William Goodge: The Atypical Ultra-Runner Who Ran Across America In Style

33:05I think it's, I come from an athletic background anyway like I've always been playing sports since I was a kid to before that moment playing rugby semi-professionally so there was like a foundation there to build from but yeah I lean more on like in in that space of time for me I just I wanted to it was like acceptable self-harm I wanted to hurt myself and I needed a way of doing it without raising too many alarm bells and running really far actually started raising a lot of alarm bells well for graham my dad but for everyone else it was like you can get away with it you can certainly hide your pain behind great feats of athleticism for sure so that's what that was about yeah after hosting more than 900 episodes of this podcast i have noticed a pattern and that pattern is that the highest performers don't buy into the latest trendy hacks.

34:01Instead, they obsess on what actually works, which is always the unassuming basics. And there is nothing more basic than hydration. But here's the kicker. Your body can't hold on to water without the right minerals. Without them, water is just like this temporary visitor. But Element has cracked the code on this, which is why I've been using it religiously for years. zero sugar, no artificial junk, just sodium, potassium, and magnesium in the ratios that actually work. And look, I'm not exactly crushing ultras right now, healing from this surgery, but in some ways I need it even more. In order to properly recover, I need to treat my body even better than ever so it can heal properly and expeditiously while also maintaining my focus and my energy levels to rock out all of these podcasts, write a book, be a husband and a dad.

34:54And I gotta say, Element keeps my brain firing in a way that water alone can't. Their new sample pack features their most popular flavors. Citrus salt, raspberry salt, watermelon salt, that's my favorite, and orange salt. Eight stick packs total, perfect for finding your favorite or sharing with a friend. Get a free eight count sample pack of Element's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com slash richroll. Find your favorite element flavor or share it with a friend. We're brought to you today by the wonderful folks at Go Brewing. Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, this guy Joe Chura rings me up out of the blue and he asked if I'll fly out to Illinois and speak at this event that he was hosting called Go, which ended up being this really incredible weekend oriented around taking inspired action.

35:47Joe and I hit it off, but, you know, that was kind of that. And it wasn't until I ran into him a couple years ago at Jesse Itzler's Running Man event that I realized that he had taken inspired action himself by creating this new enterprise that was also called Go. Go Brewing, in fact, which from Go has grown into what it is today, one of the most exciting revolutions in craft brewing. One of the many things that makes Go Brewing extraordinary is that they don't outsource like most companies. They handcraft everything from scratch in small batches. In fact, this commitment to quality has fueled their growth into one of America's fastest growing breweries now in over 5 ,000 locations across 20 states and available online.

36:29The Salty AF Gelata earned the untapped number one non-alcoholic lager in the United States. And they're constantly creating bold new flavors almost every month that push the boundaries of what non-alcoholic beer can be. Double IPAs, mouth-watering sours, all with zero added sugars and none of the junk. Hear that? Incredible stuff. The non-alcoholic revolution is here, people. I am proud to help champion it alongside Joe. So get on board by getting with Go by going to gobrewing.com, where you're going to use the code RICHROLL for 15 % off your first purchase. Go.

37:15When it comes to health, sleep is a big deal. And there's just so much science out there to back up the role that it plays in every facet of well-being. From heart health to mental health, recovery, cognition, and just being able to show up as your best self. Getting a quality eight hours per night is a personal, non-negotiable that I go to great lengths to ensure. It's sort of a commitment not only to myself, but to my career and to those that I love that all begins with what I'm sleeping on. Now, I've tried many mattresses, but the one that's really won my heart is Birch. And there's many reasons for this, all of which boil down to the simple fact that Birch just does things right.

37:55In addition to being incredibly comfortable and cool, helping you regulate temperatures at night, which are essential for quality rest, Birch mattresses are also firm in all the right places, and all their materials are sustainably sourced, including organic fair trade cotton. And also, everything is hypoallergenic and toxin-free, meaning no harmful off-gassing typical of most mattresses. Birch is so confident in their product, they're offering both a 100-night risk-free trial as well as a 25-year warranty. Plus, they provide free delivery right to your door in a conveniently sized box-up. And so I want to offer all of my listeners the chance to enjoy a deep and restful night's sleep with a new mattress from Birch.

38:42So right now you can get 27 % off site-wide plus two free EcoRest pillows with mattress purchase. Just go to birchliving.com slash richroll.

38:58The other thing about you is that, you know, you're not a beanpole. Like you're a top heavy dude, you're fucking cut, like ripped, strong, strong upper body. And that is one of the other things that sort of distinguishes you from what people imagine when they think of people that run great distances. They tend to be very slight in their build. But strength training has always been a key component in your preparation. and I think if I had to guess, I would suspect that it contributes to your durability and makes you more injury resistant. I know Ravi has even said to me like, man, after spending all this time with William, like I'm going to the gym, like he's trying to like bulk up now, you know?

39:44He's looking good. Yeah, as a result. And I know you have a whole like training program and all of that. So how do you think about the kind of unorthodox approach to physical training? Like aside from just putting the miles in, what you're doing in the gym and how that contributes to your performances? I think it's massive, especially for me. I think having a bit of extra muscle mass is not really going to help if I'm trying to run a super fast marathon. but in terms of being durable and not breaking down I think it I think the proof's in the pudding like what I've shown I can do being a bigger athlete or whatever whatever label you want to put on it um I do I genuinely think it makes me very durable um and a lot of the exercises we're doing in the training programs that we have is all like single leg based um loaded everything's in like a lot of movements are in a split squat so we're trying to get a lot of the weighted positions in running specific areas as well so all of those bits on me that used to break down quicker than anything glutes hamstrings everything around there as soon as I started strengthening those areas then that negated the the the rate at which I broke down so So I'd say it's such a huge part of my training and will always be the foundation for it.

41:11And then I'll add running on top. So in your lead up to the Transcon, what did the functional strength, gym, workout, routine, schedule look like? Always three times a week. There'd be an element of pretty much everything in it. So there'd be legs on all three of those days. But then there'd be some upper body stuff, again, in a split squat thing. So we're training a lot of core at the same time, making sure the load is going to challenge you in those running positions. And some of it's aesthetic as well, because it's just, it's what I've always done. And I have to enjoy what I'm doing to want to carry on doing it.

41:50Well, you got to be catwalk ready. Too big for the catwalk as well. At the drop, dude. Too big for the catwalk as well. That's why I watch the shows now instead. Yeah. Did you, like, where did the modeling stuff take you? Did you get like, are you still doing that? Every now and again. Yeah, it's few and far between like, I'm not going to do a day in the studio because I just don't want to anymore. But yeah, if it's a - Like not catalogs, but not catwalk either. Yeah, just like campaign stuff. So yeah, I've spent some time in New York. I've done some stuff over here, Italy, France, Switzerland.

42:25I've kind of, that was a fun part of my life. Like I really enjoyed it traveling around the world doing this kind of stuff. but at this at the same time it was just another thing in life that was going okay that to the outside world looked looked better than it was so doing all this traveling being in LA New York whatever is a 20 something going back to my small town everyone would think like they were just like wow what you're doing so amazing I'm like yeah I'm racking up credit card bills just like living the life and yeah living paycheck to paycheck so yeah it's one of those things that looks amazing on the outside and so does a lot of shit on social media but sometimes it's still a challenge so you do the john o 'groats run you learn a few things along the way uh and where does the motivation to step it up from there come from just continuing to build on this enthusiasm for pushing your limits yeah i think that cemented where i was in life and where i wanted to go with it.

43:25Like you said, it's like chasing the dragon again. It's once you've got a taste for it, immediately afterwards, you're like, nah, I'm never going to do that again. And then a few days later, I was literally figuring out what I was going to do next. Now, I didn't know what that was going to be. And afterwards, I was still pretty destroyed. So I was going to take some time off. But the first thing I started looking at doing was running a marathon in every country in Europe. So there's 45 countries in Europe, but then COVID happened. So travel obviously stopped. So I had to think of, I had to think of another thing to do that meant I could stay in the UK, even though I wanted to like expand.

44:02A lot of what I do in life is visiting new places and doing new things, but I was restricted. So a random Google search was like, in the US, you have 50 States. Everyone knows that everyone's proud of it. In the UK, no one knows how many we have counties how many counties there are like if you asked anyone on the street they would probably be like 25 34 like no one knows so I just googled it and there were 48 um it being close to the 45 countries of Europe I was like okay well that makes sense that I'll do it next because there's not going to be limitations on travel like I might have to figure out if if COVID comes back or if we get shut down in any kind of way I'm gonna have to figure out what it looks like but it was the best option at the time and it came two years after i finished the length of the uk so yeah the second one was 48 marathons in the 48 counties of england in 30 days and ironically um people think it's the most amazing thing when they hear it and for all the things you've done that's the thing that stands out because it's so easy to understand running the length of the uk what who knows it's 875 miles but no one's going to split that into marathons but But 48 marathons in 30 days, very easy to understand.

45:17And whilst it was amazing, I was kind of annoyed at the end of it because it didn't get me anywhere close to what the run in the UK did. Not even close. Interesting. And you made like a documentary out of that. Yeah. And it was cool and it was a nice, it was a very good experience. I've definitely ticked off running in the UK now. It's definitely done. But it was a nice way to see that. You could run the perimeter of the circumference. I'm not doing that I think did Nick Butter try to do that do you know Nick Butter yeah yeah I think he was doing it I think he did do it I think he did yeah yeah because there was also the guy I can't remember the Red Bull guy that swam around it Ross Edgley insane yeah yeah no I'm not doing it talked about that afterwards yeah that was crazy yeah but like the last one which was which was interesting the 48th marathon I PB'd on my fastest marathon of all time it was at London the official London marathon which was a very special way to finish.

46:13And I did a 3.06, which was at the time my fastest marathon, but that showed how much I almost had left in the tank because it was so regimented. It was either 26.2 miles a day or 52.4. And I was having enough rest in between to just kind of go and do it. To pop off your PB on the very end of that whole experience to bookend it. Yeah. That's impressive. But that's how my head works at the same time. I still had to leave it all out there. Like I had to feel like it was, it obviously still was a challenge and I had some low days, but for the most part, it was just kind of like clockwork. I just did it.

46:56But you finish that feeling like, oh, I haven't even really approximated the extent of my capabilities. Yeah. After the Transcon run, I think you probably still feel that way. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like here's the thing, watching you run across the country and watching the videos that went up every week and all the social media posts, you made it look, I'm not gonna say easy, certainly didn't look easy, but there was a lightness to most of it. There were low moments, of course, but for the most part, it all seemed kind of breezy. Yeah. And it felt like as hard as it might have felt to you from the way that you kind of reflected that experience outward, you were always very conscious of keeping it positive, trying to make it fun, making sure that the crew was happy.

47:57And by the time you completed it, it was pretty clear to me like, oh, this guy's got a lot more to give here. Like it's not like you just collapsed, you know, in Central Park and that was the most that you could possibly do. Like it all seemed well within your capacity. It's very interesting because it's totally the unknown. Like the 4830 was 1 ,250 miles. This was close to 3 ,100. so I was entering a totally new space and obviously when we started out we were aiming for 64 days it was 50 miles a day it was like um it was a good a good thing to aim for but at the same time I still had no idea what I was what I was capable of but there was still a point in my mind that was like my Esther visa for the US you get 90 days and we did Robbie's speed project before and set up all the vehicles so I knew I had seven days extra I could have got to 71 days and I'd have had to pissed off immediately otherwise your government wouldn't be very happy with me but yeah it was it was very much the unknown and it was also hard to push myself as hard as I did on Dronegrove's land's end one because I've come further as an athlete but secondly because it's so much bigger there's risk that if you push too hard at the start then that might cause an injury or cause you to have to slow down or go less but yeah my week one was the lowest mileage week of all of them other than the last one because I finished I finished on the Saturday but yeah it was it was an amazing experience but yeah there was still those questions at the end of how do I get it's interesting that I want self-destruct that's what I'm seeking.

49:43But along the way, I also figured out how, what I need to do to do that. What was the preparation and training like leading up to running across America? We didn't know it was actually going to happen until I think it was late January. I started in April. So the first thing I did was I went on a five week training camp in Cape Town. I was there for December because my friends live there anyway. And all I did was continue my strength training as usual and tried to up the mileage. So I was doing anywhere between 50 and 70 miles a week, which compared to 300. Yeah, that's not a lot. It's not a lot.

50:18Even in like a marathon runners regime, if you're actually very good at it, you're going to be 100 mile weakening. Sure. And I was not, but that was more a foundation to build from. So I did that, came back for a bit. And then when we got the green light, I decided to go out and spend some time with Robbie. and he was in Slida in Colorado now so that's at 7 ,200 feet um the highest point on Transcon is Angel Fire which is in New Mexico at 9 ,000 feet and fortunately there's a mountain range right by where Robbie lives so we did some I was there for 10 days and we did we did 140 mile week that week so closer to it but yeah generally my mileages weren't that high but again there's I know if it's I don't know if it's self-confidence or me just trying to get away with doing less than I should but the way I looked at it was you can't train to run 370 odd miles a week you can get a little bit along the way but if you if you go too far then you may as well be doing the challenge or you're going to injure yourself so aside from my strength training which is locked in I just built up mileage gradually, did some elevation training, and then started.

51:32I mean, I don't think that that sounds irresponsible at all. Like you have to have some form of a base, but you wanna go into the experience as fresh as possible and understanding that you're gonna build into it and develop fitness as you go. And if you're conservative on the front end of it, your body will adapt, right? The mistakes get made when you show up over-trained or not rested enough. or you're too aggressive early on and you end up with some kind of injury, like Ned Brockman in Australia, right? Like he has that epic issue that almost derails the whole thing. Talk about a guy who went into something before he knew what he was getting into.

52:13He's my kind of guy. Yeah, I know, right? So, I mean, it sounds smart to go in fit in that way and to have an adequate amount of confidence to do it. Yeah, and I've got more self-confidence in knowing myself through doing this as well. So, sure, when I do something next time, I'll increase the mileage and training, but it worked. At the end of the day, it worked. So, yeah. So, the idea was 50 miles a day, that will take you 64 days to cross the U.S. You end up doing it in 55, actually 56, right? if you adjust for the time changes, right? You were right on that edge there. The hardcore is going to say it was 56.

53:02About nine minutes short. 50, 55, right.

53:07And it seemed like you had some low moments, but you got stronger as you went along. Yeah, and there's a lot of kudos that needs to be given to the team as well. When you're out there, literally the only thing I had to be worried about was running that's the best well running and wiping my ass is the only two things I did basically so when you have that confidence in the people around you it makes you be able to push yourself to your perceived limits or push further than you normally would because I'm quite I'm quite a controlling person in life usually but the trust I had in the people around me Robbie and Pete Reese and James in the content as well allowed me to just concentrate on the running side of things so yeah a lot of credit goes to them but also I remember them saying at the start it was between Robbie Ballinger and Peter John the first few weeks they they almost wanted to hold me back like a dog on the chain which which worked well because I was I was still going further than I needed to anyway so every with every week I was doing I had this cushion just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger until we got to a space where it was like okay now we're confident that you probably won't derail or you're far enough along the way now let's push and see how much how much faster you can go in the 64 days and obviously obviously we did which was which was amazing and yeah if you'd have told me at the start that it had been 56 55 days or whatever i'd have been like something would have had to have gone really right for that to happen yeah Like it was outside of my.

54:46Yeah, you so far eclipsed the goal that you set for yourself. Yeah. It was an interesting daily schedule breakdown also. So the idea was every day you would get up, get out as quickly as you could out onto the road and bank 30 and then take a break and then a new calm nap, right? We can talk about new calm. Yeah. And then finish the day with like an easier 20 with like some of the pressure off, right? And then once you completed that, you would do a beer mile. Yeah. Did you do the beer mile every day? Every day other than maybe two or three. Talk about the rationale behind that. The beer mile is to celebrate the day and what you've done.

55:33And it's a disconnect from what you're doing and you're getting an extra mile. So it may sound stupid, like drinking a beer. It's probably not the best things for recovery, But for me, so much of it is the mental side of things and also the period when you're resting to disconnect yourself from what you're doing and try and take any moment of normality as you can. And the beer mile was the start of that. So it would be a fun moment in the day. It would be something for me to look forward to at all points. As I said, I would walk from a mile with a beer with one of the crew, just chat shit and have a good time.

56:10and then finish and feel really, really drunk. At that point, one beer will hit you pretty hard. And yeah, it was the ultimate disconnect. And then I'd get back to our van, I'd have a shower and then we'd have dinner together as a crew. And that was another really big thing where you might say, well, you shouldn't have had the beer mile. And once you got back, you should have had dinner and bed and gone to sleep immediately. But it was so good for morale for me. And I think for everyone else. And you can't understand how powerful that is over a big period of time to have those moments of normality and what it can actually do.

56:50If I feel good, I'm gonna run further, simple as. Right, but if you're just gonna hit that day's goal, that extra time spent doing that, I think is sort of a genius technique to reboot the mental health aspect of this whole thing. like the iron cowboy, when he gets asked, like, is it physical, is it mental? What's he's like, it's 100 % physical and it's 100 % mental, right? And we understand the physical piece, but I don't know that many people optimize for the mental piece because they are focused on, you get the day done, you get into the van, you get fed as quickly as possible. You wash yourself or whatever and you get to sleep as quickly as you can because you need that sleep, right?

57:34But to stay fresh day after day after day with the routine and just the kind of bludgeoning, you know, schedule that you were keeping to have a little bit of levity and to kind of feel connected to your crew members and allow them space to enjoy themselves with you. Feels like it's something that would, and in your case did like pay great dividends. Yeah, it was, otherwise it'd just be shit basically all the time. The whole time. Like it's hard enough what you're doing, running 13, 14 hours a day, whatever. But just to have that moment of like a celebration, it just makes everything feel good.

58:16Like the thought, I don't know if it's being British. You could do something to look forward to. Yeah, British or whatever, but the thought of like having a beer with your mates, it's one of the best feelings in the world. So I got to experience that every day. Did you ever have a day where you did the beer mile, but then you felt good and then you wanted to run after that? Yeah, there was a couple of times. There was one where I had to run further, and I can't remember why. I think it's because I messed up where the campsite was for the night. They'd told me one thing, and I was obviously like Pete would go ahead and start preparing the van and the meal and whatever, and I got the distance wrong, so I think I had to do like another three or whatever, but I was fine with that.

58:59I was skipping down the road. What was the lowest moment or the hardest piece? It was day 17. It was the only day I didn't reach my distance. I did 47 and a half miles. And it was kind of a mashup of things. One of the things that was more on the physical side was it was the first day we'd fallen off on nutrition. Nutrition is such a big thing. You can't do this kind of thing without it. as we were saying every six miles I'd see the crew I'd re-upper my bottles I was taking this stuff called scratch what I didn't know about before but even from that alone I was getting 20 I think it was 2400 calories I was aiming for 7 ,000 so a lot of my calories came from just what I was drinking which kind of tastes like slightly flavored water but on this particular day when you're in these things for me anyway I don't have an appetite I can eat a lot but if you ask me what I want to eat I want to be like I don't know because I've been eating everything all day for the past two weeks already so there's nothing that's like shouting out to me and on day 17 along the way when I got into a stop they'd be like what do you want and I'd be like I don't know anything I'd just grab snacks rather than we're trying to go really whole food based as possible that's where I got really good energy from and where I felt good and this particular a day from about halfway I was just I'd go in and have some crisps and some nuts or like a bar or whatever and that really fell off um but also there'd been like a build-up of this guy who even before I started had been messaging me like asking me about what I was doing and questioning some of the things I was saying about it um and it had just been getting more heated and more heated And whilst it didn't really affect me personally, what he was saying, basically, before it started, I'd put out that I was attempting or I was going to become the fastest Englishman to run across America.

1:01:00um he'd looked at my power of 10 which is some website that runners look at shows all your fastest times events you've done etc and he said that it sounds really good what you're doing but an athlete of your stature should probably be looking to do it in 82 days which would be really respectable and also the wording on your van will become is very insulting to the guy that currently has a record, Bruce Tuller. Anyway, I looked at that message and was just like, fucking whatever, mate. Like, I'm not, I'm not going to give you a response. Um, and then he proceeded to hit up everyone involved in the challenge in one way or another, including sponsors.

1:01:39Um, he says, he said like I was faking it, said the most, the funniest thing he actually said was I was raising half a million dollars for cancer charities that I was going to steal. so the guy's a little bit deluded um but he'd obviously been messaging a lot and it got to Robbie the most Robbie Robbie took it quite personally because he was basically questioning not just me but himself and everyone involved in the challenge so we'd been talking about ignoring it bringing it up like publicizing this guy had been harassing us blah blah blah and on this day in particular I'd kind of been more in a fuck you mode about it like I was I was angry because it was affecting Robbie so that alongside the nutrition falling off alongside it being quite an emotional day the day before I was thinking about my mum a lot it was a beautiful moment but I was quite emotionally fatigued as well just kind of compounded to me having one shit day but in the same vein when I got to 47 and a half miles it's day 17 I was already I don't know what's that I was probably 50 miles ahead of where I was supposed to be anyway so I just had this very frank feeling in my mind I was like I'm so far ahead the fact that I'm gonna stop now and not get to my daily target for the first time is fine and let it go yeah And the next day I came out and eclipsed 52 and a half.

1:03:15So it was like, I still made it, but it was tough in the moment to deal with. There was a lot going on, but yeah, that was definitely the lowest point. But in the grand scheme of low moments on an epic adventure like that, there's a lot of things that could have gone wrong that didn't, like that's not that low of a moment. It was your low, but being so far ahead and then bouncing back and then working your way back into the black, you know, more and more and more as you headed into New York. I mean, there's a momentum to that. Yeah, there's always going to be low moments on this kind of thing.

1:03:50But as you said earlier, like all I ever want to project is like the positive end of things. I don't want to go out there and be complaining about shit all the time, which is very, very easy to do, but it doesn't make me feel good. Like if I'm out there looking like I'm having somewhat of a laugh for like enjoying the moments it's going to be it's going to be a lot easier for me to deal with it's such a big arduous task but just life man like try and enjoy the little things like I was I was always very conscious that I was so lucky to be there doing it like it's not every day you get to do that opportunity to do it's like try and enjoy the little bit of a little bit of that you know I was like I was a little bit like I was a little bit like I was like a little bit of a little bit who was sort of a protege of the record holder guy who actually wasn't the record holder guy there was another guy who had gone faster yeah so there's it's probably our fault but when we were looking there's not this isn't very well documented when we were deciding like how fast i was going to do it in i said originally i wanted to do it in 66 days don't know why it just sounded good it was close to 50 miles and then i was like i wonder who's who's the like we knew um Pete Koselnik's the fastest to do.

1:05:17I'm not getting close to that guy. He was like 42 days or something. I think it was 77 miles a day. Like, sure, I did better than expected, but I'm not, that's, to be, for my point of view, that's the only record that matters. But I needed something to aim for, and so I asked Robbie, like, do you know who the fastest European is? Do you know who the fastest British person is? So we found out the fastest Brit, or at least this is what it said, was Bruce Tuller. um it was 65 days so i was like okay great let's shoot for 64 makes it a round number we've since since learned that there was a guy that power walked it in was it 52 days yeah he power walked it and he went from like the fastest route is to go from san francisco to new york yeah i think it's more like 2 ,900 miles.

1:06:08So he'd done that in the nineties. But again, it was just something to aim for for me. But this irked this guy. Because he was close with the guy who you guys both thought held the record. Yeah, and he's a running historian. And yeah, a running, well, also like sort of a running sleuth who has committed himself to outing people that he thinks are sort of unfairly claiming titles that they didn't earn, right? And he does this by going on message boards like Let's Run or whatever and creating a kerfuffle and creating momentum and interest in other people in what you're doing. And so there was a little bit of a groundswell of people who were like, what's going on?

1:06:55I mean, I got DMs. Like people were like, you need to look into this. And I was like, listen, man, I know Robbie. I know Reese, I don't know you that well, but I know you well enough. And just the fact that like Robbie is there, like there's no fucking way. Like Robbie has a zero tolerance policy for anything that isn't in integrity. I know that about him. There's just no fucking way that anything is untoward about this or going sideways. So, but just the fact that people were pinging me about it, you know, I sort of looked into it more than I probably would have liked to have. And then the fact that this guy actually flies from the UK and shows up like in Oklahoma, right?

1:07:36Yeah. Determined to root you out. Yeah. As soon as we've arrived. So we'd literally crossed the border and also Shelly, Robbie's wife, had just arrived as well. So we knew he was coming. I didn't know exactly at what point. I think he'd put in one of the things that he put some really lame fucking message like about James Bond. I can't remember what the exact quote was but that he was coming to like he said he was James Bond and I was the bad guy which is kind of funny um but yeah he arrived and obviously it's as soon as he arrived there's some bitterness there's some choice words shared um but we understand he's going to be around for a while so like whatever um and I was just finishing that day and I think it was it was a good day I think that might have been my biggest it might have been 70 miles that day or at least it was definitely a 60 mile day so it'd been a big one and then the next morning he shows up at the start and then drives a mile ahead while i run a mile he's he comes out of his car and his he starts running backwards and forwards we don't know why he was doing this if he was just trying to log his own miles or trying to figure out what his heart rate looked like compared to the ones he'd seen on line of mine.

1:08:53Because this is his whole thing. Like your heart rate data was out of whack from his perspective. Were you wearing a chest strap or was it wrist heart rate? No, so I started off, this is classic me as well. When I started, I didn't have a watch. So I borrowed Pete's Garmin. So you're doing trans-garmin. You're not even like wearing a Garmin or Coros. No, but I did have a whoop on the whole time, which has been great because they've published all of my heart rate data. Right, but it's not a GPS tracker. No, so that was his issue. We had a tracker in the van, and really that was for entertainment purposes, so you could log on to the website and see where we were.

1:09:29But I wasn't wearing a tracker. I didn't see why I needed to. So the heart rate data that activated him was going off of the whoop? No, it was off of, so in the end I had a Coros, but at the beginning it was this Garmin watch. Apparently it was wrong. And he'd looked back into the past at my juggle effort as well on other runs I've done and basically called all of it bullshit. Yeah, his main thing was the heart rate. And when you had the Kouros, did you have a chest strap or are you going off wrist heart rate with that? Wrist again. So anything that gets uploaded - Wrist heart rate is bullshit.

1:10:03Like it doesn't matter what watch you're wearing or what device. Like it's just not an accurate way to track heart rate. I agree. If you're on an ECG, you're going to get it right. And even from another point of view, like was his mate Bruce? were a heart rate monitored? Does anyone from the past have data or anything to show that they truly did anything? Who knows, man. I mean, the thing is, obviously he had some kind of relationship with that guy and you making an audacious statement got him energized, right? And then on top of that, you being you and not looking like what people expect you to look like and not coming from a certain sort of tradition probably was sort of fuel on the fire to all of that.

1:10:52You know, one of the weirdest things that happened out there as well. I don't know if it was on the second or third day he was there, but as I said, he'd been driving a mile, coming out and running like back and forth and then getting back in his car. Sometimes he'd like give me a wave. After a while, he was actually being really friendly, which was kind of weird. But one of the times I just knocked on his window and said, do you want to like walk with me for a minute and just talk? Like there's no cameras around. I don't have my phone or whatever. Like, do you just want to talk about it? And my purpose for doing that was I want, I was just, I wanted to understand where his, where he was coming from.

1:11:28So I was like, do you know the reason why I actually run? And he's like, yes, it's because your mother passed away. I have a similar story. My mom did too. When I was 20, I was like, oh my god like i'm so sorry about that and he said no it was a good thing she was um she was an addict she was mentally unstable and basically said he hated her so that kind of that's a whole new dimension that's a whole new dimension and it it made me i i felt sorry for him for feeling that way whether it was just or not but then i also understood that asides from me not looking or acting like most runners my reason for doing this kind of stuff is fueled from the love I have from of my mum and everything she gave me in life and the power that comes from that whereas his story which is somewhat similar in terms of age and losing his mum was he was happy about and he hated her now someone's doing something raising up that person I can understand why he might look at that and go, well, definitely not understand it for another reason.

1:12:38I own a bunch of spectacles, and I made the grave error the other day of donning a normal non-Roka pair on my indoor trainer when I was riding my bike indoors. And I got to tell you, it was a disaster. Every three to five seconds, I had to take my hands off the handlebars and push my glasses back up my nose until I got so frustrated, I just tossed him aside. This is the dilemma of every active but optically impaired person I know. And as someone who has relied upon eyewear every single day since I was five years old, it is also the source of endless aggravation. Thankfully, now eradicated thanks to Broca, the stylish performance eyewear company founded by two former Stanford swimming teammates of mine who have gifted everyone like me and, quite frankly, the world with their fashionable line of super lightweight prescription glasses and sunglasses with patented no-slip nose and temple pads that are just impervious to sweat.

1:13:42And no matter what you do, remain locked on your mug no matter how intense your workout. Without the dork factor, These things go everywhere with me from the trail to the dinner party. Put them on, feel the difference, and wear without limits. Unlock 20 % off your order with the code RICHROLL at ROKA.com. That's R-O-K-A dot com.

1:14:11You weren't reared in a tradition of ultra running. You're more, you know, somebody who came up in a different strain of the fitness world. And as somebody who has a presence on social media and Instagram, and also knows how to provide sponsor value through the efforts that you're making. Like, I think that the way in which you represented New Calm was like really a value to that brand. And other people who are trying to get products and services on board to support them in whatever goal they're trying to accomplish should take note because most athletes will approach a brand and say, will you give me money or will you give me product?

1:14:55I'm doing this really hard thing and I'll put your logo on my shirt. Whereas the way that you did it was almost like branded content, like the NuCalm, the use of NuCalm was integral to the whole journey itself and telling the story about how that worked within the context of how you were approaching each day became seamless with the effort itself in a way that I would imagine really benefited that brand and was also organic and authentic to what you were trying to do. Well, I certainly hope that it boosted everything they're doing because it was totally integral to what I was doing. And I would never push something I didn't believe in anyway.

1:15:35And the reason I had confidence in it before this already was, ironically, again, this is the story of my running journey and eventually running across the US is so connected to here. But after I did John O 'Groats to Land's End, I went to New York. I think I had work there. And when Robbie finished his run, he went to this place called Recover. It doesn't exist anymore since COVID. But they had infrared saunas, Normatec boots, that kind of stuff. But they also had NuCalm when it was this$5 ,000 medical grade device. So you put these, I don't know, put these stickers on your neck that were attached to electrodes still had the headphones and eye mask and it did the the same thing but that was my first experience of it and then by the time I did 4830 it was then in an application on your phone and part of the reason why 4830 went so well I believe was because I was using NuCalm so at that point it wasn't like a sponsored deal I just used them anyway and after every every marathon I'd finish I'd have some food and then I'd do New Calm for anywhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes in the in the on the journey from going from one county to the next to start the next one or if I had one one day I'd finish and do the same thing and I'd listen to it overnight but for me what New Calm does is it's like hitting the reset button on any day so it's neuroacoustic software basically takes your brain frequency from awake stressed whatever down into the the lower frequencies which are REM sleep deep sleep at the beginning it's sort of like a meditative state that it gives you just by pressing a button listening to their binaural beats and shutting your eyes and basically having darkness um and in doing like a 30 minute track it's like getting three hours of normal sleep it's that's what it does at the touch of the bottom button brings you down so I had such a good experience on 48 30 that whether they were a sponsor in the run across America or not I was still going to split up my day in a similar way to what I did on 48 30 like I had confidence in it so as you said earlier anywhere from mile 30 to 42 it'd be a big stop I'd come in have a proper meal my biggest of the day other than dinner and then I'd nuke on for 30 minutes and that would take an hour basically I'd have a timer I wanted to that big stop to be an hour max and the way I facilitated that in my head as well was every every other stop between the six miles I didn't get in and really stop it was more of a walkthrough switch out bottles have food and take it on the go as quickly as I could because if I'm doing, if I'm just say a 60 miles, for example, if I'm doing 60 miles, I've got nine stops.

1:18:25If I took 10 minutes at each of those, it's an hour and a half. If I took seven and a half, it's like an hour. So if I didn't do, if I didn't stop at those stops, it gave me that big one in the middle as free. And I doubled down on that by using NuCalm as well. Right. And you get this full reboot so basically as i understand it um it's it's like this binaural audio that um activates your brain in a certain way but it also is different from different binaural beats applications in that the the the beats are always changing right because your brain will will will adapt to it over time and then it loses its efficacy yeah so that's that their technology is patented.

1:19:13So as you said, it's always slightly evolving, even though I'm not that intelligent and it's hard for me to get this across. My brain would pick up if it was listening to the same patterns over and over again. So it basically is always effective. And you are very effective as an ambassador of that because Robbie was singing its praises forever and they sent me a kit a long time ago and it sat on my desk forever and I never used it. And then I'm seeing you use it and i was like okay fine i'm gonna do this and it is like it's really helpful i just feel the best thing about it other than like feeling i've hit the reset button like it's a new day is i feel so calm like waking up in a stressful environment thinking i've got 20 more miles to run because and i've already ran 35 or whatever usually that wouldn't feel that good but i would wake up and just be ultimately at peace with things and just it'd be like okay i've got this left to do there's a lot of hours of daylight left like let's just go and do it and it was yeah yeah incredible really um one of the things that that's interesting about you is given the fact that you you do come from a different set of life experiences you have the ability to connect with and communicate with an audience that lives out you know far outside of the cloistered ultra running community i think i even said to you like you should get vogue magazine to like sponsor the run or whatever and like do dispatches for like a fashion magazine, you know, like, cause that would, I actually think that's cool because it would introduce this world and your experience to people who aren't seeking that kind of information out, right.

1:20:52Which puts you in a really powerful position and an interesting position as, as not a mouthpiece, but as a living example of, you know, finding a healthier way to live, but also being somebody who enjoys those types of things in life. Yeah. It's interesting how many people in my life and in my other world have got into running, whether it be a marathon or even ultra marathons as well. So that's what I think that's my favorite thing about doing this. It's when someone comes out with you and achieves something for themselves that they never thought they were going to do. It was really apparent on John O 'Groats to Land's End, had 11 friends and family members come out and run either a marathon or an ultra marathon, having never ran a 5k before.

1:21:41Because they're in a space where they feel like they're helping you, and you're obviously pretty thrashed already. It's an environment where other people can excel without knowing that they're going to. And being part of that journey, or popping cherries as i like to call it is it's it's incredibly beautiful and you've obviously you've off almost given them a gift as well of being like well i just did that kind of off the bat what more can i do now and it's it's been cool to see uh friends and family members push themselves in in this way as well yeah this groundswell of running enthusiasm amidst the fashionista yes it's crazy it's crazy but it's it's cool it's very cool what was it like as you as you were coming into new york city and there was more and more attention you know on what you were doing and excitement about the impending finish and having people kind of come out to run alongside of you yeah it's very special because when you're out there and you're in your own world like sure you'll see you get messages and stuff but when you see real human beings being there and explaining to you how you may have helped them on their journey or they've been through something similar is is very humbling and also gives you some more positive reinforcement for what you're doing so yeah there was i don't know like 50 people at the end waiting on the george washington bridge to run in with me we pissed off a lot of cyclists on the way in and i do not apologize to that oh come on no i'm a cyclist too so but yeah it was it's it's it's crazy it's emotional it's it's a shared experience there that's what the best things in life are so yeah I understand that people would have got something from doing that um yeah it's it's hard to it's hard to basically take that many like compliments as you go I'm not very good at it I'm just I'm just doing what I'm doing I don't think too highly of myself all the time so yeah it's a it's one I actually feel kind of uncomfortable with when so many people are there and wanting to be a part of it because I You feel like you have to take responsibility for making sure that they're enjoying themselves while you're also trying to achieve this goal.

1:23:54Yeah, somewhat. And because it's about me. I know I have to do it, but when something's so much about me, I don't actually really like it. I prefer Christmas to my birthday, put it that way. I'd prefer sharing everyone having a good time than, yeah, being all about me, but it comes with the territory, I guess. When I had Robbie here to talk about his transcon and I asked him what some of his most memorable moments were, he wanted to talk about the Navajo Nation. So talk a little bit about your experience traversing that part of the country. Incredibly beautiful. There was just a different feeling in the air from even when I arrived.

1:24:43Very calm, very beautiful, and just the people make the place right. There was a lot more interest all of a sudden. People would stop and see the vans and ask what was going on. I had people running with me. When I run, I face traffic. It's just a smart thing to do for safety. if you can see the traffic coming towards you you can see that it's not going to move around you then you can get out of the way but I'd always put my hand up to thank someone that went past and there it wasn't like a nod of an acknowledgement or a finger it'd be like like a big wave and they were yeah everyone there was was so welcoming I had guys come out and run with me and I had this guy Jackie came out one day he was a runner from the local area and he He'd bought me a bracelet, so I wore that for the whole time.

1:25:29But yeah, it's different. It's different to anywhere else I've been in the world. I'm looking forward to getting back there. What was it like when you finally finished in Central Park? The whole day was like a dream. From waking up to being there to finishing, everything looked and felt different. It was almost like watching myself in a dream or being part of it. it was a release of emotion at the end as you can imagine um and it was it's probably probably the best day of my life to be honest it was it was it was insane and I had so many more people there at that time like my brother was there my dad was there so many of my friends had flown over and yeah to get there at the end and people running with me it was it's totally surreal surreal totally surreal it's crazy that you your plan was to do 64 and you finish in 55 56 um that's fucking elite dude like i think only like five or so people in the last decade have done it more quickly than that yeah it's not that well documented so don't actually yeah like we don't know yeah but it's actually it's like who fucking cares like honestly you know but it is i I just want for the audience to understand, like that's, it's not like, not that many people run across America, but most of them that do aren't doing it at this pace.

1:26:58And just for context, like that's very fast, what you did. Very few people have done it more quickly than that. But we're still talking about a 12 minute pace. Yeah, that was what I was shooting for. Yeah. Yeah, that's five miles an hour. And in terms of what that looks like over a day, besides from taking my hour break in the middle to get to 50 miles I knew if I did five miles an hour it's 10 hours think how much rest you have after that so my relationship with time and pace changed a lot you don't know how much you're going to get into mathematics when you're out there but that's what I was living by I was living by the pace on my watch obviously I was kind of present with what I was doing but I was I was so into time distance splits like on an on another level and And also understanding just how far or how much you can do in a day.

1:27:4924 hours is a long time. I was running for 13 and after 55 days I'd crossed America, which is absolutely insane and still hard for me to process. But I don't think we give ourselves enough credit or enough leeway to push ourselves to our limits or find out what's possible. It doesn't have to be in endurance. It can be in business or the arts, whatever. But yeah, I feel very lucky in those moments that I get to explore a new space of seeing what I am capable of doing. You have this mantra that you even have on your socks, which is emotion is energy. Yeah. So what does that mean? Why is that your kind of talisman?

1:28:36Well, from the beginning, obviously, I said I was very upset and angry when my mum passed away which makes a lot of sense but for me heightened emotion being good or bad can be channeled towards energy a positive output so if you think about the most basic way I can think of it is when you're a kid if you imagine the hat like the happiest day of your life like if you got that really good Christmas present you got a bmx bike outside like how much excitement you had at that time and how much like energy you had that can be channeled towards something on the flip side of the coin when you were super angry you maybe didn't get the bmx bike or when you're a kid and something bad happened you go up to your room and you'd punch the shit out your pillow like again that's that's energy from emotion but the best thing that's ever happened to me is to understand that and be able to channel it and do you feel like you've gone from a place where at one time the emotions were controlling you or channeling you in a direction that was sort of out of your control to a place where now you're the master of that and more in charge of how you deploy that emotion in the direction that you want to move.

1:29:59Definitely. And what was, how did you make that transition from anger, grief, confusion, to one of, you know, purpose and inspiration? Quite honestly, I think I had to destroy myself to rebuild myself up, which was what John O 'Groatsland's end was. I was so seeking that self-destruction that I had to go through it to, I didn't know what the outcome was going to be, but I had to bury myself to then realize those lessons of okay you're still going to have these emotions at certain times I think going through what I went through and dealing it with the way I did even though it was maybe negative has then become something very positive so now now it's more like of a celebration as I said I'm still going to get sad and upset at certain times in life but it's it sounds strange but mom passing away gave me purpose for the first time in my life and purpose is the best thing on planet earth to achieve anything if you don't what is and how would you define that purpose for yourself the purpose for me again asides from making my mom's death mean something it's finding the line and then crossing it it's finding that that new space of self-discovery of what you never thought was possible becomes possible and then the best thing about that is it's a never-ending story because once you've crossed that line and got up from the next step on the ladder ceiling raises exactly the ceiling raises and it's something we probably hear all the time but experience experiencing it for yourself changes you on a cellular level beyond anything.

1:31:42You could have just gone to therapy. I got told this and I was offered it, but yeah, I'm, I'm glad I've gone on the path I have and figured this stuff out because life is amazing. And my favorite times are probably the worst physical times. It's growth and it doesn't matter how successful you are, how intelligent you are, where you're from your background, money in the bank. When you push yourself that much physically, you can only get that experience by doing what you've just done, not because of any of those outer things I just mentioned before. And anyone can do it. You don't need the resource.

1:32:27You just need to give it a shot. There's an interesting conundrum that comes with that statement and your resume of accomplishments, which is you start out on this exploration and you're achieving things you didn't think were possible for yourself. And you're continuing to raise that bar with the goal, the motivation, the purpose, the intention of inspiring others to rethink their own limitations. But once you get to a certain point where you're doing extraordinary things that really push other people's imagination of what's possible, you sort of pivot away from being somebody who is relatable to being this outlier.

1:33:15And it's much easier for somebody to dismiss you as just some freak of nature. Well, that's Will, that's what he does, but he's not like other human beings. And suddenly all of that kind of accomplishments that you're building towards trying to create like a library of experiences that can be helpful for other people works at cross purposes because you've almost done too much, right? It takes you out of the position of being somebody who can be a source of aspiration to one who is a source of inspiration. Like Michael Jordan is inspirational. We can't be Michael Jordan. Nope. But we can see the everyman go out and do something just outside of our grasp and we can aspire to that in our own lives.

1:34:04But once you run across the country, you go from aspirational to inspirational. And that changes the way that people interact with you. Have you noticed that? Or are you aware of that kind of dynamic at play? Kind of, but the hardest thing I ever did was join and go at Salon's End, which is still a bigger challenge than what a lot of people might try and seek in their life. But every single thing I did, the first marathon yo that was so hard and now I could go and run a marathon now no issue but you just have to understand that the process starts at day one it's not you don't have to look at me running across America and be like I'm never going to be able to do that if you'd have asked me after I ran across the UK if I could have done it I'd have been like absolutely not you're insane so every time I do something new obviously it's going to go out a little bit further and a little bit further but if you're just starting out I don't think I'm inherently special gifted talented whatsoever at all I don't even look like I should be an ultra runner but my mission and my reasoning behind it will always always push me to to keep going as I said at the start seeing someone fight for their life especially someone so close to you has changed me unequivocally.

1:35:23And I will always want to push the boundaries to find out what's next in life and what's bigger and better. And I will always take another step. What have you learned about mindset that has trickled into other areas of your life outside of running? There's definitely more of a tenacity to me than there was before. Everything is mindset and everything is pushing the limits and when you have experienced things physically and gone beyond the realms you thought possible it certainly frees up the difficulty of the rest of life like sending that email or like I've had corporate jobs as well everything feels a little bit easier because you can you can lean on those experiences where you were at one percent battery life left whatever and you carried on going and then all of a sudden you think you're complaining about having to work for another hour or send a few more emails like it it brings it makes everything smaller and more manageable for sure but it's earned it's an manufacture that so for anybody who's listening or watching you have to step outside of your comfort zone and stretch yourself in order to develop the capacity to have that perspective.

1:36:47Definitely. There's another trap that I see happening with a lot of ultra athletes, which is they start to form an identity or an unhealthy attachment with all of their accomplishments. And then to your point of like chasing the dragon, it just becomes about the next craziest thing and then just topping that and topping that and always trying to top the thing before it. And that generally isn't a great like life plan. Like it's cool to go out and do hard things and I encourage everybody to do that. But at some point you have to have a ballast in your life that lives outside of those feats. So how do you make sure that you're anchored, you know, in meaningful ways that have nothing to do with running?

1:37:34Probably because I love so many other things aside from running. Yeah, I'm not seeing this as a problem. Yeah, this is not a pothole for you, I don't think. Well, interestingly, I'll use Robbie as an example so much because we're kind of similar but very different at the same time. And he's my anchor for this kind of shit anyway. When he wakes up in the morning, he can't wait to run. When I wake up in the morning, I don't want to fucking run. I'm not like, I don't wake up and go, yippee, I can't wait to get my miles in today. I'm like, really, do I have to do that? which kind of might be hard to hear considering what I do but I do it the reason I do it is I'm raising money for charity I'm expanding life experience I'm pushing myself to another level so whilst running is my vehicle right now I don't think it's always going to have to be where I push where I push everything and put all my chips into there's so many areas of life outside of that that I love and I get enjoyment from and I can push myself in.

1:38:36So whilst even when I was running, I still had some other ideas. It's not, I don't think you're going to see me in, I don't know, but you're not going to see me in 20 years having done another 10 challenges, like trying to one up what I've already done because I probably don't actually have enough time. What is the next thing that you're thinking about doing? I had an interesting one. well first and for the first one i thought of was i believe i could get the record for running across australia i think distance wise rockman alert yeah what is the record it's whatever it is it six 60 miles a day i think it's is it 48 days i can't remember can't remember but that's what ned set out to do we had some chats along the way when i was doing transcon as well i love that guy like i was in australia recently and i was with dad and we tried to facetime you but you were occupied.

1:39:30I don't know what's going on. I can't remember what I was doing, but I was occupied. And I was in London and I FaceTimed you and you answered. I was like, I can't believe you actually answered. You're like out running and you're like, we're doing a FaceTime call. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, Ned's a good guy and I have so much respect for him, like that being his first challenge. Incredible. I understand why that took him where it took him. It's sick. And yeah, he's a good dude, but I think I could get that record. So if it stays the same, that is. I got a lot of confidence from running across the US and I think Australia is about a thousand kilometers less.

1:40:03But then there's another part of me that wants to do something slightly new. And I just, I had, I have this fantasy of running from Istanbul in Turkey, where the bridge goes over to Asia, basically hugging the Mediterranean coast all up through where you start going up, you go through Greece and then up, I can't remember the countries there, and the Czech Republic. I'd go across the top of Italy. I wouldn't go down because that would make it extremely long. I probably could, but in my head, this is what I'm doing. And then Southern France, Southern Spain, round and finish in Lisbon. Wow. And that's about the same distance.

1:40:36That sounds sexier. It does, yeah. Yeah. That's more - It's like the Como run. Yeah, this sounds more, yeah, get a fleet of Taycans as your crew vehicles. And make a go of it. I can't believe that happened, actually. We're joking because when you ran around Lake Como, you had teslas and and tycans as your as your crew vehicles that was like friends of friends yeah only you would figure out how to pull that off right yeah but that's what that's where i want this space to be i still want want it to be fun whilst the australia thing would be amazing it's it's not similar and it is similar to running across the u.s it's the same country it's english-speaking people not a lot changes in 100 miles whereas when you're in europe that's the most beautiful thing about living in london for me it's two hours you can be anywhere else anywhere well two and a half three hours you can be anywhere amazing in europe and imagine experience experiencing that on foot it's my favorite thing to do when i arrive in a new country put my shoes on and go for a run without a route without knowing anything and that's that on a bigger scale.

1:41:40And my fantasy for doing it is it's not slogging trying to do 60 miles a day. It's more like maybe doing 30 miles a day, but actually experiencing the places more. Yeah. Like a - Well, if you just did a marathon a day, then you have lots of cappuccino time. I love cappuccino time, but that's - I know you do. That is the sort of 007 continental version of ultra running, like running across Australia. It's like, all right, Aside from some hills in WA, like the terrain doesn't change that much. You're dealing with roadkill and what does Ned call them? Like the truck train or whatever. They're massive there, aren't they?

1:42:18Yeah, and very few sort of scenic overlooks or places to even get food, right? Like it's just basically a mind numbing mental exercise. But hugging the Mediterranean and going over mountains and going into villages, it's like your own William Gouge Tour de France on foot. Yeah, that's the dream. Like I feel very lucky where I can actually even think about that as an idea. So yeah, it builds into everything that I kind of love. Running, food, travel, seeing new places, experiencing culture. And it's an amazing speed at which to do it as well. How do you think about the storytelling aspect of it?

1:43:01How that's gonna go down? Well, no, just historically, like with Transcon and everything, obviously, you had Reese on board and chronicling this whole thing and basically having a public lens on what you're doing and an opportunity and a platform to share ideas and thoughts and the experience as it went. Like as somebody who is of a younger generation than me, like this is, this is what we do. This is, you know, this is how you kind of make your way in the world in a certain respect, right? So how does that play into how you think about how you pursue your life and the challenges you want to tackle and how you want to comport yourself publicly?

1:43:43Well, it's interesting because it's, it's kind, it's almost like a necessary evil. once you're in that space doing it it's like you're always going to have to do it but in all honesty my favorite times are when I'm just alone pushing myself without anyone so they can know about it but not there being a camera in my face so it's always going to be a battle for me but I also understand on the flip side of me not loving it all the time at the end of the day you've got so much to look back at and how how fortunate are we in this day and time where you can have an experience and it doesn't just live in the memory bank you can relive it and see it in a different way so I think it will continue to be a part of what I do some people may see it and get inspired by it and try and do something themselves like the amount of messages I get from people saying they're about to try their first challenge or they've lived a similar experience and they're going to try and push themselves like it's very humbling to be any even fractional positive influence for someone trying to do something and you will never understand even in your experience as well you'll never understand the scale of which that is like the amount of people messaging you there's 10 20 times the amount of people that aren't so yeah for me it probably always still be there and i don't know if it will ever change as i say i don't really plan too far in my future.

1:45:12Yeah. Talk about Robbie a little bit. Like what, what do you think makes Robbie Ballinger so special?

1:45:24This is, this is, this is your opportunity to send that love letter. Come on, buddy. Yeah. He is. He's one of the most outside of my family. He's the most special person in my life. As I said earlier, he understands me and I understand him on a different level. He gives me a huge amount of confidence to chase whatever I want to chase and do it with tenacity and confidence. And he's always, always there. As I said, from whatever challenge I've done, he's been the first to put his hand up and try to help in any way he could, whether that be in a physical way or even if he wasn't there at the time, he'd always be pushing.

1:46:02So that guy has given me 110 % since the moment I met him and I've I feel forever indebted to him there's not a lot there's nothing I can do to actually pay him back for what he's done and I would not have run across the U.S. if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have finished running the length of the UK if he wasn't there that guy has shaped my life in such a positive way it goes goes kind of beyond words and he as a person is so special. As you said, he just wants to do things for other people. And he's also a fucking rock star. He is rock and roll. I want to be Robbie Ballinger when I grow up, put it that way.

1:46:43Well said. Yeah, he's a beast. And all the things I see him doing. He's kind of punk rock too. Oh, yeah. You know, he's channeling a little Hunter S. Thompson, a little Willie Nelson. Those are his guys. yeah our favorite quote from hunter s thompson is when the going gets weird the weird turns weird turn pro which is what we feel like when when you really push the boundaries of things and when you're at the upper limits of physical output you know in ultra you get like the thousand yard stare that's when it gets weird and that's the time to turn pro that's when we do our best work yeah did you have any kind of hallucinations or any of that kind of stuff not on the america run not on the america run no there's only on codeine only on codeine yeah i need some hardcore drugs but that's why where i want to explore next and where i know where the dragon lays is in these 200 mile 200 mile plus races so helping robbie when he did the tesla challenge that was what 240 248 i think yeah and he did that in 77 hours like he got to that place on at the end of day one and kind of stayed there until he finished on day four yeah that looked like a rough one day three and a bit crazy and then also helping him with the speed project which he did solo he ran 100 miles in the first 20 hours stopped for like two hours stopped for an hour and 40 minutes and went out and carried on again and we should say that that is a run from los angeles to las vegas yeah most of it is teams trading off like a relay yeah there's a few sadistic people that do it solo.

1:48:21So the - And you can choose your route, right? You can go whichever way you want to get there. That's the coolest thing about it. It's a no rules race. You have a start point and an end point and it's just like, have at it. But you start like here in Santa Monica. Is that where it started? Exactly. And you finish, I don't know where in Las Vegas, but it's one of the points, it's where the big Las Vegas sign is. The old sign, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, being on those experiences with him and now having done the US run, like I understand to get to those places where I want to be, it's got to be a shorter amount of distance, but very aggressive.

1:48:58That's how you get to your upper limitations. When it's too long and you have a time schedule, it's like risk aversion, whereas if it's a straight slog. You're just managing efficiency. Yeah, if it's a straight slog. So would you do like Moab 240 and things like that? Yeah, that's the one on the list. i was listening to the um goggins latest book on the run and when when he was talking about that when he came back from his injury yeah that 240 mile race and obviously the first year it was when he had to he went to hospital and went back to finish it off but it wasn't official right he well he went off course too i think yeah by about 13 miles because his pace had took him the wrong way but yeah that's yeah he went to the hospital and then he went back where he left off and finished it even though it was however many days later yeah but that's where i want to go to that will be the next iteration of what i do like obviously that european run might be a big one along the way maybe in two years more sooner i'll be i want to do the big 200 mile races because it will also be interesting like as you as you said it's one of the fastest times to run across the country but the way i talk about myself and how i do things is not thinking i'm professional in any real way shape or form but i would like to understand where i am in that group of people that are doing right the gnarly shit like consistently yeah and then as i said i don't i don't know where i want to go if i do one of those races and place well like do i want to leave some of the other fun shit behind and go more that way like i don't know but that's that'll be my next experience for sure.

1:50:40Interesting. In the short term though, you're going to do the Berlin marathon. We were chatting before the podcast and I was suggesting that you do almost no running leading up to that and just do a couple of speed sessions and just see how much is in the tank as an experiment, which is kind of the approach you're taking, right? It was. Like you got to recover. Yeah. It's a tough one because for me, the way I'm thinking about it is, it's either the best foundation of all time to go and run a fast marathon having ran 3 ,000 miles or it's way too close it's 16 weeks after I finished running across the US so I'm probably still fried and won't be able to do it but yeah it'll be an interesting thing to see like I gave myself I finished at the end of May I was giving myself the whole of June to do whatever the fuck I wanted which I've generally done but even now I've got back into training earlier than I thought I thought I would have done just because it's part of my life and I love it and going to parties and fashion weeks all right but I actually don't like it as much as I like normal life aside some traveling so yeah you when is Berlin Berlin is the end of September I don't know exactly the date but it'll be one of the last Sundays so yeah if I so July I'll have 12 weeks so I'm gonna get into a training program then and sorry I can't do your idea of just doing a couple of speed sessions.

1:52:05Just go to the gym and get like - Get jacked. Yeah, get jacked. And then just go to the track like twice a week and see what happens. But it will be in - I mean, listen, you have this huge base, but you've been running like 10, 11 minute miles, you know, so you got to throw down a little bit. Yeah. We'll see how it goes. But I'm actually looking forward to starting and seeing what that first speed session feels like because I haven't got out of third gear in a long time. Yeah, you got to tap back into that. Yeah. What do you say to the person who's listening to this or watching it and suddenly feeling inspired, but it's never really tackled anything difficult?

1:52:48How do you prod that person off the couch and get them into action on something? It might be hard to take, but just fucking do it. like whatever it is you're thinking about the more you procrastinate about it the less likely you are to do it so if it's your first marathon book one just book one because as soon as you've paid your money for it and it's in six months time that's going to give you some gumption to actually do something about it but we live in a world where there's too many dreams that go missing and you might miss an opportunity to be here doing this shit talking with you like quite literally four and a half years ago, I was doing fuck all.

1:53:32I was a semi-professional rugby player, pretending to be a model sometimes, like nothing was really happening. But as soon as I took that first step, it suddenly led to the second and the third and the however many steps I've taken since, but action will always be any kind of intention. You said that you're not innately super talented. No. But if you had to declare a strength or an edge, what would that be? Like, what is your advantage? What is it that propelled you to do these things outside of what happened with your mother, et cetera? Like, what is it about you that's uniquely you that you think puts you ahead of the pack here?

1:54:21I think that that experience sped up the process but I have to know I have to know what I'm capable of be that where does that come from I don't actually know I'm not sure what's what's where that is from inside me it's maybe it's grown up like my experience of growing up everything was great but there was a part of me that always so my dad came from a council flat which is government housing in the UK he got into carpentry when he was probably 15 he bought his first house when he was I think 18 or 19 by the time he was 22 he'd bought his parents who were in that council flat an apartment so he'd set his parents up and himself up ready for life as I said no thrills or whatever but he also at the same time as being somewhat successful and given us the life we have there was always a safety thing about him like he didn't want to lose what he'd built and I understand that entirely and I love him and respect him so much and wouldn't change him from the world for the world but I remember growing up and certain things happening in business where he wouldn't get paid or someone playing around like a bigger company and I I didn't understand why he wouldn't go and almost attack that angle so for me seeing him going through that and playing it safe and thinking what he could have done whilst i'm still proud of him there's a part of me that i don't like that unknown area i want to know what that unknown area is even if it means that i fuck up everything else before it so that might be where it stems from but But yeah, we're here once.

1:56:12My mom passed away. Like I said, tomorrow isn't promised. I'm gonna do what I wanna do today and I'm gonna enjoy it because everyone says it and it's cliche, but you don't know what's happening tomorrow. So please try and please enjoy it. And I also have no dependencies. Like I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have a dog, don't have children. So whilst I can, I'm gonna - Invest in experience. Invest in experience, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's super interesting about your dad. I mean, obviously it makes total sense why he would make those choices coming from where he came from and why you sort of being a product of him and growing up in a bit of a different circumstance would be interested in another choice.

1:56:56But I think on top of that, I have this spidey sense that your mother, who obviously I didn't know, but I've only heard you speak about with such reverence, profoundly impacted your sense of your own capacity. Like this person who clearly believed in you and supported you and wanted good things for you in a very healthy way, like not in a controlling way or in a projecting way or anything like that, or in any kind of enmeshment way, but truly from the best place gave you a sense of yourself that led you to believe that you were capable of doing whatever you set your mind to. And I think that's so powerful.

1:57:47Does that track? Yeah, I think that's very true as well. And I kind of got those feeling free from her. Even my dad as well, growing up, like even around exam time or whatever, I was never sat down and said, you need to study. It was like, if you're going to study, you're going to do it because you know, it's good for you but also my mum she changed careers quite a lot of times even towards the end of her life like she was a nurse for the most part she was a nurse at school in the police force and then she left and opened up a vintage tea room in our local town she was a very good baker so she had a vintage tea room and then from there she was always she was always a keen gardener as well so at the time she passed away she was enrolled in a college in London for garden design and I think seeing her be somewhat fearless in career changes even when she could have just kept it comfortable and whatever has led me to feel like if I want to switch things up or try something new at any time I can and I was always I was always told I could do that like I didn't go to university or college when I finished school I went traveling to Australia and Thailand for six months and I was almost I wasn't pushed into it but when I when I said any idea to them it was almost it was always let's figure out how we can do it they weren't going to denounce what i was trying to do and say you need to take the normal route of life which everyone else well not everyone else but most people do wow that's cool this became a parenting podcast it did yeah yeah yeah i mean you know as being somebody who's older than you who thinks about parenting a lot Like I'm always thinking about what the best way, you know, is to support my kids.

1:59:30And what I'm arriving at is very different from the way that I was raised in so many ways. And I think we all parent either in admiration of our parents, we try to live up to the way we were parented or we parent in opposition, you know, for whatever needs didn't get met in the way that we wish they had. yeah that makes a lot of sense and like your mother i mean it's it's i think it's really powerful like the way that she raised you yeah and it's it's almost like i've kind of understood this by talking to you about it so it's it's cool for me too but yeah i just i always felt like i could i could go and try and do anything i wanted to and that was it's such a beautiful thing and a powerful position to be to feel like you're supported in whatever way you want to direct your attention yeah and that's why i've always tried to squeeze the most out of life i've never saved that much i've always i've always been putting out there for experience but my parents and what they did allowed me that freedom and i i never i always know that i was never gonna mess it up too much like i would never push the boat out too far but yeah that that feeling of just being able to give it a go yeah how old are you now 29 i had a tough paper on i know but 29 and look at the breadth of and depth of experiences you've already had yeah it's it's actually crazy and it's they've always been the best and most expansive periods of my life and now everything i do has come because of that and again going back to what we said like purpose is the most beautiful feeling in the world, feeling like you have a purpose of something to do.

2:01:13And you're also getting something out of it, but at the same time might be helping other people is beyond. Yeah. In thinking about your mom and then in thinking about Robbie, the consistent theme is service, right? These are people who are givers in their nature, right? But do you feel as a result of being on the receiving end of so much um you know so much so much help and support uh a responsibility to pay that forward and be of service to someone else definitely um who's coming up in in in you know the the shadow of what you've done definitely yeah it's um the best almost the best feelings the ones that you experience with other people or help other people help other people do so when robbie did his tesla challenge when he did this the speed project being there and being able to help him achieve that and knowing that he's grateful to you for for that is is incredibly special and being able to shape someone's life in a positive way is even more special so at this time in my life it's it's kind of just been me and about me but that next phase of life it's the same as having a family or whatever like um i can't wait for that moment where it really becomes about someone else i want to end this with another quote another thing that i heard you say another talisman or another mantra which is if i can i will Yeah, that was from Robbie as well.

2:02:51so the background to that was it was during the speed project um it was on the last day i think there was there was 30 miles left of the race and i can't remember the the lady's name but a woman had won it she'd just got into las vegas and behind robbie and about 10 miles behind there were i think four or five guys one had been jousting with a couple days before on this incredible section um through these mountains and he was like off-road right like you guys were just like bivouacking yeah over i can't believe the cars got up there i was like how is how are you even how did you even figure out that this would be the way to go and that it would pan out and finding someone that i don't know like 140 miles into a race and then racing against each other right that just shows up there but it was it was funny because we'd stopped and robbie was really down in the dumps like down he was having a nap in the back of the car i don't know if it was an angel sent from heaven or whatever but on a random side road next to the highway which was a dirt road give even calling it a dirt road is giving it more service than it deserves i can't believe anyone else would be there a guy pulled up behind us and obviously he needed to get past so we had to wake robbie up and in that time as well um the speed project instagram page had gone live and they'd shown that the lady had finished the race and they had live trackers on everyone.

2:04:20So they'd also seen that Robbie was 30 miles out, but then a group of four other runners were like 10 miles behind him. So we had to wake Robbie up so he wasn't in the car when we moved it. Prior to that, you didn't even know that somebody was on his heels. No idea. That's another interesting thing about this race. You just don't know. Right. So it's mentally like you just have to, you just keep going and it can be to your demise or benefit. it but when we woke him up I knew at that time I needed to tell him because he'd be more pissed off if I didn't and he very quickly switched in his brain he went from being down and out to okay I'm not gonna win but the only way I'm gonna get out of this feeling proud of myself is if I give absolutely everything from this point on and he was like immediately he was like I'm gonna need a gel every three miles and in my head I'm getting so gassed I'm like this guy's about to go fucking crazy and I'm I'm here for it it's like I need a gel every every uh 5k um and if I have to stop before I finish it's going to be because I'm at zero not because I'm anywhere above that not one not two percent not anything and I remember along the way like being so buzzing to trim through this stupid experience of running 30 miles having run 200 miles already in three days and just being so impressed at his level of application of just continuing to move Peter John who was with us on the transcon as well he was there and Robbie would be running along and he'd gradually curve over and Pete would literally tap him and be like can't stand up and he'd like rise back up and carry on running but when I joined them at the end I remember him just saying to me there was this thing that kept going over and over in my head and this if i can i will that's a very powerful thing it's like how i said earlier of can you take another step you basically always can so if i can i will if you think about that really deeply you can and you will it's profound it's funny how a short sentence can mean so much if you tap into it enough but i thought about that the whole way across america as well it was a powerful thing when i was down and out is can i yes i will i think that's a good place to end it sounds good to me is it possible for people to still donate to the charities for the transcon it was going to end but we can keep it open keep it there's no actually there's no actual debt why does there need to be an ending there doesn't have to be so name them and we'll make sure that we put the links up in the show notes?

2:07:04So it will be on a GoFundMe page, which I can give you the link to. It's Will's Run Across America. And we're raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support in the UK, who helped my mom personally through her battle and helped millions of people in the country there. And then the American Cancer Society in the US. I wanted to raise money for cancer charities on both sides of the pond. They offer a similar service to Macmillan, but they also do cancer research as well. So two amazing charities do an amazing thing. And I'm very humbled and grateful that I get to represent them and they support me in the way they do as well.

2:07:38Good on you, mate. Thanks, Giza. Yeah, it's inspiring what you're doing, especially at such a young age and with so many years ahead of you to figure out how you want to channel all this energy and just, you know, massive respect, dude. Like what you've accomplished is extraordinary. And the manner in which you comport yourself and speak about and kind of report back from the front lines of your experiences is really inspiring. So I appreciate it. Cheers, Mitch. Good to be here. Thanks, man. Cheers.

2:08:11That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment.

2:08:55Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Kale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake.

2:09:33Portraits by Davey Greenberg, graphic and social media assets, courtesy of Daniel Solis. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love. Love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.

2:10:18I'll see you next time.