The Rich Roll Podcast - Combating Depression Through Ultra-Endurance: Luke Tyburski’s Ultimate Triathlon

Episode Date: July 23, 2015

Aussie born, UK-dwelling adventure athlete Luke Tyburski isn’t superman. He’s not famous nor is he a world champion. And he’s the first to say he’s just not that talented. In most ways Luke is a normal bloke. An everyman who decided to face his debilitating battle with clinical depression through the lens of adventure and ultra-endurance sports. Soccer obsessed as a young boy, from the get go Luke realized he lacked the God-given athletic gifts enjoyed by his teammates. Nonetheless, perseverance prevailed and Luke achieved his life-long dream of traveling the world as a professional footballer. Unfortunately, that career was cut short by significant, chronic & persistent injuries. What followed was an unexpected yet quite severe bout with acute, clinical depression — a back hole of desperation that often left him bedridden and teetering on hopelessness. To escape this prison, Luke dug deep. Through sheer force of will matched with equal parts faith, he compelled his mutinying body, mind and spirit to simply get up, get outside and begin exploring again — one step at a time. Having never ran more than 10 kilometers at any one time, and with only six months to prepare, in 2012 Luke conquered the infamous Marathon des Sables, a 250 kilometer, six stage self-sufficient running race across the treacherous and unrelenting sand dunes of the Moroccan Sahara. Since then he has competed in a variety of adventure races, including the Mt. Everest Ultra Marathon. His first ever triathlon? The double ironman distance Double Brutal Extreme Triathlon. My kind of guy. Currently, Luke's sights are set on achieving the truly extraordinary — a self-styled 12-day, 2000 kilometer adventure he calls The Ultimate Triathlon that kicks off in Morocco with a swim across the Straight of Gibraltar before cycling and running the coastline all the way to Monaco. It’s easy to admire the feats of the truly touched. It’s inspirational. But I cherish sharing stories like Luke's because they are aspirational. And because relatable, everyman guys like Luke demonstrate that big dreams are possible and accessible for all. This is a conversation that explores: * what its like to be clinically depressed * preparing for The Ultimate Triathlon * developing confidence as an outmatched youth * how attention to nutrition changed his game * the importance of a holistic approach to well-being * endurance sports as escapism * the importance of adventurous life * how the compassion of strangers in Nepal changed his perspective * what keeps him motivated; and * how to bridge the gap between inspiration and action An adventurous life is a worth leading. Luke's life is well worth the examination. I sincerely hope you enjoy our discussion. How can you invite more adventure into your life? I'd love to hear about it in the comments section below. Peace + Plants, Rich

That's what gets me through the dark days these times, knowing that I can make a difference in someone else's life if I apply myself to that. That's adventure athlete Luke Tyburski, this week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you doing? What's going on? What's the news?

It's Rich here, Rich Roll, your host of The Rich Roll Podcast. Thanks for tuning into the show. We're back at it with a second episode of the week, keeping the streak alive. What do we do here? Well, each week I sit down with some of the most compelling minds and personalities across all categories of positive culture change. We explore everything from health and wellness to fitness, professional sports, athletic performance, medicine, nutrition, the arts, spirituality, psychology, inspiration, and of course, excellence. And the purpose of these conversations is to leverage the insights provoked to simply help us live and be better, to help all of us unlock and unleash our collective best, most authentic selves. So thank you for subscribing to the show on iTunes. Thank you for spreading the

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Everybody wins. Thank you, guys. Hey, did I mention I got Luke Tyburski on the show today? So who is Luke? Well, Luke is an Aussie-born, UK-dwelling, ultra-endurance athlete, an adventure athlete, I think it's fair to say. And perhaps what's most interesting to me about Luke is that he's not a world champion. He's not a famous athlete. But nonetheless, he caught my interest because in many ways, he's just an incredibly normal guy, a guy who simply decided to challenge himself and his limits to do something extraordinary. In Luke's case, this began early. As a boy, as a young

person, he realized very early on that he lacked the natural athletic talent of his peers. Yet nonetheless, he was able to find the wherewithal to achieve his dream of traveling the world to play professional soccer. Unfortunately, that career was cut significantly short by chronic and persistent injuries, followed by severe bouts with depression, a black hole that left him bedridden and at times verging on hopelessness. And so to escape this prison, Luke was forced to find a new focus. He had to compel himself to get outside, to discover himself and to begin exploring again. And despite the fact that he'd never run more than 10 kilometers at any one time in his entire life, and with only six months to prepare, in 2012, Luke decided to take on the infamous

Marathon de Sable, a 250-kilometer, six-stage, self-sufficient running race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco. It's a totally epic race. If you're not familiar with it, Google it. It's insane. And despite injuries and many, many setbacks, he managed to finish. And this really lit an internal flame inside of him. And since then, he's competed in a variety of adventure races, including the Mount Everest Ultra Marathon. And what I love about this guy is that his first ever triathlon was the double Ironman distance, double brutal extreme triathlon, right? So this is my kind of guy. And now Luke has a set site on his own self-styled adventure. It's

something that he calls the ultimate triathlon. It's a 2000 kilometer swim bike run all the way from Morocco to Monaco in just 12 days. So again, what I like about this guy is that he isn't Superman. In many ways, he is you. He is me. He is an everyman. He's a very relatable guy with a modest amount of God-given talents that overcame some pretty relatable obstacles to do some amazing things and continues to dream of possibilities outside his comfort zone.

So it's easy to admire the feats of the truly touched. That's inspirational. But I really love sharing stories of people like this because they are aspirational. And there's a difference. There's a difference between inspirational and aspirational. And guys like Luke help all of us see that big dreams are indeed accessible. So this is a conversation that talks about dealing with depression. It's about a holistic approach to emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being.

It's about how endurance sports can actually be used as escapism, as a way of escaping your life, or alternatively as therapy. It's a conversation about how to wrap your body, mind, and spirit around a huge challenge. And it's a conversation about bridging that elusive gap between inspiration and action. Okay? Okay. All right. So let's check this dude out. How long are you in L.A. for?

I leave on Wednesday, so about five days. Yeah, six days. So you got in when? Friday night. Friday night. Yeah. Cool, man. You getting some good training in?

Yeah, yeah. It's been great. It's just been a bit different. The water in the ocean is still a bit cold. I jumped in there the other day in my little speedos, my little budgie smugglers, as we call them in Oz. But all the surfers are giving me some weird looks. Down in Manhattan Beach? Yeah.

I didn't stay in there for too long. That's normal to go in your speedo down there. But, I mean, people think that Southern California, oh, the water's warm all the time. And it's freaking cold. Yeah. Yeah, it took me a while to warm up. It's got to be probably like 61 Fahrenheit around now, around now something like that i don't know it was cold yeah

hey slide the mic up a little bit closer to you you gotta chew on it'll pull it closer to you um cool um and you went to uh malibu creek state park for a run today yeah that was awesome that was really good so i went out there and just basically jumped on the trailhead and got lost. Just kept running and got to the end of a few trails and turned around and ran back. Did you get the vert? Because it starts going up when you go back, right? Yeah, yeah. I hit that and I was like, whenever I run in the mountains, I always look where the

trees are, the top of the trees. I'm like, yeah, I still got a long way to go. I know this trail is going up there. And it was pretty cool because it was just like nice little switchbacks on a small scale. It's like the Alps or something like that. But it pitches pretty good once you get up there. I mean, I don't know exactly where. There's tons of trails back there.

Yeah, there was a couple that were pretty steep. I'm not going to lie. I didn't run. I was walking. I was trekking. Yeah, yeah. Did you pass through the MASH site? That's where they filmed MASH, that TV show.

Yeah, I know. That was crazy. I'd come around the corner, and then here's all this MASH stuff just sitting there in the middle of nowhere. Right. That's Hollywood, man. Oh, man. Living the dream here. That's cool.

So you have some friends here that you're hanging out with? Yeah, yeah. Just hanging out with some of the good friends. When I used to live in San Francisco like six, eight years ago. Eight years ago. I met them up there and now they live down in the South Bay. So you've been down here before? Yeah,

I've been down here before. Yeah, I used to play soccer up in San Francisco so we come down and play. You've lived, you've lived everywhere, man. You've bopped around

quite a bit. I've bounced around here and there. Even though I've not lived in Australia for 11 years, I've still got the accent. That's all I've been told. You don't want to lose that.

No, no. Hold on to that. That's part of me. That bodes well for you wherever you go. Yeah, especially in this country as well. That's cool, man. So I want to get a grip on your story. Why don't we just introduce people to what you got on tap in October, because it's pretty

epic. This is what you're preparing for right now, the ultimate triathlon, this challenge that you've concocted in your head that you're going to be launching yourself into come fall. And it's quite the extreme adventure, I would say so break it down yeah are you getting tired thinking about it come on man where's that aussie uh confidence oh mate it's it's there it's there it's my life is the ultimate triathlon right now so i love it you know and it's been three years in the making so it's it's like my little baby so to speak but basically it's 1300 miles in 12 days from morocco to monaco so i swim the gibraltar strait between morocco and spain which is about 12 miles right 20 kilometers yeah but the tricky thing there is the currents i mean

that's a shipping lane like that's that's not like you know some kind of picker-esque you know picturesque uh open water swim you know like there's got to be laws about that are they cool with you doing that you have permits and stuff you got to sort out yeah there's a company that does the crossings so they do they have the boats and stuff like that so i sign up with them but in normal luke style as I've been told, I'm doing it the most difficult way. Because normally what they do is they swim from Spain to Morocco. And then that's the crossing. Currents are more favorable.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I said, I don't want to do that because it's not going to help me. I need to go up to Monaco. So the end of the challenge. So I said, I want to go the other way. And they balked at it for a little bit, but I told them what I'm doing and helped them out with a bit of exposure and stuff like that. So they said, yeah, you can do it, but it's going to be a lot more difficult. So why is that?

Is the current going out towards the Atlantic? How does it work? Why would it matter if it's going, if it's going west to east? Because apparently later in the, in the day, it sort of spins out. So people do two ways, but the only way they can go back is if they get down quick enough, because later in the day, if the currents will take them out. Um, so yeah. And just the way the water works through there, it's a lot more difficult. And then, as you said, you've got the shipping containers. It's the mouth of the Mediterranean,

and the amount of shipping tanks coming there is hundreds every day, plus the marine life. Right, right, right. My mom says I'm not allowed to say the S word. The marine life. Yeah. I'm not allowed to talk about sharks and stuff. That's one nice way of putting it.

Is that really a big problem there? No, no, no. But you're in the ocean, you know, like, but my mom up till like, she knew about three years ago, I told my family that this is what I'm thinking of doing. And up until like six months ago, she said to me, oh, so have you got the cage organized? I'm like, cage? What for? I'm like, what am I doing? And she's like, oh, for the swim, you're swimming in a cage, aren't you? I'm like, no. I'm swimming next to a boat. Yeah, no cage there. It's not like you're swimming around, you know, South Africa or something. No, no, no.

It's a bit of a joke. And what's the temp? Oh, no, it'll be fine. Down in Morocco, it'll be like, well, 15 Celsius. I'm not sure what that is in Fahrenheit. It's not Fahrenheit. I don't know. But not bad.

Maybe like 55, 60? It's still pretty chilly. So that's a wetsuit. You're wearing a wetsuit. Yeah, I have a wetsuit on. And then it gets warmer as you get up to it. There'll be a few cold parts throughout, but it gets warmer as you get up to Spain. So Africa to Europe in one swim.

Yeah. So I get there. It's epic in its own right. Yeah, that's a massive challenge anyway because I've talked to a few people that have done it. And, yeah, it sounds like it's going to be pretty epic. But then the same day I get rid of this wetsuit, I get on the bike, and I've got like 70 miles to ride that same day. So one of the biggest challenges for me is getting a good tide and at a good time because I don't want to leave too late on the first day because then I've still got 70 miles to cycle. And that could eat into my sleep, my recovery time later that day.

But there's probably a specific period of time in the day when there's like a slack, like when it's in between going in and out, right, where it's ideal for crossing. But maybe that's not ideal for finishing your bike bike leg no no dark right no exactly so we've got to have fingers crossed that it works in our favor but that's day one and then we'll stay every day we'll stay at a designated stop so then day one's finished and then the next four days i cycle the southeast coast of spain to the spanish french border and that's in between 190 and 200 miles a day right so day two days two through three you're going about 690 kilometers on the bike yeah right sounds fun doesn't it it does actually you're talking to the right guy you know what i mean like it doesn't sound crazy to me i'm like all right 20k that's an epic swim.

You can get up for that. 70 miles on the bike. You know, day one of Ultraman, it's 90 after a 10K swim. So half the swim distance. So you're going to be swimming. I mean, it's going to take you like six hours at least. I'll tell you what, if it takes me six hours, I'll be ecstatic. I'll be ecstatic.

So I'm not a swimmer like you. Well, it's going to depend on the currents big time and the chop. Yeah. All right. So then you get through the third day and you put the bike behind you. And then basically you're running from day five through 11, you're running a double marathon every day. Yeah. So it's like 50 miles every day for seven days nonstop. You're kind of hugging the coast until you arrive in Monaco. Yeah. I thought, why not? Yeah, so it's like 50 miles every day for seven days nonstop.

You're kind of hugging the coast until you arrive in Monaco. Yeah, I thought, why not? Just stick to the coastal roads as much as possible. Some awesome scenery that hopefully will get me through a few dark times. And yeah, it should be good. I think it's going to be good, man. I'm excited. I said to my friend a couple of years ago, he's an Ironman athlete, and he's been to Europe a few times back in Oz.

He lives. And he's like, that's a great way to see that part of the world. He said, just don't fall off your bike. Yeah, I think, yeah, rubber side down, right? I mean, I think that I'm more and more interested in, like, these self-styled adventures, you know, where it's not so much about racing. It doesn't matter. You know, you've got to finish in a reasonable amount of time

so that you're getting enough sleep. That becomes the big problem and making sure that your crew is locked in and dialed so that you don't lose time due to stupid stuff because stuff will happen. Trust me. Eleven days, it's not going to go according to plan, and it's like how do you react in those situations to expeditiously get you back going where you need to be. But it's cool. So there's the daunting aspect of completing it, but you don't have that pressure of like you're watching the clock for what your splits are, what your watts are on the bike and stuff like that, right? So you can enjoy it, I guess, on some level a bit more than than is possible when you're in a race context yeah no that's exactly right the only thing as you said is the rest like it's not just like i'm going to go for a little pedal and just

a little spin i do have to work because i need to finish in a reasonable amount of time so i can get the rest and then get up the next day and do it all over again because after day one so day two to day 12 is i'm going to start at 6 30 in the morning every day so then hopefully in 2017 i can offer the ultimate triathlon experience to other people and they can do it if they want to beat my time whatever it is if they want to set a fast time i want to try and replicate i'll make it replicable replicable so other people can do it as well so i'll be starting at 6 30 so if i'm just having a little jolly up laugh and i finish at two in the morning i got to get up and go again four hours it's not gonna work how is uh how is

your crew looking do you have that locked in motley crew because that's that's the key you know yeah it's a team it's a team sport it's a team effort like if you can get it to the point where all you have to worry about is getting those miles done and they take care of everything um then you're in good shape but you know when you have to sort of deal with stuff outside of swimming cycling and running then it starts to get tricky yeah it's i've got plenty of friends and family who have all put their hands up and want to get on the on the bandwagon they don't know what they're getting into though there's a there's a couple of i've got a couple of good friends who have crewed for me before and i know

who are good and who are yeah next time next time it sounds good like a nice drive down the you know the coast and all that kind of stuff i think most people underestimate that they have to be on point the whole time, and it's a huge job. Yeah, crewing is just as hard as actually doing any event. You've crewed for Bad Ward and a few other things as well, and I've crewed for different races for different friends. It's hard because you've got to be on the ball the whole time. Then people come in, they're in and out within a few minutes, and then they're off again.

You've got to reset and you've got to stay on point so yeah i've got i've got quite a few friends who i know and they know that they're going to come along and they've crewed for me for my first ever triathlon which is a double iron man in uh in north wales and the crew up there that i had were were awesome you know get me in and out do you need anything no okay get out of here um so and i've got a few other friends. I've got a running group on every Sunday called PRC. We go running between 20 and 30 miles and a couple of those guys who I know. In London?

Yeah, in London. Yeah. So anyone in London wants to join PRC, give me a shout. Do you know Timothy Sheaf? I listen to it on the flight coming over here yeah you got to connect with that guy because he's getting super into ultra running sounds like it on the old on the podcast he's got a few mates in london that he that he does it with but i'm sure he you know he'd like to tap into it yeah prc is all about go and run come home to our

place and we cook up a big feed and that's it nice man yeah i like it so how are you feeling i'm good i'm excited about it all it's just as you know the training in the actual event is the fun part it's all the other stuff like the promotion and the logistics and stuff which is a bit bit boring but you got you got to do it yeah well that's what you're doing here right exactly that's why i'm here with you rich it's not too boring for you no no no no telling everyone about what's happening and and going from there well i want to get into the training and the nutrition and all of that but i'm really interested in kind of your story because you you have a really kind

of unique uh you know past that's brought you into this world um in in a kind of a turbocharged way like you know i love the fact that like me, you're pretty much an all or nothing guy. And, you know, you came from this soccer background, which I want to get into and just kind of, you know, through some kind of, you know, tribulations in your career as a soccer player, launched yourself into endurance sports without any background and just went straight for ultras you know with barely any prep or knowledge about what you were doing and your first triathlon was a double iron man right like i love that yeah yeah it's um so basically i three years ago now uh three and a

half years ago i i just retired from football from soccer soccer. I just battled injuries for the previous three years. I had a space of 12 months where I had three surgeries, major back injuries with injections and things like this, with radioactive dye and all this other crazy stuff. And I was a pin cushion for all different types of steroids and stuff and whatever to try and heal my body. And then it got to a point where I just decided I had enough. Like I tore my calf and it was like a light switch and I just went,

no, I'm done, I can't do this anymore. And I was 28 and I had my whole basically life in front of me and I went home and I was icing my calf and I'm thinking, what do I do now? Like I was doing some personal training in London, training some clients and stuff. And that was fine. I had some really cool clients that I trained and good connection with and getting great results. But, you know, I was, myself, I was a soccer player.

And they knew that. And then for some stupid reason, I remember a conversation I had with a friend in Australia. He was telling me about this race, the world's toughest, you know, foot race. And it popped into my head as I'm icing my calf and playing on my laptop, trying to get away from the decision-making that I needed to do was what's next. And it was the Marathon de Sables, which is six marathons in seven days, self-supported through the Sahara Desert. You need to carry everything on your back, except for a tent, and you get rash and water every day.

Right. One of the most epic ultra marathons around, running on, literally running on sand dunes pretty much the whole time. Yeah. And I saw it and it was in six months time. And I went, yeah, all right. Did a bit more research for about two minutes and then called him up and went, yeah, have you got any places left? Like I knew nothing about ultras or endurance sports.

I'd never ran more than like six miles in one go. It was a soccer play, out and out. And I had a few friends who were triathletes and whatever, but I just really cared about soccer and short, sharp sprints and that was it. And so I called this lady up and she's like, well, we've got a waiting list, but the waiting list has just sort of overflowed. But if you pay deposit now, you can get a spot. And I'm like, okay, sure, no worries. And so I paid my deposit and that was it. And hung the phone up and went, holy crap, what am I doing in six months?

Well, I like the fact that you're kind of depressed on the couch and nursing this calf injury and your instinct was to sign up for something that's just so outside of the ballpark of anything you'd ever experienced. Yeah. I mean, that was your cure, you know, like your way of kind of mentally clawing your way out of, you know, a situation that probably, you know, I mean, look, I want to get into all the injuries and all that kind of stuff that you were struggling with, but at the kind of tail end of your soccer career, you weren't such a happy guy. No, not at all. I battled with depression probably badly for about two years, and it was just because I was getting injured, and then I'd get fit again, and then I'd break down,

and I couldn't do this sport that I love to do and it got to a point where I was injured so I couldn't train had to rest and you know unless I had face-to-face clients I would just stay at home and I had some housemates and stuff and you know it makes me laugh well yeah it makes me laugh now but I'd pretend to go out so they think I'd go out to work and close the front door and go back into my room and just stay in bed all day. And they'd be like, oh, how was your day? Yeah, good, busy. I left early this morning.

You might have heard me and stuff. And I kept it really in-house. No one knew about it, which in hindsight was pretty crazy. It was something big to deal with back then, but I didn't know what to do I had no idea I'd never suffered anything like this before and my life I just felt like my my professional career I should say not my life was just going south fast so um yeah just these injuries just kept coming back and kept coming back. Do you think that the depression was driven by the injuries and your sort of career trajectory as a soccer player, or do you think it was deeper than that?

Do you still deal with it, or did it dissipate when you kind of found this new passion? It dissipated for a second because I was so busy and I had so much stuff going on. Like, you know, it was like training for an ultra and especially your first one. I tested everything. I researched so much. So it was like I didn't have a chance to be flat or low.

But now it's still with me today. You know, I still have low points. I'm a lot more open with it now. I've got a really good core friend unit around me in London, around the world that I can talk to and that know the ins and outs of it all. And I don't mind calling them up and say, hey, I'm having a really bad day, having a flat day and just chat even about anything. But yes, I'm a lot more open with it now. And it is one of those things where I don't know if it ever goes away. I'm not sure. But I think you just sort of learn to deal with it.

And when you have those low days like I have now, occasionally they're few and far between, I will literally do the bare minimum. Because if I do that, I've found they go quicker. So rather than like back when I was playing football, it was felt like a week or two weeks where I couldn't even drag myself out of bed and I didn't want to eat or anything. But now I may have a one or two day or even half a day where I'm just sort of like, you know what, I'm just going

to chill. I'm just going to relax. I'm not going to try and push myself. I'm not going to open the laptop. I'm just going to let it let it pass by and i feel i find that that makes a lot easier and i can get through it but you haven't gone the therapy route or the pharmaceutical route definitely not pharmaceutical no like i'm real food that's anti-american yeah i know i know we'll get i'm sure we'll get into my my nutrition later with all the real food but no definitely not that not that. Therapy, yeah, I've done some therapy and it's been helpful, which has been good to sort of talk to other people. And it's crazy because as I've sort of become more open with it and speaking with some of

my closer friends, a couple of them have suffered with a few other mental health issues as well. So we sort of formed this little group that we have. We talk individually to each other and having a bad day and whatever. So we sort of bounce around with that now. But for me, yeah, I did therapy for a little while and it definitely did help. But I found it served its purpose and it was time to move on because I just sort of felt like I was going around in circles. And once I did that full circles, like, okay, I need to get off and need to work on myself and find how I'm going to move forward as Luke. Mm-hmm. And it seems like you have this kind of hyper ability to focus and go deep on something

almost at the point of OCD, whether it's through researching nutrition or depression or ultra-endurance or what have you. I mean, I think that that probably serves you well in ultra-endurance, kind of having that mentality about your training and all of that. But let's take it back to when you were a kid. I mean, from what I understand, you know, you were not initially, you know, some kind of gifted athlete. You were much like me, you know, the last kid picked for, you know, kickball or whatever playground game was going on. And, you know, the future didn't look bright in terms of sports for you, right?

And you grew up in a very sports-oriented family, right? Your parents were both athletes. Your sister was a star athlete. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Sporty family, sporty town in country Australia. What does that mean in country? So in the bush, you know, I grew up with a dairy farm around the corner and stuff like that. So right out in the country, about three and a half hours west of Sydney, a little town called Bathurst. I should give that a shout out.

But, yeah, so really sporty family. And all I played was soccer. I played a bit of cricket. But that was it. And all I wanted to ever do was play for Australia in soccer. And I worked at it. And, you know, from 8, 9, 10, I was just an average kid kicking a ball around and then representative teams came about when we were 10, 11, 12

and all my mates were getting picked and stuff and I literally always was the last one picked. Like, you know, people say all the time, but I very rarely played. I sat on the bench the whole time, but I didn't care because two things. I got to travel with my mates. We'd go away on the weekends and on holidays for tournaments and I'd get the bench the whole time, but I didn't care because two things. I got to travel with my mates. We'd go out on the weekends and on holidays for tournaments, and I'd get the track suit. So I was like, I've got this track suit, you know.

So that was a big thing for me. But, yeah, always the last one picked. And then that was just for the local representative team, and then all my friends were getting picked for, like, the regional team, things like that, and the state teams. And I never even got a look in. And then I hit around 14, I think it was. And I just thought, right, I need to become better. I had to become better. And I kept getting knocked back by all these coaches and all these

teams by saying, no, I'll better luck next year. You know what I mean? And it was hard. It was hardcore back then because they would put everyone in front of you and the coaches would read out all the names who get picked. It was like a public shaming. Yeah, if I call your name out, come and sit next to me. And he calls out all the names of the players and then there's like four or three little misfits sitting there around next to me. And he's like, okay, guys, better luck next year.

See you later. And goes around with his team and starts talking about what they're going to do. So it was a cutthroat, you know. But I kept going up after every knockback. What can I do better? How do I make the team next year? And I'd say, okay, you need to work on this. You need to work on that.

And I'd go away and work on it. And then I hit about 14. And I don't know how it started, but I started to research nutrition for myself, sports nutrition. I thought, well, that's an area that I can get better at. I still don't know how that came about. And then I started training by myself a lot more. And I'd get my dad to drop me to the gym in the mornings. And I'd just be doing stuff in the studio, like little sprint sessions or on the exercise bike.

And I wouldn't be lifting any weights, but just doing free weight stuff. And I'd do that two or three times in the morning at six o'clock. And then I'd get dropped off at my grandmother's house, have a shower, have some breakfast and go to school. And I'm like a 14-year-old kid doing this off my own bat. And my parents had to change some of the foods that they cooked as well because I said, oh, no, I can't eat,

which is quite ironic now, but I can't eat fat. Fat's bad. I can't eat that. Can you make your mashed potatoes without any butter for me? What is the typical bush diet? Meat and three veg. In country. Meat and three veg. What does that mean? So portion of meat, normally where we were, lamb was quite big. So a couple of big lamb chops or a big steak or some sausages and things like that, and then three types of vegetables, and then there'd be always bread on the table, and probably four or five times a week there'd be like a lump of pasta on the side of the plate or rice or something like that. That's pretty standard stuff. Yeah, yeah, nothing out of the ordinary.

The meat was great. It was from around the corner, and the veggies, most of it was locally grown and stuff. So it was still good quality, but that was it. But I would start saying, no, I can't have any fat and I can't have too much of this. I can't have too much of that. And my parents, to be fair to them, they could have went, no, I'm not making two separate things because they both worked. It was a very busy, busy family. But they both saw that I was trying to make me better.

I was trying to make a better athlete out of myself and trying to push myself forward. So they supported me with that and I always say to them, thanks for the early days. And it was not until I was like 15 when my dad convinced me to go and train for this team that played in the Sydney competition. So I travelled three and a half hours every second weekend. All my friends were going and I'm sure a few of them were going to get picked.

And it was three age groups high. I was 15. It was like under 18s. And that's like, just go for fitness. It'd be great. Go and do some fitness and whatever. And I went and got picked. And I had no idea how I got picked.

And the coach just basically pulled me aside and he goes, you've got great potential. You keep working hard and good things will come. And I had no idea how I got picked. And the coach just basically pulled me aside and he goes, you've got great potential. You keep working hard and good things will come. And then my career sort of blossomed from then. That's great. I mean, really what I hear in that is that you were able to solve this equation of bridging the maybe innate talent gap by working harder. Right. Yeah. And that's something I experienced as a swimmer.

You know, I was good, but I was never going to be great, and I knew that early on. And I went the extra mile and was able to kind of, you know, I was never going to be a star. And, you know, for me, it was always about very similar to you. Like I just wanted to be part of the team, you know? Like when I went to Stanford to swim, it was like I got to wear the sweatsuit, you know, and I wasn't scoring a lot of points, but I got to like train with the best and be around them and be part

of something that was bigger than me and I think really that's that's all I wanted you know what I mean that was more important than whatever my own personal sports goal was you know whatever my times were or what have you um but you know around 15 is when I figured out the same thing. Like, oh, if you work harder, that actually works. It's not going to make you Michael Jordan or Pele, but it might just get you on the team. Yeah, and over the next three years, I was getting phone calls from the same coaches

who kept knocking me back year after year and saying, are you going to come and play for us at this tournament this year? And I'd be like, I'm going to come and try out for the team. And they'd be going, no, no, no, don't worry. You don't need to try it. You're already on the team. And I was getting picked for this one team and having this one coach install the confidence that I have in me today. That's where it came from.

I wasn't an overly confident kid. I wasn't really all that confident at all growing up but once I got picked for this team out of the blue and this coach basically took him took me under his wing and you know he said you've got great potential don't worry about all these other teams your potential you can play for the state you know that you're you potentially can be that good and my confidence just went through the roof and some people they say it's a little bit too much but uh but that's where it all started and yeah I just put my head down from then and just worked hard and and you know I I got to sort of play at the highest level in Australia and then um yeah achieve some really big goals so was there like was there an opportunity to play on the

Australian Olympic team or like how does it work so basically growing up was there an opportunity to play on the australian olympic team or like how does it work so basically growing up you have an under 17 squad which is called the joeys all of the uh all of the the australian soccer team is named after some sort of like ruse because you got the the joeys the ollie ruse the olympic ruse so australian and then the soccer ruse but a lot of our sporting teams are named after some sort of animal from Australia. So you've got the under-17s, so all the young kids who are, like, growing up and going to be stars, you know, they get picked for that team. And then depending on when the cycle is compared to the Olympics,

you'll get the under-23s, which is for the Olympic squad. I was always a year or two below the age group for the under 17, so I'd be competing with people a year above me or two years above me. And then for the Olympics, I missed the cycle. Right, right. But I wasn't quite that good. I was always at the national tournaments getting looked at for scouts, by scouts for these national teams

but i never got a call and i was fine with that you know two years ago i wasn't even making the local team now i'm playing for the state right and then you you become kind of this well you come to the states for college right you kind of bounce around in the heartland right you were you were at uh university of louisville for a while and and then you were in Oklahoma. That must have been an interesting transition. Oh, man. So I knew nothing about college sports. I was at University of Australia doing exercise science, and basically someone said to me,

why don't you go to America and play? They pay for all your school, and they pay for everything, and you go over there, and girls love the accents, and this and that, whatever. And I'm like, okay, we'd all sign up. So basically I knew nothing, and I talked to a guy who apparently knew something, but he ended up throwing me in the middle of Kentucky somewhere. I turn up, and I'm like, yeah, right, where am I again?

But it was cool. I lasted a season there, and it just wasn't for me. The school wasn't for me, and the team just wasn't professional enough, to be honest, and just not good enough. I was playing. There was one or two guys in the team that were half decent, sort of my standard, and the rest not quite there.

Yeah, most of the good collegiate soccer programs are along the eastern seaboard yeah exception of few california schools i think yeah so it was a small naia school yeah and uh and then university of louisville came knocking at the door and said yeah we want to come sign you up that's good sorted that out and as i said i knew nothing about college sports and i was there and school was started i did pre-season with the team and then the NCAA red flagged me and said no hang on you've played professionally you've been paid before in Australia and the coaches are like have you I'm like yeah and they're like oh no so they never asked you you probably just didn't even know I didn't I didn't know yeah and then and then one

of the craziest times of my life was school was starting. School had already started. I had three semesters before I graduated with my degree. The season was starting in five days and I was without a school. I'd had a full ride and that was gone and I needed to find a school. Like no one's got a budget that's got a full ride for an international student, which is more than an American student. But I caught up a few contacts that I've made throughout the States and I get this phone call from a coach in Oklahoma. He said, yeah, I've heard

about you. My friend called me about you, blah, blah, blah. We'll offer you a full ride and come out and play for us. I was like, cool, because I'll see you tomorrow. Excuse me? He said, I'll see you tomorrow. I said, okay. So I went literally off the phone, went to a computer and Googled where the hell Oklahoma was. I had no idea. So rocked up out there and the team was full of internationals, which was really cool and a really good program in the NAIA. Good school. And we were ranked nationally in top two and three for the two seasons I played there. We got beat in the final four in one year,

which I still think we're the best team in the country that year, but maybe biased. And yeah, so I graduated from there and then bounced around the States playing in sort of some low league stuff in Orlando and New Orleans and up in San Francisco as well. And then you kind of became this journeyman professional throughout Europe, right?

You played in Belgium? Yeah, yeah. So then it was, you know, like I was never good enough to play in the top leagues throughout the world, but you don't need to make a career out of it just to be playing in the top league. You can make normal money, that I like to call it, playing in the lower leagues.

But yeah, you sometimes can be a journeyman so I first went to the UK and bounced around there got a few short-term deals and a few little games here and there and that didn't work out and then I got a call from a friend who was playing in Belgium he said we need a defender come out for a trial so jumped on a train from London went to Belgium and 12 months later, my first season in Belgium was over. So, yeah, I did that and then went back to the UK. And then I had three years of injuries, and that's when all the injuries started. So looking at the injuries, I mean, that started to really plague you.

That was sort of your undoing as a professional athlete. I mean, looking back on that now, can you point to what was causing that or what you were doing that was leading you to get perpetually injured that, you know, it seems like now you're training like a beast. You're not having these problems anymore. So what shifted? It's a different kind of training. It's a completely different thing, It's a different kind of training. It's a completely different thing, obviously. But still, it's repetitive motion. I think part of it is I don't know.

I have no idea. And I've got a great team of – a great medical team around me in London who I've seen over the years, who have seen me through all the football injuries. And none of them can say definite oh it was because of this this and this and there's no it's not like a reoccurring injury I was having injuries with my right foot and then you know I broke my collarbone and had back injuries so it wasn't something that was always the same so part of it I just don't know and I'm okay with that right now the other part of it was where I developed more of an understanding of the holistic approach to life and to training and balance

where I wasn't happy in life and I just thought, well, everyone's not happy at times. Just where I came from, you roll your sleeves up and get it done. Oh, you're unhappy. I say, well, you're alive, you're breathing, you've got food, you've got shelter, you're fine. But sometimes it plays on you. And I had an up-and-down relationship at the time with my ex-girlfriend

and then just all the injuries. And I wasn't really happy in London, what I was doing. And I think and I know now that soft in London where I was, what I was doing. And I think, and I know now that soft tissue wise is, is really connected with my emotions, you know, and I tell, interesting. Yeah. And I, and I see that and I know that now, cause I tell this story to people when they sort of look at me really weird and I was like, yeah, well, if you, you know, if you're stressed or you're unhappy, you know, be careful cause you could get injured. And they're like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, look, I was fit. I was training for an ultra marathon.

I had a fight with my girlfriend. Two days later, I stepped off a bus, tore my calf, and I was out for eight weeks. And there was nothing else in life that was wrong except I had a fight with my girlfriend two weeks ago. And for me personally, soft tissue and my emotions are quite connected. So I think part of it was that as well. I just wasn't happy in life with the depression. And that was like my body, you know, sort of gripping me and making me really tight inside. So when I'd go and try and do these ballistic exercises, sprinting and change direction with football, it was breaking me down. Yeah, I mean, I think that idea is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people.

But, you know, you're talking to the right guy. I'm open to that. And I think that, you know, we don't really, you know, take a bird's eye view of our life in a holistic sense enough. You know, and the interplay between our emotional state and our mental state and our spiritual state and our physical state and our sleep and our nutrition, all of these things rely upon each other. And if they're out of balance, then something has to give. So if your emotional wellbeing is askew, it's going to impact you somehow. Now the direct correlation between that and a calf pull, you know, that's a stretch for certain people, but you know, I can see the connection there.

You know, if anything, it's sort of a, you know, a call to action or a reminder to be more mindful of that interplay. It's delicate. No, it is. It is. And as I said, that's where I really sort of got into looking into holistic approaches to life, mindfulness, meditation, and different relaxation techniques. Because bottom line, I was doing the same thing everyone else was doing, getting up every day, doing what I needed to do.

There was nothing special about my life in regards to everyone else. But I just kept breaking down. I couldn't do what I love to do. And so I needed to find my whole little OCD world. I needed to find what was causing this. And then I had a few people around me that kept trying to push me sort of a holistic approach. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like a lot of people in life.

Yeah, that sounds good, but it's a bit airy-fairy. And then I was like, well, screw it. I'm going to have a look at it. And I threw myself into it. And I was like, wow, I've got great results. So what kind of things were you exploring? I was doing some sort of like meditation courses and things like that. And then creating my own sort of relaxation techniques. Because we did, growing up, when I was sort of playing elite, sort of in my teens, football,

we had different sort of yoga teachers come in and different people who would come in and teach us sort of meditation, relaxation techniques when we would go away to camps and stuff to do that. So I went back because we all thought that was just a joke, but I went back to try that type of stuff. And I looked into a few mindful courses and learned a little bit more about that. I didn't actually do any, but for me, just actually looking into it was a big step. Yeah, so I did a bit of meditation and then just looked outside the mainstream box.

So that was pretty cool. So was there a specific type of meditation that you were exploring or just in general? that you were exploring or just in general? Me sitting still and just concentrating on my breath or concentrating on one thought or trying to not concentrate, that was pretty hard like it is for most people. But actually just doing it and stopping, that was where I was at. So it was almost like just making time for me to stop and trying to listen to my body and listen to myself.

You know, when you shut everything down and you have no external stimulus and you actually listen to your inside, so to speak, when you're open to that, it actually speaks to you. You can hear what your body's trying to tell you, you know, and I find that really fascinating because I got some good results and, you know, I was listening and I was doing what sort of my body told me. Yeah, that's really cool. That's really cool. So in terms of the timeline, was this happening after your calf injury when you're starting to get ready for Marathon de Sauve or was this during the soccer career? This was sort of during the end of the soccer career.

I was just starting to tap into it, you know, because the depression was getting pretty bad where I wasn't even leaving the house. You know, my parents live on the other side of the world and we would normally Skype or chat every couple of weeks and I'd text them and say, I look really busy, can't chat to you, and going months without talking to them,

which, you know, they're my heroes, you know. My parents, they're on the pedestal and I couldn't even talk to them because I knew as soon as I said hello to my mum, she knew she would know something would be wrong and she would sort of try and figure out for the first couple of sentences and then she'd leave it, but I knew that she'd always be thinking about it. So I didn't want to worry her. I thought the best way to do that is not talk to her.

And I was like, this is not healthy. So I needed to try and do something about it. So that was towards the end of the career. And I started to look into sort of that holistic approach. Right. Interesting. So you're on the couch, you got this calf injury, you, you know, you send your deposit in for Marathon to sob. And then, you know, so you got six months to get ready for this insanity. And, you know, how long was it before your calf healed? And you set about preparing. And what did that preparation look like? It was, I think I had to have three or four weeks off.

So basically, I had five weeks, five months to prepare. My physio, who had seen me for several years, I rocked up. And I went, yeah, I'm done. He's like, OK, I can see it in your face it's a good decision and this and that and he knew me really well he still knows me really well and i said yeah i've signed up to something and he's like what because you're not signed up to like do an iron man or something like that have you i'm like no i've signed up to this and he just went oh what are you doing so basically I had he got me fixed and we like he has no endurance sports background he was a physio for a premiership football club

at the time and worked with a lot of elite athletes but he said let's devise a plan together he knows my body better than myself and to degree. And we devised a training plan. And basically, it was all about loading four to five times a week to start with, just doing some runs. And I knew nothing about sports nutrition or anything like that. And I was like, yeah, I need to buy these gels. I went and bought out all these gels. And I remember the first time I took one mid-run, I was going on like an eight-mile run. And I had one at halfway.

I thought, well, I don't want to bonk. I don't want to bonk. So I had like a gel after four miles. Right. And I look back now and think, you idiot. But, yeah. That's common. I mean, you know, out here on the trails, I don't know what you saw this morning if you saw people out there,

but there's a lot of people that they just pack so much stuff for maybe, you know, an hour hour hour and a half or something like that and you just don't need that stuff you know we've been brainwashed into thinking that you gotta you gotta bring tons of stuff with you if you're just gonna venture out into nature for a short period of time yeah exactly exactly we're gonna have a whole another podcast on real food and my thoughts on that but we'll talk about that later so yeah and i basically we worked together mo and i my physio and after a couple of weeks i said to him i want to finish in the top 50 the elite top 50 in the marathon to sarbs is like a sort of a sort of a club type of thing you finish in the top 50 it's like amazing and and what they do is after the first three days there's a long day

which is basically a double marathon on the fourth day and fifth day and the elite top 50 start three hours later so they finish closer to the rest of the group and although i went into i so i wanted to train to finish in the top 50 so it was not just become an ultra runner in five months to do 155 miles in a week, it was finishing the top 50. And he saw the look in my eye and he's like, I can't convince you out of this. I'm like, no, I'm doing it. So we trained for that.

I was running within two months, like 100 miles a week. Wow. That's a very short period of time to ramp up to that kind of volume. Yeah. I'm shocked you didn't get injured. I did. Literally. Especially with your history of injury like that's not a responsible ramp no not at all but i was doing it and that was it um but i did i did take an injury into the race my itb flared up just from

the amount of load that i had but you know as you, it's irresponsible and it's a stupid amount of loading in such a short time. But now looking back, the whole reason I signed up to the Marathon de Sables is not that I wanted to be an endurance athlete or anything like that. It was I don't want to deal with life. I needed something to take my mind off what I'm going to do. I needed something to take my mind off that I've retired from the career that all I've ever wanted to do since I was four years old was play soccer. So that was just a massive sidestep. And I thought, well, if I do this, then this is going to give me six months to not worry about anything else. And I'm just going to focus on this. And if I say I'm going to finish in the top 50, well, then I need to

train hard every day. I need to focus on all the preparation and testing of the kit and then if i and then if i do this everyone else is not going to ask me what am i going to do next because they know i'm going to be doing this so it was almost like tried to trick everyone and trick myself that oh i'm going to deal with life once i finish this so it's given me another six months to prepare for that and And that was, in hindsight, looking back, that's the reason why I signed up the Marathon to Salves. Yeah, let's camp out here for a little bit and park it because I think this is a really important topic. And I think it's a common thing. You know, I've seen it in a lot of people. And I think a lot of people are not – I mean you're owning that, but I think there's a lot of people out there that are either not owning it or are unconscious of the extent to which they're using endurance sports to escape from some other aspect of their life.

You see it whether it's an unhappy marriage or some kind of childhood trauma or a career they don't like. It's a very – because it's so all-consuming and you can become so obsessed if you're like you or you're like like. It's a very, because it's so all consuming and you can become so obsessed if you're, you know, if you're like you or you're like me, it's very easy to invest maybe too much of yourself in this goal and have your life kind of pivot around it to the exclusion of so many other important things in your life. And then it can become like a very easy to, I don't know if denial is the right word, but to kind of dismiss other aspects of your life with this kind of focus. And, you know, I think it's okay in a short run context, but in terms of a lifestyle that has sustainable, you know, qualities to it, not so good, right? And I think it can perpetuate whatever, I think i think you know disorder is not the right word

it's too severe but you know maybe you know prevent you from some interpersonal growth by by putting a barrier between you and whatever issue it is that you kind of need to grapple with and get to the other side of yeah no i totally agree it's the whole endurance sports takes time to prepare for because you have to understand the sports that you're doing you have to do the training and it's long you know you spend hours and hours every week and if you have a nine to five well any time you have that is before or after work so if you've got as i said an unhappy marriage or something else then yeah it's a great way to say look i'm doing this i've got, as you said, an unhappy marriage or something else, then yeah, it's a great way to say, look, I'm doing this. I've got to do it.

I've got to get away. But yeah, I've seen it too. So many people that are just doing all these endurance sports to run away from something or a lot of times run away from themselves. They're battling depression or something like that. And the only time they feel alive is when they go out and run four or five hours. I've been like that and the only time they feel alive is when they go out and run you know four or five hours i i've been like that you know i i battled with insomnia for a long time uh due to a relationship breakup and that's what that's what started that and i had insomnia and and when i had my low days yeah i use endurance sports i use running like i i left my house in in west london

and and ran to the middle of London running down Oxford Street at 4 o'clock on a Wednesday morning. Literally no one else there with all the big shops and stuff like that. Running down the middle there and I'd do like 20 miles, 25 miles between 2 and 5 in the morning and come home and then start my work because I just couldn't sleep. But instead of just sitting at home and doing whatever, I was like screwed I'm going for a run and yeah to be fair I mean I think that endurance sports also provides the opportunity to help you answer those questions

for yourself and all that time alone gives you kind of that space and freedom to be with yourself to wrestle with some of that stuff I think it's in your relationship and approach to it you know and I've been in both places you know I look back on things that I've done and I can see the obsessive nature of it, but I can also see how it's helped me. So it's not one thing or the other. You know what I mean? No, it's not. And you have to be able to take a look out and look in to yourself to see if it's being detrimental, if it's helping you. And it's a very fine line.

It's a very fine line. And I found that in myself and also with other friends and clients who I train now. I train some ultra runners. And, yeah, some of my friends, I've seen them. They're just like, you're doing too much. Why? I always ask why. What's going on in life?

Not about training or races. You'll be fine. But what's going on in life? And with close friends, you can dig a little bit deeper and you normally find something. But it's a very fun line to, yeah, it's going to help you or it's going to hinder you. So it's really trying to take a look in from the outside to see what's going on. Right. I mean, when you're struggling with insomnia and you're going through this breakup, you know, maybe going out and going for a run at four o'clock in the morning is a great way to process it and get to the other side of that and deal with, you know, your pain in a

constructive way as opposed to going out to the pub or taking Oxycontin or, you know, whatever depression pharmaceutical that I'm sure some shrink would, you know, freely prescribe to you. So, you know, at the same time, if you're relying on it or you're dependent upon, you know, that outlet as a way of avoiding as opposed to embracing whatever it is you're going through, I think it becomes a different animal. Yeah. No, no, totally, totally.

Yeah, and that's what it is. It is an animal, and you've got to learn when to tame it and when to let it go. Yeah, that's well put. Which can be tough. All right, so marathon to SOP. So you're gunning for top 50 so what happens you go in with an it band well i had two cortisone injections before i went out there to make it last which everyone it was like an elephant in the room when i went to see my

sports specialist and he's like you know i don't really want to do this i'm like yeah i know but i need to get through this so he gave me two shots uh you know, I don't really want to do this. I'm like, yeah, I know, but I need to get through this. So he gave me two shots. You know, I was very stubborn. And there was an elephant in the room that we all knew it wasn't going to work, but I wanted it anyway. And went out on the first day, felt great for like 20 Ks of like 32. And I was like, actually, this is going to work. This is going to work.

Then after 20 Ks, it just went ping. And I hobbled for like the last 10 or 12ks that day i finished in like 20th position for the day but i knew my race was over because anyone that's had an it problem or heard about it it's an inflammation injury basically and so if you continue to run on it or continue to use it it's just going to get worse and worse and i'd finished the first day i was like 20th and all my tent mates were like ah this is crazy it's just going to get worse and worse. And I'd finished the first day. I was like 20th, and all my tent mates were like, ah, this is crazy, it's great. We've got someone in our 10th, 20th, and this and that.

And I was like, look, my race is over. I'm done because I know it's going to get worse. The next day I went out. I finished like 30th, so I was still in the top 50, but I struggled through. My knee was getting worse. My feet got torn to pieces. And, you know, people say, oh, did you not try your shoes out?

I tried like five different shoes. I tried like 10 different pairs of socks and shorts and backpacks. Like I went full OCD on my kit, tried and tested everything, spent six weeks in Oz testing it all out in the hot weather. And the kit for MDS is so specific. You know, for people that are listening that aren't familiar, I mean, you've got to wear these crazy gaiters over your shoes and your ankles and calves to prevent the finely ground sand from getting in there. And, you know, everything down from that sock to, you know, every single item that's in your backpack because you've got to carry everything. I mean, it's a whole thing. Yeah, you've got to make it light, as light as possible. you've got mandatory kits and you've got food for the whole week so they they say you have to have two thousand on average two thousand calories a day for seven

days so you're gonna have you got to show them before each day they check everyone 14 000 calories well i went well i'm trying to finish in top 50 I'm going to take the minimum bare minimum that's fine so I literally took on average 2200 calories a day per average and yeah if I didn't need it I didn't take it you know and you have to you have to like try and minimize your weight because you're carrying that all the time so yeah so I did that and finished the second day in like 30th or something and my feet got torn up just from the terrain you know i couldn't replicate that terrain because there's loads of dunes and my feet um were sweating in the you know like the 110 115 20 degree heats and then my feet got all blistered and everything like that and my toe just got torn to pieces and

so that was getting worse. And then day three, I got up and I had a stomach virus because you're out in the middle of the desert and there's like little huts for people to go to the toilet to do like a number two. And everyone who was doing a number one would walk past the huts. And every day after you get tired, the people who were just like going to the toilet to pee,

they were getting closer and closer to literally, it was like 20 meters outside your tent. You guys are just peeing. Yeah. But no one cared because you're like, I'm not complaining because when I need to go, I'm not walking any further than that. So I got a stomach sort of like a virus, whatever,

and I had the diarrhea and stuff. So that was dehydrating me and whatever. And after three days, I was still in the top 50, but I knew it was only going to get worse. And then the big day, the big day started. I was still in the top 50. I was like 40-something on the long day, and I started three hours later with all the pros and everyone, and I'm sitting there in this tent,

like literally there's three tents in the middle of the desert with no one else around. There's like 50 males and five females, and they start together. And they're talking about different races and what have you done, what have that done. And they said, oh, have you done any other big races? I said, this is my first race. And they're like, what do you mean?

And I'm like, I've never done an ultra marathon before. Oh, have you done plenty of marathons? No, I've never done a marathon before either. What about half marathons? No, I've never done one of them. What are you doing here? I just thought I'd come along and give it a go. either. What about half marathons? No, I've never done one of them. What are you doing here? I just thought I'd come along and give it a go. And you're still in the top 50?

I'm like, apparently. And they all went, you're crazy. But that day was an experience. I did 84Ks. I had intravenous drip after the 20 because I was so dehydrated and I was collapsing over and falling over. And they basically said to me, you have a drip or we pull you out. I didn't get a choice.

So I held my arm up to them. I was like, right, slap it on. Let's do this. So I laid in the desert for three hours with the intravenous drip getting pumped full of IV, which was an experience. And then I had to get up and run. Yeah. And that, I mean, that aspect of it is really not about your IT band or your knee.

That's probably experience. Yeah, and that was because I got the virus the day before. I was totally dehydrated, and you get rationed water, so I couldn't get enough into me. But, yeah, that was just down to numerous things. But my IT band was still struggling, and I was hobbling and walking a lot. And then I still had like you know 65k to go that day and I ended up finishing in it was like 16 hours and I got a

three hour time penalty because I got a drip you know they give you a drip for survival but they give you a time penalty at the same time and then I was like 100 and something and I had two days to go run a marathon and then six and then 10 miles and then I finished in like 200th position or something but I finished I got the finishers medal and and then came back to London had to face up to life yeah so let's get into that but did it did it did it make you want to go back and and go for top 50 again based on what you learned or you just feel like you did it i got the finishes medal there's too many scars i've got love not love hate but love don't put yourself through that again relationship with the mbs all right so you so when you get back and you've kind of

you know check that box do you have like an avalanche of depression that now comes on top of you because now you've got to deal with your life and you don't have this excuse anymore? Of course. So what did that look like? Dark and lonely, to be honest. I had a girlfriend, the same girlfriend that I had for a while and she was pretty concerned but I wouldn't even let her in. We were together for several years and I was shutting her out and couldn't run, couldn't do anything. So I took up, I wanted to learn how to kayak.

So I would go to kayaking lessons with a team a couple of nights a week and learning how to do all the Eskimo rolls and just throw myself in something else but I did have to face up to life and what I was going to do and so I had to sit down with myself a fair few times and think about it and there were a lot of days where I just couldn't because the depression would just grip me and there was never any dark thoughts or anything like that,

but I would find myself just going to work, finishing a couple of clients who I trained, and then just walking and without a purpose and just not think about anything, just being blank because it's like, well, I don't feel anything, so I would just go. And I would always come to like maybe 10 20 30 minutes after and be like where am I what am I doing here was there some kind of instinct to just sign up for

another race because at least when you can throw yourself into that it alleviates that pain or was there an awareness that that that that wasn't going to solve it that you actually had to kind of walk through it there was an awareness that I couldn't just keep doing it. I did it once. I got a good six, seven months out of it. Look what, you know, I had a great experience. I've got some lifelong friends who I still keep in contact with and still see on a regular basis. It was an amazing, amazing time out there, but also, you know, very tough.

And I did learn a lot about myself, but I knew that I just couldn't keep doing that because life's too short. So I went, well, okay, what am I going to do, you know, with my life? I, you know, personal training's great, but for me, it's a feather in the cap. It's not the whole cap, you know? So I went, right, I want to be an adventurer and started telling people like when they asked, so what are you going to do now? You're not playing soccer. And so I'm going to be an adventurer. Always met people like when they asked so what are you gonna do now you're not playing soccer and so i'm gonna be an adventurer always met with laughter and then what the hell is that yeah what is that i didn't know but that's what i wanted to do indiana jones

yeah like you know bear grills and all that type of stuff and so i i researched into loads of different avenues tv and books and writing and what all these other adventures in the UK and in the US and around the world were doing. And I thought I need to find something unique. I need to find something different. And I was looking at things like the world's highest, the world's longest race. I thought I'll stick with running because that's what I know.

Maybe I'll buy a bike because I never owned a bike at that stage. And, yeah, maybe do some cycling stuff. So I was writing down, researching all these crazy adventures and stuff. And I came with an idea that I wanted to do the world's highest, the world's hottest, the world's wettest races. And I thought I'll put them into a nice little package and do them over sort of 18 months or two years or whatever. And boom, there you go. There's a TV show. Look at me. I'm famous. Not that I want to be famous but look at me i've got a career i'm an adventurer boom that was easy yeah it sounds anyone can do that so then i found the world's highest race which was the mount everest ultra and it's only been going for like two years i thought that's that's pretty cool go to nepal hang out do that do. Sweet. So I signed up for that.

But that was not literally, it was 12 months after the MDS. So the whole adventurer thing was up and flying. That's what I'm going to do. People laughed at me all the time. Just went, you're an idiot. Grow up. Even my mom went, yeah, we'll support you. And that's what you want to do?

Not a lot of job security. You know, it's interesting. I did a podcast with a guy called Dan Buechner who wrote the Blue Zones books. And he had a similar aspiration as a young person. He had the opportunity to spend a little time working with George Plimpton, who's kind of a legendary writer and bon vivant and writer, like personal hero of mine. The guy's like done everything, right?

And he said that he would go to these crazy parties in Manhattan with all these fancy people that had tons of money, but everybody just wanted to talk to George because George had lived a life. Whether it's like Peter Beard or George Plimpton, like these guys that just lived large through experience, not because of wealth or privilege or anything like that, but by taking risks and doing crazy stuff and going to amazing places and collecting stories and, you know, knowledge and experiences that they could share with other people and then write about or, you know, express in other ways.

And Peter, I don't know, do you know who Peter Beard is? An amazing artist who went to Africa. I mean, you know, there's something really cool and extremely alluring about that, you know, for a young guy who, you know, is facing a choice of, you know, life in a cubicle or something else. And in Dan's case, he did it, you know, he went and he went on these crazy cycling tracks and rode his bike across Africa and Russia and did all these things and wrote about it and persisted and got a lot of no's, but ultimately, you know, became a National Geographic fellow and, you know, does now he's doing what he does today. geographic fellow and you know does now he's doing what he does today but but uh you know to sort of propose that you're gonna live this adventuresome life is to expose yourself to if not mockery to

at least a raised eyebrow oh there was more than raised eyebrows but uh yeah but i thought well why not i was 28 at the time had my whole life in front of me, so to speak. And I thought, I'll give myself, what did I say back then? I'll give myself five years and if it all falls to pieces, you know, I'll be in my early thirties and I'll, and I'll go and sit in a cubicle for the rest of my life, but I'll give it a go, you know, why not? So over the years I thought, right, I need to have a bit of a plan at the same time because I can't just go willy-nilly and see what happens. I need to have some sort of plan. So I thought.

These are not cheap adventures. No, they're not. I mean, MDS in and of itself, that's like the price tag on that is huge. Yeah, that was my whole savings. See, that's another thing. I had not loads, but I had a bit of savings and I was just like, okay, here's a deposit. Yeah, okay, boom. Let me just transfer some money.

Okay, and here's the rest. Okay, oh, savings, zero. Right, cool. Now I'm doing this. So I literally put everything into it. And then when I said to everyone when I come back, I'm going to be an adventurer, they were just like, what are you doing? I said, well, okay, that's all cool. So I had this plan where 2013, I was going to develop content to be an adventurer. And I thought at the end of 2013, I want to be able to tell people that, well, what do you do?

And I'll say, I'm an adventurer. And they say, well, okay, what makes you that? And I want to be able to tell people that this is what I've done at the same time developing content and also looking back now, developing my brand. So I did have some sort of plan. But where the ultimate triathlon, where we touched on earlier, came from, I went bigger than that and went, right, I need to do something unique, massive, epic, never been done before to put me on the map.

But I can't do it now. I need to plan in the future. So I said, three years, I'm going to do this. So I looked at a world map, I kid you not, and just went, give me something. Come on, baby, give me something. And the route from Morocco to Monaco just sort of just came to me. I saw the straight and went, maybe I can swim that. I'm not a swimmer. I grew up swimming. I learned to swim when I was like four or five and never done any squads or anything like that. And you could swim probably a hundred

meters or so, but that was about it. And didn't even own a bike. But I saw this and I thought, yeah, I could swim that, cycle that, run that. And then spent six months researching if it was possible and I thought it was. And I said, right, in three years, I'm going to do Morocco to Monaco. And then that's where that started from. And in the meantime, gaining experience by doing these other races. Like you went to Nepal. You spent a month there, yeah? Yeah.

And the Everest Ultra Marathon. What does that look like i mean what does that entail like there's a lot of downhill right like are you running around the base like what that's that's what it is so the whole nepal trip was to go and do the everest ultra but my brain went hang on there's another opportunity here why don't i talk to the race director and see if he knows any of the elite ultra marathon runners in nepal and can i go and hang out and live with them in their family homes and stuff like that and learn from them and see what they do.

And I said, look, ask me if I can bring my camera and I'll film some of the stuff as well and maybe make a little documentary type thing, see what happens. And he went, yeah, cool, no worries. You're going to be here for 10 days, here for 10 days, there and it's like okay literally went out there and you're not what's really going to happen and i had the most amazing time of my life staying with these families high up in the mountains where no foreigners have ever been before no water no electricity you know sleeping next to buffaloes drinking drinking freshly milked buffalo

milk every morning and stuff, eating with my hands off the floor with these guys, helping them farm their little crops around their land. And it was just an eye-opening experience that these people live every day for survival. That's it. They get up, they prepare food because they need to eat, and then they'll farm around the land or they'll sort their house out if there's a few things that need to, like little jobs around the house, and they sort their food out for their evening meal,

and they sort that out. Done, go to bed, get up, do it all over. Happiest people I've ever met. Are they all okay in the wake of the earthquake? Are you in touch with them? Yeah, I keep in contact with about seven Nepalese people that live out there. Unfortunately, two had their houses just flattened. So we're throwing the hat around at the moment through sort of the community of ultra runners

and a few different Westerners who know some of the runners quite well to try and help out and get their houses rebuilt because they're in quite remote areas. And even still now, one of them who's phenomenal runner he's got some podiums in Europe and won some races in Hong Kong he's very close to me he uh he's had no aid no nothing so they've just been sleeping next to this rubble and he's been sorting that out and trying to get food in from different villages around so it's yeah it's it's it's hit me pretty hard because it's like anything. When you see your friends or your family going through struggle, it hits home pretty close.

What do you think you, like if you could crystallize what you took away from that experience of immersing yourself in that culture that kind of informed your daily approach to life, what would that look like? What would that be? To live it every day. And that's what I try and portray from what I'm trying to do. To live life every day and enjoy it

and embrace whatever comes your way. Because that's what they do. Their whole life's about survival. But they're the happiest people I've ever met. And they've got nothing. All they do is eat, take care of the small possessions they have, which is their house and animals. That's it.

And we have everything. And we're miserable. And we're still unhappy. Depressed. Yeah. What? There's a red light? I have to go out and run ultra marathons to feel alive.

I know. I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. But some good runners too. Ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't think of Nepal as being a hotbed of ultra runners. It's coming. It's coming. Yeah. It's crazy. But some good runners too. Ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't think of Nepal as being a hotbed of, you know, ultra runners.

It's coming. It's coming. Yeah. There's some quality runners. Is that sort of woven into the culture or how does that come to pass? No. On the whole, Nepalese, and I mean this with love because I love Nepalese people, they're lazy. They'll walk across the road.

Even if there's cars coming in front, they'll be like, stop. I don't want to run. No, there's basically the Nepalese army is quite big. So guys will go into the army and they'll do their two hours of physical training every day and then some of them will run and that's what they'll do. Or the running scene is slowly getting bigger out there or people just live in the mountains so they're trekkers and they're guides and they're super fit

and they can run up and down mountains because that's what they do to keep fit and they've never really done races but you know they go run up until they can't breathe anymore and come back down at altitude so to speak but uh yeah and then there's been a few people who have moved out there there's been a few nepalese guys out there's been a few Nepalese guys who sort of try to create races and stuff over the last sort of seven or eight years really and a few of them have popped up and when I was out there there's a few guys that were on the radar had a few results in Hong Kong so myself and a few other people have tried to help them get to Europe and get to other races. And a couple went to Australia.

One of them is in Australia at the moment doing a big race, the North Face 100 next weekend. And some of them have got some good results. It's just the fact that they're still not sponsored. They've got no money. So it's all fundraising from word of mouth and stuff like that. But they're hard workers and they're hard people. So did you end up cutting some film together

from that experience yeah i've got i've got loads of footage yeah so i'm you know balancing a lot of plates and and that's one that i've been trying to balance for a long time i've got a couple of mates who are professional editors um and we're going to work on that to try and cut that down to anywhere between sort of 10 and 30 minutes and try and throw it on the Adventure Film Festival scene. I say by the start of next year, but I could say this time next year, by the start of next year. Yeah. Yeah, it'll come and it'll be ready when it's ready.

Yeah, it's there. I've got some really cool footage. And I did go there with a script in mind. I didn't just go and wave the camera around. So I went in there to try and be as professional as I could with knowing absolutely nothing about filmmaking or anything like that. So, um, but we'll see. Interesting. And, and so at some point, uh, you decided it's time to buy a bike and sign up for a triathlon. Like you get back from Nepal and then what? Where does the double Ironman race idea pop in? That's just the next adventure.

That's the scary thing. No, you're missing a few things. You're missing the best one. The reason why I bought the bike, I thought, what's a cool adventure? I was like, well, I'm an Aussie living in London. I don't know how to surf. I'm going to learn to surf. I was like, all right, okay, where do you learn to surf in the UK?

And there's sort of a famous surf beach down in the southwest called Newquay. I went, right, I'm going to surf down there. Okay, I'll catch a train down on Saturday and I'll learn to surf on a Sunday and take my little camera and my little GoPro and do that, stick it on the board. And I went, well, hang on, how far is it? And he's like, oh, yeah, it's like 400 like 400k which is like 260 miles or whatever

I could cycle that so then I bought a bike and basically you just climbed on it and rode down there or did you train? I spent 5 months riding and just thrashed myself around

and then I said right I'm going to do it on the summer solstice, so the longest day of the year. I thought that's a good idea. It was the end of June, just normally pretty good weather. The weather leading up to that was great, really nice and sunny and warm and, you know, like 70 degrees, 75 degrees, perfect, you know, great for a long day in the saddle. Got my crew sorted. They were going to leave like three or four hours after I left. I left at four

in the morning and they were going to meet me along the way and stop and start and whatever and I was just going to keep going and change some drink bottles and whatever. Woke up, it was pouring with rain, wind, like gusts of, you know, 25 miles an hour and it was rough. And I woke up and I texted the crew and went, see you later. And they went, really? And I got on the bike. It was still dark. I had the lights going. It was pouring.

It was horrible. And I just kept going and I just kept going and went down sort of one of the main roads basically all the way down, so the most direct route. And I was getting thrown around. Like I bounced off several trucks. My shoulder got nipped by a few things, never got knocked off, but just because I got thrown around. And just kept going and going and going, and eventually after,

and I did all this with a surf school. Like they knew I was coming, and they helped out pitch in for the trip. So we get down there after 18 hours, nonstop cycling, wind and rain and batter. I wasn't a broken man. I just wasn't very happy. And I turned up and there was like 80 people or so out the front of this pub and were staying in the hotel across from it.

And then they said, here he is, here he is, singing and cheering. I didn't realize they were there for me. They had a bit of a welcoming party and they were singing queen's uh bicycle song as i came on like oh yeah my bicycle bicycle and i thought that was that was pretty awesome and then the next day we uh we got up and learned to surf and i can surf i got up on my first wave wasn't very pretty but i still stood up on the board and there's a little like all of that was rolled into like four minutes and there's a little clip on my website when people go and see me cycling the wind and the rain and and trying to that just sounds miserable it was horrible riding in the rain is the worst and wind it was it was and on main road too you didn't want to just go well

why don't we just do it tomorrow yeah come on you know me well enough now today. That's not going to happen. It's like, right, doing it. Let's go. Yeah. I got you, man. I like it. So yeah, so that happened. And then I went out to support some Nepalese runners in Hong Kong at a race, a big race out there. And I thought, well, let's back on an adventure. I'm on the back of this going to Hong Kong stuff and found a little island off the south coast of Hong Kong called Hainan, province of China. And I thought, I'll go there for like three or four days and go and run through that. And yeah, that's a cool little adventure with developing content for my brand in mind. And then I went out there and got to Hong Kong and stay in my cousin's house who lives

out there and got delayed going to Hainan because a typhoon went through the Philippines a couple years back and that was on straight path up through Hainan and that wiped out that island as well not as bad as the Philippines but but pretty bad and so my whole trip basically went from like five days to like three days and I got up there and I was just devastated but I still wanted to go up in the middle of the mountains and I was going to do some running through the mountains, sleep in a hammock and all that stuff and take my little GoPro and do that. But basically it turned around to my car didn't work,

I had no money, I had no cash, I had no food, I had nowhere to go and I was 90 kilometres from the airport and basically I had like two days to get back to the airport. And it's the most real adventure I've ever done because this girl from the hotel who I was trying to get a room at and it wouldn't work, she took me around to the banks. Like, can I get some money out in those banks? No one spoke English.

She was communicating with an iPhone app. Like in Mandarin or whatever she was speaking and typing it in and punching out in English. And it was a crazy time. And then she ended up paying for a cheap hotel across the road from the bus station for me for the night and just waved and that was it. And I stayed there that night and then I got up the next day and had basically two days to get back to the airport, 90Ks.

And I ran back and slept in a hammock in the forest through the night. And basically I was dehydrated, had no food, had no water, no nothing. And the compassion shown by these people on the islands was amazing. They'd just been through this horrendous episode in their lives of this typhoon coming through. But here's this westerner looking you know worse for wear just dragging himself on the road and they're calling me over and giving me like coconuts to drink and i found a few coconuts on the side of the road they've been discarded

from um drivers driving past and so i got them and cracked them open and called them roadkill coconuts and like scooping out the flesh and eating that and the people were just amazing and i got to uh about 10 kilometers from the airport the next day after sleeping in the hammock and it poured down with rain during the night which was pretty mental and i um got picked up by this guy like in this brand new mx x5 beamer and chucked me in the car and took me to a youth hostel who spoke a bit of English and they got me back to the airport. And that was my little Chinese adventure. Yeah, that's the ultimate, right?

To just be plopped into a completely foreign land and have a credit card that doesn't work and you're completely beholden to the kindness of strangers to survive. Yeah, that was it. And I did survive because of them. And that was it. And I did survive because of them. And that was amazing. And the compassion shown by these people, the human race, really. And I took away from that a lot of things that we spoke about earlier with Nepal. But from my China experience, I had a renewed faith in the human race that we are here for one another another regardless of what we see on everyday life like

you go out on the street here and you drive and someone cuts you off or you cut someone off and they go mental on the horn and whatever but coming back from China I had this this renewed faith that you know we are all here together and we are here to help each other out regardless of our race our language we speak or you or our socioeconomic status. And that's what I got out of going to China. That's interesting. Yeah. So then, yeah, and then that happened.

And then the next year was like, right, the ultimate triathlon is coming in 18 months. I should do a triathlon. Right. I mean, had you been cycling after your sort of surf trip? So you're getting used to riding a bike yeah yeah yeah i i trained like a triathlete i just never done one i signed up to a squad and straight away got thrown into like lane eight the slope the slow lane and you know i i was just fighting the water and going backwards you know know, before going forwards. But I slowly worked on my technique because I didn't have any sort of technique. And I got slowly quicker and whatever.

And I was just enjoying it because I was changing up the training rather than just doing running, although I love running. But it was just cool just doing something different, something that I'd never done before. And also just learning a lot. I was doing different sports and different ways of training because, you know, I was still training people in the gym and I was training other runners and things like that.

So I was learning about different training techniques, doing loads of research, talking to people who were cyclists, who were Ironman triathletes. So, yeah, that was a lot of fun. So I was still doing lots of research, as I always do. And evolving with my food as well, my nutrition.

And then I signed up to the double brutal extreme triathlon. Yeah, so what is that? I mean, what is the mental tick that compels you to just go straight to the double Ironman as opposed to, to just go straight to the double Ironman as opposed to, I'll do an Olympic, I'll do a half, I'll do an Ironman, and then I'll go to the double. So how do you defend that? I'm interested for my own personal reasons. Well, I was going out doing 120-mile cycles on the weekends,

130 miles, like a long ride would be 120 130 miles running you know i was doing ultra marathons i'd go out just for fun and run a marathon on a sunday type of thing right so it doesn't seem like that big of a crazy thing so for me to do an iron man and i was just starting you know doing swimming on a regular basis so I said oh are you going to do an Ironman next and I was like I have no aspirations to go to Kona so I don't need to go and try and train fast and go really fast I thought that doesn't interest me although I'd love to go out there when it's on but to actually try and compete and to qualify didn't interest me I thought well I could go out tomorrow and do the equivalent of an ironman in distance and you know in whatever time i do it do i need to do a race i was like i'm not really fussed

about doing a race i was like well why i need a i need a big challenge that'll challenge me both physically but also mentally i thought if i go out there and do a 12-hour ironman that's 12 hours mentally i can't really see that challenging me because I'm not going to be on the rev line. I'm not going to be trying to go 100 mile an hour. That's a different story. But for me, just to get around in 12, 13 hours or whatever it would take me, it's not going to challenge me in any way. So I was like, right, I need a big swim, bike, run challenge. So I started Googling world's toughest triathlons. And I didn't make this up.

The actual name of the race is the Double Brutal Extreme Triathlon and signed up to that. Because the name sounded so alluring. That's cool. I told my mom and she just said, okay, so what's the race called? And I'm like, that's what it's called. She says, Luke, stop lying to me. You're making up things now.

What's it called? I said, Mom, look, Google this. I'll show you. So, yeah, it's in North uh the snow snowdonia area which is the highest mountain in wales it's very hilly uh we did uh 15 000 feet climbing on the bike wow that's a lot and nine and a half thousand feet on the run so it was a lake swim about uh i think it's like 55 degrees and you basically do just everything back to back so you do the 4.8 miles in the in the lake you get off that you jump on the bike and it was i think it was like a 30 mile loop and you do that eight

times or whatever it was and you get off the bike and you got to run to the top of mount snowden which is like three just over 3 000 feet so off the bike you're going straight up and come back down and then you do a lap eight laps of this uh of this late course there's no it's not like ultraman where it's stages like you just go straight through straight through took me 35 hours and i didn't sleep i I had a literally five-minute break. That was it. And about 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, I was probably about 25, 30 miles from the end, I think, and my support crew car that was driving behind me

was just one of my mates. His nickname's Dad because he's an old man, so to speak. But he was driving along behind me and I was sort of falling asleep on the bike because it was in the middle of the night and veering off to the side of the road. And I'd come to, and he pulled up beside me, and he's like, hey, Luke, I think we should have a rest. I'm like, no, no, no, keep going, keep going. And then sort of two seconds later, I closed my eyes and veered off to the side of the road.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, rest. So we pulled over, and literally I said said set your alarm on your watch for five minutes we turned the heaters up we turned we had loads of food and we turned the music on to uh i think had you two or something playing so i said right five minutes and i was there i was like eating and had this hot air blowing in my face and then his timer went off and i was like right let's go let's finish this and that's the only rest i had it was 35 hours non-stop and when you finished that what was the emotional takeaway it was a team effort I had three three people come up with me so uh Graham uh Tash and uh and Hannah who are all good friends of mine and they all have their own

sort of endurance sports background and this and that and whatever. It was a fun time. It sounds brutal, but because they were always there, and although it was quite boring that it was eight laps, but I saw them pretty much most of the time, so it was fun for me. I'd come in and see them, and I'd carry on and have a laugh and have a joke, and then we'd head out again but i finished that and i went right okay let's get this morocco to monaco thing going because although it's completely different but that was my first triathlon and a swim and a bike

and a run and okay i'm ready for this now let's let's get this going let's get it going so what is the what is the planning like i mean you've got to get like visas and all kinds of you know permissions right to cross international boundaries and how does that work well for morocco um i'm all right to go from morocco to spain because it's all part of the the package that they do with the boat crew. And I don't need to have a visa or anything like that for Morocco. And then through Spain and France, I don't need a visa because I've also got a Polish passport. So I've got free reign through Europe. Ah, you're Polish. Yeah.

Tyburski. That's the last name. That explains a lot. Yeah, it does. They make them hard there. Yeah. Tyburski. That's the last name. That explains a lot. Yeah, it does. They make them hard there. Yeah. Yeah. I get my craziness from my dad.

He's pretty tough and crazy. Interesting. And that's the Polish side. Yeah, that Eastern European blood. Yeah. They love the endurance sports. And they just love punishment. I know.

It's funny. My book, Finding Ultra, it hasn't been translated into Spanish or French, but the first international foreign translations were Slovenia and Poland. Yeah, I remember when I heard Poland, I laughed my head off. That's fantastic. It's funny. They're into it. It's something about the culture. Yeah, it is. As I said, roll the sleeves up get it done this sounds good um but yeah so visas and stuff that's that's fine that's cool but yeah it's it's all the planning i've said it in 12

days it's set in stone now that's what's happening and yeah so now it's just sorting out some funding. I do need some funding for it, and I am on the lookout for that. How much do you have to raise? Well, it's just I think it's been flipped on its head a little bit because we're doing it in a unique way. We're going to film it and stream it live throughout different times of the day, which has never been done before in any sort of event. So it's a unique event. It's going to be broadcast throughout the whole world.

But then we're going to have anywhere between six and 12 live broadcasts from the road, from the pit cruise car, where I'm going that day and things like that. And that's obviously costing quite a lot of money. But through further research and talking and learning so much, you know, from this adventure, we're finding a way that we're going to do it a little bit cheaper with the same result. So, yeah, we still need to raise a fair bit of money because we're traveling all that way, 1,300, 100 miles.

We're going to have a crew. The crew is basically I've got my bare minimum crew that I want, but if we raise a bit more, I could maybe get one or two more guys to come in, but we're not doing anything fancy. It's basically just guys coming along. I've got a filmmaker who contacted me who wanted to come along for the ride and film me throughout this year and throughout the 12 days. So, yeah, we're going to have a professional filmmaker

filming that along the way with all the content that we've been filming. Yeah, you got it. Yeah, yeah, doing the whole story. And also I'm working with a big university in London, Rye Hampton University, who are testing me throughout the year, doing swim, bike and run tests every two months to making sure that I'm not overtraining,

that I'm not undertraining, giving me some levels so I can work on sort of like basically my lactate threshold. And then they make me do a VO2 max on the treadmill and stuff, which they love because they know I'll just flog myself to death. And the footage is amazing because I'm literally just going flat out. And there is one where I just fall flat and my arms hold me up on the treadmill. And I look at each other and I started laughing while the treadmill was still spinning around. So there's lots of elements to it.

And because it's going to be streamed through the Internet, it's a global audience as well. Right, right, right. I think the streaming thing is tricky. But with Periscope and Meerkat and these new apps that are coming out, there's ways of doing it on a consumer level. I mean, certainly not like super pro, but to be able to use your iPhone to stream and broadcast something live should be helpful. Yeah, that's like a plan C. I've looked into that and I've tried to get in touch with both the Meerkat and the Periscope people, but I haven't had any back. Periscope people, but I've not had anything back.

But there are a few other platforms that we can broadcast it through, which is a lot cheaper than going to a professional streaming company. And there are also some satellite providers and stuff that I'm talking to at the moment who are quite interested and are going to help me out with a bit of a deal with not just the satellites but also the bandwidth or whatever you call it for the data. And do you have other sponsors that are on board? i've got i've got one i've got a couple actually one of them's uh which you'd be interested in kasaga athletic they're a plant-based sustainable uh clothing t-shirt what are they called kasaga athletic oh i like that yeah it's um they're pioneers it's fantastic This stuff's amazing.

They've got this formula that they make their shirts, and it's all sustainable plant-based. The difference being you can put it next to like a polyester shirt and you won't know the difference. It performs like a technical running shirt. And their main shirt is basically the greenest T-shirt on the planet. And they've been going for like three years to develop these products. And one of the owners I cycled with a lot last year. And so our rides, our long Saturday rides is like business meetings.

So I feel part of the company because I help developing. What's the website? Kusaga. K-U-S-A-G-A. Kusaga. Athletic. So they're not quite into production at the moment, but I've worn some of their kits and their base layers

and their cycling jerseys and their running shirts, and it's pretty phenomenal. And I will have to say one story, though. Graham, one of the owners, his, uh, his wife was at home one day and we went out for a seven hour hot and sweaty cycle. And he had a normal cycling jersey and he took that off and threw it at his wife and hit her in the face and it was all sweaty and dirty and whatever. And, you know, there was a divorce on the table after that one.

But then he had a base layer on some of his Kasaga kit and he took his base layer off after seven hours of hot, sweaty cycling, threw the base layer at his wife and she grabbed it and she went, oh, didn't you wear this? It was dry, didn't smell, no odour. And he told me the other day that he's still been wearing that same base layer 12 months later and it's still good. So what they're trying to do is basically minimize the carbon footprint

with making these shirts, cycling jerseys, and base layers. That's really cool. Yeah, I'm looking at the website. It looks really cool. They don't have pictures of the product yet, but they tell the whole story of sustainability here, which is interesting. Yeah, that's the future, man. I've got a friend out here, my friend Juan, who has a clothing line called Industry for All Nations.

Okay. And it's not cycling gear. It's not athletic gear. It's just casual wear. But everything's sourced sustainably. They don't use any artificial dyes. And they support like these indigenous communities in India and various sort of, you know, third world places throughout the world where they can actually, you know, support villages through what they're doing. And the way that they tell their story through social media and Instagram and videos, et cetera, like that, like the level of transparency is just really cool. And I think that that's where business needs to go.

And it's great that there's athletic gear that can measure up on that level. It's always that thing. It's like you want to buy the right thing. You want to make that good choice. But when there isn't an option, you just go with what you know. Yeah, and I've worn some of the prototypes over the last sort of couple years and i've worn basically the finished products as well and they're not quite going into production at the moment but they're very close but it's literally it it works just

like a normal polyester one if not better and no odor and it's it's quality kit yeah it's nice so yeah so they're they're on board i'll be be wearing their kit as soon as they are. And we're working on developing my own range as well, so you can have the Luke Taberski adventure. I like that. We'll have to get you on board, Rich. All right, man. I'm ready. Give me a kit when it's sorted out.

That's for sure. I like it. All right, so you've got to raise some cash. Yeah. Yeah, so you have a thing on your website for that. People can go to – you have a thing on your website for that people can go to go to um it's not you have two websites you have luke tyberski.com but you the main site is the ultimate triathlon.co right that's for the event yeah and then you can there's a video that kind of shows

you what the challenge is and what it's all about and all that kind of stuff and people who are interested can throw a few shuckles your way there right yeah there's a donation page but if people want to businesses and companies want to get on board as well, get in touch, and I've got different sponsorship levels. And, you know, you throw me extra cash, I give you extra promotion and a few extra other things as well. That's the way it works. Yeah, that is.

I've spent many, many hours, weeks, months developing all these plans. I'm ready to use them. So I sit down and chat with some companies, and I've got different levels that they can get on board with and what I can provide for them as well. Cool. Well, I want to talk a little bit about nutrition. That's also, you know, a big part of your story and also kind of is interwoven with, you know, your story of navigating through injuries. And, you know, in addition to all these injuries, you've had a lot of problems with kind of trying to figure out how to eat properly to not just satisfy your training, but actually, you know, keep you healthy because you've had issues with that, right? Yeah. And it sounds like you're a guy who has always been interested in nutrition and cooking. And, you know, you were sort of the chef in your house as a young person. Is that right? Yeah. And it sounds like you're a guy who has always been interested in nutrition and

cooking and you know you were sort of the chef in your house as a young person is that right? I mean how helped out you know what is this journey all about for you? Well it you know it started with my my mom would cook every night unless we had a barbecue outside and my dad would turn the meat on the barbecue so we cooked all the time eating out was a treat massive treat and you know takeaway or anything like that would be very rare so cooking was huge in our house and i always wanted to help mum out chopping up vegetables and things like this as a kid and i don't know it's just i think the fact that mum spent a lot of time in the kitchen after work preparing meals and i was exposed to that and for me that was normal so that sort of developed throughout life and I left home when I was 16 to go and play soccer and although I lived

with a with a family because I was still at high school which I met when I turned up at the front door so hey I'm moving in I ate with them most times but I did cook for myself and I liked experimenting and finding new different flavors. But then at 17 and a half, 18, I was living by myself, and I had to cook every night. But I enjoyed that. So that sort of just evolved over time, and I kept experimenting. And I ate a very stereotypical team sports diet.

You have your pastas and your rices and then a bit of meat portions and veggies type of thing and you have your your protein shakes after training session and this and that whatever and I was always lean meat it was always brown rice and brown pasta and you know I was always the picky eater and if Luke comes around oh can you eat any of this is this up to your standards and this and that but it it was still that stereotypical sort of diet. And that's what I ate throughout playing football and then the Marathon des Sables as well. I kept eating that and I ate gels and energy bars and this and that for whatever. And basically what happened was just before I went to Nepal, my stomach had an explosion. Just got bloated. I was really lethargic. I was tired.

It was out of nowhere. So I stopped, took stock and went, right, what's going on in my life? Well, for once in the relationship, my ex-girlfriend and I were in a really good place. So it wasn't the emotional. No, it wasn't the emotional this time. And then, yeah, where was I going in life? Yeah, I had a direction. I was going to be an adventurer. I had this trip to Nepal coming up and work was good.

I had some really good clients and this and that. So all the outside of the normal boxes I ticked. And I was like, well, have I been eating different food? No, I've been living in the same place, drinking the same water, this and that. You know, all is good. And I was like, oh, fine, screw it. I'm going to Nepal for a month. What could happen?

Can't get any worse. Go out there. So I went out there. That was fine. Came back. And, yeah, just really struggled. Kept bloating and this and that. So cut out wheat, gluten, dairy, all that type of stuff and made a difference but then it was still around so

um cut out all sugars fruits and everything like that so cut right down on sugar um it was still a bit there whatever so i brought a few things back in cut out meat and see how that went it was still like some days would be great. Other days, it was like, well, that's not really it. So I played around and went right down to eating broth. Went cut right back down just to do that type of – and then slowly add the stuff in. And then over the last –

Right, like as a total reset and then add in one thing at a time so you can actually understand which things are doing what. Yeah, but then I'd add in something for like 10 days and that was fine. But then a month later, I would have this one thing that was fine and it would flare me up. And I was like, what the hell is going on? It almost sounds like an autoimmune thing. Yeah, so I was like okay i need some help so i went to see all the um the top mainstream sort of gut doctors and stuff in in

london and then i went to see some uh holistic people and i went to see like nutritionists and dietitians just to get as many heads and thoughts you know and i'm open to everyone if someone said oh we think it's everyone. If someone said, oh, we think it's definitely this and someone said, no, it's definitely not that. Well, I'll meet you halfway and show me why. Um, but I got, I got ideas, but nothing really helped. You're just going around the merry-go-round. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, I went, um, I went vegan for a while just, just to try, you know, and I don't eat a lot of meat these days, but, you know, when I feel like a steak, you know,

I've got to have a steak. Right. Well, I've got this book for you right here, Luke. It's called The Plant Power Away. You know I already have that. You do? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know you already have it.

Yeah. I'll give that to you, man. Oh, cheers, cheers. I bought one for my friend as well for her birthday. You did. She loves it. She raced in Mallorca last weekend and she took it over there to read in between training. That's cool.

But yeah, to be honest, there's probably four or five days, probably three or four days a week where I would eat like as a vegan, not because I tried to. It's just that I love veggies, you know, and legumes are still a bit iffy on my stomach. I can have them in small amounts. But, yeah, so it's still a bit of a minefield. I feel like there's less mines out there, but I'm slowly getting through that. But you got rid of the gels, right?

Yeah. Process stuff. Yeah. So after Nepal, I came back and I saw these guys going out for runs eating chickpeas and eating little bits of bananas and seeds and nuts. And I was like, well, if they can go out and run for five, six hours every day on that, why can't I? So then I went to this whole real food. That's my thing. I eat only real food.

And started experimenting with, you know, like they did. I'd cook up some chickpeas and put in a little bit of cling film and take that out for runs and take some almonds. And then I got into like, well, hang on, there's this whole baking thing with ground almonds and ground nuts and different types of gluten-free flour, like chestnut flour and sesame seed flour. and i threw myself in the kitchen and went mental and started baking like a madman all these energy bars and things like that and they worked but the biggest thing

for me is not that they give me sustainable energy and and this now whatever it's my recovery was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. Like the biggest thing for me, the biggest thing was I did 35 hours of a double Ironman distance triathlon, 48 hours after I finished, I was running up and down stairs feeling great. So soft tissue-wise, I felt recovered. Obviously, on a cellular level, I know crippled and i knew this i still rested but i saw my physio i saw my massage therapist and to get a bit of treatment after the

big race and they went there's nothing wrong with you you're fine you know you feel great and that's because during the 35 hours i ate nothing but real food that you could buy yourself and make it, you know, different recipes that I had. So. Yeah. So the, so the takeaway, like your food philosophy is real food basically. Yeah. Nothing processed. If you don't know the name of it, don't eat it. You know, if you don't know where it comes from. So my everyday food is loads of veggies. I don't eat loads of fruit these days. I'll probably have maybe five portions of fruit, five, six portions of fruit a week, and that's okay for me. It doesn't give my stomach too much of a rock in the boat.

But loads of veggies, loads of veggies, a few portions of meat, not loads. And if it is meat, it's like nice lean cuts from the local baker, local butcher that has a farm down the road that I know exactly where it's coming from. And what do you take with you like on the bike or the long runs? Well, I've trained over the last few years to try and make my body as fat adaptive as i can so all my friends like you don't eat so if i go out for a four hour even hard cycle i won't take anything um yeah and i know what works and i know how hard i can push for a certain period of time and i use myself as an experiment and you know i've gone out and tried to thrush myself on the bike for like seven or eight hours and see how i felt during the bike ride and you know i'm like okay

yeah i felt okay anything after that i know i'll die but um or my power would die off so i take things like seeds and nuts and i make my own bars with ground uh ground seeds and nuts i use chestnut flour as well because it's a nice if i am doing some higher intensity stuff chestnut flour has got a nice mix of carbohydrates and protein but then for recovery stuff i'll use sesame seed flour which is not a whole lot of carbohydrates a little bit just enough right but some protein in there as well um and you know occasionally i'll take the banana or uh i'll take you know make my own chia seed gels and things like this. Um, but yeah, just I've experimented and made my own little bars and balls and everything that everyone does these days.

But I just don't use a whole lot of, uh, fruit in them. I use them like, um, occasionally I do, but, um, but yeah, that's what I feel with when I go out. Yeah, I find that the more fat adapted you become, the easier it is to train without calories. But I think you've got to be careful about that because you can get through that workout, but then it's what are you going to feel like you don't need to eat and you're doing your aerobic zone, whatever, I find that my training will be more consistently productive if I don't overdo it on the calorie deprivation with training. I know. And it's easy to get into it. Like you want to get lean, right? Yeah. And so you got to like check yourself with that.

No, I totally agree. No, I totally agree, and that's what I tell people, that if you want to go out and ride six hours hard with no fuel just to try and push yourself into a more fat-adaptive state, then no, the next couple of days you're doing recovery stuff and you're eating well. Right. But if you want to have a really productive training week where you're on point for every workout, then that's not going to work.

No, exactly. And I'll pick and choose my workouts where I'll go out with not eating and things like that, and I'll pick my weeks as well. So, okay, well, you know, I had a really massive week this week and, you know, I ate normal, ate before and during and after and stuff. And this week I'll do a couple of fasted sessions or I'll do something with minimal calories and stuff like that. And I just sort of listen to my body.

You know, I'm pretty in tune with it these days. I'm still learning. It's still teaching me all the time and still throws curveballs at me and I just think, you know, just roll with it, you know. But, yeah, but you do got to pick and choose when you do that because it is detrimental to your recovery. And you can't just go out and go, well, every weekend I'm going to go for a seven-hour bike ride and not eat. It's not going to be helping you at all.

Right, right. Yeah. So where are you taking all this, right? You've embarked on this adventuresome life, life of an adventurer. You're getting ready for this big event in October. But, you know, where is it all heading? What does it mean? And what are you trying to say through these endeavors?

Well, as I said, what did I take out of Nepal is to live life. And that's what I want to do because we're here for a short time. So I want to live it every day. And I want to inspire others to live their life but you know there's inspiring someone by showing a cool um like photo or something on Instagram when everyone's like oh that's really cool I'm inspired now but they don't do anything about it right I want to inspire people to act and do something uh so there is a difference and I get that I get that you know I put stuff on my social media things too that you know someone posted or that's cool I'll repost difference and I get that I get that you know I put stuff on my social media things too

that you know someone posted that's cool I'll repost that and I know 99.9% of the people just go oh that's really cool and then turn around and forget about it but yeah I want to inspire people to act on on that inspiration to do something get out of their own comfort zone and you know and that comes with all my brand of everything that I do. I started teaching people how to cook. I call it confidence in the kitchen where I feel everyone can cook, but a lot of people don't have that confidence. So I would install that by teaching people a few ways to cook,

like sautéing or roasting or grilling, which sounds very basic to people who cook all the time. But for those that have no confidence, they're like, well, I can put toast in the toaster and bake beans in the microwave and that's me cooking. And then, you know, fresh, real food with a few herbs and spices and you can have an amazing meal, you know. So that's what I do as well. And it's trying to install that renewed confidence through inspiration to act on

it, to be able to live their life every day. With so many people now, so, you know, head down, work, work, work, work, work, and all of a sudden 10 years goes by and you know what that's like and what happened. Yeah, bridging that gap from inspiration to action, that's the $64,000 question, right? At least. Because inspiration is kind of easy. It's kind of easy to throw a platitude out and have somebody say that's inspiring. But what is the value of that really? No, really, there's none unless someone says, that's going to make me go and sign up to that art class that I've always wanted to do and I've always put it off.

Or that's going to make me go and dust off the trainers and go for a run. That has to come. That's internally driven, though. Oh, totally. That has to come, you know, with inside that person and that person has to be at the, you know, at the right time in their life where they're ready to make that kind of change. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Both you and I have been in different situations where there's been opportunities but it's not been the right time and then all of a sudden, for whatever reason,

that right time has been put in front of us and you could say we've both taken it. But yeah, so that's part of where i'm trying to go with this and where's the end goal i don't know man i'm enjoying the ride there is no there is no end what's the point of trying to say that's where i want to go because you might end up going in a different direction but you're still loving it so yeah you know i tick along i do some some talks now there's some motivational speaking and stuff and And I really want to do something with my way of cooking and my food stuff. I've got a million recipes sitting in a folder, and I do need to do something about them.

But yeah, as you know, you can juggle so many balls, but occasionally you've got to put one or two down to don't overload. So that's where I'm at right now. Yeah, you can do a lot of things with a relative level of mediocrity or some level of aptitude. But if you want to really excel at something, then you have to focus. And right now, you've got to get from Morocco to Monaco. In 12 days. The cookbook or whatever else you're working on will still be there yeah you know everything in its own due time yeah well that's right so I'm just putting things in

place and you know I've got a few recipes and stuff that I throw up on my website so people can see my style and you know I always put up photos of stuff if I bake something new and there's always people saying oh oh, that's really cool. Can I get the recipe? And a lot of the times I'm like, yeah, sure, here. But sometimes I'm like, no, this is a keeper. Sorry, I can't. You know what it's like.

In the internet age, you can't sit on those recipes. Everybody wants them for free and immediately. Yeah, so I do give out some, but then I always, every few weeks, I refresh and I give out some recipes. And if you sign up to my website and stuff you get a free cookbook and there's always recipes coming on so I do share a lot because yeah I don't want to, stuff that I've created I don't want to just keep to myself because I'm excited, I like to help people and I like to help people perform better in everyday life

so whether it's learning to cook better or making new things from recipes that I've come about to, you know, like the other week I crewed for a good friend of mine who did the double Ironman with me, who did a run leg. She did a first hundred mile race and she asked me, I trained her for it as well. So it was, I had a lot invested in it and she said can you pace me for the second 50 miles and i was like yeah okay sure and for those who maybe aren't up to date with sort of 100 miles basically if you pace for the second 50 for uh you know sort of a half half decent runner you're basically running through the night and that's it and that's what

i did i i ran for two hours of daylight on the Saturday night and we ran all through the night together and a couple of hours in the morning of daylight and that was it. But her finishing that race, she actually did really well, 22 and a half hours for her first 100 mile. That's good. I was over the moon. I felt more happy and more pleased and more ecstatic for her finishing that race than I did with my double Ironman because for me that was just like,

well, I said I was going to do it and I did it, so that's it, that's done. But with Hannah finishing her 100-miler, I was over the moon. My emotions were bubbling out of control. A couple of the poor who was there crewing as well, we were so excited and her family was there and it was a great time. So I like to help and sort of teach and coach people to help perform their best. And she said to me after,

I couldn't have done it without you. And I said, you would have done it, but I was just there to sort of bounce ideas off to make sure you got there. So I felt a big part of that, but at the same time, she's a tough chick and she got through it. Well, that's a long road from sitting on the couch, isolating and being depressed and lying about what you're doing throughout your day, right?

Yeah, exactly. You know, that kind of community and service is the ultimate salve to depression. It is. It is. And, you know, as I said, I still have my dark days now, but they're few and far between. And I know that when I do have those dark days, I look at these times when I've been a part of something and made someone's life better or helped them with something or dragged her through the night when she was trying to fall asleep and didn't want to run anymore. or dragged her through the night when she was trying to fall asleep and didn't want to run anymore.

So that's what gets me through the dark days these times, knowing that I can make a difference in someone else's life if I apply myself to that. I think that's a good place to wrap it up. Sounds good, man. Yeah, beautiful, man. Cheers. We did it.

We did. We rocked it. You feel all right? I feel amazing. You don't feel depressed? No, no way way not at all especially after going to the the one and only cafe down the road here before i came oh you went joy cafe i went joy cafe how was it oh i went in the staff was amazing by the way joy there i have no idea who joy was uh you would know okay she's bubbling over everyone was really nice and friendly

and Nick who's her partner he's an Ironman triathlete so I went up and I thought well I just did this run and I had a bit of a snack afterwards and that was fine I thought I've got to go and check out Joy Cafe you know what it's all about I thought I'll just get like a smoothie or something

I was looking at the board I wasn't sure what it was and the girl behind the counter she's like what would you like and I said I said, oh, I'm not sure. I just did a run. And she's like, I like the rich roll. You should get a rich roll. And I went, you know what? You have to. You're coming over for the podcast. I didn't say that. But in my head, I was like, I have to. I said, yes, I'll have a rich roll, please. Was it all right? Yeah, it was good, man. I got it without dates.

Yeah. Because dates don't, I love dates, but they don't sit well with me. So the rich roll without dates is a smash hit for me, but I'm sure the rich roll with dates is awesome. Yeah, good. Did you eat lunch also or just get the smoothie? No, just get the smoothie because I took a massive big salad to have after my run. I put it in a little cooler box with some water.

Right on, man. Well, thanks for dropping by over there. Cheers, man. It was really nice. Something like that in London would go mental. I'd love it. Yeah. How is the healthy eating landscape in London?

Getting better. Getting better. It's slowly, it's a small little community in in the vast of the city but it's getting there there's um a lot more uh better places to eat you know whole foods came over as well and there's a lot more uh local farmers markets popping up now which are really cool you know so get down and get your fresh veggies that were grown, you know, just down the road and stuff like that. So people are starting to get it, but it's the same thing as we said earlier.

We've been fooled with, you know, we've been told this is healthy, you know, this is healthy, all these sandwich shops and all these cafes, this is a health food store. You go in and it's like, this is not healthy, this is processed crap, you know, and it's difficult to see because, you know, my take on food and stuff like that. But it is getting better. The whole fish and chips is not as big as it used to be.

But yeah, no, there's a couple of cool vegan and vegetarian places popping up out there now. But yeah, no, it's getting there. That's good, man. That's exciting well i'm excited for you in the big uh the big adventure coming up cheers i'll have to uh come back and share about the experience when you're on the other side i'd love to i'd love to and get you some kasaga stuff as well oh yeah that's cool because you you are the plant power man so you

need to you need to have the pioneered 100% plant-based shirts. I like it. Cool. All right, so if you're digging on Luke, you're inspired, you want to help him out, give him a high five, and put some wind in his sails, the best place to do that is to go to theultimattriathlon.co. Consider a donation. Be mighty welcome, I would imagine. Totally.

But also, if you're a business or a corporation, drop me an email, and we can chat about things of what I can do for you as well. Yeah, cool. There's plenty. And you're Luke Tyburski on Twitter, right? T-Y-B-U-R-S-K-I. You've got it. And you're on Facebook, Instagram.

It's all the same, right? Yeah. You're an easy guy to find. There's only one of me, apparently. Right. There might be one in Poland. I don't know if his name's Luke, though. It's probably Luka or something, but I spell it the way I spell it.

I think there's one or two somewhere in the States here, but no, they're not up there with me. Cool, man. Well, thanks for doing this. Cheers, rich i appreciate uh you having me on and you know all the listeners i you know i listened to your first podcast i remember that and as it evolved which you have evolved it's come a long way yeah it has and you know i've been inspired throughout the whole your whole journey and uh and when we sort of chatted about coming on and doing this, I was excited because I've sat at home. I've sat on my bike and I've listened to all the podcasts and the amazing guests you have on. But the listeners are what makes it.

So it's cool. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you, man. This is great. Awesome. All right, man. Keep the rubber side down.

Always. All right. Peace. Plants. All right, you guys. How'd you like that? I think we did it. I think it was pretty good. Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments section on the episode page at richroll.com. Keep sending your questions for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com. And for all your plant power needs, also visit richroll.com. And for all your plant power needs,

also visit richroll.com. We got nutrition products. We have signed copies of Finding Ultra and The Plant Power Way. I will inscribe those books with whatever you would like me to say in them within reason. We have 100% organic cotton garments.

We have Julie's Meditation Program. We have Plant Power Tech Tees. We have Plant Power and Peace and Plants sticker packs and temporary tattoos. Who doesn't love that stuff? And our most recent offering in the store, and I'm really excited about this, are limited edition art prints from my friend and esteemed artist and food advocate, Andrew Pasquella. They are a pop art take on the USDA's politicization and devaluation of the true organic movement. They're really gorgeous pieces.

They're signed and numbered on heavy cloth paper. And I think this is a really great and inexpensive way to get your hands on some really fine art that I pretty much assure you is going to appreciate and value as Andrew's art career continues to skyrocket. So basically everything you need to take your health, your life to the next level, we got your basis covered at richroll.com. If you want more, if you're into online courses, go to mindbodygreen.com. I got two there, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, which is a great kind of counterpiece to The Plant Power Way, our cookbook. And I also have The Art of Living with Purpose, which is all about goal setting and doing the internal work and kind of getting your life on a proper trajectory. our way, our cookbook. And I also have the art of living with purpose, which is all about goal

setting and doing the internal work and kind of getting your life on a proper trajectory. Really proud of those courses. They're very affordable in a world of online courses that cost like thousands of dollars. This one's super cheap. Both are super cheap. And I stand by them. I think they have a lot of great content in them. So you can check those out. Thanks for supporting the show. Thanks to you for telling a friend as always. Thank you for sharing it on social media. Yes, I love that, especially Instagram. I'm loving all those pictures. And thank you for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. All right, you guys, I will see you in a few days. Make it great, everybody. Peace. Plants.