0:01

It's Christopher McDougal coming back . We had to

0:03

get him guys . So welcome back to well , welcome

0:05

to , bad Boy Running , and we've just recorded

0:07

with him . He's as fun as ever

0:09

. But we go into what I was really

0:11

surprised . Well , first we go about his

0:14

move to Hawaii and finding out how he met

0:16

his wife how he met his wife . Which

0:18

is really funny . We spoke about that

0:20

for longer than we probably should have done . But

0:23

, talking about the second book of free

0:26

to run , really interesting how he

0:28

was mentioning so many different aspects

0:30

of what we're doing wrong in

0:32

our and running and how

0:34

you can use the book to actually

0:37

just ask

0:39

yourself certain questions to figure out how

0:42

you can actually make massive jumps in

0:44

your training . One of the was simply just

0:46

to think about

0:48

if you're running fast enough , and he spoke about

0:50

some training sessions that are crazy doing

0:53

, for example , hill sprints halfway through

0:55

a two hour run and the impact of

0:57

that .

0:57

So there was your first run

0:59

, your first run that's

1:02

been given to you as a program yeah

1:05

, as a non runner .

1:06

Yeah , and quoting Zalapet

1:08

, you know he started doing 100 meter sprints to train

1:10

for the marathon and stuff like that . I mean

1:13

it's such a good episode as you'd expect

1:15

, so take it away , Nick .

1:18

They're bad , they're boys

1:20

and occasionally they talk

1:22

about running . Yes , it's the

1:24

bad boy running podcast , with

1:26

your hosts Jody Rainsford

1:28

and David Heller .

1:46

So our next guest . You , of course

1:48

, know him , and if you don't know him , you know his book

1:50

. It was the first good running

1:53

book of the maybe Dekan assets , the second

1:55

good running book ever created

1:57

, and it took us 10 years to

1:59

get him on . And then he ignored us

2:01

for another few years , and so we've got him

2:03

. We've got him on a year late , and

2:06

last time we got him on we didn't even talk about that , but we talked

2:08

about racing donkeys , and now we're probably

2:10

going to talk about UTMB . So welcome to the podcast

2:12

, christopher McDougal .

2:23

As we were pointing out , I am interrupting

2:26

my 24th wedding anniversary

2:28

to spend it with you guys . You truly

2:30

are the bad boys .

2:31

So if you weren't , if you weren't

2:33

doing bad boy running podcast , what

2:36

would the perfect wedding anniversary

2:38

evening with , with Christopher McDougal

2:40

in tail , go on ?

2:41

and give them insight ? And would you

2:44

have ? Would your wife have , the same opinion

2:46

of what the perfect wedding anniversary

2:48

evening would be ?

2:50

Well , this is going to be extremely anti climatic

2:53

and I do not mean that in any funny

2:55

sort

2:58

of way , but but a long

3:00

time ago we started this tradition . So where I am right

3:02

now in Hawaii , it's actually morning , it's 10am

3:05

and we had this tradition

3:07

because we had when we had the kids and they were little . We

3:09

would drop them off at school and my wife

3:11

would make this like special , amazing double

3:14

chocolate cake and we would watch

3:16

a film and eat chocolate cake

3:18

before the kids came home from school . Like that

3:20

was our wedding anniversary for like 20, .

3:22

So would you finish the whole cake so

3:24

the kids wouldn't know there was any cake they

3:26

come back and they'd be just empty clean

3:28

kitchen .

3:30

Well , when we say , would you in a singular

3:33

sense yeah , I would do some pretty heavy damage

3:35

in that cake . My wife would eat a slice and I'm like

3:37

I got four hours to kill . That's a lot of cake . So

3:39

I would murder pretty hard .

3:41

And then you'd pass out and not be able to make love

3:43

. Convertation

3:47

of sugar .

3:50

She worked that one really well .

3:53

I said it was anti-climactic right .

3:57

So you've moved to Hawaii . Is this ? Is

3:59

this running related ? Is this just your related

4:01

joy related ? Is this how does

4:03

, how does one go about making a move

4:06

to somewhere as far away as Hawaii

4:08

?

4:11

The first smart move I made was marrying a woman

4:13

from Hawaii . First

4:15

wrong move she made was marrying

4:17

me because she

4:19

was only going to be in Philadelphia where

4:22

we met for nine months . She was actually kind

4:24

of engaged to another dude .

4:26

He was kind of Kind of Kind

4:29

of Kind of Kind of . That sounds like

4:31

someone feels guilty of their actions .

4:35

I feel pretty goddamn smug and happy . I'm kind

4:37

of flexing . I'm

4:39

flexing like an enemy fighter

4:42

. Yeah

4:44

, everything except for the engagement

4:47

reign to formal announcement . They had planned to

4:49

marry but he was off

4:51

in Hong Kong . He's

4:53

working in the hotel industry . She

4:55

was a news reporter , so

4:58

she was only going to spend nine months in

5:00

Philadelphia doing a news

5:02

job and then going back to Hawaii , and then he was supposed

5:04

to rotate back to his hotel job . But

5:07

we met , started dating , she cut

5:09

him loose and then , lo and behold

5:11

, instead of rotating back to Hawaii after nine

5:13

months , she ended up spending 25 years

5:15

in Pennsylvania , 20 of

5:17

those years on a dirt farm

5:19

in the middle of nowhere with donkeys and sheep

5:21

and goats .

5:22

So can I ask when ? When

5:24

she cut the other guy loose , did she do

5:26

it in the form of her profession ?

5:33

What sense ?

5:34

did she like news just in so

5:38

and so freshly . Single ex

5:41

, ex ex fiance set to marry

5:43

famous writer

5:46

Wow

5:48

, and then have to finish with like

5:50

a nice story at the end but put in

5:53

other news .

5:54

It turns out that a recent

5:56

dog in Philadelphia has learned to

5:58

write escapers .

6:03

All time video to send some dude

6:05

your dating . What the f ? No

6:08

, she did . I'll tell you what . What really happened actually

6:10

happened was after

6:13

she and I got involved and she's like you know what

6:15

? I'm going to be upfront , I'm going to let him know . And

6:18

so she called him up and say this

6:20

is what's happening . I'm seeing this other guy . He's like give

6:22

me a day , I'm going to the airport , I'm

6:24

coming right away . And she told me

6:27

that this like he's finding for Hong Kong

6:29

right away . All my instincts would have

6:31

been to use every second of my disposal to

6:33

trash , talk this dude into oblivion

6:35

, like undermine him , sabotage him

6:37

, talk him down and instead of like okay

6:39

, you know what , you got to have a conversation . So I

6:42

did the exact opposite of what every instinct

6:45

was telling me to do . Realize it , there's

6:47

no way you can win this . You just got stepped away and luckily

6:49

, he ended up blowing it . He showed up and

6:51

got a little domineering and , you know , testosterone

6:55

on her , and then she just tipped out the door and

6:57

said I'm done . So it

6:59

was one of the few times in my life where I said don't

7:01

be you , be anybody except

7:04

you and you might have a chance here . Wow

7:08

.

7:09

That's so cool .

7:11

How did so ? How did you ? Did you meet

7:13

her in

7:15

the role ? Yeah , she was a reporter . What's she ? Did

7:17

she interview you ? Is that

7:19

how ?

7:19

you met ? No , no , I

7:22

. We had actually worked for the same news agency

7:24

. We were both reporters for the Associated Press

7:26

, and I'd worked overseas a bunch

7:28

, and I had just rotated

7:30

back to Philadelphia and was working in

7:32

my hometown Philadelphia bureau , and

7:35

I didn't like it . You know it's much different

7:37

working state side than it is working in like

7:39

conflict areas , so

7:41

I didn't like it , so I quit , and they actually

7:43

brought her in to replace me . So she was my

7:45

new , you know , replacement at

7:48

this small Philadelphia news

7:50

bureau , and they

7:53

brought her in , and she

7:55

was just going to do nine months working that shift

7:57

until they found someone full time , and then she

7:59

would go back to her job in Hawaii . And

8:02

after I had left , though , and people

8:04

were telling me hey , this girl came in to replace you from Hawaii

8:06

. Like that's kind of weird . Like what's she like ? She

8:09

doesn't really like it here , and you know she's

8:11

not dressed for the weather . It was like February

8:13

, and in my mind , I'm picturing

8:16

some like 500 pounds of mulling woman

8:18

. I don't know why I got this image , but

8:20

I associated every Hawaiian

8:23

is looking basically like an overweight

8:25

Jason Momoa , you know , just like a massive

8:28

overweight .

8:29

Jason Momoa has got a nice eyes , I'll

8:31

give him that .

8:32

You know what you know . I made a spiteful

8:34

, wrong analogy , like I think I would still go

8:36

for an overweight Jason Momoa .

8:38

That's how I met her .

8:40

Yeah . So anyway , in my

8:42

mind for weeks I'm hearing about this poor girl from

8:45

Hawaii and I'm envisioning the point

8:47

where the mental image I created

8:49

I thought was just reality oh there's poor , 500

8:51

pound woman wearing her moomoo . And

8:53

then , when I met her , like holy shit , like the

8:55

thing about them . They invited me to a party and

8:58

because I felt so sorry for her , I

9:00

brought this little gift that brought her some African music

9:02

CDs , because they told me , oh yeah , she likes African dance

9:04

. So I bring these CDs to the party

9:06

, thinking I'm doing a pity act

9:09

. And instead I'm really like holy shit , the

9:11

greatest opening move I ever could have done

9:13

. And then I did the second smart thing in my

9:15

life I gave her the CDs and say , hey , I

9:17

hope you enjoy these . And then I pivoted 180

9:20

, turned my back to her when it crossed the room

9:23

with just other friends , and I just stayed

9:25

away from her the rest of the night and I realized that's

9:27

the way . That's the way this thing

9:29

. Open your mouth after this . If you open your mouth

9:31

after this , you will blow it up because

9:33

she was so attractive

9:36

. I knew I was out of my depth and I would have compensated

9:38

for it by , like , please tell me what you're

9:40

thinking about . Philadelphia , you know how you had a cheese

9:42

steak , yet I was just like a manic

9:44

freak . So I just you

9:46

have to . Your only chance is

9:49

by separating yourself from her . You gave her the present

9:51

, now leave .

9:53

But did you think she was ? Did you think she was furious

9:55

at you being dragged away from Hawaii

9:58

to have to go to Philadelphia to cover

10:00

someone who's decided to leave

10:02

, did you ? Did you think ? Did you think , oh

10:05

, she's going to be furious , she's going to . She's going to

10:07

be only if she's going to be 400 pounds

10:09

. She's going to be angry 400 pounds .

10:11

That's right , man , I'm going to find myself in a cage

10:14

match here , but I'm going to lose . No

10:16

, she , it wasn't about me . You know . They

10:18

offered her the job , she took it . She knew it was

10:21

limited time period . No

10:24

, I just thought that she

10:26

was sad and depressed and mopey and I was

10:28

just doing a wheel . It was one of those times I thought , you know what , dude

10:30

, do something nice for

10:32

a team , do something nice without

10:34

expecting something to return . I was so

10:37

happy with myself walking to that

10:39

party , like you know what . You're not going to let

10:41

this 400 pounds , simone , but give me a goddamn

10:43

present , man , you know , and

10:45

I really suck in my mind .

10:47

There's a lot . There's a lot , isn't there , about

10:50

taking the pressure out of

10:52

that situation by imagining the

10:54

there's anything wrong with 400

10:56

pounds Simone , just in case you've got 400 pounds Simone

10:58

, she's not coming after us or anything else like that but

11:00

just take it , taking the

11:02

, the , the , the , the , the

11:05

danger out of that situation . Just 100%

11:08

improved that for you .

11:10

It . It's one of those pieces of advice that's

11:13

invaluable but impossible to

11:15

enact , because you

11:17

know if you remove the desire , you're

11:19

at your best self . But

11:22

if there's no desire , why are you in the conversation

11:24

in the first place ? You know it's it's losing

11:26

self-consciousness that lets you be your best

11:28

, but you're always conscious of the fact . Okay

11:31

, now I have to relax . You

11:33

cannot give yourself that word .

11:35

So you , you prescribed to the something about

11:37

Mary methodology of a

11:39

before the date , just in

11:41

a clearing , clearing the obstacle to

11:43

success .

11:46

Yes , Absolutely

11:48

yeah , but although

11:50

I'm not sure of a physical , I'm sure of a physical

11:52

release to make any difference . So you

11:54

know this kind of not to

11:56

stray back into a topic like

11:58

running , but this is really

12:01

the key to success in any kind of race . So

12:03

let me just dart in with a quick little story

12:05

and we'll get back to stuff that's completely irrelevant

12:07

. Again , I was talking

12:09

to Billy Barnett , who is on the cover

12:11

of the original born or run . He's the original wild

12:13

child and he also lives in Hawaii and

12:16

he and his wife had

12:18

a baby and they were both

12:20

taken terms with the baby and they didn't have time to train

12:23

and they put training and

12:25

racing out of their mind for that year

12:27

and they both had the best running year

12:29

of their lives . And he shows up at the Halloween marathon

12:31

at age 35 on almost

12:33

no training and almost wins it

12:35

. He gets third place overall , smoked

12:38

. It runs a PR it was like two something and

12:40

his wife did her

12:42

PR in the hurt 100 ultra marathon

12:44

and she finished , I think , fourth , fourth

12:48

woman , 15th overall . It was

12:50

crazy and they said spending

12:52

a year not giving a crap

12:54

, not caring , showing up

12:56

at races . We're just there for the smiles gave

12:59

them the best running of their lives . So

13:01

it's that tricky sort

13:04

of Zen conundrum is like you

13:06

can do your best if you don't care about

13:08

doing anything at all .

13:12

We can retrospectively apply that to everything

13:14

and say that we say that us not caring

13:16

. Is that philosophy

13:19

? David's got a newborn

13:21

, so maybe that's a

13:23

training approach that you could possibly take .

13:26

I mean the things . I do deeply

13:28

care . That's the sad thing . I never

13:30

take that off . I do deeply

13:32

care . I want to train , I want to be fast

13:34

, I want to be better and

13:37

also I need to care to actually train . And

13:39

that's the issue . If I ended up , I

13:42

think it works somewhere warm . But if you'll say

13:45

in London or somewhere

13:47

crappy in England when

13:49

it's raining 50%

13:51

of the year , all dark or cold

13:53

, then you're

13:56

not just going to want to go for a run , naturally

13:58

, and so actually you end up massively

14:01

unfit if you haven't

14:03

got that external motivation

14:05

to train . And so I think it can work

14:07

somewhere lovely like Hawaii or

14:10

California , where on

14:12

a box on boxing day you're slightly hungover

14:14

, you look out the window and it's sunny and you think I'll

14:16

just go for a lovely run .

14:18

When you look out the window and it's absolutely shitting

14:20

it down , I think it probably has a

14:23

different impact on how much you run every day

14:25

, but

14:28

I wrestle with that too , Because for

14:31

20 years we lived on a small farm

14:33

in rural Pennsylvania that we

14:36

heated with a wood stove , so we

14:38

were taking care of animals . So I constantly had farm chores

14:40

, I constantly had fire . We'd have to be split and stacked

14:42

. And then the days were short . The sun's

14:45

going down at 4.30 in the afternoon and it is coming

14:47

up at like 6.30 . So

14:49

you have a short window of daylight and

14:51

I like to run in the afternoon . So usually

14:53

when I'm done work for the day and ready to go for

14:55

a run , the sun's already going down and it's getting cold

14:58

. I'm like , ah , screw this . And I sort

15:00

of made my peace with it , which was kind

15:03

of a grizzly bear

15:05

approach to training . Which is what is a grizzly

15:07

bear doing in the winter ? It just hangs

15:09

out and gets fat , you know , it just relaxes

15:11

. And I started to think about

15:13

a lot of survived

15:16

subsistence cultures . You know what are

15:18

farmers doing in the wintertime ? They're not trying to grow potatoes

15:21

because they ain't going to grow , so they spend their time

15:23

repairing their tools . It's called slopping

15:25

the fields . They're putting down liquid manure in the fields

15:27

. What do fishermen do ? They're not going to

15:29

see . They're repairing the nets , and so

15:32

I had to repair the net

15:34

. Velocity which is , you know , maybe it's healthy

15:36

to dial things way back in the

15:38

wintertime Build up your strength , build

15:40

up your anticipation , and then

15:42

, when the weather starts to turn , then you're

15:44

raring to go . The difficulty , however , though

15:47

, is when you live in the UK , where you

15:49

know , like you said , a lot of the year it's

15:51

not that pleasant . So , but

15:53

maybe you know and also a lot of the Kenyan

15:55

marathoners do this too they go back

15:58

for a month and do nothing , Just sit

16:00

around and talk , story and eat . So

16:02

maybe what we need to do is

16:05

if not for

16:07

a long amount of time , but just counter

16:10

in 45 days

16:12

a year of almost nothing and

16:15

see if that recharges the battery .

16:16

But I think also the Kenyans don't have

16:19

dominoes and Ben and

16:21

Jerry's on tap every day with

16:23

a house . I guess a cupboard full

16:25

of just pure trans

16:27

fats and like liquid

16:30

liquid heart attacks at

16:32

every turn , and so you

16:34

know they can go back and they'll eat that

16:37

I can't remember the name , food , that , the

16:39

maze like substance that a lot of the runners

16:41

got Oogali , oogali

16:43

. Yeah , I mean , maybe they pick out an Oogali

16:46

, but probably not that much , you

16:48

suspect .

16:48

So it's here . There's only so much you

16:51

can get down your throat . You know it's . It's . It's

16:53

a cardio exercise . Just chewing

16:55

that it's like celery

16:57

. You lose weight trying to eat it .

17:00

Yeah , so what

17:02

happened to your donkey then ? If you , if you've left

17:04

for for Hawaii , the last

17:06

time we spoke you were doing donkey running

17:08

. That was the , the previous

17:11

book . It was something that I've

17:13

. I've spoken extensively to people

17:15

from Salomon about documentaries They've made

17:17

. I think Courtney Duarte was telling me about

17:19

it and someone else and yeah , and

17:21

now no more donkeys .

17:25

What was Courtney telling you about ? About that Salomon documentary

17:27

with , like , ryan sands and all running

17:29

. That's right , yeah , yeah

17:32

, yeah , yeah , was she , was she ? Was she around

17:34

for that ?

17:35

She I'm trying to remember because we one was

17:37

a cool we were having a call about potentially gets the

17:39

run show . I , I

17:43

can't remember she was there in the race or was

17:46

she . She just knew the stories

17:48

about it and I was saying go and

17:50

watch this Documentary . Actually is brilliant

17:52

.

17:53

So before I answer your question , let me fanboy

17:55

a little bit . I've never met Courtney . I never actually

17:57

seen her in person , but on

18:00

Camera she just seems like

18:03

the best . Is she , like this

18:05

, the coolest person on the planet ?

18:07

Yeah , it seems to be . I mean I wouldn't say no that well

18:09

, but every Everything

18:12

I've seen of her she just seems

18:14

to be Courtney . I've never

18:16

seen a not be Courtney , from what I can tell

18:18

.

18:19

That that point we were making about

18:21

Succeeding

18:23

by not caring . I mean , that's the vibe she

18:26

gives off like . I've never seen a picture where

18:28

it's almost like she's not expressing

18:30

like hey , we're all in the same joke , isn't this

18:32

fucking ridiculous ? You know it's . She

18:34

can be winning UTMB in an aid station

18:36

and she's rocking up and he's like massive

18:38

basketball short and again . The smile that

18:40

she has it's a full-on , like

18:42

what's

18:45

going on kind of vibe which

18:47

distracts me is unbelievable

18:49

for the level of

18:52

performance she has .

18:54

But I do get the sense that with people

18:57

like her , killian John Alvin

18:59

, they very much like

19:01

being being in the public eye

19:04

Drains them significantly

19:06

and so actually Things like UTMB

19:08

Western States and they're

19:11

almost racing from the moment they get on the plane

19:14

because actually being in the public starting

19:16

to eat away on their energy Whereas other people

19:18

feed off it . So I think actually they can

19:20

. They can kind of turn up for

19:22

a weekend and and just be

19:24

completely cool and race Because

19:27

it's just that weekend , and I think they

19:29

then go back absolutely shattered and

19:32

and quite quite likely

19:34

because she's Isn't in Leadville and she and he's up

19:36

in Norway , and so I think they

19:38

do need that complete separation

19:40

from individuals for a long time To recharge

19:43

their batteries .

19:45

Yeah , I'm like

19:47

that too . I might be the Personality

19:49

trait that all those having common in attract

19:51

us to sport . We you were mentioning before

19:53

the days you ten years to track me down with another

19:55

year before I agree . Even this

19:57

morning , I was like sitting my way to God

20:00

, jesus , there's nothing else , this

20:06

. And I was like , oh my god anniversary

20:08

, anniversary , come you

20:10

can't forget already . Oh no

20:13

, I'm there . I'm there with that , but like there's nothing

20:15

else I have to do all day . I don't have to do

20:17

any chores on any farm stuff , but

20:19

this one hour of very

20:21

delightful chatting just seem absolutely

20:24

unbearable in position

20:26

upon my life . So I'm

20:28

kind of like that too . I enjoy it when I'm in it , but then

20:30

there's something about , I think , an

20:32

ADHD Shiny

20:36

object mentality that I just don't want

20:38

to have to have any scheduled . I'm

20:40

happy to do stuff and it pops up

20:42

, but if I have to be scheduled I

20:45

start the fret . But let me circle back

20:47

to your original question , and which was what

20:50

happened to the donkey .

20:51

But before that does , does that make it hard to

20:53

to write a book to a scheduled time

20:55

?

20:55

then yeah , and I learned a lesson

20:57

Early

21:00

on . So my my career started

21:02

off as a Newswire

21:05

service reporter , which meant working

21:07

for the AP . I'm covering everything that happens in a zone . So

21:11

if I'm , I was the AP corresponding Portugal

21:13

. So if it's soccer , finance , true

21:16

crime , please

21:19

be . Anything's happening in Portugal . I'm

21:21

covering in very small , short news bullets

21:23

, which is perfect for me because you

21:26

know I do a story about the crime and I'm done it in an hour . Then

21:30

I do something about the ascooters dropping in

21:32

value , and I've done it an hour . So my brain was always all over the place and

21:35

I loved it . Then , when I shift over

21:38

to longer articles when

21:42

I would have to sit down and do the same subject for

21:44

two or three days at a time or a week , it drove me crazy until I realized that

21:47

you can just kind of

21:49

work in all the wins . I don't schedule yourself , just

21:53

do it when you feel like it . I feel like a translate that the exercise

21:55

as well . So I'll sit down to work and

21:57

after now , like this sucks , I'm gonna go for

21:59

a run . At that point you can't wait to run

22:01

, no matter what the weather is like , the run just seems

22:03

like the best thing ever . So go do that

22:05

and I chore them and putting off like

22:07

clean the dishes , like now I really want to clean dishes . I

22:12

don't feel like sitting back down to work again . So you

22:14

end up getting everything done by making

22:16

it seem like the least , the least awful option

22:18

at that moment and everything kind of slides around

22:20

. So after a run I don't mind sitting down and doing a little

22:22

bit of work and

22:25

you know I don't mind washing the dishes . If you know , if

22:27

I've been waiting for a while and said that's how I learned

22:29

how to do so with a

22:31

book , I Realized that my prime time to work was

22:34

like from 8 pm To about

22:36

1 in the morning . So during the day I would

22:38

just run around like a kid all day , just mess with

22:40

the animals , you

22:44

know , shopping for food , doing ever . But then 8 o'clock my energy was

22:46

starting to go down . But then 8 o'clock my energy

22:48

will start to sag a little bit . Now we're

22:51

mind sitting in a chair and then you know , let my

22:53

brain take over for a while .

22:55

Interesting and do you think the the

22:58

nature of you , because it

23:00

means you always writing when you're in a very

23:02

particular mindset . Do you think that sets

23:05

the tone of what you write ? And do you think if you were to

23:07

say to force yourself to write

23:09

at 9 am , instead the

23:11

, you would have written very

23:13

different text .

23:16

Probably there would have been , like you know , an undertone

23:19

of resentment and yeah

23:35

for sure . Well , here's , the interesting thing too was I

23:37

was , um , at

23:40

a bookstore and I

23:43

was being introduced before going on stage

23:45

to speak and the owner of the bookstore

23:48

Says you know , one thing that characterizes

23:50

Chris McDougal books is he truly

23:52

loves the people he's writing

23:55

about . And as a journals I

23:57

sort of like Froze for a second , like no , no

23:59

, no , no , there's no emotion here . I

24:01

am , you know , clear , a purely

24:03

a clinician . I'm in here to just tell

24:05

what's going on , and

24:08

so I was kind of processing that and then I went on stage . I thought

24:10

actually I was about to disagree , but

24:12

I got a circle back to the Greek . What she

24:14

said is exactly accurate , because I like to think

24:16

that I'm objective . But you

24:18

know , out of all the things in the

24:20

world I've chosen to write about , why

24:22

wasn't those books ? And I

24:24

think it's because I

24:27

really like those people on born

24:29

to run , I am . I genuinely

24:31

love them . Bear for 10 . I Make

24:33

fun of him more in that book and

24:36

any human I've ever encountered on her

24:38

. And yet I genuinely like

24:40

him a lot and I

24:43

still see him all the time over the years and he's come

24:45

to visit me in Pennsylvania with his wife . I

24:48

visited him in California , lewis Escobar

24:50

, when Micah True went missing man

24:52

, I bolted down there . And so

24:56

I think what has happened is that I've

24:58

been able to create this scenario where I write

25:00

about people that I genuinely Like and

25:02

I can continue our relationship

25:04

Virtually

25:08

by writing about them , so at night I I

25:12

basically can sit down , have a conversation with

25:14

my friends by writing about them and telling stories

25:16

about them , and I think it does create An element

25:18

in the books of of fun , you know

25:20

. So One

25:23

of the things I've always been trying

25:25

to figure out is , like you know , born to run has had kind

25:27

of an amazing , kind of

25:29

an amazing Like

25:32

the book it's kind of funny if you track the sales is selling

25:34

the same number of copies per week . This

25:37

week that it's sold 10 years ago it

25:39

has had a completely steady

25:41

sales rate . Wow and

25:43

I Always kind of thought about that . What

25:45

it was and I think it's because

25:48

it's one of the few Books

25:50

about sport it's really

25:52

the having fun . It's not about

25:54

, you know , the challenge was

25:56

hard , but I was harder , you know , was it about being

25:58

tough ? I might , might like was running out of my shoes

26:00

, was like no man , jen Shelton

26:03

bombing in margaritas and the dude's bathtub

26:05

, you know it's so . I

26:07

think that was it that I was able to write , and then all my

26:09

books subsequently . I think that tried at the same

26:11

element of fun and joy .

26:13

I mean , I think Jadis books are gonna sell the same

26:16

amount in 10 years as they do this week as well

26:18

, for very different reasons

26:20

.

26:21

Yeah , mine aren't about fun at all . Have

26:25

you ever written about a character

26:27

and a fallen in love with the character

26:30

that you've written about as it was then

26:32

? But you have a very different

26:34

relationship with that person now and

26:36

you speak . You still love the character

26:38

as it was portrayed in one of

26:40

your books .

26:42

Well , I want to say that I did notice

26:44

a trend that

26:47

is so predictable now that I anticipated

26:49

in advance , which is that I've

26:52

learned that every book that I write

26:54

, one person is gonna be

26:56

really pissed and Really

27:00

pissed off and erupt

27:03

, and usually it's

27:05

the person you least expect . And

27:08

now it's the point where , now that the person I most suspect

27:10

so whoever I think is Is what

27:12

I should least expect , now I expect that's gonna be the one

27:14

, and yeah

27:16

, and I think the thing about it is , in

27:19

endurance sports we

27:22

are Self-actualized

27:24

. You know we are what we've created of ourselves

27:27

. You know , in a lot of other sports

27:29

, sprinters , you

27:31

know Usain Bolt's a did a lot of work , but he's also

27:33

six foot six dude with unbelievable fast-twitch

27:35

muscles . Like you can't make a Usain Bolt . You

27:38

know he basically showed up good to

27:40

go . You cannot make a . You

27:42

know Shaquille , and you can't make a LeBron James

27:45

. They have physical gifts , but endurance

27:47

athletes Putting aside

27:49

the killings and all most of us are what we make

27:51

of ourselves , and so I think there's a certain amount

27:53

of control and Pride

27:56

in what we have created ourselves

27:58

and that's what we take pride in , and so

28:00

if you describe an endurance athlete , they

28:03

can also get very , very pissed off because

28:05

they say hey , man , I carved myself at

28:08

a marble dude , you know . And

28:10

who are you to say that you could carve

28:12

me out of marble better ?

28:14

What's ? What's the disconnect ? What's

28:16

the disconnect between how they see themselves and how

28:18

you paint them , would you say ?

28:21

So I don't really think there is a disconnect

28:24

and

28:27

so , but lack of self-awareness

28:29

on their side . Well

28:31

, you know , judy , funny , oh sorry , I gotta ask it to

28:33

your ass . I thought you asked me this from a place of personal experience

28:35

. What's

28:43

happened now Three

28:45

times in a row ? So natural

28:47

born heroes were English sermon and born to

28:49

run . Before

28:52

the book would come out , I would give an advanced copy

28:54

of people that I thought are the principles

28:56

hey , here's , here's what's gonna be and each

28:58

time I would just get a Listering

29:01

message back with like bullet

29:03

points . You know , you said

29:06

I was wearing black shorts . They

29:08

were not black , they were blue gray

29:10

. I'm not kidding like this kind of stuff

29:12

. You said it was over

29:14

. It was not , it was quinoa

29:17

. You know , it's all these like and

29:19

I mean , dude , you're

29:21

a hero in this book like . Hmm

29:23

to me the book just radiates

29:26

respect and admiration

29:29

. And and

29:31

I'm I think I'll hold you up to the people look at how

29:33

great this guy is and you're pissed off

29:35

because I got the color . You're sure

29:37

it's wrong , or we now you know I got it wrong we

29:39

disagree about and that's

29:42

happened over and over again . So the first one was

29:44

like Mike , a true born ranking . Now he fucking

29:46

hated it , hated it . But

29:48

you know who liked it was barefoot Ted

29:50

. And I said I only said two

29:52

advanced copies . I said one to Ted and one to Micah

29:55

, like all right , these guys are gonna Give

29:57

me piss , but I might as well let them know in advance

30:00

. I don't want to be surprised . And

30:02

Micah sent me back to that who

30:04

do you think you are and Ted's

30:06

like ? Finally , the PhD

30:09

thesis about myself . I don't have to write

30:11

this . So

30:16

One of the things

30:18

I keep circling back with Ted Ted is a nut

30:20

man and Anybody

30:23

who's met Ted will tell me . Now

30:25

I read born to run and I

30:27

thought you're exaggerating . And

30:29

then I met Ted and I thought , no , you

30:31

kind of . You kind of dial it down a little . Ted

30:34

is everything double

30:36

that is in born to run , and

30:39

yet his heart is so

30:41

big that he

30:44

just he rolls with it . He's never

30:46

been resentful and every time

30:48

you make a request of Ted , the answer

30:50

is yes , oh , here's , here's a great one . So Lewis

30:52

estuar , the guy did all

30:54

the photographs for born to run . He was recently down the

30:56

Copper Canyon for another endurance event

30:58

and Ted called him up and say hey , are you

31:00

gonna see Manuel Luna While

31:02

you're down ? There is oh , yeah , I'm gonna see him . Oh

31:05

, great , I'm sending you a box . So

31:07

Lewis gets this massive box . It's

31:09

all taped up . What the fuck , dude ? I'm already

31:11

carrying cameras and my own luggage and I got

31:13

this massive box . So he flies down

31:15

the Chihuahua and he goes through customs

31:17

and the guy says Is

31:20

that your box ? He's like yeah , did you pack

31:22

it yourself ? And those are oh

31:24

, my god , I don't know what's in this box . I

31:26

don't know what the tell Ted sending there

31:28

. Yeah , you guys like what is it ? He goes Presence

31:32

, they open and

31:34

it looks like freezing . What is this ? It

31:36

actually was a ton of

31:39

beautiful custom material for making handmade

31:41

sandals . And you're setting it down

31:43

to Manuel Luna and so

31:45

it's like leather and leather cores and

31:47

these Vibram soles , beautiful stuff . And he

31:51

was allowing Manuel Luna to use this stuff

31:53

to make these handmade sandals , and then we

31:55

sell them to the group that Lewis was guiding

31:57

and they're charged , like you know

31:59

, 150 dollars , 200 dollars a pair

32:01

of sandals . And now , well , luna sold

32:03

like a hundred samples , clearing , you know well

32:05

, over two thousand dollars . And he

32:08

said , lewis said to Ted , hey , how much , how much of this

32:10

is yours ? No , no , no , no , no , no , no , it's all for Manuel

32:13

Luna . So , unrequested , painting

32:16

the ass to Lewis . But it was the kind

32:18

of generosity where Ted Donates

32:20

two thousand dollars worth of materials to

32:23

a guy that he only met 15 years ago for

32:25

a couple hours in the bottom of the canyon .

32:28

Wow , what happens then ? When Say

32:31

that you know someone is angry with

32:33

it , what do you do ? Do you just say

32:35

, oh , it's already so , you

32:37

know , you should just kind of like

32:39

fight your corner and then go . But this is

32:41

it , or what happens ? Yeah

32:45

.

32:45

I mean , I Haven't

32:47

had a moment where I actually felt

32:49

that I was wrong . It's

32:52

not that they are disputing the facts , it's

32:54

disputing the characterization

32:56

. You know you said this , but it's . You know . Why do

32:58

you say that ? Why don't you tell them this story

33:00

? And one thing like

33:03

let's , let's say , for an errand , for instance . There

33:05

are two things which occasional

33:08

gunner my skin , which is that

33:10

People

33:12

will say oh you , you write about them like

33:14

they're superhuman . And I'm

33:16

writing the story from the beginning , not from yet . Well

33:19

, at the time I first heard of the tabo mata , I

33:21

went online to research them and

33:23

the only information I could find made

33:25

them seem superhuman . So what

33:27

I'm describing at the beginning of the book is wow , he seemed

33:29

like these unbelievable super athletes . It seems like they

33:32

never get sick and they never get old , and it's

33:35

what I'm trying to express is

33:37

my own Incredulity

33:39

at these people . And then , later

33:41

on , once I'm actually there , I'm able to paint

33:44

, you know , a more accurate human portrait

33:46

, but you know , it's

33:48

just like someone teleking you . But hey , I just saw

33:50

this a massive shark and I see like a million

33:52

teeth in your imagination . It's huge . And

33:54

then you actually see the shark Okay , it's a little bit smaller sister

33:56

, that you know . It's kind of great skin and so

33:59

I Will

34:01

continue to get criticism . People say you say they're

34:03

super athletes like a .

34:05

I'm saying that I went in search of

34:08

superathletes and found humans and

34:11

then but

34:13

do you think the because actually , now

34:16

to when the book came out , ultra

34:19

running has so fundamentally changed

34:21

in the number of people running 100

34:24

miles , the number of races are above

34:26

100 miles , the number of people

34:29

who've If done a man who's skipped

34:31

marathon distance to get to an ultra ? I

34:33

remember when I first read it , ultra

34:37

runners were still something kind of

34:39

outside of running . There

34:41

was awareness these people existed . You

34:43

knew races happened , but it

34:45

still seemed Beyond

34:48

the remark .

34:48

I was . I was a god to you pretty much .

34:55

Yeah , I Regreted

34:57

that concept . So in the title yeah

35:01

, the title is Thank

35:03

you . What's the subtitle ? Born your own , forget

35:05

, yeah , I'm gonna grab .

35:07

Born to run fuck up because it's

35:10

a .

35:15

It's . It's

35:18

ultra running , super athletes , and it's

35:20

something super athletes and the greatest race

35:22

in the world have never seen . In that

35:24

context , the greatest race the world's ever seen oh

35:26

yeah , it's a lost the lost tribe , super

35:29

athletes and the greatest race the world has never

35:31

seen the lost tribes . In the title model , the

35:33

super athletes are ultra marathoners and

35:35

the greatest race is the contest between the two

35:37

of them . So I'm not referring to

35:39

the subtle moda as a super athlete

35:41

, I'm referring to , like the Scott George . So

35:44

back when I first got on the window this this

35:46

is like 2002 , 2003

35:48

I Never

35:51

heard of hundred mile races . Like little to me

35:53

was a revelation and so

35:55

that man people running for marathons in

35:57

the trail . So looking back , it's

35:59

kind of like trying to imagine a world before

36:01

smartphones , like . Yeah

36:03

, it's only been like really , it's what's it been like 15

36:06

years since we've all had these things or less

36:08

, and yet it seems like we always

36:10

had them . And it's

36:12

remarkable to me to think back on the time where I didn't know

36:14

about ultra marathons .

36:16

But yeah , at that time I Didn't

36:19

know what was going on in , who these people were , and to

36:21

me they seem like like super athletes and

36:23

if you , okay

36:26

, I was just wondering if you've had an insight into Someone

36:29

younger now who's grown up with alchohol around

36:31

them reading the book , and how they perceive

36:33

it .

36:36

How they perceive the sport of ultra marathon .

36:39

I just wondering because , given

36:41

that the community's changed

36:44

so fundamentally , as has the race scene

36:46

Just what . I'd

36:48

love to know what your book

36:50

is like from the perspective of someone

36:52

reading it new now , having

36:55

already grown up surrounded

36:57

by all these ultra runners .

37:00

Yeah , it's a good question what

37:02

I tend to run across when people

37:04

. Well , one

37:06

thing is I'm actually not around that many people that often because

37:09

, you know , I lived in a farm surrounded by Amish farmers

37:12

for 20 years and

37:14

now I live in a Surf

37:17

culture , you know , or most people about the water , so

37:19

I'm not really in a place now like I'm like running

37:21

through Chicago or something and see

37:23

a lot of runners all the time . But when I do

37:25

bump into people , they're usually

37:28

excited about the adventure . It's

37:30

like the adventure that they're really tuned

37:32

into . It's not the extremes of running

37:34

, not barefoot running , it's like man . That sounds

37:36

like really cool . And

37:38

I Think there are two elements

37:41

it's kind of in

37:43

confidence with each other with ultra

37:45

marathoning and I

37:48

think it's kind of my perspective . And then , like

37:50

the David Goggins perspective and

37:53

it's funny I actually spoke about I think I was on rich

37:55

roll and I mentioned this

37:57

and I got this like Furious

37:59

message from David Goggins beyond

38:01

silly how dare you ? I said well , here's

38:05

how I dare . You know , his

38:07

motto is stay hard , be hard

38:09

, get hard . And I feel like the

38:11

philosophy , one

38:13

philosophy in ultra marathoning is hey , if you don't finish the

38:15

race in the emergency room . Then

38:18

you , you didn't really try , you know you should

38:20

be running yourself to a point of kidney failure , and my

38:24

attitude is actually not like none of this

38:26

.

38:27

You should be drinking yourself to kidney failure . You

38:29

should be running yourself away from .

38:34

The kidney failure happens after the race . Same

38:36

destination .

38:38

Same destination .

38:45

Isn't that the challenge with alters , though , and anything

38:47

of that type of distance , is that with marathons

38:49

, because you've got a specific distance

38:52

, all of the , all

38:54

of the variables of Interest happen

38:57

within that distance . With ultra marathons

38:59

is almost as though the

39:01

distance is getting longer . Therefore

39:04

, people don't really know how to

39:06

cut , how to Quantify

39:09

the sense of achievement or adventure

39:11

, and so , and then our job

39:13

which I think is you

39:15

, as you as an author is , and then us

39:18

as a podcast is we have to try and find

39:20

Stories within that that we

39:22

find of interest , because we'll get loads of people go oh , so it's , those

39:24

run like 300 mile , 400 miles , or one

39:26

the length of this country 500

39:28

times , and we'll be like , okay , that's , that's great

39:30

, but actually it

39:33

is there . Is there a story within that ? Is there

39:35

more of a story within that ? And I think that's

39:37

. I think that's the challenge , isn't it the challenges ? That is not

39:39

. It's kind of not about

39:41

the distance , and it's not necessarily

39:44

about the performance . It's like how do you , how , how do we

39:46

keep this interesting ? How

39:48

do we keep it interesting ? And it's and , and I think we

39:50

, we have that challenge , don't we ? In

39:53

trying to try to find those stories and find

39:55

it doesn't really matter whether someone ran a hundred

39:57

miles or 200 miles or the five times the country or

39:59

whatever . It's like what , what

40:02

, what specifically was it about them and why

40:04

they were doing it ? That made that interesting , I

40:06

think , sometimes , especially when you

40:09

come up with the kind of like the city and a citizen journalist and if

40:11

I sound strogotry I

40:13

completely mean it in a derogatory way as well , in

40:15

the sense that you know they're like . Well , I've done this amount and I've

40:18

done much more and I've achieved much more . So

40:21

why are you not listening to my voice more than

40:23

anyone else's ? Because these other persons not as quick as me , not as yeah , hasn't

40:25

gone as far as me , hasn't achieved as much to me , but

40:27

they've got a better story and they have a more interesting

40:30

so and they know how to tell that story . They know

40:32

how to communicate that story as well . So

40:34

I just think ultra running

40:36

is such a it's such a bit of an open-ended

40:38

, difficult thing to quantify that no

40:42

one really knows how to gauge achievement

40:44

in it .

40:46

Well , you know it's interesting . So when I was starting

40:48

born to run , I went to Leadville to interview Ken Clover and

40:51

he's like a hard rock minor . He's

40:53

the guy that created the race to save his town . And

40:56

my opening question was why have you never

40:58

brought the title of lot of back to

41:00

race in Leadville ? Like every other contest

41:03

, you bring back the defending champion . He's

41:05

like I don't care about defending champions , I'm a different

41:07

shit , like that's not my bread and butter because

41:09

the top fastest guys they bounce from race to race . He's

41:12

like my bread and butter is the back of the pack

41:14

. These are the people that barely

41:16

finish and they come back year after year . And

41:18

he told me a story . He's like the

41:20

Leadville tradition is that the mayor of the town , as

41:24

the countdown clock is taking off

41:26

the final seconds of the race before the cutoff , he

41:29

turns his back away from the finish

41:31

line so you can't see the

41:33

finish line , and he holds a shotgun . He

41:35

just looks at the countdown clock and a

41:37

second it clicks down to zero . He

41:39

blows the shotgun and the race is over . So

41:42

if someone is seven inches from this finish

41:44

line , they're out . They

41:46

did not finish . They technically did not finish the race .

41:49

So that's the same as comrades . Which

41:52

one did it first ? And do you think one

41:54

of them ? Because they have exactly the same

41:56

rule where the gun monitor

41:58

can't see the finish line . Do you think

42:00

one of them heard the idea

42:02

from the other ? Do you think they are

42:04

they two independent solutions

42:07

, or has one copied the other ? I mean so

42:09

which was first ? Because I've not heard it about Leadville

42:11

.

42:13

Oh yeah , I would imagine that Leadville

42:15

got it from comrades If they were educated

42:18

enough to know about it . So that's the funny thing about it

42:20

is , these are a bunch of cowboys up in the mountains

42:22

so in

42:24

some regards they don't give a shit what anybody else is doing . On

42:27

the other hand , comrades is way older , so

42:29

it could be one or two ways . It could have been someone's

42:31

. Oh , you know what they do with comrades and Leadville

42:33

would happily borrow anything . They

42:36

didn't know what they're doing . You know they're putting this thing together

42:38

, and so someone gave them a good idea like great , let's

42:40

do that . It sounds awesome . We love guns

42:42

. We already got a shotgun anyway . What

42:45

I love about it was Ken

42:47

was telling me a story about , as

42:49

a way of proving his point about not caring who wins

42:52

the race . So this was the year that Tony

42:54

Kropitschka won

42:57

Leadville and they were calling him make a guy because

42:59

he just wore shorts and no shirt and he looked

43:01

like running Jesus and he was a

43:03

real kind of a sensation . But the big

43:05

story that year was there was some

43:07

old guy who had failed three

43:09

times in a row to finish Leadville and

43:11

this was his fourth attempt and he's approaching

43:14

the finish line and the mayor turns his back

43:16

and he holds up the gun and this guy's approaching the line

43:18

and people are going crazy and

43:21

as the gun goes off he falls

43:24

across the line just in time

43:26

and his whole pack of people dive on top

43:28

of him to congratulate him and Ken goes like

43:30

from the scrum . This one arm

43:32

emerges and just holds up a single

43:34

finger and people just went crazy . And

43:38

at that moment you're like who won

43:40

the race ? again that story

43:43

just blew away , and

43:45

so to me that's my

43:47

personal preference is I kind of ? You know

43:49

, I lose track of who's fast

43:51

. Max King and even Killian

43:54

. I like Killian as a marvel

43:56

. I'm just not that interesting Killian

43:58

as a dude . I expect the

44:00

Terminator to go out and kill everybody . You know , that's

44:03

what he is To

44:06

me . That's what's interesting . I love the people

44:08

. Let me give one more example . A

44:10

friend of mine is named Chris Solarz and he just sent me a

44:12

race report . He just swam all

44:15

the way around Staten Island and

44:17

it's only been done three times

44:20

in history , because nobody wants to swim around

44:22

Staten Island . It's

44:26

like swimming in a gigantic cesspool . But

44:29

he sent me this race report and yeah , last time someone

44:31

did , it was 1957 . During

44:33

my swim . I read a news report the next day . Apparently

44:35

the severed foot was recovered from the

44:37

water while I was in it . I don't

44:39

know where the rest of the body is , and

44:42

I'm reading this race report . It was very , very hard

44:44

. It took him like 16 hours of non-stop

44:46

swimming and nobody

44:49

cares , no one gives a shit . He's

44:52

not flexing . Those , to me

44:54

, are the mess stories . It's like you pick

44:56

the starting line , you pick the finish line and

44:59

you just decide . Hey , I wonder if I can do this .

45:01

What was his motivation ?

45:05

He was motivated by two things . One was he

45:07

was so curious about the last guy who did it . So

45:10

two people done it and the last guy did it in the 1940s

45:13

and he's like , who is this guy Like ? Why did he do

45:15

it ? Like I have modern

45:17

equipment , I got gels , I got a boat next

45:19

to me . How about this guy ? You know like who is that ? It's

45:22

like the guys who like thumbeted Everest

45:25

, you know , back in the 30s , like in their wool and shit

45:27

. He was intrigued by that person

45:29

and he goes . I spent most

45:31

of the swim trying to see

45:33

the swim through this guy's eyes . And

45:36

the second reason was Staten Island is so frapped

45:39

upon , you know , it's considered

45:41

like the crappiest of the burrows . He's

45:43

kind of like it's like an underdog story . Yeah

45:46

, you know what ? I'm gonna swim around Staten

45:48

Island . So that was it . It was his own personal challenge

45:51

and intrigue and curiosity . That

45:53

was it . That was the only motivation .

45:56

It'd be like seeing the get that

45:58

guy to come over and swim the Isle of Wight . It

46:00

would be the equivalent in the UK the

46:04

kind of islands that's been left behind , where

46:06

there was a murder 20 years ago and no

46:08

one cares about it . And yeah , well

46:11

, we were gonna talk about your

46:13

new book as well , which last

46:15

time we had you on , you'd

46:17

mentioned how you'd always in You'd

46:20

recently intended to write

46:22

a book which actually wasn't just

46:24

about the stories to do with kind of

46:26

4 foot running

46:29

and barefoot running , but actually was

46:31

more of the how

46:34

to barefoot run that you

46:36

felt people had assumed born

46:38

to run was , and you wanted to

46:41

basically come out of a journal to help people

46:43

.

46:44

Yeah , and to expose all the charlatans trying

46:46

to set , trying to try to sell barefoot . Is

46:48

that right ? Is that right ?

46:50

Exactly right . I'm thinking a walking tour . I'm

46:52

going now for a copy of the book because

46:54

I have to say the

46:57

UK covered to me , so I love

46:59

both covers . But Our

47:01

publisher in the UK profile books . They

47:05

designed all the stuff so we wanted this

47:07

book to be really visual . I have lots of pictures and graphics

47:10

and things like that and

47:12

this is the UK cover . And I always tell people if you're

47:15

gonna buy a copy , like , get the UK important , isn't

47:17

that cover ?

47:18

just I just love it

47:20

.

47:21

It's so freaking cool . There's so much going

47:23

on .

47:24

Are the people that are drawn on

47:26

the cover based on people

47:28

and characters you know , or they just

47:30

chose a selection of individuals ?

47:33

That's actually a stylized photograph . Those

47:35

are actually real people .

47:37

Ah okay .

47:39

So what happened was so I'm

47:41

actually so in love with this

47:43

book because of the pictures . Like

47:45

the pictures . Oh

47:47

, actually , there you go . That's Billy Barnett's wife

47:50

, by the way , alex . And

47:52

then Let me see there's one

47:54

of Billy . Oh chicken , just get this dude out

47:56

. I mean this guy's 36 . Jesus

47:58

Christ , billy , you know , give yourself

48:00

a , grab a body fat once in a while . What

48:05

happened with this book was I

48:07

was actually supposed to be writing a different book called King of

48:09

the Weekend Warriors , and I was writing

48:12

it as a counter argument to

48:14

the sort of David Goggins

48:16

thing about be hard . I'm like no , just be

48:19

happy . But what I realized

48:21

was that I wasn't telling

48:23

stories , I was arguing a point , and

48:25

it's kind of a crappy way to write a book . That

48:29

book you were talking about . What if I wrote something at 9am

48:31

on caffeine ? It would have been that pissed

48:33

off , resentful and pushing back . So

48:36

I abandoned that project . I

48:38

thought , well , what is it that people

48:40

keep asking me for ? Which is training advice

48:43

? I keep telling them I'm not that guy

48:45

, I'm not the trainer . But

48:47

I realized , you know what , when Eric Horton

48:49

started coaching me back in 2004,

48:52

. He said if you change

48:54

your approach to running . You will wipe

48:56

out your injuries and you'll actually have fun . And you'll

48:58

be running for years and years . And it's suddenly

49:00

dawned and like , oh you know what man , the odometer has

49:02

just clicked over on 20 years . I've been 20

49:04

years of following his advice

49:07

and he's right . So I thought let me

49:09

collaborate with Eric on this

49:11

book , because people keep asking me . I'll get

49:13

thousands of requests almost

49:15

weekly for training . I'm not a coach and

49:18

I realized something else is that I think too

49:20

many people separate

49:22

out their running from the rest of their lives . Like

49:24

you know , I'm going to eat this food and

49:26

then I'm going to go run it off , you know , or I'm going

49:28

to squeeze in this run , I'm going to run as fast as I can

49:31

. And running doesn't become

49:33

a craft or an art . It becomes like an

49:35

antidote for pizza or something . So I

49:38

wanted to fold in all the aspects

49:40

of running , like you know pacing and

49:42

form , and footwear and food

49:45

all those aspects . So people weren't

49:47

just wondering what was

49:49

contributing to their injuries or their dissatisfaction

49:52

. They would be able to diagnose it themselves . So

49:54

that became important to run too , and the last thing I wanted to do

49:56

was I wanted

49:58

to fill it with photos because I wanted everybody

50:01

. So this is a random picture I picked up , but this

50:03

is our friend Zach Friedley , who's an adaptive athlete

50:05

who runs on a blade . I was kind

50:08

of hoping like that any person

50:10

who picked this book up and opened to a random

50:12

page would see somebody that

50:15

looked kind of familiar . You know , whatever

50:17

ethnicity , complexion

50:20

, gender , whatever you are , you

50:22

see in this picture badass

50:24

. So I wanted

50:26

to fill it with photos . So what we did was

50:28

, I realized , because of our timeline , we

50:31

had to do the photos first , otherwise they wouldn't

50:33

be available in time for the print edition . So

50:35

you got a bunch of people together before I wrote the book , took

50:38

the pictures and then actually from the people

50:40

we gathered because that diverse

50:42

group I ended up folding a lot of their

50:45

stories into the book because it

50:47

became the actual thing that I wanted to

50:49

write about .

50:51

So when you say their stories , is

50:53

it their stories related to being injured or adapting

50:56

running styles , or how

50:59

did you actually thread those in when

51:02

it's meant to be more of a diagnosis

51:04

?

51:04

look , Well

51:06

, you know it's funny . I think it gets back to your point

51:08

about what's more interesting

51:11

. You know the people from the pack , or the stories

51:13

, the people who are achieving and the people who are

51:15

struggling . We

51:17

put all these athletes together . So I'll give Zach freely

51:20

. We adapted that . But he was only there for one reason Zach

51:22

was going to be there because he runs on the blade and he's

51:24

the only guy that I know who runs on the blade . So that

51:27

was a phone call . And then he gets there and

51:29

I noticed that he actually already knows

51:31

Lewis Escobar , the photographer . So how'd you guys

51:33

meet ? And he starts to tell that story . And

51:36

then that story itself becomes crazy that

51:38

Zach wasn't even a runner , he was a wrestler

51:40

and Blaze never fit in

51:42

. And he showed up at Lewis Escobar's

51:45

born to run extravaganza and

51:47

he knows everyone's having so much fun . He ended up jumping

51:49

into a 10 mile trail race . He'd never

51:51

run more than a mile in his life . I'm

51:54

paving and I'm hearing this

51:56

story and I'm so enchanted

51:58

by it . But I'm also realizing that there's

52:01

so much in

52:04

his story that applies to everybody , but in

52:06

different words , everybody who feels

52:08

like , well , you know , I'm too heavy , I'm too this

52:10

. I'm too that I'm too old . This

52:12

guy has got one leg . You know

52:14

, are you sure you shouldn't be running , because this

52:16

guy seems to be doing okay , things

52:18

like that ? Or our friend Karma , who

52:21

is a trans athlete . She's

52:23

got an eight year streak going and

52:25

she got inspired by bare footed , which I didn't

52:27

know about . But I said , hey , you're running sandals . Oh

52:30

, there's Luna . She's like yeah , why

52:32

you wear Luna sandals ? And then all of a sudden , this

52:34

whole story about how , as a

52:36

trans person , she

52:38

felt very self conscious about going on

52:40

public to run . But then she read board and

52:43

run and she sees Ted and she's like right , I got to

52:45

run around barefoot . He didn't seem to give a shit and

52:47

it opened up a

52:49

lack of self consciousness in her . And

52:51

then she idolizes barefooted . And here's a

52:53

barefooted story . So at that photo

52:55

shoot he was in California

52:57

and I messaged Ted and say , hey , dude , you want

52:59

to come down and just like , meet some people , hang out . And

53:02

of course he shows up late , he's talking a mile a

53:04

minute , he's disruptive as hell , but

53:07

he makes a hand made pair , a handmade pair

53:09

of sandals for everybody , no charge . And

53:12

then he said hey , by the way , if you haven't trouble adjusting your

53:14

sandals , ask Karma . She

53:17

knows as much as I do . And the look on

53:19

Karma's face was like . It

53:22

was like Superman had just flown

53:24

down out of the sky and said you are

53:26

as strong as I am . And

53:28

it was . It was amazing and

53:30

it was so cool

53:33

to watch Karma feel

53:36

like she just been knighted and this realized

53:38

that just head off the cuff , he

53:41

gives this wonderful respect to this

53:43

woman who idolizes him . So your

53:45

question was already real people yeah , those

53:47

are the people we gather and call to him . But then

53:49

their stories became really illustrative

53:52

and useful in the book itself .

53:55

How do you , how do you decide what the kind of the philosophies

53:57

by it , because it's very different saying , you know

53:59

, writing a book saying like this is this is the way that

54:01

we're supposed to run . You know , this is

54:04

, this is the natural way . It's supposed to be fun , supposed to be joyful

54:06

, everything else like that . But then when you're writing something

54:08

that has a practical application , you

54:10

are taking people where they are , so you're almost like

54:12

having to decondition them from running

54:15

how they were . And so how , how do

54:17

you , how I mean , they're kind of probably with lots of

54:19

different approaches of how you're going to do that why

54:21

did you , how did you go about ensuring

54:24

that it has that universal application , while

54:27

also you know answering all the objections

54:29

and things like that , because I think a lot , of , a lot of running theory

54:31

books , you know the theory could have been

54:33

done on probably two sides of a , for

54:35

the rest of it is just answering objections

54:37

. So like , yeah

54:39

, how did you kind of approach that ?

54:42

That was . That was the key question . That's the reason

54:44

why I never tackled it before was

54:46

I don't want to spend 300 pages in an

54:49

argument , you know . And

54:51

so what we ended

54:53

up doing is I spent a lot of time talking

54:55

about this with Eric Orton , who I think is really

54:57

kind of a understated

55:00

genius , and I think he's really

55:02

right and I think he's got 20

55:04

years of a track record that proves he's

55:06

right . But he's what it comes down to

55:08

for him . He said look , every

55:11

movement has a has an approach that's

55:13

either biomechanically better or worse . You

55:15

know , if you are diving

55:18

, if you are swimming , if you are playing a violin

55:21

, you're either going to perfect the craft

55:23

or you're going to hack away . There's , there's no

55:25

two other options . Everything can be

55:27

improved and there is a biomechanical

55:31

ideal for everything . And

55:33

so we go out the door and

55:35

just ignore running forms at that show . Hey

55:37

, it's fine , or you can actually refine

55:39

your form . And again , you watch the top athletes

55:42

and they are stylists

55:44

. They're absolute stylists of form . And

55:47

so what he said was for running form

55:49

, you can argue about heel striking

55:51

at the end of time , but the fact is , if

55:53

you land on your forefoot , you

55:56

are activating

55:58

way more reflexive

56:00

tissue than if you land on your heel . And just there's

56:03

just just a fact . If you are bending your

56:05

joints , that is way better than straightening

56:07

your joints . And then he said um , but

56:09

look , rather than have the argument . So this is what we came up

56:11

with . The book is rather than arguing the point

56:13

, let's come up with physical

56:16

movements that people can try for themselves and

56:19

see how you feel . Do you feel better , do you feel

56:21

worse ? And so one of them is we call the rock

56:23

lobster , which is we're not

56:25

even going to argue about running form . We're going

56:27

to say take off your shoes , put

56:29

rock lobster on your , on your

56:31

phone for the B 52s , and then stand

56:33

with your back facing a wall and then

56:35

pull the song and run in place in

56:37

your bare feet to rock lobster . Do that

56:40

and the song lasts about three minutes . At

56:42

the end of three minutes , do you feel better or

56:44

do you feel worse ? So here's what happens with

56:46

rock lobster it's at 180

56:50

beats per minute , so you're giving that bouncing

56:53

cadence . When

56:55

you run in place in your bare feet , you have to land

56:58

on your forefoot . You can't run in place on your heels

57:00

, and if your back is to the wall

57:02

. You can't kick back because your heel

57:04

will keep hitting the wall . So very quickly

57:06

you learn to be self-correct

57:09

you lift your knee as opposed to flicking

57:11

back your heel , you're landing on your forefoot

57:13

and your cadence is quick and rhythmic

57:15

, as opposed to like what most of us are doing

57:17

, which is kind of stopping our motion

57:20

and starting our motion and stopping and starting

57:22

. Instead you're bouncing . So

57:24

those are the kind of things we do is or

57:26

for nutrition . We do a thing called the two week test

57:29

, which is a film off of Tom's old

57:31

thing that he taught Mark Allen and his original Ironman

57:34

triathlete monsters . He

57:37

gave him the two week test . He goes I'm not going to argue

57:39

about nutrition . Just for two weeks he

57:41

had all the high glycemic foods out of your diet

57:43

no posset , no bread , no

57:45

sugar , no rice , no

57:47

fruits . Hang them all out , eat

57:50

a non-glycemic diet for two weeks and

57:52

then eat a piece of bread and see

57:55

how you feel . And what you find

57:57

is you'll understand your body's reactions

57:59

to food . What I found from the two week test is

58:01

I can eat one piece of bread , feel fine

58:03

. If I eat two pieces of bread , I

58:05

suddenly feel bloated and

58:08

sluggish and heavy . But in the past I

58:10

would never know where that reaction was coming from . Now I

58:12

know it's from the second piece of bread .

58:15

Interesting . So is your diet now

58:17

. I guess almost an Atkins style

58:20

diet .

58:22

Yes , you know it's funny , atkins

58:26

so many things that were fads

58:28

that we then dismiss are actually where

58:31

it's at Cold plunges . Cold plunges have been around

58:34

forever , but then when the cough

58:36

comes along , oh yeah , we're not thinking that people are doing 1800s

58:38

, it works . Atkins diet

58:41

is pretty much where it's at , exactly . You just said , david

58:43

, I stray

58:45

. I'm not a purist , I am no monk

58:48

. At two o'clock in the morning last night I was eating

58:50

Hagen Daz ice cream , watching a Chris

58:52

Rock comedy special . So

58:55

Dr Atkins does

58:57

not recommend that , but it

58:59

seemed like a good choice last night at 2am .

59:01

But it's not a famous Chris Rock . Is that the

59:03

issue ?

59:05

Or is that ?

59:06

Atkins wasn't the famous Chris Rock . He's not a famous

59:08

.

59:08

Chris Rock . He's looking at the ice cream . Chris Rock

59:10

, on the other hand , he had a problem . Anyway

59:14

, what I find is any food that spikes

59:16

my blood sugar , the jacks my insulin

59:18

, I'm going to feel a reaction to it .

59:21

And that's why a lot of the super sapiens is

59:23

. I think the intention of things like that and

59:25

Zoe , is for people

59:28

to be able to see that I don't think

59:30

I could live without my carbs

59:32

, my toast , my bread . I'm happy at being

59:34

sluggish . I'm a

59:37

joyful slug , shall we say .

59:40

That's the thing about , though , david . That's fine

59:42

, but what we're proposing is at

59:45

least understand what's happening

59:47

, and that's what most of us have lost

59:49

. Is that like oh , I feel sluggish , oh , I

59:51

better have some coffee , or is it because I'm

59:53

sleepy ? We don't understand

59:55

the diagnostic panel on the dashboard

59:58

, and what we're doing with Born to Run 2

1:00:00

is listen . If you choose , you want to wear your hoax

1:00:02

, wear them , but at least understand what

1:00:04

that cushioning is doing . If you make the choice

1:00:06

to wear it , at least make a knowledgeable choice

1:00:08

. Don't make an ignorant choice because a guy in a store

1:00:11

upsold you on

1:00:13

a thick piece of foam .

1:00:14

And are there any other unintuitive

1:00:20

choices

1:00:22

that you think a lot of runners and a lot of people are making

1:00:24

?

1:00:26

Yeah , I think the biggest one this is something that

1:00:28

Eric Orton pushes a lot of is

1:00:30

you got to go fast , to go slow , because

1:00:33

most people are terrible slow

1:00:36

runners , and you're better off starting

1:00:38

with sprints , which again , I

1:00:41

really love it when advice

1:00:43

has a pedigree , a lineage

1:00:45

going back hundreds of years . When Emile Zadopec

1:00:48

was training for his first marathon , he started doing 100

1:00:50

meter sprints and people are like dude , it's 26

1:00:52

miles . He's like , yeah , but I thought the point was to go fast

1:00:54

. I already know how to go slow , I

1:00:57

want to learn how to go fast . But what he did

1:00:59

was he tacked together

1:01:01

. He wanted his 100 meter form

1:01:04

to persist for 26

1:01:06

miles , so what he kept doing was 100

1:01:08

meters rest , 100 meters rest . And

1:01:10

Eric said the same thing that if people

1:01:13

understand how to run fast

1:01:15

, they can then run slowly

1:01:17

much more efficiently . But what

1:01:19

most of us do is we start slow . People

1:01:22

will get faster . You start fast

1:01:24

and translate that into slow

1:01:27

.

1:01:27

I think it's really is that what you're doing

1:01:29

now , David ? Like we talked about that , didn't

1:01:32

we ?

1:01:32

You said that you're focusing on faster

1:01:34

and yeah , because

1:01:36

I think 80 , 20 running has actually

1:01:39

been quite damaging for most

1:01:41

people , in that it is giving

1:01:44

people the almost

1:01:46

the excuse to never have to train hard

1:01:48

. And actually 20 is

1:01:50

still quite a lot if you're doing 80

1:01:53

. And actually

1:01:56

most people are doing probably 90

1:01:58

, 10 . And actually

1:02:01

they're probably doing 22

1:02:03

. And so , yeah

1:02:06

, I certainly had tried to focus on more speed work , because

1:02:08

it just makes everything else more

1:02:11

pleasant and more joyful and

1:02:13

it's

1:02:15

quicker as well , it's easier to get done , but

1:02:17

you feel so much better afterwards

1:02:20

, so much better . But yeah , I think

1:02:22

you're completely right where , particularly

1:02:24

in ultra running , everyone

1:02:27

almost fears running fast

1:02:29

in any way . It's

1:02:31

the secret to everything .

1:02:34

It's fascinating too . So Eric has a theory

1:02:37

. He's read some studies but neither

1:02:39

one of us know if it's actually accurate that

1:02:42

high intensity releases

1:02:45

human growth hormone , that it

1:02:47

triggers that release of

1:02:50

that hormone to

1:02:52

superpower and to repair . It's

1:02:54

basically sprinting , tells your body . Oh , you know

1:02:56

what we're stressing the machine

1:02:59

. We're going to flood the body with this restorative

1:03:01

compound and so things

1:03:04

will happen . You've experienced it yourself . I've gone

1:03:06

into speed workouts . So

1:03:08

Eric will have a schedule and like a

1:03:10

day after a three hour run

1:03:12

he's got a speed workout . Like 30 seconds

1:03:14

on , you made it off and like what the fuck

1:03:16

, this is going to suck . And

1:03:18

like you know , my hamstring sore , my knee

1:03:21

hurts and I do the speed

1:03:23

work and like holy shit , I feel way better

1:03:25

after the speed workout than

1:03:27

I did after the beforehand

1:03:29

, after the long run , and he's like

1:03:31

something about it . Man , I don't know if it's the

1:03:33

blood flushes out the tissues , if

1:03:35

it's the release of hormone , but

1:03:38

somehow speed workout is

1:03:40

actually a restorative that's going to recover

1:03:42

your workout for distance run .

1:03:45

And it's also something that , psychologically

1:03:48

, you can always do a short

1:03:50

sprint , whereas going

1:03:52

into a session thinking I've got to do six

1:03:54

miles at six minute mile pace or

1:03:57

whatever it may be like oh God , this is going to absolutely

1:03:59

kill me . Whereas you go , I've just got to run

1:04:01

for 30 seconds . Should I Sure Done

1:04:04

?

1:04:04

Yeah , and we

1:04:07

know this maniac would do so

1:04:09

. The first time , when you first started to train

1:04:11

me up and I'm training for the I

1:04:13

mean I wasn't even a runner . This is like my first experience

1:04:15

doing any kind of training and I was training for

1:04:17

the Copper Canyon race and I had

1:04:19

barely to matter . But you sent me a workout

1:04:22

. It would be like a two hour run and

1:04:24

then at the one hour mark you

1:04:26

would have me do one minute hill repeats

1:04:28

. But what ? I

1:04:30

can't even run two hours and you're gonna fold

1:04:32

in a hill workout which is also a

1:04:34

speed workout . But it was genius

1:04:37

because what would happen is you

1:04:39

start to do this hill repeats and

1:04:41

you completely forget about the hour you just

1:04:43

ran . You completely reboot your

1:04:45

system . You've dialed your form back in

1:04:47

, you've kind of flooded your body with serotonin

1:04:50

and it's almost like you've rebooted

1:04:52

. So instead of doing a

1:04:54

two hour mediocre run , you do two

1:04:56

pretty good one hour runs . And

1:04:58

that speed workout in the middle was magic .

1:05:02

Interesting . Oh wow , I'm

1:05:04

actually gonna get your book now . It sounds

1:05:06

better than I was expecting . I thought

1:05:09

it was about running from .

1:05:14

Well , you know we do address one topic too . So

1:05:17

we had these seven Fs . You know , form , focus

1:05:19

, footwear , blah , blah

1:05:21

blah . But two of them are family

1:05:23

and fun . And I said these are

1:05:25

like the two . If you think you know , form

1:05:28

and footwear are problematic . What

1:05:30

do you introduce family and fun to a

1:05:32

serious running book ? People don't want

1:05:34

to hear that . If it's fun , you've discredited

1:05:36

yourself . But I feel like as

1:05:39

human animals , we evolve to be collaborative

1:05:41

and communal , to run as a pack

1:05:44

and also to enjoy it . But we would not

1:05:46

evolve to do shit that we hate it because

1:05:48

we would at some point quit . And I

1:05:50

think for a lot of us , even

1:05:53

more than worrying about minimalist footwear

1:05:55

or four foot striking , we should really be

1:05:57

thinking about do we actually enjoy this or

1:05:59

do we kind of secretly hate it ? And if we secretly

1:06:01

hate it , that's the first fix .

1:06:04

I think it's perception , isn't it ? I

1:06:06

think a lot of people above

1:06:09

a certain age . I mean , it's the reason that ultramarathon is

1:06:11

popular with

1:06:13

parents of children of a certain age , because

1:06:16

you can obviously disappear for four or five hours

1:06:18

and do it , but

1:06:21

you have to give the impression it's hard , because

1:06:23

if the partner thinks that you're having fun while

1:06:25

you're doing it , that is the

1:06:27

worst situation possible . So I

1:06:29

think it is fun , but you're not allowed

1:06:31

to give the perception that it's fun , because if someone thinks

1:06:33

that you're away , not looking after the children , for four

1:06:35

or five hours and you're having

1:06:38

a nice time , that's

1:06:40

gonna be banned in the future .

1:06:43

Yeah , what do you guys know about the running punks

1:06:45

? Right ?

1:06:47

The running punks . Is that Jimmy ? What's

1:06:50

Jimmy's surname ? Yeah , watkins

1:06:52

, jimmy Watkins . In fact , we need to

1:06:54

invite him to come on the podcast . Like him for games . Yeah

1:06:57

, I sort of speak at .

1:06:58

Love Chas . Oh my God , yeah

1:07:00

. But it's funny because , to

1:07:04

your point , I think he gave up any pretense that this

1:07:06

is hard , he's a maniac , he's

1:07:08

just streaching and running . And I

1:07:11

think he took as a starting point like , oh screw

1:07:13

it , man , I'm just gonna have there and have a party on my feet

1:07:15

. So I guess he doesn't have

1:07:17

small children back home , that he's got to pretend

1:07:20

he's not neglecting . But

1:07:22

I just I love his attitude . He's turned into a thing

1:07:24

which is actually starting to gather momentum .

1:07:26

Yeah , and his backstory is really great as

1:07:29

well . He's a really cool guy

1:07:31

. Well , christopher

1:07:33

, thank you so much for coming on the podcast . And

1:07:35

what book is next for you then

1:07:37

? Because I know last time we

1:07:39

spoke you'd spoken to how you were just

1:07:41

trying to find almost communities rather

1:07:44

than specific stories . It's finding

1:07:46

that passion

1:07:48

within a group of people .

1:07:51

Or finding a villain , finding

1:07:53

a really big evil type

1:07:56

corporation style villain that

1:07:58

you can completely blow apart

1:08:00

and destroy . And if only there was someone

1:08:03

or some organization

1:08:05

that began with you and ended

1:08:07

with TMB that

1:08:09

you could focus on .

1:08:13

You know it's funny . I had a . That's

1:08:15

really fascinating . It's funny how we dodged

1:08:17

that topic or got

1:08:20

distracted from it , because

1:08:22

one

1:08:24

of the big concerns is , you know what's the old saying

1:08:26

, that any movement , any

1:08:28

social movement , at some point turns into a

1:08:30

racquet or a corporation . And

1:08:33

watching the corporatization

1:08:37

of ultra running is

1:08:40

kind of alarming

1:08:42

, particularly , you know , I

1:08:44

think I don't know about you guys , but I

1:08:46

now stand the divide where I

1:08:49

was there at the tail end of

1:08:51

the half-astery of it when

1:08:53

it was all local and you

1:08:56

know Boy Scouts are running the aid stations

1:08:58

and now it's clicked over

1:09:00

into big business Like , for instance , lifetime

1:09:03

sports , bought and led it . All that happened

1:09:05

on my watch . It went from being a bunch

1:09:07

of local Jibbonis into now

1:09:09

a global fitness

1:09:11

company . Now owns the race and everyone

1:09:13

sees the changes . So it's

1:09:16

a good point , although I feel like I

1:09:19

feel like I need to step away from running . I feel like

1:09:21

I've learned

1:09:23

enough about it . Where my opinion

1:09:26

is boring , I got nothing

1:09:28

else to say . You know , yeah , and

1:09:32

also you're wagging .

1:09:33

Do you think you're actually more

1:09:36

because you're so involved you

1:09:39

no longer see the external story

1:09:42

? You actually you're probably

1:09:44

thinking , look at the running form and oh

1:09:46

well , and you're asking all these little minutia

1:09:48

, questions that runners would ask that the

1:09:51

members of the public wouldn't care about and

1:09:54

also wouldn't be distracted by from

1:09:56

the main story .

1:09:59

Yeah , and it's the reason I walked away from that book

1:10:01

. So I was calling a king of the weekend warriors this

1:10:04

was going to be my Goggins rebuttal

1:10:06

and I was actually building it around that guy

1:10:08

that I told you , the guy who swam around Staten Island

1:10:10

, because he's done a ton of other wacky stuff

1:10:12

like that and it's

1:10:14

funny , I was actually at UTMB to pace him and

1:10:16

he dropped that around mile 60 , which shocked

1:10:19

me because he was super fit and

1:10:22

it was the dissents were just killing his quad

1:10:24

. He hadn't expected that . He thought the climbs are gonna be

1:10:26

hard and when he decided to bow

1:10:28

out I thought he was gonna be

1:10:30

crushed . He flew all the way to France . He's

1:10:33

gonna do the same . His family was there

1:10:35

and he's like hey , you know what , if we hurry up , we

1:10:37

can catch my kids . They're like inside

1:10:40

of a glacier . Right now there's somebody in the glacier

1:10:42

, let's go . And

1:10:44

I thought this guy , he ran

1:10:46

hard for 60 miles through the night and

1:10:48

then he just pivoted Like let's go find some other

1:10:50

fun . So I think what it comes down

1:10:52

to is I am now the codger

1:10:54

on the porch , like you know . Back

1:10:57

in my day , you know we did things this way . I

1:10:59

don't want to be that guy . So when

1:11:01

I'm looking at now I'll give you like a preview I'm actually looking

1:11:03

at a book about body surfing

1:11:05

. You know , competitive body surfing

1:11:07

, which to me feels as

1:11:10

raw and

1:11:12

kind of undiscovered

1:11:15

. It has the same who gives a shit status

1:11:17

the ultra running had back in 2002

1:11:20

. So Scott George won his seventh Western

1:11:22

table . Who gives a shit ? No one heard of Scott or Western

1:11:24

States . So that's

1:11:26

what body surfing is now . It's high level

1:11:28

performers that nobody cares about . And

1:11:31

do you think that ?

1:11:33

now , because of social media , do

1:11:36

you think these communities can exist with

1:11:38

the same , I guess , separation

1:11:41

and maturity ? Or is

1:11:43

the fact that now everything

1:11:45

is so instantly discoverable and can

1:11:47

go from anonymous to

1:11:49

front page within a week Does

1:11:52

it make it harder for actually these communities

1:11:55

to ferment and to actually

1:11:57

grow in isolation

1:11:59

?

1:12:01

I think always it's gonna be the evil and

1:12:04

chantress of

1:12:07

corporate sponsorship . You

1:12:10

know , once people find a way to make money off of it , it's

1:12:13

kind of over . And so the lucky thing about body

1:12:15

surfing versus

1:12:17

surfing surfing you're standing

1:12:19

up on the board and your body is

1:12:21

fully visible . Body surfing all you see is

1:12:23

a head , and so you can't put a label on

1:12:26

it . You

1:12:28

can't sell the head . You can't sell the head , and

1:12:30

so there's almost nothing to sell

1:12:32

. I'm just trying to figure out if there's a way of

1:12:34

sharing a video . Honestly , can

1:12:37

I put it in the chat ? Yeah , yeah , yeah

1:12:39

, okay , I'm gonna see if this

1:12:41

will work . I am crap

1:12:43

. Oh , here we go . So

1:12:47

I'm gonna show you something

1:12:49

which will completely underwhelm you .

1:12:53

But this to me Is it you attempting this

1:12:55

? I ?

1:12:57

It is . It is me body

1:13:00

surfing . I'm gonna say , let me pick up , this

1:13:03

will show you what body surfing is . And

1:13:06

I can watch this seven

1:13:08

second clip for hours

1:13:10

repeatedly on loop and be fascinated

1:13:13

by it and I pick up all the nuances and

1:13:16

I think for most people that I yeah whatever . Move

1:13:19

on to the next TikTok .

1:13:22

I think about it is .

1:13:24

Did you share it in ?

1:13:24

the chat yeah .

1:13:26

I did , but it's taking a long time to load . I

1:13:28

can see it kind of slowly

1:13:31

loading here .

1:13:32

Oh , I see you're sharing the video rather than the link , gotcha .

1:13:36

Yeah , maybe I was mistaken . We'll

1:13:38

pop that out . All

1:13:40

right , let me do it . Let me show you the link while

1:13:42

I'm busy wasting everyone's time here .

1:13:45

That's all right . That's why I've got the wonderful editor

1:13:47

Nick .

1:13:50

All right , hang on . I

1:13:56

think that's something about it . I think that if the

1:13:58

community is interested and they don't care

1:14:00

about making money

1:14:02

and whether anybody shows

1:14:04

up and watches , then

1:14:08

Then

1:14:10

the thing okay , here we go . Okay , that

1:14:12

same one . You said that Epic Raw

1:14:14

4K . Oh yeah

1:14:16

, that's good . I know that guy Cool . All right

1:14:19

, yeah , that's a great one . So when

1:14:21

you found , we'll be given one to watch .

1:14:24

And so , to just describe it

1:14:26

for the viewer , it's people

1:14:28

who are , I guess

1:14:30

, using their body like they're sticking their one

1:14:33

arm out to create their

1:14:35

body into a straight line , as if they're a surfboard

1:14:37

, and then they're surfing

1:14:40

down the way . It does look quite cool actually . Yeah

1:14:43

, have you tried it ? That's exactly right . Is

1:14:46

it incredibly hard ?

1:14:49

So , yeah , I was actually gonna send you a video of myself

1:14:51

, of me at that place Point Panic

1:14:53

, ride Waves and it

1:14:56

is hard in

1:14:58

exactly the right way you want it to be hard

1:15:00

, which is that it's all about

1:15:02

the learning

1:15:04

curve , understanding

1:15:07

stuff , figuring stuff out which is really what

1:15:09

ultra running is is problem solving Problem

1:15:11

solving on your feet , figuring out your nutrition

1:15:13

, figuring out your pace , figuring out the terrain , figuring

1:15:16

out whether you should run in the group

1:15:18

or be happier on your own . I

1:15:20

think that's what really appeals to people about ultra . In

1:15:22

marathons , there aren't that many decisions we made

1:15:24

anymore . It's a relatively

1:15:26

flat , asphalt surface and

1:15:28

you just go from here to there as fast as you can

1:15:31

in a straight line . Essentially , trail

1:15:33

running is constant variety and it

1:15:35

forces you to reconsider

1:15:37

over and over again . And that's how I look at my body

1:15:39

. Surfing is the way it's

1:15:41

coming at you and you're trying to decide the angle

1:15:44

of the height , the speed , your position , and

1:15:46

there's anybody next to you . It's just a bad idea

1:15:48

, probably , is you know ? And

1:15:51

then you gotta make the move . Then , when you're in the wave , it's the

1:15:53

same thing . You're adjusting , you're adjusting your body .

1:15:56

And do you feel it's gonna ? Is it extreme enough to

1:15:58

? Because part of the interesting

1:16:00

stories is almost the

1:16:02

with ultra running , for example

1:16:04

. It's just how hard

1:16:06

it seemed or how far removed

1:16:08

it seemed from what's possible

1:16:11

. Do you think something

1:16:13

like body boarding is ? Has it got

1:16:15

that level of unworldliness

1:16:19

?

1:16:22

Yeah , and I think that was the thing that people

1:16:24

liked about running the Sherman or born to

1:16:27

run . It takes the

1:16:30

sense of the superhuman and

1:16:32

then it dials it back to human

1:16:34

form . So with born

1:16:36

to run , I'm talking about the Scott Jorix

1:16:38

, but people in the

1:16:40

race are just everyday people like me and

1:16:42

Ted and Lewis and

1:16:45

I guess where people felt

1:16:48

the sense of attachment , they liked it like , oh , there's

1:16:50

an everyday guy doing it . That's kind

1:16:52

of what we wanted to do with born to run too . We wanted to show everyday

1:16:54

people that this is for you too

1:16:56

. Eric has this phrase

1:16:59

like everybody's born to run , everybody

1:17:01

is born to run . And

1:17:03

so with body surfing it's similar . There

1:17:06

are the streams of performance . There's a guy

1:17:08

named Colani Latanzi that

1:17:10

body surfs at Nazaré . He's out there

1:17:12

in 50 , 60 foot waves surfing

1:17:15

on his hand , and there are dudes

1:17:17

doing a double take . Guys are out there on jet skis telling

1:17:20

him to surf and here's something to jaboni swimming

1:17:22

out there with a pair of fins and holding

1:17:24

his own . So there's that extreme performer

1:17:26

like Colani , but most of the

1:17:29

people . One of the cool things I like about throwing the

1:17:31

point panik is you'll see some absolute monk

1:17:33

seal out in the water , some guy doing spins

1:17:36

and twists and just taking the biggest

1:17:38

waves and he climbs out and

1:17:40

he's like a fat 70 year old . How

1:17:42

weird . This guy suspends the

1:17:44

laws of gravity . So it's a sport

1:17:46

that anybody can do really well and you don't know

1:17:49

who it is . It's man or woman , what the age they are

1:17:51

, where they're on the wave .

1:17:52

How does it take to master , because

1:17:55

that looks incredibly hard

1:17:57

to do .

1:18:00

It's one of those things , just like running you have

1:18:02

those just enough moments of

1:18:05

deliciousness that

1:18:08

keeps you in the kitchen Like

1:18:12

you burn the toast over and over

1:18:14

again . And man , one piece turned out pretty good . So

1:18:16

I'll get one

1:18:19

time . I was out there , out in this one place , and

1:18:22

I was actually having a pretty good day . My wife was

1:18:24

watching . I was kind of showing off for her I'm riding these waves

1:18:26

, and then I completely messed up and I

1:18:28

just got hammered , Got my face smashed

1:18:30

into sand and I just got out of the water and I

1:18:32

just wanted to go home . I just wanted to go home and never

1:18:34

come back . Whenever

1:18:37

you think you're getting better , you will get humbled really

1:18:39

quick , and vice versa , Whenever you think

1:18:42

you suck , you'll get a moment of joy , which

1:18:44

, again , to me , that's what sport

1:18:46

should really be about .

1:18:47

There's something isn't there about not having equipment

1:18:49

and just using your body . I don't know what it is

1:18:52

. It's sort of like it always feels like

1:18:54

it takes the pressure off , like

1:18:56

I've been , like trying it for triathlon

1:18:59

and just having the addition

1:19:01

of like a bloody bike

1:19:03

there . It just adds so

1:19:05

much more to it and

1:19:08

it feels much more of a hassle

1:19:10

, more of a drain and everything else , whereas running

1:19:12

is just running , whereas you

1:19:14

don't have to deal with a surfboard . You don't have to deal

1:19:16

with losing the surfboard and then having to

1:19:18

collect it back and then to . I suppose it

1:19:21

maybe takes something out

1:19:24

of it in terms of the pressure

1:19:26

, or I don't know . It looks so odd .

1:19:28

Well , it feels like you've conquered the elements , doesn't

1:19:31

it ?

1:19:33

Yeah . Yeah , you're kind of stripped down , but I think

1:19:35

there's something about it . Like , jody , are you wetsuit

1:19:38

, wetsuit , swimming ?

1:19:40

I'm not wetsuit swimming at the moment , no , I'm

1:19:43

barely swimming . I had to learn

1:19:45

how to swim in my 40s

1:19:47

, basically crawl at number

1:19:49

four . So I'm still at that

1:19:51

stage .

1:19:53

Yeah , just because you know , I've been to California

1:19:56

to body surf and having to wear a wetsuit

1:19:58

like oh , if I lived here I would never

1:20:00

do this Like having to add a wetsuit to the whole

1:20:02

equation . Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah , oh , really

1:20:04

Okay , yeah , oh , wow , okay , that's what I was wondering

1:20:06

about whether you're doing this for yourself , and is that serious

1:20:09

cheating Is that ?

1:20:10

Because there's a little bit of buoyancy with a wetsuit , so okay

1:20:12

.

1:20:13

Yeah , no , because because the water is so frigging cold in

1:20:15

California , surprisingly , that

1:20:18

you need it or you just can't do it . But

1:20:21

I don't know . I mean

1:20:23

, even with ultra running like now

1:20:25

, the equipment has changed so

1:20:28

much in the past 15 years

1:20:30

and there's what

1:20:33

used to be considered extreme is now matter

1:20:35

of fact . So I'll see people out on like a 10K run and

1:20:38

you're fully like vested up . You know we

1:20:40

were talking about this .

1:20:41

The other day , didn't we ? We were talking about this like

1:20:43

people wearing hydration vests to

1:20:46

go out for a 5K or

1:20:48

whatever .

1:20:50

Yeah , and it's like

1:20:52

they will not go into the woods without all

1:20:54

the stuff Like , oh wow , it just seemed like overkill

1:20:56

and I think if

1:20:58

that were me , I wouldn't want to do it . The

1:21:00

more I got to carry it , the less I want to do it .

1:21:03

Yeah , same . Well , I'm going to go and

1:21:06

hand over the baby

1:21:08

for my wife , so . But thank

1:21:10

you so much for coming on the podcast

1:21:13

. And also , if people want to buy the book , is

1:21:15

there other places that you

1:21:17

get more money from each sale ?

1:21:20

No man , it's out there free to

1:21:22

everybody . Not free to everybody , but same out to everybody

1:21:25

. So wherever they can get it , I always push people to

1:21:27

independent bookstores because they're awesome . But

1:21:30

yeah , yeah , get born on too , which

1:21:32

, at the very least , it's

1:21:35

got amazing pictures .

1:21:36

Yeah , I mean it does sound fantastic . And

1:21:39

when you've written this book about bodyboarding

1:21:41

, do letters know about

1:21:43

that as well ? We're happy to promote it to

1:21:46

our listeners . And if you have a question

1:21:48

for London , lit me up , because we

1:21:50

still got to get that run and that drinking .

1:21:54

Absolutely . And guys , do not wait another year before

1:21:56

you get back to me .

1:21:57

Don't keep me waiting anymore Deal

1:22:01

deal thanks , christopher , and love

1:22:03

to your wife and just give

1:22:05

her a happy anniversary . And

1:22:08

like get baking that chocolate cake .

1:22:11

All right guys . Thanks so much great talking with you . Cheers

1:22:13

, christopher , take care .

1:22:23

Yeah , when he's someone who , when he eventually

1:22:25

hit my back , I was like it wouldn't matter if

1:22:28

he had something out , if he had anything to talk about . I

1:22:30

just quite happily talked to him all

1:22:32

day long . Oh , I know absolutely Every week yeah

1:22:34

well , I guess that's great isn't it

1:22:37

? Yeah , I'm trying to think of some good other episodes

1:22:39

to talk about , linked to this . Obviously

1:22:42

, the first interview we did with him was great

1:22:44

, where we talked about the

1:22:46

intention that actually of that interview was to

1:22:48

assess the impact

1:22:50

of born , to run kind of 10 years on

1:22:52

and to see whether the

1:22:54

outcome had been or as the intentions

1:22:56

had been going in , and what

1:22:59

the perceived from our perception was

1:23:01

like . Everyone got injured when that book came

1:23:03

out and whether he felt that as well

1:23:05

or was getting the heat from it which he . The

1:23:08

second book is the response

1:23:10

to Other stories , if

1:23:12

you like , the stories of Tara and Marga , sam

1:23:15

Sheward from Ultra X . We spoke to him

1:23:17

about putting on a race over there and

1:23:19

having I think Jason Slab

1:23:22

was racing against a local and

1:23:24

him saying that he thought he was possibly the

1:23:26

in that race , the best runner

1:23:28

on earth , the local

1:23:30

guy and how he . It just was

1:23:33

just incredible . So that

1:23:35

was really good . Whatever

1:23:38

stories would you say , linked to this one

1:23:40

, we've had Barefoot

1:23:43

Tony , who has run

1:23:45

the coastal path completely barefoot . He

1:23:48

was amazing and also speaking quite

1:23:50

a lot about spirituality

1:23:53

and potentially trips

1:23:56

. I can't remember exactly what it was . It

1:24:00

was something fruity in there .

1:24:01

That's quite a recall . I

1:24:03

don't know it's funny . I always put I put

1:24:05

our chats

1:24:07

with Chris in with any

1:24:10

of those episodes where we've got someone on we've

1:24:13

heard of some historical character has done something

1:24:15

weird and someone's an expert at it

1:24:17

, and they've come and they've spoken to us about this like

1:24:19

weird , unusual character , you know , like was it . Was

1:24:21

it ? Yeah ?

1:24:22

It was the guy , the Canadian guy . He

1:24:24

ran all the way across Canada to do a 24

1:24:27

hour race , won it and then ran all the way back again , or

1:24:29

something .

1:24:29

Yeah , exactly . And what was it ? Was it the 1911

1:24:32

Olympics or the 1907 Olympics

1:24:34

or something like that ? That was filled with just

1:24:37

it was like the most ridiculous , ridiculous

1:24:39

races and stuff like that . It's

1:24:42

just such a good storyteller , he

1:24:45

knows just exactly , he just gets

1:24:47

the kernel of the story straight away . But I

1:24:49

was just I'm not sure

1:24:51

I'd say that you know body

1:24:53

boarding and there's no way , there's no way you can monetize

1:24:56

that . And I'm like Iron man is watching

1:24:58

carefully , watching , carefully

1:25:00

, thinking I think we could definitely

1:25:03

ruin this sport . We could definitely ruin this sport

1:25:05

.

1:25:06

How can we make this sport more sexist ? Absolutely

1:25:08

.

1:25:09

How can we ?

1:25:09

make it more sexist . So

1:25:12

any , who , any , that's what you think , guys

1:25:15

. If you've got suggestions for future guests , message

1:25:17

me , david , at badboyrundercom , or

1:25:19

ping us on .

1:25:20

Instagram . Oh , and if there's any

1:25:23

guests that we've had on before , you think , oh , let's get

1:25:25

them back on , that'll be great . You

1:25:27

know we're over 500 now

1:25:29

, so there's probably a few that we said we'd definitely

1:25:31

get back on that we've probably forgotten about

1:25:33

. Yeah , absolutely , there's probably a whole bunch

1:25:35

of them that we would say , you know , they'll be

1:25:37

great to come back on as well and , to be frank , we

1:25:40

need them .

1:25:43

Fantastic for seeing us , though .

1:25:45

Bit of bye bye , bye , bye , bye , bye , bye , bye , bye , bye . Bit of bye

1:25:47

bye , bye , bye , bye , bye bye bye .

1:25:48

Bit of bye bye bye bye bye bye . Bit of bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

1:25:50

bye bye bye . Bit of bye bye bye bye bye bye bye , bye bye . Bit

1:25:52

of bye bye bye bye bye , bye , bye . I must admit

1:25:54

I was a clown to be messing

1:25:57

around , but that doesn't

1:25:59

mean that you have to leave town

1:26:01

. Come back , yes , and

1:26:03

give me one more try , Cause

1:26:06

I love like this . Should I

1:26:08

never , ever die ? Come back

1:26:11

, fuck you , buddy .