The Zac Clark Show - YouTube Star Cody Ko on Addiction, Extremes & Why He’s Running the New York City Marathon

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Cody Ko is a Canadian YouTuber, comedian, podcaster, and DJ who has built one of the internet’s biggest comedy empires – from viral reaction videos and the Tiny Meat Gang podcast to a fanbase of over six million subscribers. But in recent years, Cody has revealed another side of himself — one defined by discipline, endurance, and purpose.In this episode of The Zac Clark Show, Cody opens up about running the 2025 New York City Marathon in support of the Release Recovery Foundation, raising money to help people struggling with addiction get access to treatment. He shares why this cause hits close to home, how becoming a father changed his outlook, and what he’s learned about having an addictive personality — the kind that fuels both achievement and excess.This is a candid and inspiring conversation about drive, balance, and finding meaning beyond the spotlight.Connect with Zachttps://www.instagram.com/zwclark/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclarkhttps://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553https://twitter.com/zacwclarkIf you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release Recovery:[phone]releaserecovery.com@releaserecovery

All right, welcome back to the Zach Clark Show. I am super pumped for today's guest who goes by the name of Cody Co. Cody came into my orbit a couple months ago because his team reached out and he was looking for a bib to the New York City Marathon, which we will be running together in two weeks. and Cody what's up man welcome to the show thanks for having me man um yeah I'm stoked to be running the marathon with you guys and uh yeah it's gonna be great it's gonna be a great day um the other fun fact here Cody is you will be our first you know virtual guest ever oh really you will hold that yeah I have like this weird thing where I am like overly OCD about doing

all interviews in person because I just believe in that connection but we had to get you on so we had to figure the shit out no I appreciate it damn I'm I guess I'm honored to be the first digital guest I actually prefer in person as well but you know we live across the country from each other yeah you're in L.A or West Coast I assume yeah L.A. But yeah like we should maybe do it depending on how this one goes we should do a follow up episode in person yeah and I have Unless I'm just horrible this whole episode, then we can scrap the second version. I also have some folks out in the running community that are telling me that you are very fit. And anything that you tell me about your fitness level is bullshit because you're going to crush this marathon.

I mean, I've been training pretty hard for it. You have, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I wouldn't say I'm like elite fitness by any means. I, like, I'm really good at training. I'm really good at, like, hitting every workout. Like, I was a, you know, athlete throughout high school.

I was a college athlete. So, like, that is ingrained in my brain, getting up, doing the work, all that stuff. For me, it's eating. That's the hardest thing. Dude, eating and sleep for me is... Eating and sleep for me is... Like, yesterday, I hammered brunch and pancakes and then ordered pizza and chicken parm sandwich at 3 o'clock and came out of a coma after watching football, like 8 p.m.

this is not what Marathon's just like sweating pizza sauce yeah like why why did I do that yeah that's like yeah I just eat kind of like shit I wouldn't say like shit I just eat too much of everything like well you have a young kid too right that doesn't yeah yeah yeah it's also yeah exactly like getting him to eat is difficult enough so it's like we just end up you know getting somewhere or like going somewhere we can get mac and cheese and it's like oh i'm going to have half that mac and cheese because he's not going to eat at all and you know um but i just love food like that's like one of my ultimate vices like i love to cook a i love to bake but i also just love to eat baked goods and delicious

food um so yeah it's that's what's tough that's like it definitely gets in the way of my training because I guess I'm feeling it the most now just because I'm kind of reaching that like bottom limit in terms of you know my mile splits like I'm reaching that sort of wall at like 730 720 pace where I'm like I actually physically cannot go faster than this for you know over a mile or two so if I ever wanted to even consider maybe trying to go for a sub three or 310 or whatever like i'm going to have to lose some serious weight and i'm just yeah i don't mean i don't mean i don't mean at the new york yeah i do not if you are not trained because i have made that mistake have you i forget have you run new york yeah yeah two years ago okay so you know

the deal with the energy and the bridge and starting slow and that shit i don't need to yeah yeah that totally like i i'd heard that before doing it two years ago people told me like you know it's like the bridges sneak up on you you don't really realize it yeah and you know i felt good race morning went out super fast of course was just like you know fueled off the energy of the crowd and the people and i mean i was running the best marathon i'd ever run like you know this is like when i was probably trained to do like a 350 marathon i was running like 740 splits and then mile 20 just hit me like a train and And it was like, it was so funny because I found out after the fact that I was the most tracked runner on the app out of everyone that ran that year.

So there was like tons of people on the side. Like I just made it very like public on my channels and stuff that I was doing this. So there was a lot of people on the sidelines cheering for me. Some people with signs even that have my name on it. And I'm just like hobbling by them like a zombie. I can't even smile at them. They're like, go Cody. And I'm like, and they're like, is he all right?

Yeah, you're down bad. mile 22 and and your fans and like wanting wanting the sexy picture of you do still have it though i got to tell you i have uh there's a a girl that works for me um she's young she graduated from syracuse she found out you were coming on the show and she lost her noodle dude she oh really this guy still got it he's still got it he's got people that love him so naya you'll have to meet naya at the shakeout and give her a hug oh yeah yeah for sure she's like i waited in line at 15 years old to meet him for like around the block so there you go wow that's funny that's funny so i got to ask man look uh you know that that leads me into so we get this email from from your

team several months ago and obviously there are hundreds of charities out there that offer bibs and you know they were curious about our foundation which you know we promote mental health behavioral health care substance abuse why why release or was it just the first one on the page and you want to no no i mean not none at all i i i don't know i just love your guys's mission but it also resonates with me personally because addiction is something that's affected myself and my family a lot um a few years ago i lost my uncle from it so it's something that you know has directly affected us in a pretty heavy way and um yeah it you know i have multiple family members that have dealt with it and are you know actively battling it and um yeah so it's just something

that you know means a lot to me so i i thought if i'm going to raise money for something this is like the the perfect cause for me right you know were you tight with your uncle i mean do you remember Yeah, I mean, I wasn't super close with him because, you know, as I got older, you know, I went to college and, you know, you sort of drift apart from your extended family, but, you know, I do remember he had been battling it for a long time and had gotten sober a couple times and, you know, lived with his sister for a bit and, you know, it was just like always sort of actively battling it. And then up until the point where he, you know, I think post-COVID, you know, that definitely was a tough time for probably every addict on earth, you know, or every person on earth, I guess. Yeah. But someone actively battling addiction, you know, trapped in their home, not the most conducive environment to, you know, fighting it. So I think, I don't know if that's when things went south, but he eventually lost his battle. and yeah very extremely sad yeah it's a phone call you never want to get and it's it's it's interesting

because i assumed right like i i obviously did my due diligence on you and and read all about your career and you're kind of like rise to fame after going to duke and the whole thing and being like a were you a swimmer was that right diver diver yeah okay um and you kind of had this overnight success so i just assumed that you know know, in your 20s, being a public figure and having people with so much access to kind of you and the messages and the online hate that the mental health piece of this was going to be the thing that aligned with you. But, you know, obviously, like, it's a valuable lesson because everyone, I think, has someone in their life who is struggling with addiction. It's just the

truth. Yeah. And I mean, like, obviously, I think I have, I don't know, a certain part of me thinks Like I have those genes as well in terms of like that, you know, part of the brain that, you know, you can't turn off when it comes to certain things and you can channel it to positive things. But I oftentimes, you know, kind of fall victim to my to my vices a little bit. So it's something that I also battle kind of constantly. And it's a journey I'm still on, so to speak. So I can't say like I'm sober, you know, I'm a sober person right now. but like it's something that I've like been thinking about for for a long time so um you know just candidly no I mean I'm proud proud of you for having that curiosity I mean there's a ton of people

in my life that that come to me and they think it has to be this black and white thing and I say dude the reality is is like you get to define what sobriety is and if you're doing better than you were six months ago that's that's cool by me I mean I when I say I'm 14 years sober I was a heroin addict, right? So I put down the drugs and the drink and I know that if I pick something up, I'm probably going right back to the needle. That's just my truth. It doesn't have to be yours, you know? Yeah, I mean, I, that's like part of the reason why I love doing these races and having them on the calendar is it's like forces, forces me to get my shit together. And I always end up, you know, like right now I'm eating super clean. I kicked my nicotine addiction, which was just

plaguing me for the last like year. Zinn? Were you on the Zin train? Yes, dude. I just, Oh, it's a nightmare. I don't know, for me, it doesn't seem to affect people as negatively as it affects me, but like what I would get as a benefit from these things is like a two-minute buzz, and then I would feel like shit for like three, four hours. And I would just do them all day. So I'm constantly feeling like shit. My energy, it zapped my energy in the afternoons.

So I was like getting into this horrible habit of like taking an afternoon nap and then just not working for the rest of the day. really was just like I kind of sort of felt myself like losing myself to this stupid addiction and I just the worst part was is I couldn't I couldn't kick it you know and it's like I am you right now right yeah okay so you yeah it's bad so my so people I have the most fucked up relationship with nicotine right like so I was I used to be a smoker and I would never smoke in the morning like I would I would smoke three cigarettes at night before I would go to bed So I kind of like stop that crazy behavior. And now my favorite thing to do is go for like a 20 mile run. And the second I am done, like throw two six milligrams in the upper deck and just be like I have arrived. You know, it's so sick. It's so sick.

It's just like a, yeah, you sort of condition yourself for that to be the reward for doing something. Like I would eat a meal. And then it's like, okay, for dessert. is in go for a run okay as a reward for doing this hard run it's a zen and um were you were you do you mind me like is it drinking drug like what like when you say like you've had these thoughts around sobriety or is it more alcohol yeah drugs to some extent yeah um appreciate your honesty i mean that's yeah i mean like i'm not yeah i'm not gonna like lie and say like i i i haven't i know i have an addictive personality you know it's not something where like i for example like my wife

and I feel like her family like they're just so good at like just having natural balance you know and I think alcohol is one of those things for me where it's like I'm thinking about it a lot which is probably not a positive sign you know um like if you're having to like I don't know think about it during your day to day work like what time is it okay for me to have one of the you know yeah that's probably not a positive sign so well that's I mean, that's a confusing, I mean, I've, I've been very vocal about the fact that I think alcohol is actually the worst drug. And one of the reasons I believe that is because you can, you can kind of keep it together for a long time, right? Like you don't necessarily have to burn it all down, but it's controlling your life to, you know, to the degree that you're talking about.

I remember for me, the first, the first time I knew I had alcoholism, I had a brain tumor and I got it cut out of my head and I was in the hospital. recovering from this brain tumor and I was thinking to myself like when is my next drink which was just a crazy thought to have right yeah yeah totally I see some identification yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's it's I just appreciate the honesty because I feel like people yeah you know and like I said like I yeah I don't I don't know I go back and forth on it I'm not I'm still on this journey you know I'm not like in a place where I'm like, oh, I definitely need to stop doing this. But I do think that there is a point probably pretty close in the future where I will like heavily consider that.

Because I also also like, for example, for these for these races, same thing. You know, I'll go sober for a month or two and my life always just gets better. I'm like, if it's getting better in these small, you know, periods of time where I do this, then I can't imagine it wouldn't get better forever if I stopped for you know good so I don't know it's still something and it's it's an awesome community I can tell you that it's a lot of love and you know my experience is that controlled drinking's miserable like I never wanted to go out and have just three one or two yeah yeah it just doesn't I wonder if any of it like goes back to like do you remember when when your videos started to kind of like as I mean you're you're you're very funny I got to give you

that and like so when you started to like have some of this success was there a level of addiction there like were you were you then like chasing it and then would you like check and see how a video was performing or were you just full speed ahead and knew you had something so you were going to attack it with full speed because it was vine and then you had to move over to YouTube obviously when that when that shut down right I mean can you give us yeah I mean it's good question I think you know as I said before like I think this is a quality that you can channel into positive things. But yeah, there definitely is like a little bit of,

a little bit of an addiction to working, I guess, or to my ambitions. I think it's something I can't really turn off. Like, I just always want to work on 5,000 things at the same time and try to do as much as I can. So, I mean, having a kid has really checked that, checked me on that, I guess I should say. Is the kid's name Otis?

it Otis? Yeah, it is. That's the greatest name. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. People are pretty conflicted on that name.

I feel like half the people that we tell, like, think it's a dog name. And the other half are like, that's the greatest name I've ever heard. I love it. I have a buddy that, like, is in our friend group and we always called him Otis. So it's like a, and I love that guy. So it's a very endearing name for me. Good. Yeah.

But yeah. So the work addicts. Yeah. I mean, look, what I'm seeing today in my work is like gaming, gambling, sex, success, money, drugs. Like, it all kind of swirls in this same part of the brain. And so it doesn't surprise me to hear that, you know, and what is work now? Like, what are you, aside from the training, what do you focus on or what do you like, because you're 34 now. I mean, it's not like you're a young kid.

Obviously, you're having to make decisions around like how you want to, you know, carry yourself. to the next iteration of Cody. Yeah. I mean, right now I'm really focused on my second channel, like posting as much as I can there. Is that the fitness? That's the fitness stuff? That's not.

This is like my reaction, more like commentary style videos. So I have an amazing team, and we've spent the last couple of years just kind of like, you know, oiling our content pipeline. And so we're able to put out these, you know, like 20 to 40 minute videos, like three, four times a week now. In November, we're going to do a series where we post every single day. So, like, you know, it's taken a while to get here, but it's something that has been really fun to work on.

And I'm really proud of the videos that we put out. So that's been really fulfilling. And then, yeah, I'm also training. I have an Oaths Company, so I'm working a little bit on that. and then basically the other like 40% of my time probably is filled with music so like I started I well actually I DJed in college and then you know made made comedy rap music for a while and then started DJing and making or started DJing EDM again like three four years ago and because I started DJing I started DJing I started

you know I basically downloaded Ableton again started making like edits for my set because I got a residency at the win through this whole thing crazy crazy and so I started making songs for my own sets and through that I just kind of fell in love with I don't know I want to say being creative again

because it really reminds me of the first days of making YouTube videos when I would do everything myself right i would like come up with an idea uh i would film it and then i would edit it myself and then i would make a thumbnail myself and i would put it up and i would title it myself and everything was me and it just felt like this like you know i don't know like this each one of these things was its own little creative project through and through from beginning to end it was me how many now it's not like that this is 10 years ago no i mean the people that make our thumbnails are not any way like they are in a foreign country somewhere that we pay yeah that's what i mean i fully admit

that you know yeah it's completely outsourced yeah i mean that's basically with me now too like my team is incredible they know exactly what i like to film so basically my only role is to sit down and film it that's it you know and it's still a creative like you know i get to you know satiate that creative part of my brain when i sit down and film for an hour but it's not all me and like with music you open up this blank thing and you just like start creating and by the end of it hopefully you have a song that's like half decent and it's like every day i'm getting a little bit better so it's really you know it's not really making me any money yet producing music but like it's it's making me feel really fulfilled so i'm just doing that a lot honestly i mean i'm sure

the win is not an easy environment if you're like someone that's out there you know questioning your relationship to alcohol, you know, like it's... Yes, that's, uh, yeah, that and it does not go well with training at all. No. It's the two just completely clash. Because also like I'm a early to bed, early rise type of guy. Yeah. Like just naturally.

I don't even, it's not even like a, like a, you got to wake up at 5 a.m. And journal and do all that shit. I just wake up at 5. Like, it's just my natural cycle. That's just my chronotype or whatever the fuck it's called. So, you know, like on Friday I did a show and I opened. So I'm not even going on at the headliner slot, which sometimes I do. And I'm still going on at midnight.

The headliner goes on at 1.130. So sometimes I'm up till 3.30 on these nights that I play shows. And, you know, if you have to, you got to run the next day, oftentimes I'll just like punch. wanted to the next day, wake up, not do anything, you know. So, yeah, it's not really conducive to living a healthy lifestyle, but also it's like, so fun. You love it. Yeah, it's so fun.

Well, you're not a professional runner, so you can do both. I mean, like, I had to, like, swall. Like, Instagram these days is just such a mind wreck because I go on and, like, there's these guys that, like, look like me and you that are running two hour and 45 minute marathons. and then you have to like understand that they are literally spending their entire lives working towards that like time which yeah like um did you see uh who's the guy just truitt bro that guy is insane that's Cameron Haynes is do you know Cameron Haynes that's his son yeah okay so I wasn't familiar with Cameron Haynes but then there was some comments about that

so I clicked on his profile and dove in a little bit on him too yeah like just insane but like the I couldn't believe the fact that he ran his what he ran like a 340 last year or something like that yeah now he's too whatever it was like 239 or something here's the thing Cody I look at that

and I tell myself I can do that and I know that's not true but there's a part of me that says okay I'm gonna do this yeah I look at that and I'm like well if he can do that I can definitely do sub three but I'm never I'm like I'm never going to to do a two thirty nine or whatever the fuck he did he's so clearly like just naturally you know

it's got something i mean he's the guy is just not saying he doesn't work hard but like just look at his body like he's built to do this shit you know of course i mean that's the other i'm built to eat donuts yeah you know guys on the internet slinging protein and they have their shirts off and i'm like dude protein does not do that like that is not protein there is something else helping you and i wish you were being honest oh you're saying he's juicing no not him okay okay you're just saying the guys on instagram yeah okay there are there are certain yeah are we are we starting some beef here yeah for all the wrong reasons um but i got to i got to ask so so back to just like the mental health behavioral health care you like at 34 years old

right like you've had this kind of you've been in the public eye for now like what 10 12 15 years or whatever it's been like are you kind of numb to all of it is it just a day in the life you expect people to write things and the comments and yeah pretty much i mean yeah i'm pretty i also i know i keep bringing it back to this but like i really do think that having a kid just sort of zapped like every sort of last i don't know care about what other people think I guess. Like, really, I just want to make great stuff and then put it out and then go home and be with my family because that's all that really matters, you know?

And is that kind of like what you would say to a younger Cody or like someone who is up and coming now? Like what would you? Like have a kid. Yeah, have a kid at 22 so you don't care about, you know, all the other shit that 20-year-olds think about or? I don't know. I don't know.

feel like it's kind of you kind of need to have sort of an ego to like make it in this world I guess I don't know if you're in your 20s and you're like grinding away at content and trying to be an influencer or whatever you kind of need that sort of I don't know ignorant sort of you don't need it but I'm just saying like I don't know I probably wouldn't tell a person like that like oh all you got to do is settle down and have a kid because it's just like the phase of life I'm in. It just sort of naturally happened that way, where I did give a, like, you know,

I cared a lot for 10 years about what people said and the comments and everything. That's my question. Like, look, I, in a very different way, like I was on the show The Bachelorette, and I woke up after that season aired, and all of a sudden I am someone that, like, for a brief moment, people in the world know

and that was very jarring to me and I remember feeling like my you know my privacy and my sanity was kind of taken away from me and I just whenever I talked to someone else who's kind of had an experience of this overnight whatever it is I just asked them because I feel like my mental health was just shot there for a minute yeah yeah I've definitely gotten better at dealing with that stuff now that it's been you know however long I've been doing this 12 13 years for sure But, you know, I still get affected by it a little bit. But for the most part, I just, like I said, it's just, I'm happy here. And I feel like I'm, you know, decently content at where I am.

So as long as I'm just able to work on shit that I find is fulfilling, that then I'm happy, you know. And train, too, like training keeps me just mentally super healthy. I think. Yeah, I mean, that's my drug today. That's my booze today. I mean, the run, and I've had doctors kind of look at me and say, like, dude, why, like, why are you running your 17th marathon? Isn't there like something else that you can turn some of your,

and, like, the reality is, is my best days are the days where I get up in the morning and I run, and I don't really care to change that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you on that 100%. So looking forward, man. What are we really looking at here for this race? Are you, do you have a goal?

Like, do you have something? Yeah, so I ran L.A. in March and my time was, well, my Strava time, my chip time was 329. My Strava time was 327. And that, by far, was my PR. So I want to smash that. I want to break 327, but like, breaking 320 would be really nice. But I don't know.

You know, it's a scary one. Even saying that kind of scares me, just because I know it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt. I went 346 to 321, which was a huge jump. And then I ran 313 in Minnesota like a year ago. Nice. So what's your goal now? I mean, like, so I'm 41.

So 305 is the Boston Qualifier. I don't think I'm here. I don't think I'm there now. Like, I don't, I think I probably have one or two more blocks. So if I PR, that's like a miracle in New York. I would love that, which is a three, you know, three 10, three 11. But it's, there's so many factors. It's like the weather, you know, the body.

I mean, the marathon as we see time in and time out, like owes us nothing. So we could get out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like, I felt the same way for the L.A. marathon i was just scared you know i was also like in a way worse spot health-wise i was injured i did my

own training program and i just overtrained like crazy so i was in this horrible place so i was even more scared for that and then race day everything lined up perfectly i don't know what happened but it was like the race gods you know shined their light on me for some reason it was like perfect weather i ate and drank perfectly i felt amazing i've never never had a race like that before besides maybe my 50-mileer that I did where I just felt incredible from start to finish and like I was gassed by the end I was definitely cooked but like I wasn't like every other race I've had I haven't been able to speak at the finish line because I'm like I gave 110% out there like I got nothing left but this one I finished and I was

like I think you know I think I got a lower time in me probably so that's kind of what inspired this training block so like I was really diligent about like healing this injury and then now I've been training for this one for 16 weeks so all I can hope is that like it goes somewhat like it did in LA and I should be able to PR but you know if if the weather's too warm or something else happens then you know maybe you're rolling some 710 715 720 miles I mean like you're you're getting after it a little bit I mean yeah my hope is like I can maintain Yeah, like my run yesterday, it was like two-mile warm-up and then eight miles at race pace, and I did that at 7.30. But it was hard.

No, you're right there, though. I mean, that's... Yeah, so I'm... But again, like that, that, like, it's the limit, you know? I don't know, man. I feel like New York people, people are crazy about New York and, like, maybe this will help your mindset a little bit. I think you and I are similar in some of our addictive tendencies, if you will. want to label anyone but like I actually like the hills because I know that like on the other

side of it is this downhill rather than the 26 miles are just like flat like my my brain my ADD needs to be occupied by like yeah the bridges and everything and so I actually find I do better in New York than the flat whatever marathons yeah yeah that's totally fair I think those downhills really are positive for like the mental it's like you get even more of a runner's high you know like when you're going downhill yeah on one of those hills at least like two years ago I did like I ran some of those down hills some of my splits like near the middle of the race are like 645 it's just because it was like happened to be a downhill one and I was just cruising because like the crowd was cheering and I just felt incredible yeah you're going to do it again are you who

are you who's your coach is it roberto or Yeah, Roberto, yeah. Yeah, he's a legend. Yeah. He trains my buddy Casey, Nistadt, who's... That's who I got him from. Yeah, Casey's had the... I mean, that guy's journey.

I saw him the other day out on the west side highway. He was clipping like 650s. I'm like, dude, I don't know how he does it. He's so fast. He runs every day. Yeah, that was one of the things. So, yeah. So I...

This was probably, what, like two months ago or something? you know we've been both we've both been posting our you know Strava runs or whatever on our stories and he's like hitting me up like how's training going blah blah blah and he's like what weekly mileage are you at and I'm like you know I'm maxing out like 45 50 what are you at and he's like 80 yeah this is like 10 12 weeks before or no even more like three four months before the race he's at 80 miles a week already and I'm like maybe I'm not doing enough so I think like so one thing that Roberto's been really good about is like programming like he's really serious about rest days and whenever I've done my own training schedules I always overtrained because I just don't think that

days off exist so I'm just like no go every single day and never take a day off and now it's like I get two days at least a week completely off and like I've gotten a lot faster because I'm like letting my body actually soak up the gains from these you know big runs that I'm doing yeah but that being said i would i think what i'm going to do after new york is sign up for another race you know another 16 weeks in the future and try to do like a really big build like that like that's where i am right now consistently 70 80 miles weeks yeah and how does it feel i feel i feel stronger than i've ever felt i don't feel faster so i'm hoping that there's some like now that i'm going to get into the taper like today was my kind of like last big workout i'm

hoping that I can kind of get into feeling faster. I just don't know. I mean, like, we have bibs for London, which London is a great. So I'm going to see how New York goes, and then, I don't know, maybe we'll be running London together. That's a, that's, have you done that one or no? No, never. That one's, that one's good. Yeah?

Yeah, it's just good crowd. It's, you know, there's enough to look at and kind of, but I don't know. I don't know. I would love to do all of them. You know, all the big ones. Are you, are you into it? I mean, do you have the bug kind of? Well, I mean, I grew up watching my parents do endurance sports.

Like, both my parents were Iron Man athletes. My dad, I don't know if you know this, but my dad broke the world record for the longest distance traveled in 24 hours by human power. What? So he, like, designed a recumbent bicycle. with a shell around it and rode it around a track for 24 hours straight and broke the record. And one year, he was in the Guinness Book of World Records, like full-color picture of my dad, and I got it for Christmas that year. I think I was like 14 or like, no, probably 12, 13, something like that.

And got the Guinness Book of World Records as I did for Christmas every year. I got it that year and there's a picture of him in it. It was pretty cool. So, like, that was my environment growing up, is seeing my... My parents do these things. So, like, I've always had the bug. It's just always. Brother, there are some genes in your family that are, you know,

for some extreme behavior. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So it's just always been, like, when I stopped diving, you know, it only took me like, I don't even know, like six months before I started running. Because I was like, I need something to stay in shape. This makes sense.

My parents do it. Started doing it. fell in love like pretty much immediately and now since then i've done an iron man i've done three ultras um or two no three and and a handful of marathons so yeah but as for right now i've always kind of flip-flop like between marathon and ultra because like once i'm done in a marathon training block i'm like i don't want to see pavement ever again i want to be out on the trails and then I train for an alter and I'm like fuck the trails I never want to see those again I'll go back to marathon but this is the first time in my life where like I feel like I'm getting

faster and I'm like I don't want to I don't want to stop this this train I want to see how far it goes yeah that that's what hooked me a couple years ago like when I saw the benefits of like track workouts and speed workouts and running the tempos and the fart licks like I was just going out and grinding out miles and I had no coach and I I suffered because of it. And so like the last two and a half years, I've actually had a coach and been trying to make some gains. So we're at a similar place in the journey and just,

I mean, I'm just so grateful for you, man. I mean, like your honesty in this conversation is going to help some people. I think there's a lot of people out there that probably, you know, question some of the ways they live, question some of the decisions they make.

And so for you to be sitting here as someone who's had a great deal of success in life. and kind of share some of the shit you're going through. It's appreciated and the fact that you're kind of honoring your uncle by running for us, man, it's a big deal. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's the reason why I say this stuff really is to help anyone else that might be having similar thoughts. Like I said, I'm not someone that's going to sit here and be like, I'm, you know, I've committed to being sober or whatever because it's just like I don't want to be, I don't want to lie. I don't want to be, you know, not candid. but like it is something that has affected my family and it's something that I think about a lot so you know like I said I think what you guys are doing is phenomenal and I'm happy to be part of the cause so I mean look I always say it's more important to have allies like you like people that actually aren't sober to help break down the stigma because the reality is is like no one wants to listen to the sober guy right like we want to listen to the people that are actually um being honest about that.

it in the moment and so you know obviously not labeling anything and for all we know you could have a pretty healthy relationship with alcohol for the next 40 years you know like who's to say but um I think it's just really authentic to share the way that you did and it's definitely going to help some people so I'm grateful for it cool yeah that's that's awesome to hear well I guess we will see you uh I don't even know when we're going to air this I guess we're going to turn it around pretty quickly this week because it's kind of a marathon episode anything else on mental health on your career anything you're trying to promote um get some oats if you want a pre-race meal or pre-training meal co's oats.com what is it they're just instant oatmeal co's oats okay

k-o-k-o-s-o-at-s dot com why'd you do oats because like when I was training for iron man I was documenting, you know, like the whole process. I think it was like an eight-month training block. So I vlog the whole thing and like one of the most consistent things I did in the videos was eat oats before I trained. And it became this joke that like every morning I made oats and they were fucking horrible because I had no idea how to make oats. And then when I was after the thing, when I was thinking of or like after I finished the Iron

Man and stuff, I was thinking about like a product or something that I could that I could try and make a go of for a business. and I was like, what about oatmeal? Like, you know, because I think I finally figured it out. So Coz Oates was born. And, yeah, now I eat it before a lot of my training. And I personally love them. It's just instant oatmeal.

So it's, you know, it's taking sort of like the basic flavors that we all know and love that Quaker has been making for the past 40 years and sort of elevating them a little bit. So, yeah, they're great. All right. So we'll check out Cozos. We will make sure that we track you. Yeah. It's going to be a close battle.

I was talking to Casey the other day. I said, I think you're probably the most tracked runner in the history of the New York City Marathon because he's done it a ton of times. Yeah. And people love that guy. So it'll be curious to see who's tracked more this year, Cody or Casey. I think it's going to be him.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. And we will see you in just a couple weeks, man. Stay healthy the next couple weeks. I appreciate you coming on here And we'll link in person When you're here in the Big Apple

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it Thanks for having me, man All right, Cody Coe, thanks for coming on, brother See you Yeah, later Peace out