The Rich Roll Podcast - How Adam Transformed His Life, Dropped 50 lbs & Became the 1st Person to Run the 163 Mile Pan-Mass Challenge

Episode Date: February 10, 2014

Straight up, this conversation encapsulates every aspiration I ever had for the show when I embarked upon this podcast journey a little over a year ago: inspiration, in the form of a relatable everyman guest sharing his personal story openly and honestly with absolute humility and a vulnerability that is rare in today's panoply of admirable role models. We get emotional. We get real. We get authentic. There's even a few tears. If you're not moved by Adam' story, then check yourself for a pulse. ” Adam Scully-Power ? Never heard of him.” I get it. Adam certainly isn't a household name. But that’s a shame, because we need more guys like Adam. So I'm doing my part to help change that, because Adam's story is extraordinary. And one that needs to be more widely heard. I'll start off with this — talking to Adam was like staring in a mirror. Not because we look alike – we don't. But I have never met anyone with a story that so closely tracks the facts and emotions my own experience. In fact, it's downright eerie. So let's break it down. Much like me, Adam is a happily married family man and father of four. Much like me, Adam had a denial-snapping middle-aged come-to-Jesus moment of reckoning catalyzed by his ever-expanding waistline, quickly deteriorating energy levels and dissatisfaction with his overworked, all-too-sedentary corporate lifestyle. Much like me, Adam turned to his health-conscious wife for a little guidance, who at the time had been experimenting — and finding success — with a plant-based way of eating. Much like me, and with nothing to lose, Adam decided to give this insane idea of just eating plants a whirl. Here's the Cliff Notes on what happens next: Adam's energy levels explode. Almost overnight, the extra pounds around Adam's waist melt away, seemingly without effort. With a vitality he could not previously recall, and for the first time in years, Adam resumes a modest fitness program to burn off all the extra energy coursing through his veins. But incapable of contentedness with “the occasional jog” Adam instead sets his sights higher. So high, in fact, he becomes determined to achieve his own personal impossible. Overwhelmed by the tragedy of last year's Boston Marathon, driven by an undeniable primal urge to test the outer limits of his physical, mental, emotional and spiritual limits, and propelled by a series of eerie, impossibly synchronistic and equally improbable events — including an image texted to him by his friend David Green from the Boston Marathon finish line that led to the capture of bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — last summer Adam lined up to attempt the unimaginable. An unprecedented 163-mile run across the entire state of Massachusetts. Adam accomplished this feat. Not in spite of his plant-based diet, but because of his plant-based diet. A feat made all the more remarkable because it occurred only one year subsequent to his epiphanic, life-changing moment of reckoning. To be sure, Adam Scully-Power's story of life transformation is nothing short of miraculous. An extraordinary journey that didn't just repair his health and resolve his waistline dilemma, but instead resulted in astonishing heights of accomplishment he could have never previously imagined in his wildest fantasy. A story of such dramatic life transformation you will be left in tears — and beyond inspired. Of course, not all of us have the desire to test ourselves as ultrarunners. That's not the point. What's important is the power that resides within all of us to change, achieve and be so much more than we think we can. Inside all of us resides a better,

Welcome to Episode 71 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Adam Scully Power. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, people. Welcome to the show. I'm Rich Roll. I am your host, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. No, you are not being Rick Rolled, but yes, this is a podcast. What kind of podcast, you ask? Well, health, fitness, for sure, but oh, so much more. Each week, I bring to you the best, most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in entrepreneurship, health, fitness, wellness, diet, nutrition, spirituality? I cast a broad net. Basically, my only rule for guests is, are you living an inspiring, authentic, and extraordinary life? Are you a service to something greater than yourself? And can we, can I, can we benefit from what you have to offer? And in return,

it's up to you. You guys, you take the tools, the messages, the inspiration that resonates with you and implement them into your life with a focus on implementation because osmosis is not going to get you there. This is a two-way street, people. And hopefully, you, me, and the world, we all become better as a result. That's my goal, pure and simple. Today on the show, we've got the great Adam Scully Power. Who's Adam Scully Power? I've never heard of him. Well, I'm going to get into that in a minute.

But before I do, I wanted to address a particular thing that's on my mind. As I'm sure everybody knows, this past week we lost the great Philip Seymour Hoffman. Another life taken too soon from the harrowing ravages of addiction, a disease that I, of course, for better or worse, am all too familiar with. disease that I, of course, for better or worse, am all too familiar with. It's so tragic, and it's also, you know, due to media coverage and social media, it becomes this other thing, this tabloid wet dream gift of a story that is exacerbated by the extraordinary, wondrous, exacerbated by the extraordinary, wondrous, and incomprehensible singular talent of a guy, a star, an actor so prodigious that, you know, essentially hyperbole is impossible when describing him.

And, you know, every day people die from this disease. Every day. It just so happens that because of his enormous talent, it begets so much coverage. And, you know, I didn't know Phil. Well, actually, you know, scratch that. I actually did know Phil, kind of. We weren't friends. We did meet on several occasions over the last 10 or 15 years. So I suppose it's fair to say that we were acquainted, but even that sounds weird. I think that's a little bit of a stretch. And when these things happen, these tragedies,

usually I just numb out. I'm a guy who is generally kind of incapable of summoning up that typical pantheon of tears and grief and empathy that's catalyzed by this kind of event. And, you know, I kind of like turned to stone, unfortunately. This emotional numbness, and I don't know why. You know, I do know that the way that I often respond and react to these things, you know, makes me feel weird. It's sort of like, I don't know how to describe it. You know, it's a feeling of almost feeling subhuman.

Like, why don't I have that depth of emotion that other people seem to have about these things? And, you know, it kind of leaves me feeling alone once in a while or separate from other people. But this time I have to say it's really different. people. But this time I have to say, it's really different. You know, I've been bereft the last couple of days. And why, you might ask, would this occasion be different? And it has to do with the fact that I'm very close with Phil's brother, his older brother, and I'm also well acquainted with his mother. And Gordy, Philip's older brother, has somebody who's played a big part in my life. He's somebody who, when I was very down and out

and kind of at the end of my rope, held out a helping hand and has been a guiding force in my life for many, many years. And so my grief, as much as it is for the passing of this wonderful talent, it's really for Cordy, for his mom, and for Phil's partner and his children, who I don't know and probably will never meet. But anyway, I just wanted to address this. And I think also that the depth of my emotional response to this is as much, um, a gratitude response for this incredible, amazingly full and rewarding life

that I now get to freely enjoy and all too often take for granted. Uh, and this crucial kind of almost incomprehensible role that, that Gordy has played in it. Uh, so if you're struggling, this is my message. Uh, if you're struggling, this is my message. If you're struggling out there with an addiction problem, with alcoholism, you don't know where to turn, I want you to know that there is an exit out of this prison. You don't have to continue to suffer the ravages of this horrible disease. And I personally am happy to connect with anyone who genuinely needs help

and is seeking help. So please reach out to me through the website or find somebody in your orbit that you can talk to and don't be afraid to ask for help. And if you do, you might be amazed at how much your life will change. And I think the other thing is the interesting sort of response on social media to this event.

I tend to sort of assume that most people understand addiction the way that I do. And it's been interesting to see that there still is a lot of misinformation out there and kind of this weird reaction of whether he was selfish or whether he, you know, had a choice that he made and he made the wrong choice. And what you have to understand is that this is incredibly powerful. And that locomotive for him pulled out of the station quite some time ago. And so although he may have had a choice at some point in the distant past about certain actions that he was taking,

by the time he was in that apartment or even over the last, who knows how long, you know, weeks or whatever, that choice was almost seized from him. And that is the powerful, incomprehensible grip of this disease. And so I'm just feeling it right now and wanted to kind of address it. So, all right, enough of that. Rest in peace, Phil. You will be deeply, deeply missed.

Today's show, Adam Scully Power. Never heard of him. Okay, fine. That's a shame. I hope to change that. He's an extraordinary dude. And I have to say, talking to this guy and getting to know him a bit was almost like looking in a mirror. I have never met somebody with a story so incredibly similar to my own. I mean, this is a guy with a corporate job. He works in the investment field. He's got four kids and he just turned 40. He's out here kind of on a vacation with his family. But, you know, not too long ago, like a year, year and a half ago, he hit, you know, a midlife malaise, 50 pounds overweight and decides to make a life change. He ends up adopting a plant-based whole food diet. And essentially what transpires as a result of that is pretty miraculous.

He becomes this crazy ultra-running phenomenon. And this last summer, he ran all the way across the state of Massachusetts, a 163-mile run. And he's going to come and tell us all about that and his trajectory, his journey, how he got to where he was to where he is now. His story is so similar to mine that at times during our conversation, I was just like, dude, I cloned myself. It was crazy and amazing to hear his experience, how it relates to mine and how it's different. And it's emotional. It's real. It's authentic.

In short, this episode is flat out already one of my favorites. And sharing stories like his, like this one, are exactly why I started this podcast. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming

and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, Thank you. to support and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether

you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right, you guys. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Adam Scully-Power. So I guess it was about, how long ago was it? Maybe nine months ago, a year ago, where I get this email from Brian Wendell, who's the executive producer of works

over knives. And he's like, Hey man, you got to check this guy out. Adam Scully power. He's got a great story. And, uh, there was an article about you, I guess it was ESPN.com. Yeah. It was guys probably six months ago now and six months. Right. And I read this article and I was like, Oh my God, I've never read a story about another person that was so similar to my own story. Like the amount of overlap was almost ridiculous. Yeah, you know, the article went out one morning and the whole thing was like a fanfare to me. I was literally sitting in a meeting and my phone just started pinging, like, you know, vibrating, blowing up. And, uh, so I, I said to the person, I said, can you excuse me for a second? I want to make sure one of the kids wasn't hurt. Were you at work or something? I was at work.

Yeah. And so I checked my phone and people are like, dude, you gotta go check this article out. And it was, uh, I didn't even really know it was was going to come out i talked to the person about a week before the uh the the folks at the pan mass challenge were sort of promoting what i was doing and so they they told the story and a guy had called me asked me a bunch of questions uh he said you know i might write an article and you know it might come out i didn't even know it's going to launch that morning and it just just kind of blew up that day right right right suddenly your world gets turned upside down yeah I mean folks most most of my friends people I work with they didn't even know what I was doing so I kind of kept it a little bit quiet because I didn't know if I'd be able to finish

right well yeah it's that's the that's the thing you know you go too public about it then your your successes and your failures are on a bigger canvas, I suppose. It got out there. And so it was. Definitely did. I think. And then Brian put it in the Forks Over Knives sort of email newsletter. And like, I don't know how many people subscribe to that, but there's a lot, you know, so.

Well, you know, it's funny. Like my phone rings that day and, you know, get a call and he's like hey i just read this article about you on espn and they talked about forks over knives you know watch the movie he's like tell me your story so i kind of walked him through the story he's like dude that's unbelievable it's changed your life and i said it really started right there that movie so let's walk it back um you know your uh you know the similarities again are so profound i mean you got four kids you're corporate executive you know focused on climbing the corporate ladder doing all the good you know sort of just living the life that we're

all sort of you know trying to live right like what you know how long ago are we talking now so you just turned 40 happy birthday by the way thank you yeah i'm getting getting old but i you know i turned 40 but i feel like i'm in the best shape of my life which is it's kind of a weird place to be but uh so going back it was you know it was uh probably about 18 months ago and uh you know i've got four kids um you know used to work out years ago is you know what i consider you know a I've got four kids. You know, I used to work out years ago. I was normally considered a decent athlete. You play, like, typical sports in high school?

High school. I wrestled in high school as captain of the football team, you know, all that. Where'd you grow up? Actually, I'm originally from Sydney, Australia. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. I moved here to the U.S. because of my father's work.

I was still pretty young and grew up in Connecticut. Yeah. No accent. No, I've been here a while now. So, uh, yeah, so we're, we're, uh, I was working hard for kids running around, you know, a lot of client dinners, eating out, the weight kind of packs on, you know, and not working out that much. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm looking through photographs and, uh, there was one in particular, it was a photo of the family there at Easter. And I was like, Oh, wow. It kind of just hit me. I was like, right. I'm big. Yeah. It's a weird thing. Um, you know, I've talked about this before. Uh, you know, denial is really powerful. Like, okay. So you're a captain of the high school football team and you kind of walk around if you're anything like me, you know,

I'd done a swimmer kind of sort of thinking you're still that guy, you know, and even when you look in the mirror, you still see that guy from college or high school, even if that's not what's actually being reflected back to you until something shakes it up and you're able to snap that denial. But it's weird how it doesn't, you know, it takes something for that to crack. Well, it's kind of two things, right? So it was that one photo and then it was my mom was in town

and she had been cleaning out. She brought a bunch of photos and she's like, oh, here, I got all these old photos. And I remember sitting on the couch flipping through these photographs and like, you know, i describe it to people like every photo was like being hit by a heavyweight fighter was like boom boom and i was looking at these photos like man i'm i'm heavy right and it's not that i wasn't like you know a contendant for the biggest loser yeah

yeah that's what i always say myself too it It's not, but I was, you know, I was, I got, I was probably 215, 217 pounds. And, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's not what I, you perceive yourself to be, but then you, you're looking at all these photos and all of a sudden it just triggered. I was like, you know, 40 was right around the corner. And I said that that's it. I just made a decision to get myself back into shape. Yeah, I mean, I've seen a couple of those photos. And yeah, it's not like, especially now with kind of what we, you know, what we entertain as normal in terms of, you know, weight and what people our age look like. I look at you and I go, he looks like a guy who's, you know, working at an investment bank. You know what I mean? You don't look like, you're not like a super

obese guy, but you also look 10 years older than you look now. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So it's, it's not like anybody, you weren't a guy who somebody is going to pull aside and say, Hey man, you need to, uh, you know, get your stuff together. Like take a little inventory about how you're living and you just look like a normal dude. You know? But it's funny, like going through this experience is I think the reason the story resonates too with a lot of people is people say, you know, I was in shape at one point and, you know, doing the corporate thing and I got kids and, you know, I let myself go a little bit. And then, you know, you go through this transformation and people respond to that. Yeah, because it's, well, it's, it's relatable to everybody. You know, we all, we all struggle with how much time we have during the day. We're all over committed. We're all, you know, maybe spending too much time on the wrong things. And, and it's

easy to say, I don't have time or I'm too busy. And then when somebody like yourself goes in and says, you know what, I'm not going to accept that definition and I'm going to do something different. I think the reaction is cuts two ways. It's inspiring for a lot of people because they see it can be done. But it's also threatening to other people because then they have to look at themselves and say, well, if he could do it, then I can too. And I'm not sure I'm ready for that or I don't like that. Well, I mean, you get a lot of mixed emotions. I mean, it's,

uh, so I'll go back a little bit. So I, I, I, all of a sudden I'm like, all right, that's it. I'm going to get myself back into shape. And there's like a little two mile track near my house. I'm like, I'm going to go out today. I'm going to go for a run. Right. Um, so I go do the two mile. I couldn't get through two miles. Right. Which is crazy. Cause at one point, you know, years ago, I was like, that would, it was, it it would have been like nothing but it sort of was grounding and kind of where I was at the time so I made a commitment to uh work out not every day I said every other day I'm gonna work out so I started to work out started to quote unquote eat better you know at least at that time it was what I thought was eating right like what did that mean actually um try and cut out some of the, the sweets and like, you know, I'm going to eat healthy. So I'd have a big steak dinner with some salad, right. That was like eating healthy to me at that point.

And, you know, I started dropping a little bit of weight just by, you know, quote eating better and started working out. And then my wife, who's fantastic, I mean, love of my life. And she, uh, she's always reading books about eating better and living longer. And she's like, you got to watch this movie with me. And she's like, it's called forks over knives. So we sit down the two of us and we watch this movie and I'm like, it makes sense. I mean, just really makes sense. At the end of the movie, she says, I'm going to try this for three months. Now, you've got to understand, my wife's from Argentina, right? It's like the meat capital of the world.

The best beef you're ever going to have. We go down there and visit her family. You get off the plane, and it's like a four-hour barbecue. I mean, that's what they do. And explain for people that might be new to the show or unfamiliar kind of the guiding principle of Forks Over Knives. So the premise is that in order to be healthy, you want to eat a plant-based whole food diet. And people always say, well, what is that?

And it's like fruits and vegetables and nuts and beans. And what you want to cut out is meat, dairy, and all the processed food, right? Which sounds so simple. And you watch the film, is meat dairy and all the processed food right which sounds so simple and you watch the film and then you've got all the the backstory and it just it makes sense you like but even even even at the end of it my wife's like all right i'm going to do this for three months and i said good luck honey let me know how it goes kind of thing and so she starts and and uh you know she cuts out the meat dairy. And so she starts and, and, uh, you know, she cuts out the meat dairy and all the processed foods and she's,

she's starting to eat fruits and vegetables and she's healthy already. I mean, she's not overweight and, um, and then every day she'd give me the nudge like, Hey, you should try this. I feel great. I mean, you should, you should try this. You should try this. So, you know, I had, uh, this was a couple months after my, my trigger to get myself back into shape. Right, so you were already kind of inclined to, you know, you're trying to take it to the next level. Yeah, I'd started dropping some weight and I was feeling good.

And, you know, she started in September. So October 1st, I'm like, all right, stop bothering me. I'm on board. I'll do it with you for three months, and we'll see how it goes. So October 1st, I just went one day, just said, that's it. I cut out meat, dairy, and all processed food, cold turkey. First week was, gosh, like what I would envision going through like a detox program like your body is just completely trying to readjust to this new uh lifestyle and type the way you eat and uh after about a week all of a sudden i was

like man i just feel amazing i mean my energy like went through the roof and i had all this energy and so i started to run a little bit more quite, it was just to burn some of the energy off. And you're not like some hippie living in Topanga Canyon, right? Like you're an investment banker. You're living in Florida at the time? I was living in Florida at the time, and, you know, I'm doing the corporate thing. I'm going to have a lot of client dinners and steak dinners, wine, and the whole nine yards and stuff. And so all of a sudden now I'm like, now I'm not eating meat.

Right. But when you said, just to backtrack, you said, you know, you watched a movie and it made sense to you. I mean, I think when you, at least my experience, when I kind of talk to people and I say I eat a plant-based diet and it doesn't include these things and you know I focus on these things that doesn't intuitively make sense to most people. That's that's sort of like well What's what's left? I don't understand and why and so what was it about it that spoke to you or seemed to make sense to? You you know, how did that equation come together? I'm kind of a numbers guy and so the data behind it is really powerful Right when you watch it. People always ask me, they're like, where do I start?

And I always tell them, listen, go watch the movie. And for me, it just clicked. I don't know. And then my wife started, and she's like, I just feel great. Give it a try, give it a try. So I'm like, okay, I'm on board, man. I'll try it for three months. We'll see what happens. And, uh, so my energy's going through the roof and all of a sudden, like, well, the weight just starts dripping off. Like it was just,

it was bizarre to me. Right. And, uh, you know, um, so weight's coming off, I'm feeling better. So weight's coming off. I'm feeling better. And I just started running a little bit more, right, just literally to burn energy off. And I would, like, recover unbelievably. So it was, like, October 1st that we started. And then I've been doing it for, God, it was probably early December. And I was running up to, I got up to about 13 miles at that point. And a buddy of mine goes, hey, would you mind pacing me for the second half of this marathon that I'm doing?

So I'm like, all right. And my buddy George, I'm like, no problem at all. And I'll come out. And I'm a little nervous, right, because he's fast. I'm not that fast. But I don't know. He asked me to come out and pace him. So I'm like, ah.

So I drive my car out to halfway point in the marathon. He comes running by. I jump in. And I'm pacing him. And we're trucking along. And he had a tough second half anyway. So he started to slow down and everything. But we get to the finish line.

And it's 13 miles for me and it's kind of as far as i've been going at that point and i don't know what it was or what it clicked but like all of a sudden i'm like man my car is halfway back in the marathon you didn't really think this through i didn't think it through at all dude i didn't think at all but i'm feeling great and i'm like i'm gonna i'm gonna try and run back and get it and i and so and i did and you know it took a while but i ran back i got in my car and i was sitting there and i was like holy cow man i just like doubled as far as i'd run at that point and uh i ran a marathon today. How long after switching your diet did this occur? So this was two months after switching my diet. Only two months.

So you'd only really been, like how long had you been, how long had you resumed your exercise routine? So that was in December. It would have been that summer is when I started. So you're like six months in or something like that? Yeah, probably six months in from going from not even being able to do two miles to working myself up. I was doing about 13.

And you switched to diet. I switched to diet in October. Dude, when I switched to diet. Everything kicks into a high gear. Dude, when I switched the diet, man, everything just clicked. It was, and it was, I'm just watching the weight drop. I mean, in my adult life, right, I was sort of like, I'd get down to a certain point, and I just, all of a sudden, I switched to plant-based, and it just blew through that. And I almost couldn't believe it. Yeah, I mean, I'm literally, you know,

freaking out here because I've never heard somebody tell my story, like almost to the T, like the way that you're relating your experiences. It's so incredibly similar to my experience. And when I tell, I mean, my version of your marathon run experience was, you know, it was maybe three months after I'd switched my diet. And like you, I'd started kind of resuming an exercise routine prior to that, but it was, it was never anything all that significant. You know, I was just trying to lose a little bit of weight. And when I switched to plant-based, that's when all the weight kind of just shed off without having to really do anything. And, and the energy levels are going through the roof and,

and I'm starting to run more and go to the pool, et cetera, predominantly to burn off all this extra energy that I had so I could sit still and focus when I was at work, like I literally was bouncing off the walls. And then I went out for a trail run. Um, and my expectation was I was going to run for like an hour, uh,

something like that. It was a weekday morning and I did the same. I ran away from my car, but it was one of those days where I just felt amazing and everything's clicking and you just feel like you can go and go and go. That was the, that was the pace. And I was like, dude, I've been running for two hours and I haven't turned around yet. Like I turned around to go run back to my car, not because I felt like I was running out of steam, but because I got worried because no one knew where I was. And I thought, you know, if I get a cramp and fall in the bush here, they're going to have to bring a helicopter out here and get me.

And, yeah, I clocked it out later, and it was like 24 miles. And, you know, it was so much further than anything I'd ever done, and I couldn't believe it. And when I tell that story, you know, the reaction that I get often is, well, you're just some kind of athletic freak. And I have to say, well, you know, maybe I did kind of unlock some dormant gene that I didn't know that I get often is, well, you're just some kind of athletic freak. And I have to say, well, you know, maybe I did kind of unlock some dormant gene that I didn't know that I had, or at least a passion for this because I loved it so much. But I can't emphasize or overemphasize, you know,

the extent to which the diet contributed to that, that catalyzed that. And so to hear somebody else essentially tell the exact same story, like reaffirms that. Well, it's, it's funny, like, you think back over the years, like you can work out, lose a little bit of weight, right? You can eat a little bit better, lose a little bit of weight. But for me, it was switching to a plant based diet, it just all came together. Right. And so, so what happened was like, you know, I did this pacing, you know, got myself back to the car. I ended up doing the marathon that day, which was just kind of mind-boggling at the time. You'd come home and tell your wife, like, guess what I did today? It was just bizarre.

It was just a little bizarre. But it was like, and then three days later, I see one morning a buddy of mine, David Green. And, you know, i knew he did crazy stuff and crazy races i didn't he's like he's like the local ultra freak well every every town's got one yeah i mean he's like he's knowing he does he's like crazy races and all this stuff and i didn't even know what it all meant to be honest with you so i see him and i'm like hey how's it going he's like good and i'm like hey what are you training for these days? And so he's like, oh, man, I'm training for this ultra marathon in two months. It's 110 miles.

We're raising some money for charity. It goes on and on. And I'm looking at him like, are you serious? And all of a sudden he stops. In the middle of his conversation, he looks me square in the eyes and he goes, you should do it with me. And I'm like... And this was kind of after you'd done that

out and back marathon. This was three days later. Oh, three days later. It was literally three days later. And I'm like, I couldn't tell if he was joking or he was serious. It's a message from God. But you know what?

I'll tell you. It's like all of a sudden, it all kind of came together and it was like, and, uh, so I'm, and he planted this little seed, right? And I'm like, man, maybe, maybe I should try this, man. I just, I feel, I feeling amazing, right? I mean, um, the diet's kicking in, weight's dripping off. And, uh, so I sort of just, I was like, yeah, I'll think about it. And I sent him an email later that day. And I said, how do you even do something like that, right?

So he emailed me back, and he's like, this is what we do. This is the plan and everything like this. And so that was December 14th. And long story short, two months later, I show up at the starting line of this 110 mile ultra marathon and you know I cranked my mileage up in those two months I seem to recover incredibly well I mean like and I'm just I'm all all in 100% all plan-based, nothing processed, ramping the miles, recovering, going out the next day. So how many miles? I mean, that's a really short period of time to ramp up.

It's ridiculous. You know, like most people would say, you can't do that. I mean, maybe physically, like sort of aerobically, you could handle that, but you're going to get injured. Well, this is what I said to myself. So I didn't tell anybody, right? Right. right i mean like my wife knew right i told my wife i'm like i'm thinking about doing this so david he's like he gives me his training program and i'm like i'm gonna see if i can stick to it let me get to the end of december and see if hopefully let's see if i don't get hurt and are you getting like multiple long runs in in the week

or doing one long run and shorter runs more repeated throughout the how's that how did that look dude i just ran you're just running yeah right don't over complicate it don't over compliment people are like like what like i got four kids right so i'd get up at 3 30 in the morning and i'd run right and i just i'd run for four hours and i get home i take a quick shower and then we're off to soccer practice or lacrosse or whatever you know it was just I do it early in the morning or I do it and I remember one night coming in and like where I got home late from work and I'm like I'm going to run right and I put I had my blinky lights on and everything like that cuz it's pitch dark my wife's like what are you doing I'm like I'm going for a run she's like you look like a Christmas tree yeah you know so like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm going for a run. She's like, you look like a Christmas tree

out there, you know? So I'm just doing the miles and I'm like, if I can get through, let me get through December and see if I don't get hurt. Fine,

I'll do that. Let me get through January and see if I don't get hurt. So this is, so I'm in February. This race was in mid-February and all of a sudden, I start to tell people,

I'm like, I'm going to try and do this run. They're like, you can't do that. There's no way. And you hadn't even done a marathon yet. I mean, other than you're out and back when you were helping your buddy.

Yeah, I mean, like years ago I used to do stuff, but it had been a while. So this is like, you know, it just seemed incomprehensible. So we go to the starting line. And what was your longest run, Ben, ramping up the line? I probably did, I think I did a 30-miler once because I remember taking a picture of the watch and being like, wow, that's kind of a long way.

And then the idea of running 110 was just like, I went into it with, you got to do that more than three times. I had no idea. Right. Right. But God, you know, I tell people all the time, it's like, you know, you have, you have a goal, go for a big goal, but have a plan. And so I give a lot of, a lot of kudos to David. He, he held me out with a plan in terms of training. You know, he sent me like a list of like, this is all the stuff you're going to need. The thing about these things, which I've learned too, is it's not about you and you have a support crew, right? You can't get through one of these without a support crew. And I had, I had a tremendous support crew. My family's fantastic.

You know, kids decorated the whole car. But I remember this incident. I was at a basketball practice. This was probably a couple days beforehand. And a friend of ours was asking someone else in town, like, hey, you know, who's doing that 110 miler? And, you know, they said, oh, so-and-so and so-and-so and Adam Scully Power. And she goes, what?

I think he's not doing that. There's no way he can do that, right? And I see her at practice, and she's like, you can't do that. And I'm like, well, I'm going to give it a try. So we went to the starting line. And you had gone from 215 pounds down to where were you right now? Well, I'll tell you exactly where I was, right? So I was 215 pounds.

I probably got down to maybe, I don't know, one. Well, when I started the race, I was 172 pounds. And the reason I know that is because what we did is we weighed ourselves. Yeah, at these long races, they make you get weighed so they can monitor. Well, yeah. I mean, so you weigh yourself to know where you are. they can monitor well yeah i mean so you weigh yourself right to know where you are but then like every 10 miles like our support crew would put the scale on the ground we'd run up we'd step on the scale and we weigh ourselves and the reason why is because it's kind of like you can monitor

how your body's doing and uh um you know if you put on too much weight it's not good if you're not putting on enough it's not good either If you're not putting on enough, it's not good either. So that was how you would monitor yourself. So, you know, I'm out there and now I've been eating all plants, right? Super clean, super clean. But I don't know what I'm doing out there. And all I know is, Dave, it's like you got to take in calories, 300 calories an hour, right?

You got to do it, whatever you do. So not knowing what to do. So I'm taking the gels right right all processed yeah and when you go from eating clean clean clean to all processed man your body doesn't react that no not to mention the fact that you know that's a huge burst of sugar and once you spike your your blood sugar like that you got to keep it up or you're gonna have a crash you're gonna be out there for god knows how many hours. So we're, we're like 35 miles in, we're out in the middle of nowhere and all this process stuff, all of a sudden there was a port-a-potty

and I'm like, I got to go in there, man. I didn't, I go in there, I come out, I had, it didn't react well with me at all. And quite frankly, horrible diarrhea i get out i get on the scale and i drop six pounds well and i remember david looking at me going he's like that's not good right that you know that's dangerous he's like you got to put the weight back on but you can't do it all at once so it took me uh it took me three and a half hours while i'm running to put six pounds back on. But we kept going and, uh, and we did, I ran 110 miles, took me 24 hours and 38 minutes. So I went from, you know, that sort of crazy, you know, pacing the guy to do a half marathon to running 110 miles in two months. That's, that is just mind boggling.

It's just honest. It, it, it changed my perspective on what's possible in all aspects of my life, you know, and I, and I, you know, I've put a lot of faith in, in the, the way I was eating to get me there. So what, what, what, what did, uh, I'm sure it's evolved since then, but what did a typical day in food look, look like for you ramping up to that race? Um, I just ate a lot, race um i just ate a lot man i eat huge quantities of food but i you know i do uh i became a fan of the vitamix my wife bought a vitamix and so you know she started at first and so now everything put everything was going into the vitamix huge salads you know um just huge quantities if i didn't count a single calorie it just just, it's not like that. Yeah. I mean, we were talking, um, before the interview, we just made a Vitamix in the kitchen

and, uh, we were talking about like how, yeah, you know, people say, well, what's your, what's your pre, you know, pre-workout Vitamix, what's your post-workout, but you know, what do you put in? And we were sharing this idea that like hey man it's whatever's in the whatever whatever's in the fridge man it goes in there and like i don't get caught up in measuring this or that or making sure i have one of the other things more often than not especially when you have four kids and you're working it's like you know you know i don't have time to make sure i'm completely stocked in every single thing like i got you know the kids are in there eating it and i just i go in in there and whatever's there is what's going in. Whatever's there goes in, you know,

and it just, you whip it up and it's, you know, and now, you know, it's funny. I remember like, I think it was in the movie too. They said, when you get to the point where you crave like a kale salad, you're there. And you know, I'm, I got there quickly, you know, it just changed all your cravings for all sweets. That's gone. Right. That's the important thing. People say, well, why don't you, you know, what about cheat days or what about just doing it, you know, 90%. And I say, that's great. If that's where you're at, you know, if that's a step up, you know, I had to do it cold Turkey, like you, I had to go all in. And if I allow myself to be 90%, then that's a slippery slope back to Jack in the Box for me.

No, no, no. I went all in. And, you know, it's just, you know, that three-month, I call it the experiment, was when the weight came up. I went to the doctor after I had my cholesterol. And my cholesterol dropped like a rock, you know, and running these crazy miles. So, yeah, it was just amazing. So we do this 110- 110 miler and you do something like that it did change it does man it changes your perspective um and so we finished and people

are like oh you know one and done you know you got that out of your system and then you know my buddy david's like well let's go do another one right okay so Okay. So we, uh, so we went down in May and we did the keys 100, which runs from key Largo down to key. Well, I'd never even actually been to the keys before. So I figured it was a hell of a way to see the keys. It was just run, run the whole way.

Right. So we go down and we do the keys 100. And my goal for these things, and you got to remember, man, I was 50 pounds heavier just a few months ago. So, um, my goals for these things are just to finish that's it all i want to do is go down to finish and it was like

brutally hot that day right i heard i had a buddy of mine who spent on the podcast a couple times mishko shibali he uh he went down to that race and was pacing a buddy of his and he was telling me how hot it was oh man it was it was like sauna hot right and you're just you know every chance you can your support crew will just just drench you with ice cold water and there was there was a big group i don't know how many people 150 people started it and i think at the end of the day only 68 people actually finished it was a huge dropout right but you know i go down and i'm just I'm slow and steady that's all I'm all about just slow and steady and you know it was a tough day and and I went through

and I you know I came across I think that one was like 20 22 hours and uh camera 22 hours and something the only good one about that is it's flat it is flat right you know it's funny like I come across they're like hey congratulations good job you know they're like you're in you came in 15th and i'm like whoa what like this whole thing is just new to me right this this ultra distance thing um so we got the keys in and that was that was a great race and then uh you know and then the next thing is my buddy david again he's doing all these crazy things so he goes and runs the boston marathon and uh comes across the finish line of the boston marathon and he's on the finishing block when the bombs go off right and i hear it on the news

and i go i call right away i'm the phone. All the phone lines are dead. Like, nothing's going through. So I send him a text that says, two words, are you okay? Question mark. He texts me back. He's like, yes, blast happens in front of me, and he sends me a picture. So what happened is when the bombs went off, he's on the block. He takes his camera out and takes a single photograph of Boylston Street right there at the finish line. Yes, blast happens in

front of me and he sends me the picture. I don't think anything of it. Thank God he's okay. But when the Boston Marathon bombing, I don't know what it was, but I sat there and it sort of affected me and I'm just thinking,'m like I gotta do something I didn't know what it was and you know so I get this idea my colleague of mine at work probably a couple months earlier was like hey you uh you want it you want to join us we're getting a team together to ride in this thing called the pan mask challenge which is it's one the largest, I think it's the largest charity fundraiser in the country. It's been going on for years. 5,000 people will bike across the state of Massachusetts.

And I get this idea. You go west to east? You go west to east. There's a couple of different routes. They all end up in Provincetown, right at the very tip of the Cape down there in Massachusetts. So Wednesday night, Mar marathon was on Monday. Wednesday night, I was traveling, and I tracked down the founder of the Pan-Mass Challenge, a guy by the name of Billy Starr. I never met him.

And I send him an email completely out of the blue saying, I've got this idea. After what happened this week with the Boston Marathon, I'd like to participate in the Pan Mass Challenge this year, but I don't want to bike it. I want to run it. I'm sure you probably don't get an email like this every day. So think about it. And if you have any interest, you know, I'd love to chat with you. And that was Wednesday night. interest you know i'd love to chat with you and that was wednesday night so thursday morning and this this wasn't something you ran you uh sort of ran by the wife you just uh you got an idea no idea fired off the email i'll tell you i look back before you could change your mind about what you might possibly be committing to i tell you i'm on the road right it's 10 o'clock on wednesday and i

looked at the 10 o'clock wednesday night i fire it off to him and uh thursday morning he calls and he's like you this is a bike event this we don't we don't this is not a running event i think you you misread the uh fine print he's like we've been for 30 years we this is a bike event right and uh and i go no no i understand but after what happened this week i want to do something as a tribute to all the victims in boston and i want i want to run this thing and i walked him through i'm like you know we'll have our own support team we'll just we'll go through we'll do the thing and you know and he goes all right he said he said we'll do it and i said all right let me let me get let me get right back to you all right so this is this is thursday now then do you have a uh oh shit moment what did i just well no no i'll tell you what happened man you know things are things in life things in life

come together for a reason it's just you know so this was this was probably 11 o'clock on that Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon, the FBI releases the images of the two guys that they think are the bombers from Boston. And it hits the news. And we're looking at the picture that the FBI releases. And then we go back and we're looking at the picture that my buddy David texted on Monday and if you open up the picture that he texted and you look in the lower left-hand corner crystal clear he's got the picture of the bomber I mean it was just yeah Zokar Sarnoff is in the picture right I mean you but for those that you've seen you've seen this picture a hundred times right and we look at me i was like oh my god look that's him so how did how did

he get his image to the fbi did he send it to them yeah so he's crazy we're like so he david he sends the photo into the fbi the fbi, this is the clearest, highest resolution photo we have of the bomber, one of the bombers. And the photo just goes viral. I mean, it goes literally viral. And it was, you know what? I talked to Billy Star that morning about running the Pan Mass as a tribute to all these victims. And when the photo, which was texted to me on Monday, which you wouldn't think anything of it until.

Right, everybody had their phone out taking pictures. Yeah. And it was like, that was a sign that we're like, wow, man, this is meant to be. was a sign that we're like wow man this is meant to be so i mean you know cnn calls up dave and hey we want you to come on and show the photo and everything like that and i remember texting him and going dude i'm doing this pan mass challenge now you're in i'm i'm all in at this point you know at first it's like this crazy idea you know billy star Star says, yeah, I'm good. Let's do this thing. And that photo was like a sign that says, I'm all in. Right.

So you sent me the, not just the photo, but like a screen grab of the text message being sent to you of the photo. I'll put that up on the website so you guys can check it out. But that's really eerie. I mean, that's crazy it's right it's crazy and it makes me you know think a lot about something that i also talk a lot about which is this idea that you know your life in so many ways can boil down to these little events these little moments that occur and when you're paying attention they can be momentous and change your life in dramatic, marvelous, and wonderful ways. So, like, when your friend David comes up to you and says, hey, man, do this 110 with me, like, out of the blue.

Like, what's that about? Like, that's never happened to you before. And it happened three days after that run. And it happened to you at the exact moment when you were ready to hear that and do something and make that change in your life. And then to sort of be interested in the idea of honoring the Boston Marathon and the synchronicity of that photograph and the timing of when it went viral and released and your commitment to do this 163-mile run. It's like, dude, you know, there's more going on here. You know, it's like, dude, you know, there's more going on here. You know, that's just, it's an extraordinary chain of events. It's, it's, as I think back on it, it's almost eerie

in some regards. So, so now I'm committed, right? I'm, I'm, I'm in and I'm starting to, uh, I'm starting to ramp my, I got to start preparing for this thing. You know, I, this was a long way for a guy guy who just you know not that long ago was 50 pounds heavier but for the average person listening it's like 110 163 it's the same thing i was like whatever you know anything above anything longer than a marathon it just gets lumped into the category of ultra marathon like whether it's 50 or 163 it all it's like the difference between 100 billion and a trillion. It's like you can't, it gets to that point where you can't wrap your brain around it.

But it's, and it's all new to me, right? But, you know, at each step, I mean, you change your perspective on what is possible, right? And so I'm training for this thing. And I didn't tell a lot of people at first, right? So it's, you know, I did it as a tribute to the victims of Boston, the Pan Mass Challenge. They raise money for cancer research. So, you know, I had a commitment to raise some money for cancer research as well. But most of the people that I work with had no idea.

And I didn't tell them because I didn't know if I could finish, right? But you're already known as the guy who ran 110, and you've done two ultras at this point. Yeah, so they're, yeah, right? I guess so, but I don't think of myself. People tell me all the time, like, hey, you're the runner. I don't think of myself as a runner. I mean, I guess I am at this point,

but I still don't even think of myself that way. So it's, and the people from the pan mass challenge yeah i i didn't i quite i quite frankly didn't really want the publicity for this thing but there this was different right so for 30 years they've been raising they raised 30 38 million dollars in a single weekend this is a huge huge endeavor and uh no one ever had ever run it before so they start to tell the story a little bit because they're trying to raise awareness for the charity i said you know it's for charity i'm going to go with it and so they would float the story to a few people and that's when that reporter called me up and you know said tell me about what you're doing and uh and then that then the article it was the morning before i was gonna start friday

morning that thursday morning that article went out on espn and it was great article and it just blew up i mean it just blew up that day so what happens when you show up at the event now everybody's looking at you like you're everybody knows what you're going to be attempting here well it's so it's like so let me kind of go back for a second so what they do with the pan mass challenge is they start saturday morning right and they'll bike half the distance on saturday then they they sleep out they spend the night there's a 5 000 bikers they've got a little uh army barrack barricade or barracks that they spend the night and then they get up sunday morning and they bike the seconds the second half so billy star who runs it says you know i want I want you to try and finish before all the bikers get in. Now, um,

I have to kind of create a plan, right? And one of the things that when you put yourself out in life like this, it's amazing who comes into your life. And I got connected, um, with, uh, with one of the world-class ultra distance runner, Lisa Smith batch. And of course, uh, she's a, you know, I got connected with her. She kind of heard about what I was doing. I did a call with her and I told her I was, you know, what I was doing, I needed some help. And she's like, okay, kiddo, I'm going to come on board and help you. So she helped me with, uh, with the training stuff leading up to it. She's fantastic. She's got, she's doing some crazy events coming up. She's amazing. She's done. She's just an amazing, amazing person, fabulous lady, and, uh, forever indebted for the help that she, uh, she gave me. So, um, so I talked to her and

she's like, you know, we've, we've figured out the schedule. She's like, like you know the best thing to do is leave friday morning so so i start 5 45 at sunrise on friday morning all the bikers are going to start saturday and uh and i just i go non-stop for 163 miles and who's who's your crew yeah i had the crew i had the fam right yeah i had my wife my wife is the best i mean the absolute best she's your crew? I had the crew. I had the fam, right? Yeah. I had my wife. My wife is the best. I mean, the absolute best. She's my crew person. I'm sure you got the advice that that's probably not a good idea.

So the crew is my wife, my brother, my dad, and then my wife's father, my father-in-law. So I have the whole family, right, which created some interesting moments along the course. I can assure you for that. But we start out, and I had a plan. It's like anything in life, right? You've got to have a giant goal. You've got to have a plan. You've got to have a tenacity, a purpose of what you're trying to do.

You're going to have setbacks along the way. There is no question, and you've got to have a tenacity of purpose of what you're trying to do. You're going to have setbacks along the way. There is no question. And you've got to persevere through them. And don't be afraid to ask for help. People rally around really big goals, really big goals. And so I start. And what happened the day before is the word started to spread right the local news was like i want to come and talk to you we're going to put you on the news and everything like that so

the whole thing was just a whirlwind for me and then and you called me that night that's right yeah how did i how did we connect like i think i tweeted out like oh you got i tweeted out the espn story or something i shared it and then or I found out how to tag you on it or something like that I think you somehow tagged me on the ESPN story and it hit Facebook and I'm not a big Facebook person but I and I was like now you got to go back so I I didn't know you beforehand but when I decided when i watched forks over knives and went plant-based and then got sucked into doing that first ultra i didn't know what i was doing so i went online right i started reading stuff up ultra distance plant-based and guess who pops up rich roll because not too many other guys rich roll that's right so i i get your book right

and i read your book actually i downloaded it and i used to listen to it when i was running and uh so um you hit yeah the uspn article went you you tweeted put it on facebook and uh i pinged you a message back and i was like thanks for for the shout out there. You know, I've read your book, you know, fantastic. And, uh, I think we swapped a few, a few messages back and forth and I'll, I'll never forget it. Was it the, I was sitting in the minivan and we'd rented a minivan for the support crew and I was loading the minivan up the night before and all the supplies. And you called me just to say, good luck tomorrow. And that was, that was. Oh, man. Well, I mean, just huge respect for what you had taken on. And, you know, like I said, I mean, your story resonates with me so completely. You know, it's like I get chills hearing you say it.

Like, it's my story. You know, I can't help but, like, celebrate that. And, you know, anything that I can do to help inspire you to see it through, you know what I mean? Like, it's just unbelievable what you were undertaking. Cause I didn't know, again, you don't kind of know what you're getting into.

You don't know how your body's going to react. But the, at this point, man, I felt pressure, right? Cause now it's out there. Oh yeah.

Like I tried to, it's different, right? Oh, it's very like, you know, I tried to keep it quiet cause I didn't know if I could finish, but now it's like this article is going out.

I didn't look for that, but because they were trying to bring some awareness to the charity, they started to tell the story. So the local news did a thing the night before, but it was weird. So I started at 545 on that Friday morning. There's no one. Well, actually, they sent a little news crew there, right? There's a news truck there.

They wanted to videotape me leaving. And I'm like, this is just weird, right? So we just started running, right? And I got the support crew, and cars would come up, right? And they'd roll down the window. They'd go, hey, you you that guy running they're running the pan mask i was like yeah i saw you on the news last night good luck and it's just it was a weird experience for me you know so we're trucking along so i started at 5 45 friday i just

kept running and uh and what you said you know you this big goal, but then you have a plan. So what was the plan? So first, well, the plan is, again, you go back to nutrition and calories and pacing. And, you know, I have all that in my head, you know, ready to go, written out. Lisa had helped me really devise a like a race strategy to get through it because the goal for one of these things is just to finish it didn't matter to me this was all for charity didn't matter how long it took i just wanted to finish that's all i tried to do and uh so friday we were out there and, it started getting hot and we're just trucking along and I'm eating and drinking nonstop.

And so I assume there's like a, there's a run walk kind of protocol. I'm a big fan of the run walk. Yeah. So we go, I go eight twos, right? Which is run for eight minutes, walk for two minutes, run for eight minutes, walk for two minutes. And those two minutes that you're walking, it lets you eat, it lets you drink. It gives your legs a little bit of a break. And if you do it, you can just, you can go for a long time. Yeah. It's amazing. And, uh, you know,

I had Charlie Engel, great ultra runner on the show. And he said, uh, he's like, you know, cause there's all this, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about ultra running. They think people are just running six minute miles for like 24 hours straight and i'm like no it's not really what's going on here even the greats even the winners are are choosing their walk moments and they're implementing a smart run walk method you know and charlie always says you know who you know when he does public speaking he says who here can run a mile in 11 minutes? You know, and most people raise their hand. Yeah. And he says, well, if you could do that, for the 135 mile distance of bad water, you wouldn't just win the race, you'd break the course record. So that's what we're talking about

here, right? And the run walk method is, is really the way you have to go. And it's not about walking when you start to get tired. It's about walking from the very beginning so that you know you you have to implement that strategy before you start oh you got to train you got to train and you have to train it right and yeah you can train your walk so that you're it's a swift it's different from a normal oh no no when you you know the walk is not a little it's not just a stroll in the park you're you're kind of your power walk right you've got to train that way so that you can run power walk and then get going again and keep cranking it cranking it out and you just you know i've got my watch and it just keeps beeping you know and you just time to do it and even when you don't want to do it like i feel good i want to keep running like no you know stick to

the plan you know and you go through you know you hear you hear people talk about i hit the wall in a marathon well like when you you run 163 miles you hit a lot of walls right and the thing that amazes me is that you know i mean david goggins said i read about it he said you know when you you get to the point where i may misquote him, you get to the point where you think you're done and you've only used 40%. Dude, you keep saying things that I say all the time. When I do public speaking, I leave people with that quote. It's true. I mean, it's amazing how you can feel horrible

and all of a sudden, you can turn the corner and be reborn again and you go through these you go through these moments and I remember I remember you know pacing myself and you know probably I was probably at the 70 mile mark maybe like seven between 70 and 80 miles I just felt phenomenal I don't know what it was they're just cranking those miles out and then I'm running along and then these these two bikers came up behind me. You know when you feel someone behind you, and you just kind of look over your shoulder,

and they're peeping their head around, and I think that's the guy, right? I think that's the guy running. And they're like, hey, you running the Pan Mass? I was like, yeah, yeah. They're like, I told you that's the guy. I told you that's the guy. I told you that's the guy. So these two, a guy and a girl were on their bike. They hung with me for a couple miles and were chatting and everything.

It was cool. And they went on. And then about half an hour later, I'm still running. They're on the side of the road with their running stuff on. Oh, wow. And he goes, hey, can I run with you for a while? And I go, yeah, I love the company. And he ran with me from, uh, I don't know, maybe 10 30 to like 11 30 that night. Um, and it was just, it was nice to see. I mean, people came out and really rallied

and supported. It was, it was very cool. So, uh, so you make it through this how many hours does this take you so um the whole thing took me four just over 41 hours wow and was there you went you powered through did you ever did you sleep at all grab a nap or anything like that didn't sleep um you know we'd i'd stop from time to time take 10 or to, you know, refuel up and just kind of mentally check in and whatnot. Maybe, you know, every 20, 25 miles or something like that. And, you know, you talk about the dynamics of the support crew, right? So we were, now the course is not a straight, like, point to point. It weaves through different roads and this way and that way

and you know they're keeping the direction and you know i'd be like hey how much further we have and they'd they'd go to their their phone and the gps and they'd be like oh you've got uh whatever 70 miles right and what they're looking at on their phone is just the straight road oh oh no and i'm like oh that's not too bad we've got 70 miles they're looking can't mess around as the bird flies so to speak yeah and the and the course is on all these side roads and everything so like they're when they're saying 70 miles I probably have 90 still to go and they kept doing this all day and it's not their no not their fault but it messes with you a little bit oh that can be debilitating when you find I mean even just to know you have a couple more miles than you thought when you're at that point, that breaking point.

Yeah. So I tell people, I'm like, you know, so I started at 545 on a Friday morning. I ran all day Friday. I ran all Saturday night. I ran all Saturday, Saturday night, the sun goes down. Now, when you're putting your reflector vest and your blinky lights on for the second night in a row emotionally that's a tough place to be right that's and people are like did you have any tough moments that was one of them right so the lights sun's going down and putting the vest on for the second night and for some reason i didn't think about it but you know the course goes out down through cape cod massachusetts and i figured when we get out to the cape it would get nice and flat and it doesn't get flat down there at all and it gets really

hilly right so those last those last parts are in the hills and uh you know it's it's funny folks will say hey was there ever was there was there points where you were just like i can't do it and i felt pretty good i remember my brother goes, hey, you're almost there. Now, if someone says you're almost there, that's a relative term. Well, I don't know, right? So he's like, hey, you're almost there, and I'm thinking, God, maybe two or three miles.

We're almost there. And then they're silencing. He goes, you got nine miles to go. Now, nine miles in the scope of 163 doesn't sound like a lot but when you've been running for you know 150 something miles nine miles at that point was like so we kept trucking along and i'll tell you the point where the point where I said it became tough is I was probably three miles away and uh I said that was tough those last three miles those were that was a really tough moment you know I think physically and mentally it just became difficult and you and you talk

about like things that happen so um you know my support crew is in the car and uh all of a sudden the police car comes up with a flashing light and i remember the cop uh comes up rolls his window he goes what the heck are you doing because it's dark it's saturday night we're on this busy road and he's like what are you doing like guys out there like you're running i said i'm i'm like half delirious at this point i'm like i'm running the pan mass challenge he's like oh oh you're that guy he's like i'll stay with you right so he stayed with the flashing lights i'm starting to really deteriorate and my wife gets out of the car i love her and she comes up and uh you know you're you're run you running a little bit, you're walking a little bit. And, uh, so she's, she's by my side, right. Which was just

great. And my wife has her phone in her hand and she gets a text message from, uh, the text exchange between the two of them, of which my wife is reading. It was tough. Lisa's texting messages. Man, I get caught up with this. It's alright, man. So, she's texting messages of friends of hers who have died from cancer.

of friends of hers who have died from cancer. And my wife's reading it. I'm sorry, man. No, man. I've had the privilege of you sharing a couple of those, and I've read some of them in the articles. So Lisa's sending messages of friends and people in her lives that have died of cancer. And that's what the whole thing's about,

raising money to find a cure for cancer. and raising money to find a cure for cancer. And, you know, right at the moment where it's the most difficult, you know, I'm running and I'm listening to this text exchange between my wife and her and Lisa saying, read it out loud to him. my wife and her and Lisa saying, read it out loud to him. And it helped me get through those last few miles. And these were emails that had been sent to you in support and in the wake of the press coverage?

No, this is just stories of people out there that had suffered. This is my wife and Lisa literally having a text exchange back and forth between each other. And my wife's reading the messages that Lisa sending along. And, uh, it's, uh, you know, she, she, I'll read you some of them, right? I have them here, man. It's, uh, she, she says, she sends, uh, she sends my wife a message saying three miles question mark. And my wife responds back. yeah he's he's delirious right and lisa writes god wants him to suffer to some degree it puts it all in perspective so that adam

can understand the power behind his giving and doing my wife she's like oh he's moving this is this is the text exchange they're having back and forth. She says, cry with him. He should be very emotional. As you can tell. Let him sob. Tell him it's okay. Men are so different.

They try and hold it all in. Then she starts sending pictures of friends of hers who have died from cancer. And, man, it just hit me hard. She says, tell him to cry. Put his hands to heaven. What he's done is beyond what most can imagine. But we kept powering through there and, uh, and we finished up.

Yeah. That put the wind in the sails to get you through the finish. Yeah, definitely. Definitely helped. So you achieve this impossible, incomprehensible feat that in such a short period of time prior would have been completely out of your realm of possibility. I mean, honestly, just sitting here like today is just bizarre to me, man. You know, to think back 18 months ago where I was and some of these things that I've done and now we're sitting here talking about it is just...

It's amazing. How does this, you know, now you've had some time, there's time has elapsed between this event and where you're sitting now, and how does this color how you, you know, live your day, and how does this change your perspective on, you know, your legacy, your purpose, what you have to share and give? I think it does a couple things. Number one is you kind of think about, well, what's next, right? You break through some of these boundaries that I don't even know if you want to call them boundaries, things that you just thought were seemingly impossible to do, and you start asking yourself, well's next and the and the other part about it is it's it's you know having gone through this experience and and not that I intended it for it to be as public as it was but I mean I remember so I finished the uh I finished the event

at like 11 o'clock Saturday night, like 41 hours after I started. Bikers are all going to come through on Saturday. So we went to the hotel and crashed and got some sleep. I probably got to the hotel at, I don't know, 1230. I woke up at four o'clock in the morning, like wide awake. And I have hundreds and hundreds of emails from people. And I have hundreds and hundreds of emails from people. And the email messages are just unbelievable.

I mean, I remember one guy emails me. He's like, I read your story. And I went downstairs to my 18-year-old son, and I read it to him. And the two of us went out and ran five miles together. And you think about how you know you touch people and i i don't know i never thought about it this way but i think people sort of resonated with the story and so i've got to meet just a just an amazing people through the journey and people reach out to you they're like how'd you do it and i'm i help if someone wants that i help everyone right they want to know and and it's funny right so you know for for work i remember being at a at a we had like a big meeting where

everyone flies in and i hadn't seen everyone for a while and people are like damn and they lean in they go are you sick? it was amazing to me how many people which I hadn't seen regularly would be like the first response was are you sick? and I'd sort of laugh it's funny you laughed right because I'd laugh and I'd be like am I sick? I've never felt better

but people's reaction was well you lost a lot of weight you must be sick and I said no and for the record i mean this is a podcast people can't see you but it's not like you look gaunt or anything like that you you look fit dude you look like lance armstrong right now you know like i don't know what i look like right now but it's i'm you know i'm wiping the tears away still from that uh Listen, it was an emotional experience. But I think what happens when you go out and you do any type of ultra event, that the real you comes through.

The raw, emotional you comes through. I mean, you just get to that point. It's coming out for better or worse when you do something like that. The good and the bad. The good and the bad, right? But people are like, how'd you you do it they want to know how you did it right and i said listen i watched this movie called forks over knives i went plant-based and i hunt all in um energy went through the roof i recovered well and you know it's funny i remember

uh someone with that and he was asking me afterwards, they sort of wanted to do an interview and they asked, Hey, you're going to go back. You're going to go back to the way you used to eat. And I went, I looked at them funny and I said, well, let's see. I've dropped 50 pounds. My cholesterol dropped like a rock. I feel as good as I've ever felt in my life. I went from running two miles to running 163 miles in a really short period of time. I'm not going back. Why would I, I'm not going back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the question comes up with me a lot like, Oh, well, you know, you're, you're stabilized now, you know, you know, what's wrong with having, you know, a piece of fish once a week, or, you know, why don't you just do the paleo diet now or something like that?

And I'm like, why would you backtrack on the thing that absolutely changed everything about your life? Yeah, I just, listen, make, for me, and I'm not telling people what they should or shouldn't do, but a lot of people through this experience would reach out and say, hey, how'd you do it? And I'd tell them, I'd say, go watch the movie. First thing, go watch Forks Over Knives.

Digest the information. And then call me. And I'll tell you exactly what I eat. Every meal, I'll tell you exactly what I eat. When I go to the supermarket, this is what I buy. and um you know the i will if i can give back and help other people to uh make a positive change in their lives that i think is going to help them from a health aspect long term then i'll help you out call me up and i'll tell you exactly how i do and i and i think the challenge is in today's world is like how do i do it with my lifestyle right like people always want to know because

i i eat out with clients all the time it's just part of my job and people are like hey i mean a lot of my colleagues how do you do it when you got to do like the steak dinner thing and i say well it's pretty simple i go i sit down and they're going waiter or waitress is going around taking our orders and i'm i tell everyone i'm like, shh, okay, I'm going to order. And I want everyone to listen to my order so that when I'm done, you can make fun of me. And I'll say to them, I'll say, listen, I'm on a big health kick right now. This is how I'm eating.

Can you do this for me? Can you make me a huge green salad? And whatever vegetable you have in the kitchen put it on extra avocado put it on i'll take it all no dressing just that's what i'd like can you do that for me and god they make the most amazing salads right they put everything on there and so the chef's probably so excited because he gets to do something different for a change yeah well then and so the people at the table they all laugh and then and then they go, yeah, you've dropped a lot of weight. You look good.

So tell me more about this. And for like the next hour at dinner, that's all they want to talk about. You know? That's so interesting. That's a great strategy. I actually, I often do the opposite of that, which is like slink away and pull the waiter aside like in a quiet moment when no one's

looking. So because I don't want to be the guy who's drawing attention to myself at the meal. And I think part of that is what you just alluded to, which is this idea of I don't want to be in the position of telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing or to present myself in a way where I'm up on a pedestal, like I'm sort I'm sort of being, uh, you know, this presumption of like, oh, I'm better than you because I'm not going to order this or something like that. Like I'm very attuned to that social dynamic and that's heightened when you're in a work situation, or if there's like an extended family situation, like it can go left on you. So you have to be really judicious. It's who you are right now. I'm like, this is what I'm ordering.

I don't tell people they should eat like this. If they want to, I'll help them. I'll tell them how I went through my journey. It's funny. I was flying out here last night. When you're on the road, it's tough. We're at the airport. I go to the, I don't know,'t know whatever six seven different places to get food

at none of it's really what i normally eat so i go to this one place and i i buy i take the two apples i have three bananas a big bottle of water and the guy goes uh hey nice he's like you like fruit huh it's like yeah i eat plant-based and he's like yeah he goes most people they come up they two brownies three cookies and he's like he's like go ahead he extra apple on the house last night literally he goes take an extra apple for my side that's what i had fruit on the plane last night. Yeah, that's cool. The airports are getting better slowly. They are getting better. LAX, there's a Real Food Daily restaurant in the American Airlines terminal now. Yep.

You can get your green juice. You can get your plant-based meal, whole deal, and bring it on the plane. Yeah, but you just, you know. Newark's got some great stuff. I mean, every time I go, I'm surprised. I'm like, oh, there's a new place that wasn't there before. You just got it. But you got a plan. there before. You got up. You just got it. But you got a plan.

You do. You definitely do. You got a plan. So like, you know, when the more people are like, what do you have for breakfast? And I was talking to a buddy of mine, Stu, this morning. He's like, what do you have for breakfast? I made it a Vitamix, man. I make it a juice.

I load it up. Everything. Just whatever I got. I put it in there and that's what I have. What about, ah, it takes too much time, too expensive? You know what's funny about it? You know, so a couple things, right? When you cut meat out of your diet,

it's amazing how your supermarket bills actually drop, right? Because meat's pretty expensive. So, yeah, you can buy a lot of fruit and vegetables for not that much, right? And we go through it. I mean, we juice stuff all the time, and I'll make extra, and I'll bring it in, and, you know, we do. Actually, my wife is fantastic. I mean, she cooks a big lentil meal.

It's just great, really good. And how do you manage it with, I mean, that's the other thing we have in common. We both have four kids. Yeah. So how does that color how, uh, you know, you, you talk to the kids about nutrition, what they get fed, what they, what the kids do when they're at a friend's house and all of that. You know, it's funny. Like we, so this is, this is, this whole, uh, switch is still relatively new for me. But we don't enforce it upon our kids. But I'll tell you what they do.

They see how you eat, and they start to gravitate to it. So if I was at my house right now, and I said to the kids, hey, I'm going to make the Vitamix. And this will sound weird to probably a lot of people listening, but I'm going to take the beets and make a huge beet juice. Man, the kids love the beet juice, right? It's like red, and they love it. They love it. Now, if you had said to them before this, I'm going to make some beet juice, they probably wouldn't.

No, not a chance in the world. So they start to watch what you do, and they start to follow along. So we don't force upon our kids completely, but they gravitate that way. Yeah, that's pretty similar to the strategy that we've used. I mean, not that it's a strategy. I mean, it's not like we're attempting to do anything other than live our lifestyle. But it starts with the example that you said in the home. You can't transmit something you haven't got.

So you can't be a parent telling your got so you can't you can't be a parent telling your kid to eat healthy if you're you know sneaking fritos and at night you know the kids know what's up and and to not make a rule around it takes all the charge out of it you know what i mean if you if you make a rule then there's something to rebel against but if you just eat healthy and you sort of do more and more and more of that, the kids will come around. And they're going to go do whatever they're going to do. But they're armed with the tools and they have the resources at home. Yeah.

You know what? You sort of, you try and set an example and you give them the choice. And, you know, what we're finding is that given the choice, they lean more towards some of the stuff that we're eating now. You know? And it's nice to see. is that given the choice, they lean more towards some of the stuff that we're eating now, you know, and it's, uh, it's nice to see. So, um, yeah, it's, you know, people, I look back over the last 18 months and you say, you know, like, what was it? What was the catalyst? Not so much for getting started, but for what transpired. It was switching to the plant-based diet. It always goes back to that for me. I mean, it was like, I mean, it was October.

I started plant-based. Again, the weight comes off, the energy goes through the roof, and these series of events that just sort of came together. I didn wasn't look i wasn't i didn't wake up and go hey i'm gonna be an athlete i want to go run an ultra i want to run 160 i had no even concept but it comes together and then then you kind of get to like where we are now and you're like well what what's next uh-huh so i want to hear about what's next but one one kind of thought I wanted to share on that comment that you just made is, you know, somebody will say to me, well, maybe you'd be faster if you ate this or that and the other. And I'm like, well, first of all, I don't know that to be true,

you know, because all I know is what I do. But I can tell you one thing for sure, which is I never would have done Ultraman. I never would have done Epic Five if I hadn't switched my diet to a plant-based diet, because that was the thing that changed everything. That was the thing that gave me the energy to even be interested in it and to even entertain the possibility of pursuing it to begin with. That's so true, man. I'm just, I mean, that's what it is. It's like, you know, I don't, you don't know what you're capable of, but for me, and this is, I'll just speak for myself, right? But switching to the, to a plant-based kind of whole food diet just worked, right? It just clicked in all aspects of my life. And I pay a lot of tribute to that. So what is next?

What's next? Other than getting – by the way, you're sitting here in your cycling kit. You guys are on your way – I forgot to even say that. You're on your way to Santa Barbara and just basically stopped in to go to the bathroom and fill your water bottles. I could wink to you into this podcast. I got to get you guys back on the road here. But, uh, it's a, yeah, I haven't been on a bike in a long time, right. Cause I've been running and a long time. And then we flew in last night and a buddy of mine was like, Hey, you know what you were, you want to ride up to Santa Barbara? It's a hundred miles. And I'm like, I remember I reached out to you. I was like, I remember I reached out to you.

I was like, hey, I'm coming into LA. I'd like to say hello in person. I really appreciate you reaching out to me when I did that run. So we're riding up to Santa Barbara. I was like, perfect. You're going to have to kind of ride by my house anyway. For people that don't know, it is extraordinarily hilly to get to Rich Walt's house.

There's some steep hills. Yeah yeah that's good for you um yeah so uh what's next you know we've got a couple things that we're working on or thinking about for events that are coming up this summer um lisa uh who helped do some coaching for me last year she's doing this she's doing an epic epic event this summer she's gonna do a four-time quad crossing of bad water oh my god yeah having just crewed that race i just i can't even fathom yeah she's she raises money for she's called bad water for good water money for clean water around the world and she's's just an amazing, amazing woman. And I appreciate everything that she did to help me. And so I reached out to her and said, I want to get involved in that. So I'm going to get involved.

I wonder if they're, you know how the Death Valley National Park is not permitting any events in there. So I wonder if that's going to create an issue. I don't think, it's not an event. It's just her running or doing it so i think i'm going to go out and and uh do do part a part of that wow very cool um but again it's uh four times that's crazy dude you have nine i was gonna say you have no idea but i think you do have an idea. I don't know. I don't know if I'll do the whole four times. I'd like to do it.

So I just started really kind of cranking the training up again right here. And, you know, you go back to the recipe to accomplish anything. And number one, it's have a big goal, right? Have something that inspires you that's big, right right and you may not finish it or accomplishment that's okay right but it's the journey that you go through that i think people uh that you cherish so have a big goal uh have a plan right having a plan is important i didn't know what i was doing getting started but i had great support and great, great mentors that gave me a strategy and a plan to get through it. And, um, and you got to persevere because you're going

to have setbacks. There's no question about it. Um, but if you do those things and you ask for help, you can accomplish people rally around accomplish. People rally around you. People rally around big goals. Yeah, no question about it. I'll tell you. I'll read you a little quote here. I was talking to a colleague of mine, Jeff, the other day, and we were having this exact same conversation here around big goals.

And he gets up, and he just walks out of the room. And he comes back, and he goes, did you read Esquire this month? I said, no. He goes, there's this guy, Greg Allman, right? And it's talking about people who are afraid to sing in public. And he goes, he reads. Greg Allman, Allman Brothers, Greg Allman. Yeah, well, this is, yeah.

Okay, so here it is. Here's the quote. He's like, you got to come across the barrier. So many people out there can probably sing pretty well. All they need to do is just drop the inhibitions. That's why most people do their singing in the shower. And of course, when you get drunk, you don't give a shit. So you find a way to say, I don't give a shit who's listening,

and you sing for the gods. And that's about singing, but it's about everything in life, right? You just got to get across the barrier and sing for the gods. I got to tell you, man, I could Vulcan mind meld with you for the next five hours, but I can't think of a better note to end this on. That was beautiful. All right. Thanks for being here.

Hey, man, thanks so much. note to end this on. That was beautiful. All right. Thanks for being here. Hey man, thanks so much. You're an inspiration and it's an honor and a privilege to be able to sit down with you and share your story now. And I can't wait to see what you're up to next. It all started going online and reading Plant Based and Ultra. And what did I find? I found a rich roll. I know. Here we are, man. And here we are. Light and fires all right thanks buddy all right buddy peace plants okay people that's our show this week i hope you enjoyed it if you want to know more about adam and his mission you can find that out by going to why we run.com w-h-y-w-E-R-U-N.com. Listen, everybody, it's time to become the CEO of your own life.

Be the movie star of your own movie. Be the quarterback of your own existence. You heard Adam say it, dream big. So make no small plans. Create a plan around that dream that you want to actualize in your own life and then start to execute on it. That's the message. That's the theme of today's episode. If you want to learn more about what I'm up to, go to richroll.com.

If you're going to shop on Amazon, visit the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Click through that. Amazon kicks us some loose change, helps keep the lights on, does not cost you an extra penny. So thanks, you guys, for all the support, everybody who's been using it. If you're inspired by Adam's message,

as I am, it was like looking in a mirror. Definitely check out Forks Over Knives, the documentary. You can get it on Netflix or Amazon. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Rich Roll, R-I-C-H-R-O-L-L, Facebook, all the good places. You can find me there. And lots of good products coming your way that we're developing for richroll.com. But we have some nutritional supplement products there. I've got a downloadable cookbook, a meditation program, and some other

cool stuff. So check that out. And I'm going to come back to you next week with another great guest. So get out there, get it done, make your life happen, and I'll catch up with you next week. Thanks, you guys. Peace. Thank you.