The Rich Roll Podcast - Colin O’Brady’s Attempt On The Explorers Grand Slam World Record

Episode Date: January 11, 2016

As I write this entry, it's Sunday evening, January 10 around 8pm. Less than one hour ago, after days spent slogging across Antarctic desert in -30 celsius temperatures, 30-year old pro triathlete turned mountaineering adventure athlete Colin O'Brady reached the South Pole — the first stop on his world record quest to become the youngest and fastest human to ever complete the Explorers Grand Slam — an adventurers challenge to summit the highest mountain on each of the seven continents as well as trek to both the North and South Poles. Only 44 people in documented history have successfully completed the challenge. Of these, only 2 have done it under a year. Colin's goal? Get it done in five months. If that's not amazing enough, consider that just eight years ago, Colin faced the very real possibility he would never walk again. After graduating from Yale in 2006, Colin left to explore the world on a backpacking trip. While in Thailand, he suffered a tragic accident and was severely burned in a fire. His injuries covered nearly 25% of his body, causing potentially irrevocable damage to his legs and feet. Determined to beat the odds, he set a seemingly outlandish goal to not just walk again, but to complete a triathlon following his recovery. Colin didn't just finish a triathlon. In his first attempt he won — stunning the multisport community with an overall amateur title at the prestigious 2009 Chicago Triathlon less than two years post-accident and after only a few months of training. On the day immediately following his victory, Colin turned pro, quit his job as a commodities trader, hopped a flight to Australia and spent the next five years representing the United States in triathlon competitions all over the world with a keen eye on landing an Olympic berth. Insane. And yet despite his amazing success, Colin sensed something missing from his life. He wanted more. A compulsion to more deeply explore uncertainty and precariousness that fatefully gave birth to the expedition he calls BEYOND 7/2. His inspiration isn't fame, but pure adventure, buttressed by a conviction to land a blow to childhood obesity by raising $1 million on behalf of the Alliance For A Healthier Generation, a non-profit founded by the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation dedicated to helping kids to develop healthy habits. From his hippie upbringing to life at Yale, organic farming on Kauai, and the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual fortitude required to succeed in his world record attempt, this is an incredibly inspiring conversation with a young man courageously embracing fear to meet his absolute limits in search of meaning, place and giving back. We cover a lot of ground in today's confab, including: * Explorers Grand Slam history * the logistics behind Beyond 7/2 * how to manage fear, risk & unknowns * the difference between poles vs. peaks * climate change impact on the North Pole * the desire to combat childhood obesity * Colin's tragedy in Thailand * Colin's remarkable recovery * Colin's Olympic dream * the discipline of swimming as a springboard * lessons learned from world champions * physical/mental preparation * Colin's daily meditation routine Enjoy! Rich

So it's that process of having that big goal out there, but also those incremental steps along the way, which for me was challenging and powerful and tested every inch of me, but in the end really led to a beautiful outcome. For me, it's always been about the journey, about the adventure, and about living my passion, and that's been enough reward for me. That's adventure athlete Colin O'Brady, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how you doing? It's Rich Roll. I am your host. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. You know what I do here, right? Each week, I sit down with the best and the brightest across all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition, fitness, entrepreneurship, spirituality. In the case of today's guest, adventure sports. Why do I do this? To help you guys unlock and unleash your best, most authentic selves. So thank you for tuning in today, for subscribing on iTunes, for always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. I'm continuing this new trend of doing the intro without any script whatsoever, winging it. It makes me very uncomfortable, nervous. This might be a little rough around the edges, but people seem to like

it last week for the most part. So I'm going to give it a stab again and we'll just see how it goes. One thing I want to comment on before I get into today's guest is 2016 for me is going to be a lot about video. I have committed to uploading one new YouTube video a week. I'm also doubling down on Snapchat. I've been doing a lot on Snapchat around morning routines. You can find me there at IamRichRoll. Why am I doing this? Well, video has always been a very underdeveloped aspect of the advocacy work that I do. And I've just made this decision that for 2016, I want to explore that and really develop that. It does not mean that I'm going to reduce my attention to the podcast. If anything, I'm doubling down on the podcast. So this has nothing to do with the podcast. The podcast will always be the podcast. I'm just as excited,

if not more excited about the podcast than I ever have been. So no worries there. Okay, today's guest, Colin O'Brady, very interesting guy, pro triathlete, adventure athlete. He's got a very compelling, unique story. Basically, this is a guy who, when he graduated from Yale, I severely burned, sustaining injuries that covered about a quarter of his entire body. And there was some speculation that he may never walk again normally. And as he was convalescing in the hospital in Asia, he made a commitment to himself that someday he would do a triathlon. And not only does he learn how to walk again, and not only does he ultimately complete a triathlon, he actually wins the amateur division of the Chicago Triathlon in 2009, just one year after his accident, and literally only months after he began to actually train with any direction whatsoever. It was essentially his very first triathlon. At the time, he's this commodities trader in Chicago, and literally overnight, he quits his job and he's on a plane to Australia to pursue a career as a pro triathlete.

And his dream of becoming an Olympian, which is like this crazy, unbelievable story, right? So over the last five years, he's fared pretty well racing all over the world on the ITU circuit, but he started to feel like there was something missing in his life. And that's when he dreams up this crazy Explorers Grand Slam challenge to become the fastest person and the youngest person to climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents and trek to both the South and the North Poles. Only 42 people in documented history have actually accomplished this. Only two have done it in under a year. And Colin is striving to get it done in just over five months. And along the way, he's attempting to raise a million dollars in charity to combat childhood obesity. So this is a crazy, amazing story. I want to get much more into Colin

and his adventure in a minute. But before we do that. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately,

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All right, so I sat down with Colin, I think it was the second week of December. Yeah, it was December 10th to hear all about his life and this amazing challenge. It's a challenge he calls Beyond 7-2, which literally just began January 1. When I sat down with him, he was in the final days of getting ready before departing for Antarctica to tackle the first challenge, which is skiing to the South Pole. And I checked in with his fiance today to get an update because I wanted to be completely contemporaneous with where he's at now leading into this podcast. And it looks like he is going to reach the South Pole on either Saturday, January 9th, or more likely Sunday, January 10th. So literally by the time you're listening to this, he will have accomplished that first goal. Apparently, he's traveled about 44 miles from the drop-off point.

He's still got 16 to go. It's an average of negative 28 degrees. I assume that's Celsius. it's an average of negative 28 degrees i assume that's celsius and once he completes uh reaching the south pole he's going to go direct to mount vincent without any rest days whatsoever apparently they're already behind schedule due to bad weather that delayed the start during the first week in antarctica so anyway i'm going to stop bearing the lead uh let's just hear from colin all right should we do that let him tell us the story instead of me let's do that

get the full setup now you heard you heard the very first one i think so i think so yeah yeah someone turned me on to it when i was there on kawaii and i think you did you do the first one there i did yeah we were uh We were living at Common Ground. Yeah, yeah. Which you know, right? Five minutes from my dad's house. That's crazy. So your dad has an organic farm on the North Shore. Yeah, yeah.

Has he always had that? He's been there since 1999. So yeah, my sisters were raised on Kauai, my stepsisters. And then they left to go to the mainland because the public schools weren't weren't great there so they came to the mainland and that's when their mom met my dad and we're right about the same age so i was uh you know i guess 13 when that all happened and so i must have shook things up a little bit yeah for sure um but it ended up being great because my sister uh there were a couple two sisters on board from that crew.

But, yeah, my sister ended up coming, being the exact same age as me in school. Now I was married to my childhood best friend, actually, and they have two kids. Wow. That's exciting. But as far as Kauai, it was great because my stepmom always planned to go back to Kauai. It was just to come to the mainland of Portland, Oregon, where I grew up just for them to finish high school. And so, yeah. So we ended up spending a ton of time

over there, and my parents moved over there, and it was great for me. It assimilated in the community immediately because you've got siblings who are the same age right there, so it can be a little bit tough in Hawaii to do that immediately. Yeah, I mean, the North Shore of Hawaii is its

own universe, man. And like trying to like penetrate the social structure there is tricky. It's like most people, they go to Hawaii on vacation. When you're living there, it's very different. And there's an island mentality that can take a little bit of time and patience to connect with. Yeah. Yeah. No. To put it in a political that's that's being kind no it's a it's a beautiful place it's paradise for sure but like you said so many people just see it from the tourist perspective so to really get that local perspective on it and have that you know feel like my second home now and have my dad be a a farmer there he's got a beautiful small small plot but a beautiful piece of land out there just not far out inside of Kilauea which is not far

from common ground where you guys were. And yeah, it's amazing. It's just paradise. Yeah, that's really cool. So what does he grow there? So much stuff. I guess he's most known for his white pineapples, onions, but really he has the gammon. I mean, he's got all the greens, you know, bok choy, chard, so many different types of kale, apple bananas, papayas, I mean you

name it, three different types of avocados, lemons, lime, I mean everything. That's cool, so is he able to make it work as a business? Yeah, yeah he is. So he's at the farmers markets, there's the one right by Common Ground there just across the gas station from Kilauea, as well as he's at the Kilauea farmers market and then a bunch of the restaurants in town source a lot of their local produce and stuff from him. So, yeah, he's been able to make it work for himself. It's a labor of love, farming. It's a lot of hard work.

Yeah, it's not easy. He's got woofers out there, which is people that help to work on the farm and live there and try to share the lifestyle. So it's kind of a communal whole vibe going on there, which is pretty cool. The woofer lifestyle is like a – Well, when we were living at common ground we were sharing yurts with a bunch of yes yes and uh and it was interesting because a lot of them had like graduate degrees in permaculture like they're not just like hippie dropouts like they're into it like they've studied it they understand it they're passionate about you

know organic farming and they understand it on like a whole nother level oh for sure which is really cool because for my dad, I think when he first started this 15 years ago or whatever, he thought, oh, it's going to just be like these surfers coming through, kind of need a place to stay, do a little work here and there. And we've had a few people come through like that, which has been totally great, but he's really realized that there's some people, like you said, that have formal background in this,

really mature in their training and understanding of this and really want to like learn even more depth of organic farming so he's had some of his people on his farm lots of one two three years days like really established community there rather than this you know there's still a bit of a transient that but you know he likes that he's got this whole community so yeah it's called alana farm it's a cool little place uh definitely definitely awesome did you like email me a long time ago like i feel like i remember there was somebody who me a long time ago like i feel like i remember there was somebody who is a professional triathlete who like maybe around the like right around the time we left yeah i think this is what i'm saying i think i got turned on i heard your

podcast and you guys have been on kawaii i think i may have tweeted to you like oh man it's awesome you're starting this podcast like i'm a pro triathlete on kawaii like we should talk at some point like whatever yeah and you were like blogging from, you know, training. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Training, being on the farm, you know, eating the fresh food, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I feel like our universes have been circling each other for quite some time. I'm sure we have quite an overlap of people that we know and all that kind of stuff. For sure.

It's fun to finally sit down with you and have a chat, have it out. Awesome. Thanks for making the time. Oh, my pleasure. It's an exciting time for you. You're on the precipice of launching into perhaps the greatest adventure

you could ever conceptualize. Yeah, absolutely. How are you feeling? Feeling good, man. You know, obviously, we'll get into the depths of what it really means, but, you know,

we dreamed up this project about 18 months ago now, my fiance and I, Jenna. So she's kind of my rock in all of this. We kind of do everything together. She's been on the road with me as a professional triathlete for a long time, kind of just managing all the logistics and all the various other pieces in the background that go on. And yeah, we dreamed up this project. So in 15 days from now, actually, I embarked to set off to hopefully set a world record to go to the – climb the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents as well as go on an expedition both the North Pole and the South Pole.

Right. So let's dissect this. Yes. You're calling it Beyond 7-2. Exactly. The 7 is for the seven summits and the 2 is for the two poles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so so the idea is to be the fastest as well as the youngest person to ever tackle all seven summits and both polls.

Yeah. And there's only been 42 people who have ever done that. Done that. Yeah. Yeah. And how old is the youngest person who's ever done it? I'm not sure. I think it's about 37, 38 is the youngest. I'm third. Just I'm 30 I'll be daughter and 31 during the project so significantly younger than the average person but of the 42 people that have done it you know most of those people have done it you know it's a great lifetime achievement over the course of their five years 10 years 15 years or something like that you know only one of these expeditions piece by piece to have done it in under a year exactly that's it exactly you're trying to do it in six months yeah so the. That's it. Exactly. And you're trying to

do it in six months. Yeah. So the record that I'm after is six months, 11 days is the duration. So hopefully under that, but the way we have it scheduled now, if everything goes to plan, which of course it won't go, I'll go to plan. But if it did all go to plan, we do it in about five weeks, five months, excuse me, five months. So you've got a little bit of buffer. Yeah. You've built in like five weeks of buffer. Yeah, exactly. And, and of the two that have done it in, uh, in under a year, what's the fastest, what's the current record? The current record, six months, 11 days. So that was a guy, a Welsh guy named Richard Parks, um, who did that in 2011. And then the other person is a American woman named Vanessa O'Brien, who's from Boston. So,

um, I've never had had much interaction with Richard, but Vanessa has actually been a great mentor to help me kind of figure out some of the bits and pieces and the insane logistics and all that that it takes to do all these things back to back. So that's been useful. Yeah, I mean, this is no small thing. I would imagine the planning alone has taken you the full 18 months. And in order to – let's say you do break the record.

To verify that, are there sort of, like, things that you have to have in place in order for it to be legit? Yeah, it's funny. You know, mountaineering has a storied history around this, and obviously there's been some controversial summits and things over time or disputed summits. For the most part, it's a gentleman's game. You know, it's different than, you know,

traditional professional sport like triathlon or something like that, which there's a gentleman's game. You know, there's a, it's different than, you know, professional, traditional professional sport like triathlon or something like that, which there's a governing body and all those sorts of things, you know, mountaineering doesn't quite have that. Um, but the mountaineering community is very strong in that. So, you know, what we're going to do is really, we're going to try to engage our audience fully in real time through this whole project, through, you know, being on sat phone, being on GPS, posting photos every day, all that sort of stuff. So there's going to be quite a bit of documentation that should, you know, be pretty obvious and

evident that I did these things. But there are also, you know, I know Vanessa when she did it, she also holds the record for the women's fastest, women's fastest for seven summits as well. And for Guinness to approve that she has certificates from each mountain that actually the people that are there certify that. So we'll make sure to do as much of that as we can to make sure it's as legit as it possibly can be, obviously. Right. When you get Guinness involved, then it becomes a trickier thing because they have all kinds of extra requirements, and they also want you to pay them. Yes, it's a whole other thing.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, let's break it down. So the first challenge in the 7-2 is the South Pole, right? Are you going to go directly from L.A. to there? No, so I'm from Portland, Oregon. Been living around the world the past five years, being a professional triathlete, lived all over the place,

raced in 25 different countries, six different continents, been a bit of a whirlwind, an amazing whirlwind at that. But when we dreamed up this project and knew we were kind of taking a little bit of a pivot, decided to return home full-time to Portland, Oregon. Traveled a bit still this year for racing, but Portland's been home-based. So I'll head back to Portland from L.A. for a couple weeks after this, and then I'm off on Christmas Day for Antarctica and start with the South Pole. Yeah, it's quickly getting real.

Yeah, it is. It is. It's crazy. It's like a year and a half in the dreaming. You know this from preparing for big events and stuff like this. So much of it is really just getting yourself... Yeah, but not like this. This is a different universe. Yeah.

So just getting to the start line has been as big a challenge as anything. Really, the journey and the process of that has been no small feat to get us here. So I'm proud that we're on the precipice of really making this dream a reality and all that goes behind it and the cause and everything that we've got going. Yeah, and we're going to get into all of that. But to begin, so how many people are traveling with you? Like what does the entourage, the crew support look like?

Yeah, it really is. It's different from peak to peak. There's no one person who's with me throughout the entire journey um jenna like i said being being my rock also the executive director of organization she really is the one person who i'll have continuity with not in person the whole time but daily contact with to facilitate a lot of this um and then at each individual mountain i have different people coming in um so for example, on the South Pole and Mount Vinson, which are the first two, Mount Vinson's the tallest mountain in Antarctica, and then the South Pole Trek. I'm just going through a company called Alpine Ascent. It's just a logistics coordinator, you know, a guiding service.

And I'm trying to do most of these, you know, independently on my own and whatnot, to not be in that sort of formally guided context. It's not the way I want to do this, the ethic I trying to do most of these independently on my own and whatnot to not be in that sort of formally guided context. It's not the way I want to do this, the ethic I want to do it, but Antarctica being as logistically challenging as it is, as prohibitively expensive as it is, all these sorts of things, the path of least resistance is to just go through the kind of formal context that is established down there. So I'll be with three other people on the South Pole Trek and about five other people, and the guy who I'll be doing the South Pole Trek with, one of the

reasons I want to do it with this organization, is actually the guy who, a guy named Vern Tejas, who holds the current record for the seven summits, not the seven summits and the poles, but the seven summits. So a lot of knowledge and expertise there, a good way to kind of kick things off for sure. That's a good guy to have on board, I think, right? Yeah, but then as we get further along into the trip, really so the next phase is Aconcagua, which is in Argentina, and a climbing partner of mine, an Ecuadorian guy, who's a good friend of mine, is joining me on that.

So it'll just be myself half the time, and then he's coming to meet me for the summit push. And Kilimanjaro will be just me um out there and uh then uh on everest and karsten's pyramid i've teamed up uh with a woman named masha gordon who's someone who i met uh while i was working or while i was training in nepal i was on an expedition in nepal not long ago training for all this um she's a really strong climber there and so her and i are going to team up for those so we kind of have used some of the overarching logistics of some of these people over there, but we'll be climbing independently on those mountains.

And then last but not least, Denali. I'll be with a childhood friend of mine, a guy named Tucker Cunningham, who's going to meet up with me. He lives in Bozeman, Montana. He's a very experienced mountaineer guide, ski mountaineer and all this. So him and I are going to team up to finish it up with Denali. It'll be great to be there. Hopefully that's when we're setting the record so it'll be be up there with a good 20 year long friend of mine. Finishing this thing up will be great. So it's kind of nice.

I've got different people coming in at different legs that are going to still be fresh. And obviously as this goes on, I'll be probably the cumulative fatigue will be adding up and all sorts of that. So it's nice to have new blood sort of inserted in different pieces. And then there's a few small breaks in there, not a ton. And that's all, of course, weather and logistic permitting. But Jenna will be able to come meet me up on a couple of those places and base camps and stuff in the interim. So that will be nice just from as much as a physical challenge

as the emotional challenge and having those, you know, recharge energy from the positive vibe of that will be huge. Right, right, right. So what's the scariest part of this for you? Like what's the one aspect of this that you're a little bit like, I don't know, man. I mean, is it Everest? Yeah, no, I mean, that's a good question. I think that there's certainly a lot of fears, of course, a lot of confidence as well.

I think the biggest thing that can derail this, other than some silly injury or something, is there's a few things we can't control in this. Like I said, we've poured our lives into this mission and this thing, and a few things like weather has to go away. Obviously, we can have some bad weather and sit out some storms and stuff like that, but there's a certain point where there was no one or somebody at Everest this past year because of the avalanche and the devastation of the earthquake in Nepal and stuff like that. But there's a certain point where, you know, there was no one or somebody at Everest this past year because of the avalanche and the devastation of the earthquake in Nepal

and stuff like that. And, of course, we're not hoping for anything like that to happen. But, you know, stuff like that is just out of your control, bad luck. So I don't know if that's worth being fearful or anxious about, but it certainly, you know, plays on your mind. Yeah, those are things you can't control. Yeah, yeah. And you've built in this five-week buffer to account for that, I would imagine.

But, you know, there's probably going to be moments where you're going to want to go. You know, the clock's ticking and, you know, the weather, you know, it's going to be that decision of should we go, should we not go, should we wait? You know, I would imagine you'll find yourself in that position. Certainly. You know, and so much of mountaineering is gauging that risk and being comfortable taking certain risks, but also, you know, being smart about what you do. So for me, of course, I'd love to set this record, you know, that's a big goal of this project, as well as our charitable endeavors with this project, you know, to inspire kids to be outside

and be healthy, but really, you know, coming home safely with all my fingers and toes that that's obviously first and foremost, number one priority. you've got to put that in perspective. And it's been good to sit down with my family, friends, Jenna, and have those conversations while I'm sitting here at sea level and thinking completely straight to realize that there's going to be maybe some tough decisions along this road and to make the right decisions when I'm out there. So that's a huge part of this. Like I said, I'm a competitive guy. I come from a competitive sporting background and whatnot. you know this is you know something that I'm

hoping to achieve but I realize that there's you know dangers and risks and there's you know certain things and I'm not willing you know to risk just to achieve this goal yeah what's the biggest difference between scaling the peaks and the two pole uh yeah no that's the two poles I mean those are different very different very different so you know i've got a quite a bit of background in mountaineering having grown up in portland oregon amidst the cascades climbed a ton growing up and i've been fortunate enough to intersperse through my triathlon training of going off to different peaks around the world and that so but the polar travel was something that'll be entirely new for me. Really what it is for this record, the Explorers Grand Slam World Record,

it's basically going the last degree of latitude to both of the poles. So that means you're basically dropped off at the 89th degree, which is 69 miles from the pole. And then from there you're not resupplied or supported. So basically you have to have all your gear in a sled behind you, which starts out at around 100 pounds. And Um, and you're on cross country skis and you're basically pulling the sled across the cold, desolate polar regions. Um, so that's really more of a, it's different. There's, there's a few technical aspects in it, but for the most part,

that's really just long endurance days and during the cold, and during pulling this heavy sled hour after hour after hour and to, you know, get there and navigate to the pole. So that's very different in scope than what the mountaineering challenges are. Are there landmarks along the way? Like, I mean, I assume when you actually reach the pole, there's some there's something there to tell you that you're in the right place. But are there like way stops along the way? There aren't. So there's nowhere that you're resupplied. I mean, from what my understanding is, I've never been to Antarctica. I'm really looking forward to that.

But, you know, you get dropped off and you look in all directions and it's basically white. You know, Antarctica, people don't normally think about this, but Antarctica is actually the largest desert in the world. It doesn't actually snow that much there, but when it snows, it never melts, right? And so in that case, you're just going there but there is uh people have probably seen this photo of uh like this silver globe that's at the south pole so then it's come to flagron so that's actually a permanent landmark um there so you know you've arrived then or the north pole is kind of this funny other thing it's not a continent it's just floating ice right and it's always moving and so you're actually when you're in the north pole um it's very different. And so you're actually, when you're in the North Pole,

it's very different than Antarctica. So the North Pole, you're moving across floating ice, which means that on any given day, when you try to go these 69 miles, you could hypothetically go to bed in your tent and wake up and realize that the drift has pushed you back five miles. Right, right, right. Or it could put you forward a few miles, you know, and it's probably a little bit of both is ultimately what will happen. So much more reliant on GPS. Yeah. And the funny thing about it is when you get there, there's no, you know, it's really the North Pole is a point at the bottom of the ocean in this case.

There's no continent there. There's no landmass. And so you can be standing at the North Pole. It looks just like everything else. And then, you know, five minutes later, you look at GPS like, oh, no, it's over there now. and then you know five minutes later you look at gps like oh no it's over there now um so it's kind of this like strange moving target uh very different than arriving at the top of a mountain or even at the south pole where you're you know there's a sort of a landmark there the north pole is kind of just a point in a momentary space of time that you're sort of passing through as you

float over it so it's kind of an interesting one has has global climate change like impacted how people approach the poles or specifically the North Pole? Yeah, specifically the North Pole for sure. My understanding is, so interestingly enough, this might be obvious once I say it, but it's something I had to learn that there's only one sunrise and one sunset at the pole each year, right? Of course, it stays, you know, be like permanent sunrise or permanent sunset for a month or something as the sun's coming up or going down, kind of that twilight phase. But as a result of global warming, from what people have told me up at the North Pole, that the season is getting shorter and shorter and shorter for being able to be on the ice.

So one of the big challenges of this project actually is to be, you know, at the North Pole. I need to start the first earliest I can get there from the first sunrise is basically the earliest part of April, about April 4th, when I'll be flying out there. And the season ends three and a half weeks later. So unless you're willing to be in the polar regions when it's complete darkness, it's melting out too quickly. Big open leads are coming up, and that's just the Arctic Ocean below you.

So it's not a place you necessarily want to be. And you wouldn't even be able to get to it because it's water. Exactly. Exactly. So it's obviously not good for the planet that we're seeing that. And from just an explorer and scientific perspective, what people have said, of course, this will be my first time up there. But from all the sort of experts that I've drawn on to build this campaign have told me, yeah, it's changing fast. So who knows how much longer people will be able to do that.

Hopefully, you know, we can reverse those trends and, you know, we can continue to explore this region of the world. But it's apparently changing very fast. And amongst the peaks that you have to scale, you know, what's the most technically difficult peak? Yeah, I think, well, Karsten's Pyramid, which is in Indonesia, is a truly technical rock climbing spire. So it includes like a Turalyon Traverse where you actually have to take ropes across a massive opening as well as a few technical rock climbing moves.

So from that perspective, that's fairly technical. From a true mountaineering perspective, I would say what you're going to see on Denali, most people might consider more technical than Everest because Everest of course has the fixed ropes on the main route um and I'm also looking to potentially climb uh the west rib route rather than the west bustrous on Denali which is off of this kind of standard route a different route so that'll make that a bit more technically challenging for that so I think um you know it may it might well be Everest if you didn't have the fixed ropes but you have the fixed ropes that really diminishes some of the risk with the technical nature. But they're all really very different mountains from each other. You know, each one has its own sort of big challenge.

You know, Aconcagua is not particularly technical in any regard, but it's almost 23,000 feet, you know, the tallest mountain outside of the Himalayas. So, you know, that in itself is challenging. So there's really, you know, different pieces that are challenging for sure. And are you using oxygen for all of these? No, only Everest. Everest will be the only one I use oxygen for. Yeah. So that's, I think, necessary on Everest, particularly because I'm doing these so quickly back to back. But no, no other ones will I be using oxygen. One of the, actually, just coming back to one of your original questions, one of my biggest fears for sure is what I'm thinking of

is the last third of this project, but that's the North Pole, Everest, and Denali. Those are the final three. And speaking about the sort of the time when you can get to the North Pole, April 4th is the earliest I can start the North Pole, and that's going to take me about 10 or so days to get there from the last degree. So I'm not leaving the North Pole until April 15th. Now, most people start their expedition around April 1st. So best case scenario, I'm two plus weeks behind the normal acclimatization schedule that's happening in Everest. And, of course, as we just talked about, the North Pole is floating above the water. So it's truly at sea level.

is floating above the water. So it's truly at sea level. So there's, even though I'll be acclimatized from some of the previous mountains, I'll lose a bit of that in sort of the most crucial acclimatization period. So one of my fears for sure is with Everest that I'm cutting it pretty close, you know, in terms of the amount of time that I'll be able to spend on the mountain in preparation, because of course you need to be there for weeks at a time to get your blood ready to acclimatize. And I assume you figured out this is the most efficient schedule, right? Yes, yes. It still has these really narrow time windows for you to get it done. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there's really only, if you want to do it under six months, this is really the only way to do it. There's a few of those other ones. Denali, Everest, North and South Pole really need to hit the weather windows. You can kind of move Carson's Pyramid. You can kind of move Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus around to Russia a little bit, you know, in there where the schedule fits. But those other ones have pretty specific windows that, I mean, you're not going to the South Pole in June. It's the middle of winter. It's, you know, minus 100 there.

So, you know, that's not happening. Everest really is only climbed in the pre-monsoon in that mid-May, you know, period of time. And then the North Pole has a very small window, like I said. So, yeah, there's kind of like a really pretty specific way in which you need to do it. We've kind of thought through it as many different ways as we could and kind of keep coming back to it. This is the only way to do it in the way we want to do it. And you're basically going to travel from one to the next. It's not like you're going to come back to the U.S.

No, when I leave on the 25th of December, I'm not coming planned to be back in the U.S. No, when I leave on the 25th of December, I'm not coming planned to be back in the U.S. at all until I'm on Denali, which will be the last peak of the mall in June. So yeah, it's pretty much my downtime, if you will, is a 20-hour international flight to the next destination more than anything. And I assume, or at least

I hope, that you're making a documentary out of this. It's going to be documented. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for us, so much of of this project and I think you'll probably ask me about it but you know I want to talk about the cause behind this because really the charitable element of this is a huge piece of it which is you know inspiring kids and combating the childhood obesity epidemic and raising money around that but a huge piece of that is also the awareness piece you know we want to document this project we think you, telling this story in real

time is, you know, really a special way to share this story and share the narrative of behind this. So yeah, we have a documentary filmmaker, a production company out of the Bay Area called Treplife is kind of, you know, spearheading the documentary efforts on this project, which would be great. And then in addition to that, you know, I plan to tell this story just through my own social media channels through our own media channels. So at beyond underscore seven, two is our handle. And, you know, with through sat phone technology, through satellites, all that sort of stuff, we, you know, have the ability to tell that story, which is cool, because, you know, even, you know, certainly 10 or more years ago, but even five years ago, that technology didn't necessarily exist, people would leave, you know, certainly, you know even you know certainly 10 or more years ago but even five years ago that technology didn't necessarily exist people would leave you know certainly you know the history of

expeditions over the years have been someone saying hey we're going to do this and then coming back three or six or five months later and say hey i did this and this is what happened and so it's pretty remarkable that you know we can kind of tell this story day by day which is we plan to do which i think will be a fun way to engage the audience as well. Very cool. Can you like, how does sat phones work? Can you,

can you like configure an iPhone to be a set? I mean, I'm thinking like, can you periscope from a sat phone? Like, yeah. So there's a couple, there's a couple of different ways that it works.

So the, the most challenging places believe they're not are the poles because the satellites usually fly around the equator. And so the poles don't pick up the best service. So there is a kind of a one way to do it, but it's not great. So it kind of needs to be really low resolution images, very small files to be able to be sent. But the rest of the time, I'm actually going to be carrying basically a small little wireless satellite modem with me um which you know is it comes at an expense to do this but we think it's worth it for the project and apparently i'm able to facetime i'm able to you know send short video clips i don't know about periscope that

might totally overload the system um but it's worth it's worth trying for sure um so you know that's something we gotta we gotta kind of make sure it works and everything but yeah i mean it's it's pretty amazing what you can do now through through this technology and it's like again i think it's closer to a dial-up speed than what we're accustomed to but yeah bluetooth to an iphone and you can send photos that way and take photographs and all that sort of stuff which is pretty i mean it's amazing comparing how remote some of these places are that you can even have that access. And people can participate in the journey in real time. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's what we really want.

And then this other thing I'm carrying with me is a small device called a Delorme InReach, which basically connects to satellites but Bluetooth to my iPhone that allows me to text. Again, simple text, 160-character type of things, tweets and text. But just to be able to have that, to be able to talk back to Jenna or to home or hopefully the people that are engaging with this project, have some people, you know, reach out or shout out or, you know, family reach out when I'm having a tough day. All that, you know, will make a big difference to all this for sure. So I'm grateful for that. All right. So what is why are you doing this?

Like what inspired this? You know, how did you come up with this idea? And, like, what's it all about for you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, the biggest thing is, we'd have to take it back eight years, I think, really, to where this all began. This whole journey in endurance sports, you know, began for me. You know, I'd been an elite athlete you know my whole life had swam in college obviously you so you swam late to that you swam you you grew up swimming

in high school swimming in portland yeah you swam for multnomah no i swam for a smaller team called ppst portland park swim team which is now known as portland aquatic club but just like a small local team but the mac yeah multnomah athletic club where a lot of guys oh yeah yeah that's a big big machine cranking out some great athletes here and then you're out for sure and then you uh so you took your talents to yale i did i took my talents to yale was was is frank keith still the co-chair thank you i love you frank if you're out there but thankfully he is past the baton down a guy named tim wise is now the head coach there, who was my assistant coach when I was there. So I still know him real well. And actually we talk frequently. Right. But Frank was the coach when I was there. Yeah. So for people who don't know the swimming world, obviously, Rich, you do, but... Yeah. Well, I mean, Frank's

a legend. He's been the coach at Yale forever and ever and ever. There used to be this thing called the National Sports Festival when I was in high school. And it was sort of like a mini Olympics, but just in the United States. And they would divide the U.S. up into north, south, east, and west. And my senior year in high school, I made the east team. And Frank was the head coach of that, so I met him that way. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, he was a big name in northeast swimming for a long time.

He was assistant Olympic coach in the 1984 Olympics. I think he coached Yale all up for just under 40 years, 35 years maybe. It was in the 30-year range when I was there. Then he stayed on another five-plus years after I graduated. Been around a long time, absolute legend of a coach. I swam under him for four years at Yale. You swam breaststroke? Yeah, I was a breaststroke swimmer.

Exactly. Exactly. So and then after that, you know, I kind of just like, you know, most people, I think at the end of their collegiate swimming career, unless they're going to go on, you know, to make an Olympic Games or something like that, it's kind of end of your athletic career for most people. And I certainly thought I fell into that category for sure. And having an economics degree, I sort of thought my next step would be to go work on Wall Street in some capacity, although that never felt like the perfect fit for me. It just kind of seemed like the path that I was on. That's what you do, man. You graduated from Yale, you got an economics degree, like that's your option. Yeah, that is true. It's funny though, because growing up in Portland, Oregon,

until I was exposed to living on the East Coast, I went to Yale when I was 17. I was young out of high school. And just going out there from this West Coast, you know, organic farming, family, natural foods, co-op, all this, it was a trip for me. It took me a while to adjust to that East Coast mentality. You didn't come from Phillips, Andover, or Deerfield. Yeah, I didn't. You didn't come from Phillips Andover or Deerfield. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't come from prep school. So, you know, a lot of my best friends now are from that subset. Of course, I made great friends out there in the end, but it was a whole new world for me going out there. And I didn't even think I knew what investment banking was before I started school. But of course, you know, in that environment, you're, you know, quickly swept up in that environment.

But of course, in that environment, you're quickly swept up in that environment. But I think also my Portland roots and just my curiousness about the world and all that said, you know what? You got to go travel. I'm 21 when I graduated from school. And everyone was taking these jobs. And maybe there was a lot of money to be had. I had not much. I had a few thousand dollars saved up in my bank account from painting houses in the summer

with my buddy. That's what I did instead of taking these fancy internships and decided, hey, you know, I'm going to go see a bit of the world for a year before I, you know, kind of settle into what I think my career might be. And so I, like I said, scraped a few pennies together and took a surfboard and a backpack and just set out by myself to travel all over the world and just, you know, hostel to hostel and basically just kind of surfing and seeing what was out there. It wasn't glamorous, but it was certainly a wonderful time in life, you know, staying in hostels and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but, you know, meeting tons of people and having a great time. That's like the, I mean, your parents must be hippies, right?

Yeah, pretty much. Full on. Huge. Well, you didn't even say your mom owns natural food markets? Yeah, my mom, my stepdad co-founded a natural foods chain called New Seasons Market in Portland, so it's kind of like a

local version of Whole Foods. So yeah, the words sustainable and local and all these things were thrown around my house in the 80s until the rest of the world started to hear those words until the mid-2000s, maybe. So yeah, it was a hippie upbringing. I didn't hear those words until the mid-2000s maybe. So yeah, it was a hippie upbringing. I was actually, to put it full into perspective,

my mom was in school in Olympia, Washington when she had me at Evergreen State College. Her and my father were married at that point, but she was young. And I was born on a hippie commune with about 20 people watching my home birth. And Bob Marley's Redemption song was playing on repeat throughout the entire through the entire thing so that's kind of how I entered the world as you can getting the picture there was

a like I said how did you not end up at like you see Santa Cruz well I might have been a better fit it might have been a better fit so extend this sort of East Coast mentality sort of thrown in there at age 17 was a whole whole different thing for me it actually took me a couple years to really adjust to it actually halfway through i uh took a semester off yale does not allow you to get credits for this but i took a semester off to go to patagonia do a knolls course down there where i spent three months sea kayaking mountaineering and all sorts of stuff and i went back and finished my degree which for me was just a much-needed kind of break,

but definitely a break from the – so I think I've been like, you know, kind of had this in my mind. Yeah, sort of this dualistic, dual life kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. So hold on. Real quick aside because it just popped in my head. When you were at Yale, did you swim with uh who's the guy who became the truck driver and uh and now he's like inspiring uh truck drivers to get he like changes his name i'm gonna now i feel bad because i can't remember his name right now i'm trying to get him on the podcast

basically he swam at yale and uh and then he like disappeared and nobody had talked to him for a very long time smart young guy or whatever And he ended up becoming like a truck driver because he just loved like seeing the US and having his own schedule. How old is he about? I don't know. Younger than you? He might be a little bit older than you.

Okay. Yeah, I think so. I want to know about this guy. Sounds awesome. Well, I'll put links in the show notes to it and when we're done with this, we'll look online and figure the whole thing out. It's actually an amazing story. Yeah, no, it sounds amazing.

All right, so you're having your Leonardo DiCaprio, the beach sort of experience in Southeast Asia. Yes, yes. And so, yeah, the trip had been going well so far. I actually met Jenna, who is now my fiance, on a beach in Fiji, you know, so things were going pretty darn well on this trip so far, meeting tons of people. And then, yeah, I'm in Thailand on a small beach in Koh Tao, and kind of tragedy struck for me, and I was severely burned in a fire there. It was, you know, I grin when I say it, but I was partaking in what is somewhat common in Thailand, but fire dancing.

So I was jumping a flaming jump rope, which in retrospect, of course, hindsight is 20-20, not a smart thing to do. But lulled into a bit of a false sense of security, I suppose, by just how many people are participating in this and how common that is there and all that sorts of stuff. And the rope that night tripped me up and gas spread all the way up to my neck, lit my body completely on fire. So it's like they soaked the rope in kerosene, right? Lighted it on fire, and then it was still liquid. It was still wet, and it just got all over you. Yeah, imagine a big rope, like a 20-foot rope,

like you would jump when you were a kid out in the street with a different person holding on to either end and jumping in the middle. And somehow, it know, it always happened so fast. So I can't completely remember, but it somehow got tripped my legs. And I think the care excess kerosene splattered my clothing and that lit on fire. And before I knew it, there was basically fire to my neck. Um, and, uh, clothes like where you were in long pants or shorts. So I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but no shoes, which actually kind of saved me in a lot of regards that I had at least, you know, those clothes on because I

jumped in the ocean to put out the flames, which certainly saved my life. But as you can imagine, you know, in the 25% of your body, having been burned and jumping in a saltwater ocean is certainly not anything. The infection quotient. Yeah, the salt water, the pain, all that sort of stuff is a grim situation to say the least. And then I came out of the water and fortunately, like I said, I've been traveling by myself pretty much for most of this trip. But a good buddy of mine, David, the one who I mentioned is now married to my sister, happened to be there with me. And so, you know, he looked down, we both looked down at my legs and knew that we were in a pretty bad situation straight away. And my clothes were charred and kind of charred and crumpled, like when we're so we're expecting, you know, pretty bad situation. And so he calls over the first person at the hotel, hey, you know, we need some help here. And a guy pulls up on a moped,

you know, we're on a tiny little island, drives me down a dirt path on his moped to this tiny little, you know, hut, basically, which is the closest thing they have to a hospital. And it's, you know, a one room hut there. Um, fortunately they had a few of the basics, you know, penicillin morphine, um, but not much beyond that. And, uh, and are you like conscious through this whole thing? And I mean, how are you walking? Like, are you aware of how bad it is or how, I mean, I would imagine you're on a tremendous amount of pain. Yeah, I mean, the pain was unimaginable. It was horrible amount of pain. And you know, one of the things that happened when they did lie me down in this hospital bed is they cut my clothes off me because they were charred. And we were kind of all expecting to see, you know, burns on my chest burns everywhere, basically.

And, you know, to a great surprise, in a positive way, I was only burned basically mid-thigh down all the way to my feet, but where the clothes had been, shorts, T-shirt, there was no burn. So I had a small burn on my right hand, but pretty much it was severe second- and third-degree burns on both of my legs. So it was pretty bad, but it could have been, if it had been 50%, 60%, 70% burns, you just look up some of these statistics online in terms of burns in these countries and the infection rate and that, you know, you're facing a pretty life or death situation

at that point. But, you know, it's interesting. I was so scared and I was so fortunate to have, you know, David there with me. You know, they're starting to, you know, look after my wounds. I'm looking around and there's a tiny little shack in Thailand. And I said to him, I just, you know, he's like, I'm going to faint. I'm out of it. And I kind of grab hold of him at this one really intense moment. I said, David,

like, I need you right now. I need you with me right now. And you got to be my eyes, my ears. I can't tell what's going on and what's the infection. Are these needles clean? You know, all that sort of stuff. And just in a really, you know, sometimes these horrible things do some bring out the best or at least bring in these intense bonding moments. You know, he's been one of my closest childhood friends my entire life. But, you know, there was something that happened that where he just that moment, he switched on and was just so there for me in such an amazing way. You know, so much so that, you know, we're two, you know, young adults, 22, 23 years old at this point. And, you know, once they finally did get me, my legs bandaged,

were lying in there, and they said, they're not gonna, they're not gonna be able to take me to a true hospital which isn't even really much of a hospital at least on the next island over on Costa Mui until the morning they're gonna they can get a boat over there and all this sort of stuff it's gonna be 12 hours just lying there and finally once the adrenaline started to wear off I just broke down I was crying I was so scared and you know David actually you know got in bed beside of me and just held me through the night and said I don't know how we're gonna do this but we're gonna get through this, but we're going to get through this. I love you, and we're going to figure this out. But to your question, burns are a strange injury because I think as a kid growing up,

I'm sure you can relate to this, you break a bone, you skin a knee, sprain your ankle. Those are things you kind of have context for. But severe burns, unless you've been around an injury like that it's you don't i mean at least i didn't and i would imagine most people don't like oh yeah that's exactly the treatment looks like this and it takes this long and here's what you can expect and all that sort of stuff so that was a whole other crazy part of this because of the language barrier there there wasn't able to people were able to explain it to us as well and so there was a kind of a few days lag we're like this is bad but how bad is it yeah you know and are you do you have

cell phones i mean can you call your parents and tell them what's going on yeah so david we don't have cell phones there's traveling without a cell phone which is kind of funny to think but 2007 wasn't that long ago but or 2000 early 2008 um but yeah no no cell phones we had skype so he went and made a skype phone call to my mom called home said, here's where we are this. And that kind of brings to the next phase of what happened, which is my mother being amazing person. She is, you know, mama bear hops on a plane immediately to come fly over to, you know, look after me. But it still took her about four or five days to get over to where I was just with the travel and the time change and all that sort of stuff. So next morning, I was from this hut, I was taken, you know, back of a pickup

truck onto a boat, boat driven over to this other island, picked up there, taking the Koh Samui hospital. And then for the next eight days, I underwent surgery every day for the next eight days of them cleaning the wounds, and all this sorts of stuff. And kind of to paint the picture, I would come out in the ICU every day and wake up and there was literally a cat running around my bed in the ICU. So it wasn't, it was a pretty grim. They couldn't just get you directly to Bangkok? No.

So that was the thing. Obviously that's what we wanted. But, you know, one of the things, again, wouldn't have known about burns or whatever, but your body is just in such a fragile place that flying is pretty tough on your body. So of course, immediately we were like, how do we get back to the United States how do we this and they're like there's not a chance you're going to be in Thailand for a couple of months um so on the eighth day my mom finally convinced them to fly me one hour to Bangkok um which in my mind at the time although I was in so much pain I was like how could being in a plane be any different than

being in this hospital bed or whatever but they they were 100% right, which was just flying one hour was the absolute limit. I mean, it just wrecked me. I was already in such a bad place. And by the time I was in Bangkok, it was just a pretty grim scene. But that said, you know, Bangkok actually has amazing medical facilities, you know, some of the best in the world, medical tourism and all this sort of stuff. So by the eighth day, when I actually did arrive to Bangkok, I was, you know, really well taken care of, I think, from that point on. But it still was a couple of months in that hospital in Bangkok without taking a step, without walking. A couple of months.

Yeah. Wow. And they just have your legs dressed, and they're just changing the dress all the time. Exactly, dressed and bandaged. And the doctor would come in, so we didn't need any more surgeries by the time I was there. But they be like oh we come in again i hadn't taken a step and they'd come in you know every few days and change the bandages and more than anything my mom just kind of sat by my bedside and looked after me and uh yeah until i could

even when i left to go back to the united states i was uh i was um you know in a wheelchair carried onto the plane carried off the plane, I still hadn't taken a single step even by the time I got back home, you know, what was the what was the diagnosis in terms of like long term prognosis? Yeah, I mean, that's what was really scary. And that, you know, it's scary to look back at. But also, I look at it as a strangely a bittersweet, you know, turning point in my own life. You know, like I said, some of these horrible things can happen, but can also lead you into a different path that you never expected. Um, you know, for me, they had said to me, they said, you know, you may never walk again, at least not normally.

Um, you know, and because a lot of that had to do with the severeness of the burns over my joints. So knee joints, ankle joints, you know, that sort of stuff, you know, probably going to be regained the ability to be on my feet to some capacity. But with the scar tissue that can happen with these severe burns, you know, you really can lose a lot of mobility in that, you know, having been an athlete my whole life, being told that at 22 years old is, I mean, being told that at any age would be horrible, you know, but I'm just, my whole life I've been had in front of me and being told that was awful. And so, you know, my mother, as she's sitting by my bedside, you know, she admits now she was more or less just placating me, but she was just trying to keep me positive. What are we going to do next? How are we going to beat this thing? You know,

stuff like that, just kind of trying to pet me up. And we stumbled on this idea of, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to complete a triathlon. It wasn't, I'd never raced triathlon before. Obviously I've been a swimmer, soccer player in high school, swimmer in college, um, at a pretty high level, but you know, I'd never done triathlon, something I knew a little bit about. But in that hospital room, just kind of started like, what are the distances? What does that really mean? Where are the races? Yeah, just something to hang your hat on to give you a little bit of hope and kind of like forward trip.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously, you embody this for sure in your whole story. But being able to set those goals, incremental or whatnot, is really powerful. So for me, I set this goal, one day I want to complete a triathlon, but then that broke down into small things. After being carried off the plane in a wheelchair in my house back in Portland, in my mom's house, it was literally sitting in the wheelchair, and my mom put our kitchen chair two feet away from me.

And she said, all right, you wanted to complete a triathlon? Great. But your goal today is to get out of that wheelchair you're sitting in and move yourself to the chair that's two feet away, you know. So it's that process of having that big goal out there, but also those incremental steps along the way, which, you know, for me was challenging and powerful and tested every inch of me. was challenging and powerful and tested every inch of me. But in the end, really, you know, led to a beautiful outcome, which was, you know, 18 months after the accident, I had moved to Chicago and started doing what I thought I would be doing for a while, which is I started trading commodities there.

And about a year after the accident, I finally started to be able to actually train again, you know, be on my feet, jogging a little bit, joined a gym while I was working, that sort of stuff. And I signed up for the Chicago triathlon. And how long, how long after the accident before you could get up out of the wheelchair and walk around? It was, you know, three months until I could move around a little bit. It was another couple months until I felt like I could, you know, be on my feet, But it was a full year of being in compression garments, not exposing my skin to the sun. My skin was so fragile that literally if you just tapped into a chair, I mean, lightly just bumped into something, it would be immediately opened up, cut, wound. I mean, it was a very fragile situation.

Did they have to do grafts or how does it, what's the healing process? So often you have to have grafts. I'm not sure. For me, it was severe second degree, which doesn't always require grafts. And then third degree on my left foot where I've had, I've been in a Western hospital. It's possible out of it had some grafting there, but I didn't have any grafting. The, the blessing and a curse of the injury I had is severe second degree means that it's pretty much as deep of a burn as possible, but your skin will still regenerate from there. But all the nerve endings are fully exposed.

So it's actually the most painful type of burn. Severe third degree, of course, is so bad that your skin will never regenerate, which is why you need grafts. But it also is less painful because it's burned beyond the nerve endings. So it's kind of a blessing and a curse, if you will. So fortunately, I didn't have to have grafts. And I don't know, I, you know, I feel fortunate to have made a pretty remarkable recovery in terms of the scarring is, is not so bad. Obviously, I swim every day in my triathlon training, and it's certainly not the first thing someone would

notice. I mean, you can see if you look closely at my legs, and my left foot still pretty red and banged up, but it's not, it's not the first thing someone would notice. And, you know, compared to what my legs looked like for that year, I never thought it would, you know, be anything different than really bad. Right, I would imagine there was quite a bit of atrophy too. Yeah, I mean, my legs coming out of there were the size of my wrists basically. So you say when I got back on my feet, well, a few months later, I was able to kind of walk around again.

But, you know, think about running, think about doing a triathlon, riding a bike, any of those things was pretty unfathomable. You know, in my mind is funny, you know, me and my mom had a funny enough had a lot of fun together through this pretty tragic process. But I remember one day, when I could start to walk around again, I said to her, I was like, I think I could beat you in a race right now. She's like, Colin, come on a race. And I was like, yeah, like just down the block, like not far. But like, you know, she's she's like really you want to do a race right now she's like we're not doing this and i finally just kept at her you gotta race me down the block you gotta race me down the block and in my mind i was like i should be fine we get outside and i'm well i'm jogging what would

probably be like 15 minute per mile pace or something like that and i'm trying to go as hard as i possibly can go and she's like just jogging around and she's kind of taunting me at this point. And one of our neighbors who of course knows about this injury, who we were close to walks out their front door and sees my mom taunting me as we're running down the middle of the street. Like what's going on here? So that's amazing.

I mean, that really punctuates the kind of extraordinary arc from that place. You know, 25% of your body covered in burns, you know, barely able to that place, you know, 25% of your body covered in burns, you know, barely able to walk to, you know, thinking you're running fast at a 15-mile, you know, 15-minute mile pace to kind of what happens next

in this, you know, introduction to professional triathlon. It's kind of amazing, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a crazy arc. I mean, the thing that happened that, like I said, I put the Chicago triathlon on the calendar because I was living there in Chicago. But coincidentally, at that time, and I'm not sure if it still is, but it was the largest triathlon race in terms of participation. I think there was about four or 5000 participants in that race. And obviously, I just signed up in the normal amateur field to compete. And my goal was to finish my goal was to get across the finish line and certainly surprised the heck out of myself and many others when I crossed the finish line I had actually won the entire race rather than just, you know.

So you won the entire amateur division. The entire amateur division, exactly. Was your time faster than any of the pros? You know, I haven't looked at it. Come on. No, I haven't. It was right around two hours. So that's, you know, usually kind of

middle to back of the pack. The pro for Olympic distance is Olympic distance. But it's amazing. It's funny. In amateur triathlon, the races start in waves, as you obviously know. And particularly the Chicago triathlon, there's like 50 waves or something like that. And so you have no idea what place you are. So I'm just out there in my own head just trying to tick this box,

set this big goal for myself, and I'm pushing as hard as I can. And I trained. Once I could get my body going, I still took my swimming mentality into it, of course. I worked hard to get fit, but I didn't really know how I stacked up against others. And so when I crossed the finish line, it wasn't until about three hours later until everyone else had processed and they processed the results. So we looked up, and it was like, like oh you won this race like that's crazy did you did you have your own tt bike or did you borrow one like yeah i had met a couple guys at uh the gym i had been training at

this gym called east bank club in chicago and they had kind of you know brought me into the fold and said oh you got to try this bike so i did i had you know this guy lent me his bike and eventually sold it to me um you know through some pro deal that he had had and you know, this guy lent me his bike and eventually sold it to me, um, you know, through some pro deal that he had had and, you know, I had a disc wheel on there. So I had like a nice setup, but like, I didn't, I didn't know anything. I didn't know why this bike is faster than the other bike. What arrow, man, I didn't have like a dialed position perfectly, any of that stuff. It was just like, I was fortunate to have some cool gear, but I wasn't out there like, oh, at first I couldn't afford to like, just go buy some nice bike, you know?

So yeah, I did have a bike, you know, from, from some of those guys helped me out but uh yeah and and you did you ever run track like no like so you played soccer so that probably already made like because first just to like lay the foundation like swimmers are terrible runners yes usually you can't run you know what i mean but since you played soccer i would imagine you already had you know aptitude yeah maybe a lot of swimmers don't have. Yeah. So at the end of high school, I was recruited Division I for both swimming and soccer. And Division I sports being what they are and so intense, you kind of can't do both.

So I chose swimming over soccer. But I had been playing soccer at a pretty high level. And it is true, the athleticism of swimmers is not world-renowned. It's very specific. A funny aside, a kid named Alex Riggi came onto the Yale swim team my freshman year, and he eventually broke the American record in the 100 freestyle, 18.7 in the 50 free, 40 point in the 100. You know what that means, crazy, stupid fast.

I can't even relate to 40 points in the 100 free. And so he was a freshman when I was a senior and a couple of my buddies that I grew up with came out and we're visiting like this is my senior year and we were playing basketball in the spring and they're like we're playing just with the swim team plus my you know childhood friends and they're better than pretty much anyone out there these guys aren't athletes they're just normal guys they're like these guys are all like elite level athletes I was like yeah that kid there's American record holder this guy's this and he's like they're like, these guys are all elite-level athletes. I was like, yeah, that kid there is an American record holder. This guy is this.

And they're like, they're tripping over their own feet on the basketball court. Yeah, get them out of the water, and it's a disaster. So we always have fun. So, yeah, I guess I had a little bit of that extra athleticism than the average swimmer. I did. Growing up in Oregon, there's such a prolific track scene with Nike being right there and stuff like that. So I grew up. Galen Rupp grew up in my neighborhood. I didn't know him growing up, but, you know, you know, he was right there and there's a lot of other guys up and coming

kind of in that track scene. So, you know, through some of my coaches actually ran a couple of track workouts here and there for fun, but like I had never competed in running in any capacity, you know. you know so this is an eye-opener right like I mean you you figure out you won this race and then then what are you like holy shit like so yeah read reconfigure how you're gonna live your life like kind of you know what happened next was a fortuitous turn of events that really is remarkable. I had gotten to know some people in Chicago, friends of mine, and one guy who I got pretty close with him and his family was a guy named Brian Gelber, who's a world-renowned trader, has a big trading firm in Chicago called Gelber Group. And he actually was at a barbecue at his house coincidentally the same day I did this race, a family barbecue.

I think it was over, you know, just a summer barbecue. And he had been asking me, oh, what happened today? And, oh, well, I won the Chicago triathlon today. And so I wasn't working for him. I was working for a different trading firm at the time. But, you know, not long after that, it's like you said, I'm sort of reconfiguring my life. And, you know, he said, you know, hey, it's not a lucrative path. But if you're passionate about that, you know, I'd love to come on and be your first sponsor and, you know, support you down this path to see what you can go do with this, whether that's an Olympics or being a professional

athlete or, you know, whatever that means. You haven't even decided you want this as a career yet and you already have a sponsor. Well, I mean, I think it's funny because the universe is conspiring. My whole life as a kid, there's no doubt. Of course I wanted to be a professional athlete. Just growing up, I remember vividly watching the 92 Barcelona Olympics being seven years old, Pablo Morales swimming. You probably remember those names from your Stanford

days, right? Pablo and I swam together and went to law school together. Yeah, so for me, I was seven years old and thought of myself as a butterfly or more at that time, obviously turned into a breast joker, but, you know, he was a legend to me, you know, in, in that, in those, that period of time. And, you know, I, the longest I can remember wanted this dream, but having this kind of turn of events, you know, 18 months before that I was not walking. And then 18 months later, I'm someone saying you

can turn professional in this sport. You're good enough. And here's, you know, a little bit of financial backing to get you out of the gate. It was incredible. And, you know, and for me, it was, you know, people down the path and even now have asked me, you know, do you regret that decision? Was that the right decision? Because there's no doubt there was some of the guys that I was sitting there on the trading desk with that, you know, seven, eight years in the future now. Maybe I've made seven-fig figure bonuses and stuff like that. But there's not a day in my life where I've regretted that decision. It hasn't been, you know, financially glamorous, this path that I've had. But, you know, Brian Gelber has been a

willing supporter for a very long time. And including with this latest project, he's the primary supporter of that as well. So I mean, such a debt of gratitude to him and his family for supporting me early on. That's amazing. I mean, what does he get out of this? Other than being like, you know, a benefactor, like a beautiful benefactor of your life and a mentor. Yeah, I mean, he's been an incredible mentor. I'm close with his family. And you know, they're very special people to me, you know, even outside of this context there, you know, some of the more important special people in my life. And he has been, like you said, an amazing mentor to me. Interesting in his career, I don't want to speak for him too much here,

but he was an amazing trader in his own right and did very successful there. But the way he's run his firm now is that he doesn't trade anymore. He hasn't traded for a very long time, but he fashioned himself as a coach and a mentor for young traders up and coming who of course work for him. But there, you know, there's a sort of mentorship that he has built in there and a coaching philosophy. So him and I have had some amazing conversations over the years with certainly ups in my careers, but some major downs that I've had in my careers and setbacks and that sort of stuff. And, you know, he, he, he made that relationship between high performance, whether that's in business, whether that's on the sport, you know, field of play, whether that's in,

you know, parenting, many different aspects, you know, really, there's a lot of similar lessons. And so he's, you know, although, you know, he was never a professional athlete, you know, he was, you know, he ran a high school and, you know, did some stuff like that. But, you know, really, even from his business, you know, background has been able to be a great mentor for me. And I, you know, God, I've appreciated that relationship so much in so many different ways. Yeah, it's kind of like Mark Holowesko and how he sports cycling and a couple triathletes.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so certainly fortunate to have that role. And, you know, he's taken a couple other people sort of on that path, a female golfer and a couple musicians and things. And, you know, it's a way for him to, you know, follow some people and, you know, get back in that way, which is, which is fantastic. You know, so grateful for that. So you're, so now you have this new, you know, there's new, new life ahead of you. You're going to be a pro triathlete. Exactly. But are you still continuing to work as a trader or you just quit? You quit the job?

I quit my job like more or less the next day. No after that I mean maybe once once uh Mr. Gelber came on to you know offer my initial round of support um and I had been uh introduced to a guy named Simon Thompson who was a Australian Olympian for triathlon came 10th at the Athens Olympics uh this is 2009 so he had been five years since he had been five years since he had been olympics and he had said hey if you're looking for a squad of course we're it's we're into september in chicago yeah you're not going to want to train in chicago you know you got to get out of there immediately um if you want to train in any sort of serious capacity especially over the winter time um and he said you know my coach lives in camber australia which is you know

the capital of australia inland not a place that not everyone visits on the Australian circuit, but it's where their Olympic training center is, the Australian Institute of Sport. And he said, if you want to come out, you know, we've got a squad of, you know, pros and top amateurs and stuff out here, you know, move out to Australia. So in a matter of a couple weeks, I went from thinking I'm a commodities trader for the foreseeable future to winning the Chicago Triathlon. Two weeks later, I quit my job, and I'm on a plane to go move to Australia for six months. That's crazy. Yeah, it was certainly a wild turn of events and something that no way I could have predicted at all. And that began the path for me. You know, that was in, like I said, in 2009.

And I've spent the last, you know, six plus years now being, you know, on the professional triathlon circuit and fortunate enough to have, like I said before, raced in 25 countries now, six continents, you know, lived several parts of the world, you know, as triathletes do, chased the endless summer a bit to training destinations and, you know, various places. And it's been a remarkable ride for sure. And the goal I would presume was to make the Olympic team. Yeah. And racing the ITU circuit, which I'm going to talk a little bit about.

Yeah. So that's obviously, particularly in this country, when you say triathlon, I think most people gravitate towards Ironman or think of Ironman for sure. But the ITU circuit, like you mentioned, was what I primarily focused on up until this year, basically. I've switched more over to long course. But yeah, the I2 circuit is a little bit different than non-drafting. So it's draft legal triathlon, which means the bike course is more like a Tour de France style cycling race where you're on road bikes and you're drafting one another. Draft legal. And it's the one kind of professional discipline in triathlon where swimming actually is really important. Yes, absolutely.

You know, for the most part, swimming, like, whatever. You can be a lousy swimmer and get away with it. Yeah. But in ITU, if you're not killing it on the swim, you're going to miss the first group on the bike and your toast. Yeah. No, that's absolutely true. And I think that's certainly part of the reason that I, you know, grav reason that I gravitated to this part of triathlon for a while anyways, which is you're absolutely right.

In Ironman, you need to be a capable swimmer, but you can come down two, three, five minutes behind the main group, and you've got four and a half hours on your bike and a full marathon to make up that distance. Yeah, it's negligible. Whereas in ITU, because of the draft legal nature of the bikes, even if you're maybe 10 seconds down from the main swim pack, 20 guys ride away from you and you're by yourself. I don't care how strong you are. You're never catching up. You're never bridging the gap.

So 10 seconds ends up being a lifetime. And it's one of the beauties of ITU if you have a swimming background and certainly one of the biggest frustrations is it's unforgiving. I mean, there's certainly plenty of times where you have a good swim and it's great, but there's also times, and even good swimmers in the sport will probably reflect on this experience, but you fly halfway around the world,

you have a bad swim for whatever reason, you get knocked over the head at the first buoy, you get off the group, and before you know it, you're five seconds off the back of the pack and you're never there. And the race is over before it even starts. So it's brutal in that way, for sure.

And it's sort of like, I mean, you're just redlining the entire time. Yeah. And there's a couple observations about this that I think are interesting. The first is that, for the most part, in a typical sort of conventional triathlon, you have your race plan. And the idea is kind of you're racing yourself, stick to your plan, you know, execute the plan that you have for yourself. But in ITU, you're really, it's way more sort of a fluid strategy where you're reacting to what's happening around you. You're observing how the peloton is behaving and you're trying to make decisions on the fly, right? And you have to kind of, you really are racing other people. You're not really racing yourself. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's so,

you know, like you said, for Ironman or a non-drafting triathlon it's about executing your plan you know there are other people out there and there's some tactics involved but it's really a massive time trial it's against you against the clock getting yourself from start to finish as fast as possible but in itu it's really about it's more reactionary it's very tactical i mean there's times when it's full tilt the whole bike course, but there's times when everyone makes the front pack for whatever reason, the packs come together and the pace comes off. Or that might happen for a lap and then the next lap is full on.

There's this kind of toggle of up and down. So it's a little bit of a different of training your body to be able to handle that red line, handling those surges, handling that throttling up, throttling back, all that sorts of stuff. And then being able to run a darn fast 5 or 10 K off of, uh, off of that type of bike, which presents its own challenges. Yeah. The other observation I had is that I think sort of maybe, you know, I don't know, eight, eight or nine years ago, 10 years ago, like if you were an incredible track athlete, like if you had mad running skills, you were

going to be the guy at the at the top like it kind of came down to guys that could just hammer on the run um but now i feel like it's mature to the point where um even that's not good enough like you really have to be exceptional in all three disciplines there's no weak spots anymore it really it's remarkable the you know even in like i said six years that i've been involved with itu um the it just seems like every year the depth is just growing and growing and growing and it takes a complete athlete now to you know get the job done like you said it used to be if you could hang around in the swim you could sit in on the bike a little bit if you're a good runner you know you could dominate but you know those days are gone that the bike is so full on the swim is

so full on if you're not doing all three at a pretty, you know, elite level, you're left behind pretty quickly. So, yeah, it's an intense form of racing. And it's exciting and fun and hard and all that. Yeah, I mean, did you acclimate to that culture? And what were some of the, you know, highlights for you being on that circuit? Yeah, I mean, it's a remarkable thing. You know, I really, you know, I had certainly had my ups and downs with it. I had, you know, some great races and I had some absolutely horrible races. I think it's interesting you don't see it so much in Ironman. You don't see people

perform and even when they have an off day, they're still kind of up there in the top five or top 10 or something like that. If you look, you know, kind of pour through ITU results, you know, there's certainly a couple of guys like the Brownlee brothers, Gomez, some of these guys who have consistently dominated the sport. But for Gwen Jorgensen on the women's side right now is obviously doing that, which is incredible to see from an American. But you see a lot of guys, they might be on a podium one week, and literally the next week they're 57th place.

I mean, there's so much parity in the level of racing that one thing doesn't go your way on the day. It's not a matter of one or two places. Like you're way back there. Yeah. So that was always hard for me. And like I said, I had ups, I had downs on the circuit. But it is an amazing, forget the racing for a second,

but the entire lifestyle of it is, I think, really unique in that it's very international in scope. You know, even with Ironman, as it grows to being more international, it still is pretty U.S., North America focused, you know, particularly with the World Championships always being in Hawaii, which is an amazing tradition in itself. And, you know, I love Ironman as well, but it's just different. Whereas the ITU really requires you to, you know, be on, you know on all the different continents, race all around. But it's amazing because you do end up racing against a lot of the same guys.

Each start list is limited to 75 guys maximum, and that all is dependent on points rankings and all this sort of stuff to get on those start lists. Which is just completely impossible to understand. It's not even worth talking about. I couldn't even begin to understand how that would be a whole other two two-hour podcast to discuss how the point system works that's a whole another thing but um but no yeah so basically you've got 75 guys on these start lists and in all these different countries and of course on the day like you said it's this tactical type of racing

um that in some parts requires you to work together but certainly it's a very intense very competitive environment. You know, you and I grew up pool swimming. We were in your own little lane. Now imagine jumping off the blocks with 75 guys that can all swim about the same well and go in first turn buoys. Just a wrestling and punching match. You know, it's pretty intense. Yeah, your heart rate is through the roof from the first stroke all the way to the end of the race.

Exactly. So that's, I mean, the racing itself becomes becomes pretty intense but it also is a great community and that's not just like within your own country but from an international level the amount of friends i've made you know on that circuit has been amazing we might be you know enemies on the race course but you know pretty much the second you step off the race course there's a pretty remarkable community of people you know coaches athletes everything and it's it's incredible there's some of these people who you know maybe they're from the u.s or certainly from, you know, parts of Australia or Western Europe where I've never seen them in their hometown before, but I've been to Zimbabwe with them and Valparaiso, Chile, and, you know, Japan, you know, there's some of these places that you end up with these circuits. So you end up sort

of being in these crazy traveling cultural environments with this kind of traveling circuit of people, which is a pretty amazing life experience from that perspective, for sure. And how does the nuts and bolts of that life work? Because there's so much travel. Yeah. And you're racing all the time. And this is your profession. Like, how does anybody make a living doing this? If you're not like a Brownlee brother? Yeah, I mean, like like it's so expensive to sustain it and you know i don't know what the you know is it prize money is it completely dependent on sponsor support like what does it look like for like the journeyman yeah to you guy yeah i mean it's really hard and it's also different from country to country you know because it's an

olympic sport and this is the distance race at the olympics there is some governing bodies that have some funding um the u.s uh doesn't have nearly as much funding as countries like you know in australia or some of the western european countries um which is mostly in part because we have the ncaa system which is an incredible way to privatize olympic sports basically um and there's certainly controversies about it but you know scholarship swimming uh track and field all this there's a reason that we've been really you know dominant in the olympics and the world stage in those sports and i think a lot of it's attributed to the ncaa and the facilities but triathlon uh not being an ncaa sport now is for women just in the very nascent phases of that there's only about five schools maybe that have that. But for the most part, triathlon's not an NCAA sport.

So similar to what I did and many other Americans, they'll take a scholarship path in either swimming or running and then come to triathlon later in life. Whereas, you know, certainly in Australia and some of these other countries, they'll start funding you through their national governing body, age 16, age 17, all the way through. So that's how some people make it work, certainly, is through the government funding.

And in the U.S., that does exist to some regard, but it's really kind of a small amount and really at the very, very top level of the sport. So when you're coming up, you know, those opportunities aren't necessarily available to you at all. And, yeah, the prize money, you know, if you can get it, isn't glamorous. And a lot of the races pay five, maybe ten places deep. Like I said said it's

easy to come you know 55th place too and that you've flown over to wherever asia and you're not you're not getting paid that day so really having some strong sponsorships in place and support in that regard you know make it work you know for me like i said fortunate enough to you know have brian gelber and his family stepping in to work me early on and throughout my career as you know well as some other sponsors i've come on board along the way that have made, that made it possible. That said, it's always been, you know, month by month, piece by piece. It's, you know, it's never been, you know, it's, it's not from a financial standpoint and I haven't saved a penny. There's not like a, you know, but for me, it's always been about the journey,

about the adventure and about, you, and about living my passion. And that's been enough reward for me. So just to be able to get to the next race, I always felt grateful for that. It wasn't, you know, yeah. And how much do you think, like, your background as a swimmer informed your ability to kind of step into, you know, the professional athlete lifestyle and absorb the training in, you know, two new disciplines that you had very little experience with? Yeah, I mean, I think you know this a bit, which is swimming is a brutal sport from a training perspective. You know, we grow up as kids swimming, you know, twice a day, four or five hours a day, oftentimes, certainly six plus

days a week. A lot of that has to do with you know there's no uh pounding against the ground and swimming you're you're in a pool so you're not overheating you know those types of things allow you to log a lot of hours in swimming compared to some other sports um and because of that it's uh i don't know if it's the best environment there's certainly plenty to say about that um but it if you get through that and through a Division I swim program or whatever, you've logged a lot of hours training cardiovascularly, anaerobically, aerobically, all that sorts of stuff. So I think that played a huge role in terms of all of these things are, you know, they require some technique and there's a huge learning curve

and many things I've learned and continue to improve on in my career. But having, you know, logged those hours, you know, as a kid in this one discipline really, you know, has allowed me to step in and know what it means like to train 25, 30 hours per week, log that time, be focused, you know, train two, three different sessions per day, recover, all that sorts of stuff. So I think that's huge. And it's no surprise that you see other people coming from swimming backgrounds and stepping into the sport and having quite a bit of success. Cause I think there's something about that environment that

really, you know, teaches you how to handle and absorb a lot of this. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that that was, it was, you know, even though there had been, you know, two decades between my swimming career and then getting back into being fit again, you know, that, that, that base is always there. And I think just the mental aspect of knowing, you know, knowing how to train, you know what I mean? And being comfortable with that level of discomfort and kind of what it takes, I think is, you know, is a good thing. And I'm actually surprised there aren't more swimmers that go into triathlon. Yeah. I mean, I can't run, but like, I think with all of that training, it really is, you know, there's a leg up in terms of like understanding what it's going to take. For sure. For sure. And, you know, you're seeing it more and more.

And, you know, in this country doing a better job of getting that pipeline developed, I think you're seeing more people who are triathletes, you know, the next phase of guys that are young, you know. Yeah, they're not coming from another sport. No, they're coming from triathlon, which is awesome to see. And it's definitely raising the bar in this country, which is fantastic. I love seeing that for sure. So you train at AIS for a while, and then at some point, like you're training, but then you're living all – you lived out here in Santa Monica too, training. Yeah.

This is all happening in the last couple years. It's not like this is like some past life. No, no. This is all between 2008 and now, right? Yeah, 2009 and now more or less yeah so yeah i lived in australia um then i came back and did some time back in portland uh with a former coach of mine and then uh for about a year and then uh siri lindley who i believe you know or yeah i know sir yeah she uh you know invited me for a spot on her team which was a

amazing opportunity. Is that when she was coaching out here? She was coaching in Santa Monica. So I got introduced to her and the spot kind of opened up on her squad, which she keeps pretty small and pretty tight. And at the time, and still to this day, obviously she has some of the best athletes in the world. But it was kind of the, felt certainly the who's who of triathlon when I was stepping in. And this is only a year plus into my professional career. of triathlon when I was stepping in and this is only a year plus into my professional career so before I know it um you know the triathlete audience will respond to this it'll be random

people to everyone else but you know Leanna Cave, Miranda Carfrae is on there, Maggie Teixeira, Luke McKenzie you know these are the biggest best names in the sport multiple time world champions um you know I'm thrown into a training environment with them, which was incredible. So, yeah, right here in Santa Monica was where that started. And then we were doing their training camp was in Noosa, Australia in the wintertime. So basically splitting time between there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So swimming at the Culver Plunge. Yeah, exactly.

And a lot of tempo running in Malibu Creek State Park. Exactly. Right here in your backyard. I would run into them. I probably saw you guys out there a couple times. Yeah. I mean, Siri's amazing because she's, first of all, she's really sweet. And she's incredibly positive.

Yes. And she loves her athletes. And she'll do anything for them. And she really is there to support and uplift her athletes in every conceivable way possible. And she goes so far as to when there are group rides with all uplift her athletes in every conceivable way possible and she goes so far as to when when when there are group rides with all of her athletes she she's in the car like driving oh yeah on the ride the whole time not just like hey go on your ride and come back and tell me about it later like she absolutely right there with i mean she's incredible in that way she's

just she's so there like you said so positive shows up to the pool ride run with a smile on her face energetic joyful um it's it's really remarkable to be in that environment every single day and like you said so many coaches are either coaching remotely or at least you know saying oh go on this ride i'll see you in three hours let me know how it went and she's literally there driving her car beside you sometimes you you'll turn over and she's like got the radio turned up full blast like come on get up that hill get up to panga canyon or like you know one of these roads out here and that um just an amazing yeah amazing from that standpoint so you know definitely a special person and it was a gift for me at that point in my career to be in that group and in that environment you know in a lot of regards with her and also with you know what i learned from those other athletes was priceless

what was what i was going to ask i mean what what did you learn from either Siri or Miranda or Leanda or Luke or these, you know, the absolute creme de la creme of the sport? Yeah, I think, you know, the biggest lesson for me, I would say, you know, it was an evolution, but definitely that NUSA training camp that I went to, which was in the winter, it was a three-month training camp in the winter of 2012, 2011, 2012, sorry, our winter, month training camp in the winter of 2012 2011 2012 sorry our winter their summer so summer in australia um and not only was it all those people that we just mentioned but a lot of other people you know top american athletes were over there at the time a lot of people go and live there greg and laura bennett were there melissa house show tim o'donnell was there i mean really the the belinda granger you know lots of some of the biggest names in the sport. Did you meet Dan McPherson?

No, Siri was living in his house at the time. And so Beck Keat had just joined the squad. So, I mean, just an amazing group of athletes. And I was, like I said, pretty young and new to the sport. And so it was pretty amazing to be in this environment. And I think one of the biggest... Yeah, you'd be like the youngest person, right? Yeah, I was young and

definitely the least experienced at the time and wide-eyed and just felt privileged to be there for sure and just learning from all these great athletes um but I really look at that time for me as one of the the best learning lessons certainly in my life from from a lot of regards um you know I probably if I had to pick pick a moment it was, you know, I spent a few months, I was actually living with Leanda during this training camp, you know, as we split up housing and all sorts of stuff. And so got to see her in action every single day, not just, you know, at training sessions, but at home and all that sort of stuff.

And at that time, to give perspective, she had already won two world championships early on in ITU and ITU Longs. And then later on that year, she went and won 70.3 Worlds and won Kona. So it was a massive year for her. And I was, you know, there through that whole time. And interestingly enough, I think actually some of this has led to what I'm doing with my life now with this mountaineering challenge. But it, you know, I asked her one time, what's your favorite victory that you've ever had? And here's someone who's, you know, literally won every sport, every big race in the sport. And she said, you know, it was actually when I came second place

at the Commonwealth Games. I said, second place? What do you mean? Multiple-time world champion? I was actually asking you, which world championship did you win, like, that you won the best, you know? She was like, no, for me, it was amazing because, you know, she is of British descent, although she grew up in Australia, and her family was there.

And when she had won some of these earlier championships, she hadn't been surrounded by that many people, coaches, athletes, but different than having your true core family around there. And that always stuck with me. That really stuck with me because, of course, I really admire her and still to this day as what she's done athletically but i admire that she recognized that although winning is what we're trying to do as professional athletes there's more to it there's more to the balance of that and really understanding weaving the fabric of our lives uh you know through that and um you know certainly not not long after that i had been spending a lot of time away from jen, traveling so much. And Jenna and I kind of sat down and I said, how can we do this together?

Again, we don't have a lot of financial resources or anything like that. But we, you know, we made it work. And Jenna has been now with me, you know, doing this whole adventure with me for the past four plus years. And has been, you know, the cornerstone of building this new, new beyond seven, two project and doing that together. And that really has, what has made the difference for me, you know, I've certainly performed better on the race course as a result of that, but also just the balance of my own life has just been so much more meaningful when I've had successes and when I've had failures and to know that have the continuity of the person that I love and care about right there beside me through all of it has really, you know, made a big difference. And so that was

certainly a huge lesson from that phase of time in my life. And I think the second one is, interestingly enough, was finding my limits a little bit and learning how to develop as an athlete. So, you know, most of the people that we've named were all Ironman athletes and I was racing ITU. And of course, I was eager to train side by side with some of the best and greatest in the sport and so i wanted to push every single workout and train super hard and all this sort of stuff ultimately i over trained myself in this training camp you know i had a great three months and the rest of the year was probably my darkest year in the sport after that from you know my testosterone levels dropped to you know the level of a 90 year old man, basically had to take some time off from the sport to just let my

body, you know, get back to whatever. And, you know, that's a hard lesson to learn, but also an important lesson to learn, I think, of where are those limits and how do we do this sustainably? And as I look back and reflected on that time, I realized that even some of those amazing athletes, I was like, well, why is he riding a little slower on this group ride today? Or why is he this? And those people who have 10, 15, 20 years in the sport, they're savvy veterans. Like they know how, they know that consistency is the king. Like winning every, anyone given, you know, workout or whatever is pretty inconsequential

if you can't string it together, you know, week after week, day after day, all sorts of stuff like that. So learning that lesson, maybe learning that lesson the hard way, but learning that lesson was hugely valuable to me, not only in the continuation of my triathlon career, but certainly with this next project and climbing all these mountains back to back and all this sort of stuff. It's about consistency. It's not about one big summit day or one big push. It's about how do I stay healthy? How do I stay consistent six months straight, you know, and keep going day after day. And, and I think that requires you to render your ego to be subservient at times. And that requires a certain level of discipline. And,

you know, I don't know what your swimming training was like, but like when I came up, which is, you know, I'm a lot older than you, but you know, the training philosophy was not as refined as it is now. It's like more is better and you would just go in every single workout after warm-up like you just you just killed it on every set and like just go as hard as you can it was never like okay this set we're just going to work on technique and you're going to back it down i want to keep your heart rate under x like no you just go hard you and maybe it's because it isn't an impact thing like you can kind of do that but i mean i'm convinced looking back that i over trained my entire swimming career i mean i i agree 100 like

i said i just walked around like a zombie for like 10 years yeah you know i i give love to frank keith because like we talked about early on he's an absolute legend of the sport but he was obviously coming with a older school perspective so my college career was pretty much defined by that same type of more is better the long yards and all this and looking and then you just rest at the end and yeah pray that your taper's gonna work out but in try when you're running and you're doing those different disciplines that will catch up to you a lot more quickly it absolutely will and the other thing is not gonna work is in swimming as you know we you know we're we're peaking once maybe two times per year really with a full shave and taper and in in triathlon, you ask how do you financially make it work,

how do you make this stuff work, how do you get the point system, all this sort of stuff. You've got to race a lot. I mean, on the main peak of ITU, I was racing 10, 15 times per year in a six- to eight-, nine-month period. So oftentimes you're racing back-to-back weekends on different continents and all this sort of stuff, full gas. And so there's no time to just do a full taper.

You might have an A race that you're a little more focused on or this, but it's being able to back up day in and day out, all this sort of stuff, full gas. And so there's no time to just do a full taper. You might have an A race that you're a little more focused on or this, but it's being able to back up day in and day out, all this sort of stuff. And that, when you're training that hard and racing that hard and whatever, finding that balance and figuring out how to recover is a challenge, and I think everyone has different limits and processes with that. Yeah, interesting. All right, so things are progressing and maturing in your burgeoning young professional triathlete career.

Yeah. So why suddenly interrupt that and embark on this left turn of an adventure? Yeah, you know, I think it's a combination of things. that I can point to is at the end of last year, I had decided to start, you know, trying out what long course triathlon might, might be like, you know, half Ironman, Ironman type of distance. And I signed up and did the Rev3 Anderson half Ironman. And I won that race. Oh, wow. You won the whole race. Yeah. Yeah. Which was, which was great. I mean, a phenomenal day um very proud of proud of that achievement and of course Jenna being there like she has been for me was there and it was an

interesting moment because winning that race was a big career breakthrough for me it felt great um but it was also an interesting moment um and even reflecting on some of the stuff I said before about balance and other things in your life it was was, this is great, but this path, at least at the moment, felt a little bit, felt very personal. I wouldn't take back a single day, but it felt somewhat self-serving. When you're a professional athlete, you know, your sponsors are happy for you and that sort of stuff, and you feel good about that, your family, your coach, yourself, you know, that's all great.

But there's not a huge, larger impact that you can have in the world with that. And so Jenna and I kind of put our heads together and said, you know, I certainly want to continue to push my body as hard as I can. I certainly love being an endurance athlete. And will I continue to be a professional triathlete after this project? Yeah, possibly for sure. But we were wondering, I wonder if there's something we can do with this level of athleticism right now that has a much greater impact than in my own personal success or failure. And that's really where Beyond 7-2 was born from. You know, for me, with the health and nutrition background of my family and some coaching I've done and mentoring with kids, you know, the childhood obesity epidemic for me is, you know, a tragedy. I know that on your podcast, you've had

various other people supporting that cause and yourself proponent of that. You know, it's really hard, you know, to see that, that health issues that we're having in our country, not only with youth, but all the way up through all the different, you know, ages, you know, kids turn into adults. And so with this project, our aim really is, yeah, the goal is to set a world record, sure, but that's not even the primary goal of this project. The goal of this project is to build a platform where we can inspire and encourage people, young people, to get outside, be active, be healthy. We've partnered with an organization called the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and our goal was to raise a million dollars for them.

So part of this campaign is a fundraising campaign for us. Corporate sponsorship is taking care of my expedition expenses. So when people are donating to this cause, it's going 100% to kids, 100% to those programs. And so with this, with the media attention that comes from attempting and setting a world record, the visual component of all of this, really, it's about inspiration and inspiring and raising awareness and raising funds for this, to me, which is a really, really important cause that's close to my heart. And I think a lot of it has to do with I was from that regard, from a health regard, I was fortunate. You know, like you said, joking around, born in this hippity-dippity organic, you know, family.

And, you know, I even poked my own fun at that through most of my childhood. Well, yeah, you rebelled by going to an Ivy League school and becoming a traitor. Exactly. It's like the ultimate rebellion for somebody Ivy League school and becoming a traitor. Exactly. It's like the ultimate rebellion for somebody who grows up on a commune. Exactly. And so, you know, coming back around to that in my, you know, young adult life and realizing like, wow, like I was really fortunate. I was fortunate that someone was cooking me, you know, kale salad and rice and beans and

whole foods growing up. And I was just what I was accustomed to and took it for granted in some regards and realizing that so much of, you know, this problem, there's, it's a very complex issue of childhood obesity and there's many different facets to it. But certainly one of that, one of those things is, is access and education around those things and just knowing how to eat healthier and having access to those things. So, you know, obviously my project is just one drop in the bucket of trying to help, you know, with this problem. But hopefully through this we can, you know, help and inspire and educate and, you know,

raise awareness around, you know, healthy eating habits and inspire some youth to, you know, continue in that direction. Yeah, well, you know, there are a few more worthy causes. You know, this is the future of our planet, right? And when you see kids, you know, having you see kids having issues with obesity at such a young age, and it's become such a prolific problem, I think right now, maybe you're boned up on the stats more than me. I mean, 70% of Americans are obese or overweight. I think childhood obesity rates are on the rise and accelerating at a ridiculous rate. And it is multifaceted because it's an issue of parental education. It's an issue of convenience.

It's an issue of access. It's a socioeconomic issue. And it's also an issue of interest and focus. When kids are staring at their phones or at their tablets and they go to school and they eat a crappy school lunch and they just want to play video games and like go to the mall and the movies and eat at the food court, like, of course they're going to be obese. So you have to change the environment. You have to educate and you have to inspire kids to, you know, be more interested in things beyond the tablet, on screen and you have to attack that

from all different sides so much of our project like it said you say you're out raising awareness to inspire kids and you know try to combat the childhood obesity epidemic and immediately people go to of course that's on the ground work with kids, which a lot of it is that, but you're 100% right, which is about needing that buy-in from all the stakeholders. So, you know, it's about, you know, getting buy-in from school administrations. It's about educating the parents as well. It's about getting, you know, big businesses, the food and beverage, you know, administration, all that sort of stuff to make certain changes.

And that's a whole systematic, you know, change. And I think that the organization we partner with, the Alliance for healthier generation does really well we did we've added a number of organizations and really good about this one why these guys yeah they doing so they were founded by the Clinton Foundation the American Heart Association originally not long after President Clinton had you know some heart problems and kind of in his own life realize hey this is a problem here and dedicated some resources to that

kind of incubated it in 2005 and the Clinton Foundation now it's its own thriving 501 c three, it's on its own. And they basically, you know, built this program out. And now that they're impacting, you know, 20 million kids nationwide, they're in 29,000 schools with their curriculums. And they're doing, you know, kind of a three layered approach, which I think is really positive. One is called their healthy in school time, which is getting into schools. And like I said, getting that buy-in from the school administration, you know, changing the food, the food, food lunches, getting the kids more active and healthy PE class, all that sorts of stuff. Then they have their healthy out of

school time, which is basically getting boys and girls clubs after school programs engaged and keeping their kids there because you're only in school, you're in school a lot. But you know, after the hours of 2pm, and when you go home to when you wake up in the morning, there's a lot of also downtime. So maybe you're healthy in school all of a sudden, but you know, what are you doing after school? Like you said, are you sitting down in front of that tablet? Are you playing video games or that? Or is there engagement in that way? So they're really ramping that up, which is great. And then the third level, which on the outset might not seem like a perfect match, but for me, it's actually one of the more powerful things they do, which is because of President Clinton's involvement and because of some of the high up people that they have involved,

they've been able to be a stakeholder at the negotiation with some of the food and beverage companies. Last year, they made a partnership with McDonald's, which sounds crazy, a childhood obesity company, and McDonald's partnering. But what they did is they convinced McDonald's to take French fries out of their Happy Meals and replace it with apple slices. And that's sweeping change in terms of

maybe that's not the end result, the game-ending complete change, but that actually has impact. That's millions and millions. I mean, of course we wish that families weren't buying the Happy Meal in the first place, perhaps. But to be able to be a stakeholder and at least have some say at some of those tables, I think, is really powerful. So I'm really proud to be all of our efforts to be supporting this organization.

And then they have a foundation. They actually were started, although they're nationwide, but in Portland, Oregon. So they have some roots in Portland as well. So that feels good to be starting to support them. So yeah, all of the funds we raised for this goes directly to them. And they're a program that doesn't have very high overhead costs. That was important to us. So pretty much dollar for dollar, pretty much all is going straight to the kids, straight

to the program. So we feel very good about that. That's great. So you just basically researched this, found these guys, reached out, and just developed a relationship. Yeah, exactly. And we said we want to do this project. And we were very clear for ourselves that in terms of, of course, climbing all these mountains, going to the North and South Pole

is not an inexpensive thing to do. And our point is to be raising money, you know, towards the Combine and Childhood Obesity epidemic. So we very, you know, clearly, you know, drew a distinction of getting sponsors on board who are supporting the, you know, the cost of the project itself. Of course, you know, I'm not getting paid myself anything to do this, but there's just operating expenses to doing this. So we ourselves, Beyond 7-2 is its own 501c3 nonprofit, and we've had some great, you know, support. So Nike Foundation has been one of our largest supporters. It's huge to have them on board.

Like I said, Brian Gelber, who has been through my triathlon career, has been a primary supporter. We've got Columbia on board, Mountain Hardware, Sorrel, Prana, Moose Jaw, a retailer out of the Midwest. We've got some really great brands in support of us, and we feel great about having that support. I mean, I can't imagine what the ultimate price tag is. Yeah. It's high. It's gotta be really high. It's high. It's not, it's not inexpensive. It's not something you're going to do on your own. No, it's not a check

that I can write out of my personal bank account. I would imagine you feel that pressure though. Like, wow. You know, there's a lot of, for sure. You know, there's a lot of that pressure to me. It's, there's a, it's a, it's a big, it's a big effort to do and it's uh a big but it's also i think it goes to show that you know to have someone you know like a nike you know really really put their their money and resources behind a project like this shows that it's a unique project and a unique platform and the you know the media attention is starting to you know gain we've got uh you know you're you're here i'm Your Podcast, which is great. That's the biggest thing.

That's the biggest one there. That's the most important thing. That's bigger than anything. But we've got Men's Journal just came out and followed me around for three or four days. Oh, that's cool. And they're writing a feature on that should come out in March and a few other things as well as a documentarian looking after this. And so hopefully, to me, the million that we're hoping to raise is a huge goal. And so hopefully, you know, as we, to me, you know, the million that we're hoping to raise is a huge goal. And hopefully we can get there. You know, you can go on our website,

hit on the donate button. That's probably the easiest way to do that on beyond72.com. But also, you know, the awareness piece, there's, you know, it's not as easy to quantify, but, you know, I've been out speaking in schools in the lead up to this. And that's been honestly, after a year of planning and trying to get sponsors on board and kind of the boardroom hustle, if you will, which has been an interesting phase of this project, it's actually amazing to be turning the phase on that go, the expedition is funded, we have great support. And now it's time to like, do the work. And so, you know, I've been in these elementary schools giving these speeches about what I'm doing, talking about goal setting, talking about, you know, eating healthy,

healthy habits. And that's been amazing. The reception from the kids, the curiosity, I've been bringing in a lot of my climbing gear, my big Everest down suit, and I had the kids try it on and they're laughing. They can't believe, you know, these big boots and these mittens and all that sort of stuff. And they're just, you know, the kids are amazing. They really, it's so fun to be able to interact and give back in that way. And it's something that's really, like I said, the fabric of the whole reason behind doing this project. And for us, the project doesn't end. When I get back in June, hopefully I'm back in June having set a new world record.

And that would be amazing. It would be certainly a cherry on top of this. But, you know, both Jenna and myself are dedicated. And that's not like for this. This Beyond 72 ends on, you know, June 15th when I set or don't set the record, you know, Beyond 72 continues on for that. Certainly through the remainder of 2016, you know, we're committed to, you know, doing way more of that outreach through the Nike Foundation, through some other, you know, folks who are, you know, supporters of ours have kind of put us into some networks where we can really drive impact on the ground

and continue those fundraising efforts. And then hopefully, I don't know what the next, next thing is, but hopefully, you know, we can continue on in this vein and continue to, you know, build on this progress that we have from here. So it's not not just a one off for us in any way. It's interesting that you chose to, to, you know, embark on this mountaineering adventure, because as a professional triathlete, the obvious, like if you're grappling with like, how can I do this in a more meaningful way and give back the more obvious choice would to do would, would be to do like an iron cowboy kind of thing, you know, or like come up with some crazy triathlon. I'm going to go all the way around the world, you know, swim, bike, run, or something like that, but relate it to those three disciplines and for you to just put all

of that aside and go, no, I'm actually going to do something completely different. Yeah. You know, first of all, aside, my hat is off to the Iron Cowboy. If you're out there listening or what, like mad respect. I listened to the Rich Roll podcast about the Iron Cowboy. First of all, it's amazing working with the Jamie Oliver Foundation, Childhood Obesity as well. Fantastic work with that. But just on a personal level, I think Rich, you said at the end of that podcast, you said, I've got mad respect for this this guy but i have a little bit of doubt you've done five iron mans back to back and you're like i hope he does it but just the logistics and this like is this gonna pull it off and i remember i remember listening to that and thinking like

i'm the same i'm not i'm not a hater i wanted him to succeed but i kind of had those doubts in the back of my mind i was like this is a tough challenge so to accomplish that mad respect wherever you are out there my friend James that is insane that was such a cool project and just the impact and the passion and mission behind it and there's so much that I can relate to in that own story you know we've been playing this project before the Iron Cowboy did his thing this summer but you know just having his wife along for the ride and all that sort of stuff it's really you know you can I can really relate to that in my own life, and it was an amazing accomplishment to witness.

Being a triathlete and being an Ironman my own self is unreal. So mad respect. Of course. Nothing but crazy respect for James. And perhaps the same concerns apply to your own thing. Like I don't have a point of context or reference for it because I'm not a mountaineer and I don't know what that entails, but it's

analogous in many ways. And perhaps maybe the most relatable one is the fact that, A, you're going to be meeting unforeseen obstacles that will have unforeseen ramifications. You're on a really pretty tight timeline with not that

much room for error and a lot of things that are outside of your control and you know james came up against crazy weather conditions so he had to move things inside but that's very different from being at base camp in you know at everest and saying well we're just not gonna we just can't do anything you know until it clears and for sure you know what i mean like so many things you can't control there's things i can't control and i try to you know in my visualizations meditations thinking about this, try to focus on what I can control and making sure I've dotted at least all those I's and crossed those T's as best as I can and what will be will be and prepared myself as best as possible for this mission. And, you know, your original question was why this and not something in the swimming, biking, and running space. And I think the answer is twofold, which is, you know, for me, I've always dreamed of climbing these mountains.

Mountaineering has always been a passion for me, so it's not a complete divergence from something I've never done. You know, you wouldn't embark on this, which has its inherent risks, if you didn't have the mountaineering expertise and knowledge to do that. So that's a background of mine. But the other other thing is is that triathlon is a professional sport you know i've been a professional athlete at that but for me i'm not a professional climber i'm not a professional mountaineer and so much of this project is about having a universal message around this which is saying you know i'm not shying away from the fact that i you know but pretty have been a top level athlete but i haven't been a top-level mountaineer. And so so much of this project is not, hey, Colin's doing this unattainable thing that no one else can do.

It's like, hey, I've set myself a big goal, and it's a big goal in a place that, like, I have some sort of comfort in, but I'm not an expert. I'm not Conrad Anker. I'm not, you know, Jimmy Chan or these guys who are just insane mountaineers, right? I'm a good, strong, competent mountaineer, but I'm not a professional mountaineer. And so it's about trying to tie in a universal thread to whoever out there, which is, hey, I'm doing this, but can you run a local 5K?

If you're a kid, can you ride your bike to school? Can you go for a walk? Can you take your dog out, run around the block? You know, that sort of stuff to try to make this less of, oh, Colin's out doing this crazy extreme thing that no one can do, but really to tie in on a, in a universal way of, uh, you know, messaging around this and, you know, what we can do to sort of inspire, you know, everyone. So, and how is that, how, how do you prepare physically for this? Like, how does your, your, your, look, your, you know, how to train for triathlons,

you know, how to train for swimming. How do you then take that knowledge base and tweak it to, to do the specific preparation that's required for tackling? Yeah, for sure. You know, um, well, one of the big things was I switched to long course triathlon this year, which just suits from an aerobic standpoint a lot better. So I can did my first Ironman this year, raced a bunch of 70.3s, um, which the training for that rather than the ITU training is, uh, more conducive to this. Cause it really, a lot of it is just a big aerobic challenge, obviously. Um, but then working with my coach, Greg Mueller, um, you know,

working in throughout the triathlon year, even though I was still racing triathlon through August when I raced Ironman Japan, I was doing strength stuff. I was doing stuff in the mountains, strength-specific mountaineering stuff. And then in August, August 23rd was my last race of the year, which was Ironman Japan. I flew straight from there to Nepal to start a six-week expedition to climb Manaslu, which is the eighth tallest mountain in the world at 26,800 feet, very similar in scope to an Everest expedition. So that was by design, which was to be super tired coming off an Ironman

and then go see if you can climb one of the biggest, baddest mountains in the world backing up of that because, of course, I'm going to need to climb Everest fatigued. I'm not in a perfectly dialed, ready-to-go state. Everybody else shows up there. Their whole life has been oriented around that one climb. Exactly. And you're coming off all these other climbs and exactly you know what are the what are the kind of like things that you have to deal with when you're dealing with going up and down at such

high altitudes all the time on a repetitive basis yeah i mean it's got its own challenges from you know just the way weight bearing and strength is a lot different uh in in mountaineering than would be running of course the uphills downhills, carrying weight on your back, on the poles, you're dragging a 100-pound sled. That's just like engaging your body and core in a very different way. So being able to do a lot of strength training to prepare for that is big for sure and just getting my body accustomed to that. It's been a little bit of a strange year, which is in triathlon,

you want to be very lean for the most part. Ironman Japan is arguably the hilliest course in the entire world this year. So you're going up all these hills, running, biking up these hills. You want to be super lean. Whereas in mountaineering, a lot of people have looked at me and said, you're pretty lean to be going to this cold of places. So to have that sort of balance and trying to, you know, figure out my body composition and all that.

I mean, you look pretty big right now. You don't look like an Ironman triathlete. Like, you look like you've been in the weight room. Yeah, exactly. So after August, that Ironman, I went to Nepal for six weeks, and then it's pretty much been full mountaineering weight room type of focused training. Of course, it's still the cardio component, but there's been a drastic shift from doing the swimming, biking, running,

which is definitely the foundation of my strength and stability. But there's been some, yeah, like I've been lifting my body for the first time since my swimming career, which is feel upper body, which just feels different. You know, just like there was a time when I feel like I could throw it down in the weight room, but now I actually coming up for triathlon, it's like, well, I haven't done that pull down or pull ups or that sort of stuff in a long time. So it's been kind of good to get back to that and get some of that strength dialed in and preparation for this. And what about the mental training? Like, how are you preparing for, you know, sort of those 10 days in and out when you're doing the, you know, the pole expeditions? Yeah. You know, the biggest thing for me is, uh,

meditation actually, uh, you know, meditation, it was introduced to me, um, in 2010, I guess, 2011 in a pretty meaningful way. Uh, a woman, a friend of mine came and watched one of my races and she doesn't really have much of a sporting background. It's a wonderful friend of mine from Turkey, but not a big sports watcher or whatever thing. She was like, this is very a mental thing you're doing. And I was like, yeah, it is. And she's like, you know, I think that meditation would be very helpful for you. And it's something, of course, with the hippity parents that I grew up around, I've, you know, I think that meditation would be very helpful for you. And it's something, of course, with the hippity parents that I grew up around,

I've been in my consciousness, but not something I've ever practiced or really done. And she said, well, there's this thing called a 10-day silent meditation retreat, Vipassana silent meditation retreat. I think you should try this out. And so that year... I can't take 10 days off of training. And so I basically have two weeks of off-season that I give myself in December so that year, I can't take 10 days off of training. And so I had my, I basically have two weeks of off season that I give myself in December of every year, more or less is about

the, pretty much the duration of my off season for the most part. And at the end of that year, which was 2011, um, I, most of the athletes thought I was crazy. They were like, we're going to like party and hang out for like the only two weeks we can do that this year. And I was like, oh, I'm going to this place where I'm going to be silent for 10 days. I can't read. I can't write. I'm meditating 17 hours per day. No one talks to me.

No one looks at me. And you can't really eat very much food. You can only eat a couple very small meals throughout the day. And that was life-changing for me. You know, it really was. It was, like I said, my even my stepdad he said i don't think i've ever heard you be quiet for five minutes he's like maybe i should he dropped me off at the put at the center and you know in washington state and he said should i just hang

around for an hour or two until you realize this was a bad idea and then he can come back in the car um but it really it was challenging but it is it's completely changed my mental game for sure to have that and i've gone back and not only done that one 10-day retreat but i've done another 10-day retreat uh from complete silence after that and some shorter ones and how to brought that into a daily practice for myself and you know so much of that is it's funny because i went into it like oh this would be good for triathlon and certainly it has been and it's been good in my mental game preparation for the beyond 72 mountaineering World Record. Because there's that element, you know, in Vipassana,

there's this part called the sittings of strong determination, which is three one-hour sessions throughout the full day of meditation. You sit there and you're in this meditation hall and they say to you, okay, sit in whatever position feels comfortable, cross-legged, kneeling, whatever. But once the hour starts, there's no moving your posture. You know, there's no readjusting your back, stretching your hands, you know, any of this sorts of stuff. It's just sit there. And as the sensations through the body come up, sometimes those are positive, sometimes those are negative, but it's about just objectively being aware of those things and then saying, you know, this too will pass, this too will change, this is temporary. And it's incredibly hard and incredibly challenging and painful at times,

but to try to not have those cravings or aversions, you know, to the positive or the negative of that. And that certainly in sports, as we, you know, push our bodies beyond what they want to be pushed, I mean, your mind is telling you to stop a long before it actually really needs to stop. Those alarm bells start ringing. And so that's been powerful in that aspect, but really it's been even more powerful in the rest of just my day-to-day lives and, you know, my relationships

with family and friends and all of that, and giving me a perspective of just awareness and, you know, in the world. And I would say probably in a subtle way has really led me to this path. And going back to you saying, it seems like in the middle of your triathlon career, as things are going really well, you're taking this like massive divergent pivot and i think that you know through meditation through checking in with myself daily it's allowed me to check in with sort of you know what's calling me and that awareness around that and maybe it's not the most obvious path what i'm doing in the middle of this triathlon career to you know to make this change but i feel very called to do it i very very called towards the cause

and the charitable aspects of doing this. And it's still pushing my body in a way that it's interesting and meaningful and I'm excited about it. And to be able to work on this project with Jenna from an idea in our, you know, kitchen to a full formed, you know, funded project that has, you know, we're actually doing has just been the pathway of that has been an amazing journey. So succeed or fail with the record or what that I'm, I've no doubt that the journey is, is, is valuable. And so much of that certainly has come from the ability to check in with myself and meditate and really, you know, be aware of that. So that's been super powerful for me in my life in the last, you know, several few, few years. That's beautiful. I mean, it's beautiful when you can, you can, uh, merge something you're passionate about with something that has meaning beyond that.

Right. And as you kind of mentioned earlier, you know, triathlon, any sport really is, is such a self-oriented thing. And by its very definition, it has to be that way if you're going to perform at the highest level. So I think it's ballsy and cool like doing this. And that's interesting about meditation. I've had friends that have done silent Vipassana meditation retreats before, not athlete friends, but other friends. And for every single one of them, they said it's been the hardest thing they ever did, but completely transformative. Is there one organization that oversees these retreats or are there a variety of them?

Well, for me, that's one of the things that's the most amazing about it. It's completely just a passed down word to word. So there's no marketing around this. This guy named Guenca, basically, who grew up in Burma and kind of spread a lot of this teaching to the West, just kind of started doing these retreats and accepts no money for it.

You literally can't pay even if you wanted to pay. And all the people working to facilitate the facilities as well as volunteer to cook the food and facilitate the stuff, the teaching that's going on, it's completely on a 100% volunteer basis. Once you've completed 10 days, they will accept a donation from you if you feel like it, but there's absolutely no pressure to do that or whatever. So that started from one center in the United States. Now I think there's 250 of these around the world, and it's the thriving thing.

I mean, to sign up for at least the one that's near my house, which is in Washington State, and on Alaska, Washington, kind of halfway between Seattle and Portland, sometimes there's a two-, three-, four-, five-month waiting list. There's just a slew of people, and of halfway between Seattle and Portland. Sometimes there's two, three, four, five month waiting list. There's just a slew of people. And that's just word of mouth. Like I said, there's, they have a very small mellow website, but you'll never see like a poster or a flyer or an email about it or something like that. It's just completely word of mouth.

And I think it speaks volumes about the realness and the power of that. And, you know, myself, I'm not, uh, you know, I guess I would consider myself in this regard, if you want to call that spiritual, but I'm definitely not traditionally know, I guess I would consider myself in this regard, if you want to call that spiritual, but I'm definitely not traditionally religious person or something like that. And there's absolutely no dogma there. You know, it's a very universal teaching of just kind of awareness and health and thoughtfulness and mindfulness, which has, you know, it's like, if you're a Christian or a Muslim or, you know, you can practice this. It's not like this, oh, you're choosing this like faith-based thing. And for me, you know, that kind of dogma would have, you know,

pushed me away from this pretty quickly. And so the acceptance of that, I think is powerful. And it's also not this situation where you're feeling like, okay, this is powerful, but I need to pay thousands of dollars to be here. And this, the guy teaching this, it's kind of a business too and that sort of stuff. There's absolutely none of that. If if you do this then you can get into the next one where they really teach you exactly exactly so so there's not that which is to me i mean that's not me trying to knock other you know organizations or groups and there's certain realities of cost of things and stuff like that but i do think that you know this this vipassana meditation really speaks pretty loudly that there's you know that much support for something like this that's thriving that is, in truth, the most non-profit of non-profit environments that I can possibly imagine.

There's not even a development team or any – there's no one raising money. Afterwards, they're like, hey, if you feel like it, we could take donations. But if not, thank you for being here. And the people that are there at the facilities, the reason the facilities have been built is because of donations. A lot of these people start out with a donated plot of land and it starts in a one room. And so now these places house a hundred people or whatever. And that's just been piece by piece built and added on to and that sort of stuff. So it's pretty remarkable.

And like I said, for me, certainly on an emotional level, it was life-changing as a lifelong practice for me at this point. So then what does the daily practice look like? The daily practice for me is more, you know, they encourage two one-hour sittings per day, but I'll be honest, that's not happening. I wish it were in some regard, but that's a pretty serious level of time. So for me, I find that the mornings are the times when I have the most control over my schedule and my day. And so I like to, you know, start days with a 20 or 30 minute, you know,

meditation. There's moments where I feel like I can have more time and go longer and certainly times when I can sit before bed and that sort of stuff. But I try to at least carve out that regular piece in the morning. And, you know, if I'm being completely transparent, there's times when I'm better at it and there's times when, you know, I lose that, but it's something that I continue to check in with. And certainly as I've been building up the physical, but not only physical, but the mental preparation for this next challenge has been a huge element of that because I think the mental fortitude when I'm out in these cold, desolate places alone and that sort of stuff, it's going to be the mental game more than the physical game so i think that and continuing that practice through this project is is huge is really important yeah

when you're out there alone you know on these these these pole ventures can you bring like can you like listen to your ipod can you like listen to audiobook like can you do can you have any of those comforts or a few you know like obviously one of the cool things about the south pole makes it harder to sleep but it's 24 hours of sunlight um so like i have a small little solar panel which is mostly there so that i can keep the stuff charged up so we can continue to send images and continue to tell the story in real time through our you know sat phone and stuff like that so the priority is not to have uh you know tv shows on my phone and all that sorts of stuff and you

know obviously i want to be connected to the project. But, yeah, I'm going to have a book there with me or have, you know, my Kindle or something like that. You know, a few of those comforts to pass the time. And, you know, certainly, you know, I'm sure at times I'll listen to some music to get me pumped up. But, of course, you can't just plug your stuff in anywhere. So, you know, there's a limit on that. But there's a little bit of that that can happen. And, of course, everything you have to carry with you, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got think think pretty critically about it but you know I allow I allow myself a few a few of those comforts out there for sure and is there one thing that that scares you the most like is there one thing that where you have like the fear button gets pushed? I don't know. I'm having a hard time putting that one into words. It's the second time you've asked me that. And there's pieces. There's bits and pieces. I know. I know. It's good. It's good that you're asking that. Well, let me come at it from a different perspective. When you're preparing for this, obviously, you've had to, even with your mountaineering experience and your experience as a professional athlete, I'm sure that there is a lot that you learned about these particular mountains or trying to get to these poles

and probably found out a lot of stuff that you didn't really realize that maybe, maybe dawned on you. Oh man, you know, this is a little bit more involved than maybe I thought when I decided I was going to do this. Like, is there a blind spot in your experience perhaps, or something where you know, you're going to have to, you know, really meet your maker in a way that you've never had to before. I think the biggest thing for me is in mountaineering. If you compare it to my endurance sporting background, which is you start an Ironman, you start a triathlon, you start a marathon or any sort of race. You might be having a bad day. We've all seen at Ironman someone throwing up on the side of the road or heat exhaustion or getting pulled off by an ambulance.

But at the end of the day, you can put your hand up and you can say, all right, I'm having a bad day. I'm going to step off the course here. It sucks. It wasn't what I wanted to do. But at mountaineering, the commitment level was so much higher. You're days, if not weeks, away from real help. And so every step and everything you take further towards the top of that mountain is also taking you into a dangerous environment. And that's very real.

That part of it for me is scary when I compare it to the risks that we take to endure in Ironman. If you look at that, it's a much more controlled environment where you can really push your body to the very absolute limit. And if you, you know, and some of these famous people like Apollo Newby-Fraser collapsing at the Kona finish line and crawling across the line. I mean, these are amazing moments in the history of our sport. But also it's like if something really went wrong, there also was like all of these people around. And mountaineering, you just don't have that. And you're responsible for making those decisions. So that really scares me.

And the thing that's, you know, like I said, a lot of years in the dreaming, I'm not blind to the risks of mountaineering. But the thing that really, you know, has struck me most recently on these regards is on this expedition, I was just mentioning Manaslu, where I went to climb just in Nepal. It was my first time climbing an 8,000 meter peak in Nepal. And, you know, we got up pretty high on the mountain, the team I was climbing with, and we decided that on our, for our last summit push, that the avalanche conditions were just too extreme and we decided to turn around so i actually didn't summit that peak um and several teams decided about half the teams decided to make the same decision as us and half the teams decided to continue up the mountain so it was kind of a split on the mountain and there was certainly moments and times like how did we make the wrong call do we make this this and several people did go on to summit that mountain um but a man an austrian man named

zolton who you know we had known a bit from earlier down the mountain on a different team also went up there with his climbing partner and he died on the way back down um and you know it wasn't somebody who i know really well but it's somebody who a couple weeks before i was sitting around camp just having a chat to and you know that puts it into perspective like it's it's the danger is real out there and it's in you know you make one decision you know this can happen or you can thread the needle like all a lot of those people that did summit and i'm going well how could they summit we didn't summit so you're always you know having that so it's an interior battle internal battle excuse me to you know make the right decisions out there and um you know death

is certainly more present in your mind and the risks of that than ever and i try to not dwell on that because i'm not trying to manifest that in my own in my own space and maybe that's why i have some challenge answering you know what am i most fearful about but like of course that is the a big fear of mine and and the cold you know not just the truly dying or whatever but i've had a debilitating injury before and i feel so fortunate to have recovered from that um but to be putting myself in an environment that quite frankly does carry with it some risks that you know something could happen to my legs again something could happen to my hands again you know all this sorts of. And I'm willingly putting myself in that environment. Um, I'm not paralyzed by fear

with it. If I thought it was so risky and it was just a dice roll, of course it would be foolish to embark on this. So I think my level of experience allows me to take these risks in a reasonable way. But, you know, anyone who's out there, anyone who's climbing, even the best climbers in the world are, you know, wavering between their own personal limits of what the challenges are to complete the objective and what's a reasonable amount of risk to take on. And so, yeah, that scares me. And as much as the environment of having people engage in this project, obviously what I want is the people to be engaged in this project. people engage in this project, obviously what I want is the people to be engaged in this project. You know, the school children that I was speaking before this are following me on their classroom blogs now and sending me little messages and all that sort of stuff. And that, to me, that makes

the project so valuable. But does that add extra weight to your shoulders when you're up there on the summit day and it's a coin toss? Should we go up? Shouldn't we go up? Oh, wait, all these kids really also want, you know, so. It's not like uh should i break away from the peloton or shouldn't i you know the the stakes aren't even in the same universe yeah it truly is life or death and those decisions that you it's not like are you going to have to make that decision it's how many times are you going to be forced to make that decision along this path and so you know that's why i do really value really value certainly Jenna, who I've mentioned a ton because she's the lifeblood of this project. But the conversations I've had with my family and stuff, you know, going into this, you know, I've had some pretty real and serious conversations about, you know, what that means and what are acceptable risks and what are not.

And really hammering home into my mind that they're all cheering for me. You know, they want me to succeed, but they want me to. Is your mom cool with everything? You know, she's both. She's been incredibly supportive, as she is. Like I said, I think the way I described her with what she did for me in Thailand and that, there's nothing but a loving, supportive mother. But she's also been involved really intimately in a lot of things that I've done in my life

and mentoring and all sorts of stuff. And she certainly has, you know, played that role, you know, through this trip, but she's also said like, all right, you know, I want to be the mom. She said to me last week, I want to be the mom here. You know, I, I don't want to be your advisor on this necessarily. Of course she always gives me advice. She's such a smart, competent, you know, successful businesswoman. She ran for mayor of Portland, Oregon, you know, she's, um, she's, successful businesswoman. She ran for mayor of Portland, Oregon. Oh, wow. Your mom is a huge part of your life, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah. She seems really cool. Huge part of my life. It's just such a, not just my mom, but mentor, rock, solid person in my life.

It would be hard for me to do a project like this if I didn't feel like I had her support. But she's also been really honest with me for you know, for the first time in a long time that, you know, this puts her into a somewhat vulnerable place. Like she's worried about my safety. And I think that certainly she has some experience mountaineering. You know, she's climbed mountains. She took me out on some of my first mountains. So maybe she's the one to be blaming herself for going time machine 20 years ago and taking

me out and showing me how amazing mountains can be. But she's never been to the Himalayas. She's never been to some of these places. And of course, you know, you read about these places and the media, and then there is some truth to it that there's some serious danger out there. And so she's also worried and, you know, is trying to sit back and, you know, just digest all of this. So I think that's one of the blessings of this is the support and love I have for my

family. But also I would say absolutely without a doubt, one of the most challenging pieces of this is feeling that I know that I'm going to do something for the next six months. And there's people that are close to me that are going live other places, you know, and saying goodbye to them. And I'm not going to see them until the summer have just given me some little longer hugs, a little more lingering, a little bit more thoughtful, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's, it's, uh, like I said, I mean, it puts it, it's real, you know, and having, like I said, just been on this mountain, um, and known somebody who passed away doing the exact thing that I was doing certainly puts that into, you know, real

perspective for sure. So, well, good luck and Godspeed. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. No, I super appreciate you having me on the podcast. It's, uh, it's fantastic to be here and, you know, you're, you're an inspiration you know for all the all the people out there doing amazing things we mentioned the iron cowboy and there's so many countless other people not to mention but you know all the people and just the enemy everyone just living their dreaming big setting big goals being ambitious health fitness all that sort of stuff it's huge so uh um yeah hopefully people will can follow along with our project and um it's uh you know beyond72.com that's the number 72 is the website you'll probably put it

yeah so no no no yeah we'll get it let's let's break it all down so basically this thing's kicking off january 1st essentially and the way to get on board and follow along and participate online and in real time is to go to the website beyond72.com also the twitter uh and instagram are both beyond underscore 72 yeah correct exactly you gotta get that underscore yeah i know beyond underscore 72 those are the two places yeah and uh if you want to donate or you want to learn more about the uh alliance for a healthier generation all that information is on Beyond 17. It's a beautiful website, by the way. It's really cool how it's all laid out and you can kind of really visualize what this

is going to entail. So everybody should go check that out. And it's extraordinary, man. You know, I wish you the best of luck. It's going to be quite the adventure. Thank you so much. For you, of course, and for us to be following along. And I hope that not only

do you break the record, but you get to the other side intact and safe. And when you do, I hope that you'll come back here and tell us all about it. Oh, it'll be my pleasure. Hopefully we come back

and have some good stories for you of the successes and the failures and the ups and downs and the lesson learned and the soul searching and then hopefully the world record, bringing that hall home and inspiring some folks out there. So thank you for having me on the show and the well wishes and coming back. Absolutely. We'll do that this summer. Hopefully an exciting follow up. So thanks so much. And people out that are listening, I think it would be cool also as a sort of measure of support

to send Colin some tweets too so when you're trekking on your way to the South Pole and if your sat phone is working and you can see your Twitter feed that you can show him a little bit of love because he's going to be a little lonely out there for sure that's what we want we want interaction

through this whole thing this is not me in a vacuum i want people giving shout outs just telling me what they're doing in their day all this sorts of stuff so that's the whole point is for us to be tracking this stuff real time and jenna will be helping to facilitate that but it'll be me responding in that so any any interactions or shout outs are greatly greatly appreciated while i'm out there so at beyond beyond underscore seven, two. Uh, yeah, that's it. Right. Yeah. That's it. Uh, final thing though. I remember the name of the guy. Okay. Yeah. The trucker. Yeah. So his name, well, his name, his, his God given name and the name that he had at Yale is Tony Blake, Tony Blake. So I think he's older than you. I don't know how exactly old it is, but he changed his name to sift away. Okay. There's an article about him on sports illustrated

and there's an incredible video of him and kind of his trajectory from swimmer to trucker. And now he's like revolutionizing the trucking industry by implementing all these wellness programs. Because he's got, I mean, talk about an obesity problem. These guys just take amphetamines and drink Red Bull and eat Cheetos all day and drive cross-country. And they're on these crazy timelines. They don't take care of themselves. And, you know, it's a terrible mess. So this guy is actually revolutionizing that industry

by implementing all these programs to get these guys healthy. So it's cool. And former Yale swimmer. Tony, Yale swimming alum to Yale swimming alum. Tony, if you're out there, you've got to come on this podcast. He will. We've been trying to work it out. He just isn't in L.A. and he's driving around and doing these programs all the time.

Yeah, it's a scheduling thing, really. But we've been trying to work it out. He just isn't in LA and he's driving around and doing these programs all the time. Yeah, it's a scheduling thing, really. But we've been trying to make it work. It's awesome. It will happen at some point. Awesome. We'll see Yale swimmers doing cool things. Absolutely, man. So much respect for that.

Yeah, cool. All right. Thanks, Rich, for having me. Much appreciated. Absolutely, man. Yeah. Peace. Plants.

All right, we did it. That's the show. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I enjoyed it. Don't forget to go to beyond72.com and also at beyond underscore 72 on both Instagram and Twitter for real-time updates on Colin's progress. If you enjoyed this podcast, I have no doubt that he would love to hear from you on social media. Send him a tweet. Leave him a comment on Facebook or Instagram.

That will be sure to put some much-needed wind in this guy's sails. So send him some love. Send him some support. Lots of amazing resources in this week's show notes on the episode page at richroll.com, including ways you can learn more and get involved. So make a point of checking that out. And while you're at it, make a point of subscribing to my newsletter. No spam, just good stuff.

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