WHOOP Podcast - Conquering One of the Hardest Ultramarathons in the World, The Barkley Marathons, with John Kelly

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

On this week’s episode, WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed is joined by ultramarathoner and data scientist John Kelly. John is fresh off his completion of one of the most grueling endurance races in the world, the Barkley Marathons. He has won numerous endurance races, competed in multiple Ironmans and triathlons, holds a Guinness World Record, and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon focused on brain-computer interfaces. Will and John discuss how John got into ultramarathons and endurance competitions (3:52), what John gets out of running ultras (9:10), running the Barkley Marathons (12:00), how to fuel before and during an ultra (16:40), how to navigate while running the Barkley Marathons (18:33), John’s WHOOP data before and after the races (20:05), recovering from an ultramarathon (25:08), the mental and physical fatigue when running ultras (28:07), how John developed mental toughness (34:45), what it was like going back to the Barkley Marathons after winning (40:05), people who John has learned from over the years (47:44), what John has learned while being on WHOOP (50:00).Resources:John’s WebsiteJohn's TwitterJohn's InstagramSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks. Welcome back to the Whoop podcast, where we sit down with the best of the best. I'm your host, Will Amid, founder and CEO of Whoop, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. That's right. All right, this week's episode, we have a very, very special athlete, special in the sense that he is a world-class ultra-marathoner and a data scientist. This is John Kelly. John is joining the show to talk about his incredible feat of completing the Barclay Marathons, one of the most grueling races in endurance competition. He's won numerous endurance races, competed in multiple Ironmans and triathlons, and even has a Guinness World Record. On top of that, he is also a data scientist with a PhD from Carnegie Mellon focused on brain computer interfaces.

John and I discuss the passion and journey as an ultramarathon or what it takes to get addicted to running these distances. Turns out he didn't run in college, but I actually wanted to see how he could challenge himself in new ways. Talk about participating in the Barclay Marathons, just to put this in perspective. The Barclay Marathons 100 miles through unbelievably grueling conditions. There's weird regulations about when the race starts. don't actually know when it's going to start. It's an unbelievable event that only 17 people

have ever finished. Believe that. We discussed John's mental toughness and determination. I think there's some really good lessons here around chunking things up into smaller and more manageable segments, how to talk to yourself during painful events. John gets into a lot of that, balancing the sense of community and competition. And we talk a lot about John's whoop data. He's been wearing Whoop for a long time, and we talk about some of the crazy data he has as he does these unbelievably grueling events like the Barclay Marathons. It is Masters Week, so I want to wish to the best of luck to our Whoop golfers, Rory McElroy, Justin Thomas, and many others who are rocking Whoop in their pursuit of that

coveted green jacket. Good luck, guys. Also, if you want to unlock your golf game, check out the new hole in one band collection that's right we have three new golf inspired bands that will have you ready to go from tea time to the 19th hole check that out at shop woop.com if you're new to whoop you can use the code will W ILL when you're checking out to get a $60 credit on WOOP accessories that's at join dot WOOP dot com if you have a question you want to see answered on the podcast email us podcast at WOOP dot com call us 508 443-49-5-2. And here is the great John Kelly. John, welcome to the World Podcast. Thanks so much. excited to be here. This is an exciting one for me because you are in a very rare

class of ultra-marathoner. And not many human beings can imagine doing something like run 100 miles, let alone be one of the best in the world at it. So I'm really excited to dive in with you. yeah definitely it's uh be an interesting conversation and i've enjoyed i'm a data scientist as well so i enjoy the intersection with uh with my whip data let's hit for a second just your relationship with running if i understand correctly you ran a little bit in high school you didn't run as a collegiate athlete like what what got you back into it and at what point did you realize why i'm really good at this well I always kind of wanted to see what I could do in the longer distances I was good but not great in high school but always kind of excelled at the longer and the tougher things got so at then to grad school I decided I should see what I can do in a marathon before it's too late to see what I can do and signed up for one didn't go very well didn't train well for it wasn't the result I was hoping for but things just kept progressing from there, from race to race.

I think I can do a little bit better. And you've done Iron Man's as well. Talk a little bit about the difference between Ultramarathons and Iron Man's. So both of those are things that I kind of decided to explore at the same time. I wanted to branch out and see what sort of new challenges I could take on. how I enjoyed these different experiences. The biggest kind of leap for me in doing triathlons was the swimming part. I've never really done much real swimming.

And it's not something I was good at. It's not something, honestly, that I got very good at or got to the point that I was enjoying it. Ultras to me is a lot more of an intersection of my love of running. and just getting out in the mountains and being able to explore new places. And, you know, just a bit of a different culture between the two as well, with Ultras being a bit more low-key than Triathlons, which is not to say one is better than the other. It's just what personally felt like Ultras fit me a bit better.

If you just go back in time to that, like, build-up to being an Ultramarathoner, do you remember like the first time you ran over a certain number of miles and you're like wow this this kind of feels natural to me like just talk a little bit about the progression to becoming an ultramarathoner yeah for me it it did come a bit out of doing long distance backpacking and some long through hikes that I got out there and I was seeing these beautiful places and just knew you know I don't really have to time to see as much as I want to. So maybe if I run, I can see more. And then I discovered there's this whole world out there of crazy people out going and running through the mountains

and on trails and thought I'd give that a go. And again, it was tough at first. You know, if you told me that I was going to do things that were multiple days, 100 miles plus, the Barkley marathons, just like anyone, that sounded absolutely crazy. I would have never imagined that I was going to do that, much less be successful at it. So it was a progression. It took a lot of learning and experience to get comfortable with doing these sorts of things and to know how to approach them. Otherwise, it was a lot like my first marathon. It didn't end very well. did you have anyone say to you hey be careful running this far or on the contrary like hey you're really good at this like keep pushing the envelope keep trying to do more miles yeah what my first

attempt at the berkeley marathons was kind of a nice intersection of both of those i i had my my wife and it's near where i grew up so my my parents and other family were there and they they had no exposure to the world of ultra-marathons and these sorts of things. So I come in, you know, 30-something hours into that and just absolutely wrecked, looking awful, struggling to change my own shirt and eat anything. And they're saying, you know, call an ambulance, get them to the emergency room. And meanwhile, the other ultra-runners are there who have been through this themselves, who have seen this, and they just say, I'll just get them some chicken soup and send them back out.

He'll be good. And so there is a lot of learning there in terms of what is actually dangerous and how to keep yourself safe versus what is just kind of discomfort that you can keep going through. Well, I love that distinction because for a lot of people running a half marathon is painful. And for you, it sounds like discomfort is, I don't know, on a completely different spectrum. A half marathon is, I often tell people that's the longest reasonable distance to run. And I still believe that in terms of just doing it for the running and the fitness. When you get into ultras, you have to be driven by more that you're looking to get out of it.

So what are you looking to get out of it? Well, a big part of it is going back to that just exploration and adventure, getting to see all these incredible places, go out there and do that with other people that enjoy that experience as well. But I've also discovered as I've gotten deeper into these things, there's a lot of growth and learning that happens when you kind of reach that edge, when you're stripped down to your, bare bones and all of the other complications and concerns of life don't really matter anymore, and it's just you out there with your own limitations and the conditions in front of you, trying to figure out how to overcome those obstacles. And that's helped me not only become a better ultra runner, but that's applied back to my career, my family life, other things that I've been able to take those lessons to. And when you say it's just you out there,

I mean, when you're running for that long, I can't help but think there's a lot of time where you're almost disconnected from your body. And in some ways, you almost need to be because it's a very painful, exhausting experience you're putting your body through. Do you find that there's times in these races where you're almost hallucinating or having what, you know, other people might call some kind of a spiritual trip? Yeah, absolutely. And in some of these longer things where sweep deprivation becomes an issue, a lot of ultra-runners do hallucinate. I've actually never had that experience. Maybe I'm missing out. I don't know.

I do, I sort of get into this state, though, where it's, you know, how sometimes you can have a lucid dream and, like, you're dreaming, but you could swear that it's real. It feels so real. Sure. Whereas I kind of have the reverse of that where it is real, but I kind of think that I'm dreaming. Like this isn't really happening, is it? And like you said, I'm a bit disconnected and I have to really focus and use what mental bandwidth I have left to remember my goal and what it is that I'm doing and what it is that I need to overcome. But at the same time, being in that state really opens yourself up to some growth as well. I think we've got to go into the Barclay Marathons because it's so hardcore and so badass.

And then we're going to come back to this idea of what's happening to your body and how you're coping with that. Why don't you describe for the audience, which might not know anything about this, what is the Barclay Marathons? The Barclamarathons are a race in the hills of East Tennessee where I grew up, and it is, it's mostly off trail. The course is unmarked. You just kind of get it drawn out on a map. You have to hit checkpoints, which consist of books out in the woods, where you remove the page corresponding to your bib number to prove you there. It's about 130 miles total, over five loops, close to 70,000 feet of ascent. During that, the start time is unknown until an hour before it starts. Springtime in that area,

you can get all sorts of conditions throughout the race. The terrain is steep and rocky and wooded and covered in briars and uh mountain laurel thickets uh and you know as a result of this all of these challenges that go into it with the 60 hour time limit only 17 people now have finished it in about 35 years i mean that's so and how many people have tried to finish it so only 40 people are able to run at each year because of it goes into some ecologically sensitive areas off trail that we need to minimize our impact so you know probably around 1,000 people total and so it's around what the race director's goal is to keep it at about a 1% finish rate and it's it's something

that he's been successful at and constantly tuning the course and the difficulty as we've gotten better equipment, better gear, better knowledge, better training. He keeps tuning that to keep it right at that edge if possible and to allow everyone to go out there and figure out, you know, what is your limit? How far can you get in something like this? And how many years have you done it now? I've done it six years. and finished twice now. And you won in 2017. That's right.

That was my early years where I had a nice progression of three loops and then four loops and then 2017. I got that finish. What was the breakthrough in winning that race? Like just describe that experience, that race, and the progression of it? So the thing that makes Barclay really challenging is the number. of different ways that you can fail, the number of different skill sets that have to all be brought together. You can't just be fast. You can't just be a good navigator or just be good at managing bad conditions or sweep deprivation. You have to be good at any of these. And if you lose

focus, if you don't navigate well, then you're done. If you can't move fast enough, then you're done. And so that early progression was essentially kind of going through many of the ways that you can fail. The first year, my nutrition plan was horrible. And I just, my stomach completely shut down on me after three loops. The fourth year, I kind of got in a bad spot and I panicked a bit, lost focus and went off course. And the navigational error cost me too much time. And the third year, I was finally able to pull those things together. But even after that, when I came back after finishing, my mindset and my focus wasn't there. I no longer had that kind of big drive and motivation to become a finisher.

And I just, I quit as it requires a lot of internal passion to push through these challenges and see what we're capable of. so the nutrition side of it let's talk about that like what are you eating before a race of 130 miles ascending 70,000 feet like what are you eating throughout what and what what has worked or failed for you so beforehand it's it's generally something simple carb heavy uh you know low fiber no spicy stuff it's it's not really the way that you might think of carb loading before something like a marathon, though, because when you're out there for 60 hours, like your body's going to run out of glycogen. There's no way of carb loading to get enough glycogen stores to last you for 60 hours. The main thing is to make sure that you don't go

into it with any sort of stomach or GI issues from eating spicy food or a lot of fiber or anything like that. During the race, so that first year was really early on in my ultra running experience. And so I thought I'm just going to go out there with a bunch of gels and energy bars and, you know, these things are all super calorie dense. So they'll be efficient to carry. And, you know, after 30 hours of just nothing but straight sugar, my stomach said no. No more. I can't do this. And so since then, I've had a lot of learning and experimentation on the nutrition. inside, the same thing doesn't work for everyone. The same thing doesn't even work for the same person over time as our bodies change. But it's a good mix of what I'll call sports engineered

food, as well as some real food out there, ranging anywhere from, you know, candy bars and little Debbie cakes to slices of pizza. Yeah, it's, I mean, pretty fascinating. Now, the navigation piece of it, I imagine that that's tricky, like your body's tired, you can lose focus. It sounds like this is a rough terrain. Yeah, it's not the most difficult navigation ever. The course follows the terrain. It's got a very natural flow to it. You know, you're running down a ridge line and then following a creek and that sort of thing. So it's not by itself over. It's not, by itself, overly difficult, but when you get out there and it's night and it's dense fog to where, you know, you can hardly see your hand in front of your own face and you start to get later on with

mental fatigue and sweep deprivation, it's easy to lose focus for just a little bit. Find yourself veering off course, running down the wrong ridge line, and at that point, it's hard. It's hard to correct things because everything looks the same. It's a dense forest. You can't see any far off peaks as reference points. It's just, it's trees and rocks and leaves everywhere. Are you measuring anything about your body during the race? We're not able to measure a whole lot.

That's one of the other restrictions the race director has made is the only electronic device that we can have is a cheap, like, $10 watch that he provides. from Walmart. So no altimeters, no heart rate monitors, no GPS, no nothing. Well, that's disappointing from a whoop standpoint. We'd like to be able to observe that data. Well, I put mine on right after the race and for that first night of sweep where it told me I was a nice 1% recovered after that. I bet.

I mean, that's a sign that whoops accurate. If we told you you were in the green, I think I'd have to have a conversation with some of our data scientists. Well, it's been really interesting for me looking at my whoop data after a lot of these big efforts. And I've noticed I have a trend. I don't know if this is personal to me or if this is something that is more common across these types of things. But like my whoop data will tell me I'm absolutely wrecked for like, a night or two. And then it'll shoot way up. And for a few nights, it'll be like, wow, you're super recovered. Everything's great. And then I'll tank again for a couple of weeks. So I don't know if

my body just has this kind of strange super compensation response for that few days after the race. But it's definitely something that has been very interesting for me to look at and to try to learn from. Well, you were nice enough to share your data with us. And it follows actually a very, I would say a very thoughtful training protocol. So like what I'm seeing in your data is pretty positive for someone who's about to go into event. So you also have a very high heart rate variability and a very low resting heart rate. Typically people we see like that, they can crush their bodies. And then, you know, two days later come back and have their body respond very well, which is, you know, you know, you know, high heart rate variability, low resting heart rate, typically is a, is a suggestion towards, uh, towards fitness. Your 90 day baseline leading up to the event, 148 HRV, 45 beats per minute on your resting heart rate, you had an average recovery of 70%, uh, which is high for someone probably training during all that.

And you had an 86% sleep performance. You get an over seven hours of sleep. so that all looks really good and then the week before the event tell me what you were doing the week before the event and then i'll talk about your data well i was i was trying to rest more trying to relax more trying to avoid life stresses which is is difficult at times those sweep numbers are fantastic for me which i again made a concerted effort going into barclay to not go into it with a huge sleep debt and then in the very week before my training is that's that's tapering off i'm again trying to get even more sleep and maximize that and to just relax is the biggest thing

and that's so hard to do sometimes with with work and family and everything else that's that's going on in our lives but those those are the main things Well, you nailed it. So here's the week before the event. And folks, if you want to peek for something, this would be a great stat line. So you had an average hurry variability of 178. You had a resting heart rate of 40, 40 beats per minute. You had 82% recovery, 92% sleep performance, and you're getting over seven and a half hours of sleep.

So that's pretty amazing. Then, of course, the race comes. and we don't have your strain data because you weren't allowed to wear the whoop during the race. But then the week following, your body is pretty run down, as you said. You're getting your HRVs 135, resting heart rate's 50. Again, these are good stats, but your recovery is now down to 50 on average versus, say, 82%. It also looks like you have a little bit of trouble sleeping following the race or in the days following. five hours, 45 minutes of sleep.

Yeah, that's very accurate. That's, you know, I go out and do these things, and people assume that, oh, well, you were just out, you know, doing this for 60 hours, you've missed two nights of sleep. I bet when you're done, you just, you pass out and sleep for 12 hours. And that's just not the case. Your body is still really keyed up from the race. Everything is aching and throbbing to keep you awake. So it's normally a few nights before I can really get a solid, restful, uninterrupted night of sleep.

What are your tips for recovering after something like that intense on your body? Have you, you know, hot-cold therapy, massage work. Are there certain things you eat? definitely don't restrict what you eat. There are things that can reduce inflammation and the like, some things that can increase it. But the most important thing for me, I would say, is to just be sure that you're getting enough calories, giving your body what it's wanting, getting some good sources of protein in there is really important. And then, you know, listening to your body, I've definitely, as far as muscle,

soreness and whatnot. I don't get that as bad as I used to that has come with experience and doing more of these things. So for me, I'm just kind of letting my body take its natural course in recovering so that I will know when it tells me it's ready to go again and to start training again, that that's the truth. And it's not because I've tried to band-aid over anything with pain killers or any other sort of thing. So just calories, relax, try to sweep as much as possible, and listen to your body. It'll tell you when it's ready again. Hmm.

When you say listen to your body, what do you mean by that? So, you know, muscle soreness is one thing. To be honest, doing these sorts of multi-day events, it's a much. more a mental fatigue from the sleep deprivation, having brain fog is huge, where you just can't really fully focus. And there will be moments where, you know, I'll be fine one minute. And then the next, it is just like, I've got to lay down. I can't keep my eyes open.

I'm going to fall on that couch right there and be plastered to it for the next 30 minutes. And so, you know, whenever possible, again, jobs and other things. It's not always possible, unfortunately, to just take a nap whenever we feel like it. But as much as I can, I try to listen to those cues. And again, like the whoop data has been great in trying to quantify some of those things and see where I'm at as well. Let's contrast that what you just described with during the race, because you just described in a beautiful way, kind of having this gentle relationship with your body. Your body asks for something. You give it to your body. Your mind maybe says it's tired. You close your eyes. You sleep.

Like literally, the act of competing in something that's 100 miles long, you must be doing all the opposite of listening to your body at many points during that. I mean, am I right? In some sense, you're trying to suppress all the things that are telling you, hey, let's stop. Let's just lie down. you know wouldn't it be nice to just quit yeah absolutely and that is uh that's one of the biggest difficulties in something like this is is the mental aspect having the motivation uh and the drive to push through uh those spots uh and also the experience to know one of the things i was told early on in doing ultra running uh that to me is one of the biggest differences you know you do a again a reasonable length race a half marathon or something and basically

your goal is to gradually fatigue during the race and like you start off feeling as fresh as possible and then you just gradually fatigue and you hit the finish line at rock bottom and that's that and an ultra it there's a lot of highs and lows you're going to hit some low points and you've got to know hey i can push through this i can pop out the other side and i'm i'm going to be okay And subconsciously, I do think to what you said there, there's a bit of bargaining going on with your body. Come on, you just got to get me through this. Then we can stop. Then we can have some ice cream and sleep.

Like, then we'll be all good. And it's funny to me that in some of those races where, like, maybe your GPS hasn't measured accurately or the course isn't measured accurately. And you think, oh, the finish line is just a mile or a while. away. And then you go another mile and find out, oh, the finish line is two more miles away. And those two miles are awful. It's almost like your body revolts and says, you promised me. You promised me there was just one more mile. Let's take the first low of the Barclay, right? Maybe you're 30 miles in. Maybe you're 50 miles in. I don't know. Pick, pick an interval. Like what is that moment where you're saying to yourself,

don't worry we can get through the next 80 90 miles well for for one thing in doing all of these i'm i'm very rarely looking that far ahead i'm constantly breaking it apart into things that my body like my mind can actually conceptualize and manage and think is feasible so it's it's one climb at a time getting to the next checkpoint uh rarely looking all the way to the finish. But those first low points can come a lot earlier than you might expect that they would. And for me, it was that first night on the second out of five loops. I had some bad spots where I was starting to feel groggy and tired. I was struggling to move fast and keep up with the group that I was with. It was extremely cold, at least in the teens, Fahrenheit up top.

plus the wind chill. Due to that, I wasn't getting as much calories down as I should have. And so all of these things together, just I wasn't in a good spot. And I had to remind myself, this is just a low point. This isn't permanent. This is a bad time of day for me. Like, I know my body's own circadian rhythm. I know that, like, there are certain times of day where I'm just not going to feel good.

And I've got to get through that, and I'll be okay on the other side. So just, you know, it's a bad spot. The sun will come up. You'll bounce back. You'll warm up. You'll get some calories in. It's going to be okay. Just hang on, latch on to this group you're running with, and you'll be good.

One thing I like in the way that you're describing talking to yourself is, first of all, this concept of breaking everything up into, you know, smaller bites. Like you didn't set out to run 100 miles. as you set out to get to the first checkpoint, right? And that's a context I think about a lot in business or in life where, you know, the goal when you start a company isn't to build a billion dollar company. It's to, you know, develop your first prototype that people love, right? Like it's, you know, you've got to chunk these things up. So I think there's a lot of learning in that for anyone who's thinking about trying to do something

deeply daunting. The second piece, though, that's interesting is, you know, you seem very realistic with yourself. you know you're you're you're you're being deeply uh honest about acknowledging these things hey it's really cold out you're not telling yourself it's warmer than you think you're telling yourself it's really cold you know you're not telling yourself this is a time of day that uh you know uh can overcome uh through natural means you're saying like actually yeah my body doesn't like this time of day either right so there's a sort of uh there's an honesty with which you're talking to yourself that I imagine it's really helpful to find that deeper belief system,

right? Because it's like a partnership with your body to persevere through this very unrealistic thing and you're going to chunk it up in little realistic bites and you're going to just be honest about how hard that is. Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, break it up into a manageable chunk or a manageable milestone and say, here is how I get from where I am to where I want to be. It's never, you never want to say, here's how I get from where I wish I were to where I want to be. That's irrelevant. If you kind of try to convince yourself that you're in a different spot than you really are, then your path to the goal is going to be wrong.

And that's been something, again, one of those lessons that it's been valuable to learn for ultra-running, but also just for life in general. I've been doing startup life myself for a few years now and have walked that path and gone through many of those highs and lows and many of those challenges along the way to get from nothing to where we are now. Well, that's something we can relate around. And, you know, that mindset that we just talked about, is that something that you feel like came naturally to you in the process of just having to overcome very hard things? Were there, did you consciously try to develop habits or techniques that made you better at it, like, you know, meditating or visualizing or, you know, these other sort of more mental-oriented techniques? I think part of it came. naturally. I think the main part that came that I've always had has just been this sort of, you know, you can say determination if you want to sound positive or you can say stubbornness. If you want to say

negative, it's kind of the same thing in a lot of cases. And so early on, it was just, you know, I'm going to get through this. I don't know how, but I'm just going to keep going. And nothing is going to stop me and that was that was sort of an effective brute force approach but there are much better more elegant ways to deal with that that can you know lead you to overcoming bigger challenges and doing it in a more effective or efficient way and so that has been a learning process of discovering what works for me of having those prior experiences that I can recall and use as my motivation to push myself through that. And so I always like to think of that as, again, I do data science.

I'm an AI guy and in a lot of learning algorithms, there's this concept of exploration versus exploitation. And so early on, I was exploring all the possible things that I could do to get through those. And eventually, I found what worked for me, what works. best, and now I'm exploiting the heck out of those to push myself to bigger challenges. Well, you have a PhD from Carnegie Mellon where you researched brain computer interfaces, and I've known you for all of 45 minutes, but I can tell you that the startup world is

well-suited for you, and the persistence that you find in ultramarathoning is going to be well pointed at all the technology ventures you take on. I just want to get back to this idea of determination. You know, if you had to teach someone determination or if you're trying to raise children and you want them to be determined when they grow up, like what are, what would be techniques that you would use or methods you'd use? So a lot of that research I did for the PhD actually involved some some game theory. and getting people to learn how to use their brain computer interface, how to effectively control that.

And a big part of that is this sort of concept of the Goldilocks zone of difficulty, of giving people tasks and goals that are just out of reach. If you give someone something that's too hard, they're going to get frustrated or in the gaming world they're going to rage quit. if you give them something that's too easy it's it's going to be boring and pointless and they're going to quit like what's the point of trying to do something i already know i can do it's just a chore and so finding that sweet spot of this is something that is just possible is really what reinforces determination of teaching people that you can do things that you may not

have originally thought you could do. And as, as you get better, you continue to reinforce that. You continue to move that sweet spot, a bit like a carrot on a stick. And they, they reached spots that, you know, is over the horizon past where they originally could have seen or imagined from where they started. I like that a lot. I think about it in building Woop, which, you know, one from an idea in a dorm room to now being a more mature business. And I think a lot about like moving the goalposts, you know, of, uh, of what success looks like. And again, it's not like you set out to build a multi-billion dollar business, but you set out to have a product people love and then figure out a way to sell it and, you know, so forth and so forth. And so I think there's

a lot of learning in the way, in the way you've talked about this. Yeah. And, uh, and, You know, I think that everyone's threshold for, or their tolerance for failure is a bit different. And that requires a bit of individual learning. Like for me, I take on these big ultra running challenges. And if I'm successful at like one out of every three, I think I'm doing pretty well. Other people, you know, they might want more like, you know, two out of three success rate at least to keep going. but no matter the case it's important to even though you're moving the goalposts still to celebrate those milestones and to feel that sense of achievement and accomplishment each time

you reach one of the goals going back to the Barclay marathons for a second so you win the marathons in 2017 and then I think the following year you failed to finish right so I didn't do it for one year I stopped and I crewed and supported some other people to get a feel for for that side of the race and just relax for a bit but yeah the following year in 2019 I went back and I was I was in the lead after two loops doing pretty well and just I was cursed with the knowledge of what lay ahead of me and I knew that my mindset was not in the right spot to be able to take on loops four and five and to be able to push myself through that. So I just, I just quit and stopped right there. And, you know, that was it. Wow. It goes back to your point about motivation. Like if you know you can do it, are you motivated to do it? And I wonder if having wanted at that point almost to undermine your body's ability to persist or persevere through just how much pain you knew

it was going to take to get through this thing. You're like, well, I know I can finish this thing. Then maybe after having not done it, you know, coming back to it in following years, you're actually asking yourself again, can you do it? And so then you get motivated again. I don't know. Is there any truth to this cycle? Yeah, I think there definitely is. The added thing, early, early on was, you know, before I finished, I had that big reward, that big goal sitting there in front of me of becoming a finisher, becoming, you know, at that time, the 15th person to ever finish this race. Going from one finish to two finishes is not quite the same sense of

motivation as going from zero to one. And so that first time that I went back, really, I was just, I wanted to see how that affected me. I wanted to see how I, how I would do if I approached it with the same mindset and just was missing that goal of becoming a finisher. And the answer was not good. The equation didn't work out for me to push through that. This year, where I, I finished again, it was a different approach where, one, I really wanted to enjoy and appreciate the experience and have fun out there as much as I could the whole time. But then also, it was more a question of, okay, I know how this went the previous time. So let's see if my goal can be to will my body forward, to convince myself to keep moving past this without that prize or reward

of becoming a finisher. What can I do in this situation? And now having done that, that's a huge confidence booster, knowing that I can just kind of will myself to do that without necessarily needing anything that I'm enticing my mind with. well you also added this notion of appreciation and gratitude which may have helped right you said you wanted to really enjoy the experience what what like describe a moment in the in the race that was deeply enjoyable so the first time i finished we had horrible conditions we had a 142 a m start in dense fog and cold the last loop was rainy and cold and foggy. I was half delirious from sweep deprivation. It was miserable. I just had tunnel vision focus. Again, what I mentioned earlier where I wasn't entirely convinced. I wasn't dreaming. And I just had to latch on to know this is really happening, get to the finish. And that was my all-consuming one thought. This time, I was in a much better spot. I was more

experienced. I knew how to handle myself, how to approach the race. And the last loop, the conditions were wonderful. It was a warm, beautiful day. And the final climb is up a mountain called chimney top that I spent a lot of time on as a kid with my family. It looks down on my family's little farm there, where I grew up. And I got to climb that mountain to finish the race at sunset and just go up there, admiring that. I sat at the top for a while to just absorb it and appreciate it. And that was an amazing experience to be able to have that. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah. And I wonder the next time you do it, if you'll, you'll think back on that moment as something that pulls you towards it. You know what I mean? Like that, that in itself might be a motivating factor

to get to relive. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, part of that is dependent on the weather conditions, which is something that I can't control. And that's another one of my lessons learned, is to not waste my time and energy on things that are completely out of my control. I prepare for them. I develop my plan for them. But, you know, that's all the best I can do. But there is definitely something to be said from having these experiences on both sides.

having the low points and having the high points and then being able to, you know, have a push-pull effect of the low points pushing you forward, reminding you that you can get through these challenges and the high points pulling you with the reminder that this is what it's like when you do get through. This is what's waiting on the other side. Do you feel some level of euphoria when you finish the race like is your body so depleted that you almost are collapsing like inside i'm just curious the how that moment feels where you you've kind of overcome this enormous obstacle what happens for you that that can vary a bit depending on on how far gone i am i think my first finish it was a a relief that i avoided catastrophe uh whereas this one

it was a joy and appreciation of having had success. And for any of these things, I would say, though, that that real kind of euphoric moment is not at the finish itself. It's at the moment where I know a finish isn't inevitable. I know that I've done it, and it's just a formality of making it the last little bit to the finish line. And so, again, that for me was sitting at the top of that last climb. I had my last page ripped out of the book. All I had to do was jog down an easy trail back into camp, and I was done. And so that was the moment for me.

Are there any people you've had real in-depth conversations with about training, recovery, performance, mindset that you feel like you've learned a lot from? The biggest there has definitely been my coach, David Roach, I've been working with for about four years now. And so it's been really great to have him in my corner for his knowledge and expertise and awareness of the research and the studies that are out there. There's not a ton of data on ultra running at this point. And, you know, it's one thing for me to be able to look at my individual data, but there are so many variables in training and in life that it's difficult to draw conclusions from that. without having knowledge of a broader body of work and without having experience with other athletes and how they've responded to different stimuli.

So that's definitely the biggest one. It's always great to have conversations with other athletes doing the unique things that I am and to look myself at some of the resources that are out there online through articles and research studies and, some great books available now as well on, you know, not just the training aspects, but on that sort of performance mindset and mental toughness of doing these difficult things.

Well, I'll say this. I think you got a good book in you, John. I wouldn't discard that. I would not assume everyone's said what you're going to say before. Not in the near future. Maybe one day when I've been able to clear my plate a bit more and my other responsibilities look a bit different. Right now, as it is, I'm pretty fully committed with my family and my career and my running. Any chunk of time to write a book would definitely eat into those very things that would make people interested in a book to begin with. So for now, it'll it'll be the occasional social media or blog post is the best I can do. Well, you'll find a way, I imagine, if you put your mind to it, because that's been the theme of this conversation.

Back to your whoop experience for a second. What are some other things you've learned from wearing whoop? And by the way, I'm incredibly grateful to have you on it. Well, the interesting things to begin with are just looking at how my training affects it, how it affects my HRV and my resting heart rate and the other recovery metrics and the recovery score itself and correlating that to subjectively how I feel in day to day and in those workouts, those hard workouts in particular. The other things that I think will be really interesting are digging a bit more into the journal and sort of the effects that some of these daily habits or changes can have on my recovery scores. And to me, good training and being able to do good training is being consistent about it and being consistent in my own schedule and life. to be able to do that. But what I'll be interested to do is run some more controlled experiments on myself, where I take some of those things that I'm normally consistent about

and intentionally change them, one at a time, whether it's having another serving of caffeine or going to bed at a different time or using white noise while I sweep versus not using it, changing my pillow out, all sorts of things. To this point, you know, some of the effects that I have noticed so far when I went out west before Hard Rock and was living at altitude for a month or so, I could see my respiratory rate and some of my recovery scores change drastically when I first arrived at altitude and then gradually come back to baseline as I adjusted. not 100% back to baseline, you know, altitude's going to have an effect on even the most acclimated people out there. Also, a surprising thing was just noticing how much a single drink of alcohol could affect my HRV and my recovery. It's not as if I were a heavy

drinker, but, you know, the occasional glass of whiskey or two, and it's something to definitely be aware of in the future as I'm looking at the timing of those relative to my training. One other that I've found interesting for me. I, and again, some of these things, I think, are across-the-board truths, and some of them are very individualized. but I tend to have a pretty big drop in my recovery scores the night after I travel. And that doesn't matter if it's on a plane or sitting in a car for a few hours or on a train or anything. Like my body apparently just doesn't get on well with that.

So another thing to keep in mind is I think about when I arrive to races ahead of time that maybe getting there the day before is not the best for me. Well, knowing you, you're going to find ways to overcome that, John. So look, this has been a real pleasure. I'm thrilled to have you on Woop, and thank you for sitting down with me to do a podcast. Yeah, thanks very much. It was great to have this discussion. I look forward to continuing to see what I can find with my data.

Sounds good. All right, thanks so much. Thanks again to John Kelly for coming on the show. Good luck to him in his next crazy ultra-man. marathon. If you enjoyed this episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave us a rating or review. Subscribe to the WOOP podcast. Check us out on social at WOOP at Will Ahmed. If you have a question you want to see answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at WIP.com, or call us 508-443-4952. New members can use the code Will W-I-L. Get a $60 credit on W-W-A-Ccessaries when you sign up

for a new membership. And that's a wrap. Enjoy the Masters. Enjoy the week. Stay healthy and stay in the green.