The Rich Roll Podcast - The Norwegian Train Gets Back On Track: Kristian Blummenfelt Unpacks Kona, The Olympics, Training, & Lessons On Resilience After Failure

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Kristian Blummenfelt is an Olympic champion, sub-7-hour Ironman record holder, and master practitioner of the Norwegian Method—a revolutionary, science-driven approach to endurance training. This conversation explores elite performance through a unique lens: an Olympic champion analyzing consecutive setbacks in Paris and Kona with methodical precision, while demonstrating extraordinary resilience by winning Frankfurt just weeks after Paris. He offers rare insight into the mind of an athlete constantly pushing the boundaries of human performance. Along the way, he reveals why losing hurts more than winning feels good. Kristian’s grace is inspiring; this conversation is a masterclass in championship character. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors:  Eight Sleep: use code RICHROLL to get $600 OFF your Pod 4 Ultra purchase when bundled 👉eightsleep.com/richroll Momentous: 20% OFF all of my favorite products  👉livemomentous.com/richroll OneSkin: Get 15% off with code RICHROLL 👉 oneskin.co On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉on.com/richroll Squarespace: Use the offer code RichRoll to save 10% off your first purchase  👉Squarespace.com/RichRoll Bon Charge: Use code RICHROLL to save 15% OFF 👉boncharge.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

As someone who puts in a lot of time, a lot of effort into optimizing health and performance, I really thought that I had sleep dialed in. And then I was introduced to the 8Sleep Pod 4 Ultra, and it just took my rest and my recovery to an entirely new level. The Pod 4 Ultra is basically this high-tech mattress cover that transforms your existing bed into like this sleep optimization powerhouse. And it does it through temperature regulation, which you can set anywhere between 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, which you can vary at different stages over the course of the night

while you sleep, as well as elevation control, which is also crucial for quality sleep. The longer you use it, the more it learns about your sleep rhythms to optimize the impact of temperature and elevation on improved restfulness. It's so effective at this, clinical studies show that the Pod4 Ultra can increase quality sleep duration by up to one hour nightly, which is huge. It also tracks sleep stages, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate. And it does it all without any wearables. It's like a sleep coach with a personal thermostat and also this advanced fitness tracker all in one.

So if you're ready to revolutionize your sleep, head to 8sleep.com slash richroll and use code richroll to get up to $600 off your Pod 4 Ultra purchase when bundled. This offer will only be valid until December 14. So hurry up, everybody. I'm telling you, of all of the things that I've done to upgrade my sleep, the 8Sleep really has made a gigantic difference in the quality of my life. I can't recommend it enough. So valid until December 14. Use the code RICHROLL at checkout. We're brought to you today by Bon Charge. So I'm turning 58 in October, and I've spent much of my time, most of my life in the sun without much thought about skincare whatsoever. And around 50, I kind of hit this moment where I had a wake-up call and realized like, hey, I better start to,

you know, attend to this if I want to retain my youthful appearance. And that's when I discovered the benefits of red light therapy. And Bond Charge has an amazing array of these red light therapy. And Bon Charge has an amazing array of these red light therapy products. They use technology that uses low wavelength light to penetrate the skin. And what it does is it stimulates cells in the mitochondria. In turn, this increases collagen production, it improves circulation, it helps with wrinkle repair,

and ends up promoting firmer, more youthful looking skin, which I can personally attest to. My favorite among their lineup of products is Boncharge's Innovative Face Mask. It's portable. It's easy to use. You can travel with it. And just 10 to 12 minutes per session is all you need to start seeing results. Everything about it is just simple. There's no messy creams. There's no endless product bottles or subscription services.

It's straightforward. It's travel friendly. Plus, all Bond Charge products are HSA and FSA eligible, potentially saving you up to 40% with tax-free purchases. Are you ready to elevate your wellness journey?

Of course you are. So go to bondcharge.com slash richroll. That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E dot com slash richroll. Use code richroll at checkout for 15% off their entire range of wellness tools. My slogan on my bike, it's, it hurts more to lose. When I've won a race, it's often more like, yeah, it's great. But if I lose a race like now in Kona, then it's so much worse than the joy I would have had. Christian Blumenfeld is hands down one of the most extraordinary endurance athletes on the planet.

At the very front, the reigning Olympic champion, Christian Blumenfeld of Norway. After winning Olympic gold in Tokyo, this Norwegian powerhouse has dominated long course triathlon, winning world championships in both half and full Ironman distances, and setting a slew of records along the way. I think it's important to not be afraid of jumping into new stuff. Like, the biggest reason why they may be being nervous for the race is because they are nervous to fail.

But 2024 brought unexpected challenges. Yeah, yesterday didn't work, but we will, of course, use this disappointing race to come back, because this is not how we want to race. Following a disappointing defense of his Olympic title in Paris, Christian nonetheless headed to Kona as the odds-on favorite to win another Ironman World Championship, only to falter, finishing a disappointing 35th.

I want to showcase that it's possible to come down again from arm and distance, because now the project has sort of been a failure, and I do want to come back again and show that it is possible. So what happened? And where does Triathlon's most celebrated star go from here? Is there truth behind the rumors that he's considering a switch to pro cycling? Well, today we span the distance in a swim, bike, run conversation about adaptability, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. I got to give you credit for

finishing. I think it's good to finish what you have started. You have hundreds of excuses to just pull out. But I think for your own sake, it's important to finish it. Lots of people are curious about your training methods. And we're going to talk a little bit about that today. But first of all, welcome to New York City. We're in a studio away from my home studio, and I appreciate you taking the time to do this today. We're recording this right on the heels of Kona.

So I think that's probably the best place to begin. First of all, like, how are you doing? How are you feeling? Physically doing okay. Yeah. But mentally, that was a tough one. Yeah. So yeah, Kona is the world championship in the Ironman.

And since, so this year I've had mixed focus, both with Olympic in Paris, trying to defend my title, which didn't go with success. And then straight after that, I tried to come back for the Ironman World Championship and I had one good race straight after Paris with the European Championship in Frankfurt which a very good race caught me with quite a big surprise like two weeks after the mixed relay in Paris I was able to win that race on a good time and I felt quite strong

and then had like eight weeks of preparation for Kona and wanted to sort of get revenge from the third place two years ago. And in the race, I was there and there or there about on the swim, first pack together with the guys I need to be with. And had Sam Lidlow pushing quite hard on the bike in the beginning. So he got six minutes two years ago to me and I wasn't able to close him down, but he

was putting pressure on quite early. And I was riding in that main pack, as you can call it, with maybe 15 or 20 guys with like 12, 15 meters gap in between each other. So it's saving quite a lot of being in the group. But then I was waiting for Magnus Dittlev, the Danish guy, to fly by. And I was trying to catch his wheel or follow me just behind. And that happened maybe after 30k um or 20 miles or something and then uh i was thinking that that was my ticket to the front again of the race and uh i just hit the wall

after i got dropped from him after maybe 50k and then after 60k uh yeah, I picked up everything I got in on the bike. You created a viral moment, Christian. Yeah, I think it was somewhere around after like mile 31 or so where you started to get into trouble, started throwing up, not just throwing up, like projectile vomiting repeatedly, I think eight times in a row or something like that. projectile vomiting repeatedly, I think eight times in a row or something like that. So prior to that, though, your swim went well, you're in the pack, you're moving forward, you're being strategic. And everything leading up to this race was a green light, right? Like, expectations were high. You know, you weren't just expected to perform, there a lot of you know expectation around around winning and by all accounts your training was on point and you were feeling good and and everything was lined

up for you to execute on that goal so here we are you're throwing up things are starting to go wrong uh what's going through your mind in that moment first First, then I thought, okay, now it's plan B. It's only two guys up front. So then I can still go for the more careful way of racing, going back into the group and trying to stay with them on the way from the turning point and all the way back into downtown. And yeah, saving quite a lot of energy on being in that group or being on the tail end of it. So I then tried to recover a little bit,

get the nutrition back in because we're doing quite high numbers of calps. Like it's 150, 160 grams per hour. Yeah, I mean, that was my question around, I mean, like vomiting is nothing new for you. I mean, I think in Frankfurt, you were throwing up as well. You still threw down like a 232 marathon

or something like that, but there was some throwing up involved. Like, is this just gastric distress or is it more a function of testing the outer limits of the number of calories that your body can absorb? I think it's neither of those. I think it's actually something with the throat, like reaction and like reflex coming there. So like irritation in the throat itself, then the stomach and further down the system.

So I'm not really sure what it is, but so I thought it since I didn't believe it was anything with the stomach. So as long as I got more nutrition down again, and as long as I was able to observe that, I thought I would be fine. So yeah, I just started like getting, following the same race plan. And I had another bottle up at Javi at the turning point.

So I could get like those extra grams that I thought I lost by puking it up. And I also had some emergency gels on the bike in case I lost a bottle or something. So I think it was more like a reaction in the throat than being on that upper limit. And no sense of what's causing that? I will have to figure it out.

Yeah. I mean, the Norwegian method should be pouring a lot of energy into figuring that out yeah right so i've been struggling a little bit with the throat since st george 2022 like the 2021 world championship after that dry air so um i'm normally i'm either just like getting it up before the race i and feeling like getting a little moisture in the throat or yeah, it's more like a reflex than the stomach itself. So been used to it in training, but normally it's not the camera filming straight up

in the action. Yeah, well, nonetheless, I mean, despite your struggles on the bike, you still came into T2 in fairly decent position. I mean, you were ahead of patrick longa at that point i think still right um so you know what happened when you got out onto the queen k and started started trying to run yeah so i had like 20 seconds i think on patrick and uh was almost nine minutes from uh sam did, who was really smashing the bike.

And I did get a little bit cooked on the way back on the bike as well. I felt it the last hour maybe, but I was hoping that the legs would feel okay coming onto the run in. He drive first. So first it's like eight, nine K, six, seven miles before coming up to the Queen K again. And I was running there for first a battle for potentially being in the fight for the podium. And Patrik just flew by me quite easily. I had no chance of staying with him, even though I was struggling quite badly two years ago as well.

I was struggling quite badly two years ago as well when I was trying to stay with Max Newman and Gustav. I just tried to stay with Patrik. And from having to let him go, I tried to readjust my goal and look at the third place, getting time splits to him instead. But then I just ran out of energy after. Yeah. 8, 9K and looking down on the watch and seeing 11K done and 31K to go and it's survival mode is. So then it just went slower and slower and a long day. Yeah, I think your your marathon split was something like 332

or something like that, which is basically an hour slower than you ran in Frankfurt. But I gotta give you credit for finishing. It would have been very easy and I don't think anybody would have blinked if you just decided to pull out. But the fact that you were somebody who was laden with all of these expectations to win and those hopes being dashed still like, okay, I'm going to complete this marathon,

even though it sucks. And, you know, I got to have to eat a little bit of humble pie. I think it's good for the future and for your own mind to, as long as you don't get more injured, like if you're injuring yourself and it's going to cost you for a year or so to just push through, I think it's good to finish what you have started. Even though, as you said, you have hundreds of excuses to just pull out. But I think for your own sake, it's important to finish it.

And it's going to be, it's like the learning there. It's going to hopefully be helping me coming back for next year. Well, we're only a couple days out from that performance but do you have a sense of what went wrong like knowing that your prep was in a good place going into it like you know what can you point to that you can fix we might have traveled a bit too late to kona, like 15 days before the race.

Maybe we should have added in another week for the heat training. Maybe we should have done a little bit more of the training in Alhi Drive, maybe with a little bit more humidity instead of staying out at Waikoloa where it was maybe a little bit more drier.

Could also have been the training structure and not enough specificity going into the race. And could also be in the bike position. We worked a lot on the aerodynamic side

since the Olympics going into Kona, but maybe I wasn't able to get the final position early enough. So I should maybe have adapted the position earlier to be in the right, close enough to the ending position two weeks before or three weeks before than what I did. Yeah, changing your bike position at the last minute. I know that much was said and written about Gustav changing his position into this sort of Superman position that looks very extreme. Your position, whatever changes you made didn't quite look so drastic, but any change has to be sort of a serious thing that you take into consideration and isn't typically the kind of thing that you would do

right before a world championship. No, but you got to learn as well. I think when you're doing it in a race, you're really learning for next time. But yeah, I think it was maybe a position that was great on the CDA side of it or better on the CDA side of it. And then maybe we didn't have enough time to validate it compared to like the power I'm able to produce and the comfort,

but like in the shoulder and in back, it felt comfortable enough, but maybe it wasn't solid enough in terms of power above race pace and maybe not solid enough in terms of staying there over time. But I did like four hours race space up in Flagstaff on the same position and I run quite easily off it. Maybe I have to pull a little bit further backwards, like back with the elbows

and maybe like a centimeter or two, a little bit higher and see what's the cost of that on the CDI side. But maybe I'm getting a little bit more power then. Yeah, well, across the board, the bike splits this year were insane. Five guys went under the course record that was, when Sam Laidlaw said it, everybody thought it was an insane record.

Sam broke that record by like seven minutes, I think. And you were, even despite all your difficulties, you were still within a minute of the old bike course record. So the bike splits were really fast this year. Is that because, I mean, it was cooler in the morning, right, it was overcast. What, or was there no wind going into Javi?

Or, you know, how do you make sense of why everyone was so fast this year on the bike? I think it's a lot of different. There was a lot of strong guys on the bike, like stronger guys both from the front and also from behind who could push the pace. And also, condition was great. It wasn't much wind up at Javi. And it was a tiny bit of headwind coming down on Queen K.

But then, because we were such a large group I think the people behind was almost able to sort of just rest and stay and change of change a bit of the guy who was in the front and then being able to still like let the train go at a decent pace and I think that's also where we were catching a little bit on magnus as a group we were sort of sharing a bit more the workload while he and sam laid low was both separated and having to do all the work themselves and also of course like all the equipment is getting more aerodynamic like it's getting more slim and the more that this can test, the easier it is to make those changes. You weren't the only one who ran into difficulty this year.

It was kind of a shit show, right? Other than Patrick Longa, who just laid down a masterclass and deservedly won the race with an extraordinary performance, all the other names that everyone was talking about, like all had similar issues, right? Like all the big names were in difficulty this year. And I think it speaks to what's so unique about Kona.

Like no matter how experienced you are, whether you've won it before, it doesn't matter. Like Kona is its own thing. And even the best, the most experienced, the most talented, the most well-prepared athletes run into issues they just don't run into in other races. Usually it's the fourth discipline, it's nutrition related, right?

And on some level, whether it's your throat or whatever's going on with you, it does seem related to nutrition or the relationship between nutrition and heat and humidity. And the thing now it's two years until next time you try it around. I know. So in one way, you just want to tackle the challenge again and just do whatever you can to perform there and sort of get revenge next year.

Uh, but now we have nice, completely different course, very hilly. And of course, that's probably a significant dryer as well. And it's requiring a different skill set, especially on the bike with the technical aspect of it. So yeah, we will have to wait another two years before we can get that revenge from that island and uh yeah trying to figure out what went wrong but like also like I have the both me and Gustav we have the great experience from two years ago so it's not like we feel like we have no clue of what's need to be done right right right it's more like uh finding back to what we did back then and uh comparing it to what has been done this year. And of course the level is increasing as well, but I think, uh, yeah. What was interesting about 2022 was that many people told you and Gustav

going into that race, like, Hey, your first time in Kona, you know, you gotta temper your expectations. Everybody's first time doesn't go well. And both of you had extraordinary races. And you're like, I don't know what everyone's talking about. Like that's just some kind of myth, right? But both of you got a heavy dose of that this time. You just got it on the second time around, not the first.

Yeah, that's true. So, but like Gustav had a very different lead up to me, like he's been struggling for two years. So I think just the fact that he was fit enough in order to be on the start line, even though he had a very tough day still, shows that he's on the right path in order to come back from this. Like he hasn't been able to run a marathon in basically in two years. So now he's finally there. We can do it in training at least. And then he's then, we can then build on from that and hopefully get ready for 25

while I just maybe went a little too hard on the bike. I should have played a different, played my car differently, a little bit like Potlick. I should have stayed a little bit more in the group and trusted my run instead of feeling that the guys are front and following their race strategy. Right, getting too caught up in what everyone else is doing. Yeah. you caught up in what everyone else is doing. Yeah. During the holiday season, I often pause in gratitude to appreciate life's essentials,

one of which is good health and health span, something I'm always working to extend as I age up, which now that I just turned 58 includes taking much better care of my skin, which is, I admit, something I've overlooked for far too long, but now I'm deeply invested in and why my gratitude today extends to today's sponsor, One Skin. I do my homework, as you know, and the One Skinkin routine and line of products stands out because it doesn't just mask aging. It works at the cellular level, courtesy of its active ingredient, an evidence-based peptide called OSO1 that clinical studies have scientifically proven to reduce senescent cells by up to 50%. To celebrate the holidays, OneSkin has introduced their limited edition holiday bundle featuring

travel sizes of OS01 Face, OS01 Eye, and OS01 Body, all in this chic leatherette bag. It's the perfect gift, but you may want to keep this one for yourself. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. OneSkin addresses skin health at the molecular level, targeting the root causes of aging so skin behaves, feels, and appears younger. It's time to get started with your new face, eye, and body routine at a discount rate today. Get 15% off with the code RICHROLL at oneskin.co. That's 15% off at oneskin.co with the code RICHROLL. After you purchase, they'll ask you about where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

We only have one body, one skin, and only you can choose to make it better. Age healthy with one skin as a long time vegan i've learned to pay close attention to not only the amount of my protein intake but the quality and in my experience many plant-based protein supplements out there are just over processed they're full of additives which is why i favor momentous unlike other plant-based proteins momentous's formula is third-party tested for heavy metals and made from a 70 30 ratio of p to rice protein to provide a complete amino acid profile with excellent mixability and taste no fillers no additives What you see on the label is just exactly what

you get. And what you get is exactly what's used by over 90% of NFL teams, Tour de France champs, and Olympians. The pros and elites favor Momentous for the same reasons I do. And because Momentous is third-party tested for purity and formulated in collaboration with the pros and other leading experts. So if you're like me and you want to take supplements that are made by and used by the best in the world, go to livemomentus.com slash richroll to save up to 36% off your first subscription order of protein or creatine. And if you don't want to subscribe, you can still get 20% off all my favorite products. That's livemomentous.com slash richroll. Well, for people that don't follow triathlon closely, just so you're aware, Christian is the Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medalist in triathlon, who then quickly transitioned to half Ironman

and Ironman distances. You won the Ironman World Championship in St. George. You won the Half Ironman World Championship. I think you still have like the fastest ever Half Ironman time recorded. Similarly for Ironman, I think. Is that true? I mean, you've won so many races,

I can't keep track of it. Depends on the courses and how you count them. Right. The point is like you made this transition from Olympic distance to Ironman distance, basically won everything there is to win. You and Gustav, your training partner and friend. And as a result of this,

much was made of this relationship that you have with your coach, Olav, who has been on the podcast as have you and Gustav, and the Norwegian method, right? Which, you know, to sort of make a long story short is a very science-based, evidence-based approach to training in which all kind of variables are evaluated scientifically

to extract optimal performance on a day-to-day training basis. And then of course, in the context of racing. And as a result of your and Gustav's success, everyone's studying this, everyone's talking about it. And for a period of time, the proof was in the pudding. You were winning everything, right? And then you make this audacious attempt

to go back down to Olympic distance racing and defend your gold medal at the Paris 2024 Games. That didn't exactly go to plan. So why don't we talk a little bit about Paris? Yeah. So why don't we talk a little bit about Paris? Yeah. So I think straight after Kona two years ago,

we went for the half-Armenian World Championship in St. George again, which I won. And from there on, we went directly into the project, going back again to the Olympics in Paris. So as it is, it was two years qualification period. We were already like then almost five or 10 months late for the qualification, but we started chasing the points. So we turned up at the World Series race in Bermuda already by the end of 2022. And I think I finished like sixth or something there

so surprisingly high up there compared to the training i've done or did in the past year and a half and from that point i think we were all all quite optimistic and confident that the journey back to Olympic distance would be not easy, but definitely doable. And from there, I would say it didn't went as smoothly forward as expected. So we did another race, WWE, Grand Final, by the end of 2022. I think I was still there or thereabouts, like I was fifth or sixth or seventh, or maybe around seventh. And I felt like I was just missing that little gear. And with like a year and a half of training, I would definitely be able to close that gap. But then with all the races I did in 2023, I was more or less than, I was like 50, 60 seconds basically too slow on the run in order to be competitive

to race. And I was maybe getting a little bit worse in the water compared to what I was coming into Tokyo. So we knew that I had to do like a big improvement on the run coming back again for the Olympic season. And also I had to lift my swimming capabilities and maybe even sacrifice a little bit of my bike skills because in 2023 I was producing like all time good bike splits or bike power, but run and swim was maybe not where it needed to be.

And yeah, started the 2024 season and that was basically the same sort of distance to the best guys, a minute off the pace. On the run. On the run. Yeah. And that's also where I ended up in Paris. So going into Paris, your expectations were tempered based upon kind of knowing that, right? Like maybe you lack that running speed that you were going to need to be on the podium we tried to do something with it so when i did the first races of 2024 and i saw that the gap was still 50 60 seconds too slow then we changed the run volume and basically increased

the intensity and the case with 50 on the run to get like a big boost on the legs for the last five or six weeks going into the games. And I felt I was responding pretty well on the running I did up in Fontenot. And I thought that if I'm coming down to sea level now before the games and feeling that If I'm coming down to sea level now before the games and feeling that boost of oxygen again coming down from altitude and if my running is on point, then I'm still having a chance. But coming to thirsty for the sea level camp and doing my first couple of brick sessions, I think deep inside I knew that this pace isn't good enough like compared to what i've done

in the past uh i was expecting to run faster and but again like you always try to trick yourself and tell yourself that you have a chance but maybe i thought that uh it's the chance is getting smaller and smaller with the pace i'm running yeah well. Well, it's a lot easier to go from Olympic distance to Ironman than it is to go from Ironman back down. And while as you age, you can continue to kind of increase your endurance capacity, speed is much harder to continue to develop and fades more easily, especially with age.

And once you kind of let go of that speed work, and then you're in the long distance world to come back and recapture it. I mean, I think that's why a lot of people were like, wow, that's, it's a lot harder than I think most people who don't intimately understand that world, uh, would imagine it to be. But I think also my feeling from Paris is that we maybe did some mistakes on the training the last year going into the game. So it's maybe too much focused on building that capacity and stretching out sessions too much instead of simplifying it more and working more around like the 30, 40 minutes of workload. Well, the fact that you went and won Frankfurt two weeks after Parrish, it's like clearly you were doing

a lot of more kind of endurance-based work than maybe you needed because you wouldn't have been able to perform that well. Yeah. That's not right. That was for me more like a blinking sign of, yeah, we did a mistake. There's some kind of miscalculation there.

So you think you can still, you have that speed. It was more like training error. I think so. I think I can, I'm not that old that I can't get back to the speed that it was required to in Paris. It was more mistakes we did and build up and like the, what we were prioritizing. Right. and like the uh what we were prioritizing uh right and uh it didn't help um not that this applied you know this applied to everyone who who was racing not just you but you know the whole kind

of sen paris you know sort of situation was a bit of a disaster yeah that was a strange one as well like uh coming to our games and uh it feels like the course is not even ready. Like in that sense, like you- Not only that, you don't know when you're gonna race. So every day it was sort of, they wouldn't even let you, they kept changing when you could even get into kind of, you know, practice in, you know, on the course. Right, it was all dependent on measuring the toxins in the water or whatever,

and that would change every day. And then you think you would get it and that would rain and then they'd say no. And then the day you were supposed to race, you show up like really early, right? And they call it off. You're getting an email like four o'clock in the morning or something. Yeah. Or middle of night. And then when you wake up for the race quite early,

then you see the email that race is postponed another day. So- That plays serious mind games. So, but like in that situation, you just try to think that it's the same for everyone. It's not gonna- But the next day, the day that you raced, that morning it was raining.

Yeah. I woke up that morning it was raining. I woke up that morning and I thought, there's no way these guys are racing today. There's no way they're gonna let them race. And that was the day that they let you race. But they pushed it back too. You ended up like going in like later,

like 10 45 or something. Yeah, so that was because it was the women's day of racing. So they raced on the rain. And I think because of the the rain then then normally the water gets dirty like two days after or like a day or two days after because then it comes like down from the uh from the city so uh the water itself should have been clean on that day but it's more like to race later on on the day as well like Like it, then it's more, it's warmer, especially on the run. And,

uh, uh, maybe Hayden wild would have taken it if it was earlier in the morning, like he was getting cooked out there. So, um, yeah, you know,

not, you never know how it would have ended up, uh, upfront, but I do think the podium would have been the same, same guys. Like how did your, how did your throat do it with,

with the sand water? Did you throw up in that race? Actually not. I was actually okay. Really? Did anyone get sick? I think there was a few athletes who got sick, but you don't know if it's the food they've been eating

or if they've gone out. But I haven't looked at the numbers since the water, if it was clean or not. But the strange thing, I think it takes 24 hours to get the measurements from the water. So the numbers we're using in terms of getting green light for racing, it's the numbers from the day before. Oh, I didn't know that.

And then it's like estimation of how it's going to be the next day. Oh, that's not good. I mean, it was ambitious and sort of a cool idea four years ago when they decided like, hey, this is what we want to do, but they just couldn't really pull it off. And you guys were the ones who had to pay the price for that, unfortunately. It was an epic course. It was a great occasion, but again, maybe not a course that was secured and ready for the Olympic Games. But from what I understand, LA 2028 is in your sights. Like you want to go back. Is this true? I haven't decided yet.

This is what all the articles are saying. I haven't decided yet, but with that feeling coming off Paris and thinking that I'm not too old, but it was more mistakes done. And of course, I want to showcase that it's possible to come down again from arm and distance. Because now with the 12th place from Paris, I would say like the coming down from arm and distance Olympic distance project has sort of been a failure. And I do want to of course come back again to show that it is possible. 13 days after Paris, you're in Frankfurt and you tow the line at, you know, this legendary Ironman race, but you have no expectations. You're not even, you're just there kind of, like you're there to race,

but I don't think that you, from what I understand, like we're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to, you know, uncork some kind of amazing performance. And yet you have this unbelievable performance that I think sort of allowed everybody to kind of put your Paris performance in the rear view mirror and say, oh, whatever you might've thought about, you know,

Christian not being at his best, think again, like this guy's for real, look what he just did when all he's been doing is training for Olympic distance, which leads me to believe that you're somebody who performs well in the wake of disappointment, but this year for the first time ever, you've had two kind of very large disappointments. So how do you, like from just sort of a sports psychologist, mental health perspective,

like manage the disappointment and all the expectations that went into your most recent last two performances? I think it's important to, yeah, like to have that conversation with yourself and like being honest with yourself and not coming up with too many excuses and just think about everything that's been done. And what I do is often like I write it down on the phone and just like looking through what I think was the reason what I think I could have done differently and using it for motivation for the future like of course it hurts to

lose the Olympic title to someone else and to to look at the pictures now from Kona of everyone on the podium. And I was still on Queen K when they finished the race. But I think it's important to talk and have honest reflections with the team and with Gustav and with Ola and leaving nothing. Yeah, we will talk about everything when we get back home with uh gustav and we love and do those reflections and making a plan for how we can come back because yeah all of all of us are both agree and hungry that we are not supposed to be that far down on the result list. What did Olaf say to you after Kona? He was wondering mostly what I was thinking, like what was happening on the bike with the puking

and what I thought was the reasons for getting cooked on the run. But we haven't spent too much time talking about it yet. We will have a longer talk when we get back to Bergen. Yeah. It's not a easy puzzle, is it? Like the way that you and Gustav train with Olav is so measured. You know, everything that you guys do is a function of science on some level, right? And so for you to say, well, we made a miscalculation here or we don't quite know why this didn't work here is curious and interesting, right?

Because of all people, I would feel like, well, you guys know exactly what happened or you and Gustav are the last people to kind of make an unforced error. you and Gustav are the last people to kind of make an unforced error. But also how we often do these reflections is that we often first sit down and do like over the phone or like we have like in different parts. And then we have like maybe a week break or like we're all like thinking about the point the other we're coming with and then coming back again and doing another evaluation of the process and what we think could have changed like if you have changed any opinions of what have been happening yeah so we have had like the first round now on the phone while we were in kona and then

we will have a deeper one when we get back to bergen. Of all the unique methods that you guys deploy in your training, what do you think has had the most impact? Is it the constant lactate testing? Is it altitude training? Is it heat acclimation? Is it some of the technology that you guys are always experimenting with? Is it your relationship with volume and intensity is it metabolic efficiency can you point to any one thing that you think has moved the needle the most i think it's high like being able to tolerate a very high training load and then to be able to do that you obviously need to have control over the training like intensity control that has maybe been the key and being able to observe it like the training absorb the travel different yeah yeah I think I

read that you have the highest recorded vo2 max of all time that's like not not not by weight right like total in aggregate like per per milliliter it's like 7.7 but that's also where i think we went wrong coming into paris like when i had that high enough numbers in december january i should have been able to perform better in paris eight months later so then again if i can get David Max up to those numbers coming back from long distance, then I also think I should have performed better in the 2024 season. So then I think also how we've been utilizing that engine maybe been wrong in the training because I was running

well in December, January, but it's maybe a parallelization I've maybe been a bit off. To what do you account your ability to put in such a huge training load and also absorb it? How do you

measure that so that you're not over training and you're always able to kind of absorb the training that you're putting in the easiest way i think is every week just being aware of how the training is feeling like it's about feeling if you're absorbing the training or not like if you're getting more hammered on your thursday track session than you were the week before then maybe you have had a tough week and you can still push through then if it goes like two or three weeks in a row and you feel like the numbers not going in the right direction and you're just slowly digging yourself in a hole then i think it's time to slow back a little bit like either cut

down some of the track sessions or like some of the intensive sessions by maybe 80% and also doing it pace-wise a little bit more carefully to get that energy back. Do you ever have total rest days where you don't do anything? Yeah. Those are the podcasting days. That's the podcasting days and the sponsorship days. So then certainly it's not an easy day still. But if I feel very fatigued, then maybe I will just go out for a walk and then come back again for the next day. Is it harder now to maintain your focus because people always want you to, like, you have media obligations and you have sponsor obligations and your life is a lot, you know, kind of in a good way, like busier than it was when you embarked upon this journey.

And balancing all of that has to have, you know, a certain place in order for you to kind of maintain your focus on why you're even here in the first place? I think yes and no. Of course it takes energy. But when you're feeling that everything just is happening in a tailwind, everything just goes smoothly, then it's easy to do a full shoot for sponsors and interviews and being committed around extra training around the races. But of course, when you're getting more fatigued and you feel the training is getting a little bit worse, then it's also easier to be a little bit more like blaming it on that as well.

But I feel I'm having quite sponsors who's really understanding the situation and also understand that the main thing is to perform at races. So they try to balance it out. So it's I think it's important that we as an athlete also understand that the brands that you're signing up with, they also need a value from you. Sure. So it's a give and take. So when I feel I'm having energy to do that you're signing up with, they also need a value from you. So it's a give and take.

So when I feel I'm having energy to do trips, like extra trip for a sponsor, like visiting their HQ or something like that, then I try to put it in because I also know that that's giving me goodwill when I'm tired again, when I'm feeling to say no for any obligations and just want to focus on the training and the race. So both going into Paris and going into Kona, we were minimizing the noise from that. We're brought to you today by ON.

Being a gearhead, I'm all about testing the latest sports tech. But you know what often gets overlooked? Apparel. Apparel is crucial to performance, and that's why I was blown away by the folks at On's Swiss Labs. Their cutting-edge approach from sustainability to precision testing for performance enhancement is next level. It is truly Swiss innovation at its best.

Visit on.com slash richroll. That's on.com slash richroll. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-you-need, all-in-one platform that helps entrepreneurs and creators stand out and succeed online. It's a digital world, everybody, and having a strong presence online is not just important, it's absolutely crucial, which is why I'm really excited about Squarespace's new design intelligence feature. It's kind of like having a personal design expert, combining decades of design know-how with cutting-edge AI to help you create a website that truly reflects your vision. What I find equally impressive is Squarespace Payments.

This function has revolutionized how to handle transactions online. You can start accepting payments quickly and easily with options like Apple Pay and Afterpay that are built right in. And it's just perfect for those of us who want flexibility without the hassle. Also, let us not forget about getting found online. That is important. And Squarespace has addressed this with powerful SEO tools that automatically optimize your site with meta descriptions and site maps. It's all about helping you reach the right audience,

especially if you're not a tech wizard. Curious? Head on over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, visit squarespace.com slash richroll to save 10% on your first purchase. I know you haven't had like a full sit down with Olav yet to kind of deconstruct, you know, what went right and what went wrong this year. But do you have a sense in the back of your mind, like, here's what I'm going to change

or here's the main thing that I think didn't work right that we need to adjust? I think we should have done more higher intensity going into Paris, as an example. Like it was done too much threshold and maybe too much extensive work of threshold. That's maybe costing too much of the total energy for the week. So the time that's required to rest after the session is too long. the time that's required to rest after the session is too long. And I'm sort of just feeling like I'm getting very efficient just around threshold, but maybe it's been stretched out too much so I can almost stay there for quite a long time.

But then suddenly the threshold numbers get lower and lower and lower instead of being able to lift it up from by making easier sessions like simplifying it and working around that 30 to 40 minutes intensity instead of stretching it up to 60 to 80 or even two hours. But going into 2025, you're not looking to

continue in the Olympic triathlon world, right? It's still the Arman, yeah, but I still think I need to improve the power around the V2 Max and then engine there and then coming back again to working on the capacity. So I think also the tweaks have been looking a little bit too much similar

instead of having a little bit more prioritization between having a volume phase and then a building up phase and then more like intense day yeah so i think uh having cleaner structures there and maybe also spend a bit too much time in altitude because then you artificially also brings down the intensity a bit while we could have taken advantage of maybe skipping the we could have taken advantage of maybe skipping the January camp in altitude and maybe doing it at sea level instead and then having more, yeah, artificial higher pace on the sessions. Yeah, and maybe showing up in Kona

a week earlier than you did this year. Yeah. Yeah. Although Lionel was there for like forever, it felt like before. But he didn't have the best day either. Yeah, so we were in Flagstaff for a month before we went to Kona. And it was good temperature,

it was getting quite warm there at some days, but it's very dry warm, so it's not, it doesn't... No, it's the humidity, yeah, you need that. But if you're there too early, it starts to wear you down. It can make you tired. So maybe I didn't have a hard, like a tough enough session in the heat going into the race. Like I never felt like I was really hitting the basements heat-wise

before the race. Yeah. And maybe it would have been good to. Do you think that they'll, Ironman will go back to having the men's and the women's race in Kona? Yeah. The same weekend rather than,

I mean, this was all a product of COVID, right? The fact that they separated it initially and there's something great about it because the women deserve to have the attention on them when they're racing. And sometimes that doesn't always happen when, you know, the race is the, in the same place at the same weekend. Um, but Kona is its own thing, right?

It's, it is the home of the Ironman world championships. And I do feel like it should return there for everybody. Yeah, it's definitely, that was definitely the vibes from the army crew and the people there that they want to get it back to only be in Kona for the future. But as an athlete, I do think it's great to have both letting the women having their own day. And because it's something to be racing first on course versus being the first female on course. I think that's great when they have the 70-point race on two different days. Then it's also at the same location, but at two different days. Because then the women's race doesn't get affected by the guys either up front or the age groupers coming and catching them.

Or the pros being dropped. Yeah. So, but it was definitely the vibe that people want to only have it in Kona. Even though some pros like myself, I think it's great to go to Nice. Like it's a beautiful place. It's incredible. Yeah. But it's just not the right place for that race.

Yeah. You know. Yeah, but it's just not the right place for that race. Yeah. You know, but for the foreseeable future, your focus is purely on Ironman racing and half Ironman racing. Yeah, I think for now it's Nice next year, which might be the last time it's Nice

and then it's Kona in 2026. And then we will see what's- After that, no comment on after that. Well, I bring this up because I don't know if you know, but there's been a lot of rumors about you perhaps dipping your toe into professional cycling. When this rumor first surfaced, there was like a lot of discourse around it,

but it was validated, at least in the press when Olaf said, "'Yes, this is our plan.'" This was back in July. "'Christian is going to enter the world "'of professional cycling with a very ambitious goal, "'which was to contend initially at the Tour de France "'and by,' I don't know, I think he said like 2027, be in the mix for a jersey. Now this is an even bolder claim

than going from winning an Olympic gold medal to winning Ironman and back. And a lot of hands have been rung over this, right? In July, he said, this is gonna happen with 90% certainty. I know this is no longer the case, you've shifted gears, but I kind of wanna talk about this a little bit. I'm curious, cause I don't know if you or Olaf have ever shared much about the impetus of this idea.

How did this idea even, you know, kind of occur to you guys, let alone become this thing that you were entertaining seriously? It was more like we were looking at opportunities to see how, like, yeah, what's the opportunities. You're being very guarded right now. It's okay, man.

So for them, like it didn't help with the performances in Paris. And I also wanted to leave triathlon on, yeah, with a good performance and not just. Had you won the gold medal in Paris, would you be now officially a professional bike racer? I think so. Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of cool actually. But I thought like it is, as you're only living once, you also want to take the chances you can like, and not be afraid of taking new challenges and um but then also uh i also want to finish off well in triathlon yeah and uh so is this is this a possibility for a later year that you're kind of just you know sort of keeping dormant for now that you might revisit? I think it was either now or never, because like if I do it after LA, it will be 34.

And that's quite- That's pretty late. That's like four years even later. And it was, yeah, with, I thought it was a great idea to- I kind of wish you were doing this, because I just great idea to give it all. I kind of wish you were doing this because I just would like to see it. I would like to watch how this would unfold.

I think it would be fascinating. Physically, you don't present like a professional cyclist. These guys weigh like 125 pounds or whatever. They just look different, right? And you present differently. You're a stockier athlete, but you also come packaged with this insane VO2 max. Like you have the ability to put in giant volume, absorb the training. So the physiological capacity is there. The question then becomes, you know, can he learn

how to, you know, handle his bike properly under pressure? Can he descend? You know, it's dangerous. How do you ride in a Peloton? There's a lot of other things that, that these guys learn over many years through experience, right, that you would have to then learn quickly. And that presents its own challenges.

It's a complete different ride in a group with triathletes to the World Tour, but I think- Real cyclists don't like riding with triathletes, like in the group ride. But like, yeah, I think like the engine is like my strength and being able to tolerate like a high volume over not just days, but weeks, I think also would have been my strength, but it's a.

A lot of people have a lot of opinions about this. But I did read, I think it was Victor Campenarts, who you guys now professional cyclist, who was singing your praises and saying like, I think you should do this. I love it. Like, I think Netflix should make a documentary about this. It's fascinating. It would be so cool to see what would happen if you really went for that completely. Obviously that's parallel universe. You're doing something differently.

But I think the fact that you even, not only just entertained this as, you know, kind of a switch in your career, but actually like we're making plans to, you know, kind of a switch in your career, but actually like we're making plans to, you know, move in that direction speaks to, it speaks to mindset, like a, like a sort of growth mindset, like a malleable mindset, like what is possible? Like, yes, I do this well, but like, why don't I, yes, I won the Olympic gold, but what would happen if we went over here? What would happen if we would go back? And, and you go back? And you're the man in the arena.

And it's easy to like criticize that person when things don't go right, but you're the one who's out there trying to do something that no one's ever done. And I think that gets missed in, you know, the discussion around kind of your career arc. Yeah, I think it's important to not be afraid of taking the challenge and like jumping into new stuff.

And often people, like even when they're standing on the start line in the race they've been preparing for, like the biggest reason why they may be being nervous for the race is because they are nervous to fail and i think that's been uh or strength uh in this whole project like we jumped into triathlon and uh said like 10 years before that yeah we will win we will win the race in tokyo in 2020 and that's been like the whole target or the whole thing we've been working towards. Even though it was back then, it was quite an ambition goal to set.

And the same is now. You want to keep that youthful in you. You want to be able to have a goal that is almost unreachable. You don't strike me as somebody who who allows these setbacks to you know, have negatively impact like how you see the future, but rather as a sort of fuel like, hey, what went wrong? How can we fix this? Let's move forward.

Yeah, it's like, is that true? It's like my slogan on my bike it's it hurts more to lose and that's a little bit like uh when i've won a race it's often more like yeah it's great but then i want to win another one but if i lose a race like now in corner then it stays on my mind for so much more. Like it's so much worse than the joy I would have had after winning that race. So it's definitely, I think I'm able to utilize disappointments to come back stronger. Do you take a break now? What's the plan for the next couple months? So out on Queen Cay, I basically said that this is it.

So now it's two or three or four weeks off, maybe a little bit of like soft training and then building towards Nice. So then being in Bergen out for the rest of the year and then maybe visiting Nice in end of January for like a month and just getting familiar with the course and spending time there and we might even put in one more camp before Nice in September, I think it is. So yeah, not going too aggressively out with the motivation

because that's also a bit risky when you've been having, when both of us have had disappointment experience now in Kona, but like using it like gradually building up towards this. Yeah, being smart about it. Because if you start to apply that too soon, you're not gonna be able to sustain it. And then you will probably

run into an injury in march or something like burnout or something so it's important to spread out the motivation or energy throughout how is gustav doing he is on the way back i would say but of course uh it is uh he was struggling of course, he was struggling on the swim, he was struggling on the bike, and he started walking in the first aid station in Kona. And that's obviously a completely different situation than what it was two years ago. But I think injury-wise and mental-wise, he sort of finished with the worst. And now it was just that he wasn't trained for racing in Ironman. Like you can easily fake it through a 70.3, but...

Not there. Even if you are in the best shape, like 42K on the run is a very long day. Yeah. Do you think that he's on his way to the rebuilding that he needs? Yeah, I think so. To get back to his top form. Yeah, I think the fact that he knows how to ride a bike in a course like NIS

is also giving him like mentally that extra boost he needs to think that NIS will be his comeback race. Yeah. When you and Gustav were on the podcast, when was that? Like two years ago? I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah, it was right were on the podcast, when was that? Like two years ago? I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. It was right after 20, it was like two years ago, exactly almost.

I asked you guys if you had any advice for the amateur triathletes out there or, you know, what are some of the, you know, habits that, you know, you think work the most. And, and, and it was great because it was just the basic stuff. It's like sleep, you know, like all the stuff that you kind of see on Instagram, all these kinds of like hyper recovery tools and all of that, like you guys were just like, no, it's the basic stuff. Right. So now having come from another cone of race, was there anything that you observed among the amateurs competing there where you thought like, these guys need to chill or like, if I could, you know, like, if you're like, hey, maybe not do that, do this. Or where do you think like some of the amateurs out there kind of lead themselves astray unnecessarily with their training in the racing?

It's hard to say. Like, it seems like, if you look at the top age groupers, like they are basically looking like they're professionals. Like they're having all the same gears. Well, the guy who broke the swim course record is like, he's an age grouper, I think. Not for very much longer, but yeah. I mean, to be a Kona, you're kind of a professional even for an age grouper. Yeah, so they are all

pretty fit, and it seems like most of the triathletes who is getting to Kona, they are well educated. Like they know how important it is now with taking enough liquid in. They know how important it is to take in all the carbs. So it seems like they do try to learn as much as they can from all the pros. What about the other races, though? Because you go to other races. There is more mixed. There is obviously more mixed.

Yeah, like the simple things on race day, if you start shorting down on your cops, then in the race, then you are basically in a big issue. Yeah. But also in the build- you are basically in a big issue yeah but also like in it in the build up for an arm and like if you do try to get in too much volume and you're sacrificing the sleep again like nutrition and and uh then it's yeah i recently had uh this guy on my podcast called david roche uh who's an ultra runner and a running coach.

He's been a coach for a long time and distinguished himself for many years at shorter distances. And he recently ran his first 100 miler. He ran his first 100 miler at Leadville. Like he picked like this insane race, right? High altitude, very difficult course. And he destroyed everybody in his first 100 miler, he won.

And what he said, which was super interesting, is that his approach was very counterintuitive. Like he has this massive endurance base because he's been running forever, right? And he focused on threshold efforts, like learning how to train fast. That was his big thing. And then secondarily, he studied the habits of competitive eaters because his theory was that if I can train my body to absorb more carbohydrates than anybody else to absorb more carbohydrates than anybody else without gastric distress,

then I'll be able to maintain that higher pace for a longer period of time. And he was successful in doing that. He just won the Javelina 100 like in Arizona. So a high heat race recently. And so suddenly he's like the guy in ultra running, but I just thought it was so interesting, his approach to carbohydrate intake.

Like he trained his body, I can't remember what the figures were, but he can absorb like just an astonishing amount of grams of carbohydrate per hour. And I have to believe that this is something that Olav, yourself and Gustav have tested and are playing with yeah we have blocks where we try to go like very high and like maybe a little bit more than what's comfortable with in terms of carbs carbohydrate intake under intensity and then there is blocks where you maybe try to go

like back again pulling it to a lower number so uh i think you can do periodization in the same way as you do with the training and especially in a build up to an important race where like the carbohydrate intake is crucial then you also want to have a block of higher carbide intake but your ability to do that in a race context, to be able to maintain a higher threshold for a longer period of time, seems like. Yeah, you need to do it under higher intensity. So typically, we use the more RMA-specific days to do those high intake.

So if we do four or five hours on the bike, then we try to also stay around or maybe five or ten percent above what we normally will take in the race we will do that constantly on the on the bike and the same on the run like pushing that upper limit and because then in a race situation you normally will ease off a little bit more towards the end. It's not like you will finish off the race with tons of energy. Yeah. Well, you got to figure out your throat thing.

You got to stop throwing up, dude. Yep. You got to figure that out. I was DMing with Patrick Longa earlier today, and I was like, Christian's coming in. What should I ask him? And he's like, ask him if he's throwing up on purpose. Like what's the deal with him throwing up all the time?

Just before Harvey, just before the climb to get lighter. Yeah, you're trying to drop weight. And I was doing it to get this like slippery surface behind me, because I knew the train was coming. The other thing this guy David Roche talked about was bicarbonate. Do you guys test this? Do you play around with this as like a way of buffering lactate, I guess? Is that what it does? with longer days where I was having like my, like 60 minutes of threshold on the bike and then straight into 20K or 18K threshold on the run. And with the idea of being able to have a longer time

before exhaustion on the run. And you found that effective? I don't feel the straight benefits but when we do like measurements on like the blood in the lab they see that i'm sort of utilizing the the bike up but the bike up is not something i feel as powerful directly on my body as i do with caffeine but the testing that i've done that they have done is showing that you are increasing your capacity by using it. And for like in race, now I didn't use it in Kona, but I think maybe in the future it's something I can even take like today before or two days before the race, because often when you take the bike up, you also gain like two kilos, three kilos two days after or the day after.

So maybe... Oh, that's interesting. Because basically it's so much salt in it that you're also carrying more liquid and maybe even increasing the blood volume. So then you being able to utilize it like the following day or two days later. But that was something I didn't do in Kona this time around. So maybe. Add that to the list. Yeah. For 2026. Well, we're in New York City.

We're here. It's marathon weekend. We're both going to be doing stuff with on who, you know, shout out to on great partner. I know for myself and also for you, you're going to be able to have fun here in the city. What do you got? What do you got planned? great partner I know for myself and also for you. You're gonna be able to have fun here in the city. What do you got planned? Yep, I am doing some touristic stuff tomorrow, heading into the Statue of Liberty.

Statue of Liberty. Yeah, oh yeah. Have you been here before? I've only been like a few hours layover. Oh wow. And then I will go into the friends house or like the you know the tv show friends uh-huh and then like or like see that or they will show me that street and yeah see times square yeah and then see the on lab uh which we also saw in paris yeah so they

have this machine that's like yeah yeah creating in three minutes. Yeah, the machine making the light spray shoes in real time for everybody, which is pretty exciting. I think we're doing a Q and A also at On Labs at some point. Yeah, on Friday. Anyway, yeah. Well, thanks, man. This was great. I really enjoyed it. And I can't wait to see what the next season

has in store for you. And I just wanna commend you for kind of like the way that you comport yourself through, you know, I'm sure you would love to be here having just won and having won a second gold medal. Life had a different plan for you, but I feel like you're somebody who is in a really good place with all of it. And I think you're only gonna build on this. I think Mark Allen said that Christian is somebody who knows what to do with disappointment. And I think I agree with that. Thank you.

Yeah. Hopefully we can come back in two years time with the Kona trophy. Yeah, we'll do it. So we'll just set it now. Every two years we do a podcast, buddy. Okay, thank you. All right, cool.

Cheers. Peace. We're brought to you today by Momentous. If you're like me and you want to take supplements that are made by and used by the best in the world, go to livemomentous.com slash richroll to save up to 36% off your first subscription order of protein or creatine. And if you don't want to subscribe, you can still get 20% off of all my favorite products. That's livemomentous.com slash richroll.

We're brought to you today by Eight Sleep. If you're ready to revolutionize your sleep, head to eightsleep.com slash richroll and use code richroll to get up to $600 off your Pod 4 Ultra purchase when bundled. This offer will only be valid until December 14, so hurry up and use the code RICHROLL at checkout. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation.

To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com.

If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com slash sponsors. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful.

And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast

was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davey Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis. And thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website

management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.