The Rich Roll Podcast - William Goodge: The Atypical Ultra-Runner Who Ran Across America In Style

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Many have attempted the brutal 3,000+ mile transcontinental run across the U.S. Few have completed it. And even fewer have crushed it with the style and swagger of today’s guest William Goodge, who ran from Los Angeles to New York in a blazing 55 days and somehow made it look fun.  His endurance resume also includes running 50 marathons in 50 days, circumnavigating Lake Cuomo, Italy, and running from Land’s End to John O’Groats—all to raise funds for cancer research in honor of his mother. What I find most compelling about Will isn’t just his athletic accomplishments and the mission behind them. It’s that he’s actively defying the archetype of how ultrarunners should look and behave with an infectious energy and unique style that is completely his own. A former model sporting a muscled physique uncommon among endurance athletes, Will much prefers Paris Fashion Week and high tea at Claridge’s to camping. He’s keen to share his skincare routine with you and isn’t afraid to rock a Prada man purse. He cuts a different pose and has positioned himself as a powerful example to others who live outside the ultra bubble as to what’s possible in terms of manifesting potential.  Today we dive into Will’s journey, motivations, big achievements, and lessons learned from running across the states—including the ins and outs of the controversy that swirled around his transcontinental run. We also discuss his close friendship with podcast alum Robbie Balenger, the importance of diversifying the ultra-running community, and the magic that happens when you redefine your possible. Will is an absolute delight. I loved getting to know him—and I know you will too. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: BetterHelp: BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL Seed: seed.com/RICHROLL Inside Tracker: InsideTracker.com/RICHROLL Indeed: Indeed.com/RICHROLL Momentous: LiveMomentous.com/RICHROLL Roka: Roka.com/RICHROLL Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich

Action will always be any kind of intention. When things get tough, especially in ultra and life in general, I'll think in my head, like, can I take another step? And you absolutely basically always can. There's very few moments in life where physically you can't take another step. So if I can, I will. If you think about that really deeply, you can. When you think of an ultra runner, what usually comes to mind is a certain look, a certain lifestyle. You know, the guy who lives in a van down by the river

with the epic beard or the glorious mustache. Well, suffice it to say that William Gouge stands quite opposite this archetype. He's clean-shaven and always perfectly groomed. He's a former model who sports a uniquely muscled physique, which is rather uncommon among endurance athletes. And he's a guy who simply isn't afraid to rock a Prada man purse. And you know what? Will Gouge is 100% unapologetic about any of it. He is always authentically himself. And I got to tell you, I just love that about him. His resume speaks for itself. Recently, Will ran across the entire United States,

quite fleet-footed, covering the distance in a blazing 55-plus days, which is a feat that very few can best, and along the way, somehow made it look fun. He's also completed 50 marathons in 50 days. He circumnavigated Lake Cuomo, and he's run from Land's End to John O'Groats. Every effort in honor of his mother, who passed away too soon from cancer, and every event, a campaign to raise funds for cancer research. So today we get into it. We dive into his story, talk about his unique style, his motivations, his big achievements,

and the lessons learned along the way, including the ins and outs of the controversy that swirled around his TransCon run. We'll hear from England to debunk that we're doing. You're somehow not running it properly. Will has become a good friend. He's definitely a fun hang. And I think you're going to relish his unique lens on sport and life.

Good to see you, man. Good to see you too. I'm excited to talk to you, man. Good to see you too. I'm excited to talk to you about this. It's been really fun getting to know you over the past couple of years, mostly at a distance, but we had a couple moments in London. I just knew, you know,

the minute that you were gonna do this Transcon thing, when it was all wrapped up, that you had to come in and share some stories from the front lines. And there's a lot to share about this experience. There's a few stories along the way. First of all, how are you feeling recovering?

I mean, that was in the spring. So you're how many weeks out from completing it? It was almost five weeks ago I finished. So not that long a time, but that five weeks has gone incredibly quickly it's been a bit of a blur yeah having a good time yeah maybe not the best recovery techniques but mentally though maybe optimal yeah right i allowed myself space after such like a big effort i was very conscious along the way that afterwards i was going to allow myself some

freedoms to enjoy things afterwards so there's been no moments of like, oh no, like, should I have done that? Should I have not done that? I've just been giving myself ultimate space and I feel very free and fortunate to be in that headspace. Yeah. Well, you're not one to shy away from a good time, right? No. Which speaks to a larger, very interesting conversation

around you as this very unique manifestation of an ultra runner. Like you are, one of the things I love about you is you're just 100% unapologetically you. And I think whereas most ultra runners adhere to a certain, let's call it archetype, personality or identity, like a sort of dirt bag lifestyle,

the beard, the mustache, the living in the mountains or in a van down by the river. Are you describing Robbie Balvin? I know we are, yes. I'm speaking to you directly, Robbie. And he's like your best friend. We're gonna get into that. It's a very interesting friendship.

But you, William, are a very different sort of lad, mate. You're a guy who, you know, I guess, and correct me if you think this is unfair, you live a bit of beyond the velvet rope type of lifestyle. You fancy a posh hotel suite and a nice breakfast and the Michelin star restaurants and a good party and front row seats at Paris Fashion Week, which is where you were last week, right?

Like, you know, you're not the normal ultra runner guy, which probably ruffles a few feathers, which we can get into. People who maybe have a hard time understanding why you wanna to share your skincare routine, et cetera. But I love you for that. And I think there's a freshness in your approach that brings, that breathes a little bit of fresh air into a rather cloistered kind of subculture. So how do you think about yourself in the context of that broader kind of ecosystem?

Or do you not think about that at all and you're just you um i i can consider it but like you said i am just doing kind of what i want to do and ultra came to me well it's like five and a half years ago so it's relatively new in terms of my sort of adult life and what i've been doing so i've just continued doing what i was doing before but added ultra ultra running into it. And I've kind of been shaped from a big loss in my family. And I'm very conscious of the fact that tomorrow is not promised. So I very much live that way in every day of my life. And that can be it can be good and it can be bad. But I'm trying to squeeze as much out of life through experience, travel, eating eating nice food seeing interesting things as I can and it might not as you say adhere to the the typical ultra running space or I'm not running 100 mile weeks normally but like my biggest

asset I would say is my mental space and when when shit gets tough like that's when I'm really ready to go so all those side things that I do become irrelevant at the time when when they need to be but where does that come from speak a little bit about you know how you define that for yourself that that mental advantage uh well seeing my mum battle cancer three times i only knew twice but she passed away it was five what sorry four and a half years ago she passed away um seeing her fight cancer for me imprinted something in my brain where when things get tough especially in ultra and life in general the way i think about things is if someone's fighting for their life, they haven't chosen to be in that position. They are quite literally fighting for their life.

If you're outside running, doing a hundred mile race, I'll think in my head when it's getting hard, like, can I take another step? And you absolutely basically always can. There's very few moments in life where physically you can't take another step and i'm relatively healthy i'm young and everything i do is in her memory and in her name so out of respect of her and trying to make her death mean something more than just a sad story i will always always persevere and take that extra step what was it about your mom and the way that she raised you and your relationship with her that has made her such an indelible presence in your life even after her passing? She was the best version of everything you can imagine. She was the sweetest,

kindest person to everyone in life. But when it came to family, she'd be very protective as well. She'd always put herself second or third or fourth whoever whoever else was around she'd always put them in front she was happiest making other people happy um and for me she was the first person I'd talk to if I got the best news in the world and she'd be the first person I'd talk to if I got the worst news in the world so losing losing her would if if I had to choose the number one person not to lose, it would have been my mum, most definitely. So when she passed, like I was 23, bad time to lose a parent at any time. At 23, I was sort of mature enough to have my own life and be able to make my own choices but not very mature in terms

of like what I'd been through so there was these contrasting things it was like I kind of want to forget about what's going on here and people said at the beginning I dealt with it too well um it was obviously a mask but I could have gone one way of trying to numb it out with drugs alcohol partying that kind of thing. But there was just like a, there was a very poignant thing in the back of my head. And out of respect for her that I had to, I couldn't, I couldn't waste it away. Even if it was for a year or two, I had to, I had to persevere straight away. And I didn't know what the fuck I was going to do, by the way. Running just kind of came to me and we can get into that.

what the fuck I was gonna do by the way, running just kind of came to me and we can get into that. But yeah, I think should be, other than being concerned when I do the biggest stuff, should definitely be proud of what I've made of it. My sense is that the early phases of your running career, which hasn't been that long of a career, what like three years or so since you started, when you first laced up, right?

That experience was born out of confusion and grief and trying to make sense of this loss, perhaps a little bit of anger as an outlet, a healthier outlet than drugs and alcohol and partying and the like, but the fuel source being those challenging emotions as opposed to the more sustainable fuel of joy or pursuing a goal or unlocking potential.

Like those are things that came later. Yeah, I was definitely very angry at the start. I lived a very fortunate upbringing. We were a middle-class family in the UK in a small country town there was always food on the table we went on a family holiday every year parents were still together never really argued like if i had to choose a childhood for eventually when i have children i'd want it to be like that like it was absolutely perfect no no like luxuries or thrills but i couldn't

have been happier growing up. Do you have siblings? One older brother, yeah. What does he make of all this? What does he do? What's his story? He's in construction. He was in farming and agriculture before. So we went on different tangents.

Like, I remember growing up, we both played rugby. But when rugby ended for him, he went more agricultural and like shooting and things like that. And I went more like to the city. I started doing modeling and things like that. So that took me on a different path, but we get on very well. We're different, but similar at the same time. And it's been interesting for him and my dad as well of me, of them being within the story as well, because obviously them seeing their son or brother

do some of the things I've done, like it's sometimes confusing for them, but I think it's helped them deal with the process as well. Yeah, it was fun to see your dad in the Audacious Report videos that Rhys made, sort of baffled, you know, but like amused by the whole thing. your dad in the Audacious Report videos that Reece made, sort of baffled, you know, but like amused by the whole thing and, you know, present, but also not sure what he was supposed to do

while he was on the road with you guys. Like absolute legend and like a character. Yeah, him and Robbie get on real well cause they're just always looking for the next pub. And ironically he came in the Navajo Nation where it's a dry state. So yeah, but yeah, for him, I can't imagine what it's been like for him with the pressure of having two sons as well. And I remember when I did Jono go at Salan's End, he came up at really, that ruined me entirely. That was like my rebirth,

I think. Um, but he came up at a bad time where I was, I'd been taking codeine a bit too much. I was a, I was a moving zombie. Um, and yeah, he's, he's had difficulty understanding why I do it, but he's grown in confidence as I continue to do it the first time he thought I was on a self-destruction path which I kind of was um but I guess with the success is it he still doesn't quite understand why the hell I do it but he's more at peace with it now it feels like you have a healthier relationship with your running now though yeah for sure it's more of like a celebration and in some ways when I started I started, I didn't know, or I didn't have a plan. I still don't really have like a plan of where this is going to go,

but I've started achieving things that have given me confidence to maybe push on and try and do other things or be more competitive in the races I do enter or do. So around the time that your mom was diagnosed with cancer, you're living in London and pursuing modeling. Were you playing rugby at that time or you had just been a former rugby player? Yeah, I was playing rugby at the time and I was spending a lot of time here in LA as well because my ex-girlfriend was here. So yeah, I was splitting time a lot when I could. I'd finish a game and might fly here for a few days

and during summer and the like the winter break i'd be here as well so yeah and then she she gets ill um how long was her battle well she first she first had it she had it for about a year before she went into remission and this is probably the origin story of why i got into running and why I do it. If I had to pinpoint the happiest moment of my life, it's very clear in my head. It was when I came here nine months before she actually passed away.

I was in Santa Monica. And at the time, by the way, I hated running. Running was a punishment. I was playing rugby, the contact sport. Like you're going to score a try. You're going to score a try you're going to tackle someone really hard your teammates going to do something good it's like camaraderie running for me was a punishment it's like if you fucked up in training or was late go and do some

laps so the thought of going for a run for me was I didn't understand why anyone would do it but upon this time coming back to LA it was to meet who's my ex my who was going to become my girlfriend for the first time so I was excited about that uh woke up at like four o'clock in the morning it's like shit what am I gonna do just wait for this chick to wake up the jet lag I was like if there's ever a time where I might enjoy a run might it's probably now I'm in a really good mood I'm right by the beach I'll probably I'll run up to Malibu. I'll run along the beach, wait for the sunrise, and then I'll go back. So I did do that. Left my shoes at reception, which was an interesting choice. I don't know

why I did that. And then I ran, ran Santa Monica, went down onto the boardwalk. It was the wooden one at the time. When I ran all the way to the end where you couldn't go any further, I think it's Pacific Highway and becomes mountainous. Then the only way to the end where you couldn't go any further, I think it's Pacific Highway, and it becomes mountainous. Then the only way to get back was to turn around and run back. When I got back, I had like blood blisters all over my feet. Why did you choose to do that barefoot? Because I assumed like I might run on the sand. I didn't.

She was quite bemused, but I got back and that was the first long run I've ever done. So I think I checked like nine months later, it was maybe eight miles, definitely way further than I'd ever ran. When I got back into the room, I was just in like this buoyant mood. I was like, what's going on? Maybe it's because I'm seeing this girl for the first time, whatever, whatever.

And then my mum actually called and she'd been to see a doctor and she was in remission. So that moment there was just an encapsulation of so many good things happening at once. And yeah, the cancer came back probably two or three months later. And then she ended up passing away on January 15th, 2018.

And yeah, at the time I'd had to take six weeks off from rugby because I kept I kept getting knocked out I kept failing the return to play protocol had head scans I was okay but not well enough to go back and she was always like my champion at rugby she's always on the sidelines she'd travel away games she'd be everywhere and when I tried to go back to that I was having a real hard time and And like the team understood and like management said, just take as much time as you want. And in that time, I just found myself running. I didn't actually know why. It might be three o'clock in the morning, I'd be really fucking pissed off, or I'd be crying uncontrollably. And I'd find myself just getting my shoes and I'd do the

same route. I was in the family home at the time, small town in Bedfordshire. I'd run and do this 5k loop over and over again. And upon self-reflection and obviously figuring it out along the way and doing things I've done, I realized I've been trying to get back to that moment at the end of that run here in LA. Yeah, that's an interesting self-awareness. That experience lodged in your brain, like a sliver in your brain, like the first time you do heroin. And then it's just about like trying to recapture

that first experience. I'll let you know how it goes. Yeah, how's it playing out? You're chasing the dragon pretty hard, my friend. And then on top of that, some brain injury, it all makes sense now. Like now I'm getting a clear picture of the whole thing. Yeah, but clearly running steps in

almost on an unconscious level as a coping mechanism, as a defense mechanism for dealing with challenging emotions that you didn't know how to process in any other way. Yeah, it's very true and yeah i was i was searching for something and i didn't know what it was but at the time all all i knew was whatever when i went for a run and came back i'd feel a little bit better than i did before and i might start sprinting when i'm out there and crying down the road, whatever. But when I got back, I was less of an in a destructive mood. That's an experience I think a lot of people can probably

relate to. I'm sure it's not that uncommon, but what is an uncommon is you at some point making a decision to, you know, tackle some pretty large challenges. Like that's a leap. So where does that come into play? Like at what point do you decide this is not enough? Now I need to go do something super hard and why? It was after my first marathon. So she passed her in the January and the following December, Christmas time. Christmas was, I was not looking forward to it.

You know how, when you lose someone very close to you, every very special occasion suddenly becomes one you want to avoid or not so special was I was not looking forward to it. You know how when you lose someone very close to you, every very special occasion suddenly becomes one you want to avoid or not so special or something's missing. So I was actively trying to get out of Christmas any way I could, but do it under the cloak of it being accepted rather than just like hiding away or whatever. I had been running a bit, so I thought, well, what better opportunity to do my first marathon than Christmas Day?

I'll avoid most of Christmas, and then afterwards I'll be too tired to be involved in it. So yeah, I decided to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support as well. They're a charity in the UK. They offer support to cancer sufferers, family, friends, whatever. Like if you can't afford to get to your doctor's appointment, they'll book you a taxi. They've got a 24-hour care service, so if you can't afford to get to your doctor's appointment, they'll book you a taxi. They've got a 24-hour care service.

So if you've got any questions, you can call them up. They have nurses. So the McMillan nurses personally cared for my mum when she was at Bedford Hospital. So I wanted to do something for them because they'd been so brilliant to us and the family. The route was from my family home to Bedford Hospital where she actually worked as a nurse as

well and had a load of her treatment around like her family homes. She grew up and then back to Ampton around all our family homes, all the ones we lived in that, in that town raised like 20,000 pounds. And all of a sudden I had this very positive feedback from something I was using negatively. And that really solidified as soon as I did that, like I was using negatively and that really solidified as soon as I did that like I was broken my first marathon was really hard like it is for everyone yeah um but as soon as I did that I just I had the seed was planted in my head I wanted to do something bigger and better and the first thing I could think of was running from the top of the UK to the bottom not even what everyone does John O'Groats lands end or lands end to John O'Groats I literally drew a line from the top of

Scotland that's how little you knew about that's how little I know about these sorts of events yeah I didn't know anyone that was doing it that's actually that's actually how I ended up meeting Robbie along this journey of starting to run the length of the UK but yeah I had no anchor no knowledge it was just I knew I needed to do it and wanted to do it. And it kind of just got bigger and bigger as I went. So talk a little bit about that John O'Groats experience. Like you kind of just launched into it, not really knowing anything and just gung hoed it, right?

Yeah. And where does Robbie come in? It was concerning actually. Thinking back to it, it's concerning. Like I remember like 10 days before I started, one of my brother's closest friends, who's like a family friend anyway, called me and asked me all these questions.

Like, just a list of, have you done this? I was like, no. Have you done this? No. Have you done this? No. And he was like, okay, I'm going to come help you. Because he works in event marketing.

So he was at least something. He knew what, he kind of knew what to do. But yeah, that's how I've lived my life. I've got a little bit better, but not much better. But when I announced I was going to run the length of the UK, I was coming back and forth to LA because I was still with my girlfriend at the time. I went to this random cryotherapy place

and the guy in there said, you should follow Robbie Ballinger on Instagram. He's running across the US and I was like I absolutely should follow that guy I actually called him Robbie Belanger at the time and I watched him from like day seven to day 75 when he finished and I was obsessed like I said a minute ago I had no anchor I had no I had no knowledge I didn't know who like Dean Karnazes was I didn't know David Goggins was didn't know Killian Jornet had no names all of a sudden had Robbie Belanger and I yeah as I said I was obsessed I sent a few messages along the way like

watching what he was doing and then I waited till I think it was like 10 days after he finished because I knew there might be loads of loads of shit going on I just sent a message saying like what I think you've done is incredible I gave a brief backstory of myself and what I was about to do and just asked I was like can I send you some questions via email or can we jump on a call and yeah he got back pretty quickly and was just like yeah absolutely I'm free in the next few days whatever so we get on a call I tell him what I'm doing he's down to help and yeah they say the rest is history but in one when I training, I went out to Colorado with him. He took me on a 10-mile trail run of Boulder as soon as I arrived from the UK as well, by the way. I'd flown to LA, slept for like two hours, flown to Denver. He'd picked me up and we'd gone straight to Boulder altitude. I had no experience altitude. And he takes me on a fucking mountain goat, takes me on a 10 mile trail run around Boulder, which was horrible.

That's a lightning bolt moment though, to go into a random cryo place and just have some stranger tell you, you should look at this guy. Like, had you decided not to go to that, like, what would your life look like? Like you have no idea, well, you do now, but how lucky you were to have found this incredible angel,

this spirit that is Ravi, the most giving, like open, gracious, service-minded person, you know, imaginable, like the perfect kind of Sherpa for you. Yeah, I don't actually wanna think about that not happening. It's insane, like everything he's done for me. He's been on every challenge I've done. Yeah, he's been there in a big way.

He's like... I mean, that guy shows up. He knows how to show up to the people he cares about. Yeah, I have a different connection with him than anyone else in the world. Like, we understand each other in a different way. Whereas, like, even with my dad and my brother, they're still like, what the fuck are you doing? Which is interesting because you are very different people.

Yeah, we are. But we get on, yeah, we get on super well. And I think we have the same, I think we have similar tendencies in, you know, pushing the boundaries of stuff, whether that be physical or mental or both or, yeah, he's had an interesting past. Yeah, for sure.

He wasn't, was he on site for the John O'Groats run yeah oh he came for the whole he came for the whole thing when we were in um when we were in Colorado and saw him for the first time he shows me this excel spreadsheet that had been done by his um his father-in-law and mother-in-law of like every single day detailed how many miles he's going to run what mileage the shoe was in what food he was going to eat how many calories it had per serving and i was there going i don't have an i don't have a spreadsheet yeah did you realize you maybe you're in over your head yeah i had a route i had a route from what was her name i forget her name but she

had just got the record as the fastest british the fastest to do John O'Gretzky Land's End I think it's since been taken but I messaged her and she was like yeah here's my route so that's literally all I had right and that evening when we were looking over things he just stopped for a second pause and was like I think I'm gonna come help you and I was like what I had I have I had a real hard job understanding why someone would help me in kind of anything I did like, what I had, I have, I had a real hard job understanding why someone would help me in kind of anything I did. I liked helping other people, but I found it very difficult to accept help. I don't know what that comes from or just trying to be like a man, like I have to do everything. Um, but yeah, he was like, I've just been away for a few months, so I need to check

with my fiance at the time, Shelly, now wife. He'd get back to me. So yeah, he came for the whole thing. And what was that experience like? Like, what did you learn? Well, I learned- In your first, you know, tackling your first really big thing. I learned not to take coding. Yeah, that's not smart.

It was this, I'm basically saying how stupid I used to be. This is an insight into my past. I've been an idiot. But I was very naive. And to be fair, actually, to back myself up a little bit, the crew knew I was doing it. So let's give them some of it.

But the idea was like to numb out like whatever pain you were feeling. But then you're like getting, you know, mentally, you're checking out. So in the buildup, I'd done three marathons, one of them on Christmas day, and then two other made up ones. And I'd done two ultras. And I'd never ran the day after doing any of that stuff.

So you did MDS before that? No. Or after? The first ultra I did was London to Brighton, which is 100K or 62 miles. And then I did one a few months later called the wall, which is from Carlisle in the UK to Newcastle. That was 111. So about 67 miles. And then I said, I was going to go and run the length of the UK. And I think I said 14 days, which is how many miles? Uh, I averaged 55 in the end, but I think it needed to be closer to 60,

but that's my naivety so that shows why the ironic thing was the codeine i took was mum's pain medicine i also had liquid oromorph which is um what's it called whatever it's like heroin oh wow liquid oromorph is morphine it's liquid morphine sorry so i i didn't actually take that but every day i was taking for the first nine days eight codeine pills i read the outside of the packet said may cause drowsiness and in my head i'm like i'm running 16 to 18 hours a day on this thing i'm gonna be tired anyway so a little bit extra tiredness for the pain-free or at least a little bit pain-free might be a good idea. And obviously it turned out not to be.

Didn't Robbie try to talk you out of that? It was funny because my girlfriend at the time messaged, I think it was on day nine, and she was concerned because I hadn't been responding like at all. I was in total zombie mode. I wasn't sleeping at night. I was hallucinating most of the day. When I got into bed at night, there'd be one position that hurt more than another, but I'd be dreaming when I was awake.

I can't really explain what the hell was going on, but I'd wake up in the morning and felt like- Well, you were on opioids, dude. That's what was going on. I'd wake up in the morning and felt like i did a good job or a bad job in the night which obviously doesn't make sense so she had seen that i wasn't looking my normal self and she's messaged the group saying or message robbie saying it looks like will's on some like strong painkillers like what's going on i think that's when the penny dropped with the crew

and they were like oh shit so robbie didn't even know no robbie knew i was doing it but he wasn't i think he hadn't thought about it the way i hadn't thought about it like we just we were doing it unconsciously it was just a decision i told him i was going to do it and they were fine with it they weren't concerned in any way shape or form on day nine they gave my brother the job of telling me so I think it was a I think it was about halfway through the day when I was about to have a nap I didn't usually have naps on this one but I needed one when I woke up he was like you're not having codeine anymore and the funny thing was growing up my mom being a nurse we would if we had like a headache or a cold or whatever

the last thing she'd want to do is give us any kind of pharmaceutical drug it'd be if you really needed it whereas i had the quick fix mentality where i was like can't i just have something that's kind of like now that's what we want as human beings so that's what a lot of us have learned to be like so when he said you can't take it anymore i was like relax mom because that's what a lot of us have learned to be like so when he said you can't take it anymore I was like relax mum because that's what I'd have usually have said when she was around but as soon as I stopped taking it I actually started taking CBD oil instead it was crazy that night I had the first proper sleep of the whole challenge I woke up in the morning and all the inflammation that had been storing up and like my knees and had flushed out. I was myself again, which was the main thing. And then from that point on,

from day nine to 16, when I finished, I ran over 60 miles a day. So that was a big lesson for me. I haven't actually, I maybe have taken ibuprofen a couple of times, but ever since then, it's been very few and far between, I can probably count on one hand when I've taken a pharmaceutical drug between then, which was yeah, four years ago and today. So when you did that, you'd only been running how long at that point?

Like that long, like you're going back to back 60 mile days. And I know you've said, and you're adamantant that you're not a talented runner and all the like, but that's impressive, especially without years of building a base and learning about how to do this kind of stuff. Like I've always been playing sports since I was a kid to before that moment playing rugby semi-professionally. So there was like a foundation there to build from. But yeah, I lean more like in that space of time for me, I just I wanted to it was like acceptable self-harm. I wanted to hurt myself and I needed a way of doing it without raising too many alarm bells and running really far actually started raising a lot of alarm bells well for Graham my dad but for everyone else it was like you can get away with it you can certainly hide your pain behind great feats of athleticism for sure so that's what that was about yeah

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again, go to recovery.com. The other thing about you is that, you know, you're not a beanpole, like you're a top heavy dude, you're fucking cut, like ripped, strong, strong upper body. And that is one of the other things that sort of distinguishes you from what people imagine when they think of people that run great distances, they tend to be very slight in their build.

But strength training has always been a key component in your preparation. And I think if I had to guess, I would suspect that it contributes to your durability and makes you more injury resistant. I know Robbie has even said to me like, man, after spending all this time with William, like I'm going to the gym,

like he's trying to like bulk up now, you know? He's looking good. Yeah, as a result. And I know you have a whole like training program and all of that. So how do you think about the, you know, the kind of unorthodox approach to physical training, like aside from just putting the miles in, what you're doing in the gym and how that contributes to your performances? I think it your performances i think it's i think it's massive especially for me um i think having a bit extra muscle mass is not really going to help if i'm trying to run a super fast marathon but in terms of being durable and not

breaking down i think it i think the proof's in the pudding like what i've shown i can do being a a bigger athlete or whatever whatever labor you want to put on it. Um, I do, I genuinely think it makes me very durable. Um, and a lot of the exercises we're doing in the training programs that we have is all like single leg based, um, loaded. Everything's in like a, a lot of movements are in a split squat. So we're, we're trying to get a lot of movements are in a split squat so we're trying to get a lot of the weighted positions in running specific areas as well so all of those bits on me that used to break down quicker than anything glutes hamstrings everything around there as soon as I started strengthening those areas then that negated the the the rate at which I broke down So I'd say it's such a huge part of my training

and will always be the foundation for it. And then I'll add running on top. So in your lead up to the Transcon, what did the functional strength, gym, workout, routine, schedule look like? Always three times a week. There'd be an element of pretty much everything in it. So there'd be legs on all three of those days,

but then there'd be some upper body stuff, again, in a split squat thing. So we're training a lot of core at the same time, making sure the load is going to challenge you in those running positions. And some of it's aesthetic as well, because it's what i've it's what i've always done and i have to enjoy what i'm doing to want to carry on doing it well you got to be

catwalk ready too big for the catwalk at the drop dude too big for the catwalk as well that's why i watch the shows now instead yeah did you like where did the modeling stuff take you did you get like are you still doing that? Every now and again. Yeah, it's few and far between. Like I'm not gonna do a day in the studio because I just don't want to anymore. But yeah, if it's a- Like not catalogs, but not catwalk either. Yeah, just like campaign stuff.

So yeah, I've spent some time in New York. I've done some stuff over here, Italy, France, Switzerland. I've kind of, that was a fun part of my life. Like I really enjoyed it traveling around the world, doing this kind of stuff. But at this, at the same time, it was just another thing in life that was going okay, that to the outside world looked, looked better than it was. So doing all this traveling, being in LA, New York, whatever is a 20 something, going back to my small town, everyone would think like, they were just like, wow, what you're doing is so amazing. I'm like,

yeah, I'm racking up credit card bills, just like living the life and yeah, living paycheck to paycheck. So yeah, it's one of those things that looks amazing on the outside. And so there's a lot of shit on social media, but sometimes it's still a challenge. So you do the John O'Groats run, you learn a few things along the way. And where does the motivation to step it up from there come from? Just continuing to build on this enthusiasm for pushing your limits?

Yeah, I think that cemented where I was in life and where I wanted to go with it. Like you said, it's like chasing the dragon again. It's once you've got a taste for it, immediately afterwards you're like, no, I'm never going to do that again. And then a few days later, I was literally figuring out what I was going to do next.

Now, I didn't know what that was going to be. And afterwards, I was still pretty destroyed. So I was going to take some time off. But the first thing I started looking at doing was running a marathon in every country in Europe. So there's 45 countries in Europe. But then COVID happened. So travel obviously stopped. So I had to think of another thing to do that meant I could stay in the UK,

even though I wanted to like expand. A lot of what I do in life is visiting new places and doing new things but I was restricted so a random google search was like in the US you have 50 states everyone knows it everyone's proud of it in the UK no one knows how many we have counties how many counties there are like if you asked anyone on the street they would probably be like 25 34 like no one knows so I just googled it and there were 48 um it being close to the 45 countries of Europe I was like okay well that makes sense that I'll do it next because there's not going to be limitations on travel like I might have to figure out if if COVID comes back or if we get shut down in any kind of way I'm gonna have to figure out what it looks like but it was the

best option at the time and it came two years after i finished the length of the uk so yeah the second one was 48 marathons in the 48 counties of england in 30 days and ironically um people think it's the most amazing thing when they hear it and for all the things you've done that's the thing that stands out because Because it's so easy to understand. Running the length of the UK, what? Who knows? It's 875 miles, but no one's going to split that into marathons. But 48 marathons in 30 days, very easy to understand.

And whilst it was amazing, I was kind of annoyed at the end of it because it didn't get me anywhere close to what the run of the UK did. Not even close. Interesting. And you made like a documentary out of that. Yeah. And it was cool and it was a nice, it was a very good experience.

I've definitely ticked off running in the UK now. It's definitely done. But it was a nice way to see that. You could run the perimeter of the circumference. I'm not doing that. I think, did Nick Butter try to do that? Do you know Nick Butter? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think he was doing he did do it i think he did yeah yeah because there was also the guy i can't remember the rebel guy that swam around it uh ross edgley insane yeah yeah no i'm

not doing talked about that afterwards yeah it was crazy yeah but like the last one which was which was interesting the 48th marathon i'd p PB'd on my fastest marathon of all time. It was at London, the official London marathon, which was a very special way to finish. And I did a 3.06, which was at the time my fastest marathon. But that showed how much I almost had left in the tank because it was so regimented. It was either 26.2 miles a day or 56 or 50 52.4 and I was having enough rest in between to just kind of go and do it to pop off your pb on the on the very end of that whole experience to bookend it yeah it's impressive

but that's how that's how my head works at the same time. I still had to leave it all out there. Like I had to feel like it was, it obviously still was a challenge and I had some low days, but for the most part, it was just kind of like clockwork. I just did it. But you finished that feeling like, oh, I haven't even really approximated

the extent of my capabilities. Yeah. After the Transcon run, I think you probably still feel that way. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like here's the thing,

watching you run across the country and watching the videos that went up every week and all the social media posts. You made it look, I'm not gonna say easy, certainly didn't look easy, but there was a lightness to most of it. There were low moments, of course, but for the most part, it all seemed kind of breezy.

Yeah. And it felt like as hard as it might have felt to you from the way that you kind of reflected that experience outward, you were always very conscious of keeping it positive, trying to make it fun, making sure that the crew was happy. And by the time you completed it,

it was pretty clear to me like, oh, this guy's got a lot more to give here. Like, it's not like you just collapsed in Central Park and that was the most that you could possibly do. Like it all seemed well within your capacity. It's very interesting, cause it's totally the unknown. Like the 4830 was 1,250 miles.

This was close to 3,100. So I was entering a totally new space. And obviously, when we started out, we were aiming for 64 days, it was 50 miles a day, it was like, it was a good, a good thing to aim for. But at the same time, I still had no idea what I was, what I was capable of. But there was still a point in my mind that was like, my ESTA visa for the US, but there was still a point in my mind that was like my Esther visa for the US. You get 90 days and we did Robbie's speed project before and set up all the vehicles. So I knew I had seven days extra.

I could have got to 71 days and I'd have had to pissed off immediately. Otherwise your government wouldn't be very happy with me. But yeah, it was very much the unknown. And it was also hard to push myself as hard as I did on Drone and Goat Slams End. One, because I've come further as an athlete. But secondly, because it's so much bigger, there's risk that if you push too hard at the start, then that might cause an injury or cause you to have to slow down or go less. But yeah, my week one was the lowest mileage week right all of them other than

the last one because i finished i finished on the saturday but yeah it was it was an amazing experience but yeah there was still those questions at the end of how do i get it's it's interesting that i want self-destruct that's what i'm seeking seeking. But along the way, I also figured out what I need to do to do that. What was the preparation and training like leading up to running across America? We didn't know it was actually going to happen until I think it was late January. I started in April. So the first thing I did was I went on a five-week training camp in Cape Town. I was there for December because my friends lived there anyway. And all I did was I went on a five-week training camp in Cape Town. I was there for December because my friends lived there anyway. And all I did was continue my strength training as usual and try to up the mileage. So I was doing anywhere between 50 and 70 miles a week, which compared to 300.

Yeah, that's not a lot. It's not a lot. Even in like a marathon runner's regime, if you're actually very good at it, you're going to be 100 mile weekend. And I was not but that was more a foundation to build from so i did that came back for a bit and then when we got the green light i decided to go out and spend some time with robbie he was in slider in colorado now so that's at 7200 feet um the highest point on transcon is angel fire which is in new mexico 9,000 feet. And fortunately there's a mountain range right by where Robbie lives.

So we did some, I was there for 10 days and we did 140 mile week that week. So closer to it. But yeah, generally my mileages weren't that high. But again, I don't know if it's self-confidence or me just trying to get away with doing less than I should. But the way I looked at it was you can't train to run 370 odd miles a week. You can get a little bit along the way, but if you go too far, then you may as well be doing the challenge or you're going to injure yourself.

you may as well be doing the challenge or you're gonna injure yourself. So, aside from my strength training, which is locked in, I just built up mileage gradually, did some elevation training and then started. I mean, I don't think that that sounds irresponsible at all. Like you have to have some form of a base, but you wanna go into the experience as fresh as possible and understanding that you're gonna build into it

and develop fitness as you go. And if you're conservative on the front end of it, your body will adapt, right? The mistakes get made when you show up over trained or not rested enough, or you're too aggressive early on and you end up with some kind of injury like Ned Brockman, you know, in Australia, right? Like he has that epic, you know,

issue that almost derails the whole thing. Talk about a guy who went into something before he knew what he was getting into. He's my kind of guy. Yeah, I know, right? So, I mean, it sounds smart to go in fit in that way and to have an adequate amount of confidence to do it. Yeah, and I've got more self-confidence

in knowing myself through doing this as well. So sure when I do something next time, I'll increase the mileage and training, but it worked. At the end of the day, it worked, so yeah. So the idea was 50 miles a day that will take you 64 days to cross the US. You end up doing it in 55, actually 56, right? If you adjust for the time changes, right?

You were right on that edge there. Yeah, about. The hardcore is gonna say it was 56. About nine minutes short. 50, 55, right? Hardcore is going to say it was 56. About nine minutes short. I know you're saying 55, right?

And it seemed like you had some low moments, but you got stronger as you went along. Yeah, and there's a lot of kudos that needs to be given to the team as well. When you're out there, literally the only thing I had to be worried about was running. That's the best, well, running and wiping my ass is the only thing I had to be worried about was running. That's the best. Well, running and wiping my ass is the only two things I did, basically. So when you have that confidence in the people around you, it makes you be able to push yourself to your perceived limits or push further than you normally would.

Because I'm quite a controlling person in life, usually. I'm quite a controlling person in life usually, but the trust I had in the people around me, Robbie and Pete, recent James in the content as well, allowed me to just concentrate on the running side of things. So yeah, a lot of credit goes to them,

but also I remember them saying at the start, it was between Robbie Ballinger and Peter John. The first few weeks, they almost wanted to hold me back like a dog on the chain, which worked well because I was still going further than I needed to anyway. So with every week I was doing, this cushion just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger until we got to a space where it was like, okay, now we're confident that you probably won't derail or you're far enough along the way now let's push and see how much for how much faster you can go in the 64 days and obviously obviously we did which was which was amazing and yeah if you'd have told me at the

start that it had been 56 55 days or whatever i'd have been like something would have had to have gone really right for that to happen. Like it was outside of my. Yeah, you so far eclipsed the goal that you set for yourself. It was an interesting daily schedule breakdown also. So the idea was every day you would get up, get out as quickly as you could out onto the road and bank 30 and then take a break

and then a new calm nap. Right, we can talk about new calm. And then finish the day with like an easier 20 with like some of the pressure off. And then once you completed that, you would do a beer mile. Did you do the beer mile every day? Every day other than maybe two or three talk about the the rationale behind that the beer mile is to celebrate the day and what you've done and it's a disconnect from

what you're doing and you're getting an extra mile so it may sound stupid like drinking a beer it's probably not the best things for recovery but for me so much of so much of it is the mental side of things and also the period and when you're resting to disconnect yourself from what you're doing and try and take any moment of normality as you can and the beer mile was the start of that so it would be a fun moment in the day it'd be something for me to look forward to at all points as i said i would walk i'd walk from a mile with a beer with one of the crew just chat and have a good time and then finish and feel really really drunk at that point at that point one beer will hit you pretty hard

and yeah it was the ultimate disconnect and then i'd get back to our van i'd have a shower and then we'd have dinner together as a crew and that was another really big thing where you might say well you shouldn't have had the beer mile and once you got back you should have had dinner and bed and gone to sleep immediately but it was it was so good for morale for me and I think for everyone else and you can't you can't understand how powerful that is over a big period of time to have those moments of normality

and what it can actually do. If I feel good, I'm gonna run further, simple as. Right, but if you're just gonna hit that day's goal, that extra time spent doing that, I think is sort of a genius technique to reboot the mental health aspect of this whole thing. And doing that, I think is sort of a genius technique to reboot the mental health aspect of this whole thing. Like the iron cowboy, when he gets asked,

like, is it physical? Is it mental? He's like, it's a hundred percent physical and it's a hundred percent mental, right? And we understand the physical piece, but I don't know that many people optimize for the mental piece because they are focused on, you get the day done, you get into the van,

you get fed as quickly as possible, you wash yourself or whatever and you get to sleep as quickly as you can because you need that sleep, right? But to stay fresh day after day after day with the routine and just the kind of bludgeoning schedule that you were keeping

to have a little bit of levity and to kind of feel connected to your crew members and allow them space to enjoy themselves with you feels like it's something that would, and in your case did like pay great dividends. Yeah, it was, otherwise it'd just be shit basically all the time. Right, the whole time.

Like it's hard enough what you're doing, running 13, 14 hours a day whatever but just to have that moment of like a celebration it just it makes it just makes everything feel good like the thought i don't know if it's being something to look forward to yeah being british or whatever but the thought of like having a beer with your mates it's one of the one of the best feelings in the world. So I got to experience that every day. Did you ever have a day where you did the beer mile, but then you felt good and then you wanted to run after that?

Yeah, there was a couple of times. There was one where I had to run further and I can't remember why. I think it's because I messed up where the campsite was for the night. They told me one thing, and I was obviously, like Pete would go ahead and start preparing the van and the meal and whatever, and I got the distance wrong, so I think I had to do like another three or whatever, but I was fine with that.

I was skipping down the road. What was the lowest moment or the hardest piece? It was day 17. It was the only day I didn't reach my distance. I did 47 and a half miles. And it was kind of a mashup of things. One of the things that was more on the physical side was it was the first day we'd fallen off on nutrition.

Nutrition is such a big thing. You can't do this kind of thing without it. As we were saying, every six miles I'd see the crew, I'd re-upper my bottles. I was taking this stuff called Scratch, what I didn't know about before. But even from that alone, I was getting, I think it was 2,400 calories. I was aiming for 7,000.

So a lot of my calories came from just what I was drinking, which kind of tastes like slightly flavored water. But on this particular day, when you're in these things, for me anyway, I don't have an appetite. I can eat a lot, but if you ask me what I want to eat, I want to be like, I don't know, because I've been eating everything all day for the past two weeks already. So there's nothing that's like shouting out to me.

And on day 17, along the way, when I got into a stop, they'd be like, what do you want? And I'd be like, I don't know anything. And I'd just grab snacks rather than we were trying to go really whole food based as possible. That's where I got really good energy from and where I felt good. And this particular day from about halfway, I was just, I'd go in and have some crisps and some nuts or like a bar or whatever. And that really fell off. Um, but also

there'd been like a buildup of this guy who even before I started had been messaging me, like asking me about what I was doing and questioning some of the things I was saying about it. Um, and it had just been getting more heated and more heated. And whilst it didn't really affect me personally, what he was saying, basically, before it started, I'd put out that I was attempting or I was going to become the fastest Englishman

to run across America. He'd looked at my Power of 10, which is some website that runners look at that shows all your fastest times, events you've done, et cetera. And he said that it sounds really good what you're doing, but an athlete of your stature should probably be looking to do it in 82 days,

which would be really respectable. And also the wording on your van will become, is very insulting to the guy that currently has a record bruce tuller anyway i looked at that message and was just like fucking whatever mate like i'm not i'm not gonna give you a response um and then he proceeded to hit up everyone involved in the challenge in one way or another including sponsors um he says he said like i was faking it, the funniest thing he actually said was, I was raising half a million dollars for cancer charities

that I was going to steal. So the guy's a little bit deluded. But he'd obviously been messaging a lot and it got to Robbie the most. Robbie took it quite personally because he was basically questioning not just me but himself and everyone involved in the challenge so we've been talking about ignoring it bringing it up like publicizing this guy had been harassing us blah blah blah and on this day in particular

I'd kind of been more in a fuck you mode about it. Like I was angry because it was affecting Robbie. So that alongside the nutrition falling off, alongside it being quite an emotional day the day before, I was thinking about my mom a lot. It was a beautiful moment, but I was quite emotionally fatigued as well. Just kind of compounded to me having one shit day. But in the same vein, when I got to 47 and a half miles it's day 17 I was already I don't know what's that I was probably

50 miles ahead of where I was supposed to be anyway so I just had this very frank feeling in my mind I was like I'm so far ahead the fact that i'm gonna stop now and not get to my daily target for the first time is fine and let it go yeah and the next day i came out and eclipsed 52 and a half so it's like i still made it but it was tough it was tough in the moment to to deal with there was there was a lot going, but yeah, that was definitely the lowest point. But in the grand scheme of low moments on an epic adventure like that, there's a lot of things that could have gone wrong that didn't. Like that's not that low of a moment, right? It was your low, but being so far ahead and then bouncing back and then working your way back into the black, you know, more and more and more as you headed into new york i mean there's a

momentum to that yeah there's always going to be low moments on this kind of thing but as you said earlier like all i ever want to project is like the positive end of things i don't i don't want to go out there and be complaining about shit all the time which is very very easy to do but it doesn't make me feel it doesn't make me feel good like if i'm out there looking like i'm having somewhat of a laugh or like enjoying the moments it's going to be it's going to be a lot easier for me to deal with it's such a big arduous task but just life man like try and enjoy the little things like i was i was always very conscious that I was so lucky to be there doing it. Like it's not every day you get to do that opportunity and raise money for charity,

do it for the reasons you're doing it and being surrounded by some of the best friends in the world, having this fucking adventure to talk about for 50 years when I'm in the pub and have nothing else to talk about. As far as the controversy goes, so this guy who was sort of a protege of the record holder guy, who actually wasn't the record holder guy, right? There was another guy who had gone faster. Yeah, so there's... It's probably our fault, but when we were looking,

this isn't very well documented. When we were deciding how fast I was going to do it in, I said originally I wanted to do it in 66 days don't know why it just sounded good it was close to 50 miles and then i was like i wonder who's who's the like we knew um pete costa nicks the fastest to do i'm not getting close to that guy he was like 42 days or something i think it was 77 miles a day like sure i did better than expected but i'm not, to be, for my point of view, that's the only record that matters. But I needed something to aim for,

and so I asked Robbie, like, do you know who the fastest European is? Do you know who the fastest British person is? So we found out the fastest Brit, or at least this is what it said, was Bruce Tuller. It was 65 days so i was like okay great let's shoot for 64 makes it a round number we've since learned that there was a guy that power walked it in was it 52 days yeah he power walked it and he went from like the

fastest route is to go from san francisco to to New York yeah I think it's more like 2,900 miles so he'd done that in the 90s but again it was just something to aim for right for me but this this irked this guy because he was he was close with the guy who he you guys both thought held the record yeah and he's a running historian. And yeah, a running historian. Well, also like sort of a running sleuth who has committed himself to outing people that he thinks are sort of unfairly claiming titles that they didn't earn, right? And he does this by going on message boards like Let's Run or whatever and creating a kerfuffle and creating momentum and interest in other people in what you're doing.

And so there was a little bit of a groundswell of people who were like, what's going on? I mean, I got DMs. Like people were like, you need to look into this. And I was like, listen, man, I know Robbie, I know Reese. I don't know you that well, but I know you well enough. And just the fact that like Robbie is there, like there's no fucking way.

Like Robbie has a zero tolerance policy for anything that isn't in integrity. I know that about him. There's just no fucking way that anything is untoward about this or going sideways. So, but just the fact that people were pinging me about it, I sort of looked into it more than I probably would have liked to have.

And then the fact that this guy actually flies from the UK and shows up like in Oklahoma, right? Yeah. Determined to root you out. Yeah, as soon as we've arrived. So we'd literally crossed the border and also Shelly, Robbie's wife had just arrived as well so we knew he was coming i didn't know exactly at what point he'd i think he'd i think he'd put in

one of the things that he put some really lame fucking message like about james bond i can't remember what the exact quote was but that he was coming to, like, he said he was James Bond and I was the bad guy, which is kind of funny. Um, but yeah, he arrived and obviously it's, as soon as he arrived, there's some bitterness, there's some choice words shared. Um, but we understand he's going to be around for a while. So like whatever. Um, and I was just finishing that day and I think it was, it was a good day. I think that might've been my biggest, it might've been 70 finishing that day, and I think it was a good day. I think that might have been my biggest. It might have been 70 miles that day, or at least it was definitely a 60-mile day. So it had been a big one, and then the next morning,

he shows up at the start and then drives a mile ahead while I run a mile. He comes out of his car, and he starts running backwards and forwards. We don't know why he was doing this, if he was just trying to log his own miles or trying to figure out what his heart rate looked like compared to the ones he'd seen online of mine. Because this is his whole thing, like your heart rate data was out of whack from his perspective. Were you wearing a chest strap or was it wrist heart rate?

No, so I started off, this is classic me as well. When I started, I didn't have a watch so i borrowed pete's pete's garment so you're doing transcom and you're not even like wearing a a garment or a or koros or no but i did have a whoop on the whole time which has been great because they've published all of my heart rate data so they have it's not a gps tracker no so that was his issue we had a tracker in van, and really that was for entertainment purposes so you could log on the website and see where we were. But I wasn't wearing a tracker.

I didn't see why I needed to. So the heart rate data that activated him was going off of the whoop? No, it was off of... So in the end, I had a chorus, but at the beginning, it was this Garmin watch. Apparently it was wrong. And he'd looked back

into the past at my joggle effort as well and other runs I've done is basically called all of it bullshit um yeah his main thing his main thing was the heart rate and when you when you had the Coros did you have a chest strap or you're going off wrist heart rate with that wrist again so anything that gets up this heart rate is bullshit Like it doesn't matter what watch you're wearing or what device. Like it's just not an accurate way to track heart rate. I agree. If you're on an ECG, you're going to get it right. And even from another point of view, like was his mate Bruce wearing a heart rate monitor?

Does anyone from the past have data or anything to show that they truly did anything? Who knows, man? I mean, the thing is, obviously he had some kind of relationship with that guy and you making an audacious statement got him energized. And then on top of that, you being you and not looking like what people expect you to look like and not coming from, you know, what people expect you to look like and not, you know, coming

from a certain sort of tradition probably was sort of fuel on the fire to all of that. You know, one of the weirdest things that happened out there as well. I don't know if it was on the second or third day he was there, but as I said, he'd been driving a mile coming out and running like back and forth and then getting back in his car sometimes he'd like give me a wave after a while he was actually being really friendly which was kind of weird but one of the times I just knocked on his window and said do you want to like walk with me for a minute and just talk like there's no cameras around I don't have my phone or whatever like do you just want to talk about it and my purpose for doing that was I want, I was just, I wanted to understand where his, where he was coming from. So I was like, do you know the reason why I actually run? And he's

like, yes, it's because your mother passed away. I have a similar story. My mom did too. When I was 20, I was like, Oh my God, like, I'm so sorry about that. And he said, no, it was a good thing. She was, um, she was an an addict she was mentally unstable and basically said he hated her so that kind of that's a whole new dimension that's a whole new dimension and it it made me i i felt sorry for him for feeling that way whether it was just or not but then i also understood that asides from me not looking or acting like most runners my reason for doing this kind of stuff is fueled from the love I have from of my mum and everything she gave me in life and the power that comes from that whereas his story which is somewhat similar

in terms of age and losing his mum was he was happy about and he hated her now someone's doing something raising up that person i can understand why he might look at that and go well definitely not understand it for for another reason so you weren't reared in a tradition of ultra running you, you know, somebody who came up in a different strain of the fitness world. And as somebody who has a presence on social media and Instagram and also knows how to provide

sponsor value through the efforts that you're making. Like, I think that the way in which you represented NuCalm was like really a value to that brand. And other people who are trying to get products and services on board to support them

in whatever goal they're trying to accomplish should take note because most athletes will approach a brand and say, will you give me money or will you give me product? I'm doing this really hard thing and I'll put your logo on my shirt. Whereas the way that you did it was almost like branded content,

like the use of NuCalm was integral to the whole journey itself and telling the story about how that worked within the context of how you were approaching each day became seamless with the effort itself in a way that I would imagine really benefited that brand and was also organic and authentic to what you were trying to do. Well, I certainly hope that it boosted everything they're doing because it was

totally integral to what I was doing. And I would never push something I didn't believe in anyway. And the reason I had confidence in it before this already was, ironically, again, this is the story of my running journey and eventually running across the US is so connected to here. But after I did John O'Groats to Land's End, I went to New York. I think I had work there. And when Robbie finished his run,

he went to this place called Recover. It doesn't exist anymore since COVID. But they had infrared saunas normatec boots that kind of stuff but they also had new calm when it was this five thousand dollar medical grade device so you put these i don't know put these stickers on your neck that were attached to electrodes still had the headphones and eye mask and it did the the same thing but that was my first experience of it and then by the time I did 4830 it was then in an application on your phone and part of the reason why 4830 went so well I believe was because I was using NuCalm so at that point it wasn't like a

sponsored deal I just used them anyway and after every every marathon I'd finish I'd have some food and then I'd do NuCalm for anywhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes in the in the on the journey from going from one county to the next to start the next one or if I had one one day I'd finish and do the same thing and I'd listen to it overnight but for me what nu calm does is it's like hitting the reset button on any day so it's neuroacoustic software basically takes your brain frequency from awake stressed whatever down into the the lower frequencies which are rem sleep deep sleep at the beginning it's sort of like a meditative state that it gives you just by pressing a button listening to their binaural beats and shutting your eyes and basically having darkness and in doing like a 30 minute track it's like getting three hours of normal sleep it's

that's what it does at the touch of the button brings you down so I had such a good experience on 4830 that whether they were a sponsor in the run across America or not I was still going to split up my day in a similar way to what I did on 48 30 like I had confidence in it so as you said earlier anywhere from mile 30 to 42 it'd be a big stop I'd come in have a proper meal my biggest of the day other than dinner and then I'd nuke on for 30 minutes and that would take an hour basically I'd have a timer I wanted to that big stop to be an hour max and the way I facilitated that in my head as well was every every other stop between the six miles I didn't get in and really stop it was more of a walk through switch out bottles have food and take it on the go as quickly as I

could. Because if I'm doing, if I'm just say a 60 miles, for example, if I'm doing 60 miles, I've got nine stops. If I took 10 minutes at each of those, it's an hour and a half. If I took seven and a half, it's like an hour. So if I didn't do, if I didn't stop at those stops, it gave me that big one in the middle as free. And I doubled down on that by using NuCalm as well. Right, and you get this full reboot. So basically, as I understand it, it's like this binaural audio that activates your brain in a certain way,

but it also is different from different binaural beats applications in that the beats are always changing, right? Because your brain will adapt to it over time and then it loses its efficacy. Yeah, so their technology is patented. So as you said, it's always slightly evolving, even though I'm not that intelligent

and it's hard for me to get this across. My brain would pick up if it was listening to the same patterns over and over again. So it basically is always effective. It's, and you are very effective as an ambassador of that because Robbie was singing its praises forever and they sent me a kit a long time ago and it sat on my desk forever and I never used it.

And then I'm seeing you use it and I was like okay fine I'm gonna do this and it is like it's really helpful I just feel the best thing about it other than like feeling I've hit the reset button like it's a new day is I feel so calm like waking up in a stressful environment thinking I've got 20 more miles to run because I've already ran 35 or whatever usually that wouldn't feel that good but I would wake up and just be ultimately at peace with things and just it'd be like okay I've got this left to do there's a lot of hours of daylight left like let's just go and do it and it was yeah yeah incredible really. One of the things that's interesting about you is given the fact that you do come

from a different set of life experiences, you have the ability to connect with and communicate with an audience that lives far outside of the Cloyster at Ultra running community. I think I even said to you, like you should get Vogue magazine to like sponsor the run or whatever

and like do dispatches for like a fashion magazine. You know, like, you should get Vogue magazine to like sponsor the run or whatever and like do dispatches for like a fashion magazine, you know, like, cause that would, I actually think that's cool because it would introduce this world and your experience to people who aren't seeking that kind of information out, right? Which puts you in a really powerful position and an interesting position as not a mouthpiece, but as a living example of, you know, finding a healthier way to live, but also being somebody who enjoys those types of things in life.

Yeah, it's interesting how many people in my life and in my other world have got into running, whether it be a marathon or even ultra marathons as well. So that's what, I think that's my favorite thing about doing this. It's when someone comes out with you and achieves something for themselves that they never thought they were going to do. It was really apparent on John O'Groats' land's end. I had 11 friends and family members come out and run either a marathon or an ultra marathon having never ran a 5k before because they're in a space where they feel like they're helping you and you're obviously pretty thrashed already it's a environment where other people can excel without knowing that they're going to and being part of that journey or popping cherries, as I like to call it, is it's incredibly beautiful.

And you've almost given them a gift as well of being like, well, I just did that kind of off the bat. What more can I do now? And it's been cool to see friends and family members push themselves in this way as well. Yeah. This groundswell of running enthusiasm amidst the fashionista. Yeah, it's crazy, but it's cool. It's very cool.

What was it like as you were coming into New York City and there was more and more attention on what you were doing and excitement about the impending finish and having people kind of come out to run alongside of you. Yeah, it's very special because when you're out there and you're in your own world, like, sure, you'll see you get messages and stuff. But when you see real human beings being there and explaining to you how you may have helped them on their journey or they've been through something

similar is very humbling and also gives you some more positive reinforcement for what you're doing so yeah there was I don't know like 50 people at the end waiting on the George Washington bridge to run in with me we pissed off a lot of cyclists on the way in and I do not apologize to that now I'm a cyclist too so but yeah it was it's it's crazy it It's emotional. It's a shared experience there. That's what the best things in life are. So yeah, I understand that people would have got something from doing that. Yeah, it's hard to basically take that many compliments as you go. I'm not very good at it.

I'm just doing what I'm doing. I don't think too highly of myself all the time. So yeah, it's one I actually feel kind of uncomfortable with when so many people are there and wanting to be a part of it. You feel like you have to take responsibility for making sure that they're enjoying themselves while you're also trying to achieve this goal. Yeah, somewhat.

And because it's about me i know i have i know i have to do it but when something's so much about me i don't actually really like it i prefer christmas to my birthday put it that way i'd prefer sharing everyone having a good time then yeah it being all about me but it comes with the territory i guess when i had robbie When I had Robbie here to talk about his Transcon and I asked him what some of his most memorable moments were, he wanted to talk about the Navajo Nation. So talk a little bit about your experience traversing that part of the country. Incredibly beautiful. There was just a different feeling in the air from even when I arrived.

Very calm, very beautiful, and just the people make the place right. There was a lot more interest all of a sudden. Like people would stop and see the vans and ask what was going on. I had people running with me. When I run, I face traffic. It's just a smart thing to do for safety. If you can see the traffic coming towards you, you can see that it's not going to move around you, then you can get out of

the way. But I'd always put my hand up to thank someone that went past. And there it wasn't like a nod of an acknowledgement or a finger. It'd be like a big wave. And they were, yeah, there was was so welcoming i had guys come out and run with me and i had this guy jackie came out one day he was a runner from the local era and he he'd bought me a bracelet so i wore that wore that for the whole time but yeah it's it's it's different it's different to anywhere else i've been in the world and i'm looking forward to getting back there what was it like when you finally finished in Central Park the whole day was like a dream from waking up to being there to finishing everything looked and felt different it was

almost like watching my watching myself in a dream or being part of it it was a release of emotion at the end as you can imagine um and it was it's probably probably the best day of my life to be honest it was it was it was insane and i had so many more people there at that time like my brother was there my dad was there so many of my friends had flown over and yeah to get there at the end and people running with me, it was, it's totally surreal. Totally surreal.

It's crazy that you, your plan was to do 64 and you finish in 55 slash 56. That's fucking elite, dude. Like I think only like five or so people in the last decade have done it more quickly than that. Yeah, it's not that well documented. So I don't actually know. We don't know.

I was asking Robert Andrews. But it's like, who fucking cares? Like, honestly, you know, but it is, I just want for the audience to understand, like that's, it's not like, not that many people run across America, but most of them that do aren't doing it at this pace. And just for context, like that's very fast what you did. Very few people have done it more quickly than that. But we're still talking

about a 12 minute pace. Yeah, that was what I was shooting for. Yeah. Yeah. That's five miles an hour. And in terms of what that looks like over a day, aside from taking my hour break in the middle, to get to 50 miles I knew if I did five miles an hour it's 10 hours. Think how much rest you have after that. So my relationship with time and pace changed a lot. You don't know how much you're going to get into mathematics when you're out there but that's what I was living by. I was living by the pace of my watch. Obviously I was kind of present with what I was living by I was living by the pace of my watch obviously I was kind of present with what I was doing but I was I was so into time distance splits like on an on another level and also understanding just how far or how much you can do in a day 24 hours is a long time I was running for 13 and after 55 days I'd crossed America which is absolutely insane and still hard for me to still

hard for me to process but I don't think we I don't think we give ourselves enough credit or or enough leeway to push ourselves to our limits or find out what's possible even in doesn't have to be an endurance it can be in business or the arts or whatever. But yeah, I feel very lucky in those moments that I get to explore a new space of seeing what I am capable of doing. You have this mantra that you even have on your socks, which is emotion is energy. Yeah. So what does that mean? Why is that your kind of talisman? mean why is that your kind of talisman well from the beginning obviously i said i was very upset and angry when my mom passed away which makes a lot of sense um but for me heightened

emotion being good or bad can be channeled towards energy a positive output so if you think about the most basic way i can think of it is when you're a kid if you imagine the hat like the happiest day of your life like if you got that really good christmas present you got a bmx bike outside like how much excitement you had at that time and how much like energy you had that can be channeled towards something on the flip side of the coin when you were super angry you maybe didn't get the flip side of the coin when you were super angry you maybe didn't get the bmx bike or when you're kidding something bad happened you go up to your room and you punch the shit out your pillow like again that's that's energy from emotion but the best thing that's ever happened to me is to understand that and be able to channel it. And do you feel like you've gone from a place

where at one time the emotions were controlling you or channeling you in a direction that was sort of out of your control to a place where now you're the master of that and more in charge of how you deploy that emotion in the direction that you wanna move. Definitely. And what was, how did you make that transition

from anger, grief, confusion, to one of purpose and inspiration? Quite honestly, I think I had to destroy myself to rebuild myself up, which was what Jono Great's Salon's End was. I was so seeking that self-destruction that i had to go through it to i didn't know what the outcome was going to be but i had to bury myself to then realize those lessons of okay you're still going to have these

emotions at certain times i think going through what i went through and dealing with the way I did, even though it was maybe negative, has then become something very positive. So now it's more like of a celebration. As I said, I'm still gonna get sad and upset at certain times in life, but it sounds strange, but mom passing away gave me purpose for the first time in my life.

And purpose is the best thing on planet earth to achieve anything. And how would you define that purpose for yourself? The purpose for me, again, asides from making my mom's death mean something, it's finding the line and then crossing it. It's finding that new space of self-discovery of what you never thought was possible becomes possible and then the best thing about that

is it's a never-ending story because once you've crossed that line and got up from the next step on the ladder ceiling raises exactly the ceiling raises and it's something we probably hear all the time but experience experiencing it for yourself changes you on a cellular level beyond anything you could have just gone to therapy i got to you i got told this and i was offered it but yeah um i'm glad i've gone on the path i have and figured this stuff out because life is amazing and my favorite times are probably the worst physical times it's growth and it doesn't matter how successful you are how intelligent you are where you're from your background money and money in the bank when you push yourself that much physically you can only get that experience by doing what you've just done,

not because of any of those outer things I just mentioned before. And anyone can do it. You don't need the resource. You just need to give it a shot. There's an interesting conundrum that comes with that statement and your resume of accomplishments, and your resume of accomplishments, which is you start out on this exploration and you're achieving things you didn't think were possible for yourself. And you're continuing to raise that bar with the goal, the motivation, the purpose, the intention of inspiring others to rethink their own limitations. But once you get to a certain point where you're doing extraordinary things that really push other people's imagination

of what's possible, you sort of pivot away from being somebody who is relatable to being this outlier. And it's much easier for somebody to dismiss you as just some freak of nature. Well, that's Will, that's what he does, but he's not like other human beings. And suddenly all of that kind of accomplishments

that you're building towards trying to create like a library of experiences that can be helpful for other people works at cross purposes because you've almost done too much, right? It takes you out of the position of being somebody who can be a source of aspiration to one who is a source of inspiration.

Like Michael Jordan is inspirational. We can't be Michael Jordan. Nope. But we can see the every man go out and do something just outside of our grasp and we can aspire to that in our own lives. But once you run across the country, you go from aspirational to inspirational and that changes the way that people interact with you.

Have you noticed that or are you aware of that kind of dynamic at play? Kind of, but the hardest thing i ever did was joining great salons end which is still big a bigger challenge than what a lot of people might try and seek in their life but every every single thing i did the first marathon yo that was so hard and now i could go and run a marathon now no issue but you just have to understand that the process starts at day one it's not you don't have to look at me running across America and be like I'm never going to be able to do that if you'd have asked me after I ran across the UK if I

could have done it I'd have been like absolutely not you're insane so every time I do something new obviously it's gonna go out a little bit further and a little bit further. But if you're just starting out, I don't think I'm inherently special, gifted, talented whatsoever at all. I don't even look like I should be an ultra runner, but my mission and my reasoning behind it will always, always push me to, to keep going. As I said at the start, seeing someone fight for their life, especially someone so close to you, has changed me unequivocally. And I will always want to push the boundaries to find out what's next in life

and what's bigger and better. And I will always take another step. What have you learned about mindset that has trickled into other areas of your life outside of running um there's there's definitely more of a tenacity tenacity to me than there was before everything everything is mindset and everything is pushing the limits and when you have experienced things physically and gone beyond the realms you thought possible, it certainly frees up the difficulty of the rest of life. where you were at 1% battery life left, whatever, and you carried on going. And then all of a sudden you think you're complaining

about having to work for another hour or send a few more emails. Like it makes everything smaller and more manageable for sure. But it's earned. It's earned. You can't manufacture that. So for anybody who's listening or watching,

you have to step outside of your comfort zone and stretch yourself in order to develop the capacity to have that perspective. Definitely. There's another trap that I see happening with a lot of ultra athletes, which is they start to form an identity or an unhealthy attachment with all of their accomplishments. of ultra athletes, which is they start to form an identity

or an unhealthy attachment with all of their accomplishments. And then to your point of like chasing the dragon, it just becomes about the next craziest thing. And then just topping that and topping that and always trying to top the thing before it. And that generally isn't a great like life plan. Like it's cool to go out and do hard things.

And I encourage everybody to do that. But at some point you have to have a ballast in your life that lives outside of those feats. So how do you, how do you make sure that you're anchored, you know, in, in, in meaningful ways that have nothing to do with running? Probably because I love so many other things aside from running. ways that have nothing to do with running probably because i love so many other things aside from running yeah i'm not seeing this as a problem yeah this is not a this is not a a pothole for you i don't think well i'm interestingly i'll use robbie's example so much because we're kind of similar but very different at the same time and he's my anchor for this kind of shit anyway when he wakes up in the morning he can't wait to run when i wake up

in the morning i don't want to fucking run i'm not like i don't wake up and go yippee i can't wait to get my miles in today i'm like like really do i have to do that which kind of might be hard to hear considering what i do but i do it the reason i do it is i'm raising money for charity i'm expanding life experience. I'm pushing myself to another level. So whilst running is my vehicle right now, I don't think it's always going to have to be where I push, where I push everything and put all my chips into. There's so many areas of life outside of that, that I love and I get enjoyment from and I can push myself in. So whilst even when I was running, I still had some other ideas. It's not, I don't think you're going to see me in,

I don't know, but you're not going to see me in 20 years having done another 10 challenges, like trying to one up what I've already done. Cause I probably don't actually have enough time. What is the next thing that you're thinking about doing i had an interesting one well first and fourth the first one i thought of was i believe i could get the record for running across australia i think distance wise rockman alert yeah what is the record it's whatever is it 60 miles a day i think it's is, is it 48 days? I can't remember. Can't remember, but that's what Ned set out to do. We had some chats along the way when I was doing Transcon as well.

And we should just say, like, I was in Australia recently and I was with Ned and we tried to FaceTime you, but you were occupied. I don't know what was going on. I can't remember what I was talking about. And I was in London and I FaceTimed you and you answered.

I was like, I can't believe you actually answered. You're like out running and you're like, we're doing a FaceTime call. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, Ned's a good guy. And I have so much respect for him, like that being his first challenge. I understand why that took him where it took him. It's sick. And yeah, he's a good dude.

But I think I could get that record. So if it stays the same, that is. I got a lot of confidence from running across the US and I think Australia is about a thousand kilometers less. But then there's another part of me that wants to do something slightly new. over to Asia, basically hugging the Mediterranean coast all up through where you start going up. You go through Greece and then up. I can't remember the countries there. And Czech Republic, I'd go across the top of Italy. I wouldn't go down because that would make it extremely long. I probably could, but in my head, this is what I'm doing. And then Southern France, Southern Spain, round and finish in Lisbon. Wow. And that's about the same distance. That sounds sexier. It does. Yeah and that's about the same distance that sounds sexier it

does yeah yeah that's more like the Como run yeah this sounds more yeah get a fleet of Taycans as your crew vehicles and I can't believe that happened actually we're joking because when you ran around Lake Como you had Teslas and and Taycans as your as your crew vehicles that was like vintage gooch. Yeah. Only you would figure out how to pull that off. Right? Yeah, but that's where I want this space to be.

I still want it to be fun. Whilst the Australia thing would be amazing, it's not similar and it is similar to running across the US. It's the same country. It's English speaking people. Not a lot changes in a hundred miles. Whereas when you're in Europe, that's the most beautiful thing about living in London for me.

It's two hours. You can be anywhere else anywhere. Well, two and a half, three hours. You can be anywhere amazing in Europe. And imagine experience experiencing that on foot. It's my favorite thing to do when I arrive in a new country,

put my shoes on and go for a run without a route, without knowing anything. And that's that on a bigger scale. And my fantasy for doing it is it's, it's not slogging trying to do 60 miles a day. It's more like maybe doing 30 miles a day, but actually experiencing the places more. Yeah. Like,

well, if you just did a marathon a day, then you have lots of cappuccino time. I love cappuccino time. I love cappuccino time, but that's- That is the sort of 007 continental version of ultra running, like running across Australia. It's like, all right, aside from some hills in WA, like the terrain doesn't change that much.

You're dealing with roadkill and what does Ned call them? Like the truck trains or whatever. Yeah, they're massive there, aren't they? Yeah, and very few sort of scenic overlooks or places to even get food, right? Like it's just basically a mind numbing mental exercise, but hugging the Mediterranean and going over mountains and going into villages,

it's like your own William G gouge tour de france on foot yeah and that's that's the dream like i feel very i feel very lucky where i can actually even think about that as an idea um so yeah it builds into everything that i kind of love running food travel seeing new places experiencing culture and it's an amazing speed at which to do it as well. How do you think about the storytelling aspect of it? How that's gonna go down? Well, no, just historically, like with TransCon and everything,

obviously, you had Reese on board and chronicling this whole thing, and basically having a public lens on what you're doing and an opportunity and a platform to share ideas and thoughts and the experience as it went. Like as somebody who is a younger generation than me, like this is what we do. This is how you kind of make your way in the world

in a certain respect, right? So how does that play into how you think about how you pursue your life and the challenges you want to tackle and how you want to comport yourself publicly it's interesting because it's it's kind it's almost like a necessary evil once you're in that space doing it it's like you're always going to have to do it but in all honesty my favorite times are when I'm just alone pushing myself without anyone so they can know about it but not there being a camera in my face so it's always gonna be a battle for me but I also understand on the flip side of me not loving it all the time at the end of the day you've got so much to look back at and how how

fortunate are we in this day and time where you can have an experience and it doesn't just live in the memory bank you can relive it and see it in a different way so I think it will continue to be a part of what I do some people may see it and get inspired by it and try and do something themselves like the amount of messages I get from people saying they're about to try their first challenge or they've lived a similar experience and they're going to try and push themselves. Like it's very humbling to be any, even fractional positive influence

for someone trying to do something. And you will never understand, even in your experience as well, you'll never understand the scale of which that is. Like the amount of people messaging you, there's 10, 20 times the amount of people that aren't. So yeah, for me, it probably always still be there. And I don't know if it will ever change. As I said, I don't really plan too far in my future.

Yeah. Talk about Robbie a little bit. Like what do you think makes Robbie Ballinger so special? This is your opportunity to send that love letter. Come on, buddy. Yeah, he's one of the most, outside of my family, he's the most special person in my life. As I said earlier, he understands me

and I understand him on a different level. He gives me a huge amount of confidence to chase whatever I want to chase and do it with tenacity and confidence. And he's always, always there. As I said, from whatever challenge I've done, he's been the first to put his hand up and try to help in any way he could, whether be in a physical way or even even if he wasn't there at the time he'd always be pushing so that guy has given me 110% since the moment I met him and I've I feel forever indebted to him there's not a lot there's nothing I can do to actually pay him back for what he's done and I would not have ran across the US if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have finished running the length of the UK if he wasn't there

that guy has shaped my life in such a positive way it goes goes kind of beyond words and he as a person is so special as you said he's he just wants to do things for other people and he's also a fucking rock star. Like he is, he is rock and roll. He's, I want to be Robbie Ballinger when I grow up, put it that way.

Well said. Yeah. He's a, he's a beast. And all the things I see him do. He's kind of punk rock too. Oh yeah. You know,

he's, he's a channeling a little Hunter S Thompson, a little Willie Nelson. Those are his guys. Yeah. Our favorite quote from a Hunter S Thompson is when the going gets. Those are his guys. Yeah, our favorite quote from Hunter S Thompson is, when the going gets weird, the weird turns pro, which is what we feel like when you really push the boundaries of things

and when you're at the upper limits of physical output. You know in ultra, you get like the thousand-yard stare. That's when it gets weird, and that's the time to turn pro. That's when we do our best work yeah did you have any kind of hallucinations or any of that kind of stuff not on the america not on the america run no there's only on codeine only on codeine yeah i need some hardcore drugs but that's why where i want to explore next and where i know where the dragon lays is in these 200 mile plus races. So helping Robbie when he did the Tesla challenge,

that was what, 240? 248, I think. Yeah. And he did that in 77 hours. Like he got to that place at the end of day one and kind of stayed there until he finished on day four. Yeah, that looked like a rough one. Day three and a bit. Crazy. And then also helping him with rough one. Day three and a bit. Crazy.

And then also helping him with the speed project, which he did solo. He ran 100 miles in the first 20 hours, stopped for an hour and 40 minutes and went out and carried on again. And we should say that that is a run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Most of it is teams trading off like a relay.

Yeah, there's a few sadistic people that do it solo. So the... And you can choose your route, right? You can go

whichever way you want to get there. That's the coolest thing about it. It's a no rules race. You have a start point and an end point and it's just like,

how about it? But you start like here in Santa Monica. Is that where it started? Yeah, exactly. And you finish, I don't know where in Las Vegas, is that where it started? Exactly, and you finish, I don't know where in Las Vegas, but it's one of the points, it's where the big Las Vegas sign is.

The old sign, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, being on those experiences with him and now having done the US run, like I understand to get to those places where I wanna be, it's gotta be a shorter amount of distance, but very aggressive that's how you that's how you get to the your upper limitations when it's too long and you have a time schedule it's like risk aversion whereas yeah it's a straight slog you're just managing

efficiency yeah it's a straight so would you do like moab 240 and yeah that's like that that's the one on the list i was listening to the um gog that's the one on the list. I was listening to Goggins' latest book, On the Run. And when he was talking about that, when he came back from his injury, yeah, that 240 mile race. And obviously the first year, it was when he went to hospital and went back to finish it off, but it wasn't official.

Right, well, he went off course too, I think. Yeah, by about 13 miles because his pacer took him the wrong way. But yeah, that's- Yeah, he went off course too i think yeah by about 13 miles because his pacer took him the wrong way but yeah that's yeah he went to the hospital and then he went back where he left off and finished it even though it was however many days later yeah but that's where i want to go to that'll be the next iteration of what i do like obviously that european run might be a big one along the way maybe in two years more sooner i'll be i want to do the big 200 mile races because it will also be interesting like as you as you said it's one of the fastest

times to run across the country but the way i talk about myself and how i do things is not thinking i'm professional in any real way shape or form But I would like to understand where I am in that group of people that are doing the gnarly shit like consistently. And then, as I said, I don't know where I wanna go. If I do one of those races and place well, like do I wanna leave some of the other fun shit behind and go more that way?

Like, I don't know but that's that'll be my next experience for sure um in the short term though you're going to do berlin the berlin marathon we were chatting before the podcast and i was suggesting that you do almost no running leading up to that and just do a couple speed sessions and just see how much is in the tank as an experiment yeah which is kind of the approach you're taking, right? It was. Like you got to recover. Yeah. It's a tough one because for me,

the way I'm thinking about it is it's either the best foundation of all time to go and run a fast marathon having ran 3000 miles or it's way too close. It's 16 weeks after I finished running across the US. So I'm probably still fried and won't be able to do it but yeah it'll be an interesting thing to see like I gave myself I finished at the end

of May I was giving myself the whole of June to do whatever the fuck I wanted which I've generally done but even now I've got back into training earlier than I thought I thought I would have done just because it's part of my life and I love it and going to parties and fashion weeks, all right, but I actually don't like it as much as I like normal life aside from traveling. So, yeah. When is Berlin?

Berlin is the end of September. I don't know exactly the date, but it will be one of the last Sundays. So, yeah, if I – souly i'll have 12 weeks so i'm gonna get into a training program then and sorry i can't do your idea of just doing a couple of couple of speed sessions but i'll just go to the gym and get like get jacked yeah get jacked and then just go to the track like twice a week yeah and see what happens but i it will be in i mean listen you have this huge base but you've been you've been running like 10 11 minute miles you know so you got to throw down a little bit yeah we'll see we'll see how it goes but i'm i'm actually looking forward to starting and seeing what that first

speed session feels like because i haven't got out of third gear in a long time yeah a long time you gotta tap back into that yeah um what do you say to the person who's listening to this or watching it and suddenly feeling inspired but has never really tackled anything difficult like how do you how do you you know prod that person off the couch and and get them into into action on something it's might be hard to take, but just fucking do it. Like whatever it is you're thinking about, the more you procrastinate about it, the less likely you are to do it.

So if it's your first marathon, book one. Just book one. Because as soon as you've paid your money for it and it's in six months time, that's going to give you some gumption to actually do something about it. But we live in a world where that's going to give you some gumption to actually do something about it but we live in a world where there's too many dreams that go missing and you might miss an opportunity to be here doing this shit talking with you like quite literally four and a half years ago I was

doing fuck all I was a semi-professional rugby player pretending to be a model sometimes like nothing was really happening. But as soon as I took that first step, it suddenly led to the second and the third and the however many steps I've taken since. But action will always be any kind of intention. You said that you're not innately super talented. No.

But if you had to declare a strength or an edge, what would that be? Like, what is your advantage? What is it that, you know, propelled you to do these things outside of, you know, what happened with your mother, et cetera? Like, what is it about you that's uniquely you that you think puts you ahead of the pack here?

I think that that experience sped up the process, but I have to know. I have to know what I'm capable of. Where does that come from? I don't actually know. I'm not sure where that is from inside me it's maybe it's growing up like my experience of growing up everything was great but there was a part of me that always so my dad came from a council flat which is government housing in the uk he got into carpentry when he was probably 15 he bought

his first house when he was i think 18 or 19 by the time he was 22 he'd bought his parents who were in that council flat an apartment so he'd set his parents up and himself up ready for life as i said no thrills or whatever but he also at the same time as being somewhat successful and giving us the life we have there was always a safety thing about him like he didn't want to lose what he'd built and I understand that entirely and I love him and respect him so much and wouldn't change him from the world for the world but I remember growing up and certain things happening in business where he wouldn't get paid or someone play him around like a bigger company and I I didn't understand why he wouldn't go

and almost attack that angle so for me seeing him going through that and playing it safe and thinking what he could have done whilst I'm still proud of him, there's a part of me that I don't like that unknown area. I want to know what that unknown area is, even if it means that I fuck up everything else before it. So that might be where it stems from. But yeah, we're here once. My mum passed away.

Like I said, tomorrow isn't promised. I'm going to do what I want to do today. And I'm going to enjoy it because to do today and I'm gonna enjoy it because It's everyone says it in this cliche, but you don't know what's happening tomorrow So, please try and please enjoy it and I also have no dependencies like I don't have a girlfriend I don't have a dog don't have children. So whilst I can I'm gonna Invest in experience invest in experience. Invest in experience, yeah. Yeah, that's super interesting about your dad.

I mean, obviously it makes total sense why he would make those choices coming from where he came from and why you sort of being a product of him and growing up in a bit of a different circumstance would be interested in another choice. But I think on top of that, I have this spidey sense that your mother,

who obviously I didn't know, but I've only heard you speak about with such reverence, profoundly impacted your sense of your own capacity. Like this person who clearly believed in you and supported you and wanted good things for you in a very healthy way, like not in a controlling way or in a projecting way or anything like that or in any kind of enmeshment way,

but truly from the best place gave you a sense of yourself that led you to believe that you were capable of doing whatever you set your mind to. And I think that's so powerful. Does that track? Yeah, I think that's very true as well. And I kind of got those feeling free from her, even my dad as well, growing up, like even around exam time or whatever, I was never sat down and said, you need to study. It was like, if you're going to study, you're going to do it because you know, it's good for you. But also my mom, she changed careers quite a lot of times, even towards the end of her life. Like she was a nurse for the most part. She was a nurse at school in the police force. And then she left and opened up a vintage tea room in our local town

she was a very good baker so she had a vintage tea room and then from there she was always she was always a Keegan gardener as well so at the time she passed away she was enrolled in a college in London for garden design and I think seeing her be somewhat fearless in career changes even when she could have just kept it comfortable and whatever has led me to feel like if I want to switch things up or try something new at any time I can and I was always I was always told I could do that like I didn't go to university or college when I finished school I went traveling to Australia and Thailand for six months and I was almost I wasn't pushed into it but when I when I said any idea to

them it was almost it was always let's figure out how we can do it they weren't going to denounce what I was trying to do and say you need to take the normal route of life which everyone else well not everyone else but most people do wow that's cool this became a parenting podcast it did yeah yeah I mean you know as being somebody who's older than you, who thinks about parenting a lot, like I'm always thinking about what the best way is to support my kids. And what I'm arriving at is very different

from the way that I was raised in so many ways. And I think we all parent either in admiration of our parents. We try to live up to the way we were parented or we parent in opposition, you know, for whatever needs didn't get met in the way that we wish they had. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And like your mother, I mean, I think it's really powerful, like the way that she raised you. Yeah. And it's almost like I've kind of understood this by talking to you about it. mean it's it's i think it's really powerful like the way that she raised you yeah and it's it's almost like i've kind of understood this by talking to you about it so it's it's cool for me too but yeah i just i always felt like i could i could go and try and do anything i wanted

to and that was it's such a beautiful thing and a powerful position to be able to feel like you're supported in whatever way you want to direct your attention. Yeah, and that's why I've always tried to squeeze the most out of life. I've never saved that much. I've always been putting it out there for experience, but my parents and what they did allowed me that freedom, and I always know that I was never going to mess it up too much. I could never push the boat out too far.

But yeah, that feeling of just being able to give it a go. Yeah. How old are you now? 29. I had a tough paper, I don't know. But 29. And look at the breadth and depth of experiences you've already had.

Yeah, it's actually crazy. They've always been the best and most expansive periods of my life. And now everything I do has come because of that. And again, going back to what we said, like purpose is the most beautiful feeling in the world. Feeling like you have a purpose of something to do and you're also getting something out of it,

but at the same time might be helping other people is beyond. Yeah, in thinking about your mom and then in thinking about Robbie, the consistent theme is service, right? These are people who are givers in their nature, right? But do you feel as a result of being on the receiving end of so much help and support, a responsibility to pay that forward and be of service to someone else.

Definitely. Who's coming up in the shadow of what you've done. Definitely, yeah. It's almost the best feelings are the ones that you experience with other people or help other people help other people do so when robbie did his tesla challenge when he did this the speed project being there and being able to help him achieve that and knowing that he's grateful to you for for that is is incredibly special And being able to shape someone's life in a positive way is even more special.

So at this time in my life, it's kind of just been me and about me, but that next phase of life, it's the same as having a family or whatever. Like I can't wait for that moment where it really becomes about someone else. I wanna end this with another quote, another thing that I heard you say,

another talisman or another mantra, which is, if I can, I will. Yeah, that was from Robbie as well. So the background to that was, it was during the Speed Project. It was on the last day i think there was there was 30 miles left of the race and i can't remember the the lady's name but a woman had won it she'd just got into las vegas and behind robbie and about 10 miles behind there were

i think four or five guys one had been jousting with a couple of days before on this incredible section through these mountains. And he was- It was like off-road, right? Like you guys were just like bivouacking. Yeah. Over these desert- I can't believe the cars got up there, let alone people.

I was like, how are you even, how did you even figure out that this would be the way to go and that it would pan out? And finding someone that, I don't know, like 140 miles into a race and them it would pan out and finding someone that i don't know like 140 miles into a race and then racing against each other right that just shows up there but it was it was funny because we'd stopped and robbie was really down in the dumps like down he was having a nap in the back of the car i don't know if it was an angel sent from heaven or whatever but on a random side road next to the highway, which was a dirt road,

even calling it a dirt road is giving it more service than it deserves. I can't believe anyone else would be there. A guy pulled up behind us and obviously he needed to get past. So we had to wake Robbie up. And in that time as well, the Speed Project Instagram page had gone live and they'd shown that the lady had finished the race and they had live trackers on everyone. So they'd also seen that Robbie was 30 miles out, but then a group

of four other runners were like 10 miles behind him. So we had to wake Robbie up. So he wasn't in the car when we moved it. Prior to that, you didn't even know that somebody was on his heels. No idea. That's another interesting thing about this race. You just don't know. So it's mentally like you just have to, you just keep going and it can be to your demise or benefit. But when we woke him up, I knew at that time I needed to okay I'm not gonna win but the only way I'm gonna get out of this feeling proud of myself is if I give absolutely everything from this point on and he was like immediately he was like I'm gonna need a gel every three miles and in my head I'm getting so gassed I'm like this guy's about to go fucking crazy. And I'm, I'm here for it. It's like, I need to gel every, every, uh, 5k. Um, and if I have to stop before I finish, it's going to be because I'm at zero, not because I'm anywhere above that, not one, not 2%, not anything. And I remember along the way, like being so buzzing to cram through this

stupid experience of running 30 miles, having run 200 miles already in three days, and just being so impressed at his level of application of just continuing to move. Peter John, who was with us on the Transcon as well, he was there and Robbie would be running along and he'd gradually curve over and Pete would literally tap him and be like can't stand up and he'd like rise back up and carry on running but when I joined them at the

end I remember him just saying to me there was this thing that kept going over and over in my head and this if I can I will that's a very powerful thing it's like how I said earlier of can you take another step? You basically always can. So if I can, I will. If you think about that really deeply, you can. And you will. It's profound. It's funny how a short sentence can mean so much if you tap into it enough.

But I thought about that the whole way across America as well. It was a powerful thing when I was down and out. Can I? Yes, I will. I think that's a good place to end it. Sounds good to me. Is it possible for people to still donate to the charities for the Transcon?

It was going to end, but we can keep it open. There's no actual end date. Why does there need to be an end date? There doesn doesn't have to be so name them and we'll make sure that we put the links up in the in the show notes so it will be on a gofundme page which i can give you the link to it's wills run across america and we're raising money for macmillan cancer support in the uk um who helped my mom personally through her battle and helped millions of people in the country there and then the american Cancer Society in the US. I wanted to raise money for cancer charities

on both sides of the pond. They offer a similar service to Macmillan, but they also do cancer research as well. So two amazing charities do an amazing thing. And I'm very humbled and grateful that I get to represent them and they support me in the way they do as well. Good on you, mate.

Thanks, Giza. Yeah, it's inspiring what you're doing, especially at such a young age and with so many years ahead of you to figure out how you want to channel all of this energy and just, you know, massive respect, dude. Like what you've accomplished is extraordinary. And the manner in which you comport yourself and speak about and kind of report back from the front lines of your experiences is really inspiring. So I appreciate it. Cheers, Mitch. Good to be here. Thanks, man.

Cheers. 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, as well as podcast merch, 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

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