The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Kristian Blummenfelt, The Ministry of Truth, & Sustainable Self-Growth

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Welcome to another edition of ‘Roll On’, wherein Rich Roll and journalist & author Adam Skolnick riff on matters of interest across sports, culture, entertainment, and self-betterment.  Specific topics discussed in today’s episode include: Adam's latest NYT piece A Free Diver’s Training Partners: Sharks Outstanding performances from the Ironman World Championships A brief conversation with IMWC Kristian Blummenfelt & his coach Olav Aleksander Bu Should a 6 year old be permitted to run a marathon? Endurance wins: Jackie Hunt-Broersma & William Goodge the implications of overturning Roe v. Wade why Joe Biden's 'Ministry of Truth' is problematic thoughts on how to create sustainable growth; and check-in with coach Chris Hauth Thank you to Tristan from Utah for today’s listener question. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Group Page or, better yet, leave a voicemail at [phone]. Note: We will be recording a sleep specific AMA episode with Dr. Matthew Walker (RRP 600) in the near future. Please submit your seep questions for consideration by sending an e-mail to [e-mail] or leaving a voicemail at [phone]. Reminder that you can watch today’s podcast on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Enjoy! Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to Roll On. We're the grounded, good-natured, but sometimes cantankerous journalist and author, Adam Skolnick and I clip matters of interest from the internet and real life. We opine on sports, culture, entertainment, self-betterment and occasionally, sometimes against my better instincts,

politics. We answer a listener question here and there and so much more. So today we got plenty of news from the front lines of endurance, including we hope at this point, a very special and exclusive call with the newly crowned Ironman world champion,

Christian Blumenfeld and his coach, Olaf Alexander Boo. We may or may not get a little bit political today. We answer a listener question and we're gonna close with another coaching call check-in with a friend of the podcast, personal friend, Chris Houth. But first, how goes it my comrade? Rich, I'm perplexed. You're into wellness, right?

Would you describe yourself as a wellness guy? I don't like labels, Adam. But the reason I bring it up is I think- I'm into wellness, yes. You're into wellness. I think you're the guy to- I'm a wellness influencer. You're a well-fluencer. I think you're the guy. I'm a wellness influencer. You're a well fluencer.

I think you're the guy. I think I've got, actually I think I've got a new podcast episode for you, but it's all about the movable itch. You know, like what is it about- That sounds like a book title. Right, but like, what is it about the human body where you have an itch on your back,

someone scratches it for you, and then it moves just so slightly up or down, sometimes to the side, and then you have to tell them to move, and then they scratch it and you say harder, and then it moves again, it leaps, frogs around. How come we've never figured out why that happens? I don't know, we should get Andrew Huberman in here.

That's what I'm thinking. This is a Huberman pod waiting to happen. He's got a guy. You know he's got a guy at Stanford. is a Huberman pod waiting to happen. He's got a guy. You know he's got a guy at Stanford. I'm sure he has an answer for this. He's got a guy at Stanford looking at this. What's interesting to me is like, I don't walk around itching and scratching myself,

but when I go to bed at night and I'm lying in bed and right before I'm about to fall asleep, suddenly I'll have like an unbearable itch that I have to scratch. And then I do it. And then it's somewhere else after that. And I'm like, I didn't have to do this 10 minutes ago. It's my point.

Right. It's a human problem. Yeah, this is one for the ages. I must get to the bottom of this. I think we gotta do a full pod just on the movable itch. How about a whole series? Whole series on it. A six part limited series?

Yes, yes. For Netflix? Netflix.com. Okay. Why? All right, well, I know you love sharks. I do. We have some shark news. Yeah, yeah, I've got a couple of stories out

this last week. One came out Thursday, recording this on a Monday, came out last Thursday for outside, but it'll be wide. It'll be available wide for all comers the same day this pod drops. So that's good news. It's about, it's based on a reporting trip I did to La Paz in Southern Baja.

And it's all about a marine biologist and her pals who started a foundation nonprofit down in Southern Baja to get the shark fishermen who live there to start to see sharks not as, to get them to see that they're worth more alive than dead basically. And there's 80 plus shark fishing villages and camps in Southern Baja.

There has been for four or five generations. They're all artisanal fishermen. They just use a line and a hook. They're not going out there with nets. And they've been doing it for generations. They've been sending shark fins to Hong Kong since the 30s. It was never a big problem until outboard motors came along and competition became more fierce. And now they have to go miles offshore. It used to be sharks, they can get them in the bay. Now they have to go miles offshore. Used to be sharks, they can get them in the bay. Now they have to go miles and miles offshore. They get paid very little

because the shark numbers are down so much. I think worldwide, it's 70% of sharks have been killed basically that were once here. That's the number I could come across. So because of that, the sharks are smaller. The fins are smaller. They're earning about $150 a week doing this kind of job.

And it's dangerous. They're going miles offshore in little pongas. To be clear, they're fishing for sharks to cut their fins off and sell them. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And they're not really able to make a living doing this. So can we not transition them

into some other type of career? Yeah, that's the whole point of the story. So here's a problem. Like if you look up on the screen there, I have the article pulled up on outside, but then I come here and it says, become a member, unlock this and get other great perks. And I'm like, I don't know that I'm, I tried to log in.

I don't think that I have so many subscriptions. I know. And it's like, I'm trying to sell you't know that I'm, I tried to log in. I don't think that I have so many subscriptions. I know. And it's like, I'm trying to sell you another one. I know. So I actually didn't read your article. That's the story. Even though I'm proud of you. Proud of you.

Thanks for bringing it in. Oh, good. Yeah. And you know, you'd think, I don't know. Well, I mean, look, I was on the cover of this magazine, Humblebrag. So can't they spot me a subscription? I think I actually do have a subscription.

I just don't know what my login credentials are. I bought my subscription because even though I've been writing for them for years and years, you know, that's so funny. I would think that as a contributor to any publication, I should just get a free subscription. It's never happened. No one's ever offered me.

Have you asked though? No. That should be a perk. I'm non-confrontational. I don't wanna have that conversation. It might be beneficial to actually be able to read the publication that you're contributing to. It should be a perk.

It should be like automatically you contribute, like maybe not once, but if you contribute two or three times, they should just be feeding it to you. Even the New York Times? No, I pay for that. You do? Yeah, I've never asked.

Maybe I'm gonna start asking. I think you should ask. Stand up for yourself, Adam Skolnick. I will, but that's exactly what the story is about. It's about the efforts to get people to stop shark fishing. But the real problem there isn't just the fact that they're fishing for sharks and it's endangering the shark populations.

It's that there are mainland Mexico industrial fishing operations that come to Southern Baja and take up these huge drift nets and go in one go, in one day, they can take more tuna than these guys fish for bait. When they use tuna for bait for these sharks, they get more in one day than these shark fishermen can get in a year.

And that's what's destroying the economy and the ecology. And so there is a group of people led by these marine biologists in La Paz that is trying to get the entirety of Southern Baja as one MPA that allows for fishing, allows for sport fishing, spear fishing, and artisanal fishing. And so they don't wanna take the livelihood away,

but it cuts off industrial fishing forever. And that can really do good. So the point is to try to get these guys boats that are fit for tourists, to get them tourists to come, to train them, to be able to take tourists out, to look at the amazing wildlife. I mean, Southern Baja, especially around La Paz has some of the most amazing wildlife in the world.

It's like a confluence of equatorial currents and Alaskan currents that come down from Northern California from Alaska all the way down past California to Mexico, that confluence means it's like a haven for several species of whale, several species of sharks, whale sharks, sea lions, you name it. And so it's an incredible place to go.

Obviously under threat by the industrial fishing industry. That's right. And the problem is, is that industrial fishing businesses and their people who represent them have convinced sport fishermen and artisanal fishermen that MPAs are bad for them. When in reality, the opposite has been proven to be true. So the point here, and it's even not,

MPAs aren't even bad for industrial fishermen. It just means they have to pause in certain areas. But if you look at it, guess where a lot of the fishing fleet is near the Galapagos. They're right at the edge of the Galapagos National Park. Well, why is that? Because the Galapagos National Park

produces such biodiversity that it doesn't support it all. The animals have to move. And so when they move out, you're basically feeding the rest of the ocean with wildlife. So that's why MPAs are great. So this gets into a little bit of all of that. Right.

And then you followed that up with another article. Yeah, story came out today. I wrote it actually a little while ago, but they posted it today. It's about a free diver, 105 meter free immersion, free diver named Denis Gromere. He lives in Teekehau and the Tuamotus in French Polynesia. And I met him out there and just stayed in touch with him.

He is amazing because in his spare time, when he's not leading tourists around on Manta dives and training to be a great free diver, he literally goes out there and does the octopus teacher thing with 14 foot tiger sharks. Right. So the New York Times article online opens with this incredible video of him just out there

messing around with these tiger sharks. We're watching a gigantic one swim right past him right now as he sort of pets it. Yeah, he pets them, he hugs them, he tries to kiss them, doesn't always go well. Well, there's the one story in the article about where, yeah, he leaned down to kiss the shark and realized his head was inside its mouth.

Yes, I saw that footage. And he narrowly escaped being decapitated by his buddy. That's right. Because he names all the sharks, right? Yes. And he knows them, he identifies them. He knows their personalities. He's a real wild man.

He loved octopus teacher. So like that is basically a great, I tried to put that reference into the story, it got cut out by three different editors. So I just guess it wasn't a good one. So check that out. That's in print today, right? Yeah, and what's interesting about Denis Gromere

is he is the product of a single mom, grew up in remote French Polynesia. His older brother, Jody Gromere was a world champion Brazilian jujitsu fighter. And his younger brother is Tikanui Smith, who is one of the great surfers at Chopu in Tahiti. So like a lineage of water people. Right, yeah.

Cool. That's cool. How do you find these people in these stories? I happened to be out in Tahiti and in French Polynesia, I went to Tiki Howe and I heard about him out there and I got introduced to him. And so basically he took me out on his boat,

took April and I out and we cruised around and swam with mantas and saw where he lived and just hung out, did some spear fishing, saw a big shark come by when he caught a fish that looked like, that's the biggest angriest shark I've ever been that close to. It was a silver tip shark.

And I'd never seen, I didn't know, I looked like an oceanic white tip to me. It was a big burly shark and its fins were down and it was hunting. And he had just speared a fish and had to pull it out of the water and then it went down. And then he puts the fish on the boat and then he hands me the spear and he goes,

okay, this is your term. And then I looked down, there's this silhouette of that giant angry shark is like right below me. I'm like, really? So what does that mean when it's fins are down? That's an indication that he's hunting? It looked like it, you know, like it looked like,

you know, the body language of the shark looked like it was hungry. And you're tasty. Right, but usually sharks don't look like that. They look like this. Although it spins her down, but it doesn't look, it looks very calm, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice, man. Cool. What else are you working on? That's it, you know, in book world as well, but that's all I can report on now, Rich. How are you? How are you? I was just waiting for you to ask. You know, I'm just, I'm not really listening to you.

I'm just waiting until it's my turn to talk, Adam. How are you? I'm good. We had a nice Mother's Day yesterday with the kids, which was great. The main thing with me is my back is not doing very well. So about four or five days ago, it just really seized up on me.

So I've been in rather excruciating pain that I believe must be exacerbated by the uptick in the swim training that I've been doing. Yeah. So much so that like I can't sit up in bed or when I sit in a chair, you'll see when we're done with this podcast, when I go to stand up,

it's like, I can't stand up straight. It's really painful. And I'm in the middle of undergoing this pretty advanced high-tech therapy that involve, did I talk about this last time? No. So I went up to the Bay area a couple of weeks ago to visit this clinic where I was injected with PRP, platelet replacement therapy, peptides,

and also this derivative from placenta. It's kind of like a stem cell analog. And over the course of a four hour period, got dozens of injections in my back, which I was told would not be painful, but turned out to be excruciatingly painful because my muscles- Did Samuel Alito authorize that use of placenta?

We're gonna get to that. Okay. Yeah, not yet. Soon, I would imagine. Do not tell him. Yes, Liberty. It was actually very painful because my muscles are so jacked up back there and it's a long process.

I've been told that it could take up to six months. They're relatively optimistic about their ability to kind of help me out. Essentially I have spondy and my L4 protrudes about a centimeter towards my abdomen. So it's out of whack and it's pinching these nerves and it's causing all kinds of havoc and pain. Spondylathesis, I think is how you say it.

And what is the placenta cells do? What do they do? Well, as I understand it, and I probably should have researched this a little bit more to speak more informed about it, but essentially it's a solution of sort of like stem cells where they can kind of go repair certain areas and become whatever is needed in order to like,

basically solve the problem. So it's basically this solution of these different things that my lower back is now being bathed in that over time will help regenerate the kind of fluid around the L4 and create a bit more space that relaxes the muscles and that will in time allow that L4 to kind of go back in place where it's meant to. Okay.

But in the meantime, I'm in a lot of pain and I'm probably in jeopardy of being able to do this 20 kilometer swim race because I had a big block over the weekend that I was supposed to execute on, but I just, I can barely move right now. Oh man. It's just not fun. You look great.

That's a great looking cardigan. I wish I could be in the pool though. I know. And I think it has to do with the turns and the flip turns. It's not necessarily the swimming cause I've been swimming a lot and not running for the sole purpose of not doing anything

that is creating that kind of jarring impact. But I think pushing off the walls and when you flip and you arch your back that way, I could tell like I was starting to get a lot of strain doing that and I think that really exacerbated the situation. So, oh, you got a ping. I got a ping.

Are these guys ready to talk? Just landed. Their flight to Europe is also delayed by an hour. So we have time. Well, if they have time, why don't you let them meet and find a quiet place where they can go. And then we can ping them in like a half an hour, hour or something like that, whatever works.

But basically, Olaf just pinged you. Yes. They're in the Denver airport. They're gonna grab something to eat and then make themselves available to check in, which is a good segue into kind of what we wanted to talk about next in our typical endurance sports check-in corner of the show, which is that this past Saturday was Ironman St. George,

which happened to be the 2021 world championships of Ironman, which is hilarious because we're halfway to 2023 at this point. It is hilarious, it is funny. A result of them canceling Kona during the pandemic. There's still gonna be the 2022 World Championships in Kona in October, right? So this is like the delayed World Championship

from the previous year. It's like the Oscars except a World Championship race. I guess, right? Yeah, yeah. So you wanna just set the stage for what went down here? So basically it was meant to be kind of the, I guess, put up or shut up time for the Norwegians, right? Who've been throwing down incredible times at races.

Christian won the Tokyo gold, then he had the fastest ever full distance Ironman triathlon in Cozumel. Gustav won a race as well at a really, really fast time. Gustav Eden. And so it's supposed to be their time. Are they gonna be who everyone says they are or not? I think there was the smack talk from Alistair Brownlee

saying, do you believe the hype train or don't believe hype train. I don't think that was Brownlee. There was that other British guy who ended up dropping out. So yeah, a lot of these guys ended up not competing. So it was meant to be the showdown between Blumenfeld, Eden, Frodeno and possibly Brownlee. But Frodeno, Eden and Brownlee were all out.

Yeah, but Frodeno, that was a really, but it didn't surprise me because he loves Kona so much. So maybe he's like putting everything on Kona. Maybe. Yeah. So going into this race, it looked like it was gonna be a showdown between Blumenfeld, Lionel Sanders and Cameron Wurf. And Blumenfeld just crushed it.

He got out of the water, I don't know, like four minutes back or something like that, found himself in no man's land on the bike, a bit behind the lead pack, but ahead of the second pack. And he just kind of waited for Cameron Wirth to catch up to him and paced himself off of Cameron, got off the bike and then just killed the run. Just crushed it.

I mean, he was, what was he like four minutes back on the bike, four and a half minutes, 4.46 behind. Finished almost five minutes clear. Did his, I think he did a 2.38 marathon. Right, so he just worked his way through the pack. I don't think he took the lead until like mile 18. That's right. And he averaged 6.02 miles running. 6.02 per mile. Like 5 the lead until like mile 18. That's right. And he averaged 602 miles running.

602 per mile. Like 520 miles around mile 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the amazing thing about all of this is that he did it with a virus. Like he was not 100%. No. I mean, his coach said he was 90%.

Gustav couldn't even start. Right, yeah, they had the same thing. And didn't Olaf say that, you know, if it hadn't been the world championship, he wouldn't have started and he like vomited right before the race and vomited afterwards. He looked like he was vomiting right at the end, right? When he got there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Olaf said that he would not have started him if it wasn't the world championship, but then the fact that he rocked it so hard. I mean, and it was, I just love the way he finishes these races. He shows so much emotion, the same thing in Tokyo. And just like, you know, he wants to be the best.

And it's fun to see an athlete that admits that. And then, you know, these guys called their shot. Like Olaf had said in the article I wrote about these guys, that it's gonna be like taking candy from a baby to win the Ironman World Championship. I mean, that's huge words for someone who at that point hadn't even done a full distance race yet. And so to see that kind of,

I guess you have to go back for old timers, Joe Namath and that kind of thing, like the Babe Ruth call your shot. Like it just doesn't happen. It's very rare that it happens. Commentators do it, but athletes tend not to do it and coaches tend not to do it, but they did it and they backed it up.

It's pretty amazing. When you say it out loud and then you back it up. It's amazing. It makes for a pretty great story. And I think this is just the beginning. I think so too. I mean, it's certainly setting up that way. He's 26 years old, I believe.

And then Gustav is also right there and we'll see what he's got. I mean, shout out to Lionel Sanders for an amazing finish. I mean, just an incredible track. He's an animal. And it's crazy that he can run as well as he does cause he's got this wacky form. Yeah, I love it.

I love his form. He's got an amazing backstory. I've been trying to get him on the podcast forever cause his backstory is unbelievable. And now he spends a lot of time training in Arizona, but he's from Canada. And traditionally he spends most of the year in his basement where he has an infinity pool

and a treadmill and his bike on a trainer. And he never leaves this tiny room and he does all of his training indoors in his basement. Like in a small pool with like a treadmill thing. Yeah, you know those little pools where they have a circular current or whatever. So he has, it's literally like this setup that's just in this room that he essentially,

no, no, in Canada, where it's inclement most of the time, you can't ride outdoors. So, you know, when it's snowing outside, he's just in this room for like nine hours a day. Crazy. Training. Now he does, I think he's in, he spends time in Palm Springs and in Arizona, he does lots of camps there.

So I don't know how much he's doing that now, but there are these amazing videos that Talbot Cox made way back in the day that are like a day in the life of Lionel Sanders. And he's just in this room, just like, and he can suffer. He just pushes himself so hard. Also shout out to Cameron Werff. This guy for people who don't know,

is just an extraordinary athlete. He is a pro cyclist, a domestique for INEOS. And he's been living in Europe, riding races for this team. And he just got back like from racing Perry Roubaix, where he helped his team win. He was the domestique supporting Dylan Van Barrel, who took the win and like left that

and just goes right to St. George to compete in the Ironman World Championships. He's like, I haven't swum at all. Like he hasn't been focused on Ironman really at all. And shout out to Cameron for being a semi Calabasas native. He spends a lot of time out here training. He was out here training with Garren Thomas, who was the 2018 Tour de France winner.

So he's a bit of a temporary local out in these parts. Nice. And if you're out riding your bike, you probably have seen him riding around. You gotta get him into the studio. I'd love to have him on. So Cameron, if you're listening, next time you swing through LA, let's make that happen.

Shout out also, oh, well, two other, one last thing on Christian. He's the first to ever win the Olympic gold and the Ironman title in a calendar year. Right. So that's amazing. Only the second ever to have both. But I think there was several years

between Jan winning the gold and then winning the Ironman. So it doesn't usually happen that quickly, happened for them. Shout out to Daniela Reeve, her fifth world title. She finished in eight hours and 34 minutes, third most titles ever on the woman's side. She won by almost nine minutes. Right, and in the women's race,

the big omission was Lucy Charles Barkley who did not compete due to an injury. So awesome. Why don't we pivot now to our call with Christian and his coach. Olaf Alexander Boo. Live from the Denver airport. There they are, the champion.

How are you doing? How are you guys doing? Thank you so much for taking time. You're at the airport, you got to lay over and I appreciate you just taking a couple minutes and finding a quiet space to talk to us. So we won't take up too much of your time, but we're happy to be able to congratulate you. What an amazing performance minutes and finding a quiet space to talk to us so we won't take up too much of your time but

we're happy to be able to congratulate you what an amazing performance and we're anxious to kind of hear your thoughts in the wake of making history in the triathlon world well yes as well thank you so much um it was quite tricky kind of preparation i would would say. I did my first one in Cozumel like six months ago now, and I thought I would feel more prepared coming into this one. But I think we maybe did a little bit too much time up in altitude, so I didn't feel too fresh coming to St. George. We came here three weeks early to just nail the course and do the preparation there. But then I managed to get a cold first week. So it was kind of a feeling that I hadn't done everything I could.

I wasn't sure how my fitness would be or how my body would be responding. It looks like I was able to do like one solid bike ride, like went through the whole course the week before, felt all right and the same on the run. So that kind of gave me the confidence that on race day I would be, I could be good. And yeah, had a good day, I would say, especially on the bike and the run.

I was able to produce good power and was very strong until then. So happy with that. Yeah, I think that's an understatement. Well, Olaf, you had said, you went on record saying that Christian was not well. He was fighting a virus. Gustav had to drop out for having the same illness. And Christian, you vomited before the race. I mean, all of you had said he was at 90%.

Sounds like he might've even been operating at less than 90% and still capable of, you know, putting in the performance that we all witnessed. Yeah, up in altitude, there were actually several people starting to get sick. Some people we even heard got COVID. So we were actually a little bit afraid

that people had been catching covid or guys have got covid but we did i'll say the testing and everything just to ensure that that was not the case so we got confirmed that it was a cold so gustav was the first one to or he he got it from somebody up there. But eventually we reduced the training quite significantly, focused on getting him back as quickly as possible and then being able to nail in one good preparatory session that we had optimized after leading into Cozumel. And then when we came to St george of course we were really surprised by the dry conditions and of course this is challenging especially because it dries out the

mucous membranes so you are less protected from viruses and bacteria christian when we landed got sick and actually got quite i would say got a quite severe cold. So actually not only upper respiratory system, but actually also the lower, so in the lungs as well, coughing slime and yeah, it was pretty severe. Of course, you can't do anything than just bring down and focus on getting as quickly as possible fresh. Went to the doctor, did all kinds of blood works to again also ensure that it's not COVID,

that it's not any viruses that can potentially... The last thing you want to do is to push yourself when you are having an infection that can potentially cause myocarditis or other long-term issues for you. So I wanted to rule out all that and then daily dialogue with the team doctor in Norway as well. And as Christian was starting to recover,

unfortunately Gustav is maybe as a little bit more exposed because he also have asthma. So coming to dry climates like St. George, we needed to try to moisturize the air, got humidifiers and so on. Well, Christian, imagine if you weren't sick before an Ironman, what you could do.

Yeah. That's two races, right? You had the stomach thing in Cozumel and then this. Hopefully, third time lucky. Isn't that what we're saying when we come to Hawaii? That would be my race. You had an amazing race, Christian. Congratulations.

What was going through your mind when you were kind of in the no man's land on the bike and how close, according to plan, did everything go for you? Yeah, so the swim, I didn't should have been up there on the swim, but I felt just so weak standing there on the start line.

So before the race, we had five minutes in the water where we could one up. And after two minutes, I started vomiting because my throat was so bad and irritated. So I felt quite lucky that I wasn't really on fire when I was waiting for the gun to go and had a weak swim two minutes or so behind. Tried to catch up, but just lost time on the first 40, 50K on the bike. So we went from like 2.30 to 3.30, and then I had camera behind me, or like 40 seconds behind.

So I thought, okay, I'm just going to let my computer and just refocus with the guys behind, and then give it one final shot for the race like it's almost like i was giving up but i also tried to think that uh it's it's not over until it's over a typical ironman mantra and just focusing on doing the nutrition getting in a lot of liquid and then uh carbs and more than that, and just to be prepared for the final half marathon. So Olaf, during the race,

what is the sort of approach that you're taking as a coach? What are you looking for? What is the data that you're trying to extract from Christian's performance? And when you guys get home and start, you know, wading through all of it what are you looking to learn and hone going into Kona in the fall I think during the race because of the conditions and Christian Jose not being fully recovered from the race Gustav of course still too sick to to race or where it was not safe for him to race I actually didn't know what to expect

going in there because there are so many things that can happen and also because there was a lot of other people also that were sick one of the things that I was pretty sure about was that the dynamics of the race would be quite different than if you had

a lot of the favorites that were expected on the start line because then people don't want to take equally big of a risk. Now, suddenly when a lot of them are out, the podium is more open and people are more willing to take risks. And it's like more make it or break it. So actually, I worked together with uh with adam uh the

manager and we also had several of our tech tech partners there so i was discovered they were they were asking of course the same question and i actually said that we just have to see first he needs to come out of the swim uh if he comes out of the swim, okay, and he goes on the bike, of course, I get a glimpse and I could see him. Then you get at least a little bit of feel of whether he's completely deflated or at least it's still game on. And then already for the first part of the bike, you get a good idea at least of, okay, how is the feel? Because it's more than looking at the tracker,

because I don't have access to to real-time data uh so i have to follow the tracker and see how the rest of the field plays out and when i saw that first of course i saw the five guys in the front they were riding hard i knew christian what what numbers he had been doing leading into the race so and i know how strong he is so i knew that if people were starting to go much faster than christian i knew also they were probably overpacing but again he's sick so you don't know whether they are going faster because they are going at the ordinary pace or whether it's christian going a little bit slower because he doesn't feel 100 but But then when I saw Cameron Wirth coming up

and Sanders coming up, and I still see that the front group of the five guys are still making room down to Christian, Cameron, and Sanders. I knew Sanders was fresh. He was healthy. Cameron was healthy. So I used them a little bit as a coach to understand a little bit how fast the front group was riding.

And then also I saw that one of the guys that has been running or been quite strong before, like Daniel Beckigo, I saw that he was starting to drop down to fifth position in the group. And that was like an indicator for me because he knew he had to run probably fast also to be able to be in position to do something and when i saw he fell down and was sitting on the back of the group then and then i was thinking okay now he's he's falling down to fifth position he's been riding too hard he needs to try or try to basically recover as much as possible so he's in position to be able to run. And then when they came off on the out of the bike

and started to run of course Christian looked sharp. So then I was pretty confident already that okay Christian is gonna bring this home. So Christian what is that like for you? Are you getting communications at all from OLAV? Are you Olav? Are you getting splits on your watch? I saw you looking at your watch a lot on the run. What were you looking at and how did it feel to finally pass the leader at mile 18? but it's very like you can't really trust the splits whether they're using just the taking the splits themselves which or if they're kind of just using all splits from the live tracker so it's quite confusing uh and there was only two like out of the back section where i could take the splits myself and so but for the whole bike ride basically i was just kind of getting negative feedback. I was losing a little bit, a little bit, a little bit until maybe 100k.

And from there, we were kind of staying within the four and a half minute gap and stabilizing there. But ideally, I wanted to kind of bridge up again. So coming into the run, I wasn't sure how my run would be, but I felt quite smoked at the sole part of the bike right there going up the two big climbs.

But I was thinking that if I go out on the run on my limits, then at least it's kind of giving it a try and at least running for a podium because no way that all five of those guys will be kind of able to put the marathon together. I was expecting some of them to blow up. So in the beginning, I was just running for a

podium. And for the first 10K, I think I was running in the same speed as Brendan Curry the guy from New Zealand and I knew that he could be a good runner and I kind of thought okay

thinking that he's maybe out of territory I can't really catch him but then on the way back again I suddenly kind of reached back

two minutes out of those four and a half and then I was only two and a half minutes behind with a half marathon to go and that was kind of the moment when i think so that i can actually start winning this because like the pictures in my head of myself winning the race and i just had to kind of keep focus and make sure that i still did the nutrition and hydration correctly and took as much fluid as it could in the aid station just to stay cool.

Amazing. So Adam and I were talking before the podcast about how cool and rare it is when somebody says, here's what's gonna happen, here's what we're gonna do, and then they actually go out and do it, right? So you did that.

The proof is in the pudding. There's been a lot written about and spoken about this unique approach go out and do it, right? So you did that, the proof is in the pudding. There's been a lot written about and spoken about this unique approach to training and racing that you guys have cultivated in this amazing partnership through kind of, you know, really understanding sports science and next level data mining

and all the interesting things that you're doing. And that of course has resulted in a bit of a backlash. There's a lot of shit talking out there about the Norwegian train. So I want to give you the opportunity to slap back a little bit. Anything you want to say to all those detractors out there and any predictions about Kona and the kind of season that's continuing to unfold? I was actually thinking like two weeks ago that if I'm able to win Harrison George, then nobody has a chance in Hawaii. So we will see in five months time if that's correct, because I didn't really feel prepared. And yeah, I will be prepared coming to Hawaii.

There you have it. Very exciting. Congratulations to both of you guys. It's really a treat. Thanks for making this work. Yeah, absolutely. Really appreciate you guys taking the time. It's been so fun cheering you from afar

and watching all of this progress kind of unfold. Can't wait to see what you do in Kona. And at some point when you guys find yourselves in LA, we'd love to have you in the studio for a full-blown podcast, if you can make the time. That'd be great. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. Hopefully there's a parade waiting for you in the Bergen airport when you land. Yes. We are landing just before midnight tomorrow. So we'll see. All right. Cool.

Travel safe, guys. All right. Thanks, gentlemen. see. All right. Cool. Travel safe, guys. All right. Thanks, gentlemen. Bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. 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. hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health

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And they have treatment options for you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Wasn't that awesome talking to Christian and Olaf? It was, it was amazing. We're laughing because we haven't recorded it yet.

We're pretending like we just had that experience. Yeah, well- You will, you the audience member will have had that experience. You've had it, we have not. I hope it was good. I hope it was good. I hope it was good for you. There are a couple more stories

from the world of endurance. We gotta talk about this six year old kid who ran the flying pig marathon in Cincinnati. Right. What's your hot take? It's not really my business on whether a certain six year old kid runs the marathon. I'm not gonna be outraged by it or celebrated.

It's all none of my business. Is that a good hot take? That is a hot take because you're kind of in the middle. I mean, I'm like, carry on, carry on with your lives. So I will not judge all of you. This sort of lit up the internet the other week. A lot of people had a lot to say about this, including people like Kara Goucher. I had Steve Magnuson here the other week, a lot of people had a lot to say about this including people like Kara Goucher.

I had Steve Magnuson here the other day, who's an elite track and field coach. He had some not so nice words about- Is it a bad thing to do? Well, at six years old, it's not a great idea. And I think there was some indication, obviously I wasn't there, I don't know the parents. The parents are defending their decision,

but there was some video and some sense that the kid was crying and like not into it. And like they kind of urged him to complete it and all of that, whether or not that's true or not. I'm not sure, but it's certainly somewhat controversial. And I don't think you can make the argument that it's healthy for a six-year-old to run a marathon. Certainly if there's pressure on that young person,

apparently it's a family full of very active people who are strivers and they all did the marathon together. So was there pressure on this young person to complete it in order to kind of get that parental approval? Who knows? But maybe not wise. I think it would be prudent for race organizers to be more conscious about age minimums

and protecting the young people out there. So I just, I'm all for like getting young people out there and active and doing challenges. But I just don't think that at that age, something that challenging is in the child's best interest. Fair enough. That's my hot take. Good.

Can we celebrate Jackie Hunt Braresma? She completed her 104 marathons and 100 consecutive days. Unbelievable. Setting the record for the most marathons run on consecutive days by a woman. And she did it as an amputee. She's been an amputee for five years. She lost the lower part of her left leg to cancer.

She's also 46 years old and a mom. And she did it to raise money. And she raised quite a bit of money by latest amount her GoFundMe. Looks like she's raised $194,080. And those funds are directed towards this amputee prosthetics charity called Amputee Blade Runners.

Because those blades like that you see her, if you're watching this on YouTube, the kind of blade that she's running on are super expensive. They're like 10 to 20 grand each. So, and insurance doesn't necessarily cover them. So, to be able to create a fund that will make that more widely accessible

to other active minded amputees, I think is pretty cool. I agree. And super inspiring. She was sharing the whole thing on social media every day. Another marathon, fantastic. Shout out to RXR Bar that matched donations up to $104,000, which is what they donated to her GoFundMe. So if you wanna learn more about Jackie, if you wanna support her GoFundMe,

there's links in the show notes. You can find her at NCrunnerjacky, J-A-C-K-Y on Instagram. And there's a bunch of news stories and we'll link those up in the show notes as well, including this piece in ESPN, which is pretty cool. So very cool piece. So much love Jackie. Yes, and shout out to moms.

I didn't get to do my mother's day thing as she's a mom. So I'm gonna take my opportunity. She used to like get the kids to school and then she was going off on marathons every day. Like that was her rhythm. She'd drop her kid off at school and then she'd run a marathon and try to finish it in time to go pick her kid up.

Right, right. And so I just wanna say, if it wasn't for you moms, we'd all be still, we'd be cavemen. If it wasn't for the moms, we'd all still be cavemen is my point. At least the males would. Well, you wouldn't exist. moms, we'd all still be caveman is my point. At least the males would. Well, you wouldn't exist. Well, there's that.

But I mean, I don't mean the biological function of motherhood. Oh, you just mean unrefined. We'd be wild beasts. Yeah, I hear you with that. I bet even like the first cave painter, if it was a male, I bet the first cave painter, if it was a male, I bet the first cave painter was just like this goth vegan cave man that didn't wanna go hunting.

I doubt it vegan. And just lays it around the cave until his wife said, you know what, do something useful. Either you paint that cave or you're outta here. Do something with your time. I did not marry you for this. Right. Let's talk about William Gouge.

Let's do it. You love William Gouge. So we brought him up the other week because he is the model slash ultra runner slash hype beast dude who supported Robbie Ballinger in his effort to outlast the Tesla in the Hill Country of Texas the other week. But Robbie had previously supported William

in his effort to complete 48 marathons in 30 days, which was a challenge that he set out to accomplish to memorialize his mother who died of cancer and to raise money for the Macmillan Cancer Support, which is a cancer charity in the UK. And there's a documentary that just came out about the 4830, it's called 4830. You can find it on Amazon.

Here's a little, if you're watching on YouTube, here's a little link to the film. William posted a trailer for the video on his Instagram that I shared the other day. And it's pretty cool. So shout out to William, check out the movie and all sales of the movie or rental fees for the movie go directly to Macmillan Cancer Support. So it's basically a charitable affair

and a cool movie to boot. Also, I thought it was cool that he's a WHOOP athlete and WHOOP has this blog post where they chronicled the strain of running 48 marathons in 30 days. So they kind of tell his story and then they have all of his data, which is pretty interesting to kind of take a look at. It's also cool how WHOOP is doing more and more of this.

They like they've got WHOOops on a lot of the cyclists from these one day classics. And then you can kind of go and look at the data and see what the strain is and all that sort of stuff, which I think is- You wanna geek out on your favorite athletes. I like that. That's really cool.

Yeah, man. What else you got for me? I got this wonderful surf photography book. It's an art book by Clark Little, the art of the waves. Clark Little is one of the great surf photographers. Came up, I think with the Kelly Slater crew and all them. And Kelly Slater actually has a really well written forward to this book.

And it's quite something. A lot of it is shore break. There's some landscape stuff, but I mean the overarching idea is to get the reader or viewer into a barrel. And he does that so many different ways. Like I've never actually, you can see it in films, you kind of see it, but like there's something about the still photography of actually getting

to get that perspective of being barreled, which most of us will never experience. So I love that about this. That's exactly what it looks like when I'm in the barrel. This is what it looks like when Rich is getting barreled. So I love it. I think it's really a great piece of work. The writing is exceptional.

It's by Jamie Brissick does a lot of the writing or it does, I guess with Clark, they collaborated. So congratulations. Did it just come out? Just came out. Oh, nice. It's available everywhere. Congratulations to Clark and thanks for the book.

Cool. It's awesome. And you got one more thing you wanted to share, right? And then the month of May 100 mile challenge. So there is a nonprofit called Give Back Homes. They are a charity founded and run by two former Toms employees. One, a guy named Blake Andrews and Caroline Pinal, who's a Rich Roll podcast listener,

sister of Priscilla Vega, friend of mine, and who does PR in the environmental and social entrepreneurial space. And they basically came up with a Tom's style business. Well, it's not business, theirs is a nonprofit where they take the profits from real estate companies and they use them to build homes for poor, disadvantaged, marginal communities and families in the US and abroad. A lot of times it's in

Central America. And so they partnered with real estate agents, brokerages, companies. The agency, which is a Southern California real estate agency, was their first partnership. And they have decided the agency is raising money through this month of May, a hundred mile challenge. They have a group on the Nike run app. And that group is where you can kind of join. And it's not too late, even though it's already May, it's not too late.

And a lot of you runners can throw down a hundred miles in three weeks. So the idea is you give $30 donation minimum on the agency's website, and we have the link for you and that $30 donation, then you can also join. So you could also just donate. I've donated, I'm not in the Nike run group, but I'm gonna do a hundred miles.

You can follow that. That's gonna happen for me on Strava. I just don't carry my phone with me everywhere. So I'm not doing the run group, but that you could do it any way you like. And even Caroline has said, if you're curious about joining one of these build out trips, they do them all the time.

They call them, I guess, groups of volunteers. That's who builds them. And so you can join there right now in El Salvador in one week, building some homes. And so if you, it's like a Habitat for Humanity thing. Right, like a Jimmy Carter. Right, right, right. That's cool.

So that's that. How long does it take them to build a home? I guess they build several homes in a week. Yeah. Yeah. Because if she's there May 5th to 9th, like that's only four days. They're gonna have some homes built.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know how or why. That's a great idea. Yeah, it's cool, right? Nice. And do we wanna throw her email? She put her email. You put her email on that.

Yeah, so carolineatgivebackhomes.com. If you're interested, if you don't go to the show notes, if you're interested in these trips, wanna be a part of it, Caroline spelled the traditional way at givebackhomes.com. Cool. There you go. All right.

Well, why don't we turn our focus and attention to current events, things that are on everybody's mind right now. Obviously the biggest news story, at least in the United States, is what's happening with the potential overturning of Roe versus Wade. This is what everybody's talking about.

This leaked draft opinion in Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization found its way to Politico. And that story was published about a week ago, I think. It lit the internet on fire and has really monopolized the news cycle. And look, you know, how do we talk about abortion? How do we talk about the right to choose, the right to life

and balance those considerations in a way that's nuanced and respectful? I mean, everybody has their opinion on this and their philosophical perspective. I'm certainly not here to change anybody's mind. I happen to be pro-choice. I have been for a very long time. I believe in a woman's right to choose.

And the fact that this draft decision, which we have every reason to believe, well, it's been legitimized by Alito as the real thing. Obviously it's a draft, so whatever happens and when it gets published will, I assume, be at least slightly different than what we've all seen to date, is gonna change the lay of the land

in terms of a woman's right to choose. And I think there are far reaching implications to this. I think it's interesting. Listen, I'm no constitutional scholar, but I did take constitutional law. I got a B in law school in it. So you're getting some analysis from a guy that got a B in constitutional law.

A B in con law. So basically what I'm saying is don't listen to me. But I do think it's, you know, rather than like having a hyperbolic conversation about this, like let's look at what this decision was premised upon. And I think it's interesting that the opinion emanates from a perspective of not being persuaded

by the due process clause of the 14th amendment, which is kind of what Roe versus Wade rests on. The idea that within the due process clause of the 14th amendment, which is kind of what Roe versus Wade rests on, the idea that within the due process clause, there is this right to liberty and how strictly or broadly do we construe what liberty is? Can it be inferred from the founders or from the constitutional text that from that we can create this zone of privacy, right? Well, Roe versus Wade says yes. Alito and the five justices who are overturning Roe versus Wade say not so fast. It's a much stricter constitutional interpretation,

which is what conservatives do. They're strict constitutionalists. So this is what they're basing this opinion on. It's also interesting that it is a shirking of stare decisis, stare decisis being this preference that we give to settled law. Like if it's settled, we give it respect and we're reluctant to overturn something

that has been properly considered in the past. In the past, when old settled law decisions have been reversed, particularly in the civil rights sphere, it's traditionally been to expand rights. But here we have for, I think the very first time, a shirking of stare decisis deployed to restrict rights. And that's settled law, meaning the Supreme Court has ruled,

and then sometimes it was challenged and then ruled again. So after two rulings, is that considered settled law? I mean, I guess it depends on how you interpret that. But in the case of Roe versus Wade, we're talking decades. It's been 40 or 50 years of it being considered settled law. And interestingly, in the confirmation hearings of many of these Trump appointees, they commented that Roe versus Wade was settled law.

I know, they lied. They said that and now here we are, Trump packing the Supreme Court, this was the plan all along. And now we're seeing the results of those seeds that were sown quite some time ago. I think what's also interesting about this is the extent to which this could ultimately unravel

other rights like same sex marriage. I know you have thoughts on that. Yep. And I think it's important just, you know, just so we're all on the same page and understand what we're talking about here. This doesn't outlaw abortion. It just prevents the federal government

from making federal law regarding the policing of abortion. So essentially allow states to write their own laws. It's gonna trigger laws in states that have laws that are preexisting that will go into effect upon publication. And of course, this will have a disproportionate impact on poor people and people of color, particularly obviously in red states.

And I think it's interesting that this more restrictive or limited read of liberty or how we're defining liberty or thinking about liberty, the parameters of liberty are inconsistent with the other issues that conservatives or the right tend to care about. Like they want liberty when it comes to opposing mandates, for example, we've all seen that.

And yet when it comes to women's bodies and the unborn child, they wanna undercut the woman's liberty. So there is an inconsistency in that perspective or prioritization of liberty, depending upon who would be embodying that liberty. And also, I mean, obviously it's a different amendment, but right to bear arms,

they want liberty when it comes to guns, they want liberty when it comes to guns, they want liberty when it comes to their choices they're in favor of, and they don't want liberty in this case. And there is some quid pro quo because the people who say it's my body, my choice when it comes to abortion, aren't really stoked when people didn't wanna wear masks.

So there is a back and forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because human beings are inconsistent and emotional and irrational when it comes to these sorts of things. And you have what it looks like 19 states already have laws that will go into effect after this thing is published 22 to 26 states

might have some issue. Right. I think that there is, there's still gonna be like morning after pills still on the market in those states. Let's just kind of put out there, there's still access to prescription drugs that could help assist in unwanted pregnancy cases.

Yeah, but I think it's interesting because in a certain way you can say, well, we're moving backwards, we're going back to the 1930s, but it's not a situation in which there's gonna be coat hangers in back alleyways. Like a lot of abortions are, as I understand it, conducted through prescription,

like through a medication, a pharmaceutical, right? So the question then becomes how restrictive is that medication and or what does the black market look like in terms of getting your hands on that medication and what happens when somebody who isn't qualified is administering that medication or taking that medication. Because people aren't gonna stop getting abortions. It's just a question of how they're gonna be

getting abortions. And I think it's interesting that we're seeing these, it's almost like, well, I think now that this is out, all these people feel emboldened to start talking about other laws that are even more extreme, like preventing pregnant women who are in these states where abortion is gonna be outlawed from crossing state lines.

You've seen news stories about the potential illegality of contraception, IUDs, condoms. I mean, I can't imagine that, but is this the world that we're now entering? I'm not sure, but it is strange. It's strange and it is a law that I think, I think this decision really took everybody by surprise. I think everybody just thought this is settled law.

The day would never come when Roe versus Wade would be overturned. And yet this has been the conservative agenda for a very long time. And now they're seeing it finally come to fruition. It's happened. I think there's a couple of things. There are gonna be more children.

There's an economist at Middlebury College in Vermont named Caitlin Knowles Myers, who has studied for 15 years, the impact of restrictive abortion laws on women. And she wrote a paper in 2017 that basically expanded access to abortion has reduced teen motherhood by 34%, reduced teen brides by 20%. She estimates 75,000 more births within a year

to people who have otherwise considered abortion. The big thing that I keep hearing and I think is legitimate is you are basically, because of this one particular opinion that,'s face it is rooted in religion, you are now forcing, potentially forcing women to carry a baby for nine months, deliver that baby. And in some cases, unless they're okay with trying to put it up for adoption,

which is its own traumatic experience, then raising the child sometimes as a single mom. So it's like you are controlling the life of women because of your religious beliefs. How is that any different from some of the stuff that we're outraged about? I mean, it's outrageous. It is what it is.

I don't look down on people's religious beliefs, but I don't expect your religious belief to then impact me. And so that's where I look at that. And I'm not an alarmist. So this idea that same-sex marriage is next and contraception is after that, I don't actually think that will happen. I think that's, I don't even think same-sex marriage

is going to be overturned, but the way this ruling is written in the draft form anyway, it certainly opens the door for that. And that's what's alarming. And it actually opens the door to overturn other laws. There is a story out of Texas that the governor there, Greg Abbott, the governor now wants to sue to overturn a federal law that was settled at the Supreme Court level that demands that Texas educate the children of migrants, illegal immigrants in Texas are now going to, their children may not get educated

in public schools there because of it. If he goes through with this lawsuit, he talked about it at a press conference, he gave his legal opinion on how and why it could be overturned. They have not filed suit yet. The state of Texas hasn't done that yet. But when I see this, which 70% of United States is against the overturning of Roe v. Wade, 70%, you notice there's no bragging going on in the Republican party. Nobody is like bragging that

we finally did it. No, because it's so out of step with what polls indicate where the temperature of the American people are. So you have that, and then you have this impulse, whether it's the lawsuit happens or not, this impulse to actually weaponize young children and the education of children. It makes me think two things. One is who runs for office to gain power to do that? Like what is in the head of a person who runs for office

and their big goal is to not educate kids. That's crazy. And the second is to me, whether it happens now, 10 years, 15 years, this is the beginning of the end of the Republican party. That's what I think. I think everything's going to be okay. I'm not an alarmist. I think it's all going to be okay. And I think this is going to be the beginning of the end of the Republican party. Well, it's certainly going to activate the Democrats and it's gonna marshal the interest of the independence. There's a lot of people in the middle who are undecided or waffle between parties,

depending upon the election cycle and who's running, but this is such an emotional issue. And I think it's really gonna innervate certain aspects of the population who have been traditionally apathetic about their citizenship, right? And their enthusiasm around voting. The Democrats generally bungle these types of opportunities to marshal support.

So we'll see what happens, but it's certainly an opportunity going into the midterms. And I think the kind of domino effect or downstream implications of this decision, which we're expecting will come out sometime in the next seven weeks. I think every time that we're in that position where the, because the Supreme Court rules like once or twice a week, right, on something, every time they're about

to make a ruling, like, is this gonna be it? Is this real? Is interesting because at least with respect to the same sex marriage issue, although Alito says explicitly in the draft opinion that this should not be construed beyond the very special case of abortion because it involves the unborn life,

the principles beneath their argument shouldn't be extrapolated to apply to other issues. It's not a stretch to see how those legal arguments or the kind of logical through line that runs through this majority opinion could not then be applied to same sex marriage and other civil rights issues that we could see becoming unraveled as a result of this. So it's interesting, I think it's also interesting

that I'm not sure that the Republican party is actually prepared for what will actually happen if this becomes law, because with the increase in the childbirth rate and the other things that you were just mentioning, we're going to need federal and state programs to help manage all of this, right? And the right is less enthusiastic about funneling money into government programs to support these young mothers and the children, particularly, you know, if they wanna put them up for adoption and the like,

like we're gonna need social service support in order to manage this. The right doesn't like to give social service support. Yeah, I mean support. So what? So all these people fall through the cracks. That's right. So you create, I mean, it. So what? So all these people fall through the cracks. That's right. So you create, I mean, it's the same thing

with school children. Like actually their presence in schools gives public school money. Like you take people out, you actually hurt your own schools. It's a folding in of the fabric of the country. And it's because of me, mine, and this is what I believe, so there.

That kind of attitude has been kind of on the conservative side for a long time. Now, on the other side of it, it's like, we don't want to overstate a winning argument. We don't want to say this means, these other rights are going to be taken away because it's not necessarily true. So like, I would just urge people

who are having these discussions or posting about it or whatever, let's stick to the facts and the facts of the case look like Roe is gonna be overturned. Let's just talk about that because you know, until the other things are actually under threat. The only reason I brought up the Texas situation is because it's under threat

because Greg Abbott spoke about it. And so that's why I bring it up. But the other ones we'll see. I mean, certainly the ruling leaves it open to possibility, but if it's just Roe alone, that's already, you know, a lot of people are extremely troubled by it. And 70% of the population disagrees with it. So, you know, it's a very bizarre thing

to be kind of living through. Yeah. More will be revealed. More will be revealed. And just so you're not under the impression that I'm some kind of left-wing progressive shill, I think it's important to point out that although I'm pro-choice,

I'm not so crazy about this new Biden administration, Ministry of Truth, the Disinformation Governance Board. This is news to you, right? Like you weren't aware that this was going on? I wasn't aware and it's a very bad title. It really is. It's a very bad title. It really is. It's a very bad title.

I mean, there's literally like the name of an Orwell biography is Ministry of Truth. Like it could not be more Orwellian in that regard. It couldn't be a worse title. Who writes their titles? The Disinformation Governance Board. It's interesting, cause this came out right in the wake, if I have my timeline right,

of this speech that Obama recently gave at Stanford on misinformation and disinformation. Right. Did you see that? No, I saw snippets of it. I did not watch the whole speech. I mean, it's obviously, it is a problematic issue. We do need people, smart people, thinking about how to solve this problem.

I'm not saying it's not a problem. I'm just not crazy about this being part of the solution. Interesting side note, I was up in the Bay area when I went to go to that doctor for my back appointment. And I took Jaya with me and we were, I was giving a tour of like the, I was like, here's where I went to college. And we were driving around Stanford.

And then as we're exiting like behind Stanford, there was two cop cars and then four black SUVs and then another two cop cars. And I was like, somebody's in those. I was like, who is that? Like it turned out it was Obama because he had just spoken at Stanford. Barack Obama.

So that was my somewhat fleeting experience being close to Barack Obama. Anyway. Not as close as to Larry Ellison buying cough drops. Yeah, so this disinformation governance board is within the Department of Homeland Security. And the problem is that it's run by people, right? And people obviously are prone to being emotional

and partisan and susceptible to incentives. And the person who's been appointed to run this, Nina Jankowicz, is a very inherently partisan person. I mean, she's an advocate for online regulation and stiffer action against online abuse, fine. But it's tricky, man. You know, when you get the government involved in saying what's disinformation and what's misinformation,

alarm bells go off appropriately. Now, in fairness, the intention behind all of this is to identify and combat international threats, like coming from Russia and China. This is something that Cenk Uygur has experience with, like this is her level of expertise. But anytime you vest a government department or organization with the power to make conclusions

about what's true and what isn't, we should all be concerned about that. Yeah, no doubt. And it seems like it actually opens you up to vulnerabilities politically by even getting involved in that. So yeah, it doesn't sound good. I wouldn't want a ministry judging.

Like, first of all, there's so much content. There's no way they could even, who's gonna judge it all? It's gonna be AI, who's controlling the AI? I mean, it's so inherently problematic. It's like, it seems like the issue is an upstream issue. Let's fight misinformation before it happens. Let's fight, you know, like where does this lead?

I mean, you have misinformation every day because we have a completely open media landscape now. It's hard, it's a really hard problem. On the one hand, it's incumbent upon all of us to be better filters of information and to develop and hone our critical thinking skills. That should be taught in schools now, given the fact that every kid is exposed to so much stuff, they need to understand how to distinguish

between reality and fantasy, disinformation, et cetera. But we're also walking forward into this dystopian technological era of deep fakes. And what happens when technology advances to the point where you can put a video out of some head of state who looks and sounds exactly like the head of state who looks and sounds exactly like the head of state who's sitting atop a nuclear arsenal. And he says, I'm gonna launch a first strike.

Like there are real world implications to this that kind of make it feel like, well, probably there should be some government organization that's paying attention to this. So I understand that, but at the same time, like it's pretty difficult to figure out how you solve this problem. Yeah, I mean, it depends on what the structure is.

Like what are they actually looking at? What's the purview? And then I think your criticism of who's in charge of it, it should look pretty impartial. It should look more impartial than that. Or at least it shouldn't be one person. Yeah, and maybe it's not, you know, like maybe it's not. I haven't really looked at it,

but it sounds like it could be used to accuse the government of censorship and you don't wanna be censoring right now. It's just like, I'm against censorship. You are too, we're free speech people. So I wish there was a way to solve this problem without structure on speech and hopefully there is. We'll see. Yeah.

When Elon takes over Twitter. Maybe Elon can solve all these problems. I think he thinks he can. Let's get Elon over there. You know, now that Elon's a Texan, he can have a sit down with Greg Abbott and- I'm sure he's had one, at least one. At least one already?

Of course. Yeah, well, he shouldn't be in favor of this. I mean, his gigafactory out there is like the largest building in the world. A crazy gigantic building that goes on forever and ever. How come you don't have a gigafactory? I have a gigafactory in my mind. All right, let's go to listener questions.

We're gonna do one question and then we're gonna pivot to our second Zoom call with Chris South. All right. pivot to our second zoom call with chris south all right hey adam hey rich my name is tristan dukes i'm calling from oram utah and my question is so we're in a world of a lot of information there's a lot of podcasts and you know a lot of things that i'm constantly learning and i would you know argue a lot of healthy. There's a lot of podcasts and a lot of things that I'm constantly learning. And I would argue

a lot of healthy things that I'm learning from your podcast. There's so many things that I want to implement in my life. Like I'd like to be more plant-based.

I'd like to stay consistent with intermittent fasting and those health benefits. And the list goes on of things that I'd like to do or, oh, I should sleep between this time and get this. But I can't help but feel overwhelmed at times with how much information or how many things that I should be doing or, well, I shouldn't be eating

fish because it's not sustainable. And I feel like it's to my detriment. And I try and focus on that 1% better every day. But ultimately, I do feel overwhelmed with all the different things out in the world and the ways that I can better myself. And I guess I'm just wondering if you have any tips or tricks to bettering yourself in a way that is sustainable, that I can grow in ways that I can measure. Yeah, thank you guys. Thank you, Tristan. Orem is where the Iron Cowboy lives. That's right. Shout out Iron Cowboy, who's going to Attila. Oh, he is? He's gonna race the world championship.

Oh, good for him. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, isn't that cool? That'll be fun to see him do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. He'll love it.

I think he'll love it. Yeah, spent a lot of time in Orem. It's a beautiful place in the world. So thank you for your question, Tristan. I relate to this a lot. It's like a classic case of what about-ism. Like every time you're doing a good thing, then you can think of the 10 things that you're not doing.

Well, I should be doing this and I should be doing that. And you can easily turn that into, you know, kind of a self flagellation parade, which I've been known to do to myself, because it is so all consuming and overwhelming when you hear all this high vibration content and people are saying, do this, do that, do that. I mean, every week hosting this podcast,

I learn new things from my guests and the other content that I consume. And it's impossible to incorporate all of it or synthesize it into my life or for anybody to do that. So you gotta be a little bit more sort of gracious with yourself, I think. Because if you did set yourself up to try to follow everything,

for example, just take morning routines. Like everybody likes to talk about morning routines. Like, well, if you did everything, everybody told you to do for your morning routine, it would take you like three hours to do it every day. Like it's not sustainable. Yeah, I don't have time. To stare into the sun when you wake up in the morning?

I can't stare into the sun that long. Yeah, it's like all of them are also like, it'll only take you a few minutes, but if you like made a list of, okay, I gotta stare in the sun, I gotta drink water with apple cider vinegar, then I gotta do my meditation, and then I gotta do my journaling,

and then I gotta do my visualization, and then I gotta do my gratitude list, and then I gotta do my stretches or my- Less time to work. Right, exactly. And I think, I love, I wanted to say that, I love that, try to be 1% better every day mantra. I think that's cool and it's very simplistic

so you can wrap your head around it, but it actually isn't true. I don't think anybody gets 1% better every day because improvement is not linear, let alone exponential. Life is messy and we make mistakes. And most days it's, you know, two steps backwards. I got 4% worse yesterday. Did you? No.

All the making up, it'd be great. Like if there was an app and all it said, it just gave you a percent every day of how much better or worse you were than the day before. Olaf can figure that out. He can tell us. You're 4% worse today. Like I don't even need specifics.

Just yeah, you're bad. It's not good. Yesterday was bad. You're 15% the man you used to be. Right. Yeah, the pressure of that, right? I gotta be 1% better every day. It's the pressure of unrealistic proportions.

And so I think a better way to think about this that hopefully might be helpful to you, Tristan, and put your mind at ease a little bit is to just, first of all, create a hierarchy of needs. Like do a self inventory and try to identify what is most dire or in terms of your need to redress in your life. Like what is most urgent?

Like where is that limited bandwidth time and focus best invested that will kind of be this fulcrum to leverage the most change? Because you can't do everything. And if you set yourself up to do too many things, you're going to fail for the reasons that you're already aware. So, you know, do that inventory and inventory your nutrition,

your fitness, your mental health, your career, your relationships, how involved you are in your community. What is your spiritual life look like? And really be honest with yourself and try to figure out like, okay, where am I the most off the mark? Or where is the area that I really haven't been giving the care and attention that it deserves? And I think once you focus on that one thing

and start to channel that focus in that direction, the cool thing is that it then opens up all kinds of other stuff because you're performing an esteemable act for yourself, which breeds self-esteem and gets you more emotionally connected and enthusiastic about improving other areas of your life. For example, if you pick diet,

you start improving your diet, you start feeling better, maybe you lose a little bit of weight, you're gonna feel better. And then you're gonna be like, I deserve good things in my life. Where else can I improve? Because improvement feels good. But I think the important thing is to do something.

It's not about necessarily what that thing is as much as it is about the fact that you are in action and not falling prey to analysis paralysis because you have this avalanche of inputs that are pulling you in a million different directions. Like the perfection is the enemy of the good type. Yeah, exactly. But that's something should be specific.

It should be measurable. It should be quantifiable. It should be time oriented. And it can be a small thing, like 10 minutes of meditation a day. But as long as you're specific and you hold yourself to it, you're accountable to it. I think that is the key thing.

And let go of this, whatever compulsion or need you have to like make sure that you're doing all of the things. So an example that I often give is when I got sober, like I was like, I have to change my whole life. Like my life is a train wreck, it's a disaster. I need to, you know, change my diet and my career. And like, I need new friends. And in truth, all I needed to do then

was to just stop drinking or not drink. And so I focused on that because I was told, I was like, I need to do then was to just stop drinking or not drink. And so I focused on that because I was told, I was like, I need to do all that. No, forget about all that. That will come in time. Right now, what you need to do is take care of the biggest crisis in your life,

which is the fact that you can't stop drinking, address that and in time you will get healthier and you'll be more capable of addressing those other areas in your life. But I wouldn't have been successful or been able to achieve the things that I have been able to achieve if I tried to do all of it at one time.

Yeah. So those are my thoughts. You're so good at these. You really are. You're good at these. They're thorny questions. This is a great question by the way, because it's something, it's close to like,

we've had overwhelmed questions before, but they're usually about how the world seems to be in the middle of a shit storm. This one's more internal, like content that's coming at you. What do you do with it all? How do you catch it all? I really liked this question, Tristan.

And I think- Yeah, I think anybody who listens to a lot of like sort of self-help, self-improvement content or reads a lot of those books, you can get really disoriented because there's a lot of things to do and a lot of things to think about. So. Great, great answers.

So yeah, thanks for the question. And that's it, I think we did it. Call us guys, send in some more questions. Oh, that's right. The voicemail, phone number. 424, you don't know it offhand? Do I know it by heart? Yeah, you don't have it right here.

I have it right here. 424-235-4626, that's right, it's 424. Operators are standing by. 424-235-4626, AI is standing by. Right, yeah, we love the question. So keep them coming, appreciate it. Adam and I will be back here in two weeks. We're gonna celebrate the 10th anniversary of Finding Ultra.

So I have some fun stuff to share about that. It's been 10 years since that book came out. That's awesome. So we're gonna do a little giveaway kind of thing. We'll talk about that next time we're here. When's the last time you read it? Long time ago, when I rewrote it a couple of years ago. Yeah, you had to do, you did a revise, right?

I did a revise, yeah. You did a reissue. But it's been 10 years and it's been cool because it still sells and it still tracks on Amazon. And that's the most gratifying thing. Cause it wasn't a New York Times bestseller. It wasn't like a huge deal when it came out, but it's still, you know, getting into hands of people.

And it's also interesting that despite its success, the number of people that have read that book is still a tiny segment of the podcast population, which shows you like how many people aren't reading books. Yeah, read more podcast population. Yeah. Some of us rely on- Need you to.

Some of us. I need you to read more. I have bills, right? Cool, so we'll see you in two weeks. And now we're gonna go to my conversation with Chris. I'm gonna share about my back situation with him. Hopefully he has some words of wisdom for me as I try to wrap my head around

whether I'm gonna do this 20 kilometer race coming up in a month, which is frightening me. Yeah, well, I'm eager to hear what he says and I'm sorry you're having some pain. It's okay, man. I have some Icy Hot in my car. Do you? I could use that.

And one of those old school, like electric cord pad heating pads. Oh, you do? Yeah, I've got three in my car. You want one? No, I'm okay. Okay, all right, thanks, man. See you in two weeks.

All right, see you then. Peace. Heating pad. I'm okay. Okay. All right, thanks, man. See you in two weeks. All right, see you then. Peace. Blatts, eating bad. There he is. How are you feeling? I've been better. Such is life. Life is not linear.

It is not linear. And the thing is, I believe as I wrote you, I think muscle memory and how this all works and your ability in open water and your calmness in that and not overthinking it, you can do it. I hear you. And I'm not averse to the Jesse Itzler school

of approaching crazy endurance events. And I know that I do have a background to the Jesse Itzler school of approaching crazy endurance events. And I know that I do have a background and a muscle memory. And even as the volume was starting to increase, like in the pool, the volume's never a problem with me. Like I can increase the volume, no problem. It's the intensity of the workouts that drain me. And I'm totally fine for showing up and just spinning the wheel.

But I need to calibrate that against whether I'm really fine for showing up and just spinning the wheel, but I need to calibrate that against whether I'm actually doing damage because my back was so bad. Like today's a little bit better, but the last four days, like I literally can't stand up straight. And the amount of pain shooting through my back is unbelievable. And there's no way that it's not tied to the swimming.

And it's probably mostly due to the turns. But I think as the workouts started to get progressively harder, it just, I couldn't get around it anymore. And it was like, it's been excruciating. And so I haven't swum in like four days at this point. That's a bummer. That's a bummer.

But the fact that this comes up from swimming is such a new aspect of it, right? Like I've had back issues before and like I'm sitting in a chair here and I'll get up and I'll like fall to my knees because I'm like this shooting like pain just grips me and then I'm walking over around real hunched for a few minutes and have to stand somewhere.

So it's not unfamiliar, but to me, it's never been a swimming question. Don't get me wrong. I jump in the pool and I'm very timid. And by the time I get going, I'm probably doing some open turns or just not a lot of extraneous movements, but it usually always settles in on the swimming.

Now running, forget it. Done. Right. I can't get on a bike. Eventually I can get on a bike, but then I can't get off the bike. Right. This is aging. Everybody watching and listening. Beware. Yeah. So, and the only other question for you is also, do you go all that way to do something where we inherently know you can do it? But I think the value of an adventure and an experience and something like this is it creates some momentum and it creates some powerful lasting energy within you.

Yeah, I think I just, I hear all that and I appreciate it. I think I just need to see over the next week or so, whether that's realistic. Like, again, I just don't wanna do increased damage to my back and I am like in the midst of this protocol where I have an opportunity to heal it with these doctors up your way. And I wanna make sure that I'm following their advice

because short of this working, like I'm looking at fusion surgery, which obviously I wanna avoid at all costs. So I don't wanna do anything that's gonna slow down this recovery process or impede it in any material way. All things being neutral, yeah, I'll go do some crazy thing and see if I can finish it. I just don't wanna have any kind of permanent

or semi-permanent damage as a result of being an idiot crazy thing and see if I can finish it. I just don't wanna have any kind of permanent or semi-permanent damage as a result of being an idiot about like, you know, how I'm healing my back. Yeah, are they saying this is all expected? Like what you're struggling with is part of the protocol slash what could be part of it? Well, what they said was that it's a slow process. It's not gonna happen overnight.

It's probably gonna take about six months and two to three appointments where I go through this procedure and to temper my expectations of feeling any different in the short term, but they have seen good results as long as I'm doing what I'm being told to do and that I'm patient with the whole thing. But they didn't make any guarantees either.

They're like, you know, this is all kind of new stuff also. All I can tell you is that we've seen people who are in a similar situation that you're in and they've seen tremendous progress. And in terms of training, they're like, don't run. If you can ride your bike without significant pain, that's probably okay. Swimming's fine, don't do flip turns.

And I've sort of partially taken that advice. Like I have tried to do some tender flip turns and I think it is the arching of the back and the flipping over and the pushing off the wall. That's probably the primary culprit and what I'm experiencing now. But I've been dealing with back pain for like 10 years and it flares up and it's moderate lagging, you know, kind of all the time.

But this was something totally different. Like it just hit a whole new level of excruciating to where it's like, it's not even like, oh, I shouldn't go to the pool. It's like, no, there's no way that I could do anything physical today. That's a bummer. That's, and I can't even blame it on your inability

to do proper flip turns or something. I know, but this was meant to be like a coaching call where we're gonna track the progress and like, here's what you need to be doing and all of that. But like, I think what's instructive for anybody who's listening or watching this is like, how do you roll with something like this? How do you keep your head screwed on straight?

How do you stay positive? And it just sucks when you've invested a bunch of time and energy and you have a goal and then you have a setback like this and it's unclear what the next right step is and how do you remain enthusiastic about your fitness when you're being told like, you need to not do anything right now.

It's very dispiriting. And as somebody like yourself who only feels good when they're in some kind of daily movement practice to not do that feels like you're living somebody else's life. Yeah, I mean, for me, what I usually tell the athletes is this is a short window in time and these events aren't going anywhere and we can find

adventures, but let's get you healthy first. And let's, you know, work on those first steps in order to kick out the other side, to make the decisions we would want to make in order to, for you to still have the experience, the adventure, that growth that you're looking for. So that's the first part of it. The second part of it is also understanding that, you know, we can't force these things. And sometimes the universe, for lack of a better description, conspires against our best intentions and our willingness to take action. Because here's the thing, right? We're taking action on the things that we said we would do. And you feel knocked down when the action you're taking is

detrimental to what you envisioned would be your progress and who you want to be, right? But knowing that there's another side to it, that on the other side of this, adventures will present themselves. I will say this, my greatest disappointments in athletics have always presented opportunities on the other side that allowed me to look back at the disappointments and say, well, had I not had that disappointment, I would have not been able to experience this. And that has sustained me and many athletes over time

because the path, how we just sort of navigate that path presents an opportunity at some point where we all, if we are in the right place mentally too, can say, you know what, it actually worked out for the best. Yeah, it's good to hear that. That's very reassuring, I appreciate that. I think it's, you know, for me, it's disappointing, but I'm in a very different place than I was I think it's, for me, it's disappointing,

but I'm in a very different place than I was in like 2009 or 2010. Like had we been in our like prep for Ultraman and something like this happened, I would have been devastated because I had such high expectations and so much of my life was invested in that at that time. But now it's like, I'm doing this for the joy and the fun and the challenge and to stay connected to my fitness.

And if it's not gonna work out now, like that sucks, but I can live with it because I'm being nourished in my life in other ways. It's just disappointing. And also I have to check myself from self-judgment. Like I'm somebody who, if I say I'm gonna do this thing, like I wanna be the guy who does it. And then if you who, if I say I'm gonna do this thing, like I wanna be the guy who does it.

And then if you're like, well, I'm gonna do this thing. And then you're like, well, now I'm not gonna do this thing. Like that doesn't feel in alignment with like the kind of person that I wanna be or how I wanna perceive myself or how I want others to perceive me. That was me last summer, Tahoe, right?

I had trained, I'd done it. And circumstances of being sick in that window had me getting out after 45 minutes or an hour. Like, come on. And is that like, that's kind of like a first for you. Yeah, and it's brutal. But I know that lake is still there. And I know deep down inside, I will still do that. I will follow through on my word.

It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. And so that is my anchor. That's what I hold on to. I will eventually follow through on the things that I said I would to myself, right? And to our own personal accountability, our word. And you know what I mean by that. Like we just say something to ourselves

and we put our vested interest and our mind and our thoughts and our soul behind it. We are very connected to following through on that. But again, it's not a question of if, that's the part we know. We know we will. It's a question of when. And, you know, with the expectations around it of how.

Okay, you know, I'm not expecting to win this or I'm not expecting to set the record of, let's say, crossing Tahoe. It's a question of doing it. And I will follow through on my word on that. And similar to you, just think 10 years ago or 12 years ago, had something gone wrong prior to your Ultraman buildup, you know, we would have applied that fitness

in some other realm. And you would have had a very, who you were meant to be and where you are today, I think that path would have converged either way. We're just caught up in the event itself because that's what we're so laser focused on. But I think over time, you would have ended up with the same accomplishment

and the same insights and the same growth and expressing the truth of who you are anyways. Yeah, I believe that. I believe that. I guess the question on when becomes for me in a specific way, like, what does that mean? Like, let's assume my back starts to loosen up and it still hurts,

but it's not as bad as it was a couple of days ago. When is it appropriate to try to push it and see what's going on there? Like, I'm pretty good about knowing the difference between just something you can ignore versus something that is truly problematic that is gonna be made worse by training. And that's a very kind of personal connection

that you have, but assuming I can get back in the water in the next couple of days, like what does that mean? And what does that look like? I guess I just have to play it day by day right now. You do, but you can also start wrapping your mind around, I need to only build once. In our background for you and I as swimmers and just the experience of life,

how many times we've trained for something, whether that's for Ultraman, whether that's for swimming, whether that's for any endurance event, so many of us are familiar with the old school way of you build, then you come down, you build even further and you just build up your confidence and your ability closer and closer to set distance or event.

And then you come down taper one last time and you do it. And you have this confidence that like, I did 16,000 yards, I'll be fine doing 20, right? Or people getting ready for a marathon. Well, I need to run 22 to 23 miles just, and then, you know, come down from that. And that way I have that confidence in it. But there's also the other way that you build completely to that day. And that is the day that you do your biggest swim, right?

And that is the day that you do your biggest swim, right? And so we use the time we have available once you're able to swim again and feel connected to your stroke and your movements and so forth to sort of mathematically almost build back like, okay, how are we gonna fit in some confidence building longer swims, get you to a point where you're like,

all right, I can see how I can navigate a path and with my muscle memory and my experience to do this just once. And that's on event day. Right. And what are the mental coping strategies that you tell your athletes when they suddenly get injured

and are spiraling out of control? Well, I use that time for them to work on the infrastructure around their training. Could they be eating better? Can they get more sleep? Can they do things at work so that they lighten up their load for when we do have the ability to train again? Can we take this time with kids and families that we're sort of banking on time, knowing that those days are coming where we're going to have some longer days and everybody is on board sort of understanding like, all right, you know, this is his window or this is her window. We need to get the work done. But we had some amazing advancements in the infrastructure and our time together or weekends away until then, right? Investing in everything else besides your training

and building up either goodwill or the infrastructure. The infrastructure to me is sleep and nutrition and hydration and mindset so that you say, all right, everything that I'll need then I am banking on now. The difficult hours or the boring hours or for many people like on a trainer in a garage when after three hours, their brain's going a little cuckoo that they're like, well, you know what?

Two weeks ago, I was dying to be able to do three hours in the garage. Now I gotta flip that switch and really sort of take that into a deeper level so that I have that available when the difficult moments come up again. Yeah. Solid advice as always, before I let you go,

you guys just did a big training camp up in Sonoma, right? How did that go? It looked beautiful. It was amazing and we had a lot of fun. It was a really good infrastructure of a camp and there's a lot of ideas and things you can do up in Sonoma because there's a 50 mile race, literally on the shores of Lake Sonoma.

There's tons of great bike rides. And of course there's tons of great open water swimming and paddling and so forth. The challenge, as I would say, was more around what different athletes, when you put 12 athletes together, what they perceive as ultra endurance is not quite what I perceive as ultra endurance. So convincing them and having them stick with it

for three big full days is the challenge, right? That's where they're expanding on what they thought they were on who they knew themselves to be and discovering this version of themselves where it's like, I can't believe I'm still capable of doing a hundred mile bike ride after two huge days. I felt awful. I couldn't sleep and look,

I was still able to get on my bike. And so that's the hardest work, I would say. It's not about the training. It's about shifting people's attitudes and mindset towards more. Right, but how empowering you get through that. And you're like, I mean, I've had those breakthroughs and you're like, wow,

that's something I never thought I would be able to do. And it just raises the ceiling on your own sense of personal capability. Yeah, and it's an experience that I want everybody to have, not even my athletes, when they just can see this version of themselves, this potential being unleashed. And then it expands in the other realms of their life, work and family and personal life and community, that they're capable of so much more than they thought. It's beautiful to see. And so this is just a small little window of to show them what they can do, what potential truly is. And unlocking that is awesome.

It just makes my, I come home from these weekends completely invigorated. Yeah, that's cool, man. When's the next one? It's gonna be a while. I'm too busy. Yeah. I'm off to Jesse's driveway to hell this week, so.

Oh, you're doing the thing in Connecticut with the hill, you mean? He has a new one. It's in his driveway at his Rome, Georgia place. And so he's got a new one. He just did a weekend there. I was seeing on Instagram, like he got a bunch of guys out in the middle of nowhere

with Chad Wright. Yeah, and testing. He was also there testing the driveway. And so it's a half marathon on a driveway, straight up a hill. Like, I'm not doing it. Excellent, man. I will be there to support.

Gotcha, well, say hi to Jesse. And so it was good to talk to you. I appreciate the check-in. I'll keep you posted. Who knows what's gonna happen. And for everybody who's watching and listening, you could find Chris at AIMPcoach on the internet or ampcoaching.com.

And we'll talk to you again soon, my friend. All right, hopefully you're in the water again next time. And we're talking yardage. Hopefully, fingers crossed. We'll see. Yeah, keep you posted. Always appreciate your counsel. Thanks so much, man. yardage. Hopefully, fingers crossed. We'll see. Yeah, keep you posted. Always appreciate your counsel.

Thanks so much, man. Of course. All right, man. Bye. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Recording stopped. recording stopped