The Rich Roll Podcast - David Clark: When An Audacious Goal Becomes An Obsessive Addiction

Episode Date: May 22, 2017

Goals are great. Audacious goals? Even better. But what happens when that quest to touch the outermost edge of your capabilities tips into maddening obsession? David Clark has been there. And this week he returns to the podcast to tell us all about it. Longtime listeners will remember well our first conversation — one of my most popular episodes to date — in which David vividly recalled his extraordinary journey from morbidly obese, full-blown alcoholic into sober, vegan, ultra-running warrior. Not too long ago, David tipped the scales at 320 pounds. Fueled on a steady, death-defying diet of booze, pills and fast food, he was a man hell-bent on wrecking havoc, destruction and woe in the lives of loved ones and anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path, He wasn't just unhealthy. He was broken. Ultimately Dave met his breaking point. Understanding that if he didn't change he would surely die, he summoned the will to finally face and overcome his demons, transform his life wholesale and ultimately accomplish feats most sane people would deem impossible. As told in his memoir Out There*, David didn’t just drop 150 pounds on a plant-based diet. He didn’t just complete a half-marathon. He didn’t just complete a marathon. And he didn’t just finish the Badwater 135, but went on to crush an impressive list of ultra-marathons, including a run across the entire United States (along with podcast fave Charlie Engle) and the Quad Boston, in which he ran the Boston marathon course four times without stopping. Along the way, he repaired his broken self, emerging healthy. Mission accomplished. Or so he thought. No matter how far David continued to push the envelope, a void nonetheless remained. A hole in his soul he simply could not fill. So he continued to push, convinced that the answer he sought would surely be found in going further. Farther. Longer. Harder. What had begun as a laudable journey to wholeness had fractured, leading him away from the light — and into darkness. And yet once again, David found his way out. This is a conversation about that journey. It's about what happens when goals devolve into addictions — an escape from what is most real and important. It's about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and the impact of those stories on our beliefs. And it's about constant, continual fidelity to growth and re-invention. I sincerely hope you enjoy this powerful, contemplative exchange with the inspiring David Clark. Peace + Plants, Rich

My whole life was a search for happiness in all the wrong places, and I tried to find that in fast food, in pain pills, in alcohol, in business, in everything, you know, always looking for that external validation, and obviously that never works. You know, I was 320 pounds and a raging alcoholic, but those weren't my problems. My greater problem was that I just really didn't know how to live life. That's David Clark this week on the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. that I sat down with David about two and a half years ago. I think it was, it was episode 113 to this date, one of my most popular episodes on the podcast. So please check that out if you haven't already. It would be a good primer for today's episode. But for those of you that are new or perhaps skipped over that episode, David's a guy who not that long ago was tipping the scales

at over 320 pounds. He was a raging hope to die alcoholic and really on a crash course with not a long life. His prospects were not looking good. And people say people don't change, but if this show is about anything, if there's one sort of theme that predominates everything that I do on this podcast, it's about proving that notion utterly false. And, you know, David is really one of the most amazing, one of the most inspiring protagonists in this narrative that I have the honor of weaving weekly on the show because he completely transformed his life. He adopted a plant-based diet. He lost over 150 pounds. He started running and became this ultra running machine. Who's gone on to compete at the Badwater 135, widely considered the most challenging foot race in the world. He's run the Javelina 100, 100 miles across the Arizona desert.

He's competed at Leadville. He did this thing called the Quad Boston where he ran the Boston Marathon course four times back and forth all in one run. And he's even run across the United States with a couple of people, including Charlie Engel, another podcast favorite. So how did he do it? How did David change his life in such dramatic fashion? What were the tools he utilized? What was the mindset? How does somebody like David, this functioning alcoholic or not so well-functioning alcoholic, fast food junkie, morbidly obese, how did he overcome his addictions, lose 150 pounds and go on to compete in these extraordinary ultra endurance events? Well, we're going to answer that today.

I've got a few ideas on it. Of course, David has plenty to say on the subject. And some of those thoughts I want to share before we launch into this interview. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

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option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right. Thanks for sticking with me through all that. David Clark, again, how does somebody like David, this insane alcoholic, fast food junkie, morbidly obese, how does he overcome his addiction, lose 150 pounds and go on to run at bad water? Well, to answer that question, I think you really have to first realize one essential truth. And that is that alcoholism, obesity, fast food addiction, these weren't really David's problems. These were symptoms of a greater underlying problem. And recognizing that I think was the first step in David being able to crawl his way out. Because this is a guy who just didn't know how to live his life. He wasn't just unhealthy,

he was utterly broken. And that hope for the future, the journey, the path forward, was going to require him really reckoning with that, dealing with that truth, and ultimately reprogramming every aspect of how he lives his life. And as the adage goes, the solution is pretty simple. You just have to change one thing, everything. And David did that. You know, he really did. He put the work in and lived to tell the tale and has gone on to accomplish all of these amazing feats of extraordinary athleticism and endurance. And today we sit down again to explore all of it, picking up where we left off last time. We talk about running and sobriety, of course, but also this conversation focuses on the importance of matching our actions with our beliefs. It's about the positive or negative effects of the stories we tell ourselves about

ourselves. And we also have a very interesting dialogue about that point when a healthy pursuit, something that you think is good for you, suddenly tips into becoming unhealthy, like another addiction or a way to run away from an underlying discomfort or an undealt with emotion or what is real or what is most important. So if you listen to this show often, you know that I truly believe that growth is our mandate and that we should never be afraid to fail, that we should always be challenging ourselves, that we should always be getting out of our comfort zone and we should be re-examining and redefining who we are. And David is, you know, he's a shining example of this,

you know, case in point, this guy is now shifting gears away from ultra running and he's dipping his toe into the world of MMA fighting with, with no fighting experience whatsoever. It's just absolutely bananas. And, you know, tip of the hat to that for, uh, being able to kind of, you know, not be too afraid to try something like that. And that's really what I'm talking about. So without further ado, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with David Clark. Enjoy. All right, let's rock it, man. We're here. Good to see you. It's been over two years. I couldn't remember exactly when we first sat down, but I just looked up on the website

and you actually recalled specifically November of 2014. So two and a half years almost, man. I remembered because I was heading out to Javelina right after it. So I had that like date association. Seared into the brain right well i got to tell you uh you know that conversation uh got a lot of traction people were super inspired by your story uh definitely one of the more popular podcasts that i've had your story is super powerful and i don't want to recap the whole thing but there's a lot of new listeners who you know might take a

beat before they go back and listen to our original conversation so probably uh is worth tracking tracking it a little bit and if you could just give the the quick i don't know do you have like a bullet a bullet point synopsis of how you uh overcame addiction lost 150 pounds and went on to run at bad water yeah i think i just said i used to eat more cheeseburgers and drink more beer. Yeah, no, I mean- A lot of beer. A lot of beer. You know, it was, you know, I was 320 pounds and a raging alcoholic,

but, you know, those were symptoms. Those weren't my problems. You know, my greater problem was that i just really didn't know how to live life and there was my whole life was was a search you know for happiness and in all the wrong places and i tried to find that in fast food in pain pills and alcohol in business in everything, you know, always looking for that external validation. And, you know, it was kind of like, I've described it as the deconstruction of a human being, you know, like I grew up and had, you know, I was very isolated from the world

and I didn't have like a lot of the normal structure kids have, you know, I bounced around a lot and I thought that having all these external things would make me happy or kind of fill that hole and and obviously that never works and it is the great uh epidemic of delusion that i think defines our culture you know it's almost like we can't we can't even blame ourselves because we're so inundated with messages that reinforce that lie. Yeah. I mean, once you start searching for happiness, you've lost it, right? Like, at least when you're looking someplace other than if your eyes are open and you're searching for it, you've lost it, right? How long did it take you to figure that out?

I'm still telling myself that now. Yeah. So you were, uh, I haven't gone back and listened to our original conversation, but you had success as a business. You were like in sales, right? Yeah. You were kind of like a hustler. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, applied that kind of, you had some street smarts and you were able to apply that and gain some success.

Even while you were kind of a functioning alcoholic, while the wheels were falling off, you were still able to kind of get out there and, you know, get done what needed to get done for a period of time yeah i mean on the surfaces like i was 29 and i owned a chain of stores retail mattress stores and you know i was the smartest man alive all you had to do was ask me never mind the you know 320 pounds and then the bottle of whiskey in my back pocket i had it all figured out you know, and so paint a picture of like a day in the life at the nadir, like at the bottom. Wow. Um, I'd wake up and, and I actually used to say this as a joke, but, you know, cause I was so overweight, I would be like, um, the, I exercise all the time, you know, I wake up for in the morning and shake violently for 30 minutes you know that's and in but that was the truth like

right every joke has has truth behind it and and i did i had like terrible withdrawal shaking cold sweats vomiting all that kind of stuff every single day and so hair of the dog yeah yeah i mean it's funny like only reason i hesitated is because back then i would say i don't drink in the morning but that was only because i woke up at like one o'clock in the afternoon, right? Yeah, people, you know, I wasn't a daily morning drinker, but, you know, there was plenty of times, you know, more often than not, when you wake up and you're in that condition, it's the only solution because you feel so horrible and your body and your brain, nothing functions.

And you know, if you just have a couple drinks like that will actually evaporate and you'll feel normal. It's not about getting drunk. It's about overcoming, you know, what you're sort of enduring in those hours, you know, right after you haul yourself out of bed in the morning or in the afternoon. I had no desire to drink anymore for like the last few years all i wanted was to want to drink like i kind of knew i had to like you said just to feel normal just to get get to back to good but i i i didn't want to drink anymore like in fact i was chasing wanting to drink i'd always try to figure out what i could do the night

before like setting up a glass of water in the morning or even trying to like these stupid things like, you know, like, well, maybe if I wake up at 3 a.m. and take a shot of whiskey and then go back to sleep, then I'll wake up in the morning and want to drink again, you know, and I won't have this. I know. I want to have this like terrible deficit, you know, I'll just like string it out a little better. And but that's it. I i mean i just wanted to want to drink instead of wanting to not want to drink right no yeah yeah that wasn't an option yeah it's it's it's amazing how powerful uh the disease is in that regard like i can remember just wanting to have if i could just string together a couple sober days so that my body could feel okay again then

i would have that desire to drink where those first couple drinks would actually Feel good and I would get to experience what most people experience when they drink a couple drinks as opposed to yeah Just trying to get to baseline again. Yeah, I remember one time I was it was a birthday I have no idea which one but I had like I was just wrecked with the flu I mean just wrecked and And I had like this plan of having my friends meet me and we were going to like kind of take over this little bar in downtown Denver, this Irish bar. And, and then I got the flu and I literally like was sitting on the toilet,

you know, coming out of one end and then vomiting into the sink, you know, from the flu, not even from drinking. And, but i got myself off out you know dressed up and went to that bar and i i just like nothing's gonna get in between you and that but i was so frustrated because i could i mean i remember thinking okay if i just take this shot i'm gonna get over i'm gonna i'm gonna beat the flu right i'm gonna i'm gonna get to the point where i got the flow going and i just couldn't get it and i had i did like six or seven shots and finally my brother's like dude and my brother's an alcoholic too at the time even he was like dude you just it's not there you gotta go home so at the end what are you putting away in terms of alcohol and food

man scary scary things like you know an entire bottle before i left the house and then another bottle you know with whatever i was you can't you can't leave the house and then another bottle, you know, with whatever I was doing. You can't leave the house sober. No, no, I literally couldn't. No way. No. And, and like the fast food, the weird thing about like the fast food and stuff is it, it changed around obviously just like anything else.

But, you know, at one point I was kind of stringing out my fast food use too, like where I would have, you know mcdonald's for breakfast or something i'd be my hangover food right and then maybe lunch and you know i got to the point where i couldn't eat in the morning anymore but i still probably ended up coming close to my my caloric goal for the day yeah by just that insane midnight trip you know with double quarter pounder filet of fish, large fries, you know, yeah. I think the thing that a lot of people don't realize about full blown alcoholism is that you don't want to eat. Even if you're hungry, you don't want to eat because that gets in the way of

the alcohol, you know, getting into your system. Right. So if you eat some food, maybe it'll make you tired and that's going to impinge on the buzz or whatever. So I can remember going out of my way to not eat, but inevitably, you know, I'd pass out and then I'd wake up and there'd just be fast food wrappers like in my bed or like an open pizza box. And you just rifle through, you know, five or six cheeseburgers that you don't even remember eating. Yeah, man, I don't even like think that I looked at it as food. You know what I mean? Like, I looked at it as, you know, just another drug, you know, it's just something else that was gonna make me feel better. Did you have the awareness that you were using food like a drug at the time? Or was that a later? No, not even close. I was

like way off my radar. Like, I didn't even know that I was using alcohol as a drug, you know, like it was just what I did. It was so tied to my identity, you know, it was like, oh, I'm Irish, you know, and I'm that guy. I work hard, I party hard. And, you know, at some point in my life, like when I had the stores going and I was making a lot of money, that image fit. But eventually, you know, that image didn't fit at all, you know? And I think that's the ultimate identity crisis that happens, right? Like who am I? So how did you reach that bottom? Like what happened and how did you flick the switch and move into sobriety? You know, that's the crazy thing, man. Like to describe the last morning is to describe almost exactly the one before it

and the one before that and the one before that you know it wasn't it wasn't like all of the times that i should have quit drinking we talked about that like at the last the last time we did that you know like all of these times where i like you know ended up in jail or you know got so drunk i couldn't wrap my christmas presents you know and and the humiliation and all the things that go with that. That should have been my last day. I should have walked away and said, come on, dude, you're better than this. You've got people that love you.

But I didn't. The morning was just another morning. But I let go of whatever I was holding on to, that last little bit of dignity fight whatever you want to call it or maybe I grabbed on to some fight you know I don't know but I I surrendered I was collapsed on my bathroom floor and I actually out loud looked up and I said I said help help me yeah that uh that moment of clarity that you hear about mean, a lot of people in sobriety talk about it being a spiritual experience or perhaps their first visitation of a spiritual experience. Is that how you think about it?

I do. I do. I realize, maybe not at the moment, but looking back, that that surrender was the first time I really accepted that I was in a fight. You know, so it was like, it's not the surrender that I think that some people think of where you just kind of like roll over and die. You know, I was like, I'm getting my ass kicked. You know what I mean? And, and it's bigger than me. I can't win. I can't win. So like I need help. And so what was the first thing that you did to extend yourself to reach out for help?

I went to, well, I mean, I talked to my wife at the time. I went to AA. You know, my wife, she's my ex-wife now. But I think she, you know, I don't know. You know how selfish alcoholics are. I expected it once I said I need help that the world was going to start moving, spinning in the opposite direction, right? You're going to pin a medal on your chest and congratulate you.

Right. A whole team of scientists were going to show up, right? But, I mean, she rightfully so knew that this was a battle that I was going to have to get in. And I'm sure she didn't really believe me. You know, I wouldn't have believed me. I'm not even sure I believe you. Well, you have no trust. You know what I mean?

And it's very common for the alcoholic to dip their toe into sobriety and then expect everybody to immediately start trusting them again when they have this robust multi-year history of being unreliable and not showing up when they said they would and having a very tenuous relationship with the truth. Yes. So, you know, I think there's a lack of patience or understanding of how long it takes to rebuild all that. Yeah, no doubt. But I'd kind of played a game, you know,

it was a similar game that I had played in, in business, you know, where I was like, okay, if, if, you know, I really did have that kind of as insane as it sounds, you know, like this concept that I was, I was smart, like, I'm the smart guy, I'm the guy that has it figured out, you know, and that's why I've done well in business. And that's why I've done this. And I mean mean it was so easy to let that go and and i let it go to the point where it was like you know maybe maybe i'm actually like borderline retarded like maybe i am so dumb that i think that i have an understanding of something and i have no understanding so i i almost became opposite george like from sign well that may have that I have an understanding of something and I have no understanding. So I almost became opposite George, like from.

Well, that may have that may have saved you. You know, that injection of humility, I think, is a cornerstone of actually grasping what sobriety is and making it stick. I mean, I know a lot of super smart people that died in the gutter, you know, because they came in, they needed help. They were on their last legs, but they just, they were too smart for the 12 steps or too smart for sobriety and refused to surrender their self-will and continue to double down on that, you know, that fantasy equation that they believed was responsible for whatever success they had in life, thinking that their wits were going to be able to,

you know, crack this equation wide open and get them healthy. And it doesn't work. So I think it actually benefits people to turn the brain off and just like, just surrender, just, you know, take advice from people that have put together, strung together a couple of years of sobriety, do what they say, stop questioning it and just let it go, man. You know, like, what are you fighting? Like when you finally release that, that's when you make room for the magic to enter. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just, I, I, I embraced that like this, this idea that whatever it is that I'm doing from this moment forward has to be completely different than anything I've ever done, you know?

And that's strangely how running even entered the equation because running just seemed stupid and, you know, like impossible. It seemed like a superpower, you know, like people that could just leave their house and run to me was like, you know, you may as well be flying or climbing up the outside of buildings. You know what I mean? So I was like, well, if I can go do this, this thing every day, this outside of buildings you know what i mean so i was like well if i can go do this this thing every day this like act you know if i can just will myself to do this and will myself to go to aa and take these actions that i'm i'm kind of like submitting myself to

that and proving to myself that i'm serious because because like talking about my wife not believing me i didn't believe me and i wanted to believe me, you know, so doing those things. You had to learn how to trust yourself again first. Absolutely. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, because, you know, alcoholism, it doesn't just crush your ambitions. It breaks your instincts. So your instincts are no longer reliable because those ideas that crop up in your head that sound like a good idea, those are the things that get you into trouble. So when you can no longer rely on those to guide you in a responsible, positive direction, then you're lost until you can figure out how to rebuild that and be able to trust those impulses again as they creep up. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to get into all the running and the amazing things that you've done with running. But I think I'm interested in kind of delving into how you think about running,

your relationship with running with respect to sobriety. Because I get a lot of emails, a lot of messages from people, as I'm sure you do as well, who kind of conflate fitness or running with sobriety. And I think there's a lot of confusion uh there with respect to the relationship between those two worlds at least as i see it so i'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on that well i think like any relationship right they it evolves and it changes and it gets deeper and you get a better understanding of it as time goes, right? Like you can get into any relationship and have it never evolve and never change. And you get one

small thing out of it. And that doesn't last a long time typically. So my relationship and view on running has changed dramatically over, you know, the first time that I hauled my fat butt out the door and managed 15 seconds of running on the treadmill to bad water, you know, and even from bad water to now. And, you know, I always, I get that all the time too. You know, that's even when people mean well, they go, it's great that you traded addictions like that. That's like so amazing. I'm so happy for you. Right. But I think conversely, what I'm getting at more is somebody who reaches out and says, I can't stop drinking, but I came across your story. So I went vegan and now I'm running. Okay. And they sort of look at that as the solution to their addiction problem.

And I'm always the first person to say, listen, you know, going vegan, going, you know, going plant-based, getting out and moving your body. Those are fantastic. But these are not the path to sustain sobriety. Like you've got to do the inside work. Like you've got to develop a spiritual relationship with a higher power. You've got to like at least explore 12 step or find some program that works for you. You've got to find other people that you can tell your secrets to. Like you've got to learn communication. There's a whole other aspect to it that is fundamental to sobriety. In my opinion, I think, you know, like running fitness, eating plant-based, these are all part of my wellness equation, but I don't want people to be confused that that is how I got sober. I mean, that didn't come until after I had, you know, 10 years of sobriety. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was, I think I'd been running for two years when I really found sobriety,

you know, and I hadn't used in that time. I had two years of abstinence, but I hadn't really found sobriety until I'd been away from using for a couple of years. And I know, you know, when you, so when you define finding sobriety, what does that mean specifically? I mean that, that spiritual health, that point at which if I could no longer run, I would still have been okay. Because I think there was a point that at first, for the first couple years, my weight loss, my health changes, my running, and my sobriety were really just one big ball.

And I wasn't sure where one ended, where the other one started. It was just all part of new life, new life and how does it separate. And when I had my back surgery in early 2008, end of 2007, I think that was the first time that I had to really take that first look, that scary look, because two things happened. I was confronted with maybe not being able to run anymore and also pain medication, you know, from, from the surgery, from the injury. So it was like, what did they put you on? Oh my God. All those times that I went to my doctor for pain medication and they wouldn't give me any, or they'd give me two or three. I actually told my doctor at one point, like, you can't give me all this stuff. I'm like,

I'm a recovering addict. And they're like, don't be a'm a recovering addict and they're like don't be a hero really yes yes don't be a hero like we'll worry about that once you get out of pain and so it's almost unbelievable man and that wasn't my doctor my surgeon who might be listening but that was like my my general um my first doctor that I went to so like oxys and things like that luckily no but percocet uh percodan vicodins all that kind of stuff and how long were you on that stuff you know i resisted it actually i didn't take anything um through three or four months while i had two herniated discs and i was going through rehab and stuff and then i had one massively herniated and one severely bulging and the second one herniated. And when that happened,

I couldn't even stand up. And, and that's when I finally said, okay, I'll, I'll whatever at this point, I'm, I can't even think about anything, but not being in pain. I mean, the pain was so severe and they had two weeks I had to wait to get into surgery. So I took them then. And then they put me on a ridiculous, I wish I had a say that painkiller schedule for after my surgery, you know, and it was like, I think it was taking like 10 Percocets a day, you know, and that would last for like four days and I went down to six and then they switched me to Vicodins and slowly weaned me off. And I got so twisted up inside from having this and taking it and wondering what it meant and all that that i

just took it all and flushed it down the toilet and well it activates the beast it activates the craving i mean when you're in a ton of pain it's not like you're getting high though right or were you getting like well no the i wasn't but like you know like you you push back against yourself you're like i don't want to use this to get high. I'm going to take it as prescribed. And then all of a sudden you're looking at the clock and you're waiting for your time to come. That's what I mean by it activates that, you know,

that, that little monster creeps up and says, Oh, here we go again. So it was just a matter of time before I started just swallowing them, you know, by the fistful. So that I,

I chewing them up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I threw them away, you know, and it was painful it was a tough decision because i knew they weren't going to give me any more they wouldn't believe me if

i told them i flushed them but well it's interesting because i think that that's another like that's another layer of surrender right like in in retrospect do you look at that as like a gift because absolutely sort of removing running made you look at other aspects of how you were living and had to grapple with like what it all means. So you weren't just relying on running for your kind of sober solution. Absolutely. And to the point you made earlier about like that, the person who's trying to grasp a hold of running as a lifesaver, you know, to get out. I think it's really easy to look at, you know, bad water and some of these extreme events and think that, you know, doing these ultra marathons has taught me this, you know, skill of this will and this perseverance and all these mental skills that you develop from running ultra that, that translates to my recovery. And that's totally backwards,

totally backwards recovery. And the, the, the initial stages of, of finding how to be happy internally without looking to something outside of me, those are the skills that taught, that kept me in the game at Badwater, you know, trusting the process, knowing I don't have to have it all figured out right now, that I can, I can just feel this without making it, instead of using the pain to create a picture in my head, that I can just let it be what it is. Like, this is just pain. This is just pain in my legs. You know, I don't need to respond to that. I can just keep moving. And that was from, you know, sitting in the chair in my living room thinking, how am I going to never drink again? You know, and going, you don't have to worry about that. You know, you don't have to worry about that right now. You have to just. Well, it trains you to constantly bring yourself back into the present.

Yes. to constantly bring yourself back into the present yes and this perpetual uh you know cycle of surrender surrender surrender and understanding that within that surrender is actually power not it's not a giving up no it's actually a way of like marshalling the troops in a certain respect and to continually bring it back to the present translates beautifully into athletics, especially ultra, when the distances and the times are so overwhelming that the only way through is to just continually anchor, five steps forward, then you'll deal with what comes after that, after that. And not having to control that process and have a clear vision of where it's going to lead you and being comfortable with that. Absolutely. And I think it can relate directly to like my first holidays, for example. Like everyone that's an alcoholic, you know, struggles with that, you know, first holidays,

like how am I going to get through the holidays? Right. Or as soon as you get sober, it's like, how am I going to do this? I have to go to a bachelor party in nine months. Right. What if I go to Ireland in 10 years? That was like actually one of mine, but you know, so like I was, I don't have to, I don't have to not drink on Christmas morning now on October 1st, right? I can worry about that on December 25th. And it was the same thing for me in running. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have to run a hundred miles right now. You know, I can run that hundredth mile later. I'm just trying to run mile one, you know? And I think that that got me through my first few ultras and stuff like that. But it also translated later, you know, like in trying to be more competitive in running,

it was more surrender, you know? And it was like, okay, well, now I'm capable of running 100 miles at X speed. And, you know, you start to build up that pressure on yourself of, you know, everyone's watching and, you know, they think I can, I gotta get first place. I got it second, top 10, whatever it is. And, and knowing that the only thing I have control over is now. And if I run this entire race in this moment, the best I can in that moment, then I'm never going to regret whether I come in first or hundredth. The results take care of themselves.

And that's a direct skill from recovery to running and not from running to recovery. Because I can't remember the last time I finished a run and went, oh shit, that was what I thought during that run is really going to help me on my recovery tomorrow. Right. I never experienced that. Uh-huh.

I never experienced that. Uh-huh. All right, so 320 pounds. How long does it take you to get, what do you weigh now, like 170 or something like that? Actually about 158, 159. I've been training a little bit. Yeah, we're going to get into it, don't worry. How long did it take you to drop down to fighting weight um so i went from 320 to about 185 training for my first marathon

it's about 15 months total actually the weight loss part was about nine months 15 months of the marathon um and i stayed there for a long time and one 85 was fine. It was good. I liked the way I looked. I liked the way I felt. And you did that just through running and sort of controlling your appetite. Was there like a protocol to that? There was, um, uh, I, I chose like the glycemic index kind of as, as my Holy grail of nutritional choices, the filter at which I ran everything through. And I ate very like, kind of paleo, honestly, I ate like lean meats and greens. And that worked fine for me. And it was really the when I was decided to get a little more serious about running in terms of not like taking myself too seriously,

but like, what can I do? You know what I mean? I, I had this picture that I was of who I was, I was this 320 pound alcoholic, this guy who, you know, is tragically fat and always, you know what i mean i i had this picture that i was of who i was i was this 320 pound alcoholic this guy who you know was tragically fat and and and always you know coming up short on and always this close to doing something really great you know and all this kind of garbage that i'd placed on myself and i busted that apart and became something new i became you know a runner a sober guy and and i lived in that place for a while and eventually i was like well maybe because part of that image was that i'm just a mid mid to backpack athlete you know i'm not out there trying to win these things i just just doing this for fun and i was i questioned that too i was like well what

if that's just a bunch of shit too you know what is that just uncomfortable zone that you pigeon hold yourself into and so i was like well let's see you know and and i started i became a plant based athlete just as a experiment you know like give it 30 days and see see how you feel and what what inspired you to do that did you read a book or watch a documentary i read this book called finding ultra oh come on you've probably read scott jurick's book no it was before scott jurick's book man come on our books came out at the same time so they did not yeah they did like within a month of each other finding ultra and eat and run uh-huh no way yeah they came out like his came out maybe a month or two before mine that doesn't seem possible yeah i would have guessed like three

years ago no no no it was all it all happened oh wow simultaneously no and but no like i did read your book and i did know who scottk was and I knew that there was this kind of you know underground thing and ultra running you know about that diet and that thing and so I just figured I'd try it you know like I was very interested in the concept of making my body become the ultimate machine you know like what what is optimal what what am I capable of doing what and where do you think that impulse came from? Just the insanity that's me. I don't know. I don't know.

Because I don't know. I tend to do brain surgery with a chainsaw. Was it sort of an internal promise that you made to yourself? I mean, is it like I'm interested in whether that's reparations for the wounds you know self-inflicted wounds or whether you felt like you wanted to prove something to the world or to other people no no i don't think so at all honestly i i was more interested in like i just finished writing out there and my book is very much about that whole concept of identity and how it's so important for human beings that we match our behaviors and our concept of who we are.

And when they're not in alignment, there's conflict. And I couldn't ever get sober or healthy because I never viewed myself as that person. And I'd always tried to change my behaviors to make me change. And when I got it, I won't say right because I don't know what right is, but when I got the result I was looking for, it was when I changed my concept of who I was, I was like, well, maybe this isn't who I'm supposed to be, it would make sense to me that I screwed this up. So the results were dictating your identity rather than saying this is who I am. And then, and then adopting behaviors that match that. Yeah, that's how I kind of got out. I was like, well, maybe I'm not supposed to be

this 320 pound tragic drunk, right? Maybe I'm an ultra marathon runner and I just screwed it up somewhere along the line. And it made sense to me that I would have screwed up who I was supposed to be somewhere along the line. So I bought into that and I changed my behaviors, changed naturally when I changed my identity. And it took a lot of faking it at first, you know, like what does a runner do? A runner runs. So I'm going to go run. What does a runner do a runner run so i'm gonna go run what does a runner do a runner eat doesn't eat this you know and anyway so here i found myself two three years into sobriety and and being a runner and i found myself saying all these things like oh i start off slow and taper off and i'll never be a fast runner and i'll never do this and i'll

never do that and i just heard that voice one day and it reminded me a lot of the 320 pound Dave, you know, reminded me a lot of that. Like I'm imposing all these limits on me. And I was, I was more interested in like, can I break down that paradigm? Can I break that down? And like, what happens if I don't fear putting myself out there to run faster? Can I, can, how fast can I run? How fast can I do 100 miles? How fast can I do 50? It's amazing how we all, all of us create narratives, stories about who we are that craft our identity. And they're just basically illusions. Even the good ones aren't true. You know what I mean? Like none of it's true. We just make this like i'm this person i'm the person that does this yes and if you can unpack that and kind of transcend it and say well let's create a new narrative and reinforce that through behavior you create a brand new story that's the key and like because there's always evidence to supply either way right like if you say oh i'm the stupid

person right i'm the person that always and then you lock your keys in the car you're like oh see look i want my keys identify yeah like there's always evidence to support what but like certain aspects of your life pop out to you as being more salient or important than others and you use those as examples to fuel that story but your life is a spectrum of a million a billion decisions and behaviors and activities so why are you self-selecting the ones that reflect poorly on you as opposed to the things that you could just choose to look at all these things that happen throughout your life that were blessings that could fuel gratitude that could make you feel good about yourself and your place in the world yeah i don't know about you i'm not hardwired to do that. That takes a tremendous amount of energy and discipline to do.

But it's always inspiring to hear people that can shift that narrative and crack it wide open and do something different. I mean, one of the things Joshua Johnny always says is he decided that in his sort of quest to become the person that he is now, which is similar in certain respects to your story, he lost 200 pounds. He decided it wasn't about weight loss. He wanted to be an athlete. And when he forgot about the scale and just focused on trying to be a better athlete every single day, the weight coming off was a simple byproduct of changing that narrative about who he was.

It came along for the ride. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I couldn't agree with that more. of changing that narrative about who he was it came along for the ride yeah absolutely like i i couldn't agree with that more and that's that's what i didn't care about whether i ran a slow race you know what i mean like but i did care about convincing myself that i'm a slow runner i did care about that you know what i mean just in the same way that i didn't i didn't care about being 320 pounds, but I cared about looking at myself as someone who is supposed to be fat. Right.

So the first marathon, what was your time in that one? 445. 445. All right. And what's your fastest marathon now? I've, I mean,

you're, you go way longer than marathon. I know marathon is not your specialty. The only reason I hesitate is because like my official i have run a sub three in training but my official marathon pr in a race is 326 but it was the day after a 50 like only you would go out and like try to pr a marathon the day after a 50 i didn't really try which is probably why i did it all right so we talk about this in much more depth in our earlier podcast. And I definitely suggest everybody go and check that out.

It's episode 113. And I'll put a link in the show notes up to that. But, you know, you go from running these marathons and then tackling, you go and you run bad water. Arguably the hardest foot race in the world, 135 miles through Death Valley, hottest temperature on planet Earth, like just this insane race. And like you conquer it. And in many respects, you could consider that to be, you know, kind of a crowning achievement that symbolizes this extraordinary journey that you've been on from the 320 pound alcoholic into, you know, a true athlete. Very few people on planet Earth are able to do something like that. But for you, it's not enough right so you gotta you got all kinds of more challenges you tackle after this you

do like the quad boston right yeah you decide you're gonna run boston like back and forth four times right yeah you do that and you're trying to break all these world records on the treadmill and you're doing all kinds of stuff all over the place right so yeah this is what this kind of brings it back to um an argument that you raised a couple minutes ago about people looking at you and saying well you've just transferred yeah addictions right and so i think there was a good period and this is what i really want to get into today because I think this is super interesting. There was a period of about a year where I was sort of following you on social media. And even I was like, I think David's losing the thread, man.

He's like gone off the reservation. Like how much is enough? Like he's become maniacal about this. Like at some point, he's going to have to find a balance point with this because it's not a sustainable lifestyle and you just seem to hell bent on just going from one challenge to the next and like not even giving yourself a break in between these so what was going on with you during that time and how do you like you know describe what you were doing and like how you think about it yeah for sure like well i mean the one thing like when we talk about you you mentioned the things we put on ourselves for identity. I'm this type of person.

And one thing that is actually very important to me is that I never want to be the type of person that's afraid to fail. And I want to do what I think is just on the outside of what I'm capable of. I want that as an athlete, as a man, as a person, as a human, like every, and everything. And so I think like my, my intention at first was to just like constantly challenge myself to be outside my comfort zone. And I was like, um, I'd done bad water and I'd, and I'd done some things. And, and, and as the universe conspired to present itself,

like I had my 10th sober birthday coming up 2015 and i was like man like i wonder what i would have done with a 10-year anniversary when i was an alcoholic you know like what i tried to drink for 10 hours non-stop you know because that i mean that's like the kind of thing that i would have done like i always did this weird thing with numbers and dates and things so i like i was like like, I'm going to challenge myself to do 10 epic events as I determine them. But I called it the Zen 10 because part of the challenge was I want to be more present and more aware in these events that I've ever been before. I want to let them unfold in a way that, you know,

that I'm just really grounded to them and I can learn something about myself and my limits and all these things. So I had this like kind of monkish aspirational thing hidden into it, you know, and I did it, you know, and I went through it and I don't regret it at all. So what were the 10? They were like Rocky,

the US National Trail Championship at Rocky Raccoon. And I wanted to go after, read it at all so what were the 10 they were like um rocky the u.s national trail championship at rocky raccoon and and i wanted to go after that was the main reason i was doing that is i wanted to run my fastest hundred ever and i came short of that right because that's like a pretty flat yeah that's right yeah and i had run like you know crazy for me crazy sub 18 and came in second place this hundred and i was like i just want to see if i can what am i capable of doing and so that was the first one and then um then i did uh in march i came out here to la and i did the try to break the 12-hour world record for the greatest distance running a treadmill in 12 hours and then i ran the la marathon right after it for

um for a non-profit that works with addicts and then i did the quad boston and you know i did a hundred you have let's talk about the quad boston for a minute though so you you uh did you have problems like with access to the course and all that kind of stuff like did you have to jump through a bunch of hoops for them to even let you do that or did you just kind of fly under the radar you know somewhere in between you know i did want to include the the baa in that you know because i didn't want to get pulled off the course and they they they appreciate us being honest with them so they just gave us some guidelines like we weren't allowed to wear hydration vests or anything like that and honestly i mean the roads were all open for the first two and a half or three marathons you know like there's

people that do this nighttime midnight bike ride that i didn't even know about that happens and they're like all neon lights and polka music it's like i had a lot of company out there so you started which which marathon was the marathon that actually everyone else was running was that the last the last one okay so you did so you started like the day before basically yeah i wanted to do it four times in one day so i started we we i started like i think it was 5 p.m the day before because my my wave went off at like 11 a.m or something like right so so all right so you so 5 p.m and started at the finish ran out to hopkinton ran back ran out to hopkinton and you just continually running the

whole time like it was just a an ultra all the way through yes yeah and it was it was crazy it was like well i mean and we did it the way i designed it was like the the first one each marathon was for a purpose and the first one was for the people who are still out there struggling um second one was for the people that made it out found recovery. Um, second one was for the people that made it out, found recovery like myself. The third one was for the families affected by addiction. And the last one was for those lost and specifically for a local Boston girl, Sophie Kelly, who, um, passed away. She died of hair and overdose at like 17, 17 or 18. And I ran the last one with her mom. That's beautiful, man. And it was, it was to this day, I mean, I've done a few of these, like, really crazy kind of things. And this is the one that, because Runner's World did a story on it before.

And so, like, there was people standing out on such and such street corner in the middle of the night with the magazine telling about their daughter. And Boston has been, Massachusetts in general has just been like devastated with heroin and and kids and it was just crazy how many people came out and had a story did you have a bunch of people run with you for stints yeah yeah i had i always had someone with me the whole time and how do you people are going to kill me this is a bit of an aside but people are going to kill me if i don't ask you like how you fuel when you're running such long distances like what are you eating what are you drinking that one was tough because we couldn't carry hydration packs so like at first it was cool like the the crew car you know would yeah would be there but i potatoes potatoes and salt and water you know i've tried everything gels and powdered drinks and i'm pretty lucky in that i can

i can eat just about anything to you know better better performance on some than others but real food is really it like separating salt water and calories was was uh-huh so like sweet potatoes or like how are you chewing like you actually like baked potatoes or mashed potatoes? Yeah, so both like so sweet potatoes will take a sweet potato, like a small sweet potato and put a fig in it or even a date. And so there's like a sugary thing too in there. And then with the regular white potatoes, just boiled and then salt on them. Right, right, right. Nothing tastes good when you're running anyway.

So what the hell does it matter? But yeah, but I mean, there's no way you're doing gels on something like that like that's not gonna work gels do work for me you know like even in the super long stuff yeah yeah like i mean all of the crazy treadmill stuff i've done like if i'm going fast i'll do gels for the first 50 miles of 100 because real food's hard to digest if you're running really hard for me and then i'll switch to the food later because at some point you know you just can't stomach another damn gel yeah i mean you're gonna get you're gonna have a revolt down there right and it's also tricky when you start taking in that much sugar you got to keep priming the pump or you're gonna have like a crash so i do peanut butter too i do peanut butter

avocados and potatoes typically but the way i work it out is i'll usually start with five foods and the five change and i just figure i gotta get 200 calories every hour from those five foods and no like maltodextrin drink like powder no carbohydrate or anything like that no good to know man all right so you do the quad boston you too can be a mediocre runner come on there you are you're telling a story about yourself you know less less people confuse me with scott very few people on planet earth can do what you do um all right so you do the quad boston and then what comes after that you You got more treadmill stuff, right? Yeah, I did. I did a 100-mile treadmill run that came about. I might be confusing years here, actually.

Yeah, that was a different one. No, I did a 100-mile treadmill run in October. That was like event number six or something like that. I did Badwater as part of the 10 events. I did Leadville. I did Squaw Peak, which was um the squat peak was an interesting one because that was like kind of a mini surrender in the middle of all this that i i was like okay all 10 of these don't have to be better than the one before right like so alcoholic

i know right i'm like so i'm gonna just make this 50 miler that i was going out to speak at and i'm gonna make this the combination of speaking there and sharing and running with because it was for a group called addict to athlete in utah and running with them you know and not running my race but running and supporting them along the course was like i think that was event four or five or something like that. So was it, there was one event though, where kind of the wheels fell off the wagon and you kind of had a reckoning with what exactly it was that you were doing, right? Wasn't that Leadville? No. What was it? It was actually after all of the 10 events. It was the next year. at Leadville? No. What was it? It was actually after all of the 10 events. It was the next year.

So what happened is I went through all of these events and I ended it with a 48 hour treadmill run because it was like the craziest thing I could think of. Like I really wanted to go out. How many miles did you run in 48 hours? Like 186 miles. And you're just in a gym? Where did that go? Yeah. I own a gym in Colorado and I just did it there. And man, I still have like panic attacks. Sometimes I like, I think that I'm dreaming and I'm still on that treadmill running and then all of this is a dream and I'm going to wake up and I've still got 10 hours left. Were you hallucinating? Like, how do you? Strangely, I did.

I mean, man, I got a Badwater story about hallucination. Actually, it happened during the 10 events in 2015. I hallucinated for like 10 hours out there what were you seeing oh man so there was the white line that you run on his name was desmond and he was spinning around and he would break open into a mouth and then start talking to me and then he would like what's he saying to you oh at first some really dark shit man like i'm actually writing about it currently or actually just finished writing that part. But like really dark shit.

Like I had like a spiritual thing out there, man. Like tell me that, you know, I was a fraud, a fake, that I didn't deserve to be on the bad water course, that this is for real runners. And, you know, you faked your way in here and all this like crazy stuff trying to get me to quit and that was desmond was me obviously like i don't know where any of that came from but like it was i had just a terrible race like i mean at two hours into the race i was falling down on the road and passing out falling asleep like i don't know my two hours two hours in i lost what was it i lost

um did you write when was that when was some ridiculous like 12 pounds in the first 17 miles or something like that had you just run another event shortly before that or um running yourself you know maybe you have a uh an overly eager uh eager, uh, or, or, uh, overly, um, what's the word? I can't think of the word, um, uh, overly eager sense of how long it takes you to recover in between these events. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think muscularly, like if I have one kind of talent, if you will, or one thing that I've done well in my running career, it's recovery. I usually recover really quick, especially muscularly. But I think there's another level underneath muscularly, you know, that's harder to define.

Oh, yeah. There's like a deep, deep fatigue that probably takes months and months for you to stabilize. Yeah. And it was a night start. you for you to stabilize yeah and it was a night start and like my coach thought you know with the heat and the night start and just being a little off you know that that can get out of hand quickly you know when you have five things go 10 wrong you know that that can be a big number you know and but it actually turned out to be finished yes it actually turned out to be one of the most beautiful peaceful experiences of my entire life and i i actually chronicled it to my crew. I was and times where I was like literally intervening

for myself in the past from the race, like driving down the road. And I'm like in the car with the drunk me holding onto the steering wheel, stopping the car from like hitting, going into other traffic. And it was just, it was crazy, man. It was so nuts. And I, I didn't want to forget any of it. Like you went into another dimension and like bent time to be your own angel. It was crazy. And protect yourself. Yeah.

It was, and it became this act of like, I was convinced that there was no possibility of finishing that race. Like, I can't state that strongly about like there was no possibility of a finish so it became you're falling asleep in the first two hours right right and so it became this thing it's like well can you keep going anyone can keep going if you have some sliver of hope can you keep going even when there's no hope like and that was like what i kept telling myself like it has to be has to mean something more than just finish but that's your hope i guess so yeah i guess so but that's yeah that's where where it it meant and when when i did finally finish i remember thing looking around and like like not trusting my crew like i

kept waiting for them to come up to me and say, you know, you didn't finish. Right. Like we drove you here. Right. You know, you didn't finish. I kept expecting someone to say that to me. Cause I was like kind of getting my buckle and I'm like looking around, like, so it's so like your, your relationship with reality is so tenuous and stretched. Clearly, man, clearly man clearly yeah so what do you take from that like in retrospect looking back on being able to complete that race when you know to coin your own phrase there was no hope like we're gonna have to buy the new no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding i don't know man like um i think that uh I think that was the first time that I felt the undercurrent of what we're moving towards.

You know, that, like, are you in control? Like, I don't think there's anything too extreme in life if you're choosing it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm all about breaking down barriers and breaking down limits and challenging yourself and and if you want to be the best whatever it is it takes an insane amount of dedication and drive and if you're choosing that i don't think there's ever anything wrong with that but i think there's a first time it begs the question of what is free will with respect to that choice because if that choice is being informed by an unhealthy impulse,

then that's a different animal. Yes, absolutely. No, and I'm sure we'll talk to that point. But that's where I think I felt a little bit of the conflict brewing. I think that's why Desmond was saying some of those things to me. You know what I mean? But I finished these 10 events and it was great and I I wrote about it and I felt good about it you know I didn't feel I felt like it was a good thing you

know and I felt it was a healthy thing for me and I um in the next year I was like okay so now what you know now what does it look like and I you know spent a lot of time with my my kids and meditating and doing all this kind of cool stuff. And Charlie Engel called me out of the blue and asked me about this icebreaker run. And I was like, I'm pretty sure I said yes before he ever finished the first sentence. You're just dying for some kind of challenge, right? Yeah. And that became this beautiful run because I went into it with a singular goal.

And it was my goal for the icebreaker run was to never have a discouraging moment, to never have a singular moment where I wasn't happy and present, you know, that I was going to go in with no expectation. Like if I had to run 20 hours a day or 20 minutes a day that I was going to do whatever was asked of me. You know what I mean? And to be clear, the icebreaker run was you and Charlie and a couple other people doing a relay across the United States. Yeah, Sophie. To sort of raise awareness around addiction.

For mental health and addiction and PTSD and a host of other things. And I really liked, I embraced the idea of doing something as a team, because I've done so many things that were just kind of about me. And know, and even though I'm attaching a good cause to it is still me, you know, and I like this, you know, my moniker has always been we are Superman. It's not I'm Superman. I got a scar on my back from my back surgery proves to me that I'm not Superman. But, um, you know, so we did it. And I think I accomplished that goal. I mean, I had a smile through every thunderstorm and everything. And then here's where it gets a little dicey. You know, I finished this run, and I looked up Badwater to start date. I'm really into dates, as you can kind of guess by now. And it was on my 4,000th day of recovery. I'm like, well, how epic is that?

It's too tempting to not pull the trigger on that. Yeah, yeah. And then I didn't get into bad water. And I was just kind of like blown away. I mean, I really was. How could they not let you in after your resume of all the stuff that you'd done? I don't know, man. I don't know.

But I, you know, it was. Did you piss off Chris? I don't think I did. But I didn't. And, you know, it it was another it was another good opportunity to surrender I mean I remember I wrote a Facebook post it was like hey I never thought I'd get into bad water ever and I got three times in and if me not getting in means someone else lives their bad water dream then I'm totally cool with that but I think i made a a tactical error inside when instead of just letting it go i decided i wanted to do something else and and i'd been toying with

this idea we you and i even talked about it actually on the podcast last time the double leadville i was like i'm gonna do the double leadville on my 4000th day of recovery and it's gonna be about can i do two times what I thought was impossible? Because Leadville for me, and that's what my book out there is really about, was doing the impossible. I ran a marathon, but I'm like, okay, lots of people run marathons, you know, triathlon, but Leadville really seemed impossible. So now here, 10 years later, 4,000 days later, can I do it twice? And just for context, explain a little bit about Leadville and what makes it so unique and difficult.

Well, Leadville is in Leadville, Colorado, which is the highest incorporated city in the US. I don't think it's the world, but it's 10,000 feet above sea level. And it's a notorious race. You know, it goes over this Hope hope pass which goes up to almost 13 000 feet right at the midpoint of the race right when everyone is suffering it's a total nut shot and it's a race where you know routinely the champions that win it you know don't finish the next year man um you know all ultras kind of have that flavor to them but i think ledville really

encapsulates that and you know it's just got a really iconic guy that's the figurehead for it and Ken Klober. And it's just, it was in my backyard and it seemed like the big impossible. So it's a race that, you know, obviously I wrote about in my book, so it's very near and dear to my heart. So this had this like really big like thing to it you know it was just like hanging out there for like what is this what can this be what is it going to mean and so you put a lot of expectation on yourself and a lot of energy and a lot of excitement about tackling this yeah crazy challenge and and i invited like a friend to come out who's who's a filmmaker and and and film it.

I'm like, let's just see what happens out here. You know, let's just... The Sood brothers? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just saw them yesterday. Yeah, yeah. Bobby sent me a text that he saw.

Uh-huh. Yeah, and they're great. And I met them on the icebreaker run. Right. And what happened was not what I was expecting at all. was not what I was expecting at all, you know? And I told everybody about this because I'm about risking failure publicly these days, you know, my life's an open book, literally.

And I told everyone about it and I put it out there in the universe and I went out to do it. And from the get-go, I just knew something was wrong. You know, like I just didn't feel in control. So how long into it? Well, first of all, were you doing it like the Boston Quad where you're going to do the first one?

Yeah. You're going to go from the end to the beginning and then run. Oh, no, I wasn't. I was initially going to do it involving the actual race oh so this was just you just thought oh okay so you're going to do it on your 4 000th day of sobriety just solo vibe yeah because i was initially going to do it during the race and i talked to ken clober who's like my second dad now and he thought that it would um maybe take away from the people that were doing it for the first time you know and i said so i never want to do that so i'll just he's like you do it you do

it another day i'll come out there and pay you you know and i'm like all right i'll do it in fact i know the damn day it's gonna be on my 4000th day like i mean it seemed like all the stars aligned for that but i i went out there and i was going through some stuff with my girlfriend at the time too. And, you know, where we'd had this kind of great relationship, but a very, not open in the sense that people think when you say open relationship, but open in terms of honesty about how, you know, I'm 46, I'm divorced, you know, I got kids, I'm not really looking for this X, Y, Z, you know, we might have 20,000 days together or we might have one. And that's just kind of where I am in my life right now. But I promise you this one day is going to be really good, you know, and,

and she was okay with that. And I kind of came to the conclusion that, um, and I know this is all really personal stuff, but that's just what I do. But I hope she's not mad at me. But I came to the point where I didn't think I was doing the right thing by her anymore. There was something about, yes, I'm being honest about where I am, but maybe it's still not the right thing to necessarily take up her place. You know what I mean? Well, what I see a lot with that dynamic is still the other partner clinging on to some idea that that will change.

Yes. And the other person on maybe even an unconscious level allowing that to perpetuate. Yes. And they can say, look, I'm being honest, but they kind of know. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Maybe it's not so fair yeah no that's it that's it and i and i got out there and i knew i knew early on that um

like the reality is like i was this voice just started coming on and it was like what's next dave like really what's next are you going to be out here next year doing it four times are you gonna do it 10 times you can do 50 miles a day forever like i mean we just got through doing 35 40 miles a day all the way across the country right like i mean what does this really mean where does this go you know and what are you looking for like what is it where what is that hole inside of you that continues to drive you forward into this world? What are the questions that remain unanswered and how is doing this going to answer that for you? And that day one, day one, ground zero sobriety, I felt like there was a strength present in my life that day that wasn't there before. And that felt that that didn't come from inside me. And when I found these types of things, I felt like I was going to be okay.

If I could keep touching this really strong part of me, the part that wants to quit, the part that wants to give up, the part that wants to just take the easy way out, if I can keep confronting that, that I'll be okay if the desire to use ever comes back. You know, if I find myself back in that place again, someday that I still have access to this, this strength. And I think I kept going back there to just make sure it was there. And then eventually you go, okay, it's there, you know, I've done all this crazy stuff. And then you go, well, how deep is that part power?

you know, I've done all this crazy stuff. And then you go, well, how deep is that part power? You know, how, how big is that room? How deep is that? Well, and you just start exploring, you know, and what I realized out at Leadville was that, that, that well of strength is inexhaustible. You know, it's, it's, there is no limit to it. There's no limit to it. And I had, I realized I had to stop searching for something that I already found and that running up to that point, I feel like running was, was fine for me. Running was a beautiful, positive thing in my life that running reflected my recovery. recovery and all of a sudden i felt like it was reflecting my addiction and not my recovery anymore and i decided that if that to be to be in control control's illusion but to be in control of myself in that a moment was more important to me than finishing the race you know and I decided that I had this kind of epiphany out on the mountain on Hope Pass and I think everyone's been hope pass at some sort of an epiphany but I just like I saw it it was like

another moment of clarity you know what I mean like I saw it and I saw it. It was like another moment of clarity. You know what I mean? Like I saw it and I saw Courtney and I saw running and I saw Leadville and I saw my kids not with me on my 4,000th day recovery. And I'd separated myself and I'm out in the middle of the woods and like, and it just, I don't know. I, it, it, I just saw it in an entirely different way. And I realized that even with Courtney, that I had found this way to be happy, you know, and truly happy in that you could take my business away from me. It wouldn't matter, man. You could take my house, you could take any object or thing that I own away from me. and I know how to be happy because my happy place is not dependent on any of those things. But that breaking point compelled that realization, that epiphany, because I would presume that like baked into this is this sense that, you know, if you can't do the double Leadville or you're not able to double down on whatever the last challenge was to go even deeper and further and longer and faster that you're not going to be okay yeah that you actually

need that that you're reliant upon that yes in order to give you some sense of peace or sense of self that is further driven by this external identity that you've crafted about who you are and the expectations that then get imposed upon you. Yes, 100%. And I realized that what I'd inadvertently done to myself is that, yeah, I found this happy place. But when I walked in there, I slammed the door behind me. And I wasn't letting anyone in with me and I wasn't letting anyone in with me. I wasn't letting Courtney in with me. I was like, I created almost a jail out of it. You know what I mean? Like, and it wasn't like that for the longest time. It was like, it's not like that. It's not

like that. It's not like that. Fuck. It's like that. Where did that happen? And it was just this surrender and and i remember telling my friends i'm like i'm gonna let this go man i gotta let it go like and it's not because i don't fucking care what people say like you know can't do it couldn't do whatever it's just like i've got to i've got to be okay what planet do i live on if i get back to leadville and i've run a hundred miles and that's failure right yeah what have i done to myself it's insane it is insane but that's a beautiful emotional and spiritual breakthrough to reach like you took yourself as far as you could to get to that point

to understand that ultimately that's not the answer and that you've got to find peace within yourself that lives and breathes and thrives outside of this subculture of running. Yeah. You know, I think it's, it is the knee jerk response when somebody looks at somebody who's in recovery, who runs ultra, who's covered in tattoos and said, well, clearly this is a, you know, somebody who likes to live on the fringe, who likes to push the envelope, who's a person of extremes. They have, uh, they have taken this compulsive, addictive personality and they have laid it on top of the template of ultra running. It's very clear. And when people say that to a lot of people in your position,

they balk and they say, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. When somebody says that to me, I say, you're right. I need to look at that. I need to own the fact that I am a recovering alcoholic, that I am somebody who's prone to extremes. I am somebody who's trying to establish some semblance of balance in my life and reckon with the fact that I do feel alive on the extremes and how can I make that work for me rather than against me. But that's like an alchemy that I'm always kind of playing around with. But I have to have an awareness that I can take that too far. Um, as opposed to, you don't understand, or, you know, like Mishka, I've asked

him this question on the podcast. He's like taking the drink, taking the drug. That was always the easy choice, getting up in the morning and putting on your running shoes and getting out the door. That was the hard choice. And that's how i distinguished these two worlds but yet there still can be that blind spot and you lived and breathed in that blind spot for a long time until you played it out and couldn't take it any further and with that comes i think a tremendous like growth opportunity for you yeah honestly like i don't i said like when um when we talked last podcast like my first aa meeting i think is actually the very first time i ever listened to anybody in my life like i really think that i somehow made it to 34 without ever listening to a human being and i think um i think that out there at Hope Pass was the first time that when someone asked me the question, have you traded addictions, the first time that I saw myself through my eyes, I like allowed myself to see myself.

You know what I mean? I mean, because I think that I did, I wouldn't change anything. Like I think that what I did to, to, to that point was exactly what I needed to do. And I think that it did meet the minimum standard that I have of is what you're doing, creating happiness in your life, right? Like ultimately that's what's about. If you can be happy shooting heroin, go do it. I I've never seen that, but's about if you can be happy shooting heroin go do it i i've never seen that but hey if you can might start out happy you know not real happiness right but like i think that um that it did and that ultimately i want to pride myself on there's no truth that i wouldn't

rather know than not know and for the longest time in my life it wasn't that it was like there's no truth that I wouldn't rather know than not know. And for the longest time in my life, it wasn't that it was like, there's no truth that I wouldn't want to, that I wasn't willing to project onto someone else. You know, there's no truth that I won't establish as real. If you give me enough time to control everything, you know, and, and I don't, that's not, I don't want to be that guy. I'm not that guy. And when I felt like felt like i think as addicts we know the voice of addiction we know the sound of its voice like the the literally the sound of that voice like identifying your father's voice your mother's voice your son's voice like i know the sound of that voice and i heard it out there and i think that's why so many alcoholics and addicts get defensive when they get thrown that question.

Because they know they're getting poked in that place where that voice is being threatened. And there's a little bit of a covetous relationship with it, with protecting it. You know what I mean? Like, don't go there. That's my little special private thing. You know what I mean? That saved me. And you're getting a little too close to that.

How dare you, you know, attack it? Like it gets to live and breathe in this kind of minimized truncated way through running as opposed to substance. And I think that's like a part. Or whatever behavior, you know, it doesn't, whatever behavior that you kind of translate that impulse into. Yeah. I think that's like a part on every human being, right? Like instead of a thing, it's a place in us that we put stuff, you know, that's really important to us, stuff that we will not be challenged on because it's too important. And, you know, for some people, that's like, I'm a good mother, mother, or, you know, I'm a, whatever it is, I'm a, I believe in

God, whatever it is is we put in a place it's like okay this is the unchallengeable box this is where i file the things that i'm going to dig in on and i put my my running in there and i think at leadville i took it out so you have this moment i mean do you have like a breakdown yeah of course yeah, it's on video. Crazy. But, yeah, it was at the top of Hope Pass. And I just, like, literally broke down. I was just sobbing like a baby. But it was beautiful. Like a cathartic epiphany.

Yeah. And so how do you articulate what that is and what that means and how that has changed your perspective on not just your running but how you're living well what i said out there and i think that it was it's more i haven't found anything that's that's that's a better description of it since but what i said out there was that um i had to answer the question of how big I want running to be in my life. How much of my life do I want occupied by running? And I need running to serve a different purpose in my life. I'm still going to run.

I love to run. You know what I mean? There's something beautiful about running, something peaceful. And I do some of my best thinking when I'm running. But it doesn't have to be a mechanism to test who I am it doesn't have to be a mechanism for self-discovery even anymore that I'm not done discovering who I am or self-flagellation right you know yeah yeah but I'm I'm I'm done using running to discover who I am you know know what I mean? Like I want to pursue ultimately like,

you know, how much I can love and how much I can give and how much of my ego can I let go and how much, you know, can I ground myself and be balanced? I want to continue to pursue that. I'm just not going to do it through running. You know what I mean? I've got to find another way to do that, that running is going to be something different for me now. That's pretty powerful. And that takes a lot of courage because your attachment, your connection with running and how it's crafted your identity is so powerful. Yeah.

So it's a courageous move into the abyss a little bit. Thanks. But we've got to talk about this, like, like how this is translating. Now you're like getting ready for an MMA fight. I mean, what the fuck is going on?

that, yeah, that, that, that doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't segue. Well,

that happened very interestingly. Like, um, I didn't like say, okay, not gonna run now i'm gonna go now i'm gonna fight mma fighter like i just was like what are you doing actually one of the um amazing gifts that's come from the book is is meeting so many like people people um you know just people that you bump into anywhere at a marathon or race and then other people who you know have been a big figure in

your life. And then all of a sudden, like they're in your life. And Pat Miletic is one of those guys. You know, I've been a UFC fan my entire life. And Pat Miletic is five-time UFC champion, you know, invented Miletic fighting systems, you know, trained the best fighters in the world. And he read my book out there and he was touched by addiction not personally but he lost two brothers and um he also he found my book but he was going to train for leadville he like he's like done with fighting and he's like looking for the next big challenge and so we just kind of got connected and you'll train you'll train him for leadville and he's going to train you in MMA. That's exactly right.

That is exactly right. And we're going to do it for charity. We're going to try to raise a quarter of a million dollars to go into treatment programs. But it happened. It was just really kind of crazy, man. And it set up this great friendship where I've been, for lack of a better term fighting with myself you know for you know my whole life right as an addict and in recovery and and pat's like fought the toughest guys in the world and and i'm obviously genuinely afraid of getting in the cage and you have any fight experience at all like any martial arts experience nothing no yeah no well this will be my first sober fight uh-huh yeah other than a few

bar fights but yeah i i am an irish kid from new york so i've uh-huh you know and so when did you actually commence training like in a structured way for this towards the end of the year um and you had to start at the very beginning i would presume like fundamentals and which has been the greatest gift of this whole thing is that you know i go around and i go to races and it's like you know oh you've done this how many times and you know you get that like feed ego feed whatever and to do this is like there is never anyone in the gym who knows less than me. Yeah, it's gotta be like unbelievably humbling. And who is older than me. So I'm like the oldest guy and the least knowledgeable guy. And it's been very humbling. And it's been amazing to be the student and totally and completely humbling yourself to

everyone there and giving yourself to the process. And it's something like, I've been missing that in my life. You know, it was it was a needed, no matter what happens moving forward with the actual fight, that, that, that alone has been worth the price, worth getting punched in the face a few times. It's super ballsy. I mean, to just literally place yourself into a situation where you have no experience whatsoever, it's gotta be terrifying, but also that's the ultimate way to then jumpstart your growth. like you can continue to tackle these crazy running challenges but like you know what that looks like i do right yeah so you know you start to get diminishing returns obviously and then you have this moment

where you have this reckoning with it and then to throw yourself into a completely unknown uh you know world and and allow yourself to be vulnerable in that I think is ultimately going to teach you more than anything you would learn from, you know, trying to go do a double, you know, Leadville once again. Yeah. No, I think so. And I hope so. And, you know, it's I always kind of thought maybe I might, you know, do some amateur fight

or something like that. But I figured it'd be like me and a guy in the back of a might, you know, do some amateur fight or something like that. But I figured it'd be like me and a guy in the back of a gym, you know, two friends, something, you know, I didn't expect to be public. So when is this fight and who are you fighting? We don't know who I'm fighting. Although I was talking to Jake Ellenberger here in L.A. Thursday and they were calling out CM Punk in a big way to fight me. And so we'll see. That's interesting. He comes from the wrestling world, right?

Yeah, yeah. But I don't know, man. Like it's going to be, as it's set right now, we don't have an opponent picked, but it'll be the end of the year, October-ish, probably in Denver at the First Bank Center. Pat Miletic is actually the voice for the LFA, the Legacy Fighting Alliance,

and does all their commentating and stuff like that. So the plan is to make it happen on AXS TV and on that card. But honestly, for me, it was something that I've wanted to do and something that scares the shit out of me. And I don't like to let those two things live in the same place uh-huh you know what i mean like you don't need to you know it's better to do stuff than talk about stuff what have you learned i mean very few people have sort of trained in these two very different worlds so as somebody who has a lot of experience in running and ultra running what have you learned from dipping your toe into the MMA world about physical fitness

and conditioning that maybe runners don't know about? Or has that expanded your understanding of how to prepare your body physically to be functionally strong and agile? I've petitioned the UFC to change to 45-minute rounds. Ultra MMA? Definitely at this early stage. Two-hour rounds, yeah. At this stage of the game, the longer it goes, the better I do.

That's certainly true. That's how the Diaz brothers have kind of distinguished themselves because they do triathlons and things like that. They're able to last longer. They have more of an endurance background than most fighters absolutely you know but i mean it's like it'd be it the best way i could describe it is like you know there's certainly a lot of the mental capabilities of pushing yourself carry over you know being able to calm your mind instantly has been a skill that's helped great especially with someone's lying on you and you can't breathe and they're trying to hit you, you know, being able to find a peaceful place quickly is helpful there.

But honestly, like it's like getting on a treadmill and someone else has control over the speed and incline. Like when I'm running 100 miles, i'm constantly dictating what i'm doing and in mma i am not like sometimes i am until the other guy has a good moment and then he's dictating it and you can't so what's the old cliche when you're wrestling a grizzly bear you don't wrestling a grizzly bear you rest when the grizzly bear is tired not when you're tired like it's like that like you don't So that part has been interesting, different. But I've been trying to – I really have no expectation. I'm really just trying to take what's there and not bring anything into it.

So I think being able to recover quickly in terms of like from being out of breath and being able to re-up quickly is translated nicely. But other than that man it's like my head's busy man there's so much to think about you know it's you know just when you you get comfortable in one thing you realize there's four other disciplines you got right you got to work on so all right so no date and no competitor yet but definitely well the last lfa card of the year is is once they establish that it'll be that and that's um typically in denver around october so that's

all we know and are you still keeping up the running like you still run every day or like have you totally dialed that back i've really dialed it back man i'm running like three times a week or so you know um i think that uh the timing good. I think I needed, I've had diminishing returns in my running, you know, performance from doing so much racing. So I think, I think just the universe is so much smarter than we are, you know, like it was a good time to rest. It's, it's hard because I feel, honestly, I feel really fit. I feel really fit right now so it's hard like i was out of bad water cape fear a couple weekends ago and stuff and seeing everyone racing and running and but um no it's peaceful like i don't i don't um i'm not gonna pull the plug on any races anytime

soon i did get into western states somehow yeah with one ticket but i haven't even really decided if i'm doing that or not i'm gonna i'm gonna wait and see see how i feel interesting man and so what is uh what does sobriety look for look like for you right now like how do you practice sobriety and what are the routines that you rely on to maintain and gird uh uh, gird your program. Yeah. Constantly fill in the well with stuff. You know, I'm always reading, um, my, my 12 step work has kind of morphed into the four noble truths and the eightfold path. It's like 12 and 12. It's like another version of the 12 steps, you know? And in fact, I actually kind of like did this big comparison on the two once that but so i've been really trying to embrace um buddhism as i see it you know and and and um apply that in my life i think just

and what does that look like in terms of like daily practices so it means it means doing the right speech the right things the right, the right everything that always, you know, letting go of projecting myself onto other human beings, always trying to understand that someone else is opinion and point of view and perspective and where they're coming from is as important as mine. And I get a chance to practice that in my business, at the owning a gym with members, you know, and with my kids and with everything. So I'm an avid reader, you know, and my topics, I'm always reading one book that's written from some sort of Buddhist perspective. I'm always reading one book on cosmology, one historical biography,

and then I usually read a fiction too, but I haven't been able to find any time for fiction lately that's great man and you're working on a new book i am man i'm writing the last section of my my next book i never thought i'd say next book or or any book really and so what is the what is the focus of this book like how do you kind of move beyond what was in out there yeah how failure equates to happiness. The working title of the book is DNF. Wow, that's interesting.

Yeah. So the premise is? And when I started it, I didn't know. Well, I'm not going to give away too much about it, actually. But yeah, it definitely took all of this stuff kind of happened midway through writing the book. So it definitely changed the outline a little but i wanted to use it it's definitely strangely because in my life right now running has taken a step back but there's a lot more running in this book than there is in out there you know out there in many ways is a recovery story with a with a little bit of running

in it and this is definitely uh about running and divorce and failure and and and how that relates to being happy you know where does happiness come from beautiful man and when do you anticipate that being out there the writing will be done um probably within i'm just writing the last section now so probably a month or maybe oh wow soon but then you know but then we'll be editing and stuff yeah yeah we're probably a few months when we first got together i think i mean out there was out there but it was still pretty new right like oh yeah it was pretty much launched so your show is really one of the big reasons why the book was well cool man and and i know as a result of you know

the book and everything that you've been doing you've had the opportunity to go and give a bunch of talks and meet a bunch of people like what has that how has that changed your life in terms of advocacy and how you kind of you know speak to people who now are looking to you to help them figure out how they're going to get sober or how they're going to lose a bunch of weight or how they're going to run their first marathon? You know what, man, like I'm pretty creative guy and I've tried to, um, come up with a way that, um, out there has helped other people. But the reality is like the book's been great for me you know because the gift when someone reads my book so like i think my take on it is that when someone's ready to change they're going

to change the work's already been done right and nothing's going to stop them even like i talk to family members all the time they're always worried about you know they have someone who's struggling they're like well if we say the wrong thing he's going to start using again i'm like no no just like you can't say the right thing to cause them to get help and to get better you can't say the wrong thing to spin them out either once they've decided to do it they're doing it so the gift to me is that like when when i was ready and i looked up and i saw things i saw your book and i saw you know i saw lance armstrong's book which you know even though it didn't relate book, which, you know, even though

it didn't relate directly to me, it gave me inspiration and I found all these other things. So now people are ready to change their life and they look and they see my book, but that's a gift for me. You know what I mean? Like I'm the, I get the benefit of that. Like, so, you know, I mean, it's, it's been like almost at times it feels like the gratitude is heavy for it because I've benefited so much from it. I get to hear, you know, people tell me that they've read it and it's affected them in X, Y ways, but honestly they would have been okay without me. So I feel like I've got the better end of that exchange. But you get to be in, yeah, that was beautifully put and very humble of you. But I also think that you get to serve as sort of a foil, like a projected accountability

partner. Because if somebody gets inspiration from your story, they can find a lifeline in that. Maybe they send you an email, you write back one sentence, and it's just enough to keep them going on a dark day or something in that. Maybe they send you an email, you send, you write back one sentence and it's just enough to like keep them going on a dark day or something like that. And that's a beautiful kind of equation to be participating in. Um, so I think that's only going to continue to expand for you. I mean, your story is like, you know, 10 times more like extreme than, than mine, you know? So, you know, and, and within that extremes, you know, people can, can identify emotionally with wherever they're at and, and hopefully find a way forward. So I know that you, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, no, I think there is definitely a,

um, I want to say obligation, but definitely like, uh, we're called to stand in the light. I think, you know, when you've found a way out, when you've crawled out, to stand there in the light as an example that it can be done, I think is really important. And so when somebody reaches out to you and says, I can't stop drinking, you know, what's the reply? That's because your life's not bad enough yet. That is my reply. Yeah yeah is that what you said yeah and they go like what do you mean my wife's leaving me i'm like i know isn't that fucked up like how bad do you want it to get like and and i do that because like well because that's the truth and and the truth never needs to be finessed or you know churched up or shined or anything.

And that's the reality of it is like we act, we engage in this act of saying, well, you know, at least I'm not X. And what is or count your blessings. And even though that's like designed to create gratitude and to see what you have, it doesn't usually serve that purpose. It actually justifies, right? It's like, well, yeah, at least I'm not an ex and all this. And it's like, well, yeah, but maybe you should really get comfortable

with how shitty your life is and how bad you want it to get because when you touch that, then you might actually walk away from it. I'm much more politic. I used to be, man. But like, I wanted, I thought for me, like, I wanted, I need to hear the truth. Yeah, no, there's power in the bluntness. My friend Chris Davis is like that, who I had on the podcast. He just like calls it like he sees it, super harsh, but in an endearing way where you're like, yeah, man, that's right. Like, that's the thud that I needed to hear.

And I follow that up with honestly, like, right. Like I'm make no mistake. I'm telling you what I'm telling you from an absolute place of love. Like there's no judgment here. None. Like, how could I judge you? Right. Like, I mean, that's like not even on my radar.

Like, you know, I can't tell you if you're an alcoholic, I can't do any of this stuff, but I can tell you what I've been through and the fact that everything you're saying is like what everyone says. Yeah. Sharing your experience. I usually say if you don't want to, you don't ever have to drink again. It's your decision. And if you're in that place where you've decided that you don't want to and you're willing

to do anything to get it, then go check out AA, set aside your preconceived ideas about what it may be or what it may not be or whatever misgivings or whatever somebody told you about what it is or whatever mental projections you have about it and show up, raise your hand, ask for help, find somebody that you can talk to, that you can tell your deepest, darkest secrets to. Don't be a stranger. Participate. Do that for 30 days straight and then email me. I guess that's the difference between LA and New York. No. And most of the time I don't get an email back. I mean, I'm basically saying like, look, you don't have to, and there is a solution, but you're going to have to, it's going to be hard. You know, there's gonna be work involved and you're gonna have to do some heavy lifting. Are you ready to do that?

staying where you are becomes greater than the pain of moving forward. That's when we change. And so like, I like to be that person that says, you know, maybe you should really look around and start actively tallying how bad it is. Right. Or maybe it's not bad enough yet.

Yeah. And you need to sink lower like that elevator, uh, keep going down. I've completely redefined my concept of, you know, rock bottom and all that stuff. Like, you know, because it sets that stuff like you know because

it sets up this like oh you're a high bottomer and you're not a high all this to me there's like rock bottom is death so anyone who's not dead is a high bottomer you know what i mean so so stop worrying about you know like well i've only i've never lost my job i've never drank in the morning i've never had a dui it's like well unless you're gonna go all the way till you die you're gonna have to get off this thing at some point right like so stop worrying about rock bottom you're there if you want them to realize that they have to get off rather than trying to manage it so that they could drink like a gentleman or you know a lady you know it's sort of disabusing people of that idea is difficult and they have to

they have to come into that on their own and that only comes through a lot of pain and misery usually yeah no no doubt man so no doubt all right man well i think we gotta wrap it up here right on how long was that that was good minutes we got no hour and a half dude all good we did we did it in an hour and a half. Yeah, hour and a half. So, yeah, you rocked it, man. That was beautiful. I loved having you back. Fantastic, man.

I look forward to the new book coming out. Thanks, brother. I look forward to this MMA fight. You got to keep me posted on that. I will, man. In the meantime, check out David's book out there if you haven't read it already. It's quite an amazing story. I think you guys would be amazed at the arc of this guy's birth and regrowth. It's really quite stunning.

And of course, go back and listen to our first podcast. If you haven't already episode one 13, I think I said from a little over two years ago. And until next time, my friend come back and tell me how that MMA fight went. We'll do it. All right?

All right, man. Cool, man. We did it. Peace. Feel all right? Yeah. Good? Feel good, man.

You sure? Yeah. All right. No, it was awesome. I'm just checking in, dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. All right, cool.

Peace. Good stuff, man. Plants. All right, we did it. Another amazing, awesome, inspiring conversation with David Clark. Hope you guys enjoyed that. Look forward to your thoughts. Please share them on Twitter with me at Rich Roll and with David at WeAreSuperman and make

a point of picking up his book out there. It's a really great read. A couple announcements. We have Plant Power Ireland coming up July 24 through 31. There are spots still available. We're doing it at a place called, I thought it was called Ballyvalane, but somebody, was it on Instagram or Twitter, sent me a DM and said, it's not Ballyvalane, it's Ballyvalon. Pretty sure that's how you pronounce it.

I've been mispronouncing it this whole time. In any event, it's this extraordinary manor on 90 acres in the Irish countryside. It's really quite the place. And we are taking 40 people there for seven days of complete life transformation, Julie and I. There's also going to be a special appearance by the Happy Pear Lads. They're going to come by. We're going to cook. We're going to eat. We're going to run. We're going to meditate. We're going to do tea ceremony. We're going to have these really cool, intense workshops on everything from creativity to relationships. We're going to have Ayurvedic

treatments. We have glamping tents. It's going to be fun, but it's also going to be transformative. That's the idea. And there has to be some intensity required in order to activate that. So we're looking forward to it. It's going to be really amazing. If this sounds like something you'd be into, you can learn more at ourplantpowerworld.com, ourplantpowerworld.com. If you'd like to support my work and this show, there's a couple ways to do it. Share it with your friends on social media. Pretty basic.

Leave a review on iTunes. Click that subscribe button on iTunes. And you can contribute to my work on Patreon. And you can find that banner on any episode page at richroll.com, any episode page of this podcast. If you'd like to receive a free weekly email from me, I send one out every Thursday. It's called roll call, basically five or six things that I stumbled across over the course of the week that I found helpful or inspiring or informative. Usually a couple articles, a podcast I listened to, a product I'm enjoying,

you know, a book I'm reading, things like that. Basic things. And, you know, there's no affiliate links in this. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm not trying to do anything. I'm reading, things like that, basic things. And there's no affiliate links in this. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm not trying to do anything. I'm just sharing. So if that sounds like something cool that you want to be a part of, you can just make sure that you sign up on my website. Any of those places where you can kind of add your email address will do the trick.

Also, while you're at it, when you're on richroll.com, we've got signed copies of Finding Ultra. We've got signed copies of The Plant Power Way. Pretty soon, we're going to be able to offer signed copies of Julie's upcoming book, This Cheese is Nuts. We're loading that up on the site now. Please make a point of pre-ordering that. That helps us out a lot. It's really an amazing book.

It's beautiful. She did such a great job, and it really is next level in terms of not only culinary skills, but also the photography, the layout, the aesthetics of the book are really extraordinary and one step beyond what we were able to do in the Plant Power Way. So I'm excited for you guys to enjoy that. We also have t-shirts and tech tees and stickers and all that kind of stuff on the website. I want to thank today's sponsors, 22 Days Nutrition, my friend Marco Borgia's company. Again, so happy to have these guys on board as a sponsor. I really believe not only in Marco, but in his mission and what he's trying to do with

this company. 22 Days is a delicious and complete plant-based nutrition platform for your life. Rich Roll listeners get 10% off all products, including their meal delivery service and free shipping when you use the promo code RICHROLL at checkout. 22daysnutrition.com forward slash RICHROLL. Use the promo code RICHROLL at checkout. Also, DesignCrowd. Custom graphic logo and web design from designers all over the world.

Get the perfect custom design every time. Visit designcrowd.com forward slash RICH Roll or enter promo code Rich Roll and receive up to $100 off your design project now. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today, Jason Camiello for audio engineering and production and help on the show notes. And now he's helping me with these intro scripts and the ad copy and everything. He's doing a lot. So thank you, Jason. Sean Patterson for help on the graphics. He does all of the cool graphics that we share on Instagram and Twitter and on Facebook and stuff like that.

And the music, as always, by Anilema. Thanks for the love, you guys. Appreciate the support. And I'll see you guys back here soon. Peace. Plants. Thank you.