The Rich Roll Podcast - Centenarian Mike Fremont On Longevity Secrets, Breaking World Running Records & How To Thrive

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Today we explore health, fitness, longevity & the pursuit of meaning through the lived experience of a human who has been walking planet Earth for a full 100 years. Meet centenarian Mike Fremont, a retired engineer turned climate activist and life-long athlete who holds a slew of impressive age group world records in running, including the fastest recorded marathons for an 88-year-old, 90-year-old, and a 91-year-old. I was introduced to Mike by his running buddy elite ultra-marathoner and popular friend of the pod Harvey Lewis, who helped arrange today’s unique opportunity to learn and be inspired by someone who has not only been alive for so long but who has remained incredibly vibrant well beyond social expectations. For those of you who feel like it’s too late or you’ve missed the boat on being an athlete, this guy’s marathon career didn’t even kick into high gear until his 60’s—40 years ago! This conversation is my attempt to extract his testimony and counsel for younger generations. We dive into what he has learned about life, longevity, vitality, purpose, fitness, and setting and world records. We also discuss the WFPB diet (which he adopted 30 years ago in the wake of a colon cancer diagnosis) that fuels his training, keeps him spry, informs his climate activism, and in his words, is what has allowed him to thrive for decades beyond social expectations. It’s not often you get the opportunity to spend time with a centenarian. This is a small attempt to course correct mainstream culture's failure to appropriately appreciate our elders. I loved having Mike on the show, consider him a new friend, and I’m proud to share his voice with you. Watch: YouTube. Read: Show notes. Peace + Plants, Rich

I don't think I ever became competitive, actually, until I was 88. I got first place in what they call the single age running. I'm 22 years older than the average person who dies in this country. And it's been a pleasure. For my age, I'm practically number one. The conclusion I came to long, long ago was the real satisfactions that people can get in their lifetimes consists in helping other people, period, in whatever way, as much as you can. That brings real rewards. We're all servants, or we should be. It brings the pleasures. It's not the money. If you got money and you're happy,

good luck. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. My podcast, a show where we go deep on a wide variety of stuff, stuff that I think matters, including, but not limited to health, fitness, nutrition, longevity, what it means to pursue a life of meaning. All subjects were quite privileged today to explore through the lived experience of a centenarian,

a human who has literally been walking the earth for a full 100 years, which is of course, rare, it's unique and kind of amazing. His name is Mike Fremont. Mike is a retired engineer turned climate activist and athlete who, in addition to being pretty darn with it, holds, get this, an absolute slew of age group world records in running, including the fastest recorded marathons for an 88-year-old, a 90-year-old, and a 91-year-old, if I got that right. At the young age of 96,

he set the American one-mile record for the 95 to 99 age group. And as a lifelong canoe racer, at 99, he was the oldest person to race the canoe national championships, and he's still out there getting after it. So what's his secret? How does he do it? A few thoughts on that before we dive into the conversation, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

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and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, so I was introduced to Mike by his running buddy, elite ultra-marathoner and popular friend of the podcast, Harvey Lewis. And Harvey is a guy who just absolutely raves about Mike. He helped arrange today's unique opportunity to learn and be inspired by somebody

who has not only been alive for a very long time, but also somebody who has remained just incredibly vibrant. I mean, this guy's marathon career didn't even kick into high gear until his 60s, which for context was 40 years ago. I mean, think about that, especially those of you who feel like maybe it's already too late or you've missed the boat.

You're gonna think again today. This conversation is my attempt to extract his testimony and his counsel for younger generations on what he's learned about life, about longevity, vitality, purpose, fitness, setting world records, and diet, because for Mike, it's kind of all about diet, specifically the whole food plant-based diet that he adopted 30 years ago

in the wake of a colon cancer diagnosis that he really credits and attributes to his success in training as what keeps him spry, informs his client activism. And in his words, really is the thing that has allowed him to thrive decades beyond social expectations.

It's really not often that you get the opportunity to spend time with a centenarian. I think our culture fails quite miserably when it comes to appreciating our elders. So I just really loved having him. I consider him a new friend and I'm really proud to share his voice with you. So let's do it. This is me and Mike Fremont. Well, Mike, it's a pleasure to meet you. It's an honor to talk to you today. It's a rare thing that anybody gets to sit down with somebody who has experienced so much life as you. And I just can't wait to hear more about your life. I guess the first obvious question is, how do you feel? What is it like to be 100? These, believe it or not, are the very best years of my life.

No question. Why is that? Things that I've worked for and worked on have blossomed out. I'm still here. I can still run, so to speak. For my age, I'm practically number one. By sheer process of elimination. But also, I mean, it's amazing that you still get out there. You're still running. You're so engaged with life. And I have to imagine that's a big part of the secret, just being engaged with life and finding purpose in the things that interest you.

Well, it turned out that I made a wise decision when I was faced with an operation. And I hold that largely responsible for all the records that I set in old age. And I hold that largely responsible for all the records that I said in old age. No question in my mind, absolutely, it is diet that has determined my existence, my continued existence and my beautiful health.

So tell me more about that. You were 70 when you were diagnosed with colon cancer. 69. 69. So yeah, maybe explain that a little bit. Yeah, I had a polyp, P-O-L-Y-P, in one of my nether parts. And the doctor I went to sent me to the Cleveland Clinic for a proper diagnosis.

And they put a television set connection into me so I could see what was going on. And they said that this tumor that they saw had metastasized, which means it had taken root in different parts of my body, the lymphatic system, and that even if they took the tumor out, they would have to go after those metastases.

And at the time, I had by that time received a book from my son in California that I'll see probably tomorrow. He sent me a book called The Cancer Prevention Diet

by Michio Kushi, a Japanese chap who settled here and was in Beckett, Massachusetts with his entourage. And I called him to ask him why he sent me the book. He said, you may need it someday. So, of course, I didn't read it until I was diagnosed, at which point I devoured it.

And I went cold turkey on what is now known as a vegan diet. At that time, it was a macrobiotic diet. I think it was even beginning to be accepted a little bit by people in California. Sure. So essentially for the last 30 years, you've been eating a very strict whole food plant-based diet. 100%, 100%, no exceptions, cold turkey. So you get the diagnosis from the Cleveland Clinic. Did they wanna put you in chemotherapy

or did you do chemotherapy or what happened? They said, if you're not operated on, you have three months to live. That was the other side of the equation, I thought. So I decided after reading the book, I decided I would try the diet. And I said, I'll check with you guys from time to time which I didn't do because I two weeks after going on the diet I realized that various things were happening to me that I hadn't anticipated

such as arthritis in the back of my neck, arthritis in the shoulder, arthritis in these fingers, had disappeared. No explanation. No problem. Furthermore, my hands and lips used to be chapped from the time I was a little kid. It disappeared.

Wow. It disappeared. The only thing I might have had, It disappeared. Wow. It disappeared. The only thing I might have had, which by that time I was old enough to have outgrown was asthma, which is what kept me out of the military. Or she kept me out of school for a month once. So you were born, I assume you were born in like 1922. Exactly.

So you would have been prime candidate for World War II. Exactly. Yeah. So half of my class was in uniform at college. Right. In uniform. And they had their educational experience there too. And I regretted I couldn't be part of them.

Anyway, that diet has so much going for it. I marvel that big business hasn't grabbed it and run with it after all these years. People used to look at me strangely when I say, no, I don't eat meat. No, I don't drink milk. No eggs, no eggs. Yeah, well, it has, I mean, there is big business now

in that it is much more widely acceptable and adopted. And there are lots of companies making products for this lifestyle, but you are correct. And it is interesting. So your arthritis started to disappear. You knew something was going on inside you, but did you have a sense that this was helping with your cancer?

I'm no doctor and I can't get into that science, but several of these diseases that we have are truly associated with eating certain meats and what other categories there are. But you had adopted this diet certain meats and what other categories there are. But you had adopted this diet and you were eating this way for a couple of years. And then at some point you had the tumor surgically removed though, right?

It began to bleed again. Yeah. I knew I had to be operated for the basic tumor. I was operated by a doctor in Dayton who'd been in the army. He'd been an army doctor who specialized in that kind of operation. And he told Marilyn, after the operation, that he'd looked in 35 places for metastasis and found none.

None. 35 places. None. None. 35 places. So what I had done by simply changing diet was to kill the metastases that would possibly have killed me. I found out subsequently, quite a bit subsequently, as a matter of fact, a matter of months ago, that there are something like 52,000 people a year

who die of colorectal cancer. 90% of them die of the metastasis, 90%. Yeah, that's amazing. And it never, after you had the tumor removed, you were in remission and it never came back. Well, I feel that I can counsel, actually counsel people who have this particular disease. Yeah, yeah.

I say, try this, try this. Right, right. And where does the running begin? Running, I was 36. I had three little children and my first wife and she died of a brain hemorrhage when our daughter was two weeks old and I was I had started a business a year before and I was all alone and was stressed. And I lived on a dam and I used to run across that dam, which was leveled every day after work. And it was very rewarding.

It was better than two martinis. Uh-huh. But not to be competitive at that time. No thought of it. Right. Then someone said, why don't you get in a race? And I said, me?

Like I'm 50 years old. 36 years old I was. But I kept running. I enjoyed it. I used to go to the beach whenever we went to the beach, which is not in Cincinnati, of course. So running became a little part of my life.

And then they got me in a race, and I did okay. I didn't come in last. Then said, were you going to try for Boston? I said, I have to run a marathon first. So I ran a marathon and didn't qualify for Boston. So I ran a few more marathons and I qualified. Then I did my first Boston and I thought, wow, you can actually run. Yeah. Yeah, so it's around 60 where you start getting competitive though,

as I understand, is that correct? Not really. I don't think I ever became competitive actually until I was 88. Uh-huh. I ran a marathon when I was 88, and I got first place in history in what they call the world single age running category. I brought you some sheets of that to show you. Sure.

Yeah, so at 88, you set the single age world record for the marathon. And then at 90, you do it again, the single age world record for the marathon. And at 90, you also set the single age world record for the half marathon. And at 91, the single age world record for the half marathon. And at 91, the single age world record for the half marathon. That's right.

So you have four world records and you have a whole slew of five year age group records going, there's too many to even keep track. I didn't even realize that at the time. There's not much competition out there. There hasn't been because people don't understand how your system works and contributes to being able to do these things.

So talk about that. I wanna hear more about how to do this thing. So maybe explain how you do it. Like how are you able to not just run marathons and half marathons in your late 80s and over the course of your 90s, but also set world records? Like what is the secret to longevity here?

We talked about diet, but also what is your fitness routine? The interesting part, I think, and the Japanese are credited with living six years longer on average than Americans. That's a huge amount. Yeah.

But here I'm already, I'm 22 years older than the average person who dies in this country. Right. And it's been a pleasure. And it's simply because of what I eat, which is not that specifically precision designed to make me an expert.

I'm not an expert on it. I know what works for me, and I've never had any question about it, but I just don't do bad things in eating. Tell me exactly what it is that you eat, like a day in the life of food for you. Like what are your meals? Well, today,

I had some oatmeal that had a few blueberries in the top of it, and then some sweet syrup or something, a little teeny thing. And I had a cup filled with fruits, actually with berries. There was strawberries and blackberries and blueberries. And one other thing might've been a piece of mango or something. I think it was $7 at the motel,

which is a very high price. Welcome to Los Angeles. Wouldn't be high price if it was alcohol. And what would a lunch and a dinner look like for you? Oh, I might have something as prosaic And what would a lunch and a dinner look like for you? Oh, I might have something as prosaic as half a can of black beans or kidney beans or garbanzo beans with a little bit of tamari, salty sauce,

just a few drops of it. And then I'll put the other half away in the icebox and eat it the next day. Right. So I try to get beans every day. And I might do some broccoli flowers, which I use a little bit of ketchup with to make them taste like something. flowers, which I use a little bit of catsup with to make them taste like something.

Yeah. Okay, so pretty basic, close to their natural state. So what about the fitness routine? What is the secret to how you've been able to continue running into your 90s and now at 100? I was able to retire at the age of 88. So low stress, free time? Stress also kills.

And if you can keep your life from distress as well as stress, you're very fortunate. But diet and stress are the two things that can kill, definitely can kill. But tell me about your daily fitness routine and how you've been able to stay active and running. How do you keep it up? Well, actually, I run in a place called Sharon Woods, which is a county park five and a half miles from where I live. And it has hills, and it has a gravel path, and it has a blacktop path all together.

And one circle is five miles. And the same people come out there year after year all the time. You expect to see them, you make friends of them. And I do that. My routine had been three times a week, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, I would run 10 miles until I was 98. Yeah, wow. I just said it was taking too long for me to run with all the people I had grown to know over how many years was this? It was about, let's see, we set up a little group in 1979.

Yeah, 21, 40 years. Yeah, that's quite a long time. 10 miles, three times a week. 10 miles, three times a week. That was 30 miles, 10 miles, three times a week. And what is it like now? It's five miles, three times a week. And do you do any, I know canoeing,

I wanna talk about the canoeing, but do you do any, I know canoeing, I wanna talk about the canoeing, but do you do any other kind of exercises? Up to this year, I have been a canoe racer on a lake that's three miles away. And they refuse to let the lake be used, the county park lake, by people who might drown. People, self-propelled canoes or kayaks. They even kept Roland Mullen, who was an Olympic champion three times in canoe racing in the Olympics.

They wouldn't let him practice on it. They were worried about him drowning? What we did was to scare the park district because the lawyers and their insurance people had said, don't let people do that. They'll drown and they'll sue and you'll have to pay. But we said, we pay for these parks. We have a right to use them. So they finally said, okay, 2,000.

We'll open them up. And they did. So I was one of the first guys out there with my racing canoe. And another guy in an old canoe came up to me and says, what kind of canoe is that? And I described it. And I said, you want to try it?

And he said, yeah. So we exchanged canoes and he tried it. The next day he took his pickup truck and drove it to Western Maryland and bought the same canoe and drove it back the same day. Oh, wow. And he became your canoeing buddy? He became my canoeing buddy. And then we attracted another guy because we're out there plugging away. And then I said, you know, we ought to start a group here. He at the time was 13 years younger than me.

That was 2000. So I was, what, 78? Yeah, he was 13 years younger. He was 65. I said, you're going to be the tapioca of this organization. He said, what the hell is that? I said, it's a temporary acting provisional interim orchestrator

of coalition activities. There you go. That's quite a handle. It's a lot of pressure. And he said, what should we call this outfit?

I said, why don't we call it the EPA? That's the Elderly Paddlers Association. There you go. So we attracted a few more. We probably got about 12 altogether. Probably got about 12 altogether. Marilyn is one of them who come out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That's 7.30 in the morning before the motorboats go out there, before it's late enough to be daylight.

Right. And are you still doing that now? Yeah. You are. Well, I haven't started the season yet. It's been too cold. But the EPA lives on. Oh yeah. Okay, good.

Where did you meet Harvey? Obviously Harvey Lewis is our connective tissue. He introduced us. I know that you guys are really good friends. When did you meet Harvey? I'm not sure, but it was within the last four years and I was very taken with him. I thought this is a tremendous athlete

and a tremendous person. And he asked me twice to speak to his class, his high school class. I said, what are you teaching? He said, well, government and operation of cities and that sort of thing. It's the high school kids. I said, well, I wanted to tell them this is about the diet and athletic stuff

because that would be what they might be interested in Harvey asked me every year if I want to run a flying pig marathon yeah 5k or 10k a flying pig marathon. Yeah.

5K or 10K. I'm not up to a marathon anymore unless somebody were to say, well, we'll give you $30,000 for charitable purposes. If they said that, I said, I would say, I will train for a year to run a marathon at this age, if you give me enough money to fund this

or that or the other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody's taking me up on it. I could see that happening though. Has anybody run a marathon at age 100? I don't think that that's ever occurred. I don't think so. I really don't think so.

I think I could because I think a marathon, the one I set the world record in was not overly stressing. It wasn't. No, I think I could have gone further. Really? I would imagine somebody could put together some funds that would go to charity to see you train and do a marathon.

Well, it would compromise. I would have to make a major sacrifice in lifestyle. I think. Yeah, I would imagine. It might be possible, maybe I'd find it wasn't possible for me to do that, but I would only do that if my training told me that I could. Right, but you're doing,

like so recently you've done 5Ks with Harvey. So you're still doing races, just not marathons. He runs at my speed. Yeah. He's an amazing human being, that Harvey. so you're still doing races just not marathons he runs at my speed yeah he's an amazing human being that harvey so did you go and talk to the students what did you tell them i told him about global warming and sustainability of the world on this planet. And the reason I did that is I thought through introducing as best I can the impact of diet, which translates to agriculture in general,

not completely because we have to grow cotton and we have to grow trees. And that agriculture at the time was supposed to be contributing, agriculture in quotation marks, supposed to be contributing 41% of the CO2, the excess that we have in the atmosphere. And we have to reduce that. And somebody who understands it can help inform the public

and get the politics in such a way as to do that. We have not been very effective doing that. No, we haven't. We should have been much, much more effective. By talking to you so that other people can hear is an important move for me in my small way and us, we have a little, shall we call it a think tank of four people at home who meet once a month

trying to get this word out. And we've done our own study of the effect of food alone in agriculture of the total CO2 equivalent, which includes some methane, some NO2, and water vapor to a certain extent. Those are the greenhouse gases. Sure. So climate change, sustainability,

the impact of agriculture on climate change, and also the ability to be part of the solution by getting people to change their diet. This is something that is important to you. You've been advocating for this for a long time. And I know that you've put a lot of time and energy and resources into restoring and improving Ohio's rivers and streams, right?

You've been active in the restoration of the waterways in Ohio over the years. That was before the global warming issue. Uh-huh. Yeah. I guess I was a canoe racer. I've been a canoe racer 60 years. Right.

I know how to run a canoe. In the early days, we worried about where we paddled and it was degraded or there were dams in the way or all sorts of nasty things being done to the waters of the country. And they passed in 1968 the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act as a national thing. And the Little Miami River, which goes through Cincinnati, was one of the first 27 rivers in the whole country

designated to become a candidate to be a member of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system. And so that put a focus on the Little Miami River, which is a beautiful river, and where I used to practice before I practiced on the lake. I was pretty far away, and the reason I gave it up for the lake

is because it's not convenient. But I used to practice on that. The state of Ohio had a friendly governor who happened at the time to be a Democrat, and his name was John Gilligan. And he was sympathetic to what we wanted to do. We wanted to protect Ohio's rivers. As a matter of fact, we had set up an Ohio Scenic River system

a year before the federal government did. So the idea, or at least the idea that we had was that the people who really cared about the rivers should be members of a board of a statewide river protection group. And that's what we started with. And we were able, through that means,

to gather larger numbers of people together, get decisions made to protect these rivers. And interestingly to me anyway, we decided that the American people have a way of expressing their interest in things as measured in dollars. And I think we're internationally known for that. And we decided that the Little Miami River was bringing unbelievable returns to the villages along it,

economic returns to the canoe liveries, from the fishing, from the swimming, from the property value appreciation of having this beautiful stream go by that the little children could play in. And we decided it was bringing in to the public $100,000 a year, every year, reliably, as well as employing these kids

who could hustle canoes and liveries. It would be a hard job to replace. And that meant $10 million a year for the 100 miles of that stream. 100 miles of the Little Miami River would bring in $10 million a year just because it was there. Sure, so rather than appealing to somebody's sensitivity to environmental issues by focusing on the economic impact and appealing to the incentives of that to keep the rivers clean, that's what moves the needle. That's what actually-

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then we had a governor whose name was Bob Taft, who was the grandson of William Howard Taft of great national fame. And I went to school with two Taft guys. They're both gone now. both gone now. And Taft's wife, Hope,

and he bought a place on the Little Miami River to retire in after he was retired by the voters years ago. And she got really excited about water quality and the Little Miami River, the upper 43 miles of it. It's 100 miles total.

They live in the upper 43. And with the tax money and all, there was no trouble to get Ohio State University, which I had worked with for 12 years, to understand the economics of the Little Miami River. And she got the guy who was handed the job after the professor I worked with retired in 2008, Brent Saunchin, his name is.

Brent Saunchin, his name is. And they came out with a super, super economic study, which is very simple. You haven't really had a chance to study it yet. They were bringing in something like $233,000 a year, year after year, instead of $100,000 per mile, per mile of river, just economic value. Right, so the numbers bore it out

that it's in everyone's interest to keep this river clean and that advocacy led to that level of preservation. Yeah, that's beautiful. People spend money on it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. First time we put somebody, it's got a trail along it, and lots of people use that trail. It goes through different counties and everything.

And they can estimate how much. You put a guy on a trail, excuse me, you want to take a survey, see how you like the river, how much you spend. You spend on gas, you spend on motel, you spend on a bicycle, you spend on skates, you spend on clothes, you spend on food. How much do you spend a day? We figured out that they spend about $20 a day per person. And I don't know how that's changed. I haven't read this new study yet.

It just came out. Right. But it's gonna be a national prize winner of an analysis of how much rivers are really worth in dollars. Right, yeah, that's super interesting. Really proud of that because we started that thing. When you reflect back on your life, what is it that you, like the wisdom that you accrue

as somebody who's been alive for a long time, like what is the message that you would like to impart to younger people about what is important and what isn't? Well, the conclusion I came to long, long ago was the real satisfactions that people can get in their lifetimes and that they consist in helping other people, period, whatever way, as much as you can.

That brings real rewards. Yeah, service. Yes, we're all servants, so we should be. It brings the pleasures, it's not the money. If you got money and you're happy, good luck. Right. So your service comes in the form of your environmental work, this focus on climate change.

What would be another example of how you channel that service for others that has given your life meaning? Well, I think this is my profession, as it were. I have a time I can spare, and it's a lot. I read, it's a list of books I brought here today. I'm desperate to read these things. The latest one is advertised in the New York Times Sunday review of books, and it talks about sustainability, and I need that book, I want to see it. And the four of us in our little think tank want to understand that the sustainability issue is an enormous issue because there isn't any way we can go from a population

of close to 2 billion to one that is close to 8 billion in my lifetime. billion in my lifetime. Less than my lifetime. I think it was about 2.5 billion when I graduated from college in 1943. And now it's 8 billion. How do you do this on a planet that's not getting any bigger? You can't farm anymore.

You can't farm enough. You can't farm enough. We can't feed all the people now. It just won't work. We're finding it won't work. We're finding it in hunger. We're finding it in wars because people get flooded out because the temperature change

is making the ground unavailable to produce food. The oceans are finding it impossible to produce fish, relatively speaking, and they're totally serious. So the sustainability factor is every bit as important as the temperature, the world temperature rise. Yeah. So you're a child of the depression.

You lived through World War II as a young person. When you kind of look back on your life and reflect upon your peers, I mean, we live in a society where it is about high stress. It's about accumulation of material things. But most people, by the time they reach around 80, end up in facilitated living centers, nursing homes, et cetera. You've been able to opt out of that.

So aside from the service piece and the diet, like what are the other secrets of longevity that you've relied on that people should know more about? Exercise. Yeah. Breaking world marathon records. Not necessarily related to diet. Yeah, exercise, being of service, diet.

What about friendships, community? Absolutely. Relationships. Talk a little bit about that. Absolutely. Yeah. Call it love if you want. Well, I guess I'm succeeding at that without trying. Became a hundred, I got a box this big, birthday cards. Wow, that's amazing.

Most people as they get older, they have very few friends, but you have lots and lots of friends. Well, you find you had friends and you didn't realize it. I even got a citation by the governor of Ohio. I didn't vote for him ever. Okay. As a matter of fact, the best governor we ever had married my third wife.

And then he died. Okay. I don't know I'm very very I realize how tremendously fortunate I happen to be and it seems like it's been a simple

process no intellectual depth or dangerous ventures or anything, but just grinding along and doing the best you can. And I've been very happy about it. But staying engaged with life, with other human beings, having a sense of purpose, right?

Like your connection to climate change issues and sustainability, your love for running and canoeing and exercising. I would imagine these are big pieces in what kind of gets you excited and out of bed in the morning still. Well, we're all kind of limited in what we can do because we feel, many of us anyway, that we're under the control of the ultra-rich

and corporations, and we're threatened in every respect when you come to think of it, and how you handle this because the corporations are the key to our financial success. But I leave that for other people to work on. Yeah. Well, what is your message to, like imagine there's a lot of younger people who are listening to this. They want the wisdom of somebody who has,

you know, lived a life like yours, service, friendships, purpose, what else do you wanna say to those people about how to live a fulfilling, meaningful, long life? Well, I think an approach to young men and a lot of young women now is sports. And there's a success of vegan women now, is sports. And the success of vegan athletes is tremendous.

Whole magazines are devoted to it several times a year, and I see it. It never used to be that way. And you get kidded for eating special and who do you think you are and all that. Yeah. And that's why I had some fun talking to Harvey's class. Well, Harvey's such a great ambassador of that as well.

So I imagine his students already know that he's a plant-based athlete. They know that he runs these crazy races, but probably receptive to what you had to say. I went shopping with him at a Whole Foods market in Cincinnati when he was getting supplies for his Appalachian Trail race. And his father would carry it in their

van and cook for him when he came in and he'd sleep in there and then he'd go off the next day and his father would be hundreds of miles away. 49 days to go

2,000 plus miles. Yeah. The mere fact that a human can do that says that they understood the principles of feeding and resting and limits to your output as well. And he's got to figure it out. And he's just beautiful. Have you heard of the term blue zones?

The blue zones people? Pockets of populations around the world where people live the longest. Yeah, centenarians. And they studied these populations and they extracted from that certain tenets or principles of lifestyle that all of these communities shared. Among them are diets that are predominantly plant-based.

They aren't exclusively plant-based, but most of these populations where they have the highest concentration of people living to 100 and beyond are eating mostly a plant-based diet. But they also are populations where they're moving all the time. They're not going to the gym or running marathons,

but they have- Seasonal. Yeah, movement oriented lifestyles. And they have rich relationships within the community. So they have support and they have connection. They're also tend to be relatively faith-based in different ways. Like faith is a big piece of it. And this idea of purpose, like what in Okinawa,

they call ikigai, like feeling like you have a reason for your living. And what I see in you is an example of all of those principles in your life. It is admirable what they do. I haven't been exposed to it. I know that they do exist. I read a little bit about them,

but there's always some limit to what they can do because of this or that or the other thing, but they do live longer. They are happy people. And maybe there are a lot of ideas that they have that we could use if we are smart enough to do so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the fact that you didn't even kick into your highest gear in running until you were around 60, and that's when you kind of really found your competitive groove with all of this, like it's very inspiring because that's a period of time where most people would feel like it's time to slow down. And in your example, that's where I feel like you really started to get more engaged with your life.

Well, I think I was in business long enough to understand that there's a competition that's normal to business in the United States and other countries. And so there's a spirit of competition. That's the way you get things done. And it's not totally compatible with the lifestyle you would advocate, you might say. That's something I don't know more about. Yeah. But you said that now you feel like

you're having the best time of your life. Well, we had a birthday party on the beach in Florida. I saw the video. There's a video on the internet of that, of your birthday party. I have a nephew who was the mayor of Vero Beach, which is where we have relatives and where we... Uh-huh. And he called up somebody

who used to be manager of the local newspaper, the Vero Beach Press Journal. And he came out on the beach to see me on my birthday and took all his stuff down. Uh-huh. And I published it the next day. And Marilyn and I went around and fetched 10 copies of the newspapers so we could send it to our families. And you're here in Los Angeles, you have children, grandchildren,

and a great granddaughter here that you have yet to meet because of the pandemic, is that right? I haven't met her because it's been questionable whether one should fly. Right. Well, you're here, so you're gonna have a big family reunion? Yeah, we will, we will.

So that's, Marilyn's sister lives in Lake Arrowhead up the hill in San Bernardino. Sure. And she's gonna see us this afternoon. Good. Well, I wanna kind of end this on a note of inspiration. Like again, going back to looking over the course of your life, you've lived through so many periods

of American history. And now we're, as you mentioned, tipping into 8 billion people on the planet. Like when you reflect back over the course of your life, like how do you feel about the future of America and the future of the planet going forward? Well, either we face a period of really tremendous suffering, massive suffering,

or we get smart enough to do some important laws and work on them and understand them so that we can continue to manage this little bitty planet. You can talk about going to Mars. I don't know anybody would be willing to do that. Who's gonna write the newspaper? Who's gonna run the grocery store? Just wanna, you know. In Mars? Well, we'll see.

But yeah, sure. Let's save our planet in the meantime rather than abandon it for another, of course. Oh, I don't know. There may be one out there out of the billions or trillions of planets that there are. Right. The fact that you have thrived

on a plant-based diet over these years, you're an incredible example of the health and robustness of eating this way and the fact that you've set these world records eating this way, you're an early pioneer of this lifestyle. I know that you're friends with a lot of the legendary doctors in the space, Neil Bernard and Colin Campbell and Caldwell Esselstyn.

And I just, I salute you for being an ambassador and like such a youthful energy exemplar of eating a plant-based diet and being this incredible athlete along the way. And I really do think that maybe we should try to see if you can get that marathon in. It's a wonderful thing. It's a quality of life issue, as a matter of fact.

Yeah, yeah. If people are nice to you when you get old. Well, it's a privilege to be able to speak to somebody who has been around for a while and has wisdom to impart. So- Well, yeah, I have been there. I've been through this and I've been through that. And I'm fortunate, very fortunate that I survived. My father died of liver cancer. And he had six months of terrible pain.

And he'd been an athlete. He'd been a gymnast when he was in college. Diet was standard American. But liver cancer, I'm sure, was caused by diet. Mm-hmm. I'm sure of it. Right. Today, we would have fixed him up.

Yeah. But he died at the age of 69. And my mother died of a heart attack, which was standard. Right. You sort of expect it when they're in their 70s. And my mother died of a heart attack, which was standard. Right. You sort of expect it when they're in their 70s. Could have probably prevented that if I'd known then what I know now. Sure.

But your blood work is good, you're healthy, you're gonna be around for a while. I hope so. Everything's good. You go to the doctor, you get your checkups, everything is A-okay? Yes. They called good. You go to the doctor, you get your checkups. Everything is a-okay? Yes. They called me and asked me to come in

to have a regular test. And I did, and I passed it with flying colors. You did, amazing. Are the doctors surprised when you come in? Or they know you now, like this is just Mike. Well, it's only one or two and when you come right down to it. They have to accept it because I can challenge them

too easily. Right. Well, thank you for coming to talk to me today. You are an inspiration and it is amazing. The fact that you changed your diet at 70. This is probably no question. It's actually the high point of what you may call my career to be interviewed by you who has interviewed.

I got your volume too. it's a gorgeous thing. Oh, you did, good, good. It weighs about 20 pounds. You could do curls with it. Get this photography like that, all these people that look so inspiring. That's not my department. No, I think what you're doing is incredibly inspiring.

And your example, I think is very uplifting to everybody who would hear this or see this, who's thinking about their future and what that might look like as we all get older. And, you know, again, I've said it many times over the course of our conversation, but the fact that you have remained so not only active, but really intentional in how you're living your life

is I think a real inspiration to all of us. And so I guess just in closing, if there's any kind of final thoughts or wisdom that you would like to impart to anybody who's listening to this. Well, I'm very grateful for this opportunity. My gang of four will be very pleased that I was able to express myself on this and that subject

that we work on once a month normally. And that's a major impact I could have is to reach other people with this message. Because I'm saying it works for me big time to be at least 22 years older than the average person who dies in America. And I feel that's not long enough yet. Yeah, I think you got a lot of life left in you, Mike.

Yeah, so you're always welcome here and I look forward to hanging out with you for a little bit after we're done here. And I just appreciate you, sir, so thank you. And keep doing what you're doing. I think it's important and powerful, like I said, and just to be a thriving example of a plant-based diet is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Thank you.

Yeah, you're very welcome. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Right back at you, my friend. Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests,

including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube,

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and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder.

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See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.