The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: The Mental Health Olympics

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

We love to celebrate Olympians as superheroes. It’s important to remember they are human beings. In today’s episode of the podcast, Adam Skolnick and I trade thoughts on Tokyo 2020, great white shark sightings, kaatsu training and more. For those new to the show, Adam Skolnick is a waterman, writer, activist, and veteran journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. Adam writes about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently using the ‘new dad’ excuse to avoid working on his novel. Topics covered in this episode  include: Adam’s close encounter with a great white shark; endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh and the massive melting event in Greenland; Robbie Balenger’s Colorado Crush challenge; Timothy Olson’s recent FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail; Simone Biles’ choice to scratch Olympic events & the ensuing conversation around mental health and elite athleticism’ was Russia ‘actually’ banned from the Olympics?; and a look at blood flow restriction & ultra-short race-pace training;  In addition, we answer the following listener questions: What does it mean to ‘do the work’? What are Rich & Adam’s top five bands and albums? How do you set realistic physical goals as you age? Thank you to Justin from Minnesota, Jess from Illinois, and Bev from Denver for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page or better yet leave a voicemail at [phone]. To read more click here. You can also watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. What is beautiful, my glorious, lovely people? My God-given name is Rich Roll. Once again, I'm here joined in Vulcan mind meld with my sine wave sibling, Adam Skolnick, waterman, writer, lover, not my lover, just a lover in general. So far.

How's it going? Yeah, so far, we'll see. Our relationship is developing. If you're gonna put it that way, then you're right. Yeah. How are you? I'm good, man. Before we get into all of that though,

let's just do the prefatory stuff. For those of you who are new, Roll On is the special limited edition version of the show where Adam and I prognosticate on matters contemporaneous, matters current, confounding, complex, self-evident, non-obvious, obvious. We typically buttress all of that with a bit of other shit you should know.

We share a few wins of the week. We round it all out with some listener questions that we answer. If you're interested in that, throwing your hat in that ring, you can leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626 with that out of the way. Adam, how are you?

I am really good. Life is good. No complaints. Wait, I shouldn't, I'm not supposed to start that way. A gentleman always wears a jacket to podcast. I'm not only wearing a jacket, I'm wearing tie dye because I just got off my shift at Ben and Jerry's. No, it's a conundrum.

Your contrast, it's confusing. You've got the formal jacket, but then the hippie t-shirt. Well, that's my thing. I am a walking contrast in styles. That's what I'm going for. That's the intention behind all of this. You know how everyone's like-

Just when you think you've got a grip on Adam. Yeah, it's just like, everyone is going with like the cool, like understated tie dye, the new tie dye. I went with the the cool, like understated tie-dye, the new tie-dye. I went with the audacious, like Ben and Jerry's tie-dye. That's where I'm going. Fish, exactly. Fish with a P.

Fish meets, I don't know what, Brooks Brothers, Wall Street. What's going on? Yeah, it's like if Trey Anastasio did take that job. Got a job at a venture capital fund. Did take that job instead of pursuing his life's passion. But still was holding on to that sensibility. If Fish only became like a bar band in the East Village. Right, while they worked Wall Street jobs during the day.

Yeah, I think they chose the right career path. Trey Anastasio, shout out. Who would have fucked it? I think that's the second time his name has come up. But when did it come up? Maybe with Jess Leahy. I can't remember. His name came up previously.

I once saw a Phish show at a gym in Vermont in like 91. That was the first time. And so that was pretty early days for them. And then they became, of course, the second biggest jam band ever. When I was in law school in upstate New York, it was all about fish, like 92 to 94. Yep, started growing.

Big time fish community, upstate. Great band. We're talking about music later in the show. We are. So we're already getting into the bands. I know. But let's take a quick break and we'll be back with more. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

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you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step

towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Tell me about what's been going on with your latest swimming escapades. Oh, yes. By the way, Hank Wise wants to get all up in your kitchen and involved with. Hank Wise. He left us a voicemail.

We left us a voicemail. We're not gonna answer his question today, but I appreciate that Hank reached out. I do too. Old friend of mine. And I appreciate that he was giving me permission to wear my own mask. It's exactly correct. And,

and he wants to go for a swim and I'd love it, man. But he was talking about great white sharks if later in that voicemail. And so basically I, I don't know if you saw on, if people who follow me on Instagram, I posted the second time. Now I've been out with Carlos G, the Malibu

artist at one of my swim spots, not the one I go to dive, but just an open water swim spot, which has been known. It's also a surf spot and it's kind of known to have a kind of a shark nursery offshore. Well, he has been there now twice, two weeks in a row. The first week he flew, when we were in the water, he saw a shark, but we were about getting out of the water. This time there was, you know, there was a 10 foot white shark, 30 to 50 feet from me while I was swimming.

And the funny part of that is he has a whole protocol. So if you're swimming and all of a sudden you hear the drone zoom by your head and then it's hovering and then you stop and you look and it's hovering above the water, there's a shark right beneath it. That's his signal for get out now. That's his signal.

It's not a get out now because in this case, the shark was between me and the beach. That's not good. That's not good. And the best part was he was flying right near the stand-up paddler who had no idea what was going on. So the stand-up paddler is all of a sudden trying to swat the drone away. Not really, but he's annoyed by the drone. So were you at Zuma?

Where was this? No, this was Temescal. So there is a storm drain just south of the Bel Air Bay Club, and that's where the shark was. There is a storm drain just south of the Bel Air Bay Club. And that's where the shark was. So I had been swimming and I just started to do some intervals. And so I'm splashier because I'm trying to go faster. At least the way I do it, it's splashier.

And all of a sudden I see the drone. I hear the drone. I see the drone. And I'm like, splashier is not a good idea right now. So I just stopped for like a minute and watched. And I thought and then that he shot the drone up which is his signal that he's lost the shark and he's looking for it again and I just thought okay well I'm here to swim with him and the reason is I know it sounds stupid and even me when I saw the drone hovering there I thought okay this was a cute idea but now it's real and And, you know, but why am I doing it?

And the reason I'm doing it and the reason I've always been okay to do it is because these sharks have been there. It's not like they're there because we're there. They've been there. Or all of a sudden they showed up. They've been there all along. Just our ability to detect them has improved.

Right, and so they've been there and there is no, as far as I've researched, no history of attacks in that area. They're not looking for us. There are dolphins that come by. They're looking for them. There are sea lions, not in that spot, but there are dolphins.

And so I've always known that. And so my feeling is that they are not interested in us. That's the point of what Carlos is doing. I mean, yes, there's a danger there, but what he's doing is not what Shark Week does, which is to sensationalize a lot of stuff. And, oh, you might get attacked. You might, you know, even those guys involved in Shark Week love sharks and they're not trying, they want to push a shark conservation narrative. And he does too. And so his, you know, what he's doing is raising awareness that

they're there and it's not like you shouldn't be mindful of it he's not suggesting that but he is but he is showing that the odds are low that you're going to have a problem and extremely low i mean if you think about how many people are in the water and how close they are on a regular basis he did a a drive up the coast from malibu to Ventura and he saw over 20 in one day. Wow. Right off, right behind the waves. Right. So this is not a new phenomenon.

Right, but still that may be his intention, but when you see the image, it is, you know, you have a, you know, a very kind of like guttural, physical reaction to it because that fucking shark was big. It was big. I mean, it was legit and it was not that far away from you. No.

And so I just don't know how you get back in the water and swim relaxed. Like you can do it and rationalize it and say, they're not interested in us, they're off shore, maybe he's there, maybe he's not. Is this an enjoyable exercise for you? Because for me, I just start getting preoccupied with that. And it's very difficult for me to just enjoy myself

and kind of let go. Well, I was gonna, I'm gonna do, because I posted it in stories. I'm gonna do a proper post and talk about it. But so my feeling is when I was in the water, yes, I was with you. I was all of a sudden I was, my antenna was up and I wasn't so relaxed,

but my heart rate didn't really spike or anything either. And I will go back to that spot and swim. And because I'm just not that worried about it, about getting hurt. And people should know like Temescal, this is the beach that extends from the Palisades to Santa Monica. It's a pretty trafficked beach where the Bel Air Bay Club,

like all of these like beach clubs are along there. Like there's a lot of people, the sand is very wide there, but there's a lot of people in the ocean in that area. It's not an obscure hidden beach by any stretch of the imagination. The Sunset Surf Break is right there. It's probably the busiest surf break

in the entire LA County, I would think. Maybe Topanga. That or Topanga. And they don't know, they're not familiar with how many are right there. We saw one time, April and I were driving back from Malibu and we were driving right along that, that where the highway comes right up above

the kind of rocky ledge that leads down to that surf spot. And we saw a white shark. I saw a splash. She'd seen the white shark breach. And this time while we were getting ready, I was getting suited up. He said he saw a white shark breach. He was certain of it.

I didn't actually see the splash. I was facing him. And so I knew going in that there was a shark there. So it's not like I didn't know. And so I knew going in, but I a shark there. So it's not like I didn't know. And so I knew going in, but I still had a very relaxed opening part of the swim. When I saw the drone, I'm not going to lie, obviously, I did feel like, you know, like nobody wants to be the guy on YouTube. So if the shark was between you and the beach, how did you get back to land? So I continued my swim, which is, you know, I tend to swim three to 400 yards offshore. So my first part of the swim is to go out and then I go along the coast. And then there is a buoy off of the Bel Air Bay Club that if I'm just going to do like an 1800 yard swim, that's kind of what I do. And that's like a, you know, 35 minute swim. And I swim around that buoy and I came back. but this time I swam around that buoy and I came back outside because I didn't want to be right. How did you know that you weren't going

to just run right into the shark? Well, I wear a mask for a reason, Rich. I didn't know. You never know. I didn't bring up the mask by the way. No, I, I, I didn't know, but I came, you know, I just kept my eyes open and I just decided to, to, you know, at that point I decided to relax. I've been doing it a while. I've been swimming in the ocean very regularly since 2012. I've been in the water with big animals before. I think I've gotten to a point where I am not over it completely. I don't think you ever get over the fact that sometimes that boogeyman is going to just flash in your mind. You're going to remember you're part of the food chain right now.

There's nothing really you can do about that. But for the most part, it's kind of out of me now. So I don't feel it. Like when I show up at the beach, I don't get nervous. I don't think about it on a regular basis. So I don't know. But nobody wants to be the guy that gets eaten by a shark on beach, I don't get nervous. I don't think about it on a regular basis. All right. So I don't know, but nobody wants to be the guy that gets eaten by a shark on YouTube, I can assure you. No, nobody wants that.

And after that big speech, now all eyes on Adam if something should befall you. Meanwhile, somebody's jackhammering out here. I don't know where that's coming from. I hope that's not too distracting, but suddenly we have like crazy construction happening right outside our door. Yes.

Anyway, tell me about this thing with Lewis Pugh. Lewis Pugh, hall of fame, open water swimmer, known mainly for his swims in Antarctica. He's the first to swim in a riverine, like in a glacial melt. He's a legend. He is a straight up. We've talked about him before, haven't we? Yeah. We have. When he did the most recent Antarctica trip, I think we talked about it. He was planning and is planning to swim the width of a fjord, the mouth of a fjord in Greenland to raise awareness. Because what he does is he does these

incredible open water swims in freezing water, and he uses it as a platform to then try to push for nations to align and change to solve the climate crisis. And so I was, the plan was to be in Greenland with him in August and do a story on his swim there. And then his attempt to bring it to Glasgow, to the UN Climate Conference,

and to motivate other countries to get on board and start to fix these problems. Because as we know, we have wildfires, we have, I mean, every day you can find climate crisis news, whether it's called that or not. On July 27th, there was a melt in Greenland, which is not the biggest they've ever had, but enough to have covered all of Florida

in two inches of water. That's how much ice melted in one day. It's the third biggest, I think, ever, or one of the top three. Anyway, we were gonna go do that. Now his swim is in jeopardy because the Delta virus has gotten into Greenland. Greenland did really well in their initial phases of the virus they didn't have many cases they

haven't had any deaths but they only have 12 ventilators in the entire country and delta is already there so they shut down commercial flights from reykjavik which is the best way to get there um they make it it's very hard to get in there right now so it's unlikely that i will go i'm hoping he still can go and do it, but I'm waiting to hear. And if I can make it, I'll be there. Not for the times, right? Who is this for?

This is gonna be a long reads. It's like a long deep dive story on Lewis and his attempts to move the needle in Russia and China, mainly Russia. He's connected to a Senator there, Sergey Fedosov, who is a hockey legend. And so they've become buddies and, and trying to push Russia, who tends to be one of the people, one of the countries dragging their feet. Russia and China have vetoes on a lot of this stuff and they drag their feet on a lot of climate issues. And they don't necessarily vote it down,

but they don't vote yes. And so you need a consensus on a lot of these issues. So he's pushing countries all over the world. He's lobbying them, but Russia, if he can get Russia to move in that direction, it'd be so huge. So- Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah. He's been doing this for a long time. Yep. And there's nothing like, you know, performing a swim in these crazy freezing waters to unite opinion around the issues and create consensus because who's not gonna celebrate something like the things that he goes out and does.

And he's extremely eloquent. Yeah, he's like, I don't know, is he a former lawyer? He sort of conducts himself like a, he's much more of like a statesman than an athlete. Like he's an environmentalist first and foremost, he's an activist, but he's about consensus building and kind of creating policy change at the highest level. And not just sort of waving a flag and making a stink,

but actually getting parties together to produce results. He's Al Gore that swims. Basically, yeah, that's good. I should have much easier way of saying in certain respects. Yeah, cool. Well, I hope that, I mean, first of all, I hope that he's able to do it.

Second of all, I hope that you could find a way to get there and cover it. I mean, they're not letting people into Greenland. How many people live in Greenland? They are letting, so they're letting like a thousand people a week in, which is- Are there more than that many people that wanna get into Greenland every week?

Yeah, cause it's the summer season. It's like people go, like, it's like there's cruise ship, you know, there's like, there's also, there's a whole business and there's people that live there, but apparently all those flights are booked and they're out of Copenhagen. So I've been, you know, I I'm waiting for him to,

he was going to try to charter a flight, get approval for a charter to come in from Reykjavik, but he did not get approved for that, or at least not yet. And the clock is ticking because after September 12th, it's extremely unsafe for him to swim there. So there's like a, a time where the air temp is going to get so cold that he wouldn't be able to

recover after a swim. And the way this swim is going to go, it's going to be about a kilometer after a swim. And the way this swim is gonna go, it's gonna be about a kilometer swim each day. And then he gets out and then he starts again the next day. So it's not a straight channel swim cause he's in a Speedo and a swim cap and it's 37 degree water. So, all that ice they talked about that melted,

it's going right into that ocean. Wow. Unbelievable. Well, Wow. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Well, cool. More to be revealed on that. Yeah.

How are you, man? Doing okay. I'm a little, I'm spaced out, man. I'm having trouble with my brain forming thoughts. So if I blank out, it's all on you to carry this podcast. I'm essentially kind of a little overworked, trying to get the next volume of voicing change done while also balancing everything with respect to the show,

going out of town tomorrow to Colorado for a wedding. So trying to get everything tied up before I leave. And Julie's already gone, so dealing with kids. So I'm a little frayed at the edges, to be honest with you. Maybe not my best self today, but I'm doing okay. But I'm coming in to this podcast a little bit fast and loose. I feel like last time we did three hours

and the outline was very laden and I felt very wed to the outline. And today I'm like, I don't have time for this. Let's just come into this and see what happens. Yeah, jettison stuff. Maybe it's better anyway. Just be more present rather than like staring at an outline. Yes.

Not that we don't have some idea of what we wanna talk about. We're outline guys, we're not pantsers. We're not gonna read, not reciting scripts. I did wanna mention, this is curious and interesting. Okay. The reaction to last week's podcast with Bruce Friedrich, at least on Instagram,

in the comments below my Instagram post, was like out of control. Like they're almost, I don't know how, 280, maybe 300 comments below. Okay. The post just saying, this is, here's Bruce. First of all, it's the third time he's been on the show. So these are not new, this is not new terrain,

but people had a lot of strong opinions about it. There's a certain sector of the community that felt like I have betrayed my roots, that I should be talking about whole food plant-based diet and getting people back in sync with nature and talking about organic and non-pesticide and how can we live within the kind of cycles, the circadian rhythm of the planet?

How can we, we should be focusing more on regenerative ag and repairing our soil instead of all of these new cultivated meat products that are being called Franken foods that are filled with chemical, chemical laden was a big kind of phrase that got thrown around. And I just think that- Do we know that they're chemical laden?

No, I mean, I think just because it's like, oh, this is big food and they're making synthetic Franken food and like, what is this? We should be repairing our soils. Of course we should be repairing our soils. This is not an either or situation. It's not a binary issue. Basically, yes, we need to pivot

towards more regenerative agriculture and away from factory farming and animal agriculture. We need to repair our soils. We should be eating organic. We should be finding better ways to grow food out of the land and make that accessible and convenient for everybody. At the same time,

we're dealing with environmental problems and sustainability issues and issues around like compassion, basically the suffering of animals. And there's a gigantic swath of the global population that essentially is subsisting on a fast food diet. They're going to drive-throughs and they're eating the cheapest food possible.

So the whole cultivated meat thing and the innovations that are happening in plant-based meats, et cetera, this is not being directed at people that are already converted to a whole food plant-based diet or who are all about regenerative ag or who are growing their foods. This is oriented towards creating an accessible,

cost-effective, convenient solution that has a better ecological footprint and is more compassionate than the current options available to those people. So we need all of these solutions. We need people looking at how we can, you know, create more nutritious food with less resources. We need to figure out how to pivot away

from animal agriculture. We need to do all of the, we all solutions are needed. And so I just thought the kind of dialogue or debate that was going on in the comments there, it's fine. Have at it everybody. But just to be clear, just because I had Bruce on doesn't mean that I no longer believe in these other things. Like I've had, all I do is talk about eating a plant-based diet

or pivoting people towards more nutrition, you know, nutritionally dense foods and all of the like. So just because I have a conversation with somebody on doesn't mean that I now am disavowing, you know, the other people that I've had on the show. Right. It's a conversation. It's interesting.

This is happening. It's actually happening in the world. So let's talk about it. Help me to understand it. And all these comments are from people that clearly didn't listen to the podcast because all of the things that they're concerned about, I raised and we addressed.

So anyway, it does affect me. I really should like post and ghost and not pay attention to this stuff at all. Like I have this tension because I wanna be engaged in the community. And I do care what people think, is this one landing for people? Is it not?

But ultimately like maybe we'd all be better off if I just turn the comments off or figured out a way to not look at them at all. Cause it just, you know. You don't wanna turn it off because the engagement is worthwhile. Is it helpful to anybody? Is it?

Well, that's a good question. I mean, we get to- Does anybody get into the comments of anything on YouTube or Instagram and go, my life is now better as a result of- Every other day I go on your Instagram site and I try to pick a fight. Do you?

Good, how's that going for you? I was pro Friedrich. It's pretty easy to do that. You can get into a fight without even trying to get into a fight. I have four ghost accounts, so I can be pro Friedrich. Now I know what's really going on. Okay. You know, I think it's good to, we need to, in general,

be able to have discussions with people and about things that we don't agree with. And if we can't do that, we will never advance. Well, what's funny is that people say to me, why do you have all these people on that you agree with? Why don't you have people on that you disagree with? Okay, well, within reason, like I don't need to have somebody on my platform that I completely disagree with.

And I don't feel, you know, merits that level of attention. Right, right. But then when I do have somebody on, and I don't feel merits that level of attention. But then when I do have somebody on, like Bruce, like I have concerns about cultivated, like what is this? Like how is this gonna impact? I have legitimate concerns about that.

So I have somebody on who I agree with a lot of what he has to say. I have concerns about other things. And then I get criticized for having somebody on who doesn't align completely perfectly 100% with my values or the values of the listener. So what do you really want other people that have different points of view,

or do you wanna tune in and just hear somebody regurgitate like your worldview over and over and over again to affirm what you already believe? I think both of those things, but mostly it's the silo. That's the problem with being siloed in. So what my point was is kudos to you for inviting someone on.

And the reason that you invited him on your platform is because you know he's got, his point of view is this could benefit everybody. It's not just this will benefit me. And listen, if you're gonna solve problems at scale, there's compromises with that. You need to work within the system. You gotta get Tyson, you gotta get Cargill,

you gotta get these huge companies interested in this. This is why I'm interested in Paul Hawken and aquaculture and the benefits of aquaculture. That's why I'm not, when we had our sea spiracy debate, that's what this exact same place I was coming from is like, we do have to think there are other people eating and they're not necessarily all gonna be down

with the diet that you're choosing or that I choose most of the time. You're not gonna solve the world's problems by browbeating people into changing their personal habits. Right, and so you have to be able to feed those habits to some degree, and you can move them. But you need to meet them with an alternative that is just as convenient, just as cost-effective,

tastes just as good, is as nutritionally valuable, and created with a lower footprint and all the like. All that. Right? Yes. But I don't know. I don't know how we got down this rabbit hole. I mean, the point is,

I think the other point I wanna make is that comment sections on social media sites are not necessarily a proxy for the true audience temperature on a certain thing. It's just people have strong opinions, they wanna voice them and, you know, whether that, you know, truly reflects the majority take on that podcast.

I think if you start to align those things, you're going down some dark alleys. Anyway. There you have it. I'm trying to give myself my own therapy on this. Yes, and the good news is you're going to telluride. I am. So, you know.

For a couple of days to get some fresh air. Yeah. All right, let's pivot. What do we wanna talk about? Enduro Corner. Yeah, this is Colorado. This is where you're headed. Well, we can just follow up on two things

that we talked about last time. We've been keeping you up to speed on Robbie Ballinger's Colorado crush. For those that are new, he's in the midst of this summer long quest to conquer a variety of ultra challenges that include the Leadville Marathon. He then ran the Colorado Trail, which is 500 miles.

He did the Silver Rush 50 back in Leadville. Now he's in the latter stages of summiting all 58 of the Colorado peaks that are over 14,000 feet called 14ers. I mean, he's done 33 as of yesterday, we're recording this on Monday. So, you know, just, you know, 25 more or what have you. And then he's gonna rock it out with the Leadville 100

to complete the whole thing on August 21st. So seemingly having no issues and just out there every day, taking cool photographs of climbing all these mountains. I know. So good for him driving around in one of those like sprinter vans. Is he sleeping in the van?

I think so. I think they got it all kitted out. Yeah, I've seen it. It's amazing. Which is cool. He's living it, man. He's on the mission. I mean, got it all kitted out. Yeah, I've seen it. It's amazing. Which is cool. He's living it, man. He's on the mission.

I mean, I don't know much more to say other than that, you know, he's done 33 and he's, you know, continuing to kill it. But we do have an update on Timothy Olson. Since we last spoke, he completed the Pacific Crest Trail. The FKT was achieved fastest known time. He crushed it. The previous record was Carol Sabe.

I think that's how you pronounce that from Belgium in 2016. He did it in 52 days, eight hours and 25 minutes. Timmy did it in 51 days, 16 hours and 55 minutes. So by a decent margin. By about 16 hours or a little less. We're talking about 2,653 miles with 40,000 feet of elevation gain. He's running 51.3 miles a day on average for seven weeks straight. I mean, given all that, he did crush the record. Anytime you beat a record by hours, it's amazing. But at the same time, it's like, it was narrow enough to where like any one problem

could have trashed it. Derailed it. Yeah. If he had one significant problem, it would have jeopardized the whole thing. Yeah. No small feat, my friend. Congratulations. You should come back on the show and tell us about it.

I know there was some improvisations due to trail closures and the like, where they had to like, you know, figure out how to jockey around certain sections that were closed and get to a different, I don't know exactly the details of that. Because of like wildfires. Right, which I think is why,

that might be why the kind of official, I keep saying FTK, it's FKT. I make that mistake a million times. I don't know if it's sort of- Because of F I make that mistake a million times. I don't know if it's sort of- Because of FTP or because of- FTP, I don't know. Yeah, STP, Stone Temple Pilots. It's because of STP.

Maybe it's because of that. So I don't know if it's official. I don't know what makes it official. Maybe it's pending right now, but I think it will be official. Meanwhile, his wife's eight months pregnant. It's been this spiritual journey for him. I mean, Timmy's a very soulful guy.

I think part of it was processing the kind of grief that they shared over two miscarriages that they suffered through. But to me that was one hell of a baby moon, bro. I know, no kidding. Yeah, you've redefined the man baby moon. His coach is Jason Koop, who I know a little bit. I met Jason when I helped crew for Dean Karnazes

at Badwater, because Jason helps coach Dean. And Jason's a great, you know, he's just a great resource for wisdom when it comes to endurance training. And he wrote a really cool kind of blog post with his takeaways from Timmy's performance, because he coaches Timmy as well.

And I'll link that up in the show notes. Beautiful. Yeah, man. What else you got? Saif Syed, our friend that we met in Utah during the Iron Cowboy final days. He's the PhD student in AI, right? That had never run a marathon and showed up and just started banking marathons on the daily.

He moved from Texas where he was studying to Utah and his buddy's guest room and started showing up every day. And then- He went back home, didn't he? He's not still hanging out in Utah. No, he's back in Texas. And his goal was after that,

he was inspired to do a 50 miler on his birthday, which he did accomplish. So kudos, kudos to Saif. Cool. And on that note, I think we officially have a date for the Iron Cowboy coming on the podcast. Oh, beautiful.

He's gonna come down here. I don't remember when, not right away. It's gonna be a little bit. I think he's gonna come with Sonny too. So it'll be both of them. Spectacular. Which should be cool. He reached out when I posted the shark video,

the shark photo. Oh, he did? What did he say? He said, is that real? Yeah. You gotta post that again before this goes up. Because I think that was in a story or you were just posting,

you were posting, what's his name? At the Malibu artist. At the Malibu artist, Carlos G. At his post, I shared that story. So I will post properly. Cool. All right, well, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with shit you should know.

The big story today, we're gonna talk about the Olympics. Yeah. It's on everybody's mind. And we're gonna attack it from the perspective of mental health. And we were joking on the break. Adam said, I want what you want, Rich. And I said, you have a boundary problem.

That's a mental health issue. I'm a people pleaser. You can't, yeah. So am I, I understand that. But ultimately that's a path towards unhappiness and misery. Maybe. If you think you're being, what you do is you delude yourself

into thinking you're such a good dude. Like I'm such a good guy because I don't really care what I want. I just want everyone else to be happy. And when you sublimate your needs or your wants or you're repressing them, then ultimately you're just, you know, kind of creating a situation

where you're gonna develop some resentments. Got it. I don't fully supplement. I don't wanna paint the picture that I don't do it. But you are very easygoing. Yes. And when I can, I like to not think, like for me, we're gonna get into the mental health story.

We should probably set the table, but we all know what we're gonna talk about. For me though, what I was trying to say was, I don't overly analyze my, what I was trying to say was, I don't overly analyze my emotions. I try not to. So I'm more on the stoicist side of things when you come to that. Like to me, like it doesn't help my process

to dive deep into my own emotions because I actually think emotions are often liars. Now we're gonna get into the Simone Biles topic, you know, obviously winner of 30 combined olympic and world championships medals best uh gymnast of all time if it's not her it's nadia so it's one or two right it's probably her and um she was in the fine the team was in the finals and she had a bad vault and then she left the competition. And because it's so rare to see an all time great step back from a competition in the finals

with a gold medal on the line, it inspired a whole wave of analysis. And one of those, what she was saying is that it wasn't right for her mental health to continue. That was the initial statement. And she had to protect herself and she stepped back and let one of the other girls step in and they got a silver medal,

which is still Victoria's outcome. But because it's so rare to see it and because we are all conditioned for the stoicest idea of champions. Originally there was this big outcry of, you know, I've never seen someone quit on that stage, blah, blah, blah. And then there was the backlash to that. No, she's doing the right thing.

She's staking a claim for mental health. And so it became this kind of weirdly unmoderated debate and the subject of many a think piece and so where were you when all this was going on? What were you thinking about all this? Yeah, it's interesting and what's also fascinating about it is that it became a partisan issue. Like everything else, it became politicized

and your perspective on what Simone Biles decided to do, your perspective on that had you know, Simone Biles decided to do, your perspective on that had to reflect your political ideology. It did seem to a lot, you know, like me personally, when I first saw it, the first thing I thought is I've never seen an all-time great do that. So then I started thinking,

cause I'm a skeptical journalist. So I started thinking, was she gonna lose anyway? And she didn't wanna lose. This is a way to lose that without losing. That's where I first went. This is not a judgment on her This is just where my thought process was and then I thought So I thought that then I thought I do like it when you know, yeah, I did feel like she has a team

It's not just an individual thing that she's stepping back from that's one thing. She does have a team that's relying on her She's the leader of the team So I did fall into that category, even though politically it doesn't seem like that should be the place that I line up. That was the first place I did go to before kind of taking a step back and letting it settle. And what kind of convinced me to think of it differently

was when it came, she posted that she actually has what they call the twisties, I guess, in gymnastics. Twisties. She had the yips, she couldn't land. Yeah. If you can't land, you can't land. So yeah, the way she described it is you lose your sense of like space and time.

So you're in the middle of like a vault and you're in the middle of the air and you don't know which way is up and which way is down. And this got played out in those early, I think, was it a vault or there was some attempt where she intended to do, I don't know what it was, like a two and a half twist or whatever and only did one or one and a half

and landed kind of off kilter. That was clear indication, like there was something going on here. And I agree. I think that original kind of knee jerk sentiment is sort of a boomer adjacent sentiment, like us being older, right? Like, what do you mean you're gonna opt out?

Like the very definition of a champion is the person who perseveres, who demonstrates the grit. And when their back is against the wall and everything's stacked against them, they move forward nonetheless and either prevail or don't. That's the conventional wisdom here. And I think what complicates the Simone Biles situation is a couple of things.

First of all, when you're dealing with gymnastics, you're dealing with very dire physical consequences if things go wrong. It's not just, hey, I'm not gonna run this race because I'm not feeling it. It's like, if I land wrong, I could land on my neck. I could paralyze myself. Yes.

And I think second to that, there is truth in that she was opting out for the best interest of the team because if she wasn't gonna be able to perform to her abilities, then is that really in the interest of the team's quest to win a team medal, right? Yeah. Would that be better filled by somebody else?

So there was a self-sacrifice aspect to it. And I think, look, you know, greatest of all time, 30 combined Olympic and world, you know, world championship medals. This is not somebody, this is not like a wilting flower. Like this is somebody who has a champion mindset who knows themself as well as anybody. The level of like self integration

that you would have to have to perform, you know, these routines that she does, it's just, it's mind blowing. So this is not somebody who is scared of, you know, obstacles or difficulties. So when this person says, look, I need a break, it's not like there's a history of Simone saying that. This is new, so we should take it seriously. It should be a benefit of the doubt type.

Who do you think wanted to win the gold medal more than her? Nobody. Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson wanted it for her more than her. So I love like, you know, Q Pierce Morgan, you know, who always has, you know, yeah, it's like, come on, dude. Like all the peoples who had the hot take of, you know, you're wimping out are all couch potatoes.

Yes. Nobody who's well-versed in elite performance had that perspective. Everybody from Michael Gervais to, I found a couple links like David Epstein, who's been on the show wrote in his range report, a whole thing about this. Brad Stolberg wrote an article for outside.

Lindsey Krauss wrote a couple opinion pieces, one of which quotes Steve Magnus, who's Brad Stolberg's writing partner, who's also been on, all of these people have been on the pod and all kind of have the same perspective, which is like, look, this is, it gets confusing because the celebration of what she did, I think should be about the fact that an athlete is taking greater control of their life and not allowing their decisions to be dictated by teams or organizations rather than we're celebrating

the fact that she's opting out for the sake of opting out because it politicized and we can get into that in a little bit because i have a ted talk i'd like to unleash upon you um but uh because of that the way it played out there was this whole uh set that wanted to make her a hero out of it. And what she did- The lionization of doing the, of like doing the, taking the quote unquote easy way out. The backlash to the backlash to the thing that just begun

had become she's a hero because she opted out, quit, however you want to say it, because she took care of her mental health. And that is a weird thing for for 50 something year old guys like that's a narrative i'm not used to it's it's first of all it's ridiculous it's like this was a personal choice she made because she had her own calculus and part of that calculus has to be the fact that the u.s gymnastics has been a corrupt organization that included child like she suffered abuse she was abused abused by Larry Nassar, the doctor.

She's one of the survivors. There were, you know what, dozens of girls that were abused by this man who's now in prison. And the day that she stepped back from doing that routine on that day, five years earlier, she actually went to Indianianapolis for an event to benefit u.s gymnastics and the guy that was showing around indianapolis uh according to this report in washington post by sally jenkins great analysis which really changed started to change

the way i looked at this to me it's it's the one story that felt like it had true insight into into some of the backstory of what was going on in that, that person knew about Nassar and the gymnastics organization knew about Nassar, but didn't tell the gymnasts about Nassar. And in fact, let him let that still continue. And so that happened five years to the day. And,

you know, one of the reasons she came back, she said this to NBC reporter, Hoda, Hoda, I forget. I can't. Hoda. All you need to know is Hc reporter hoda uh hoda i forget i can't uh hoda all you need to know is hoda on today's show um she uh said that you know if there weren't a remaining survivor in

the sport they would have brushed everything aside and probably had these same athletes still training at the caroli ranch in texas um you know she came back at 24 which is an advanced age in gymnastics as we all know and she did that at to to help change the sport um and so to when you put all of that into the pot and you stir it up um you understand these demons are real it's like that had to be part of the thing you know like should i sacrifice myself right now like for who and that had to be part of it and that doesn't necessarily make it eat make it an open and shut case because as of this taping she is going to compete on the balance beam she's going back out for one last uh routine um so she is going to do that in an individual balance beam but it had to be part of the situation that led to this twisties. Yeah, July 27 being this day,

in 2015, as you mentioned, that was the date. Six years ago, yeah. Yeah, six years ago, she was at USAG headquarters in Indianapolis for a bunch of promotional appearances and being accompanied by this guy who was well aware of what was going on and was working with an FBI agent to like sweep it under the rug by this guy who was well aware of what was going on

and was working with an FBI agent to like sweep it under the rug, promise that that FBI agent would get some job with the IOC or something like that. I mean, this Washington Post article is pretty incredible. Yeah, it's incredible stuff. We'll link that up in the show notes. But yeah, it provides a much greater, more in-depth context

for what's actually going on. And when you think about Simone's career, now being an elder statesman, which is hard to believe because she's so young, and the care that she undertakes to mentor all of these younger athletes, particularly athletes of color, which is so important to her,

compounded by this idea of being an elder statesman who links the legacy of Nasser to the current state of affairs. Like that's a lot to shoulder. And twisties, it's not her first time. When was it? There was some other incident a couple of years ago where she had twisties,

it took her a couple of weeks to get over it. So it's like this real thing. And twisties are you lose track of your body position. I guess, yeah, I guess. I mean, I'd never heard of it before. No. But when you really evaluate it, and contextualize the whole thing,

it's like she made the right decision for herself and for the team and it's ballsy as fuck that she would make that decision given a great awareness and understanding of the consequences, knowing it's gonna be this big controversial thing, knowing that it's gonna cause a media cycle and a media frenzy. But I think it takes a lot of gumption and guts

to know what's best for you, make that decision irrespective of what the reaction is gonna be and do it for the interest of the long-term as opposed to the long-term as opposed to the short-term gains that you might have reaped by making a different decision, right? There are all these case studies

of other gymnasts over the years who are push, push, push, pushed, and were competing with stress fractures and broken feet and all kinds of stuff and get the gold and then you never see them again. So what are we really talking about? What's more important here? Like getting the gold medal at this Olympiad

or Simone being able to compete for another four years and be healthy. And more importantly, who gets to make this decision? Historically it's the teams or it's the IOC or it's the USOC. And here we have Simone standing on the shoulders of Naomi Osaka and what she did last month or whenever it was to say, like, I don't have to be a pawn.

I'm not a pony here to dance for you when you wish. Like I have sovereignty over myself and my career, and I'm going to put my foot down and say, I'm not competing, it's not right for me. And they'm going to put my foot down and say, I'm not competing. It's not right for me. And they should have the right to make that decision. And we should respect and support that. It's true.

I separate, I know everyone wants to bunch Simone and Naomi together as like- There's a qualitative difference. Doing press versus competing. Yeah, yeah. One is doing press one literally can't land in her sport. It's not like Naomi all of a sudden can't make a serve. But what unites them is this idea of the athlete taking control, you know,

and doing it in the face of all these other pressures. Like nobody, like how dare you judge Simone? You don't know what's going on in her head. You can't imagine the pressure that she's shouldering or her interior experience of being in Tokyo and everything that's going on around her with the whole world focused on her. That's right.

I think the Brad Stuhlberg article for Outside to me also was another one to really highlight. You know, the David Epstein one's great too. It talks about a gold medalist in the bobsled who had then had to deal with figuring out what, what, you know, how to, what's my next act? Who am I now? Which Simone referenced, you know,

after this mental health thing. Yeah, and it all goes to like, this is a conversation, sorry, I didn't mean to step on your words, but this is a conversation that we've been having on the show for a long time. That started with the weight of gold in the Michael Phelps documentary and this growing awareness around the reality of,

you know, the mental interior experience of the elite athlete and kind of pulling covers on that and helping people to understand that these are human beings. Burkle, I mean, Burkle was the first, probably the first person on your podcast that brought this particular conversation up, right? I mean, is that right?

Yeah, I mean, I've had, and we've had, you know, Alexi Pappas has talked to, we've had tons of people talking about this. And so then, but Brad's article talks about this concept of heroic individualism, which is, you know, that's why we worship athletes. And he's like, his point was that there's an innate problem with worshiping the athlete. And that is that you're buying into heroic individualism, which is a game of one-upmanship against yourself and others.

And everyone has that in, in Western society is his argument. Um, it's, it's, it's basically baked into Western society. I know as a writer, I feel it, you know, I feel that for real. I feel it in myself when I'm working on something, I feel it, uh, in competition, even with friends and, you know, I feel it and that that's, I don't feel good about it. Like it's not a positive experience and you, you feel like you feel it, you don't want to really buy into it, but it's there. Um, and so his point was, you know, she made the right choice, but sometimes the right choice would be to persevere through it. So his is a much more nuanced situation and he looks at kind of the science on depression

and these mental health issues. His is not the, she's a hero for not doing it or she's a quitter. He's not in that camp at all. Yeah, it's the difference between, it's like if you're used to use running as an example, it's the difference between my legs are really heavy and super tired today and I don't feel like running

versus there's a sharp pain in my knee. Like what is a good pain and what is a bad pain? What is something to pay attention to that's gonna, wherein the right thing to do is to stop and go no further versus when is this just, you know, a difficulty that could be overcome through tenacity, grit, perseverance. But that's hard to know when it's a splinter in your mind.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. But when you're an athlete at that level, you know the difference. Trust me. Right. You know, it's not like, oh, she's weak of will. Like, there's just, I just don't, I don't buy into that. But the point is well taken. Like I get that.

Yeah, no, but she- But I think the fact that people just jumped to this idea that she was being fearful or lazy, I think is absurd. Yeah, like, well, I jumped to that conclusion that she was more like not used to losing and therefore wanting to lose on her terms and trying to control it. That's more like-

Here's a convenient way to not lose. You just opt out. Right, so I actually did think that until I didn't know about the, cause she didn't tell everybody. She showed on her own stories, her attempting to land on the parallel bars and she was landing face down in the pads.

Well, the initial press release was very brief. It was like she's she's um pulling out it's not due to a physical injury so it was like well then what is it and that that also makes you wonder who put that out who in that organization put that out and why did they put it out that way and like like could they have taken care of her a bit more in that statement or that come from her camp? Like all these things you wonder after reading that Sally Jenkins story. Yeah, you don't know.

But to me, like the biggest reveal of all this is not necessarily her mental state and what she's got to do for herself. Because I think when it comes down to it, you're a hundred percent right. Especially Simone Biles deserves the benefit of the doubt, especially an all-time great. If you're going to worship athletes,

then you have to give an all-time great the benefit of the doubt, especially an all-time great. If you're gonna worship athletes, then you have to give an all-time great the benefit of the doubt. And like, if that's what this person needs, then that's what that person needs. Does that make her a hero? Not necessarily, but it makes her human. And so that's the point. And that's the tension, right?

Like we don't want our heroes to be human. And this is a conversation about recognizing the inherent humanity in the elite athlete, but also the Olympics is, there is something to be gained from and something to be said for like holding people up a little bit higher as benchmarks to, you know, kind of drive our own aspirations.

Like I want heroes. Yeah, right. So that, I mean, that's- So heroes aren't cut out characters. Like I have to appreciate that they're actually human and they're flawed, but I think we all benefit when we celebrate people who do amazing things.

I agree. And that's part of what makes your podcast such a, a must listen is because you're bringing in unknown heroes a lot, or maybe sometimes it is a known hero. Or even just, you know, but if you let one of those heroes talk for two hours, you're gonna understand and appreciate the humanity. Exactly, and how.

And they will probably tell you what their weaknesses are, you know, their insecurities or what have you. And they'll make it seem possible for you to be your own hero, which is the whole point, right? Like in the end. Yeah, but the idea was Simone that because she's this great champion, she is disempowered from making those kinds of decisions

for herself is wrong. Like you can't opt out, you're our hero. You're the world champion. You're not supposed to do this. So I am projecting onto you a set of rules that you must adhere to in order to remain the hero in my mind. And that's fucked up.

It is fucked up. And the other fucked up thing is that here we are human beings, social creatures who have become social media creatures. And that's what we're talking about in the Bo Burnham. The backlash to the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun. Exactly.

Six media cycles within the first five hours of the story. And it's like, and until we actually heard about the twisties a couple of days later when she posted it, nobody actually knew why she quit. Yeah. Like no one knew.

Like on the- But that doesn't stop everybody from having their take or opinion or Piers Morgan from getting up and bloviating. And Discord feeds Discord because yes, Pierce Morgan and people on the right had that take, but on the left, we do it too.

I mean, the left rails against criminal justice system and harsh sentences, unless it's the cop that murdered George Floyd. The right loves cops, wants to make love to the constitution, unless we're talking about the 2020 election and insurrectionists on January 6th. I mean, it's everything.

It's just what's politically expedient. Yeah, personal- The narrative bends to the political ambition. Exactly. And personal freedom for trans people is good. Personal freedom for anti-maskers, not good, or vice versa. You know, it's like one side takes out a position,

the other screams and yells. And on the left, you better scream and yell exactly the right way. Because if you don't- If you're just a little bit out of step, you're gonna get buried. You're gonna be torched. And we need a new culture.

You know, we need, not only do we not wanna buy into heroic individualism, we need to replace this me, me, me, me with we over me. And if that starts with conversations, you know, my favorite moment of the Olympics so far me with we over me. And if that starts with conversations, you know, the favorite, my favorite moment of the Olympics so far are the two high jumpers from Qatar and Italy who were,

who had both tied and they were given an opportunity. Do you want to do a jump off? And one of you will be the true Olympic champion. Or do you want to share a gold medal? And they shared the gold medal. They hugged and kissed and it was beautiful. And it's like, it's like people love that kissed and it was beautiful. And it's like- People love that and that's great.

And that makes me feel good too. But also back to the stoic kind of response, like if you are the gladiator, do you accept that? You say, no, we will fight to the death to figure out who's better. I think Russell Crowe and gladiator would have hugged Juman Hansu. You think so?

Maybe. Well, their life was on the line. The stakes were a little bit higher. Higher stakes. I did love that story. Yeah. That was a good TED Talk. Thank you for my TED Talk.

Are you still, are there more points that need to be made? I'm sweating now. I'm perspiring. Listen, man, it's, I think it's interesting that this is all coming up in the context of the Olympics because the Olympics is all about,

well, first of all, it's a globalist agenda, right? It's globalist by nature. It's the original globalist. But is this not the one thing where the world can stop and we can all celebrate together and agree upon, you know, celebrating these amazing human beings. Apparently not. I guess not.

I guess, well, I've never, there hasn't been this kind of discord in Olympic. Well, I guess there always is. 1968. That's not true. We had 68, we had the boycott in 80. Yeah, 84. So it's always, there's been a political aspect

to all of this, but I feel like now that's drilled down into it's becoming even more because of the way that the culture is. The difference is now it's not nations that are having political infighting or leaders from oppressed groups within a nation. It's individuals over bullshit. It's not like we're not even talking about,

you know, black power in 1968 at a time when there was incredible oppression over, and they actually risked their gold medals and gave up their gold medals knowing they would do it. We're not talking about 1968. We're talking about a young woman making a decision for herself and then it becoming a political issue.

Like that was a political issue. This isn't a political issue. It really isn't. And then it becomes one. So it's like, it's backwards. And I think it's upon, coming upon us to want to, like getting back to your comments,

like listeners, we gotta all be willing to have conversations with people who disagree with us you know we have to because we're not going to get anywhere in solving big problems unless we're willing to do that so it's interesting the olympics showed us another lesson there but yeah that's you You know Simone Manuel, the swimmer? Yeah. African-American swimmer. Yeah. Her first name's Simone, right?

Yes. So everybody's confusing her with Simone Biles. No. She had to tweet, she had to tweet, I don't do gymnastics. Oh no. With like clapping hands. I did not know that. And it has 42,000 likes, that tweet,

to clarify like, no, I'm not the gymnast, but I'm also like a kick-ass Olympian. Yeah. Anyway. Crazy. I love the Olympics. I would say that I've watched less of this Olympics than any other Olympics that I've ever been

since I've been alive, simply because I've been too busy, which is kind of a bummer. We're also, I don't have cable TV. Oh no? So I got the Peacock app for our television so I could watch it thinking I'd be able to just stream what everybody else sees and it doesn't work that way. No, NBC is very proprietary.

I ended up like experiencing the Olympics through a bunch of clips, which was not ideal. Oh really? But there are a couple Olympic related things that I think we need to talk about beyond Simone. The first is what is with this ROC bullshit? What's the ROC bullshit? The Russian Olympic Committee.

So basically Russia gets banned from the Olympics for all of these doping situations, which emanate directly out of Brian Fogle and Icarus and all the work that he's done. But they find this loophole, this end run around the spirit of the law, which allows all these Russian athletes to compete as long as they don't play the anthem if they win.

Like they can even wear the colors on their sweatsuit. So what's the difference? Like who cares if they don't have the flag? It's unbelievable, ROC. It's the IOC kind of capitulating, I think. Well, capitulating to like, what is that? What is the real politic there? Because the IOC is just horrifically corrupt

across the board in so many ways and really truly never has had the athlete's best interest at heart. It really is a giant power and money play. Like I don't even think, I mean, there really wasn't public sentiment for the Olympics to even occur when they occurred because of Japan's contentious relationship with COVID.

I mean, I think most people would have preferred the Olympics get pushed even further and the IOC, because of these broadcasting contracts and the amount of money that was at play, there's no way they weren't gonna go forward. Also Japan, Japan was out a lot of money too if it didn't happen, right? I mean, they share that burden, I think.

Yeah, I think that's right. But ultimately it was the IOC's call. They have like ultimate authority. My favorite part of the IOC is that Japan apparently has come out that they lied about their July weather in their bid and the IOC didn't like examine. Let's talk about that because this is like that Stanley Kubrick movie.

What's it called? Why am I, you know, where T-Bone Pickens I think this is like that Stanley Kubrick movie. What's it called? Why am I, you know, where T. Boone Pickens is riding the atomic bomb out of the- Oh, yes. How I Learned to Love the Bomb. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's like, you think these people are adults and are conducting themselves with some, you know,

level of respectable decorum. And you find out like, it's just a banana republic of corrupt influences. Right. It's like, it's like, it is. It's like the big, the 1920s still over there. Like, like whoever, they don't read the report. It's like.

So explain the Japan thing. So apparently July would, I was happy. We were even talking about going to Tokyo before COVID and doing podcasts from there. When we first, that was gonna be the first thing we collaborated on. We both wanted to go to Japan. I'm happy that the Olympics are in Japan.

I think it's awesome. But in 1968, when Mexico City got the Olympics, they moved the Olympics to early October. If I remember correctly, late September, early October, because of weather and weather patterns and healthy air quality. And Japan could have done that. Like it could be in September when it's nice there.

It's July, it's late July when it's like 95 degrees with 90% humidity. And in their bid, they characterize the weather as being sort of balmy and not nearly as severe as it actually is in order to secure the contract. And because of the way television works and sports, there's no way that they would have pushed it to the fall because it competes with football.

Oh, yeah, back in 68, that wasn't as much of an issue. Yeah. Yeah, so it's all about TV, but it's so funny. Then the IOC saying they never read the report or they didn't really look into it. They didn't vet it enough to realize like anybody who's been to Tokyo in late July knows that it's unbearable.

It's like, would you do the Summer Olympics in Bushwick in August? No, I wouldn't go to that. Or maybe July. They do the US Open. When do they do the US Open? Early September. Right.

Yeah. That's when you should be doing in the humid areas, the Olympics. What are their big athlete stories before we get into it? I mean, there's so many. Obviously, me being a swimmer, swimming is what I care about the most. What are their big athlete stories before we get into it? I mean, there's so many, obviously, you know, me being a swimmer, swimming is what I care about the most and what I follow to the extent that I was able to,

you know, follow much of it. And even then I, you know, this is the first Olympics where I just really don't have personal relationships with any of the athletes or the coaches. I think maybe one or two of the coaches I've met in passing, but typically like I have friends or people that I know quite well who are competing or coaching.

This year I really didn't have that connection so it made it less, you know, like I'm so busy. It just was like, oh, who are these people? I had to like learn who everyone was. With a few exceptions. I mean, I think, listen, this is the first in five Olympiads where there's no Lochte or Phelps. Right.

I mean, Katie Ledecky is the legacy of that era, but you're going into a new, it's a new generation of swimmers and that's talk about a heavy burden to live up to without those guys around, how are you gonna basically put points up on the board that are gonna make people interested in what you're doing? Like, and with that, you know, Caleb Dressel,

like showed up five golds crushed it. Basically had the ultimate Olympics that you could, you know, ever expect from that guy. And it was just a pleasure watching him swim and set a couple, he set a world record in the Hunter Fly. Right. And also on the four by 100 medley relay. So that was cool. And maybe for crying on the air.

Yeah, he did cry. He was emotional. He's very handsome. Leslie Jones has a crush on him. That's important. Who doesn't? How awesome is Leslie Jones in her Olympic commentary? She's hilarious.

I know, she's so good. And they tried to like mimic that with Snoop Dogg and Kevin Hart, which I felt was a little canned compared to her just very authentic spontaneous. She's like eating snacks, like watching television. Yeah, it's the best. If you're not onto Leslie Jones and her Olympic commentary, you gotta follow her on Twitter.

Just go to her Twitter, right? It's like amazing, yeah. So yeah, I mean, Caleb Dressel was amazing. And it was interesting watching Katie Ledecky, like I don't wanna belabor all of this. There's other places where you can get a lot of Olympic feedback. But I think that back to this issue of mental health

in the Olympics, we can't discount the fact that all of these athletes had to weather a COVID year where their training was turned upside down, where the predictability of whether they would be competing or not was very much in question, like incredibly difficult when you understand that at that level to be, you know, to compete at the highest level, to be that elite, you really have to know, like, here's when I'm competing, here's how I'm organizing my schedule to be ready by that time. And when all those dates are in flux,

and at least I know in swimming, like pools aren't open, then they're open, but then it's like, there's a lot of question marks. And I think Katie being closer to, you know, a later phase of her career, you know, I think it took a toll on her performance. I think if the Olympics had, if there had been no coronavirus and the Olympics occurred last summer, I think she would a toll on her performance. I think if the Olympics had, if there had been no coronavirus

and the Olympics occurred last summer, I think she would have swept her events and would have been unchallenged. She did get better as it went along, right? Like she, there was that, when they got the silver in the relay, which one was that? It was the four by 200? Wasn't it four four by two hundred so i think so i don't think i watched that race and they became in silver so i think she

got the silver she got two silvers and two golds right um and that in that race they were far behind like they like when she got into the, she was over a body length behind. I thought she was like 10 feet, maybe two body lengths behind. And to watch her almost reel them all in, to me that was one of the coolest swims I saw this entire Olympics. I was like you at the beginning,

the first four or five days, I wasn't paying any attention. First of all, it's like, by the time you turn on the primeetime Olympics, you kind of like, everything's already happened. And, you know, unless you seal yourself off from your phone, you're going to know a lot of the results. In the past, it's been easier for me to manage that.

Like the last two, London and Rio, it's a little bit less of a time zone problem. It's still there, but you can manage it. In this case, I was like, the first four or five days, I wasn't paying any attention, but I've slowly been wooed back in, even with no crowds. It is sad watching the track, especially with the pool. You don't see the crowds that much because you're focused on the pool,

but the camera angle on the track, it's all the empty seats, it is sad. It is. It's not the way it's supposed to be, but seeing Katie Ledecky do that swim, all the empty seats it is sad um it's not it's not the way it's supposed to be but i'm seeing katie ledecky do that swim and then afterwards when they were asking her if is this your last i think that was her last event is this your last swim and she's like i'm not retiring no she's like i'll be back in four more years yeah which i loved and i thought she performed great like

again it goes back to the you know this this idea is anything but gold, a failure. And, you know, maybe- She has a great attitude too. Always a smile on her face, always a hug, always a nice positive thing to say, you know, really just acquits herself with such grace. What a spectacular athlete. I know.

Yeah. Little curious aside. So she's from my club team in DC. She grew up in DC. And she trained when she was in high school at the shitty pool at Georgetown Prep, which is private high school where our club team rents the pool full time.

And that's where I trained all through high school. Twice a day. And I think where I trained all through high school. Look at that. Twice a day. And I think they renovated it in the years. Cause obviously I'm like twice her age or whatever. You guys both peed in the same pool. We both peed, yes. Separated by decade probably. I think the pool was renovated since I was there,

but this pool was just a toxic hazard. I mean, it would drip like black tar from the ceiling into it. And we would be like, if we get cancer, it's probably because we're drinking whatever's dripping out of the ceiling into the water. And you would go in there in the morning and it would just be this cloud of chlorine vapor, you know?

And because we shared it, it belonged to this high school. We couldn't use the locker rooms half the time because there are students where we shared it, it belonged to this high school. We couldn't use the locker rooms half the time because there are students where we would like, sometimes we could use the football locker rooms and go in there and it's all muddy. But for afternoon workout, we would have to change in the pump room. We couldn't even get, it was just dirty and disgusting,

but kind of awesome too that like, you don't want the super nice pool when you're grinding. It's like the original Rocky. Like you wanna be in the grimy, gritty situation. So that when you finally qualify for that fancy meet and you go to Indianapolis and you see that incredible Natatoni, you're like, wow, right?

You don't wanna train in that fancy place every day. You guys are like the hickory, like in Hoosiers. You're like the team hickory. The word they makes me very uncomfortable. Like I should not, like, I'm just saying I swam in the same pools or like, I don't, you know. Good for Katie. She's the all-time goat, unbelievable athlete.

Shout out GW Preps, horrible pool. I know, I know. Nice. How about Emma McKeon, Australian medalist, seven medals. Winningest female Australian swimmer ever, I think. Yep, yep. Incredible. I think the winningest swimmer, I mean, four gold.

Seven medals, four gold. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the most medals. Very few have gotten that. I think, well, Caleb got five gold and the only other swimmers to do that are Phelps and Mark Spitz and- Biondi.

Biondi in 88, right, in Seoul. And then there's a speed skater, Eric Heiden. Oh, Eric Heiden, my all time. That got it. My all time hero, that guy. Also cool to see some new faces. We got Bobby Fink in the distance races, which he's a guy, he's sort of the converse of Katie.

Like he was somebody no one had really knew anything about who really benefited from the extra year to like hone his strength and endurance. And he goes from like unknown to absolute legend being the first American in 37 years to win the 1500. And then also wins the 800, which is cool. Very cool. Little sort of side anecdote with that.

Typically it's always been the 1500 meters for the men and the 800 meters for the women. There has never been until this Olympia to 1500 meters for the women, because historically it was considered too difficult for women. Women can't swim that far. Can't swim that far.

And the fact that it took until 2021 to rectify that is out of control. Strange thing to think when a woman was one of the first people to swim across the English channel. Anyway. The IOC has been legendary for many, many years. The last person, yeah.

Yeah, I know. So ahead of the curve. Yeah, they've always read things so well. I do wanna spend a couple of minutes talking about this guy, Michael Andrew. Oh, let's talk about him. To me, kind of the most interesting, curious swimmer on the US Olympic team.

This is a guy who, I mean, I've been aware of this guy forever because even though he's, how old is he now? He's like 22 or he's pretty young dude. Yeah, he's young. But this is a kid who his entire life has been expected to inherit the Phelps legacy because when he was a kid,

he broke over a hundred national age group records. Like he completely rewrote all the national age group records. Like he completely rewrote all the national age group records as he grew up, like basically breaking all of them. So more than any other swimmer ever has, more than Michael Phelps. So the obvious expectation is like, this guy's the second coming, right?

He's gonna come in and he's gonna crush. And he failed to make the Olympic team in Rio. I think he was like 17 at the time. So that makes him, I don't know, 23 or something like that. 22. Yeah. So he makes the team this year and ends up on the four by 100 medley relay

setting a world record. So he gets a gold medal. He doesn't medal in any individual event. And what makes him so curious is the fact that this guy has a very unique original way of training that contravenes all conventional wisdom. So most swimmers swim twice a day. They're putting in anywhere between 12 and 20,000 meters a day, a lot of volume, plus dry lands and weight room and all kinds of other stuff. He is coached, he's like homeschooled, coached by his dad, managed by his mom,

grew up in Kansas, swimming in a pool in his backyard, like didn't do the club thing where you go and swim with other people, like just basically was in the backyard with his dad, this single lane pool that he trained in. Now they live in Encinitas, I think in San Diego, but he's remained kind of homeschooled and under his parents' control,

control is probably the wrong word, but I mean sort of influence. Influence. Yeah. And his dad in conjunction with another coach have developed this thing called USRPT, which stands for ultra short race pace training. So whereas most swimmers are training 12 to 20,000 yards or meters a day, he's swimming like 3000 a day,

which is nothing, but all of the training is at race pace. So everything is like lung busting, all out efforts, approximate your race to the extent possible, make the most of that compressed period of time and call it a day. The idea being that most swimmers are putting in all these junk miles, they're just swimming back and forth in the pool.

It's not really doing anything for them, which is very controversial. And it's interesting to think about because on the one hand, look, this guy made the Olympic team. He won a gold medal in the four by 100 medley relay. He got fourth in the 100 breaststroke. He's still early in his career.

So he's had tremendous success. But basically when I look at this, particularly from an endurance athletes perspective, I see a guy who actually, I think, and I'm not one to judge him, I don't know him, but it would appear to me based upon his race performances that he would benefit by increasing his volume a little bit. Because if you watch his 200 IM,

the guy is like way ahead of world record pace at the 100, at the 150 he's leading. And then he goes 30 plus for the free leg. Like he absolutely falls apart, like in just an epic crash. And ends up fifth. I saw him get reeled in. Yeah, I mean, he even gets, I mean, at the Olympics,

you rarely see somebody die like that. Right. And I see somebody who has no aerobic base, who can't sustain an effort over 200 meters. And Michael Phelps has commented on this. He basically said, if you wanna do well at the 200 meters, 200 IM, you gotta train the 400.

Right. I don't think Michael, he's a sprinter. The 200 is a stretch for this guy. I'm sure he would prefer to just do 100 meter races. But if you're gonna compete at the highest level in the 200, even though it's a two minute race, on some level in the context of swimming,

there is an endurance component to that. And if you wanna tap into a greater gear and bring it home, there's just no getting around the fact that you gotta put in some volume training to do that. I thought that you had said before that they stopped doing those 10 to 12,000 yard workout days. Well, it is much more, I think overall, it is more race specific.

So there is a lot more quality oriented training that goes in and I've just noticed that from workouts that I've dropped in on where there are some Olympians or like some guys that are in their twenties who are training at a high level. Like I've noticed it's a lot different, but still they're training four hours a day. So it's still about 10,000.

3000 meters you can get done in 45 minutes to an hour. That's all the training you're doing in the pool a day and not doing weights either. Super interesting. And I think, look. He's not doing weights? I would say my era was too much volume. Given that you 100 butterfly, 49, 47 seconds,

you're gonna swim five hours a day. Right. Like, do you really need that much endurance for that? 200 butterfly, maybe a little bit more, but still I was over-trained completely. So I think the pivot to being quality oriented is appropriate, but I still think that you need that volume piece

if you wanna be able to be dexterous and capable in events from the 100 to the 200. And if you look at runners or you look at cyclists, like every elite competitor is creating an aerobic base and then building upon that. And the fact that he shirked that, it's interesting to look at it, but I don't know that, I really think that he shirked that, it's interesting to look at it, but I don't know that,

I really think that he would have benefited particularly in the 200 IM had he approached his training a little bit differently. Phelps kind of called that, it would be interesting to see if he can sustain it on his broadcast. Michael Phelps has been very good on TV. Incredibly good.

Yeah. I mean, he crushed it. He's been doing great. And his hair looks fabulous. His beard is less fabulous. There's a lot of fans for his beard. His hair looks really good. Yeah. I would kill for his hair. So yes, but I wouldn't, but you know what? We should bring our beards back in honor of Phelps. He's been amazing. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. But yeah, I mean, he, he's got a big career in broadcasting. He couldn't have been better. He was fantastic. He was. But I still much love for my boy Rowdy Gaines. Nobody gets more excited about these races than Rowdy. The NBC played, like they had a camera on Rowdy. Yeah, the Rowdy

cam. Did you, did you watch? Yeah, I tweeted it earlier today. Like he's just losing his mind. During the relay. It's like a full body performance. He's fabulous. I know. So kudos to Rowdy Gaines. Kudos to Flora Duffy, the Bermudian native who won the triathlon.

Yeah, that was a cool story. Who else? Oh, did you see- Let's talk about this Ryan Murphy thing. Yeah, that's what i was gonna say did you see that like the after uh rylev uh beat murphy in uh the was it the 200 i think he beat him in both both 100 and 200 so i think it was after the 200 though that uh murphy they got on a dais together and murphy said something to the point of,

I wish I could know, I don't know that this was a fair race, basically. I don't know that Rylev is clean because of the ROC thing that you're talking about. Was there anything else that he knows that we don't know though? That's the question. So what have you heard? Do you think swimming is clean?

I'm not close enough to swimming anymore to know for a fact or to have any kind of educated opinion on that. But I would suspect that there's probably some bad actors. I think when you're watching the Tour de France or you're watching Olympic track and field or you're watching swimming, I think it's naive to assume or presuppose

that it's 100% clean. Cause there's always gonna be people who are trying to get around that kind of stuff. So, but I don't know to what extent, there's any kind of doping going on, I have no idea. So I just don't have an informed opinion on it. And what would it be? Would it be blood doping?

Would it be, is that the idea? But I think that like, listen, and I don't know Ryan Murphy either, but for him to say in a press conference that he doesn't really accuse Rylov, but he kind of in a backhanded way is kind of accusing him. He does accuse him.

So it makes me think that- He says he doesn't, but he does. Is that just because the Russians found an end run to nonetheless show up at the Olympics under this ROC thing? Or is there something specific to Rylov that he knows Rylov was doing, or he's heard rumors that we haven't heard

about something that was going on with him? Well, I think- It makes me think there must be more to this than just like, I'm pissed that the Russians were, are here when they were actually banned. Yeah, there is something specific to Rylov. Rylov is the guy that beat him twice. Yeah, right.

So of course- In his mind, he's like, wait, I could have got another gold medal. It's sour grapes, or maybe he's like, this guy's been getting away with this shit for a long time. I don't know. It's possible. I mean, the one thing I look at

when I think of performance enhancing drugs, I think of body changes and muscles and Rylov was surprisingly skinnier than almost everybody up there. And Murphy is like chiseled from stone now. Murphy has quite a physique, but the thing is doping doesn't really work that way. Not blood doping, right?

Yeah, blood doping doesn't work that way. I would be surprised if it was blood doping where you're injecting yourself with other people's blood, but EPO, you know, basically these things allow you to train harder and longer. So it, you know, it creates a more robust training cycle. So it's not necessarily like something that's gonna make you huge in terms of, it's not like steroids where you're

muscular, you're trying to improve your body's ability to metabolize oxygen for energy. And some people are more ectomorphic than other people. So Ryan Murphy, I think is just genetically predisposed to look like a bodybuilder comparatively, but just because the other guy Rylev is skinny and svelte and doesn't, and has more of an endomorphic disposition

is not a reason to think he must not be doping. No, no, right, right. I mean, Murphy's a stud. Who knows what Rylov is doing? I'm not on the camp though, just because Fogel's film is amazing, but I'm not here to think that every Russian athlete is doping.

I mean, it's- Yeah, I don't know. I don't know either. Who knows? Yeah. Who knows? I just, I think that that is, everyone has their internal,

I mean, I don't think every, you can't make that judgment. And I think there was some anger for losing and it had to be something in there. Maybe. Yeah, who knows? Maybe, who knows? Who knows, but that's what we're talking about, stuff we don't fully know about. Yes, we're just spinning opinions on stuff

in a very half baked way here. No, it's three quarters baked. There is one other thing that you wanted to discuss that we should discuss, and that is the new fitness fad that has erupted in Tokyo this year. This is wild. Yes.

Should I go get them? I'll go get them. Yeah, go grab those things. So basically, every Olympiad, there's some crazy technique or training philosophy that emanates out of it that becomes like a story. In the previous Olympics, it was cupping. Like you saw all the athletes walking around

with the kind of dark circles on their back and on their shoulders. This year, it's something called Katsu. Katsu? Katsu? Katsu. K-A-A-T-S-U. Yes. Which is basically this, what do you call it?

Like a blood flow restrictor type thing. Like bands that you put around your extremities to restrict blood flow that when used in training, stimulate your hormonal system and your circulatory system to produce a result that mimics training, right? So it's, yes. That's a really bad way of describing it.

The idea is to make the circulatory system more elastic. So it's yes that's a really bad way of the idea is to to make the circulatory system more elastic so it's basically you're getting you're increasing elasticity of your capillaries which allows by restricting blood flow and then letting it go so it's like it's like 30 seconds restricted five seconds let it flow and back and forth what you're doing is you're creating elasticity there which triggers the hormonal system and a lymphatic response to get rid of waste, basically. Metabolic waste, lactic acid, you can flush that out. It's essentially a tourniquet. It's basically a tourniquet, so originally the-

But it doesn't completely restrict the blood flow. You're not trying to cut it off completely. Right, so it is a tourniquet. They used to be just bands that you could use and maybe train that way. In reality, the katsu, these bands here that we have that are, now there's a brand called Katsu Training that Steven Munotonez is involved with,

who is basically runs WOWZA, the Open Water Swimming Association, is the number one chronicler of all things open water swimming. I've known Steve forever and I did not know anything about this Katsu thing. So in 2001, he met the guy who was using Katsu just in tourniquet form, just in bands manually

with 20 people. One of them, he actually- Dr. Satu, this Japanese guy. And Steve, I guess, is fluent in Japanese. Yes, apparently. And so he went and met with him in 2001, I guess it was. And at that time, there was a thought that as you age, muscles atrophy and bone density diminishes.

And that's just the way it goes. And there's nothing you can do about it. Weights help to some degree. That's they they ask older people to get into the gym and do some weight resistance stuff and machines to make sure you don't lose bone density he proved with these bands and his techniques in an 104 year old woman i believe it was he built bone density in 104 year old using blood flow restriction and so uh you know, Stephen got involved with him and they developed a way, basically using kind of a blood pressure cuff technology

with air and pressure, a way to make it automated so that you can use it. And what Stephen, a lot of the reporting, there's been Futterman, Matt Futterman at the New York Times did a great story. This was the first story. Podcast, former podcast guest, always qualify. Yes. Matt Futterman.

Yes, friend of the pod. Yeah, he wrote this, who basically runs the sports desk, does he not? What's his job specifically? No, he does not. He is an editor and now he's mostly reporting these days. He wrote this great article for the time, a hot fitness trend among Olympians blood flow restriction. And he talks all about this,

which is, I just, I don't know how I never heard about this. I started looking into it. Ben Greenfield actually did a whole podcast episode about this like a year ago. And he had Steve on as a guest. So if you wanna learn more, check that out. But so Steve told me that it's actually better for recovery. And so he sent them to me right before I did the Goggins, you know, four by four, 48, because

he knew I had problems with my feet. And so I use them then in between and I use them- How did this not show up as a show and tell earlier then? I brought them once. You did? Yes. And then we forgot or i forgot i forget what it was um but so i use them before and after but mostly after and he says that the

reason you do that is because it allows so so people ice usually if after a run if you have bad joints you ice after playing basketball you ice ice has been this thing that everybody tells you to do. Physical therapists tell you, doctors tell you. He's saying ice only, what ice does is it sends the blood back and increases some sort of circulation or restricts or increases circulation in some places. But he says it's very superficial. The blood will only flush out very close to the skin and it'll stay in the area.

What this does is it allows actual blood flow to restrict and then flow again. And that allows you to really recycle the blood, get that metabolic waste out of there. And so basically what happened was in 2001, he met up with him, he created this thing and still it was used to general public, but gradually Steve got more and more athletes interested.

What turned the tide was he got the Navy SEALs interested. And so Navy SEALs started using it. From there, some NFL players started using it. The first Olympian to use it was Carmelo Anthony, the basketball player in 2016. He started to use it. And it leaked out from there. And so now it's basically every single sport

has someone using it. All these professional sports franchises are using this. Martial artists there. It's like, I don't know. I was today years old when I found out about this. It's the new thing. And he's saying it also helps with sleep. So what he told me today was basically if you put it on

right before sleep or an hour before, it will around your arms, it will trigger a parasympathetic response in your body and it will help you get more into sleep. Instead of melatonin, you can use Katsu. I've never tried it for sleep. I'm gonna try it for sleep tonight. But the other thing he said was that it's in such demand people are calling him from tokyo to get this japanese inspired

product shipped to him and they basically they they are like they need to find product luckily his main manufacturer in korea was smart enough to stockpile microchips he saw covid happen and he knew they're gonna there's gonna be a run on microchips somehow. Oh, wow. Like the one guy in the world that knew. So there's this, in the Futterman piece, there's also this character, Dr. Jim Stray Gunderson. Yes.

Who has become a big advocate of this. He's a physician and a sports medicine researcher who's worked with Olympic organizations in the US and in Norway. And he was the guy who pioneered the live high train low approach, which is this idea that the best way to take advantage of altitude training

is to live at super high altitude and then kind of go down the mountain and train at sea level and then sleep high. And that's how you get the boost of oxygen carrying red blood cells, et cetera. But apparently Stray Gunderson gets excited about Katsu, trained with Sato over the last decade, becomes this Katsu master.

And essentially is quoted in this article as saying, you can get the benefits of swimming 10,000 yards by swimming maybe a thousand, which goes get the benefits of swimming 10,000 yards by swimming maybe a thousand, which goes to the point of Michael Andrew, because Michael becomes this proponent of it in his unique training philosophy and practices. But Andrew also what Futterman says in this article is that he started experimenting with BFR,

blood flow restriction, five years ago at the urging of Chris Morgan, a quote unquote veteran swim coach. Chris is like an old friend of mine. Right, right, right. Remember what I shared about going to the Mono Fin World Championships? Like he was on that team.

That's how I got to know Chris. Chris has gone on to coach European national teams. And then he was an assistant coach at Harvard. Like he's a very, he has a lot of really cool training philosophies and methodology, he's a good dude. And maybe we can get Chris to come on and talk about Katsu a little bit more.

Cause it sounds like Chris is sort of at the bleeding edge of blood flow restriction. I certainly wanna know more about this. It sounds a little bit like a panacea to me. Yeah. But can't get around the fact that some of these athletes were using this in preparation for Tokyo. He says it's been word of mouth.

The idea is wearing them on your arms while you're swimming or while you're in the gym lifting weights. So he was was so talking to munitone is on my drive here actually he kind of he didn't he didn't suggest that uh futterman got it wrong or anybody got it wrong he thinks all these athletes did their job well but his his perspective is that recovery is the thing recovery is really where it's going to have the best effect because you don't need to wear these bands and swim. Like swimming is training for swimming,

not wearing my bands. He's saying the bands should be worn in between. So sprinters use it. Sha'Carri who couldn't, because she got disqualified after smoking marijuana, she uses them. Let me see that, slide that over here. Gatlin uses them, the sprinter, Justin Gatlin. But they, you put like,

So I put it around my- But what is this? Like you blow air into it? It connects with this guy. So there's a pump part of it. Yeah, it connects with this thing. And then- And it fills it with-

You cycle it and you hear that? It fills it with air. Yeah. Well, you know what? During the photo session, we'll put some Katsu on. Yeah. I feel like an IV drug user. That's what it is. It's like it's legit tourniquet, right?

Oh, right. Yeah. I don't know how this works. I'm definitely doing this wrong. It looks good on you though. We need an expert on here. No, I'll show you. I'm still getting over the fact

that you've had this for a while and I knew nothing about it. I'm getting over the fact that I've had this for a while and I could have broken the story before Futterman and I missed my opportunity because I didn't see it. You did, you did.

All right, cool. Bad reporting, bad reporting. So are we ready to pivot to listener questions? Let's do some listener questions, bud. Yeah, let's do that. Anything else? You gonna say anything else about the Olympics? I mean, look, I love the Olympics.

We could talk about this forever. It is weird watching it with no spectators. It's a strange time, but I'm glad that these athletes are having this experience. It must be surreal for them to compete without audiences. The whole thing is all very strange. And I just, I love all things Olympics.

I grew up with that Olympic dream myself. And I've always just, it's always just held a really special place in my heart. So I am a, I am a glorious kind of like fan and optimist around all things Olympics, while also knowing the IOC and all these organizations are completely messed up. I grew up knowing I had no chance at ever being in the Olympics,

but I've always enjoyed watching them. Well, you know what? I love the camaraderie. I love the different nations. I love the international appeal, the cultural exchange. It really inspires me to see the cultural exchange, to see the countries coming together. And this year I've loved the hurdles out of nowhere.

Like I freeze frame, like when you see a couple of them go over and then the one's chasing, and then when the ones behind are over and then I pause it to see, and everyone's off the ground all at once and it's just like pretty cool photography um and speaking of photography i just want to give a shout out uh to a photographer i've worked with before um donald morale i think i'm pronouncing his name correctly um i've worked with him on a story for espn um he's a long-time sports illustrated photographer a great prone paddler based out of san diego area and he has

the best uh instagram feed from tokyo he's shooting for nat geo and the stuff he's putting out there is just unparalleled so i want wanna link to that. Yeah, I'm looking at his Instagram right now. It's pretty stunning. It could be Donald Mirale. Yeah, two L's. Donald Mirale, M-I-R-A-L-E, however you pronounce that. This picture of Caleb Dressel with the traps.

Oh my God. I mean, he's got pictures of the fencing. That's incredible. Pictures of cycling. The underwater photos are amazing. So he explains in one of his posts, he was one of the innovators of underwater swimming photos. So he would go down there and set camera traps

before they had the track down. And now there's a track that everyone can have access to, but he would go down there and set trap, set camera traps with a couple other guys that are innovating it back, you know, I guess 20 years ago. And so he's special. That's cool.

Yep. How do you feel about surfing and skateboarding and all the new stuff? I'll tell you this. I love basketball. Three-on-three basketball should not be an Olympic sport. I'd rather see four square or kickball, dodgeball. I'm not into this X Games meets the Olympics thing.

I've never really been into it. I think snowboarding is a great Olympic sport. I'm not so sure about skateboarding and BMX. I mean, how can you differentiate that? How can you be okay with snowboarding and not okay with skateboarding? You know, I'm okay with surfing too, to be honest with you, as an Olympic sport. You're just changing your... I don't know.

How dare you change your mind in real time, Adam? I have an inner Tucker Carlson that just gets after me constantly. Yeah, I don't know where you draw the line with this. Obviously not everything is included in the Olympics. Shooting has been in the Olympics forever. I mean, I think to me, the benchmark is always like thinking about

the original spirit of the Olympiad and what it was intended to be. Which was what? And I think you have to respond to culture. And when like everything is fluid, just like language isn't fixed. Like these things are always changing. I know, but I'm a huge baseball fan and none of the real professional baseball players are playing. So why is baseball in the Olympics? I don't know. It's weird like that, right? And soccer the same way. So with basketball, you get the NBA guys, but with baseball you don't. And I don't think the premier league guys

are playing in the soccer side. I don't think so. I don't think they're getting the premier, like it's not the world cup team that's over there. It's not the same. Different players. Not in every case. Yeah. Yeah.

It's weird how that works. It is weird. ROC. It's the ROC. I can't get over the, yeah. It's weird how that works. It is weird. ROC. It's the ROC. I just can't get over the, yeah, the ROC thing. You don't want that? You want them really properly banned? Like I'm such an old man that I remember the pain.

Like I knew people who made the 80 team and how challenging that was when they, when it was boycotted and they couldn't go. Well, that's probably what it was. Now there's a boycott and they still go. It's not a boycott, it's a ban. I mean a ban, yeah, basically. But the point being, if you're an athlete, you don't get to go, right?

Yeah. But they get to go. Do you watch the winter Olympics the same way you watch the summer? Not as keenly. Me neither. Yeah, but maybe I think I will this year. You will?

Yeah. There's more people dressed head to toe in Lycra in the Winter Olympics, which I think is interesting. Our swimsuits are not great. There's a lot of Lycra in the Summer Olympics. There's not a great, our swimsuits have not been the most stylish. Our costumes are not great. No.

Liberia has great stuff. Why does Ralph Lauren get appointed to design the US Olympic team uniform every time? Because we couldn't find Levi Strauss. Are we all like, is the U.S. Olympic team all living in Montauk? Yeah, I want a 75 year old man designing my clothes. We need some freshness, I think,

for you to do this whole thing. We need like, we need a designer. We're going down the tubes here. Let's get to some listener questions. Let's do it. Justin from Minnesota. Hey, Adam and Rich. This is Justin from Minnesota.

So my question for you guys is, we often hear that, you know, living an examined life is important and doing the work is important as well. But what is the work? What is doing the work? I'm struggling with this as I try and find a way to, you know, reflect more and look at where I've been, what I've done, and what I want to do. And I want to know what the work is and where to begin so that I can

find a path forward and feel like I'm living a more purposeful life. I recently had twins and it's been a seismic shift in the way things go in life, as you can imagine. And so I want to do the work on myself to figure out how I can be a good father, but also still achieve the goals and dreams that I had pre-fatherhood, which is just, as I put it, been put on hold for the time being. So any advice on what to do for the work to go deep on oneself, journaling, et cetera, what to journal about, all that kind of good stuff, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for everything you do. Love the podcast. Love you guys. Talk to you later.

How Van Nystad is that question? It's pretty essential. I love it. It's essentialist. It's a great, this might be the best question ever asked. What is doing the work? I love it. Because you hear it all the time.

You hear, well, he did the work. Well, look at him. He did the work or that guy's doing the work. He's able to do this because he put the work. Well, look at him, he did the work or that guy's doing the work. He's able to do this because he put the work in. And I found myself asking, what is this work that everyone is doing? I don't understand. And you feel like adult, like you don't wanna ask

because you don't wanna look stupid. But no one is very detailed ever or specific about what it is that that person actually did. So let's try to answer that. I think there's no right or wrong answer. There is no one way. There is no one work. I think the work is going to be different for every person,

depending upon your circumstances and what it is that you're trying to unlock or reckon with in your past or in your present. But I think overall the basic idea around the work, quote unquote the work, is engaging in some form of inward journey, some form of some practice of self-examination that's motivated by a genuine intent

to better understand yourself objectively, honestly, so that you can have a greater sense of awareness around not just what you're doing, but why you're doing the things that you're doing, why you tell the stories that you continue to tell yourself, why you continue to repeat a certain behavior pattern, even though you know it's moving you in the wrong direction. And I think the process of doing that,

the specific means by which you kind of unearth your unconscious mind or confront your biases or get objectively honest with your past is through a variety of different modalities. It can be seeing a therapist, it could be seeing, it could be psychoanalysis, or it could be group therapy with a bunch of guys. It could be a 12 step program.

It could be journaling. There was a specific question that Justin asked about, what kind of journaling? Well asked about, what kind of journaling? Well, I think the kind of journaling that you're more likely to do, like it doesn't have to be any one way. You could do morning pages out of the artist's way where it's literally mumbo jumbo,

just to kind of clear the cobwebs in your mind. Or it could be very intentional, like trying to remember things that happened to you in the past so that you can make sense of them. There is no right or wrong way. The only kind of objective correctness in all of it is that you are trying, like that you are moving inward in some way

that feels appropriate for you to make sense of your interior life. It could be reading books. It could be having an accountability partner. It could mean having a mentor who can reflect back to you, the uncomfortable truth of your behavior. It can involve creating a gratitude list or any number of self-care practices.

So I don't know how helpful that is. I certainly don't wanna leave Justin more confused. Right. But I think it just means commitment to one thing or a number of things that are putting you into greater contact with and understanding of what makes you tick and why. So that you can rewire whatever errant pathways are continuing to lead you into directions you don't wanna go and finding healthier outlets for your energy that will set your life on a better trajectory.

What do you think? I'm trying to figure out where his head space is in terms of asking this question, like to find a path forward and feel like you're living a more purposeful life. So does that mean he's doing work or doing a job that he's not feeling connected to? Is he not feeling fully connected

to the purpose in his life? Because I mean, I think there's nothing more purpose than two babies that showed up on your doorstep. Well, that's the immediate need that has to be addressed. But I think he wants to connect something else to that, because they do feed each other, right? If you feel fulfilled in one aspect of your life, it can make you feel fulfilled in the other but my sense is that the twins thing is so overwhelming that there's this lurking fear that he's never going to be able to uh you know

execute on his other goals and you don't want to become the person that just like is you know doing a job just because you know just to pay bills because bills need to be paid, because they do, especially now. But so I guess that's where my head goes. I think you're right in terms of like, just the whole idea is just looking inward. Maybe that's the first step, you know, doing the work can be a meditation practice. It could be 10 minutes every morning,

sit down before you talk and just sit quietly for 10 minutes. It's hard to do that when you have two twins. So this guy's got twins. This has gotta be monopolizing his time. So he's not gonna be able to say, well, I'm gonna wake up and the first part of my day is gonna be quiet.

Like you're living your life. When you have young twins, you're living your life reactively, which is not great. Like, I think it's more about like how to shift that valence from being reactive to proactive, but understanding that when you have twins, it just is what it is, man. And it's not always gonna be that way.

And learning how to like flow with it rather than resist it because that resistance isn't gonna change your reality. It's just gonna make you more miserable because your life isn't meeting some fantastical expectation that you've set for it. Just being okay with what is and carving out whatever time you do have, or those moments in between everything else that you're doing to, you know, find some kind of practice

that will help give you a little bit of peace, clarity, and objectivity. I think accepting what is- That's a huge part of that. Is like the first step, right? Like to me, like you gotta accept where you are and who you are first. And that's always the first step.

And so, you know, there's ways of doing it quickly. You know, anything like going to therapy or going to a group therapy or journaling, all that stuff is time intensive. And time is at a premium right now. So accepting self, um, maybe, maybe coming up with some sort of, uh, habit or, or pattern that you can do with the kids, like get them into a dual stroller and go for a run or something like that for even 15, 20 minutes and just speak your mind into a recorder. Anything like that you can do at the same time. Things like that, just focusing the lens internally

for some chunk of the day and doesn't have to be a long part of your day is a good way to start. You never know. And in those overwhelmed moments, I think having a gratitude practice is important. Just write down five things you're grateful for to try to remember the big picture overwhelm moments, I think having a gratitude practice is important. Just write down five things you're grateful for

to try to remember the big picture. That's a great thing, you can do that every day. Yeah, what a blessing it is that you have two healthy twins. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a great question. It is a good question.

I hope we answered it sufficiently. I don't think we did, but we're gonna move on now. Okay, we're gonna do a less, well, just a different type of question. This is a different kind of question, isn't it? Yeah. Jess from The Open Road. Hey, guys. My name is Jess.

I am from Illinois originally, but I'm a travel nurse, and so I actually was last travel nursing in North Carolina, and then I'm headed to Maine next week so I was curious as to a couple things so top five bands from each of you and then one or the other top five songs or top five albums I would love to hear what you guys have to say about that I think that would be really interesting to hear. Anyway, thank you so much and take care. I will answer this question off the top of my head, but I don't know that... I'm glad that Jess thinks this will be interesting. I don't know if anybody else would think it was interesting.

Come on, that depends what you say. Listen, I was born in 1966. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. I think everybody, when you go through those adolescent years, those early teen years, I don't know, 14 through 18 or 19, something gets imprinted on you.

The music that you're listening at that time becomes your favorite music. And that becomes like sort of anchored in you. I don't think it changes much. I grew up listening to, I mean, the big one for me is REM. I loved REM that changed what I thought music could be. I fell in love with that. When I was in college,

I listened to a lot of English beat and joy division and kind of new wave type stuff. The Smiths. The Smiths were a big one. Yes. With Hank Wise. Yeah. Smiths on the pool deck.

A bunch of like ska and a little bit of punk at the time. Fishbone. Fishbone. I saw Fishbone in concert many times. Fishbone. Yeah. But I love Wilco. I mean, Yankee, Hotel Foxtrotbone baby. Yeah. But I love Wilco. I mean, Yankee, Hotel Foxtrot is like a perfect album.

I love Radiohead, Kid A, OK Computer are unbelievable. For REM, I still love their earlier records, Murmur, Reckoning. I just think they're genius. And if you're gonna have the conversation about best bands and best albums, I mean, you gotta throw the Beatles in there. Definitely.

Sergeant Peppers. I love Jeff Buckley. I think his album Grace is one that finds its way onto my recurring playlist. I don't know, man, what about you? None of my top five would be bands that, except for maybe one or two, that would be bands that I grew up,

that they were my favorite band at one point and then never stopped. The exception would be my favorite, which is Bob Marley and the Wailers, was my favorite the minute I heard Bob and then has remained the top, I think, most important band for me. But other than that, my first favorite band was Talking Heads. Then I got into Bruce Springste band was talking heads then i got into bruce springsteen and then like later i got into hip-hop and now i'm mostly listening to jazz to be honest with you uh but it since the the the the question i will give you my top five bands

bob marley and the whalers david bowie jimmy hend, John Coltrane would be my favorite jazz artists. And then of course you got to put the Beatles in there because they're just groundbreaking. Songs, I would do Tangled Up in Blue by Bob Dylan, Exodus by Bob Marley, Heroes by Bowie, Voodoo Child by Hendrix, and I Love Supreme. These selections are indicative of somebody who's maybe five to 10 years older than you actually are.

Yeah, I'm out of touch with my- This isn't really a squarely Gen X. Are you even Gen X? I am. What year were you born? 71. Right, so I'm on the older spectrum. I'm right in the middle of Gen X.

But that doesn't mean, so what I was trying to say is that I'm not one of those people that has top five bands. I love all music and I love world music. I love rock. I love all kinds. So for me, but if you had to pin me down and I had to pick my top five bands

like in the spirit of this, that's what I would say. But in reality, I love all music. I don't have a limit. And it used to be that I did, but I don't really anymore. And so I'm kind of open to all great music. And my genre I listen to most is jazz, to be honest with you.

Should we just ditch everything that we've been doing and just talk about like music and movies on the podcast from now on out. You know what? Culture become some version of Chuck Klosterman. I'm gonna wait until the next Google doc and find out what I'm talking about. Because you wanna talk about

whatever I wanna talk about, Adam, don't you? No, that's not true. We had a whole thing. Do the work. Are you doing the work, Adam? Of course not. My whole philosophy is don't believe everything you feel, which I know is bad.

That's probably not the good philosophy, but it is my philosophy. I don't think that that's bad. I think the caveat or the corollary to that that I would say is that emotions are your body and your interior consciousness trying to tell you something, right? You can heed that message,

but I think we often over-index on those emotions and then, you know, kind of make it all about that. And the truth is a lot of challenging emotions feel like they're gonna kill you, I'm gonna die, but emotions are always changing. That's the one thing that you can always bank on. It will always change, will always change. So feelings are just like,

the sort of AA corollary is like feelings are just feelings. Right, that- You don't have to like, they don't have, they feel like, you know, they feel so real, but essentially like you have a choice how much you need to engage them that's well that's the whole idea with the stoicist versus this you know this new gen that worships mental health uh you know preservation whereas that's where i depart from

that because i actually think there's a lot of you know i see a lot of people who are so into their mental health and self care and this and that, and they just become paralyzed by it. Right, I can't go to work today. I have a, I'm feeling a little bit blue or whatever. And it's like, at some point, I'm not denigrating people about mental health issues. No, you have to reconcile,

appropriately reconcile responsible care for mental health with the importance of developing to reconcile responsible care for mental health with the importance of developing a little bit of emotional resilience. Yes, so yes. Yes, all right, let's do the last question. Last question. I have this laptop here and I keep putting my finger on the screen

thinking it's an iPad. You wanted to go laptops today. I know, well, because it's just better with opening links and there were some articles I wanted to share. Okay, let's hear from Bev. Bev. Hi, Rich and Adam.

This is Bev from Denver, Colorado. I've had a long running career that includes three Bostons while in my 50s. My first Boston was the year of the bomb and the only marathon I didn't finish. Anyway, I'm 66 years old now and I'm having difficulty accepting the fact that I'm not as fast as I was, and my feet can't take the longer distances. My question is how to deal with the hard facts of aging and still set realistic goals that excite me for the future. Some days it's a real emotional and physical challenge. Thanks for any insights. Bye. Thank you, Bev. I feel a little insecure trying to answer this question, given the fact

that Bev is like 11 years older than me. So she probably has more wisdom and experience about aging than I do. But my instinct, my first gut reaction to that question is that comparison is the thief of joy. And I think it's unrealistic and unfair to compare yourself at 66 to the way that you used to be able to run. I don't know how far back into your history you're casting your gaze, but essentially it goes to the answer

to the previous question, which is about acceptance. Like first, accept that you're 66 years old right now. Like let go of this idea, stop measuring yourself against where you used to be or think you should be, right? Like you're 66, there's certain realities about that. You probably share my musical taste. Probably, I would suspect that she does. So you can talk about Hendrix and Coltrane,

but the idea that you're comparing yourself and judging yourself, like you're creating trauma for yourself by judging yourself against a younger version. I don't know, what age are you looking at? 25, 45, 50, it's unclear, but essentially you're setting yourself up to be disappointed because you're 66 and you're not gonna be able to run as fast as you did

when you were in your 50s or 40s, clearly. So I think the best way to like reckon with all of that is to make peace with it, to train where you're at and focus on where you can find the joy in all of it. You could still set goals and those goals should be difficult, something you're gonna strive for, but also realistic given the fact that, you know, you're 66

and just try to be the best 66 year old version of yourself because comparing yourself to a past self, again, is a comparison that robs you of joy. It's a thief of joy. And honestly, like, you know, truth talk for a minute here, does anybody give a shit how fast you run at 66? No one cares. The only person who probably cares is you.

Right. And it's important that you care. That's great. But the weight that you're putting on your times and all of that, I think is playing into this heaviness that you're experiencing around running. So why not alleviate yourself with that pressure? Go zone two, baby.

Go zone two and leave the times behind. Right. Like holding on to, I can't run as fast as I used to. Like, is it worth it holding onto that for the kind of frustration that it's causing you? No. The consternation? What about running makes you happy?

And orienting your goal around that, I think is a better aim of your intentionality. Love it. If it's a performance, if it's performance that gets you out of bed in the morning and excited, then again, you can set a goal. There's nothing wrong with setting a performance goal, but don't set the goal you would have set for yourself

at age 40. Just remember if you sign up for that 10K right now, there are a bunch of athletes running around an oval that can do a 10K in 24 minutes. Yeah. It's shocking. So, you know, what are we talking about here? Like, what is it that got you falling in love

with running to begin with? And maybe find other ways that are not performance related to find joy in it. Like the travel, like going to a race that's in a cool place or training with a community of people or meeting new people, et cetera. There's so much richness in the sport of running that it doesn't all have to be about like PRs.

I got two words for you, Bev. Katsu. Katsu, that's right. She's gonna be all about katsu. And swim run. Yeah, but that's gonna get her all excited that maybe she can PR marathon if she starts putting tourniquets all over her body.

Katsu, get the katsu. She's gonna call up Steve Munitano. Get on the katsu and then go to wild swim run camp where they get women of all ages together and do swim run camps where you can not worry about your time so much because you're going to also be integrating some open water swimming. And believe me, there are women of all ages. There are definitely women in your age group. There's no indication in Bev's question

that she has any interest in swimming whatsoever. Did I mention swim run? Yeah, you did. Oh, am I not supposed to? You had to bring in swim run. It's my advice, it's my advice. You had to bring swim run into this. Even when the podcast has nothing to do with swim run,

there goes Adam bringing up swim run again. Yeah. You're just a shill for, you just a shill for big swim run. I'm saying- For the low tide boys are sending you checks. You can't do a marathon. Have you thought of swim run? That's all I'm saying.

Okay. Do we answer this question? I think we need to end this. All right, let's put a cap on it. Let's land this plane. Let's do that. How do you feel? I feel like I didn't deliver on these questions.

To be quite honest with you, but you know, it's an emotion and I'll get over it. Right, it's impermanent. Feelings are just feelings. Feelings are just feelings. These Olympics are gonna end. Do you need to take a mental health day? Do I look like I do?

That's founding, no, like, yeah, if you would like the next roll on, I get a phone call in the morning, Rich, I can't record today. I can't do it. Yeah. I can't do it, I've been, I've been journaling too much.

That feels snarky. What, I didn't say it, you said it. No, I'm reflecting on myself. Like I literally, we do need greater appreciation for the nuances of mental health in the workplace. I feel like between the two of us, you're more into the like mental health camp. I am more into the, you know,

try not to think about it camp. Yeah, it's a challenge because you do need emotional resilience. You need to develop the capacity for showing up when things are hard and you don't wanna show up. So where do you strike that balance? That's really where the question lies. I think when the Jews were wandering desert for 40 years,

there were the Kvetchers and there were the people like me that are just like, try not to think about it. I was a try not to think about it Jew I was a try not to think about it Jew. I was not a Kvetcher Jew. I was a try not to think about it Jew. That's what I am. I'm the try not to think about it Jew. A very specific type.

Subset. I'm a subset of the desert people. You don't wanna sit around and talk about it, all the permutations. Not only do I not wanna talk about it, I don't wanna hear you talk about it. No one wants to hear it anyway. All right, I don't know what we're doing.

Let's end this, all right? Listen, thank you, Adam, that was fun. Thank you. I don't know what we did today, but we did something. We wore tie dye. You did. Yes. If you would like your question answered in a haphazard and perhaps not helpful way,

leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. Show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. Links to all the stuff we talked about, like Matt Futterman's article in the New York Times, et cetera, are all on the website. You can check that out there. Dive deeper into everything we discussed today. Please hit the subscribe button on YouTube,

Apple, and Spotify, wherever you listen to the show. And that's it. Call, call, leave us some questions guys. Yeah, leave us some good ones. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Cammiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music, calendaring. I don't know, taking care of the,

like he does all kinds of stuff here. Lots of stuff. He stops people from sawing outside our doorway. He does. Yes, he's Johnny on the spot. When there's a noise outside, he runs outside and rectifies it post haste. Post haste.

Blake Curtis for videoing and editing the podcast. It's a lot of work. Thank you, Blake. He's the one who makes all of this look so cool. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Today we have- Grayson. Grayson Wilder on portraits.

Thank you, Grayson. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships. Theme music by my boys, Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate all of you. I don't take your attention for granted and I'll see you back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode.

We have Courtney DeWalters up this week, just went up. I think who's going up in a couple, I think it's Eric Adams. Really? New York City's next mayor. Incredible. Yeah, man. Runners, mayors.

All kinds of people. Bruce Friedrich, clean meat. Bruce Friedrich, out of work journalists. You get them all. All right, man. I need a two week break from you. I'll see you in two weeks. Are we in a timeout right now?

No, we're not in a timeout. Well, I guess we are in a timeout. We're gonna hit timeout and we'll see you in two weeks. I'm gonna talk to other people while we're apart. Are you? You're not allowed. That's not part of our contract. All right, man. Love you. You too, man.

Peace. Thank you. done