The Rich Roll Podcast - How Endurance, Faith, Family & Service Equate to Success (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 5, 2014

Today's guest is a guy I relate to on so many levels. Like a big Venn diagram of overlapping circles — ultra-endurance multi-sport athlete, dad, husband, Ultraman competitor and EPIC5 finisher. Today's guest is unique in that he is the only guy I have ever had on the show who, like me, has competed in both the Ultraman World Championships and EPIC5 (not that there are very many of us – I think only a few). Today’s guest is also unique for his strong sense of faith, directed purpose and commitment to giving back in service to others the blessings bestowed upon him. Today’s guest is Christian Isakson. Christian and I first connected online several years ago on the eve of his 2011 attempt on EPIC5 (one year after I completed that challenge). Christian absolutely rocked it, completing the distance within the five day period I strived for, yet fell short. In the wake of that effort, I vividly recall several conversations in which I encouraged him to ply his trade at Ultraman. Ironically, Christian was unsure — at the time not yet wholly confident in his abilities despite the potential I clearly saw in him. Yet he obliged. To be clear, not because of me – I just gave him a nudge. And at this past year's World Championship in Hawaii, he proved his mettle and then some. His race was far from perfect, but Christian more than distinguished himself as a future contender for the top podium spot, putting his imprimatur on the race with a stunning Day 2 bike effort that had him leading the field for the majority of the brutal 170-mile day. Since our first Facebook exchange, Christian and I have been e-mail pen pals and phone buddies — corresponding consistently over the years about everything from balancing parenting & marriage to nutrition, training strategies, racing, the role of faith and most importantly service — how best to give this whole ultra-endurance experience greater meaning for others beyond mere race results. And yet Christian and I had never actually met in person. But no matter — from our first conversation we have been close; meeting in person existing as nothing more than a formality. All that changed a few weeks ago when Christian came down to Los Angeles for a short overnight visit with me and my family. The hug he gave me when I picked him up at the airport just made our brotherhood official. Today we sit down and sift through it all – the pain, passion, love and faith that fuels and drives him. The unique push-pull allure of ultra-distance racing. And how he balances this brutally demanding lifestyle to maintain a healthy and happy marriage, great relationship with his kids, and a rewarding career as a paramedic / firefighter. But what makes Christian really tick is his faith. His fidelity to his church. And how service plays into his success equation – from his endeavors with various church organizations to his involvement with Chris Lieto's non-profit More Than Sport and Ameena Project – an NGO which took him to Kenya recently to provide much needed medical care to underprivileged in urgent need. I can attest to the fact that Christian returned from Kenya a changed man. A better, more focused man with a keener sense of priorities. His short documentary on the experience tells the tale: In all honesty, it's rare that I get an opportunity to sit down with a guy with whom I share so many things in common. As a result, this conversation is long. Really long. 3 hours long. Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 83, with Ultraman triathlete Christian Isaacson. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the show, to the double RP. I'm your host. I'm Rich Roll, where each week I bring to you the show, to the double RP. I'm your host. I'm Rich Roll, where each week I bring to you the best, most forward-thinking minds when it comes to rethinking and reimagining our current wellness, happiness, and human performance paradigms. So what does that mean? That means thought and action leaders in health, fitness, diet,

nutrition, creativity, art, entrepreneurship, and above all, life transformation. My goal is to help broaden your horizons, help you blow through the glass ceiling on your innate human potential, not just physically, not just mentally, not just emotionally, not just professionally, but also creatively, creatively, creatively, creatively, and spiritually. Why? Because true health means attention to and balance across all aspects of the human experience. And more often than not, in my own personal experience, at least, it's the overlooked thing. It's that thing you don't want to really work on. That's the thing that is holding you back. To wit, the goal in a nutshell is to motivate and inspire you to take your life to the next level, to help you discover, unlock,

and unleash your best, most authentic self. So before we get into today's guest, I have a little bit of an announcement. It's a special announcement. So I'm going to take a little bit of a detour here. If you're a longtime listener, then you know that I'm guilty of making the occasional, all right, so maybe more than occasional announcement regarding our plant-based nutrition course that we produced in partnership with MindBodyGreen. It's called The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, three and a half hours of streaming video content, blah, blah, blah. You've heard me talk about this a lot because I'm really proud of it. And we offered it, we put it up about a year ago. And it's been really a smash hit. People have really enjoyed

it. We're proud of it. And I think it's been a benefit to a lot of people. And so as a result of the success of this course, the door has been open over at MindBodyGreen for me to do another course with them. And I think it would have been a no brainer for me to kind of do another plant-based nutrition sort of course, maybe around athletes or something like that. But I feel like there's so much information out there already on that. And I really wanted to reach beyond that and stretch myself and go deeper. And it compelled me to think about what it is that I have to offer that is unique to me, that's unique to my experience, that could be of benefit to other people. And I started thinking about a couple blog posts that I wrote recently.

The first one was called The Art of Living with Purpose. And the second one was called Why You Should Stop Hacking Your Life and Invest in the Journey. And both of these posts that I wrote, I don't know, a couple, maybe two months ago, really hit a chord. They're definitely the most popular blog posts I've ever posted on my website. And then I posted them on medium.com and they kind of blew up and went crazy haywire viral. This got like tons of reads and a lot of amazing feedback on that. It really went bananas, which was really cool, but it really provoked me to think more about the subject matters raised in those posts, which have to do with how we're living our life,

what's important to us, how do we access something more personally meaningful and express that more deeply in our in our daily experience? And and it made me kind of understand in a deeper way that I have accumulated an arsenal of of a lot of powerful ideas and opinions and tools on this subject matter of how to embrace a new and more fulfilling, personally meaningful approach to life, you know, how to uncover and embrace latent passion, how to properly set and achieve a goal, uh, in essence, how to transform your life and become your best, most authentic self. In other words, the exact, you know, predominant theme of this, uh, of this podcast of every episode of this podcast. So the long story short is I did that. I put together a new online course. It's entitled The Art of Living with Purpose,

How to Set and Achieve Goals, Transform Your Life, and Become Your Best, Most Authentic Self. And this course just went live on MindBodyGreen today, the date that I'm sitting here in London, Ontario, recording this introduction. It's May 1st, the date that I'm sitting here in London, Ontario, recording this introduction. It's May 1st, the day of the recording. And I'm really excited. It came out really great.

And I'm just pumped to tell you guys about it. So it's going to involve or it does involve over two hours of streaming video content. It's divided into six modules and 14 sessions, an array of downloadable tools and resources addressing everything from the fundamentals of transformation, like how to properly set a goal, how to erect a roadmap that works, how to create structures and momentum and community and accountability around your goals, and why people traditionally fail or fall short, and the essential foundational principles and practices behind every successful sustained life transformation, what's worked for me and what hasn't, et cetera. So I'm really

pumped about it. I worked really hard on it and I do think it has a lot of value. It's a toolbox that contains everything basically that you need to make the changes in your life necessary to become the person you always wanted to be and deserve to be. So I could go on all day about this subject matter. I won't. Let's leave it at this. Just go to mindbodygreen.com. It's on the homepage. You can check it out or check the show notes for this episode at richroll.com and there'll be a hyperlink up for you to learn more about it. Okay. Today's guest. Today's guest is a guy that I personally can relate to on many, many levels. Today's guest is unique to this show in that he's the only guy I've had the pleasure

of having on the show who, like me, has competed at both the Ultraman World Championships and has done Epic Five. How about that? It's the first time I've had a guy on the show who's done Epic Five, which is going to be pretty cool. So today's guest is also a husband. He's a father. He's a guy driven by a strong sense of faith, purpose, and giving back the blessings bestowed upon him in service to others. Today's guest is Christian Isaacson. I was first introduced to Christian several years ago. It was on the eve of him attempting Epic Five in 2011, which was a year after I did it. Jason Lester put it on again and invited a few select people to make the attempt for the second year in a row. And since then, Christian and I have been fast email pen pals and phone buddies, and we correspond pretty consistently and have done so over the years

about everything from family to nutrition, to training, to racing and, and many conversations that I've had with him about which races I thought Christian should, Christian should be doing and why. And after his, uh his excellent Epic Five performance in 2011, where he was able to complete all five Ironmans within the five-day period, which was amazing, I really encouraged him to go after Ultraman. He hadn't done Ultraman at that point. And I just knew that it was the distance that would really allow his talent to shine. And I just knew that it was the distance that would really allow his talent to shine. And it did this past year. He had a stellar debut at the Ultraman World Championships 2013 this past Thanksgiving.

And today, finally, he's coming on the show to tell us all about it. The odd thing, the ironic thing, is that I hadn't actually ever met Christian in person until he came down to L.A. from where he lives in Portland recently and stayed at my house with my family for a night. It was a couple of weeks ago. So today we sit down, we go through it all. We go through the pain, the passion, the faith that fuels and drives him, the unique pull and allure of ultra distance racing and how he balances his lifestyle with his marriage and his kids and his profession and his fidelity to

his church and his faith, which is very important to him. And also we talk a lot about how service plays into this equation. Christian has worked with various church organizations and he's more recently become involved with something called the Yamina Project, which is a nonprofit with whom he traveled to Kenya a couple months ago to help provide needed medical care to those in desperate need. In fact, he made a little short documentary about it that I'll post on the blog post for this episode. It's pretty cool. It's embedded there. So if you want to learn more, go to richroll.com. Anyway, so it's rare that I get an opportunity to sit down with a guy with whom I share so much in common. It's like Venn diagrams overlapping all over the place.

And as a result, for better or for worse, this means that our conversation goes on pretty long, really long. In fact, it's almost three hours long. So that gave me a choice. I could either put up the entire three hours at once or I could spend a bunch of time or have Tyler spend a bunch of time editing down the conversation to its essentials to get it more around an hour and a half or so. Or the third option, which is the option I chose, which is to split the interview up into two parts. So this week, this is part one. It's going up. This is what you're listening to now. It's probably Monday if you're listening to this right away.

The second part is going to go up Thursday. So that way you'll get both parts in the same week. And that creates our RP twofer for the week. Instead of one episode this week, you're going to get two. And that will keep us on track to bring a new interview with somebody new the following week. Anyway, Christian is a really solid guy. He's one of those guys who walks his talk. One of those guys who shows up when he says he's going to show up. A guy with a really strong moral compass and sense of direction, you know, with a handshake stronger than any contract. And one of those guys whose word is solid gold.

He's old school. It's almost as if he comes from an older generation, like the generation of my grandfather, when things like that seem to mean more than they do now. But the point is, it's rare to find guys with such a strong moral character. And Christian is one of those guys. It's an honor to know him.

It's an honor to be his friend. And it's an honor to share this conversation with you today. 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. Thank you. substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

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Well, I think I'm the one that's honored, Rich, so thanks. No, it's great to have you. And it's funny, you know, we were talking about this earlier. Actually, it's, uh, it's great to have you. And it's funny. Um, you know, we were talking about this earlier. Actually, we've talked about this a number of times, but, uh, this is the first time that we've actually met in person, but I feel like, I mean, I've talked to you so many times on the phone. I followed you for so long that, you know, I feel like I've known you forever. Yeah. I think, uh, um, same way, same here. I mean, I feel, I feel, you know, putting stuff on Instagram today saying going to see my friend Rich. You've always been so supportive of me.

And before my races, some of the biggest races of my life, you've always been the one that I've called and the one that has just lended a hand of support and direction. So thanks, man. You know how happy I am to be here. No, it's great. I was trying to remember what the first point of contact was though. Was it, was it, uh, must've been around the time you did Epic thought. Yeah, it was Epic five. Um, yep. And I, I, I, I knew about you because you guys had done it the year before. Um, and I, uh, so I started to kind of keep tabs on you and, um, one thing led to another

leading up to Epic five and you and I first, um, started to chat via, you know, email and text and stuff. And then we started talking and then we started writing long letters at night to each other. I know my pen pal, my bromance. So where does it all begin for you? I mean, I, I pick up your story. It's funny cause I picked you up at the airport and I was already learning things about your life that I, that I didn't know. I mean, my, my sort of reference point for where your life begins is, is kind of, you know, epic five and some of the Ironmans that came after that. And then the lead up to, you know, your, your incredible performance at Ultraman this year, but I want to take it a step back. Okay. Um, well, dude, if it's, uh, from the very beginning, I, you and I have close ties

because we both grew up in, you know, initially we have ties in Michigan. Um, we go way back, way back. Uh, we crossed on the plane back in Detroit. Exactly. I grew up in Detroit. Um, uh, in, uh, well in the city at first, and then it moved to, to the suburbs, you know, Plymouth Canton outside of Ann Arbor. Um, I was, uh, born, um, to my, my dad who recently actually three through about three and a half weeks ago, passed away. My father and my mom, my mom's from Austria. My dad met my mom in Europe after Vietnam. Oh, wow.

Yeah, my dad. He's a Vietnam vet. Yep, yep. Decorated. And basically lived in Vietnam for the duration of his life until he died three weeks ago. Oh, wow. I didn't know that part. Yeah. He, uh, I've got, um, my, my, you know, talking to you a little bit about, um, my, my history. Um, my dad was made such a big part of my life and it, I don't think he intended to do so. But he was probably the closest thing to a demon that I think I've ever seen.

As harsh of a word it is to use for my dad. He was an evil, evil man. So I grew up in a pretty broken home with my mom caught in the crossfire in Michigan. And then as soon as high school ended, I was gone. I took off. You left home after high school? I was 17 years ended, I was gone. I took off. You left home after high school? I was 17 years old. I was 17 years old.

I wanted out of the house. I mean, how did your mom, do you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I've got a younger brother and an older brother. So you were in the middle and grew up with, I mean, your dad didn't, he was around. He was physically present when you were growing up in high school. Yeah, he was physically present, but he was a firefighter, Detroit firefighter, but he was a severe drug abuser and alcoholic. And when he was around, it wasn't good.

I was physically abused pretty consistently, emotionally abused constantly. So I chuckled because I was like, I'm going to tell you things I haven't told people ever before, but I've alluded. It's just us, Christian. It's just you and me. But my dad was, he just did some twisted stuff. I mean, is that a result of stuff he saw in Vietnam or was that, was his father that way or where's the pattern or is it just, is it just being a drug addict? Yeah. I come from a long line of people that have a, a pretty, um, ingenious way of dodging the truth. Um, and you know, I, I always struggled

with the, the disease being the label of an alcoholic and a drug abuser when it was the only disease that I could like early on in my, in my childhood, when I was even eight or nine years old, I always used to question like, how can a disease be brought on by an act of will? It was, it just confused me. Um, I was that kid that got picked up by my dad at school when he was hammered, you know, I had to drive home with him while he's drunk in the car. And, um, and he, uh, he was horribly abusive to my mother, um, unfaithful to my mom. Just, he's just a bad guy. Um, and, uh, my mom was just kind of, you know, bless her soul, just caught in the middle. Right. So she's just trying to do the best that she can keep things

together. I mean, did your, did your siblings have the same experience with your dad? Yeah, there were times. You know, if you talk to my brothers, they would be the first to admit that I probably received the brunt of the physical abuse. And the emotional abuse was kind of twisted as well. But we all suffered in our own way as a result of my dad's unwillingness to step up to the plate and be a father. And it was confusing, man. I mean, it was just confusing. And then when, when, when you and your siblings were grown, he went back to Vietnam or?

Well, I think mentally he never left. I see. So you're basically saying mentally he was never, he was, he was always there. He never left. And then, um, it was, uh, it just spiraled out of control. And I mentioned earlier to you in a, in a conversation we were talking about, um, it just seemsaled out of control. And I mentioned earlier to you in a conversation we were talking about, it just seems like every once in a while, the cockroaches that I find in the past of some of the footprints that my dad's left in my life are still kind of buzzing around, not in a bad way. But it, when I found out that he died three weeks ago before I left for Kenya, it was, I was like, he died on the table getting a liver. Um, and I just wasn't surprised at all. Um, and luckily for me, about four years ago,

my dad and I had a good three years where I really tried to, um, make amends, um, and, and tell him that I love him and tell him that I care for him, but he just never has been willing to, I think he's just never been willing to forgive himself. So of course, I mean, the pain that he must Harbor, I'm sure is, you know, probably a hundred fold of whatever, you know, is inside you. And you know, that imprinting that takes place when you're a youngster, that doesn't go away, man. You know, that's, it takes a lot of work to kind of overcome that and those patterns and, and kind of those buttons that get pushed when you're, you know, sort of probably in the orbit of somebody like that, or who's some, somebody who's putting out that kind of energy. Yeah. Toxic. It was just really toxic. Um, sorry to hear that. That's all right. It's, it, you know,

I, I, I can talk freely about it, man. It's probably the first time I've actually talked about it since I heard, um, of my dad, you know, I was leaving for Kenya the night that I found out. And I didn't attend the funeral. And I know that, like I said, it's an after-school special on drugs, basically, as far as what my family life was like. So when I was 17, man, I hit the bricks. You were out of there. I was gone, yeah. And is that when you went into the Army?

Yep. I went into the Army to get college money to pay for art school. Right. I wanted to be an artist. Who goes into the Army to be an artist? Yeah, it was... That's like out of some weird Stanley Kubrick movie or something. Dude, I thought I was a lot cooler than I was, man.

I went into the Army as a rebel. Where did you do your base training? I went to Fort Leonard Wood, man. I went into the army as a rebel. Um, and you do your like base training. I went to, uh, Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. Um, and then I went to Sam Houston at the, uh, the, the Academy of health and science. Um, it's kind of where I started to dip my toe into medicine, um, and became a medic. And then I went to Europe and, um, started to kind of slide down the same slope. My dad did. Um, It's funny how that happens. Yeah. Despite every fiber of your being, like saying, I'll never be like my dad.

Yeah. I really. Were you conscious of that when it was happening or what was going on? Yes and no. I mean, you know, going to Germany. Where were you in Wiesbaden? In Baumholder. I've been to Wiesbaden though.

Yeah. You know, I had, I had met Rhonda by then, you know, my wife and I had met, she was in college and I was in high school. I saw my wife when I was in seventh grade and I was gone. I love, I love Rhonda more every second of the day. I just, I, so I was totally. You guys got married at 19. So you were a year and a half into the army or something like that. I came back, I came back. I actually, um, I've never told this story publicly, but I actually, um, make you say that a couple of times a day. Well, dude, you know what? If you're nice enough to have me here, I'm nice enough to bleed all over you. Um, I'm laying

the groundwork here for a, for a great finish. Uh, but,. But yeah, I went to Europe and Rhonda went to Japan. She studied at the University of Michigan, Japanese. And I went to Germany and thought I was a rock and roll star. So I lived the life and I was committed to Rhonda. But you're still in the army? So you're moonlighting as a musician? Well, I knew that that's kind of where the seeds of music started to be planted. You know, I went and saw a concert and started to kind of tinker around with the guitar.

But I also, who were the bands that were? Dude, I went and saw Soundgarden. I was on stage with Chris Cornell. Wow. I saw Soundgarden. How did that happen? Hold on a second. I saw a song. How did that happen? Hold on a second. He, uh, we went to a really small club and, it was on his,

um, super unknown. Actually, it's the 20 year anniversary of super unknown. Um, but, uh, Oh man,

all these women were throwing, um, bras up on stage. And, uh, he said that he'd like somebody to throw some underwear, some pants on stage. So I threw my pants off and threw them up on stage. I had my underwear on and that's a dad move, dude. I got, I, I crowd surfed up to the, to the stage and he handed me back my

pants and then I was yarded off. And the next Rolling Stone, it talks about a stupid GI that threw his jeans up on. Oh, really? Yeah.? Yeah. So that was my, uh, 15 seconds of fame over there. But so did you form a band with some guys in the army or no, but I started to play, um, you know, I'd met my closest friend, Brandon in the military. We were both, um, we were listening to headphones at the same time. And I looked over at him and he looked over at me and we both thought we were both like, who's that cocky looking jerk and we were listening the same u2 album um so it was destiny it was destiny it was it was destiny in the under the joshua tree um but i started to play music and started talking to my brothers about forming a band once i got out of the got out of the military. So then you come back to the U.S.?

Yep, I came back, got married, went back with Rhonda, spent the first year and a couple of months of our marriage there, and that's when I figured out... They are being... In Germany. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. That's where I figured out I better get a handle on my alcohol.

And I was only 20 years old, and I knew something was brewing, and Rhonda told me we had spent a handle on my alcohol. And I was only 20 years old and I knew something was brewing. And Rhonda told me we had spent a weekend in Spain together. Rhonda's like, I love you too much to see this happen for the rest of our lives. So, um, it was New Year's Eve. She's like, you better figure something out. Um, and I haven't touched a, I haven't drank a beer since. Wow. Good for you.

Um, so that's, uh, yeah, that could have taken a very different turn for you. Yeah. It really, it's tough being 19. That's really young too. Yeah. And then, and then just, yeah, it was, it was a whirlwind. The first 20 years, I think were quite like, as much as that of me talking there for the last couple of minutes, it was that much of a whirlwind for me. It just seemed like I was starting to build

the bricks of endurance racing and I didn't even know it. I mean, how much of that like sort of experience of growing up, you know, essentially a single mom, you know, piece of household and, and the patterning that takes place there. I mean, how, how much of that do you think informs some of the decisions you make today or, or, or like how you, I'm certainly at, I'm sure it informs how you parent your kids, you know, your great dad and all of that. So it's, it's pretty clear and evident there, but kind of like behind the scenes, like whether it's with your, you know, the charity work that you're doing or the work that you do with your church or your racing and all of that. I mean, how does it, I think a lot of it actually, you know, in the tail end of my teens, my mom and dad started going to church and it screwed me up. It really jacked up my idea of who these people

were telling me God was and who I saw God being in my home. It just, things didn't make sense to me. I wanted nothing to do with it. I seriously wanted nothing to do with Jesus, nothing to do with God. I wanted, I wanted nothing to do with any of that because to see my dad, my mom in church on Sunday and then Sunday night, my dad kicking the crap out of us, it just didn't make sense. Too much dissonance. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, and having said that, um, uh, that obviously plays a big role in my example towards Ian and Evelyn, you know, as a, as a Christian dude in a, um, in my home, man, it's, it's challenging enough as it is to be a dad, let alone trying to mix it up with, with crap, you know, I mean, I mean, do you feel like, so, so when you're young and you,

you're, you're drinking too much or whatever, and you're like, oh man, you know, I'm sort of showing shades of my dad that, you know, I didn't think that I had. I mean, do you, do you feel like some of that stuff, do you have to work like overtime to overcome some of those, some, maybe some of those things that might be more inbred in you that, that you care to admit because of just what you grew up around? I think, I think at 19 and like when I went over to Europe before Rhonda and I got married that year and a half, two years that I spent over there alone, I just chalked it up to, to, to pay my dues. You know what I mean?

You're just young. Yeah. Young and stupid, you know? Um, but after that first year that, uh, Um, but after that first year that, uh, Ron and I were married, there was a couple of instances where, um, I both run and I took a step back. I'm like, man, what's up, dude. Um, so from that point on meaning like, what do you mean? Like, meaning like, like, uh, you know, I smoked, I was a smoker for a couple of years before I realized even before how health conscious I am now that I just felt like crap smoking. But, you know, like the time that we came back from Spain together, Ron was like, you know, babe, this is not good. Like, do you realize last night I helped you off the floor, you know, in a pool of your own sick by the toilet. And I'm like, I know, I know.

sick by the toilet. Um, and I'm like, I know, I know. And, um, it just, there was a couple of occurrences there where Rhonda loved me enough to be, you know, I'm sensing a pattern here with, uh, Rhonda basically keeping you in line. Well, no, come on, dude. Yeah. Initially, initially she steered me on course, but now, but now, uh, now I wear the pants. I mean, in fairness. Yeah. i get the idea that your marriage is is is quite an amazing partnership dude it is yeah 20 we're going it's what is today today is the uh march 22nd so 22 years three years 22 years three months and yeah 20 26 getting married at 19 and and still, you know, in love and have a functional marriage and all of that. I mean, that is not easy to do. That's crazy. No, man. I, I feel blessed.

I, I just, uh, I do, I physically, spiritually, emotionally, um, I'm just more attracted to her than, than anything. Um, so. All right. But all right. Back to the rock and roll dream. Right. Rock and roll dream. So we laid the groundwork. I'm, I'm screwed up. I'm on my way to be a rock and roll star. Um, I get my crap together before I come back to the United States and I call my, my older brother and my younger brother and say, I'm let's do this. Let's let's start a band. Um, and they were musicians too. We all just kind of picked

up the instruments at the same time. Um, and we struggled to come back to Michigan. No, we went to Michigan. I didn't want to stay in Michigan. I wanted nothing to do with it. Um, so we took off to Utah. My, my older brother who was in the air force got kicked out of the air force. Um, and, uh, he's just stayed there. So we moved there and my younger brother, Daniel, came out from Michigan. And then another guy who ended up being one of those guys that you hear about in bands that just was a total, the most selfish, self-centered, egotistical, maniacal person you'd ever meet. But you don't recognize it because you want the band to happen. Um, every band's got a guy like that. Well, you kind of need a guy like that.

Yeah. Well, yeah, he's literally another one of the most twisted people I've ever met, but nonetheless, um, the, the core, the core band that my brothers and I had, we lasted for about six years. Um, and then it was a good run. Yeah, it was good. I mean, what do, were you touring? We did, we, we did a couple of, um, we didn't tour like you would think like tour tour, but we opened up for some bigger local bands and had some, um, some moderate exposure in salt in the Salt Lake city rock scene. Um, and then I broke off and left my brothers. I just couldn't take it cause they had, they liked to enjoy other things that they're,

you know, I just, um, it's the the age-old artistic differences kind of separated us. And then I joined a couple different bands and had my... I mean, were you doing that full-time? No, I was working as a CNA, man. I was a certified nurse assistant at an old folks' home, just trying to get by. Right. And then the first thing that kind of knocked me off course at an old folks home, just trying to get by. And then the first thing that kind of knocked me off course was when Evelyn, my daughter, contracted encephalitis,

and she almost died. How old was she when that happened? She's three. Yeah. We spent about two and a half months in the hospital, and she went from three-year-old to one week old, physically and mentally. She just, yeah, it was, it was one of the, one of the big, big things in my life that I,

I've come to the conclusion and finally figured out that there's nothing that God won't use that we consider too important for him to draw us back to him. And when I saw how, And when I saw how out of control I really am with my daughter, she just spiraled and we spent, it was, it was a nightmare. So that snaps you into kind of adulthood, I suppose. Yeah. Right. So, so encephalitis, that's like a viral infection of the brain. She fell into like an undiagnosable bracket where they couldn't figure it. Like they couldn't figure out what was going on with her. She started to seize.

She lost her ability to talk first and then walk and then move. And then she was, yeah, she just literally just shut down from the outside in. And then- Was she hospitalized? Oh, yeah, we were in the hospital for over two months. So how did you get to the other side of that? I really do believe that this was one of the first wake-up calls for me.

Like I said, spiritually, I don't know that I ever really got to the other side until years down the road. Um, I mean, it was years of rehab for Evelyn, um, physical therapy, learning how to talk, learning how to write again. I mean, she was, you know, she was an active, um, but that kind of was a big jolt for me, which is one of the reasons why we have such a, such a span between Evelyn and Ian six years. Cause I got gun shy,'m like I can't handle that again and yeah that's heavy stuff but it is interesting how that sort of created a new trajectory for you kind of spiritually or interpersonally and it's just weird how it takes you know painful traumatic events to trigger that. It's like, I kind of wish the human system was wired to be more prone or open to personal growth without the jarring crisis.

Dude, your book. Catalyze it. That's your book, man. I mean, your book from front to, seriously. I didn't have a daughter with encephalitis. I think we all have things that happen. And so the question becomes, are you aware enough to see the signals or to pay attention or to kind of understand that maybe you should reevaluate how you're living your life or not? It was such a wake wake up call for me. And I didn't have like, I didn't have a foundation. I don't have the, like, I didn't have the relationship with Christ that I have now to get. I just, I was like, I was freaking just, I was, I was just flapping. Um, and, and it, it,

Ron and I suffered tremendously from that. Like it was just, it was, it was one of the cruxes of my life that, like I said, dude, like, like, like in your book, when you talk about, um, the a hundred days that you'd spent, like it just, um, you know, CS Lewis always says that pain is sometimes the whisper or pain is the voice in the megaphone that God uses to rile a deaf world. Like, all right, fine, idiots. If you're not going, I mean. Let's shake it up a little. Yeah, and it's not to say that he like, you know, it doesn't cause that.

And I know that's kind of a deeper subject. But at the same time, I realized I'm running from this. Where I go for the rest of my life depends on where I run to. And I remember thinking to myself, I had heard at the time, everybody thirsts, but a lot of people drink from the toilet. And that was the first time I realized, man, I've been trying to quench a part of me and my family with this musician dream band. And it just, it's, it's,

it was very similar to an athlete training and the effects that it has on your family when you're in a band, because you have to dedicate just as much time, just as much money, just as much effort. So it definitely, you know, I think it's, it's a question of what, you know, ultimately your destiny was meant to be. If you were meant to be in a successful rock band and maybe your intentions were more true and maybe it wasn't about your ego or whatever. And we didn't suck? No.

I mean, seriously. Right. I mean, you weren't supposed to be. That wasn't the path you were supposed to be on. Right. So it's sort of like this little earthquake happens that course corrects you. I mean, seriously. I mean, you weren't supposed to be, that wasn't the path you were supposed to be on. Right. So it's sort of like this little earthquake happens that course corrects you. So for somebody else,

maybe being a rock musician is what they're supposed to be. Exactly. And luckily at the time, it was kind of in vogue that you really didn't want to play your music, like your instruments. That was cool. Oh, right.

Yeah. What year are we talking about here? So this would be like- This would be- It would be 94. Yeah. I don't know. No, we, cause Ron and I were married in, uh, I got back from the middle, back in the States around 94. So yeah, like 95, 96, 97, 98. Those were the years that, um, it's a little like post Nirvana. Yeah. Well, yeah. Post Nirvana, like pre, um, like mud, honey, green river that the whole seattle scene was moving but

pavement yeah exactly um yeah man uh fugazi was big i was well actually fugazi was earlier yeah they were earlier yeah but but rollins band you know that's when henry rollins started he came out with weight which was a killer album and school of fish you were into like kind of the hardcore stuff yeah i. I do. It's so funny. Cause when we, I picked you up from the airport and we're driving back and we get a FaceTime call from John Joseph from the crow mags.

Crow mags. Yeah. And I, if you've listened to the podcast, you probably heard our two, a couple episodes with him. Yeah. When I,

when I, when we moved to California, I was in a, the band that I was in out here called something about today. I actually recorded in San Francisco, um Silva, who was in Bad Radio, the band that Eddie Vedder took off from to go join Pearl Jam. And the drummer went to Four Non Blondes. Well, I hooked up with Dave Silva in Palm Springs and we started this band and went and recorded a small EP in San Francisco where Santana recorded. And that was probably the closest thing or the closest time I'd ever had.

You were like brushing up against. Yeah, it was really, really cool. He was playing me early recordings of Better Man that Eddie Vedder was writing. Just really cool, really cool stuff. Really cool. Oh, wow. Really cool stuff. So there's that, but then there's real life.

There's family. There's kids. There's this crisis, encephalitis. But you get to the other side of this slowly. Right. And, and, um, and I take it that around this time, you know, you're starting to get serious about what you're going to do with your life, right? Like, so is this when being a paramedic comes in? Yep, exactly. I, I, um, we were living in California and, um, I had just found out that we had just found out that, uh, Rhonda was pregnant with Ian. She had come, she was a massage therapist and she went back for a seminar and came back to California.

She had a cold sore on her lip. I was like, man, that's kind of jacked up, babe. You don't usually get that. And she's like, yeah, well, a week went by and she caught another one and we're getting ready to cook dinner. And I was like, I was like, dude, you are pregnant. And she's like, I am not. I didn't know cold sores are like an indicia of pregnancy. Dude, I just knew. I just, I was like And she's like, I am not. I'm like, I didn't know cold sores are like an indicia of pregnancy.

Dude, I just knew. I just, I was like, she's like, I am not pregnant. So I was like, I'll be right back. I literally picked up the keys and I got in my car and ran to the store on the corner. This is when we were in La Quinta. And I grabbed a pregnancy test. And dude, it was like, it was like the sky was opening. Like she peed on it.

I was just like, ah! like the plus sign came up and she's like what happened i'm like what do you mean what happened um and biology happened it scared the crap out of us um but at that at that point your daughter was in she was out of the yeah she was yep she was she was recovering she still had like some neurologic deficits. She still had fine motor skill problems. She had very like weird space awareness where she'd lose balance. Is she fine now?

Yeah. Is she fully recovered? Yep. And I think you said that you ultimately ended up homeschooling her for part of her education? Yep, Rhonda actually, when we finally moved from California to Oregon, starting out by transition from just getting into medicine and following my passion there. Um, yeah, Rhonda homeschooled Evelyn for a number of different

reasons. Um, and one being the medical problems that we faced with her, but the other one was just probably for the same reason why you guys homeschool your kids. Yeah. So, but yeah, we did that for a couple of years. And I just started it. Like I said, I started down the road to being a paramedic. What was the reason for moving up to Portland? For that?

For that. Yeah, we were in Palm Springs and my wife and I were like, okay, we've been here for two years. And we had just gone through some of the most difficult things in our marriage. It was rough. We had a really tough time. We really had to work through some things that I think lingered from when Evelyn almost died. And just some stuff, man, just some crap that people go through. And that is the part of my life when I feel like God finally got ahold of my heart and said,

all right, dude, check this out. Um, do you, so when you hit these rough spots in your marriage, I mean, what were the tools that you use to get through that?

I mean, was that where the church came in or therapy or how did that, I, there were, there was a time where I didn't want, I didn't want to have anything to do with the big church as the big C church. I didn't want to do it. I don't want to do with religion. I didn't want to have anything to do with the big church as the big C church. I didn't want anything to do with religion. I didn't want to have anything to do with ritual.

And I didn't want to have anything to do with myself. Because I kept on telling myself, like, I can't wait for five years from now or ten years from now when I get to the person that I'm going to be. And the problem with that theory and idea is if I'm always trying to fix myself with myself and I end up with myself, ultimately I'm still dealing with a broken self. Well, you're trying to solve the problem with the problem. Exactly. It's like trying to fix money with a credit card. It's like when they say, uh, in recovery, you know, your best thinking got you here. You know, it's like, exactly. I solve this problem with your brain because your brain is what got you in this problem to begin with. Dude, I figured out nobody lies to

myself more than me. I mean, seriously, you don't, even today, I, nobody lies to me more than I do, even when I don't think I'm doing it. And, um, I just, I just felt like I'd gotten to the point where both Ron and I just felt like we were like, if this is the pinnacle of what you get is your human experience on this planet, um, and we're screwing it up this bad, where do we go from here? Um, and I think the biggest thing for me was there was a point where I met a couple of guys from a church in, in, in Palm Springs. It was a mega church. Um, and they were, they were just cool guys. They were musicians and they were flawed. And I, it was the first time ever I had somebody tell me, dude, God loves you. He, he's not an angry God. That's pissed off because you're a piece of crap. And you're like, my idea of God was so wrapped around my idea of my own father. It freaking screwed me

up, dude. Um, and I didn't realize that until that time. But like when I hear people, when I started hearing people telling me, Hey man, God loves you. God loves you. And it, I didn't want to hear it. It didn't, it didn't start. It didn't make sense. But that's when we started going to church. That's when I started to realize it's not about religion. It didn't make sense, but that's when we started going to church. That's when I started to realize it's not about religion. It's about a relationship. And I realized seeing people in my life that were very religious around me, up until that point, religion either left them feeling very proud because they could check the boxes or in the bar because they didn't check enough.

And it just didn't make sense to me. So that's when Ron and I were like, like all right we're getting in the back seat take charge um so is that like uh was there like a specific moment where you remember that happening or was that a yeah what what exactly triggered um it's it just was a series of, um, I think it was a series of events that led both Rhonda and I to a counselor that said, um, you either go all in or you go all out. Um, and if you're going to go all in, um, and you, you do it without Christ, then you'll end up the statistic that so many people do. Um, and for us, that was what we decided to do. We're like, all right. And this was like seven, eight years and, you know,

seven years or so in, and, um, dude, I thought I had figured out. I really did rich. I really thought I had, I really thought I figured it out. Um, and so did Rhonda and we didn't. Well, I think that, that, that sort of brings up this idea of, you know, when you say you figured it out, it kind of means like, okay, like I'm on cruise control. Like I've been married seven years, eight years, you know, she knows me, I know her, we're in our pattern and we can just ride this thing out and life doesn't work that way. You know, you're me, I know her, we're in our pattern and we can just ride this thing out. And life doesn't work that way. You know, you're either, you're either growing or you're regressing your relationship is decaying or it's becoming stronger. And that's something that I don't

really want to embrace and something that I forget on a daily basis in every aspect of my life, from my marriage to, you know, sobriety to fitness to, I mean, it's, it's obvious in fitness, you're either getting stronger, you're getting weaker, you know, but it's very applicable to, you know, all areas of personal growth, spiritual, emotional, and mental, but it's very easy to fall into like, I'm just gonna, you know, I'm just gonna relax into this. And I think the moment that you do that, at least I, I should just speak from my own personal experience. If I do that in my marriage, if I do that in my career, if I do that with endurance training, that's not going to go well. Dude, the, the theme throughout your book and Rhonda and I,

cause Rhonda read the book too, is comfort retards growth. I'm like, seriously, whenever anybody gets comfortable. And I say that all the time, like life is dynamic. You are either growing or you're dying. And I know that's a very like romanticized way to look at it. But, dude, it's the truth. And it doesn't have to just correlate with sport or parenting, but it can it can be there's micro and macro elements to life. And right, dude, every single one of them have that theme in it. Um, and you know, I think that there's a lot of value in embracing that concept. I mean, that, that was, that's kind of in part what motivated

that blog post that I put up about like, stop hacking your life hacking. Cause I just, I'm getting so turned off by this culture of, of let's find the quick fix or the end run around the thing. So we can get to the finish line quicker and easier and more comfortably. And it's, you know, my experience is it's not about that at all. It's, it's what you just said. It's embracing the discomfort, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, like welcoming the, the the suffering and the challenge and the obstacles and all of that, like the whole thing. And that's where the beauty and, of course, the hardship, but the true value and the meaning and the sense of satisfaction ultimately comes from.

Right. Well, and, you know, Epic Five, Ultraman, those are, those are metaphors for those experiences. You're not going to like hack your way through. I mean, I suppose you could, you could find the way to like train the least amount for that race and get through it. So you check the box thing, but, but how do you feel on the other side of that? Like, I know that, you know, when you cross that finish line at Ultraman this past year, that you did absolutely everything you could to put in the maximum performance that you were capable of. And that was demonstrated by your aggressive race tactics throughout of pushing

the limit, you know, very early on and, and, and, and all of that. And so, you know, lose or win or fall or stand tall. Like when you, when you were done with that experience, I can guarantee you that you'll tell me that you have a sense of yourself and a sense of satisfaction that is irreplaceable. Yeah, totally. And, and it's, um, well, dude, I talk to you every day in Hawaii, um, before my stages, just for a little bit of encouragement and guidance and direction. Um, ditto, man. I mean, you, you, bit of encouragement and guidance and direction. Ditto, man. I mean, it's the same way with you. I watched you do it through the Epic Five first, though. I think that's what kind of lit the fire for me is just watching you perform.

And dude, I don't know that you necessarily, this is the part of the podcast I told Ron, might make you you feel uncomfortable, but, um, I don't think you realize like, uh, you know, I was telling you in the car earlier today that I watched another interview with you last night before I came down here and dude, the way you're doing what you're doing is really amazing, rich. Like it's really, really good dude. Um, and watching you race or watching you compete or watching you talk or reading what you write or listening to you speak, you're just doing it in a way that is wholesome. And I really, really, really, really want you to know that I'm not blowing smoke. And I do. I just, for those of you that are listening, I've been talking nonstop since I got here. And it's not because I'm nervous around rich, but I think

it's because I'm maybe too comfortable. Um, but I just want you to know that. Thanks, man. Yeah, man. I know, dude. And I really, really just am glad to be your friend. Um, so the feeling is mutual, man. Right on, dude. Um, moving on. Yeah, let's, let's, uh, I'm flustered. I'm blushing, Christian. No, I appreciate that. Thanks very much. Um, so you find this solution that's working for your marriage and is giving you, um, maybe a greater sense of, of purpose and belonging in your life. And you could be just cruising along for the remainder of your life. You have a good career.

Your marriage is on track. You have two healthy kids after this crisis. And so where is this, you know, where, where did this itch to kind of get into endurance sports start to creep into your life? Uh, I think initially it was when, um, when Ron and I finally made it up to Oregon, which we've lived, we've lived in Oregon longer than we've lived anywhere else, 12 years now. So we feel like it's kind of our home for sure. We started going to West Valley, West Valley community church,

which is a really cool place. I play in the worship band there and have for the last 11 years. And I had a speaker come from Eastern Europe and talk about in Gergiu, in Gergiu, Romania, talk about a program that's over there that once a week, these kids from these outlying communities get to come and bring their clothes and have all their clothes washed and take a hot shower. And it just resonated with me. I'm like,

I love comfortable, you know, I love comfortable t-shirts and I love hot showers. Um, and I said, I told my wife, I'm like, I'm gonna do a marathon and I'm going to raise 5,000 bucks for this organization. Um, that's what I did. So it came really from a place of, I want to be of service to this organization as much as it came from a place of, I want to challenge myself physically. Yes. Yeah. Because I've always, I figured out by then rich that I was, I was built to be kind of a runner, kind of like a Dean Karnasas, kind of a little bit shorter, a little bit stockier, a little bit. Um, but I, I could always, um, I just, I just not shorter than Dean. I don't know. I I'm not, huh? No.

Well, pictures can be deceiving. But I think I have more of a... Well, I guess... Dude, how tall are you? Barely six feet. Okay. Because when I was standing next to you today, I'm wearing these awesome flip-flops that have lifts on them. It just kind of dawned on me.

I'm like, I feel a little bit taller next to Rich Roll. I'm not that tall. Come on, go ahead. Anyway. Dude, where was I? This coffee, this coffee talking about like, no, we were, what I was really driving at is this idea, um, of integrating service into, cause it's how I'm wired. And that seems to be like from the very beginning, you know, sort of first and foremost and everything that you've done. And we're going to get into all of the kind of more current stuff, but I didn't know that that was kind of part of it at the inception. The funny thing is too, is I flew to Vegas for this marathon.

I found the one that, you know, I, and I resonate with what you write in your book too. Like I found it, I had a focus, I had a goal, I'm going to do the marathon. Um, I flew to Vegas cause that's where Rhonda's family lives. And I ran the marathon, raise this money, um, got it to the, to the people that needed it. And that night, Rhonda and I went to a spa and relaxed and lo and behold, I lean over and pick up a tattered magazine that says Ironman Kona qualifiers. And on the front of it is Chris Lieto. Oh, wow. Who's got his fingers up. And I told my wife, I'm like, man, when I was eight years old, I used to, I watched this Julie Moss on TV, crapper pants and crawl through the, you know, and I've always told people, you either have two responses to that is when am I going to do it or why am I going to do it?

And I told my mom, I remember saying, mom, I'm going to do that someday. So I told my wife, I'm like, babe, I'm going to do the Ironman. And she's like, what? So the flame was lit, but like backing it up had, did you play sports in high school? Uh, I tried, I was really good baseball player. Um, but you weren't on the cross country team. Nope. Nope. I tried track for a year and they threw me in the two mile. I ran two mile. I sucked at it. Came in last all the time. Right. Um, I played a little bit of baseball. I tried football for a year. I was like, this is stupid. And then I was in the school play for the final years of my high school.

And, dude, my buddies always make fun of me. They're like, dude, you wear black turtlenecks and listen to Depeche Mode. Right. So, I mean, in high school, were you, like, hanging out with the party crowd or the jocks? Or, like, what clique did you fall into? The lame clique. The lame click. I was, uh, I was good buddies with, with people from kind of the different groups, the different clicks. Yeah. I really, I really, but, but dude, I was kind of a,

I was kind of a dark man. I mean, um, and my wife tells me now, no, you weren't babe. You, kind of a dork man i mean um and my wife tells me now no you weren't babe you people like you and i'm like thanks stewart smalley but uh but yeah all right so you're a dork you didn't you could barely run the two mile yeah you didn't have any real experience with endurance training or kind of athletic performance in any kind of real way not to the military so yeah all right so the military gives you structure right that probably gave you the tools that you needed to kind of set that goal. Yeah. And they force it in terms of the marathon. And you got to run every day for hours.

Did you get like some online plan or like just how did you figure out what your program was going to be? Exactly that. I like to read. So I got a book, studied. I didn't do 12. I ran like a 330. It wasn't anything or 340. It was not good.

But that's a huge 30. It wasn't anything or three 40. It was not good. Um, but, uh, but that's a huge accomplishment. I mean, for a first marathon and a guy who's never been a runner, you know, like you, you went well under four hours. Well, I guess I shouldn't say it's not good. That's, that's probably crap. It's, it's for the three 30, three 40 runners. It's really good. Um, how do I get out of this? You're, you all right you know it wasn't it wasn't to my potential it wasn't to my potential your potential right and kind of some of the things that you've done since right right so you did it but that spark was immediately lit instantly it's it's either one of two things either like i'll never do that again or like when you know when's the next no dude it was it was literally like i remember ronda ran with me for a couple hundred yards at mile 18,

and I knew that it was game on for me, and that was in 2000. How old were you? So that would have been 2006. No, no, 2004. 2006 was the first time I did Ironman Florida. But 2004, I ran the marathon. All right, so the spark's lit, and then what, did you immediately go out and get a bike or what happened? Yep.

Over the course of the next two years, I started pre-med. Then I went to paramedic school. I started paramedicine. I was dabbling my hands and fingers in all kinds of stuff because I was working in the emergency room. I had kind of a knack for medicine. Um, and then I started to look into running my next marathon, which I did. Um, and I ran sub three 30. I'm like, okay, I I'm figuring this out. And then, um, I got a coach and did 12 triathlons my first year. Wow. Um, so it, dude, it was great. I did excellent too. I made, uh, the first or second year I was, I made the U S team to go to France, um, age group nationals, which I didn't take, which was kind of cool. Um, it seemed like a

bigger deal at the time, but it's really kind of just like an way to get a good way. But, um, and so where'd you learn how to swim then? Uh, oh, I grew up in like, like, I mean, you just grew up swimming in the lake.

Yeah. Because, because we were in Detroit for like six or seven years, then in the suburbs for another couple of years. And then we moved to the upper peninsula. So I was up on lakes. You lived on the UP. Yeah.

Yeah. In the winter time. Yes. Oh dude, dude, it was, it was, it was bizarre. It was bizarro. Hell yes, dude. Dude, it was... Were you like ice fishing and stuff? It was bizarro hell.

Yes, dude. My dad would ice fish all the time. He'd drink and ice fish. Fairs and stuff? He'd maybe sit in the living room and look out the window and watched when the chem lights would come on and go... Dude, I hated it. I was not an outdoor guy.

I hated hunting. I hated fishing. And I work with a bunch of firefighters at work. That's all they do is hunt and fish and work on cars. Some of them. You're the crazy guy with the shaved legs. I mean, in the scheme of things, you're the whack job, right? All right.

So 12 triathlons in your first year. And so you're kind of showing immediate promise, though, if you're getting selected for these teams and the like, right? though, if you're like, you know, getting selected for these teams and, and, and the like, right? Yeah. I think it was more just an, just a example of willing yourself to do something versus, cause I don't think I'm a raw, talented athlete by any means. Um, and when I say something like that, it's not by, by any stretch to make myself look like it just, I just kind of that first and second year you have that like honeymoon phase where every, you get better and better and better with every race until the plateau phase hits.

And then you're left, you know, like crap, what do I do? Right. And so, so, so Ironman just is the,

is a progression of this idea. Right. So, so when's the first Ironman? 2006. I went down to two years after your first- Marathon. Marathon. Ron and I drove across country to Florida.

Right. It was a blast. Yeah. You found the flattest Ironman, right? I guess Arizona's pretty flat too. Yeah. Well, no, Arizona's not as flat as Florida, but Florida's flat. And so how'd that go?

I got like a 1130. It was, it was tough, man. Right. I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. I didn't know what I was doing though. And so you're not like this immediate overnight success at Ironman or anything. Not at all. And so what was the takeaway from that? The takeaway was I want to go to Kona. Like seriously, I became obsessed, dude, obsessed to the, to the oomph degree. So you just fully geeked out. I did, man. I, I, I drove, I do, I drove my wife totally.

I drove my wife and everybody around me insane at work, at church, at home. Um, it's, it's a bad place for somebody with ADHD to be dude. Cause, um, uh, and I say that with all kindness, uh, I think everybody has a form of ADHD, but, um, I own it now, dude. Um, but yes, I became obsessed. And how did you balance being a dad and being a father, you know, being a husband? Well, dude, it worked out perfect. Cause my wife became a school teacher. So during the days that I don't work, my wife goes to school with the kids and I have, you know, 48 hours, sometimes longer than that, depending on what days of the week

by myself. Um, so this is when I started. It's a schedule that can either get you into a lot of trouble or you can channel that into something, some obsessive activity like this. I think God wired us, wired men, especially to be tired. I think a man with energy is a dangerous thing. And I found that out many times. So I'd agree with that. Yeah. The, the fatigue incurred by, um, it was an asset, uh, to say the least. Um, yeah, man. So that's what happened, bro. I, I just started to, so you made this plan like this, like a one year plan or a two year plan or what was the idea? No, dude, at first I don't think I was that forth. I didn't have that much foresight and thinking, um, I just wanted to, I was like, man, I'm going to next race. I'm going to next race and qualify for Kona.

And you start like hanging out with all the triathletes in Portland and no, not really. I, I became friends with one guy who actually started later than I did and became better than I did. Um, and which was cool. Um, but I, I, that's when I kind of became affiliated with the athletes lounge and became good friends with Gary there. Um, and then that's when I met Chris Boudreau. Um, and for the listener athletes lounge is like a, is it a shop or it's like a- It was actually voted one of the top 10 best triathlon retail stores in all America last month. But it's also kind of like a hub of the community, right? Like I know Terenzo, who's been on the podcast, who's spent time training down here, but he

goes up there and trains in Portland and is part of that. Barb Lindquist was just there last week. Right. They have cooking stuff there. And Chris Boudreaux is a very successful. Yeah, dude, he's a stud professional triathlete who ultimately became your coach and really good friend. He, he, he is a, now if there had been triathletes like that around when I first started, I would have loved to hang around, but I was insecure and unsure of myself. So I just thought,

man, I got to stick with this. I got a, I got a coach from a fitness club and spent hours reading books. Were you like one of those guys who just went out and just hammered as hard as he could in every workout? No. You'd read up enough to know. Yeah, I did have some direction. And I wasn't, I could see I had something brewing here. Like I knew, okay, I got to assess this. Could I be good at this?

Yes. But no, dude, I didn't just go smash fest like Simon Lessing does every time he goes out the door. Um, so, uh, so, so how does this play out at least on the Ironman landscape? Uh, it took me, I used it as another tool, obviously to do some more fundraising, which was pretty cool. Cause I was able to affiliate myself with, with organizations that I felt strongly about. And then, um, I got a good coach. I got a really good coach, David Cavarella, um, up in Portland. He, um, is a, is a really decent athlete and he coached me in four weeks before I was racing Ironman Coeur d'Alene, spending a year with him, having him build me to the point where I knew I was going to qualify for Kona. I got offered to

go to Haiti. And, uh, that's when my overseas bug got in me where I'm like, ah, this is it, man. This is, so I remember I was on the trainer and I called David. I'm like, Hey dude, I got a curve ball thrown at me. I'm going to be going to Haiti. He's like, you're not going to Kona then. I'm telling you straight up. He's like, you're not going to Kona, dude. Um, and I'm like, I gotta go. I gotta go. So I went over there and that, that first trip changed my life. So what year was that? That would have been 2007? 2007.

2007, 2008, somewhere in there. So it's this, again, it's this interrelationship or this balance of service and endurance sports. And again, like the service aspect of it kind of trumping the athletic component. It changed my life. I saw stuff over there that and things happened to me like i remember dave telling me dude if you can get out and run and i was going to a sketchy part of port-au-prince this is a little bit a little bit like two years after when was the earthquake i'm trying to remember so it was a year or two after that

you were there after that but not immediately right correct and i remember thinking you know we were going to a compound that was walled and it was in a, you know, outside of Port-au-Prince a little bit, but there's super climbs up through the villages. And dude, I was leaving at 4 a.m. in the morning and running up through the villages. And one of the things that the lady that ran the mission said, she said, of all the medical stuff that you did, the biggest effect you had on the people in the village was a white dude running up through the mountains in the mornings and not thinking twice about it. And dude, I was cutting off gangrene. I was, I had a guy come in that, you know, pretty swollen foot. And it was at this time I told myself, I don't care if I ever go to Kona. Um, this guy came in on crutches. He'd walked for four hours to get to this clinic and I saw his foot swollen up, but it didn't smell like usually I'm like, Oh, I should smell really bad. And, um, he laid down on the table and I started talking to him and I looked at the

bottom of his foot and he had a hole about the size of a baseball on the bottom of his foot. And I was trying to gather myself cause I'm an emotional guy. And I took a tongue depressor and a flashlight and looked in the bottom of his foot and it was filled with maggots to the, to the, I mean crammed. Like when I, when I, when I pulled down, like maggots were falling out. Um, and it was right then, then there that I knew I'm like, this guy's gonna lose his foot. Like he's gonna, he's got to walk back to Port-au-Prince to go get his foot chopped off. And I remember thinking to myself, this is one of those things where I feel like God whispers in my ear. And this is one of those times where I, like God whispers in my ear. And this is one of those times where I thought of my own sin as a human being, how I can look at the part and wear

the mask and be doing what I think I'm doing and not have it smell. But when you lift up the veil, there's maggots or, and right. It's this metaphor, dude. It was a huge metaphor metaphor for me i remember i took the soles out of my shoes and put them in it was he had these like really crappy plastic birkenstocks and i talked to the to the guy that was running the the medical clinic the the haitian national that lives there and off the guy went to get his foot chopped off um so what i mean how does that even happen like how did he what happened to his foot how do did he get a big hole in his foot? Infected, just infected. And he lives out, kind of lives out, you know, outside of Port-au-Prince and infection turns. And there's not really. How come it didn't smell?

Dude, because the maggots were eating away the dead flesh. I got you. But there's no infrastructure there, dude. Yeah. So, yeah, a year and a half, two years. It's sort of like the new cycle of it's all about Haiti right in the aftermath. But then life goes on and we move on to the next story and we forget. And you know,

uh, there's so much crap going on over there. It's still happening. Yep. I went back again. Um, cause I wanted to stay plugged in, uh,

and same sort of thing. I, I remember, you know, I, I was doing things for people, uh, cutting off gangrenous thing.

I mean, we were just doing like gorilla medicine, dude. Um, and I had people trying to give me their chickens and that's like giving a car away here. It's like their sense of food. That's what they, you know, that's their sense of food. So that's when the claws got into me. And I thought it's more than the finish line. It's more than Kona. I mean, having said that, I still spent the following two years trying to get there. Right. So how,

I mean, how long were you there? So you get back and you've missed this training and. Yep. I went to Coeur d'Alene and got freaking hammered. I had a non-displaced rib fracture. I got a broken rib in the swim. Um, where'd you get kicked in the ribs or something? I did the second lap going around. I got kicked and I didn't realize it was messed up until the run. And my coach was there next to me on the bike. And I'm like, something's wrong with my lung. And he's like, dude, you're in 11th place. I was in 11th place. He's like, keep going. And, bike and i'm like something's wrong with my lung and he's like dude you're in 11th place i was in 11th place he's like keep going and um i'm like crap i could do this and i folded around mile 19 went and got x-rays two days later and i cracked i had a messed up rib and that was 2007 no that was 2008 2008 2008 yeah somewhere

in there 2009 and then um went back to haiti again uh had another did canada a couple times and then uh but the thing is is like you're not you're not like stamping some major and perimeter on the iron man world like you know you're struggling you're you're struggling age grouper yes you know maybe if you could put together a whole season without getting sick or having to go to haiti you know you'd be in the mix to go to Kona, but you're not like lighting everyone up. So there isn't, there aren't like, you know, Christmas tree lights going off saying, you know, your destiny is to become this, uh, you know, endurance athlete. I wanted to die, right? You have the passion, you have the focus, you're gung ho, you're fully try geeked out the whole nine yards. Right. But

you're having trouble like actually converting. I do. an hour in a sprint i thought i was a king i was like that's a big deal for me i came close to breaking two hours in a in an olympic the the i got a roll down spot for worlds uh for for the half but the iron man is where i wanted to really like i don't know i got sucked you want to be like chris lieto and you want to be pointing to the sky right i got i got in the finish line from that magazine that you saw well dude how did you how did you avoid i mean because did you ever want kona i guess i did you know i don't know how i was very um of course uh but i was also very impatient and i didn't want to wait like a full year to go do an iron i was like why does i didn't know i didn't know well first of all i didn't even get into

the like you like in 2007 i was just beginning like i hadn't done anything yet and i'd started working with a coach and i and i wanted like a big goal like i really i wanted a goal that scared me. Who were you working with? Was that when you went to Hoth? Did you meet Chris Houth? Yeah, I was with him from the very beginning. Yeah. And, and all the Ironman races were kind of sold out for that year. You know, I was really going to have to wait another year. And I was, I'm trying to remember the timeline exactly. Cause I don't want to speak out of school, but essentially what happened was, you know, I could, I could wait another year and get into like Ironman Canada, you know, if I'm, if I'm ready at the computer or the day that tickets go live or whatever, or I could take a, you know, a trip down the wild rabbit hole and, you know, try to get into this Ultraman race. And

I, I, I just couldn't get Ultraman out of my mind, I think because it scared me to death. There was something about that that was very alluring because that was, for me, that was what the journey was about. It wasn't about Kona or being like atop the age group ranks or anything like that. I needed to do something that really shook me up to kind of connect with myself. What did you say? So it wasn't about competing and all that. It was a different sensibility, I suppose. Not that I wasn't intrigued and interested in Ironman. Of course I was. And had there been the opportunity to go and do an Ironman in a way that worked with

the calendar and the kind of progression that I was making, I would have done that. When I read your book, what did you say to, like, how did you just call up? Cause that's kind of like, you don't hear about that anymore. You don't hear like, well now like, you know, Ultraman gets a lot more press and there's more people that want to do it, even though that race has been around for, it's what is it? 30 years now. So it's been around for 30 years. I mean, in 2000, so the first time I did Ultraman was 2008. So I would have been calling Jane in like very, it must have been like 10, 11 months before the race. Yeah, your book said you had like eight months to train. Right.

But I mean, that was from when I got the green light that I was, I was about, yeah, I must, I must've called Jane about nine months before the race. I know that it was before the window was open that they were accepting applications. And I called her simply because I wanted her to tell me that it wasn't going to happen. So I could like put it out of my mind. And so I was like, I read this article and I was obsessing about it and I couldn't stop thinking about it and i was like i'm just gonna call her up and she'll she'll like set me straight and then i can go back to living my life right sleeping at night and uh i just called you know like on active.com or wherever where they have this stuff there was a phone number or it was from the website one of those two and there was a phone number and I just called her and she picked up the phone just, and, uh, yeah, it was probably her house, you know? And, uh, and I just had, I just, I was just very honest with her. I was like, look, I read this article. I can't stop

thinking about it. I kind of have no business calling you, but like, I'm really fascinated by what this is all about. And, you know, I'm totally green and I don't know anything, but, you know, Did you tell her that? a moment where, you know, she could have, or probably possibly should have said, you know, why don't you go and do a couple of higher mans or at least run a marathon or do a couple of other things and call me in a year or two years. And then we can have a serious discussion about it, but that's not what she said. What she said was, you know, it's really cool that you're calling and, you know, it's really early on and ultra man is much more than just finding, you know, the, the fastest athletes. It's about finding the right people that are suited for this journey. You know, it's like, I kind of had this,

like, you know, soul surfer conversation with her about like where I was in my life and, you know, why this was intriguing to me. And I think there was something about that that must have connected with her, um, and, and, you know, allowed her to be, um, more open-minded about the possibility. So she didn't say yes, but she said, you know, why don't you call me in a couple of months? We'll have another conversation. She didn't close the door. You know what I mean? And so it was little like breadcrumbs of, you know, okay, well maybe I will move over in this direction a little bit. Well, do one of the things she said to me before I left the islands and Ultraman, why she's, she knows that we're friends and she's like, Hey, next time you come back here, make sure you bring rich with you. Yeah. I mean, I love her. She's a,

she's a dear, dear person. And what she does with that race is really special. I think it would be, it's interesting because I look back on it and even in the midst of doing it in 2008 and 2009, I'm looking around going, well, you know, we could like really improve this race if we got sponsor money. And why don't they do this? And why don't they do that? And we could, you know, like, why isn't there any media here covering this? Such a fascinating story. And I couldn't understand like why she was so I understood why she was protective over it and its legacy, but I think at that time I was feeling that she was maybe a little overprotective.

But now in hindsight and looking back, I, you know, austerity and purity that you just don't find in other races. I mean, certainly you can find that in, in plenty of ultra races, but you're hard pressed to find something like that in the triathlon world. And it's because she said no to, you know, a lot of opportunities that have come down her way and it's her baby and she gets to make the decisions and it's a monarchy and she's the queen. No kidding, man. Fine with that. And me too. I am too. And I feel blessed to know her. I mean, she's, she can run out how she wants to, if, if, if it keeps producing, you know, and dude, look at the door. I mean, it's just cool that you, what a, what a doorway for you to walk through, man. Well, I mean, I, I don't, you know, I'm always conscious of, I'm not trying to like

profit off the experience. I'm trying to share the value of what it meant to me in the form of a story or a narrative that people might be able to emotionally connect with in kind of a metaphor kind of way. Um, but I'm always very cautious or, you know, kind of a metaphor kind of way. But I'm always very cautious or, you know, kind of conscious, I should say, of making sure about how I speak about that race because I have so much reverence for it. I agree. And for how it's conducted. Yep, I totally agree. And for the other athletes and the crew members and the volunteers and the sort of, you know,

the Ohana of the whole thing. Yep, yep, right on. So let's get to this part. Okay. Because that's what everyone wants to hear about anyway. So, you know, you're doing your thing in Ironman, so, you know, you're, you're doing your thing in Ironman, but you know, you're just, you're not really distinguishing yourself. So, so where does this Epic five kind of, I mean, that that's the next thing, right? Yeah. The Epic five was, um,

yeah, that opportunity came, um, and I took it. Um, and so how did that opportunity come though? Cause a lot of people would be like, well, how did that even enter into your mind? Jason asked, you know, Lester got a hold of me or we, I talked and, um, how did that, how did you even, I, I, he was being coached by the same guy that was coaching me. Uh, I got that. That's kind of where the connection. Yeah. That's kind of where the window opened. Um, and then, you know, over the course of a couple of conversations, and that's when I found another opportunity to work with Craig. That's when I worked with, that's how I met Lieto. I worked with XXX Church, the online accountability program. Oh, right, right, right. So explain what that is. I know what that is. Yeah, XXX Church is a online accountability program where um it sounds dirty though it does sound dirty it's uh it's pretty cool actually uh and dude it pisses

off a lot of people on the on the conservative like even on the conservative front dude it's like like like i'm way more conservative i'm just not pissed off about it you know what i mean um but these guys catch a lot of crap but the service that they do is it saves people's lives. No kidding. I remember meeting people that said, dude, that saved my life. It's an online accountability program where you put your, you pick three accountability partners. Like for example, my wife, my son and my daughter all know where I go on the internet. It's just a, it's just a fail. So they have access to your, they get a report, like history or whatever. And it's not because I's just a fail so they have access to your they get a report like history whatever and it's not because i'm some porn junkie but i could be um and i spent a lot of time on the

computer you spent a lot of time on the computer dude there are pitfalls out there and i've fallen in them before whether willingly or unwillingly and now it's become so um it's just i see people and talk to people all the time struggling with porn addiction and it's a big, um, it's just, I see people and talk to people all the time, struggling with porn addiction. And it's a big problem. I mean, I think, you know, all kinds of sort of internet related addictions are cropping up and this is new terrain. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, it becomes a big problem. It can be devastating to people's lives. It really can. It really does. It wrecks the home, man. And, and I, and I have guys like, I remember when I was, when I was, you know, I had a Jeremy for shit, my buddy from New

York, the photographer that's been working with me, he flew out and took pictures of us. They, they came in from California. And I remember a couple of guys coming up to me going like, dude, why are you so against sex? And I'm like, what do you mean? So against sex? i'm like what do you mean so against sex he's like well you run it for i'm like dude i am rah rah for sex i'm all for sex sex the way that's supposed to be designed with your wife is awesome but with a daughter and a son especially a son dude my ian is asking me questions like freaking crazy um and this is just a great avenue and a great tool to talk to ian about like dude man you gotta watch it online because it can suck you in, man. Right. Well, it's interesting to hear you explain it because, you know, when we first got acquainted, you know, through email or phone or whatever, and I was like, Oh, who's this guy? And I'm checking you out. And I, and I noticed you

were doing advocacy work for this group and not knowing, not having ever met you and not really having a frame of reference for what this organization was, you know, I, I was like, Oh, this is some kind of, you know, you're, you're the guy who's like out with a, with a, you know, a picket sign, you know, shaming people, you know, because it's easy to, it's easy to draw that conclusion from the limited amount of information. You have to be very careful about how you kind of frame the whole thing. Yeah. You're right, dude. And they do, they do a pretty cool job. Like they go on, they, uh, Craig Gross and Ron Jeremy, they do college tours together and they have debates. They're very good friends with Ron Jeremy. Yeah. It's really cool. Ron Jeremy and Craig Gross. And

like when I was over there at the after party, I had my hand around a guy that had a hustler t-shirt on and we were both, you know, given the devil horn sound like rock on. And I just was trying to figure out a way to create dialogue with people. Um, cause dude, when I was in the military, it was everywhere. I mean, porn was all over the place and you don't, you don't stop to consider it. And I have friends that struggle with it. And I know marriages that have broken up with it. And it's, it's really just to start a discussion to say, Hey man, really just to start a discussion to say, Hey man, just be careful when you're on the computer. Um, and, uh, so yeah, so I did that and that's when, you know, going on to the queen K on the fifth day of the Epic five and you know, the Epic five, it's so cool to be able to talk to you about it. I could spend hours just talking to you about that, but I'm getting ready to take off. I'm the

first out of the water on the last day and none other than Chris Lieto drives up next to me and is on his bike and puts his hand on my shoulder and says, can I ride with you for the next 40 miles? And you're leapfrogging way ahead in this narrative. Sorry, dude. I want to make sure that I do like, you know, footnoting this, this sort of full circle aspect. Sorry, dude. Sorry. Of, uh, of how Chris has played an important part in your life and how, you know, from the moment you see that magazine and that inspires you to go and do Ironman to, you know,

him joining you for the final leg of five. And then some of the things that you guys are doing together right now is awesome. You know, it's really cool and it's a beautiful thing. And I think it's, it's, you know,

evidence and testimony that you're on the path that you're meant to be on, you know, these sort of synchronous events are aligning for you. So that's really cool, but we're not going to skip through. I'll give you back the steering wheel. I'll give you back the steering wheel. I'm still trying to figure out how you got involved with it. So Jason had a connection to your coach or the athletes lounge or the Portland community, right? Exactly. That's how it all came to the genesis of it. And so the idea for people that are listening, or if you've read my book,

like you've read about how I did the Sing Epic Five with Jason Lester. The idea was that we were going to do five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands and do it in five consecutive days. Correct. Island to island to island, starting on the island of Kauai and then going to Oahu, then to Molokai, then to Maui and then to the big island. And Jason, uh, this was Jason's brainchild. It's his idea. It was his concept and he's the one who produced the entire thing and

made the whole thing happen, which was no small feat. He was kind enough to invite me to attempt this with him in 2010. And we did it together. It was kind of an experiment. It was a challenge. It was an adventure. It was not a race. It was just the idea of can we do this and let's try to do this together. And that's what I write about in my book.

Ultimately, it took us a little bit longer than five days for reasons I explained in the book, a whole variety of, uh, sort of things that happen when you're going to, you know, sort of, uh, tackle, you know, an enormous challenge. There's going to be obstacles and unforeseen events and things like that. And that kind of threw our timeline off a little bit. Uh, we finished it in like six and a half days, something like that. Um, so we, you know, we didn't, we didn't meet our five day goal, but we did complete the challenge. And as a result of that, Jason had an interest in kind of developing this into an annual event. He would grow organically and slowly. So, so 2011 rolls around and you're one of the guys that, that, uh, becomes involved in this thing. I mean, what is the mental decision calculus that makes you say, I want to do this or do this? Dude, I think, to be honest with you, Rich, I think, I think I was in the second he

asked me. Um, I think that was a year he ran that the one, the SB. And he had met me in Portland for coffee. And he had his SB there. And he says, hey, I got something coming up here, I think, next year. And that was before you guys did it. So he already told you about what his idea was. Yeah. And I think he even mentioned that you guys were going to do it anyway. I knew it was happening from him before

you guys did it. And then after you guys did it, we touched base again and he's like, Hey, I got, I'm doing it with five guys. Do you want in? Um, and I said, yeah. Um, so was that, but that had to be a family decision, right? I mean, Yeah. I told Ronda, I was like, I played the limp dog, but I was totally in, man. I told Ronda, I was like, hey, babe, I want to do this. And she's like, oh... I mean, because Ronda is as supportive as she is, but she's like, man, babe, just freaking chill. But...

Right. But yeah, it was full on support. The crappy thing about that was she couldn't come with me. That was something that I had struggled with for a little bit. Um, cause I knew it was going to be lonely. Um, and then it's like loneliness and dog years when your wife's not there and you're in pain. Um, so once you decide that you're gonna do this thing, how does that change your physical preparation? Like how did you tweak your training to adapt your body and your, your mind emotions and all of that to, uh, get ready to endure this thing?

Well, I coached myself for number one. Oh, you did. Yeah. Um, that's a bold move. Yeah. And I, well, because I knew I just, I think I'd been reading, I was reading stuff that you were doing I remember reading I talked to Jason a couple of times but I just kind of was at that point now where I'd read a lot of Gordo's stuff and a lot of Joel's stuff

Gordo Byrne is a legendary endurance coach I emailed him and talked to him a little bit he won Ultraman before Alan Kuzins I talked with, um, I was picking the brains of athletes and people that were way better than me. Um, and I just trained a lot of hours at a reasonably slower pace. Um, and you know, I threw an interval work and I threw in, but I, I mean like I would watch the, I would spend six hours, seven hours on the trainer. Um, I would run for, you know, six hours. I would do, I just, I just coming from Ironman training

to suddenly getting to a place where you're running for six hours. I mean, that's a big, it was a build. Yeah. I didn't just, I didn't just like flip the switch in the next day ago. I mean, I, I progressed because common sense dictates, okay, if I'm in Iron Man shape, I realize that it's more of a recovery game than anything. You know, like those that recover the best, race the best, in Ultraman that is anyway. I didn't know it by then, but, and at the time too, this is when I started to entertain

the thought of Ultraman, but I just didn't think I was good enough or fast. I seriously didn't, you know. We had a conversation about that after Epic Five, but let's stick to this part right now. Yeah, yeah actually yeah you you played a key role in that but nonetheless i was thinking about ultraman at that time and then when this came up i'm like oh cool if i do this there's a good chance i could maybe use it as a as a right that's a that's a way into ultraman yeah because because uh because people don't for for listeners out there, you can't just sign up for some of these ultra races.

Right. You have to be vetted. You have to be somebody who can prove that you're capable of covering the distance and you're not going to die. And some of these races, they're like filling out college applications. Correct. You need letters of recommendation. And you have to be able to establish that within the last 18 months, you've done a certain number of races of certain distances, et cetera, et cetera. And now Ultraman is like that. Like you have to have done another Ultraman or at least, I don't know exactly what

the rule is, but I think you have, you can't just go to Ultraman Hawaii. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's very, yeah, I was, uh, well, dude, I remember talking to him like, dude, I remember talking to you. I'm like, dude, I don't know if I'm gonna get in. And, um, so yeah, I, uh, I got in. Um, so, but, but sticking to Epic five now. So, so, uh, how long did you, I mean, how long did you prepare? How many months or a year, you know, launching up to this 10 months, I think. Um, I just remember in my training, you're talking about how recovery becomes more important for me. Yeah. Recovery, but also it's, it, it had so much less to do with the intensity of the workouts than it had to do with being persistently in motion and, and acclimating to being fatigued

and training through fatigue, you know, sort of experimenting with sleep deprivation. Like I'm going to get up and I'm going to run when I haven't slept at all, because I'm going to have to be able to know what that feels. I would stay up at work. I would take the advantage of not having like not sleeping at work, staying up all night at my job. And I would use the next day, I would get into the water and then I would go for a ride and I would literally do that very thing. And the intensity that, that I trained literally do that very thing. And the intensity that, that I trained for that was very low. It was very casual, but I was kind of always moving. I was like always riding my bike or right. You know, it was like this perpetual motion machine

where your body just gets acclimated to the idea that it is constantly in motion. Were you full on vegan then? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was vegan. Um, I was vegan at the first Ultraman. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Um, yeah, because the, the, how'd you fuel for that? No, you talked about that in the book. Yeah. I mean, you know, I've, that's been an ongoing experimentation, but you know, trying to eat real foods as much as possible. And when you're, when you're training at that lower intensity,

you can digest that stuff easier to digest food. So it's not about, you don't, you actually don't want to be spiking your blood sugar, crazy amounts of sugar. That's really not going to, you're, you're trying to train your body to burn fat for fuel.

You're trying to be extremely, uh, economic and efficient in all of your actions and you're moving at a pace in which you're able to digest food to a certain extent right regular food yep i mean is that how yeah it would be a little bit more of a struggle when when gravity takes a hold you get off the bike and start running yeah yeah i mean that was that was the biggest on the bike of course um but yeah so so. All right. So same, same. So it's you, uh, it's Juan Craveri. It is, uh, Juan, Juan, Juan did it that year. Joseph and Joseph from Spain and,

and Flordy guys, Mike Flordy, Mike Flordy. Right. And then Lester and Lester. Okay. So that's a good group. Yeah. And, uh, you show up in Kauai, like what, like a week ahead of time when I was in what's going on. Yeah, that's exactly what I did. And my wife had written, I mean, are you scared or are you excited? Like what is going on in your mind? Yeah, I was scared and excited. Um, and I'd never been to Hawaii before, dude. Oh, wow. Um, and I'd been seeing the videos of you, um, on, right. So Jason and I had done it. So you knew it could be done. And, and, and we had had all these other pitfalls and the like, I mean, in certain respects, you know, the, the journey that Jason and I took, um, was kind of a proving ground for,

for you guys. It was awesome, dude. It was, it had been exploded. So you guys knew you could do it and you guys could just go out and, and, and kill it and you get it done in five days. You guys could just go out and kill it, and you get it done in five days. Yeah. I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily say we killed it. Well, you accomplished the feat. Yeah. It was – man, dude, I don't even know how to unravel this ball.

It was – We've got to hit the highlights because we could talk for – I could talk to you for nine hours straight. These are the highlights for me. But I i could talk to you for nine hours these are highlights for me running i want to hear about like i want to hear yeah i want to hear about the high highs and i want to hear about okay the low lows right on uh the high part of it was running with uh ian adamson for me on molokai the legendary runner yeah sort of uh he's affiliated with newton yep yep shoes right yeah he. He holds a couple of world records,

a couple of medals. He kind of came on to be kind of crew help. Yeah, well, he and his wife, Leah Garcia, who works PBR, travels the United States doing the pro rodeo. Oh, right, the bull ride. Yeah, on TV. They were doing the documentary for Outside Television.

That's right, Outside did a documentary. So they were like the media crew. I got you. There, cameras all over the place. When Jason and I did it, I remember when we started in Kauai, it was just Rebecca, who's our friend. And she was the crew chief and took care of everything. She's awesome. She's amazing. And hi, Rebecca. Cause I know you listen to them. We were, we were, we were, we were loving you on you about an hour ago. Julie says hi. But I remember Jason and I just standing in front of her condo in Princeville. And it was like 4 o'clock in the morning or whatever.

And she's like, all right, let's start running. Let's go. Started. There was nobody dating. Man, dude. What a trip. I think Rebecca snapped a picture on a little Instamatic. And that was about it. It was awesome, man.

So it was cool that you guys had a full film crew for full film crew. Yeah, it was around. Yeah. It brought in a whole different dynamic, but I think, I think running with Ian was, it was a really big highlight for me. Um, uh, I got an interview. Oh, another big highlight for me was on day four, I was walking through the airport. I had my glasses on because I had been crying on the plane, getting ready to land. And four guys from my fire department were standing there with a Hillsborough fire flag. And they crewed me for that day. Oh, I think I remember hearing about that. It was. That's pretty cool.

So they surprised you. They flew out to get you. Wow, that's amazing. That was really, really cool. Wait a minute. You were crying out of fatigue? Dude, I was just crying, man. This is ridiculous. I'm getting disappointed cause I haven't made you cry yet.

Dude, I, uh, now with all the pressure, you're probably not going to. Yeah. Well, anyway, there's still time. Um, I, uh, yeah, I, I grabbed on my buddy, my buddy, uh, uh, Joe Lennox, who's one of the closest, one of my closest my closest friends, he was there with Ted and Matt Dobbin and Larry Yakami. They're all close friends of mine. And they've played a significant role in my life, even to this day. Like, Joe crewed me for Ultraman, and I went and spent time with Ted in Kenya. But nonetheless, they were there on day four. But nonetheless, they were there on day four.

And Joseph Arjum was, Juan Caravagno came up to me and said, Joseph Arjum told me that you have your friends here, so you are going to fly today. Yeah, that's true. It was just a shot in the arm that I needed. So day four was not as difficult. It was the hardest day, but it wasn't as hard as I anticipated it was going to be because I had that momentum. You had your boys with you.

Yeah, it was pretty cool. Day four was horrible for me. It was. It was a hard day for me. Carry me out of the car after that day. Carry me to the hotel. I was in bad, bad shape. Dude, is that the day that he was feeding you?

Yeah, probably. Well, I mean, we had been dealing with such ridiculous sleep deprivation. You guys had mechanical issues? Yeah, so like on the second day in Oahu, we had all these bike problems that you can read about in detail in my book. But essentially, we didn't even get going on our bikes on the second day in Oahu until like 1230 in the afternoon or something like that. So we already had like blown hours and hours and hours trying to solve these stupid problems and so our timeline got all messed up so that just threw the whole kind of momentum and flow and mentally that wears you down too so by the time

we got to day four i was i was cooked man yeah just getting through that day was the hardest thing yeah it's paint i remember just saddle sores not being able to sit down on my seat. And I can remember just like riding along with the, this beautiful coastline, this beautiful beach to my right and looking at it and going, I don't care, man. I just, I want to lie my bike down on the pavement and I could fall asleep in like five seconds. I know. I know. Do the, one of the funniest parts of your books when, when you guys were talking about like, dude, just don't talk to me. Just shut, just shut up. Cause with me, when I start to get really fatigued like that, like I can't handle external stuff and I get really grouchy, man. You know, I get really, and I talk about that in the book too. Like I'm

not proud of that, you know, but I, I couldn't, I couldn't handle like human interaction. Like I just was, I was losing my shit. Isn't it weird,'t it weird dude how when you get like you just get winnowed down to the core like everything is removed except the like breathing pretty much breathing and everything else is like like well you can't um i mean you were saying at the beginning of the podcast, like you, you know, uh, you know, you lie to yourself more than, you know, like you're always catching yourself lying to yourself. But when you're, when you're in that state, there's something extremely pure about that. Like you're just being burned in the flame. Exactly. There is no, no lie can persist because you are just laid bare, you know, refining, you just get refined. just laid bare, you know, refining, you just get refined. There is no mask. And there's, yeah. I mean, you are like at your rawest self in that regard. And I think that's something like

unconsciously, I think that I was always seeking and that's what drew me to the ultra world to begin with is I wanted to have that experience of, you know, what it would be like to absolutely go all the way up against myself to the wall, to that breaking point and see what was there, you know? And I think I learned a lot about myself through, through doing that. You don't have a choice. Um, no, because you're the student and the teacher at the same time. Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, so Maui was rough. I mean, we ended up, you know, we finished the bike and it was, you know, late at night. I just could not believe after I finished that bike that I was going to be running a marathon. There was just no way on earth. To this day, looking back on that, I'm still baffled at how I actually got off the bumper of that car and got through that that evening. And you know, it's a, it's a spiritual odyssey.

Dude, it's, I mean, and there is no, you can't really put words to what it was like to be in the midst of that experience. So, I mean, I want to know like, you know, what was that for you? I was hallucinating and imagine demi more was chasing me i'm not kidding you what's that say about you demi more dude seriously where were you when that was happening that was on day five i started hallucinate the the beginning of the swim i was out front because day five i'm like day five was the only day I'm like, I'm freaking gone.

I just want to push it. That's when I met Chris. Like I said earlier, jumped the gun there. But the end of day four, I remember I was hallucinating. I thought I saw snow leopards coming out of the, just like under the queen cat. Yeah. And then the beginning of the swim, I saw a fin in front of me and then another fin. And I'm like, yeah, this is it. Here I go. I'm just going to roll over and get eaten like a seal. And it was dolphins, but I thought it was a shark. Your mind is...

That's why talking to you, you get it. I don't have to explain anything and you understand. But to other people that you have to explain it to, they'll never get it. It's just kind of... Well, let's try. Okay. I mean, I think people are really interested in this. I mean, they're interested in like why you would want to do this to begin with. And they're interested in, you know, what that experience felt like and, and ultimately what you took away from it. I think, I think, um, without, without like giving too many canned answers,

obviously there's always that desire to see how far I can go before I crack. I mean, that's just an essence and a core element of most people that do this type of sport. At least the, you know, the select few that feel like they want to find out how far the limit is. So that had definitely something to do with it. Number two, um, it's cool. It's a cool event to be a part of i mean there's that there's that selfish part of me that's like man this would be freaking awesome um three yeah it's much more like the amazing race than it is like qualifying for kona exactly and i think um Um, dude, there's, there's so many metaphors for my walk with Christ and racing.

And I think I found that with many athletes that, that say that that's, you know, the source of many Christian athletes that I feel like, especially Chris Lieto talking about on that queen K when we were talking, he goes, dude, why are you doing this? He's like, you look relatively fresh, man. Um, and Chris was killing me. He was freaking hammering. And I was trying my hardest to not look like, well, you're on the bike. I mean, nobody can keep up with that. And then he kind of scooted around. He's like, let me, let me cut wind for you right here. And I'm like, dude, Chris Lieto is breaking wind for me. Like he's in front of me, like right now breaking the yaw. Um, but I had some real personal moments with myself. Um, like I resonate, I remember thinking to myself too, like I could just lay down, I could just lay down right here. And it was in the middle of the day

and not even worry about the cement searing my body and just fall asleep. Um, and, and all the letters that Rhonda wrote to me, she wrote me a letter every day and I had to open it before the race. Um, she struggled a lot. Like, why are you doing this? Um, and I think ultimately is just because I just want to, is just because I just want to go somewhere that nobody else has gone. And it doesn't even have anything to do with XXX Church or, like, I just want to go and be somewhere where I know I can't screw anything up. And a lot of times for me, in the midst of the most uncomfortable parts of the race, I wish I could cash in on the feeling of how serene they are after the race is done. Like there are so many times where I'm like, why did I waste that 20 minutes? Even when I was

throwing up, why did I waste that? Why did I not just kind of like totally revel in the idea of nobody else is experiencing this at this very moment? Um, and, uh, does that make sense, dude? Is that, I know how, I know how like artsy that sounds, but, um, to push yourself to the limit and then go farther is it's almost, it's just almost hard to describe. That's it. That's our show. Don't forget part two with Christian is coming up on Thursday, a couple of days, depending upon when you're listening to this so again that means essentially two episodes this week an rrp twofer uh so that's good stuff anyway before we close it out a couple announcements again my new course with mind body green it's called the art of living with purpose check it out mindbodygreen.com it's full of all kinds of awesome secondly we have an ios app for

the iphone and the ip iPad that's coming soon. It's in development. We're getting close, super close. I'm really excited about that as well. We're almost there. It's going to be a way for you to access the entire catalog of the podcast. As you know, iTunes only goes back to the most recent 50 episodes. This is going to allow you to go all the way back to number one and the app is going to be free super cool more on that as we progress that's it until thursday uh be good everybody and if you want to support the show you know how to do it use the amazon banner ad at richroll.com doesn't cost you any extra on your amazon purchases like buying the paperback copy of finding ultra but amazon kicks off some loose commission change

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program. We've got the Jai C digital downloadable cookbook, all that stuff. You know about that. Anyway, I'm out of here. I'll check back in with you in a few days from Beirut. They say it's the Paris of the Middle East. So I'm anxious to see if that's actually true. I think it might be.

So full report coming your way. Until then, live wide, love deep, and I'll catch you on the flip side. Peace. Plants. your way until then live wide love deep and i'll catch you on the flip side peace plants