The Rich Roll Podcast - Zen and the Art of Triathlon & Morgan Christian of Metabender

Episode Date: July 9, 2013

Today my good buddies Brett Blankner — the man behind the Zen & The Art of Triathlon Podcast — and Morgan Christian — of Metabender tracking & Real Time Athlete — stop by the garage to talk shop on all things endurance, multisport & balancing life against training & racing. This one is fun & relaxed people. These guys are a blast — I hope my fondness for them comes through your earbuds. I hope you enjoy the show! Rich

Welcome to episode 39 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Brett Blankner and Morgan Christian. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Rich Roll. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. I'm going to keep this super short today. Why? Because I'm in my garage recording this. It's got to be about 110 degrees outside. And so that must make it about 130 in this garage. Our air conditioning broke and I'm

like literally sweating on the microphone. But I guess that's a good practice because I'm going to be, this next upcoming weekend, I'm going to be at Badwater crewing for Dean Karnazes. So consider it heat acclimation, I suppose, but I'm not there yet. I'm literally dying in here. Anyway, I just got back from Vegetarian Summerfest in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which was an amazing experience. It's about, I don't know, 800,000 people descend on this small town in central Pennsylvania around the campus of University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown. We all kind of lived together. I was like staying in a dorm. And it was cool.

There was tons of amazing speakers and panelists. There was tons of amazing speakers and panelists, a lot of the same kind of doctors and nutritionists and trainers and, you know, the voices of the plant-based movement that I've been lucky enough to kind of meet and listen to and learn from. Over the last year, we're there and chalk scheduled podcasts all day long because I literally could have interviewed, I don't know, 10 or 15 people and had some amazing content for you. And I thought I would be able to grab at least three or four while I was there. And I underestimated how much I would be running around and, you know, the kind of constraints on my time. of constraints on my time. So the only person I was able to carve out time to sit down with, which, uh, was Dr. Michael Greger, who, if you're a fan of the show, he was one of the early guests that we had back in, I think it was December. One of the first few people that we had on, I interviewed him by Skype, which was great, but, uh, I wanted to sit down with him in person and I got the chance, uh, which was fantastic. We had an to sit down with him in person and I got the chance,

which was fantastic. We had an amazing conversation and that was the episode that I was planning on uploading today. But yesterday, as I was coming into the garage with my friends, Brett Blankner and Morgan Christian, I was kind of schlepping my gear in here to set it up to do our podcast interview, the one that I'm going to share with you today. And I dropped my external hard drive and it landed like a thud on the concrete floor. Never a good sign. Plugged it in, started making some weird noises and of course not registering. And I've been unable to access the data on that drive. And my interview with Dr. Greger is one of those files. So I hadn't quite made it up to the cloud yet, unfortunately. So lesson learned, which stinks because I've got a lot of data on there that I need to get. And I'm sure I'll be able to get it accessed at some point, but it's going to take me a little bit of time.

So today we have Brett Blankner and Morgan Christian, two very good friends of mine. Uh, Brett and I go back several years. I was a early fan of his podcasts and, and the art of triathlon and always enjoyed listening to him. Um, did a couple of training camps with him, one at his house in college station, Texas a couple years ago, and then one at Morgan's house in San Diego. I think that was two years ago. Great guys. And, you know, one of the things on this show is I try to bring the perspective of kind of the everyman, amateur triathlete, multi-sport athlete, and have them kind of clue us into how they incorporate healthy living and multi-sport athlete and have them kind of clue us into how they incorporate healthy living and multi-sport training into their busy life, how they balance kids, family, wife, husband,

professional life, and all of that to make it all work and where their commitment to healthy lifestyle comes from and hopefully glean some insight that is helpful to you guys out there, which is obviously the goal of this show. If you're new to the show, who am I? Well, I'm an ultra endurance athlete. I am a plant-based nutrition advocate. I'm a public speaker. I'm an author. I wrote a book called Finding Ultra. What else? Blah, blah, blah. I'm a podcast host, I guess. But the idea with this show is to bring to you some of the best and brightest and most engaging and entertaining minds and personalities and health and fitness, wellness in general. Everybody from, what was I going to say? I

totally lost my train of thought. Everybody from world-class athletes to doctors, nutritionists, wellness experts, what else? Even entrepreneurs and the everyman as well. And the idea is to provide you with a lot of information from which you can glean what works for you so that you can implement these insights and tools into your life and unlock the best, most authentic version of yourself because we need more of you. We need more of the authentic version of you in this world. That's what my journey is all about, and that's what I'm committed to trying to help other people experience and achieve.

So let's see. Also, I'm going to be announcing the contest winners for the t-shirt giveaway. Sorry I've been late to the party on making that announcement. It's just been traveling and spread really thin. But I'll do that on Twitter or Facebook in the next couple days and make an announcement on the next podcast episode. What else? Want to support the show? Click on the Amazon banner ad on richroll.com. Won't cost you

a penny extra. You want to buy something on Amazon? Just go to richroll.com. Go to the podcast page or the blog page. You'll see it right there on the right-hand margin. Click that. Goes to Amazon. Get whatever you're going to get. Won't cost you anything extra and kicks a few pennies over our way and helps pay for some of the equipment and the costs that we face. You can also donate to the podcast. You can subscribe weekly or monthly, throw a few dollars at your behest, whatever you choose. Thank you everyone who's done that. But like I said, the podcast is free. You don't want to donate. You don't feel compelled to do it. It will always be free for you, but we are very appreciative of those who have donated. So thank you very much. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming

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When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. What else? Let's just get into it. I think we're done. Check out Finding Ultra if you haven't already read it. Get it for a friend. Enough with the ad. Let's get into the show. Ladies and gentlemen, my good friends, Brett Blankner and Morgan Christian. Enjoy. Street boy, you've been out too long. Street boy, ain't you got enough sense to go home? Welcome to the Retro Podcast. There we go. The always effervescent Brett Blankner.

That's great. That's right. See what happens to you when you hang out in Malibu? Start turning into a crazy person. So I have a bone to pick with you.

Who, me? Yeah, you. What do I do? You make this big pilgrimage to Los Angeles, and it's all about Vinny Tortorich and America's Angriest Trainer. Yes.

I get this email. I'm coming to LA to do Vinny's podcast. Do you have five minutes if I can find the time to swing by after I've gone and seen Vinny and worshipped at the altar of no sugar, no grains. I was telling Morgan I did this on purpose to see if I would get jealous. Yes. Well, because I wanted to be on your show really, really bad.

Dude, I didn't even know you were coming to L.A. All you had to do is say, hey, I'm coming to L.A. And I'd say, come by the garage and let's do a show. Vinny brought it up first. And then when I said, hey, I'm coming up'm coming up to la to do vinny's show then you said what about me and i go i'm gonna use this so it was you two together that were doing it i'm just riding that wave yeah but i would have i would of course i would have had you on you're the uh you're the godfather of uh endurance podcasting.

When did you start? I smell like an old godfather. When did you start your podcast? So in 2004, when Kai was born. So I can always go back to how old he is. So he's eight. So eight and change. 2004. Yeah, it's almost, you're coming up on almost 10 years.

Yeah, so he was born preemie, and we did the Iron Baby. I did the Iron Baby all by myself. My first ever Iron Man solo, self-supported, and was live blogging it on a, who made the sidekick, Morgan? Oh, it was a danger sidekick. Just saying the word sidekick dates you horribly by danger and so i was live blogging because you could blog to blogger.com with a text message so i was sending text messages as my status as i was doing it and started i think the first year i wasn't raising

money for charity but then the next year i had the idea let's do this we called it the iron baby the next year i was wondering what the genesis of this. We called it the Iron Baby the next year. I was wondering what the genesis of that was. By the way, we were recording in my garage, and it's so hot out, I had to roll up the door, and it faces the highway, and it's Sunday, which means motorcycle day. So you're going to hear a lot of motorcycles going by. And you know what?

I'm not going to apologize. That's just part of the ambience of Malibu Canyon it's the character it's hilarious so Morgan is over here on our my right Rich's left

and Morgan's the motorcycle expert so he'll probably be able to tell when one goes by tell us what it is just watch out I can tell you a sound is there a comment over here I'll just be like

idiot put on some pants here we go it's going to happen every five seconds. Bang my headphones on. All right, Iron Baby. Yeah, so I'd never done an Iron Man before,

and I found myself in way over my head. But that was inspired by having a premature child. It was a spontaneous, like, I need to go out and... I needed to prove. On Vinny's podcast, I go in depth about how... Excuse me? Yeah, sorry. Everybody just tune out right now.

Go over to Vinny's podcast. I'm going to go ahead and get out my camera because this is going to get awesome. I introduced you guys. See what happens? No good deed goes unpunished. I came out here for this treatment. Yeah.

So the deal was, as a dad, you're told just to sit there. Don't do anything. And so Emily was in labor for six days while they were trying to keep the baby on board, while they were giving her drugs. They were trying to prevent the baby from being born. Yeah yeah so that they can get enough drugs into him to develop his lungs enough so he can breathe on his own there's a somebody else was just telling me that they went through the same thing and yeah they have to they can use these drugs to develop like sort of expedite lung development right and so and then still after he was born they had to put

him on a little bit of a caffeine drip to kind of keep him wired enough to want to breathe. Because preemie boys especially want to stop breathing. And so they had the alarm on them that was like a car battery. Caffeine drip sounds good. Yeah, we should be sponsored by Pete's Coffee or Starbucks. And this Nick Yu, he was in there for two months. Wow. And I was told just to go to work and keep

earning a paycheck and pay that insurance so so i'm and this was in houston and of course we would live back in college station which is an hour and a half two hour drive away and so one weekend i was told just to stay put and so i said i'm gonna go out if i could try if i could do something if i was asked to do something besides just sit still this is how hard i would try at doing something and so i went out and did an iron man and it took me like 17 18 hours whatever something ridiculous i didn't know what i was doing but so it was inspired not so much by a desire to see if you could do an iron man but just all this pent-up anxiety and energy and just that feeling of powerlessness. Yeah.

And every year since then, we've done it. There's one year where I skipped because I was doing Ironman Wisconsin and it happened to co-align and it was a big deal. So now it's a big charity. So we raise money for March of Dimes and not many people do it. It's like three, four people.

But it's a bring your own nutrition right uh self-supported solo iron man and now we got people that come out and do uh small parts of it they'll just do the swim or just part of the swim or they'll come and do the swim and half the bike and then they got to go to work or something like that you know and so um and morgan came out last year and did the whole thing. Yeah, it was my first Iron Distance thing. This is the way to do it, though. There's something about doing it yourself and creating your own event

and really just exempting yourself from all the marketing hullabaloo. I mean, Ironman's great, and I'm certainly not disparaging it at all. But you are kind of participating in a gigantic marketing scheme when you do one of those races and it's like you could go out and do that yourself just like you could go out and run a marathon or a 10k or what have you you don't need their imprimatur

their stamp of approval to do it and yeah morgan and i were talking about on the way over here like how much a cup of water costs you know by the time you pay the race fees and everything else you know when you could just get your own cup of water from your house. And it was fantastic too. Like it was an opportunity for me to like drag my family out there and do something I wanted to do anyway, but I get to go out and do with Brett. So I thought when I finished it, that I was like one of the only persons ever that had done it.

But then I found out that actually quite a few people do it, you know, they'll just do a self-supported solo Ironman, know just for kicks because they're a little ill and i think it's it's getting more and more when it's you know these races sell out in a matter of minutes or hours or days and the the entry fees are so exorbitant um you know why not just try it yourself uh there's a photo that we have in our family photo album that's um of me with kai and a baby bjorn and uh i'm wearing headphones with a mic and recording a podcast with him in the baby bjorn you know and now he's eight years old and he's a travel he does kids triathlons and and uh so yeah we do raise money for the march of dimes which helps pay for all this uh preemie stuff

and uh the medical costs were like two2,000 to $5,000 a day. I can't imagine. He was in there for two months. March of Dimes is helping cover this. Ronald McDonald House, which actually is a completely separate charity arm than McDonald's. They just happen to have the...

They took on the name for whatever reason, but it has absolutely nothing to do with McDonald's whatsoever. It's really wild that it doesn't. might they must fund it yeah so it's it's the charity that mcdonald's you know sends all their money to from what i understand so um uh they provide housing for people that live out of the area which we did uh to come stay at so ronald mcdonald house is a charity that we put to. What's really cool is we just put up a webpage. Come follow now because it's really easy to follow stuff.

The Iron Baby and it's around the end of October. Donate to these charities and just send me an email that you donated and how much you did. We'll raise thousands of dollars. You're not even collecting the money. I want to stay out of it. I don't want to ever be blamed that I took money or something.

And so what is that, ironbaby.com or something like that? No, it's zentrapon.com. Just go to your site. I just do an Iron Baby page. Right, yeah. That's cool. And in terms of following along, how would we possibly do that? What kind of technology could somebody conceive of

that would allow you to follow along in real time? Somebody that helps somebody get followed along the Epic Five along the epic five maybe not sure at all no but last year we both had um tracking device on us right so it was good so that's morgan speaking and he has a company called metabender yeah and what does metabender do uh basically we do uh i do a handful of different things but most of it is large-scale GPS tracking and media for these types of events, like the Rolling Road show endurance events kind of thing. Big swims.

The first time I did my swim across Tahoe last year, it was the first time I had actually used it for myself, and it was pretty cool. Yeah, so basically you get a little, it's a timer chip kind of thing, right? Yeah, it speaks over. Yeah, we did it for Epic 5. And you had one at Ultraman.

And we put up basically a portal and run some pictures and videos through it when we can and follow along where you're at in near real time. Right, so essentially you can embed a map on your web page with just the code that you that, that you give us, uh, give whoever's using it. And then,

your crew members or other people can upload pictures that get uploaded to that same page in real time or video. So people at home who are interested in following whoever throughout some event or race can actually feel like they're there and participate. It's kind of there. And it seems to be like, not all of the events are a great big deal, but there's definitely somebody who cares about where you're at and how you're doing. Of course. So it's kind of there. And it seems to be like not all the events are a great big deal, but there's definitely somebody who cares

about where you're at and how you're doing at a given point. So it's not even it's not all about like doing these huge events or anything. It's like somebody's homegrown thing. That's why it was perfect for the Iron Baby and, you know, trying it out. Basically, anytime you're going out, somebody cares. Right. And you also

integrate the Twitter feed so you can customize that. So it's like, Oh, well any tweet that has that person's name or a certain hashtag or something like that, we'll all show up in this one feed. So it's like a one stop shop.

You don't have to go check four different social networks to find out what's going on. You can just drop in on the page. It's great if you're going out to raise money for charity, you know, that kind of thing. Cause then you can just send them right into your portal and it's not even, we're not even driving them

to one of MetaBender's web properties. We put it on richroll.com or we put it on zentraathlon.com. And that way you can get your own branding as part of whatever you're up to. Right. And give it time. Yeah, I mean, it seems like a no-brainer

just for athletes that are looking, professional athletes that are looking to develop a greater relationship or connection with their audience. Like Luke McKckenzie i know you you did it for him and it seems to work really well for him and also just for race organizers i mean why wouldn't some why wouldn't a race say hey morgan you know do this for us and you can do this for all the athletes and work it that way yeah well i've been working over the working over the last several months sort of looking at how I can scale this thing to actually be to everybody on course

and super cost effective. Because right now, we send somebody out on course, it costs anywhere from $40 to $60, depending on how long the whole thing's going to go. So instead of doing that, I'm trying to drive the cost down to $2 or $3 per person, if possible, and get it embedded uh you know there's a huge huge demographic that's you know half marathons like the half marathon crowd is one of the biggest in the u.s and you know if we can get this sort of thing out and into those things i mean people show up uh to do those and it's a big event in their

lives and you know they've got family and friends that are coming out to watch it'd be great to see where they are mile by mile and just see how they're doing you know not to maybe you know they've got family and friends that are coming out to watch it'd be great to see where they are mile by mile and just see how they're doing you know not to maybe you know work out how to get some media in there so you can get a get a feel for actually how they're doing but at least be able to see where they are on course right and it's also i mean for the iron mans and half iron mans mean you know ironman.com or the wtc is getting better at their live broadcast but it's always pretty glitchy and and when you go to the athlete tracker, it takes so long for them to upload like their sort of individual split times.

Like it'll be like maybe, you know, two hours later before they upload like their bicycle split or something like that. And, and the only way to find out re you know, live, you know,

contemporaneous information is to go on is to like poke around twitter and create a column or something like that to find out how your favorite athlete is doing or your friend yeah and you're you're in the dark for hours before you hit the timing mats too so you go you'll go two or three hours before you know when somebody hit the bike turn around or whatever so you know sort of trying to getting that down to at least mile by mile would be awesome yeah there's a huge i think there's a huge market for that man i'm working on it i'm working on i got some new devices and prototyping and getting there yeah i got i have a a relationship not really a gig but with a race company in texas that's really professional they do smaller races right now but i'm going to start pitching them to integrate this

into their racing you know they do lots of 5ks 10ks half marathons stuff like that that's how to do it you gotta you gotta start at the local level in these small races and work out your kinks and just incrementally you're not going to be able to just step right into iron man or something yeah i mean like you gotta go yeah exactly you never know and who knows i mean there's a reason why it doesn't exist already right and maybe i haven't stumbled over what's preventing somebody else from getting it done either right But I think I've got kind of a head start a little bit. I assume I'm thinking about it in the right way. So we'll see how it goes.

If people want to check out something that Morgan did for me, it's a really good example, is the Tahoe Swim. Morgan set up what you call a portal. It's on zentraffon.com and at the top there's the phrase the Tahoe Swim and you can go there and you can see a big map of the gps points as we took took them across the lake and swimming and then lots of photos and videos that were embedded live yeah as we were doing most all of them i took so you go yeah and you go i was correct you go look at that and you're like wow i could have that for my own rate for my own event like if you're going to go out and do something awesome

to raise right you know want to just want to do something on your own or you know maybe if you're into you're in with a racing company and you want something done like that it could be anything could be like a couple buddies that are just going to go on a mountain bike weekend in utah or something right you know it doesn't have to be a motorcycle riding across the country or something and there's safety reasons too like hey here's where we are in case something happens too it's really cool i've integrated it with spot completely too. So if you get a Spot satellite tracker, I can just run the front end map for that

and give you little media links and stuff too. And Spot's awesome because it's satellite driven. So if you get out backwards, you're talking to the sky, not cell towers. So it's actually pretty functional. And when you're talking about crossing the United States or doing these big swims, when you're out in the middle of the Sea of Cortez or something,

you don't get cell signal. So satellite's the only way to fly. Right. Not even close out there. The Sea of Cortez. What are we talking about? Well, you did some stuff with Jamie, right? Yeah, I did.

I tracked Jamie's Sacramento. We're talking about Jamie Patrick, who's a mutual friend of all of ours. I first met him because he participated in Ultraman, and then he kind of stepped into doing endurance swim events, and he's done the double Tahoe. He did the double Tahoe. He swam 111 miles of the Sac River, Sac River.

And I crewed for that. And then last year we went out for the Tahoe 360, which is him. Right, so explain to people what that is. So he's kind of Mr. Tahoe. He's done a bunch of crossings, and so he wanted to go back to the lake and swim the circumference. The perimeter, basically. Yeah, so it's not about going.

He's gone across it and back, right? Not very many people have done that. How many people have done a double crossing? You know, I don't know. I think somebody else. Him and maybe somebody else. One other. I think it's one other.

But they... And it sent him to the hospital the first time he did it. Right. But we went out there last August and it got brutal and we ended up

pulling him out of the water at 14 hours. But how many... If a successful perimeter swim, how many miles is that? About 68. 68, right. Depending on how hard you hug the coastline.

And then you think, like, how far is Diane Nyad trying to swim, right? It's about the same? Or is it 90? Oh, I think hers is further. Yeah. I think it's... Yeah. I mean, it's more extreme.

It's saltwater and sharks and stuff. It's definitely... But you get an idea of what this is. This is pretty nuts. And also, it's cold water and altitude. And I think people really are way too dismissive of the altitude at Tahoe. And I think it's going to be really interesting at Ironman Lake Tahoe to see how the athletes do.

And my prediction is athletes that are training at altitude or the boulder athletes are going to dominate that. And people who are not prepared for that are going to get destroyed. i've done the tahoe swim and i've spent time up there and it's like it is the i mean you feel you guys know you're doing the swim i mean being in the cold water that long at high altitude made my asthma kick in you know and there was really nothing i could do about it and i had a headache the whole time yeah like I just sort of settled into some sort of, it's a very extreme environment. Right.

So that'll be interesting to see. So what is Jamie doing now? I got to have him on the show. He's going, yeah, he's going back to Tahoe this year to do the 360 to finish the 360. So, you know,

I'm going, is he getting super fat and big? Like you gotta, you gotta be huge to those, those open water endurance swimmers. Like they got to look like big whales, you know, I'm going. Is he getting super fat and big? Like, you got to be huge to those open water endurance swimmers. Like, they got to look like big whales, you know. Yeah, they pick up a little bit of extra to keep them warm. But, you know, the last time I saw them. Well, they're not allowed to wear.

Well, it depends on the race. Yeah, it depends on whatever they're doing. But usually not a wetsuit. Traditional water swimming is no wetsuit. No, no, no. You're a post if you wear it. Yeah, and so it's like a built-in wetsuit if you water swimming is no wetsuit. No, no, no. You're a post if you want. And so it's like a built-in wetsuit if you can put on some body fat. Yeah, exactly. There's an article, I was just flying back from the East Coast the other day and I was reading on the plane

outside magazine and they had an article about open water endurance swimming. And in particular, this camp that this guy holds every year in, I think it's in like County Cork in the UK. And he gets like, you know, I don't know, 20 or 30 people out there and just puts them through this insane bootcamp where they're just, they're swimming in insanely cold water every day for hours and hours. And, and this guy who is a, I think his name is, his last name is Bondurant, who fairly successful open water swimmer went and and did it and experienced it and wrote this article about what it was like. It's pretty interesting. It's tough.

I mean, it was certainly an eye-opener for me. Yeah, so what was that? I mean, like for you guys to swim across Tahoe, I mean, I've never done that. I mean, what was that like? Well, at first, I think it totally depends on the day, right? Because I've never seen anything make something harder like weather and open water. Right. Right.

So if you're off-road running, you can have some rain and wind, and that'll make it harder. But you get weather during a swim, then it gets exponentially harder. So at first, the day, and Morgan's too, we did it a year apart, but it was really mellow conditions. It was like swimming in a swimming pool. It was glass in the morning. It was awesome when we took off off the beach because Jamie swam at the same time Brett did, and I was in a kayak in between them, and it was just us.

Yeah, with a kayak with glow sticks attached to it. Yep. You guys all had glow sticks attached to the back of your goggles and stuff. And so I started swimming at night under moonlight maybe we started at 4am I think it was still dark and you watch the sun come up and then you see the mountains around you have snow on them, some of them do

and it was really smooth for a long time and then in the afternoon just a little bit of wind picks up you get a little bit of chop and then late in the afternoon it started getting moderately choppy still you don't know how much it's slowing you down right now but you're starting to get exhausted and then you start worrying about so deep what time is the sun gonna go you can't see the bottom so not even close there's no fish there's nothing that you have no point of reference

to know how fast you're going yeah yeah it's pretty crazy and then there's this optical illusion of the mountains on the side because you for a long time you're swimming next to the shoreline on the east side and this one mountain as you pass it the the way it grows or shrinks something about it it seems like you're not going anywhere uh-huh so it really starts messing with your mind did jamie warn you of that yes that mountain right there will make you want to kill yourself he did and i remember asking him like am i going anywhere am i going backwards or what like what the hell yeah what's going on yeah that's pretty crazy but i mean i knew that um it was doable because i just asked jamie what time you know how long it took him and i added on several hours for myself and it still seemed like still seemed like the better part of a day,

but not like 24 or 48 hours or anything like that. Slow down a little bit and have some fun. Morgan and the rest of the crew ate my cookies on the boat. I'm never going to let them. They go, what do you want? I want some of those chocolate chip cookies. Oh, we're out.

We've got some raisin cookies eating your yeah well it was we wanted to make it a little harder you look like you're having too much fun yeah how many miles it's 22 22 yeah that's a that's a beast of the swim man yeah that's no small thing yeah it was pretty nice when are you gonna do it i don't know you don't like cold water no i don't no i don't I don't do well I don't do well I don't do it yeah I don't do well in cold yeah it wasn't that bad

it was cold when I got in but by the afternoon it was warm like service channel the problem is you can't try too hard you know because you'll get

you'll wear yourself out so you don't develop a lot of body heat because you're trying to play it cool literally and so you're on the verge

of it being a little bit too cold but just right in the sweet spot right so alright so you've on the verge of it being a little bit too cold, but just right in the sweet spot. All right, so you've done all these Ironmans. You've been doing your podcast since the beginning. Well, first of all, we're not done talking about that. I want to talk about the birth of the podcast.

My first question was, how did the podcast start? And then we got talking about Iron Baby, but I assume that at some point that led into this idea of podcasting. So the way the story goes is i was uh subscribed to a wired magazine which is really good so forward thinking of you at the time a long time ago and adam or uh what's his name was on the front of it now i can't remember corolla no not adam corolla uh adam curry was on the front of it, and there was this article about podcasting. And so I started reading up on it and listened to one.

And I'm on a spin bike at Gold's Gym listening to a podcast about, and it was the only endurance sports podcast that I could find of any kind. It wasn't even endurance sports. It was windsurfing off the coast of Wales, maybe in Scotland. And it was really cool to hear somebody from the other side of the world with no agenda just talking about what they love you know and i was like wow this is really neat and then so i'm sitting there on the spin bike just killing time you know training for something you know two three hours on the bike right and uh it's raining outside or and so'm like, man, I could do this. I wonder what I could do it about. And for days I was like, I wonder what I could do a podcast about.

And then so at one point I had the idea, oh, I could do it about triathlon. And then I thought, well, what am I going to talk about about triathlon? So my first podcast was like 10 minutes. And then, yeah, I looked around. There was no other podcast about triathlon. I couldn't believe it. Not a single one. I mean, there couldn't have been very many podcasts about anything. There wasn't.

I mean, when you went to iTunes and looked up under the different categories. There was hundreds to maybe 1,000 or 2 podcasts total. Probably tech-dominated too. And I'm just guessing. It could have been much smaller than that. News and tech. News and tech. We're talking way before iTunes.

When iTunes showed up on the scene, everybody thought they screwed it up. iTunes ruined it. So before iTunes, how did you use RSS feed? Yeah, and there was a directory, a podcast pickle or something like that, and a forum that you would go on and ask people questions on

how to do all this stuff right and uh don and drew was uh big on the scene and uh yeah so just listening to other and i really fell in love with um shows that were individual personalities just talking about their everyday life and oh and um in college station texas there's there's no i like tech and i like you know endurance sports and it's hard to believe but up until then you had to get all that stuff via the radio or a tv channel and yeah it just didn't exist right so all of a sudden a podcast opened up the world for me all of a sudden the town went from barely survivable to i'm perfectly happy right now because i can i can download whatever i want i can listen to all the tech news uh leo laporte you know right um twit this weekend tech well that was before that but anyway

so um yeah like the only tech stuff that i could get was um was it cnet you ever watch that stuff morgan oh yeah i remember that. Old school, old school. Yeah. And so all of a sudden there was all this tech news like 24-7 and I could catch up on it. I could just listen to it all day long. So that's when it began. Yeah, so I started doing –

It really turned into this thing though. I mean that's how we met and I became a fan of your show. I fell in love with podcasts really when I kind of started getting fit again and was spending all this time on a bike or running. And I just needed something else besides music to listen to. And I was like, oh, let me look at the Triathlon podcast. And there you were. Started listening to your show.

Oh, well, yeah. And so what happened was there was a whole lot of podcasts about Zen, right? And it's fascinating. I recommend people go out and listen to this stuff because there are world-renowned Zen masters that record their talks to audiences. And it'll just blow your mind, their take on life. And so I needed that, having moved back to Texas from San Diego, back to this little town. I'm really not happy with being in this little town after coming from surfing every day you know and and um the zen stuff uh really taught me to take a different approach to how i see life and uh college station has this amazing cycling

out in the countryside that you can just go out and running and like all this stuff and so i was learning a lot about zen at the same time that I was starting my podcast. So every once in a while, I'd say a little bit about what I'd learned and it made for some pretty good content. So there was a big change whenever on the, after, I don't know, maybe a few months to a year, I figured out on one bike ride,

I would record while I'm on the bike and then i would i would record the latest news in triathlon which there's really not that much so and then uh more so now and some yeah more now and then some like product stuff that came out you know there's a new aero bottle or whatever you know and then um and i'm recording at that point recording in stereo with a mic strapped to me and you know there's 18 wheelers like roaring by people said that they love that

that was dude that was one of the I need to do that again the best I gave you a little shit about that though yeah remember that

no because I was like I'd be listening and you're like trying to talk about something while you're running you know

yeah running's hard yeah so I got this new I'm going gonna try out this new product yeah some people thought it was like dude like mouth pretty good a lot of emails spit it out man yeah so the um so on one bike ride i just and it's it's in one of the old podcasts somewhere i said i was about to turn the mic off. I turned the mic off because I was done.

I'm leaving it on. And I'm just going to tell you what I think about everything. And just started talking while I was writing. And then that show was a huge hit. Yeah. And then I was like, well, I'm going to keep doing this. I'll just talk about whatever. That's interesting because I think that's an important thing that I think about

a lot, which is, you know, you think it's the information that you're delivering, but I think it's more about your unique perspective and you being authentic and honest to that. And it's so refreshing in contrast to typical programming or radio where it's like you're getting some canned whatever. And in podcasting, you get people the way they really are you know right we can sit down for an hour and a half it's like you can't fake that you know right at the end of that period of time people are going to get a sense of who you really are even you know even if you do your best to try to affect some other personality type vinnie was asking you know he or saying he doesn't know why his show is so popular and i'm like well one people are nothing against vinnie or any of our shows people are bored they're stuck in their cars right so they and i said and

you're they get to tune in and listen to somebody else living a life that's different and so it's like they get to live vicariously through you and what you're doing at least temporarily and you're broadcasting the best parts of your life you know so it sounds really way more interesting than it is yeah as we all know yeah so um but yeah i was like you know you're to them you're like a character and they get to check in every once in a while on their own schedule right and he is a character oh my god yeah what'd you guys talk about oh i have a list for you oh god of questions he wanted me to ask you oh please i just had them here the other day. You could have asked me then.

These are apparently follow-up questions. You really do have a list. These are questions you want me to ask you? He wanted me to ask you. That Vinny wants me to ask you. Well, we did coaching on his podcast, How to Do Riches podcast, because he's been on your show three times.

How I deal with him is totally different than how I deal with other people. When I have other people on, I prepare. podcast how to do rich's podcast because he's been on your show three times right yeah and so i said how i do with him is totally different than how i deal with other people when i have other people on i prepare when i have vinny on i don't have to prepare anything no i just wind him up but he said first off have lots of coffee two cups of coffee each yeah to keep the beat up why because otherwise i'll let it drag yeah is that what he's trying to do? Is that what he's really saying there? You've got to hear this other episode. Okay. So what we did, we had coffee in your house before we got going.

Yeah. Right. Okay, so then he wanted me to ask you how you liked his book. Oh, he wanted... Jesus Christ. I like his book. Great.

I love his book. I had him on the show so I could support him and what he's doing. Okay. And then how did you like the section of Vinny's book about the 508? Oh. We'll talk off camera about that. And then how did you feel about the section of his book where his parents died in a tragic car accident?

Oh, please. God. What is wrong with that guy? I'm going to have to go back on his show now and set the record straight. Set it straight, yeah. No, so what I wanted to bring up was how you really changed my life.

So I'm going to lay it on you. Well, let's talk about how you changed my life first. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Wow. Wait. Morgan. I'd like to talk about how both of you changed mine. No, I mean, I was going to lay it on you. Well, let's talk about how you changed my life first. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Wow. Wait. Morgan. I'd like to talk about how both of you changed mine.

No, I mean, I was going to say, like I started listening to your show when I was getting interested in triathlon, and I was like, oh, I like this guy's perspective because A, like we just talked about, you're not trying to be someone you're not. You're just who you are. I failed at that miserably.

Yeah, well, everybody who tries to do that fails. Yeah, I was learning that. The second thing is, you know, you weren't coming at it like, you know, I'm Mr. Super Pro. You were coming at it like, hey, man, I'm here with you and I'm learning too. And here's what I found out. And I used to think this and now I think this. And we'll see how it works. I don't know how it's going to work.

You weren't trying to say I have all the answers. I definitely don't know how it's going to work. You weren't trying to say, I have all the answers. I definitely don't know. And most programming you listen to, it's somebody saying, you know, here's how it's, here's how it's going to be, or they're preaching to you or they're kind of, or they're lecturing or, you know, it's more kind of a one-sided thing. Whereas I felt like I was in this relationship or conversation with you where we were in it together. And I found that very appealing. And I also liked, I was very attracted to like, there were other shows, I think that, you know, you could listen to IM Talk. And that's very kind of like race specific and results. Right.

Talking about pros and things like that. Which is interesting. And I like that show. But totally different from what you were doing. And then there was a guy, I think his name is Dave Wharton. Do you remember his show? Yeah, Dave Wharton. It was a very techie triathlon.

Yeah, I used to listen to that one. Yeah, and he'd be like, you know, he would read about studies on this and that and different training techniques, but it was very technical. And with you, I was like, but I didn't feel like I knew who he was. You know what I mean?

It's like with you, it's like, oh, I know this guy. And I liked the fact that you were bringing kind of your spiritual perspective into this in kind of a soul surfer kind of way without being heavy handed. You're like, hey, this Zen stuff has helped me out. And, you know, the Zen masters kind of your spiritual perspective into this and kind of a soul surfer kind of way without being heavy handed. You're like, Hey, this Zen stuff has helped me out.

And you know, the Zen masters kind of say this and that helps me out when I'm going through something like this. Like you brought just enough of your own kind of personality and perspective into kind of how triathlon integrates into your life as a lifestyle, as opposed to, Hey, I'm preparing for this race to do a PR.

It's like, no, this is just how I live my life on a day-to-day basis. Right, yeah, and a lot of that is the very early podcasts where people just walking around with microphones and recordings, what they would call soundscapes. And so there's a lot of just open-minded, like what they're seeing, they just talk about what they see.

And then you get a lot of personal opinion when they're talking about what they see. And so i made sure that my show would always be one where i've got a recorder on me and in this sport we run into the most amazing people just left and right and so i'll just bust out the recorder and start saying hey you know what's your opinion on this or what are you doing you know and they'll say oh you know use these wheels or not like why and and then you find out way more about the person about it and uh so that yeah that was um adam one of adam curry's podcasts he used to do as a soundscape he would walk through london you know and central park with a microphone on and describe what he was seeing. And it was just amazing, you know.

That's interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, and what happened with you was the Men's Health article, right, where you were named one of the fittest guys. And you'd done Ultraman. It was 2009. That was a while. Yeah, I think it was 2009.

Yeah, and doing the podcasting really taught me to get over a whole lot of fears, and contacting people just out of the blue, and just sending emails to people I didn't even know, and having the confidence in myself to say, hey, I do this podcast, and do you want to be on it and uh what I didn't know at the time what I've learned is that uh especially endurance athletes you know were under underpaid you know and under promoted so it's a game I mean like even Luke McKenzie you know because yeah I mean these people are looking for opportunities to get their name out.

You know, it's, it's a, it's more than just the race, you know, it's a brand and it's like all this stuff. So they're looking for opportunity or it's a message about nutrition. Right. And so to help other people. And so people are looking for opportunities to get out there and say something. And a lot more people than you'd think. Right. A lot more people than you'd think right a lot more often and so i don't know

like four times out of five somebody replies back and goes yeah i'd love to be on your show you know and so and nowadays it's even easier with skype you know just call and get somebody on there yeah we started doing a couple interviews with you like before ultraman and what it was like you know and i'm fascinated with you know i remember asking you like how do you get your bike rides in you're like well i just throw my bike in the back of my car and between meetings or whatever i do i just get on my bike and ride you know and um and you learn these little tidbits and then i try to turn around and and share them and then you were the first person and you opened up the floodgates like the first that I interviewed that was really into the nutrition

side. And of course there's photos of you and everything. And so what I did is I cut out that picture of you that's out here that was taken where you're holding one of your kids in your arm. Oh, right. And I put it above my pull up bar. Right.

And so I'm cranking, it's going to get weird. No, Emily, Emily's like, this is weird. Yeah. And I'm like, it's going to get weird. get weird no but i'm like i want to look like that guy you know so i started you know well i got you on the show right and uh interviewed you and then um and then the next thing i know you called me up and said hey can i come down and do the uh training camp right yeah

yeah that's where it all got started i know know. It was good. Went down to College Station, did the camp with you, which was super fun. Yeah. And your nutrition advice worked. It worked fantastic. Oh, it did? Yeah. Are you still doing it? Where are you at right now?

We can get into that in a minute. Yeah. I'm not vegan right now. Yeah. But I have no problem with it whatsoever. Vinny's put a tractor beam on you and pulling you into his orbit of... I don't think he cares how has your podcast evolved you know how like what is like what keeps you going and what kind of i mean i'm sure you get emails from people all the time oh yeah yeah and you know morgan's

pointed out that um compared to the shows I used to do, I don't do as much of the introspective kind of stuff. I've started trying to get competitive. And so a lot of the content seems to be more trying to get faster and all that other stuff. Well, you've changed as an athlete quite a bit. I've gotten faster. But I'm thinking I'm'm gonna swing it back a little

bit more towards uh stuff i'm you know well i learned a lot about zen and then after a while zen will tell you there's not much more to learn right yeah so i'm not really in the the discovery of the concepts anymore i've got the concepts down but now where i'm at is applying them and like how it changes your life right Right. It reminds me of my favorite yoga teacher. I've been to lots of different kinds of yoga classes and been exposed to different methods and teaching styles and all of that. And my favorite teacher is a teacher who doesn't teach at all. And I used to think, he's not teaching. I'm paying to go to this yoga class and he couldn't care less about my alignment or he's not giving any instruction to anybody and uh it took me a long time to realize

that he is actually that's a very advanced perspective on the whole thing you know what i mean because he's like i think he's in a place where he understands in a zen-like way like everybody's on their own journey right if they want to learn more they will and i'm available to them but i'm not here to tell anyone what to do either exactly like so there's a there's almost like a deeper respect right even though it would appear that he's being nonchalant yeah and shirking his you know his harley yeah harley there you go if i try to tell somebody what to do and they don't really come to me wanting to know what to do then not only are they not going to listen it's almost borderline offensive you know right yeah so yeah the podcast

is just you know what i'm doing you know morgan jokes is called the brett show it's the brett show but it's it's your show it should be the brett show it is the brett show and one of the podcasts i used to listen to like the guy that was doing it was uh talking about his therapist told him to do it you know told him to do a podcast yeah because uh you're talking about you have to verbalize your own issues right and when you verbalize them when you put it in the words you're having to you know recognize what do you think mark maron is doing right exactly i mean that's exactly what it is that's rolling therapy therapy for sure. Yeah. I've become such a much better self-confident and better version of myself via podcasting because it forces you, basically, you're public speaking. But it's a very safe environment because you're public speaking by yourself.

And then there's no time schedule, so you can do it when you want. And then, like I'm saying, I can send do it when you want. And, uh, and then like I'm saying, I can send emails off to people and get, you know, bigger and bigger guests. And then it's like this thing I'm building and, but it's all me. It's not, it's not, it's not anybody else. It's just my thing. Right. So it's, it's, um, podcasting has definitely changed my life. Yeah. So, and so you've been doing it now for how long started in december yeah so this is like 39th 40th episode something like that how you liking it yeah oh it's amazing you know it's fantastic if it was i mean i i would just do one every day if i could you know like i would

you know if i could figure out a way to do that without being justin tv or whatever that guy is that you know who's that live blogs all the time that, you know, live blogs all the time. That's a little overkill. Putting the camera on yourself all the time. You're not really helping anybody at that point. You have to keep the quality high. Like I think, you know, right now my goal is to get two a week out. And if I'm not quite there, I'm kind of erratic and every week's a little bit different. But if I consistently, I want to get to a place where I'm putting them up like every Monday and Thursday and I think I'd be happy.

where I'm putting them up like every Monday and Thursday and I think I'd be happy. And then if I really could create some infrastructure around that, then maybe three, but only if like the guests are good enough. You know, it's like you don't want to do it to do it. You only want to do it if you're going to be delivering content that's valuable. And if you have a regular, I found for sure,

if you have a regular schedule, your audience grows a whole lot more because people are naturally wanting, just like TV shows, they're expecting a certain time. And if you're not consistent, then they go to something that is consistent, whether it's better quality or not.

They get angry too. It becomes part ritual too, right? So you have your favorite podcast when you go out on your Friday night. I get the emails and the Twitter messages. You need to put up another show because i'm going on a bike ride on sunday and if i don't have your podcast for my bike ride then my life is ruined all right i joke about that all the time also people get very demanding with their free content yeah yeah you know yeah so uh but i think you bring like a great voice to the podcast of fear, podcast sphere, the world of podcasting.

And there's been a lot of interest and kind of demand from the people that listen to this show to have athletes on who are kind of identifiable. You know what I mean? Like here's a guy who's just like me. You know, he's a dad and he has a normal job and he's trying to do these, whether it's running marathons or Iron Mans or whatever, but he's not a pro and he's not like outside of what, you know, I can relate to or what I might be capable of. And you, you know, so freely share all your information, like here's where I went wrong and I thought it would be great if I did it this way and it didn't work or, you know, here's what's really working

for me. And here's where you're, you know, you might be wasting a lot of time and money and, right. You know, what are some, I do a lot of that. Yeah. I mean, I mean, what are some of the things that, that, you know, I'd like to be able to offer that now, you know, to some people that are listening, like things you've learned and kind of common mistakes that the amateur triathlete or aspiring Ironman might be making. Yeah. So a lot of things, the things that people need to read up on is bang for your buck kind of articles. Those are really handy, you know, and you can save just as much time, more time by spending a hundred or buying a used aero helmet than you could on $2,000 worth of wheels.

Those kinds of things. The recent thing that I've come to realize is as a dad with a full-time job, you've got the kid and everything and a life, that you can get fast at half Ironmans, but to be really fast at Ironmans is kind of a, I don't know, it just seems to be, maybe it comes from your skill set, from what you come with. And as a former swimmer, that makes me fast at about one hour's worth of the race.

So not as a former runner, where it would really save some time. But you can get really fast at Half Ironman and really enjoy it. In other words, without it completely disrupting your life. Yeah, and then you can go out and do Ironmans and be reasonably fast and really enjoy it and finish happy. Yeah, that's interesting. And have a good time out there. Yeah, I mean, there's a big difference between completing an Ironman and trying to be competitive at an Ironman

in terms of the impact on your lifestyle. i mean like if your goal is just i gotta cross that finish line i don't care what time it is that will demand a certain you know level of preparation that that may very well depending on who you are and what your background is be doable in the context of a busy schedule in life but but to be like, you want to qualify for Kona. Well, that's a completely different conversation. It may take many years and, and,

you know, may not ever happen and may come at the cost of, you know, a lot of other things in your life that you value or enjoy. Right. So half iron man. Yeah. It's completely,

I think that's the greatest thing that the WTC has done. I mean, the sort of advent of that, that distance and all these races are up because it's challenging enough where it's not like an Olympic distance. Like you, you finished one of those and you did something, you know, but it's not so daunting that it's going to commandeer every aspect of your life for a year. Yeah. And I'm trying to think of, you know, like on my show, I'll review gear and whether it's, you know, worth your time or not. And, yeah, I think all the, like Morgan was talking about, the tracking, you know, website, GPS devices where you can upload what you did and show on a map what you did.

Yeah. That's really nice. Yeah. Because then you can share with family. Got a bike club now. Yeah. And sons of anarchy just went by. But you can share with family and friends at work, you knowons of Anarchy just went by. But you can share with family and friends at work,

you know, kind of where you went and what you did. Yeah, I think that's money well spent because that,

a big part of, in my opinion, the success equation is about community and accountability. And so, money spent on tools that kind

of affirm that or deepen your connection to that, I think are good. So yeah, like Strava and things like that, where, Hey, you put your ride up on Strava, like you're publicly accountable to whoever's following you. You know what I mean? Like people notice when you don't ride, like I've been really horrible about posting my rides there and I'm getting messages from people like, Hey man, you're going to ever ride your bike again. It can, it can go the other way

though too, because if you're, if you're supposed to go out for a Zone 2 aerobic ride and you know you're posting on Strava and you're on a Strava segment, some hill, you end up attacking it when you shouldn't. Suddenly, you're, why am I overtraining? Right. Yeah, and back to the Zen stuff, the other thing I'm really learning lately is really the most important thing to change yourself is to pay attention. lately is really the most important thing to change yourself is to pay attention if you pay attention to what you're doing then you'll notice that you're you're doing stuff like that right if you take the moment take a moment to slow down your brain a little bit not slow down yourself but slow down and take a moment pause and go you know i went faster than i was supposed to why ask yourself why and then you're like oh i did this well then if you slow down a little bit

more and then say we'll turn off the uh the strava upload while i'm out here doing this kind of ride what happens well then i'll actually ride the way i'm supposed to you know so usually that stuff boils down to ego and fear you know yeah it's like oh well i can't let anyone see that i'm you know not as fast as, you know, they're going to find out that I'm actually not that good. All that kind of stuff. No, it's true. I mean, how else has this Zen approach? Well, I guess, let me say this, you know, the last two years, you know, I haven't raced, right? And it's sort of, it's created this thing with me, like, am I going to race again? When am I going to race? What am I going to race? And, and yet I'm still, I still go out and train. I'm not

training with the intensity or the time commitment that I was when, like I was preparing for Ultraman in 2011, but I am getting out there. And I have this conversation with Julie all the time, which is she's saying, you need to learn to train for the love of it. You know, this is your life, your lifestyle. And i'm very goal oriented like that structure and what am i what am i working towards and how is what i'm doing you know contributing to that those are all kind of important to me and it's been a process of not necessarily letting go of that but at least for now finding a new way to embrace this lifestyle and a lot of it has to do with yeah like i'm going out to do it because this is who i am and this is what i enjoy and and there's no other agenda to it other than that

right so a few years ago i posted on slow twitch.com forum which is hell on earth yeah i was like i try to avoid it i can't yeah the uh troll does any is anybody else out there not it's just training for training and not you know just and i called it like a soul triathlete. I couldn't really figure out the word because there's a sport, you know, soul surfing where they just go out and take photos of really awesome surfers. They're surfing to surf. They're surfing to surf, right? In fact, competitive surfing is actually considered a little bit ridiculous because it's the most soulful sport, soulful, blah, sport there is and so um i'm like well it's soul traveling and immediately i got all these hate responses back wow because they said like somebody was like the people like you

are the worst travel each there are oh my god because what's happening is if you're not racing then you're invalidating the whole reason that they're racing right that's that's fear that's fear and ego wrapped into one their their whole success with themselves reason that they're racing, right? That's fear and ego wrapped into one. Their whole success with themselves is that they're racing and that they're beating other people. Well, if you're not out there to beat, they don't have anybody to beat, and then they can't validate themselves.

Their responses made me wake up and go, wow, the whole racing culture really is about, there's some people in it to you know just to beat other people that's how they validate themselves and you don't have to race you don't have to take part in this you know you can just go out and swim bike run and as a lifestyle when i did a triathlon in um college station a few weeks ago that was all ages right and kai was in it you know i think they went down to like six or five years old. And you start off by going down a water slide,

like a big water slide. That's the beginning of the triathlon? That sounds like an awesome triathlon. That's just fun. It's not even a race. It's awesome. And then you swim around like the floating turtle, you know, and like this other stuff.

And you get to the, you swim a couple, they have some lane rope set up, and you swim a couple laps, and then you get out, and then you, oh, it was the duathlon right so then uh and then you run and um there was a granddad that was there that used to race half ironmans and stuff and now he was like 80 and he was there and his daughter was racing and his granddaughter was racing oh cool and he was just out there just to have fun you know and just to be fit wasn't he didn't care about what place he got or anything like that and he was just beside himself just to have fun, you know, and just to be fit. He didn't care about what place he got or anything like that.

And he was just beside himself to be out there with his granddaughter. Yeah, it was really cool. That is cool. So the point you're making is that, you know, it's the journey and the lifestyle, the value for you. Yeah, for some people like myself,'s and it it hasn't stopped though because it keeps changing like at first it was about racing then it was about not racing and then as i got better got to be about racing again and then now it's like well maybe not racing you know and what i'm learning is that's okay right as it changes just do do it for the reason that

you like it as you have more self-confidence in yourself, then you're okay with other people racing and you're not. And it's like the big thing with training rides. It's tough. Hilary Biscay that was just on here, and she was saying the problem with going on big training rides is there's always somebody. When you've got 20 people, there's a few people out there that it's either on their training plan or they can't help themselves

to go out there and hammer it out. And then you have trouble holding back. Yeah, it's always on their training plan or they can't help themselves to go out there and hammer it out right and then you have trouble holding back and then so yeah it's always a quandary it's i mean for the most part i do all my training alone and i enjoy that quiet time with myself that's a big part of my personal health equation really is how is carving that time out just to be alone um but then you know in moments where I feel like I need the extra motivation or particularly in the pool, you know, it's good to be with a group, but you just have to sort of judge this scenario. Like, what am I doing here? Why am I doing it? And, you know, I have, I have buddies that ride every Saturday morning. And even when I, you know, was training really, really hard, I generally would, would join them for, but I haven't done it this year and it's

been a different experience, you know? Right. So, so yeah so you have a backyard pool right and so how do you find that plays into your swim training whenever you're doing the swim stops so is it harder to get into it than go down to the neighborhood pool where there's other people well the truth is the truth of the matter with the pool is that it's so expensive to heat yeah that uh it's freezing cold it's yeah it's way too cold to swim in most of the time, so I go down the road to the community pool. I still end up swimming alone. I'll do my own sets by myself there,

but there are other people in the other lanes that I know. Unless certain people are in, like some of the pros come into town and they want people to swim with, so I'll go and swim with those guys. But usually it's just me alone. Now the pool's getting warm enough so i can swim in there by myself but the thing is with that is as soon as i jump in then the kids jump it's not it's hard to do the letter workout it's more like yeah it becomes like family time and

another thing i'm discovering is like with uh music or listening to podcasts right so don't set up a rule like because i i love listening to stuff like that on bike rides, but I remember you actually saying on one of your shows that you don't listen to anything whenever you bike or run. So I was like, well, I'm going to try that. It was okay, but it's an individual thing. So I went back to listening to music. But then what I realized is the thing not to do is set up a rule.

It's like, oh, I have several Pandora stations. Some of them are upbeat, some of them are mellow, and sometimes I turn it off. Oh, when the battery goes dead on my phone and I got nothing to listen to, I just go with that. It's a different experience. What I was saying originally was more like don't be dependent on your audio for your training. You

know what I mean? It's sort of, it is nice to be out there by yourself and it becomes this active meditation and you have an opportunity to develop a greater connection with your environment and yourself and what's going on with you and all that kind of thing. Now, does that mean it has to be that way for every single training session? No. Like I listened to podcasts and music too, but I always try to make sure that I do some without it completely so that I experience what that's all about. And I think that we're so used to being stimulated. You know, we have to have that stimulation all the time.

You know, it's on demand wherever we are, it doesn't matter. And you gotta turn it off, you know? And like when you're out training, that's one of the few times when you can say, I'm not reachable and I'm going to be just with myself. I think so to never do that is to deprive yourself of a valuable experience. Right.

Yeah. So one thing I've learned to do over the years is I get up in the morning and I turn everything off because usually I fall asleep listening to something. So I turn everything off and then I have a piece of paper next to me and i just sit there and the things the thoughts that come to mind that i can't turn off that's what i need to do today and that has cleared my mind like just unbelievable it's a little bit different take on meditation right so a lot of meditation that's like evernote right except with the pen and paper yeah that was a joke sorry but uh but no and so some people will say you know well that's not real meditation i'm like well but i'm but the whole thing is to clear your mind of the things that are bothering you now i have a to-do list and now i can go throughout my day and it's only a few

things that just keep coming back well that goes back to making definitions about things what is meditation what does it mean to be a triathlete what is training what is racing and and the consistent theme and your responses really is free yourself from those restricted definitions of things you know and give yourself permission to do it your way and watch yourself get yanked around by what you think you need to do you know and make note of that make give me an example of that um uh i want to do ultra man why do i want to do ultra man you know there's this ultra man floor it's going to cost me eighteen hundred dollars why do i want to go do that why don't we do ultra baby and then start throwing that around and just think about it for a few days

you know and don't uh sit down and say well we're going to do it no matter what it's like play with the idea and think about you know how does it how does it make you feel to to be considering doing something like that? And then start bouncing ideas off people like you. Like, okay, if I do Ultraman, what are we talking about as far as training? And somebody that knows. And am I not the ultra athlete that I want to be

if I don't do an Ultraman? Oh, and then if I don't ever qualify for Kona, what does that mean as I get you know, as a travel, as I get older? Well, I'm learning like with Kai, cause he's in the triathlon and, uh, what I, my role now is to pass down to him what I know, you know, about all kinds of stuff. Right. And, uh, I grew up with my, my dad worked out of town a lot.

My parents married everything, but he worked out of town a lot my parents married everything but he worked out of town a lot and so um i never got as much you know dad instruction on how cars work and all this other stuff so i went out into the world on my own not knowing anything you know so i'm showing kai like how everything works right as much as i can because it's really handy that's you know and so um am i uh am I a triathlete that's fast or am I a triathlete that's sharing what I know with as many people as I can and making more other people fast and the cumulative effect of that

is even faster than myself ever could be? If I'm saving everybody a couple of minutes and there's a thousand people. Then you're the fastest triathlete on earth. Fastest guy ever, right? Yeah. It's all measured impact. but it's that it's negative time. It's that need to delineate what you're doing. You know what I mean? And where does that need come from? Like, you know, people say that to me all the time. Like, Oh, I, you know, can you help me? I want to qualify for Boston in the marathon, or I want to do this, or I want to do that. And my first

question is always like, well, why do you want to do that? Like what's going on inside of you that is driving you in that direction? You know, sometimes that's a healthy desire and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's being fueled by something that is off with that person. Right. And you and I've noticed lately,

because a while ago I bugged you and then I realized when I did it, what I was doing, right? What was that? About racing. I said, hey man man you need to race right yeah and you were like whatever yeah i don't remember that and then um and i said i think i think you're afraid i think you're you know like if you go oh i remember and you're you just blew

it off right as right as any grown adult would so the uh and then and then afterwards i thought wow i'm doing this because if rich doesn't race, then my world is turned upside down. My view of the universe is Rich will race Ultramans. If he doesn't race Ultraman, then something's not right. And so it's a selfish way. But you were also making astute observations. You know what I mean? It made me go, am I afraid to race again?

And the story I tell myself is, I don like to race unless i'm like lining up 100 you know that's a story i tell myself and i feel strongly about that like i'm not the guy who's every weekend going to some race for fun like you know when i line up especially for something like ultra man i'm i'm like there to i'm there to lay it all out you know what i mean i'm like i don't want to line up unless i'm ready to go you know and it takes so much time and energy to get to that place. And so, you know, I often thought like, why don't I just go out and do a bunch of races? And part of it is maybe, maybe there's fear. I don't know. Like, oh, well, what does that mean if I go to a race and I don't do well? How does that serve the message that I'm trying to serve? And, you know,

now my life has become a lot more about spreading this message of health to people that aren't necessarily triathletes at all. It's sort of transcended the world of triathlon. It's just, you know, people that need help with their diet and their nutrition and their fitness in general. And how do I balance my life as a triathlete or somebody who likes to be outdoors training with serving this message? And I feel like I'm in this point in time that is it's a it's a heightened period of time where i have an opportunity to kind of take what i'm doing to the next level and serve that message in a way that's that's of service to other people and if i'm out on my bike all day that seems selfish to me yeah but then what part of that is fear you know what i mean like those

are all important questions to ask yourself yeah you know so at ironman texas just a couple months ago it was so hot and i set my handlebars too low you know so it drove my heart rate up so i'm out there on the run walking and i've done so many ironmans now that i don't really it it would have been really nice to pr but once i realized i wasn't going to the first thing i did was start helping other people and then a guy on the course is like hey you're brett from zentry you know and so uh he started asking me questions about you know what to do here and there and whatever i said yeah do this and do that and then i started helping people when people it was really hot so people passing out and stuff so i'd go out of off the course to go get paramedics bring them back over to this lady you know 100 yards back that had passed out

yeah and i was throwing up and so um and i'm like man you know this is pretty cool helping people out you know i'm gonna finish in time and so i'll try to go as fast i can but yeah like another way to look at racing like you showing up at a race is like uh you don't have to be there to compete you're there uh one way to look at it is motivation and like inspiration to people that are all racing. They're racing. They're at the point in their life where they need to race. And then you can just be there to help them out and to be there as moral support.

Yeah, you're the catalyst that brought them out of the house to sign up, maybe. I mean, I'm definitely going to get back into it in the next year. But then that lady or whatever that was on Twitter that said, you need to race, you're afraid. But then that lady or whatever that was on Twitter that said, you need to race. You're afraid. It was like the. And then when she did that, it made me, you know, think again because I'd already kind of realized it. But it made me see it again the way that what I had said to you, not through Twitter, but just in an email, just offhanded.

You know, hey, I think you ought to race again. I'm like, well, those are two very different tones. Well, yeah. But I was like, this is people's, if other people don't do what they expect them to do, then your world gets turned upside down as your reality, you know? So if Rich Roll is not racing, then there's something wrong with the world. And then if what other people do, if you're dependent, if your happiness is dependent on other people doing something, then there's something wrong, right? Oh, of course. Yeah.

You know, of course. people doing something then there's something wrong right oh of course yeah you know of course i mean who was i think it's uh wayne wayne wayne dyer said uh other people's uh opinions of you are are not your business you know not even your business yeah not even your business so um but still you know i get rattled when i get the the occasional negative you know email or tweet or something like that well it's always curious to me too. Somebody took some time out of their day to write a couple paragraphs to me about their negative opinion of me.

I mean, it's like, wow, you expended a lot of time and energy on that. And I'm like, what is that about? I'll refund all your money you paid for the podcast. Yeah. Anyway. I used to use that line a lot and people quit bugging me right yeah i mean how do you manage that um you don't give any and you don't put anything i mean when you put that

up on slow twitch and you get a negative feedback you seem to have a very healthy you know yeah i'll just make fun of people and run away yeah i don't i don't know i just i've learned you know i'm turning 40 this summer you know and the older i get the smarter i get about this kind of stuff right about how to handle myself as a as a freaking adult you know yeah and oh i was going to mention on the show like the first another thing it's really important to do is to start admitting that we don't know what the hell we're doing do you know what you're doing no you have Do you know what you're doing? No, I don't know what I'm doing. You have no freaking clue what you're doing, do you? Right? I don't. That's why I have guests on my show. Right. I can put it all

on that. Put it all on that. Once I started admitting, I have no idea what I'm doing, then everything's got a hell of a lot better. Right. And you have to get to an age where that doesn't matter anymore, that you have to put on this air. You're terrified growing up, you know, like you don't know what you're doing. What am doing you know like i said my dad you know as an engineer he when he did teach me stuff which he taught me a lot you know but when uh i don't know how something works or whatever drives me nuts i have to figure out how everything works right and um so you know like i have to know if that piano over there you know I need to know how that all the strings are wired. And it drives me crazy to not know how something works.

So admitting, letting go, you know, and just being like the first way to learn how something works is to admit that you don't know. And then now you've got a place to start to fill in the blanks. The most that's some of the most powerful lessons that I've learned in my life. And I think as men, we're raised, you're supposed to know things. You're supposed to be the authority. Yeah, the 50s commercials. Yeah, or just sort of ideas of masculinity are very wrapped up in authority. Right.

It's masculine to be an authority and to have command over a variety of subject matters and to be able to tell people what's right from wrong and all that kind of stuff. And so it's sort of not acceptable to raise your hand and say, I don't know how to do that. You know what I mean? It's like, well, I mean,

maybe not, maybe saying it's not acceptable is too strong, but it's not encouraged. You know what I mean? And so I've been, you know, in my hardest moments in my life, you know, my darkest moments,

the only way out, the only way I was able to make it out was to finally say like, I need help. And like, I don't want to ask for help. I want to solve it myself. I'm smart. I should be able to do this. You know, I've been given the tools

during my life to be able to solve problems. And here's a problem that I can't solve and I'm afraid to ask for help or I'm afraid to say, I don't know how to make this work. Can you please help me? It is not my instinct or my default to do that. But every time that I have done that

and kind of allowed myself to be vulnerable in that regard, that's where the magic happens. That's the opportunity for growth. Right. You know? Right. So not knowing how to get out to your house out here, what do I do?

Call you, right? Right. And then you have an awesome phone conversation. You know? It's just, it's infinite. Like, that's the smallest example, you know? But like years ago, at my job,

they hired a new guy to run this one division and he was from the Army and he said, I'm going to tell you right now, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I thought, that's awesome. He has no idea. This is before I kind of figured this out myself.

And just immediately, I was like, this guy's taking charge in a different way. He's admitting that he has no idea what he's doing, and he's going to be asking all of us for help. And that takes some guts. Yeah, it does, because he's supposed to be the guy who's going to come in and say i know how to do this job right and still that's the way you instill confidence and yet he's instilling confidence and he's instilling trust and trust yeah you know with the people beneath him by years later after you know rounds of layoffs as the company you know grows and shrinks stuff he's still there oh yeah yeah because you know, they know that they can trust him. And he went out and found out what he needed to know

fast because he asked. Right. All right. Well, speaking about talking about stuff we don't know anything about, I've got to ask you what's going on with your nutrition these days. Let's see. Well, let's do a timeline here. He'll be vegan tomorrow.

Yeah. And then he'll be back eating nothing but pork ribs. Heavily influenced. He's bouncing back between my school of thought and Vinny's school of thought, which actually are closer than people might. Very close, because I've been on both sides. People don't realize. It's extremely close. Very, very close. There is nothing better for you than real food.

And on Vinny's show show i was saying what being vegan taught me was to drop the fear of veggies and that it got me because all i was eating was veggies it got me eating tons and tons of veggies right and learn to love it it's scary it's scary at first but except for like having cereal for breakfast there's so much of america that and around the world that has meat with every meal so there's a fear of just going without meat at lunch you know you'll see some people like there's there's no oh my god there was no meat on my dinner plate that's really weird right now like and i was telling me make it to make it through the night i was telling vinnie i can go vegan for days and days and days you know it doesn't bother me one bit and it's actually i

like it you know that i can do that it's really nice so um i went uh it's been like two years ago or three years ago i went raw vegan for a while because i got sucked into all that right who influenced you that wasn't me no no no it was that crazy guy on uh youtube oh the life life regenerator he's a he's an interview on one of my shows like yeah i know you interviewed him yeah so um so and for people that don't know he's a guy with a YouTube channel and he's basically he puts up tons and tons of videos

and they're all like about he's got crazy good energy he would turn on the Vitamix blender and make a smoothie outside of his RV he's standing in front of his RV in some campground it was a nudist colony for a while and a naked guy would roll by on his golf cart

be like hey what's up i could see why you were so influenced by him to adopt this good role model yeah like what do we what was going on well finding this so attractive so what i found eating that way was the volume of fiber was just so much that with raw vegan right that as an endurance athlete i don't you know i don't know anything any other lifestyle lately since i've been trying to eat a whole lot healthier so as an endurance athlete like you can't that that amount of fiber like really locks you down right it takes up space in your stomach for other calories and you need a lot of calories training and as you and i've talked about not as much calories as you as once you do it for a while you know the volume of calories really isn't what people think it is as your body gets more efficient but um so i was struggling with that and then there is really

now there is i think in the past well it depends on who i've been hanging out with i guess it might be influencing my viewpoint on it but um you know the stupid question like where do you get your protein which i thought was hilarious when you had that guy on the way that he asked you about which um which guy another you know just awesome nutrition guy and he was interviewing you it was a guy from australia that was oh oh osher yeah he's like my first question for you where to get your protein right you just died laughing so um but honestly you know you do need protein so i didn't know anything about like you know where you know peanut butter or like black beans you know all kinds of stuff like that you know i was just dumb about it and so um i was uh i was raw vegan and vegan for like a year and change and got lean but i was like uh and i had some of my best race results ever doing that and felt fantastic my vision got more clear um

people say that a lot like i can see better yeah yeah it was really weird and i know for a fact because i went to the eye doctor and he said your vision's gotten better it's not me just making that up you know so the um so uh but i think the the amount of fiber and not quite enough protein was leading me to have not enough energy. It's no fault of a vegan diet by any means. Then, of course, what do you do? You start eating a ham sandwich. But anyway, right now I'm eating meat and some dairy or whatever, um so right now i'm eating meat and some dairy or whatever but i'm not what i learned by being vegan taught me so much you know i was able to sit there with vinnie and eat a you know some

meat on a salad which i never would have done years ago you know with lots of bell peppers and you know all kinds of carrots and stuff like and enjoy it like really enjoy it and then feel that you know and then uh come in your house and julie making us or giving us a slice of um that raw vegan pie oh so good yes i'm able to enjoy that without thinking that that's weird or anything right you know and i loved it it was really great so i eat i eat a mix of raw vegan vegan and throw on some meat kind of here and there and uh but the other thing is I'm not attached to, you know, I don't try to identify. All that Zen training has,

it becomes so dogmatic. If I say I'm one way, I've painted myself in a corner for the rest of my life. You're so quick to- And then I'm wrong once I figure out I can't do it. Create a label around it, yeah. And then you're backed into a corner.

I mean, you know, I'm stuck with what I'm doing. Yeah. But it works great for me. I'm not in, you know, like I love it, you know. I continue to feel amazing. But it's also important for me

to remain open-minded and go, hey, you know, you need to, as a human being, you have to pay attention to who, you know, how you're feeling and be open to other ideas and not close yourself off just because you've decided that this is what you do and have created, for better or worse, an identity around it.

And something else I'm realizing is I thing everybody's a little bit different right so one diet that may work for somebody may not work for everybody else and you can really see an example of that where people people's emotional leanings you know people that are mellow people that are high strong you know all the stuff that's uh that's because of the chemicals that are in their body and they react differently to different things there's people that are gluten intolerant there's people that are fine with it people that are in their body, and they react differently to different things. There's people that are gluten intolerant. There's people that are fine with it, or lactose-tolerant people that are fine with it. And to say that one thing works for everybody,

really what you need to do is what's so awesome nowadays is we have so much information about if you were to eat vegan, how to do it in a healthy way, give it a try. It may be the best thing you've ever done for your life. But I think what you're saying is people have to take personal responsibility for that. Well, pay attention. Yeah, and do the experimentation.

Why am I eating meat? Am I doing it for fuel? Or am I just doing it because that's what somebody put in front of me? Am I doing it because I like the taste of it? Well, that's mindfulness. Being mindful of the choices that you're making and what's behind those choices and if you're where you're just passive passively doing something because that's the way you've always done it right so always question you know why you're doing what you're doing and um yeah you know i hang around you i eat vegan well i hang around you you shouldn't

you shouldn't yeah but you shouldn't do that because you're around me you should do it because you have your own personal barometer about what's right for you right well and i but paying attention i realized that i just kind of chameleon around or whatever i'm around you know and and that's a really big thing for people you need to hang around good influences and and uh yeah if you are easily influenced garbage so you know you pick one side or the other you still end up on top no matter what are you easily influenced

if you are hang around good influences and if it doesn't seem to bother you then you can do your own thing yeah so are you easily influenced totally by the time you walk out of here, you're going to be a full vegan again.

Okay. You're going to show me some horrible video. There's a shed in the back. Vegetables dying. How else has, I'm really interested in this, in Zen and mindfulness. I mean, how else has that influenced

not just your training and your racing, but your family life, how you approach being a husband and a father? Spending the most amount of my time with Emily and Kai, I've watched, they're not trained in it, and I barely say that I'm trained in it, I just listen to podcasts. No, but you're interested in it,

and you're attracted to these principles that you've tried to incorporate into your life. It has really opened my eyes, because they're anywhere near as paying attention to this kind of stuff that I am. And Emily, I think, probably doesn't need to because she's just generally a better person in the first place. Right. She doesn't need the work, you know. She's a hospice nurse. She's out taking care of everybody.

Right. But watching others around you get pulled around by a change in the weather or whatever. We're being bombarded by airplanes and motorcycles at the same time. There's a Porsche that just went by, I think. Watching Kai get upset over a cartoon not being on because it's being preempted by something else. And just watching how people get really attached to things. um at work we had to change offices i got moved from one part of the building to the other and i thought hmm well change is change you know let's do it and and watching other people just come unglued you know over a space that's not really theirs in the first place you know you're working for somebody else it's their building right you're just there

well it begs it begs the larger question of how we're so quick to judge scenarios. We want to label them as good or bad or this is terrible or this is the best thing ever. And we're dealing with such a minute amount of information when we make that snap judgment contemporaneous with the event occurring. Only time will tell.

Sometimes it takes years to realize, oh, that thing I thought was the worst thing ever was actually like awesome yeah and yeah totally and usually when i when i judge things as being bad or negative prematurely they always turn out to be you know good in the long run like lessons that you know sort of set me in a direction that i wouldn't have chosen for myself but ultimately were in my best interest yeah You know what I mean? Yeah, you know, and like you're really lucky to have Julia around. She's like this oracle that speaks wisdom, you know. Sometimes it's frustrating. I know.

Well, you need it. I know. I need it. Yeah, I do need it. She's like, well, we don't get the tour here, you know, because we don't want the TV. I need the TV. And I'm like, if you need it that bad,

maybe you need somebody to take it away for a little while. She's generally right, but it comes, you know, it's, it's, it's, but what she does is she's always challenging me, you know, like in that, like, I don't, you know, sometimes my inner voice isn't, you know, I wish that it was always challenging me in that way, but she'll be the one who's like, well, you know, maybe you shouldn't do it that way. Right. Yeah. And like, uh, so people know, listening to my show that I'm training Emily for her first half Ironman. So I have to be really

careful. I've learned not to dump all my issues onto her, you know? Right. And, uh, Kai is, is becoming a triathlete, but I'm not pushing him that way. You know, if he wants to be, you know, we signed him up a couple of years late for swimming on purpose. You know, he's not playing soccer this year, you know, we're this year. We're like, do what you want to do, and don't dump your own personal issues on whether or not you became a pro triathlete or not or a pro swimmer or the Olympics on your kid because your kid may not be into it at all. You two guys with multiple kids, I've only got the ones.

I can't really tell. They are different, each kid each kid yeah they come out they come and and you realize how little it has to do with you right you know like they're just wired differently yeah but you see some parenting where people try to make the kids into what they never were you know right and push them so hard and so it's really interesting to watch myself hold back from that yeah you know and just let him be himself and you know just work with what i got yeah he's got i think that's good you know i mean i think it's as a parent it's your job to you know guide them and to expose them to lots of different things but then it's their job to let you know what they gravitate towards and then

as a parent it's your job to support them in the thing that they show interest in. You know what I mean? I mean, I think the greatest gift, you know, and I didn't really have, well, I guess I did with swimming because I love that, but it's to help a kid learn who he or she is and help them kind of unlock and find something they're passionate about and then to support that right yeah yeah and uh on the sports side of that my parents threw me and my

brother into all kinds of sports and by the time we hit high school we were on three different kinds of you know sports you know basketball soccer swimming whatever and then uh came down to picking a you know one sport because you know in high school it starts getting to take up more of your time so you got to pick one just pick the one you're, one sport. Cause you know, in high school it starts getting to take up more of your time. So you got to pick one, just pick the one you're best at or the one you want to do the most. The one you want, I think is more important.

And, uh, so it just did, did that, you know, and then move on. And then, but then,

you know, after high school and college, it's like, well, I've done all kinds of sports. I could just do anything. It was a really good gift from my parents to, to put me through all kinds of different stuff by the time.

Yeah. By the time I was 18, I'd done a million different kinds of sports right yeah cool and uh yeah what you're doing with your kids with all the music stuff's awesome well that's what they love you know what i mean tyler picked up a guitar when he was six or seven and it was like all right there you go you know like that's what it's gonna be you know what i mean and like so now he's 18 and we've turned our garage into a studio and he's recording constantly. He just went out to Nashville with his brother to record demos with Julie's brother who's the guitarist in the Wallflowers. He's got all the studio equipment and cool stuff

and friends that sat in with them and played. It's fun to watch. My job is to be supportive of that and it's and it and it creates interesting scenarios as a parent because then you know the fear is oh my god he's choosing this life as a musician like what's my is it you know you want your kid to have choices and you want them to have a happy life and you want them to be safe and secure and that's not exactly a secure path you know it's frightening but neither is being a programmer right well you gotta realize that you know up to

this point you've given them a good path to follow and that they have to make decisions based of course on them and and i will continue to this is what i mean i couldn't dissuade him from his path you know if i used every ounce of energy that I have. So why would I fight it? You know, so it's like I'm his biggest fan, 100%. And Julie and I are going to do whatever we can to help them find their way in, you know, this world that is, you know, in peril. You know, it's a challenging world. You know, so, but it's cool too.

You know, it's cool that, like, when I was a kid, I loved swimming. That was what I loved. But that has a, you know, at least I thought that had an end date on it. And then what do you do with your life? Right. I've discovered it again later in life, and I found a way to incorporate it into my life. But, like, what if the thing that I'd fallen in love with as a young child wasn't swimming, but was something I could pursue professionally for my whole life?

You know what I mean? Like, what would your life look like if you had spent the time to kind of unlock that part of yourself and find that then, rather than graduate from college and go, I don't know what I want to do. You know what I mean? Yeah, but the risk of going into, and it's again, you don't know, so it's really not important to worry about it too much but you know with professional sports an injury that's your paycheck you're out yeah you know and there's people that train themselves into the ground um eating disorders and all kinds of stuff and you know they have to give up and even like the

most successful female triathlete you know so many years and she's out you know right because you can burn up doing this stuff so i don't know there's kind of an angle we're taking it as an age grouper from afar or like doing these like ultra man where there really aren't there isn't a pro category you know it's like no such thing yeah it's kind of like you can come at it from a better perspective where it's not so competitive right and you could go at it at your own speed and grow gradually you know so so yeah so hey like you said at the top of the show i don't know anything i do not know anything and the more you the more you learn the more you realize you don't know anything that's for sure yeah what about morgan sitting over there quiet because he knows everything he does know everything soaking it in yeah

he's got all the answers already. I have them all in my, I got another piece of paper like that that has all the answers on it. It does? Good. Maybe you'll let me see that. Is it this, did Vinny write them down for you?

No, no, no. It's my own handwriting. I got it all in control. All right. Cool. Well, I can't believe you guys didn't bring your running shoes because all I want to do

is take you down the road here to a little trail. I know. And I thought of that yesterday. I got a couple pairs. I might just have to force you into it. Okay. Yeah, that was easy. I'm wearing cotton. I'm wearing

cotton undershorts. I got running shorts for you. So what are you getting ready for right now? You training for anything? Oh, yeah. There's something really cool. The big race is the SOS triathlon in upstate New York, New Paltz. Yeah, that's cool.

That thing is really homegrown. Tell people what that's all about. If I had my S together, I would have gotten it together to do that. You're invited, I think, anytime you want to come to it. It sounds like a really fun race. The guy, one of the guys that's in the scene, makes it happen, is a huge fan of yours. Oh, cool.

Yeah, you can go anytime, I bet. I can't speak for him. Tell people what the race is. So there's this guy. Gosh, I wonder how old he is. And training for Kona years and years ago, like 20-something years ago. He used to go out his back door and do this totally trespassing, bushwhacking, crazy training day. And he would bike about 30 miles miles uphill it starts off kind of rolling

uphill and then he goes up in the backyard mountain territory of this um of this resort that's like something out of dirty dancing you know and uh i think it's probably what dirty dancing was based on you know that time yeah it's crazy and so it's in the shaw and they say shawm gunks or something you have to live there to be able to shawlin monks you know the shawlin monks and uh shawm gunks anyway so um after going uphill the last eight miles you know at the side of a mountain you end up on the mountaintop and it's a ridge line and you run from point to point right it's a point to point race so you start on one end and then you run uh and then it ends up being seven stages alternating between running and swimming it's

crazy it's the coolest thing so you run so when you swim when you hit the water you run into the water this is what i figured out with your shoes on with the shoes on and then as your waist chest steep so right about there you take your shoes off jam them in the back of your tri-shorts and just start hauling ass to the other side of the lake, right? Right. And you do that alternating run, swim three different times. So bike, run, swim, run, swim, run, swim, and then run. Right.

And the last run is only half a mile but it goes up like i don't know like 800 feet or something nuts like that to a peak a mountaintop and when you finish it's kind of like the norseman they call it the norseman of a of a of america yeah so because uh it's it's equivalent of a half iron man but you um once you finish you got to walk back down oh wow so you're just you've got to be on the rivet the whole time if you're going uphill like that and changing changing it up so much you're just your heart it's got to be through the roof the entire race so it ends up being 30 miles of biking 20 miles of running and then uh whatever the change is it's like 55 miles of swimming so um it is crazy and so you come out of the water

kind of like the swamp thing you know or like a navy seal you know you come out of the water kind of like the swamp thing, you know, or like a Navy seal, you know, you come out with your running gear. You put your shoes back on. Put your shoes on and just keep running. Right. And so they only allow like a hundred and change people in. Uh-huh. It sells out like instantly. Right.

And. Now I want, now I'm pissed that I didn't like. Sells out instantly. Like there's people outside the race director's house with their registration papers in hand trying to put it in his hand at midnight when it opens up and then um uh yeah like uh it's through like it's trail running but it's not like severe trails it's like carriage trails so it's groomed trails that they people cross country or uh yeah cross country ski in the winter so it's totally doable the views you're on a mountaintop you can see four states from the top wow and uh and then it's really homegrown because it's all based around this

one guy's training day for kona you know forever ago that's cool i love that man i like because it has a story to it oh it's awesome it's the most it's the most amazing and i like races where the terrain dictates the distances like you know oh well like we're to have an Ironman or a half Ironman in this city. And then you, like, you have the distances are preset. You're trying to lay that on top of a topography. But, you know, let the topography tell you what the race is. Right. And that's kind of how Ultraman started.

I love how each swim starts off. You know, you're running through woods, so you can't really see very far. But you start noticing that you're going downhill. And then through the trees, you start to see a little bit of blue, right? And you're running through wood so you can't really see very far but you start noticing that you're going downhill and then through the trees you start to see a little bit of blue right and you're running downhill and then you might after a while you might hear some splashing you know and then you you come around so when you start hearing that oh and i write the race just the run distances on my arm in a permanent marker so i know how far you how far i'm going until i hit water right so you come around a corner and

why when you start noticing that you're getting close to water and if you're about to swim you while you're running you put on your swim cap and i ran the whole thing even the bike i kept my goggles on around my neck right and then you just run just storming into the water it's the craziest that's awesome yeah and uh coming out the same've got to carry your shoes with you the whole way. The only other race I've ever heard of that sounds anything similar to that is the race in, I think it's in Sweden, that Jonas Kolting does. He's done it a bunch of times. And you do it in pairs as a team.

Oh, the swim, run, swim, run, swim. Yeah, and you just basically, you're swimming across these fjords and across these islands. You've got to carry your wetsuit the whole way. Yeah, you're in a wetsuit. So you kind of just pull your wetsuit down and you're running in half a wetsuit. And you put your shoes, I think, in like a plastic bag behind you and let it dangle. This guy, this race is so authentic that he was trespassing and doing this.

That one of the swims, you come around the corner and you go running through this very narrow trail. It's like the only section that has a narrow trail. Some guy's private property. And there's a split rail fence that you have to either go over or under because they've never moved the fence. Yeah, it's a real split rail fence. And you go over it and it's like a 10-foot drop right into the water. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Cool. So when is that? Early September. So I'm doing a sprint triathlon in my hometown, just a sprint. Next weekend. And it's just on campus at texas a&m yeah and then that's just for fun and then this one the sos and then the iron baby in the fall but we're i wanted to maybe not here but you know start peppering you for ideas about doing either an ultra baby right uh where we do i know you guys have talked about like maybe doing doing one in california yeah like a self-support self-supported

you know ultra man right and then um because it sounds doable you know uh but we don't know what we're doing right first person to admit and uh i'm uh but i know a couple yeah i know a couple people that might have done something like that well also, also, I think it would be cool to do it like we were talking about, like let the lay of the land tell you what the distances are, the stages are. And if you could do it like from LA to San Francisco, like that's about the distance, isn't it?

I mean, how many miles? It's 320 miles. Yeah, something like that. I mean, it's about right, right? Like do it where it's a point to point and it's like an adventure. You know what I mean? You hear about all these crazy super ultra endurance things like the Deca Ironman and the, you know, doing, I don't know. Yeah, like, I don't know these crazy super.

Yeah, they're going around like a four, like a half mile loop for like the whole thing for like, like, you know, days and days and days and days. And I'm like, oh, like oh it sounds like you know basically sounds like a bullet train to the mental institution if you're an outdoorsy person that doesn't really work for you right yeah yeah so i mean we could we were talking about um morgan and i just never got our act together but we were going to do you know come here and swim somewhere we joked about swimming in your pool some of the ocean, man. And then doing the swim and then biking from L.A. to San Diego, like a longer route.

Take it out in the mountains or something. And then running around San Diego for a double marathon and then calling it the Ultra Baby or something like that. I don't know. Morgan's going to be like that. Now you're going to be after saying it publicly on the on the podcast oh it's definitely we're gonna do it at some point we're trying to figure out how and so this ultraman um florida came up and emily wants to take kai to disneyland before he gets too old right disney

world disney world disney world so um uh so might go do that but i don't really know then you're uh i'm all in on that you know but then i'm driving across the country and paying a big entry fee to go do a race i could do it myself right but i do like the ultraman and it's uh who's who's running it consuela lively consuela lively it's pretty awesome lady so like i'm supporting that you know so if i can bring more attention to that you know but i think they're gonna nice and warm and flat yeah you know yeah it won't it won't sell out in minutes or hours right you know it would imagine it'll eventually sell out when it when is that one they do it in like february yeah that's yeah what about you morgan uh so i've got a got a 10 mile swim in uh late September. I did it last year coming out of the Tahoe.

It was a lot of fun. And then I signed up for the Oceanside Half Ironman again. I decided I'm done finishing. I wanted to actually show up and try and hurt my age. So you're going to be spending a lot of time on the trainer during the winter. That's a good example of somebody that's decided they want to race and needs to race to up their game a little bit, to challenge themselves. I've showed up.

You know, I've showed up. I've done a few things over the years, but not a lot. I haven't really committed to it. But, you know, I finally got to a point after last year, I sort of saw a little bit what I was capable of. And I'm like, well, why don't I just put my mind to it a little bit and see what happens? Yeah. Could be awesome.

Maybe not. Who knows? We'll find out. You know, you got to get out of the comfort zone once in a while, you know, say, shake it up. Exactly. That goes for me too. Yeah. You know? Yeah. What are you doing next? I don't know. You got, I'm doing good ideas though, don't you? Well, I mean, you know, like we were saying before, it's like my, I wake up every day thinking, how can I serve this message? Not like, how can I get faster as a triathlete? And that's sort of become more paramount, more important to me and all that energy and enthusiasm that I had for pushing my

body or having that kind of personal experience has been, has been, um, transplanted by like, how can I help the most number of people? Right. And that's been informed by a number of things. And so that's kind of where I'm at right now. And so I'm traveling a lot, you know, like I'm going to be going, like I'm going to be on the road, like September, I think I'm only here like a couple of days and I'm literally in a different city and it's great. It's what I want. You know, I want to go out. I want to see people. I want to talk to people. I want to, you know, help people improve their lives. And that's, that's really, that's my ultimate now. You know what I mean? And it's like, I do want to find time to continue to race and I love it. And that's, that's honoring what got me to this place too. And that, that needs

to have a place in my life. So for me, the, the challenge is how do I balance all of these things? Right. You know, you and I did wildflower the same year. Oh, we did. Yeah. You probably finished though. I finished. Yeah. I have two claims to fame. I need to go back to that race first. I beat you in a half Ironman. And I beat Rich Roller in a half Ironman. And then also I did the same half Ironman in Galveston that Lance did. Oh, you did that one. My split on the last mile was faster than Lance Armstrong. Oh, it was. But yeah, he was walking and like shaking hands.

But I've still, I need a t-shirt that says, I beat Lance Armstrong. In the last mile of Galveston. And then in the like fine print below in the last mile on a split I think the fitting with your schedule because you're always on the road and stuff and biking is kind of hard

and you're looking at running that you showing up at an Ultraman or not an Ultraman, an Ultramarathon and just out there they're so not competitive. I mean, that's what I'm going to do.

Like there's a, in, in August, there's the bulldog 50 K it's right down the street here. That's where I was going to take you on. And, um, you know,

I thought about doing that and then I missed a bunch of training cause of travel. And, you know, it's like, I'm trying to get a schedule that is functional for what I'm doing and I'm going to go crew bad water in 10 days or whatever. So I'll,

I'll probably be all inspired after that. I won't be able to And I'm going to go crew Badwater in 10 days or whatever. So I'll probably be all inspired after. Either that or I'm going to die. Yeah, you'll either be dead or ready to die. It is so cool when I go out and do races, the number of people that say, hey, Brett, ZenTri, I even wrecked on the SOS last year because somebody yelled my name and I looked up and crashed. So don't do that.

But the feeling that gives you that you're helping that many people you know and then the an ultra marathon is so low pressure you're just out there enjoying the day anyway you can't go harder than that easy right right that i think the um you being there and just enjoying yourself and having a nice day and showing that you don't have to race that you can actually just be healthy happy you know vegan and having a good time and and and what you eat you know and the pace that you run and how much you trained and what you're able to do would really like uh taking that approach is a different way of looking at it yeah that's definitely out of my comfort zone you know what i mean like that not racing that like makes me gives me anxiety just hearing you say that

because the number of people that would try to run with you you would be like carnaz it's like uh you know the swarm of people that follows them everywhere well i mean you know for me my comfort zone is preparing doing everything i can so when i line up on the starting line i know that i've done absolutely everything to prepare for that race i'm that way too and so to show up at a race half cocked you know it's like that makes me that's that's outside of my comfort zone like that's not something i'm used to do just do it like b race c race you know right just train and run we'll see all right that's making them right now i know i told you i'm sweating already it's hot enough in here all right man let's wrap this up all right we've been going for a while cool so uh zen try brett blankner zen trap you started this whole you you you know you started this

whole podcasting thing this whole genre I know yeah you have full credit thanks man and people you should definitely

dial him up on twitter he's at zentriathlon and the website is zentriathlon.com and that's where you can find the web the website

you can find his podcast zentriathlon is it zen and the art of Triathlon, which is also, of course, on iTunes and anywhere else that you find podcasts. Morgan is mchristian on Twitter, yes. Yes.

And metabender.com. And also realtimeathlete.com, which is going to be a subtle rebrand for the future. I've got a couple of things going on over there that are kind of cool. A little training tool that's up there where you can virtually ride around the globe. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's kind of neat.

Definitely. I wanted to give a big thanks to, now that I'm thinking of it, Morgan is the one that's driving me around. So I wouldn't be on these different podcasts up here in LA if it wasn't for Morgan chauffeuring me around. Thanks a lot, man.

I'm the roadie. No problem. This is fun. Well, had you called me before Vinny, maybe I would have driven down to you. You're always on the road now. I don't know where you are. I'm going to give you a list of questions for Vinny now.

Okay, I'll do that. You know, when we're finished here. I love it. I'll be right in the middle of it all. Yeah, let's go down for a little sunset run. If I can find some extra shoes for you guys, what do you think? Yeah.

Cool. All right. Thanks you guys for coming by. Awesome, man. All right. Peace. Did we do this? Peace.

We did. We did it. You feel okay? Yeah. We did it. You feel okay. Let's do a Marc Maron right now. It's like a recap.

Are we good? Are we good? Are we good? I'm good. I'm good. That's good. I feel pretty good. Anything else you want to say?

No. I just had to say that. Cool. I feel good. All right. We're good anything else you want to say no I just had to say that cool I feel good alright we're out of here peace plants Thank you. you you you