The Rich Roll Podcast - Elite Spartan Athlete Hunter McIntyre On How Obstacle Course Racing Saved His Life
Episode Date: January 25, 2016At odds with the world seemingly since birth, the future wasn't looking so bright for Hunter McIntyre. A misfit kid with uncontrollable attention deficit disorder, Hunter realized early and often he f...unctioned on one mode no sedative or bipolar medication could possibly curb: full blast. Discovering drugs and alcohol at 14 give his ill-at-ease nature comfort, but trouble soon follows. A downward spiral that invites increased school suspensions; escalating run-ins with Johnny Law; and even a short-lived, unsuccessful stint at military school in West Virginia. Facing jail time or rehab for a drug-fueled senior year prank gone terribly awry, Hunter's despairing parents ultimately ship him off to outpatient care in Montana, hoping clean air and big skies will bring grounding and perspective to young Hunter's errant ways. But dirty drug tests follow, leading to incarceration-type rehab stays in Nevada and New Mexico. Ultimately Hunter's sobriety officer intervenes, hooking him up with a logging job back in Montana. Hunter bulks up. Sober up? Not so much. The next chapter finds Hunter in Los Angeles, failing upward with lucrative modeling gigs for companies like J. Crew and Abercrombie and Fitch while setting his sights on becoming a celebrity personal trainer. But life goals are eclipsed by an ever-escalation in partying. Living the sun-drenched frat boy lifestyle in a Malibu bro-house, days and nights revolve around girls, ecstasy, mushrooms, acid, more girls and even more alcohol. A spontaneous booze-fueled, chest-pumping whim leads to Hunter and his Malibros challenging each other to sign up for a local Spartan Race — unchartered terrain for all involved. But come race day, only Hunter is able to drag his hung over body out of bed. Despite several beers enjoyed that morning, he nonetheless finishes ninth overall, just eight minutes behind world champion and 2:16 marathoner Hobie Call. And just like that, the lights turn on. It's the wake up call Hunter needed. The rest is history. Immediately parting ways with his partying ways, purpose and focus take center stage. Almost overnight, Hunter morphs into the man they call The Sheriff, transforming himself into one of the world's best obstacle course racers. A rare talent with the body and size of a cross fitter who not only excels at strength, speed and agility but also boasts the endurance of a Kenyan. Sponsorship offers soon follow. Magazine cover stories abound. And notoriety ensues, outpaced only by The Sheriff's now famous, quickly growing ego. Full blast finally found a life. If you know anything about Hunter, you know he has a huge, at times controversial personality. But there is a thoughtful, far more contemplative side to this brash, outspoken athlete than meets the eye. I think you will be surprised by our conversation. I know I was. Specific topics explored include: * Hunter's colorful past * what is OCR? * replacing superficiality with performance * Hunter's typical training day * ego rightsizing * the importance of meditation * exploring the vegan lifestyle * Hunter's Achilles heel * Hunter's daily routine * the SEAL dream * advice to the younger self * Joe DeSena & the Death Race * the importance of surrounding yourself with selfless people I sincerely hope you enjoy our exchange. I really enjoyed my time with Hunter and I think you will too. Peace + Plants, Rich
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Well, you never know the highest highs until you've experienced the lowest lows.
And I've been there, and I've seen it.
That's champion Spartan race athlete Hunter McIntyre.
And this is The Rich Roll Podcast.
The Rich Roll Podcast.
Greetings to the world of podcast listeners. Welcome to the show. My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. But you guys already know that, right? You push play on this. You found it on iTunes. You're purposely selecting this episode for your infotainment, which I appreciate greatly. Thank you very much.
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So I don't know why I go through this rigmarole every week.
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Well, each week I sit down with the best and the brightest, with thought leaders across all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition.
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And it's really cool.
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And it's really cool.
Check it out.
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Support the show.
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So that's it.
Okay.
So today on the show, really excited to have superstar obstacle race athlete Hunter McIntyre,
aka The Sheriff.
Hunter burst onto the scene of this fairly new sport.
It's a sport that has really been exploding, however, in popularity over the last couple
of years and almost overnight established himself as one of the world's best in the
Spartan race discipline.
He is a rare talent in this world, in this field, because he's got like
the body and the size of a crossfitter. So he can excel at strength and speed and agility,
but he also has the endurance of a Kenyan. It's a very potent combination. But perhaps more
compelling is that he has this very interesting background. He was a full blast misfit kid with
uncontrollable ADD. He discovered drugs and
alcohol at 14 that sent him on this kind of downward slide, getting into trouble all the time,
accumulating a robust police record, arrests, ultimately getting him shipped off to Montana
to get his head screwed on straight. He ends up becoming a male model in L.A., which does not put a cap on his wild partying lifestyle.
And it wasn't until he discovered obstacle racing that he began to put his troubled habits in the rear view.
And as soon as he turned his formidable energy on Spartan, almost overnight, this guy like transforms into one of the top rankedranked, if not the top-ranked player
on the Spartan circuit. He's a guy with a huge personality. He's graced the cover of magazines
like Men's Journal. He's been profiled in Outside Magazine, all of which have been very instrumental
in aiding the growth and exposure of this kind of emerging, exciting sport. And if you're familiar
with Hunter or you've seen other interviews with him,
I think you're going to be surprised by our conversation.
I know that I was.
And I think, you know what?
I think that's all I'm going to say.
Let's hear it from Hunter direct.
But first.
So you're living full-time in Malibu now?
100% up at the top of Latigo.
Uh-huh.
So you must be neighbors with Laird Hamilton and Darren O'Lean and those guys.
Are you part of their Saturday morning workout situation?
I got involved with that clique a little bit last summer.
I used to run up past their house or I'd ride my bike past their house and I'd shout at them and things like that.
And eventually Laird invited me in and it was an incredible experience an incredible experience. I mean, like that is, that is a wolf
pack right there. They're like majestic beasts. They're a tight group. For years I was like,
how do I get in on that group? I didn't know anybody. Like I've been living here, but I was
nobody, but you'd hear these stories, you know, about like what those guys would do. And it,
but it was like this very closed off group. Uh, i had darren on the podcast it's like you should come up you're going you know come up
and do it and and then i got scared no i was like i need like a couple months of like really working
out to prepare myself because i don't want to go there and look like an idiot you know i was put to
shame by an olympic rower there a female olympic So, I mean, you have to... Brian's wife?
No, not Brian's wife. It was one of the girls that she trains with.
And it's the type of thing where you've got to kind of check yourself,
you know, before you go to the front door,
and you just kind of like, anything that happens here,
I'm just going to let it go.
Right, right, right.
But it's mesmerizing.
Like, you're doing these pool movements,
and there's just people around you,
and there's Pink Floyd being played throughout the pool,
and there's bubbles being blown up in the air.
It's a whole experience. And, you know, i cherish these kind of things you find in malibu
yeah i gotta i'm gonna tap into that you gotta go now darren darren's an amazing guy he taught
me some good he's great you know he's super cool i think he's in mexico right now or he was but
and laird's probably they're probably gone in kawaii now by now i would think they jump ship
i think like you know early you know, early fall.
Right, right, right.
So do you have, like, is it like a bro house?
Like, what's going on up there?
No, but I'll cue off with a crazy story about how I ended up in Malibu.
One of my friends in college, you know, we called him Mo Dini.
He was always doing, like, kind of random weird things,
and we never really knew what Mo was up to.
And one day he just goes, Hunter, I'm going to go out to California.
I'm going to go make it big.
And I was like, whatever, Mo.
Do your thing, bro.
Six months later I get an email from him.
I said, he's like, Hunter, I'm going to fly you out here
and I want to tell you something big.
And he goes, you know, I was like, whatever.
I'd love to see you.
I get a first class ticket in my email box.
He flies myself and eight other friends out here to California
and he bought a big mansion in Malibu for a year for all of us to live there. He hit big in the stock market. And, uh, basically like we had this entourage
going for a year and like, that's how I fell in love with Malibu. Just this crazy experience,
something you'd have to have in some kind of book or movie eventually in life. But
how many years ago was that? That was in 2011. And it shocked me. I mean, like,
this was like a very different Hunter though. Oh, this was crazy. I mean, this we mean, we'll backtrack all into the situations of how I went through my party days and everything.
But, like, I was introduced into this lifestyle, which is, you know, a beautiful part of my life now, as a party boy.
And, like, Malibu's not known for a party scene, but that's how I was introduced to it.
So I transitioned into the place that I have right now, which is kind of more of like a hippie artist community.
Because I was working on someone's property, and I'd help, you know, walk their
dogs while they were gone and things like that. And I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend who
I was living with. And I was like, Hey man, I've got nowhere to live. Do you have any kind of clue
of where I can live? And my friend kind of reached out and just said, Hey, you can stay on my
property, take care of it. So that's been two years now where I live up in this amazing place.
I mean, it's a Google rising star ranch,
and you'll be able to find out about it. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, definitely. It's majestic. You got to
come up there. I try to tell everybody, but as you said, you know, as the crow flies in Malibu,
something could be a mile away, but then it could be like a 35 minute drive. Yeah. It's funny
because where you live, I'm like, you told me where you live. I was like, that's really kind
of a hike from here. And people think of Malibu, they just think of this little strip of beach, but there's actually like, I don't
know, 28 miles of coastline. And then beyond that, there's all, you know, where we live in the
mountains, you live on a completely different Canyon. Like I ride my bike up a lot of go all
the time, but that's like a ways from here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you're always welcome my friend.
All right. Well, I'll take you up on that, man. Well, let's, I want to get into the origin story and all of that.
But before we do that, why don't we just like set the stage and, you know, for people that
are listening that are maybe unfamiliar with the world that you are currently dominating,
let's just explain what OCR is, obstacle course racing, and kind of the different variations
of that and kind of, you know, get our foot, our feet wet in the sport.
Yeah.
variations of that and kind of, you know, get our foot, our feet wet in, in the sport.
Yeah. Well, obstacle course racing is kind of a dynamic sport where it could last anywhere from, you know, 800 meters, not even like American Ninja Warrior style. Like it's a very popular
television show right now that kind of falls into the category. And then it goes all the way up to
the 24 hour events or like, you know, the Fuego de Agua races where we're doing adventure races
throughout the jungles and there's natural obstacles that they have people do. But mainly
I'm kind of stuck in the category of these, you know, battle frogs and Spartan races and
Tough Mudders that I compete in where they're kind of testing. It's almost like a cross
country meet meets like, you know, a military obstacle course race. And it's, it's amazing.
You know, it's one of the fastest growing sports in the world now.
So I think-
I think I read it's growing faster than marathon racing.
Oh, totally.
I think-
There can't be as many people doing it as marathons
because marathons-
Oh, yeah.
Well, yeah, but those marathons,
thousands and thousands of people show up
for some marathon every weekend, it seems like.
Yeah, but so in Temecula,
which is the biggest event of the year,
I think they had 30,000 people there last year.
They must have to do it in heats, though.
They can't have everyone do it at the same time, right?
There's swarms.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
I know the one in Malibu that's literally right down the street here, and I watched it from afar as my car was driving quickly by.
But they get 10,000, 12,000 people.
Is there that many people at those?
Yeah, I didn't even know.
To the point where I'm almost like,
you guys probably have to start capping this thing off.
Because one, it's just the experience gets a little bit out of control
when it's just like a flood of people trying to go through these things.
And two, just probably not the safest thing in the world.
Right.
Yeah, I would imagine.
Right.
So there's like a governing body now, right?
Is that true? That like regulates all this? And then within that world, there are these, there's different, there's like a governing body now, right? Is that true?
That like regulates all this.
And then within that world, there are different organizations.
There's the Spartan race and there's the Tough Mudders.
And you know, what is the differentiation between those?
Well, Tough Mudder is an experience.
It's a run, not a race.
So they really want people to come out there and focus on the experience.
Like they want you to get dirty.
They want you to try things you never would have experienced before, like getting shocked
by an electric wire, jumping in a cold plunge.
Spartan race is trying to really tackle you in a way that they're trying to, you know,
force you into like challenging yourself via speed and picking up heavy things.
It's like really a competition.
That one's like grit.
That one's all grit.
And, uh, to the point where, I mean, I'm having to crawl under barbed wire every single weekend. I'm having, I'm always
cut and scraped up and things like that. It's a rugged lifestyle, but I think, you know, the,
the sport of obstacle course racing is something that, you know, there's a, there's a documentary
my friend made called rise of the suffer fest that you should check out. It's all about kind
of getting people out of their comfort zone. And I think there's a lot of experience revolved around that these days,
but this is probably the biggest exposure you're going to get for people like that.
And I think that that's a big part of the, you know, explosion and popularity and the success
equation. You know, people are looking for ways to, you know, break their mundane life up. And we're in this culture that prioritizes comfort and security.
And that's fine, but I think we all have an innate genetically inbred yearning
to get out of that comfort zone.
And so to be able to provide people with that experience
and then allow them to go back to their job, I can see why it's so successful.
Yeah.
My stepmother came into one of my events one time, and my dad wanted to do it, and she didn't want my dad doing it.
She's like, Douglas, you can't do this event.
And she ended up chasing him through the event in little Chanel slippers and an overcoat and everything like that.
And at first, she was really pissed off that she had to chase my dad.
But then afterwards, I saw this smile and life in her that I've never seen before.
So I think everybody kind of needs to get out there and give it one try.
And I think it's the difference between when you run your first marathon.
It's something where everyone kind of feels so liberated.
It's something that you've been wanting to accomplish.
You've heard about it so many times.
And I think mud running is starting to become like that new peg in the community
where people are like, wow, I did it. You know, they really, you know, you can actually walk around
towns or in airports now where you see people wearing Spartan race shirts and things like that.
They wear it with pride. Right, right, right. So, and the Spartan race is really, that's your,
that's your baby, right? That's what you are. That's what you're specializing. I'm a Spartan
pro team athlete. So yeah, I got to kind of, so let's, so let's track it. How did it begin for you? Like take me through the experience
of signing up for your first race and why you did that and kind of what has happened since.
So in that frat house I was explaining.
Well, we'll get into, we'll get into that. We'll get into the early, the early ADD Hunter
getting into trouble stuff in a minute. But yeah,
let's start at the frat house. Okay. Well the frat house, I'll just say that we were all hanging out
and we'd always just like kind of be in different rooms doing weird things, you know, whether it be
YouTube videos, drinking beer, kind of, you know, playing card games, whatever it was for the day.
All of a sudden my friend charges in my room and starts screaming the Spartan race. And I had no
clue what he was talking about. So we all just start jumping up and down, getting excited because we were rowdy guys. And so he shows us on the computer, there's this event called Spartan Race. And I had no clue what he was talking about, so we all just start jumping up and down, getting excited,
because we were rowdy guys.
And so he shows us on the computer, there's this event called Spartan Race.
And we were all kind of, you know, bro guys in the gym.
We'd all lift weights, and, you know,
we'd kind of play basketball in the backyard type things.
We thought we were going to be champions at it.
Yeah.
So we just sign up, and we're like, we're going to throw down.
No questions asked.
I'm going to charge on this thing.
So I show up, and, you know and this is still in my party phases.
I showed up to the starting line, and I was drunk.
I was in a pair of underwear and a headband, and I was just in a pair of tube socks,
and I was like, I'm ready to throw down.
Because these races are parties, right?
They are.
Some of them are.
Like before the race?
Before, after, during.
I know people go out there with camel packs filled with beer,
like vodka Red Bull type things,
because people just want to have a good time.
And that's what I was there for,
but I had a little bit of competitive element in me.
So I just start charging.
And it was like the snap of that gun, the shotgun start,
that I used to have back in my cross-country days,
and I was gone.
And I felt like a million bucks.
I'm climbing up ropes. I'm throwing spears, I'm jumping over walls and there's dirt flying off
the back of my shoes. I'm sweating, I'm breathing like crazy and it just clicked. You know,
this combination, I was always a lover of running and, uh, I loved cross country and things like
that, but, and I also liked lifting weights and it all seemed to kind of just come together at the moment and i just said i'm in love with this thing and i told my friends i
told my family i was like i'm gonna become the best in the world at this and my dad and my mom
were like whatever they just kind of shrugged it off so i mean you get a real job so so just to
back it up a little bit like of all your buddies though you were the only one who only one who
showed up who showed up like what they were all just too hung over or something like that everybody kind of just
everyone kind of just dodged me um and then how did that race go like where did you end up in that
race i ended up first in my heat and i think sixth place overall and there was thousands of people
but i didn't i mean like i looked at it and i was like okay you know that looks pretty cool and then
you know i just went back to my drinking and, uh, didn't really, you know,
pay any attention to it for another like eight months. But then, you know, I had,
it just kept on calling to me. So I just started kind of going to act sites like active.com or just anything, just trying to source as much information as possible. And like, then I,
that's how I first found out about you because I was, um, reading about like triathlon. I was,
you know, reading about Dave Scott, Mark Allen.
I actually named my two feet after those guys.
And I just got obsessed with it.
And I started training and I just wanted to focus so hard
and learn how to become the best.
But it was still a cocktail of a party boy meets a pro athlete.
Right, so that's like, we're talking about like 2012 around this time?
Yeah, 2011 to 2012.
Uh-huh. And where did it kind of click in like, You're talking about like 2012 around this time? Yeah, 2011 to 2012.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
And where did it kind of click in like, okay, you actually have a shot at being one of the best guys?
I mean, how many races did you do before?
I mean, did you hire a coach?
And like how regimented was your training originally versus what it is now?
YouTube was my coach.
Yeah.
YouTube. I think that's how all great athletes start is probably the internet nowadays.
Like, you know, you just find all this ridiculous information.
You start training like a madman.
But I showed up to a Sacramento race about just under a year after I had done my first one.
And I had researched this guy named Hobie Call.
He was the best in the sport.
You know, he was like, you know, the Mark Allen, Dave Scott's a triathlon. And I was like, I need to catch him.
I swear, I just need to catch him. And I showed up and I just threw down and he and I were
shoulder to shoulder the whole race. It was exactly what I wanted to experience. And then
at the end, I, you know, it's in these kinds of races, it's all about waiting for one screw up
and then you're done, you know, you're out of the standings. So I screwed up and he ended up
beating me out. And that's when I knew that it was my time. And, uh, and that was
how long into this journey? Uh, this was only probably about like a year later, but I had,
I took like a six month hiatus where I just went straight back to just partying like a madman
because, you know, people really have their dreams, but I don't think a lot of people want
to step up after them. You know what I mean? So I talked about it a lot, but then all of a sudden, like, you know, I would say around
that summer, it really started to become a passion of mine, but I still was like really heavy into
the partying scene. I knew that I had to like take my life seriously and change my life after one
event. Um, it was actually like the first week of January, uh, following that race. Right. So this
would be a good place to jump, jump back back into a little bit more of the origin story.
I mean, you were like a rowdy kid, right?
Like you were difficult to control.
I think it's fair to say.
ADD, hyperactive, always getting into trouble.
To say the least.
You know, started doing drugs at 14 or something like that.
Where was this happening?
Is this in Connecticut?
Yes.
I was born in New York City, raised in Connecticut and Westchester, New York.
So my mom and dad split when I was young.
And I ended up spending the majority of my time with my mom
and like every other weekend and every Wednesday with my dad.
So I still had a very tight connection with him.
And I don't know what it was.
I think, you know, I think this nowadays,
as I start to look back at it,
I start to write things down
just so I could understand my past better.
You know, I've become more,
that's something I'm comfortable with these days.
I think it was just so crazy.
They took, I was in the era of ADHD
when it was in its prime,
like when they first discovered it
and they started to discover Ritalin and Adderall and things like that.
So they just wanted to throw these things at kids like Skittles, just like eat it, control the beast.
And they had me on medication like that from like the age of like six or seven.
And I don't know why.
They just didn't try to channel my energy through positive outlets, which I'm assuming they've done with kids nowadays.
Right.
Like if you can't sit down and pay attention, there's something wrong with you,
as opposed to, well, let's figure out like what makes this kid tick and kind of
channel that energy into something productive. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, like that's something
I want to give back, you know, later on in life when I'm successful enough that I can start to
return to the community and give back. That's something I want to start to express is like,
you know, basically helping kids are in my situation. But just to go back to my story, I realized I was just a wild kid. And
like, you know, my parents would monitor me eating the pills because the teachers were so adamant
about it. Like, you know, Hunter has to take his medication today. We could tell he was off it
yesterday. Do you remember what it feels like to be on all those pills? It just felt like my head
was in a fishbowl. I remember like I would just
be sitting there from, I would be looking at the rest of the world with like a pane of glass in
front of me. Something wanted to come out, but it just wasn't there. I mean, it was very good at
suppressing, you know, the kind of energy I had. And I remember they got me so hyped up on one
kind of medication. I think it was called dexedrine. I, I literally had
this vicious tick where I would just keep my heads, my hands and my hair. And I would just like
speed, right? It was, it's weird how you give hyperactive kids like speed, like, I don't even
know. And for some reason it has the reverse reaction, but yeah, you're like a meth addict.
Start pulling your hair out. And like, that's what happened to me. That's what happened to me. And
I got really good. I got really clever at being able to hide pills and like my fingers
and things like that. Like me, like, you know, grasping it, but then slipping it between my
fingers right away and putting it in my mouth, pretending like I ate the stuff. So eventually
like, you know, I was hiding from it all, you know, I just didn't want to handle it anymore.
But as I started to get older, you know, you start to realize that the pills that you're taking,
that, you know, it's supposed to be controlling you. A lot of kids are starting to abuse and like, you start to hear
about it around school. And then you start to get to understand like, well, if they're having a good
time with it, then I can, I basically have a bag full of it. Right. You either have a good time
or you can sell it and become a little dealer. Yeah. I mean, like I didn't want to try to make
any profit off my days, but, um, I don't know, I didn't want to try to make any profit off my days, but I don't know, like, eventually it just became something where I had a lot of older brothers, and I got to experience, like, kind of like, you know, the outside talk of what they had going on.
I'd hear them talking to their friends about it, and I'd hear, like, you know, them drinking beer, getting girls and things like that.
So my lifestyle was accelerated really quickly of getting introduced to those things. Like, you know, imagine an only child or, you know, being the oldest of all your siblings,
you're experiencing things first, but I had to experience through them.
So I immediately started to find out about things like marijuana, beer, cocaine, whatever.
And I remember probably when I first started to like really chase after the dream of, you
know, being a party boy was just after my mom's or dad's parties, I'd see like empty
classes or wounded soldiers as they call it in parties. And I would just down them. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So cigarette butt and all. Yeah, man. And it, um, it accelerated really, really quickly to
the point where I don't even know where it went wrong. Um, I have to say like, I don't, I look
back at it now and I don't have, I don't see it as a regret. I just like, you know, I, I, I have to say, like, I don't, I look back at it now and I don't have, I don't see it as a regret. I just, you know, I, I, I just kind of see it as how life went. And the only regret I have now is I was never able, like, you know, that whole thing you were just talking about with, about Dave Goggins and Jesse, I want to be a Navy SEAL more than anything else in my life. That's the one regret that I have in my life is that me taking all those drugs and getting in all that trouble,
I was held back from that.
Right.
That truly is my greatest dream in life
was to become one of those guys.
Right, because you actually went through
the process of the application.
Five times.
Wow.
I was in the military for two days
until they kicked me out.
Because they, what, they discovered your,
oh, this guy's been in trouble before?
Or what was it exactly?
Yeah, they discovered.
Of course, they found it all.
I mean, I don't know why.
I guess these recruitment factories
that basically pump out soldiers into the system,
they find all these kids to come in,
and they get bonuses through getting as many people as possible,
or they rank up, however it works.
They basically just tell you to fudge the facts as much as possible
so you can potentially get into the system.
And if there's any kind of flack or kickback from it, they're not tell you to fudge the facts as much as possible so you can potentially get into the system. And if there's any kind of flack or, like, you know, kickback from it, they're not helping you out.
You were just another number in their booklet.
So, you know, I was really passionate about it.
I was obsessed.
Like, I was like, I'm not drinking anymore.
I'm not being a bad boy.
But, you know, the damage was already done.
Right.
I would imagine it's probably less about, like, the drugs and the alcohol, more about like, how does this guy do with authority? Because if you have an issue with
authority, that's going to be a problem. Yeah. I got dubbed as one of those guys who had an
authoritative, uh, you know, issue, but I think that was more so just because, you know, the only
people who were, uh, had authority over me in my life were telling me to do things that just seemed
absurd. Like, you know, you can't be a kid anymore. You need to be a kid who sits in a special room with the
special kids who takes the, you know, so it's interesting. I've heard Casey Neistat talk about
this as well. It's like, he just always didn't agree with what the adults had to say about what
he should do and all of that. And because of that, he would be maligned and punished instead of,
you know, sort of encouraged to sort of pursue that, you know, thought pattern or what have you.
Yeah.
And you just get into trouble and then you get turned into, you know, you get labeled as the bad kid and that puts you on a completely different trajectory.
And you start to believe that, right?
Yeah.
And then you act accordingly.
Well, you also get, it's kind of like, you know, the situation with getting put into a jail like you know if you were somebody who entered a jail and didn't really have too many you know you weren't that bad of a
person to begin with you get surrounded with people who are involved in a lot worse things
and i ended up getting in that because i would always be in the detention class and i got in
detention for maybe like you know doing a spitball and then all of a sudden i get put in detention
class next to these two kids who got caught stealing a bunch of kids and then punched the
teacher in the face because they got caught so So then I start to learn lessons from those guys.
And eventually, you know, you get thrown in different circles. But for me, it was never
really about like revolting or, you know, just, you know, trying to be a troublemaker. I just was
a person who's always obsessed with really living life through all the experiences available to me.
You know, if someone threw pot down on the table, I would smoke it. If someone gave me a bicycle, I would ride it, you know, um, you know,
climb a tree, jump off a building, whatever it was for the day. I really just wanted to live life.
And that's still the, something I I'm obsessed with now. Like, you know, any single, every day
of the week I try to wake up and I try to experience life to the fullest. And as a kid,
you know, when you hear about all these, you know, these highs and lows you can have with
all these amazing drugs and stuff, like obviously you're drawn to it. Right. Right. a kid, you know, when you hear about all these, you know, these highs and lows you can have with all these amazing drugs and stuff, like obviously you're drawn to it. Right.
Right. But at a, you know, at a pretty early age, like the cops start getting involved, you get,
you're, you're in like, you're putting like outpatient treatment. There's all kinds of
ramifications that were going on. Right. Yeah. I mean, eventually a bit back. Um, I, I didn't
really consider any of the things I did to be too wrong, but obviously I
started to see the same judge so many times. They were like, we're teaching this kid a lesson.
And eventually it was just, you know, the hammer was slammed and they said,
look, you're going away. And if you don't participate with every single thing that
they say, you're going away to jail. So immediately after my high school year,
I was shipped away to Montana. I was there in Montana. And then I get introduced to my first year of college. And that's the worst thing you can do. They put me in an outpatient program
and I was immediately, I was free of all the people telling me what to do. So I started to
party more. Then they send me into like the, you know, they blindfold me in the middle of the night
one night and take me out to the desert in Nevada where I'm basically surviving off one pair of pants, one jacket, one pair of boots,
and like, you know, a little canteen. And you're out there for three and a half months.
So that's like, that's like a delinquent school, right? Like we're going to,
we're going to give these kids a rough experience and try to make men out of them.
One of those kind of places.
It was, I mean, it wasn't too extreme. I think for them, I think they
try to really kind of pull your spine out of your back and then rebuild you up. They try to make you
think that you're, you're worthless. You know, you have to be part of society. And I think that's
something that does need to be shown to kids who are kind of just out of control like myself. So
I did learn something from it, but, uh, eventually it kind of just made me more involved with the system
and learn more about my potential of being able to participate in some of these extracurricular drugs.
Right.
Yeah, so I just kept on learning more.
And once I got out of that program, I ended up going, I ended up getting sent back to Montana,
and they said, Hunter, you've got one more chance.
And I said, look, I'm going to do as many drugs as I can, unless you get me something that's going to exhaust me so much at
the end of the day. And this is probably my first introduction to like really working out and loving,
loving it. And they got me a job as a logger. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I show up in like my little
pair of skinny jeans and like, you know, those little cheap 99 cent mittens. And they just
shoved me up into like the 10,000 foot tall mountains of Montana with these guys. And I went from being a boy to a man within eight months. Like I went from 165 pounds
to 200 plus pounds. And I had to learn the lessons of life very fast. Right. I would imagine the
dudes that you were hanging out with that were doing that is they're a whole different breed.
So rugged, like our lunch, this is how we had lunch. You take a can of beans that you bought
from the store. You put it on top of the engine block of the crane, and you were not able to eat for,
you know, four or five hours. And you were exerting yourself to the point of exhaustion from
4am until lunch. And then you had two, three hours worth left to work. And then you go back
down the hill. And by the time I got home, I was just toast, absolutely toast. And I love that.
And I think that was probably the first time that I
really started to understand that if I want to really be at my best and be able to wash out all
that crazy noise that was in my lifestyle, I had to really challenge myself. I'm one of those kind
of people. Yeah. It's almost like, uh, there's a theme here, which is even though the seals would
not take you, you're seeking out seal-like, you know, experiences,
your own version of, you know, hell weeks, wherever you go. Yeah. And that seems to continue to, to,
to current day. Yeah. But then I ended up getting released back to society. Right. So,
so from Montana, after being a logger, uh, somehow you get it into your, your mind that you're going
to go to LA and be a male model. Is that, is that the next step in the evolution of Hunter McIntyre? You know what, um, what spurred that actually was,
uh, my girlfriend, she and I got in a fight and we ended up breaking up and I don't know what it
was. I just got this in my mind. Like, you know what? I'm a good looking kid. I can go be a male
model. And I just told her, I was like, you're going to regret this so much. You're never going
to see me again. And you're going to really be upset about this. And you know, it was
ridiculous. Like a revenge career path. Look, trust me, it was, it was ridiculous, but you know,
it ended up working out and I got to, you know, I got the opportunity. One of my friends ended up
connecting me with somebody. I went down to Miami for a while, worked and went back to New York,
worked. And then I went overseas to Barcelona and worked as a model for a while. And for me, it was a great experience. Like, you know,
I got to see the world. I got to meet some pretty crazy people. And, you know, I realized that what
I was doing was fun. And I started to really tune into my body and my appearance and started to get
more obsessed with what it took. And like, this is what actually how I fell in love with fitness,
because I had to do so much research every day. I had to look in the mirror and be able to
dissect my body and be like, if you want to drop your body fat, if you want to be able to change
the way your skin looks, all these things, I had to do all this research. So I did that, you know,
I got a couple of good pictures. Uh, it was fun and met a lot of cool people. But then I started
to transition into the obsession of being able to perform better.
And I wanted to help people perform, so I became a trainer.
So I started to work out in New York City, and I started taking certification after certification after certification so I could learn more and more and more.
And I eventually got introduced to some of these great companies, got to work for SoulCycle as a spin instructor, got to work for all these kind of gyms and, you know, all throughout New York City, which is one of the meccas of fitness.
Right.
And it became an obsession.
You know, it became less about being superficial, but be more performance based eventually.
And then that turned into Spartan Race.
But that's a big jump.
So so is the plan then like I'm going to be a celebrity fitness trainer?
It's a big jump.
So was the plan then like, I'm going to be a celebrity fitness trainer?
What was the sort of, were you happy to just stay in New York and do that until like the party house opportunity arose?
Or, you know, how did it kind of unfold?
No, I always wanted bigger and better things.
Not that that wasn't an amazing career right there.
I think anybody who's a trainer is living a great lifestyle because you get to be active
and have a great time with it.
But for me, I wanted to express my knowledge and really be able to share it with the people. And, you know, now there's so
many vessels of being able to do that through YouTube, Instagram, podcasting like this. But
back then I didn't know, I didn't know how to channel it. One, I was young and just stupid.
I didn't see all the opportunities, but I, you know, I really was fishing for opportunities.
And, um, then that, you know,
that party boy transition where we just were flown out here on first-class tickets to come
live in a mansion was like, all right, wow, this is awesome. Right. And are you still like partying
all the time or have you kind of put a lid on that? Oh, no, no, no. I was partying like a maniac.
I can tell you right now that that trip, my parents were so upset with me because I was
just tapering out, like, you know, out of being in college. I was taking a couple of community college classes. I just was like, you know what?
I'm going out to California. My parents were like, don't you do it. Don't you do it. Like,
we will cut you off. And I was like, I'm going. And what are your, like, what are all your
brothers do? They all live in New York city. I'm the black sheep. I have a black sheep.
I'll live in New York City.
I'm the black sheep.
Yeah.
I'm the black sheep.
Oldest one is a lawyer, works with my dad now.
The next one is a neurologist at Cornell Medical Hospital, like, you know, top of his class,
you know, runs the whole residency operation there. The next one worked for the number one hedge fund in the world and now works for some,
you know, Palantir, which is this great, like, data analysis company, which is, you know,
top of its, you know, whatever field that it's in.
My dad, Harvard graduate, all my, you know, my grandfathers are like doctors and editors
and things like that.
And then there's me.
Uh-huh.
Wow.
They're like, what are we going to do with this kid?
Nobody knew what to do.
I was, I was the worst.
I mean, I think everyone was excited and knew I had potential, but I was burning myself
to the ground.
Were you like, you're like, you have so much potential, Hunter.
Yeah, no, I always...
When are you going to get it together?
That was always the award I got in high school, most potential.
And that's a slap in the face.
That's like, you know, the guy who could have had it,
but didn't work hard enough for it.
Yeah, it's like, it's another way of saying biggest underachiever.
Yes, yes.
But that's the shadow, like our little rain cloud that followed
me around. Like I just was not really ready to tap into what I was meant to do or able to do.
But you also are a guy who, I mean, look, you're pretty well known for having like a pretty healthy
ego. So on some level, like back then, cause if somebody is being told that kind of stuff,
their whole life, they're going to start to feel a little downtrodden, you know, like maybe I won't
ever amount to anything. Maybe everybody's right. I am a loser. Like you start to
then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I don't get that, that like you were able to
like have a dividing line between what all this messaging that was coming into you
and still find a way to like, feel pretty good about yourself. Is that,
I mean, I kinda, I guess, I mean, I was definitely, I felt like I
was running on nitro rather than like clean, clean, like diesel or something like that. I was
just always burning so hot and never ready to slow down. So, I mean, even though that's, that
sounds like an exciting thing, I just wasn't ready to ever settle. And, um, eventually I think
California kind of gave me an eye opener
being out here because we were surrounded in this party house where we were drinking ourselves
stupid every single day and talking about the big things, but never really connecting with them.
Nobody's actually doing anything. Yes. And, um, probably good that you were in Malibu instead
of like in West Hollywood there, because you could have gotten into a lot more trouble.
Yeah. I mean, I'm lucky, you know, I'm, I'm, I have to say like, it's up in the hills there, because you could have gotten into a lot more trouble. Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky.
You know, I have to say, like, it's very fortunate.
And my stepmother sat me down the other day.
She said, look, I want you to know right now,
you shouldn't be alive right now.
And like, she's like, I mean that in the best way possible.
All your friends, a lot of my closest friends
have passed away because of drug use.
And she's like, you're very lucky.
And I'm so happy you've turned things around.
But like, you know, you have to stay connected and on the path.
I'm blessed.
I thank Mo, if you're listening to this.
Mo is my friend who hooked me up with all this.
I owe it all to him.
He did introduce me to this world, and he also,
even though we were party boys and he was funding a lot of it,
I never would have been able to see this.
I never would have done my first Barton race probably.
I never would have been able to see this.
I never would have done my first Barton race probably.
So I'll tell you the turning point, even though we may have skipped a couple chapters.
One night, this is when I was still heavily into drugs, I went out to Miami.
And nobody knew I was in Miami, not even my family. I was supposed to be home doing work.
And I went out, and we had a cocaine binge.
We went crazy. We went to the strip clubs,
everything. And we were just going crazy. And I went to bed for the first time in my life,
knowing that I was likely going to die before I woke up. And I went to bed and I was sweating
profusely. My heart was jacked up to the point where I was like, you know, I was taking a spin
class while laying in bed. And I woke up the next day and I was throwing up blood was pouring out of my nose.
I mean, this is graphic for a podcast, but you know, I had to be honest about it.
And I ended up changing my flight, flying home as soon as possible while throwing up,
going to the airport and everything, because I didn't want my family to know, like to find my body dead in Miami.
I thought I was still gonna die.
And that was the shifting point.
And that was in 2000, I think, 12.
Yeah, wow, that's, yeah, that's heavy.
I was just, we were talking before the podcast.
I was just in Miami like a week ago
and I had some really dark times,
like trolling South Beach, like in the late 1990s, man, like
really dark. And, and I really, I passed through Miami a couple of times over the years since I've
been sober, but, um, I hadn't really spent any time there, uh, as a sober person. And so the
other week was the first time I'd been back in that like area and spent a couple of days, you
know, like as a sober person. And it was, it's, it's weird, man. I was like, you know time I'd been back in that like area and spent a couple days like as a sober person.
And it was, it's, it's weird, man. I was like, you know, I'd look at, I go, I remember what I
did in that place. And I know, you know, and it's like to kind of, you know, create a new
relationship with a place like that, that, you know, has an association that's so dark.
It's tough.
Yeah. It's heavy. Um, but that's interesting. So, but you're you never, you never felt like it
got to a point where you needed to like go to AA or that you would sort of think that you're an
alcoholic or a drug addict. Like, from what I've read, you seem to feel like you have a little bit
of a different kind of relationship where you could just sort of set it aside. Yes, yes, I've
been able to put that up on the shelf. And you know, I could take it back down and use it for a day and then go back.
But the reality is, you know, don't take this as a cocky comment,
but I always said that I was never an addict, but I was an enthusiast.
You know, I was very enthusiastic about the experience of it all.
And, you know, I think that some people really struggle with that,
and I never want anybody to go through that experience or manipulate,
take my words for granted and be like, well, Hunter's an enthusiast. I can be an enthusiast. No, I, I just never had that connection to the
drugs. And, um, look, I was able to walk away from it clean and I haven't touched it since I
haven't done, you know, ecstasy, cocaine, none of that stuff. And I feel great about it. And,
uh, you know, some days I look back, it's very tough because I've had to alienate a lot of people in my life. You know, there's people, I was just living down in Miami
recently and I just didn't like people would call, they knew I was there and I would just ignore
their phone calls. And it's, it's sad to close those doors. But, um, yeah, but if you want to,
I mean, look, you know, that's what's required sometimes, man, if you want to reinvent yourself,
you just can't, you just, you can't hang out. You can't hang around that stuff, you know, without it eventually happening. No, I look.
And another thing that I came out of it, I like to tell people, you know, never know the highest
highs until you've experienced the lowest lows. And I've been there and I've seen it. And like,
you know, I've been there with those people and I've been in those, like, you know, those crack
dens for a couple of days at a time where I was just in in the moment of it.
And I'm very liberated now being able to say that I was able to experience both sides.
So so the Miami, you know, bottom is how how how like sort of along your journey into into Spartan race where you when that occurred?
That was basically I'd only done two races before that
and i it was a one week away from it was one week before one of my biggest races that i ever had i
knew that i was going up against the big contenders in the game and you're just getting super crazy oh
my gosh i because he didn't i didn't even think twice about it i was like i could do both um
but the reality is,
is I remember I showed up at that starting line still that like, you know, big macho man kind of
feel on my shoulders. But then I started running and these guys were just kind of peeling away
from me and my heart's just pumping, just like ready to tear at the seams. And I knew like,
you know, you can't, you can't do that anymore. You can't fake it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's kind
of a
turning point right like okay i'm gonna get serious about this totally and then at some at some point
you bring brian mckenzie on right like yeah he was your coach for a while brian was a great coach
intense coach yeah he's an intense dude he's been he was an early guest on the podcast he's great
a while back so so yeah so then he so suddenly you kind of have structure to your
methodology oh yeah i think um i was always as i said i you know i i loved having weightlifting
meeting uh endurance and i always like to channel my lifestyle and my performance through the
weightlifting into the performance of the endurance so crossfit endurance was a great introduction to
that kind of uh you know sport and working with somebody like Brian, he is such a tough dude.
Like it just, it just kicked me right off my feet and just laid me on my ass.
And I was just like, wow, like this is the commitment it's going to take to become somebody
who's like, you know, better, like, you know, become one of the greatest.
So I spent, I remember the first year I was a summer, I was working with Brian.
I spent it up, um, living in Joe DeSantis house house, the guy who was the founder of Spartan Races.
In Vermont, right?
Yeah.
That guy's insane.
He's so nuts.
Man, there's so many funny stories about that dude.
And I would just sit in my room, wake up in the morning, train for two or three hours, go.
I had a stipend at the general store.
He's like, hey, look, I'll pay for your food and let you live here if you dedicate yourself.
And I, you know, thank you so much, Joe.
Pretty gracious of him to do that.
Very much so.
How did you hoodwink him into that deal?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
I think, you know, because it was just the rise of the sport and they started, they really
wanted people to start dedicating themselves and showing that this sport was real.
So I think the first person who was the ambassador
was Hobie Call. He was this, he's this guy who was just, I still think he's the greatest in the sport
out of Utah. And he was dedicating everything he had in his life, selling off his TVs, his couches,
everything to make it to the races until he could start funding it that way. And I think Joe really
saw a spark in me and he said look you know you could do this if you
really dedicate yourself so i would literally go into this general store and i would clean out
shelves of food i would just work so hard eat pass out work so hard and i did it for a whole
summer straight and i i did it i mean i got up on the podium at world championships, but I mean. And that was 2014?
2013.
And now things are just, it's getting more and more competitive.
Yeah.
And it was working.
It's amazing getting to experience somebody like Brian McKenzie.
And I'm not working with him anymore.
One thing I like to do is I like to read tons of books on training, but I also like to experience tons of coaches.
So he's one of the guys that I wear around
and I always talk about his work.
And now I'm working with a triathlon coach.
Every time I want to learn more
and see what my body adapts to.
Interesting.
Who's the coach you're working with now?
Josiah Madaw is the guy who's,
it's his company.
He's the number one XTERRA athletes
in the world right now,
cross triathlon XTERRA.
Right.
And his brother Yrow is my coach.
Oh, wow.
Cool.
They're really good.
So, uh, so walk me through, we're going to, we're going to step by step, get to 2014,
but like walk me through like what a typical training session and day looks, looks like
for you.
With Brian was very different than what I do now.
Um, if I had to explain it with a crossfit
endurance i would say i would say it's probably half to two-thirds of it is weight lifting and
like i'm talking about heavy stuff probably about two hours of weight lifting conditioning in the
morning but like like heavyweight low rep circuit training yeah stuff yeah so like let's say i would
do a workout where i do four rounds of like rounds of seven pull-ups with weight on me,
seven thrusters with 150 pounds, seven box jumps, seven handstand push-ups,
seven 700-meter row, seven rounds.
All with the training mask on.
Oh, man.
The training mask, people love hacking on that thing,
but you know about Wiemhoff and all these guys.
That thing is a tool.
Yeah, it is.
I mean, look, I came up as a swimmer, and we would do tons of breath control and hypoxic training.
So you're training your system to be more efficient with less oxygen.
I mean, it makes sense.
It's easy to make fun of, though.
Oh, it totally is.
I mean, look, I'll even shrug.
Like, I work with that company and like
i shrug when i see people in the gym wearing it kind of like marching around and stuff i'm like
just don't it's like wearing compression gear out in public yeah hey look i do it um but now
i would say like if i could structure a week and really let somebody into my life i would say
i'm working out seven days a week. First two, three hours of the morning is conditioning via bike or probably about one
to two hours of running lunchtime, probably about an hour to two hour hike. And then the afternoon,
I'm probably doing about 90 minutes to two and a half hours of weightlifting.
That's now that's now. Right. So the, the So it sounds like the biggest difference between Brian and what you're doing now is more kind of like, you know, really what would be prototypical triathlon endurance type training.
Yeah.
As opposed to just being overly focused on the strength and like power and speed.
Yeah.
Look, I think anybody could understand this.
You have to be most proficient at being efficient through time and space.
anybody could understand this. You have to be most proficient at being efficient through time and space. And weightlifting is a vessel of making you strong, uh, and like, you know, resilient,
but you eventually have to put yourself in the shoes of your sport. Like, you know, I could tell
somebody weightlift all day and they get really, really fit, but if they're a swimmer, they need
to be in the pool. And, um, um look i still take a lot of pages out
of the books that the people like power speed endurance brian's book and i use them still but
the reality is is i've learned as i've gotten more and more competitive i just i have to put in time
which sucks like i used to run 10 miles a week and be competitive now i can run up to 100 miles a
week right right right, that's interesting.
Well, I think that the sport that you're doing,
it requires the best of you in every category.
Like with what I do,
I just have to be able to go really long and be efficient.
I don't really need a lot of power, you know?
And I don't need very much agility. You need power, speed, agility, quickness. You got to be incredibly agile.
You have to be able to make decisions very quickly, like all of these different things.
Like you have to have complete command over every aspect of your body and the functional strength
that you have to kind of carry in order to do that. I, you know, I can't think of any other
sport where everything has to
come into play. There has to be total synchronicity with all of that in order to be the best.
Yeah. I mean, like not to play into the kind of the cheesy name of Spartan, but you have to be
like a Spartan. You have to be across the board, unbreakable. Our sport is just so painful just to
even get through the event. It's incredible.
I just went and did the world championship for world's toughest mudder,
and you're climbing through sewer drains.
You have to do things where you're getting shocked.
You're jumping off a 30-foot, 8-foot cliff.
Everything about that is your body has to be tough against the time
and against whatever the obstacles are in front of you.
What about the mental aspect of it, though?
Because I think that's equally important. I mean, what kind of training do you
do to kind of prepare yourself mentally? Meditation. I got really into meditation. I know
I hate being the guy who says it again, but I hear it on your podcast all the time, but it is really
the only way that you can sharpen the ax, um, with I think. I think you can perform out there and
train all day long and you can become accustomed to what you're doing, but to become more fierce
in the moment, I think it's just meditation. And one thing that I start to do, rather than just
sitting there and breathing, is going into poses that are challenging, whether it be like holding
at the top of a push-up and breathing there for 10 minutes, um, holding like a wall sit and things like that. And just really allowing my
body to experience it, but try to avoid the actual taxation of like, you know, my body, like avoid
that lactic acid that's building, avoid the pain in my shoulders and my lower back and try to be
in the moment of my mind. Uh-huh. That interesting. Meditation in the, in the, in the process of, of,
of holding like a challenging pose.
Yeah. I started meditating with a kettlebell. Did you? I swear.
You think it's a joke? No, I don't. Like, I think that's a great idea.
Actually like meditation under duress.
Well you meditate in order to be able to perform better when you're under
duress. So why not? It's like putting on a 50 pound weight vest. You know what I mean? When you go running, you meditate in order to be able to perform better when you're under duress. So why not?
It's like putting on a 50-pound weight vest, you know what I mean, when you go running.
You're basically just upping the difficulty factor of the whole thing.
Yeah.
So why not? Do you use a specific technique or any app or anything like that?
Box breathing.
Look up SealFit.
Anybody who's listening, look up SealFit.
And Mark Devine has many breathing techniques that he incorporates into his own routines. look up seal fit anybody who's listening look up seal fit and mark divine has um many breath
breathing techniques that he incorporates into his own routines and i use box breathing you know
five count in hold five count exhale five count and then hold at the bottom and i try to add um
presence to every single stage of that you know when i exhale i'm focusing on recycling and like
releasing and trying to get everything out of my system. When I'm at the bottom of the hold, I'm focusing on like actually saying the word focus or control.
When I'm breathing back in, I pull an intention and at the top, same exact thing. Right. Um,
one thing though, the other aspect of a mental strengthening is I think reading,
um, reading was very challenging for me at first. I just couldn't even look at a page without
going crazy. But to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes who've maybe done something
like, you know, the David Goggins of the world, or, you know, that book about the guy who got
lost out at sea, The Soldier. What was that movie that just came out? The Soldier that got lost at
sea? He was like the best miler in america and then he went to unbroken exactly
like things like that make me realize that the world could be so much harder than it is for me
right there so you know i like to be able to bring those things into my life and consider myself to
be fortunate for what i have so like you know work harder right what are some of the books that have
been instrumental for you um old man in the sea that one's great. I think that's so funny. Like, you know, people
would like, you know, be like, oh, some Napoleon book, but Old Man and the Sea is a great lesson.
Old Man and the Sea is a great lesson. I've read it in like seventh grade. Read it again. It's a
quick read. Makes you think that guy can hold on to that fish for so long. You can hold on to
whatever you're doing.
Another one, I'm reading The Ultimate High about Goran Kropp.
Did you ever hear about this guy?
Uh-uh, I don't think so.
It's in my backpack right now.
He rode from Sweden with everything that he owned and was ready to climb Everest with,
so he rode everything that was necessary to climb up Everest with
from Sweden to the Himalayas
and then climbed up without
any supplemental oxygen all the way he's summited yep wow all on his own and like that right there
like that's just like that's such dedication right something like that's incredible wow I'm trying to
think of one more book that's really just been so helpful I mean the seal fit books are amazing as
well I'd say that right all right so you podium in 2013 and then 2014, you kind of enter that season.
You're like, everyone's looking at you. Right. And you start chalking up all kinds of wins.
I was rowdy. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of fast talking and
there's a lot of, uh, anticipation of you potentially winning world championships that
year. And you start to get a lot of attention, right? You're on the cover of men's fitness magazine. Like suddenly you're like, you're
blowing up, dude. So it grew fast. Yeah. Like what was going on at that time?
Um, I think maybe the hype got ahold of me a little bit, but I, it kind of got subdued later
on, but, uh, I focused and I worked so hard and I was cocky. I was very, very cocky, but I kind
of put on that, um, that kind of WWF belt and I walked into the ring and I worked so hard and I was cocky. I was very, very cocky, but I kind of put on that,
um, that kind of WWF belt and I walked into the ring and I was ready to throw down.
And that's the kind of mentality I had to wear it, at least at that point in my life.
And I ended up having the most successful season of my career. Um, I won pretty much everything
except for three events, four events. Um, I was a point series winner that year. And then I ran all the
way up to a world championships and the last event of the year before world championships,
I tore one of the, um, ligaments in my ankle. Oh, wow. Yeah. But I'm not going to say that
that's what held me back from winning, but, um, that was a month before the race. And then I went
into that championship event and we all threw down and it just shows that
the more contenders are coming in. And right. It was tough. Like, you know, I came in and I ended
up coming fifth in the long course. And then I ended up winning the short course that year. But,
uh, I have to say that was a scary letdown, um, that I had to reposition my whole self after I
did not win that race. Uh- race. So mentally and training wise, or
I think mentally, because I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend and being like, I need to go
dedicate myself. So I moved out to the mountains of Colorado. Like I went from Malibu where the
mountains are like, you know, pretty good, big. And I was like, look, what are the biggest mountains
in the United States? What are the toughest Hills? Where do all the endurance athletes go?
I'm going to Colorado.
Plus altitude training.
Oh man, it was the worst.
I don't tell anybody, nobody should go to altitude.
Yeah, why Durango though?
My friend Cody was out there.
And Cody, Durango's amazing.
Have you been?
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Yeah, some of the best trails in the country
for biking and things like that.
And I dedicated myself.
I dug in.
That's where I started to obsess over meditation.
I would sit in cold rivers and I
would just meditate and I'd like be in the moment obsessed with like what you have ahead of you.
And it was tough. Like, you know, I, I totally just threw everything else in the world to the
side. Like I, I, you know, hung up my phone. I would not talk to people. I just wanted to focus.
And, um, it made me realize that even though that something that, that race was super important to me, I really have to be able
to be present with the life that's around me. Like my family, my friends, my girlfriend. Um,
it was tough. Uh-huh. Yeah. And so how long were you living out there?
July until October. Uh-huh. Yeah. So you're just recently back here then?
Yeah. No, no, no. That was last summer. I'm all over the place. That's the one thing you're going to learn about me.
Just woo. All right. So, so then, uh, so then how did that translate into the following season?
You know what? I ended up whooping some serious butt, but, um, I think the wind came out of my
sails a little bit. It's scary, man.
Like when you really think you're made of just steel
and you're ready for anything
and then you have that kind of letdown,
I had to reposition myself,
but I didn't let it really hold me back.
I came back and I really just kept on hustling.
I ended up coming out and we won the World's Toughest Mudder,
which is a very, very hard 24-hour world championship
as a team
a month later and then some new opportunities popped up and i kind of removed myself from the
spartan race world to become a tv host and travel the world which is a very big change up yeah so
it's a little bit it's kind of difficult to go from training is your only thing and that's what
you're focused on being the best and then
suddenly as a result of that you get other opportunities that broaden the horizon of your
life but also distract you from what got you there in the first place which is something that i deal
with quite a bit yeah i mean it was pretty incredible it was like almost like something
just was like created underneath me to catch me from what was from me falling but uh it was
incredible one day i get a call from this guy simon Donato, who's my cohost now. And he says, Hunter, I've
been following you. Um, I want to know if you're interested in potentially talking about doing a
TV show with me. And I was like, this guy's just another crazy online who wants to talk business.
And, uh, it really became something. I became a co-host in the beginning of 2015 for a show called Boundless,
which is on Esquire, traveling the world, doing the hardest at races, like endurance races in
the world. That sounds like an amazing, like that's a perfect thing for you. I want to be on
that show, you know, like get paid to just go to all these amazing places and tackle these
challenges. So what were some of the races? So have you already taped a season?
Everything's done.
But it hasn't aired yet.
Ten episodes.
It should be coming out in January from what I understand.
The networks, they make the decisions from this point on.
But yeah, ten races around the world.
And every single one of them was nine hours plus.
So, I mean, it was a kick in the butt.
The longest event I had ever done was that 24-hour event, which murdered me pretty much. But now I had to do this for a living. I
had to travel around the world and like every single one of them was like getting in the ring
with Mike Tyson. Right. And you're going to be on TV doing it. So, oh man, I looked awful. You
So what were the races? Okay. So I'll list them off. one we were in arizona doing a 24-hour mountain bike
race um the next one we're going to greenland and we're we're skiing a three-day stage race
of cross-country skiing around greenland um in the arctic circle i've never done this never
cross-country skied before um we move on to moab for an adventure race, Chile for a hundred mile race across the Atacama
desert.
Oh, wow.
Um, is that part of the seven, the seven desert series that race?
No, but, uh, Dean Karnasas was there at the same time running that race as we were running
the other one.
We were just in a different section of the desert making circles.
Uh, I wish I knew he was out there.
It'd been fun to link up with him.
Um, then we went over to the GoPro Games in Colorado.
Then we're over in Europe, and I did the hardest mountain bike race in the world.
Crazy.
Look up the Ultravelo.
I think it's in Chamonix.
It was insane.
Wow.
Traumatizing.
Amazing, though.
Then we went to Scotland for the quadrathlon.
It's like a triathlon with extra stuff.
And then we're over.
Gosh, it keeps on getting crazier.
Where do we go next?
That's crazy.
But, I mean, it's definitely out of your comfort zone.
I mean, you're doing things that you don't have that much experience doing, right?
I had no experience doing any of these things.
I think it was the greatest year of my life.
I don't want to put down any of the other years, but it was the greatest year of my life. I don't want to, you know, put down any of the
other years, but it was just such an experience. I was, I was so lucky and fortunate to have these
people believe in me to begin with, but also being able to experience life, um, in these wild places
and like these totally new sports, it really revived my love for being an athlete because
I think when I lost that race in 2014, it made me realize like,
what are you doing? Like, you're just working out all day long just to kind of go against other
people who work out all day long. Like it lost its meaning to me. And after doing this year,
like I was like, wow, you are the most fortunate person in the world. Like you just need to keep
on channeling yourself towards the direction of just greatness. Well, I like that.
And I think it has to mean something more than just a podium,
especially if you want to keep doing it.
What's going to get you excited?
And what does it all mean?
Why are you doing it?
And what is it that you're trying to express?
Especially now that, look, you're well-known.
You have a platform.
You have an opportunity to, you know,
kind of have a voice and what does that voice look like? You know,
what does it mean? And, and, and, you know,
what is it that you're trying to communicate to all the people that follow
you? Yeah. You know, there's a,
there's kind of a responsibility that comes with that.
I realized that a little bit too late, maybe not too late, but it's all right,
man. Yeah. I was pretty, I was pretty rowdy for a while. Yeah, yeah.
Just big raw kind of guy.
How old are you now?
I'm 26.
I'm still young.
I'm still young.
You should have seen it, though.
I mean, Reebok produced this video where they, like, you know,
Hunter's Redemption year when I was training for this last world championship.
And when they released it, people just tore into me.
I'm like, this kid thinks he's all that and a bag of chips., people just tore into me. I'm like this, this kid thinks
he's all that in a bag of chips. He's just a lazy kid. He doesn't have a family he has to take care
of. He just has to sit on his butt and work out all day. And I was like, ouch, these people are
cruel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think I was able to come full circle at least at this point
in my life where I realized I used to want to challenge other people, but now I want to challenge myself. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, I was saying
that's the ultimate challenge. Yeah. Yeah. It feels great. I mean, it's liberating when you
be able to say like, at the end of the day, everybody else lays down in a different place
than you are. Like you have to be comfortable where you are, you know? So that's, that's the
point where I'm at right now. Right. And, and on that tip, I mean, one of the things that you're exploring right now, if I have my facts correct, is you're trying on this vegan lifestyle.
I did vegan.
I did vegan.
I did three months of it.
You did?
I just stopped.
I'll be honest.
You did?
I did.
Oh, come on, man.
What do you want?
All right.
But let's unpack that.
So what was going on that even interested you in that to begin with?
You. You. No, I that even interested you in that to begin with? You.
You.
No, I swear it was you.
All right.
Look, I'm not trying to – I know you were going to be excited about hearing me say that I'm still vegan, but –
I just want you to be honest.
I am being honest.
I'm being totally honest.
Oh, cool.
So I went and tried it because I ended up having IT band syndrome last year for
eight months or that's still this year,
actually.
Um,
starting in the beginning of January and I had to do it all the way through
this TV show season,
by the way,
which was just a horrible idea.
And it was,
it was just totally debilitating.
I couldn't do anything.
And,
uh,
what was the name of the football player you had on?
You just slipped my,
uh,
David Carter.
Yes.
The football player who was vegan.
When I heard that, I mean, like for years I had researched being vegan
and like I really wanted to understand it.
And I would ask everybody in my circle like,
hey, I'm really thinking about going vegan.
They're like, don't, you're going to fall apart.
You're going to become emaciated and just die.
I'm sure Brian McKenzie was really excited about hearing that from you.
I ended up talking to him about that and he just wasn't hyped about it. No, no, I can't imagine he was really excited about here. I ended up talking to him about that and he just wasn't
hyped about it. Um, I can't imagine he was my friend, Ben Greenfield, who I work with. He said
the same exact thing. He's like, you're going to fall apart and die. And eventually I was driving
across country and I was moving out to Miami and this was over the summer. And I was listening to
your podcast, trying to keep myself awake while driving. And I, I heard this guy telling the story about how his joints were going,
everything was going wrong, and it just clicked with me.
I was like, that's exactly what's going wrong with me.
So I made the switch.
And it was very difficult because I was traveling,
and being in foreign places trying to eat vegan was tough.
But I have to say I've never felt better in my entire life as a whole.
Everything seemed to be coming in and out of my body at like, you know, full speed, full capacity.
My skin got better.
I didn't have any dandruff.
My eyes seemed to be wider.
Like something seemed to be firing properly.
But then, do you know Paul Cech?
No.
Look up Paul Cech.
He's very interesting.
He's a trainer.
I think he's out of Hawaii.
And, you know, he has his own whole method. But I also follow him as well. And he's the kind of guy who eats
in the moment to support the presence of what he's doing. If he's really, really training super hard,
he eats meat. If he's kind of having a stagnant lifestyle and he's not training that day or he's taking a lot of time off, he's more vegan.
And I realized I started to slowly – last month started to slowly kind of add things back into my diet.
Like dairy wasn't working well.
Add a little bit of meat.
Add a little bit of fish.
Fish wasn't going so well.
I mean meat wasn't going so well.
But the things I did realize is I started to get my oomph back a little
bit, you know, my, you know, the, the macho-ness of my body. And, um, you know, I, I will say that
like, I was like a gazelle when I was out in the mountains when I was vegan, but when I went to the
gym, I had lost my oomph. Yeah, I did. I swear. Well, I'd be interested to, to like, you know,
learn a little bit more about what exactly you were eating and maybe identify like, you know, a way to repair that without having to go back. But you know,
we can have that conversation. I don't want to bore you people. But I mean, it's, you know,
it's cool that you tried it and, uh, and, uh, and that you had a, you know, basically a good
experience, but you know, I had an incredible experience. I think something that everyone
should do, and I'm a big fan of it is self-experimentation. I think you really need to be able to take yourself out of whatever your
comfort zone and you need to be able to place yourself somewhere else, whether that be like
right now I'm practicing fasting a lot. Um, you know, the whole vegan thing was incredible for
me. It was, it was stressful at first, but then I found this kind of a higher power of a feeling of
just understanding my food, my diet, and the way I functioned.
And, you know, my obsession with guys like Timothy Ferris,
who were just so in tune with their body and always experimenting,
trying to have a better understanding,
and then relating it to the people who they're involved with,
I think that's amazing, and that's something I obsess over.
And I would imagine it was, I mean, during the period that you were vegan,
were you traveling the whole time, or were you showing up at the CrossFit gym?
Because it's an interesting thing with, you know, sort of the paleo movement and the way it's vertically integrated with CrossFit gyms.
And that kind of, you know, I feel like the Spartan race or the obstacle course race movement is kind of under that umbrella, even if in an informal way.
It's kind of under that umbrella, even if in an informal way.
And kind of the idea of being vegan in that environment is kind of like a verboten sort of concept or foreign, I think, to a lot of people.
I did get a lot of support.
Some people just came out of the woodwork.
People I had never even heard from before, and they're like, you've inspired me so much.
You've changed my life by doing this vegan thing. I tried it. My family and I, they all feel amazing. That was, that was incredible. Yeah, that's cool. Look, you know, I think the thing
is, is if I could prescribe the perfect diet for somebody, it would be something that's like 90%
vegan. I really would. I think that's the healthiest way for the world to function and for
people to function. I think,
you know, for me, I cannot make the call ultimately, but for me, I understand that
when I'm trying to perform at my best, having a little bit of extra, um, support from that of
meat proteins, uh, it was helpful, you know, I don't think dairy is great, but, um, I, I still
need to do more work. I need to learn. Yeah. Well, keep experimenting.
I have a lot of time.
Yeah.
So what is, uh, what are you training for right now?
Like what, what is the focus?
You know what I'm training for?
Nothing.
I'm so excited to slow down.
But the reality is, is I have to, uh, after, after January, um, I, the season picks up
again and the likelihood of me starting over the
boundless season again is, is pretty much on the horizon. Um, we don't know yet, but, um,
and then Spartan race doesn't really have a season. There's a championship season,
but there's races year round and you know, that supports my lifestyle to be honest. So I have to
be competitive and, uh, people forget names if they don't show up on the podiums, you know,
to be honest. Uh, so that's tough. Right tough right like because now you're going to balance doing this tv show which
you know is exerting by going off and doing these challenges but isn't sports specific
no it was the most exhausting experience of my life but no one's going to give you a break like
oh well he didn't win but he was doing that it matter. No, they didn't care at all. I would come home just defeated from these experiences.
And even though I had a blast while I was there,
I just didn't have the guts to kind of show up to a Spartan race
and just get pummeled again because it took so long to recover from these things.
The cross-country skiing race alone had my bones shaking for two weeks afterwards.
Right. Where do you think that – what do you think your Achilles heel
is as an athlete? Like, where do you have to focus on, on growing and developing the most?
For me, I have to experience conditioning a little bit better. I have to become a,
through time and space, basically endurance. Um, I'm kind of the outlierlier in our in our sport i'm 195 to 200 pounds the majority of the year
and the guys who i compete against are 140 to 150 pounds right are those guys like who are the guys
that are excelling the most is it people and what kind of backgrounds do they come from like track
backgrounds or yeah um i would say so if i could list the other five best people in the sport besides myself
they'd be um ryan atkins is probably one of the most competitive guy right now he came from a
mountain biking world cup like you know background and loves you know doing ultra running the guy is
he was a six-time world champion in unicycling like just like absurd i didn't know there was a
world championship nobody knows until you meet him and then he just destroys you on a race course
and uh he's amazing then you have somebody this guy john albin who's won a couple world
championships he's just a true blue runner just runs like a madman and then like you know a couple
of the other guys they come back back from D1 running backgrounds.
Basically, you have to just have been a thoroughbred all the way through middle school, high school, college,
and now you're a semi-professional runner, if not a professional runner already. And what does that mix look like for you in terms of going out and doing just typical endurance trail running
versus getting on the track and like throwing down tempo work and
speed work just time under tension the best thing you could probably do like you know you hear about
the old traditional method of just like 80 20 um like you know matt fitzgerald it's you have to
just be out there and slowly get your body to adapt with what your other your sport is and
i would say probably you know a, a couple of times a week,
I'm really trying to push the threshold of just becoming super intense in what my sport domain is.
But I love, look, I'll tell you, my favorite thing is just lifting. Uh, like right after I'm done
with you, I'm going to go right over to my buddy's house and we're just going to pick up the biggest
things we can find. What gym do you go to in Malibu? Um, as I said before, Malibu is all
about finding these little gems, like these little secret nooks of people who have these things we can find what gym do you go to in Malibu um as I said before Malibu is all about
finding these little gems like these little secret nooks of people who have these incredible places
like your home and you know they've got like you know the guy's house I was with the other day if
you look at my nose we were wrestling and I think he broke my nose um you know he's got it's all
blue yeah we're wrestling he's got I mean I haven't wrestled since uh you know my first year
of college.
And I just, I saw this wrestling mat out in his backyard and I'm like, we're thrown down. And,
uh, basically, you know, I, every single day I'm either in my backyard lifting up really heavy
tires or, um, you know, finding guys like this, who've got kettlebells that go up to 200 pounds,
you know, layered Hamilton's house. Whenever I could get experience to go there, I just channel
my body through that kind of stuff. But I mean, I have my own gym back in Miami which I opened up and now we're gonna
open up one here in Miami's I mean Malibu uh no problem not Malibu Santa Monica what's your gym
in Miami it's called epic hybrid training yeah it's where is it Miami Brickle yeah um you know
or uh basically you know downtown goes right into Brickle,
and there's Mary Brickle Village.
Have you ever been to there?
No, I don't know that area.
Basically, Brickle's just becoming this new hot spot, so it's pumping up.
But our gym model is kind of circuit training meets high intensity,
and like, you know, American Ninja Warrior meets Tabata intervals.
So it's like you're using all these kind of different fundamental tools
of like functional fitness, kettlebells, resistance bands, box jumps, and you're going in circuits
and using different kinds of intervals to just. Right. That's cool. So you want to open one of
those Malibu? Not Malibu. I was just going to say that was probably the worst. I said Malibu,
like you go down to cross Creek in the middle of winter and you're like, how do any of these
businesses survive?
Soul cycle is crazy for open air.
Are you still teaching down a soul cycle?
No, I mean, I was so in love with it,
but it was something I couldn't hold on to
because I was always traveling so much.
That's my favorite way to work out is,
at least teach classes, is on the bike.
Right, but do you get out and road bike around here?
Oh, yeah.
My bikes are in Miami.
I'm picking them up next week. But, yeah, if you're ready to throw down, man. Yeah, well, we're going to have you get out and road bike around here oh yeah oh yeah my bikes are in miami i'm picking them up next week but uh yeah if you're ready to throw down man yeah well we're
gonna have to get out on the bike man that would be good yeah no mountain biking you know do you
like that um yeah i've only done it like i'm embarrassed to say, a few times. I don't even have a mountain bike.
What?
I go out, like a friend loans me one once in a while.
Like, I just, I don't have a lot of experience on mountain biking.
How?
You live in one of the best places.
I know, I know.
I know, I know.
That's crazy.
I gotta do more of it.
That's the next thing.
Yeah, well, here's the thing.
You can show me road biking trails.
I'll show you mountain biking trails.
And then we're gonna beef you up a little bit, get you some kettlebells and some stuff.
Right, right, right. You just missed, well, there's a guy called do you know ben bostrom is yeah so ben lives right across well he used he used to live on latigo he
moved he lives in vegas now but he's one of the sickest mountain bikers out there really well he
i mean he was a professional motorcycle racer like he was one of the best in the world and that
was his career for a long time.
But he would train on the mountain bike.
And he's just an insane talent.
Like, he could have been, I really think he could have been a pro peloton cyclist.
Really?
He's incredibly gifted.
Yeah.
And he goes and he does, now he just does it for fun.
But he still can compete at a really high level.
And for a long time, like, he had, you know know he had all the strava records and all the
malibu hill he's moved now so he's away from it but um he used to live in the house that's
just past like that main cluster of houses when you kind of it's directly across from my house
oh it is you know his house yeah he doesn't live there anymore i know i'm i just got back so i
heard he moved to vegas which was a bummer but yeah i would see all the strava things and i'm
always kind of chasing that kind of stuff.
We're neighbors, so every time I go out on the bike,
it's like, your thing's been beaten.
I'm like, gosh darn it.
The hills around here are very competitive on Strava.
Yeah, man.
I know.
And also, the other guy I want to hook you up with,
if you don't know him already, do you know Timothy Sheaf?
No.
Oh, dude, you've got to meet this guy.
He is one of the world's most famous parkour artists
kind of like ninja warriors no way and he uh yeah i think he won uh ninja warrior in the uk he's
british um and now he's getting into obstacle course racing and he's he's he's new to it like
but he's gotten obsessed with running and he's super into it but he's a
brilliant um kind of uh you know movement guy like he can do stuff with his body that's absolutely
insane i think he's coming to la in a couple days he's passing through here but he's long
he's super passionate vegan guy really yeah yeah oh man it's gonna break he's been on the podcast
i'll you should dial him up i'll tune in every single time I pick up my phone.
I try to kind of scroll through and find something in your podcast.
I was listening to you right on the way over here.
You're cool.
I got to get to know you a little bit better.
Yeah.
Well,
good man.
I didn't realize that you actually lived here.
So I thought you were just passing through.
No,
I've been a Malibu resident since 2011.
And the thing is,
is I,
I know in my heart right now,
this is where I'm going to die. Like, you know, this is where I'm, I'm so passionate about Malibu. And the thing is, is I, I know in my heart right now, this is where I'm going to die.
Like, you know, this is where I'm, I'm so passionate about Malibu and, uh, it's unfortunate
because my whole family's across the way and I wish I can move everybody out here. But, uh,
the reality is, is these Hills are kind of for the crazy and the rich and famous.
Yeah. Well, it's, uh, it's epic training playground. Yeah. It's amazing. There aren't
more professional endurance athletes that live out here.
I go out in the mountains every single day and I don't see anybody.
Yeah.
You're like,
where is everyone?
Yeah.
I mean,
it's cause it's so insane.
I mean,
people give LA a hard time and fair enough.
They fly into LAX they're on Lincoln Boulevard or Pico.
And it just,
you know,
they're stuck in traffic on the four Oh five.
And you're like,
it's easy to just go.
This place is terrible.
Cause this is kind of far out there. You know, it's like in traffic on the 405 and you're like, it's easy to just go. This place is terrible. Because this is kind of far out there.
You know, it's like most people don't venture this far out.
But once you're here and you see it,
it is pretty, we're pretty blessed to live out here.
Unfortunately, I live the life of a hermit.
I live so far up the mountain.
Whenever I try to invite people over, they're like, no way.
Yeah, I mean, well, they might as well,
you might as well be telling them,
like, come and visit me in Santa Barbara.
Like, it's, I mean, to put it in perspective for people that are listening, if you live at the top of Latigo,
if you want to get, like, if you want to just go to the grocery store and grab something to eat or go to the gas station,
you've got to go down this mountain that's going to take you, like, just 15 minutes just to drive down it.
Oh, dude, it's a 30-minute trip to do anything.
I know.
So that's a commitment, especially for like a young guy. Like there aren't a lot of like guys in their twenties living out in this part of the world because there's nothing to do,
you know? So it's probably, you know, good for you to focus on training that way. Cause
there's not a lot of distractions. It's made me an old soul. And I'll be honest. Um, I,
I was always an early morning person. I would always
wake up around four or 5am every single day. And for some reason, when I was younger, I didn't go
to bed until like midnight and I didn't really need to sleep. But now it's just very therapeutic
for me to kind of get home at six o'clock and be in bed by eight and wake up. And that's just my
life. And I think something that a lot of people don't really experience is those early hours in the morning.
And, like, if I can have two to three hours by myself in the morning, I can get so much stuff done that the rest of the day is my playground.
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.
I'm an early morning guy, too.
But one thing I think people don't realize about this part of the world is that at this time of year, it was 27 degrees the other morning.
I love that, though.
It's so freezing, man.
I like to get up and get on my bike and ride, and it'll be 60 at 1 o'clock in the afternoon,
but it's super cold in the mornings.
No, man.
I put on my big fur coats and I walk around the house just in my underwear.
I feel like a badass.
And you live with a couple other people, though, right?
Yeah.
We have an amazing artist community
where I've got my roommate Brock
who's this incredible yoga artist
and constantly painting.
And then there's constantly artists coming to stay
for a couple months at a time
and they're building sculptures and stuff.
I'm the total opposite from them.
So it's very fun to kind of sit down with them
and rap about it.
And they think I'm crazy and I think they're crazy but yeah we i mean but they're in
their own little world you know how artists work they're just they just get so caught up in it and
i can get a few words from every once in a while but you know i'm in my world they're in their
world and we just kind of live the dream and so where are uh like your brothers and your parents
now in the the kind of evolution of of Hunter from brohood to manhood?
Are they cool now with you?
Is everything – are they – they can sleep at night?
Yes.
Feeling like you're tapped in a little bit now?
I think everyone's very, very happy for me.
I think my family understands me finally.
I think they always knew who I was, but they were waiting for me to find my calling.
but they were waiting for me to find my calling.
But every once in a while I can tell,
especially with my stepmother who knew the full extent of my life,
she's waiting for the rubber band to maybe snap back.
I don't think that's going to happen,
but the honesty is it's not that far behind me.
What do you think you would be doing if there was no such thing as obstacle course racing
or that day that you guys all signed up for that first race like it just it didn't happen like if you never discovered this
outlet i'm a very driven person in the way that i really want to see like you know i want to have
all the opportunities in front of me and i really want to take advantage of them so i would have
done something in the fitness industry but i would have found some way of getting in the military.
I still,
to this day,
I feel like I just want to like write every Senator,
every governor,
every person in the,
in the United States to kind of petition for me to go in.
You still,
you'd still want to be able to,
you still have a desire to go and maybe be a seal.
I would give everything up.
Do you still fill out the application every,
can you keep doing it?
Like,
how does that work?
No, I kind of gave up. I remember I went into the navy twice i went to the marines twice and i went to the army once and everybody was just turning me down after the first run through
you know i got red flagged every time i tried to go to the other ones and fudge the facts a little
bit they were like we found your paperwork we know you know you've been. Is there one thing that's popping up that maybe you could kind of get erased from the record or
rectified? Nothing's there, but you know, the government has, you know, they have much deeper
fingers than all the other people in the world. So, I mean, look, to be honest, I got arrested
five times and they were all silly, ridiculous things. Like the last one, the big one that I
got in trouble for was a senior prank where I stole something and we were gonna, you know,
hang it up in school and parade. I know what you stole, but we'll just like, we're going to keep
it family friendly. Okay. Of course. But you, you, that's what I'm trying to say. I tried,
I try to be as, um, you know, relaxed about that conversation as possible these days. But the
reality is, is if you knew me, you would have laughed, but you being, uh, you know, from the legal side of things, everyone's
like, this kid is a Dennis, the menace on, on steroids. Like we need to settle him down and
we need to punish this guy. Right. So, so, uh, where do you, where do you see this going? Like
where, where do you want to be five years from now? If I had, if I could lay train tracks down in front of me, like, you know, for the next
five years, I would love to see myself be able to pursue the passion of what I have
through sport.
I would like, even if I'm not winning things or really competing or contending, I would
love to just compete.
I think it's great for people to really channel themselves and experience that.
Like I, I think it pulls a different energy for me, which I love to just compete. I think it's great for people to really channel themselves and experience that. I think it pulls a different energy from me, which I love. I would love to be able to experience the opportunity of TV where I think that I really love being myself and telling my story and having a good time with other people. And if people like watching, then that's something I would appreciate. And in reality, if I could give back,
that's the thing I want later in life.
You know, I want to be able to facilitate things
that will help people who are like myself.
You know, I want to be able to do charity work.
Something I'm trying to do right now,
and I, you know, whoever's listening
will probably steal this,
is I want to do something like $5 5K,
where it's only $5 to sign up for a 5k.
And the ways that you could deliver this is if you want to help out, you give me money and it
will pay for other people to do 5k and people can just sign up because I think that I want to go
into impoverished areas and be able to help kids who didn't have the same opportunity as me. Because
I think, you know, physical activity is a great way to get back to the world and be able to save people who are in my shoes.
Yeah, for sure.
If you could go back and, and like, you know, kind of, uh, you know, slap yourself on the
head when you were 15 years old, what would you tell your younger self?
I would be like this.
And I tell a lot of kids this and don't and I hope I'm not crude by saying this,
and I'd say, you know, put the beer and the girls to the side
because it will be there later.
You know what?
I don't think girls are bad.
I don't think beer is bad,
but I think that you have a lot more opportunity to seek out
than just trying to get hammered and chase girls.
And I think I tell kids that all the time.
I'm like, look, dude, you have...
But it's hard to get that message across, man.
I know, I know.
You know, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, old man.
Yeah, I know, I know.
And look, it's tough to express that message,
but I would just say that, like, look,
I wish I had all these scholarship opportunities
and I had great opportunities to move forward
from high school into something, you know,
where my parents didn't have to support my menacing behavior.
And I just chopped it all in half because I was a maniac. And I don't know how I'm going to be
able to return this to the community, but I will find ways to be able to, you know, make sure that
kids can understand that it, it's all going to be okay. And you don't have to worry so much about
these years, but make your time constructive. Don't make it destructive, you to be okay. And you don't have to worry so much about these years, but make your time constructive.
Don't make it destructive, you know?
Right.
And for people out there that are listening
who are kind of intrigued by this idea
of maybe doing their first obstacle course race,
what are some ways to kind of get your feet wet with that?
Like where would you direct people
to kind of find maybe a training plan for a novice or some resources to get up to speed on how the whole world works?
To be honest, I think that you've got to go out there and you need to go to things like Active.com and find a race that's close to you.
That's how I started.
I think Spartan Race is a great experience.
Tough Mudder, Battle Frogs, those are the three big names.
And once you find an event that's really going to challenge you
and make you excited,
I think that you need to be able to determine
how much time you can spend on preparing yourself.
And here's the one thing is, look, go in there
and don't expect the best, expect the worst,
because these obstacles
can be really tough. And I'm not trying to scare people away. I'm saying that because
don't let that scare you away from coming back a second time. I think that should really motivate
you to come back a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth until you accomplish all of your goals and
succeed in all the obstacles. Because I think that's where people really get the most from
these experiences.
And training aspects, Spartan Race does provide a lot of really valuable information of helping people out. They have it all on their website. My Gym, Epic Hybrid Training, we have an entire
class based around preparing people for these events. And just reach out to anybody online,
like myself. I really like to help out the community any way possible. And, you know, look up to people who, you know, really inspire you and just reach out to them, and they'll help you out a ton, I'm sure.
Does Joe DeSantis still do that crazy race that he founded?
Yeah, the death race, right.
The death race, unfortunately, fell apart.
But there's a lot of—there was such an impact from it that there's things popping up.
I mean, that was really—that's what birthed the whole thing, right?
Yes.
I mean,
he was explained what the death race is for people that don't know.
The death race is built around the idea that you may die during his event.
And it is honestly the most ridiculous way to spend 72 hours,
48 to 72 hours ever.
I mean,
it's worse than hell week that Navy SEALs would experience because what he's doing is he's breaking you down mentally and physically
and spiritually.
He's penetrating all levels.
And the worst part about it is he's so clever.
He's getting people, I mean, he's getting them to come together
and work very hard together and build things,
but he's having them build things on his property.
He's a madman.
He's demoralizing and self-serving at the same time.
That's the reason why I never signed up.
I was like, I know what you're doing, Joe.
He had these people take rock slabs as big as his table,
drag them up a mountain that goes from 2,000 feet to 3,500 feet,
and build stairs from the bottom to the top.
I think that really creates an incredible connection with the people to the race because
those people can go back and say, I did this, you know?
Right.
And it's kind of a mindfuck, right?
Because he doesn't tell you like what you're going to be doing.
You sign up for it, but you don't know what the course is.
You don't know how long you're going to be awake for.
You don't have any idea.
It's just sort of be here at this time.
And then they,
he parses out the information on an as needed basis.
So you never know what's going to come next or anything like that.
Right.
So totally.
That's just mentally brutal.
I think one year he had people bring a bike,
have it dismantled and they had to carry it around the entire race.
And then like maybe a couple hours before the race was finished,
he had them build the bike back up,
ride it like 10 feet around a cone, bring it back and then like maybe a couple hours before the race was finished he had them build the bike back up ride it like 10 feet around a cone bring it back and then ditch the bike could you imagine how upset that would make you oh gosh right he's a maniac but he is also
one of the greatest motivators of our of our current day he's he's really making something
big at all this well his story is incredible too know, like he was basically like a wall street guy, right? Who just started doing a hundred milers and then just changed his
whole life and created these races, moved to Vermont. He, he really made me look at myself
and say, you know, am I going to dedicate more to this? Because when I thought I was training hard,
he told me what he did. And I was likeouch like he he came back to new york city
one time and he had a flight to vermont and the flight was canceled he just put on a pair of shoes
and started running to vermont like that became one of his things and you have to understand
he is a madman but there's a method to his madness what is that method i think honestly i think he
just wants to expose people for maybe their weaknesses and insecurities.
And I don't think that's in a negative way,
but I think that is trying to really restructure your lifestyle
to become a better person.
And I thought he was crazy at first,
because he takes his kids on a lot of these experiences with them,
and I thought he was like, he's going to kill these guys.
But I think those guys are going to be so mentally strong
and experience so much life
like you know by the time they're 20 they're going to have experienced more than somebody like you
know five lives you know all in that little period of time and he's even touched me in a way that i
really feel like every day i wake up i'm like what would joe do and i'll send him these little emails
and they'll respond back with like one little snippety comment and i'm like all right he's uh you know jesse itzler is to david goggins as you are to joe decena totally right no joe
decena is my david yeah that's what i mean like but your relationship with joe is sort of like
jesse's relationship with david for sure and look very inspiring and i think people need things like
that in their life and i think you need to find somebody who will kick your butt. Like I feel so great. One of the biggest impacts
I've had in my life right now has nothing to do with me. It's my brother, my brother Garrett,
who I love with all my heart, was working at this hedge fund for five years. And he went from
a lean, good looking kid to he just blew up added like 60 pounds, working 80, 90 hours a week and lost himself,
lost himself. He finally grew the courage to quit his job. He wanted to for so long. But like,
once you get in that world, it's like the, you know, it's like, you know, the Darth Vader world,
like they control you. And he wanted to get out of it. And eventually he snapped out. He changed
his life. He dumped all the weight.
And he sends me a picture the other day of him behind a squat bar with all the plates stacked up, and I just felt amazing.
I said to myself, I was like, I changed someone's life.
And my brother did it himself, but I helped inspire that.
And that's awesome.
So if you ever have anybody who really inspires you, reach out and have them try to really, you know, have any kind of influence on your life. Yeah, that's great, man. Well,
I think that's a good place to wrap it up a little bit. But before we do that,
I did want to talk a little bit about what you're doing with Ben Greenfield. You guys
kind of partnered up. I know you have this podcast. Yeah. Obstacle Dominator. We love it.
So Ben's a maniac. How'd you connect with ben just through the obstacle course world
because i know he got really into it yeah well i saw ben ben pulled up in like in like a biking bib
uh to do a spartan race a couple years ago and i saw him and i knew who he was and i was like
this goofball and i was like i went up and i was like dude you really inspire me you're a great
person blah blah blah i really love what you do and i'd love to get involved with that somehow and then we partnered and uh he's amazing we try to put
together as much as we can in in the sense that you know we want to share back with the community
but he's so busy it's hard to kind of get all the things together but obstacle dominator is just a
way that we try to connect with people who have been involved with the sport or somebody who may be,
be able to give some insight to our listeners on how they're mentally tough
or prepare themselves for whatever they do in life.
Like,
you know,
we reach out to the seal fit guys.
We have,
we were supposed to have Joe on,
but he,
you know,
missed some flight from Singapore yesterday.
And,
uh,
you know,
another great person that we're going to have on next week is, gosh, what's the supple leopard guy?
I just lost his name.
Supple leopard.
I don't know.
Why am I missing this?
This is the worst.
He's the guy who's like the number one sports physiotherapist from the CrossFit world right now, Kelly Sturette.
Oh, Kelly Sturette.
Yeah.
So he's a great person.
But I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no. I'm just saying we get an awesome opportunity to be able to connect with these people. Right, right's direct. Yeah. So he's a great person. But I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
No, no, no.
I'm just saying we get an awesome opportunity to be able to connect with these people.
Right, right, right.
But Ben is busy living in the woods, like prepping for the apocalypse.
Yeah.
You guys must do it by Skype, I would assume, right?
Yeah, we have to do it via Skype.
I mean, what you have right here is amazing.
But Ben and I are always trying to connect through some kind of crazy version, like whether it be a cell phone, walkie-talkie, or anything. Right are always trying to connect like you know through some kind of crazy
version like whether it be a cell phone walkie talkie or anything we have to connect uh-huh
that's cool man all right well what else do you have like what else is coming up so the show
you think might be coming out in january or january from what i heard you know i haven't
talked to him since but you know that's coming out um i have a couple other kind of cool tv
shows that are coming out but i have to keep a couple other kind of cool TV shows that are coming out,
but I have to keep my secret or I'll get shot by the networks. Um, other than that, you know,
just expect a year of racing back in Spartan race. I'll be out in here in Malibu. I'm going to be
opening up a gym in Santa Monica, another Epic. And, uh, you know, if anybody ever wants to reach
out to me, my name's Hunter McIntyre, um, hunt the sheriff because I got a sheriff badge tattoo
on my chest. I know I was going to ask you where the, where the, the nickname, the sheriff came from.
Alter ego from drinking my friend, just so you can only imagine the stuff we got into
the Hunter S Thompson of obstacle course racing.
Dude, I love that guy.
Um, so basically, yeah, you can always reach out to me.
I'm always trying to kind of get out there, share my message and have people come along
the journey.
Cool, man. And, uh, you're at, at at hunter the sheriff on twitter hunt the sheriff the sheriff
okay sheriff it is and you're on facebook and all that oh yeah you don't have a website do you
you know what squarespace screwed me man they came they they shut down my website now i have
to rebuild it like in some other way and they're a new format you can't talk shit about squarespace
man they're a sponsor i know look i'm not saying they're bad people but. You can't talk shit about Squarespace, man. They're a sponsor of the show. I know. Look, I'm not saying they're bad people,
but I get this email,
Squarespace is like, blah, blah, blah.
We've shut down until you're ready to reconfigure.
And I'm like, I just haven't done it.
Okay, yeah, because I was poking around.
I was like surprised I couldn't find a home base for you.
No, if you look at my Facebook page,
Hunter McIntyre, the athlete page,
I post videos every single week about things I'm doing.
So connect through that.
Right. All right. And like final little, like a nugget of wisdom here for somebody who's
out there, who's listening, maybe they're stuck in that cycle of like partying with their buddies
and they can't break out or they have some aspiration of, you know, doing something fitness
related or maybe doing one of these races, but they just can't get their shit together to take that first step?
What kind of inspiration would you suggest to kind of jumpstart somebody into checking it out?
If I could go back and I looked at myself in a little fishbowl,
I would say you have to find something that really calls to you every day when
you wake up besides the things that you may be using, like something that you know you really
are passionate about. And that was for me, it was fitness. But also I think that you need,
I think a lot of people isolate themselves in situations like that where they don't want to
reach out because they know that they're in a place where they don't want other people to see
what they have going on in their life. But I think the most powerful thing is, is connection with other people.
And you need to really just have people in your life who care about you and are willing to,
you know, reach out to you and be able to stick their neck on the line for you. Because that's
what happened with me. I never would have gotten to where I am right now if it wasn't for the
people who sacrificed, you know, a lot of money and time to help me get in the place I'm in.
And I'm fortunate.
But I think that's the thing.
You need to be able to reach out and you need to be able to expose yourself.
And even though that might be scary, it's going to take a lot.
But there's a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you can do it.
Right on, man.
Yeah.
Thanks for talking to me.
Love it, my friend.
Right on. Peace. Peace. Peace. of the rainbow if you can do it right on man yeah thanks for talking to me love it my friend right on
peace
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