From Opioid Addiction to Becoming the Fastest Marathon Runner in the World - With Ken Rideout

32:55Ken Rideout:Yeah. Well, my wife knew eventually in my relationship that I was struggling with like drug addiction. My wife grew up like very straight lace, like she had never done drugs. So eventually in our relationship, she figured out like, oh, something's up with this guy. He's like too unstable. It's too inconsistent. And she eventually like found drugs, you know, like I was just naive. And she eventually looked through my stuff, found the drugs. I was like, why do you have all these pills? And, uh, cause at one point I'd have the whole entire like pharmacy bottle, like a thousand pills. And I just have them in my medicine cabinet of like thousand, 10 milligram Percocets that I would just buy on the street.

33:33Ken Rideout:And, um, so she knew that, but I didn't tell her the depths of the addiction and she didn't really have experience with addiction enough to know that I was like physically like deep in this. And, um, we, when we got married before we even, when we first started dating, I told her I want to adopt some kids because I when I think about my own childhood I was like I'd love to take someone out of that environment and not that adopting a daughter might I mean she might have been destined to be the queen of Ethiopia I don't know it's not something that I look at like oh I did her a solid or I saved her she did more for me than I did for her so I never look at it like I'm the savior I just viewed it as there was a need and I wanted to fill it and when we started adoption the adoption process I said let's look internationally where we can make the most difference I didn't it could have been anywhere russia china there's only a few countries you can't adopt from you can't just be like i'm gonna go to ghana and adopt that's not how it works and um we were also trying to have our own kids struggling we had seven rounds of in vitro three miscarriages no unexplained infertility there was no rhyme or reason and you know people be like oh you gotta relax and i would have thought like i'm into science man that doesn't make any sense to me like he science doesn't work like relaxing helps but we get matched with my daughter and newborn we were approved for twins but they called us said she's three weeks old do you want her and I was like yes but I also knew we're going to get her in a month the jig is up my runway is now one month long to get sober and which I've never been able to do and maintain sobriety for a long time but I knew that there was a drug called Vivitrol that if I could get sober for one week have no drugs in my system they would give me Vivitrol and it would block all the opioid receptors in my brain and I wouldn't be able to get high even if I wanted to.

35:21Ken Rideout:So I went to an outpatient detox facility in New York called Parallax where they give you like a medically, they give you medically assisted withdrawal, an outpatient setting. So I would go in the morning, they'd give me Ritalin to stay awake, blood pressure medicine, one Xanax pill to go to sleep at night, sleeping medicine. And I mean, I was sick. I would wake up in the middle of the night drenched through the whole bed and she's sweating profusely, like almost like my body was in like panic mode. And I'm getting through it. I'm getting to the third day. And the fourth day I go to bed, I wake up to go to the bathroom and I black out.

35:57Ken Rideout:I don't, obviously I don't remember this, but I do remember waking up on the floor to my wife screaming over me, like what is going on? And just in a moment of like weakness or strength, I don't know. I was just like, this is what's going on. And I'm like, looking at her, looking at the balcony, we lived in like this gorgeous high rise apartment. Cause again like i'm making money we're living in a high-rise apartment like the 50th floor in a glass building in new york city views of the empire state building and i'm looking at her and i'm looking at the balcony and i'm like i'm gonna make a run for it and just jump off the balcony i couldn't take the pain i was in physically and emotionally and i obviously i didn't jump and i told her like yo this is what's going on i'm so ashamed of myself i'm a piece of shit i don't deserve this.

36:38Ken Rideout:You don't deserve this. Like I want to die. And, you know, she, to her credit was like, you know, same way I gave her the pep talk about cancer. She's like, you got to cut the shit right now. Like we have a fucking child that we're going to pick up, stop this. And when she said that, I was like, Oh, what, what am I doing? I'm not a wimp. Like I'm not, this is not who I am. And then, you know, it was easier having her know about it. And I powered my way through the next three days and that's also when I started running as a form of penance slash torture I was like no you put yourself in this effing position now watch what's gonna happen I was running and sweating and freezing and just a freaking mess like every day I was like I'm gonna drop dead while I'm running but there was a part of me that's like good you deserve it got to seven days they gave me the Vivitrol and I was good to go we went to Ethiopia adopted my daughter and while we were there so we we went for a week we adopt my daughter in the court um and then you have to wait about two months for the documents to get processed by the u.s embassy which sounds crazy but you're in a third world country it's like very all paperwork no like computers at the time this is 2010 and uh i mean this i could write a whole book about the process of adopting her while i'm there the first week my wife must have gotten pregnant that week because i come home and a couple weeks later i'm gonna go back over thanksgiving to stay with them for a week and then my mother-in-law was gonna fly over the last week and fly home with my wife and daughter and so my wife's living in a guest house in addisababa in like really rough conditions like the bed was just a box spring no mattress so i went out and bought an egg crate thing to put on top it was like sleeping on a hardwood floor um the lot the power would go out every night in the middle of night in the guest house and they had a big like diesel truck engine generator in the front of the courtyard that they'd fire up and it was like i mean it was it was so crazy looking back at the time i was like i can't believe how rough this is and you'd smell uh fire camp like cooking fires burning every night and every time now i smell those kind of fires i said to my wife oh my god smells like ethiopia remember how great that was she goes you were a cry baby the whole time we were there how much you hated i go i know but there's something romantic now thinking about what we were there for how it happened and it's just crazy how you like recreate these moments but i'd get up every morning go to get coffee and i'd run through adesababa and even though ethiopians like got tons of runners and stuff they don't live in adesababa in the inner city and then i'd walk past this dude around my age a little bit younger probably like in his late 20s and he would be lifting weights with it was literally like a tree branch with two blocks of concrete on the end of the thing that he had made with like a bucket of concrete on each end and he'd just be lifting weights doing different exercise couldn't speak a lick of english and i'd just go by with hand signals and be like yo you mind if i work out with you and i'd work out with this guy for like 30 minutes we would be communicating but not speaking and it was just like i said when i think back on i'm like there's something romantic about it but it was not fun when i was there i was like i can't wait to get home so my wife comes home she's pregnant i take a pregnancy test with her with me when I go back and she's pregnant but she had been pregnant and had three miscarriages so I wasn't like yes we did it and she came home was pregnant my son was due on my daughter's first birthday he came a few weeks early and we went from zero kids and nine months later having two kids wow yeah and then we have four we have three biological boys and they're all all of the children birthdays are within like a five-week spread all in June and July.

40:16Ken Rideout:So she got pregnant around the same fertility window in like October-ish and had the kids every time in late June, early July. Wow. Incredible, man.

40:25Shawn Stevenson:Crazy. You know, that part of the story really hit different too, because, you know, she was kind of sick. You had been sick. It's just like, what's going on?

40:33Ken Rideout:I got pneumonia while I was in Ethiopia a second time. Came home, went straight to the emergency room. I thought they were going to have to call an ambulance for me. I mean, I thought I was going to die. And Tensei, my daughter, had giardia, I think, and was like severely malnourished like big distended belly every time my wife would feed her she would throw up just like she put her down to go to sleep and she would like have like just she would just make them things were coming out of every end she was just and we couldn't figure it out went to like seven different emergency rooms in addis ababa ethiopia she came home and i the doctors never figured out exactly what it was they thought it was jadia but within like a week or two of being home she looked Like I tell my wife, she looks like she just got off a cruise.

41:14Ken Rideout:She got, she gained weight so quickly and just was like, like she could barely open her eyes. She got so fat and it was just awesome. And then, you know, nine months later, we bring home my son and the two of them have been like inseparable ever since. And it's been a challenge, man. Like having a biracial family and having a black daughter is like, you know, it definitely presents as challenges because she's not, she's hyper aware of the differences but living in nashville now i will say i have to say the black community in nashville where we live in brentwood has been so incredible i'll get emotional talking about them they instinctively some of the guys and it was like ran carthon who was the gm for the titans um the guy bought my house from chris spencer played for the titans offensive linemen like really awesome cool successful athletes business people it's almost like they could sense yo let me get you up to speed here because i'd always be like my daughter's gonna go to college she's not in touch with the culture she's like a fish out of water and i don't want that for her she's like reserved she's a nice kid but she's not aggressive so they invite us to everything they're like hey you want to send tensei over here the girls are coming over and it's like it it's heartwarming i'm like no one is that friendly to us they would go out of their way to be like hey we're going to the church bring tensei to this like she should be here and it's just man it's refreshing yeah that's another testament to to

42:42Shawn Stevenson:you man you attract what you are you know hey hey listen um a big part of this too you know with you you said this earlier with you know the doctors like oh you just need to calm down yeah and i'm i'm a big science guy obviously yeah but there was something that really kind of stood out and it was it felt like life was qualifying you to be a father yeah and like preventing you in the time when shit was like the worst yeah from bringing a kid into that yep you know and just the timing of things and so to see this evolution and to see this change that happened in you from you know this addiction that was insidious crept up on you and kind of took over to directing that addictive energy into running.

43:27Shawn Stevenson:All right. So let's unpack that a little bit because some, obviously, and people are going to know your story and everybody's got to pick up a copy of this book, but the things that you've accomplished running are, I mean, to say remarkable is, it's an understatement. Like it doesn't make any sense. It's incredible, but you know, can you talk about some of those early races that you got involved in and just your mindset and, and you know, the process of going

43:53Ken Rideout:through that yeah so i i was running in um to get sober and i was boxing for the new york athletic club for years and i my knee was bothering me i had a tight it band and um i had some friends in work that were like into cycling and there's a big cycling community in uh central park in new york and central park guys ride there by early in the morning like a huge peloton looks like the tour of france i mean a lot of them are huge nerds but i count myself as one of those nerds and uh i didn't these guys were like they were super nice but they were like talking like they were like one step away from qualifying for the tour themselves so i got a bike expecting them to trounce me and i was like pretty good and then i started thinking like these maybe i don't know if i'm good or they stink but i just became obsessed with cycling and there was a duathlon in central park where you run two miles bike 12 run two and i was like i'm gonna do this race i can run a little bit.

44:47Ken Rideout:I mean, I was running like, if I ran a seven minute mile, I was psyched. You know, if I could run, I had run a marathon earlier in my life, just as when I moved to New York and in like three hours and 20 minutes. And then I did one at three 30. So, you know, I was right around that seven minute, seven minute mark, which I think those early marathons were like eight minutes, but I liked running and, but I wasn't a good runner by any means, but I wasn't great. i wasn't a like complete you know unathletic goon i like knew enough to be athletic you know and how to try and how to have determination so i did that race and i got trounced and learned a lot maybe i finished like 20th it might have been a couple hundred people and then i went back the next year and came in second and i was like oh oh i'm into this and this kind of training became a new addiction and a new obsession and you know over the years therapists would ask like don't you think you've replaced one addiction with another and i would always say like well one addiction had me wanting to kill myself and the other addiction has me feeling proud of myself and that all that to say that's not the answer like you don't have to find an obsession and be addicted with something and i'm always aware of like not letting that take over either and i always try to find a balance and not inconvenience my family with my fitness addiction um but yeah i I did a bunch of triathlons.

46:10Ken Rideout:And of course, like any addict, I was like, after a couple of races, I'm like, what's the best race in the world? What's the big one? And it was Hawaii Ironman. And I was like, I'm going to do the Hawaii Ironman. And the people who were in the sport were like, you know, they dismissed me like, get out of here. Do you know how long people train to qualify for that? And it's very difficult to qualify just to get there. But to me, it was like getting qualifying for the Olympics. So I put everything I had into it. And I barely qualified at the New York City Ironman the first time they had one and because it was a new race there were extra qualifying slots there was just it was basically like I found this little loophole where I can like if I do everything right I can sneak in there and I did I had the last spot available for my age group it goes by age group so if there's like 10 spots if you're not at the registration the day after the race then they're like okay Joe Smith you here no okay rolls down to the next guy and I like it rolled down two spots and I was like yes to me I was like I made it I'm going to the Olympics and it was like a month or two later and I just discounted how actually hard that race is got out onto the run course I'm like skipping over a bunch of it but it's in detail in the book I get there my wife's there I got two little kids my wife's right on the main drag on a leahy drive where the run starts and I start running after swimming the ocean two and a half miles bike 112 miles in the Hawaiian heat and wind and then you start a marathon around one or two o 'clock in the afternoon and it was hot and I was tired.

47:34Ken Rideout:I saw my wife and I was like, ah, I can't finish. I'm going to throw in the towel. And she's like, are you serious? You're going to quit? And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to win. I just basically told myself every story I had to justify quitting. And as soon as I did it and walked back to the study area, I'm like, oh my God, what have I done? I carry that burden with me now. And I always say the pain of quitting lasts so much longer than the thrill of victory because I still know that feeling of being a quitter. But I will say when that happened, I vowed to myself, I'm like, I will never quit again.

48:10Ken Rideout:I would die first because I don't like the way this is making me feel. And that mindset like really took over my like athletic endeavors. And I went back the next year, did like a 939. And to qualify for that race i did iron man wisconsin and came in like fifth or sixth overall in a huge iron man like i was in theory i was like in contention to win the entire race and uh won my age group the 40 plus 40 to 45 40 to 44. qualified went back did like a 939 in kona which is i was proud of and uh eventually had four kids and i was like all right i i don't have enough time to train for Ironman and we moved to LA in January of 16 and I just started focusing on running.

48:54Ken Rideout:But again, I had no intention or no goal of like winning a marathon or being a competitive runner. I was just keeping my time and mind occupied and literally like just working away in darkness and anonymity. No one knew who I was. I was just running up in the mountains right near here between calabasas and pacific palisades that's actually that's where i met reggie miller who wrote an awesome blurb for my book he would be riding his bike i'd be running there would be no one else around and i'd see him almost every day in the morning like sun's coming up reggie he'd be like let's go ken which is crazy i mean it's like michael jordan i mean like and and talk about a nice guy i send him a dm he's like yo what's up man love seeing you out there and i asked him hey I feel terrible asking, would you write a blurb?

49:42Ken Rideout:He's like, oh, it'd be my honor. And he just wrote an awesome blurb for the book. It's just the things that I've done and the people that I've met all through running. I mean, I wouldn't be here sitting with you if it wasn't for showing, using running to kind of display who I really am. But it wasn't my goal, wasn't to be like a well-known runner. I mean, my Instagram sucks. Like, I don't know what I'm doing on social media. I try to like do the minimum just to like keep a presence. and now i have brand deals and stuff but it never feels natural to me to be like talking to the camera and i always feels performative and narcissistic and i just i've gotten better at it but it was never my goal but now like i was telling you earlier several times a week a month i'll say to my wife like can you believe i don't have a job and she's like you got 10 jobs and i'm like i know but i love doing those i don't think of it as work it's fun all the things i'm doing is like this, it's cliche.

50:38Ken Rideout:It sounds cliche, but chasing your passions and doing things that you genuinely love and figuring out a way to turn that into a profession is the greatest thing you could ever do for yourself. But it doesn't come without risk. People are like, how did you switch jobs? How did you make this change? That's why I wrote the book. How did you do it? I guess what? I just showed up, jumped in and was like, I don't know how to swim, but I'm going to jump in and say, when I did Ironman, I didn't know how to swim. I could swim if I fell off a boat, but I couldn't swim a lap. I just showed up at the New York Athletic Club.

51:07Ken Rideout:They were literally former Olympians in the pool. That place is real athletes. Jumped in the pool, started swimming, and I would just ask the people next to me, hey, buddy, watch me swim down and back. Tell me what I'm doing wrong. And after a couple of days, a couple of times, and they see you showing up every day, they almost like adopted me like a pet project. Guys would be like, all right, get on my feet. You're going to draft behind me. We're going to swim here. We're going to do 100 meters down. We'll rest 10 seconds. And it took on a life of its own. And I became like, not a good swimmer, but good enough that if you saw me swim, you'd be like, oh, he's a real swimmer.

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54:27Shawn Stevenson:The lemonade salt is incredible, especially if you're doing anything where you're sweating a lot. That lemonade salt, it's different. So again, head over there, check them out. Drinklmnt.com forward slash model. And now back to the show. Now, when you started winning some races, I noticed something really remarkable in the book. And you started to really be more proactive, or at least sharing in the book, of coaching other people and giving advice to the people who you're competing against. Yeah. Right? And there's obviously a place where you're doing whatever it takes to beat somebody. But also, at the end of the day, you're still a big fan of greatness and excellence.

55:09Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. You could see it, you know what it takes to show up and to do something like that. And for you to be self-aware of all those pieces is remarkable. But I wanna ask you about something specific because this process of you becoming an elite runner, which again, on paper, all the things wouldn't add up to you being the person that you had become, but you actually, you've got a check. Yeah, a couple of them. And that you shared as well. Like, yeah, checks coming in from your accomplishments in these particular races. And so people might hear that and just like, man, there's just something innate in him that gets him up and able to perform like this.

55:48Shawn Stevenson:But you shared the dread that you would feel waking up those mornings, knowing that you have this race ahead of you. Oh my God. And you shared this ratio that you live by, that you articulated so well, this 49-51. Talk about that a little bit.

56:02Ken Rideout:Yeah. Like I was saying to you, Like my children, sometimes when they're playing sports, I can tell that they look nervous, like especially in football. My son was like up at bat in baseball and he kept stepping out of the box in every pitch, like almost shying away from the ball. And I was like, buddy, it looks like you're scared. And he said, I am. And I said, OK, everyone is scared. Everyone is scared of everything. I've been in the I've been I have worked the corner of world championship fights. fights i've been in the locker room before ufc fights with champions and i've seen the fear in their eyes and i matter of fact i was talking to dustin poirier recently he's like dude i was in the locker room one time with a guy from my camp and he was crying before the fight he was like i don't want to go out there he was going but he's like i don't want to do this and what i said to my kids is like you have to know that everyone is scared i'm sure michael jordan before game seven would be like man I'm scared that I don't you know not not scared but I'm like I care and that's part of caring is like having that element of fear the problem is you have to if you can't get past the fear you have to get comfortable doing things while you're scared and that's what I have been able to do and when I'm on the start line like you said I'll wake up for that race like I feel good feel good until the night before and then I'm like why did I sign up for this I'm so scared especially is I started to win races and started to become like kind of known in the running community.

57:27Ken Rideout:Cause then in my mind, even if it wasn't true, I'm like, I know they're all trying to kill me. They all want to beat me. Even if that isn't their reality, that's what I tell them. This is my process. And that voice in my head would be like, yo, I, why did you do this? We could have be home sleeping. I could have stayed up late, watched the UFC, slept in, hung out with the kids and just had a fun weekend. Instead, I'm in this like mad anxiety situation. I have to wake up at four o 'clock in the morning. The race starts at seven. I got to warm up. But then there would be the other voice that was like only 1 % louder.

58:00Ken Rideout:So it would be like 51 % of my personality or my inner dialogue would be like, no, F all this. We're killing everyone in a competitive, friendly way. But before the race, I was aggressive and not like the friendliest guy in the world. But the minute the race is over, I love everyone. But leading up to the race, I would get into this state of mind of like, no no this is everything like we are i will die to win and i know that people will hear that and think that i'm kind of crazy which i am but i would also say everybody wants to win and do well but no one wants to carry the burden and deal with the bullshit that comes with getting in a position to win the obsessive training the early mornings i take the kids skiing in aspen guess what i'm running 10 miles up and down the side of the mountain i've run 10 miles every single day for five years.

58:49Ken Rideout:I post everything on Strava. It's publicly available 4 ,000 miles a year, not for anyone else. It's just, that's my process. So that when I show up to a race, even if things aren't perfect, I know that there's a certain amount of fitness that I can tap into from that kind of volume that I've put down for years and that consistency. But yeah, those, the feelings of dread and fear are like incredible. It's, I don't like it, but it has fueled me and I I just need to control that dialogue. And I notice it even when it happens in business and in life, I got a call that I don't really want to do. I've got to pitch this thing.

59:26Ken Rideout:I've got to ask for this deal. I don't want to do it. But then I just tell myself like, well, you don't have to want to do it, but you're doing it. And it's like my kids like that. I don't want to brush my teeth. I'm like, I get it. I don't want to like have to take a shower. I don't want to do this, but I'm doing it. And every night you're going to brush your teeth, whether you like it or not. so instead of telling yourself dad I don't want to brush my teeth just say you know what I'm gonna flip this I'm gonna flip the script on my dad and I'm gonna be like dad brush my teeth you don't even have to ask me the smell of my breath because they'll be like I brush my teeth and I go in I'm like this toothbrush doesn't even look wet and then they were like yeah it is wet I'm like let me smell your breath and I'm like you didn't brush your teeth smells like you've been eating like Snickers bars and like not brushing for a week and they you know I clown with the little guys all the time, but that's the key to all of this is like doing the things you don't want to do.

1:00:18Ken Rideout:Short-term discomfort for a long time pleasure. I tell the kids, yo, I don't want to study either. I didn't want to do this. But here's the secret of life for you. There are certain dues that have to be paid. You can pay them now. Do your hard work now, get a good job, work for a little while, and then have the comfort to say like, I don't have to do anything I don't want to do anymore because you can build a little cushion or you cannot pay your dues now dig yourself a hole have a shitty job you don't like work for like you know till you're 70 because you haven't saved enough money to do the things you want to do so I always tell them guys pay me now or pay me later no one's getting out of here without paying and that's the truth of life I mean you know it if you didn't do the things that you've done you could be working in a job that you might not like but instead you're doing things that you like and you feel proud of and you figure out a way to monetize it that doesn't happen magically no one is they'll tell you you're crazy chasing your dreams and then when you reach them certain people will tell you how lucky you are and it's like no there's no real luck a matter of fact i think i'm unlucky but i refuse to let the unluckiness dictate the course of my life yeah because i don't feel lucky i feel like very unlucky which is why i wanted to adopt a kid because i was like i don't want anyone to go through what i went through

1:01:33Shawn Stevenson:man i mean i'm speechless man i was i was speechless many times just reading the book and wanting to articulate and you know explain it to my wife i'm just like you don't you i'll tell you later you know it's it's incredible man and it's a real testament it's a reminder you know uh we we have a crisis right now in our world especially in the united states a comfort crisis and you know our genes literally expect us to do certain things to have certain stressful inputs to become more to adapt to grow to really express our capacity and when you don't do that like it becomes like a sickness it becomes like a haze that many people are living life in and just feeling like there's so much more, there's something I'm missing and not really feeling connected or on their purpose.

1:02:24Shawn Stevenson:And you're addressing that head on, this comfort crisis and even the book, everything you want is on the other side of hard and reminding of us of the benefit of doing difficult things. And not just that, but to schedule that shit, to make it a part of your life routinely, because if you choose it or not, hard is coming. And so if you could, can you share for everybody in closing, I want to ask you about one of your greatest victories out there on the road and take us through whatever race that is for you and what you learned from that experience.

1:03:06Ken Rideout:well i can tell you about the race i did in mongolia that really got a lot of attention called the gobi march um and i did that a couple years ago um a friend of mine was the ceo at equinox uh scott derue and who's now the ceo of ironman former dean of michigan business school he called me and he asked me some advice he was going to do this race and he's telling me um he's describing the race to me and just i kind of just blurted out like dude that race sounds wild i love it mongolia it sounds it sounds like exotic i bet i can win that and he kind of laughed and was like do you have any experience with any of this of course i didn't and um i signed up had a bunch of sponsors athletic brewing athletic greens like all these cool brands and as soon as i did that the amount of pressure that i felt and i said to my wife i was like man like i would never consider myself a professional runner but i said the pressure of being a professional athlete and having sponsors and like knowing so many people have a vested interest in your success it's like I've never felt more pressure and I only signed up like four or five weeks before the race people were trained for years for this it was sold out for well over a year and I emailed the race director they let me in and they you know they were happy to have me to get some attention on the race and I bought a bunch of backpacks and you remember you're running 20 to 30 miles a day and one of the days is 50 miles you got 20 pounds in a backpack and it's like on your shoulders on your weight you're on your waist you're running with it it's chafing you everywhere like i mean think about if you wear an uncomfortable t-shirt it can chafe you up so i bought a bunch of backpacks was trying different ones they all sucked for me like i couldn't get comfortable and then i was eventually just like you know what f it it's this is i'm gonna get chafed and that's it and i just like eventually when i was there i ended up pulling tape and all kinds of kinesio tape and shit to block some of the chafing but um i got there and same thing i was so scared i was like i can't believe i've done this and my wife's driving me to the airport and she's like yo you're going to mongole this is so cool i'm like are you crazy i'm going to the effing electric chair i'm like not happy about this i'm like a big mouth look at the corner i've painted myself into and she's like you're crazy and as she was leaving she's like stop with this like woe is me shit just go out there and win the race you're going to be uncomfortable anyway just go win and the flight home is going to be awesome and i swear i walked down when the minute i was walking onto the jetway on the first flight from nashville i went from nashville to atlanta to south korea to ulan bataar mongolia and when i walked on the plane in nashville like something switched in my brain not dramatic but enough that i was like okay it's go time let's go and i was like in this zone of like deadly serious no clowning around read sleep read sleep just getting myself prepared for what was coming get to ulaanbaatar they drive us out um on a saturday morning out to the desert and i had thought we were gonna sleep like five nights in the tent because we'd start the first day and then the first then after the first day we'd be in a tent they're like no we're gonna drive out and sleep in the tents tonight then you'll race in the morning i'm like oh my god one extra night in a tent i didn't want to do this i that is not my style i want to like stay at the ritz carlton get up race kill myself and then go back to a nice hotel but i knew i was sleeping in a tent but just the one extra night was like damn you and i swear to god it was like perfect storm it rained sideways all night battering the tent and because i signed up late i was in uh the only spot available me and three women a chinese woman a taiwanese woman and an irish woman and they were like hardcore and the first night i was there the irish woman's like whose bag is this and i was like oh hey what's up that's mine why are you in our tent i was like is this is this girl serious i ended up getting along really well with her but she was like who told you you could be in our tent i'm like take it easy before i'm the only one in this tent i was like at this point i was in like killer mode but uh i mean that this there's a whole book to be written about our tent but they were cool so the nice thing about finishing near the front every day is i'd get to the tent set up my stuff in the perfect spot but then i liked the girls so every day i'd get there i'd set it all up if there were rocks under the tent i'd crawl under and move them because we're sleeping on the ground it's like under a tarp um then that we ended up becoming having an awesome team and they were all like our tent's gonna win and the first day i got trounced and i was like whoa i came in like fourth place but i'm expecting to win and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna to be lucky to finish in the top three.

1:07:35Ken Rideout:Second day, 28 miles, I go out and I was trying to be strategic and pace myself well. And I had a huge lead. All of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to win. And it's a cumulative time. So every day you get like, you know, I was 10 minutes down after the first day. And then the second day I win the stage by like eight minutes. So I'm four minutes down. But with a few miles to go, I fell down and busted my arm open. I'm bleeding everywhere. and my backpack ripped the strap ripped off my backpack and like i'm thinking i'm gonna be out of the race i could never finish the race with the bag the way it was so the last like three to five miles of that day i ran holding the bag all awkward and it was heavy because there were mandatory safety equipment plus all the food you needed so you would eat food and it would get lighter every day but the food was the least of the weight i had a backpack i had a sleeping bag a sleeping mat certain mandatory safety equipment third day go out i come in second again there's a swiss guy who's just killing me every day a little tiny swiss mountaineer guy he's trouncing me and i'm like man i don't know how i'm gonna catch this guy but i should be good for second but i keep thinking like well i'm just gonna keep going maybe something will happen and then on the fourth day is when everything changed it was a 50 mile stage we're about 30 miles in just him and i and we're walking on the uphills and we're running and he's very stoic guy he's not really talking to me he wasn't a jerk he was just not talkative we come out of an aid station so you'd get water every five to ten miles we come out of the aid station and he's like man i'm really struggling i'm gonna walk a little bit so i'm like all right i'll walk with you we're in the desert and it's hot so i don't want to like just ditch him even though we're racing i figure okay if he's hurting i'll run away with like five miles to go you know and just tell him like hey i'm gonna go not in a mean-spirited way just you know we're competitors but i'm also not going to leave him for dead and uh he deteriorated quickly goes down and i'm like giving him some of my water which is i have to use sparingly and eventually some support vehicles come by and they render first aid and i'm like you guys good everyone good yep and i just took off like a bat out of hell the last like 10 15 miles and i won by 90 minutes and then there were two more stages and the swiss guy to his credit he almost dies out there he comes in after the 50 mile or the next day is 26 but we have a day in between because like the 50 mile starts at wednesday and then we don't go again till friday because most people take like 20 plus hours to finish we finish at like five o 'clock at night and next day he's like him and i off the front again just him and i alone for 26 miles up and over some mountains and coming down the mountains with a mile to go he just sprinted away from me and won by like a minute but i was up by so much i was like all right cross a huge roaring river.

1:10:12Ken Rideout:There was a rope there. And I was like, I don't need that damn rope. I jumped in the water. I swear I almost got washed down the river. I was, I was just an idiot. I didn't know what I didn't know. And then the last day was five miles. And, um, Irish guy there who lives in South Africa, Killian Ryan, his family owns Ryan air. Awesome guy. Just like the coolest dude and a recovering alcoholic. And he's like, yo, five miles stage, you're up by 90 minutes. Like you're going to let someone else win. And I looked at him like he, like I, like he was crazy. And I was like, I would never let someone win and if someone if i thought someone let me win i'd kill them i went we're racing and dude we got in a drag race me and the swiss guy and at the end i end up getting them by like two or three minutes but and then i won and i was like holy shit i did it i won and it was uh that was one one victory where i was like felt really good about that because i did not want to be there and i did not know what i was doing but i figured it out and the thing that i hope people get from this is like you said, like there was no indication that I was going to be a good runner.

1:11:12Ken Rideout:I don't have any special gifts or skills other than the things that I can control, which is mindset, consistency, discipline, and all of the things that it took for me to get to the place where I am today is available to anyone and everyone. As you know, I mean, look at you, like you look at what you've done. I tell people all the time, you can go be a trainer. You can go be a nutritionist. There's lots of people that are going to do that. And they're going to be very mediocre and they're going to get through life. They're going to be comfortable. They're going to have what they want. And then there's people that are going to elevate their platform and be like the best nutritionist.

1:11:42Ken Rideout:They're going to be the trainer of Michael Jordan. And what separates them? They all have the same knowledge. They're all the same skills. It's some people just have a different mindset and a different level of discipline and grit and determination and the desire to not be average. Yeah. Yeah, man.

1:11:59Shawn Stevenson:I appreciate you so much. You know, I can't even tell you, man, I will just say it straight. Your book is one of the best books I've read in a long time. And I just roared right through it. My wife was in there watching some Apple show yesterday. I was laying on the carpet in another room, just like, just consuming the book. And, you know, it's special, man, you know, like for you to share your story and to articulate it in the way that you do, it's very relatable. It's full of little insights. Of course, again, just a reminder that, man, you think things are going great and life throws another curve ball.

1:12:33Shawn Stevenson:And you really just like getting more and more gifted over time at hitting the curve, you know, and not just that now being able to share your experience and to coach other people, even, you know, in some of those races and you were coaching, you know, kids that you were competing against people, you know, half your age or more, you know, and just being able to share your insights about mental toughness and about the way you approach things. And, you know, and I appreciate that so much. And if you could, can you share where people can pick up a copy of the book and where to follow you?

1:13:06Ken Rideout:Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for saying that. It doesn't even seem real to me to have someone like yourself and some of the others that have spoken kindly about the book. Like I didn't, I think people see things like you writing your book and your show and they just think that like, oh, of course he did that. That's who he is. like every we're all the same everyone has opportunity to start a podcast anyone can write a book what separates you from the crowd like you as you know you don't know it's going to be successful you're just putting stuff out into the world and hoping it resonates so to hear you say that is just it doesn't seem real to me it makes me want to cry I'm like I can't believe the guy even knows I'm alive like I did this wow well like I don't think of myself the way other people see me sometimes so it's so refreshing the book you can get the book anywhere you buy books it's uh from simon and schuster scribner is the imprint and it's um the other side of heart.com is my website where all the buying options are there but it's at barnes and nobles amazon um i read the audiobook i recorded the audiobook on audible.com and it comes out um march 10th and uh man i'm just it's hard to believe it's become a reality i've worked on this for so long and uh on instagram I'm just Ken Rideout.

1:14:23Ken Rideout:I do most of my work on Instagram and I respond to most of the DMs. I try to get to everyone. And I'm just so appreciative. You know, sometimes people are like, oh, you respond to all the DMs. I'm like, are you crazy? Who am I? Well, I'm not special. Someone takes the time to say something nice to me. Of course I respond to them. The only thing I will say is when people send me messages like, hey, can you give me a quick call? I'm like, dude, I got like six jobs, four kids and I'm training. I don't really have time to call my friends. So a call might be a little bit difficult, but I actually thought about doing some, like maybe some live Q and A's on zoom or doing like a, um, uh, call for people that pre-order the book, but TBD.

1:15:00Ken Rideout:But anyway, I'm going to do some live events in New York, LA and, um, Nashville and Boston. I'm going to do something in Boston right before the marathon. And I'm so, uh, excited to meet so many of the people that have given great feedback. So man, thanks for all. Thanks for having me. Thanks for all the kind words. Again, thanks for letting me share my experience and my story with with your audience. It's not something that I take for granted. Of course.

1:15:23Shawn Stevenson:You know, you got a supporter in me, man. Appreciate you, brother. I appreciate you too, man. And everybody, again, pick up a copy like yesterday. This is a great gift to give. And again, we're in a comfort crisis right now. Everything you want is on the other side of heart. So let's get to it. The one and only Ken Rideout, everybody. Boom. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Listen, I don't say this lightly. Ken's book was absolutely engaging and one of the best books that I've read recently. And when it comes to biographies slash memoirs, it's the best book that I've read in a long time.

1:16:02Shawn Stevenson:And it's an incredible journey, of course, but just seeing the human spirit and the resilience and figuring things out and also the writing style was very engaging as well. It's just a really great book. And I encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself and maybe for somebody that you care about, who's maybe going through some tough circumstances, because also when hearing about the difficulties that other people are experiencing, it is something that can help us to have some perspective. And also, of course, to sprinkle in there some reminders of our capacities. It's a recipe that can really help us out.

1:16:38Shawn Stevenson:So again, definitely check out Ken's incredible new book. Follow him on social media and all that good stuff. And be prepared. We're just getting warmed up. We've got some incredible masterclasses and world leading experts coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care. Have an amazing day. And I'll talk with you soon.