WHOOP Podcast - Finding a Purpose Through Endurance Sports with Ken Rideout

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

On this week’s episode, WHOOP VP of Performance Science, Principal Scientist, Kristen Holmes is joined by one of the world’s top masters runners, Ken Rideout. Ken has been crowned the “World’s Best Marathoner Over 50” by the New York Times. In addition to his running accolades, Ken is known for sharing his story about overcoming opioid addiction. Kristen and Ken will discuss Ken’s backstory and life growing up (3:35), moving to New York and starting in finance (10:40), Ken’s struggle with addiction and seeking help (17:00), seeking extreme experiences as a high (23:35), running the Gobi March in Mongolia (27:30), the power of showing up (38:55), nutrition and hydration practices for maintaining high strains (45:20), running the 6 major marathons (46:35), and what Ken is obsessing over (51:05).Resources:Ken's WebsiteKen’s InstagramTHE FIGHT with Teddy AtlasSupport 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

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast, where we're on a mission to unlock human performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop. On this week's episode, Woop VP of Performance Science, our fearless principal scientist, Kristen Holmes, is joined by one of the world's top master's runners. Ken Rideout. He's one of the world's top master athletes and has been crowned the world's best marathoner over 50 by the New York Times.

Previously, he worked on Wall Street and has since become a successful entrepreneur and co-host of The Fight podcast with Teddy Atlas. In addition to his running accolades, Ken is known for sharing his story about overcoming opioid addiction. Kristen and Ken discuss. Ken's background growing up in Boston. He actually worked in a prison that his stepfather and brother were incarcerated, and that's an amazing story.

How he was working in finance and ultimately dealt with addiction. What led Ken to endurance sports. He needed a new avenue to channel this energy and purpose. How technology has helped him become the top marathon runner over 50. His whoop data from the Gobe March. We talked about his poor sleep and high strain for grueling conditions. And passions outside of the running community. If you have a question was answered on the podcast, reminder,

Email us, podcast at wook.com. Call us 508-443-4952. Without further ado, here are Kristen Holmes and Ken Rideout. Ken Rideout is one of the world's top master athletes and has been crowned the world's best marathoner over 50 by the New York Times. Previously, Ken worked on Wall Street and has since become a successful entrepreneur and co-host of The Fight, podcast with legendary Teddy Atlas. In addition to his running accolades, Ken is known for sharing his story and overcoming opioid addiction. The Boston Native, I'm Boston Native too, completed all six of the world's major marathons in the last 17 months and won three of them for his over 50 division. The other three saw Ken finish in second place for the division.

He's competed in triathlons and most recently won the Gobi March in Central Mongolia. He is the master of the sub two-hour and 30-minute marathon at 50 and over. And he is our esteemed guest today. Ken, welcome. Oh, thank you. As you were reading all those accolades, I'm like, wow, this guy sounds super impressive. Well, it's super impressive what you've done. You know, it's just endurance sports is just a whole different animal.

And I think, you know, you got to be a little off, I think, in some ways, to go. kind of really like dig into that sport and and survive and I think thriving is like a whole another level I mean your backstory is just I mean it's it's heart wrenching it's really an incredible story so I I say kind of a little off ingest in that you know I think some of probably your early kind of life has really kind of put you in this position to be able to kind of thrive in, I think, what is really one of the hardest, most grueling sports in the world. So we'd love to hear a little bit about your backstory, Ken. Yeah, happy to share.

And thank you for that introduction. I am incredibly flattered and honored. And it's very humbling to hear someone repeat the things that I've done because sometimes, I don't know if other people have had this experience, but it doesn't really, it doesn't even seem real. like wow i did that you know coming from the place where i came from with regards to the throws of my addiction to now be hosted on a podcast like this whoop which i've been a fan of for many years is just man it makes me feel emotional and hopefully it serves as inspiration for others out there because i've said this before and i genuinely believe it like i have no

special talents. I'm not really, I promise you, I'm not really good at anything. I'm just other than trying. I was a Division III athlete in college, you know, at that level, you know, more or less, you just show up and you're on the team. You're interested in football. Can you run from one end of the field to the other without falling down? You're on the team. I say that just because I really wasn't a superstar athlete. But coming out of the struggles I had, with addiction. I just made a conscious effort not to be mediocre or anything that I was doing anymore and just started to take some pride in the way I conducted myself. And again, coming from, you know, the place of self-loathing where I lived for so many years struggling with opioids,

I don't find it to be that challenging compared to the challenges that I've dealt with. And the only other thing that I would say with regards to, you know, you mentioned that, you know, some of the world's most challenging events. I would say to the people who think that a marathon might be hard, try to have a competitive fight in a cage or in a ring and realize that not only are you tired and have to keep pressing, but someone's actually trying to, like, punch you in your face or tear your head off.

And then you really know what, like, exhaustion and fear feels like. And as funny as that may sound, that's kind of my motivation when I get into dark places in Ironman or in a marathon. I just, I honestly, I do it all the time. And I've said this before. I remind myself constantly, no one's trying to punch my face. You can't hurt me with like the suffering and the pain that I'm feeling right now is self-induced. And I don't believe I can hurt myself. I've already tried and I've come through. So, you know, I'm being lighthearted about it. But the truth is like when you're suffering and when you're in those dark places, whatever it may be, it could be studying.

It could be, you know, late night or doing your piano lessons or whatever it is that you're passionate about, you know, I try to just remind myself how much more difficult life could be, how much more difficult some people have it, and remind myself that this is something I'm doing by choice. And it's something that has filled me with pride. It's given me purpose. It's given me a distraction from myself at times, which is sometimes we're our own worst enemies. And, you know, I'd love to understand, you know, just, just your upbringing, you know, and kind of, and just wondering kind of how you've been able to kind of get on the other side. Maybe you're not even on the other side yet. But, you know, what does kind of healing look like for you?

Yeah, no, great question. So I grew up in the inner city, broken family, just to provide some context as to the type of lifestyle, a household I was coming from. I, when I graduated from high school, I went to Somerville High School just outside of Boston. A week after I graduated high school, I was a guard in prison outside of Boston. And my brother and stepfather were inmates in that prison, not necessarily at the same time, but they had done time there. And, you know, at that time and at that place where I grew up, it wasn't uncommon for most of the guards to have relatives as inmates. One of my colleagues who was also a guard at the time was Mickey Ward, who they made the movie The Fighter about

And Mickey's brother, Dickie Eklund, who was played by Christian Bail in the movie The Fighter, was in there, was in the prison during the time that I worked there. So Mickey and I were working there. His brother was an inmate at the time we were there. So just to kind of paint a picture of like what this life was like. So I know some of the people that I'm around now and lucky enough to be around, like we were talking before we started the podcast, like my friend Rob Moore, who's partners with my other friend, Andrew Huberman. And like, you know, when I tell them these stories, I know it sounds a little bit crazy to people. But this was when you're a child and that's all you know, it's just that's the norm. Like in my mind, when I got that job, I thought, oh, maybe I'll be a probation officer or a, you know, counselor at the prison. Of course, I worked there a week and was like, oh, I got to get the hell out of here.

I better start studying because this, the only thing worse than being an inmate is being a guard here. This was the worst job I've ever had. I couldn't get through my childhood fast enough. I was like, please just, but I didn't even really comprehend the idea of going to college and living in the dormitories. The first time I went to see a university and see college dorms, I thought I had found Nirvana. I'm like, oh my God, literally I was like, oh my God, I can get away from them and live here. I didn't even know that boarding schools. I mean, I had heard of boarding schools, but that was for someone else.

That was never for someone like me, which in hindsight, I wish I had known they existed. that I would have applied for every scholarship onto the sun, but these are things that you learn with time and experience. And I'm kind of abbreviating things. But yeah, to summarize, it was anxiety-ridden, super unsettled, unstable, a violent place with a lot of drug addicts, junkies around all the time. We lived in a two-family house with my grandmother

and my mother's brother, was a lifelong heroin addict, active heroin user. Just it was not, it wasn't even like, oh, my God, someone's doing heroin. It was just like, oh, don't get out on there, you know, Bonnie's high. And I'm like, oh, man, which I know now saying that as an adult just seems so crazy. But this is the life that I lived as a child. But, you know, comes back to the question of nature versus nurture, like what's innate in us and what's learned.

And all I can tell you is my brother, recame. heroin addict and a convict. And from my youngest memory, I was like, I have to get out of here. I'm not like these people. And I didn't have an example of who I was trying to be like. I was just trying to not be like them. And, you know, as soon as I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started working in finance. Yeah. That was a, that's a whole other chapter. So you, you head to New York City and you get a job when, was this like an entry level finance job? Like, what was the? Yeah. How did you start out? It was actually a crazy, crazy whirlwind story.

When I first moved to New York, I was working and I had a pharmaceutical sales job for about three months. I was making, I want to say, like $35,000 or $36,000 and living in a fifth floor walk-up apartment on the Upper East side. By the time I got my take-home paycheck after taxes and everything, I was probably like $50 light per month of how I was going to pay the bills. But even then I was like, I don't know why. I just had such blind faith in myself that I was like, I'll figure this out. And I was using credit cards and just doing what I had to do. And it was, oh, my God, it was such a struggle. But I was playing in a men's pickup hockey league at Chelsea Pierce.

And I met a French Canadian kid called Mike Peltier. And he was an interdealer broker of commodities. So they were brokering trades between institutions. So like banks and utilities, it's kind of like in terms of high finance and like real Wall Street work. It's kind of like bottom of the barrel in terms of prestige on the totem pole. But it was an incredible job. I mean, there were guys making several million dollars a year. But I would always say this is a job. This isn't a career because it's a lot of entertaining. There was a lot of drug use amongst everyone. It was it was literally like what you would imagine,

not Wolf of Wall Street stuff because we were never dealing with like retail customers. It was all institutional, but it was Wolf of Wall Street in terms of like, high life private jets football you know all the best events it was it was wild it didn't really suit me because you know i was good at pretending that that was the life i wanted but it was crazy and um yeah i i um i so mike peltier said hey we need an assistant i took a job as an assistant on that trading desk and um it was like joining a college football team they were at times hazing me being nasty to me and about i honestly maybe two months into it i was talking to i had a few small customers at like enron we were doing trades that were irrelevant inconsequential

but things that had to be done if you wanted to do business with their like senior traders later in the day and we were trading electricity and um Like I said, the guys were hazing me, which was crazy. I was boxing for the New York Athletic Club. Like I was by no means a pushover, but they were just so arrogant and aggressive. And one day, I just like slapped the guy in the face. They just like pushed me too far. And I was like, yeah, dude, I've had it.

My integrity is too important to me. And I cracked him and they fired me. But so at the time I was, you know, making, let's say, 40 grand. I'm just giving you the numbers for context to show you how crazy this life was. I called the guys at Enron, literally from a payphone. This is before I even had a cell phone, probably in like 96. Called the guys from a payphone. And I'm like, dude, I got fired.

I didn't even know we had competitors. I didn't know there were other desks in shops doing what I was doing at this place. And within 24 hours, I had a job at a competitor making $80,000. I was like, went from like tears to like tears of joy. And very quickly from their things took off. a year or two later, I was hired by Canter Fitzgerald to go to London and run European and Asian commodity sales and trading. No management experience, no life experience. I started using drugs as a way to cope with this imposter syndrome or fraud complex I was suffering from. You know, it would be like

if you just got your PhD and like Stanford called and said they want you to run a lab, you'd be like, I've never even worked in a lab. You want me to run the lab? It was that kind of thing. Yeah. And Great analogy. Yeah, so I went to London and it was just incredibly fast-paced, but oh, my God, what an experience. I always tell my wife and my children, like, experiences are worth more than anything you could ever have materially. No one can ever take them from me. I went to the Monte Carlo Grand Prix twice, Wimbledon. You name it, we did it.

And it was, I had the best time skiing in Europe. Again, for a poor kid, I'm flying on the Concord back and forth to New York from London. and it was just like, you know, fantasy stuff. And I was irresponsible, you know, spending money like a drunken sailor. Just, you know, I'm ashamed of the way I handled it, but I wouldn't take back the experiences. But it helped turn me into the person that I am now. Unfortunately, it took me, you know, 52 years to be recognized as an athlete and someone with a strong mindset. But, you know, I guess this should serve as an inspiration to others who might be struggling.

with something that it's never too late. Like today is either like one day or day one. And I choose to think about every day like that. I have a conscious thought every day of like, what's this the first day of? Is this the first day that my training gets really serious? As crazy as that sounds. Or I get my diet dialed in today.

And I tried to take that approach. And I'm not always perfect. But yeah, all those experiences helped forge me into the person I am. And, you know, I'd say to anyone who's going through. similar struggles or even in a dark place emotionally and we can come back to like some of the trauma healing that I've done recently. I'd say, you know, tomorrow can be a brighter day, but it won't be a brighter day unless you make a conscious decision to fix things. And it's not always easy, but, you know, and it sounds cliche and I don't want to sound like a dope. But if you can

just take the first step, that's every journey starts with one step. And again, I know it sounds like, I'm not trying to, like, make light of anything, but the truth is, like, you have to take accountability. You have to take responsibility and take, like, extreme ownership of your current, your own situation. But if I can do this, I promise you, anyone can do anything. So at what point did you kind of go from recreational drug use to kind of full-blown addict, who's actually functioning relatively well to kind of a point where what was the path actually stopping and just being like all right i'm done with this yeah no good question um i would say from when i was halfway through college so maybe when i was around 20 i started to uh do cocaine and

i i drank from you know 15 with my friends in boston we would just drink every weekend you know like normal like uh high school fraternity type kid stuff and then in college started using cocaine used cocaine for several years till I realized what a losing proposition that was. And when I, when I was living in New York right before I moved to London, I was introduced to Percocet after surgery on my ankle. And once I tried those pills, like I said, I had been suffering from like this always had suffered a bit from anxiety. And then the imposter syndrome, you know, fraud complex, when I started working in finance and making like tremendous amount of money that I wasn't really prepared for it i was so ill prepared for like being an adult and um it is what it is i'm not

making excuses it is what it is and um i discovered opioids and when i felt the relief that they provided me from the anxiety and discomfort i was having with myself i was like i found like i said my nirvana i was like holy cow i didn't know you could be this happy and um unfortunately it took you know a good 10 years to recognize that that was was like a losing proposition. It's almost like when you're in a dark hole, those opioids let you like peek out of the hole. But as soon as they wear off,

you're deeper down in the hole. And it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper because those drugs aren't the kind of things that you can just say, you know what? Tomorrow I'm not going to use drugs. Well, that's cool. But I hope you don't have anything to do for a week

because you're going to be sick like words can't describe, like the most severe flu, sweating. You can't venture too far from the bathroom. you're just sick sick and um so yeah my my um late 20s is when by the way when i got introduced to the two opioids from the first day i was like oh it's on and initially it was like just in the evenings after work i'd always work out so i'd come home and work out and i treated the opioids like i wrote like my reward system oh great i got a good workout now i can chill on the couch with opioids percocet, you know, whatever, whatever I was available. And yeah, it very quickly turned

from just an evening thing to like, oh, I have, I feel terrible in the morning. Let me take one of these just to get through the day. And then, you know, within, let's say two months, I'm taking them breakfast, lunch, dinner, every single day. And then it would be one or two at a time, three or four at a time. And at the height was maybe like 50, 60 milligrams at a time. three times a day, which I can't believe in hindsight that I didn't die. The human body is just unbelievable. When I hear people say like, oh, don't take more than two or three Tylenol. I'm like, two or three Tylenol, do you know how much your body can take?

I was taking five or six extra strengths at a time three times a day. I'm completely ashamed of myself, but to your point, your body can take a beating. Have you ever seen people like whacked out on? heroin or crack cocaine and then you see them like a year later and they're sober when you see what they came from you're like how can a body take that much abuse and still keep functioning it was a nightmare and um there were several fits and starts so i'd when i was living in london i went through the uh n a program you know like uh narcotics anonymous and um you know the whole time i was in the addiction i knew this is not this is not good so i'd get sober for a month or two

maybe a week or two at times and then get right back on it was just so incredibly incredibly difficult from an emotional standpoint and like i said it took me about 10 years of being high around the clock you know 11 out of 12 months a year let's say and eventually when we started to when i met my wife and then we started to plan to have a family and stuff i was like okay i have to take responsibility I had been a loser for so long that I just at some point I was like I cannot do this anymore to myself to other people it's just I was so beaten down and you know the expression like I was just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired yeah and it just you know for the long that the sad part is is the the euphoria of the drugs wears off very quick very early in your addiction cycle

meaning for the first like if I hadn't used for months then I got back on it let's say for a week that I'd get happy about taking them and usually nothing was happier than the anticipation of taking the drugs and then the drugs would be like kind of a letdown yeah but immediately after the first let's say 30 minutes it would be like just a complete downward spiral until you could take some more and what a losing proposition what a waste of time just so disappointed in myself but I've tried to turn this into a positive by sharing the story, explaining to people how I was able to get off that merry-go-round, break the cycle. And, you know, I don't, the addiction had nothing to do with my success as a runner, but it is part of my journey. And I want people to know that, you know,

you can come back from anything. People love a comeback story and including, you know, us as individuals. Like, I think about it, I feel proud, you know, if it's, I did this. Yeah. Like, not a lot of people can do what I did. No, that's incredible. Would you say that, you know, there's obviously a really kind of profound neurochemical thing happening, you know, in the brain when you, when you think about it from like a seroton release endorphins, like, you know, obviously when you're taking

drugs, you know, over time, you're going to need more and more to kind of get that same high. other things non-drug related are less pleasurable. I guess I'm wondering if like a feature of kind of seeking out a marathon and an Iron Man, is that, do you think that there is something connected to the brain in terms of, you know, needing that kind of, I think, extreme kind of experience in order to kind of capture that same sort of high? Yeah, that's a good question. I would say this is like,

the training and the racing provides for me a distraction and a purpose but i will say that the joy i get from winning a race does not outweigh the disappointment that i feel when i don't do well and if i do have a good race like my wife teases me because i won the um myrtle beach marathon two years ago and i won she didn't i go to all these races by myself just because it's like it's business for me like I'm serious about it I take it serious I don't expect others to share my view but I view it I take it very seriously and so I called her I said yeah I won and she's like you don't sound that happy I was like I was like there wasn't anyone really good here I just kind of like I don't know I'm like the best weekend warrior and she's like if you didn't win you'd be complaining that

you should have won now you do win and then the competition wasn't good enough she goes how much did you win by I said one minute but that's just kind of have an example of the mindset that I have when it comes to this. It's like not about what you come to realize when you do this kind of training is the destination isn't winning a race. The destination is the actual journey. It's the suffering. It's like I just did a workout three by two miles at like a 530 pace. So like just under marathon pace. And when you're doing that by yourself in Nashville in August and it's like the kids just left for school, I got them up for school. no one's out there's a few bus drivers drive by the same people see me every day in my neighborhood they

think I'm crazy I know that they beep and you know wave and but and I always think about it when I'm doing the workout I'm like no one would do this like this is where race is a won and lost this is the victory being out here and putting in the work and suffering in silence and in solitude you know and so it's the suffering and the the journey that is is what's fulfilling to me. And I think it serves two purposes. Yes, it fulfills like a serotonin or dopamine release that I get from the work. Even though the work is so grueling, like when I'm sitting there thinking about going

out and doing it, I'm like, oh, my God, this is so insurmountable. How am I going to get through this workout? I'm dreading it. And the race is almost like a secondary. But the other thing that the workouts provide for me is a distraction for myself. If I just sat here and instead of running for 90 minutes a day, I thought about how I felt and just about my feelings, I would have no problem convincing myself that I deserve a couple hours of relief. I can get high one time. It'll just give me some peace.

I can watch TV. I can do something. I have a hard time like just sitting and quietly and relaxing. Yeah. But that would allow me to do that. And I start to justify this in my head. And it's like a, you know, like a cycle. So if nothing else, the 90 minutes I'm all suffering on the road is 90 minutes I'm not sitting by myself thinking about how much better my life could be, how much happier I could be if I would just get high.

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing that. So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about Gobi March. Why don't you kind of tell our listeners like, what is that? And then, you know, we talk about kind of what the body can endure and how resilient it is and everything that you put your body through, frankly, is just insane. that your body can be in a position to kind of do what it does, I think should be, to your point, like, inspirational for folks. Like, to your point, it's like, you can do this. Like, what does that mean for the rest of us? You know, like our, like, it's so, yeah, so I think there's a really important kind of takeaway there. But tell us what that, what that is, what that race is. And, and then we can go through some of your data and we'll love to get your, your feedback. I would say this to start, like to your point, what could, what else, what, what could you do if you just showed up and tried?

Like, could I, could I win some crazy race in Mongolia? If you had told me that before, part of my brain would have said, of course I can. I can win anything. I'm the best. And there's another part that's like, are you crazy? You don't know what the hell you're doing. And I know from doing Iron Man's in my marathon journey, like those longer endurance events take a lot of, it takes a lot of experience in time to really optimize your performance. and experience counts for so much.

Even in the marathon, it's like, okay, it's only two and a half, three hours if you're running fast. But you learn a lot over those two or three hours. So the Gobi Desert, the Gobi March race was across the Gobi Desert in central Mongolia. And basically, it's a six-day stage race, predetermined distances every day of like 25 to 50 miles a day, self-supported, meaning you are carrying your own food. They provide water and a tent at night. So every day, like the Tour de France, you'd raise stage one would be 21 miles, stage 2, 28 miles. And they'd be predetermined campsites where you'd just have some tents.

You'd have assigned tents to sleep with, you know, three or four or five people in each tent. And they provide not cold water, room temperature water. And again, this water is out in the desert all day. You can imagine how pleasure all this was. It was like, I didn't have ice for a week, anything cold for a week. and they provided hot water to mix up your, you know, meals ready to eat, like military-style MREs, that you just pull water into, like, rice and chicken, whatever it was. So you had to carry six days of food, a few mandatory safety equipment like a flashlight,

headlamp, a mirror, you know, like a whistle just in case you get lost out there. The course is marked with little pink fly. flags, but it's not on roads or trails. It's like across open desert, pastures, mountains. It was, in hindsight, it was crazy. And, you know, for context, I had never run with a backpack. I had never been camping in my life. I grew up in the inner city.

As I described, my family wasn't going to, like, you know, campgrounds. I don't know how to fish or hunt. I'm like, I have no man skills. I'm like a city guy through and through. You know, if we have to, like, fight for survival, I like my chances. But if we have to, like, go on this TV show alone, I'll be dead in a week. Which is funny because my friend, Brent Montgomery, actually produces that show alone. He's like, dude, you'd be perfect for alone.

I'm like, dude, we're friends. Why would you ever do that to me? I'd make a fool of myself. So about four weeks before my friend Scott DeRue, who's the president of Equinox, he said, hey, I'm doing this race. and I don't know why, how, or what happened, but I just looked at, I go, dude, I bet I can win that race. And he's like, this guy has climbed Mount Everest. He's like, he's an outdoorsman.

And he's like, go for it. I sent a letter, you know, sold out obviously four weeks before. It was like, you know, I had to, the amount of crap I had to go through doctors notes, medical reports. Like it was, you don't just sign up and show up. And long story showed, they were like, yeah, you're good. And you can come if you want. We love to have you. And so I did, had to like immediately order all the equipment I needed.

It was a lot of stuff, backpack, safety equipment. What shoes am I going to wear? Because now I'm wearing, you absolutely needed trail shoes. There was, we weren't on a road or a, or a fire road for the whole time. And yeah, I just signed up, showed up, checked in. I mean, I was getting on the point. I was telling my wife, I was getting on the plane. It was like I was going to the electric chair.

I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this. What the F am I doing here? Like, I'm an idiot. it. I told everyone I'm doing this. I look like a clown. But I tell this story and I told my friend Rich Roll this when I did his podcast for a second time recently. I sent him a text because he knows the ultra world pretty well. And I said, hey, go be March. What do you know? He's like, oh, dude, be careful. Let's claim many an ultra rate runner. So I think someone died there in 2010. I told him, in my mind, all I heard was, can be careful. You can't do that. That's too much for you.

I was like, and I told Rich this and Jess, I know he didn't mean it like that, but I as took it as, yeah, it's too much for you. And I was like, oh, really? I'm winning this race. And I told another friend called James Davies, who runs investment bank. And at Deutsche, I said, at Deutsche Bank, I said, oh, do you know this? I think he had done maybe Marathon de Saab or one of those big ones. And he said, wow, man, if you could get top 10, even top five, that would be so impressive.

And I just, I remember saying to him like, top five. I said, dude, I'm going to win this race. And he's like, oh, he's British. He's like, mate, come on, man. Have realistic. There's a lot to know. And there was a 51% of my brain was like, I'm winning. And the other 49 was like, what the hell are you doing?

But that 1% was overpowering. And next thing, I know I'm on a plane to Mongolia. And sleeping in a tent on a Saturday night, it is, when I say it's raining, like, I thought the tent was going to blow away. It was the most violent thunderstorm I'd ever been in. And we are in the middle of like the Mongolian step. It was crazy. I was in a tent with three women, one from Hong Kong, one from Singapore, and an Irish woman. And I can't tell you how uncomfortable I was.

I'm a big baby. Like when I go to run a marathon, I have to stay at the Ritz Carlton or the four seasons. Again, having grown up the way I grew up, I'm like, I've earned the right to be able to sleep comfortably the day before the race. I've got too much time and money invested in my training. I'm going to be comfortable. So as I'm sleeping on an air, like a little pad thing with a sleeping bag, keep mind, I've not used any of my equipment.

I set it up the night before, the day before I left. And I can just confirm that your sleep sucked. Oh, two nights in a row. I slept like less than two hours. One night I did sleep well. So I got up at the first. first day, throughout all this time, every time I'm thinking, oh, my God, what am I doing here? There was, like I said, there was like 51% of my brain is like, let's go, we're doing this.

We're going to, we're going to kill these guys. Like, it was, I was in super, like, fight mode. And the flight was just a little bit too small to get me out of there. And, yeah, first day, I got blown out. I finished fourth. But I was like, they just ran away from me with a few miles to go in a way that usually doesn't happen to me and I was like wow I am screwed like I can't believe how like that I got dropped yeah and then the next day I came back I slept okay that second night and um second day

was 28 miles longest I've ever run and I destroyed everyone I won by like 10 minutes but in in the cause of doing so I my backpack ripped I fell down busting my elbow open I was covered in blood unbeknownst to me I crossed the finish like like oh my like oh what's wrong i have blood everywhere i must have been touching the blood touching my face and i was like i'm not bleeding and they're like you're covered in blood and i'm like i'm telling you i'm not bleeding and then i was like oh my god my i was bleeding but uh yeah and then it just i mean we could do a whole two-hour episode on just the day-to-day in the ongoings of running through sand dunes you know climbing up scaling up a mountain of sand what was the heat like what was the temperature

it would get probably into the mid-90s keep in mind i only had one set at one like race clothes so i'd rinse them out at the end of the night which day you weren't technically supposed to waste water for anything but drinking but i'm like if i don't wash these clothes like it's i wouldn't be able to do it and so you know you got sunblock on you're just you're just dirty sunburnt sticky sand every crevice Oh my. Just trying to sleep. One night I was trying to sleep. I went to take a sip of my water bottle. And I accidentally poured water into my sleep bag. Like enough that I was like, oh my God, my sleeping bag is soaked. And it's got to be packed up. And you've got to carry it with you. So when I got to the next spot, I laid it out in the sun and it dried. But that's the kind of thing. Like just so many crazy things would happen. But I was taking good care of myself. Like, because I had trained so much, like I didn't really get blisters and every day we cross like four or five rivers waist deep so every day your shoes and socks were soaked from the jump but people at the medical tent every day it was like their feet

like they walked on hot coals to the point where i walked over there one day i'm like like no offense guys but have you run have you ever trained how can your feet be that torn up like you haven't done 25 mile runs to prepare for this like this is unacceptable like how can you possibly be that torn up It was literally like they didn't train. Wow. That's so interesting. So, I mean, a lot of the success in races like this clearly are building a level of resilience kind of going in. And that's why I think the beauty of whoop is that, you know, if you're doing, you know, if you're minding your sleep, if you're thinking about your sleep consistency, if you're managing your capacity with recovery and, you know, kind of doing the modalities and getting your nutrition right, you know, hydrating appropriately.

You kind of go into those races with like quite a buffer, you know, in terms of like. being able to sustain that level of, you know, mental, physical, emotional, just complexity and harshness. So I guess I want to know, like, leading into the event, you know, what would you kind of say are like the core behaviors that you can maybe attribute to the level of resilience that you had over the course of that six-day race? Consistency is the key to everything I've done. Because I have literally runs an average of 10 miles a day, let's say, for like four or five years, I knew coming in, when I say every day, I mean every day.

I've run with tornado sirens going off. And let me just say one thing. You say this a tonne showing up, you know, availability to train, you know, for me, like, you know, I was a coach for 17 years and I was a double sport athlete in college, same played for the U.S. team for many, many years. And I think I always pride myself. I'm like, all right, I'm not going to get injured. You know, I'm going to take care of my body.

and I'm going to make sure that I can show up and train every single day. And I definitely see that, you know, on the Woot platform, you know, at population levels. I mean, the people that can show up every day who are kind of managing, I suppose, like a non-negotiable set of behaviors are the ones who really achieve in their sport. So, yeah, so just kind of unpack that a little bit. I know you're kind of, you're getting going, but just to kind of put the plug for just showing up and what that actually means in terms of, because people are like, oh, I'm just going to show up and train. well, you know what? No, there's actually like a lot of behaviors that proceed that

that determine whether or not you can mentally, physically, emotionally show up in a way that you're proud of. Yeah. That's a good point. The first thing I would say is I treat my training and my, you know, running deadly seriously. Like it's incredibly important to me. Like it's given me the greatest gifts in my life from a professional standpoint. It's helped me like stand up. from a crowd and it's literally something that I was just doing as a therapeutic outlet for myself, but I would say to your point, I mean, showing up is 80% of the battle, like the Gobi Desert. Like I said to Rich Roll on his podcast, like, Rich, I'm not trying to be funny. What else can I do?

Could I win Leadville? Could I win Badwater? I mean, the first step that I have to do to see if I could is get on the start line. And that goes for everyone and relates to everything. Well, could you be of piano virtuoso? So you won't know if you don't sit down and start playing and take a couple lessons. But to your point, I have had, you know, probably every injury under the sun. But I have actively addressed those injuries.

As soon as something starts to happen now, I mean, I've got so much experience. If I notice there's a tweak in my Achilles or my calf, I immediately start doing some negative calf drops where I raise up on my toes on a step on one leg and lower on a 12. sounds crazy three or four reps no problem by the fifth or six rep it feels like your cap's going to explode it's just so like swollen with blood like it's pumped and i do those three or four times a day for several weeks and i promise you for four or five years it's alleviated every single lower leg ailment that i've had i had planter fasciitis so bad at one point that i couldn't walk i mean i'd wake up in the middle of the night like when i'd start running the planar fasciitis the tendon that goes across the bottom of your foot and on the arch of your foot would loosen up.

So the first mile or two would be like running on broken glass. And then it would be completely gone by the end of the run. I'd go back. I'd go home, eat, go to like, when I had this, I was living in Philadelphia. My partner, Teddy Atlas and I, we trained a kid called Alex Fawzdick, who was the WBC light heavyweight champion of the world. And we had a fight against Otter Betabiav, who had the IBF title, a big fight. end pay-per-view. We lived in Philly for eight weeks. So I'd do my run in the morning. Then we'd go to the

gym to train Alex at like 11 a.m. And I'm telling you, I would stand on the side of the ring and do these calf drops. But my feet or the pain was honestly, it was a 10. So when people tell me, oh, my foot is killing me. I'm like, yeah, you don't have to tell me. I know. And I'm telling you, I trained right through it. But I did, I took all these measures to your point. I stayed proactively work in this. I rolled my foot on a golf ball. I did all the painful things that they tell you to do, but I followed them because they tell you to do these things because they work. So I would do that. If I had a glute issue, I'd do hamstring exercises. Anything you can think of, I had it. I'd use every device, Norma, tax, power dot. I've used all these therapeutic devices, which unfortunately I only

use if I feel like I have an injury. I'm not very good at staying proactive ahead of, you know, prehabing. but yeah the training is a small part but that's the first part you know you just got to show up and do the work and then the second part is if it's important to you you'll figure out a way to keep doing it but i haven't been sidelined by an injury that didn't require surgery like i had shoulder surgery i took four days off i mean i had a massive shoulder surgery the guy told me four weeks do not take your arm out of this sling by the fourth day i was like dude i can't do it I'd rather get the surgery again. I just put a belt around my neck, held the thing, and just held my shoulder tight and started running.

Wow. Yeah, the guy who I bought my house from and naturally played for the Titans, he was an offensive lineman, Chris Spencer, a great dude. He had the same exact surgery from the same guy. And he had said to me like, oh, no, no, you're not going to be able to run for four weeks. He goes, I couldn't even sleep in my bed for four weeks. I slept on a recliner. And I saw him.

I was outside running. He drove by me. And he was like, dude, what the hell are you? you do and I'm like no man this feels good I'm like not really moving and I'm just and he was like you incredulous but that's I wouldn't suggest other people do that but I'm just trying to give you a glimpse into like how I approach this in terms of showing up because again it was as much about my mental health as it was about my physical well-being yeah yeah those are totally interrelated from like just a diet and and kind of hydration perspective what what are just some principles that

you abide by just to, because your strain is, I mean, you average like a 20 strain, which is, it's got to be. I think I was 20.2 for last year for the whole year. Yeah, 20.4, well, for actually, which is just insanity, right? Like, there's just like, there can't be anyone on our platform who is exceeding that. So it's insane. I was going to ask you that. Yeah. So, I mean, I think from the standpoint of just like being able to kind of maintain that strain level and have the requisite capacity to kind of continuously do that is just, it's honestly mind-blowing, right? So I, you know, I think a lot of it, to your point, like, comes from the psychology and the mindset and just your will and drive is just otherworldly. So there's

that. But then you combine it with, you know, this just, you've got obviously like a physical acumen that is, you know, in the top of the world, right? So you've kind of got this incredible combination. I think that allows you to work through pain in ways that are incredible. But I think what's very interesting is that this doesn't show up negatively in your recovery. That's what is just mind-blowing to me, right? If we had someone, like when we see someone who has a couple days with strain, with a high strain in the way that you have, they'll be read for four or five days, trying to recover, right?

And you can repeat that, like day after day after day. And, you know, you live a lot in the yellow, but you have plenty of green days. You know, like it's just, it is amazing to me how your body is able to regenerate. and you can repeat consistently this level of output. Yeah, I treat all of those things deadly serious. I take a ton of supplements. As soon as I finish a workout, I take every single workout. I take recovery drink from Momentus.

I'll take athletic greens, vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, a ton of fish oil. I hydrate every day. I have a bottle of element. first thing in the morning as soon as I get out of bed I have one or two cups of coffee I have the 12 ounces of element 12 ounces of water I hydrate incessantly throughout the day

but I will say when I'm doing my training I could I try to bring if I'm going to do more than 15 miles I'll bring a gel and I'll plan to run past some water bubbleers in the park one nice thing about the Nashville parks is there's actually like publicly available things like bubbles where it's a few minutes

right so like happiness oh it's it's it's humid on another level i mean it's this tendency hit heat hits different like there's no question having done plenty of track workouts down there at this point yeah the crazy yeah i think that that heat and humidity though is like a superpower because if you can sustain doing the training in those and the difference in time per on the splits is astronomical like you feel like you're working at like a five minute flat pace and you look down i'm like oh my god 540 for that round that's crazy i feel like i just reduces capacity yeah i have to ask about your marathons so for the over 50 category or division so three of the six major marathons new york boston and Tokyo you have second place finishes and three others

london chicago berlin i got second in london berlin in chicago and i got first in new york boston in Tokyo okay so boston holy shit yeah that was amazing thing by the way. So obviously, I live at Hopkinton. Oh, man. I wish I knew it would have coming home out at your house. I know. Well, if you run it again, you have a place to stay. One of these days. Yeah. But talk a little bit about what was it like to win in kind of your hometown. That must have been kind of a full circle moment. Again, like it's like a dream come true. But of course, when I win, I win the 50 and over category. I'm like, I should have won the 40 in over category. That's like a, that's like something notable. Right.

Who won the master's division is considered 40 and over. In New York, I did. I think I was the first person over 50 to ever win it. And the crazy thing is, I was coming in the finish. And the time wasn't great, but the course is so hard in New York. I ran 233. And I'm coming in the finish. And here comes Shalane Flanagan behind me.

And she was like, I think she was running all the majors in one year. I did it in 17 months. So she had miles in her legs. And she's coming close on me fast. And the crowd's going crazy. And I'm like, I know they're not. for me so I'm looking around and I see her and I was like I'm such like an insecure guy I was like oh hell no and I start sprinting and I beat her by one second and funny enough she was on the

flight on the way I had to fly to Seattle from New York for work and I get on the plane and she's sitting right behind me and first cousin I was like hey thanks for the push at the end so we were laughing about that but um because of that sprint I end up winning the 40 and over division by three seconds and you know people are staggered started they crossed so so it's not like the guy who was in second was right next to me you know so but to me that i mean i won like four thousand dollars or something to that effect it was like i mean the previous winners were like two of my friends meb kofleski and abdi obdi rockman who was obdi was a five-time ux i mean five time u.s olympic imagine going to five olympics and meb and meb kevlesgi won it a couple years before i

want it. And he won, you know, he's won Boston. He's one New York. He's second at the Olympics. I mean, he's a freaking superhero. And it's funny is after that race, Abdi Semiatek's like, hey, welcome to the Masters Club. And then I saw a Mab the next, that was in November. And in April, I saw him at Boston. I was like, hey, meb, let's get a picture two master's four, two both former master's champions. That was like probably the highlight of all my marathoning. But Boston was incredible because my friend Des Lyndon won it in 2018. And when you win, you know, you get the like VIP treatment. So she always has a plus one to the start line in the pro bus. And then you get the hang out in the Korean church at the start line out of the elements. Lay down. There's like mats in

there. You can relax because you're not out there like three or four hours in the elements before the race like everyone else. So that that part of it is just magical. Right. So you walk up. I walk out with the pros, the men go and start. I just step into the front of the rest of the pack of the age groupers. So it's funny this year, they were running ads for the New York, for the Boston Marathon in Boston. And at one point, there was some fighter jets flying overhead. And there were photographers standing at the start line. And I'm standing on the start line with the rest of the people.

And everyone's looking at the fighter jets. And I just remember like, I don't care if they're dropping bombs. I'm ready to go. I'm not paying attention to them. And the camera looked at me and I was like, had my hands up like I was ready to fight and everyone else is looking back like this and I remember putting a caption on Instagram like while everyone else is distracted I'm ready to go and uh that's yeah it was it was it was it was a great day the only slight disappointment is I ran to

two 30 and 20 seconds and I was just like you know from like four miles out I'm like oh this is going to be close and I and you know friends were like why didn't you just sprint the last mile I'm like sprint, I sprint the last 26 miles. What are you talking about? I was running as fast as I could. Okay, Ken, we have questions that we ask, you know, all of our guests. What are you obsessing over right now? I'm obsessing over honestly being a better dad. I'm obsessing over my children. I'm obsessing over not getting wrapped up in their performance, although I will tell you, I preach to my children. You do not have to be good to live here. You don't have to be good. You do have to try the best, though. You cannot live here and not.

give your best effort. It's unacceptable. Then my children are 13, 12, 10, and 8. And my youngest, like, as you can imagine, is, like, developing much quicker than the older ones in terms of, like, athlete. He's a jiu-jitsu wizard. He's boxes with Teddy Alice. He does jihitsu. He does wrestling. He's going to judo next week. Some kids just, like, crave that contact. And it's like, I wasn't one of them. I wanted to play quarterback because I didn't want to get tackled. This little guy is like, give him, give me all the heat data. I love it. Let's go. Wow. It is amazing when you can kind of see your kids like develop passions. And yeah, I mean, and I think like, you know, one of the things that I always was really mindful of, you know, just being a coach for so many

years and seeing, you know, the athletes that are really intrusively motivated versus extrinsically motivated and just the difference in just their levels of joy and how that really does start. Parents have a huge influence over that. Right. And I, you know, one of the things where I knew like I'm like succeeding as a parent is when my you know my kids literally don't even know if I'm at their game they don't even care like they just literally they're never looking up in the stance like they're never you know like it's really you're winning honestly you're winning when I see parents and I I don't mean to be cynical but when I see parents that they clearly care too much and I'm like man you need an outlet dude you cannot

live vicariously I know these kids it's not healthy for you or for them I know and listen I'm guilty of, but sometimes I want them so bad to do well because I want them to be happy. And I have to remind myself of like a lot of times, like you said, I'll stand as far away as possible because I don't want to be tempted to be like, go over there, get over there. You're telling them where to go, you know, and it's like, I sound like an idiot. And it has to be about them, you know, and I think that's what I always tell my kids. I was like, listen, like, you know, you don't need to watch warm up. In fact, don't watch warm up. As I tell you know, like it doesn't mean you're not, you know, I think a good parent.

It means that, you know, the kid starts to learn that this is really. This is about them. And it's not about the parent. And I think the sooner the kids can really embrace that and parents can embrace that, I think the healthier that kind of youth sport experience is going to be. Well, Ken, you have evolved into just an exceptional man and just inspiring and an athlete. So I'm just really grateful for the conversation today. And I know our listeners are going to love it.

Oh, my God. Thank you. Like I said, I'm super honored and humbled to be a guest on the podcast. and have a conversation with someone so well respected. So thank you for having me. Thank you to your listeners. I hope they enjoy it. I do my best to try to not sound narcissistic and just the facts.

And hopefully someone can get something from my experiences and recognize that, oh, if that dope can win, I can win too. Love that. Thank you. Thank you to Ken Rideout for joining us today on the Wooop podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at Whoop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question you want us to answer, email us, podcast at Whoop.com.

Call us 508-443-4952. If you want to join Whoop, try it for 30 days for free. That's right. Go to Whoop.com and you can literally get everything about the Whoop membership for free for 30 days. And that's all we got. Okay. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on The Whoop Podcast.

As always, stay healthy and stay in The Green. Thank you.