The Rich Roll Podcast - Mel Urie On Conquering The Impossible: How To Live A 'No Excuse' Life

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

Over the last few months, I've had the privilege of hosting conversations with an impressive litany of powerhouse women breaking paradigms across a wide swath of disciplines. Mel Urie has more than earned her spot amongst these powerful boundary crushers. And I for one am here to celebrate her. Devoted listeners will recall Mel’s first appearance on the show (along with fellow endurance fiend Danielle Grabol) a little over a year ago (RRP 421) wherein these two badass athletes discussed becoming the first two females to ever complete EPIC5 — a race I helped pioneer that involves completing 5 Ironmans on the 5 Hawaiian Islands in just 5 days. But then Mel had to go and just completely outdo herself (and embarrass the rest of us) by becoming the first female to not only attempt but to actually complete the fatally absurd ultra-endurance fever dream known as Uberman -- a 556-mile self-supported freak fest Outside magazine dubbed “The World’s Hardest Endurance Race”. Kicking off with a brutal 21-mile swim from the island of Catalina to the Southern California mainland -- a feat most swimmers can only dream of accomplishing -- athletes then endure a 2-day, 400-mile bike ride from Los Angeles to the edge of a barren desert, climbing 20,000-feet before descending into Badwater Basin, the hottest and lowest point in North America. Ready to kick up your feet and crack a cold one? Not so fast. The celebration comes only after lacing up the running shoes and facing down the Badwater 135 course. Considered the world's most difficult footrace, it entails a quick 135-mile run across Death Valley and up a good portion of Mt. Whitney. Mel didn’t just survive this endeavor. She absolutely crushed it, completing the course in stunning fashion under 136 hours. This is a conversation about Uberman of course — why Mel wanted it, what happened and what she learned doing it. But more than anything, this is a master class on mental toughness. It’s about putting limiting beliefs in the grave. And it’s about what it means to live a 'No Excuse' life. This conversation isn’t just for women. And it’s not just for athletes or those interested in exploring the world of mind-bending endurance sports. This one is for anyone and everyone looking to break the glass ceiling on human potential. The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This stubbornly courageous woman deserves far more credit for her accomplishments than the media has delivered to date. I feel an obligation to change that. May her testimony leave you inspired to finally put your excuses in the rearview. Because the time is now to create the aspirational life you deserve. Peace + Plants, Rich

The way that I pick races is, does it excite me, does it scare me? And this definitely, you know, excited me to, there's no females who have done it. It looked like an absolutely incredible challenge and it terrified me. I didn't know if I was going to be able to finish it. So I kind of fit my criteria to give it a go. I mean, before this, I developed the belief and I still believe it, that there actually is no limits to what humans can do. It's only the limits that we put on ourselves, like physically, mentally, what we think that we're capable of. But I honestly believe that, you know, if you put

your mind to it and physically you're able to, then there actually is no limits to what we can do. Anything I'm starting, I'm finishing, no matter which way or else I'm ending up in hospital and it's the crew pulling me off the course. So I guess, you know, back to what I do, like if something scares you, if something excites you, then move towards it. You know, if that's a goal that you're setting two, three years in advance, I completely relate. That's exactly what I do.

But, you know, just make steps to move towards that end goal. Hey, that's right. That is Mel Urie. And correct again, this is indeed The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings all you bipedal lifeforms wandering our mystical spinning blue orb. This is indeed a digital apparition of your host, Rich Roll. Welcome to the show, to the program, to the broadcast, podcast.

How's everybody doing? Are you ready to settle in? Good, because begin we shall. In the past month or so, I think it's pretty fair to say that I've been on a tear hosting conversations with a pretty impressive list of powerhouse women breaking all kinds of paradigms. And Mel Urie, today's guest, has more than earned her spot as one of these powerful boundary crushers. And I, for one, am here to celebrate her today. Devoted listeners will recall Mel's first appearance on the show, along with fellow endurance fiend, Danielle Grable. That was a little over a year ago, RRP421.

And in that conversation, we discussed their kick-ass performances as the first two females to ever complete Epic Five, a race I helped pioneer that involves completing five Ironmans on the five Hawaiian islands in just five days. But then Mel had to go out and just completely outdo herself and embarrass the rest of us along the way by becoming the first female to not only attempt, but to actually complete in just under 136 hours, this fatally absurd ultra endurance fever dream called Uberman, which is basically a 556 mile self-supported freak fest that Outside Magazine has dubbed the world's hardest endurance race. It essentially combines three

of the most challenging endurance events into one, kicking off with this 21-mile swim from Catalina to the Southern California mainland. That's a feat most swimmers can only dream of accomplishing. And it's followed by a two-day, 400-mile bike ride from LA to the edge of a barren desert, climbing 20,000 feet before descending into Badwater Basin, which is the lowest point in North America, as well as the hottest. And are you

done? No, you're not done. You celebrate this with the Badwater 135, just a quick 135 mile run across Death Valley and up a good portion of Mount Whitney before you can call it quits. Bananas, right? And Mel didn't just survive Uberman, she absolutely crushed it. And today she's going to tell us all about it. But first. 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.

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Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Mel Urie. So this is a conversation about Uberman, of course, why she wanted it, what happened, what she learned doing it. But it's really much more than that. It's really a masterclass on mental toughness. It's about putting limiting beliefs in the grave. And it's about what it means to live a no excuse life. what it means to live a no excuse life. This one, this conversation isn't just for women. It's not just for those interested in exploring the world of mind bending endurance sports. This one truly is for anyone and everyone out there looking to break the glass ceiling on your own

human potential. So without further ado, let's get after it. Without further ado, let just east of here. So it looks like maybe there's a fire in Topanga. I don't know. It isn't very windy today, but welcome to fire season in Los Angeles. Why, thank you. We were actually driving up and I'm like, I hope that's not where we're going. I'll be like, sorry, can't do it today. The roads weren't closed though? No, no, it was fine. There was no engine, no fire trucks or anything I could hear. Well, hopefully we won't get evacuated in the middle of the podcast. Although that would be kind of like an epic episode. Scramble and regroup somewhere else.

But good vibes only for that. We are in the midst of that season. And I guess you had a couple fire situations during Uberman. Yeah. Yeah, we did. So on the first day of the bike ride, I was riding along and my crew stopped me and I said, look, there's a fire nearby. It's about five kilometers away. Don't worry, the wind's going the other way. It's not going to go anywhere near you, but you'll be able to see it. And I was like, okay, yeah, no worries. And I'd seen like a red flash earlier on, but it was in the night, you know, my, I don't know if my eyes are playing tricks on me or anything. I didn't know if I was

hallucinating. So I just kind of went on fair enough. And then, um, I came around the corner. I've no idea where I was at that point in time. I wouldn't be able to tell you on the route, but I could just see this huge blaze of just these hills just on fire. And I'm like, oh, my God. And I'm like, okay, let's just keep riding and not stop near here. As if it's not a challenge enough. Exactly. And then on the run there was another fire. There was a car towing a trailer and the trailer apparently caught fire.

And then I actually saw the car as it passed us on the run course and it was completely gutted. Like there was just a shell of it there. I'm like, what is going on? Like through Death Valley, like it's so hot, the car was actually on fire? Pretty much. No, I wasn't in Death Valley at that point.

I was past that point. But yeah, it was a long stretch between the first climb and the second climb along the highway there. Oh, right. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. I'll be able to describe exactly where I was. I do not know names of places, sorry.

Well, the last time you were here was, what was that, like a year ago? Yeah, almost a year. A year and a half ago or something like that? It was like November last year. Right, because you were getting ready to go do Ultraman. Correct. Which I want to talk about, but let's table that for now. Because the bigger thing and the reason that you're here is that you decided to tackle this thing called Uberman,

which I'm going to make you define in a moment. And I told you, if you survive it, you've got to come back and tell me about it. Because despite the things that I've done, I have a hard time wrapping my head around this crazy challenge. So tell us what Uberman is. So Uberman, as the website describes, is the world's toughest triathlon. It involves the Catalina Channel swim. I talk in kilometers, so you might have to use miles. I think Dan describes it as the ultimate triathlon odyssey. Oh, well, there you go. That sounds even more amazing.

So it's a 33-kilometer swim from Catalina Island across to the mainland. 21 miles. There you go, 21 miles. Thank you. And then you ride. It's a bit over 600 kilometers, so it's about 400 miles. 400 miles, yeah. Yeah, and then you finish at the Badwater Basin,

and then you do the Badwater Run course to Mount Whitney, and you actually finish at the trailhead, so it's a little bit past where the Badwater Run finishes. Oh, wow, you keep going up. A little bit further. I don't know how much because I haven't done Badwater. That last half marathon up there is ridiculous. It is. It really is. I will not disagree with that. Yeah. So essentially, it's in the way that Ironman was originally devised to test who is the fittest athlete,

the swimmer or the cyclist or the runner by combining the Oahu open water, rough water swim with the ride around Oahu and the Honolulu Marathon. This is sort of taking it to the next level by combining three of what's considered some of the most challenging ultra endurance events in the respective disciplines. So you have the Catalina Swim, which is swimming from the island of Catalina to Los Angeles. On a clear day, you can see the island.

There are plenty of days when you cannot. It's quite a distance. Riding your bike all the way to Death Valley from Palos Verdes and then running Badwater. I mean, for somebody to just run Badwater and nothing else, that's like a bucket list challenge of a lifetime, that people work decades just to be able to tackle and complete. But to put it on the back end of these other two things is truly astounding.

And the fact that anyone can survive this is extraordinary. And not only did you survive it, you like crushed the women's record by some ridiculous number of hours, right? I was the first woman. Oh, you're the first woman to complete it. Yeah. There was another woman who did it as a real life. So she was black. Yeah. So I'm the trailblazer. And then Adam Scully Power, who broke the men's record by like 40 hours or something like that, right? And for those that are listening, Adam was a guest on the show in the very early days for like doing some crazy distance run like all the way across the state of Massachusetts or something like that, right? So that was really cool that the two people doing it have both been on the show. Yeah. And if you go to the results page on the Uberman website, it's just like one name.

Yeah. After every year. This year there was three. I was like, whoa, we're triple. Yeah. So what inspired you to even attempt this? So the Catalina Swim and the Bad water run are two things on my bucket list that I really wanted to do. So Australia is very far away, so you might as well do them together. Correct. You, you understand me. Sorry. I didn't mean to step on your. No, no, no, no. That's fine. That's fine. Um, I guess like after Epic five, my plan was to, you know, to chill, to, you know, relax, to, you know, not do any other endurance races. And then I was like, oh, I don't really feel like I'm done. So then I was like, okay,

well I'll do, um, Ultraman Hawaii. And then after that, I was like, well, you know, I'd already started to percolate the idea of doing, um, Uberman when I think it was around the time of Epic Five or, you know, it was generally a couple of years ago. And then the idea just didn't really leave me and it just kept kind of going and going. And I was like, well, you know, actually I will have this fitness. I will be able to take it through. You know, I spoke to my husband about it and said, what do you think? And he basically knows by the time I brought an idea to him, it's already decided. Yeah. So then they're just, the way that I pick races is does it excite me, does it scare me? And this definitely, you know, excited me.

There's no females who have done it. It looks like an absolutely incredible challenge and it terrified me. I didn't know if I was going to be able to finish it. So I kind of fit my criteria to give it a go. Before we dive in and get granular on it, how did, like in a global way, how did the reality of it match up with what you expected? It was really, I kept describing it as an adventure. Like I never thought of it as a race.

I never, like there was no time whatsoever that I was racing. I know that I'm sure people looking from the outside in on social media or, you know, watching my little tracker as I was going along, it looked like I was racing. But for me, I was like, I want to move through the course as quickly as I can, as efficiently as I can. And my main thing is I really wanted to test my limits on how far I could go and how far I could push myself. And I didn't know kind of my limits around fatigue. So I was like, that was a massive, massive unknown for me. So that was, that was quite, you know, quite novel to, to experience that. In terms of like, you know, kind of the, all the preparation, the organization beforehand,

you know, we were kind of basically left to our, to our own devices. One of the, one of the other athletes, Jonathan, his chief fiona she was amazing like she put together all the maps for everybody for the bike and you know because i had one of my other friends who've crewed for bad water before so they had all that information and i had friends who had swum catalina so i could kind of pull resources from that so that was that was really good i was basically just kind of reaching out to my community and like okay help, help me with this. Well, it's an expedition, you know, I mean, it's 556 miles. So of course you're going to be tested in terms of the limits of your fatigue, but the only way to complete it to the best of your abilities is to do it with efficiency in

mind. I mean, I don't know what racing that means otherwise. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's not something that I really feel like you can, you know, have that racing mindset of, you know, have to go as fast as possible because it was more you have to be as efficient as possible to then still be surviving enough for like starting the run and then the last part of the run, the last half marathon, as you said, up Mount Whitney, that just, it's brutal.

Right. So. Well, I think, I think one thing, you know, on this idea of racing, one thing that, that did distinguish your attempt this year from what has transpired in the earlier iterations of this odyssey is that you were kind of racing. I mean, you were doing, trying to see how quickly you could do it as opposed to, um to the participants in the past who were like, I'm going to do this thing and I'll just take my time and it'll take as long as I want. I'm not going to worry about it. Like, I'll take a day off or I'll do whatever.

You know what I mean? Because there's no urgency. Like, the idea is to complete it and I'm just not going to be in a rush. Whereas you were like, not necessarily in a rush, but like how quickly can I maneuver my body across these 556 miles? Yeah, I agree with that. Absolutely. So when you first had this idea and set about preparing for this, like how did that affect your training preparation? Did you do things differently for this that you would for Epic 5 or Ultraman? Yeah. So my big concern was the swim because initially I'm like,

that's a long way. And I hadn't ever swum over 10 kilometers in the ocean before. So in the start of 2018, I did a 20 kilometer non-wetsuit swim over from Perth to Rottnest Island in Australia. And that was my, yes, you can do it. So I figured if I can make 20 Ks, I can make 33 because, you know, I'll have a wetsuit on, you know, it's that mindset. I figured like, you know, when you're training for a marathon, you can do 32, you can do 42, like the extra bit will just, you're still there. You just got to keep moving pretty much. So that I've got the mindset of, you know, if you prove it, then you can do it basically.

So that's how I kind of got the confidence of that. And then this year I always try and work on my running because I always find that's my weak leg in triathlon. So I did a few, I think I ended up doing about five 50K runs throughout the year and then a 60K and then a 100K run because in my mind I wanted to make sure that 50K wasn't an intimidating distance. So if I had, you know, 30, 50K left in the run, I'd be like, well, I can do that.

That's, you know, that's fine. So for me it was a lot about kind of those mental battles to get through. Right. In terms of the physical training that I was doing, when I first said to my coach, Kate, that I wanted to do this, her response was, I have no idea how to train you for this. Yeah. Who does? Well, that's fine. You'll figure it out. I know exactly. It's so unknown. Yeah. So,

the way that she would do it is that she'd choose a sport a week and then just overload that. So, have, you know, like maybe four or five swims a week and have that as the main focus. And then I'd be, I did a couple of times where I'd swim kind of late at night. I'd be getting out of the pool like 8, 9 o'clock and then be back in the pool about like 5, 5.30 the next day. So it's that not really letting your body have much break between to kind of accumulate that fatigue to get used to that as well.

And before any of my races that I did, I'd always do a run the day before, like, you know, between like 10, 15K, which is not something I'd normally do before. But just never doing anything rested, right? Like always doing it on tired legs. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, okay, some 50, 60K runs, 100K run, but that's different than, I mean, the Badwater is twice that 100K run when you're exhausted.

Yeah. That's a whole different ball of wax. Yeah. I would imagine that a big part of this is managing sleep deprivation and how far and how much you can push yourself with a reduction in sleep. So how did you think about that in your prep? And we'll get to the race part in a minute, but just in your training, did you like get up in the middle of the night and do stuff or try to go on two hours of sleep or any of that? No, I didn't do any of that. Because when I did Epic Five, I got minimal sleep and was still quite functional

and then i um when i used to do night shift i've done like really big training blocks like 20 25 hours a week managing with night shifts so i know in my body in my mind that i can push through fatigue and you know i'd be so exhausted to the point you know i'd like almost fall asleep standing up sometimes so i didn't feel like i needed, you know, I'd like almost fall asleep standing up sometimes. So I didn't feel like I needed to, you know, do those kind of middle of the night training because I can still, if I need to switch on, I switch on very, very well, very quickly. So, yeah, and actually I reached out to Iron Cowboy and I said, you know,

hey, just need some advice around, you know, sleep and, you know, management and management fatigue. And he's like, you don't manage it, you just deal with it. And I was like, okay. I'm like, but that made sense to me. Like that, you know, that kind of, that really just reduced my anxiety around it. And I was like, okay, well, I'll just have to manage with whatever I do. And so during the race, we just had different sleep plans. Like, could I go this long or if not stop me and I'll have a sleep beforehand or, you know, whatever. So we just had a bunch of different plans and did that.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's something that's really rough for me to be able to like have the aptitude to manage that. That's a talent in its own right, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I think my crew were quite surprised because I'd sleep for a couple of hours and then it'd

actually be quite refreshed from that. I'm like, that's all I need. And then I'll keep going for, you know, 12 hours or whatever I needed to. So yeah. How many crew members did you have? So I had probably six core people. So I decided I wanted to manage them in shifts because I didn't want the same people the whole way through because the crew fatigue is going to be incredible compared to my fatigue as well. They're probably going to get less sleep than I do.

So I had like a night shift and a day shift and then I had another couple of people who like one guy came in for the start for the bike and then he had to go and then I had another friend. I left my glasses on the boat and so he Uber delivered them, as he said. Oh, my God. And then as soon as he arrived, he's like, well, I'm not leaving till this is done. So yeah, he was hanging around as well. Are they friends that live here or did friends come from Australia?

So I had, well, my husband came over from Australia and then I had another friend from Sydney. And then I had other friends, one from Canada who drove down, the friend who brought my glasses to me from San Diego and then some others from Arizona and Pennsylvania that I'd actually met at Ultraman last year. So kind of all over. So this Uberman thing is the brainchild of this guy called Dan Burcu, who lives here in Malibu. And I've known him through friends for a couple of years. And he's a real estate guy.

He's actually the landlord of Joy Cafe, the restaurant that we're partnered in. And I remember when he first told me about this idea that he had, he was inspired. He turned 50 and he was inspired to like get fit. And he came up with this crazy harebrained idea. And he was like, I'm creating this thing called Uberman. You should do it. And I was like, I don't know, man. Like, is it a thing? Like, are you really doing, like, I think it just started with an idea. Like, let's see if it could be done. It wasn't like canonized as some kind of race,

but he's now created some semblance of structure around it where he hosts this thing every year for, what is this, the third year, fourth year? Since 2016, yeah. But part of this is that it's not an organized endeavor where you show up and there's a meeting and you're handed a packet and here's all the things that you have to worry about. It's very much a choose your own adventure. Like, okay, here's the thing. This is what you have to do.

Now go do it. Correct, correct. It's kind of all's, here's the thing. This is what you have to do now. Go do it. Correct. You know, and it's kind of all on you to figure that out. So you arrive here and, and you just, what, like you just go out to Catalina. There's, I'm assuming there's a start time and you know, everybody who's competing starts at the same time or how does all that work? You just start whenever you feel like it? Yeah. So originally the start time was like 6 p.m. on the 10th. And Adam, he had a boat captain that he'd organized and the boat captain was like, I can't do that time.

We have to start on the 9th. And all Catalina swims start generally around 11 o'clock midnight. So starting at 6 p.m. would be ridiculous because you're going like against the tides and it's not a smart time to start pretty much. So there was kind of discussion amongst the three of us who were doing it and we're like, okay, so what does your boat captain say? What does yours say? When should we start? You know, Jonathan, who was the other guy who did it, he's like, well, I want to start earlier. And then, you know, so it was basically everyone just started at different times.

I think Jonathan started like maybe about nine, Adam jumped in the water about quarter to 10, and I was just after 10 p.m. on the 9th on that night. So it wasn't even we're all starting at the one time. It was just, you know, just start your watch, off you go, basically. So I'm particularly interested in the Catalina swim leg portion of this because my coach, Chris, as you may know, like Otillo is doing a race in Catalina. I think it's March 1st. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's coming up. And he's like, hey, we're all going to do it. You got to do it. And then we're going to swim back from Catalina after the race. He's like, you got to do it. And I'm like, how many times have I swum in the last month? Like, I'm not exactly, you know, fit for this, but it has my wheels turning a little bit.

And I have plenty of friends who've done that swim. My buddy, Hank Wise, who was a teammate of mine at Stanford, I think he has the record and he does it like, I mean, he does it all the time. Like he's constantly doing it. Just like a lap of the pool. I think he has the fastest, yeah, the fastest crossing time.

But I'm interested in your strategy for that and what it's like to swim like in the middle of the night like yeah it's got to be freaky yeah yeah it was it was really cool actually i really loved swimming at night so i've got a lot of swimmers um that i know who do the english channel swim so i always track them and it's always like this big s curve bend and i'm like you know the tides push you around everywhere. And then I had a couple of friends do Catalina in the two weeks beforehand and their swims were a straight line. I was like, ah, so this is actually quite easy swim in terms of the tides not pushing you from side to side and things. So that kind of reassured me of, okay, I'm not going to be battling,

you know, the whole time. So high tide was about 8 PM. So if I was to do my time over, I probably would start a little bit earlier to catch a bit more of the tide. Um, because well, you know, you jump in the water, you swim down to doctor's code, which is where the swim starts. So you get out of the water if it's an official crossing, because your feet have to be dry on both sides to make it official. Um, But mine wasn't because I was in a wetsuit and, you know, I could do all of that. Right, yeah, to be super official, no wetsuit, right? Yeah, yeah, and you're not allowed to, like,

touch the kayak or the boat or anything. There's all these rules. You have to have observers and everything. So I didn't have any of that. But I did have a kayaker with me. And because I've done Ultraman and you always feed from the kayaker, I found that was, like, that's what I'm used to. I don't like feeding off the boat. So that was really handy. But I've got – so they and you always feed from the kayaker. I found that was like, that's what I'm used to. I don't like feeding off the boats. That was, that was really handy. Um, but I've got,

so they just positioned me between the boat and the kayak and there's glow sticks on either. So I know, and I breathe both sides so I can see where I'm at in terms of. On the boat or dangling in the water. On the boat. Yeah. They just hang them off the side of the boat. Yeah. So, um, yeah. Just keep your sighting is really easy then. Yeah. Especially if it's dark, that's all you see, right? Exactly, exactly. Like I love swimming with kayakers because I don't have to look forwards.

I just look to them because, you know, I'm not doing the sighting. I'm not doing the navigating. That's the boat and the kayaker. So that's really, I quite enjoy that. And how long did it take to do that swim? 11 hours 54. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was cool. There was, um, there was one particular point, I think it was for a few hours where I was like swimming through all these little salt things or like little kind of block

looking things. I don't even know what they were. Someone said they were calamari. Someone said they were salt things, but they lit up from just the light from the boat. They were all just glowing. It was just, it's absolutely, absolutely amazing. But no death defying encounters with large wildlife, marine wildlife? No, there was no sharks. It was funny. I said to my- What is the shark deal with that? Like, has there ever been a shark situation with the channel swimmers? I don't think so. But my very helpful friends were tagging me. I'm asking for a friend. Yeah, yeah, totally. No, my very helpful friends were

tagging me in Facebook posts a couple of days beforehand about a kayaker that had been attacked by a shark. Like the shark had come up and bit his kayak. That's really helpful. Thanks guys. But actually I said to my boat captain beforehand, I said, look, this isn't an official swim. If there is a shark and you're concerned about it, pull me out of the water but I'm allowed to get back in and continue swimming. So he's like, and he just laughed at me. He's like, there's not going to be shark, it's fine.

He's like, I've seen sharks like half a dozen times. And majority of the time when there's boats around, there's too much noise and they stir up too much of the water and actually don't like it. So they usually, they stay away. That's comforting. It is very comforting, yes. And what was the fueling and hydration strategy for such a long swim?

So every 20 minutes I had my kayaker because I couldn't see, so they had a whistle that they'd blow for me to go over to the kayak and then I'd have some electrolytes and water and then I'd use like the baby food packets or some gels just you know just something a little bit different I try and keep it pretty much liquids when I'm swimming just because I can't digest a lot as well at one stage I did try you know have a cookie and that didn't really sit very well so it's like all right we'll just stick with yeah stick with what we have when I swim because the first 20 kilometers was really nice.

I could barely have to turn my arms over to, you know, move forwards. And then from then on it got quite rough. And so, yeah, I wasn't feeling great and I felt a bit sick, but I was still trying to get nutrition in because I'm like, well, this is only a tiny little portion of this whole event. I can't be completely depleted just yet. When you're like 10, 20 Ks into it though, do you ever have a moment where you're like, holy shit, like I'm way out in, you know,

there's no land anywhere near me in any direction? I kind of don't because I know there's a boat there. So if anything happens, I know that I'm going to be safe. So like my, my anxiety around things like that is based around risk. So if I was out there by myself, even with just a kayaker, I probably would have been a lot more scared than if I had a boat with me. Cause I'm like, well, I know that if something happens, they'll be able to help me out, you know, and then, then I'll be okay. So, yeah. And mentally, I mean, if you're riding your bike or you're running, there's things to look at and you can kind of, you know, entertain yourself with the environment. But in an event like that for 11 plus hours, you're just seeing black, like you're not seeing anything. Like how does that affect your mental state? Like,

do you have techniques for keeping your mind engaged or what does that look like? I just let my mind wander all over. I just think about this and that and everything. If I am starting to struggle, then I'll tell my kayaker. I'll tell, you know, I'll tell somebody, I'll tell my crew, you know, not feeling that great. And generally, and I do this on the bike and run, I would have generally come up with some kind of plan about, okay, well, maybe we can try this. Maybe we can try that, you know, that might be able to help something different. I found the time for about three, four o'clock in the morning really, really hard because that was when I was getting really tired

and I just needed the sun to come up. So in between my breaths, I'd close my eyes and like, maybe I can have a little micro sleep between each breath. While you're swimming. While I'm swimming, yeah. Yeah, but then once the sun starts to come up and it gets light, then you just, it rejuvenates you, then, you know, your body starts to wake up a little bit more again. And that was hard, but the most mentally challenging part, I actually had a friend who

does a lot of kayaking for the channel. He said in the last like quarter of the swim, don't look towards the shore. I was like, yeah. Okay. So of course, what did I do? I looked towards the shore, but the thing is, it looks. So of course, what did I do? I looked towards the shore. But the thing is- It looks like it never changes. Yes. And you never get any closer. So I looked at my watch and I was, my garment, I was about, you know, 10 hours or something. I'm like, oh, okay, maybe I'm about an hour away from shore. You know, I might, you know, get this done in around 11 hours or something. And my kayaker even thought I was closer than what I was. And he said to me at around 11 hours, he's like,

oh, this will be your last feed, then we'll be in. And then like two feeds after that, he's like, you know, this will be the last one. I'm like, yeah, you said that a couple of times. And he's like, I'm sorry. We both had that illusion that we were closer and then you just don't feel like you're getting anywhere. And because the ocean's so deep, you don't have any of that underwater navigation to tell you you're still moving forward as well. And I just kept looking at my car. I can go, no, no, he's still stroking, he's still moving forward. It's kind of an optical illusion. And there's something about open water swimming

that plays with your perception of time. Yeah. Because you'll swim, I should say, I share my own experience. Like I would think, oh, it's been at least like 40 minutes since I looked at my garment. Or like I try not to look at it unless I just feel so compelled because you want to feel like you're making progress,

but you'll have this thing where you think an hour went by and it's only been 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. I get that too. You're like, surely. I shouldn't have looked. Right. And, and yeah, having, yeah, having no depth, the, the, the lack of like, there's nothing in the foreground to gauge the depth of how far away the shore is screws with you.

Yeah. I mean, I just remember just even at Ultraman, and part of this is currents, like when you start getting into Kehoe and the current shifts and it starts pressing against you and that last mile feels like forever compared to the rest of the swim. Yeah, I agree. So, all right, you get out, you get out and, and typically in this, in prior incarnations of this adventure, the person has done the swim and

they're like, they call it a day, right? They at least take a break, but you just get on your bike and start going. Oh, I slept for two hours. Oh, you did. Okay. How indulgent. I know. It was funny because Dan met me when I was walking out the path to the RV and he's like, oh, you were too quick for me. So I didn't, I obviously don't think he expected me to be that quick. And he said to me, oh, so what are you doing? You know, you're going to stop and have a sleep and things. I'm like, yeah, I'll stop for a couple of hours. And he's like, what, what, what, what do you mean? Like, you know, so you, and he's like, no one's ever ridden on the

same day of swimming. And I was like, well, this is going to be the first year because that's my plan. Well, it was 11am, right? Exactly. Exactly. So I wasn't going to just hang out for the rest of the day and not start riding. She said, Dan, who do you think you're talking to here? Don't you know who I am? Yeah. Yeah, because we had an RV that we had for the whole race. So I had a bed to lie down on, which was amazing. That was such a luxury for an event like this.

I had a toilet. I had somewhere to lie down, somewhere they could keep food and everything for the crew. Yeah, so my plan was always, you know, sleep for a couple of hours, just also for that, you know, still feeling in the water, your head just a bit, you know, swaying and things, trying to get that feeling out, which I didn't really have, but I didn't want that straight away on the bike because that'd be quite dangerous to be riding through a lot of traffic with that. Yeah. I mean, after being horizontal in the water for that long, just walking up on shore is a weird thing. Yeah, it was. It was. Because where you land

on the beach, there's a lot of big rocks and a big submerged rocks. You have to be quite careful when you're getting out of the water as well. And the tide is quite strong, so it'll pull you back and then push you forward quite intensely. So you have to kind of grab onto rocks and just hold onto it. But I had my crew help me get out and then just sat down for a little bit. And I had this, you know, group of half a dozen women just going, so what have you just done?

What's, tell us what's happening and what are you doing now? And that was, that was very sweet. But that's the same place where all the channel swims at. Like there's, it's that one specific point. There's a couple of beaches. Yeah, yeah, that's one of them.

Yeah. So you take a nap and then you get on your bike. Yes. And it's kind of on you. Like is it just, all right, next stop, Badwater Basin, and however you want to get there, you get there? Is there like different routes to get there or you can just do what you want or how does it work?

So the guy who did it last year, Jared, he had given us the maps that he had used for the race and from like his paper maps then another girl, Fiona, had tracked the route and, you know, clarified with Dan and Jared, you know, is this where we're supposed to be going? So I had the routes all uploaded onto my Garmin and we'd printed it all out, you know, and had like basically where we're supposed to be going

because it wasn't like a choose your own adventure, try and go around because then my crew would have no idea where I was. I would have no idea where I was. I don't know the area at all. I've never been there before, most of it. So it was just our plan was basically get as far up the road as you can and then have another sleep. Right.

So, yeah, it was just, you know, see how how you go but i really wanted to get out of the city i wanted to get past malibu i wanted to get more into the countryside before i before i stopped to rest so did you so you're in palace vertus then you went up north through malibu yeah oh you did oh wow up through up pch yeah oh yeah yeah so it was it was. I was going along PCH as the sun was setting as well, which was just really quite pretty. And then eventually we turned inland. Like once you got up to Point Magoo, like where it flattens out? Do you know?

Do you remember? Do you remember, Michael? You don't know? No, no. Somewhere around here. Yeah, somewhere around there. There was a turn. I turned.

I turned. what is your bike setup for this like obviously you want to be aero but you want to be comfortable right like how do you how did you figure out how to get that sorted out i brought two bikes over um so i came over early and i did a 70.3 in September. So I brought my tri bike over for that. And then Michael, my husband came over later and he brought my road bike over. So the original plan was, you know, just kind of mix it up a bit. I started on my road bike just because, you know, there's a lot of stop starting traffic. So I was like, well, that's probably going to be the better bike to ride through that section. And then I actually ended up staying on it for majority of the, of the bike portion. Um, there was a couple of parts, which is really nice and long and flat. And I just said to my career, I'm like, I just need my shiv. I just want to go aero

for a while. I want to be in a different position and stretch my back out. And yeah, that was, that was really helpful. And there was one point when I got a flat tire on my shiv and so that I could just swap bikes over. So that was, that was really helpful as well and how did how did uh how long did it take you to do the bike and how did that break down in terms of sleep versus like you know sections like how many miles would you go before yeah so the first the first day on the bike so in my mind it's like one long continuous day so I'm still a bit hazy about when and where and how. So I ended up riding about 150 kilometres

and then I stopped for about an hour. I didn't sleep. I was going to, but it was just nice just to lie down and not be moving, just have something different to eat. I had a bit of pasta, you know, something else. And I got back on the bike and I said to my crew, and I'm like, it'd actually be really cool to try and had a bit of pasta, you know, something else. And I got back on the bike and I said to my crew and I'm like, it'd actually be really cool to try and get to 200 kilometres tonight and then I'll stop and have a decent sleep.

So, you know, sleep for I think it was like about three hours or something. So, I know, decent sleep. And then it was probably about like four o'clock in the morning that eventually I stopped because, you know, my crew would just, they were over it. They're like, we need a rest. We need to stop as well. So. You're fine, but they need a break. Well, I was getting tired, but I was also mindful of them as well. You know, they'd been going,

you know, basically since I got out of the swim and they hadn't had a rest since then. And then, because that was the day when we went past the fires, because then my other crew had stayed back in Rolling Hills where we had an Airbnb. They ended up taking about five hours to get through the traffic because they'd closed a bunch of roads. So my night crew ended up turning into half of my day crew as well. So yeah, I'm kind of glad that I did stop when I did. So then they could actually have a bit of a rest as well. So two hours after the swim, your first legit sleep into the bike is a three hour nap basically. And then how long is the next leg? You must be getting out into nowheresville by this point. Yeah, absolutely. So then I think I ended up,

I don't know where my garment is. I'm going to find it when I get home so I can't tell you exactly. But I know I ended up over 300 kilometres because I remember stopping at around the 300km mark and I said to my crew, I'm like, I've just done 300km in under 24 hours. I'm like, that's pretty cool. So I had a little moment of celebration there. But I remember riding down the highway and my vision started to get a bit blurred and my mood was really bad.

And every time my mood goes bad, I think, okay, I need to eat something. And I was eating and nothing was changing. I'm like, okay, this must be, you know, I must be really tired. And then my vision just started to tunnel in and get a bit blurred and all over the place. So I stopped and I said to my crew, I said, look, I'm going to need to sleep. Can you just find somewhere we can stop and then, you know, we'll be okay. Because we're on a highway at that time, but there was a lot of space on the side. And they ended up just like stopping a couple of Ks down the road and said, we're not off this for another 20 Ks. We're just

going to stop you here. So I stopped and slept for another couple of hours there and then got up and got going again. And what is the nutrition like on the bike and what kind of meals are you eating? So when I'd stop, um, initially I was having like pasta, trying to have some, you know, some kind of other carbs. Um, but in the, in the swim, my mouth ended up getting quite burnt and I ended up getting really bad ulcers on the side of my tongue because I had some mouthwash, but I probably wasn't using it often enough. And cause I haven't been in salt water for extended periods of time like that before my mouth just was like, what are you doing to me? So after a while, like eating became more of a challenge because it was just so painful to try and have anything. So I'd have things like watermelon and coconut water and

just things that I could still get in and still, you know, have something basically. And then on the bike, I was having a mixture of sandwiches. I find they're always generally really easy just to eat and get down like, you know, peanut butter and jam. Biscoff, which is my new favorite spread, which is- What is that? Oh, it's incredible. It's this cookie butter spread. It is delightful. Is it some kind of like Australian Vegemite thing? It's not at all. No, it's a Dutch thing. And we can only find it in America. So when we come over, we get that. But it's vegan friendly.

Yeah. Yeah. I told some others about it. They're like, so what is this again? And wrote it down. They're like, where to find this? Yeah, it's just a different flavor, basically. So I was having that.

I was having Clif bars. I was generally eating bars and things more at nighttime because I find when it gets hotter, I can't digest as much food and as much things like that. Keeping it more liquid during the day. Yeah. Yeah. Liquid. And, you know, I try and eat as many solids as I can on the bike because I know I can't have that amount of solids when I'm running. So I try and kind of get as many calories. Yeah. Because you're not just eating for what you're enduring in the moment. You're eating for the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day

and the next day and the next day. Yeah, exactly. I learned that from Epic Five. Like everything I did in that was for day five. Right. So I was like I can't stop fueling day two because I still – I don't know how long this is going to take me. So I just have to keep eating.

Well, this ride, it feels like, oh, you're just – your LA is pretty flat and you're going to Badwater Basin, which is the lowest point. So this must be, you know, kind of a straight shot, but there's 20,000 feet of climbing. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Yeah, so it was really, really full on.

And then the last big climb was the first climb in the Badwater Run as well that we did to come down into the basin. So, you know, I did that in, I think it was like the middle of the day. So that was full bore, intense sun, trying to get up that. So what I actually did in that is, because the RV was too big to be able to stop on the side of the road, we had a friend who had a car. So every so often I'd stop and just jump in that with the air con just to cool my body temperature down before then I got back on and kept riding. Yeah, just trying to manage that. And I would imagine with every successive hour, it's getting a little bit hotter and a little bit hotter. Yeah, definitely. A little bit hotter.

Definitely. Until you just drop down into the bowl of hell. Yes. Right? Yeah, because I got down to Stovepipe and there'd been a miscommunication with my crew because they'd said to me, you know, from Stovepipe, it's 40 kilometres to the Badwater Basin, but it's actually 40 miles. And in my mind I'm like, oh, 40K, yeah, I can do that, I can do that. And I was talking to one of my friends and she was like, no, it's like 70K. I can do that, I can do that. And I was talking to one of my friends and she was like, no, it's like 70K.

I was like, what? And it just, because I was so tired by that point, I just wanted to sleep, but I just needed to finish and then I could sleep because it was getting, I think I finished like 4.35, 3.30 at night. So I wanted to finish before it got dark and just have the bike done. So, yeah, I found that was probably the most mentally tough part. And was the idea that you would sleep the whole night and get up and run or just get another couple hours? You're looking at me like, what?

Sleep the whole night. Were you crazy? Did you ever get like just a full night of sleep? No. No. Okay. Once I finished. And then I didn't really sleep.

All right. Once I finished and then I didn't really sleep properly. No, so I think I ended up getting about another like three hours sleep because I wanted to try and run through the night as much as possible because, you know, Badwater's really hot. Like it's not as hot as July when Badwater's actually run, but it's still kind of low 90s in Fahrenheit, so it's, you know, still quite hot so i started running i think it was about 9 30 at night and then we ran through um to that big oasis hotel

um i can't remember what that's called yeah i know what you're talking about well that's where they have the headquarters for the bad water race okay i believe yeah we're thinking about the same place yeah it's just something that it's just. It's like this big hotel with a pool and everything like that, but it's in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, and it's all these- You're like, who built this here? All these green plants when there's nothing.

Yeah, I know. Like everything is dead and then suddenly there's plants and you're like, am I dreaming this? Yeah, it's very strange. Yeah. Well, it's one thing to ride your bike, you know, across Los Angeles and into the desert.

But once you get to Badwater, I mean, this is national park or state park, like it's preserved land. Yeah. And from what I understand, it's not like this is a permit. It's not like a permitted race. No. So, and I also know that, you know, the Badwater run itself

and other races that have tried to be conducted in this preserve have had, you know, sort of like difficulties getting permits and it's not easy, right? So knowing that, the possibility existed that you would get there and they'd say, what are you doing? You can't do this here. Yeah. That was a very real possibility. Yeah, absolutely. So do you have to play it low key or like did you have, you know, sort of encounters with the rangers where you had to tell them what you were doing? I know that Adam did because he had his car following him

directly behind him and they said, you can't do that. You know, what are you doing? What's going on? And then they just left him alone after that, thankfully. But, yeah, that was a very real concern and so, you know, we were quite concerned about, you know, the amount of cars around me and the amount of traffic and, you know, because by that stage I had, so it was a car that was kind of taking my crew off to go and sleep

and then coming back and then we had the RV and then had another friend who was kind of hanging around and we're like, we can't have a big circus around this. Yeah, we don't want to draw attention. a big circus around this. Yeah, they'll draw all this attention. Yeah, we don't want to draw attention. They'll shut you down. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, like my friends from Arizona,

like they're very, very aware that, you know, that was a possibility. We could have gotten kicked out and, you know, that's the last thing I wanted. I've come, you know, this whole way. I've done, you know, three days worth of, you know, intense swim bike and I didn't want to, you know, just, oh, I see you later, you can't do this anymore. So we actually did have the ranger come over and talk to us

because I stopped the run and had a rest at Stovepipe in the car park there. And so the ranger came over and was like, oh, you know, you're camping here. You've been here for a few, few hours, you know, what's going on. And one of my crew talked to her and was like, no, no, it's okay. You know, she's like, oh, you know, I've got these, these signs saying Uberman, you know, what's this about okay. She's like, oh, you know, I've got these signs saying Uberman, you know, what's this about? And he's like, oh, you know, it's just I can't even remember what he said, but he basically just played it right down and said, no, no, it's not a race. It's okay.

You know, it's just I'm here, you know, supporting a friend because he's a paramedic. He's like, I'm just providing medical support just in case anything's needed, and she seemed to accept that explanation thankfully. Yeah. Could have gone the other way. Easily. Easily could have. Yeah, thankfully. Yeah. Could have gone the other way. Easily. Easily could have.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it was a concern definitely in the back of our minds that we're like, we just need to try. I mean, because there was three of us, so it wasn't like it was a massive hundred people running through all of a sudden.

Right. But, yeah, still, we need to be careful. Did you have any crew meltdowns? No. Really? Not that I know of. No, I didn't hear of any. Maybe it's just kept from you.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe I might have to ask them again. I mean, that is a lot to ask of another human. It's like that is a very difficult job. Yeah, huge. Especially when you're not sleeping at all. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, when I'm on the go the whole time.

No, no. It was I feel like I picked the right people to come with me and they were all just in it 100%, you know, no questions. And everybody, just the dynamic worked with everybody. Everyone got along really well, thankfully, because that's always the concern, you know, they're going to be infighting and, you know, people are just going to quit and be like, no, I'm done,

can't work with this person, I'm out. Yeah, three of the girls knew each other really, really well. So I just kept them together because I'm like, well, you know, he may as well. So, yeah. And you're not, you're not divorced. I am not divorced. I'm still happily married. How does all of this work with your marriage? Like it, look, it's got to put a little bit of a strain. Definitely. You know, it can't be easy to tackle something like this no and be present for your relationship no it more comes up during the during the training really than the race i mean the race i know that well you can set aside everything for that yeah

yeah yeah and i know that like he doesn't sleep a lot even like and the biggest thing we're talking about it afterwards was being away from me was really quite stressful for him because he's like, I'm not there, I'm not in control, I don't know, I can't see you, are you okay? And even in a couple of days, he wasn't really sleeping beforehand, just the kind of stress of it all. But, I mean, yeah, when we're at home, absolutely, because, I mean, Michael has a shell of me, really.

Like in my big, intense training weeks, like I'm a zombie. You know, I'm using all my energy to get through my work days and then my training. And then there's not really a lot left over at the end. And I guess the way that we kind of manage that is that we know there's an end point to it. It's not like this is then going to continue on for the next year. This is your lifestyle. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like, well, this is what it's going to be like. It's going to be really quite, you know, intense for probably a couple of months. And then, you know, we'll do this.

And then afterwards we'll have a bit of time together. And, you know, we'll have a bit of a holiday together. And then, you know, I've already said, I'm like, this is my last ultra for a while. Right. Yeah. And now it's his turn to like do something crazy. Set aside whatever it is you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think he earned it. Yeah. And now it's his turn to like do something crazy. Set aside whatever it is you're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think he earned it. Yeah. He's over there just nodding. Yeah, big time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. So it took you how long to do the bike then? Like three days or something? No, just over two. Just over two. Like 50 something hours. Yeah. Dan originally said I got the bike course record, but I'm pretty sure that belongs to Adam. I, yeah, I have to check my, my times, but. Right. Yeah. All right. And

you just immediately set about this run. Yes. Yes. Do you, do you see any of the other, do you see Adam along the way at all? Like, is there any encounters? Is Dan at the, like anywhere to be found in bad water or you're just freestyling it? Yeah. So on the swim, like I saw their boats. I saw Jonathan as I passed him in the water. And then on the bike I saw Adam once and I was so excited because I just happened to look down this road and there was a crew car there and I was like, oh, my God, I haven't seen you.

And so I stopped and had a chat with them and that was really lovely. And then I didn't see him for the rest of the time. I saw him, him and his crew, they'd already finished and they were heading off but they came and found me on Mount Whitney and, you know, stopped to have a bit of a chat. And then Jonathan I saw when I was heading out of Stovepipe up the climb and he was coming down on the bike. So that was really nice to be able to give him a hug and just, you know,

wish him well. Right. I saw Dan on the first day and that's when he's like, what are you doing? Why are you not sleeping? Similar question. Because it's Uberman, that's why. Exactly. It's like, we don't sleep in Uberman.

What are you talking about? And then I saw him again. He came and found me on the run on the, so I ran through over the first climb and then had a stop in Lone Pine and then he saw me there. Oh, no, it was a bit before on the second climb. And then he had to go back to LA so he wasn't at the finish. Because they've got this big like hammer thing that they like for the athletes to be able to like hold up at the end so he's like make sure you get that i'll make sure you

get your little pin and you know i'll i'll see you later and yeah like he he tried to catch up with us today but i was like well we still got the rv like i don't know if we actually i would have parked it anywhere and it was just you're not getting a bit too hard so yeah unfortunately we didn't see him yeah that's amazing i mean people, I've said this before on the podcast, but for people that don't know, the Badwater course basically considered one of, if not the toughest foot race in the world, 135 miles across Death Valley.

They do it in the peak of the hottest time of the year where temperatures can be up to 120 at times 130, like when you're coming through stovepipe wells at like two or three in the afternoon. I think they started at different times now, but in its original incarnation, that's what it was. And everybody wants to talk about the heat, but what goes underappreciated or unnoticed

is how much elevation gain there is. There is crazy climbing. Like there are massive climbs throughout the course and it culminates with this ridiculous climb up the portals of Mount Whitney to like 8,000 feet. And you just said you actually go past that little campsite and go even further? Yeah, a little bit to the trailhead.

I don't know. There's a sign there. Because it has to be just a little bit harder? Prettyhead. I don't know. There's a sign there. Because it has to be just a little bit harder? Pretty much. Oh, God. Yeah, we can't make it easy for us apparently. Yeah. I don't know.

Ask Dan. Right. But you are doing it at a little bit of a different time of year, so the heat's probably just a little bit less intense. And I don't have the 48-hour cutoff as well. So when I started the run, I was like, there's no way I'm going to do this in two days, which I didn't need to. I didn't have to, that wasn't a pressure that I had.

Who cares? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I'm like- But you were still doing the, basically out on the course for 12 hours and then sleeping two to three or something? Or what was the strategy there? No. So we'd extended my sleep for the run. I know, I know. So disappointed.

I had like four hours at one point so i think i was up to five oh there was planned for five anyway um yeah so when i got to that weird oasis place i i think i slept there maybe about four hours um and then when i got through the stovepipe again i think there was maybe like a three four hour because i finished that maybe like 11 12 o, 12 o'clock. So my crew were like, well, there's no point in getting you out on the road in the hottest part of the day to start climbing. So you may as well have a bit more of a rest. And my friend, one of my crew members, Willie, he has done like 250K runs and things. So I was asking him for a lot of advice about what do you think my sleep should be like now? And he said, you know, run shorter, sleep

longer and we'll get you through. And I was like, okay, well that, you know, that made sense to me. I mean, at this point you're so deep into it, an extra hour of sleep would pay way more dividends than like, oh, I gotta be out there and then just fall apart. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And like my sleep overall, I ended up getting a lot more sleep than what I thought. Like we worked it out and I got like over 30 hours sleep over the whole thing. So in my mind, I'm like, that's actually a lot of sleep. Luxurious. Yeah.

So then we got, so I went over the big first climb and then up to Lone Pine and then had a few hours sleep there and then like woke up in the morning. Did you just check into one of those hotels or are you sleeping in the RV? Sleeping in the RV, just in a car park somewhere. Yeah, just pull in. Hopefully no one comes and knocks on the door and said, what are you doing? I was only there for a couple of hours so it wasn't too bad.

Yeah, and so then I did the next big climb and then- Out of Lone Pine into the portals? Yes, yes. And then what I really noticed when I was incredibly fatigued and needing to stop, my body would tell me. So like mentally I'm always generally pretty switched on and I can tell you what's going on, I can tell you what's happening, but I would feel that my legs, instead of like running straight,

I'd start like almost like I was, you know, trying to ride a horse, like my legs would start swinging on the outside instead of going straight. Or I'd suddenly just take a random step sideways just for no particular reason. And my body's just like, you know, just having a bit of a meltdown. Right, and you start acting like a drunk person.

Correct, then I'm like, time to sleep. Time to pull her off the course for a little bit. Yeah, yeah. What, so how long did it take you to do the run then? I think it ended up being about 60 hours. Yeah. And what was the hardest part of this whole thing? Like where did you really meet your maker?

I think it was probably coming to stovepipe in the heat of the day. That was when I was really just mentally going, this is really tough now. Before that, on that section on the bike that I was talking about, which was interesting because I was saying to myself, I'm like, well, this is what you wanted. You wanted to try and push yourself. You wanted to try and find your limits. And it actually felt relatively easy until that point, like mentally to get through because I'd been keeping my heart

rate so low, I'd been feeling really well. And so then when I had that challenge, I'm like, okay, well, let's embrace this. This is what we really want. But, yeah, probably that section when it was incredibly hot and like in the Catalina Swimming, you can see where you're going to and you're like, oh, that's only two miles away, but it takes forever to get there. So, yeah, like just trying to fight that sleep.

And then the other time was coming into the base of Mount Whitney, that little town there. I can't remember what that one's called. Do you remember? Isn't that Lone Pine? Is that Lone Pine? Yeah. I'll tell you, one continuous long day.

I can't remember. The little cowboy town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we're coming into there, I was so tired and all I could do, like I just had complete tunnel vision because I have a crew member with me at all times just for safety and because I like company. And so they've got a headlight on and so I'm like just shine it in front of me and all I could do was look at that

and I couldn't look sideways. I couldn't look at anything else and I was just like almost falling over and I'm like just get to the RV. And then finally my crew's like, see that sign there? That's where you're going to. I'm like, I can't even look up. But okay, good. So at least we're almost there.

Yeah. But never a moment where you're like, I got to pull the plug. Like I can't go any further. Never. No. When I did Ultraman Canada in 2014, I had a really a hell of a time. Like I battled the whole way to get through that. And then I realized afterwards I never thought about quitting. And I said to myself, I'm like, well, if you didn't want to

quit then, that's now gone out of your mind. Like I never think about quitting. It's always anything I'm starting, I'm finishing no matter which way or else I'm ending up in hospital and it's the crew pulling me off the course. So, yeah. Wow. Did you use earbuds at all? Were you listening to anything or just old school? Yeah. I don't listen to anything on the bike. I don't like that. I like to be very aware and attentive to everything around me, especially in a different country. Wrong side of the road for me. Don't really know what the car drivers are like over here. Oh, excuse me. The correct side of the road, I think is what you meant to say.

The opposite side of the road to what I'm used to um yeah so I mean like I'm used to the drivers in Australia I know what they're like but I don't know what they're like over here so I don't want any distractions was there any close calls with cars no actually everyone was really really good thankfully um and when I was at night time I had a car my crew were driving behind me so I felt felt quite okay with that yeah yeah and I was I was at night time I had a car my crew were driving behind me so I felt felt quite okay with that yeah yeah and I was I was really really lucky and then on the run I had a crew member with me at all times so it was great because I had three days of not talking to anyone like I get in the RV I'd sit there and eat and then I'd fall asleep when I get back up and get on my bike and

so I'm like all right well let's chat like's chat. Like, let's, you know. But never like, hey, maybe I could listen to some music or like an audio book or something like that to just like engage my mind in a different way, especially when, you know, the fatigue sets in. One of my friends had a speaker that he chucked down his top. So we were able to listen to a bit of music. So that was pretty cool. And then in that really long stretch before you get to Lone Pine, my friends in the car, like they were cranking the tunes for me as well. So there was a couple of moments with some music. That was really fun.

It's a party. It really was. It was great. Well, I'm getting the impression that this was all just a casual affair and you just knocked it out. Like you're so low key about the whole thing. It was not easy. It was hard, but I never felt like quitting and it's all good.

No. It was so funny because Dan's like, was it hard enough? Was the bike hard? I'm like, no, no, the bike was well challenging. It is a really, really hard, hard race. I mean. Dan's like disappointed that you weren't more tired or something I think probably that I didn't look as bad as you probably should have

but I I have such a good poker face on the bike you can't tell when I'm suffering like I physically won't show any signs really until I'm like way way down down the rabbit hole so and I got managed to get onto everything before it ended up being that bad. I mean, I did have struggles. Like, you know, my mouth was really painful. Like I'd have to use mouthwash quite regularly and then, you know, you'd tell when I'd used it because I'd be like screaming because it would be so painful.

My wetsuit tore strips off my neck. So I had this because I taped it. That lasts about 10 kilometres. So I had like 25 Ks with no tape, no nothing. And my wetsuit just like jarring the hell out of me. So, I mean, you know, my paddlers at one stage, you want me to do something about that? I'm like, well, what are you going to do? Like, there's nothing, I'm just going to have to put up with it. So then on the bike, turning my head was quite, quite hard to do um and i'm used to turning right to look for cars instead of turning left so that was that was kind of screwing up yes yeah totally do you know

who you know ross edgley yeah yeah did you see the pictures of what his neck looked like yes yeah he literally had matt you know he just had duct tape taped all around his neck to like try to keep that from getting worse but But it was gnarly. I don't know what you could do about it. Like, yeah. Once it starts. Well, that's it. Yeah. You're just managing it.

Like you're not going to get it to go away. Yeah. Brutal. Yeah. Well, you can only train so much, right? No matter what event it is that you're preparing for. So when I look at this, I just see somebody who is very fit and has a certain amount of talent, but whose real gift is this extraordinary capacity for

mental fortitude, right? The fact that you didn't lose your shit, that you're a poker face, that you can keep it together when the rubber hits the road, you know, like all these things over such a protracted extended period of time through every type of condition and situation that could get thrown at you demonstrates somebody of great composure. So to what do you attribute that? Or do you have, like, do you train that? Do you have techniques for how you develop that level of focus and fortitude? Like what does that look like? Yeah, so if you ask my parents, they would say I was very stubborn growing up and so now I call that mental strength.

Right. Like my stubbornness is an advantage now. It's been rebranded. Correct, correct. I've just reworded it. Yeah, no, I work hard on my mental strength. As soon as my coach says to me, okay, so we're going to start training for whatever the event is specifically from this time,

I start my mental and physical training at that time and that's just a decision that I've made in myself. So every session that I do, I'm thinking about the event, I'm thinking about the finish line, I'm thinking about the process that I'm going to be going through, you know, to get to that. Any session when I'm training that I find really hard, it's kind of a mental battle to get through. I'm reminding myself, I'm like, okay, use this in the race.

You know, you've got through this. How did you get through it? What did you do? You know, like use all these strategies, then you can transfer into when you're doing the race. So I kind of, I don't see physical and mental training as separate. I see it as both together and they need to be done simultaneously. So yeah, I definitely do that. And I do have strategies and mantras that I use throughout

events as well. And yeah, I was, you know, I was saying to my crew at one stage, I'm like, okay, so this is a mantra I'm using now and this is what's happening now because I'll just tell them everything that's going on in my mind. What are the mantras? So one of them, especially when I first start, is don't be a hero. So like don't go out too hard, be conservative, you know, pull back. And I just kind of imagine like I just tuck my ego away in my pocket. So, yeah, I just don't let myself get out of control because you're going to need that energy towards the end.

Yeah, so that's kind of my main one that I use for that. When it's hot, I use a few different things as well. So my previous coach, Craig, he'd said to me, you know, you've got to stop complaining about the heat and saying how badly it affects you. You're going to have to figure out a way to be able to manage it. So I was like, okay, all right, you know, how am I going to do this? And so I use a couple of things. Every time, you know, I can feel the sun and if it's really intense, I just, you know, express gratitude and I'll say, you know, thank you,

thank you for the sun. And I imagine it giving me energy and kind of like, you know, powering me along. All of my gingerness is absorbing this. It really is. I know. You look at my pasty skin. I'm like, I should not be in the middle of the sun in bad water. You should be doing this in

Scotland or something, right? I really should. Yeah. Dan can create Uberman in Scotland. That'd be perfect for me. Cold weather all the way. Yeah. So I do that and I never verbalize that it's hot. I never say it out loud. And if anyone says it to me, I always respond automatically. And I just say, it's not that bad because for me, if I speak it, it's my truth. And so then, you know, I don't ever want to, you know, to say it, say it out loud. And I'm always, always checking in with myself all the time. How are you feeling? How's things going? Is anything hurt? Is anything going on? You know, can you adjust anything? You know, do you need to eat something? Do you need to drink something? And, you know,

so all of, all of those things is constantly doing, doing all these different checks and, and talking to my crew as well. Like, you know, I'll be feeding them information. You know, if I stop, I was like, okay, so this is what's going on for me. This is what I need. It's what I need you guys to do. And then kind of using that energy as well. Often it's the other way around though, where the crew has to kind of compel the athlete to eat or drink because the athlete doesn't want to. And there's a, there's, there's sort of a tete-a-tete, you know, that goes on. Yeah. But it sounds like you're pretty in tune and you're not the person who's resistant to, you know, all of that. No. Yeah. I feel like I've learned over time that I just can't, like, I just have to, you know, I of that. No. I feel like I've learned over time that I just can't,

I just have to, you know, I just have to give into that. Yeah. And, you know, at some stage, I do say, I don't know what to do. I need you to help me make a decision here. So, but again, like I've already told my crew that I might get to that point and then they might have to help me. And then, you know, they're amazing and then they step up. So, yeah. Well, a couple of things. So you finish this race. The first thing I want to know is like, how did that, what is the emotional, you know, experience of completing something so massive? And what, second to that, and more importantly, like, what did you learn about yourself?

Yeah. So finishing, I finished during the day, which was incredible. I was the only one who managed to finish in daylight. The other two finished at nighttime. And when I saw Dan in Lone Pine, I said to him, I'm like, specifically I've seen pictures of Mount Whitney. I want to see it in daylight. And he's like, yeah, perfect. And I ended up finishing about like 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

So it was really, really cool. I didn't, cause I haven't been there before. I didn't know specifically where the finish line was. So I was kind of like going, okay, where, where am I? Is this it? Is this it? And one of my crew members was like, Mal, it's over there. It's over there. And I'm like, yeah, it's okay. I see it. It's okay. Like I don't need to hurry. I've done this. There's nobody else around. I'm not racing for a finish time here. But I actually had like, you know, all of my crew there. And then just quite a few random people who they're like, we know something's going on here and we want to know and we want to be a part of it. Just people that were hiking and camping and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And there's one woman that

said, oh, you know, we saw you coming up when we were driving. So she's like, so we knew we had to wait around for another, you know, 10, 20 minutes to see you finish, which was really, really special. I was just, oh, I don't know. I can't even really describe the feeling that I had. It was just absolute amazement that I'd actually done that. Like this was, you know, I'd managed to complete this goal. I was, yeah, really, really happy, really overwhelmed and just full of love for my crew as well.

Like, you know, they played a huge part to be able to get me through to the finish. It was just amazing and I just kind of sat down and was like, wow. Like it just – I don't even think it's still sunken in that I managed to do that. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you have video of you completing it or video taken along the way?

Yeah, I had a documentary guy doing it. Oh, you did? Oh, wow. Do you have video of you completing it or video taken along the way? Yeah, I had a documentary guy doing it. Oh, you did? Oh, wow. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, so that actually came about completely random. So I had one of my crew friends, it's his work friend, and he wants to get into documentary filmmaking.

So he contacted me and said, can I do this? And I was like, yes, I would love that. So yeah, I don't. So film is in the works it is in the works yes very cool yeah yeah and um we'll just have to wait and see where that ends up what happens with it we don't have specific plans so we'll just have to have to wait and see so that'll be yeah it'll be pretty amazing to be able to actually relive all of it as well because I know I will have forgotten a lot that actually happened, like my fuzzy brain won't remember everything.

So that'll be cool. You get a pass for that, I think. And back to the question, like what did it teach you about yourself and also just about potential and the capacity for the human being to do amazing things? Yeah. I mean, before this I developed developed the belief and I still believe it that there actually is no limits to what humans can do. It's only the limits that we put on ourselves, like physically, mentally, what we think that we're capable of. But I honestly believe that, you know,

if you put your mind to it and physically you're able to, then there actually is no limits to what we can do, which is kind of scary if you think about it in that way about what we can do. And in terms of what I learned about myself, the main takeaway that I have for now, I mean, I need probably about like two, three months to reflect on this and actually really kind of dig in and find out what it all means. But when I first went to the, you know, we all got together for a dinner before Uberman started with the athletes and crew and Dan, and I walked in and for the first time ever, I didn't feel like I didn't belong there. Like I always have this kind

of imposter, you know, you know, someone walking with a group and be like, oh, where's the athlete who, you know, who am I supposed to be looking at? And, you know, always kind of be like, I don't, I don't belong here. I don't fit in here. And it was the first time. And it actually caught me by surprise because I hadn't really thought about it. And I just went, I have earned my place here. I belong here.

So that was pretty cool. That's cool because the imposter thing is something you've talked about before. Yeah. And I think it's something that you were battling when you came on the podcast last time. Oh, my God. I had the biggest meltdown afterwards just going, who the hell are you to come on here? Like, seriously, like, oh yeah, no. Danny and I were talking about it

and we're both like, well, if no one listens, at least our moms will like it. A lot of people listen to that. Oh, I got so many messages afterwards. It was, it was beautiful. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah.

Well, I'm good. I'm glad that you've overcome that. Thank you. Thank you. That's no, that's a big thing. Yeah, no, no, absolutely, yeah. Well, I'm glad that you've overcome that. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, that's a big thing. Yeah, no, it is, it is. To like walk in and own it and be like, yeah, this is where I belong. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Well, I think you've played your girl card, your girl power card. Totally. At this point, I don't know if there's anything else to prove. I mean, does it leave you thinking like, what's next and now I gotta go do some other crazy, like that's sort of the allure and the danger, right?

Like, oh, I did this, so now I can go do this and you can kind of chase that dragon your whole life. At what point is enough enough or what is it that you still need to learn or is it just about the experience or is there something unhealthy about kind of making your whole life about these crazy things? Yeah, so I mean I've done three years' worth of ultras.

So I did Epic Five, then Ultraman Hawaii, and now Uberman. And I know if I try to train for another ultra, it's going to really just destroy my brain. I'm just not going to cope with that. So I already knew before I did this, this is going to be my last ultra for a while. Like I just really need to step away from it because like the training for this has really mentally taxed me because also work has been really,

really busy, really intense. I haven't had kind of any downtime at all in my life so I just, I really need some time and space just to, you know, reduce, reduce the mental load, reduce the training and get back to a little bit more of a sense of normality in my life. Um, I will still like do races and do events, but they just won't be, won't be as long. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll, you know, I'll come back to it, but just not for a while. Right. After the thing was over, was there like a dinner with Adam and Dan? Like were you able to swap war stories and, you know,

have a meeting of the minds with everyone? Or did you just split and like, I'm done, I'm leaving now? Like how did that work? Yeah. So, I mean, Adam came and saw me on Mount Whitney and he was flying out that night because he could only come away for a certain amount of time because, you know, got family and had to get back to. And then Jonathan finished a few days afterwards. So we were all kind of too far apart really. Yeah. So, I mean, I had,

like my crew, we all hung out that night and that was, that was really nice just to sit around and chat and, you know, just, you know just talk about different things that had happened and really funny things that had happened and just random things. And then I had another couple of days just with a couple of crew members as well. So it was nice not for everyone just to disperse suddenly and I'd be like, oh, hang on, what's – yeah, so we had that kind of decompression time together as well, which was really cool. What was the most unexpected thing that occurred?

So one of my crew members decided to buy some costumes, which was fine. Except one he brought was a clown and I'm terrified of clowns. And he had like this mask on, which made him look like he was from Itch. Like I was going along at one stage along the road and I was with my friend, Mary, and we both look over and we're like, there's a clown over there. Oh my God, what's So I was going along at one stage along the road and I was with my friend Mary and we both look over and we're like, there's a clown over there. Oh, my God, what's going on? And we were panicking. We're like, did you think you were having a hallucination?

At first I was, yeah, yeah. But then I always check with whoever I'm with. I'm like, can you see that too? And she's like, no, I can see that. And we're like, okay, fair enough. But then we ended up getting more and more anxious and then just feeding off each other's anxieties because we didn't know because she thought she'd seen one of my crew members who it was.

Right. So she was confused about who it was. I had no idea in my foggy brain. And then she said to me, I was like, it's okay, it's okay, it's gone. And then it was on the road behind us. And then it was running. You were literally getting chased by it. We were, we were.

And we ended up like having to signal to my other crew in the car, just like shut it down, shut it down. Like I was almost in tears. I was so scared. Oh, my God. So, yeah, I mean, you know, he felt really bad afterwards. He's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't think you would have that reaction.

In terms of other things that were surprising, to be honest, like nothing surprised me like i mean how my body reacted to fatigue like that was something i hadn't experienced before but everything else throughout my like ultra racing that i've done i expected every single thing that happened and was able to plan for and able to deal with it um basically in advance so um i wasn't sure how my feet would go in terms of swelling. So we had a couple of different bike shoes, but they were fine on the bike. And then my feet started to swell on the run.

So like we cut the sides of the shoes so my feet could spread sideways and then they started to get too small. So we had another pair of shoes to size up. So like we kind of had preempted everything that happened so there actually was no big surprises. That's amazing. Yeah. Well,

hats off. Thank you. It's crazy. Yeah. I can't believe you did it. I know either. Can I, and did it swiftly and,

and seemingly yes, difficult, but without all kinds of crazy, unforeseeable obstacles and things going haywire and wrong and all that kind of stuff that usually happens. I was incredibly lucky with that. Yeah.

I mean, things have the potential of going completely sideways. Yeah. You know, the RV hits a deer or like stuff happens. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Like I could have, you know, broken both my bikes

and not be able to ride. Like who knows? Yeah, exactly. Well, could have, you know, broken both my bikes and not be able to ride. Like who knows? Yeah, exactly. Well, last time you were here, you were about to leave to go to Hawaii to do Ultraman Hawaii. Yeah. Ultraman World Championships. And you completed that, but that didn't exactly go to plan, right? No, it did not.

So what happened? Yeah. So because of the lava flow, they had to change the course. Yeah, so day one and day two were very, very different. So just to put a pin in that for a moment, that's because of the volcano and the lava flow. It's like there's a whole section of the Ultraman course that literally got wiped out with lava flow.

So they had to completely reconfigure the entire thing. Yeah, so at the pre-athlete briefing, they said, look, we could still use most of the old course, but we're going to go through a community where half the residents haven't been able to get back to their houses. We don't feel comfortable about taking our very expensive bikes now race through that area. And I was like, I totally respect that. Um, so that's why they decided to, to also change the course. And I mean, hats off to them. They gave us a course, like potentially they could have not even been able to do that. So, yeah, I was quite impressed with that.

So their day one swim is still the same. And then we rode like out towards Volcano and then they took us back into where the swim finishes. So that was a day one bike course. So you do that climb and then descend it? No, we basically get near the base of the climb and then turn around and come back. Yeah, so we didn't have you do that climb and then descend it? No, we basically get near the base of the climb and then turn around and come back. Yeah. So we didn't have to do that last beach. Yeah. That makes it a little easier. It really was. I haven't done that on the course, so I was

like, well, you know, I'm going to have to go back. That climb is sort of like the last portion of the Catalina swim where you have headwinds and you're going like two miles an hour up it's crazy it takes forever yeah and i had a really nice um tailwind coming back and this wind had started to really pick up just before i turned and i was like now i understand what the wind would have been like if i had to climb volcano like it was pretty intense yeah um and then day two was where like everybody beforehand was talking about day two. They're like, you know, there's, um, 4,000 meters climbing, you know, we have to go over saddle roads. Then we have, you know, just everyone was on edge panicking about day two, basically, um, beforehand. And that was my stress as well. Like I just, I didn't know if I was going

to get through it. Um, and you know, after after day one I sat my crew down and I said, look, we have to be as efficient as possible, like racing car drive efficiency every time I stop for anything that I need because I can't waste any time whatsoever. And they were amazing. Like they really stepped up. I looked at my Garmin far later and I had eight minutes out of the 12 hours that I'd actually stopped

off, you know, off the bike, not moving time. So I thought that was, that was pretty incredible for them. Saddle road. So basically did you take the old highway North? Like how did it work? So I went up the Queen K and then turned off at, is it Waikoloa, I think, and then like went up and then climbed. Yeah. So you climb up to Waikoloa and then, yeah, down and then went up and then climbed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you climb up to Wakalawa and then, yeah, down and then climbed over Saddle Road and then went up to Waimea. Right. And then you do the Kahalas. No, so they had to take the Kahalas out because there was another race that had been through and they decided to pull the permits

after that race because, yeah, like people were like playing music really loud at 3 o'clock in the morning and dropping rubbish. And there was a lot of, a lot of political issues around that. So they ended up just taking us back along the main highway that connects through the Queen K and then up to Harvey. And then you turned up to Harvey and rode up to the finish up there. So it was a little, it was a different finish line as well than previous. Right. So this took a little bit longer than you anticipated. Yeah. So I got to their 12 hour cutoff with two and a half Ks to spare. So I didn't make day two cutoff. I think out of the 11 women, like four of them made it. It was, yeah, I think it was about

like 35% of us that didn't make day two cutoff. It was, yeah, it was pretty, pretty brutal day. And in my mind, like I was looking at Saddle Road, I'd written it and. It was, yeah, it was pretty, pretty brutal day. And in my mind, like I was looking at Saddle Road, I'd ridden it and I'm like, okay, that's really, you know, it's really long. It's hard. But to me, I was like, okay, so what's after that? Because, you know, everyone's like Saddle Road, Saddle Road. And I was like, but you're fatigued enough. Then you get to the point and then you've got another 20K climb that no one's ever thinking about. Cause you can't see it on the map because it doesn't have as much elevation but it's still kind of like a volcano climb is still having to climb as well so yeah i mean i i wrote as hard as i could and i didn't get there basically was was the answer right and a lot of

people would have just pulled the plug and said i'm done but you were still within uh uh a time frame that allowed you to complete the event, just do it as an unofficial finisher. So you did the run the next day. Yes, I did. Yeah. And the run course was the same. Yes, yes.

Yeah, the run course was exactly the same. Like on the bike, because in Epic 5, I didn't have any nutrition problems. So I'm like, all these problems that I'd had in previous Ultramans, I'm like, right, got it sorted, no problems. But because the intensity level in my heart rate was higher, I had nutrition problems again. And so on the bike like I was vomiting for about four hours and able to take in little bits but not as much as I should have or could have really.

And so then on the run I started running and within about half an hour I was dry reaching and throwing up and I was just like, what am I doing? And I feel like that was probably like the most mentally hard part about that because I kept saying to myself, I'm like, why are you doing this? Like there is nothing that's going to change the outcome of you finishing the run today versus not finishing. And I just kept running.

I'm like, okay, well, you know, I don't have a good answer to stop so therefore I'll just continue until I find one. And, of course, I know that I'm never, okay, well, you know, I don't have a good answer to stop. So therefore I'll just continue until I find one. And of course I know that I'm never going to find one. It took me, it took me about two hours to actually figure out the answer to that, to that question. I just kind of kept it hanging there. I'm like, why are you still going? I'm like, I don't know. So I'll have to just keep going. And then eventually I came on the conclusion of, I don't quit. And if I did quit today, then what was the point of yesterday? What was the point of battling all day, basically? Whereas, you know, from as soon as we started,

like I was battling to try and get to the finish line in time, then what was the point in doing that? So that's why I ended up finishing the run. I like that. I think a weaker mindset would have been, I don't have to do this. Like, why am I doing it? As opposed to, um, I need to find an answer to quit, uh, versus I need to find an answer to keep going. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's amazing. Thank you. So you finished it. So here we are, we are on the cusp of the 10th anniversary of Epic Five. Yes. And as we both know, Rebecca Morgan, who was here last time, who's the race director and the angel of all things Epic Five, has something planned to celebrate this 10th year.

And that plan entails something she's calling Epic Ten. Yes. And that plan entails something she's calling Epic 10, which is basically doubling to celebrate the decade-long race. She's doubling the distances. So it's doing two Ironmans per island on all five islands, right? Is that how it works? I'm not entirely sure. We're actually catching up with her in a couple of days, so I'm looking forward to that.

I think they're going to include a couple of other islands like i'm not sure they might be doing like two on kawaii maybe two on oahu um i think they're going to lanai as well to do one there maybe one on molokai yeah i'm not entirely sure how it's all gonna work out but ultimately it's 10 ironmans in 10 days on a variety of islands yes there. There's inter-island travel involved. Uh-huh. Yeah. So does this tempt you? Not at all.

You asked me this last time and my answer's still the same. No? No. So that's interesting. I think that's very telling. I think it's a healthy response. Yeah. I wouldn't begrudge you if you thought coming off of uber

man like oh my god i just blew the ceiling off what i thought i could do like this is the logical next thing to do yeah yeah for me there's a couple of reasons so one realistically i actually don't know if i'd be fast enough to then get through each day to get to the next island for time-wise because I'm very, very good at going long for a long period of time, but I don't have a lot of speed. The ultimate tortoise. Correct, correct. Yeah, I just will not stop. And, yeah, the other thing is I just need a break. I just need that mental break and the idea of putting myself through another huge training block. It just, it doesn't appeal to me at this point in time. But in saying that I have said to Rebecca,

I'll go and help her out. So yeah, I do plan to be there, but just not as an athlete. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, I think it would be good and helpful to people that are listening to provide a little bit of wisdom and guidance for the individual who is inspired by what you've done and accomplished, but is struggling to get off the couch or maybe trying to figure out how to do their first 5K or step it up from the 5K to the 10K to the marathon. How do you communicate to that person? Yeah, absolutely. I love these questions because I get a lot of people saying, especially after the podcast I did with you that, you know, they've started because they heard me and they heard my journey and heard my story. So

that's, yeah. Oh my God. It's so good. And the other one is, you know, I've told my daughter about you and I was like, oh, it just touches my heart. In my mind, something's better than nothing. So for me, I take all of the decisions as possible out of my day to make sure that I can be successful in my sport. So first thing in the morning, alarm goes off. I don't even think about getting up. I just get straight up. All my clothes are already out, ready to go, put them on, get out the door. Remove the decision fatigue. Correct, correct. Because, I mean, my job is incredibly stressful at times

and I can get home just be mentally exhausted knowing I still have a session to do. So if my clothes are already out, I don't let myself sit on the couch. I don't let myself have an out. I just have a, okay, this is what you're doing and then you can stop. So that's the way I kind of manage it. So I think for the people who are, you know, trying to start to do something, it would be not aiming for perfection, not aiming for do something every day. It's like, you know, if you do something three days in a row, take one day off, that's not a failure. Okay. Start again

the next day. Don't, because I feel a lot of people are like, you know, if I don't do it a hundred percent, then I'm a failure and I may as well not even try. So yeah, you know, if you're doing something. Or if I don't, I don't look like that person that I see in the magazine who is crossing the finish line. And so why bother? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know before I did Ultraman Canada, I looked at the picture of the athletes and I said to myself, I'm like, does anybody there look like me? And then that informed me of like, oh, actually, they're not all super fit, super human-looking people.

Maybe I might be able to give it a go. So I absolutely had that as well and, you know, still do to some extent because I have that hang-off of like, I don't look like those people in the magazines, yet I can still do these things. So, you know, why can't other people as well? And I think it, like, we're sort of presuming that everybody knows your backstory

because we covered it in the first episode and everybody should go back and listen to that because I think it helps contextualize all of this. But it's not as if you were, you know, crushing marathons and triathlons your whole life and grew up as this like hardened athlete. Like this is a new, this is still like a very fresh, pretty new thing in your life. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I started triathlon in 2005. So, and before that I was only just doing things for a bit of fun,

never run before. Yeah. I did Ironman for the first time 10 years ago. So yeah, I'm still a baby at this. I'm still very new. Yeah. That's such a tortoise response. Somebody's like, well, that was a decade ago. You're like, it was only 10 years ago. And I think it speaks to this kind of myopic view that we place upon our potential in the sense that we tend to focus on what can be accomplished in three months or six months.

And if we can't do it then, then why bother? Or it's too hard or I'm not good enough. And being the tortoise that you are, it's like, take a long view on this. Like you didn't do Uberman right out of the gate. Like you've been building towards this for a very long time. And as any good tortoise will tell you, you just keep moving forward.

And it doesn't matter how slowly you're moving as long as you're along that trajectory that's getting you closer to that person in that place. Yeah. Yeah, one of my crew actually said to me is like, you know, just relentless forward motion. And I kept thinking about that all the time. It's like just forward motion, just keep moving forward.

It doesn't matter how fast or slow you get there in the end, which, yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Are you dealing with any like post event, like mental letdown? Like it's gotta be, you have so much energy going into something like this and then it's done and then there's this vacuum. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't. And it was really interesting. So after Epic Five, I didn't have it either. And I kind of reflected on like, why,

why did I not have that? Like I've had that before where you have this big kind of crash come down and I'd realized I'd actually done some work mentally beforehand to kind of equip myself for what it was going to feel like afterwards as well. Again, like kind of looking back, I didn't realize I was doing it at the time, but what I do when I'm in that deep fatigue, really, really struggling is I think about what it's going to be like after this is done and actually get quite excited. I'm in that deep fatigue, really, really struggling is I think about what it's going to be like after this is done. And I actually get quite excited. I'm like, I can sit on the couch. I can watch Netflix. I can hang out with my friends. And I get really like,

that's going to be amazing. So I just- How long does that last though? Oh, do you know, it'd be generally about a month. I don't really do a lot. And also I think because we're still traveling at the moment, like we're not home yet. So that kind of hasn't, reality hasn't set back in again yet. But, yeah, I probably won't be physically active probably about a month because, you know, like standing up and walking around and walking up a flight of stairs, I'll be out of breath. Like my body is at rock bottom. If I try and do anything right now, I'm just going to like make myself sick

or something. So I need to just give myself that time. And then in that time, if I want to do something. So I need to just give myself that time. And then I'm in that time, if I want to do something, then I will. But if I don't, then I don't put any pressure on myself to have to do something. So that's kind of the mental refresh that I give myself as well. Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good place to put a button in it for now until you go do some other or the documentary comes out and you can come back and talk about that. Um, but any final

parting words of wisdom for the weekend warriors and athletes alike? Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, you know, back to what, what I do, like if something scares you, if something excites you, then, then move towards it. You know, if that's a goal that you're setting two, three years in advance, I completely relate. That's exactly what I do. But, you know, just make steps to move towards that end goal. Just, yeah, it's really, really cool. Awesome. Thank you.

You're great. I love talking to you. Thank you so much. You make my job easy. Oh, I'm glad. Super inspiring what you've done. And you've created this amazing example for all kinds of people, not the least of which are young girls who I know

are looking up to you and getting a lot of inspiration from the path that you've blazed. So thank you for that. Thank you. And if people want to connect with you, where's the best place for them to go? Yeah. So I've just started an athlete page on Facebook. One of my friends has convinced me that's what I need to do. I'm like, okay. So that's Melissa Urie, ultra endurance athlete, because my private page is just getting a bit clogged up, so I had to kind of move things off that. My Instagram is at rangamel and same on Twitter.

I don't really use Twitter that much. And my blog is rangamel.wordpress.com. Cool. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. Come and talk to me again. Oh, I will.

Don't worry. Peace. Plants. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. Come and talk to me again. Oh, I will. Don't worry. Peace. Plants. Uber man. Can you even believe it? Honestly, in my opinion, I think a lot more people should be talking about what Mel has accomplished. I mean, media, get on that.

I'm doing my part here. What are you guys doing? In the meantime, I really hope you dug Mel. So many gems packed into that one. So do me a favor and thank her, congratulate her, and shower some well-earned love on her at RangaMel, R-A-N-G-A-M-E-L on Instagram, and Melissa Urie, ultra endurance athlete on Facebook.

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Much love for my team who works very hard to put on the show every week. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin, my video team. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Allie Rogers for portraits. Georgia Whaley for copywriting.

DK for advertiser relationships and theme music by Analema. Thank you for the love. I will see you guys back here in a couple few days with me in a special rebroadcast of my appearance on a recent episode of the Outside Magazine podcast. I guest on a lot of shows, but this one stood out. It's special and it goes places

I haven't really gone on other shows. So I thought, why not share it on my feed? So here's a quick clip to tie you over. And until then, may you courageously face the excuses that stand in the way of your dreams and begin the process of putting them in the grave. Peace. Blatts. Namaste. of putting them in the grave. Peace. Blat. Namaste.

The veneers of denial were starting to fall away and I was starting to get a picture of the truth of how I was living. What I thought was cool ultimately turned out to be something very dark. But ultimately, you know, I reached that point that you hear with other people in recovery, that point of no return where you wake up and you finally have the willingness to do whatever it takes. And that's when I ended up in rehab in Oregon.

The challenge of crashing and having to pick yourself back up is really what reveals character. Like, that's the test. If my journey's been about anything, it's about kind of trusting those whispers and being willing to have faith and invest in those little signals that are just so faint and yet potentially life-altering and meaningful. You know, and everything good in my life has come as an outgrowth of putting service first and recovery first and just allowing whatever else is going to come, come. Thank you.