How to Set & Achieve Massive Goals | Alex Honnold

22:15And also, you know, I think of you at, you know, certainly at the level and parallel with like, I like Tony Hawk who's been at the sport skateboarding for a very long time. He's an amazing ambassador for the sport as it's gone through its various like you know peaks and valleys now in the Olympics So I think climbing and sports like skateboarding and surfing have a lot in common in this way in sub culture But then also gets popular yeah with the kind of niche and then they became kind of mainstream But then even when's their mainstream? They're still kind of cool, you know like skateboarding It's like definitely not like full punk rock anymore, but you're like it's pretty cool, you know like skateboarding still and It's not that common still you know, and that's the thing with climbing is I'm kind of like yeah that climbing's growing, it's becoming more mainstream.

22:52It's just never gonna be soccer or something. You know what I mean? It's always gonna be slightly niche, slightly counter -culture because it's just a smaller thing. Like it's just not playing basketball or something. Yeah, I'm intrigued by the training aspects in some of the fitness aspects. I agree that having only done it a little bit, I mean, I've been to a climb gym once or twice. Yeah, I've gone up and down a whole few times. I've been delayed for people a few times, but I have by no means skilled at it. It'd be fun to get into because I, the happy birthday, by the way, I was like 40, I'm turning 50 soon and I think more about, I'm happy with my strength and endurance, but I think more about mobility now.

23:31And also, climbing is great for that. And there's a lot of interesting literature on brain longevity and just maintaining your cognition and the strength of your distal body. So toes and fingers, believe it or not. It's a correlate, like toes and strings. I've always thought that's just a correlation. It's just a correlation. Because yeah, like because grip strength is just a proxy for all it means that you use your body a lot And so therefore you're probably you know like when I read those things about like if you have strong grip It means this and this and this and I'm like no if you have a strong grip It means that you do stuff all the time and so as a result of doing stuff all the time You're probably sharper than than somebody who doesn't do stuff all the time.

24:08That's right So it's a correlate at the same time the the motor neurons that control like trunk movements and contraction of the trunk muscles like as you go out from the midline, they're in layers in the spinal cord, so they're literally like the motor neurons to control like the core. Closer to the midline. And then across evolution, we have all four mammals with fins and wings and some of the same genes are used. And eventually you get motor neurons to control like fine motor movements like this. And it is true that for some reason the motor neurons that control the distal body, So toes and fingers, calves and forearms are more vulnerable to age -related degeneration than the ones for the core.

24:50So it is possible, we don't know yet, that by maintaining strength of the distal body, that you can actually preserve motor neuron and cognitive function. Can I have a... I'm sorry. And you're sad. And that's how I was curious how climbers provided they don't fall and kill themselves, how they age. And there's other things here too, because like in some sports, like football and rugby be people are getting their head hit a lot. So that doesn't. They don't tend to age well. But I was thought of climbers, you know, in my time up in Yosemite, I'd see young guys like you and then I'd see these like, oh, like these old climbers, I was like, man, these guys are in incredible shape.

25:23They're lean, they're lie, they seem cognitively fresh. So it seems like it's a sport where people hold on to their faculties pretty well. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, it's hard to say because there just aren't that many super old climbers. And then a lot of the ones that come to mind, like sort of famous old climbers, I mean, they die the same way as everybody does, like cancer, heart disease, or whatever, but like in their late 80s or whatever. No, I mean, I think climbing is a great way to age. I mean, I have a bunch of friends who are sort of 50s and 60s who are very fit. I guess she, I mean, it comes to mind as a friend of mine who's a philosophy professor at UNLV at the university, but he's incredibly jacked, and I think he's 64 now.

26:04I think he just became the oldest person to climb a certain grade, like 514, which is like, sound an elite rock climbing grade. But I think he's maybe the oldest person to have done that now. But he once told me to say I'm going to be up there, he was at some hotel pool like in Middle America, like some conference or something, and some kid asked if he could touch his abs because he'd never seen, he was like, are they real? You know, like real? Cause he's like, yeah, which is like, yeah, he's like a 48 year old professor, he's like shredded, and some kid and a pool is like, can I touch this? Is that real?

26:30You know, like I never seen a thing like that. So it says a lot about him and about the state of our country. Yeah, exactly. We are the surprises of obesity. That's very serious. It goes beyond aesthetics. Yeah, I've thought about getting into climbing. I mean, it's the problem I had is I tried to just raw strength it. I just tried to pull up my way. A lot of people do that. That's foolish and you gas out really fast. Yeah, that's a very common thing for adults. I mean, especially men, especially somebody like you who's already fit. And so you try to bring the tool you already have to it. And you're like, no, you got to drive with your legs, go technique, mobility.

27:04like, you know, I like to say that anybody that tries climate should think of it as climate a really, really steep staircase where it's like you're still walking up the stairs and you're using the handrail for balance, but you're not pulling yourself up the handrail. And most of climbing is basically a steep staircase, you know, I mean, especially outdoors and in climbing gyms it's a little bit different because the wall is actually vertical, but outdoors the wall is almost always a little bit less than vertical. So it's like basically you're on a very, very steep and technical staircase and then you're using the handrail like the handholds to keep you balanced on the wall.

27:34But your leg should always be driving you. I still haven't done half dome and - Never? You've done clouds rest a bunch of times. Dundes, a bunch of times run clouds rest, rub clouds rest and it, but half dome has those cables. Yeah, yeah, I never was organized enough to do the sign -up early enough. No, but just do it after the permits. You know the cables stay up all year. So when it's out of season, they take the uprights down, but the cables just sit there and you can do it anytime. It's actually way better to do it post like after the season because there's no permitting. There are no people and it's like super chill Okay, I definitely want to do it.

28:07Just do it do it off season Yeah, my biggest concern is not that I'm in a fall is that someone above me is gonna fall We're not enough to just glance them off, you know, just like shrugging aside Possibly I did hear a lie. I ideally stop them. Yeah, I do stop them Yeah, I'd love to do that. I've been going to you 70 since I was in my teens. I love it up there It's I wouldn't say it's my second home, but it's heaven And I mean, as you know, and actually one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you among others is that I would like more people to get into the national parks and really enjoy them because we have so many gems.

28:40And you know, somebody, the high country in 12 of me, man, it was to me, is like, is having on Earth. No, you said many, I mean, is a crown jewel. I mean, I think it's the best national park in the country. Yeah, people forget it's only about a four hour drive from the Bay Area or from Los Angeles. It's pretty quick. You go through a bunch of different landscapes and then boom, suddenly you're there. Yeah, it's like paradise. It's incredible. I'm curious about things in free solowing that as an uninformed spectator we think, you know, that's the hardest part. That's that's the most difficult thing.

29:10But I imagine inside of the sport like any, that there are things that are very difficult and maybe even perilous that we're not aware of. Like what's some of the non -obvious aspects of free solowing if they exist? Because I always think, okay, you know, if I can imagine, oh, that's super tough, but that might be the easier or less tough. Usually, they're these kind of hidden, I don't want to call them hidden dangers, but hidden dangers in a sport. What are some things that the observer wouldn't be aware of? Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the hidden dangers are. I would say that the obvious visual dangers, like for a non -climbered, just watching free -selling, I think they generally misperceive all the dangers and risks involved.

29:52They just see them like, that's crazy, that's whatever you know, and like whatever they're bringing to it, it's probably not the actual case. Just because it's hard to visually tell what's challenging in climbing. You know, you're like, that's a vertical wall, but if it's like a nice crack going over a vertical wall, that's actually quite easy in secure climbing. But then some of the other stuff, you know, they're really small holes that trust in your feet, I don't know, I mean, it's just really hard to judge that stuff visually. Like you have to do it to experience it. But I think that honestly, the whole perception of risk around free -soling is maybe slightly misperceived by people.

30:25So with climbing in general, like if you go climbing with a rope, like if you're traditional climbing, like you're climbing with a rope and gear and you're gonna climb half -dome, let's say. When you start climbing from the ground, you go some distance before you put your first piece of gear in, because that's just kind of the nature of climbing. You go for a way as you put in some gear, you clip your rope into it and then you're protected. And then for whatever distance you're going, you're essentially free -solving to that point. You know, like there's always risk involved in climbing because even if you have a rope on, depending how far you're going and above your last piece of gear and what the train is like and whether or not the rock is good and all these other factors, you're more or less safe.

30:58And so I think people look at free solenging as like this binary, like if you don't have a rope, that's dangerous. And you're kinda like, well, anytime you're climbing, there are dangers or there could be. And you're constantly evaluating those and trying to mitigate them. And so I think that's the big misperception because easy free soleng is probably, like if I'm somebody who's like an expert rock clam or whatever, I'm climbing 30 years, If I'm on an easy free solo, that's almost certainly safer than a very hard, certain types of hard climbing with a rope on. And most of my scariest experiences, the climber actually have been with a rope on, because with a rope, you're much more willing to push yourself into unknown terrain.

31:35Because you're kind of like, surely there'll be something good just around the corner. And so you keep going around the corner, and you keep not getting a good gear, and you're like, holy shit, it's getting scarier and scarier and scarier. Are we allowed to curse? Sure, yeah, yeah. So, you know, like... Even at each other if you want to curse. Yeah, perfect. But so a lot of my scariest experiences have been with a rope on because kind of like I'm sure it'll get better I'm sure it'll get better and it keeps getting worse and worse and then pretty soon you're in some position Where you're definitely gonna die if you fall but you never would have climbed into that position if you didn't have a rope on Because you're just so much more conservative when you're hopeless and when you're hopeless You kind of like if something seems wrong you just go down You know because you're just not gonna push that far.

32:11I saw the movie Maru Hmm that was pretty intense That's an example of pushing really freaking far with the rope on. You know, it's like because you have a rope, you're willing to just keep pushing into the end and pushing into the unknown. But then you wind up in a position where you're like, this is pretty freaking extreme. You know, I was like, you saw the film, it's all totally insane. Yeah, it is insane. And I feel like ice and snow bring a whole other dimension. You know, I think that in your sport and free soul and like the idea from the spectator side is, you know, like these guys like one fall and they're dead.

32:43Right. I've heard you say before that's actually not true. I mean, yeah, it's kind of a fall. Yeah, it's true that most places if you fall off, you're going to die. But when I started free -soling as a kid, not that I started and then only did that, but on my first free -solo as I was young, in the back of my mind it was be like, if you slip, you'll die. And the reality is that there are tons of places where your foot can slip and nothing else moves. Your hands are locked on, you're holding on tight and your foot slipped and you're just going to lock out my foot, so I have to keep climbing. It's no big deal.

33:14I mean, there are also some places where if you're full, so you're going to die for sure. And the key is differentiating between those. But I think when I started, you know, it was like, if anything happens, you'll die. And as you do, and more, you're actually like, no. I mean, a lot of things can happen, and it'll be fine. You just have to make sure that the wrong thing doesn't happen at the wrong time. I was surprised to hear you say that, yes, free solos die. But oftentimes they die, not free solowing. They die doing other things. I'm fascinated by this not through a morbid fascination, but for a number of reasons.

33:44So maybe you could elaborate on that a little bit. Yeah, there's a quote in the film Free Solo, where a friend of mine, Tommy Caldwell, who's a very well -known climber, says something like, all the people who are big, Free Soloists are dead now. And it kind of implies, like, you know, Free Soloing is dangerous and they all died soloing. But the reality is that basically none of them died soloing. Like, one or two soloists have died soloing. Though, my preferred statistic is that no one has ever died doing something cutting edge. So, like, no one has ever died pushing the envelope, like doing something extreme.

34:12There have been a couple of free solos who have died, free -sulling easy terrain, like just out doing something casual and maybe a hold breaks or maybe something happens, like some possible to know what because they die. But then the bulk of other people who are sort of known for free -sulling have died either in parachuting accidents like wing -suiting or base jumping, or one got swept out to see by a rope wave. It's kind of a free thing, one die in a car accident. And you notice things like, you know, it's basically just ways that people die. So all that I say is not clear that free soul learning is the most dangerous.

34:45We have a friend who unfortunately is dead now, Ken Block, who is a famous rally car driver and did with our photographer here at the podcast, Mike Blayback and film crews with DC. He developed, he was one of the founders of DC, like DC shoes, DC skateboarding, et cetera, rally car. Unfortunately, died in a snowmobiling accident. So something very like kind of conventional for his daily life. He looked down in Utah and you know Obviously a huge tragedy And then you go look at kind of people who do quote unquote extreme sports relax for a better term And you find that it's fairly common for people who are at the peak of their Of a field of a sport to die doing something else that they really enjoy and you kind of wonder like are they pushing themselves or is it that they're just a little too relaxed?

35:34Because as you said, rarely do free solos die in the most difficult aspects of the climb. So maybe it's letting go of the mental engagement. Like there's a change in the threshold of what they consider dangerous. So unless they need to be locked in, there's just some lack of attention to detail. This is my way of trying to save your life. Basically, anything you're doing besides free solos, I'm going to be very, very careful. Rain it in. Yeah, we know. I mean, I also was suspect that all the people that we're talking about are all just a little They're just bigger risk takers in general. They're just more willing to do things like drive quickly and you know do whatever Just more willing to take risk in their life and and I suppose sooner or later those things catch up with you or they can Yeah, though that said with free -solving Two of the world's best free -solest from the previous generations are still alive You know older men just live in their best lives doing their thing still free soul.

36:24Yeah, maybe not a super high love, maybe not pushing themselves hard, but yeah, like certainly could. So, men in Peter Craf, he's a Canadian, but is live in the US forever. He was like my childhood hero growing up and he's incredible soul. Actually, there's a film with him or a scene with him in the film free solo. He's kind of like, they kind of frame him as like a mentor figure, though honestly he wasn't a mentor because I was too afraid to ever even talk to him, because he was like such a personal hero. But I mean, he's such a, he's incredible. will be a super nice guy. And so we're both sponsored by the North Face now, so we're friends, we're on the same team, and so I've hung out with him at events and things, and I was having dinner with him once.

36:59I was kind of like, oh, what point did you end the cutting edge free -soling? And he was like, oh, actually, I did a couple of my hardest solas in terms of grades, not necessarily the most cutting edge, but the hardest grades within the last several years. And I was like, really? And he'd still just do and stuff and fit, and he's psyched. and he's gotta be, I don't know, I don't wanna offend him, but he's gotta be like mid 50s, or like maybe 60. Like, you know, he's still incredible, he's still climbing all the time. And even on his rest days, he goes down into the same climbers to hang out with his friends and chit -chat and like take his dog to the cliff and stuff.

37:34So, you know, I look at somebody like him who's basically made an entire life of free -sowing and kind of like, you know, if you do it carefully, you know, make good decisions. I don't think it has to be sketchy. How awesome is it that your friends and coworkers with when your childhood here is? Oh, it's the best. That's actually I think one of the best things about being a professional climber is so many of the people that I was That I looked up to as a kid, you know, and our friends and peers and things are like, oh, it's so great Yeah, yeah, you have to like hang out with your heroes You know, I would imagine yeah, no, it's amazing.

38:03There's some young Kid out there now thinking the same. It's like I'm too afraid to go up to Alex and say hello And they should just say hello Yeah, I don't know about it. In the same way that, yeah, totally. I mean, in the same way that I was so afraid I ever talked to Peter when I was young, and then ultimately now he's just another nice guy and we're friends, we climb together, it's great. Sort of like, yeah, anybody should just say hi. It's like if we're at the cliff, like, come chat. And it's like we're all doing the same thing. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1.

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41:25Again, that's MauiNewEvenison .com slash Huberman. Do most climbers as they're coming up, if they have aspirations to be great free solos or other types of climbers, do they tend to work and do other things? Or is this like all in, it's lifestyle, you live in a van, you can do that also after achieving some degree of financial success. We know you've done that, we can talk about that. But is it the kind of thing where you have to give up other aspects of life in order to get really, really good at it? That's an interesting question. And I'm not totally sure because in some ways, so it depends what you mean by achieving success as a climber because if you're trying to climb the hardest grades or go to the Olympics or things like that, in some ways you're almost better off being a university student or something like having a structured schedule that in some ways limits the amount that you can climb because, you know, I don't know enough about other sports, but I suspect this is a kind of like powerlifting or something whereas like if you're trying to be really strong, you kind of only need to do a little bit every couple days and then recover.

42:25And so for a sort of elite physical training for climbing, you really only need, you know, say three or four hour sessions, four or five days a week. And then it's like, what do you do with the rest of your time? And so like, you may as well have a job or... And so a lot of my friends who like write code for a living or, you know, do things like that are very, very strong climbers because the schedule that it allows the structure. That said, I think if you want to be a great free solist or like a big adventure climber, you're probably better off living in a van and just doing the thing nonstop.

42:56Because for that, you're not trying to have that peak muscular performance. You're trying to just learn a skill and do something all the time. And so then hours of practice, I think, matter more. Anyway, maybe we talk a little bit about recovery, as long as we're talking about, you know, number of hours that one puts in. I'm sure your recovery looks different than it used to. But what do you do to recover between sessions? Are you a big believer in sauna, cold? Is it just basically sleep? No, like push my three -year -old on the swings. You know, like that's our recovery. I play with the kids on the swings and I try to, I mean, I try to eat relatively well.

43:33I try to sleep enough. Like I do all the basics for recovery. But no, I mean, I basically just survive in between. I was actually just joking with somebody that I think, you know, as a 24 year old living by myself in a van, I would have crazy days of climbing and then on a rest day, I would like binge watch an entire season at some show while eating an entire flat or is just like, never even leave the bed in my van. And then the next day go, I'm like, do a speed record, I'm something and just be like, I'm, well, I'm so psyched. You know, and now I'm like, I'm definitely not doing that now, or at least, no, I haven't done that for ever.

44:04Because I just don't have the time and don't have, yeah. So I think now it takes a little more effort to recover. and it's just a little slower probably. But it's hard to say though, because a lot of us just have kids and just having different demands of time and life. But sounds like climbers are pretty grass roots in their training and techniques. Like you don't want a lot of other areas. Yeah, I mean, I was living in a van. I was basically like, you know, super low overhead, no team, no support. I'm just living in a car doing the thing nonstop for, you know, a decade. And so that's a pretty scrappy approach.

44:38and I think that in the years since then, climbing has professionalized a little bit, and there's a little more money, there's a little more support, and there's just a higher level of competition, I think it'd be harder to achieve things, doing just that now. I think you'd have to have a little more of a plan. Yeah, I can't help but sense that hyperbaric chambers and red light and massage guns and all that are gonna be making their way into the climate. Massage guns for sure are there. Yeah, massage guns are there. I tried to roll out everyone's, even when I was living in my van, I was stretched and rolled out I do this types of things, because you just kind of have to stay supple.

45:10Yeah, how do you feel? How's your body feel? Well, I mean, right now, I think pretty good. I don't know. Yeah, when I'm, I live in Las Vegas when I'm at home, I try to see this body working town once a week, Pat and sweet Pat, he's the man. And so, you know, I think of that as kind of like a basic, just taking care of, you know, making, it's like an oil change, it's like making sure the engine runs smoothly. And I think as a result of body work like that, I haven't had any major like overuse injuries in years. And so that's pretty good for me. Awesome. Yeah, maybe it's just because it's historically it was what I knew, but I'm seeing so many parallels with skateboarding where like there was this time when no skateboarders lifted weights or did any kind of fitness.

45:51Then that started to happen. Actually, Danny Wei jumped the Great Wall of China. He was kind of the first person in skateboarding to like, he would do like neck training because he had broken his neck surfing and new point. And he was doing like these, you know, like where you like swing the ball above of your head, he was doing core work. And I remember back then, I'd sort of left skateboarding that was going for inch. And I was thinking like, that's weird. Like, skateboarders, you could just like, really have a problem with this because it wasn't consistent with the culture. Now there are a lot of guys who work out and take care of their bodies, but there are still a lot of guys who absolutely kill it.

46:23They're incredible. And their energy drink is like a beer and their, quote unquote, neutropic is cigarettes. And they murder it. They're super good. and so I like these sports where it's like you can't get around just investing a massive number of hours doing it and then there you can either take the the kind of rock and roll track Into it or you can take the kind of self -care track and sometimes people cross over but yeah, you know it works either way It really does climbing still has that exact same thing going on where you can kind of go either way I do think though that the self -care track well obviously went out long -term I mean that's the thing with climbing to being the Olympics and just the professionalism all that I mean obviously self -care is better for you long term.

47:03Like, you know, everybody knows that. That said, you still see a lot of very provision climbers who, yeah, exactly, just kind of party, go hard. I mean, because so much of climbing just comes down to the effort when you're doing the thing. Like if you go climbing several days a week and you try your absolute hardest every time you're climbing, you're gonna get pretty freaking good. You know, whether you do red light therapy or like any other weird other stuff or not. So it's like, I mean, it really just comes down to your effort doing the thing. And so, yeah, I mean, you could live, And I mean a lot of climbers, especially in the past, lived on a diet of, you know, cigarettes and coffee and then freaking beer.

47:38And you know, you can get by that way. Yeah, the 1970s, 80s approach. It's not ideal. It's not ideal. A friend of mine, Tom Billio, he is a very successful in business. He also has a podcast, he was saying to me the other day, he goes, yeah, basically when young people ask him, you know, how to get good at whatever business or anything, he just tells them, um, work as if smartphones didn't exist. Meaning when you're bored, go work on the thing. When you don't have any, like if you get rid, I'm not an origin, people get rid of their smartphone, but I'm curious about your relationship to technology because I think nowadays, even though there are people training for the Olympics and whatnot, it is very hard to disengage from pressures of sponsors, pressures of just sheer communications, right?

48:20And if you're coming up, this idea that you always have to be in contact with people, it limits the total number of reps that you get physically, but also mentally. I imagine there was a lot of time sitting back and met in thinking about climbing. Just like I used to sit back and met and think about experiments in, you know, when I was in graduate school. Now I'd probably, that, the phones that exist have, I'd be on my phone. Yeah. I used to think about experiments and figures and what would this work in that word. So what are your thoughts on kind of a mental engagement separate from climbing?

48:49No, I think that's definitely a big thing. I mean, I think, I've thought in the past that in some ways, I feel kind of lucky that that I came up when I did inclinement, where it's like sort of pre -smart phone, pre -social pre, you know, you just live in your car and you do the thing and that's it, and that's your whole lifestyle. I mean, currently, you know, I have all the search media accounts and things, but I don't have any of the apps on my phone, I have a friend that manages it for me. I like sending all the content to her, which you post stuff. And so it's a nice way to sort of disconnect myself from scrolling aimlessly.

49:21I don't really have the time anymore, you know, it's like I'd rather play with my kids and then for sure, scroll. You know, it's like, but no, I mean, that's tough. I mean, I think it'd be hard to be a kid now growing up, like thinking that that's the norm that you like have to be connected, that you have to be capturing everything, you know, documenting and then sharing it and posting it and just all the stuff. I've always felt like the thing about being a professional climber is that you just have to be a good climber. Like, first and foremost, the key to being a professional climber is being able to climber really well.

49:50And like, the most important thing is doing the thing. And I just think when you get caught up in all the posting sharing, streaming, all the whatever, that's not doing the thing, you know, but it's easy to conflate them and it's, I don't know. Yeah, no, I think it'd be really hard. Yeah, I agree completely. And the hidden secret is that if you want something interesting to show on social media, the key is to not be on social media so you have something to bring to it. It's just so hard to actually be good at something. And it's, and then this goes back to what we're just talking about with free -soling and perceived risk and all that kind of stuff is it is really easy to make something look rad so linguistically.

50:25I could climb the outside of this building and it would look insane. It would get tons of likes. People think it's cool, but it's not cutting the edge. It's not cool. It's not even hard. It's not, it's whatever. But to actually do something that's cutting edge or newsworthy in climbing, it's pretty freaking hard. And the challenge with social and with public all that kind of stuff is that it's just so easy to, I don't want to say to fake it because it's not like people are out there like trying to be duplicitous or like to trick you, but it's just, you can get the same splash with none of the effort, you know, through social stuff, I think.

50:59You're like, oh, I just did something easy and people thought it was amazing. Let's call that good. And you're like, well, that's just not good because it's easy as freaking, you know, it's like it's not cutting it. It's not rat. I mean, you clearly go after big, big goals. I mean, it's a giant goal. I think it really stands and I know you've been told this many times before so if it embarrasses you in a positive way then great. I mean it stands as perhaps at least one of the most impressive physical feats in history because the risk consequence scenario there was you fall you can potentially die.

51:32There may have been moments along the climb where you're right above a ledge. You're like oh wow. Yeah so okay so and it's so like you to point out those moments as opposed to all the other moments that really speaks to your mindset. But I think that going after big things, I mean, you know, building rockets to go to the moon, I remember when I was a kid, anyway, I just had to jump through great wall of China to do it live. So when it died trying it on a mountain bike, I remember thinking, I watched it on a little screen this big and I was like, I've known that guy since we're out of touch now, but for the most part, but since it was like 13 and he was always going after big things, jumping out of helicopters, you know, jumping the Great Wall of China, like, you know, and then there were people who just pushed themselves.

52:16And so what I wonder is on a daily basis, when you climb, do you ever just climb for fun? When you climb, are you always working on something? And there's this famous scene in free solo, like more or less immediately after you got down from the climb, you're, you're finger boarding again, like you're, you're training, and you're enjoying your routine, which by the way is consistent with keeping the dopamine flowing for process as opposed to like the postpartum depression that many people experience after a big feed is completed, selling a big company, etc. You avoid all that by doing exactly what you're doing, but then how quickly did your mind pivot to like, okay, what's next?

52:54In the domain of climbing, because I realize you've had two children, you've got other aspects of your life, but like where's your mind in terms of where you want to take your life and your climbing? Yeah, on the one hand, I set big goals, I guess. You know, something like Yolkab. The thing is, I would actually say that's more of the outgrowth of setting consistent little goals like all the time. Like I basically always have running to do list of like, what am I doing tomorrow? What am I doing today? What am I trying to do this week? And that extends to climbing as well with like, what are all the little things I can be doing?

53:21Like, what are the little things I can tick this week? You know, I have my climbing journal goes back to 2005 or six or something. So basically everything I've ever climbed is logged with, you know, difficulty and times and whatever. And so I'm constantly trying to tick things as a climber, you know, just like to do new climbs that I haven't done before. And so I mean, I think like actually my day of climbing yesterday could be a good example of this. So yesterday my wife and I had dropped off our older daughter at school, went to the cliff, did a day of sport climbing, and then picked up our daughter on the way home.

53:50It's like a perfect day like that where you can kind of like make it all work. And I'm not going to be able to go to that cliff very often this season just because of traveling work and life basically. So I don't want to have any big project there because I just want to have time to do it. I'm trying to set my goals appropriately. I'm like, oh, there's no point in trying to do something that would take me a month or two to achieve if I only have three days. And so I had a goal for that day of trying to do this very particular little combination of roots that I hadn't done before. It's just something new, something interesting.

54:20It's not that hard. But then we got there and it was like the worst condition. It was like 86 degrees in park the car. And so, you know, it's like you're trying to work out and like horrendously hot and it was also that kind of monsoony So it was very humid. So we got to the wall and it's like disgusting And I was kind of like well, you know, it's a training day like whatever and so I tried to do this new combination of roots Ultimately failed on I felt the very freaking top of the wall was like so maxed and didn't do it I'll probably get a chance to go back on Monday and hope and I'll for sure do it then But you know, it's like a very small goal like this isn't cutting edge like big This isn't this isn't even cool at all like my friends won't even care You like the thing is stupid but but it's nice for me to have a reason for me to try my hardest for that particular day of climbing And I think that the big goals come as a result of all those little things You know like if day by day or constantly doing something It's a little bit new a little bit different a little bit harder, but you know whatever seems like the appropriate challenge for that day I think that Looking back at 20 years of climbing outside on stop that the big things have just come as a natural outgrowth of all those little things you do like enough little things all the time and then every once in a while something big happens.

55:25And so, I don't know, that's, you know, but I have to do lists going back like years of like goals and all these aspirations and you know, some years I only do half of them, some years I do a third of them. And then, you know, something like free selling all cap, sat on a list like that, literally for years and it kept floating to the next year to the next year because you get into somebody you look at the wall and you're like, nah, that's, you know, I like throwing out of the question. And so you just like punt to the next year. And so yeah, I mean, sometimes the goals don't happen. Sometimes they do.

55:52But you kind of just have to let it play out, you know, it's more like the day to day little challenges. I love how matter of fact you are about it. You are why you're different. You think, I mean, well, maybe not. I mean, because like, and this is not a vastly less high risk, high consequence endeavor, but like public speaking doesn't make me it doesn't raise my level of cortisol or autonomic arousal at all because I've done so much of it. Yeah, you're super well practiced. Yeah, I mean, just, yeah. So sometimes I'll think like, I'm like a little more keyed up than I want to be. And I know how to calm stuff down.

56:25Well, I'm actually, I feel the same way with public speaking now, but that's after years of practice, it used to be, it used to be so stressful for me. Oh, yeah. So yeah, no, I was, I was, I was, you know, it does work like, you know, like, you know, it's totally, yeah. No, I mean, exactly. That's why I hate all this stuff. It's like, oh, you're just wired differently. Like, I'm like, no, I know that, yeah, speaking in front of a class in school was like mortifying. But now after years of doing keynote speeches to like giant groups, I'm sort of like, no, no, it's super chill. But that's all learned.

56:51Yeah, forgive me for saying you're wired different. I think that when you did free solo, there were a number of news programs that like took advantage of the fact that they put you in a brain scanner. This is my field of neuroscience, you know, it makes a lot of might not be activated the same way as other people's. But I would have thought, and I think it's the case now, you confirmed that it's really domain -specific, like you've done so much climbing of so many reps there that you're familiar with the contingencies. And so it's not that you can't experience fear, it's that you're not placing yourself in a truly fearful circumstances climbing.

57:18But the fact that public speaking was an issue means that your threat sensors and the amygdala -related circuits were perfectly fine. With that particular like scanning the FMRI, you know, they show you a bunch of black white pictures and it's like whether or not that triggers the fear response. And I was like, obviously looking at pictures isn't going to trigger my fear response, But I'm like had they thrown a snake into the FMI with me like that would it trigger my first bonds You know if they were like giant spiders like crawling over me like that would probably would too And so I was like no obviously I feel fear.

57:43I just I'm just not afraid of black my photos You know, that's what they used I'm like angry faces and that kind of the faces. It wasn't even faces It was like random stuff like I don't know like a gun and then like a light socket You know some things that are like neutral some things I should have done these from my lab used to work on see it was a standardized thing I think yeah, I know it's better even Yeah, I'm not trying to be discouraging of the research. My lab used to work on fear. We used VR. That's how I met Michael Muller our friend in common. He took me down to Gualupe. We did two times.

58:10So we went down there 2016 and 2017 doing KJX at diving with great whites filming with to get the VR and I'll tell you, in real life, it's a hell of a scarier than it is. Totally, then in VR. Well, along the lines of, you know, dying when you're doing the other thing, not the main thing, the KJX at part ended up being a lot safer. I had an airfail your wall in the cage. I was on that hookah line and I was alone in the cage when it happened. And I'll tell you that was a lot more terrifying than being out of the cage with the sharks. Because when you're out of the cage, you're on scuba. You have some degree of control over, you know, you can shoot for the surface when you're in the cage and you run out of air and you're alone.

58:44You're just terrified. You're, you're, you're, your host, no pun intended. You're not. So, you know, it speaks to this thing that like when there's this big scary thing and you're really locked in, you often miss the more trivial, seeming, but real danger that's close up. But this is, I think, one of the real values of climbing is I think that as a climber, you spent all your time thinking about risk and managing risk and mitigating risk and all those things. And so I think that, I don't want to like, to my own horn too much, but I do feel good at evaluating risks like that. You know, like, what is the actual dangerous thing?

59:18Like, what's sketchy about the situation? And it just often isn't the thing that people are looking at. And that's what I was talking about earlier with people watching video free -soling or whatever else. They're like, that's sketchy. And I'm like, well, it might be in some ways, but probably not for all the reasons that you're thinking. I mean, the obvious visual thing is probably not the big challenge. And it sounds a little cliche, but you're doing what you love. It's interesting. I think one of the biggest risks that I think about now, as I get older, is the non -daily lethal risk of grinding it out in a job you don't like.

59:57And then one day you wake up and you're like, wow, there's no time machine. I can't go back and get that vitality in that line. That's what I've been doing. Yeah, and that's where I think this idea of doing what you love really counts. Whether or not you have to live in a van and do nothing else, or whether or not you can also go to school. but doing something that you love very, very much. Yeah, either way you're gonna die. Either way you're gonna die. And you may as well die having done a lot of things you're really excited about, then die regretting all the things you didn't do. Totally. I mean, I think that actually that exact mindset really helped inform my whole climbing journey in a way that my father died when I was 19.

1:00:31And he died of a heart attack unexpectedly, just free thing running through an airport at age 55. And, you know, and I think for a young, for a teenager, that makes an impression where you're sort of like, oh, like this could end at any moment. And actually in both my grandfather's had just died like it roughly the same time. So I think for an impressionable teen, you're sort of like, oh, everybody dies. Like, do you get to do all the things that you want to do before you go? And I think my father, my father was a community college professor at Todd Langwidge. And he ostensibly lived a risk -free life, relatively sedentary.

1:01:05I mean, he traveled widely. He was great. But by any risk perception thing, you'd be like, oh, he's a professor. He's fine. And yet, he still died young and probably would have preferred to do a lot of other things. Before he went, I'm sort of like, it's just a reminder that you've got to do all those things. Yeah, I want to talk to you about your philosophy on death and time and kind of life arc. And you've already started. So thank you for that. Because I would say most of my friends who who started families young are people who, these are male friends whose dads died young. And so they had this very keen sense of the finite duration of life.

1:01:47And you know Steve Jobs talked about this. So like you're, you know, very, any died young. He seemed to have some sense of how long he was gonna live and really wanted to pack things in. And I don't know why that was, he was adopted. So I don't know if he even knew how long his parents lived, et cetera, but barring, accident or injury, you know, we don't really know when we're gonna die. But sometimes I think we get the sense based on relatives. And I can remember a time in my life when I, of course I knew I was going to die, but I lived in a way that I just, I felt like I had all the time in the world just by pursuing things.

1:02:17And I think with each passing year, I'm like, oh wow, like the wall's coming. It's winding down. Yeah, like we've got to get the show on the road. And I've done things I wanted to do, but it's interesting that it does seem that like having a parent die has a profound impact on it. Yeah, galvanizing. on where you set that horizon. You realize like today is part of an arc that has an endpoint. And we know that, but we often don't live into that realization. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I mean, and you say we know that, but I actually think that we don't talk about that enough. You know what I mean?

1:02:49I think most people live with a little too much opening because nobody wants to talk about death, nobody wants to talk about, you know, like the consequences of like, because people think it's more bitter, it's just not. But the thing is like, we're all going to freaking die. I was like, are we gonna be proud of what we did before we died? I don't know. I mean, yeah, we'll see. It's like kind of cliché to be like, oh, better to die young and burn brightly and all that kind of stuff. But to some extent, I think there's a middle ground where you're like, it's better to try hard and do things that you're proud of.

1:03:20And either way you're gonna die. I agree. I think there is something interesting to this 27 effect. you know, so many like rock and roll musicians die at 27. Is there a quarter life crisis? Yeah, the quarter life crisis. I haven't heard of the quarter life crisis. You never heard a quarter life, like all my friends have gone through a quarter life crisis. Oh really? Yeah. When does that happen? Well, I like 25, you know, 27. Interesting. No, I was just so focused on becoming a neuroscientist. Didn't know what else I would do besides that at 25. I think I was just so locked in. But I've always been a little bit obsessive.

1:03:50Have you always been a little bit like whatever you're into, you're into? I guess it's been cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was just lucky to get in the climbing. I was 10 so this is something that I've just been into forever So did you play Legos as a kid or do you know and I was psycho about my life? Your psycho about like yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, like I didn't have a bed in my room because I had Legos covered across the whole floor Basically I slept in a corner and I just had Legos all over awesome kind of psycho Do you see some of this in in your kids? Not quite that yet, but they're pretty young so it's her to tell but Yeah, we'll see we'll see I kind of think you know It's all about having personality, like do a thing, do a well, like get excited about things.

1:04:28I mean, there's just so many people on earth and they all do different things. Like, you may as well be the person to do that one particular thing and just like really do it. No, I agree. That's the juice. I mean, I think for some of us, like, I just know from my own life experience, I like I thought I was certainly going to just get in a skateboarding. Many of my friends became professional skateboarders. Got really good at or worked in the industry and early on I was getting hurt and I realized I'm not very good at this. And then when I finally plugged into academics and learning, I was like, this is the thing.

1:04:56And I loved it. And then eventually I pivoted to this thing, which I didn't anticipate. But I do think that going all in on something is it provides a really wonderful feedback loop that one can get. Like you feel, it makes you feel alive. You're like doing a thing. Especially when it's hard. Yeah, especially when it's hard. I've literally spent my whole life basically like all in on climbing. And I'm still, I just love going rock climbing. You know, it's like, I mean, I think that's really the goal of parenting is to help your kid find something that they're that psyched about, like something that they can commit to and something that will drive them, something they're passionate about.

1:05:30So, you know, I mean, we'll see with our kids, but it's like the idea is just to let them experience enough things that they can find whatever they, whatever gets them out of bed every day. They certainly are in the right environment to flourish with it. You mentioned that climbing's in the Olympics, I could see, and I've observed in other sports where the parents are kind of more obsessive than the kid and then the kid burns out on it. I read Andre Auguste's book, Oh, yeah, that's like the story of his dad pushing him to play a game he did not want to play. Yeah, that's maybe the best sportsman wherever.

1:05:59That's like that's a great, uh, that's a great book. Yeah, great book. Yeah, his dad was like a boxer and basically trained him to kind of like a boxer. Yeah, yeah, so it's sort of like the light -handed approach of like I think kids know I think I mean you kind of let the porridge know we're we're taking the light -handed approach for sure. I mean our kids will obviously know how to climb because that's what we do all the time and but so far we just go hiking like we haven't forced them to climb. We have a little bit of a home gym at home like a little climbing garage and so the girls can you know play on the wall whenever they want to but there's certainly never any pressure to do anything.

1:06:31I read and please correct me if this is inaccurate but that it was during college that you had some family members pass away and when you really leaned into just climbing more. I think it's somewhere on the internet that you were climbing out in Indian rock, which is interesting to me because I went to graduate school in Berkeley and lived in Berkeley for a long time. You went to Cal? I went to Cal for my masters. I lived in Berkeley even when I was a post -doc at Stanford. I love Berkeley. You went from Cal to Stanford? Yeah, right. You even allowed to get me the animals. Yeah, that's like a...

1:06:59Yeah, did they take you? Born at Stanford, Stanford, and still spent a lot of time at Berkeley. I liked the culture in Berkeley then, and I liked the food. So I used to take pizzas from the cheese board up to Indian rock. So while you were climbing Indian rock, I was eating and picking on it. Indian rock. It's amazing. So would you just pull a little solo journey out there? This is by the way folks a big steep rock but on one face it's it's gradual. It literally has like rock couches where couples go on dates and you eat a pizza and hang out and get an amazing view overlooking the city. So you were climbing up the back of it which is anything but well actually I was mostly traversing the bottom of it.

1:07:33There's tons of like basically you can contour the whole base of the rock and so you can climb for you know a couple hundred feet basically without touching the ground. So you just go back and forward doing laps and yeah I mean from where I was living at Berkeley there's only like a 30 -minute walk to Indian Rock or something so I basically wasn't going to class I was just trolling to Indian Rock and traversing the wall back and forth and and then that's why I dropped out after one year at Berkeley it's gonna like I don't know why I'm at university if I'm not actually actually it's more complicated because that year I got into the youth worlds like an international thing and so I was gonna take the semester off to go to worlds and travel on climb a little bit and so know, I've just taken, you know, whatever, like, 35 semesters off or something.

1:08:13Yeah, exactly. No, I think after some point, they were like, you're done. Close the hatch. Yeah, I think they close that. But um, it worked out. It certainly worked out. Yeah, the thing that we find ourselves doing when we should be doing something else in the positive sense of it, like, I mean, that often is the thing, like it's with that your obsess over. Yeah. I mean, it's just hard to know with that stuff though, because obviously for most people, they probably should get an education and get a job of some kind. Like even if you're really passionate climber, I mean most people probably aren't going to make a living as professional climber because it's just too small an industry and you know, depends on your level and everything.

1:08:47I mean, I think I got kind of lucky. I mean in a lot of ways I got lucky. Also just because I like souling and it's like such a niche and not that many people do it and the level just wasn't that high. And so, you know, sometimes joke, it's easy to be the best if you're the only one doing it. You know, it's like it's easy to compete as the only person in a field and they're kind of like, I said, well, I'll make it chill. And so, you know, I think I got lucky in a lot of ways like that. And so, yeah, most people probably should finish university and climb as they can. That said, I mean, if you love doing a thing, it makes sense to maybe build your life around how you can do that thing as much as possible, just because it keeps you energized and fired up and, you know, it makes the rest of your life better.

1:09:25I think it was Ryan Holiday that said that if you don't know what to do with your life and you're still trying to figure it out, definitely stay in college. because you know there are all these tales of like Mark Zuckerberg leaving Harvard and Steve Jobs dropping out of Reed College and Alex Honol leaving Berkeley and uh and eventually becoming the the person that you are now but you had a direction there was another thing to lean into it wasn't just oh I don't like this I don't want to be here. Yeah I mean if you have nothing then you drop out and you just go play video games in your basement or something like that's obviously not that's not better than going to school like you're better off going to school and broadening your horizons and doing whatever but yeah I I thought I was just taking some time off, and I thought that eventually I'd become a mountain guide or something or like teach a summer camp.

1:10:05So I don't know, you know, because especially at the time the climbing industry was so much smaller, there wasn't any money. Like I didn't think you could make it a living as a professional climber. And so I thought it was just kind of a fun thing I was doing in the van for a while before I'd like find some kind of job or something. And then thankfully the climbing industry is kind of scaled at the same rate that I did as a climber. And so it all worked out. Is it the case that you didn't have any monetary aspirations when you were doing it? It sounds like you didn't, but did you ever have the conversation with your mom like, you know, how are you going to make a living?

1:10:40No, well, so I mean, I mentioned that my dad died. So my parents had just gotten divorced and so my dad had left enough for my sister in me to finish college. And so I took that money and put it in bonds. I'm just like, I don't know what that is, but you know, so I was making like a couple 100 bucks a month in bonds. And then I stole the family mini van. Like I said, my two grandfather said, die before so basically my mom had inherited this little car that she was driving my grandpa's car. I took the family mini van. I was making a couple hundred bucks in bonds. And basically that just kind of covered any of the pressure, like the financial pressure.

1:11:11Whereas that gave me enough of a buffer that I was like, well for several years at least, I can just kind of like live in this mini van and see what happens. And then after a couple of years, I was sponsored. I was getting free product. I was getting it like a very very small amount of money, but some amount of money which is enough to sort of justify the whole thing We're like oh companies are paying me to do this thing. I should see how well I can do it And then and then it all kind of took off from there But yeah, I mean it I mean that's one of the ways in which I was very lucky as a climber You know, there was like just enough financial cushion that I could try to do the thing as much as I wanted for a couple years and see how it played out And it just happened to work out well I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors function Last year, I became a function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing.

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1:13:05In contrast, I've been super impressed by function simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try function, you can go to functionhealth .com slash huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250 ,000 people, but they're offering early access to huberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth .com slash huberman to get early access to function. It's going to sound like an odd question, but I'm very curious about this. You've been in beautiful places, like just, and you get a very different view of those places than most people.

1:13:42There's a really great YouTube shorts of you hanging by one arm during a climb, which itself is impressive to the observer, but then you take some moments and you look around and you're just checking out the scene. You're clearly not looking at the rock, that I know even as a non -expert. And so I'm wondering this, I have reasons to ask, do you ever snap photos with your mind, your mind's eye? Do you have clear recollection of like, I'm gonna snap a shot of this, just like keep this one in the end. No, I don't remember. Now, to me, it's more of the living there day and end day out. Like, you know, with free -sullowing, I'll cap what it's saying.

1:14:16I mean, I spent months on the wall. And it's like just every day, you know, you're growing up before sunrise a lot of the time. So you're watching the sunrise over half -dome. And it's like super beautiful. And then you're going down at sunset and you're watching the moon. And it's just, I mean, it's just day and end day out. It's the most beautiful place on Earth in all these amazing conditions. You know, sometimes it starts snowing. Sometimes it's raining. It's like their clouds swirling and mist or whatever, and you're just like, oh, it's amazing. But I don't really remember any specific, you know, like a snapshot of that.

1:14:45It's more just the overall, or like, oh, it's just this amazing place. It's pretty, pretty awesome. Yeah, like the freaking, what is it with you, so many falls, the, if you're ever seeing the moon rainbow thing, like a fire light thing? No, the fire falls is a different thing. That's like with the moon, and that's the different time of year. In a light, may or June, if you get a full moon, oh, the moon bow, that's what it is. It's like when you somebody falls, what cast in Moonbow? Like you'll be able to see a rainbow from the Moonlight in the waterfall when it's at peak water. It's totally insane.

1:15:16My wife and I went for a romantic walk to go look at the Moonbow one season because it's just there and you're like, that's pretty cool. You know, it's like it's a rainbow at night. Amazing. It's really cool. We're gonna send a lot of people to the assembly by virtue of Clouds rest and for the non -climbers. I still think it's crazy. You've climbed Clouds rest more than once and never climbed Half Dome. Because Clouds are like, I've run Clouds rest, I've done it. I've probably done cloud's rest at least a dozen times that is crazy and I love the past half Dome and half Dome is the much more famous cousin that's closer and easier and kind of more spectacular Well, you have to dry pass this so to be clear.

1:15:47I'm starting to even do on the rise. Oh, you're from Twall I'm going from Twall. I'm way less impressed Yeah, okay Sousing in myself like I was like, you know clouds rest like 15 miles up and back It's it's not gnarly four is really hard going from the valley four Okay, I actually don't know many people who come up from the Valley floor anymore I will need to start at sunrise and then go down clouds arrest Can I go down the spine of it toward half -dome and then I know this cuz then recently their trails between them It's obviously yeah, that's so funny because you were talking about rucking a heavy bag up there And I was like man that is a hard walk from the Valley floor But cuz I'm thinking everything from the Valley floor cuz I spent so much time in you somebody I'm starting about 8 ,000 feet finishing Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm so much less impressed.

1:16:28Yeah, your daughters do this Yeah, well, not quite yet. It's 3 .5 year old, that's what I was saying. Like, wow, he's right. OK, I mean, it's tough. I mean, 2000. Yeah, no, no, it's still tough. I mean, it's like a workout. But going from the value floor is really tough. Yeah, that's true. Because I had one season in E -70 where for whatever reason I wasn't really motivated for climbing goals. And I called it. I said that I retired and I was on a trail running season. Though it's funny, because I actually I supported a bunch of my friends on things and I was boldering with all my friends. And so I said that I have a climbing journal.

1:16:55So by the end of the season, if you look through the journal, it would look like a normal season. where almost every day I was climbing with somebody, I was doing something, and then by the end of the season I actually did a couple things I was kind of proud of. But the mindset going into it was like, I don't care, I'm just here having fun, I'm trail running, and I'm supporting my friends on things, and that's it. And one of my big things that season was that I ran Clads Rest from the Valley floor, but to me that was like a triumph of trail running, you know, because that's like a pretty big. Yeah, how long was that?

1:17:19I don't know, it's like 5 ,000 feet over her, six though, I don't know, it's like so far. Yeah, let's see, because... It was like the hardest thing I'd ever run for sure. Yeah, you're probably going at least three to four thousand feet from the Valley floor up to the Meadows And then another two thousand up to when the Valley floor is four and top of Clasius is 10 something so you're doing six Yeah, so it's like okay for me. I was like, oh, that's a lot That's a trail road. Yeah, and you bring it and you're carrying water. You get Yeah, I just had like a little bottle and I don't film the river or something Yeah, I mean I will consider myself a serious trail runner or mountaineer certainly but I Ever since I got my driver's license it was like the assembly.

1:17:53Yes, the best. And Glacier is amazing. I swear I'm not sent here by the National Park Service, but I think Glacier's got some incredible scenery that everyone should make it to. Have you done a lot climbing? No, actually I don't think there is that much climbing in Glacier not from Park, but I've actually bike passed on the way to Alaska for the cyclist random journey. Just random journey I did. Yeah, but no, I haven't done much in there. What are the, if any, cultural differences or climbing in the United States versus in Europe. It seems like, you know, like get guys in the training they helps.

1:18:30I keep saying guys, but I want to be fair, not for politically. I'm not saying this for politically, correct reason, but there's a movie out very soon. Actually, I'm actually an IMAX movie. I saw the trailer too. It was a friend of yours. A woman who's what she climbing, she's climbing the outcome. Yeah, she's climbing the outcome. Like freeing a day of this route called going to get. Yeah, actually, I'm surprised I'm in that I filmed much more than I thought because I supported her on each of her attempts. We're talking about Emily Harrington, who's also a professional climber, who freed this route called Going In and Day and the film's called a Girl Climer.

1:18:58And I think it comes out. 24th. Yeah, it's not like soon. It's one day in an iMacs, but then presumably in a week. And then some kind of theatrical release. But I think it'll be a relatively small theatrical release and then eventually stream and whatever. Anyway, this film, Girl Climer. Yeah, it's funny because she worked on this goal for a long time. And I'd kind of forgotten that I basically supported her on each of her attempts because when you support somebody, I mean, this is kind of like, crewing somebody's race or something. You know, when you support somebody, it's basically a rest day for you.

1:19:24You're like having a nice day, you're supporting a friend, it's like no pressure, it's all really chill. And so the days that I supported her, we're all like, you know, I mean, I remember them, but they were just one day throughout a big season where I'd be working out of their climbing goals, like all the things that I'm working on. And it's just like a fun day supporting a friend, but then I went watch the movie and it's like, oh, every time I try as well, I'm like, they're supporting you. And I was like, oh, God, I kind of forgot about all these things that a couple of years ago. I don't know.

1:19:46It's funny seeing the film. It's really inspiring. Is the route that she took particularly difficult? What's the milestone that she achieves there? She was the first woman to do that route in a day. Free in a day. That route's like a harder version of the free rider, the thing that I free -sold it in the film free -solder. But yeah, honestly, I think the film does a good job of not trying to portray it as anything more than it is. I mean, it's a very difficult climbing achievement, but it's not like it doesn't need to hurt. It's not the hardest thing ever done. It's not the first time that, you know, but it's very hard.

1:20:23And if you watch the film, you see what makes it meaningful is the level of effort that she puts into it. It's like it's hard for her. She's a great climber and she puts a lot into it, a lot of herself into it and eventually, I don't know, spoiler, but eventually, overcomes, like, manages to do this thing that's really hard for her. And I think that's, which in a lot of ways, I mean, that's climbing in a nutshell. It's like, none of her really matters because even free -selling on Cap, I mean, you can walk around the back. I was like, well, I put the years of effort into climbing the face, and you can walk around the back.

1:20:50Like, all of climbing is relatively meaningless. And so ultimately, it's the effort that we put into it that has value. And so I think that's what the film girl climber does really good job of, is that sort of like, oh wow, like, she puts a lot into it and therefore gets a lot out of it for herself. Awesome. And I haven't seen it yet, but clearly for the observer too. I mean, I find it amazing that humans love to see other humans accomplish great feats. I think they love to see the effort. I mean, the accomplishment, of course, but it's like, but you love seeing somebody work really hard. It's something try really hard, like face their fears overcome, and then ideally achieve something.

1:21:25But I think it's the effort that's so inspiring. I mean, at least personally, I love to see other people try that hard because it's a reminder that I can try that hard if I want to. Yeah, I completely agree. I had made this little list before we started and Trying to just let my unconscious mind guide it more than really scripting out carefully and it says Evil, can evil because when I was growing up, everything was evil, can evil turned out there are many of them It's all family. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, a bunch of evil can evil the can evils the can evils. Yeah and You know jumping, you know, whatever you know 50 maybe not 50 length length, but semi trucks and And I think that, you know, there's the element of danger, super impressive, Danny way growing up because I knew that kid who was known as a full grown man, doing all sorts of crazy stuff.

1:22:15To the point where he was starting to go after things that for scabers has felt a little bit kind of outside the box like land speed records and things like that, you know, but jumping out of helicopters and certainly grumping the Great Wall of China and just engineering it from scratch. who was super impressive. And then I've got you here, and then Hunter Thompson, like the guy just was all about how many drug experiences he could have, and then his funeral was actually, he loved the town of Aspen. He had his ashes exploded over the town of Aspen in a firework show. So that's like going out the way you lived.

1:22:50That is fitting. Right. So I think you're absolutely right, however, that we love to touch into the amount of effort in training that's recovered and that's the Rocky movies that's pretty much everything. And that's really where the work is. That should be the inspiring part, right? Because that's the part that when you get a dog. The Rocky training montage, that's the best part of the movie. I mean, a lot of those films, the best part is the training montage where it's like cuts to the person working really, really hard for a long time, like getting swole and then you get to the actual then doing the thing.

1:23:19And then doing the thing is cool, but it's like them getting ready to do the thing is off in the part that you're like, that's so awesome. I'm all fired up. Totally. It's chasing chickens and all the weird stuff. So you know, which for the non -climber, what would be the strangest aspect to your training? Do you train your feet? Do you train your hands and your feet? But it's probably the dangling from your fingertips that I think a non -climber would... I mean, also, I mean, I think that's the type of thing that a non -climber just can't even interface with, like, they just can't hang from an edge.

1:23:47You know, it's like from a small, it's like the training your fingertip type stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think that... So, though, I mean, now there have been so many mainstream climbing things that I think people have a sense of that's what it is. You like dangling tiny edges and do pull ups and all that kind of stuff. Well, I think I follow an Instagram account that's actually informative. It's a former army guy who's a rock climber. And so it's mainly focused on pull ups and things like that. And Touchin did like, if you change the speed of the initial one arm pull up, like I learned to blast through the bar, like through the above the bar and let go and then catch it again, generates a completely different sort of motor neuron adaptation response than like just doing a bunch of pull -ups or like slow, warm, arm pull -ups.

1:24:29The ability to be ballistic and then also like the eccentric, like catch yourself and lower. And it seems to have a lot of parallels with climbing. Maybe we should just go on and wall and climb. It sounds like, so I imagine if you're boldering, you end up doing all this stuff in the process of boldering. Yeah, actually, I was meeting like, so should I be going faster when I do pull -ups? because I've been like doing one arms at the end of a session, but like my one arms are pretty slow, you know, you just grab the bar and you just like struggle until you do it. Well, I mean, he talks about, you know, a lot of people can do a lot of pull -ups in full range, slow, concentric, and eccentric, but that they rarely ever get to like muscle ups or to one arm pull -ups at the kind of level that he's pulling a ton of weight because they, there are a number of things that he suggests we can link to this account.

1:25:12A lot of, there's some training of forms and brachialis and hands that's required. But he said you know that not being able to generate enough force at the beginning is a reason a lot of people don't get to the muscle up because with the muscle up You actually there's a little bit of a kip involved at least when one's first learning it And so people are used to kind of dragging themselves in low gear out of the bottom You it's gonna be a long while before they have the strength to do a muscle up Whereas if you can blast yourself out of the bum you sort of end up almost above the bar It's a point.

1:25:38Yeah, I actually just started doing muscle ups again like couple months ago and my little home gym And I was like I haven't known a muscle up since I was a teenager You know, it's like it's a kind of a gym feet when you're a kid just to see if you can and it's an adult It's just also living in a van. Obviously you can't do muscle up because there's nothing to muscle I was like, hang in for a little bar inside the band. But yeah, I started doing it again. I was like, oh, wow, that's so explosive. I was kind of like, wow, what a dude. I was so psyched I could still do. Well, yeah, then you don't need his help, but I'll suddenly, the scouts, you can take a look.

1:26:07He's got some interesting connections. I did wanna, I was like, oh, I'm going chat with Hooman. I was like, so what am I supposed to be doing? Oh, we can talk about that. But the other thing is like, well, because I've just been doing all the same training stuff for 30 years. I mean, obviously I read all the books, and all my friends are professional climbers. So we talk about this kind of stuff all the time. But there are a lot of things we're always kind of as like a self -trained, self -coached athlete to some extent, you're kind of like, should I be doing this more? Should I be doing this less?

1:26:31I was like training a bunch this summer and it was really motivated. And then I've kind of just, the pendulum is kind of just swung back to being like, do I need to do training stuff? Like the calisthenics, the extra workout stuff? Or should I just go pure climbing? Because to some extent climbing, like if you're gonna be a climber, you just climb. If you have energy left over, you should just climb harder or climb more. You don't necessarily need to save it for workout stuff and training stuff. So, I don't know. But yeah, what do you think? Okay, well, I'm not gonna tell you. I'll tell you that.

1:27:02Even though you're not a channel that changes training, especially before you take on a big milestone. I mean, all I can say is what, and I don't have a deurean exercise physiology, what I do have a degree in is 35 years of trying to get stronger. I'm naturally pretty, I would say like medium joints. I'm not like real thick joints like my bulldog, you know, like some of those guys that just have like naturally the joints But I managed to keep in some endurance and some degree of Explosivity but mostly strength and endurance have been the two main things to me the thing that has just been the most Beneficial is what Paul Sutsul and taught me when he came here, which is take a weight that you can maybe do six or seven maybe eight reps with and do three repetitions, set down and just do many more sets and rest a long period of time.

1:27:51If you have time to do that, that really like that really work those fast twitch motor units. You mean to do the reps faster? Well, no, not necessarily. So if you take a weight that you could do maximum, like you'd fail somewhere between seven and eight repetitions, you take the weight, maybe even add a little bit and you just do three repetitions, you don't go to failure, but you do many more sets. So you might do let's say some sort of push pull so like a shoulder press of some sort or And then if you could get eight you do three or four, but then you go do your pull -ups You might do your you know sort of ballistic pull -ups that we were talking about before I'm actually getting a lot of Progress from those as like trying to blast through and pass the bar and kind of catch you below I'm almost there.

1:28:32I'm I'm keeping too much when I do it So I'm doing it, but I'm kind of like throwing myself up there I'm not doing like a like a super controlled muscle up. Yeah, soon. That's the goal But not training to failure seems to be really beneficial if you don't want to eat into your recovery too much. There's something about hitting muscular failure that's great for generating hypertrophy, but it really, according to Pauvel, and I'm finding this too, it sort of teaches your nervous system to reach that static point where you can't move any longer, and it really eats into your recovery ability. So I'm able to now train muscle groups that I used to only be able to recover if I train them once or twice a week.

1:29:05I can train them like three or four days a week and I'm making much more progress overall But there's no single set where I'm like grinding out that last final rep. That's interesting so if so like so bench pressing for example like that's actually the only way that I move around is I I've been like when I'm at home and have like my own little home gym I a bench press like twice a week let's say and I feel like it's like good for shoulder stability health I like nice balance because there's a climber you're always pulling so it's like I do that's my only pushing basically And so I can do like I normally do three sets of five or six.

1:29:39It's just kind of like a Basic something. So you're saying I should do like six sets or like six to eight sets of Yeah, maybe even maybe eight sets of three to four With slightly more way, but don't go to failure and obviously have a spotter. They're these horrible instances where people are Benching at home and they don't have a dumbbells anyway. Okay, perfect. That's that's the best way to we Yeah, it seems it seems like that's the type of thing to also I kind of like the dumbbells because it seems more like so much of what I care about a shoulder stability and whatever. And I'm kind of like, oh, it seems like dumbbells are good for that.

1:30:08Yeah, barbell bench, I'm going to catch a lot of shit for this, but barbell bench press, there's a lot of ego involved for it. Yeah, it's too showy. I'm like, I don't know how to fish it. I've never actually done a single rep max for barbell bench press. Never been curious enough. Because you don't have enough friends to spot that. I don't have a chance exactly. You've like six guys to go for a car. All alone, I'm studying, and I'm bench pressing alone in my basement. Another reason to use dumbbells, but yet, taking a weight that you could do seven or eight repetitions in doing three or four or maybe five, and then just setting it down and going doing something else, maybe for an opposing muscle group, and then coming back to it, so that your total rest is somewhere.

1:30:42I might try that particularly from the benching because I do actually get kind of sore from like, you know, it's just the sore socks. And you get really strong. I never would have thought this because I came up in the lineage of, I learned from Mike Menser, who was like, he was an ex -body builder, but then he trained Dorian Yates, one of the Olympia many times, And that whole philosophy was around doing one or two sets to absolute failure with four strips and drop sets and all the all the stuff that builds up a lot of muscle but makes you very sore. And so, Pavel sat right where you're sitting and he was just like try this, find movements you can do safely, load up the bar and do far fewer reps, many more sets.

1:31:20And perhaps even divide those sets across two days during the week as you're already doing, supposed to just training a muscle group once per week. To people do that, doing something once a week. I only train my legs once a week and I'm getting stronger most every workout, but I sprint on a separate day So that's kind of a leg workout. Yeah, it seems like I like I don't have great recovery ability never have so it's And you know pushing 50 and what's that and I'm pushing 50 and I didn't run from the valley floor Exactly, I definitely Have found that if I avoid going to muscular Momentary muscular failure as it's called far less soreness far better recovery and you get really strong which is crazy, you would think the opposite.

1:31:59Yeah, do you think once a week is enough stimulus -based lead to like build? If you do enough sets, but probably twice, you know, the data seem to show that the muscle protein synthesis is initiated after those workouts, and then it takes anywhere from 48 to 72 hours before it subsides. I just personally find if I train my legs once a week, but then I sprint four or five days later, that's sort of two leg workouts. Yeah. So it's really twice a week. And then I do a push pull day and then I do a separate day for my arms and extremities and and and that ends up training You know chest and shoulders and back again.

1:32:34So it's really twice per week One is directly you and all your stuff basically twice a week But everything has like really heavy never going. I don't think I've done above eight reps this year I'm stronger than ever and I can run really far Which is so the two things I was a lot of you do a long run during the week or so I do one for me very long run Which means an hour to an hour and a half or just running with a 10 pound weight vest. Oh why? Just to make sure that the small stabilizing muscles are strong and also because I want to be able to just show up to CloudsRest and just do it. I don't want to have to train for things in life.

1:33:05Yeah. And also I love running. I mean, just that slow pace at first, just it sucks. And then after about 20 minutes, you just feel like I could go all day. This is awesome. I don't know. That's been my regimen now for almost 35 years to train each muscle group once a week, directly and directly, along run and I try and do one sprint run. But again, I'm not going to tell Alex Honnold had a train, but you might find it looking for ideas. If you don't like getting sore and you want to get stronger, you're hearing it from me, but it's really povlsutsool and that deserves the credit for this. Yeah, no, I'll try that for sure, because particularly with something like benching, where it's like, I don't really care about pushing muscles, but when you're pack or whatever this muscle is, like, you know, attacking your shoulders, like, yeah, it's like so sore and then that kind of affects all your pulling as well.

1:33:52So you're kind of like, oh, you just don't need to get that sword doing something that's like a side activity anyway. Yeah Yeah, yeah, and I'm guessing you're already getting it from your climbing, but I found that Anytime I'm doing pushing, which is you know, basically all the time Making sure that train like some rear rear deltoid type thing where you're pulling getting that smaller muscle on the back of the shoulders Because a lot of people you don't have this problem But if you look at a lot of people lift weights if they just stand passively, their thumbs kind of point towards their groin.

1:34:21Like they're kind of internally rotated. Yeah, we're as, if you look at people who kind of do like the faunzy thing, like you want your shoulder, you want your thumbs like if you're just a stand or sit naturally, your thumbs pointing straight forward. So you're thinking like, like I met Mike Tyson and like he's like this, but like he's spent his whole life in that peekaboo stance, right? Then you meet people like you or people who practice yoga regularly or the really like most impressive postures and physiques are the dancers. Eric Jarvis was on this podcast. He's a neuroscientist, but he was accepted into the Allen, is an Allen Aveli dance company.

1:34:56He was like a elite dance company, or you see like a twilight Thorpe who's in her 80s. And like, she doesn't look like she's rigidly upright. She's just upright. And that's how I want to be when I'm in my 80s. But that's so hard. Well, it's just, she spends two hours a day in the gym, seven days a week, five a .m. to seven a .m. She's and she's in her 80s. That's and then three hard boiled eggs and then she gets to work like yeah Well, she's I'm like that's a healthy lifestyle. She's and cognitively. She's just so strong. Oh, yeah Yeah, no climbers definitely have issues with posture like that because if you spend your whole life just pulling like you know Climbing if you just climb you're just doing pulling things and so you want to like or they are like You kind of want to punch.

1:35:38I think it's because like you still use some of these muscles for for pulling and so you just want kind of tight in different ways. Yeah, but, yeah. So things like that, I think you put you into bridge pose and like in like spinal extension, those seem to be very useful. Yeah, as I, again, I'm not a lead athlete or even a competitive athlete, but I find that doing things that just like a long slow run, a sprint day, training heavy with weights, but being able to, you know, run for 30 minutes. I mean, it's just, I don't think I need a degree in exercise physiology. It just, it just makes sense here.

1:36:09I'm trying to be upper end of average at everything, but that's very different than what you're trying to do. Obviously, you're an elite athlete. Yeah, but some of the stuff like running, I went for one hour run yesterday. I've been trying to run one day a week, just like for an hour once a week. And then I try to do one cardio adventure once a week, which is like climbing mountain or do something. Anywhere from like two to four hours, let's say, but hopefully with like 3000 plus feet of earth or something, just like go up a thing, kind of trot down. And that's kind of enough to maintain cardio.

1:36:40I mean, this is kind of like family lifestyle because the thing is like when I was living in a van by myself, you're just doing that stuff on a rest day all the time because you're kind of like, oh, I'm gonna sum up this new peak or like check out this hike or do whatever. But now that I'm living in a place and taking kids to school and all that, it's like I kind of have to be a little more structured with just like I'm gonna go. But so, yeah, now I'm definitely thinking about all this a little more, is this enough cardio? Is this work? But I think that that lays a good foundation to be able to do things.

1:37:05It's like I'm going to be in the 70 this season and you know, I'm aspiring to climb stuff on all cap Not for selling necessarily or not for selling at all, but maybe some like ripped -selling maybe some speed stuff Maybe whatever but either way, I just want to be able to climb 3000 feet relatively quickly without being that tired And so it seems like for running or for mountain climbing is like oh, you just have to be able to do that kind of vertical without getting Too fatigued. Yeah, I think the one day a week long run one day a week like 30 minute run at a faster clip and then one day a week sprint training.

1:37:36I mean, you're covering all bases there. That's three days a week of running though. I don't like 11 minutes. Yeah, but one of them is like 12 minutes long. You warm up for three minutes. It's sprint training 12 minutes. Yeah, because you know, you warm up and then you run a 400, you know, and then you walk a lap, you do a 200, you walk a lap, you do a 100, and like you're going not all out, all out. But close. Yeah, you can hurt yourself sprinting all out, all out. We had Stuart Millen, who's an elite sprint coach, which trains a lot of Olympians and gold my lesson. Yeah, running full speed is like how you hurt yourself.

1:38:09You do pop a hands, string or something. Are you at a track? I prefer doing a track. Sometimes I'll do it in the soft sand. And when I use a vest, I should say, and I have no sponsorship relationship to them. A more faux makes these vests that are like, like it looks like it's kind of funny to call it this, but it looks more like a kind of vest that you know, you'd, you know, like a dress vest. It's got little ball bearings in it. So it's not like like one of those like police type vests. Yeah, it's not and so that eight or ten pounds that they make up to 12 pounds I think it's just enough to give you some extra work on that long run and then on the day when you sprint you feel like you have you know Jet propulsion You know you I feel like that I have realized I don't but yeah Totally don't and then all the little stabilizer things like you don't have any like it's like aching Like you're not really you seem like a very balanced in terms of your overall structure That's one thing that I really know is to about climbers.

1:39:01Like you see guys that are in the gym, I've spent a fair amount of time in gyms, and there's this phenotype where they've got these big wide shoulders, wide back, and the whole thing, and then they got like this little head and a little neck, and they go, well, they're upper spot, and they're not training their neck, and it looks crazy. I'm not sure if anyone has told them this, but they like, you know, I walk by, and I'm like, don't skip neck day, you know, but, you know, when a body is out of balance like that, like if you saw a giant dog with a tiny head and neck, you'd be like, that dog is crazy looking.

1:39:26So there are a lot of dog breeds like that where you're like that dog. You know, it's hard to believe it came from wolf. Exactly. You're so ingred. So, right, the healthiest version of something can move best is always fairly balanced. It seems like climbers are very balanced. No, I think climbing is one of the healthiest sports and like lifestyles. And also, it's so fun. Like, going to a gym, you hang out with your friends. It's like, it's mostly really chill. You mostly hang out and chit -chat. And like, if you do a gym session, you feel like you just went and hung out with your friends all the time.

1:39:52But then you also wind up fit and mobile and, you know, pretty strong. and so much of climbing a strength to weight and so you just wind up kind of like lean and not like a big gym, gym bro kind of thing. Which I think is healthier is one age, too. Like you want to maintain muscle and hold on to muscle, but there's all sorts of things associated with being heavily muscled where people end up with some kind of sleep apnea or pseudo sleep apnea because then the neck is thick and that blocks the air waves. And sleep apnea is one of the biggest health risks. It, you know, people not just heart attacks during sleep, but I mean, you're basically clogging all the blood flow and cleaning out of your brain that happens to sleep is very, very common in bigger people either because they're fat or heavily muscled.

1:40:32But it's one of the reasons a lot of bodybuilders don't have to put on that much muscle. Well, you can clearly generate a lot of force doing what you're doing. I'm curious how you deal with cramps when you're on the rock. Like, you know, you just don't really cramp. You don't cramp? Yeah, not really. I've never. I mean, sometimes, you know, if you're trying to climb all -cappin' a day, like an 18 -hour a cent or something like climbing with a rope, but free of sense. Like basically if you're doing a really long climbs, some of my friends sometimes will cramp because you're like late into, you know, post 12 hours into an athletic activity or just a little more likely.

1:41:04But I never, I never have pretty much in general all my athletic performance is always a steady decline where I start and I'm doing great and then over the next, you know, 10 to 48 hours I just slowly get worse at a relatively linear rate except that normally before sunrise at the next day, it starts to drop quite a bit more. You start getting close to 24 hours, you're like, I'm pretty fucking tired. But then when the sun comes up, you've really jumped loose back up again. And so then you're pretty good again. You just keep on the linear decline. So these are all night climbs? Yeah, I've done quite a number of things now that are more than 24 hour outings.

1:41:40That's typically climbing or mountain glissar, you're hiking and climbing and then hiking some more and climbing some more doing whatever. But yeah, generally, you know, by 24 to 36 hours, you're just a worse version of what you used to be. Right. You're just, you're just tired. Right. And risk goes up when you're sleep deprived. I mean, that's, uh... Well, like, where, yeah, judgment gets worse, uh, uh, reflexes get worse. Like, everything is worse. Sleep is, is key. Yeah, that's circadian clock phenomenon where, like, you've been up all night, but then you start waking up again. It's, uh... Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

1:42:11I mean also some of it with outdoor stuff is that just when you can see again It was like you've been going by headlamp for so long and typically by that point your headlamp is kind of dying You just don't see that well and then the sun comes up and you're like thank God and it's not cold anymore It's like this sun. So you get this like breath of fresh air and then you just keep grinding Have you Ever had or do you have any kind of like leaning storage like this like mystical experiences? like do you do you believe in any of that? No, I've always been a fierce atheist. Technically I was race Catholic, so like I know religion a bit.

1:42:48And I've just never, I've always been like, you know, it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm like, yeah, I'm strongly unreligious. Though I mean, I've been in so many beautiful places on Earth and had so many, you know, what some would characterize as a spiritual experience is like feeling a oneness with nature, like a connection, you know, or just awe -inspiring beauty, you know, when you're somewhere and you look out and you're like, I thought the universe is so incredible. This is like the world is a magical place. So, you know, I'm certainly open to general spiritualism, I suppose, or, you know, but now I'm very opposed to organized religion, basically.

1:43:21Biology is on -spiring. Yeah, that's the thing is I'm like, I think there's enough wonder in the world and in the universe without adding all the layers of dogma, basically, like all the weird things that you don't really need to believe. I can't help but tell you this because I find it fascinating and I think you might find interesting if not then forgive me. Speaking of Berkeley, there was a laboratory at Berkeley that wanted to understand how geckos could walk up walls and for a long time it was thought that it was like suction of some sort but then it turns out they could do it in a vacuum so it means that you can't be suction.

1:43:55It turns out they have these little pedals on on their fingertips. And they can push those pedals, they're like feather, like feathers, they can push them so close to the surface that they're climbing, that they use what are called Vanderroll forces, which is the exchange of molecules between the surface and those pedals. And they're making and breaking those Vanderroll forces as they climb. So as the fighter man, so as you go, stay in. So as they climb, they're exchanging molecules with the surface that are climbing, Which I find absolutely amazing. I realize that's not how you're climbing. I'm sweating all over the wall So it's kind of the same idea And I'm leaving skin behind You're like, oh my goodness, it hurts.

1:44:35Well, you may not feel a kinship to them But I have a feeling they feel a kinship to you because they're they are world -class climbers I just find it amazing that they've evolved some way to literally exchange molecules So you spend a lot of time on the rock. I'm sure that you're carrying some some granite in you by now Yeah, for sure for sure. Now that's cool. I mean you see a lot of creatures on walls like that. You know you see like little frogs wandering up and down. I mean even something like okay that looks like a 3 ,000 foot solid cliff. I mean they're they're rodents running up and down the cracks.

1:45:04They're frogs in there. They're all kinds of birds. They're bats. So you see all these creatures roaming around. You're just kind of like, they're just living. They're just up here doing their thing. And you know I mean climbing is so relatively hard for humans. And then you're up there and like this just it's just all part of the natural environment for all the other creatures. I didn't realize their frogs up there. I've seen birds go by. I think there are a couple clips in for some of those birds go by. Yeah, they live in all the cracks often. When you put your hands in, birds will run down your arm and fly out of the crack and it's like that.

1:45:30It's startling. Yeah, it's startling. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's very startling the first time and then less startling this subsequent time. But you're always going to like, oh, wow, Swift just ran down my arm. That's what it was like. It's cool. Well, Alex, you've inspired and continued to inspire so many people. and I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's the effort involved. You know, I think that many people might think it's the summoning and like standing on top of the rock and that those are moments that thanks to you. We've been fortunate enough to share and experience, you know, indirectly.

1:46:04But clearly it's the effort involved. And I actually think that's why people are so intrigued by what you do. In addition to the fact that it's in beautiful places and incredibly high -risk high -consequence, It's like you, it's so clear that you're regimented and you end that you love what you do. And that you put a ton of effort into it. And the way you describe climbing with your friends, I think, is the best hook sales pitch for climbing ever. Like hanging out with your friends, talking and getting better and physically healthier. And it puts you in a place to go have bigger adventures and experience life more richly.

1:46:37Let's also get you back sometime after this next big feat. We can't talk too much about it. It'll be amazing. Awesome.

1:47:06Alright, well we'll see you after that climb. Cool, thank you.

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