you know, such is the life of an ultra runner, I suppose. Like we were just saying, you're running for 100 miles, and he's one of those people at the front who's planning the red line for, again, like red line to go with hardcore intensity for 100 miles

through the mountains of Colorado. Like, anything can happen. happen. And then unfortunately in that race, it did. Right. I think that when you're at that level, like, and you are going to redline for that long of a period of time, either it's your day or it's not, you know, it's either going to be a disaster or it's going to be a wild success, but there's not going to be, you know, that middle ground where you're just trying to finish and, you know, shoot up the metal. Totally. And the cool thing about this thing with Tim and what I've read otherwise is that he, you know, I mean, he finished the race. He fell asleep.

He slept in one of the pictures they put in here. He's like asleep on a rock. Exactly. It's like a trash pile with like this like random piece of foam that his head's on. But he got up and he finished the race. It'd be very easy for those, for somebody like that who be very easy for somebody like that to say, screw this. I'm done. I need to save my legs for another day.

Why do I need to finish in however many, twice as long as I hope it's going to take me? So that's pretty rad. I mean, that's testament to then you click off the Brazil race. your diabolical plan to, you know, sort of check the boxes that you need to check in order to get accepted, to have Chris Cosman look at your application and rubber stamp it, right? Like, I mean, because as we talked about last year, getting into this race, Badwater is no small feat. You have to have really done quite a, you have to really have a lot on your resume. Yeah, I think that's true. And that was, I mean, I had some friends who had done Brazil and it sounded like an awesome experience, but it was, you know, part of the appeal is definitely that it's one of the, it's this

affiliated race or sister race or whatever with, with Badwater and, and it would do, it would, it would help me a lot in that Badwater application. Right. Um, so, you know, it was an adventure, cool adventure with my brother in Brazil and good to get my feet wet at the 135 mile distance before, before Badwater. But, um, certainly it was part of that. That was part of the plan. And the plan dates back five years, right? It dates back to the first time you crewed and this being a dream of yours. So you fill out the application and you have, do you have to get like letters of recommendation and do all that kind of yours. So you fill out the application. Do you have to get like letters of recommendation and do all that kind of stuff? You do, yeah. From everybody you

crewed for. Yeah, all those people. Yeah. He was great. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, you're supposed to get, or you can, and I did from everybody I crewed for. So I had three letters of recommendation in there. And then at that time um well no i guess i had four hundred mile races and and then plus brazil so i had like what i thought was a yeah it was a good resume compared to a lot of the you know you go look at these at the people who did the race on ultra sign up and and check their results and it's it's there are people who i mean some of these people they're weren't ready no no no no just the opposite. Oh, right, right. Who've done like, you know, I mean, I have five,

I have now six races, 100 miles or more, and there are people with like four times that much, you know, twice, three, four times that many. Right, right. 100 mile races. But, you know, I mean, I knew my application was solid. And you get the green light. And so what I want to do is walk through kind of how you prepared

for this race. And just for a visual, like you live right in the heart of West Hollywood. You don't live out in a cabin in the mountains, you know, at the foot of a trail, like you're, you know, you're surrounded by urban sprawl. It's not too far to run from your house to get up to some pretty steep, you know, trails that are right around here, like Runyon and the like, but, from your house to get up to some pretty steep, you know, trails that are right around here, like Runyon and the like, but you know, how, you know, walk me through kind of what your day-to-day protocol was preparing for the race. Sure. Yeah. I mean, my, uh, before training for Brazil, I'd been a pretty dedicated trail runner. And so I've spent, um, at least two, um, two mornings, uh, two mornings during the week,

I'd go out to the Santa Monica Mountains to run with friends. And then on the weekends, usually what I was doing is spending, is both days out in like the, either again, the Santa Monica's or out in the San Gabriel's and really spending, I mean, until all through my training for Brazil, I was, I do four, five days on trails and maybe one or two on the road. So I had to drive, you know, I mean, when I'm doing those, I'm driving a lot, you know, I'm driving to almost all my roads. So even during the week, you'd get up super early and drive to a trail. So it's about

probably, well, at like 4.30 in the morning, you could probably get to Mount Whitney and I don't know, 40 minutes from here, 35 minutes or something. Wilson. Wilson. I mean, Wilson, that's what I meant. Yeah. I have bad water on the way. Yeah, totally. No. Yeah. Wilson is Mount, Mount Wilson from here. The bottom of the trail is like 35 minutes early in the morning. So I could do that. But also the Santa Monica is like getting out to Temescal or, um, or solvent Canyon or those, those, those, those trails is about a half an hour as well. So, so those are easy to do. You know, as long, as long as I got up early so those are easy to do. You know, as long, as long as I got up early, those are easy to do before, before work. Right. But for bad water, you really got

to put in the time on the pavement, right? You can't be too dependent on trails. Well, that's what changed. Exactly. After I recovered from Brazil, I mean, it was in some ways it was easier, uh, because I didn't have to drive as much. Like there are, uh, I would drive still. For a while, I was still doing at least two, three days a week on the trails and then the rest of it on the roads. And then towards the end of it, it was almost all on roads. And one nice thing about that, that I never really realized about this area that, that, uh, that I live in is that all the Hollywood canyons and the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills, um, you can run, like I, I could start here and get up to Mulholland it's going to be hard for anybody

who doesn't live here but I can I can they're they're big they're they're plenty of four to six mile consistent climbs on road that I can do for my house right so you can sort of connect them you could run up Nichols or you could run up Coldwater or something like that get up to Mulholland do some rollers up there and so you get a, long ascent and some rollers and a long descent. That's exactly what I would do. And sometimes, you know, you could do loops and go, like I would go up and then down and then back down the next one and up the next one. So it wasn't, uh, it was much more convenient for Badwater than I sort of thought it was going to be. Right. Right. Now I also did just run straight down Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to Santa Monica and back.

You know, I thought about doing that. Like I did some pretty good long road runs, but- And you don't really have to bring too much with you because there's a 7-Eleven on every corner, right? That's exactly right. And I mean, I found water fountains and like people with spigots on the side of their houses. Like, you know, I tried not to- You know where all the bathrooms are. Totally. Public bathrooms. Exactly, exactly.

So, you know, in some ways it's easier than running on trails because you do have, I mean, like your emergency outlet is much closer than if you're like somewhere 10 miles deep in the San Gabriel Mountains. You're just sort of screwed if you run out of water. Right. You could always get an Uber ride home, right? It's so true. Totally. So what was the mileage like? I was doing, I think I looked at it before I started tapering. And I think my average for like the April, May, June was something like, I think it was high 80s per week. So nothing's super crazy. No, I mean, for me, like I find that,

especially on the road, when I'm on trails, I can do a little bit longer, but I think I peaked, I think my peak week mileage was 108 miles or during this. Like now when I was training for Brazil, I did a little bit more than that. I was able to sustain a little bit more than that

and do it a little bit more often. But here, I think I did 108 one week. I think I did 102 one week. And then the rest of them were a few in the nineties and then a bunch in the eight in like the high eighties. Right. So, so yeah, I mean, a hundred mile week is a, is a huge week, but you know, that's, you know, Ironman athletes are putting that in occasionally and, and marathoners will put in a hundred mile week. So it's not, it's almost like this law of diminishing returns right like you can't go much more beyond that but i would imagine the difference is the consistency of volume over time i think that's right that that was what my plan was my plan was

um after i recovered from brazil and then like i took mark i took like the the some some of february and all of march and part of April pretty easy. And then really kicked it into gear and didn't give myself, you know, even my off weeks I was doing or my like back off weeks. Recovery weeks were like 60, like we're in the 60s and there weren't that many of those. And is it six days a week of running? I was running for most of training, I would do six days a week and at least one double, like one or two doubles. And then towards the end, I was towards the end, I was doing seven days a week with, with a double. So eight, eight runs a week. And of that,

probably two of those runs are super long, maybe, or at least two, two or three. I've tried to do, um, um, like Tuesday, like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were usually my sort of recovery days. And those were anywhere from like six to eight, nine miles. And then Tuesday was a long day where I'd double it up and do like 10 and 10 or 10 and eight. Thursdays was a long day. And then Saturday usually was a long day. Right. Interesting.

And working with a heart rate monitor or just going freestyle. Yeah. Just like, you know, I mean, I wear my, my GPS watch. Um, and I used to wear heart rate monitor and I thought about, there were a couple of times during training where I thought it would be really interesting to, to, to do it, but I used to wear it and I gave up on just, I got tired of having to remember it and things like that. Well, also you're experienced enough where you could, you could, I could, if I was to ask you out on a run what's your heart rate right now, you could probably tell me.

Pretty close. So you probably have a pretty good idea of whether you're in your aerobic zone or not anyway. I think so, I think so. Yeah, it's a good tool and maybe I'll try it next. I don't know. And did you come up with your own plan or did you work with a coach?

Nope, my own plan. You did, wow. Yeah, I talked to, I have a couple of good friends who have done bad water. I talked to Jimmy. I talked to my friend, Chris, who I met in Brazil.

He lives in Florida and he's done a bunch of these. I talked to both of them and got sort of input on structuring weeks. But for me, I decided that I was going to do, I just decided I was going to do three.

My plan at the beginning was three build weeks, like increasing in distance and then a recovery week and then repeat that. I think I, I think my plan was to do that four times over the course of 16. And you're just slowly turning the volume up on the volume during those build weeks. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And, and in the end it didn't work out. I noticed that after the, the second time I did that, my third week was like by the middle of that third week, I was pretty much worthless. So then I scaled it back and did two hard weeks and then a recovery week. And you didn't have any injuries along the way getting ready?

I got really lucky. I mean, knock on wood, I haven't been injured in a long time, in a while. He just knocked on his head, so your head's made out of wood. Especially since there's a wood table right here in front of me. Just for stupid stories. especially there's a wood table right here in front of me um just have it i guess um yeah i mean i i didn't have you know little little little little little things here and there yeah but nothing i i was really really lucky both for brazil and for bad water that i never had i never took i never had to take more than like one day off at a time one one unplanned day at

off at a time right and were you doing anything other than running like core work or going to the gym or riding your bike i was i haven't been on the bike in forever i miss it i was talking to as i was talking to julia i was emailing julian the other day oh yeah he's been riding all over the i know he was in france looks rad but no my my my franco is is collecting dust right now i saw it in your bedroom yeah there's two really nice bikes sitting right over there begging for both collecting dust you um so I hadn't didn't wasn't on the bike, but I was until, until July I was swimming fairly like once or twice a week and I was getting to the gym and I mean the whole time I was getting to the gym and doing at least core work or core work at

home. When I was good, it was like four days a week when i was bad it was probably twice and then the sauna i was hitting the sauna like towards the end the sauna sort of took over the running was ramped up a little bit but going to the sauna four or five days a week that just destroyed any chance to do but you weren't you didn't have a treadmill in the sauna running on the treadmill like some of these crazy bad water guys do, right? No, no, no. Those, there are. You read so many stories and, like, it's insane. What's that guy's name?

The Canadian guy, Ferg Hawk. Ferg Hawk, yeah. Ferg used to train. He created his own sauna and put a treadmill in there and used to run in it. That's insane. Like, I can barely move when I'm in the sauna. It's unbelievable. So how did you prepare for the heat and acclimating, just running around here? I mean, we're, you know, it's not that different, I suppose,

in Southern California, but there's still nothing like preparing for that kind of heat at Badwater. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're right. Fortunately, we had a pretty hot spring and early summer. So I did get, but I, just because of my schedule, I run most of the time early mornings, which is great, but not so conducive for this. So I tried to get out for some like, yeah, you got to get out at two in the afternoon. Right. Exactly. To take advantage of that heat. So I did some of that. And then I was in the sauna. I mean, before Brazil, I started, I was doing sauna and steam because it's, it was, I knew it was going to be hot and humid in Brazil. And I just kept that going. I took a couple, like probably six or eight weeks off the

beginning year after brazil in the sauna and then so the sauna was really about heat acclimation not just because it felt good or yeah no it's totally for heat acclimatization acclimatize acclimation acclimation yeah yeah i think so we can look it up yeah no but it was totally for that like i don't i i like the I like the sauna, but the sauna, I liked the sauna for like eight or 10 minutes. And I was trying to do, I think I capped out at like a half an hour with one or two little, you know,

step outside, refill my water bottle, take a breath of like normal temperature air. Isn't there like a Russian bath or a Turkish bath that's not too far from here? You know what I'm talking about? I think it's in Koreatown or like this legendary, like where all the old, you know,

the old Russian guys go. There might be, my neighbor told me just like two days ago. I don't know why I didn't know about this earlier. There's one actually on Santa Monica, just like three or four blocks towards Fairfax. So I think that's the one I was thinking of. Yeah.

I mean, it's right here and, but I, I never been. You go there and spend a day. Yeah, totally. Cool. Well,

you know, I'd imagine there's people out there thinking, well, this sounds really cool and awesome, but you know, I have a job and I have a family, but it's like, you're married and you're gainfully employed. You have a full-time job. So how did you kind of juggle the other aspects of your life and try to keep things in balance so that, you know, you remain happily married and all that kind of good stuff. You know, I think the first thing is, and I never hesitate to say, this is my wife, Elizabeth. She's so like, so cool and understanding about this. And she knows it's my passion. And, um, I think that I'm, I'm, I'm careful not to, I'm careful not to push that boundary too far too often, but she also, she's so tolerant and she, she actually like, not only does she tolerate it, she really supports it. So. So the takeaway is you have to pick the right person to be with.

I think there's something to that. It's totally true. Cause I could imagine if she, if she wasn't, then this wouldn't be fun. It would like, it would be, I don't want to fight with her. I don't want to, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm fighting with my partner about like me going out. The other thing I do is, is, and I think this, this helps is, or this is the only way it could ever really work is I do train. I mean, I'm up early, early in the morning. Yeah.

You got up at four 30, like four 30, like three days a week. And on my, you know, that's why I had, that's the other reason why I have those recovery days because I also sleep in a little And on my, you know, that's why I had, that's the other reason why I have those recovery days because, um, I also sleep in a little bit and recover, you know, get an extra couple hours of sleep because, um, the reason that I know that you get up at four 30 in the morning is that you have that super groovy video on your website right now. And I was like, Whoa, Josh redid his website. Like for a long time, you just had like this sort of blog. Yeah. It was like a crappy blog, which was, doesn't matter. You're writing your stuff.

It's cool. But like, I was like, oh, wow, you have like a really awesome site now. And then there's this video of like you preparing for a bad water that is like a Nike commercial. Yeah. It's awesome. It's so rad. There's actually, so Billy Yang contacted, that's with Tailwind. Tailwind is a supplement, a drink mix that I use.

And Billy and I worked with them, and Billy contacted them and put together this proposal and put three videos, and that was the first one. It's this video called My Time, and it came out, I mean, I did the voiceover and I had to run, but it's all his vision. I mean, he really- Did Billy film it?

Yeah, yeah, he filmed it, he edited it, he's all his vision. I mean, he really did Billy film it. Yeah. He edited it. He did everything. Is that what he does? He's a, I mean, he, that's not his full-time job yet, but he's doing, he did a great job. And the second video, can I hire him? Totally. Oh yeah. Cause the second video is just as equally as good. And that came out the day before the race. And there's a third video about the race coming out. He's got a rate. He's got a video about Western States coming out soon that, uh, that like he just released a little teaser thing. It looks right. I knew that he was going around to races and making little videos, but the one on your side is so much more polished than the other ones that he had done. I mean, it really

looks like a full on, you know, ad for, you know, a shoe or something like that. It's for tail when we should let people know that. Um, but yeah, it's beautiful. I'll put that video in the show notes for the episode as well as the BuzzFeed video. Awesome, thanks. So people can check it out. So yeah, so you had Tailwind on board as a sponsor or support for you. Like a sponsor or support, yeah. And what is, because I know that in your race report, that's basically, that was your main kind of calorie source. I mean, what is in that's basically, that was your main kind of calorie source or what,

I mean, what is in that product? I haven't tried it. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's similar to, um, like, uh, well, Perpetuum has, has protein, I guess, but it's similar to like an infinite or, you know, the Gatorade endurance. Exactly. It's a bunch of different sugars and a ton of electrolytes. And, um, they are the couple who owns it, it's a small company and this couple in Durango, Colorado, and they, they're, they have a background in endurance cycling. And I think they started it out as sort of for targeting cyclists, but I found it, but they also, then they started pushing it towards ultra runners. And, and I think maybe a little bit of triathlon. I'm not sure how much in that market they are yet, but, uh, um, it's for me, it just works. Like I, I, I started using it last summer after I had this massive

meltdown at San Diego a hundred, uh, like dehydration and, and electrolyte issues and all kinds of stuff. And, and so I started using it pretty much after that. And I've never had, and I've had huge success with it ever since it's, I don't know if it's because of the mix of sugars, uh, the different types of sugars they use and the fact that they have like a bunch of, a few different flavors, including one that's unflavored, which is totally mild. And then just tons of like a great balance of electrolytes. So, I mean, really you don't, for me, you don't, in most cases, I don't supplement with salt pills, um, or, and, and, and why is that? Because it has enough electrolytes already that, yeah, it has enough of it that I've never felt. You know, I mean,

I think that at Brazil at Badwater, I took some salt at that time just because like, just, just, just as a safety precaution. And, but, but almost, I mean, I think that without tailwind, my plan would have been taken. Most people do this would have been take like one or two an hour. And I probably took four or six over the course of three, two hours. Right, so it was working for you. Yeah, I mean, it's tough to crack that nut.

I mean, it's a lot easier to digest food on a bike than it is in running. And to be able to, you know, the stomach becomes so hypersensitive that to find that one thing that's going to work, you're going to get the calories, you're going to get the electrolytes and it's not going to make you barf. Yeah, no, totally. And the beauty of tailwind, the thing that I like about it is that, I mean, for shorter, for shorter or medium sized runs, I can, I'll only bring tailwind. Like I can, I can just do liquid calories for something like this or Brazil. My plan was to use tailwind plus some like other supplement with other real food like soup or sandwiches or whatever and that worked perfectly at brazil um here at bad water my stomach as i wrote in my blog my stomach it didn't really shut down but it was it was this crazy thing where the thought of

food made me disgusted like i would i would have a peanut butter an almond butter sandwich in my hand and that something in my brain would stop me from bringing that hand to my mouth. And it just wouldn't allow me to do it. But the beauty is, is that the tailwind, I was able to drink, I drank, I drank, I had a bottle of tailwind when I started the race and I had a bottle of my, well, my brother was carrying it, but I had a bottle of tailwind with me at the, at the finish of the race. And I drank it the entire time. So. And now you bring it to restaurants and carry it around, drink it in your car. I should, right? It's weird. You think when your body is in that kind of survival mode and you're running such a caloric deficit that your, your body, your trigger would be the opposite. It would be wanting you to eat. And it's bizarre how it

does the, you know, it really says, no, I don't want food when it needs it the most. Yeah. For me in this case, exactly. I mean, at Brazil, it was different. At Brazil, I was able to eat. I drank tailwind the whole time, but I was also able to eat the whole time. I like cookies and, um, soup and, uh, chips, I think, and stuff like that here that was much more of a struggle. So I was really glad that I had the, you know, I had, right. So you're trying to get how many, like 200 calories an hour or something like that. I was hoping for more than that. I was really glad that I had the, you know, I had. Right. So you're trying to get how many, like 200 calories an hour or something like that? I was hoping for more than that. I was hoping for like 250 to three.

And at the beginning, that was really easy. I mean, the tailwind I put in, you know, one of those like 24 ounce bottle or 22 ounce bottle, whatever it is, normal bike size bottle. I put in two to two and a half scoops, which is two to 250 calories. And I drink that probably in less than an hour in most cases. So, and then, you know, and then supplement, but by supplementing with other food, you know, 300 calories an hour. So it was a plan. So let's talk about the course.

Obviously the big change at Badwater this year is that it actually was not at Badwater, right? So the park denied the permit for any endurance races happening in Death Valley National Park. So Chris had to reconfigure the course outside of its historic kind of landscape and do something new and different. Did you, first of all, before we get into what the course became, is there any more insight on the politics behind that or what happened that you were able to divine from just being there? You know, it's tough to know because Chris definitely, I mean, they, they, I don't know what happened.

Nobody knows what happened behind the scene, obviously, but, but they made, there's no question that the park made some pretty abrupt decisions without consulting or without really thinking of it. But they, I mean, was there a regime change and making the decisions? Yeah. A new, a new park superintendent came in and I guess, and I don't know this for certain, but I guess it's like the studio system, all the movies that are in development, the new president comes in and all those movies are dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not mine. I didn't think, this is not my brainchild.

I think that most, maybe all, like national parks around the country don't allow athletic events or very few of them do. And so she came from another park where they didn't allow them. And I think that she just sort of freaked out by, I mean, from what I've read anyways, and I can understand it to some degree, like, oh my God, you guys are going to run 135 miles through this, through the hottest part of the country, one of the hottest parts of the country at one of the hottest times a year. And I can understand her feeling like, well, there's gotta be liability here. And we don't want the, God forbid somebody dies during your race. It looks bad for you, but it also looks bad for us. On the other hand, Chris is-

It belies a lack of appreciation for the heritage though, you know, and also the profile that it brings to the park. That's totally true. And the fact there's never been in all, in the history of this race, there's never been any major medical issue. And so she just, instead of saying, we're going to watch you guys, we want to work with you. We want to institute new rules. The decision was no permits, no permit applications allowed for any events in 2014. So, and that came out.

Includes Furnace Creek 508. Like there's, you know, there's other races. There's like, there's Death Valley Marathons. There's like some trail races out there. There's some other bike races and none of them were allowed to go on in this year. So that was, that news came out. I don't remember last nine months ago or something like that. It wasn't that long after last year's race, as I recall. I think that's right. And so I remember when, after I finished and it definitely was a struggle for me because I'd been thinking,

like you said, for five years, I'd been thinking, I want to do Badwater. I want to do Badwater. I want to do Badwater. And all of a sudden, it's like, what's this? Like, I can't do Badwater. Do I even want to spend? It's an expensive race. It's a lot of time commitment.

Do I even want to spend the money and the time to do something that's not what I had planned on? And to jump ahead and we can get back to it, there's no question this was worth it. It was good. It's a different course. It's a different course. It's a different race, but it's still awesome. It's still very cool. It's still 135 miles. It still has – excuse me, it's totally different.

And so that's the rad thing about it is that it's not like a Badwater minus. Right. But you can't compare – like you look at the times, it doesn't mean minus or, uh, right. Uh, but you can't, you can't compare, like you look at the times, they don't, it doesn't mean anything in comparison to previous years or anything like that. Um, but, and I want to get into that in a second, but just to cap off this one part of the discussion, the one thing that, that was not responsible for the permit being denied is this, uh, is this conspiracy theory about radiation. Did you remember hearing about that? I did. I forgot about that. There was like, right after the permit, everyone's speculating,

like, why is Badwater not going to be able to be in Badwater? And somebody, I don't know who it was, there was like a blog post or somebody came up with some theory and said it in such a way that it was somewhat convincing that the reason was that they're trying to cover up that there's massive amounts of radiation in the park. And some guy went out there with a Geiger counter and there was a photo of him out there with a guy. And it kind of went viral for a while until everyone settled down and realized that that was like malarkey. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can't imagine that there's any, I mean, I think that, you know, finally somebody was like, well, wait a second. There are people, tourists who go through all our time. There's a golf course at Furnace Creek. Like, why?

Like, yeah. What about all those, like, you know, the Norwegian and Russian students that work in the weird restaurants out there? Totally. All the exchange students. They must be being poisoned, I guess. So, you know, briefly tell me, you know, kind of what the course ended up being. I mean, it still goes up, you know, the portals and you're in Lone Pine. So you're in the kind of that part of the world, but you're skirting around the edges of the park or what exactly was the route? So the last 45 miles of the race are the exact same. Do you remember there's a Darwin checkpoint,

which is when you're coming out of the park, it's this, like, I guess it's a town, there's an intersection at Darwin. And that is- That's kind of like where you're at daybreak. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that's where we were. We were there at sunset this year, and I assume that's... Or sunrise, rather.

Or just before sunrise. And so from that point to the finish of the race, because you go from there, you go on the highway through Keeler, back to Lone Pine, which is mile 122, and then you climb up the Whitney Portal to the finish line, which is 135. So that part of the race was the exact same. The last 45 were the same. The first 90 are totally different.

It starts in Lone Pine, so that was convenient. It's not a point-to-point. It starts in Lone Pine, so you didn't have to worry about trucking from Furnace Creek or Badwater, Furnace Creek out to, out to Lone Pine at the finish. Um, but what they did is he traded, he essentially traded the, the extreme heat, the, I guess the original course you'd say like extreme heat and some climbing. And this one is slight is, is, is less heat and a lot more climbing. Right. Well, I mean, some climbing there are two five thousand foot passes and then an eight thousand foot finish yeah i guess that's true

yeah so it's a substantial amount i mean at bad water everyone talks about the heat but they they don't talk enough about that yeah that's true that's a good point so to even increase it even more so there's a lot more ascending and descending i noticed like right off the bat you kind of go straight up yeah exactly you have like 20 miles up, 20 miles down or something like that. You start in Lone Pine and the first thing you do, well, it's like rollers for probably six miles of rollers, which sometimes are pretty steep, but short. And then about six miles in, you start to climb up to Horseshoe Meadows, which is a campground and a sort of a trailhead, um, up at almost 10,000 feet. Um, and it's this switchbacks windy road that just goes up and up and up for,

and until mile 23. And I think you gain six or wait. No, yeah, I guess you gain about 6,000 feet during those first 23 miles and you turn, you get there and you check in at the time stage. You turn around and you come all the way back down those 23 miles. So that was pretty – that part of the climb, I'm a good climber. I knew that I could regulate my speed and regulate my intensity on the climb and make the climb pretty easy. The descent is what definitely scared me the most because it's so easy it's it's steep but it's just constant on a road you know so it's nothing technical if you wanted to you could just fly down that road and then put the hokas on and just

exactly exactly and i you know i'm sure there were people who did that i was very careful i was so mostly because i was so scared that i would that i that 4-6 and just be done and not be able to walk. And so you do that. You go up to Horseshoe Meadows. You come back down to Lone Pine. And then you go sort of on the Badwater finish in reverse. You go down the 395, I think, and the other highway that goes out towards Death Valley. And that's where, so I got down. So, you know, it started at 8 a.m. My wave started at 8 a.m. And

it was this year, it was the waves were six, seven and 8 a.m. Instead of usually it's six, eight and 10. So I was in the third wave and it was, I don't remember the temperature was at the start, but I would guess it was in the seventies. Like it was warm, but, or maybe high sixties, it was comfortable, comfortably warm. Um, and as we went up to 10,000 feet, it got a little cooler. And so that, that part was, was fun. Yeah. That's a big difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's, I mean, instead of at Badwater starting at 10 AM, it's already a hundred, probably over a hundred degrees. Right. I don't remember. Yeah. Easily. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely, because it's 120 not too long after. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's a huge difference. When we got down, you come back down, so you're at mile 46 or so, and you're back down at 4,000 feet, and it's now 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It was now like 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and it felt it was probably in the 80s or maybe low 90s and so that's where like so you got a little you know i mean again not it's 30 degrees yeah that's a huge difference that's a huge i mean there's a huge difference between 100 and 110 110 120 so to be in there below 100 is is a massive qualitative yeah i

think that's right and i think that it was probably, the second day on the way back probably hit, it probably was in the low around 100, but much, you know, I mean. But never in that state where it's just bewildering heat and your shoes are melting and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, nothing like that. No, nothing like that. Interesting.

And you get those breaks by getting up in altitude and cooling down a little bit. Yep. That happened like a couple of times throughout the race, right? Yeah. Twice before the finish. Exactly. You go up to 10,000 feet, like I just said at the beginning. And then around mile, I think around mile 61, you start a really steep, this is, it's on dirt.

There's actually a 15 mile dirt road round trip. That's really steep or the second half, it's really steep. And you go up to that's about like 8,000 or 8,500 I think feet at the top of that so the strategy is hike the climbs be conservative on the descents and then on the flats some some sort of run walk method or what what was the plan that was what I mean that that's what I did. I was hoping there was that time between mile 40, and this is what I've talked about in my blog, and the time between 45,

when you come down the first climb and go out towards the second one, that was from, you know, like probably 4 p.m., 4.30 until 8 p.m., and that was around the time I expected to be there. My plan was to run that, run a fair amount of that. And I ended up, I was suffering and I ended up walking much more of that than I'd hoped. But I knew that there'd be some walking involved. And then the second day

after that second climb, the rest of it, my plan had been all along to run walk. And I did that. I felt like on a schedule like you know or just how you felt just how i felt i mean my there were there were times where especially during the the way out so mile like 70 um what's it 49 or whatever 75 to 90 out towards darwin that is sort of like gradually it's gradually uphill and there it was a little bit more of a struggle on my pacers or had to play games with me like you know again we're gonna run for 120 seconds and walk for 30 or we're gonna run for 90 and walk for 60 or whatever but after that I I was pretty much like that my my sort of uh self-heroic moment was at

the turnaround I got I sat and I ate and I ran five miles straight after that. Um, and you know, granted it was, it was sort of down, it was, it was slight downhill, but, uh, um, that was, that was sort of, I was pretty proud of myself for that. And the rest of it was just sort of run when I feel and walk when I feel run as much as I can and then walk when I have to. Right. And I think that, that, you know, is a big thing that a lot of people don't realize about ultra running is, is not only how much walking and hiking is, is entailed, even for, you know, the best runners when it comes to the steeper ascents, um, but also how you have to approach that with this sort of global view in mind. And by that, I mean, it's not like you start walking

when you get tired, you walk before you're tired, you walk when you feel like running, because you know, you've got, you know, 24 more hours ahead of you or whatever. And, and, and if you wait until you feel like you need to walk, then it's too late, right? You got to build that in early and often. That's totally true. That's how I am. I mean, you know, again, those front guys are different, different, different creation, different, different beings. But I think people would be surprised also if they, if they actually follow those guys around, you know, even the guys at the very front, I think people would be surprised at how much hiking is involved, especially when it comes to the ascents. I mean, just crewing Dean, you know,

it's like we like we walked so much throughout the middle of the night when I was pacing him. And I think people think they're just throwing down seven minute miles for like 24 hours straight. And that's not the reality of ultra running. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, maybe for Killian Jornet, I don't know, but. Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. These guys, yeah, everybody has. You have to, I don't think, you're right. Nobody, it's true. These guys, yeah, everybody has, you have to, you can't needs to be done before you feel like you need to, like if you wait until you feel like you're thirsty, you know, like it's too late. You have to be ahead of the game in every category. Yeah, totally. Right. And so, so no blister problem. You had, you had some pretty bad blister problems from the Brazil race, as I saw in the YouTube video. Yeah. That's the funny thing is, is I took that picture, just get there. I took that, I took at the end of the race, I had these massive blisters on my,

especially on my heels and also a little bit of my toes. And I took this picture just sort of like on a lark because I was like, holy crap, I never get blisters like that. And that's really what, without that, I mean, the guys at Buzzfeed, they made that video and it kicked ass and all that, but they put, I mean, that was the photo. That's the grab. Yeah. That's totally the main photo of the video. Like before you hit play, that's what you see. So that's, what's getting people to watch it. Right. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Buzzfeed knows what they're doing. I mean, the only way they could have made it better would have been to use a Buzzfeed type title. Like here's a guy who ran 135 miles and, and what happened next was amazing. You know, or, you know, like one of those kind of like.

Right. Totally. Like the leader that whatever they call that, the clickbait or whatever it's called. Yeah, totally. No, I mean, I was really fortunate. This time, one different at Brazil, it was wet. It rained some, but it was just really humid. It's the moisture that really contributes to the blisters. Yep. And also I just wasn't as smart. Like I didn't, I'd never had blister issues before. So I sort of, I changed my socks, I think twice in Brazil and changed my shoes once. Um, but I, and I reapplied, I think, you know, stuff on my feet once this time, my crew also, I mean, I, in my head, my crew also was all over it and I changed my socks four times. And every time I changed my socks, I just slathered my feet in a stuff called trail toes that I've been using.

It's a, you know, lube that, uh, that, that really works. And I like, and so I had at the end of the race, I had one, one blister on the, um, on some of my toes, my right foot that, uh, that, well, actually at mile one at Lone Pine, we found that blister. I hadn't even noticed it and then covered it in tape and never gave me a problem again. And then the bottom of my left foot, I had like a hotspot on my, on the ball of my foot that was bothering me, but it never, I mean, nothing like what I said, what I had. And you got to keep your feet dry. Like there's so much water sloshing around. You're constantly drinking. Bottles are getting thrown all over the place continually. And it's really important to make sure that none of that spills under your shoes. Exactly.

Yeah. No, we were really careful about that. My crew was, I can't say, keep referring, but they were so, so huge. Well, it's a team sport. That's the other thing people don't realize. Like they think you're this lone wolf out there, but you know, you've got to have a dialed crew if you're going to reach your potential with it. It's crucial. It's key.

Did you have any of the, did you have any low, low moments with the crew when you're losing your reach your potential with it, it's crucial. It's key. Did you have any of the, did you have any low, low moments with the crew when you're losing your shit or anything like that? I never did. They, uh, I mean, I hopefully it's partly because of me, but also they were just, I mean, they were huge. Yeah. I mean, like I had things and again, things went well, had things gone South. Hopefully I would have still been cool, but I've never been tested like that. But my crew, they were so on it. They never missed a beat. They not only knew what I was looking for, they gave me things that I didn't want, that I needed. Yeah. And that's a great crew where they're saying,

I don't care what he's asking for. He needs to do this now. You got to make him do it. Yeah, one thing I didn't mention in my blog was that when my stomach was doing poorly on that stretch and I wasn't eating anything, my guy Colin, he cut up, I had some avocados, he cut up an avocado, halved it and fed it to me,

like took scoops out of it with a spoon and fed it to me. And I actually was able to eat it. Like a baby. Like totally like a baby. He has, he has a two year, almost a two year old. And I'm sure it was a flashback to him feeding his daughter. But I mean, it was that avocado. I mean, it was something, it was something I could eat first of all,

and loaded with all that fat and all the, you know, stuff that I needed. But I remember him like walking next to me, feeding me scoops of avocado and that's like, I mean, where else is that going to happen? It's not going to happen anywhere else, right? That's it. That's a, that's a, your next Buzzfeed video, I think. Right. So how about the shoes? Everyone wants to know about the shoes because you know, it's all about the shoes, right? You know, my shoes were okay i i run in i do most of my running in uh the sketchers go runs and i've never run people laughing people laugh at me all the time and i i really think they're a great shoe they're lightweight they're flexible they um they

have just a little bit of support um and they fit my foot really well. I think that I'd worn them up to like 30 miles at a time. I think that this was asking a little bit much for a shoe with so little support. A little low profile shoe. Yeah, I mean, so what I did is my plan all along was to run up the Horseshoe Meadows, first 23 miles in the Skechers, and then put on Hoka's for the descent.

And I have to admit that I have the Hoka Bondi Bs, and I like them. I don't love the way they feel on my feet, but I like them. And so my plan was to wear them for that descent and then figure it out from there. Ended up wearing the Hokas, leaving the Hokas on until,

I might've left them on until I got back to Lone Pine at mile 122. So I might've left them on for a hundred miles there. I changed my socks a couple of times. I can't remember if I changed out of the Hokas again, but the Hokas, for 100 miles there. I changed my socks a couple of times. I can't remember if I changed out of the Hoka's again. But the Hoka's, I mean, I get used to the, I'm used to the sort of like bulkiness of them. The tugboat feel.

Yeah, but I still don't love, I mean, I'm used to lower profile, lighter weight shoes. And so, but they were huge here. And I think if you- Yeah, I mean, was there a large percentage of the field wearing them? I was just gonna say, i think that like looking around it seemed like half at least half the people wearing wearing hokas and maybe even more than that it'd be interesting i don't know if anybody does that maybe i'll do that to like a little shoe review and see what people are wearing

so interesting how the pendulum swings i mean those shoes didn't even exist yeah three four years ago or whatever and now they've completely monopolized ultra running. And it'll be interesting to see what's going on five years from now. Yeah, totally. I mean, it was, you know, before Hokos, it was all, it was born to run and barefoot running, you know, and the new balance minimus and all of that.

And it seems like, I don't know, maybe it's different on trails, but you know, on the pavement, it's different. No, trails too. Trails, hokas are all over. I'm going out to AC100 this weekend out here in the San Gabriels, and I'm sure I'll be interested to see how many. Maybe I'll count that too, like how many people come through in hokas. I bet it's a lot.

I bet it's a lot too. It seems like it's a lot easier to twist your ankle, though, or land wrong on your foot. Because you're higher up. Yeah, you're higher up. There's a different sort of fulcrum or you know center of gravity yeah i i've never had that issue but i'm sure that actually a friend of mine i know a good friend of mine twists his ankle pretty pretty bad in hokas running downhill because you get it's also like in the hokas you get have you ever run in them yeah yeah okay yeah so you get this i wear it well i do i wear them when i'm going when i'm gonna do like my longer runs and I'm not worried about pace. And, and, and I found that, that I'm able to

sort of, I don't know if I would say recover faster, but I don't feel like the fatigue, you know what I mean? Like I can get through it and I've had some niggles and little kind of calf issues and stuff that's cropping up. And, you know, I don't love wearing the hokas. I like feeling the ground. I like more of a contact and all that kind of stuff. But I'm trying to be really careful about not getting injured. And they seem to be effective in that. But I don't wear them for every run.

I'll wear them like once or twice a week. That's about how I am too. Once a week, I think, I wear them usually. them like once or twice a week. That's about how I am too. Once a week, I think I wear them usually. But yeah, I feel like they, yeah, they're good. They're, I don't even remember what I was gonna say, but they're, they're, they're a good shoe, especially for this kind of purpose. Right. When I had Timmy Olson on the, on the podcast, he worked in a running shoe store and I was like, all right, so let's talk about the Hoka's, right. And he just started laughing and he's like, it's so interesting to see, you know, how these trends come and go.

And, and I think you have to, you know, there is no, no running shoe is a panacea, right? I think it's more about like what fits your foot and your personal preference. And people are, I'm sure people ask you all the time, like, what shoe do you wear? Like, that's the answer. Just like, what's your secret smoothie in the morning or whatever. And it's like, no, there's no magic bullet. Um, you know, I'm agnostic when it comes to running shoes. I got like all different kinds of pairs and I rotate them and they all have their purpose and, and what have you. Um, but, but, you know, you have to really kind of open your eyes and say, well, you know, whose interest is it that, you know, we always have to be buying new running shoes with different styles. It's like, it's just, it's fashion,

you know, they have to keep changing it so that you're buying new shoes all the time. And in order to do that, they have to get you excited about some new scientific breakthrough, you know? That's totally true. It is. It's totally true because I mean, people are doing Badwater, you know, just as fast forwater, you know, just as fast for any of these races, just as fast 10 years ago in shoes that didn't have that, that weren't Hoka's that would totally, you know, that, that nowadays we would look at and laugh and how can you run in that shoe? It's really interesting when you look and that that's applicable to triathlon Ironman as well. And you look at the marathon times and the bike splits. And I mean, look at

how bikes have changed since the beginning of Ironman. And certainly, you know, the caliber of athlete is, you know, at a different level in both ultra running and, and in Ironman than it used to be, but the times aren't that different. It's not like they're just destroying, right. You know, the times that, you know, Mark Allen and Dave Scott were thrown down when they were just eating bananas and there was no such thing as like a gel. Or air helmets. Nutrition, bike equipment, yeah, helmets, running shoes, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And it hasn't been like some explosion of the glass ceiling. Whereas you look at swimming or track and field and world records continue to get broken and all that kind of stuff. Even now that they've outlawed the tech suits and swimming, there's still guys going faster than people that were swimming in those suits before they were outlawed. So I don't know.

We got sidetracked a little bit. No, but yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. It's interesting why I like Badwater at times. I mean, the record holder for Badwater, the course record for the old course is this guy, Valmir Nunez. He was there pacing this year. I met him for the first time. Totally, like, ridiculously funny guy.

But his course record is, I don't remember how old it is, but at least a few years old. You know, old enough that you would think with all these new ideas and methods and stuff. And really the surge in popularity of the sport that's bringing a lot more people into it. Yeah, totally. Like why didn't somebody break that in the last, I don't remember how old it is, but you would think that these times

should just come crashing down. I mean, obviously there's a stopping point, but it should be getting faster and faster all the time. Did you follow this thing that Lisa Smith Batchen just did? Oh my God, it's insane. I met her out there. I follow her on social media and stuff. Explain what she just accomplished. So what Lisa did is, she did the traditional Badwater course with a crew where she started Badwater Basin and went to the Mount Whitney Portal, which is 135 miles. And then she continued on up to the top of Mount Whitney, the summit of Mount Whitney, which makes for 146 miles and another, I don't know, what is that?

Another like 6,000 or 7,000 feet of gain. And then she came back down and went back to Badwater Basin and then did it again. She did quad, right? She did quad. Quad. Yeah. So she did that whole thing, the course four times. Right.

There, back, there, back right there back there 530 miles or something like that right it's insane how long did it take her to do it i think it took her i think it took her like nine days i can't remember if she was planning on doing it in six and it took her eight or she planned on doing it in eight and took her ten or it took her like a day or two longer than she had originally planned, but still like just absolute insanity. And she said, and talking to her and one of the guys who crewed her, that we had that even in the mountains, it was like a hundred and it was like over,

it was, she got, she caught it at the exact, like the hottest time of the month. Oh, wow. It was just, it was, she said it was insane how hot it was out there. And so in addition, at the times, at the times of course where it was supposed to be cooler, it was, it was still hot. It was out there. And so in addition, at the times of course where it was supposed to be cooler, it was still hot.

It was super hot. Yeah. So four times that. I mean, people have done the double, right? Yeah. Shannon Farag-Riefer did that several years ago where they go all the way to the summit. And they go off.

And they go all the way back, but four times. Yeah, I mean, like there's a couple people. There's this guy, Danny Westergaard, down in the south, from the South Bay, who's done, I think he's done five crossings. I mean, there are years where he, and then I assume there are other people who have done, you know, like that kind of stuff. But I think she was the first woman who'd done four crossings. And, I mean, I can't imagine there's more than half a dozen people who have ever done it yeah or have ever done even like you know more than two so right regardless it's it's and she and I saw her so she finished that like and I saw I was out there that Saturday I met her

that Saturday four days later five days and she's just like walking around I'll chip her like right doesn't look broken like I think she shouldn't look after doing that. So, no, it's pretty crazy. I can't even wrap my brain around that. I'd love to sit down and talk with her. Maybe I can figure out a way to make that happen. But cool. All right.

So, walk me through, you know, kind of some of the darker moments of this experience. experience, because I think it's also important for people to kind of get a grip on this idea that, you know, usually like in a race of shorter distances, if you get into trouble and you feel like I can't go anymore, like it's either over or not. But with races of this distance, you go through these dark nights of the soul where you don't think you can go any longer. And then somehow you push through it. And then several hours later or shortly thereafter, miraculously, you feel good again. You know, you have these peaks and valleys. Yeah. So I'm interested in hearing what those were like for you. My, my biggest one is the one I was talking about before from like that mile 40, you know, it was right before Lone Pine. So mile 42 or whatever until mile 61. Um, and that was, I, I, I thought that it was going to be a time where I was going to be running more and I was having a hard time

eating anything. I was still getting my like base amount of calories in. I was still drinking water. Um, I was, my crew was doing a great job keeping me cool but psychologically i'd i'd expected to run more and i was super low on energy like i wasn't it wasn't like i was falling asleep so i didn't want to take and i was also worried about taking caffeine that early in the in the race and just being stuck on caffeine for the rest of the race but i had no energy and i definitely was thinking it gets in your mind like, holy crap. Okay, so I'm feeling like this and it's mile 45 or 50 of this race. I still have 85, you know, one and a half times as far as I've already gone to go.

It seems like an impossibility. Exactly. Like how am I going to have to, you know, I mean, part of me said there was no way I was going to come home not having finished that race. And so then I'm thinking, oh, my God, so this could be, I could be out here. I could be the one who's out here who's crossing that finish line at eight o'clock in the morning, 48 hours after I started. And that, you know, that would have been fine. Like if that, if that's what it had taken, that, that would have been, that would have been fine. This is five years in the making. You're not going home without that buckle. No, I really didn't want to.'t want to and but you know but thinking about that in in in the abstract of finishing 48 hours is one thing thinking about that when i'm out there walking and and oh my god how much further

is this how long is this going to take me am i going to bring have my crew out here all this time like um so that was pretty like it wasn't wasn't, it was beating myself up. It wasn't, I wasn't super, like, part of me knew that I would come back and my crew kept telling me that. They were like, okay, just eat, just drink, just keep moving forward. It's going to cool down. You're going to get to another climb. You're good on the climbs. So they were very helpful about that.

But it still was like just in the back of my head, like, how am I going to? What are some of the mental tricks that you used or employed to get you through that? I mean, is it like you hear that thing, like just make it to the next, you know, I see a rock up ahead. I'm just going to go to there or like breaking it down into little bite-sized chunks. I was, I was, it was at that point, it was because, you know, at that point, 50 miles in a race, there's no way to think about 85 miles, especially. And the other hard part about this one, different than the normal Badwater, is that at that point, you're moving away from where you finish. So at least at a point-to-point race, you're always making it closer.

Right, right, right. This way, I was like, every step I take is another step. I mean, it's closer to the finish theoretically, but it's further, like, from where I I can see the finishes. It's amazing how much that plays on you mentally. Like when I'm, you know, training intently and I have to do one of those, you know, really long runs, I always pick a point to point course for the training run, because if I do loops, you know, like, I'll do loops because then I can stop at my car and I have drinks there or something like that, but it's too easy to bail. Or if you're doing a, an out, you know, any, you know, any kind of, any kind of route where it gives you some even tiny excuse to stop earlier. Yep. It's not good. No, totally. And this one,

yeah. I mean like this one moving further and further away, it means that, you know, you have to get back, you have to get back there. Um, that was really probably my lowest that that time was probably the, the, the, the lowest and thankfully really the only really low point I had in the night. I was, I was, I felt good. I wasn't moving. You know, there were times where I wasn't moving as well as I wanted, but, um, I was able to eat soup and I like sat down twice. There was one point where I'm sure Sally, my, my, my, my, she was out there with me and I, I had sat down twice. There was one point where I'm sure Sally, she was out there with me and I had sat down at like mile, what is that like 60, no, 75 to eat soup. And then it was 15 or 16 miles out to the Darwin turnaround.

And about 10 miles into that, I felt like I wanted to sit down again. And she was like, no, you're not sitting down. Like you're gonna keep moving forward and we're gonna keep on this. Like if you can't run for two minutes, you're going to run for one minute and then we'll walk. And so that was, but I wouldn't call that like a really dark time. That was just me more like just trying to be lazy.

But there was no moment where you were like, I'm done. I can't, you were like avoid that. Yeah, that was really fortunate. Like I never had, cause even that, that time where I was talking about before those, those 15 miles, it was never that it had never gotten that bad then where I thought I would have to quit. It was sort of like, if this continues, what's it going to be like in six hours or eight hours? Right, right, right. No, I mean, I, uh, the heat never, like, like we were saying, never got that hot, but the heat that even like the relative heat never really got to me. My feet, my feet were bumming me out a little bit at the last 12 miles cause they were hurting.

But, uh, um, yeah. And let's talk about that last 12 miles. I mean, that's no joke, man. I mean, it's literally a half marathon straight uphill. Yeah. Yeah. It was tough. I mean, we, we, again, Sally started pacing me on that section and she's a, she's a coach and a huge motivator and she's one of the toughest competitors I know. She came in 10th at Western States. She's just badass. And so, um, her, when we started that, it starts sort of gradual climb, you know, and she was like, okay, well we'll run. We're just going to run for 30 seconds at a time and then we'll walk. And so we tried that a few times,

but it became pretty apparent that my heart rate was spiking and I was moving much better, much better if I just walked the whole way. So from then on, from like probably one mile into that climb until the last mile of that climb, I walked every step of it. Um, no, that's, there, there was one little down at like one, like a couple hundred feet

downhill that I ran. But besides that, I walked the entire way and I hiked and my pacers were, um, like my alternating pacers were pushing me to, to like, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't walking. I was hiking and I was, I was moving efficiently and quickly. Right. And at this point you're trying to get under the, the 33 hour mark, right? Yeah. Well, uh, 32, 32 hours. Right. Yeah. I mean, um, I had no idea what kind of time I could, I could, I could finish in. Like I knew that you must have conceptualized where you wanted to be. Well, the one thing I knew, and this is so like materialistic or something like that. I knew that if it turned seven o'clock, we'd have to put the vest and the lights back on.

And I didn't want to cross the finish line. I'm not gonna be one of those guys. I didn't want to, I wanted, you know, we made, hopefully you saw, we made these like pretty rad shirts. Elizabeth helped me design those. Or she really designed them. And I wanted to cross the finish line with just the shirts on.

I didn't want the vest in the way or the lights to mess it up. I mean, my first thought was I want to finish one to light out. I got to get the good finish line photograph. That's totally what it was. So I figured, okay, that's 35 hours. And so that was sort of like the, I mean, obviously finishing was the main goal. My second goal was sub-35. I mean, obviously finishing was the main goal, but my second goal was sub 35.

And then as we were going up, I was looking at my watch and, yeah, I wrote this in my blog. I was doing like 17, 18, 19-minute miles, and I felt like I was moving pretty – like those were – For walking uphill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was really happy with that and not stopping very long at any – like when the crew vehicle would stop, I maybe stopped for a couple seconds and maybe not even stop at all. But with like three miles to go, is it three miles? Like something like three miles to go, I look down and it's 58 minutes or something like that. And so whatever, 57 minutes, whatever 19 minute miles for three miles would put me at, or maybe it was a little less than that. Cause it would put me at like 3205. And I sort of, and I was getting a little

bit disappointed. And I mentioned to my, to Colin who was pacing me then. And I said something like, you know, if it'd be nice to do sub 32, but I'm not gonna be able to do it. I'm going to miss it by a few minutes at this point. And he looked at me and he was like, what do you, what do you think is better? Sub 32 or, or, or, or which number, that's what he was like, what do you think is better, sub 32 or which number? That's what he said. Which number would you rather have starting your finish time, 31 or 32? And he said something like, you know, nobody's going to remember. People are going to remember the 31 or the 32 much more than they're going to remember the 59 or 02.

So at that point, I was sort of like, yeah, well, that'd be nice. And then with two miles to go, I looked down and I could see that it was right on the cusp there and then it was still like right about the same and then there's a point where, and we weren't sure exactly what the distance was because on one map, it said one thing,

according to my watch, it was like, and at that point, even like 0.1 miles. That would just break your heart. Yeah, because that could be like three, that could be two or three minutes. That could have totally made all the difference. But we got to where my brother's with me now. And we got to the point where it was, where the course things, course descriptions at this sign, it's one mile to go. And so we get there and I realized I had 19 minutes or something like that, which again, right on the cusp of it.

And I decided to run. And it was something that surprised me at how well. We ran that last mile. We probably ran eight tenths, nine tenths of that last mile. And that's, again, it's still uphill. It's got two big switchbacks. It's another 500, it's 500 feet of climbing. So I was really psyched that I like, you know,

dug deep, like didn't think about the pain. But at was really psyched that I like, you know, I dug deep, like didn't, didn't think about the pain, but at that point it was also just like, Hey, I really want to, I want this sub 32, but I just really want to be done. Um, so it was, it was, it was, I'm really, you know, maybe I could have run more leading up to it, but that doesn't matter. I'm really happy with how it finished. So what was the kind of emotions that you experienced crossing that finish line? At first, like leading up to it, my crew was there, it was one mile to go. And I told them I didn't need anything at that point. My brother had a full bottle or maybe even had two. And so we got rid of one of the bottles. I, I, um, I just told them I wanted them, like, I was a

little bit stressed out. I wanted them to get to this. I wanted them to get to the finish. I wanted them to find Elizabeth who was up there and be ready. Make sure you're all wearing the right shirt. Yeah, exactly. Josh hats on totally totally the hat the hat i put on elizabeth i'd forgotten it i hadn't didn't have it with my in the crew vehicle but elizabeth brought it and so she gave it to my crew like during the mount whitney climb um and i want because i wanted that hat on just like at brazil and uh um so at that point, sort of the stress of any thought about anything else sort of was out of my mind with that last mile to go. And all I thought about was just like running across that finish line. And with 100 yards to go, met up with my crew.

And then with 50 yards to go, Elizabeth joined us. met up with my crew and I was 50 yards to go. Elizabeth joined us and, uh, um, we all like running across the finish line. It was just, it was, it was exactly how I'd pictured it would be. It really was. It was, it was like this culminate. I felt really good. I didn't feel like I struggled or like, or had to like force myself across it. I felt like I ran across it. I felt like I was like proud of running across it. Um, and I was so psyched to be there

with, with these guys who had made that race happen. Right. And what's, what's really cool about Badwater is pretty much every athlete runs across the finish line with their entire crew, you know, and it really, it really punctuates that idea that it is a team. It's a team thing full on through and through. Yeah, totally. Totally. And it was, you know, I was as honored to have, I was honored to have them all with me and that they had taken their time out. And really like, I mean, all they did, other than post pictures of me on social media

for those 32 hours was worry about how I was going to, how I was doing. It's very selfless. And, uh, it was. So Billy's probably making a video. He is, he is. He took a lot of footage and we have, we, he's got it. We have a video that hopefully, did you carry a GoPro for some of it? I didn't this time. Yeah, no, I, um, I knew that Billy was going to be out there. Right. That's cool. Yeah. So crossing the finish line, I mean, do you, like, it's only been eight days, but was there anything about it where you were like, wow, you know, even after crewing three times, like, I didn't realize this, or I didn't know I was going to have to feel like this.

Or, no, I guess it pretty much, it kind of went the way you thought it was going to go. I mean, you already answered that. Yeah, it did go the way I thought it was going to go. I mean, you already answered that. Yeah, it did go the way I thought it was going to go. And I think that having Brazil in the background was having finished Brazil just not that long, whatever, six months ago, and having similar feeling at Brazil set me up pretty well for this. So you had to feel pretty confident going into bad water. I was. There's always that. I knew that if,

unless something catastrophic happened, it would, it would be fine. Or unless something catastrophic happened, I would, I would finish. Right. I knew that. But you never know, like suddenly your hamstring could seize up on you or something like that. Right. Yeah, totally. Like that catastrophic thing, it happened. I mean, the, the, one of the, sorry, there you go. That's all right. One of the, one of the uh sorry how'd it go that's all right one of the uh one of the top one of the top finishers he he he slept for a while at the top one of the climbs and ended up dropping out of the race and um and again i don't know exactly what happened to him but um um that's oswaldo oswaldo lopez right lopez yeah um he was he the

guy who won last year he won i don't think i remember if he won last year he's won it in the past but like you know i don't know what happened or goggins or kurt lindenmuller who's pretty consistently a top top five or seven guy at any of these 135 races like they all dropped and i you know like we were saying before you never know you never know yeah so uh your boy ray sanchez did pretty well. Wow. He killed it. Yeah.

I think that, I don't know. I talked to him before the race. He sounded really ready. I mean, last year, we struggled to get him across the finish line. That's a strong way to put it. But he struggled for a lot of that race last year. And he's struggled a lot of Badwater in the past. And this year, he ended up in fifth place.

And he just crushed it. So I was really, really happy to see that. So what's next, man? I don't know. I signed up for, I entered into the lottery for Wasatch 100, which is in beginning of September. So I don't know if it's five weeks from Saturday or four weeks from Saturday. And I didn't, it was, it's a lottery. So I entered the lottery with the hopes that maybe I wouldn't get in and then it would, you know, maintain my

lottery. The more you enter, it sort of helps you in the future. And so, um, it's a semi-rigged lottery, semi-rigged lottery. Exactly. So I was sort of hoping that that would happen in 2015, but I got in and it's a supposedly a really rad race what month is that it's the beginning of september okay so yeah like five i think it's five weeks from saturday or maybe even only no it's got to be five weeks from this saturday yeah that's coming up yeah you better get on it it's really soon so i don't even know how to like as long as once once i figure out if my my foot feel you know as long as my foot feels better in like a week, then I'm going to start, I don't have plane tickets. I have like some hotel refundable hotel reservations.

I don't have made any like solid plans because I've been keeping it out of the back of my mind or in the back of my mind. But as long as I feel better, I'll go try it. Some ways I sort of think I'm setting myself up for, for either a really long race or a DNF. But on the other hand, like you're going to have of those, uh, trips to the, you know, European mountains and get some altitude training. Yeah, I really, I'll need to, I need to get my trail shoes back out and figure that out. But, uh, so that's a possibility. If I don't do, if I'll probably do that race, if I don't do that race, then I'm not sure.

Then I'm thinking 2015, uh, like hurt 100 in Hawaii. That lottery is, uh, I wasn't do that race, then I'm not sure. Then I'm thinking 2015, like Hurt 100 in Hawaii. That lottery is, I wasn't, no thought about doing that. And then talking to a friend the other day who was at, you know, a friend of mine who was at Badwater and who's done Hurt before, he texted me. He was like, you know, the lottery closes tomorrow. Well, okay. So I put in for that. That's a, you know. What about Hard Rock?

Hard Rock scares me because the altitude. It's a you know what about hard rock hard rock scares me because the the altitude it's just like what about leadville leadville it's even more altitude it's more it's it's well it's higher but it's less consistent altitude um leadville maybe one of these years western states maybe one of these years. Yeah. So what's the pull? What is it? What is it about? Because you were, you were doing Ironmans, you, you know, you were dabbling in triathlon and, and, you know, it's sort of been, but now this is your thing. So what is it about this that's so compelling for you? I think that there are probably a couple of things. I mean, one is, um, I got a little burned out with Ironman training because of one of the, one of the things I struggled with Ironman

was all the, like putting all the pieces together. It's much harder. It's, I mean, I don't think, I think I'm training probably more hours now than I was for Ironman, even though there are plenty of Ironman triathletes who train way more than I run. But putting all those pieces together became such a mental struggle of, okay, I've got to swim and bike this day and then bike and run this day. And because of where I live, like we were saying. Yeah, cycling is a tricky thing for you living there. Awful. I've got to drive whenever I ride, and so it's hard to get a morning ride in.

Running just seems easier to me And so it's hard to get a morning ride in. Um, running just seemed running just seems easier to me. Um, and it's more, and, and I, and frankly, I like it the most out of the three sports. So there's that. And then I fell into a really good, um, trail running and running community. Um, and I had a good triathlon community too. There's not, not taking anything away from that, but, um, the, the running community is that I really love it. And so that's a big part of it for you. Cause you know, for a lot of people, it's just a solo lone wolf kind of thing, the training part of it, but you like to train with friends. I do about half of my training. I do like, usually when I was talking before, like my Tuesday, Thursday runs are, are usually my, those two runs are usually with somebody and then at least one are usually with somebody. And then at

least one run over the weekend. And then, but I'll go out and I'll do the four 30 runs. You getting Billy out of bed for those or are those going by yourself? He doesn't come, but we have a group, we have a group that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays between like always at six and sometimes even at like five 30. Um, so those are, we've, we've like, there's a, there's a solid group of probably anywhere from like four to 10 of us who meet on Tuesdays at five 30 or 6am on the West side and run the mountains there year round. So, um, year round, like it's such a big accomplishment here. Yeah. Like how treacherous. But, and then the other part, I really like, so I like that.

I like that community aspect and LA has a great community for that. But I also, I do, I really enjoy the alone time too. I mean, like I'll go out and I'll do three, four, five hour runs on my own. And no iPod. I don't listen to any music. I don't usually carry my phone with me. And it's just, I just like, you know, people ask me all the time, what do you think about when you're out there? And I just sort of don't. Like, I don't, you know, sometimes I'll go out and I'll be like, okay, I want to solve this issue with my, you know, this issue that I'm having with this friend or this issue, this work thing that's bugging me or this life thing that's bugging me.

Then I'll think about it for 10 minutes. And then all of a sudden I'm just like. You're in some netherworld. Yeah, just like watching the miles go by. Yeah, time really becomes elastic, you know? And especially when you get, when you gradually ramp up that volume, like it just doesn't, you know,

whereas like going out for multiple hours, you know, initially would make, make you feel like your brain's going to go crazy, but then it's just, it just, you acclimate to it. It's totally true. It's totally true. And it doesn't feel like it's that long. You're like, oh, I only have three more hours on this. Yeah. It's what, what is it? Uh, uh, do what you love. Is that what slow-mo is that, that what he said? Do what you love. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, I mean like, uh, um, uh, I was watching that video again the other day. Um, so well done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and listen to your podcast, like that, like, you know, I don't want to compare myself to being out there skating all day, but you just sort of

like you, you fall into something that you enjoy doing and it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem that it doesn't seem that it's not stressful. It doesn't seem like it's taking that long. Well, it quiets your mind, you know, and it's something takes over where you enter this no mind state on some level. Like it is an active meditation. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's totally true. Especially when, I mean, how many times do you go out for a run and you're not particularly thinking about anything and then an idea pops into your head and you're like, oh, that's the solution to that problem. Or the solution to the problem I wasn't even thinking about. Or here's an idea that you then go home and execute on that sends you in a new direction that you didn't anticipate ever coming up with. Yeah, it's totally true.

It's totally true. That time alone or even when I'm running with other people, it happens too. It is. It's, what did you say? Active meditation? No. What did you do? Yeah. Active meditation. I like that idea. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. But there's a, there's, but you could run marathons and get that, right? So what is it about the hundred plus mile races that is magnetizing you? I, you know, I guess that it's probably, I don't, it's a very good question. And I'm not even sure I like, I really, I mean, for me, I don't, I, I, I, I've said this before and I don't really love to race. I enjoy racing. It's, it's, it's, it's fun. It's, it's, it's fun. And it's, um, I like the community

around races, but if I could find, but I use it as like the motivational tool and the justification gives structure to everything else. Exactly. Like I would have a hard time justifying to myself or to Elizabeth if, uh, if, if, if I was running as much as I do and spending as much time and, frankly, money on, like, stuff and energy on stuff, if it wasn't with an end game, like a race, and it would be harder. It would be much easier to say, you know what? Screw it. Today it's Sunday. I'd rather just sleep in or I'd rather just, like, sit on the couch, watch football all day instead of, like, oh, crap, it's weeks till race day. And I got to go out and run my three hour run today. Um, so, but that doesn't really answer your question either. I don't,

I don't know what the draw is of being out there a long time. I it's, it's that it's testing myself. It's, um, I, I almost never do the same race twice. And so it's that adventure, that sense of adventure of checking out something new and seeing if I can do this, something that's harder in some ways than something I've done before. Right. There has to be some aspect of, of, you know, the idea. I don't, I'm trying not to use the word fear, but like that idea of like, I don't know if I'm capable of doing this and signing up for it anyway and seeing it through. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely that too. There's, I mean, cause, and that's, that's like part of this thing with, with hurt 100 in Hawaii in January,

if I, you know, who knows if I get in, but it's a totally different, it's a hundred miles. Sure. And it's in the, you're like bushwhacking through the jungle and it is like, I've seen pictures and talk to people and it's just like this super Rudy, it's five loops, 20 mile loops. And it's super Rudy and rutted and it's just like this super rudy it's five loops 20 mile loops and it's super rudy and rutted and like just like and rugged and ankle breaking falling on your ass falling your face course that's um you know i mean i don't know if it's harder than bad water harder

than ac100 or any of these other races i've done but it's hard it's hard in a different way and so there is that like definitely that like challenge plus fear of, uh, is this, is this type of hard, the one that's finally going to beat me or is hard rock, like, which I was saying before, like the altitude, like, is that, is it that right now I've gotten over that fear or I've gotten over that fear enough to even register to sign up for the lottery. Um, but is that the, is that the challenge that's going to beat me finally? I don't know. I think on top of that also, it's such a unique way to experience the world. Whether you're in the mountains or in the desert or bushwhacking through the jungle in Hawaii, you're doing something that most people don't do. Yeah.

Or sort of having a tactile experience with the world in a new and different kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. sort of having a tactile experience with the world in a new and different kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So for the people that are out there listening and they're like, maybe you've lit their spark a little bit, you know, they're thinking, maybe I should sign up for an ultra or the opposite. Like that guy's crazy. Forget this. I mean, what are some Or the opposite, like that guy's crazy, forget this. I mean, what are some tips that you could give some people that are new to it, but interested in maybe dipping their toe in and seeing what it's all about?

I mean, I think that one of the things I sort of mentioned this before is find a group. I think that, or find, even if you don't find a group, find like there's tons of, even if you don't find a group, find like, there's tons of, even if you don't find one other physical group, find one other person or find like a Facebook group because there are, there, there, there are trail running and ultra running clubs and groups all over the country. And some of them are virtual. I mean, my friend Ethan does this train race beer group on Strava and, uh, he does his shows and stuff. stuff and and so it's like a community of of runners and ultra

running in there um because then you find like you find out like difference about races and you get encouragement and things like that you find people who i mean you know who might who you might feel like okay well i've never done this before i'm out of shape i'm too short i'm too tall i'm too fat i'm too strong i'm too like, there are people, you'll talk to people who have that. I think that's, I mean, that was sort of- It's kind of like how it happened for Timothy Olson. He just ended up in Ashland and there was just people there doing it and he just wanted to make friends, you know? Yeah, totally. I think that's, and that's like, I mean, isn't that like, that's a great way to fall into it. And then I think the other thing is just to realize that, like, is that each of these, it's a big step, but they're all, it takes some work, but they're all, there are ways to cross each of those divides.

From going from a marathon to a 50K to a 50 miler to a 100 miler, 100K, 100 miler, 135, whatever you're looking to do. or 100 miler, 100K, 100 miler, 135, whatever you're looking to do. I mean, for me, it took, it takes, it took, I spent a fair amount of time researching it and thinking about it and learning, you know, that, and then you learn by, you know, you learn by failure too, but there are all kinds of things that you can educate yourself on that are going to make all those transitions easier. And go out and look at a race. I mean, there are people who, 50-mile races and stuff, they're all shapes, all sizes, all ages. I mean, there's like a 12-year-old kid.

Yeah, I think there's this idea that everybody looks like a, you know, super fit runner at these ultras, and that's not what it is at all. Not even close. I know. I mean, there were people at Badwater who, there were a couple people that I met before the race, and I'm talking to them, and I figure, okay, well, you're in the race. You must be an accomplished ultra runner, but there are all kinds of different levels of accomplishment. I mean, there's the woman who, she won Badwater, but she also won Keys 100. She won it overall.

I mean, she's a kick-ass fast. She's new to ultra running. She looks like a runner. She's a kick-ass fast ultra runner. So there's that kind of resume but then there's the resume of the guy who's who last year did you know i mean in the last four years has done 20 hundred mile races and so chris knows he's just a he's a fighter and he's gonna he can finish these decisions even if he does them slowly and so you know i'm talking to these guys and you think well you know that

guy looks sort of like you know he looks like a fit older guy i wonder how he's gonna do and he goes and comes in ninth or tenth place whatever like i. Like, I mean, there's no way to, to, yeah, you can't in the ultra world. You really can't tell. No, you really can't. It's, it's amazing. Like some guy, you're like, that guy doesn't look like an athlete at all, but like, he just doesn't stop. Right. You know, totally, totally. It's, it's, it's, it's wild. And then, yeah, I mean, and you see that at all, at all these, you know, all these races, 50 mile races, whatever, like it's, it's, it's cool. It's, it's definitely something cool about. And it has a different flavor. I mean, and you see that at all these races, 50-mile races, whatever. Like, it's cool. It's definitely something cool about endurance sports. And it has a different flavor.

I mean, for people out there that are listening who have experience running marathons or have done Ironman or, you know, even any, you know, the Nautica triathlon, the Olympic trials or whatever, that has a certain ambiance to it. Yeah. And when you show up at these ultra races, completely different. Oh, yeah. Completely different vibe altogether and in a cool way. to it. Um, and when you show up at these ultra races, completely different, completely different vibe altogether. And in a, in a cool way, like there's no sponsor banners. There's no, you know, it's, there's no, there isn't even, you know, a single journalist there, you know, like no one cares and everyone's there for the love of it. And I think that that creates a sense of community where everybody really is

rooting for everybody else, you know, and, and even a guy like Timmy Olson is there, you know, and he's clapping and cheering for, you know, everybody else that's coming through. And, and there's something really kind of special about that. I think it's totally true. It's, it's totally a different dynamic. I mean, um, um somebody i don't remember who asked me this at either after or right before bad water was like well what does a winner get and the cool thing about bad water is the winner gets a belt buckle just like i got i mean and a finisher shirt like they there's obviously they're they're um ultra marathons now that have you know pretty decent prize purses but you know it's not you're not making the million you're not it's not like a

marathon or tour de france where the or big cycling races where the winner's walking away with a ton of bank. I mean, it's, it's, it's. It's a, it's an interesting time. You know, we, we're seeing, you know, we see the ascension of the Spartan race and, and, you know, the tough mutters and, and people are looking for new and interesting things. And those have become like hugely successful businesses because people want something new and something different. They want to be challenged in different ways. And, and how does this, you know, impact the future of ultras? You know, we shall see, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, who knows? They're getting more and more popular. They're more and more, hopefully, um, I mean like triathlon did like, what was like 10 years ago,

eight years ago when it exploded and ultra running sort of, I think, like triathlon did, like what was it, like 10 years ago, eight years ago, when it exploded and ultra running sort of, I think, and something like that now. I mean, it went, I think when I did AC100 in 2010, there were, I don't remember how many hundred miles there were around the country. Now there's twice that many or something. Yeah, I don't know the exact numbers, but they're more and more popping up all the time. And it's great for the expansion of the sport. I just hope that. Yeah, and you hear about lotteries.

Those are for the big races. Like for the smaller races, and there's plenty of them, it's easy to get in. That's true. You show up, there's like 20 people. Yeah, totally, totally, totally. Yeah, and that's the beauty of it. You can find whatever you want in ultra running because they're not, I mean, they don't have to be, unlike a triathlon or a big city marathon where it requires a lot of expense just to put it on. Some ultra marathons, you know, a lot of times they have to get permits and things like that, but they're not always a super expensive event to put on. So they can have a race with 20 people or 30 people or whatever.

It's a rad environment, some rad place in the mountains or desert or wherever. So last time we spoke, you were totally into the plant-based diet. Is that still the case? Is that still how you're eating? It is, yeah. I mean, I'm not, like probably not, when I'm at home, when I'm in my house

or when I can strictly control my diet, 100% plant-based. I mean, I really dig it. I think that I feel, I love the way I feel. I still feel like I'm recovering well. And, um, I like the way that my, that my whole body feels when I do it. I have to admit that like, you know, there, there are times where I'm out and I, um, I have, uh, fallen off for, you know, just a meal or so, or a little bit, but, um, you know,, whatever it is, you know, it's not even cheese. I, uh, it's like, uh, I mean, one of the things I have, I have a sweet tooth. So cookies, like

when, like there are tons of vegan, great vegan cookies and I love those, but if I'm out and somebody hands, if I'm like, and if I'm out and somebody hands me a cookie and I'm hungry, I'm going to eat it. So, um, but you know, the, the, the rule for me is, is, is plant-based and I love, I use the Vitamix every morning, is, is plant-based and I love, I eat the Vitamix every morning, make this a massive veggie and fruit shake. So do you do that before you go out for your 4.30 run or when you're, when you're, when you're done? That's for when I'm back.

Yeah. That's when I'm done. Uh-huh. Yeah. Cool. And you feel like that's fueling you and keeping you healthy and fit and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you're, you banged out three, 100 milers eating plant-based, so it seems like it's working okay.

Yeah. I really think it is. I mean, I think actually four, because I think that before San Diego, I started before San Diego 100 last June. But yeah, I mean, I feel like it really, you know, I like everything about it. I like the way, mainly for me, it's, and I probably might have explained this last time, it's less, I mean, the ethical thing has become a part of it. But that wasn't what initiated it. And it's still not the front of my mind. The front of my mind is how I feel. And when I'm, and I also noticed like, you know, I mean, I just said there are times where I fall off, but when I'm, when I'm strict about it,

I notice it, I notice how good I feel. So. And how, and how, how does that sort of play into the training? I mean, a lot of people say, well, I feel like I recover more quickly or helps me, you know, stay humming at a high level. Has that been your experience? I feel like the one thing that, I mean, I do, I feel like I recover quickly. I don't, it would be interesting to, you know. But you haven't done like a double blind study on your, you know, eating a different way to see how that would impact you. Right. So I do know that I recover well. Um, but the other, the thing that, that I have, that one of the issues I have with food is that I'm a totally an overeater. Like I don't have that shut off valve that tells me, okay,

now I'm full. And so when I used to eat meat and dairy, like I would walk away from a table and just be stuffed and uncomfortable. And I think that would affect my, my, my running the next day. Now it's much harder. I have a much harder time. I can eat as much, you know, within, within limits. You can only eat so much fiber. Right, exactly. And it flushes out. Yeah. Um, so I feel like it, it, in general, my body is, is it feels, even if it's not directly related to recovery from running, it's the preparation for the running and the way I get through those runs. Like I never have, like I was saying about at this time where my stomach sort of shut down,

but I never have any stomach distress during races. I don't throw up. I don't like, it's not like I'm having diarrhea. I've never had that issue on this non-plant-based diet. It's not like I'm having diarrhea. I've never had that issue on a plant-based diet. And so I assume that the plant-based diet helps protect me or helps smooth out my gut so that I am performing like that. And so a typical day in food, you get up when you're training,

you get up super early, you do your run, you come back, you have a green smoothie, Vitamix blend. Exactly. And then what does the rest of the day look like? Usually for lunch, I mean, I usually once or twice a week, I'll make like a big batch of quinoa or some other type of, like mostly it's quinoa. And then like I'll cook up some black beans

or cook up some lentils. My, Elizabeth loves chickpeas. That's one of her like staple things. So there's always an open can of chickpeas or an Elizabeth loves chickpeas. That's one of her staple things. So there's always an open can of chickpeas or an opening of chickpeas in our fridge. And so in the morning, I'll just take one of our Pyrex, like a small Pyrex dish and fill it with quinoa, spinach, kale, whatever kind of, we always have veggies in the fridge,

whatever kind of veggies we have, throw some hummus on there, a little bit of like olive oil or some other kind of um like some other kind of like hummus or this bitchin sauce stuff i don't know if you've ever had that but no what is that it's really rad the stuff called sauce yeah it's from this it's i first found it at a farmer's market in san diego it's a san diego product and it's made with um um uh um i can't even remember now, but it's- We can look it up. Is it bitchandsauce.com or something like that?

Bitch and sauce, I'm sure it is, yeah. And now they have it at Whole Foods up here, but it's really good. It's like a hot sauce or what? No, it's sort of like a hummus consistency, but it's not made with chickpeas. I think it's like almonds and apple cider vinegar. And there's chipotle flavor, an original flavor.

It's a little spicy. Excuse me. But then I'll just throw some of that on top. And it's a pretty big dish of, and that's what I'll eat for lunch. And then, excuse me. Will you like bring that to work with you? That comes to work with me.

Yeah, I mean, almost always I'll eat, I'll bring food for lunch just easier. And that way i don't have to go out and deal with it during the day i snack a lot on like nuts or fruit um we always have fruit in the house and like um i love apples apples are probably my favorite fruit so i always i have at least one apple a day um dinner it depends i. I mean, sometimes we'll do, I'll do like veggie sushi or there's a couple of good, really good Thai places around here

that we'll order from, or I'll cook up, like there's a dal, Indian, is that what it's called? The lentil dish? Yeah. Dal. Dal, yeah. There's a really good dal recipe

that I love to make. And that lasts a few days in the fridge also. So. Do you do the cooking? I do the cooking. You do the cooking? Yeah. I'm the cook. And I mean, we pretty, I'm, I guess I'm sort of lucky in the sense that I don't require a whole lot of variety in my diet. Like I'll eat that, that lunch that I was saying, I'll eat that five

days a week every day. And it changes, you know what I mean? Some days I'll have red peppers and some days I'll have cucumbers and some days I won't have either of those. Some days I won't have the hummus or vision sauce and I'll throw something else on there, but I don't mind eating the same type of thing most, most of the time. So it makes, and that also makes any time, I mean, it makes a plant-based diet easy, but it makes any type of diet easy too. Well, it's super easy. I mean, if you just cook up, you can cook up a huge thing of beans and quinoa in like 10 minutes and then just have it in your fridge and it's always there. And then you can whip something up really quickly. So I think that, you know,

it sort of disabuses that notion that, oh, it's so complicated or time consuming or expensive. Like these are cheap things to get and they provide the basis for anything. I mean, you can make a burrito out of that. You can make a salad out of that. You could, you know, I don't know. Yeah, totally. A number of different things, but. You can make a salad out of that. You could, you know, I don't know. Yeah, totally. A number of different things. But usually it's sort of like a big bowl. Like you get a cafe gratitude like this. My wife calls them one bowls.

And whether it's quinoa, rice or beans, this kind of bean, that kind of bean, some vegetables, a sauce on it, some guacamole or avocado or, you know, seeds on top of that. Whatever it is, it kind of varies a little bit each time, but they're really simple to make. Totally simple. And with little tiny shifts, you can get totally – like I'll use this hot sauce or that hot sauce or I won't use any hot sauce. You get totally different flavors or different consistencies. And you're right. We always have like lavash bread or tortillas in the fridge. And so I'll wrap it up or something you know

sometimes make it wrapped up sometimes not it's uh it's it's pretty easy simple stuff that we do cool yeah so you're gonna stick with it yeah totally do people uh ask you about it or are they like in the running community like how do you how do you run all those distances and you know it's it's a little bit more mainstream than it was in, in old, especially in ultra running is definitely a different animal. I think like if, if you were to take this to triathlon, probably not. And I've certainly not liked the CrossFit or like those Spartan races, they would probably kick me out of the club.

But, um, um, that's not true, but, um, in ultra running there, I found there, there are a fair number of people on plant-based diet in ultra running these days. And so people are used to it. Um, and a lot of, you know, I mean like a fair number of just like in, in all, in like all the people you've interviewed, there are a lot of really high performers on plant-based diet in, in, in ultra running. And so I think that they're now it's, it's just like normal. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's true. Yeah. That's amazing. It totally is. Well, cool, man. I think we should wrap it up here. Awesome. So, uh, congrats again, man. Thank you. It's really great to see you cross that finish line and follow your journey. And I can't wait to see what you're doing next, man. You're blazing trails. Yeah. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. It was really fun to hear the story. If you're digging on Josh,

you should check out his spanking brand new website. When did you put that up? It launched like the week before Battle. Oh, you did? So it is really brand new. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally brand new. So joshspector.com. Spector Josh. Spector Josh, all right.

And you're Spector Josh on Twitter too, right? On Twitter and Instagram. Who has Josh Spector? You couldn't get your own? No, some guy has it. We do get confused a lot. Actually actually i get a bunch of it i have josh specter g on uh my my email um but uh so i get emails for him there but he's like a he's a funny guy i think he must do something in comedy he posts a lot of videos and stuff so does he live here in la yeah i think he does oh he does

or somewhere you guys gotta meet know, that'd be funny. That's another video for Billy to make. You guys got to hash this out. Specter Josh versus Josh Specter. I get Specter Josh for Twitter, but you get Josh Specter for your website.

Yeah, totally. No, you have a branding problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true, it's true. Cool. And again, yeah, I'll post those videos on the episode page too

so people can check that out. And it was good to hear the story, man. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for having me on, Rich. Cool, man. Awesome. Peace. Yeah.

Plants. All right, everybody, we're done. It's over. That's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed Josh. I hope you will now take a hard look in the mirror and realize it might just be time to raise that ceiling on what you think you are capable of. That the limits you impose upon yourself are more illusion than reality.

Please, if you haven't already, give us a review on iTunes. We're quickly approaching a thousand reviews. It would be great to hit that. So do me a solid. Let's make it happen. Come on, you guys. Stop being lazy. Take the two minutes. Go to iTunes.

Give me that review. Helps us out a lot. It helps with how the show ranks in iTunes and all this other kind of nonsense. Raises the profile of it. And I really appreciate it. If you want to stay current with all things Plant Powered, subscribe to my newsletter at richroll.com. I will not spam you. It's just weekly podcast updates, helpful information, and the occasional deal on cool stuff like the upcoming Cowspiracy DVD. I'm going to be sending out an email on that this week, among other things. And of course,

go to richroll.com for all your plant powered needs and go to mindbodygreen.com for my online courses, The Art of Living with Purpose and The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. If you want to support the show, the Plant Power Mission, it's simple. Tell a friend. Use the Amazon banner ad and you can donate. There are buttons on the site. You can subscribe weekly, monthly, for any dollar amount you want. Thank you so much to everybody who has taken that extra step to do that. It really means a lot. And keep Instagramming. Instagram how you enjoy the show, where you enjoy the show. And don't forget to tag me at Rich Roll, at Rich Roll, at, the at symbol, Rich Roll. Let's close it down with this week's assignment. I want you guys to take a look at your long-term goals. And I want you to work your way backwards from that big goal and identify

what it is that you are doing now, what it is that you should be doing now, today, in this moment, and tomorrow, but just in the real immediate short-term future. Because it's about that next step that's most important. It's not about the big goal. It's about what actions are you taking right now that are serving that purpose? Josh didn't cross the finish line at Badwater without laying that foundation down brick by brick for several years. He put the work in. He paid his dues. So what are the dues that you are paying? What short-term pleasures and distractions are you willing to defer to accomplish something

extraordinary in your life? The idea is to put your dreams in proper perspective and start working towards them with tangible daily actions, that constant pressure that two years from now, you can look back and see the change. But two years from now, we'll have you doing things that right now seem out of reach. Enjoy your week, people. Life is short. See you on the flip side. Peace. Plants.